Jeremiah 34

The “Righteous King”

I am going to start this sermon by going against everything I believe in when it comes to sermons. I am going to begin this sermon with sharing an opinion, and even worse than that it is an opinion about America with political overtones. A pastor, in my opinion, should never start a sermon with their opinion, especially an opinion about the culture that may have political ramifications. You shouldn’t do it. But I gotta do it for reasons that I hope are Godly and spirit led.

My opinion is this: the reigning sin of America today, right now, and perhaps ever since Covid but with these kinds of things there are no hard and fast divisions, but the reigning sin of America today is not greed, it is not pride, it is not lust, and it is not liberalism or conservatism. In my opinion, the reigning sin of America today is Fear.

Now you may or may not believe that. I am not stating it as an objective truth that you MUST believe. Rather, it is an opinion of mine that has strengthened since Covid up until today.

Whether or not you believe my analysis or perhaps you find it to be a partial truth, or not true at all, but whatever you believe, what the Bible teaches is that Fear can actually be a sin. It is not necessarily a sin. It is obvious to anyone that there are fearful things in the world, and fear can lead to wisdom and prudence and can be appropriately placed. No one is going to say that Jesus was sinful for feeling fear before He went to the Cross. It is normal and human to fear pain and suffering.

But Fear can be a sin when it grows beyond godly confines in your soul. In that way it can be a little bit like Greed. Because we don’t call a healthy desire to be prosperous or financially stable, we don’t call that sin. Or we shouldn’t. But Greed takes the desire for abundance and makes it an idol such that it controls us and makes us cold hearted towards our fellow humans and towards God. Likewise, fear that spreads beyond its natural and normative boundaries also makes us antagonistic towards other people and can make us suspicious of God and His plans for us. This is the kind of fear that we see in Genesis 3 immediately after the Fall.

What is the first thing that Adam and Eve do after the Fall? They cover their nakedness with loincloths. What are they doing? They are covering the parts that make each other different. Why are they doing that? Because they are afraid. The next thing that happens is that God calls to them. And what do they do? They hide. Why? Because they are afraid.

I feel in a way that we should also have a special word for Fear that indicates it is a sinful fear that has started to control us and become an idol. But we only have one word for fear and so we must differentiate when we speak of fear. One kind of fear is reasonable, prudent and even godly. The other kind has gone beyond its natural boundaries and controls its host and makes all the decisions and becomes, as all sins do eventually, an idol. A thing we are unwilling to let go of because we think it makes us safe. We believe our fear is our salvation.

So, remember all that, that I just said about fear that can be sinful. Because we are going to return to that here shortly.

Jeremiah chapter 34 begins with discussing Zedekiah. Babylon is laying siege to Jerusalem and the Lord gives a word to Jeremiah concerning Zedekiah’s personal fate as the last King of Israel, and it is surprisingly gracious and must have provided some comfort to Zedekiah.

I confess I didn’t really think much about the person of Zedekiah until I started working on the sermon for this chapter. In 2 Kings it says this:

2 Kings 24:18–20 “Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that Jehoiakim had done. For because of the anger of the Lord it came to the point in Jerusalem and Judah that he cast them out from his presence. And Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.”

So one and done. Zedekiah, terrible King. Judged and found guilty. And he was, indeed a terrible King, as we shall see. But then there is this passage in J 34 that unexpectedly shows the Lord giving Z a blessing.

Jeremiah 34:1–5 “The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army and all the kingdoms of the earth under his dominion and all the peoples were fighting against Jerusalem and all of its cities: “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Go and speak to Zedekiah king of Judah and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord: Behold, I am giving this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire. You shall not escape from his hand but shall surely be captured and delivered into his hand. You shall see the king of Babylon eye to eye and speak with him face to face. And you shall go to Babylon.’ Yet hear the word of the Lord, O Zedekiah king of Judah! Thus says the Lord concerning you: ‘You shall not die by the sword. You shall die in peace. And as spices were burned for your fathers, the former kings who were before you, so people shall burn spices for you and lament for you, saying, “Alas, lord!” ’ For I have spoken the word, declares the Lord.””

I had brushed off Zedekiah as just another evil, idolatrous, and corrupt King of Judah, but as this passage hints at, the truth is somewhat more nuanced than that. Clearly, Z did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord, and just as clearly he suffered for his sins, but there is some small amount of grace allotted to Z here, which made me reflect a bit more on him and what we can know about him from the Bible.

And I came to the conclusion that Z’s sin was not so much the aggressive idolatry and overt rejection of God that was, for example, Manasseh’s sin, or Ahaz.

Rather, what made Z sinful and useless was his fear, and his attempts to please everyone, God included, so as to protect himself first and foremost. He was more pathetic than cruel, if that makes sense.

