word to the book of 2 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles. And this is one of the last things that we are going to consider as we have gone through the book of 2 Chronicles. We're going to look at one verse today in 2 Chronicles. And we'll begin reading in 2 Chronicles 36, verse 11, talking about the last king of Judah. Zedekiah was 21 years old when he began to reign, and he reigned 11 years in Jerusalem. He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord his God. He did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet, who spoke from the mouth of the Lord. He also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God. He stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against turning to the Lord, the God of Israel. All the officers of the priests and the people likewise were exceedingly unfaithful, following all the abominations of the nations, and they polluted the house of the Lord that He had made holy in Jerusalem. The Lord, the God of their fathers, sent persistently to them by His messengers because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place. But they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising His words and scoffing at His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord rose against His people, until there was no remedy. And therefore He brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary. and had no compassion on young man, or virgin, or old man, or aged, he gave them all into his hand. And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king, and of his princes, all these he brought to Babylon. and they burned the house of God, and broke down the wall of Jerusalem, and burned all its palaces with fire, and destroyed all its precious vessels. He took into exile in Babylon those who had escaped from the sword, And they became servants to him and to his sons until the establishment of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate, it kept Sabbath to fulfill seventy years. Now in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing. Thus says Cyrus, king of Persia, the Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. whoever is among you of all his people may the Lord is God be with him let him go up since the reading of God's very word our text this morning is verse 21 to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah until the land had enjoyed its sabbaths all the days that it lay desolate It kept Sabbath to fulfill 70 years. Let's pray. Father, we ask that you would thrill our hearts with the message of life and hope that is found in your gospel. The good news that you in the fullness of time have given your son to rescue your lost sheep. How we thank you, Lord Jesus, that you came and not only took the judgment that we deserve upon yourself, but death could not hold you. And we thank you that you came forth from that tomb on the first day of the week. declaring and demonstrating that indeed you were and are God in the flesh. And so Lord, we beg that you would come by your spirit and you would open our eyes and press upon our hearts the truth of the gospel, that you are the Savior, the Lord, who has been risen from the dead on the first day. Lord, capture us with your beauty. Those of us who know you, do it afresh. And Lord, if there be any listening this day who have never tasted of your kindness, oh Lord, make the dead alive. to repent and believe in you. In Jesus we pray, amen. Our text may seem strange. Why spend a whole sermon looking at this one verse about the length of the exile? Well, let's look at verse 21. God carried off his people because of their rebellion, their unbelief, and it lasted for 70 years. The clock started ticking in 607 BC, when Nebuchadnezzar came the first time and he captured the city of Jerusalem. Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, Azariah were carried off. along with many of the others to Babylon to be trained to think and live as servants of King Nebuchadnezzar. And he left vassal kings who were descendants of King David on the throne there in Jerusalem. God raised up the prophet Jeremiah calling the people to humble themselves before the Lord, to repent of their sin, and to be willing to submit to the chastisement that God was pouring upon them. But they rebelled and gave their ear to the false prophets of that day, telling them that they did not know need to be under the yoke of King Nebuchadnezzar. And so these foolish vassal kings, one after another, sought to throw off the yoke of King Nebuchadnezzar. And so in 586 BC, the last of these kings, King Zedekiah, was removed from his throne and God's people then all of them were carried off into Babylon and the city was raised to the ground and the temple was destroyed. 70 years the exile took place. And it lasted until a different empire arose, and God orchestrated and raised up a king by the name of Cyrus, King Cyrus of the Persian Empire, who issued his decree in 537 BC. And if you do the math, 607 BC, down to 537 BC is how many years? 70 years. Now, why had God announced beforehand that it would be 70 years? And if you'll turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Jeremiah, first of all, chapter 25, Jeremiah chapter 25, And here we have now God announcing in one of these last kings, King Jehoiakim, the son of King Josiah. And that's what 2 Chronicles chapter 36 begins with. We read in verse 1 of Jeremiah 25, the word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah. That was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, which Jeremiah the prophet spoke to all the people. And he records how God has sent the prophets, but you haven't listened. Seven, yet you have not listened to me, declares the Lord, that you might provoke me to anger with the work of your hands to your own harm. Therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, because you have not obeyed my words, behold, I will sin for all the tribes of the north, declares the