Jeremiah & Ezekiel

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0:00 For the rest of us, oh, hey, Crindles, we're going through the story here, the chronological synopsis of the Bible. We're in chapter 17. They titled chapter 17, the kingdoms fall, because we got to the point here where Israel's already gone. In this chapter, Judah gets gone.

0:30 Nebuchadnezzar comes down and conquers them and carries them away. Next week we'll start to talk about the Babylonian exile, famous king of Babylon. He comes and conquers. And last week, Demetrius talked about how God will always deliver you. We were talking, we're meeting last week, talking about that, and he had this line about the father that defends.

1:04 And I was just thinking how comforting it is to think about a father that will defend you. That maybe we've had dads who have tried that and haven't been great at it or been good at it, but had some shortcomings. The idea that there is a parent, a parental figure who gets it right at no expense. Spares no expense in our defense is so comforting. And the idea that the God who defends Judah is the God who defends me is so encouraging.

1:35 But it's like kind of crazy for me to think about that that breaks down then at some point, right? Like the Babylonian captivity of Judah is brutal. You already talked about how the northern kingdoms of Israel get conquered by Assyria. And Assyria has this practice where when they conquer a nation, they divide the nations they conquer and spread them out throughout their lands so that their culture gets decimated and ruined, obliterated, and no more.

2:07 To really try and wipe out the countries they conquered so that there's one Assyria rather than Assyria that's conquered, you know, Canaan and Israel and Hittites and parasites that it's all Assyrian. And so the northern tribes, the ten northern tribes of Israel are gone. They're intermarried and lost forever. And so when God promises to draw all of Israel back from the north of south and the east and the west, he's hinting at that he's kept track of who the lost tribes of Israel are. And he'll bring them back.

2:38 But Judah hangs together and when Nebuchadnezzar comes down and finally the kings, Hezekiah is the good king. That's who we talked about last week who trusts the Lord against all odds and against all odds. God defeats their enemy on their borders. But then his sons don't trust God the way that they might. And so finally Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon come and they conquer Jerusalem and proxy by Jerusalem all of Judah. And they take off the wealthiest and the most powerful, the most talented, they take off the upper class out back to Babylon.

3:19 They lead them away on fish hooks and they knock down the walls of Jerusalem and burn the cities and leave the poor in town there. And they're about to send some other people. And then after a period of time they get kind of hassled again. And so a group of the Israelites flee to where else Egypt. And they take Jeremiah with them to hang out in Egypt and try and avoid the terrible Babylonians. So like where I started this week is like, wait, what's going on?

3:52 I thought God was the defender and it seems like He fails here. Which is why the story is recorded for us. And to get to the question of God failing or why are they out is to go, you have to go to Exodus 19. Back where He makes this promise, He renews the promise that He made to Abraham.

4:24 But makes this new covenant with Israel. In Exodus chapter 19, by this point God has brought Israel out of Egypt. They've crossed the Red Sea. They've defeated one army on their vanguard as they're making their way to Sinai already. And now they're at Mount Sinai where Moses saw the burning bush where God told them at the burning bush bring the Israelites back here to worship.

4:55 He's brought them there. And then of course the cloud of God's presence settled on top of Mount Sinai and He tells Moses, here's what now that you've brought them here through all of the trials of the plagues and the sea through the defeat of Egypt's army. Now that you've brought them here, here's what you should tell them. Long lead up to this conversation in Exodus chapter 19. And let's see, says on the third new moon, after the people of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt,

5:26 on that day they came into the wilderness of Sinai and they set out from Raphodim and came into the wilderness of Sinai and they encamped in the wilderness there and encamped before the mountain. Well Moses went up to God. The Lord called to Him out of the mountain saying, Thus you shall say in the house of Jacob and tell the people of Israel, You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I've borne you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself.

5:58 Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all the peoples. For all the earth is mine and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel. It's a critical spot because God makes a promise to them, but He says, If you heed my voice and listen to my commands, then you'll be in this position for me.

