The prophets - Jeremiah

… In the Word of the Lord come unto me, saying, That saith the Lord, after this manner will I mar the pride of Judah, and the great pride of Jerusalem. For these are people which refuse to hear my words, which walk in the imagination of their hearts, and walk after other gods, and serve none but the worst of them. So even though they are good for nothing, it is good for nothing. They that go between us to the loins of men, shall by cause appear unto me the whole house of Israel, and the whole house of Judah, saith the Lord. They might be unto me a couple of people, and a couple of men, and a couple of clothes, and a couple of laws. But they would not hear. There are two kinds in this world. Hatred shall also appear there, every bottle shall be filled with wine. They shall say unto me, Do not say anything, every bottle shall be filled with wine. Then shall they say unto me, Do not say to the Lord, Thou wilt fill all the inhabitants of this land, Be it the king that put upon this land, and the priest, and the prophet, Nor the inhabitants of Jerusalem, which drunkenness. Thou hast been one against another, even the fathers and the sons of Judah, saith the Lord. Thou wilt not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, by destroying them. Hear ye, if ye hear, be not proud, for the Lord hath spoken. He ignores the Lord your God, before he calls darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountain. And while he looks about, he turns it into a shadow of death, and makes great darkness. But if ye will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places for your time, and my eyes are weak sore, and my mouth is teary, because the Lord's plot is carried away captive. Say unto the king and to the queen, Humble yourselves, sit down. Your principalities will come down in the crown of your glory. The cities of the south will be set up before you. The dams will open there. Too little will be carried away captive, all of it. Too little will be wholly carried away captive. Lift up your eyes, and the whole world shall come to the Lord. Where is the plot that hath given thee thy beautiful plot? What wilt thou say of me that punishes thee? For thou shalt enter the captains, and those chief over you shall not follow faithfully as a woman and father. Is it thou saying, my heart? Wherefore come these things upon me? For the broken shall lie in the midst of the other, and the flesh is covered, and thou shalt be laid dead. If any Ethiopian claims this sin, or the effort is spot, then may ye also do good, for I have taught them to do this. Therefore I have settled them with this power, parted away by the women in the wilderness. Is it thou not the portion of thy measure for me, that the Lord, because thou hast forgotten me, and suffered impulsively? Therefore would I discover thy flesh upon my face, for thou shalt not appear. I have seen thy daughters, and thy maids, the youth of my children, my abominations, on my hill and in the fields. Woe unto the Ethiopians! If we have done naught to make clean, then take my spirit. I have been looking at the book of Jeremiah recently and it is well to see first of all the way in which the book begins because it gives us an idea of the background of this book. In the first chapter we read the words of Jeremiah coming to a time of the priests who were in Anathot. So first of all the prophet himself was a priest. He lived in Anathot, one of the priest's suburbs as they are called. We noted in the last time we were here in chapter 12 that the priests there, his fellow priests, were not listening to his message. In fact they saw his nose, they wanted to kill him. They wanted to listen to his message. Very sad, isn't it? Their fellow priests, but they had not the same vision that he had. Then in verse 2, chapter 1, the words of the Lord came. In the days of Josiah, the son of Amon, in the future, the 13th year of his reign, in the days of Horatian, the son of Josiah, in the future, unto the end of the 11th year of his reign, the son of Josiah. It doesn't mention the other thing here, but there are a few other things not mentioned, but it was, as you see, over the period of about 40 years from the race to the second year of his reign, Josiah, the good king. I have here a chart. I know it's made with a smaller page than here, but you may be able to see it. Anyway, in the centuries, and these are the four major prophets, Josiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. And we see how Josiah's prophecy began about the year that Josiah died. It carried on through the time of Manasseh, probably into the reign of Manasseh, so I read it here, the son of Josiah. It covered the reigns of that wicked king Ahaz. Jacob we read very little, except he did just about follow the law, not much with him, but Ahaz, the wicked king, and then he had a very good son, a faithful son for the time. Then, considerably later, come these three prophets, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. And we see that these three overlap, because while the kingdom of Israel, the Phoenix, was in the reign of Hezekiah, the kingdom of Judea went on until the reign of Hezekiah, and somewhere about 600 BC, the kingdom was finished. But Joseph here didn't prophesy until the 11th year of his time, in the last year of his reign, it was until the actual captivity. So it's come a quite long period, and we see at that time, first of all, the good king Josiah. Josiah was quite a little boy, he came to a throne, he reigned for many years, but very early in his life, he sought the Lord, his God, the God of his fathers. During his reign, he sought the temple, which had been desecrated by Manasseh and his son Ammon. Although Manasseh lived a faith-making life, his son did not. And the temple was in terrible condition, they had to clean it out, rebuild, restock it. And in the course of these preparations, they discovered a scroll, a forgotten book, the book of Moses, the book of the Lord. And you remember how people said, bring this, bring this to the king. When they read it to king Josiah, he said, this is terrible, we haven't obtained this scroll of God, therefore the things written in this book of Deuteronomy will be coming upon us. And he fasted, and he prayed, and he confessed the sins of his people, and God said, yes, not in your time, your judgment fall, but in the time of your sons. It's interesting that his sons, Jeronimos and Zechariah, there were 50 mothers, were found to have been single parents. In the other prophets, we read more of the detail of why Zechariah was finally overflown, and we link it up to the prophecy of it in this book, as well as the facts. But the real reason was, that he had no love for God. And while he took the name of Jehovah upon his lips, and swore by the Lord, he broke his oath. And the king of Babylon never forgave him for that. Because if he'd taken the oath upon one of the gods of Babylon, the king of Babylon would have killed him. And he expected the person who knew the god of Israel to be the same. This man was a godless king, and we know what happened, just as Jeremiah prophesied. We read in the chapters 33 and 38, 39 of this book, how he was taken away, his eyes were put out, and he was made captive in Babylon. Just as Jeremiah foretold. What was noticeable, and you might get notice of the word I read just now, to whom the word of the Lord came, in David, Josiah. Josiah was a faithful man. Josiah was a man who sought the Lord his God. But unfortunately, this reformation, this revitalizing, as we'd hoped, did not last. And the people were already going back to the gods of the nations on the back. And this is the serious thing, and we find this coming again and again in this book. And so we find it was the word of the Lord that came. It wasn't Jeremiah's word, it was the word of the Lord. Jeremiah recalls this, I think it's on the 18th time, the speech of the Lord of Hosts. That was the Lord of Hosts. At least 30 times it was the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, and a few more times the word of the Lord came to me. It was the word of the Lord that he was able to say, that said the Lord. It's very important because people will actually go and say, well it's only Jeremiah's word, it's only Paul's word, it's only John's word. Forgetting, as Paul said in one occasion, that any man who is spiritual among you will recognize what I speak of are the commandments of God. And this word that Jeremiah spoke was the word of the Lord. In the first chapter we find the preparation of the prophet chosen by God before his birth. He was chosen with a particular purpose and he feels the only adequacy. It's quite a