Let's turn together in God's word to Jeremiah 47 tonight, Jeremiah 47. Jeremiah 47, where God's word reads as follows. The word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning the Philistines before Pharaoh struck down Gaza. Thus says the Lord, behold, waters are rising out of the north and shall become an overflowing torrent. They shall overflow the land and all that fills it, the city and those who dwell in it. Men shall cry out and every inhabitant of the land shall wail. At the noise of the stamping of the hooves of his stallions, at the rushing of his chariots, at the rumbling of their wheels, the fathers look not back to their children. So feeble are their hands because of the day that is coming to destroy all of the Philistines, to cut off from Tyre and Sidon every helper that remains. For the Lord is destroying the Philistines, the remnant of the coastland of Kaphtor. Baldness has come upon Geza, Ashkelon has perished. O remnant of the valley, how long will you gash yourselves? Ah, sword of the Lord, how long till you are quiet? Put yourself into your scabbard, rest and be still. How can it be quiet when the Lord has given it a charge against Ashkelon and against the seashore He has appointed it? So far the reading from God's word this evening, may he add his blessing to our hearts. When you come to scripture, you're really coming to an account of the interlude between man's sin in Genesis 3 and the return of Christ in Revelation 20. And in that interlude, God patiently and graciously calls out against sinners. and he calls them to repentance. He calls people who have rebelled against him to turn back to him. And so time after time, between Genesis 3 and Revelation 20, you will hear the warnings from the Lord, instructions from the Lord, threatenings from the Lord, promises given by the Lord that man might flee the wrath to come. And this chapter, Jeremiah 47, is an example of what happens when the warning of the Lord is not heeded. when it's not heeded as it's demonstrated for us by the Philistines in this specific chapter. And what we see in this short chapter in Jeremiah's prophecy is that God will judge the enemies of his people because they are his enemies. And so to learn that lesson, we want to look at this chapter in three parts. First, we want to do an overview of the Philistines. We want to look at the history of the Philistines so we can understand the significance of God's judgment against them. Second place, we're going to look at the judgment itself, the judgment on the Philistines, and then we're going to draw some lessons from God's judgment against the Philistines. So God will judge the enemies of his people because they are enemies of the Lord. And to learn that lesson, we're gonna see the history of the Philistines, the judgment on the Philistines, and the lessons from the Philistines. So let's look together first at the history of the Philistines. When we come to this last section in Jeremiah's prophecy from chapter 46 on to chapter 51, We come to a series of proclamations of judgment against foreign nations. Jeremiah has been speaking to the people of Judah primarily, but now in the last section of his book, he is going to be talking about the judgment of the Lord against foreign nations. He's gonna speak in the next six chapters against nine different people groups. He began last Lord's Day with prophecy against Egypt. Today, Philistia and then seven other nations will follow. And each of these foreign nations are warned against the judgment of God that is coming against them. Now the judgment of the Lord, of course, is a persistent theme throughout the book of Jeremiah, but the judgment of the Lord against the Philistines is unique because of who the Philistines were. So we want to think a little bit and look at scripture to see who the Philistines were. The Philistines are first introduced to us by Moses in the Pentateuch in the first five books of the Bible in Genesis 10. Right after the account of Noah and the flood, there is a table of nations as it's called by commentators usually. It's chapter 10 where it describes how the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, gave birth, gave rise to all these other nations that that were in the world at the time of the writing of Genesis. And so when you think about the table of nations and the children that Shem, Ham, and Japheth bore and the nations that flowed out of them, we have to remember, of course, the history of Noah's sons. Two of his sons were blessed, Shem and Japheth, and one of them, was cursed Ham and that's because of the incident with their father when he lay exposed in his tent and Ham mocked him but Shem and Japheth covered him seeking to honor him. Now, it's important to realize Ham's curse carries forward, that Ham was to be a servant of Shem and indirectly of Japheth. Now, the Philistines were listed in Genesis 10, verse 14 as a descendant from Ham. They were a descendant of the cursed line of Noah. Ham was a bitter enemy of Shem, And in the Table of Nations we see that Egypt actually bore the Philistines. So they were an indirect descendant of the Egyptians. Now the history of Philistia then begins with that in the background. Ham, that cursed line of Noah's family, was the one that bore, gave birth to the Philistines. And so the relationship between Philistia and Israel is bitter right from the start. It's bitter even before Israel is officially a nation. So, the separation between Seth and Cain that we see right at the beginning in Genesis 3 and 4, it's re-established through the hostility that exists between Shem and Ham. Shem, in that sense, continues on the line of the seed of the woman