Jeremiah 30:1-31:1 “Your Wounds I Will Heal”

0:55I don't know of a single family that hasn't had at least one kid down in the last month. Several families I know everybody's been sick. But the good news is, nearly everything going around can be treated with medicine. Even the symptoms that we have from these sicknesses can usually be managed with medicine. But that is certainly not the case with all illnesses. Some illnesses have no cure, they are terminal. And what that means is that death may come sooner or it may take many years, but with A terminal illness, death is inevitable.

1:35And that's certainly true of sin. Sin is a terminal illness. As the Apostle Paul wrote, the wages of sin is death. No matter how hard we've tried, there is no human cure for sin. Yes, we've been able to prolong life through medicine and technology, but we cannot do that forever. And that's because sin is a terminal illness. Well, friends, up to this point, nearly every chapter in the book of Jeremiah has focused on the people's sin. The people's sin that would bring just judgment in many cases, and the people's sin that would bring discipline in others. But in this last chapter that we studied, chapter 29, we got one of the rare glimpses of hope, a ray of light.

2:27The exiles were going to experience 70 years of discipline in Babylon, but God had plans to give them a future and a hope. That's what we heard last chapter. And now this morning we embark on chapters 30 through 33 over the next few weeks, which is often called the book of consolation within Jeremiah. Because it's within these chapters that the primary purpose, God's primary purpose here, is to provide comfort and hope for the people who are languishing in exile.

3:00And so today we're going to be looking at chapter 30, where sin is presented as a self-inflicted wound, a terminal illness for which there is no human cure. But amazingly, God promises to heal those wounds and the terminal illness that we have brought upon ourselves. So we're going to learn this morning that by his inexplicable grace, God saves us from the terminal disease of sin. In the first 11 verses that we just heard Nellie read, God offers hope to the people by saying that he is going to deliver them from captivity, he's going to restore their fortunes, he's going to bring them back to the promised land. In verse 11, God promises to make a full end of the nations among whom I scattered you, but he says, But of you I will not make a full end. In other words, Judah is going to be disciplined. Their discipline would be comprehensive and just, but God is not going to destroy his people. He's not going to make a full end of them.

4:13Far from it. In these first 11 verses, you have this constant refrain. You probably heard it as Nelly read. And this constant refrain that God repeats over and over again is that he is going to save his people. Look again at verse 7. He says at the end there, it is a time of distress for Jacob, yet he shall be saved out of it. Look at verse 10. For behold, God says, I will save you from far away. Look at verse 11. For I am with you to save you, declares the Lord.

4:53In sports, we refer to this thing as calling your shot. So this is the legendary Babe Ruth pointing to the fence before he hits one out of the park. It's Steph Curry shooting and then turning around and winking at a fan before the ball is even on its way down. Most recently, it's a golfer named George Bryan recently playing on the tour who said, everyone needs to be quiet for my hole in one and then hits one.

5:24It's absurd. Even as a pro athlete, calling your shot is crazy. There's all these videos on the internet of people pointing to the fence and then striking out. Basketball players calling cash and then airballing. Golfers I have played with saying, watch my hole in one and then dribbling it six feet into the water in front of them. I have seen all of these things. So consider what God is doing here. The people have been conquered by this foreign army and marched off into captivity. Their capital city and their temple have been destroyed and burned to the ground.

6:00The king of Judah had his sons slaughtered in front of him and then had his eyes put out, and yet God calls his shot here. In a culture that was almost exclusively oral, he tells Jeremiah in verse 2: Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, write in a book all the words that I've spoken to you. Write it down. God says he's going to break the yoke of Babylon, the world's most dominant superpower. He's going to burst their bonds, and Israel is going to return home to quiet and ease. They're going to serve him, and they're going to serve David their king, whom he's going to raise up for them.

6:43Friends, God commands Jeremiah to write all of that down so that for seven decades in captivity, they could read and reread all of those promises that he made. And at the end of those seven decades, the exiles would come home and they would be absolutely stunned as Cyrus, the Persian king, who is named 200 years earlier by the prophet Isaiah, sets all of them free after conquering Babylon and sends them back home to rebuild their land and their temple.

