Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] I'm going to have a stand as we go to the Lord in prayer this morning. And I've been in communication a little bit with Dr. Thomas in India.
[00:00:08] He just said, you know, there's a lot of challenges that they're facing right now. He didn't go into details. I have some idea. I've been following what's happening. There's crisis around our world. How many know that's true. And I'm sure that you could say this week that there's been crisis in somebody's life that, you know, I've already had people, you know, share with me. This week we had someone pass away. I've been chatting with the family. Family. So people are in crisis at this hour. And so I want to pray this morning that God would open our hearts, that we would need to hear from him. Isn't that good? God would speak into our lives, that we would learn to trust him even in life's most challenging moments. Let's pray today. Father, we do thank you for our missionaries. I know I've been in communication this morning with Dr. Thomas, but I pray, Lord, that you would minister grace into those situations. We pray for them. Our the missionaries have been sent from us. You watch over them. You continue to protect, provide, guide and give wisdom and favor in the sphere of ministry in which they are ministering in. And we just thank you for that. And then we pray for those that are walking through periods in their life that are challenging. They're challenging because maybe they're addressing loss or they're challenging because they're addressing sickness or relational tension, whatever that issue is. Father, we come to you right now. I pray that you would come and speak into our souls today, that your world would become a living word, that you'd open the eyes of our understanding, that you would give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of you, that we might get to know you better.
[00:01:42] We'd get an understanding of who you are, your character, and recognize your voice versus the many false voices that are trying to deceive us and to take us away from you. The truth. And we thank you for that.
[00:01:57] In Jesus name and God's people said amen. Amen.
[00:02:02] So we're going to turn in our Bibles this morning again to the book of Jeremiah. We're in the 23rd chapter and I'm talking a little bit about who are we following? And what I mean by that is who are we allowing to influence our lives? It's interesting. There's a lot of things that could Influence us. We could talk about the people who are knowingly and unknowingly influencing our life. Sometimes those influences are family, sometimes they're friends, could be media, could be people we respect.
[00:02:32] And basically we end up following and listening to and embracing a certain direction in life. But how do we know where we're headed unless we know the character and direction of those who are influencing us?
[00:02:46] In other words, what I'm trying to say to us is, you know, if we're listening to people, maybe we better have a little understanding of where they're coming from and where they're actually taking us. Because people do influence us, and sometimes we don't even realize it. We've been looking at this book of Jeremiah. God has been warning the people that they have been doing. You know, they're basically conflicted and confused. They've been embracing all kinds of weird religious ideas. They've not only followed the way of God, but they've also kind of syncretistically embraced all kinds of idols and different practices. And they're living in a state of confusion. And actually it's so bad that even the leadership, both the kings and the spiritual leaders, are now influenced by this corrupted approach to life.
[00:03:37] What God has been warning of is simply this, that, you know, when we allow sin to rule and reign in our lives, it creates a barrier between ourselves and God. We're alienated. And in the Old Testament, it's a very vivid picture because God talks about being exiled from the land, speaks of being, in a sense, away from God's presence.
[00:03:58] So Rowland Harrison summarizes how powerful leadership really is. Because as we looked last week, we looked at a carousel of ungodly leaders who were leading people astray. They were exploiting them rather than empowering them. They were. They were not redirecting them towards God, but rather away from God. So Harrison says it this way. Bad leadership is the ultimate attributive cause of the exile. In other words, who's influencing us? Who are we following? What direction are we going? Because they take us to places we may not even understand or. Or may not even want to go there.
[00:04:37] I don't think we usually have a choice in who's our parents, obviously, or maybe our teachers and sometimes even our political leaders. Sometimes maybe we're a minority voice. We didn't agree with that democratic vote, but we're part of the system, right? And so a lot of times, even in monarchies or dictatorships, people don't always have a choice in who their leaders are. But we do have A choice in listening to those who are going to champion biblical values, we have that choice. We don't have to embrace leaders, no matter whatever role that they have in our lives. If they're leading us away from God, we need to take note of that and say, that's not where I'm willing to go.
[00:05:21] So when and where we have a choice, the question is, who will we listen to?
[00:05:27] Let's choose the right kind of leaders to follow here. We're going to see the difference in chapter 23 between godly leaders and ungodly leaders. We're going to look at how they influence and affect people's lives, and we're going to find this contrast. And it really comes down to the kind of life these people live.
[00:05:47] So what kind of. What should we be looking for and what are the qualities we should be looking for, and what are the qualities we need to avoid and say, listen, that's a voice I don't want to be paying attention to because it's not taking me in the right direction. So let's look just two things. First of all, the qualities of leaders worth following and avoiding is determined by their character.
[00:06:10] People ultimately behave in a way consistent with who they really are internally. Now, it may not show up at first. I mean, people can be, you know, appear to be one thing, because in the Bible says Satan appears as an angel of light, but actually he's an angel to deceive. And so we're going to talk about deception in a moment. And that's a very real threat to people who want to do the right thing. Jesus said that we would know false teachers and preachers and prophets based on what the fruit. You look at their lives and you see the characteristics and the qualities of their life. And he says, when you look at that, you're going to see, you know, where they're headed. They're headed in the wrong direction a lot of times. They promise a lot, but they deliver very little.
