The Plowman

Introduction
“And they lived happily ever after,” isn’t that how stories are supposed to end?  Don’t you like it when, by story’s end, everything is wrapped up in a neat little package and you can put a bow on top?  That’s nice for story books but life is not a fairy-tale.  God’s dealing with His people is not a fairy-tale either.  That is obvious throughout the book of Jeremiah.  Jeremiah ministered during the dark days of Judah.  His 40 year ministry was characterized by his message of judgment.  He repeatedly warned of impending doom.  He consistently called the nation and its leaders to repentance.  His words went unheeded and thus judgment finally came.  The end of the story is not pretty.  Listen to Jeremiah’s own words regarding life after the fall of Jerusalem:

How lonely sits the city
that was full of people…
She weeps bitterly in the night,
with tears 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 exile because of affliction
and hard servitude;
she dwells now among the nations,
but finds no resting place;
her pursuers have all overtaken her
in the midst of her distress.

The enemy has stretched out his hands
over all her precious things;
for she has seen the nations
enter her sanctuary,
those whom you forbade
to enter your congregation.

“For these things I weep;
my eyes flow with tears;
for a comforter is far from me,
one to revive my spirit;
my children are desolate,
for the enemy has prevailed.

The prophet wept over the city he loved and lost.  So much for “happily ever after.”  Chapter 52 is the work of an editor.  The last words of the prophet occur in chapter 51 (51:64).  Chapter 52 is the work of a careful historian.  Even a casual reading of the chapter reveals the historian’s eye for detail.  It is not an impassioned account – it sounds a bit like Joe Friday – “Just the facts mam.”   The historian is not weeping over Jerusalem’s fall he is merely reporting it.  Our text is found in the last chapter of Jeremiah’s prophecy.

Text: Jeremiah 52:1-34
As we move through the passage we will discover that…

Thesis: God’s judgment of Jerusalem and her subsequent fall causes us to consider our ways and yet be assured of His continuing mercy and grace.

1. The fall of Jerusalem serves to remind us that sin will be dealt with.
2. The fall of Jerusalem serves as a call to faithfulness.
3. God’s providential kindness to king Jehoiachin serves to remind us that the promises of God cannot fail thus we have a future and a hope.

Introduction:
It was just so absurd. The message was too ridicules to be taken seriously. “Babylon the Great is going to fall? Not only fall but become uninhabited? A haunt for jackals? You’re saying the most power nation on earth is going to be completely, utterly, and definitively destroyed? It will be no more? Says who?” When the answer came, “Jeremiah the prophet of God” no doubt some responded, “Crazy Jerry is at it again.” Sometimes it is hard for us to understand how absurd Jeremiah sounded. After all we are “this” side of the story. History has vindicated him. But at the time of his ministry he seemed like a nut! Babylon was the super power of its day. Economically, militarily, culturally and religiously they dominated the world. They seemed unstoppable. Yet God’s prophet boldly declared Babylon would fall. God’s instrument in bringing judgment on Judah and the surrounding nations would herself be judged.

Jeremiah’s prophecy against Babylon takes up two full chapters totaling 110 verses. In fact it is longer than his oracles against the other nations combined. If you read chapters 50 and 51 together you find yourself saying, “This is redundant. He keeps saying the same thing over and over. Why doesn’t he just say it and be done with it?” You might even being thinking of Jeremiah what you think of me on occasion – “Is he ever going to find a place to land this turkey? He just keeps circling and every time he comes in for a landing – he takes off again.” But there is a reason to his madness. He is repeating himself for just cause – he is seeking to show that God is going to completely and finally destroy Babylon. Second, he is driving it into the ground because he knows people aren’t going to believe it. By his adamantly stating it again and again he is hoping to convince them that this is really going to happen.

In typical Jeremiah fashion he provides his last object lesson to drive the message home. Do you remember what he did back in 13:1-11? He took his new linen belt and buried it near the Euphrates. He went back a year later and dug it up to drive home the truth that God will save a remnant. Or how about 19:1-15 when he bought that nice clay jar and invited everyone out to the garbage dump to watch his break it? Do you remember? This is what God is going to do to Jerusalem. Then there was 32:1-44 when he bought a field in enemy territory to show that God would bring his people home. Well here in chapter 51 we find another of his object lessons.

