WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.360 Okay, we're going to return to our theme. We're not going to look in great detail at 00:00:07.360 --> 00:00:11.839 this chapter, which I'm sure will disappoint some of you because it's a very famous chapter, 00:00:11.839 --> 00:00:21.280 but we will be kind of fusing it into the theme, which is our overall look at the story 00:00:21.280 --> 00:00:25.000 of the Old Testament. And what we've been trying to do, whether we've been doing it 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:32.880 effectively or not, well, we hope by the Spirit of God, is that we're trying to give the big 00:00:32.880 --> 00:00:39.960 picture of particularly the Old Testament as it points forward to the coming of Jesus. 00:00:39.960 --> 00:00:44.200 And that's good, isn't it? It's good to get the big picture. It's good to get the big 00:00:44.200 --> 00:00:48.679 picture of the story of the Bible, but it's also good to get the big picture in our own 00:00:48.679 --> 00:00:54.759 lives sometimes. I think sometimes that we get so tunnel visioned by the little, every 00:00:54.759 --> 00:01:01.519 day things that we forget the big picture of our lives from God's perspective in us 00:01:01.519 --> 00:01:09.599 as well. I don't know how many of you have been a line of duty fans, but in that storyline, 00:01:09.599 --> 00:01:14.680 there's lots of minute detail that it's impossible to keep up with and to understand. But we 00:01:14.680 --> 00:01:22.360 were hoping that at the end of that particular episode or that theme series that we would 00:01:22.360 --> 00:01:28.520 get the big picture. Who is the great mastermind? Who is the H character? Who is the one that 00:01:28.520 --> 00:01:36.120 was behind all the corruption in the police? And it was underwhelming. The storyline was 00:01:36.120 --> 00:01:42.120 underwhelming and the last episode was underwhelming, I think, in some ways. But that's not the 00:01:42.120 --> 00:01:47.920 case with the Bible. It's never underwhelming and it's never senseless in any way and it 00:01:47.920 --> 00:01:53.880 oughtn't to be confusing for us. We see two important things that God is revealed in that 00:01:53.880 --> 00:02:00.640 online, on that storyline of the Old Testament, and we see that God reaches out. These are 00:02:00.640 --> 00:02:10.040 two really important things. We understand that the Old Testament very clearly reveals 00:02:10.039 --> 00:02:15.879 to us the character of God. It spends a lot of time reminding us that God is one, that 00:02:15.879 --> 00:02:22.439 there's only one God, that there's not a multiplicity of gods, and this is a God whose character 00:02:22.439 --> 00:02:30.120 is being revealed. He exists. He exists before us. He will exist after us. And we are His 00:02:30.120 --> 00:02:37.599 image bearers. And the Old Testament reminds us that we can't take His place. We can't, 00:02:37.599 --> 00:02:42.439 we try. And that's right from the very beginning what's gone wrong, isn't it? We usurp Him, 00:02:42.439 --> 00:02:49.879 we ignore Him, we rage at Him, humanity misunderstands Him, misrepresents Him, replaces Him. But 00:02:49.879 --> 00:02:56.280 the trouble is it brings an injustice and a lack of love into the world in which we 00:02:56.280 --> 00:03:10.159 live, or at best a self-serving justice and a self-centered love that rejects His Lordship 00:03:10.159 --> 00:03:15.920 in our lives. And we recognize that bad stuff happens as a result of that, and death lurks. 00:03:15.920 --> 00:03:22.759 And the Old Testament has a great, it spends a great deal of time reminding us of our accountability 00:03:22.759 --> 00:03:34.759 to this great God. The judgment is unavoidable, that He is a holy God. So you've got these, 00:03:34.759 --> 00:03:38.359 even if you include the New Testament, you've got 66 books written over 1,500 years with 00:03:38.359 --> 00:03:46.079 numerous authors, but there's one thread, it's the story of God and His character. And 00:03:46.080 --> 00:03:53.760 not only our accountability to Him and His justice and holiness, but also His saving purposes 00:03:53.760 --> 00:04:01.000 to bring us back. And we do well to sit up and take note of that in terms of the big picture, 00:04:01.000 --> 00:04:08.080 because in revealing this holy and sinless God is also this God who reaches out with 00:04:08.080 --> 00:04:15.120 an unstoppable love. Like His justice, His love is