Now, it was just a couple of weeks ago, and I was having my first quiet time out on my favorite trail at Cape Cod. Its trail goes out through the sand and the pines to the sea, and I was just sitting down among some bearberry. It was a cool, crisp morning just like this, and I decided I was going to start working my way through Allender and Longman's book, Cry of the Soul. I had read excerpts, but I wanted to just kind of work through this for my own benefit. And that morning I opened up and I read these words. Here I am sitting in this perfect situation. One explanation for why we avoid our feelings is that it's painful to feel. To feel hurt, hurts. To feel shame, shames. To feel any loss only intensifies sorrow. In one sense, that's true. But why then do we try to avoid good feelings? One woman told me that she always feels a slight dread whenever she begins to feel hope. Perhaps a better explanation for why it's so difficult to feel our feelings is that all emotion, positive or negative, opens the door to the nature of reality. All of us prefer to avoid pain, but even more we want to escape reality. Even when life is delightful, joy is fleeting, and its brief appearance only deepens our desire for more. Pleasure holds a wistful incompleteness because even at best, it is a poor picture of what we were meant to enjoy. As a result, we never feel completely satisfied with our present life, no matter how well things go. Anticipation inevitably carries with it disappointment and longing. Emotion propels us into the tragic recognition that we are not at home. And if this is true of our most pleasurable moments, then isn't it even more true of our painful memories and experiences? We will never fully enjoy what we were meant to experience until heaven." And I wrote here in the margin of that, amen. Because I was there, and man, I thought, you know, it doesn't get much better than this. But it wasn't perfect. It's too short. Relationships were good. but not perfect, disappointments, never anything fully, deeply satisfies in this life. Now, hold that thought and we come to the 17th of the names of God in this ancient series. This name of God that appears in Jeremiah chapter 23 verse 6 And I don't know if you still have it from Larry's reading it, but if you don't, please turn to that again. Jeremiah 23, verse six. In his days, Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called. Yahweh Tzidkenu, the Lord, our righteousness. Now this word, this name, is revealed to Israel here in one of her darkest hours, at a time when Israel would have thought that if there was any hope of having life here that was perfect, life that would satisfy, that hope would have been seen as a fool's dream. It was less than 400 years after the golden age of Solomon That age when there was peace and prosperity and glory and everything seemed like it was going well, there was a stable government, there was prosperity. Now less than 400 years later, all of that has disappeared. There are now three hostile powers on the scene. Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon. And all are vying for world dominance. Assyria is destroyed. Egypt is pushed back and Babylon has come and invaded the land. Israel has, or Jerusalem particularly, has surrendered. And so in that dark hour, it's at that time when Israel is in economic and political chaos, when all hope of things seeming to be stable and being able to have any kind of lasting peace or prosperity in this life has gone. that Jeremiah comes with these words. Verse five, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up to David a righteous branch, a king who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. In his days, Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called, the Lord, our righteousness. There's a twofold significance to this name. The first is the one that you see in your bulletin outline there, Roman numeral one, that we'll look at this morning. He is altogether righteous in his character. He is the one and only one who will never disappoint. And not only will he not disappoint, but he will institute a government in a world and a kingdom that will itself never disappoint. a perfect realm, and a perfect king. He is altogether righteous in his character. Now, in order to appreciate, now the second point we'll look at next week, won't tell you what that is, we'll pick that up next week. But, in order to appreciate the meaning of this first aspect of this name, Yahweh Tzidkenu, the Lord our righteousness, You need to see this promise in its context, not the kind of thing you can just sort of pull out and put on a plaque and put on your wall and understand it. You have to understand this in the context of chapter 22 of Jeremiah and the immediate history of Judah at that time. So, this morning, we're going to look at a little history, give you some stories. Fifteen years ago, righteous, godly Josiah had been king. Josiah had instituted a number of reforms in Judah. It was a nation that had drifted from God and from following scripture, and Josiah had called the people back. He said, we're going to live by the Bible. And here was a king who had instituted reforms so that individuals and families and government would be ruled by scripture. Be nice to have such an administration, wouldn't it? But it was short-lived. Josiah died after 37 years of rule. That's still a good long rule, but he died. of Egyptian arrows in a battle on the plain of Megiddo, a place that was later called Armageddon. After Josiah died, the people mourned and his son was put in his place and there were just three more kings to the end of Judah's history. Chapter 22 begins with a warning that's given to Judah at this time. Let's look back in chapter 22. God tells Israel at this point, he says