I want you to go back to that
passage that Brother Bill read to us in chapter 33, and I'm
going to focus in on two verses in Jeremiah 33. Actually, three verses. Chapter
33, verses 15, 16, and 17. Back up to 14. Behold, the days
come. This verse, it begins with behold. Pay attention. Listen up. Got something special to say.
He says, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will perform
that good thing which I have promised unto the house of Israel
and to the house of Judah. In those days and at that time
will I cause the branch of righteousness to grow up unto David. and he shall execute judgment
and righteousness in the land. In those days shall Judah be
saved, and Jerusalem, the city of peace, shall dwell safely. And this
is the name wherewith she shall be called The Lord, our righteousness. Understand that Jeremiah ministered,
he preached in a time in which most religious voices were the
voices of false prophets. He was like a lone truth teller. His ministry was very much criticized
and despised. The people listened to the voices
of the false prophets. For you see, Jeremiah proclaimed
coming judgment, and the people didn't want to hear that. They wanted to hear a peaceful
message, such as the false the prophets
were preaching. In fact, go back to Jeremiah
6. Look at Jeremiah 6. And I'll
begin at verse number 10. Jeremiah 6 and verse 10. Here's the prophet of God speaking. He says, to whom shall I speak?
and give warning that they may hear. You see, he warned of coming
judgment. They didn't want to hear that.
He warned that the Lord was angry because they were being lied
to by false prophets. They wanted to hear soothing
words. Words from Jeremiah were, first
of all, words of judgment. The reason that Judah and Israel
were gonna be cast into captivity was because of their idolatry.
Because they had forsaken the God of Abraham and Isaac and
Jacob. And the people didn't wanna hear
those words of warning. They wanted to hear pleasant
words. He continues. He said, let me read verse 10
again. To whom shall I speak and give
warning that they may hear? Behold, their ears uncircumcised. Their ears are unaccustomed to
and unprepared to hear the word of the Lord. Be sure you understand
nobody can hear and believe the word of God. the gospel of grace,
and even the words of warning. Nobody can hear and receive the
message unless their ears be circumcised. There must be an
operation of the Spirit of God. You see, the things of God, they're
foreign to the natural heart, unreceived by men and women left
in their sinful condition, That which is necessary is for an
inward work of grace by the Holy Spirit. Only then will people
take heed to that which God has to say. So Jeremiah says, Behold,
their ear is uncircumcised. They can't hearken. You can't
hear anything that God has to say unless he does something
for you. The things of God are foreign
to us. They're contrary to the nature
with which we're born. And the message of grace, the
message of salvation, the message of substitution, the message
of satisfaction, those are words that the natural man doesn't
want to hear. Because the message of salvation,
all of God, and all according to God's free grace is not delightful
to the natural man because it strips man of any good and says
salvation is not of you. But salvation is of God. And
that's what the natural man doesn't want to hear. He says, behold,
the word of the Lord is unto them a reproach. They have no, no delight in it. Verse 11, therefore, I am full
of the fury of the Lord. I am weary, God's preacher says,
withholding it. I will pour it out upon the children
abroad and upon the assembly of young men together. For even
the husband and the wife shall be taken, the aged with him that
is full of days. And their houses shall be turned
unto others, and their fields and wives together. For I will
stretch out my hand upon the inhabitants of the land." And
Jeremiah is saying God's going to judge this place. You won't
hear what God has to say? You won't believe the promised
Messiah? You don't believe the message
of salvation altogether of God's free and sovereign mercy? Well,
God's going to turn you over to judgment. Look at verse 13. For from the least of them, even
unto the greatest of them, everyone is given to covetousness, that
is, self-satisfaction. And from the prophet, even unto
the priest, everyone dealeth falsely. These are the religious leaders
that all surrounded Jeremiah. He says in verse 14, they have
healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying,
peace, peace. There's nothing to worry about.
