09 Who Will Help Us Out of This Mess? (Jeremiah 23:1–8)

Krisan Marotta: Welcoming you to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. This is the ninth talk in our series on the book of Jeremiah. We'll be looking at Jeremiah chapter 23, verses 1 through 8. You can follow along with lecture notes and find links to everything mentioned in the talk at our website. Go to wednesdayintheword.com slash Jeremiah 9. So glad you joined us. Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that we inaugurated a new president last week. And like his presence predecessor, he ran and was elected largely on a platform of change. So he ran as the political outsider, running against the establishment, promising to do things differently, to shake up the status quo and implement change. So he ran on the a platform that the established leadership has gotten us into this big mess, and he's going to be the one to fix it. Now, you may or may not have voted for him. You may or may not agree with what needs to be changed or his concept of what needs to be changed or how to how to fix it, but I think you can argue his success came in large part because he promised to fix the mess. And I think that's something we all long for. We want someone to come in and fix what's wrong. We want a hero. Because we live in a broken world, a sinful world. It's a scary place right now. We face daily news stories of yet another terrorist attack or a police shooting or an act of senseless violence, and there seems to be crisis and injustice everywhere. And we want someone who can straighten it out. We want a hero. We want someone to stand up and say, this is the time to fix the problems. We're going to do it, we're going to bring justice, we're going to lead us to a better place. But we've been disappointed by our leaders. Leaders come along promising hope and change, and then we get corruption and scandal. Or we elect these bright, promising outsiders, and then they go to Washington, and what happens when they go to Washington? Now they're the insiders, and they cease fighting for all the things they campaigned on and start fighting to keep themselves in power. So that raises the question: who's going to get us out of the mess? Who's going to make things right? And that's the question we're going to answer from Jeremiah today. Because the people of Jeremiah's day were facing a national crisis, and they were asking the question, who's going to fix it? How are we going to get out of here? Out of this mess. So before we look at the passage, let me remind you briefly of where we are and what we're doing, the historical setting for the book of Jeremiah, and how we're going through it. So Jeremiah was a prophet to the southern kingdom of Judah. So after the death of David, Solomon became king. After Solomon's death, Israel descended into civil war and that divided the kingdom. And ten tribes formed an alliance around one of Solomon's sons and formed what we call the northern kingdom, and their capital was Samaria. And then the two southern tribes of Judah and Benjamin allied around a different one of Solomon's sons, and they became the southern kingdom of Judah. And they kept their capital in Assyria. I'm sorry, in Jerusalem. So in 722 BC, the northern tribes were conquered by Assyria and they were taken into exile, and Judah is struggling on alone. And that's the situation when Jeremiah begins his ministry. About a hundred years later, the northern tribes have been in exile. Judah's still around. The Assyrians have been the dominant world power. And then their king dies, and they go into civil war over who's going to be the next king. And as they go into civil war, both Babylon and Egypt say, hey, this is our chance. We're going to become the next big superpower. And if you look at a map, you'll see Judah is geographically in the middle of those three powers. So they're caught in this turmoil as all their neighbors are fighting to be the next superpower. And in the midst of that, God calls Jeremiah and he tells Jeremiah to warn the people that Babylon is going to come and judge them, and it's Babylon's going to win, and that he's going to judge them for their disobedience. They too will be taken into exile. But eventually God will restore them. So Jeremiah's beginning his ministry as the nation's falling apart. Judah's facing this global political turmoil around them with all their neighbors, and Babylon's armies are massing on their borders, and they're looking around and they're saying, What how are we going to get out of this? Now we're not covering the entire book of Jeremiah. We're going to do a more in-depth study than an overview, but we're not doing a verse-by-verse, chapter-by-chapter study. What we've been doing is cherry-picking individual passages that focus on a major theological theme. So each week we're asking a theme question like sin, judgment, what's the point of religion, what is faith, what's hope, so on. And we're answering that question from Jeremiah. So we have been taking the passages in the order they appear in the book, but the order is not chronological. Jeremiah is grouped thematically. So his prophecies are gathered by theme, not by the date they were