good thing. Moses said the same, and many of the other sermons he's taken on. How people are, how can I do this? God will say not, I am a child. Thou shalt go to all that I will send thee, and whatsoever I command thee, thou shalt speak. Then comes and will anyone who feels called to the service of God don't say I am a child, don't say I can't do it. It's God's message, God's commission, that he goes to all that I shall send. Whatsoever I command thee, thou shalt speak. So it was not again his commission, it was God's commission, it was not his word, it was God's word. And immediately after we find this expression moreover the word of the Lord came unto me saying, Jeremiah, what sayest thou? Not only is God going to give him word, but he's going to make him see things, he's going to make him feel things, experience things. It is typical of the experience of the prophet, we notice in Ezekiel's own experience, I made a short video about it a few months ago, how he had to feel things. And Jeremiah had to feel. And a lot of this book is taken up with his experiences, also with his pleading, and his prayer to God. We call him the weakened prophet, and he did feel for his people, we notice in many chapters. Now from the second chapter, the end of chapter 45, the beginning of the second part of this book, it's a very long section, it's interspersed with a great deal of history of the prophet, and of the kings, it goes round in proper time. And in the next small section, after the killing words to little Barak, not in the sense of his former habit, no, he's had a minor task, but I say he's had a great task, of copying down all the words that Jeremiah spoke. Barak was a scribe, God gave him a little word of encouragement. In that last chapter, there's a list section. And in it, we find the prophecies concerning the nations round about Jerusalem and Judea. Now I've got a map here, which you probably can't see very well. Here's the northern theme, which has been already taken captive. Here is Judah, here's Jerusalem, and his prophecies concerning Egypt, Philistia, Moab, Edom, the Arabian nations, and finally Babylon, which is right where it's appeared by the prophecies. These nations surround the edit kingdom of Judah, I face around, so it's still just as vital today. These nations are still looking with long eyes on a tiny territory, but this land is still beloved of God. He sees it as one people, as one land. And it's good to remember, God has said in the prophet, woe to those who divide my land. The land is being divided, and has been divided many times, but woe to those nations of God who divide my land. An interesting expression we've done in chapter just read, and I'll show you in the first chapter, it comes in, the word of the Lord came to me the second time. In chapter 1 verse 13, he'd seen a vision, and God said, what seest thou? It was important that he had eyes to see what God said before him. And having seen that properly, God said, yes, it's been an hour and three, I'm going to hasten my work, now quickly the almond blossom, the first blossom of that sign that spring and summer are on their way, God said, yes, it's coming very quickly. What? My day begins. And he gave the second vision. The word of the Lord came the second time. We have it in our chapter, chapter 13, comes in chapter 33, in verse 3, it's an expression, the word of the Lord came to me the second time. Let's think of Jonah. Isn't it Jonah who was given a commission? Arise, go to Nineveh, a great city, and preach the gospel. We know what happened to Jonah. He rebelled against the word of God, he disobeyed, he had the money in his pocket, he paid his fare, he carried just the opposite direction. But God brought him back. In chapter 3, after he had been deposed by a bishop on dry land, he reached the word of the Lord, came to Jonah a second time. In this case, the wonderful proof of the grace of God, the persistence of God, the patience of God, with his prophet. We get in line, it wasn't a question of disobedience, as I started reading through just now, God commanded him, he said I did, as the Lord commanded me. Did we do that? The Lord commanded, and I did as the Lord commanded me. It's very important that we do as the Lord commanded us. Did he carry out his task in his way? Remember Moses, he didn't make the tabernacle according to the pattern that I've seen in the New Testament. It wasn't Moses' pattern, it was God's pattern. He showed him the pattern, and he says, if you read those eight chapters in Exodus, he made it according to the commandment of the Lord. And so we find, reading through these chapters, of the prophecies that God had concerning Judea and Jerusalem, in chapter 2 especially, God's controversy with his people. Affirmation he changed his God, he had over no God. My people have forsaken their glory, without which he had no profit. Then he said, my people have committed two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and have doomed themselves systems, broken systems, that can hold no water. And if this was true of Judea in that day, is it not true of Christendom today? Let's come a little closer. Is it not true of many companies of God's people today? That we are not always content to be obedient to the word of the Lord, but we turn aside to those systems, broken systems that can hold no water. As they said, there's an open conversation after tea today, that the separation of light from darkness is on the very first page of the Bible, and it is apprenticable right through the whole Scripture, that God separated light from darkness. God still says there is no communion between light and darkness, no fellowship. And God's people are in the light. And yet how often we turn, as Israel turned, to those broken systems that God still begins on. They couldn't help him. They were broken systems that could hold no water. He said we haven't got any ideas. No, not ideas of gold and children, but idols inasmuch as we have other interests, other goals before us, other objects that occupy us to the expense of being occupied with Christ. And what's clear to God is occupy the believer with Christ. Just as in this day, God was pointing out in these chapters that we've been reading recently, right the way through, of the folly, the folly of destroying themselves by the abominations of the nations. What are they doing? You say, are you provoking me to anger? You're provoking yourselves to your own destruction. It's very sad, isn't it? And so we find in these chapters constantly a finding, perhaps, of this poster that you'll find the way is perceived. God's pleading with his people and again and again is saying, as we find in the words of Lord Jesus Christ in chapter 6, he says, stand in the way of the sea and ask for the old car, and where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest yourselves. But it's very sad. We will not walk there. And you want to walk in the old path. And this, I believe, has something to say to us today. There are old paths. Just because they're old doesn't mean they're no good. Just because our Father walked in that way doesn't mean that we mustn't walk in that way. Just because these paths, which is actually one path, that Lord Jesus himself has walked, has been set before us for nearly 2,000 years, it does nothing to say that we have to choose now a different path, a path that is the right or the left. No. It is the word of the Lord. That's the Lord. Stand in the way of the sea and ask for the old path and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your soul. That's what Lord Jesus promised, wasn't it? To all the people, rest for your soul. There's no rest in these paths of the world. There's no rest in the path of disobedience. There's no rest in these new ways that have been cut out. Remind you of this when we see the motorways that drive up that land, they're very beautiful, and we have managed, as they are rare, to get from here to there. There's no rest for them. You can't even stand still on them. If you do, there's a peril. There's no rest. There's no rest you'll find in a village street. There's no rest you'll find in the home, in a little country place. There's no rest for your soul because this is a new way. It comes through some of the lanes in our village, and you can walk along the middle of the road and you won't be knocked down. There's rest. You can walk at peace and rest. That's what God wanted for his people. But, basically, we will not walk there. Isn't that sad? How often do I have casualties at the door, but you would not. You know, the same chap says, I kept watching over you, saying, harken to the sound of the trumpet. But they said, we will not