For our scripture reading, I'm going to read the heart of the heart of this book. It's Jeremiah 31, verses 31 through 34. Hear the word of God. Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. My covenant, which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, know the Lord, for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity and their sin. I will remember no more. Father, we thank you for this precious scripture, and I pray that as we dig into the book of Jeremiah, you would help us to get a good picture of what your intentions in this book are, that we would grow through it. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. I want to begin by giving a little bit of a biography of Jeremiah. It appears that he was born around 645 BC, was called to the ministry somewhere in his late teens, probably 18 or 19 years of age. In chapter 1, verse 6, you see the fear that Jeremiah had when he was called to be a prophet. Who wouldn't be afraid of his calling? But I think there was something more to it than that. Interestingly, he says, Oh, Lord God, behold, I cannot speak for I am a youth. Why would being a youth make him feel that he could not speak? Because in that culture, youths had no authority in that society. Now he comes to know that it doesn't matter with a prophet. A prophet is a passive vehicle of God's authority, but he is still very intimidated. The Hebrew word for youth. is the word na'ar, a word that refers to a person somewhere between puberty and 19 years of age. It is never used even a single time of a married person. It always refers to a person who is still under the authority of his parents. To put it into the context of our last book, if Jeremiah was 19 years old, when he began his ministry, then that means that he was born 50 years after Isaiah died. So that gives you a little bit of the chronology of these books. He was born into a priestly family in Anathoth, just north of Jerusalem. Chapter one, verse five says that God called him to be a prophet long before he was born. Uh, when he was commissioned in chapter one, God made it very clear that it was God's authority that we're going to make Jeremiah's words so powerful. They would literally unseat Kings and replant kingdoms. Why? Because God stood behind those words. And by the way, Jeremiah continues to have that kind of power. It didn't matter how young or old he was, if it's God's very word, it's going to have that power. When you share a verse with someone and the Holy Spirit quickens that verse to their hearts, there is no resistance that man can make. And so Jeremiah continues to convict and convert, to tear down strongholds, to heal and to rebuild, and we ought to desire that. We ought to want anything ungodly in our lives torn down And we want the godly built up within us. Now, because, well, let me back up a bit. He began his ministry in the 13th year of Josiah, and he helped that king with his reforms. Now, Israel had been going downhill at a very pretty steady rate. And in Josiah's day, it was flush with Canaanite religions, Baalism, child sacrifice, Babylonian cults, and even those who went to the temple, it was a very empty and a formalistic religion. So Josiah the king and Jeremiah kind of tag teamed together in bringing reform to this nation. And when King Josiah died, Jeremiah mourned deeply at his funeral. That's 2 Chronicles 35 verse 25. So apparently they had a very deep friendship, very close relationship with each other. Josiah was the last of the good kings. Everything was going downhill to the exile after that. So it appears after Josiah dies, Jeremiah only had a handful of friends. Because so much of Jeremiah's ministry was involved in tearing down, uprooting, and destroying all rebellion, he would be a very unpopular preacher. People don't kind of shine to that kind of negative ministry out there back then, now, anytime. They don't like that. They want you to kind of make them feel better. In fact, I wanna read you a little section because God tells Jeremiah in Jeremiah chapter 16 not to even bother to get married because his calling is going to be so dangerous. Let me read that for you. Jeremiah chapter 16 verses one through four. The word of the Lord also came to me saying, you shall not take a wife, nor shall you have sons or daughters in this place. For thus says the Lord concerning the sons and daughters who are born in this place and concerning their mothers who bore them and their fathers who begot them in this land. They shall die gruesome deaths. They shall not be lamented, nor shall they be buried, but they shall be like refuse on the face of the earth. They shall be consumed by the sword, by famine, and their corpses shall be meat for the birds of heaven and for the beasts of the earth. That's a pretty good reason not to get married and have kids. By the way, it's the same reason that Paul gave in 1 Corinthians 7, a terribly misinterpreted passage. Paul gave his advice, and it was not a command, it was advice, to stay single for a brief period of time for this present trouble, he said. because he wanted to spare them a pain. But, and this is a big but, both Paul and Jeremiah commanded the average Christian to go ahead and get married and raise a family because this is God's normal pattern for them. A lot of people miss that in 1 Corinthians 7 because of all of the references to be single like I am type of thing. But let me read you verse two of that chapter. 1 Corinthians 7.2 says, let each man have his own wife and let each woman have her own husband. Well, in the same way, Jeremiah writes a letter to the exiles in Babylon. He says, I want you guys to get married and have kids and build houses and plant your vineyards. I want life to go on for you. But if you're gonna be staying here in Jerusalem, don't bother. things are going to be really tough here in Jerusalem. So anyway, you have both sides of that equation. But Jeremiah was going to be staying in Jerusalem to the bitter end, even if it meant his death. And various People repeatedly tried to kill Jeremiah when false priests and prophets prohibited Jeremiah from even coming on to the temple precincts anymore. Can't come here. Can't preach. God said, don't worry about it. Just write, write your prophecy, have Barak, your servant, read it in public. And the King was really ticked off. He grabbed the scroll. Took it in, cut it up bit by bit, threw it into the fire. This was the disdain that King Jehoiakim had to the word of God. And then he ordered Jeremiah to be arrested. Well, it says God hid Jeremiah. He couldn't be found by the king. So Jeremiah rewrites the book, and other public officials persecute him. They cast him into this dungeon. I mean, he faced some tough