Responding to Discipline
7/3/26 Bible Thought (2 Kings 25)
Main Idea: The believer ought to submit humbly to God’s discipline.
A Look at the Text:
At the end of yesterday’s text, we were introduced to the final king of Judah—Zedekiah. He was a vassal ruler. He was appointed by the Babylonian king and was himself a subject of Babylon.
At this point, Jerusalem had already surrendered under the reign of Jehoiachin, Zedekiah’s nephew, and the first wave of captives had been taken from the land. Yet, Jerusalem still stood. The first siege didn’t last long, and things were relatively peaceful.
In the midst of this situation, Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon (2 Kings 24:20). With this, he refused to submit to what the true Sovereign was doing.
As we will see over the coming weeks, the prophet Jeremiah pleaded with Zedekiah to submit to Nebuchadnezzar, but the king wouldn’t listen (Jer. 37:2).
Jeremiah told Zedekiah that he ought to surrender to the Babylonian monarch so that the destruction of the city would be spared (Jer. 38:17-18). With Zedekiah being both hardheaded and hardhearted, Jerusalem suffered more than it should have.
In 2 Kings 25, in a second wave of onslaught, Nebuchadnezzar laid waste to the city. In 586 B.C., Jerusalem was sacked. The house of the Lord was burned to the ground. The walls were torn down. Everything was destroyed, and Judah was no more.
Bringing it Home:
Submitting to discipline is not easy. We see that Zedekiah refused to get with the program of what God was doing amongst the nations.
Remember, it wasn’t the Babylonian superpower that was Judah’s problem—it was their holy God with whom they had broken covenant. This in mind, we must know that the captivity of Jerusalem wasn’t the result of a powerless God, but rather a sovereign God who loved His people too much to let them continue in their sinful ways.
While the Bible offers much teaching to help us understand the reason behind suffering, sometimes it can actually function as an act of God’s discipline in the lives of His children.
The author of Hebrews put it best:
My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. 6 For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives (Heb. 12:5b-6).
To be clear, this does not mean that all suffering is a consequence of disobedience. Even more, this does not mean that we still bear some of the penalty for our sins. It is not that the blood of Jesus is insufficient to atone. Charles Spurgeon once helpfully put it in these terms:
“But yet, while the sin cannot be punished, while the Christian cannot be condemned, he can be chastised.”[1]
While we are not guilty before God based on Christ’s merit alone, that does not mean that God has ceased to work in us. Sometimes God works hardship into our lives for our greater good. He uses all things in our lives for His purpose, and His purpose is to make us more like Jesus (see Rom. 8:28-29).
At times, this will be uncomfortable. But let us rejoice, even in our discomfort—God is good. His disposition towards us is good. Even His discipline is simply a facet of His love. To be a child of God is the most wondrous privilege that we should never discount, but that doesn’t mean that it will always be easy.
Challenge:
Do I quickly dismiss the potential benefits of hardships, failing to see how God works through them?
[1] Charles Spurgeon, Spurgeon Commentary: Hebrews, ed. Elliot Ritzema and Jessi Strong, Spurgeon Commentary Series (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014), 397.