harken. The trumpet is being sounded, the word of the Lord is handed out. And so often the people have gone, yes, but I'd rather please myself. They don't say it as plain as that, but that's what the actions say. The other word, we will not harken. Though God says there, says there, reprobate silver, reprobate silver, full of dross, the town that melteth in vain, for a wicked are not cut to work. Reprobate silver, he says at the end of the chapter. Then in the seventh chapter, he points out that, obviously, they were saying, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. Yes, he did. He kept on saying, the temple of the Lord. But, trust not in lying words. You've made this house of mine a den of robbers. I've seen it. You see, what happened to Shiloh? You remember Shiloh, where Eli was custodian of the ark? What happened to Shiloh? In fact, Jeremiah was not even a sinner. It was a ruin. It was empty. Waste. God says, as I've done to Shiloh, so I will do to this house. I called you, but ye answered not. He's saying, O God, keep coming back to this. I've called you, but ye answered not. And yet, there's always this word of God, even in that chapter, and I'm telling you, obey my voice, I will be your God, you shall be my people. If only they would listen. As ever you find me going on, I come briefly to a chapter of the Gospel today, you'll notice in chapter 10 and 11, where he warns of it, going after the ways of the heathens, after the laws of the heathens, and if you think, we're talking today about the way human laws have been amended to permit any kind of crime, what used to be wrong is now permissible. These people are permissive to society. It's a wicked, an iniquitous society, which is permissive, which is permissible, and he says there that these people are deceivers and deceived, because they don't go after God. Don't go after God. And this chapter we read today, it begins with another very practical lesson, again and again, for Jeremiah to do things. Remember Ezekiel had to do things, and now they're painful things. Jeremiah is commanded, go and look at your linen girdle, and put it on my lawn, and put it not in water. Now that says what a girdle is. This girdle is a picture here of the whole house of Israel, the whole house of Judah. Thus the girdle cleaves to the body, so that I have intended that you should cleave to me. The psalmist in Psalm 119 says, I have stuck unto thy testimonies. The same word, I have cleaved unto thy testimonies. The word of God was so precious to this psalmist that they were part of him. Just the girdle, it was so close, nothing could be closer. He just cleaves to the body, because that was my intention for you. My intention was for you to be a pure people, cleaving, a pure linen girdle. Remember the pure linen, it makes us think of it, of the fine, fine linen of the tabernacle, which spoke in figure of the perfection of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of Man. That's it particularly in the Gospel of Luke. Fine linen, fine linen. When the high priest went into the holiest of all, once a year in the third atonement, he had to wear the white linen garments, the garments of purity. He had to wash his body first before he put on the holy white linen garments. So here, this prophet has to buy this linen girdle and put it on, but he must not put it in the water. Water would spoil it. It must be kept dry. And we know this water is often, in particular it is often used, we think of the stifle going across the water. The water began to get into the boat, we read. Speaking, I believe, there of the world, the wicked about the troubled sea, we read in Isaiah. Having no rest, always casting up mire and dirt. The waters, in Revelation, are described as the peoples and the nations in their own rest, in their disturbed, sinful condition. And this, I believe, is something for today, just as much as it was for Israel and Judah in that day. God did I think the whole house of Israel, the whole house of Judah, to be pure, to cling to me, not to be defiled by the world round about. It was a nation of parts, of parts for God, sanctified, made holy for God. Be ye holy, he said to the people, for I am holy. Hear what he says after that. But they would not fear. Let's stand, verse 11. For all you can do is to be unto him for people, and for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory. But they would not fear. Let's stand. And as we may, let me read from this, we often may think what God intended. Yes, God intended that the church that bears his name, the church of God, should be holy here and now, should be a testimony for him, should bear his head here, for a name, for people, for a name, for praise, and for glory. We look at that wonderful first day of the church's history, and we see how the disciples were of one accord, one mind gathered together. As we see how they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine of fellowship, in the breaking of bread and praying, we have a wonderful picture of what God intended his church to be for a people, for a name, for his praise and glory. I know, very quickly, that they actually find favour coming in. We got that in the beginning. How much more now? They would not fear. They would not fear. So he has this task, he did exactly what happened, so I've got to go according to the word of the Lord, I've put on my garment, and then I'm going to pray, and the word of the Lord came unto me the second time. Yes, he'd done what he was told, he'd kept it dry, unspotted by the world, he'd kept it pure and dry, worn in obedience to God. But the word of the Lord came to me the second time, and he said, go, as I've got what is upon my garment, and arise, go to Euphrates, and hide it there in the hole of the rock. I believe here we find that picture, symbol of what God was going to do with his people. He was going to plough them out of their land. He was going to foot them, so to speak, in the Euphrates. The Euphrates, you know, is the river of Babylon, and it speaks of that wicked city, the very first Gentile power that we read of, what Gentiles say in defense of arrogance and hatred of God, in the book of Genesis, before the word of the Jews and Gentiles was such, but a heathen power. We find Babylon, Babel, set up very early. Nimrod was the king of Babylon. Nimrod was who began this system to let God out of his reckoning. The people of Judah, very shortly after this, in the days of Jeremiah himself, were actually taken down to Euphrates, taken down to Babylon. They were defiled, as God said they would be, when the defilement of that godless city and godless power, and he had so used to hide it in the hole of the rock. So I went and hid it by Euphrates, as the Lord commanded, again in complete obedience, complete obedience and carrying out those symbolic acts. And it came to pass after many days that the Lord said unto him, I must go to Euphrates and take you further from them, as I have commanded you to hide there. Many days. He hasn't told them yet how long the captivity was for the last. Here it is many days. It's just a symbolic period of time here. It's not many at all here. Many days. Later on he tells them how long it's going to be, but at this moment that's not going to be. We do know that he had made it plain to them he would take them into captivity. They would be brought away from their city and from the land they had got lost to Babylon. And that would be for many days we find here, the more fact may play. Many days. What were the effects? What were the effects of going down to a place where God was not on it? What were the effects of going to a place where other gods were served? What were the effects? The second Israel of idolatry. Finally, not Israel was defiled. Israel was spoiled as a testament. And finally we know the whole country had to be swept clean. You see this in the later chapters and the last chapter gives us the conclusion, the historical conclusion to the whole story where the city was broken down, gates burned with fire, the temple ransacked, all the treasures taken away. Nothing left. That would have been so beautiful. That would have been so honoring to God. The glory had already departed, as we see in the book of Ezekiel. There's no glory there, but it's laid waste. Israel ignored it in this little bit. He took this girl out after many days. And what about it? It had been in the hole in the rock. It had been lying in the mud and the water of the Euphrates. And it wasn't pure anymore. It was mild. It was good for nothing. It was worthless. Worthless. Who puts on a girdle like that? There's nothing to be done with it. It's only to be thrown away. God said yes. That's what my