Jeremiah chapter 12, the prophecy of Jeremiah. Chapter 12, our message for today is entitled An Invitation to Greater Strength. An Invitation to Greater Strength. We'll be looking at verse 5, but let's read from Jeremiah 12, the opening section. Hear the word of God. Righteous art thou, O Lord, when I plead with thee. Yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments. Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? Wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously? Thou hast planted them, yea, they have taken root. They grow, yea, they bring forth fruit. Thou art near in their mouth and far from their reins. But thou, O Lord, knowest me. Thou hast seen me and tried my heart toward thee. Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter and prepare them for the day of slaughter. How long shall the land mourn and the herbs of every field wither for the wickedness of them that dwell therein? The beasts are consumed and the birds because they said, he shall not hear our last end. If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses? And if in the land of peace wherein thou trustest they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan? For even thy brethren in the house of thy father, even they have dealt treacherously with thee. Yea, they have called a multitude after thee. Believe them not, though they speak fair words unto thee. I have forsaken mine house. I have left mine heritage. I have given the dearly beloved of my soul into the hand of her enemies. Mine heritage is unto me as a lion in the forest. It crieth out against me. Therefore have I hated it. Mine heritage is unto me as a speckled bird. The birds round about are against her. Come ye, assemble all the beasts of the field. Come to devour. Many pastors have destroyed my vineyard. They have trodden my portion underfoot. They have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness. They have made it desolate, and being desolate, it mourneth unto me. The whole land is made desolate, because no man layeth it to heart. The spoilers are come upon all high places through the wilderness. For the sword of the Lord shall devour from the one end of the land. even to the other end of the land. No flesh shall have peace. They have sown wheat, but shall reap thorns. They have put themselves to pain, but shall not profit. And they shall be ashamed of your revenues because of the fierce anger of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord against all mine evil neighbors that touch the inheritance which I have caused my people to inherit. Behold, I will pluck them out of their land and pluck out the house of Judah from among them. And it shall come to pass after that I have plucked them out, I will return. I have compassion on them and will bring them again, every man to his heritage and every man to his land. And it shall come to pass if they will diligently learn the ways of the Lord to swear by my name the Lord liveth. As they taught my people to swear by Baal, then shall they be built in the midst of my people. But if they will not obey, I will utterly pluck up and destroy that nation, saith the Lord. Thus far God's word. Let's pray together. Lord of heaven and of earth, the great, majestic, and splendid God of the universe, who hast with thy word of power brought everything into being that is, and thou dost uphold everything, and art working out thy good pleasure in the earth. till the day of Jesus Christ, when all shall be made plain. Until that day, Lord, help us not to look to the things that are seen, as much as to the things that are not seen, which are eternal. May we lift up the eyes of our mind and soul and behold Jesus Christ, the captain of our salvation. We pray thee, Lord, in our daily lives, at the post where thou hast placed us, that we would be men and women who are possessed by the fear of God, and who have a view of what Thou art doing in this world, at least to such an extent, that we labor faithfully with our hand to the plow. Lord, we acknowledge our weakness and our sin. We do come short of Thy glory every day, and each of us, when we put our hands in our bosom, we find leprosy within. But Thou art the great and compassionate God, and Thou wilt wash all our sins away. that will redeem Israel from all her iniquities. We pray the Lord for a good end in this semester. As we find our strength waning and the burdens heavier, will thou guide us through every day. Until the very end of this semester, may it all tend to the glory of thy name. Be with any and all who are sick, who are especially burdened. We ask for thy special grace for each and every one that they would know themselves bound in the bundle of life with Jesus Christ and safe with him. We ask this in his wonderful name alone. Amen. One of the things that Christians need most as they go through life's journey is encouragement in their souls. And God has many ways of encouraging his people. He encourages them with his promises. He encourages them through the means of grace, through preaching and the sacraments. He encourages us through the fellowship with other Christians. And he encourages us also as we look into the past, our own past, the past of God's people, and we see him acting in miraculous ways. A great encouragement lies for us when we meditate on God's character. Great encouragement