Lord, and for Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, my servant, and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and against all these surrounding nations. I will devote them to destruction and make them a horror, a hissing, and an everlasting desolation. Moreover, I will banish from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, the voice of the bride, the grinding of the millstones, and the light of the lamp. This whole land shall become a rurn and a waste, and these nations shall serve the King of Babylon. How long? Seventy years. then after 70 years it completed. I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity, declares the Lord, making the land an everlasting waste. I will bring upon that land all the words that I have uttered against it, everything written in this book which Jeremiah prophesied against all the nations. For many nations and great kings shall make slaves even of them, and I will recompense them according to their deeds and the work of their hands. Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, said to me, Take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. They shall drink and stagger and be crazed because of the sword that I am sending among them. So I took the cup from the Lord's hand, and made all the nations to whom the Lord sent me drink it, Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, its kings and officials, to make them a desolation, a waste, a hissing, and a curse, as at this day. Pharaoh, king of Egypt, his servants, his officials, all his people, and all the mixed tribes among them, all the kings of the land of Uz, and all the kings of the land of the Philistines, Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod, Edom, Moab, and the sons of Ammon, all the kings of Tyre, all the kings of Sidon, and the kings of the coastland across the sea, Dedan, Tima, Buz, and all who cut the corners of their hair, all the kings of Arabia, and all the kings of the mixed tribes who dwell in the desert, all the kings of Zimri, all the kings of Elam, all the kings of Media, all the kings of the north, far and near, one after another, and all the kingdoms of the world that are on the face of the earth, and after them, the king of Babylon shall drink. And then you shall say to them, Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Drink, be drunk, and vomit, fall and rise no more, because of the sword that I am sending among you. And if they refuse to accept the cup from your hand to drink, then you shall say to them, thus says the Lord of Hosts, you must drink. For behold, I begin to work disaster at the city that is called by my name, and shall you go unpunished? You shall not go unpunished, for I am summoning a sword against all the inhabitants of the earth, declares the Lord of Hosts. Now God had also announced, after the exile had begun, that after 70 years were completed, God would restore them. There is life and hope for God's people, even in the face of sin, for those who repent and turn to the Christ. And so in Jeremiah chapter 29, if you'll turn there with me, we see after the exile had taken place and King Nebuchadnezzar had removed King Zedekiah, God sent this message from his prophet Jeremiah to the people. He told them to not despair as they were living in the exile. We see verse four of Jeremiah 29. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon, build houses and live in them, plant gardens and eat their produce, take wives and have sons and daughters, take wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters, multiply there and do not decrease, but seek. THE WELFARE OF THE CITY WHERE I HAVE SENT YOU INTO EXILE. AND PRAY TO THE LORD ON ITS BEHALF, FOR IN ITS WELFARE YOU WILL FIND YOUR WELFARE. FOR THUS SAYS THE LORD OF HOSTS, THE GOD OF ISRAEL, DO NOT LET YOUR PROPHETS AND YOUR who are among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams that they dream, for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name. I did not send them, declares the Lord." Now they were saying, you don't have to wait 70 years. You can throw off the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar and just come on back. Look at verse 10, for thus says the Lord, when 70 years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place for I know the plans I have for you. declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. And then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will hear you and you will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I have sent you." And so not only did we have this message telling the people up front, 70 years, But the Lord tells us why. Now if you'll turn back to our text in 2 Chronicles, it would be easy to read over this little tidbit here in verse 21, but the Lord tells us why 70 years. Look at verse 31, verse 21, chapter 36, 2 Chronicles. They would be servants until the establishment of the king of Persia, verse 21, to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate, it kept Sabbath to fulfill 70 years. So what's this business about 70 years being tied to the Sabbath? Well, I'm glad you asked that question. Turn with me in the book of Leviticus to chapter 25. Leviticus chapter 25. In the Old Testament, there were not only at the beginning of creation the weekly Sabbath, but there were added to that weekly day of rest, which was on the seventh day of the week. a multitude of additional Sabbath days, days of rest, not only days but years where God instructed His people that they were to trust the Lord and show and demonstrate that indeed They did have confidence in God to take care of them, to honor God with the use of their time and resources. And one of the aspects of these additional Sabbaths was that every seven years God told the people their land was to lie phallic that six years they were to plow and plant and harvest but every seventh year was a sabbath year and every seventh year they weren't to go out and plant their crops that