Take your Bibles and open with me up to Jeremiah chapter 22 this morning. This will be our last message in Jeremiah for the remainder of the year. We'll have a Thanksgiving message next week and then a series through December. And then we'll be back to Jeremiah 23 in January, Lord willing, for the new year. In this chapter, and as we come to end our time for now in Jeremiah, in chapter 22, I looked and I wondered if I needed to break this up into several different sermons and just came to the conclusion finally late last night, no, this was one message, and I think I can get it done in the time that we have allotted. But in this chapter, God addresses the failures and the futures of the last four kings of Judah. And as we get to know them and talk about them this morning, this includes three of the sons of Josiah and then their uncle, Zedekiah, who were all ruling and reigning at the end of the time period here where Jeremiah has told them that Babylon is coming and Babylon has already started to come. And as we saw last week, Babylon is attacking. and getting closer and closer. These last four kings take us right down to the destruction of Jerusalem in 597 B.C. Now, that was not the final time that Israel was taken or Judah was taken into exile. That was completed by 586 B.C. But before then, Jerusalem was sieged against for 18 months. We talked about the siege ramp having to be built, the people inside the gates starving as that happened. And finally then, Nebuchadnezzar's army breached the wall and they burned Jerusalem to the ground. For these kings, the reminder for us is that throughout the majority of the history of the world, human rulers have been wicked. And they've all been sinners because we all are. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. There are those who stand out. There are rulers like King David, like Josiah, like Hezekiah, who the Bible tells us were men after God's own heart. They did what was right in the sight of the Lord. But the majority of these rulers did not. They not only encouraged sin, but caused sin, instigated sin, led the people into sin. And it brings us to a point where you see where Judah is ending, and you see these men who are at the helm of this ship that is sinking, and you wonder what hope can we have in a world with wicked rulers? What hope can we have in a fallen world to understand Actually, Jeremiah begins with the last, so the last is first. Zedekiah is going to be the last king of Judah before the collapse and the burning of Jerusalem. And he starts, Jeremiah starts there in verses 1 through 9. Thus says Yahweh, Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and there you shall speak this word. Jeremiah apparently was at the temple, at the temple mount, that's the high point, because where he was now to get down to the palace where the king was, he had to go down. That, by the way, Spurgeon says is a word picture for us to remember. that the house of God is always higher than any house a man can build, any government, any nation, any authority on the earth. It's all under the authority of God, and we obey that earthly authority only as far as we're not commanded to disobey God. We will obey God, not men, if it comes to that. But Jeremiah is told to go down and speak this word, and say, Hear the word of Yahweh, O king of Judah, who sits on David's throne, you and your servants and your people who enter these gates. So he goes right to the gate of the entrance to the palace where the king's family lives. So he's not just preaching to the king, he's preaching to anybody from the court, from the family who's coming and going during the day. Thus says Yahweh, Do justice and righteousness, and deliver the one who has been robbed from the power of his oppressor. Also, do not mistreat or do violence to the sojourner, the orphan, or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place. For if you men will indeed do this thing, then kings will enter the gates of this house, sitting for David on his throne, riding in chariots and on horses, even the king himself and his servants and his people. But if you will not obey these words, I swear by myself, declares Yahweh, that this house will become a waste place. For thus says Yahweh concerning the house of the king of Judah, You are like Gilead to me, like the summit of Lebanon, yet most assuredly I will make you like a wilderness, like cities which are not inhabited. For I will set apart destroyers against you, each with his weapons, and they will cut down your choicest cedars and throw them on the fire. Many nations will pass by this city, and they will say to one another, Why has Yahweh done thus to this great city? Then they will say, Because they forsook the covenant of Yahweh their God, and worshiped other gods, and served them." This is Zedekiah, Josiah's brother and uncle to his sons. He reigned 598 to 597 BC. and His reign ended when Jerusalem was burned to the ground. He's commanded to do justice and to do righteousness. We read as much in Ezekiel this morning, that these are the things that you are supposed to do. These are the things you are not supposed to do. And if you do these things, I'm going to bless you. And if you don't do these things, I'm going to curse you. We've