In his sermon titled 'Where to Look in the Year of Drought,' Paul Carrington explores Jeremiah 17:5-8, contrasting the cursed man who trusts in man and the blessed man who trusts in the Lord. The speaker delves into the historical context of Judah during Jeremiah's time, highlighting the nation's misplaced trust in Egypt and false prophets amid impending destruction. Carrington emphasizes the temptation to rely on human strength and worldly assurances, which leads to spiritual desolation, akin to a shrub in the desert. Conversely, the blessed man, who places trust and hope in God, is likened to a tree planted by the waters, resilient and fruitful even in times of drought. The sermon underscores the importance of where one places their trust, urging believers and unbelievers alike to shift their gaze towards God, the source of true strength and peace. Through biblical and historical examples, Carrington illustrates the consequences of misplaced trust and the enduring blessings of faith in God.

Good afternoon, hope, joy, it's a pleasure to be before you again to speak to you from the Word of God and hopefully to be strengthened and encouraged. I'd ask if you could please open up your Bibles, your copy of the Word of God, to Jeremiah the 17th chapter. And we're gonna be looking at four verses. We're gonna be starting in verse 5, going down to verse 8. And what I want to do is Really talk to you about two different men We're gonna meet both the cursed man as well as as the blessed man two men That describe every single man woman and child even sitting in our midst here this morning.

And I was reading John Calvin in his commentary about this and he says this, he suggests that Jeremiah likely introduced many of his sermons with these four verses that we're going to be looking at. These same four verses today. In fact, there's such a great necessity of these four verses being rooted in our hearts and in our minds that it was likely that Jeremiah was forced to cry out, not once, not 10 times, but 100 times, these same verses. And so I'm gonna read it. Please follow along with me, starting in verse five.

Thus says the Lord, cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the Lord, for he shall be like a shrub in the desert and shall not see when good comes, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land which is not inhabited. Blessed is the man whose trust, who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord, for he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes, but its leaf will be green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit. Please pray with me. Father, we come to you here this afternoon. Oh Lord, we ask you to please help us.

Help us Lord to grasp what you have for us with these words from the prophet Jeremiah. Lord, each one of us is represented in these two men and I pray, Lord, more and more that we would be fashioned and molded into the blessed man. Oh Father, for those that are still estranged and making their home on the barren landscape, we pray today Lord that you would have mercy and turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to yourself. Oh Lord have mercy upon us, help me and help each one of us to be strengthened and helped by your word. In Jesus name we pray, amen.

Amen. Well, I want to talk to you just first before we get into the verses about the context here in the days of Jeremiah. It was a bad day, Not maybe too dissimilar from the days that we find ourselves in right now. Due to rebellion, the entire nation of Israel, the ten tribes of Israel, had been sent into captivity and almost totally obliterated and totally destroyed about 100 years before Jeremiah gets on the scene but unfortunately he's ministering in Judah and Judah is following the same path that Israel had followed a hundred years earlier and God had sent prophet after prophet after prophet. Isaiah had come and Isaiah had gone.

You had Hosea, you had Micah, you had Amos, all of these different men that came with their various warnings but despite these warnings Judah was still barreling down that highway toward destruction. They preferred the sweet words of the false prophets that would come up every so often saying, peace, peace, when there is no peace. And so you find a man, Jeremiah, a man alone, a man that was there laboring in the midst of a decaying nation, teetering on the edge of destruction just about to go into 70 years of exile and they still did things the the abomination of child sacrifice to Malek was still being carried out you had people involved in rampant idolatry of every every stripe There was a bright spot just for a glimmer of time when you had a a king by the name of King Josiah come on the stage, but he died at the tender age of 39. And so even though he made some significant reforms, It couldn't stay the hand of God. The judgment of God was gonna come upon a nation, a nation that did not want God ruling over them anymore.

And so as a result of all of this, here's Jeremiah preaching like a voice in the wilderness, and he was persecuted by his own people. He was abandoned and he was deserted by his own kin, by his own family. His message was mocked. But despite this, consider these words and ask yourself if there was ever a more tender prophet than the prophet Jeremiah. Listen to what he says as he's crying out the weeping prophet.

