WWUTT 2314 Return O Faithless Sons (Jeremiah 3:15-25)

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Israel had rebelled against God, they had gone after the false gods, but God called them to repentance, to return to Him.

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And may that reminder be on our hearts to turn from our sin back to Jesus when we understand the text.

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This is When We Understand The Text, teaching through a New Testament book on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, an

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Old Testament book on Thursday, and a Q &A on Friday. With our Old Testament study today, here's

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Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. In our study of the book of Jeremiah, we are finishing up chapter three, where God is calling

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Israel to repentance, Israel who has rebelled against God. They have gone after the false gods and have adopted the sexually immoral practices of the pagans around them.

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God even says at the start of chapter three, would you take you back after you acted like a faithless wife and prostituted yourself with these gods that are really not gods?

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And yet He extends to them a call of repentance anyway. That began in chapter six.

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We went through verse 14 last week. We're gonna pick up that call today in verse 15, and I'll read through to the end of the chapter.

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Now, you'll notice here there's gonna be a vocal change. It will go from the voice of God calling

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Israel to repentance to Israel responding, and it happens right in the middle of a verse.

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Maybe you'll catch it here, but of course, we'll talk through it as we go. So let me begin reading in verse 15, going through verse 25.

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Hear the word of the Lord. And I will give you shepherds after my own heart who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.

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And when you have multiplied and have been fruitful in the land in those days, declares the Lord, they shall no more say the ark of the covenant of the

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Lord. It shall not come to mind or be remembered or missed. It shall not be made again.

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At that time, Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the

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Lord, and all nations shall gather to it, to the presence of the Lord in Jerusalem, and they shall no more stubbornly follow their own evil heart.

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In those days, the house of Judah shall join the house of Israel, and together they shall come from the land of the

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North to the land that I give your fathers as a heritage. I said, how

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I would set you among my sons and give you a pleasant land, a heritage most beautiful of all nations.

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And I thought you would call me my father and would not turn from following me.

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Surely as a treacherous wife leaves her husband, so have you been treacherous to me,

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O house of Israel, declares the Lord. A voice on the Bear Heights is heard, the weeping and pleading of Israel's sons because they have perverted their way, they have forgotten the

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Lord, their God. Return, O faithless sons, I will heal your faithlessness.

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Behold, we come to you for you are the Lord, our God. Truly the hills are a delusion, the orgies on the mountains.

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Truly in the Lord, our God is the salvation of Israel. But from our youth, the shameful thing is devoured all for which our fathers labored, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.

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Let us lie down in our shame and let our dishonor cover us for we have sinned against the

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Lord, our God, we and our fathers from our youth even to this day.

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And we have not obeyed the voice of the Lord, our God. Now, did you catch where the voice speaking changed?

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It was God coming back once again to say, return O faithless sons, I will heal your faithlessness.

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That was right at verse 22. That's the first half of verse 22. The second half then is

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Israel's response. Behold, we come to you for you are the Lord, our God. So does this mean that Israel repented?

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Is that what we have here? With God through the prophet Jeremiah calling

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Israel to repentance and then they did? Let's consider that when we get there. First, going back up to verse 15.

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And I will give you shepherds after my own heart who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.

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So who are these shepherds? Of course, they are the teachers of Israel. And as we've seen this corruption that has happened in Israel has, it's not just among lay persons, but even their priests and their teachers and those who are supposed to be guiding them in the law of God, who should be calling them to repentance without a prophet having to do it.

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But they have fed themselves instead of feeding the flocks. They've used their position to make themselves great and to provide for themselves instead of providing for the people of God that they should be shepherding.

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So hence God referring to them as shepherds, Israel being his sheep, his flock, his pasture, these teachers being shepherds that God has appointed under shepherds that should be taking care of them, that should be guiding them in the way of God.

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And that is not what they are doing. Now, the word pastor, of course, means shepherd.

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That's where pastor comes from. And so likewise, a person who is a pastor, an overseer in the church, an elder, a bishop, whatever name he might happen to go by, his responsibility is shepherding the flock of God.

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Peter even addresses them that way in 2nd, or sorry, 1st Peter chapter five, talking to them as under shepherds.

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And when the chief shepherd appears, then you'll receive your reward. Christ, of course, being the chief shepherd, he said of himself,

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I am the good shepherd. Talking about himself being who David was praying to in Psalm 23, the

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Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. So there are teachers that have been appointed by God to shepherd his people.

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And instead of shepherding the people of God, they have fed themselves. They haven't fed the flock, they fed themselves.

