Lamentations and Living Water
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Handout
Intro
Intro
I’d like to do a spiritual exercise as we start this morning.
Turn out the lights
Darkness can be a scary thing.
In a room like this it won’t ever get fully dark unless we block out the windows and keep the doors shut.
I think something interesting about the dark is that in time as our eyes adjust we begin to see more and more around us.
Even though we are sitting in darkness, because we see the remnants of light around us, we can almost convince ourselves that we are sitting in the light. Spiritually, in our sin we are walking in darkness. We might dress like we walk in light, say all the right words like people in the light, maybe even succeed at convincing ourselves and other people that this is what living in the light looks like, but without the light of Christ shining in us, we are dead in darkness. Sin is a gaslighter. Sin will try and convince us that this darkness is all there is. And in the darkness sin will try to convince us that we have everything in control, that we see and know what is best for us. But darkness is a hopeless place. In our spiritual blindness, we are grasping for something to hold onto to give us a sense of balance. We hold on to our plans, our comforts, our preferences. But our hope for this morning is that we don’t have to settle for anything less than the light of Jesus in our lives. The same Jesus that opened the eyes of the man born blind is calling us to Himself, to cure us of our spiritual blindness.
If you find yourself in a situation this morning where you feel like all you see is darkness in the tunnel with no sight of light on the other side, I want to encourage you that the darkness has not overcome our savior. He is everlasting light. The light and life of men that has shined in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome Him.
So as we begin I want us to ask the question,
Is the light of Jesus shining in my life?
Pray
Our story today finds the Prophet Jeremiah in a horrible situation. The kingdom of God has been divided and the Northern Kingdom of Israel has been destroyed by the Assyrians. We see the Southern Kingdom of Judah has been invaded by King Nebuchadnezzar and the first wave of captives have already been taken into Babylon. Jehoiachin’s uncle Zedekiah has been made a puppet king in Jerusalem, but because of his rebellion, Babylon stands outside the city walls of Jerusalem laying seige against the city, seeking to destroy it. There is no food in Jerusalem and all of their cisterns have run dry. Some in the city were so hungry, they had resorted to eating their children. Meanwhile Jeremiah is the lone voice of God in a sea of false prophets. Absolute darkness.
Why has Jerusalem found themselves in such a dark circumstance? The people of God had turned completely away from God. They worshipped idols made by human hands, participated in every kind of immorality, and even sacrificed their children to false gods. After generation after generation of walking in darkness Judah had convinced themselves they were in the light. And since they had denied the light of God for so long, God was about to use the flames of Jerusalem to shine in their darkness.
In the chapters leading up to chapter 38 we see Jeremiah speaking boldly about a new covenant of forgiveness and heart transformation, of the restoration and redemption that is found in God, and warnings against trusting in foreign nations rather than trusting in the Lord. Jeremiah has his prophecies written down by his scribe, Baruch, but they are burned by King Zedekiah. Now as he is pleading with the people to repent and to turn to the Lord, he has found himself an enemy of the state and in a prison cell, waiting on the Lord to move. This is where we pick up. Jerusalem is on the verge of destruction because of their sin and the prophet of God is in chains.
Trust in the Lord
Trust in the Lord
Now Shephatiah the son of Mattan, and Gedaliah the son of Pashhur, and Jucal the son of Shelemiah, and Pashhur the son of Malchijah heard the words that Jeremiah was speaking to all the people, saying, “Thus says the Lord, ‘He who stays in this city will die by the sword and by famine and by pestilence, but he who goes out to the Chaldeans will live and have his own life as treasure and stay alive.’ “Thus says the Lord, ‘This city will certainly be given into the hand of the army of the king of Babylon and he will capture it.’ ” Then the officials said to the king, “Now let this man be put to death, inasmuch as he is discouraging the men of war who are left in this city and all the people, by speaking such words to them; for this man is not seeking the well-being of this people but rather their harm.” So King Zedekiah said, “Behold, he is in your hands; for the king can do nothing against you.”
Jeremiah gives a word of warning to the people. His warning is this, leave the city, fall at the mercy of the Babylonians and your life will be spared. Refuse and it will be destruction, for you and for the city.
When the officials heard this they sought to destroy Jeremiah.
