Jeremiah chapter 31. That's where we'll be taking our text from. We stopped off two weeks ago in Jeremiah chapter 30. We finished it up. And tonight we'll begin chapter 31. We're going to try to look at 10 verses, the first 10 verses. I guess we'll get there. We'll find out. But this is dealing with, I titled it originally, The Lord Turns Morning into Joy, because that's certainly what he talks about here in the text. But then I've kind of got off on another section here about kind of giving, I guess, a lesson about Hebrews, Israelites, and Jews. I want us to understand who they are and why there is a separation of the three. And anyway, we'll be talking a lot about the Jews tonight in our Studies, but let's go and look at verse 1 of our text in Jeremiah chapter 31 the Bible says at the same time saith the Lord will I be the God of all the families of Israel and they shall be my people Father thank you for the reading of your word tonight I'm asking you now God to help me just to be able to teach for a few minutes God on this text Lord May you be glorified in Jesus name. I pray amen Well, at the same time, he says, same times referring to what he had just said previously in the previous chapter we talked about two weeks ago. And that was concerning the latter days. Now we've been talking about how the book of Jeremiah, many of it, much of it is double prophecy, things that happened during the Babylonian captivity and the return of the Jews also to their land, but also a look ahead at the end of times. of the things that God's gonna do there to wrap things up. Well, the last thing we read there in Jeremiah chapter 30 verse 24, it said, the fierce anger of the Lord shall not return until he have done it and until he have performed the intent of his heart in the latter days you shall consider it. The latter days, referencing the end of days. We've talked about that quite heavily during this study. When the Jews will be living in peace finally, they won't be scattered, they won't be living in turmoil and always in some kind of people threatening the Jew all the time, always have. The Jew has always been in an uproar. But in that day, those latter days when the Lord is talking about here, He's going to turn their mourning into joy. The people, verse 2, it says, thus saith the Lord, the people which were left of the sword found grace in the wilderness, even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest. Well, he's referring back, of course, to the reference to the children of Israel when the Lord led them out of Egypt's bondage by his man Moses. And when they came across there, they came across that Red Sea that the sea parted, and they walked across on dry land, they got on the other side, And the course of waters came and swept over Pharaoh's army there. But it says there the people which were left of the sword found grace in the wilderness even Israel when I went to cause him to rest and So Moses had led him out in the wilderness to take care of them They didn't make it to the promised land in the time that they could have because of their disobedience and their rebellion and their complaining their murmuring and just defying God and and so the Lord allowed him to wander around there for 40 years in that wilderness and there was Hardly any that actually got into the promised land out of the original group Caleb and Joshua, I believe. And the younger, the children of those got to go in, but the older folks, they didn't get to go over into the promised land. Moses himself didn't get to go over there. He didn't get to go into the land of Canaan. He only could view it from up on top of the mountain the Lord allowed him to. And so they wandered around there in the wilderness forty years, wandering. And in verse three it says, The Lord has appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love. Therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee. And I'm glad that the Lord loves his people with an everlasting kindness, with an everlasting love. And we all ought to be glad of that. Because of his love for us that he sent his son Jesus to die for us on the cross. If he didn't have such great love and such, as he called it right here, loving kindness or everlasting love, he says everlasting love. If he didn't have that, then none of us would be able to be saved. Because of his everlasting love and the way that he loves us, he sent Jesus here. and died for us. Man's love is different than God's love. It's not like God's love at all. You may know some very loving people. You may have people in your life that would die for you and you would die for them. But most people, their love is just so flippant. It's like, I've had people come to me and say, Brother Byron, I'd love to hear you preach. I love everything that you do and all this. And I can say one thing from behind this pulpit that they didn't like, and they don't like me no more. They don't love me no more, and they don't want to hear me no more. And so people are very fickle, but not God. God's love is everlasting, he says, and his loving kindness, he says, I have drawn thee. And the Lord draws us. When we come to be saved, God draws us to be saved. He draws us. No man cometh unto him except for the Father. Draw him, Jesus said. And so we're drawn to him because of his love. Verse 4 says, Again I will build thee, and thou shalt be built, O virgin of Israel. Thou shalt again be adorned with thy taburets, and shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry. Well, this is a picture of a restored Israel. This merry celebration