The following teaching is the fourth of five in the series on Jeremiah, presented by the Reverend John W. Howe. The title is, The Branch. We were looking last time at Jeremiah's use of symbols and symbolic actions to express various elements of his message, and there's one other very important one that I wanted to mention in chapters 27 and 28, Jeremiah puts on a yoke, a wooden yoke like that worn by oxen, puts it on his shoulders and around his neck and goes about the city, not only saying but in effect demonstrating, being a living picture, a living parable, thus shall Babylon put a yoke on the necks of this people. In chapter 28, you read about one of the other prophets, one of the false prophets by the name of Hananiah. Verse 10 says, Then the prophet Hananiah took the yoke bars from the neck of Jeremiah the prophet and broke them.

And Hananiah spoke in the presence of all the people, saying, Thus says the Lord, even so will I break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, from the neck of all the nations within two years. And that's the sort of conflict that we've seen over and over and over again. Jeremiah pronounces God's judgment, God's discipline, God's vengeance, and then these other prophets, would-be prophets, false prophets, come and say, no, no, no, it's not going to be that way.

Peace, peace, when there is no peace. And so Hananiah comes, I mean, that takes pretty strong impudence, doesn't it, to come up to Jeremiah, take the yoke off him, break it into pieces. Thus I will break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar from all the nations, not just from Judah, but from all the nations within two years.

Jeremiah goes and seeks the word of the Lord, and the Lord tells him, Go tell Hananiah, you have broken wooden bars, but I will make in their place bars of iron. Bars of iron. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, I have put upon the neck of all these nations, an iron yoke of servitude to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.

And the last line of that chapter says that in two months from the time Hananiah took this action, he dies. He says, going to remove the yoke in two years, and in two months, he's dead. There are three themes that I want to call to your attention, that all of them, in different ways, transcend the immediate message of Jeremiah to this generation.

The first is a somewhat delicate word, but I want us to take a look at it in chapter 9. I'll give you a little bit of background for this word. Part of it, I think, is very familiar to us.

Chapter 9, verse 23. Thus says the Lord, let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches, but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practiced steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight, says the Lord. I think we all have read that passage, right?

Great statement, let him who glories glory in this that he understands and knows me. But then it goes on to say, behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will punish all those who are circumcised and yet uncircumcised. Interesting phrase.

And again, this isn't just to the people of Judah. He mentions Egypt, Judah, Edom, the sons of Ammon, Moab, and all those who dwell in the desert and so on. All these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.

I want to trace that phrase for just a moment to try and make it a little clearer to us. If you go back to the book of Genesis, chapter 17, God makes his covenant with Abraham. And he says in 17 verse 9 of the book of Genesis, As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations.

This is my covenant, which you shall keep between me and you and your descendants after you. Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you.

Let me ask you a question. What is circumcision? Is it the covenant, or is it a sign of the covenant?

Somebody said it. Who said both? John said both.

It's both. Look at what he says. This is the covenant that you should be circumcised.

And then he goes on and says it's the sign of the covenant. Look at Deuteronomy 10. It's a very strange sign of the covenant.

There's no explanation given anywhere in the Old Testament for why God chose that rather strange, bizarre cutting of the flesh as a sign of his covenant. We know in the 20th century, we know that there are medical reasons why that might be beneficial or less chance of certain kinds of cancer and so on, but he certainly didn't know that then, and it's not spelled out that way. And God gives no symbolic meaning to circumcision back in the Old Testament.

But we do find a symbol, a symbolic meaning given in the New. I'll come to that in a moment. Deuteronomy 10, verse 12, And now Israel, what does the Lord our God require of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I command you this day for your good.

Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. Yet the Lord set his heart in love upon your fathers and chose their descendants after them, you above all peoples as at this day. Circumcise, therefore, the foreskin of your heart.

What a strange phrase. That is obviously symbolic language. There's no way you could do that.

Let this external sign become an internal reality, is what he's saying. Circumcision is in the flesh, on the outside of your body. Let the reality of circumcision become an internal thing.

Circumcise your heart. And that's a phrase that appears in several places in the Old Testament. And so in Jeremiah 9, he says, Behold, the days are coming when I will punish those who are circumcised and yet uncircumcised.

What would you understand that phrase to mean in light of those two other scriptures? Anyone? Exactly, sure.

They've got the external sign. All the men of this people have been circumcised in their flesh, but it has not become an internal reality. That, by the way, that very distinction, that very understanding, carries over into Paul's writing in the New Testament.

You might just look quickly at Romans chapter 2, and he elaborates this at some length. I'm just going to quickly call to your attention verse 25. and verse 29, Romans 2, verse 25, circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law, if it becomes a matter of your lifestyle, but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision.

