Jeremiah, Pt 1Lesson 7
A Glorious Throne on High From the Beginning Is the Place of Our Sanctuary
Kay Arthur
It is February 24, 2009. I believe you need to know the date so that you can place the timing of this program so that if you take it in 2010 or 2011 or whatever we have left, you can look back and see what God was doing and God was saying. On Feb 21 Fox News reported a new Harris Poll that was taken on January 12 -19 of 2634 Americans. They wanted to know “who is the most popular figure today?” foxnews.com. and I want you to know that Obama was more popular than Jesus, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King. Jesus came in second on the list of heroes, a list of people they admired. A list that not only included Jesus, but it included God and Gandhi and George Washington. When that poll was taken in 2001, Jesus came in first, then Martin Luther King, Powell, Kennedy, and Mother Teresa.
What is happening in our society when a human being would take the place of Jesus? That we would look to a human being as our savior, as our salvation, and that’s what many are doing in the USA at this time. The Bible talks about times coming when men’s hearts will fail them for fear. Where are they looking? They are looking to a man. He is the hero; he is the savior. They are looking to the banks, to the economics. A friend of mine, Lance Lambert – and I have had the privilege of being in his home in Israel. He lives in Jerusalem. Heis a Brit that has ministered in Israel through all of their major, major wars. He is an old man. He was telling how he got on a plane and he was going between WashingtonDC and Memphis. There were a bunch of Congressmen and Senators on that plane. The woman sitting next to him, when she found out he was from Israel, began confiding in him. She said (and this was back in January) “These men do not know what to do.”
Do you know what to do? Do you know what to do when anxiety and fear are pounding at the door of your heart demanding entrance? Do you know what is happening? Do you know where to go when everything is falling apart? When you’re going to worry about whether you lose your home or whether you can pay the bills or whether you can send your child to college, or what is going to happen in the future? What do you do??!!
There is a wonderful scripture that grabbed my heart in Jeremiah 17:12
12 A glorious throne on high from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary.
You and I have a sanctuary. It is not a futile sanctuary. It is a sanctuary that can give you security. It is a sanctuary that can wrap its arms around you and give you what you need in the time of trouble. That sanctuary is a throne that is on high, a throne from the beginning. That is our sanctuary. What is that throne? It is the throne of Almighty God. The One that says in Isaiah 45:5-7
5 “I am the Lord, and there is no other; Besides Me there is no God. I will gird you, though you have not known Me;
6 That men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun That there is no one besides Me. I am the Lord, and there is no other,
7 The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the Lord who does all these.
I create adversity. I create adversity. I create good and I create evil (translated here as adversity.) I am the Lord that does all these things.
You and I have a place to run, a place where we can be secure, a place of sanity and stability. So when rumors come and go, when they are talking about men reacting in blind fear and trying to figure their way out of that, turning to the arm of flesh, to a president, a government for our deliverance. We can go another place, to a throne that is on high, that is on high that rules above all.
Daniel 4:34-35
34 “But at the end of that period, I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever; For His dominion is an everlasting dominion, And His kingdom endures from generation to generation.
35 “All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, But He does according to His will in the host of heaven And among the inhabitants of earth; And no one can ward off His hand Or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’
You have a place to run to. You have a place of security. You have a sanctuary. That sanctuary is the fact that God is sovereign and that God rules.
Jeremiah 17:12-13
12 A glorious throne on high from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary. (Have you got it? OUR sanctuary)
13 (Jeremiah is speaking) O Lord, the hope of Israel, (God is Israel’s hope. He is our hope. He is the sovereign ruler of all the universe, of all the nations) All who forsake You will be put to shame. Those who turn away on earth will be written down, because they have forsaken the fountain of living water, even the Lord.
And then you go on and you come to verse 17:
Jeremiah 17:17
17 Do not be a terror to me; You are my refuge in the day of disaster.
When fear is knocking at the door of your heart, when anxiety is coming, what is he saying? He is saying, “Hey, I have a sanctuary.” This is what he says:
17 Do not be a terror to me; You are my (what?) refuge (when?) in the day of disaster.
Look at verse 18.
Jeremiah 17:18
18 Let those who persecute me be put to shame, but as for me, let me not be put to shame; Let them be dismayed, but let me not be dismayed. Bring on them a day of disaster, And crush them with twofold destruction!
