Behind us again, this coming
Sunday evening after the worship service, we will have fellowship
for all of you who would like to remain. And we've asked that
you bring either sandwiches or something in a slow cooker. And
I know Some of you may say, I don't like to eat that late. Well,
some of us do. So you just come and watch me.
Just come and watch me. Let's open our Bibles tonight
to Jeremiah chapter 17. Jeremiah chapter 17. We've been studying, as most
of you know, on Wednesday evenings in 2nd Corinthians. But this
is the last Wednesday in this year. And so I wanted us to look
at this passage. I want us to see what God says
about the blessed man. Notice in verse 7, blessed is
the man. I want us to think tonight about
the man that God calls blessed. But let's look at the context
first, the context in which this text is given to us. Jeremiah,
we know, prophesied to the nation of Judah at the time that they
were carried into captivity, 70 years captivity. He prophesied
up to that time and even after that time. In this message, where
he speaks of the blessed man, he also enumerates or gives us
four sins. Four sins that had brought this
judgment upon the nation of Judah. The fact that they were going
to be taken into captivity. There are four sins that he mentions. in this chapter, in this message. The first sin is the sin of idolatry,
if you will, in verses one through four. The sin of Judah is written
with a pen of iron and with the point of a diamond. It is graven
upon the table of their heart and upon the horns of your altars,
plural, whilst their children remember their altars and their
groves by the green trees upon the high hills, O my mountain
in the field, I will give thy substance and all thy treasures
to the spoil, and thy high places for sin throughout all thy borders. And thou, even thyself, shalt
discontinue from thine heritage, that is the land that I gave
thee, And I will cause thee to serve thine enemies in the land
which thou knowest not. For you have kindled a fire in
mine anger, which shall burn forever. The first sin that is
mentioned here is the sin of idolatry. And God, through the
prophet Jeremiah, tells the nation this sin was, as it were, graven
upon the tables of their hearts with an iron pin. In other words,
it was scored so deep upon their hearts, idolatry, this sin, that
it could not be removed. Have you ever scratched something
like that? Our windshield wiper, it was
wore out, and the windshield wiper was doing this, and before
I realized what had happened, it was scratching the windshield.
Now that scratch is there. I've tried to get it out. Now
there may be some way to get it out, but I haven't found it. But that's what the prophet is
saying here. The sin of idolatry was engraven
upon their heart like a glazier would use a diamond to cut glass,
or with a point of iron. It was upon, and their children,
remember this nation even engaged in that most wicked of all abominations,
And that is they burned their children to the prophet of Baal. And the prophet here says that
the names of their idols were written upon their altars. So
that's the first sin. The second sin we see was their
confidence in men. Confidence in men. Notice in
verse 5, Thus saith the Lord, Cursed be the man that trusteth
in man. and maketh flesh his arm, and
whose heart departeth from the Lord. For he shall be like the
heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh, but
shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt
land, and not inhabited." They trusted in the armies of Assyria
and Egypt. They sent money to these kings
and hired their armies to come to save them from the Babylonians. But Nebuchadnezzar, the king
of Babylon, we know what he did to Egypt's army. They trusted
in man. You know, when the Lord Jesus
Christ came into this world, the nation of Israel, the Jews,
they still trusted in man. But then they said, we'd be Abraham's
children. Remember in John chapter 8, he
said, if the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. Here they were in Roman bondage,
civil bondage, at that particular time, and yet they responded
back, we be Abraham's children. We never were in bondage to any
man. They trusted in man, they trusted
in their relationship, that they were children of Abraham. We
know that God spoke through Moses, but for this prophet, The confidence
that they placed in man was a sin. It was a wicked sin. Rather than
to trust in God, to have their dependence, their assurance,
their confidence in Almighty God and in His power. Remember, God told them as a
nation not even to have horses. The kings were not allowed to
have horses, but we know they did. They were to destroy those
horses when they went out in battle and defeated an army.
