As God tries to teach us about himself and what he expects from his people, sometimes he will use two events and set them next to each other so that we can compare and contrast the situations. As we come to Jeremiah 34-35 we are going to read about two groups of people who have two different responses to hearing the word of the Lord. Before we get into the text, I want to set up our study with an important question. How do you respond when you hear the word of the Lord? Open your copies of God’s word to Jeremiah 34 and we will begin with the first picture.
Disobedience (Jeremiah 34:1-22)
The word of the Lord comes to Jeremiah when Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, has put Judah under his control and his now fighting against Jerusalem and its surrounding cities. The message is clear. God is going to give Jerusalem into the hands of king of Babylon and he is going to destroy the city (Jeremiah 34:2). Zedekiah, the king of Judah, will be captured and speak to the king of Babylon face to face (Jeremiah 34:3). Even though Zedekiah will be captured, he will not die by the sword. Rather, he is going to die in peace and there will be ceremony for his death like the kings in the past (Jeremiah 34:4-5). Jeremiah takes this message and tells Zedekiah while Nebuchadnezzar continues his attack against Jerusalem and the remaining fortified cities.
Now we are going to be told what led up to this final proclamation from the Lord. Jeremiah has been declaring that God was giving the city and nation over to Babylon. We have read this message on many occasions in this book. So notice what led up to this moment. In verse 8 we read that Zedekiah had made a covenant with a proclamation that they should set their slaves free and not enslave one another. Now what is interesting about this proclamation is that God’s law had already instructed the people to do this. First, no one was to be captured and forced into slavery. Second, when a person offered himself up as a slave to pay their debts and obligation, they were only allowed to serve for six years. In the seventh year you were to set him free from his slavery and debt. Further, you were to give to him liberally when he was set free (cf. Deuteronomy 15:12-17; Leviticus 25:39-46). All of these things were a reminder about how God had set them free from their slavery to Egypt and they were set free with Egypt’s riches as they had their new beginning. What we are reading in Jeremiah 34 is that the people had not been obeying this command.
In Jeremiah 34:10 we read that the people obeyed, setting their slaves free so that they would not be enslaved again. However, they changed their minds, took back their slaves, and forced them to be slaves again. So the word of the Lord comes with a message about their disobedience. You were supposed to set free any of your Hebrew slaves every seven years. “But your ancestors did not obey me or pay any attention” (Jeremiah 34:14). You see that this was an ongoing failure and not a recent problem. You repented, proclaimed freedom, and made a covenant before the Lord to let them go. But you changed your minds and have profaned my name when you said you would do this but then changed your mind (Jeremiah 34:15-16). Since they did not obey the Lord by proclaiming freedom, the Lord will proclaim freedom for these people: a freedom to the sword, plague, and famine (Jeremiah 34:17). Since you did not keep the terms of the covenant, then you will be treated like the pieces that were cut in two during that covenant ceremony (Jeremiah 34:18-20).
Now we might wonder what happened here. Why did Zedekiah make this proclamation and why did the people obey? Then after they obeyed, why did they change their minds and go against God’s word and the covenant they made? Verse 21 gives us the answer. Verse 21 tells us that the Babylonian armies had withdrawn themselves for a time. Jeremiah 37:4-13 tells us that the reason the Babylonian armies had withdrawn from Jerusalem was because the Egyptian armies had come to support Zedekiah and the nation of Judah. So when the Babylonians stopped their invasion against Jerusalem, what did the people do? Did the people praise the Lord, repent of their sins, and devote themselves to the Lord with all their heart? No, what happened is when the Babylonian threat went away, the people returned to their old sinful ways.
What we are reading here is what I am calling panic piety. What I mean by this is what we see the people of Jerusalem doing. When things look really bad and life looks doomed, the people starting trying to obey the Lord. They start making changes in their lives. They look at the laws of God and they pick some things that they need to change. In this case, they set their slaves free and make a covenant that they are going to keep this law going forward. They are now going to start caring about the things of God. But as soon as the crisis appears to be averted, then the people return to ignoring God and not listening to him. They go back on their word. They go back on their covenant. They went out, retrieved those slaves, and forced them into service, defying what God had told them to do.
