Jeremiah

LIFE LESSONS
THE PROPHETS: JEREMIAH
DR. JIM DIXON
JEREMIAH 31:31-34
FEBRUARY 1, 2004

In the 17th century in the land of Scotland, there was a group of people who were called The Covenanters. These people, these Scottish men and women, had all signed the National Covenant in the year 1638. By virtue of that covenant, they had pledged that they would defend Presbyterianism in Scotland, that they would defend it unto death, that they would stand against Charles I who was King of England, Charles I who had tried to impose Anglican theology and Anglican polity upon the Scottish people. The Scottish Presbyterians, the Covenanters, resisted Charles I and the struggle lasted 50 years. Many of them did die but finally they prevailed in what was called The Glorious Revolution of 1688. Today, Presbyterianism is the official denomination, the official faith, of the Scottish people.

Personally, I don’t care whether you’re a Presbyterian. I don’t care whether you’re an Anglican or a Baptist or a Methodist or a Charismatic or a Catholic. What I really care about is that you know Jesus, that you’re a Christian, that you’ve come to love Christ, that you’ve given your life to Him, that you’ve received Him as your Lord and as your Savior and you’re seeking to follow Him and to serve Him. God wants you to understand this morning that if you are a Christian there is a sense in which you are a covenanter. You have entered into a divine covenant as a Christian. You’ve entered into a covenant relationship with God and with His Son Jesus Christ.

This morning we come to Jeremiah, prophet of Israel. He lived in the 7th century and in the 6th century before Christ. He was one of the so-called major prophets of Israel. He was a prophet in the land of Judah in the Kingdom of Judah. He wrote the 24th book of the Bible, the book that bears his name. That book is all about covenants. It’s all about divine covenants. The book of Jeremiah really focuses on two covenants, the old covenant and the new covenant. We’re going to have these as our two teachings this morning. We’re going to draw our life lessons from the old covenant as Jeremiah saw it and the new covenant as Jeremiah saw it.

First then, the old covenant. The old covenant is revealed in the Old Testament. In fact, Old Testament really means “old covenant.” But of course, some people get a little bit confused because in the Old Testament there are five divine covenants that are mentioned. First of all, there is the Adamic Covenant, the covenant that God made with Adam and Eve, the covenant that God made with mankind as described in the book of Genesis, the second chapter. It was a covenant of works. God said, “If you sin, you will die. If you remain faithful, you will live.” That was the Adamic Covenant. Then there’s the Noahic Covenant that is revealed in Genesis, chapter 9, the covenant that God made with Noah and with his descendants. The sign of that covenant was the rainbow and the promise of God was that He would, in the aftermath of the great deluge, never judge or destroy the world by water.

Then there was a third covenant, the Abrahamic Covenant found in the book of Genesis, chapter 25; also, in the book of Genesis, chapter 27. In the Abrahamic Covenant, God made a covenant with Abraham and with his descendants that they would become a great nation and that they would inherit a promised land. The sign of the Abrahamic Covenant was the sign of circumcision. Then there was a fourth covenant, the Mosaic Covenant that is described in Exodus, chapter 20, 21, 22 and 23. The Mosaic Covenant is a covenant of law and it consists of the law given to Moses on Mt. Sinai. Finally, there is a fifth covenant, the Davidic Covenant that is described in 2 Samuel, chapter 7, also in Isaiah 55. You can also find it in Psalms 89. The Davidic Covenant is a covenant with David and that from his line would come an eternal kingdom.

Which is the old covenant? I think the answer is actually very clear. When we saw the old covenant; we’re really thinking of that fourth covenant. We’re thinking of the Mosaic Covenant. Most of the Old Testament focuses on the Mosaic Covenant, the covenant of law, the covenant that God gave to Moses on Mt. Sinai. The Mosaic Covenant is related to those other covenants and is fully understood in that context.

The word covenant in the Old Testament is the Hebrew word, “berif.” This word means, “to share a meal with another person.” Of course, in the biblical world and even today in the Middle East and in parts of Asia, covenants are sealed over a meal. They are sealed through the breaking of bread. We kind of understand this as Christians. Every time we take the communion meal, we recognize, we acknowledge, the New Covenant in His blood.

The interesting thing is that when you look in the Septuagint, in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, the normal Greek word for covenant is not used to translate the Hebrew word “berif.” The old covenant is not described by the normal Greek word for covenant. The normal Greek word for covenant is the word “suntheke.” This word suntheke refers to an agreement mutually arrived at, the terms of which are mutually agreed upon. The Greek and Hebrew scholars that developed the Septuagint that translated the Hebrew to Greek, they knew that this word suntheke could not adequately represent berif.

