God Fights Against Jerusalem and Call to Surrender

Jeremiah chapter 21: "The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, when King Zedekiah sent to him Pashur the son of Malchiah, and Zephaniah the priest, the son of Maaseiah, saying, 'Please inquire of the Lord for us, for Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon makes war against us. Perhaps the Lord will deal with us according to all Your wonderful works, that the king may go away from us.' Then Jeremiah said to them, 'Thus you shall say to Zedekiah, thus says the Lord God of Israel: Behold, I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands, with which you fight against the king of Babylon and the Chaldeans who besiege you outside the walls, and I will assemble them in the midst of the city. I Myself will fight against you with an outstretched arm and with a strong arm, even in anger and fury and great wrath. I will strike the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast. They shall die of a great pestilence. And afterward, says the Lord, I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah, his servants, and the people, and such as are left in the city, from the pestilence and the sword and the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those who seek their life; and he shall strike them with the edge of the sword. He shall not spare them or have pity or mercy.'"

So my friends, this is again very hardcore language, of course, but this is where we are. Remember, Jeremiah's been to the people for about 23 years now, 24 years now, through Josiah, through Jehoiakim. He's been 23 years, just like he said in Jeremiah 25, rising up early, talking to the people. They declined this. And now Nebuchadnezzar has breached the walls. They're warring. He's already had two exiles right now of the people: Daniel, the first exile, his three friends; Ezekiel, the second exile. And they're about the last exile right here as well. But my friends, when you read language like verse number five, "I Myself will fight against you with an outstretched arm and with a strong arm, even in anger, fury, and great wrath." My friends, that is something to really understand how the Lord can give, as part of His attributes. Once we decline, once we reject His word through a period of time, and once the grace and the mercy runs out, this is what you get. This reminds me of the story of Exodus. Remember in Exodus 15, He says, "I brought you out on eagle's wings." I brought you out with a strong arm, an outstretched arm, on eagle's wings, as a covering, as deliverance. Now, it's reversed. And now He's fighting against them with the outstretched arm and with a strong arm, even in anger and fury and great wrath.

So again, my friends, we're going to see the same things today as what we did back then. Nebuchadnezzar just didn't come and mow down the city for round one. There were three rounds. I mean, he came, he gave the people time to repent. God gave the people time to repent because He is longsuffering. But after 23 years, and then these extra 18 years that Jeremiah dealt with Zedekiah, then you run into this kind of language right here. He warned them about this kind of language in Josiah's reign and also in Jehoiakim's reign, same kind of language, hardcore language of what would occur if they kept on with their rebellion. The people did not listen, as we know. And then here we go with Himself, "I Myself will fight against Judah with an outstretched arm, with a strong arm." My friends, that's what it will become if we don't repent. Even today, we're going down that same road. Jerusalem's being breached. Hezbollah's breached them. Hamas has breached them. Iran's breached them. Nebuchadnezzar breached them. So it's time to wake up and understand that again, He's trying to get our attention in the promised land to understand we've got to repent. We've got to call on the Jewish Messiah, because again, we're going down the same trajectory as the people did in the prophet Jeremiah.

Verse number eight: "Now you shall say to these people, 'Thus says the Lord, behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death.'" So He's reminding everybody again what Moses said in Deuteronomy chapter 28 through 30. "This day, choose life or death." So Jeremiah is just reminding them of what Moses told the ancestors and the requirements and the statutes that they have to observe to live in the promised land. "He who remains in this city shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence. But he who goes out and defects to the Chaldeans who besiege you, you shall live, and his life shall be as a prize to him. For I have set My face against this city for adversity and not for good, says the Lord. And it shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire. And concerning the house of the king of Judah, say, 'Hear the word of the Lord, O house of David! Thus says the Lord: Execute judgment in the morning, and deliver him who is plundered out of the hand of the oppressor, lest My fury go forth like a fire and burn so that no one can quench it because of the evil of your doings. Behold, I am against you, O inhabitant of the valley and rock of the plain,' says the Lord, 'who say, "Who shall come down against us? Or who shall enter our dwellings?" But I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings,' says the Lord. 'I will kindle a fire in your forest, and it shall devour all things around.'"

So my friends, again, this is just another warning to the people that if they do not get corrected, King Zedekiah and all of the people, then this is what's going to happen. He's going to execute judgment. He's going to turn against them. He Himself will bring the king of Babylon against them. Very serious stuff. So again, it's too late for deliverance is the theme of this chapter. In chapter 21, King Zedekiah asks Jeremiah to seek the Lord. Instead of promising deliverance, Jeremiah answers and announces judgment. You will find this all throughout the reign of Zedekiah. To a certain degree, you're like, man, I wish this guy would have opened his heart to the Lord because he was right there at it. God gave him so many opportunities to repent, and he caused the whole place to be destroyed, as we will read here later on in the series. But King Zedekiah asked Jeremiah throughout his reign, "What does the Lord say?" And Jeremiah kept telling him, "This is what's going to happen if you don't repent and fall underneath the king of Babylon."

So in today's world, and I guess back then as well, pride is something to deal with, right? So we have the pride that we can't humble ourselves to understand that God is serious, that He will destroy the city, He will destroy the people and the land if we don't get corrected. And that goes for today as well. What's so amazing when you read this, He says to defect to the Chaldeans and you will live. If you have your pride and you try to fight against it, then you will be destroyed. Think about that. That's so opposite of the way that we think. We think, hey, let's rise up and let's fight against everybody so that we can win. And God is saying through Jeremiah, "No, defect to the Chaldeans, fall underneath the king of Babylon and serve him 70 years as the punishment of what the behavior was in the promised land." So if the people would have repented, if King Zedekiah would have repented, then King Nebuchadnezzar would not have destroyed the temple and the city. They would have just fallen underneath him and been subservient to the king of Babylon. So God was trying to humble the people with humility. But they were prideful, and they were fighting against God, and they were fighting against Jeremiah, and they were fighting against the king of Babylon, who God raised to come against the people to get them to repent. Remember, He loves the people to go the distance with them. That's why we're going to go through the time of Jacob's trouble, the distance. He will go the distance with them. Think about a 15-round or 12-round boxing match, go the distance. He will go the distance. I think He's proven that twice with Jerusalem and Judah. He'll go the distance. And when He goes the distance, it winds up not being good. It winds up being a TKO for all of us here that are in the promised land or in the world. It comes against us because He's going to win that fight, so to speak.

So very important to understand the trajectory that Jeremiah is going on right now to quench the pride, to lower the pride, to fall underneath the king of Babylon because we have sinned, and He's making us pay for our sins for 70 years. And it can be the easy way, not being destroyed, not being exiled, or everybody exiled, or it can be the hard way, total destruction. It's totally up to us on what that would be. So King Zedekiah asked Jeremiah to seek deliverance. Jeremiah announces judgment. The major points: Babylon will prevail. Nebuchadnezzar will prevail. And God Himself fights against Jerusalem because of its sins. Life is offered only through surrender. So again, that goes against what we have today with the pride and heart posture and stuff like that. We want to obviously fight and all these things. Sometimes God wants us to surrender, number one, to Yeshua, but also in this circumstance, He wanted them to surrender to the king of Babylon, to fall underneath them, to pay for their judgment, the easy way and not the hard way.

So a good teaching point for all of us is persistence. Persistent rebellion can bring a point where the consequences can no longer be avoided.