All right, Jeremiah chapter 45. Now, I've entitled this message
Life in the Midst of Death. Life in the Midst of Death. I
want you to consider some things as we go into this short chapter. Think about it this way. When
you think about our nation, the state of our nation, or our world,
Bring it down home. When you think about our families,
when we think about them, how does all that make you really
feel? I know when I think about our nation, it doesn't make me
feel too good. I don't know about you. Probably not. You know,
the president comes on and he gives the state of the nation.
And really, it's always bad news other than whoever's president
at the time will tell us what all that he's going to do to
help this nation, and it never gets done. You know how it is
in politics. But we think about the state
of the whole world. It's bad. We know that. I'm really, I'm
one of those. I know, you know, in our generation
as we grow and we see things, more graphically because of our
communications is a lot better. We've got TV, we've got the internet,
we see more things. But I happen to be one of those
who think that the state of this world's always been pretty bad.
I know there are times in my own personal life where things
may have seemed to be a little better as far as, you know, people
in general, but it's bad. Well, that's what's going on
here in Jeremiah chapter 45 with this man named Baruch. Look at
verse one. It says, the word that Jeremiah
the prophet spake unto Baruch, the son of Neriah. Now, you know,
Baruch was Jeremiah's scribe. He was like the secretary. He
was the recorder. Jeremiah would speak the message
of God and Baruch would write it down. In fact, some say, well,
Jeremiah wrote some of it himself personally. He probably did. You know, the Apostle Paul did
that. He had someone, he would dictate what the Holy Spirit
revealed to him and someone else would write it down. But there
were certain things that he wrote himself because he thought that
the occasion called for it, like the book of Galatians. You remember
he said, I've written this with my own hands. But this is what
Baruch did. He wrote it down for Jeremiah. He's the son of Nariah, it says,
when he had written these words in a book at the mouth of Jeremiah.
Jeremiah speaking, Baruch writing. And he did it in the fourth year
of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah. Now, as I told
you before, the book of Jeremiah is not chronological. This reaches
back to the time of Jehoiakim. When he was king, he was the
son of Josiah and they were all descendants of Josiah. But you
remember the last message that Jeremiah delivered to the people
was during the reign of Zedekiah. He was the last king of Judah.
But this was done back in the time of Jehoiakim. And actually
it reaches back to chapter 36. It says in verse two, thus saith
the Lord, the God of Israel unto thee, O Baruch. Now you remember
what happened in chapter 36? You probably don't remember. But that's okay. Remember Jeremiah
back then, Jeremiah had been banned from the temple. Some
say he was under house arrest, and that may have been so, but
he'd been banned from the temple. They would not let the prophet
Jeremiah come and preach in the temple. So God revealed his message
to Jeremiah, which was a message of wrath for the sins of the
people to Judah and Jerusalem. And Jeremiah not being able to
go to the temple, he told Baruch, you go for me. You remember that?
You probably recall that. And so what happened? You remember
Baruch, he took the scroll of the prophecy that God revealed
to Jeremiah concerning the state of the nation, and it was a bad
message, not in the sense that it wasn't the message of truth,
but it was a message of doom. God's going to punish you because
of your sins. And he took it to the temple
and he read from the scroll in the temple. And you remember
there was a group of men who heard that, and they said, now
we need to take this to the king. We need to take this message
to the king. He needs to hear this. And remember, they took
it to Jehoiakim, and that's when Jehoiakim rejected the word of
God, and he took the scroll, and he burned it. Now you remember
that? He burned it. The sins of the
nation, the judgment of God upon them, the calamities that had
been brought upon the nation that were to be enacted by God,
and the reaction of the king to God's message. What did it
do? It brought Baruch to sadness.
It brought him to discouragement. It brought him to distress. Look
at verse 3. Here's what Baruch said. And
this is what he said, Thou didst say, Woe is me now. For the Lord hath added grief
to my sorrow. I fainted in my sign, and I find
no rest. Now, whenever the Bible, whenever
you see words like faint, it's not, it doesn't mean swooning,
you know, or losing consciousness, it means you're gonna quit. And
Brooke's saying, I'm just gonna quit. I'm not doing this anymore. I'm so tired of this, woe is
me. It's grieving. It's sorrowful.
