1. JEREMIAH’S TRIALS Chapters 26 – 28; 36 - 38

2. Learning From History… Part of the reason that the people resisted Jeremiah’s message was due to a misunderstanding of their history. Back when the Assyrians were threatening Jerusalem and the end seemed to be near, the prophet Isaiah instructed King Hezekiah to trust God for deliverance. God honored Hezekiah’s faith and obedience and delivered Jerusalem.

3. Jeremiah…the Traitor? This story was passed down to the leaders and peoples of Jeremiah’s day. So when they were threatened by the Babylonians they assumed that God would save them because they were David’s descendants. So when Jeremiah advised the people of Judah to give up to the Babylonians, he was perceived as a political and spiritual traitor who was abandoning the faith of Isaiah.

4. Missing the Point… The people of Judah wrongly believed that God’s covenant meant that they could do whatever they wanted without consequences. They ignored the fact that God honored and saved their ancestors because Hezekiah’s heart was turned to God and he intended to obey the covenant requirements. The people (and future kings except for Josiah) did not follow the lead of Hezekiah. They shrugged off reforms and returned to the spiritual and social evils.

5. Adding Insult to Injury… Jeremiah’s political statements were not all that disturbed the people. He also announced that the Babylonian threat and the horrible spiritual condition of the people were related. But Judah’s leaders did not want him to speak to the people about repentance or about surrender to the Babylonians, so they tried to silence Jeremiah…

6. Jeremiah’s Trials YOUR ASSIGNMENT Your row will be assigned a chapter from Jeremiah. Read it together and create a summary of the chapter answering the following questions: Who was involved? What happened? Why did it happen? How was God at work in the story? You will be presenting your summary to the class…

7. Jeremiah’s Trials Chapter 26 Summary During the reign of King Jehoiakim, God instructed Jeremiah to go prophesy in the temple and tell the folks that certain destruction of Jerusalem was coming. The same fate that came upon Israel will befall Jerusalem unless they repent. The priests and the people had a better idea. Instead of repenting they planned to kill Jeremiah. Rather than just commit murder, they decided to put Jeremiah on trial for treason.

8. Jeremiah’s Trials God kept his promise to take care of Jeremiah While Jeremiah is on trial for saying such things, one of the elders remembers that the prophet Micah had made the same prophecy during the days of Hezekiah and he had not been executed. But on the other hand, there was another man named Urijah who had delivered the same message and the people did try to execute him. The question becomes: Do we let Jeremiah go on like Micah, or put him to death like Urijah? Finally, an influential man named Ahikam supported Jeremiah and was able to deliver Jeremiah from a guilty verdict and spare Jeremiah's death.

9. Jeremiah’s Trials Chapter 26 1.Jeremiah 27:1 – 2, 12 – 15, Chapter 28 2.Jeremiah 36 3.Jeremiah 37 4.Jeremiah 38:1 – 13 5.Jeremiah 38:14 – 28

10. Jeremiah’s Trials Chapter 27: 1-2, 12-15, 28 God tells Jeremiah to use a visual aid - a yoke to wear. Why? Later he sends yokes to the king and the leaders of these surrounding nations (they were having a secret rebellion meeting) to illustrate that there is no point in resisting Nebuchadnezzar; he is in control and will remain there until God is finished with him.

11. God’s word cannot be altered to please the listeners. (Chapters 27 – 28) Jeremiah's message is that there is no point in resisting the inevitable; to fight Nebuchadnezzar is useless and suicidal. But false prophets (like Hananiah) in Judah were telling Zedekiah and the leaders of Judah (and the surrounding nations) that the Babylonian captivity was soon to be over, but Jeremiah was telling them that a return to the land would not happen in their generation.

12. Jeremiah’s Trials Chapter 36 God instructed Jeremiah to write down his prophecies concerning Judah and send them to the leaders of Judah/Jerusalem. Baruch, Jeremiah's secretary, wrote out the prophecy and then took it to Jerusalem where he read it to several leaders of the government. Those leaders believed that King Jehoiakim needed to hear these prophecies.

13. Jeremiah’s Trials (Chapter 36) No human agent can destroy the word of God. Finally, the scroll was read to the king by Jehudi. However, Jehudi personally took the pages and burned them - cut them out with a penknife - after he read them to the king. After the disposal of this prophecy, Baruch and Jeremiah were going to be arrested but God hid them. Subsequently, Jeremiah wrote down the words of the first prophecy (again) along with some additional (really bad) words directed specifically at Jehoiakim.

14. Jeremiah’s Trials Chapter 37 Zedekiah sends for Jeremiah to pray for Judah. Jeremiah gets a prophecy directly from God and delivers it, but it was another of the doom-and-gloom prophecies. “The Egyptians cannot help you, Babylon will conquer Judah.” The Babylonian army temporarily left Jerusalem for fear of a confrontation with the Egyptian army. During that time, Jeremiah left Jerusalem, but was arrested because he was framed as working with the Babylonians. The officials worked him over before throwing him into prison where he stayed "many days."

15. Jeremiah’s Trials (Chapter 37) God’s Truth Is Always Revealed. Later, Zedekiah had Jeremiah delivered before him from prison where he privately asked him about the future, but it was still a story of doom and gloom, especially for King Zedekiah, who was told that he would be captured. Jeremiah then points out to King Zedekiah that the (false) prophets who promised good news were nowhere to be found now. Jeremiah requested that he not be sent back to prison; instead, he was placed under the guards in the court of the guards. There he was not free, but not isolated in prison either.

16. Jeremiah’s Trials Chapter 38:1 - 13 Zedekiah’s leadership team was angry about Jeremiah's “surrender-while-you-still-can” prophecies. They wanted him dead. They felt his message was interfering with morale and thus jeopardizing their defense of the city, Jerusalem. The soldiers went to the king and sought permission to kill Jeremiah. Zedekiah looked the other way and didn’t interfere with their plans. Rather than just kill him, they lowered him down into a pit - a cistern without water, but it was full of mud. Jeremiah sank down into the mud.

17. Jeremiah’s Trials God did not abandon Jeremiah (Chapter 38: 1 - 13) When one of the king's servants, an Ethiopian, asked permission to rescue Jeremiah, the king consented and provided the resources to do so. Jeremiah was rescued and placed back under arrest. Notice the reference to the lack of food in Jerusalem in verse 9. After many months of being surrounded by the Babylonian army, food supplies had become scarce. Capturing a walled city like Jerusalem was not difficult...given enough time - just starve them out!

18. Jeremiah’s Trials Chapter 38:14 - 28 Zedekiah, the last King of Judah figures a mud bath should have served to change Jeremiah's message. He arranges a meeting with Jeremiah to get a second opinion. However, the prophecy didn't change from previously. He tells Zedekiah that if he goes ahead and surrenders to Nebuchadnezzar, he and his house will be spared, but if he resists, it'll be big trouble for Zedekiah.

19. Jeremiah’s Trials: God shows Zedekiah that Jeremiah was a true prophet. The meeting concludes, but some people had seen Jeremiah talking with the king. Inquiring minds wanted to know what they talked about. Zedekiah commands Jeremiah to lie about the content of their conversation...and Jeremiah does just as he is commanded.