I invite you to turn back in
your Bibles this morning to the book of Jeremiah, chapter 31.
The book of Jeremiah, chapter 31. The subject this morning is the
subject of satisfaction, something that everyone should be interested
in. And I want to use two verses
that I've read already to you out of this 31st chapter of Jeremiah
for my text. The first verse is verse 14,
where it says, and I will satisfy, the word satate there is satisfy,
and that is I'll satisfy the soul of the priest with fatness,
and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness, saith the Lord. And then also in this 31st chapter,
I want you to look with me at verse 25. He says, for I have
satated or satisfied the weary soul, and I have replenished
every sorrowful soul. I announced to you this morning
that our subject is the subject of satisfaction. And I want to
speak to you that know and trust the Lord Jesus Christ in earnest
hope this morning that all of you may enjoy this satisfaction
that is mentioned to us in this text and that you'll not only
have it later, but that you'll have it even this morning in
this very hour. Now there are four forms of satisfaction
that seems to me is described in the two verses that we have
selected this morning for our text. Now I'm not implying today
that we're going to have all the satisfaction that God will
ever give us in this life because that's not true and I don't want
to imply that because David said in Psalms in Psalm 17 and verse
15 he says as for me I will behold thy face in righteousness I shall
be satisfied when I awake in thy likeness so when the people
of God are like the Lord Jesus Christ in eternal glory, they'll
be completely and fully satisfied. But the emphasis this morning
will be on some satisfaction that we can enjoy here. We do
know, and as the Psalms further state, Psalm 16 and verse 11,
it says, and in thy presence is fullness of joy, and at thy
right hand there are pleasures forevermore. That's speaking
of in the life to come. That's speaking of in eternity
to come. So we know that there are pleasures
forevermore at the right hand of God and there's fullness of
joy in eternity. But I'm interested this morning
in some satisfaction here right here in this world. I'm interested
in seeing the needs of God's living family met here and see
that the Lord's people are encouraged and built up in the holy faith
and are given strength through the Lord having satisfied the
needs of their souls, enabling them to be of further use in
his kingdom in this world. Well, here in the text today,
we have described the satisfaction for the Lord's people for this
life to enjoy in this pilgrimage on earth, in this land of sorrow,
in this veil of tears. Is it too much to hope, really,
that we could be satisfied inwardly by the blessing of God through
the application of the truth to our hearts? Oh, listen to
me. If you're thirsty this morning, if you're hungry for the fulfilling
of satisfaction, the fulfilling of these texts to your heart,
beloved. I want you to listen carefully and be praying as I
try to speak to you today. I'm still having some difficulty
with my throat, but you pray that the Lord will be pleased
to bless what is said to the hearts of these around you here
gathered in this building this morning. Well, the first of these
four forms of satisfaction is God's servants are to be satisfied
with the appointed sacrifice. Look, if you will, at the first
sentence of verse 14, where the prophet Jeremiah said, and I
will satisfy the soul of the priest with fatness. I will satisfy
the soul of the priest with fatness. Now, this verse of scripture,
this verse, speaks of how the Lord is to satisfy and how that
the people of God are to become satisfied to the full through
the sacrifice that is here mentioned. Now, God's people are His children,
but they're also His servants, and their servants viewed from
one spatial point is that of a priest. that is mentioned here,
the priest shall be satisfied with the sacrifice. Now Christ
has made all of us who believe on him to be kings and priests
unto our God. It is the business of every Christian
to be a priest. And there is no special order
of priesthood now, apart from the general body of believers
in Jesus Christ. The priesthood of the believers,
this is taught, beloved, in the Word of God. In 1 Peter 2, in
verse 5, there's a verse of scripture that sets this forth. very clearly, where Peter says,
you also as lively stones are built up a spiritual house and
holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God
by Jesus Christ. So here we're told, the scripture
speaks of the priesthood of all those who believe. that every
man, woman, and child who's a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is a
priest in that they can offer sacrifices holy and acceptable
unto God through Jesus Christ. And this is what this means here,
and this is certainly speaking, and I'll explain it to you in
just a moment or two, certainly speaking of gospel times and
speaking of the priesthood of the believer, even those that
are living in our time, in that that we'll explain about this
fatness of the sacrifice and how that those priests that live
back in the Old Testament that they were not allowed to eat
the fatness of the sacrifice under penalty of death but now
in gospel times those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and
those who have a heart faith in Christ they are spiritual
priests unto God and they can eat the fat of the sacrifice. Praise the Lord, we can eat the
fat of the sacrifice. Now we're to regard the use of
the term priest as relating to any other persons as utterly
misleading and untrue. The Bible says there is one mediator
between God and man, and that is the man Christ Jesus. And
every man who's a Christian is a priest, as we said, unto God,
and he can daily offer unto God sacrifices. He can offer the
sacrifice of prayer and the sacrifice of thanksgiving unto God. And his whole life is to be a
sacrifice. We read in Romans 12 and 1, it's
to be a holy and acceptable sacrifice unto God, the whole of the life
of the believer. And wherever the believer finds
himself, That should be a temple for God's worship right there.