comes when we wrestle with the Lord in our need and in our circumstances, and when the Lord makes us to break through with him. One of the most remarkable ways in which God encourages his people is to reprove us of our small strength. And when we listen to that reproof and we take it to heart, we see there a wonderful vista, a great invitation even to greater strength, which is indeed what Jeremiah experienced in the words of our text. And I hope we do as well here as we've met together this morning. So turn with me once again to verse 5, where we find these words on the lips of the Lord. If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses? And if in the land of peace wherein thou trustest, they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan? Just very briefly today, an invitation to greater strength. We'll see, first of all, a higher vision that the Lord gives Jeremiah here, and secondly, a deeper reservoir. An invitation to greater strength, a higher vision, and a deeper reservoir. The prophets of the Old Testament were people of hope and patience, all of them. And the Apostle Paul says in Romans 15 verse 4, And so when we turn to someone like Jeremiah, that is what we come to find. Despite all the trouble and the hardship that besieged him in the world, In the church of his time and in his family, there was something that as we read it, we can marshal patience and hope through the Holy Scriptures in a way that we are heirs of the prophets, if all is well. Now, Jeremiah was called by God probably at the age of 13. to be a prophet of the Lord set over the nations. Imagine that. Thirteen. Forbidden to marry and to have a task laid out before him as follows, to root out, to pull down, to destroy, to throw down, to build, and to plant. A 13-year-old set over the nations. And Jeremiah was given this message of judgment and doom. And if people will give you a hearing for a while, when you speak about God's judgment and the doom which awaits all those who set themselves against God, things will change. And they changed for Jeremiah. But Jeremiah was not an unfeeling prophet of doom, as none of us should be either. The message that he was called to bring tore him up inside because of what it meant for those around him who would not hear and would not repent. But no matter the pain, Jeremiah would not change the message the Lord gave him. And neither should we. We should not be the kind that say, peace, peace, when there is no peace. Let us not be Pastors and Christians, like verse 12 or verse 10, who destroy the vineyard of God. The Spirit of Christ was in Jeremiah. And there's a reason why people, during the time of Christ, wondered if he were Jeremiah once again. Like Jeremiah, he was torn up over the hardness of people's hearts, and he wept over Jerusalem. as Jeremiah did as well. But Jeremiah, having received the Lord's mercy, did not ultimately faint. He was strengthened by the Lord. And one of those occasions where God strengthened him is our topic for today. The immediate context is that of Jeremiah being in trouble with his family and townspeople. You can read of it in the previous chapter, chapter 11. Jeremiah lived in Anathoth, just a few miles north of Jerusalem, a largely priestly village. And his family came against him, much like the Lord Jesus' own family came against him later, and told him not to prophesy, that thou die not by our hand. They threatened him to take away his life if he kept on prophesying as he did. And then he had to prophesy against his family An utterly devastating message from the Lord. And that is that destruction would take hold of them. This village of Anathoth. And there would be no remnant there. Imagine that. Well, you know about the rest of Jeremiah's life. He was detained many times. He was imprisoned. He was left in a sinkhole in which the earth was basically swallowing him up like a living grave. And were it not for Abed-Melek, the Ethiopian, he would have been consumed. And later on, he as well, during his 45-year ministry, he was taken down in his latter years to Egypt against his will. This was a man who saw affliction. He lived in tumultuous times. And just to see that here this morning, and to compare ourselves with that, I hope, that that puts our situation into perspective. Because that's exactly what we need. That is, that our situation not be viewed through our imperfect, faulty lens, but through God's lens. And when the Lord sheds light on our situation like that, He strengthens us. You see, at the bottom of a lot of our weakness, friends, is a suspicion that we have about God. It's a suspicion that we have regarding God. that God doesn't know, that God doesn't care, that God is simply playing with us, and that He is not concerned about how this will all turn out. And we are busy, like Asaph, looking over our shoulder at wicked people around us who seem to be prospering. and they are flaunting God all the time. Why are things so hard? Why am I plagued and chastened every morning, Asaph says. And this is the kind of logic that is going around in our minds as well so often. And it's something into which God's word needs to break and he needs to give us another kind of logic, his logic. And that's what he does here with Jeremiah. He says, Jeremiah, let me give you some logic. If you've run with footmen and they've wearied