Jeremiah chapter 38, we have this story in the life of Jeremiah, just to give you a little
background on the book of Jeremiah.
When you read the book of Jeremiah, most of it is just solid preaching.
It's giving us all of the preaching that Jeremiah did, the word of the Lord that came unto Jeremiah,
and he does a lot of really hard preaching.
And in fact, many people don't realize this, but Jeremiah is the longest book in the Bible.
A lot of people think it's Psalms, just because Psalms has 150 chapters, but a lot of those
chapters are pretty short.
So if you go word by word, Jeremiah is the longest book in the Bible.
It has a lot of very negative preaching, because it was preached at the time that the children
of Judah and the nation of Judah had sinned against the Lord, and they're about to go
into captivity to the King of Babylon.
They're going to be judged for their sins.
It's a low point in the history of God's people in the nation of Judah, and so Jeremiah is
pronouncing their judgment, their destruction.
He's telling them all the sins that they've been guilty of, and why God is going to destroy
their nation, why they're going to be taken captive.
And in this chapter, it's not as much preaching, but a story.
And as you read throughout the book of Jeremiah, peppered in every several chapters, be a chapter
that's more like a story, just explaining things that happened in the life of Jeremiah.
In this particular story, Jeremiah has been spending a lot of time in prison, and he was
put in prisons that had very bad conditions.
In one place, they fed him a loaf of bread every day from the baker's street, but then
there started to be a famine in the land as part of the result of their sin and the result
of being besieged by the Babylonian army, and the bread ran out.
So I mean, Jeremiah is just in prison, and he's not even being fed.
Then at another point, he's put into a prison where he's put in a pit underground, like
a dungeon, and there's just mire and muck in the bottom of this dungeon.
There's no water, but it's just slime, muck, filth, and the Bible says that Jeremiah sunk
down into the mire.
Why was Jeremiah so unpopular?
Why does Jeremiah keep on being put in prison?
Because of the fact that the children of Judah, they wanted to fight against the Babylonian
army that had come and surrounded them.
God was bringing that Babylonian army as a judgment upon them.
They wanted to fight back, and Jeremiah said, "This is happening to you because of your
sins.
There's no use fighting back.
You might as well just surrender to the king of Babylon."
Now stop and think about that.
Try to apply this to today.
What if there was an enemy that was at war with the United States?
Someone was attacking the United States, and a preacher gets up and says, "This is happening
to us because of our sins, and we need to just surrender."
God has told me, because you know, Jeremiah did receive direct revelation from God.
We don't receive that kind of revelation today as preachers, but we do have this huge revelation
in our hand.
The Word of God, the Bible.
There's so much to teach and to preach, and this tells us everything we need for today.
But at that time, God had directly revealed to Jeremiah that if they would believe the
Lord, if they would admit that they had been in sin and that they had done all this wickedness
and just surrender to the King of Babylon, then things would go well for them.
But stop and think about, what if somebody at a time of war is saying, "Hey, let's just
surrender.
We've done wrong.
We deserve this."
What would you probably call that?
What would it be?
Preason.
You're treason.
You're giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
But Jeremiah had no choice but to preach what God is telling him to preach.
So God gave Jeremiah a very unpopular message.
So they arrest him and say, "You're weakening the hands of the men of war.
We want our soldiers to believe in what they're doing.
We want them to have courage and boldness."
You're telling them it's a lost cause.
God's not pleased with us.
God's judging us.
And in the book of Jeremiah, God specifically says, he says, "If you fight against the Babylonians,
I will fight against you."
He says, "I will gather the weapons and fight against you."
He said, "Even if you were to defeat the entire Babylonian army and they were all killed or
wounded," he said, "my spirit would basically cause the wounded men to get up and fight
and defeat you.
You will lose because I am angry with you," is what God is saying throughout the book
of Jeremiah.
And he lists all the sins that they've done, why he's going to defeat them.
But Jeremiah is asked to preach a very unpopular message, a very difficult job, and he's punished
for it and put into prison for it.
But what I want to focus on today, I just want to give you the atmosphere and the background
of the book.
But in Jeremiah 38, King Zedekiah, who is an ungodly king, a wicked man who has punished
Jeremiah in the past and allowed him to be punished in the past, he starts to get nervous
because he sees that the Babylonians have the upper hand and that it's looking bad and
he wants to see what the Lord has to say.
So he secretly calls for Jeremiah and he even tells Jeremiah, "Don't let anybody know that
I brought you in here, that I talked to you," sort of like when Nicodemus, you know, came
to Jesus by night.
They want to hear what he has to say, but they don't want to be publicly seen as being
interested in what God had to say.
So Zedekiah secretly calls for Jeremiah and he says in verse 14, look down at your Bible
there, "Then Zedekiah the king sent and took Jeremiah the prophet unto him into the third
entry that is in the house of the Lord.