basically, if you obey me, if you obey my word, if you continue in the way that Josiah was starting to direct you, then verse 4, he says, if you are careful to carry out all these commands, then kings who sit on David's throne will come through the gates of this palace, riding in chariots and on horses accompanied by their officials and their people. If you don't, verse 5, if you do not obey these commands, declares the Lord, I swear by myself, and there is nothing greater by which God can swear, he's saying this is absolutely true, nothing in heaven and earth can change this, that this palace will become a ruin. And though it was still beautiful at that time, Jerusalem was a beautiful place. Solomon's palace had been adorned in the palaces of the kings and the government officials. The streets of Jerusalem were a beautiful place to behold. The gardens and all of the glory that was hers at that time. And God says, even though this is beautiful, I will destroy it. In fact, he goes on in the next verses to say, I will destroy it so bad, I will lay such waste to this place that when nations come through and maybe somebody hadn't heard, they're going to take a tour to Jerusalem to see how great it is. And then they come there and they find a wasteland and they say, how could this happen? How could God have allowed all this beauty to have been laid waste? Why did he do this? These were people that were supposed to be his. The answer will be given in verse nine. The answer will be, because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord their God and have worshiped and served other gods. Brothers and sisters, that's not irrelevant to you and to me. America is not Israel. But we tend to believe that because of the church and its prominence in American history and its place in our culture, that there is a sense in which God's favor continues upon America because of Christian influence. But there is no such promise of that continuing. God says, when my people turn away from me, then I do not continue some blessing that is superstitiously maintained. There's a warning there. But the warning was particularly to Israel at this time. Now, back to the situation here. What God does then is through Jeremiah in verses 10 to 30 at the end of chapter 22, he goes through the last three kings. He says, let me tell you about these guys. Let me tell you why I'm going to do what I'm going to do. To remove any hope that some human is going to have enough power or enough righteousness to be our rescuer. Now you see the genealogy in your bulletin outline. You get a little confusing, so I put this thing up here so you can follow because they don't follow all just the Neorti. You got Josiah, and Josiah has a number of sons. Three of them are crowned king, and so I list those three. That's why they have the dots at the end. It was other sons. But these are the ones who became king. Now notice what happens. First of all, in verses 10 to 12, he speaks of the first king, Jehoahaz. Jehoahaz's prominent characteristic is that he's utterly worthless. That's the first blank with the W. Jehoahaz is worthless. Look at what he says in verse 10 to 12. Do not weep for the dead king or mourn his loss. That's speaking about Josiah. Years later, people were still mourning Josiah. They loved him. He was one who had won the hearts of the people because of his goodness. He says, don't weep for Josiah. Don't mourn his loss. Rather, weep bitterly for him who was exiled. That's Jehoahaz. Because he will never return or see his native land again. For this is what the Lord says about Shalom, that's just another name for Jehoahaz, one of his aliases. Son of Josiah, who succeeded his father as king of Judah, but has gone from this place, he will never return. He will die in the place where they have led him captive. He will not see this land again. I told you that Babylon had come against Jerusalem and Jerusalem had surrendered. And Necho, who was the commander of Egypt at that time, in order to display his power, took the king, who was at that time just had begun to reign, Jehoahaz. He only reigned for three months. And after three months, Necho deposed him and deported him to Egypt, shipped him off, and I never heard from him again. We don't know what happened to him. But that was the end of Jehoahaz. in Jerusalem, Judea, was utterly powerless to rescue their king. Nothing that they could do. He was worthless in his power, made no mark on history, gone. But he symbolizes that the land is lost. He pictures for us one who is utterly powerless to be able to do anything to save God's people. The land is lost under Jehoahaz. In fact, there is good evidence that the reason that Jehoiakim, the one who was put in his stead, you see there listed Josiah one, then Jehoahaz, then three, Jehoiakim, that's the third one in this list now, was chosen over his brothers to be king primarily by the Egyptians, not by Judah. And the reason was because he would play along with Egypt and he would be a vassal king under Egypt. and he would simply rule Judah according to what the orders that he got from Egypt. He was a realist, a political pragmatist, and he reigned for 11 years, says Niner, that's wrong, scratch that out, it's 11 years. Didn't do my arithmetic very well. It's 11 years that he reigned there from 609 to 598 BC under Egypt's domination and under their permission. Now Jehoiakim was not simply a rascal because he sold out to Egypt. Far, far worse. You know what this guy did? I mean, imagine the situation here. Judea is in economic and political turmoil. There's depression, there's upheaval, there's economic chaos. And so Jehoiachin becomes the king under Egypt's authority. He looks around and he sees his palace and he says, This place is kind of shoddy. My father and grandfather