This is a subject that is entertained, described, developed, in both the Old and the New Testament.  This time we are going to look into the Old Testament.  But before we open God’s Holy Book, let’s pray that the Lord will guide us to an understanding of the truth in His Word.

Our Father in heaven, as we are now going to open your Holy Book and read it, we earnestly pray that your Spirit will teach us the truth and give us a heart to obey.  Help us not to become a victim of the fear of the Jews as has happened to millions of people in the past.  Help us to learn the lessons of history; we pray in Jesus’ name and for His sake, amen.

In Jeremiah 28, we read the following familiar scripture of Jeremiah and his response to false prophets.  Verses 5–9 says, “And Jeremiah the prophet spoke to Hananiah the prophet before the eyes of the priests and before the eyes, or in the presence of, all the people standing in the house of Jehovah, and Jeremiah the prophet said, ‘Amen!  Thus may Jehovah do, and thus may Jehovah establish your word, which you have prophesied, to return the vessels of the house of Jehovah and all the captives from Babylon to this place.  But listen please to this word, which I am speaking in your ears and in the ears of all the people.  The prophets which were before me and before you from ancient time prophesied against many lands and against kingdoms great and for battles and for evils and pestilence or plague.  The prophet which prophesies for peace, when it happens, the thing which he prophesied, then it shall be known that prophet that Jehovah hath in truth, or for certain, sent him.”

At the time when these words were spoken, Jeremiah had already predicted that the nation of Judah was going to be taken into a Babylonian captivity; they were going to be held captive by the nation of Babylon for 70 years.  (See Jeremiah 25 and 29.)

Through Jeremiah, the king Zedekiah and all Judah, including those who had been taken to Babylon already, were counseled to quietly submit to the temporary rule of their conquerors.  It was especially important that those in captivity should seek the peace of the land into which they had been taken, but this was contrary to the inclinations of the human heart.  So often that which is true, that which is right, that which must be done is contrary to what people feel would be in their best interest, contrary to their inclinations, contrary to what they feel that they should do.  On this occasion, Ellen White says that Satan, taking advantage of the circumstances, caused false prophets to arise among the people both in Jerusalem and Babylon.  These false prophets told them that the yoke of bondage would soon be broken and the former prestige of the nation would be restored.

We see the confrontation between Jeremiah and these false prophets in Jeremiah 28.  It is in that chapter where we read that Hananiah the false prophet came to Jeremiah and taking the yoke of wood that Jeremiah had fashioned at the Lord’s command broke it, saying, the Lord is going to break the yoke of Babylon. (Verses 10, 11.)  After that you can read in your Bible that the Lord told Jeremiah, now that they have broken the yoke of wood, go and fashion yokes of iron and tell these people (it was not just the Jews; there was a whole assembly of ambassadors from other nations that had come to Judah to try to persuade them to all join together in a confederacy and to rebel against the king of Babylon) that all of their nations would be under the yoke of Babylon.

We so often find, even today, that God says something through a prophet, but His express commands are transgressed.  Has God given to us instruction about how to do medical missionary work?  Yes!

Has God given us instruction about how to do educational work?  Yes!  Has God given us instruction about how to do the literature work?  Yes!  Has he given us instruction on how we are to organize and administer the affairs of the churches?  Yes!  God has given us instruction in all of these things.  God has also given us detailed instruction about what we are to do to be ready for the Second Coming of Christ.  So often God’s express commands are transgressed.  In the face of most positive commands, men and women follow their own inclinations; then they dare to pray about it and attempt to prevail upon the Lord to allow them to go contrary to His expressed will.  Friend, whenever somebody does this, Satan comes to their side, just as he did to our first parents.  Satan impresses them; they think they are having a wonderful experience; they have been impressed that they should do that which is in harmony with their own inclinations contrary to God’s express will.

The reason that false prophets and false teachers have always been more popular than God’s messengers is because the message of the false prophet is one of peace and safety, as you can read in Jeremiah 6—a message that is more pleasing to the human heart. 