6:28 Right? If you heed my voice and listen to my commands, then you'll be in this position for me. They didn't do it, Claudia. It was if then, right? If you do this thing, then you'll be in this place for me and they didn't do it. It wasn't like they messed up. Once they trusted other things, other people over and over and over and over again.

7:02 And God told them, right? He figured out how to communicate through the prophets to the people of Israel. Hey guys, you're trusting the wrong thing. The plan here was, you would trust me and when you do that, you would live the life you were made for, which would be described by these 10 words. Remember the 10 words at Sinai? You'll have no other gods before me. You won't make any idols. You won't kill. You won't steal. You won't covet. You won't commit adultery. All that happens because you trust in the God. But none of those things are happening because you're not trusting in the God.

7:35 And so then Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar, Assyria and Synacharyb and the Hittites and the Pearsites and all of them think that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is no different than the God of Marduk and Baal because you're getting the same results because you're actually not trusting the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. You're trusting all these other things. And so he's like, what you'll see if we would read through Jeremiah and Ezekiel, you start to see God's contention is for the world through Israel.

8:07 And when Israel drops the ball, it gets to a point where he's like, I can't leave you here anymore. I can't leave you here anymore. And the judgment of God is tough, man. It's like when you read the story of the Babylonian captivity, it's pretty brutal. Family separated, homes decimated, God sounds frustrated.

8:44 But here is a kicker. So when Babylon captures Jerusalem and Judah, then Israel's essentially wiped out for a period of time. And that's the spot we're in. And there's two prophets that they point out here in our readings that continue to speak for God to the people of Israel.

9:17 And one is Jeremiah and one is Ezekiel. And I wanted to look at one of these verses. It was part of what I used for the call to worship this morning. It's in Lamentations chapter 3. Lamentations is a series of five poems that Jeremiah writes looking back on the Babylonian captivity at the fall of Jerusalem and Judah. He writes these five poems looking back at it. Jeremiah is known sometimes as the weeping prophet. I don't know if it's true, but the line that I heard is that Jeremiah is the only prophet who his whole life never got anyone to believe what he was saying.

9:54 Which sounds like a miserable ministry. He just keeps saying the same thing and nobody believes him. But he doesn't let it go. He tries to let it go at some points. He's like, I can't do this, but then the Word of God is like a fire welling up in my belly. He wants to stay in Jerusalem. This is kind of funny. When the group of Israelites flee to Egypt for protection, he wants to stay because he's like, this is our spot. I'm not going down there. But he's like the dog that they all love to hate. They never listen to him, but they can't go without him.

10:26 So they take him and he tries to flee and the story is they throw him in a pit to keep him from running away from Egypt. So he's prophesying down there in the pit where nobody will listen to him, but they know he's the crazy man of God. It sounds like a rough life for Jeremiah. I hope he had a nice... I hope it was worth it. I think it probably was. But he wrote Lamentations. It's a really interesting book. Lamentations is like, it sounds like it's going to be sad and it is. But here in chapter 3 it gets kind of interesting. We're going to look at the whole chapter

11:00 kind of quickly because it kind of gets to the situation that we're talking about. Starting at verse 1 of Lamentations chapter 3, he says, I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath. He has driven and brought me into darkness without any light. Surely against me he turns his hand again and again the whole day long.

11:31 He has made my flesh and my skin waste away. He has broken my bones. He has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and a tribulation. He has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago. Jeremiah is writing this somewhat from his own experience but also personified as Israel. And so he's talking about the retribution of God pointed at these kind of oathbreakers of Israel.

12:07 He has willed me. Excuse me for just a second. I can't see you if I look up. I can almost see you down. He walled me about so that I can escape. He has made my chains heavy though I call and cry for help. He shuts out my prayer. He has blocked my ways with blocks of stones. He has made my paths crooked.