unstoppable. Two great themes of the 00:04:15.120 --> 00:04:20.480 Old Testament, and we've seen, haven't we, right from the beginning, that this love that 00:04:20.480 --> 00:04:27.439 He has, which responds to the failure of humanity to worship and adore Him as Lord and God, motivates 00:04:27.439 --> 00:04:35.040 a plan from the seed of the woman who will come, the crucified divine Son. That's what 00:04:35.040 --> 00:04:38.800 we've been, that's been the theme all the way along that we've been looking at. He 00:04:38.800 --> 00:04:44.199 would redeem a people. And so you've got the priests in the Old Testament who point towards 00:04:44.199 --> 00:04:50.920 the need for a mediator between us and God and the need for sacrifice. You've got the 00:04:50.920 --> 00:04:57.560 kings that we looked at the last few weeks who reflect the reality of the King of Kings 00:04:57.560 --> 00:05:04.279 and the everlasting kingdom. And you've also got the prophets. And the prophets were those 00:05:04.279 --> 00:05:13.000 who communicated God to the people who exposed the sin of the people, but also talked about 00:05:13.000 --> 00:05:18.639 the mercy of God and reminded them of the hope that God was bringing. So you have these 00:05:18.639 --> 00:05:24.759 great realities in the Old Testament, and we know that it is the God of the Bible who 00:05:24.759 --> 00:05:32.279 makes the first move and who reaches out in great love, and who promises more than we 00:05:32.279 --> 00:05:41.480 can ask or even imagine. Now every Christian here has experienced that love to a degree, 00:05:41.480 --> 00:05:48.840 and it's the most significant truth that you ever recognize in terms of the big picture 00:05:48.840 --> 00:05:55.240 that you are loved eternally by the living God. And if you're not a Christian, then I 00:05:55.240 --> 00:06:02.200 would encourage you to consider the God who says, I love you this much, this much that 00:06:02.200 --> 00:06:10.960 I came and the person of my son and the mystery of all of that to die on a tree in order to 00:06:10.959 --> 00:06:17.479 open the way back up as I paid the price for your sin. So we've seen that picture developing 00:06:17.479 --> 00:06:23.240 in the Old Testament, but I want to just mention that the Old Testament, remember still, is 00:06:23.240 --> 00:06:29.399 a shadow of what we have. It's more, God is revealing himself, but there's more to be 00:06:29.399 --> 00:06:35.439 revealed, isn't there? So it wouldn't be good if we were just Old Testament believers, because 00:06:35.439 --> 00:06:41.759 it's a shadow. Yes, God was with them. He wasn't in them individually, but He was with 00:06:41.759 --> 00:06:47.399 them. He lived among them. That's why the temple was so important in Jerusalem, because 00:06:47.399 --> 00:06:51.439 He lived in the Holy of Holies, and that spoke about His willingness to be with them, but 00:06:51.439 --> 00:06:56.839 also His separation from them, that they needed a mediator to come between them and God, between 00:06:56.839 --> 00:07:03.240 them and Him. He did speak to them, but generally He spoke through intermediaries, through the 00:07:03.240 --> 00:07:11.639 prophets. He forgave them through the sacrifice of blood of animals, but it was anticipating 00:07:11.639 --> 00:07:19.519 once for all sacrifice of Jesus Christ. But they were saved by faith, Old Testament believers. 00:07:19.519 --> 00:07:24.199 I've often wrestled with this about the difference between Old Testament believers and New Testament 00:07:24.199 --> 00:07:31.240 believers. What's the difference? Sometimes we think there's no continuity between the 00:07:31.240 --> 00:07:36.079 Old and New Testament, and we throw out the Old Testament, and apparently that's a big 00:07:36.079 --> 00:07:41.560 theological debate in the States just now. But the other danger, I think, is just making 00:07:41.560 --> 00:07:47.840 the Old Testament exactly the same as the New Testament in terms of the believers. They 00:07:47.840 --> 00:07:53.600 were believers, but we are much, much more privileged than they were. They were saved 00:07:53.600 --> 00:08:01.520 by faith. But how can I express it? Can I express it by saying they were like pre-natal 00:08:01.520 --> 00:08:08.280 believers? They were in the womb. There was a darkness in the womb, and they were anticipating 00:08:08.280 --> 00:08:15.600 waiting for something better. And we see that a lot of times in the teaching of the Old 