futures
Now
35
Thank you.
We're going to get started, so if you want to try to find your seat.
Thank you.
Good morning.
So we're going to be reading from Jeremiah chapter 33 this morning.
Jeremiah chapter 33.
If you have the Blue Bible, it's on page 662.
Jeremiah chapter 33, verse 1.
The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah a second time, while he was still shut up in the court
of the guard.
Thus says the Lord who made the earth, the Lord who formed it to establish it, the Lord
is his name.
Call to me and I will answer you and will tell you great and hidden things that you
have not known.
For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the houses of the city and the houses of the
kings of Judah that were torn down to make a defense against the siege mounds and against
the sword.
They are coming in to fight against the Chaldeans and to fill them with the dead bodies of men
whom I shall strike down in my anger and my wrath.
For I have hidden my faith from this city because of all their evil.
Behold, I will bring to it health and healing and I will heal them and reveal to them abundance
of prosperity and security.
I will secure, I will restore the fortunes of Judah and the fortunes of Israel and rebuild
them as they were at first.
I will cleanse them from all the guilt of their sin against me and I will forgive all
the guilt of their sin and rebellion against me.
And this city shall be to me a name of joy, a praise and a glory before all the nations
of the earth who shall hear of all the good that I do for them.
They shall fear and tremble because of all the good and all the prosperity I provide
for it.
Thus says the Lord, in this place of which you say it is a waste without man or beast in
the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem that are desolate without man or inhabitant or
beast.
There shall be heard again the voice of the birth and the voice of gladness, the voice
of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride.
The voices of those who sing as they bring offerings to the house of the Lord.
Give thanks to the Lord of hosts for the Lord is good for his steadfast love endures forever.
For I will restore the fortunes of the land as at first says the Lord.
Thus says the Lord of hosts in this place that is waste without man or beast and in all
of its cities.
There shall again be habitations of shepherds resting their flocks in the cities of the hill
country in the cities of the Shelfella and in the cities of the Negev in the land of
Benjamin that places about Jerusalem and in the cities of Judah.
Flock shall again pass under the hands of the one who counts them says the Lord.
Behold the days are coming declares the Lord when I will fulfill the promise I made to the
house of Israel and the house of Judah.
In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous branch to spring up for David and
he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.
In those days Judah shall be saved and Jerusalem will dwell securely and this is the name by which
they will be called the Lord is our righteousness.
Jeremiah chapter 33 verse 17.
For thus says the Lord David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel
and the Levitical priest shall never lack a man in my presence to offer burnt offerings to
offer to burn grain offerings and to make sacrifices forever.
The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah.
Thus says the Lord if you can break my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night
so that day and night will not come at their appointed time then also my covenant with David
my servant may be broken so that he shall never so that he shall not have a sub to reign on his
throne and my covenant with the Levitical priests my ministers as the host of heaven cannot be
numbered and the sands of the sea cannot be measured so I will multiply the offspring of David
my servant and the Levitical priests who ministered to me.
The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah.
Have you not observed that these people are saying the Lord has rejected the two clans that he chose?
Thus they have to despise my people so that they are no longer a nation in their sight.
Thus says the Lord if I have not established my covenant with day and night and the fixed order of heaven and earth
then I will reject the offspring of Jacob and David my servant and will not choose one of his offspring to rule over the offspring of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
For I will restore their fortunes and will have mercy on them.
This is the word of the Lord.
Let's pray.
Father thank you for this passage of hope of your faithfulness and your love that you restore joy to those who are downtrodden who experienced your judgment.
But in their pain and suffering you also give them the message of hope.
And as your covenant with the earth and skies that you've created that those things can never be changed.
That your covenant with David would never be broken as well.
And thank you that even here we're able to see your prophecy of your son coming.
And so we just want to give you this morning and pray for Sean that you would speak through him.
Prepare our hearts and we want to honor you and we want to praise you this day.
In Jesus name, amen.
Good morning for those who are visiting.
My name is Sean and I'm one of the pastors of Trinity Cambridge Church.
And I'll be preaching from Jeremiah 32 and 33.
But we just asked Ruth to read chapter 33.
And I'll because it's a long passage and I'll read incorporate chapter 32 as I preach.
And some of you have already kind of experienced the pain of being deserted by someone or rejected by someone or having promises made to you broken.
Because our world is full of that, right?
People whom we trust, whether it's a parent, a boss, a political leader, a spouse, a boyfriend or girlfriend or best friend.