It's like false preachers today. God loves everybody. God loves
you. You've got a wonderful plan for
your life. Just be happy in Jesus. They say, peace, peace, and Jeremiah
says, there is no peace. There's no peace, saith my God,
to the wicked. How can there be peace when the
peacemaker's not proclaimed? And the means by which he made
peace with God is not declared. The word of the gospel, the good
news of salvation by a living, dying, buried, risen and exalted
Savior. That's not the message people
want to hear. They want to hear how much God
needs you and how much the church needs you. And like a church
right up the road says, we can't spell church without you are. You're so necessary. That's what
people want to hear. We need you. No, we don't need
you. We need God. That's what we need. We need the power of God. We
need the spirit of God. We need the message of God. We
need the truth of God. And this is the kind of situation
Jeremiah prophesied in. And I say not unlike our situation
today. It's like up at your, around
your place where you preach, around here, false prophets are everywhere,
preaching peace, peace. Everything's all right, nothing
to get worked up about. Jesus loves you and I love you
too, that's what they say. God's got a wonderful plan for
your life if you just let Him work it out for you. And this was the situation in
which Jeremiah prophesied. He was a man who stood. He stood
tall for the things of God. And as Bill read that passage
in chapter 33, we find Jeremiah in prison. And he's been put
in prison by King Zedekiah, the King of Judah. And he was put
in prison to shut his mouth, to silence him. But in both chapter
32, look back at chapter 32, by the way. Look at chapter 32. Look at verses one and two. Jeremiah 32, 1 and 2. The word
that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the 10th year of Zedekiah,
king of Judah, which was the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar,
and Nebuchadnezzar's the one who gave authority to king Zedekiah. For then the king of Babylon's
army besieged Jerusalem and Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the
court of the prison which was then the King of Judah's house.
He's in prison. Look at chapter 33. Verse one, Bill read this to
us. Moreover, the word of the Lord
came unto Jeremiah the second time, and it was while he was
yet shut up in the court of the prison. And I'm sure the saints of God
said, oh no, the Lord's preacher's in prison, the few folks who
believe the truth. But he was right where God would
have him to be because God gave him such wonderful truths that
he wrote by the inspiration of the Spirit of God. They were
given to him while he was all alone in the court of the prison. where Zedekiah had put him to
shut him up. You can't shut up God's word.
Now God's gonna get his word out, he's gonna get his message
out. It's like when John the apostle was exiled to a lonely
rocky island called Patmos, there to bust rocks with the rest of
the prisoners. And the emperor said, well, I
know that'll shut him up. I'll put him over on that island.
But it was there that God gave him the visions that he set forth
in the word of God, the last book of the Bible, the book of
the revelation. Be sure you remember that the
word of God will always go forth and will always accomplish the
eternal purpose of God. I don't know what God's purpose
is in you being here tonight, in you hearing the word of the
Lord. And those of you who are watching, we're glad that you're
watching. I don't know what the purpose
of God is regarding you, but I'll tell you this, the word
of God won't fail. Whatever God's intention, whatever
God's design is in you being under the sound of the word of
the gospel of the grace of God to sinners through the Lord Jesus
Christ, whatever God's design is for you, it will be fulfilled. Because that's the God we worship. who does his will in the armies
of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay
his hand or say unto him, What doest thou? Jeremiah preached when the truths
of God were despised, when the false shepherds had abandoned
the word of the Lord, when the gospel of grace, the gospel of
salvation by the promised Messiah, When that message had been abandoned,
Jeremiah kept preaching, and he kept telling the people, if
you continue to refuse to hear the word of the Lord, judgment
is certain to follow. The people of Judah, the people
of Israel were lied to by false prophets, and the people readily
believed them. The natural mind, the natural
heart is eager to receive error but will not receive truth. And though the Lord used Babylon
to punish Israel and Judah, yet the Lord did not abandon the
remnant according to the election of grace within Israel and Judah. And in the 32nd and the 33rd
chapters of Jeremiah, while he was yet in prison, the Lord gifted
him with such beautiful words to set forth the precious promises
which the Lord has made to true Israel, the church of our Lord
Jesus Christ. We know that the captivity of
the Jews in Babylon was quite severe. They could not escape. In chapter
32, if you'll look toward the beginning of this chapter in
verse 4, chapter 32, verse 4, and Zedekiah, king of Judah,
Jeremiah says, shall not escape out of the hand of the Chaldeans,
but shall surely be delivered into the hand of the King of
Babylon, and shall speak with him mouth to mouth, and his eyes
shall behold his eyes. There's King Zedekiah standing
before King Nebuchadnezzar. And he shall lead Zedekiah to
Babylon. And there shall King Zedekiah
be until I visit him, not in mercy but in wrath, not with
long life but with death, not with grace but with judgment.
