When 2 + 2 in God's Word Doesn't Add Up to 4

I remember the first time I knew that I didn't know anything.

It was the fall semester of my second year of college, and I was becoming fast friends with a young man named Hunter whose depth of thought intrigued me. In hour after hour of lofty conversation between classes, I learned to think beyond the parameters of what was considered normal and, instead, to contemplate philosophies and critical theory that, frankly, made my head hurt.

At first, I listened without interruption. Then, I slowly grew more comfortable with sharing slippery ideas I wasn't sure could be pinned down. Yet, when he started questioning me seriously about my faith in God, all I could give was an "it is what it is" line of answering that didn't convince anyone, least of all me.

I just didn't have the answers to all his less-than-superficial questions. At that moment, I began to spend an hour each morning in my car, Bible and dry highlighters in hand as I sought to put flesh on my bones of belief, to find answers both for Hunter and for myself.

One tenant he proposed was that Scripture was not inerrant. By God speaking through flawed men with their own personal agenda, speaking words that were then sometimes transcribed incorrectly on the thousands of manuscripts that didn't match up perfectly...that continued to be altered via various translations from the original--well, when you took all that into account, the words I read and believed were laced with flaws and unworthy of reverence.

I only knew one verse in rebuttal: "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness" (2 Tim. 3:16). Since God's character is perfect, His Word must be perfect. End of subject--right?

Wrong. If I were honest, in my heart, I also knew I had seen many places where I felt Scripture contradicted itself. And what's more, I didn't know what to do with those discrepancies...nor did I even feel that I could whisper such heresy aloud.

The Psalmist, himself, felt compelled to pen words confirming the perfection of Scripture--maybe he was a closet heretic, too, at some point in his journey to faith.

In one passage, he writes, "The words of the LORD are pure words; As silver tried in a furnace on the earth, refined seven times" (Ps. 12:6). With the number seven symbolizing perfection, the Psalmist implies that Scripture is the most refined, the most perfect--to the 7th degree. There is not even a half of a half of a half of a half of a thousandth percent impurity within.

This same concept it picked up later when he says, "Your word is very pure, Therefore Your servant loves it " (Ps. 119:140).

In both passages, the word "pure" means "to refine, try, smelt, test." As Strong's Concordance says, "The believer can take comfort in the Word of God which alone on earth is tried and purified and by which we can be purified" (242).

Thus, as silver is literally purified by fire, we, too, can be spiritually purified by the purest Word of God.

BUT what about those times when we read a passage and it definitely contradicts something we've read elsewhere in Scripture. Then what?

1. Sometimes, it's all about seeing the whole and not just the part.
Scripture is much like a puzzle, with each piece perfectly fitting into another until the entire work is complete. Sometimes, though, we try to look at all four sides of a single piece without seeing where and how it fits in with the rest of the pieces.

This point was driven home about a month ago when I was studying the demise of Israel's last king--Zedekiah. One passage concerning his doom reads, " I will bring him [Zedekiah] to Babylon in the land of the Chaldeans; yet he will not see it, though he will die there" (Ez. 12:13).

Definitely sounds contradictory...until you read the entirety of Scripture and learn that when the Babylonians captured Jerusalem after the siege, they poked out Zedekiah's eyes, blinding him. Knowing this bit of history, the passage is quite accurate--he "saw," but didn't "see" Babylon.

2. Sometimes, it's all about going back to the original Hebrew or Greek.
The easiest example of this is the oldie (but goodie), "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life."

I've always had a hard time rectifying how many of my peers' could espouse "belief" in God when that fact contradicted their I-don't-really-believe-in-what-God-says lifestyle. Which was true? Their words or their actions?

Then, I discovered that "believes" is not mere intellectual assent. A quick jump to my Strong's Greek Dictionary of the New Testament revealed "believe" meant something different from my Americanized definition: "Pisteuo means not just to believe, but also to be persuaded of; and hence, to place confidence in, to trust, and signifies, in this sense of the word, reliance upon, not mere credence hence it is translated 'commit unto'..." (202).

The verse made so much more sense when I replaced "believe" with this new definition, "that whoever commits unto and relies upon Him shall not perish..."

3. And sometimes, it's all about faith.
My friend Jennifer @ Getting Down With Jesus has what she calls a "mystery" file filled with those passages she just doesn't understand but believes anyway by faith.

