Ron Dunn Podcast - Behold The Days Come

Episode Date: November 18, 2015

Pastor Ron Dunn preaches a message from Jeremiah chapter 31. This week he talks about the end times and the Joy of the Lords returning.

You are listening to the Ron Dunn Podcast. Ron Dunn is a well-known author and was one of the most in-demand preachers during the latter part of the 20th century. He led Bible studies all over the United States, Europe, and South Africa. For more information and resources from Ron Dunn, please visit rondunn.com. Now, I want you to open your Bibles tonight to the book, I started to say of November, I tell you. I want you to open your Bibles tonight to the book of Jeremiah chapter 31. Jeremiah chapter 31.

And we're going to deal with what I believe and what most Bible scholars would tell you is the most important greatest passages and most important passages in the Old Testament. We are touching the high watermark of Old Testament revelation as we deal with this passage. And as I said, it is Jeremiah's most important passage and message that he brought to the people I'm going to begin reading in verse 27 and I'm going to read through verse 40 the end of the chapter but I will more than likely not read all those verses but there are three sections to this passage, and I will point them out to you as we go along. He begins in verse 27 with these words, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and with the seed of beast.

And it shall come to pass that like as I have watched over them to pluck up and to break down and to throw down and to destroy and to afflict, so will I watch over them to build and to plant, saith the Lord. In those days they shall say no more. The fathers have eaten a sour grape and the children's teeth are set on edge. But every man shall die for his own iniquity, and every man that has eaten the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge. Verse 31, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord,

that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Now you'll notice those three statements. Behold, the days come. Now that phrase in Jeremiah and in many other Old Testament prophecies always point to the days of salvation when Jesus shall come, when all that is being forepictured in the Old Testament shall be revealed in the New Testament. He's talking about the new covenant, the new beginning that God will give to every individual. Behold the days come. Behold the days come. It strikes a chord with the hearts of most people because nearly everybody is looking for behold the days come.

When things will be as they ought to be. When you'll have an opportunity to start over, to start anew, and to see things made right that have been wrong. Most of us have in our life somewhere a desire to see the days come when God rights the wrongs in our life and in the lives of others. Or the days come when finally the Lord comes from heaven. And the days come when we're taken home. The days come. the Old Testament and throughout the New Testament, there is a forward march in the Bible that we're all moving towards something just as Abraham left the old country to move to the new

country. So in Hebrews, it says that even when they got to that new country, yet they did not pitch, they did not build permanent buildings. They pitched a tent. They lived like foreigners, even in their own land. And they were looking for what? Still looking for that new city, still looking for something else. That's why the Bible calls us strangers and pilgrims on the earth. This world is not our home, the old song says. We're passing through. There is, I believe, built and placed within the heart of every believer. And I think it may well be in the heart of every person, saved or lost, that longing for home, longing for place, longing to find that place where you know you belong, and you finally reach the place of rest and peace. And so there's always that forward movement in the Christian life.

We're always looking towards something, looking forward to something. And that's the new covenant of which Jeremiah is talking about. Behold, the days come. Now, those three statements make up the three points of our study tonight. In verses 27 through 30, he's talking about the basis of this new covenant. In verses 31 through 37, he talks about the nature of the new covenant. In verses 31 through 37, he talks about the nature of the new covenant. And then in verses 38 through 40, he talks about the results of the new covenant. And you know what the new covenant of it is, of course, it's Jesus. And the covenant that we now have with Him,

sealed by His blood in this new day of salvation. So let's read, first of all, concerning the basis of this new work that God is going to do for His people. In verse 27, again He says, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and with the seed of beast,

and it shall come to pass, that like as I have watched over them to pluck up and to break down and to throw down and to destroy and to afflict, so will I watch over them to build and to plant, saith the Lord. The basis of the new covenant is twofold. First of all, it is based on God's desire to bless His people. It is based on God's desire to bless us. Of course, that's another way of saying grace, isn't it?