they were to rely on the goodness of God during those six years to have plenty for them so that they would have enough to go through that year and through the next year through until the harvest of the planting after that Sabbath year. That took faith. And then, on top of that, God said that every seven groups of seven years, there was to be a very special year called the year of Jubilee. And on that year, anybody in Israel who had sold themselves, the way you got out of debt, in that day was that you would sell your work and you would sell the family farm to someone for a period of time And during that period of time, whether it was the six years or whether it was the seven groups of seven, at the end of that time, all of the people who had indentured themselves were to be set free. And all of the land that had been leased out, basically, was what it was. to pay the debt. In other words, if I got in debt, I would come to you and say, look, I'll work for you for six years, or I will sell the family farm to you for, let's say the Jubilee had just taken place, for the next 49 years, this piece of property will be yours if you will pay off my debt. But at the end of this, there was to be release. There was to be the return. And one of the striking things that we see in the Old Testament is that we have no indication that these Sabbath years were ever practiced. We don't have any record in the Old Testament. As a matter of fact, we get a little glimpse that if it was, it was very, very rare. And what we see from our text is that there had been a huge backlog of unbelief generation after generation after generation of people who refused to trust the Christ. Now let's look at Leviticus 25. In verse 1, the Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, Speak to the people of Israel, and say to them, When you come into the land that I give you, the land shall keep a Sabbath to the Lord. For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruit. But in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. You shall not reap what grows of itself in your harvest or gather the grapes of your undressed vine. It shall be a year of solemn rest for the land." The Sabbath of the land shall provide food for you, for yourself and for your male and female slaves, and for your hired worker and the sojourner who lives with you, and for your cattle, and for the wild animals that are in your land. All its yield shall be for food." Now he starts talking about the Jubilee. You shall count seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall give you 49 years. Then you shall sound the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month on the day of atonement. You shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land, and you shall consecrate the fiftieth year." Now, see if you've ever seen this little phrase, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land. You ever come across that little phrase? Well, if you ever go to Philadelphia, there's a bell. up in philadelphia that has this scripture verse leviticus 25 verse 10 etched on the rim on the bottom the outside of the rim of that bell and that bell is referred to as what the liberty bell and i want you to notice that it was on the day of atonement that this was to take place. It was on the day when the high priest would go into the very presence of God and sprinkle the blood upon the mercy seat. It was on that day that the priest were to blow the trumpets throughout the land and proclaim that the year of liberty had come. God describes in the rest of chapter 25 how this worked. That people who had sold themselves, who had become slaves, would be set free. That there was not a perpetual consequence for living in a fallen world, and that it was the living God who alone could deliver people. from the brokenness of sin. Turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 61. Here we have Messiah speaking. The prophet Isaiah records for us a number of places, particularly after chapter 40 in the book of Isaiah, that are what we refer to as the servant songs. And here now we read in verse 1, the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty, and it's the same Hebrew word. that we found in Leviticus chapter 25 verse 10. To proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, to grant to those who mourn in Zion to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit, that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified. And then if you'll turn with me in the New Testament to the Gospel of Luke chapter 4. Luke chapter 4, begin reading with me in verse 16. And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him, and he began to say to them, Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." Wow! Jesus, He's the one who comes to set the captives free. Jesus is indeed the Anointed One, the Word Messiah. in Hebrew literally means the anointed one. And it's the same name as in the Greek, Christ. Messiah is the Hebrew for the anointed one. And in Greek, it's Christ, the anointed one. Same name in two different languages. And what was Jesus anointed with? with the Spirit Himself. Not like the kings and the priests and the prophets in the Old Testament who had the oil of the water poured upon them as a symbol of the Spirit coming upon Him. But Messiah Himself, the Spirit descended in the form of the dove upon Him. and Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit. Now the symbol of that was given to him in his baptism with John the Baptist in Acts chapter 10 and chapter 11 makes reference to the fact that Jesus was anointed when John baptized him. And the Holy Spirit himself was poured out upon him without measure. And what was Jesus anointed to do? Prophets, priests, and kings were anointed. And the Holy Spirit, it was the symbol that God was coming upon them to empower them to do the work he had called them to do. And what was it that Jesus Christ, Messiah, came to do? What did the Spirit empower Him to