I'm not going to do it anymore. I'm quitting. That's why the
scripture tells believers, faint not. Faint not. That means don't
give up. Don't quit. He says, I fainted
in my sight. I wanted to quit. The Lord's
added sorrow to my pain. That woe is me. You know what
woe is me. It's a term of despair. Sometimes it's a good thing.
Think about Isaiah chapter six. You remember when he saw the
Lord high and lifted up? Holy, holy, holy. And he said,
woe is me. I'm undone. That was a good thing.
That was conviction of sin. That was a realization. And I'm
a sinner and I need salvation by grace that I have no righteousness
of my own. And I have the only thing I can
do is throw myself under the mercy of God. But this here is
a giving up. It's a sorrow unto despair. O'Bunyan would call it the slew
of despond. In Pilgrim's Progress, you may
have read that. The slew of despond. Here's Baruch
in the slew of despond. And he's ready to quit. So he
said, the Lord's added sorrow to my pain. I'm weary with my
groaning. I found no rest. Well, Baruch,
and all of us Baruch's, we know this. There is no rest in man. There is no rest in Jerusalem,
the physical city. There is no rest in religion. You see, why are you looking
for it there? Why do you hope to find hope in man? The best of men, the worst of
men, everybody in between. Somebody says, oh, if we can
just get this fellow elected, everything's gonna be fine. How
many of you here believe that? I don't think any of you do.
Oh, if we could just do this or do that, you'll find no rest,
no joy, no peace, no blessing there. Who is our rest? Our rest is Christ. I think about
that Hebrews chapter two passage. It talks about how everything
is put under Christ, but In the physical realm of existence,
we don't see it that way. I mean, if you look around now,
here's what I'm saying. We know it's true now, don't
get me wrong. We believe it because God said it. But you look around
and it's easy to get into despair and sorrow and you know, just
be a downer all the time looking at the shape of this world. How
much gospel do you think is preached out around this world? Not much. telling you not much I'm not
just getting the Elijah syndrome am I the only one no I'm not
saying I'm the only one but what does the Lord what did the Lord
tell us about the last days that the gospel will be scarcer and
scarcer as we get closer to his second coming it's not going
to be a time of great revival Bible doesn't teach that. Bible
says it's a time of falling away. Religion without Christ, religion
without truth, religion without grace, religion without heart. So there's only rest in Christ.
And you know, the gospel itself is a bittersweet message, isn't
it? The apostle John said that in the book of Revelation. We
can apply this to ourselves, the bittersweetness of it, because
it's sweet to the taste, because it's good news for sinners. When
God brought us to Isaiah's place, woe is me, I'm undone, I'm cut
off, I'm a man of unclean lips. Can you think of a sweeter message
than the gospel of his free and sovereign grace in Christ? There's
none. When God showed me my unrighteousness,
is there a sweeter message than the righteousness of God in Christ
given to me? No sweeter message than that,
is there? But in the power of the Holy
Spirit, it also brings us to conviction, doesn't it? Conviction
of sin. It shows me what I am by nature.
At my best. Which is nothing. Worse than
nothing. It shows me my sin and my depravity. And that's a bitter pill to swallow.
But it's one that we need, isn't it? Bitter pills sometimes bring
cures. And that's what the Holy Spirit
uses to drive a sinner to Christ. We can apply it to our warfare,
the flesh and the spirit. We have a warfare. We as believers,
sinners saved by the grace of God, we have an inner warfare,
don't we? And it's a warfare of the flesh and the spirit.
And that gospel message and the word of God is sweet to the taste.
It's sweet to the spirit, but it's bitter to the flesh, isn't
it? How many times are we brought to conviction over and over again?
And godly sorrow over sin. And we have to just stand with
David and say, I'm the man. That's a bitter pill to swallow,
but one that's needed. And we can apply this to our
witness in evangelism. You know, we have the sweetest,
the best, the greatest message that's ever been intervened in
this mass of humanity, been revealed. I mean, it's the greatest. I
mean, it's better than sliced bread. Isn't it? It's better than anything we
could imagine. And you remember when you first
heard it, you thought everybody would want to hear this, and
then you found out the world hates it. The world hates it. Sometimes I don't know if I get
discouraged more over someone who's indifferent to it than
I do someone who just rails at it, against it. Almost it gets
me more discouraged to see someone turn a deaf ear and just ignore
it. But it's enough to discourage
us, isn't it? And you know this is the very thing that causes
most people who claim to believe the gospel to either deny it
or compromise it. Now here's Baruch, he's ready
to quit. What are you going to do Baruch? Are you going to go
with the false preachers and cry peace, peace? That's what everybody
wants to hear. What do you think old Jehoiakim
burned that scroll? Because it didn't tell him what
he wanted to hear. Now there was a bunch of them
who would. They'd say, Jehoiakim, we're going to be victorious.
