I call your attention to Jeremiah chapter 36 this morning in which we read of an irresistible force that meets an immovable object. The irresistible force being God confronting his people through his word written on a scroll. The immovable object being the heart of a wicked king Jehoiakim in which I hope God will give us grace to see ourselves in this passage. Jeremiah 36 is an important unit and we really need to get this whole chapter before us. But I think it's a very engaging text. So hear God's word then from Jeremiah 36. In the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord. Take a scroll and write on it all the words that I have spoken to you against Israel and Judah and all the nations. from the day I spoke to you from the days of Josiah until today. It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the disaster that I intend to do to them, so that everyone may turn from his evil way, and that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin." Then Jeremiah called Baruch, the son of Nariah. And Baruch wrote on a scroll at the dictation of Jeremiah all the words of the Lord that he had spoken to him. And Jeremiah ordered Baruch, saying, I am banned from going to the house of the Lord. So you are to go and on a day of fasting in the hearing of all the people in the Lord's house you shall read the words of the Lord from the scroll that you have written at my dictation. You shall read them also in the hearing of all the men of Judah who came out of their cities. It may be that their plea for mercy will come before the Lord and that everyone will turn from his evil way for great is the anger and wrath that the Lord has pronounced against this people. And Baruch, the son of Nariah, did all that Jeremiah the prophet ordered him about reading from the scroll the words of the Lord in the Lord's house. In the fifth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, in the ninth month, all the people in Jerusalem and all the people who came from the cities of Judah to Jerusalem proclaimed a fast before the Lord. Then in the hearing of all the people, Baruch read the words of Jeremiah from the scroll in the house of the Lord in the chamber of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, the secretary, who was in the upper court at the entry of the new gate of the Lord's house. When Micaiah, the son of Gemariah, son of Shaphan, heard all the words of the Lord from the scroll, he went down to the king's house into the secretary's chamber, and all the officials were sitting there. Elishma, the secretary, Deliah, the son of Shemaiah, Elnathan, the son of Achbor, Gamariah, the son of Shaphan, Zedekiah, the son of Hananiah, and all the officials. And Micaiah told them all the words that he had heard when Baruch read the scroll in the hearing of the people. Then all the officials sent Jehudi, the son of Nethaniah, son of Shalamiah, son of Cushi, to say to Baruch, take in your hand the scroll that you read in the hearing of the people and come. So Baruch, the son of Nariah, took the scroll in his hand and came to them. And they said to him, sit down and read it. So Baruch sat, read it to them. When they heard all the words, they turned to one another in fear. And they said to Baruch, we must report all these words to the king. Then they asked Baruch, tell us, please, how did you write all these words? Was it at his dictation? Baruch answered them, he dictated all these words to me while I wrote them with ink on the scroll. Then the official said to Baruch, Go and hide, you and Jeremiah, and let no one know where you are. So they went into the court of the king, having put the scroll in the chamber of Elisha with the secretary, and they reported all the words of the king. Then the king sent Jehudi to get the scroll, and he took it from the chamber of Elisha with the secretary, and Jehudi read it to the king and all the officials who stood beside the king. It was the ninth month, and the king was sitting in the winter house, and there was a fire burning in the firepot before him. As Jehudi read three or four columns, the king would cut them off with a knife and throw them into the fire in the firepot until the entire scroll was consumed in the fire that was in the firepot. Yet neither the king nor any of his servants who heard all these words was afraid, nor did they tear their garments. Even when El Nathan and Deliah and Gemariah urged the king not to burn the scroll, he would not listen to them. And the king commanded Jeremiel, the king's son, and Sariah, the son of Asriel, and Shalmiah, the son of Abdeel, to seize Baruch the secretary and Jeremiah the prophet. But the Lord hid them. Now after the king had burned the scroll with the words that Baruch wrote at Jeremiah's dictation, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, Take another scroll. and write on it all the former words that were in the first scroll, which Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, has burned. And concerning Jehoiakim, king of Judah, you shall say, thus says the Lord, you have burned this scroll, saying, why have you written in it that the king of Babylon will certainly come and destroy this land and will cut off from it man and beast? Therefore, thus says the Lord concerning Jehoiakim, king of Judah, he shall have none to sit on the throne of David. and his dead body shall be cast out to the heat by day and the