They also knew it couldn’t represent any divine covenant because, you see, the divine covenant, the Old Covenant, the Mosaic Covenant, was not an agreement mutually arrived at, the terms of which were mutually agreed upon, but rather the Old Covenant, the Mosaic Covenant, was a contract declared by God, the terms of which were established by God. Nobody could alter them or change them, so in the Septuagint, the Greeks chose the word “diatheke” to describe berif, diatheke to describe this most Mosaic Covenant. Diatheke refers to a contract established by a person in authority that those under authority could not alter or change. The terms of the contract were established by that person in authority. Those under authority could not change it.

When you think of the Old Covenant, when you think of the Mosaic Covenant, understand it’s established by God. He has decreed it. The terms of the covenant are declared by God. Nobody can change it. Nobody can alter it. People can accept it and enter into its blessings and o ligations or they can reject it and take the consequences but they cannot change it.

We look at this covenant, the Old Covenant, the Mosaic Covenant, and what do we see? We see a covenant of law. God said to Moses, “Say to the people, ‘I will be your God. You shall be My people. I will bless you and I call upon you to bless the nations. This is how you will live. This is how you as My chosen people are to live.’” Then He gave them The Law. He gave them the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, the Ten Words, inscribed on tablets of stone. Those tablets were called the Tablets of the Covenant, referring to the Mosaic Covenant. Those tablets were placed in the Ark which was placed in the Holy of Holies of the Tabernacle and later the Temple. The Ark was called the Ark of the Covenant referring to the Mosaic Covenant. The Law, the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments were explained more fully in the five books of Moses and particularly Exodus 20-23 were referred to as the Book of the Covenant. Of course, the people who entered into this covenant were called the People of the Covenant and the whole Old Testament means, “Old Covenant,” and it refers to the Mosaic Covenant.

It’s all about law but we should understand that this Old Covenant… I mean God didn’t want His people to become legalists. He wasn’t seeking legalism. He was wanting His people to love the law. He was wanting His people to delight in the law. He was wanting His people to embrace the spirit of the law and He was wanting His people to understand that every detail of the law was designed to bless them, that every instruction in the law, every commandment, was a pathway to blessing and that it was given in love for His people. He wanted them to understand that.

Of course, we should also understand that the Old Covenant was not without mercy and grace. God did not consider His people to be covenant breakers simply because they sinned. God knew they were sinners. God knew they were fallen. There was mercy and there was grace even in the Old Covenant but the people of God in the Old Covenant DID become covenant breakers because they had no heart for the law. They had no heart for God. They had no delight in divine instruction. They had no heart for God’s word and they violated the commandments en masse. They went after other gods and they built graven images. They gave their lives over to materialism and over to hedonism. The rich oppressed the poor and the poor envied the rich and coveted. Both the rich and poor did not honor their parents. The marriage bed was not undefiled. They were covenant breakers. They had no heart for God, no heart for the covenant, no heart for the divine instruction, no heart for Torah, no heart for the law.

The judgement of God came upon them. God was forbearing but over a long period of time finally the judgement of God came. It came during the time of the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah lived during the siege of Israel, during the siege of Judah by the Babylonians in the year 609. Jeremiah lived when Jerusalem was conquered in 597 by Nebuchadnezzar the Great. Jeremiah lived when Jerusalem was destroyed by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar the Great in the year 587 B.C. He lived to see all these things and he had prophesied them because he had seen the people were covenant breakers and he knew the judgement of God was about to descend.

In the Bible, Jeremiah is portrayed as a weeping prophet and oftentimes he is called, “The Weeping Prophet.” In Jeremiah, chapter 9, the words of Jeremiah are quoted where Jeremiah said, “Oh, that my head were water and my eyes a fountain of tears that I might weep day and night for the sins of my people.” He was the weeping prophet and he saw the people as covenant breakers. Sometimes he just wanted to leave the people. He wanted to leave his people because of their sins. So, he said in Jeremiah 9, “All that I had in the desert, a wayfarer’s lodging place, that I might leave my people and go away from them for they are all adulterers.” Not faithful, you see… Not faithful to the Old Covenant. Their hearts were far from God and the judgement of God came.

You wonder how Jeremiah would feel were he to live in the United States of America today. How do you feel when you look at our nation? Are you just a proud American or do you ever weep for what you see in this nation? We’re not in a covenant relationship with God in the same sense that Israel was but our nation is under God and yet are our hearts close to God or are we far from God?