didn't do a very good job of decorating and establishing this place. So I'm going to do a better job." And he plundered Judah's treasury, squandered what little money they had in order to try and be able to bring about stability. He took that money and he invested in materials to build a vastly improved, more opulent palace and grounds. And then to produce the labor to do this, he used the army instead of defending Judah, he used it as a militia to take Israelites as captives in forced labor to build his palace. That's the kind of king he was. Look what God says about him here in verse 13 and on. Woe to him, now this is addressed to Jehoiakim that I've just described. Woe to him who builds his palace by unrighteousness, his upper rooms by injustice, making his countrymen work for nothing, not paying them for their labor. He says, I will build myself a great palace with spacious upper rooms, and so he makes large windows in it, panels it with cedar, and decorates it in red. Does it make you a king to have more and more cedar? Did you not your father have food and drink? He did what was right and just. This is talking about Josiah. All went well with him. He defended the cause of the poor and the needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me, declares the Lord? But your eyes and your heart are set only on dishonest gain, on shedding innocent blood, and on oppression and extortion. You're using your power simply for your own ends, protecting yourself and establishing your own ways. What does it mean that he says you shed innocent blood? This probably has two kinds of references. Under Jehoiakim, the reform against false idol worship was rescinded and the practice of child sacrifice came back into the land. that detestable practice whereby parents, out of superstitious desire to obtain the god Malak's favor, would take their children as infants and place them on the red-hot coals in Malak's arms, and roast their children alive, worshiping to the dying screams of the agony of their own infants. And that Jehoiakim sanctioned, that he established as worship in the land. Not only is it referred to that probably, but there were. God raised up godly prophets. Those like in our own days who were writing essays and editorials and seeking to mobilize the people and saying, this man is a man of sin and God's judgment will be upon him and calling Jehoiakim to repent, to turn to the Lord and to change his ways. Not only did he not heed their warnings, but he persecuted the prophets. In fact, Jeremiah goes on in chapters 26 to talk about one particularly brave fellow, Uriah, who preached right in Jerusalem and warned Jehoiakim about what he was doing. Jehoiakim sent out his soldiers to arrest Uriah, and Uriah heard about it, and so he escaped, and he fled to Egypt. But Jehoiakim was so incensed that he sent his militia all the way to Egypt after Uriah and arrested him and brought him back and had a mock trial. and then executed him by sword and threw his body out in the dump. And so Jeremiah says, your eyes and your heart are set only on dishonest gain, on shedding innocent blood and on oppression and extortion. Jeremiah held nothing but contempt for Jehoiakim. If you're one of God's people, then imagine how you would have been wrestling with, how does God allow this guy to continue? Here it is, 11 years this guy has been reigning and God's not doing anything to intervene. What in the world is God doing? Where is our answers to prayer? Then look what Jeremiah says, verse 18. Therefore, this is what the Lord says about Jehoiakim, son of Josiah, king of Judah, they will not mourn for him. Alas, my brother, alas, my sister, they will not mourn for him. Alas, my master, alas, his splendor. He will have the burial of a donkey dragged away and thrown outside the gates of Jerusalem. Let me tell you what happened. toward the end of his reign. Jehoiakim, because he was established and existed in power only under the authority and protection of Egypt, was of course a vassal loyal to Egypt. But here from Babylon comes a new general, a very, very capable man by the name of Nebuchadnezzar, and he rallies the Babylonian army and he comes against Egypt. And he defeats the Egyptian army. And all of a sudden, Jehoiakim says, hmm, looks like Egypt's coming back into power here again. Excuse me, looks like Babylon's coming back into power. And so he immediately switches his allegiance from Egypt to Babylon. He says, Neko, forget him. Ah, Nebuchadnezzar, you, you are worthy of our respect and allegiance. And so he switches to Babylon. Well, then the Egyptians rally again and they begin to ascend, and so he switches back from Nebuchadnezzar back to Necco. Oh, forget Nebuchadnezzar, back to Necco. Then, get this, after that they fight a pitched battle, Egypt and Babylon, and they both lose. Each of them suffers severe losses and have to retreat. And Jehoiakim seizes the moment and he rebels against both of them, tries to establish Judean independence once again. And in doing that, he signed his death warrant. Babylon was sick of him. And they rallied their troops together with such hatred, they came against Jerusalem, they invaded the country, and as they were coming up to the gates, a group of people, history is not absolutely clear on this, but it's inferred that a group of people who wanted to gain Babylonian favor assassinated Jehoiakim. And they threw his body outside the city, just like you would an ass. No one mourned the king. They despised him. Whether they were righteous or whether they were unrighteous, they held this man in contempt. He symbolizes to us cruel avariciousness. Jehoiakim is cruelly avaricious. That is, he's greedy. He's a man who wants nothing but his own gain, thinks nothing but himself. And he represents lost