For one to say he knows everything about everything in the Word is laughable. If anything, the only thing I can say is that I know more than I did yesterday and less than I will tomorrow--in other words, I know nothing about nothing.

Over time, God may reveal how those seemingly-contradictory mysteries actually interlock perfectly with the rest of His Word. Yet, others will remain shrouded from our understanding until eternity. In these times, it comes down to faith--pure and simple.

So...when you run across a verse in Scripture that seems to contradict another verse in another part of Scripture--don't just stick your head in the sand and ignore it. Don't sigh in defeat, either. Ask yourself if you're misinterpreting the part outside of the whole, if you have gone back to the original Hebrew or Greek for a definition-check, or if this is just one of those times you'll need to believe on faith.

We Christians need not be afraid our Bibles will crumble under scrutiny. The more we test it, the purer it will reveal itself to be.


Photo: Brazilian aluminum smelting in Amazon.

When One Oath Becomes Two

Their laughter rings out several stores ahead of me, echoes reverberating around the dome-like ceiling of our local mall. It's Friday night, and I'm in the minority--one who isn't a teenager or the parent of a teenager.

As I walk to meet my husband for dinner, I weave around clumps of adolescents who act like logjams in a steadily flowing river.

This clump ahead of me is more animated than most. While I can't make out the words yet, their wide eyes and broad smiles tell me it's a story worth hearing. Then, the girl storyteller suddenly swings her right hand heavenward, as if taking an oath in a court of law, and says, "Really! I swear to God!!"

I cringe. It's not as if I expect God to send lightening from heaven or have the earth open to swallow her up for flippantly using His name, but my body physically recoils from the impact of those words anyway.

The phrase may be used without any intent to disrespect God, but as I've learned lately, the content of the words is always serious...sometimes deadly serious.

I'm back in the reign of King Zedekiah--Israel's last king.

Over the past few months, you've likely read a lot about him here. Zedekiah is the one who listened to prophets who counseled rebellion against the Lord. The one who asked the prophet Jeremiah for prayer, but who really wanted God to change His holy mind. The one who ultimately refused to choose faith in God over fear of others, resulting in horrific pain and suffering for himself, his family, and his people.

We've talked about this king's "end." But I've never delved into what started his downfall.

That beginning came when King Nebuchadnezzar captured Judah, carted all the important people back to Babylon, and set Zedekiah on the throne. It was a smart move on Nebuchadnezzar's part--Judah could be a quite profitable vassal state if it could "behave."

In order to ensure Zedekiah remained subservient to Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar made another smart move--he "made him take an oath in God’s name" (2 Chron. 36:13). The covenant involved Zedekiah swearing on the name of Israel's one true God, Yahweh.

The prophet Ezekiel confirms that Nebuchadnezzar "took one of the royal family [Zedekiah] and made a covenant with him, putting him under oath. He also took away the mighty of the land, that the kingdom might be in subjection, not exalting itself, but keeping his covenant that it might continue" (Ez. 17:13).

It made perfect sense to make a man swear by what he revered, respected, and feared most...even if Nebuchadnezzar didn't believe in Yahweh.

The problem was that Zedekiah and the people of Israel weren't really fearing or respecting God at this point in their history, and sure enough, not too long after Zedekiah entered into this covenant with Nebuchadnezzar, he broke it and "rebelled against him [Neb.] by sending his envoys to Egypt that they might give him horses and many troops" (v. 15).

So much for great tactical moves. One covenant broken as easily as it was made.

Thirty-five times in the Old Testament, God's people use the phrase "As the Lord lives" or "As surely as the Lord lives" when making an oath, a covenant. While Scripture doesn't record Zedekiah using this exact phrase in his oath with Nebuchadnezzar, I would bet he did because when God condemns Zedekiah's actions, He uses that same phrase: "'As I live,' declares the Lord GOD" followed by "Surely in the country of the king who put him on the throne, whose oath he despised and whose covenant he broke, in Babylon he shall die" (v. 16).

A few verses later, God uses the same covenant-making phrase again, but now in reference to a covenant Zedekiah made with God, Himself: "As I live, surely My oath which he despised and My covenant which he broke, I will inflict on his head...I will bring him to Babylon and enter into judgment with him there regarding the unfaithful act which he has committed against Me" (v. 19-20, my italics).

Although it may sound like it, God is not referring to two separate covenants--they are one and the same.

