If God blinds you so that you cannot know Him, you won't have anybody to blame
but yourself. If God hardens my heart so that
I cannot believe Him, it will only be because I refuse to walk
in His ways and His paths. There's only one true nation
in this world before God. And there's only one house in
this world before God. And there's only one race of
people in this world before God. That nation is His nation named
Israel, spiritual Israel. I'm not talking about anything
physical. I'm not talking about anything
temporal. I'm talking about a spiritual nation, a spiritual house, a
spiritual race. The house is called the house
of Jacob. The race is called the Hebrews,
people from beyond. And they're made up of a people
out of every temporal nation and every house and every race
in this earth. Jew or Gentile. Jew and Gentile. There's a temporal nation over
there called Israel. And the Lord made national Israel. He made national Israel. And
He did it for this purpose. He did it to teach His spiritual
house who He is, and how He saves, and that it is an absolute must
that He save us. He used that nation and everything
He did to it to show us how He saves. I'll give you an example. He tells us in Scripture that
He said, I save whom I will. I have mercy on whom I will,
and on whom I will I harden. We see His dealings with that
nation Israel and see that it teaches us that because He chose
to raise up that one physical national Israel and He blessed
them with His Word and left all the other nations in the world
alone. Just left them alone for 2,000
years. And so we see that His grace
is electing, it's sovereign, and we see it by how He dealt
with that one nation and passed by the others. There was literally
people that lived during that time when He chose Israel that
He just didn't reveal Himself in. They had the light of nature,
but that was it. That was it. And then God's pleased
to bestow greater light on whom He will. We see that with that
nation. Paul said, what advantage then
hath the Jew? A natural descendant of Abraham,
what advantage does he have? Much in every way because chiefly
under them were committed the oracles of God. Romans 9 verse
4 says, to them it pertains the adoption and the glory and the
covenants and the giving of the law and the service of God and
the promises. Moses said to Israel, What nation
is there so great who hath God so nigh unto them, as the Lord
our God is in all things that we call upon Him for? And what
nation is there so great that hath statutes and judgments so
righteous as all this law which I set before you this day? There
was no other nation. God gave them what was right,
what was just, and gave it to them first hand, clearly. And by the same token, we see
through this nation, our God is faithful to fulfill every
promise that He makes to His spiritual Israel. We see it in
how He fulfilled every earthly promise that He made to national
Israel. He fulfilled everything He told
them He would do. You see, by that same token,
He fulfills His promise to judge Those that will not trust Him
alone and bow to Him and walk in Him. The covenant He made
with national Israel was a covenant of works. It was based on, if
you will, then I will. That's what the Lord told Him.
If you will, then I will. And He said, but if you harden
your hearts against Me, then I will destroy you. And that
teaches us a couple of things. One, it teaches us we don't want
to be approaching God and trying to come to God for righteousness
or holiness, period, by anything we've done. We don't want to
come to God that way because we can't. We just can't. That's
what He taught us through that nation Israel. He taught us that
because they just couldn't obey His law, could not do it. But
he fulfilled everything he said, all the goodness he promised
to give. He gave every bit of it, just as he promised Abraham
he would. But the greater promise and the more fulfillment of what
he was speaking to Abraham was concerning that spiritual Israel
and what he would do for them. That's the great nation. He said,
I'll make of thee a great nation. We'll put the cups up. We've
got to put the cups up. I can't compete with the cups.
