I'd like you to stand for the reading of God's word as we turn again in Jeremiah. Jeremiah chapters 11 and 12 are a unit. I'm not going to read all of that if you were thinking I was. But I did bracket them together because they all work together. We're just gonna take the first 17 verses of Jeremiah chapter 11. Please give your attention to God's word. The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord saying, Hear the words of this covenant and speak to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and say to them, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, cursed is the man who does not heed the words of this covenant, which I commanded your forefathers in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt from the iron furnace saying, listen to my voice and do according to all which I command you. So you shall be my people and I will be your God. in order to confirm the oath which I swore to your forefathers to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is this day. Then I said, Amen, O Lord. The Lord said to me, Proclaim all these words of the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem, saying, Hear the words of this covenant and do them. For I solemnly warned your fathers in the day that I brought them up from the land of Egypt, even to this day, warning persistently, saying, Listen to my voice. Yet they did not obey or incline their ears. but walked each one in the stubbornness of his evil heart. Therefore I brought on them all the words of this covenant, which I commanded them to do, but they did not. Then the Lord said to me, a conspiracy has been found among the men of Judah and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem. They have turned back to the iniquities of their ancestors who refused to hear my words, and they have gone after other gods to serve them. The house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken my covenant, which I made with their father. Therefore, thus says the Lord, behold, I'm bringing disaster on them, which they will not be able to escape, though they will cry to me and I will not listen to them. Then the cities of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem will go and cry to the gods to whom they burn incense, but they surely will not save them in the time of their disaster. For your gods are as many as your cities of Judah, and as many as the streets of Jerusalem are the altars you have set up in the shameful things. altars to burn incense to the ale. Therefore do not pray for this people nor lift up a cry of prayer for them, for I will not listen when they call to me because of their disaster. What right has my beloved in my house when she has done many vile deeds? Can the sacrificial flesh take away from you your disaster so that you can rejoice? The Lord called your name a green olive tree, beautiful in fruit and form. With the noise of a great tumult, he has kindled a fire on it, and its branches are worthless. The Lord of hosts who planted you has pronounced evil against you because of the evil of the house of Israel and the house of Judah, which they have done to provoke me by offering up sacrifices to Baal. Thus far the reading of God's Word. Amen. Let us pray together. Gracious Father, I ask that you would bless our consideration of these things this evening, that it would not be a mere history lesson or the like, but that we would be brought closer to you and you to us in the ministry of the word, that we would not be a sorrow to you as our forefathers in the faith were so often a sorrow to you. Rather, we would be a joy and a delight to you and you to us. Bless us in these things, we ask in Christ's name. Amen. Please be seated. Well, in an earlier portion of Jeremiah's book, we are told that he went to the temple courtyard, temple gates, and he stood in the courtyard of the temple and he preached a sermon about the temple, which was he was trying to disabuse Judah of this ridiculous idea that had crept into their mind that as long as they had the temple, everything would be fine. The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. They seemed to think that as long as they had the temple, they were in the holy city, that they couldn't be undone. And Jeremiah sought to disabuse them of that notion. He was not particularly successful, but Nebuchadnezzar will be when he arrives. disabuse them of that notion. Well, as we come to this section, beginning in chapter 11, there is another idea of false security that was rampant amongst them, and it was, we are the covenant people. If we're the covenant people, then all must be well. And so you hear that language of the covenant running through these verses. You see it there in verse 2 and verse 3, references to this covenant. Again, in verse 6, hear the words of this covenant. Verse 8, I brought on them all the words of this covenant. And then soberly in verse 10, the house of Judah have broken my covenant which I made with their fathers. There's this question of the covenant that permeates this section. This