Jeremiah 50:1-51:64 "Jesus, the Good Shepherd We Need"

1:06But many Christians, especially in our part of the world, don't have any experience with sheep, and so the metaphor is often misunderstood. Philip Keller, a Christian who worked as a shepherd in British Columbia, wrote a book called A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23 to help believers better understand this metaphor. According to Kelly, Keller, sheep are among the most time-consuming and labor-intensive animals to care for. They're easily frightened. They're often targeted by predators. They're subject to a variety of parasites and diseases. They get cast or cast down regularly, meaning that because they're top-heavy, they often tip over onto their backs and they can't roll back over and get up.

2:00For sheep to thrive, they have to have a good shepherd. So, listen to how Philip Keller describes this good shepherd in his book. He writes: From early dawn until late at night, this utterly selfless shepherd is alert to the welfare of his flock. For the diligent sheepman rises early and goes out first thing every morning, without fail, to look over his flock. It is the initial intimate contact of the day. With a practiced, searching, sympathetic eye, he examines the sheep to see that they are fit and content and able to be on their feet.

2:38In an instant, he can tell if they have been molested during the night, whether any are ill or if there are some which require special attention. Repeatedly throughout the day, he casts his eye over the flock to make sure that all is well. Not even at night is he oblivious to their needs. He sleeps, as it were, with one eye and both ears open. Ready at the least sign of trouble to leap up and protect his own.

3:07Sheep need that kind of shepherd. And friends, we need that kind of shepherd as well. That point is brought out very clearly in the chapters we're covering today, Jeremiah 50 and 51. These two chapters focus on the judgment God is bringing upon Babylon for their pride, their idolatry, and specifically for their treatment of God's people, the nation of Israel. Because these chapters have 110 verses in them, we're going to focus on verses 17 through 20 of chapter 50, where we're going to see that the good shepherd defeats our enemies, restores our fortunes, and pardons our iniquities.

3:58It will become clear that sheep like us need a shepherd like Jesus. Throughout chapter 50, God inspires Jeremiah to use this imagery that we've been talking about of sheep and shepherds and pastures. I want you to look back at verse 6 of chapter 50. God says through Jeremiah, My people have been lost sheep. Their shepherds have led them astray, turning them away on the Mountains. From mountain to hill they have gone. They have forgotten their fold.

4:35All who found them have devoured them. And their enemies have said, We are not guilty, for they have sinned against the Lord, their habitation of righteousness, the Lord, the hope of their fathers. Through Jeremiah, God laments that people, His people, have been lost sheep, led astray by wicked shepherds. That is, the religious and political leaders who led them into idolatry and sin of all kind by their own words and actions. The people of Israel went from mountain to hill. That's a reference to all of the worship that they offered to those false gods on the high places, on those altars they built on the mountains and the hills.

5:20They forgot their fold. They wandered from the Lord. And as a result, all who found them devoured them. So now look again at verse 17. Israel is a hunted sheep driven away by lions. First, the king of Assyria devoured him, and now at last, Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, has gnawed his bones. That's a powerful picture. And it accurately reflects the last 150 years of Israel's history. First, the King of Assyria devoured him. After centuries of sin and idolatry, the nation of Assyria came and they conquered the ten northern tribes of Israel. Almost all of the military age men were put to death.

6:16They then intermarried with those people's wives and children, effectively wiping out the ten northern tribes forever. First, the king of Assyria devoured him. And then Jeremiah adds, and now at last, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, has gnawed his bones. A little over 100 years after Assyria wiped out the northern tribes, the nation of Babylon came and defeated Assyria and then Egypt and then the southern kingdom of Israel, the two southern tribes. That's what Jeremiah has been preaching about during this entire book.

6:54He said, Repent, turn from your sin, turn from your idolatry, or this is going to happen. Babylon is going to come. But, friends, as we know from our study of the book, the people refused to repent. And so, after being devoured by Assyria, the rest of Israel had their bones gnawed by Babylon. It was grisly. For over a year, the army of Babylon surrounded Jerusalem and starved the people to death. When everyone in the city was so weak and sick that they could barely fight, they broke through the walls and they killed nearly everyone.

