A God who requires obedience from kings.

Song: Psalms 98

God invites his people to return to him.

Zephaniah

“Gather together, gather yourselves together, you shameful nation, before the decree takes effect and that day passes like windblown chaff, before the Lord’s fierce anger comes upon you, before the day of the Lord’s wrath comes upon you. Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land, you who do what he commands. Seek righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you will be sheltered on the day of the Lord’s anger” (Zephaniah 2:1-3).

In the time of Israel and Judah’s kings, “God would send prophets to the people to say to them, this is what the Lord the God of Israel says: ‘I brought you up out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. I rescued you from the hand of the Egyptians; and I delivered you from the hand of all your oppressors; I drove them out before you and gave you their land.’ I said to you, ‘I am the Lord your God; do not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live.’” But the kings of Israel and Judah did not listen to God or to any of his prophets (Judges 6:8-10).

Amos

Amos was one of these prophets who spoke to the people of Israel to return to God. In Amos 7, God shows Amos the judgement that he is preparing for his people, locust to devour their livelihood and fires to destroy everything that’s left. Amos pleads to God for mercy and God says, that he will not do either of these things that he was preparing and that he shared with Amos, but instead he shows Amos a wall and a plumb line, a tool of measurement, and says to Amos that what he will do is measure and divide his people. Those who meet the correct measurement will be added to what he is building and those who do not will be divided, cut off. God specifically calls out the high places of worship as objects of God’s wrath that he is preparing to destroy and ruin as well as anyone who chooses to stand against God and reject him, those people will not be protected from his wrath (Amos 7:7-9,17).

Ezekiel

Ezekiel was another one of these prophets who spoke to the people of Israel to return to God and avoid God’s wrath. God told Ezekiel to tell the people that he was about to “cut off the food supply in Jerusalem. The people will eat rationed food in anxiety and drink rationed water in despair, for food and water will be scarce. They will be appalled at the sight of each other and will waste away because of their sin” (Ezekiel 4:16-17). The kings of Israel and Judah did not listen to any of the prophets. When the kings of Israel rejected God as their king, they rejected the covering that his leadership brings. Literally God said that rejecting him would remove their food supply, spiritually, rejecting God as their king and following whatever the kings of Judah and Israel thought was best, God was saying, was the equivalent of being fed rationed food, that those kings will lead you into a life of anxiety and despair; and that food that nourishes the soul and spirit (i.e. hope, peace, joy, purpose, fulfillment) will be scarce and in this kind of anxiety-driven life God’s people will waste away for turning away from him (Ezekiel 4).

The kings of Judah and Israel did not listen to God or to any of his prophets and served other gods because they did not want to listen to authority. The gods of the people around them did not have covenants with people like the God of their ancestors, they did not give commands like the God of their ancestors. The kings and people of Israel and Judah did not want to listen to God because he required more than sacrifices, worship of him required reverence and obedience that kings did not believe they needed to respect.

These following accounts serve as a mirror for the people of God, Christians, who have chosen leaders for themselves who do not honor God and these leaders have led them into trusting in whatever they believe and in so doing have misrepresented who God is, with their own principles as the foundation that they accept and obey and the King of Kings as the foundation that they reject.

King Jeroboam

Jeroboam was one of these kings that did not respect the authority of God but believed that spirituality was a tool that he could use as a leader to maintain power and his place as king. When Jeroboam became king of Israel, after Israel had split into two kingdoms, the kingdom of Judah and the kingdom of Israel, 1 Kings 12:26-33 says that he began to build temples all around his domain. Formerly all Israel would sojourn to Jerusalem as the holy city to offer sacrifices to God for certain festivals, but now Jerusalem was the seat of the king of Judah, so “Jeroboam thought to himself, ‘the kingdom now is likely to revert to the king in Jerusalem. If these people go up to offer sacrifices at the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem, they will again give their allegiance to their lord, Rehoboam, king of Judah, they will kill me and return to him” (1 Kings 12:26-27). So Jeroboam constructed gods in his own towns and, as the leader of Israel, used his authority to convince the people of Israel that they did not need to go to Jerusalem anymore, that their god lived where they are and he made two golden calves and put one of them on a hill in Bethel and the other one on a hill in Dan and built shrines throughout Israel for people to worship these gods locally and “appointed priests from all sorts of people, even though they were not Levites” (1 Kings 12:28-31). King Jeroboam even moved the date of the pilgrimage festival commemorating God’s deliverance from Egypt to a month of his own choosing so that the people of Israel would not be traveling while the people Judah were traveling and come across one another and create conflict about when where and how to worship God.