12:38 He is a bear lying in wait for me a lion in hiding. He turned aside my steps and tore me to pieces. He has made me desolate. He bent his bow and sent me as a target for his arrow. He drove into my kidneys the arrows of his quiver. I have become the laughing stock of all peoples. The object of their taunts all day long. He has filled me with bitterness. He has sated me with wormwood. He has made my teeth grind on gravel and made me cower in ashes. My soul is bereft of peace.

13:08 I have forgotten what happiness is. So I say my endurance has perished so my hope from the Lord. That description of being in a bad place is extreme. I can't say that I have been in that spot where I have forgotten what happiness is. Maybe some of you have. Maybe you've been in the place where you have forgotten what happiness is.

13:39 You can't find your way out of sadness. You feel the object of hardship, like pointed hardship at you specifically. Like the world is conspiring to make things harder for you. Like there's no answers anywhere. Jeremiah seems to say that we are the recipient of specific punishment from God.

14:13 The first thing is if you can relate to Jeremiah, there's one thing different for you. You and I, we reap the repercussions of the choices that we make to an extent. And so we have odds created for us by our biology and our parents and the world that we grew up in.

14:45 We have certain situations that we just have to figure out. We were taught what love looked like. We were taught what care looked like. We were taught what protection and provision looked like. So we respond with love or with fear or with self-hatred or with anxiety. We have biological and sociological realities that we have to deal with. And on top of that, in response to those things, we also make choices about what we trust. So there are times where we count our safety by our bank account.

15:17 Where we count our worth by our job. Where we count our value by the love that those around us give us. And each of those things work poorly relative to God. Right? And so when we stack, when we look here for choices and we deal with these options, we get a set of repercussions that at times may feel like the whole world is against us. And God himself has abandoned us. The plus for us is this is never true.

15:50 The repercussions of your choices, the vengeance of God, the retribution of God, the justice of God for the wrong that you have done in your life is never spent on you, but always on the Christ. When Jeremiah cries out from the bottom of the pit in Egypt, he has experienced the retribution of God against Israel. And it looks like Babylonian captivity. It is not only the failure of their choices, but it is the judgment of God coming to Israel on behalf of his righteousness.

16:26 I'm saying you might have forgotten what happiness is like. You might feel like the world is against you. Multiply that for Jeremiah, for Israel. Further down, deeper in, farther away, recognizing it's the judgment of God against them. And then look at what he says next. You might have to put your...

16:58 He says, my endurance has perished, so has my hope from the Lord. Then verse 19, remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall. My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me, but this I called to mind and therefore I have hope. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.

17:30 His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul. Therefore I will hope in him. Jeremiah knows, different from me and you, that the hardship in their life is judgment from God for the wrong choices they have made.

18:02 It's not natural repercussions. It's not sort of just little failures. They are experiencing the specific retribution of God, the actions of God set against them. And in spite of that, in addition to that, he knows he's getting judgment from God and he knows the God that judges him will also deliver him yet. Maybe that's mind blowing.

18:39 Why would he not, if the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob has judged them so, kick them out of the land, banish their people, decimated their cities? Why not try Pharaoh? You're in Egypt? Why not try Marduk? The crops go well for the people who sacrificed their kids to Marduk.

19:11 I know that we had a couple Israelite kings who sacrificed their kids and it didn't go well, but let's try it again because Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that God kicked us out of Judah. Why does Jeremiah, even though he knows he's experiencing the retribution of God, still place his hope in God? Remember the time when Jesus is telling the crazy story about eating his flesh and he's got a whole bunch of people following him, like thousands.

19:47 And he gives this teaching where he's talking about how you have to eat his flesh and they're like, in the text you, if you read it, it was weird when Jesus was teaching it. And it says that a lot of people left. They're like, this guy's too weird. And they left. And Jesus looks at his closest friends, the disciples, and he's like, are you guys going to leave me too? Right? And they don't go, no, we get it. Nobody else understands it, but we understand it. We know what you're saying.

