21 The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord when King Zedekiah sent to him Pashhur the son of Malchijah, and Zephaniah the priest, the son of Maaseiah, saying, 2 “Please inquire of the Lord on our behalf, for Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon is warring against us; perhaps the Lord will deal with us according to all His [a]wonderful acts, so that the enemy will withdraw from us.”
3 Then Jeremiah said to them, “You shall say to Zedekiah as follows: 4 ‘Thus says the Lord God of Israel, “Behold, I am about to turn back the weapons of war which are in your hands, with which you are warring against the king of Babylon and the Chaldeans who are besieging you outside the wall; and I will gather them into the center of this city. 5 I Myself will war against you with an outstretched hand and a mighty arm, even in anger and wrath and great indignation. 6 I will also strike down the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast; they will die of a great pestilence. 7 Then afterwards,” declares the Lord, “I will give over Zedekiah king of Judah and his servants and the people, even those who survive in this city from the pestilence, the sword and the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of their foes and into the hand of those who seek their lives; and he will strike them down with the edge of the sword. He will not spare them nor have pity nor compassion.”’
This had to be a little embarrassing for Pashhur, who earlier had Jeremiah whipped and put in the stocks. Not that we know how much time passed between those things, but no doubt they both remembered the incident. Yet here he is, sent by King Zedekiah to ask Jeremiah if God might yet have compassion. Those aren’t the exact words though, they know they need a miracle to escape the hand of Nebuchadnezzar.
Certainly they had warriors, and were fighting valiantly for their homes and families, but there was a problem. They were also fighting against God himself, and no miracle from God could undo that. That is, they were the ones fighting God, and they hadn’t stopped. Somehow, the king wanted God to change their circumstances without them changing what they were doing.
Here was the very army God had promised, knocking on their gates, and now they finally turn to God and ask for help. Now, the shocking thing is, that God would have likely answered, had there been any actual change of heart. We see this when Jesus was on the cross, and one of the criminals, a man vile enough to warrant the death by crucifixion, put his hope in Jesus. And Jesus saw his heart and rewarded it.
So once again, we have an issue of the heart, but I think there is something else for us to learn. Which is that we ought not to wander about our merry way, ignoring God until the enemy is at the gate. Rather, we should be walking and talking with Him daily, so that the enemy can’t even approach our gate for fear. For as the apostle James wrote, the demons believe very much in God, and they tremble. They’ve seen Him, and know who He is.
Do you? And if we do, do we walk and talk like it? Or do we only come to God when we need miracles? We need to walk daily with God at our side, that is, walking in His steps, staying near Him, and obeying His instructions. Then there will be no fear when trouble comes, for “we know the One in who we have believed…” and He is good, all the time.