"Thus says the Lord, Do not deceive yourselves," thinking the Chaldeans will surely go away, for they will not. Even if they defeated the whole Chaldean army so that only wounded men were left, each in his tent, those men would rise up and burn the city with fire (a paraphrase of Jeremiah 37:9–10).

Zedekiah did not understand that his fear was misdirected. It was not the Babylonians he needed to fear but the Lord. Even if he could fight off the entire Babylonian army, God would still bring the city's destruction, for He had decreed it.

Friends, let us understand this principle: "we walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Corinthians 5:7). It is not what we can see, strategize, or assess that finally determines the outcome of our lives. It is the Lord. So we read, "The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps" (Proverbs 16:9).

So let us commit every plan to God in prayer. When we commit our way to Him, God will guide our thoughts so that they are in line with His will: "Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established" (Proverbs 16:3).

It is in aligning our wills with God's will that we find true success: commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him, and He will act; He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday (cf. Psalm 37:5–6).

So, just as we commit our every way to the Lord, let us also praise Him for every outcome, for this is our purpose: to glorify God and enjoy Him forever!

AI-Expanded Reflection

The setting of Jeremiah 37 explains the false hope Zedekiah was clinging to. An Egyptian army had marched north, and the Babylonians temporarily lifted the siege of Jerusalem to face it (37:5). To many in the city, it looked like deliverance. Jeremiah's message was that the relief was temporary: Egypt would go home, and Babylon would return (37:7–8). His vivid picture — even wounded Babylonians alone in their tents would rise and burn the city — made the point that the outcome did not depend on military odds.

Zedekiah's story is a study in divided will. He consulted Jeremiah secretly several times (37:17; 38:14), and seems to have believed him, yet he never found the courage to act on what he heard, fearing his own officials and the Judeans who had defected (38:19). The comment's call to commit our plans to the Lord and trust Him with the outcome speaks directly to that kind of paralysis. Faith is not merely hearing God's word, as Zedekiah did, but acting on it, as James says: "be doers of the word, and not hearers only" (James 1:22).

Jeremiah 35

19 therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Jonadab the son of Rechab shall never lack a man to stand before me.”

What a family line to have. There is a line out there that can say they have had a faithful one to God since before the Jewish exile. There is a line secured not by an offering, choice, or condition. Like the Abrahamic covenant, it will be done because God said it will be done - no conditions.

AI-Expanded Reflection

Jeremiah 35 uses the Rechabites as a living contrast with Judah. They continue to obey the instruction of their ancestor Jonadab concerning wine and their way of life, even when Jeremiah places wine before them in the temple setting. Their consistency exposes the discrepancy between a family's reception of an ancestor's command and a nation's refusal to hear the Lord who has spoken repeatedly through his prophets.

The promise that Jonadab will not lack a man to stand before God follows an explicit acknowledgment of that obedience in 35:18–19. The original's emphasis on the reliability of God's promise is appropriate, but it is too sweeping to say the promise has no relation to choice or conduct in the passage. Its setting is a divine commendation of faithfulness. The text does not, however, supply a detailed account of every later descendant or define the full historical form in which the promise will be realized.

The comparison with Abraham can illuminate confidence in God's word, provided the two promises are not made identical in every respect. Scripture contains different covenantal and familial assurances with distinct purposes. The Rechabite episode's immediate aim is to confront Judah's disobedience, not to invite speculation about tracing a uniquely secure modern bloodline. The reader is directed toward the contrast between hearing and refusing, not toward genealogical prestige.

The example also does not require every believer to adopt the Rechabites' particular abstinence or nomadic customs. Jeremiah does not present wine avoidance as the universal definition of holiness. The force lies in their fidelity to received instruction and the shameful comparison with Judah's rejection of God's commands. A practice can function as an instructive example without becoming a rule imposed on everyone.

For families and churches, the passage raises questions about how instruction is transmitted. Do children see adults honoring the commitments they teach? Are reasons explained, memories preserved, and obedience modeled over time? Faithful formation involves more than a dramatic moment of enthusiasm. It is sustained through ordinary decisions that make a community's convictions believable.

The promise can encourage that patient work without making descendants objects of control. Parents and teachers cannot manufacture faith by managing every future choice. They can bear truthful witness, keep their own promises, and entrust what exceeds their reach to God. The Rechabites remind readers that long obedience is possible and that God's attention is not confined to prominent kings or celebrated prophets. Quiet fidelity within a household can become a public testimony that exposes an entire nation's refusal to listen.

