Jeremiah 21:1-23:8 “The Righteous King is Coming”

1:25The people of Judah certainly could have told us that. Their best kings. Men like David and Solomon, Hezekiah and Josiah were flawed people who struggled with sin to greater and lesser degrees, who were more and less godly, who were more and less wise, who handled the challenges of government with more or less skill. And the worst ones, well, they were some of the most ungodly people ever to live. Sadly, the last four kings of Judah, Shalom, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah, were some of the bad ones.

2:16Chapter 21 opens approximately 588 BC, two years before the exile. And Zedekiah, who is king at the time, has decided not to pay any more tribute to the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar, for his part, does not like this plan. So he takes the army of Babylon, lays siege to Jerusalem, cutting off any potential of supplies or military aid getting into the city. And now it's simply a game of attrition. How long are the people and their king going to hold out before they will surrender? And if they don't surrender, well, then Babylon is just going to be a king. Going to break through the walls, kill many of them, and take everyone else captive back to Babylon. Now, the section that we're covering today, chapter 21 through the beginning of chapter 23, represents God's messages to these various four final kings of Judah. And this section is arranged theologically rather than chronologically.

3:24But what becomes clear is that these last four kings are very evil, and their sins are called out in succession in these chapters. But as we know, even the best kings, even our best leaders here in our country, have been imperfect. So, what hope do these people have? What hope do any of us have in a nation ancient or modern, in a country like Judah, or in a country like the United States? What hope does anyone have under any form of government?

4:05Well, friends, what we're going to see today in these chapters is that the righteous king we long for is coming to save us and reign forever. Let's walk through these chapters here together and look at these characteristics first of these ungodly kings. Look with me at chapter 21, verses 1 and 2 again. The word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, when King Zedekiah sent to him Pashur, the son of Malchiah and Zephaniah the priest, the son of Maasiah, saying, Inquire of the Lord for us, for Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, is making war against us. Perhaps the Lord will deal with us according to all his wonderful deeds and will make him withdraw from us.

4:53Now, what you need to remember is that about 150 years earlier, Assyria was the dominant world power. And God brought them against the northern kingdom, Israel, for their sin and idolatry in 722 BC. They conquered them and exiled many of the people. And then immediately after that, the army of Assyria began marching south to conquer the southern kingdom of Judah. But King Hezekiah, the godly king who was in power at the time, humbled himself, and he went to the prophet Isaiah, who encouraged him to stand firm and to trust in the Lord. He said that God would not allow Assyria to enter the city or even to shoot an arrow against it because God himself was going to defend the city for the sake of his great name and for the sake of his servant David, to whom he had made many promises. And so that very night, the angel of the Lord goes out and strikes down 185,000 soldiers in the Assyrian army.

6:00So, the king and the people hear and see of this miraculous deliverance, and the problem is that they took that as an unconditional promise that no matter how they lived their lives, God would always and forever defend Jerusalem and the temple. So, King Zedekiah, who is in power now, has never sought the Lord. He's never humbled himself, he's never repented of his sins or of the sins of his people. But now that he needs something, he turns to God and he says to the messengers, Perhaps God will perform another miracle, just like he did in the north. Maybe he'll send the angel of the Lord among the Babylonian army this time and kill 185,000 of them in one fell swoop.

6:53Well, friends, this is the sin of presumption. We talked about this earlier in Jeremiah chapter 7. Presuming upon the Lord. No matter how I live my life, God is going to bless me. See, so many people relate to God in that way, ignoring him, ignoring his commands, while still expecting that he is going to do good to us, that he's going to bless us no matter what. And so we might presume that God will protect us.

7:30Or give us financial provision or a job or healing. We might presume that the Lord is going to give us a spouse or a child or deliverance from our sinful choices. God can certainly do any of those things. But friends, he doesn't have to, no matter how we live our lives. If we are worshiping and obeying him, what do we want? A gold star? He's God. We owe him our worship and obedience. But the sad reality is that so many think, so many presume upon the Lord and believe that when we have completely ignored him and his commands, he is still obligated to bless us.