They disappoint us, break their promises and sometimes leave us.
And sometimes these experiences make us guarded and aloof.
We become fearful of trusting people again.
So instead of being vulnerable, instead of intimacy, we choose isolation and indifference.
Instead of honesty and authenticity, our lives become increasingly preoccupied with presentation and performance.
We think that we can control how others perceive us by behaving in a certain way.
Sometimes we carry over this kind of fear and mistrust into our relationship with God also.
We think that God is fickle like human beings.
We think that we have to appease Him and keep Him happy in order to get what we want.
When we have disobeyed Him and sinned against Him, we feel overwhelmed by shame and guilt and we are afraid to approach Him.
So instead we avoid Him.
We postpone repentance.
We procrastinate in our prayers and scripture reading.
But we must not think of God in this way.
Because this passage teaches us that God's posture toward His children is mercy.
And His policy concerning them is His everlasting covenant.
That's the main point of this passage.
And I'll cover it in two points.
In chapter 32, we see the field of promise.
In 33, we see the word of promise.
And as we've been going through this book together, we've gone through 30-something chapters.
I applaud you all for sticking with us all this time if you were guests that first came to our church during that time.
And as we have seen throughout Jeremiah, alongside some of God's seemingly harshest judgments,
we see the most promising words.
We also see promises of hope and restoration.
And that's what we see here in chapters 30-33.
And this prophecy begins this way in verse 2 where we see the context.
At the time, the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem.
And Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the guard that was in the palace of the king of Judah.
I'm in chapter 32, verse 2.
So a more detailed historical background of this is given later in chapter 37,
where some of Judah's officials falsely accuse Jeremiah of defecting to the Chaldeans, the Babylonians.
And then on that plea text, they imprison him in a dungeon.
And at that point, Jeremiah gets an audience with King Zedekiah.
And he asks him, appeals to him, I haven't done anything wrong.
All I've done is prophesy judgment according to God's word.
Can you help me?
And Zedekiah doesn't really help him.
He still keeps him in prison.
But he slightly improves his condition.
Takes him out of the dungeon.
And puts him under house arrest at the court of the guard.
So it's at that time when he was at the court of the guard under house arrest,
living with the royal guards, that's when this word came to him.
But since Zedekiah is ultimately responsible for Jeremiah's ongoing imprisonment,
the blame is placed on the king in verses 3 to 5.
Read with me.
For Zedekiah king of Judah had imprisoned him, saying,
Why do you prophesy and say, Thus says the Lord?
Behold, I am giving the city into the hand of the king of Babylon,
and he shall capture it.
Zedekiah king of Judah shall not escape out of the hand of the Chaldeans,
but shall surely be given into the hand of the king of Babylon,
and shall speak with him face to face, and see him eye to eye.
And he shall take Zedekiah to Babylon,
and there he shall remain until I visit him, declares the Lord.
Though you fight against the Chaldeans, you shall not succeed.
So it seems that the epistopical background is that Zedekiah resented the fact
that Jeremiah repeatedly prophesied that he would lose to the Babylonians,
that he would be exiled to Babylon.
Instead of giving him false assurances of deliverance like the other false prophets of the Lord,
Jeremiah prophesied judgment and confrontation with the king of Babylon.
And so for these, quote-unquote, seditious prophecies, Zedekiah was imprisoned.
But while Jeremiah was under house arrest, God tells him to do something really strange.
I look at verses 7 to 8.
Behold, Hanamel the son of Shalom, your uncle, will come to you and say,
Buy my field that is at Anathoth, for the right of redemption by purchase is yours.
Then Hanamel my cousin came to me in the court of the guard,
in accordance with the word of the Lord,
and said to me, Buy my field that is at Anathoth in the land of Benjamin,
for the right of possession and redemption is yours.
Buy it for yourself.
Then I knew that this was the word of the Lord.
So Jeremiah's cousin, Hanamel, visits him at the court of the guard,
and then he tells him to buy this field, his field that's at Anathoth, Jeremiah's hometown,
since that was his right of redemption by purchase.
According to Leviticus 25, when an Israelite becomes poor,
and therefore has to forfeit his land in order to pay a debt that he owes to someone,
it was that his relatives, his closest relatives were called upon to come
and redeem the property and buy it for themselves.
So that that property doesn't leave the tribe, the family.
And of course, this was important in Israel,
because all the land that they had were specifically given, distributed by God himself.
