Wrong Reactions to the Word of God (Jeremiah 34–36)

What happens when leaders try to bargain with God, when a nation shrugs at truth, or when a king takes a knife to the page? We walk through Jeremiah 34–36 to follow three unforgettable responses to Scripture: twisting it for leverage, ignoring it when life gets easy, and burning it to silence conviction. The thread tying these moments together is stark and timely: the word of God can be resisted, but it cannot be undone.

We start with Zedekiah’s sudden reform, a public release of Hebrew servants that briefly honors sabbath-year law. When Babylon retreats, the vows evaporate and the freed are seized again. That swing from apparent obedience to calculated reversal exposes a familiar impulse: treating commandments like bargaining chips. From there, we meet the Rekabites, a clan who keeps a two-hundred-year-old family rule to abstain from wine and live as nomads. Their steady loyalty becomes a living parable that shames Judah’s forgetfulness. If people can honor a human tradition across generations, what excuse remains for neglecting the living God’s commands today?

Finally, we enter Jehoiakim’s winter house, where a royal reading becomes a ritual of defiance. As each section of Jeremiah’s scroll is read, the king slices it off and feeds the fire. But the flames do not win. Jeremiah dictates again; the word returns, larger and heavier with judgment. We reflect on why attempts to mute Scripture—by ridicule, revision, or rage—always fail, and how the authority of God’s word offers both a warning and a refuge. Along the way we connect ancient choices to modern habits: crisis vows that fade, selective obedience, and the allure of cutting out the parts that confront us.

If you’re wrestling with biblical authority, longing for durable faith, or curious how an old prophecy speaks with fresh force, this conversation aims straight at the heart. Listen, share your takeaways, and if the message helps you, subscribe, leave a review, and pass it to a friend who needs courage to stand with the Word today.