In the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord: "Take a scroll and write on it all the words I have spoken to you concerning Israel, Judah and all the other nations from the time I began speaking to you in the reign of Josiah till now. Perhaps when the people of Judah hear about every disaster I plan to inflict on them, they will each turn from their wicked ways; then I will forgive their wickedness and their sin." The king sent Jehudi to get the scroll, and Jehudi brought it from the room of Elishama the secretary and read it to the king and all the officials standing beside him. Whenever Jehudi had read three or four columns of the scroll, the king cut them off with a scribe's knife and threw them into the firepot, until the entire scroll was burned in the fire. The king and all his attendants who heard all these words showed no fear, nor did they tear their clothes. (Jeremiah 36:1–3, 21, 23, 24 NIV)

This is remarkable. God graciously provides His people an eleventh-hour opportunity to repent, but instead of repentance the king and all his attendants manifest no fear of God and simply and literally toss God's Word into the fire. Is this fearlessness to be praised? Wow, the king is standing up to God's Word! Look at that boldness!

No! There is nothing praiseworthy in spurning your Creator. There's nothing wise in slapping the graciously offered hand of the Judge that can condemn you to hell forever. Yet, this is exactly what King Jehoiakim and his attendants do.

Friends, there is a time to be afraid. Even when you think you are right, you should be terribly afraid if you discover that God is against you. Even if you are not afraid of the stronger army or the fiercer opponent, you should be afraid of God. I recall in the Chronicles of Narnia one of the children asking the Beavers about the great Aslan, a lion who represents the God-man, Christ Jesus. They ask them, "Is He safe?" I believe they answer, "No. He is not safe. But He is good." This representation of God can illustrate what Paul wrote to the Philippian church:

Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. (Philippians 2:12, 13 NIV)

Paul is not simply talking about reverence for God here. This expression, "fear and trembling," speaks of an awareness of God's freedom and power to save or to completely destroy. The motivation to trust in Christ because God can otherwise cast you into hell is just as valid as the motivation to trust in Him because God loves you. As Jesus also taught:

"I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. (Luke 12:4, 5 NIV)

That said, when God is with you and when you are walking in His will and accomplishing His purposes, then you have nothing to fear. In that case failure is nothing, rejection is nothing, defeat is nothing, death is but a prelude to eternal life. Why? Because God is greater than all of these things. Today, I share with you this psalm of praise for God, our only hope:

Truly my soul finds rest in God; my salvation comes from him. Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken. How long will you assault me? Would all of you throw me down—this leaning wall, this tottering fence? Surely they intend to topple me from my lofty place; they take delight in lies. With their mouths they bless, but in their hearts they curse. Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him. Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken. My salvation and my honor depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge. Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge. Surely the lowborn are but a breath, the highborn are but a lie. If weighed on a balance, they are nothing; together they are only a breath. Do not trust in extortion or put vain hope in stolen goods; though your riches increase, do not set your heart on them. One thing God has spoken, two things I have heard: "Power belongs to you, God, and with you, Lord, is unfailing love"; and, "You reward everyone according to what they have done." (Psalm 62:1–12 NIV)

So friends, let us trust in the LORD! This weekend I have the wonderful privilege of sharing at our first Youn Wha Martial Arts Retreat. I have not crafted a message for the occasion, but I will simply be sharing from my daily reading of God's Word. As we are reading from Jeremiah, I have chosen to share a little about Jeremiah's hope-filled description of the New Covenant. Please pray that I will speak both clearly and boldly to all that God brings to hear me.

AI-Expanded Reflection

Jeremiah 36 begins with mercy: the written record of judgment is intended to give Judah another opportunity to hear, turn, and receive forgiveness. The scroll is therefore not only an announcement of doom. It is a means by which the Lord's long-standing appeal reaches the people again. Jehoiakim's deliberate cutting and burning of its columns rejects that offered correction while creating the appearance that the message can be disposed of physically.

The narrative distinguishes the king's reaction from the fear shown by some officials earlier in the chapter. Several urge him not to burn the scroll (36:25), and others have already told Jeremiah and Baruch to hide. The community is not a single undifferentiated response. That detail matters because faithful reception may begin among people inside an institution whose leading figure is resistant. Authority does not make the king's indifference the standard everyone must adopt.

The Lord's command to write the words again, with further material added, exposes the limits of royal control (36:27–32). Destroying the physical document cannot undo the truth it conveys. The king can interrupt a reading but cannot make himself the final judge of God's message. The irony is especially sharp because the act meant to display power instead becomes evidence preserved in the book against him.

The Narnia illustration points toward a useful distinction between goodness and manageability. The conversation about Aslan occurs with the Beavers, not talking mice, as the official C. S. Lewis site also recalls. Lewis's later story can illustrate biblical themes, but Paul could not have had it in mind when writing Philippians. The direction of the comparison must be kept clear: a modern literary image helps readers consider an earlier scriptural teaching.

