The Everlasting Covenant

[0:00] futures Now 35 Thank you.

[1:00] Thank you.

[1:30] Thank you. We're going to get started, so if you want to try to find your seat. Thank you.

[1:42] Good morning.

[1:58] So we're going to be reading from Jeremiah chapter 33 this morning. Jeremiah chapter 33.

[2:09] If you have the Blue Bible, it's on page 662. Jeremiah chapter 33, verse 1.

[2:23] The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah a second time, while he was still shut up in the court of the guard. Thus says the Lord who made the earth, the Lord who formed it to establish it, the Lord is his name.

[2:36] Call to me and I will answer you and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known. For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the houses of the city and the houses of the kings of Judah that were torn down to make a defense against the siege mounds and against the sword.

[2:54] They are coming in to fight against the Chaldeans and to fill them with the dead bodies of men whom I shall strike down in my anger and my wrath. For I have hidden my faith from this city because of all their evil.

[3:08] Behold, I will bring to it health and healing and I will heal them and reveal to them abundance of prosperity and security. I will secure, I will restore the fortunes of Judah and the fortunes of Israel and rebuild them as they were at first.

[3:25] I will cleanse them from all the guilt of their sin against me and I will forgive all the guilt of their sin and rebellion against me. And this city shall be to me a name of joy, a praise and a glory before all the nations of the earth who shall hear of all the good that I do for them.

[3:42] They shall fear and tremble because of all the good and all the prosperity I provide for it. Thus says the Lord, in this place of which you say it is a waste without man or beast in the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem that are desolate without man or inhabitant or beast.

[4:03] There shall be heard again the voice of the birth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride. The voices of those who sing as they bring offerings to the house of the Lord.

[4:16] Give thanks to the Lord of hosts for the Lord is good for his steadfast love endures forever. For I will restore the fortunes of the land as at first says the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts in this place that is waste without man or beast and in all of its cities.

[4:34] There shall again be habitations of shepherds resting their flocks in the cities of the hill country in the cities of the Shelfella and in the cities of the Negev in the land of Benjamin that places about Jerusalem and in the cities of Judah.

[4:51] Flock shall again pass under the hands of the one who counts them says the Lord. Behold the days are coming declares the Lord when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah.

[5:03] In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous branch to spring up for David and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In those days Judah shall be saved and Jerusalem will dwell securely and this is the name by which they will be called the Lord is our righteousness.

[5:22] Jeremiah chapter 33 verse 17. For thus says the Lord David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel and the Levitical priest shall never lack a man in my presence to offer burnt offerings to offer to burn grain offerings and to make sacrifices forever.

[5:42] The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah. Thus says the Lord if you can break my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night so that day and night will not come at their appointed time then also my covenant with David my servant may be broken so that he shall never so that he shall not have a sub to reign on his throne and my covenant with the Levitical priests my ministers as the host of heaven cannot be numbered and the sands of the sea cannot be measured so I will multiply the offspring of David my servant and the Levitical priests who ministered to me.

[6:18] The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah. Have you not observed that these people are saying the Lord has rejected the two clans that he chose? Thus they have to despise my people so that they are no longer a nation in their sight.

[6:32] Thus says the Lord if I have not established my covenant with day and night and the fixed order of heaven and earth then I will reject the offspring of Jacob and David my servant and will not choose one of his offspring to rule over the offspring of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

[6:51] For I will restore their fortunes and will have mercy on them. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray. Father thank you for this passage of hope of your faithfulness and your love that you restore joy to those who are downtrodden who experienced your judgment.

[7:25] But in their pain and suffering you also give them the message of hope. And as your covenant with the earth and skies that you've created that those things can never be changed.

[7:42] That your covenant with David would never be broken as well. And thank you that even here we're able to see your prophecy of your son coming.

[7:59] And so we just want to give you this morning and pray for Sean that you would speak through him. Prepare our hearts and we want to honor you and we want to praise you this day.

[8:12] In Jesus name, amen. Good morning for those who are visiting.

[8:28] My name is Sean and I'm one of the pastors of Trinity Cambridge Church. And I'll be preaching from Jeremiah 32 and 33. But we just asked Ruth to read chapter 33.