8:26So that is the first characteristic of ungodly leaders. Ungodly leaders are presumptuous. Let's skip down now to verses 13 and 14 of chapter 21. God says, Behold, I am against you, O inhabitant of the valley, O rock of the plain, declares the Lord. You who say, Who shall come down against us, or who shall enter our habitations? I will punish you according to the fruit of your deeds, declares the Lord. I will kindle a fire. In her forest, and it shall devour all that is around her.

9:06In these verses, God is continuing to speak to King Zedekiah and to his household. And God says that he is coming against them through the nation of Babylon, but they're not afraid. Why are they not afraid? It seems like that would strike fear into anyone's heart, to be surrounded by an enormous army. Well, it's not because they're trusting in God, it's because they're trusting in their natural defenses. You see, Jerusalem is literally a city on a hill. It was built high up, high above ground, surrounded by valleys on three sides, Kidron to the east and Hinnom to the south and the west.

9:52And so, in combat, one of the worst situations is to have to attack an enemy who has the high ground, as we all know from Star Wars Episode 3. Zedekiah and his household knew this as well. And they are trusting in the natural defenses around them. That as all of the people of the valleys flocked to the city, the high ground, and inside the walls of Jerusalem, they put their trust in those natural defenses, saying, What army can come against us? Who's going to enter our city? Who's going to enter our houses, our habitations? We're safe here.

10:32Well, friends, this is the sin of arrogance. Presumption is sinful because it assumes that God will do whatever we want. But arrogance is sinful because it assumes we don't need God at all. In this case, the king's household arrogantly trusted in the city's natural defenses, but we can display arrogance in many ways. And sometimes this comes out in what we do, like when we put our confidence in our abilities, our gifts, our training, our experience, our connections.

11:19At other times, our arrogance is displayed by what we don't do, like when we don't pray. Samuel said, Far be it from me that I should sin by failing to pray for you. We display arrogance when we don't pray because we are acting and living as though we do not need God at all. Well, Church, James tells us that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. God opposes ungodly leaders who are proud and arrogant and lead people to put their trust in anyone or anything other than him.

11:57Ungodly leaders are arrogant. Join me now in chapter 22, verse 13. Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness and his upper rooms by injustice, who makes his neighbor serve him for nothing and does not give him his wages, who says, I will build myself a great house with spacious upper rooms, who cuts out windows for it, paneling it with cedar and painting it with vermilion. Do you think you are a king because you compete in cedar? Did not your father eat and drink and do justice and righteousness? Then it was well with him. He judged the cause of the poor and needy. Then it was well. Is not this to know me, declares the Lord? But you have eyes and heart only for your dishonest gain, for shedding innocent blood, and for practicing oppression and violence.

13:13Chapter 22 starts off addressing King Zedekiah, and then King Jehoahaz or Shalom, who is only in power for three months. And then Jeremiah turns his attention to Jehoiakim, who ruled for 11 years and who was. One of the most ungodly kings that Judah ever had. What all of these ungodly kings had in common was their unjust treatment of people. And so, in these verses, 13 through 17, God is speaking through Jeremiah to King Jehoiakim. And during his reign, he was laying heavy, heavy taxes on the people because he owed money both to Egypt and to Babylon.

13:59He had to pay tribute to these foreign governments. But on top of that, he decided, in a selfish and tone-deaf move, that now was a great time for him to build a palace for himself. And so he starts building this extravagant place, a great house with spacious upper rooms and windows and cedar paneling and red vermilion paint, the works. And if that wasn't bad enough, the way he's doing it is even worse. According to verse 13, he is building this mansion on the backs of workers that he refuses to pay. He makes his neighbors serve him for nothing and does not give him his wages. It's enough to make a communist dictator blush.