is something like a sermon or an address that Jeremiah makes. He's told to say these things to the people. As we think about The covenant that God made with Israel, people have put mountains of study into how to understand it, how to think about it, how does it relate to other kinds of covenants and that sort of thing. A very popular way that scholars have thought about the covenant that God made with Israel is they have drawn significant parallels between the covenant that God made with Israel and what were called suzerainty, treaties or suzerain vassal treaties that were prominent in this time, late Bronze Age in Mesopotamia, Syria, all that area, where when a powerful lord, a suzerain, conquered a lesser kingdom, they became his vassal state, and he would establish a treaty with them. somewhat one-sided treaty in which the suzerain was making all the particulars of the treaty and the vassal's job was to say, yes, sir. Yeah, what you said, a great idea. Please don't kill us. That was the way those treaties work. And some have said that the covenant that God made with Israel has significant correspondence to those because it is a very uneven covenant. God is making a covenant with a people And their job is to hear and embrace. And while there is some value, I suppose, I think there is some value in seeing how those things are alike or dissimilar. I don't think it's as great as some. I think there's a much better way, a much better analogy, covenant analogy to make than between the covenant with Israel and suzerain vassal treaties. It's something much more accessible You just go back to chapter two, verse two. The Lord said this. He told Jeremiah, go and proclaim in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, thus says the Lord, I remember concerning you the devotion of your youth, the love of your betrothals. You're following after me in the wilderness through a land not sown. Hear that language? The love of your betrothals. far more accessible and I think far more useful way to think about God's covenant with Israel is as a marital covenant. It's not exactly that because obviously, you know, it's a nation and God, but it is certainly the invoked image across the scripture all the way to the New Testament between Christ and the church as bride and bridegroom. And I think that's a helpful way to understand the covenant in general, and it's a helpful way to understand this passage. Jeremiah, as he speaks to these people of the covenant, sends their minds back to its establishing. Hear the words of this covenant, verse two, and speak to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Say to them, thus says the Lord God of Israel, Cursed is the man who does not heed the words of this covenant, which I commanded your forefathers in the day I brought them out of the land of Egypt from the iron furnace, saying, listen to my voice and do according to all which I command you, so that you shall be my people and I will be your God. God had a covenant with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. That was the covenant with the forefathers. But when he brought the nation out of Israel, the covenant relationship entered into a new, a significantly new phase. And it's particularly that which Jeremiah looks back to. When I commanded your forefathers in the day, I brought them out of the land of Egypt. He sends their mind back to those times, that time and those events. And I would send your mind back to those times and those events. If you don't recall the layout of the book of Exodus, I'll just give you the simplest of summaries. The first 18 chapters of Exodus are getting out of Egypt. Through the plagues or through chapters 12 and 13, they cross the Red Sea in 14. They're into the wilderness a little bit. 15, 16, 17, 18, but they come finally, verse 18, or in chapter 18, they're at Mount Sinai, or excuse me, chapter 19, they're at Mount Sinai. They meet with God. And in chapter 20, they receive from God the Ten Commandments. Moses goes up on Mount Sinai and receives the Ten Commandments. Chapters 21, 2, and 3 of Exodus are a plethora of lesser laws that in some way relate or derive from the Ten Commandments. They are derivative laws. As God is equipping his people for how they're going to live, now that they're no longer slaves, they're going to be a nation in the land, and he gives them a whole series of laws. 19 at the mountain, chapter 20, they get the Ten Commandments, 21, two, three, they receive all these laws. And then chapter 24, after they've received all those laws, we read Moses is still interacting with God. But then in verse three of chapter 24, Moses came and recounted to the people all the words of the Lord and all the ordinances And all the people answered with one voice and said, all the words which the Lord has spoken, we will do. Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. Then he arose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain with 12 pillars for the 12 tribes of Israel. He sent young men of the sons of Israel and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as peace offerings to the Lord. Moses took half the blood and put it in basins and the other half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar. Then he took the book of the covenant. This is all the laws that he's just written down, the book of the covenant, and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, all that the Lord has spoken, we will do and we will be obedient. So Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people and said, behold, the blood of the covenant, which the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words. Then Moses went up with Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, the 70 of the elders of Israel, and they saw the God of Israel, and under his feet there appeared to be a pavement of sapphire as clear as the sky itself. Yet he did not stretch out his hand against the nobles of the sons of Israel, and they saw God, and they ate, and they drank. That's the scene that Jeremiah is sending their mind back to, when they made the covenant between God and the nation. Now, there's so much that could be said about that scene and so much that's going on. But here's the main idea I'd have you see. That scene is remarkably like a wedding. It's remarkably like a wedding. There is an announcement of public promises of commitment. Not just promises, but public promises of commitment. Vows are made. There is a ceremony that is performed. There is, you know, the 12 pillars or the 12 tribes. There's an altar. There's a ceremony that is performed. And after that ceremony is performed, there's a public announcement of the covenant relationship that has been established. Verse 8, Behold the blood of the covenant with the Lord, which the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words. They've made their covenant together. And then after they make that covenant, Israel, represented by Moses and the priests and the 70 elders, go up on the mountain before God and they have a meal in his presence. It's remarkably like a wedding in which promises are made and exchanged and a covenant relationship is announced and very often a wedding is followed by a meal. And then the rest of the book of Exodus, except for the unfortunate part about the golden calf, But beginning at chapter 25 to the end of the book of Exodus, it's about building and furnishing the marital home of the new couple, God and Israel. What is it? From chapter 25, Moses starts receiving the instructions about how to make the tabernacle and what goes in the tabernacle and all the materials of the tabernacle as this couple is establishing their marital home. Unfortunately, while Moses is getting all that worked out, The marriage begins to go off the rails as Aaron and the people down at the bottom of the mountain are making a golden cat. So it's not going to be happily ever after just yet. But that's what's going on. That's what Jeremiah is evoking in their minds. This covenant ceremony in the past, and I want you to think, you know, just think about it as a wedding. Think about weddings that we go to. What do we do? At weddings, there are promises. Forsaking all others, I thee wed. For better, for worse, richer, poorer, sickness, health, we make promises. I always like that old language, I think it's the Book of Common Prayer. With this ring, I thee wed, and with all my worldly goods, I thee endow. Which, in my case, that involved a mattress, and I think I had a spare pair of sneakers. Those were my worldly goods that I was endowing her with. But it was a well-meant sentiment. But, you know, there are promises that are being made at a wedding, and there is a sanction that is implied. We don't say it, but it's implied. What's the sanction that's implied? If you're unfaithful to me, then our covenant is broken. If you're unfaithful, that's why we're making these public promises to each other, forsaking all others. The implied sanction is that if I break that promise or you break that promise, that our covenant is broken. That sanction implied is ratified by Jesus. Jesus is asked about the grounds of divorce. And he says that if a man divorces his wife for any other reason than porneia, that is sexual immorality, and then goes and marries somebody else, then he's committing adultery because their covenant is still intact. But if there is that gross sin, then the covenant can be exited. You can divorce, you don't have to, but you can. Well, so here, as we look at what Jeremiah says of the covenant made with God and the people, there are promises. There are promises that were made. Look there, end of verse four. Listen to my voice, do according to all which I command you so that you shall be my people and I will be your God. That's a promise of relationship. In order to confirm the oath which I swore to your forefathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is this day, to which Jeremiah adds, Amen, O Lord. So there were, God made promises. He expects fidelity, do according to all which I command you, but he made promise, I