[00:06:57] This chapter begins with a bunch of ungodly leaders that were directing people toward a lifestyle of rebellion and sin, which in turn alienated them from God.
[00:07:09] So many times, leaders are simply following the dictates of their own brokenness and championing those causes. Isn't that interesting? I've seen that even people who purported to be ministers of the gospel, eventually you find out they're championing values that are not biblical, and you find out later it's because they themselves are broken, and they're just actually making a justification for their own brokenness rather than addressing the things that are wrong in their life, they're simply. Others are just simply reflecting the desires of the people who are sinning against God. In other words, they're appealing to the lowest in people. They want to have a lot of people following them. So they just tell people that what they're doing is okay because kind of running ahead of the pack, saying, follow me. But in reality, they're just following the pack.
[00:07:53] That's their kind of leadership style. Here in our text, we discover that the people of Judah were about to be judged by God and enter into exile because they had been following these unfaithful leaders.
[00:08:06] The greater condemnation for this tragedy would obviously fall on the leadership.
[00:08:11] These leaders, as we're going to see, were both political and spiritual in their day.
[00:08:16] How many realize that God holds a higher standard, in a sense, a higher, I'm going to say standard? I think we all have the high standard, but he's going to hold a greater degree of responsibility to those in leadership. I believe that God holds a greater degree of responsibility to parents than to children, a greater degree of responsibility to people who are influencing other people, like political leaders or even pastoral leaders or, you know, we go down teachers. All of these roles have a great degree of responsibility. People have to trust these people. And when you trust the wrong people, it's a terrible violation of a person's trust. James says it this way. Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.
[00:09:03] In other words, a higher degree of scrutiny. But it's not designed to. To discourage people from exercising their gift of teaching, but rather, we need to take this stuff very seriously. We need to recognize that if God has called us to an air of responsibility, then we need to take that and realize how critical it is that we do this properly.
[00:09:24] Paul communicating this importance to his young protege, Timothy. He says it this way in First Timothy, chapter 4, verse 16. He said, Watch your life, your doctrine, which is your teaching, closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers. In other words, you have to live the right kind of a life. You got to teach the right kind of things. If you do that, you will be saved and the people who are following you will be joining you because you're going in the right direction. That's what he's talking about here. So let's take a look first of all at the nature of unfaithful leaders in Jeremiah, chapter 23. And we read in verse one, Woe to the shepherds. Shepherds were the word that was an analogous to leadership, like sheep following shepherd. Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture, declares the Lord. So God is now upset with some of the political leaders. And as we're going to see some of the religious leaders in the land who were leading people astray, he said, therefore this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says to the shepherds who tend my people, who are supposed to be taking care of my people because you have scattered my flock and driven them away and have not bestowed care on them.
[00:10:44] What's he talking about? Well, listen, when you and I don't do the right thing, what we're really doing is destroying people.
[00:10:50] Well, I'm just pause there for a moment. If I'm a parent, a pastor, a teacher, a leader of any kind, and I'm not doing what's right, actually what I'm doing is detrimental to the people that I'm supposed to be caring for.
[00:11:02] It's very serious. He says, I will bestow punishment on you for the evil you have done, declares the Lord. How many go? That's kind of a warning. Does anybody catch. That's a warning statement.
[00:11:12] Bible does have warnings in it. I mean, I love the Bible. I mean, sometimes there's words of encouragement, words of instruction, words of hope, words of comfort. But sometimes there's words of warning, don't do this. This is not good. It's like a parent saying to a little child, don't touch the burner. Right? You're going to get burnt. That's a word of warning. And how many know it's a good thing? You say that. Grab that hand and move it away from there because it's going to be a severe problem in a moment. Sometimes we need warnings from the spirit of God to say, hey, this is not a healthy thing to do.
[00:11:46] Goes on.
[00:11:47] Let's ask the question, well, how were they scattering the flock because they were not taking care of them? And what does that statement really mean? Well, I think they were leading them astray.
[00:11:56] A couple of things come to my mind from this book that we've been looking at. One, last week I talked about how leaders many times were exploiting and enriching themselves at the expense of people. That's problematic. Another way is to disregard the need for people to be challenged to do what's right. That there was actually a communication that we need to live a righteous and just life and they needed to stand for what was right and help people to do the right thing and to actually at times make sure that it happened because they had the political power to do that, to do what was right.
[00:12:32] But what we're going to discover is that many of these leaders were telling people what they wanted to hear rather than what they needed needed to hear. So rather than warn them, they encouraged them in their sins because the leaders were as guilty as the people in disregarding God's word and laws.
[00:12:48] We all know that sin is an impediment. It's a barrier in our relationship with God. We can't get away from that. The prophet Isaiah said, you sins have separated me from you, God speaking.
[00:12:59] And we realize that that's true. And that's why Jesus came. Jesus came to deal with the big problem in our life called sin. Jesus came to take away our sins, to remove that impediment, that barrier between ourselves and God. Isn't that amazing? That's the love of God for us. But we recognize that if we choose to ignore that and continue in our sin, then we're at. We're separated from God. There's an alienation there.
[00:13:25] And in a sense, we're like the Israelites. We're in a state of exile. We're away from what God wants.