7:16All of that is written down so that they would know that God is a God who keeps his promises. Friends, the predicament of the exiles is a picture of the predicament that every one of us finds ourselves in. The captivity in Babylon is a picture of our own captivity to sin. Their inability to save themselves from their physical captivity is a picture of our own inability to save ourselves from the captivity of our sin. This is exactly how the Bible presents it. Take a look at John chapter 8 and what Jesus says. Jesus answered them, Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.

8:03Look what Paul wrote in Romans 6. Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? Now, you may not be accustomed to thinking of yourself as a slave to sin. That language of slavery to sin and our need for God to save us may sound extreme to you if you've not read the Bible before, if you're not familiar with what God says.

8:36But that is exactly how God talks about it in his word. He says that from the day that we are born until the day that we are born again, we are slaves to sin, incapable of saving ourselves from that terminal illness. And that's why God repeats the phrase over and over again: I will save you. I will save you. There are so many. Many verses in Scripture that say we cannot save ourselves, we must be saved by God.

9:06And that is what the next section really drives home: that we are incapable of saving ourselves because sin is a terminal disease with no human cure. Let's pick up together in verse 12. For thus says the Lord: Your hurt is incurable, and your wound is grievous. There is none to uphold your cause, no medicine for your wound, no healing for you. All your lovers have forgotten you, they care nothing for you. For I have dealt you the blow of an enemy, the punishment of a merciless foe, because your guilt is great, because your sins are flagrant.

9:54Why do you cry out over your hurt? Your pain is incurable because your guilt is great, because your sins are flagrant. I have done these things to you. The images that are used in this passage are striking. They lodge themselves in our hearts and in our minds. The consequences of sin, according to this passage, are incurable hurt, a grievous wound, and there is no medicine for this wound. Is no healing for it. And worst of all, it is a self-inflicted wound. It's bad enough to be hurt. It's far worse when you do it to yourself.

10:44What did we do to ourselves that led to this incurable wound? Well, God says that we have sinned against him and that we did so flagrantly. I don't know if you watch basketball, like the team that beat number six Tennessee last night. But there's two kinds of fouls in basketball. There's common fouls and there's flagrant fouls. A common foul happens when, in the course of making a routine play on the ball, you accidentally run into or hit the other player.

11:18But a flagrant foul is not like that. A flagrant foul is assigned when the referees determined that no legitimate play was made on the ball. You just tried to hit your opponent as hard as you could. And here in this passage, that's what God is saying about Judah's sins. They're flagrant. They were done on purpose. And as a result, their guilt is great. They are self-inflicted wounds, and so they are feeling the pain, and that pain is incurable.

11:52Now, I want you to think about this, the way that it's been presented to us in this passage. God's people have committed these flagrant sins. They have flaunted their repentance. Rebellion and disobedience, they have dared God to do something about it. As a result, their guilt is great. And as we all understand from our system of law and our own understanding of moral rightness, what do the guilty deserve? Punishment. They don't deserve mercy from the judge or the jury. They deserve punishment. They don't deserve grace. They deserve punishment. So, with that in mind, the people have flagrantly sinned against God. Their guilt is great. I want you to look at what God says in verse 16.

12:43Therefore, all who devour you shall be devoured, and all your foes, every one of them, shall go into captivity. Those who plunder you shall be plundered, and all who prey on you, I will make a prey. For I will restore health to you, and your wounds I will heal, declares the Lord. Because they have called you an outcast. It is Zion for whom no one cares. Now, this just does not make sense. God's people are guilty of flagrant sin. They are dying from self-inflicted wounds and a terminal disease that they got from licking the hand of God. Of the culture around them.

13:34And then verse 16 begins: therefore, therefore, what? What would you expect to find next? Therefore, I am going to punish you. Because your guilt is great, you're going to bear the punishment that you deserve. But no, God says, therefore, I'm going to wipe out your enemies. I'm going to restore your health. I am going to heal your wounds. And no explanation is offered. God does not say he's going to do these things because they deserve another chance or because he peered into their hearts and saw that, in fact, there was some goodness there. None of that would be true, but he doesn't offer that explanation. He doesn't offer any explanation at all.