[8:39] And I'll because it's a long passage and I'll read incorporate chapter 32 as I preach. And some of you have already kind of experienced the pain of being deserted by someone or rejected by someone or having promises made to you broken.

[8:57] Because our world is full of that, right? People whom we trust, whether it's a parent, a boss, a political leader, a spouse, a boyfriend or girlfriend or best friend. They disappoint us, break their promises and sometimes leave us.

[9:11] And sometimes these experiences make us guarded and aloof. We become fearful of trusting people again. So instead of being vulnerable, instead of intimacy, we choose isolation and indifference.

[9:25] Instead of honesty and authenticity, our lives become increasingly preoccupied with presentation and performance. We think that we can control how others perceive us by behaving in a certain way.

[9:37] Sometimes we carry over this kind of fear and mistrust into our relationship with God also. We think that God is fickle like human beings.

[9:48] We think that we have to appease Him and keep Him happy in order to get what we want. When we have disobeyed Him and sinned against Him, we feel overwhelmed by shame and guilt and we are afraid to approach Him.

[9:59] So instead we avoid Him. We postpone repentance. We procrastinate in our prayers and scripture reading. But we must not think of God in this way.

[10:13] Because this passage teaches us that God's posture toward His children is mercy. And His policy concerning them is His everlasting covenant. That's the main point of this passage.

[10:25] And I'll cover it in two points. In chapter 32, we see the field of promise. In 33, we see the word of promise. And as we've been going through this book together, we've gone through 30-something chapters.

[10:37] I applaud you all for sticking with us all this time if you were guests that first came to our church during that time. And as we have seen throughout Jeremiah, alongside some of God's seemingly harshest judgments, we see the most promising words.

[10:54] We also see promises of hope and restoration. And that's what we see here in chapters 30-33. And this prophecy begins this way in verse 2 where we see the context.

[11:05] At the time, the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem. And Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the guard that was in the palace of the king of Judah. I'm in chapter 32, verse 2.

[11:16] So a more detailed historical background of this is given later in chapter 37, where some of Judah's officials falsely accuse Jeremiah of defecting to the Chaldeans, the Babylonians.

[11:28] And then on that plea text, they imprison him in a dungeon. And at that point, Jeremiah gets an audience with King Zedekiah. And he asks him, appeals to him, I haven't done anything wrong.

[11:41] All I've done is prophesy judgment according to God's word. Can you help me? And Zedekiah doesn't really help him. He still keeps him in prison. But he slightly improves his condition. Takes him out of the dungeon. And puts him under house arrest at the court of the guard.

[11:54] So it's at that time when he was at the court of the guard under house arrest, living with the royal guards, that's when this word came to him. But since Zedekiah is ultimately responsible for Jeremiah's ongoing imprisonment, the blame is placed on the king in verses 3 to 5.

[12:12] Read with me. For Zedekiah king of Judah had imprisoned him, saying, Why do you prophesy and say, Thus says the Lord? Behold, I am giving the city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall capture it.

[12:24] Zedekiah king of Judah shall not escape out of the hand of the Chaldeans, but shall surely be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and shall speak with him face to face, and see him eye to eye.

[12:35] And he shall take Zedekiah to Babylon, and there he shall remain until I visit him, declares the Lord. Though you fight against the Chaldeans, you shall not succeed. So it seems that the epistopical background is that Zedekiah resented the fact that Jeremiah repeatedly prophesied that he would lose to the Babylonians, that he would be exiled to Babylon.

[12:55] Instead of giving him false assurances of deliverance like the other false prophets of the Lord, Jeremiah prophesied judgment and confrontation with the king of Babylon. And so for these, quote-unquote, seditious prophecies, Zedekiah was imprisoned.

[13:08] But while Jeremiah was under house arrest, God tells him to do something really strange. I look at verses 7 to 8. Behold, Hanamel the son of Shalom, your uncle, will come to you and say, Buy my field that is at Anathoth, for the right of redemption by purchase is yours.

[13:28] Then Hanamel my cousin came to me in the court of the guard, in accordance with the word of the Lord, and said to me, Buy my field that is at Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, for the right of possession and redemption is yours.

[13:41] Buy it for yourself. Then I knew that this was the word of the Lord. So Jeremiah's cousin, Hanamel, visits him at the court of the guard, and then he tells him to buy this field, his field that's at Anathoth, Jeremiah's hometown, since that was his right of redemption by purchase.