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Transcript

Sola Scriptura Confronts Modern Skepticism

SPEAKER_00 0:48

I wonder if you've upset anybody lately simply because you believe the Bible is the final authority from God Himself. Not long ago, a middle-aged couple visited the Shepherd's Church, where I have pastored for many years, and that Sunday they noticed the words on the face of my pulpit that read sola scriptura, which means the scriptures alone. In other words, the Bible is the final authority for life. Well, they made an appointment to see me, and he'd been a teacher of his Sunday school class for thirty-five years. They'd been in church most of our lives. Well, when when we met in my office, he began by telling me how troubled he was, how how shocked he was. He had read those words on my pulpit, Solo Scriptura, while I asked him, Well, what's so shocking about that? And he said, Well, I didn't think anybody believed that anymore. He went on to tell me that I was taking the Bible way too seriously, that Jesus was really nobody uh any different than a perhaps a good rabbi. He certainly wasn't the son of God. Well, this is the kind of reaction to the word of God the prophet Jeremiah is receiving from the nation of Judah. They think Jeremiah is taking God's word far too seriously, and frankly, they don't want anything to do with his prophecies. Well, we arrive in our wisdom journey today at Jeremiah chapter 34 and 35 and chapter 36. We're going to cover them. These chapters are not arranged chronologically, although all of the events here took place prior to the fall of Jerusalem. But they're placed in this order to emphasize the theme running through these chapters. And the theme is the people's reaction to the word of God. Well, here in chapter 34, Judah's last king, King Zedekiah, is on the throne, and the Babylonian army is conquering one city after another. In fact, verse 7 tells us here that only the cities of Lakish, Azekah, and Jerusalem remain free, but they're going to fall soon enough. Now Jeremiah's message to King Zedekiah, you know, isn't a happy message. Zedekiah isn't going to put one verse from Jeremiah's message on a coffee mug to make him feel good in the morning. Now the Lord's message is profoundly troubling. It begins here in verse two. Behold, I am giving this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire. You shall not escape from his hand, but shall surely be captured. Well, you don't want to read that over your coffee in the morning. So what Zedekiah does here is attempt to twist the message of God's word. Verse eight says, King Zedekiah made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem to make a proclamation of liberty to them, that everyone should set free his Hebrew slaves. Well now the Old Testament had outlawed the abduction of people to sell as slaves to someone else back in Exodus chapter twenty one. But the law did permit what we would call today indentured servanthood. That's where someone could sell himself to another person in order to pay off his debts. However, the law of Moses demanded that this kind of indentured servanthood had to come to an end every seventh year. That's Exodus 21 and Deuteronomy 15. That way Israelites would not become enslaved to one another over time. Now, they've ignored this requirement, and Zedekiah is, well, he's trying to straighten it all out. The problem is Zedekiah is ignoring the real issue. He's trying to manipulate God into granting him favor. Now we're told later on in chapter 37 that the Babylonians suddenly leave Jerusalem to confront an Egyptian threat, and Jerusalem is given temporary relief. What do they do about it? Well, chapter 34 now in verse 11 tells us they turned around and took back the male and female slaves they had set free and brought them into subjection. Well, they decide they don't need God's help after all, so they return to violating the law of God. Jeremiah comes along now and he he he delivers the news to them that the Babylonians are going to come back, and this time they're going to take the city and they're going to burn it to the ground. And he adds that everybody who broke this covenant with God and re-enslaved Israelites are going to face special judgment. Like Jeremiah says here in verse 20 in chapter 34, their dead bodies shall be food for the birds and the beasts. Well, they're not going to put that on their coffee mug either. Now it's one thing to, you know, to talk about them way back here, and fail to talk about the fact that we can fall into the same trap of manipulating God. Sort of, you know, trying to bribe God with our actions, our promises when we need his deliverance. It reminds me of two fellows who'd been shipwrecked, they're floating out there in the ocean on a piece of wood, and one of them begins to pray, Lord, if you deliver me, I'll stop stealing from my company, I'll stop cheating on my taxes, I'll never miss a church service again, and I'll and his friend hollers out, Hold it, I think I see land. Well, these people in Jerusalem, they're doing the same thing. They're really not serious in repenting. They just want God to bail them out, and they're going to promise just enough, they think, to bribe God to do it. Well, now here in Jeremiah chapter 35, there's another reaction, and here they simply are just going to ignore God's word, and this scene actually shifts back a dozen years to the reign of King Jehoakim. There's a clan known as the Rekabites, and they move into Jerusalem and they're seeking safety, and the Lord tells Jeremiah to go out to these people and offer them wine to drink. He does so, but the Rechabites refuse Jeremiah's offer. They explain to Jeremiah here in verse six, We will drink no wine, for Jonadab, the son of Rechab, our father, commanded us, You shall not drink wine, you shall not build a house, but you shall live in tents all your days. So in obedience to their patriarch, Jonadab, they're committed now to living as nomads. They're committed to abstaining from anything fermented. Now get this, Jonadab lived some two hundred years earlier. 2 Kings 10 tells us about him. So the Rechabites' rejection of Jeremiah's offer was intended by God as a rather stunning rebuke to the nation of Judah. The Rechabites have been faithful to the command of an ancestor for over 200 years. But here's the point Judah continually ignores the commands of God in this present day. Well, now here in chapter 36, we find another reaction to God's word. King Jehoakim is going to try to destroy the Word of God. In fact, the Lord tells Jeremiah here in verse 4 to dictate prophecies to his friend Baruch. Baruch writes them all down on a scroll and then reads them aloud in the temple. And royal officials hear Baruch, verse 16 tells us they turned one to another in fear. Well now they want the king to hear Jeremiah's prophecies, but they wisely tell Baruch and Jeremiah to go hide while they read this scroll to the king. Verse 22 tells us what happened next. The king was sitting in the winter house, and there was a fire burning in the fire pot before him, as Jehudi, that's an official, read three or four columns that is of the scroll, the king would cut them off with a knife and throw them into the fire until the entire scroll was consumed in the fire. Well, God instructs Jeremiah to just go and dictate another scroll, but this time a prophecy of judgment against the king is included. This prophecy says he's not going to have any descendants establishing a dynasty on the throne. In fact, his own body isn't going to be buried after he dies. Beloved, it's a it's a sad day. It's a frankly, it's a dangerous day when people ignore God's word, or as we've seen today, they twist God's word around and turn it upside down to make it say something that's evil is actually good, or something that's good is actually evil. Of course, some simply wish the Bible not to exist at all, and they'd love to throw it in the fire. The king's attitude here reminds me of Voltaire, the French philosopher from the 1700s, who hated Christianity. Well, it wasn't long after Voltaire died that the Geneva Bible Society purchased his home and turned it into a print shop to produce Bibles. Listen, God's word, it can't be destroyed, it can be ignored, but it is established. In fact, God will have the last word. Don't ever forget that. Sola scriptura means God has the final say. Well, until our next wisdom journey together, beloved, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.