given. So we are going through them in the order in the book, but we're skipping around in time based on where that particular passage or oracle was preached. And sometimes it's really easy to figure out the time period when it was preached. Sometimes we have to we have to kind of guess and we don't really know. In the fall, we looked at most of the passages that warn of judgment and exile and the coming judgment of the Lord. You'll be happy to know that this session we're going to look at more of the passages that promise hope, restoration, and redemption. Jeremiah had two parts to his message. Judgment is coming, was the first part, which we concentrated on in the fall, but restoration is also coming, and that's what we're going to concentrate in the spring, this session. So today we're looking at Jeremiah 23, verses 1 through 8. It is lesson 9 in your study guides. And we're looking at the question: who will help us out of this mess? And I'm going to divide this into three sections. Verses 1 through 4, where he condemns the shepherds. He condemns the current leaders. Verses 5 and 6, where he promises the coming of a king. And then 7 and 8, where he promises a new exodus that will be greater than the first. So there's a lot of ways to divide it, but the way I'm going to look at it is 1 through 4, where he condemns the shepherds, 5 through 6, the promise of a coming king, and 7 and 8, the promise of a new exodus. Okay, so let's start. We're going to look at 1 and 2 first. Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture, declares the Lord. Therefore, thus says the Lord God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who are tending my people, you have scattered my flock and driven them away and have not attended to them. Behold, I am about to attend to you for the evil of your deeds, declares the Lord. So when a passage starts out with woe, that's an oracle of judgment. That's kind of like, you know, fairy tales start out once upon a time. An oracle of judgment almost always starts out woe. And you know, uh-oh, something's coming. So God criticizes the leaders of Israel, he calls them shepherds, and he says, Whoa, you have not been doing your job right. Now the image of a shepherd is pretty familiar to us. If you've been around the church a while, it's one of the most common metaphors in the Old Testament for God, and it's used in the New Testament as well. It's first used of God in Genesis, then it's used of Joshua, but we get the fullest picture when they apply it to King David, because he actually was a shepherd, literally, that was his job before he became king, and God tells him that he will take David from shepherding sheep to shepherding his people. David was basically a good king, despite some other public failings. But now we're in Jeremiah's time, and the the leaders in Jeremiah's day are not like David. They have failed in their job. Now, most of us aren't too familiar with what it's like to be a shepherd, but you can probably figure out what their main responsibilities are. The first, they're supposed to keep the sheep together, so they keep them all in one place so no one can get lost. And second, they're to protect them from danger. Sounds about right. Keep the sheep together, keep them protected from danger. And our text says these leaders have failed in both their responsibilities. They've scattered the flock, so they haven't kept them together, and they've driven them away out into danger. So they've done the exact opposite of what a shepherd should do. So this charge that the shepherds have failed their sheep is repeated throughout Jeremiah. It's echoed in Ezekiel, and I want to read you Ezekiel a little bit of Ezekiel 34, because Ezekiel gives a fuller picture of what the responsibilities of the shepherds were and how they have failed. This is Ezekiel chapter 34, verses 1 through 6. The word of the Lord came to me. Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy and say, even to the shepherds, thus says the Lord God, Ah, shepherds of Israel, you have been feeding yourselves. Should you not should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep. So they're supposed to feed the flock, but instead they're feeding themselves. Then in verse 4, the weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and they became food for wild beasts. My sheep were scattered, they wandered all over the mountains and on every hill. My sheep were scattered all over the face of the earth, and none to search or seek for them. So they were supposed to feed and protect them, keep them together, they were supposed to care for them and their needs, and instead they ruled them harshly and they scattered them. And that's kind of a fuller picture of what's Jeremiah's speaking to. Now, if we think about that, we've all probably had leaders or authority figures in our lives who's let us down. So people who were supposed to protect you or gather you or mentor you, but they failed in that responsibility. Sometimes maybe they were negligent or they just simply failed. Maybe they were abusive, or maybe they just didn't do a good job. So whether they're parents, teachers, pastors, political leaders, we've all had people where we're