He says, but if you will not hear, my soul will weep in secret for your pride. My eyes will weep bitterly and run down with tears because the Lord's flock has been taken captive." Perhaps you can you can relate when we look around us today you know there's threats on every side to normal life. If you look to the left or the right there's uncertainty ahead. And of course the tension maybe has never been higher in the air than it is now as we look around and kind of bleak hopes as you look to the future, you can find yourself asking, when is the madness going to stop? Well, in times like this, there's a great, great temptation even for the people of God, and that temptation reveals a proneness.

There's a proneness in our hearts that when threatened with danger, we want to make alliance and cling to something tangible that we hope will be able to deliver us. That's called the arm of flesh. In Judah's case, it was making an alliance with the nation of Egypt to protect them from the encroachments of Babylon. But as a nation, Judah would not repent. They didn't see safety in repentance, they saw safety in Egypt.

At the same time, of course, they had this nervous foreboding because the encroachments kept coming closer and closer and men like Jeremiah would prophesy of what God was going to do. But for a time like this, it's what Jeremiah does is he holds forth these these two pictures. On the one side he has the blessed or the cursed man, on the other side he has the blessed man. These two pictures are for times like this. Because where you look and what you trust in, especially when times are difficult or as our text says, in the year of drought, perhaps in times of persecution or or sickness or disappointment or uncertainty where you look is really the most important thing about you what you lean on what you trust in and notice what Jeremiah says here it's not a matter of of whether your heart will trust and believe.

Your heart will trust and believe. Your heart is trusting and believing, but it's in what you trust and believe That's at question here. And so the direction of your trust it's going to determine the entire quality of your life and your eternity. You're either going to be like a shrub in the desert or you're going to be like a green tree by the river. And so first we meet the the cursed man in these four verses.

Thus says the Lord, cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength whose heart departs from the Lord. And what we don't have here in these verses This is not you know a life verse for the person who's Suspicious or distrustful of other people in the church, right? That's not what what's going on in these verses here We're not to regard one another with suspicion. That's not what he's aiming at. We are to trust each other, right?

How else can we function as a body? So there is to be trust, but I can be strengthened by you without making you my trust and my strength, right? And likewise, vice versa. Instead, what the Lord's aiming at, he's aiming at a misplaced trust where the people in Judah had loaded up their trust in something that they should never have done, A trust in man that ought to be reserved only for God, and which is a very common affliction even in our day, of course. You know, there's a thousand different things and a different ways that you can trust in man.

Nations have have done this since the dawn of time with pacts, with treaties, with alliances, just like Judah was doing. But you can also, in our day here in 2021, you could find your trust in wealth. You could find your trust in friends. We live in an age where affirmation, a constant steady diet of affirmation, is what so many people thrive on and live on and if they don't get it they end up sinking below. They find their their trust in what do people think and what do people say about me.

You could find your trust in a humming vibrant economy. Well at least things are going well on the stock exchange. You could find your trust in the government, a very common place to look, or in your own self, in your own ability. You know, I don't know if you children have heard about that woodpecker. There was that little woodpecker who he went up to a pine tree one day in the forest and as woodpeckers want to do, he gave three hard taps on the tree.

And just at the moment he did that, a bolt of lightning came down from the sky and destroyed that tree. He got out just at the last second and flew to a neighboring tree, his little heart beating in his chest. He looked down on the floor and he saw that pine tree, a mass of splinters down below. And after he regained his composure, he chuckled to himself, he says, well, well, well, who would have imagined that just three pecks of my beak would be able to bring a tree like that down to the ground and he looked around for again adoration and admiration from those all around him. Well I'm sure there's many of us here that aren't strangers to self-congratulation either where we can pat ourselves on the back.

I know that's something that I'm very prone to. You can do that so often, it's a trap. But here's the thing, is there anyone even here today that are trusting in their own works, perhaps wagering on their own abilities and morals of living a good life and when they stand before God they'll be able to have a reason and give him some sort of explanation. See these are there's a thousand ways that we can trust in ourselves. Well all of these ways they fall into one category what Martin Lloyd Jones he called a fatal confidence.

