I want to continue our study on Jeremiah. And today we’re going to be looking at chapter 34 of Jeremiah. I’ve been looking at the last few weeks and God has been doing some, having Jeremiah do things to reveal to the nation of Israel promises that he has made and prophecies that he has revealed about coming events.
Prophecies dealing with the fact that even though he’s going to allow them to be taken into captivity because of their rebellion against God, that that is not going to be the end of the relationship that he has with them. They’re going to be returned from captivity, come back into Jerusalem once again. Not only that, but we looked at the fact that he promised the Messiah was going to come and sit upon the throne of David.
And even though the city of Jerusalem was going to be ransacked, destroyed, the temple destroyed, that the city would once again be rebuilt and that there would come the throne of David and there would be a new temple where the Messiah, the branch as it’s referred to in Jeremiah, would come and rule and reign from there. And the great hope would come to the whole world as he would rule with righteousness. And then we also saw that Jeremiah had been told of the prophecies of the fact that the nation would be restored and he would be, after the restoration, that God had not forgotten about Israel.
But it still doesn’t relieve the immediate dilemma. And that is that the city is surrounded and brought under siege by Nebuchadnezzar. And it’s because of the people’s rebellion and sin against God that God has allowed this.
They’re looking at the fact that the temple. The city is under siege and it’s because of the people’s sin. It’s their rebellion that’s caused all of this. And they’re not willing to acknowledge it.
And Jeremiah is given another message to both Zedekiah, who’s the king, he’s the third son of Josiah that is ruling. And Zedekiah has a message brought to him and then the people have a message brought to them. And let’s take a look at chapter 34 and see what the word of the Lord is to them.
The word which came unto Jeremiah from the Lord when Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and all his army and all the kingdoms of the earth of his dominion and all the people fought against Jerusalem and against all the cities thereof, saying… I just want to pause here for a second. This is really kind of a picture of what’s going to happen in the last days. Nebuchadnezzar was the world power and had the powerful kingdom at this time.
He had conquered other kingdoms and other kingdoms aligned with him because of who he was, lest they would be overrun and powered. All of these nations were coming against Jerusalem. The Bible is interesting.
It tells us in the last days the same thing is going to occur. The whole world is going to come against Jerusalem and they are going to be led by a powerful world leader who is referred to as the Antichrist. The one who would come in the place of Jesus.
The one who would come against what Jesus stands for because he is Satan’s man. And he will have duped and deceived the whole world. They will be following him thinking that he is the Messiah.
And he is going to lead the whole world against Jerusalem. And so the very same thing that is happening at the time of Nebuchadnezzar is going to be happening centuries, a couple thousand years later. And it could be very well happening in the near future as we look at the world events today.
But let’s go back to chapter 34 verse 2.
Thus saith the Lord the God of Israel, Go and speak to Zedekiah king of Judah, and tell him, Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire. Jeremiah is not changing, God hasn’t changed his message. It’s the same one he’s been giving and he just reinforces it and makes sure that they understand the city is going to be destroyed.
Verse 3,
And thou shalt not escape out of his hand, but shalt surely be taken and delivered into his hand, and thine eyes shall behold the eyes of the king of Babylon, and he shall speak with thee mouth to mouth, and thou shalt go to Babylon.
And so we see here that Zedekiah is told you’re not going to escape. Your army is not going to defeat the Babylonians. The city is going to be overtaken and you’re going to be taken into captivity. You’re not going to be killed in Israel or in Judah. You are going to be taken to Babylon and you’re going to come face to face with the king of Babylon and you will look at him eye to eye. And it’s also interesting, later on we’re going to see another prophecy is given in reference to this. Zedekiah will look at Nebuchadnezzar. He will see him, he’ll look at him eye to eye and then his eyes are going to be put out shortly after his children are killed in front of him.
So the last thing he will remember is looking at Nebuchadnezzar and then seeing his children killed. But he is going to be taken into Babylon and his future is sealed and God’s judgment has come upon him. Yet hear the word of the Lord, O Zedekiah, king of Judah.
Thus saith the Lord of thee, Thou shalt not die by the sword, but thou shalt die in peace, and with the burnings of thy fathers, the former kings which here have before thee, so shall they burn odors for thee, and they will lament thee, saying, Ah Lord, for I have pronounced the word, saith the Lord. Then Jeremiah the prophet spoke all these words unto Zedekiah, the king of Judah of Jerusalem. Then the king of Babylon’s army fought against Jerusalem and against the cities of Judah that were left and against Lachish and against Azekah and for these fenced cities remained of the cities of Judah.
