Exiled and Returned (2 Kings 24-25) with Pastor Ryan Connellan

Well, good evening.

I do invite you to turn in your Bibles to the book of 2 Kings.

2 Kings chapter 24.

2 Kings 24 · chapter mention

I had a brief uh quick look in my uh history of sermons, and we have been in the historical narratives in the evening service now, uh, I believe since 2022.

We were in Joshua and we went first and second Samuel.

We did first and second Kings.

I think we did Exodus even before that.

We did some New Testament, too.

We did some New Testament, okay.

So we had some breaks in there as well.

Um, but uh it has been a long journey, almost as long as the children of Israel dwelt in the land.

No, but um we are uh now coming to a very pivotal moment in uh redemptive history, and of course, in the history of God's people as we look at the exile, the moving of the people of Judah into the exile, into the Babylonian exile.

And uh, of course, we're gonna move into this and look at this not as a uh uh a time of, of course, it is a time of sorrow, but there is a time of hope in this as well.

Um just on that note, would appreciate prayer for myself and my family.

We leave tomorrow for the United States for a month, um, so into exile.

Um, but Lord willing, by God's grace, we will return.

Um and uh would appreciate prayer.

We'll be gone traveling, um, visiting some family, some friends.

I have the opportunity to preach at two churches uh while I'll be there, so would appreciate prayer for us for safety.

Um we will miss you dearly, and uh, but we look forward to being back uh late July.

Second Kings chapter 24, and I want to read chapter 24 and down to um verse 21 of chapter 25, a lengthy passage, but I think helpful for us to read the account.

2 Kings 24 · chapter mention

Chapter 24, verse 1 says, In his days Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came up, and Jehoiakim became his vassal for three years.

And then he turned and rebelled against him, and the Lord sent against him, raiding bands of Chaldeans, bands of Syrians, bands of Moabites, and the bands of the people of Ammon.

He sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the Lord, which he had spoken by his servant, the prophets, servants, the prophets.

Surely at the commandment of the Lord this came upon Judah to remove them from his sight, because of the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he had done, and also because of the innocent blood that he had shed, for he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, which the Lord uh would not pardon.

Now the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim and all that he did are not ri are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of kings of Judah?

So Jehoiakim rested with his fathers, then Jehoiachin, his son, reigned in his place, and the king of Egypt did not come out of his land any more, for the king of Babylon had taken all that belonged to the king of Egypt from the brook of Egypt to the river Euphrates.

Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months.

His mother's name was Neshutah, the daughter of El Nathan of Jerusalem, and he did evil in the sight of the Lord according to all that his father had done.

At that time the servants of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came up against Jerusalem, and the city was besieged.

And Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came against the city as his servants were besieging it.

And then Jehoiachin, king of Judah, his mother, his servants, his king of the king of Babylon, and the king of uh sorry, king of Babylon and the king of Babylon in the eighth year of his reign took him prisoner.

And he carried out from there all the treasures of the house of the Lord, and of the treasures of the king's house, and he cut in pieces all the articles of gold which Solomon, King of Israel, had made in the temple of the Lord, as the Lord had said, also he carried into captivity all Jerusalem, all the captives and all the mighty men of valor, ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and smiths.

None remained except the poorest people of the land.

And he carried Jehoiachin captive to Babylon.

The king's mother, the king's wives, his officers, and the mighty of the land he carried into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon, all the valiant men, seven thousand and craftsmen and smiths, one thousand all were who strong and fit for war.

These were these the king of Babylon brought captive to Babylon.

Then the king of Babylon made Mataniah, Jehoiachin's uncle, king in his place, and changed his name to Zedekiah.

Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem.

His mother's name was Hamatal, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libna.

He also did evil in the sight of the Lord according to all that Jehoiakim had done, for because of the anger of the Lord this happened in Jerusalem and Judah, that he finally cast them out from his presence.

And then Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.

CHAPTER twenty-five.

And now it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and all of his army came against Jerusalem and encamped against it, and they built a siege wall against it all around, so the city was besieged until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.

By the ninth day of the fourth month the famine had become so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land.

Then the city wall was broken through, and all the men of war fled at night by way of the gate between w two walls, which was by the city king's garden, even though the Chaldeans were still encamped all around it against the city, and the king went by the way of the plain, but the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king, and they overtook him in the plains of Jericho.