And so to belong to Israel meant to belong in the land.
So to lose the land really was to be excluded in that covenant.
So it was important for the family members to redeem that property.
So we don't know what the financial background of Hanamel is,
but it seems that he needs someone to redeem this land,
and Jeremiah is basically the next person in line that's supposed to redeem this land.
So he's supposed to buy it with his own money.
Now think about this proposition for a moment, right?
Under normal circumstances, this would have been a great economic opportunity, right?
Because Jeremiah gets to enlarge his territory, gets to buy more property.
But remember that Jeremiah knows better than anyone else in all of Judah
that the Babylonians are about to take over, rendering that transaction virtually meaningless.
So this is really a crazy proposition.
Yet Jeremiah, because the Lord had revealed it to him that he should buy the field,
agrees to buy the field.
He says, read verses 9 to 12 with me.
He says,
And he went through the whole nine yards to get this property for himself,
to make it a legal transaction.
And isn't it humorous kind of to think about it?
He's under house arrest at the court of the guard,
and Jerusalem is presently besieged by the Babylonian army.
And here is Jeremiah buying a field
that he will probably never see again in his life.
And he goes through all the legal positions to make it official.
It's kind of like, you know, you're watering your garden
when you know a hurricane is about to come through and rip it all up, right?
So then Jeremiah says in verses 13 to 14,
I charged Baruch in their presence, saying,
Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel,
Take these deeds, both this sealed deed of purchase and this open deed,
and put them in an earthenware vessel that they may last for a long time.
And what is Jeremiah's rationale for this?
It's in verse 15.
For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel,
Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.
Jeremiah's purchase of this field in the presence of all these witnesses,
in the presence of the Judeans that were at the court of the guard,
serves a powerful symbol of God's promise
that he will one day bring back these exiles in Babylon
to Judah once again, so that these lands will be bought again,
these lands will be sold again,
and they will occupy the land again as promised by the Lord,
and so that at that point this signed deed will matter.
It served as a symbolic act of assuring his people.
At the very cusp of Judah's greatest calamity,
God assures them of his promise for the future.
And this was no small act of faith on Jeremiah's part,
because isn't it easy to trust God when the going is easy?
It's harder to trust God when the going gets hard.
At the lowest moments of Judah's national existence,
God calls the people of Judah to trust him.
Do we do this?
Sure, we trust that God is good when marriage is good,
when work is good,
when parenting is good, school is good,
relationships are good,
but what about when your marriage is falling apart?
What about when that job or that promotion you are counting on falls through?
What about when you are struggling in school?
What about your relationship that you thought were going somewhere disintegrates?
When you are at the end of yourself,
when you are accumulating debt,
and your life appears to be falling apart at the seams,
do you trust God then?
Do you still believe that God intends good for you?
That's the true test of faith.
What normally functions as your security blanket in your life,
what are some of the objects of comfort that you have in your life,
a friend, a spouse, a savings account, whatever it may be,
it's when these things are taken away that we truly find out whether or not our faith was in God or in something else.
At their lowest moment,
God calls them to trust and offers his great promise.
At the conclusion of this transaction,
Jeremiah orders a fitting prayer in verses 17 to 23.
He prays,
Ah, Lord God,
it is you who made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm.
Nothing is too hard for you.
You show steadfast love to thousands,
but you repay the guilt of fathers to their children after them.
Oh, great and mighty God,
whose name is the Lord of hosts,
great in counsel and mighty in deed,
whose eyes are open to all the ways of the children of man,
rewarding each one according to his ways and according to the fruit of his deeds.
You have shown signs and wonders in the land of Egypt and to this day in Israel and among all mankind
and have made a name for yourself as at this day.
You brought your people, Israel, out of the land of Egypt with signs and wonders,
with a strong hand and outstretched arm and with great terror.
And you gave them this land,
which you swore to their fathers to give them,
a land flowing with milk and honey.
And they entered and took possession of it.
One great way to stoke your faith in God in those difficult times
is by recounting the faithfulness of God throughout your life.
How he saved you.
How he provided for you.
How he answered your prayers.
That's why typically prayers in the Bible begin by praising God.
Acknowledging his promises, his greatness.
Because Jeremiah, as he recounts God's deliverance of Israel throughout the ages,
knows, his faith rises up.
He knows that nothing is too hard for God.
That he can indeed do good for them,
even in this lowest moment of their life.
Then Jeremiah continues in verses 23 to 25.