will be your God, you will be my people. As it were, forsaking all others, I be wed. And he promised to endow them with a land flowing with milk and honey. Promises were being made with an expectation of reciprocity, of fidelity. There was also sanctions. Verse three, cursed is the man who does not heed the words of the covenant. Or verse seven, for I solemnly warned your fathers in the day I brought them up from the land of Egypt, even to this day, warning persistently, saying, listen to my voice. Our weddings are too decorous for us to spell out the implied sanction, but God spelled it out. I warned you, I told you, you must listen. He warned, and they disregarded, verse eight, yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but walked each one in the stubbornness of his evil heart. Therefore, I brought on them all the words of this covenant, which I commanded them to do, but they did not. So he goes on in verse 10. They turned back to the iniquities of their ancestors who refused to hear my words. They've gone after other gods to serve them. The house of Israel, the house of Judah have broken my covenant which I made with their fathers. They've broken the covenant. That's divorce, that's what that is. They've at least given the grounds of divorce. This is a scene of the broken covenant and I want us to Just reflect upon it in three ways. Think about this declaration that the covenant has been broken by God's people. I want us to think about it in three ways. First, I want us to think, as we have before, we continue to think on the point of God's sorrow. Jeremiah is the weeping prophet and he does not neglect this point of God's sorrow. Think of it this way, there are so many ways that people hurt one another. So many. From the trivial to the tragic, you know? From being a meanie to being a murderer. There's all kinds of ways that we hurt one another. That's what sinners do. But there is a unique pain that comes when we are hurt by somebody that we love and who said that they loved us. When that person hurts us, that is a peculiar kind of pain. There are a few things quite as awful as love that has turned rancid, you know, it's gone rough. And that hurts in a way like Perhaps nothing else. This is what makes divorce, and this is analogous to divorce, this scene here, this is much of what makes divorce often so ugly, so bitter, so painful, so sad. It's not just the things that are being said that are hurtful, it's who's saying them. Some of you have been victims of crime at one point or another. I had somebody break into my apartment in college really ticked me off. Just the idea of somebody strolling through your apartment saying, I'll take that, I'll take that. Just really annoying. But it, it didn't upset me because I thought, well, but they told me they loved me. It's just some jerk. Some, some thug, some hood, some whatever. I don't know who it was. I mean, when people can do crimes against you, they can beat you up or what have you. And it makes you angry and it may make you fearful and make you a number of things, but you're not hit in the heart. I thought you loved me. That's what makes divorce so awful. is that the hurtful things that are being said or done are being done by somebody that presumably, at one point, you would have said was the person you were closest to in all the worlds. One flesh, to use the biblical language. Someone to whom you were completely open and vulnerable in all those things that make marriage wonderful. That person, the person that you stood, presumably, often, you know, face-to-face in a room full of your family and friends, and pledged undying fidelity to, and now you're sitting across the table sorting out who gets the what. It's profoundly ugly and sad, and it hurts. And what we ought not to miss in this passage or many of the passages in Jeremiah is that God is not involved in this like some dispassionate bureaucrat handling a business affair. He's deeply invested in it. I've spent the better part of one day many years ago, the better part of one day sitting in a courtroom, in Charlotte in some little court. I was a witness in a case. And I was sitting in that courtroom waiting for our case to be called. And I think it was called sometime like five hours after midnight. I don't know. It just seemed like I was there all day. But it was actually fascinating in a way, because it was one of those courts where it was case after case after case before the judge. Writ disputes, restraining orders, property arguments. And you could tell. This judge has heard it all. He's heard every sob story. He's heard every bitter events. And he would, you know, state your case, state your case. He'd listen for a few minutes. He'd make a decision. Next, next. And he was not emotionally invested in any of it. In fact, I imagine that would be a tremendous liability. And I could only assume after my half day or whole day or whatever it was sitting there thinking, oh, that would be a soul destroying job just to hear that. But he, you know, you just put on