Alright, let's turn in our Bibles
to Jeremiah chapter 20. Jeremiah chapter 20. Tonight,
I'm going to preach to you on this subject. The fire of the
gospel. The fire of the gospel. The fiery
truth. This word of truth. It is impossible
to overestimate the value and the power of the gospel message
in the hands of God the Holy Spirit to the salvation of God's
people, His elect people, His sheep, and to the edification
of His church. And that's why we meet like this,
to study His Word, to feed upon His Word. And I know if you're
like me, you come into the worship service You probably have a thousand
different things on your mind in this life, and that's why
I always pray, Lord, clear our minds so that we might focus
our attention upon your word, for your word is life. Always
think about Peter when the Lord, when the multitudes left him
and he turned to his disciples and he said, will you go away
also? And Peter said, to whom shall we go? You have the words
of life, and that's what this is. These are words of life. Now sometimes we read these things
in the scripture and they don't seem to be so encouraging as
we read especially the historical parts of the history of Israel
under the old covenant. Here's Jeremiah, the weeping
prophet. Tonight we're going to start
off in these first six verses in chapter 20 by talking about
the persecuted prophet. The persecuted prophet. Listen
to the words God in verse 1 of chapter 20 it says now pasher
the son of emmer the priest So this pasher was a priest himself
Who was also chief governor in the house of the Lord? It seems
that he was like over the the protection of the temple And
he was the chief governor of the affairs of the temple So
this passer heard that Jeremiah prophesied these things. Now
these things, as you know, refers to the imminent destruction of
Judah and Jerusalem by a great army that's coming from the north.
That's the Babylonian army, Nebuchadnezzar. God is going to use that heathen
nation as an instrument of his justice against Judah and against
Jerusalem for their sins. And so when Pasher heard that
Jeremiah prophesied these things, look at verse 2, it says, then
Pasher smote Jeremiah the prophet. Most commentators say, and I
agree with this, that what he's talking about there is the 40
lashes, or what they say 40 minus 1. But Jeremiah was whipped severely. He wasn't killed yet, but he
was whipped severely. And this Pasher had the the authority
to do that and it says they smoked the prophet Jeremiah and then
they put him in the stocks that were in the high gate of Benjamin
which was by the house of the Lord so they whipped him and
then they put him in the stocks now when you think of the stocks
you probably think of something like in the early history of
America when the Puritans used to put people in stocks They
have their hands up and their neck, but that's not what this
is. That word stock there is a word that means twisted. It means like almost contorted. And what it is, it's a very painful
thing that they use to put a person, to secure a person in a position
where they would be in constant pain. Of course, maybe the stocks
that they used here in America, in early America, would do that
too. But it was a contortion of the body to the point to where
they'd be in constant pain. So this was no respite for Jeremiah. Obviously, the smiting, the whipping
was no easy thing. But even the stocks, and not
only did they put him in these stocks where he would be in constant
pain, they did it at the high gate of Benjamin. That was a
very, very public place. That is, they wanted everybody
to see that the priest and all the the authorities of Jerusalem,
in that temple, that they were in opposition to Jeremiah. And it says this was by the house
of the Lord, so it was right by the temple. Well, verse 3,
it says, it came to pass on the morrow, the next day, that passure
brought forth Jeremiah out of the stocks. He let him out, put
him in, whipped him, put him in those stocks for one day and
let him out the next day. And then Jeremiah said unto him,
and I imagine the scene here is Jeremiah, do you recant? Jeremiah,
do you take back what you've said? Now you know, we've been
studying this book, and you know the situation. Here's God's prophet
Jeremiah preaching the doom and the gloom and the imminent destruction
of Jerusalem, even the temple. And then there were hundreds
of false prophets who were crying, peace, peace, when there's no
peace. Jeremiah was a gadfly to them. He was a burden to them. And so imagine the scene is,
he let him out of the stone and said, Jeremiah, do you recant?
Well, look here in verse three. Then said Jeremiah unto him,
the Lord hath not called thy name Pasher, but Magor Misabib. That's how you pronounce that.
Magor Misabib. You probably have it in your
concordance, the translation of that term. term, it means
terror all around you, or fear all around you. And that's what
Jeremiah tells this very prominent priest, this priest who had high
office and authority and high respect from the people. He says,
your name, the Lord's not called you pastor now, your name is
Magor Misabeb, terror all around. You're preaching peace, but there's
nothing but terror all around you and That and then he says
in verse 4 look for thus saith the Lord behold. I will make
thee a terror to thyself and To all thy friends now what he's
saying there is your message is a lie Your gospel is a false
gospel Your message of peace is just a pipe dream. It's not
true. And he says, And they shall fall
by the sword of their enemies, and thine eyes shall behold it,
and I will give all Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon.
