Flight JLA01 - Part A

Chapter 31 verse 31 behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a covenant not we will not a bilateral covenant is something I am going to do for time to do the heavy lifting. I'm good to be the one who sets the terms of the covenant I'm going to get the job done, all people will have to do is believe see trust God has made covenants with his people because he desires to be in relationship with them today on connect with Skip Heitzigs, Skip talks about these covenants, including the new covenant you are part of today, but first we want to share about where you can hear even more encouraging vital messages from skip.

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Just search Skip Heitzigs sick. That's HEITCIG on spot a five Apple podcasts or anywhere you listen to your podcasts and don't forget to follow the podcasts so you know when a new teaching is available then Skip now where the book of Jeremiah as we dive into her study with Skip Heitzigs second part of the book of Jeremiah to look at tonight very briefly before going into our five chapters of limitations. Yes is the Bible early thousand feet. Yes, we are moving rapidly. Yes, this is an important book.

It is a kind of a book. Frankly, that a lot of people would just brush over not given a whole lot of attention, especially if there prophecy Boston is not a whole lot in here about prophecy.

It's it's a sad kind of a book. It's a sad section of Scripture looking to find some nuggets in this section of the Bible. Now, I don't know how you were in school when I came to dates memorizing dates to hate that when the teacher in history said there certain dates you need to memorize and of course we memorize them and forgot them. The next 20 minutes after the tests right but there were some dates in Israel's history that I want to share with you that are important and it's the third one that is the real real important date but there were three successive attacks on the city of Jerusalem by the Babylonians and that's the period of history were doing the first eight incidents were dealing with BC, the numbers get smaller.

Even though the years move on. Chronologically, the first year is 605 BC. In that year the Babylonians attacked the city of Jerusalem and they took some of the people captive bringing them back home with them to Babel and the slaves in that first deportation or group of people that were deported to Babylon in that first group are young man whom you know by the name of Daniel was taken at 605 BC. In that year Daniel left Jerusalem and went and moved to Babylon where he ministered successfully for years. That's the first date. The second date, 597 BC.

A few years after, 605 and 597 BC Babylonians again came against Jerusalem and this lifetime. They took some of the nobles and the leaders of the land, depriving the land of strong central leadership politically and spiritually. The final year is 586 BC and 586 BC.

That is when ultimately Jerusalem fell, everyone was taken captive that the Babylonians wanted the city was destroyed in the city was burned with fire because the walls of Jerusalem had been breached. Now in chapter 21 of Jeremiah all the way to chapter 3912 29 from 21 to 29.

The prophet affirms the certainty of the conquest or do I mean by that.

Will Jeremiah predicted Babylon is coming. Most people didn't believe that they said we like what the other prophets are saying better than you, Jeremiah. They're saying Babylon isn't coming there saying were not to be taken captive. There saying were knocking to be destroyed. Jeremiah is so utterly certain that what God told him is coming to pass that Babylon will indeed destroy ultimately Jerusalem.

The Jeremiah penned a letter to the captives or the Whitby will be captives of the city of Jerusalem. Jeremiah 29 it is that letter and he tells the look you're going to be there a long time to be there 70 years. Get used to it.

Make a life out of it, get married, have kids get busy get involved in the city but I am going to eventually bring you back to your land.

And he says, for I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace, not of evil, to give you a future and a hope you know that verse, but now you know the context of that verse. The people who would be utterly defeated and morally depleted. Who would think the Lord is forgotten about us.

He allowed this to happen. God is saying.

Not only did I allow it to happen, but I have powerful with my righteous right hand to bring you back into the land. The land of Israel. The land of Canaan as your inheritance, so God reveals to them the reason for the captivity. Think of it as a spanking. Spanking they would never forget. So they would run back into their father's arms as a parents. I hated spanking my son. There were times I I had to spank me just last week, not just getting fortunately was a period of time. It didn't last long, but every time I did and I hated to do it but I love the result. Now with grandkids.

It's not my job. My job is to fill them with sugar and send them home happy.

Let the parents deal with that. But as a parent you would want to win their hard and so you would you would administer certain hurts to them in order to do that. So the Lord spank the nation knowing the nation would eventually be brought back into that land heretics now know me, the repeated failure of his people, God eventually and you'll see it now in chapter 31 of Jeremiah knowing the repeated failure of his people. God promised a brand-new covenant eventually. You see, if you remember back when God gave the tour of the law to Moses, and Moses gave it to the people in and the people had said to Moses you Moses you go near to Mount Sinai. You hear what God says and whatever whatever it is that God instructs you to tell us tell us and we will do it.

It was a good heart. It was a noble thing to say it was the right thing to say. But God knew of their inability to keep his law completely and so he said oh that my people had such a hard within them. God yearned for that. That heart to be able to follow through heat.