you, now what will you consequently do when you're asked to measure up against war horses, horses? that are used to war, who've been bred and trained for war, two tons of muscle, violence and anger, packed into one raging, seething monster on the battlefield, more powerful than hundreds of soldiers, if a footman has wearied you. And what will you do with that? And as you go on reading in chapter 12, you realize what the Lord is saying there. He's saying, Jeremiah, if you've had problems with your family, I'm having problems with my family, with my children, those whom I've reared up, those who have forsaken me, who have departed from me, and not just a few of them, not just one village, but the whole land of Israel, and I have spent hundreds of years on these people, and I'm going to come and I'm going to root up my very own temple, the place of my glory, and I'm going to go over the mountains eastward into exile. If you can't handle the footmen, what are you going to do with what is about to be unleashed? That's the first metaphor that the Lord gives here. giving Jeremiah a view into his divine logic. And the second one is just as interesting. If in the land of peace, wherein thou trustest they weary thee, how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan? In other words, Jeremiah, if you've been walking through flat land, meadows practically, and you're tired, and you're sitting down, and you're like, I can't do this anymore. If you're doing it in that scenario, what are you going to do when you have to cut through the thick jungle around Jordan, which at that time would have been exactly that? Or you're going to have to cross the Jordan when the muddy water of the springtime current overflows the banks of the Jordan and violently drags whoever enters into that river down, down, down towards the Dead Sea. What are you going to do? In these two questions, God gives Jeremiah divine logic and a higher vision. It's the contrast between footmen on the one hand and horses, between easy terrain and what we might call jungle terrain. Alexander McLaren in a sermon on this text, it's actually titled, Calms and Crises. Calms and Crises. And he says there, we have all had the experience of how our lives are with long stretches of uneventful days. And then when generally without warning, some crisis is sprung on us, which demands quite a different order of qualities to cope with. Our typhoons, says McLaren, generally come without any warning from a falling barometer. In other words, the Christian life is lived on two planes. If God gives us the meadows, If God gives us the footmen, let's be thankful and let's all the while prepare for the rough terrain, the typhoons, and those war horses that may very well give us at most a few minutes of warning before they're on our scene, in our family, in our church, or all around us. The convicting lesson of our text this morning is that if we have grown tired in the humdrum of an everyday Christian experience with small problems, with some irritating people, with little frustrations, with some worries and anxieties, with some minor temptations and trials, And if all of that wearies us, what will we do with what God says will happen to every Christian, and particularly in some times of the Christian church, and certainly in pastoral ministry? Do you see what the Lord is doing here with Jeremiah? He is lifting the veil on the battle that is the Lord's, in which Jeremiah has up till now had only to deal with footmen, but very soon he'll be having to deal with much more. when the battle goes into full throttle. And this is everywhere in the scriptures. What does Paul say from prison, writing to the Ephesians, lest they be faint and wearied in their mind? He says, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Now when I hear that, that helps me because the Lord condescends there to show me something that puts everything in perspective. That these trials I'm facing now are minor compared to what is happening to the rest of my brethren and sisters in the world. And it is fortifying. And that my captain would give me this view is amazing, is glorious. And it is humbling, but that is good. Because for the Lord to point out that I am trying to tackle life with its small problems in my own strength, and I am getting weary in all of this, is really, as I said at the beginning, God's invitation to greater strength. And that's what the Lord is doing here at Jeremiah. If he was simply wanting to further see Jeremiah depressed or crushed even, He could have done this in untold numbers of ways, but he comes alongside Jeremiah and he says, Jeremiah, you're getting wearied too soon by looking to yourself. and not having the whole battle in view. And that's why we thank the Lord so much for the scriptures. And that's why we thank the Lord for the prophets. And now we begin to realize why it is that we have patience and hope because as we see them and what God is doing in them and through them, we have reason to have much more hope and patience and strength. God hath set forth us last, Paul says, as it were appointed to death. We are made a spectacle unto the world, unto angels and to men. The battle front is not just your family, your church, and the little corner of the world that we are in just now. This is huge, and God is over it all, and he has seen