All right, let's open our Bibles
to Jeremiah chapter 1. The book of Jeremiah chapter
1. Now I'm just going to begin our study in Jeremiah by an introductory
message here that I've titled God's Lessons in History. God's Lessons in History. And
I want you to notice The first three verses of Jeremiah chapter
one is a history lesson in and of itself and I'm going to show
you how tonight. Somebody once said that if we
don't learn the lessons from history, we're doomed to repeat
it. Well, you're going to see here that man by nature will
not learn these lessons from history. It takes a work of God's
sovereign power and grace for us to learn these lessons. This
is what I want to deal with tonight, God's lessons in history. And
this will, I think, serve as a background and a basis for
our whole study of the book of Jeremiah, Jeremiah the prophet.
It begins here, it says, the words of Jeremiah, the son of
Hilkiah, verse 1, the son of Hilkiah, of the priests that
were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin. It says the words
of Jeremiah, but what we're going to be studying obviously is the
word of God as given and delivered through the prophet Jeremiah.
Jeremiah. You know when you look at these
names of the prophets and these names of people, sometimes they
have a real significance. The word Jeremiah, the name Jeremiah
is a little bit difficult to translate. So there are different
ideas of what it means. But I think the common consensus
is that it means Jehovah establishes. One translator says it means
Jehovah appoints or Jehovah sends. And then there's even one who
says that it means Jehovah throws down. And what I think the sense
of the whole thing there is this, that throwing down in the sense
of laying a foundation. Jehovah establishes a foundation. And Jehovah appoints a foundation. So this is what the book of Jeremiah
is about. And what is the foundation? That
Jehovah, the Lord God of grace, the Lord God Almighty, the God
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who saves sinners by
grace through Jesus Christ. What is the foundation that he
lays in the book of Jeremiah? Well, basically, it's the same
foundation that he has laid and continues to lay throughout his
word from Genesis to Revelation. And that, first of all, would
be the foundation of God's sure judgment and wrath against all
sin and unrighteousness. God is holy. God is righteous. And He judges according to truth
and He will and He must punish sin. He cannot do anything less
than punish sin. He's God. And that's the nature
of God. That's the character of God.
God cannot just turn His back on sin. God cannot look over
sin. He cannot ignore it. Why? Because
He is God. He's the judge of all the earth.
Shall not the judge of all the earth do right? And He must do
right because it's His nature. And so whenever we talk about
salvation or grace and mercy and love, and those are great,
I mean, that's part of the nature of God too. we cannot speak of
those things apart from the foundation that is laid in the very nature
and character of a holy god and that is he must bring judgment
down upon all sin, the soul that sinneth must surely die." We'll
talk about that more in a minute, but here's the next thing about
this foundation that Jeremiah sets forth. And Jeremiah talks
a lot about the judgment of God and the wrath of God against
the people of Judah, the southern kingdom of Judah. And for that
reason, the false preachers who stood against him, and there
were many, they labeled him as the burden of the Lord. That's
what they called him. It was kind of like a jab at
him. They were preaching pleasant
things to people. They were scratching the itching
ears of the people, these false preachers. And they were crying
peace when there is no peace. That's one reason I read that
first Thessalonians 5 passage. When they say peace and safety,
don't believe them. The wrath of God's coming. And
here comes Jeroboam and he's got a negative message that says
God's going to punish you. God's going to bring you into
captivity. And what these false preachers would do is we go through
this book, you'll see this. I say, oh look, here comes the
burden of the Lord. Here comes that burden. He didn't
have anything good to say about us. But that's what he's doing,
he's laying the foundation. Now the next thing about this
foundation is the fact that the goodness and the grace and the
mercy of God, and there is goodness and grace and mercy with God,
in salvation, the salvation of sinners and the restoration of
his people by the Lord Jesus Christ. and through him as he's
prophesied as the promised Messiah here. That's what Jeremiah 23
is all about. We'll go back to that in a minute.