as she is described in Genesis 3.15, the one who will have her defense in the coming Savior. And then Ham is the line of the seed of the serpent, the one that will be at enmity against the seed of the woman. Ham, the father of the Philistines, the Philistines, one of Israel's main enemies. And the history of the hostility between Philistia and Israel begins back in Genesis 20, when it's just Abraham and his family, not a nation yet. And in Genesis 20, you have that account of Abraham and Abimelech. Abraham and Abimelech and Abimelech was the king of the Philistines. And Abraham's relationship with Abimelech didn't start off well because he deceived Abimelech about his wife and that caused some tension as Abimelech scolds Abraham for the way that he treated him in that regard. But what was sparked with Abraham simply as a tension between a king and a man becomes a flame with Isaac. Isaac is blessed by the Lord and Isaac lives among the Philistines for some time as well. And in Genesis 26 verse 14 it shows us that the Philistines actually were envious of Isaac and that they began to act out their envy by stopping up the wells that Isaac dug. in the land of Philistia. Later, when Israel takes possession of the land of Canaan, in Judges 3, for example, the Lord is described as leaving behind some nations to test Israel, and when the list of those nations that are left behind to test Israel is given, the Philistines are among them. And the Philistines did do what God had left them to do. The Lord left these nations there to test Israel, and the Philistines tested Israel. They conquered Israel when there were several judges. Shamgar in Judges 3 and Jephthah in Judges 10. Samson, of course, in Judges 13. All of them were fighting and striving against the Philistines who had oppressed now the people of Israel. When Samuel was young, the last judge of the nation of Israel, the Philistines were the ones who captured the ark from Hophni and Phinehas, the evil sons of Eli, the high priest. They were a military and political opponent of the first king of Israel, Saul. And in several occasions, you see Saul striving against the Philistines time and time again, 1 Samuel 13, 14, twice in 1 Samuel 14, 1 Samuel 23, the Philistines being an enemy of the people of Israel. Of course, one of the best known accounts of all of scripture is an account of warfare between the Israelites and one of the giants of the Philistines, Goliath, Goliath. was Philistines, mocking the Lord God of heaven and earth, standing in front of the lines of the soldiers of Israel, calling out to them, cursing God and the people of Israel, quaking in fear because of this great giant. Saul, his sons, is the son that we love the most, Jonathan included. They are killed at the hands of the Philistines on Mount Gilboa in 1 Samuel 31. And you could think that that would be the end of the hostility between the Israelites and the Philistines, but it carries on. It carries on in David's reign as well. David fights against the Philistines repeatedly, defeating them many times. Israel finally gains the upper hand against the Philistines. And you see that in the book of 2 Samuel when David defeats them in four separate battles. They are subdued finally during the reign of Solomon. And we read about that in First Kings. But later on, some 50 years later, during the reign of another king, King Jehoram, they break free from the rule of the Israelites and they fight against Israel again. They've shaken off their yoke by that time again. The upper hand returns to the Israelites and Uzziah conquers them again 50 years later. But as Judah declines in their faithfulness to the Lord, the Philistines gain more power and they regain their freedom. in the reign of Ahaz some 10 years later. So, why all this history about the Philistines? The history of the Philistines helps us to see who is being judged. This is an arch enemy of the people of Israel. They're hated by Israel, and at the same time, they're feared by the people of Israel. The conflict between God's people and these descendants of Ham is at least 2,000 years old. Their national conflict between Philistia and Israel itself, probably close to 400 years old by the time you deal from start to finish. And so Jeremiah is giving a prophecy about a long-standing enemy of God's people. It's an enemy that just never really lost, that never really seemed to be defeated, that never seemed to give up fighting against the Lord and against his people. It's an enemy who's always shaking off its bondage, always coming back to harm the people of God, to irritate the people of God, or to lead the people of God astray, causing them to serve false gods, causing them to serve after idols. So that's the history of the Philistines. With that history of the Philistines in the back of our minds, now let's look at the judgment of God against the Philistines in this chapter specifically. The Philistines, these are the people that God is judging in the chapter that we have read together. And however long the Philistines were able to be a thorn in the side of the people of Israel, they were not able to outlast the Lord. God's justice, of course, will always be satisfied, and the sins of all people, including the Philistines, will be accounted one day. And it says here in this book, this chapter of Jeremiah's prophecy, that that day for the Philistines has come. The Lord's warning to Philistia is that your day of judgment is imminent. It's not going to be a temporary setback. It's not going to be a minor inconvenience. It's going to be an overwhelming judgment against the people And what picture does Jeremiah give to help us to see what this event will