Rather than trusting in the Lord’s provision and direction, these men trusted in their own wisdom and in their own power to protect themselves. There hearts have hardened so fiercely against the Lord, it was the only walls in all of Jerusalem that Babylon wouldn’t be able to tear down. They twist Jeremiah’s words and say that rather than seeking the welfare of the city, he is seeking its harm.
The poison of pride has twisted and manipulated the truth of God’s words to appease these wicked men’s desires. They would not listen to the Word of God proclaimed by Jeremiah, even though he had proven himself to be a true prophet of God. The truth of God’s words had become offensive to their ears. From the very beginning, satan twisted God’s words to deceive Eve in the Garden of Eden. He asked, “Did God really say?” and by getting Eve to question God’s goodness, ignore His command, and eat the fruit of the tree, darkness entered into the world. God’s Word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. If we won’t listen to God’s words and if we deny its truth, we close our eyes to the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
The Word of God is not for our education or for our confirmation, but it is for our transformation.
We don’t go to the Scriptures for more information or to prove ourselves right, we go to them seeking wisdom from the Lord, conviction of our sins, and to be made more into the likeness of Jesus.
These men in years of drought and hunger had feasted on the lies of satan and found themselves not fighting in defense of Jerusalem but fighting against the very God of the universe. Their plans for Jerusalem were not God’s plans.
In your planning and in your desires, have you found yourself in opposition to the will of God?
As we think through this passage, over and over we will have to ask ourselves, am I willing to trust in the Lord and submit to His will? Or as Jesus put it in the Garden of Gethsemane, Lord, not My will, but Yours be done! It is better to suffer in the light than to be comfortable in our darkness.
In seasons of change, when life doesn’t go the way we thought that it would, when our circumstances leave us weary, desperate, and grieving our only hope is to trust in the Lord. This passage is one that I come back to time and time again in my life.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the Lord and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your body And refreshment to your bones.
These men were wise in their own eyes and it was blindness to them. Trusting in their own plans walked them into their destruction.
Look at Zedekiah’s response to these wicked officials. He says, “Behold, he is in your hands; for the king can do nothing against you”. This is the king of Judah, put in place by Nebuchadnezzar, but he is too afraid to tell a couple officials to leave Jeremiah alone. It seems to me that Zedekiah was more concerned with his own self-preservation than he was in doing what was right. Meanwhile, Jeremiah spoke the words of God with boldness and it was putting his life in danger. God has called us to shine a light into the darkness of the world around us. Jeremiah did not live out a passive, personal faith. He pleaded desperately with people to turn from their sins and to trust in the Lord. He wept over his countrymen and wept for his city. Does the lostness of the world around us break our hearts like it did Jeremiah? Like it did Jesus?
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it!
Jesus looked out over Jerusalem and it broke His heart. Does your heart break for the hurting and broken that live in our city?
Am I willing to set aside personal preference and comforts for the sake of being obedient to God’s plan for my life?
Look at God’s plan for Judah.
‘For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. ‘Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. ‘You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.
God had a desire to prosper His people. To restore them. But look at verse 10.
“For thus says the Lord, ‘When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place.
This promise of future hope came after their captivity to Babylon. For us in the New Testament context we look forward towards eternity. We long for the day when we will stand before God in heaven, forgiven of sins and resting in the presence of God forever, but for today, we live as exiles and strangers in a foreign land. This world is not our home but we live amongst a world in darkness so that we might shine the light of Christ until He calls us home. Our hope is not in the comforts of the world around us, in the safety of our homes, and in the luxury of our condition, but in the light of future glory.
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. “But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
“Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ “For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
The remnant of Judah taken into exile could no longer trust in themselves. They were fully dependent on the Lord to protect them. Their names were changed, they had to learn a new language, they were taken away from their culture and place of worship. They had nothing left but God. Michael always says this quote. He says, “You never know God is all you need until God is all you have”. This is the reality of diaspora. As we walk in exile, we trust in the Lord every day for His wisdom and His peace. Always seeking the Lord and His Kingdom.
What are you putting your trust in?
2 Kings 24 tells us everything we need to know about Zedekiah. It says he did evil in the sight of the Lord. What a reputation. These officials under Zedekiah’s charge did whatever their wicked hearts desired to do against Jeremiah and they did so with the full approval of their wicked king. They took him from his prison cell and threw Jeremiah into the pit to die.