[13:58] According to Leviticus 25, when an Israelite becomes poor, and therefore has to forfeit his land in order to pay a debt that he owes to someone, it was that his relatives, his closest relatives were called upon to come and redeem the property and buy it for themselves.

[14:14] So that that property doesn't leave the tribe, the family. And of course, this was important in Israel, because all the land that they had were specifically given, distributed by God himself.

[14:28] And so to belong to Israel meant to belong in the land. So to lose the land really was to be excluded in that covenant. So it was important for the family members to redeem that property. So we don't know what the financial background of Hanamel is, but it seems that he needs someone to redeem this land, and Jeremiah is basically the next person in line that's supposed to redeem this land.

[14:48] So he's supposed to buy it with his own money. Now think about this proposition for a moment, right? Under normal circumstances, this would have been a great economic opportunity, right? Because Jeremiah gets to enlarge his territory, gets to buy more property.

[15:00] But remember that Jeremiah knows better than anyone else in all of Judah that the Babylonians are about to take over, rendering that transaction virtually meaningless.

[15:14] So this is really a crazy proposition. Yet Jeremiah, because the Lord had revealed it to him that he should buy the field, agrees to buy the field. He says, read verses 9 to 12 with me.

[15:25] He says, And he went through the whole nine yards to get this property for himself, to make it a legal transaction.

[16:04] And isn't it humorous kind of to think about it? He's under house arrest at the court of the guard, and Jerusalem is presently besieged by the Babylonian army. And here is Jeremiah buying a field that he will probably never see again in his life.

[16:20] And he goes through all the legal positions to make it official. It's kind of like, you know, you're watering your garden when you know a hurricane is about to come through and rip it all up, right? So then Jeremiah says in verses 13 to 14, I charged Baruch in their presence, saying, Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Take these deeds, both this sealed deed of purchase and this open deed, and put them in an earthenware vessel that they may last for a long time.

[16:47] And what is Jeremiah's rationale for this? It's in verse 15. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.

[17:02] Jeremiah's purchase of this field in the presence of all these witnesses, in the presence of the Judeans that were at the court of the guard, serves a powerful symbol of God's promise that he will one day bring back these exiles in Babylon to Judah once again, so that these lands will be bought again, these lands will be sold again, and they will occupy the land again as promised by the Lord, and so that at that point this signed deed will matter.

[17:30] It served as a symbolic act of assuring his people. At the very cusp of Judah's greatest calamity, God assures them of his promise for the future. And this was no small act of faith on Jeremiah's part, because isn't it easy to trust God when the going is easy?

[17:48] It's harder to trust God when the going gets hard. At the lowest moments of Judah's national existence, God calls the people of Judah to trust him. Do we do this?

[18:02] Sure, we trust that God is good when marriage is good, when work is good, when parenting is good, school is good, relationships are good, but what about when your marriage is falling apart?

[18:19] What about when that job or that promotion you are counting on falls through? What about when you are struggling in school? What about your relationship that you thought were going somewhere disintegrates? When you are at the end of yourself, when you are accumulating debt, and your life appears to be falling apart at the seams, do you trust God then?

[18:40] Do you still believe that God intends good for you? That's the true test of faith. What normally functions as your security blanket in your life, what are some of the objects of comfort that you have in your life, a friend, a spouse, a savings account, whatever it may be, it's when these things are taken away that we truly find out whether or not our faith was in God or in something else.

[19:06] At their lowest moment, God calls them to trust and offers his great promise. At the conclusion of this transaction, Jeremiah orders a fitting prayer in verses 17 to 23. He prays, Ah, Lord God, it is you who made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm.

[19:24] Nothing is too hard for you. You show steadfast love to thousands, but you repay the guilt of fathers to their children after them. Oh, great and mighty God, whose name is the Lord of hosts, great in counsel and mighty in deed, whose eyes are open to all the ways of the children of man, rewarding each one according to his ways and according to the fruit of his deeds.

[19:45] You have shown signs and wonders in the land of Egypt and to this day in Israel and among all mankind and have made a name for yourself as at this day. You brought your people, Israel, out of the land of Egypt with signs and wonders, with a strong hand and outstretched arm and with great terror.