heard the theme from Deuteronomy, the covenant curses that Jeremiah continues to preach to the people. They're familiar with this. They know this. They've heard the message. They don't want to hear the message anymore. But God's going to say it one more time, one more time to the last king before the kingdom is lost. Now, He doesn't tell Zedekiah to repent. He doesn't tell him to return to Me and telling him, do justice and righteousness and deliver the one who has been robbed. This is really more than a command for what Zedekiah is supposed to do. This really is an indictment against him for what he hasn't been doing. If you had been doing what God has said for you to do all along, Now, you remember that the kings, when they ascended to the throne, when they were anointed and crowned, the first thing that they were supposed to do was to get together with the scribes and copy the law, to write their own copy of the first five books of the Bible. And that would have given them all of the instructions for how they were to rule God's people and the laws that were supposed to be enforced in the nation. I don't know if Zedekiah did that or not. If he did, he would have known exactly what Jeremiah was saying. But the point is, he had already made a choice. He had chosen to disobey, to not do what God said. There's a warning in Deuteronomy in chapter 27, verse 19. Cursed is he who perverts the justice due, a sojourner, orphan, and widow, and all the people shall say, Amen. He says, do justice, do righteousness. And this is not what we would see today and talk about as being social justice. This is true justice. Do what is right. Settle accounts with people in a righteous way. Deliver the one who has been robbed from the power of his oppressor. This is the role of God-ordained government. This is Romans 13. The government has been given a sword to use for justice and for righteousness, for upholding holiness and right living and morality. Well, the king was not doing that here. He says, "...do not mistreat or do violence to the sojourner, the orphan, or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place." The king was reminded, there are going to be people in your country who aren't your subjects. And for whatever reason they're here, don't mistreat them just because they're not from here. The Bible absolutely condemns any ethnic prejudice. Now, I don't like to use the word racism because there's only one race and that's the human race. There are different ethnicities and people have prejudices and bigotries based on those ethnicities and all of those are stupid. That's the correct theological term for it. For you to look at another person who is different than you and because they are different than you, are from somewhere different than you, for you to hate them is sinful and it's ignorant. There is one blood in one human race and especially in Christ Jesus. Any distinction between us as human beings was erased at the cross. There is no Jew. There is no Greek. We are all in Christ. But as a king, you are not doing justice. You are not doing righteousness. You are not delivering those who have been robbed. You're not opposing the oppressor. You are mistreating and doing violence to the sojourner, the orphan, the widow, those who are the most vulnerable in a society. And he says, do not shed innocent blood in this place. This was a particular reason that this judgment was coming, and it was especially bad under the reign of Manasseh. There was Hezekiah, Manasseh, and then Josiah. Manasseh had already been taken away by the Assyrians. They literally took ropes with fishhooks on them, hooked them through his skin, and dragged him to Assyria. Now, he got loose and got back, but he was judged. And one of the indictments against him, from 2 Kings 21-16, Moreover, Manasseh shed very much innocent blood, until he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another, besides his sin, with which he made Judas sin, in doing what is evil in the sight of Yahweh. Killing the innocent. Shedding innocent blood through ruthlessness, through murder, through deception, This is now what the kings are doing. Josiah did not follow in that way, and that's why the Ezekiel passage in Ezekiel 18 would have applied. Josiah had a godly grandfather, Hezekiah. Hezekiah was one of the best. His son Manasseh was one of the worst. Hezekiah wasn't judged for what Manasseh did. Manasseh wasn't blessed for what Hezekiah did. And then came Josiah, And He was godly, and from a very young age, the age of eight when He assumed the throne, brought about great reformation and revival to the people. God's going to hold these individuals responsible for their sin or for blessing them for righteousness, but with that position as the King, because he is not upholding the law of God and instead allowing the worship of idols and the sacrifice of children to Molech, because that's being allowed and encouraged and set up even within the courts of the temple and done, the whole nation is going to be judged as a result of these sins. And God, through Jeremiah, pins this to the kings who are ruling and who know better. He says this that, If you do what I've told you to do, verse 4, if you'll do this, then kings will enter the gates of this