Fountains of Living Water
Fountains of Living Water
Then they took Jeremiah and cast him into the cistern of Malchijah the king’s son, which was in the court of the guardhouse; and they let Jeremiah down with ropes. Now in the cistern there was no water but only mud, and Jeremiah sank into the mud.
Jeremiah’s death seemed inevitable. With no righteous men in Jerusalem, Jeremiah was left alone to die in the pit. Except, he wasn’t alone. Even though it seemed he stood alone, God was still with him. There is a quote that I love from Frederick Douglass. He said, “One and God makes a majority”. Jeremiah was seemingly the only voice for God in all of Jerusalem but he was in the majority because God was with him.
In a sad sense of irony, the empty cistern he found himself in was representative of the spiritual lives of the people he served.
“Be appalled, O heavens, at this, And shudder, be very desolate,” declares the Lord. “For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, The fountain of living waters, To hew for themselves cisterns, Broken cisterns That can hold no water.
Judah had walked away from the goodness of God, from the fountain of living waters, to die of spiritual thirst. In a cosmic rebellion so appalling, God says it should make the heavens shudder and be desolate. The dust of the earth has claimed to know better than the sovereign God of the universe.
Where are you drawing from? Your own wisdom? Your own plans? Your own provision?
About 600 or so years after our story, Jesus was walking through Samaria and sat down at a well to drink. Wearied from His traveling He struck up a conversation with a woman who had made her way to the well in the heat of the day. In that conversation Jesus offers her a drink.
but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”
Jesus is our fountain of living water. Regardless of our past mistakes, the mistakes we are making today, and the mistakes we will make in the future, we have a confidence that when we put our faith and trust in Jesus He makes a fountain of living water to flow through us. We have forgiveness and new life through faith in Jesus Christ. Once we drink from His cup, we will never have to search for water again. The drought of sin is washed away by the fountain of living water drawn from Immanuel’s veins. A never ending well springing up to eternal life.
Jeremiah longed for the day when these things would be revealed, but here in the pit, in this empty cistern, all hope seemed lost.
I don’t know this for sure, but I wonder if this Psalm was on Jeremiah’s mind as he lay in the mud.
For the choir director. A Maskil of the sons of Korah. As the deer pants for the water brooks, So my soul pants for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” These things I remember and I pour out my soul within me. For I used to go along with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God, With the voice of joy and thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival. Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him For the help of His presence. O my God, my soul is in despair within me; Therefore I remember You from the land of the Jordan And the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar. Deep calls to deep at the sound of Your waterfalls; All Your breakers and Your waves have rolled over me. The Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime; And His song will be with me in the night, A prayer to the God of my life. I will say to God my rock, “Why have You forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?” As a shattering of my bones, my adversaries revile me, While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, The help of my countenance and my God.
In a moment of despair, when all seemed in vain, when the Psalmist was desperate for spiritual water, his soul was refreshed by the overwhelming presence of God. Are you desperate for the presence of God in your life? In our church? On our calendars? In our community?
In world dying of spiritual thirst Jesus is a rushing river, who washes over us with wave after wave of grace. Jesus is calling us to come and find life in His name. To drink deeply from the fountain of living water. To swim in the oceans of His love and find refreshment for our weary souls.
Joseph, Samson, David, Jonah, Jeremiah, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, Daniel, Peter, Paul. All of these men found themselves in pits, their lives were hunted, they were in whale bellies, in fiery furnaces, in lion’s dens, in prison cells, in the very depths of darkness, and in every situation, they trusted in the Lord and He was with them.
In every circumstance, are you trusting in the Lord to provide for you living water?
And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” And He said, “Write, for these words are faithful and true.” Then He said to me, “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost. “He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son.
There is real comfort to be found in Jesus. He is Immanuel, God with us. He is the light of the world born into humanity. Our God has entered into a pit that no man has ever come back from. He has gone into the grave itself and has come out victorious. Why do we have such confidence and comfort in our Lord? Because He has defeated even death itself, and the water He offers is not just refreshing, it is life giving. And He offers it freely and generously to any that would come and drink.