You know, it's not necessary that we have a particular building. Somebody said, we're going to
go worship this morning. Well, that's wonderful. That's
good. But you could worship at home. You see, you're a priest
unto God, and you can offer. prayer and thanksgiving unto
God wherever you are. Whether you're in a building
that is designated for that purpose or not, you can offer unto God
sacrifice. So wherever a believer finds
himself, that's a place where he can worship, his own house.
And every room in his house should be consecrated to the Lord's
service. Is it so with your home? I mean,
do you feel that in any room of your house, that any closet,
do you feel that in your garage, do you feel that in your basement
or your attic, you could bow on your knee and pray to God,
that you could offer sacrifice unto God? Well, it is because
we're all priests unto God that we can do that. Every action
of our life should be the act of one who is holy unto the Lord
and who does everything with a view to the glory of God. Well,
a priest, of course, must have a sacrifice, and it is the special
privilege of the priest of God that they shall be satisfied
by eating the fat of that sacrifice. Now, according to the seventh
chapter of Leviticus, the Aaronic priests were forbidden to eat
the fat of the sacrifice. As a matter of fact, as we stated
a little earlier, to eat any portion of the fat of a beast
that had been sacrificed to God was a crime that was punishable
with death. Now, there were certain portions
of the sacrificial animals that were allotted to the priest.
But all that was described as the fatbearer of was for God
and for God alone. So that under the Jewish dispensation,
the priest could never be satisfied with fatness. But Christ has
made us priests after another order than that of Aaron, and
the richest part of the sacrifice, the very fat of it, is ours to
feed upon as the Lord's children. Brethren, what is the sacrifice
of which we speak today? We know of no other. atoning
sacrifice, but the blessed person, body, soul, spirit, and blood
of Jesus Christ, our incarnate God and Savior. It is with this
sacrifice that believers are perfectly satisfied. Now, beloved, it's wonderful
to know the Lord Jesus Christ, and I want to try to set forth
to you how it is that believers are satisfied with the sacrifice
of our Lord Jesus Christ. First of all, we're satisfied
with Christ as our sin offering, as our sin offering. Brethren,
he did really take upon himself our sins, and he did make an
end of it upon the cross. Now, beloved, there's nothing
that's going to satisfy a sinner's soul unless and until he finds
a sacrifice that will completely take care of his sin. A sacrifice
made on his behalf that God will accept that will completely make
him have a standing before God as if he had never committed
a sin. I mean one that would bear in his own body our sin,
one that would take upon himself all that we are in a state of
nature, and one that would die in order to satisfy the penalty
of the inflexible justice of God on our behalf. And that one,
my friend, is the Lord Jesus Christ. Believing in Christ Jesus,
we have no more conscience of sin so far as the guilt is concerned. The Bible says, who shall lay
anything to the charge of God's elect? It is Christ that died. Beloved, this sacrifice of our
Lord Jesus completely satisfies me. Because my sin are blotted
out, I know. My sin has been put under the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And my sins have been paid for
to the full. They're buried in the depths
of the deepest sea. And it's because of this that
there's satisfaction in my soul today. I'll never have to face
my sins again, because they've been put away through the sacrifice
and death of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, when Christ took our sins,
they were all laid on Him, and not one of them is left on us. We are clear of them in God's
sight. Our sins were laid on the Lord
Jesus Christ, and they cannot be two places. When He was nailed
to the accursed tree, Without and beyond the gate, he presented
a sin offering for our sake, and that one offering was effectual,
for by it he fulfilled the great prophecy concerning the Messiah,
the Prince, who was to come to finish transgressions and to
make an end of sins and make reconciliation for iniquity and
bring in everlasting righteousness. Are you satisfied with Him? God's