The Lord our righteousness. So what he's saying here in laying
this foundation is that all men and women by nature deserve condemnation
and wrath. We're sinners. all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God, and the wages of sin is
near." But the next thing about it is if there is salvation,
and there is, it's by the grace of God, totally, 100% all the
way through the Lord Jesus Christ, who is Jehovah Sid Canu, that's
the Hebrew for the Lord our righteousness, only through Him. Now here, In
this book, he talks about Hilkiah, that was either Jeremiah's father
or grandfather. There's another Hilkiah that
we're going to read about in just a moment, who was the high
priest of Israel, or of Judah rather, and this is not the same
one. But Jeremiah, he was of the priestly
tribe of Levi out of the family of this man, Hilkiah. And they
lived in a town that was about three miles north of Jerusalem
called Anathoth. And that was a town that the
priest owned. That was a priestly town. And
it was part of the inheritance of the tribe of Benjamin. And
that's why it's called, why he says in the land of Benjamin
there. That was part of the tribe's inheritance. So that's the issue
there. Now look at verse two and three.
Now listen to these words. He says, To whom the word of
the Lord came in the days of Josiah, the son of Ammon, king
of Judah. You remember ever since Solomon,
the kingdom was split in two. You had the northern kingdom,
that was called Israel. The capital of the northern kingdom
was Samaria. And at this time, they were already
obliterated. They were already conquered and
taken away by the Assyrian empire. Then you had the southern kingdom
of Judah. That's where Jerusalem was. And so this Ammon was king
of Judah and his son Josiah was reigning at the time that Jeremiah
was called to be a prophet. And we'll talk about his call
in the next message Sunday night. But it says in the 13th year
of his reign, in the 13th year of Josiah's reign, verse 3, it
came also in the days of Jehoiakim. the son of Josiah king of Judah
into the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah now Zedekiah
was the last king of Judah before Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon destroyed
the city and took him off into captivity so Zedekiah the son
of Josiah king of Judah unto the carrying away of Jerusalem
captive in the fifth month now that's just a brief synopsis
of the history Well, what's it all about? Well, I want you to
write these scriptures down if you've got a pen. If you don't,
try to remember them or get them off somebody else. Because I
want you to read this. I can't give you a test about
it. But if you want to read the historical context of the whole
book of Jeremiah, read 2 Kings chapter 22 to the end of the
book, that's chapter 25. 2 Kings 22 through 25. And then another account, the
priestly account, that's the, you know, Kings is the history
of Israel from the royal account, the king's point of view. And
then Chronicles, 2 Chronicles 34 to 36, that's the priestly
point of view. Same message. Same facts, there's
no contradictions there, but just two different points of
view. You know, we talked a little bit about that in our Sunday
school, and we talked about Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and John. They're
not contradictions, they're just different points of view. So
it's 2 Kings 22 through 25. Read that. You'll be fascinated.
and 2nd Chronicles 34 through 36. That's the historical context
of Jeremiah. Now, let me put it to you this
way to tell you how relevant this is. If anybody tells you
the Bible is not relevant for today, just listen to this. Jeremiah
was a prophet of God telling the truth to his nation while
he's watching his nation go down the tubes. Now, is that not relevant? It certainly is, isn't it? That's
something like what's happening today for sure. But here's what
happened. Jeremiah prophesied through the
reign of the five last kings of Judah up to the destruction
of Jerusalem. About 586 BC, 586 years before
the birth of Christ. That's when Jerusalem and the
temple was destroyed. And after that, Jeremiah, he
was taken to Egypt and he died there. And, of course, there's
a lot of myth and a lot of legend that revolves around that. We
won't get into that. But listen to it this way. Listen
to the history. And I'm not going to belabor
this, but I want you to see some of it. Long before Jeremiah came
on the scene, in fact, probably around 100 years before Jeremiah,
70 to 100 years, there was King Ahaz. Remember King Ahaz of Judah? And King Ahaz led the people
of Judah into the darkest days of idolatry and debauchery, even
immorality, false religion. He was an evil king. You know
how the book of Kings and Chronicles, when they named these kings,
it said he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord?
Or they'll say something, he did that which was right in the
sight of the Lord. Very few times has that ever said. There's a
few. None of the kings of the northern kingdom of Israel, it's
never said of any of those kings of the northern kingdom that's
already gone by Jeremiah's time, that they did that which was
right in the eyes of the Lord. They were all evil, ungodly,
unbelieving, idolatrous, self-righteous, self-lovers. That's all they
were. Most of the kings of Judah were
the same way, but there were a few. But Ahaz wasn't one of
them. He led the people. Listen, it
was under Ahaz. If you haven't read about this,
you can see it in those passages in 2 Kings and in 2 Chronicles.