The apostle Peter spoke of the past and also the future in his last letter.  In speaking first of Old Testament times, he said: “but there were false prophets among the people.”  II Peter 2:1.  Hananiah was one of these false prophets.  You can read in Jeremiah 28 about what happened.  Hananiah was so sure he was proclaiming to the people the word of the Lord, but the Lord told Jeremiah that He had not sent these people.  The Lord told Jeremiah to predict, because Hananiah had come in the name of the Lord and said that he was a prophet when the Lord had not sent him, that he [Hananiah] would die within the year.  Jeremiah told Hananiah this in the fifth month; the Bible says that in the seventh month he died.  It is a very serious thing to proclaim God’s Word to the people, when you are not proclaiming the real word, the true word.

It says, in II Peter 2:1, 2, “And there were false prophets among the people, as also there shall be among you false teachers which will secretly bring in heresies of destruction, and even the Sovereign who purchased them, or bought them, they will deny and bring upon themselves swift destruction.  Many will follow after them in licentiousness on account of which the way of truth will be blasphemed, or evily spoken of.”

In talking about this, Ellen White says, “To the end of time, men will arise to create confusion and rebellion among those who claim to be representatives of the true God.  Those who prophesy lies will encourage men to look upon sin as a light thing.  When the terrible results of their evil deeds are made manifest, they will seek, if possible, to make the one who has faithfully warned them, responsible for their difficulties, even as the Jews charged Jeremiah with their evil fortunes.”  Patriarchs and Prophets, 442.

That has always been the case.  In this world, those who preach the word of the Lord, those who preach the message that is unpopular that the Lord has given, are made responsible for all the difficulties that happen to the disobedient.  But Ellen White says, “As surely as the words of Jehovah through his prophet were vindicated anciently, so surely will the certainty of his messages be established today.”  Ibid.

I want to tell you, friend, you can depend upon the Word of God; the Bible says that it is impossible for God to lie.  I want to spend just a moment on that, because it is very important.  Do you know what the Word of God is?  Peter says in his second epistle: “We have a more sure prophetic word, to which you do well to pay attention as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the one bearing light, or the morning star, arise in your hearts.  Knowing this first, that every prophecy of the Scripture its own interpretation is not,”or if you want to use dynamic equivalents and put it in Modern English, “every prophecy of the Scripture does not have its own interpretation.”  II Peter 1:19, 20.  That is, it cannot be interpreted by itself.  You have to compare Scripture with Scripture.  “For not by the will of man did the prophecy come formally, but holy men of God spoke as they were carried by the Holy Spirit.”  Verse 21.  So the Scripture came by Holy men of God being impressed or, as Paul says it to Timothy, it was God breathed; it was inspired by the Holy Spirit, and they wrote it down and Jesus Christ confirmed it.  Jesus Christ told his disciples that they were to be official witnesses to what they had seen and heard. 

We know the Bible tests of a prophet; there were Bible tests of a prophet in Jeremiah’s time.  Jeremiah gave us one of the Bible tests of a prophet in Jeremiah 28.  He says that when a prophet predicts something and it happens, then you can know that the Lord really sent that prophet.  What Hananiah predicted did not happen; he said that within two years this is going to happen, but it did not happen in two years; it happened in 70 years after the time Jeremiah said.

The certainty of God’s messengers to the remnant church will be established just as certainly as his message to the ancient church.  My dear friend, if you value your soul, do not let anybody steal from you your faith in God’s Word.  Look for the evidences; get the book called Prophet of the End; study it; look at the weight of evidence.  If you look for the weight of evidence, you will find that the weight of evidence is abundant indeed.  If you do not listen to the true prophet, you will inevitably listen to false messengers.

As we read in Jeremiah, it seemed easier for people in Judah to listen to the false prophets than to the true prophets.  The false prophets seemed to have such a nicer message, an easier message, a peace message, a safety message.  Because of the rebellion of the people of Judah, the lightest punishment that a merciful God could inflict upon so rebellious a people was submission to the rule of Babylon, but if they warred against this decree of servitude, they were to feel the full vigor of his chastisement.  (See Prophets and Kings, 443.)

So, who was telling the truth?  Well, the test of time proved that Jeremiah told the truth and that the other prophets were false prophets.  We have had time, much time, to test the writings of the prophet, the prophetess to the remnant church today.  I have spent much time in my life testing these writings; you can do the same thing yourself.  Test it; test it!  Is it true?  What is the weight of evidence? 