I was looking in The Denver Post this week. This is Monday’s Denver Post. The headline reads, “Porn in the U.S.A.” Pornography. Porn in the U.S.A. Perhaps you read this article. I don’t know how you could read it and not weep. Pornography is just massive in this nation and increasingly so.

In the year 1996, according to this article, there were 44,000 pornographic websites on the Internet. 44,000! Is that incredible? 44,000 different pornographic sites. That was in 1996 but do you know what it is today according to this article? Today there are 1,500,000 pornographic sites on the Internet—1,500,000! According to this article which interviews psychiatrists and sociologists from major universities and colleges across America, this nation is becoming so addicted to pornography that it’s going to be irretrievable. It affects peoples’ whole world views. It affects their view of their wife, their view of their husband, their relationship to their children and even their desire to have children. It affects everything. Do you weep? If you are involved in pornography, do you weep enough to repent and seek the healing power of God? Certainly, when we look at our country, the judgement of God can’t be far away.

The second and final teaching concerns the New Covenant. We now come to the good news! Jeremiah, by the power of God, was able to look through the portals of time and he saw the future. He saw the New Covenant. He quotes the Lord saying, “The days are coming.” “Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord, “when I will establish a New Covenant with the House of Israel and the House of Judah. Not like the covenant that I made with the fathers, when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. My covenant which they broke, though I was their husband,” says the Lord, “this is the covenant that I will establish with the House of Israel after those days. I will put my law within them. I will write it on their hearts and I will be their God. They shall be My people and no longer shall each man teach his neighbor and each his brother saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all My people shall know Me from the greatest of them to the least,’ says the Lord. “I will forgive their inequity and I will remember their sin no more.” The New Covenant. Jeremiah saw it. He saw the New Covenant that is offered in Jesus Christ, the Messiah.

The New Covenant is explained in the New Testament which means New Covenant. God has declared the New Covenant. It’s a diatheke. God has declared the terms and these are the terms. Believe in My Son. Believe in Jesus Christ as your sacrifice, as your Savior from sin, as the Lamb of God. Believe in Him as your Lord and your Master, that you might follow Him, receive Him as Savior and Lord, and you will be My sons and daughters. You will enter the family of God and I will give you eternal life with an eternal purpose. This is the New Covenant in His blood.

Jeremiah caught a glimpse of this covenant. Jeremiah describes three truths concerning this new covenant and each truth is beautiful. First of all, Jeremiah said, “This New Covenant will offer a new heart. God will actually give His people a new heart.” I want you to see a clip from a movie that was famous and is called, “The Wizard of Oz.” I want you to see this.

That movie was made in 1939. It received the Academy Award for “Best Song,” “Somewhere Over The Rainbow.” Judy Garland received a special Academy Award for her role as Dorothy. You know the story. You know how Dorothy and ultimately her three friends went down that yellow brick road. They went down that yellow brick road towards the Emerald City. They were in a quest. As you saw in that little clip, the Tin Man was in a quest for a heart. He wanted to have a heart. He went to the Emerald City. He went down the yellow brick road. He sought the Wizard of Oz that he might have a heart. There’s a sense in which we’re all on that road. There’s a sense in which we’re all on that yellow brick road heading toward the Emerald City because there’s a sense in which we all need a heart.

Of course, we already have a heart. The Bible tells us, however, that our hearts are corrupt. Our hearts, in our fallen nature, do not delight in divine instruction. Our hearts do not delight in knowing God. Our hearts do not truly seek God. The Bible tells us that our hearts, because they’re corrupt, seek the things of self. And so, we need, the Bible tells us, a new heart. We need a new heart and even David, King of Israel, knew this. He knew he needed a new heart. There’s a sense in which David was going down that yellow brick road. He knew he needed a new heart although he had a heart after God’s own heart. Of all the hearts of the Old Testament, perhaps the heart of David was the best. And yet even David knew he needed a new heart. After his adultery with Bathsheba, we read in Psalms 51 where David writes, “Create in me a clean heart, oh God. Put a new and right spirit within me.” Even David knew, but you see this new heart is only offered through the New Covenant. When you embrace the New Covenant, God takes His Torah- He takes His law, His unchanging divine instruction- and He writes it on our hearts. He does this through regeneration.