14:51This was the sin of injustice. Now, you might read that and say, well, I think God has a problem with wealth. That's what he's going to do. Getting at here. But that's not what Jeremiah is saying, because in verse 15, he refers to godly King Josiah. And look what he says. Did not your father eat and drink and do justice and righteousness? In other words, Jehoiakim's father, Josiah, was rich. But he didn't get rich on the backs of the poor. Taking advantage of people, his wealth did not stop him from doing what is right, namely pursuing justice and righteousness to make sure that that prevailed in the land. Friends, one of the primary purposes of government is to ensure that the governed are treated justly.

15:47In fact, if you think about the preamble to the U.S. Constitution that some of you had to study at length in school, those are some of the first words that the nation is being created to establish justice. But ungodly leaders do not govern in a godly manner. They don't work for justice and righteousness for all people, no matter how much power or influence they have, no matter how much money they have, no matter how much they are like them or dislike them, where they're from, what they look like.

16:24According to verse 17, they govern unjustly, they go after dishonest gains. They shed innocent blood, they practice oppression and violence. Ungodly leaders are unjust. And injustice defined the reigns of the last four kings of Judah and nearly every king before them. Instead of pursuing and protecting the people and serving them well, they exploited and they used them. So let's look now at God's summary judgment of all of these kings in chapter 23, verse 1. Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture, declares the Lord. Therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who care for my people, you have scattered my flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for your evil deeds, declares the Lord.

17:35Now, when we read the word shepherds in the New Testament, it's almost always referring to pastors, to spiritual leaders. But in this case, God is referring to the kings who were called to attend to his people, whom he refers to as his flock. But instead of paying careful attention to them, instead of attending to their needs, ensuring that they had everything that they Needed to prosper and to flourish, what did they do? They destroyed and scattered the sheep. And yes, as we've seen through the book of Jeremiah, the people were sinful also, but God holds the kings especially responsible for leading them astray.

18:20Since they failed to attend to the flock, God says, Behold, I will attend to you. Believe me, that is not the kind of attention you want from God. Since they failed to attend to the flock, these sections are highlighting all of the awful curses that come upon a people that have ungodly leaders. Friends, these last four kings of Judah and most of the kings before them were presumptuous and arrogant, unjust and inattentive. They taught and they modeled a lifestyle of pride and entitlement, greed and neglect. And leadership is influence. And so what this means is that for a quarter of a century, these kings were influencing people on how to think about God, how to relate to God, how to live before God in their daily lives.

19:20Starting with Jehaz, they could have continued Josiah's heartfelt reformation of the country, but they didn't. Jehoahaz reigned for three months and then he was carried off to Egypt. Jehoiakim reigned for 11 years and then he was killed by the Babylonians. Jehoiachin reigned for three months and then he was carried off to Babylon. And then Zedekiah reigned for 11 years, never once turning to the Lord. And the last acts of his life were watching his own sons slaughtered before him, having his eyes put out, and being marched along with all of the people into a 70-year exile in Babylon.

20:06Surely the people looked at this situation and they thought back to the days of godly King Josiah some 25 years earlier, who had tried so hard to restore true worship and obedience to the country, who had sought to rid the land of idolatry and to restore everything that was meant to be in the land of Israel. Surely they thought back to those days with longing. And maybe others thought even further back to the glory days of Israel, back when King David and King Solomon were in power, and they thought to themselves, those were the days.

20:44Those were the days when we had good shepherds to lead us. But, friends, the truth is that even under the very best kings that Israel and Judah ever had, David and Solomon, Hezekiah. And Josiah, things were far from perfect. And things were far from perfect because those godly men were far from perfect. As we know, David committed adultery with Bathsheba and then had her husband, Uriah, killed in battle. He sinfully numbered the people of Israel against God's command. He married eight different women and had a harem of concubines besides that.

