Sunday Morning, September 22, 2019 AM

Sunnyside Baptist Church iconSunnyside Baptist Church

1 view

Sunday Morning, September 22, 2019 AM "WALK BY FAITH,NOT BY SIGHT" Jeremiah 32:1-15 Michael Dirrim Pastor

0 comments

00:30
to reach out to them and to bear them up and encourage them. Father, for us who are here,
00:37
I thank you. I just thank you for the Word that you have provided for us, a living and active, sharp, powerful, penetrating
00:47
Word that, as you have promised, so it performs. It never fails to accomplish the work for which you send it.
00:56
And I ask now that, as we look at your Word, that you would help us to hear rightly, to know clearly what you want us to do in light of who you are, what you have done for us.
01:13
And I pray for these graces given by the Holy Spirit for the sake of your
01:19
Son, Jesus Christ. Amen. I encourage you to open your
01:24
Bibles with me to turn to Jeremiah chapter 32. Jeremiah 32, and we'll be reading verses 1 through 15 here in a moment.
01:37
Jeremiah has finished his book on the New Covenant, which is chapters 30 and 31, and that's nicely rolled up into a scroll, and that will be sent off to the exiles in Babylon by the hand of Jeremiah's scribe
01:49
Baruch, who we're going to talk about more and more as we go through the book of Jeremiah. We'll hear that Jeremiah has this scribe, and God will even have a brief word for him later on.
02:01
But Baruch is going to help by taking the book about the New Covenant and all the rest of Jeremiah's writings that he recorded to the
02:11
Jews in exile, where they will be treasured and studied and applied by Daniel and Ezekiel and Ezra, and they're going to take the words of Jeremiah, and they're going to hold fast to them and follow in what
02:28
God has called them to do. We now come to a chapter, Jeremiah 32, which offers us some historical details for Jeremiah's latter ministry, what was going on in Jeremiah's life in the last year of the siege on Jerusalem, right before Jerusalem's destruction.
02:47
In this story, we're going to see how it was that Jeremiah practiced the truth that he preached.
02:58
He lived according to the words he spoke.
03:05
Now, it is a mark of children that they must walk by faith and not by sight. How many times growing up did you receive instructions on how to clean, cook, compute, how to read, how to run, how to repent?
03:22
You were told to do things, and you had no idea how that was going to work or what the outcome was going to be.
03:29
But if you believed the instructions you were given, if you trusted the one who instructed you and you followed through, it was then in the obedience after a long period of time that the faith became sight.
03:48
You teach your child how to divide five and a quarter by one and four -fifths.
03:56
You know, some of you already are calculating it. I know who you are.
04:04
When you tell them to do that, you give them several steps, which at first seem to be rather random and unconnected to reality.
04:12
But if they believe you and they follow all of your instructions, they find the answer. It's two and eleven -twelfths.
04:19
Some of you, you're like, where's my smartphone? Oh, I don't have fractions on that calculator.
04:26
Download the app. On the off chance that your child from that point on would ever have to precisely calculate pizza slices under duress, they would be well prepared and their faith would become sight.
04:39
Yes, that's exactly how that works. God calls us children. He has revealed himself to us as Father.
04:48
Among the many reasons why that is so, here is one. He has made us to walk by faith, not by sight.
04:56
From the very beginning, God made us in his image to live by his word.
05:02
And when Adam and Eve stopped living by God's word, when they ceased to walk by faith in God's word, it was then they saw a tree good for food.
05:13
Forbidden fruit became delightful to their eyes. They walked by faith rather than, they weren't walking by faith, they're walking by sight.
05:23
But we're made in God's image to live by his word. So whether it's Adam and the tree, Noah and the flood,
05:29
Moses and the Exodus, or Jeremiah and the siege, whatever it is, God has made us to walk by faith, not by sight.
05:38
It's the way that we're made. And as we are being renewed in Christ, this is the way we're called to live.