[20:03] And you gave them this land, which you swore to their fathers to give them, a land flowing with milk and honey. And they entered and took possession of it. One great way to stoke your faith in God in those difficult times is by recounting the faithfulness of God throughout your life.

[20:20] How he saved you. How he provided for you. How he answered your prayers. That's why typically prayers in the Bible begin by praising God. Acknowledging his promises, his greatness.

[20:32] Because Jeremiah, as he recounts God's deliverance of Israel throughout the ages, knows, his faith rises up. He knows that nothing is too hard for God. That he can indeed do good for them, even in this lowest moment of their life.

[20:47] Then Jeremiah continues in verses 23 to 25. But they, God's people, in spite of all that God did for them, but they did not obey your voice or walk in your law.

[21:00] They did nothing of all you commended them to do. Therefore you have made all this disaster come upon them. Behold, the siege mounds have come up to the city to take it. And because of sword and famine and pestilence, the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans who are fighting against it.

[21:16] When you spoke, what you spoke has come to pass. And behold, you see it. Yet you, O Lord God, have said to me, buy the field for money and get witnesses. Though the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans.

[21:29] The fact that Jeremiah has faith in God doesn't mean that he never wonders or asks questions. Jeremiah knows of God's saving act in history. He believes that God can do good for them still because nothing is impossible for them.

[21:42] Yet even then, he still wonders, why God are you telling me to buy this field? Jeremiah still has faith. He still obeys God. Yet this doesn't stop him from wondering what God has in mind.

[21:54] And God graciously answers in verses 26 to 35. And the way he answers is parallel to, it follows, it mirrors the structure of Jeremiah's prayer.

[22:06] So that structure shows us that God's indeed answering Jeremiah's prayer point by point. And you can see it this way. And this kind of shows you how they're parallel. The A is parallel with A prime. You can see that.

[22:16] So Jeremiah began his prayer in verse 7 by acknowledging God as the creator and affirming nothing is too hard for you. And then God answers Jeremiah in verse 27 by assenting that he is indeed the creator, the God of all flesh, and by asking the rhetorical question, is anything too hard for me?

[22:34] It matches. Likewise, in verses 17 to 23, Jeremiah recounted all the faithful acts of God toward Israel and about how he ultimately gave them the land. Then in verses 28 to 35, God recounts all the unfaithful acts of Israel and how he declares that he will give away the land to Babylon.

[22:51] And in verses 23 to 24, Jeremiah recounts how God has brought disaster upon Israel. And in verses 36 to 52, God promises to reverse this disaster and bring good to Israel.

[23:03] And then lastly, in verse 25, Jeremiah wonders why he should buy the field. And in verses 43 to 44, God promises that a day will come when fields will be bought again in the land of Israel.

[23:16] Now here's why this matters, why this parallel structure is important, because it shows us that all the faithfulness lies with God and all the unfaithfulness lies with the Israelites.

[23:30] The mirror image shows us the radicalness of God's grace and compassion toward them, because all Israel did, they did nothing of what God has commanded them, but God says, nothing is too hard for me.

[23:43] In fact, I will even do good for you. In Israel's relationship with God, all that they bring is their sin. And yet God meets them with grace and mercy.

[23:59] Do you know that that's the same in your relationship with God? There's a beautiful saying that's popularly attributed to Jonathan Edwards, but it's probably a misattribution, because I tried to find a source, and I couldn't track it down.

[24:16] In this age of the internet, if you can't track down a source, it's probably a misattribution. But it's still true, so I'll still quote him with the question mark. Jonathan Edwards, the only thing you contribute to your salvation is the sin that makes it necessary.

[24:33] Our one and only contribution to our relationship with God is our sin. Faith is not something that we contribute to our salvation. Faith is simply the bringing of our sins to God, trusting that He can deal with it.

[24:47] And even that faith is a gift of God, Ephesians 2.8 teaches us. The only thing we bring to the Spirit of God, our cleansing water, is our filth and squalor.

[25:02] The only thing we bring to Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, is our debt and slavery. The only thing we bring to our Heavenly Father is our disobedience and insubordination.

[25:14] Yet God cleanses us, forgives us, redeems us, restores us, liberates us, and adopts us. That's the amazing love of God.

