When we look at the prophets we are often able to find sections when God turns his attention to speaking about a future hope for his people. For example, in the book of Isaiah we see a shift in chapter 40 when God through Isaiah starts proclaiming what the future will look like for his people when Christ comes. Even a prophet like Amos, in which so much of the prophecy contains judgment, ends which the future hope of restoration at the very end of chapter 9. We are coming to the section in Jeremiah that is often called “the book of encouragement” or “the book of consolation.” The reason is that in Jeremiah 30:2 we see the Lord instruct Jeremiah to write a book of all the words that he is speaking to him. Jeremiah 30-33 contain words of encouragement through prophecy and lived out pictures that describe what will happen when Christ comes. In fact, Jeremiah 30:3 gives a summary for the contents of this encouraging word.
“For behold, days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will restore the fortunes of my people, Israel and Judah, says the LORD, and I will bring them back to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall take possession of it.” (Jeremiah 30:3 ESV)
Before we get into the message, I want us to see a clue in this summary promise that shows us we are pointing forward to the time of Christ. Notice that the Lord proclaimed that he would restore the fortunes of Israel and Judah and bring them back to the land. Israel was the name for the northern nation that had no good kings and was scattered and destroyed by the Assyrian Empire in 722 BC. What I want us to consider is that these chapters are not looking at Judah returning to the land from Babylonian captivity in 536 BC because the northern nation of Israel was not restored at that time. As we go through these chapters over the next few lessons, we will see that God is promising something far bigger than merely Judah’s return from captivity. The rescue from Babylonian captivity was just a picture of a greater reality to come. God is promising a full restoration of his people from all over the earth just as Moses had proclaimed in Deuteronomy 30:1-6.
1 And when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the LORD your God has driven you, 2 and return to the LORD your God, you and your children, and obey his voice in all that I command you today, with all your heart and with all your soul, 3 then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes and have mercy on you, and he will gather you again from all the peoples where the LORD your God has scattered you. 4 If your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there the LORD your God will gather you, and from there he will take you. 5 And the LORD your God will bring you into the land that your fathers possessed, that you may possess it. And he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers. 6 And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live. (Deuteronomy 30:1-6 ESV)
Freedom Coming (Jeremiah 30:1-11)
The message begins in verse 4 where God says that he sees the distress and the suffering of his people. He sees the men hunched over like a woman in the pangs of labor. He sees the pale faces of the people. The nation is in great distress. Jeremiah is prophesying at this point during the time of the Babylonian invasions (cf. Jeremiah 32). But even though the time appears hopeless, God says in verse 7 that the nation is going to be saved out of this time of trouble. In fact, there is a time coming when God is going to break the yoke off their necks, burst the shackles off their hands, and no longer allow his people to be enslaved (cf. Jeremiah 30:8). Now this makes us wonder when God would do this. Verse 9 tells us the time when God is doing to do this work. Rather than serving the nations, God’s people are going to serve the Lord their God and David their king that the Lord will raise up for them. It is important to remember that David had been king over Israel over 400 years earlier. But this is a term to describe the coming Christ. In Jeremiah 23:5 we read that the days were coming when the Lord would raise up for David a righteous Branch who will righteously reign as king. So here in Jeremiah 30 we are being reminded that the way God would set his people free was by sending the Christ, the righteous Branch of David, who will rule in righteousness. So their present suffering was to discipline them to get the people ready to serve the Lord and stop serving their idols (cf. Jeremiah 8:19; 10:5-14; 16:18).
No Cure (Jeremiah 30:12-17)
For God’s people to understand why they need God’s rescue, God has to explain to his people their condition. Notice how God gives us some vivid pictures of our problem. Look at Jeremiah 30:12. “Your wound is incurable, your injury beyond healing.” Our sin problem is pictured as an incurable sickness. One of the most hopeless situations we can be in is to know that we have an incurable condition. There is no medicine. There is no solution. There is no healing. There is no hope. We see this emphasized in verse 13. There is no one who can help you. There is no one who can do anything for you. So you cannot heal yourself and no one else can heal you either. Everything that the people had put their hope in has collapsed (cf. Jeremiah 30:14). At this time, the nation was hoping that other nations would help them repel the Babylonian invasion. Rather than looking to the Lord for help and trusting in him, they looked to the nations. They hoped that other humans would help and they have been let down. This is one of the key points in the book of Ecclesiastes. Everything we try to put our hope and satisfaction in will fail us if we are looking for it in this physical world. Nothing in this world is the answer to what we need. Further, the real problem that we often fail to see in our lives is the problem of sin. Sin and its effects are our greatest enemies. You see this stated directly in verse 15. The people are crying out over their wounds. Jeremiah has used this image of the problem of the people’s sin being incurable throughout his prophecy (cf. Jeremiah 8:21-22; 10:19; 14:17). But here the picture is given to the people in the strongest terms. Your sin is killing you.
