In yesterday's study we found King Zedekiah of Judah being taken captive to Babylon for rebelling against Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar had deposed Zedekiah's nephew, Jehoiachin (called Jeconiah or Coniah in some translations of the Bible, known as Jeconiah in the genealogy of Jesus Christ provided in the book of Matthew), and had placed Zedekiah (formerly known as Mattaniah) on the throne of Judah in Jehoiachin's place after taking Jehoiachin and many of the royal family captive to Babylon.
We learned in Sunday's study that after Zedekiah rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar and allied himself with Pharaoh Hophra of Egypt and asked the king of Egypt for help, Hophra did march out but was defeated by Nebuchadnezzar's forces and had to retreat back to his own country, at which point Nebuchadnezzar's army laid siege to Jerusalem. When the siege reached such a critical point that no food was left inside the city, Zedekiah and his soldiers made a hole in the wall big enough to crawl through and they escaped by night only to be caught up with on the plains of Jericho where Zedekiah's men deserted him. He and his sons were taken to Nebuchadnezzar's judgment seat at Riblah where Zedekiah was forced to watch his sons being executed before he was blinded and taken in chains to Babylon where he will remain until his death.
The book of Jeremiah will provide much more information to us regarding the reign of Zedekiah than did the books of 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles. In Jeremiah we sill learn that the Lord commanded Zedekiah, through the prophet Jeremiah, to humble himself under the authority of Babylon: "Bow your neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon; serve him and his people, and you will live. Why will you and your people die by the sword, famine and plague with which the Lord has threatened any nation that will not serve the king of Babylon?...Serve the king of Babylon, and you will live. Why should this city become a ruin?" (Jeremiah 27:12b-13, 17b)
It was the Lord's will to discipline idolatrous nations by another idolatrous nation: Babylon. Any nation that submitted to this humbling might also learn to submit itself to the Lord, but the nation that refused to submit itself to authority would fall the enemy. Zedekiah and the people of his land were given an opportunity to turn back to the Lord during this era of Babylonian dominance. They could have learned from their mistake in turning away from the Lord to idols, for the Lord promised the people before bringing them into the land of Canaan that if they would remain faithful to Him they would never be defeated or taken captive to a foreign land. While submitting to the king of Babylon they could have learned to once again submit to the King of kings. They could have turned wholeheartedly away from idolatry to give their hearts completely to the Lord to serve Him. The time spent under the yoke of Babylon might not have been very long at all under those circumstances, for the nation of Babylon will not endure forever. The Lord allowed Babylon to become a world power only because this serves His purpose for now and if the people had quickly turned back to Him, Jerusalem would never have fallen to the enemy. But, as we will see as we arrive at the books of the prophets, the king and the majority of the people preferred to listen to the lies of false prophets because the false prophets were saying what they wanted to hear.
Because the king and so many people refused to heed the word of the Lord, the city becomes a ruin, just as Jeremiah predicted. "On the seventh day of the fifth month, in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan commander of the imperial guard, an official of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. He set fire to the temple of the Lord, the royal palace and all the houses of Jerusalem. Every important building he burned down. The whole Babylonian army under the commander of the imperial guard broke down the walls around Jerusalem." (2 Kings 25:8-10)
It will take us several days to complete our study of the fall of Jerusalem as presented to us by the authors of 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles. But as we close today's session it's important for us to remember that no nation is too powerful to fall. As we prepare to celebrate the Independence Day holiday, we mustn't forget that if our nation falls too far from the Lord, He is able and willing to discipline us with whatever method it takes to turn our hearts back to Him. The fate of our eternal souls is far more important than the fate of our country and He will send as much hardship as is necessary to show us the error of our ways so that we do not turn into a godless nation where people are not being taught about the God who created us, who loves us, and who wants to save us from our sins. In our study of the Old Testament so far, we have seen nations rise and we have seen nations fall. We will continue to see this pattern as we move on through the Old Testament and into the New Testament. Many empires have come and gone since the creation of the world; ours may not be any different---not if we don't remain faithful to the Lord our God.
No comments:
Post a Comment