October 24, 2021 Text: Jeremiah 31:7-9
Dear Friends in Christ,
When I say the words “you are in trouble” what do you think of? Echoes of your childhood and words from dad or mom? A sibling spouting the words at you with glee in their voice? A friend telling you your tee shot just went behind a tree? A co-worker who just caught the boss in a bad mood and the hammer is about to come down? The word “trouble” and happy thoughts bouncing around in your brain do not go together.
Jeremiah is speaking words this morning to a people who “are in trouble.” The Israelites are having the life squeezed right out of them. They have rebelled and turned against God. Nations are ready to conquer them. They have lived this way for so long that they cannot break free. Their fate is sealed. What can be done?
“WHERE TO TURN WHEN IN TROUBLE?”
Jeremiah is known as the “iron” prophet because he is preaching a hapless message of repentance to these weak, weak people. He pours out his strength in the task, hammering the people with prophecy after prophecy, firing them with repeated warnings of judgment. The book is a fifty-two-chapter composition, which is calling the people to turn from their sin. Jeremiah would make a classic preacher because he would repeat over and over, word for word, what he was trying to get across to his hearers.
Think about us? Could we be in a heap of trouble? Are we in danger of missing the message because of what is happening around our little world? Are we letting all the outside noise affect our faith? Some are calling these times the worst to live in. Really? Did anyone try to stop you from coming to church this morning? Other than a prison of your own making no one is putting us away for our faith. We have been given the greatest privilege in the world to gather here on a Sunday morning to hear God’s Word and partake of His Sacrament. Like Jeremiah, I cannot hammer that home any more clearly. To think we are willing to throw that all away to follow other idols is a sign of our rebellion. The trouble we make for ourselves comes directly from our confused heart and mind.
This is what the people have done in our text. They have thrown away their status as the firstborn of God. They have allowed people and circumstances and government and their own foolishness to drive them away from their Father – God Himself. Jeremiah is trying to encourage them back – “O Lord save your people, the remnant of Israel.” He speaks to the whole; “I will bring them from the north country and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth.” He speaks to individuals, “among them the blind and the lame, the pregnant woman and she who is in labor.” He tells them how to come, “A great company, they shall return here. With weeping they shall come, and with pleas for mercy I will lead them back, I will make them walk by brooks of water, in a straight path in which they shall not stumble, for I am a father to Israel.”
Where do we need to come from? What trouble have we gotten into? Where in our life has our mind overcome our heart? Why do we wander from the Lord Himself when we know He is so needed? We too need the message over and over. Even then we drift from His side. Don’t let Satan alter your thinking. Come home. Come in weeping and mercy. Walk by the brooks of water. Live in the straight path the Lord has laid out for you.
No matter what trouble you have which is real or imagined your faithful God stands with you. You can always turn to Him because the message of the Lord is that He always has your eternal salvation in view. Jeremiah prophesied a new covenant and God fulfilled it in the life, death, and resurrection of his Son, Jesus Christ, who welcomes us into His Kingdom and gives to us the new testament in his blood.
Remember the fear you felt when hearing the words, “you are in trouble?” God tells us today that He has released us from that fear. Both the fear of the hammer of the law and the fear we sometimes shelter ourselves in. Christ is our comfort and hope and joy even when the fear of trouble enters our little sphere. Come on out. Gather us together Lord. It’s beautiful thing to live in God’s grace.
Amen.