Jeremiah 32 | Is There Anything Too Hard For God | 4.30.1997

chapter 32 beginning at verse one of the book of Jeremiah. The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the 10th year of Zedekiah, king of Judah, which was the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar. For then the king of Babylon's army besieged Jerusalem, and Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the prison, which was in the king of Judah's house. For Zedekiah, king of Judah, had shut him up, saying, "Why do you prophesy and say, thus says the Lord, behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it. Zedekiah, king of Judah, shall not escape from the hand of the Calaldanss, but shall surely be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon, and shall speak with him face to face, and see him eye to eye. Then he shall lead Zedekiah to Babylon, and there he shall be until I visit him, says the Lord, though you fight with the Calaldanss, you shall not succeed." He's put in prison for preaching the word of the Lord. The king didn't like the message. The king didn't like what he was hearing Jeremiah saying. Jeremiah was making a statement, "Thus sayaith the Lord." And as he gave this statement of what the Lord was giving to him to say, well, the king didn't appreciate that at all. Now, what is happening as the scripture says to us here in verse one, it says, "The word that came from the Lord in the 10th year of Zedekiah, king of Judah." So, we know that the date was somewhere around 587 before Christ and this is the final siege. The king of Babylon will be bringing on the nation of Israel on the city of Jerusalem. Uh King Nebuchadnezzar had three uh sieges against the city. Actually three um three times he came and attacked and and worked against uh Jerusalem. He did that in 605. He did it again in somewhere around 590 596. And then a third time around 587. And what what's taking place here is they're actually entering into the second year of this siege because we're told in Jeremiah 39:1 in the 9inth year of Zedekiah, king of Judah, in the 10th month, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, marched against Jerusalem with his whole army and laid siege to it. And so he's actually moving into a second year of siege conditions. And Jeremiah is now in prison because his prophecies have been against the king, a king by the name of Zedekiah. And he has been consistently prophesying that Nebuchadnezzar was going to take Israel. Remember what he said in chapter 21 in the book of Jeremiah in verses 3-7. Remember the message that he's already given in Jeremiah chapter 21 at verse 3-7. Jeremiah answered him tell Zedekiah this is what the Lord the God of Israel says. I am about to turn against you the weapons of war that are in your hands, which you are using to fight the king of Babylon and the Babylonians who are outside the wall besieging you. I will gather them inside this city. I myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and with a mighty arm and anger and fury and great wrath. I will strike down those who live in this city, both men and animals. They will die in a terrible plague. After that, declares the Lord, I will hand over Zedekiah, king of Judah, his officials, and the people in this city who survived the plague, sword, and famine to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and to their enemies who seek their lives. You will put them to the sword, you will show them no mercy or pity or compassion. Zedekiah had heard the message of Jeremiah, and even though the word that God had given to Jeremiah had proven to be true, Zedekiah still moves against him. And even as we're here in chapter 32, we see that he moves against him and he imprisons him. It's as if he thinks that if he puts this man in prison, this will nullify the word of the Lord. But the thing that I want to develop for a minute and I want to bring it up to contemporary times is these things were happening right before his eyes and still he rejects the word of the Lord. And I believe that this kind of thing doesn't happen just in books like the Bible that we see were written 600 years before Christ. But I think that these things continue to exist even to this day. God's warnings continue to be ignored by those who should know better. And it's because basically the natural man rejects the things of the spirit of God. You didn't think that I could allow Allen's coming out party to go unmentioned. I want to share a few thoughts with you because perhaps some of you are putting some things together over this. And I'd like to share a few things with you and ask you to think with me about some of what I'm about to say. I'd like to use as a premise or as a foundation the fact that God's word declares something specifically. But just because God's word says something doesn't mean that everybody's going to respond positively towards what God has to say. And even though the Lord's word has proven to be true throughout history and he's never been proven to be a liar yet, even so, people still reject what God's word has to say. It happened during the time of Jeremiah. Why doesn't it happen today? Well, it does happen today. People still hear what the word of the Lord is and still reject it. I was reading today in the newspaper, the