If you will, take your Bibles
and turn with me to Jeremiah chapter 15. Jeremiah, the 15th
chapter. And we'll begin our reading in
verse 10. Jeremiah chapter 15 and verse
10. This is the prophet Jeremiah
speaking in prayer unto God. He said, Woe is me, my mother,
that thou hast borne me a man of strife and a man of contention
to the whole earth. I have neither lent on usury,
nor have men lent to me on usury, yet every one of them doth curse
me. What caused the prophet Jeremiah
to go into such great despair as to even being born? He is despairing here as to his
birth. He said, would to God, like Job
said, that I would not have come out of my mother's womb. What
caused this great despair? Well, I'll give you a little
preface to this before we begin going through these verses here.
In chapter 14, we have the prophet Jeremiah weeping for the nation
of Judah. He's weeping for this nation
and praying for them. Why? Because everywhere he goes,
he sees dead bodies. Everywhere he goes, he goes into
the field, he sees dead bodies. He goes into the city, he sees
pestilence, he sees disease, he sees famine in the land. And see, these are the judgments
that God had prophesied by Him to the people, and now they were
happening to the people. And he was crying out to God.
There had not been a rain, and there had been a famine. And
he was crying out to God. He said, Lord, please, have You
forsaken Zion? Look at that in verse 19. Hast
Thou utterly rejected Judah? And hath Thy soul loathed Zion? He said, have you cast us off? All I go around and see are judgments. And He says, do not abhor us.
He begins in verse 20 of that chapter to acknowledge their
sin. He said, we acknowledge, O Lord, our wickedness. He included
Himself in this. He said, we the people of Judah
and Myself, we acknowledge, Lord, what we are. We are wicked in
Thy sight. Do not abhor us for Thy name's
sake. Do not disgrace Thy throne of
Thy glory. Remember, break not Thy covenant
with us. Are there any among the vanities
of the Gentiles that can cause rain? And can the heavens give
showers? Art not Thou He, O Lord our God? Therefore, we will wait upon
Thee, for Thou hast made all things." Now that sounds like
a good prayer, doesn't it? He's confessed and he's waiting
on God. But I'll tell you, chapter 15
does not give the results that we think that that prayer would
give. Look what he said in verse 1,
chapter 15. Then said the Lord unto me, though
Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be
toward this people. Cast them out of my sight and
let them go." Let them go forth. The Lord here pronounced judgment
on the nation of Judah. And He said, I don't care if
you were Moses, Jeremiah, I don't care if you were Samuel, if these
two men were in your place, I still would not have mercy on this
people. I still wouldn't do it. He said, it will come to pass
that they're going to come to you and ask you, what are we
going to do? And God said this, He said, some of you will die.
Some of you will die of pestilence. Some of you will die by the sword.
Some of you will die by famine. And some of you will be taken
captive. And whatever your lot is, that's what you're going
to do. That's where you're going to go. Wherever God had determined. If God determined you'll die
of pestilence, that's what you're going to do. If He determined
you'll die of famine, that's what you'll do. And He said,
the dogs will come and carry your carcasses away. You remember
Sunday morning when we talked about reprobation? This was reprobation,
friends. They had utterly rejected God
and His worship, and God had reprobated this nation. This nation. Because of their sin, He reprobated
them, because they have forsooken Me. Verse 6, saith the Lord,
Thou art gone backward." In other words, they've gone away from
My law and My worship. Therefore, I've stretched out
My hand against thee to destroy thee. I am weary of repenting. What is God saying there? Is
He going to change? No, God's not going to change.
What is He saying? He's saying, I'm weary of giving
you good providence. I'm weary of giving you good
providence. Instead, now that I'll give you
exactly what you deserve. And He's going to fan them as
one would winnow wheat. You just cast it out, they just
fan it out. He'll scatter them across the
nations. And He said, the widows of the
people will increase. And imagine this, Jeremiah was
their pastor. He was their preacher. And he didn't say, woe is them,
he said, woe is me. Woe is me. Why? Why was Jeremiah in such
great despair? Friends, never had a prophet
suffered so much and never had a man of God so rugged and so
rigid a path as this man Jeremiah. He was raised up in a time of
great despair where famine and pestilence and imagine the decay
of the city that he loved, the people that he loved and they
decayed, they just kept getting worse and worse and not better. The more he preached, the worse
they got. He was in great distress. He
was in great distress because of his office and message. He suffered great persecution.