The word that Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah the son of Neriah, son of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah king of Judah to Babylon, in the fourth year of his reign. Seraiah was the quartermaster. Jeremiah wrote in a book all the disaster that should come upon Babylon, all these words that are written concerning Babylon. And Jeremiah said to Seraiah: When you come to Babylon, see that you read all these words, and say, O LORD, you have said concerning this place that you will cut it off, so that nothing shall dwell in it, neither man nor beast, and it shall be desolate forever. When you finish reading this book, , tie a stone to it and cast it into the midst of the Euphrates, and say, Thus shall Babylon sink, to rise no more, because of the disaster that I am bringing upon her, and they shall become exhausted.

Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.
(Jeremiah 51:59-64, ESV)

The message was pretty clear – Babylon is sunk! Which would have been a ridiculous message at the time.

Chapter 51 describes in very dramatic language the fall of Babylon.

• It is clear the attack on her will be carefully orchestrated – (12-13)
• The attack will be overwhelming – (14, 33)
• The city would be pounded and then stripped – (3-4, 29-30)
• Babylon will be like an extinct volcano – (22-26)
• She will be like a desert waste – (36-37)

I love the picture given in 51:31-32. This is a little insight into Babylon’s war room:

One runner runs to meet another,
and one messenger to meet another,
to tell the king of Babylon
that his city is taken on every side;
the fords have been seized,
the marshes are burned with fire,
and the soldiers are in panic.

God is moving against Babylon. The hunter becomes the hunted. The oppressor is now the oppressed. God’s judgment is to be swift, thorough, terrifying and final.

Text: Jeremiah 51:1-64

As we reflect on this chapter considering its message for us today I want us to note that…

Thesis: God’s sovereign judgment of Babylon provides some important lessons and a sober warning.

1. God’s judgment reminds us that He is just, and powerful and that He graciously responds to the prayers of His people.
2. God’s judgment of Babylon and her wicked ways serves as a sober warning to those who would stand against Him.

Introduction
They are haunting words from the English poet Shelley as he described the sad remains of a once great empire:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Shelly mocks the pride of man as he speaks of the fleeting glory of earthly kingdoms.  Ozymandias was another name for Ramesses the Great, Pharoh of Egypt, his statue boasting of the greatness of his kingdom now buried in the desert sands.  So it is with all earthly kingdoms.  They come and go.  They rise and fall.  They are like the mist that appears today and is gone tomorrow.  The closing chapters of Jeremiah’s prophecy speak of God’s judgment on the nations.

Jeremiah thunders God’s judgment on Judah, Egypt, Philistia, Moab, Damascus, Kedar and Elam.  He warned that Babylon was coming as Yahweh’s chosen instrument.  When reading these pronouncements you get the impression that it would be foolish to resist the coming destruction for Babylon was unstoppable.  But what becomes clear in this evening’s text is that Babylon was not a law unto herself.  Yes she was God’s instrument but she too would answer for her sins.  Our text is found in Jeremiah chapter 50.

Text: Jeremiah 50:1-46
This text is the climax of Jeremiah’s prophecy.?It’s message is clear, comforting and sobering.

Thesis: The destruction of Babylon signals Judah’s redemption.

The fall of one accompanies the rise of the other.  With the destruction of Babylon comes the restoration of Judah.  I want to point out two things from our text.

1. A surprising reversal in which the conqueror becomes the conquered.
2. A glorious transformation as the oppressed becomes the redeemed.
   1. First, note the presence of genuine repentance.  It is there in Jeremiah 50:4.
   2. Also note the means of a new relationship in 50:5.
   3. They were assured the presence of the Great Shepherd (50:6-7, 17-19).
   4. All this is made possible by our kinsmen redeemer (50:8, 44-46).
   5. Then comes the greatest promise of all the promise of full atonement (50:20).

This is what Christ has accomplished for us on the cross.

• He died for your sin.
• Those sins before you were a Christian.
• Those now and those in the future.
• All forgiven.
• All of them gone.
• The small and the great.
• The known and the unknown.

In the words of Philip P. Bliss:

Guilty, vile and helpless, we;
Spotless Lamb of God was he;
Full atonement!  Can it be?
Hallelujah!  What a Savior.