Today I read something in my devotions that I hadn't noticed before. It was in Jeremiah 36. The Lord spoke to Jeremiah the words He wanted delivered to Jehoiakim, king of Judah. These were words of warning of what would happen if the king and people didn't turn from their evil ways and come back to God. Jeremiah dictated God's words to a scribe who then delivered the scroll to the king.
The king's response was to burn the scroll because he didn't like what God had to say. He thought that would take care of the matter. No scroll, no warning to heed - as if God's word could be undone by simply destroying the evidence.
What he forgot is that God's word is not dependent upon anyone believing it. God will have His way and His word will always hold true no matter whether a person chooses to believe it or not and no matter what lengths people go to destroy it or discredit its message. In the case of Jehoiakim, God simply told Jeremiah to rewrite the words on another scroll and have that delivered once again to the king, only this time God added more. It would have gone better for Judah if the king had heeded the first message.
God always has backup copies of his message. If we don't hear it the first time, He will repeat it as often and in as many ways as necessary until we listen. As Aldous Huxley said, "Facts do not cease to exist simply because they are ignored." This is especially true where God's word is concerned.