When Zedekiah said something akin to the modern-day "I swear to God," he only thought he was making a mere covenant between himself and a foreign king whom he neither respected or revered. In all likelihood, he was just saying the words to please Nebuchadnezzar and had no intent on keeping the oath in the first place.

Yet, his speaking the words, his taking an oath in God's name meant he was also making a covenant between himself and God--and God takes His name quite seriously.

Christ, Himself, warned against taking oaths: "Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made.’ But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one" (Matt. 5:33-37).

I wonder if those in the audience remembered back to a king who broke covenant with man and God, resulting in a complete destruction of Israel...or if they had already grown so desensitized to hearing God's name used in oaths that they didn't give a second thought to using the phrase.

Words that Counsel Rebellion

Eight years of teaching in the classroom, presenting face-to-face lectures and holding one-on-one student/teacher conferences didn't require me to choose my words half as carefully as now when I teach solely online.

As one whose classroom is located not within any four literal walls but in the unconfined realm of cyberspace, it's ironic that I now must more carefully counsel my students in how to revise their essays. In any grade dispute, a classroom teacher might get into a he-said/she-said debate and be protected because of lack of evidence; yet, in my line of work, there is evidence enough to slay a small forest of trees.

On the other side of the screen, without my facial expressions to guide them and without my presence to pepper with immediate questions, students (and their parents paying the college tuition) will pick apart each critical word that flows from my fingers...and they'll be able to read and reread those words blackened in Times New Roman, maybe forever.

Teaching others, counseling others in truth--it's a dangerous business.

The prophet Jeremiah may have lived in a time before Twitter, email, and Face book etched "truth" in tiny pixels of light, but the consequences of bad counsel were severe...perhaps even more so than today.

Way back in Moses' time, God had warned that a false prophet must be "put to death, because he has counseled rebellion against the LORD your God" (Deut 13:5, my italics).

Jeremiah uses those same Hebrew words, "counseled rebellion" in reference to two so-called prophets of his day.

The first time he uses this phrase is after the prophet Hananiah speaks a peace and prosperity gospel to Jeremiah "in the house of the LORD in the presence of the priests and all the people, saying, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, 'I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon. Within two years I am going to bring back to this place all the vessels of the LORD'S house, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took away from this place and carried to Babylon. I am also going to bring back to this place Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and all the exiles of Judah who went to Babylon,' declares the LORD, 'for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon'" (Jer 28:1-4).

Jeremiah welcomes the good news, but cautions Hananiah and those being counseled by him that most prosperity prophets of old were false.

Maybe Hananiah didn't like the implication that he was a liar and felt the need to reinforce his words with an on-the-spot visual aid because in the next verse, he walks up to Jeremiah and breaks the literal yoke of wood from around his neck, then repeats the same prophecy, just in different words.

Later, Jeremiah receives a word from the Lord and reveals Hananiah for the false prophet he is: "Therefore thus says the LORD, 'Behold, I am about to remove you [Hananiah] from the face of the earth. This year you are going to die, because you have counseled rebellion against the LORD" (Jer. 28:16, my italics).

His crime? Counseling rebellion against God. His punishment? Death.

In the next chapter, Jeremiah deals with yet another false prophet, this one living in Babylon with the exiles. He writes a letter to the exiles, "saying, 'Thus says the LORD concerning Shemaiah the Nehelamite, 'Because Shemaiah has prophesied to you, although I did not send him, and he has made you trust in a lie,' therefore thus says the LORD, ‘Behold, I am about to punish Shemaiah the Nehelamite and his descendants; he will not have anyone living among this people, and he will not see the good that I am about to do to My people," declares the LORD, "because he has preached rebellion against the LORD’" (Jer. 29:31-32, my italics).

Translated here as "preached," it's the same Hebrew word translated "counseled" in the other two places. And again--the punishment is death.

Strong's defines counseled as “to speak” or “to promise” while rebellion translates as “a departing, withdrawing; hence… departure from Jehovah”*

Using these definitions, the prophets' counsel was a spoken promise to the people. And by making them believe a lie, they were inciting the people to depart from God, His truth, and His plan for them during their 70 years of punishment/exile in Babylon.

To counsel rebellion against God is serious business and it's not something just done thousands of years ago. Warnings against false prophets and warnings for teachers to be careful permeate the New Testament (2 Peter 2:1-3).