Ahaz was the one who led the people into such idolatry that
they were sacrificing their children. Now this is Israel now. This
is Judah. See? Not just Moab. They were sacrificing their babies. This is the people of God here. That's what they were doing.
Ahaz led them into sacrificing to a false god. They called him
Molech in the valley of Hinnom. That's the place that Christ
pointed to outside of Jerusalem when He talked about hell, when
He wanted to describe hell. And that's where they do it.
Sacrificing their babies. Now, can you imagine a human
being coming to that point in their depravity? But I'll tell
you what now, that's man by nature left unchecked by God Almighty. You say, well, I can't imagine
what state of mind a person would get into for that. Well, they
did it. You see, Ahaz followed the ways of the kings of the
north, of Israel. And then the Northern Kingdom
about 700 years before Christ, and this was during the time
of Isaiah. In fact, Jeremiah began prophesying
about 60 years after the death of Isaiah. They weren't contemporaries,
but it was later. But the Northern Kingdom of Israel
was conquered and taken away by the Assyrian Empire during
the reign of Hezekiah. Now Hezekiah, he was the son
of Ahaz. He came after that wicked father
of his. And Hezekiah, he reigned in Judah.
Isaiah prophesied during that time. But Hezekiah, it was said
of him that he did that which was right in the eyes of the
Lord. In fact, he led the people in a time of repentance and reform. Great time of reformation. But
then after Hezekiah, here comes another one named Manasseh, Hezekiah's
son. And Manasseh, it was said of
him, he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord. In
fact, he followed his grandfather Ahaz, and he was even worse than
Ahaz. Could you imagine that? He led
the people away from God in their darkest time of idolatry. He
brought back idolatry. He brought back child sacrifice. And you know what? He reigned
for 55 years. like that. And he remained into Jeremiah's
time. And then Manasseh's son Ammon,
after Manasseh died, his son Ammon took over. He reigned two
years and he was assassinated. And then comes Josiah. Now this
is where we are in Jeremiah. The king Josiah. His son Josiah. I want you to turn over to 2
Kings chapter 22 with me. I want to show you some things
here. Here comes Josiah, 2 Kings 22. And it says here that Josiah,
verse 1, was 8 years old when he began to reign. Yeah, 2 Kings
22. Josiah was 8 years old when he
began to reign. And he reigned 31 years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Jedida,
the daughter of Adiah of Boscat. And verse 2 says, he did, Josiah
did, that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked
in all the way of David his father. Now we know David, you know,
David was about a thousand years before Christ. So this is about
300, about somewhere around 400 or 500 years before Josiah. So, but he's talking about, he's
in the lineage of David. He's occupying the throne of
David. And he walked in all the way
of David his father, and turned not aside to the right hand or
to the left, he was straight on, following the ways of God. You see that? That's Josiah. Now you can read the rest of
this, I want to show you one other thing here in 2 Kings,
but you can read the rest of this, the next portion of 2 Kings
22. is how you remember Josiah sent
the priest into the temple which had been neglected and overgrown
and messed up to clean the temple up and to find the metals of
the temple and the money and all that and that's where Hilkiah
the high priest found the book of the Lord and he read that
He said, look at verse 8, he said, Hilkiah the high priest,
now this is not Hilkiah that is Jeremiah's father, this is
another one. He says, and Hilkiah the high
priest said unto Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book
of the law in the house of the Lord. And Hilkiah gave the book
to Shaphan and he read it. And then Shaphan took it to the
king, look at verse 11. It says, and it came to pass
when the king, this is Josiah, this is in the 18th year, of
King Josiah. So he was eight years old when
he began to reign. So what, he's 26 years old here.
And it says, it came to pass when the king had heard the words
of the book of the law that he rent, he tore his clothes. What
does that mean? That's a sign of repentance.