God gave them the victory. Then the horses of those foreign
armies, they were to be destroyed. What was God teaching them? God
was teaching them that He, God, was their strength. God would
defend them. God would bring them victory. But they confided in man. That was the second sin. The
third sin we find is the sin of obtaining riches unjustly. You see this in verse 11, verse
11 through 14. As the partridge sitteth on eggs,
and hatcheth them not, so he that getteth riches, and not
by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at
his end shall be a fool. A glorious high throne from the
beginning is the place of our sanctuary. O Lord, the hope of
Israel, all that forsake Thee shall be ashamed, and they that
depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have
forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters. Heal me, O
Lord, and I shall be healed. Save me, and I shall be saved,
for Thou art my praise. The sin of obtaining riches unjustly. Now, I don't think anyone knows
for sure exactly what this bird was that is here called the partridge,
but evidently it was a bird who set upon its eggs and then they
were not hatched for some reason. Some say it was a bird whose
eggs were broken and they would steal eggs from another nest
or set on another nest and hatch those eggs, but then when those
chicks were hatched out, they would not follow the hen. They
would not follow the dame because they were different animals,
different species. I don't know, but I do know the
sin here was the sin of obtaining riches unjustly, and God said
you're going to leave them for somebody else. Just like that
man in the gospel who said his barns were full. He'd tear down
his barns and build bigger barns, remember. He brought such abundance
of harvest in, and the Lord Jesus Christ, think of this, He said,
thou fool, thou fool. This night, this night, not tomorrow,
not next week, not six months down the road, tonight shall
thy soul be required of thee. And whose shall these things
be? Now, he didn't get his riches
unjustly, but this is the sin of the nation of Israel. But
fourth, here's the last one, the fourth sin was despising
the word of the Lord. Notice in verse 15, Behold, they
say unto me, that is to Jeremiah, where is the word of the Lord?
Jeremiah had been prophesying and warning them that judgment
was coming. But you see what they say, where
is the word of the Lord? Let it come now. As for me, I
have not hastened from being a pastor to follow thee, neither
have I desired the woeful day. Thou knowest that which came
out of my lips was right before thee. Be not a terror unto me,
thou art my hope in the day of evil. Let them be confounded
that persecute me, but let not me be confounded. Let them be
dismayed, but let not me be dismayed. Bring upon them the day of evil
and destroy them with double destruction. They asked Jeremiah,
where is the word of the Lord? You've prophesied that judgment's
coming, but it hasn't come. Reminds me of those words in
2 Peter, where he tells us that in the last days, men will say
this, where is the promise of his coming? Where's, you say
the Lord's coming again? Where is the, where's, he, you've
been saying that, you've been preaching that, you've been prophesying,
Jeremiah, that judgment's coming. Where is it? Where is it? Where
is the promise of his coming? And Peter says, they say, for
since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were
from the beginning of the creation. And they know that's not true.
The fact of the flood is witnessed all over the world, isn't it?
I read just recently, I think, that even in the Antarctica or
the North Pole, one of those places, that they found evidences
of the flood, that those fossils are frozen there between the
rocks and things like that. Things haven't continued the
same. God brought judgment upon this
earth, didn't he? And he's promised it'll happen
again. The Lord Jesus Christ will come.
Well, those are four sins that I see in the context here, but
now look at this wonderful promise Blessed is the man. Two parts
to the message. First of all, the blessed man
is distinguished. What distinguishes this blessed
man? He trusts in the Lord. Notice above that in verse 5,
Thus saith the Lord, Cursed be the man that trusteth in man. What distinguishes the blessed
man, the happy man? He trusts in the Lord, and has
the Lord for his hope. Blessed is the man that trusteth
in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. Now, what does it mean
to trust in the Lord? That's certainly an important
question, isn't it? When we read here, a man is blessed
who trusts in the Lord, it behooves all of us to know exactly what
it means to trust in the Lord. What does that mean? Does it
mean we just go to church every Sunday? No, it means a whole
lot more than that, doesn't it? What does it mean to trust in
the Lord? Well, the Apostle Paul in Romans
chapter 10, remember he tells us that a person cannot believe
or cannot trust in him of whom he has not heard. To trust in
the Lord, first of all, means we must hear of the Lord. We must hear of Christ. We must hear of Him. Who He is. Who He is. We know that He is
God's only begotten Son. I think only begotten Son. God has many sons. Many sons
by adoption. many sons by regeneration, but
he only has one only begotten son. And we know that is the
eternal word. The eternal son of God is only
begotten son, that he sent him into this world. So to trust
in the Lord is to hear who he is, that he is the word made
flesh. He is Jehovah. He is the eternal
God who came into this world. And to trust in the Lord is to
trust in Him, to know and believe that salvation is only in Him. It's not in the church. It's
not in a catechism class. It's not in baptism. It's not
in any of these things, important as they may be in their place,
but they are not to be in the place of the Lord. Blessed is
the man that trusteth in the Lord, who He is, and His finished
work. To trust in the Lord is to commit
the saving of my soul to Him. To trust in the Lord is to trust
that His blood, His death, that was accomplished on Calvary,
He died in my stead. He died just for the unjust that
He might bring us to God. To trust in the Lord is to believe
that His righteousness, His perfect obedience, He honored God's law,
that His perfect obedience is my obedience before God. To trust in the Lord is to believe
in Him and realize that in Him We are accepted. Don't you love
that word in Ephesians chapter one? Accepted in the beloved. Accepted. Everyone wants to be
accepted, don't we? We want to be accepted among
our friends, young people in school, you want to be accepted.