In this time, don’t let me be put to shame. In this time don’t let me be dismayed so that I don’t know what’s going on so that I’m staggering and I’m reeling.
18….Bring on them a day of disaster…
When the day of disaster comes, where is your sanctuary, where is your refuge, where if the One that you are going to find rest and peace in? There is a throne.
Jeremiah 17:12
12 A glorious throne on high from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary.
It is the place!!! It is the place where you and I can run. It is a place of sanity, a place of security and stability.
Now does Jeremiah need to know this? OH, yes. Because when Jeremiah 16 opens up, it opens up with grave instructions from God to Jeremiah. It is a continuation of what’s going on when God and Jeremiah where talking and what God says is, “You can’t take a wife for yourself. You can’t have sons or daughters why can’t you have sons and daughters and take a wife in this place? Because great calamity is coming. You can’t go to a place of mourning if a friend or family member dies. You can’t go to the place of mourning. You can’t go to the place where they are having a party. You can’t go to the place of where they are feasting. Why can’t you go? You can’t go because it is a time of disaster.”
It is a time when God is getting ready to move in His judgment. Great calamity is coming.
Look at verse 10.
Jeremiah 16:10
10 “Now when you tell this people all these words (What God is going to do.), they will say to you, ‘For what reason has the Lord declared all this great calamity against us? And what is our iniquity, or what is our sin which we have committed against the Lord our God?’
A lot of people are wondering if America is ever going to recover. I believe that we are on a slide. When I was a kid and I wanted to slide down the slide faster, I put waxed paper on my bottom and I would go rapidly. When that economic crisis hit and it hit like that, we started down the slide going so fast. Could it be – see if a great recession comes, and it is here, but it is continues then what follows a recession? Inflation. Your money is absolutely worthless. So what would be a possible solution? To have a common currency in the world. Just throw your money away; just lay it aside, and that is what some economists are talking about. That’s what I was reading. We need a new monetary system. The world needs a monetary system. We need to get rid of these monies. It just might be the Euro and the dollar or it might be something else.
Could it be? Just could it be – and I’m not saying it is – but could it be that we are rapidly headed toward the end of the days, toward the second coming of the Lord.
Let me ask you a question. If you thought that – if you thought that, would it change how you live? If you thought that, and you understood the Bible, where would your sanctuary be? Your sanctuary would be this glorious throne set on high from the beginning. (Kay draws it on the board) This is the throne of Almighty God. It has been from the beginning. He has always been God. He is alpha and omega. He is the beginning and the end. He is El Olam. He is the everlasting God. He is eternal. We are temporal. But we have a place of eternal security. That eternal security is in the throne, a glorious throne, set on high from the beginning. It will continue to the end. It is our sanctuary. It is the place where we run.
Well, what is going to happen to Israel? They are going to be hurled out of the land.
In Jeremiah 16:16-18 he tells us that there isn’t going to be any escape.
Jeremiah 16:13
13 ‘So I will hurl you out of this land into the land which you have not known, neither you nor your fathers; and there you will serve other gods day and night, for I will grant you no favor.’
I am about to take you and I am about to hurl you right out of this land. He said previously that He was going to sling them out of the land. He is telling them that:
Jeremiah 16:16-18
16 “Behold, I am going to send for many fishermen,” declares the Lord, “and they will fish for them; and afterwards I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them from every mountain and every hill and from the clefts of the rocks.
17 “For My eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from My face, nor is their iniquity concealed from My eyes.
18 “I will first doubly repay their iniquity and their sin, because they have (what?) polluted My land; they have filled My inheritance with the carcasses of their detestable idols and with their abominations.”
I want to tell you something. America is absolutely polluted. We are like a filthy open sewer and the stench of our iniquity is unbelievable.
There was another article that came out in the Chattanooga Free Press – February 21, 2009 about a guy who was gay who dressed as a drag queen and won as the queen of that city. He remarked how this city is on the cutting edge. Yes, the cutting edge of destruction and God is about ready to cut them off. You can’t sin against God.
But He says, “There will be restoration.” This is awesome.
