Jeremiah 36:1-32 "All the Words"

1:04But if you think $500 a ticket is a good deal, I've got some ocean front property in Arizona to sell you. George Strait has recorded a record 60 number one hits in the course of his career. And exactly 25 years ago, this month, he released one of those number one hit singles. It was called Write This Down. And in the second verse of Jeremiah chapter 36 today, God tells Jeremiah to write down all the words of the Lord that he had spoken to him from the beginning of his ministry to that very day.

1:49Now, you and I might pass right over those words because writing stuff down is second nature to us. We do it every single day, we've done it every day of our entire lives. But in the ancient world, very few people could read or write. And even if you could, getting something to write with or to write on was very difficult. Paper was produced by hand, it was rare, and it was very expensive. So it is significant that God tells Jeremiah, a man who lives in an oral culture, to write down all the words that I have spoken to you from the beginning of his ministry to the present day in the fourth year of King Jehoiakim.

2:40All the words. That phrase appears 14 times in this one chapter. It fits because Jeremiah is the second longest book in the Bible. But of course, Jeremiah is just one of 66 divinely inspired books. In the Bible, which contains all the words that God has spoken to us. 757,439, to be exact, in the English standard version that we use here at New Life. So the question is: why? Why does God speak all the words to us?

3:22Well, think about it for a moment. If God had never spoken to us, we would still be able to go outside and look at the sun and the moon and the stars, all of creation. We'd be able to look at ourselves and each other and draw the conclusion that this world and everything in it must have a creator. That is the point of Psalm 19. That is the point of Romans 1 and 2. That is the point of many passages in Scripture that we can see clearly from what has been made, from the design of the world, that God exists and that he made all things.

4:04But if God never spoke to us, we would not know who he is. We would not know what kind of God He is. We wouldn't know what, if anything, God wanted from us. We would not know why we exist or the purpose and meaning of life. But thankfully, God has spoken to us. Not just one time, not just through one person or in just one way. He has spoken to us many times through many people in many ways over many years. He has indeed spoken all the words to us.

4:50And so we'll see this morning that God speaks all the words, so we will repent and be forgiven. When our text opens in Jeremiah 36, it is the fourth year of King Jehoiakim, the wicked son of King Josiah, one of the godliest kings that Judah ever had. King Jehoiakim has been in power since 609 B.C., and he would be in power until 597 B.C., when he and many of the people in Jerusalem would be carried off into exile in Babylon for their sin.

5:27And as we heard, God commands Jeremiah to write down all the words that he spoke from the beginning of Jeremiah's ministry in 627 BC to the present day in 605 B.C. Why? Look again at verse 3. It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the disaster that I intend to do to them, so that everyone may turn from his evil way and that I may forgive them. Their iniquity and their sin. We really see the heart of God in this verse, don't we?

6:10Merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Even after hundreds and hundreds of years of the people's sin and disobedience, even after he allowed the nation of Assyria to conquer the ten northern tribes of Israel and wipe them out for their lawless idolatry, even as the first wave of people is about to be taken into exile to Babylon, even as all of those things are happening, God is still speaking to his people.

6:47And he is speaking to his people so that everyone may turn from his evil way and that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin. Friends, do you hear that? The whole purpose of God speaking, the whole purpose of having Jeremiah write down all the words that God has spoken is to move the people to repent, to move them to turn from their evil way, so that God may forgive their iniquity and their sin. Romans 2:4 tells us that the kindness of God is meant to lead us to repentance. And God has been accepted. Exceedingly kind to the people of Judah.

7:33He is not giving them a second chance in this passage. He is giving them a 500th chance. Here in verse 3, God tells Jeremiah what may happen this time, what he hopes will happen this time, that the people will finally listen to him, that they will finally heed the warnings of the punishment that is coming for their unrepentant sin, that they will turn from their evil ways so that God may forgive their iniquity and their sin. Now, I want you to think for a moment about why most people speak to you.

