Introduction U.S. Senator John Morris Shepherd was famous for drafting the legislation that would become Prohibition. He said, A Nation that cannot preserve itself ought to die, and it will die--die in the grasp of evils it is too feeble to overthrow. We begin a new section in the book of Jeremiah. In chapters 34-36 the Lord warns wicked King Zedekiah about the coming judgment. When Zedekiah ignores the warning the city of Jerusalem is captured, and Zedekiah is taken into captivity. The Lord will send Jeremiah on a search for godly role models for Judah. Jerusalem and Judah are on the precipice of extinction. The Lord God has been very patient with Judah and Jerusalem. He has sent prophets with His Word. The nation had a miraculous heritage. Born in bondage, liberated by Moses (really God); preserved in the wilderness, led by Joshua into the promised land; preserved during the time of the judges and united as a kingdom under David and Solomon. What caused Judah and Jerusalem s collapse? The historian might point to unwise alliances with foreign powers. But the real reason was Jerusalem s refusal to look up--instead of looking around. The leaders refused to hear God s Word, believe God s Word and obey God s Word. Instead of repenting and turning to God, they hardened their hearts against God s Word and trusted their own instincts, lusts, passions, and wisdom. And something even worse! The leader s of Judah and Jerusalem attempt to destroy God s Word (see 36:1-32). Once again Jeremiah reminds us that if we ignore God s warnings and God s Word we can expect judgment. The city made its decision--rebel against God--reject God. What about our country? Are we a nation about to die? Edward Gibbon in his book The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire listed five major causes for the decline of the Roman Empire; 1. The disintegration or the breakdown of the family unit and the increase of divorce. 2. The increase and rise and burden of taxes and extravagant spending. 3. The even increasing desire for pleasure and entertainment even if it meant killing people. 4. The continual production of armaments and outfitting of legions to face the ever-increasing threat of enemy attacks. 5. The decay of religion, honor, decency and the ever increasing manifestation of bizarre religious practices that left the people without a uniform faith. The Prophecy (vv.1-7) 1
Jeremiah 34:1 22 (NKJV)1The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army, all the kingdoms of the earth under his dominion, and all the people, fought against Jerusalem and all its cities, saying, The year is 588 B.C. The territory of Judah is about to collapse. Two fortified cities remain; Lachish, 23 miles from Jerusalem and Asekah--eighteen miles from Jerusalem (chapter 34:7). 2 Kings 25:1; the invasion began in the ninth year of Zedekiah s reign, on the 10th day of the 10th month; Zedekiah assumed the throne in 597; hence--588 B.C. before Jeremiah was in prison. 2 Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Go and speak to Zedekiah king of Judah and tell him, Thus says the Lord: Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire. Why does the Word of the Lord come to Zedekiah? We know that chapter 21 and chapter 37 tells us that Zedekiah sent envoys to the prophet Jeremiah to ask His counsel. Once again God gives the King the opportunity to repent; to save the City from ruin. 3And you shall not escape from his hand, but shall surely be taken and delivered into his hand; your eyes shall see the eyes of the king of Babylon, he shall speak with you face to face, and you shall go to Babylon. The prophet Jeremiah warns the King that the royal family will not escape judgment; they would be taken captive and die in peace in Babylon. In other words; the king s life would be spared if he obeyed the Lord. Surrender the city. One act of faith and courage would have saved the city from ruin. But the King would not listen to the prophet. He was afraid of his counselors and became a willing pawn to their bad advise (chapter 38:1). 4Yet hear the word of the Lord, O Zedekiah king of Judah! Thus says the Lord concerning you: You shall not die by the sword. Hearing--always includes obeying-- We might read this hear and obey the word of the Lord 5You shall die in peace; as in the ceremonies of your fathers, the former kings who were before you, so they shall burn incense for you and lament for you, saying, Alas, lord! For I have pronounced the word, says the Lord. 2