times. I gave kind of a drawing that one person gave of the Ethiopian eunuch rescuing Jeremiah out of that pit. And he was hugely blessed. But right from the start, Jeremiah knew that he was going to be a rejected man and a hugely persecuted man. As far as we know, he never made a single convert in his entire 67 years of prophetic ministry. Now, he was a huge blessing to the remnant of believers, but it appears God had not willed for any of his enemies to repent. to come back. In fact, Jeremiah was prohibited from praying for his enemies. But he was still preaching his heart out, calling people to repentance. And he said by inspiration that the instant this nation repents, God will relent of the judgment that he pronounced against it. You can see that in chapter 18. So there's this balance between divine sovereignty and human responsibility. Repentance is a genuine offer. If you repent, now of course they can't repent apart from God's grace. So both sides are there. And since there was no repentance, they were justly condemned. But if you were to measure Jeremiah's success by a lot of modern standards of success, how many converts did you have? How big is your church? Oh yeah, Jeremiah would not have been a success. But God considered Jeremiah to be a tremendous success. His word did not return to him void. It accomplished everything that God intended for it to happen. Now, we find in chapter 11 that the people of his hometown attempted to kill him, perhaps to endear themselves to the king, perhaps just because they were irritated themselves. In chapter 12, verse 6, it says that even his brothers, the sons of his father, and it mentions it that way, just so we don't think brothers in general, this is his own family tried to kill him. It's no wonder that he expresses so much loneliness in this book. In chapter 20, we find that Paschur, the priest, beat him, put him into the stalks for a day and a night, and later he was imprisoned and charged with being a traitor. but it was actually not the persecution, it was his message that burdened him the most. He loved his people and pronouncing these woes upon his people broke his heart and brought him to tears. He was called the weeping prophet. And next week, Lord willing, I'm going to be going through Lamentations, his book on how to weep. How should the church weep and mourn over the iniquities in a nation and including God's judgments upon a nation. In chapter nine of this book, he said, Oh, that my head were waters and my eyes, a fountain of tears that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people. Oh, that I had in the wilderness a lodging place for travelers that I might leave my people and go from them, for they are all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men." He was so disturbed by the depravity of his fellow men that he decided, I'm going to resign from ministry. He was fed up. He had had enough. And he said, I will not make mention of him nor speak any more in his name. I think he had a little bit of an attitude problem that day. But the problem with his plan was prophets don't have a choice. They're not moved by their own will. He could not stop prophesying. 2 Peter 121 was quoted by Gary earlier. It says, prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. Well, we see the moving of the Holy Spirit in Jeremiah 20 verse 9. So here he is, he's saying, I quit Lord. I'm not going to speak anymore in your name. And it goes on and says, but his word was in my heart, like a burning fire shut up in my bones. I was weary of holding it back and I could not. Now, authors have pointed out that there are 10 similarities between Jeremiah and Jesus. In fact, some authors say this is enough to make him a type of Jesus. I disagree, I think it has to be more specific than that for a type to exist. But really, these are fascinating parallels that are out there. I'm not gonna read the references, but let me just quickly read them for you. Both delivered an unpopular message to people that they love. Both wept over Jerusalem. Both opposed the commercialization of the temple. Both predicted the temple's destruction. Both were rejected by their people. Both were accused of political treason. Both were tried and imprisoned and eventually martyred. Both knew deep loneliness as almost everyone abandoned them. Both demonstrated unusually deep fellowship and prayer communion with God. Both showed how God hated formalism in worship. So here's a guy that seems so sensitive. Why would God send a prophet who was so tenderhearted to bring these judgments? Well, I believe the reason he did it is that God wanted the prophet to express his own grief over depravity. If he had sent a cynical prophet or a thick-skinned prophet who had absolutely no empathy for the people, it would not have adequately reflected God's heart. Chapter two through three shows many expressions of God's own pained heart. He says, can a virgin forget her ornaments or a bride her attire? Yet my people have forgotten me days without number." In chapter 8, verse 21, it says, for the hurt of the daughter of my people, I am hurt. In 419, he says, oh, my anguish, my anguish, I am pained in my very heart. But Jeremiah lived to see most of his prophecies fulfilled. Some were off into the New Covenant era long after he was dead. But he saw most of his prophecies fulfilled. He was not taken to Babylon. The Babylonian emperor realized this is a good guy. He said, you can live wherever you want. If you want to come with me, I'll protect you if you want to stay here in Israel. So he stayed in Israel and lived there for a time. But there were a small group of revolutionaries who murdered the representative of Babylon. And then they realized, we're in trouble. So they fled to Egypt, but on the way to Egypt, they said, let's take Jeremiah with us. He'll be a kind of a lucky charm kind of a thing. So they kidnapped Jeremiah, forced him to go to Egypt with them. And then it turns out they turned against him anyway. Tradition says that they stoned him to death. in Egypt. So there's a lot of tough things going on. When you guys read through the book of Jeremiah, some of it's like, whoa, this is endless misery that we're reading through, right? Some people find this very rough going to read through the weeping, the sorrow, and the judgment. Let me give you a little hint of what you can do. look for not just the history, but look for some of the other tidbits that God is strewing, even in the negative portions. For example, if you look for the theology that is hidden in those sections, you're gonna come out with incredibly rich treasures. I could have given you many, many, many pages of theology. I've just given you a sample, three samples, example, is