do? To set the captives free. To deliver those who were in bondage. And Jesus did so, how? Well, He took the cup of wrath and He drank it. that cup that we read about in Jeremiah chapter 25. Jesus drinks our judgment. The second we believe in him, he pays our debt and he sets us free from the guilt and the power of sin. What a glorious Savior the Lord Jesus is. Well, turn with me in the book of Jeremiah again to chapter 34, and I want you to see how the people had denied the truth of this jubilee. They had denied to practice the Jubilee, and they had kept their fellow countrymen in slavery, even when they were supposed to be setting them free. And what is the preface to the Ten Commandments? I am the Lord your God, who what? brought you out of the house of slavery, out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. God had delivered his people and that was the context of God saying, now there's release, there's freedom from the horrifying effects of living in a fallen world. Well, here we have in Jeremiah chapter 34, the context, Nebuchadnezzar and his army, they have come back. It's 586 BC. He came in 607 BC and he captured the city, but he left vassal kings in charge. And now he's come back in 586. And King Zedekiah, you know what he does? He says, I think we need help. And so it would be a good time for us to turn to the living God. And we need to set the captives free. We haven't been practicing this, and this is an expression of our trust and commitment to the living God. And so let's read what they did and see how foolish the people were. Look at verse 1, the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army and all the kingdoms of the earth under his dominion and all the peoples were fighting against Jerusalem and all of its cities. Thus says the Lord the God of Israel, go and speak to Zedekiah king of Judah and say to him, thus says the Lord. Behold, I am giving this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire. You shall not escape from his hand, but shall surely be captured and delivered into his hand. You shall see the king of Babylon eye to eye, and speak with him face to face, and you shall go to Babylon. Yet hear the word of the Lord, O Zedekiah king of Judah. Thus says the Lord concerning you, You shall not die by the sword, you shall die in peace. And as spices were burned for your fathers, the former kings who were before you, so people shall burn spices for you and lament for you, saying, Alas, Lord, for I have spoken the word, declares the Lord. Then Jeremiah the prophet spoke all these words to Zedekiah king of Judah in Jerusalem when the army of the king of Babylon was fighting against Jerusalem and against all the cities of Judah that were left. Lachish and Ezekiah for these were the only fortified cities of Judah that remained. The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord after Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem to make a proclamation of Here's a word again, liberty to them, that everyone should set free his Hebrew slaves, male and female, so that no one should enslave a Jew, his brother, and they obeyed. all the officials and all the people who had entered into the covenant, that everyone would set free his slave, male or female, so that they would not be enslaved again. They obeyed and set them free. But afterward, they turned around and took back the male and female slaves that they had set free. And so here's the picture. Zedekiah says to the people, you know, we're in big trouble. Nebuchadnezzar, he's knocking at the door. We need God to help us. And so we need to repent. We need a revival. And so they set up. the stage, and at the front door of the courthouse, they had this elaborate ceremony where they said, you're free. You are at liberty. Enjoy. And let them walk through the courthouse free. And when they got to the back door of the courthouse, they said, just kidding. you're still slaves. Is that not absurd? Is that not crazy? What good is that going to do to go through that outward motion of saying we're acknowledging that God is the one who sets people free? This picture of the Christ and then to turn around and enslave these people again. Well, let's keep reading. Verse 12, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah from the Lord, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel. I myself made a covenant with your fathers when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, saying, at the end of seven years, each of you must set free the fellow Hebrew who has been sold to you and has served you six years. You must set him free from your service. But your fathers did not listen to me. or incline their ears to me. You recently repented and did what was right in my eyes by proclaiming liberty each to his neighbor. And you made a covenant before me in the house that is called by my name. But then you turned around and profaned the name when each of you took back his male and female slaves whom you had set free according to their desire. And you brought them into subjection to be your slaves. Therefore, thus says the Lord. You have not obeyed me by proclaiming a liberty, every one to his brother and to his neighbor. Behold, I proclaim to you liberty. to the sword, to pestilence, and to famine, declares the Lord. I will make you a heart to all the kingdoms of the earth. And the men who transgressed my covenant and did not keep the terms of the covenant that they made before me, I will make them like the calf that they cut into and pass between its parts." Now, you remember in the Old Testament, whenever people would make a covenant. Literally, the Hebrew word for making a covenant is the Hebrew word kara, that literally means cut. They would cut a covenant. And why would they call it cutting a covenant? Well, they would take an animal and kill it and cut the animal in two, and they would walk between the parts of that animal. That's how they would cut a covenant. And they would say, by