WEEK SIX - DAY ONE - AN AUDIENCE OF ONE

The title of this lesson begs the question...who are we playing to?  Who are we looking to as we play on the stage of life to give us that longed for 👍?  What are the words we are longing to hear as we go through our day-to-day lives?  

"Great job with that presentation, today!"

"You really have such a great eye for decorating - your home is just so lovely!"

"Your family is just about picture-perfect!  You've been great parents!"

"You are one of the smartest people I know - you are just so knowledgeable about so many things!"

Those are great compliments - and none of the praised qualities are to be looked down upon in any way.  But if we're playing to the audience of our peers, our families, our friends, then we're always going to be seeking the next words of acknowledgement of our most recent and, hopefully, best performance.  Talk about stress!  Yet that's just what so many of us do - put ourselves in situations of performance for other people to give us their 👍 and bracing ourselves against the possibility of the dreaded 👎.  

Jeremiah was getting a lot of 👎, to the point of being threatened with execution!  Jeremiah was given specific words by God to proclaim to the King of Judah...not easy words, words of impending destruction and captivity.  King Jehoiakim wasn't too keen on hearing that he would be deposed and his kingdom taken from him, he didn't like the words Jeremiah proclaimed, and the Judean priests and prophets were right there with him.  "You must die!" ...they cried out...does it make you think of a similar scene approximately 600 years later?  The words then were "Crucify Him!" as our Savior spoke words from His Father that the priests and rulers did not want to hear.  Words of another King, another Kingdom, greater than they could imagine. When power and position are threatened, people tend to get very antagonistic! 

Jeremiah paralleled Jesus in another very striking way as he was interrogated...where Jesus said in John 10:18, "No one takes it from me [life], but I lay it down of my own accord", Jeremiah says, "I am in your hands; do with me as is good and right in your sight.  Only know for certain that if you put me to death, you will bring innocent blood on yourselves, and on this city and on its inhabitants; for truly the Lord has sent me to you to speak all these words in your hearing."  Jeremiah never backed off of the words that God was giving him, even in the face of death.  Jeremiah knew whose hands his life was truly in, and God would stay by his side no matter what the people decided to do with him.  Just as David had written in Psalm 118:6, Jeremiah understood, "The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid, what can man do to me?"

Jeremiah's fate seemed sealed until "some of the elders" spoke up.  They remembered Micah, another true prophet of God, who had prophesied during the days of King Hezekiah.  He had also preached a message of impending destruction and of needed repentance. Hezekiah had heeded Micah's message and Judah had been saved from God's hand of judgment at that time.  The elders, those who could remember a time of obedience, turned the opinion around and Jeremiah's life was saved.  An interesting note that Scripture includes is that "the hand of Ahikam the son of Shaphan was with Jeremiah, so that he was not given into the hands of the people to put him to death."  I am not familiar with this character, are you?  Looking back in 2 Kings 22, we find that Ahikam was indeed the son of Shaphan, and Shaphan was the scribe who had been given the Book of the Law that had been found in the temple.  Shaphan had brought the Book to King Josiah and when Josiah had heard the words of the Book, he tore his clothes and sent a group, including Shaphan and his son, Ahikam, to inquire of the Lord concerning the words of the Book.  Shaphan, Ahikam and the others in the group had to go back to the King with hard words, words of God's wrath against Judah due to their disobedience, and they had fearlessly delivered the words as they had been given.  So, dear Ahikam, had been in the place where Jeremiah found himself now, delivering hard words and standing true to God.  Ahikam was likely one of the "elders" that recounted obedience and adherence to God's prophets had been to Judah's favor in the past, and they needed to consider the "old, godly way" as they were at this critical crossroads!

The thing is...Ahikam, Jeremiah...all the other Old Testament prophets, didn't back down.  They didn't opt for the popular or preaching the message that would draw a crowd.  All they did was say, "This is what the Lord says...." and they didn't add to or take away from the words they had been given.  And then our ultimate example, Jesus!  He certainly didn't back down, He stayed true to His mission and obeyed His heavenly Father's voice, always and completely.  John 12:50 "I know that His commandment is eternal life. So the things I speak, I speak [in accordance with His exact instruction,] just as the Father has told Me.”  Amplified  Bible.  

If you, like most of us, fight the addiction of the approval of others, pray for a release from that painful and destructive compulsion.  It adds stress and confusion to our lives.  We must decide now who our audience is and then give it everything we've got...so that when the last curtain falls, we hear our One saying,  "Well done!"