house, sitting for David on his throne, riding on chariots and horses, even the king himself and his servants and his people. You're going to continue on as a nation if you'll do what's right. I'll bless you. I'll preserve the line of David. Verse 5, but if you will not obey these words, and again, another frightening phrase. God says, I swear by myself, declares Yahweh, that this house will become a waste place. He's talking about the house of the king. The royal household will be completely ruined. He says, if you don't do what you're supposed to do, walking in justice and righteousness, You're going to be ruined. And the promise here in this judgment is for God to say, I swear by myself. That means God Himself is backing this word of judgment with who He is as God for as long as He is God. That means forever. Your house is going to be ruined forever. For you there's no coming back. He uses a word picture talking about Gilead and Lebanon. He says, Thus says Yahweh concerning the house of the king of Judah, You are like Gilead to me, like the summit of Lebanon. Gilead was a place known for its lush pastures, its rolling pastures and livestock. Lebanon was known for the forest of the tall, beautiful, magnificent cedar trees. And this, he says, this is what you've been to me because this is what God created His people to be. But he said, yet most assuredly I will make you like a wilderness, vacant, uninhabited, a wild place, like cities which are not inhabited. For I will set apart destroyers against you, each with his weapons, and they will cut down your choicest cedars and throw them on the fire. All of this is going to be witnessed by the nations. He says many nations are going to pass by this city and they'll say to one another, why has Yahweh done thus to this great city? The nations knew who Judah claimed to worship. They had heard the stories about the power of God. They knew that God had rescued them from Egypt with the plagues and the signs and the wonders. This was taught from generation to generation and the world knew it. And so when the people of God prospered, the people believed God was blessing them, and He was. But when they were judged, the question was, if their God had blessed them to this extent, why would their God now remove His blessing and allow this to happen to such a beautiful city? Why has Yahweh done thus to this great city? They become a shame for the world. Deuteronomy chapter 29, again Moses warns about this, "...all the nations will say, Why has Yahweh done thus to this land? Why this great burning anger? Then men will say, Because they forsook the covenant of Yahweh, the God of their fathers, which He cut with them when He brought them out of the land of Egypt. And they went and served other gods and worshipped them, gods whom they have not known and whom He had not appointed to them." Why was Jerusalem burned to the ground? for breaking the first commandment of God's covenant with His people. You shall have no other gods before Me." This is the first commandment. This is the beginning, the initiation of the covenant. The nations knew it. Now we know that the world knows who we claim to be. The most hysterical thing to me is whenever the world tells the church what the Bible means and how we're supposed to live. Because not only do they not know, they can't know. They don't have the Spirit of God. They can't know. So it's always funny when the world tries to tell the church how to be. But we also have to be careful on the other side because we as the church all too often give people in the world a reason to say, why are you doing that? There are times even the world knows better than the church. You're God's people, you shouldn't be doing that. You shouldn't be going there. How do we know this? Because every once in a while, there's some big scandal and some minister falls. And understand, by the way, when a minister falls and when that happens, when that's public and when people use that then against the church and against the gospel and against Christ, understand, Jesus is not hurt by that. The gospel is not stopped by that. And please understand, that man who fell, he didn't fall that moment, that's been months, Years, possibly decades of compromise that finally God exposes. I loved it that John MacArthur said, we have to realize that when men like that are exposed, that is God's grace for His church. He's pruning His church and getting rid of the hirelings. Those who are doing it for the wrong reasons. They will be found out, the world will look, and the world is going to wonder, what's happening? Why is this happening? Well, here it's clear. It's happening because they forsook the covenant of Yahweh their God and worshipped other gods and served them. It's just that simple. And the pagans would have understood that because the pagans expect their gods to do the same. If I don't worship Baal like I'm supposed to worship Baal, He's going to burn my crops. And if I don't worship Asherah like I'm supposed to worship Asherah, then my flocks aren't going to reproduce. I'm not going to have any young sheep or goats. We're going to have famine and death and depravity. They understood that because they thought that they had to work their way to God. It's built into