In this episode, Ronald L. Dart narrates the gripping saga of Jerusalem’s fall, drawing parallels to the symbolic roles of animals in nature. From the story of King Josiah’s valiant efforts to delay the inevitable, to the treacherous acts of Ishmael, uncover the intertwining of prophecy and consequence. Delve into the complex narrative of political intrigue and historical lessons that resonate through time as Jerusalem is ravaged by Babylonian forces.
00:00:05 Introduction to Ronald L. Dart and Born to Win
The CEM Network is pleased to present Ronald L. Dart and Born to Win.
SPEAKER 01 :
The last days of Jerusalem and Judah were hard times. It’s difficult to look at them and to consider what happened. When a nation, a people begin to lose their identity, their sense of who they are, of where they’re going, when a nation becomes morally bankrupt, indolent, self-indulgent, sooner or later, the nations around them begin to sense the weakness and begin to circle. Israel had a good leader in King Josiah, and leadership makes an enormous difference among the people. But things didn’t change that much at the grassroots during Josiah’s reign. They’d just gone too far down the slippery slope to oblivion to be able to find their way back. All he did was hold it off for many years. And then when he was gone, and when Israel could no longer effectively govern herself, God turned her over to the Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, to govern. It was about this time that the prophet Jeremiah came on the scene, and he was a major player from this time forward in these last days. I have a complete radio series on the book of Jeremiah that goes verse by verse through this difficult time. It’s part of an album titled Real Prophets. If you grab a pencil and paper, in a moment we’ll give you a phone number where you can get a free sample of this series on CD with no obligation. Pharaoh Necho, we’re now in 2 Kings 23-34. Pharaoh Necho made Eliakim, the son of Josiah, king in the room of Josiah, his father. He changed his name. He called him Jehoiakim, and he took Jehoahaz, his brother, away. He went to Egypt and died there. Well, Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh. This is the way things were done back then. Nations were put under tribute, and they had to pay taxes to the other nation. So he exacted all this money out of the people of the land, everyone according to his taxation, to give it to Pharaoh. Jehoiakim was 25 years old when he began to reign, and he lasted for 11 years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zebudah. But… He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord according to all that his fathers had done. I don’t know what’s with these men. And maybe I should say I don’t understand Josiah because how in the world we find this sterling exception in the midst of all this lineage of corruption is a little hard to figure. But here’s another one going down that same route, and the route is that idolatrous religion that was all around them and kept invading their own country and turning their hearts away from God and turning them away from a good life to a life of wretchedness and misery. 2 Kings 24, verse 1. In his days, the whole political scene changed because Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, came up. And Jehoiakim became his servant for three years. Three years that he now serves vassal to the king of Babylon, again with taxes being paid in that direction instead of in the direction of Egypt. But then he turned and rebelled against him. Now it makes you wonder sometimes how stupid some people can be. Maybe he just had bad intelligence. Maybe he was just too arrogant for his own good. I have no idea what went on in his mind, but it was the biggest mistake he could have made. I have little doubt that Babylonian rule was oppressive and loathsome to the people, but they didn’t have the resources to throw off Babylonian rule. And what they would have been smart to have done was kept on planting their crops, paying their taxes, doing their best to muddle along. Because when they decided to throw off the rule of Babylon, they decided that a lot of people were going to die, and their lives were going to get a whole lot worse than they are now. What happened about this time that God began to send against them, according to verse 2, the bands of the Chaldees, bands of the Syrians, bands of the Moabites, bands of the children of Ammon? He sent them against Judah in waves to destroy it, according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke by his servants, the prophets. In other words, God a long time ago said, this is going to happen to you, and now it’s coming to pass. Now, when I read things like this, I sometimes wonder what it means. In a sense, everything that happens can be considered an act of God, and I have a feeling sometimes that the biblical writers are speaking of it in that way. But it’s hard to imagine God pulling levers and pushing buttons to make this happen, to send all kinds of marauding bands against Israel. Maybe he did, but it’s a little hard to figure. What is clear is that Israel lost God’s protection. The image that comes to mind is an old, decrepit cow that can no longer run with a herd of caribou. She’s just old. She’s a little bit crippled. She’s broken down in the hip. She can’t move that fast. Still eats. Still wanders along with the others. But she’s no longer what she used to be. I read somewhere that the tactic of wolves when they’re on the hunt against caribou is to charge the center of the herd. When the herd splits and scatters, there are always some old and weak ones who become confused and get their stopped right in the middle of everything, and they become easy prey. What was something of a surprise to me when I read about this was to realize that the role of wolves in ecology is to strengthen the herds by killing off the weak, the lame, and the old. Those animals which cannot get away from the wolves, well, they shouldn’t be the ones who breed and create new caribou. Israel? Well, Israel had