But they, God's people,
in spite of all that God did for them,
but they did not obey your voice or walk in your law.
They did nothing of all you commended them to do.
Therefore you have made all this disaster come upon them.
Behold, the siege mounds have come up to the city to take it.
And because of sword and famine and pestilence,
the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans
who are fighting against it.
When you spoke, what you spoke has come to pass.
And behold, you see it.
Yet you, O Lord God, have said to me,
buy the field for money and get witnesses.
Though the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans.
The fact that Jeremiah has faith in God
doesn't mean that he never wonders or asks questions.
Jeremiah knows of God's saving act in history.
He believes that God can do good for them still
because nothing is impossible for them.
Yet even then, he still wonders,
why God are you telling me to buy this field?
Jeremiah still has faith.
He still obeys God.
Yet this doesn't stop him from wondering what God has in mind.
And God graciously answers in verses 26 to 35.
And the way he answers is parallel to,
it follows, it mirrors the structure of Jeremiah's prayer.
So that structure shows us that God's indeed answering Jeremiah's prayer point by point.
And you can see it this way.
And this kind of shows you how they're parallel.
The A is parallel with A prime.
You can see that.
So Jeremiah began his prayer in verse 7
by acknowledging God as the creator
and affirming nothing is too hard for you.
And then God answers Jeremiah in verse 27
by assenting that he is indeed the creator,
the God of all flesh,
and by asking the rhetorical question,
is anything too hard for me?
It matches.
Likewise, in verses 17 to 23,
Jeremiah recounted all the faithful acts of God toward Israel
and about how he ultimately gave them the land.
Then in verses 28 to 35,
God recounts all the unfaithful acts of Israel
and how he declares that he will give away the land to Babylon.
And in verses 23 to 24,
Jeremiah recounts how God has brought disaster upon Israel.
And in verses 36 to 52,
God promises to reverse this disaster and bring good to Israel.
And then lastly, in verse 25,
Jeremiah wonders why he should buy the field.
And in verses 43 to 44,
God promises that a day will come
when fields will be bought again in the land of Israel.
Now here's why this matters,
why this parallel structure is important,
because it shows us that all the faithfulness lies with God
and all the unfaithfulness lies with the Israelites.
The mirror image shows us the radicalness of God's grace and compassion toward them,
because all Israel did,
they did nothing of what God has commanded them,
but God says,
nothing is too hard for me.
In fact, I will even do good for you.
In Israel's relationship with God,
all that they bring is their sin.
And yet God meets them with grace and mercy.
Do you know that that's the same in your relationship with God?
There's a beautiful saying that's popularly attributed to Jonathan Edwards,
but it's probably a misattribution,
because I tried to find a source,
and I couldn't track it down.
In this age of the internet,
if you can't track down a source,
it's probably a misattribution.
But it's still true,
so I'll still quote him with the question mark.
Jonathan Edwards,
the only thing you contribute to your salvation
is the sin that makes it necessary.
Our one and only contribution to our relationship with God is our sin.
Faith is not something that we contribute to our salvation.
Faith is simply the bringing of our sins to God,
trusting that He can deal with it.
And even that faith is a gift of God,
Ephesians 2.8 teaches us.
The only thing we bring to the Spirit of God,
our cleansing water,
is our filth and squalor.
The only thing we bring to Jesus Christ,
our Redeemer,
is our debt and slavery.
The only thing we bring to our Heavenly Father
is our disobedience and insubordination.
Yet God cleanses us,
forgives us,
redeems us,
restores us,
liberates us,
and adopts us.
That's the amazing love of God.
Look at the wonderful promise of God in verse 37-41.
I will bring them back to this place,
and I will make them dwell in safety,
and they shall be my people,
and I will be their God.
I will give them one heart in one way,
that they may fear me forever,
for their own good,
and the good of their children after them.
I will make with them an everlasting covenant,
that I will not turn away from doing good to them.
And I will put the fear of me in their hearts,
that they may not turn from me.
I will rejoice in doing them good,
and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness,
with my heart and all my soul.
Isn't that amazing?
The promise.
It was Israel's duty to love God with all of their heart and soul.
That was their duty,
Deuteronomy 6 and 5.
But they failed miserably to love God.
So God says here,
I will plant them in this land in faithfulness,
with all my heart,
and all my soul.
Your heart has not been true to me, Israel,
but my heart will be wholly true to you.
