Jeremiah chapter 34 will be taking our text from tonight. Jeremiah chapter 34, this will be part number 39 of our journey through Jeremiah Bible study series. Tonight I'll be dealing with the prophecy concerning Zedekiah and also the anger of the Lord against the inhabitants of Judah for forsaking his covenant. We'll be looking at that at the halfway through point. But Jeremiah chapter 34, let's look at the first two verses. The Bible says here, the word which came unto Jeremiah from the Lord, when Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and all his army, and all the kingdoms of the earth of his dominion, and all the people, fought against Jerusalem, and against all the cities thereof, saying, Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, Go and speak to Zedekiah, king of Judah, and tell him, Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire. Father, thank you for the reading of your word tonight. Help me now, Lord. I'm just asking for you to preach through me, Lord, and help me. Guide us in the scripture tonight. Illuminate it for us, Lord. May the Holy Spirit just do a mighty work through it. And God, may you be the one that's glorified. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen. We've been discussing this particular prophecy all through the studies of Jeremiah. At the early beginning of it, it's mentioned And then further on, it's mentioned again, and now it's mentioned again tonight, and we'll even be seeing it mentioned another time. And of course, the book of Jeremiah not being in chronological order, there's things here and there. In fact, next week, it'll take us all the way back, way before all this. And so, this prophecy is one that the Lord tells Jeremiah to inform the king, Zedekiah there, the last king of Judah, what was going to happen to the city and to him, and the king is not going to like it. But the Lord says in the prophecy there through Jeremiah that he's going to take Jerusalem, he's going to allow Nebuchadnezzar to take it, and he's going to allow them to burn the city and also to carry the king off into captivity. And we're gonna see here tonight all that happens to the king. But this is one of the reasons that the king had locked Jeremiah up. If you remember in our previous studies, when he went over to look at the land that he purchased and he got arrested, and we saw that the Bible talked about how Zedekiah had him in prison because of the prophecy against Judah. And so this is one of the reasons why it locked him up. He didn't like what Jeremiah had to say. He considered it treason of some type. But verse three says, and thou shalt not escape out of his hand, but shalt surely be taken and delivered into his hand, and thine eyes shall behold the eyes of the king of Babylon, and he shall speak with thee mouth to mouth, and thou shalt go to Babylon. This is Jeremiah speaking to King Zedekiah, telling him what God said. And he tells him here that you're not gonna escape out of the king's hand. The king is going to take you. In fact, you're going to look him square in the face. You're going to look eye to eye, and you're going to be delivered right into his hand. And he's going to speak to you face to face, mouth to mouth, he says. And so this is going to be a very personal thing. This was always what you wanted to do. When you conquered a city, you took their king. When you conquered a land, you took their king. You took their king, you took their crown. you took their throne, you took their people, you took everything. Once you conquered, that's what you owned it all. And usually they would just go ahead and immediately kill the king and just do away with him and all of his family. But we find in this case that God is instructing or he's working through Nebuchadnezzar to actually take the people over into captivity, including this king. But some awful things are going to be done to the king before he gets there. And we're going to see that here in this next little bit. We eventually will get to this part in our studies in chapter 52, but if you will turn there, Jeremiah chapter 52, we're going to see where this prophecy actually came to be fulfilled and what happened when it was fulfilled. Just like God said, and it was not a good thing, it was a terrible thing that happened to the king, but although he'd been warned, he did not want to listen to the warnings. Jeremiah chapter 52, start with verse 4 there. It says, And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, and pitched against it, and built forts against it round about. So the city was besieged until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. And so what we find has happened now, it's time, the king's moved in, he's encompassed the entire city. They've already taken all the other cities around Jerusalem except for two, which we'll look at here in a minute. But they've taken all the cities except for the ones that were fortified, and that was including Jerusalem. Jerusalem had not been taken yet. Well, there's a certain way they're gonna do this. They're gonna try to starve them out, they're gonna try to do all these things, which