According to the Hebrew definition, anyone who teaches the Word of God is "counseling." And what most people don't realize is teachers, pastors, conference speakers, and deacons aren't the only ones who fit into the role of "teacher."

Perhaps the extent of your teaching God's Word is in the role of witnessing to a colleague, friend, or your own child. Yet, even in those small instances, you are still teaching, counseling in God's Word.

Therein lies the danger of teaching "rebellion," something so easy to do.

Perhaps rebellion comes in the form of teaching a half gospel or promoting certain sins as OK because they're not the "big ones" anyway. Perhaps rebellion comes in the form of calling a "sin" a "lifestyle" because it's politically incorrect to do otherwise. Perhaps rebellion comes through a personal belief you teach your children even though it explicitly contradicts the Word of God.

Knowing that I am a teacher of God's word is frightening enough. The thought that one day God could say I was a false prophet because I counseled others to depart from God's truth in favor of an easier to swallow lie--that is beyond words.

*Definition from Strong's Concordance. htttp://www.blueletterbible.com.

And So Creation Groans...

The death toll was 48 yesterday morning when I went outside to work in the yard. By this morning when I went to worship, it was thousands. Now in the quiet of evening, it's more than 10,000...but officials expect that number to spiral upwards as the word "missing" is replaced with "dead." One article stated, "In one town alone, only 15,000 out of 75,000 were able to evacuate; the rest remain missing."

"Missing" is a safe, inkling-of-hope word that covers the horror of death covering Japan's shores this weekend. It's not just an entire family that's gone, not even an entire building--we're talking an entire city that had only 15 minutes' notice the end was near.

50,000 people (or more), just swept out to sea...gone. I don't know how to grasp the magnitude of that. My mind simply cannot wrap around that huge a loss.

But my mind can grasp the meaning behind this disaster. I don't even have to ask, "Oh Lord, why? I know.

Creation is groaning.

In Disney's movie Pocahontas, the lyrics in one song read, "You think you own whatever land you land on / The Earth is just a dead thing you can claim / But I know every rock and tree and creature / Has a life, has a spirit, has a name."

That's not how we Christians tend to think of the earth because we try so hard to distance ourselves from other cults that worship creation, itself, instead of the Creator.

Mankind does have an effect on creation. But more than that, we need to recognize that God's creation is a living entity with feelings, emotions, and a purpose.

Several key Scriptures indicate some of the roles creation plays in God's kingdom.

1. Creation cries out when mankind is not giving glory to God.

In Luke, the pharisees encourage Jesus to make his crowd of followers tone it down a bit and stop yelling things like, "BLESSED IS THE KING WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD; Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!" Jesus replies, "'I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out!'" (Lk. 19:38, 40).

These words were prophetic, for several days later when Christ hung on the cross, when most all his disciples had run to hide...when no one was speaking words to glorify His name, creation stepped up and did just that.

The sun cried out the only way it could--by refusing to shine: "Now from the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour"(Matt. 27:45).

Then, the tectonic plates of the earth cried out by shifting in a great earthquake while the rocks literally cried out by breaking apart: "the earth shook and the rocks were split. The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised" (Matt. 27:51-52).

2. Creation groans for the return of Christ.

We tend to forget that in Genesis 3 when mankind sinned, Adam and Eve weren't the only ones punished. Creation was also cursed as a result. God said, "Cursed is the ground because of you" (Gen. 3:17).

In other words, just as we are enslaved by sin, creation, too, has been enslaved by the consequences of sin and death...and it longs to be set free, liberated from its bondage to death and decay.

Paul writes, "For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now" (Rom. 18-22).

3. Creation mourns over sin.

Hosea writes that "There is swearing, deception, murder, stealing and adultery. They employ violence, so that bloodshed follows bloodshed. Therefore the land mourns" (Hos. 4:2-3)

God even sent a prophet to speak to the land as it mourned, sharing with it a vision of fruitfulness and vindication for its mistreatment. He told Ezekiel, "Therefore prophesy concerning the land of Israel and say to the mountains and to the hills, to the ravines and to the valleys, 'Thus says the Lord GOD, 'Behold, I have spoken in My jealousy and in My wrath because you have endured the insults of the nations...you, O mountains of Israel, you will put forth your branches and bear your fruit for My people Israel; for they will soon come. For, behold, I am for you, and I will turn to you, and you will be cultivated and sown" (Ez. 36:6-9).

