Our scripture text this morning is pieces of chapter 16. So we read part of this before, and now we're going to read sections of it again. So let us stand for the reading of the word of God. Verse 15 and 16. Thou who knowest, O Lord, remember me, take notice of me, and take vengeance for me on my persecutors. Do not in view of Thy patience take me away. Know that for Thy sake I endure reproach. Thy words were found and I ate them. My words became for me a joy and a delight for my heart. For I have been called by thy name, O Lord God of hosts. Verses 19 through 21. Therefore, thus says the Lord, if you return, then I will restore you. Before me you will stand, and if you extract the precious from the worthless, You will become my spokesman. They for their part may turn to you, but as for you, you must not turn to them. Then I will make you to this people a fortified wall of bronze. And though they fight against you, they will not prevail over you. For I am with you to save you and deliver you, declares the Lord. So I will deliver you from the hand of the wicked, And I will redeem you from the grasp of the violent. And then let's read some in chapter 16. Chapter 16, verses 10 through on down through the end of the chapter. Chapter 16, verse 10. Now when it will come about when you tell this people all these words, that they will say to you, for what reason Has the Lord declared all this great calamity against us? What is our iniquity? And what is our sin which we have committed against the Lord our God? Then you are to say to them, It is because your forefathers have forsaken me, declares the Lord, and have followed other gods, and served them, and bowed down to them. But me they have forsaken, and have not kept my law. You too have done evil, even more than your forefathers. For behold, you are each one walking according to the stubbornness of his own heart, without listening to me. So I will hurl you out of this land, into the land which you have not known. Neither you nor your fathers, and there you will serve other gods day and night. For I shall grant you no favor. Therefore, behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, when it will no longer be said, As the Lord lives, who brought up the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt, but As the Lord lives, who brought up the sons of Israel from the land of the north, and from the countries where he had banished them, for I will restore them to their own land, which I gave to their fathers. Behold, I am going to send for many fishermen, declares the Lord, and they will fish for them. And afterwards I shall send for many hunters, and they will hunt them from every mountain and every hill and from the cliffs of the rocks. My eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from my face, nor is their iniquity concealed from my eyes. I will first doubly repay their iniquity and their sin. because they have polluted my land and have filled my inheritance with the carcasses of the detestable idols and with their abominations. O Lord, my strength and my stronghold and my refuge in the day of distress, to Thee the nations will come from the ends of the earth And we'll say, our fathers have inherited nothing but falsehood, futility, and things of no profit. Can man make gods for himself, yet they are not gods? Therefore, behold, I'm going to make them know. This time I will make them know my power and my might. And they shall know that my name is Jehovah. you may be seated. These two chapters are great chapters. Remember we have told you that there's three basic things in the book of Jeremiah. First of all, there is a theme of judgment. Jeremiah is constantly warning Judah about the judgment of God, that is inevitable. And it's falling upon Judah because of all the prophets that have been sent, and of all the warnings that Jeremiah has given, nevertheless the people of God are not repenting of their sins. And it's almost inevitable. At Israel, the northern kingdom of Judah will be wiped out by Babylonia as the northern kingdom was wiped out by Assyria. So that's the first word to remember, judgment. The second word to remember is repentance. God says, I'm going to bring judgment upon this nation. There is no hope for you unless you repent of your sins. That's your only hope. That's your only way out. And repentance is not some little thing. It's not some easy thing. Repentance is the turning of your whole mind from the way you've been thinking and your whole life from the way you've been living, the way God would have you think and have you live today. Repentance is rooted in the heart. It begins by saying, Lord, I love you. You are the most important thing in my life. I love your law. And I want to obey your law more than anything in all the world. So Lord, I pray that you would give me the grace to turn from however way I've been living and however way Judah has been living, whatever way the Lord God himself would have us live. So repentance, important word. Important word in Jesus' preaching as well. Jesus said in one place or another, that you can sum up my preaching in just a couple phrases. Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand. That summarizes the preaching of Jesus. And another place he said, repent or perish. And remember, repentance is not a little thing. It's not an easy thing. It requires a broken heart. It requires utter devotion to God Himself so that He is the most important thing in your life. So, here's two of the most important phrases, words, in the book of Jeremiah. Judgment probably speaks more about judgment than about repentance. And repentance. And then what was the third word? Third word was preaching. You remember the book of Jeremiah is about preaching. It's about false preaching and false preachers and true preaching and true preachers And what happens if you follow false preachers? And what happens if you are a false preacher? That the false preachers will simply tell you lies. They'll tell you the opposite of what God wants them to tell you. And true preachers are preachers that follow the calling that God placed on their lives. Judah has no hope if it doesn't listen to true preachers. One of the great things about Jeremiah is his sermons on what true preaching does to a nation, what true preaching does, what false preaching does to a nation. I mean, those are two of the most important things to remember. There's all kinds of great books on that, on what true preaching and false preaching did to the early days of the United States. The true preaching of the Reformed faith created the United States. If there weren't true preachers of the Reformed faith in the early days of the United States, there never would have been a United States. So learn everything you can about preaching and the impact it makes upon you and upon the nation that sits under faithful preaching of the word of God. That's one of the greatest studies that you can make is about the effect of preaching on the early days of the colonies of the Western world. There are several books on it. I can't think of any, I'm right off the bat. But there are several books on the subject, and they are exciting books. Now, what's great about the 15th and the 16th verses, chapters, of Jeremiah is they explain those three themes. They tell you what repentance will do to a nation. He tells you what the lack of repentance will do. He tells you how serious God's anger is in inevitably falling upon Judah if she does not give herself to true preaching. And intermingled among all these things, there are, as there are in all of the Old Testament prophets, prophecies about what the future holds in the Lord Jesus Christ. What's going to happen to this world because Jesus came 2,000 years ago? Talks a great deal about wrath. Nobody talks more about wrath than anything else. But the prophecies that he makes as to what God's going to do in Christ when Christ comes to earth 2,000 years ago are tremendous promises. And we've seen many of them come true already. So we're just going to read several pieces of these chapters. to see how all these things fit together. For instance, go to the 15th chapter of Jeremiah, and look what he says about what preaching means to him. In verses 15 and 16. Thou who knowest, O Lord, Knowest what? What does the Lord know? Everything. Everything there is to know about anything there is to know anything about. The Lord knows. Thou who knowest, Lord, you know me backwards and forwards. You know Judah. You know this world. Remember me. Take notice of me. I'm not looking for any fame or for any fortune, but in all of the turmoil and all the tempest and all the judgment that this nation is going to experience, don't forget me. Don't forget me and my love for you and my desire to serve you. And in the midst of all this judgment and all this evil in this culture, Take vengeance for me on my persecutors. Now, he's not asking for revenge. He's not saying, get even with these people who have been persecuting him. And boy, did they persecute him. They persecuted him. They chased him to Egypt. They persecuted the prophet everywhere he went. They couldn't tolerate his preaching. And so when Jeremiah says, take vengeance for me on my persecutors, he's not saying, I want you to get even with me, God. They're really giving me a bad time. He's saying, Lord, take vengeance on my persecutors because they are your persecutors. They're persecuting you for one reason. They hate my preaching. I don't take any of it personally, but they hate the preaching and the message that you have sent me to declare. Do not in view of thy patience take me away. Know that for thy sake I endured reproach. I'm not doing all this for myself, Lord. I'm not trying to take any credit for myself. I'm enduring all this stuff for you. I'm enduring reproach at the hand of these false preachers and these wicked kings and these wicked priests and these false prophets because of you and not because of me. Now here's the verse I love. Thy words found and I ate them." Isn't that a great verse? Thy words were found and I ate them. Now first of all I want you to notice it doesn't simply say thy word. It says thy word, this is plural, which is an important thing for us to bear in mind because the biblical revelation is a verbal revelation. It is spoken to us from God in words and sentences, not just in ideas. I went to a liberal seminary and at least one of the professors taught that God's revelation does not come in words. comes to us like a bolt of lightning out of the blue, and we're to try to put whatever meaning we can upon that bolt of lightning. It doesn't come in words, it just hits you like a lightning bolt. But I am here to tell you that when God reveals Himself in the pages of Holy Scripture, He does it in words. and sentences. This Bible is the words of God. Not just the word, not just the message of God, but it's a verbal