is what they would do to walled cities. spend the time and the effort and lose the men breaking the laws down and fighting, they would simply camp out around the city and force them into starvation. And so they have compassed about the city, but they're going to take it. They're going to besiege it. Look at verse 6. It says, and in the fourth month, in the ninth day of the month, the famine was sore in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land. So see what they've done? They've made it where nobody can go out, and so they can't get any food on the outside. Nobody's going in to bring them anything. And so what are they doing? They're starving to death. There's a famine going on. They have nothing to eat. And so they're all weak, and it's just prime time for the king and all of the Chaldean army to come in and to take the people and the land. Verse 7 says, Then the city was broken up, and all the men of war fled and went forth out of the city by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king's garden. Now the Chaldeans were by the city roundabout, and they went by the way of the plain. But the army of the Chaldeans pursued after the king and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho, and all of his army was scattered from him." Well, the fighting men there in Jerusalem all got up and ran. They all took off, the king and all. They tried to escape. Well, they get chased down by the Chaldean army. They find out and they run after them and they catch them. Verse 8, But the army of the Chaldeans, pursued after the king, overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho, and all of his army was scattered from him. Then they took the king and carried him up unto the king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath, where he gave judgment upon him. And the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes. He slew also all the princes of Judah in Riblah. Then he put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and the king of Babylon bound him in chains and carried him to Babylon. and put him in prison to the day of his death. And so the ending there of King Zedekiah was not a good ending. The very last thing that he saw from his eyes was his sons all being killed right in front of him. What a terrible thing for that to be your last memory, your last vision, the last thing you saw. And they did that on purpose. They did that as a form of torture. You can only imagine what it would be like for the last thing that you see always being blazed upon your mind. And there's his sons all being killed in front of him. Then they take him and they bind him up in chains and shackles and they drag him off to Babylon and cast him into prison and he died in prison. We don't know how old he was when he died. The Bible doesn't tell us. But I do want you also to see a parallel account of this in 2 Kings. If you study in the Bible and you compare Scripture with Scripture, you're going to find many times a lot of the things in the Bible are repeated and a lot of things are even given in different details. We see in 2 Kings chapter 25 this account that happened to Zedekiah. It's recorded there in the records of the kings. Of course, Zedekiah being a king, it's part of the record. 2 Kings 25, let's look at verses 1-7. It says, And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came, he and all his hosts against Jerusalem, pitched against it, and they built forts against it round about. And the city was besieged under the eleventh year of king Zedekiah. And on the ninth day of the fourth month of the famine prevailed in the city, and there was no bread for the people of the land. And the city was broken up, and all the men of war fled by night by the way of the gate between two walls, which is by the king's garden. Now the Chaldees were against the city roundabout, and the king went the way toward the plain. And the army of the Chaldees pursued after the king and overtook him in the plains of Jericho, and all of his army was scattered from him. So they took the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon, and they gave judgment upon him. And they slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him with fetters of brass, and carried him to Babylon. Now in the account there in Kings, it didn't mention that he died in prison, but it does mention later on about his burial and about the people that would weep for him. So Zedekiah meets a horrible ending, and the last thing he ever saw was his sons being killed in front of him. Look at verse four now, back in Jeremiah 34, verse four, we'll pick back up in our opening text. Jeremiah 34 and verse four. Now, remember, this is Jeremiah speaking the words of the Lord to Zedekiah. Yet hear the word of the Lord, O Zedekiah, king of Judah. Thus saith the Lord of thee, thou shalt not die by the sword, but thou shalt die in peace and with the burnings of thy fathers, the former kings, which were before thee, so shall they burn odors for thee. And they will lament thee, saying, O Lord, for I have pronounced the word, saith the Lord. All Lord, for I pronounce the