Now there's the first time in Jeremiah that the name Babylon
is mentioned. Up to this point it's always
been the army from the north. The nation of the north. But
now he identifies who's coming. Babylon you know Isaiah About
a hundred years before Jeremiah. He identified it as Babylon Well
now Jeremiah says Babylon the hand of the king of Babel listen
to that. Here's the people of God the
same ones that God brought out of Egypt and established in that
promised land and gave them the temple and the priesthood and
the sacrifices, and remember all those things are pictures
of God's grace in the salvation of sinners by Jesus Christ. And
they missed that message and turned it into, they did two
things, they turned it into a system of self-righteous ceremonies,
salvation by works, and they intermingled it with heathen
idolatry. And this nation, the people of
God were about to be handed over to another heathen king, a conqueror,
Babylon. And he says, and he shall carry
them captive into Babylon and shall slay them with the sword.
So many of them were going to be killed. Many of them were
going to be taken captive to Babylon. Verse five, he says,
moreover, I will deliver all the strength of this city, all
the power of Jerusalem and all the labors thereof, all the works
of Jerusalem. and all the precious things thereof,
all the value of Jerusalem and all the treasures of the kings
of Judah, all of the authority will I give into the hand of
their enemies which shall spoil them and take them and carry
them to Babylon. I believe that verse 5 is a great
picture of how God Almighty views everything that man by nature
holds valuable and strong in his efforts to live and to enhance
himself. Man's power and man's works. I thought about Philippians chapter
3 when I read that verse 5. When he talks about their strength,
their labors, their precious things, their treasures. I think
about Saul of Tarsus there. Paul in Philippians chapter Three,
when he's relating all that he held powerful and valuable and
precious and all of his labors before God confronted him with
his sinfulness and drove him to Christ for salvation. All
that he thought made him righteous. You remember he said, I was a
Hebrew of Hebrews, a Pharisee of Pharisees, as touching the
law of Pharisee. He said, oh, I was circumcised
the eighth day. But remember he said there in
verse 7, but what things were gained to me, what things were
strength to me, what things were the works that I thought God
would accept, what things were precious and treasures to me,
those I counted lost for Christ. in the light of the knowledge
of God in Christ. And I do count them but dumb
that I may win Christ and be found in Him, not having mine
own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through
the faith of Christ, even the righteousness which is of God
by faith. Look at verse 6 of Jeremiah 20. He says, And thou,
pastor, and all that dwell in thine house shall go into captivity,
and thou shalt come to Babylon. And there thou shalt die and
shalt be buried there, thou and all thy friends to whom thou
hast prophesied lies. That's where their false message
would get them. Captured in Babylon. Now you
know, in the New Testament, especially in the book of Revelation, Babylon
becomes a picture or a type or a symbol of false religion. That's what Babylon is. The Bible
speaks of the great whore Babylon. Babylon. And that's what it'll
get you. Prophesying lies, a false gospel. For example, a false gospel of
salvation by the works and will of men rather than by the free,
sovereign mercy and grace of God in Christ. Righteousness
by works, where will that get you? Babylon. Righteousness in
Christ is the way of God. And here he speaks of all those
who prophesied lies. There were a large number of
preachers preaching peace, the health and wealth gospel of Jeremiah's
today is the same as our day. Good times coming, that's what
they say. Just like a book I saw on a shelf
bookstore a couple months ago talks about your best life now. Your best life now? Have you
ever read the scripture and what it says about the final glory
of believers? Of those who die in the Lord?
Those who go to be with Him in glory? And you're telling me,
compared to what the Bible says about that, that this is our
best life? My friend, that's just only in
the minds of false prophets and false believers. And I'm not
just saying that to be critical. I'm saying that because just
like Jeremiah, you want to tell people, wake up, wake up from
your dead sleep. Realize what we are by nature,
ruined in Adam, dead in trespasses and sins, with no hope of salvation
in ourselves or in this earth. or the valuables and the powers
and the works and the treasures of this world. Even its religion,
man, at its best state is altogether vanity. There is no hope for
us in this life. Our best life now? No, sir. I know we can live abundantly
and triumphantly and victoriously by faith in Christ and living
in His Word and there is joy and peace in believing. But my
friend, our best life is not now. Our best life is to come. Think about it, living forever
with Christ without sin, without sorrow. But now here's Jeremiah
preaching and then what happens? He's the persecuted prophet.