frost by night. And I will punish him and his offspring and his servants for their iniquity. I will bring upon them and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem and upon the people of Judah all the disaster that I have pronounced against them, but they would not hear." Then Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to Baruch the scribe, the son of Neriah, who wrote on it at the dictation of Jeremiah all the words of the scroll that Jehoiakim, king of Judah, had burned in the fire. and many similar words were added to them. May God bless to us the reading of his holy word. Let us pray. And now Lord, as you have spoken through your written word, may you speak through this sermon. Would you give me grace to be faithful to your word and to explain and to apply in the power of your spirit. May it be for the blessing and encouragement of your people May it be for the conversion of those who are not who sit here today under your word and may all be for your glory. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. Think of Jerusalem as an inmate on death row in which all appeals have been exhausted. And it's just a matter of time until the body is executed. However for that death row inmate the chaplain is still trying to save his soul and writes a sermon and takes it to this inmate seeking his salvation. That's the picture we really have of Jerusalem. There's no way that physically God's people will be saved at this point. God has made it very clear that it's too late for that, that the Babylonians will in fact complete their conquest of Israel by destroying the city of Jerusalem. But God is still seeking to save their souls. He still comes to them with a message of grace and repentance. And so the key character in this text becomes this scroll. on which Jeremiah really writes a transcript. Well technically Baruch writes it, Jeremiah dictates it, but it becomes a transcript of 27 years of neglected preaching. 27 years worth of sermons that God's people have not listened to. And yet once more God tells Jeremiah to write them down and maybe this time they'll listen. And so I want to look with you at what this scroll tells us about God. For if we don't meet God in our preaching and in our worship, what's the use of it? I'd like you to look with me at this scroll for five lessons about God. And the first thing this scroll, now remember this is a transcript of Jeremiah's preaching that God inspired. The first truth is that this scroll shows the persistent, long-suffering of God towards sinners. That's a wonderful thing. Listen again to verses 2 and 3. Take a scroll and write on it all the words that I have spoken to you against Israel and Judah and all the nations from the day I spoke to you from the days of Josiah until today. It may be that the house of Judah will hear and turn from there from his evil way. Here is the wonderful persistence of God. Let's remember that Jeremiah said he preached faithfully for 27 years. And by and large, no one had paid much serious attention at all to what he said. God says, let's do this again. Take a scroll, write it this time. And it may be, there's the word of grace, and it may be, that they will turn from their evil way. That it may be is not for God's convenience. It's not that He doesn't know what's going to happen. It's not for His sake. It's a gracious statement for the sake of sinners. In other words, it's not too late for you to hear and repent. Even though your bodies are as good as dead, it's not too late for you to hear and repent. The Bible is filled with the divine self-restraint towards sinners. And if we notice that, that itself can melt our hearts towards Him. When Moses was on the mountain receiving the Ten Commandments, as is well known, the people down below made the golden cap and went into all the orgies that went with that. And when Moses came down the mountain, God was ready to destroy them. And God said to Moses, let me alone that my wrath may burn. Here was a holy God, and who could have blamed him if he had destroyed those people? And yet, in response to Moses' intercession, God restrains himself. There's a powerful picture in Psalm 7 of God taking up His bow and aiming His flaming arrows at the sinner's heart. And the amazing thing is the divine restraint of how infrequently God lets that arrow fly to the heart of the sinner. He can rightly do that. But He often restrains Himself in grace. Oh, sinner, do you see The patience and long-suffering of God toward you. In the second place, this scroll shows us God's holiness. And that is a truth that is totally forgotten in our culture. But I fear is becoming even scarce in the church. God says, for example, in verse three, again, illustrating his holiness, it may be that the house of Judah will hear all the disaster that I intend to do to them. Those are the words of a holy God. Shockingly, those are words spoken to his own people. I think we think, oh, God is especially mad at the sins of the society. But as his people, he really puts up with a whole lot. The fact is just the opposite is true. It is the sins of his people that aggrieve God more than the sins of the world. Judgment begins with the household of God. He's speaking to his covenant people, the disaster that I intend to do to them. In verse seven, he speaks again of this. It may be that their plea for mercy will come before the Lord and that