You know, man cannot, we have to come to terms with this, solve man's problems with legislation and economic policy. Right? You can't solve men's problems by nominating more conservatives to the Supreme Court. Four more years is a blanket that's too short and a bed that's too narrow to lie on and get any comfort from. And so it seems like right now we're living in a time of unprecedented fear and vulnerability.

And the question is, well what does the Lord have to say to people that are living in such a condition as this. You know what he says? Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength. And then he goes on to say whose heart departs from the Lord. What happens, you know, what does it look like when a man's heart departs from the Lord?

You see, not your words, but your heart begins to go after other things and find rest and hope in other things. Well, you know what the Lord says? He says He's like a shrub in the desert. There's this vivid picture of utter desolation laid out before us. It's a stunted and gray little shrub.

It's shallow-rooted. It's fruitless. It's barren. It has no shade and it can't give any shade to anyone else. He says, for he shall be like a shrub in the desert and shall not see when good comes.

And here you have this picture of this little shrub and there's almost this sense of expectation of yearning for something good. I hope one day my ship will come in or something like that. And every cloud that floats across the sky, there's a looking up and a gazing and a hoping. I wonder if there's any rain in it, only to see it evaporated before the blasting rays of the Sun. Every hope disappointed and the people in Judah could have said well the Egyptians promised that they would come if we were invaded but they don't come because their hope is in man.

God is only and ever promised that one thing is going to endure forever and that's His Word. That's our foundation. You see the Magna Carta as glorious a document as it is, the US Constitution, a Bill of Rights, any treaty, any pact, any contract, whatever you want to put out there they're all subject to decay they're all subject to being breached and and falling through They might even find their basis in God's Word, which is a good thing. But those who trust in them shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land, which is not inhabited. And so this is the cursed man, you know, but what about the man whose heart is set on the right hope?

The first two verses deal with that cursed man. And after describing what that man looks like and giving this vivid depiction, We now meet the man who looks to the living God and he's called the blessed man. You know, one of the things you can do is you can choose the lowliest saint who trusts in the Lord And that person is blessed. That person has everything that's needful to live in this world. But the man who might have at least everything externally, but doesn't have the Lord, what does he possess that's lasting?

You know what the psalmist says? A man who lives in honor and yet does not understand is no different than the beast that perishes. Right now we're staying on a little farm there in Lewisburg and you look at these cows and that's all they're doing every day is just out there eating, eating, eating, rain, shine, sleet, it doesn't matter. But there's no understanding. And a man who doesn't know the God of heaven, even though he rises to the highest pinnacle and doesn't have God as his God, what does he have?

And that's why the Lord, he was able to say to those saints in Smyrna, he says, I know, he says, I know your poverty, but you are rich. You see that? There's a beauty in possessing the Lord. And so after removing the weeds by focusing on the on the cursed man, The Lord now goes to plant the grain and talk to us about the blessed man. So just consider these contrasts.

The cursed man, he trusts in man. The blessed man trusts in the Lord. The cursed man makes flesh his strength. The blessed man makes the Lord his hope. The cursed man is like a shrub in the desert.

The blessed man is like a tree planted by the waters. The cursed shall not see when good comes, but the blessed shall not fear when heat comes. The cursed man shall inhabit the salt land. The blessed man will not cease from yielding fruit." Well, let's look at this here. He says, Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose hope the Lord is.

That word blessed. We've seen it, you see it in the New Testament, but this idea of happy. He's come to the end of himself and he's blessed because he is now trusting himself entirely to the Lord. He is a Christian. A man, this is one guarantee you can write down, you can chisel in stone.

A man who is outside of Christ can never be truly happy, can he? You can ask yourself that if you're outside of Christ, or you can survey the whole world, and you will not find a man truly happy that's outside of Jesus Christ. And so he says, this man is blessed because his hope is the Lord. See, this is what happens, is that he says in his own heart and mind, God has made certain promises and I'm going to venture all on his promises. He's like the man who he heard about that pearl of great price and he says he parts with everything in order to obtain that pearl.

