Facing Judgment

 

    When you are told something will happen if you do not change your current behavior, attitude, or actions, it may hold a little sway.  However once the consequences are being enforced it has a whole new meaning.  Hopefully it produces retrospection.  You consider how could have done things differently and become remorseful.  It doesn't change the current situation, but hopefully it will be the end of that particular issue.

    Jeremiah had been warning his people, spiritual leaders, and government what would happen unless the nation repented.  He warned them something like 20 years.  I guess because God genuinely gives people time to turn to Him, that not everyone will take the warnings seriously.  However, God was no longer holding back.  He was enforcing what He had told them was coming because He has to keep His Word.  The time for consequences had arrived.

    King Zedekiah had Jeremiah pray for the people.  The king didn't know how to pray so he requested Jeremiah to be the nation's intercessor.  God listened to Jeremiah's prayers and responded by holding off the Egyptians from attacking Jerusalem.  He also removed the Chaldeans who had been attacking Jerusalem, but they would return to burn the city.  

    When the Chaldeans removed themselves the city wanted to breath easy.  Jeremiah warned them that it was not over.  They basically accused him of treason and arrested him.  He was put in the dungeon.  He was left in his underground cell to die.

    The King sent word to Jeremiah in prison asking if there was word from God.  He must have been so intitled to do that.  The king basically knew that Jeremiah was not a traitor, but let him stay in prison as one.  Then he ask for a favor.    No matter what, Jeremiah would not misrepresent God.  He answered the king letting him know that he would be handed over to Babylon.  Then he asked for his life to be spared.  The king allowed him to stay in the guard's courtyard and he got a loaf of break once a day.

    Jeremiah did as God commended all those years and he was sent into exile with everyone else.  Sometimes you are not the one who is the problem, but you face the consequences because of association: family, church, community, school, friends, work, or nation.  God never promised everything would be fair according to our standards.  He promised justice.  

Jeremiah 37