people is. Worthless. Only to be thrown away. That's the answer. God has to say this because He's already intended they should be so beautiful. I intended they should be a name and a glory for me. But they would not come. They would not be here. So, this first picture is completed, but I'll just draw attention to the spiritual lesson we had to learn today. What is left? Defilement spoils us so completely that we're worthless. Any company of people that may have begun in obedience to the Word of God, may have indeed been blessed and been a source of blessing, may become so defiled by the world, by the worldliness of its members, by the world coming in, that God says, finally, Icaro, the glory of the Father. Oh, we've seen it again and again. Just think of those seven churches addressed in Revelation. If you go to Atlanta today, you'll look in vain for a testament to God. You haven't seen it. You can see the ruined pillars of the churches up there. You can see the places where they have been. As far as I know, there's no Christian testimony at all in those places. Look at this, Ephesus, Myrna, it doesn't last five times. I don't believe we've seen it. Yes, there's nothing left of that testament. God said He would remove the candlestick. It's been removed. It's gone. There's nothing to be seen there at all. I can show you two places in England where there's a testament to God in England and where those that want to gather together in those places were so taken up with the things in the background, so taken up with the world and its folly and its delusions that they lost sight of the Lord and they had to remove the candlestick because they won't find a testament to God at all. Take it, Sigmund, I went to a little village, one of the oldest places of gathering, and I saw the room full of women, and all the forms are still there, and that table at which Mr. Darby used to sit is still there with all the patch powder over it, and the handbooks in the silence as far as I could see are still in there covered in dust and cobble that God had removed the testament. Don't ask me why. We don't need to ask why, do we, do we? I saw, my dear, the same principle that made Israel, the children of glory, a disgrace can affect us if we take our eyes off the Lord, and our disobedience is good. The next picture he brings before them is every bottle should be filled with wine. In the end, when I read this first, I thought of bottles, you know, where you can have a glass bottle, but of course it isn't. The word is here, in which tin should be filled with wine. They used tins, as you know, until quite recently, I don't know whether they still do, you get a can of petrol guns now for carrying water in the Middle East, but they used to use the skins of animals, and this is the word used here for bottles. Every skin should be filled with wine. This again is God's word, and I shall speak under this word, that's said for all God of Israel, every skin should be filled with wine. So we know that skins filled with wine is a common thing, or thing, in the one kind of wine, and another, we read about it in the Gospels, it would be new wine first in the skins. Well we know about that, it's common, you don't forget it. Yes, because I don't mean those skins, I mean your skins. Your skins are going to be filled with wine. I think that's what it means here, because at the end, verse 13, verse 10, it comes after it all, the holder will fill all the inhabitants of the land. Yes, your skins will be filled with drunkenness. Like in Psalm 60, we find there an expression, it says there, Thou shalt buy people hard things, that are made as a drink of wine of astonishment. Of wine of astonishment. In Isaiah, we read there, the expression, chapter 51, verse 17, he says, Give us the cup of his fury, the cup of trembling. In Ezekiel too, we read of the cup of astonishment, and desolation. God speaks of pouring out, filling these people with drunkenness. Yes, it's a picture of the judgment. Judgment is the treading of the wine press itself, the treading of the grape. It's a picture, a picture of judgment. So God says, a filling of the skins, a filling up of judgment, which must begin with these guilty people. The verse has the word, God uses here, plenty of people. He says they're evil. This person came to these evil people, which refuse to hear my words. These evil people. They think they're nothing but judgment. When we come to the epistle to Isaiah, we read very solemn words. God says, There, because dark, neither hot nor cold, I will spew out of my mouth, careful, isn't it, that God has to say that church is nothing, nothing for God, nothing that you can find good in it. Not a single word, commendation. No church. Only right to judgment. Only the individual, God can speak. If any man hear my voice, open the door, I will come in to him, and suffer with him, he would know. That's done with the individual, in that last condition. Perhaps we may have seen something of it, a doubt to us, and perhaps not too many of us, in the Laodicean spirit, that engulfs the testament of the present time. So, he says, not only the ordinary people, but in verse 13, after all the inhabitants of this land, even the kings, who sit upon David's throne, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, God forbid, all those kings, all those people, with drunkenness, with judgment. It starts, you see, with those in position of responsibility, the kings who sit on David's throne. Oh, when you think of David, you need to go, you know not to go to their house. God has ordered him on his throne. He's a king, he's in our house now. The kingdom is of David, but not worshipped as David's God. It's not good enough to go to their house. It is often not enough, for God has no danger of it. It's not good enough, as our parents were faithful people. It's not good enough, as our parents were faithful people. It's not good enough, that my brother, my mother, is faithful to the Lord. It's a personal matter, each one of us, to be faithful, to be obedient to the Word of God. They said, well, these kings are nice. And then the priests, too, they were the people to God. What were they doing, they were talking, they were sharing their own time. Yes, I'm not kidding, because he brought the Word of God to them. The priests were kind. They had full responsibility, very individual responsibility, holding the Word of God, and a faithful great word. And the prophets, too. Yes, there were, of course, prophets in those days. Prophets. Those claimed to have a work in God, they find that they run, in the later chapters, presently they find, two or three of these men, come and say, and thus says the Lord, there's a retreat, there's a posterity. God, I haven't thought of it. No, I haven't thought of it. False prophets, everywhere, these are the ones who, and that's what they just can't believe. False leaders, false teachers, false prophets. God says, that's when they'll be dashed against each other, and that's what's happening today. The passage of the verse 15, there's a word here, fear, give ear, be not proud for the Lord hath spoken. We can still read, that's the verse of the last appeal to this nation, fear, for the Lord hath spoken. So you could do good glory to the Lord, your God, before he calls God. It is perhaps a word of last prayer. God knows you're not here, my soul is weak. In secret places you'll find, when I've been weak, sore, lying down in tears, because the Lord's flock is carried away. Oh, I tell you, this prophet tells his people, he says, I won't give glory to God, I weep because the flock of the Lord is being carried away. Here we weep, the condition, in Christendom day, weep, for weeping, and for weakness. But his family, even among those that are carrying the Lord Jesus, don't weep for it, I was concerned about it, there are many of us, he's concerned about it. He brings his wife a pilgrim, give glory to the Lord, wife of John Mayer. There's a message here from God, say unto the pilgrim, it's true, come unto yourself, sit down, listen to me. The final, final text, he often quotes it, verse 23, tell me your opinions, change your skin, or let it be spots. But if they can, then may you also do good, for our captains will do you good. God appears to them on this, he says, how indelible, how indelible is the sin of my people. It's like the, the darkness of the evil in the skin, it's like the spots, the indelible spots on the skin of a leopard. That's how deeply it's been, the iniquity of my people. It's the evil thing, change your skin, it's the leopard that changes spots, so may you also, do good, for our captains will do you good. Thank God, thank God, we know, may God's approval send me, so that we were, deep down, a greater God, in God's name, now the blissness, of being as righteous as Christ was himself, justified, by our God, to remain just, in justifying the sin of our people, Jesus. Yes, but, it doesn't do away with our, responsibility. So I just think, I can't see, our spiritual state, God knows, in this world here, but I think, I have seen, in the, book of, Ezekiel, chapter 8, we find, a revelation, there are all the abominations, that are in the hearts of the people, what they say, that the Lord has not seen, God has not seen, I do see, God sees all, except in the last appeal, well on to the revelation, we have done a lot to make free, we have done a lot to make free, the last appeal of God, to his people, we have done a lot, because we have been willing, even if we, have failed, even if there is, weakness, the remedy is there, that one moment, we watch him, put it right, we'll stand up again, and we'll turn around, and say, that's all he did. …