That salvation is based on grace. And grace is God's desire, active desire, to bless us. Now, it's interesting that he puts it this way, because notice he says that in that 28th verse, and as it shall come to pass, that just like I have watched over them to pluck up and to break down and to throw down and to destroy and to pass, that just like I have watched over them to pluck up and to break down and to throw down and to destroy and to afflict. And that's what they had known so much, these people of Jeremiah. They had seen God plucking down and tearing down and making ruins of their city and making ruins of their land. But notice, God says, just as intense is my desire to judgment,

so is intense my desire to bless and to show mercy and to shed grace. He says, I will watch over them to build and to plant, saith the Lord. Now there is an order here that I think is important. When you built this building, what was the first thing you did? You dug a hole. You laid a foundation. The higher the building, the deeper the hole.

You always start building up by building down, don't you? You have to have a hole in which to lay the foundation. And the higher the structure, and the stronger the structure, then the deeper the hole. You see? We build from the ground up. And we go, in order to go up, you have to go down.

Now God says, my desire is to build up and to plant. But what I've been doing in all of this, what you consider to be judgment and maybe mindless and merciless judgment, I've been just laying the foundation. You have to pluck up and you have to tear down and you have to dig down before you can ever build up. I tell you folks, that's the way it is

so often with God in our lives. You say, oh, I want God to build me up. I want God to make me a tall skyscraper. I want to be the strongest Christian possible. Well, in order for God to do that, he's going to have to do some plucking up and tearing down of the old ideas and of the old arrogance and of the old pride. So instead of looking upon those times of breaking and brokenness

as times just of judgment, you look upon those times as preparation for what God is going to do. Why? Because before you plant the crop, you have to prepare the field by breaking up the fallow ground. And before you build the building, you have to prepare the ground by digging down and breaking up the rock so ground. And before you build the building, you had to prepare the ground by digging down and breaking up the rock so that you can lay the foundation. But this new covenant is based on God's desire to bless.

Last week, the pastor picked me up, not Michael, but the last meeting I was in, the pastor picked me up, not Michael, but the last meeting I was in, the pastor picked me up. And as we were driving into town to the motel, he asked me a few questions, and I could tell he had been priming himself to ask these questions. He had several already in a row. And he said, Brother Dunn, tell me, how can you tell the difference between blessing and buffeting in the Christian life?

He said, I know that there are times in the Christian life when we are buffeted. And then there are times when we are blessed. And he said, how do you reconcile those two? I've struggled with that for a long, long time myself, as many of you have. And I said to him, brother, and he had the same first name, by the way, Brother Michael. I said, the only way you can resolve that is to remember, first of all, and above everything else, God's desire is to bless us. And everything He does has, as its end, His blessing us.

And so even during times of buffeting, trying to figure out, you know, is this buffeting a blessing or what? Everything God does is motivated by His desire to bless us. That's the nature of the new covenant. But there's a second, and it's kind of surprising. I don't know that I, of course, would have put this in here, but Jeremiah does, the second basis of this new covenant. Notice in verses 29 and 30, he says, in those days they shall say no more, the fathers have eaten a sour grape and the children's teeth are set on edge, but everyone shall die for his own iniquity. And every man that eats the sour

grape, his teeth shall be set on edge. Isnity, and every man that eats the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge. Isn't that kind of a strange thing, you know, to say? Well, there was a proverb back in those days, a very popular proverb. It was popular because it got you off the hook, to say, it's not my fault, it's my parents' fault or somebody else's fault.

The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge, you see. That's what they were always saying. Not my fault. And by the way, one of the rules of success in life is to first of all make these two resolves. I'm not to blame, and I'm going to find out who is. I mean, isn't that the way we play the blame game today?