All right? We just have to do it. All who refuse to believe and
trust the Lord alone, they'll justly be forsaken by the Lord. This is serious business. We've
got to really look at this now. Everybody who forsakes the Lord
is going to be forsaken by the Lord. He never forsakes anybody
first. He only forsakes them that have
first forsaken Him. He gave them everything good,
everything they needed to follow Him. But they wouldn't follow
Him. They wouldn't trust Him. They
wouldn't bow to Him. The title of the message is Forsaken of
God. Forsaken of God. And we begin
here with the Lord's command and our responsibility. Verse
5. O house of Jacob, come ye and
let us walk in the light of the Lord. And the Lord had just declared
to them through Isaiah that it's Christ The one that Isaiah preached
and the very one I preach to you week after week. He told
them. He said that in the last days
the Messiah would come and he was going to establish the mountain
of the Lord's house in righteousness and in judgment by his life and
by his death. He was going to justify his people
and establish his house in righteousness and judgment. And he told them
in that day when Christ ascended to His throne in heaven's Zion,
that from heaven's Zion He was going to rule in the midst of
His people through His church, through His gospel, through His
prophets, and call out His people into His church, into the fold
of God, and that thereby establish His house. And then that has
reference to that at the end of those last days, when he's
finished gathering them all in, he will exalt his house to heaven. He'll judge the nations. He'll
rebuke those who didn't trust him. And in the end, his house
will be finally, fully, forever exalted and established forever. We, you and I know that he's
come already and he's established his house by what he did and
his person and his finished work. We know right now that he is
working right now, drawing out his elect, calling them out.
If he wasn't, I wouldn't be standing here doing what I'm doing today,
because this is how he's going to do it. And then we look forward
to the day when he'll raise that house and exalt that house forevermore.
And He's going to do that. Now, as Isaiah preached the Gospel,
the Lord gave the command and said, Now, O house of Jacob,
come ye and let us walk in the light of the Lord. This was the
Gospel. He gave them the Gospel. He preached
the Gospel to them. Isaiah did. And then He said,
Now come, let's walk in this light that God has given us.
That light is Christ the Lord. We have no light outside of Christ.
He is the light. Let's walk in His ways. He's
the way. Let's walk in His path. His path
is the right way. And He lightens our path that
we may walk therein. And the gospel went forth just
like it goes forth here every week, saying, now come, believe
Him, trust Him, walk in Him. And yet after all the light God
had given them, that temporal house of Jacob hardened their
hearts against God, refused to believe God, refused to walk
in His path, and they forsook God. And thus we read in Isaiah
2 verse 6, Therefore thou hast forsaken thy people, the house
of Jacob. Now, let me ask you a question
here. Whose fault was it that they
became a reprobate people? You have more light today than
they had. Whose fault will it be if God
hardens your heart? He's given us the light. He's
given us His Word. He's given us the Law and the
Prophets. He's given us the Word of the Apostles. He's given us
pastors after His own heart to teach us in knowledge and understanding.
If we don't believe Him and He forsakes us because we wouldn't
trust Him, who's fault is it going to be? It's going to be
ours, isn't it? Nobody else to blame but us.
So let's look here, and I want you to see what led them to being
so utterly forsaken by God. What led them to be so utterly
forsaken by God? Verse 6, Therefore thou hast
forsaken thy people, the house of Jacob, because they be replenished
from the east. And they be replenished from
the east and soothsayers like the Philistines are. And they
pleased themselves in the children of strangers. First, they turned
from the prophets that God gave them, like Isaiah, and they turned
to liars. That was the first thing they
did. The closest thing they had to being able to hear a word
from God was the prophets God gave them to speak His word.
