So they went into the court to the king, having put the scroll in the chamber of Elishama the secretary, and they reported all the words to the king. Then the king sent Jehudi to get the scroll, and he took it from the chamber of Elishama the secretary. And Jehudi read it to the king and all the officials who stood beside the king. It was the ninth month, and the king was sitting in the winter house, and there was a fire burning in the fire pot before him. As Jehudi read three or four columns, the king would cut them off with a knife and throw them into the fire in the fire pot, until the entire scroll was consumed in the fire that was in the fire pot. Yet neither the king nor any of his servants who heard all these words was afraid, nor did they tear their garments. Even when Elnathan and Delaiah and Gemariah urged the king not to burn the scroll, he would not listen to them. And the king commanded Jerahmeel the king’s son and Seraiah the son of Azriel and Shelemiah the son of Abdeel to seize Baruch the secretary and Jeremiah the prophet, but the LORD hid them.
This passage tells the story of why God punished Israel during the times of Jeremiah. The highest leadership of Israel was tone deaf to the Word of God. They took no desire to obey God. Those who heard Jeremiah’s prophecy took the writings to the king. But the king, as read above, burnt them column by column. Jeremiah would write it all again. That re-writing is what we read in these chapters. God would not be denied, especially by a simple king that He, Himself, put on the king’s throne. The king was Jehoiakim, son of Josiah, the king of Judah. What happened to Jehoiakim?
Jeremiah 36:29-31 (ESV)
And concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah you shall say, ‘Thus says the LORD, You have burned this scroll, saying, “Why have you written in it that the king of Babylon will certainly come and destroy this land, and will cut off from it man and beast?” Therefore thus says the LORD concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah: He shall have none to sit on the throne of David, and his dead body shall be cast out to the heat by day and the frost by night. And I will punish him and his offspring and his servants for their iniquity. I will bring upon them and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem and upon the people of Judah all the disaster that I have pronounced against them, but they would not hear.’”
Don’t think you can reject God’s Word and destroy it and still live! Reject it all you want but you will die in that peril of rejection and be rejected by God in return.
No comments:
Post a Comment