SCRIPTURE: Jeremiah 43
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
All the arrogant men said to Jeremiah, “You are lying! The LORD our God has not sent you to say, ‘You must not go to Egypt to settle there.’ But Baruch son of Neriah is inciting you against us to hand us over to the Babylonians, so they may kill us or carry us into exile to Babylon.” [Jeremiah 43:2-3]
Jeremiah is accused of being a false prophet, not speaking for God but for himself and his friend Baruch – to have the people killed.
Again and again when Jeremiah speaks for God, the people do not want to hear it, because it goes against their own desires or expectations.
Jeremiah’s words are too hard – he is asking them to risk the wrath of Babylon after Gedaliah’s death (the king of Babylon’s appointed ruler in Israel).
Jeremiah’s confidence is based on God’s promise to restore His people, and to use Babylon to purge the land and remake it anew.
But the people have ignored God for so long, they no longer remember His promise or recognize His message.

But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, “It is only by Beelzebub, the prince of demons, that this fellow drives out demons.” [Matthew 12:24]
The Pharisees, like the arrogant men challenging Jeremiah, have become so absorbed in their own religious piety that they cannot recognize God at work.
Even though everything Jesus says and does fits with what God revealed in the Old Testament to the Jews, they cannot recognize it.
To see how bad it has gotten, they attribute Jesus’ words and works to Satan; this is how upside down their thinking has become, they cannot recognize God’s work for what it is, and mistake it for Satan’s.
They refuse to listen to Jesus, and lead the people (and Jesus) into the judgment of Rome (the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD).
Their blindness and refusal to listen not only destroys themselves, but the whole nation itself.
The same thing, Jeremiah predicts, will happen to the Jews in Egypt.

And if I drive out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your people drive them out? So then, they will be your judges. But if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. [Matthew 12:27-28]
Jesus challenges the religious leaders, hoping to make them think – whose voice are you listening to, whose power are you operating in?
Jeremiah could have asked these men the same thing – ‘you accuse me of speaking for Baruch, who are you speaking for?’
Then Jesus finishes by saying, ‘if what I say and do is from God, then it will be as I say, God’s kingdom has come!’
Jeremiah plants the stones at the entrance to Pharoah’s palace and essentially says, ‘if what I say is from God, then these stones will one day be under Babylon’s rule.
In other words, both are saying – wait and see whose word is true, and whose word is a lie.

Whose words am I listening to?
Whose words am I refusing to listen to?
Do I reject God’s message just because it’s hard, or unfavourable?
Will I one day be sorry for not listening to God’s message?

PRAYER:
Lord, Your message is not easy, but what You say is so important. Help me to listen and obey, and not make the mistake of ignoring the truth because I don’t like it.