That's a sign of sorrow over sin. And he said in verse 13,
look at, go ye inquire of the Lord for me and for the people
and for all Judah concerning the words of this book. What
books he talking about? He's talking about the books
of Moses. Talking about the law of God. He said, that book that
is found for great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against
us because our fathers have not hearkened unto the words of this
book to do according unto all that which is written concerning
us. That's Josiah. the king at 26
years old. What shape was Israel in? Well
let me give you, I could describe a lot, but let me give you some
idea here. Look at verse chapter 23. Now this is where Josiah
was reigning, he was a godly king, and this is where Jeremiah
gets his calling and his equipping to prophesy in Judah. And listen
to what it says, look at verse 3. Now this is when Josiah, after
he found that book, he begins, they got the tent, they're cleaning
up the temple. In fact, they got the Ark of
the Covenant back in the temple, it wasn't in the temple. And
they got it back in. And verse 3 of chapter 23, it
says, and the king stood by a pillar and made a covenant before the
Lord. to walk after the Lord, to keep His commandments and
His testimonies and His statutes with all their heart and all
their soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written
in this book. And all the people stood to the
covenant." In other words, they were in agreement. And the king,
verse 4, commanded Hilkiah, the high priest and the priest of
the second order, that was the other priest. the keepers of
the door to bring forth, now listen to this, bring forth out
of the temple of the Lord all the vessels that were made for
Baal. Now you know who Baal is, that's
a false god. Now where were they bringing
the vessels of Baal out of? Out of the temple. That's how
bad it had gotten. They had filled the temple of
Solomon. This is the temple of Solomon,
folks. They had filled that temple with images and vessels that
were dedicated to the false god Baal. And he says, and for the
grove, a lot of times you'll hear Jeremiah and some of the
other prophets talk about the prophets of the groves. Those
were false prophets. They were like pantheists. They
went out and worshiped nature. I guess they were green. or whatever,
tree huggers, tree worshippers, not that I'm against environmentalism
to a point, to a point, I don't make it a religion, but anyway,
get off of that, anyway, it says, for the grove and for all the
host of heaven and he burned them without Jerusalem in the
fields of Kidron and carried the ashes of them unto Beth. So, the temple was corrupted,
you see. This is the shape Judah had gotten
into. So, think about this in this
history when Josiah, it was back here, go back to Jeremiah 1.
He said it was in the 13th year of Josiah's reign that Jeremiah
was called to be a prophet. That means Josiah was 21 years
old. And then, five years later, As Jeremiah was prophesying,
and he made the first few chapters have to do with the reign of
Josiah until Josiah was later killed. He was killed in a battle
with an Egyptian pharaoh in the valley of Megiddo. And it says,
when he was 26 years old, he began to lead the nation to repentance
and reform. And he reigned for 31 years until
he was killed. And one old writer put it this
way. Now listen, this is how it goes. It says, Josiah's reforms
put an end to the worst practices outwardly, but the deadly cancer
of sin was so deep and flourished so much again after a shallow
revival. And what happens? Here's Jeremiah
prophesying. He prophesied for over 40 years,
including the final slide of Judah into utter idolatry and
judgment. The three big powers of that
day were Assyria, which was on the demise, and Egypt and Babylon. And through Jeremiah, and Jeremiah
wasn't the only prophet who was doing this, Habakkuk and Zephaniah
were there too. They were in different parts.
Later on, Daniel and Ezekiel came along, but that was after
Nebuchadnezzar. But they were all, Jeremiah kind
of spanned them all for 40 years, a little more than 40 years.
But Jeremiah prophesied to Judah that Babylon would win out and
be used of God as an instrument of judgment against Judah. And
you know what he told them? He said, now you submit to God's
judgment. You know why? Because we by nature
deserve God's judgment. God's right. What's the first
step in godly repentance? Taking sides with God against
ourselves. Lord, if thou, Lord, shouldest
mark iniquities, who would stand? Would I deserve to stand? If
God, if God marked my iniquities, would I deserve to be set free? No, sir. Would I deserve to receive
blessing? Absolutely not. If God were to
mark my iniquities, I would deserve nothing but judgment. And that
was part of Jeremiah's message. When all that history, there's
five lessons. Let me give them to you briefly.