King Uzziah

Uzziah was another one of these kings that did not fully respect the authority of God or the structures that he required. King Uzziah did not believe that spiritual leaders had any authority over him. One day King Uzziah entered the holy place of the temple to burn incense to God, a seemingly innocent yet defiant activity (2 Chronicles 26:16). During the time of Israel’s kings, God created the structure of the priesthood to minister to him face to face on behalf of all of God’s people and to offer sacrifices. God requires holiness and the priests performed ceremonial activities to meet this requirement for themselves and for God’s people. Holy being both blameless and set apart for God’s specific use. An extremely important reverent quality that has not changed in God’s character. In the times of Israel’s kings no one that was not holy could approach God or enter the holy places of the temple without getting killed, by God. This is why Jesus’ sacrifice is so important to the Christian belief because no one could meet God’s requirement for righteousness or holiness, not even priests. So, God made a sacrifice to himself of himself to make atonement for all people who would believe in him, through his son, so that we all could approach God, blamelessly through the forgiveness that belief in Jesus covers us with. When King Uzziah entered the holy place in the temple to offer an incense sacrifice to God he was saying, that the presence of a king before his God did not need the covering of a priest, that his title placed him above reproach, there was nothing in him that made him unholy to God, in essence he was saying that being king made him perfect like God or closer to God’s equal than the priests that God had ordained. This disregard for God’s structure of the priesthood was an act of pride and God struck him with leprosy in the act and made him unapproachable to anyone to remind him that only God makes people holy, by his mercy and his covering (2 Chronicles 26:16-20).

Kings that God blesses follow their faith in God, not their own wisdom; and instruct the people that they lead to do what God requires, put their faith in him and as leaders say, follow my example, trust in God.

King Saul and King David

God was making a distinction between his wisdom and man’s wisdom when he chose David to sit on his throne after Israel had chosen Saul. The wisdom of godly leadership says like Solomon in Proverbs 15:33, “wisdom instructs people to fear the Lord”.

David was a king with godly wisdom who feared God, revered God and loved him. Saul was someone who Israel thought looked like a king. God allowed Saul to go crazy with paranoia but gave David victory when he spoke out courageously for God and against the enemies of the people of God. God was interested in being king over his people and caring for them and providing for them himself. When Israel rejected God as ruler and king he complied and said, if you must have a king, the person who sits on the throne of my kingdom will be someone I put there. Because God was trying to teach his people that authority belongs to him, protection belongs to him, wealth and prosperity belongs to him, people, kings and nations do not produce wealth on their own, God raises kings and nations up from his own plans.

In the case of Saul, the people of God wanted to be a people with a king, so God let them choose and establish a monarchy and then he gave the kingdom and the throne to David. Jerusalem was symbolically the place where God dwelled, the seat of the king. All other kings believed that that seat was for them to sit and rule, only David believed that the throne of God’s people belongs to God and the people of Israel belong to God and at best the king who sits on the throne that God built is supposed to bring messages back to the people about what kind of God, God is. David believed that people do not serve or bow down to idols or humans, that kind of reverence is reserved for God. David chose to have Jerusalem be the seat of the throne of God and through this decision said that even though a king is ruling Israel and making laws and leveling taxes the true ruler over us, protector over us the one who is causing us to have wealth is the God whose throne the king is seated on.

Jesus the king who sits on the throne of the kingdom of God.

Remember that the kingdom of God is not an earthly kingdom. When David said, “God I want to build you a house that honors your glory, who am I, if the Lord has given me peace from all of my enemies to live in a house made of fine wood, cedar and for the ark that represents the covenant of God (God’s promise to choose Israel) to be in a tent”. God responded to David that he doesn’t need a house (2 Samuel 7:5-7). Isaiah 66:1 says, “where is the palace you will build for me, heaven is my throne and earth is my footstool”.