our sinful human nature. We think we have to come to God and do something pleasing to God to get favor from God. Here's the good news of the gospel. God is not waiting for us to come do something good for Him so that He will do something good for us. He did something good for us despite all the bad we've done. By His grace, He's given us mercy and called us to come to Him, and then given us everything we need to come to Him, and then given us everything that we need to have fellowship with Him, and then given us everything we need to be right with Him, and then given us everything to adopt us as His children. It's all a gift of grace. This is what Zedekiah and the kings that preceded him had failed to understand. They were living in a legalistic system. They thought that they were supposed to do for God, and then later for the gods, what the gods demanded, to barter some kind of goodwill or blessing. And in doing that, they violated the first commandment, don't have any other gods before me. A simple command, but a difficult command. We understand this, John Calvin said, the human heart is an idle factory. We have to be reminded of this daily. Have no other gods before Him. Don't put a person there. Don't put a job there. Don't put your security there. Don't put your happiness there. Don't put anything there. God is first. He then addresses Jehoahaz. Now, by the way, when we read these names, if you go back and read their accounts in 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles, some of them will have different names. I want to explain that because they had a given name at birth, and then sometimes when they were anointed king, they were then given a regal name, just like we see today with the king of England, where they will change the name and have a royal name. And so sometimes the Scripture refers to them by their royal name. Other times it's by another name. And what we're going to see today, one of these is even given a nickname. and that's how they're addressed. But the second is Jehoahaz. He is addressed as Shalem in verses 10 through 12. He was Josiah's son. He is actually the first chronologically of the last four kings in Judah. And he starts and he says, "...do not weep for the dead, or console him, but weep continually for the one who goes away, for he will never return or see the land of his birth. For thus says Yahweh in regard to Shalem, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, who became king in the place of Josiah his father, who went forth from this place, he will never return there. But in the place where they took him away into exile, there he will die and not see this land again." In these verses Jehoahaz is addressed, And we're told, don't weep for the dead. Now, this is not just not weeping for people who die. This is weeping for a specific dead person. And that is, Jehoiah has his father, Josiah. God says, don't weep for Josiah. Why? Because Josiah was righteous. Josiah was welcomed into the presence of God upon his death. But these final four kings and their wickedness and the things that they did to violate the covenant of God, there was going to be suffering and plague and exile and death. He says, don't weep for Josiah. Weep for the one who goes away. Who's going away? Jehoiah has. Weep because he's going away forever. He's never going to see the land of his birth again. He became king in the place of Josiah, his father, who went forth from this place. He will never return there. When Josiah died, He was leading a battle. Judah was fighting against the Egyptians under Pharaoh Necho, because Necho was assisting Assyria to fight against the new rising threat, the new rising power on the horizon on the east, which was Babylon. So Assyria is a world power, Egypt is a power but not quite as much, Judah is stuck right in the middle, and Babylon is rising and about to take over Assyria. And in this fight, the Egyptians join the Assyrians and they go to fight against Babylon. Well, they had already been fighting from Assyria against Israel, against Judah, and from Egypt against Judah, so Josiah goes out into battle against Pharaoh Necho. And He is killed in that battle in 609 B.C. in the valley of Megiddo. Sound familiar? It now is known valley as the word Har, Har-Megiddo. It is known as Har-Megiddo, Armageddon. This is where Josiah dies. As he dies in that fight, then his son Jehoahaz was named king. But Jehoahaz only reigned three months. before Pharaoh Necho came after him and said he wanted to meet with him in Ribla. Summon him to the meeting, and when he came, he captured him, he exiled him into Egypt, and that's where Jehoahaz died. He never came back to Judah. How much bad could he have done in three months that he was taken out that quickly? Please, don't ever lay that challenge before a politician. Don't do it. Challenge accepted. You wanna see me do something that's gonna get me exiled and dying in a foreign land? Ha ha! Watch this! He just continued in his grandfather's steps following after the way of Manasseh, ignoring what his father had done. The next king addressed is verses 13 through 19. We don't get his name until verse 18, but this is Jehoiakim. He's also known as Eliakim. He reigned from 609 to 598 BC. See, when he took Jehoahaz