satisfied with Him and I'm satisfied with Him because He took care
of that which separated me from God and that is my sin and my
guilt. God has taken care of all of
that, and He's reconciled me unto Himself through the work
of the God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ. Brother, sister, you
believe this great truth, and I'm sure if you believe it deeply
in your heart that you're satisfied with it. I know you are. The
hymn says, What can wash away our sin? Nothing but the blood
of Jesus. What better way of atonement
than that Christ should bear the wrath of God in his own body
on the tree? Beloved, if that be the case,
we can see that we are satisfied, we can be, and we can rest ourselves
fully in that sacrifice. We can eat of the fat of that
sacrifice and it will be a constant and perpetual blessing and stay
to our hearts as we pilgrimage here in this world. Now secondly,
we're satisfied with Christ as our sweet-smelling sacrifice
before God. In Ephesians 5 and verse 2, and
it says this, and walk in love as Christ also hath loved us
and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to
God for a sweet-smelling savor. A sweet-smelling savor. Now, when I think of this, I'm
made to rejoice. You see, beloved, the Lord Jesus
Christ, his sacrifice In the nostrils of God, it had a sweet
smell. It had a sweet smell. His sacrifice
was acceptable unto God. It was the sacrifice that God
had appointed that must be made in order that his people would
be delivered. And so when I think about this
sweet smell and sacrifice, I know that God on my behalf as he delivered
up his son that he received from the delivering up of Jesus on
my behalf that he received this sweet fragrance that rose from
Mount Calvary and rose up in the nostrils of God and it satisfied
God. God is satisfied and why should
I not be satisfied? And if God has received this
sacrifice that is of a sweet savor, then beloved you and I
can be satisfied this morning and rejoice in that. You and
I who believe in him are satisfied that God is well pleased with
him and also well pleased with us who are represented in him. If we be in Him today, then He
was our representative and so therefore we in Him have offered
as it were a sacrifice that smells good in the nostrils of God. Now beloved, if you come with
any other sacrifice If you come with any other sacrifice, it
will not be sweet-smelling in the nostrils of God. You say,
well, I think I have somewhat to offer. My friend, do not disgrace
God by offering something of your own hands that has a stench
to it, the stench of sin. We know that even our righteousness
are as filthy rags in the sight of God. And we know this morning
that there's a stench to everything that man does. All of our righteousness,
God said, it's an abomination to me and it stinks before me. No, my friend, if you're ever
gonna have a heart that is satisfied and one that is so satisfied
that you can rest your soul and the case of your soul, it'll
be whenever you present unto God this sacrifice and whenever
you come before God in the name of Jesus and when you worship
God through the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus said, I am the door. By me, if any man enter in, he
shall be saved and shall go in and out and find pasture. I'm
not a door, I'm the door. I am the door. And by me, if
any man enter in, he'll be saved. Jesus said, I'm the way, the
truth, and the life. No man can come unto the Father
but by me. But if you come through Christ
and through this sacrifice, God the Father is well pleased. And
the sacrifice that Jesus made Oh, my friend, is a sweet savor
in the nostrils of God. We were by faith wrapped in the
righteousness of Jesus Christ, with his finished work imputed
to us, are beautiful in the sight of God, excepted in the beloved. He says, thou art all fair, my
love, there is no spot in thee. Well, the fatness of that sacrifice
has filled us and delighted our souls. Brothers and sisters,
study the gospel. Study the gospel till you see
and are satisfied about the one offering that Jesus made. That one offering that hath perfected
forever them that are set apart unto God by it. Study the gospel
until it just permeates your soul and until you can rejoice
in it. And forget all about whether
a man can come to God any other way. There is no other way. We've
stated that. We've made that clear to you.