the armor, next, next. He's not, he doesn't, in a sense, in the best sense, he didn't care. It wasn't his property. It wasn't his restraining order. It wasn't his child custody or whatever it was. I don't even remember what all the cases were. That's not the case with guns. He is the judge. He's also the plaintiff. He's the wounded party. He's the guy whose wife has been running around. He's not dispassionate. He's wounded. Listen to this verse. It has such interesting language. Verse 15, what right, what right has my beloved in my house when she has done many vile deeds? Can the sacrificial flesh take away from you your disaster so that you can rejoice? Did you catch how mixed that language is? You've done vile things and I'm kicking you out of the house, my beloved. My beloved? What right has my beloved in my house? It's a peculiar mix. I know a woman, or knew a woman, who told me of her own divorce proceedings years after the fact. She told me she and her husband They didn't have to go to court because they agreed on everything directly in a lawyer's office. So they settled the matter in a lawyer's office. Settled divorce that she did not want, but he did. And so they're at the lawyer's office, she said, and they're filling out all the paperwork and signing all the things. And she said, as they're doing that, he was still calling her honey. Not not sarcastically, not just habitually. That's what he called her. When he spoke to his wife, he just said, honey, honey, could you pass me that pen or what have you? It was a relic. The word was a relic of far happier days in their lives. So here, what right has my beloved in my house? Tremendously sad. Tremendously sad. Caught in that visceral, vivid image in verse 16. God had called her, his beloved called her, a green olive tree, beautiful in fruit and form. It's a poetic way to describe his beloved. A green olive tree, beautiful in fruit and form. With the noise of a great tumult, he has kindled fire on it, and its branches are worthless. That's quite a term, isn't it? You were my rose, but now I give you disease and cactus and worms. He sets the tree ablaze. God is deeply invested in this relationship. Second, very briefly, certainly seems that this matter is beyond all salvaging. It is futile. Many of us have seen marriages that were not so well, you know. We've seen, maybe we've been in, but we've seen marriages that just struggled from the beginning. Sometimes they straighten up and fly right, and sometimes they don't. This marriage is 900 years old at this point. And it started going awry on the honeymoon. Moses is up on the mountain getting the plans for the tabernacle, and they're down on the bottom of the mountain making a golden calf. And it has been like that, ups and downs, ever since. And it would seem, by this passage, that it is beyond all... I mean, what are they going to do? Go on a romantic retreat? That'll fix it. I know. You know what they need? Send them to the pastor for counseling. That'll fix it. That guy, he fixes them all. Oh, poor pastors. You show up at the end of Wreck and Ruin, and it's only the spirit of God that will revive these things. But this marriage, this marriage is beyond, it's beyond redemption. How do I know? Well, for a couple reasons. God's not listening. He's through listening. You see it right there, verse 11. Therefore, thus says the Lord, I am bringing disaster on them, which they will not be able to escape, though they will cry to me. Yet I will not listen to them. God's not listening. Jeremiah is not praying. Verse 14, he might desire to, but he's commanded not to. Therefore, do not pray for this people nor lift up a cry or a prayer for them, for I will not listen when they call to me because of their disaster. and there's no atonement. You see that in 15? Can the sacrificial flesh take away from your disaster? Plainly, the form of the question draws the answer, no. Their sacrifices are an abomination to God. This situation is futile. It is beyond redemption. There is no Hope. Which brings me to my third point of meditation. Hope. Hope. How can there be hope when there is no hope? How can you retrieve this covenant when it is irretrievable? What is the hope? The hope is a new covenant. That's the hope. They need a new covenant. and they will receive a new covenant. And we will examine that in more detail when we get to chapter 31, where Jeremiah speaks beautifully of the new covenant. But what I would have you to focus on this evening, as we think about that new covenant, before we get to the major passages about it, is that the new covenant is not covenant renewal. It's not covenant renewal. They sound similar, but it's not that. They've tried that. They've tried that more than once. Moses did that. So he makes the covenant with them, with God and the people at Mount Sinai, and then it begins to go off the rails. And then it keeps going off the rails in the wilderness. It goes off the rails when they get to the land, and the people doubt God's provision for them in the land. And so they