Not my fault, not my fault. It's society's fault or environment's fault or somebody else's fault. And we're always passing the buck. Ever since the day of the Garden of Eden, we're passing the buck to the woman or to God or the devil or somebody else. Not my fault. And so people caught in their sin and caught in the judgment of God, they would say, Lord, Lord, sure my teeth

are set on edge and there's bitterness there and everything, but it's not my fault. My father has eaten sour grapes. It's something my father did. And because of what he did, I'm being punished, you see. It's the sins of the father syndrome. I'm this way because my father was this way. But he said, in those days, nobody will say that. For every tub shall sit on its own bottom. No, that's not what it says. I mistranslated that.

Oh, every man shall die for his own sin. You know, I talk to a lot of people, deal with a lot of people who've had tragedy in their lives. So often, you know, a parent who loses a child will say, well, it's my fault. God took my child because of my sin. We all immediately think of David and how David lost that baby because of his sin, but that's the old covenant.

But in the new covenant, every person shall die for his own iniquity. What that means is it's not your fault about what happens to somebody else. God does not punish the child for something the father did. I remember years ago when our son, our oldest son, was suffering from manic depression illness

and we were having trouble finding help. A dear friend of ours suggested that probably maybe I ought to go to my dad and see if dad was living in some sin that was causing God to punish my child. He said, you know, sometimes it's what the grandparents did and God is punishing the children because of the grandparents' sin.

That is the cruelest, most ignorant thing anybody can say. Now, let me hasten to say that if you were brought up in a home, let's say where there was drunkenness, that that atmosphere and that environment may cause you, as it often does, to become the same kind of person. But that is not God personally making you a drunk because your father was. That's what we need to understand. Most people who are abusive, they tell us,

grew up in an abusive atmosphere. And that may be true. If that's your environment, if that's the atmosphere, if that's the influence, then the chances are mighty, mighty good you'll grow up to be the same way. But that is caused by environment and atmosphere. That's not God's personal judgment because of the sin of what your parents did. God is not going to punish my child

for some sin I committed. Now, my influence may cause my child to go astray, but you can never say God is going to punish you because of what your dad did or your grandmother did or something like that. No. You can never get away with your own sin anymore by saying, well, it's not my fault.

It's what somebody else did. When he says every man shall die for his own iniquity, it simply means that everybody will take responsibility for his own actions. And do you know of anything that is more relevant today than the fact that people do not take responsibility for their own actions? You just can't get people today to take responsibility for their own actions. But friend, I want to tell you something. You make a choice, and if that's a bad choice, you suffer the consequences of it.

You must take responsibility for your own sin, for your own decisions, for your own choice. So that's the basis of this new covenant. God's desire to bless and our individual responsibility to God. Every one of us is individually, personally, ourselves, accountable to God. And that is what the new covenant is based on. Secondly, I want us to look at the nature of this new covenant, and that begins in verse 31, where he says,

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Jacob, not according to the covenant that I made make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Jacob, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which my covenant they broke, although I was a husband unto them, saith the Lord. But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days, you see that phrase coming again and again,

saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts and will be their people and they shall be my people and they shall teach no more every man his neighbor and every man his brother

saying, know the Lord, for they shall all know me from the least the nature, the nature of our salvation. And he lists several things here in verse 33 that he's going to do, but he lists them in reverse order. By that I mean the last one comes first. The last one is, for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. And as a result of that, they shall all know me. And as a result of that, I will put my law in their inward hearts and write it in their hearts and will be their God

and they shall be my people. You see what I'm getting at? It all starts, first of all, when he says, I will forgive their sin and I will remember it against them no more forever. And the word forgive has the idea of again and again and again and again, a continual forgetting of our sin. And he also says, I'll forget it.

You see, I will remember it against them no more. Everlasting forgiveness, everlasting forgetfulness. That's the nature of this new covenant. That's the nature of salvation, is that God has forgiven me everlastingly for every sin I've ever committed. And He has washed away all of those things. And not only that, He doesn't even remember them.

