Open your Bibles with me to Jeremiah
chapter 39. Jeremiah chapter 39. The theme of this chapter is the
same theme of so many chapters in the book of Jeremiah and his
prophecy. And that is God's wrath against
and punishment towards sin. And then at the same time, God's
deliverance of his people by his grace and his power, ultimately
in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. And so I've entitled
tonight's message, Destruction and Deliverance. Destruction
and Deliverance. In the first half of this verse,
or this chapter, We have the historical record of the siege
of Jerusalem. This is an event that really
began the prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem at this time in
history, was really first told in the book of Isaiah, years
before this. But Jeremiah has spoken of it
all through his prophecy. I think Jeremiah all totally,
he prophesied in Jerusalem like 20 some years, 23 years maybe,
I heard one scholar say. And I usually don't go try to
mathematically add these things up, but just gives you an idea
of how long he preached. Of course, we know that is no
aid to or hindrance to God's word reaching his people. Noah
preached 120 years while he was building the ark, and no one
was converted. That didn't make Noah a failure,
did it? Jeremiah is called the weeping prophet, but he wasn't
a failure. You know, no preacher is a failure
who preaches Christ. I believe that. I don't care
if nobody comes to believe. I do care, but what I'm saying
is that doesn't gauge the success of the ministry. I want everybody
here to come to Christ, be brought to Christ. But here we have finally
the historical record of the siege of Jerusalem. Now in that
siege, what I want us to see tonight, what I want to try to
bring out, is first of all a prophetic picture of the destruction of
any and every sinner who are found before God without Christ.
Because that's what this has for us. This is not just history.
It's not just a life lesson, though there are life lessons
here. But it's a prophetic picture that can be summarized in the
call and command of the gospel, the negative part of it, which
says, he that believeth not shall be damned. He that hath not the
Son hath not life. It's a prophetic picture of man
left to himself, man left to his own will, man left to his
own desires, man without Christ. And then in the second part,
we're going to see the historical record of the deliverance of
two men. One, Jeremiah the prophet, and
the other one is one we've heard of before. He's Ibn Malik, the
Ethiopian. And in that historical record,
we have a prophetic picture of salvation for all sinners who
are saved by the grace of God and found in Christ. That's the
deliverance part. That's what we have. So let's
begin. Let's read in verse one. In the
ninth year of Zedekiah, king of Judah, The 10th month came
Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and all his army against Jerusalem,
and they besieged it. They'd been outside the walls
for a while. Remember, before they had left
it and got diverted because they had to go defeat the Egyptians.
Again, that's a good lesson, spiritually speaking, to show
us there's no help for sinners in Egypt. Egypt represents bondage. Legalism, you might say. works
religion. In verse two, in the eleventh
year of Zedekiah in the fourth month, the ninth day of the month,
the city was broken up. I believe that the Holy Spirit
is so precise on these days because I believe that this is a record
of the preciseness of God in His determinations, working all
things after the counsel of His own will. And these things are
historically correct. There's no argument here. This
book is the book of God. He said the city was broken up.
That's destruction. And all the princes of the King
of Babylon came in. These are instruments of God's
judgment against the city. They sat in the middle gate,
even Nergal-Sharizer, Shamgar-Nebo, Sarsicum, Rapsarus, Negal-Sharizer,
Ramag, with all the residue, all the rest of the princes of
the King of Babylon. I told Bill, I said, you'll thank
me that I didn't ask you to read this text tonight. Those are
Babylonian names. Remember, I told you that the
secret to pronouncing these names is to pronounce it however you
want, just act like you know what you're talking about. And
act like it would be ridiculous, utterly ridiculous for you to
pronounce it any other way. That's it. And what makes it tough is the
Holy Spirit directed Jeremiah to record these names in verse
13 too. But I think what's going on there
is making certain that they understand that the Babylonians were the
instruments of God's wrath against his people Israel, Judah. And
that's a strange thing. God works in mysterious ways.
Here's an ungodly nation under an ungodly king, Nebuchadnezzar,
whose ungodly lieutenants here were used as instruments against
the people of God, Judah, as they had broken the covenant,
the new covenant. So there you have the fall of
Jerusalem. Not a lot of description of it there. It's just broken
up and then overtaken by the princes of Babylon who sat in
the middle gate. That's the gate of prominence.
That's the authority there. That's what he's talking about.
And then look at verse four. Here's the fall of King Zedekiah.
He says, it came to pass that when Zedekiah the king of Judah
saw them, now you remember Zedekiah, he was the double-minded man.