revelation. But the very words of the Bible are words that originate in the mind of God. Do you remember what Paul said in Corinthians? He said, God has inspired me, as a paraphrase, God has inspired me with thoughts and ideas that originate in His mind, and He wants me to preach to you. But the most amazing thing about what He says is, what God has called me to preach to you is not only ideas and thoughts that originated in the mind of God. The very words that I'm going to be using to preach, says Paul, the very words and sentences and paragraphs also originated in the mind of God. So that what my professors would say is that the word of the message of the Bible, the message behind the words is what's the word of God. The problem with that for me is how do you get behind the words? How do you go about thinking about what the message is? I think in terms of words. God reveals himself in terms of words. And that's how we understand the message that God's speaking to us. He says, here's what I have to say. It's not some mysterious, irrational thing that has no relationship to verbal revelation. It is verbal revelation. The word of God does come to us in words and sentences that originated in the mind of God. And so when the Holy Spirit opens your heart to receive the message of Scripture, He is opening your heart to receive the message of Scripture put in words that originated with God Himself. So that's the first thing to notice here. Thy words were found. Now remember, He uses a lot of metaphors, figures of speech, And he says, thy words were found and I ate them. First of all, where did he find the words of God? He found the words of God in the mind of God himself. What does it mean he ate them? How do you eat the words of God? The words of God, by nourishing yourself upon them. It's like actual food that you partake of and that you feed on. So he's saying, I found your words in your mind and I ate them. I devoured them. They nourished my soul. And thy words that I ate became for me a joy and a delight of my heart. Is that the way the Word of God affects you? I love that phrase because it's true in my heart as well. What is it to say thy words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart. Nothing brings me more fulfillment. Nothing brings me more dissatisfaction in life than to read and study and meditate upon the words of God that I ate. Just having the words of God on the page of Scripture and not eating them It's not going to bring you any joy whatsoever. What he's saying is, I've read and I've studied and I've meditated upon these things and there's nothing in all of my life that makes more sense or that has satisfied my life more than the words that I found and that I ate and that were digested by the power of the Holy Spirit. They're the joy of my life. They're a delight of my life. I love to read other books, too. I love to read biographies. I love to read systematic theology books. I love to read history books. There's nothing that delights my soul and fills my heart with joy. More than eating the Bible. More than eating preaching. And what's important is reading the Bible. You know what's more important than reading the Bible? Meditating on the Bible. Reading the Bible's really good. But there's things more important than reading the Bible. And one is meditating upon the Bible. Allowing the Bible to sink in. Allow the Bible to color and shape everything that goes on down here inside. So he's saying, Lord, I live in the midst of a bunch of persecutors. I'm having to take a lot of flack. I live in a sinful culture that hates your word. Your word was hard to find. They had to work to find your words because the prophets, most of the prophets weren't worth listening to. When I found your words, when I ate them, and a joy and a delight that nothing and nothing else in this world can give. The last part of verse 16. Why is that? Because I'm smarter than most people? More intellectual than most people? Is that why the words affect me like they do? because you have called me by your name, O Lord God of hosts. And it's that calling that enables me to believe and embrace and eat and meditate upon. Verse 19. Therefore thus says the Lord, If you return, then I'll restore you. Repent of your sins. Come back to Me. I'll restore you to My favor. You'll stand safe and secure before Me. And if in your preaching you extract the precious from the worthless, you'll become my mouthpiece. That's what a faithful preacher does. That's what a faithful student of the Bible does. He extracts precious, that which has value from the worthless. That is what the world has to offer. That means, first of all, you've got to be able to make distinctions. You've got to know what the precious is and what the worthless is. You've got to know what to keep and what to throw away. You've got to be able to discern truth from error, right from wrong. You've got to be able to understand and tell the difference between what is spoken of God by true prophets and what is spoken by men who are false prophets. And when you're able as a Christian, not just a preacher, but when you're able as a Christian to extract the precious from the worthless, God says, then you will be my mouthpiece. In that culture that you live in, we'll hear what is true and what is pure and what is of great worth. And you will know what to throw away. The problem is today in this Western culture is most people don't know what to throw away. They're