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Weak Zedekiah

찬송 : 찬송가 341장 (새찬송가 312장)
2024-07-27 [예레미야(Jeremiah) 38:14 - 38:28]

14	King Zedekiah sent for Jeremiah the prophet and received him at the third entrance of the temple of the LORD. The king said to Jeremiah, "I will ask you a question; hide nothing from me."
15	Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, "If I tell you, will you not surely put me to death? And if I give you counsel, you will not listen to me."
16	Then King Zedekiah swore secretly to Jeremiah, "As the LORD lives, who made our souls, I will not put you to death or deliver you into the hand of these men who seek your life."
17	Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, "Thus says the LORD, the God of hosts, the God of Israel: If you will surrender to the officials of the king of Babylon, then your life shall be spared, and this city shall not be burned with fire, and you and your house shall live.
18	But if you do not surrender to the officials of the king of Babylon, then this city shall be given into the hand of the Chaldeans, and they shall burn it with fire, and you shall not escape from their hand."
19	King Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, "I am afraid of the Judeans who have deserted to the Chaldeans, lest I be handed over to them and they deal cruelly with me."
20	Jeremiah said, "You shall not be given to them. Obey now the voice of the LORD in what I say to you, and it shall be well with you, and your life shall be spared.
21	But if you refuse to surrender, this is the vision which the LORD has shown to me:
22	Behold, all the women left in the house of the king of Judah were being led out to the officials of the king of Babylon and were saying, "'Your trusted friends have deceived you and prevailed against you; now that your feet are sunk in the mud, they turn away from you.'
23	All your wives and your sons shall be led out to the Chaldeans, and you yourself shall not escape from their hand, but shall be seized by the king of Babylon, and this city shall be burned with fire."
24	Then Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, "Let no one know of these words, and you shall not die.
25	If the officials hear that I have spoken with you and come to you and say to you, 'Tell us what you said to the king and what the king said to you; hide nothing from us and we will not put you to death,'
26	then you shall say to them, 'I made a humble plea to the king that he would not send me back to the house of Jonathan to die there.'"
27	Then all the officials came to Jeremiah and asked him, and he answered them as the king had instructed him. So they stopped speaking with him, for the conversation had not been overheard.
28	And Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard until the day that Jerusalem was taken.

Thinking & Understanding
Zedekiah once again sent for Jeremiah and asked him what the will of God was. Jeremiah’s message was the same this time. He said if they surrendered to Babylon, Zedekiah and Jerusalem would survive; if they resisted, they would be completely destroyed. Zedekiah was anxious because he was afraid of being ridiculed by Judeans who had already deserted to the Chaldeans. Zedekiah did not want his officials to know that he had talked about surrender with Jeremiah, so he commanded him to keep their conversation a secret (vv. 14-28).

Who is God?
Vv. 17-18 God’s will does not change. It is us, the listeners, who must change. Zedekiah asked Jeremiah once more about his fate, but the message from the Lord was the same. The act of meditating upon the Word is akin to the process of fitting ourselves into God’s will. Are there any thoughts or habits that we are stubbornly holding on to that we need to let go of?

What lesson is God teaching me?
Vv. 24-28 The purpose of listening to God is obedience. If Zedekiah had obeyed what Jeremiah said, his life would have been spared. Although he kept asking to hear God’s word, his desire and fear blocked his ability to obey God. He also lacked faith to fully rely on God’s word. It is of no value to meditate on the Word if it does not lead to obedience.

Prayer
Dear God, let my meditation and prayer lead to obedience unto You so that I may live a transformed life.