looking to make things right, to lead, to do the right thing, and instead they've heard us and stepped on them. Maybe they were deliberately selfish and scheming, or maybe they were trying their best and it just didn't work out. And either way, we're left with these scars. And the question is, how do we respond? And what can we learn from Jeremiah about what do you do when you have a hero or a leader or a mentor and that person disappoints you? Well, the first thing I think our passage invites us to do is acknowledge that our leaders have failed. Admit this was a problem, this didn't go the way it should have, this wasn't the way it should be. And sometimes I think as Christians, we don't feel like we can say that. We think, oh, as good Christians, we're not supposed to notice or acknowledge someone else's mistakes or someone else's failures. We kind of look the other way. And I think this passage gives us permission to say, our leaders have failed for whatever reason, whether it was intentional or whether it was unintentional. This is a sinful world, we're sinful people, sinful people, even with the best of intentions, are going to hurt and neglect and disappoint sometimes. So it's okay to acknowledge my parents may have failed me in some way, my teachers may have failed me in some way, my pastors weren't always perfect, or whatever heroes you had that they they had flaws. So that's the starting point. It's okay to admit this wasn't right, this wasn't a good situation. Now notice that God says they're going to be called into account. Their failure to meet their responsibility is not gonna go unpunished. And he uses a wordplay here. In verse 2, he uses the same Hebrew word twice. It means to attend to or to notice, and you can use it in a positive sense, or you can use it in a negative sense, and he uses it twice here, once positive and once negative. So it's similar to our English expression, I'm gonna take care of you, like, oh yeah, I'm gonna take care of you, and we can mean that negatively, or we can mean that positively, and that's why you get that translation of I'm gonna attend to you because you didn't attend to the flock. It's they're they're trying to capture that word play of you're gonna get what's coming to you. You were supposed to take care of these people, you didn't, so now I'm gonna take care of you. That's the idea. And I think that helps us realize, in whatever ways we're leaders, that God takes that responsibility seriously. If this sounds like a warning to those of us in leadership, I think it is. And I to me it seems like the modern American church has a tendency to want the impact gifts. We all want, we kind of covet the ones who are up front that have the impact, that get noticed, the glamorous jobs. And we we prefer those to the jobs that are backstage or behind the scenes or supporting. And yet, those upfront, front-of-house jobs, they carry an extra responsibility. And it's a responsibility I think we ought to take seriously and embark on with a great deal of humility and sin. So, in part, I think this could be a warning to leaders: take leading seriously. It there is an additional responsibility. If you're gonna stand up front and proclaim that uh you're leading people in the Word of God, you need to be trying uh seriously to do that. But it's also an encouragement, I think, to all the rest of us, that God sees when our leaders don't live up to their calling, when they don't take that responsibility seriously, God knows and he's going to bring justice. He's still in control, he's still watching, and he will act to restore judgment. Now, just as an aside, this is an encouragement. If you're disappointed because of the current occupant of the White House, remember, regardless of who's in the White House or which party controls Congress, Jesus Christ is still King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Our leaders are under God's control. They're under his rule and his judgment. So whatever their moral character or their beliefs, whether you like them or not, God is saying, I'm watching, I'm in control, and judgment and justice will be established in the end. So he starts out by saying, These people who we hope to lead us, who we hope would get us out of this mess, they failed. We're left with this wounded disappointed, and that raises the question, who will help us out of this mess? And this is where we see God step in. Look at verses 3 and 4. Then I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them and bring them back to their pasture, and they will be fruitful and multiply. I will also raise up shepherds over them, and they will tend them, and they will not be afraid any longer, nor be terrified, nor will any be missing, declares the Lord. So I want to deal first with the apparent contradiction here. In verse 1, he says, Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture. And in verse 3, he says, I will gather the remnant of my flock where I have driven them and bring them back. So we have this apparent contradiction. Who scattered the flock? Verse 1 says the shepherds, verse 3 says it's God. Well, it looks like a contradiction, but we can view the exile from two different lenses. On the one