God says, I'll visit him there, saith the Lord. And the Lord
says, though ye fight with the Chaldeans, you you shall not
prosper. Such was the severity of this
captivity, there was no escape. There was no escape. The bars, as it were, of the
city were closed against the people of Judah escaping from
Babylon. And I remind you, Babylon is
God's word for false religion. There is no escaping false religion,
not by any human endeavor. False religion, it reigns throughout
the world. False religion has power, it
has influence. It's endorsed by leaders, by
presidents, by prime ministers, people of wealth. While the gospel
of God's free and sovereign grace, the gospel of Christ and him
crucified, buried, risen, and ascended and exalted, the gospel
of Christ goes wanting for a congregation. Mr. Spurgeon said, false religion
will go around the world while the gospel's putting its boots
on. And that's the way it is. People are eager to receive error
and ready to receive it, while the message of grace is despised
and rejected. If these people were to be spared,
if they were to be freed, the Lord has to free them. And
Jeremiah knew that. Because you see the captivity
of the Jews in Babylon was very much like our captivity to the
flesh, to the world, and to false religion. And the only hope anybody's
got in false religion or outside of false religion, the only hope
anybody's got is that the Lord do something for them. And so Jeremiah prayed. Look at chapter 32, verse 17.
Listen to this prayer. Ah, Lord God. Remember, remember
where he's at. He's in prison. He says, ah,
Lord God, behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy
great power and stretched out arm. And there is nothing too
hard for thee. That's encouraging. There's nothing
too hard for the Lord. Here's a bunch of people down
in Babylon. They're locked away. Escape is
out of the question. They cannot free themselves.
It's like our captivity. We can't free ourselves. We don't
want to free ourselves from the captivity of sin and Satan. but there's nothing too hard
for the Lord. Verse 18. Thou showest loving
kindness unto thousands, and recompensest the iniquity of
the fathers into the bosom of their children after them. The
great, the mighty God, the Lord of hosts, is his name, great
in counsel and mighty in work. For thine eyes are open unto
all the ways of the sons of men, to give everyone according to
his ways and according to the fruit of his doings. And then
Jeremiah, to his mind, the spirit of God brought the wonders that
God worked in Egypt. Verse 20, if you think anything's
too hard for the Lord, remember what he did in Egypt. which hath set signs and wonders
in the land of Egypt, even unto this day, people still talking
about it, Jeremiah said, and in Israel and among other men,
and hath made thee a name as of this day, and hath brought
forth thy people Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs
and with wonders and with a strong hand and with a stretched out
arm and with great terror. and has given them this land,
which thou did swear to their fathers to give them a land flowing
with milk and honey. Remember what God did for our
people, how he brought us out of the land of Egypt, how he
freed us. It was an impossible situation,
but nothing is impossible with the Lord. Nothing's too hard
for God. You have loved ones who don't
believe the gospel? Remember who you pray to. He's
a God of all power. Nothing's too hard for the Lord.