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And so punishment is going to come upon them. And those who are teachers will be judged with greater strictness, that said also in Jeremiah 3 .1,

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or sorry, Jeremiah James, another J book. James 3 .1 is where that said.

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So here where God says, I'm gonna give you shepherds who are after my own heart. If you turn from your sin back to me, here's what

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I will give to you. These men who have fed themselves, they're gonna perish in judgment.

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Instead, the teachers that you will get will be men who seek after God. They desire

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God, they want to please God. They are after God's own heart. They are worthy of imitation.

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Like the apostle Paul says in 1st Corinthians 11 .1, imitate me as I am of Christ. These would be men that would be like David was.

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Remember that David was called a man who was after God's own heart. The King of Israel that God had so endeared himself to.

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And there will be shepherds among you who will be as David was. As David was faithful to me, so these shepherds will be faithful to me.

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And they will give you knowledge and understanding. Instead of telling you things that puff you up or puff themselves up or gain the most followers or whatever it is.

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They're just trying to please the people. They fear man rather than fearing God. That will not be these men. They will give you the actual knowledge and understanding of the word of God that has been proclaimed to you.

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And when you have multiplied and been fruitful in the land in those days, declares the Lord, they shall no more say the ark of the covenant of the

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Lord. Okay, we'll get to that here. Remember that in the rebuke that God had given to Israel, at the start of chapter three, he had said that the showers have been withheld.

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The spring rain has not come. Yet you have the forehead of a whore and you refuse to be ashamed.

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So there's been consequences for your action. You are languishing in the land that you are in. There has not been rain.

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It's been dried up. There's famine because of the evil that you have done. But God will make you fruitful and multiply again if you will repent and come back to the

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Lord. And in those days, when you're fruitful and multiplying, it shall no more be said, the ark of the covenant of the

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Lord. Now, what's interesting about this is that at the time that Jeremiah is saying this, there was still an ark of the covenant.

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It had not yet been seized by the Babylonians and melted down and destroyed. By the way, this passage right here indicates that the ark of the covenant is gone.

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There is kind of a foreshadowing, an implied statement here that the ark of the covenant will be destroyed.

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It will not even be remembered anymore. Neither will it be made again. So it will be gone and no one's gonna make a new one.

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So this is further evidence that there is not an ark of the covenant that we can find anywhere.

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There's all different kinds of theories as to where the ark might be. Of course, there was a whole movie made about searching for the ark.

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Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Believing that it was buried in Egypt somewhere. And of course, it was

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Hitler that wanted the ark because he thought it gave him power and would help him fight his war and all this other kind of thing.

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All the different occultic stuff that Hitler believed on top of all the other madness and wickedness that he did.

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So he thought having the ark of the covenant would be like a good luck charm for him and he would be able to vanquish his enemies.

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But it did not exist anymore. There was not an ark of the covenant. You won't find it anywhere. All the different myths and legends and things regarding where it might be.

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Some saying that it could even still be on the Temple Mount as it exists today, but buried in the rock somewhere.

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And there's different theories too as to when the ark of the covenant was hidden. Was it hidden when the Babylonians came?

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And so they hid the ark down there in the foundation so that when the Babylonians arrived, they wouldn't be able to find it.

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The very place where God dwelled with his people. Now we protected the ark, the

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Babylonians didn't get it. So they buried it in the floor of the temple. And then when they came back to Jerusalem, there's a continued theory that goes that they unearthed the ark of the covenant and then put it back in its rightful spot.

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So then you had the ark for the second temple period. And even at the time of Christ, there was actually an ark in the temple.

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It's never mentioned in the New Testament. This is just how that theory goes. But then it was when

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Rome came against Israel. Well, Rome came against Jerusalem in 70

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AD when you had the Jewish Roman war. Then either the ark of the covenant was destroyed there or it was hidden again.

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And thus perpetuating the theories today of well, where could it be? Where might we go to find the ark of the covenant?

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No, it's clearly indicated here by Jeremiah that it was destroyed and will not be made again.

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And when it was destroyed, it would have been by the hands of the Babylonians. And in the book of Ezekiel, he sees

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God get up out of the temple and go up on a hillside and wait to see

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Israel, to see Jerusalem be destroyed. So his presence is completely removed from the ark and from the temple by the time that Babylon comes against Jerusalem.

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Therefore, when they touch the ark of the covenant, it's not like when the Philistines seized it and then

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God afflicted them with all kinds of peril because the Philistines had taken the ark of the covenant for themselves, that place where God dwelled on the mercy seat.

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When the Babylonians finally seized it and they took it as plunder and had it melted down,

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God's presence was no longer with the ark. So that's why it didn't have the same effect upon the Babylonians.