All his army was scattered from him, so they took the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah, and they pronounced judgment on him, and they killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, put out the eyes of Zedekiah, bound him with bronze fetters, and took him to Babylon.

And in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, Nebu Zaradan, the king of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem.

He burnt the house of the Lord, and the king's house, and all the houses of Jerusalem, that is all the houses of the great he burned with fire.

And all the army of the Chaldeans who were with the captain of the guard broke down the walls of Jerusalem all around, then Nebuzeradon the captain of the guard carried away captive the rest of the people who remained in the city, and the defectors who had deserted to the king of Babylon with the rest of the multitude.

But the captain of the guard left some of the poor of the land as vine dressers and farmers, the bronze pillars that were in the house of the Lord, and the carts, and the bronze sea that were in the house of the Lord, the Chaldeans broke it in pieces, and carried their bronze to Babylon.

They also took away the pots, the shovels, the trimmers, the spoons, and all the bronze utensils with which the priests ministered, the firepans and the basins, and the things of solid gold and solid silver the captain of the guard took away.

The two pillars, one sea and the carts which Solomon had made for the house of the Lord, the bronze of all the articles was beyond measure.

The height of one pillar was eighteen cubits, and the capital on it was of bronze, the height of the capital was three cubits, and the network and pomegranates all around the capital were all of bronze.

The second pillar was the same with a network.

And the captain of the guard took Sariah, the chief priest, Zephaniah, the second priest, and the three doorkeepers.

He also took out of the city an officer who had charge of the men of war, five men of the king's close associates who were found in the city, and the chief recruiting officer of the army who mustered the people of the land, and sixty men of the people of the land who were found in the city.

So Nebuzeradon, captain of the guard, took these and brought them to the king of Babylon and Riblah.

Then the king of Babylon struck them and put them to death in the land of Hamath.

Thus Judah was carried away captive from its own land.

Let's come before the Lord in prayer.

Our gracious Heavenly Father, we come before you this evening, and we do indeed.

Lord, as we read these words, our hearts break.

Father, our minds could only be cast to this situation which seems so bleak.

Yet, Lord, I pray that you would help us to find you and find hope in this passage as we see that in this time of exile, Lord, there is also a purpose and a plan to all of these things.

So, Lord, I pray that we would see you not only in this sermon, but also in the Lord's table to come.

May our hearts be renewed and restored with hope as we look forward and not backwards.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

There are two cities in the Bible that stand in stark contrast to one another.

These were real cities.

They're not metaphorical, they're not allegorical, they were real cities, but they represent something.

The first city is the city of Babylon.

We first read about the city of Babylon in Genesis chapter 11, of course, the infamous Tower of Babel or Babel, however you want to pronounce it.

Genesis 11 · chapter mention

As this city or this tower was built by men, it was built as a means to try to get to God.

It was meant to represent and display man's power and man's ingenuity and man's lack of need for God.

It represents, in many ways, man's wicked attempts to be like God, to reach up to the heavens and to be the most powerful beings on the earth.

Babylon is often used as a picture of the city of man, man's ideologies, man's wisdom, man's power, man's uh governance, man's authority, man's philosophies.

As a matter of fact, the book of Revelation speaks of Babylon like it's the capital city of Satan's realm.

It speaks of it in as a place of great wickedness.

It gives vivid imagery of a city like this, of a woman who is like a great harlot whoring or prostituting herself with the world.

All human governments that reject God and his rule are likened to her.

And she is said to be drunk with the blood of the saints.

Babylon is everything that opposes God, everything that wars against the people of God, and everything that wars against God Himself.

And of course, in the Revelation, the book of Revelation, the woman has a name, and it says, Mystery Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots and the abominations.

Babylon is opposed to God.

There's another great city that we read about in Scripture, again, a real city, but representing something else, and that is the city of Jerusalem, of course.

This city is first mentioned in Genesis chapter 14, as we've learned recently in the study of Melchizedek in Hebrews, as Melchizedek is the king of Salem.

Genesis 14 · chapter mention

Salem is a reference to the city which now eventually becomes renamed Jerusalem.