We simply do not see our sins causing us to have incurable wounds. We see this even when Jesus walked the earth healing people (cf. Luke 4:23; Mark 6:5). Recently we were studying from Romans 1 where the apostle Paul describes how we are spiritually destroying ourselves by not honoring God or giving him thanks. When we follow the desires of our heart, we are infecting ourselves again with the incurable disease of sin. Now there is something worse than having this sickness that God is describing. The thing that worse than having the sickness is not knowing you have the sickness because then you will know you need to seek a remedy. We do not go to a doctor when we think we are well. We do not take medicine when we think we are well. We do not listen to what a doctor tells us when we think we are fine. One of the deceptions that Satan wields over our eyes is the lie that we are not sick from our sins. So what God has to do is show how sick we are. He has to show us that we have the incurable sickness of sin. All of these pictures in Israel’s history is to show every human the incurable sickness of sin. God is trying to move us to hear these words and be overjoyed. Look at verse 17.
“Yes, I will restore you to health. I will heal your wounds.” (Jeremiah 30:17 NET)
No one else can do anything. No one else cares to do anything. But God knows we are sick with sin and he is the only one who is able to heal our wounds. How is this going to happen? What is God going to do?
God’s Cure (Jeremiah 30:18-24)
Notice that the Lord reiterates the summary message that we read in verse 2 again in verse 18. The Lord is going to restore the fortunes of his people. His people are going to be rebuilt and restored. His people will come out with songs of thanksgiving and celebration (cf. Jeremiah 30:19). Think about how many songs we have in our song books that are just songs of thanksgiving and praise. God says that he is going to heal his people and they will sing and celebrate their restoration. Further, God is going to multiply his people and honor them, according to verse 19. His people will not be small. His people will be as promised to Abraham, like the stars of the sky and the sands of the seashore (cf. Genesis 22:17). God’s people will be established before him and all who oppress them will be punished (cf. Jeremiah 30:20). So what has happened? What has changed? How will this healing occur?
For a moment I want to go back to verses 12-13 to see what we need. As the Lord is describing the incurable wound he also states that there is no one to uphold your cause. There is no one who can mount a defense for you to help you. Now come back down to verse 21 to see God’s cure. A ruler is going to come out from among the people. A prince is going to arise among them. Now listen to the words in the middle of verse 21. “I will bring him near and he shall approach me; for who would dare risk his life to approach me? declares the Lord” (Jeremiah 30:21 NASB). A ruler is going to arise who is going to be able to draw near to God and approach him. The result of the ruler approaching the Lord is that they will be God’s people and God will be their God (Jeremiah 30:22). A ruler will arise who will restore the relationship by standing in the presence of the Lord himself. Now we see why our wound is incurable. No one is able to stand in the presence of the Lord. No one is able to approach him. This is the very message of the picture of the tabernacle and the temple. Not even the priests of the Lord were able to approach the Lord. Not even the high priest was allowed to approach the Lord on a daily basis. There was only one day a year, the day of atonement, when the high priest was allowed to enter into God’s presence, symbolized by the Most Holy Place. This paragraph concludes with the Lord pictured as a storm ready to act and bring about his judgments on the wicked (Jeremiah 30:23-24). God is building a storm against the wicked and none of the wicked will be able to avoid it.
Christ, Our Healer
Now I want us to consider what we see in Jesus because he is showing us that this is what he came to do. The Gospel of Matthew wants us to see this picture of Jesus. In Matthew 4 we are brought into the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus succeeds against the temptations of the devil. Jesus calls his disciples. Then listen to what we are told next:
And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, those having seizures, and paralytics, and he healed them. (Matthew 4:23-24 ESV)
Why is this so important to note? Why does Jesus have the power to heal every disease and every affliction? The reason is to show all people that the ruler from among the people, one from David’s lineage, has come to heal his people. This is why we are reading about Jesus performing so many healing miracles. The Gospel of Luke makes the same point in this way:
When the crowds learned it, they followed him, and he welcomed them and spoke to them of the kingdom of God and cured those who had need of healing. (Luke 9:11 ESV)
Jesus directly makes this point when he heals the paralyzed man in Matthew 9. Listen to what the people were to understand regarding Jesus healing people:
“But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” — he then said to the paralytic — “Rise, pick up your bed and go home.” (Matthew 9:6 ESV)
God’s healing has always been connected to the forgiveness of sins (cf. Psalm 103:3; 147:3). There is one more picture we need to add to this. The Lord said that the ruler would arise from among the people and be able to approach him. The author of the book of Hebrews emphasizes this truth regarding Jesus. After noting the insufficient of the high priesthood of Aaron, the writer shows the superiority of Christ in Hebrews 9.
But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. (Hebrews 9:11-12 ESV)
The writer of Hebrews tells us that the through the cross and the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, he was able go into the true tabernacle in the heavenly places with his own blood to be able to secure our redemption. This is why the apostle Peter simply quotes from Isaiah, “By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24; Isaiah 53:5).
But there is one more amazing thing that this healing of our sins does from us through the blood of Jesus. Come back to the rhetorical question in Jeremiah 30:21. Who would dare risk his life to approach him? Jesus was able to approach through his perfect life and perfect sacrifice. But then the author of Hebrews says something staggering:
Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need. (Hebrews 4:16 CSB)
Now we are able to do the impossible. We are able to dare go to the throne of grace to find the mercy, healing, and help that we need. Only Christ can heal our sins. Only Christ can restore our relationship to our Father. Only Christ can uphold our cause. Only Christ can restore our health and heal the wounds from our sinning. Christ is the cure to the sickness we have in this life.