headline said, "Allen's gay outing is fun for viewers." I see this as propaganda because a worldly columnist will always present this particular show as being funny. And what is taking place right now is an incredible movement of propaganda to make this particular lifestyle not only acceptable but equal not only acceptable but an equal standing. And what we're seeing take place right now, I believe, in this bruhaha over Allen is really once again just worldly propaganda. In this particular installment of this show, cameo support is being afforded by people who are very well known. People like Oprah Winfrey, who is playing her latest therapist, helping her come to grips with her lesbianism. KD Lang also appears in a scene in a supermarket and a lady by the name of Laura Durn portrays a lesbian helping Allen to realize who she really is. Some of you have been noticing even as I have that there have been specials lately. 2020 had a special. There was an article in Time magazine and this particular installment has been saturating all the commercials. I think one of the finest examples of a dull-witted statement came from the pen of a man by the name of Rob Owen uh from New York Times news service. And this is what Rob Owen says. Rob Owen says, "Well, some viewers will object that Allen takes the view that homosexuality isn't a choice and isn't bad. There's little else in the show that could be deemed offensive." That's an example of something that is dull-witted because that's the entire problem. That's the argument. And to reduce that to being an inconsequential aspect is to ignore the concerns that people are having. Now, God's word makes it very clear that homosexuality is a sinful behavior. In the book of Romans, for example, in chapter 1:es 24- 27, the Apostle Paul was writing and in Romans 1 24- 27, Paul said, "Therefore, God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served created things rather than the creator who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Notice, even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural one. In the same way, the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for what the scripture calls their perversion. So, the word of God is very clear. Old and New Testament revelation that this is not simply a lifestyle. This is a sinful action. The Bible also teaches very very consistently old and new. That it is a choice that people make. The funny thing about this is I think that ABC is trying to increase the ratings on a show that's rated 42nd in total viewers. Disney Corporation obviously has left its sherad of portraying itself as familyfriendly and has forever completely revealed its true bottom line, which has always been money, even though approximately 61% of Allen's regular viewers have already said they would not watch tonight's program. And major sponsors such as Chrysler and Wendy's and JC Penney have already pulled their commercials. There was a poll yesterday by ABC and they asked, "How do you feel about this coming out episode? 22% who responded said they simply don't care." 23% responded in favor and 55% opposed it. So, this tells us something. Right now, the homosexual network and it's a very strong organization. The homosexual network has been working overtime and calls in support have been running uh in favor had been running in favor of such a thing. But this is simply because it's organized in its favor of this. And very often those who are not in favor of it simply aren't counted because we don't make our voices heard. But the homosexual quote unquote community has been doing that, has been making their voices heard. Now, when these sponsors like Chrysler and all have pulled out, it gave the other sponsors an opportunity to look brave and socially and politically correct. But I think the fact is, according to Associated Press reporter Frasier Moore, this week Allen becomes the most ambitious sitcom on the air perhaps ever. Yet it consistently has failed at the one thing any sitcom ought to do, make us laugh. And so what we're seeing take place is basically, I think, a dying gasp. The fact is this social re-engineering will not work. ABC may get a lot of temporary attention, but they will not gain from this personal affront to those who believe in the world, not just America's understanding of the nuclear family. You see, what's happening today is people are basically pointing at the church and those whom they have labeled quote unquote conservatives and are basically saying that we're knee-jerk reactionaries. And they're saying that this is simply an American response. But the fact of the matter is the nuclear family made up of a man and a woman is not just an American phenomenon. It is the universal phenomenon. It's in every culture. There's nowhere that it's acceptable to be married as a homosexual unless you may go to San Francisco or Hawaii. But beyond that, it's not true. Now, this show isn't, as Owen would have us believe, actually funny. It's really terribly sad because it portrays the misery of sin and Satan's solution and presents it as normal and acceptable. It reminds me of Jeremiah 6:14 when we read, "They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious." Peace. Peace. They say, "When there is no peace, this is serious. This is an attempt