Great persecution. He said, Thou hast borne me a man of strife
and a man of contention to the whole earth. He said, I can't
find anybody that likes me. Everybody hates me. He said,
I didn't borrow any money from them and they hate me. I didn't
lend any money to them and they hate me. I didn't associate with
them. All I did was say Your Word and
they hate me. Let that be a lesson to every
one of us. If we speak the truth, I promise you, friends, there
will be people that will hate you and don't even know why.
They don't even know why. They just do. They don't like
you. They don't like God's men. Not somebody that tells them
the plain truth. He was persecuted. And friends,
he was in a distressful situation. And I'll tell you what, a distressful
situation will always seem to expose the depravity of our old
man, won't it? What's the first thing we think
of when we get into a distressful situation? How am I going to
get myself out of this? And I really don't care how I
do it. As long as I get out, I don't care about anybody else.
That's the first thing that comes to our mind in these things.
The old nature pops up and he screams out. Well, Jeremiah is
no different. He's a man. He's a man. And let's see. His distress. First of all, He cries out that
He even regrets Him being born. He confesses that no one likes
Him. Everyone is cursing Him. Everyone
curses Him, and He's in such despair. He prayed for these people, and they hated Him. He preached
to these people and they despised Him. I'll tell you what, there's nothing
that hurts worse than when you tell a man the truth and have
him reject you. Reject the truth, you feel like
he's rejected you. I can't help that. I feel rejected
when someone comes in here, hears the gospel, and goes out and
goes away. I can't help feeling that. It brings a man to a level of
great distress. He told them about God's judgment
upon these people. He declared the message, and
friends, his message was one of great sorrow. How many times
has God's men been accused of preaching about sin? Well, that's
all you preach about sin. Shoot, can't you find something
else? Isn't there something happier? Yeah. But sin has to be exposed
first. Or there is no hope. But in verses
11 through 14, he's in despair and God gives him a little comfort.
Look at this in 11. He says, The Lord said, Verily
it shall be well with thy remnant. Verily, I will cause the enemy
to entreat thee well in the time of evil, in the time of affliction." The Lord here says that God has
preserved a remnant. I'll tell you what, Jeremiah
didn't feel like there was a remnant. And many times we feel like that
there's only a small remnant. But friends, it doesn't matter
how great or how small, the hope is in this, that God has a remnant. God has a people. God has a people. He said, some people in this
country will be carried away and die by the sword, but some
will be held captive, and those that go into captivity are part
of My remnant. And you know what? The remnant
will go with everyone else. You notice that? When they go
into captivity, did not the remnant go with everybody else? Of course
they did. Of course they did. Not true of believers in Christ,
of God's people? Do we not suffer with the unrighteous? Do not the just and the unjust
suffer the same things in this life? Yes. Can an unjust man
get cancer? Yes. Can a righteous man get
cancer? Absolutely. Absolutely. You see,
God sends His reign upon the just as well as the unjust. He
sends His Son upon the just as well as the unjust. You see,
we all can suffer the same troubles as the ungodly. God's remnant
went into the land of captivity along with everybody else. What was the difference? They
were God's remnant. That was the difference. They
were God's remnant. And God spared His remnant. God
says, I'll spare my remnant, and the enemy will entreat you
well. Now isn't that something? That God has power over the enemy
to even make them treat His people better? He does. He has power over all men, over
all things. But let us know, as believers
in Christ, we are going through a strange land, and we will suffer
under the same afflictions as other men. Don't judge your condition
before God based on your afflictions or lack of afflictions. That
doesn't matter. It doesn't count. You're not
going to be able to see anything that way. You're only going to
get confused. You know, I read this, someone
said, well, we have the old nature and we have the new nature, but
then we have these feelings that mingle together, both of them,
and we're confused as to which one's which. Aren't we? We're
confused at times. We get different feelings and
emotions based on our circumstance. But notice God's promise here.
Look at this in verse 12. He said, "...shall iron break
the northern iron and the steel." In other words, the iron in the
south was weaker than the iron and the steel from the north.
He says, is that which is weaker going to break that which is
stronger? He said, can man which is weak break what I have covenanted
to do? If God says, it is well with
thy remnant, is that not enough? He says, is there any man going
to disannul what I say? No. You've got My Word. He's telling Jeremiah, you've
got My promise. When they take you captive and
you suffer in this land, I'll be with you. It'll be well with
you. And nothing can disannul this,
Jeremiah. Nothing can disannul My covenant
with you. Nothing. God says, I will do
all My counsel. And who shall stay in My hand?