Number one, in all this history, we see man's natural sin and
depravity. Man left unchecked. You see,
if God lets us go our own way, there is no depths of sin and
depravity that human beings will not go. if left unhindered and
unchecked by God. Man at his best state in Israel,
you see a few times where a godly king came on the throne, Uzziah,
you remember Isaiah prophesied during the last, he prophesied
at the end of Uzziah's reign when Uzziah king Uzziah died.
You remember Uzziah, he started out as a godly king but then
he became lifted up with pride. And he took upon himself to enter
the temple and perform the duties that were only given to the priest.
And God struck him with leprosy. There you see man at his best,
man at his worst. And then you see the ungodly
kings of Judah. You see the godly kings like
Hezekiah and like Josiah. But did it work? No. If God lets us go our own way,
no matter what advantages we have or privileges we have, it's
nothing but sin and death. We are ruined by the fall. We
fell in Adam. This world is not our salvation. We are not our salvation. As
much as I love America and thank God for the freedoms that we
have and I pray that God as long as we are here on this earth
will allow us to have those freedoms. But I've got to tell you, America
is not our salvation. Israel is not our salvation.
People argue about what's going to happen over there and all
that. And listen, there are prophetic things that apply, but listen,
Christ is our salvation. Period. And so that's the first
lesson here. You look at man, man at his best,
man at his worst, he cannot save himself. And then here's the
second lesson. In all this history, we see God's
judgment against sin and unrighteousness. The wages of sin is dead. I've
already talked about that. But God must punish sin and He
will punish sin either in our persons or in the person of a
suitable, God-appointed, willing substitute. One way or the other. God is not going to let sin go. And if you want to know the greatest
proof in the history of this earth that shows that, it's the
cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. Why did Christ die on that cross?
He died for the sins of His people. Somebody said, well, He died
for the salvation of His people. Yes, but in order to save them,
He had to die for their sins. He had to be made sin that we
might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Justice had to
be satisfied, you see. Righteousness had to be established. The debt had to be paid. The
debt to God's law and justice that our sins ran up. That we
don't have one penny, one farthing to pay. Our tears can't pay it. Our religion can't pay it. Our
dedication cannot pay it. Our baptism cannot pay it. Joining
the church cannot pay it. Making a decision cannot pay
it. There's only one thing that can pay the redemption price
for the sins of God's people, and that's the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And His blood paid it all. What
does that mean? Here's the lesson. God must punish
sin. God's judgment against sin. Here's
the third lesson. In all this history, we see the
failure of sinful man to save himself from sin and from the
wrath of God. Back over here in 1 Thessalonians
5 that I read as our scripture reading. Now here, this is very
similar, what Paul is writing here is very similar to what
you'll see in the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah is telling the people
that God's impending judgment is coming. God's going to destroy
this place, you see. And Jeremiah, now there were
two other prophets recorded in the scripture, Habakkuk and Zephaniah,
who also were prophesying these things. But what we can see from
the scripture is that the true prophets of God were very, very
few. We only know three, Jeremiah
being the main one. And the false preachers were
many, many, many, many. Jeremiah was always out... He
stood alone in Jerusalem. Stood by himself. And he had
a multitude of well-respected men who the people looked up
to, who were telling a lie. And you know what their main
message was? Jeremiah records it in Jeremiah 6 and Jeremiah
8. Their main message was peace,
peace when there is no peace. Jeremiah come along and said,
God's bringing judgment down upon this place. Repent, turn
to the Lord. And they said, oh man, he just,
you know, he hadn't read the power of positive thinking today.
He just, you know, he's just old Mr. Nasty. He's the burden
of the Lord. Here he comes again. Well, listen
to what Paul says in the same vein concerning the second coming
of Christ, which is Christ coming to judge this world. Now, he's
coming to save his people. He's coming to gather his people.
But he's judging them, and here's what he says, listen. He says
in verse one, but of the times and the seasons, brethren, you
have no need that I write unto you. They didn't know the exact
time that Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon were gonna come down
and destroy the temple. He says, for yourselves know
perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in
the night. And look at verse three, for
when they shall say, peace and safety, that's the false preachers.
Everything's fine. Then sudden destruction cometh
upon them as travail upon a woman with child, and they shall not
escape." They shall not escape. Now that's Jeremiah's message
in his day to the people of Jerusalem concerning that impending judgment.