The burning of the incense is a picture of the funeral service. 6Then Jeremiah the prophet spoke all these words to Zedekiah king of Judah in Jerusalem, 7when the king of Babylon s army fought against Jerusalem and all the cities of Judah that were left, against Lachish and Azekah; for only these fortified cities remained of the cities of Judah. Lachish--means obstinate hard to be captured. A century before Jeremiah--when the Assyrians invaded Palestine--Lachish was even larger than Jerusalem. In 1935--a series of pottery shards were discovered--with lists and letters. The commander of the outpost in Lachish was named Yaosh; some suggest letter IV--was written possibly days before Jeremiah s message to the King. Hoshaiah writes; Let (my Lord) know that we are watching for the signals of Lachish, according to all the indications which my lord has given, for we cannot see Asekah --probably Azekah had fallen--shortly after Lachish was destroyed. Azekah-- a field dug over--11 miles north of Lachish; eighteen miles southwest of Jerusalem; Rehohoam fortified the city (2 Chron.11:9); it was occupied after the exile (Neh. 11:30). The Pact (vv.8-10) 8This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people who were at Jerusalem to proclaim liberty to them: Covenant Brith --a contract between equals 9that every man should set free his male and female slave a Hebrew man or woman that no one should keep a Jewish brother in bondage. 10Now when all the princes and all the people, who had entered into the covenant, heard that everyone should set free his male and female slaves, that no one should keep them in bondage anymore, they obeyed and let them go. All the slave owners--participated. Note: Let them go--forever. no one should keep them in bondage anymore. At some point during the siege the King and the people made a covenant in the Temple (v.15); to free all the Jewish slaves. 3
According the Law of Moses a Jewish Master must liberate all Jewish slaves at the end of seven years of service (Exodus 21:1-11; Deuteronomy 15:12-18). The Jews had ignored the law for years. Now they decided--obeying God is a good thing! Why? We can t be sure. They may have been motivated by the fact that the City is surrounded--and if as a token they obey God s Word maybe God will provide a miraculous deliverance! In the past Hezekiah made a bargain with God! But the people refused to believe God s Word, repent, submit to Babylon; they tried to bribe God, bargain with God--to convince God either to change His mind or help their cause. There were some practical benefits to freeing the slaves. Freemen are more likely to fight. Freed slaves would have to fend for themselves. A Promise Profaned (vv.11-16) 11But afterward they changed their minds and made the male and female slaves return, whom they had set free, and brought them into subjection as male and female slaves. We think there may have been a brief respite, an easing of the threat from the Babylonians when the Egyptians marched north to confront the invading Babylonians. This caused the slave owners to rethink the Covenant and once again enslave their brothers. God did not change His mind. But the people changed their minds. Instead of honoring God s Word they thought-- What s the use in obeying God s Word and placed their former servants back into bondage! What are we to think of these dishonest masters? Doesn t it sound familiar? Do we make promises to God when times are tough only to take back those promises when things get better? How many times have you heard a saint pray from the bed affliction if you heal me I will serve in the Children s ministry; I ll give to the work of the Lord, I ll be the best Christian ever! If you make a promise to God keep it. The Bible says it is better not to make vows to God--then to make a vow and refuse to keep it. Jeremiah will use the people s weakness and failure to keep their vows as an opportunity to preach a sermon about Judah s treachery against the Lord (vv.12-22). 12Therefore the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, 13 Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I made a covenant with your fathers in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, saying, 4
14 At the end of seven years let every man set free his Hebrew brother, who has been sold to him; and when he has served you six years, you shall let him go free from you. But your fathers did not obey Me nor incline their ear. The Lord reminds them of their former slavery! Why did the people practice slavery? As a way to pay down debt! 15Then you recently turned and did what was right in My sight every man proclaiming liberty to his neighbor; and you made a covenant before Me in the house which is called by My name. The slave owners repented and did what was right by liberating the slaves! It was the right thing to do! It would appear that God honored the attempt to make things right. 