Hide The Truth?

One day King Zedekiah sent for Jeremiah and had him brought to the third entrance of the LORD's Temple. “I want to ask you something,” the king said. “And don't try to hide the truth.” Jeremiah 38:14

Hide the truth? Is this where Jeremiah the prophet pulled out that line we hear so much, "You can't handle the truth!" No, that was a movie, but reading the next verse we see that, well, yes he did say that in a longer form.

Jeremiah said, “If I tell you the truth, you will kill me. And if I give you advice, you won’t listen to me anyway.” (v15)

At the first we are a bit taken aback that the king would even think that Jeremiah would hide the truth as it came to him from God. However, we know from the scriptures that the king also had a much larger contingent of false prophets close at hand. You might say that the king was accustomed to hearing lies from his prophets. The one voice of truth therefore had to contend with the king's doubts.

How many of us, I wonder, get up and read the Word of God only to later work out a way to hide the truth from ourselves? Never? Do you recall a verse about the heart and its desperate wickedness? Jeremiah wrote down that one too, check out chapter 17, verse 9.

Love to you in Christ our Lord,

Bucky