Jeremiah 37:1-38:28 "No One Can Serve Two Masters"

1:03She gets pulled into a crowd known as the Plastics, a group of popular but cruel girls. And at lunch one day, Gretchen, one of the plastics, is explaining the rules of the group to Katie. Things like, they always vote before allowing anybody to sit with them at lunch. And Gretchen explains: I mean, you wouldn't buy a skirt without asking your friends. First, if it looks good on you, and Katie replies, I wouldn't. And she's like, right.

1:44The plastics may be ridiculous, but these scenes hit close to home for almost all of us. I mean, have you ever wondered, why do I care so much about what other people think? You might be a middle school student who's embarrassed to be seen out in public with your family. You might be a junior in college sweating a class presentation in front of all of your fellow students. You might be an adult who's burning the candle at both ends to pay for cars and a house and vacations that you can't really afford because you're concerned about looking like you have your life figured out.

2:32In the Bible, caring too much about what other people think is called the fear of man. And the fear of man is driven by questions like, what will people think of me? And what will people do to me? Jesus taught that no one can serve two masters. And because no one can serve two masters, we will either fear God and live to please him or We will fear people and live to please them. But we will do one of those two things.

3:08And King Zedekiah's life is a vivid illustration of that truth. And so we're going to learn today that because no one can serve two masters, we will live to please either God or people. So let's take a look at the text together here, beginning in chapter 37. The outside of this chapter, King Nebuchadnezzar has forcibly removed King Jehoiakim and his son Koniah from the throne in Judah, and he placed Konia's uncle, Zedekiah, on the throne instead. Now, King Zedekiah would reign from 597 until the fall of Jerusalem 10 years later. So there was new Jerusalem, leadership rather, in Jerusalem, but there were the same old problems.

3:59Take a look again at verse 2. But neither Zedekiah nor his servants nor the people of the land listened to the words of the Lord that he spoke through Jeremiah the prophet. So just like almost all of his predecessors, King Zedekiah would not listen to the word of the Lord. His predecessor, Jehoiakim, was actively opposed to God's word. You might remember back in chapter 36 how he cut up the scroll of Jeremiah. With a knife and threw it into the fire to burn it. He was actively opposed to God's word. Well, Zedekiah's opposition didn't look like that.

4:41In fact, nothing that he ever said or did would lead you to believe that he was opposed to God's word. In fact, King Zedekiah actually seemed interested in hearing the word of the Lord. His opposition was not active, but passive. And in that sense, King Zedekiah's opposition was the same as most people's opposition to God and his word. See, most people will listen to sermons and teachings about the Bible. They'll read books about the Bible. They might even read the Bible for themselves.

5:16They just won't do what it says. That is passive opposition to the word of God. And that is what Zedekiah's opposition looked like. Now, ironically, people like Zedekiah, who passively are opposed to God's word and won't listen to God, they still want God to listen to them. And this is what we see here in the text. In verse 3, Zedekiah sends this delegation to Jeremiah saying, please pray to the Lord our God for us. But as we already know from our study of Jeremiah, Jeremiah can't do that. God had forbidden Jeremiah the prophet from praying for the people in chapter 7 and 11 and 14.

5:59God says, I I will not listen to your prayers, Jeremiah, on their behalf, and I won't listen to their prayers because they will not listen to me. So until they start listening to me, I won't start listening to them. In Zedekiah's case, he would not listen to God because he was too busy listening to everybody else. And he listened to everybody else because he cared more about what people thought than he cared about what God thought. And that's a temptation that all of us are very familiar with.

6:34Before the events of chapter 37, King Zedekiah had formed an alliance with Pharaoh Haphrah, the king of Egypt, and he asked him for help defeating their common enemy, Babylon. They're also known as the Chaldeans because the founder of the Babylonian dynasty was of Chaldean descent. And in turning to Egypt, Zedekiah repeated almost all of the same sins as his father's. He looked to other people, to political alliances, rather than to God to save him from trouble.