So when David made elaborate plans to build a city that honored God, not him, the majesty of it was to reflect how wonderful and majestic and powerful, beautiful and rich God is, not the king (2 Samuel 7). The temple was made to be a place to bring sacrifices and offerings to the Most High God and the palace a place to reflect on the splendor of God’s kingdom, the true king, God not man. The palace in Jerusalem was also made for God, the king ruled there under the direction of God, but the palace was not intended to be the king’s.

The kingdom of God is a spiritual concept. The people who are citizens of the kingdom of God are all who believe in him and the king who sits on the throne of the kingdom of God is Jesus, who is God and not a man. So, when scriptures say, God will build his kingdom on earth it is referring to the body of Christ the collection of believers who acknowledge God as king over earthly matters and spiritual matters. This is why in 2 Chronicles 9 God allowed the temple and palace and kingdom that existed under Solomon’s reign to be so magnificent because it was meant to serve as a reminder to future generations of how God is able to rule over both heavenly and earthly matters. God alone is able to give leaders who acknowledge and honor him the wisdom that is described in 2 Chronicles 9 that Solomon had that brought rulers from many nations to sit at his table representing the table of the king of kings to listen to his wisdom because the wisdom wasn’t from his own intelligence it was wisdom God had given him. Solomon was telling these rulers that fearing God is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 1:7). When advisors to kings from the nations of the world were not counseling them in this kind of instruction Solomon was saying my wealth and success has come to me because God is my king and I fear and honor him and God allowed Solomon’s kingdom to be majestic, to testify not about Solomon’s greatness but about the splendor of his God.

All kings after David rejected God and believed the splendor of the palace and the wealth of the kingdom belonged to them and their heirs, so God rejected them and removed the splendor and the wealth from them quickly to make a distinction symbolically about the kind of kingdom he deserves that only he can build, and the less impressive type of palace and kingdoms kings are able to build without him.

King Solomon

And God spoke to his people and said that he would honor obedience to him but that rejecting him would bring everyone who rejects him under a state of being cursed (Deuteronomy 28).

Blessings for Obedience.

“If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands that I give you today the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God: You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country. The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed. You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.” (Deuteronomy 28:1-14)

2 Chronicles 9:22-23, 26-27 says, “King Solomon was greater in riches and wisdom than all the kings of the earth. All the kings of the earth sought audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom God had put in his heart. He ruled over all the kings from the river Euphrates to the land of the Philistines as far as the border of Egypt. The king made silver as common as stones and cedar as plentiful as sycamore-fig trees.” God made rulers, kings and queens give exotic, luxurious and uncommon materials to use to decorate the temple and temple furnishings, the palace and the instruments used to praise God and weapons to defend the throne. These items were not only luxurious, some casted in gold or covered in expensive materials, but symbolic representations of the wealth of the King of kings, the way God is able to provide for himself, his king and his kingdom.

Solomon was a symbolic king of kings that Jesus the King of kings would be for the kingdom of God, someone who wise people and wise rulers turn to for an audience and counsel. Someone who people of all nations bring offerings of worship and praise. A king whose kingdom is expansive and has no end. A kingdom whose king is able to supply his kingdom with an abundance of wealth and peace and shelter.

Curses for disobedience.

“However, if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you. You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country. Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed. The fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the crops of your land, and the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out” (Deuteronomy 28:15-68).

King Rehoboam

All other kings thought king Solomon’s wealth was his own making and as soon as the throne was passed into the hands of a king (Rehoboam) who rejected God as king and the throne and the kingdom as belonging to God, God took all of his wealth and shelter and splendor from them to create the distinction of a people whose king is God from a people who worship kings and idols and other gods. For the people of God this meant, destruction, less wealth and constant war, oppressive leaders and ultimately captivity and slavery to other nations, their kings and gods.

Before King Solomon dies, he makes his son Rehoboam his successor, and with the king dead all of Israel go to Jerusalem to acknowledge the sovereignty of Rehoboam. All of Israel beg the mercy of the new King Rehoboam, that he will not be like his father, King Solomon who heavily taxed the people and put them under harsh labor to build his kingdom (1 Kings 12:1-4).