05:44
To walk by faith, not by sight. We're gonna see that in the sufferings and the obedience of Jeremiah.
05:51
And as we look at Jeremiah, Jeremiah is there to remind us of the righteousness of the suffering servant, our one mediator,
06:00
Jesus Christ. And when we look at Jesus Christ in the word, we will begin to look like him in the world.
06:08
So if you would please stand with me, I'm going to read Jeremiah 32 verses 1 through 15.
06:15
This is the word of the Lord. The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the 10th year of Zedekiah, king of Judah, which was the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar.
06:27
Now at that time, the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem. And Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the guard, which was in the house of the king of Judah.
06:37
Because Zedekiah, king of Judah, had shut him up saying, why do you prophesy saying, thus says the
06:43
Lord, behold I'm about to give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will take it. And Zedekiah, king of Judah, will not escape out of the hand of the
06:50
Chaldeans, but he will surely be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will speak with him face to face, and see him eye to eye.
06:57
And he will take Zedekiah to Babylon, and he will be there until I visit him, declares the
07:03
Lord. If you fight against the Chaldeans, you will not succeed. Jeremiah said, the word of the
07:10
Lord came to me saying, behold Hanamel, the son of Shalom, your uncle, is coming to you saying, buy for yourself my field, which is at Anathoth, for you have the right of redemption to buy it.
07:21
Then Hanamel, my uncle's son, came to me in the court of the guard, according to the word of the Lord, and said to me, buy my field please, that is at Anathoth, which is in the land of Benjamin, for you have the right of possession, and the redemption is yours, buy it for yourself.
07:35
Then I knew it was the word of the Lord. I bought the field, which was at Anathoth, from Hanamel, my uncle's son, and I weighed out the silver for him, seventeen shekels of silver.
07:44
I signed and sealed the deed, and called in witnesses, and weighed out the silver on the scales. Then I took the deeds of purchase, both the sealed copy containing the terms and conditions, and the open copy, and I gave the deed of purchase to Baruch, the son of Neriah, the son of Messiah, in the sight of Hanamel, my uncle's son, and in the sight of the witnesses who signed the deed of purchase, before all the
08:03
Jews who were sitting in the court of the guard. And I commanded Baruch in their presence, saying, thus says the
08:09
Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, take these deeds, the sealed deed of purchase, and his open deed, and put them in an earthenware jar, that they may last a long time.
08:19
For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, houses and fields and vineyards will again be bought in this land.
08:25
And this is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Well, the first part of the story there in verses one through five, we see that Jeremiah is imprisoned for prophecies.
08:41
He's in jail because of what he preached. He's imprisoned for prophecies.
08:49
Verses one and two, the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the 10th year of Zedekiah, king of Judah, which was the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar.
08:57
Now at that time, the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem, and Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the guard, which was in the house of the king of Judah.
09:07
Now the siege had begun the year before. We know that from chapter 39 and verse 1. It you're counting, yes, that happens after this chapter.
09:15
But you know, Jeremiah was not very concerned with the chronology of keeping everything in a row in his book.
09:24
In fact, as it was compiled probably after he died by Baruch, putting all his words and all his letters together.
09:31
We're always given the date and the time, but there are things that happen in chapter 32 that are happening after things that happen in later chapters.
09:40
And we just have to pay attention to who's king and what year it was. So it's a little bit of a challenge.
09:47
But the siege had begun the year before, and Babylon would have made much greater progress in grinding down Jerusalem if it hadn't been for the annoying
09:55
Pharaoh of Egypt. Pharaoh was concerned about this massive army moving through the corridor to the north, which was right where Jerusalem was.
10:06
And so he got his army together and he went up north to see about this army. And once he saw the strength of the army of Babylon, he turned around and went home and began to try to fortify his defenses because he knew it was coming next.