everyone will turn from his evil way for great is the anger and wrath that the Lord has pronounced against his people. Here's my point. This is God's world and sin has consequences even for the household of God. Israel cannot escape its physical destruction. And unless it repents, it won't escape its spiritual destruction either. It's God's world. Sin has consequences. But the modern mantra, the propaganda machine, which cranks at us in all kinds of ways, 24-7, is that there is no sin and there are no consequences. No sin, no consequences. No sin, no consequences. And we hear that in all kinds of ways at all kinds of times. And I tell you, it's God's world. There is sin and there are consequences. John White is now with the Lord. He was a Canadian psychiatrist, a fine Christian writer, and benefited from many of his books. He tells about a time when he was in medical school and he was supposed to attend a clinic on the treatment of venereal disease, what today we would call STDs. And Dr. White said, well, I missed a clinic and so I had to go back and make it up. So I had to go to the VD clinic at night when there were actual patients there. He said, there were all these men lined up waiting to get treatment from the doctor. And he said, I walked up to the receptionist and he said, I need to see the doctor. And the receptionist says, fill out the paperwork and stand in line with everybody else. He said, oh no, you don't understand. I'm a medical student. And the receptionist said, look, I don't care if you're a medical student. You got it the same way everybody else did. Go stand in line if you want to see the doctor. And White said he was horrified that someone would think that he belonged with those sinners. That is a typical reaction of the human heart, is it not? We're horrified that someone would think we should be standing with real sinners. Why are we so fascinated, do you suppose, with true crime? Why are we so fascinated with this trial that's unfolding? In Glastonbury. And I've read a few accounts of it myself. The horrible, wicked things apparently these two men did to this doctor's family. Why are we so mesmerized by that? Could it be that in part it's a balm for our self-righteousness? Ah, there are real wicked sinners. Ah, yes. Now they're wicked sinners. And I can watch them from the comfort of my self-righteousness. I think there's something to be said about that. I realize there are degrees of sin. I'm not suggesting that we have all committed sins equally heinous as those two men apparently did. I'm not saying that. There are degrees of sin. But I will say to this, and I think we don't realize this enough, folks, we're all guilty enough. What does every sin deserve, asks the catechism. Every sin, every sin deserves God's wrath and punishment for sin. This scroll proclaims to us the holiness of God. Third place, this scroll also shows us the grace of God. Now, in a sense, don't blink or you'll miss it, but I don't want you to miss it because it's so important. And I think one of the reasons why a book like Jeremiah is not especially popular is because we can well hear his judgments against sin But we kind of don't hear the grace that God is offering through those judgments. And I don't want you to miss that. As Ezekiel said in another place, God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Let us not twist the character of God to think that somehow as God pronounces these judgments, He's just waiting in delighted anticipation. He's just waiting to be able to judge these people. Not at all. He does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked. This is what He longs for. Verse 3. It may be that the house of Judah will hear that they will turn and that I will forgive their iniquity and their sin. Now, granted, proportionately the number of words in Jeremiah about judgment exceeds the proportionate number of words about grace. But don't miss the words of grace. God's desire for His people is that they would hear His message. They would believe Him. They would turn from their wicked way and that they would find His forgiveness. You'll notice that God sent Jeremiah and Jeremiah sent Rechab to read these words when the people were fasting. Another way of saying God's desire is he wanted them to turn this into a true fast. Not just sort of an outward show of humility that might get the Babylonians out their back but a true humiliation before God. It says that the king's officials, unlike the king, showed some fear. Another way of saying it is he wanted them to have a true fear of God that would lead them to believe, to repent, and to find forgiveness. Aren't flagmen on the construction sites so irritating? Don't they bug you? They bug me. I get impatient. Oh, another flagman. I'm going to have to wait. I'm going to have to stop here. What a ridiculous reaction. They're there for our safety. What if they weren't there? We get squashed by some huge machine. We get run over by some dump truck. Some bulldozer would take us out. How foolish we are! We do the same thing to the prophets. Aren't those prophets so irritating? Aren't those warnings from God so irritating? Here I am driving down the nice road of my life and oh, they're so irritating. Suggesting that I ought to stop and consider and change and repent. Folks, the warnings are there for your safety. God desires your salvation. And even when the words