to undermine the entire bottom line of the family." I think the most true line in the entire show is when Allan says to a lesbian she's speaking to when Allen, the character Ellen says, "I think I know what's going on. It's not enough for you to be gay. You've got to recruit others." And I think that that's absolutely true. Even though the response of the lesbian she's speaking to is one of a humorous line, I think the most true line is exactly that line. It's not enough for you to be gay. You have to recruit others. Now, as a nation, we still disregard God's word, and it is to our own hurt. For the word of God says in 1 Corinthians 6:es 9 and 10, "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolattors, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexual offenders, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And when Paul was writing something similar to the Ephesians in chapter 5:6, he said, "Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things, God's wrath comes on those who are disobedient." Let no one deceive you with empty words. In 1948, a pseudo researcher by the name of Kinsey put together a report on human sexuality. It basically dealt with male sexuality and that's where the myth of 10% came from. Kinsey reported that some 10% of American males were homosexual, but his report was a skew. And the reason it was is because it was not utilizing scientific methods of investigation. Some of the people, if not a large percentage of the people that he had investigated and spoken to concerning sexual practices were those who had been incarcerated or were incarcerated. Another large percentage of the population he spoke to were college age students. And in reality, Kinsey's report stated that some 4% were totally and always homosexual. But he said 10% had involved themselves in a three-year period with homosexual behavior. He didn't mention because he was playing with the figures. And I say that honestly because one of his co-ressearchers has come out publicly and I've heard him on tape make this statement. I'm just quoting what he said that Kinsey basically played with the age groups and he also played with the population. He took his report in 1948, but he used the census from 1940. And when he spoke concerning homosexual behavior over a three-year period, he failed to mention that the majority of the people that would say that they had been that he would claim were homosexual. Uh this 10% came from those who were adolescents who within a three-year period had more than one time had a homosexual encounter. And a lot of boys at the age of 12 and 13 in sexual experimentation might in some way involve themselves with another boy. That happens in a lot of to a lot of boys. And if they're honest and admit that that that was their first sexual experimentation according to Kinsey, that would make them a homosexual, which was not true. As a matter of fact, a few years ago, I believe it was the University of Chicago did a modern study and discovered that less than 1% of the entire US population could claim to be homosexual. And so, what we've ended up with is the myth of 10%. And so, this particular episode that's occurring tonight that I feel necessary to approach for even just a moment in this Bible study is basically perpetuating something that has been disproved. And so something's driving this. I don't know that ABC is really attempting to re-engineer society. I think the bottom line for them is money. I think they'd like to present themselves as brave. I think they'd like to present themselves as daring and pushing the envelope. But in reality, what they're doing is they in they are undermining and actually attacking. We as Christians feel very strongly about this. At least I do. I feel very strongly about this issue. I go on record, I've said this many times. I don't have a homophobia. I'm not afraid of homosexuals. I just don't like the lifestyle being presented as normal, natural, and God-given because it's not. And I have seen over the years homosexuals who have gotten right with the Lord Jesus Christ and have moved on into healthy relationships, even getting married, having children, serving the Lord. And I believe that God is still a God of new creation. I believe that God forgives you of every sin, and that homosexuality isn't necessarily on a standard, you know, above some other sins. It is a sin that needs to be dealt with. It is a sexual sin and being a sexual sin, it's especially uh dangerous sin and especially is a grievous sin. And the scripture speaks concerning sexual sin as being more grievous. And yet at the bottom line is is that God can forgive. But as long as we have programs presenting it as being funny and natural and then we have a lot of homosexual actors coming out saying, "See, we support this." and even people who are as well respected as as Oprah Winfrey presenting herself as in character a therapist who's encouraging this lady to come out and be true to herself. The fact of the matter is is uh as Christians we have to respond against this. Now what do we do? We have to be careful that we don't march uh with anger and all but I think that we ought to I think we ought to uh write Chrysler and say thank you for supporting the values that we hold dear. Thank you, Wendy's. You