[00:13:33] We see that character is the key issue in leadership. How many realize, I'm a little older than many of you and I could say this, that there was a day in not too distant past that character was the foundation upon which people looked for in leaders.
[00:13:49] But then we came to the position in our brilliance as a culture where we said things like, you know, we began to divorce a person's personal life from their public life.
[00:14:02] And you know what the outcome has been?
[00:14:05] Shame and scandal.
[00:14:07] Because what a person is in private is what a person does in public. Eventually it will come out and it's a disgrace and a shame. And we see that all the time. And so the key to godly leadership is that you and I have to live this life in the solitude of our private lives, that we need to be congruent and in response, obedient to what God is asking us to do at all times.
[00:14:35] Roland Harrison says the false prophets, by contrast, were indistinguishable from the rest of society in the matters of personal character, in essentially frauds who profaned sacred things and perverted the divine word by making it appear ludicrous. Their dreams were false, they told lies, they deceived their hearers and. And were spiritually irresponsible because they were not subject to A positive ethos, which means lifestyle.
[00:15:02] They proclaimed what the people wanted to hear, not what God had to say to them. And they invariably brought a message that would quiet the conscience and give it a delusive peace. In other words, they would tell people, don't worry about it, you're okay. And then people will just continue on in their pathway. And many times it was a very destructive pathway.
[00:15:22] They were thinking of peace merely as the absence of turmoil or social conflict and not as the triumph of divine righteousness among men. What's he saying there? See, I think sometimes we're a little confused about what peace is all about. Peace is actually not a lack of strife. Sometimes. Sometimes to get peace you have to fight for it.
[00:15:43] It's interesting, you know, sometimes you have to address things in order to get ultimate peace.
[00:15:49] A lot of times people won't address anything. They just pretend there's no problem, they'd rather not deal with it. And that doesn't bring health and wholeness in that situation says absolute loyalty and obedience to the revealed will and word of the Lord was the ultimate criterion for distinguishing between the true and the false prophets. So what was it then that distinguished it character? Those who obeyed what God said and those who just did the wrong thing?
[00:16:16] Those who, you know, made excuses for why they were sinning?
[00:16:21] It's problematic.
[00:16:24] The question then is who are we listening to?
[00:16:28] Those who tell us everything's okay when it's not?
[00:16:31] Or those who care enough to sit down and explain that when we disregard God's standards, we inevitably suffer and encourage people to conform to God's standards.
[00:16:41] If I really care for someone, and I'm not talking about it's my job to go around straightening everybody out on the planet. That's not necessarily what God's asked me to do. What he's asking us to do is that you and I live the right kind of life. And the people in our sphere of influence, when they're doing something that's destructive to themselves, that you and I care enough to sit down with them and explain to them, number one, how much you love and care for them, and number two, how concerned you are about the pattern of life they're now living and how destructive it is to themselves and others that we're willing to risk relationships in order to help people.
[00:17:15] That's true.
[00:17:17] That's a good thing to do, not a bad thing. That's what we should be doing.
[00:17:21] God actually makes a promise to gather the people to himself.
[00:17:26] He says, I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them. I'm going to pause for a minute. Who drove the people out of their homeland?
[00:17:36] God did.
[00:17:38] But then he says, but that's discipline. Now I'm going to gather them back up. We need to understand one thing about discipline. Discipline is always redemptive. It's always designed to restore and bring back to wholeness and health. It's not to punish. It's not that we're angry with somebody. We want them to be destroyed. It's not vengeance. That's not what we're looking at. God's design is to help us become corrected so that we will begin to do what's right. And we do that because we love that person. God loves us. Matter of fact, the Bible says that God loves everyone he disciplines. It's because he loves them. And if God doesn't discipline them, it's because we're probably not his children. That's what he says in the book of Hebrews. He says goes on to say, and I will bring them back to their pasture. In other words, I'll bring them back to their homeland where they will be fruitful and increase in number. It's exactly what happens later on. He goes on to say, I will place shepherds over them who will tend them and they will no longer be afraid or terrified, nor will any be missing, declares the Lord. And you know, it's interesting that God did raise up leaders after the exile people like Nehemiah and Ezra that brought the people and helped care for them and, and helped restore them. But ultimately God, we're going to see, his ultimate design was to come himself and gather the people. Listen when it says in verse five, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch, a king who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. Isn't that a beautiful analogy? It's like a tree. God says, I cut the tree down, but there's going to be a root that grows out of the tree. Verse 6, In his days, Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name of which he will be called, the Lord, our righteous Savior. So out of this tree that had been hewed down, a branch grows up and it brings life and the tree is revived again.
[00:19:35] How would the Judeans in that hour have understood this message that God was going to save them? By the Lord, a righteous savior, the coming king, would be called the Lord Our Righteousness. In other words, he would be exactly the opposite of the Kind of ruler we have come to expect in our world.
[00:19:56] That's why Jeremiah switched Zedekiah's name around to make his pun. It's a pun, actually. Zedekiah was called righteous is the Lord.
[00:20:05] But the Messiah would be called the Lord our righteousness.
[00:20:09] He would then be the anthesis or the opposite of men like Zedekiah. In other words, Zedekiah, the last king of Judah, was not the answer for their problems. He was a wicked king. Isn't it a little bit of an irony that his name was called Righteous is the Lord. That's true. God is righteous.
