All right, let's stay right there
in Jeremiah 13 But I also would like for you to turn over to
Matthew 13 because I'm going to go there in just a moment
Matthew 13 Jeremiah 13 I've entitled this message as I said in the
reading They would not hear And that of course is taken from
Jeremiah 13 verse 11, the last line there. Talking about the
people of Judah, who were known as the people of God, according
to the covenant. And understand these last three
chapters, chapters 11, 12, and 13, are the indictment that God
brings against Judah for the broken covenant. The broken covenant. You can read the whole section
there as the curses of a broken covenant. That conditional covenant
that determined according to God's good will and good pleasure
and commandment, revealed commandment, whether or not they would stay
in possession of that land and whether or not they would flourish
and prosper in that land and of course they didn't. Why? It
says it here, because they would not hear, they wouldn't heed,
they wouldn't listen to God. through his prophet. It says
in verse 10, it says, this evil people which refuse to hear my
words. And what we have here in these
first 14 verses, and actually on over to the rest of this chapter,
is a great picture of the sin and depravity of all of us by
nature. All of us by nature falling in
Adam. born dead in trespasses and sins. That's our case by nature. This
evil people which refuse to hear my words. Isn't that you and
me by nature? If left to ourselves, apart from
God's grace and power, isn't that you and me? This evil people
which refuse to hear my words. In the book of Revelation, when
the Lord, through the Apostle John, addresses the seven churches
of Asia Minor, seven times He makes this statement. He says
it this way, at the end of each segment, when He addressed each
church individually, He says, He that hath an ear, let him
hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. He that hath an
ear. And so the question comes is, do we have ears to hear?
Well, we know we have physical ears. We know that you can hear
the preacher's voice, the Word of God audibly, physically. The Bible says faith cometh by
hearing and hearing by the Word of God. And yet I think about
the evangelist Stephen, as recorded I believe it's in Acts chapter
7, standing in Jerusalem and preaching the gospel of God's
free and sovereign grace in Christ Jesus to the assembly there. And he told them the truth just
like Jeremiah is telling the truth. Basically what he said
is the Messiah has come and you've rejected him. Peter said it out
back in Acts chapter 2, the Messiah has come and you with wicked
hands have crucified and slain him. Now you did no more than
what God foreordained to be done, but you meant it for evil. God
meant it for good. This evil people. And you remember
Stephen preached that. He says you're lost. You're lost
and you need salvation. You need Christ. You need the
blood of the Lamb which you've rejected and you don't want because
you're so proud and so self-righteous. That's why they won't hear. That's
why we won't hear because of pride and self-righteousness.
And you remember when they, when Stephen finished his message,
They railed against him. They would not hear what he had
to say. Remember what he called them? He says, you stiff-necked
and uncircumcised in heart and ears. That's the problem. By nature, we have ears to hear,
but they're uncircumcised ears. They're not spiritual ears. And
that's what Jeremiah is talking about here. The Lord stood before
the religious leaders of his day in his earthly ministry.
the Pharisees and others. And he spoke to them of the freedom
that comes by the grace of God through the Son. He said, if
the Son sets you free, you're free indeed. And they invoked
Abraham. Out of their pride and self-righteousness,
they invoked the name of Abraham. We be Abraham's seed. And Christ
told them. Jesus of Nazareth stood there
and told them. He said, look, he said, if you were Abraham's
children, you'd do the works of Abraham. What did Abraham
do? What are the works of Abraham? Abraham was a sinner. He was
a sinner saved by the grace of God. What are the works of Abraham?
Abraham believed God. Abraham heard the word. His ears
were circumcised. And so the Lord told him in John
8 and verse 43, he says, why do you not understand my speech? Listen to this. He says, even
because you cannot hear my word. You cannot hear it. They were
right there in front of him. They had physical ears, but they
didn't have spiritual ears. That was the problem. And that's
the problem with the natural man. That's the problem here
in Judah. Verse 10, this evil people which
refuse to hear my words. He says in verse 11, but they
would not hear. They didn't have a will to hear.
