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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
“But if you refuse
to surrender, this is what the Lord has revealed to me:”
“All the women left
in the palace of the king of Judah will be brought out to the officials of the
king of Babylon. Those women will say to you:”
“‘They misled you
and overcame you—those trusted friends of yours. Your feet are sunk in the mud;
your friends have deserted you.’”
“All your wives and
children will be brought out to the Babylonians. You yourself will not escape
from their hands but will be captured by the king of Babylon; and this city
will be burned down.”
Jeremiah
38:21-23
This ends today’s reading
from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
Today’s
devotion begins with this statement of absolute truth:
The
Lord demands and expects our obedience to His word, will, and way.
The
bottom line that serves as the foundation of this truth is that God is God and
we are not. He is the Master and Maker of us all and we are all subordinate to
His authority. All of us.
So
when God says we are to do something, we had better do it. Or else.
You
see, there is a cost for disobedience and it can sometimes be a very steep
cost.
Take
the situation that King Zedekiah of Judah faced as we look into the scriptures
of Jeremiah, Chapter 38. After Jeremiah had been rescued from the miry mud of
the cistern of Malkijah, you’ll recall the king summoned him for a conversation
regarding the future and Jeremiah presented him with a proposition.
If
Zedekiah surrendered himself over to King Nebuchadnezzar, then he would be
spared along with his family and the city of Jerusalem.
It
was as simple as that. The Lord spoke through Jeremiah and told the king
exactly what he was to do. There were no other options for Zedekiah to
consider, except for one: the option to be disobedient to what the Lord had
called him to do.
Just
in case the king was considering this, we find Jeremiah again reminding him of
the consequences that would occur if he did not comply with what the Lord had
told him to do. Look again at our passage for today:
“But if you refuse to surrender, this is what
the Lord has revealed to me:”
All the women left in the palace of the king
of Judah will be brought out to the officials of the king of Babylon. Those
women will say to you:
“‘They misled you and overcame you—those
trusted friends of yours. Your feet are sunk in the mud; your friends have
deserted you.’”
“All your wives and children will be brought
out to the Babylonians. You yourself will not escape from their hands but will
be captured by the king of Babylon; and this city will be burned down.” Jeremiah 38:21-23
Note
that Jeremiah got right into the penalty Zedekiah would face if he chose to
violate God’s word.
First,
it would be made clear that the advisors Zedekiah chose to trust over Jeremiah would
be revealed as being the deceivers that they were. As we have seen in prior
scriptures from this book, Zedekiah had listened to false prophets who had
assured him that the Israelites would not fall to the Babylonians but rather
would escape from the attack intact and unscathed.
As
you would imagine, this was in direct contradiction to what the Lord was saying
through His prophet. Zedekiah had two messages to choose from, one a lie, the
other a truth.
If
he would choose the lie, Jeremiah makes one thing very clear through the words
of the women who were left in the palace of the king: the men Zedekiah
considered as friends would be nowhere to be found once Zedekiah was captured
by the Babylonians. He would have no support from them, deserted and left to
fend for himself.
And just in case
the king was willing to accept this, the Lord upped the ante regarding the punishment
that would befall Zedekiah. For his choice would not just have negative
ramifications for himself but his family as well. Scripture tells us that all
the king’s wives and children would be brought out and handed over to the
Babylonians. They would be captured and subject to whatever fate the
Nebuchadnezzar deemed appropriate to include death. Perhaps, Zedekiah would
even have to watch his own family be killed one by one before he would face his
own execution.
Did I say there was
often a deep cost associated with disobedience?
But that wasn’t all
because the beloved, holy city of Jerusalem would be burned to the ground and
left in smoldering ruin. Even God’s temple would not be spared. Zedekiah and
the Israelites had defiled what was once holy through their blatant sinfulness
and so God would destroy Jerusalem as He had done to other sinful cities before
(remember Sodom and Gomorrah?).
All this would
happen if Zedekiah was disobedient and only if he was disobedient.
So which way would
he choose: the way of obedience or the way of disobedience?
We’ll soon see as
we continue to study the Book of Jeremiah but for today, we need to realize
that God hates disobedience. There is no doubt about that and so none of us
should ever think that insubordination toward God is ever acceptable because it
isn’t.
If we really see
God for who He is against who we are, then we will never have a problem giving
our own desires over to His because we will not want to have to suffer the
consequences that come when we decide we don’t have to live in compliance with
His will, word, and way.
In other words, we
will fully realize there is a high cost for disobedience and choose to not have
to ever pay that cost, opting to always live in obedience to God each and every
day.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
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