Jeremiah 38:17 “Then said Jeremiah unto Zedekiah, Thus saith the LORD, the God of hosts, the God of Israel; If thou wilt assuredly go forth unto the king of Babylon’s princes, then thy soul shall live, and this city shall not be burned with fire; and thou shalt live, and thine house:”

Jeremiah 38:18 “But if thou wilt not go forth to the king of Babylon’s princes, then shall this city be given into the hand of the Chaldeans, and they shall burn it with fire, and thou shalt not escape out of their hand. “

Jeremiah 38:19 “And Zedekiah the king said unto Jeremiah, I am afraid of the Jews that are fallen to the Chaldeans, lest they deliver me into their hand, and they mock me. “

Jeremiah 38:20 “ But Jeremiah said, They shall not deliver thee. Obey, I beseech thee, the voice of the LORD, which I speak unto thee: so it shall be well unto thee, and thy soul shall live.”

Hello readers, last year I was in Jeremiah quite a bit in the back half of the year. And I thoroughly enjoyed it and got so much out of it. I did maybe a couple blogs from Jeremiah, but really didn’t do a whole lot on it considering.

This dialogue between Jeremiah and king Zedekiah of Judah as quoted above (and there’s a bit more left off) really struck me, one I’m not likely to ever forget personally… because after so many chapters have elapsed… this is Zedekiah’s most important part in his life.

All our lives boil down to important moments, moments of decision “Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.”

In these verses, king Zedekiah, though he is an undeserving wicked and rebellious king, is offered salvation by God.

God is good to us! He was good to Zedekiah. He’s good to you and me too. And the more you know about this king, the more you know he didn’t deserve the gracious words of God through Jeremiah to him.

If you don’t know… this what the situation basically is.

Zedekiah is king of Judah. He has been made king of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. Babylon is the dominant empire at this point in time, having risen gloriously to prominence among the nations in recent times.

Zedekiah has promised Nebuchadnezzar and sworn to God! that he will serve him faithfully… but he lied because he has rebelled against the yoke of the king of Babylon. He thinks he knows better, He thinks he can do better than the kings before him. Don’t we all?

The important backdrop to all this is that God’s prophets have been telling the people for years on end that God has given all kingdoms of earth into Nebuchadnezzar’s hand. Resistance is futile! Don’t resist!

Isaiah had first told them of this all way back in the days of king Hezekiah… so many years previous! And then Jeremiah has been preaching through the land that Babylon is coming, it’s a judgment of God, and the only way to survive this, the only way to be saved… is to surrender and submit to Nebuchadnezzar.

So to fight Nebuchadnezzar is to fight God himself. And who thinks that can turn out well?

… But Zedekiah knows better (of course!) and he has rebelled as stated… and it’s taken a little time, and with short term success, but now it’s totally backfired on him. Because the Babylonian army has come up and besieged Jerusalem. And at the time of this dialogue, the city has been under siege for some time, getting up to two years.

A siege is pretty serious business. The Babylonians have surrounded the city and cut off food and water from them… it’s a matter of time until the city falls.

… For all of us, it’s a matter of time before our resistance to God’s word crumbles. It’s a matter of time before a life that disobeys God’s word falls apart. That’s what’s happening to Zedekiah right now. It’s taken a while… but here’s his day of the Lord.

So now… why this dialogue particularly struck me is the reason that Zedekiah gave Jeremiah for not surrendering and submitting to God’s word and thus the king of Babylon.

… He was afraid of what other people who had already done so (who already had surrendered) would think of him!

The Bible says that “ The fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe.”

If you don’t know, before Zedekiah, there was a king called Jehoiachin. And although wicked, he had actually obeyed God’s word and surrendered to Babylon, and been carried away into captivity… but he was safe, and some years later he would exalted and kindly cared for as God’s promise held true!

Remember, our salvation is based on God keeping his promises, not on how good we think we are.

