May it please God to bless us
together this evening as we meditate in his word. Let's turn to the
second chapter of Jeremiah and we'll read verses 8 to 11. The second chapter in the prophecy
of Jeremiah and reading verses 8 to 11. The priests said not,
where is the Lord? and they that handle the law
knew me not. The pastors also transgressed
against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked
after things that do not profit. Wherefore I will yet plead with
you, saith the Lord, and with your children's children will
I plead, for pass over the isles of Chittim and see, and send
unto Kedar, and consider diligently, and see if there be such a thing.
Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? But my
people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit. Jeremiah was a very faithful
servant of God. And he lived in a time when Israel
had, for the most part, departed from serving the true God. And we know that, of course,
what happened as they continued in that course, refusing to hear
the preaching of Jeremiah and other prophets that eventually
the Lord allowed them to be taken captive and to lose the city
of Jerusalem and the temple and their homes and be taken many
miles away to the city of Babylon where they were not able to worship
the Lord in the way that they had been privileged to for so
many years. And it's very solemn and very
searching for us today because we don't of course live in Jerusalem,
we don't have the temple to worship. And yet there may be those situations
where we find ourselves turning away from the things of God and
walk after things that do not profit. I read the four verses
because in verse 8 He's speaking about those really who are ministers,
who preach the word, and he says, and walked after things that
do not profit. And then in the 11th verse, he's
speaking about the nation, hath a nation changed their gods,
which are yet no gods, but my people have changed their glory
for that which doth not profit. And so we see, the complete congregation
really of the teachers and the people turning away from the
things of God. And Jeremiah, moved by the Holy
Spirit, reminds them in the earlier chapters, earlier verses of this
chapter, how they had been wonderfully blessed. And so they had. The Lord had performed his promises
which he given to Abraham and fulfilled them through Moses
in bringing Israel out of Egypt and blessing them with all that
they needed. Water out of the rock, a natural
impossibility. Food from heaven in the form
of manna, a natural impossibility. And so God had done these great
things for them. And yet, you see, they'd passed
them by. And here they were now in the
promised land, blessed with so many favours, and yet they'd
turned their back upon Almighty God and had walked after things
that do not profit. It's a very important consideration. to think that there are those
things which do not profit. We may be involved in, they were
involved in. They thought they could be allowed to do many things. But the many things which they
did, and all the detail is not given to us, but we know of course
they were idolaters, they worshipped idols. We may say, well of course
we're not idolaters, we don't worship idols. Well, we may worship
idols and we may not realise perhaps that we do worship idols.
They may not be a physical monument or thing of stone or wood carved
out to something that we bow down to. But there may be those
idols which we perhaps spend time on and which are not profitable. Perhaps we do those things which
are not profitable And yet we might think, well I can do that,
it's nothing wrong in that. See the Apostle Paul was faced
with this kind of situation. And he tells us that all things
were lawful, but all things were not expedient. What he meant
was that all things did not profit. And that's an important consideration.
for us today. We can go along with things and
think, well, that's a lawful thing to do, there's nothing
wrong in that, and of course there's a danger signal when
we question whether there is anything wrong, because obviously
we know there is something potentially wrong in it, and we want to justify
our situation and justify our condition. Now Israel fell into
this snare with idols and they turned away from their Lord and
they were so taken up with them that notwithstanding all the
preaching that they heard from the prophets they would not hear
and they were told what would happen they did not believe it
but God is a faithful God and God does not speak and not do
God follows out the things that he speaks And we should not think
that we come today before a God who is less powerful and a God
who is less mindful of his people. He was very mindful of ancient
Israel. He's very mindful of his people
today. And my friends, you and I should be concerned therefore
that we walk in a right way and walk in a way and do those things
which do profit. We'll come on to that in a little
while. First of all, you see how Jeremiah
was raised up by Almighty God to proclaim these truths and
to notify Israel of the situation which they were in. And it's
a number of times as we read through this prophecy there are
warnings again and again. And in the 14th chapter, the
last verse, are there any among the vanities of the Gentiles
that can cause rain? Or can the heavens give showers? Art not thou he, O Lord our God?