We're the people of God. We're the children of Abraham.
We've got the temple. We've got the sacrifices. We're righteous. And Jehoiakim says, yeah, man,
I like that message. I want to hear more about that.
That sounds loving to me. That's love. You hear that all
the time, don't you? And here comes the burden over
there, that old Jeremiah. We won't even let him come into
the temple to preach. He's a burden. He just weighs us down with that
hard message. Oh, it's hard. It's confrontational.
It's mean. So what do you do? Well, verse
4, look at it. He told Jeremiah, he says, now
you tell Baruch, thus shalt thou say unto him, here's what you
tell Baruch, the Lord saith thus, behold, that which I have built
will I break down, that which I have planted, well, I will
pluck up even this whole land. Now, what did God build here? Well, he could be talking about
the Jewish nation. He's the one who built that nation.
He builds all nations. I know what you're saying, what
the book says, but he's talking about the Jewish nation here.
He built them. He went down into the Ur of the
Chaldees and brought Abraham out of there. And about 400 years
later, he brought them out of Egypt and established them as
a nation at Sinai. And he built it. He brought them
where they were. And the Jewish nation, he said,
that I built, they'll be torn down. That I've planted like
a vineyard, I'll pluck it up, even this whole land. He's not
talking about dirt and rocks there. Talking about a nation. And even though a remnant would
be saved, there's a sweet message here. There's a remnant, they
would be saved. Because of their sin, this whole
nation would perish. I built it, I'll throw it down.
Some say he's talking about the old covenant. Well, that's true
too. This nation was formed under that covenant. That covenant
was never enacted or established to be a permanent fixture in
the eternal purpose of God. It had a beginning and it had
an end and God set it up that way from the beginning. It was
a grand testimony to humanity that man cannot be saved by his
works. That man cannot be saved and
made righteous and forgiven under a conditional covenant. That
if salvation is to come to a sinful race of people, it's got to be
by grace. It's got to be through one who
is both God and man and one person, the Lord Jesus Christ. So that
which is old vanishes away. The book of Hebrews talks about
that. Somebody says he's talking about the temple. Well, that's
part of it too. It's all together. You see, don't
segment it and say, well, this part stays and this part goes.
Whoever gave any man the right to pick and choose that kind
of thing? No. It all comes together. Christ
himself, when they rebuilt the temple later, he came to the
Pharisees and the Sadducees and he told them, and he even told
his disciples who were impressed with the The grandeur of that
architecture and that building that man had raised up, he said,
you see this that you're so impressed with? He said, it's all coming
down. It's all coming down. You see
that temple, that physical temple, that was not the permanent dwelling
place of God. You can't contain God in temples
made with hands. What is the temple of God now?
It's His church. the elect of God, the redeemed
of the Lord, justified in Christ, righteous in Him, called out
by the Holy Spirit, which He purchased with His own
blood. Somebody said, the earthly priesthood. Well, that's included
too. Christ is our great high priest. And His people, His church,
we're priests unto God. Now, why was all that needed
to be thrown down, plucked up, because of its impotence, the
blood of bulls and goats cannot never take away sin. The services
of the tabernacle and the temple could never make the comers thereunto
perfect as pertaining to the conscience. What does that mean?
