TUESDAY, 5 DECEMBER 2023
TEXT:
Jeremiah 37:1-21
1:
Zedekiah son of Josiah was made king of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar king of
Babylon; he reigned in place of Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim.
2:
Neither he nor his attendants nor the people of the land paid any attention to
the words the Lord had spoken through Jeremiah the prophet.
3:
King Zedekiah, however, sent Jehukal son of Shelemiah with the priest Zephaniah
son of Maaseiah to Jeremiah the prophet with this message: “Please pray to the
Lord our God for us.”
4:
Now Jeremiah was free to come and go among the people, for he had not yet been
put in prison.
5:
Pharaoh’s army had marched out of Egypt, and when the Babylonians who were
besieging Jerusalem heard the report about them, they withdrew from Jerusalem.
6:
Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet:
7:
“This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Tell the king of Judah, who
sent you to inquire of me, ‘Pharaoh’s army, which has marched out to support
you, will go back to its own land, to Egypt.
8:
Then the Babylonians will return and attack this city; they will capture it and
burn it down.’
9:
“This is what the Lord says: Do not deceive yourselves, thinking, ‘The
Babylonians will surely leave us.’ They will not!
10:
Even if you were to defeat the entire Babylonian army that is attacking you and
only wounded men were left in their tents, they would come out and burn this
city down.”
11:
After the Babylonian army had withdrawn from Jerusalem because of Pharaoh’s
army,
12:
Jeremiah started to leave the city to go to the territory of Benjamin to get
his share of the property among the people there.
13:
But when he reached the Benjamin Gate, the captain of the guard, whose name was
Irijah son of Shelemiah, the son of Hananiah, arrested him and said, “You are
deserting to the Babylonians!”
14:
“That’s not true!” Jeremiah said. “I am not deserting to the Babylonians.” But
Irijah would not listen to him; instead, he arrested Jeremiah and brought him
to the officials.
15:
They were angry with Jeremiah and had him beaten and imprisoned in the house of
Jonathan the secretary, which they had made into a prison.
16:
Jeremiah was put into a vaulted cell in a dungeon, where he remained a long
time.
17:
Then King Zedekiah sent for him and had him brought to the palace, where he
asked him privately, “Is there any word from the Lord?” “Yes,” Jeremiah
replied, “you will be delivered into the hands of the king of Babylon.”
18:
Then Jeremiah said to King Zedekiah, “What crime have I committed against you
or your attendants or this people, that you have put me in prison?
19:
Where are your prophets who prophesied to you, ‘The king of Babylon will not
attack you or this land’?
20:
But now, my lord the king, please listen. Let me bring my petition before you:
Do not send me back to the house of Jonathan the secretary, or I will die
there.”
21:
King Zedekiah then gave orders for Jeremiah to be placed in the courtyard of
the guard and given a loaf of bread from the street of the bakers each day
until all the bread in the city was gone. So Jeremiah remained in the courtyard
of the guard.
(New
International Version Holy Bible)
TOPIC:
YOU CAN’T SUBSTITUTE OBEDIENCE WITH PRAYER
Jehoiakim
destroyed himself and his dynasty by his reckless disobedience to God.
Zedekiah, his brother, was made king but he too followed the recklessness of
Jehoiakim (verse 2).
Zedekiah
thought he was smart. He thought he could substitute obedience with religious
rituals and prayers.
It
is interesting how people deceive themselves by substituting obedience with
prayer or by seeking spiritual solutions to their character deficiencies.
Some
people even believe that we can pray ourselves to revival and successes as long
as we are persistent. Most times we pray, fast, bind demons that do not exist
when our real demons are mainly our character and obedience deficits.
QUESTION:
Do we, like King Zedekiah, request our own Jeremiahs to pray to the Lord for us
despite our spiritual bankruptcy?
PRAYER:
Please, Father, help me to trust and obey for there's no other way to be happy
in Jesus but to trust and obey. Amen.
Remain
Blessed
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