[00:20:24] But you know what? God wants to make himself our righteousness? Do you know that? We're righteous in him? We're righteous in the Lord.
[00:20:34] Jesus Christ is my righteousness. Jesus Christ is your righteousness. We're not righteous from ourselves. It doesn't come from within ourselves. It comes from him. It's an imputed. It's a given. Righteousness. We're made in a right relationship with God because of what Christ did for us.
[00:20:53] Robert Davidson explains its focus upon the hope of a righteous branch, or better, a true offshoot. This is the hope of the coming one day of a legitimate descendant of the future family of David who will rule ably, guaranteeing to his people peace and security and that right ordering of society summed up in the words justice and righteousness. And let me ask the question, who is this righteous branch?
[00:21:18] Well, it's the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the descendant of David. That's why Matthew and Luke both give us those genealogies pointing us back to the fact that Jesus is a son of David.
[00:21:29] That's how he was called in the New Testament. He was a fulfillment. He was the righteous king. He was the one that came to save his people from their sins. So God's final word, and I love this. Well, let me just go back, let me read these two verses and then we'll state this. So then the days are coming, declares the Lord, when people will no longer say, as surely as the Lord lives, who brought the Israelites out of Egypt. That's how Israel understood themselves. They talked about the people Passover, God's bringing us out of Egypt. Then he goes on to say this. But they will say, as surely as the Lord lives who brought the descendants of Israel out of the land of the north and out of all the countries where he has banished them, then they will live in their own land. So now how many recognize that God not only delivered them out of Egypt, but God also delivered them out of Babylon, God also brought them back to their own land. And we could say it this way. How many here as Christians, that when you first got saved, you walked with God and then you fell away and your life became a disaster zone. You were exiled. Then all of a sudden, God brought you back and he began to restore your life. And now you can look back and say, yeah, God not only saved me back here, but God now has restored me from brokenness in my life. How powerful is that? That's what they were remembering now, this new work of grace in their lives. And I'm thankful that God is a God of the second chance and he works new works of grace in. In our lives.
[00:22:51] God's final word, Robert Davidson writes, could never be merely judgment and woe. The future must again bring deliverance and hope. So here's what we need to know. Even though God challenges us to repent and calls us to repentance, God's final word isn't a word of judgment to us. God's final word to us is a word of restoration and hope. And we need to hear that.
[00:23:15] So a lot of times we say, well, yeah, there's sin in the land. I go, yeah, we need to repent. But the final word, God says, and when you repent, I will restore.
[00:23:24] It's a word of hope. That's the message from the book of Jeremiah. Not only was he warning us of exile, but he's also promising us restoration and hope in our lives.
[00:23:35] So let's move on to the second quality of leaders worth following and avoiding. And it's determined not only by their character, but it's determined by their message.
[00:23:44] Now, it's not always possible to switch leaders, you know, in our lives, but we can evaluate our lives.
[00:23:51] Who's shaping us? Who are we listening to? Who are we following now? Hopefully, I would say we're following the Word of God. I would say hopefully, we're listening to people who are living the life and giving us the right messaging, right?
[00:24:06] But sometimes we get confused because people come along and start saying, well, yeah, but I'm a follower of Jesus and give us a different messaging.
[00:24:14] This is what we need to be aware of, because one of the great challenges in our lives is this issue of being deceived. And I just wrote a little paragraph here. So one of the great refinements in life is that we'll be tested by deceivers.
[00:24:29] How many go, this is kind of shocking. Why does God allow deceivers to come into our life? Matter of fact, God says he's going to let a great lie come in that people that were possible could be deceived. It's a test.
[00:24:41] As a matter of fact, in the book of Deuteronomy talks about that. If a prophet comes among you and then tells you not to follow the Lord your God, he says, and follow other gods, that's a test. You need to not listen to that person. You need to address that in your life. So we are. We are going to be tested at times.
[00:25:00] And these are not just individuals. See, I think sometimes we think of deceivers as just individuals. I'm going to throw in this idea. It's also systems of thought and messages that will lead us away from God and his righteous standards for our life. So you have all these philosophies that are trying to pull people away from God, move us away from God, and sometimes they come in the name of the Lord, but they're actually false prophets. And Jesus warns us against that. You'll know them by, as we said earlier, by their fruit.
[00:25:33] Now, it's interesting that Paul said, this is what's going to happen in the last days. Now, you have to understand, the last days began on the day of Pentecost.
[00:25:42] We're in the last days. But isn't it true that these things are happening still today? Look what it says for the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine, which is teaching.
[00:25:51] A lot of people don't want to hear the truth.
[00:25:54] Don't tell me the truth. I don't want to hear it. Right. Instead, to suit their own desires, they'll gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
[00:26:04] So one of the challenges is that when you and I are telling people this is the way God said it. I didn't create the messaging. It's God's message. My job is just to deliver what he says. A lot of people want to reinterpret the Bible and change the messaging to fit the culture in which we're living in and to somehow negate God's standards. That's problematic. We need to know that.
[00:26:28] You see, false prophets or preachers give people a false hope.
[00:26:33] It's the opposite.