And of course, Melchizedek is a type of Christ who is a king and a priest.

And Jerusalem in many ways represents, although it is a real city, was a real city, represents the city of God.

A city that was to be under God's rule, with God's people living in it.

A city where the temple of God was built and the worship of God took place.

It too is pictured in the Revelation as the final dwelling place of God and his people.

The new Jerusalem as a place that is ruled by God and the presence of God.

And there in the center is, of course, the Lord Jesus Christ.

There's no need for a temple because Jesus Christ is indeed that true temple.

Jerusalem is synonymous with the rule of God, the reign of God.

And of course, the hope that we have as Christians that we have is that one day we know, as the scriptures tell us, that Babylon in all of its various forms will one day fall.

And Christ's rule and reign will be fully manifested.

But our text here that we have before us seems to have everything upside down.

We see Jerusalem falling, being destroyed, and Babylon rising and being victorious.

We see God's people sent into exile.

And we see God's enemies thriving or seemingly thriving.

It seems like the enemy has won or is winning.

It seems like all hope would be lost.

God's people would be a reproach.

They will be weakened, they will be persecuted, they will be hated, as they are sent and driven from these lands and from their home and from that city, which was supposed to be a city, a light to the Gentiles.

It was supposed to be a land that was to declare and proclaim the glory and the goodness and the righteousness of God to the nations around them, and yet it is left completely desolated.

The temple, Solomon's temple, which was once arrayed in so much splendor and glory, is reduced to ash.

Jerusalem, that great city, is burnt to the ground.

And it appears that Babylon is one.

But we will see that in even this time of exile, as the people of God are driven by God Himself, yes, under the uh hand or by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, but it is God who is driving them out of the land, that they will be sent into this foreign land with some very clear instructions.

But most importantly, they will go into this land with a very clear and distinct promise.

One that is going to bring them hope and hold them, and one that has further implications even for us today.

You know, for us as believers, we often find ourselves, perhaps, in places similar in many ways that reflect Babylon.

We don't recognize this place in some ways.

It seems foreign to us, and in many ways it should.

This world is not really our home.

We are strangers and pilgrims in this world.

We are passing through in many ways.

It feels like we don't fit, we don't belong, we're in foreign territory.

How then shall we live?

And what is there for us to learn in this process and in this passage of the exile?

We're going to be into Kings 24 and 25, but we will also do a lot of referencing in the book of Jeremiah, that prophet who was there during this time and certainly had some very important messages to give to God's people as they were heading into exile.

And so, if you want to put a marker kind of in the middle of Jeremiah, there's going to be a few references we're going to make there along the way.

But I want us to notice, first of all, the provocation of the exile.

What provoked this?

What brought this judgment upon the people?

And we see this, of course, in verses three to four, that this sending of God's people, sending of the people of Judah into exile and into the city of Babylon was done out of a great provocation upon their part.

And we read about it in verses three to four as we're reminded, and it was mentioned before when we looked at the character of Manasseh, but it's brought up again that in uh in verse three of our text that uh that God sends uh the the people into exile.

Verse three, surely at the commandment of the Lord, this came upon Judah to remove them from his sight because of the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he had done, and also because of the innocent blood that he had shed, for he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, which the Lord would not pardon.

Steve, Brother Steve Mayo preached a great message on the character of Manasseh and detailed and how wicked his rule and reign was, and it was his wickedness, his sin, his vile and complete dismissal of the law of God, and not that he was the only king of Judah that did this, but he he provoked the Lord more than anybody else.

And so God said in his judgment that he would drive Judah out of the land.

The southern kingdom had provoked the Lord their God, so that he would drive them out of the land.

He would remove them.

The curses of the covenant that God had declared upon them in Deuteronomy chapter 28, the warnings were now come to pass.

Deuteronomy 28 · chapter mention

After years, and yes, there were moments, as we looked at, even with King Josiah, and we looked at King Hezekiah and King Asa and all of these good kings that did try to bring and did bring in spiritual reform, and there was temporary reprieve, there still was a constant going back to the sin of idolatry, even amongst those in the southern kingdom.

And this provokes the Lord until God finally brings upon this judgment in driving them into exile.

