In Jeremiah 36, the LORD tells Jeremiah to write down all the words of prophecy He has given him. Then Jeremiah got Baruch to write down everything the LORD had told him. After this Baruch went to Jerusalem on a day of fasting read the scroll to the people. They were afraid, and told the king’s secretaries about it. The secretaries came out and told Baruch to go find Jeremiah and hide with him, so no one would be able to find them. (It seems the secretaries knew their king!) After they had read the scroll, they were filled with fear–an appropriate response. They took it to the king, and had it read to him. The purpose of all this, was the LORD had told Jeremiah that if the people heard the words and repented, He would forgive them. Instead, as the words were read to King Jehoiakim, he cut them off the scroll three or four lines at a time, and threw them into the fire. In this way, he burned the entire scroll! He also told the people to find Jeremiah and Baruch so they could be killed. The LORD protected Jeremiah and Baruch, and told Jeremiah to dictate the words again, and that the result of Jehoiakim’s action would be that the punishments would be carried out against all the people, and that Jehoiakim would die and his body left to be subjected to the heat and the cold.
In Jeremiah 37, Jeremiah prophecies to King Zedekiah that he will be carried off to exile in Babylon, and then he returns home. He is seen by one of the royal guards and arrested for attempting to flee to the Chaldeans. This charge was not true, but Jeremiah was arrested nevertheless. He was held in prison for a time, and then brought to King Zedekiah to see whether the LORD had a word for him. When Jeremiah again told him what would happen, the king, moved Jeremiah to another prison, and saw that he had bread to eat as long as there was bread in the city. Jeremiah’s “reward,” for being faithful to the LORD was being beaten, arrested, and imprisoned. The important principle for us to gain from this is: obeying the LORD isn’t always easy, and sometimes it leads to imprisonment or worse, but the LORD will always reward us in the end for our obedience. Jesus is the clearest example of that, because He was the only person who was always obedient, and His “reward,” was being arrested, beaten, and crucified. As we know that turned out for the best!
As we return to Matthew 7, we come to the conclusion of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. This chapter contains six different teachings of Jesus, and cover not being judgmental when we see faults in others, praying with perseverance, the “Golden rule,” recognizing the source of true “fruit” in our lives, the reality that only those who do the will of our Heavenly Father, will enter heaven, and the importance of “building our house on a rock.” Each of these lessons offers us the challenge to do something we won’t continue to do for long without the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit. Jesus established what it looks like to live the spirit-filled life throughout the Sermon on the Mount, but until He died, rose again, returned to heaven and sent the Holy Spirit, the Sermon on the Mount would be a source of great frustration to any who sought to live it. As we know from the lives of Jesus’ disciples, until they received the Holy Spirit they often failed to understand Jesus’ teaching, and they were able to follow His will consistently. Let’s use that as a reminder for our lives: We must call on Jesus to fill us with the Holy Spirit daily, so we can live out His teaching and will for our lives!