What is it, after all, that makes a leader Godly? Because what we are looking for in this world are Godly leaders. We are not looking for strong leaders, charismatic leaders, powerful leaders, charming leaders, or effective leaders. Those are meaningless metrics in God’s Kingdom. Adolf Hitler checks every box. Most of the amazing and notable leaders of history have not been Godly.

Z was not a Godly leader. Why? Because he feared everything and everyone equally. He should have feared God above all else, but instead he feared God and he feared his people and he feared Babylon and he feared the Egyptians, and so forth. And he never had a steady, consistent policy over any given thing, he just ruled as his fears led him to rule, and never stood for any thing.

The man or woman who fears God above all else, has put fear in its proper position. It’s not that other things are not fearful, but fearing God above all else constrains fear and keeps it from becoming an idol that can destroy your relationship with other people and with God.

Let me give you an example. Jeremiah comes proclaiming that Jerusalem will be destroyed by Babylon. This makes Z afraid and he puts J in prison. This happens 3 times, or at least 3 times that we know of as recorded in Jeremiah. One time, which we have already seen, he is held in the court of the guard, probably an open air prison. The second time he is held in a dungeon that was so terrible that Jeremiah says if he has to go back there he will die, and the third time he is put in a cistern where he almost loses his life as well.

So three times, Z imprisons Jeremiah with little thought to his wellbeing, and even less thought as to whether or not Jeremiah might actually be a prophet of God, and that harming him will bring judgment upon him. Because Z is acting out of fear of other things besides God’s judgment. He is afraid, instead, of what impact J’s words will have upon his people and his Kingdom. He is not afraid of God, he is afraid of Jeremiah and his own people.

But sometimes Z becomes fearful of God. We know this because he also comes TO Jeremiah to inquire of God when he is fearful of something.

Jeremiah 21:1–2 “This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, when King Zedekiah sent to him Pashhur the son of Malchiah and Zephaniah the priest, the son of Maaseiah, saying, “Inquire of the Lord for us, for Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon is making war against us. Perhaps the Lord will deal with us according to all his wonderful deeds and will make him withdraw from us.””

Jeremiah 37:3–5 “King Zedekiah sent Jehucal the son of Shelemiah, and Zephaniah the priest, the son of Maaseiah, to Jeremiah the prophet, saying, “Please pray for us to the Lord our God.” Now Jeremiah was still going in and out among the people, for he had not yet been put in prison. The army of Pharaoh had come out of Egypt. And when the Chaldeans who were besieging Jerusalem heard news about them, they withdrew from Jerusalem.”

But the most dramatic instance of Zedekiah coming to ask of the Lord occurs in Chapter 38:14-25. It provides the most clear insight into the person of Zedekiah and his idolatry, the idolatry of fear.

Jeremiah 38:14–25 ESV

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.” 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.” 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.” 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. 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.” 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.” 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. But if you refuse to surrender, this is the vision which the Lord has shown to me: 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.’ 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.” Then Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “Let no one know of these words, and you shall not die. 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,’

You can hear the controlling fears that Zedekiah has. He is afraid of the Jews who have deserted to the Babylonians. He is afraid of his own officials. He is also afraid of God, because he is the one who sent for Jeremiah in order that he, Zedekiah, might hear the word of the Lord. But he is MORE afraid of people than of God, as his decisions prove. Which, of course, is utterly foolish, and makes no sense no matter how you look at it. But he was afraid. He was afraid to trust God. It didn’t make sense to him to surrender to the Babylonians. Maybe they would still win this battle. Or maybe he could flee even if they lost (which he did attempt to do). It is taking a chance to trust God and put his life into the hands of the Babylonians who aren’t exactly known for their mercy. Ask yourself honestly, would you have the courage to trust God in this instance? Would you put your life and your family’s life into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar who had already killed thousands of your countrymen?

Back to our text today. What seems to have happened, although you have to read between the lines a bit, is that Zedekiah was inspired, either by Jeremiah, or another prophet, to make an attempt to honor God’s law, in this instance one of the first laws given after the 10 commandments- the law that says if you have a Hebrew slave they should go free after 6 years, no exceptions, unless they choose personally to remain your slave. So they have ignored this Law, among all the others, for centuries. In fact, the Law has been ignored for so long that Zedekiah is not able to say, let us honor the Covenant that we have with God and free our Hebrew slaves-

he has to say, we will make a new covenant that everyone should free their hebrew slave.

Doesn’t follow the Exodus cov. exactly (some slaves may have only been such for a short while) but at least is an attempt to follow laws of God.

And at some point in this process it seems that the Babylonians, for some reason, have withdrawn. - possibly Egyptian reinforcements- they are alluded to in Jeremiah 37.

Babylonian threat = gone -> slaves are reclaimed.

Logical conclusion= not a repentance of the heart, not a turning to the Lord- just a reaction of fear, a hail mary, to the Lord for last minute reprieve.

And everyone publicly broke covenant not just with the Lord, as they had done for centuries, but also publicly with Zedekiah. And what did Z do? Nothing. Why? Probably because he was afraid.