In your few short years of earthly life,
you have repeatedly broken my covenant,
but I will make you keep my everlasting covenant.
I will never break my everlasting covenant with you.
God's posture toward His children is mercy.
And His policy concerning them is everlasting covenant.
And how can Judah know that this seemingly far-fetched promise
will happen right when they're being invaded and taken over?
God says in verse 42,
Thus says the Lord,
Just as I have brought all this great disaster upon this people,
so I will bring upon them all the good that I promised them.
The fulfillment of the promised restoration is as sure and certain
as the prophesied judgment that has already overtaken them.
Some people are saying right now in that context,
I believe it when I see it.
God tells the people of Judah,
Well, do you see the judgment that I told you would come?
Yes, it's right at the doorstep.
Likewise, the restoration that I promise you will certainly come.
That's the meaning of the field of promise.
Then we turn to the word, the promise.
It's all the word.
But in chapter 33,
we see the word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah a second time
while he was still shut up in the court of the guard.
So he's still under house arrest,
and the word of the Lord comes to him a second time as a follow-up.
And the second prophecy expands on the gracious promises of God
given at the end of chapter 32.
And it follows the pattern of God first recounting the current state of things in Israel,
of destruction and judgment,
and then expounding on the future state of things after God restores Israel.
Read verses 2 to 5 again with me in chapter 33.
Thus says the Lord who made the earth,
the Lord who formed it and established it,
the Lord is his name.
Come, call to me, and I will answer you,
and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.
For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel,
concerning the houses of the city and the houses of the kings of Judah
that were torn down to make a defense against the siege mountains and against the sword.
They're coming in to fight against the Chaldeans
and to fill them with the dead bodies of men whom I shall strike down in my anger and my wrath.
For I have hidden my face from this city because of all their evil.
That's the current state of things,
the state of judgment and destruction,
a besieged and beleaguered city filled with dead bodies,
an object of God's wrath.
But then God speaks concerning their future in verses 6 to 9.
Behold, I will bring to health and healing,
and I will heal them and reveal to them abundance of prosperity and security.
I will restore the fortunes of Judah and the fortunes of Israel
and rebuild them as they were at first.
I will cleanse them from all the guilt of their sin against me,
and I will forgive all the guilt of their sin rebelling against me.
And this city shall be to me a name of joy,
of praise, and of glory before all the nations of the earth
who shall hear of all the good that I do for them.
God promises to do a number of things here, right?
Heal, reveal, restore, rebuild, cleanse, and forgive.
That pattern of present punishment and future restoration
continues in verses 10 to 11.
It's a reversal of the covenant curses that have been repeated up to this point
and that God continues His promise in verses 12 to 13.
Thus says the Lord of hosts,
In this place that is waste without man or beast and in all its cities,
there shall again be habitations of shepherds resting their flocks.
So the shepherd is a common metaphor throughout the Old Testament for kings.
Kings who lead their nations were called shepherds who are leading their flock.
And many times throughout the Old Testament,
God reveals Himself as the shepherd king of His people.
And so here, again, I think it's a metaphorical reference
to the future kings that will come to care for God's people.
And we see that clearly in the context that follows.
But notice once again that in all of these promises,
that they are one-sided.
God doesn't make His promises contingent
on the level of repentance
and the right level of right doing by Israel.
Remember what God said earlier in chapter 32, 39 to 40.
God didn't say,
If they fear Me, I will restore them.
No, He said,
I will give them one heart and one way
that they may fear Me forever
for their own good and the good of their children.
God didn't say,
If they keep My covenant,
I will not turn away from doing good to them.
He said,
I will make them an everlasting covenant
that I will not turn away from doing good to them.
Again and again,
God shows that He is the one
that will be responsible for this covenant
and to making sure that He sees it through.
Salvation, in short, is from the Lord,
not from man.
God will accomplish their salvation
from the beginning to the end.
But how will God accomplish this?
That's the question.
And verses 14 to 17 tell us the answer.
Read with me.
Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord,
when I will fulfill the promise I made
to the house of Israel and the house of Judah.
In those days and at that time,
I will cause a righteous branch
to spring up for David,
and he shall execute justice
and righteousness in the land.
In those days, Judah will be saved,
and Jerusalem will dwell securely,
and this is the name by which it will be called,
The Lord is our righteousness.
For thus says the Lord,
David shall never lack a man
to sit on the throne of the house of Israel.
It's very similar to the promise
that God gave earlier in chapter 23.