and exiled him, then Pharaoh Necho put his brother Eliakim on the throne and said, You rule. Now does that mean that Eliakim is really a king? No, at this point, really, he's more of a puppet. Now Pharaoh is using him and threatening him and saying, You're going to do what I tell you to do over the people. I put you on the throne. I can take you off the throne. I'm running the show now. So the word to him It says in verse 13, Woe to him who builds his house. It's a bad sign when a verse starts with the word woe. That's a curse. Woe. Judgment is coming upon him. Woe to him who builds his house without righteousness. And now listen to what he did. This is specifically addressing Eliakim's building of his own palace instead of attending to the nation and to the house of the Lord. Woe to him who builds his house without righteousness and his upper rooms without justice, who uses his neighbor's services without pay and does not give him his wages, who says, I will build myself a roomy house with spacious upper rooms and cut out its windows, paneling it with cedar and painting it bright red. Do you become a king because you are competing in cedar? Did not your father eat and drink and do justice and righteousness? Then it was well with him. He pled the cause of the afflicted and needy. Then it was well. Is not that what it means to know Me, declares Yahweh? But your eyes and your heart are set upon nothing except your own greedy gain, and on shedding innocent blood, and on doing oppression and extortion. Therefore, thus says Yahweh in regard to Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, they will not lament for him, alas, my brother, or alas, sister, they will not lament for him, alas, for the master, or alas, for his splendor. He will be buried with a donkey's burial, dragged off and thrown out beyond the gates of Jerusalem." So we see Jehoahaz sent off. He goes into exile. His brother is installed as the king next. He doesn't go after him. He doesn't challenge the Pharaoh at all. He submits, but then basically uses everything that's been given to him as king to build his own palace. And boy, did he build a palace. the ruins of this palace. We know where this is. This has been uncovered. Necho put him on the throne when he was 25 years old and he began immediately working on this grand palace. It is at a place now known as Ramat Rahel. It is the halfway point between Jerusalem and Bethlehem on the highest hill between the two. So here we have a king who says, I'm going to pick the highest overlook and I'm going to build the biggest house because it's all about me. Now, ten years into this reign, living in this house, Nebuchadnezzar had him killed after he led a brief rebellion against Babylon. When Nebuchadnezzar had him killed, he gave instructions that his body was to be thrown out onto the ground outside the walls. just like it says here, dragged off and thrown out beyond the gates, buried with a donkey's burial. One of the commentators had made a point that they had been to a place in the Middle East and the strangest thing happened, that someone's donkey had died and they just took the donkey with a bulldozer and dumped it in a dumpster right outside on the street. And the problem was the trash didn't get picked up for a week. You can imagine a donkey dumpster out in the sun in the Middle East for a week unattended to. This is shameful, it's disgraceful, it's disgusting, but this is what happened to Jehoiakim. Because he built this house and this house that's been uncovered now has been proven to be five stories tall with massive windows. The windows were so big, columns had to be placed in middle sections of the windows. And those are still in place today. In fact, as they uncovered the ruins, they also found red paint still on the walls. This paint was, it was a mineral that was used to paint stone, to protect it, to waterproof it, and it was a bright, brilliant red. Most of the commentators translate it, instead of red, they translate it vermilion. Now, you know you're into the more than 64 crayons in the box when you're coloring with vermilion, right? Now this was not used for dyeing cloth, it wasn't suitable to do that, but it was for painting. Now if you can imagine, the highest hill between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, a five-story palace with huge windows, humongous spacious rooms, painted bright red. It's almost like it's a mini Tower of Babel here. He's saying, I'm the most important thing in the world. You read the description of what he did. He built the house by injustice and oppression. He forced his own people from his own nation to build it. You know, when Solomon built his palace, he used foreigners and sojourners to do it. He paid them to do it, but he didn't make the Israelites build his house. But now Jehoiakim forces his own people to do this. He does it through injustice and oppression. He enslaves them. He doesn't pay them to do the work. The Bible says you're not like your father Josiah. You're all about greedy gain, shedding innocent blood and extortion. If you want to understand a picture of this today, have you ever wondered how some of these people get into government, especially into Congress? And pray for term limits, y'all, because