Certain courses of action, like reaching through the bars to pet the lions, won’t work out for your best. Those around you cringe, understanding what you obviously cannot comprehend (this really happened, more than once).

Messengers to king Jehoiakim cringed as they watched him listen to a message read in his presence from the Lord:

As Jehudi read three or four columns, the king would cut them off with a knife and throw them into the fire in the fire pot, until the entire scroll was consumed…neither the king nor any of his servants who heard all these words was afraid, nor did they tear their garments.

Earlier Jeremiah described the Lord moving in his anger—like a lion he has left his lair. King Jehoiakim poked the lion and earned his doom—his dead body shall be cast out to the heat by day and the frost by night. As so it was.

The issue at play? Jehoiakim and his entourage didn’t believe the God Jeremiah wrote of really existed. They saw the gods as ineffectual, make-believe, ideas to keep the rabble in check. These men were gods themselves, in charge of a kingdom, making important decisions. Words on a scroll delivered by a wild-eyed prophet served as entertainment, not as warning.

It may sound overly dramatic, but we disdain the Lord’s words to similar results. Paying attention to the Good Book pays off in the end.

Just because you believe the lion is tame doesn’t mean it won’t bit your arm off.

Jeremiah 36 in reading the Bible cover to cover in 2022

Photo by Jeremy Avery