"A Righteous Branch"
[Jeremiah 23:1-6]
November 25, 2007 Second Reformed Church
The prophet Jeremiah witnessed the terrible destruction of Israel and Judah and Jerusalem which culminated in 586 B.C. He lived through war, conquest, starvation, torture, and seeing the people of Jerusalem reduced to cannibalism before the city and the temple were finally captured and destroyed. The book of Jeremiah is the collected messages of the "weeping prophet." He warns Judah against sin. He explains why they are suffering at the Hand of God and the Babylonians. Yet, he also tells them that a day will come when everything will change.
Chapter twenty-three begins with an explanation of why they are suffering:
The Lord declared that evil shepherds had caused the flock to be scattered -- into captivity and throughout foreign lands. The cause of the destruction, the cause of the captivity in Babylon, was ministers doing evil. Rather than tending the flock, rather than being tender towards the people of God, rather than feeding them, rather than exercising oversight over them, the shepherds had lorded themselves over the flock -- the ministers had pressured the people of God and made unreasonable demands of them until the people scattered and fell victim to the Babylonians.
Ministers are called to preach and teach the whole Word of God, in the pulpit, in the classroom, and in the home. When they neglect their duty or abuse their call, they have sinned against God and God’s people. And surely, trouble is coming.
Churches in the West are in trouble largely because those whom churches have called to be ministers are unfaithful to their call. And there are a variety of ways to be unfaithful: there are people in the ordained ministry who do not believe the Bible is true; they do not believe that salvation is in Jesus Alone. There are people in the ordained ministry who believe that to be a minister means that you are healthier, wealthier, and free to do practically anything you want, as compared to the sheep, or as compared to "the world." Etc. The Lord condemns all those who claim to be ministers who unrepentantly pursue evil.
However, no merely human minister is completely faithful: I have sinned against God and against you and I repent of my sin, and I ask God to forgive me and that my sin will not hurt you or this church. I ask for your prayers that I would be faithful to the call that God has put on me, not matter how I or others might try to dissuade me.
When we looked at I Peter, we were directed to the warning of James, the brother of our Lord, "Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness" (James 3:1). Ministers receive a stricter judgment on that final day. The ordained ministry is a dangerous call, both for the minister and for those to whom the minister is given charge. It is not a call to be entered into lightly or rashly.
Then the Lord turned to those evil, unfaithful ministers who had been carried off into exile, after years of abusing their call and abusing the people of God, unrepentantly following after their evil ways, and the Lord said He would repay them for their evil. If we know ourselves at all, we should tremble at the idea of God giving us what we deserve. God promised to give them back what they gave.
On that final day, if we have believed in Jesus Alone for our salvation, then we will receive back according to His Work. But, if we do not, then we will receive back according to our own works, measured against the standard of God's Holiness.
However, to the flock of Judah, the Lord promised that He would bring back a remnant of the flock that He scattered and He would cause them to be fruitful and multiply. And I hope we all just thought, "wait a minute." We just looked at the idea that it was the unfaithful ministers following after their evil that caused the flock to be scattered, and because the ministers unrepentantly followed after their sin, the Lord would repay them in kind, but now the Lord says that He scattered the sheep. What's going on?
It is true that Judah was scattered due to the sin of her ministers, but it is also true that God scattered Judah because they were unfaithful and sinned against God. The ministers sinned and oppressed the people and they scattered. The people sinned against God and God scattered them. Both occurred. The ministers and the people sinned; God did not.
So the Lord promised that He would bring back a remnant -- God would bring some of the people back to the land, and God would cause them to be fruitful and multiply -- the nation would quickly be repopulated. And God promised that He would set faithful shepherds -- faithful ministers -- over them, and they would no longer be afraid or in dismay, and none of them would be lost.
God makes us them same promise today: out of all of humanity, God has chosen a remnant to bring back, some who will believe in Him, and they shall have His Peace and Assurance. And, God will not lose one of the remnant -- every single person that God had chosen to be brought back to Him will be brought back -- God will not fail. And out of that remnant, God has chosen some to be faithful ministers. Not sinless, but faithful. A faithful minister repents of his sin, and he guides the sheep in all of God's Truth and he protects the sheep from anything and anyone that might harm them. So ministers ought to be versed in the false teachings of the world to be able to present an argument against them, and also in the Word of God, that he might present it well and in a way that can be understood.
The promise of the remnant's return to the land did occur, but there is a second promise in the morning's reading that wouldn't come to pass for about six hundred years. The Lord promised that the day would come when He would raise up a righteous branch from the line of David. The day would come when there would be a king of David's lineage Who would reign on the throne of His father and deal wisely and execute justice and righteousness in the land. In the days of this King, Judah would be saved and Israel would dwell secure.
And the exiles -- the remnant -- would have understood, immediately, that Jeremiah was talking about the Messiah -- the Savior. There is absolutely no other way to understand verses five and six, but as referring to the Promised Savior.
Hear this Good News: "And [Gabriel] said to [Mary], 'Do not be afraid Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end'" (Luke 1:30-33).
And the Lord said, "And this is the name by which he will be called: the Lord is my righteousness." What does that mean? What is righteousness? "Righteousness" is "moral innocence." So, if the Name of the King, the Savior, is "the Lord is my righteousness," that indicates that our righteousness doesn't come from ourselves. That indicates that we cannot be righteous in ourselves. No mere human being can be morally innocent -- and that is what the Bible teaches -- since the Fall, since the sin in the Garden, every mere human being has been conceived and born a sinner. So, our righteousness, which is necessary for salvation, comes to us from the Lord. The Lord credits us with Jesus' Righteousness. The theologians say that believers have an "alien righteousness" which means that we don't do it -- we don't achieve it -- it is credited to us from Another. And that Gift should inspire all who believe to faithfulness.
Jeremiah delivered the Word of the Lord to the exiles in Babylon, telling them that they were in captivity because their ministers had unrepentantly lived evil lives against their call, so God would repay their evil. Yet, they were also in captivity because they had also sinned against God. Still, God promised that He would restore a remnant, return them, and give them ministers who were repentant sinners, who sought to live out the call God had put on their lives.
And even better than that, the Messiah -- the final King of Israel -- was coming, and He would grant His people security and His Righteousness, that they might be His forever. We celebrate and worship this King this morning: Jesus the Christ. He is our Lord and Master, our Savior, and the Only Hope for humanity.
As we prepare for the Advent season and the celebration of the Birth of our God on earth, let us keep in mind that this same Little Baby is also the King of All, to Whom we owe all allegiance.
Let us pray:
Almighty God and King, we thank You for revealing Yourself to us, that You are not merely a Perfect Man, though You are, but You are also God, the King. Help us to see You and understand You in the fulness of Your Being. And may the knowledge of You give us clarity and wisdom to live as Your people in this day. For it is in Jesus' Name we pray, Amen.
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