[00:26:34] The opposite can be said of a true messenger who will give a message of genuine hope. Verse 9, concerning the prophets. This is Jeremiah's response to what's going on. He says, my heart is broken within me all my bones tremble. I'm like a drunken man, like a strong man overcome by wine because of the Lord and his holy Words. In other words, Jeremiah says, I'm caught up by what God is saying and I can't get. I have to fulfill it, but also I'm distressed. I'm an angst. When I look at the nation and I see how people are turning their backs on God and they're worshiping all these false gods, and then I see these false prophets prophesying in the name of the Lord and leading people astray. This created a great angst inside of Jeremiah.
[00:27:17] Here's the messaging. He said, the land is full of adulterers because of the curse. The land lies parched and its pastures in the wilderness are withered. The prophets follow an evil course and use their power unjustly. Let's just unpack this for a moment. What is he really saying?
[00:27:33] He's basically calling the people unfaithful, but not just unfaithful to each other. He's talking about they're unfaithful to God and why are they, what are they doing?
[00:27:42] Well, what they're doing is that they're worshiping the Canaanite gods, the Baals. You know, when you go to Israel, what you're going to discover is. And archaeologists will tell you the land is rift with idols.
[00:27:54] They've dug up all these idols because the Jewish people didn't just worship Yahweh, they also worshiped the Canaanite fertility gods and practiced these things. And so they created kind of a syncretistic religious system.
[00:28:08] That's why Elijah came on the scene and said, how long are you going to halt between 2? If Baal is God, worship him. If Yahweh is God, worship him. In other words, they were trying to do both. And so often as Christians, we think, yeah, I'm following Jesus, but. But really what I'm doing is I have a little bit of Jesus, but I have a little bit of the world.
[00:28:26] You know, I'm allowing some of this stuff over here to fit into my Jesus Christianity. And it's a blending. And Elijah called them on that. And so what they were doing was they were involved in these fertility rites when you worship BAAL because they were in an agrarian society, they felt that BAAL was the rain God. And so they would be involved in temple prostitution. And they saw that in the sexual act that that was an expression of fertility. So they were hoping that that would create fertility in the land.
[00:28:56] Look how God speaks to them. He says, you guys, the land is cursed and lies parched. In other words, there is no rain. And why isn't there not A rain. Because when God made a covenant with Israel, he said, if you guys obey me, I will send the rains down and I will give the fertile land and I will bless your life. But when you turn your back on me, I will cause the heavens to seize up. There will be no rain. And that was exactly what was happening. And so rather than repent and turn to God and ask for forgiveness and have rains fall on their land, they started practicing even more diligently this temple, prostitution, Canaanite worship. That's what was going on.
[00:29:35] So when you read a verse like this, he said, the prophets follow an evil course and use their powers unjustly. Both prophet and priest are godless. Even in my temple I find their wickedness, declares the Lord. What is God saying? He's saying, listen, it got so bad that even the priests were not following the ways of God. The land was immoral, it was corrupt.
[00:30:00] This is the reason why God sent them out of the land. You're going to hear it because remember what God did when he saw sin. God will always judge sin, folks. Don't ever be deceived.
[00:30:11] We have a very crazy notion today that, you know, well, God's so loving, he would never do that.
[00:30:16] Listen, I've read my Bible a lot.
[00:30:19] I see God judges sin. It's just everywhere, on every page, everywhere I look. He's calling us back to himself so he doesn't have to judge us. He wants to show us his mercy. But he will judge for sin.
[00:30:31] As a matter of fact, he revealed to Ezekiel, who had already been taken into exile. He said, the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and the victim visions of God. He took me to Jerusalem. So he has a vision of being taken up by God to Jerusalem, to the court where the idol that provokes to jealousy stood.
[00:30:47] You know what these guys were doing? They were actually worshiping idols in the temple.
[00:30:51] It's crazy. It says here and there before me was the glory of the God of Israel, as in the vision I'd seen in the plain. So in other words, I was seeing God's glory. And then he says, and he said to me, son of man, do you see what they're doing? The utterly detestable things the Israelites are doing here.
[00:31:07] He was actually seeing the temple. He was there at the temple, seeing this. It was a vision. He wasn't literally in Jerusalem, but he was there in. Because he was a priest. Ezekiel was a priest. He had been in the temple and he could see that he was in the temple. And God says these are the things that will drive me far from my sanctuary. God says, you know what? I cannot stand this. And you know what? Sin always alienates. And God removes himself from our sin. It cuts us off from God.
[00:31:33] And that's why Christ came, so that we could be reconciled to God, so Jesus could deal with the sin problem. That's why he died on the cross. You see, when you and I negate sin and say, sin is not a problem in our world, it's something other than that. What we're doing is negating the cross of Christ and a sacrifice for our sins. It's a serious thing as far as God's concerned. Sin is far more challenging and more difficult to deal with. Our society thinks they have an answer to human problems, but they do not.
[00:32:00] Because sin is so prevalent and so intertwined in our very fabric of our nature, God has to do something extremely radical to address it.
[00:32:11] We need to understand that.
[00:32:15] So he says to them, you're going to see things even more detestable.
[00:32:19] So God is revealing to Jeremiah how degenerate the priests had become, how many of the prophets had become, and he was calling them back to God.