it three or did I give you four here of theology? There is theology proper, which is the doctrine about God, and I could have given you a whole lot more about the doctrine of God. You know the Trinity is in here, you've got many other aspects of that, but I've just listed there for you a sampling of God's attributes with scripture proofs. You can see God's goodness, holiness, justice, righteousness, wrath, forgiveness, patience, that he's the God of hope, that he's loving, merciful, self-sufficient, wise, faithful, avenging, sovereign, powerful, true, incomparable, omnipresent, and omnipotent. As you look at some of those things, yes, there's a lot of dark clouds around them, but you see this overlining of God's character shining through, and it's an opportunity for you to worship and to praise God for who He is. This is the way you can read negative books. Look for this theology. You do have some of the most vivid descriptions of man's depraved nature. and of his desperate need for regeneration." Well, this is very practical. It keeps you from being naive and over-trusting of human nature of other people. Over and over again, these people were condemned, not just for disobedience, but for willful rebellion. For example, Jeremiah quotes them as saying, We will continue with our own plans. Each of us will follow the stubbornness of his evil heart." So he would say, you're stubborn. Say, yep, I'm stubborn. I'm not going to do what God tells me to do. Wow. That's incredible. Quite an admission. Likewise, Jeremiah accused the people of breaking all 10 commandments. And I won't read the scriptures there, but he accused them of having other gods, of idolatry, of defiling his name. He accuses them of breaking the Sabbath in chapter 17. They turned the fifth commandment upside down, a number of passages, engaged in murder, sexual sin, theft, lying, and covetousness. And if you wanted to do more digging, you could find other case laws that they brought. But why does he bring these things up? Because the prophets were bringing covenant lawsuits against the people. And by the way, Jeremiah wrote 1 and 2 Kings, remember that from before? That was some of the groundwork that's going to be introduced into the court to say, here's the evidence of why this nation should be judged. And so I've included a bunch of other information, including some archaeological finds in your handout that I'm not going to reference. But what I want to do for the remainder of this sermon is I want to give you a bird's eye view of the book as a whole. It really is fascinating once you understand how it was constructed. By now you know that I don't even like to preach on a book until I understand its structure, its arrangement, because that helps you to understand the purpose and the direction of the book. It's kind of like a roadmap. I don't always share with you the information that I get on that. I don't give you the roadmap, but I use it, right? But in the case of Jeremiah, the roadmap is so critical to understanding the book that I'm gonna talk about it a fair bit. I own 98 commentaries on Jeremiah, and it is astounding how many of these commentaries have thrown up their hands in absolute despair at finding any order or arrangement in the book of Jeremiah. Let me read you some quotes from these commentaries. These are actual descriptions that they give of the book. Carroll calls it enigmatic. Others call it puzzling, most perplexing, an incredible riddle, a hopeless hodgepodge, complicated, haphazardly arranged, following no discernible order, something that leaves the reader baffled. A 2007 study Bible says biblical scholars have struggled to explain the arrangement of Jeremiah's prophecies. In fact, very weirdly, a couple commentaries said, oh, we've lost the original order. Somehow it got out of order, so we're going to arrange it the way we think it was originally ordered. Now, that's just nonsense, because we know nothing is going to be lost. God's going to preserve every jot and tittle. of his word, but they think the original order was lost. Now here's the problem with all of these people. If you don't have the roadmap that Jeremiah has given to you, you're not going to see the purpose of why he wrote this book. Now it doesn't mean you won't get a lot of other cool stuff out of the book, you will. But it's very important to see the roadmap. And I'll be the first to admit that the prophecies are not arranged by when Jeremiah prophesied them. All you have to do is take a look on page three at the key people section, look at the kings there, and look at the references under each of those kings. Wow, you're going to see, it's not chronological at all. That's just proof positive that there's something else going on, and that something else is that he has arranged this whole book topically and theologically. Well, it all clicked in my head when I read an article in Baker's Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology where the guy there came up with a nine-point chiasm of the book as a whole with the Book of Comfort, that's chapters 30 through 33, being at the heart. Now, I wasn't satisfied with the chiasm, but there were parts of it which he nailed down, were really, really solid. So that got me studying, okay, what other details are in here? And as I began really intensely studying these, It was beautiful. Every detail of this book is in parallel features, and it's beautifully laid out. There's nothing forced about the chiasm. Now, I've only included enough in there to show you the flow of the book, okay? You could get a much more detail. But you'll see, if you look at that, this is page one. You'll see the little chiasm outline there. that the Book of Comfort, which is chapters 30 through 33, is the heart of the book. Everything in the book flows logically toward that Book of Comfort. So let me walk you through the outline. Chapter one shows Jeremiah's call to the office of prophet. He was definitely fearful to take up that mantle, but God assures him that his prophecies would have the power to accomplish everything that he sent them to accomplish. Look at verses nine through 10. Then the Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth. And the Lord said to me, behold, I have put my words in your mouth. See, I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms to root out and to pull down, to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant. So he had a dual purpose in his ministry. The negative purpose was rooting out, pulling down, destroying and throwing down. The positive purpose was building and planting. Now, obviously, all of the prophecies, chapter 2 through 51, that come in between are the prophecies of doing exactly that. But the