If God knows the names of the stars, why not the names of every tree? every rock? every grain of sand?

When the earth shakes, creation is speaking...in glory of Christ our King, in frustration at its bondage to decay, in anticipation of Christ's return, in sadness over mankind's sin.


Photo from The Earth from Above. "Mountainous countryside near Maelifellssandur, Myrdalsjökull Region, Iceland. Once the young lava fields of Iceland cool down, life begins anew little by little. Ice, wind and water flatten and carve out shapes to begin with, then, during the summer, bacteria, lichen and fungi prepare the soil for plants, in particular mosses which adapt to an environment which remains difficult. These plants colonise the most favourable sites and terrain little by little, forming a new ecosystem" (© Yann Arthus-Bertrand).

Extreme Environmentalists--What!? You Aren't One!?

If you haven't been bombarded yet with "Go Green" advertisements explaining how you can do your part to save planet earth for the next generation, you will be.

It's a little over a month and a half away--Earth Day 2011. As one who lives pretty close to the land on our family's hay farm, it's not an important day circled in red on my calendar. But, it's been on my mind lately, perhaps because my husband and I spent yesterday planting about 40 one-year-old saplings around our place--cherry bark oak, bald cypress, lob lolly pine, green ash, river birch, and black gum.

This year's Earth Day slogan is "A Billion Acts of Green". Whether you think man is destroying the ozone layer and the ice caps will melt until Mel Gibson's Waterworld is a reality or whether you believe what we're experiencing is just part of a greater environmental cycle--either way, the earth is your home, and for that reason, it is worth celebrating and protecting.

I'm going to let you in on a little secret, though. Environmentalists have it all wrong.

Saving the earth isn't going to happen by planting trees or recycling aluminum cans, carpooling or switching to fluorescent light bulbs.

You want to make an extreme difference in your land? Then, don't pollute it with your heart.

Yes, I'm serious--the state of a person's heart will make the biggest difference in the environment.

Imagine my jaw-dropping surprise when I was reading along in Scripture and realized the prophet Jeremiah was a 2600+ year old environmentalist!

Jeremiah writes:

"God says, 'If a husband divorces his wife
And she goes from him
And belongs to another man,
Will he still return to her?
Will not that land be completely polluted?
But you are a harlot with many lovers;
Yet you turn to Me,' declares the LORD.
'Lift up your eyes to the bare heights and see;
Where have you not been violated?
By the roads you have sat for them
Like an Arab in the desert,
And you have polluted a land
With your harlotry and with your wickedness" (Jer. 3:1-2, my italics).

Polluted. Hebrew word "Chaneph".
חָנֵף

Literally, the word means "to be profaned, be defiled, be polluted, be corrupt"*

In the two verses above, Jeremiah speaks of two ways one can pollute the land...and neither involves littering or greenhouse gasses.

In verse one, Jeremiah speaks of physical adultery. Then, in verse two, he speaks of spiritual adultery--playing the harlot with God by speaking His name in one breath and living out wickedness with the next.

David uses this same word for "polluted" in the Psalms: "They [Israel] even sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons, And shed innocent blood, The blood of their sons and their daughters, Whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan; And the land was polluted with the blood" (Ps. 106:38).

Here, the blood of children sacrificed to false idols pollutes the land.

Consider what Jeremiah and David are saying to us about how to care for our planet.

It's pretty simple.

When we commit spiritual or physical adultery, we pollute the land the Father gave us.

Want to make a difference in the earth? Sure, plant a tree, find small and large ways to reduce your carbon footprint.

But want to make an extreme difference in the state of this earth? Then, determine where your heart's affections lie. Ask God if you are worshiping the idol of money, sports, television, shopping, knowledge, busyness....

Guard your heart from spiritual adultery. And who knows how big a difference you can make.
*www.blueletterbible.org

Image: This well-known heart-shaped piece of land is this incredible mangrove in New Caledonia, captured by Yann Arthus Bertrand and featured on the front cover of his book, Earth From Above.

An Alternate Ending--Why Choose Death?

I grew up in in a time when "Choose Your Own Adventure" books were all the rage. These classic books allowed the reader to make key decisions at various points throughout the plot, all of which ultimately determined the outcome of the book.

Enter the submarine? Turn to page 21. Go back to the train station? Turn to page 40.