[00:32:28] And why were these leaders doing these things? Because they were guilty of sin themselves. And rather than confronting it, they were participating in it. Therefore, God says, their path will become slippery. They will be banished to darkness, and there they will fall. I will bring disaster on them in the year they are punished, declares the Lord. What is God warning? He said, listen, if you want to perpetuate this lifestyle, you're going to suffer. It's going to happen.
[00:32:52] He's warning them. Verse 13. Among the prophets of Samaria, I saw this repulsive thing they prophesied by baal. And they've led my people Israel astray. They're leading people away from the true and the living God.
[00:33:07] And among the prophets of Jerusalem, I've seen something horrible. They commit adultery, they live a lie. They strengthen the hand of evildoers so that not one of them turns from their wickedness. They're like Sodom to me. And the people of Jerusalem are like Gomorrah.
[00:33:21] Let me ask you a question.
[00:33:23] Why did God send the nation of Israel in to destroy the Canaanites before them? Why did he do that?
[00:33:31] Because the land had become abominable. It had become rift with sin. God said, you can't sustain a civilization that embraces sin.
[00:33:40] Do you know why every great civilization has eventually crumbled because of the corruption, the moral corruption from within.
[00:33:47] Sin destroys people, sin destroys cities. Sin destroys civilizations.
[00:33:55] It's inevitable it's going to happen. And we're beginning to see it in our own time. We're watching what's happening in our world, and we can see this corruption beginning to grow. It's like, you know, it just seems like, is there a stop to this thing? We want to just stand up and say, stop.
[00:34:11] We don't want any more of this. We don't want any more corruption. We can see how defiling and how terrible and the kind of wretchedness it's creating in people's lives. We want to scream and say, stop.
[00:34:25] And God sees that we can now understand why they were not willing to call people to repentance because they were living a lie. Robert Davidson says, But there were prophets from whose message the call to turn was conspicuously absent. You might have put a little note down. You can note, false preachers don't call people to repentance.
[00:34:49] Jesus called people to repentance. John the Baptist, the apostles and the prophets all called people to repentance.
[00:34:56] False preachers don't, by the way they themselves lived. And by preaching a word devoid of all moral challenge, it says, they ensured that the inhabitants of Jerusalem are no better than the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, the cities which God had destroyed. The messenger of God must reflect in his life and in his message the character of God whose name he claims to speak.
[00:35:24] Is it any wonder why God says to us, you are the salt of the earth?
[00:35:28] Do you know, in the ancient world, you know what salt was used for? It was to preserve food. There was no refrigeration.
[00:35:35] You would salt the fish, you would salt the meat so that it would not decay and deteriorate.
[00:35:41] Jesus said about you and I, his followers, that you and I are the salt of the earth.
[00:35:47] One of our great purposes, so that we are actually helping to diminish moral decay just by our lives, by a righteous life, you're helping diminish a level of moral decay around you. Isn't that amazing?
[00:36:03] But Jesus said something very challenging. He says, what happens when salt loses its saltiness?
[00:36:08] What happens when you and I are not exercising the properties of salt? Then you know what? You and I have no value.
[00:36:14] We become without value to the society around us. We're not hindering the destruction that's happening around us. We're part of the problem in that sense. So, Lord, help us to become salty. Right?
[00:36:27] Amen.
[00:36:29] Therefore, this is what the Lord Almighty says concerning the prophets. I will make them eat bitter food and drink poisoned water, because from the prophets of Jerusalem Ungodliness has spread throughout the land. Who's God? God is upset with these guys, you know, it's a fearful thing to be a minister of the Gospel and not preach the right message.
[00:36:49] It's a fearful thing to be a minister of the Gospel of God, or even a Christian and begin to change the messaging to suit the people and what they're listening to.
[00:36:57] It's not our job to change the messaging. Our job is to communicate God's message.
[00:37:02] And regardless of the response of the people, you can't control how people are going to respond. You're responsible to communicate the message. You and I are.
[00:37:14] God goes on to say, this is what the Lord Almighty says. Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to you.
[00:37:21] They will fill you with what?
[00:37:24] False hope.
[00:37:27] They will speak visions from their own minds and not from the mouth of the Lord. You see, false prophets or preachers have a false authority.
[00:37:34] They're speaking from their own minds. Their message is not from God. They're reassuring the people that all is well, when in reality it was the furthest thing from the truth. The spiritual law that sin produces death still holds true today.
[00:37:48] And therefore they were not hearing God's message. They keep saying to those who despise me, the Lord says, you will have peace.
[00:37:56] Let's go back. They were saying to the people who despise God, no problem, your life will be okay. And to all who follow the stubbornness of their hearts, they're telling them, no harm will come to you.
[00:38:08] Well, that's not true. They were telling a lie.
[00:38:12] But which of them has stood in the counsel of the Lord to see or hear His Word? Who has listened and heard His Word? In other words, he's saying, are they really true prophets? Have they really stood before God? Have they really heard what God has to say? And are they true to what God wants to communicate?
[00:38:27] Of course, in Jeremiah's mind, no.
[00:38:31] Then he goes on to say he asked some rhetorical questions. He says, here, see, the storm of the Lord will burst out in wrath, a whirlwind swirling down on the heads of the wicked.
[00:38:42] The anger of the Lord will not turn back until he fully accomplishes the purposes of his heart. In days to come, you'll understand it clearly. What is he saying? There's no place to hide from God when you and I do the wrong thing. God sees it. You can't get away from it. He's there.
