We want to take a few
days to study some of the things that were present in the thinking of the
people of Judah in the days of Jeremiah, things that contributed to their
overall disobedience to the LORD. To set
the stage let us consider two powerful stories.
·
Jeremiah 35: The Rechabites. Jeremiah was directed by God to use a family
in Judah as an illustration of the obedience God looked for. God told Jeremiah to gather the men of the
family of Rechab, a known godly clan (2 Kings 10:15-17) who were among the
Kenites who had accompanied the people of Israel when they came out of
Egypt. Jeremiah was to gather them in
one of the chambers of the temple and to place before them bowls of wine to
drink. When Jeremiah did this they all
refused to drink the wine because their ancestor Jonadab had forbidden them to
drink wine, among other things. This
adherence to their father was the kind of obedience God sought among the people
of Judah. Thus, God blessed them saying,
“Jonadab the son of Rechab shall not lack a man to stand
before Me forever.”
·
Jeremiah 36: Jehoiakim, King of
Judah. According to Jer. 25 this event
occurred in the same year that Jeremiah first predicted the seventy years of captivity in
Babylon. God directed Jeremiah to record
his prophecies on a scroll and for the scroll to be read in the temple. When certain officials heard what Jeremiah
prophesied they confiscated the scroll and took it to the King to be read. The scroll predicted God’s judgment and
called the people to give up to Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon; this was
the only way to spare their lives. As
the words were read Jehoiakim did something astounding: he cut the parts of the
scroll that were read and threw them in the fire. This was his belligerent response to God’s
gracious warning. Because of his
disobedience God said, “He shall have no one to sit on the throne of David.”
These stories were to
be an encouragement and admonition to the people. The truth is that the general population followed
in the footsteps of the King. Jeremiah
had very few people who were willing to listen to God’s word that he preached. It was a time of great rebellion, not unlike
we see in our own day.
We believe it would be
helpful to study the disobedience of
the people closely. When we do we will
see some things that hindered them from hearing
and heeding God’s message. The
results of the disobedience were devastating to say the least. But that is always the case; and for that reason,
we need to pay attention.
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