Rachel Weeps No More [Part 1]

Pastor Arthur and Bible teacher Alan Wright. She gave birth to Benjamin but she died in childbirth and they buried her outside of Bethlehem where many passersby and tourists and Jews remember that pastor another message of good view that will help you see your life in old I'm being aborted excited for you to hear the teaching today. In the series remain as presented with an old church in North Carolina really will stay with us throughout the entire program today.

Mr. will make sure you know how to get our special resource right now you can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright so as you listen to the please message go deeper as we send you today's special contact as a Pastor Alan.org that's Pastor Alan.who are G or call 877-5448 60 really be more on all this later in the program but right now it's digging to get started with today's teaching here is Alan Wright this world. There is sorrow and there's joy. And for those that are citizens in the kingdom of God.

Joy wins joy lasts forever sorrows come and go. We are in this journey with Jeremiah who prophesied and preached many important articles of judgment about the discipline of God for the people been so does disobedience. We been reveling in these texts of restoration promise and we come again today and this centerpiece of Jeremiah's prophecy and theology to a word that goes to the exiles.

Those that are deported from their homeland in Jerusalem to Babylon under the wicked tyranny of Nebuchadnezzar, and who nonetheless were taken there by God's providential disciplinary plan and as you see the promise of restoration again today I want to draw your attention to this beautiful exhortation to weep no more. Keep her voice from weeping when Jeremiah 31 verse 13. I will turn their mourning and joy. Lord says I will comfort them.

Give them gladness for sorrow, and my people will be satisfied with my goodness, declares the Lord. So we begin with that prophetic promise morning is going to be turned into dancing and sorrows again return in the gladness and that something you specially need to hear when you're going to sorrows and then we come in verse 15 to as if in the first scene of what is a sort of powerful dialogue, a powerful conversation prophetically and here is the Lord drawing our attention to a voice, a strange voice that's heard and it goes like this, thus says the Lord of voice is heard in Rama lamentation and bitter weeping Rachel's weeping for her children. She refuses to be comforted for her children because they are no more. And so then in verse 16 it shifts and now it's as if the Lord is speaking to Rachel which is will see is a figurative persona here, reminding us of of Rachel in the Old Testament, but speaking here figuratively back to Rachel. The Lord says keep your voice from weeping in your eyes from tears for there is a reward for your work, declares the Lord, and they shall come back from the land of the enemy. I love that they shall come back from the land of the enemy be a great text would not for you that are praying for a wayward child be a great text for a one year praying for who seems to have been swallowed up by the enemy that shall come back in verse 17 the Lord says there is hope for your future. The glass Lord and your children shall come back to their own country by speaking here of the literal restoration of children of the next generation coming back to Jerusalem, but there's so much more. There and then in verse 18 it shifts again where now it is as though the Lord is hearing the response of those that have been promised the restoration.

I have heard Ephraim grieving. So now it's the voice of of those that have heard the word of restoration you discipline me and I will discipline like an untrained calf bring me back that I may be restored, for you are the Lord my God breath ride turned away. I relented and after I was instructed I struck my file was a shame, and I was confounded because I bore the disgrace of my use. Now again in verse 20, just back to the Lord speaking as if from my dear son, is he my darling child for as often as I speak against them.

I do remember him still. Therefore my heart yearns for him. I will surely have mercy on him, declares the Lord will text sound figuratively of Rachel weeping, and then the exhortation of the Lord to dry your tears and the reflections of the people of God in the sense figuratively same word we have repented, but were so ashamed and then the voice of the Lord says I will most certainly have mercy is it is the dynamic relationship of tears, joy and longing and and and worry and hope and all of that powerful crazy basketball game last weekend. See, my son went to Baylor and my daughter went to Carolina and I might've mentioned before that I went to Carolina and I tend to pull for Carolina and the basketball game and and then they will go play my Baylor Bears in the second round of the NCAA time. It was a most unfortunate turn of events that that's what happened and so I was just sitting at home alone to watch the game because nobody wants to watch a game with somebody who has a divided heart.

Good news you couldn't find a Baylor family want to watch the man. You can find a Carolina fan, it would wall watch with me and Erb. I was texting me before the games and what are you going to do and who you are, both for and I said I don't know, pull for.

I said I keep trying to tell myself Allen, the good news is UK loose, but my heart keeps telling me Allen Eugene when and I have to admit that throughout most of the game. It was more the latter than I felt like I could not win and when my Baylor Bears, the defending national champions got down by 25 points 25 points as it Lord.