[00:38:58] God's going to address evil, folks. Even though God is long suffering and even Though he doesn't immediately address evil, doesn't mean he won't address evil.
[00:39:08] You can write this in your little heart and mind. You know, if I continue to perpetuate sin and not address it, God will address it and it will be painful.
[00:39:19] It will be painful. I'll suffer. Better to repent. Say, God, I'm so sorry.
[00:39:24] God, come into my life and bring cleansing God, come into my life and restore me. Renew me, change my heart. Whatever. We need to pray, God, do a work in me.
[00:39:32] False prophets or preachers speak under a false inspiration.
[00:39:37] He says, here, I didn't send these prophets going backwards here. I don't know, okay, who can hide in secret places so that I cannot see them, declares the Lord, do not. Do not, I feel heaven and earth.
[00:39:57] False prophets or preachers speak under a false inspiration. They actually speak out of their own imagination and what they're saying is not God's message. I have heard what the prophets say who prophesy lies in my name. They say, I had a dream. I had a dream.
[00:40:11] How long will this continue in the hearts of these lying prophets who prophesy the delusions of their own minds? They're delusional.
[00:40:20] And, oh, by the way, just, you know, we all can talk about dreams, but, you know, dreams are very funny.
[00:40:26] They're sometimes subconsciously our frustrations or desire. I mean, there are all kinds of weird stuff about it, but it's not always a message from God. It can be, but not always.
[00:40:38] It says they think the dreams they tell one another will make my people forget my name, just as the ancestors forgot the name through BAAL worship, you say, well, how do you know they're speaking the truth? They have to be consistent with the character of God.
[00:40:53] How many realize to speak something inconsistent regarding God's character is to speak falsely?
[00:41:02] I want you to think about this for a minute. There are some things God cannot do. I know that sounds strange. I mean, we hear people, God can do anything. Well, I go, technically and theologically, there's some things God cannot do. You go, what is it that God cannot do? Well, Titus says God cannot lie because he's the truth. It's inconsistent with who he is. You see, God cannot do anything that's inconsistent with who he is.
[00:41:27] God is loving, God is forgiving.
[00:41:31] God is just.
[00:41:32] God is righteous.
[00:41:34] He's going to be consistent with who he is. God will never do something inconsistent with who he is. Just won't do it.
[00:41:44] Powerful.
[00:41:46] As a matter of fact, the dreams were, you know, as dreams are quite subjective. Meant that the false prophets were speaking message considered chaff.
[00:41:57] You know what chaff is? Chaff is the part of the stem and the grain that has no substance to it. You can't live on chaff.
[00:42:04] It blows away. There's no real value to it. It's without value.
[00:42:09] Listen, when he says, he said, let the prophets who have a dream recount the dream, but let the one who has my word speak it faithfully. For what has straw to do with grain, declares the Lord. In other words, false prophets, their words have no substance and they have no value. Don't be scared about what they're saying because it ain't going to happen anyways. It's just out of their own imaginations. But I'll tell you something. You and I need to speak the word of God. We need to speak the truth and we need to speak it faithfully.
[00:42:38] Is not my word like fire, declares the Lord. And like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces, this is how strong God's word is.
[00:42:45] God's word is a fire.
[00:42:47] It can bring cleansing to our soul. I love that it destroys what's wrong.
[00:42:53] God's word is like a hammer that breaks rock. You know, sometimes our hearts get so hard, we become indifferent to the things of God.
[00:43:02] You know, maybe today's message is like a hammer. For some of you, it's just hammering away, just smashing through hardness. It says it can hammer and break rock in pieces. Is that strong language? God's word is extremely powerful, folks. It brings about transformation in our lives.
[00:43:20] And then we see here the end of these.
[00:43:25] Well then, let me go here, verse 30. Therefore, declares the Lord, I am against the prophets who steal from one another. Word supposedly from me. These guys are all in cahoots. They're all joined together. They're all in agreement, basically, you know. Yes, declares the Lord, I'm against the prophets who wag their own tongues. And yet, declared the Lord declares. In other words, they're saying this is what God says, but it's just out of their own heads.
[00:43:49] Indeed, I'm against those who prophesy false dreams. Declare the Lord, they tell them, and lead my people astray with their reckless lies. Yet I did not send or appoint them. They do not benefit these people in the least.
[00:44:00] Actually, they're a detriment.
[00:44:03] But you must not mention a message from the Lord again, because each one's word becomes their own message. So you distort the words of the living God, the Lord Almighty, our God.
[00:44:13] So what's the end result of these guys here's the last two verses. I'm jumping a few, but here's the last two. Therefore, I will surely forget you and cast you out of my presence along with the city I gave to you and your ancestors.
[00:44:24] What is he saying? I'm banishing you from my presence. These false prophets are not going to be with God.
[00:44:31] They're deceived.
[00:44:32] Verse 40. I will bring on you everlasting disgrace, everlasting shame that will not be forgotten.
[00:44:39] So I come back to the question I raised at the beginning. So who are we listening to and who are we following?
[00:44:45] Who's influencing my life? Who's influencing your life? Do I see where they're headed? You know, do I know their character? You know, I'm going to shatter some of you guys. Somebody walked up to me one day and said, who's. What prophet do you listen to? And I went, none.