And what he shows here is that man cannot save himself. Jeremiah
tells them, you can't save yourself from this. No sir. You cannot
save yourself from the wrath of God. Not by your own efforts. Think about it. Oh, I know Ahaz
was a wicked king. Manasseh was a wicked king. Every
king after Josiah was a wicked king. But now there's Hezekiah. He came along and he brought
the people to repentance, outwardly anyway. And then there's Josiah
and he did the same thing, but they couldn't save it. They couldn't
do it. Man can't do it. The law couldn't
do it. Josiah read the book of the law
and rent his clothes. The law can't save you. For by
deeds of law shall no flesh be justified in God's sight. There
is no salvation from man, by man, from the wrath of God. It's impossible. The utter impossibility
of salvation by our works. That's what that's talking about.
By our efforts. You can improve him. You can
dress him up. You can give him all the comforts
of modern society. You can make him feel guilty
socially, religiously, in a lot of ways. But he cannot be saved
by the works and the efforts and the improvements of man.
There's no way. So here's the fourth lesson.
In all this history, we see man's need of what? Mercy. Grace. That's what we need. That's what
Jeremiah tells them. You don't need religion. You
don't need entertainment. You need mercy. You need the
sovereign mercy and grace of God, for by grace are you saved
through faith. That not of yourself, it's the
gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Paul wrote
of it in second Timothy chapter one, when he spoke of that salvation. In verse nine, God who has saved
us and called us with an holy calling, not according to our
works, but according to his own purpose. and grace which was
given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. His purpose
and His grace. You know I hear people today
and you know I know people sometimes speak without thinking. I'm not
just trying to be critical of all of them. But I hear people
say about a certain person. A certain person whom they consider
to be not a Christian or somebody that's lost. Somebody may be
immoral or somebody who's just lazy and stays home on Sunday
or something. I don't know. And they'll make
this statement. They'll say, that person really
needs to join the church. No, they don't. That person needs
mercy. And if he ever gets mercy, he'll
join the church. God will put him there. You see, you don't need to join
it. You need mercy. And I'll tell you who God shows
mercy to. His church. That's His called out ones. That's
what that literally means. Called out. That's what the church
is. And how do they get mercy? They're
redeemed by the blood of the Lamb of God. That's what we need. That's what Jeremiah is saying.
When we get into the book here, you'll see that the people were
going to the temple. Even after, you know, I know
the temple was full of Baal worship and all that. It was mixed. It's
what it was. It's kind of like today. It's like a hodgepodge
of religion. Everything goes. We're all just,
we're going to the same God. We're just going different ways.
That kind of philosophy. That's not right. Christ is the
way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by Him. It's all of grace or not at all. Mixtures and compromises
will not work in the house of God. It won't do it. Christ alone
or no Christ at all. Grace alone or no grace at all. But you see, after Josiah reforms
Jerusalem and the temple, they continue to go and worship at
the temple. I can't remember the chapter,
the section, but there's a real graphic picture where Jeremiah
describes the people as approaching the temple of God with their
arms spread, their arms up like this. And the picture that he
gives is that the more effort they put into it, the farther
away, they're backing away from the temple, they're getting farther
away from God. And what's he showing there? He's showing that
their religion, their worship, was nothing but ceremony, an
outward show. It wasn't from the heart. It
wasn't in the truth. So you see, you don't need religion.
You need Christ. And then, man's need, listen,
man's need is the righteousness of God. That's what the Gospel
reveals. Romans 1, 17. Therein is the righteousness
of God revealed. Let me show you this. Turn back
to Jeremiah 23 that I read to open our service. There's two things that man needs
in order to serve God aright. And both those needs are met
sovereignly by God in his mercy through Christ. Two things a
man needs. One's in line with this fourth
lesson. You see, man's need of mercy and grace, they all come
under that heading. Both of them come under that
heading. But man needs the righteousness of God in Christ. Man needs a
right standing before God. That's the first thing. That's
the ground of salvation right there. You must have a right
standing before God. A righteous standing. Well, how
are we going to get that? Is it by our works, our religion,
our confessions, our tears? What? Joining the church? No.