He forgets them. I wish everybody could forget my sin you know I apologize to somebody for something I've done and they say I forgive you but I want to say something they don't forget it and then later on they'll drag it out of the closet and And, you know, that's why in chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians says, Love does not keep accounts. Love doesn't keep records against us, you see. So often we say to somebody, Well, I forgive you. But later on, maybe when they do something else,

while we not only confront them with what they've done, but we trot out the other stuff. Yeah, see, that's not the first time you've done something like it. I thought you forgave me. I did. But it's still back there hanging in the closet, and I just thought I'd bring it out and remind you that you've done this before. God not only forgives, he forgets.

You see, he's the only one who knows how to forget. Now, you and I cannot forget. As a matter of fact, the best way to remember something is to try and forget it. You try real hard to forget something. That's the best way to remember it. God is the only one who has the ability to forget. So that even the devil, when he comes up to God and says, I want to remind you of the sins that so-and-so did,

God says, I don't have any record of that. I don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about. Isn't that wonderful? Everlasting forgiveness, everlasting forgetfulness. I tell you, forgetfulness is just as great as forgiveness because you can hurt someone that you love and they can forgive you, but you know they still remember it. That's not a mean thing.

They just can't help it. It's still there and you remember it. God, you know, forgives us, and then He doesn't remember it. He forgets it. Well, that's the beginning of it. That's the first thing. He didn't notice what He does.

As a result of that, they shall all know me. Now verse 34 is an interesting verse. It says, And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord. For they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them saith the Lord now all this means is that you and I do not need a mediator to go between God and myself I don't need somebody else to tell me who the Lord

is and I don't need somebody else to introduce me to the Lord and to bring me to the Lord I have immediate I have immediate access to God myself. That's what it says. That's what it means. I don't need a priest.

I don't need a human mediator. Well, except Jesus. But once your sins are forgiven and forgotten, then he says, you yourself personally know the Lord. You don't have to have a mediator to know Him, to fellowship with Him. You know Him.

Then notice what follows that. He says, I will put my law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts. Now, he says, I will put, and the tense of that verb is, I will put once and for all. I will put once and for all. In other words, God puts His law in our hearts. In our hearts. Now before the law was on the tablets of stone.

But He said, and so a man's motivation to behavior was always motivated by something outside himself. But now God says, I put my law in your hearts, and the motivation for righteousness and the motivation for showing love and mercy comes from within, you see. It changed from within. I may have told this story before, but it's so good I want to hear it again. When I was in seminary, one of my professors told about a revival he held in the hills of Tennessee. He said it was just a little rural church

up yonder in the hills of Tennessee, you know, just a small white clapboard building. But he said one night he was sitting on the platform with the pastor while the singing was going on, and an older man in his, I'd say, you know, late 40s, maybe early 50s, walked in and had on the bib overalls, and he sat down on the back.

And the pastor leaned over and he said, you see that man just came in? And I said, he said, on the back. And the pastor leaned over and he said, you see that man just came in? And I said, he said, yes, sir. He said, that's the meanest man in this community. He said, I've never seen him in church before. I don't know what he's doing here, but he hates everybody and everybody hates him. Well, a professor got up and preached the gospel,

gave the invitation. Guess who came forward? That old man. Now, I'm saying he was an old man. The older man came forward. And the pastor met him down there. And the old man said, I want to be saved. Well, the pastor was somewhat reluctant, you know.

But anyway, he prayed with him, and the old boy prayed the sinner's prayer and said he was saved. And so after this, you know, invitation was over, the pastor kind of reluctantly, not too enthusiastically, presented him to the congregation. Said, Mr. So-and-so has come tonight. Trust Christ to salvation and wants to join our church. All in favor? You know, raise your hand. There was not too much enthusiasm about it because, you know, a man that mean can't get saved that easy. Well, the next day the pastor said to the evangelist, he said, I want us to go out to that guy's place. I want to talk to him. I just don't believe he can be saved just that quick and that easy. I want to go out and talk to him. So he went out, but he wasn't there. And his wife said, I don't know. He left earlier this morning. Didn't tell me where he was going. I haven't

seen him all day. Well, they went on their visiting rounds and they checked back by two or three times and still the boy wasn't there. And she said, I don't know where he is, he's still gone. Well, about 6.30 they decided they'd go up to church and have time to pray before the service began and they drove up to church and there was that old guy sitting on the porch of that church, on the front steps. And so they got out, and they said, Mr. So-and-so, we've been looking all over for you today.