8:11Think about walking through the mall. All of those little kiosks in the centers of the walkways, the employees circling around like sharks. Imagine yourself on campus walking by Rudder Fountain. All the student organizations have their tables, they've got their posters and their flyers handing things out. Why do these people want to speak to you? It's because they want something from you. They want your money. They want your attention. They want your attendance at an event. They want your signature on a petition.

8:52They want to speak to you because they want something from you. But, friends, God is different. Look at Psalm 50, verse 12. God says, if I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine. You see, when God speaks to us, it is not because he wants something from us. When God speaks to us, it's because he wants something for us. And that is forgiveness. But if the people of Judah wanted to be forgiven, they had to repent.

9:33They had to turn from their evil ways, from all of their sin and idolatry. And that is true for us as well. If we want to be forgiven, if we want to be reconciled to God, then we have to turn from our evil. We have to turn from our sin because that is what is required. Repentance precedes forgiveness. Forgiveness is absorbing the cost of someone else's sin. And unbelievably, God is willing to do that. He is more than willing. He is eager to do that, to absorb the cost of our sin against him.

10:16But friends, if we want to be forgiven, we have to repent. We have to first acknowledge that we have sinned against God and others. We have to confess our sin, and then we have to turn away from it. That is the consistent message of the entire Bible. Look at how Jesus began his ministry in Mark chapter 1. Now, after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God and saying, the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel. Look at Acts chapter 3. Peter and John are preaching this to the crowd. Repent, therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out.

11:06Look at 2 Corinthians chapter 7. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. Friends, this is God's heart for you and me. He is willing and eager to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But we must repent. We must turn from our evil ways, exhibiting godly grief instead of worldly grief. Not because our repentance earns God's forgiveness, but because repentance shows that we understand the seriousness of our sin against God and other people.

11:57And so Jeremiah calls his assistant Baruch. And he writes down on a scroll all the words of the Lord as Jeremiah dictates to him. Jehoiakim told Jeremiah that he couldn't come to the temple anymore, and so Jeremiah told Baruch that he's going to have to go and read the scroll on a day of fasting when everybody would have been present at the temple to worship. And so a year goes by, probably because it took that long to write the scroll, and also because that was probably the next fast day that was proclaimed, Baruch goes to the temple and reads the words. So let's pick up now in verse 11 of chapter 36.

12:40When Miciah, the son of Gemariah, the son of Shaphon, heard all the words of the Lord from the scroll, he went down to the king's house into the secretary's chamber, and all the officials were sitting there: Elishima, the secretary, Deliah, the son of Shemiah, El Nathan, the son of Akbor, Gemariah, the son of Shephon, Zedekiah, the son of Hananiah, and all the officials. And Miciah told them all the words that he had heard when Baruch read the scroll in the hearing of the people. Then all the officials sent Jehudi, the son of Nephaniah, son of Shelamiah, son of Cushi, to say to Baruch, Take in your hand the scroll that you read in the hearing of the people and come. So Baruch, the son of Nariah, took the scroll in his hand and came to them. And they said to him, Sit down. And read it. So Baruch read it to them. When they heard all the words, they turned to one another in fear. And they said to Baruch, we must report all these words to the king. Then they asked Baruch, tell us, please, how did you write all these words? Was it at his dictation? Baruch answered them, he dictated all these words to me while I wrote them with ink on the scroll. Then the officials said to Baruch, Go and hide, you and Jeremiah, and let no one know where you are.

14:04Micaiah this important court official is present at the temple when Baruch reads Jeremiah's scroll. He is shaken by what he hears, and so he runs to the king's house, he goes into the secretary's chamber, and he shares with all these officials what God has spoken through Jeremiah. So the officials dispatch this man named Jehudi to bring Baruch and the scroll. And when he arrives, he sits down, he winds the scroll back to the very beginning, and he reads the entire thing again to this whole group of officials. I want you to look again at verse 16.