00:08:15.600 --> 00:08:25.600 Testament and in the reality of the Old Covenant being replaced by the renewed covenant that 00:08:25.600 --> 00:08:30.240 we see in Christ. So there's that reality that we must wrestle with when we look at 00:08:30.240 --> 00:08:35.840 the Old Testament. But it has very important truths to tell us and very important lessons 00:08:35.840 --> 00:08:41.720 because it deals not only with God, but also with people. And so we come to the prophets 00:08:41.720 --> 00:08:45.639 and Jeremiah, one of the great prophets, they're called the weeping prophet. And if you've 00:08:45.639 --> 00:08:50.879 read Jeremiah or Lamentations, you know exactly why that's the case. Remember Thomas looked 00:08:50.879 --> 00:08:55.720 last week at the kings and then, or I looked at the kings, and Thomas looked at the fact 00:08:55.720 --> 00:09:00.639 that the people of God rebelled against God and were thrown out of the promised land and 00:09:00.639 --> 00:09:07.720 were exiled. So they lost the privileges and promises of the Old Testament land and God's 00:09:07.720 --> 00:09:13.080 presence with them. They were divided, the kings were rubbish kings. They rebelled against 00:09:13.080 --> 00:09:18.440 God and they usurped God's authority. And so they were banished from the promised land 00:09:18.440 --> 00:09:29.040 and they were exiled. And the prophets were messengers from God who revealed God's purpose 00:09:29.040 --> 00:09:34.720 and God's will to the people, both for the present in their lives, for their day to day 00:09:34.720 --> 00:09:39.000 living. And also, they weren't just forth tellers, they didn't just tell the future. 00:09:39.000 --> 00:09:45.440 In fact, they didn't do that that much. They more or less spoke on behalf of God to the 00:09:45.440 --> 00:09:50.960 people. They did also speak about the future. But the writing prophets, the ones that we 00:09:50.960 --> 00:10:00.080 have most recorded of them in the Bible, mainly wrote before and during the exile. So they 00:10:00.080 --> 00:10:05.560 wrote a very specific time in the history of God's people, people like Hosea and Isaiah 00:10:05.560 --> 00:10:12.400 and Joel and Jeremiah and Ezekiel. They mainly spoke during the exile or around the time 00:10:12.400 --> 00:10:18.400 of the exile. And there was three emphasis they had. One, and this is the one you're 00:10:18.400 --> 00:10:25.400 most familiar with, warnings of judgment. Maybe you're doing your daily readings and 00:10:25.399 --> 00:10:31.759 you're reading through lamentations and you're going utterly depressing. It's just nothing, 00:10:31.759 --> 00:10:39.679 but judgment and depression. And much of the prophets are heavy and tough going. But you 00:10:39.679 --> 00:10:44.519 know, if they're bringing a message from God, and if you know the consequences of certain 00:10:44.519 --> 00:10:52.360 action, you will use strong language, won't you, to express the danger that you're in. 00:10:52.360 --> 00:10:56.639 For example, if you're driving a car and you're on your phone, you think, that's okay, it's 00:10:56.639 --> 00:11:01.639 fine, I'm in control, I know what I'm doing, and a policeman pulls you over and takes you 00:11:01.639 --> 00:11:06.320 out of the car and rants and raves about the stupidity of what you're doing. And this 00:11:06.320 --> 00:11:12.560 is an unwise course of action apart from being illegal. And you think, you know, chill out, 00:11:12.560 --> 00:11:17.560 what's the problem, I'm in control here. But he is coming from the point of view of maybe 00:11:17.559 --> 00:11:23.639 having to attend accidents where someone has been on a mobile phone and killed two or three 00:11:23.639 --> 00:11:30.519 people in another car, and they themselves, their bodies been broken into 100 parts. And 00:11:30.519 --> 00:11:35.159 he's the first person there on the scene. And so you can understand, can't you, why 00:11:35.159 --> 00:11:44.839 he is so frustrated and angry at the potential consequences of acting in that illegal way. 00:11:44.840 --> 00:11:50.960 And so God is the one who knows the consequences of sin. And he knows the consequences of rebelling 00:11:50.960 --> 00:11:55.320 against him. And therefore the language is strong. He has poured out his mercy on his 00:11:55.320 --> 00:12:00.320 people. He's redeemed them, he set them free. He's brought them into a promised land, and 00:12:00.320 --> 00:12:08.280 they've just stuck two fingers