7:04And so Pharaoh sends his army towards Jerusalem, and Nebuchadnezzar is wise enough to know that he can't win a war on two fronts. So he stops the siege of Jerusalem. He turns southwest to go and confront Pharaoh's army that's coming toward him. And for a moment, it looks like Zedekiah's plan has worked. It looks like this alliance with Egypt is going to pan out. But then God speaks to Jeremiah, as we heard in these. First 10 verses, and he says, listen, don't think that the Babylonians are leaving never to return. They are coming back.

7:39And I tell you that even if you defeated their army, their wounded men would rise up and burn this city to the ground. So his message, God's message to Zedekiah is clear. You need to listen to me. You need to obey me, not your counselors, not the people of Judah, not the false prophets around you. You need to listen to me and obey me. You need to care about pleasing me and no one else. And friends, that's God's word to every one of us.

8:13We have to live to please God and not other people. In John chapter 5, Jesus himself said that he did not receive glory from people. He was only concerned with glorifying God rather than man. And so Jesus lived to please his heavenly father. But how different were the religious leaders of his day? Look at what John says about them in John chapter 12. For they love the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.

8:48Brothers and sisters, we are called to please God and not people. It is God whom we should fear, God whom we should obey, and God whom we should seek glory and honor from, not people. But to borrow the title from Ed Welch's famous book, In Our Daily Lives, people are big and God is small. So we fear people and we live to please them rather than God. And because we can't serve two masters, we end up serving for people and living for their approval rather than serving the Lord, living to please him.

9:30So let's watch as this plays out in Zedekiah's life. Join me in verse 11 of chapter 37. Now, when the Chaldean army had withdrawn from Jerusalem at the approach of Pharaoh's army, Jeremiah set out from Jerusalem to go to the land of Benjamin to receive his portion there among the people. When he was at the Benjamin gate, a sentry there named Erijah, the son of Shalamiah, son of Hananiah, seized Jeremiah the prophet, saying, You are deserting to the Chaldeans. And Jeremiah said, It is a lie. I am not deserting to the Chaldeans. But Erijah would not listen to him and seized Jeremiah and brought him to the officials. And the officials were enraged at Jeremiah, and they beat him and imprisoned him in the house of Jonathan the secretary, for it had been made a prison. When Jeremiah had come to the dungeon cells and remained there many days, King Zedekiah sent for him and received him. The king questioned him secretly. His house and said, Is there any word from the Lord? Jeremiah said, There is. Then he said, You shall be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon. Jeremiah also said to King Zedekiah, What wrong have I done to you or your servants or this people that you have put me in prison? Where are your prophets who prophesied to you, saying, The king of Babylon will not come against you and against this land? Now hear, please, O my Lord the king, let my humble plea come before you, and do not send me back to the house of Jonathan the secretary, lest I die there. So King Zedekiah gave orders, and they committed Jeremiah to the court of the guard, and a loaf of bread was given him daily from the baker's street until all the bread of the city was gone. So Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard.

11:23So the Babylonian army temporarily evacuates. They leave off the siege of Jerusalem. And Jeremiah takes this opportunity, this break in the action, to go back to his hometown of Anatoth. He may have been going back there to receive the portion of land that he bought back in chapter 32, if you remember that. And so he's going out the Benjamin gate towards the land of Benjamin, and the sentry stops him and accuses him of deserting to the Chaldeans, which is somewhat understandable because what has Jeremiah been saying for years and years? We need to surrender.

12:00The will of the Lord is for us to lay down our arms and surrender to Babylon because Babylon is God's instrument of discipline for our people. We need to receive that from the hand of God. So he denies that he is deserting, but they arrest him anyway. And in a rage, these officials beat him and imprison him. And then think about what Zedekiah does. After many days, he sends for him secretly, brings him to the palace. And you can picture him sending everybody out of the room as he kind of looks around and whispers to Jeremiah, Is there any word from the Lord?

12:40And Jeremiah gives a one-word answer in Hebrew. Yep. The same thing I've been saying to you for 10 years. You need to surrender. You're going to be handed over to the king of Babylon. Now, that's not new. He's been saying this for a decade. But Zedekiah and the people have refused to listen to God's word. They've refused to repent. They've refused to seek the Lord. They've refused to see that Babylon is God's instrument of discipline in their life. And so, like a child that will not accept no for an answer, Zedekiah keeps coming back to Jeremiah, hoping to hear a different answer, hoping that maybe God will change his mind. Mind, even though Zedekiah and the people have not changed their ways.