You can go through the Bible. Manasseh, boy, he was an ungodly
king of Judah. What a vile wretch he was, and
God saved him by his grace. Saul of Tarsus hated the gospel. With every breath in his body,
he breathed out threatenings upon the church of our Lord Jesus
Christ. He despised the name of the Lord
Jesus. He was a religious man. Salvation
by keeping God's law. Salvation by works. And if you
believe in salvation by grace, his attitude was, I'm gonna arrest
you and throw you in prison. In fact, he's on his way to Damascus,
breathing out threatenings. Let me tell you something, there's
no tree too tall but what God can't fell it. He cut Saul of Tarsus down to
size. In fact, knocked him off his
high horse down in the dust. And the man said, who art thou,
Lord? He said, I'm Jesus whom thou
persecuted. Manasseh, Saul of Tarsus, and
what about you? He conquered you, didn't he?
Your heart wasn't any harder than that of Saul of Tarsus or
Manasseh or anybody else. God brought you to your knees.
He brought you before King Jesus, and you bowed before him and
said, oh, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. These people had no escape. No escape. And Jeremiah prayed. There's nothing too hard with
God. I preached, been trying to preach
for a long time. And sometimes I kind of feel
like Isaiah, not that I would even dare to presume that I'm
on his level. But sometimes I think, Lord,
who hath believed our report? Ever feel that way, Alan? To
whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? Look at all the empty spaces
in here, and I think, this is such a glorious message. It's
such a wonderful story I have to tell. Not too many people interested
in hearing it, and then I come to my senses. It's like the Spirit
of God slaps me upside the head and said, now get out of your
stupor here. And remember, my word will conquer
the proudest of hearts. You know, with the people of
Israel, God made a covenant A covenant of works. And he even alludes to that in
verse 23. They came in, came into the land
of Canaan and possessed it, but they obeyed not thy voice, neither
walked in thy law, They have done nothing of all that thou
commandest them to do. Therefore, thou hast caused all
this evil to come upon them. And Jeremiah says, I ain't tell
you why I've been taken into captivity, but disobeyed the
voice of God. You see, God upon Mount Sinai
made a covenant of works with Israel. He said, I'll bless you,
and that's with temporal mercies now. with physical blessings,
I'll bless you if, if you'll obey my voice. That's called
a conditional covenant. That's a covenant of works, a
works-based deliverance. But Israel disobeyed. See, nobody
can please God in the flesh. We can't do all the promises.
I heard a preacher at a funeral say, you know, when you come
to the Lord to be saved, you promise him you're going to live
for him. I was talking to Brother Shepherd the other night, and
I said, that's nothing but a works-based salvation is all that is. God's
not interested in your vows, in your promises, in your intentions
to serve him. He gives out His grace, He gives
out His saving grace freely, freely. That's what Paul says
in Romans 3, we're justified freely through no contribution
of yours. It's not a deal that God makes
with you. I'll save you if you promise
to live for me. No, that's not what God says.
God says, I'm going to save you and I'll save you freely. It
won't cost you anything. It cost my son his very life. It cost him his blood. It caused
him suffering the infinite wrath of God. It caused him to be made
sin for us. It cost him dearly. but it won't
cost you anything. And that's the way salvation
is. Of course, the natural mind,
the natural man says, well, surely I got to make some contribution.
I promise I'll live for you, because I'm not interested in
your promises, but you better be interested in my promises. God made with Israel a covenant
of works, and they broke it. And Jeremiah then goes into talking
about a covenant that can't be broken. That's a covenant of
grace. HE BEGINS TO SAY IN VERSE 37
OF CHAPTER 32, AND I'LL GO QUICKLY, BEHOLD, I WILL GATHER THEM OUT
OF ALL COUNTRIES WHETHER I HAVE DRIVEN THEM IN MINE ANGER AND
IN MY FURY IN GREAT WRATH, AND I WILL BRING THEM AGAIN TO THIS
PLACE, AND I WILL CAUSE THEM TO DWELL SAFELY. THEY SHALL BE
MY PEOPLE, I WILL BE THEIR GOD. I WILL GIVE THEM ONE HEART AND
ONE WAY THAT THEY MAY FEAR ME FOREVER. for the good of them
and for their children after them, and I'll make an everlasting
covenant with them. I'll reveal this everlasting
covenant to them, and I will not turn away from them to do
them good, but I will put my fear in their hearts, and they
shall not depart from me." This is a much better covenant because
nothing in the new covenant, nothing in the covenant of grace
is dependent upon or conditioned upon the sinner. It was a covenant made in old
eternity between the Father and the Son with all the conditions
of obedience and keeping the law of God and laying down His
life. That's all dependent upon Christ
Jesus. God requires no contribution
on the sinner's part. Don't you even offer to make
a contribution. You defile it all. Everything
man has ever touched, he ruins. He's not going to ruin his everlasting
covenant. It's all of God and all of grace
and all conditioned upon the obedience unto death of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Here are the people of God, Israel
in captivity. Is there no hope? Are they destined
to live and die there? No. No. You see, those people were typical
of the church of our Lord Jesus Christ. And our salvation is not conditioned
upon our faith Huh? Not conditioned upon our faith.