Now there's man's will right there. They would not, they will
not hear. Just like those who said, we
will not have this man to rule over us. We will not. That's
man by nature. Now why will we not hear? As
I said, pride. Self-righteousness. Look at Matthew
chapter 13. You remember in this passage,
this is where the Lord began to speak in parables. Before
this, he had just simply stood and preached the gospel in the
common language, in words just like I'm using tonight to you. But the people refused to listen. John spoke of that in John 1.11.
It says, he came unto his own and his own received him not.
And so he begins with the parable of the sower and the seed. Who
is the sower? That's Christ and his ministers
preaching the gospel. What is the seed? That's the
gospel message wherein the glory of God is revealed in the face
of Jesus Christ. How God can be just and justify
the ungodly. That message of grace wherein
the righteousness of God is revealed. That's what I, a sinner, need.
That's what you, a sinner, need. The righteousness of God. The
merit of the obedience unto death of the Lord Jesus Christ. The
righteousness of man will do us no good, except your righteousness
exceed the righteousness of the best of men. The scribes and
Pharisees, you shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.
And so this message goes forth throughout the world. That's
what the sower and the seed is about. And it fell on different
types of ground. That represents the heart of
the center. the wayside hearer, the stony
ground hearer, the thorny ground hearer, and then there is the
good ground hearer that received that seed, received the Word
of God. But look at verse 9 of Matthew
13. The Lord said after He spoke
the parable, before He gave the explanation of it, He says, Who
hath ears to hear, let him hear. And we can just as well say today,
to our congregations, to our audience, whether it's preaching
on TV or right here, any of you, any of us who have ears to hear,
let him hear, isn't that right? Where does that kind of ear come
from? All right, look at verse 10. It says,
and the disciples came and said unto him, why speakest thou unto
them in parables? Verse 11, He answered and said
unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries
of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. Now
where do those ears come from, those spiritual ears, that circumcised
ear? Comes from God. It's a gift of
God. We don't have it naturally. It
doesn't come from deep within man. Man's depraved even to the
very core. Jeremiah spoke of that in verse
23 of this chapter, which we'll get to next time, when he says,
Can the Ethiopian change his skin? No, that's his nature.
That's how he's born. Or the leopard his spots? No.
That's how he's born. Then may you also do good that
are accustomed to do evil. That's what man does. And that's
talking about the best of men and the worst of men. Back over
here in Matthew 13, he says it's given unto you. And he says in
verse 12, for whosoever hath, to him shall be given. What do
you have? Ears to hear. And it says, and
he shall have more abundance, but whosoever hath not, from
him shall be taken away even that he hath. Think about what
Israel had. They had the tabernacle. They
had the priesthood. They had the Ten Commandments.
They had all of that. But they refused to hear, so
it was taken away. You think about it, by the time
that we get to Matthew 13 in the history of the nation Israel,
what's all happened? Well, they've been in captivity,
they've been in darkness for 400 years. They rejected the
king, the Messiah, whom they said they were waiting for, and
they refused his kingdom. And so, we're at a monumental
point here in redemptive history. Because they who were called
the people of God, and were called out of the loins of Abraham,
who were to be the channel through whom the world would be blessed,
who are the channel through whom the kingdom would come, because
that's through whom the Messiah would come. They rejected him.
And they refused the king. And they refused his kingdom. They refused the gospel of the
kingdom. Now, why is that? Well, the salvation
that he spoke of, the salvation that Jeremiah speaks of, the
salvation that our Lord spoke of here, they didn't want any
part of it. Why? Pride. Self-righteousness. You know where that shows up?
This gospel of God's grace, that one way, one truth, one life,
the Lord Jesus Christ, by his blood and righteousness alone
will not allow men to bring their own works their own righteousness
into the kingdom with them that's the problem and that's what he
says here he says he says Matthew 13 he says therefore I verse
13 I speak to them in parables because they seen see not and
hearing they hear not neither do they understand And in them
is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah. This was prophesied.
