Over the past few weeks, we have looked at how a lot of the modern religious world has watered down and softened the word of God. God has been reduced to this kind of heavenly mystical lover that many Christian artists sing about. Now, there is a lot of good gospel music there, and some of the older stuff has its problems as well.
The Gospel is a love story that is framed in harsh violence. The Holy God allowed His Son to be beaten to the point of being disfigured, then hung on a tree, nailed with long iron spikes to it, and then having to suffer the pain of suffocation, the shame of nakedness, the rejection of His own people, and the slow, agonizing death that was so harsh it was illegal for Roman citizens to be crucified.
God poured out His wrath – that should have fallen on us – on His Perfect, Sinless Son so we could be saved.
In the passage we will explore today, God teaches us a lesson about obedience. The Bible is very cut and dry in many areas. God is gracious, and often His patience leads us and the world around us to think that He is letting things go; nothing could be further from the truth. As we explore Jeremiah 36, we will hopefully learn some blunt realities about God and His word.
Verses 1-5: Tell the truth no matter what. Jeremiah could not go in himself. But he made sure that the word of the Lord got to where it was supposed to be. So, he called Baruch to write and then to read the word from the Lord to the people. Baruch was responsible for making sure the people heard the Word. You and I are responsible for making sure that the people around us hear the unfiltered truth of salvation. Jesus is the only way. They need to know that Hell is real and eternal, and the simplicity and totality of salvation. Let us get away from any kind of pretense and performance; just tell them the truth as plainly as possible.
Verses 11-19: Some will hear; some will have the right response. Notice verse 16: they looked towards another in fear. They were hit by God’s word; they were convicted. There is an old-fashioned word: convicted. There are two kinds of fear: one of reverence and another of simply understanding that they deserved all that was coming their way because of how they behaved.
You will see in verses 18-19 that these men understood that the message being told was not a popular one and that the speakers had to be protected, hidden away until they could gauge the reaction of the leaders that needed to hear the message.
We live in a time when no one wants to hear of right and wrong, no one wants to hear of judgment, and no one wants to hear that there is a Holy Judge that will call us to give an account of our lives. Sadly, the world around us and many Christians have neither a reverential fear of God nor fear of God’s judgment. We have cheapened God’s grace to make it into a license to water down even the power of salvation and the broad need for all people to be saved. We hate those that point out right and wrong, good and bad, holy and evil, the godly and the ungodly.
We have molded God in our image and refuse to be changed to be more like Jesus. Thus doctrinally conservative preachers are hated, and the wishy-washy spiritual motivators are lauded. These men who heard the words of Jeremiah through Baruch hoped that the king would hear the warnings of God and repent. So they prepared for the worst and hoped for the best.
Verses 20-26: The Rebellion in Political Leaders. The king calls for the scroll to be read, and they read sections of it; he cuts it off and throws it into the fire. There are some that think if they ban the Bible, make it illegal to read like they did here in Canada, burn it, imprison the preachers, close the churches, and cancel social media accounts that they will shut up God, reshape the truth, and beat God. What fools!!
Over the past few years, Bible sales have soared in North America; the death of Charlie Kirk sparked a call to worship in young men, and somehow, against all odds, the people elected a President that openly tells the nation and, indeed, the whole world that Jesus is Lord.
This king in Jeremiah has no reverence towards God, no regard for His Word; the men who brought word to him asked him not to burn the scroll (verse 25).
Well, we see in verses 29-31 that God pronounces a judgment on Jehoiakim, and eventually his bloodline dies out, and no one from his line is left to sit on the throne. There is another line that follows, and in that line, we have the person of Jesus. On top of that, there was a great disaster that came upon Jerusalem: thousands died, thousands more went into captivity, and the city was burned with fire and the temple torn to the ground.
Back in verse 3, we see that God graciously sent the word by His prophet to see if the people would hear and repent. He reached out His hand, extended grace one more time, offered life, but they rebelled and chose death.
Every day that we live here on Earth is one more day of grace — grace extended to a godless generation that defies their creator and curses His very existence. Every day that they live is an offering of grace; just maybe the next sunrise will show them there is a God to be feared, and maybe they will repent. Maybe they too will hear someone read or speak the Word of God and be convicted; maybe they will repent and live.
Sadly, too many are like this king; they have cold hearts, hardened hearts, their ears no longer want to hear from God, and so they ban the Bible, shush preachers, and choose Hell. But that does not diminish our responsibilities; we have to make sure they hear the word of God; what they do with it is between them and God.
Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Bethany Baptist Church
70 Victoria Street, Elora, Ontario