know, I may not eat one of your hamburgers, but I appreciate I appreciate the fact that you do stand up for those things which do count to us. These are things that are important to us as a people and we appreciate your recognition of that and you haven't shoved us under the mat and ignored our needs and all. We appreciate that. We certainly do. And the others who who could care less, we ought to remember that when we're at the store. I think that that makes sense. Why? Because the only thing they care about is whether they make a profit or not. They don't care about your morals. They certainly want to pay their house payment. And so there are ways to speak and let our words be known. And if it isn't going to be heard with a word, it will be heard in the wallet. And those are things that we can do. And I think that we can do that in a in a I think a reasonable way. And I also believe that this is one of those things that's going to basically blow over because television being what it is is always looking for the fantastic. So who knows what's coming next. who knows what they're going to try to do to garner some ratings next. So, we have to be soberminded in this and not overreactionary and yet at the same time wise in how we deal with this. And I think that uh we still have a great weapon called prayer. We still have a great weapon called the gospel. And we still have uh people coming out of that lifestyle getting saved, getting right with the Lord, serving him. This is a wonderful testimony when somebody says it's not a choice. Well, it certainly is a choice. And many people are making choices to come out of that and to get right with the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, getting back to Jeremiah, Zedekiah is ignoring the word of the Lord. It's happening right before his eyes, but he doesn't want to see it. So, he thinks if he imprisons the messenger, the message will cease. That doesn't work. So he puts him in jail and he says, "Look at I heard what you have to say. These are the things you're saying, so I'll just put you in jail." Well, in verse 6, Jeremiah said, "The word of the Lord came to me, saying, Behold, Han, the son of Shalom, your uncle, will come to you, saying, buy my field which is in Anath, for the right of redemption is yours to buy it." Then Hannah meal my uncle's son came to me in the court of the prison according to the word of the Lord and said to me please buy my field that is in Anat which is in the country of Benjamin for the right of inheritance is yours and the redemption yours buy it for yourself. Then I knew that this was the word of the Lord. So I bought the field from Hanimile, the son of my uncle, who was in Anthon, and weighed out to him the money, 17 shekels of silver. And I signed the deed and sealed it, took witnesses, and weighed the money in the balances. So I took the purchase deed, both that which was sealed according to the law and custom, and that which was open. And I gave the purchase deed to Baroo, the son of Naria, son of Ma, in the presence of Hanim's, my Hanimal, my uncle's son. and in the presence of the witnesses who signed the purchased deed before all the Jews who sat in the court of the prison. So the Lord speaks to him and it said and the Lord says to him, you're to buy this particular parcel of ground. You're going to exercise what he calls in verse 7 the right of redemption. In the Old Testament law, God had given to the Jews in the book of Leviticus in chapter 25 24- 27 a right of redemption, which simply means according to Leviticus 25:4, throughout the country that you hold as a possession. You must provide for the redemption of the land. If one of your countrymen becomes poor and sells some of his property, his nearest relative is to come and redeem what his countrymen has sold. If however a man has no one to redeem it for him, but he himself prospers and acquires sufficient means to redeem it, he is to determine the value over the years since he sold it and refund the balance to the man to whom he sold it. He can then go back to his own property. This was a law that kept a bond between the family and its property because in the in the nation of Israel, God's promises were tied into the land. And so when he gave you a possession that was yours, it was supposed to remain yours. And so they had what is called the right of redemption. If I got myself into a financial position that I wasn't able to meet my my needs, I could sell my property, but it could be purchased or repurchased by somebody in my family. And so what is happening here is he's going to purchase some property from a cousin because it's his right to do so. And this is a picture the Lord is giving to him because the Lord is saying to him, see, even though the children of Israel are in Babylonian exile, yet in your purchasing this property, you're going to demonstrate to them that my promises of bringing them out of exile is true. So when you take money and you purchase this property, even though Nebuchadnezzar is laying siege and ultimately will take Zedekiah and will exile and and all of that is indeed going to happen and you will spend 70 years there in Babylon as a nation. Yet he's saying purchase that property because it'll be a visible picture that my promises are true and that I will bring you back and as you purchase this property and Paname probably is in a financial strait because they're under siege. He doesn't have finances and he has to sell some property to his cousin. He says, "In doing so, you're going to be making it a visible um declaration that my promises are true." So he bought the field and everybody witnessed it. In verse 13, I charged Baroo before them, saying, "Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, take these deeds, both this purchased deed which is sealed and this deed which is open, put them in an earthn vessel, that they may last many days. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, houses and fields and vineyards shall be possessed again in this land. So he's saying, get this document, seal it in an earthn vessel, and in the earthn vessel, they normally would bury it. And as it's buried, it'll be preserved from any damage, and ultimately when we come back, and and the land is once again returned to Israel, then you're going to be able to uh take this earthn vessel, unearth it, and you're going to discover uh this deed, and it's going to demonstrate that indeed this belongs to our family. Now, let me give you something very, very quick here. Um, this is one of those things, one of those aides that I probably could get really lost in, so I have to be very careful, but I feel kind of daring. Why don't we why don't we turn our Bibles for just a moment to 2 Corinthians. I want to show you something. 2 Corinthians chapter 4. This will just take a moment. The apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians chapter 4 gives us an interesting um insight in verses 6 and 7. Paul writes, "For God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ." But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all surpassing power is from God and not from us. We have this in earthn vessels. We have this treasure. He says in earthn vessels, jars of clay. During the time of the writing and into Jewish history up to the time of Jesus Christ, if I had something valuable and I wanted to preserve it and I didn't have any place to store it, what I would normally do and what the overwhelming majority of Israel did was they would take whatever the possession was, whether it was precious stones or whether it was silver or gold, whatever, they would take this valuable and they would put it in a clay pot and they would bury it in their backyard. Not necessarily even in the backyard, perhaps on some property that they owned. They would go in secret where nobody could see them, when nobody was watching them, and they would take their valuables, they would put it in earthn vessels, seal it up, and they would take it to their property, and they would bury it, and they would hide it. And the only ones who knew would be themselves and just a select few. Jesus made reference to this kind of behavior and gives us some great insight in Matthew 13 when he's giving his parable. In Matthew 13:44, Jesus said, "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field which a man found and hid. And for joy over it, he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field." Again, that's a picture of a man who purchased some property. And as he purchased it in a rightful way, he was out there doing some work on the property and he hits something and as he hits this actually, he's looking at the property and as he hits something, he looks at it and discovers there's a treasure buried in this field. And Israel was known as being uh uh filled with treasures all over because this was a common practice. So the man says, "You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to purchase this property." He had a legal right to do so. So he went and he saw to see whether it was for sale. It was for sale and he sold all that he had to purchase this one vessel that was holding within it a tremendous valuable treasure. One that's a picture of how God looks at us because the field is the world and the treasure is us. And the purchase price was selling all that he had which is a picture of God giving his son Jesus Christ so that he could purchase that field and take the treasure out of it. And a secondary aspect would be we today are earthn vessels carrying within us a treasure the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. And even all the way back in Jeremiah in the time of Jeremiah when he would take this document and seal it in a clay pot even so it's a picture of how clay pots will hold valuable and it's also a picture of how we are clay pots holding the value of God in us his spirit and his gospel. And the Lord purchased these clay pots in order that he might use us for his glory. And so as you look at this particular portion of scripture, that's a little insight you might get out of that. Moving on to verse 16, he says, "Now when I had delivered the purchased deed to Ruth, the son of Nuria, I prayed to the Lord, saying, oh Lord God, behold, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for you. You show loving kindness to thousands and repay the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children after them. The great the mighty God whose name is the Lord of hosts. You are great in counsel and mighty in work. For your eyes are open to all the ways of the sons of men