of grace are not stated explicitly, they are always implied. They are always, always, always implied that you may yet turn. It's never too late to turn, to believe, to repent, to find His forgiveness. O sinner, notice these words of grace to us. The fourth lesson is that this scroll shows us the weakness of God. Before you conclude that I've lost my mind and I'm spouting a heresy, I think you'll see that I'm not. First Corinthians uses and says that the weakness of God is stronger than men. Second Corinthians says that Christ was crucified in weakness. And I'm talking about a way that God voluntarily makes himself weak for our salvation. But let's think about this. Jehoiakim is guilty of one of the most heinous acts in all of the Old Testament. Is he not? Here is the very word of God written and read to this king. And what does he do? He takes out his knife, and as the words are read, he cuts them up and throws them into the fire. Cuts them up, throws them into the fire. Cuts them up, throws them into the fire. Of course, we'd never do anything like that, would we? When we hear a commandment from God that we don't like, cut it out, throw it into the fire. Cut it out, throw it into the fire. Hear a warning from God that we don't like, cut it out, throw it into the fire. Even hear a promise from God that we can't wrap our minds around, cut it out, throw it into the fire. One commentator speculated that Jehoiakim was just so afraid of what was happening here that he was just blotting things out by throwing these by cutting God's words into the fire. Well, there may have been some of that. There may have been some irrational fear. And he suggested that maybe it was even superstitious that if he would cut these words to pieces that then they wouldn't come to pass. And I think that's almost a ridiculous explanation of what was happening here. This is sheer arrogance. That's all this is. This is sheer arrogance. This is Jehoiakim saying, who do you think you are to tell me what to do? I'm not afraid of you, God. That's really what he's saying. Incredible. And the text is explicit. Neither the king nor any of his servants who heard all these words was afraid. Nor did they tear their garments. What a mistake. That he should not be afraid. But what arrogance. Pastor, I thought you said this was an irresistible force. Here is the living God and His Holy Word. Isn't it amazing that God permits His Word to be violated by sinners? That's what I mean by the weakness of God that is voluntary. Who was this Jehoiakim, this little worm of the dust? And yet God allows him to cut His Word to pieces and not listen. and burn. And this is just a little foretaste of what would happen in the fullness of time when God's word would become flesh and be delivered into the hands of sinners. Because then once again, God's own people would slash and burn his word in a literal way and nail it to a cross. It was the voluntary weakness of God for our salvation. You've either seen or read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. How can it be that the mighty lion, Aslan, allows himself to be bound and slain by these puny little sinners? When we all know that with one roar, he can destroy them. But he does not. That is the spirit of the one in the garden who refused to call down angels to deliver him. Because He must be delivered into the hands of sinners for our salvation, the sheep must be before its shearer done. That's what I say when I say this scroll shows us the weakness of God. The incredible weakness that He voluntarily enters into for our sakes. Finally, this scroll shows us the resurrection of the Word. God's weakness was temporary. It was limited. It was voluntary. But there's no way that sinners can ever destroy the Word of God. It just can't happen. Yes, temporarily Jehoiakim got away with something. Yes, temporarily he cast the scroll into the fire. But what happens in almost the next breath, God says to Jeremiah, this isn't over yet. Take another scroll, write all the words on it, Preserve it for a future time. This is not going away. Which is why our Westminster Confession rightly says that written scripture is so important. For the better preserving and propagating of the truth. We really do need the written word of God. In fact, Calvin said this. I think it's a terrific statement. He said, we owe to scripture the same reverence we owe to God. And I think he's absolutely right. It doesn't mean we worship this book, the Bible. But we should receive with the same reverence the truths, ideas, and words that are contained here. Yes, Calvin was right. We do owe to Scripture the same reverence we owe to God. My friends, don't be like Jehoiakim. Put away the knife of your rebellion. Put out the fire of your unbelief. Hear these words that are declared to you today. Turn from your evil ways. And I guarantee you on the basis of this infallible word that you will be forgiven. No matter what you've done, no matter how late in the game it may seem to be, you will be forgiven. Thanks be to God for His holiness, which just so manifestly magnifies His wonderful grace. Let us respond to the preaching of the word. There's a brief biblical confession of faith you'll find in the bulletin. Please rise. We'll read that together and then we will conclude by singing We Are God's People. This is from 1 Peter chapter 2 verses 9 and 10. Let's read it together.