7:39All of the survivors, for the most part, were marched north to Babylon. That's why this imagery is so fitting and so powerful. Israel is a hunted sheep driven away by lions, who has been devoured and had his bones gnawed by Israel, by Assyria, and by Babylon. But when you think about it, that's really the story of the whole Bible, isn't it? I mean, that's our story. God's people have always been sheep hunted by a lion. Look at 1 Peter 5:8.

8:23Peter says, Be sober-minded, be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, round like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Back in Genesis chapter 3, the devil, known also as Satan, shows up in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve, our first parents, are enjoying their marriage. They're enjoying the wonderful garden that God created for them. They're enjoying relationships with one another, unencumbered by sin. They walked and talked with them. God, with God Himself. But Satan tempted them to rebel against God like He did long before Adam and Eve existed. They believed Satan's lies, and as a result of their sin, they were driven away from God and from the garden.

9:21Now you'd think that maybe the devil would leave us alone after that, but he didn't. He comes for Job and then for David and then for Joshua the high priest and for Judas. And one way or another, he comes for all of us. Because Satan isn't satisfied with merely tempting us to sin. He's not satisfied with driving us out of the garden. He's not satisfied with setting us on an irreversible trajectory toward death. He is not satisfied with that because every one of us bears the image of God. And Satan hates God.

10:10So he won't stop until he's devoured us completely and gnawed our bones in an attempt to erase the image of God from us. Friends, if you've lived long enough on this earth, you know what it is to be hunted and driven. Away from God by the devil, our adversary who prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. For some of us, he's devoured us and gnawed our bones through addiction to alcohol or drugs or pornography, through a series of intimate partners who used us and then discarded us after the initial excitement wore off, through companies and career paths that promised us wealth and fulfillment and influence, but only left us lonely and disillusioned, wondering what happened to our relationships with other people and with God.

11:26Others of us have been devoured and gnawed to the bone through jealousy, anger, covetousness, pride, resentment, bitterness, things that are not immediately obvious to other people or even to ourselves, but are just as destructive as those more obvious and external sins. And of course, there are a growing number of people, certainly more than a few here today. Who have been devoured and gnawed to the bone through depression and anxiety and suicidal thoughts, which the devil loves to encourage in an attempt to destroy those made in the image of God.

12:27Friends, we need a good shepherd to protect us and rescue us and help us in our times of need. And the Lord Himself is that good shepherd. We see in verse 18, if you look there again, God promises to take out the lion that hunted and drove his sheep away. Through Cyrus and the Persian Empire, he would defeat Babylon and send the Israelites home after 70 years of exile, just as he promised through Jeremiah and Isaiah.

13:01The defeat of Babylon and Israel's return from exile, though, is just a picture of the greater spiritual reality that God would take out Satan, the lion who has hunted us and driven us away from his presence our entire lives. Back in Genesis 3, right after Adam and Eve fell for Satan's temptation, God makes a promise. He says that one day Eve's offspring would rise. Up and crush Satan's head, the prowling lion who has been looking to devour us our entire lives. Friends, Jesus is that offspring, and he fulfilled that promise through his life and death and resurrection.

13:48Look on the screen at Hebrews 2. Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who, through fear of death, were subject to lifelong slavery. You see, Israel was powerless against Assyria and Babylon, who hunted them down and devoured them. And in the same way, we are powerless against our ancient adversary, the devil, who has been hunting us down to devour us our entire lives.

14:38But thanks be to God. He kept his promise and raised up Eve's offspring to defeat death and the one who has power over death, the devil. Friends, Jesus is the good shepherd who defeats our enemies. Let's look now at verse 19, where we'll see that Jesus is. The good shepherd who restores our fortunes. Verse 19 says, I will restore Israel to his pasture, and he shall feed on Carmel and in Bashan, and his desire shall be satisfied on the hills of Ephraim and in Gilead.

