The Sanctuary On High ~ Kay Arthur

Jeremiah, Part 1 (Return To Me)

Program 31 – The Sanctuary On High

When you listen to the news do you get sick? Do you feel like America is unraveling? Do anxiety and fear come pounding at the door of you heart? What are you going to do? You need to remember Jeremiah chapter 17, verse 12, “A glorious throne…high from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary.” (Jeremiah 17:12) We’re gonna talk about that throne on high from the beginning. I am so excited, Beloved, about this week’s lesson. I’m excited because God has an answer for you even as He had an answer for Israel back in the days of Jeremiah. And that is to trust in the Lord, to make the Lord your trust; to remember that there is “A glorious throne…high from the beginning [and it] is the place of [your] sanctuary.” (Jeremiah 17:12) It’s the place where you can run and where you can feel secure. It’s the place where you can run and keep your sanity. It is the place where you can run and come away strong. It is the place that is a stronghold when everything around you is falling down, the fact of: “A glorious throne…high from the beginning [that] is the place of [your] sanctuary.” (Jeremiah 17:12)

And that’s what God says in Jeremiah chapter 17 in verse 12. Then he talks about Israel; God being the hope of Israel. And then later on in that chapter he talks about Him being a refuge in the time of distress. We’re going to look at it. We’re going to study Jeremiah chapter 16, 17 and 18 this week, and our theme all this week is this, and memorize it: “A glorious throne…high from the beginning it is [a] place of our sanctuary.” (Jeremiah 17:12)

So what I’m going to do today is I’m going to give you an overview. We’re going to look at Israel from before Jeremiah all the way through to the coming of the reign of Jesus Christ on the face of this earth. I’m going to give you a chart. Now if you are staying in tune with us, then you have gone to “preceptsforlife.com” and you downloaded this chart. But if you haven’t, I don’t want to lose you, so I’m going to give you a visual aid.

So at the top of your paper what I want you to draw right in the center is a throne, and on that throne I want you to put a triangle to represent God. That is the throne. That is your sanctuary; my sanctuary. It is a glorious throne on high and it is from the beginning. So you can just take an arrow and draw it to the left hand side of your page so that it literally runs off the page. It’s been from the beginning. God has always been. He will always be. And so you can take another arrow and draw it to the right hand side of the paper and then you can put “Alpha and Omega”. He’s the beginning. He’s the end. He’s “El Olam”. He’s the Everlasting God.

Now what I want to do is I want to take you on this time chart from the time of Abraham right up through Jeremiah and then we’re going to go beyond Jeremiah to the first coming of the Lord, the Messiah, and then the second coming of the Messiah. Then as we continue to study Jeremiah what you’re going to be able to do is you’re going to be able to put everything into context. Because this week as we look at Jeremiah chapter 16 you’re going to see a reference to the future, and so I want you to be in context, so what we’re going to do is, underneath this throne, we’re going to draw Earth. We’re going to have a time line for Earth. And just a little bit off the edge of your left hand side of the paper, I want you to just put a line and there above the line I want you to write “Abraham,” and then “Isaac” and then “Jacob”. And then the “Twelve Tribes of Israel”; the “Twelve Tribes of Israel”. Okay, so have you got that? You’ve got “Abraham, Isaac, Jacob” and the “Twelve Tribes of Israel”. I started to say Joseph because, I mean, he was a favored son of Jacob. So this is the beginning of the nation of Israel.

It begins in Genesis chapter 12, verse 3. So underneath this write “Genesis 12, verse 3”. And let’s go to Genesis chapter 12 because it’s a very important passage that will help you understand what God does among the nations. Genesis chapter 12 God is speaking to Abraham. The whole world is just nothing but Gentiles. They are the descendants of Shem and Ham and Japheth, the ones that came off of the ark. These are the ones that populated the whole earth. All right, so you have Shem, you have Ham and you have Japheth. From Shem comes Abraham. All right, he’s just another Gentile. He’s part of the nations until Genesis 12. And then God promises him in verse 2, “…I will make you a great nation…I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you [will] be a blessing…I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” (Genesis 12:2-3) Now when He says this we know from other Scriptures, we know that in Genesis chapter 12, verse 3, He’s telling him that all the nations of the earth will be blessed, because from Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the twelve tribes, one of those tribes is Judah, is going to come the Messiah, is going to come the One who is going to rule over the face of the earth, who is going to rule forever and ever and ever and ever.