doing so, so be it done to me as has been done to this animal if I break my promises to you in this covenant. And we see, for example, the amazing gospel of God in the book of Genesis in chapter 15 where God Himself passes between the parts of the animals that have been cut. God Himself takes on the self-maladictory oath So be it done to me as has been done to these animals if I don't fulfill all that I am promising you, Abraham." Well, Zedekiah and the people had cut the calf in two and walked between their parts. Now, let me tell you something, folks. It didn't trick God. for Zedekiah and the people to just go through that outward motion. And it doesn't trick God in our day for people to just mouth words and then turn around and live in rebellion against the living God. Our politicians can stand up and say, God bless America, but what a mockery to then turn around and be advocating the very things that are wicked and vile and perverse in the sight of Almighty God. And the same goes for churches. Churches can have signs out front that say church. But if we do not believe in the Christ of Scripture and worship the God of the Bible and stand upon the truth of God's Word, God's not being tricked. Families, we can go through the motions of saying that we are going to have a Christian home, but if we are living against the living God, God's not tricked. As individuals, we can say, oh, I love God. But if we are walking in rebellion against the living God, while we go through some of the outward motions of religion, God's not tricked. Seventy years, God said the land will keep its Sabbath. All the years that had been denied in rebellion and it was all tied to the people refusing to believe and follow the Christ. And so it is in our day. Now this thing of the Sabbath day is an amazing thing because all of those ceremonial Sabbaths pointed to Jesus himself. And even the weekly Sabbath, if you'll turn with me to Deuteronomy chapter 5, Deuteronomy chapter 5, I want you to notice that in the second giving of the Ten Commandments that the Lord added this aspect of God's redeeming work to the fourth commandment. Look at verse 12 of Deuteronomy 5. Observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days. You shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore, the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day." And so the Lord reminds us of the importance of the Sabbath. It points us to the need for rest and refreshment. We still need rest. We still need refreshment. And we see in the New Testament, in Acts chapter 20, 1 Corinthians 16, that now on the first day of every week, the day that Jesus rose from the dead, He who is our rest, He who gives us liberty, freedom from sin and all of the tyranny of the effects of sin, Jesus of Nazareth, He is the one that we begin each week celebrating. Praise God. Praise God. And so this little verse in Second Chronicles 36, it was 70 years because they refused to trust and obey the Christ. They refused to demonstrate their trust by keeping the Sabbath. I'm going to read you a quote in closing. Our forefathers who came to this country, they lived for 11 years, the Pilgrims did, in the Netherlands. 11 years. They left England, went to the Netherlands, lived there, and then they decided, you know, we can't stay here. And here's what they said, and I want you to listen to this. The English church had not been very long at Leiden before they found themselves encountered with many inconveniences. They felt that they were neither for health, nor purse, nor language well accommodated. But the concern which they most had of all was for their children. They saw that whatever banks the Dutch had against the inroads of the sea, they had not sufficient ones against a flood of manifold profaneness. They could not, with ten years' endeavor, bring their neighbors particularly to any suitable observation of the Lord's Day. without which they knew that all practical religion must wither miserably. They behold that some of their children, by the temptations of the place, were especially given in the licentious ways of many young people, drawn into dangerous paths." They said the thing that we can't stay here any longer, our children are going to be gobbled up by the world. And we know that one of the tools God uses to keep his people and grow his people is observing the Lord's day. Oh, child of God, the people of Israel languished for 70 years because they denied Jesus the Christ. You and I are living in Babylon. God calls upon us not to think and follow and live the way of the King Nebuchadnezzar's of our day. but to remember the Christ, to love the one who alone can give us liberty. Our personal salvation, liberty, blessing for our families, liberty, blessing, even in the civil sphere, it comes from only one place, the Son of God. And one of the tools that God uses to grow and keep us is every week delighting in the Lord. May God stir us up to see that Jesus is the pearl of great price and to be hungry to begin each week glorying in him who is our liberty. Let's pray. Father, thank you for the holy scriptures. Thank you, Lord, for this text. Lord, write it upon our hearts that we would see how you alone are our rest, Lord Jesus. and that we would love and adore you, and in you that we would view the first day of the week, your day, the day that you rose from the dead, the day that we see your people gathering together to worship in the New Testament, that, Lord, we would make this a priority in our own hearts and lives. That, Lord, we would gather together, Lord, to offer our praise to you, to lay ourselves at your feet, and to have you come and refresh us to know the liberty of the sons and daughters of the living God afresh at the beginning of every week. Lord, thank you for your word. Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you are our rest. Thank you for your day, the day of joy and gladness. Bless now as we continue to worship. In Jesus we pray. Amen.