
How Obedient Are You?
How good are you at obeying? Do you need multiple reminders? Do you follow through on what your parents or teachers say to do? How about when God tells you not to lie but instead to tell the truth. What if your parents or teachers told you not go to someplace but instead you decided to go anyways? Obedience is the better choice. Listen to a story about a king who said one thing and did another and the consequences of his decision.
Long ago in the city of Jerusalem there was an evil king named Zedekiah. The prophet Jeremiah lived at the same time and Zedekiah wanted Jeremiah to tell him about the future. Although Jeremiah was in prison, Zedekiah called for him and had a secret conversation about what he should do when the Babylonian attackers were at the gate of Jerusalem. Jeremiah did not mince words, as we say. He told him to welcome the Babylonians and surrender to them if he wanted to be spared. After hearing this Zedekiah said, don’t tell anyone about our conversation. So Jeremiah obeyed.Zedekiahmust have thought about what Jeremiah said about surrendering as something foolish because not long after, he tried to escape at night through the back gate of the city. The enemy surrounded him and captured him and his family. The Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar was very angry and told him that because he did not obey, his sons would be killed before his eyes as the last thing he would see as his own eyes would also destroyed.
Zedekiah thought he knew a better way but in the end, the words of Jeremiah the prophet came true. Zedekiah lived out his days in a prison cell in Babylon.
The lesson we should learn from this is to obedience is the best way.