This is a common response to adversity. We are living our lives. We are doing what we want to do. We are doing some things that God has said but ignoring other things that God has said. But then something traumatic happens in our lives. Something bad happens to us. Something terrible smashes our lives. So we respond with panic piety. We start going to church more. We start praying more. We starting trying to treat other people better. We start trying to conquer our “hidden” sins. We try to be nicer at work. We try to clean up our speech. We start trying to change some externals. But as soon as the crisis is averted, we stop the external devotion. We go back to our sins. We stop going to church like we were. We stop praying. We stop all the things that we were doing during the crisis. The reason this happens is because the response was not a repentance of the heart. The response was just from fear and panic.
Obedience (Jeremiah 35:1-11)
Now the book of Jeremiah wants to show us a staggering contrast in Jeremiah 35. Jeremiah 35 tells us about an event that happened in the days of Jehoakim, the king of Judah. Jehoakim’s reign was just a few years prior to Zedekiah’s reign. Jeremiah is told to go to the house of the Rechabites. Bring them to the temple of the Lord and offer them to drink wine (Jeremiah 35:2). So Jeremiah does what God told him to do. Jeremiah sets jars of wine in front of them and told them to drink wine (Jeremiah 35:5). Listen to their response in verses 6-11. They answer Jeremiah that they do not drink wine. The reason why they do not drink wine is because their ancestor Jonadab commanded for all of his descendants to not drink wine. Further, Jonadab had also said that they were not to build a house, sow seed, or plant a vineyard. Not only this, they were instructed to always live in tents where they are sojourning. Listen to verse 8. They obeyed everything that Jonadab instructed. They did not drink wine, did not build houses to live in, did not have vineyards or fields, nor sown seed. They lived in tents and obeyed everything their ancestor Jonadab commanded them (Jeremiah 35:10). At the moment they are living in Jerusalem because of the Babylonian invasion (Jeremiah 35:11). Please note that Jonadab was not their father but a long dead ancestor. Jonadab lives 250 years earlier. Imagine if you had some ancestor long ago who made this covenant for his descendants to not drink, live in houses, plant a vineyard, or sow seed. Imagine that he made that command back 250 years ago, which would be 1775. Around the time of the American revolution, your long dead ancestor had said these words. What would you think? Would you keep what he said? Let’s look at what God thinks about this in verse 12.
The Contrast (Jeremiah 35:12-19)
Jeremiah is told to tell all the people to learn the lesson from this event. Jonadab’s descendants have continued to obey the voice of their ancestor. Look at the end of verse 14. “But I have spoken to you time and time again, and you have not obeyed me!” God sent his prophets, telling the people to turn from their evil ways and to change their actions. But they did not pay attention or obey (Jeremiah 35:15). Jonadab followed their human forefather but you have not listened to the Almighty God (Jeremiah 35:16). Therefore, disaster is coming on Judah because they have not listened (Jeremiah 35:17). But a blessing is proclaimed on the descendants of Jonadab for their covenant loyalty (Jeremiah 35:18-19).
The contrast is clear. God’s word is enough for our complete obedience. How many times have we told God that we would make life changes only to go back to our old way of living after a little bit of time? How many times have we called out to the Lord in a crisis and starting making godly changes to our lives only to return to our sins after the crisis is averted? How many times have we tried to trick God into seeing our external changes without having a true repentance from the heart? How many times have we asked for God’s rescue and help only to forget how he rescued us and returned to ignoring his instructions? The loyalty God wants is the loyalty we see in the descendants of Jonadab. God wants our faithfulness to his instructions simply because he said so. Are you impressed by the loyalty of the Rechabites? They obeyed simply because their ancestor said so many years earlier. God wants us to be loyal to him in the same way. Listen to how James made this point:
22 But be sure you live out the message and do not merely listen to it and so deceive yourselves. 23 For if someone merely listens to the message and does not live it out, he is like someone who gazes at his own face in a mirror. 24 For he gazes at himself and then goes out and immediately forgets what sort of person he was. (James 1:22-24 NET)
We deceive ourselves if we merely listen to the word but do not live it. We deceive ourselves if we listen week after week but do not make any changes. We deceive ourselves if we listen, make changes, but then change our minds and go back to what we were doing before. God wants our faithful loyalty to him and a desire to listen to him during the good times and the bad times. God does not want to only be listened to when we are in a crisis. He is to be our Lord no matter what season of life we are experiencing. Turn your life to the Lord and then do not turn back (cf. Luke 9:62). You will be tempted to turn away from your renewed devotion. Do not give into Satan’s temptation. Be loyal to the Lord and listen to him in every circumstance.