You're not living out the thing which it symbolizes. And so he says in verse 29, he is a Jew, a real Jew, who is one inwardly. And real circumcision is a matter of the heart, spiritual and not literal.

His praise is not from men, but from God. There's one other remarkable passage, Colossians 2, in which he addresses the same issue. Now, mind you, here he's speaking to Christian people, and many of them, probably the majority of them, are from Gentile backgrounds.

Verse 11, he says, In him, in Christ, you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of flesh in the circumcision of Christ. And you were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. You are circumcised with a circumcision made without hands.

What kind of circumcision is that? External or internal? Internal, clearly.

You have experienced in Christ the reality of which circumcision is the external sign. And suddenly, for the very first time in all the scriptures, we're given a clue as to what this means symbolically, putting off the body of flesh in the circumcision of Christ. In circumcision, what we do is we literally cut off a small piece of flesh and throw it away.

What does it symbolize? Putting off the flesh. Now, you may or may not have had that happen in your body, he says, but you've experienced the inward reality that that symbolizes.

And in fact, it is exactly the same, though a different symbol, It is exactly the same as baptism, which is also a matter of putting off the old life and putting on the new. So the reality here is fulfilled in Jesus. It is an inward reality.

It is symbolized for the Christian by baptism, but even that needs to become an inward reality, not just an external sign. I wanted to take the time to belabor that because these are folks who have all the externals. I remind you, they're going through the externals of worshipping the Lord.

The only problem is they're also worshipping all these other deities, and they're compromising everything the Lord said. They have the externals. They lack the inward reality.

And so this very important word, Behold, the days are coming when I will punish those who have the external symbol, but lack the internal reality. I want to look at another theme that goes beyond the immediate word here. And this is an exciting and a much more hopeful word.

And I need to dip back into Isaiah for a minute in order to give some background. Isaiah 11. Passage that is sometimes read at Christmas time, Advent time.

Isaiah 11. There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots, and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him. the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord, and his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.

Who is Jesse? Father of David. The stump of Jesse.

It looks as if David's line has been cut off, cut down. It's just a stump. It's not a growing plant, growing tree anymore.

But there shall come forth from that seemingly dead stump a new little shoot, a branch growing up out of the root of Jesse, the root of David. This is clearly messianic. The shoot is clearly the Lord Jesus.

It appears that the line of David has been destroyed, but it isn't dead yet. There is a descendant yet to come who will rule the nations and usher in a golden age. I just call your attention to this fascinating seven-fold description of the Holy Spirit in verse 2.

Seven names. The Spirit of the Lord, the Spirit of Wisdom, the Spirit of Understanding, the Spirit of Counsel, the Spirit of Might, the Spirit of Knowledge, the Spirit of the Fear of the Lord. That will give you an insight into what's meant in the book of Revelation when John talks about seeing the seven spirits of God before the throne.

and in another place the seven spirits are in the Lamb himself. I've sometimes used the illustration, if I come with a taper on Sunday morning and I light a candelabra, seven branch candelabra like the Jewish menorah, how many fires are there? How many think it's seven?

How many think it's one? You're both right. It's one fire.

distributed on seven branches, sevenfold Spirit of the Lord. There's only one Holy Spirit, but he's sevenfold. He's rich. He's full.

He's complete. Jesus began his ministry with the words, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, and he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor, and so on. Isaiah chapter 4 verse 2 In that day the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious and the fruit of the land shall be the pride and glory of the survivors of Israel.

The branch, the shoot from the stump of Jesse, the branch that grows, the branch of the Lord. Isaiah used that language and Jeremiah picks it up. Jeremiah chapter 23, verse 5 and 6.

Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch. and he shall reign as king and deal wisely and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell securely, and this is the name by which he will be called, the Lord is our righteousness.

Days are coming when I will raise up. In the midst of all this horror, this desolation, this coming destruction that he is predicting and proclaiming for 40 years, he's able to look beyond that and says, But the days are coming when I'm going to raise up one whose name is the branch, and in him all of the promises to Israel and Judah are going to be fulfilled. This is the name.

He's given the name the branch. He's given another name. The Lord is our righteousness.

I think that among other things, there is a fascinating play on words going on there. The name Zedekiah, who is the last king of Israel, we're going to see a little bit more about him next week, in Hebrew is Sidkeyahu. Sidkeyahu, and it means literally, the Lord is my righteousness.

That's the name Zedekiah, the Lord is my righteousness. And Jeremiah says, there is one coming whose name means the Lord is our righteousness. Yahweh Sidkenu.