hand, we can look at it from the point of view of the leaders. They had a responsibility to lead the people to the Lord. They had a responsibility to encourage them to follow Yahweh, to keep the covenant, and then rather than encouraging them to do that, they encouraged the nation to turn to other gods. So rather than encouraging them toward Yahweh, they encouraged them away from Yahweh. So there's a sense in which we could say the leaders scattered the people because they failed in that responsibility. So that's one way, that's one side of the coin. But the other side of the coin is God's people were responsible to follow God no matter who's leading them. So they rebelled. Their leaders failed their leadership, but the people also have a responsibility to follow God, to keep the covenant, to seek him and find him, and they rebelled against that covenant. And they rebelled against God, and so God judged their rebellion. So there's a sense in which God caused them to scatter because as judgment for their rebellion, he scattered them. Do you follow me? So there's two sides of the coin, because there's two responsibilities. There's a sense in which the shepherds were scattering because they had a responsibility to keep the sheep together, but there's a sense in which God was scattering because the people have a responsibility to follow regardless of what their leaders are doing, and then God judges that rebellion. So they're both true. So I don't think it's a contradiction in the it's just looking at different sides of the same coin. Both are judged for their rebellion, but the leaders carry an additional judgment for their bad leadership. Okay, so what does God do? So who's gonna lead us out of this mess? God says he himself is gonna step in and lead his people. He's gonna bring them back, he's gonna make them safe again, he's gonna be the shepherd of his people. The leaders he put over them failed, so he's gonna come in and do it himself. He's the one who's gonna intervene. Now, I think what that teaches us is that the failure of our human leaders prepares us for the work of God. And I think that's an important lesson. So all those things that happen where people leave disappoint or frustrate or neglect or abuse us, that failure prepares us for the intervention of God. And that's a repeated theme in the Bible: that God uses hard times to prepare us for good times. God uses suffering to prepare us for blessing. So we begin by acknowledging, yes, our leaders have failed. We begin with that disappointment, but then into that disappointment, we look for God to work, we look for Him to act. And often that disappointment is what brings you back to a God in a way you wouldn't have otherwise. I'm sure probably all of you have had that experience where through some big mistake or some tragedy or some failure, you saw the hand of God in a way that you didn't when everything was going fine. So that's the second thing our passage invites us to do. The first is acknowledge that when our leaders have failed us, the second is look for God's intervention, look for what he's doing, how is he working? What's he bringing out of this? When people in our lives fail us, look for God to step in. And if you think back when you when someone failed you, or when maybe you were the one that failed in your leadership, what you know, were you expecting them to be Jesus for you, or have you seen God act through that? Has that failure become an opportunity for God to work? Now, don't misunderstand me. The fact that God can bring something good out of the tragedy or redeem a horrible mess does not excuse the failures of our human leaders. We've already seen God says he's gonna call them to account. So just because God can and does bring goodness out of selfishness and turns tragedy and failure into growth and maturity, it doesn't mean that those who who cause the tragedy are excused. We already saw that in verse 2 when he says, I am about to attend to you. So God's redemption and healing doesn't justify prior bad behavior, but it can help us know that justice and redemption are coming. So it gives us a perspective when we are in the midst of the of that dark day or the hardest day when something's happened, instead of falling headfirst into self-pity and despair, and you know, woe is me and why did this happen? We can turn to God and say, How are you gonna act? How are you gonna use this? Where is the redemption coming? So teach me, heal me, show me. And God promises to step in and do exactly that. So when our leaders fail us, we can look to say, how is God gonna step in? And he gives us a clue here. First, he says he's gonna gather them, he'll bring his people back together, he'll bring them to a place where they will be fruitful and multiply, and they will be feel safe and secure enough to do what little what sheep do and have little baby sheep. And he will increase their numbers. So that phrase, be fruitful and increase in number, is a direct quote from Genesis 1. He says, I'm going to bring you back to that place of security, that place of the garden where life was good. So we rebelled, he sent us out of the garden, and ever since then we've been trying to get back. And he