[00:45:04] I'm in the word of God.
[00:45:07] You know, I'm going to say something to all of us in here. Some of you spend so much time on the Internet digging up all this information, and a lot of it's just pure junk.
[00:45:17] You know, maybe you need to shut it down for a little season and say, God, I'm going to tick your book, the good book called the Bible.
[00:45:25] I'm going to spend more time here, and I'm going to ask the Spirit of God to begin to speak to my heart here. And you know what? You. You're going to be surprised, but God's going to do it.
[00:45:34] You're going to get clarity. You're going to get direction.
[00:45:38] You don't need to be listening to a whole bunch of voices that are leading you in all kinds of directions. You need to hear from God.
[00:45:46] You see, I believe God's word challenges, comforts, encourages, instructs. It builds up, it warns, and then it restores. But if we're living a complacent, indifferent, and apathetic life, we might not be hearing what God is trying to communicate to us.
[00:46:05] Let's remember that our lives need to be transformed. By what?
[00:46:09] The renewing of our mind. How does your mind get renewed by the word of God?
[00:46:13] We should be growing spiritually. Our lives should be becoming more Christ, like we should, becoming stronger and more consistent in our faith. Jesus said, and I said it already, if salt has lost its saltiness, it has no value.
[00:46:26] The empowered, obedient church is God's agency to arrest decay in our broken society.
[00:46:35] So the apostle Paul challenges the Corinthians.
[00:46:39] Follow my example as I follow Christ, and that's all one leader can say. Only follow me as much as I'm following Christ. Amen. And to know that means I need to know the word of God. So let's stand as we close the service.
[00:46:56] I think that, you know, today, this is a very timely word.
[00:46:59] We need to hear this. A lot of voices out there, a lot of people talking.
[00:47:05] This is what we need.
[00:47:08] God's word come back to him.
[00:47:12] Start listening to him. Start seeking him.
[00:47:16] Amen.
[00:47:17] That's the God's call on us.
[00:47:20] So I'm challenging you.
[00:47:22] Some of you say, you know, I don't really spend time in the word of God. Can I just. I'm pleading with you as your pastor every day. Get up.
[00:47:31] Say, lord, I dedicate myself to you today.
[00:47:34] I give myself to hearing your voice. I'm going to spend time in your word today. I want to hear what you have to say to me. I want to grow in my understanding, open the eyes of my understanding. Holy Spirit, reveal yourself to me through your word.
[00:47:49] Do you know he's going to answer that prayer? God's going to become more real to you.
[00:47:54] You're going to be able to handle, you know, I'm teaching First Corinthians on Wednesday nights. We're going to talk about, these guys couldn't even handle drinking milk. They were still babies.
[00:48:03] They needed to get a little bit, you know, to mature as an adult. What happens, you know, eventually as a parent, you move your child from drinking milk to what, eating more solid foods?
[00:48:15] Most Christians in North America, they can't handle solid food. They're too baby.
[00:48:20] They're too worldly. They're thinking like the world.
[00:48:23] We need to renew our minds, folks.
[00:48:26] We need to be different than what society is.
[00:48:29] We need to be salty.
[00:48:31] We need to be the light in a world of darkness.
[00:48:35] Amen.
[00:48:36] I believe that. I want to pray for us today.
[00:48:39] God will really speak into our spirit. Say, yep, I got to get my act together here.
[00:48:43] I've just been, you know, cruising.
[00:48:46] I know some of you are very dedicated. I know some of you are. In your word, you're seeking God.
[00:48:51] You know, that's awesome. I love that.
[00:48:54] But for some of you, you're just erratic.
[00:48:58] This is not healthy. I want you to be strong.
[00:49:02] You know, I want us to all end up in the same place before the throne of God.
[00:49:06] I want God to celebrate your presence.
[00:49:10] But he can do it right now because you're spending daily, you're with him.
[00:49:14] Amen.
[00:49:15] So, Father, I come to you today, Lord, I just pray that we Will, you know, make sure that we're listening to the right communication.
[00:49:24] We're not just feeding our mind a bunch of garbage, but we're actually hearing your voice and we're learning of your ways and we're getting strong in faith and in knowledge of you. We're maturing.
[00:49:36] We're becoming more like you. We're becoming more loving, more understanding, more patient, more kind. We have greater self control than we've ever had before because you are changing us by your spirit and word from the inside out.
[00:49:49] And I just thank you for that, Father. I pray that you would strengthen your people.
[00:49:54] I pray against all the lies and deception of the enemy that are coming against my brothers and sisters, Lord. I just pray that they will be able to discern that stuff and say, I'm laying that stuff down and I'm embracing the truth. Because when you and I embrace truth, we understand it and we apply it to our lives. Freedom comes into our lives. The truth shall make us free.
[00:50:20] And I just pray that for us, Father, that we will walk in truth, we will walk in freedom. We will walk in the light.
[00:50:28] And we will not use our freedom to sin.
[00:50:31] We'll use our freedom to serve.
[00:50:33] We'll use our freedom to bless.
[00:50:35] We'll use our freedom to encourage and to challenge and to warn and to comfort. We thank you for that, Father. In Jesus name, amen. God bless you as you leave today.