He said, well, pastor, you know, last night I got saved. And the pastor said, yes, that's what I want to talk to you about. And he said, well, I got saved last night. And he said, you know, in my years in this community, I have made a lot of enemies and done people a lot of wrong. And where I've been today is I've been going to all those people and I've been asking their forgiveness and trying to make things right. Now, who told him to do that he hadn't been discipled why he

hadn't gone through experiencing God or mastering your life or whatever that is I didn't know to do that well Paul said to the Thessalonians, but as touching brotherly love, you have no need that I should write of you, for you yourselves are what? Taught of God to love one another. I mean, God wrote it on that man's heart. He put his law in his inward parts, you see. And so the man's motivation did not come from

outside stimuli. It came from what was in his heart. But not only does he say that, he advances it and he says, I will put once and for all my law in their inward parts and write it. Now it's a different kind of verb. It means he will continue, continue, continue to write it in their hearts. And what's he talking about there? He's talking about continual apprehension of the law that God put in my heart. Now, when I was saved at the age of nine, God put his law in my heart. He put it there in my heart. I was changed from the inside out. Something new had come into my heart. He put it there in my heart. I was changed from the inside out. Something new

had come into my heart. But I want to tell you something. Since that day, 15, 20 years ago, when I was saved, God has been continually writing in my heart. There has been an increasing apprehension of the law of God and of the will of God. Folks, don't you know more about God today than you did when you were saved? You see, it's always a continual growth, continual apprehension. I tell you the trouble with having a tape ministry, as long as I've had one, I started in 1971. You know, I wouldn't recant on any truth.

But sometimes those old tapes come back to haunt you. Do you know what I'm talking about? I understand more than I did then. I have a greater apprehension of the things of God than I did then. I have a greater apprehension of the things of God than I did then. And you need to understand that whatever you know of God today, that's not the last word. That's not the final word. Somebody may say of me, well now, I heard you in 1966 and the way you preached then, you're not, you're not, you're preaching. I said, well, maybe I have become more knowledgeable in that area.

Maybe I have come to apprehend and comprehend God. I used to be very legalistic. I tell you what, when I started out preaching, man, you weren't preaching a sermon unless you were preaching against stuff. That was the sermon. You preached against it.

I preached against playing cards and dancing and going to movies and against parking at the Fort Smith Reservoir up there with your girlfriend. I preached against everything. I preached against everything. I preached against television. I preached against playing Monopoly because it had dice in it.

And listen, folks, I preached against Old Maid and Go Fish and all of that. Can you imagine that? And I want to tell you something. I had it down, boy. I put my hand like that, and boy, I cry out against them. Man, I'm telling you. Boy, I'd drive you into the ground. And then I'd give an invitation.

On Saturday night was always youth night. And I'd bring a youth message. Usually it was on Samson and Delilah. Get in your haircut in the devil's barber shop. And at the end, I'd say all these young people, all you young people who are willing to forsake the sins of youth, whatever they were, but I mean, there were some sins of youth, you know. You're not going to dance.

You're not going to, you know, hold hands and not going to kiss and stuff like that, you know. I say, you're going to live a pure life, not do this and not do this, not do this. I want all of you young people who will come and commit yourself to a life of purity and will give up the sins of the youth to come forward. And every young person in the building would come forward, of course. Well, you had to with your mom and dad looking on there. You know, if you didn't come down the aisle, they're going to talk to you when you get home

and say, what sin is it you're not giving up? Oh, it was a grand spectacle. And, you know, the kids, their commitment usually lasted until the next time they were encountered with temptation, you know. I don't preach that way anymore. Why is that?