The Bible tells us in the New Testament that when we embrace Christ and we receive Him as Savior and Lord, we’re regenerated. “anagennao,” the Greek word meaning, “born anew,” or “ana-athothen” or “gennao-anothen,” “born from above,” “born again,” born into the family of God. We become sons and daughters of God. At that moment, the Bible tells us, He sends His Holy Spirit to dwell within us, to tabernacle within us, to take up permanent residence in our heart—the Spirit of Christ. And so, divine instruction is written on our heart as Jesus actually comes through His Spirit to live within the Christian. We have new hearts. “We have a new nature,” the New Testament says.

Now, of course we still are sinners and we still have the sin nature. There’s a struggle going on in our souls as the sin nature and the new nature are at war, but you see if you’ve embraced the New Covenant and you’ve come to Christ, you have been given a new heart and there is in you a new nature. There’s some part of you that delights in divine instruction, some part of you that wants to know and serve the commandments of Jesus. There’s some part of you that seeks intimacy with Jesus Christ, intimacy with God, because you have a new nature. You have a new heart and His Torah is written in your heart.

If you have no delight in divine instruction… If you don’t are about the commandments of Christ… If you have no longing for intimacy with God, you’ve not entered the New Covenant. You’re in need of a new heart. Of course, even for those of us who have a new heart, there are times when, in our fallenness, we do not delight in divine instruction. Times when, in our sin, we do not long after God, but if we’ve really embraced Christ and if we’ve really entered that covenant, a new heart has been given, and what a beautiful thing this is.

The second provision of the New Covenant that Jeremiah saw was a new relationship, a new relationship with God. Jeremiah said, “I will be their God.” He quoted the Lord as saying, “I will be their God and they shall be My people and no longer shall each man teach his neighbor and each his brother saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all My people will know Me from the least of them to the greatest.” This Hebrew word, “to know” is a word that carries intimacy so that there’s going to be in this New Covenant an intimate knowledge of God, a new relationship with God. What a wonderful promise.

On August 21, 1971, I entered into a new relationship. It was in Temple City, California in a little Baptist church on a very hot summer day, about 100 degrees! I entered into a new relationship when I embraced the covenant of marriage and I asked Barbara to be my wife. I had asked her before but I took Barbara as my wife and she took me as her husband. I said, “I take you, Barbara, to be my wife. I do promise and covenant before God and these witnesses to be your loving and faithful husband in plenty and in want, in joy and in sorrow, and in sickness and in health as long as we both shall live.”

It was a “diatheke.” It was a divine covenant. God had decreed the terms of marriage. Barb and I didn’t sit down and mutually agree upon terms. Marriage is instituted of God and it’s regulated by His commandments. It’s a diatheke. It’s God who has decreed that marriage is for a lifetime, “until death do us part.” It’s God who has decreed that a husband and wife are to love, honor and serve each other. It’s God who has decreed that marriage will be between a man and a woman. Our courts and our legal system can seek to change the institution of marriage but, you see, it’s a diatheke. It’s declared by God. It cannot be altered. It’s a divine covenant. The Bible tells us that this covenant of marriage is analogous to the New Covenant because in the New Covenant Jesus is called “the Bridegroom” and the Church is called “the Bride.”

In the New Covenant there’s this marriage that takes place between Christ and His people. There’s never been a husband who loved his wife as much as Christ loves the church. I love my wife, and in an earthly sense, I have never experienced a relationship more fulfilling. But, you see, my love for Barbara pales when compared with the love of Christ for His church.

I was reading some time ago a book called “The Wall” by a man named John Hersey. The book describes the persecution of Polish Jews by the Nazis during World War II. In the book John Hersey describes a husband and wife who are Polish Jews. They had just been put in a Nazi concentration camp. They’re in this line to be processed. They’re approaching a table where a Nazi officer sits.

They’re arguing because their life is in shambles and they’ve been under so much stress and they were so weak and they had just been put in this concentration camp. They’re just being processed, they don’t know what’s forthcoming and they’re arguing as husband and wife. Finally, they come to the table and the Nazi officer looks at them and he tells the wife that she is to go and stand in the death line where people will be executed. They had no idea that that’s what this was all about. The look on her face was shock, just shock. Her husband looked at her and he began to cry. As she went to stand in the death line, as she was taken there, the husband went over there freely and got in the same line. As John Hersey tells the story, the husband went to death with his wife because, though he was not sentenced at the time to death, he was not willing to see her suffer alone. He wanted to be there to comfort her.