word, saith the Lord." It's Jeremiah speaking. Now, when you see that right there, that phrase, thou shalt die in peace, don't think that to mean that everything's lovey-dovey and everything's okay, that he didn't die a horrible death. That's not what that means. That means he's not dying by sword. It said there, it said you wouldn't die by sword. He's going to die probably of natural causes of being in prison. and not being taken care of and old age and such, but he dies in prison. So he dies in a type of peace, not violently, but he just passed away in prison. He is also promised right here that he would receive a proper burial fit for a king. with the burning of the incense and the people gathering around to weep and mourn for him. And he's promised that by God. Even though he's going to meet this awful ending, the Lord is going to allow him to be buried like a king would be buried. And so he would be taken off probably to the land of David and he would be buried amongst where all the kings were buried or his family. And so at least the Lord has shown him some grace right here and some mercy in this prophecy. Now verse 6 says, Then Jeremiah the prophet spake all these words unto Zedekiah king of Judah in Jerusalem. When the king of Babylon's army fought against Jerusalem and against all the cities of Judah that were left, against Lachish and against Azekah, for these defense cities remained the cities of Judah. This is what I was talking about. When the Chaldeans encompassed the city of Jerusalem, they had already taken everybody else in the land of Judah except these two cities, Lachish and Ezekiah. And so these cities were fortified. They had probably walls around them and had men there to protect it. And so these were harder for them to conquer. And so they left these for last, and Jerusalem, of course, being, I'm sure, the last city that they took. And so Jeremiah delivered these words to Zedekiah. It says, during the midst of the Chaldeans plundering the cities around Jerusalem. And so while all this was going on all around in the land, remember, King Zedekiah is the king of Judah, not the king of Jerusalem. He is the king of Jerusalem, but not just Jerusalem. He's the king of all of Judah. This is all the land of the south in Israel. And so all of these places that now has been conquered and taken by Nebuchadnezzar, they were his land. So he don't have anything left but three cities. But he's going to continue to hold on. He's not going to listen to Jeremiah. He's going to continue to hold on to the little bit of power that he has. And he even tries to fight against it at one point. But it's going to do him no good. Now look at verse 8. This is the word that came unto Jeremiah from the Lord, after that the king Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people which were at Jerusalem to proclaim liberty unto them, that every man should let his manservant and every man his maidservant, being a Hebrew or Hebrewess, go free, that none should serve himself of them to wit of a Jew his brother. What this is describing is a covenant that the king has told the people that they need to keep concerning the law concerning slaves, Hebrew slaves. You see, God had instituted a law back in the book of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy chapter 15 verse 12. The Bible gives us the law that was written concerning if you have a Hebrew slave. You see, the Hebrews were made free by God. He'd taken them out of Egypt's bondage to be free. But, however, there were circumstances when the Hebrews would fall on hard times. They were unable to pay their bills, maybe they didn't have a job, and so to survive and to pay their bills and not be in debt, they would go into servitude. And so they would become someone's servant. Well, this is the law concerning servants or slaves for the Hebrews. Deuteronomy 15.12 says, And if thy brother, a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee and serve thee six years, then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee. And so there was a law instituted. If you became a slave to someone and you were a Hebrew, you were to be let go in six years so that you didn't always remain in bondage. You would be eventually free. And the hope is in that six-year period, you would have made enough to be able to take care of yourself and to pay off your debts. And so this was a law. Well, they apparently had not been keeping the law. And so they were supposed to do this every six years, but not only every six years, but every time on the year of Jubilee, they were to release all the slaves. They had not been doing that. And so this law applies to the year of Jubilee. If you want to look at it, it's in Leviticus chapter 25. Verse 38, and this is the Lord telling why He's done this, and of course the law about them loosing the slaves. Leviticus 25 and 38. The Bible says, I am the Lord your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God. And if thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bondservant, but as a hired servant, and as a sojourner. He shall be with thee, and shall serve thee unto the year of