actual accomplishment of the rooting out, pulling down, destroying, and throwing down, as given in chapter 52, A chapter which shows the historical fulfillment of all of these prophecies. Fulfill to a T. The city wall, the city, the temple was all pulled down, destroyed, and burned, and the people were plucked up and sent to the land of Babylon. Everything was plundered. What about the planting? Because that was the positive part of this ministry. What was planted? Well, two things were planted. First of all, a remnant was preserved and protected in Babylon. They were preserved and protected by the powerful word of Jeremiah. By the way, I won't get into it right now, but the reason that they were preserved and protected there is God was going to establish a new Israel in the land of Babylon, and he set certain criteria for doing that, and the major prophets talk about that. So he said, what's left here in Israel, they call themselves Israel, they're not Israel. They are Sodom and Gomorrah. but I'm gonna establish a new. So he's preserving and protecting a people, planting them in Babylon. The second thing that he planted was the ancestor of Jesus, Jehoiachin, or Jehoiachin, it's pronounced, not chin, it's spelled chin, I'm not sure why. But Jehoiachin was very strangely, in chapter 52, released from prison, befriended by the emperor, ate at the emperor's table, had all of the provisions that he needed. So God was planting a seed that would eventually be the faithful seed leading up to the Messiah. Okay, so look at your outline again. I want you to notice the B sections. First B section is chapters 2 through 12. This constitutes the oracles against Judah that predicted Babylon's invasion from the north and disasters that would follow. This is paralleled by the second B section in chapters 46 through 51 with the same kind of oracles pronouncing invasion from the north, the disasters that would follow. But this time it adds that Babylon would come against all nations, not just against Judah. But there are many other detailed parallels between those two B sections. The C sections both predict Judah's exile and sufferings. with chapters 13 through 20 being a parallel to chapters 36 through 45. The D sections have a bunch of parallels I couldn't fit in your outline. For example, why are the kings out of order? Well, it's because you've got the same kings being prophesied against in both of those parallel sections. Both Jehoiakim and Zedekiah are prophesied in the D sections, prophesied against. These are topically arranged prophecies. False prophets are called out in both sections. A remnant is praised and miraculously protected in both sections. Every point of this chiasm has clear and obvious parallels. And by the way, why are there two parallels that he gave? What's the purpose? It forms a double witness against this nation. All of these things are a double witness against the leaders and the groups that will be judged. Okay, so now we're come to the most important part of the book, the Book of Comfort. And it's at the Book of Comfort that you understand why the chiasm and understanding the chiasm is so important. Book of Comfort shows us God's purpose in having Jeremiah root out, pull down, destroy, and throw down. It's making way for the Messiah and his new covenant. Something glorious will be planted and built up as a result of Jeremiah's prophecy. Now, the E sections within the Book of Comfort show preparation for the Messiah. In both sections, Israel is predicted to return to the land from Babylon. That was something that was unheard of in the ancient world. This is like a first. So predicted that they would return from the land of Babylon, be planted in the land of Israel once again. But in contrast to the very center of the chiasm, which shows a change from remnant to fullness, we're still in the remnant stage, in the remnant focus here. It'll be a faithful remnant. They return to the land for a purpose, and that is to prepare the way for the Messiah and his new covenant. So the last verses of each of these E sections ends with a very short reference to the birth of the future Messiah, Jesus. And not all modern commentators believe that chapter 31, verse 22 refers to the birth of Jesus. So I'll spend just a little bit more time on that, but I'll start by looking at the context. If you look at chapter 31, verse 15, You'll notice in the margin that this is quoted by the apostle Matthew as being fulfilled in Herod's massacre of the infants in Bethlehem. Now liberals question that. They say that's lousy exegesis. Hey, Matthew's the inspired prophet, not you. You're not you liberals, right? So even the context gives a first century AD timeframe. Let me read that. Thus says the Lord, a voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel, weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted for her children because they are no more. Now take a look at verse 22. If the context is one or two years after Christ's birth, then the past tense makes sense. Speaking to Baxlod and Israel, God says, How long will you gad about, O you backsliding daughter? For the Lord has created a new thing in the earth. A woman shall encompass a man. Fawcett's commentary says, the Christian fathers almost unanimously interpreted it of the Virgin Mary encompassing Christ in her womb. This view is favored by, and then Fawcett gives eight reasons why this has to be a reference to the birth of Christ. He says, first of all, the context makes perfect sense as to why The remnant had to be brought back into the land of Israel. It makes perfect contextual sense. Second, it fits the Hebrew word for created, which no other viewpoint can account for. Third, it accounts for the phrase, a new thing. Every alternative interpretation that I have read makes zero sense of that phrase. For example, let me give you some of the weird interpretations of this verse that evangelicals, even modern famous evangelicals give. Is it a new thing for a woman to protect her child? No. Is it a new thing for a woman to have sexual relations, as some claim that that means? No. Is it a new thing to simply give childbirth? No. Is it a new thing for Israel to love Yehovah? No. None of the alternatives makes any sense. As Fawcett worded it, this is something unprecedented. This was the new thing in the earth a woman without a man should bear in her womb And he gives a bunch of other proofs that I'm not going to get into. I'll put them up on the web. Now, Gill in his commentary, interestingly, quotes a number of ancient Jewish authors, and they said, oh yeah, this is about the future coming Messiah and his birth. So it's not just Christians who interpret it this way. The Jews interpret it that way as