to give according rather to give everyone according to his ways and according to the fruit of his doings. You have set signs and wonders in the land of Egypt to this day and in Israel and among other men. And you you have made yourself a name as it is this day. You have brought your people Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs and wonders, with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, and with great terror. You have given them this land of which you swore to their fathers to give them, a land flowing with milk and honey. and they came in and took possession of it, but they have not obeyed your voice or walked in your law. They have done nothing of all that you commanded them to do. Therefore, you have caused all this calamity to come upon them. Look, the siege mounds, they have come to the city to take it, and the city has been given into the hand of the calaldanss who fight against it because of the sword and famine and pestilence. What you have spoken has happened. There you see it. and you have said to me, oh Lord God, buy the field for money and take witnesses. Yet the city has been given into the hand of the calaldanss. Now Jeremiah knows that the Lord is true to his word. But in his prayer, he reveals that he needs a word of encouragement. That's what he's saying in verse 25 when he says, "Yet the city has been given into the hand of the calaldanss." Reassure me, Lord. Is what he's saying. Now, when he prays, I want you to see some of the aspects of his prayer. I'm not going to go through every one of these scriptures and read them once again. But in verse 17, one of the aspects of his prayer as he's praying is he's simply saying to the Lord, you are strong and nothing is impossible for you. In verse 18, in his prayer, he's referring to the fact that the Lord is merciful and just. In verse 19, he says, "You are wise and you are mighty. You are allseeing and you are gracious." In verse 20, he says, "You are the God of the miraculous and you are unique." In verse 21, in his prayer, you are the God who historically has delivered out of captivity. In verse 22, you are a God who keeps his promises and would not go back on your word. In verse 23, he says, "You are a God who will judge those who reject your word and conditions." In verse 24, he says, "You have kept your word in our day. And in verse 25, you will keep your promises in the future. So you see how his prayer unfolds. Now I want to give you another aside and this might be valuable to you. As a matter of fact, it will be. I want you to notice something here. Now this is something you will use someday. I guarantee you. So if you got a pencil and some paper, you may want to note this. Verse 18. I want to show you something. You show loving kindness to thousands and repay the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children after them. Now notice the great the mighty God whose name is the Lord of hosts. Now why would I want to point something out to you? Let me show you something. Has anybody here ever spoken to Jehovah's Witnesses? Jehovah's Witnesses believe that Jesus Christ is the first creation of God and will tell you that he is Michael the Archangel. And when you speak to a Jehovah's Witness, the Jehovah's Witness is a non-Christian because they deny Jesus Christ and have the spirit of Antichrist. Because the spirit of Antichrist is to deny God in the flesh according to first John. A Jehovah's Witness will tell you that Jesus Christ is not God. So perhaps you say, "Now wait a minute. The Bible says that he is because Isaiah 9:6 points that out." So the Jehovah's Witness will say, "Well, what does Isaiah 9:6 say?" And so you say, "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders, and he will be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, prince of peace." And so you say, "This is obviously a prophetic utterance concerning Jesus Christ, who is called the mighty God." Immediately a Jehovah's Witness will say to you, "Oh yes, that's true. He is a mighty God, but he is not the almighty God." Has anybody ever heard that? I have. They will say, "He is a mighty God, but he is not the almighty God." You see, only God is the almighty God. And then at that point, you might be saying, "Oh, how do you answer that?" Let me give you an answer. In Exodus 3:es 14-16, this is where the Lord is revealing himself. The Lord God is revealing himself to Moses. Moses has been wandering in the backside of the desert. He sees a bush that is burning but not consumed. He turns to go and see this wondrous thing. And as he begins to approach this burning bush, a voice speaks from the bush and says, "Remove your sandals, for the ground that you're standing on is holy." And the Lord God begins to reveal himself to Moses as the deliverer of Israel. And as Moses begins to speak to the Lord in that passage, the Lord says, "I'm going to send you." And Moses begins to argue with the Lord, "No, anything but me. I'm I can't go." And as he's speaking to him, he says, "But who would I say sent me?" So in Exodus 3:es 14-16, God said to Moses, "I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites, I am has sent me to you." God also said to Moses, "Say to the Israelites, the Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has sent me to