This is a condensed transcript of my July 17, 2011 sermon.

Our story starts in Eden where peace, harmony, and unhindered community with God prevailed.  Perfection.  But man rebelled and bought the lie that we could be like God, and as a result, man was expelled from the garden.  This would become the first of many exiles God’s people would experience in their history.  Ever since then, God’s people have been stuck in a vicious cycle.  It’s a cycle that is perpetuated by sin and rebellion.  God’s people sin; they suffer the consequences; they confess the sin and turn from it; and God restores them back to himself.  And then the cycle begins again with sin.  But as we saw last week, God is faithful – even when we’re not. Are there consequences for our sin? Yes…and sometimes the consequences are almost unbearable. But when we confess our sin – no matter what price we’ve paid for it – is God ready and willing to forgive us and restore us? Yes!  This has characterized His interaction with His people from the very beginning.

The bad news is that rebellion (idolatry) ALWAYS leads to consequences (exile).  But the good news is that repentance ALWAYS leads to restoration.

Picking up where we left off last time: God’s people desire a king.  They reject God as their king because they want a human king like everyone else, so God warns them about this and then gives them what they want.  Saul is the first king, but because of his sin and rebellion, God rejects him and appoints David.  David is more faithful than Saul as king, but he also gets himself caught in the vicious cycle of sin.  After he dies, his son, Solomon, becomes king, but according to 1 Kings 11, he drifts far away from the Lord – so much so that God tells him that because of his sin, the nation of Israel will be ripped apart. Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not wholly follow the Lord, as David his father had done. And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods. But he did not keep what the Lord commanded. Therefore the Lord said to Solomon, “Since this has been your practice and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes that I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you and will give it to your servant. Yet for the sake of David your father I will not do it in your days, but I will tear it out of the hand of your son. However, I will not tear away all the kingdom, but I will give one tribe to your son, for the sake of David my servant and for the sake of Jerusalem that I have chosen.” (1 Kings 11:5-13 condensed).

True to His word, the Lord causes the nation to be split and idolatry prevails in both the northern and southern kingdoms.  God – in His faithfulness to His unfaithful people – sends prophets to warn His people of the coming exile from their land if they choose to continue in idolatry.  It seems as though God raised up prophets to counter-balance the idolatry and rebellion of Israel under the leadership of kings, and because of this, the prophets and kings were often engaged in bitter conflict.  The more rebellious and idolatrous the king, the more conflict there was between him and the prophet God raised up to speak.

As time went on, God’s people strayed further and further away from Him.  King Ahab (king of the Northern Kingdom) married a foreigner named Jezebel who brought Baal worship into their marriage and into the northern kingdom.  God called the prophet Elijah to speak on His behalf to King Ahab and the people.  In 1 Kings 18:21 we read, And Elijah came near to all the people and said, “How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” And the people did not answer him a word. Because the people couldn’t decide who to serve, Elijah decided to sacrifice two bulls and challenge the prophets of Baal to a dual.  He tells the prophets of Baal to cry out to their god to devour their bull with fire. He does the same to His God, and of course, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – the one true God – wins, and Elijah’s bull is consumed with fire.  In 1 Kings 18:39 it says, And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, “The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God.” Unfortunately, this didn’t last.  God’s people continued in their rebellious, idolatrous ways, and eventually, God’s patience ran out.

The Northern Kingdom (called “Israel”) fell in 722 B.C.  Assyria attacked them and took the God’s people into exile “scattering them beyond the Euphrates” as God had warned them earlier.  The Southern Kingdom (called “Judah”) fell between 605 and 586 B.C. because idolatry prevailed there as well – even though prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah prophesied and warned them repeatedly.  The Babylonians attacked and took them into exile.  They also destroyed the temple in Jerusalem that had been built under Solomon’s leadership.  Because of their sin, all of God’s people were once again in exile and slavery. They had been removed from the land that God promised them – not because He was unfaithful, but because they were unfaithful.

Look at what God said through the prophet Jeremiah about the sin of His people and their eventual exile from the Promised Land: For my people are foolish; they know me not; they are stupid children; they have no understanding. They are ‘wise’—in doing evil! But how to do good they know not.” I looked on the earth, and behold, it was without form and void; and to the heavens, and they had no light. I looked on the mountains, and behold, they were quaking, and all the hills moved to and fro. I looked, and behold, there was no man, and all the birds of the air had fled. I looked, and behold, the fruitful land was a desert, and all its cities were laid in ruins before the Lord, before his fierce anger. (Jeremiah 4:22-26)  When you compare this to the description of pre-creation chaos in Genesis 1:2, you get the picture that the sin of God’s people and their removal from the land God promised them was cataclysmic in nature. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep… (Genesis 1:2)

Through it all, God did not forget His covenant with His people. Why not?  Because God is faithful – even when we are not. In the midst of the exile, God speaks through the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel reassuring His faithless people that even though they are unfaithful to Him, He will not be unfaithful to them.

Jeremiah 31:31-34
Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

Ezekiel 36:26-28
And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.

God promises – even when His people are in exile because of their idolatrous sin – that He will make a new covenant with His people.  This new covenant will involve an internalization of His Law.  He will put His Law in their minds and on their hearts – not just on stone, and they will know the Lord in a new and deeper way.  All the way back in the Old Testament, God is promising that He will one day send His Spirit to dwell in the hearts of all believers!  A second aspect of the New Covenant will be God’s provision for sin.  The sins of the people resulted in the curses of the Old Covenant (removal from the land).  However, as part of the New Covenant, God will forgive Israel’s wickedness and remember their sins no more. But how can a holy God overlook sin?  The answer is that God does not “overlook” sin.  It’s penalty will be paid for by a Substitute – His Only Son, Jesus Christ!

The great hope of Israel (and of all mankind) is Jesus, and Daniel – while in captivity in Babylon – sees this vision:  I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed. (Daniel 7:13-14)  The great hope for Israel and for all mankind is the coming of the Messiah who will take the sins of all mankind on Himself and bring ultimate forgiveness and restoration…but I’m getting ahead of the story.  The climax of Jesus is coming up in a few weeks!

50 years after the temple in Jerusalem was leveled, God moves in King Cyrus’ heart to let God’s people return to their Promised Land to rebuild the temple.  What a moment that must have been for the Israelites, and what a testimony it is to God’s grace, forgiveness, and love.  This is their story…but it’s also ours.  God is Faithful to His people (then and now) – even when we’re not faithful to Him.  The bad news is that rebellion (idolatry) ALWAYS leads to consequences (exile).  But the good news is that repentance ALWAYS leads to restoration.  Are you suffering the consequences of sin in your life?  If so, repent and receive the restoration and renewal the Lord offers.