It means it couldn't remove the guilt of sin. There's only one
way to remove the guilt of sin. The blood of Jesus Christ. No other way. And he'll never
be torn down and never be plucked up. What's going on here? What's the Lord doing with this
man Baruch? He's putting things in perspective for him. Yeah,
I know it's discouraging to look around this world, this nation. And we can even get discouraged
looking within ourselves and probably should. But that's not where our eyes
and our hearts and our minds to be fixed. It's to be fixed on Christ. For
we are the circumcision which worship God in spirit and rejoice,
glory, have confidence in Christ Jesus and have no confidence
in the flesh. I don't care what it is. Whatever
it is. Look at verse 5. He says, Seekest
thou great things for thyself? Now, if you're looking anywhere
but Christ and Him crucified and risen, His blood and His
righteousness alone for all salvation, for all forgiveness, for all
glory, for all righteousness, I want to tell you, whether you
realize it or not, you're really seeking great things for yourself. If your eyes, your hope is fixed
on this earth in any way, any man, even in self, you're still
seeking great things for yourself. He says, seekest thou great things
for thyself? Seek them not. Don't do that. For behold, I will bring evil
upon all flesh, saith the Lord. Man was put here to glorify God,
not himself. Baruch had to be brought down
from his pride. So do we. And that continually. Have you ever noticed that about
ourselves? That having to be brought down from my pride is
not just a one-time thing. It's all the time, isn't it?
You remember when the disciples were arguing, who's going to
be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? Well, I'll tell you
right now who's going to be the greatest. Christ. That's basically
what he says. The Apostle Paul had to write
to the Church of Philippi and say, don't do things out of vain
glory, trying to gain things for yourself, a name for yourself. This thing of salvation, this
thing of living the Christian life, this thing of being godly
has to do with dying to self. and living for the honor and
glory of God in Christ. Humility is all about dying to
sin. Listen, let me just read you
this in Galatians 2. You remember Paul said here in
verse 19, I through the law am dead to the law. How do we become
dead to the law? By the body of Christ, he said
in Romans 7. In other words, my standing before
God as a justified sinner, as righteous, is because of what
Christ accomplished. It has nothing to do with what
I accomplish or what I do or don't do. It's all Christ. He
is all my righteousness before God. And he said, that all happened
that I might live unto God. And he said, I'm crucified with
Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I. Now Paul's not talking
out of both sides of his mouth there. He says, it's not I, it's
Christ liveth in me. What he's telling us there is
that the life that I live now, which is the life of grace and
gratitude and love unto God, I'm not the source of it, I'm
not the cause of it, I'm not the power of it. It's not owing
to my will or my way or my goodness or my intelligence. It's Christ
living in me by His Spirit and by His Word. Dying to self and living under
the glory of God. But look at what he tells Baruch
here in verse five. He says, but thy life, thy life
Baruch, will I give unto thee for a prey. Now that means a
prize. In all places whither thou goest. Baruch is blessed of God. You know what? The name Baruch
means, means the blessed one. Blessed with life in the midst
of all this death. Baruch was given life from God
in the midst of all this death. And what made the difference
between, let's say, a man like Baruch and a man like Jehoiakim
who burned the scroll? What made the difference? I'll
tell you what made the difference. Grace made the difference. God
made the difference. That grace that reigns through
righteousness by Jesus Christ unto eternal life by Jesus Christ
our Lord. God says here, Baruch, I'll give
you your life as a prize. What does that mean? That's a
gift. That's a gift. And it's a gift given through
righteousness. The righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. So
one thing we know about Baruch here. All you have to do is go
back to verse 3. And you know this, he didn't
earn it and he didn't deserve it. He was ready to quit. They didn't
send some preacher along to give him gentle persuasions of emotional
rhetoric to try to get him to change his mind. No, God said,
now Baruch, what's going on around in this world? It's all well
within the providence of God. This is what God intended from
the beginning. This didn't take God by surprise.
It'll take me by surprise. It'll take you by surprise. But
it didn't take God by surprise. This is not God's plan B. This
is how it's always going to be. God's in control. What I built
up, I'll break down. What I planted, I'll pluck up.
Even this whole land. And don't you seek great things
for yourself. Don't be like Cain. trying to
be saved by your works, making a name for yourself. Don't be
like these heathen kings. Don't be like the Judean kings,
like Jehoiachin. He wanted to make a name for
himself. He wanted to seek great things for himself. You get out
of the way and exalt Christ. He says, I'm going to give you
life. A gift in all the places where you go. That's what it's
all about. That's what this whole thing's
all about. It's about the gift of God's grace in the Lord Jesus
Christ. In Colossians chapter three,
think about this. One of my favorite passages. The Lord teaches us in verse one, he says,
if you then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above,
Well, what's above? Well, the things of Christ, the
glory of God in Christ. Not seeking great things for
yourselves, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Remember
the disciples in Matthew 18, they were arguing, well, who's
going to sit on your right hand? Who's going to sit on your left?