he's describing here, the women would come out with these taburets, which are timbrels or tambourines. We know them as tambourines. I believe we've got one back here in the back somewhere we use sometimes, but Sister Carol used to like to play it when we sung that song on or something about, I don't remember what it was. Anyway, she liked to play it. But here, that's the same type of thing. These ladies would come out with these tambourines and they would have kind of like a little dance. It was a celebration. And so when these Jewish people, these Israelites, they would celebrate, the children of Israel, they would play those timbrels, taburets, like I was talking about when Moses led the children of Adam to Egypt's bondage. And when they got over on the other side, you remember what happened, they sang songs and they danced and played instruments. It says in Exodus 15, 20, Miriam, the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand. And all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances. And so they were celebrating what the Lord had done for them. And so here in our study in Jeremiah, he's given that same picture, what he's going to do for his people. And they'll be celebrating like they once did and making merry. Look at verse five. Thou shalt yet plant vines upon the mountains of Samaria. The planter shall plant and shall eat them as common things. Well, and he's talking about vines here. You shall plant vines. He's referring to the vineyards that they would plant. And the vineyards is where they grew their grapes and they'd make their wine with and they would enjoy the grapes. The grapes was a great, uh, one of the great benefits to them. If you remember when, uh, they, uh, they went over to scout out the land of Canaan and they were talking about how big the grapes and things were over there. And so, uh, the Lord here, he's saying thou shalt yet plant Vines upon the mountains talking about everything's gonna be plentiful and it'll be so common to them They'll just they'll be able to eat grapes all the time and just what a wonderful thing and in verse 6 It says for there shall be a day that the watchman upon the Mount Ephraim shall cry Arise ye and let us go up to Zion unto the Lord our God and Well, the watchman, as we all know, he was placed up above the city wall so he could look out across the plains and warn everybody if the enemy was coming. And what he would do, he would sound the trumpet. He would be up there in his little, we would call it a booth or something these days, but he would be up there watching over there, and if the enemy started coming, then he would sound that horn, sound the alarm, and people would go to their place of safety. Some would be in the city, and they would, of course, lock up the city and put the gates down. Nobody could enter into the city. They would protect it. But the people that were outside of the city, if they couldn't make it in there, they would have to find a place of safety. And so they would find a place of safety. Well, he says here, there's going to be a day, the watchmen up on Mount Ephraim shall cry, and they'll go into Zion. Let us go up to Zion under the Lord our God. Zion is the city of God. And that's where they're all going to. And they're always talking about, when you talk about going to Jerusalem or going up to Zion, it's going up because it's an upward walk, an upward journey. And so that's what they're doing. They're going up toward Jerusalem to the city of Zion. And the Lord will bring his people into their land. They won't have to worry about their enemies anymore. That watchman up there on the wall, up there in the tower, he won't be having to tell them about their enemies because there won't be any because the Lord will protect them. Look at verse seven. We'll look at verses seven through nine together. For thus saith the Lord, sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout among the chief of the nations, publish ye, praise ye, and say, O Lord, save thy people, the remnant of Israel. Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the coast of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child, and her that travaileth with child together, a great company shall return thither. They shall come with weeping, and with supplications will I lead them. I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble, for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn." Well, of course, these three verses is a picture of the Lord gathering His people home. The Lord gathering His people home. And they will come from all places to gather into the Holy Land. He says He'll bring them from the north country. Now in the day of Jeremiah, of course, they're coming out of the north country of Babylon, up where they've been taken captive. Babylon was referred to as the north country. And so they will be coming down and back from the north country, back to the holy place. But in the future events, in the latter days also, those will be coming from all over the place to come back to the holy land. He says he'll bring them from the north country, from the coast of the earth. Everywhere they're scattered, the Lord would draw back his people to the holy land of promise. Now, an immediate sense of God's people during Jeremiah's day, they'd be coming, like I said, from Babylon, where the Lord has let them return. Now, most did not come back. Most stayed. You see that all through the Bible and through history. You look in the books of Esther and such. Most of them stayed there after they were allowed to come