So what I want us to do is I want us to draw a second line straight across the page and at the end of the second line I want you to go in a little bit, and I want you to draw two lines, and this represents the millennial kingdom. And put “1,000 years” there and put a throne because this is the throne of God ruling on the face of this earth. This takes us to the end of time except for the destruction of the present heaven and earth, and then the new heaven and the new earth.

So I’ve started you with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the twelve tribes of Israel. All right, I close with the thousand-year reign down here on earth. All right now, I brought the throne from heaven down here on earth because God’s Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, is going to sit on that throne and He is going to rule the whole world and that throne will be set up in Jerusalem on Mount Zion where the present Mosque of Omar is and this is where He will rule from. And all the nations of the earth will come up there, because from Abraham is going to come a Messiah.

All right, now what I want you to see and I want you to remember is this: that all the nations of the earth will be blessed by Him. But those who curse Israel will be cursed. Those who bless Israel will be blessed. (See Genesis 12:3-4) This is why this is one of the pressures that you ought to put on your congressmen, on your senators, and that is the support of Israel. Because if America does not stay on the side of Israel in obedience to what God says then America will really and truly be judged by God.

All right now, Abraham is residing in the land. He’s walking around in the land of Canaan. Isaac is born there. Jacob is born there. Jacob becomes the father of the twelve tribes and they live in the land of Israel. But they are living there, now listen carefully, they are living there as aliens. They are living there in tents. And they’re not yet established as a nation or recognized as a nation. But Hebrews 11 tells us how Abraham lived there. In verse nine it says “…he lived as an alien in the land of promise….” (Hebrews 11:9) This is Canaan. This is present day Israel and even including the West Bank and all of that. “…He lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise.” (Hebrews 11:9)

Jacob’s name is changed to Israel. God changes his name from Jacob to Israel and that’s where we get the nation of Israel. Now how is he living there? “…He was looking for [a] city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” (Hebrews 11:10) He wasn’t focusing on earth. He was focusing on heaven. He was focusing on this “…glorious throne…high from the beginning [that] is the place of [his] sanctuary.” (Jeremiah 17:12) So he managed life by constantly looking to God, by constantly resting in God. And that’s what our message is to you this week.

But our message is this: when life is unraveling, when America is falling apart, when you are scared about the economy, when you are deep in a depression, when you are facing inflation, whatever happens, no matter what happens you need to remember that there is a glorious throne high above the earth, looking down. It is from the beginning and it is the place of your sanctuary. (See Jeremiah 17:12) He rules over all as the Sovereign Ruler of the universe. We’ll continue this chart in just a minute. Welcome back, Beloved. Now if you didn’t go to “preceptsforlife.com” you need to go there because you can download this time chart and then you can go along with it. But it’s also good for you just to lay it aside, if you already have it, and draw what I am telling you do because the very drawing of it will help you remember. All right, so Abraham, Isaac and Jacob live in the land of Canaan until a famine came. When the famine came, then what they did is, they went down to Egypt. They went south. They went down to Egypt for help. And Joseph was living there, one of the sons of Jacob. And he was ruling under Pharaoh. He was in charge of all the granaries.

And so you have the children of Israel going into Egypt, so let’s draw down off of the time line, a “V” down there and at the point of the “V” below the line, write “Egypt”. Let me give you some timeframes. Abraham begins about 1990 to the year 2000 B.C.; 1990 to the year 2000 B.C. All right now they go down into Egypt. And when they go down into Egypt, Moses is born in Egypt. Now Moses is going to be their great deliverer that is going to take them out of the land of Egypt. Do you remember last week when we looked at Jeremiah and He said, “Though Moses or Samuel were to stand before Me I still would not pardon these people”? (See Jeremiah 15:1) So here is Moses. Now Moses, if you want to put the date of his birth it’s 1525. All right, so 1525, this is just to keep you in context. Remember the calendar is going down. So in 1525 Moses is born. Moses is going to take them out of Egypt. Now they come out of Egypt in 1445. So they’re out of Egypt in 1445 B.C. They get back in the land and it is 1405 B.C. and this is a very important time for you to remember, because they go back into the land and this is under Joshua. They conquer the land and we come from the exodus out of Egypt to 1405.