13:37Since Jeremiah has an audience with the king, he takes this chance to ask two questions. Why am I in jail? And where are all your prophets now? He first wants to know why he's in jail. I mean, after all, the only thing he's done, his entire ministry, going on 30 years at this point, the only thing that he has done is preach the truth, speak the word of God to the people of God, and call them to obey. And Zedekiah has thrown him into prison. Now, technically, it was Erijah and the officials who beat him and arrested him and threw him in prison, but Zedekiah is the king, at least in theory. Even if he couldn't have stopped Jeremiah from being arrested and beaten, he could have gotten him out of jail, but he didn't do that. And he knows that's wrong. So he moves Jeremiah from the prison at Jonathan's house to the court of the guard, which to me doesn't sound a whole lot better, but at least he got a loaf of bread every day.

14:42But what I want you to see here is Zedekiah's fear of man that is on display. He's the king of Judah, and yet he meets with Jeremiah in secret. Why? Because he's scared of what. People think he's scared of what his officials think. He's scared of what the people of Judah think. He doesn't want to displease anybody by meeting with this prophet who everyone looks at as just bad news all the time. Remember, Zedekiah is not the rightful king of Judah. He is a puppet king that has been installed by the king of Babylon. He has a title, but he doesn't have any real authority or influence. Who's really running Judah?

15:33His officials. They're the people with the authority and the influence. And so Zedekiah is in a no-win situation. If he surrenders to King Nebuchadnezzar, which is what Jeremiah is telling him to do, then maybe King Nebuchadnezzar will have mercy on him and spare his life. But his officials don't want him to surrender. They want him to fight back. And he's worried about what they're going to do to him because if they don't have any reservations about beating and imprisoning a prophet of the Lord, then surely they will have no reservations about beating or even killing a puppet king that they don't want ruling over them in the first place.

16:18And so, friends, I say all this to remind you that Zedekiah is a person just like you and me. He has the same fears, the same temptations as all of the rest of us. And he was tempted to fear and to please man rather than God, just like we are every day in our neighborhoods, at our schools, at our jobs. And Zedekiah, like a lot of us, he doesn't want to please most people. He wants to please everybody. I mean, can you relate to that?

16:56I know that feeling well. I want to please everybody. There is nothing I like less than having anybody in my life upset with me. So I understand this, and maybe you do too. And that's why Zedekiah is most concerned, not with pleasing God, but with pleasing other people, especially his officials. Look what happens next. Let's pick up in chapter 38. Now, Shephatah, the son of Matan, Gedaliah, the son of Peshur, Juchal, the son of Shalamiah, and Pashur, the son of Malchiah, heard the words that Jeremiah was saying to all the people. Thus says the Lord, he who stays in this city shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence, but he who goes out to the Chaldeans shall live. He shall have his life as a prize of war and live. Thus says the Lord, the city shall surely be given into the hand of the army of the king of Babylon and be taken. Then the officials said to the king, Let this man Be put to death, for he is weakening the hands of the soldiers who are left in the city and the hands of all the people by speaking such words to them. For this man is not seeking the welfare of this people, but their harm. King Zedekiah said, Behold, he is in your hands, for the king can do nothing against you. So they took Jeremiah and cast him into the cistern of Malchiah, the king's son, which was in the court of the guard, letting Jeremiah down by ropes. And there was no water in the cistern, but only mud. And Jeremiah sank in the mud.

18:40So after Jeremiah gets released from Jonathan's house, he goes back to doing what he does, which is preaching the truth of God's word to anybody and everybody who will listen. But the officials hear these words and they tell King Zedekiah that Jeremiah is crushing Moral. They're like, how are the people supposed to fight back against Babylon when Jeremiah keeps telling them to not to? The king's response, especially in light of what we just saw in chapter 37, is shocking.