Christ is the sacrifice. Eat the fat of that sacrifice
and be satisfied. What more could we ever want
to hope to find with regards to a sacrifice than the sacrifice
of Christ which fills and overfills us. The psalmist said, my cup
runneth over. It satisfies my conscience. that
was once burdened, once troubled, once perplexed, but not anymore,
bless God. He visited my sins upon Christ,
and this, my friend, is the fact of the sacrifice. Now I want
to say this, that the sacrifice that Jesus made It satisfies
our affection. Now, you want somebody to love. I know you do. I think that it's
a necessity that everybody have somebody to love. Everybody wants
to be loved. You cannot go through the world
simply living on the inside of your own ribs. You must live
in somebody's heart. Now, beloved, if you live and
give your heart all together to any human being, I believe
that eventually you'll be disappointed. If you give your whole heart
to an individual in this world, to a creature, you're going to
be disappointed. But oh, when you love Christ. your heart. He'll satisfy the
affection of your soul and then you'll be capable of loving another
human being like they ought to be loved and like you ought to
love them. You'll be capable of doing that when you live wholly
for Him. Then you'll have something that
fills your heart right up and you will have put Him first place
and that's the place that Jesus Christ will have in the life
of every one of His children first place. And the reason why
there is so much bitter disappointment in this world is because people
go around giving their affection, their heart, number one, to other
humans. Instead of setting it up on the
Lord. And instead of trusting God,
number one, and leaving their life's care in His hands. Here
your love can rest. And it can build, my friend,
when it builds upon the life and merit and wounds of the Lord
Jesus Christ. This is the fatness of the sacrifice
that satisfies the soul of the priesthood of the believers.
Well, I have to leave this particular satisfaction. I thought this
was the most prominent one and the most important one, and that
is the sacrifice of Christ and how it will satisfy us through
and through. Now I'll leave this and go on
to number two, and that is that God's people are satisfied with
God's goodness. And we read that also in verse
14, in the B part of the verse, and it says, and my people shall
be satisfied with my goodness, sayeth the Lord. with my goodness. Now let me tell you about this.
We are satisfied, we read in the book of Nahum, that the Lord
is good. It says the Lord is good. It
says that he's a stronghold in the day of trouble and he knoweth
them that trust in him. And so, first of all, let me
remark that we're satisfied with God's eternal goodness. His eternal goodness, and I think
that's wrapped up, His goodness is wrapped up in His eternal
purpose. God's goodness manifests itself
in His eternal purpose towards us. Paul would say, all the riches
of His grace. Our names were written in the
book of life. If we're children of God, He
chose us from the foundation of the world to be His, to belong
to Him. We're going to be satisfied with
His goodness toward us. Before light ever dawned, He
saw us and loved us. with an everlasting love. Verse
3 of Jeremiah 31 says, The Lord hath appeared of old unto me,
saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love. Therefore
with lovingkindness have I drawn thee. And so, my friend, we are
satisfied with the purpose of God, the eternal purpose of God
toward us. God loved us before we were ever,
before we were thought of. in the minds of our parents.