10:21
Well, when the armies of Egypt came up north, Nebuchadnezzar had to stop sieging
10:26
Jerusalem, redeploy and go face -off with Pharaoh to make him go back home. Once that was accomplished, then
10:34
Nebuchadnezzar came back to work the work of God in destroying
10:40
Jerusalem. That little gap, the time in between Nebuchadnezzar taking his armies away from Jerusalem and coming back, that'll be important here in a moment.
10:54
Now, while all Jerusalem is now shut up by Babylon, this is the final part of the siege. Nebuchadnezzar is going to succeed now.
11:02
Jeremiah, where is he? He's encircled by the palace guard. He is shut up by the palace guard.
11:09
Why? Because of what he was preaching. And the irony is very, very thick just here because Zedekiah is laying siege to the truth teller who told
11:22
Nebuchadnezzar would lay siege to Zedekiah. I don't like what you're saying, so I'm going to surround you with my guards because I don't want to be surrounded by the soldiers of Nebuchadnezzar.
11:36
You'd think that Uncle Zed would be impressed with Jeremiah's accuracy. He told him exactly what was going to happen, and it did.
11:44
You'd think he'd be impressed by Jeremiah, but so far he's just offended. He's too offended by Jeremiah's judgy, hateful arrogance.
11:55
Notice the reason why he locked up Jeremiah, verse 3. Why is he locked up? Because Zedekiah king of Jerusalem had shut him up saying, why do you prophesy saying, thus says the
12:05
Lord, behold I am about to give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will take it. And Zedekiah king of Judah will not escape out of the hand of the
12:12
Chaldeans, but he will surely be given into the hand of the king of Babylon. He will speak with him face to face and see him eye to eye, and then he will take
12:19
Zedekiah to Babylon, and he will be there until I visit him declares the Lord. And if you fight against the
12:25
Chaldeans you will not succeed. At least he was listening. I mean
12:31
Jeremiah said it over and over and over again. At least Zedekiah was listening. He is mad for the accurate statements of Jeremiah.
12:41
Now listed in order are Zedekiah's issues. Jeremiah, you're telling me the king of Babylon is going to take all of Jerusalem and we're going to lose?
12:50
You're telling me I'm not going to get away, and I'm going to be shamed before the very face of my conqueror?
12:57
You're telling me that I'm going to go into exile, and when I get there God's going to come deal with me personally? You're telling me that no matter how hard we fight, we're going to lose?
13:06
He doesn't like that. He doesn't like what Jeremiah is saying to him, and so he has him locked up.
13:14
Now these statements that Jeremiah is making would not be so angering to Zedekiah if they were badly sourced alarmist hypotheses that some propagandist might label an inconvenient truth.
13:31
In that case they could be safely ignored, laughed at, parodied, and dismissed to the trash heap of pop culture. But that these statements must be met with suppression, arrest, and persecution is testament to the veracity, the character, and the power of Jeremiah's prophetic ministry.
13:53
Saying what God says, Jeremiah had not been wrong. And though he was hated, he was heard.
14:03
And though he was beaten, he was believed on some level. And yet those upon whom the wrath of God falls suppress the truth and unrighteousness.
14:16
One way they suppress the truth and unrighteousness is through false accusations. Now we come to that moment where the
14:21
Babylonians had to leave to go face off with the Egyptians. There's this interlude where the
14:27
Babylonians are not surrounding Jerusalem. Something happened then. During that interlude,
14:32
Jeremiah was accused of treason. During that interlude, Jeremiah tried to leave the city and go see about some family property.
14:41
We know this from chapter 37 of Jeremiah. And he was heading out north because he was from this the town of Anathoth, which is north of Jerusalem.
14:49
He was going up there. He passed by the gate of Benjamin. He was going to go see about a piece of property heading north.
14:55
Now the Babylonians are south. The Chaldeans have moved their armies. The Babylonians, they're south facing off with Pharaoh.