Look at Jeremiah 16:14
14 “Therefore behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when it will no longer be said, ‘As the Lord lives, who brought up the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’
See, after the deliverance of the children of Israelout of the land of Egypt, people talked about it. Rahab had heard it and she talked about it. In the land about how this mighty God delivered Israel. God was known as the One who delivered His people out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, and how He took them out, and the plagues and how He drown Pharaoh in the Red Sea and all of his army. And that is how God was known. But now God says, “This is who I’m going to be known. I am going to be known that came and got you out of the north and took you back to your land where you belong. I am going to be known as that kind of a God. I am going to be known not as the God that took them out of Egypt, but I am going to be known as the God who takes you and rescues you and brings you home.” That is what He is saying.
This is how He is going to be known. Why can He be known as this? (Kay points to the throne on the white board.)There is a glorious throne on high from the beginning and He is the One what writes the course of history. He is the One that not only judges and brings disaster and destruction which is deserved but also to bring restoration. So you see what God is going to do.
What does Jeremiah have? Look at Jeremiah 16:19 Jeremiah has a sanctuary, doesn’t he?
19 O Lord, my strength and my stronghold, and my refuge in the day of distress, To You the nations will come From the ends of the earth and say, “Our fathers have inherited nothing but falsehood, Futility and things of no profit.”
I was thinking of “s” for this sanctuary. I just found another one. “Strength, stronghold, security, sanity, stability.
19 O Lord, my strength and my stronghold, and my refuge in the day of distress, (Listen very carefully) To You the nations will come From the ends of the earth and say, “Our fathers have inherited nothing but falsehood, futility and things of no profit.”
That’s all our fathers got: falsehood, futility, and things of no profit. Futility, vanity, emptiness, worthlessness: the words he uses in Jeremiah.
Jeremiah 16:20
20 Can man make gods for himself? Yet they are not gods!
What is going to happen? The people down here in the nations, the people (Kay names different countries that those in the audience are from) People from all that nations are going to come to God. They are going to say, “We made gods, but they aren’t gods.”
There is a day coming. There is a day coming when the nations will come from the ends of the earth. Where are they going to come? They are going to come to Jerusalem. They are going to come to this city, Jeremiah.
Look at Isaiah 2:2-3
2 Now it will come about that In the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord Will be established as the chief of the mountains, (He is talking about Zion which is Jerusalem) And will be raised above the hills; And all the nations will stream to it (this mountain).
3 And many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, tothe house of the God of Jacob; that He may teach us concerning His ways and that we may walk in His paths
What does God say in Jeremiah? Ask for the ancient paths.
3….” For the law will go forth from Zionand the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
4 And He will judge between the nations, And will render decisions for many peoples; (Sounds like God is in charge, doesn’t it?) And they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, and never again will they learn (what?) war.
There is a day coming. There is a glorious day coming when the throne of God will be down here on earth. All the nations will come streaming to that throne, and He will rule. This is the sanctuary. This is the sanctuary where you are putting your trust. This is where you find strength. This is where you find a stronghold, security, stability. This is where you find sanity. Because God is going to take His throne that is in heaven and He is literally going to rule over the earth. We know from Revelation 20:1-7 that He is going to rule for 1000 years. This is what we just read about in Isaiah. This is what you just read in Jeremiah:
Jeremiah 16:19
19 O Lord, my strength and my stronghold, And my refuge in the day of distress, To You the nations will come From the ends of the earth and say, “Our fathers have inherited nothing but falsehood, Futility and things of no profit.”
They will recognize that their religion has been falsehood and futility and things of no profit.
Next to verse 19, I would write Isaiah 11:9.
When chapter 11 opens up, it is a prophesy about the first coming of Jesus Christ.
Isaiah 11:1-2
1 Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse (Jesse is the father of David), And a branch from his roots will bear fruit.
2 The Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him, The spirit of wisdom and understanding, The spirit of counsel and strength, The spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
Isaiah 11:4-6
4 But with righteousness He will judge the poor, And decide with fairness for the afflicted of the earth; (This takes us into the last days.) And He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, And with the breath of His lips He will slay the wicked.
5 Also righteousness will be the belt about His loins, And faithfulness the belt about His waist.
6 And the wolf will dwell with the lamb, And the leopard will lie down with the young goat, And the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; And a little boy will lead them.