up at him over many years and rejected his lordship and rejected 00:12:08.279 --> 00:12:16.120 his sovereign holiness and his grace. And so the exile is a consequence and the prophets 00:12:16.120 --> 00:12:21.799 have warned and warned and warned about ignoring God and the consequences of that. It's actually 00:12:21.799 --> 00:12:30.639 quite interesting in 2 Chronicles 36, verse 20 and 21. We're told there that God took 00:12:30.639 --> 00:12:33.839 them into exile and babbled, those who escaped from the sword and they became servants to 00:12:33.840 --> 00:12:39.240 him and his sons. And he is Nebuchadnezzar until the establishment of the kingdom of 00:12:39.240 --> 00:12:44.519 Persia to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah until the land had 00:12:44.519 --> 00:12:50.960 enjoyed its Sabbaths all the days it laid desolate, it kept Sabbath to fulfill 70 years. 00:12:50.960 --> 00:12:56.040 And there's even a sense that there's some commentators who think that the 70 years of 00:12:56.040 --> 00:13:01.879 exile, which we'll go on and mention a little bit about in Babylon, these, why was it 70 00:13:01.879 --> 00:13:06.879 years? Is it just a random figure? Well, some commentators believe it's because the 70 years 00:13:06.879 --> 00:13:15.320 makes up for the number of Sabbath rests, the one in seven years where the people were 00:13:15.320 --> 00:13:20.639 supposed to let the land rest and recover, and they were to trust God to provide for 00:13:20.639 --> 00:13:27.799 them during that year. It reflects the number of Sabbath rests they didn't enjoy and they 00:13:27.799 --> 00:13:33.599 didn't obey and they didn't trust in God and they didn't let the land go fallow. And 00:13:33.599 --> 00:13:40.479 so it's as if you're saying you haven't trusted me, even in this, even in protecting the land 00:13:40.479 --> 00:13:46.679 and giving the land of promise rest, and so you'll be exiled for that amount of time. 00:13:46.679 --> 00:13:53.559 So it was a warning of judgment, it was a call to repentance. And more so the prophets 00:13:53.559 --> 00:14:05.119 who spoke like Jeremiah in the exile, there's also great jewels of God's mercy and of God's 00:14:05.119 --> 00:14:09.519 forgiveness. If they turned around, we've seen it in this passage that we read, if you 00:14:09.519 --> 00:14:15.719 turn around to me, if you follow me, if you're wholehearted, then I will show mercy and you 00:14:15.719 --> 00:14:22.319 will return to the land and it's this hope, not only of repentance, but of future blessing. 00:14:22.320 --> 00:14:26.240 You know, and we've got that verse which we'll look at in a minute, just the plans I have 00:14:26.240 --> 00:14:30.600 for you. It's probably the verse that's taken out of context more than any verse in the 00:14:30.600 --> 00:14:34.600 whole Bible where people take that verse and they stick it on their wall and they think, 00:14:34.600 --> 00:14:40.560 yeah, God's got plans for me and He'll want me to succeed and be fruitful and be happy. 00:14:40.560 --> 00:14:47.240 And yet it's in the context of repentance and of being wholehearted and of following God. 00:14:47.240 --> 00:14:56.000 And it's interesting, isn't it, that when we naturally, we focus on the mercy that Jeremiah 00:14:56.000 --> 00:15:01.080 speaks of and a passage like this and the verse like that, which is a great verse, we 00:15:01.080 --> 00:15:06.440 love it and we focus on that. But isn't it true? And one of the lessons of the Old Testament 00:15:06.440 --> 00:15:14.759 is that the mercy of God is meaningless if we just use it as a rubber stamp to be unchanged 00:15:14.759 --> 00:15:21.120 and not to think that how we live matters, that sin isn't important. If the Old Testament 00:15:21.120 --> 00:15:28.799 teaches us anything, it highlights that without God our lives are bent on destruction from 00:15:28.799 --> 00:15:36.960 the heart's out. If anything, the Old Testament teaches us it's the holiness of God and our 00:15:36.960 --> 00:15:44.960 need to turn to Him in repentance. Then we like mercy. Then mercy means something. Then 00:15:44.960 --> 00:15:51.720 mercy is important to us and significant and our cold hearts are warmed up from the inside 00:15:51.720 --> 00:16:00.320 because we understand who God is. And interestingly, the Old Testament prophets wrote to a people. 