Who shall say unto the Lord, what doest thou? Nobody. Nobody. No one shall disannul His decrees. Now look at verses 15 through
18. Jeremiah prays again to the Lord.
In verse 15 he said, Lord, Thou knowest. Remember me and visit
me. And revenge me of my persecutors. Take me not away in Thy longsuffering. Know that for Thy sake I have
suffered rebuke. Thy words were found, and I did
eat them. And Thy word was unto me the
joy and rejoicing of mine heart. For I am called by Thy name,
O Lord God of hosts." You see, he's recalling to mind what God
has done for him. And he's asking God, please remember
Thy covenant with me. Remember, Father, that I did
eat Thy Word. In other words, he believed God's
Word. And it rejoiced his soul. He's
remembering back when the Gospel was fresh to him. And it was
rejoicing to his soul. And he was happy. And he heard
it. And he loved it. He remembered those things. And
he said, Lord, please remember that time. Remember, David said
that. He said, restore the joy of my
salvation. I believe that's what Jeremiah
is talking about here. He's wanting that joy again. But he can't find it. He said,
I sat not in the assembly of the mockers, nor rejoiced. I
sat alone. Friends, have you ever sat alone
because of the gospel? This man sat alone because of
the gospel. Because of God's message. You
preach God's message, you'll sit alone a little while. You'll
be alone. And he recognized, he says, I
sat alone because of thine hand. I know that thou have separated
me. I know you have. For thou hast filled me with
indignation. Righteous fury. When He stood
before these false prophets, He told the truth. He didn't
speak smooth words like they were doing. He was telling the
truth. And he said, Lord, look, I've been your faithful servant.
Why am I so distressed? Why am I cast down? And then
it bursts out. His inner, his natural man now
begins to burst out of him. He can't stand it any longer.
Why is my pain perpetual? Why is my wound incurable, which
refuseth to be healed? Wilt Thou be altogether unto
me as a liar? Friend, did Jeremiah just call
God a liar? I believe he did. Can a man of God do that? He
just did. He said, will thou be a liar
unto me? Didn't you promise? And here I am, a perpetual mess. Here I am, my pain doesn't end. I'm always here preaching your
gospel and my pain doesn't end. It's a perpetual pain and it
never stops. Are you lying to me? Has your
grace gone from me? Have you promised me something
that you will not deliver? Let me ask you this, has this
ever echoed in your heart? Have you ever questioned God's
grace towards you? Have you been so distressed to
doubt God's faithfulness to you? Friend, God brings His people
through many dark providences. Flip over to Psalm 77. I tell you what, I'm glad the
Lord gave my brother Asaph to me. Asaph and me, we have a lot
in common. Psalm 77. Let's begin our reading in verse
3. The psalmist here, Asaph, he's
crying out unto God. And look at this, he says, I
remember God and was comforted. Is that what it said? No. He said, I remember God and I
was troubled. Have you ever remembered God
and were troubled? I complained and my spirit was
overwhelmed. He said, Thou holdest mine eyes
waking. He couldn't sleep because of
this. And he recognized it was God
keeping him awake. I am so troubled that I cannot
speak. His eyes couldn't shut and his
mouth couldn't open. Have you ever been there? I have considered the days of
old and the years of ancient time. I call to remembrance my
song in the night." That's what Jeremiah was doing. He was calling
to remembrance the song in the night. He called to remembrance
what his time was and time past, how he had a song to sing in
the night that gave him comfort. I commune with my own heart and
my spirit made diligent search. What did he search? Look at this.