15:04
Jeremiah's heading north. What happened? Jeremiah 37, 13. A captain of the guard whose name was
15:11
Erijah, the son of Shalamiah, the son of Hananiah, was there and he arrested Jeremiah the prophet, saying, you're going over to the
15:18
Chaldeans. Jeremiah said, a lie. I'm not going over to the
15:25
Chaldeans. He would not listen to him. So Erijah arrested Jeremiah and brought him to the officials.
15:31
Then the officials were angry at Jeremiah and beat him and they put him in jail. And there were a series of appeals that eventually ended up with Jeremiah talking to Zedekiah face -to -face.
15:42
He got moved to the palace where he was surrounded by the guard. Why would this captain of the guard on the northern border of the walls of Jerusalem accuse
15:53
Jeremiah for colluding with the Babylonians? He's heading north and the Babylonians are south. Why would he accuse him of treason, of betraying the people and going over to the
16:04
Babylonians? Because Erijah felt the same way that a lot of people did about Jeremiah, that Jeremiah's preaching against the city, his preaching against the temple, his preaching against the corruption in this place, meant that he was a traitor.
16:22
He was treasonous by his very words. Erijah could have at this point, face -to -face with Jeremiah, realizing this was the great prophet of God, remembering all the things that Jeremiah had said,
16:35
Erijah could have repented of idolatry, immorality, and injustice. But rather than that, he bore false witness against his good neighbor
16:43
Jeremiah. It is far easier in the short term, it is far easier in the short term to call truth -bearers traitors than to have to deal with the weight of the message from God.
16:59
There was such a veneration of the city, such a worship of the temple, that any word, even from God, against those idols was rejected out of hand as traitorous and as hate speech.
17:11
And isn't that the way that Jesus Christ was received? Wasn't that the way that he was treated when he came?
17:19
Christ had some hard things to say about the Jews, about what they were doing, some hard things to say about mankind in general.
17:27
And if you read carefully what Jesus says, he can sound downright judgy, hateful, and arrogant to postmodern effeminate ears.
17:35
When he talks about the sinfulness of man, the way the truth and the life has come into the world, and outside the grace of God, man insists on going his own way, exchanging the truth for the lie, and prefers the kisses of death to the faithful wounds of our only life -giving friend.
17:55
We need to listen to what Jesus Christ has to say, even when it's hard to hear, even when it offends us.
18:03
Christ is the light of men. Will we love darkness more than light, because our deeds are evil and we want to hide?
18:13
Scripture says, Awake, O sleeper! The Spirit says, Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
18:22
He's our only hope. His righteousness alone can clothe us acceptably before God.
18:28
His death alone can satisfy God's just wrath aimed at your sin. His resurrection alone can bring new creation life.
18:37
His ascended, mediating reign alone assures us of ultimate victory.
18:46
So when he speaks about the condition of man, and says much the same that Proverbs says about man, and it's hard to hear, don't despise what
19:01
Christ has to say. He's the only Savior. He knows what we need. I want to give us some thought.
19:07
Let me give some thought to Jeremiah's experience, give some thought to his position. He knew that his continual preaching of God's message would get him into trouble.
19:15
Under previous administrations, his preaching against the temple and Jerusalem incited outrage.
19:21
Mobs delivered him over to the authorities, demanding that he would be killed. He had been banned from preaching in the temple courts.
19:27
He had been banned from preaching at the palace and the king's court. He was largely and roundly hated for his preaching.
19:34
So why continue? Why continue? Why would he not just give up and recant once he was imprisoned by Zedekiah under false charges?
19:46
Why would Jeremiah keep truth -telling in an age of lies? And that's the question for us, dearly beloved.
19:56
Why would we keep truth -telling in an age of lies? Why would you do that?
20:04
The truth has arrived, and he has spoken to us in person. He has made us alive, and we are his people.
20:11
When we receive the admonition, the instruction to walk by faith and not by sight, that changes the way we talk.