Well, has it ever been any different? The first testimony of Christ
and the grace of God in him that was set forth in the scripture
by a sinner saved by grace, one of God's servants met with persecution. A man named Abel who was killed
by his own fleshly brother Cain. And why did he kill him? Why
did Cain kill him? Because his brother's works were
righteous and his own works were evil. What were his brother's
works? It wasn't the valuables and the works and the treasures
and the precious things of this world. It wasn't man's efforts
to make himself righteous before God. It was the blood of a lamb. You want to talk about something
that's powerful? Speak of the blood of the Lamb
of God. What can wash away my sins? Nothing
but the blood of Jesus. You want to speak of something
precious? Think about the blood of the
Lamb. For you were not redeemed with corruptible things such
as silver and gold from your vain conversation, but with the
precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without spot and without
blemish. You want to talk about a powerful
work? Don't talk about what we do for
God. Talk about what He's done for His people on the cross of
Calvary through the God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ. There's
a powerful work. How powerful was it? Well, just
what happened on the events of that day shows you something
about it. The earth shook, the sky, the sun grew dark, and many
were resurrected out of their graves just like Lazarus. The
veil was rent in two from top to bottom. Out of that great
work comes the salvation of his people. But now Jeremiah is persecuted. And none of us like to go through
persecution, do we? And yet persecution does so many
things for us. Now listen, don't get me wrong.
We're not masochists. We don't go looking for it. It
comes with the territory. You don't have to go looking
for it. But listen to the words of our Lord. This is Matthew
chapter 5 and verse 10. He said, Blessed are they which
are persecuted for righteousness sake. That's the gospel. for
theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when men shall
revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against
you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad,
for great is your reward in heaven. That's the reward of grace, isn't
it? For so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
They persecuted Jeremiah. These persecutions over the gospel
identify us with Christ. Did you know that? Why? Well,
he told his disciples, marvel not if the world hates you. It
hated me before it hated you, and the servant's not greater
than the master, John 15. Paul wrote of God's children
being heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. If so be that
we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. These persecutions, turn to Hebrews
chapter 12, and I want you to hold your, we're going to come
back to Jeremiah, but I want you to hold your finger there
at Hebrews 12 because we're going to come back to it again. These
persecutions, you know what they do? They reveal God's love and
care for us and identify us as his children. Here he's talking about, in chapter
11 of Hebrews, he talks about a great company of believers
who were persecuted as they wandered through the wilderness of this
world. And they were persecuted for righteousness sake, for Christ's
sake, for preaching that salvation is totally 100% by God's grace
and never and not by the works of men. And that's why they were
persecuted. that the works of men that are
aimed at trying to recommend sinners unto God are evil in
the sight of God because they deny His glory, they show the
pride and self-righteousness of men, and they deny His Son,
the Lord Jesus Christ, and the work that He accomplished. And
so he says He says, now you walk through this world looking unto
Jesus as the author and finisher of your faith. And he says in
verse four, you have not yet resisted unto blood striving
against sin, preaching the gospel, living for the glory of God through
this world. You've not yet been killed. That's
what he, when he says, you've not yet resisted unto blood.
You resist the world. You resist the flesh. You resist
the devil. You resist all opposition. to
the gospel of God's grace, to the glory of God in Christ. But
you've not yet been killed for it, murdered. Stephen was. He
was killed for it. They picked up stones and killed
him. Many of the apostles were killed. In fact, just about every
one of them were martyred except for John, and they put him out
on an island because they couldn't stand to be around him. And we
talked about Abel. But he says in verse 5, Have
you forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you, as unto
children, as unto children? My son, despise not thou the
chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him.
For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth every
son whom he receiveth. And so if you endure chastening,
God dealeth with you as with sons. For what son is he whom
the Father chasteneth not? You see, they identify. as the
children of God. Now look back at Jeremiah chapter
20. Now in these next verses what
we see is the prophet distressed but not destroyed. He's distressed
but he's not destroyed. And I believe what we have here
is Jeremiah's confession when he was in those stocks when he
was in those stocks, like Job. Now you remember when we studied
through the book of Job. Job was a sinner saved by the
grace of God. The Lord Himself described Job
as a justified man and one who loved holiness and hated evil. That's how God described him.