During this time, when all of this was going on, Zedekiah was the last king of Judah.  Actually he was only a vassal king; he had been forced to give an oath of allegiance to the king of Babylon.  In fact, he gave an oath of allegiance to the king of Babylon at lease two times.  The second time is recorded in Jeremiah 51:59.  The Bible says, in Psalm 15, that there are several qualifications a person must have, if they are going to live with the Lord.  It speaks about the person who swears to his own hurt and changes not.  The Scripture excluded the backbiter from abiding in the tabernacle of God and dwelling in the holy hill of Zion.  He who takes up a reproach against his neighbor cannot receive the approval of God.

Zedekiah gave an oath of allegiance to Nebuchadnezzar, but after he took this oath of allegiance to Nebuchadnezzar, he rebelled against him.  Now this is an awful story, because Jeremiah had a number of interviews with King Zedekiah and tried to urge him to follow the counsel of the Lord.  We read, in Jeremiah 37:17, 18, that King Zedekiah sent for Jeremiah and took him into the house secretly, “and he said, Is there a word from Jehovah? and Jeremiah said, There is.  And he said, You should be given into the hand of the king of Babylon!  And Jeremiah said to King Zedekiah, What have I sinned against you and against your servants and this people that you have put me into the house of the prison?”  And then Jeremiah went on to explain that he had not done anything against the king or his people.  Here we see Jeremiah having an interview with the king, after the king had given in to the pressure of the nobles and the princes of the nation.  The princes of the nations hated Jeremiah so much that they wanted to kill him.  Well, the Lord did not allow them to kill him, but He did allow them to put Jeremiah into a dungeon, as we read in Jeremiah 37.  Jeremiah says to the king, “Are there none of your prophets which prophesy to you saying, Not shall come the king of Babylon against you and against this land?  Now listen, please, my lord the king.  Let it fall, please, my plea before you and do not make me return to the house of the prison that I might die there.”  Verses 19, 20.

So Jeremiah did not go back to the house of the prison, and then in the next chapter, Jeremiah 38, we have another secret interview between Jeremiah and the king. 

At this very same period of time, there were three prophets.  This was a period of great crisis for the people of God.  It looked like the church was disintegrating, like it was ceasing to exist.  It looked to some people like God did not even have any more people in the world.  The nation of Judah was going down, and during this period that was so difficult, God sent to his people three prophets at the same time.  Now the beginning and ending of their ministry was not exactly the same, but their ministry overlapped a great degree.  Of these three prophets, Jeremiah was with those that were in Jerusalem during the time that the city was under siege and when it was captured and after it was captured and overrun by Nebuchadnezzar.

At the same time, the Lord sent another prophet to those who had been taken captive.  See there were different times when people were taken captive from Judah.  In one of the earlier captivities, when Jehoiachin was taken captive, among the captives from Judah was a young man by the name of Ezekiel.  He had visions from God in Babylon, and Ezekiel was giving messages to God’s people from Babylon.  Jeremiah was giving messages to God’s people from Jerusalem.  At the same time, the Lord was speaking even to the king of Babylon through Daniel and his associates.  In fact, it was partly because of the influence of Daniel that Nebuchadnezzar looked with as much favor as he did upon Zedekiah and prolonged the length of time before the final captivity.  In fact, as you can read in the book of Jeremiah, Jeremiah told King Zedekiah, if you will listen to me, this city will not be burned with fire; you will not have this terrible conflagration that is in the offering.  If you will just listen and submit to the Chaldeans, all these terrible things will not happen, but Zedekiah could not listen because of his great fear of the Jews.

During this period of time, in the sixth year of the reign of Zedekiah, the Lord revealed to Ezekiel, who was in Babylon, some of the abominations that were being practiced in Jerusalem, even in the Lord’s house.  Ezekiel saw chambers of images and pictures of idols, and he refers, in Ezekiel 8:10, to every form of creeping thing and abominable beasts and all the idols of the house of Israel.  All of these passed before his astonished vision.  Then, in verses 11 and 12, he sees 70 of the elders of the house of Israel burning incense before idolatrous representations, and they said, “The Lord does not see us; the Lord has forsaken the earth.”  That was blasphemy!  Then the Lord took him, in vision, into the gate leading from the outer to the inner court, and he was shown women weeping for Tamuz, and then he saw 25 men with their backs toward the temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east, and they were worshiping the sun toward the east.  Verses 13–16.

