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35:1-19
‘Will you not learn a lesson and obey My words?’(13) - ‘Jonadab, son of Rechab, ordered his sons not to drink wine and this command has been kept... I have spoken to you again and again, yet you have not obeyed Me’(14). We are not to say, ‘I will follow You’ and then change our mind (Luke 9:57). We are not to sing, ‘Take my life, and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee’, and then live a life which contradicts our prayer of commitment to the Lord (Church Hymnary, 462). We are to mean what we say. We are to follow through our words of commitment with a life of obedience, a life that is pleasing to the Lord. The Rechabites were obedient to Jonadaab’s command - and they were blessed by God (18-19). Obedient and blessed - That’s what God wants us to be. Let’s obey the Lord - and look to Him for the blessing.

36:1-32
‘The king cut it with the penknife, and threw it into the fire’(23). The king didn’t like God’s Word. He thought he could get rid of God’s Word. What a fool he was! God saw what was going on. The king’s attempt to silence God was utterly futile. God would not be silenced. He continued to speak His Word. Soon, the king was hearing another Word from the Lord: ‘You burned that scroll...’(29)! God is still speaking to us today. He calls us to listen to Him. He calls us back from the way of ‘wickedness’, back from the brink of ‘disaster’(31). He calls us back from the way of unbelief, the way that leads to ‘the eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels’. He calls us to be ‘blessed’. Have faith in the Saviour. Receive ‘the Kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world’(Matthew 25:41,34).

37:1-21
‘Is there any Word from the Lord?’- ‘Yes! There is a Word from the Lord’. The Word from the Lord wasn’t exactly what the king wanted to hear - ‘You will be handed over to the king of Babylon’(17). God was going to bless His people - but they would have to be patient: Things were going to get an awful lot worse before they would get much better! Before their restoration - “I will bring them back and restore them to this place’- , God’s people faced captivity - ‘They will be taken to Babylon’. There was bad news - a captivity of ‘seventy years’. There was good news - the captivity wouldn’t last forever (27:22; 29:10-11)! God speaks of His blessing - ‘It will certainly come’- , but He also says, ‘Wait for it’(Habakkuk 2:3). Let’s listen to all that He says to us - and not ‘only hear what we want to hear’!

38:1-28
‘No Surrender’- Was this the way forward for God’s people? ‘No Surrender’- What would happen if God’s people adopted this attitude? Jeremiah speaks God’s Word to the people. He calls them to make their choice. They can ‘surrender’ and ‘live’. They can say, ‘No Surrender’- and face certain death (17-18). Captivity in Babylon would not be easy. They would be heartbroken as they recalled happier times - ‘By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion’. It would be so difficult to keep on praising the Lord - ‘How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?’(Psalm 137:1,4). Life in Babylon would be difficult - but ‘it would not be the end of the world’! They could still look forward to the fulfilment of God’s ‘gracious promise’: ‘I will come to you and bring you back to this place’(29:10).