But think about the accepted in the beloved. That is the Lord
Jesus Christ. In Him, we are accepted. So first, the blessed man is
distinguished. He trusts in the Lord, and whose
hope the Lord is. The word hope, we know that it
has a meaning of expectation. Expectation. The Lord is our
expectation. We expect to be received, to
be pardoned, to be washed whiter than snow in his blood. That's
our hope. You know, the cities of refuge
give us a picture of what it means to trust in the Lord. The manslayer, the manslayer
who fled to a city of refuge, he had to enter that city. And
once he crossed over the threshold of that city, he was safe. Now listen, if he had a right
to be there. You say, what do you mean if
he had a right to be there? Well, it wasn't a man who committed
murder, premeditated murder. He could flee to a city of refuge. He wasn't safe there. No, that
city, those cities of refuge were made for certain individuals. They're called manslayers, manslayers. That is, they did not premeditate
the murder, the killing of someone. But what we would call an accident
took place. Now, I say the cities of refuge
are a picture to us, to what it means to trust in the Lord.
What right, what right? We know that a person entering
the city of refuge It would only be a help to Him if He had a
right to be there, if He had accidentally killed someone. But when we trust in Christ,
what right, what right do we have to come to Him, to trust
in Him? What right do we have? His Word. His Word. That's our warrant.
It's God's command that we believe in His Son, as the scripture
says. We have His word. He came to
save sinners and He set before us as the hope to which we are
to flee. So, that's the first thing tonight. The blessed man is the man that
trusts in the Lord and has the Lord as his hope. Now, second,
The blessed man is described to be like a tree. There's a
simile, isn't it? He's described to be like a tree. And there's four things I want
to point out here tonight about this example. First of all, he's
described as a tree planted by the waters. Notice that in verse
8. For he shall be, the blessed
man, for he shall be as a tree planted by the waters. You know, I have a tree at our
house that I bought and planted the first year that we moved
there. It's been there 30 years. 30 years that tree has been growing. I bought it and I planted it. Now I've had other trees come
up in those 30 years. I've had other trees, you know,
just the start of trees come up, that I didn't plant. You say, who planted them? Well,
I'm sure the wind planted some of them. The wind blew the seed.
Maybe a bird. A bird flew over and dropped
a seed. But I didn't plant them. And
do you know what's happened to every one of those trees that
I did not plant? I pulled every one of them up.
There's not a one of them there. I didn't buy them, and I didn't
plant them, and so I eliminated those trees. The blessed man
is like a tree which the Lord has planted. Listen to our Lord's
words in Matthew 15, verse 13. He said, Every plant which my
heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up. Every plant. that my father hath not planted
shall be rooted up. I chose the tree that I planted,
and so did the Lord. I remember this. I think I went
to Home Depot, and they had a bunch of trees lined up, standing up
there lined up. And I looked at the one, looked
at all of them, and I had one in mind that I wanted, certain
type, And I chose that tree. Now there's a big difference,
isn't there, between the Lord choosing and my choosing. There was something about the
one I chose that I thought was somewhat better or something,
maybe a little bit taller, whatever, looked more alive. But you know
the Lord, he chose those that he chose, and we were all the
same. There was no difference. We were
all sinners. We'd all come short of the glory
of God. God's not a respecter of person.
He didn't choose who He chose because He saw something He liked
in that person, or He saw that that person would believe in
Him. No. He chose whom He would choose. And the second thing, I bought
that plant. I bought that tree. I had to
pay some money for it. And the same thing is true of
the Lord. Not only did He choose those He calls the blessed man
who He plants by the waters, He chose the tree, He chose the
man, and He bought the man. He bought, redeemed each and
every one. And He paid a high price, didn't
He? He paid the price of His dear son. And a third thing,
I brought that tree home and I prepared a place to put it.
I chose the place and I prepared the place to put that tree. So the Lord chose those that
He plants by the rivers of water. He bought those and He plants
us where He would have us. All of us who are saved tonight,
all of us who are truly blessed, We're in the body of Christ.