King Rehoboam replies, ‘give me three days to think about it and consult with some of my advisors.’ First, he consults with the elders of Israel and they tell him that if he gives the people the relief that they are asking for then you won’t have any issues and they will be committed to you. The elders said this to him because it was well known that a prophet named Ahijah had spoken a word from God about a military commander named Jeroboam, that God would take the kingdom of Israel out of the hands of Rehoboam and give it to him (1 Kings 11:31-39), so the elders advised King Rehoboam against doing anything that would excite rebellion (1 Kings 12:6-7).

Then King Rehoboam consults with the young people who had grown up with him and they tell him that he should not listen to the elders of Israel because it will be a sign of weakness. Instead, they suggest that he tell the people that they have not seen hard labor. King Rehoboam decides to take the advice of the young people who had grown up with him and tells the people that he is a stronger king than his father and will be even more strict (1 Kings 12:8-11). Rehoboam did not believe in the wisdom of fearing God, he thought that being an authoritarian king will keep people from challenging him, but this backfires.

When King Rehoboam makes this announcement to the people of Israel, all of the tribes and houses of Israel think that the house of Judah, where the lineage of the king was established with King David, Solomon and now Rehoboam, are only concerned about their own and are not with them (the other tribes) but wishes instead to rule over them. The announcement from King Rehoboam causes them to feel that the inheritance that God said was for each tribe is only for the house of David (1 Kings 12:16). So, the tribes of Israel stone to death Rehoboam’s chief of forced labor and decide that they do not need Rehoboam as King, only the tribes of Judah and Benjamin stay loyal to King Rehoboam.

Then the tribes of Israel in rebellion remember the prophesy from Ahijah about Jeroboam and decide not to split into several kingdoms but to remain Israel under Jeroboam. This is how the tribe of Judah became a nation and kingdom with Jerusalem as the seat of its king and Israel, with the remaining tribes, split from Judah becoming a nation with its own kingdom with Bethel as the seat of its king.

Disobedience removes protection.

It is difficult to believe in God when your faith is in your own splendor. Rehoboam’s father Solomon and grandfather David put their faith in God, not in riches. When God says that he is with you and he places his name on you, that means the reputation of who God is follows you; and God is only with those who are with him. Before Israel rebelled and left to become its own kingdom, God sent the prophet Ahijah to Rehoboam to warn him that he would lose everything if he rejected God as his king. And he lost everything. With Rehoboam, God’s justice, for rejecting him as king, looked like the removal of all splendor from king Rehoboam’s reign that had defined both God’s great name and the promise he had made to Rehoboam’s father and grandfather (2 Chronicles 12:3-4).

Everything in the palace of Israel was gold during Solomon’s reign and silver had no value because of how abundant it was. When Judah, under King Rehoboam, turned away from God, he sent Egypt to carry off everything that they worshipped and had put their faith and trust in, all of their treasures. They took all of their silver, and gold, broke down the walls of all of their fortified cities, their military was not able to defend them against the attacks of the Egyptians. They were left only with items that were considered of lesser value, bronze. To exemplify the type of gods, creations, work they had chosen, something of lesser value, when they rejected God (1 Kings 14:25-28).

When Rehoboam became king of Judah after ten tribes of Israel rebelled and left the kingdom to start a new kingdom, King Rehoboam started building fortresses around all of the cities in Judah. He set up watchmen and guards over those cities so that if King Jeroboam, king of Israel, or any other nation attacked, they would be well fortified and protected by their walls and guardsmen.

King Rehoboam believed that a kingdom should have a strong and unyielding king supported by strong infrastructure and a strong military. Unlike King David, his grandfather, he did not believe that the God of Israel was the one who kept his nation and cities safe. Psalms 127:1-2 says, ‘unless the Lord builds the house those who build labor in vain; and unless the Lord keeps watch over the city the guards stand watch in vain.”

King Rehoboam did not believe like his grandfather David says in Psalms 144:1-2 “Praise be to the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle. He is my loving God and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield in whom I take refuge, who subdues peoples under me.” King David believed that when God is your shield, no weapon can prosper against his protection on your life; and that when you put your faith in the shields that you make out of metal only the strength of your own power can save you.