fit to raise you up. for such a time as this, to use you in the corner where he has placed you. And if that corner has footmen right now, then the Lord has in himself the strength that you need to deal with that. And if he launches you from that corner into another corner where there are horses and you are called to run with beasts like that, the Lord has what you need in that as well. You see, God is training us in our little trials for whatever he wants to use us down the road with. God was using this Anathoth trial of Jeremiah in order to train him to deal with something on a much greater plane. And it behooves us to take those instructions carefully, to take the pedagogical lessons that lie in our trials and temptations and situations very seriously. Count it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance, and you need endurance, and you'll need more of it. So don't look at this little trial that you are in and saying, you know, why do I have to suffer like this? See the pedagogical value that God is after here in your life. He's training you for greater usefulness and the time will come when no doubt He will launch you, and you'll need much more, but it's all to be found in Him. You see, congregation, I think that, or friends, I'm sorry, I think that we are in times here where the horses are appearing on the horizon. In the few decades that I've been alive, there's been a shift in our Western world that was unprecedented, at least to this extent, prior to the 1960s. And horses are being unleashed that are brutal, that are monstrous, and that are beyond us, utterly. I'm speaking there about secularism, apostasy, false doctrines, conflicts, within churches, ecclesiastical bodies, in which worldly power and worldly macinations and methods are being employed. All these things are like horses of the apocalypse of which you can read in Revelation 6. This is the battle that I believe awaits many of us. And we should not consider these things strange. because they have been operating in other nations and other parts of our world, and some of you know this firsthand, for centuries, if not longer. These are horses. They're worth much more than a few footmen. And so the Lord here is calling us to see the worldwide conflict. that his church and people are in, and he is giving us a greater and a higher vision, and he's inviting us to find greater strength in himself. But lest we be discouraged, who are the people who can run with horses? I mentioned already that Jeremiah was called at 13. The Bible makes clear that God's people, God's children, to the extent that they are his children and have his mind and operate in this world as children, they can run with horses. Ye are from God, little children, and have overcome them, because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. See how affectionately John speaks about believers. They're his children and they need to content themselves in being little children. When David came against Goliath, he was an experienced warrior who had decades of training under his belt. He went into the fray in the strength of God. And it was precisely before all the hosts of Israel and the hosts of the Philistines that God owned a child and wrought a great victory through a child who put his trust in the Lord. Who can run with horses? Little children can who lean on their great father. The people who know their God. Daniel 11 verse 32, but the people who know their God shall be strong and do exploits." That is a deeply comforting verse. It's not the people who have experienced all sorts of things, or the people who have amassed all this worldly knowledge, who have learned the art of war that our world puts upon the church constantly in which many of us are tempted to imbibe. No, the people who know their God shall be strong and do exploits and run with horses and do battle against whatever hell unleashes. You see the higher vision that the text gives to each and every one of us. And it gives us, secondly, a deeper reservoir. Because here's your issue, if you're struggling with the footman, is you need to take a step back. You need to be utterly amazed that the Lord would let you into His battle, that the Lord would see fit to use someone like you, especially you. There you are, pouting. There you are, doubting. There you are, suspicious of God. and of his ability and of his motives. There you are, and he still uses you. And he doesn't accept your resignation when you hand it in to him. And he says, you, I will use someone like you. And just like my son, and from out of my son, through suffering, you will be readied for what you need to do. We read about the Lord Jesus Christ that though he was a son, yet he learned obedience by the things that he suffered in order that he could be made perfect in the sense that he could, in that human nature, he could accomplish all that was given to him to do. In that, he suffered. We ought to be utterly amazed that God would use me and you in his battle. against whatever footmen, whatever horses, whatever situation, whatever terrain that he sees fit. He makes no mistakes. And we ought also to be deeply thankful when the Lord refocuses us, when he brings us to an end in ourself, when he shows us that we are depending far too much on our own strength, and no wonder we're exhausted. No wonder we've reached and