20:21
It changes the way we talk. It is the life of faith to say in agreement with the scriptures things like, homosexuality is ungodliness.
20:32
To say the victim culture is idolatry. To say that if we do not forgive those who are indebted to us,
20:42
God will not forgive us our debts. Those are reprehensible lines called hate speech in our day.
20:55
This sends all the wrong signals. This is a bad visual. It doesn't match up with the current scene.
21:02
But we're not supposed to be walking by sight. We're supposed to be walking by faith. Why would we keep on saying the truth of God when it brings opposition?
21:12
Not because we see great results, but because we fear God. And there it is.
21:20
It was the fire in Jeremiah's bones. Why could
21:25
Jeremiah not stop preaching? The fear of God was in his bones, and so he could not shut his mouth.
21:38
When we fear man, we're walking by sight. We're looking for the likes, the retreats, the shares, the approving emojis.
21:45
We're looking for the promotions, the advancement, the endorsement, the greater numbers. And that is walking by sight and not by faith.
21:55
When we fear men, we walk by sight. When we fear God, we walk by faith.
22:01
It's a language changer. It's a language changer. We drop the devil's effeminate dialect for the carpenter's forthright vocabulary.
22:11
Fear God. Speak truth. When we fear God rather than men, we acknowledge along with Jeremiah, what can man do to us really?
22:21
What can you do? Just try it. Because no matter what power, no matter what seat of power may indict
22:29
Christians, we always stand justified before the throne of Christ, and he's the ruler of the kings of the earth.
22:36
And no matter what prison suppresses and constrains Christians, our chains are called Christ's chains.
22:42
We are his prisoners first and foremost, and we know who owns the jailhouse. Tertullian in the 200s said this, nor does your cruelty however exquisite avail you.
23:00
It is rather a temptation to us. The oftener we are moaned down by you, the more in number we grow. The blood of Christians is seed.
23:10
Now this is no stiff upper lip fatalistic pietism of monks and hermits retreating from a fight that Christ has already won.
23:20
This is no warm blanket to cover folded hands washed from ever getting bloody and bruised by righteous conflict.
23:26
The fact of the matter is, we will not press Christ's royal claims upon the nations, upon the culture, upon our neighbors, upon our family members, or even our fellow pumates if we fear men.
23:42
We will never take the word of God and turn even to the person sitting next to us in the pew and saying, don't you think that we should follow what
23:49
Christ says? We won't do that as long as we fear men. Only if we fear
23:56
God. Fearing God rather than man is the beginning of wisdom.
24:02
Fearing God is the beginning of knowledge. Fearing God is the beginning of walking by faith rather than by sight.
24:08
It's a language changer. Now Jeremiah kept on saying what God said because he walked by faith and not by sight because he feared the
24:17
Lord. But then he didn't just talk. He didn't just talk. He actually lived in obedience.
24:26
He did some things. And we see that in verses 6 through 15. And what happens is really strange.
24:35
So there's some property considered here in verses 6 through 8. And Jeremiah said, the word of the
24:41
Lord came to me saying, behold Hanamel the son of Shalem your uncle is coming to you saying, buy for yourself my field which is at Anathoth for you have the right of redemption to buy it.
24:53
And then Hanamel my uncle's son came to me in the court of the guard according to the word of the Lord and said, buy my field please that is at Anathoth which is in the hand of the land of Benjamin where you have the right of possession and the redemption is yours.
25:06
Buy it for yourself. Then I knew it was the word of the Lord. Remember when
25:15
Jeremiah tried to leave the city? He's gonna go up north towards Anathoth and he was gonna check out some family property from Jeremiah 37.
25:23
This was the piece of property he was gonna go look at. He wanted to go look at this property. He got arrested on his way out.
25:30
He never got to see it. He was put in jail. God says, well your relative, your cousin, he's gonna come to you and he's gonna want to sell you this land and you're gonna buy it.
25:42
And it happened. Now when his cousin shows up he says, you have the right of redemption.
