Loved With an Everlasting Love

Minister:
Date: PM
Text: Jeremiah 31:3
Psalters: 348, 160, 52, 383
Confession of Faith
  1. Present despair.
    1. Context: the nation of Judah is falling apart spiritually, economically, and as a nation. Babylon is attacking.
      1. God here declares certain judgment/vengeance on the wicked, though in the last days (30:24b).
      2. The righteous are not to despair, but are to embrace and rely on God’s promises.
    2. “I will be your God and ye shall be my people” (30:22 and 31:1) is the language of the covenant.
    3. Thus there is no reason be fear that God would forsake His people.
    4. But God’s people, sinners they still are, still complain about the present, in spite God’s promises and past deliverances.
  2. God answers their doubts about His relationship.
    1. God’s past deliverances were not a momentary impulse, for His relationship with them is continual, perpetual, and eternal.
      1. It was not only of old or of a good while ago, but it is from all eternity.
      2. It is from eternity, which means that it is from the eternal choice of the persons loved in Christ.
    2. It is from eternity and into eternity is because this love is like God Himself, sovereign, unchangeable and eternal.
    3. The object of God’s love is “thee,” i.e., the “Israel” of God (1).
  3. A confirmation follows: “therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.”
    1. This implies that His eternal love is the cause of their redemption.
    2. It was His perpetual love which drew them out of Egypt, fed them for forty years in the desert, and brought them in Canaan.
    3. Let us not doubt that God is today also giving salvation to all His people, for He remains ever the same, never changing.
    4. Let us go into the future too, saying that God will prolong/extend His toward us.