I think if you’re married, you understand that. I think you understand how a husband could do that. You understand this covenant of marriage. But we need to know that it all pales when compared with the love of Christ for His church. He didn’t just die with us. He died FOR us. He died in order that we might not HAVE to die. He died in our place. He died in our stead. He died in substitutionary atonement. He took your sin and my sin upon Himself because He loves us. No one ever loved His wife, His bride, like Christ loves the church.

Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that they lay down their life for their friends.” Jesus said, “You are My friends.” He gave His life for us and we’ve entered the New Covenant. We’ve entered into this new relationship and it’s a relationship where Jesus offers to be your best friend and my best friend. That’s what Jesus offers and that’s what Jesus seeks, the deepest friendship.

A book was written some time ago by a man named Ron Mehl. The book is called “The Cure for the Troubled Heart. In that book Ron Mehl describes a woman who’s dying and she has dementia. She’s losing her memory. She’s a devout Christian and she had memorized much of the Bible. Her great delight and the devotional life were rich in memorization. Every time she saw Ron, she would always greet him by quoting her favorite verse which was 2 Timothy, chapter 1, verse 2. “I know whom I have believed and I’m persuaded that He is able to keep that which I’ve committed unto Him against that day.” That was her favorite verse. Whenever Ron would come to see her and visit her, she would smile and she would quote that verse. But she had dementia and she was losing her memory. As she visited her over the months, her dementia got worse and she could no longer quote the verse in total. She began to just quote parts of it. “I know whom I have believed,” or, “I am persuaded that He is able.” “I have committed to Him,” she would say. As he came in the final time before her death, all she could say was, “I have committed to Him, I have committed to Him.”

Then on her death day, Ron was there. She couldn’t quote anything but all she said was, “Him, Him, Him,” because the relationship was still there. Her memory was gone but the relationship was still there. She knew it was all about Him. Of course, if she had completely lost even her memory of Him, the relationship would still have been there in her soul and her life is eternal and upon her death she went to be with Christ because this is the New Covenant. It’s a new relationship, and it’s a new relationship. It’s described through the analogy of marriage. It’s the deepest of friendships and it’s eternal. What an incredible provision the New Covenant offers, this new heart and this new relationship. Then finally a new mercy and a new grace.

We don’t have time… Our time is up… But that’s the third component is a new mercy, a new grace. God says, “I will forgive their inequity and I will remember their sins no more.” Of course, that’s why Christ went to the cross in substitutionary atonement to provide payment for your sin and mine that our sin might be forgiven us and we might be washed whiter than snow. This is the awesome provision of the New Covenant—a new heart, a new relationship, a new mercy.

You’re all invited to be part of this New Covenant in Christ’s blood. As we close, I just want to remind you. Don’t try to live under the Old Covenant. You can’t do it. You need a new heart. You need to enter a new relationship and you need that new mercy. So, as we close, I want to give you a chance to accept Christ as your Lord and Savior. “Lord Jesus, we thank you for each person here. Lord, on this snowy day I’m sure that they are not here by accident but that You have led them here. You’ve led them here. It may be that there is someone here who has never embraced the New Covenant. Maybe they are still trying to earn their way to heaven. Maybe they’re just hoping that their good deeds exceed their bad. Maybe they’re living in a covenant of works. Lord I just pray that by your Spirit, You’ve tugged on their heart and that they might embrace the New Covenant in your blood, Lord Jesus, that they might say this prayer with me. ‘Come into my heart, Lord Jesus. Come into my heart. Thank you for dying on the cross for me. Thank you for Your new mercy and Your new grace. Wash me whiter than snow. I repent. Forgive me. Bring me into this new relationship with You, that I might become part of Your church and that You might be, Lord, my Husband, that You might embrace me in such a deep and committed covenant, Lord. Be my deepest and greatest friend. Come, Lord. Sit on the throne of my life. Be my Master. Be my Lord. Help me to follow You. Give me a new heart that delights in your divine instruction and longs for intimacy with You. Give me, Lord, a new heart, a new relationship, a new mercy.’”

Thank you, Lord Jesus, that when we pray that prayer, You DO come in. You honor Your covenant and we are Yours and You are ours and You do not let us go. For all of us here, Lord Jesus, we love You and on this day we commit ourselves anew to You. We pray that we would go forth and show the mercy and grace that You have shown to us. We pray that we would go forth and with that new heart that we cultivate more and more that we would want to live for You, honor You, obey You. And Lord we pray that with this new relationship, we would just grow deeper and deeper in our friendship with You, that we would take time to be with You every single day in Your Word and in prayer. We love you and we pray this in Your great and matchless name. Amen.”