00:16:00.320 --> 00:16:05.920 We often take our Bible readings individualistically and that's fine, it's important to do so as 00:16:05.919 --> 00:16:13.439 well. But also, there's a corporate reality when we read the Bible and when we read our 00:16:13.439 --> 00:16:18.759 place, that's why I mentioned our citizenship at the beginning. We're not simply individual 00:16:18.759 --> 00:16:25.879 believers, we belong to the family of God and the people of God and God speaks to us and 00:16:25.879 --> 00:16:33.079 our behavior individually has an impact on the community of God's people. So you can't 00:16:33.080 --> 00:16:39.879 simply live and I can't simply live as if the community of God's people is irrelevant 00:16:39.879 --> 00:16:47.920 because often our individual choices as Christians affect the gospel community because we are 00:16:47.920 --> 00:16:54.600 God's citizens together. And I think it's great that we repent individually of sins, 00:16:54.600 --> 00:17:01.640 but I also think it's great that we repent as a church of sins, that we recognize the 00:17:01.639 --> 00:17:07.879 corporate nature of coming together and of praying for forgiveness and for going our 00:17:07.879 --> 00:17:13.599 own way, for turning our back, for relegating God to the periphery of our lives, for blaming 00:17:13.599 --> 00:17:20.879 Him, for ignoring Him, for mocking Him, for chasing after other things. That's when mercy 00:17:20.879 --> 00:17:28.680 both individually and congregationally tastes sweet. It's when we're able to forgive one 00:17:28.680 --> 00:17:38.440 another and turn back from our sins and turn towards Him and be assured not only of God's 00:17:38.440 --> 00:17:45.600 love and forgiveness, the love and forgiveness that we receive from one another. So these 00:17:45.600 --> 00:17:49.920 are great themes in this passage. They're great themes of Jeremiah. They're great themes 00:17:49.920 --> 00:17:56.400 of the Old Testament as we move forward. There's two things particularly in this passage that 00:17:56.400 --> 00:18:02.920 I very briefly want to highlight because this is God's letter. This part of Jeremiah is 00:18:02.920 --> 00:18:10.120 a letter that God gave to the exiles, to the believers who were under judgment, who'd 00:18:10.120 --> 00:18:19.920 been taken out of the promised land and who were enslaved in Babylon. And God or Jeremiah 00:18:19.920 --> 00:18:26.360 through God, He's prophesying two temptations among the people of God. And these are two 00:18:26.360 --> 00:18:33.440 temptations that can still be relevant in our lives today. One is delusion. They could 00:18:33.440 --> 00:18:41.039 be deluded. In Jeremiah chapter 28, the chapter before this and verse 10, 11, we have another 00:18:41.039 --> 00:18:47.240 prophet, a false prophet and his name is Han and Aya. And he went to the people and he 00:18:47.240 --> 00:18:50.960 said, he took the yoke bars from the neck of Jeremiah the prophet and broke them. And 00:18:50.960 --> 00:18:55.559 Han and Aya spoke in the presence of the people saying, thus says the Lord, even so will I 00:18:55.559 --> 00:19:00.079 break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon from the neck of all the nations within two 00:19:00.079 --> 00:19:06.079 years. But Jeremiah the prophet went his way. This false prophet went to the people who 00:19:06.079 --> 00:19:11.079 were in exile and said, look, don't worry, God loves you. You'll be out of here in two 00:19:11.079 --> 00:19:16.279 years. Babylon will be defeated and destroyed. You'll be home in two years. It's going to 00:19:16.279 --> 00:19:21.480 be great. He was a false prophet. He said, thus says the Lord, but he didn't bring a 00:19:21.480 --> 00:19:28.799 message from God because he was saying what he knew the people wanted to hear that it 00:19:28.799 --> 00:19:33.480 was going to be easy, that it wouldn't be a long struggle, that they wouldn't be in 00:19:33.480 --> 00:19:43.879 exile for a long time. So God gives them Jeremiah and Jeremiah gives them this letter from God. 00:19:43.880 --> 00:19:47.800 And he says, no, you're going to be here for a generation. You're going to be here for 00:19:47.800 --> 00:19:56.120 70 years. Life is going to be tough. You're going to be servile, enslaved for 70 years 00:19:56.120 --> 00:20:03.360 here. Forget about the two years going back. But he says, while you're here, make the most 00:20:03.360 --> 00:20:11.240 of it. Make them return back to me. Pray to me. Know my shalom, as he says in these verses 00:20:11.240 --> 00:20:16.920 that we know so well, build houses, verse five, live in them, plant gardens, eat the 00:20:16.920 --> 00:20:23.440 produce, take wives, have sons, daughters, and multiply there. Do not decrease. Seek the 00:20:23.440 --> 00:20:30.400 welfare of the city, which I'm bringing you into. Pray for Babylon. Pray for it shalom. 