… In chapter 16 of the book of Jeremiah, I'm sorry if this is the last of these occasions, I've been gathering prophets from these readings, if you haven't, and it all seems to me that the book of Jeremiah begins to get very exciting when we get to chapter 17, and I'm afraid we've only got five-sixteen today. If at all, perhaps we can look at it on another occasion. Chapter 16, verse 1. The word of the Lord came also unto thee, saying, Thou shalt not take your wife, neither shalt thou have sons or daughters in this place. For thus saith the Lord concerning the sons and the sons of daughters that are born in this place, and concerning their mothers and their mothers, and concerning their fathers and their fathers, and concerning their fathers and their mothers, that we get them in this land, they shall die a grievous death. They shall not be lamented neither shall they be buried, for they shall be adoned upon the face of the earth. And they shall be consumed by the salt of Thy famine, their carcasses which are in need for the thousands of them, and of the beasts of the earth. For thus saith the Lord, enter not into the house of Mormon, neither loatheth a mentor nor the merman, by taking away my produce from his people, such as all the unloving kindness and mercies. Both the great and the small shall die in this land. They shall not be buried, neither shall men lament for them, nor cut themselves, nor make themselves poor for them. Now shall men care for them in the morning, and comfort them for the day. Now shall men give them the cup of consolation and drink for their fathers, and for their mothers. But not also go into the house of feasting, to sit with them to eat and to drink. For thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, The old I will call to speak unto this place in your eyes and in your days, the voice of Moab, and the voice of Dagon, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride. If you come to pass, you will know that each other could draw these words. May you say unto me, Wherefore hath the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us? Or what is our iniquity, or what is our sin that we have committed against the Lord our God? Then shalt thou say unto them, Because your fathers have forsaken me, saith the Lord, and have walked after other gods, and have served them, and have worshipped them, and have forsaken me, and have not kept my law, and have done worse than your fathers, for we know that you walk every one after the imagination of your heart, that they may not walk after me. Therefore will I cast you out of this land into a land that you know not, neither you nor your fathers, and there shall you serve other gods day and night, for I will not show you favour. Therefore, behold, the day is come, saith the Lord. It is no more, we say, that the Lord liveth and brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, but the Lord liveth and brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands where he hath driven them, and I will bring them again to their land as I gave unto their fathers. Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them. And afterwards I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks. For mine eyes are upon all their ways, they are not deep from my face, neither is there iniquity deep from my eyes. And first I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double, because they have defiled my land, they have filled my impotence with the carcasses of their detestable and abominable things. O Lord, my strength and my fortress are my refuge in the land of Egypt. For Gentiles who come unto thee from the ends of the earth, and who say, Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein they were no proper. Shall a man make gods unto himself, and there are no gods therefore to hold? I will this once cause them to know. I will cause them to know mine hand and my mouth, and they shall know that my name is the Lord. This prophecy, like the one just before, is not dated, so we can assume it must have taken place during the time between the reign of Josiah, the godly king, and the last of the kings, Zedekiah. It seems so, it was during that period, and God is giving his people a warning, a solemn warning, about the result of their sins. Very sadly, where it begins, the word of the Lord came unto me. We recognize, as we saw in the beginning, there's an expression that comes in many times in the first chapter of Jeremiah, we have in there, the words of Jeremiah, whom the word of the Lord came. And we find this coming all the way through this book, and I remind you again, it's not Jeremiah's idea, not like the prophets we read about the other week, who were not sent by God. Jeremiah was entrusted with the word of God. God said, whatever I speak, let it say. Let it go to whom I send it. God's words were spoken. I was just looking today to see how many times he uses this title, Lord God. It's interesting, it's only used 14 times in this book of Jeremiah, whereas in Ezekiel Ezekiel is used over 200 times, the Lord God, the Lord Jehovah. Whereas the title of the Lord, Jehovah, comes 700 times in this book of Jeremiah. 700 times Jeremiah the prophet reminds the people of this God, and the name by which he called himself when he first called them out of Egypt. We don't believe that God revealed himself in this way to them until they were ready to come out of Egypt. God said, by my name Jehovah was I not known? They knew him as God Almighty, they knew him as the Creator, but now he was a coming, keeping God, an unchangeable God, a God who is the same. That's why his title is the same. And the word Jehovah contains this thought, and he is. Yes he was, he will be, but he is. There is no time to regard God as eternal. And so, this title comes in so many times, and we find it in this chapter again, Word of Jehovah, Word of the Lord came more times with me. Personally to him this time, this is only just for the prophet himself. Often happens in this book, you remember the first chapter, God said, Jeremiah, I want to be a prophet. Jeremiah said, I'm not fit. God said, all right Jehovah, you'll be obedient. You'll be obedient, you'll be fitter to the cast. And we now know what's fitter to the cast, God has made you a brazen wall, a wall of brass. And he is indeed a wall of brass, he's one that stands up to the king and the false prophets, to the thieves of his people who are so unfaithful. He understands a wall, it's not going to be broken down. But also, in the first chapter we notice God said twice to him, Jeremiah, what seest thou? It was a personal message to him, what seest thou? He had his eyes opened to see the visions of God. And we know how he could see, fainted on the edge, he seen the light. Then again we notice how God spoke to him, told him, get a goat for example, told him to wear it, keep it dry, and then after many days they put it in the Euphrates, and then a long time afterwards get it out again. He had to do these little personal things for him, a message from God to him and to no one else. And yet of course, to him, the one who felt it, the one who did it, it was a message to the people. We find somewhere in the book of Ezekiel, you remember we were looking at some months ago, how he had to feel things. He had to eat defiled food. He said, I've never had it, never done this in my life. God said, yes, what you are doing now, my people have got to presently in a strange country. And finally we remember how God even took his wife from him, and he wasn't to mourn. Because he was only one picture of all the thousands whose wives were going to be killed, who were going to lose their children and so on. And similarly