Then the Lord said to Ezekiel, “Have you seen this?  Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations, which they commit here?  For they have filled the land with violence and have returned to provoke me to anger.  Lo they put the branch to their nose.  Therefore will I also deal in fury.  Mine eye will not spare, neither will I have pity, and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them.”  Verses 17, 18.

When I read these things, somebody will ask, Pastor John, why are you spending so much time looking at the history of God’s people?  Because, friends, the history of God’s people in the past is about to be repeated.

The day of doom for the kingdom of Judah was fast approaching.  The severest of God’s judgments were now going to be poured out upon His people who were rebellious and would not listen to His prophets.  Jeremiah said to them, you are not going to be unpunished (Jeremiah 25:29), and they said, the days are prolonged; every vision fails (Ezekiel 12:22).  You can read, in Ezekiel 12:22–28, what the Lord said to Ezekiel: “The house of Israel say that the vision that he sees is for many days in the future, and he prophesies about times that are far off, so say to them, thus says the Lord God, none of my words shall be prolonged any more but the word which I have spoken will be done says the Lord.”

Now foremost among those who were rapidly leading the nation to ruin was Zedekiah their king.  Zedekiah was walking in the vanity of his own wisdom.  There is no wisdom, no insanity so dreadful, no wisdom so impotent and unwise as a man who chooses to follow his own judgment and inclinations contrary to the Word of God.  But Zedekiah forsook the counsels of the Lord, as given through the prophets.  Forgetting the debt of gratitude that he owed to Nebuchadnezzar and violating his solemn oath of allegiance taken in the name of the Lord God of Israel, he rebelled against the prophets, against his benefactor, and against God.  He turned for help to the ancient enemy of Israel’s prosperity, sending ambassadors to Egypt requesting horses and an army.  So the Lord inquired through his prophet, Ezekiel, “Shall he prosper?”  That is, this man who has basically betrayed almost every sacred trust, shall he escape the Lord?  Shall he break the covenant and be delivered?  (Ezekiel 17:9.)

Oh friends, God has made a covenant with the human family, the Ten Commandments.  It is called over and over again in Deuteronomy the covenant, the tables of the covenant, the covenant which He commanded you to perform, the Ten Commandments.  (See Deuteronomy 4:13.)  In The Mount of Blessings, 76, Ellen White says that every command God gives is a promise.  When God gives a command, inherent in that command is a promise that, if you receive it by faith, He will help you to fulfill that command.  God never gives a command that He does not give men and women the power to fulfill.  The new covenant is simply God’s promise that not only will we receive forgiveness of sins but that with the power of the Holy Spirit we will be able to obey and to do His will.  The new covenant upholds the sovereignty of God’s divine laws.  You can read that clearly in Jeremiah 31, Hebrews 8, or Hebrews 10:16.

The Lord said, concerning Zedekiah, “Should he break the covenant and be delivered?  As I live, says the Lord God, surely in the place where the king dwells that made him king, whose oath he despised, whose covenant he broke [that is Nebuchadnezzar] even with him in the midst of Babylon he shall die.  Neither shall Pharaoh, with his mighty army and great company made for him in the wars, seeing he despised the oath by breaking the covenant, when lo he had given his hand and has done all these things, he shall not escape.”  Ezekiel 17:15–18.  He was referred to in Ezekiel 21 as that profane wicked prince.

The Lord said, concerning Zedekiah, “Remove the diadem, take off the crown,” and not until Christ himself should set up his kingdom was Judah again to be permitted to have a king.  The Lord said, “I will overturn, overturn, overturn.”  That was a divine edict concerning the throne of the house of David.  “It shall be no more until he come whose right it is and I will give it him.”  Ezekiel 21:26, 27.

Who was to come “whose right” it was?  In Luke 1 we read, concerning the birth of Jesus Christ, “The angel said that he shall be called the Son of the Highest, and he would give to him the throne of his father David.  And he shall rule over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom shall not have an end.”  Verses 32, 33.  The nation of Judah was never to have a king again until He should come whose right it was.

The reason we are studying this awful story is because we are getting ready to repeat it.  What a lesson it has for all men who hold positions of responsibility today in God’s church!  What a solemn warning we see in this story to deal faithfully with wrongs that bring dishonor to the cause of truth.