Jubilee. And then shall he depart from thee, both he and his children with him, and shall return unto his own family, and unto the possessions of his fathers shall he return. For they are my servants, which I brought forth out of the land of Egypt. They shall not be sold as bondmen. Thou shalt not rule over him with rigor, but shalt fear thy God." And so we find that the Lord has instituted this for a reason. He didn't want the Hebrews to be enslaved. And so he made it a law. And of course, the year of Jubilee, remember, the lands, if you'd bought land from somebody, you'd leased it from them, you'd purchased it from them, it was to return back. All the lands in Jerusalem and in the land of Canaan that God had promised, they belonged to families. And if that land was yours, it was yours, supposed to be forever. And so it was going to be returned to your family in the year of Jubilee. But they had not been keeping that as well. And so now, suddenly, the king is going to suddenly start following the law. Don't you find that strange? After he's allowed all these laws to be broken in his land, the worship of false gods, falsely imprisoning Jeremiah, having him beaten, and all these things that he's broken law already, and now suddenly he wants to keep the law of God. Isn't that nice? Well, there's probably some reasons behind it. There's probably three motives that I can think of that would cause him to want to now fulfill the covenant about the slaves. Well, number one possibility is he may have thought if suddenly he keeps this covenant that he's been supposed to be keeping all this time, that God may look down upon him with pleasure for that and perhaps not allow them to go into captivity or may perhaps keep him from being imprisoned. Maybe he thought if he did this then God wouldn't set all these things in motion that Jeremiah's prophesied. The second reason that I thought about why he may have suddenly done this, he may have thought if the slaves were released, maybe they would be willing to fight with the rest of the people when the armies invade. Maybe that would give them more incentive to fight since they'd be free. Or perhaps the third reason, he may have been planning to drive all of the slaves out of the city. And so they would not be a burden on the folks, the more well-off folks, when it came time for rationing food and supplies. You see, he's wanting to get Jerusalem fixed. Jerusalem. He's not worried about the lands outside. It's gone. All that's gone. But Jerusalem, he wants to see that it is taken care of. And so these are three very real possibilities of why he may have suddenly decided to keep the covenant. I don't think he just suddenly turned into some godly man. In fact, we know that's not the case. But look at verse 10. We'll find that this covenant did not last very long. Verse 10. Now when all the princes and all the people which had entered into the covenant heard that everyone should let his manservant and everyone his maidservant go free, that none should serve themselves of them anymore, then they obeyed and let them go." Well, that's real great, isn't it? It's all working out just like it's supposed to. Look at verse 11. But afterward they turned and called the servants and the handmaids whom they had let go free to return. and brought them into subjection for servants and for handmaids. Well, for whatever reason, the king made the covenant to release the slaves. It didn't work. Suddenly, the people decide, you know what, I'm not keeping this covenant. We're getting our servants back. We're getting them back. We don't want to let them go. And so they turn. The Bible says, but. Afterward, they turned. And so the people that's entered this covenant and released their slaves changed their minds. And they forced the slaves to come back. And this was a huge, huge mistake. For this reason right here, if no other reason, this reason right here was enough to evoke the wrath of God on them to cause them to have to go into captivity. They've defied His laws, they've invoked His anger, and He is not going to let this slide. This covenant that they made, This covenant was made under a solemn vow in God's house, and they did it in the right covenant way. We're going to see it. I'm going to read it to you. They had done it exactly the way they were supposed to do, as we'll see in verse 18, of how to perform the covenant that they made. Go look at verse 12. Therefore, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, Thus saith the God of Israel, I made a covenant with your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of Bonneman, saying, At the end of seven years let ye go every man his brother a Hebrew, which has been sold unto thee. And when he is served these six years, thou shalt let him go free from thee. But your fathers hearken not unto me, neither incline their ear. And you were now turned and had done right in my sight in proclaiming liberty every man to his neighbor, and you had made a covenant before me in the house which is called by my name. But you turned and polluted my name and caused every man his servant and every man his