And so then the end is coming. And so this is the fate of Zedekiah even though he kept denying Jeremiah’s prophecy and believing the false prophets that were around him. Many people today just want to believe the false prophets and don’t want to turn to God.
It’s interesting in the last days the Bible tells us that people will be proclaiming peace and safety and then sudden destruction will come upon them. And you know, you wondered how that was going to happen when we had the previous four years happening in America and you saw wars springing up all over the world. Well, what you’re seeing happen right now is very interesting.
It could be laying the events for the last days as we’ve seen. Our president is trying to put out the wars and he’s being successful at some of them and he feels that he’s going to be successful at getting rid of all the war that’s going on in the world. And then also at the same time, the stock market has reached record highs and people who thought that they were going to lose all of their earnings are now all of a sudden their 401ks are looking really well.
The economy in America is doing great. Trump’s trade deals and also his sanctions are working well with other countries making America very prosperous. And a lot of people, I believe, can become very complacent very quickly and say, well, peace and prosperity, that’s what we want, that’s what we’re getting.
And forget about the moral implications of a rebellion against God and it doesn’t matter if it appears that you have peace and prosperity because God says that that would be one of the tenets before his final judgment would come on the earth. And just like Jerusalem didn’t believe they were going to be captured, they were captured and it came in a day. And now let’s see what Jeremiah has to say to the people.
This is the word that came unto Jeremiah from the Lord after the king Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people which were at Jerusalem to proclaim liberty unto them. So Zedekiah made this covenant with the people, we’ll be free. Look at my prophets, they’re all telling me, you’re going to be free.
Let’s make a covenant together, you support me and I will make freedom what I bring to you. But that’s not what he brought. He brought destruction.
That every man should let his manservant and every man his maidservant being a Hebrew or a Hebrewist go free, that none should serve himself of them to wit of a Jew his brother. And now when all the princes and all the people which had entered into the covenant heard that everyone should let his manservant and let everyone his maidservant go free, that they should serve themselves of them and any more than they obeyed and let them go. So part of the covenant that he made with them was also that, okay, we didn’t do this for 490 years, but we’re going to do it today.
We’re going to let our, they had indentured servants, people that owed them money and they have to serve them to pay off the money. Most of them never got out from underneath the service their whole lives. And they were serving fellow Jews.
And oftentimes it was the royalty, the nobles, the leadership that had indentured the regular people to them and made them their servants. And so Zedekiah goes and says, well, we’re going to all be free. So what we need to do so that God will bring us this freedom, part of it is we need to let all the people go free.
And so they agreed to do it. But I want you to see something interesting in the next verses. Because even though they agreed to do it, even though they technically did do it, their hearts really weren’t there.
They didn’t want to do it. They enjoyed having these people as their servants. They enjoyed having them enslaved to them.
And so in the next verses it says, but, and but’s there for a reason. Whenever but’s there, it’s a conjunction. And it means that there’s a transition in thought and a transition in action.
And that’s exactly what is coming. But, even though they let them all go free, even though they said, we’re making this covenant with Zedekiah because he’s going to deliver us. And part of the deliverance is that we’re going to do what we haven’t done for 490 years.
We’re going to let our people go. And then God will deliver us. But, their hearts weren’t right.
And it says, but. Afterward, they turned and caused the servants and the handmaids whom they had let go free to return and brought them into subjection for servants and for handmaids. Therefore, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah from the Lord saying, Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, I made a covenant with your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondmen, saying, At the end of seven years let ye go every man his brother and Hebrew which hath been sold unto thee.
When he hath served thee six years, thou shalt let him go free from thee. But your fathers hearkened not unto me, neither inclined their ear. And this was part of the law that had been given when they came out of Egypt.
And part of it was, God had delivered them from being bondmen. Remember, if you go back to the book of Genesis, you’ll see that the nation of Israel went into Egypt willfully and freely. It was Israel and his children and his grandchildren and their servants.
There were 70 souls that went into Egypt. And they went in there looking for food. And God provided it through Joseph.
And they remained there. And then they grew. And they became a mighty nation.
But as they grew, the Pharaoh and the leaders of Egypt feared them. And so they enslaved them. And they made them become their servants.