19:15He says, Behold, he is in your hands, for the king can do nothing against you. What? Imagine a real king. Anytime anyone In any kingdom, uttering those words. The king can do nothing against you. What is this, a pretend kingdom like England? But Zedekiah is not a real king. He's a puppet king. He's only in power as long as Nebuchadnezzar and his own officials allow him to be. And so he's afraid, and he lives to please people rather than God.

19:56And friends, we've all been there before. Every one of us has been afraid to oppose powerful people in our life because of what we think they might do to us. So, kids, you don't stand up to the bully at school because you're afraid that he or she might turn on you next. Teenagers, you don't go to that friend who's always gossiping about others and damaging their reputations because you don't want them to stop hanging out with you.

20:34College students, you don't share the good news of Jesus with your classmates because you're afraid of being labeled intolerant or a bigot or just a religious weirdo. Employees, you don't confront your boss when he or she is acting unethically because it might cost you a raise or a promotion. You see, it's not just Zedekiah, it's all of us. All of us deal with the fear of man, and we succumb to the temptation to please people rather than God.

21:11And so, for the second time, Zedekiah allows Jeremiah to be arrested, and they take him and they lower him down into a cistern by ropes. Now, you might remember from earlier in the book of Jeremiah: a cistern is a big space that's dug out of a rock underground. It's got a small opening, and it opens up after that to hold water-water for drinking, water for crops. But in this case, the cistern is basically empty except for the disgusting sludge that would have accumulated at the bottom of an empty cistern in the middle of a city.

21:47Now, you might be thinking, why didn't they just execute Jeremiah or throw him headfirst into the pit so his neck broke? Ah, it's because they don't actually want to kill Jeremiah, they just want him to die. In other words, they don't want to be guilty of murder because you see that would be against God's law. They're just like the religious leaders of Jesus' day, legalistic to the core, who paid Judas to betray Jesus, and then when Judas returned the money, the leaders Said, it's not lawful for us to put it into the treasury because it's blood money. So you can hire a hitman, you just can't accept his donations.

22:43Let's pick up in verse 7. When Ebed Melech, the Ethiopian, a eunuch who was in the king's house, heard that they had put Jeremiah into the cistern, the king was sitting in the Benjamin gate, Ebed-Melech went from the king's house and said to the king, My lord the king, these men have done evil in all they did to Jeremiah the prophet by casting him into the cistern, and he will die there of hunger, for there is no bread left in the city. Then the king commanded Ebed-Melech the Ethiopian, Take thirty men with you from here and lift Jeremiah the prophet out of the cistern before he dies.

23:22So Ebed Melech took the men with him and went to the house of the king, to a wardrobe in the storehouse, and took from there old rags and worn-out clothes, which he let down to Jeremiah in the cistern by ropes. Then Ebed Melech the Ethiopian said to Jeremiah, Put the rags and clothes between your armpits and the ropes. Jeremiah did so. Then they drew Jeremiah up with ropes and lifted him out of the cistern. And Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard.

23:52Nobody in Judah will listen to Jeremiah. Not the king, not his officials, not the people. They won't listen to him or honor him as God's prophet. But Ebed Melech, a foreigner, an Ethiopian eunuch whose name simply means servant of the king, he will not stand for this. So boldly, he goes to the king, knowing full well that he could be the next one at the bottom of the cistern, and he tells King Zedekiah that what he is doing is evil. Think about that. He tells the king, what you're doing is evil, that you should not do this, and Jeremiah is going to die down there.

24:38Now, if you think back to the examples that I just gave about how we all fall into the temptation to fear people, what an example that he is of fearing the Lord and living to please him. There have been times in my life when I have not spoken up and the stakes were much lower than this because I was afraid. I was afraid of what people would say to me or about me. I was afraid of what people would do to me. At the end of the day, I feared people. I feared the threats of people. I feared rejection from people more than I feared the Lord.

