Courage to Obey God

Well, good morning, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This morning, we are going to do Jeremiah chapter 39, verses 1 through 10. What happens to Jerusalem? We'll find out. Let's have some coffee, we'll pray, and we'll get to God's Word. All right, none for you.
Let's pray. God, thank you so much for this day. Thank you for your Word. Thank you for the blessing of getting to read your word and to hear from you. Father, we pray that we would read and understand. Lord, I pray that you would please help us. Give us your Holy Spirit to teach us in Jesus's name. Amen. All right, so we'll go paragraph by paragraph. Ready? And by that, I mean like, I'll read. No, actually, you'll read, I'll read, you'll read. We'll kind of talk about each paragraph as we go. Okay.
In the ninth year of Zedekiah, King Judah, in the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar, King Babylon, and all his army came against Jerusalem and besieged it. In the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, on the ninth day of the month, the city was penetrated. Alright, so what's that saying? um nebuchadnezzar besieges jerusalem and gets into it all right yeah so besiege right surrounds the city starts choking starving it out right and so uh and then in the fourth month of the ninth year of the month or sorry the fourth month of the ninth day of the month right they break through the walls they penetrate the city okay firstly Then all the princes of the king of Babylon came and sat in the middle gate.
Negar, Negol, sorry, Nergal, Sherezer, Shamgar-Nebo, Shar-Shemim, Shar-Shechem, Rab-Sar-Ris, man, I'm having a hard time today reading these names. Negol, Nergal, Sar-Ezer, Rab-Mag, with all the rest of the princes of the King of Babylon. All right, so the princes or the officials, they're the ones who actually come into the city, right? So you get the next part, congratulations.
So it was when Zedekiah the king of Judah and all the men of Ur saw them, that they fled and went out of the city by night, by way of the king's garden, by the gate between the two walls. And he went out by way of the plain, but the Chaldean army pursued them and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho.
And when they had captured him, they brought him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to in the land of Hamath, where he pronounced judgment on him. And the king of Babylon killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes. The king of Babylon also killed all the nobles of Judah. Moreover, he put out Zedekiah's eyes and bound him with bronze fetters to carry him off to Babylon. And the Chaldeans burned the king's house and the houses of the people with fire, and broke down the walls of Jerusalem.
Then Nebuchadnezzar the captain of the guard carried away captive to Babylon the remnant of the people. who remained in the city and those who defected to him with the rest of the people who remained but neb azaradan the captain of the guard left in the land of judah the poor people who had nothing and gave them vineyards and fields at the same time okay so what's that part about um so nebuchadnezzar is like zedekiah you tried to You tried to, um, you tried to defy me. I'm going to kill all your sons and make sure that's the last thing you see. Yeah. Isn't that horrible? It kills all the sons and then gouges out his eyes and burns the city to fire, especially the King's house at notes.
Did you know he could have avoided all of this? yeah in that previous part 38 uh 14 through 27 jeremiah told him if if you surrender the king of babylon you won't die and the city won't burn and then the captain of the guard is like i'm gonna take all the Oh, and you poor people, I'll be generous and give you land and fingers. Well, yeah, right.
That gives them favor, right? They don't just conquer a land and leave it desolate. They need people who are going to be subservient. The king of Babylon was the one who had made Zedekiah a vassal king. So he's probably kind of... So it's not just defying, it's also rebelling. Yeah. Right. And so, yeah, that's what happens.
So there was an opportunity to listen to the Lord, because it was the Lord himself who had said, surrender and you'll live. Or surrender and these things won't happen and will go well. But instead, Zedekiah doesn't want to listen. He even tries to escape. They fled away and went out of the city by night, by way of the king's garden. But this coward's gonna die.
Yeah. What movie is that from? inside out okay okay yeah so it's a coward's way out right yeah so what would have been the courageous thing to do to uh face nebuchadnezzar and even just try to fight even though it's hopeless or do what the Lord had said and just surrender. Maybe the most courageous thing to do is the thing that people think would be the least courageous. But sometimes following the Lord is the most courageous thing to do. And I don't know about you, but when the Lord himself says something, thus says the Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel, if you surely surrender the King of Babylon's princes, then your soul shall live and the city shall not be burned with fire and you and your house shall live. Maybe you should listen to what the Lord says.
What do you think is the best verse to summarize verses 1 through 10 of chapter 39? Two. You think in verse two? Yeah, I think so too. But I also think there's a whole lot of verses 4 through 9 that are direct fulfillments of Jeremiah's prophecies that were true. Even though there are all sorts of other prophets who are saying, oh, it's gonna go great for you. Just fight. You're gonna do great. There are a whole bunch of lying prophets. Just like the friends of Solomon's son.
Yeah, Rehoboam. All right, so go ahead and talk to me about what you're called to do from this. How does this point you to Jesus Christ? What are you called to do? God. So it's just that moralistic. Listen to God. Not exactly. There's a bunch of other stuff. Okay. Give me some. I think you're right at a base level, right? Yeah.
Listen to the Lord's Word. Even when it's hard, it might take courage to do the counterintuitive thing. and don't take the coward's way out. Don't take the coward's way out? Do you think following the Lord and surrendering would have been the coward's way out? No. Because the Lord told them to. Yeah, but I bet a bunch of people were going to call him a coward. A coward, a sellout. Who cares what they think? What do you mean, who cares what they think? God told you to do it. You do it even though people are going to think you're crazy.
Oh, but you never have problems with peer pressure or struggle with that, do you? It's super easy to not be peer pressured. Yeah, sometimes it's really hard, right? It's really hard. And so the courageous thing is, even though the world might say, oh, you're acting like a coward. Don't be a sissy, right? Just do it. You're just being a scaredy-pants.
Like, no, hold on, I love the Lord. I'm gonna listen to the Lord. Even though the world might say that this is the cowardest thing to do, I'm gonna listen to what God says. That's true strength, that's true courage. But it's the Holy Spirit who enables us to do that, and then we, from our wills, actually choose to do it. So I think that's what Jesus was talking about with abiding in him, right? We need to be with the Lord. We need to abide in Christ. We need to live in Christ. So then we're able to produce this courageous choices to follow him, even though it's against our nature, against our friends, against our culture, against even things that we might naturally want.
Cool. Cool. You want to pray or you want me to pray? May God choose. God, thank you so much for this day. Thank you for time together in your Word. Thank you for sending us your Holy Spirit. Father, we pray that your Spirit would advocate for us, comfort us, be with us, care for us, and also, Lord, that you would indeed help us to be courageous, to walk in your ways. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Well, may the Lord be with you. May you walk in the joy and peace of Jesus, no matter what the culture or friends around you say. I'll see you next time. Bye.