hit a wall. It is precisely when the Lord does that, and we lose the war against Him, And we see that the greater enemy in the battle is not the people around us, but is that force within us that doubts God and disbelieves his promise. When we see that, we are tapping into this deeper reservoir. The knowledge of God, the knowledge of ourself, and the knowledge of Christ. Because look again at the words of our text. Just look one more time at verse 5. This is a question that the Lord is putting to Jeremiah. How can you do it? How will you do it? And if in the land of peace wherein thou trustest they weary thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan? How are you gonna do it? It's a question that God is asking you today. How are you going to do it? It's gonna come. How are you going to do it? Ready yourself for it. In your heart right now, answer that question before the Lord. And say something like this, Lord, I can't do it in myself. I've tried that and I've failed already at the level of the footman. But the Lord's asking me, how will I do it? How can I do it? I don't know about you, but I know how I can do it. Do you know how you can do it? Do you know how you can face those battle fronts that you've never anticipated before? Do you know how you can face what Paul was referring to when he said, we are killed all the day long, we are counted as sheep for the slaughter? Do you know what you need to do when Like the Apostle Paul, if you are ever given this, to be in the mouth of the lion. He delivered me out of the mouth of the lion, 2 Timothy 4 verse 17. What are you going to do? I'm going to look away from myself. I'm going to look away from every human agency. I'm going to look away from all political machinations, whatever they are, whatever this world hands me on a silver platter and tells me this is the key. I'm going to look away from all of that. I'm going to look away from all my own resources and look to the one in whom there is every imaginable resource for every plane of the battle, for every horse, for every footman, for everything God sees fit to bring my way. Because when I consider the cross of Jesus Christ, I realize something. And that is that in that moment, every footman, every horse, every swelling of the Jordan imaginable all came together in that one point in human history. And there was one, a son, a child, the child of the father. who sank in deep mire so that the floods overwhelmed him, but they did not utterly crush him. In fact, in that moment and in that battle, There was utter complete victory like our world has never seen and will never see because it's the only ultimate victory that matters in this great warfare we have been describing. Satan and his cohorts like venomous monsters, like leviathans, dragons, and beasts more than horses came after him. Psalm 22 gives gives view of it. That was delivered me from the horns of the unicorns. That was redeemed me from the mouth of the lions. In that moment, everything was unleashed upon my Savior. And he was not wearied in well-doing. and he accomplished a work. And so when the Lord comes to me and he says, how will you do? And how can you do? Then I say, Lord, I can do it only through Jesus Christ. And then I learned the words of Paul in Romans 8, when he says, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, or he says that elsewhere. But he says in Romans 8, he says, we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. I can fight with footmen and with horses through divine love in Jesus Christ, expended on Calvary's cross for the likes of me. And then the cross is my guarantee. Because the cross lowers all the mountains and it raises all the depths. And no creature can separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. And Jesus Christ is praying even now. I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world. I pray not that thou shouldst take them away from the footmen. I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the swelling of Jordan. I pray not that thou shouldst take them from these war horses that are breathing down their necks. But I pray that thou shouldst keep them from the evil. And will the father not hear his son? for his own blood's sake, and will he not keep me in the hollow of his hand? And will he not keep you as you look to him, and as you trust in him? The cross guarantees it for every believer, because Jesus Christ does it all, and Jesus Christ is my captain, and Jesus Christ is the higher vision, and Jesus Christ is the deeper reservoir. And so, with Jeremiah, I can face, no matter what age, no matter with what weakness, no matter with what limitations, I can face what God calls me to face in my family, in my church, in my ministry, whatever God may give me, in this world, whatever apocalyptic horses are unleashed. I can do it through Him who strengthens me. But I must glory in this cross. I must see this cross. I can't leave this cross because I need it so much. The calm meadows, I need it. The swelling of Jordan, I need it because He's with me. He's under me. He upholds me. He's my great defender. He takes up his shield and he gives me in this process, in my heart, experientially, through his spirit, he gives me all that I need so that I joy in God all the day long. And the joy, this joy, this joy in Jesus Christ is my strength. Amen.