He loved their commitment, but he knew they were eventually unable to keep so in Jeremiah 31. The time is come for God to announce a brand new covenant, a change of, chapter 31 verse 31 behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a covenant not we will not a bilateral covenant is something I am going to do for people. It is unilateral. I'm to do the heavy lifting.

I'm to be the one who sets the terms of the covenant I'm going to get the job done, all people will have to do is believe, receive, trust, so is that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord.

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts and I will be there God and they shall be my people. Now fast-forward to the New Testament. The gospel of John, when in chapter 1 it is written for the law came by Moses, but Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

The old covenant tried to control people's conduct, the new covenant changes people's character because with the new covenant comes the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and giving us power to be able to pull off what God commands us to do is a little poem I've used for years. Do this and live the law commands but gives us neither feet nor hands a better word. The gospel brings it bids us fly, and then gives us wings with the law could not do Jesus, in the covenant of grace can do. Think of it this way under the law. We were limited to sheet music.

If you're a musician and you you know about the little dots and dashes on the lines of a sheet of music you are, you learn to memorize whole notes and half notes in the syncopation in the meter learn about and you read that in order to get through and instrumentation. That's the Old Testament and the New Testament God says you're going to be able to play by ear. I'm to put the ability for you to hear this song in your heart and it'll just supernaturally naturally flow out of you to put the law in your mind I'm in, or write it in their hearts.

I will be there God, they shall be my people, again comparing the old and the new.

It's important because by the time we get to Romans chapter 3. In our weekend studies. Paul will make this point he will save by the law is the knowledge of sin. The law can't cleanse you from send it just makes you very aware that you are indeed the center so through the law is the knowledge of sin. But compare that to the covenant of grace through grace is the forgiveness of sin one gives you the knowledge of it but can't cleanse you of it.

One can forgive you of is the new covenant. Now I'm in a sum of several chapters here so we can get through this. The next several chapters are very personal. You should know that of all the prophets in the Old Testament the writings of Jeremiah are the most personal and he gives you details about his personal life more than any other prophet. So in chapter 38. He is thrown in prison verse six. Kind of sums that up and they let Jeremiah down with ropes and in the dungeon. There was no water.

But Meyer so Jeremiah sank in the mire of this prison. Think of it as a cistern. That's probably what it was, you know what a cistern is stuck out of solid rock. Water rainwater was stored in it. And because they didn't have the kind of systems we have reclaiming water. You have to think of mud mixed with water and somebody being lowered by ropes into that muddy, watery sister. So who's doing this, the leaders are doing this, the ones who will be taken captive in 597 BC, the leaders, the political leaders.

The leaders of the spiritual leaders.

The ones who think that or think that Jeremiah is a wacko conservative preacher right-wing crazy guy who needs to be eradicated or arrest so let's give them the mud treatment. Not like a spot on my treatment. They Truman a cistern, it would be hard to breathe.

He didn't have food so the idea. Let's starve them to death or being in a wet dank, muddy environment could cause hypothermia if you're there long enough, you just die of hypothermia well story goes on he doesn't die after the commercial break. He gets released and he goes and stays in the court of the prison. The court of the house or the building were that cistern was, and he has a face-to-face conversation with King Zedekiah, the last king of Judah before the Babylonian captivity. In that conversation, King Zedekiah asked some of a slew of questions what's going to happen.

What is this mean in that conversation, the prophet, they became to turn to God's not too late man right now at the 11th hour, you could turn your heart back to God or Zedekiah does not do that in the captivity goes on chapter 39 is Jeremiah's eyewitness account of the fall of Jerusalem and the capture of King Zedekiah were they poked his eyes out. After killing his sons and took him captive. Chapter 4041 and 42.

This is now the Babylonians are have entered the city. Jeremiah is under Babylonian care.

He gets freed he gets to live among the captives or the Jews still in Jerusalem until chapter 4243 and 44 where he is taken down to Egypt again personal details of the prophet chapters 46 through 51 is a series of warnings not to Judah anymore, but to nations that touch Judah that have had dealings with Jude surrounding nations like Moab on the east like Judah down south like Felicity a in their midst and up to the north northwest and Damascus and eventually Babel and all those nations are mentioned. Now we get to chapter 52 to the end of the book chapter 52: an historical supplement that is it's a recap of the fall of Jerusalem going to more detail as we look in the limitation but this is a recap of the fall of Jerusalem. Jeremiah predicted the fall of Jerusalem. Jeremiah predicted the fall of Jerusalem Habakkuk called the minor prophet predicted the fall of Jerusalem, and now it happens in the story is told question what city in the Bible is mentioned more than any other city, Jerusalem went to guess how many times 810 times Jerusalem is mentioned. This second most often mentioned city in the Bible is Babel and mentioned not nearly as many times but mentioned 287 times people have even said you could look at the Bible as a tale of two cities, and there's a lot to that. We we look at it before we will going to detail the night. Jeremiah mentions Babylon 164 times meaning. Jeremiah mentions I'm not Jerusalem. Babylon 164 times more than the rest of the Scripture combined.