It's like the man who understood that there was a treasure that was hidden in the field and he parts with all of his possessions in order to possess that field. See what happens in a man's heart who's blessed is he begins to reckon with the fact that God cannot lie. Isn't that a great assurance? The one thing God cannot do that he's put himself under, he cannot lie. That means all of his promises, everything he said will come to pass.

And this man begins to understand that in Christ, all of God's promises are yay and amen. What a great confidence this man can have. He remembers the words of the Lord Jesus, peace I leave you with, my peace I give to you. And notice what Jesus says, he says, not as the world gives, do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

What a difference it is for the man who trusts in the Lord. And so where can you as a Christian, as a person, grow securely no matter what climate? Well, there's just one answer and it's in the Lord. And it goes on to say this in verse 8, "'For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes.'" See, this is all because of the fact that his eyes are fixed and he's looking at the Lord, at someone who can never fail. And you notice the imagery, it's almost similar to the man who's in Psalm 1, the man who makes the Lord his meditation day and night.

Well, here it's like Jeremiah's almost picking up on that same imagery to talk about this man and this tree that's planted by those rivers of water. And there he is, Growing beside this constant source of soul refreshment where he's got a constant supply that's coming and feeding the root system. And it's this unfailing river of grace that he's drawing from and he's getting all that he needs. Think of like what we heard today, this Lake Malawi. Well, here it is, this constant irrigation, feeding and making it a green field, or in this case, a green tree.

And in all seasons, this is the beauty of it. A tree like this can exist and survive because of this. It's the very opposite of the shrub that's existing in the desert. And in the Middle East, where we're living right now, perhaps the greatest evil or the greatest fear is the sun. You know, you see it in people every day, though you'll ask them and they'll just talk about, you know, there's no rain or there's, it's a difficulty, it's an actual and real threat that can bring genuine fear upon people.

In fact, where we live from May, last May to November, there wasn't even a single drop of rain. And I remember sometimes myself going out in the morning and almost find myself searching for a cloud. And every so often you might see a cloud, only to have it evaporated as soon as the sun comes up. And there's nothing, you're kind of banished to another day of, you know, hiding out in the shade, especially in my case, you need a hat on at every turn. But it's something that's, it's living in a situation that can be very difficult and taxing.

I think a lot of times when you look in scripture, notice how many times shade or the word shadow is mentioned. It's because the greatest fear a lot of times is just the burning, searing heat of the sun. In this case, that represents trial and difficulties and disappointments. But what you find is this tree spreading out its roots by the river. Even though the sun is pounding, notice what it says.

It's full of sap, so that its leaf is green. And we get to this part, and this one verse has been one that's really sustained me, this part of the verse where it says, and he will not be anxious in the year of drought. You know, you might be coming up right now on a year of drought. Who knows what lays ahead and it may not just be a year, it might be a period of however many years or months, or maybe you get sick or some other thing befalls you or me. But God is able by His grace to sustain us even in the year of drought.

One commentator said this, you're not exempt from trouble when you follow the Lord, are we? I think we know that here. But he says this, whether he endures seasons of much or little, rain or drought, peace or calamity, deliverance from the Assyrians or conquering from the Babylonians, the fountain of living water continually nourishes him. He will not wither nor be fearful. He will be spiritually prosperous and fruitful.

And so what happens when the land is all caked, when it's baked, it's cracked beneath your feet, You go through this prolonged period of difficulty, day after day without a cloud in the sky, to tell of a chance of rain maybe coming in the future. He says, he uses the word anxious, but he says he will not be anxious. I wonder, is there anyone here perhaps that's anxious or maybe over the last few weeks months felt anxiety, a certain uneasiness, creeping uneasiness? Well the best way to live, the best place to live, the best place to look is unto the living God. He will not be anxious in the year of drought.