Jeremiah here is forbidden to take his wife, forbidden to have sons and daughters. And when we think what this meant to a godly Jew or a priest at that, it meant harm to him. Because the succession of a priesthood depended on the priest having a good wife, and a fruitful wife, and begetting sons, so that the priesthood could continue. And Jeremiah was a priest, and you would have expected him to continue in this way. God says, no Jeremiah, the message for you, the message came to me, thou shalt not take your wife, neither shall thou have sons or daughters in this place. This poor man had to feel what it was, to be deprived of a family life, we know what he experienced in later chapters, imprisonment, persecution, being taken head and liver, blocked into a mud, left there to die. Yes, he had to feel it all. Why? Well because thus saith the Lord concerning the sons and daughters that are born in this place, and their mothers, and their fathers, that shall die a grievous death. He had to enact in his own life, he had to feel what these people were going to feel in the terrible time that was coming upon them, because of their disobedience. It wasn't because of his disobedience, he was a faithful man, but he had to feel something of what his people were going through. You may have said this before, but how important it is to feel for other people, and so often we cannot feel for them unless we have been to them and experienced them. When we are called upon to go and condole someone who is bereaved, they are empty words if we haven't been to experience ourselves. As I remember, someone who is grievously sick and in pain, we've never had pain or sickness ourselves, we can't really enter into it, can we? And God brings us to experiences, very often experiences which we've never chosen, just for the very purpose so that we might feel. As we think about Blessed Lord, we read, he's one who is touched with a feeling of having families. He's been through this world, he could weep at the grave of letters, he could groan in spirit, sigh as he saw one that was deaf and could hardly speak. He groaned and felt the weight, the burden of the results of sin in this world. And of course we know he bore our sins in his own body on the tree. Then he felt the accumulated sorrow and guilt and grief and pain of all his people. What an accumulated load was there. And here in my mind I picture the Lord in this very thing. There are some rabbis that believe that the 49th or the 53rd chapters of Isaiah refer to Jeremiah. They believe this is a description of Jeremiah. And God we know from the New Testament teaching, they've heard about this at all. But it makes us think how closely the experiences of Jeremiah were a picture of the sufferings of our Blessed Lord. And that's why he's called the weeping prophet, one who went through these things. He does not take a wife. No, there's no continuation. He was to be cut off. Our Blessed Lord was cut off out of the land of the living. It was to finish with him. The sign finished with Jeremiah. He found his geniality in buying the views of the priests. Yet Jeremiah stopped. No temporary wife for him. No joy of sons and daughters. No handing over the priesthood in due time to his eldest son and seeing him following on the ways of the Lord. No, God says, cut off. Cut off. No future for us. No future for God's. There is no future for your people. No future for Jerusalem. As for these sons and daughters that are born in this city and their fathers and their mothers. There's every one of them done a grievous death. Read through the lamentation that follow this book. You see there just what they went through. Read that through at leisure. Read that through prayerfully and carefully and see what these people went through. And then let us think again. How little do we understand what God's people are going through today. The Church of God is going through in many countries. How can we think that our first human brethren were so privileged here? And yet He would have us to think of. Think of the suffering ones. Think of those that are homeless, hungry. Those that are imprisoned for their faith. Those that are being battered and tortured because of their faith in Christ. And nothing else. Let us learn the rest of it simply. Let us talk to this man in a very practical way. And go through this very experience. What a shock it must have been to him. And God says, no goodbye. No and no one for you. Your picture and others. You're going to be consumed by the soul of your family. Your carcass will be made for the house of heaven and the beasts of the earth. Then to it God's being to enter into their joy. The joy of others. He was denied even what? And yet God said, he was not to go into the house of mourning. But he was not allowed to go into the house of feasting. Verses. To sit with them and eat and drink. We serve long about the Lord himself. I believe long for fellowship. You see. He's talking about a prayer. How he gladly went to Bethany. Went to Bethany where? On one occasion he made him a feast. Now this Lord was able to rejoice there. To rest there. To relax if you may use that word. From the opposition of the Pharisees. And the wantonness of the people of Israel. Able to get a little haven. Where those that understood him. Those that loved him. Those that were willing to serve him. And yet poor Jeremiah was willing to have that. Thus said the Lord. He was not to go into the house of mourning. Nor to go into lament. But take away feasting of people. Take away loving kindness. Take away their mercies. Then that's not all. To go into the house of feasting. To sit with them and eat and drink. Normal things. Perfectly normal. But now. At this moment. Forbidden to the prophet. So there's everything out of the context. So if you love to grab a text like this out of the middle of the Bible. So there you are. You mustn't go to a house of mourning. Not a bit of it. There's a particular case. You must see where it fits in here. This is given to Jeremiah. At this particular time. Just before the siege of Jerusalem. He is to be a picture to these people. What is going to happen. There won't be any feasting. There won't be any time to bury the dead. Just think of that terrible time in 1944. When the great cathedral in Amsterdam was so full of bodies. There was no one to carry them. People have died of hunger in the city. During that last winter of the war. I forget how many thousands of bodies were lying there. There was no possibility of burying them. There were so many. The other people that would have buried them were themselves. Starving and unable to carry out the task. You may just think even at that time. Of the awfulness that must have been in this city. Being weighed in the lamentations. The state of that city. The siege city. When there was no opportunity even to roam the gate. Because they would get the lift to the birds and the animals. What a terrible thing. But then he says here. Verse 10. You come to pass when I've told the people these words. And they say I think. Why? Why does it happen? Yes people do say why. Every time there's a disaster people say. Why has God allowed it? Don't say why has God allowed us to enjoy so many years of peace. Don't say why has God allowed us to have a good income. Don't say why has God allowed us to have so many beds in our houses and enjoy those. They never ask that question. But as soon as something is missing they say. Why has God allowed it? They don't perhaps even thank God for children. When a child is taken away. Why does God take my child away? I can't believe. That there's a God that would do a thing like that. I don't believe in God because he took my child away. You get how easy it is. They get the things they can't get. And not what the reason. We may ask. Why? It says. Wherefore hath the Lord pronounced all his great evil against thee? What is our iniquity? What is our sin? That we've committed against the Lord our God. Oh what a brazen people this is. What have we done wrong? We've always done our best. Why should God do something to this? The answer. God's answer is this. Tell them why God said it. You tell them why. Then has to say to them. Because your fathers have forsaken me. Because they walked out of proper guards and served them and forsaken me and have not kept my law. Because you have done worse to your fathers. You walk every one out of the imagination of the evil heart. Because you do not mark it to me. Therefore. For that reason says God. I will cast you out of this land into a land that you do not want at all. I will send you to a strange land where you will serve other gods. If you don't want to serve them. Where you will