The prophet Jeremiah in chapter 17, verses 1 to 4, says this that the sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, with the point of a diamond it is engraved, on the tablet of their heart and on the horns of your altars, where the children remember the altars and their wooden images, by the green trees and the high hills, O my mountain and the field, I will give you as plunder your wealth and all your treasures, and your high places of sin with all your borders, and you, even yourself, shall let go of your heritage which I gave you, and I will cause you to serve your enemies in the land which you do not know, for you have kindled a fire in my anger, which shall burn forever.

Jeremiah the prophet told the people that they had come under the judgment of God, that they had pushed him and provoked him so much that God says enough is enough.

And so what we see here is Nebuchadnezzar, who Jeremiah refers to, uh uh, or God refers to him really as my servant.

Now I don't think Nebuchadnezzar thought of himself as Yahweh's servant.

He certainly didn't.

But here is this wicked king who is doing the work of God in bringing judgment upon the people of God.

And Nebuchadnezzar comes up, and the by the our passage records three various times to Jerusalem and deports different groups of people.

And as he does so, he also removes the treasures and all of the things that uh that remember his envoy that he had sent, or the envoy that had been sent under King Hezekiah, and all the notes that those guys had taken now came to fruition.

We know the treasures that belong in this kingdom.

And he removes the treasures that are in the house of the Lord.

Eventually he removes all the things and the articles of the temple, he removes the bronze labors and the and the bronze altar, removes all the gold, and of course it's not mentioned here, but we know that he removes the Ark of the Covenant.

He besieges the city, he starves the people to the point where they are completely depleted of food and all of these things.

They come under a great famine and they carry off all of its wealth, and eventually he sets fire, not him personally, but his people set fire to the temple and to the house of David and to all the city.

Jerusalem.

The prophet Jeremiah in his lamentations, in his laments.

I don't have time to read them all, but it's a fascinating book in Lamentations chapter 1, verses 1 to 3, writes this when he watches and he sees Jerusalem burning.

Lamentations 1:1–3

He says, How lonely sits the city that was full of people.

How like a widow is she, who was great among the nations, the princes among the provinces has become a slave.

She weeps bitterly in the night, her tears are on her cheeks.

Among all her lovers she has none to comfort her.

All her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they have become her enemies.

Judah has gone into captivity.

Under affliction and hard servitude, she dwells among the nations, she finds no rest.

All her persecutors overtake her.

Her in dire straits.

This is a this is a sad, terrible time for the Southern Kingdom.

But this is a result of their persistent wickedness.

This is a result of their persistent breaking of God's covenant that He made with them.

I think we need to always be reminded, and let us never forget that idolatry in all of its various forms, be it literal idolatry of bowing down and worshiping foreign gods, or even idolatry that exists in our own hearts and our own minds, is a great offense to the sight of the Lord.

It really is the darling sin of humanity, isn't it?

It's why it's really addressed in the first two commandments of the Decalogue.

It's really addressing our worship, who and how we worship.

Because we need to be reminded again that God will not share his glory with another.

God will not allow his people to go on worshiping other gods.

He will bring his children under discipline, and he will bring us under discipline when we give ourselves over to foreign gods.

Be them in our minds and our hearts or things that we worship into all of these things, there will come a point where a day of reckoning will come.

God will not be mocked.

Whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap.

Oh, let us be very careful.

Let us not be very careful.

Let us do all that we can.

Let us do everything.

Let us hate our sin and the idols of our own hearts so much that we plead with God, that we put sin to death, that we we seek sanctification in the deepest recesses of our hearts and minds, lest we fall under the disciplinary hand of God.

This provokes God's holy and righteous anger.

They were provoked, they provoked God.

But there's a there's a purpose to this exile.

So there's a provocation, but there's a purpose to it.

Of course, one of the purposes, yes, of course, is punishment.

They are being judged and punished for their sin and for their wickedness.

But the, and of course, the the this warning or these punishments are all the way recorded or warned of them back in Deuteronomy chapter 28, as God gives them under the Mosaic covenant blessings and cursings and warns them that if you break this covenant again and again and again, that you will come under the cursing and the judgment of God.

Deuteronomy 28 · chapter mention

Okay, so this is this is God uh being true to his word and and and uh and punishing them accordingly.