This is not God's plan gone awry. He says, by hearing you shall
hear and shall not understand and seeing you shall see and
shall not perceive for this people's heart is waxed gross. That means
grown hard. and their ears are dull of hearing,
and their eyes they have closed, lest at any time they should
see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand
with their heart, and should be converted." Converted from
what? Converted from their own righteousness
to Christ's righteousness. They would not submit to His
righteousness, you see. Converted from their own works
to God's grace. Converted from their own ways
to the only way, Christ and Him crucified and risen. They didn't
want that. And I should heal them. Now look
at verse 16 of Matthew 13. Now every one of you who have
ears to hear, you can thank God for it. But blessed are your
eyes, for they see. What do they see? They see the
glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Oh, they see our sinfulness,
our depravity. But they see more than that.
It doesn't stop there, does it? God doesn't leave us, as old
Bunyan said, in the slew of despond. He doesn't bring us down out
of our pride and humble us only to leave us in the dust. He lifts the beggar off the dung
heap and lifts us on the heights of glory that we could never
even begin to imagine. The grace of God, amazing grace. Blessed are your ears for they
hear. They hear. Now go back to Jeremiah
13. That's the whole point of this passage here. What's happening
here in Jeremiah 13 is the Lord himself through the prophet Jeremiah
illustrates these very truths that I've been talking about
with the first of what we might call several symbolic actions
that Jeremiah performed to communicate God's message to the people.
And that was a common way of God's speaking to the people
through the prophets when God commanded them to do so. We know
that, for example, in the book of Hosea, when God commanded
Hosea to marry a wife of Horeb. You see a lot of that in the
book of Ezekiel. But this particular symbolic
act confronted the leaders of the nation in Jeremiah's day
and the people with this truth. The pollution and depravity of
their sin due to their ungodly associations and the consequences
of sin leading up to their destruction. And again, this message had to
do with the curse of the broken covenant. The first thing he
brings forth here in the first 11 verses is a ruined linen girdle. Ruined linen girdle. Some say
it's a belt, a sash. But here's what the point is.
Here's what God is saying through that symbolic act. Those objects. This is an object lesson. Just
like when Christ spoke in parables, you see. Here's what He's saying. Judah, Jerusalem, the throne
of David, that physical throne, you're good for nothing. Good
for nothing. And the message there is this.
Without the grace of God, without Christ, Without ears to hear
and eyes to see, without a circumcised heart, a regenerate heart, what
are we good for? Eternally speaking, nothing. Nothing. That's the message. We'll look at it. He says, verse
1, Thus saith the Lord unto me, Go and get thee a linen girdle,
and put it upon thy loins. Most agree this is the undergarment.
That's what he's talking about. Not something worn on the outside
of the clothing, but something worn underneath the robes against
the skin. And he says, put it not in water.
That means don't wash it. Don't wash that undergarment. That's the garment close to the
skin, the loins. It pictures what the nation had
been called to be in closeness and intimacy with God. But he
says, put it not in water. Water is for washing. It's for
cleansing. You see, that shows how we, by
nature as sinners, we need to be washed, don't we? We need
to be washed clean from our sins. We need washing in two ways.
We need washing, first of all, legally by the death of Christ
for us. What can wash away my sins? Nothing but what? The blood of
Jesus. What can make me whole again? That's that legal washing.
That's Christ satisfying the justice of God by His blood,
cleansing us from the guilt and the condemnation of sin. And
then we need washing morally by the work of the Spirit in
the new birth. It's called the washing of regeneration. And
what that is is the Holy Spirit giving life, giving a new heart
that looks to Christ and is cleansed by faith, looking to Christ. But he says here, wash it not.