And they were responsible for building many of the structures in Egypt. They may have been involved in building pyramids. We don’t know for sure.
But in likelihood, they were. And part of the thing at the end, they hated the Hebrews so much. Pharaoh hated them so much.
He was making life as miserable as he could for them. He told them to increase their output of bricks. And then he took away the very things that they needed to make the bricks.
They needed straw. They needed clay. They needed these materials to make bricks.
Well, he reduced the amount that they got but demanded they made more bricks. It was an impossible task. What it was doing, it was preparing their hearts to be ready to be delivered by the Lord.
But one of the things that they needed to remember from their deliverance is that they had been bondmen or slaves. And God was delivering them from being enslaved to Egypt and really enslaved to the world system to be brought into freedom that would be found in Him and in the Promised Land. The nation of Israel was constantly forgetting this.
They constantly forgot this. We saw that Josiah was the first time that the Passover had ever been celebrated in the fullness like it was intended to be since the time of Solomon. That’s a long time between Solomon and Josiah.
So they were great at forgetting what they were supposed to remember. And this they forgot. And God is reminding them through Jeremiah.
In verse 15 he says, And ye were now turned, and I have done right in my sight in proclaiming liberty every man to his neighbor. And ye had made a covenant before me in the house which was called by my name. So they had forgotten that.
Now they remembered it. God says, That’s very good. I’m glad you did.
But then we see another word there. But. And he goes, But ye turned and polluted my name and caused every man his servant and every man his handmaid whom ye had set at liberty at their pleasure to return and brought them into subjection to be unto you for servants and for handmaids.
So he said, You did what I wanted you to do. And if you look at kind of the underlying tones of what’s been going on here, you can sense what they were doing. They felt that if they did that, God was going to bless them.
Because they were going back to what Moses had told them to do. They were going to do that which hadn’t been done for 490 years. And God would bless them.
But then but came. And but was, their hearts really weren’t there. They really didn’t want to turn to the ways of the Lord.
They didn’t really want to do what he said. Why? Because they immediately went back and brought the very people they let go free of their own. God didn’t stand over them saying, I’m going to kill you if you don’t let them go.
They did it of their own choice after they made a covenant with Zedekiah. And then they returned back to their old evil ways and their heart’s desires, which was to enslave their people. And God says, you’re going to pay.
There’s going to be accountability and accountability for what you’ve done. He says, verse 17, Therefore, because of what you did, because of this transition of going from having him enslaved, no enslaved, back to having him enslaved, therefore, thus saith the Lord, ye have not hearkened unto me in proclaiming liberty every one to his brother and every man to his neighbor. Behold, I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the Lord, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine, and I will make you to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth.
So he says, okay, you did this. I’m going to give you that type of liberty too. And what I’m going to do is a judgment and consequences to your choice.
The very thing that you did to your fellow man, I’m going to do to you. I’m going to place you as servants and slaves, but it’s not going to be here in Jerusalem. It’s going to be to all the kingdoms of the earth.
And you’re going to be taken away. And not only that, you’re going to suffer because of it. You’re going to have pestilence, a sword.
All these things that you were trying to avoid are going to happen. And slavery will be the ultimate consequence. Verse 18, And I will give the men that have transgressed my covenant, which have not performed the words of the covenant, which they had made before me, when they cut off the calf in twain and passed between the parts thereof.
And just to pause there, that is the sign that would be made when you did a covenant. If I made a covenant with you, say that we were going to agree on something. What we do is we kill an animal, we cut it in two, and place one part here, one part here, and then we both walk between that.
And by doing that, what we were saying is, may this be done to me if I violate this covenant. That’s how serious I’m making this. And it’s interesting, the covenant that God made with Abraham was a covenant that was an unconditional covenant.
God did all the animals and cut them in two, but Abraham didn’t have to pass through them, only God passed through them. In other words, God was saying that the promises that he gave to Abraham in dealing with a land, a people, and a Messiah were not conditional upon Abraham’s actions, but they were totally conditional upon what God had promised. This was not a conditional covenant.
I mean, this was not an unconditional covenant. This was a conditional one, where both people had passed through, and they promised the Lord they were going to do this, but the minute they got through and did it, they violated the covenant and went back to their old ways. This was a horrible thing to do.