handmaid, whom you had set at liberty at their pleasure to return and brought them into subjection to be unto you for servants and for handmaids. Well, the Lord is not pleased with this at all. The people have defied his law. And like I've said, he instituted it for a reason. And so he is highly upset here. His anger has been kindled. And so all the Hebrews are God's people. He loves them all. He wanted them all to be free. And it was his plan to bless them. He'd set the Hebrews free from Egypt's bondage when he had Moses, his man, lead them out of there. And you know what? Jesus does the same thing for us. He leads us out of bondage, out of enslaved to sin. That's what he leads us from. We may not be in Egypt's bondage, but we're in sin's bondage. And when the Lord Jesus, he loves us so much, he wants us to be free. And if we're free in Jesus, we're free indeed. He breaks our bonds of sin and sets us free. Paul reminded us of that over in Galatians. He had to remind the church there. Galatians 5 and 1. He said, stand fast, therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. And be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. What's the yoke of bondage? It was the life that you lived when you were in sin, before you got saved. And they were wanting to go back to it, just like a dog goes back to its vomit. They want to go back to their sins. And Paul says, wait a minute, you don't go back to being enslaved now that you've been made free. God, Jesus Christ has made us free. Don't get entangled again in the bondage, the yoke of bondage. And there's so many people today that do that. They come down, whether they made a true profession of faith or not. if they claim they've trusted Christ as their Savior, I just have to believe them. If they say they have, if they tell you they have, we have to believe them. But if they've been saved and then they get out in this world and get right back into the same shape they were in, back in the same sins they were in, and I've seen it happen over and over and over, and listen, the Bible says we're not to get entangled again with that yoke of bondage that we once had. And I've seen people come down and get at the altar and confess their sins and cry and weep and mourn and pray and repent and say that they've been saved and then months later they're back in that same sin that they were in before they came down and repented of it. And so I tell you what, friends, you've got to watch it. You'll get right back into that shape if you're not careful. That's why the Bible says we're to put on the new man, to put on the clothing of Christ. We've got to make a conscious effort of it every day. Because if you don't, you can let yourself slide, backslide, and get right back into that sin, because that old man is back there pulling at your flesh, just like I was talking about the devil. Well, that old man, that old man, you know, you've got a new creature inside of you, but that old man is still back there trying to drag you down. And if you're not careful, you'll allow that old man to get you back in that same shape that you once were in. And so we've got to be careful. Well, here the people have, God said that they had uh... they'd done right in his sight and proclaim the liberty of every man and made a covenant so he was he was saying you did right by doing this but then he said but you turned and now you polluted my name and and and done what was wrong and so god's anger is killed look at verse seventeen therefore thus saith the lord You have not hearkened unto me in proclaiming liberty, every one to his brother and every man to his neighbor. Behold, I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the Lord, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine, and I will make you to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth. Well, I tell you what, friends, you don't want to get on the judgment side of God. You don't want to get on the wrong side of God here. When God comes down, he says, therefore, since you've done this, listen what I'm going to do to you. And that's what he says there. He says, therefore, you didn't hearken unto me, so this is my liberty for you. Your liberty was to be free, but it's not now. My liberty for you now is the sword. It's pestilence. It's famine. And I'll make you be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth. Well, the Lord pronounces judgment on them that broke the covenant, and the punishment will fit the crime. Just like it says in Matthew 7 and 2, the Lord Jesus said, for with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged. And with what measure you met, it shall be measured to you again. And so the punishment fits the crime. Now, verse 18, we see how that covenant was made. Look at it, verse 18. And I will give the men that have transgressed My covenant, which have not performed the words of the covenant, which they had made before Me, when they cut the calf in twain, and passed between the parts thereof. The princes of Judah, and the princes of Jerusalem, the eunuchs, and the priests, and all the people of the land, which passed between the parts of