Now you’re gonna appreciate all this when I start teaching Jeremiah chapters 16 and 17 and 18, because all of this is going to resonate with you. So this is a chart that you want to keep before you all week. All right, so this is 1405 when they come out. All right now we come to the days of Jeremiah. Okay, so we come up to the time of Jeremiah, and I’m going to just put a big “J” here for Jeremiah. Jeremiah begins to prophesy in the thirteenth year of the reign of King Josiah. (See Jeremiah 1:2) And he starts his prophecy in 627 B.C.; 627 B.C. And what is he going to prophesy? Now listen carefully. He is going to prophesy about the destruction of the temple. He’s going to prophesy about the children of Israel going in to captivity. And so what we have between 1405 and 627 is, we have a temple. So let’s just take and I’ve drawn it in blue and I’ve drawn a temple there. That temple that’s going to be destroyed was built by Solomon. It was built by Solomon. Now what was the year? It was 965. This is “Temple #1”. You want to put that there: “Temple #1”. All right, so the temple is built. But Jeremiah is saying, “Hey, the temple’s going to be torn down”. Now remember what the children of Israel were saying? “Oh no, the temple, the temple, the temple, the temple’s here, the temple’s in the land. God would never destroy it because His name is in the temple.” (See Jeremiah 7:4) And so many times we look to earthly things instead of to heavenly things. This is the throne of God. The throne of God is on high. It is from the beginning. It is the place of our sanctuary. (See Jeremiah 17:12) But these people were living in sin and yet they thought because they had the temple they would be fine. But they are not going to be fine.

As we study through Jeremiah you’re going to see the children of Israel being kicked out of the land, taken into captivity, and you are going to see this temple be destroyed. So I’m going to put a line over here and that line takes you to 586 B.C; 586 B.C. And on Tishbah Av, on the ninth of Av, that temple is destroyed. Who is ruling during that time? King Zedekiah, he is the last king of Judah to sit on the throne of David at that time and then they go into captivity. So now watch. They went into Egypt and then they were released from Egypt. They’re going to go into captivity. So in 586, after three sieges of Jerusalem the temple is destroyed and they go into captivity. What captivity is it at this time? It’s Babylon, “B-a-b-y-l-o-n”, it’s the Babylon captivity.

Now when you think about this, this is the power from the north that he’s talking about. From the very first chapter he’s talked about them going into captivity. You see in the days of Jeremiah they had heard about this. God told Moses. God told Moses, “If they don’t obey, this is what I’m going to do”. He described their enemy. He described their captivity. He said this is the curse that’s going to come upon them if they do not obey. And we keep thinking of prophecy as future, future, future, future.

Precious One, I want you to know that the coming of the reign of Jesus Christ on the earth and the horrible days of disaster and judgment on the face of this earth that hit this earth, I believe, are sooner than most people expect. I believe that people will go around and they will continue to eat and drink and marry and give in marriage and they won’t know it until the day comes. And all of a sudden it will be too late.

I’m giving you this timeline so that you know and that you understand what is going to come upon the earth. You say, all of this is past. Yes, but the past is like a pattern for the future. The past is like the key that unlocks the understanding for the future.

Well, they go into Babylonian captivity. I’m not gonna tell you for how long because you’re gonna discover it in Jeremiah yourself. You’re gonna discover it and you’re gonna understand why they go into captivity, how long they are in captivity, and why it is that length of time. We know they’re going into captivity because of idolatry. We know that they’re going into captivity because they have forsaken the fountain of living waters. We know that they’re going into captivity because they’ve plugged up their ears and they would not listen to God.

If America unravels, if it falls apart I want to tell you something, you do not have to fall apart. You do not. Why? Because there is a majestic throne on high that’s been there from the beginning. (See Jeremiah 17:12) God is sovereign and that is the place of your sanctuary.