00:20:30.400 --> 00:20:37.720 Pray for its blessing. In other words, he's saying, follow me in Babylon. Serve me, return 00:20:37.720 --> 00:20:45.960 to me. Don't be grumblers. Don't be dissatisfied. Don't be separatist. Don't be secular. I mean, 00:20:45.960 --> 00:20:52.279 sorry, sectarian. And don't be insular. He says, don't just mope around Babylon for 70 00:20:52.279 --> 00:20:58.200 years thinking, well, I wish he was better than me. They are just desperate to hear more 00:20:58.200 --> 00:21:04.000 of the word. It's great. But you know, that is that important that he says something. Don't 00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:11.119 be deluded by how easy life is going to be that God is just going to be like some giant 00:21:11.119 --> 00:21:15.480 kind of Santa Claus figure for you and take you back into promised land in a wink of an 00:21:15.480 --> 00:21:23.160 eye. It's going to be tough. You are in exile. But as you return to me, you can know shalom 00:21:23.160 --> 00:21:27.640 and you know peace and you can know peace for your people and you can fulfill. You can 00:21:27.640 --> 00:21:33.680 fulfill all the mandates that I want you to fulfill even in Babylon. So that was one 00:21:33.680 --> 00:21:40.640 temptation to be deluded that God was different from who he was. And that he was a God that 00:21:40.640 --> 00:21:47.000 they could mold into their own image and make false prophecies about. You can apply that 00:21:47.000 --> 00:21:52.960 today. Can't you? People no longer believe the Bible. They no longer want to see what 00:21:52.960 --> 00:21:58.200 God says. But they just mold that or change it to make it acceptable, the kind of God 00:21:58.200 --> 00:22:04.880 that we would love. He's holy. But he's merciful, isn't he? So delusion is one. The other is 00:22:04.880 --> 00:22:15.960 despair because there was I suppose the tendency towards thinking, well, we've screwed up completely. 00:22:15.960 --> 00:22:20.200 We've made a mess of our relationship with God. He's abandoned us. We've lost the promised 00:22:20.200 --> 00:22:24.840 land. He's left us completely on our own. And there was a possibility that they would 00:22:24.839 --> 00:22:31.039 despair. But then we've got these great verses for I know the plans I have for you declares 00:22:31.039 --> 00:22:38.759 the Lord plans for welfare, not for evil to give you a future and hope. So the prophets 00:22:38.759 --> 00:22:43.679 in exile did bring a message of judgment off, but also a message of hope so that the people 00:22:43.679 --> 00:22:49.639 wouldn't despair. And God is saying, look, you are still in my plans. As you turn back 00:22:49.640 --> 00:22:54.960 to me, I still love you and I still have a future for you. And as you know, wholehearted 00:22:54.960 --> 00:23:01.880 devotion and freedom, there's still you will know freedom and a great future. The promised 00:23:01.880 --> 00:23:07.240 Messiah is still to come. And Jeremiah has some beautiful links towards that. Jeremiah 00:23:07.240 --> 00:23:13.160 31 verse 31. Behold, the days are coming. He says, when I will make a new covenant with 00:23:13.160 --> 00:23:17.720 the house of Israel and the house of Judah, something new, something better. He says, 00:23:17.720 --> 00:23:25.759 I haven't abandoned you or Jeremiah 33 15 and 16. In those days, I will cause our righteous 00:23:25.759 --> 00:23:30.799 branch to spring up for David, the links back to the Kings. He shall execute justice and 00:23:30.799 --> 00:23:35.480 righteousness in those days, Judah will be saved Jerusalem will dwell securely. And this 00:23:35.480 --> 00:23:40.720 is by the name by which we go, the Lord is our righteousness. It was a future. There 00:23:40.720 --> 00:23:48.360 was a Messiah still to come. And so it was to keep them from despair. It's a great message. 