Ellen White wrote, “Let none refuse to be reproved for evil, nor charge the servants of God with being too zealous in endeavoring to cleanse the camp from evil-doing.  A sin-hating God calls upon those who claim to keep His law to depart from all iniquity.  A neglect to repent and to render willing obedience will bring upon men and women today as serious consequences as came upon ancient Israel.  There is a limit beyond which the judgements of Jehovah can no longer be delayed.  The desolation of Jerusalem in the days of Jeremiah is a solemn warning to modern Israel, that the counsels and admonitions given them through chosen instrumentalities cannot be disregarded with impunity.”  Prophets and Kings, 416.

Friends, she says it is a solemn warning to modern Israel.  Well, I want to ask you a question.  Is the apostasy today getting worse, or are we having revival and reformation?  What is happening in your home?  What is happening in your church?  Remember we are told, “There is a limit beyond which the judgments of Jehovah can no longer be delayed.”

In Jeremiah 38:17–20, we read of an interview that Jeremiah had with king Zedekiah: “And Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, Thus he said, Jehovah God of hosts, God of Israel, If indeed you go out to the prince of the king of Babylon, you will live, your soul and this city will not be burned with fire, and you will live and your household.  But if you do not go out to the prince of the king of Babylon, this city will be given into the hands of the Chaldeans, and they will burn it with fire and you will not escape from their hands.”

You would think that with receiving a message from a prophet like this that it would be quite simple to figure out what you should do.  But Zedekiah was a slave to public opinion.  The princes of the nation had convinced the people, as a result of the teachings of the false prophets, that it was not going to be the way that Jeremiah predicted.

Notice what Zedekiah says in verses 19–22: “He said, the king Zedekiah to Jeremiah, I am afraid of the Jews.”  This is the fear of the Jews.  “I am afraid of the Jews which have fallen out to the Chaldeans, less they deliver me into their hand, and they abuse me.  And Jeremiah said, You will not be delivered.  Listen, please, to the voice of Jehovah saying, I am speaking to you that which is good for you, and your soul shall live, but if you refuse, if you will not go out, this is the word which Jehovah has shown me.  Behold, all the women which are left in the house of the king of Judah shall be brought out to the prince of the king of Babylon, and they shall say, They have seduced and prevailed against you, the men of your peace; they have sunk in the mire your feet and turned back.”

The king believed what Jeremiah told him, but because of his fear of the Jews, he sought this information privately.  He was too weak to brave the disapproval of his leaders and of the people by submitting to the Word of God as declared by Jeremiah.  The princes at the same time were enraged by the repeated counsels of Jeremiah, which were contrary to their set policy of resistance, and they made vigorous protests before the king, urging that the prophet was an enemy to the nation, that his words had weakened the hand of the people, brought misfortunes upon them, and therefore Jeremiah should be put to death.

Zedekiah, unfortunately, was a coward; as we just read, he was afraid of the Jews.  He knew that the charges were false, but because those making the charges were in high and influential positions, he pretended to believe their falsehoods.  He gave Jeremiah into their hands to do with him as they pleased, and Jeremiah was cast into a dungeon.

Jeremiah later told the king, Do not listen to these people; they are telling you the wrong thing.  Jeremiah told Zedekiah that the Lord was willing to show mercy to those that would submit to His just requirements, and if Zedekiah would have listened—this is one of the most awful parts of the story—not only would his own life have been spared, but the city would have been saved from a fire.  But Zedekiah thought he had gone too far to retrace his steps, and he was afraid for the Jews.  Jeremiah entreated him with tears to save himself and his people; he told him, with anguish of spirit, if you will listen to the counsel of God, you will escape with your life, and your possessions will not fall to the Babylonians, but if you do not, you are not going to escape.

Zedekiah decided to follow the counsel of the false prophets; to his human judgment, it seemed the safer and more secure thing to do right then.  He followed the advice of men whom he actually despised and who ridiculed his weakness in yielding so readily to their wishes.  Ellen White said that he “sacrificed the noble freedom of his manhood and became a cringing slave to public opinion.  With no fixed purpose to do evil, he was also without resolution to stand boldly for the right.  Convicted though he was of the value of the counsel given by Jeremiah, he had not the moral stamina to obey, and as a consequence he advanced steadily in the wrong direction.”  Prophets and Kings, 458.