20:23 We don't think you're weird. They don't say that. They don't understand it. They probably do think he's weird. What they say is, Lord, to whom shall we go, you have the words of eternal life. The premise of the whole story of Scripture, we've talked about this, that God's consistent effort to get a group of people who will live under his authority, who will let him be God, he never gives in and just like, just go through Marduk and that'll be fine and then you can live under him.

20:54 He always says, I am the only way for life, so come to me. So Jeremiah knows the only hope I have is the God who judges me will also forgive me and restore me somehow. I don't know how. I'm a failure. But it's like I'd be a fool to put my hope anyplace else. And so though I'm in a pit in Egypt, I'd say his mercies are new every morning because I'm here still. And I've got work to do. It's inspiring to me because I know where happiness is. It's not that I've forgotten happiness like Jeremiah, but there are things are, it is tough to figure out.

21:52 What to do? Right? And even if I knew what to do with the day today, perfectly, I've got some ideas. Even if I knew exactly how to handle what it means to be an American or what it looks like to be a neighbor in Orlando, even if I knew how to do that perfectly, like I still get older.

22:29 You know what I mean? This is the one I've been thinking about a lot lately. Even if I can come up with great answers, I can't solve the hardest problems. I can't will myself to be more generous. I can give, force myself to give. I can't change the nature of my heart.

23:07 The other prophet they mentioned is Ezekiel. Ezekiel has some crazy stuff that he tells about, but there's this one section that's one of my favorites in all of the Scriptures. It's in Ezekiel chapter 36 starting at verse 24. Well, let's start at 22. He says, therefore, God is speaking to Ezekiel and he's telling him to say this.

23:43 He says, therefore, say to the house of Israel, thus says the Lord God, it is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I'm about to act. But for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. I will take you from the nations and gather you. This is what he's saying, I will gather you all back from all the countries and bring you back into your own land.

24:19 And I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be made clean from all your uncleanness and from all your idols. I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. And you shall dwell in the land that I gave your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.

24:54 He is committed, God is committed to the restoration of humanity so far that he's like, okay, fine. Like, he's been through so much, right, to get a group of people who are willing to let him be God. He made the world out of his own imagination and gave it to them, though they asked nothing. And when he gave it to all humanity, he said, here, have the earth in order that he could have a group of people in it who would live under his reign, they didn't take it.

25:25 Right? And then he started over with the whole flood and started over just with the new one. I'll save you and give it to just your people. And within a matter of generations, they said they didn't need him anymore. And so he came up with the idea of nations and he said, I'll communicate just to a group of people. And this little group of people will see what it's like, and then I'll put them as a city on a hill, and all the world will be drawn back to me. And they can't figure it out. And he rescues them from Egypt and crosses them across the Red Sea and brings the cloud of his presence down and puts it right in the middle of him and sets up a model of the heavenly city in the tabernacle

25:58 in the temple and communicates the forgiveness of sins through the demonstration of the sacrificial system. And still, they can't get it. And he's brought them out and he's given them the whole land and put a pinnacle of a city in Jerusalem with walls around it up high on the hill and his presence in the Holy of Holy. And a whole system so that they could stand in the presence of the Creator God and still they can't get it. And so finally, he's like, you know what I'll do? I'll start from the inside out. I'll just give you a whole new heart, and I'll take my spirit from wherever it dwells infinitely, and I'll put it inside of all of you.

26:31 Men and women, young and old, will receive the Spirit of God of life. This is what you have. All that you might, like Jeremiah, get some glimmer of hope to against all odds and amongst all evil. Trust. That his mercies are new every morning. No matter what's come before, and that they are new for you.

27:05 This morning, I pray that we could be people who no matter what, no matter what the world throws at us, no matter what we cultivate with our bad choices or inclinations. No matter what odds are stacked against us, we would trust God that his mercies are new every morning. Let's pray that. Hey, Lord, would you give us faith like Jeremiah and Ezekiel to amongst all things in all evil and good amongst all our poor choices and the challenges of the world yet to remember that your mercies are new every morning that we might just be people.

27:44 And let you be God, the God we need in our life to live now and forever. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.