25:49
You need to buy it. What is he talking about? Well in Leviticus chapter 25 verses 23 through 28 and all surrounding it's all the kinds of Jewish property law.
25:58
And the thing that would happen is this, if you had a relative who got, who became poor and she didn't have enough money to pay his debts, he didn't want to become somebody's slave to work it off.
26:08
He needed to sell some property to pay his debts and to move along. And so he would do the calculation of the family tree and find out who his nearest kinsman redeemer was.
26:20
And it was the duty of the kinsman redeemer to buy that land from the relative so that the land would remain within the family and the clan and the tribe to which it had been allotted.
26:33
And then the poor person would have the money that they needed to take care of their business and then they had the opportunity to work hard, get their money back, and then buy the land back from you.
26:46
And you'd sell it right back to him. That's how it would work. Now what if this relative, this poor relative never earned enough money to buy the land back from you?
26:57
Okay. Well there every 50th year there was a year of jubilee.
27:05
Every seventh year was a Sabbath year. They wouldn't work their land. After seven sevens there would be a 50th year, a year of jubilee.
27:13
And although the slaves had the opportunity to be set free every seven years, all the land went back to the original owners every 50 years.
27:22
So that's the basic backdrop for what is being discussed here in our passage.
27:28
As Jeremiah's cousin wants to sell him this land and he said, Jeremiah you're my closest kinsman redeemer.
27:35
I'm in a bad way. Well yeah everyone's in a bad way. The Babylonians are here. They've come sweeping through, they've caused all kinds of, everybody's in a bad way.
27:46
But this cousin comes to him and says, look you're according to the the the family tree and according to Leviticus you're supposed to buy this.
27:54
Buy it. Okay. So they calculated what it is appropriate, calculated appropriately, 17 shekels of silver based on how many years were left in the use of this land before the year of jubilee.
28:08
So they figure that out and then the 17 shekels of silver. So he buys this land.
28:16
What a deal. Not really. What happened was this, an incarcerated man without wife or child has been offered a piece of land he has not seen and will not be able to use before he dies that he will make no profit from and will return to the seller himself in about 15 years.
28:37
That's how many more years till the next year of jubilee. And the land when it finally does go back to the original owner will have been by then made a desolate wasteland by a raging army.
28:47
This is not what you would call a good investment. And God says to Jeremiah, buy it.
28:57
And he says, I'll take it. And he buys it. The purchase is completed. Verses nine through 12.
29:02
I bought the field, which was an anathoth from Hanumel, my uncle's son. And I weighed out the silver for him, 17 shekels of silver.
29:10
I signed and sealed the deed and called in witnesses and weighed out the silver on the scales. And I took the deeds of purchase, both the sealed copy containing the terms and conditions and the open copy.
29:21
And I gave the deed of purchase to Baruch, the son of Messiah, in the sight of Hanumel, my uncle's son, and in the sight of the witnesses who signed the deed of purchase before all the
29:31
Jews who were sitting in the court of the guard. Silver is weighed, the deed is signed and sealed.
29:37
You have one that's sealed up. You can tell if it's ever been open. So whatever's in there. And then you have the one that's open.
29:43
So when you break that seal, the one that was sealed had better say exactly what the one says over here.
29:49
Otherwise, something wrong has happened. Someone's going to be going to be prosecuted.
29:57
So you have the two deeds. They have all these witnesses. Jeremiah pays his money, 17 shekels of silver.
30:05
And several people come in to witness the purchase there as Jeremiah is in jail.
30:12
So, I mean, what is going on here? Everybody there,
30:18
Baruch, his cousin, all the Jews that came in to sign this deed, all the temple, the palace guards who are there, everybody there knows this piece of property is worthless.
30:31
This is a worthless piece of property. Everybody there knows that Jeremiah's cousin is being super cheeky, invoking the kinsmen redeemer clause in Leviticus 25, because his cousin's going to get 17 shekels of silver to go to his prepper's bunker and Jeremiah is going to have nothing.