[25:29] Look at the wonderful promise of God in verse 37-41. I will bring them back to this place, and I will make them dwell in safety, and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.

[25:42] I will give them one heart in one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good, and the good of their children after them. I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them.

[25:57] And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with my heart and all my soul.

[26:09] Isn't that amazing? The promise. It was Israel's duty to love God with all of their heart and soul. That was their duty, Deuteronomy 6 and 5. But they failed miserably to love God.

[26:20] So God says here, I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart, and all my soul. Your heart has not been true to me, Israel, but my heart will be wholly true to you.

[26:37] In your few short years of earthly life, you have repeatedly broken my covenant, but I will make you keep my everlasting covenant. I will never break my everlasting covenant with you.

[26:52] God's posture toward His children is mercy. And His policy concerning them is everlasting covenant.

[27:03] And how can Judah know that this seemingly far-fetched promise will happen right when they're being invaded and taken over? God says in verse 42, Thus says the Lord, Just as I have brought all this great disaster upon this people, so I will bring upon them all the good that I promised them.

[27:19] The fulfillment of the promised restoration is as sure and certain as the prophesied judgment that has already overtaken them. Some people are saying right now in that context, I believe it when I see it.

[27:33] God tells the people of Judah, Well, do you see the judgment that I told you would come? Yes, it's right at the doorstep. Likewise, the restoration that I promise you will certainly come.

[27:47] That's the meaning of the field of promise. Then we turn to the word, the promise. It's all the word. But in chapter 33, we see the word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah a second time while he was still shut up in the court of the guard.

[28:05] So he's still under house arrest, and the word of the Lord comes to him a second time as a follow-up. And the second prophecy expands on the gracious promises of God given at the end of chapter 32.

[28:15] And it follows the pattern of God first recounting the current state of things in Israel, of destruction and judgment, and then expounding on the future state of things after God restores Israel.

[28:27] Read verses 2 to 5 again with me in chapter 33. Thus says the Lord who made the earth, the Lord who formed it and established it, the Lord is his name. Come, call to me, and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.

[28:44] For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the houses of the city and the houses of the kings of Judah that were torn down to make a defense against the siege mountains and against the sword. They're coming in to fight against the Chaldeans and to fill them with the dead bodies of men whom I shall strike down in my anger and my wrath.

[29:00] For I have hidden my face from this city because of all their evil. That's the current state of things, the state of judgment and destruction, a besieged and beleaguered city filled with dead bodies, an object of God's wrath.

[29:12] But then God speaks concerning their future in verses 6 to 9. Behold, I will bring to health and healing, and I will heal them and reveal to them abundance of prosperity and security.

[29:24] I will restore the fortunes of Judah and the fortunes of Israel and rebuild them as they were at first. I will cleanse them from all the guilt of their sin against me, and I will forgive all the guilt of their sin rebelling against me.

[29:36] And this city shall be to me a name of joy, of praise, and of glory before all the nations of the earth who shall hear of all the good that I do for them.

[29:48] God promises to do a number of things here, right? Heal, reveal, restore, rebuild, cleanse, and forgive. That pattern of present punishment and future restoration continues in verses 10 to 11.

[30:02] It's a reversal of the covenant curses that have been repeated up to this point and that God continues His promise in verses 12 to 13. Thus says the Lord of hosts, In this place that is waste without man or beast and in all its cities, there shall again be habitations of shepherds resting their flocks.

[30:24] So the shepherd is a common metaphor throughout the Old Testament for kings. Kings who lead their nations were called shepherds who are leading their flock.

[30:34] And many times throughout the Old Testament, God reveals Himself as the shepherd king of His people. And so here, again, I think it's a metaphorical reference to the future kings that will come to care for God's people.

[30:48] And we see that clearly in the context that follows. But notice once again that in all of these promises, that they are one-sided. God doesn't make His promises contingent on the level of repentance and the right level of right doing by Israel.

[31:04] Remember what God said earlier in chapter 32, 39 to 40. God didn't say, If they fear Me, I will restore them. No, He said, I will give them one heart and one way that they may fear Me forever for their own good and the good of their children.

[31:18] God didn't say, If they keep My covenant, I will not turn away from doing good to them. He said, I will make them an everlasting covenant that I will not turn away from doing good to them.