14:44When they heard all the words, they turned to one another in fear. Why were they so afraid? Well, I want you to consider the context. At this point, Jeremiah has. Been prophesying for about 23 years. With a few bright exceptions, the whole book of Jeremiah is a warning about the coming judgment of the Lord if the people don't repent of their sin and turn back to him. And all these officials are hearing all of these prophecies at once, at the same time, at one sitting. They are not broken up by months or years like they actually were when Jeremiah preached them. They are hearing all of these prophecies at the same time. So think about this. When Jeremiah first started prophesying in 627 BC, there was no imminent threat. The great power to the north, Assyria, had been defeated 100 years ago by the angel of the Lord under Isaiah's ministry and Hezekiah's kingdom. Egypt was always a threat, but they were to the west, not to the north. So imagine what the people are thinking when Jeremiah says these words in chapter 6.

16:04Flee for safety, O people of Benjamin, from the midst of Jerusalem. Blow the trumpet in Takoa and raise a signal on Beth-Hakarem, for disaster looms out of the north and great destruction. The people are like, yeah, okay, buddy. We'll keep our eyes open for that destruction coming from the north. But then he prophesies more and more, and they get more and more. Specific until Jeremiah says this in chapter 28. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, I have put upon the neck of all these nations an iron yoke to serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and they shall serve him, for I have given to him even the beasts of the field.

16:51So in 612 BC, Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian army defeat Assyria at the Battle of Nineveh. Seven years later, in 605 BC, they defeat Egypt at the Battle of Carchemish. And just a few months before these words are written, guess who shows up on Jerusalem's doorstep? Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian army. And they say, if you don't submit to us and to our rule, we will wipe this city out. So picture the look on the officials' faces as they are hearing all of these prophecies, the entire book of Jeremiah read to them, and they realize that every one of these things has come to pass just as God said it would.

17:39That is why they're scared to death. Because whether they realized or not that God was speaking to them through Jeremiah before, they certainly realize that God is speaking to them through Jeremiah now. And so they tell Baruch, we've got to tell the king all these words. You and Jeremiah go and hide because they know what kind of a king that they serve. You see, friends, the fear of the Lord is what these men experienced. And the fear of the Lord is the result of hearing all the words of the Lord. When we hear the word of the Lord and we believe the word of the Lord, we develop a right fear, a holy fear of the infinite, holy, and perfect God of the universe to whom we are all accountable. The words of the Lord lead us to fear the Lord. And look what Proverbs 1 says: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction.

18:48The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, the beginning of wisdom. And knowledge and wisdom take us right back to the Word of God because every word is true and every word is profitable. Every word is from God. So think about the cycle that we see in Scripture. Take a look at this. God speaks his word to us. His word produces the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and wisdom leads us right back to the word of God. Because only fools despise wisdom and instruction from the Lord.

19:28Our response to the words. Of God must be just like these officials, who feared the Lord and wisely jumped into action, calling others to hear and obey God's words. But sadly, many others refused to hear and obey. Let's pick up at verse 20. So they went into the court to the king, having put the scroll in the chamber of Elishima the secretary, and they reported all the words to the king. Then the king sent Jehudi to get the scroll, and he took it from the chamber of Elishima the secretary. And Jehudi read it to the king and all the officials who stood beside the king. It was the ninth month, and the king was sitting in the winter house, and there was a fire burning in the firepot before him. As Jehudi read three or four columns, the king would cut them off with a knife and throw them into the fire in the firepot, until the entire scroll was consumed in the fire that was in the firepot. Yet neither the king nor any of his servants who heard all these words was afraid, nor did they tear their garments. Even when El Nathan and Deliah and Gemariah urged the king not to burn the scroll, he would not listen to them. And the king commanded Jeremiel, the king's son, and Sariah, the son of Azriel, and Shalamiah, the son of Abdiel, to seize Baruch the secretary and Jeremiah the prophet. But the Lord hid them.

21:03What a scene. What a vastly different response to the words of God. Miciah and all the officials heard the words of God. They turned to one another in fear and they repented. But King Jehoiakim and the members of his court heard the words of God, and yet not a single one of them was afraid or tore his garments. In the most shocking act of defiance of the words of God recorded in the entire Bible, King Jehoiakim mocks God and makes a game of it by cutting up the scroll piece by piece and throwing it into the fire.