15:24Now, before God's people entered the promised land, Moses described how God would bless them there. He said it was a land flowing with milk and honey, filled with cisterns that they didn't dig, and vineyards that they didn't plant. They didn't deserve these blessings. In fact, in Deuteronomy chapter 8, God goes out of his way to remind them that it's not because they were righteous that he was giving them these blessings. He said, No, you're not a righteous people. It is because the nations who live in the promised land are so wicked that I'm going to give this to you as a gracious gift.

16:03But he also warned them what would happen if they turned away from him. Take a look on the screen at Deuteronomy 28. Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things, therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness, and lacking everything. And he will put a yoke of iron on your neck until he has destroyed you. The Lord will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, swooping down like the eagle. A nation whose language you do not understand. A hard-faced nation who shall not respect the old or show mercy to the young. It shall eat the offspring of your cattle and the fruit of your ground until you are destroyed. It also shall not leave you grain, wine, or oil, the increase of your herds, or the young of your flock, until they have caused you to perish.

17:09Now we know from our study in Jeremiah, this is exactly what happened. After hundreds of years of sin and idolatry, God brought this judgment on his people in the form of Assyria and then Babylon. God would never restore the fortunes of the ten northern tribes. Judgment is what they deserved, and judgment is what they got. But look again at verse 19. God says, I will restore Israel to his pasture. I will restore Israel to his pasture. Unbelievable. This echoes the earlier promises that he made in Jeremiah 23. Look on the screen.

17:56Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries. Where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing, declares the Lord. Brothers and sisters, this is the grace of God on display. The people of Israel, every one of them, deserved justice.

18:29Justice is getting what you deserve, and justice is what they got at the hands of Assyria and Babylon. Mercy is not getting what you deserve. Mercy would mean that God chose not to allow his people to suffer the consequences of their sin any longer. But grace is different. Grace is getting what you don't deserve. And that is what God promises here in verse 19. He promises to restore Israel to his pasture, to bring them back into the promised land and restore their fortunes.

19:13He says here in verse 19 that in the same places, the mountains and the hills, where they offered up those sacrifices to those false gods in Ephraim and Bashon and Carmel, all of these places that they offered these sacrifices, They would eat and be satisfied. Instead of being eaten, instead of being devoured and having their bones gnawed by their enemies, their desire would be filled. They would eat to their heart's content in this land flowing with milk and honey.

19:52That is getting what you don't deserve. That is amazing grace. Once again, we see how the story of Israel is a picture of our own story. God placed our first parents in the Garden of Eden, the original land flowing with milk and honey, and He promised blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience. Like Israel, centuries later, Adam and Eve sinned against God and were driven out of the land flowing with milk and honey. They lost everything.

20:32No longer did they walk and talk with God face to face as friends. No longer did they enjoy relationships unencumbered by sin. No longer did they enjoy working the ground. No, because of their sin, they were estranged from God. They were estranged from each other, and work became a difficult, sweaty Endeavor. Bringing life into this world was now painful. The ground now produced thorns and thistles. Relationships were marked by shame and mistrust and power struggles. That is our exact experience, isn't it?

21:25Intuitively, we know that God exists. There is evidence for His existence all around us in this wonderful world that He has made. But we don't know how to relate to Him. We don't even know if we can relate to Him. We want good relationships with others in our friendships, in our families, in our church, in our community. But our sinful desires and impure motives ruin everything. We make a mess out of all of those good relationships.

22:05We believe that we have been placed here for a purpose, to work, to use our gifts and talents, to bring value to this world. But work is never what we want it to be. We toil and we sweat and we give our very best efforts, and it's never enough. Sometimes for our bosses, sometimes for our clients. Sometimes for us, our work is never enough. And, friends, what we see in the Bible is that every one of us is really longing for Eden, longing to find a way back to the garden where we can once again walk and talk with God face to face, where we can live in wonderful relationships with one another, where we can do meaningful, creative work in this world that He has placed us in as image-bearers of our creative God.

