Life and Death Situation

Text:  Jeremiah 21:8-9

Proposition:  How can we make the right choice?

Introduction

Read Chapter 21

God has set before man the choice of life and death from the beginning.  Adam and Eve had the choice of life and death.  There were two trees in the middle of the garden, the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  They could eat from the tree of life.  The tree of knowledge of good and evil they were not to eat from.  God told them the day that they ate from it they would die.  Satan tempted Eve and she ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  She gave the fruit to her husband Adam and he ate from it also.  They chose to die.

In Deuteronomy 30:15-19, Moses set before the people the choice of life and death.  He had warned them of the curses that would come upon them if they did not obey the commands of the Lord.  He also told them of the blessings that would come upon them if they did obey.  He warned them of exactly what Jeremiah was telling them, Deuteronomy 28:47-53. 

Judah had chosen death.  There was only one way that they could save their life.  That was to repent of their sin and surrender to the Chaldeans.  King Zedekiah and the priests didn’t want to do that.  They were hoping for a miracle.  Like the one that happened when Hezekiah was king, II Chronicles 32:20-21.  The Assyrians had surrounded Jerusalem just like the Chaldeans had in this chapter.  God answered Isaiah and Hezekiah’s prayer.  He sent an angel and the angel struck the camp of Assyrians.  The next morning 185,000 of the Assyrian army were dead.  Zedekiah, Passhur (not the one in Chap 20), and Zephaniah were hoping Jeremiah could pray to God and the same thing would happen to the Assyrians.

Jeremiah doesn’t give them any comforting words.  He tells them not only is God not going to help you He is going to war against you. If God is for us, who can be against us, but if God is against us, who can be for us?  They were in a life or death situation.

I. Surrender  (How can we surrender?)

A. The only chance they had to live was to surrender to the Chaldeans.

1. Jeremiah 21:9

2. Some did surrender

a. Jeremiah 38:19

b. Jeremiah 39:9

c. Jeremiah 52:15

3. This was not something that they wanted to do.

4. The king would have to swallow a lot of pride to surrender to the Chaldeans.  He refused to do this.

5. Zedekiah didn’t listen to Jeremiah.

6. Jeremiah 39:1-7, Zedekiah was too proud to surrender.

7. II Chronicles 36:12

8. Proverbs 18:11-12, Zedekiah thought he had a high enough wall and a strong enough city to keep out the Chaldeans.  He wouldn’t humble himself to listen to Jeremiah.  So he chose death and lost the life of his sons.

9. Zedekiah was fighting against God.

B. Be humble

1. Jeremiah was humble.  He was willing to be mocked, beaten and laughed at in order to preach the message God had sent him. 

2. Jeremiah didn’t always like what he had to do, but he surrendered to God and let the Lord win.

3. Jeremiah 20:7-9

4. Jeremiah knew the Lord was his champion.  He was going to fight for Him instead of against Him.

5. Jeremiah 20:13, he praised God for delivering him.

6. Luke 14:31 and 32, no one can fight against God and win so humble yourself so that he doesn’t have to humble you.

7. I Peter 5:5-6

8. It takes humility to surrender to God. It takes humility to be subject to your elders.  Young men many times think the old men are out of touch and they don’t know what they are doing.  Sometimes they may be, but we are still to be subject to our elders.

II. Repent  (What should we repent of?)

A. Fighting against God

1. God was fighting against them

2. Jeremiah 21:4-5

3. They were fighting against God by fighting the Chaldeans.  They were supposed to surrender to the Chaldeans.

4. They were trusting in their walls to keep them safe from the Chaldeans.

5. Jeremiah 21:13-14, they thought they were safe in Jerusalem.  It was a rock in the plain.  It was a natural fortress.  It was hard to fight against, but God had left the temple because of the sin of the people and now he was fighting against the city.

6. If you don’t repent God will depart from you.

7. Ezekiel 10, God left the temple and the city of Jerusalem.

B. Not keeping God’s commands

1. If we don’t keep God’s commands He will leave us.  He will be fighting against us.

2. Pashhur, Zephaniah and Zedekiah wanted Jeremiah to pray for them.  So that the Chaldeans would be defeated.  They thought praying would be their good luck charm.  They thought God would be their lucky rabbits foot.  If we don’t keep God’s commands we won’t have his blessings on our country, city, or home.

3. Sometimes people want the preacher or someone they think is holy to come to their house or business and pray that God will bless their house or their business and all the evil spirits will leave their house or business.  The preacher can pray all he wants to, but if the occupants of the house are not keeping the commands of God, God will not and cannot bless that house, business, city or nation.

4. If those in your home are entertained with murder, adultery, cussing, pornography, and violence God will not bless your home.  You can put up Joshua 24:15, “As for me and my house we will serve the Lord,” and “God bless this house,” but if you don’t serve the Lord and keep his commands He will be against you.

C. Not paying those you owe

1. Jeremiah 22:13-17, Jehoiakim didn’t pay those who built his house.  He was a wicked king.  Maybe he paid them with Monopoly money or maybe he just didn’t pay them at all.  He was the king and if he didn’t want to pay you he didn’t think he had to.