21:51Instead of tearing their garments because the word of God burned in their heart, they tore the word of God and burned it in the fire. You can just picture El Nathan, Deliah, and Gemariah their mouths hanging wide open as they are urging this man not to do this to God's word, while the members of the court laugh at his bold act of defiance. It's not like Jehudi started reading the scroll, and after a few minutes, King Jehoiakim said, stop. I will. Listen to another word of this and grabs the scroll and throws the whole thing into the fire. At least at some level, that would be understandable. He hears the word of God, he's under conviction, he says, I don't want to hear this anymore, and he throws the whole thing away. It's foolish, it's sinful, but I can get there in my mind. But that's not what happens. Instead, King Jehoiakim listens to every single word of the Lord and he cuts it up piece by piece and throws it into the fire, hour after hour, until there is nothing left.

23:11He thoughtfully and deliberately rejected every word of God. My friends, you may never have burned the word of God before in your life. You probably haven't done that or anything like that. But there are countless ways to reject the words of God. You might sit politely in church every Sunday, listening to God's word, just like Jehoiakim did. And you may never say to anybody, I don't want to hear God's word. I don't believe God's Word. I reject God's Word.

23:52You may never say that. But remember, neither did the people of Israel or Judah. They continued going through all of the religious motions day after day, week after week, while worshiping false gods and living their lives in whatever way was right in their own eyes. And all along, they thought they were just fine because they didn't explicitly reject God's word like the nations around them or like King Jehoiakim. They convinced themselves that as long as they did the right stuff on the outside, it didn't matter what was going on in their hearts. But look now, Prophet Joel says, Yet, even now, declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning, and rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and he relents over disaster.

25:03You see, Jehoiakim and his officials did not bother to tear their garments. But even if they did, that would not have been enough. Because the people of Israel had been doing that for years. Tearing their clothes, going through the religious motions, offering sacrifices. They had been doing that stuff for centuries. Meanwhile, their hearts were far from God. devoted to idols and to sin. And so God says through Joel and through Jeremiah and through John the Baptist and Jesus and all of the apostles, return to me with all your heart. Rend your hearts and not your garments.

25:56So please understand, just because you have never explicitly rejected the words of God does not mean that you have returned to him with all of your heart. Returning to him starts with listening to his words, turning away from evil, and it ends with being forgiven and reconciled to him, living a different life as a result. After all, that is why God speaks all his words to us in the first place, that we may repent and be forgiven.

26:28So friends, we must respond to all the words of God, and we will respond either with repentant faith or with rejection. Let's see how God judges us for our response, starting in verse 27. Now, after the king had burned the scroll with the words that Baruch wrote at Jeremiah's dictation, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah. Take another scroll and write on it all the former words that were in the first scroll, which Jehovah. Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, has burned. And according concerning Jehoiakim, king of Judah, you shall say, Thus says the Lord, You have burned this scroll, saying, Why have you written in it that the king of Babylon will certainly come and destroy this land, and will cut off from it man and beast?

27:17Therefore, thus says the Lord concerning Jehoiakim, king of Judah, he shall have none to sit on the throne of David, and his dead body shall be cast out to the heat by day and the frost by night. And I will punish him and his offspring and his servants for their iniquity. I will bring upon them and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem and upon the people of Judah all the disaster that I have pronounced against them. But they would not hear. Then Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to Baruch the scribe, the son of Nariah, who wrote on it at the dictation of Jeremiah all the words of the scroll that Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire. And many similar words were added to them.

28:04Jehoiakim thought that he could get rid of the word of God by burning it in the fire, but he couldn't. The word of God, as Hebrews tells us, is living and active. It can't be destroyed by human efforts of any kind. Look at Isaiah chapter 40. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God. God will stand forever. All the words of God will stand forever, no matter what. 3,500 years after Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible, 2,500 years after Jeremiah wrote these words, almost 2,000 years after the apostles wrote the New Testament, the word of God stands, and the word of God will stand forever. And as a picture of that reality, verse 27 tells us that after the king burned the scroll, God went to Jeremiah and told him to make another scroll and write all the former words that were on it. At this point, Baruch probably wishes he went to school for something else.