says, The day is coming when I will bring you back. Now, I've seen this in my own. Life in the church. I've been in two churches that were devastated by poor leadership. And the first one happened when I was a brand new believer. The church I was attending, I was in college, went through this doctrinal divide. And it ended up splitting the body with a lot of people leaving and forming another church. And it caused all this confusion and turmoil. And there were people on both sides of the divide that I loved and respected. And I it was it was very confusing. And I was a theological baby, so I'd look at them and go, here are two teachers that I totally respect, and they disagree with each other. How in the world am I supposed to respond to that? And in retrospect, what I can see is that God used that divide in part to give me this great desire to study the Bible for myself, because I never wanted to be in that helpless position again where I had two people I respected, and I really had no idea how to even decide who was right and who was wrong. And I thought, I don't want to be helpless like that again. So I embarked on this quest of Bible study and learning to study the Bible, and in some ways, that's what led me here today to be standing in front of you. So I in retrospect, I can see at least how God used that in my life, and I imagine there are a lot of other stories of people who were there at that time who God used it in some way for good in their lives. My second experience with a disastrous church leadership was more recent, and I don't know how God is going to redeem that yet. I've seen little glimpses of hope and redemption, but I don't think I've really seen the full picture. But I can look at that and go, well, this first experience he brought good of, out of. So I have confidence that he will act again in the second situation. So how does God act? In verse 3, he says he's going to intervene and he says, I'm going to send you new shepherds. The days are coming when he will raise up new shepherds who know how to care for the sheep, who will protect the sheep, and that's a hopeful thing. The problem will be solved. There will be good new leaders coming. Now, for those in Jerusalem, this is probably pointing to Ezra and Nehemiah, the leaders who would lead them back into the land after the exile and would help them rebuild the temple. But I think it also points further ahead. That phrase, the days is coming, is very, very general. It has no particular time reference. So what we see then in the next few verses in five or six is he moves beyond the immediate new shepherds to one particular shepherd who is coming. So five and six. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch, and he will reign as king and act wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land. In his days, Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell securely, and this is his name by which he will be called the Lord our righteousness. So notice what he's promising here. This is not, I'm gonna bring back the status quo, because the status quo isn't good enough. Restoring the same sinful people to the same sinful land under the same sinful leaders is gonna lead to the same rebellion. You know, if you put the same kinds of people with the same problems with sin back in the same place, what's gonna happen? We're gonna have the same rebellion. We need something new, we need a change, and that's exactly what God promises a better hope. So the days are coming. Again, that's very general. It has no particular time frame, it doesn't give any indication of how long or when. But we can see that he's speaking of the Messiah. And often in the Old Testament, when they talk about the Messiah, they talk about two things, who the person is and what life will be like when he comes. So when some passages will emphasize one, like the person of the Messiah, what he will be like, uh, what he will do, and so forth. And some passages emphasize here's what life is going to be like, here's what the community is going to be like after he comes. This is what life will be like under his rule. And I think we get a little bit of both of those aspects here. He emphasizes the person of the Messiah in verse 5, and then what life will be like in verse 6. So he promises the days are coming when he will send one shepherd in particular. That shepherd's going to rule in light of the covenant, the blessings of the covenant, and the and those blessings will be realized among the people such that they will live securely and there will be justice. And he compares the one uh to a righteous branch or a true shoot of David's line as opposed to his predecessors who were bad shepherds. And David's pictured as a stump because most of the sons that followed him, if you've read through the book of Kings, you know they didn't live up to his reputation, and there wasn't a king like David since. But the promise is there will be. There is one coming who will be everything David was and more. What David, he won't have David's failures. I like this image of the stump because we have a, I almost took a picture of it, we have a tree in our neighborhood that it's like it just is a disaster magnet. This this