Is not conditioned upon our obedience. Is not conditioned upon our repentance. All the responsibility of the
salvation of God's elect rests fully upon the head of the great
Lamb of God. If we perish, Having been chosen
of God in grace, it'll be a sad end for us, but it'll be even
sadder for the Son of God. Because as it were, he signed
his name to the last will and testament. I promise, I'll bring
them all safely home. I'll wash them in my blood. I'll
clothe them in my righteousness. Father, hold me accountable. I bring them all safely home
to God. And you know, the Lord continues
with Jeremiah making all these promises of the Lord. Look in 33, chapter 33, verse
six. Behold, I will bring it help. It, who's the it? Write this
in, the it is the church. That's the people of God. Behold,
I will bring the church health. That's spiritual wholesomeness. And cure. Thank God there's a
cure for what ails us. A cure for our disease. God says,
I will cure. I will cure them and will reveal
unto them the abundance of peace and truth. How do you learn about peace?
How do you learn about the truth of the gospel? By divine revelation,
that's how. God says, and I will cause the
captivity of Judah and the captivity of Israel to return and will
build them as at the first. And I will cleanse them. That's
what God said. I will cleanse them from all
their iniquity. Oh, there's the cleansings in
the blood of Christ Jesus. And he cleansed us and saved
us at the cross. He accomplished our salvation. He says, I will pardon all their
iniquities. Drop down to verse 11, it says,
there'll be the voice of joy, the voice of gladness, the voice
of the bridegroom, the voice of Christ himself, and the voice
of the bride. The bridegroom's happy and the
bride is happy. Our Savior, the Lord Jesus, he
rejoices and I rejoice. This is a message full of joy. And the voice of them that shall
say, praise the Lord of hosts, because he does it all. For the
Lord is good. For his mercy endureth forever,
and of them that shall bring the sacrifice of praise unto
the house of the Lord. For I will cause to return the
captivity of the land, as at the first saith the Lord, I will
free you. That's what God says. I will
free you. And you know who he raised up
to do it? A heathen king by the name of Cyrus. A Persian king. who took over the Chaldean or
the Babylonian Empire. And the Lord moved upon his heart
because God back in Isaiah called him my shepherd. And he told the children of Israel,
you go back to Jerusalem, rebuild the temple, and here's the first
thing you start doing, worshiping God by means of the sacrifice,
pointing to Christ. So we get down to verse 14, and
he says, Behold, the days come. Now watch it. Let me give you
this in closing, but this is very important. Behold, the days
come, saith the Lord, that I will perform that good
thing which I have promised. unto the house of Israel and
to the house of Judah. What is this good thing? The verse begins with, behold,
be amazed. Look, listen up now. The days are coming. Oh, it'd
be hundreds of years in the future. But he said, the days are coming.