righteousness. any hope of ruling and having a government by principle. Jehoiakim represents simply political power and its raw, pragmatic, selfish purpose. And in his stead, his 18-year-old son, Jehoiakim, is placed on the throne. Now Jehoiakim was once again, unfortunately, simply a worthless fellow. Again, he ruled only for three months. Jerusalem was surrounded. Jehoiakim with his family and all of his riches, vast riches that were still there, were deported to Babylon. The Jews said, how could you do this, God? How in the world could you have your king taken away and the throne stripped of all its power and now far worse than the days that Jehoiah has? We are utterly powerless and at the mercy of Babylon. The answer is given to us in chapter 22. Beginning in verse 24, he says, as surely as I live, declares the Lord, even if you, son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were a signet ring on my right hand, even if you were that close to me, I would still pull you off. And God pictures Jehoiakim as a ring that he's ripping off of his finger to throw away. I hand you over to those who seek your life, those who you fear, to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, to the Babylonians, Thou will hurl you and the mother who gave you birth into another country where neither of you was born and where you will both die. You will never come home back to the land that you long to return to. Is this man Jehoiakim a despised, broken pot and object no one wants? Why will he and his children be hurled out, cast into a land that they do not know? Oh, land, land, land. Hear the word of the Lord. This is what the Lord says. Record this man as if he's childless, a man who will not prosper in his lifetime, for none of his offspring will prosper, and none will sit on the throne of David or rule anymore in Judah." Can you imagine the impact if you're a believer and you hear those words? God said in 2 Samuel 7, and He reiterated again and again that He would establish David's throne forever. How in the world could God say about one of the sons of David, record him as if he's childless? No one from his line is going to sit on the throne. You say, God, you've gone back on your promise. I mean, what can we trust if we can no longer trust the Bible? Here God has said something and he's promised it. Now it seems that God is saying, forget that promise. It's like a ring that I'm taking off and I'm throwing it away. Forget it. You're all out of here. I want nothing more to do with you. And all of a sudden you begin to realize we had presumed that because God said that he would establish David's throne forever, we thought we could live however we want. Once saved, always saved. God's promises, you sort of give a nod to God and acknowledge him and say that you're trusting in him for heaven and everything's okay. And God says, you've utterly misunderstood my character. You've presumed upon my promises. Psalm 89 wrestles with this. It's a tremendous psalm, powerful psalm, where the first part of that psalm goes through all the promises to David, and then it says, but you seem like you've thrown those promises away. What in the world are you doing, God? And it's in that context that God says, woe to the shepherds, chapter 23. Woe to those who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture. Therefore, this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says to the shepherds." This is speaking of the kings. By the way, that last king, Zedekiah, you see him up there, that was, of course, Jehoiakim's uncle. And he was placed by Babylon as kind of a governor of Judea at that point. Babylonian records, Judean records, both acknowledge that Jehoiakim was the last king. But Zedekiah had the title for some period of time, so some records list him as being the last king. He also was there for I think about 11 years at the end, but that's why there's a little confusion on that, and Jehoiachin is really listed in the records of that time as the last king. God says, these kings I'm going to judge. I'm going to remove them because you've scattered my flock and driven them away and have not bestowed care on them. I will bestow punishment on you for the evil you've done, declares the Lord. I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I've driven them, and I will bring them back to their pastor where they will be fruitful and increase in number. I will place shepherds over them who will tend them, and they will no longer be afraid or terrified, nor will there be any missing, declares the Lord. For the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up to David a righteous branch, a king who will reign wisely, who will do what is just and right in the land. In his days, Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called. Jehovah, Yahweh, Tzidkenu, the Lord, our righteousness. This is a parallel to Isaiah 11 that Larry read. Isaiah speaks of this one as a shoot that rises up out of dry ground. Jeremiah calls him a righteous branch. And you see his amazing origins when all seems hopeless. God raises up out of what seemed to be utterly barren ground, so much so that he said, you can write off Jehoiakim as if he's childless. And 580 years go by, and Judah is under Roman domination. And then the angels announce, the one has come who's been promised. And Jesus is that root out of the dry ground. Have you ever chopped down a willow tree or a sycamore? And there's other trees that like to live, but there is nothing that refuses to give up the ghost like a willow or a sycamore. I once chopped down a willow tree in Syracuse. A lot of trouble I took, hauled all that wood. I mean, willows can really get big. And I thought, I got that sucker out of there, it's gone. The next year, I had 10 willow trees. I didn't