back. They had made their homes there, and they'd taken on with that. And so many of them were still in the north country, of course, but he says they'll be coming back. But in the future times, they'll be coming from all over the place. And in a prophetical sense, in the future events, we know God's going to draw his people home, back to the Holy Land. There is a big push right now for the Jews to return to the Holy Land. They're going by the hundreds on any given day. There's hundreds of people, hundreds of Jews going over to Israel to make their home there. They're coming from all over. They're coming from the United States. They're coming from Russia, from Germany. Everywhere that they're at, they're coming to go back to Israel to make their homes. I watched a little video this week of a man. He was actually a retired U.S. Navy captain. And he retired from the Navy and took his family. I think he had three or four young kids and his wife. And they moved from here, from the United States, and they moved to Israel forever to stay. He took his whole family up and moved them there so they could learn the language and they could learn. He was a Jewish man, of course. But they've moved their whole family there and talking about how important it was for those people, for his people, to be in their land. And so they are going there. Right now they're scattered all over the earth. And he mentions they're from every coast, from the coast of the earth. And so this could be anywhere. I'm sure that you've heard of the Jewish diaspora, and that is where the Jews, of course, were dispersed, the dispersion of the Jews. Now, of course, this began in the northern kingdom there of Israel when the Assyrians come and they took the northern kingdoms captive. The Assyrians did. The Assyrians were before the Babylonians. And then about 150 years later, 100 something years later, of course, the land of Judah. Nebuchadnezzar came. Nebuchadnezzar had defeated the Assyrians and kind of took the Assyrians in. They all kind of jumbled together. But Nebuchadnezzar came and defeated the land of Judah and took them captive to Babylon. And so that is part of all this, all this dispersion here, the Jewish diaspora. Well, certainly it began in those days, but it continued happening and it's still continuing. They're dispersed, but they're coming back, many of them coming back. If you look at the latest estimates, I was trying to get the best estimate that I could on how many Jews are actually in the world today, real Jews, blood Jews. The latest statistics I could find, there's around anywhere between 14 to 15 million scattered all over the world. The biggest majority, of course, being in Israel now, 6,336,400. I'm sure that changes probably daily, but over 6 million in Israel. The next place that has the most Jews in it is the United States of America. We have here 5,700,000 and half of those live in New York City. And so there's a bunch of Jews here in the United States. And then the next one is France. I'm giving you the top 10 places where the Jews are scattered. France, 460,000. Canada, 388,000. The United Kingdom, 290,000. Russia, 200,000. Argentina, 180,000. Germany, 117,000. That's kind of surprising that there's still a large amount of Jews in Germany after everything that happened there. Australia, 113,000. And Brazil, 95,000 Jews living in Brazil. That surprises me. But of course in other places, there's many of them. But before the Lord wraps things up, The Jews are going to return to Israel, to the Holy Land. The move is already underway, like I've been talking about. Now, that's called something else. It officially, probably, I guess you could say it began there in, what was it, November 29th, 1947, when the Jewish state, the United Nations declared the Jewish state over there of Israel. But the United Nations voted to establish the state of Israel. Well, the Jews have been returning to it and occupying there, and that's called Aliyah, that's what they call Aliyah and that that simply means moving up moving up to Jerusalem and so the Jews now are in this Aliyah state that they're in moving back to Jerusalem and Israel Well, one thing that we need to understand and get clear in our minds tonight is the terms we see, we use the terms Hebrew, we use the term Israelite, and we use the term Jew. We use those three terms quite a bit, interchangeably a lot of times. However, we need to understand there are slight differences in the three. That may be a surprise to some people. First of all, originally the Jews, like we would think of a Jew, were originally Hebrews. All right, now we know that Abraham, the Bible says, was a Hebrew. He come from the land of Eber. He was a descendant of Eber. Eber being the great, great grandson of Noah. And so you can trace the bloodline of Abraham there in 1 Chronicles 1, 1 through 27. You'll find it starting with Adam, going all the way down to Abraham, and then of course it continues. But you can find from Adam to Abraham there in 1 Chronicles 1, and trace his bloodline. Well, he came from the bloodline of Eber. And so that's what the word Hebrew comes from, is Eber. Of course it was everybody from that point on descendants of Abraham were considered Hebrews But when Abraham's great-great, no his great-grandson Jacob who the Lord renamed Israel when he renamed him Israel all the descendants then of Jacob or Israel became known as Israelites so Abraham or Abram as he was originally named. Abram was a Hebrew, he was not an Israelite, and he was not considered a Jew at that time. And so then