God Wins Series

A signet ring accomplished all this…and more. God was telling me that he was going to turn me into a signet ring. There’s more significance to this but I’m going to have to explain what happened to my grandpa in order to fully understand what God is saying.

Before I do I need to be upfront about what my great grandfather did. His name was Jehoiakim. When confronted with Scripture, instead of believing it, he decided to burn it. I heard that something similar happens today when people read the Bible and ignore what it says. Or when they say, “I know what the Bible says, but…” The story about my great grandpa is found in Jeremiah 36. I grew up knowing what verse 31 said: “I will punish him and his children and his attendants for their wickedness; I will bring on them and those living in Jerusalem and the people of Judah every disaster I pronounced against them, because they have not listened.” That’s not much of a family blessing, is it?

Ok, now I’ll tell you about my grandpa. He only served as king for three months and then was deported to Babylon. I’m going to read from the prophet Jeremiah and I’d like you to listen for the words, “signet ring.”

Jeremiah 22:24-27: “‘As surely as I live,’ declares the Lord, ‘even if you, Jehoichin son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, were a signet ring on my right hand, I would still pull you off. I will hand you over to those who seek your life, those you fear – to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and to the Babylonians. I will hurl you and the mother who gave you birth into another country, where neither of you was born, and there you both will die. You will never come back to the land you long to return to.’”

And there’s more. In verse 30 we read: “This is what the Lord says: ‘Record this man as if childless, a man who will not prosper in his lifetime, for none of his offspring will prosper, none will sit on the throne of David or rule anymore in Judah.’”

Well, I was one of his offspring…sort of. I don’t tell this to a lot of people, not because I’m embarrassed but more because I’m not entirely certain, but I believe I was adopted by a man named Shealtiel. I found a clue about this in 1 Chronicles 3:19 where my birth dad is named Pedaiah. I hear that there’s an adoption movement taking place at PBC. That’s really cool because you’re engrafting the forgotten into a new family tree of faithfulness. Check this out. If I was adopted then I had all the rights of sonship but the curse that came from my grandpa did not cascade on me. Or, at least this was what I held on to throughout my life. But when I saw how everything was going I was convinced that I was under a curse.

Let me stop and ponder this. If my grandpa was told that he was like a signet ring that was pulled off, then could God be reversing the curse by making me into a signet ring? How could that be? Could God actually be restoring the line to the Messiah through me?