25:15But with his own life on the line, Ebed Melech goes to the king and confronts him and tells him his actions are evil. And as we'll see next week, God rewards him for this. He promises. To save him because Ebed-Melech put his trust in him rather than in people. What a contrast to King Zedekiah. I mean, how would you expect a king to react to a servant coming to him and calling his actions evil? Most kings wouldn't stand for such a thing. They would say, you can't talk to me like that. Get out of my sight.

26:00And even if Ebed-Melech has been a loyal servant for years and Zedekiah really loves him and allows him to speak freely from time to time, you can imagine what he'd say. He'd say, EM, my hands are tied. You're right. This is wrong, but I can't oppose these officials. I don't have the leverage to do that. But unbelievably, he doesn't do either one of these things. He doesn't tell Ebed Melech to get lost, and he doesn't say, my hands are tied, I want to help, but I can't. No, he says, essentially, you're right, and sends 30 men, not because you need 30 dudes to pull a guy out of a hole, but because they probably need protection from these officials. He sends 30 men to go pull Jeremiah out of the cistern.

26:54Back and forth we go. It's not like these things are all happening within the Same week. I mean, we know Jeremiah was imprisoned in Jonathan's house for many days. But the story is told like this in order to highlight Zedekiah's waffling, how he goes back and forth, back and forth. I mean, you'd be hard-pressed to find a more indecisive leader in the Bible than King Zedekiah, at least until we get to Pontius Pilate. Over and over, he listens to whoever last spoke to him, and he does whatever they ask him.

27:33The only one that Zedekiah will not listen to, will not bend over backwards to please, is God. He is the only one. He's afraid of people and what they might do to him, but he does not fear the Lord. And this comes to a head in the final section. Let's pick up in verse 14. King Zedekiah sent for Jeremiah the prophet and received him at the third entrance of the temple. The king said to Jeremiah, I will ask you a question, hide nothing from me. Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, If I tell you, will you not surely put me to death? And if I give you counsel, you will not listen to me. Then King Zedekiah swore secretly to Jeremiah, As the Lord lives, who made our souls, I will not put you to death or deliver you into the hand of these men who seek your life. Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, Thus says the Lord. Says the Lord, the God of hosts, the God of Israel: if you will surrender to the officials of the king of Babylon, then your life shall be spared, and this city shall not be burned with fire, and you and your house shall live. But if you do not surrender to the officials of the king of Babylon, then this city shall be given into the hand of the Chaldeans, and they shall burn it with fire, and you shall not escape from their hand.

28:56So, once more, Zedekiah summons Jeremiah for another secret meeting, and he says he wants to ask him a question. But, guys, Jeremiah has seen this song and dance for a decade. He tells him, You're just going to put me to death, and even if you don't put me to death, you're not going to listen to me. You never do. It's also pretty bold. Zedekiah promises that he won't put him to death. Interestingly, you see his great theology, the Lord who made our souls. It's just such a reminder, guys, that you can have the right theology and still not do a word that God says in the Bible.

29:40He's got all the right theology. He promises that he won't put him to death, but you notice he never says, I promise I'll do what you say. So, Jeremiah repeats all the words of the Lord. You need to surrender, and you need to do it now. Look at verse 19. King Zedekiah says, To Jeremiah, I am afraid of the Judeans who have deserted to the Chaldeans, lest I be handed over to them and they deal cruelly with me. Jeremiah said, You shall not be given to them. Obey now the voice of the Lord in what I say to you, and it shall be well with you, and your life shall be spared.

30:22For the very first time, at least as far as we know, Zedekiah is honest. He finally admits, I am afraid. After 10 years of putting on a brave face, of trying to look like he had everything under control, he's finally speaking the truth out loud. And interestingly, he doesn't say, I'm scared of Nebuchadnezzar. He doesn't say, I'm afraid of my officials. He says, I'm afraid of the people that have deserted to the Chaldeans. And that's probably because these are the people who understood that he should have surrendered to Babylon a long time ago. And because he wouldn't, this army has been surrounding and besieging the city for a very long time. People are starving to death. Family members are dying. And he's worried about being handed over to their relatives, who are mad.

