Thoughts on Jeremiah 37

Today’s reading: Jeremiah 37; Romans 13

As in Jeremiah’s day, and in Jesus’ day, so too in our own, there are those who reject the Lord, not because they don’t believe in Him, and not because His people are misrepresenting Him, but simply because they are unwilling to submit themselves to Him.

For me, coming to know the Lord was primarily a logical affair. I won’t say I was particularly interested, at that point, in living my life for the Lord, but when the evidence for Christianity was presented to me over the course of a few months, I came to a place where I couldn’t deny it was true, even if I wanted to, so I turned to Christ. That left me, for a number of years, thinking that understanding was people's issue, and that if only they could see and consider the evidence, they would recognize the truth of Biblical Christianity and turn to Christ. Over time, this proved false though, as many people would see and admit to the evidence, without any sort of counter argument, but still not turn to the Lord. When pressed on what would keep them hung up, after clearly recognizing the truth, one answer I would often hear is that Christians, whether individuals or churches, just generally have a bad reputation for being judgmental, bigoted, moralists, and they didn't want to be like that. But again, many of these same people had also seen good, loving, welcoming Christian community that admittedly did not match that stereotype, and still, that wasn't enough.

So if it isn't an intellectual barrier, and it isn't that they have never seen God's people representing Him well, what's the hang up? For many, they simply do not want to believe...

Jeremiah 37 is pretty instructive in this regard. Take a look at what we see of Zedekiah here. The chapter opens saying, "Neither he nor his attendants nor the people of the land paid any attention to the words the Lord had spoken through Jeremiah the prophet." And yet, despite not heeding the Lord's words through him, Zedekiah sends men to Jeremiah to ask him to pray to the Lord for them. It wasn't that Zedekiah didn't believe in the Lord, or that he didn't believe the Lord was speaking through Jeremiah, it was simply that he wasn't interested in listening. We see this further, near the end of the chapter, when Zedekiah pulls him from prison to ask Jeremiah if there is any word from the Lord. He knew Jeremiah's words were truly from the Lord, but despite knowing that, unless they suited him, he wasn't interested in listening to them.

And isn't this exactly what we see, especially from the Jewish leaders, throughout the gospel accounts as well? Jesus performs miracle after miracle to validate His teaching, authority, and identity, and yet the Jewish leaders reject Him. They could never put forth a good counter argument against His teachings and claims, but they didn't like what He had to say so they rejected Him. What more could Jesus have done to validate His claims? How could Jesus have possibly better represented the heart of God to a watching world? They had every reason to believe, and Jesus never gave them a reason not to believe, and yet they were unwilling to hear and respond to the truth.

I don't say this to say that it's not worth sharing our faith, or that we shouldn't bother trying to defend it; in fact, we are specifically commanded, in the Scriptures, to do both of these things. I also don't say this to say that it's not worth seeking to live our lives in a way that glorifies God and reflects the grace we have been shown in Christ; again, we are specifically commanded to live this way, both in response to what God has done for us, and as a testimony to a watching world. So why do I bring this up? So that we are not surprised, confused, or despairing when we run, time and time again, into Zedekiahs in our lives.

As Jesus Himself says in Matthew 7, "Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few." It is not that few are shown the narrow gate, or that few believe the narrow gate exists, but that many who look upon the narrow gate are simply not interested in walking through it.

Our job is not to drag people through the gate. We are called to alert people to the fact that they are on the wide and easy way that leads to destruction, and that God, through Christ, has opened another path for them. We are called to answer questions and to represent well the God who has opened the path to us. But at the end of the day, the question of whether to walk through the narrow gate is not ours to decide for them, and, unfortunately, there have been, and will continue to be, many who look upon the gate, recognize that it leads to glory, and then turn to continue on the path to destruction.

God, thank you for giving us the eyes to see and the hearts to respond to the grace that so many others before us have seen and rejected. Continue to lead us into lives that increasingly glorify you, that we might be as much of a light as possible to those who would consider the grace you are offering them in Christ.