14:22God just says, these are the facts about you. You flagrantly sinned against me. All the other nations that you've turned to, all your other lovers, they have forgotten you. They don't care about you at all. There is no cure for your illness. You have this self-inflicted wound that you cannot heal, a disease you cannot cure. You cannot save yourself. Therefore, I will save you. Therefore, I'll restore your health. Therefore, I will heal your wounds because I care about you.

15:00I am the only one that cares about you. Friends, this is the grace of God. It's what we might call the inexplicable grace of God. Not only because there's no explanation given, but because there is no explanation for it. There never has been. Look on the screen at Exodus 33. Moses said to God, Please show me your glory. And God said, I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you my name, the Lord. And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.

15:49What is the explanation given here? There is none. God simply says that he will be gracious and merciful to whom he chooses. Now one might say to God, that's not fair. Oh, I don't think we want fair. Fair means that the guilty are punished. And as we know from God's word and as we know from our own consciences, every one of us is guilty. So we do not want fair. But God will be gracious to whom he will be gracious and he will show mercy to whom he will show mercy.

16:31One might reply, but then God needs to be gracious to everybody. How can he only be gracious to some? But I don't think that we would say that God has to be gracious to everyone, does he? Look what Paul writes in Romans 4. Now, to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due. And to the one who does not work, but believes in him, who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. Just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.

17:25You see, if you deserve something, it is your wages, it's what you've earned. It's not a gift. But what does Scripture say? The wages of sin is death. Death is the wages that we have earned. God does not have to save anyone, or grace is not grace. This is why we may refer to God's grace as inexplicable, because he doesn't explain it to us and because there is no explanation for it. He just pours it. Out on undeserving sinners like the people of Judah. This passage of scripture gives us insight into that. According to Jeremiah, our sin has infected us with an incurable disease, a terminal illness. And because the wages of sin is death, our bodies are subject to decay. Our bodies are subject to breakdown and ultimately death. It is part of sin and part of the curse, part of returning to the dust from which God made our first father, Adam.

18:36So when Jesus begins his ministry, he goes around healing all manner of diseases. He makes the mute speak, and the deaf hear, and the blind to see. All he does in his life and ministry with these healings is to point to a greater reality that he has come to heal our terminal disease, our incurable illness, sin. So in Mark chapter 2, these four men have a friend who's paralyzed, and they want to get him to Jesus so he can be healed, but the house is too full. So they climb up on the roof and they open up a hole in it, and I'm sure the homeowner was thrilled. They let him down through the hole in the roof in front of Jesus. And when he lands in front of Jesus, Jesus says to him, Son, your sins are forgiven.

19:32And the Pharisees, the scribes, the religious leaders who are standing around, they say, this man is blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone? Look what happens next. And immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they thus questioned within themselves, said to them, Why do you question these things in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven, or to say, rise, take up your bed, and walk, but that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. He said to the paralytic, I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home. And he rose and immediately picked up his bed and went out before them all, so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, We never saw anything like this.

20:22Church, Jesus healed people physically to prove that he had the authority to heal them spiritually. One day, all who trust in Jesus will never get sick again. We will never deal with the aches and pains of our bodies. We will never get cancer. We will never deal with depression. Physical and mental and emotional health will be restored fully and completely for all of eternity. And that is true because Jesus has already dealt with the root cause of these problems, which is sin and the curse. By dying in our place, he accepted the wages of our sin and he paid the ransom for it as well. By rising from the dead, he defeated sin and death once and for all.

21:14This morning, perhaps for the first time, you might be realizing that you have this self-inflicted wound, this incurable disease. Self-help resources and religion are putting a band-aid on a terminal illness. What you need is a Savior. And Jesus said, I have come to seek and to save the lost. I want you to consider the words of this classic hymn: Come, ye sinners, poor and needy, weak and wounded, sick and sore. Jesus ready stands to save you, full of pity, love, and power. Come, ye weary, heavy laden, lost and ruined by the fall.