But we need to understand that this judgment on Judah and this punishment on Judah is not quite the same as the northern kingdom.

Remember the northern kingdom, they were removed by the Assyrian Empire and they were completely scattered and pretty much lost altogether as they were um uh intermingled with other tribes and other nations and other people, and we now call them the lost ten tribes of Israel, uh, and the north because the north had essentially divorced themselves from the covenant people of God way back when they left the south and they left the the Davidic covenant and they removed themselves from that.

They were no longer under that protection.

But Judah, although yes, has broken the Mosaic covenant, is is still in that Davidic covenant line.

And God had made a promise to David, and God had made a promise to David that out of his seed and through his line there would be a king that would finally come.

And so their judgment or their discipline is more like a son being disciplined by a father, who is placing them under punishment for a time before there will be a degree of restoration.

I remember talking to a friend of mine once, and he he said to me that when he would discipline his children, he would take a, he took a you know, uh, a uh a note, if you would, out of how God disciplines his children.

I said, What do you mean?

He said, Well, when my child would rebel or do something wrong, they would receive a disciplinary action, a punishment, and then I would send them to their room to be exiled, if you would, for a period of time.

In other words, they are removed from the from the household, from the joy of the rest of the household.

But then I would go to the child and restore them and bring them back into the family.

That's a very wise, I think, way of dealing with punishment.

In other words, modeling that yes, there's a judgment, you need to go and you need to think about your sin.

You need to sit with that for a time, you need to contemplate what you've done and how you've broken the law of God and the rules of the family or whatever it is, but I, as your father, am going to come and restore you back into the family.

That's different.

That's different than, say, the Northern Kingdom being kicked out of the house, never to be seen of or heard of again.

So this was a time of punishment, but it was a time of fatherly discipline, if you would, over these people.

It was also a time of purification.

You see, the exile was a time actually of purification for the people, because obviously the sin of idolatry still resided in their hearts.

They needed to be purged in their hearts of this habitual sin.

And what we see is that Jeremiah is going to tell them that they're going to go into exile for 70 years and then they would return to the land.

And yes, that did eventually happen.

We can see the recordings of that.

But when we see the prophet Daniel, for example, in his prayer to God in Daniel chapter 9, Daniel is told that their exile would extend for much longer.

Daniel 9 · chapter mention

That they would be, they may have left Babylon and they go back to Babylon physically after 70 years, but what really needed to happen is that Babylon needed to leave them.

They needed to be purged, they needed to be cleaned, they needed to be prepared.

Kind of just like when, you know, when they left Egypt.

Remember, they left Egypt, but Egypt kind of came with them.

They didn't leave Egypt behind entirely.

What we see by the time we get to the opening of the New Testament, it's not that the Jews or the people of Judah were completely righteous in that sense, but what we do see is that idolatry, as far as an outward practice, had been completely removed from Judaism.

Now, they'd replaced it with other forms of idolatry and they'd, you know, internalized it in many ways and began to worship other things, but in terms of the practice of idolatry, it was kind of purged out of their system.

And so it was a time of uh preparation or it was a time of purification, but it was also a time of preservation.

Because you see, although Judah had broken the Mosaic covenant and were now coming under its curses, they still, as I said, remained in this Davidic covenant, and God had promised that he would send through their line a true king.

So they couldn't be completely eradicated like the northern kingdom.

They needed to remain.

And so God was going to send them into exile, yes, as a form of judgment, but in that exile they would be preserved.

Nebuchadnezzar and even the other kings and the other empires that came upon them during this time of exile are all referred to or often referred to as the servants of God because they are doing God's bidding in carrying out God's plan, not only in their judgment on Judah, but in preserving them in the land for an appointed time.

So remember, even in this time of judgment, even in this time of discipline, God is still overseeing all of the aspects of this whole process.

So there is a purpose to this exile.

But there's also protocols that God gave to them in this time that they would be in Babylon and out of their land.

You can imagine, I don't know if you probably can imagine, maybe some of you can.

You know, being in a situation like this where you are literally kicked out of your homeland.

And of course, there's something significant about a homeland and where you were brought up and everything, but there was obviously something definitely more significant to the the Judy uh the Jews in this particular situation, because not only was it their homeland, but this was the promised land.

This was the land that God had promised them.