23:05Do you feel that longing? I certainly do. And so did Israel. The hunted sheep driven away by lions to exile in Babylon. And so imagine how it felt to hear the words of verse 19: I will restore Israel to his pasture. His desire shall be satisfied. That's what God did. 70 years after the people went into exile, God brought them back to the promised land. He restored Israel to his pasture just as he promised. But, brothers and sisters, we have an even greater promise of restoration from our good shepherd, Jesus Christ, who promised to. Go and prepare a place for us in his father's house and return to take us to be with him where he is forever. Look at the description of this place in Revelation 22.

24:15Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. Also on either side of the river, the tree of life with its 12 kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him.

24:50In the new heavens and earth, we will dwell with God, walking and talking with him face to face, just as we were created to do. Enjoying a garden with a tree in the midst of it, not with a curse placed upon it, but with leaves that are for the healing of every one of us, for the nations. Relationships are restored, tears are wiped away, there is no more curse to make work hard and sweaty and dreadful. God is making all things new and the fortunes that we lost in the Garden of Eden. Are replaced with something even better.

25:34Thanks to our Good Shepherd Jesus, what we lost in the garden, we can never lose again. The Good Shepherd restores our fortunes. Let's look now at verse 20, where we'll see that the Good Shepherd pardons our iniquities. In those days and in that time, declares the Lord, iniquity shall be sought in Israel, and there shall be none, and sin in Judah, and none shall be found, for I will pardon those whom I leave as a remnant.

26:19After God restores the fortunes of Israel and brings them back to the promised land, as he said that he would, things were different. The idolatry that was formerly practiced by the religious leaders and the political leaders and all of the people, you just don't see that or hear that anymore in Scripture. That stops happening after they return. But it could not be said that no iniquity could be found among the people in the land. I mean, after they came back, they rebuilt the temple, they rebuilt the wall, they renewed their covenant with the Lord, and they promised. Promised to obey his law. All of that is true, but they also went right back into many of the same sins that got them exiled in the first place.

27:12I want you to look at Nehemiah 13. This is about 75 to 100 years after they came back from exile. Look at what Nehemiah sees and does. In those days, I saw in Judah people treading wine presses on the Sabbath and bringing in heaps of grain and loading them on donkeys, and also wine, grapes, figs, and all kinds of loads, which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day. And I warned them on the day when they sold food. Tyrians also, who lived in the city, brought in fish and all kinds of goods and sold them on the Sabbath to the people of Judah in Jerusalem itself. Then I confronted the nobles of Judah and said to them, What is this evil thing that you are doing, profaning the Sabbath day? Did not your fathers act in this way? And did not our God bring all this disaster on us and on this city? Now you are bringing more wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath.

28:17Nehemiah is appalled. The people are committing the same sins that got them exiled in the first place. He's like, what are you doing? Do y'all want to go? Back to Babylon? Why are you doing these things? I love Nehemiah. After Jesus, he is my favorite person in the Bible. I love his passion for God, his courage, his zeal for God's law. I like how sometimes he gets mad and beats people and pulls out their hair. I have not done that. I don't think that's a biblical pastoral strategy, but it's there. It's in there.

29:06But here's the thing: good of a leader as Nehemiah was, passionate as he was, he could not change people's hearts. The law couldn't change people's hearts. Renewed promises couldn't change people's hearts. And that is why God had to make the promise that he made back in Jeremiah chapter 31. Look on the screen. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. My covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will. Will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sins no more.

30:25How can God make these promises? How can He promise to forgive our sins and remember them no more? To use the language in our text today, how can He promise to pardon our sins? Throughout the Bible, God reveals Himself to be a perfect righteous judge who will by no means clear the guilty. After all, that's what it means to be a righteous judge. You don't let guilty people go free. Not if you're a righteous judge. Israel was guilty. As we've seen over and over in Jeremiah, they sinned against God. They sinned against each other. We have done the very same things. We are just as guilty as Israel.