21:32His son Solomon took his father's sins to the next level and he fell in love with many foreign women. He ended up marrying 700 wives. I don't even know how one does that. He kept 300 concubines. He personally used the revenue of the kingdom to erect altars to false gods that he worshipped along with his wives. Hezekiah was a very godly king. He was so godly, in fact, that the author of 2 Kings says that before him or after him, there was none who sought the Lord like him, and that includes the man after God's own heart, King David. He was that godly. And yet, at times in his life, Hezekiah did not pray to the Lord and consult divine wisdom.

22:28He made an alliance with God. Egypt because he was scared. And Isaiah had to come and rebuke him, saying, You need to trust in the Lord, not in political alliances. At the end of his life, he took the Babylonian envoy and showed them all of the treasures of the land, treasures that they would come back 100 years later and take. And then Josiah, such a godly king, on par with Hezekiah. He rebuilt the temple, he rid the land of idolatry, he reinstituted the Passover, he required obedience to God's law. But just like Hezekiah before him, he failed to consult the Lord on important political matters. He rode into battle against Pharaoh Nico, king of Egypt, and he was killed on the spot.

23:19And it seemed like Judah's last, best hope died with this godly man who had been in power since he was eight years old. What a sad reality that even the very best kings were flawed, imperfect people, sinners just like you and me. Where is the hope of Israel? Where is the hope of Judah? Think about our own situation here in America. Think about how much hope and energy and hand-wringing that everyone puts into elections every four years. Years. Have any of these people been able to deliver on most or even many of their promises?

24:10After any four-year term, can we look around in our country and say, now justice and righteousness have been established and will continue forever? Certainly not. Friends, my point is that whether we are living in the sixth century in Judah or the 21st century in America, what is abundantly clear is that no king, no president, no ruler has ever proven to be all that we need or want. No ruler has ever fulfilled all of our expectations. But, friends, there is good news because God is going to raise one up for his people. Join me now in verse 5 of chapter 23.

25:02Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days, Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called. The Lord is our righteousness. Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when they shall no longer say, As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt, but as the Lord lives who brought up and led the offspring of the house of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them, then they shall dwell in their own land.

25:58Now, you might look at those verses and say, What in the world is God saying through Jeremiah? What is this about a righteous branch? Well, I want to remind you of what we heard this morning in our call to worship from Isaiah 11. Look at what Isaiah spoke 150 years earlier. There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth. And he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins.

27:08You see, because of their wickedness, God was going to cut down David's family tree. After all their sin and idolatry, just a stump would remain. And if you've ever seen a tree stump before, you know it just sits there until it rots. There are no shoots, there are no branches, there is no fruit. But, friends, this stump is different because of the grace of God and the promises that he made to David so many years before. God promised to build David a house for him and to establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

27:54And so, out of that stump that seems completely dead, God is going to bring forth a shoot, a branch that's going to come forth and bear fruit. It's not going to bear bad fruit. It's not going to bear good but inconsistent fruit like all of the kings before him. He is going to bear good fruit. In other words, a descendant is going to come on whom the Spirit of the Lord will rest. And he is not going to be presumptuous or arrogant or prideful or unjust.

28:30He will delight in the Lord and will judge the poor with perfect righteousness and equity. He will strike down all evildoers. His reign is going to be marked by unblemished faithfulness. And most importantly, this righteous branch is going to save Judah and not only Judah, but the people of Israel. He's going to gather up all of God's people from the four corners of the earth who have been scattered and exiled and bring them back to dwell securely forever.

29:05And what an incredible contrast that is to the corrupt and ungodly kings that Judah has had for years and years. What a contrast even to the best kings that Judah ever had. Who is this wonderful person who is going to come and save us all? Well, about 600 years later, after Jeremiah spoke those words, a young woman received an extraordinary visit that would change the course of human history. Look what happened. In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you. She was greatly troubled at the saying and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.

30:33When her fiancé Joseph learned that she was pregnant, he had in mind to divorce her quietly because he was a righteous man. But then look what happened. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us.