And they turned from Isaiah and the other prophets, and they
went after liars. Just liars. Instead of listening
to God's prophet, they listened to soothsayers. Men of wisdom. Men of worldly wisdom. Men who
turned them from God's way to man's way. Men who tickled their
ears and impressed the flesh. Men a whole lot more fun to listen
to than Isaiah. That old narrow-minded prophet
of God. not nearly as smart and as wise
as these people. All he wants to talk about is
the coming Messiah. Tell us something about the future. Tell us about what's going to
happen to us next week and what we can do to prevent it from
happening. Isn't that what men preach? If you do this now, you
can prevent this and that from happening by whatever it is you're
doing. It's soothsaying. He said, you've
been replenished, filled, filled up by men who just tell you these
things that you want to hear. And you know, I was talking to
Eric about this last night. I was reading as I was studying
here about the prophet Isaiah. And they say that the prophet
Isaiah, that the translations that we have don't translate
just how poetic he was in the way that he said things, wrote
things. It just doesn't translate. Ezekiel, on the other hand, was
a country fellow, apparently, that was just rough around the
edges in everything he said and the way he said things. So that
tells me right there that when Paul said, I didn't come to you
in the wisdom of men, he wasn't talking about the style of somebody's
preaching, or whether they were educated or uneducated, or how
they exactly expressed themselves. That's not what he was talking
about. What he's talking about is, He didn't come to you in
the wisdom that men love, that wisdom that impresses our flesh,
that wisdom that we can sit and listen to for hours and hours
and hours on end. We can sit and watch a movie,
and sit and watch it wide-eyed and bright-eyed and bushy-tailed
to the end of it. But we sit and hear the gospel
preached, and then my eyelids start batting, and we start falling
asleep, and got to do something else. Got to draw or do something,
look at the ceiling or watch a fly on the wall or something
to pass the time. That's the wisdom that he's talking
about. I didn't come to you in that wisdom. I didn't come to
you with something that's going to tickle your ears. I came to
you determined to know nothing among you but Christ and Him
crucified. These fellows they turned to were folks that they
had a little something extra to give. They had something that
they liked, pleased the flesh a little bit. And God had expressly
commanded them not to even entertain these people, not to even give
a hint to these people. Turn to Deuteronomy 12, verse
30. When He brought them into this
land, the Lord said, take heed. Take heed. When the Lord says,
take heed, we need to take heed. He says, take heed to thyself
that thou be not snared by following them. Deuteronomy 12.30. Take heed to thyself that thou
be not snared by following them after that they be destroyed
from before thee. and that thou inquire not after
their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? Even
so will I do likewise. I want to serve like they serve.
He said, Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God. There's
the offense. Well, but they liked these people
from the east. They liked them. They were nice
people. They were sincere people. They weren't nearly as bad as
what they imagined they would be when the Lord had given them
this word about don't mingle with them. When they beheld the
people, they thought, they're just like us, look just like us. So they sort of got to know them
a little bit, just slowly at first, going to be cautious.
We can't get snared by them like the Lord warned us. So they sat
around one night, and one of the fellas in the house of Jacob
sitting around with one of these eastern fellas, and you ought
to come hear my preacher preach. Man, he can say some things that
I just leave feeling good about myself. And so being gracious
and not wanting to come across as being bigoted in any way,
he said, OK, I'll go hear Him. I'll go there. What would it
hurt to live? I'm the Lord's. I'm the Lord's. I'm His chosen. It won't hurt for me to go listen
to this other preacher. Matthew Henry said, they were
fond of them, thought the more they conformed to them, the more
polite and refined they were. And thus did they profane their
crown and their covenant. God said, don't have anything
to do with them at all. Well, secondly, God promised
to be their treasure, to be all their treasure, all their provision,
and all their righteousness. But they wanted something more.
Verse 7. He said, their land also is full
of silver and gold, neither is there any end of their treasures.
They began entertaining strangers, compromising gradually, pleasing
their flesh with the wisdom of these strange guides. And so
naturally, having turned their hearts to the world from God,
they also began to set their affection on the riches of the
world. began to look at the riches of the world. They began to absent
themselves from the Lord's people to obtain a little more of this
silver and a little more of this gold. It becomes more and more
impairing. It's like a cancer. It starts
out gradual and spreads over the whole body. And they began
to depend upon their wealth to sustain them rather than God.
and soon found they could never get enough so as to come to an
end of this insatiable desire they had for these riches. Never
had enough. He said there's no end to them.
Just no end to their treasures. Christ is the believer's riches.
He's the believer's riches. And when you begin to look to
the riches of our self, of our self-earned righteousnesses,
of anything that we've done ourselves, that's just a hole in the dam.