well. Hawker says of this verse, God's creating a new thing in the earth is eminently so in respect to the incarnation of Christ. For if Christ's human nature had been made out of man as Eve was, this would not have been a new thing. Neither had his human nature been made out of nothing. As Adam was, would this have been new? But to make Christ's human nature of a woman, yea, of the seed of the woman, and that without an human father, this was a thing new indeed." The first E section has Israel returning from captivity in preparation for the coming Messiah and leads up to the incarnation of Messiah, along with all the opposition that Messiah had received. So Jeremiah's predicting when the Messiah comes, there are going to be an unbelief. They're going to resist this Messiah. Same is true of the second E section, which is chapter 33. God makes sure that Israel will return to the land in preparation for the coming Messiah. And if you look at chapter 33, Verses 14 through 15, you'll see that Messiah is being described. Now the context, just like the first he did, is also first century, but we'll just read verses 14 through 15. Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, that I will perform that good thing which I have promised to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah. In those days and at that time, I will cause to grow up to David a branch of righteousness. So this is referring to Christ's childhood. I will cause to grow up. to David a branch of righteousness. Now earlier he had identified this branch of righteousness as being the future messianic king, and here he says this king is gonna sit on the throne of David, he's going to infallibly advance righteousness throughout the earth until the earth is righteous. And so you can see without question the two E sections are parallel, everything is moving thematically to the same point in history, it's moving to the new covenant. The F sections deal with Israel dwelling in the land and the importance of that land. And now we come to see how this chiasm will settle, in my view, completely settles a major, major controversy in eschatology. Okay, the controversy, if you look at your outline, well, I'll deal with the controversy in a bit, but the outline, notice the little tiny text right to the right of chapter 31, verses 27 through 40. Okay, the little text there says that the G's and the H are actually very tightly knit together unit of thought. Now we know they're three paragraphs within this chiasm because they're divided with three different phrases. Behold, the days are coming. You cannot merge the G's and the H into one G. But on the other hand, those behold the days are coming expressions are followed by a temporal wow perfect Hebrew construction so you cannot separate them in time. Okay, the three units of two Gs and one H belong to the same period of time. What period of time is that? It's the whole New Covenant era that verses 31 through 34 talk about and that forms such a foundational part of the New Testament. So, that's the background. Why do I say this is so controversial? It is hugely controversial. because it continues to give a place for Jews and even for national Israel within the New Covenant period. And this is the point at which premillennials come along and say, wow, and I wondered if you were gonna come to that, Phil. Praise God, I agree with you. But before you get too excited, Israel does not have the kind of place in this section that dispensationalists and premillennialists want it to have on the one side, Neither is it have the non-place that the amillennialist replacement theology wants it to have. As we'll see, it's only historic post-millennialism that has a place for Israel in the church that can fully explain every phrase of this paragraph. The first G section, that's verses 27 through 30, deals with the restoration and the preservation of individual Jews throughout the New Covenant era. So that's the remnant of Israel being saved. The second G section, that's verses 35 through 40, deals with the restoration and the preservation of what? The nation of Israel during the New Covenant age. Is this the church? Yes. But it's a church made up of Jew and Gentile, and this central section parallels Paul's theology in Romans 9 through 11, which shows that God still recognizes the difference between Jew and Gentile in the New Covenant, even though both Jews and Gentiles are in the church, and the church is the new Israel. But there's still that distinction. This is the mystery that just puzzled the early church Say what? Well, you have to yeah you Gentiles can come into Israel, but you got to stop being a Gentile And God says, no, in the new covenant, it's gonna be both Jew and Gentile throughout this whole new covenant period. This is why Ephesians says prophets were needed to settle this huge history, this mystery of the church. So it's not replacement theology, which no longer recognizes a distinction between Jew and Gentile, and it's not dispensationalism, which sees the Jews and the Gentiles as different entities. God has only one people, but God speaks of natural branches being broken off from that one people, or broken off from that olive tree of Romans 11, and eventually those branches will be grafted back in. Now, perhaps if we look at the heart of the heart of the book, that's the H section, things will come into sharper focus. Verses 31 through 34. Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant, which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor and every man his brother saying know the Lord for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest of them says the Lord for I will forgive their iniquity and their sin. I will remember no more Now here's the deal Each side of this debate has some right things here. Replacement theology is absolutely correct in their interpretation of these central verses that the church has taken the place of Israel. that the church is the Israel of God. How do we know that? It's because every single reference in the New Testament that interprets this applies it to the church. Jesus applied these verses to the church in the Last Supper, Matthew 26, 28, Mark 14, 24, Luke 22, 20, Paul applied these verses to the church in the first century, 1 Corinthians 11-25, 2 Corinthians 3-6. Hebrews quotes this at length and applies these verses literally to the church in chapters 8, 9, and 12. and insists the old covenant is passing away and Israel is going to be destroyed shortly. Hebrews 9.15 says, Jesus right now is the mediator of the new covenant so that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal heritage. What promise? Well, it's the promise of this chapter. We are heirs. We have entered the