his great-grandson, of course, being Jacob, his name was Israel, and then everybody after that was called Israelites. All right, so we've been studying now about the kingdoms. Remember when Solomon was king and the kingdoms divided? So you had all of Israel there, all the 12 tribes. But the northern tribes, there were 10 up there. And there were two down at the bottom in Judah. So they called that Judah down at the bottom, the southern tribes. The northern tribes, the 10 tribes, was called Israel. It remained being called Israel. And so these 10 tribes, you may have heard the Lost Tribes of Israel, the 10 tribes of Israel. That's the 10 tribes. They're the ones that got taken into captivity by the Assyrians. But the lower kingdom of Judah, which included Judah and Benjamin, those two tribes, Judah and Benjamin, make up Judah, the land of Judah. And there was a few Levites that were down there too. The Levites didn't have their own tribe, but there were some Levites down there. But these were made up, and these started being referred to as Jews. Those from Judah were referred to as Jews. Now, stay with me, hang with me. You will first see the word Jews used in the book of 2 Kings, 2 Kings 16 and 6. It says this, it says, at that time Rezan, king of Syria, recovered Elath to Syria and draved the Jews from Elath. And the Syrians came to Elath and dwelt there unto this day. So the text here is referring to inhabitants of Judah who was in control there of Elath at the time. Well, they were in war here with the Assyrians, and so it's referring to those people from Judah being Jews. And so this is the first time you see a collective a portion of people referred to as Jews, and you'll see that as it continues. However, you won't find an individual named a Jew until you get to the book of Esther. You're not going to find somebody that says he was a Jew until you get to the book of Esther, and it's talking about Mordecai. Let me read that to you. Over in Esther 2, verses 5 and 6, It says, now in Shushan, the palace where a certain Jew, whose name was Mordecai, the son of Jer, the son of Shemi, the son of Kish, a Benjamite, who had been carried away from Jerusalem with a captivity which had been carried away with Jeconiah, king of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, had carried away." Alright, you see how that plays into our studies that we've been studying Jeremiah? You remember Jeconiah? He was that king that Nebuchadnezzar came and took off his throne and took him into Babylonian captivity and he replaced him with the next one, I believe it was his brother. Alright, so when Jeconiah and his mother and all the kings, everybody that worked for the king, when they got took over into Babylonian captivity, so did this man right here named Mordecai. that we read about Nestor. Well, here Mordecai is the first man in the Bible that is referred to as the Jew. It says a certain Jew whose name is Mordecai. They called him that because he was a Benjamite from the land of Judah. Remember the tribe of Benjamin was not the tribe of Judah, but the whole collection, Judah and the Benjamites all together was the land of Judah, all together. So it was all considered Jew. So anybody from that area, Either Benjamin or Judah, they were called Jews. All right, is everybody with me? Is everybody asleep? All right, this is important because we need to know about what God's word's saying here about the Jew. It's very important because God sees the Jew in a, you can say a different way than he does everything else. God always has a plan for the Jew. It's his chosen people. And so let's continue on. So those 10 tribes that were carried away into Assyrian captivity up in the north section, those are considered Israelites. They weren't considered Jews at that time. All right, now, the Lord Jesus, does everybody remember what tribe he's from? Judah. The tribe of Judah, remember the lines well, the tribe of Judah, the line of the tribe of Judah. Therefore, Jesus is referred to as a Jew. If you remember, they put up on the banner above his head, the King of the Jews. He's a Jew. The Apostle Paul, does anybody remember what tribe he's from? Benjamin. So, Benjamin is from Judah. Paul recalls himself, Paul calls himself actually a Hebrew, a Jew, and an Israelite, all three. Paul refers to himself as all three, and we'll look at that. And so, the Apostle Paul's from the tribe of Benjamin. He's called a Jew. Jesus is called a Jew. Peter, the Apostle Peter, is called a Jew. Paul said you were a Jew. Peter said that he was a Jew. And so, they're all called Jews. But Paul called himself all three. Let me give you some scripture references for that. Acts 22 and 2, verses 2 and 3 there, Acts 22, it says, And when they had heard that he spake in the Hebrew tongue to them, they kept the more silence, and he saith, I am verily a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers and was zealous toward God as you all are this day." Now he's talking to other Jews and he's telling them, listen, I'm a Jew. See, they didn't know that. Philippians 3 and 5, circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law of Pharisee. So now he's called himself a Jew. Now he's called himself a Hebrew. Let's keep looking. Acts 21 and 39, Paul said, I am a man which am a Jew of Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, a citizen of no mean city. I beseech thee, suffer me to speak unto the people. All right, now we see we've got Jew, we've got Hebrew, now let's see where he calls himself an Israelite. Romans 11 and one. And Romans 