This is embarrassing for the Bears and I started pulling harder for the Bears to come back and when they came back from 25 points down in less than 10 minutes and tied the game with Carolina as of Carolina Lord.

This is embarrassing for the University of North Carolina. All my goodness, Hubert Davis is a new head coach if he loses this game is going to go down in history as the biggest collapse in the history of the NCAA tournament. I don't know if he'll ever bail recover from this poor Tar Heels is OnStar Boulevard. The Tar Heels again and then they went into overtime and people are texting me who you pulling for us and I will even know I'm just wandering around the room. I didn't know whether to be happy or sad find that life is strange in that I think sometimes we almost have to be instructed of the Holy Spirit as the weather was both to be happy or sad because there is a real need for grief in this broken world. And yet there is a voice of joy that comprises the essence of the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God consists of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit and what we see in this prophetic text is both. Rachel's tears and God's exhortation to weep no more, and the response of the people in their shame and God's assurances and I want us to dig into this text and see something wonderful of the gospel. Allen Wright will have more teaching moment from today's important series.

Many Christians in America today.

You're starting a nation's culture has turned away from God values in our country have changed. Suddenly, most people don't go to church or had a difficult one to make you feel like an alien in your own culture not to learn from Danielle when he was exiled to the patient through our special offer.

This not you can learn to live under the favor of God in Aryan culture the way Daniel dad gave before the end in mind senior Pastor Alan's idea series, Daniel favored for you may feel like a stranger in this world that is not shared favor to Daniel and his four man race is upon you as well. Nation will not only help you through these troubling times.

It will also help someone else links for your partnership with our night ministry.

We missed call us at 877-544-4860 877-544-4861 come to our website Pastor Alan.like these teaching now you once again is let's go back to verse 15. The thus says the Lord of voice is heard in Rama limitation, a bitter weeping Rachel is weeping for her children. She refuses to be comforted for children. Rama why Rama well Rama is the place which was kind of the first stop or the the departing place for the exile. This pathway that would be sort of the journey to Babylon.

And if you look just so right above Jerusalem is Rama so just basically Rama was the place where where the people started their journey of deportation. Rama was a place where mothers perhaps it were staying bass behind Saul, their sons and daughters being carted off to Babylon. Rama was a place where families were broken up Rama's, the place where they contemplated an uncertain future and they wafts and and so it is a piece of poetry prophetic poetry to say a voice is heard is like the Lord is saying. I hear a voice you hear yes so voice of sadness is a voice of morning.

It's a voice of longing and it is figuratively speaking Rachel's voice not not a not a ghost of Rachel or someone. This is poetry.

This is figurative language. Rachel assemble of the weeping for the children that are no more why Rachel well Rachel was the wife that Jacob love fell in love with at first sight and when Jacob wanted to marry Rachel. Rachel's father, Laban said you have to work for seven years of famine to give you her hand and agreed to and somehow on their wedding night.

Laban tricks them all and and and Jacob married Lee instead of Rachel married Leah Rachel sister and so then let us adjust were seven more years, and so this is the story that Jacob winds up being married to these two sisters Rachel and Leah. And it's always important to remember that this is our family tree with we come from a dysfunctional lot.

The tribes of Israel are formed from this chaotic household and it is a household in which there is a lot of bitterness and sorrow, especially on Rachel's part because we read in Genesis 29, 31, that the Lord saw that Leah was hated he opened her womb, but Rachel was better. So Leah started having children.

She had the son of Reuben and Simeon and Levi and Judah. And then she stopped having children, and when it verse in verse one of just a starting when Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children. She envied her sister and she said to Jacob, give me children or I shall die so so there is more than that deep maternal instinct. There is more than that sorrow of infertility that in some under the sound of my voice of experienced and it is so is so deeply painful.