tree's been hit by lightning, it was split down the middle, it was knocked over by a hurricane, and it you look at it, and it's like at ground level, there's like five little stumps. Like they're each time it gets knocked over, another what base grows up. So instead of having one trunk, it's got like all these little trunks trying to compete, and some of them are shriveled and black, and others are there's like these sprigs of new life trying to grow from the base. And that's the image God says there's going to be new life from the base. There's going to be a new shepherd, and he will finally be a king like David was, and more so. So the same stuff that produced David is going to produce another king, only this king is going to be even better than David, and he will be the one who will finally do right and do what is right in the land. Now, that's pretty familiar talk to us, because think about every political season, everybody claims to be the heir apparent of the last political hero, right? So the Republicans all claim I'm the next Ronald Reagan, and the Democrats all claim I'm the next JFK, and it's the same idea. They look back to someone who was a model leader from the past and say, I'm the heir apparent to that leader. And that's essentially what's going on here. God's comparing this new leader to David, but he says he's going to be better and different. And then I think he gets personal. There's not an indication of the date of this oracle, but most scholars think it was delivered during the time of King Zedekiah, because there's a wordplay on the name Zedekiah. Now, Zedekiah wasn't a very good king. He didn't listen to God, he didn't listen to Jeremiah, and he was ultimately going to be the one who would preside over the final destruction of Jerusalem. But his name comes from two Hebrew words, the word for righteousness and the word for Yahweh. And his name, roughly translated, is my righteousness is Yahweh. And yet he did not live up to that name. He did not exemplify the righteousness of Yahweh in any way. He didn't establish judgment. And so God says he's going to send a new king who we'll be called Yahweh is our righteousness. So it's this play of my righteousness is Yahweh, but the new king will be Yahweh is our righteousness. And because it's a play on Zedekiah's name, most people think that's when this oracle was given, and he's rebuking Zedekiah. And he's saying, the new king is going to be what the old king isn't. This new shepherd that God is sending will be everything David was and more and nothing Zedekiah is. He will reign wisely, he will do what is right and just he will establish justice. And the emphasis here is on a king who will exemplify the righteousness of God, who will establish righteousness and justice. So this is the fulfillment of the prayer: Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That day is coming, and it will come through this righteous king. This is a promise that God's righteousness will rule the earth the way God's righteousness rules heaven, and it's going to be brought by this new king, this one particular shepherd. So when we have failed leaders, the hope is God will intervene. He may intervene in time and history immediately, as he did with Ezra and Nehemiah for the people of Jerusalem, but ultimately there is a bigger promise. There is the kingdom of heaven coming the day when he will establish his reign and earth through the Messiah. Now, there's a popular theology today that has taken this idea and, in my worthless opinion, has run off the deep end with it. And you'll hear it called restorational theology or emergent theology, sometimes the renewal of all things gospel, those are all pretty much synonyms for the same idea. And my opinion is that they've missed a boat because they emphasize we have to bring righteousness and we have to bring justice. So I would, I think they have rightly pointed out in the past the American church has been maybe too focused on personal holiness and personal salvation, and we have let social causes slide. And so there, I think there's at least a genuine sincere concern to let's not let those social causes slide. But they've gone one step too far and said, we're the ones that have to fix it. We as a church have to go do this, and God is not going to come back until we do. So but I think we can look at passages like here in Jeremiah and say, it's not gonna be a megachurch that's gonna solve this problem, it's not gonna be a new president, it's not gonna be the next great nonprofit, it's not gonna bring any of us who's ultimately gonna solve this problem, who's gonna help us out of this mess? It's gonna be the righteous branch from David. God is sending a true shepherd, and he's the one that's gonna fix it. So that doesn't mean we should ignore social causes, but it just means that burden is not on our shoulders. I think that's where they've missed the boat a little bit. Now we know from the New Testament and from history that this new shepherd is going to be Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, who died and rose again so that our sins could be forgiven, so that we could be redeemed, adopted by the Father, forgiven, have our sins forgiven, and