He was too weak to even be willing for his people to know that he had a secret conference with Jeremiah.  He was afraid of the Jews; the fear of man had taken possession of his soul.  How is it with you?  Today, so many people are going to a church that is in apostasy.  What they are listening to on Sabbath morning is neither helping them or their children to get ready for the Second Coming of Christ.  They are listening to fables and falsehood; they are listening to the new theology, to the idea that, if you just believe and do the best you can, everything will be all right.  But it is so much more comfortable for them to just sit there and keep going to that church week after week than it is to go out and gather together those that are faithful and want to prepare for the Second Coming of Christ and start a home church.  That takes work; that takes energy; that takes effort.

There are a lot of people today just like Zedekiah.  Zedekiah could say, we are a part of God’s chosen people.  He could say that just like people today say it.  He could say, God himself, through Moses, established this nation; just like people today can say that, but he was not willing to stand alone for the truth.  God allows things to work out so that over and over again people have opportunity to stand, apparently alone.  They are not really alone.  Jesus said, I am not really alone; the Father is with me (John 8:29; 16:32), but it looks like you are alone.  If you have the fear of the Jews, if you are afraid of human opinion, if you do not have the resolution to stand boldly for the right, even if necessarily alone, you are headed for the same end that happened to Zedekiah.

I want to tell you, friends, there is never a discount price to be paid for apostasy.  God has given to the Adventist people, to the Second Advent movement, more spiritual light than He has given to any previous generation, any previous group of people in the history.  More light brings more responsibility.  If you are reading the testimonies, they will bring you back to Bible truth and help you to be ready for the Second Coming of Christ.

We read that there is a limit beyond which the judgments of Jehovah can no longer be delayed.  The desolation of Jerusalem in the days of Jeremiah is a solemn warning to modern Israel that the counsels and admonitions given them through chosen instrumentalities cannot be disregarded with impunity.  What could have happened if Zedekiah would have listened, or what could have happened if he had stood up bravely and declared that he believed the words of the prophet, and he was going to live by those words?  The terrible desolation of the temple and of the city could have been averted.  He could have said, I am going to obey the Lord no matter what the princes do; he could have done that.

Friend, how about you?  Are you a Sabbath School teacher; are you an elder; are you a deacon; are you a pastor?  Are you standing for the right though the heavens fall?  Or are you weak, a coward?  In Revelation 21:8, we are told that all the cowards, all the fearful, have their part in the lake of fire.

Zedekiah could have said, I am going to obey the Lord.  If he had done that, he could have saved the city from ruin.  “He should have said, I dare not disregard the commands of God because of fear or favour of man.  I love the truth, I hate sin, and I will follow the counsel of the God of Israel.”  Ibid.  If he had done that, Ellen White says the people “would have respected his courageous spirit, and those who were wavering between faith and unbelief would have taken a firm stand for the right.”  Ibid.  His subjects would have been inspired with a spirit of admiration and loyalty for a king who had the backbone to stand up for what he believed was right.  Ellen White said, “He would have had ample support, and Judah would have been spared the untold woe of carnage and famine and fire.”  Ibid.

Oh friend, what could happen today among God’s chosen people, if there were some leaders who would stand up and say, I am going to obey the Word of the Lord no matter what happens.  Other people would be inspired to stand with them.  But oh the weakness of Zedekiah, the weakness of the leaders of God’s people!

The weakness of Zedekiah was a sin for which he paid a terrible penalty.  The Babylonian army swept down upon the city and devastated it.  The Hebrew armies were beaten back in confusion; the nation was conquered.  Zedekiah tried to escape, but they caught up with him, and he was taken a prisoner.  When he was taken a prisoner, his sons were brought before him, and they were killed right in front of his eyes, then he was blinded.  The last thing his eyes saw was his sons being killed, then he was led away from Jerusalem a captive.  We do not know exactly how he died in Babylon, but Ellen White says he perished miserably.  Ibid., 459, 460.