Therefore we will wait upon thee, for thou hast made all these
things. The Prophet had previously said,
we acknowledge, O Lord, our wickedness and the iniquity of our fathers,
but we have sinned against Thee. Now it is a blessing when the
Holy Spirit does come into our hearts and give us grace to acknowledge
that situation in our lives. But we don't like to. We like
to just carry on and believe that we're doing things which
are right and lawful, but do they profit our soul? That's
the great thing. And if they don't profit our
soul, they won't bring honour and glory to God. Such an inquisition to ourselves
is important and no less necessary in the day and age in which we
live than it was in the days of Jeremiah. We often think,
well of course, Israel were exceedingly wicked. But my friends, may God
show us our hearts and realise that we, left to ourselves, are
also exceedingly wicked. And perhaps we do involve ourselves
in such things that do not profit. And the Prophet, when he speaks
to Israel, He says, thus saith the Lord, what iniquity have
your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and
have walked after vanity, and are become vain. You see, the Church of God, to
a large extent today, are in a cold and a lukewarm condition
and situation. And we are not healthy as we
should be. and that the things of God we
might think take the preeminence in our lives, but again if we're
very searching in our own hearts and we come to find that they're
not perhaps so in the right place that they
should be, taking the priority, we find that we so easily make
excuses. So easily we make excuses and
therefore involve ourselves in things that do not profit. Neither said they, where is the
Lord that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, that led us
through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and pits, through
a land of drought and the shadow of death, through a land that
no man passed through and where no man dwelt. You see, God was
amazingly good. You think of the desert that
they came through. There was nothing there. People didn't live there. It
was impossible to produce a living in that wilderness. And God led
them through that to demonstrate his great power and to demonstrate
his great love for his people. And we could produce a similar
situation to us today. Because although we live in a
country where there's many things to enjoy, to the Church of God,
the reality is, it is still a wilderness. It was to Israel, it was to Jacob,
and it is to the people of God. And if we don't consider this
world as a wilderness, then we need to look into our hearts
and see why it is not. Because the truth is that we're
not continuing here, as the Apostle said, for here we have no continuing
city, but we seek one to come. And if that is true, and if we
are really strangers and pilgrims on the earth, should it not be
so appropriate that we do not come under this condemnation,
that we walk after things that do not profit, and then also
have changed their glory for that which doth not profit. We might perhaps think, well,
what actually does it mean to exchange our glory? Well, we're
thankful that the Word of God tells us in the 106th Psalm, psalmist tells us the situation. He's speaking about Israel and
we're told and especially those who did evil things and they
envied Moses also in the camp and Aaron the saints of the Lord
and the earth opened and swallowed up Dathan and covered the company
of Abiram and a fire was kindled in their company the flame burned
up the wicked and They made a calf in Horeb and worshipped the molten
image. And then the Lord says, thus,
they changed their glory. You see, the Lord does grant
his glory in the lives of his people to show forth his praise. There they were, a blessed people,
and we're told they changed their glory into the similitude of
an ox that eateth grass. They forget God their Saviour,
which had done great things in Egypt. Let's be careful we don't
walk in a similar way. And we're not found forgetting
our God. You may say, well of course I
don't forget God. Well we may not forget God perhaps in some
part of the day. But are there other things? And
in our minds, how evil are our minds? How often they transgress
the truth of God. And things flow into our minds,
unlooked for perhaps, and yet do we thrust them away immediately? Or do we indulge our thoughts? You see, we are therefore involved
in things that Do not profit. And the opposite is, they take
us away from the things of God. Well, here is Jeremiah telling
us, he said, I brought you into a plentiful country to eat the
fruit thereof and the goodness thereof. When you entered, you
defiled my land and made my heritage an abomination. It's a very sad
position, isn't it? And let us not think, well, That's
not me, because if the Lord has blessed us and favoured us, so
that we walk before him in the light of his countenance, and
then the devil comes along and turns us aside to things which
do not profit. And very quickly we become lukewarm. And very quickly the Bible doesn't
become the most important thing to us. Very quickly prayer does
not become what it should be and very quickly we find ourselves
attracted to things that do not profit. God is very gracious
to give us his word which directs us to such conditions so that
we are alerted in our own heart, our own souls, to be concerned
that we don't fall into the same snare that Israel did. The devil doesn't change. The
devil is most keen always at our shoulder to try and turn
us away into those things that do not profit. And we need to
pray for continual grace to discern whether we are following things
that do not profit. Sometimes we might ponder for
a moment and think, well, I don't think I'm as healthy as I should
be in my soul. And yet we don't seem to really
take it to heart. We just carry on and are content
to be in that condition rather than seeking earnestly to our
God that he will be gracious to us and that he would indeed
bless us. Isaiah, in his day, he of course
prophesied against Israel. He spoke to them very clearly
and he tells us, and the destruction of the transgressors and of the
sinners shall be together And they that forsake the Lord shall
be consumed, for they shall be ashamed of the oaks which you
have desired, and you shall be confounded for the gardens that
you have chosen. You see, so easy isn't it to
be taken up with things which might be quite lawful, quite
good in their own, but to have desired and you shall be confounded
for the gardens that you have chosen. Gardens are right and
good, but we must not fall down and we must not bow down to them.
