Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2472
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: GENESIS 8:15-22; JEREMIAH33:15-26. Genesis 8:15-21. And God spoke to Noah, saying, Go out of the ark, you, and your wife, and your sons, and your sons’ wives with you. Bring forth with you every living thing that is with you, of all flesh, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth; that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth. And Noah went out and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him: every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, and whatever creeps upon the earth, after their kinds, went forth out of the ark. And Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the LORD smelled a sweet savor. Until then the earth had been obnoxious to Jehovah. He had put it away from Him as a foul thing, drowned beneath the flood. But after the offering of Noah’s sacrifice, the Lord smelled “a savor of rest.”
21, 22. And the LORD said in His heart, I will not again curse the ground. And any more for man’s sake, for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again strike any more every thing living, as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease. Thus we see what we may expect so long as the earth remains, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. Now let us read a few verses from Jeremiah’s prophecy.
Jeremiah 33:15. In those days, and at that time, will I cause the Branch of Righteousness to grow up to David; and He shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land. In the latter days, at the glorious appointed time, Jesus Christ will grow up like a Branch out of the stem of Jesse. The dynasty of David now seems like a tree cut down, whose stock is buried under the ground, but, “the Branch of Righteousness” shall appear in due time, and Jesus, the Son of David, “shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land.”
16. In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely: and this is the name wherewith she shall be called, The LORD Our Righteousness. What a wonderful unity there is between Christ and His Church! She actually takes His name—“The Lord Our Righteousness.”
17, 18. For thus says the LORD; David shall never lack a man to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel, neither shall the priests, the Levites lack a man before Me to offer burnt offerings, and to kindle meat offerings, and to do sacrifice continually. This shows that the Covenant was not a literal and fleshly one, made with David and his seed according to the flesh, or with the priests and their seed according to the flesh. There is a Kingdom that can never be moved—and our Lord sits on that Throne. There is a Priesthood which is everlasting, it is held by that great High Priest who has offered one Sacrifice for sins, forever, and who abides a Priest forever after the order of Melchisedec.
19, 22. And the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, saying, Thus says the LORD; If you can break My covenant with the day, and My covenant with the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season, then may also My Covenant be broken with David, My servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne, and with the Levites the priests, My ministers. As the host of Heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured: so will I multiply the seed of David, My servant, and the Levites that minister to Me. So that they are, at this day, the seed of Jesus, the Son of David, who shall count them! And the company of those whom He has made to be kings and priests to God, who but He can number them!
23-26. Moreover the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, saying, Consider you not what this people have spoken, saying, The two families which the LORD has chosen, He has even cast them off? Thus they have despised My people, that they should be no more a nation before them. Thus says the LORD, If My Covenant is not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of Heaven and earth; then will I cast away the seed of Jacob, and David, My servant, so that I will not take any of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for I will cause their captivity to return, and have mercy on them. This shall be literally fulfilled in the latter days, I doubt not, but it is even now being fulfilled to the spiritual seed of Jacob and David! The Covenant of Grace is made sure to all the seed, even to as many as have believed on Christ’s name.