this has got to come to an end. Because we have these people who have been there for so long, and they're supposed to keep all of their finances out of the work that they're doing for the government. And they go in, one that I know of that went in as a former bartender who's now worth millions of dollars. How does that happen on a government salary? Well, it's through injustice and oppression. It's through immorality, through greedy gain. And the people are so fed up with him. He says, therefore, there's not going to be any mourning at his death. None of the typical chants that are chanted when the king dies or when somebody dies are going to be chanted when he dies. Nobody is going to miss Jehoiakim. He's just going to be thrown out. Now, we do know, and there is a question because it does tell us in the account in Kings that He was taken and buried. Now, that doesn't mean He wasn't thrown out of the wall first. The Bible doesn't tell us He was thrown out, by the way. It says He will be. It doesn't say that He was. Josephus says that it's in the records that He was, but then they went out and got His body and gave Him a proper burial. But before then, God said it was going to happen, and what God said was going to happen was going to happen. just because of the immense immorality. God takes a moment now and in verses 20-23 addresses Jerusalem as a whole. He says, "...Go up to Lebanon and cry out, and lift up your voice in Bation. Cry out from Aberim, for all your lovers have been broken." He's sending Jeremiah to different locations, north, south, east, and west. "...Cry out to Jerusalem from each side of the city, Your lovers have been broken. I spoke to you in your prosperity, but you said, I will not listen. This has been your way from your youth that you have not listened to my voice. The wind will sweep away all your shepherds and your lovers will go into captivity. Then you will surely be ashamed and feel dishonor because of all your evil. You who inhabit Lebanon, nested in the cedars, how you will groan with pains coming upon you, pain like a woman in childbirth. He says, I told you, when I prospered you, when I blessed you, when I called you to be My people, when I gave you kings and prophets and priests. The idea from the Old Testament, when God wooed His people, He made them prosperous and promised them blessings. But they said from the start that they wouldn't listen. They weren't going to listen. That's what they said. He says, this has been your way from your youth. There are those who idolize Israel as God's people, but we have to understand in looking at the nation and looking at the number of wicked rulers in Israel and in Judah, we have to understand, yes, God called Israel, but what matters in Israel is not all of Israel, it's the remnant. It's the remnant that received grace because as a whole, the people had stiff necks. They cried out, get us out of Egypt. God sent Moses and Aaron and got them out of Egypt. And would they complain? Why did you bring us out here? There's nothing good to eat. We want to go back there to eat. We want to go back under that. We cried for hundreds of years for God to get us out. God got us out. Now we want to go back. Sound familiar? God frees us from sin. We walk in victory. We enjoy the victory and suddenly we trip and we fall. And where do we find ourselves? Right back in the mire, right back in the sin. This is the human condition. We won't listen. We're told in the Scriptures we need to listen and we need to remember. We need to listen and we need to remember. Listen to what God says. Remember what God says. Do what God says. Listen to what God has to say. He says, I'm going to break you. The wind is going to sweep away all your shepherds, all your lovers, that is all these other nations that are taking care of you and propping you up. They're all going to go into captivity too. Everybody associated with you is going to be carried off or killed. It's going to be sudden like labor pains. You're not going to know it's coming, and suddenly, here it comes. And next comes the end. The third king in this line is Jehoiachin. His nickname was Conniah. Jehoiachin reigned three months and ten days. He's addressed in verses 24 through the end of the chapter. As I live, declares Yahweh, even though Keniah, the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were a signet ring on my right hand, yet I would pull you off. And I would give you over into the hand of those who are seeking your life, indeed into the hand of those whom you dread, even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans. I will hurl you and your mother who bore you into another land. There you were not born, but there you will die. But as for the lands to which their soul desires to return, they will not return to it. Is this man Caniah a despised, shattered jar, or is he an undesirable vessel? Why have he and his seed been hurled out and cast into a land that they had not known? O land, land, land, hear the word of Yahweh. Thus says Yahweh, write this man down childless, a man who will not succeed in his days, for no man of his seed will succeed sitting on the throne of David or ruling again in Judah." We know that happened because he ruled for about a hundred days, three