This is something that becomes a symbol for all of Israel of the weeping Rachel who has no children and not only has no children but compares herself to Leah. Her sister who has borne these children want children more than anything to me children, lest I die that's that's what people know of Rachel and so maybe you know the story Rachel brings in her maidservant Bill to be a surrogate Goliaths as sons and then Leah brings in her servant 05 is a surrogate who then has no children as well. And what happens is that then Jacob has fathered 10 signs and none of them are Rachel's until they have a boy whose name Joseph, which explains much of the narrative of the Old Testament, and Jacob loved Joseph and favored him because it was Rachel's and when Rachel conceived again. She gave birth to Benjamin but she died in childbirth and they buried her outside of Bethlehem where many passersby and tourists and Jews remember Rachel and her sorrow. Sorrow of the children that she didn't have and then what she did have having Joseph who was sold into slavery and thought dad as if Joseph was no more, and then had Benjamin, but died and was never able to nurse her baby boy Rachel. She is the tears of grief and longing and yearning voice is heard in Rama is Rachel weeping for her children are no more, for they have been deported and exiled to Babylon, and she's weeping for them. There is a real grief in this time of exile and God does not run from the grief and he does not want the people to run from it. Jeremiah Webb so much that he became known as the weeping prophet, and there was in fact a battle between the false prophets in Jeremiah that was shocking because you might think that the false prophets were the ones that were perhaps going to spell out too much doom, but instead it was the false prophets who were giving an overly optimistic forecast and who said that Jerusalem would be safe and that the people wouldn't be exiled and they hated Jeremiah for saying the things he said about the coming discipline of the people of God, so much so that in Jeremiah 614 we see one of the refrains of the Lord who says of the false prophets. They heal the wound of my people lightly, saying peace peace when there is no peace. These false prophets do not want to face pain. And yet, if we are going to be mentally and emotionally healthy in this world. We must face pain.

There is a false prophecy still prevalent this is. If you're Christian, you're not have to face pain. Yes, you are in this world you will have trouble. Jesus said in our troubles often look very similar to the troubles of those that don't even know the Lord got back in his best-selling famous book road less traveled, said the beginning life is difficult. This is a great truth. One of the greatest truths. It's a great truth because once we truly see this truth we transcended once we truly know that life is difficult.

Once we truly understand and accept it in life is no longer difficult because once it's accepted the fact that life is difficult, no longer matters so it makes me think of how often I experienced this in life and I bet you do too.

Where it takes a while to accept that something going to be harder than you thought it was. I remembered as a kid I played so much as a place of a tennis matches and always wanted my opponent to just give me the match I just I want I want St. Peter's the peacocks of St. Peter's to walk on the court against my UNC Tar Heels and just shudder and goad the University of North Carolina, we might as well give them the game. I remember in high school.

Many a time many of time did know my van writing to some other city where we had a match to play and maybe I had two exams at school that day not slept in much the night before and I was tired and I loved it is beginning feel like playing tennis and I'm supposed to go out there and win the match for the team and I remember many times going out and knowing who it was. I was going to play in some I had beaten before I knew that I could beat should be in walking down the court and just just hoping that they just would double fault the match away that they just give it to me and I can't tell you how many times I can remember this, I got lose the first couple games and just everything with him. He got all know I'm going to have to play hard. Do you know I'm talking about was sometimes you just want life to be easy for ladies letting it easy and as long as you're walking around thinking is just going to be easy.

You're in a real dilemma but I think Scott Peck tried that once you accept the difficult, then, something transcendent begins the habit and grace begins to flow Allen right. Today's good news message Rachel weaves snowboards from our series remade and Pastor Alan is back with us in the studio assuring a parting good news thought for the day in just a moment, stick with us. Many Christians in America today. You're starting a nation's culture has turned away from God values in our country have changed. Suddenly, most people don't go to church or had a difficult one to make you feel like an alien in your own culture. There's a lot to learn from Danielle when he was exiled to the pagan man. Through our special offer. This month you can learn to live under the favor of God in Aryan culture the way Daniel dad gave before the end in mind.

The senior Pastor Alan Zaidi series Daniel favored for you may feel like a stranger in this world that is not shared favor to Daniel and his four man God's grace is upon you as well.

Nation will not only help you through these troubling times.

It will also help someone else links for your partnership with our night ministry. We missed you as I call us at 877-544-4860 877-544-4861 come to our website Pastor Alan.org I think it would pastor Eleanor parting good news thought for the day for the person listening right now they could hardly wait for the next broadcast what you take away. We can hang or handle well as Besley especially want to speak a word of comfort to anyone who is grieving that includes not just those who've lost a loved one, but grieving them also job a change of context, life transition, beloved pet. That's no longer there.

I mean any loss. The result of that, the necessary result is grief. And so God has comfort for those that mourn in there, even to be a blessing and Daniel you know we've been through in our household.

So much grief this year my mom and father-in-law on you know first quarter of the year adjectives.

They how you doing us a well grind most of the most days for the whole first quarter of the year and then you feel the presence of God beneath you find joy comes in the morning and so Rachel had her tears but she didn't have to refused to be comforted and so it is that you might have tears but God is here comfort you in the comfort of the Holy Spirit is very, very real a lot more to learn about this tomorrow and to hear God say to us weep no more is one the most beautiful things we could ever hear from them. Look forward to that next time. Today's good production Allen White ministries