KING ZEDEKIAH – LESSONS FOR SOUL WINNERS

 GENERAL INTRODUCTION AND PREMISE:

Ø  Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon who made him take an oath of obedience 2 Kings 24:15-20

Ø  Zedekiah rebelled against the LORD, who would have defended him, while, at the end, he was also rebelling against the foreign superpower king that was threatening him (“he also rebelled against king Nebuchadnezzar”) 2Chron. 36:11-17

Ø  Jeremiah delivered God’s loving kindness to King Zedekiah to repent but Zedekiah defiantly failed to take heed. God warned him from the beginning of his reign that his only hope was in submitting to Nebuchadnezzar. Jer. 27:1-11

Ø  Zedekiah hoped for a miracle while living in disobedience to God his maker and to Nebuchadnezzar his godfather. Jer. 21:1-10

Ø  Zedekiah made a show of pleasing God but demonstrated his rebellion toward God in his actions. The law required the release of all slaves on the year of Jubilee. This Zedekiah commanded, but then had all the slaves put back into slavery. Jer. 34:8-16. They mocked the message, but the result remained the same- II Peter 3:3-12

Ø  His disobedience was flagrant. He rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar, who made him swear (allegiance) by God 2Chron. 36:13, 2 kings 24:20, Ezekiel 1:13-19. The reason of this revolt his new trust in another power on Pharaoh, hoping to obtain “horses and much people” Ezekiel 17:15

Ø  When God is against any man, no powers can help such a man – Pharaoh’s army, which has come out to help you, is going to return to its own land of Egypt. If you were to strike down the entire Chaldean army that is fighting you, and there remained among them only the badly wounded men, each in his tent; they would get up and burn this city down”. Jer. 37:7-10

Ø  Zedekiah didn’t like the message of God by the mouth of Jeremiah, so he persecuted and imprisoned the messenger. Jer. 37:14b-16

Ø  Zedekiah and his disobedient followers were treated with merciless carnage; ruthless sacrilege; wholesale destruction and pitiless expatriation 2 Kings 25:13-17; Jeremiah 52:17-23

ETERNAL WARNING TO YOU AND ME:

Ø  The offensiveness in God’s sight of pride and hardness of heart

Ø  The heinousness of oath-breaking and of unjustifiable rebellion

Ø  The hopelessness of reformation in a city or a land when all classes are in love with wicked ways

Ø  The infinite compassion of God towards the worst of men

Ø  The certainty that mercy despised will turn into wrath displayed.

Ø  The pitiless character of Heaven’s judgments upon them for whom there is no remedy.

Ø  The indifference God shows towards the external symbols of religion when the inner spirit is wanting.

Ø  The impossibility of God’s Word failing.