It's a promise of the Messianic king
who will come to save Judah
and secure Jerusalem.
There will be one particular king
that will rise from the Davidic line,
and he's described as a righteous branch.
And he will finally and ultimately fulfill
the divine charge that God had given to kings,
which is to execute justice and righteousness
in the land and save Israel and Judah.
And when he reigns in Jerusalem,
the city will also be characterized
by his righteousness,
so the city will be called,
The Lord is our righteousness.
And as I've mentioned
when I preached on chapter 23,
that name, The Lord is our righteousness,
is a wordplay on the name Zedekiah,
who's that king of Judah at the time.
Whose name means,
The Lord is my righteousness.
And recall that Zedekiah is the one
who put Jeremiah under house arrest.
He was not executing justice
and righteousness in the land,
but God promises here
an alternate king,
the Messianic king,
the righteous branch,
who will truly bring forth
the righteousness of God,
and that royal succession
of the Davidic line
will never cease from that point on.
And God doesn't stop
with merely promising
a king from David.
He also promises
a continuation
of the Levitical priesthood.
Look at verse 18 with me.
And the Levitical priests
shall never lack a man
in my presence
to offer burnt offerings,
to burn grain offerings,
and to make sacrifices forever.
Verse 20 to 22,
they continue,
Thus says the Lord,
If you can break my covenant
with the day
and my covenant with the night,
so that day and night
will not come
at their appointed time,
then also my covenant
with David my servant
may be broken,
so that he shall not have
a son to reign on my throne,
and my covenant
with the Levitical priests,
my ministers.
Listen to how strong
this assertion is,
this promise is, right?
Hurricanes can hit,
the earth can quake,
and loved ones can die,
and yet no matter
what happens during the day,
no matter how long
and hard it is,
or great and easy it is,
the sun still sets,
and the sun still rises again.
For people having good days
and bad days alike,
for old people
and young people alike,
for nice people
and mean people alike,
the sun sets,
and the sun rises again
every single day.
That is a certainty of life
that the entire world
counts on
literally every single day.
And God says,
just as the cycle of day
and night continues
without interruption
or deviation,
my covenant
with Davidic kings
and Levitical priests
will continue forever.
But there's kind of
a glaring problem
with this promise.
Zedekiah,
the king of Judah,
was, in fact,
the last king
from the line of David
to reign in Israel.
And the temple,
where the Levitical priests
were to offer
burnt offerings
and sacrifices
supposedly forever,
was destroyed
by Nebuchadnezzar,
who is right now
invading Jerusalem.
587 B.C.
So, did God's promise
fail?
But the thing is,
Jeremiah knew all this.
Because he prophesied,
chapter 22,
Jehoahaz,
the last rightful
Davidic king
who was in exile,
would die in exile.
He prophesied,
again in chapter 22,
that Jehoahaz,
Zedekiah's nephew,
would go down
in history
as a childless king
because the dynasty
will come to an end.
He said,
he will say
in the next chapter,
chapter 34,
that Zedekiah himself
will die in exile
in Davalon.
So, Jeremiah knew
that the Davidic dynasty
is coming to
an inglorious end.
Likewise,
in chapter 7
and chapter 26,
Jeremiah prophesied
that the temple,
too,
would be destroyed.
So, Jeremiah knew
all of this.
So, then what,
then,
did his prophecy mean?
What is
the everlasting covenant?
How will the kingship
and the priesthood
continue forever?
We learn
the true meaning
of this promise
only in its fulfillment.
When the promised
messianic king
and priest
comes to deliver
his people.
17 times
in the New Testament,
Jesus is described
as the son of David.
His physical lineage
is traced through David.
And yet,
Jesus is far more
than a son of David.
He is the messianic king.
He is the son of God.
Which is why,
in Mark 12,
35 to 37,
Jesus points out
that in Psalm 110,
1,
even King David
refers to the son of God
as Lord.
Lord.
The kingship of Jesus
is superior
to that of David.
And so,
Hebrews 1,
8 to 9
says this
about Jesus,
the son of God.
Of the son,
he says,
your throne,
O God,
is forever and ever.
The scepter of uprightness
is the scepter
of your kingdom.
You have loved righteousness
and hated wickedness.
Therefore,
God,
your God,
has anointed you
with the oil of gladness
beyond your companions.
Jesus is the prophesied king
who executes justice
and righteousness
in the land.