God loved us before we were conceived in the womb. God loved us in
old eternity and has set his love upon us back yonder in order
to do us good in time. And so turn it over in your mind,
this eternal goodness of God's toward your wayward soul. There's
a poem that said, loved of my God for him again with love intense
I burn. Chosen of the year, time began. I choose thee in return." Well,
out of the goodness which satisfies, there's some other things that
comes, and one of them is the adoption of children into God's
family. The Lord has took us out of the
family of the prince of darkness, and he has made us his own sons
and daughters. The Lord has delivered us out
of the kingdom of darkness and delivered us into the kingdom
of His dear Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We've been adopted into
God's family. If we're God's children, we're
members of His many-membered family. And this is a great satisfaction. Everybody delights. Well, most
everybody. I've known of a few that didn't
delight in their families. But isn't it a wonderful thing
to be a member of God's family? The only way you can be a member
of God's family is for God to adopt you into His family. And
the only way He's going to do that is through grace. And He
does that. Now there are privileges that
go along with that. In John 1.12 it says, But as
many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons
of God, even to them that believe on His name. And verse 13 says,
which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh,
nor of the will of man, but of God. Now what that means is,
but to as many as received him, to them gave he the privilege
of becoming the sons of God. The privilege, they have the
power and honor bestowed upon them to call themselves the sons
of God. Now the world, John said, it
doesn't know Him, and so it doesn't know us. He said, Beloved, now
are we the sons of God. It does not yet appear what we
shall be, but we know that we shall be like Him when we shall
see Him as He is, but now we're the sons of God. We're the sons
of God. God has bestowed the honor upon
me through an option that I can go out and say, that a poor sinner, a son of
Adam, lost and undone, came to an hour in his life when all
of that changed, and now I'm a member of the family of God
through adoption through the Lord Jesus Christ. For if children,
the Bible says, then heirs of God join heirs with Christ. Earthly
sovereigns are accustomed to confer titles of nobility upon
certain of their subjects, and there might be some honor in
that. very little and it don't last long, but when God makes
a man his child and puts him among that one divine royal family
of the universe, oh my friend, what a wonderful blessing that
is to be a member of God's family. In comparison to this, what family
are you a member of? You say, well, I'm proud to say
that I'm a family of so-and-so and so-and-so. Well, and that's
good, and that's fine, and that's all right. But I'll tell you
there, don't let it in there. Don't let it in there, my friend.
Unless you're a member of the family of God, you cannot be
satisfied inwardly in your soul in this life. You looking for
something? They tell me everybody's looking for something. Everybody's
dissatisfied to a degree. If you want to be satisfied,
the Bible says in Proverbs chapter 27, in verse 20, it said, Hell
and destruction are never full, and the eyes of man are never
satisfied. You're looking for something,
but you're not satisfied. Well, if you were to find the
sacrifice and eat the fat of it, if you were to discover that
God is good, and if you were to understand the goodness of
God toward believing sinners, then I believe, I believe that
that satisfaction that you've been looking for, that you'd
find it in your heart. And to know that you're a member
of God's family. Wonderful, wonderful. Now then,
this satisfies the people of God. Now I want us to think just
a little bit further here that God treats us as members of his
family. This is another part of our being
satisfied. Perhaps at the present moment
you do not feel quite satisfied with God's dealings with you.
Now you're a Christian, you profess to be one. And you say, well
I'm not really satisfied. Now I know he deals with us as
a father with his children. As a father would deal with his
children. God deals with us. A good father would deal with
his children. I believe that's the way God deals. But if we're
in a right spirit, we may not be satisfied this morning with
every aspect of the way the Lord's dealing with us. There may be
times when we're being chastened to the Lord. There may be times
when God's hand is heavy upon us. It may be that God is correcting
us today, and we may not be completely satisfied with that. We may feel
somewhat that maybe the Lord is being hard on us. But if we're
in the right spirit, then if faith is active and in exercise,
I think that we are going to say shortly concerning the Lord's
dealings with us that whatever pleases Him, pleases us. Because
we know that God is, and you know one of the difficult things
for a preacher to do that believes that all things work together
for good to them that love God, and to them who are called according
to His purpose? One of the most difficult things
that they have to do is stand in front of people who are suffering,
really suffering. People that are having difficult
times, and people that are separated from loved ones, and people who've
experienced bereavement in their life recently, Stand before them
and say, God's dealing with you out of love and mercy and kindness
and grace and eventually all of this is going to be for your
good and for God's glory. People look at you and they say,
well what's he talking about? What's he talking about? I mean,
I just lost my cousin. I just lost my aunt. I mean,
I know this one who just had this awful problem. I'm having
difficult times. And preacher don't stand up there
and tell us. that we ought to be satisfied with God's dealings
with us. Well, I'm here to tell you today
as a representative of the God of the Bible that He's good.