new covenant. How on earth is that possible if we're not Judah and Israel? Well, see, that's the faulty presupposition. We Gentiles have been grafted into Israel. We've been grafted into the church. And so replacement theology makes sense at this point. Dispensationalism does not. But for the sake of the argument, I'm gonna let the dispensationalist reject this idea that Israel and Judah represents the church in the heart of the book, and see where it takes us because they see it differently. They think it is prophesying entirely about Israel's restoration to the land sometime in our future and that it refers to Israel and Judah as a people completely separate from the church. We've already seen that makes mincemeat of every inspired interpretation that the New Testament gives of this passage that applies it to the church. It's the only So, if we're going to submit to the infallible interpretation of the New Testament, we have to say that it was made with the New Testament church. But presuppositions do not die very easily. And dispensationalists will still insist, this is obviously not true. Just read the text, Phil. This is obviously not true. This says it was made with Judah and Israel. And actually their arguments are fairly strong if you ignore the New Testament interpretation of the passage. It sounds fairly strong. Verse 31 says that God will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. They say two houses representing two nations with national recognition. They say by mentioning both Israel and Judah, it's clear he's not using one as a symbol of the church. Furthermore, it is the same Israel that had fathers coming out of Egypt in verse 32. They say, that can't be the church. These were literal Israelites coming out of Egypt, going to the land of Canaan. Now we would respond, well, the New Testament actually does call those fathers that came out of Egypt, our fathers. For example, first Corinthians chapter 10, one through two, read that passage. It says in that passage that, Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and the sea. That's a Gentile church that he's talking to. So they are indeed the fathers of us Gentile believers. But another argument that the Dispensationalist gives is that these verses say that 100% of these people will be regenerate believers, which has never been true of the historical church, so there. Now, they're actually right on that, on that interpretation, that 100%, whatever it's talking about, 100% of them will be regenerate, but it still doesn't fit the infallible New Testament interpretation. So we're trying to work through that. But it is in the G sections that the dispensational argument shines, and the replacement theology argument absolutely does not shine. Dispensationalists rightly point out that verses 35 through 36 says that as long as there is a sun and a moon, so long will, quote, the seed of Israel be a nation before God. In context, that seed has to be Jews. And the word nation has to refer to a national entity. And they point to the detailed measurements of the land. And you can see those measurements in the land of Israel right now. The measurements of this land in verses 38 through 40 says, when you look at those verses, you cannot spiritualize that away as being simply the church. Let's read those. 38 through 40, that's chapter 31, beginning at verse 38. Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, that the city shall be built for the Lord from the tower of Hananel to the corner gate. The surveyor's line shall again extend straight forward over the hill Gerab. Then it shall turn down Goath, and the whole valley of the dead bodies and of the ashes and all the fields, as far as the brook Cridron, to the corner of the horse gate toward the east, shall be holy to the Lord. It shall not be plucked up or thrown down any more forever. I tell you, replacement theology does absolute mincemeat to that. They do not interpret that properly at all. So the dispensationalists rightly point out this cannot refer to the Jerusalem in Ezra's day because that Jerusalem, that city was indeed plucked up and thrown down at the time of the Maccabees. They can't refer to the time of Jesus because that city was plucked up and thrown down at the time of A.D. 70. So they believe this has to be a national conversion at some time in the future. And I agree with them. It has to be. I don't see any way of getting around it. But that doesn't make the whole dispensational argument correct. Both sides of this debate have something right, have something wrong. The problem is, neither side is factoring in all of the evidence. The New Testament could not be more clear that we are in the New Covenant. And since Jeremiah 31 is the one and only prophecy that mentions the words New Covenant, and since that New Covenant was made with us, the logical conclusion is we are the Israel of God. Okay, that's one side of the question. Did the Acts 2 community constitute Israel? We have to say yes. It was composed 100% of the remnant of Israel from all 12 tribes. In my Acts series, I gave abundant evidence that all of the criteria that were needed for constituting Israel, the remnant of Israel in Babylon as the replacement Israel, were true of Acts 2. All of those criteria, there was legal criteria that had to be in place. Let me go through some of those. At the time of Jeremiah, God did not consider the rebellious Jews in the land to be true Israel. He called them Sodom and Gomorrah. New Testament does the same thing for the Jews in the land of Israel there. They called them Sodom and Egypt. At the time of Jeremiah, God did not consider the temple to be legitimate. He reinstituted, reconstituted his temple among the remnant of Israel and Babylon, and he kept adding believers to their midst. Even Gentiles became Jews. I think that's important to understand. Esther 8 verse 17. Well, same is true of the remnant of truly believing Jews in the first century that constituted the church. They represented the citizens of Judah and Israel. There was a literal fulfillment. Though Gentiles were converted to Israel, in Esther 817, the core group that reconstituted Israel and Babylon had to be Jewish. Same was true of the church for the first few chapters of Acts. It had to be 100% Jewish. Next, just as there had to be 120 leaders representing at least 12 congregations of 10 men in Babylon to form the community, Acts 2 started with 120 leaders in the upper room. It was the minimum number needed. Just as Israel and Exodus had to have 70 prophetic elders all of the 70 whom Jesus anointed with prophetic powers in Luke 10, I believe we're in the upper room at Pentecost. There had to be 12 princes over 12 tribes. Well, there were, Jesus