You may have an internal civil war going on, but what happens is over the course of it, faith prevails. And that man that was maybe giving way, or that woman that was giving way to anxiety finds himself being able to rest in this God. Not because he's an optimist. Not because he always tends to see things sunny side up, but because he's actually looking to the living God who becomes his trust and his confidence. You see, notice what happens is that the heat comes and it gives way to this prolonged period of difficulty.

This is called drought. This is where just nothing comes to sustain you and help you through. The sun is just pounding down. You can see the moisture just being evaporated from the top of the soil. And again, that sun blast can come in many forms.

It can come in persecution or like the letter to the Hebrews says, the plundering of their goods, the taking of their livelihoods. It can come in loneliness, sickness, you can fill in the blank with so many different ways, but God. See, notice the difference in this man. The leaf still holds its color. It's still green.

There's this counterbalance because there's this river that makes glad the city of God for the Christian, for the believer. And so because of where the roots are, where your roots are, You can find hope, you can find peace, you can be free of anxiety if you're looking to the right place. If you're not, you're going to be filled with all sorts of fear and trepidation and so on. And so here, and it will not be anxious in the year of drought, and then it ends with this, nor cease from yielding fruit." Somehow, the blessed man doesn't just hang on for dear life. He perseveres, yes.

You know, you could have all sorts of pictures from history in your mind. You could imagine those two men sitting there in that Philippian jail with their hands in stalks, their backs whipped. And in that pitch black, inky darkness, you could imagine one of them amidst all the filth and the scurrying of the rodents looking to his right and saying, hey Silas, what's your favorite hymn? And they begin to sing and worship God even in the midst of the worst of circumstances. Is that possible?

Of course it's possible when God is your source, even in the midst of a Philippian jail. That's fruit. You see, all another man had to do was make a single little promise in the 1600s that he would just give up preaching. Give up preaching and you'll be fine. Well, he was dragged to the courts.

He didn't have a hearing. He didn't have a Bill of Rights to appeal to. He had no witnesses. But instead what happened is the judge sentenced this man to 12 years in the Bedford jail. And in the Bedford jail, there was hardly any light to speak of, and there were no bathing facilities.

It was overcrowded. At the time, typhus fever was raging right through the prison. Men were dying left and right. Worst of all, this man was separated from his family, from his wife, from his children. One of his daughters was blind.

But what happens in that prison? He turns around and produces the Pilgrim's Progress among dozens of other books. You see how when God is is your refuge and strength, that the worst of circumstances don't only just, he doesn't just help you to persevere and endure, but even in the midst of it he can help you to produce fruit. If you're looking to the right source, if God is your strength, if you're constantly there and you're a prognosticator, you're looking and seeing what's the latest and every minute you're up and down based on the stock market, based on the latest news, based on who's winning, who's losing, who's gonna be an aw- you're gonna be a wreck. But if God is your stay, what a difference it makes.

And so God was his sustainer, John Bunyan's sustainer. God was Paul's sustainer, his nourisher, his provider in the year of drought. This is the beauty of it. And so what a difference, what a difference we see when God is actually what we claim Him to be in our song and even in our preaching, when we allow Him to be and fulfill all the promises. Lo, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age." See, as I look around, not just at the American Church, but particularly even at the American Church at the moment, what you find is this emaciated state.

There's not a whole lot of strength. The gentlest breeze comes and everyone kind of falls over in a sense. At the first sign of trouble, the American church stood its ground with all the boldness of a herd of catatonic goats just fell over and they're done. Just like that. Why?

Because where are they looking? Where is the trust? Where is the confidence? Now, one thing I praise God for is the stand that this church has taken for the preaching of the elders that have just kind of plowed on and carried on in the midst of it. And then not only did you get carried through with solid preaching and worship of the Lord, but also what's happening here is that there's a foundation that's being laid for the trouble that's to come.

That's to come, maybe in the not too distant future. And so may we be people that are looking to and trusting and hoping in, in the right source. See, not only does this, as I said, the tree survive, but it actually thrives and begins to produce that fruit. And the time would fail when you look down through church history, wouldn't it, To tell of the nameless saints that gathered in the the Siberian forests to worship the Lord during Stalin's reign just a short 70 years ago. The time would fail to tell of people like Corrie Tenboom, a woman that worshipped God and honored God and served God in tangible ways in one of the most difficult times, or people like Elizabeth Elliott, or even today there's a pastor in China that I tend to follow.