know what it means to serve evil gods. Very solemn aren't reasons in this world. Because. Because. Therefore. You find it again and again. Especially in the prophets. Because. You have forsaken me. It all comes back to that. Because you have forsaken me. You can't often trace a misfortune to that. Not always. But very often. Sometimes the first step is very simple. Slight deviation from the truth. Slight deviation from the path of uprightness. The next step is further from the way. Until finally we are in opposition to God. We don't even notice it. We find in the book of Hosea that Ephraim. Ephraim was unconscious of the fact that his strength was being set. He was unconscious of the fact that he was getting old and grey. Unconscious of the fact that the heathen had taken his possession. Why? Because it didn't all happen at once. Little by little. His mind was dull. And God said you know it if not. That's all it is. When in our spiritual life we come against this very fact. That sometimes we are woken up by some very serious event. God has to speak to us because he can't get through to us on any other way. Any other way. Sometimes we have noticed he has to bring us into illness or trouble. And people into bankruptcy or disaster of one kind or another. Because we fail to listen. When the first step away is taken. God speaks to us. God desires to bring us back. But we have not hearkened. We have not hearkened to leave. And perhaps God speaks a little more loudly next time. But we still think on our own way. Thinking still we are carrying on with our religious practices. Still coming along to the meetings. Thinking just as heartily. Still coming to a form of prayer day by day perhaps. And reading the scriptures. And the end. But the first of Azar is a lodge in a garden of cucumbers. It's a little shed that was put up in the summer. And there is no view of it anymore. It's empty. President will fall to pieces and you will see how empty and worthless it is. That was the religion of these people. Empty. Perhaps we may see something of this in the people around us. Sometimes we see it plainly in people that we know. The saddest thing is we never see it in ourselves do we? We never notice ourselves that these things are going wrong. He says you have done worse than your fathers. That's something. We all blame our parents. We blame our elders. We blame the generation that went before us for getting us in such trouble. Because you are worse than they were. You are worse than your fathers. And he says not only you are worse. He says you walk in the world with the imagination that you leave your heart. But they may not find it. So God says that's why. That's why I brought you to this. And then he says because of this I was sent for many fishes. And I fished. Don't think of Anglism. It's not a question of going out with a rod and line. It's not called fishing or a rod and a line. But this is the big nets that go out here. To bring in a whole lot of fish at once. And God says I'm going to send for many fishes too. We were talking this morning about the number of toilets that used to go out from here. And hundreds of toilets used to go out to bring the fish in. Yes God said I've got them all ready. I've got a crowd of fishers ready. And they're going to fish you in and grab you in. Then he said after that I'm going to get my hunters ready. And they're going to hunt you. What does God mean by this? God has his eye on his people. Just as he had his eye on them when they were in the land. He blessed them and said so I'm going to see that they go through this experience. They're going through a total experience of being dragged in a drag net. They're going to be hunted. As beasts are hunted. And he says then he says I'll send for these fishes. And they will hunt them from every mountain and every hill and out of the holes of the rocks. For my eyes are upon all their ways. They're not looking past us. My eyes are upon their ways. God knows our ways. God knows our words. God doesn't know what we say. God doesn't know what we say at home. God doesn't know what we say to our children. He knows our ways. And somehow God's ways speak more loudly than our words don't they? Because I know them. I know them. I've seen them. My eyes are upon all their ways. And he said I'll recompense their iniquity and their sin double. Because I know my name. They filled my inheritance with their carcasses of their detestable and their vulnerable things. What man produces is filled with my name. My inheritance. It was God's inheritance. It wasn't theirs. He filled it with your vulnerable detestable things. Does God have to say this to his people today? I believe he does. Just think of the vulnerable and detestable things that go on in Christendom today. What detestable and vulnerable things God sees perhaps in our lives. Detestable things. Abominable things. Things of this grace are very Christian professional. And God says because of this is my inheritance. My church. My church you're defiling. It's not our church. It's the church of God that's being defiled by these abominable and detestable things. What things? For we know how many there are today who have no respect for the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. The familiarity of many with him who are things. And God has told his people, in this very book of Jeremiah, to make a difference between holy things and those that are ordinary, common things. There's a distinction to be made. And so many of us, I'm afraid, do not make this distinction. We treat holy things as though they're common. God finds it detestable. There is a tendency to undermine the authority of the word of God. Oh, there's only Paul speaking there. There's only Peter speaking there because Peter never had the insight that Paul had. I heard it. I heard people say it. Of course, it's only Peter's epistle. You must take it too seriously because Peter never had the insight that Paul had. Is this not one book? Is this not the word of God? Let us hold it fast. It's detestable. It's abominable to God. And then we know how many false emphases there are today. You can sometimes speak a sentence that is perfectly true, and if you emphasize the wrong word, you'll give an entirely different meaning. And in the same way, there are people that, so to speak, take the words of scriptures on their lips and yet they twist the meaning by false emphases. It's very disheartening because if this is done intentionally, it is wresting the word of God, as Peter himself writes, to their own destruction. Let's be very careful how we handle the word of God. Not to emphasize one part to the expense of another. Not to give it a meaning that it has not done it. Let us be dependent on the spirit of God to understand this word of God. And so he says, I will cause them to know. I will cause them to know what? I will cause them to know my hand and my might. Then it's wonderful to see that God has a message of hope for this nation. It isn't the end. They're going into captivity. They're going to be taken away to Babylon, far away. The city is going to be sacked. You'll find this in this very book. If you look at the last chapter, you'll find the description of how, bit by bit, the city was tormented, the tables were broken down, everything was combusted, it was burned with fire. All the precious vessels had been consecrated in service of God and taken away to adore the hidden temples in Babylon. And a few poor, despised people were left behind in this country. There had once been the joy of all the earth. This place that God calls His inheritance was made waste. But it's not the end. Thank God it's not the end. Every prophet has something of hope to tell. Read in this chapter, verse 14. It says, Therefore behold, the day is come, saith the Lord. If ye know more than this here, the Lord hitherto hath brought up the children of Israel from the land of Egypt, but the Lord hitherto hath brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands of Egypt. And I will bring them again to their land, that I know not their fathers. The nation began, as a nation, with Exodus. They came out of Egypt. Again and again God reminded them, I am the Lord your God, I've brought you up out of the land of Egypt. He wanted them to remember that all through their history. Again and again they were reminded that God had brought them up out of the land of bondage into a land firm with no companion. It was God's doing from beginning to end. God brought them through the great sea. God brought them through the Jordan. God brought them into a land. God is now. But God says, I'm going to give you something more than that. More than deliverance from Egypt. I'm