This is the land that God had given to them.

This is not just simply uh the borders in which they lived and a nation in which they had existed in, but this was something that they had believed was given to them by God and was given to them by God, and they had basically rejected it, and now God was removing them.

But can you imagine walking for miles and miles and miles, and all you have is what you can carry with your family, your young children, and off you go into a foreign city, and there when you arrive, you know, everything is completely different.

You don't recognize anything.

You see the gates of the city, and Babylon was a marvelous city in terms of its size and its grandeur.

You would see all sorts of architecture, which was completely different.

People would talk with different languages, you wouldn't understand necessarily what they were saying.

Cultures were different, protocols were different, uh, you know, everything was completely different.

What are you to do?

How are you to live in this completely foreign environment?

I mean, for those who have come into Australia from other places, you know what it's like when you get off the plane for that first time and everything is completely different.

You have to figure out how do I navigate my way in this foreign land, in this foreign place.

I still remember the the day it probably is etched in my mind when you know my family arrived from America, and at least, well, I I thought both countries spoke English, but apparently that's not true.

Um because I had no clue what anybody was saying.

I still couldn't figure out why anybody would name a suburb Wulu Moulu.

You know, like it just didn't make any signs were different.

Everything's different.

Food's different.

I didn't understand humor.

I didn't understand how you relate to people.

It took a while, and certainly it was probably easier for me than maybe for some of you, but but everything here is different.

It's you're you're a foreigner.

Well, what were they to do?

God actually gave through the prophet Jeremiah very clear instructions on how the people of God were to live in a foreign land in this foreign land.

In Jeremiah chapter 29, verses uh four to nine, uh, we read of the instructions, a letter that the prophet Jeremiah gives to the people as they are going into this land.

Jeremiah 29 · chapter mention

He sends a letter to the captives and gives them very important instructions on how to live in a pagan culture.

In Jeremiah 29, verse 4, he says, Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all who were carried away captive, who I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon.

Jeremiah 29:4

What does he say?

Does he say, Run into your homes and hide?

No.

He says, Build houses, dwell in them, plant gardens, eat their fruit, take wives, beget sons and daughters, and take wives for your sons, and give your uh daughters to husbands, so that they may bear sons and daughters, that you may be increased there and not diminished, and seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to the Lord for it, for in its peace you will have peace.

For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, do not let your prophets or your diviners who are in your midst deceive you, nor listen to your dreams, for which you have cause to be dreamed, for they prophesy falsely to you in my name.

I have not sent them, says the Lord.

Jeremiah says to the people, Here are your instructions on how to live.

They were not meant to be passive, they were actually meant to be active.

Yes, there were limitations on what they were able to do, uh, but they were not meant to be give up.

They were to be productive, they were to build, and they were to grow, and they were to multiply.

And he says to them, Seek the good of the city.

Yes, you're in a foreign land, but your job in this place is not to revolt, or it's not to start a revolution, but your place is to seek the good of the city, do that which is right and honoring to the Lord, and pray for the peace and pray for the security of the city, because in it you will have peace.

And they would be at peace.

We know from the stories, of course, of Daniel and Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego that these some of these uh Jews who are, some of these faithful Jews who who were put in positions of prominence were put in positions where they had to declare before the Babylonian kings and the and and and and uh and their culture that they would not bow.

They had a line that they would not cross.

And yet then they willingly submitted themselves to the judgment or to the punishments that would come upon them, and yet God used those sufferings, and God used those moments of strength, and God used those moments of courage to testify of the glory of God and of the faithfulness of their God to a pagan culture.

It reminds us of it, doesn't it, of 1 Timothy chapter 2, verses 2 to 3, where we as Christians are called to pray for kings and all who are in high positions that we may lead a peaceable, peaceful, and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way, for this is good, uh uh for this is good and dignified.

1 Timothy 2:2–3

These texts, I think, have been very informative to us as Christians and God's people.

That is the people of God.

We are not to be passive, but we are to be productive.

We are to be fruitful, we are to be peaceful, we are to seek the good of the cities that we have been placed in.

As much as we are able, we are to obey the laws and the statutes.

But of course, there is always a line in which Christians have always had to say, no, we cannot cross this.

We will not bow.