[31:29] Again and again, God shows that He is the one that will be responsible for this covenant and to making sure that He sees it through. Salvation, in short, is from the Lord, not from man.

[31:41] God will accomplish their salvation from the beginning to the end. But how will God accomplish this? That's the question. And verses 14 to 17 tell us the answer.

[31:53] Read with me. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time, I will cause a righteous branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.

[32:12] In those days, Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will dwell securely, and this is the name by which it will be called, The Lord is our righteousness. For thus says the Lord, David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel.

[32:28] It's very similar to the promise that God gave earlier in chapter 23. It's a promise of the Messianic king who will come to save Judah and secure Jerusalem.

[32:39] There will be one particular king that will rise from the Davidic line, and he's described as a righteous branch. And he will finally and ultimately fulfill the divine charge that God had given to kings, which is to execute justice and righteousness in the land and save Israel and Judah.

[32:58] And when he reigns in Jerusalem, the city will also be characterized by his righteousness, so the city will be called, The Lord is our righteousness. And as I've mentioned when I preached on chapter 23, that name, The Lord is our righteousness, is a wordplay on the name Zedekiah, who's that king of Judah at the time.

[33:17] Whose name means, The Lord is my righteousness. And recall that Zedekiah is the one who put Jeremiah under house arrest. He was not executing justice and righteousness in the land, but God promises here an alternate king, the Messianic king, the righteous branch, who will truly bring forth the righteousness of God, and that royal succession of the Davidic line will never cease from that point on.

[33:43] And God doesn't stop with merely promising a king from David. He also promises a continuation of the Levitical priesthood. Look at verse 18 with me.

[33:53] And the Levitical priests shall never lack a man in my presence to offer burnt offerings, to burn grain offerings, and to make sacrifices forever. Verse 20 to 22, they continue, Thus says the Lord, If you can break my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night, so that day and night will not come at their appointed time, then also my covenant with David my servant may be broken, so that he shall not have a son to reign on my throne, and my covenant with the Levitical priests, my ministers.

[34:23] Listen to how strong this assertion is, this promise is, right? Hurricanes can hit, the earth can quake, and loved ones can die, and yet no matter what happens during the day, no matter how long and hard it is, or great and easy it is, the sun still sets, and the sun still rises again.

[34:44] For people having good days and bad days alike, for old people and young people alike, for nice people and mean people alike, the sun sets, and the sun rises again every single day.

[34:54] That is a certainty of life that the entire world counts on literally every single day. And God says, just as the cycle of day and night continues without interruption or deviation, my covenant with Davidic kings and Levitical priests will continue forever.

[35:13] But there's kind of a glaring problem with this promise. Zedekiah, the king of Judah, was, in fact, the last king from the line of David to reign in Israel.

[35:29] And the temple, where the Levitical priests were to offer burnt offerings and sacrifices supposedly forever, was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, who is right now invading Jerusalem.

[35:49] 587 B.C. So, did God's promise fail? But the thing is, Jeremiah knew all this.

[36:02] Because he prophesied, chapter 22, Jehoahaz, the last rightful Davidic king who was in exile, would die in exile. He prophesied, again in chapter 22, that Jehoahaz, Zedekiah's nephew, would go down in history as a childless king because the dynasty will come to an end.

[36:21] He said, he will say in the next chapter, chapter 34, that Zedekiah himself will die in exile in Davalon. So, Jeremiah knew that the Davidic dynasty is coming to an inglorious end.

[36:35] Likewise, in chapter 7 and chapter 26, Jeremiah prophesied that the temple, too, would be destroyed. So, Jeremiah knew all of this. So, then what, then, did his prophecy mean?

[36:48] What is the everlasting covenant? How will the kingship and the priesthood continue forever? We learn the true meaning of this promise only in its fulfillment.

[37:03] When the promised messianic king and priest comes to deliver his people. 17 times in the New Testament, Jesus is described as the son of David.

[37:18] His physical lineage is traced through David. And yet, Jesus is far more than a son of David. He is the messianic king. He is the son of God. Which is why, in Mark 12, 35 to 37, Jesus points out that in Psalm 110, 1, even King David refers to the son of God as Lord.