And yet Job was tested and tried severely, painfully, to a degree
that none of us ever want to go through. And Job was all over
the map when it comes to his attitude, his thoughts, his words. You see, Job had a problem that
we all have. We're all weak, sinful human
beings. Two types of people in this world,
sinners lost in their sins, sinners saved by grace. Well, Jeremiah
was the same way. A sinner saved by grace, a weak
pitiful human being. And like Job, he sometimes in
his persecutions and in his low moments, Jeremiah thought God
had forsaken him. And he speaks out of his flesh,
out of his sorrow, out of his pain, out of his suffering. And
it's a testimony, Jeremiah, like all of us. We're a living testimony
that God saves His people by His grace in spite of ourselves. That's true. Salvation is not
conditioned on us. It's conditioned on Christ. God
keeps us through all these trials. He preserves us. And God always
brings us back to Him and His Word. Back to Christ. Listen to what Jeremiah says
here. O LORD, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived. Thou art stronger than I, and
hast prevailed. I am in derision daily. Everyone
mocketh me. For since I spake, I cried out,
I cried violence and spoil." In other words, he's preaching
the truth. That this city, this nation is
going to be destroyed. He said, because the word of
the Lord was made a reproach unto me and a derision daily.
In other words, instead of people rejoicing in it and receiving
it, it became a derision daily to them. Now look at verse 9. He says, Then I said, I will
not make mention of him. I am not going to speak of God
anymore, nor speak any more in his name. Now here is where I
got the title of this message. But his word was in my heart,
as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with
forbearing." In other words, I got so tired of trying not
to speak in his name, not to mention his name, not to preach
his gospel, that I could not stay. I could not keep quiet
any longer. I love that verse. Think about
it. That's the gospel fire. in the
heart of a child of God. What about this gospel? Paul
wrote in 1 Corinthians 9, he said, Woe unto me if I preach
not the gospel. Do we really know the gospel?
It's like, listen, we could probably make it something similar. It's
like everybody in the world has cancer and we know the cure. The cure that will cure it all.
Well, everybody in the world has the cancer of sin, don't
they? And there's all kinds of people
telling them how to remedy that cancer of sin. Some say reform
your life and turn over a new leaf. Some say get into the baptismal
pool. Some say join the church. Some
say give your tithe. Some say try to do this, try
to do that. But none of those things will
cure the cancer of sin. There's only one thing that will
cure that cancer. And that's the grace of Almighty
God in Christ. That's the blood of Jesus Christ.
That's the only cure for this cancer of sin. And do we really
believe that? If we do, it will burn like a
fire within our hearts. It's the fire of unction. Unction. That's power. Fire is a powerful
thing, isn't it? You can take a little spark.
and in no time at all can be turned into a forest fire. Isn't
that right? That's a powerful thing, isn't
it? Well, this gospel fire is more powerful than any two-edged
sword, isn't it? Sharper than any two-edged sword.
Paul wrote that, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it
is the power of God. You know that word power, we
get the word dynamite from it in our English language. It's
the dynamite of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to
the Jew first and the Greek also, for therein is the righteousness
of God revealed from faith to faith. As it is written, the
just shall live by faith. This gospel is the revelation
of Christ and His righteousness as that which alone cleanses
our sin fully and completely eternally and gives us a right
standing before God. eternally and unchangeably. The
gospel fire in our hearts is a conviction. It's not just a
theology of the head. It's a conviction of the whole
person, the mind, the affections and the will. We can't get away
from it and it will not get away from us. It's part of us. It's
the law written on the heart. It's the new spirit. It's the
circumcised heart. It's what brought us to faith
in Christ and repentance of dead works. It's what brought us to
submit to Christ as our Lord and Savior and our King of kings.
It's what brought us to submit to His righteousness as the only
ground of our salvation. It's a power. And that's what
Jeremiah is saying here. His word was in my heart. I know
the truth. I'm convinced of it. Now that
didn't come naturally. That comes by the power of the
Holy Spirit in the new birth. That's why we must be born again.
This gospel message. This word of truth. must be indelibly
written on our hearts. And it's so much a part of us
that if we try to get away from it, if we try to stop speaking
of the glory of Christ and the salvation of sinners in Him,
it'll burn in our bones to the very marrow to where we cannot
stop talking about Him. And then the gospel fire is in
our preaching. Turn over to 2 Corinthians chapter
2. 2 Corinthians chapter 2. Gospel fire in our preaching.