Well, I think I've had a growing apprehension of who God is and what God's all about. And I know that it's not legalism. So there is a growing apprehension of the knowledge of God. So that's the nature of it. Now, I want us to look just briefly at the results of it. Oh, no, no, oh, no.

I forgot one thing. Can I go back? Talking about the nature of the new covenant, it's permanent. Look at verse 35. Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar the Lord of hosts is his name if those ordinances depart from me saith the Lord then the seed of

Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me forever thus saith the Lord if heaven above can be measured and the foundation of the earth be searched out, beneath I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the Lord. Now what is God saying? He says, I am the Lord who instituted all of these natural laws. The sun rising, and the moon, and the stars. And He says, if the sun ever refuses to rise, I will cast off my people.

You see, he's speaking in exaggerated terms. To express the fact that his relationship to them is permanent. He said, I would no sooner cast off my people than I would reverse the ordinances that govern the sun, the moon, and the stars. And you know what happens? You know, folks, I tell you what you ought to do. Every time you see the sun rising you ought to say God still

loves me I'm still saved yep there I am still saved now you may have times of doubt during an eclipse but permanent now the results Permanent. Now, the results. Let's come to verse 38. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord,

that the city shall be built to the Lord from the tower of Hananiel unto the gate of the corner. And the measuring line shall yet go forth over against it upon the hill of Gerub, and shall compass it about to go out. And the whole valley, now here's the point, and the whole valley of the dead bodies and of the ashes,

and all the fields under the brook of Kidron, under the corner of the horse gate toward the east, shall be holy unto the Lord. It shall not be plucked up, nor thrown down any more forever. Now let's look at that for a moment. You know, these Old Testament passages take a little bit of kind of sifting through, and they deal with great imagery. He says in verse 40, and the whole valley of the dead bones and of the ashes. Now, to the Jews there was nothing more unholy than a dead body. The valley of dead bodies.

The word translated hell most of the time in the New Testament is the word translated Gehenna, which was a place of burning, a garbage dump. It was the city garbage dump, and they would take dead bodies that had no families and that were diseased, and they would dump them in there. Do you remember the priest and the Levite and the Samaritan?

Do you remember when that Samaritan was attacked by those thieves and left for dead in the ditch? And the priest came by and he crossed over on the other side and didn't touch him, didn't help him. And the Levite of the priestly family came by and crossed over on the other side, didn't touch him, didn't help him. And the Levite of the priestly family came by and crossed over on the other side and didn't help him. Now we condemn the priest and the Levite because they wouldn't take the time to show compassion upon that man that might be dead.

But it wasn't their fault really, it was their religion. Because their religion said if you touched a vile body, a dead body or a vile body, that you yourself became ceremonially unclean. And the priests and the Levites would have to go through a long, long purification process before they were ever allowed to serve in the temple again, you see. That's how unholy it was. Notice what God says under the New Covenant. The valley and the whole valley of the dead bodies shall be holy unto the Lord. God takes that whole valley of dead bodies, the vilest thing, the unholiest thing in the mind, and God says under the

new covenant, it shall be holy unto the Lord. In other words, God can take the vilest thing on earth, the most unholy thing in life, and through the blood of Jesus, make it holy unto the Lord. Make it holy unto the Lord. You've had Iris Blue here haven't you she's given her testimony I'm going to tell a little bit of it again

she made a great statement Iris Blue was for years prostitute street walker in Houston. Been in prison. As a matter of fact, I was preaching a few years ago at the Texas Evangelism Conference

and Iris gave her testimony right before me. And shortly after that, a woman came up who had been one of the wardens in that prison and remembered Iris and she said Ron Dunn's podcast is available only for personal edification, not to be duplicated, uploaded to the web, or resold without prior written consent. It is managed and operated by Sherwood Baptist Church. For more Ron Dunn materials, sermon outlines, devotions,

and scanned pages from his study Bible, please visit rondunn.com.