You remember he wanted to hear, he wanted Jeremiah to tell him
the truth. And when he heard the truth,
you know, he said, well, I can't, I can't do that. The people would
get mad. You know, he feared men, not God. He says, he saw
them and all the men of war, then they fled and went forth
out of the city by night, by the way of the king's garden.
They tried to sneak out of the palace is what's going on there,
by the gate betwixt or between the two walls. And he went out
the way of the plain, but the Chaldeans army pursued after
them and overtook Zedekiah and all the plains of Jericho. And
when they had taken him, they brought him up to Nebuchadnezzar,
the king of Babylon to Riblah land of Hamath where he gave
judgment upon him. In other words, Nebuchadnezzar
passed judgment upon King Zedekiah. It's interesting there that he
went out to the plains of Jericho because how did the people of
God get into the promised land? By God's power in overtaking
Jericho. And of course you have a great
picture there of the Lord Jesus Christ going to the cross and
overtaking sin. And what he's showing here is
that without Christ, without God's power and grace and goodness
in Christ, sin will overtake us. Jericho could not be destroyed. Jericho representing that which
bars your way, the people's way into the promised land. But God
destroyed it. And it was by his power, you
know that, you've read the story. Joshua, they say Joshua fit the
battle of Jericho. Yeah, he fought that battle,
but it was God's war and it was God's fight. And just like Moses
said, the Lord will fight for you. He'll win the battle. And
that's the way it is with sin. You can fight the battle with
sin. You can fight it with religion.
You can fight it with good intentions. You can gang up on it. It will
not do you any good. There's only one way to conquer
sin, and that's through Christ. The blood of the Lamb, which
taketh away the sins of the world. And so here's Nebuchadnezzar
passing judgment upon Zedekiah. Verse six, then the king of Babylon
slew the sons of Zedekiah and Rehoboam before his eyes. Could
you imagine that? Somebody just killing your sons
and your daughters right in front of you. Also, the king of Babylon
slew all the nobles of Judah. And then moreover, he put out
Zedekiah's eyes, blinded him. Bound him with chains to carry
him to Babylon. There's the fall of the king.
And there's what he's, this is a prophetic picture there of
the fact that you cannot escape the wrath of God apart from Christ. You say you keep repeating that.
That's right. God helped me to do that the
rest of my days. When I stand behind a pope here.
Zedekiah, he tried to get away, but you can't do it. Your sins
will find you out. We'll look at verse eight. Here's
the last state of Jerusalem in that day. He says, and the Chaldeans
burned the king's house and the houses of the people and with
fire and break down the walls of Jerusalem. Nebuchadnezzar,
the captain of the guard, carried away captive into Babylon, the
remnant of the people that remained in the city, And those that fell
away, that fell to him with the rest of the people that remain."
In other words, anybody who was there, he took with except one
group of people. And look at verse 10. But Nebuchadnezzar,
the captain of the guard, left of the poor of the people, which
had nothing. They didn't have anything to
contribute to Babylon. He left them in the land of Judah
and gave them vineyards and fields at the same time. So the same
time he took Others, he left the poor that had nothing. And
so there's the last state of Jerusalem. Why did he leave the
poor? Well, we're not given any commentary on that, but I do
know this. Now, and understand this, you
know, the way the natural man thinks, you know, the Bible has
a lot to say about rich people, and it warns rich people to be
careful not to love riches. You know, it's not money. That'll
keep you out of heaven or away from Christ. It's the love of
money. And so Paul had a lot to say about that to Timothy
as he dealt with wealthy people within the church. And that's
OK. There are people that God blesses with wealth. Abraham
was one of them. Job was one of them. I know he
took away from Job, but he gave it back to Job even more. So
there's nothing in riches themselves that will keep a sinner from
coming to Christ or from But so don't get that. And at the
same time, there's nothing in poverty that recommends a person
to Christ. Just being poor is not going
to save you. But the poor of the earth have
always been such a great picture and spiritual lesson of the state
of the people of God spiritually by nature. By nature, we are
poor people. We have nothing. You see what
he said there? The poor are the people which
had nothing. That's us by nature, isn't it? That's our spiritual
state in Adam. We're poor and we've got nothing.
We don't have anything to recommend us unto God. We've got no holiness. We've got no goodness. We've
got no righteousness. We have no redemption price.
We're spiritually bankrupt. Now what does the Holy Spirit
do when He comes to a sinner and convicts that sinner of sin?
