Restoration

Jeremiah has been imprisoned by Zedekiah, the king of Israel. Zedekiah is going to be the last king of Israel.

From the time of Zedekiah until when the Lord returns, there will be no one sitting on the throne of David. There will be others that will claim to be king, but they won’t be of the line of David. Zedekiah is the last one of the line of David.

Zedekiah had done that which was evil in the sight of the Lord. God is preparing to judge Judah and the remnant of Israel that had moved to Judah for their disobedience and their abandonment of truth and their following after false gods. Jeremiah has been constantly warning them, calling them to turn and repent, telling them that judgment is imminent.

And last Sunday afternoon, in chapter 32, we saw that God did a unique thing. He told Jeremiah to go out and buy a piece of property from his cousin, even though the city of Jerusalem was about to be destroyed and the suburb or the little town that Jeremiah was from that was right by Jerusalem would be overrun and sacked along with Jerusalem when Nebuchadnezzar came. Yet the reason that Jeremiah was to do that was to show that God’s promise was that he was going to return the people to the land and that this was not the end.

We can look back and see that the Lord’s word was fulfilled and it was fulfilled just as he said it would be fulfilled in 1948 when the nation of Israel came back, when the Jewish people formed the nation of Israel. And as I was just listening to a man talk last night, he said the amazing thing is not only did they form a nation after that nation had been disbanded for literally two millennia, two thousand years, they also brought back a language that had been totally abandoned and Hebrew was once again established as the native language of the land of Israel and it is today. And Hebrew was spoken by the Jewish people.

Those things happened just as God said they would happen. Well, the Lord wasn’t done giving words of encouragement to Jeremiah. Even though Jeremiah is sitting imprisoned in the king’s palace, but he’s imprisoned by Zedekiah, God comes and talks to Jeremiah again and he’s going to present some promises that he gave and he’s going to reaffirm that those promises are going to happen.

And the promises deal with the throne of David and the nation of Israel. Let’s just begin at chapter 33, verse 1.

Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah a second time, but it was yet shut up in the court of the prison, saying, Thus saith the Lord, the maker thereof, the Lord that formed it to establish it, and the Lord is his name.

Jeremiah 33:1-2

I want to just look at God reaffirms through Jeremiah.

He is the creator. He is the one that has established the things. And as he is the one that oversees his creation, he is the one that can fulfill his word and do that which he promises, because he is God.

The Lord tells Jeremiah in verse 3,

Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not. For thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the houses of this city and concerning the houses of the kings of Judah, which are thrown down by the mounts and by the sword.

Jeremiah 33:3-4

Just pause.

Everything that Jeremiah is seeing is going to be destroyed. The houses of Israel and those of you who have been going through the study of Nehemiah with us on Sunday mornings, you will know that Nehemiah is coming back to a city of Jerusalem that is totally in shambles and rubble. And in Nehemiah they rebuild the walls, but they still have to rebuild the houses within the city and it is hard to get people to move back because there are no services, there are no people, there are no houses to live in, they have to rebuild those too.

The Lord is telling Jeremiah, everything you see right now is going to be in shambles, but it is not going to be that way forever. He is going to tell him what is going to happen. They come to fight with the Chaldeans, but it is to fill them with the dead bodies of men whom I have slain in mine anger and in my fury, for all whose wickedness I have hid my face from this city.

Even though this is the city that God established, and even though it is His temple, He is judging the people and part of the judgment is that the thing that they view as what will save them and keep them from being experienced God’s judgment is the temple and the city and the walls of Jerusalem. They are fighting against the Chaldeans, but the Lord says it is not going to do any good because you see it is my judgment and my fury because as we studied a few weeks ago, they worshiped gods that were no gods at all and they ignored the true and the living God, even though He had been their God and their Father’s God, yet they did that which their fathers had done and abandoned their trust and faith in Him and God’s judgment is coming. Behold, I will bring it health and cure and I will cure them and will reveal unto them the abundance of peace and truth.

And it’s interesting, he says, these very ones that are going to experience absolute destruction, the destruction is not permanent, and their descendants are going to experience my peace and my love and my restoration. And as Jeremiah is hearing this, these are things God has been revealing, judgment, judgment, judgment. I remember we were talking at home and as you read the book of Jeremiah and you’re going through the first portion of the book, all you hear is judgment, judgment, judgment.