Because then everything will depend upon my hand. It will
depend upon my hand to feed me. It will depend upon my hand to
clothe me. It will depend upon my hand to fill up my storehouse. And the next thing you know,
I'm so dependent upon myself and so turned away from looking
at God who's all my sufficiency and the rich treasure of grace. that I can't seem to get enough
to satisfy me to think, well, I've got enough righteousness
now. I never have enough. You know why? Because I never
have enough. It's the work of my hand. It's
not enough. And so therefore, those things
I go out and try to get in the world, guess what? They won't
ever be enough. Because I've left Christ who
is my satisfaction, who's my contentment, who's my peace,
who's my joy, who keeps me so that I don't have to fret myself
for these things and be overtaken by these things. The psalmist
said a little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches
of many wicked. Look with me at Colossians chapter
1. Colossians chapter 1. I'm trying my dead level best
to make you millionaires. You want to get rich? You want
to get rich? I'm trying to get you rich. Look
here with me. Colossians 1 verse 2. This was
what Paul's prayer was for the Colossians and the Laodiceans.
That their hearts might be comforted. That's why these people went
after all the silver and gold. They couldn't get any comfort.
That's why there was no end to the treasures. They couldn't
find any comfort. And he says, I want their hearts
to be comforted. I want them to be knit together
in love. That's why the house of Jacob
was so scattered and so tumultuous against one another. No love
amongst them. And he said, and I want them to come into all
riches. all riches of the full assurance
of understanding to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God and of
the Father and of Christ in whom are hid all the treasures of
wisdom and knowledge. Oh, boy, you talk about rich
now. You talk about abounding wealth. There's where it's to be found.
And as long as you go into this world looking for it, long as
you go into this world looking for it. I'm just an old narrow-minded
preacher that's trying to tell you that it's as narrow as Christ
is. That's how narrow this thing is. You take a half a step to
the left or the right, you might as well have gone a million miles.
It's that narrow. And we'll spend our hard-earned
money and we'll go out and labor and labor and labor to get the
things that we think is going to make us happy and pass up. all riches. Pass up all riches. Well thirdly, let's look here.
They turn from the power of God their protector and look to themselves
to be the refuge. Now this all started by just
entertaining these other fellows from strange children that had
a strange gospel, had another God. It all started just by that.
Turning from the true and living God just to see what they got
to say. And then they began to go after
their riches. And then we come here and it
says, verse 7, And their land is also full of horses, neither
is there any end of their chariots. What does that mean? Back there
in Deuteronomy 23, in verse 24, the Lord commanded them, Thou
shalt not bow down to their gods. And then in verse 25, well, they
did that though. They didn't see any harm in a
little compromise. After all, they wanted to be
gracious. And so they compromised a little. The Lord commanded them in verse
25. And He said, you shall serve the Lord your God and He'll bless
thy bread and thy water. And He'll take away sickness
from you. Christ is our bread and He's the water of life. He's
the Lord who healeth thee. He's the Lord who healeth thee.
But they wanted more than that bread and that water. They wanted
more than that bread and that water. They wanted something
they could provide by their own hands. So they went after their
treasure. And they never got enough of it. Never got enough.