King Rehoboam strengthened all of the defenses in Judah and in Benjamin; and he put shields and spears in all of the cities but they were insufficient to protect the kingdom (2 Chronicles 11:11-12). Only the ministers of the God of Israel, the Levites fled to his aide because, “King Jeroboam and his sons had rejected them as priests of the Lord when he appointed his own priests for the high places for the goat and calf idols he had made” (2 Chronicles 11:14-15).

The priests supported King Rehoboam for three years but when he felt that his kingdom was well defended and strong and his cities well established and fortified, “he and all of Judah with him abandoned the law of the Lord” (2 Chronicles 12:1).

Repentance brings deliverance

In the fifth year of King Rehoboam’s reign the king of Egypt attacked him and captured all of his fortified cities (2 Chronicles 12:2-4). In fear, all of the leaders of Judah came together in Jerusalem with King Rehoboam and a prophet spoke to them from the Lord and said, “you have abandoned me, therefore, I now abandon you (to the king of Egypt)” (2 Chronicles 12:5). When they heard this, all of the leaders humbled themselves and prayed to God for deliverance. After this another prophet named Shemaiah, spoke to them from the Lord and said, “since they have humbled themselves, I will not destroy them but will soon give them deliverance. My wrath will not be poured out on Jerusalem through the King of Egypt. They will however become subjects to him, so that they may learn the difference between serving me and serving the kings of other lands” (2 Chronicles 12:7-8).

When King Shishak, the King of Egypt attacked Jerusalem, he took everything, all the treasures of the temple to the Lord and the treasures of the royal palace, including the golden shields belonging to the commanders of the guards on duty at the entrance to the royal palace, which King Rehoboam replaced with shields made of bronze (2 Chronicles 12:9-11).

God did this, he said, so that his people would know the difference between the strength of your own might to shield you and the protection God provides when he is your shelter and hiding place, your protection, fortress and strong tower.

God wanted people who would say like David, “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging” (Psalms 46:1-3).

King Hezekiah

“The eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him” (2 Chronicles 16:9)

King Hezekiah’s heart was determined to give God what he required, obedience. His father, Ahaz, his predecessors and former king of Judah, had closed the doors of the temple of the Lord and had rejected God as his king and worshipped other gods. King Hezekiah believed that in God’s anger and wrath God had made the people of Judah an object of dread and horror because the people, like his father, were unfaithful to God and turned their backs on him (2 Chronicles 29:3-10). So, Hezekiah determined to do all that God required so that God’s wrath would turn away from his people. He said to everyone in his kingdom, “I intend to make a covenant with the Lord the God of Israel so that his fierce anger will turn away from us” (2 Chronicles 29:10).

King Hezekiah rededicated the temple of the Lord back to God and assigned descendants of Aaron and Levites, who God had chosen to minister before him, back to their posts as ministers in the temple. Although he was king of Judah, King Hezekiah invited all of Israel and Judah to Jerusalem to recommit their lives back to the God of their ancestors, not to come and pay homage to him as king but to honor their God and receive the blessing of reconnection back to God, God’s covering of protection and shelter from his wrath.

King Hezekiah invited everyone from both kingdoms to celebrate the festival of the Passover commemorating the time in their history when in Exodus 12:12-13 God passed through Egypt and struck down every firstborn of both people and animals, and brought judgement on all the gods of Egypt, but passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared their homes. King Hezekiah wanted to invite Israel to return to the God whose covering protects them and their households from his wrath and all destruction and he sent couriers with this letter throughout Israel and Judah which read:

“People of Israel, return to the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, that he may return to you who are left, who have escaped from the hand of the kings of Assyria. Do not be like your parents and your fellow Israelites, who were unfaithful to the Lord, the God of their ancestors, so that he made them an object of horror, as you see. Do not be stiff-necked, as your ancestors were; submit to the Lord. Come to his sanctuary, which he has consecrated forever. Serve the Lord your God, so that his fierce anger will turn away from you. If you return to the Lord, then your fellow Israelites and your children will be shown compassion by their captors and will return to this land, for the Lord your God is gracious and compassionate. He will not turn his face from you if you return to him” (2 Chronicles 30:6-9).