And it's a fire in two ways. And listen to this. Look at verse
14. Chapter 2. 2 Corinthians chapter
2 verse 14. Paul writes, now thanks be unto
God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ. You know
what that means? That means there is absolutely,
no matter what we see with the physical eye or circumstances,
that we can call the preaching of the gospel a failure. We may
be like Noah and preach righteousness for 120 years and not see one
convert. Now, most preachers today would
say, well, that man's a failure. And he better go to a school
and learn how to manipulate people's minds so he can get them down
the aisle. Now, you know that's true, don't you? I've been there. And that's a lie. I'm telling
you. Noah never failed because his
Savior never fails. His God never fails. But you
see, he says, we always triumph in Christ and maketh manifest
the savor of his knowledge by us in every place. Verse 15,
for we are unto God a sweet savor of Christ. That sounds like success
to me. God accepts us in Christ. In
them that are saved and in them that perish. Now here's the gospel
fire. Verse 16, to the one we're the
savor of death unto death. To those that perish, The gospel
is the fire of the wrath of God upon sinners without Christ.
The gospel is the fire of the wrath of God upon sinners without
grace, without truth, without a righteousness. That answers
the demands of God's law and justice. That's what it is. That's what Jeremiah is preaching
to Jerusalem and Judah. That's not his only message.
He preaches Christ. Jeremiah does. He tells them.
He says, now this nation's going down the tooth, but you don't
have to go down with it. There's a Savior coming. There's
a Redeemer coming. His name is Jehovah Sid Canu,
the Lord our righteousness. We'll read about him in more
detail in Jeremiah 23. and you don't have to go down
the tubes with it. You may go into captivity in the Babylon
like Daniel, but you'll have a hope against all hope. You'll
have a hope of assurance and peace and eternal life and glory
that even Nebuchadnezzar and the whole Babylonian empire can
take away. They can't do it. That's right. So to the one we're the saver
of death unto death, that's the fire of God's wrath. But look
here, and to the other, Now he said we're the saver of death
and the death of those who are perishing. And notice how the
Bible describes those who are perishing in 1 Corinthians 1.18.
The preaching of the cross, the finished work of Christ, the
blood and righteousness of Christ is foolishness to them. But he
says to the other, the saver of life and the light. There's
the fire of conviction. There's the fire of unction.
There's the fire that melts the heart of stone. and makes it
a broken and contrite heart, a pliable heart. There's the
new birth right there. Savor of life unto life. That's
how important, that's how valuable, that's how serious this message
is. And so Paul writes, and who is sufficient for these things?
He says later, God is our sufficiency. He's our sufficiency. For we
are not as many which corrupt the word of God, but as of sincerity
and as of God, in the sight of God, speak we Christ. Speak we
in Christ. We preach Christ. That's why,
that's why I never want to stand before you, I never want to preach
a message on television or on tape, and fail to preach Christ. I never want to do that. Look over at Revelation 11. You
remember Revelation 11 talks about the two witnesses? And I've preached messages on
that. We won't go into all of that tonight, but I just want
to make this point. Talking about the two witnesses going through,
prophesying, and they're preaching the Gospels what they're doing.
He says in verse four of Revelation 11, listen to this, these are
the two olive trees, the two candlesticks standing before
God of the earth. And he says in verse five, listen,
and if any man will hurt them, come against them, fire proceeded
out of their mouth and devoured their enemies. There's the fire
of God's wrath. And if any man will hurt them,
he must in this manner be killed. The gospel fire. Now go back
to Jeremiah 20. So Jeremiah says, I couldn't
stay. I couldn't stop. I'm just going to quit. Somebody
asked me one time, he says, have you ever thought about quitting?
I said, oh, about 1,000 times. You do. I know better than Jeremiah. You get under a burden. There's
all kinds of things fraught with the ministry and all that. It
gets you down. You say, well, you know, I'd
rather be living independently wealthy on an island, you know,
but I don't have an island and I'm not independently wealthy,
other than spiritually, which will get you nowhere in this
world. But you just can't quit. Why? Because I know this is the
truth. I know what's in store for those
who I see going down the road in that hearse. if they died
without Christ, if they died in unbelief. I'm convinced of
that. And I can tell you right now,
there was a time I was not convinced of that. But the gospel burns
like a fire. Look at verse 10 now. He says,
For I heard the defaming of many fear on every side report say
they and we will report it all my familiars That's friends watch
for my halting saying peradventure He will be enticed and will prevail
against him and we shall take our revenge on it That's the
shape. He'd gotten in what he's talking
about. There's his enemy said we'll watch him watch him I remember
years ago somebody said, well, you just got to listen to it.
