[This is one in a series of devotional reflections prepared for Horley Baptist Church during April 2024]
Have you ever received a message that you did not want to hear? Perhaps you had a summons to a meeting that you wanted to avoid or maybe you were instructed to do something that you did not want to do.
In around 600BC God sent a message to Jehoiakim, king of Judah, warning him about the consequences of his nation’s behaviour. God spoke through the prophet Jeremiah, instructing him to dictate the message to his assistant, Baruch, who wrote it on a scroll and read it to the people of Jerusalem. When the king’s officials heard the message they were dismayed and sent it urgently to the king. The king ordered his secretary, Jehudi, to read the message.
Whenever Jehudi had read three or four columns of the scroll, the king cut them off with a scribe’s knife and threw them into a brazier until the entire scroll was burned in the fire.
Jeremiah 36 v23 [NIVUK]
There are times when we, too, would like to destroy the evidence, to pretend that the message never arrived. Do you check caller-id before answering the phone? Does certain correspondence get pushed to the bottom of the pile? Do you ‘tune out’ if a sermon is making you feel uncomfortable?
I would not obey my teachers or turn my ear to my instructors and I was soon in serious trouble
Proverbs 5 v13-14 [NIVUK]
Baruch was able to produce a duplicate of the text of the scroll but again it was ignored. The conquest of Jerusalem by the Babylonians followed and the 70-year exile ensued.
Contrast the behaviour of Jehoiakim with that of Hezekiah, some 115 years earlier.
Hezekiah trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel. No king of Judah was like him, either before him or after him
2 Kings 18 v5 [BSB]
He too received a threat from an invading army. The Assyrian king Sennacherib sent a message to Hezekiah in which he advised the king that the “god you depend on” would be unable to protect him.
Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord and spread it before the Lord
2 Kings 19 v14 [ESVUK]
The full text of God’s response to Sennacherib’s challenge is recorded in Isaiah 37 v21-38. Sufficient to say that it was prompt and effective!
There are occasions when we too can receive a message that causes us distress. Do we feel angry or unfairly attacked? Have we reached the limit of our resources? Hezekiah’s reaction is an example of how we should react. In 1855 the hymn-writer Joseph Scriven offered his advice on the same theme:
Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged; take it to the Lord in prayer!
Can we find a friend so faithful who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness; take it to the Lord in prayer!
References:
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Last week’s reflection: The Supporting Cast
Contributed by Steve Humphreys; © Steve Humphreys
Hi Steve,
What you say is very true, bad news is something none of us really want to read! This is one of my favourite hymns.
Thank you for your reflection.