REFUSING to LISTEN to God’s WORD will bring God’s JUDGMENT!
August 18 Bible Reading: Jeremiah Chapters 34-36
REFUSING to LISTEN to God’s WORD will bring God’s JUDGMENT!
Therefore thus says
the Lord concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah: "He shall have no one to sit
on the throne of David, and his dead body shall be cast out to the heat of the
day and the frost of the night. I will punish him, his family, and his servants
for their iniquity; and I will bring on them, on the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
and on the men of Judah all the doom that I have pronounced against them; but
they did not heed." (Jer. 36:30-31)
In the fourth year of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, God commanded
prophet Jeremiah to write down all the prophecies which he had delivered by dictating
them to the scribe Baruch. These prophecies would be read by him publicly at
the temple a year later. When the princes who heard these prophecies reported
this matter to king Jehoiakim, he sent for the scroll. As God’s Word was read
aloud to the king sitting at his court, he immediately started cutting off
portions of the scroll and throwing them right into the fire! This was an act
of defiance by the king as he refused to listen to God’s Word!
We need to understand that Jehoiakim was a godless king who
ruled by greed, dishonesty, oppression, and injustice (22:13–19). He murdered
the prophet Urijah and made numerous attempts of the lives of Jeremiah and
Baruch, who escaped death only through God’s protection and the protection of their
friends in high places (26:20–24; 36:19, 26). Jehoiakim demonstrated his
disdain for God’s Word by burning the scroll. However, after the king had
burned the scroll, Jeremiah rewrote all the prophecies and then added another section
that listed the fearful judgment that king Jehoiakim was going to face in the
future!
Perhaps the most amazing aspect of this event was lack of
godly fear of the entire royal court. They were not afraid of God’s message (v.
24). Although three members of the court appealed to save the scroll, the plea
was to no avail (v. 25). The king should have copied the Law for himself (Deut.
17:18–20) and heeded its message, but instead he destroyed it. Unlike the godly
Josiah who repented at the hearing of the Lord’s message on a scroll (2 Kings
22:10, 11), the godless Jehoiakim brought God’s judgment upon himself by destroying
the scroll. Although Jehoiakim could burn the scroll of Jeremiah, he could not
destroy the Word of God that is alive and well today! "For the word of God is living and powerful..." (Heb
4:12)
Since Jehoiakim refused to listen to God’s Word, God’s judgment
was pronounced against him. First, the Davidic lineage would not continue
through him. His son Jehoiachin would rule for only three months before he
died. Second, the king’s body would be
treated disgracefully after his death. As the king had cast the scroll into
the fire, so his body would be cast from the royal palace, and he would not
receive a proper burial (see 22:18–19). Third,
the royal household would experience the destructive judgment that had been
proclaimed in the words of the original scroll. This literally happened and
they were deported by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon thereafter (see 2 Kings 24:8,
12, 15).
The same God’s Word that Jehoiakim tried to destroy centuries
ago endures even today, and will do so forever: “Forever, O Lord, Your word is settled in heaven” (Ps. 119:89). “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My
words will by no means pass away” (Matt. 24:35). Even today, God is
speaking to us through His Word, through His servants, through events in our
lives, through nature, and even directly through dreams and visions. Let us not
be like Jehoiakim who refused to listen to God’s Word, but rather incline our
ears to God and walk daily following His instructions. This is what God truly requires
from us.