He makes us poor. The problem is that we are deceived
by ourselves. We think we are rich. We think
we are good enough. And especially if we get religion. Well, we
think we are something then. But we have no righteousness
before God. And I believe that is what is
happening here providentially in this historical record. that
the people who are poor and have nothing, they get it all. He says he gave them vineyards
and fields. They had lands. You know, to
be a landowner back then, that was something. That was really
something, especially to have a vineyard. Only the rich people
had that. Poor people may work in it, but
they didn't own it, but they got it now. And that's a great
picture of how we're poor naturally, but when God saves us by Christ,
he gives us the riches, the vineyards, the fields, we have it all in
him. We're blessed with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ. That's the remnant
of grace. I'm not saying all these poor
people here knew the Lord and were saved, I don't know. But
I'm just simply saying isn't that a great picture of the types
of people that God saves, spiritually speaking. Blessed are the poor
in spirit. Blessed are the meek. All those
whom God saves realize that we have nothing. It's all of grace,
it's all of mercy. and nothing else. Nothing in
me, nothing by me, nothing from me. It's all Christ. That's all. Without Christ, there's
no deliverance. Well, look back at Psalm 103
that Brother Bill read. Now, there you have that prophetic
picture of the state of man without Christ, without grace, without
mercy. What it is, you see there, God
dealing with sinners according to their sins. Now that's what
happened in Judah. That's what, anytime that God's
wrath came down upon a people, a nation, or an individual, what
you see there is God dealing with sinners according to their
sins. So what's our only hope? Well,
now we're gonna read some of that in the next section, but
look at Psalm 103. Our only hope is right here.
Look at verse eight of Psalm 103. This is why I had Brother
Bill read this. He says, the Lord is merciful
and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy. Our only
hope is mercy. He will not always chide, neither
will he keep his anger forever. And look at verse 10. He hath
not dealt with us after our sin. Now there's our hope right there.
You see, I'm a sinner and I deserve no better than what King Zedekiah
got. I don't deserve anything better
than what King Zedekiah or the rest of that nation that perished.
I don't deserve anything more, anything less. I deserve the
same thing. So my only hope is that God will deal with me not
after my sins. Now I want you to notice something
here that's very, very important. In that verse 10 of Psalm 103,
it does not say that God hath not dealt with our sins. Because God hath dealt with our
sins. It says God hath not dealt with us after our sins. There's the key. God's dealt
with my sins. He's got to deal with sin. He's
God. He's holy. He's just. He's righteous. He's
a God of truth. He judges according to truth.
He's got to deal with it. The soul that sinneth must surely
die. Without blood, there's the shedding
of blood, there's no forgiveness of sins. God's got to deal with
it. But my only hope is that God hath not dealt with us after
our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. God's got
to reward our iniquities. But he said he hadn't rewarded
us according to our iniquities. And it says in verse 11, for
as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy
toward them that fear him. As far as the east is from the
west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. What
did he do with them? He put them on Christ. That's
how he dealt with my sins and my iniquities. That's how he
rewarded me fully, completely, justly, righteously, really,
legally, as they were laid on Christ, my surety, my substitute,
my lamb, my sin bearer, my sin offering. My sins were charged
to him. My debt was charged to him. And
I have his righteousness charged to me. We'll look back at Jeremiah
39. Now here is the historical record
of God delivering two men. One is Jeremiah, the other one
is Ibn Malik, look at verse 11. He says, Nebuchadnezzar, that's
just another pronunciation of Nebuchadnezzar, same fellow.
King of Babylon, he gave charge concerning Jeremiah to Nebuchadnezzar
Aden, we'll get it. All right, the captain of the
guard. Well, you all get up here and
try it now. The captain of the guard saying,
take him and look well to him. Isn't that something? You might
have a little phrase there in your concordance where it says,
set thine eyes upon him. In other words, you care for
him. That's what he's saying. He's not just saying pull him
out of the way. He's saying you set your eye upon him. It's almost
like set your heart upon him. Now why would Nebuchadnezzar,
of all people, king of Babylon, why would he tell this man, this
captain of the host, to set his eyes upon Jeremiah. And there's
only one reason that I can give you, and that is the great goodness
and providence of God towards Jeremiah. And that's it. No other reason. I don't even
know if Nebuchadnezzar knew Jeremiah. Maybe he'd heard of this prophet
who was telling the people to submit, and that may have done
something. I don't know. Nothing in the book recorded
that tells us that. But I'll tell you what, God is
a deliverer for His people. And He says, you look well to
Him. And that's the way it is when God sees us in Christ. You
know, in the everlasting covenant of grace, God the Father chose
a people and gave us to His Son, and He told His Son, you look
well to them. And His Son did it. He did everything
that was required, met every condition, every stipulation,
every requirement of the covenant, even unto the death of the cross.