We're not all the same part, not all the same members, just
like our physical bodies. There's many members, but all
are necessary. All are useful. All are good
for the functioning, for the good of the body. So the Lord
has placed us. And it says here that he's like
a tree planted by the waters that is the fountain of living
waters. Do you remember what our Lord
told that woman at the well that he spoke with? He said, whosoever
drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst. So the first way the blessed
man is described is he's like a tree planted by the waters. The second thing is he is described
as a tree that grows. Notice that in verse 8. For he shall be as a tree planted
by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river. Now, this tree spreads out its
roots. When we look at a tree, I don't
care what tree it is, when you look at a tree, we only see what's
above ground. That's all we see. But yet we
know, we're told, we learn that as much as is above ground is
below ground. That is, the root system is as
big as that which is above ground. Now, the river is not named here,
is it? I've never crossed a river that
didn't have a name, have you? The Brazos River, the Colorado
River, the Rio Grande River, Mississippi River, and yes, even
those four rivers that are named in Genesis chapter 2, they all
had a name. Well, we're not given the name
of this river, but I want to suggest one tonight, or give
it one, and that is Love. The River of Love. And I choose
this name because the original source of all the blessings and
all the benefits that we receive, it is from His eternal love. It is from His eternal love that
we are made the children of God. As Paul in Ephesians says, according
as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. having predestinated us unto
the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according
to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of
his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. Now the roots, we're told, they
spread out. They spread out, which means
the tree's living. The roots are spreading because
there's life and the tree is growing because the roots are
spreading. And the blessed man, the blessed
man of this passage of scripture and every blessed man is a man
who grows in the grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus
Christ. The Lord Jesus described the
kingdom of God one time like a seed which was sown. And it grows. He said, first,
there's the ear. You plant a seed in your garden,
and after a few days or a few weeks, there's the blade. It
just shoots up. And I've always been amazed at
the power of life in that plant. Just from a seed, that thing
can move a big cloth of dirt. Just a blade. Life! That's what we're given. Life! There's power and there's
growth. First the blade and then the
ear and after that the full corn in the ear. We see the blade
comes up and before long you see some flowers on there, blooms
and then before long the fruit, the full ear of corn. Third, the blessed man is described
as a tree that bears fruit. It says, neither will cease from
yielding fruit. You see that at the very end
of that verse, neither shall cease from yielding fruit. In
Psalm 92, it is the righteous who is there pictured by a tree,
and we have this wonderful promise. They shall still, now listen,
they shall still bring forth fruit in old age. Now that word still, they shall
still bring forth fruit, means they've been bringing forth fruit.
And when they reach the age of 65, they don't retire and quit
bearing fruit. No, there's no retirement in
His service, is there? In bearing fruit. They shall
still bring forth fruit in old age." The blessed man brings
forth fruit. Why? Because he is a member,
she is a member of Christ. He's the vine and we are the
branches. Paul prayed for the believers
at Philippi to be filled with the fruits of righteousness which
are by Jesus Christ. In other words, Our fruits of
righteousness, our service, our living for His glory is by Jesus
Christ because we are in union to Him. With Him, rather. We
are one with Him. And the fruit is His fruit. The fruit that you bear, it's
His fruit. It's because you are in union
with Him. Because He said, without Me,
you can do nothing. Now the last thing, the blessed
man is described as having no cause to be anxious. It says
he shall not be careful in the year of drought. The heat's going
to come. The afflictions, the difficulties,
the trials, they're going to come. But the blessed man has
no cause to be anxious. He shall not be careful in the
year of drought. He has no care to be anxious,
because we have a kind and we have an all-sufficient Savior. Casting all your care upon Him,
for He careth for you. The hymn writer wrote those words,
take your burdens to the Lord. Now that's easy to do. But he
didn't stop there, did he? Take your burdens to the Lord
and leave them there. Now that's the difficult part. But the believer, the blessed
man, he has no cause to be anxious. We have no cause to be anxious.
All things, God worketh all things after the counsel of His will.
Things we do not understand, but yet we know that He has ordained
whatever it is, and it is for our good, and it is for His glory. And He's just that kind of a
God, isn't He? He's powerful, and He's wise,
and He cannot do anything that's not for the good of His people,
or will not, I should say. He will not do anything. That's
not for the good of His people. Well, I pray that the Lord would
bless this word to all of us here tonight, the blessed man,
like a tree planted by the waters. We'll sing.