Yeah, I hope you do. But what they were meaning by
that is listen for him to say something wrong. If you listen
for me to say something wrong, I'm liable to do that. I don't
know. But I know this. I know this. Jeremiah was in
the same shape. They were trying to watch him, catch him up in
a mistake so that they could pounce on him when they did.
And he says in verse 11, now listen to this, now here's Jeremiah
being brought to what I, in fact, hold there, look back at Hebrews
12 and I wanna show you this and then we'll come back. Verse
11, now Jeremiah's being persecuted. And the people of God are to
look at these persecutions for righteousness sake as the chastisements
of God. Now that's not the only reason
God chastens his people. Sometimes we're chasing for our
bad behavior and all kinds of stuff. That's another matter.
But these persecutions over the gospel were to look at them as
the chastening of the Lord, the trials. But look at verse 11
of Hebrews 12. He says, Now no chastening for
the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous. That's why you're
going through it. When Jeremiah was twisted up in those stocks,
he wasn't saying happy, happy, happy. He wasn't laughing and
telling joy. He was hurting. When Job lost
his family and everything he had, and then his health, he
was hurting, you see. But look, nevertheless, afterward,
that is after the Lord has brought us through it, it yieldeth the
peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised
thereon. Now what is that peaceable fruit of righteousness? Well
look, here's an example of it. Look at Jeremiah 20 and verse
11. And this is where the Lord always brings his children back
to. And he has to bring us back now. And here it is, he says, but
the Lord is with me as a mighty terrible one. Therefore my persecutors
shall stumble and they shall not prevail. They shall be greatly
ashamed, for they shall not prosper. Their everlasting confusion shall
never be forgotten. But, O LORD of hosts, that tryest
the righteous, you test the righteous. Who are the righteous? Those
who have Christ for their Savior. Those who are righteous in Him.
Those who have His righteousness imputed, charged, accounted to,
and who have submitted to Him. He tries the righteous, and He
seeth the reins and the heart, that is the motives, goals, the
aim, let me see thy vengeance on them, for unto thee have I
opened my cause. And so he says, sing unto the
Lord, praise ye the Lord, for he hath delivered the soul of
the poor from the hand of evildoers. There's the peaceable fruit of
righteousness. You know what the peaceable fruit of righteousness
is? I told you now one time when we studied that Hebrews 12 passage,
it's not the sinner coming out being proud of how well he did. Because we go through these trials,
I never feel good about how I acted or how I did during them. But
I always come out on the other side as preserved by God's power
and grace, looking more and more and more and more to Christ for
my hope, my peace, my assurance. Praising the Lord. Thank you,
Lord, for saving my soul. But these last verses, let's
just read them. Verse 14, now listen to what he said. Now,
here's another turn. Cursed be the day wherein I was
born. This is Jeremiah talking. Let
not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed. You remember
Job saying, I wish I'd never been born? Remember him saying
that? That's kind of what Jeremiah
is saying. He says, Cursed be the man who brought tidings to
my father, saying, A man child is born unto thee, making him
very glad. And let that man be as the cities
which the Lord overthrew and repented not and let him hear
the cry in the morning and the shouting at noontide because
he slew me not from the womb or that my mother might have
been my grave and her womb to be always great with me. Wherefore
came I forth out of the womb to see labor and sorrow that
my days should be consumed with shame. Now I want you to notice
the contrast between verse 13 and verse 14. Hear Jeremiah singing
praise to the Lord, and then in verse 14, cursed be the day
I was born. Now how can that be? It seems
like Jeremiah jumps back and forth between joy and distress.
A lot of commentators say, well that couldn't have been Jeremiah
writing that. It had to be somebody else. It may seem inconsistent
to us, but let me ask you, isn't that the way we are? One day
happy, the next day sad. That's the way we are, isn't
it? This is why we constantly need the gospel fire to burn
away the dross and to warm our hearts and strengthen our faith
in the Lord. We need the gospel fire to remind
us of the joy that cannot change or be taken away. The joy and
peace that comes in Him. Jeremiah, like all true children
of God, always ends up with Christ. And that's the key. And that's
our life here on earth. That's why we need the gospel
of Christ continually. That's that peaceable fruit of
righteousness. That's why the gospel fire burns
within our hearts. All right.