31:12So since God is a perfect righteous judge who will by no means clear the guilty, how can God promise to forgive our sins and remember them no more? How can he promise to pardon our iniquities? Look at John chapter 10. Jesus says, I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and my own know me, just as the Father knows me, and I know the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason, the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.

32:21Friends, Jesus, the Good Shepherd, knows his sheep, and his sheep know him. Jesus loves his sheep. He came to lay down his life for his sheep. And God the Father gave him authority to take up his life again, to defeat death, the chief consequence of our sin. The reason that God can promise to forgive our iniquity, to remember our sins no more, to pardon them, is because his Son Jesus, the good shepherd, laid down his life. His life for us.

33:04God put all of our sin onto him, the good and faithful shepherd who never once sinned, never once did anything other than obey his father perfectly. God laid on him the iniquity of us all. That is how God can forgive us and remember our sins no more. That is how God can pardon us. The President of the United States has the authority to pardon citizens convicted of federal crimes. What that means, if you get a pardon from the President, is that you do not have to serve your sentence or you do not have to reserve the remainder of your sentence.

33:53But all it costs is a few moments of the President's time and the stroke of a pen. But when God promised to pardon us, He made that promise, knowing that it would cost him everything. The life of His beloved, only begotten Son, who is perfect in every way. He made that promise to pardon us, knowing that it would cost him the life of His only Son. But, friends, Jesus, the Good Shepherd, said, nobody takes my life from me.

34:37I have come to lay it down of my own accord for you and for me. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, came to save those who have been devoured by sin and Satan, gnawed to the bone. He came to lay down his life for us. Jesus is the Good Shepherd who pardons our iniquities. All throughout the Bible, we are pictured as sheep, which is not a flattering image, but it is an accurate one. Like sheep, we wander off.

35:20We get ourselves into trouble that we cannot get ourselves out of. We are devoured and gnawed by enemies who pursue us. That is the very reason why so many in this room have turned to Jesus, the Good Shepherd, because he's the one who defends us and defeats our enemies. He's the one who restores our fortunes. He's the one who pardons our iniquities. But there are some here today who haven't done that, who have not turned to Jesus, the Good Shepherd. And if that is you, the Bible describes you as a sheep without a shepherd.

36:11But that doesn't have to be the case anymore because Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. So if today you perceive yourself to be one who has been devoured and gnawed to the bone by sin and Satan, if you know that you have lost your fortune, all of the blessings that God has given you in your life through your sin and folly and rebellion, if you know that your sin reaches to the heavens and there is no way for you to pay for it or make up for it, then I invite you to turn to Jesus the Good Shepherd today.

37:00Like a sheep, you cannot clean yourself up. But if you come to him, he promises never to cast you out. He says that he will make you as white as snow. So if you've been putting that off, or if this is the first time you've ever heard this good news, I pray that you will turn to Jesus, the Good Shepherd, because he is the shepherd that you need. Let's pray. Father, we do pray for those among us and those around the world gathering in churches today who are sheep without a shepherd.

38:04I pray that they would hear your voice today. The voice of the good shepherd calling to them, Come to me, you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. We pray that many in this room today would turn to Jesus. We pray that many in other faithful churches all across our city would turn to Jesus. We pray for people in our country and all the countries around the world where the gospel is being preached, that people would turn to the Good Shepherd.

38:47God, we pray for ourselves, those of us who already trust in Jesus. Oh Lord, we are prone to wander and we feel it. We are prone to leave you. Even though we love you, we ask this morning that you would be faithful when we are faithless, that you would continue to pursue us when we drift and wander, even when we run away. I pray that you would increase the faith of all who are weary today. God, we thank you that you have not come for the strong but the weak, not the healthy but the sick.

39:38Thank you for the good news of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection on our behalf. Thank you, Jesus, for being our good shepherd. 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.