Monday, 01 August, 2005: Today’s Bible readings.
1 In that same year, at the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fifth month of the fourth year, Hananiah the son of Azzur, the prophet from Gibeon, spoke to me in the house of the LORD, in the presence of the priests and all the people, saying, 2 “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon. 3 Within two years I will bring back to this place all the vessels of the LORD’s house, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took away from this place and carried to Babylon. 4 I will also bring back to this place Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and all the exiles from Judah who went to Babylon, declares the LORD, for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon.”
Jeremiah had a very difficult task: he brought God’s word of condemnation and judgment to people who were not going to repent. He had many weary years of preaching to a people who would reject the word of God and ridicule and persecute God’s prophet.
Jeremiah was not alone. There were a few others who were also faithfully calling the hard-hearted people to repent of their evil and return to God, Uriah the son of Shemaiah from Kiriath-jerim for one.
But there were others like Hananiah the son of Azzur from today’s passage. These “prophets” preached what the people wanted to hear instead of bringing the true word of God to the people. They took the easy way out, and proclaimed the coming release of those in bondage and the immanent freedom from Babylon. The problem was, the word they brought was a lie.
Hananiah receives a harsh rebuke from God and pays for his presumption with his life.
15 And Jeremiah the prophet said to the prophet Hananiah, “Listen, Hananiah, the LORD has not sent you, and you have made this people trust in a lie. 16 Therefore thus says the LORD: ‘Behold, I will remove you from the face of the earth. This year you shall die, because you have uttered rebellion against the LORD.’”
What do we learn from this?
It was easier in Jeremiah’s day to tell people what they wanted to hear: You’re OK. Everything will soon be better. There is no coming judment. You don’t need to repent.
It is much harder to bring a word of God’s condemnation of sin, and the universal sinfulness of mankind.
It is no different in our time. It is difficult to faithfully bring God’s word to people. But ultimately, if we water down or eliminate the bad news, we have no good news to bring. Unless people understand their need for a Savior, we have no Savior to offer.
We must be faithful to bring God’s word, no matter how unpopular it might be.
Where is Christ in this passage?
Jeremiah clearly preached the bad news to the people of his day, and called them to repent and return to God, trusting in His salvation. The only way Jeremiah and the people in His day were saved was by trusting in God’s provision for their salvation. As they came to God, repenting of their sins, offering the sacrifices that were required in their day (to point them to a coming substitute who would bear the penalty for their sins), and trusting in God for salvation, they were truly saved.
Jesus Christ is the substitute for those who repented in Jeremiah’s day, and although they didn’t understand it all, they looked forward to when He would come to live the perfect life in their place and die on the cross to pay the penalty for their sins. The difference for us is that we have a more complete understanding of what Jesus has done as we look back on His life, death and resurrection.
And in the completeness of this understanding, we are called to tell people the bad news of the coming punishment of sin as preparation for telling them the good news of the one who bore that punishment for all who come to Him in faith.