30:50
And he's not going to be able to ever make any profit off this land at all. So the question is, why did
30:57
God tell Jeremiah to purchase the land? Well, because God's message gets through in this property deal.
31:10
The promise is confirmed by this purchase, verses 13 through 15.
31:15
And I commanded Baruch in their presence saying, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, take these deeds, the sealed deed of purchase, and this open deed, and put them in an earthenware jar, so they may last a long time.
31:29
For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, houses and fields and deniers will again be bought in this land.
31:36
So that's the point. That's why they went through this whole real estate purchase. The open deed and the sealed deed are like the testimony of two witnesses.
31:48
They established the testimony of the prophet Jeremiah. God had promised the people of Judah that in future generations, they would return to this land.
31:57
God had said so through Jeremiah and Jeremiah put his money where his mouth was. And these deeds are preserved for a long time.
32:07
The next year of Jubilee was 15 years away. But these deeds are preserved for a much longer time than that.
32:12
They were put into an earthenware jar. They would have been covered up and they would have been preserved for a very long time.
32:18
Think Dead Sea Scrolls. I mean, this is going to last a long time. Preserved very well.
32:27
And they weren't preserved for the year of Jubilee. They weren't preserved for the time in which,
32:36
I was at 572. They weren't preserved for that time. None of the
32:42
Jews were living in the land at that time. We don't even know if Jeremiah's cousin survived the assault on Jerusalem.
32:49
Jeremiah was dead by then. All the Jews were in exile. Nobody lived there at that time.
32:55
It was a wasteland. So why sign these deeds?
33:01
Why seal them away? Why keep them for a long time? Because God says, y 'all going to come back.
33:08
I promised you would and you will. You're going to come back. You have to walk by faith and not by sight.
33:14
You have to buy land and sign deeds and seal it up for something that's going to happen that you're not going to see in your lifetime.
33:22
You've got to walk by faith and not by sight. The exiles from the day, from the year that Jeremiah buys the land at Anathoth as the kinsman redeemer, to the time that the
33:42
Jews start coming back to the land beginning in 538, 49 years.
33:49
And they get back and they have jubilee. The land's back.
33:54
They're back in the land and the land's back. And they start rebuilding according to the word of the
34:00
Lord. And they begin to celebrate the goodness that God had done. And that's the, that's the point of Jeremiah's purchasing his cousin's field in the face of his own celibate, incarcerated, besieged, fragile mortality.
34:14
The land will be lived in again to preserve this deed for the days to come. It was an earnest, it was a first fruit of what was to come.
34:22
So Jeremiah has written to the exiles in Babylon. He has told them, build houses, live in them, plant gardens, harvest from them, get married, have children, make sure they get married and have children.
34:34
Your duty is to pray for your oppressors that they will prosper in their prosperity. You'll have a prosperity.
34:40
And quite simply, the sum of it is this, do not decrease, be fruitful and multiply.
34:49
And why are they told to do this? Because their descendants will be coming back to the land. So they had to live by faith, following the instructions in a foreign land, in exile, doing the things they were told to do for something that they would not yet see.
35:04
And this deed is, well, what is it? It is an artifact of faith.
35:13
It is an Ebenezer. It is a stone of help. It is a jar made of the clay dug up from the promised land, filled with the tablets cut out of the rock of Mount Zion.
35:26
Hold them in your hands, exiles, feel their heft. These are weights on the scales of faith, anchors of spiritual gravitas.
35:36
Live by faith. Do things in the now, the obedience of the now, testifying to the truth of what is to come.
35:47
And when I walk by faith, I mean, this promise to the Jews, God made good on it.
35:52
He brought them back. He gave them the land back. He did exactly what he said he would. And those who walked by faith, and they taught their children to believe, and those children taught their children to believe.