31:19Friends, what we see here in Luke and in Matthew is God keeping his promise through Jeremiah to raise up for David and for his people a Righteous branch that will be perfectly wise and just and righteous, and who will rule as king forever. He is the one who is born to save us from our sins and to gather God's people together forever, never to be scattered again because of our sin. You see, friends, the exile did not begin in 722 BC when Assyria conquered the northern kingdom.

32:00It did not begin in 597 or in 586 when Babylon conquered the southern kingdom. No, the exile began all the way back in Genesis chapter 3 when our first parents, Adam and Eve, were exiled from the garden and the presence of God because of their sin and their rebellion against him. And ever since then, we have been trying to get back to the garden. When you think about it, that's what we're all doing. We are all trying to get back to Eden, to that perfect place of love and joy and peace where there is nothing sad, nothing wrong, nothing disappointing, where there is no death or loss or mourning or any bad thing.

33:00Every commercial that you see on TV, every advertisement that you see at the movies or on the highway, every single one is offering you a pathway back to Eden, back to that place where there is nothing sad, back from the exile that we all find ourselves in. But every path that we take to try to get back to Eden, we find that it does not lead us there because we bring our problems and sins with us, and so does everyone else.

33:41We find that when we finally arrive in the Eden that we have chosen and tried to create for ourselves, that the curse got there before us. And so it does not meet or fulfill our expectations. It is already guaranteed that this latest version of Eden will disappoint us as well. But Jesus is the one who is sent to lead us out of our exile once and for all, back to Eden, except this time it is much better than Eden. You see, Eden was a beautiful place, a perfect place in many respects, where two people walked and conversed with God every day. Single day.

34:33But it also had the prospect of sin hanging over it, because there was a command, a command not to do something that could be disobeyed. And if it was disobeyed, the promise of death hung over the entire place if you transgressed that command. So consider where the righteous branch, the good shepherd, is leading us and what's going to be true about this new place. Look at what Revelation says. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people. And God himself will be with him, them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. And he who is seated on the throne said, Behold.

36:00I am making all things new. Jeremiah told his hearers that a day was coming when God would raise up a righteous branch to save them. That righteous branch was Jesus of Nazareth, who was born to live the sinless life that you and I are called to live, but have failed to live. He was born to offer himself in our place for our sins on the cross. He was born to die and to rise again from the dead on the third day, victorious over sin and death. Because through that victory, he is able to offer us not just a better life today, not just a kind of Eden, but an eternity in a perfect place where there is no prospect anymore of sin or death or any bad thing.

37:00That is what the righteous branch was raised up to do. His resurrection marked the return from exile, the exile that we brought on ourselves through our sin and disobedience. He is coming back, and he is coming back to retrieve us and take us there. Friends, when every new king took the throne in Judah, the people asked themselves, could this be the one? Could this be the one? But for hundreds and hundreds of years, it never was.

37:44There never was until the Son of God was born, not as the son of a king in a palace, but as a son of a carpenter in a stable. If you want to be saved, if you want to dwell securely, if you want a pathway back from exile, if you want a pathway back to all that we lost in Eden through our sin, then friends, look to Jesus Christ, the righteous branch, the good shepherd. He is the way back because he is the way.

38:31The righteous king that we long for is coming back to save us and to reign forever. Praise God. Let's pray. Father, we yearn for the return of Jesus, for the day that he will come back and make all things new. We are grateful for the good and godly men and women who have led kingdoms and nations, even our nation, over the years. But none of them have been able to fulfill all of our hopes and expectations because none of them are perfect.

39:49And so, Lord, we direct our eyes to you afresh this morning, remembering that we need a righteous king to make all things new and perfect forever. So, God, we say, come, Lord Jesus. Come quickly. We ask for faith. We ask for hope to be good citizens of your kingdom and good citizens of the kingdoms that we find ourselves in. On this earth until the day that you return. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.