God is judging and it’s like, okay, we’re studying another chapter, but it’s the same message, it’s just presented with a little stronger emphasis. And all of a sudden, now God is coming and He’s going to be revealing things to Jeremiah that He hasn’t done before and that is restoration, restoration, restoration. Fulfillment of promise, fulfillment of promise, fulfillment of promise.

And God is a God who will deliver on His word and when He says something is going to happen, it will. And this is what should encourage us as Christians in the day in which we live and we look around and we see the events going on in our world today. We see a lot of death and destruction and wickedness and evil, yet God says there’s coming a day where all of this is going to be judged, it’s going to come to an end.

I’m going to return and establish my kingdom and I’m going to have a millennial kingdom on the earth and it’s going to happen. And He says that there’s going to be a rapture of the church, I’m going to catch you unto myself and it’s going to happen. And then you’re going to come back with me and rule and reign in this kingdom where justice and righteousness will be for a thousand years and then shall come the new heavens, the final judgment, new heavens and new earth.

Those things, just as He’s showing these promises to Jeremiah, they’re for us as well. Let’s take a look at what else He’s got to say. And I will cause the captivity of Judah and the captivity of Israel to return and will build them as at the first.

Now I want you to see there, who built Israel? Was it Israel? Was it the founders, the ancestors of Israel? Were they the ones that established Israel as a nation? If you go and you look at the Hittites and the Jebusites and the Gideonites and all the other Canaanite nations, if you went and looked at the Egyptians, if you went and looked at the Assyrians, it’s interesting, many of them have taken their name from those that founded them. The Assyrians, their name comes from the god they served, Asher. And at the time of, when, I just lost my thought, when the Tower of Babel was established by Nimrod, thank you, by Nimrod, Nimrod established the city that established the area of Assyria and some of the cities there.

He also established other cities in Babylon. And we see that they took his name. And it’s interesting too to look at the names of some of the cities around us.

I was driving through central Minnesota once after I’d gone to a job and I was coming through and I came upon this little town. You know what the name of the town was? Nimrod. And I thought, what a name for a town.

Name your town Nimrod. And there’s other strange names that people name their cities because they’re naming them after the one that they want to lift up and that they want to acknowledge. Well, the Lord is saying that the nation of Israel is different.

It wasn’t founded by a man. It was founded by God. And as God brought the nation of Israel into the land by His power, by His authority, and He established them in the land and He gave them the land and now He says, I’m going to disperse you amongst the nations but I’m not done with you.
I’m going to bring you back and I who established you once will establish you again. He’s going to establish them again as a nation and He tells us to Jeremiah. Jeremiah, I’m going to disperse them, I’m going to judge them, but I’m going to build them up as I did at the first.

And I will cleanse them from the iniquity whereby they have sinned against Me. I will pardon their iniquities whereby they have sinned and whereby they have transgressed against Me. God is a gracious and merciful God.

And His word is going to be fulfilled. And exactly what it says in the scriptures and the prophets have said will happen in the last days. The nation of Israel will return, which we’ve seen in our lifetime and we should be greatly encouraged by it.

I was just looking at, again, a little video and it was showing how as Israel returned to the land and once again how the land really just blossomed as God said it would when they returned. And you go and you see all of the agriculture and all of the inventions and all of the things that have come out of Israel. It’s amazing.

And just as God said it would happen, and He says, but I’m not done with them just by giving back the land and causing them to experience abundance in the land, I’m going to transform their hearts. Verse 9,

And it shall be to me a name of joy, a praise and an honor before all the nations of the earth, which shall hear all the good that I do unto them, and they shall fear and tremble for all the goodness and for all the prosperity that I procure unto it.

Jeremiah 33:9

And this is His promise to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob or Israel as they’re brought back into the land and God does this for them.
The nations are going to stand in amazement. And thus saith the Lord, Again there shall be heard in this place which ye say shall be desolate without man and without beast, even in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem that are desolate without man and without inhabitant and without beast.

Now, remember Jeremiah when he’s living there, Jerusalem is under siege.

He’s in prison. But there’s still people in the land. They’re still having their vineyards and olive trees.

But the judgment’s coming and God says it’s all going to be wiped out but it’s all coming back because I’m going to bring it back. And Jeremiah is being told this so that he’s not just seeing the hand of God’s judgment but he’s also seeing the hand of God’s mercy and restoration and salvation and His grace. And so God is revealing this to Jeremiah.

The voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, the voice of the bride, the voice of them shall say, Praise the Lord of hosts, for the Lord is good, for His mercy endureth forever, and of them that shall bring the sacrifice of praise into the house of the Lord, for I will cause to return the captivity of the land as at the first, save the Lord.

Jeremiah 33:11

It’s interesting, when we were in Jerusalem back in 2018, I believe it was, we went to our motel and at that time they had a meeting and there was a lot of Chinese Christians that had come to Israel. And they were in one of the big meeting halls and all of a sudden they started singing these choruses and if you’ve seen the Israeli dances where they get in a big circle and they move around and they’re singing and praising and that’s what they were doing and it was amazing just to watch them, the joy of their praise to the Lord.

That’s what God’s talking about. It’s going to come and it’s going to be normal in Israel. You go there today and you may catch some of that but it’s not everywhere.

But it’s coming and he’s saying it’s going to return and the people are going to sing with joy they’re going to praise the Lord and it’s going to be commonplace. And he’s telling this to Jeremiah and if you can imagine what that does to Jeremiah as he’s sitting here looking at being imprisoned because he’s telling the truth about God. And the people don’t want to believe it.

And all they want to do is reject God and embrace these false gods that are no gods at all and turn their back on God and not listen. And the Lord says, but there’s coming a day Jeremiah and that day’s going to be a wonderful day.

Thus saith the Lord of hosts, again in this place which is desolate without man and without beast and in all the cities thereof should be an inhabitation of the shepherds causing their flocks to lie down.

Jeremiah 33:12

Total transformation.

In the cities of the mountains and in the cities of the vale or the valleys and in the cities of the south and in the cities of Benjamin and in the cities of Jerusalem and in the places of Jerusalem and in the cities of Judah shall the flocks pass again under the hands of him that telleth them, saith the Lord.

Jeremiah 33:13

And if you can imagine as the land is being besieged and the sheep are being scattered and the flocks being destroyed he’s telling them it’s all going to be different.

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord that I will perform that good thing which I have promised unto the house of Israel and unto the house of Judah.

Jeremiah 33:14

In those days and at that time will I cause the branch of righteousness to grow up unto David and he shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land. Now not only is he going to restore the land and restore the cities and restore the blessings and restore all of the fruit of the land and make it a land filled with joy and righteousness but he says it’s the branch that’s going to raise up.

The branch is referred to as Jesus. He’s telling Jeremiah the Messiah is coming to Jerusalem and I’m going to raise him up the branch of David. The branch of David throughout the Old Testament is referring to the coming Messiah the Lord Jesus Christ and he’s been promised that he would come.

Jeremiah didn’t see him come but he knew that one day he would. If you go back and the oldest book in the Bible is the book of Job and Job when he was enduring all of his suffering and all of the things that he had to endure as he lost so much. The Bible tells us that Job said the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away blessed be the name of the Lord.

And he also said that one day he would stand and look at the Lord face to face. He knew that a resurrection was coming and he knew that he would see his Messiah. He knew that he would see his Redeemer and Savior even though he was living hundreds of years even before Jeremiah.

And we look at the other people in the Old Testament that believed and trusted in the word and promises of God even though they didn’t see. Go back to Abraham. You can imagine Abraham leaving everything that he knew. His family, his profession that he had in Ur of the Chaldeans. The home that he had in Haran with his relatives. And coming to a land where he knew no one.

And a land that he did not possess but yet God promised him this would be yours one day and never seeing it in his lifetime but believing that God would fulfill his promise. And we know that it will. That he will.

And this is the beginning of that final fulfillment when the branch comes. When Jesus comes and he shall sit upon the throne of David. What will he do He says, For thus saith the Lord, David shall never want a man to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel.

Now, Jeremiah is saying this when Zedekiah is the last king that is going to sit on the throne of David until the branch comes. After this, the descendants will be there but they won’t sit on the throne. Israel will not have a king after Zedekiah that is the true king and the descendant of David.

David’s throne will not be sat upon until Jesus comes. And so he is telling him that day is coming. Because Jeremiah is looking at the wicked sons of Josiah and the wicked grandson of Josiah and what they have done to the land and how he has prophesied about Zedekiah how he is going to be taken away into Babylon.

His brother was taken away into Egypt. His other brother taken away into Babylon. And we see that the Lord is telling Jeremiah that is not the end of it, Jeremiah.