You didn’t do this and live. And verse 19, the princes of Judah and the princes of Jerusalem, the eunuchs and the priests, and all the people of the land, which passed between the parts of the calf, which they did to mark the sign that they were in agreement with Zedekiah and the covenant he was making with God, I will even give them into the hand of their enemies and into the hand of them that seek their life, and their dead bodies shall be meat for the fowls of heaven and to the beasts of the earth. God said, you just don’t take covenants lightly.
The scriptures tell us, even as Christians, we’re not to take our covenants lightly. Our yes is to be yes, and our no is to be no. The book of Proverbs tells us that if you make a covenant and you find out it’s to your hurt, you’re still to go through with it, even if it’s to your hurt.
Why? Because as God’s child, by making a covenant, you’re saying, I am making a covenant based upon the character of God, and when I violate that covenant, what I’m doing is, it’s really degrading who God is. That’s why Christians, when they take a marital vow, should take it very seriously. It’s not something to be taken lightly.
The world takes marriage very lightly. It’s kind of like, who will give me the greatest thrill this week, or who am I most infatuated with this week, or who do I want to be with now? And they’re readily, some of these people change partners like you eat a different meal. It’s terrible.
But as Christians, when we make a covenantal vow before the Lord, it’s to be serious. These people said they were doing that, but they really weren’t. And God’s saying, because you weren’t serious, there’s consequences.
And if you look at what happens with, like for example, marital vows, when divorce comes, there’s consequences. I was talking to some people, and their parents had gotten divorced many years before. And they were adults when their parents got divorced, and I said, did it have an impact on you, because you were already grown and out of the home? And they said, yes.
It had an impact. We don’t understand. There are real impacts when we violate what God says is precious to Him, and covenants are precious.
And He’s saying, when you violate this covenant, there’s consequences. And so the consequences are going to be really serious to these people, because it was a serious covenant that they made. And Zedekiah, king of Judah, and his priests, will I give into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of them that seek their life, and into the hand of the king of Babylon’s army, which are gone up from you.
And so he says, if that’s what’s going to happen to the leadership, they’re going to be given into the hand of Babylon. And behold, I will command, saith the Lord, and cause them to return to this city, and they shall fight against it, and take it, and burn it with fire, and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation without habitation. And so he says, there’s going to be real consequences because of your, and it all ties to their just taking lightly the relationship and covenants that they made with God.
And so consequently, judgment would come, and it’s a real judgment. It was desolation upon the land. And the land of Israel has been desolate more than once, and every time it’s been desolate, it’s been when they have been taken into captivity because of their rebellion against God.
After the Assyrians and the Babylonians took them into captivity, the land became desolate. And we see, as we study in Nehemiah, they came back into the land, and they found it was in ruins. And the land was not productive, and they had to re, God had to re-energize the land and the people, as they rebuilt the walls, and as we study this morning, repented and called on the name of the Lord.
We also see that when they were taken, when the Romans came in and destroyed the land, as the people had really not even seen that Jesus was the Messiah, the vast majority of the people, even though their prophets had told to the day that he would enter Jerusalem. And he did to the day. They told how he would die.
They told the reason he would die. They told that he would rise again from the dead. Yet the vast majority of the people didn’t see it.
The leaders were in total rebellion against God. And God brought judgment on Jerusalem and Israel because of that. The land, as they were taken into captivity and scattered amongst the nations of the world, the land became desolate again.
And it was desolate until the God allowed Israel to return and called them and says that he hissed, and they returned. That is, he whistled, called them back, and the people began to return to Israel. And as they did pre-1948, and then in 1948, they re-established a nation of Israel, re-established Hebrew as the language, and God has been blessing the nation.
And through circumstances that he has taken them through, they’ve seen the power of God in keeping them, preserving them as a nation. And many of the people are beginning to look to God and look to the Scriptures. And there’s more people coming to accept Jesus as Messiah than have ever done as Jewish people in Israel.
But God said, consequences to choices, judgment, but God has redemption for his people. Let’s just close in prayer. Lord, I pray that you just help us to understand these truths.
Help us to see that you dealt with the nation of Israel, a nation which tried to play you and tried to manipulate you by doing one thing, but having a heart desire to really do the wickedness that they’d always done. Lord, I pray that we would repent and turn from our wickedness and seek you and not try to fool you, but rather realize that you know our hearts. And Father, I pray that you just go with everyone that’s here today and help us to be able to have a heart that would share the gospel message of Jesus and how he came to redeem us with those that we meet.
And Lord, help us to be used by you for your glory and your sake. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.