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Jeremiah is fully indicating here that the ark would be destroyed and a day is coming in which you won't be looking for the ark of the covenant again.

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They will no more say the ark of the covenant of the Lord. It shall not come to mind or be remembered or be missed.

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It shall not be made again. Why not? Why can't we get the ark back?

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Why can't we just make another one? Because here's why the people wouldn't even desire to have the ark of the covenant again.

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Verse 17, at that time, Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the Lord and all nations shall gather to it, to the presence of the

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Lord in Jerusalem. And they shall no more stubbornly follow their own evil heart. In those days, the house of Judah shall join the house of Israel and together they shall come from the land of the

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North to the land that I give your fathers for a heritage.

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Let's stop there for a moment. So there are many that read that and they will think that this is talking about a literal kingdom on earth, the millennial reign of Christ, in fact.

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So it will be after Jesus returns and sets up his kingdom on the earth, that's what this is referring to,

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Israel and Judah joining together. Jerusalem will be God's throne.

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He will sit right there on the throne of David in Jerusalem. That's all according to this particular millennial view.

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And they will no longer follow their own evil heart. The house of Judah joins the house of Israel, together they'll come from the land of the

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North to the land that I give their fathers for heritage. Is that the foreshadowing that's going on here? Is this talking about a millennial kingdom after Jesus returns?

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Rather, it is referring to the state of things now. It's referring to the present.

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Not the present of Jeremiah's day. Our day is what this is talking about because the church is

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Jerusalem. Remember in the book of Revelation, the church is called the new

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Jerusalem. And even in Galatians, the apostle Paul talks about Jerusalem as being our mother and talking to the church about that.

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So we are this new Jerusalem. We are the dwelling place of God.

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Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the Lord. Remember that Jesus is head of the church.

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That's another reference to his monarchal reign, by the way, to be the head of something.

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And so he has prominence over the church, preeminence over the church. This is the throne of the

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Lord. This is where God dwells, the church being the new Jerusalem and all nations shall gather to it.

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Really? All nations shall gather to Jerusalem. How is that possible if we're talking to a city?

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We're talking about a city. How do all nations come to a city? Now, this is all nations coming to the church, which is made up of Jew and Gentile together in Christ Jesus.

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Reference to the nations, often a reference to Gentiles. So even at this particular time, when the

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Jews would be reading this prophecy, they're talking about, oh, see, Jerusalem is going to be made great again and all the nations are going to gather to it, not realizing that specifically what the

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Lord was revealing was that he would make his church the very dwelling place of God.

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And people from all over the world will come to the church through the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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As Jesus even said in the gospel of John, I will be raised up so that I will draw all men to myself.

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Christ being raised up on the cross and risen again from the dead, he is drawing all men to himself from all over the world through the preaching of the gospel that goes out, that all who believe in him will not perish under the judgment of God, but have everlasting life.

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And they shall no more stubbornly follow their own evil heart. And that's not talking about Israel, that's talking about the nations.

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All nations shall gather to it, to the presence of the Lord in Jerusalem, and they shall no more stubbornly follow their own evil heart.

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The nations will no longer follow their own evil heart. In those days, the house of Judah shall join the house of Israel, and together they shall come from the land of the

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North to the land that I gave your fathers for a heritage. Well, surely that's talking about Israel, like present day

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Israel, right? That's the promised land, that's the holy land that we're talking about there. Well, remember what is said in Hebrews 11, beginning in verse 13, these all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.

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For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return.

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But as it is, they desire a better country, that is a heavenly one.

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Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

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Even the Old Testament faithful were not looking for a land on the earth that they could draw into, but a heavenly kingdom and a city prepared by God for them that is not of this world, but is in his heavenly kingdom.

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And so all of these things here, even references to that, which would be fulfilled in Christ in the ushering in of his kingdom that is not of this world.

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And it's through the church that people come to Christ.

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It is the church where Christ has seated himself. It is the church that the nations have been drawn into through the preaching of the gospel.

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It is the church that is the new Jerusalem. And so God continues this appeal, this call to Israel.

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I said, how I would set you among my sons and give you a pleasant land, a heritage most beautiful of all nations.

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And I thought you would call me my father and would not turn from following me. Surely as a treacherous wife leaves her husband, so have you been treacherous to me,

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O house of Israel, declares the Lord. Now for God to make that statement, I thought you would call me my father and would not turn from following me.

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So is God making a reference to something that he didn't know was going to happen?

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Like his expectation was, it was misplaced. God poorly assumed that Israel would continue to call him father and then they didn't.

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So was God let down? Is that what this is indicating here? He did not know the way that Israel was going to go.