Baptism? No. Here's how you get it. Verse
5 of Jeremiah 23. Behold, the days come, saith
the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous branch. Remember what it says of Christ
in Romans 1? He was made of the seed of David according to the
flesh, his humanity. And a king shall reign and prosper.
He was declared to be the Son of God by the Spirit with power,
that's His deity. And shall execute judgment and
justice in the earth. That's Christ. How's He going
to execute judgment and justice in the earth? He's going to be
obedient to the law of God as the substitute and surety of
His people, the sin bearer, the sin offering, even unto the death
of the cross. That's how He's going to do it.
And verse six says, in his days, Judah shall be saved and Israel
shall dwell safely. Now, I personally believe that
that's talking about spiritual Israel there. That makes some
people angry these days when I say that. But let me tell you
something, whatever you think about that, if you think that's
talking about the literal nation, physical nation of Israel or
spiritual, I'm gonna tell you something right now. Whoever's
talking about here, their only hope is Christ and Him crucified
and risen again. That's one thing you've got to
agree on if you read this passage. Whoever's talking about... And
I want to tell you something, those who are submitted to Christ
as the Lord their righteousness, this is his name whereby he shall
be called, the Lord our righteousness. This is no Judeo-Christian ethic
here. This is true grace. This is Christianity
at its highest. Not there in the Old Testament.
This is the grace of God in operation in our salvation, not by our
works and efforts, but by the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul said, God forbid that I should glory save in the cross. Christ
is my righteousness. In other words, the only way
that I'm going to have a right standing before God. is to be
in Christ, to be washed in His blood and clothed in His righteousness. Now that's my first need. Well,
let me give you the fifth lesson because that brings us to the
second need. And I want you to turn to Jeremiah 31. Look at
Jeremiah 31. The second need is we need a
new heart. We need spiritual life from God. We need a right standing before
God. That's the ground of salvation.
That's what Christ accomplished in His obedience unto death.
My justification before God. And we need a new heart. We need
spiritual life. That's the fruit of what Christ
did. That's the new birth. That's
regeneration and conversion. And that's what Jeremiah was
telling them. You need Christ. He's the author and finisher
of our faith. Look at verse 31. Now he's talking
about the days of the messianic kingdom. I believe we're living
in those days right now. He says, Behold, the days come,
saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house
of Israel and with the house of Judah. Christ talked about
that new covenant with His disciples in the upper room when He instituted
the Lord's Supper. This is the New Testament. That
word testament is the same as covenant in my blood. He says,
not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers
in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of
the land of Egypt. Not going to be like the old
covenant made at Sinai. Which my covenant they break.
Now that's, what, Israel's history under the old covenant is a glaring
testimony to the fact that man cannot be saved by his works. And somebody said, well don't
look down on Israel, we're in the same shape, folks. I can't
be saved by my works either, neither can you. If you can,
you don't need Christ. You understand? If you can be
saved by your works, you don't need Christ. Because he came
to do the work that I can't do. So he says, which my covenant
they break, although I was in husband unto them, saith the
Lord. God had joined himself to Israel under that covenant
for a temporary period of time. But this shall be the covenant
that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days,
saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts and
write it in their hearts. That's talking about the new
birth. That's regeneration and conversion. And will be their
God and they shall be my people and they shall teach no more
every man his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, Know
the Lord. Remember, I think it was the prophet Amos who kept
saying that my people shall be destroyed for lack of knowledge.
They don't know God. But under this new covenant,
this spiritual covenant, the people of God will all know him.
John said it this way in John chapter 6. I think it's verse
45. He said, they shall all be taught
of God. And he says, for they shall all
know me from the least of them to the greatest of them. How
are they going to know God? They're going to know Christ. That's right. They're going to know their own
sinfulness and they're going to know His righteousness, His glory,
His redemptive work and say to the Lord, I will forgive their
iniquity and I will remember their sin no more. Now that's
just a way of saying that God will not impute their sin unto
them. He will not hold it against them.
You see, their consciences and their hearts will be cleansed. by the spiritual application
of the blood of Christ to their minds and their affections and
their will their heart and that's that's what these lessons are
lessons from history that that God brings forth and then we'll
keep these in mind as we go through and study this book of Jeremiah