Jeremiah
33:14-26
14 “Behold,
the days are coming, declares the Lord,
when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of
Judah. 15 In those
days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David,
and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. 16 In those days
Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will dwell securely. And this is the name by
which it will be called: ‘The Lord
is our righteousness.’
17 “For
thus says the Lord: David shall
never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel, 18 and the
Levitical priests shall never lack a man in my presence to offer burnt
offerings, to burn grain offerings, and to make sacrifices forever.”
19 The word
of the Lord came to Jeremiah: 20 “Thus says the
Lord: If you can break my covenant
with the day and my covenant with the night, so that day and night will not
come at their appointed time, 21 then
also my covenant with David my servant may be broken, so that he shall not have
a son to reign on his throne, and my covenant with the Levitical priests my
ministers. 22 As the
host of heaven cannot be numbered and the sands of the sea cannot be measured,
so I will multiply the offspring of David my servant, and the Levitical priests
who minister to me.”
23 The word
of the Lord came to Jeremiah: 24 “Have you not
observed that these people are saying, ‘The Lord
has rejected the two clans that he chose’? Thus they have despised my people so
that they are no longer a nation in their sight. 25 Thus
says the Lord: If I have not
established my covenant with day and night and the fixed order of heaven and
earth, 26 then I
will reject the offspring of Jacob and David my servant and will not choose one
of his offspring to rule over the offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For I
will restore their fortunes and will have mercy on them.”
“The LORD is our righteousness.” The Lord does desire for all people to be saved. He
provides the way of Salvation through Jesus Christ his Son. Jesus is our Great
High Priest in the order of Melchizedek. Jesus is the Son of David, and
righteous Branch for the people of Israel.
So this
sounds like a lot of good news, but what is the new news for us. Life is going
to be grand. With Jesus life should be great, and everything should go okay, or
at least pretty good. The problem is “The LORD has rejected the two
clans that he chose?” The LORD has abandoned those
who worship him. The LORD has left you to live on your own. He has left you in
your suffering. He has sent destruction to his chosen people.
The
lesson for us is that if you want to follow the Lord, you are going to suffer.
Jesus said, “Take up your cross and follow
me.” The Christian life is a life
of suffering. Jesus Christ has suffered for your sin. He has paid the price for
you misdeeds, but through this we still live a life of repentance and
suffering. The life of Christian is not glamorous, but full of hardship.
I have
recently been really thinking that the life of a Christian is full or mourning
and sorrow. When you look out in the world, you do not see life and happiness,
but sin, shame, disgrace, and death. It saddens me to think of all the people
going to heaven.
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