Don't wash it. It's a dirty inner garment showing
forth the heart and inner spirit of fallen man. That's the state
of all of us by nature. Filthy. That's what he's talking
about. Verse 2. Jeremiah agreed. He said, he
obeyed. He said, I got a girdle according
to the word of the Lord and put it on my loins. Now what did
he tell him to do with it? He says, and the word of the
Lord came unto me the second time saying, here's the follow
up, take that girdle that thou hast got which is upon thy loins
and arise and go to Euphrates. Now Euphrates was that river
that ran through Babylon. Now there's a lot of symbolism
there. Of course we know that Babylon was the nation that God
was going to use here right soon to bring his judgment down upon
Judah and Jerusalem. King Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian
Empire. He was going to come in and conquer
this nation. He's going to come in three times
with his army and take a wave of people back each time and
on the third time he literally levels this city, the city of
Jerusalem and the temple. And that's Euphrates. And that
Euphrates also being symbolic, that river that runs through
Babylon. Of course, you know Babylon is symbolic in revelation
of all false religion, any world religion that comes against God,
idolatry. So Babylon is showing here is
going to be the place of their exile. Verse 4, he says, he says,
take the girdle that thou hast got, which is upon thy loins,
rise, go to Euphrates, and hide it there in a hole of the rock. Now this is the place of their
exile. Whereas Israel was supposed to
be a glaring example and testimony to the glory of God to the world,
what's going to happen to them? They're going to go and God's
going to put them in captivity. God's going to put them in a
hole. And it's almost like they're going to cease to exist as a
nation. Now they're not because God's going to keep Judah together
until Messiah comes. But this is it. Now this Euphrates
in Babylon is about 300, 350 miles away. So this was not an
overnight trip for Jeremiah. But you can imagine how dirty
and filthy this linen garment would have been. And then hide
it there in a hole of a rock signifying that prison of obscurity
and captivity where like this linen girdle they'd rot and degenerate. He says in verse 5, look at it. He says, So I went and I hid
it by Euphrates as the Lord commanded. And it came to pass after many
days that the Lord said unto me, Arise, go to Euphrates, take
the girdle from thence which I commanded thee to hide there.
And then I went to Euphrates and digged and took the girdle
from the place where I had hid it. And behold, the girdle was
marred, and it was profitable for nothing. Now that's a great
description of fallen man. Marred. Oh, our soul from the
top of our heads to the sole of our feet. Putrefying swords. It's death is what it is. It's
death. It's rotting away and it's profitable
for nothing. Good for nothing. Israel was
brought together by Almighty God to be a glory to Him. He's going to say that in just
a moment. But they didn't glorify Him. They refused to hear Him.
They disobeyed. They would not hear. So what
are they good for? Nothing. Good for nothing. What a state to be in. And that's
separation from God. Well, look at verse 8. Then the
word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Thus saith the Lord,
after this manner will I mar the pride of Judah and the great
pride of Jerusalem. You see, that's the problem.
Their pride. What was their pride exactly? We'll go back to Jeremiah chapter
2. There are many passages we could
go to to describe the pride of Judah, the pride of Jerusalem.
And we could talk about many of the residual sins that filtered
down from this kind of action and behavior and thought. But
this pretty much covers it all, verse 13. of Jeremiah chapter
two, we talked about this earlier. He says, for my people have committed
two evils. Now I want you to think about
that statement. Now, if you'd have walked into Jerusalem during
Jeremiah's day and you started counting sins, you think you'd
only find two? Well, no, you'd find a multitude
of sins. When you look back on your own
life or look at your life today and you start counting sins,
you think you'll only find two? No, there's a multitude. In fact,
that shows the marvelousness of the grace of God. Romans 5
talks about where sin abounded. What's the problem here? The
problem is without Christ, we're nothing but sin. So he's not
saying that there's only two sins. Look at our nation. Is
there just two evils? No. We could talk about a lot
of different things, couldn't we? We could talk about murder.
We could talk about pornography. We could talk about adultery.
We could talk about abuses of the body. We could talk about
all kinds of things. Couldn't we? Here he levels it
all. This is kind of like an umbrella
that covers it all. They've committed two evils.
Here's what they've They have forsaken me, the fountain of
living waters. They've forsaken the Lord of
glory. They forsook God. They forsook Christ. That's the
first one. And hewed them out cisterns,
broken cisterns that can hold no water. They've gone after
other hopes, other ways of salvation, other things to trust in, other
things to occupy their time and take their pleasures in. And
it's all against God. Look over in Romans chapter 10
with me. That's the pride that he's talking
about. They won't hear God, they won't
hear the gospel. We'll look back at Romans chapter
9 verse 31. This is another description of
the pride of natural man. Not just one nation, but all
of us by nature. He says in verse 31 in Israel,
Romans 9, which followed after the law of righteousness hath
not attained to the law of righteousness. Israel was trying to be righteous,
he said. But he says that they didn't make it. They fell short.