You talk about looking well to people who don't deserve that
kind of mercy and grace. And he says in verse 12, take
him and look well to him and do him no harm. No harm shall
come to him. He's under the protection of
the King. Isn't that what we are in Christ? We're under the
protection of the King. It may be that they will harm
us physically, but they can't touch our soul. They can't touch
our spirits, can they? We are eternally secure in the
Lord Jesus Christ. We're under the protection of
the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, no matter what men
do to us or say about us. And I like that because, you
know, I think about it, you know, I've been talking to you several
messages about People persecuting the people of God, saying all
manner of evil against them. But God doesn't. He says, look
well to it. Do him no harm. Do him no harm. I like that. He says, but do unto him even
as he shall say unto thee. Give him what he desires. Now,
I know people can take phrases like that and go to town on it,
you know, false religion, you know, if you pray hard enough,
say it long enough, get enough people to agree with you, you're
going to get everything. You'll win the lottery, won't you? No. He's talking about the desires
of his heart that honor God. You know, that's what the Scripture
teaches. Scripture teaches that, it doesn't teach that if we believe
it hard enough and pray for it hard enough, God will give us
anything we want. Doesn't say that at all. It never says that.
There's not one verse in the Bible that says that. But he
says he'll give us the desires of our heart. And you know what
desires those are? The desires he puts there. And the desires
that honor him. You think God's going to give
his children something that dishonors him, their father? Well, no. And then he says in verse 13,
so Nebuchadnezzar, the captain of the guard, sent to Nebuchadnezzar
Chabon, Rabsarus, and Nergal-Sharizar, and Rabbag, and all the king
of Babylon's princes. Now he's going to tell every
one of them. You can't touch him. And I thought about that. I said,
you know, Satan cannot touch us. Now listen to me, I know
Satan is an enemy, and I know he's a strong enemy, and I know
he can make things a little difficult, but as far as our soul, and our
security in Christ, and our salvation, Satan cannot touch us. Remember
Revelation 12. He accuses the brethren day and
night, but they turn him back by pleading the blood of the
Lamb. The law cannot touch it. Law can't condemn me. Why? There's no condemnation to them
which are in Christ Jesus. My sins are all taken away. Did you hear that? Christ took
them away. As far as the east is from the
west, the psalmist wrote there. That means they can never meet
again. I've told you about that. If you start walking north, if
you walk long enough, pretty soon you'll be walking south.
But it's not that way with east and west. If you start walking
east, you'll always walk east. If you start walking west, you'll
always walk west. It never changes. Nothing shall separate us from
the love of God in Christ. Satan cannot touch us. The law
cannot touch us. The flesh, the world, they cannot
touch us as far as our security in Christ is concerned. Our salvation, our justification
before God. And that's what he's saying,
verse 14, he says, even they sent and took Jeremiah out of
the court of the prison and committed him unto Gedaliah, the son of
Hicham, the son of Shaphan, that he should carry him home, so
he dwelt among the people. That is the people that were
left, the poor people there, Jeremiah dwelt among. Now this
Gedaliah, he was a relative of the family, of the royal family
of Judah. came from Josiah, but he was
not in any way in line to be king, but he was placed in as
a governor. This is the one when Nebuchadnezzar
took Zedekiah away, he replaced him with this Gedaliah as the
governor to oversee the people that were left. And that name
Gedaliah, you know what the name Gedaliah means? It means Jehovah
is great. I don't suppose Nebuchadnezzar
had any idea that he was teaching a lesson there, but it was. I
know about Nebuchadnezzar now, don't get me wrong. I know about
what happened in Daniel, but that's later on. But anyway,
Gedoliah means Jehovah is great. And what we're seeing here is
the greatness of God and the salvation of his people in and
by the Lord Jesus Christ. Jeremiah was delivered. And he
was delivered by the grace of God. And he dwelt among, he was
taken home, carried him home. Where is our home? Well, we're
citizens of heaven. Our citizenship is in heaven,
a heavenly kingdom. And he dwelt among the people.
What people? Those poor people, the people
of God. And that's what happens when God brings us to Christ. We dwell with the people of God.
We're brought into partnership, fellowship. with the people of
God. That's one of those new things.