31:28Jeremiah promises that will not happen. To him, if he obeys God's voice now, if he surrenders, it will be fine. But otherwise, he's going to fall into the hands of the Lord through the hands of King Nebuchadnezzar, and that's going to be far worse. You see, friends, Zedekiah is convinced that people are his biggest problem. Nebuchadnezzar and his army, his officials, the Judeans who deserted, he's convinced that people are his biggest problem, so he fears them and he lives to please them.

32:08King Zedekiah was wrong, just like we are wrong when we think that people are our biggest problem and we should fear them and live to please them too. In contrast, listen to what King David wrote when he was surrounded by enemies who wanted to kill him. Look what he said: In God, whose word I praise, in the Lord, whose word I praise, in God I trust, I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me?

32:44Indeed, what can man do to us? Man can put us to death, even a miserable death, but that's it. Man can do nothing more than put us to death. People have no power over our souls, over our eternal destinies, over our resurrected bodies. They have no power over those things. And that's why Jesus says this in Luke chapter 12. Take a look. I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear. Fear him who, after he is killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.

33:43You'd have thought that this time Zedekiah would have listened. I mean, after all, what did he have to lose? Nothing else has worked. Why not listen to Jeremiah this time? But he doesn't. And the chapter closes with Zedekiah telling Jeremiah not to tell anybody about their conversation. Because after everything, he still fears people and he lives to please them rather than God. This morning, I want to challenge you to think about the question that I pose at the beginning of the sermon.

34:24Why do I care so much about what other people think? Jesus didn't say, it's really hard to serve two masters. He didn't say, most people can't serve two masters. He said, no one can serve two masters. No one. And that means we will either fear God or people. We will either live to please God or we will live to please people. But that is the choice before us. You might think, this is a lose-lose situation. If people are hard to please, God must be impossible to please.

35:19Well, in a sense, that's true. Look what Jesus said at the end of Matthew 5. You therefore must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. It is not enough to have good intentions. It is not enough to try your whole life to ensure that your good works outweigh your bad works. It is not enough to try harder to do better. Perfection and nothing less than perfection is God's standard for us. But because of our sinful hearts, that standard is unattainable.

36:01But here's the good news. The first thing Jesus did when he began his public ministry was to go to his cousin John and be baptized by him in the River Jordan. And I want you to look at what happens as Jesus comes up out of the water. And behold, a voice from heaven said, This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. Friends, Jesus is the eternal Son of God. He was born of a virgin, and he lived every day of his life in a way that was perfectly pleasing to God.

36:51And because Jesus lived every day of his life in a way that was perfectly pleasing to God, he was able to offer himself on the cross in our place. He died and was buried. And because God was pleased with his perfect sacrifice, he rose him from the dead on the third day. Through faith, all who trust in him will be forgiven and counted righteous. Because through faith, God is pleased with us. Because God is pleased with his Son Jesus.

37:36Friends, the only way to be set free from the fear of man is to have it replaced by a greater fear, the fear of the Lord. And so this morning, as we saw with King Zedekiah, we will live to please whomever we fear, whether that is God or people. So we must make the choice today: whom will we fear? Let me leave you with the words of Proverbs 29: The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts the Lord is safe.

38:15Let's pray. Father, we want to honestly confess that we do fear people. We fear what people will think of us. We fear what people will do to us. What they will withhold from us. And so we come before you this morning because we need to have that fear replaced with a right fear of you. I pray this morning that we would see you afresh as the holy, perfect God who has a perfect standard that we cannot meet on our own.

39:30I pray that not just your standards, but your great love that you demonstrated in sending your only begotten Son to live and die and rise again for us would move us to fear you in such a way that we live to please you and not people. God, I pray that you would help us this week to make decisions, hard decisions, where we take small steps of obedience toward fearing you rather than fearing others. And God, I pray for those who may be here today, who have never had a fear of the Lord before, who have looked to try to please you with their efforts, with their religious practices, with their good deeds. I pray that today you would reveal to them that those things are not enough, but that Jesus is enough. His perfect life, death, and resurrection. Grant them saving faith today, God. May they turn from their sin to you and receive new life.

40:42God, we pray that you would help us to be doers of the word and not hearers only, like Zedekiah. In Christ's name 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.