Deliverance from the Pit
Deliverance from the Pit
But Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, a eunuch, while he was in the king’s palace, heard that they had put Jeremiah into the cistern. Now the king was sitting in the Gate of Benjamin; and Ebed-melech went out from the king’s palace and spoke to the king, saying, “My lord the king, these men have acted wickedly in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet whom they have cast into the cistern; and he will die right where he is because of the famine, for there is no more bread in the city.” Then the king commanded Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, saying, “Take thirty men from here under your authority and bring up Jeremiah the prophet from the cistern before he dies.” So Ebed-melech took the men under his authority and went into the king’s palace to a place beneath the storeroom and took from there worn-out clothes and worn-out rags and let them down by ropes into the cistern to Jeremiah. Then Ebed-melech the Ethiopian said to Jeremiah, “Now put these worn-out clothes and rags under your armpits under the ropes”; and Jeremiah did so. So they pulled Jeremiah up with the ropes and lifted him out of the cistern, and Jeremiah stayed in the court of the guardhouse.
What does it say about Judah that it took an Ethiopian, someone from outside the family of Abraham, and a eunuch, someone who wasn’t even allowed into the Temple of God, to stand up for the Prophet of God? God’s chosen people were so blind in their sin that it took an outsider to step in and protect Jeremiah. When I read of Ebed-melech I think of the parable of the good Samaritan from Luke 10. In the parable of the good Samaritan, it was the priest and the Levite who walked along the other side of the road, leaving the hurting man in his pain, but it was the Samaritan who stopped and cared for the hurting man. This parable began with a question, “who is my neighbor?” and it ends with a command, in the same way the Samaritan man showed mercy, you go and do likewise. This Ethiopian man showed mercy to Jeremiah and in doing so saved his life.
Who is your neighbor?
Loving your neighbor requires humility and sacrifice. It means loving in the way Jesus has loved us. The officials and king of Jerusalem acted in their own self interests, in pride, but the Ethiopian man risked his life to show the tender arm of mercy toward a man he had never met. Last week Steve Ballew said 80% of our community was without a relationship to Jesus. Do we turn a blind eye to the spiritual needs of the people around us?
For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him; for “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.” How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things!”
Jeremiah was delivered by such simple means. A rope dropped down into the pit to pull him out. Jeremiah contributed nothing to his deliverance. He didn’t climb the rope. He didn’t scale the walls. He simply trusted that these men would pull him out. The same can be said about our deliverance and about the good news of the Gospel. We contributed nothing, but it was the God of the universe, who took off His kingly robes, put on the rags of humanity, and was lowered into our world. A scarlet thread, wrapped around our hearts, to pull us out of darkness. The Lord’s goodness, like a fetter, binding our wandering hearts to Himself. We have been transformed and made new by the power of God’s grace. What a powerful picture of deliverance.
Won’t you share that good news with someone today?
Make a Choice
Make a Choice
Then King Zedekiah sent and had Jeremiah the prophet brought to him at the third entrance that is in the house of the Lord; and the king said to Jeremiah, “I am going to ask you something; do not hide anything from me.” Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “If I tell you, will you not certainly put me to death? Besides, if I give you advice, you will not listen to me.” But King Zedekiah swore to Jeremiah in secret saying, “As the Lord lives, who made this life for us, surely I will not put you to death nor will I give you over to the hand of these men who are seeking your life.”
Jeremiah is brought before Zedekiah in secret and he is faithful to speak the word of God even though he knows Zedekiah won’t listen. This is a good reminder for us that while we cannot control how a person responds we can be faithful to preach the truth in love.
Zedekiah’s response also reminds us that we cannot sit on the fence when it comes to the Gospel. We have to choose. Will we follow Jesus or will we reject Him. We won’t read verse 17-28, but here is what happens.
Jeremiah delivers a word to Zedekiah. Surrender and hand yourself over to Babylon and you will live. Resist and you and the city will be destroyed. It was the same sermon that got him thrown in the cistern. You cannot sit on the fence, you have to decide. Obey God and live, disobey God and be destroyed. Zedekiah was afraid of Babylon, he was afraid of the Jewish people who had already fled the city, he was afraid of the Jewish officials. Zedekiah was afraid of everyone but God. Jeremiah says that in his indecisiveness, “while your feet were sunk in the mire” he would be betrayed by everything he put his trust in because he didn’t trust in the Lord.