Philippians 2:12–13 places fear and trembling within God's active work among believers. Luke 12:4–7 similarly joins fear of God's ultimate authority with assurance that he knows even the hairs of his people's heads. These passages should not be separated into a picture of arbitrary power on one side and sentimental comfort on the other. Reverence receives both the seriousness of judgment and the care of the Father.

For contemporary readers, burning the scroll has quieter equivalents: avoiding a passage that questions a profitable practice, dismissing correction because of its messenger, or repeatedly postponing repentance. The response is not merely to preserve a Bible physically but to receive its truthful address. Psalm 62's invitation to pour out the heart offers a fitting posture. We can bring fear and resistance before the Lord, entrust ourselves to his power and love, and allow the word we profess to reshape the conduct we would rather protect.

In Jeremiah 37:18–19 we read Jeremiah's petition to King Zedekiah: what offense has he committed, that he's been imprisoned — and where now are the prophets who assured the king that Babylon would never come against Jerusalem (a paraphrase of Jeremiah 37:18–19)? Even so, Zedekiah keeps Jeremiah in prison. Isn't that remarkable? You'd think that once the king realized all the other prophets had been wrong and Jeremiah right all along, he'd finally listen — but he doesn't. There's a real lesson here: people tend to hold onto their existing biases even when confronted with clear evidence to the contrary, preferring familiar ground, even destructive ground, over admitting they were wrong. This shows up everywhere — in the stock market, in relationships, and especially in matters of faith, where it can distort our whole understanding of God and how we interpret and apply His word. Many in Jesus's own day fell into the same pattern. Paul writes that Israel had "a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge," pursuing their own righteousness rather than submitting to God's (a paraphrase of Romans 10:1–3), stubbornly following their own way even as God kept His hands stretched out to a disobedient people (a paraphrase of Romans 10:21, quoting Isaiah 65:2). I fear we sometimes live in a similar moment today — where people prefer subjective experience and emotionally compelling stories over careful examination of Scripture, sometimes even drawing on practices with little real connection to biblical teaching, marketed as expressions of "faith." Some modern movements built heavily around dramatic healing claims have, in my own study over the years, raised real concerns for me: claimed healings today rarely resemble the kind the New Testament documents carefully and publicly (someone born blind, a man disabled for thirty-eight years, healings even hostile witnesses had to acknowledge), and are far more often unverifiable or, on closer examination, temporary. I've personally watched unverified stories get repeated from pulpits without any real effort to check them, simply because they're emotionally compelling. None of this changes the actual gospel — salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, who paid for our sins — but I do think these kinds of departures, however sincerely intended, can gradually pull people away from Scripture's sufficiency as the real authority. Paul warned of exactly this: a time would come when people wouldn't tolerate sound teaching, but would gather teachers who told them what their itching ears wanted to hear, turning from truth toward myths instead (a paraphrase of 2 Timothy 4:3–4). King Zedekiah stubbornly preferred comfortable lies over Jeremiah's proven truth right to the very end. I hope we can learn to examine everything we're told, the way the Bereans did, rather than simply following whatever feels most emotionally compelling in the moment.

AI-Expanded Reflection

The pattern this comment identifies — clinging to a familiar, comfortable belief even after it's been repeatedly disproven — is worth connecting to something psychologists now call confirmation bias, though Jeremiah's account predates that terminology by roughly 2,600 years. What's notable about Zedekiah's specific case is that his resistance wasn't really intellectual; by this point in the narrative, he seems to privately believe Jeremiah is right (he consults him secretly more than once), yet still can't bring himself to act on that belief publicly. That gap between private conviction and public action is worth naming as its own distinct danger, separate from simple ignorance — sometimes the obstacle to faithfulness isn't not knowing the truth, but lacking the courage to act on truth one already quietly accepts.

Jeremiah 39:18 — because you trusted Me, I will give you your life as a reward, and rescue and keep you safe. I, the LORD, have spoken (a paraphrase).

We don't actually hear God speak directly to this person — only that he feared for someone's life. The "voice in his head," presumably, was the only thing he actually heard. But the willingness to do what was right is what God counts as trusting Him. We can assume he acted with God in mind, and I like that doing things because of God is like doing them as though directly instructed. Knowing who God is becomes the actual source of our directives.

AI-Expanded Reflection

Worth naming who this promise is actually made to, since it sharpens the point being made here: this is God's word to Ebed-Melech, a foreign court official — a Cushite, not even an Israelite — who had risked his own standing to rescue Jeremiah from a cistern where he'd been left to die (Jeremiah 38:7–13). Ebed-Melech never receives a direct prophetic vision or audible voice; he simply acts, at real personal risk, because it was right. This comment's own insight — that acting rightly with God in mind functions like obedience even without a direct command — is exactly what the text itself seems to reward: God's specific promise of protection in the coming destruction of Jerusalem goes to a foreign servant whose only recorded "instruction" was his own conscience responding to an innocent man's suffering.