After Jehoiachin, you know, that weak guy who surrendered and meekly gave up the fight… Zedekiah thinks he can do better. That’s why he leads the nation in revolt. The people that surrender are looked down on, and they are scorned.

And a good part of the reason why the people in charge of the city didn’t like Jeremiah’s preaching was that it was causing the soldiers to think about surrendering rather than fighting. Think about it, if you’re in a war, you don’t need someone breaking the morale of the troops by saying… you can’t win! Surrender!

Jeremiah himself was arrested on suspicion of “falling away to the Chaldeans” himself. And so there was this air in the city that we can hold out, no room for cowards and traitors.

… the problem is… God’s word had told them to surrender. And God’s way of salvation is always through submission and surrender.

BUT that may mean admitting you’re wrong, and that you’ve been wrong about a lot of things in your life… and BOY is that hard to do! And we might even be able to admit to God we are wrong just between him and us… but it’s not easy to admit to others… hey I was wrong!

Zedekiah had made it really tough on himself as well, and our actions in life can take us further and further into the zone where more and more of our pride will need to be broken in our salvation.

I’ve entitled this blog “what not being able to admit you’re wrong will cost you”. Because that is what we want to see as it is so incredibly illustrated in this story… and carrying such a high cost and consequence.

Not being able to admit he was wrong cost Zedekiah so very dearly. Because at the heart of Zedekiah’s refusal to be saved was being unable to admit he had been wrong, and be seen to be wrong before other people.

If he surrendered to the Babylonians, it would mean he was not better than his predecessor, it would mean he wasn’t as stoic, and mighty and capable and “right” as he thought. And that would be plain for all to see.

And so the reason he was fearful of the mocking of people already in the captivity was because he couldn’t take people laughing at him because he was “wrong” and had been wrong about everything.

When people make a life out of resisting God’s word, it makes the pride shattering moment of salvation all that more profound. And it’s not easy, it really isn’t, to admit you’re wrong about God, about Jesus Christ, about salvation, about truth… maybe about everything.

Look… I get it. Personally, I struggle to admit I’m wrong. And publicly owning the fact I was wrong risks my pride mightily.

But if you read on, you’ll find it wasn’t even going to be the case… because Jeremiah assured Zedekiah that people would not laugh at him. That was pretty kind of God when you think about it. But maybe you care so much about what people will think of you if you get saved and join that “Jesus” crowd. And it’s blown things out of proportion in your mind. Our mind can really run wild.

And the painful irony is that Jeremiah said there will be people who mock you… just not who you think. Because although Zedekiah ultimately didn’t get saved for fear of being mocked for being wrong… yet in rejecting God, that is exactly what he ended up experiencing in his life.

You see, when Nebuchadnezzar did take him captive, his friends did mock him and distance themselves from him “your friends have been having you on Zeddy boy!”

This is really why you should not let your pride get in the way of salvation and any part of Christian life for that matter. Yes, our actions can back us into a corner where the only way out is risking embarrassment and humiliation… but the fear of it is worse than actually it. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and if you think about it, Zedekiah wising up in his life would have been nothing for anyone to poke fun at!

He probably would have gone up in a lot of people’s estimation in fact. We don’t seem to realize that our pride that we hold so dearly is what takes us so low.

And so not being able to admit you’re wrong can cost all of us very dearly. I struggle with it, I’m sure I’m not alone. Zedekiah was wrong in rebelling against Nebuchadnezzar. He was wrong because it was against God’s word. He should have just obeyed it.

We can all carve out lives set against God’s word, but if God ever works in your heart to bring about a change “repentance”… don’t let being scared of what other people will think of you and owning the fact hey, I stuffed up, I was wrong… get in the way of God’s best for your life.

If it helps… we are all wrong… “yea, let God be true, but every man a liar”. Noone is truly qualified to mock anyone else for admitting they’re wrong, and rather, it actually takes quite a lot of strength and God’s grace to do so, and you just may find what you’re scared of being laughed at for actually is rather a most powerful testimony to the truth of God’s word in your life.

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