16Then you turned around and profaned My name, and every one of you brought back his male and female slaves, whom he had set at liberty, at their pleasure, and brought them back into subjection, to be your male and female slaves. The people agreed to obey the law and then turned around and disobeyed the law. Once again they unjustly enslaved their own people! The word profaned (chalal)--the English word profaned comes from the Latin term outside the Temple --the Hebrew verb means to pierce-- or lay open or give access to --when something held sacred--such as the Temple--or the Sabbath--was laid open--it was profaned! In Leviticus (19:29) do not profane your daughter by putting her to harlotry. at their pleasure or according to their desire possibly a slave was offered his choice; an elderly or sick slave--would fear liberty. The Punishment (vv.17-22) 17 Therefore thus says the Lord: You have not obeyed Me in proclaiming liberty, every one to his brother and every one to his neighbor. Behold, I proclaim liberty to you, says the Lord to the sword, to pestilence, and to famine! And I will deliver you to trouble among all the kingdoms of the earth. Therefore --look an see what it is there for--a straight line of cause and effect from social injustice to political ruin. The people love liberty. The people want to have the freedom to do what they want. Even if doing what they want means disobeying God. 5
You want freedom? Good. You are now free--to experience the consequences of your freedom. You will fall by the sword, by plague and famine. Jeremiah predicts a horrible death for all the treacherous people who participated in the Covenant and then broke the Covenant. The predictions came true (see vv.19-20). The Lord would remove His hedge of protection; remove His protective hand; and they would die at the hands of their enemies. This was the strange way some former Soviet officials would use the term liberate. Aldous Huxley was not a Christian or a man of faith. He wrote; A man s difficulties begin when he is able to do as he likes. Freedom is not the right to do as a person pleases, but the liberty to do as he ought. Richard John Neuhaus wrote; Freedom standing by itself inevitably degenerates into license. License, which is unbridled freedom, quickly becomes the enemy of freedom. 18And I will give the men who have transgressed My covenant, who have not performed the words of the covenant which they made before Me, when they cut the calf in two and passed between the parts of it When the king and the priests and the people made the Covenant; they killed a calf, cut in half and walked through the sacrifice. The ceremony was both a public vow and an oath that the people would honor the covenant and obey the terms of the covenant (see Genesis 15:18). What was the meaning of cutting the calf in half? If they disobeyed the terms of the Covenant they would suffer the same fate as the Calf. Rabbi Sheldon Blank reconstructs the scene; It was agreed and decided and done--done with noise and ceremony. First came the proclamation; they proclaimed liberty one to the other, princes participating, a solemn ritual! They cut covenant. A calf was led in and slaughtered, butchered, and divided down the middle. One half was laid over against the other with a passage between them--so we may infer from what little is told here, and from Abram s ceremony and the attendant nightly vision in Genesis 15--and the covenanters walked the blood-sprinkled path between the pieces. Probably too the agreement was read aloud, and whether he spoke it or not each participant knew as he walked the path that he took on himself a conditional curse. If he failed to carry out his undertaking, in this grisly fashion he too, would be butchered. Kind of makes you think twice about co-signing. 6
19the princes of Judah, the princes of Jerusalem, the eunuchs, the priests, and all the people of the land who passed between the parts of the calf 20I will give them into the hand of their enemies and into the hand of those who seek their life. Their dead bodies shall be for meat for the birds of the heaven and the beasts of the earth. For the Jew to die without the benefit of a decent burial was an unspeakable horror. 21And I will give Zedekiah king of Judah and his princes into the hand of their enemies, into the hand of those who seek their life, and into the hand of the king of Babylon s army which has gone back from you. 22Behold, I will command, says the Lord, and cause them to return to this city. They will fight against it and take it and burn it with fire; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation without inhabitant. Jerusalem will not simply be taken by a persistent enemy--but will experience the judgment of God for its moral evil. Conclusion How do we hold on in a world that seems destined for judgment? What do we do in a world that is destined to die? Jeremiah reminded the city and the king of the certainty of God s judgment. Jeremiah was bold. Jeremiah confronted the king when Babylon had already set a blockade around Jerusalem --to starve the city and force surrender. Jeremiah confronted the king when Babylon had already conquered all but two of Judah s remaining fortified cities; Lachish and Azekah. 7