When God Fights Against You Text: Jeremiah 21:1-10
Introduction: The Folly of Foxhole Piety
There is a kind of piety that only shows up when the bombs start falling. It is the sort of religion that remembers God's phone number only when the creditors are at the door, the doctor has bad news, or the enemy is at the gates. This is what we might call foxhole piety. King Zedekiah, the last king of Judah, was a master of this particular brand of religious desperation. With the Babylonian armies, the Chaldean shock troops, swarming outside the walls of Jerusalem, he suddenly remembers that Yahweh has a prophet in town. And so he sends a delegation to Jeremiah with a request that is dripping with a kind of pathetic, self-serving hope.
Zedekiah wants Jeremiah to "inquire of Yahweh on our behalf." He remembers that God has a track record of "wonderful acts." Perhaps, just perhaps, God will pull another rabbit out of the hat. Maybe a Red Sea parting, or a sun standing still, or a slaughtering angel to take care of this Babylonian nuisance. Zedekiah wants a miracle, but he does not want to repent. He wants deliverance, but he does not want to obey. He wants the benefits of a covenant relationship with God without submitting to the terms of that covenant. In short, he wants God to be a celestial vending machine: insert prayer, receive miracle, and then go back to business as usual.
This is the besetting sin of a compromised, backslidden people. It is the defining characteristic of what we see in our own nation. We want God to bless America, but we have no intention of letting America obey God. We want the national security that comes from being in favor with the Almighty, but we will not turn from our national sins of abortion, sexual rebellion, and institutionalized theft. We want God to fight for us, but the message from Jeremiah to Zedekiah, and to us, is a terrifying one. When a covenant people persist in high-handed rebellion, the day comes when God stops fighting for them and starts fighting against them. The question is no longer whether God will deliver you from your enemies, but whether you can be delivered from God.
Jeremiah's message to Zedekiah is one of the starkest, most uncompromising prophecies in all of Scripture. It is a flat, divine refusal. There will be no miracle. There will be no last-minute reprieve. The judgment that has been threatened for generations is now not just at the door; God Himself is about to kick the door in. This passage forces us to confront the terrifying reality of God's active, holy, and just wrath against covenant-breakers.
The Text
The word which came to Jeremiah from Yahweh when King Zedekiah sent to him Pashhur, the son of Malchijah, and Zephaniah the priest, the son of Maaseiah, saying, “Please inquire of Yahweh on our behalf, for Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon is warring against us; perhaps Yahweh will deal with us according to all His wonderful acts, so that the enemy will go up from us.” Then Jeremiah said to them, “Thus you shall say to Zedekiah, ‘Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, “Behold, I am about to turn back the weapons of war which are in your hands, with which you are warring against the king of Babylon and the Chaldeans who are besieging you outside the wall; and I will gather them into the center of this city. I Myself will war against you with an outstretched hand and a strong arm, even in anger and wrath and great indignation. I will also strike down the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast; they will die of a great pestilence. Then afterwards,” declares Yahweh, “I will give over Zedekiah king of Judah and his servants and the people, even those who remain in this city from the pestilence, the sword, and the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and into the hand of their enemies and into the hand of those who seek their lives; and he will strike them down with the edge of the sword. He will not show pity on them nor spare nor have compassion.”’ “You shall also say to this people, ‘Thus says Yahweh, “Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death. He who inhabits this city will die by the sword and by famine and by pestilence; but he who goes out and falls away to the Chaldeans who are besieging you will live, and he will have his own life as spoil. For I have set My face against this city for evil and not for good,” declares Yahweh. “It will be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will burn it with fire.”’
(Jeremiah 21:1-10 LSB)
A Desperate and Deluded Request (vv. 1-2)
We begin with the king's pathetic plea.
"The word which came to Jeremiah from Yahweh when King Zedekiah sent to him Pashhur, the son of Malchijah, and Zephaniah the priest, the son of Maaseiah, saying, 'Please inquire of Yahweh on our behalf, for Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon is warring against us; perhaps Yahweh will deal with us according to all His wonderful acts, so that the enemy will go up from us.'" (Jeremiah 21:1-2)
Zedekiah is in a bind. The siege is on, and it is tight. So he does what compromised leaders always do: he tries to use religion as a political tool. He sends a high-level delegation, not out of genuine repentance, but out of raw fear. He remembers the stories. He knows the history. He knows about the Exodus, about Gideon, about David, about Hezekiah when Sennacherib besieged the city. He knows God can do "wonderful acts."
But notice the word he uses: "perhaps." This is not the language of faith; it is the language of a gambler. "Perhaps Yahweh will..." He is rolling the dice, hoping for a bit of divine luck. He is treating God like a talisman, a good-luck charm to be rubbed in times of trouble. He has forgotten the fundamental nature of the covenant. The covenant is a two-way street. The blessings of the covenant are conditioned on the obedience of the covenant people. You cannot trample God's law for decades and then, when the consequences arrive, expect Him to bail you out because He did it for your faithful forefathers.
This is the great delusion of our age. We think we can have a Christian nation without being a Christian people. We want the cultural inheritance of Christendom without the theological and moral foundation. We want God's protection from our enemies, while we protect the "right" to dismember children in the womb. Zedekiah's request is the prayer of a man who wants God to save his skin, but not his soul. He wants the danger removed, but not the sin that caused the danger.
God's Terrifying Answer: Divine Reversal (vv. 3-7)
Jeremiah's response is not his own. He is a conduit for the pure, undiluted, terrifying Word of God. And the answer is a categorical "No." But it is worse than that. God is not just going to sit on the sidelines. He is going to switch teams.
"Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, 'Behold, I am about to turn back the weapons of war which are in your hands... and I will gather them into the center of this city. I Myself will war against you with an outstretched hand and a strong arm, even in anger and wrath and great indignation.'" (Jeremiah 21:4-5)
This is one of the most frightening passages in the Bible. God takes the very language of the Exodus, the language of redemption, and inverts it. The "outstretched hand and a strong arm" was how God delivered Israel from Egypt (Deut. 26:8). It was the symbol of His saving power on their behalf. Now, that same hand, that same arm, is turned against them. Their own weapons will be useless, turned back against them. The very walls they trust in will become their tomb, as God gathers the enemy into the heart of the city.
God declares, "I Myself will war against you." This is not just God passively allowing judgment to happen. This is not God simply removing His hand of protection. This is God actively, personally, and furiously taking up arms against His own people. He is the primary combatant. Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldeans are merely His instrument, His rod of judgment. The real enemy besieging Jerusalem is Yahweh Himself.
And look at the emotional intensity: "in anger and wrath and great indignation." This is not the detached, impersonal karma of Eastern religions. This is the personal, covenantal wrath of a holy God who has been betrayed. It is the fury of a husband whose wife has become a prostitute. The covenant has been broken, and the curses of that covenant, laid out so clearly in Deuteronomy 28, are now coming due with terrible force.
The judgment will be total, affecting "both man and beast" with "a great pestilence" (v. 6). And for those who survive the initial onslaught, there is no escape. God promises to give Zedekiah, his officials, and the people over to Nebuchadnezzar, who "will not show pity on them nor spare nor have compassion" (v. 7). Why will the Babylonians be so merciless? Because they are acting as the agents of a God who, in this moment of judgment, has determined not to show mercy. The time for mercy is over. The time for judgment has come.
The Two Ways: Surrender as Salvation (vv. 8-10)
In the midst of this unyielding declaration of judgment, God offers a strange and paradoxical path to life. It is not the path of fighting harder or praying for a miracle. It is the path of utter surrender.
"Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death. He who inhabits this city will die by the sword and by famine and by pestilence; but he who goes out and falls away to the Chaldeans who are besieging you will live, and he will have his own life as spoil." (Jeremiah 21:8-9)
This is a direct echo of Deuteronomy 30, where Moses set before Israel the way of life and death, blessing and cursing. But here, the terms are shockingly inverted. In Moses' day, the way of life was to stay in the land and obey God's law. Now, the way of life is to abandon the holy city and surrender to the pagan invaders. The way of death is to patriotically stay and fight. To "fall away" or desert to the Chaldeans is presented as the only path to survival.
This was, of course, treason. Jeremiah was counseling desertion. From a purely political or military standpoint, this was madness. But from a theological standpoint, it was the only sane course of action. When God is your enemy, you do not fight Him. You surrender to Him. And in this case, surrendering to God meant surrendering to the instrument of His wrath, Nebuchadnezzar.
The one who surrenders will "have his own life as spoil." This is a military term. It means that after a battle, the only thing you get to carry away from the wreckage is your own life. You lose your home, your land, your nation, your freedom. You become a refugee, an exile. But you live. This is a stark and humbling form of salvation. It is salvation through judgment, life through death.
The Unflinching Verdict (v. 10)
God concludes with a final, unambiguous statement of His purpose. There is no room for misunderstanding.
"For I have set My face against this city for evil and not for good... It will be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will burn it with fire." (Jeremiah 21:10)
God's face, which His people were to seek for blessing and favor (Num. 6:25-26), is now set against them for "evil," for calamity. The purpose is not remedial; it is retributive. The city will not be spared. It will be handed over, and it will be burned. The judgment is fixed. The sentence has been passed, and the executioner is at the gates.
This is a hard word. It cuts against every sentimental notion of a God who is always nice, always accommodating, always in the business of making us feel good about ourselves. The God of the Bible is a God of holy love, but that holiness requires that He deal with sin. And when a people who have been showered with grace and revelation persist in rebellion, His judgment is fearsome. It is a consuming fire.
Conclusion: The Way of Life is Still Surrender
The situation for Zedekiah and Judah was utterly hopeless. They had sinned away their day of grace. The judgment was irrevocable. But the principle laid down here still stands as the central principle of the gospel. God still sets before every human being the way of life and the way of death.
The way of death is to do what Zedekiah did. It is to stay inside the city of your own pride, trusting in your own defenses, your own righteousness, your own efforts. It is to try to fight, to justify yourself, to bargain with God. To remain in the city of Man, the city of rebellion, is to perish under the sword, the famine, and the pestilence of God's righteous judgment.
The way of life is to do what Jeremiah commanded. It is to surrender. It is to "go out and fall away." It is to desert the cause of your own self-righteousness and give yourself up entirely to the mercy of the one who comes in judgment. For us, the one who comes is not Nebuchadnezzar, but the Lord Jesus Christ. He comes as both judge and savior.
The gospel call is a call to unconditional surrender. You must come out from the city of your sin and pride. You must fall at the feet of Jesus Christ. You must abandon all hope in your own ability to save yourself. You must plead guilty. And when you do, you find that this King is not like Nebuchadnezzar. He does not strike you down with the edge of the sword. Instead, He shows you the marks of the sword in His own hands and His own side. He took the judgment you deserved. He absorbed the full fury of God's wrath against sin.
Surrendering to Him is the only way to live. You will still lose your old life. You will have to die to your sin, your pride, and your autonomy. But in return, you will receive your "life as spoil." More than that, you will receive His life, eternal life. The choice is the same as it was for Jerusalem. Stay in the city of rebellion and face the certainty of God's wrath. Or, abandon your treasonous cause, surrender to the rightful King, and live.