spend the next 40 years essentially waiting for that generation to die. And then they go back to the land, and in Deuteronomy 29, they renew the covenant. They make the covenant again, the covenant's renewed. And they go into the land, but you know, that goes well for a while with Joshua, but then you get to Judges, and ugh, that's so dark. And it's just up and down and up and down and up and down. They tried covenant renewal with Moses, and they actually tried covenant renewal in Jeremiah's life, Josiah. The last good king, the king who is king when Jeremiah is called, actually initiated a tremendous covenant renewal. They renewed the covenant. They reestablished the Passover. He drove out, you know, all the other pagan religion in the land. He established a kind of righteousness across the land. And about a minute and a half after his heart stopped beating, it all fell apart because it was all from the top. and it was all surface. He was genuine. He was a man of great heart himself, but the nation was not. What they need is not more covenant renewal. They don't need more grit. Let's try it again. Let's make the promises one more time. That's not going to do. They need a new covenant. Here's a striking thing about the New Covenant. The New Covenant is the Old Covenant. It's not like it's a brand new arrangement. I will be your God, you will be my people. That's the substance of the New Covenant. When Jeremiah talks about the New Covenant, Jeremiah 31, does he say, out with the law, no more law? No, he says, same law, just now it's written on your heart. It's the Old Covenant. The New Covenant is the Old Covenant made new. But there's a particular way that I would have us think about that tonight. It's not just that the new covenant is the old covenant made new. It's the old wife. The old wife needs people. Yahweh needs a better wife. He's going to get a better wife. But it's not a new younger model. It's not a trophy wife. He's going to make the old wife. He's going to make her new. That's the promise of the gospel. That's a promise. Jesus says from the throne of heaven in Revelation 21 5, behold, I am making all things new. We are new creatures in him. That's the promise, this dark scene of the broken covenant, of the decrepit state of this ruined, wrecked marriage between God and his people. This is given to us as the backdrop of the promise of the gospel of the new covenant. As we close up, as you want to think about the beautiful promises of the new covenant, you can think of it in this simple way. Take this very bitter verse. and cast it in the light of the gospel, that verse 15. What right has my beloved in my house when she has done many vile deeds? What right does she have? She has no rights. She has trashed the covenant. But what is the promise of the gospel? those that have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, to those who have received Him, John 1, it's either verse 12 or 14, I think it's verse 12, to them He has given the right to become children of God. What is restored to us in Jesus Christ as we lay hold of Him? The rights that were forfeited are restored to us. Continue in verse 15. Can the sacrificial flesh Take away from you your disaster. Can the sacrificial flesh? No. Hebrews 6. Bulls and goats never did anything for sin. But again, John chapter 1. Behold the Lamb of God which takes away the sin. Takes away the sin of the world. What right has my beloved in my house? Can the sacrificial flesh take away your disaster? so that you can rejoice? Can we rejoice? Not under the old covenant, but in Jesus Christ. What do we celebrate this morning? The new covenant in my blood. What does he promise at that new covenant? A better meal, the wedding feast of the lamb, where there's no sorrow, no tears, no death, no disease, no more. See this bitter verse in the light of the gospel. All its poison is reversed and turned to beautiful promises to us in Jesus Christ. Amen. Let us pray together. Great and mighty God, we can say with you, we hate divorce. Some of us have been closer to that than others. But here is the great divorce, the most wicked of all divorces. the most irretrievable of situations. And yet it is retrieved in the gospel because the love of God for us will not be thwarted. You will have your bride and you will have her beautiful and we would have you set our hearts upon you, restore to your people, continue to cause to burn in the hearts of your people the joy of the union of Jesus Christ and the church. What a beautiful gift. Father, I am sure, I am sure with all the references and illustrations of broken homes that this sermon entailed, I'm sure that there are some here whose minds have spun either to their own failures or the failures of their parents or the failures of their children in this regard. I pray that you would salve those wounds with your grace, retrieve all that can be retrieved, and assure your children that there are no sins or sorrows that cannot be answered by the grace of God. Bless us in these things, we ask in Jesus' name.