become like that old cow. who could no longer defend herself so the animals began to circle her and they finally took her down you know this by the way is the way the profits picture the nation’s they picture them as animals Israel was a sheep. It was the flock of God’s sheep. And all around them were lions and bears and wolves. And they had to depend on God to keep the wolves out of the sheepfold. You know, when the prophet says that the wolf will lie down with the lamb, he may have been talking about sometime way off in the future when the pacification of the nations takes place. Not so much a change in the nature of animals. Remember that the prophets make full use of symbolism and icons, and to picture a nation as a wolf or as a bear or as a lion is the most natural thing in the world. Well, the story goes on. Surely at the commandment of the Lord came this upon Judah to remove them out of his sight. He wanted to get them out of his sight. For the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he did, and also for the innocent blood that he shed. For he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, which the Lord would not pardon. Now, you know, you don’t have to be a killer yourself to be responsible for innocent blood. You can corrupt the courts, you can corrupt the legal system, so that no one will convict a murderer, and you become guilty of the blood of an innocent man. There’s a passage back in the law, it’s found in Numbers chapter 33 and verse 31, that addresses this. It says, you shall take no satisfaction for the life of the murderer. He is not to be allowed to be bought off. If he’s guilty of death, he shall surely be put to death. And you shall take no satisfaction for him that has fled to the city of his refuge, that he should come out again to dwell in the land until the death of the priest. You don’t do this. You stick to the law. So you shall not pollute the land wherein you are. For blood defiles the land, and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed there, but by the blood of him that shed it. Now, he’s telling us something very important here. He is telling us the murder of the innocent in a country defiles the land, and by that he means the society, the place where you live. And the only way that you can get clean of that shed blood is by the blood of him that shed it. Don’t defile the land which you inhabit where I dwell, God says, for I, the Lord, dwell among the children of Israel, and I don’t want to have innocent blood crying to me from the ground. And so, these men, because they did not administer justice, let the land be full of the blood of innocents unavenged. Now, the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, all that he did, are written in the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Judah. So Jehoiakim slept with his fathers, and Jehoiakim, his son, reigned in his stead. Note the difference. Jehoiakim, the last letter is an M. Jehoiakim, the last letter is an N. So now we have a new king and a new situation. As soon as I come back, we’ll talk about that. But be sure and grab a pencil and paper because I want to make an offer that you won’t want to miss.
SPEAKER 02 :
The Real Profits series, which includes the entirety of the prophet Jeremiah, is available in album form. If you would like to get in on this story from the beginning, write or call and ask for your free CD titled Real Profits. Write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. Or call toll-free 1-888-BIBLE-44. That’s 1-888-242-5344. And tell us the call letters of this station.
SPEAKER 01 :
The entire political landscape was changing through these years. The king of Egypt never more left Egypt after this period of time because the king of Babylon had taken everything from the Nile to the Euphrates. Everything that pertained, the king of Egypt had dominated before, now was dominated by Babylon. Jehoiakim was 18 years old when he began to reign. He reigned in Jerusalem for three long months. His mother’s name was Nehushtah. He did evil in the sight of the Lord. It was no improvement. At that time, the servants of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came up against Jerusalem and besieged the city. And Jehoiakim did something smart. He actually sent up the flag and surrendered. Jehoiakim, king of Judah, went out to the king of Babylon, he and his mother, his servants, his princes, all of his officers, and the king of Babylon took him in the eighth year of his reign. Wisely, they surrendered. He carried out from there all the treasures of the house of the Lord, the treasures of the king’s house. He cut in pieces all the vessels of gold which King Solomon had made in the temple of the Lord, as God had told him. He carried away all of Jerusalem, all the princes, all the mighty men of valor, all the fighters, 10,000 captives, all the craftsmen and smiths. Nobody was left behind. except the poorest sort of the people of the land. Now, you may be thinking that being poor is no prize. In this case, it was the best thing you could have done, because you, a poor person, would have simply been left at home. He took everyone. I presume that this is the time when Daniel was picked up and was carried into Babylon. He carried away Jehoiakim to Babylon, all the king’s mothers, the wives, officers, mighty men of the land. They all went. And all the men of might, 7,000 craftsmen and smiths, 1,000, all that were strong and apt of war, he brought every one of them captive to Babylon. Now, you have to understand something, too. The king of Babylon was accomplishing a couple of things here. He was making it impossible for Jerusalem to be defended again. It had been a big enough problem to him for long enough. He was not going to have it anymore. At the same time, he was also collecting the best people he could find for various and sundry things they would be doing for him in Babylon, which is what happened with Daniel and his companions. Good people are hard to find. And just because they’re your captives doesn’t mean you have to kill them off. Well, the king of Babylon then made a man named Mattaniah, his father’s brother, king in his stead, and changed his name to Zedekiah. Zedekiah was 21 when he began to reign. All these young men start and last such a short reign. He reigned 11 years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord. Nothing gets changed. He did all that Jehoiakim had done. For through the anger of the Lord, it came to pass in Jerusalem and Judah that he’d cast them out of his presence. Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon. It had to happen. You know, God says, I’m going to get you out of here. It’s going to be over. And so consequently, this man, Zedekiah, wasn’t given the common sense to not rebel against Babylon. So in the ninth year of his reign, 2 Kings 25, verse 1, the ninth year of his reign, tenth month, the tenth day of the month, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came, he and all his armies against Jerusalem again, and pitched against it and built forts against it round about. He was besieged for nearly two years. On the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine prevailed, finally won in the city, and there was no bread for anyone to eat. And the city was broken up. All the men of war, what there were left, fled by night by the way to the gate between the two walls by the king’s garden. The Chaldeans were everywhere. They had a place surrounded. And the king went by the way of the plain. The army of the Chaldeans spotted him, pursued him, overtook him in the plains of Jericho, while all his army scattered from him and left him. They took him and brought him up to the king of Babylon, to Riblah. Riblah is very far in the north, up into Lebanon. They gave judgment upon him, and they slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, killed all his boys, and then they put out his eyes. So the last thing he ever saw was the death of his sons. They bound him with fetters of brass and carried him off to Babylon. And the fifth day of the seventh day of the month, the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, “…came Nebuchadnezzar Adon, captain of the guard, a servant of the king, of Babylon to Jerusalem. And he burnt the house of the Lord, he burnt the king’s house, he burned Jerusalem to the ground, every great man’s house he burned with fire.” And all the armies of the Chaldeans that were with him broke down the walls of Jerusalem round about. They just absolutely leveled the city completely. There would be no more rebellion in Jerusalem during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. It’s a sobering thing to consider that when Jesus’ disciples were looking at Herod’s temple, Jesus said, well, about the same thing is going to happen again that happened before. There will not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down. It was so then, and it was so again. Now, the rest of the people that were left in the city, the fugitives, the ones that had actually fell away before to the king of Babylon, that’s what Jeremiah said they should do. They should say, surrender before all this comes down on us. With the remnant of the multitude, the captain of the guard from Babylon, he carried the rest of them away, but he left of the poor of the land to be vinedressers and husbandmen. So if you were a poor farmer, you were left at home. Well, the pillars of brass in the house of the Lord, the vases, the brazen sea in the house of the Lord, the Chaldeans’ broken pieces, they carried every bit of that back to Babylon. All the pots, the shovels, the snuffers, the stuff that they used in the temple to do things with and minister, they took it all away. Took the firepans, the bowls, everything that was of gold, silver, and even brass, they carried it away. There were two pillars, and there was a big basin, and the basin was what Solomon had made for the house of the Lord. The brass of all of them was so great it couldn’t even be weighed. The height of one pillar was 18 cubits. The chapter up on the top of it was brass. The height of that was three cubits. All the wreathing work, all the pomegranates on the chapter round about, all of brass. and they busted it all up and carried it off to Babylon. Nothing was left behind. Of course, why should it be when it was their intent to take the city to the ground? The captain of the guard also took Sariah, the chief priest, Zephaniah, the second priest, the three doorkeepers, Out of the city he took an officer that was set over the men of war, five men of them that were in the king’s presence. He got all of them and took the principal scribe that mustered all the people of the land, the census taker, and three score men of the people of the land that he found in the city. He took all of them and he brought them to the king of Babylon to Riblah. And the king of Babylon killed every last one of them. So Judah was carried away out of their land. What a sad, bloody, miserable, wretched end for these people. And it was inevitable that it would come to them because of the way they had degraded themselves generation after generation. Now, this man may well be well-named. Gedaliah swore to them and to their men and said to them, Don’t be afraid to be the servants of the Chaldeans. Live in the land, serve the king of Babylon, and it will be well with you. Well, candidly, a man of God who had seen all that had taken place, would hear that and would say, well, that seems to me to be far and away the better of all the opportunities that there are for me. Just stay here and farm this land, and I will see my children, I’ll see my grandchildren, we can have a good time together, we can eat and drink and grow old and die here. I can do that, or I can do something else. Unfortunately, this advice was not heeded. I’ll finish this story. But first, listen to this short message, and then I’ll be right back.
SPEAKER 02 :
For a free copy of this radio program that you can share with friends and others, write or call this week only. And request the program titled, Kings No.
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26.