be like for the people of the Philistines? You can look in verse two where the Lord gives this picture of waters rising, becoming an overflowing torrent. That's how it's described, like a current of water from an overflowing stream. That's what the judgment of God will be like as it rests on the Philistines. Some five or six years ago, Sawyer and I walked across the Savannah River. We went from Georgia into South Carolina. And my exposure to the Savannah River, except at the Savannah Rapids, of course, but when I see the Savannah River, usually it doesn't look like much is happening in that water at all. But we walked across that river, and we weren't up to more than our waist in water, and to walk across that river was so difficult because of the force of the water. It's not a very far walk where we were crossing, but it was exhausting. By the time you got to the other side, you needed to have a rest. But... to walk across a river where the torrents are overflowing their banks is an entirely different story. If walking across a relatively quiet river is a difficult thing, imagine what it would be to walk across waters that are rising out of the north that have become an overflowing torrent. The picture that we would use to describe that isn't the Savannah River kind of at the quiet points of that river. It would be comparable to what happened during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 when the levees in New Orleans failed and the water rushed all over that city with so much destruction and loss of life. It would be... comparable to what you see, the images or the videos that you've seen of the tsunami hitting Japan in 2011 where cars were just swept away and buildings were knocked over because of the force of the water overflowing the banks that were supposed to hold it in check. That's the power of the water. That's how much God's judgment is going to overpower the people of the Philistines. For individuals in New Orleans or individuals the tsunami in Japan who sought to stand against the water on their own, they were not able to do so. The water completely overwhelmed, it completely overpowered them and that's why so many people perished in those storms. So the result of this judgment against the Philistines, they may be living in relative presumption now, but the result of the judgment of God against the Philistines will be completely overwhelming for them. And again, God gives a picture that's very striking in this prophecy. If you look in verse three, you have that picture of charging armies at the beginning of verse three, and then fathers running away from their defenseless children. So great is the panic among the Philistines that fathers flee for their lives without looking back to help their own children. It's an unimaginable picture for us. It's unimaginable that fathers would leave behind their children because a father's first instinct is, of course, to protect his children. But the terror of the moment as it's described in this chapter, is going to be so overwhelming that this basic protective instinct that a father has will be completely forgotten. And not only will fathers be helpless to their children, but the allies of the Philistines, Tyre and Sidon, they will be cut off from helping the Philistines. And so the Philistines will be completely isolated. The judgment against the Philistines will be complete. and it will not stop. Again, the language in this chapter is so vivid that it sometimes, it might make you uncomfortable to read it. In verse six and seven, when the description of the judgment is drawn for us, it's a picture of a sword of the Lord that will not be quiet. It's a picture of a sword of the Lord that will not be put back, and it's scabbard because the Lord has drawn it. And so the Lord's judgment is being exercised, it says in verse 7, against Ashkelon, one of the leading cities of the Philistines. They're serving as a representation of the whole kingdom of Philistia. Also, the Lord's judgment is against the seashore. That's where the land of Philistia was. It was along the Mediterranean Sea to the south of the people of Israel. The Lord's sword would not be put away until all of his judgment was poured out on Ashkelon and the seacoast on the nation of the Philistines, until these enemies of the Lord had received their judgment from his hand. And the amazing thing, of course, about the Philistines is that after some point, they disappear. They disappear from the map of history. They've completely vanished. When you come to the New Testament, when do they ever talk about the Philistines? The Philistines aren't there. They're not on the scene at all anymore. They've long since vanished. The judgment of God has erased these longtime enemies of his people, and they've faded into oblivion. The judgment of God may seem to have been delayed in Israel's perspective, but the judgment of God is certain. The Lord, in his timing, calls the enemies of his people to judgment. But this isn't because they are the enemies of his people. You see, God isn't the judge of people who are mean to the people of Israel. God doesn't judge people for their behavior against Israel. The focus of scripture is never on man, but on God. The Philistines, they don't set themselves against God's people so much as they set themselves against the Lord and his anointed. You see, they are, in some sense, fulfilling Psalm 2. Psalm 2 where David as prophet, he has that famous opening statement, why do the nations rage in the people's plot and vain? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed. Well, in a sense, they're talking about David as being the anointed, that's in view in Psalm 2, but to a larger extent, that anointed one is the Lord Jesus Christ. The anointed one of God is anticipated in David and his sons. So later on in that same Psalm, in the 12th verse, the nations are warned to serve the Lord, and if they fail, they are warned that they will surely perish, that they will be broken, like a potter's vessel in verse 9 of that psalm. So we see the history of the Philistines. We see the judgment of God poured out against this ancient enemy of the people of Israel. But then we also want to learn some lessons from the Philistines. So how can an Old Testament nation have any meaning for us today? How can an Old Testament nation that perished some 2,500 years ago have any significance for us? Well, let's clarify the principle of what's in view in this chapter. The longstanding enemy of Israel is judged by God. And it's not their hostility against Israel that is primarily the problem. That's simply the fruit, that's simply a manifestation of the problem of their heart. The real issue for the Philistines is that they have rejected the God of Israel. The real problem for the Philistines is that they have rejected the God who made them and they're living in open rebellion against him. And so the judgment of Philistia isn't about Israel so much as it is about their idolatry against the Lord. And so with that primary principle in the background, let's think of two ways in which the Philistines make a difference for us today. The first one, is that we should be reminded that we enter into the kingdom of heaven for protection from the king. It's a gospel lesson. It's a lesson that reminds us where we are to flee to avoid the wrath to come. You see, because the reality is we are redeemed Philistines, aren't we? I remember when I was growing up and I had done something disobedient, my dad used to call me a Philistine. I didn't appreciate it at the time, but that's what he would call me. I was an unredeemed Philistine roaming in his kingdom. That's how he viewed us when we were disobedient. So at least I am a redeemed Philistine. You are a redeemed Philistine as well. We begin outside the kingdom of God where we live as Philistines in rebellion against God. This is the kingdom of this world where sin reigns. We live in the... or the kingdom where sexual immorality is present, idolatry, adultery, homosexuality, thievery, greed, drunkenness, reviling, swindling. All of those live in the kingdom outside of the kingdom of God. That's what Paul says anyways in 1 Corinthians 6, verse 9 and 10. He's describing what that kingdom is like, and he's describing a kingdom where there is no inheritance of the things of the Lord, where the blessings of God are are not to be found, the kingdom of this world. That's where the Philistines live. They're hostile to God. They're unwilling to bend their knee before the Lord. And that same passage that speaks so clearly of the condemnation on the unrepentant shows how you can be in the kingdom of the Lord. And so Paul has made that list of these sins, of course, it's not an exclusive list of sins that would keep you out of the kingdom of God. But he's talking to the Corinthians and he's describing what they were like. And he says, and such were some of you, but you were washed. You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God. So what's Paul saying in 1 Corinthians 6? He's saying, you were Philistines. You lived like they do. You did the same things they did. But something happened to you. You were washed. You were cleansed, you were sanctified, you were justified. How? In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, by the Spirit of God. That's what happened to you. It's not something that you did, not something that you accomplished, simply the work of God present in your life. And so the solution to enter into the kingdom of heaven for protection against God's judgment is to cry out to the Lord for cleansing. to seek his face, to ask the Holy Spirit to do his work in you. Now, to those of us who have ears that are used to listen for striving, it sounds almost empty. You're saying, just cry out to the Lord to be saved from his judgment? There's nothing else that I need to do? That's the truth of what God's Word is saying to you. To be justified by God, it really is that simple. Through the Spirit, by the name of Christ, you're cleansed from the guilt of your sin. To miss the judgment being poured out on the Philistines, it requires nothing else but faith. Nothing more, nothing less. Faith in Christ alone protects you from the judgment of God. Faith in Christ alone guarantees your justification in the presence of God. So we are to enter into the kingdom of heaven by crying out to God for protection from God himself. And that's lesson one that we learn from the Philistines. The second lesson that we learn from the Philistines is that we should bear patiently with the enemies of God and pity them. There's something so tragic about a man that refuses to acknowledge God. Because sin is at the root of all his action, there's not any peace in his life. No peace in his life today. They may have money, they may have fame, they may have beauty, they may have power, but there are whole industries built on reporting the tragedies of the lives of the celebrities in our culture who have all those things. Those things do not guarantee happiness. How many divorces, how many lawsuits, how many payoffs do you see among people who have the things that are the envy of the world? How many of them are able to live a peaceful life? Now, for you and me as Christians, sin is still present in our life and the effect of sin is felt in our lives. We have disruptions in our families, we