What kept children interested were the dozens of destinies that lay within one book's pages. The reader never knew when a seemingly "good" decision would lead to the story quickly ending in death and destruction only a few pages later.

As one who hates a miserable ending, I wasn't really a fan of the books. Instead, I was the one who would flip and skim until I found the last page of the happy, successful version of the story before backtracking through the choices to see what would lead me to that end.

Alternate endings may sound like the substance of fiction, but they're not really. One's choices do determine the end of the story. Granted, sometimes, it may seem like we're shooting in the dark at a target a mile away, but other times, God clearly reveals what choices will lead to a bad ending.

Those are the times we whisper in sadness, "It didn't have to be this way."

I'm still stuck in the last days of Israel, as Jerusalem lays under siege from Babylon and Judah's last King Zedekiah refuses to make one simple decision that could have saved not only the physical nation, itself, but also the lives of his people, his wives, his children.

Jerusalem was going to fall. God's holy people were headed for captivity in Babylon--that much of the story was certain. God's prophets has foretold as much. The "what" was definite. It was just the "when" and the "how" that were up for grabs.

The "when" was postponed more than once when a king submitted himself to God. For Zedekiah, the most recent example he should have remembered (from a little over a decade before) was King Josiah who had cleaned house in Israel, choosing to submit to God and follow His Word rather than submit to an immediate destiny of captivity.

It didn't have to end in captivity for Zedekiah, either. After King Nebuchadnezzar took Jerusalem, he set up Zedekiah as king. But, Zedekiah chose evil over holiness. The chronicler sums up his life in a few swift sentences, none more telling than this one: "But he stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against turning to the LORD God of Israel" (2 Chron. 36:13).

With the "when" of total annihilation drawing nearer because of Zedekiah's and the remaining people's refusal to turn back to God, Jeremiah warned Zedekiah: "Bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon and serve him and his people, and live! Why will you die, you and your people, by the sword, famine and pestilence, as the LORD has spoken to that nation which will not serve the king of Babylon?" (Jer. 27:12-13).

Here, Jeremiah pleaded with him to submit to the "what" and "when," to serve their captors. Zedekiah did neither, choosing instead to rebel against the yoke of Babylon, and in doing so, he altered the "how" Jerusalem would fall.

Zedekiah knew it was coming, and at the very end when he demanded an audience with the prophet Jeremiah, he asked for an honest blow-by-blow of what awaited, the "how" of Jerusalem's destruction.

Jeremiah didn't mince words: "Thus says the LORD God of hosts, the God of Israel, 'If you will indeed go out to the officers of the king of Babylon, then you will live, this city will not be burned with fire, and you and your household will survive. But if you will not...then this city will be given over to the hand of the Chaldeans; and they will burn it with fire, and you yourself will not escape from their hand...They will also bring out all your wives and your sons to the Chaldeans" (Jer. 38:17-18,23).

Zedekiah listened, but then said "I dread the Jews who have gone over to the Chaldeans" (Jer. 38:19). Pleading, Jeremiah reassured him, "They will not give you over. Please obey the LORD in what I am saying to you, that it may go well with you and you may live" (Jer. 38:20).

Consider the different "how" ending God was mercifully offering through the words "that you may live." As He would offer many years later through His son on the cross, here first, He offered Life instead of Death.

In the end, though, Zedekiah doesn't choose this alternate ending because of one thing--he feared man more than he feared God.

He chose to die when he could have chosen to live. And as a result, the Babylonians "slew their young men with the sword...and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or infirm" (2 Chron. 36:17). They "burned the house of God and broke down the wall of Jerusalem, and burned all its fortified buildings with fire" (2 Chron. 36:19). And finally, "They slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, then put out the eyes of Zedekiah and bound him with bronze fetters and brought him to Babylon" (2 Kin. 25:7).

Death. Destruction. Emotional and physical pain.

It didn't have to end this way. There really was an alternative Zedekiah could have chosen, one that was spelled out for him in black and white more than once...but one he refused to believe because his trust was not in God.

We are all like Zedekiah more than we may think. Although our single soul's decision to place our faith in God alone won't alter the course of a nation's total destruction, in a way, it will...because one + one + one can change individual lives, can change the world for good or for evil.

And just like Zedekiah, for every man or woman in this world who confesses Jesus as Lord and devotes his life in submission to his heavenly King, there is an alternate ending available from the eternal destruction that has already been written in the heavenly history books.