The end is when the branch sits on the throne of David and David’s throne will sit empty until that day. But that day is coming. And he goes on and he says, And the word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah, saying, well, let’s go back to verse 18,

Neither shall the priests, the Levites, want a man before me to offer burnt offerings and to kindle meat offerings and to do sacrifices continually. And the word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah, saying, Thus saith the Lord, If ye can break my covenant of the day and my covenant of the night, and that there should be not the day or the night in their season, then may also my covenant be broken with David, my servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne and with the Levites, the priests, my ministers.

Jeremiah 33:18-21

In other words, he’s saying, even though you’re wondering how’s it going to happen, I’m telling you it’s going to happen. Just as the day is there and the night is there, when that stops, then my word is no good.

And we read that earlier, that’s the same thing that was revealed to Jeremiah about the nation of Israel, that as long as the seasons were there and the sun and the stars were there and the moon was there, that the nation of Israel would remain. And now he puts this same promise to the throne of David. And he says, David’s throne is real and even though it may appear to sit empty, it’s not empty because the branch is there and he shall come.

And the Messiah will come and fulfill all that I promised. And then, and not only that, it’s interesting too, he talks about the priests, that the priests are going to stop offering, appear to stop offering sacrifice, but there’s coming a reason for that and we know what the reason is. This one was the branch was also going to be the priest.

The king could not be the priest, but Jesus was going to be prophet, priest, and king. And as he would come, he would fulfill the duties of the priest and that he would lay down his own life and offer the ultimate sacrifice, the atonement for the sins of the whole world as the high priest of God that these priests could never do. And so, he’s revealing this all to Jeremiah and Jeremiah, who’s been looking at nothing but judgment, judgment, judgment, is now seeing the blessing.

And what a difference this must make to him.

And as the host of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured, so will I multiply the seed of David my servant and the Levites that minister unto me. Moreover, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah saying, Considerest thou not what the people have spoken, saying, The two families which the Lord hath chosen, he hath even cast them off. Thus they have despised my people, that they should be no more a nation before them.

Jeremiah 33:22-24

And so that’s what the people were saying. And the two families that he’s speaking of here would be the family of David, which would be the ruling cast, the ruling, the king, and also the descendants of Aaron or Levi the priest, and that the Lord had cast them off and now he’s going to destroy the nation.
But he’s not done. God isn’t done. And he says,

Thus saith the Lord, If my covenant be not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of the heaven and the earth, then shall I cast away the seed of Jacob and David my servant, so that I will not take any of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, for I will cause their captivity to return and have mercy on them.

Jeremiah 33:25

And so he’s saying, again, reaffirming this is a reality, Jeremiah. It’s going to happen. Now, we’ve seen part of it fulfilled in our lifetime.
There be those that went before us, Christians that went before us, never had the opportunity to see Israel as a nation. They said, God says it’s going to be, but where is it? And it’s here. And now all of a sudden, we’re beginning to see God calling more and more of the Jewish people back to the nation of Israel, even as he said he would do.

And everything is aligning, just as the Lord said, and he says, my word is true. Now, what should that do for us? Well, it should give us tremendous hope. And we should also realize that when he says he did this for the nation of Israel, he did this for the house of David, he did this for the house of Jacob, what is he going to do for his bride, who he’s promised to come and return and take to heaven, where he’s gone to prepare a place for us, that we can return with him to rule and reign on this earth.

What a blessing, what a promise. And God has given it to us. And just as he’s given this to Jeremiah at one of the darkest moments of Jeremiah’s ministry, imprisoned in Zedekiah’s house, simply because he told the truth.

And God’s telling him, Jeremiah, the truth is real, and it’s coming. Let’s just close in prayer. Lord, I pray you just help us to realize the promises were made even during the time of Jeremiah and before that.

Your promises are coming true every day. Your prophecies are real. Your word is true.

Every prophecy that you’ve revealed to us about Jesus’ first coming, happened 100% accurate. Just as the prophecies dealing with his second return are being fulfilled now, and they’re 100% accurate. And Lord, may we look for your return, and may we look for the day that you shall call your church home to yourself, and then when you shall return to establish your kingdom upon the earth, to rule and reign from the throne of David, with righteousness.
Lord, may joy fill the hearts of your people, and may praise come from their lips, and help us to be filled with thanksgiving for all that you are doing. This we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.