Jeremiah 38:1 “Then Shephatiah the son of Mattan, and Gedaliah the son of Pashur, and Jucal the son of Shelemiah, and Pashur the son of Malchiah, heard the words that Jeremiah had spoken unto all the people, saying,”

Jeremiah 38:2 “Thus saith the LORD, He that remaineth in this city shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence: but he that goeth forth to the Chaldeans shall live; for he shall have his life for a prey, and shall live.”

Jeremiah 38:3 “Thus saith the LORD, This city shall surely be given into the hand of the king of Babylon’s army, which shall take it.”

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Jeremiah is an absolutely wonderful book in the Bible, he was a prophet of God sent to warn his people of coming judgment… but how to be saved from it! We can learn all about salvation today from salvation back then… will you take it?

Nothing has changed since Jeremiah, he still speaks as true and timeless as ever. Humans still sin, the world’s still a heaving mass of people trying to get ahead, times are still uncertain, God is still holy, judgment is still coming, and salvation is still available. Everything about who God is, how God works, how God saves, and how people receive the gospel is in here.

God offered this generation of people a complete salvation from the threat outside their walls… Judah was under siege at this point in this story, and maybe you’re under siege right now as life and sin and judgment closes in. I’ve been right there too so much of my life, as all my bad decisions and sin close in around me.

But God sent a Jeremiah to this people to tell them how to be saved, a salvation that is still extended to us today by God’s people he has put in our lives, and by his sheer grace and mercy salvation is even still extended after a lifetime of us callously rejecting God… but “All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people.”

People didn’t want to hear Jeremiah!!! they tried to turn him off, they persecuted him, they locked him up and threw away the key, they got him out of sight and out of mind, they accused him of being better than them, hateful and against everyone… and they preferred their legion of false prophets who stroked their pride, ego and told them that everything was going to be fine… when it wasn’t.

Jeremiah is known as the weeping prophet because he cared so much about the salvation of his people “Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people” Jeremiah wrote a whole book lamenting the sad and sorry state of his people… they did not want a bar of the salvation God offered them… has anything changed?

You know… the Bible says your number one enemy isn’t someone out there, and it’s not me writing this… it’s you! If you reject God, I am not your problem, you are. You are opposing your own salvation (2 Timothy 2:25, Acts 13:46, Proverbs 8:36), I’m not against you, I can’t make you saved or unsaved, I don’t want to and can’t do anything to you “For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth.”

Jeremiah was made the enemy, but he wasn’t, and if only they listened to him, because God offered the people a really good and undeserving way of escape and pathway to life if you read about it… just like salvation today, they were offered the grace of God.

How gracious God was to this people! … Jeremiah told them on the authority of God’s word that you will be fine if you just go out and surrender to the Chaldeans! (they were the enemy around their city). If they just left their city walls, abandoned their defences and resistance to God… if they went out in humility and surrender… God promised them life if they just surrendered in obedience to his word.

Did you know that’s how easy salvation is to you also? Salvation is surrender. Not a deal, not a negotiation, not coming to terms with God like both parties bring something to the table. Salvation is a white flag to God. God you are right, I am wrong, I’m coming for mercy.

But it required faith. It would be terrifying leaving the city walls, to go with hands on head towards an enemy that could do anything to you… but trusting God is always rewarded.

But what will other people think of me? Did you know that king Zedekiah did not do this exact thing Jeremiah said because he was afraid some Jews would mock him? He did not get saved because of what other people might think of him!!

See, salvation is easy, it’s just we are so controlled by our pride and fear of man and holding out in sin like there can somehow be a different result other than what God’s word says.

Who cares what other people think? Why stay on a sinking ship? There were Jews who surrendered who were called deserters, weak and condemned for doing so… but they lived! Obeying God’s word always ages well.

If you’re going to wait for salvation to become popular, you’ll never be saved. Because not many people get saved just like many did not surrender but chose the “fight until the end”. Salvation is always a coming out from the crowd, a personal step of faith and courage to follow Christ, leaving behind the old life, the old resistance, the old “holding out” against the undeniable truth of God’s word.

Everything about the salvation that God offered through Jeremiah is absolutely no different to today, but unfortunately the unpopularity of it is also absolutely no different today. Maybe you will hold out to destruction. They did. Their city walls were breached, torn apart, and thoroughly dismantled in the end, they did not choose life through God.

It’s because in the end, there is no defense against God “take away her battlements; for they are not the Lord’s”. You cannot beat God, you will not be able to hold out forever. And God wants to show his mercy to you, you think those Jews that surrendered got a good deal? They sure did, they had families in Babylon, and their descendants returned to rebuild Jerusalem years later. Secure your life and your future in Christ… it’s so simple… but it requires complete surrender.

I surrender all, I surrender all;
All to Thee, my blessed Savior,
I surrender all.

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