And the king said unto Jeremiah, 'I will ask thee a thing, hide nothing from me,' saying,
'Look, just tell me the truth, I want to know.'
Then Jeremiah said unto Zedekiah, 'If I declare it unto thee, wilt thou not surely put me
to death?
And if I give thee counsel, wilt thou not hearken unto me?'
He said, 'Why should I?
Why should I tell you what God said?
Why should I preach the word of God to you?
You'll probably put me to death if I say what's really the truth.
And if I tell you God's word, you're not going to hearken to it anyway.'
But look what Zedekiah says in verse 16, so Zedekiah the king swears secretly unto Jeremiah
saying, "As the Lord liveth that made us this soul, I will not put thee to death, neither
will I give thee into the hand of these men that seek thy life."
Then said Jeremiah unto Zedekiah, "Thus saith the Lord, the God of hosts, the God of Israel,
if thou wilt assuredly go forth unto the king of Babylon's princes," basically he's saying
if you'll just surrender to them, if you will defect unto them, "then thy soul shall live,
and this city shall not be burned with fire, and thou shalt live and thy house."
What does he mean when he says your house will live?
What does he mean?
Your family's going to live.
Not only will you save your life, but your children will also live and the city will
not be burned.
"But if thou wilt not go forth to the king of Babylon's princes, then shall this city
be given into the hand of the Chaldeans, and they shall burn it with fire, and thou shalt
not escape out of their hand."
Pretty clear message of what Zedekiah needs to do.
Jeremiah's asking him to do something that's not easy, but he says if you do it, everything
will go well for you.
If you don't do it, you will not be spared.
Look what Zedekiah's answer is, Zedekiah the king, verse 19, said unto Jeremiah, and I
want to focus on these three words, "I'm afraid."
And that's what I want to preach about this morning, being afraid to do what's right,
being afraid to do what God has told us to do.
He said, "I'm afraid."
Jeremiah said, "This is what God has commanded you to do."
It's simple, it's easy to understand.
If you do this, you die.
If you do this, you live.
If you do this, I'll bless you.
If you do this, you'll be cursed.
But he says, "I'm afraid."
Now let's keep reading.
He said, "I am afraid of the Jews that are falling to the Chaldeans, lest they deliver
me into their hand and they mock me."
So he expresses fear to Jeremiah and he's honest with him.
Here's what I'm afraid is going to happen.
When I get turned over to the Babylonians after I come and surrender to the princes,
I'm afraid that they're going to turn me over to the Jews that have already fallen
to the Chaldeans and I'm going to be mocked and made fun of and they're going to abuse
me is what he's basically saying.
Look what it says next, "But Jeremiah said," verse 20, "They shall not deliver thee."
So Jeremiah alleviates his fear and says, "Okay, that's what you fear?
It's not going to happen.
You're going to be okay.
God has shown me this."
And he says, "They shall not deliver thee.
Obey, I beseech thee, the voice of the Lord which I speak unto thee.
So it shall be well unto thee, and thy soul shall live.
But if thou refuse to go forth, this is the word that the Lord has showed me.
And behold, all the women that are left in the king of Judah's house shall be brought
forth to the king of Babylon's princes.
And those women shall say, Thy friends have set thee on, and have prevailed against thee."
He said, "Look, you're going to be made fun of by these women if you do that which is
wrong."
He says, "Thy feet are sunk in the mire, and they are turned away back.
So they shall bring out all thy wives and thy children to the Chaldeans, and thou shall
not escape out of their hand.
But thou shalt be taken by the hand of the king of Babylon, and thou shalt cause this
city to be burned with fire."
Then said Zedekiah unto Jeremiah, "Let no man know of these words, and thou shalt not
die."
But he doesn't say he's going to obey, and in fact he doesn't obey.
He disobeys his advice.
Why?
Because he lacks faith in what he's being told.
I mean, if he truly believed what Jeremiah was telling him, then the choice would be
obvious.
Do this, live.
Do this, be blessed.
Don't do it.
You're going to be mocked.
You're going to fail.
You're going to die.
Your children will die.
Let's just go to chapter 39 quickly to see what the result of Zedekiah's disobedience
is.
Because Zedekiah refused to hearken unto the word of the Lord that Jeremiah spake, it says
in verse 6 of Jeremiah 39, "Then the king of Babylon slew," slew means what?
Killed Jeremiah, the king, excuse me, "Then the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah
in Ribla before his eyes."
I mean, how would you like to watch your children be killed right in front of you?
Can you imagine a more awful sight than to have your sons brought out and killed in your
sight in front of you?
But this is the result of disobeying God's word.
And it says they were slain before his eyes, also the king of Babylon slew all the nobles
of Judah, moreover he put out Zedekiah's eyes and bound him with chains to carry him to
Babylon and the Chaldeans burned the king's house and the houses of the people with fire
and break down the walls of Jerusalem.