the calf, I will even give them into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of them that seek their life. And their dead bodies shall be for meat under the fowls of the heaven, and of the beasts of the earth. Well, here we see that they had actually done the covenant the right way, the way they were supposed to. All the way back, if you go all the way back and look at Abraham, the covenant that he made with God, when he took the two parts of the animal and he split them and walked between them, that's what's happened here. They have went to God's house, they took a calf, they cut it in half, they put one piece on one side, one piece on the other, and they walked between it. Now when they did that, what that is saying is, if I'm walking between these two pieces, if I don't keep this covenant with God like I said I would, then may the same thing be done to me. That's what they were saying. May the same thing be done to me. May I be cut in half like this calf. And so when they passed through there, this was a solemn covenant with God. And they've broken the covenant. And so what happens? Well, the Lord's going to allow them to be taken. He's going to allow them to be killed. And he said their bodies would be meat under the fowls of the heaven and the beasts of the earth. So it's going to be brutal. And so the Lord is going to make them keep up their end of the covenant since they broke it. Now they must abide by the rules of it. And he said their dead bodies would be meat under the fowls of heaven and the beasts of the earth. Look at verse 21. and Zedekiah, king of Judah, and his princes will I give into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of them that seek their life, and into the hand of the king of Babylon's army, which are gone up from you. Behold, I'll command, saith the Lord, and cause them to return to this city, and they shall fight against it, and take it, and burn it with fire. and I'll make the cities of Judah a desolation without an inhabitant." Well, it's obvious the Lord is not going to change his mind. What little hope that they may have had that he was suddenly going to decide, well, I won't allow this to happen. He says, oh, definitely, I'm going to let this happen. I'm going to command it, he said. And he's going to do just exactly what he said he would do, allow Nebuchadnezzar, the Chaldean army, to break down the walls, invade Jerusalem, destroy it, burn it, slay the people. take slaves off into Babylon, carry their king off, and it's going to leave Judah a desolation. Jerusalem's going to be desolate. It's going to be a place where the dogs and the wild animals will come in to sleep. And so that's exactly what he did. Well, believe it or not, we only have 18 more chapters to go in this book. 18 chapters. Now, I sat down and did a little bit of calculating, and I'm no mathematician. I'm a Jethro Bodine. I've got to take off both my shoes to count. But if I've calculated correctly, there is about 23 or 24 more lessons in this book. And that should put us right around the middle of February of next year, or maybe the end of February, depending on snow. And so not that much more to go. This has been a wonderful, wonderful study. It has helped me tremendously. I don't know about you, but when I get in, and trust me, I have been in Jeremiah so much in my ministry and in seminary, we had to read all of this and study it and write a thesis on it and everything. But this time, when I've been studying through the book of Jeremiah, God has just shown me through the Holy Spirit, has just opened it up to me and made it so real to me. Before, I was just reading it like a textbook and trying to get through it. But now, I mean, I've fallen in love with it. I believe it's Brother David Hare back there that told me about a year and a half ago that Jeremiah was his favorite book. And I started studying on it right when he said it. And I started studying, and the Lord started leading me and guiding me, and he led me right into preaching a series out of it. And it has done me so good, because before, all I would think about was the highlights in Jeremiah. You know, the things that's in there about it, and I'll give you pastors who will feed you and all this. certain things like that. But now I've got such a better understanding of it and the Holy Spirit reveals it to us as we study and we go and we get in the Scripture and dig. And I'm just excited about it. I don't know about you, but I get excited when I feel like I'm learning something. I want to learn something. When I come to church and I hear somebody preach, I want to learn what God's Word says. I want to get fed. And so if I'm not getting fed, I don't really care for it. There's times when I want to hear a bunch of yelling going on, and if it's in the right context and if God's in it, I'm for it. But I want to hear what God's Word says. I want to understand it. I want to learn from it. I want to leave there and say, boy, I learned something tonight. God showed me something from His Word. So, you know, I just want to say that tonight. All right, well, let's have altar prayer tonight.