That is the end, my friend, of the fear of the Jews.  That is what the end consequence of the fear of the Jews produces.  The fear of the Jews in Jeremiah’s day resulted in the city and the temple being destroyed.  Ellen White says it is a fearful warning for modern Israel.  (See The Great Controversy [1888], 378.)  The fear of the Jews in Jesus’ day resulted in Jerusalem being destroyed.  Let me tell you, the fear of the Jews today can result in Jerusalem being destroyed too; it can result in a Babylonian captivity for Israel too.  The fear of the Jews today can result in thousands or even millions of people losing their souls who otherwise could have been saved if there were some people who would stand up for the right, even if it appeared that they were standing alone at the beginning.

We read in the last chapter of Chronicles all of these things how Zedekiah did wickedness in the sight of the Lord, how the temple was polluted, how he rebelled against his own oath that he had given to Nebuchadnezzar, and how at last there was no remedy and the city was burned with fire.  That is the end of the fear of the Jews.

In the Old Testament, if you want to see the end consequences of the fear of the Jews, go to the first chapter of Lamentations, written by Jeremiah.  It begins with the word how.   “How does she dwell alone, solitary, the great city.  She was filled with people!  She was a princess, a noble lady among the nations, but now she is degraded.”  Awful, awful, awful!  One of the great, sad chapters in the Bible.

That, my friend, is the end result of the fear of the Jews.  It is the end result of people who have developed a habit of fearing men instead of fearing God.  And that is why, friend, in the very first part of the Three Angels’ Messages, it opens with the command, “Fear God.”  Who do you fear?

As we approach the end of world’s history, we are going to see more and more terror.  We are going to see more and more calamity; we are going to see things happen amongst God’s professed people that we thought could not happen.  It is going to appear, Ellen White says, for a time that Satan has won the great controversy.  (See Manuscript Releases, vol. 10, 338.)  And I want to tell you that if you have not learned to fear God instead of fearing man, you are going to get washed down the river.  If the devil does not succeed in deceiving you, then he will succeed either in seducing you or terrifying you, and he will get you, because you fear man.

At the end of world’s history there will only be two kinds of people.  There will be the people like Zedekiah who are afraid of men, and therefore they knuckle under to the pressure that the devil is going to bring on to them through various human earthly powers.  As a result, they will receive the mark of the beast, and they will not keep all of God’s Commandments.  But there will be a small group of people, called in Bible prophecy a remnant.  Only a remnant of the Second Advent movement will be left.  That is very clear in Bible prophecy.  The Second Advent movement is modern Israel, but there is only going to be a remnant saved.  There is going to be a remnant that fear God; they fear Him so much that they would rather die than disregard or break one of His commandments.

Which group are you going to be in?  Are you going to be in the great majority like Zedekiah who are afraid of men—that is the fear of the Jews, or are you going to be willing to stand up?  It may seem sometimes like you are standing all alone.  God allows you to get into those situations so you can really find out whether fear God or man.  If all the men are against you and you have to stand all alone, will you still stand for what God has said?  There is going to be a remnant of the people that will fear God and keep His Commandments no matter what happens—even if they are threatened that they cannot buy or sell, taken to prison, told that they are going to be killed.  You are making choices day by day that determine what group you are going to be in the future.

What is happening to you right now?  We need to be sweet, kind, tender, and loving, but our being sweet, kind, tender, and loving should never disintegrate to breaking God’s Commandments to get along with other people.  When God’s law is at stake, then we must stand up and be counted.  If we do not, then we will end up like Zedekiah.

Remember, friends, there is always a price to be paid for apostasy, and it is never at a discount price; it is always full price.  Where are you going to be?  Are you going to be a victim of the fear of the Jews like Zedekiah was, or are you going to stand up for God, being obedient to His Law and to His Word?  Let us pray.

Father in heaven, I pray that you will deliver us from the fear of the Jews.  We see in Zedekiah a man that shows us where a fear of the Jews will lead, and we pray that you will help us to learn the lesson from history.  Help us to open our eyes so that we can see that what has happened in the past is about to happen again.  Oh Lord, help us not to be blind anymore.  Lord you have told the Laodicean church that we are blind, and we pray that you will give us eye salve and open our eyes and help us to see what is happening in the spiritual world and help us to realize where we are in the stream of time and where we are in the history of the great controversy and what is happening around us and what is about to happen, that people don’t believe can happen. Oh Lord, help us, open up our eyes and help us to be found faithful fearing you and not fearing men we pray in Jesus name and for his sake, amen.