22:10If you tarry till you're better, you will never come at all. So don't tarry. Do not wait. Men and women who have been in church your entire life, come to Jesus. College students who are weak and weary, you've realized that you are lost and ruined by the fall, come to Jesus. He stands ready to save you. Boys and girls, do not say to yourself, I will wait until I'm an adult like my mom and dad. Come to Jesus today. If you wait until you are better, you will never come at all because you will never be good enough.

23:05Jesus came for you as you are today. In Jeremiah's day, Jesus' coming was still a long ways off, about 600 years, in fact. But like so many places in Scripture, there are clues here and promises here that are made about his coming. So let's pick up now in verse 18. Thus says the Lord, Behold, I will restore the fortunes of the tents of Jacob and have compassion on his dwellings. The city shall be rebuilt on its mound, and the palace shall stand where it used to be. Out of them shall come songs of thanksgiving and the voices of those who celebrate. I will multiply them and they shall not be few. I will make them honored and they shall not be small. Their children shall be as they were of old, and their congregation shall be shall be shown. Shall be established before me, and I will punish all who oppress them. Their prince shall be one of themselves, their ruler shall come out from their midst. I will make him draw near, and he shall approach me. For who would dare of himself to approach me, declares the Lord. And you shall be my people, and I will be your God. Behold, the storm of the Lord, wrath has gone forth a whirling tempest. It will burst upon the head of the wicked. The fierce anger of the Lord will not turn back until he has executed and accomplished the intentions of his mind. In the latter days, you will understand this. At that time, declares the Lord, I will be the God of the clans of Israel, and they shall be my people.

24:50As God promised back in chapter 29, the future is very bright. God is going to restore their fortunes. The palace, the temple, everything is going to be rebuilt. Jerusalem is going to be rebuilt. The people are going to multiply to a great number, and a new ruler, an Israelite, not a foreigner, is going to be raised up to rule among them. But as we've seen so many times, that is in the future. That is still 70 years away. What's described as in store for them right now is what we find in verses 23 and 24. It is the storm of the Lord, his wrath bursting upon the head of the wicked, including his own people. His anger would not turn back until it accomplished all the intentions of his heart. Because, friends, God is both just and merciful, he is holy and he is gracious.

25:53I love that line at the end of verse 24. Look at that again. He says, In the latter days, you will understand this. As they say, hindsight is 20-20. In exile, they could read Jeremiah's book and they could say to themselves, Why? Why were we so foolish? Why were our hearts so hard? We brought all of this on ourselves through our flagrant sin and disobedience. And 70 years later, when they returned to the promised land, they could read Jeremiah's book and say, I cannot believe how gracious God has been to us. I cannot believe that He kept all of His promises. He really is our God, and we really are His people.

26:44But, friends, how could that be? How could these people be God's people? How could they ever hope to approach such a holy and righteous God? Look again at verse 21. Their prince shall be one of themselves. Their ruler shall come out from their midst. I will make him draw near, and he shall approach me. For who would dare of himself to approach me? declares the Lord. A long time before this, a man named Saul was Israel's first king. And he was about to lead the people into a battle against the Philistines. And Samuel, the priest and the prophet, was coming to the battlefield to offer a sacrifice. But for reasons that aren't explained, Samuel's running late. Saul panics, and he decides that he's going to offer the offering himself.

27:46He says, I will approach God. And as a result, God tears the kingdom out of his hand forever. Many years later, there's a man named Uzziah on the throne. And as he became strong and great, as the kingdom grew, he got proud. And one day he burst into the temple. He pushed the priest aside and he said, I'm going to offer the sacrifice today. And the priest stepped in to try to stop him, but he refused. And so the Lord struck him with leprosy, meaning that he could never again enter the temple for the rest of his life.

