Jeremiah 37 Please pray for me!

1 Zedekiah son of Josiah was made king of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; he reigned in place of Jehoiachin [a] son of Jehoiakim. 2 Neither he nor his attendants nor the people of the land paid any attention to the words the LORD had spoken through Jeremiah the prophet.

3 King Zedekiah, however, sent Jehucal son of Shelemiah with the priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah to Jeremiah the prophet with this message: "Please pray to the LORD our God for us."


COMMENT:

Typical person, Zedekiah. He doesn't pay any attention to the words the Lord spoke through Jeremiah, but yet he wants Jeremiah to pray for him. Does he even believe in God really, or is he just hedging his bets? This is another stellar example of human nature. We want God's favor, but we don't want to pay attention to God's words. We want the 'good stuff', but we want it all for free, with no obligation or effort on our own part.

TANGENT:

Now, I might think "Well, salvation IS free!

Eph 2:8-10 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Yes it is a gift, and God made it that way because earning it is impossible since the wages of sin are death. We will never deserve salvation because of our own righteous actions, because we are already stained by sin.

However --- there is nevertheless an obligation involved. Our obligation is not to our sinful self, but to the Lord who has saved us.

Romans 8:12-14 Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. 13 For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. 14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.

Following God, putting to death the misdeeds of the body, shows -- AFTER the fact, AFTER being saved -- that we ARE saved. This does not entail perfection, but it does entail gradual changes toward obeying God in some areas of our lives.

Why, then, is it that Christians often don't seem like they are better people than anyone else? Some non-Christian people seem more 'good' than some Christians I know. I think this may be because we don't realize the depths of our sinfulness, and we don't start to discover the depths of our sinfulness until we start trying to follow Christ and we are in the process of sanctification. And as we discover the depth of our sinfulness, we discover in parallel the depth of the God's mercy. The phrase "The more I know, the more I realize how much I don't know" comes to mind here. As I start to learn what following Christ means, the contrast between what God created me to be and what I am in my day-to-day actions and attitudes becomes more and more stark. The more I try, the more I fail. I am thrown again into despair and awareness of my extreme need for Christ alone. I again bow at the foot of the cross. Gradually, Jesus makes the fruits of the spirit develop in my life but, apace with that 'progress' is my awareness of the depth of my sinfulness so that I will continue to be dependent on Him rather that stray into thinking that I can now live a godly life on my own, in my own power.

BACK TO ZEDEKIAH:

God isn't fooled. God does not relent. God does insist that we bow down to him and honor him and recognize that he is the one true God. Jeremiah lets Zedekiah know that the Babylonians will be back, and Zedekiah tosses him in the dungeon. Guess he didn't like that answer.

Neither do we, sometimes.