29:18But he does it. Baruch rewrites the entire scroll at Jeremiah's dictation, putting down all the former words and adds many similar words to them. What that meant, friends, was that everybody who was going to go into the exile could read those words. Every kid that would be born in Babylon could read those words. Everybody that came back from Babylon could read those words. And people like you and me, alive thousands and thousands of years later, could read all the words of God. Because Jeremiah spoke them and Baruch wrote them down. The word of our God will stand forever.

30:00And the judgment that God promised would also stand, because God never lies. And so King Jehoiakim would die. His body would be cast out into the street. His son would not sit on the throne. And the lineage of David would stop with him. The people of Jerusalem and Judah would experience all the disaster that God pronounced against them, the very disaster that God had been warning them about for decades, but they refused to hear. All the words of God would come to pass. Now, you remember at the outset of this chapter in verse 3, God said, It may be that the house of Judah will hear and turn from their evil way.

30:44That could have happened. That's what God wanted to happen. And at least for Micah and the officials, that seems to have happened. Everything in the text suggests that they heard the words of God, they repented, and that they were forgiven by God because that's what God promised to do. But for King Jehoiakim and his court officials, they didn't respond with repentance. And because of that, God would judge them for their response to all his words. In Hebrews chapter 3, the author quotes Psalm 95 multiple times. Over and over again, it says, Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.

31:30Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. Friends, that is the command addressed to every one of us this morning. God is speaking to us right here and right now because we are all hearing and reading his words in the Bible. If you've got some questions about that, come pick up a copy of this book, Why Trust the Bible? It's a great book to help you understand why we can trust that this is, in fact, the Word of God.

32:01But, friends, here in America, it's not just that we can hear all the words of God anytime we want. We have printed copies that we can open and read anytime we want to. People died to translate these Greek and Hebrew and Aramaic words into English so that we could read it in our native tongue. People died and still die to translate this book into other languages so that every tribe, tongue, and nation on this earth can hear the Word of God in their own native tongue.

32:40People died and still die to get a copy of the Bible for themselves. Many people in poor countries, if they have a copy of the Bible, it is the most precious thing that they own. It may be the only precious thing that they own. In John chapter 6, Jesus says some hard things. And many people in that huge crowd that were following him turned back and stopped. I want you to look at what John says. So Jesus said to the twelve, Do you want to go away as well? Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God.

33:35Peter is exactly right. Jesus does have the words of eternal life. He is the Holy One of God, God's only begotten Son, the word made flesh. You need to understand that Jesus' enemies attempted to destroy him too. Like Jehoiakim, they thought that they could get rid of the word of God by nailing him to the cross and leaving him there until he died. But that didn't work because Jesus is the word made flesh. And the word of our God stands forever.

34:19So on the third day, Jesus rose from the dead, victorious over sin and death, and he offers forgiveness and eternal life to anyone who will repent of their sin, to turn away from their evil, and Receive Jesus by faith. That is why God speaks all the words to us, friends. That is why. That He may forgive our iniquity and our sin and reconcile us to Himself. So we urge you on behalf of Christ this morning, be reconciled to God.

34:53Let's pray. Oh, Father, we thank you for the precious, the priceless gift that we have in the Word of God. We thank you that we have access to the Word of God because you commanded people to write it down so that it would be preserved for all times, that the Word of our God would indeed stand forever. God, we thank you most of all for Jesus, the Word made flesh, who came and lived and died and rose again, that we might know eternal life by knowing Him.

35:49Oh God, we pray for every person here today who has not yet turned from their sin and received Christ by faith. May today be the day they do that. We pray for every Christian in the room today that we would treasure your word, that it would be the most precious thing to us. That we would live as though we don't live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Thank you, Lord, for your word to us and for your grace that you displayed perfectly and finally and completely in Jesus.

36:30It's in His name that we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.