have a willow tree, I had a willow bush. All these things growing up all over out of the roots where that thing was. In our own place here in Columbia, some years ago, my wife hates sycamore trees. Don't talk to her about sycamore trees. She curses them whenever we go pet. There is one of those sycamore trees again. They're going to be sorry they didn't take that out. Finally, I took this thing out of the front lawn. Up grew some more sycamores. I chopped those things down. Kept at them for a whole year. More sycamores grew up. The next year, we got a guy in with a stump grinder. He ground up all the roots within a five-foot radius of that tree. The next year, shoots were still coming up from that sycamore tree. Three years later, I was still hacking out sycamore trees from the ground. God says, when I determine that I'm going to bring out of what looks utterly barren and wasteless, I will bring life from death. And so Jesus comes as the branch, the shoot. And he is the one who is perfectly good. Look what he says, verse 5, The days are coming when I will raise up to David a righteous branch, a king who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. This one is going to be perfectly good. He's going to be infinitely wiser and more powerful than Solomon. We will marvel at his words, and when Jesus spoke the words of the Sermon on the Mount, even unbelievers to this day acknowledge that was the finest sermon ever preached. His words are incontrovertibly wise and good. But he's not only good, he not only is one who is able to declare righteousness and justice and say, this is how you ought to live, but you and I hear those words and we're not able to do it. And we say, yes, it simply convicts me. I don't love, I don't forgive. I'm not able to do the things, Lord Jesus, that you taught. But he goes on to say that this one is able to deliver. He's a powerful deliverer. Verse six, in his days, Judah will be saved, will be delivered, and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called the Lord, our righteousness. You see that, brothers and sisters, he is altogether righteous. And his righteousness is not an opinion which he holds and is imposed on people who either agree or disagree. But he and his righteousness established a kingdom. He gave his life as the righteous one so that his citizens would be given the right to come into that kingdom. And all of us who are in that kingdom acknowledge that his righteousness is perfect. And we are delighted to live under it. And not only is that righteousness perfect, it will never be disrupted. You see, some of the kings, like Josiah and perhaps his son, were good, but they were powerless. Others were evil, as Jehoiakim. And there's never an administration that is either good enough and powerful enough to continue in its best intentions. And so you come down to our own day. And why is it that there is such a clamoring after Colin Powell? One reason. Colin Powell is viewed as a people by the American people as a man of character, of integrity, and of leadership. And people are so hungry for someone who has righteousness, integrity, character, and leadership. They're just saying, I'm not really clear on his positions on things and I don't really care. All I care about is here's a guy who's got some integrity and some leadership. Let's put him in. Now there's something to be said for placing character as a very high quality. And I'm not going to debate the merits of Colin Powell. All I'm trying to do is to call attention to the fact that as you and I pray and seek who is the best person for that position, we need to realize there is a thirst among us, not only us but among unbelievers, for someone who is righteous to rule over us. And Jeremiah says God has raised up such a one. And you and I have that hope that when Jesus comes again, there will be that man of integrity and righteousness and leadership and authority and power to establish a kingdom that no one will ever assault, will never be removed, and you and I will live under his leadership and righteousness forever, amen? But you see also in that, more generally, that all hope of perfection in this life, whether it's vacation, or a perfect relationship is vain. There is only one righteous. Every husband will disappoint. Every wife will disappoint. Every parent will disappoint. Every child will disappoint. For there's only one who has the name Yahweh Tzidkenu, the Lord our righteousness, and it's Jesus. And he never disappoints. In his rule, and his authority, and his power to be to us all that we long for, in utter contrast to the kings of Judah or anyone else in our lives, the model for which we as a church strive to build community is one that will never disappoint. Lord our God, some of us are here clamoring and struggling and demanding to have a righteousness, a heaven that will not disappoint here on earth. And we claw and we scratch and we demand. We have not listened to your word that says there is only one righteous. There is only one who will never disappoint. It's you, Lord Jesus, Yahweh Tzidkenu, the righteous branch of David, who came in impossible situation, raised up to live a perfect life and to die, that we might have that righteousness and dwell in your kingdom forever. Lord, we pray that you would hear us as we give to you our vain longings and demandings. that we must have perfection here. Lord Jesus, we worship you. And we acknowledge that you alone are absolutely righteous and wise. And you alone will never disappoint us in all that you do. Lord, hear us as we come to renew or to place our trust in you and our hope in your coming, longing for you to come and establish, consummate that kingdom of righteousness and peace forever. May we live in the light of that hope this week in Jesus' name.