Will the Lord cast off forever? And will He be favorable no more? Is His mercy clean gone forever? Does His promise fail forevermore? Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Hath he in anger shut up his
tender mercies?" And I said, this is my infirmity. Have you
ever had that infirmity? I have. Many times God's people go through
many doubts and the first thing that comes up is our flesh. And it comes up in unbelief,
saying, God, have you forgotten me? Have you become a liar unto
me? Many times we come in unbelief
to the Lord, but look at the Lord's response. I'm so thankful
for His response. I'm so thankful for these things,
these promises that God gives. Look at verse 19, Therefore thus
saith the Lord, If thou return, I will bring thee again, and
thou shalt stand before Me." Is that not gracious? Is that
not gracious? Turn again unto Me. Trust Me. Trust Me. Lean on Me, and I'll bring you
again to stand before My people and preach the gospel again. Jeremiah was God's man, and yet
God's man was not exempt from any of these kinds of depression
or distress. But I'll tell you this for a
fact, that all of God's men, I believe, have to go through
this. I believe they do. I believe it's necessary. And
I know it's necessary or God wouldn't have done it. And I
know that your troubles and your pains are necessary or God wouldn't
do it. He's not cast you off. He's not
forgotten you. God is not a liar. Cling to His
promises even when you can't see. Even in the darkness, cling
to His promises. Not to your feelings about His
promises. Cling to His promises. He says, return to Me. Lean on
Me. Trust Me. And remember, I am
God. And I'll restore you again. When you come to the place where
you can't answer any questions, when you don't know where to
turn, say like Peter, to Lord, whom shall we go? Thou hast the
words of eternal life. Lord, where can I go? I have
nowhere else to go but to You. I must trust Your Word. I must. Friends, we know that all men
suffer trials and tribulations. But I know this, that God's Word
has the promises that we need to make it through our deepest
and darkest trials. And Jeremiah experienced that,
but God says, return unto me and I will bring thee again and
thou shalt stand before me. But notice this, and this is
what I want to spend the remainder of the time on here, just a few
minutes. He said, if thou take forth the precious from the vial,
thou shalt be as my mouth. Here's a man that just called
Donald a liar, but yet he was one of God's and God was gracious
enough to say, look, trust me and I'll return you back to your
office. And not only will I do that,
you preach the gospel and separate the precious from the vile and
you'll be as my mouth. As my mouth. Friends, preachers are not called
to separate the vile from the precious. We're not called to
separate the vile from the precious. We are called to separate the
precious from the vile, and that's very important. If you had a
big thing of chaff on the ground and a few grains of wheat, would
you pick up all the chaff first? No, you take the precious first. You take the precious in, and
you leave the chaff. If you have gold amongst a bunch
of dirt, you take the gold and leave the dirt. And see, that's
what preachers do. When God sets up a man to preach
the gospel, He sets him up to separate the precious from the
vile. That's what I'm here to do tonight.
I'm here to separate the precious from the vile. I'm here to lift
up one and leave the other. I'm here to lift up one, to separate
one from the other, precious from the vile. The church of God is mixed with
precious and vile. Isn't that right? Isn't there
always goat and sheep, pears and wheat among the church? Isn't
there always error with truth in the middle of the church?
Isn't there always that? Well, God's men, they're to trace
out that error, they're to trace out those things and hold up
the precious, and so we can get rid of the vile, so we can leave
the vile out. We declare God's Word. And this
is one thing we don't do, we don't make up what's precious
and vile. We just tell you what's precious and vile according to
what God says. I don't make it up as I go. And
there are four things I want us to see which are precious,
that we are to lift up as precious? First of all, the person of Christ. Isn't He precious? Isn't the
person of Christ precious? The Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal
Son of God, equal with the Father and the Spirit, always was the
delight of God. That's what it says in Proverbs
8, verse 30. Scripture says, I was daily His
delight. He was always God's delight.
Jesus Christ, the Lord, was the joy of the Father from all eternity. And so He became a man according
to the eternal covenant of grace, and God sent Him forth to be
His servant. And even as the servant of God,
what does God say in Isaiah 42? Behold My servant, whom I uphold,
Mine elect, in whom My soul delighteth. Friends, God delights in Christ. God thinks He is precious. God
knows He is precious. There is nothing more precious
to God than His Son, Jesus Christ. There has never been anything
that has ever happened. There is not anything that is
ever happening now. And there is not anything that
ever shall happen that is not for the glory of His Son, Jesus
Christ. Everything God does for His Son.
For the glory of Christ. And if any man is to be loved,
delighted in, or accepted by God, it will only be in Christ. That's it. Very simple, isn't
it? It's very narrow. It's not very
broad or wide. There's no speculation here.
God delights in Christ. And if you're to be accepted,
then you must be in Christ. or God will not delight or favor
you or accept you. You see, God loves His Son and
His Son is precious. He's precious enough that this
whole book was written about Him. Isn't that great? He's precious. His person is
precious. And therefore God the Father
hath exalted Him and given Him a name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus Christ every knee shall bow and every
tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of
God the Father." Why? Because He's precious. His person
is precious. He's the only God-man mediator. There is no other. And because
He's unique, He's precious. Isn't something that's unique
precious? It's the same thing, isn't it? Something valuable,
isn't that precious? Jesus Christ is the most valuable
thing in all of God's creation. He is God's precious Son. And no one is accepted but in
Him. There's a vile Christ, isn't
there, going around? There's a vile Christ that's
being perpetuated. Some believe that Christ was
created. Friend, that's not a precious
thing. That's a vile thing. We leave that alone. Somebody
says, oh, well, Christ was created. Well, I'll see you later. We
leave that alone. It's vile. It's vile. It's not precious. That Christ
doesn't exist who is not eternal. And friends, Christ who is not
a man is not precious. You know that? Some believe that
Christ is only God and that He feigned being a man. Well, that
God's not precious either, is He? That Christ is not precious.