I'm going to perform that good thing that I promised. What is
that good thing? That's the coming of the Lord
Jesus Christ. The seed of the woman promised
in Genesis 3.15. And you know, the saints in the
Old Testament, they waited and they waited and they waited hundreds
and hundreds of years. One generation came, they died,
another generation died off, another generation still. The
saints of God, those to whom the gospel of grace was revealed,
they waited, they waited. Behold, the days are coming. But you see, the promises of
God, They may seem delayed. The fulfillment
may seem delayed and not meet our expectation. We expect things to happen and
we expect them to happen right now. But the wheels of God's
providence turn very slowly. So they waited. They waited for
that good thing. That good thing. Turn with me
to the book of Luke. Luke chapter 1. Luke chapter 1. God says, I will
perform that good thing which I have promised. The promise
was of Christ and his work of redemption. I preached on this up in Michigan
last Sunday evening and I forgot to use this verse in one of the
men, Tim Krauss. Thank you, Tim, for reminding
me of this verse of Scripture. He said this passage where Gabriel
spoke to Mary. And look what Gabriel said. When
Mary said, I've never known a man, how can I possibly have a child? Verse 35, and the angel, Luke
135, and the angel answered and said unto her, the holy ghost
shall come upon thee, and the power of the high shall overshadow
thee. Therefore also that holy thing,
that good thing, which shall be born of thee,
shall be called the son of God. And a little later, Zacharias. Zacharias, you remember, he was
the father of John the Baptist. Look what Zacharias had to say
in Luke chapter 1 and verse 68. Luke 1, 68. Blessed be the Lord
God of Israel, for he hath visited and redeemed his people. and
hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant
David, as he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have
been since the world began, and that includes Jeremiah, by the
way, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the
hand of all that hate us, to perform the mercy promised to
our fathers, and to remember His holy covenant. And if you
remember what Bill read to us, the Lord said, you want to know
how sure that covenant is? When days cease to be days and
nights seem to be nights, he said, that's when my covenant
will be broken. That's how firm it is. The covenant of grace
can't be broken. You know, in Malachi chapter
three, and all the prophets spoke of the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Malachi said, and he, the son
of God, shall come suddenly to his temple. That's what Malachi
said. Look in chapter two, Luke chapter
two, verse 25. Our Lord has been born, that's
recorded earlier in Luke 2. And behold, there was a man in
Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and the same was just and devout,
waiting, all those Old Testament saints just waiting, for the
consolation of Israel, and the Holy Ghost was upon him. And
it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost that he should not
see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. And he came
by the Spirit into the temple. And when the parents brought
in the child Jesus to do for him after the custom of the law,
remember the words of Malachi in Malachi 3, verse 1. It says,
he shall come suddenly to his temple. And here he comes. Here he comes. That good thing
promised. That holy thing. Here he is. He came suddenly. And we know
that Simeon said, now let thy servant depart in peace for mine
eyes have seen thy salvation. And there was somebody else in
the temple. She's waiting too. Look in verse
38, Anna. She coming in that instant gave
thanks likewise unto the Lord and spake of him to all that
look for redemption, that waited for redemption. They've been
waiting for the Savior. The saints of God have been waiting
and waiting and waiting and looking and looking and looking. And
he suddenly comes into the temple. That good thing that God promised. And here he comes. God performed his word. He sent
His Son. And not only did God promise
and perform the coming of the Son of God, that good thing,
but He also declared that that good thing is the Lord our righteousness. He established righteousness
for His people by His sinless life and His substitutionary
death. And our Lord's name, Jeremiah
23. His name is Jehovah Sidkenu,
the Lord our righteousness. And the name of the church is
the Lord our righteousness. Because he is our righteousness. He is our uprightness. He is our right to enter into
the gates of glory and dwell there in the presence of God
forever and ever. God performed that good thing. He sent his son and he laid down
his life, the good shepherd for the sheep. Thank God for the shepherd. Thank
God for the covenant of grace that requires nothing of me,
nothing of me. I would ruin it, and you would
ruin it. If anything was conditioned upon
our salvation, conditioned upon us, we could just forget it. There are all those Jews down
here in Babylon If anything was required of them, just forget
it. That's impossible. But nothing's
too hard for the Lord. And he accomplished our salvation
by the eternal Son of God, who loved us and gave himself for
us. Let's sing a closing song, shall
we? Number 296. all the way my Savior leads me.