Jeremiah 39
McGeeJeremiah 39:1
In the following verses we see the fall of Jerusalem. King Zedekiah and the army attempt to escape from the city by night, but the army of Babylon overtakes them and delivers them to Nebuchadnezzar their king.
Jeremiah 39:6
The last chapter of the Book of Jeremiah gives a view of this horrible time in retrospect. It mentions the things that evidently were impressed upon the mind of Jeremiah. There he mentions again the fact that the king of Babylon killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, then blinded Zedekiah.
Jeremiah 39:12
JEREMIAH RELEASED BY THE ENEMYIt is interesting to note that Nebuchadnezzar instructed his men to release Jeremiah from prison and to treat him well. God was still taking care of His faithful prophet.
Jeremiah 39:14
This begins that period which our Lord called “the times of the Gentiles.” He said, “…and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled” (Luk_21:24). I insist that Gentiles are still treading down Jerusalem. The Gentiles are still actually in control, and Israel doesn’t really control the holy places in that landexcept the Wailing Wall where they can go and weep. The words of the Lord Jesus are still true. It is difficult for our contemporary generation to accept the fact of the judgment of Godthat the judgment of God can come upon a nation, upon a family, upon an individual. Jeremiah had proclaimed the Word of Jehovah for forty years. He had denounced the sins of the people and had called these people to repentance. God had been very patient with them, and His very patience had deceived them. It enabled the false prophets to say, “See, the words of Jeremiah have not come to pass.” But now his words have come to pass, and it is too late. God is patient with people and will let them go on and on until there comes a time when there is no remedy.
Judah is an outstanding example of this. God pleaded with them through Jeremiah right up to the last moment. They spurned God, and the day finally came when Nebuchadnezzar leveled the city. Humanityall of mankinddoes not like to hear that God is going to judge. It is hard for people to believe that God ever gets angry. Some folk try to say that it is the God of the Old Testament who is a God of wrath, that the New Testament gives a different picture of God. May I say to you there is more said about divine wrath and anger in the New Testament than there is in the Old. Read Matthew 23 and listen to the frightful things said by the gentle Jesus: “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites…. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?” (Mat_23:29, Mat_23:33).
Then read the Book of Revelation where the bowls of the wrath of God are poured out. There is nothing to equal that in the Old Testament. Don’t try to say that the God of the Old Testament is a God of wrath and the God of the New Testament is a God of love. I tell you that He is always in every age both the God of love and the God of wrath. God punishes sin. You will always find divine judgment and divine mercy side by side.
The throne of God is a throne of grace, a place to find mercy and help, but that very same throne will judge this earth someday. Man today finds this very difficult to understand. God’s laws are inexorable, and judgment is the penalty for disobedience of those laws. It seems so difficult for men to understand this in the moral and spiritual sphere when it is perfectly obvious in the natural sphere. If you don’t believe that is true, I suggest you go to Yosemite Valley where there is a sheer surface of a rock several thousand feet high called El Capitan. If you step off El Capitan, you know what will happen. In nature there are certain laws that are inexorable. If you obey them, you may live; if you disobey them, you will die. We think it is such a wonderful feat for men to walk on the moon, and it is. But do you realize that it was possible only because those men were obeying all the natural laws of God? They didn’t dare break them. When they started for the moon, they didn’t aim for the moon; they aimed for the position the moon would be in when they would arrive there. They knew exactly where it would be at the time of their arrival because the movements of this universe are governed by laws. If those fellows had ignored those laws of space and movement, they would have been lost out there in space and would be dead. Human history should teach us the same lesson. All we need to do is walk down through the corridor of time and look at the debris and the ashes and the wreckage of the great civilizations of this world. They testify that God is a God of vengeance, a God of punishment, a God of judgment. When nations turned from high ideals and lofty moral planes to base ideals, they went down and passed off the stage of human history. It is about time for the intellectuals in this country to begin to read history correctly and to see that God moves in human history. Now I admit that I feel like a square for saying this, but I don’t feel bad about it because Jeremiah was also a square in his day. From our perspective in the twentieth century we can see that the king, old Zedekiah, was pigheaded! And the intellectuals, the sophisticates, the ones who had ruled God out, were stupid! So I don’t mind being called an intellectual obscurantist, because I find that I am in very good company. I am going to be like Jeremiah wasjust a man who believes God.