SPEAKER 02 :
Write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. Or call toll free 1-888-BIBLE-44. and tell us the call letters of this radio station.
SPEAKER 01 :
It happened that this man Ishmael of the seed royal came, ten men with him, and smote Gedaliah that he died, and the Jews and the Chaldeans that were with him there at the governing seat at Mizpah. Jeremiah has considerably more detail about this story. You’ll find it in the 41st chapter of his book. And there he says in the seventh month, Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, the seed royal, and the princes of the king, ten men were with him. They came to Gedaliah, and there they did eat bread together with him in Mizpah. What he did with Gedaliah was not a frontal assault. He was a treacherous man, this Ishmael. And he ate with him and pretended to be with him. And the next thing Gedaliah and his men knew, they were dead. And it didn’t stop here. He slew all these people, we’re told, and it came to pass the second day after he had slain Gedaliah, and no one knew it. No one knew what had been done there. There came certain men from Shechem, from Shiloh, from Samaria. There were 80 men had come down here, having their beards shaved, their clothes torn, and having themselves offerings and incense to burn in the house of the Lord. These were people who came to worship God. The shaved head means they have finished their vows. The vows, their rent clothes, meant that they were in mourning for what God had done. These were godly people. And they came down to this area to worship. Ishmael went out to Mishpah to meet them, weeping all along as he went. What a hypocrite. What a hypocrite this man was. It came to pass as he met them, he said, Come to Gedaliah the son of Ahicham. So he invited them to come in to see Gedaliah, didn’t bother to tell them that Gedaliah was dead. And when they came into the middle of the city, Ishmael the son of Nethaniah slew them and cast them into the midst of the pit, he and the men who were with him. Why? All these people were doing was coming down to worship God. This is a violent man who himself is a bloody man. However, there were ten men in that 80 who said to Ishmael, Don’t kill us. We have treasures in the field of wheat and barley and oil and honey. So he forbear and didn’t kill him. Why? Because they had money and they bought him off. Jeremiah continues the story by saying that Ishmael carried away captive all the residue of the people that were there, even the king’s daughters, all the people that stayed in Mizpah. He took off with them and departed to go over to the Ammonites. But there’s a man named Johanan, the son of Korea. He had a bunch of forces with him, and he heard of all the evil that Ishmael had done. So he gathered up his army and went to fight with Ishmael, said, ìThis is not going to stand.î And whenever all the people that Ishmael was gathering behind him and taking him on the way to Ammon saw Johanan and his farmy, all the captains of the forces were with him, they were happy, and they withdrew and carried away and started back toward Johanan. But Ishmael escaped and went to the Ammonites. Johanan and all that group of people that were with him turned around and went back to Bethlehem, preparatory to moving on into the land of Egypt. It was, they thought, I guess, the only place left for them to go, to get away from Babylon, because it would be certain what the Babylonians would do when they learned of the murder of Gedaliah and the Chaldeans who were there with him. These men came to the prophet Jeremiah to ask him what they should do. Shall we go into Egypt? Shall we not? Jeremiah inquired of God, and God sent him a message, and he came to him and says, Don’t go to Egypt. Stay in the land. And they decided to go anyway. You know, it’s one thing not to ask in the first place. So we’re going to go to Egypt. We’re not going to ask about it. You’re better off not to ask. But they dissembled. They were probably playing politics. They thought the people will feel better if we ask Jeremiah about this. So they asked. He said, don’t go. And they went anyway. They and the king’s daughters and apparently Jeremiah went with them as well. Legend has it that Jeremiah eventually took the king’s daughters away from Egypt and traveled all the way to Ireland of all places. But is that ever another story? All the people, small and great, the captains of the armies, arose and came into Egypt, for they were afraid of the Chaldeans. And I might say, with good reason. It came to pass in the 37th year of the captivity of Jehoiakim, in the 12th month, that evil Merodot, the king of Babylon, in the year that he began to reign, lifted up the head of old Jehoiakim in the prison, took him out of prison, spoke kindly to him, and set his throne above the thrones of all the kings that he had conquered and had with him in Babylon. Why? Just felt merciful, I guess. He changed his prison garments, and he was able to eat continually before the king of Babylon all the days of his life. His allowance was a continual allowance given to him of the king, a daily rate for every day, all the days of his life. It would be 70 long years before any of the Jews would be allowed to go home. I really need to hear from you. From time to time, we have to make some hard decisions as to which of our radio stations we keep and which of them we have to let go. If you write or call, we know you’re listening. So protect your station. Our phone number is 1-888-BIBLE44. Our mailing address is Post Office Box 560 White House, Texas 75791. So until next time, I’m Ronald Dart.
SPEAKER 03 :
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