Better Days to Come

Better Days to Come

Sunday next before Advent

Collect of the Day: Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

For the Epistle: Jeremiah 23:5-8 (KJV)

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.

In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, The Lord Our Righteousness.

Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that they shall no more say, The Lord liveth, which brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt;

But, The Lord liveth, which brought up and which led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all countries whither I had driven them; and they shall dwell in their own land.

We live in the present, but not just the present. We live in the past by our memories. We live in the future by our hopes. Reality is today. But we may long for the past which we tend to remember as better than it was and hope for a future that will be better than today.

1. Israel’s Past

1.1. If I asked, “Who was the best U.S. President?” I would get different answers. Washington. Lincoln. Roosevelt. Reagan. If I asked, “When were our country’s greatest days?” there would be no consensus. But if you asked any citizen of Judah in the days of Jeremiah, “Who was the best king of Israel?” there could have been only one answer, “David.” If you asked, “When were your country’s greatest days?” the unanimous answer would be, “The days of David and Solomon.”

1.2. The Israelites were liberated from Egypt and took possession of the land the Lord had promised to Abraham. But soon there was political turmoil, moral chaos, and enemy invasions. God raised up  Judges who never achieved more than partial and temporary success. Israel needed a king. Eventually Saul became king, but he was a disaster.

Then God made David, “a man after God’s own heart,” king. He had remarkable achievements. David captured Jerusalem and made it his capital. He unified the nation under his kingship. He made Jerusalem the religious center of the land. He made preparations for the building of a temple of the Lord by his son. He increased Israel’s military power, defeated her enemies, and expanded her borders. David made Israel part of the balance of power in its region. He prepared the nation to achieve its greatest glory under Solomon.

1.3.  David was Israel’s best and greatest king, and he and Solomon produced its golden age. However,  the people of Jeremiah’s time may have engaged in the human tendency to sanitize and idealize the past.

We know about David’s moral failures, the rivalries among his sons, about how he had to abandon his capital and almost lost his kingdom to his own son, Absalom. We remember Solomon’s 700 wives and 300 concubines, many of them pagans, and, that, though he built the Lord’s temple, he also built pagan temples for his wives. Those wives turned his heart away from the Lord.

When Solomon died, one of his sons became king and made foolish decisions so that the kingdom was permanently divided, north and south. From then till its fall, every king of the northern kingdom was wicked. There were good and bad kings in the south, but the trajectory of the kingdom was downward.

The “golden age” of Israel spanned the reigns of David and Solomon and lasted but 80 years.

When do you think was the golden age of the church? Maybe you think the Apostolic age. Perhaps the 16th century and the English Reformation. Or the 19th century the era of missionary advance. But read the New Testament letters and the history of the church, and you will find that the golden days were not so golden as you may imagine.

2. Israel’s Present

2.1. Jeremiah’s ministry as a prophet in Judah began when godly people might have entertained  hopes. Josiah, a good man, became king in 640 B.C. when he was 8 years old. When he was 16 he sought the Lord and soon began reforms. He purged the land of idolatry. When he was 26 he ordered repair of the Lord’s temple.

During the restoration, a priest found the Book of the Law. Josiah’s secretary read it to the king. When the king heard the Law, he was dismayed at the greatness of Israel’s sin. He led leaders of the people to renew their covenant to worship and serve the Lord alone.

But Josiah was killed in battle against Egypt, and with him died the reformation. A son reigned for 11 years and was wicked. Judah was caught in a  power struggle between Egypt and Babylon. Babylon invaded Judah and captured Jerusalem for the first time. They installed a man named Zedekiah as a vassal king, but Zedekiah rebelled. Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem, ransacked the city, and deported the best and brightest of the people.

Jeremiah carried on his ministry during the decline from hope to full scale rebellion against the Lord. He saw Judah’s total defeat, the end of David’s line, and the destruction of God’s kingdom.

No matter how dark you perceive these or future days to be, they are not so dark as the days of Judah in Jeremiah’s time. We approach the time of  year that brings the shortest and darkest of days. But in such days we begin Advent. Advent calls us to repent but also to hope. It prepares us for coming of the day when the people who walk in darkness will see a great light.  

3. Israel’s Future

3.1. Jeremiah ministered in the darkest days of the kingdom of God, but he foresaw better days - not in his lifetime or for hundreds of years, but sure to come.

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch...

Think of David’s dynasty as a tree that became diseased. Though at times there was hope for the tree’s recovery, the disease of moral corruption was never cured. Eventually it proved fatal to the tree. The dynasty ended. There would be no more kings in David’s line. To all appearances the tree was dead. But the Lord, whose word is sure, spoke, and said that he would raise up from the tree of David, a righteous Branch.

3.2. The righteous Branch will be a king. As the years passed it became increasingly hard to see how there would ever be another king. During Jeremiah’s life the kingship ended and Judah went into exile. Even when the exile ended and some of the people returned to the land, there were some Jewish governors of the land but never a king descended from David. Judah was ruled by one power after another. To believe God’s promise of king in David’s line anytime after the time of Jeremiah you had to hope against all hope.

The king God promised to give be a very different sort of king - “a righteous branch,” who would “reign and prosper” - or “rule wisely” -  and “execute justice and righteousness in the land.” Many foolish, immoral, wicked, corrupt, and unjust kings ruled Judah after David. The kingdom split into north and south because the immaturity and foolish decisions of one of David’s grandsons. The most hopeful time after the Exile was when a priestly family led a successful rebellion against the Greeks. But there were two problems: (1) There was no king and those who ruled did not come from David’s line. (2) This priestly dynasty became dictatorial and corrupt and produced societal and political chaos. It got so bad Jewish leaders asked the Romans to come in restore order. They did but they also occupied Palestine. That was the hopeless state of affairs when our Lord was born. One disappointment after another. One dashing of hope followed by another.

3.3. Still there was God’s promise - a righteous Branch, a king who would rule with wisdom and personal integrity and enforce justice and righteousness in the land. The coming of this king would mean salvation - salvation for God’s divided people. Not just Judah, the part of the country that remained loyal to David’s line till the end came, but also Israel, the rebellious north, would be saved. He would save both from oppression and unify them under his rule.

This king would be so good and righteous, so wise and successful a ruler, administer such perfect justice, and make the people so righteous that he would be called a remarkable name - “The LORD Our Righteousness.” For a king to deserve such a name he would have to far surpass even David, who, though he was great, could never have deserved or lived up to such a name.

Who could such a perfect King be? Has he come or, as John the Baptist’s disciples asked, “Are we to wait for another?” The New Testament answer is that the King from David’s line has come, great David’s greater Son, our Lord Jesus the Messiah.  He conquered a far worse enemy than the Babylonians or Romans. The devil. He accomplished a far greater salvation than salvation from from political oppression. Salvation from sin, death, and eternal condemnation. He brought about a far greater unity than unity of the two small, estranged Jewish kingdoms. He broke down the wall of hostility between Jews and Gentiles and brought them together in one church that spans the world.

Having accomplished his work of salvation on earth, he ascended to heaven and sits at God’s right hand. He is on the throne now.  And he will rule until all his enemies are placed under his feet, till every knee bows, and every tongue confesses him as Lord.

A play consists of four major parts - plot development, climax, working out the consequences of the climax, and the end. Think of history this way. The Old Testament is plot development. Jesus is the climax. We live in the days of working out the consequences of Jesus’ coming for our salvation. The end will come with his second coming.

Hail to the Lord's Anointed,

great David's greater Son!

Hail in the time appointed,

his reign on earth begun!

He comes to break oppression,

to set the captive free;

to take away transgression,

and rule in equity.