There’s an attention-grabbing story tucked away within the Previous Testomony a couple of prophet and a king. The prophet was Jeremiah, and the king was Jehoiakim.
Jeremiah served throughout one of the tumultuous instances in all of Israel’s historical past, ultimately resulting in the nation’s destruction and captivity. He prophesied in the course of the time when Israel, the Northern Kingdom, had been taken into captivity and when Judah, the Southern Kingdom, was fading quick.
Jehoiakim was one of many ultimate kings of Judah, serving to it fade. How? By doing what so many individuals do in our personal day.
He listened, lower and burned.
The story begins with God directing Jeremiah to offer a devastating prophecy that was a mix of all of the prophecies God had directed him to offer:
Through the fourth 12 months that Jehoiakim son of Josiah was king in Judah, the Lord gave this message to Jeremiah: “Get a scroll, and write down all my messages towards Israel, Judah, and the opposite nations. Start with the primary message again within the days of Josiah, and write down each message, proper as much as the current time. Maybe the folks of Judah will repent once they hear once more all of the horrible issues I’ve deliberate for them. Then I will forgive their sins and wrongdoings.” (Jeremiah 36:1-3, NLT)
Jeremiah did as he was advised. It was learn to the folks. To say it prompted a stir can be an understatement. The king himself quickly despatched for it to be learn in his presence. And the way did he react to its phrases?
The king despatched Jehudi to get the scroll. Jehudi introduced it from Elishama’s room and skim it to the king as all his officers stood by. It was late autumn, and the king was in a winterized a part of the palace, sitting in entrance of a hearth to maintain heat. Every time Jehudi completed studying three or 4 columns, the king took a knife and lower off that part of the scroll. He then threw it into the fireplace, part by part, till the entire scroll was burned up. (Jeremiah 36:21-23, NLT)
And that was that. He didn’t like what he heard, so he lower the phrases out and threw them into the fireplace.
He listened, lower and burned.
It jogs my memory of what’s also known as the “Jefferson Bible.” Thomas Jefferson, America’s third president, didn’t like sure elements of the story of Jesus. Particularly, the miracles. So he took them out and reprinted the Scriptures with out them.
It ended up being a really skinny quantity.
Taking out what we don’t like will yield the identical outcome. And it received’t merely be skinny, but additionally impotent. We don’t stand in judgment over the Phrase of God—it stands in judgment over us. The authority of the Christian religion is the Triune God, as revealed in Scripture, as conveyed in a heritage, as made actual in expertise, each company and private.
The order of that final sentence issues.
Private expertise issues, but it surely doesn’t matter as a lot as company expertise—which means the life and amassed knowledge of the Church. The company expertise issues, but it surely should reply to custom—to hundreds of years of company experiences and learnings and insights. And whereas that custom is crucial, it stands below the last word authority—the revelation of the dwelling, Triune God, who has spoken absolute fact to our lives.
But we reside in a day that has inverted the order fully. Fairly than start with “the Triune God, as revealed in Scripture,” we start with our private expertise. We decide and select what we consider or disbelieve, settle for or reject. And that which is rejected is just excised from our life.
We hear, lower and burn.
However this doesn’t actually take away God’s phrase from our lives. “Your phrase, Lord, is everlasting…” the psalmist writes (Psalm 119:89, NIV). Or because the prophet Isaiah penned, “The grass withers and the flowers fall, however the phrase of our God endures perpetually” (Isaiah 40:8, NIV).
And it not simply endures, but it surely additionally stands in judgment. Because the story continues:
After the king had burned the scroll on which Baruch had written Jeremiah’s phrases, the Lord gave Jeremiah one other message. He mentioned, “Get one other scroll, and write all the pieces once more simply as you probably did on the scroll King Jehoiakim burned. Then say to the king, ‘That is what the Lord says: You burned the scroll as a result of it mentioned the king of Babylon would destroy this land and empty it of individuals and animals. Now that is what the Lord says about King Jehoiakim of Judah: He may have no heirs to take a seat on the throne of David. His useless physique will likely be thrown out to lie unburied—uncovered to the warmth of the day and the frost of the evening. I’ll punish him and his household and his attendants for his or her sins. I’ll pour out on them and on all of the folks of Jerusalem and Judah all of the disasters I promised, for they’d not take heed to my warnings.’”
So Jeremiah took one other scroll and dictated once more to his secretary, Baruch. He wrote all the pieces that had been on the scroll King Jehoiakim had burned within the hearth. Solely this time he added far more! (Jeremiah 36:27-32, NLT)
I’m regularly taken with how a lot of the Bible is an unrelenting story of our mindless and ceaseless rejection of God, which is then met with God’s easy plea to repent, be forgiven, and expertise His blessing, lest we proceed in our disobedience, are judged, and face catastrophe.
You’d assume we’d take heed to God, and after listening to Him, embrace what He has to say with each fiber of our being, letting or not it’s a lamp to information our toes and a light-weight for our path (Psalm 119:105). And from that, expertise the wealthy lifetime of blessing He wishes for us.
However no. As an alternative,
… we hear, lower and burn.
James Emery White