Well, if you're risen with Christ, seek those things which are above,
where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. He has the preeminence. Set your affections, your mind,
your heart on things above, not on things of the earth. For you're
dead. Now, how am I dead? Well, my
sins were charged to Christ and He died. When He died, I died. He put away my sins. He paid
my debt. And your life is hid with Christ
in God. He told Baruch, He said, I'm
going to give your life as a prize wherever you go. Well, how do
you know it's sure? Your life is hid with Christ
in God. Christ is my life. How do I know that? His righteousness
is given to me, imputed, charged to me. And that's life to a dead
sinner. And he says, when Christ who
is our life, now who is our life? The things of this world, the
politicians, The people who call the shots, or they think call
the shots in this world, no. Who is our life? Christ is our
life. When he shall appear, then shall
you also appear with him in glory. Now you mortify your members
which are upon the earth. And he lifts them. One more passage. Turn to 2 Corinthians 4. We'll close with this. Now Baruch
was in a sad state of mind. And I'll tell you, I can understand
it. I hope I didn't present this message in a way that sounded
like that I was beaten down on Baruch for being like that, and
I would never act like that. I'd never be that way. Most of you already know about
me, so you don't have to question that. I mean, sometimes I get
so discouraged and I get so mad, And I'll just say, well, what's
the use? But the Lord always brings you back, doesn't He?
If you're one of His, He'll always challenge you. And He'll challenge
you not to pull yourselves up by your own bootstraps, because
you can't do that. In fact, you don't really have
any boots. You don't have any boots. But He'll challenge you with
the promises of His grace in Christ. That's how He does it. And you know what that does for
me? It makes me ashamed that I even thought that I was going
to quit. That I got so discouraged. I mean, I'm telling you now,
do you know that Baruch, he was a possessor of the greatest gift
that God can give a sinner. Now I tell you what, if you think
about people, I remember when I was growing up as a little
boy, And turn this time of year, we'd always get gifts. I had
one aunt who would always give us pajamas. Pajamas. I didn't want pajamas. That's
what she'd always give us, pajamas. And I thought, well, she just
doesn't know how to give gifts. But boy, when you got those toys,
those pop guns and all that stuff, and tricycles, and boy, they
knew how to give gifts. Well, I can tell you if anybody
knows how to give gifts, it's God. And I've often said, you
know, even the breath that we take, even the next breath you
take is a gift from God. But if we're, if we're among
that number, whom God sovereignly, without cause, has blessed us
with the greatest gift of all. Now you think about that. That's
what Baruch had. Jehoiakim, he had it easier than
Baruch. He was king of Judea. He was
rich. He had a lot of people following
him, liking him and all, but he didn't have that greatest
gift, didn't have salvation, didn't have Christ. That's what he didn't have. And you
think about that, that'll make you ashamed, won't it? Well,
Paul here in 2 Corinthians 4 is talking about a treasure. The
treasure is the gospel of Christ. And he says in verse 7, he says,
we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency
of the power may be of God, not of us. In other words, the salvation
that we possess is a display and a testimony to the greatness
of God, not to our greatness. Don't seek great things for yourself,
seek the glory of God in Christ. But look what he says, he says,
Verse 8, we're troubled on every side. Now Baruch was troubled.
I've been troubled. Yet not distressed. We're perplexed. There are a lot of things I don't
know and can't figure out. How about you? But not in despair. I know God's in control. Persecuted,
but not forsaken. Didn't Christ say blessed are
you when men persecute you? Say all men are evil against
you for righteousness sake. Cast down. Jeremiah, remember
one time he was up to mud to his armpits. He was buried in
mud up to his armpits. Cast down, but not destroyed. And you know that applies to
even if they destroy this body. Stephen, he was murdered. But
the moment he took his last breath in this flesh, where would he
wake up? In the presence of his Savior. always bearing about
in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, and the life also
of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live
are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life
also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. So then
death worketh in us, but life in you." Life in the midst of
death. And I thought, that's such an appropriate way to conclude
the message of grace in germina there's more to come in the judgment
of the nations but but that's kind of like a closing out of
the section it of uh... considering uh... the issues
of eternal life in the world