going to give you a return to your country that will so eclipse even the Exodus that you won't talk about anymore. Not that all deliverance brought up the children of Israel from the land of Egypt, but that all deliverance brought up the children of Israel from the land of the Lord, from all the countries where I scattered you. Oh, there's a day coming, He said, when you're coming back. I'll bring you again to your land. I promise it's your fathers. And God cannot break His word. I'm going to bring you back to your land. Then the Exodus will be forgotten. The Exodus, all that's past history. We've got something more recent than that. We've got a new history now. The people that were taken into captivity and have been brought back. Restoration. Have a look at the book of Joel. God says there, I will restore the ears of the locusts to eating. Beginning of that book you'll find the locusts swarming over the land. Before them is like a garden of Eden. And when they've passed, it's a wilderness, a desert, nothing growing at all. But God says, I will restore the ears of the locusts to eating. God's going to bring restoration. It's going to be more glorious even than their first deliverance from Egypt. God's going to bring them back to their country to enjoy a glory they've never had before. They've got purpose with people. God has purpose and glory through people. And when you get this wonderful day, that day is coming. The days are coming. But you won't talk about this anymore. You won't think about deliverance from Egypt. You'll have something better to talk about. Maybe this too has something for us. Do we perhaps dwell too much on the fact that we've been saved? What a wonderful thing it is to be saved. What a wonderful thing it is to know that we've been delivered from the power of Satan. Wonderful to know all my sins are forgiven. But we don't want to stop there, do we? God wants us to go on. Can you think of the deliverance this week? All the deliverance of God. All what I've learned from Him this week. The Lord lives. That's the message. The Lord lives. Not the Lord that saved me 50 years ago. But the Lord that keeps me and has blessed me this week in a way that I've never experienced before. The Lord has given me joy this week. It's quite new to me. The Lord is more precious to me today than He was yesterday. It's a new experience for the Lord. That's what He wants us to have. Not to dwell only on our blessings, many of them, through the years of the past. We can remember those, yes, with gratitude. But not to dwell upon them. Because God wants us to go on. To follow on to know the Lord. You know, so many Christians, we talk to them, they don't seem to get beyond this one point. I've once been, you know, wonderful. I've seen them again. Yes, yes, of course they are. But I enjoy the Lord Himself. I enjoy Him more today than I did yesterday. Is He more precious to you now than He was last week? Have you had such an experience in the Lord today? Have you really had something you can write in your book and it's not the book Precious Things. My experience today is just this. I was reading the Word this morning, or yesterday, I was reading in sleep sometime. Do you know I was reading the Word this morning? I've never heard it before. Isn't that wonderful? Day after day, as we read the Word of God, God's waiting to give us His precious things. He's waiting to give us the blessing of today. Not the blessing of the past. You remember the manor, had to be gathered day by day. They couldn't keep it Monday to the next. They weren't able to stand. They wouldn't. Only on the Sabbath day they could go out because they had enough on the sixth day to carry them over. But in the ordinary way, they would go out every morning and gather enough. And there was enough. There were plenty. But one didn't get through on each day. It had to be eaten and enjoyed that day. This man, he was so slow to learn. God wants to give us fresh manna every day. That is what he said. He said, it's coming a day when your manna is so well. You won't talk about Egypt anymore. Egypt won't come into the picture. Because it will be the Lord who delivers from the land of the orphans, and all the land of the orphans, that all the corpses exist, but keeping the face where they are today. You see, I'm going to bring them into their manna to identify their powers. The face of promise. The face of blessing. The face of deliverance. That's what God wants them to do. Because in the last chapter he said, I will call them by my hand and by my mouth. Yes? Thou canst see that too. And they shall know that my name is the Lord. If you go back to the experience of Abraham, you'll find that God called Abraham. But then, we find that Abraham had a particular experience when he went out to deal a lot, and he discovered a God in an altar. He was the most high. The possessor of heaven and earth. And then, God said to him, I am God Almighty. Won't be formed to be perfect. And so it went on for 800, a continually progressive knowledge of God. Each time God revealed himself in a new name. Because there's a new appreciation of God. Not only what he was doing, not only what God was going to do for him, but he was God himself. And we read, Abraham believed God. We were noticing that the title was given here. The friend of God. We read this three times in this text. The friend of God. One who was so close to God, he could enjoy his company, as God would have loved to enjoy the company of Adam. He sought an example. And he came in the cool of the evening, talking to God. There was no community. Adam hid himself from the presence of the Lord. But Abraham was able to enjoy his community, able to plead, to intercede for Lot, to intercede even for the guilty cities of the plain. But, it was the Lord himself. That's why God was able to give him a sense of view of himself again and again. Jehovah-Jireh. The last title we find there. Yes. Life's history. The Lord who provides. The Lord who provides. The new title again. Jehovah-Jireh. The Lord who provides. Yes, provides in this case. A land of God's offering. But, he was a providing Lord. This other one here, come back, talk to find you a little more. But my name is the Lord. In these prophets, we find this very often, God had one intention for his people, had one intent, for the nations too, they shall know that I am the Lord. They shall know that I am Jehovah. To get here, they should know, my name is Jehovah. What is his name? It's not his real name. It was a name he took to reveal himself to men. And he said, I want you to know that. I want you to know me. I want you to know me. Who am I? I want you to know me more and more. Do you think of Paul, Saul of Tarsus? He looked up into the heavens and saw that blinding light. Who art thou, Lord? I am Jesus, whom thou hast crucified. Years after, he writes to the Ephesians. What does he say? That I may know him. That I may know him. Does she want him to know him all those years? Paul, yes. But I still want to go on and know him. I want to know him more and more. I want to go on to know him. You don't have all this time. Not just to go back to Egypt. Not back to things that were delivered long ago. But, the experience of today, the experience of knowing him, and it's good to see him in his 19th verse. Jeremiah himself has this experience. He's able to call God by this name. Oh Lord, oh yes, my strength, my fortress, my refuge in the days of Egypt. He don't bless him. Jeremiah doesn't bless him. He's able to call him Lord, yes, in that name, my strength, my fortress, my refuge in the days of Egypt. Isn't it good to know this God? This God is our God forever and ever. And so, he did I know. I know the time is coming when even the Gentiles will come to me. The ends of the earth. You get a wonderful vision here. Jeremiah was able to look on beyond the barrenness of his life. It was going to be a barren life for him. No family life for him. No children, no children wanting to meet him. No succession and priesthood. But if you look beyond all that, he's I know, the day is coming when even the Gentiles will come from the ends of the earth and they'll come and confess their guilt and receive the blessing that God has for them. He had eyes to see the glorious future. Haven't we? You've seen it out now, haven't you? The place where all the saints from every country and region sing each with each for all the banks and creeds for all the height and depth of glory will be to own it all and share it all with you. What a glorious gospel, isn't it? So it comes on chapter 17 because that's where it begins to get exciting. And that's the place we continue if we all will. Thank you. …