Why? He doesn't exist. He doesn't
exist. Number two, the precious work
of Christ. The work of Christ is precious.
There's a vile antichrist going around who says, that He was
sent as God's plan B. You ever heard that? God was
in Adam. God wanted men to worship Him
by works. And when Adam fell, He said,
Oh, let me send my son now. No. No. That's a vile Christ. That's
a vile work. But we know that the precious
Son of God, the precious truth of Christ, was that He was set
up from all eternity. Isn't that what Proverbs 8, verse
23 says? He said, I was set up from everlasting. Set up from what? Set up to be
the Messiah, the Son of God. Set up to do a work. And oh friends,
His work was a covenant of grace. His work was settled in a covenant
of grace with God the Father from all eternity. He delighted
in His Son and elected a people and gave them to His Son to be
their Redeemer. And He said in Proverbs 8, verse
31, that the sons of men were My delight. I was God's delight
and the sons of men were My delight. Why? Because He covenanted to
come and do a work of redemption for His people. And friends,
His work is precious. Precious. Flip over to 1 Peter 1. 1 Peter 1 and verse 18. For as much as you know you are
not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold from
your vain conversations, received by the tradition of your fathers,
how are we redeemed? but with the precious blood of
Christ, as a Lamb without blemish and without spot, who was verily
foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest
in these last times for you." The true precious Christ redeemed
His people by His precious blood. And friends, his redemption was
not one of failure, but of success. When God gave those people to
him, and he came in time to accomplish that redemption, friend, when
he finished the work, it was accomplished. It was done. God's people were redeemed. And friends, his blood was precious
because it was the only blood God would accept. His blood was
righteous blood. He said without spot and without
blemish. He was a lamb without spot and
without blemish. We couldn't die for sin because
we were full of spots and blemishes. He was without spot and blemish
and God accepted his blood as a sacrifice. Atonement for sin. And now has been raised as King
and Lord over all creation. Friends, His salvation, His redemption
was precious. His blood was precious because
it accomplished the work of redemption. Number three, the gospel that
we preach is a precious gospel. Why? Because this gospel does
not exalt man, it exalts Christ. It is a message of grace, a message
of mercy, a message of hope. It is not a
message of works. The precious gospel we preach
is a precious message of sovereign grace. It is a message that God
of purpose salvation, Christ accomplished salvation, and in
time the Spirit pours out His salvation upon everyone that
Christ died for. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. How can He know that? Because He knows that the Spirit
will come in the time of love to each one of His people. This work of God the Holy Spirit
to give the new birth, to raise the dead souls of sinners to
life and faith in Christ, is a work of sovereign grace on
the hearts of sinners. Friends, man doesn't need a law. He needs grace. Man doesn't need
merit. He needs mercy. And this message that we preach
is a message of mercy to dead sinners. And how then do dead sinners
hear the Gospel? But by a man that God sends. They won't hear it because they're
dead in sins. They can't know it by wisdom.
Scripture says in 1 Corinthians 1.21, Man by wisdom knew not
God. You can't know God by learning. God has revealed Himself. Jesus
said, no man can come unto Me except it were given him of My
Father. For in salvation is by grace
alone. Man is hopeless and helpless
to know God or to save himself. The only hope for him is if the
Spirit of God send a man to preach the gospel to him and he hear
it by the grace of God. And you see, this is hopeful
and this is precious because it's sure. Go to Romans chapter
4. Romans chapter 4 and verse 16. Romans chapter 4 and verse 16. Therefore, it is of faith that
it might be by grace to the end The promise might be sure to
all the seed. You see, if it's not by grace
through faith, it's not sure. But if it's by grace through
faith, it's sure. This is the hope we cling to.
This is the promise we cling to. The precious person of Christ. The precious work of Christ. The precious gospel of Christ. And when you end up like Jeremiah
in the midst of darkness, when you end up like this man with
no hope and despair, friends, this is what we cling to, the
precious. And we leave the vial alone.
Feelings, most of them are vile, aren't they? Most of them don't
tell the truth, do they? And what do we cling to? Our
friends? No, they can't help us. I love
my wife and she does try to help me, but she can't help me. What do I cling to? The promise,
the precious promise of Christ, His person, His work, His gospel,
is all my hope and all my salvation, even when I can't see it. God is gracious, and friends,
Christ is precious. Christ is precious. I pray this
will bless your heart. Let's stand and be dismissed
in prayer.