“But people scorned and ridiculed the messengers” (2 Chronicles 30:10). However, a very large crowd from Judah and Israel did humble themselves and sojourn to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover and had hearts intent on returning to God. But the account in 2 Chronicles 30 says that the crowd that showed up was not ceremonially clean by the standards that the law of Moses required in order to participate in celebrating the Passover festival and consuming the meat of the sacrifices that had be consecrated by the priests (Exodus 12:43-49). Each person in the assembly was supposed to bring their own sacrifice for themselves for an offering to cleanse them from things they had done that lawfully made them unclean. However 2 Chronicles 30 says that no one in the crowd had brought the ceremonial sacrifices to offer to the priests to offer to God to cleanse them, so the priests made sacrifices for everyone in attendance which was not what the law prescribed. However, King Hezekiah believed that God was a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love and he prayed this prayer for all the people who were assembled for the festival of the Passover:

“May the Lord, who is good, pardon everyone who sets their heart on seeking God—the Lord, the God of their ancestors—even if they are not clean according to the rules of the sanctuary” (2 Chronicles 30:18-20). And the word says that “the Lord heard Hezekiah and healed the people” (2 Chronicles 30:20). This healing that occurred was both of their physical illnesses and any ideas or doubts that lead them to follow after any other god. They were healed of disbelief that God was only a God of wrath and shown that he is a God of mercy to people who return to him and set their hearts on seeking him.

Everyone in the crowd was filled with joy and King Hezekiah decided to celebrate the week-long festival an additional week. During the second week “a great number of priests rededicated, and consecrated themselves to the Lord” priests who had turned to other Gods, to lead people in the worship of foreign ideas, recommitted themselves to be ministers of God and used their ministerial role to bless all of the people who had assembled from Judah and from Israel including foreigners who had come from Israel and foreigners residing in Judah (2 Chronicles 30:24).

2 Chronicles 30:27 says, “and God heard them” not just meaning that God knew what the priests had said when they proclaimed a blessing over the people, but that God committed to honor the blessings spoken over the people by blessing them himself with all of the blessings that obedience in returning God provides.

Leviticus 26:1-13 lists the type of blessings that follow obedience. God’s word says that people who do not reject him but obey what he requires will be blessed in every season; and will have safety in the land where they live and peace. God says, that he will remove all anxieties from you so that “you will lie down and no one will make you afraid” (Leviticus 26:6). God says that obedience to him will give you victory over your enemies, favor from God and economic success, you will still be eating last year’s harvest and will have to move it out to make room for the new blessings that obedience to God provides. God says he will remove you from every captivity, he will remove every chain that had held you bound and “enable you to walk with heads held high” (Leviticus 26:13).

These blessings were intended for all of the people of God, all of Judah and all of Israel but only the people who returned to God in obedience received the blessings, people who were not ceremonially clean took the blessings, sinners took the blessings, non-Israelites, foreigners living among Judah and Israel whose heritage was not a people dedicated to God, saw the value in serving this God and received the blessings of turning in obedience to God to fulfill the word of the Lord that says “I will show my love to the one I called ‘not my loved one. I will say to those called ‘not my people’, ‘you are my people’; and they will say, ‘you are my God” (Hosea 2:23).  

You cannot have Faith in God without obedience.

Just as we live under the authority of governance laws and laws of nature. God also has commands that he requires people who believe in him to obey. Jeremiah 35 tells the account of a family that was living as strangers or foreigners in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem. God tells Jeremiah, the prophet, to go to them and to bring them into the temple of God and serve them wine and ask them to drink it. So, Jeremiah goes to the family and invites everyone in their household into God’s house and sets before all of them wine and says, “drink” (Jeremiah 35:5). But they all respond that they would not, not if a prophet of God or God himself in his house offers them wine will they drink it because their patriarchal father gave them instructions that while they are foreigners in Judah not to build houses, or cultivate any land, but to live in tents and do not drink any wine (Jeremiah 35:7). And they obeyed, every member of this family obeyed the instructions of this patriarchal father of theirs.

God brought this family to Jeremiah to testify against his own chosen people who worship him but do not follow his instructions to serve him only and to have faith in his promises. God knew that the family would refuse, he knew how loyal this family was to the commands of a father but he said to Jeremiah my own people, who are no longer foreigners in this land who I gave as an inheritance and removed the people who formerly lived here so that they could live here, those people do not listen to me, their God, their deliverer, their help, their reward (Jeremiah 35:16). God showed this to Jeremiah to remind his people that he is a God whose authority and laws his chosen people must follow and listen to.