[37:36] Lord. The kingship of Jesus is superior to that of David. And so, Hebrews 1, 8 to 9 says this about Jesus, the son of God. Of the son, he says, your throne, O God, is forever and ever.

[37:50] The scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore, God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.

[38:04] Jesus is the prophesied king who executes justice and righteousness in the land. We, his people, were once a nation without its king, a subjugated people, an oppressed people with no one to rescue them and lead them out of their slavery to sin and Satan.

[38:23] But God sent our champion, our king who returned to save us and execute righteousness in the land. He is that promised king. And he is also the promised priest.

[38:34] Hebrews 10, 11 to 12 says, And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But, when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God.

[38:55] Him sitting down at the right hand of God means it's done. The Levitical priests of old had to offer the same sacrifices repeatedly because these sacrifices served to remind people of their continual sins and because ultimately the blood of bulls and goats had no power to take away sin, as Hebrews 10, 3 to 4 says clearly.

[39:19] The temple sacrifices were not the ultimate solution. They instead served to foreshadow the true sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the righteous Lamb of God. And they showed us that that would be necessary.

[39:31] So in much the same way, Christ is superior to the Davidic kings, he's also superior to all the Levitical priests, so that instead of offering sacrifices daily, he offers himself as the ultimate sacrifice once and for all and takes away the sins of all those who would trust in him.

[39:52] In this way, that's the way in which Christ, sent by God, establishes an everlasting covenant with his people and fulfills the promise of Jeremiah 32 to 33.

[40:08] And we read about that in verses 24 to 26, how he fulfills his promise to Israel and Judah. Bear in mind that all of us deserve God's wrath and punishment.

[40:22] People of Judah did and we all also did at one point. We deserve to be disenfranchised, exiled as a people.

[40:32] We deserve to be rejected by God. We deserve to die because the wages of sin is death. We had nothing to offer God except our sins, yet God had mercy on us.

[40:47] And Jesus died where we should have been on that cross. If you are not yet a follower of Jesus Christ, God freely offers his mercy to you right now. In human relationships, right, disparity breeds insecurity.

[41:07] A girl who thinks she's not as good looking as her boyfriend becomes insecure. an employee who thinks she's not as skilled as her job requires becomes insecure.

[41:22] Children who think that they are not meeting their parents' expectations and standards become insecure. But there is no need for you to be insecure as you approach God.

[41:33] Because whatever God requires, Christ has already fulfilled on your behalf. If you'd only trust in Him, there's no punishment left for you, only mercy.

[41:45] There's no wrath left for you, only grace. If you'd only cling to Jesus for salvation. It doesn't matter where you have been, what's in your past.

[41:57] God loves all those who come to Him with an everlasting love. you need simply to turn from your sins and toward Christ in faith.

[42:10] I plead with you this morning if you do not know this God or have a relationship with Him to do so today. To begin that relationship today. If you're already a child of God, let me remind you once again, God's posture toward you is mercy.

[42:28] And His policy concerning you is His everlasting covenant. Are you weighed down by the guilt of your own sins? Do you feel shrouded in shame?

[42:46] Satan, our ancient enemy, his name means accuser. He's always going to try to magnify your faults. And along with that, if we also magnify appropriately God's grace, which overabounds more than our sins, then that would be fine.

[42:59] But He doesn't do that. He will magnify your sins, but He will minimize God's grace and mercy because His goal and desire is to drive a wedge between God and His people.

[43:10] The Heavenly Father and His children. And when that happens, our love for Him cools. As Matthew Henry, a 17th century Welsh pastor said, good thoughts of God would beget love.

[43:27] love, and that love would make us diligent and faithful. But hard thoughts of God beget fear, and that fear makes us slothful and unfaithful.

[43:43] How do you think of God? How do you view Him? When Satan seeks to drive you to despair, let this word from Jeremiah 32-33 shine in your life and dispel the darkness and the lies and remind you that God's posture toward you is mercy.

[44:09] His policy concerning you is His everlasting covenant. Please close your eyes now and reflect on that truth. And think about God. Use your, engage your imagination.

[44:20] Think about God. Receive His love. See His posture toward you. And turn to Him in love. After you reflect it for some time, we'll respond together by praying corporately as a church.

[44:35] Amen. Amen. Amen.

[45:06] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.