Almost the same word, slightly different. One who will fulfill what Zedekiah should have been about and wasn't. One who will fulfill what the whole Davidic line was about, which has failed so badly. His name is the Lord is our righteousness.

His other name is the branch. The branch. Jeremiah 33.

Verse 14. Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah in those days and at that time I will cause a righteous branch to spring forth for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In those days Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will dwell securely, and this is the name by which it will be called, The Lord is Our Righteousness.

For thus says the Lord, David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel, and the Levitical priest shall never lack a man in my presence to offer burnt offerings, to burn cereal offerings, and to make sacrifices forever. The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, thus says the Lord, If you can break my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night, so that day and night will not come at their appointed time, then also my covenant with David, my servant, may be broken, so that he shall not have a son to reign on his throne, and my covenant with the Levitical priests, my ministers. As the host of heaven cannot be numbered and the sands of the sea cannot be measured, so I will multiply the descendants of David, my servant, and the Levitical priests who minister to me.

The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, Have you not observed what these people are saying? The Lord has rejected the two families which he chose. Thus they have despised my name so that they are no longer a nation in their sight.

Thus says the Lord, If I have not established my covenant with day and night and the ordinances of heaven and earth, then I will reject the descendants of Jacob and David my servant and will not choose one of his descendants to rule over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, for I will restore their fortunes and will have mercy upon them. With the death of Zedekiah, it appears that the line of David is ended. And yet here he says, there will never lack a man to sit on the throne.

Well, there was a period in history where there was nobody sitting on the throne of David. But you see, this promise is going to be fulfilled forever in the branch. You get it?

The one who is to come. and in the midst of pronouncing gloom and doom he says there is a day coming when I will restore their fortunes and in fact multiply their descendants and how does he do that? He incorporates Gentiles of all things into the house of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David.

Let's take just a second. Look back at 2 Samuel. Chapter 7.

At the promise given to David himself. I'm breaking into the middle of this and you can study it at greater length on your own. 2 Samuel verse 8.

The Lord is saying through the prophet, Thus you shall say to my servant David, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, so that you should be prince over my people Israel. and I have been with you wherever you went and have cut off all your enemies from before you and I will make for you a great name like the name of the great ones of the earth and I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more and violent men shall afflict them no more as formerly from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel and I will give you rest from all your enemies moreover the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house when your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers I will raise up your offspring after you who shall come forth from your body and I will establish his kingdom he shall build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever you know that David wanted to build a temple for God and God said you won't do that you've been too much a man of war your son will build the temple and so Solomon does in fact build a wonderful temple which is then destroyed at this very point that we're studying in history when the Babylonians come in. It looks on one level as if these words are going to be fulfilled through Solomon, but it turns out very differently.

Solomon does not build a house that endures, and the line of David is not established forever. We saw in the first lecture of this series that at the end of Solomon's reign the kingdom is divided, never again to come together. But you see there's one greater than Solomon, also the offspring of David.

And he builds a house, not made with hands, a house of living stones, built on himself, the chief cornerstone, and that house endures. And in him, all the promises to David and to the people are fulfilled. That one is the branch.

Look over at Zechariah, almost the end of the Old Testament. start with Malachi and go backward you'll find Zechariah this becomes a major theme in the Old Testament just call your attention to two more passages in which that language is used chapter 3 Zechariah 3 verse 8 hear now O Joshua the high priest you and your friends who sit before you for they are men of good omen behold I will bring my servant the branch. There he is again.

For behold, upon the stone which I have set before Joshua, upon a single stone with seven facets, I will engrave its inscription, says the Lord of hosts, and I will remove the guilt of this land in a single day. Look over at chapter 6, verse 12. Thus says the Lord of hosts, behold the man whose name is the branch, for he shall grow up in his place and he shall build the temple of the Lord.

You know what they were saying, all the false prophets in Jeremiah's day? The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. We're safe because God will never forsake his temple.

And Jeremiah says that temple is going to be leveled. Zechariah says the man whose name is the branch will come and he will build the temple of the Lord. See, this one that Solomon built is just a little scale model.

The man who is the branch is going to build the real one. It is he who will build the temple of the Lord and shall bear royal honor and shall sit and rule upon his throne. There shall be a priest by his throne and peaceful understanding shall be between them both and the crown shall be in the temple of the Lord as a reminder and so on.

Fascinating theme. Be a great Bible study for you to trace in greater detail. You know, in Matthew's gospel, in the end of chapter 2, after the holy family returns from Egypt, you know, at the time of the massacre of the innocents, and God warns them in a dream to flee to Egypt, and then he tells them that it's okay to go back, and it says they went and they made their home in Joseph's own hometown, which was a place called Nazareth.