have we have the pain of sin present among us. It's not been removed from us yet. But when it comes to our dealing with the painful present, we have the reality of the hope of heaven, where the effect of sin will be removed. We have the description of Revelation 21, where heaven is a place of anticipation, of glorious rest. That belongs to us by faith because we trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. But for the unbeliever, not only is there a hopeless future, but there's a painful present. I don't know if I've described this for you before, but when I preach at funerals for unbelievers, it's so painful to watch when an unbeliever is present at a funeral, because they know, they live in this moment, and they see death in front of them, and they know that something is wrong. And when the word of God is proclaimed, they're so miserable in their soul, they can't even look at you. They can't even look you in the eye when you give to them the good news of salvation because there's only turmoil in their heart. It doesn't mean they're miserable all the time, every second of every day, but at the bottom, at the root of who they are, there is turmoil because they're not at peace with God. There's something inside them that is aware this torrent is coming. the flood that was poured out over the Philistines, over the Egyptians, over the unfaithful Israelites. That torrent is reserved for them as well, and they know, they know it's coming. And so the unbeliever, when he's faced with the death of his loved one, he's reminded that his life will end too one day, and he has no hope with which to reconcile the agony of the moment to a joyful future. But the unbeliever faces beyond a hopeless future, he faces the pain done to him by other people. Without any of the grace of Christ to deal with that sin, to forgive the other person who has done him wrong, to live at peace with those who would seek to do him harm. As you see, so many persecuted believers have been able to do. To live at peace with their enemy, how can they do that? because the peace of God rests on them, because they are reconciled in their heart that whatever circumstances they face today, there's a treasure in heaven that is far greater than anything that they will experience today. So the unbeliever enjoys his success with his eyes set on 40 years at the most, right? That's how long you get. That's how long you're strong. Your riches can last longer than that maybe, but one day they will disappear because you can't take them with you. You can be handsome for a number of years, but eventually that will disappear as well. You can be smart, but your intelligence begins to fade away. Isn't that right? Isn't that right that that's the finitude that we face as people? That we don't have this infinite storehouse of all these qualities that the world says we must have? So if there is someone in your life who sets himself against the anointed, that person in your life has no peace. That person in your life has no rest, and what's more, he faces God's judgment. So what's the response of the Christian? How is the Christian to respond to somebody who is facing the wrath and judgment of God? Well, God's people should respond with compassion. Such were some of you. Isn't that what Paul says? He says, we were in the same boat, but the grace of God was given to us that we would be washed. It doesn't make us better people. It makes us blessed by the Lord. And should we not want that blessing for the people around us? Not only do our friends outside of the gospel, not only do they suffer pain today, but they will suffer pain for eternity. That's what they face. And you know the only place where they can find hope. So what do you do with this knowledge? What do you do with this light that you have? Well, you pray for them, of course. You intercede before the Lord for them. You plead with them. And you speak with them. And you don't know how they will respond. The Philistines, they didn't repent after the prophecy of Jeremiah. The people that you talk to may not turn to the Lord after you talk to them. In fact, they may become angry with you. They may not appreciate what you're saying to them at all. They may even begin to persecute you. But in the end, the suffering that they face today is only a fraction of what they will face in eternity. And what can you do but try to rescue them from that future eternity of agony? You see the Philistines, they are the enemies of Israel. But they're really the enemies of God. Their worship, you remember the name of their God? Kids, do you remember the name of the God of the Philistines? The one that fell over when they had the Ark of the Lord in the temple, in his temple? It was the God Dagon. They worshipped him. They worshipped him, a false God, a God of their own imagination, and they didn't worship the Lord who created them. And so as a result, God, after much patience towards them, signals that judgment is coming. And the judgment of God against the Philistines, then, serves as a warning for me and you. Will you flee towards the king, or will you flee towards the traitor of the king? God's good news is that you do not have to suffer what the Philistines suffer. God will judge the enemies of his people because they are enemies of him. But in Christ, there is forgiveness. So rest in him and patiently invite other people to that rest as well. in inviting them to that rest and setting it before them, what you are giving them is the only hope that they have. The message of the gospel is the only hope for any man, any woman, any child that walks on the face of the earth. So don't hold it for yourself. Let's pray together.