And I'm here to tell you that God never does anything but what
was good. And I'm here to tell you that
whatever He does in your life and mine that eventually we'll
say amen to the fact that it was for our good and for his
glory and we'll say amen to it and we'll be glad for his fatherly
dealings in our lives. So I'll be satisfied with whatever
he does for it's all in goodness and it is written my people shall
be satisfied with my goodness and I think if there's a problem
then that problem that is with me, that I haven't studied the
goodness of God, that I haven't really believed in it like I
ought to. And if I'll believe in it as
I should, then I'll be happy. This is the state of mind. I
believe we'll be content, happiness has come to us, and we'll be
done with wishing for any alterations in God's dealing with us. We'll
be done with it. To be satisfied with whatever
He gives, and just as satisfied when he withholds it, to be even
as a weaned child, crying no more after this poor world, but
give yourself up entirely to your loving father's care. Our
lives reflect the goodness of God. Do you believe that? Has
God been good to you? Has he been good to you? Well,
I'm often made to say, Lord, thank you, that things are as
well with me as they are. Because you know you can look
around and you can see that things are not as well with a whole
lot of people as they are with you. And I believe for the Lord's
people that many, many times we're going to be tried and tested
as to whether or not we believe in God's goodness or not. And
I tell you He's good to His people. The Lord is good to His people. Now, I want to go ahead on, brethren. I've got a couple more things
here I need to say. When it comes down to our prospects for the
future, it's wonderful that they're in the hands of a God who's good.
I don't have any doubt that God has made provision for His people
in the covenant of grace, and that all will be well with these
people, and that it shall be well with the righteous. And
when eternity's morning dawns, we will see if there ever is
a day when God lays out before us how he led us, how he guided
us, and the pitfalls that we missed. And the various situations
that he sheltered us from, shielded us from, and kept us from in
this world, when we're gonna, in that day and time, sing as
never before of the goodness of God toward us. And then I
thought too about our children. their prospects. Could we want
more for them than what God Almighty
has prepared for them that love Him? Could we want more? Let
me but have God's goodness, and all may be as God wills. Grant me thy favor, grant my
children thy favor, and I'll make no choice of continent,
no choice of climate, no choice of poverty or wealth or sickness
or health, of time to live or time to die. Lord, grant me thy
goodness and grant my children thy goodness, thy favor, thy
grace. Reveal thy goodness unto my family
and to my children. May they experience it. Furthermore,
we do not want anything better We do not want anything better
than God's goodness toward everyone that we love. We're concerned
about the prospects of those that we love, but all we want
for them is that they would be satisfied with God's goodness
and experience it in their own lives. Now, I want to skip on
down here to this third thing, and I'll have to hurry because
the time has really gotten away from me. This third sentence
we find over here in verse 25. And look at it with me here.
It says, For I have satisfied the weary soul. I've satisfied
the weary soul. You know, what I think I'll do. The time
has gotten away, and I just feel that I could do more with this
if I just took it up again next week. I think that's what I'll
do. I just feel that we need a little
time to think about what has been said. There's been an awful
lot said already. And so I want you to think about
what we have said, being satisfied with the fatness of the sacrifice
of our Lord Jesus, and then being satisfied with the Lord's goodness.
Meditate on that. Give your hearts to it. And the
Lord willing, next week, we'll talk about how that the Lord
satisfies a weary soul and how the Lord replenishes and fills
the hearts of the sorrowful. And I hope that God has somehow
or other given you something that you can take with you today
and it'll be a blessing to you. And may we all feel better after
a while and have a little bit more of a liberty in our hearts
to express what we have to express. Let's pray. Father, in the name
of Jesus, give a blessing to this congregation. May we all
go out of here rejoicing in the Lord Jesus Christ, who loved
us and gave himself for us, and may the goodness O Lord, by goodness,
may it stay with us, and may we rejoice in it and be glad,
and may we rejoice about our futures, knowing that the Lord
is good and that He is a blesser of those that trust Him and those
that rely upon Him. Have mercy upon us all, O Lord,
that we may glorify Thee in our lives in this world. In Jesus'
name we pray, amen.