36:02
And when they got back, their faith became sight. God did exactly what he said he would do. And he shook the nations, and the wealth of the nations fell on them, and they rebuilt the temple, and beautified it, and restored the city.
36:14
Well, what about our walk by faith? Because we're still told in the New Testament, walk by faith and not by sight.
36:21
We're still told to live that way. So, in our walk by faith, what
36:26
Ebenezer do we have? What stone of help? What anchor of our faith?
36:34
Remember this, Christ redeems by costly obedience. Christ redeems by costly obedience.
36:42
In the presence of many witnesses, our kinsman redeemer, Jesus Christ, by his costly obedience, purchased what can only be described as worthless property.
36:59
What are we worth to God? What possible return can he get by the costly obedience of his beloved Son? Adam is poor.
37:05
Adam is utterly bankrupt. He's got nothing. He's got no righteousness, no virtue, no worthiness.
37:12
And unless God is merciful, unless God is gracious, unless God steps in as our kinsman redeemer, we are bankrupt, indebted thieves to a holy
37:21
God forever. Our kinsman redeemer comes. And what's the offer?
37:27
Here's a bunch of truth suppressing creatures, dead in trespasses and sins, clothed in filthy rags, slaves of sin, children of wrath, ever bowing before grotesque idols, one fist against our neighbor's head, the other shaking defiantly against our maker, an innumerable multitude of fools, all for the price of Jesus Christ's perfect righteousness, propitiating sacrifice on the cross under the infinitely holy wrath of God.
37:51
Here's the offer, Christ bears all the screaming hell our damned souls deserve to fill, and he saves us for the glory of God.
38:05
That's the offer. And for the joy set before him, Jesus says,
38:10
I'll take it. I'll take it. It's by faith.
38:18
At the center of the gospel message, we see our Savior praying in the garden. He's there praying by faith.
38:25
By faith, he endures the scourging in the prison. By faith, he endures the mocking of the crowd.
38:30
By faith, he endures the nailing to the cross. By faith, he suffers in obedience.
38:37
It was not by sight that he suffered and died. It was by faith.
38:43
And that is definitional for us. So where's our Ebenezer? Where's our Ernest? The empty tomb.
38:52
The empty tomb. That's our Ebenezer. The empty tomb.
38:58
The risen Christ. The gift of the Spirit. By these things we know our tombs will be empty too.
39:04
We have something to hold on to, to walk by faith and not by sight.
39:15
And all the rest of the promises of God track back there. And we've got promises to live by.
39:21
And we've got so many promises to live by. We have promises concerning Christ, promises concerning the Holy Spirit, promises concerning the
39:27
Word of God, promises concerning the church, promises for parents, promises for children, promises for nations, promises for those who have died in Christ.
39:36
We have all these promises by which we are to live.
39:41
Live by faith, not by sight. Matthew Henry was writing on this passage and considering the strange purchase of Jeremiah as he buys this land.
39:56
He says, note, it is good to manage even our worldly affairs in faith and to do common business with an eye to the providence and promise of God.
40:12
Example from history. Lucius Florus relates, it is a great instance of the bravery of Roman citizens that in the time of the
40:19
Second Punic War when Hannibal besieged Rome and was very near making himself the master of it.
40:25
A field on which a part of the enemy army lay was being offered to sail at that time and was immediately purchased in a firm belief that Roman valor would defeat the siege.
40:38
And then Matthew Henry says, and have we not much more reason to venture our all upon the
40:48
Word of God to embark in Zion's interests which will undoubtedly be the prevailing interests at the last.
41:01
Good counsel to walk by faith and not by sight. Let's pray.
41:07
Father, I thank you for the example that you give us in Jeremiah. Obeying what you tell him to, doing the costly sacrificial thing you tell him to, looking beyond the immediate results, living by faith.
41:28
Father, help us to live by faith. Looking to our Savior Jesus Christ and how he models that for us, how he has saved us by doing that.