00:23:48.360 --> 00:23:54.440 Jeremiah 29. Reminding us of who God is that He's holy, that we can't just mold them in 00:23:54.440 --> 00:23:58.920 our own image. And yet that He had a purpose and plan as they returned to Him and knew 00:23:58.920 --> 00:24:07.000 His shalom. Now, just to finish, in Christ, we're New Testament believers. We have seen 00:24:07.000 --> 00:24:12.000 the new covenant come in the person of Jesus Christ. We sit at the Lord's table and God 00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:19.200 says to us, this is the new covenant in my blood. Do this in remembrance of me. We have 00:24:19.200 --> 00:24:24.960 seen the Old Testament promises fulfilled. We've seen the 70 years captivity ended and 00:24:24.960 --> 00:24:31.400 the people are remnant brought back to Jerusalem. We have seen it. We've seen God in a way that 00:24:31.400 --> 00:24:37.160 they could never have imagined God revealed in Jesus Christ, God coming in the flesh, 00:24:37.160 --> 00:24:43.560 God as the word. So no need for prophets to communicate between us and God because Jesus 00:24:43.560 --> 00:24:51.360 is the prophet. He is the word. We've seen Jesus come in His character and His work and 00:24:51.360 --> 00:24:59.160 His death and resurrection shedding His blood. No more need for priests to be those who intermediate 00:24:59.160 --> 00:25:05.840 between us and God because Jesus is our great high priest, isn't he? And we've seen Him 00:25:05.840 --> 00:25:13.160 ascended to heaven. So we don't need a Davidic king or a king on this earth or a new land 00:25:13.160 --> 00:25:18.519 in this world in which to live because we have a spiritual kingdom to which we belong, 00:25:18.519 --> 00:25:22.840 the citizenship that we mentioned at the beginning. And a king of kings who is your 00:25:22.839 --> 00:25:30.159 Lord and who is mine. We have much, much more. And above all, you are the temple of the Holy 00:25:30.159 --> 00:25:37.039 Spirit. No need for a temple in Jerusalem, which the people in that part of the world 00:25:37.039 --> 00:25:42.599 are still fighting over. No need for it because you are the temple of the Holy Spirit. The 00:25:42.599 --> 00:25:50.279 Holy Spirit lives in you and lives in me. God not only with us, but God in us. This 00:25:50.279 --> 00:25:55.480 church building is not a temple. It's a place that we come together to worship. But God 00:25:55.480 --> 00:26:01.480 doesn't live here like He did in the Old Testament temple. It's different. He lives in us. This 00:26:01.480 --> 00:26:10.000 is not a sanctuary. You are the sanctuary. I am the sanctuary. But we are still tempted, 00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:17.119 aren't we, to delusion or to despair one end or the other? We're tempted to just want 00:26:17.119 --> 00:26:23.279 a God that we can mold and we can drop or lift up as we want when we want. But the Old 00:26:23.279 --> 00:26:33.639 Testament tells us He's a holy God. He's one to whom we must bow in awe and worship. 00:26:33.639 --> 00:26:37.119 But we're also tempted to despair when we fail and we struggle and we make mistakes. 00:26:37.119 --> 00:26:40.959 We think God's going to abandon me. I'm fed. He must be fed up with me. I'm going to give 00:26:40.960 --> 00:26:48.240 up. Maybe this year you felt that over this year of not just a pandemic, but maybe in 00:26:48.240 --> 00:26:52.400 your own heart you've just felt so far away and so sinful from God that there's no way 00:26:52.400 --> 00:26:59.559 back that He will abandon you. And you almost say, well, rightly so. He's abandoned me. 00:26:59.559 --> 00:27:06.000 There's always a way back. He's a God of infinite mercy. He just longs to hear your voice and 00:27:06.000 --> 00:27:13.880 mine to say, Lord, forgive me, please. Remind me, you're my King, my Messiah, my priest, 00:27:13.880 --> 00:27:22.680 my prophet. Remind me of these things, dear Jesus. Know Him. In Christ we have much, much 00:27:22.680 --> 00:27:29.720 more. And in Christ we also are living in exile. It's a different kind of exile to the 00:27:29.720 --> 00:27:37.240 Old Testament believers at the time of Jeremiah. But nonetheless, the New Testament uses that 00:27:37.240 --> 00:27:44.160 terminology of our lives as Christians. We're living as it were in a foreign land spiritually 00:27:44.160 --> 00:27:50.120 and it can be tough and there can be tensions. And maybe we would love to have the easy life 00:27:50.120 --> 00:27:55.839 like the Old Testament believers did in exile. They just want to go back to what it used 00:27:55.839 --> 00:28:01.639 to be like, oh, the temple and Jerusalem and the promised land and the milk flowing, milk 00:28:01.639 --> 00:28:12.639 and honey. But they forgot what life was like. And we sometimes forget that life is a battle, 00:28:12.639 --> 00:28:18.919 that we are in exile to one degree and a different kind of exile, certainly. But nonetheless, 00:28:18.919 --> 00:28:25.399 in exile, we need to stop trying sometimes to make God dance to our own tune. That cosmic 00:28:25.400 --> 00:28:33.360 Father Christmas, He wants us to live in exile. He wants us to be spiritually fruitful and 00:28:33.360 --> 00:28:39.360 to see conversions and to see the peace and the shalom for Edinburgh and for the nation. 