We,
his people,
were once a nation
without its king,
a subjugated people,
an oppressed people
with no one to rescue them
and lead them out
of their slavery
to sin and Satan.
But God sent our champion,
our king who returned
to save us
and execute righteousness
in the land.
He is that promised king.
And he is also
the promised priest.
Hebrews 10,
11 to 12 says,
And every priest
stands daily
at his service,
offering repeatedly
the same sacrifices,
which can never
take away sins.
But,
when Christ
had offered
for all time
a single sacrifice
for sins,
he sat down
at the right hand
of God.
Him sitting down
at the right hand
of God
means it's done.
The Levitical priests
of old
had to offer
the same sacrifices
repeatedly
because these sacrifices
served to remind people
of their continual sins
and because ultimately
the blood of bulls
and goats
had no power
to take away sin,
as Hebrews 10,
3 to 4 says clearly.
The temple sacrifices
were not the ultimate solution.
They instead served
to foreshadow
the true sacrifice
of Jesus Christ,
the righteous Lamb of God.
And they showed us
that that would be necessary.
So in much the same way,
Christ is superior
to the Davidic kings,
he's also superior
to all the Levitical priests,
so that instead
of offering sacrifices daily,
he offers himself
as the ultimate sacrifice
once and for all
and takes away the sins
of all those
who would trust in him.
In this way,
that's the way
in which Christ,
sent by God,
establishes an everlasting
covenant with his people
and fulfills the promise
of Jeremiah 32 to 33.
And we read about that
in verses 24 to 26,
how he fulfills his promise
to Israel and Judah.
Bear in mind that
all of us
deserve God's wrath
and punishment.
People of Judah did
and we all also
did at one point.
We deserve to be
disenfranchised,
exiled as a people.
We deserve to be
rejected by God.
We deserve to die
because the wages of sin
is death.
We had nothing
to offer God
except our sins,
yet God had mercy
on us.
And Jesus died
where we should have been
on that cross.
If you are not
yet a follower
of Jesus Christ,
God freely offers
his mercy to you
right now.
In human relationships,
right,
disparity breeds
insecurity.
A girl who thinks
she's not as good looking
as her boyfriend
becomes insecure.
an employee
who thinks
she's not as skilled
as her job requires
becomes insecure.
Children who think
that they are not
meeting their parents'
expectations and standards
become insecure.
But there is no
need for you
to be insecure
as you approach
God.
Because whatever
God requires,
Christ has already
fulfilled on your
behalf.
If you'd only trust
in Him,
there's no punishment
left for you,
only mercy.
There's no wrath
left for you,
only grace.
If you'd only
cling to Jesus
for salvation.
It doesn't matter
where you have been,
what's in your past.
God loves all those
who come to Him
with an everlasting
love.
you need simply
to turn from
your sins
and toward
Christ
in faith.
I plead with you
this morning
if you do not
know this God
or have a relationship
with Him
to do so today.
To begin that
relationship today.
If you're already
a child of God,
let me remind you
once again,
God's posture
toward you
is mercy.
And His policy
concerning you
is His everlasting
covenant.
Are you weighed
down by the guilt
of your own sins?
Do you feel
shrouded
in shame?
Satan,
our ancient enemy,
his name means
accuser.
He's always going
to try to magnify
your faults.
And along with that,
if we also magnify
appropriately
God's grace,
which overabounds
more than our sins,
then that would be fine.
But He doesn't do that.
He will magnify
your sins,
but He will minimize
God's grace
and mercy
because His goal
and desire
is to drive
a wedge between
God and His people.
The Heavenly Father
and His children.
And when that happens,
our love for Him
cools.
As Matthew Henry,
a 17th century
Welsh pastor said,
good thoughts of God
would beget love.
love,
and that love
would make us
diligent and faithful.
But hard thoughts
of God
beget fear,
and that fear
makes us slothful
and unfaithful.
How do you think
of God?
How do you view Him?
When Satan seeks
to drive you
to despair,
let this word
from Jeremiah 32-33
shine in your life
and dispel
the darkness
and the lies
and remind you
that God's posture
toward you
is mercy.
His policy
concerning you
is His everlasting
covenant.
Please close your eyes
now and reflect
on that truth.
And think about God.
Use your,
engage your imagination.
Think about God.
Receive His love.
See His posture
toward you.
And turn to Him
in love.
After you reflect
it for some time,
we'll respond together
by praying corporately
as a church.
Amen.