“Enquire, I pray thee, of the LORD for us; for Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon maketh war against us; if so be that the LORD will deal with us according to all his wondrous works, that he may go up from us.” (Jer 21:2 AV)
These words are from Zedekiah to Jeremiah regarding the state of Judah and the invasion of Babylon. What makes these words astounding is the apparent oblivion in which they are spoken. There is no reference to past sin which God is bound to judge. There is no humility. There is no repentance. Zedekiah assumes God will honor His covenant with Israel regardless of how they live. Furthermore, there is no consideration for the ten northern tribes that have been taken. Zedekiah assumes since the promise of a king on the throne of David was made to David and Judah, they were immune from judgment. The presumption in this request is overwhelming. To assume the grace of God would continue separate and apart from what they had done and were doing was greater than an insult. It was a slap in the face of a great God who demands respect, glory, and honor.
One of the problems of working in the factory was the near impossibility of firing an employee. It wasn’t a union plant, but it had much of the same tendencies and even more so. The only recourse a manager had to fire someone was either gross negligence that endangered fellow employees or a lapse in attendance. That was it. Someone could come and sit on a bench all day, do nothing, and go home at the end of his eight hours and he would still have a job. Policy was a great idea. Best practices ensured quality control. Manuals gave guidelines that made everything run as smoothly as it could. But there was no enforcement. If an employee faced a reprimand, it had to go before a counsel of his peers and an employee rep had to sign off on it. The continued grace made for lazy and ineffective employees. There was a presumption of non-existent consequences for one’s actions. For those who took pride in their work and wanted to provide quality product in a timely fashion for our clients, this was beyond frustrating. Then a change took place. New management came. They were not afraid of the threat of unionization. They began to clean house of ineffective employees because they tended to have the same attendance patterns. They tended to max out their sick days, personal time, and vacation time with no wiggle room for a genuine emergency. They severely curtailed the liberty of calling in. Those who were there but didn’t want to work were also those who took as much sick time as possible. Now that it was shortened, they found themselves without work. They expected the grace to continue regardless of how they were working, or not working. The presumption was astounding.
But we do the same thing when we are caught up in presumptuous sin. When we are in a pattern of unrepentant sin and expect God’s grace to continue unabated, we do the same. We are no better than Zedekiah and just as brash if we go to God for anything while knowing we have not repented of known sin. The above passage may shock us. It should. The arrogance and naivety Zedekiah displays boggles the mind. Yet, we do the same thing. Our goal should be to walk in obedience and faith with God and when we do not, confess and forsake. This should happen no matter what our needs may or may not be. He deserves our contriteness. Confession and forsaking should be done immediately and completely. We shouldn’t wait for the show e to drop before we are willing to get right and stay right with God. Let us keep short accounts with God lest we be like Zedekiah. By the way, God ignored him and brought judgment anyway.
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