28:26That's why what we find in verse 21 is so remarkable. God is going to raise up a ruler, according to verse 8, one from David's line. And God says, I will make this king draw near. He will approach me, for who would dare of himself to approach me? Indeed, what king would make that mistake knowing what happened to Saul and to Uzziah? God is promising something they didn't have a category for: a king who was able to perform the function of a priest, who could approach God on behalf of the people.

29:05According to Leviticus 16, only the high priest could do that, and only one time a year. On the day of atonement, he would shed the blood of a spotless lamb, and then he would pull back the biggest, heaviest curtain you could imagine, and he would go from the holy place into the most holy place. And in that room, in the presence of God, he would shed the blood of a spotless lamb, and he would make atonement for the sins of the nation. If anybody else, including the king, dared to come into that room, he would be struck dead on the spot.

29:45So Jesus comes, and he is a descendant of David. And throughout his ministry, he claims to be the king of Israel. In fact, when he stood before Pilate, Pilate examined him, and then Pilate concluded, So you are a king then? He pulls them out to the people and he presents them to the nation and he says, Here is your king. Shall I crucify your king? And the people say, We have no king but Caesar. So Pilate crucifies Jesus and above his head, he puts a sign in three languages that says, This is the king of the Jews.

30:25Jesus hung on the cross for hours, and that afternoon, I want you to look at what Matthew records. And behold, when he died, and behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. In his life, Jesus claimed to be the king of Israel. In his death, the curtain that separated the holy place from the most holy place, where the high priest would access the presence of God once a year, that curtain was torn in two forever. Jesus is the king, the promised son of David, and he is also the great high priest who opened the curtain in order to draw near and approach God.

31:10Look at what Hebrews 9 says. But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent, not made with hands, that is, not of this creation, he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of Jesus. Of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. Brothers and sisters, this is the good news of the gospel. The good news that is foreshadowed here in Jeremiah chapter 30, pointing forward to a son of David who is not only a perfect king, but who is also a perfect high priest. And because he is perfect, he alone can draw near and approach God. Through him, we too can draw near and approach God, not out of faithless fear like King Saul, not out of pride like King Uzziah, but in faith-filled humility because of our confidence in our great high priest, Jesus.

32:23Look what Hebrews 4 says. Since then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God. Let us hold fast our confession, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then, with confidence, draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

33:00If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, you have boldness and access with confidence to the very throne of God through Jesus, who is your king and your high priest. No failure, no thing that you ever do, no thing that you ever leave undone will separate you from God again. You have boldness and access with confidence to God. You are one of his people. He is your God through Christ, through faith in him. This morning, if you have not put your faith in Christ, you must understand that you are not yet a part of the people of God. He is not yet your God because Jesus says that nobody can come to God the Father except through him.

33:50You have a grievous wound, an incurable disease, because of your flagrant sin against God. You stand guilty before him and you cannot save yourself. But Jesus will save you. He says, anyone who comes to me, I will never cast out. Not anyone who cleans himself up enough. Not anyone who does more good things than bad things. No, he says, anyone who comes to me, I will never cast out. So, friends, come. Come to Jesus this morning by faith in his life. Death and resurrection on your behalf because by his inexplicable grace God saves us from the terminal disease of sin. Let's pray, Father, as clearly as any portion of Scripture, this passage really helps us to understand what we've done to ourselves.

35:12We have a self-inflicted wound, a terminal disease. We cannot heal ourselves, and we know it. Because many of us looked for healing in so many different places already. But God, you tell us in this passage that you will heal us. You will restore our health. You will save us. So I pray for everyone who's already come to Christ in faith that we would remember this morning that we have boldness and access with confidence to you. Not because we're now better people than we used to be, but because we have a great high priest.

36:00Who was tempted in every way, but was without sin. And he intercedes for us. I pray for every person here who has not yet put their faith in Christ. God, would you draw them to yourself this morning? I pray in a few weeks we would have many baptisms to celebrate because you have drawn so many to faith in Christ. And God, we pray that we would be those who know the cure, who then go out and point people to the great physician, Jesus Christ, that they too might find the healing that they long for.

36:40In 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.