Verse 32, wherefore or why? Because they sought it not by
faith, but as it were by the works of the law. What is it
to seek it by faith? It's to seek it in Christ. And
he says, for they stumbled at that stumbling stone, as it is
written, behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone. That's Christ,
a rock of a fence. This is quoted from Isaiah 28,
a prophecy of Christ. And whosoever believeth on him
shall not be ashamed. You see, Christ is our righteousness,
not the law. Christ kept the law for us, didn't
he? And he says in verse one of chapter
10, now here's their pride. Brethren, my heart's desire and
prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. For I bear
them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to
knowledge. For they being ignorant of God..."
Now, you see, where's that knowledge to be found? It's in God's Word.
But now, if you don't listen, if you don't heed God's Word,
if you don't have ears to hear, you're not going to have that
knowledge. So he says, "...for they being ignorant of God's
righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness..."
Now, there's the pride and self-righteousness of men. They've not submitted
themselves. unto the righteousness of God.
You see, when God humbles a sinner, when the Holy Spirit convinces
us of sin and of righteousness and of judgment, what do we do?
We submit to Christ. We bow to King Jesus. We submit
to His righteousness which is imputed as that which alone saves
us and justifies us. Verse 4, for Christ is the end,
the fulfillment, the finishing of the law for righteousness.
to everyone that believe it. Now that's Israel's pride. They
won't bow. That's man's pride. We won't
bow. And that's how it's summarized.
I think about that pride. I think about the parable of
the Pharisee and the publican. The Pharisee said, I thank God
I'm not like other men. I thank God I'm not an extortioner
like this publican. I thank God that I fast twice
in the week and give tithes of all that I possess. You see,
what was he pleading there? What he thought made him righteous
before God. But what did that old publican
say? God be merciful. Propitious is the word there.
To me, the sinner. I have nothing to recommend me
unto God. Look back at Jeremiah 13. Verse
10, he says, this evil people, which refuse to hear my words,
that's what evil is, refusing to hear God's word, which walk
in the imagination of their heart, the heart's deceitful, desperately
wicked, Jeremiah is going to talk about that in chapter 17,
walk after other gods, whether it be themselves or or foreign
idols, to serve them and to worship them shall even be as this girdle,
which is good for nothing, they're gonna rot and die, stink, good
for nothing, like this old linen girdle. Look at verse 11. For as the girdle cleaveth to
the loins of a man, so have I caused to cleave unto me the whole house
of Israel and the whole house of Judah. Now what he's stating
here is what Judah should have been. what Israel should have
been. They should have clung to God.
Let me tell you something. We can talk about a lot of things
we should do and rightly so. And we probably, probably convict
every one of us. But I'm going to tell you something
we should do without fail and that is cling to Christ for all
salvation. Don't let go and if you're his
if you've got ears to hear and eyes to see if he's given you
a new heart You won't let go of him and and the reason is
because he won't let go of you But they should have clung to
the lord of glory And he says in verse 11. Listen, listen notice
how he expresses his revealed purpose in calling them Into
into under this covenant. He says that they might be unto
me for a people that they might be his people now all this is
according to the terms of that conditional covenant now and
he says and for a name that is for renowned that is what was
their name Israel the people of God people who prevailed with
God is not to make a name for themselves but is to glorify
God and for a praise that is to worship him and honor him,
and for a glory, that is, his presence among them, his glory,
his Shekinah glory, but they would not hear." Now there it
is. Oh Lord, thank you for ears to
hear. Man cannot be saved according
to the terms of a conditional covenant towards man. That's
the bottom line here. They would not hear. Why? Why did the disciples hear? And these people did. These people
did not hear. Christ said, blessed are your
ears for they hear. Why? Because you're blessed.