Never were satisfied. Never were satiated with it. And then the Lord promised them,
He said, I'll send My fear before thee and will destroy all the
people to whom thou shalt come and I'll make all thine enemies
turn their backs unto thee and tuck tail and run. Since they had bowed down to
other gods, since they had gone after other bread and other water,
they also looked for something else to protect them rather than
God Almighty, for somebody else to be the refuge. The Lord Jesus
Christ destroys the enemies of His people for them. He destroyed
our adversary, the devil, all his powers gone for his people. He destroyed sin and death and
hell for His people. He is all our refuge. He is the
place. Are you a manslayer? Have you
murdered people? Have you murdered God in your
heart? Are you a manslayer? He's the refuge. He's the city
of refuge. He's the place to flee to. He's
our high tower and our wall and our protection and our fortress
against all evil. But they said, well, we like
horses and we like chariots. Well, that makes good sense,
don't it? You could have the almighty God of heaven and earth,
but you feel safer with a horse and a chariot. That's backwards,
isn't it? That's backwards. That's what
happened. Fourthly, this house which began
with one God and soon began to go after other gods, and soon
looked to the riches of their own hand and to the protection
of their own hand. They also found that there was
no end to their gods. No end to their gods. This thing
is just getting wider and wider, isn't it? Just getting wider
and wider as they go. Look here at verse 8. Their land
also is full of idols. They worship the work of their
own hands, that which their own fingers have made. There's no
doubt about it that by the time that our Lord Jesus Christ came,
they had every kind of statue, every kind of image, every kind
of picture that you could imagine, that they could imagine, literally
could imagine. They had it. More than that, an idol, it's
not only a religious image, you know that? An idol is anything
that takes the place of Christ. The work of our hands. When we
first begin with the work of our hands, there's no end to
our idols. No end to them. The work of our
hand in business becomes an idol to us. I've seen men who work
seven days a week and don't have time for anything else but working.
It's an idol. It becomes the home. The work
of our home becomes an idol. Our children that we produce,
that we make, the work of our hand becomes an idol. We hold
them up. I can't tell you how many people
I've heard that would listen to the doctrine of Christ And
when they found out that God chooses whom He will and passes
by whom He will, they would say, I can't believe that because
that might be about my child. God might have passed my child
by. So for the sake of that idol,
they passed God by. Turned from God. It's the work
of our hand in pleasure. It's entertainment. business
is the biggest business in the world and it will take you 24
hours a day, 7 days a week to where you don't have time for
anything else because it's your idol. The entertainment that
we enjoy, the work of our hands. Our favorite television program
in this day and time is American Idol. It's anything that takes the
place of Christ the Lord. An idol. And he said, there's
no end to them. They're full of idols on every
corner. They got a place. Melinda and
I were talking about this on the way home the other day about
the Catholicism. And they got the patron saint
of real estate and the patron saint of fertility. We've got a neighbor who just
buried a statue in her yard because she wants her house to sell.
A statue of somebody that's supposed to help you sell your house.
That's no different than Greek mythology. That's no different
than the fertility God and the Zeus God. It's an idol. And that's
what we are by nature, idolaters. That's why God said don't even
entertain them. Don't even flirt with them because
you're going to be snared. The flesh loves it and that's
where you're going to end up. Well, and then fifthly, a false
way has this effect on every man or woman from the least to
the greatest. None of us can think that we're
exempt from this. Look here in verse 9. The mean
man, the man who doesn't have very much, the lowly man, the
man that don't have a lot of riches and all those, he boweth
down to their idols. and the great man, he humbled
himself before the idols. From the least to the greatest,
they were given to worshiping other gods, their riches, the
power of their own hand, and all these idols, everything in
the world that took them away from Christ. The house of Jacob
rejected Christ, the Prince of life. When Christ came, The reason
that national Israel, the natural descendants of Abraham, would
not believe on Christ is because they would not let go of these
things right here. They would not let go of them.
And God hardened their heart. Turned them over to total reprobation
so that they can't know God. They can't know God. Listen to
the Word. Verse 9, there at the end. You can put an I in there. Therefore, I forgive them not.
That's what the Lord said. Therefore, I forgive them not. Romans 10.21. I want you to look
at some scripture with me. Romans 10.21. Who is to blame for this? And
who will be to blame with you and I if we forsake God? The Lord said to Israel, all
day long, all day long, one day is as a thousand years with the
Lord, and a thousand years is one day. And he said, all day
long, for all these years I have stretched forth my hands unto
a disobedient and gainsaying people. Look at Matthew 23, verse 37. These are serious words now.
