Pray the Word with David Platt is a resource from Radical.net.

Jeremiah chapter 41, verse 2, Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, and the ten men with him,

rose up and struck down Gatolliah, the son of Ahikam, son of Shafan, with the sword,

and killed him, whom the king of Babylon had appointed governor in the land.

So this is a picture of things going from really bad to worse in the book of Jeremiah.

So the whole picture here is the Babylonians have overtaken Jerusalem, destroyed the city, basically, taken most people into exile, and then

some are left in Jerusalem, this destroyed city. And the Babylonians have appointed Getalaya as

governor in the land. That causes Ishmael to come to Getalaya along with others to rise up and strike him down,

presumably because Ishmael wanted to be the one who was the leader appointed to rule the people.

So you have this picture of Ishmael scrambling for power, trying to assert himself as the leader over people who are

living in total ruins. And the whole picture is nobody is turning to God. Nobody is repenting

of sin. They're actually going deeper into sin, despite the discipline they have received at God's hand, despite the fact that God has decreed the destruction of Jerusalem.

Because of their sin against them, they're continuing to sin against him.

But isn't this the story of the depravity of men and women?

And even a picture of the temptation in our own lives, that even when we experience the consequences of sin,

you and I can still be tempted to turn again to sin.

Do you see this in your own life? And do you see this in the world around us?

It's not like the consequences of sin are causing sinful humanity to turn to God. No, we're

turning to ourselves all the more, and we're all prone to do this. In other words, we all

need God to save us from ourselves, to save us from the sin that we're all prone to do this. In other words, we all need God to save us from ourselves,

to save us from the sin that we are prone to. And the good news of the gospel is that Jesus

has made a way for this salvation to be a reality, for us to be saved from our sins,

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