you. This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation. Go assemble the elders of Israel and say to them, "The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, appeared to me and said, I have watched over you and have seen what has been done to you in Egypt." Two things. One, when you see the word Lord with capital L, capital O, capital R, and capital D, that's a word that is translated um Lord, but is the J HBH. It's where you get the word Jehovah from. It's his covenant name with the nation of Israel. That's one thing. Secondly, and I want you to notice this with me. Notice how the Lord reveals himself. the Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Now, Isaiah 10:21, we're going to tie this up. In Isaiah 10:21, the Lord says this, "A remnant will return, a remnant of Jacob will return to the mighty God." God declares himself to be the mighty God of Jacob. When God declared himself to be Jehovah to Moses, he called himself the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In Isaiah 9:6, when Isaiah is referring to the mighty God, he is speaking of the God of Jacob. The God of Jacob is the same God who revealed himself to Moses as Jehovah. And so Isaiah 9:6 tied in with Exodus 3:14-16 tied in with Isaiah 10:21 tied in with Jeremiah 32:18 gives you a very clear clear picture that Jehovah God is the mighty God and that Jesus Christ is the mighty God in human flesh. And that's a very powerful argument when you sit down and discuss your faith. Now, I know that some of you are new in the Lord and you're saying, "And that's kind of complicated, pastor. You know, it's a thrill when you begin to walk somebody through these scriptures and you watch their eyes reading the scriptures and you see a glimmering of understanding begin to uh to show. And I've seen Jehovah's Witnesses who have been basically taught that Jesus isn't God in the flesh begin to just their eyes begin to their eyelids flutter going like, "I'd never heard that before. I've never there's something wrong here." No, no, there's something right here. What is right is Jesus Christ, the mighty God who has laid his life down for you. He isn't Michael the Archangel. What kind of sacrifice would that be? An archangel laying down his life for human beings. Scripture doesn't give us any indication that that's to happen. But God does tell us that he loved us so much he gave his only begotten son. And when Jesus Christ died for us, it was more than a human sacrifice. It was God in the flesh dying for the sins of mankind. You may want to mark that down and remember that because someday you're going to use it. And you may walk up to me even this Sunday and say, "You know what?" And like Raw, you'll say, "It's neat. Now back into verse 26. Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying, "Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for me? Therefore, thus says the Lord, behold, I will give this city into the hand of the Calaldanss, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and he shall take it. The Calaldanss who fight against the city shall come and set fire to the city and burn it with the houses on whose roofs they have offered incense to Baal and poured out drink offerings to other gods to provoke me to anger. Because the children of Israel and the children of Judah have done only evil before me from their youth. For the children of Israel have provoked me only to anger with the work of their hands, says the Lord. For the city has been to me a provocation of my anger and my fury from the day that that they built it even to this day. So I will remove it from before my face because of all the evil of the children of Israel and the children of Judah which they have done to provoke me to anger. They their kings, their princes, their priests, their prophets, the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. They have turned to me the back and not the face. Though I taught them, rising up early and teaching them, yet they have not listened to receive instruction. But they set their abominations in the house which is called by my name to defile it. And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnim to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to Molech, which I did not command them, nor did it come into my mind that they should do this abomination to cause Judah to sin. He's saying, you know what, the history of Israel has been rejection. And the history of Jerusalem from the time Solomon built it, remember with me that Solomon, the son of David, turned his heart away from the Lord in his old age and began to become an idoltor. He's saying, "Your history from the very beginning as a nation, Israel and Judah, has been rejection of my commands." And he said, "And I've been very patient with you, but the time has come for me to exercise judgment upon you, and that's what's going to happen." When he speaks here, and he says in verse 35, he says, "You've caused their sons and daughters to pass through the fire to Molech." God had said in the law that they were not to have anything to do with this God, this God called Molech. And what they would do according to one of the biblical encyclopedias that I use when I study is what they would do is they they created an image of this god called Molech. And they would