Zedekiah doesn’t make a decision. Instead he makes Jeremiah swear himself to secrecy and return to his prison cell while he hides away in his palace.
Zedekiah’s master plan was to outrun Babylon and even outrun God. Only, you can’t outrun God. There is no where you can go to escape His presence. This is both a comfort to those who trust in the Lord and a warning to any who think they can overthrow Him. All of us will have to stand before our righteous God in judgement. All of us will have to give an account of the way we have lived our lives, and there will only be two outcomes. Eternal glory by the grace of Jesus or eternal destruction. We must choose. If this morning you find yourself like Zedekiah, and your sitting on the fence, let me encourage you, trust in the Lord. Trust in His plan for your life. In His will. Grace and forgiveness are only found in the cross of Jesus.
that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
When we surrender to the Lord, and trust in Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we will be saved. He has made the way. In His death, Jesus has drank the cup of God’s wrath dry, and in His resurrection He has opened the flood gates of grace and living water.
Have you trusted in the Lord for deliverance?
Now when Jerusalem was captured in the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army came to Jerusalem and laid siege to it; in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, in the ninth day of the month, the city wall was breached. Then all the officials of the king of Babylon came in and sat down at the Middle Gate: Nergal-sar-ezer, Samgar-nebu, Sar-sekim the Rab-saris, Nergal-sar-ezer the Rab-mag, and all the rest of the officials of the king of Babylon. When Zedekiah the king of Judah and all the men of war saw them, they fled and went out of the city at night by way of the king’s garden through the gate between the two walls; and he went out toward the Arabah. But the army of the Chaldeans pursued them and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho; and they seized him and brought him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath, and he passed sentence on him. Then the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes at Riblah; the king of Babylon also slew all the nobles of Judah. He then blinded Zedekiah’s eyes and bound him in fetters of bronze to bring him to Babylon. The Chaldeans also burned with fire the king’s palace and the houses of the people, and they broke down the walls of Jerusalem. As for the rest of the people who were left in the city, the deserters who had gone over to him and the rest of the people who remained, Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguard carried them into exile in Babylon. But some of the poorest people who had nothing, Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguard left behind in the land of Judah, and gave them vineyards and fields at that time.
Zedekiah makes his choice and he is destroyed. His plan is to escape by way of the King’s garden on the eastern wall of Jerusalem. In a cruel sense of irony, Zedekiah repeats Adam and Eve’s sin by ignoring God’s Word and finds himself east of the garden, broken, and in rebellion to God just as Adam and Eve had found themselves all those years earlier. He is captured quickly by the Babylonians and he lives out the rest of his life physically in the same way he lived his life spiritually. Blind and in chains.
Now Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon gave orders about Jeremiah through Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguard, saying, “Take him and look after him, and do nothing harmful to him, but rather deal with him just as he tells you.” So Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguard sent word, along with Nebushazban the Rab-saris, and Nergal-sar-ezer the Rab-mag, and all the leading officers of the king of Babylon; they even sent and took Jeremiah out of the court of the guardhouse and entrusted him to Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, to take him home. So he stayed among the people. Now the word of the Lord had come to Jeremiah while he was confined in the court of the guardhouse, saying, “Go and speak to Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, “Behold, I am about to bring My words on this city for disaster and not for prosperity; and they will take place before you on that day. “But I will deliver you on that day,” declares the Lord, “and you will not be given into the hand of the men whom you dread. “For I will certainly rescue you, and you will not fall by the sword; but you will have your own life as treasure, because you have trusted in Me,” declares the Lord.’ ”
The Lord remains faithful to protect Jeremiah interestingly enough, by the hands of the Babylonians, and He is faithful to protect Ebed-melech the merciful Ethiopian as well. In a time of extreme darkness, there shined a flicker of hope. If you find yourself in a season of extreme darkness this morning remember that we have a living God who has shined in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome Him. We serve a victorious king, the Light and Life of mankind. He is faithful in His love towards us, and He is faithful to bring us out of darkness, into His marvelous light.
This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope. The Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I have hope in Him.” The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, To the person who seeks Him.