months and ten days. And his uncle was appointed by Nebuchadnezzar after his death. Jeconiah was 18 when it began this reign. He was taken away when Jerusalem was captured on March 16, 597 B.C. He was imprisoned in Babylon and we know the location or close to where he was imprisoned. We know he was kept in that prison until April 2, 561 B.C. As he was there imprisoned for over 30 years, he was finally released, but he did not go back to Jerusalem or to Judah. He remained in Babylon until his death. We know some of this because there's a ration tablet. These were tablets that were used to keep track of prisoners. And there's a ration tablet that was uncovered with others near the Ishtar Gate in Babylon, where there had been a prison. And his name is on that tablet. They know that he was there. As he was there, taken away, his family was taken away, for God to address him like this, because of your sin, I'm going to throw you into Babylon. He says, even if you were like a signet ring, a king's signet ring with his symbol had his authority, and if that was put on a document, that was the same as a king's signature. God said, if you were my signet ring, if you had all of my backing and authority, I would take the ring off and throw it into another land. I'm going to hurl you and your mother who bore you into another land. You weren't born there, but you're going to die there. Now, this is about to be the last king This is the last descendant now of Josiah. This is the line of David. The description in 2 Kings is, So Jehoiakim slept with his fathers, and Jehoiachin, his son, became king in his place. And the king of Egypt did not go out of his land again, for the king of Babylon had taken all that belonged to the king of Egypt, from the book of Egypt to the river Euphrates. Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Nahushtah, the daughter of El Nathan of Jerusalem. And he did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh, according to all that his father had done. At that time the servants of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon went up to Jerusalem and the city came under siege and Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon came to the city while his servants were besieging it. Then Jehoiachin the king of Judah went out to the king of Babylon, he and his mother and his servants, and his commanders and his officials. So the king of Babylon took him captive in the eighth year of his reign. And he brought out from there all the treasures of the house of Yahweh, and the treasures of the king's house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold which Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of Yahweh, just as Yahweh had spoken. Then he took away into exile all Jerusalem, and all the commanders, and all the mighty men of valor, ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and the smiths. None was left except the poorest people of the land. So he took Jehoiachin away into exile to Babylon. Also the king's mother and the king's wives and his officials and the leading men of the land, he led away into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. as they were taken there. It says here that you will be declared childless. Now we know Jehoiachin had children, but the phrase and what it means here is that none of your children are going to sit on the throne. The line is ended. This really, one commentator said, this is the obituary for the kingdom of David. You're going to be taken into captivity. Now, the other reason, by the way, that it says you're childless and nobody under you is going to sit on the throne is because we do know that all of the men, all of his sons who were taken into captivity were made eunuchs and forced to serve in Nebuchadnezzar's palace. So they weren't going to have children. There was going to be no descendants to sit on the throne. This was the end of Judah. Isaiah 39, verse 7, Isaiah said, Some of your sons who will issue from you, whom you will beget, will be taken away, and they will become officials in the palace of the king of Babylon. The lament that's here in verse 29 then, looking at these last four kings, at these last 12 or so years in the history of Judah, O land, land, land, Hear the word of Yahweh. Write this man down childless, a man who will not succeed in his days, for no man of his seed will succeed sitting on the throne of David or ruling again in Judah." You look at these kings, you look at these rulers, you look at the sin, you look at the patterns of behavior, you look at the pride and the arrogance and the iniquity, and you see that God has brought Judah to an end and you wonder, what hope is there? Is this the end of David's line? Is there going to be another? When they came back, even after they came back after the exile, there wasn't a king. There was a governor appointed by whoever was ruling over the people of Israel. And we know that that was true all the way up under the governorship of Pontius Pilate when Christ was crucified. There was not a king. The temple was eventually going to be rebuilt. Life would go on, but there was no king from David's line. Now, what's interesting to us is that so many of the records were destroyed, but you know records that were kept