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Now, very simply, God is anthropomorphizing himself. So he's describing his expectation of Israel with human qualities.

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It doesn't mean that he didn't know what Israel was going to do. It's rather an indictment of them in that you should have known better.

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You should have known better to call me father and would not have turned from following me.

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This really is being placed upon Israel here. It's not God going, oh man, I'm so shocked, guys.

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I did not even see this coming. But God says to them, surely as a treacherous wife leaves her husband, so you have been treacherous to me,

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O house of Israel. Again, it's on them. It's not taken God by surprise at all.

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So then we have a narrative function here where Jeremiah says in verse 21, so this would be like the voice of the prophet still being led by the voice of the

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Lord. It's just not a quote attributed directly to God here in verse 21. A voice on the

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Bear Heights is heard, the weeping and pleading of Israel's sons because they have perverted their way.

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They have forgotten the Lord, their God. And so God says, return, O faithless sons,

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I will heal your faithlessness. And then Israel responds, behold, we come to you for you are the

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Lord, our God. Truly the hills are a delusion, the orgies on the mountains. Truly in the Lord, our

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God is the salvation of Israel. So Israel confessing, and we went to all of this pagan stuff, believing that it was going to satisfy us and we've been left empty.

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The answer is not up there. With the worship of false gods on the high places and all the sexual immorality that goes along with that, truly in the

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Lord, our God is the salvation of Israel. Now what's going on here? Is this

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Israel repenting? Like they've come to their senses and they're turning from their wickedness and turning back to God?

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Is that what this expression is here? Well, we know that Israel would be destroyed, that their enemies would come against them and Israel would fall before Judah would fall.

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So remember, all of this is prophetic. All of this is speaking about something that is going to happen later on.

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This isn't Jeremiah writing down, oh, Israel repented, so let me write down their repentance. This is still the prophet speaking.

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And he's speaking about something that has not yet come to pass. So this could be in reference to a day that Israel does repent and will come back to the

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Lord, or it could be the prophet putting into the mouth of Israel words that they should say when they come to repentance, as though the prophet is helping to lead them in what a prayer of confession would look like.

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That's the second possibility. Third, it could simply be in reference to what we had considered before about the church being

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Jerusalem. So anybody who comes to the Lord will confess themselves in this kind of way.

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It's not revealing that Israel did repent and come back to God. It's revealing rather something that has not yet come to pass, at least at the time that this is being written down, of course, because this is prophetic.

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It's looking towards something in the future that has not yet happened. So in verse 24, but from our youth, a shameful thing has devoured all for which our fathers labored.

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This is, of course, still Israel talking. Their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters. Let us lie down in our shame and let our dishonor cover us, for we have sinned against the

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Lord, our God. We and our fathers from our youth, even to this day, and we have not obeyed the voice of the

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Lord, our God. And that is a statement that could be indicative of any person that repents and comes to the

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Lord. Anyone is able to say, and we've done this shameful thing. We've gone after the world and all of the stuff that the world promises us.

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We've acted like the world. We've indulged in the world's lusts and pleasures, and we've found them completely empty.

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That they're a delusion. They promise some kind of satisfaction, reward, meaningfulness, purpose, but then we just came up empty.

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Truly in the Lord, our God is the salvation of Israel.

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Salvation is found in God alone. And so this kind of prayer that we have here at the very end, may it be the cry of our hearts that we might seek after the

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Lord for the forgiveness of our sins. And it is said in verse 22, return, oh, faithless sons,

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I will heal your faithlessness. I will change your heart so that you're not going after the faithless thing anymore, but will desire faithfulness to the

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Lord, our God. And may that conviction be in our hearts whenever we go wayward.

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And we might be enticed by our flesh, by the world, go after that stuff again, and once again, come up empty.

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I mean, we knew better, just like Israel should have known better. We go after it anyway.

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And let us hear God call to us in those moments, return to me, faithless sons, and I will cleanse you.

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1 John 1, 9, if we ask forgiveness for our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

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We'll pick up with chapter four next week. Heavenly Father, we thank you for these reminders.

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May they be convictions on our heart that we listen to, turning from our wicked ways back to the Lord, that we may be healed, that we may seek after God, that we may walk in your righteousness.

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Thank you for your patience with us. And may we not take our eyes off Jesus, the author and the perfecter of our faith.

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It's in his name that we pray, amen. This has been, When We Understand the

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Text of Pastor Gabriel Hughes. For all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books, and more, visit our website at www .utt

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.com. If you'd like to submit a question to this broadcast, or just send us a comment, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com

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and let your friends know about our ministry. Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in the study of God's word,