then share in the hope of the glory of God. And he is going to return to complete his work, and part of that work is establishing justice. Now I think this passage is particularly appropriate after our last election cycle because many of us have become disillusioned with human leaders. Public opinion polls say government approval ratings are at an all-time low. I mean, they always talk about the presidential approval rating, but Congress is like practically negative. And it's part of this cycle we see over and over again, particularly in the book of judges, where we pin our hopes on a judge or a leader and we want them to fix it, and we give them a shot and then they fail. But that drives us back to God. And then that cycle repeats. Then we start to turn away from God. He sends in another judge or he sends in another leader or a prophet to call us back, and there's hope for a while, but then that person fails. So he promises the day is coming when justice will be established, the day is coming when all the mess that you long to see fixed is going to be fixed, and it's going to come through the righteous branch, the Son of David, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. So he doesn't just end with the promise of the new leader. Notice he focuses on what the new community is going to be like. Let's look at seven and eight. Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when they will no longer say, as the Lord lives, who brought up the sons of Israel from the land of Egypt, but as the Lord lives who brought up and led the descendants of the household of Israel from the north land, and from all the countries where I had driven them, then they will live on their own soil. Again, this the days are coming is very general. It's just f sometime at some point in the future. And it's open-ended. And what we learn is the days are coming when the standard of salvation will be changed. So originally when people talked about Israel, it was like, oh, those people that crossed over the Jordan River, those people that were delivered out of Egypt, and that was the kind of the picture of salvation. Then he's saying that's going to change, and people aren't going to refer to that Exodus so much as they'll say, there was that time when God brought them back from Babylon, when he brought them back from the lands of the north. So that then salvation will be pointed to as that. So they won't refer to themselves as the people God brought out of Egypt anymore. They'll refer to themselves as the people God brought from the north. And then I think Jesus comes and the standard changes again. So we don't see that here in Jeremiah, but from our New Testament perspective, now we can say we don't look at ourselves as the people who came out of exile in Egypt or the people who came back from exile in Babylon. We are people of the cross. Because now we've seen the next stage of God's redemption, that after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we have a new standard, if you will, or measure or reference for salvation, and that is we are people of the cross. So to wrap this up and answer our question, who's going to help us out of this mess? It's not going to be human leaders. It won't be human leaders who have failed to be righteous or just or scattered or destroyed their followers. And like the people of Jeremiah's day, we've had leaders like this, whether they're political leaders or family leaders or spiritual leaders. But what we want to, when that happens, what we want to do then is look to God and say, what are you doing in this failure? What are you doing in this mess? How are you bringing something redemptive and good out of this? So that failure allows us to see God intervene. He does intervene. He steps in to gather and protect his people, to change our lives, to give us hope and purpose. And then ultimately we look to the one leader God has promised, the one who will finally and ultimately establish justice on the earth. Because sometimes it seems far and away, but the day is coming. The day is coming when the Father is going to turn to the Son and say, It's time, go and bring my people home. And that's the hope we're looking for. Not a restoration of the status quo, but the new hope, the new community, the new leader. Let me pray for us. Father, thank you that you are a God that doesn't leave us in our mess, that when we fail and fail repeatedly, or when we rebel, or when despite our best intentions, even we hurt and and um fail in our responsibilities, that you are a God who steps and intervenes. That you save us from our failures, you save us from our messes, both uh here and now and ultimately in the age to come. I just pray for each person here, knowing that in a room this size, someone's everyone probably is struggling with some mess or some situation that seems hopeless or beyond their ability to deal with, and just pray that in that situation you would open our eyes to turn to you, to see your hand, to wait for your redemption and the things that you are bringing out of it, and to trust that ultimately you are coming to set every right and wrong, to wipe away every tear and to establish your justice on the earth. It is name.