continued to trace David's line, continued to look at descendants. And what we know is that for these four men, one of their offspring didn't sit on the throne. Three brothers and an uncle. This was the end of the line as far as physical descendants were concerned, ruling in Jerusalem. I guess we just stop there and give up hope, don't we? Judah's done. Just, hey, hey, goodbye. That's it. It's over. Your sin has caught up with you. You've been judged. It's in the next chapter where we pick up next year in chapter 23, verse 5. Here we see the truth. The destruction of Judah removed these men from the throne and one of their physical descendants was not going to sit on the throne. But that did not end David's line because there was someone in David's line who was going to be born in Bethlehem. Behold, the days are coming, declares Yahweh, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch, and he will reign as king and prosper and do justice and righteousness in the land." There is a king coming. And this is Jeremiah's message of hope to the people who are about to go through this judgment and this exile. The hope for Daniel is he would have read this in captivity. For all the things these kings didn't do that they should have done. For all of the call from God for a king to do justice and to do righteousness. We're promised in Jeremiah 23, 5, that God is going to raise up a king and he will rule in righteousness and he will do justice in the land. In his days, Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell securely. And this is his name by which he will be called, Yahweh, our righteousness. God says, I'm going to give myself to you as a king through the branch of Jesse, through the only begotten Son of the Father, whose name Jesus means literally salvation or deliverance, and the means of that deliverance is the imputation of His righteousness to sinners. I'm still shocked when people tell me they can't find the gospel in the Old Testament, that you have to go to the New Testament to find the gospel. Folks, there's the gospel right there. Yahweh, our righteousness. This might sound familiar to some of you, but you know God is a holy God and we're sinful, wicked people. And it doesn't take much of a list to start to look and to see the sins that we've committed and to know that then fellowship with God has been broken and we are condemned, children of wrath. But God, He knew that we needed righteousness to be right with Him. He knew we needed pardon to be forgiven and reconciled. So He sent His Son to do that for us, to stand in our place, to live the life we should have lived, to die the death we should have died. so that we now can have His righteousness imputed to us and our sins forgiven, pardoned, wiped out, covered by the blood. How do we get this righteousness? Well, if you just try really hard and do good, we'll sing just as I am. If you'd stand and come forward, shake my hand, and I'll give you a special anointing. No, the gospel is this simple. Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Call to Yahweh our righteousness. Plead with Him to save and to forgive you. And here's the cool thing about that. As you're pleading for Him to save you, He already has. That's why you're calling. Call, and when you come to Him, all those who come to Him, He won't cast a one out. We read it this morning in his high priestly prayer. He will not lose one that the father has given him. And so you might wonder today, am I one that the father has given to the son? Are you? If you are, you'll know. We read it this morning in John, didn't we? My sheep hear my voice. They know me. They follow me. Have you called upon him to save you this morning? Have you? Is Yahweh your righteousness? Amen. Only one of you? Maybe I need to give an invitation. Is Yahweh your righteousness? Yes and Amen. Let's pray. Father, we thank You this morning for Your Word and even more so for Your Son who came to give Himself in our place. to satisfy your justice and your wrath. A king in the line of David who would come and do justice and live righteously, who would be our salvation. We thank you that Jesus is our salvation embodied. and that by your grace you've called us. And as we've answered, you've saved us. And as you've saved us, you've secured us and you will keep us and not lose a one. Father, we confess that like these wicked kings, like these evil kings, our lives are full of sin, sin we're not even aware of. Sins of omission, sins of commission, things we've done, things we didn't even know we were supposed to do that we didn't do. We're guilty. How amazing then is this full pardon that's been won for us, paid for us by Christ. He's paid to cover it all. We thank you then this morning for a salvation in Jesus that is complete. That as sinful as we are and as we struggle so much with this fallen flesh, we know that because you have saved us and are saving us and will save us, one day we will be free of this body of flesh and we will not want to sin anymore. Father, that's the day we wait for. Watching for Jesus, looking for his return so that we might be with him and with you from that point forward. We thank you this morning for Jesus, who is our righteousness. And we pray these things in his name. Amen.