2. God knew what Jehoiakim was doing.  Jehoiakim was not going to go unpunished.

3. James 5:1-5

4. God didn’t feel sorry for Jehoiakim that he couldn’t pay his debt.  He got the burial of a donkey.

5. Jeremiah 22:18-19

6. We are to pay those we owe. 

7. If we owe a phone bill pay it.  One man ran up my phone bill.  I had access to his paycheck so I took out what he owed.  He said to me, “I won’t have enough to eat this week.”  I don’t remember exactly what I told him, but I said something like. “Maybe you should have thought about that when you were running up my phone bill.”  I thought maybe the pains of hunger would help him not to have so much a desire to talk on the phone all the time.  He didn’t run my phone bill up again after that.  The phone company didn’t care whether I had enough money for the week and he didn’t care whether I had enough money for the week.  God doesn’t care if we suffer because we use the services of others and don’t pay them.

D. Having many lovers

1. Jeremiah 22:20-22, Judah had many lovers and maybe Jehoiakim did too, but they were only supposed to have one lover.  God was to be the one they were in love with.

2. Jeremiah 4:30, Judah dressed like a harlot to attract her lovers.

3. They were adulterous people.

4. James 4:1-4

5. We have to live in the world, but we don’t have to be friends with the world. We can’t participate in their sin. 

6. We are to be a separate people.

7. II Corinthians 6:16-18

8. Make God and his people your friends and companions.

III. Administer Justice (How can we administer Justice?)

A. Deliver those who have been robbed from the power of the oppressor.

1. Zedekiah didn’t deliver the oppressed from the power of the oppressor.

2. The book of Jeremiah is not in chronological order this chapter chronologically should go closer to the end of the book.

3. Jeremiah 34 is at the same time as chapter 17.

4. Jeremiah 37:8-17 and 21-22

5. The Chaldeans had raised the siege because Pharaoh had come out of Egypt to fight against the Chaldeans.  Jeremiah 37:5-9

6. Zedekiah did nothing to help those who were oppressed.  He could have enforced what God commanded, but he was weak hearted.

7. Britain used to be a world power.  Many times they were oppressive.  They wanted to have all the ports in China open to British traders.  The British merchants were smuggling opium into China.  The Chinese were spending so much money that they were running short on silver coins!  Tao-kung, the Chinese emperor in the 1830’s hated opium.  He appointed Lin Zexu to find and arrest opium dealers.  Lin Zexu did this.  He also stopped the British from bringing opium into the country.  He sent a message to all the British traders in the port of Canton that no trade would be allowed unless all opium was turned over.  After that any British merchant bringing opium would be arrested and put to death.  The British merchants handed over 20,000 chests of opium (Bauer, Susan Wise, Story of the World, pg. 363)  (These chests held about 140 pounds opium = 2,800,000). (Salucci, Lapo (2007). Depths of Debt: Debt, Trade and ChoicesUniversity of Colorado) (I took it from Wikipedia Opium Wars).  Three holes were dug.  The opium was put in the holes and flooded with water, salt and lime.  Because of this the British government declared war on China.  China lost.  They had to pay 21 million dollars for the destroyed opium and open five more ports to British merchants.  The whole island of Hong Kong had to be given to Britain.

8. Today the United States is the world power.  We must not oppress those weaker than us and deliver those who are oppressed.

B. Do no violence to the stranger (alien), orphan, widow, and don’t shed innocent blood.

1. Jeremiah 22:3

2. Treat the alien well.  Don’t oppress him.  Treat him like you want to be treated.

3. We have plenty of aliens here in Lexington from all over the world.  Don’t despise them.

4. Help out the orphan and the widow.  Widows need help.  Don’t let others take advantage of them.

5. Don’t shed innocent blood.  Killing unborn babies is shedding innocent blood.

C. Administer justice with your children.

1. We are rulers in our house.  Don’t let your children oppress each other.  Sometimes a two year old can be oppressive.  They scream every time they don’t get their way.  So everyone must give in to them to keep them happy.  An older child can be oppressive to his younger siblings.

2. If you are a leader don’t be oppressive and don’t let others be oppressive.

Conclusion

Jeremiah chose life.  Choosing life is not a life without problems.  Even if you do right what is right people may not like what you do.  You may have to tell people things they don’t want to hear.

Jeremiah wanted the people to surrender to God.  He didn’t want the people to be destroyed.  He told them to surrender to the Chaldeans to save their life.  That wasn’t popular so most of them didn’t.  They chose death instead of life.  They didn’t want to repent of their sin they just wanted the consequences of their sin taken away.  They thought prayer was a good luck charm.  The prayer of the righteous is effective, but the Lord doesn’t hear the prayer of the unrepentant.

He wants justice to be administered.  Don’t let the oppressor oppress those who are weak.  Satan is the oppressor.  He wants everyone oppressed.  Spread the message of the gospel to everyone even if they don’t want to hear it.  Tell them of the good news of the death, burial and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  They can be free from the oppressor by believing Jesus is the Son of God.  Repenting of their sin.  Confessing Jesus as the Son of God and being buried with Him in Baptism to walk in a new life.