But then we will humbly submit ourselves to whatever the punishments that come of our way in the foreign lands and trust that God will use this to his glory and for the furtherance of his kingdom.

Oh, they were not to be passive getting carried along, but they were to build while they were in exile, build families, build homes, actually be productive.

You know, it's so easy for us as Christians to get discouraged as we look around.

And again, I know that many of us and I do the same thing, and uh you look around and you think, I don't recognize the world that I'm living in, I don't recognize my country even, I don't recognize the society that I'm going in.

It's not what it used to be.

Uh things have gone downhill.

What do we do?

And it's so tempting for us as Christians to kind of curl up and and and like a turtle kind of crawl into our shell and just give up and just say, well, I'm just gonna hold on and just bunker down.

But I think the principles that Jeremiah gives to his people are similar to what we are called to do as Christians.

We are to continue to build.

We are to be fruitful.

We are to be Christians who are who are not only just simply existing, but actually going into the world that we have been given in, proclaiming the gospel and the glory of Christ.

There's protocols that God gives to his people.

But there's also a promise.

Maybe not just one promise, but there's there are promises.

Judah was in judgment.

But when they went to Babylon, they weren't just simply given protocols on how to live, but they were given a promise to cling to.

And this is really important because when you are headed into a situation which seems completely hopeless, which seems like everything that you had once is all lost, going into that situation with a promise from Almighty God is something that you will hold on to, and that will give you hope in the midst of great trial and tribulation.

Continuing on in Jeremiah chapter 29, verses 10 down to 14, not only does God give them protocols, but he gives them a promise, and he says this, for thus says the Lord.

Jeremiah 29:10

In other words, keep doing this, keep building, growing, having families, planting vineyards, bearing fruit, all of these things, for thus says the Lord, after seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform my good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place, for I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope, and then you will call upon me, and go and pray to me, and I will listen to you, and you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart.

I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back from your captivity.

I will gather you from all the nations and from the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you to the place of which I have caused you to be carried away captive.

So they go into this place with protocols, but they go with this promise that they will be returned, that God would visit them, that their time of judgment, their time of discipline would come to an end, that they would be returned to the land and to Jerusalem, and that the city and eventually the temple would be rebuilt.

And you can read about that, of course, in the books of Nehemiah and Ezra and the prophet of Haggai who prophesies of the rebuilding of the temple and of the rebuilding of the walls in Jerusalem.

And although it would never be what it was in the past, they were just simply precursors for what was to come, but while in exile, clinging to these promises, they were looking ahead to this fulfillment of that time.

And they had hope.

And that is what keeps us, isn't it, in a time of great tribulation.

If you have hope, if you know that this is going to come to an end, and in the end, it is going to turn out well because God has promised this, and God will visit us and God will return us.

This is what holds them in that time of great tribulation.

You see, it's when people lose all hope, is when they give up.

But because they had this hope, it sustained them while they were in a time of exile.

But there was another promise that was given to them at this time, a promise that would have far greater blessings and ramifications than the rebuilding of a city.

Oh, I'm sure they long to be back in the land.

They long to be back and see Jerusalem rebuilt and the temple be rebuilt, but God actually gives to them another promise in this time.

And of course, this will be expanded a whole lot more in Hebrews in the next couple of weeks.

And I guess in God's providence, this is how things lined up.

But of course, Jeremiah chapter 31, verses 31 to 34, God promises them that there's a day coming in which God will give to them a new covenant.

Jeremiah 31:31–34

They had broken the old covenant.

They couldn't keep the old covenant.

But there's coming a day where there's a new covenant.

He says, I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the old 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, even 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.

I will put my law in their minds and write it in their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

No more shall every man teach his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.

You see, they had a promise, not just simply of returning to a land.

But God had given them a promise that one day they would be under a new covenant, they could be under a new covenant, that God would take that law that was written on stone, and he would place it right into their hearts, because they were unable to keep the law written on stone.

This new covenant would be instituted, of course, and mediated by the Lord Jesus Christ and make the way possible for the children of Israel and all who come in repentance and faith to be truly cleansed of their sin, and for Babylon, if you would, on the inside to be completely removed.

And brothers and sisters, that is what we all need.

We don't need to move locations.