You don't want to have anything to do with God? Listen to this. O Jerusalem, this is the Lord
speaking, the Lord Jesus Christ, Matthew 23, 37. O Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them
which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy
children together, even as a hen gathered her chickens under her
wings? and ye would not. Behold, your house is left unto
you desolate. Your house is left unto you desolate. Ephraim is joined to idols, the
Lord said through Hosea. Let him alone. Let him alone. Paul said, professing themselves
to be wise, they became fools. Wherefore, God also gave them
up to uncleanness through the lust of their own flesh to dishonor
their own bodies between themselves, who changed the truth of God
into a lie and worshiped and served the creature more than
the Creator, who is blessed forever. Well, look with me at 2 Thessalonians. I want to give you three things
to take home with you. 2 Thessalonians. to those who are listening. To
those who are listening. If you're flirting with disaster
in this world, hear this. Hear this right here. We live
in an age more religious than any age in history. And listen to God's Word concerning
our day. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. In verse 3, let no man deceive you by any
means. For that day shall not come except
there come a falling away first. Well, it looks like there's not been a falling away
yet because there's so many people in religion. That's the falling
away. He said, I'm going to take away
the whole staff of bread and the whole staff of water. I'm
going to hide my bread of life and Christ the water from the
people and let them go after their imaginations. He said, until they come to fall
away first and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition,
who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God.
I don't know any better way of describing the religious world
we live in. I don't know of a better way
to describe it. Does he exalt himself above all that is called
God, or that is worshipped, so that he as God sitteth in the
temple of God, showing himself that he is God? Remember ye not
that when I was yet with you, I told you these things? And
now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in
his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work. Only
he who now letteth will let until he be taken out of the way. And
then shall that wicked be revealed whom the Lord shall consume with
the spirit of his mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of
his coming. Even him whose coming is after the working of Satan
with all power and signs and lying wonders and with all deceivableness
of unrighteousness in them that perish." It looks good, don't
it? It looks like real water. real
silver and real wine don't. But it's counterfeit. It's counterfeit
silver and it's wine mixed with water, the Lord said. He said,
because they receive not the love of the truth, that they
may be saved. And for this cause, God shall
send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie, that
they all might be damned who believe not the truth, but have
pleasure in unrighteousness. Whenever Paul told Timothy that
they're coming a day, in the last days, when they'll have
a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof, what
did he say about it? From such, turn away. What did
the Lord tell that national house of Jacob when He brought them
out of Israel? He said, when you come into their land and
you behold that they're gods, but there's no power in their
gods, From such, turn away." And what'd they do? They turned
to Him instead of away from Him. What will we do? What will we
do? He used that physical... He said,
I've given nations for you. And He gave that nation, brought
up that physical nation, and showed us exactly what'll happen
if we turn away from Him and follow after the gods of our
imagination. Now look here at the second thing.
Romans 11. Romans 11. And this is to the
professing believer. Listen to me now. You think that
you're chosen of God, that you're blessed by Him with the advantages
that He's given you and the goodness that He's given you, and therefore
you're secure enough not to walk in the light that God has given,
to take lightly the house which He's established from where Isaiah
said He teaches His people, where He's pleased to meet with them
and teach them, He paused warning to the Romans. Romans 11, 19.
Thou wilt say then, the branches were broken off that I might
be grafted in. Well, because of unbelief, they
were broken off. Thou standest by faith. Be not high-minded, but fear.
For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest He also
spare not thee. Behold, therefore, the goodness
and severity of God. That's what I've been trying
to show you this morning. The goodness and severity of God. The goodness and severity of
God. On them which fell severity. That's who we looked at. Natural
Israel. But toward thee, goodness. Do you see what grace God has
shown you to know Him and to give you the light He's given
you and the Word He's given you and a house to meet in to worship
Him? The things that He's given us,
you see the goodness He's given us. And He says, if thou continue
in His goodness, otherwise thou shalt be cut off. Does that mean
that God casts away His people whom He foreknew? That mean He
cast away His spiritual Israel whom He loved from everlasting?