uh it had it had its arms outstretched at an angle at an incline. And the uh children of Israel would come to this god and they would uh put fire in its belly and it was made out of metal and the entire uh metal idol would be heated until it was red hot and then they would have music playing and a lot of noise of celebration. And then the mother would bring her child to this god as a sacrifice as an offering in the valley of Hinnham. And as she came with all the noise and all of the loud uh singing and all of that, she would take her baby and she would place it in the arms of this heated uh idol. And the reason there was a lot of noise is so that she wouldn't hear the screams of her infant as a baby rolled down the arms of this idol into this open um portion of the idol and fell into the fire and was consumed by it. And God said, "This is an abomination. I never commanded you to do that. And look what you've done." Not only that, you have little idols, not only in your house, but on your rooftops. And you think I'm ignoring this. I gave you commands and I said, "Don't do this." But you rejected me and I will bring judgment on you exactly as I promised you. Why? Because God is a God of justice as well as a God of mercy. In verse 36, now therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning this city, which you say, it shall be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence. Behold, I will gather them out of all countries, where I have driven them in my anger, in my fury, and in great wrath. I will bring them back to this place and I will cause them to dwell safely. They shall be my people. I will be their God. Then I will give them one heart and one way that they may fear me forever for the good of them and their children after them. I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from doing them good. I will put my fear in their hearts so that they will not depart from me. Yes, I will rejoice over them to do them good. and I will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and with all my soul. For thus says the Lord, just as I have brought all this great calamity to this people, so I will bring on them all the good that I have promised them. And fields will be bought in this land of which you say it is desolate, without man or beast. It has been given into the hand of the Calaldians. Men will buy fields for money, sign deeds, and seal them, and take witnesses in the land of Benjamin, and in the places around Jerusalem, in the cities of Judah, in the cities of the mountains, in the cities of the lowland, the cities of the south, for I will cause their captives to return, says the Lord. And though I judge you, yet I will restore you. And though I bring my word to pass in the word of judgment, I will also bring my word to pass in a word of blessing and prosperity. Because God's anger was but for a moment, but his mercy was enduring forever. The Lord is that way with the nation of Israel. Question before you close your Bible. You know, people know me. They say, "Well, when Pastor Dave starts slowing down, it's true, huh?" Question. If God was true to his word in the Old Testament and he said, "If you transgress against me, I will deal with you." Is God not true to his word in the New? The answer is yes. God is always true to his word. So when a believer is going through hard times, why is it that so very often one of the first things we do is we say, "God doesn't love me anymore." Why is that? And why is it that when the Lord begins to allow us to go through trials, we get mad at him? And why is it that when we sin and the Lord begins to chasen us, we think all these angry thoughts at him and why is it that the first thing that happens is we stop reading and the next thing that happens is we stop praying and then the next thing that happens is we stop fellowshipping. Why is that? If the Lord loves us, he will chasen us because he always chasens the one he loves. Because if he didn't chasen us, the writer of Hebrews said, then we would be illegitimate and not his children. If you read the word and you begin to get a pattern of what God has to say, the warnings as well as the blessings, then when he begins to chasen you or when he allows a trial to come upon you, well, when he chasens, be quick to repent. When you go through a trial, look up because God is perfecting something in you. Have you ever said, "Father, I want to be on fire for you." Have you ever said, "Lord, I want to love. Lord, I want to have patience. Lord, I want to be stronger. Lord, I want to be deep." The way to have love and strength and depth is going to be going through things that challenge your love, challenge your strength, and challenge your depth. And that's the mercy of the Lord. Now there are times that we are doing wrong. Thank God that he loves us enough to deal with us as his children. And instead of getting resentful and angry towards him, we ought to be grateful because he loves us and he chasens us. And perhaps I have some in this room right now who are being chasened by the Lord. And rather than getting mad at him and trying to punish him, I'll show you. I just won't talk to you. Maybe we ought to be zealous. Maybe we ought to learn learn our lessons quickly and move on. Because the Lord is true to his word, isn't he?