11 and one is a great chapter if you wanna get into it and look at, see what God's plan is for the Jew. And see the breakdown of Israel and Jews. Romans 11 and one. Is Paul writing there? He said, I say then, has God cast away his people? God forbid, for I also am an Israelite of the seed of Abraham of the tribe of Benjamin. So there we have Paul calling himself all three of these, a Hebrew, a Jew, and an Israelite. Now some people have a belief that God is finished with the Jew or the Israelites and that the church is now a spiritual Israel. Have you ever, have you heard that theology? Replacement theology. is what that's called, suppressionism is also referred to. But replacement theology is a group of people that believe that the church took the place of the Jew and that we are a spiritual Israel. And all the promises made to Israel are promises made to the church. But the problem with that is that then you have to spiritualize everything that God said about the Jew and put it to the Gentile and put it to the church. And it just doesn't work that way. Not only that, the Bible has so much to say about what God is going to do with the Jew and with Israel in the latter days. Let me give you an example, Romans 11 and 25. Same chapter there, Romans 11 and 25. Paul says, For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits, that blindness in part is happened to Israel, unto the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved, as it is written, There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes. But as touching the election, they are beloved for the Father's sakes." And so Paul here is explaining to them, listen, God's not done with the Jew. He's not done with the Israelites. In fact, right now, Israel, or the Jew, is the enemy of the Gospel. And they are. They were then, they are now. They don't believe that Jesus Christ was the Messiah. Some do. Some Jews have been saved. Some Jews are now Christians. But they're still Jewish by blood. But Paul here, he's saying that all Israel shall be saved. That don't mean every individual person from Israel will be saved. That means as a collective whole group of people, a nation, Israel will be saved in the end. And we read that. We've been studying in my Sunday school class for what, 30 weeks? Has it been 30 weeks? In the book of Revelation, we've seen where the Lord is going to protect those 144,000 Jewish saints, 12,000 from each tribe, each 12 tribes, 12,000 from 12 tribes, 144,000 Jews that God's going to protect, people that are descendants of Israel, of Jacob, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Well, here Paul stated that Israel shall be saved as a nation, of course. They're God's covenant people. Paul also says that they're current enemies of the gospel. And so the Lord is not finished with Israel by any means. And anybody teaching replacement theology is not teaching the truth. It's just a fact. There's dispensations in the Bible. There's things we need to understand. God works with groups of people at certain times. And the Jew and the Israelites, they're always God's people. Always have been, always will be. And so He will save them. Now having said all that, let's kind of wrap things up. Having said all that, in the New Testament we do find that the Bible refers to the Jew and Israel on the same level as the same. It's interchangeable in the New Testament. So it would not be wrong to refer to all of them as Jews. Jew actually now is more considered a religion. If you're a Jew, that means that you practice Judaism. But it doesn't mean that you're a blood Jew or a blood Israelite. You can convert to Judaism. But that don't make you a real Jew or an Israelite by any means. That just makes you a converted into the Jewish faith or Jewish religion. And so a Jew nowadays, more or less, you think of somebody that practiced Judaism. It's more of a religion, kind of like Christianity. We call ourselves Christians. It's a religion of Christianity because we follow the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior. And so our faith is Christian. Well, their faith is a Jewish faith. And so unless their bloodline though comes from the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they're not true Israelites and they're not true Jews, but they would be in name or practice. And so look at verse 10 and we'll be finished there of our text back in Jeremiah chapter 31 verse 10. It says, Hear the word of the Lord, O ye nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, He that scattered Israel will gather him and keep him as a shepherd doth his flock. And there's that picture again that we've just been talking about. God is going to gather his people and keep them. He's the shepherd. He's our shepherd too. He's the great shepherd. But he's the shepherd of his people, and the Bible says those that he scattered to Israel, he will gather him and keep him as a shepherd of his flock. And so this message is sent out to all the lands. The Lord's gathered his people, and it's clear to tell them that it was him, he was the one that scattered them. You notice that? He said that he scattered Israel, And so their enemies there, they can take credit for it because they came in and got them and took them into captivity, but God's the one that allowed them to do it. So he's the one that scattered them, and he's the one that's going to bring them back. And so now, like a shepherd, he's gathering his flock. All right. Well, that's the Bible study for tonight. Lord Willem will cover the rest of the verses next Wednesday night.