Paul said, God forbid. God forbid. It means this. The man who says, well, I'm an
elect child of God. I'm a chosen child of God. I'm
a five-point Calvinist. I can worship God. He's given
me wisdom to understand the Scriptures. I can go off and be on my own
away from His sheep, away from my brethren, and I can study
and I can understand these things, and I don't have to go three
days out into the wilderness to worship God where He said,
worship God. I can worship Him in Egypt. That man may find out if it's
me, it's you, or anybody in this world may find out just what
the house of Jacob found out, the natural house of Jacob, that
they weren't the elect children of God. That's what Paul's saying. Don't be high-minded. We don't
take for granted the blessing and the grace and the goodness
that God's shown us. We walk in it. We continue in
it. And then thirdly, It cost, now turn to Jeremiah 31, I want
you to see this too. Now, he started off here and
he said, this is why I've forsaken you, because you're replenished,
you're filled up, you're saturated by these false gods
and by these soothsayers and by this false way. And he said, my son built my
house, He laid down His life and poured out His blood to do
it. And that's where He's going to
be exalted. Do you know God's only met with His people ever
in the history of the world where the place He's appointed? And
the place He's appointed is the place where His Son's exalted.
Do you know that? The tabernacle of wilderness
had the mercy seat. He said, I'll meet with you there.
I won't meet with you anywhere else. Because that place typified
Christ Jesus the Lord. When he told Isaiah, he said,
he's going to establish his house in justice and mercy, laying
down his life. That's where I'm going to meet
with my people. I'll raise it up. That's where I'll meet with
them. And I won't meet with them anywhere else. They can build all the
houses they want to build. They can meet in all the fancy places
they want to. They can call on my name all
they want to. I will not meet with anybody but where my son
is exalted. That's the only place. And he
says that because he paid his life's blood to establish that
place. He's not going to meet with us
anywhere else. Look here now at Jeremiah 31. They went to
be replenished from these other places. Thinking they could be
replenished from there? Look what he says to us in verse
23. Thus saith the Lord of hosts,
the God of Israel, as yet They shall use this speech
in the land of Judah among my true people." He said, they're
going to say this, and in the cities thereof, when I shall
bring again their captivity, when I deliver them out of bondage
to no man. He said, this is what they're
going to say. The Lord bless thee, O habitation of justice
and mountain of holiness. And there, In that habitation
of justice and mountain of holiness, where justice is declared and
holiness is declared, there shall dwell in Judah itself, and in
all the cities thereof together, What did Isaiah say? They're
going to beat their swords and their spears and their gardening
tools for husbandry, to teach my people and to cultivate my
people. His pastors and his teachers
are his husbandmen. And he said, they're going to
be there. And he said, and they that go forth with flocks. What's that? It's a shepherd,
an under-shepherd with one of his flocks. He said, they're
going to be husbandmen there working in my vineyard, and they're
going to be under-shepherds there going forth with my flocks. He
goes, I'm going to put them there. I bought them, I established
them. I'm going to put them there. And here's what he says, For I have
satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful
soul. He said, let them go. Ephraim
turned away the idols, hardened his heart against me, let him
alone. I'm not worried about him. He
said, I set up my place, I gather my flocks, I raise up my husbandmen,
I send forth my under-shepherds, and there in that place, I replenish
every sorrowful soul. And Jeremiah said, and upon this
I woke up and beheld, and my sleep was sweet to me. He said,
that's good news. Jeremiah's there in captivity,
the most hated man, the most rejected man, the most despised
man of all, right in the midst of this people, had rebelled
against God. And Jeremiah said, and I heard
that. And I woke up and said, now that's sweet. That's good
news. Now, having said all that, I
say this to you. Come ye, O house of Jacob. Let us walk in the light of the
Lord. Let us walk in the light of the Lord.