Now let's look at chapter 52 verse four it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign in the 10th month on the 10th day of the month that net you can as the king of Babylon, and all the Army came against Jerusalem and camped against it, and they built a siege wall against it. All around the siege wall was a wall around the wall to keep people from going out about textured wall and let other people coming in like supplies commands was to start them. It was isolate them in verse five so the city was besieged until the 11th year of King Zedekiah.

So we have a 2 1/2 year siege that takes place. Verse 13 he burned the house of the Lord. What is the house of the Lord, the temple and the king's house. The palace and all the houses of Jerusalem that is all the houses of the great he burned with fire. Now this took place in what year class DLXXXVI BC. Would you believe it if I told you I could march you over to the digs just outside the city of Jerusalem today and point to some of the very houses from ancient Jerusalem at the time of Jeremiah at the time of Nebuchadnezzar from 586 BC and you with your own eyes could look at the walls and see the marks where the fire left Burns still in the stones visible to the human eye today so when we go to Jerusalem and we do the digs in the city of David a look at it.

It's just one of those places where you just stand and look in amazement. I'm looking at the very marks made by the Babylonian fires from 580 6B, C, fulfilling the word of the Lord through Isaiah true Habakkuk through Jeremiah totally amaze well now we get to the book of Lamentations in the book of Jeremiah. Think of it this way.

It's a book of warnings we get to the book of Lamentations. It's a book of mornings MOU are in ING in Jeremiah the prophet warned the people of the impending conflict and Babylonian takeover in the book of Lamentations. He mourned over the city that had been taken over the judgment had come. It's interesting because usually when you come to a book in the Old Testament of the prophets, the title of the book is the prophet's name. This is one book worth the name is not given, but the activity of the writer is given a Lamentations the Septuagint version is even stronger word wailings is the name of the book turn to the book of wailings allow prior funeral crop Jeremiah in this book. In this short book 5 short chapters is witnessing the death of the nation and in this book, like you heard so beautifully by Alyssa moments ago. It is a poetic whale poetic lamentation.

In fact, there are five songs altogether five funeral detergents in the five are the five chapters somebody is even noticed there are five voices in the book of Lamentations. Can I give them to you.

In chapter 1 is the voice of the city of personified as if the city is crying out in chapter 1 the Lord is speaking it's his voice, as if he is answering the city's cry and antiphonal sort of way. In chapter 3, the longest of the chapter or chapters of the book 66 verses in that chapter is the voice of the prophet speaking in chapter 4. It is the voice of possessions talk. That is, the things people accumulated.

The gold was sober this stuff stuff is talking and then finally, chapter 5 it's the voice of the captives, as they feel the chains around their ankles and around the wrist and there taken to captivity. So you really do have to read this book with as much emotion as you can and if you're a musician and music to it. Make sure you use the minor key for this is not a lot of joy there are some high points. Not a lot of that conclude Skip hi text message in the series the Bible from 30,000 feet. Right now we want to share about an exciting resource that helps you understand why Jesus resurrection is so vital for your faith pretty obvious that this world is filled with imperfect people and that's on purpose God is into restoring human beings he could make perfect people, and then populate heaven with perfect people, but he doesn't do that. He takes people who were dinged up. Who could beat up and bruised by time damaged by sin, and he does a full resto job on complete restoration celebrate the joy and beauty of redemption with the morning. That changed everything with Skip hi, take this DVD collection of six hope filled Easter weekend messages is our thanks to you when you get $35 or more today to help connect more people to God's word and the redeeming love of Jesus Christ.

Restoration is based on redemption and redemption is tied to resurrection to give call 800-922-1888. Forgive online securely connectwithskip.com/offer. Thank you for tuning in today. We are passionate about helping believers like you strengthen your walk with God to be a part of connecting others to Jesus in the same way you give a gift to help keep his teachings he left on the air just call 892 1888 death 892 1888 or does it connectwithskip.com/donate.connectwithskip.com/donate today and tomorrow as Skip shares how you can deepen your relationship with the Lord and nourish your spiritual growth stood in the temple precincts is people going to worship trust not in lying vanities, saying the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are trusting in a ritual in a place rather than a relationship with Skip presentation of connection communication to God's unchanging truth, ever-changing time