told the 12. This is Luke 22, but you are those who continued with me in my trials, and I bestow upon you a kingdom, just as my father bestowed one upon me, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones, judging the 12 tribes of Israel. This is the apostles judging the 12 tribes of Israel. This is why their Mattathias had to replace Judas. Just like there were 12 tribes of Israel in the Old Testament, and then there's a 13th. There's 12 apostles in the New Testament and 12 tribes. The apostle Paul is kind of like a 13th thrown in there. But anyway, I shouldn't go down rabbit trail, so this is taking too long. So there had to be a Mattathias to replace Judas. There had to be 12 princes over the 12 reconstituted tribes of Israel. And Jesus speaks of a believing Sanhedrin, Matthew 5.22, that would replace an unbelieving Sanhedrin. That's just a general assembly, right? On every level, Acts 2 met the condition of constituting a new Israel. So Paul calls the church, quote, the Israel of God in Galatians 6.16. So that addresses the dispensational objections. There is a literal fulfillment of God making the new covenant with the house of Israel, with the house of Judah in the first century. It was the only Israel of God, okay? But the fact that the church is now the true Israel—now I'm addressing the opposite side—the fact that the church is now the true Israel does not mean that God wipes out the Jew-Gentile distinction. In Romans 1, Paul captures his strategy of new covenant missions in these words, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. That's Romans 1 verse 16. Likewise, Romans 2, 9 promises judgments in the same order, speaking of tribulation and anguish on every soul of man who does evil of the Jew first and also of the Greek, but glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what is good to the Jew first. and also to the Greek. He is not erasing distinctions in the New Covenant. Jews continue to be grafted into the church of Jesus Christ throughout New Covenant history, according to Romans 11, verses 1 through 10. And the next section of Romans 11, that's verses 11 through 32, says, hey, there's going to be a future conversion of the entire nation of Israel being brought back into the church. So, Nations, all nations will be converted, but there will only be one church. So Isaiah 19 speaks of three nations in the middle East that will be a hundred percent converted. And he names them as Egypt, my people and Assyria, the work of my hands and Israel, my inheritance that has never been fulfilled. Three nations converted. And yet we don't have three churches. We have one church, one spiritual Israel. So both the structure and the language of Jeremiah 31 opposes both extremes of dispensationalism and all-millennial replacement theology. The first G section of your outline corresponds to the first 10 verses of Romans 11, showcases a remnant of Jews who will be saved throughout the new covenant era. The second G section of your outline corresponds to Romans 11, 11 through 32, it predicts the nation called Israel will inherit specific geographical territory in the Middle East and will be 100% converted. They'll be grafted back into the olive tree. The only eschatological position that can fully account for all of these facts is traditional post-millennialism, the kind of post-millennialism not taught by some of these modern post-mills, but the kind of post-millennialism taught by John Murray, David Brown, Charles Spurgeon, William Carey, David Livingston. By the way, Steve Schlissel holds to this, but this is the old-fashioned post-millennial viewpoint. They did not speak of a separate entity that is parallel with the church and under God's blessing. No, that would be dispensationalism. Instead, they speak of the church as being Israel, The church is the only one that the H section could be fulfilled in. And this one Israel will constantly have both apostate Jews and never covenanted Gentiles being grafted in. So getting into the debate of genetics, I don't care. It's apostates who have been broken off. Those apostates will be coming back in. Now this means that the Israel of God is not ultimately ethnic, since Esther 8 verse 17 makes clear that Gentiles became Jews. Back then it was primarily cultural and religious. But the point is, apostates from this one Israel will eventually come back in. Gentiles who were never part of the church will come in. But that verses 31 through 34 covers The entire span of New Testament history, and not just 80, 30, can be seen by the fact that at some point there won't be any tares. It'll be impossible to find anybody to evangelize and to convert. They will all be converted. Verse 34 says, no more shall every man teach his neighbor and every man his brother saying, know the Lord for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest of them. Now God will on the last day of history, resurrect tares. He'll resurrect Gog and Magog, right? But prior to that, it'll be 100% converted world. So again, this fits the trajectory of Romans 11 that describes total conversion, no longer a remnant, but the fullness of the Gentiles and the fullness of Israel converted, placed into the church, the one and the true spiritual Israel. Now along these lines, Isaiah 65, 23 says that at some point in history, They shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth children for trouble. A hundred percent of the conceptions and births of babies will produce the elect who will never see judgment, is what that passage is saying. But that implies that in the earlier stages of the new covenant, there will be babies born in vain and children born to trouble. See, we tend to confuse the end trajectory of history with the present if we do not add the progressive application or the progressive fulfillment to the already-and-not-yet of amillennialism. By the way, some of the paedocommunionists also misapplied this passage of what will happen in history by saying, hey, we should assume that all of our children They should come to the table because we should assume that they all know the Lord, that they are all the elect." This passage doesn't say anything about assuming that they're elect. It says, no, they will be elect, 100% of them. There won't be any that will apostatize. So it's different than assumption. And interestingly, Reformed Baptists many times interpret this passage exactly the same way these paid communionists do and come to an opposite error. They say we should try as hard as we can to make sure that church membership lines up with election. That's not what it's talking about. It's talking about with a certainty what God will accomplish. So election cuts down through the covenant as Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob show, but as history progresses, the elect and the covenant community will more and more look alike until they are identical, including babies, the least of these. That's a reference to babies. So let me read verses 31 through 34 one more time and show how spectacular this new covenant is. Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord. So these are actual historical days. Days indicates ongoing history. When I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, with the house of Judah. He made it in the first century. Jewish church, he continues to establish that new covenant with each individual grafted in over history. Verse 32, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. So there's something about the new covenant that is quite different from the covenant under Moses. The difference is not the absence of Mosaic law. In fact, the same laws will be written on our hearts. But the partial of ceremonies will give place to the fulfillment of New Covenant Kingdom realities. Notice that God's Torah continues in the New Covenant in verse 33. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days says the Lord. I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor and every man his brother saying know the Lord for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest of them says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity and their sin, I will remember no more." Eventually all of Israel will truly be Israel because they'll be in the church. So there are similarities between the Mosaic economy and the New Covenant, and there are radical differences. Let me quickly outline both. Both are covenants. Well, that's similar, right? And so it's going to have all five features of a covenant. The transcendent sovereignty of God. He's Lord. All covenants have human representatives of God's authority. All covenants have law. All covenants have sanctions of blessings and cursings and all covenants have succession plan for generations. So both are covenants. Both have the same God. Both have the same moral laws. Now it's true. It's written on the heart, so they're not all going to be unbelievers like the wilderness generation were, but the laws will continue. But let's look next at the radical differences. Hebrews speaks of 14 ways in which the new covenant is better, and all 14 are hinted at here. First, it's new. Not just new in time, but new in power. What Adam could not achieve the New Covenant will achieve for his people. Hebrew says that the new will endure forever, whereas the old was about to vanish away. Second, there are better promises. Seven times the phrase, I will, is given to show this is a work of God's grace alone. Third, a better atonement is seen in the words, I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sins no more. You see, Moses and the saints of the Old Testament They didn't look to the animals. The blood of animals can't save anybody. They cannot do away with sins. They were using those to look forward to the coming Christ. And that's why Galatians four says that Isaac was in the new covenant long before the new covenant was ratified. He trusted Jesus. Anybody who trusted in the blood of bulls and goats in the old Testament times. They're in the old covenant and they're lost just like the wilderness generation was. Anybody in those times that looked forward to Christ, they're in the new covenant and they were saved. Fourth, there will be a new and better presence of God. I will be their God and they shall be my people. Fifth, there will be a new heart. And you can see that in the phrase, I will write it on their hearts. Or as Jeremiah worded it earlier, I will give them a heart to know that I am the Lord. Now, did Moses have a new heart? Yeah, obviously he had a new heart. Why? Because he looked forward to the coming of Christ. The remnant of believers then all had new hearts because they were trusting in the new covenant mediator to come. Six, there will be a new testimony. It's an internal testimony. Seventh, there will be a new intimacy found in the words, I will be their God, they shall be my people. And the phrase is each one and each. They shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest." Eighth, those same phrases speak of a better trajectory. In the Old Testament, everything was running downhill to the cross. The cross reverses history and makes sure that the true believers will not always be a remnant. They will be a fullness. Ninth, there will be a greater clarity seen in the words, they shall all know. And 10th, a new empowerment, not according to the covenant, which they broke, I will put my laws within them. I will write them in their hearts." In other words, what they couldn't achieve, God is going to achieve through them. 11th, there will be a new extent. They shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest. 12th, this covenant will have an eternal nature, an everlasting covenant that will never be forgotten. 13th, there will be a new guarantor. The Lord says, occurs nine times. And then finally, there will be a better mediator than Moses. Moses, interestingly, interceded with God. He says, send me to hell, curse me and spare the people. God refused. Jesus said exactly the same thing. He said, curse me and spare the people. And God listened and he did so. According to Galatians 4, people throughout history have belonged in one of two overarching covenants. Under those overarching covenants, every historical covenant had the same laws, but if the only mediator that you looked to was a human one, You were lost. The new covenant still has the same laws with the same demands for perfection, but Jesus met those demands for us. And so I would urge you to put your trust in Jesus who alone can meet the demands of the law. Isaiah had said he took our sins upon himself and he suffered in our place. That's called the imputation of our sins to him. In turn, he gave us his righteousness so that we could have fellowship and communion with God. Okay. As achieved by faith, by faith, we cast our sins on him. When we come to Christ, he clothes us in his righteousness. It's called double imputation. Very, very important a doctrine when we believe all of that happens. And so put your trust in the Messiah, the mediator of the new covenant and rejoice in the incredible heritage that he has purchased for you. Amen. Father, Jeremiah has been a tough book, and yet what a blessed book when we understand the incredible heritage of the new covenant. I pray that more and more we would become consistent with our understanding of this new covenant. Do bless this your people, Father, with further insights into Jeremiah. In Jesus' name we pray.