We have a new fellowship. We didn't have before. Now look
at verse 15. He says, he says, now the word
of the Lord came unto Jeremiah while he was shut up in the court
of the prison saying, go and speak to Ebed-Malik. Now you
remember Ebed-Malik. That name, that's an Ethiopian,
a Gentile. His name means servant of the
king. Picture of a willing, loving bond slave of Christ. And he's
the Ethiopian saying, thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of
Israel. No, no, uh, uh, argument about
who's speaking here. Behold, I will bring my words
upon this city for evil and not for good. And they shall be accomplished
in the day that day before they, but I will deliver the in that
day. He bit Malik. I'm going to deliver.
He's saying, Jeremiah, sin word to even Malik that when the destruction
of the city comes, I'm going to deliver you in that day. Somebody said one time, there's
another passage of scripture that's very similar to this.
They said, well, I wish the Lord would say that to me. Well, my
friend, if you're looking to Christ for all salvation, He
has said it to you. Am I right now? If you're looking
to Christ, For all hope, all security, all salvation, all
righteousness, all forgiveness, all glory, God has said it personally
to you. It's better than if he called
your name. It's better than if he said Bill Parker. Because
I know this for a fact, there's a lot of Bill Parkers in this
world. I wouldn't know which one he's talking about. We just
have to wait. But he says sinner. Say, sinner,
will you meet me on Canaan's happy shore? By the grace of
God, I'll meet you. And there we'll shout and give
Him glory. God forbid that I should glory in the cross. Is that what
you glory in? Is that what you boast in? Is
the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ your hope, your security, your
desire? David said, this is all my salvation. Nothing else is my salvation.
The fact that I killed Goliath, that's not my salvation. Aren't
you glad David killed Goliath? I am. But David said, that wasn't
my work, that's God's work. But he said, that's not my salvation.
The fact that I wrote Psalms, probably a third of them. Maybe
some people say almost a half, I don't know. But anyway, he
said, the fact that I've written a lot of Psalms, that's not my
salvation. The fact that I was a king of
Israel in the line of Judah, an ancestor of the human nature
of Christ. That's not my salvation. What
is? God has made a covenant with me that's ordered in all things
insure. How can that be, David? I know you. I've read about you. Oh, it's not conditioned on me.
It's conditioned on Christ, my surety. It's the grace and mercy
of God. That's what it's about. My friend,
if Christ is the author and finisher of your faith, God is personally,
just like he said to Ibn Malik here, he said, I will deliver
you in that day, in the day of his wrath, in the day of his
judgment, I'll deliver you. He's already delivered us. Christ
went to the cross and died for our sins and we were delivered. And he says, and thou shalt not
be given into the hand of the men of whom thou art afraid.
You won't be given over to them. Verse 18, for I will surely deliver
thee. There's no doubt here. And thou
shalt not fall by the sword, but thy life shall be for a prey
unto thee, because thou hast put thy trust in me, saith the
Lord. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Salvation. Now, turn to Galatians chapter
three and I'll conclude with this. There's that prophetic
picture of deliverance of a man named Jeremiah, a Jew of the
priestly tribe of Levi, a circumcised Jew under the old covenant. And
then here's an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a Gentile. What does that tell
you? Well, look at verse 26 of Galatians
3. It tells us this, for you are all the children of God by
faith in Christ Jesus. Christ is the key, isn't he?
For as many as you have been baptized into Christ, you put
on Christ. If you're one with Christ, united
to Christ, in electing grace, in redeeming grace, In regenerating
grace, you put him on, you believe in him. That's what that means.
When you put on Christ, that means you believe on him, you
trust in him, you submit to him. And that's all by the grace of
God. There's neither Jew nor Greek, Jew nor Gentile, you could
say it that way. There's neither bond nor free.
Jeremiah was a free man, even Melech was a bondman. But that
had nothing to do with their salvation or their deliverance.
He says, there's neither male nor female, for you are all one
in Christ Jesus. The grace of God, mercy of God,
the blood of Christ, the righteousness of Christ imputed, that's it.
That's your righteousness, that's my righteousness. Yours is no
better than mine, and mine's no better than yours, you see.
It's all Christ. In verse 29, and if you be Christ,
now read it this way, if you belong to Christ, if you belong
to him, that's what that is, it's a possessive, then are you
Abraham's seed. Ebed-Melech was Abraham's seed,
not physically, ethnically, but spiritually, and heirs according
to the promise. He was an heir according to the
promise. That's the deliverance. Oh Lord, don't deal with me after
my sins. deal with my savior and he did
alright