always asking me, have you read the newest best-selling Christian book?" And I would say, well, of course not. I mean, if it's a best-selling book, must not be any count. It's not affecting our culture. So you've got to be able to tell the difference between what's worthless and what is a precious value. Precious means valuable. There's only one place in this world that you can get anything as valuable as this, and that's in the pages of Holy Scripture. When you go to college, and these professors are going to teach you things that are not a part of the Word of God, if you're not able to distinguish what they tell you from what the Bible teaches, you'll be eating the worthless and throwing away the precious. You've got to be able to tell the difference and to teach your children to know the difference. Verse 19, therefore, thus says the Lord, if you return, then I'll restore you. Before me you will stand secure. And if you extract the precious from the worthless, You'll become my spokesman. They, for their part, may turn to you, but as for you, you must not turn to them." And he said this in the first chapter. Then I will make you to this people a fortified wall of bronze. And though they fight against you, they will not prevail over you. What's he saying to them? He said this before to them. People are going to attack you. People are going to try to overturn everything that you're saying, but I'm going to make you a fortress of bronze. Nobody's going to be able to touch you. They're going to fight against you. They're going to do everything they can to silence you. They will not prevail. Notice what God's telling him he's going to do. They're going to fight against you. You're going to be a fortified wall of bronze. They'll not prevail over you no matter how hard they try. For I, the living God, am with you and will not leave you. I am with you in order to save you from them and from their evil ways, from the wrath of God, from your sin. And I will deliver you from all of their efforts to overturn your efforts to declare the word of God. So I will deliver you from the hand of the wicked. That is a great promise. Make sure your children know this promise as they go out in this culture, as they go out in the colleges, as they go out in the places of jobs and work around the country, wherever they go. Make sure they understand that, that God will deliver you from the hands of the wicked. Tell your children there's nothing in this American culture for them to be afraid of, except the wrath of a holy God. So I will deliver you from the hand of the wicked, and I'll redeem you from the grasp of the violent. They're not going to be able to harm a hair on your head, no matter how hard they try. Let's go to the 16th chapter. We've talked about repentance. We've talked about judgment. We've talked about great prophecies, about what God's going to do for this people. Now He's going to continue with these prophecies. And some of them are magnificent things. Some of them are the threats of judgment. Look at verse 10, chapter 16. Now it'll come about when you tell this people all these words, that they will say to you, for what reason has the Lord declared all this great calamity against us? Why are you telling us all these terrible things? Why is God mad at us? What sin have we committed against the Lord our God that makes Him so hostile to us? Then you are to say to them, It is because your forefathers have forsaken me and have followed other gods and served them and bowed down to them, but me they have forsaken. and have not kept my law, you too have done evil, even more than your forefathers. For you are each one walking according to the stubbornness of your own heart, his own evil heart, without listening to me. You're worshiping idols of your own making. You haven't kept my law. Your forefathers have forsaken me. Now understand what that means. Your forefathers were the previous covenant generations and descendants of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, etc. He's saying my judgment is going to fall upon you not only because of what you have done and not done, but because your forefathers have forsaken me. In this culture today, we have two heritages. We have an older heritage and a younger heritage. So if you ask your child, don't ever tell them just simply, do you belong to the American heritage? Because there's two of them now. There's an older one and there's a newer one. There's an older heritage of the pilgrims and the Puritans that was based on the Protestant Reformation. There's a newer one that's based upon the wicked and the ungodly and the humanist. And make your child understand which heritage is his or hers. She is not a part of that new heritage that most young people in America are a part of. She's a part of an older heritage, of forefathers. So he's telling them that you can't even trust your forefathers anymore. You can't trust the prophets and the priests and the kings of the modern age. And you can't trust those men that went before them, the prophets, priests, and kings that went before them. So you're in worse shape than they were. Now, here's the messianic promise. See if you can figure it out before I tell you. Verse Therefore, behold, days are coming, declares the Lord. It will no longer be said, as the Lord lives, who brought up the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt. What was the most important historical event in the Old