Asking for Prayer...but Not Really

We hadn't really talked in a long time, but his first words spoke of needed prayer--for him, his wife, his children.

I try only to use the word "prayed" when telling others of my prayers for them, mainly because I'm afraid I will forget to pray if I change the verb tense to "will pray"...and I don't want my prayer life to be a forgotten lie.

This time, though, I said I "would pray", and afterwards, I couldn't get his request off my mind. For a solid week, I prayed. Any time during the day when their names and faces would come to mind, I asked the Lord to love, to protect, to guide. Even at night, I would awaken in darkness, sleep interrupted, to immediately think of their situation--and again, I would pray.

A few days later when we spoke, I gave what I thought were God's suggestions to the dilemma, and my heart sunk at his reply. It was clear that even before I began to pray for hope and a second chance, his heart had already made the decision against it.

The request for prayer was more an attempt to seek affirmation for his decision than for God to heal human hearts of brokenness. In my own heart, I felt hurt, angry, and used.

This past week, I finally ran across someone in Scripture who can relate!

Jeremiah.

This young man spent the majority of his life prophesying to the commoners, elite, priests, and kings, most of whom didn't want to listen. His life was threatened more than once. He was ostracized, banned from the temple as a troublemaker, thrown in a muddy well, almost starved to death, imprisoned....

After spending a few weeks studying only the end of his life, I'm feeling his exhaustion, his frustration, his sorrow...his loneliness. The end is coming. He knows it. Yet, no one will listen.

When Judah's very last king comes to the throne, it sounds like the same old story for poor Jeremiah: "But neither he [Zedekiah] nor his servants nor the people of the land listened to the words of the LORD which He spoke through Jeremiah the prophet" (Jer. 37:2).

And then Israel's very last king asks for prayer.

"Yet King Zedekiah sent Jehucal...to Jeremiah the prophet, saying, 'Please pray to the LORD our God on our behalf'" (Jer. 37:3).

Scripture doesn't say that he prayed for Zedekiah or for Israel. Then again, it doesn't say he didn't pray either, so that's one of those topics for scholars to debate.

What we do know, however, is that the prayer request really wasn't a request for God to change Zedekiah's heart...but for God to change His heart and mind.

A few verses later, Jeremiah is beaten, imprisoned, and left in the dungeon (all based on a not-so-friendly misunderstanding with some officials). "Many" days later when King Zedekiah sends for Jeremiah, he "secretly" asks, "'Is there a word from the LORD?'" (Jer. 37:17).

In other words, "Is there anything new that you can tell me besides that doom and gloom nonsense where Jerusalem is destroyed, Babylon wins, and I wind up dead? Come on, Jeremiah. I asked you to pray! God speaks directly to you! Don't you have some pull with Him? Can't you make God change His mind? Can't you tell me what I want to hear?"

I envision a bruised Jeremiah, maybe with broken or fractured bones, surely with the shadowed remains of a black eye or two. He's exhausted. He's emaciated by starvation. And then, the King has him dragged up from his cell and whispers, "'Is there a word from the LORD?'"

Jeremiah's response seems more than a little hysterical, showing how outdone he is with a king who asks for prayers...but who is only willing for God to change His own holy mind, not this fleshly hardened heart: "And Jeremiah said, 'There is!' Then he said, 'You will be given into the hand of the king of Babylon!'" (Jer. 37:17).

Imagine Jeremiah jumping up with a shout. Hear his urgency.

I'm not sure if Jeremiah prayed, but I expect he did.

I'm not sure if Jeremiah hoped against hope that his prayer would result in Zedekiah softening his heart to heed God's warning...but it's possible. Even in the last days, he kept repeating the same words of prophetic warning, showing me that Jeremiah's heart held out hope until the end.

There's a lesson here about praying--and it's not that everything you pray for is going to happen the way you want it to. It's not that people aren't going to take advantage of your willingness to pray for them, hoping that you'll change God's mind and not their own.

No, the lesson is that no matter what, we still must pray for others. When someone asks for prayer, even if we doubt their sincerity, we still must "pray without ceasing" (1 Thes. 5:17).

Who knows when an insincere prayer request will lead to a sincere change of heart in another. But even if that never happens, the change, then, may be in your own heart and in my own heart as we draw close to the Father and are faithful to pray.


Photo "Praying Mantis" from Flik'r.