Removing your location, changing your location will not deal with your indwelling sin.

Changing your circumstances will not deal with your indwelling sin.

Only Christ can deal with your indwelling sin.

And so they had this hope.

And by the way, this is a greater hope and the greatest hope that anyone can truly have.

The hope of true and lasting forgiveness.

Forgiveness of sin.

The nation of Israel, or the nation of Judah, rather, was being removed out of the land.

They were being captive, taken away, but they went away with this promise that they would be returned and restored.

What does this mean for us today?

I think a few just points of application.

You know, the Jewish people, although returned to the land and eventually Jerusalem was re rebuilt, they um they provoked the Lord again, didn't they?

By rejecting the very Son of God.

He came to his own, and his own received him not.

And because of this, God once again has sent them into exile.

And the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 3 that he has placed a veil of judgment over their eyes so that when they read the scriptures, they are blinded.

They cannot see.

And it is only when God removes that veil can they actually see Christ in their scriptures.

But he also promises that any Jew who believes is grafted back into these promises, is grafted into Christ, and is brought back and restored into right relationship with their God.

And we again read in Romans chapter 11 that reminds us that God has not cast off them entirely, but one day will restore them.

Romans 11 · chapter mention

In chapter 11, Romans chapter 11, verses 26 to 27, it says, And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, the deliverer will come from Zion, and he will banish ungodliness from Jacob, and this will be my covenant with them when I will take away their sins.

Romans 11:26–27

God has promised that they will be grafted back in.

You know, New Testament believers, we have not been exiled, but rather we have been sent into the world.

We have been sent into Babylon.

We've been sent with the power of the Holy Spirit and the gospel, and we go into all the world, a place that is foreign to us in many ways.

It doesn't feel like home, and yes, we are out of place, kind of like exiles in the world, but we are not to be passive, but we are to be active.

We are to go and proclaim the gospel, we are to preach and we are to build churches and we are to make disciples and we are to pass on the faith to each generation, and we are about to be a light to the lost and the dying world.

You see, living in Babylon as much as it feels has its trials and difficulties, but God is with us as we go.

And of course, we hold on to that hope as well, don't we?

That one day Revelation tells us that Babylon the Great will fall entirely and completely.

All the world's systems and all their power and their might will be destroyed once for all when the king returns in glory and the new Jerusalem appears, the city where God and his people dwell together in perfect joy and harmony.

Babylon will fall.

But I think there's a theme here as well that we need to be always reminded of.

This theme of exile and return or restoration is one that we see right through Scripture.

Remember, Adam and Eve, when they sinned, they were exiled, they were cast out of the very presence of God.

And you and I, who are born in the image of Adam, are in exile and separated from God.

But God came to us.

He came to us in our sin.

He came to us in our need.

He came to us in the person of Jesus Christ, and he finds us.

People who were alienated from him, people who were enemies of him, and he redeems us and he returns us back into right relationship with him through the forgiveness of our sin because of what Christ accomplished for us on the cross.

Every person born is naturally an alien to God and his kingdom, but through Christ can be brought into full citizenship of the kingdom of God.

But you must come through Christ and Christ alone.

And so even though we see Judah going into exile, we see that God has not cast off, and God will not cast off, and he will not fail in his promises.

And that even though you and I have been exiled, if you would, from God because of our sin, he comes to us and he brings us home and he restores us, not to the old Jerusalem, but to a new Jerusalem, a far greater, a city whose builder and maker is God.

Would you come and return to God and let him restore you?

I pray that you will.

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you so much for this time and your word.

Father, we thank you for the redemption that is ours in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And Father, we read of your people, these people, the people of Judah who have provoked you so much.

Yet, Lord, you were so faithful and so merciful to them.

And Lord, we see ourselves in this, a people who often provokes you, who often returns to things that are ungodly and wicked, and yet, Lord, you pursue us and restore us.

Thank you, Lord, that, Lord, you have given to us all things in Christ.

That, Lord, under this new blessed covenant, our sins are completely and totally forgiven once for all because of the sacrifice which was made for us by the Lord Jesus Christ.

And as we come now to the table, I pray that we would see Christ in all of the elements, and that, Lord, we would be reminded so greatly of the covenant relationship we have with you.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.