Testament? the deliverance of Israel from slavery to sin in Egypt. That was the greatest act of redemption in the whole Old Testament. And here Jeremiah the prophet is saying, there's coming a time in which people will forget about the exodus. That's like saying there's coming a time when people forget about the cross, forget about the resurrection. There's coming a time, Judah, when y'all are gonna totally forget about this greatest act of redemption in the whole Old Testament history. You say, oh, that's terrible. It is not terrible. Because he's going to be talking now about a second exodus. He's going to tell Judah, there's another exodus coming that's even greater than the first one. Notice what he says. Verse 14, Therefore, behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, when it'll no longer be said, as the Lord lives, who brought up the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt, They're not going to be talking about the exodus out of Egypt anymore. What they're going to be talking about is, as the Lord lives who brought up the sons of Israel from the land of the north, Assyria, Babylonia, and from all the countries where He had banished them. For I will restore them to their own land which I gave to their fathers. What they're going to be talking about, Jeremiah, is a second exodus. Instead of talking about their exodus from Egypt, they're going to be talking about their exodus from Babylon. Now, remember, Jeremiah is living in the last days of the southern kingdom and in the beginning of the Babylonian empire and Babylonian captivity. Remember Babylon took Judah captive for 70 years and then Judah got, then Babylon got whipped. By whom? Who whipped Babylon? Persia. So Persia whipped Babylon and what did the King Cyrus do? Once they whipped Babylon, they gave Judah a second exodus from captivity back to Jerusalem, back to the Holy Land, rebuild the temple. I'm sure that thrilled the hearts of these people. A second exodus? An exodus greater than the first exodus. An exodus now instead of being delivered from captivity at Babylon, the Persians setting us free from Babylon so that we can go back home. So that we go back and rebuild the church. So that we go back and rebuild the temple. That's the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, all those guys. So how excited they were, they could go back and rebuild the temple, rebuild Jerusalem. A thousand years later, Jesus was at a transfiguration on the mountainside. That night, Peter and John were with him, and also Elijah and Moses. had come back from the dead. They were meeting with Peter and John and Jesus in the Mount of Olives. That could have been a great privilege. Jesus' face shined so brightly in the transfiguration that it was brighter than the noonday sun. because his flesh just could not hold the glory of his deity in anymore. So what'd they talk about? What did Jesus and Elijah and Moses and Peter and John talk about on the Mount of Transfiguration? Luke tells us in one word. were talking about his departure. Let me give you the Greek word for departure, okay? Exodus. Exodus. They were talking about a third Exodus. And that is when the Lord Jesus Christ led the church out of captivity to its sin and to the wrath of God. through the life and death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. So what great promises you have here. They're praising the Lord here with Jeremiah that God's going to take them back to their own land. Look at verse 15. As the Lord lives, who brought up the sons of Israel from the land of the north and from all the countries where He had banished them, For I will restore them to their own land, which I gave to their fathers. Verse 19. Oh Lord, my strength and my stronghold. See what true prophecy does to the hearts of those that believe it. Fills them with joy and strength, even in the midst of persecution. my strength and my stronghold, my refuge in the days of distress, to Thee my strength. Nations will come from the ends of the earth. We saw this the other day. Say, our fathers have inherited nothing but falsehood, futility, and things of profit. Can man make gods for himself that are not gods? verse 21 therefore the Lord promises behold I'm going to make them know I'm going to make them know I am going to make them know they're not going to choose a dead and of themselves I'm going to make them know something this time last time was Exodus this time I will make them know my power and my strength, and they shall know that my name is Jehovah. And you see how encouraging that whole chapter is. There's encouragement in listing a true prophecy about judgment. There's encouragement in listening to true sermons on repentance there is encouragement in listening to what God says he's going to do for his church in the future all of this chapter sixteen is for you you allow Pray that the Holy Spirit will work in your heart to enable you to experience the impact of this chapter that it had on Jeremiah. I found these words, ate them. And they became the joy and delight. Our Father in heaven, these words are a delight to us. Our lives would be so empty, so weak, So depressed about this chapter. Thank you for every word in it. Thank you that every good thing in it hinges on whether or not we have come back to the Lord. and have been restored by his favor. Lord, we do pray that you would bless these words to have the same impact on us they had on Jeremiah. Jesus' sake, amen.