00:28:39.360 --> 00:28:45.280 I'm glad that Craig prayed for our politicians and for our leaders. We pray for them. We 00:28:45.280 --> 00:28:51.640 pray if they're blessed and no shalom, then as we know that, they will know that and it 00:28:51.640 --> 00:28:57.800 will be a blessing. We're to seek to share what we have with them, the gospel, the glorious 00:28:57.800 --> 00:29:06.680 gospel as we live in exile. Let's stop being tempted to be separatist or sectarian or grumble 00:29:06.680 --> 00:29:13.480 or insular or just either longing for better days in the past or just hanging on to something 00:29:13.480 --> 00:29:19.080 better in the future. And with this I finished it, but there is something better still to 00:29:19.079 --> 00:29:25.480 come. We've seen Christ and the promises of the Old Testament fulfilled in Christ. But 00:29:25.480 --> 00:29:30.319 remember the Lord's Supper, He says, until I return. And that's the big picture of life 00:29:30.319 --> 00:29:37.319 today, isn't it? You have a place in it. You have a future. You know, He is in, you are 00:29:37.319 --> 00:29:42.720 in His plans for the future. Either He will come back and claim you if you're a Christian 00:29:42.720 --> 00:29:47.399 and take you to be with Him, or when you die, you go to be with Him and when He comes back, 00:29:47.400 --> 00:29:54.480 you'll be raised with Him. So you're part of His cosmic plan as a Christian. And that's 00:29:54.480 --> 00:30:01.280 brilliant, isn't it? To know that we are part of something better, that we're not abandoned, 00:30:01.280 --> 00:30:07.720 that we're not alone, that in Christ His judgment has already taken place on our lives at the 00:30:07.720 --> 00:30:13.840 cross. If you're not a Christian, can you not please put your trust in the Christ who 00:30:13.839 --> 00:30:19.679 has paid the price for your sins on the cross, and know that you, as you return to Him whole-heartedly 00:30:19.679 --> 00:30:26.439 in repentance and seek Him to be your Lord and Savior, you will know His peace and you 00:30:26.439 --> 00:30:32.039 will know His blessing, and you will know that you're part of His plans eternally. 00:30:32.039 --> 00:30:40.599 Isn't that great today as you go into a new week? Let's pray. Father God, help us to understand 00:30:40.599 --> 00:30:50.119 your purposes and your plans. We thank you for this chapter, just a little window into 00:30:50.119 --> 00:30:56.799 the larger message of the prophets who spoke to the people of God in exile, warnings of 00:30:56.799 --> 00:31:03.559 the holiness of God and the danger of sin, but also the reality of your mercy, great 00:31:03.559 --> 00:31:11.000 mercy if we turn to you and to be part of your plans for hope and a future in Christ. 00:31:11.000 --> 00:31:19.839 May that be our rock on which we stand. May we see that it's expanded greatly as we are 00:31:19.839 --> 00:31:27.359 reborn as Christians in the New Testament as we see Christ as our Lord and Savior. Inspire 00:31:27.359 --> 00:31:33.519 and through encourage us Lord. I pray especially for people who may be struggling and battling 00:31:33.519 --> 00:31:39.639 today as Christians who found this year extremely hard, who may be a fallen and a deep and miserable 00:31:39.639 --> 00:31:47.599 sin and feel unable to return to you. Lord, there's nothing and nothing they can do that 00:31:47.599 --> 00:31:57.720 can make your mercy and make your grace invalid if they turn back to you pleading for mercy. 00:31:57.720 --> 00:32:03.680 May we sense that, may we know your holiness but also your grace and enable us to live out 00:32:03.680 --> 00:32:09.360 together as citizens together our lives and supporting and encouraging and building each 00:32:09.360 --> 00:32:16.240 other up and praying for one another and remembering that on this narrow road we all walk together, 00:32:16.240 --> 00:32:28.519 as we pray in Jesus name, amen.