There's so much we can learn from this story.
When we sin, it affects the people around us.
One man has a choice, Zedekiah, do right or do wrong.
He makes the wrong choice.
Not only is he punished by being blinded, his eyes are put out.
And by the way, what was the last thing he ever saw?
His children being killed.
I mean, they show him his children being killed before his eyes, then his eyes are put out.
He is made a mockery of.
Not only are his children killed, all the nobles of Judah are killed.
Not only is his house burned with fire, everybody's house is burned with fire.
Look, when we disobey God's word, when we don't hearken unto his word, we destroy ourselves,
we destroy the people around us, and that's what we see in this story.
He's bowed with chains, he's carried to Babylon.
Now, the Bible doesn't give us a whole lot of detail.
We know that in the prophecy, he was told he would be mocked, which is exactly what
he was afraid of.
This story, of course, reminds me of the story of Samson, just because Samson also had his
eyes put out.
And after his eyes were put out, what did they do to him?
They made sport of him, they mocked him, and they made a fool of him.
We can assume the same thing happened to Zedekiah because that's what Jeremiah prophesied would
happen unto him.
Now, how can we apply this today?
Go to Proverbs chapter 3, Proverbs chapter number 3.
The title of the sermon is being afraid to do what's right.
The whole crux of the matter was that he was told what he had to do and his answer was
I'm afraid, I'm scared, I'm afraid to do what's right.
And what was the purpose of that fear or what was the, I'm sorry, what was the source of
that fear?
His lack of faith in God's word.
If he would have had faith in God's word there would be no fear because he would have believed
Jeremiah who said do right and you'll be fine.
But look at Proverbs 3, it says in verse 5, "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and
lean not unto thine own understanding.
In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths."
Zedekiah was leaning on his own understanding.
He should have trust in the Lord and another word for trust is believe.
Put faith in and it's saying trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto
thine own understanding.
And Zedekiah, except just trusting what God said, "Surrender and you'll be fine.
You'll be blessed.
You will not be mocked.
You'll save the lives of these people."
God has given the children of Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon for 70 years.
They will be in Babylon for 70 years and after that 70 years is over, they will return.
He didn't believe that.
He leaned on his own understanding and said, "Well, if I do this, this is going to happen."
It tells me this, my opinion says this, my rationale says this, my experience tells me
this and that in many people's lives trumps God's word.
What they think is going to happen, what they think is going to be the result if they do
what's right.
The Bible is telling us don't lean on your own understanding.
Just trust in the Lord.
Do what he says and he will direct your path.
I want God to direct my paths.
I don't want to just go through life just wondering are things going to work out?
Am I going to be a failure?
Am I going to be a loser?
I want to know that God's leading me.
I want to get to the end of my life and say Jesus led me all the way.
And when we trust in the Lord with all our heart and lean not on our understanding, that's
how we're going to live our lives.
Now let me give you some examples of this.
There are really a lot of examples of this.
Go to Matthew 25, but one example of this, if we take the exact situation that Zedekiah
was in, he was afraid of being mocked because he said, "I'm afraid that they're going to
mock me."
And another example of this is that often we today could be afraid to do what's right
because we're afraid of being made fun of or we're afraid what people are going to think
of us.
And so maybe children who go to school or children who have worldly friends or ungodly
friends or even Christian friends, they're just not interested in living for God.
They might think if I take a stand for what's right, if I refuse to partake of the things
that they partake of.
And the Bible says that when you live for God that the ungodly or the unsafe will often
think it's strange that you don't run to the same excess of riot and drunkenness.
They think that you're weird.
They think that you're a square.
They think that you're a fuddy-duddy or a goody-two-shoes.
You don't want to have any fun.
You don't, you know, you're so boring.
Why won't you drink a beer with us?
Why don't you go out and party with us?
Hey, go to the club with us.
Let's go to the bar.
Let's go out and do this.
And let's go to the rock concert.
Let's go wherever.
And you'll often be made fun of when you say, "No.
No.
You know, I'm a Christian.
I want to live for God.
You know, I want to have fun, but only good, clean fun.
Only things that are not prohibited by God's Word."
And by the way, only losers need alcohol to have a good time.
You know, it's funny how our society tries to brainwash you that if you drink alcohol,
you're cool.
Yeah, and it's all just a brainwashing that's done through TV, it's done through magazines,
it's done through advertising, where they put all these just, you know, really good
looking guys and they're really muscular and, you know, and then you have all these beautiful
women and they're just having so much fun and they put it out there like, "See these
really cool people?
This is how they got cool, by drinking.
This is how they got that perfect body, by drinking."
You know, the perfect body was brought to you by Photoshop, by the way.
Seriously.
But, you know, that's how they got, they don't show you the beer gut.