And it said this was to fulfill the scripture which said he shall be called a Nazarene. You all remember that? Search the Old Testament and you will find no such promise.

Nowhere does it say he shall be called a Nazarene. You know what it does say over and over? He shall be called the branch.

Guess what the meaning of Nazarene is? The branch. Do you realize that there were many people with the name Jesus or Joshua or Yeshua was a common name.

To distinguish one from another, they would say Jesus of wherever. So they came to know our guy as Jesus of Nazareth. Do you realize that every single time they ever called him that, they were saying, Jesus, the branch?

Jesus, the branch. Thus we can say that in the midst of proclaiming judgment and devastation upon his own generation, Jeremiah not only foresees a day of the people's returning 70 years later, but he looks much farther down the corridors of history to a day of promise in which the man who is the branch fulfills all the promises God made to David and indeed fulfills the Davidic line. A day in which that man who is the offspring of David builds a temple that shall endure forever, a living temple made of living stones.

And that man who is the branch ushers in a kingdom that will have no end, indeed one that will prevail over all the kingdoms of the earth. That brings us almost to the third theme. Just one real quick parenthesis.

Chapter 31. Jeremiah 31, verse 15. Thus says the Lord, A voice is heard in Ramah, Lamentation and bitter weeping, Rachel is weeping for her children.

She refuses to be comforted for her children because they are not. From where do you recognize those words? Again, from Matthew, what do they relate to?

Exactly. Again, the slaughter of the innocents that I just referred to a minute ago, which took place in the same area, Ramah, right near Bethlehem. And that verse is quoted from Jeremiah.

Again, it says, this was to fulfill the word of the prophet which said, a voice is heard in Ramah, so on, so on, Rachel weeping for her children. It sounds, when Matthew quotes it, as if that was a prediction. That's the way Matthew often speaks, as if things were predictions, which when you go back and read them in their original setting were not predictions at all.

But in fact what he's saying, this event in the life of Jesus is parallel to something that happened earlier and it fills it fuller. It fulfills it. It fills it fuller.

What Jeremiah seems to be saying is that Rachel, who was the favored wife of Jacob, Jacob Israel, the father of the nation, Rachel was buried near Bethlehem, near Ramah, and Jeremiah pictures her as looking down holy history to his own day, to a day in which her children's children are about to be destroyed, and weeping disconsolately. And Matthew, in essence, is saying Rachel is looking still farther down history to the day of an even greater miscarriage of justice when they're attempting to destroy Messiah. That's just a parenthesis.

I wanted to call that to your attention and come finally to the third theme, which is also in chapter 31. When this man who is the branch arrives, he will bring with him a brand new covenant. Chapter 31, verse 31.

Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Jacob. A new covenant. A new covenant.

Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. My covenant which they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord.

I will put my law where? inside them on their hearts where was the law in the old covenant? tablets of stone they would try to fulfill it and they couldn't they'd come against it and break themselves I'm going to put my law inside them circumcised and yet uncircumcised I'm going to put my law inside them write it on their hearts I'm going to give the internal reality of which the law was an external symbol and I will be their God and they shall be my people and no longer shall each man teach his neighbor and each his brother saying know the Lord.

No longer do you have to get it second hand. No longer do you have to go to Moses or one of the kings or one of the prophets or one of the priests. No longer do you have to get it from somebody else for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest says the Lord for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more.

We've looked at that passage on lots and lots of occasions. What's new about the new covenant is that every single one of us has the right, the privilege, the prerogative, the blessing of as intimate a relationship with the Father as did Moses, as did Jacob, as did any of the greatest of the Old Testament saints. That's our birthright.

and on the night before he was betrayed and died Jesus instituted a meal and at the close of the meal he took a cup and he said this cup is my blood of the new covenant. These words were fulfilled in what he instituted that night. That's your privilege and mine.

So in the midst of probably the gloomiest and most horrifying and most frightening expression of God's anger at sin and his final absolute commitment to deal with it. In the midst of all that, Jeremiah is able to see a day coming in which the fortunes of Israel are going to be restored, the promises are going to be fulfilled, the descendants of Israel are going to be multiplied, a new covenant is instituted, And there is an everlasting kingdom brought in by that one whose name is the branch. Let's stand.

Joe Kitts, would you lead us, please? Heavenly Father, we thank you for your voice today. We thank you for ascending for the Lord Jesus, the branch. We thank you for the instruction that we've received.

And we pray to you all for your mercy that you've everlasting. And we pray to you for the mercy that you extend it to each one of us that we may know this branch and in knowing him have life eternal. We pray now your blessing upon us that we go back to the things that are common to us.

Help us to be those who share the good news on this branch Jesus Christ our Lord Amen Amen.