His name is Pastor Wang Yi. And to see the stand this man has taken for Christ, serving a nine-year prison sentence. Only the Lord knows where he is. His family can't visit him. Why?

Simply because he said, I will preach the word of God. Why don't you appeal your sentence? They can reduce it from nine years down to seven." He says, no, I will serve the time that I've been given. Not because he doesn't love his wife. Could you imagine the tearing?

But he loves God and he wants to serve God. And it's the opposite. Oftentimes, what you find is that men and women who hold to God in the midst of the greatest difficulty, the exact opposite effect of what the devil intended to do is actually achieved. You see, where is that more and better depicted than the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ? Through apparent weakness, He overthrows all the powers of darkness and rises up from the grave and He's now at the right hand of God to show us that it's oftentimes through weakness and difficulty that the victory is won.

So we see these two men before us on the one side the cursed man and where he looks and where he hopes and where he trusts And then on the other side we see the blessed man and where he looks, where he hopes, and where he trusts. And the question I just, I want to leave with you before we head out is, is where are you and what are you trusting in? What are you believing in and hoping in? And even to those that are Unbelievers and I know there are unbelievers here even now under the hearing of my voice That you're planted on that barren landscape and You're like that shrub in the middle of the desert and you know nothing of the sustenance, the river that flows with that pure water. The question I just have for you is how long, how long will you resist or stay?

How long will you hear the Word of God preached, have people pray for you and you not run? How long will you hear the word of God preached, have people pray for you, and you not run? How long will you hear the invitation of Christ that said, we heard earlier, come to the waters, all you who thirst, without any reaction? How long? And to the believers that are in our midst, I just want to say it may be that you need to shift your gaze and then lock your gaze and hold your gaze on the one who can't fail, on the one who has promised that he is with us even to the end of the age.

It doesn't mean that we put our heads in the sand or we just have our heads in the clouds and we're indifferent. But at the same time, we're not anxious in the year of drought. And maybe, it may be that there's a need for repentance, but with repentance comes times of refreshing and refilling and strength for your soul. And you might say, you know what, I'm no Bunyan, I'm no Ten Boom. Well, I didn't say you were, and neither am I.

But the question is, is there God, your God? See, That's really the question, not are you Bunyan or are you Elizabeth Elliott, but are you trusting in the Lord and is the Lord your hope? You might be like that man in Mark who says, Lord, I believe. Just help my unbelief. Don't we all go through difficulty like that?

See, what it is though, it is the object of your faith that's important. And I just wanna say look to the Lord. One of the things I love, and just I'll end with this, is this, in Part two of Pilgrim's Progress, not everyone, not everyone is great heart. I remember reading that the first time and meeting two characters. One of them was feeble-minded, and the other one was ready to halt and I think what Bunyan was doing is he's filling his book with characters such as these not just those two but others as well to show these through these weak characters that we too can be comforted.

And I kept, I remember reading and I kept waiting for these guys to divert off the path and go astray because they just didn't have enough faith. But you know what happens? Mr. Ready to Halt by the grace of God on his crutches, makes it to the celestial city because his gaze was fixed, even though himself he was ready to halt at every every turn. And so I just want to say as a year of drought threatens, as we have all sorts of things to look in, is there anything more important than looking to the Lord, being like the blessed man who trusts in the Lord and whose hope the Lord is, and being like that tree planted by the waters.

May God help us in times such as these to be valiant for truth, to be people that are found gazing and looking to the Lord instead of everything around us. So may God help us. Would you pray with me? Father, we come to you today and thank you for your goodness. Thank you that you sustain through every season and you help, oh Lord, through everything that life can bring.

You're never absent, you're never slumbering or sleeping, Lord. We pray that we would take you at your word, O Lord, that you would shift our eyes from things that distract us and siphon away our hope. O Lord, may you please come. May we be like that blessed man. Help us, O God, grant us repentance.

In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.