The grace of God. In other words, do you hear with
the spiritual ear? What's the difference between
you and these right here who would not hear? Are you better
than them? Are you smarter than them? Only
one difference, isn't there? The grace of Almighty God in
Christ. Isn't that it? Christ said, My
sheep hear My voice. He told the Pharisees, He says,
You're not of My sheep, therefore you don't hear. John chapter
10. What's the difference between
we who hear, we who heed, we who obey, and those who refuse
to hear His words? What's the difference? Well,
we're Americans. Is that the difference? Well,
not only are we Americans, we live on the Bible Belt. Is that
the difference? Where was the Bible Belt back
then? I'd say Jerusalem was pretty
much the buckle on it, wasn't it? Didn't do them any good. What's the difference? Wherein
lies the difference? Who makes us to differ? It's
not our will. It's not our goodness. It's not
that we're less stubborn and less rebellious or less stiff-necked. It's because God by His sovereign
power and mercy has given us. Under you it is given. Why did
He give it to you? Why did He give it to me? I don't
know. I know it just seemed good in
His sight. Think about that. You see right here, they would
not hear. That's a graphic picture of our ruination in the fall
of Adam. It's a graphic explanation of
how we need to be born again. You must be born again, Christ
said, or you cannot see or enter the kingdom of heaven. Apart
from that new birth, The light comes in, the light of God's
Word in Christ, and what does it say in John 3, 19? Men love
darkness and hate the light. Do you hate the light or do you
love the light? I can say I love the light. What's
the difference between me and those who love darkness? Not
but one thing. The marvelous, sovereign power
and mercy of God in Christ. By grace, by the grace of God,
I am what I am. And listen, under that covenant
here that Jeremiah and the people of the nation are under, if it's conditioned on them,
they cannot conquer sin. They cannot conquer spiritual
death. Sin will bring us to utter decay and death, separate us
even more from God and render us good for nothing. Look at
verse 12, I'll hurry. Here's the smashed bottles of
wine. He's talking about wine skins
literally here. Here's what he says, here's the
proclamation of God's wrath. He says, therefore thou shalt
speak unto them this word, thus saith the Lord God of Israel,
every bottle shall be filled with wine. Now he's talking about
the wine of wrath. He's talking about God's gonna
fill them with the wine of his wrath, and that wine, the dregs
of the cup of trembling, His fury, he said over in Isaiah,
and he says, every bottle shall be filled with wine, and they
shall say unto thee, do we not certainly know that every bottle
shall be filled with wine? Now, the people knew that wineskins
were made to be filled with wine. But they didn't get the message
here, you see. So here's what he says, verse 13, Then shalt
thou say unto them, Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will fill
all the inhabitants of this land. I'm not talking about literal
wineskins. I'm talking about you, he said. I'm talking about
the people of this nation. All the inhabitants of this land.
Even the kings that sat upon David's throne. Even those that
continued on that throne of David. That literal, physical throne.
And the priest. The tribe of Levi, you see. Who's
he talking about? He's talking about all who refuse
to hear. They would not hear. And he says,
and the prophets. That's the false prophets. Jeremiah
was a prophet, but he was God's prophet. He told the truth. And
all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Jerusalem will be no refuge for
you. The temple will be no refuge
for you. With drunkenness. Drunk on what? The wrath of God. What does that
mean? Verse 14, And I'll dash them
one against another, even the fathers and the sons together,
saith the Lord, I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but
destroy them. What's the message? Well, they're
going to be like drunk people walking in the dark. And there'll
be no pity, there'll be no mercy. Why is that? Because without
the Lord, there is no pity and no mercy. Without Christ, there
is no pity and no mercy. What did that publican say? God
be merciful to me, the sinner. Where's that mercy to be found?
Well, where was that pictured back here? In the temple, in
the very central, central holy of holies, above the mercy seat,
a picture of Christ, where the blood of the lamb was sprinkled. Without Christ, there's no pity,
there's no mercy, there's no salvation to be found. So what's the message? It's not
just a negative, my friend. It's a message of hope. Flee
from the wrath to come. Where are you going to flee to?
Flee to Christ. Isn't that it? Flee to Christ. I thought about this when he
talked about putting that linen girdle and hiding in a hole of
the rock. That's a cleft of the rock. And I thought about, you
know, the opposite of that on the side of God's grace. is how
God hides our souls in the cleft of the rock, and that rock is
Christ. And there's no filth there. It's the blood-washed
sinner. There's no unrighteousness there.
That's the justified sinner. There's no rotting and decay
and stench there. That's the one who's cleansed,
washed clean and white in the blood of the Lamb.