God’s law and authority is above governance, laws, family traditions and covenants and above laws of nature and in order to receive the protection and inheritance and promises of God and not the punishment or consequences of refusing to listen to and obey his laws, God requires that people who believe in him also follow his laws.

God’s law is built on a foundation of faith. Abraham had faith (Romans 4:1-3) and his faith is an example of the kind of people that God would create on earth. People who believe in God’s word and follow what he commands; people who believe in God’s word and believe that there is no authority greater than his. This is the kind of faith that demonstrates your love for God: that you love God and obey what he commands, to believe in him as your source of forgiveness and blessings (Deuteronomy 6:4-5).

This is the foundation of faith in God that God requires but in Jeremiah 35, God says people will submit and obey the instructions of their forefathers who are all dead and unable to punish them for not obeying their commands or to bless them for obeying their commands but God who can destroy both soul and body in hell (Matthew 10:28) who is not dead and able to shield those who put their faith in him and to allow calamity to follow those who choose to put their faith in all sorts of ideas as their foundation, his people do not obey his instructions to have faith in him.

God’s own people who say they are Christians and believers in God do not listen to what he commands which is to believe in Jesus the word of God made flesh and to have faith in him as an example of the God who is able to bring his word into being (Jeremiah 35:16). The people who say they believe in God, not unbelievers, people God has chosen to say that these people represent me, they do not believe like David that “the world belongs to God and everything that is in it.” (Psalms 50:7). They trust only in the abundance of their riches (Psalms 52:7) to save and deliver and not in God to be their shield and very great reward (Genesis 15:1). God chose his word and ability to do and to be all that he is to and for people who have faith in him as the foundation of the people he chose. People called after his name, Christians, followers of God.

Jesus teaches his followers about obedience.

In Jeremiah the word of God says “woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture, declares the Lord. Therefore, this is what the Lord, the God of Israel says to the shepherds who tend my people: Because you have scattered my flock and driven them away and have not bestowed care on them, I will bestow punishment on you for the evil you have done, declares the Lord. I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them and will bring them back to their pasture where they will be fruitful and increase in number. I will place shepherds over them who will tend them, and they will no longer be afraid or terrified, nor will any be missing declares the Lord” (Jeremiah 23:1-4).

Not only kings but leaders of the people of God, priests and prophets, are guilty of disobedience that drives people away from God. In John chapter 6 Jesus teaches us about the type of leader that God has chosen in him, one whose obedience to God brings life to everyone who believes in him.

“All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me but raise them up at the last day. For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day” (John 6:37-40).

Jesus is speaking to teachers of the law, to Pharisees and Sadducees that he has the authority on earth to forgive (Mark 2:10) and this obedience to God’s will is what gathers people who have been driven away back to God, the source of life (John 6:35).  Leaders who obey God’s laws to believe in Jesus and trust him, have the authority that forgives and gives life covering them. Jesus teaches that obedience to this authority will protect people under their authority from all judgement of God.

What command is God asking his people to obey?

“Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: ‘Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?’ Jesus replied: ‘“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment” (Matthew 22:34-38).

“And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands” (2 John 1:6). As leaders it is not sufficient only to believe in God but that you teach generations after you to love him by obeying his word to believe in the one he has sent, Jesus and his authority to forgive, save and bless.

Prayer: Now, Lord our God, who brought your people out of Egypt with a mighty hand and who made for yourself a name that endures to this day, we have sinned, we have done wrong. Lord, in keeping with all your righteous acts, turn away your anger and your wrath from your people. Our sins and the iniquities of our ancestors have made your people an object of scorn to all those around us. Now, our God, hear the prayers and petitions of your servant. For your sake, Lord, look with favor on your people. Give ear, our God, and hear; open your eyes and see the desolation of your people that bear your Name. We do not make requests of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy. Lord, listen! Lord, forgive! Lord, hear and act! For your sake, my God, do not delay, because your people bear your Name” (Daniel 9:15-19).

Song: Psalms 85