We must not worship them as idols. And if they detract from our
position, detract from our ability to take time to worship the Lord,
we see how dangerous the ground is on which we find ourselves. And therefore, there are many
other things, aren't there? Just one odd example in the Word
of God. But there are many examples in
our lives today. Many things perhaps which are
not mentioned physically in the Word of God because they didn't
exist. Cars and bicycles and motorbikes didn't exist today
in those days. And we can get very involved
and very taken up with such things. Well, do they profit? No, they
won't really. They're very necessary. They're
very useful. But let them not distract us from the things of
God. And let us not therefore be found
changing our glory for that which doth not profit. Because the
lives of God's people are there to show forth his glory. His glory in salvation. His glory
in producing a change in our lives. So that we are a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold,
all things are become new. So what a blessing, therefore,
to have a word of God like this to speak to us, to direct us,
and to remind us how we should be so careful in our life. Moses was very aware of this
position, which was Potentially going to arise and come upon
Israel and Deuteronomy is a very wonderful a book that tells us
very clearly in so many ways the warnings which Moses gave
to Israel and in one of the early chapters in the fourth chapter
He tells us for what nation is there so great? Who hath God
so nigh unto them and as the Lord our God is in all things
that we call upon him for. And what nation is there so great
that has statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law
which I set before you this day? Only, only take heed to thyself
and keep thy soul diligently. lest thou forget the things which
thine eyes have seen, and lest thou depart from thy heart all
the days of thy life, but teach them thy sons and thy sons' sons.'
And he goes on to say, especially the day that thou stoodest before
the Lord thy God in Horeb, When the Lord said unto me, gather
me the people together, and I will make them hear my words, that
they may learn to fear me all the days, that they shall live
upon the earth, and that they may teach their children. Well, Moses was, you can read,
carry on in Deuteronomy, those early chapters, so concerned
that Israel would not depart from the Lord. And yet they did. And yet many times God was very
merciful and gracious to them. And he heard their crying. He
heard their prayer. And it's wonderful to think of
the verses that we read of in the 107th Psalm, where the psalmist
tells us, he says, They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary
way. They found their city to dwell
in, hungry and thirsty. Their soul fainted in them. Then
they cried unto the Lord in their trouble. And he delivered them
out of their distresses. And he brought them forth by
the right way." And he goes on to say, such as sit in darkness
and in the shadow of death, being bound in affliction and iron,
because they rebelled. against the words of God, and
contemned the counsel of the Most High. Therefore He brought
down their heart with labour. They fell down, and there was
none to help." And what happened then? Then they cried unto the
Lord in their trouble, and He saved them out of their distresses. That was God's favour to Israel.
We worship the same God today. who is the same yesterday, today
and forever, that one who hears the cry of his people. And so
if we find ourselves and recognise there's a blessing when the Holy
Spirit comes and convinces us of our situation, that perhaps
we have become like this, entering and doing things which do not
profit, and we find we're in a barren condition, And it's
good to examine ourselves to see whether we are. We don't
like to admit that we're not healthy in our soul. But it's
good when the Holy Spirit gives us grace to be honest with ourselves
and to be able to determine whether that is so or not. These words are very true and
walked after things that do not profit. Well, there are many
things that do not profit. But therefore, what are the things
that do profit? And oh bless God, there are things
that of course do profit and how thankful we should be for
that. One of the greatest blessings
and things which do profit is to be found desiring and to be
found walking with the Lord Jesus Christ. That's a healthy place. That's a spiritually beneficial
place. Because if we are walking near
to the Saviour, that means the Saviour is near to us. And when
the Saviour is near to us, we will hear his voice. Remember,
my sheep hear my voice. If we wandered off in the wilderness,
we won't be hearing the voice of the shepherd. and we'll be
just wandering away and perhaps going farther and farther. But
bless God even in that situation. Remember the Lord Jesus went
after the one sheep that had wandered off. Bless God today
we have the same Saviour who can come and can rescue us. The Lord knows where we are tonight.
I don't know. No idea. The Lord knows. We may have wandered off. What
a blessing if the Lord comes and rescues us and brings us
back. And you know in that wonderful
parable, the sheep wasn't strong enough to walk back. And the Lord carried that lost
sheep, carried it back to the fold. What a mercy to realise
we have such a saviour. Now, you see, that will be a
place of profit when we are found walking with a saviour. Those
two on Emmaus Road, they hadn't really absorbed the great truths
that the Lord had spoken to them, and yet they were speaking about
the things of God on their journey. things that had happened they
were pondering over. They weren't talking about all
the bounties of this poor world. Things were uppermost in their
mind and in their heart concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. Were they
left to carry on? No. The Lord Jesus drew near
and went with them. And surely that is another Blessed
evidence of profit is when the saints of God speak together
of those spiritual blessings, of those spiritual revelations. It's good to be able to say,
well, when I was reading the Bible this morning, this was
instructed to me, this was a blessing to me. to be able to speak one
to another of such truths, so that we are strengthened, so
that we are encouraged. And these things, to the Church
of God, are profitable. Don't listen to the devil who
will say, well, you mustn't speak that because you think you're
being proud. That's what the devil uses. But
he's wrong. And sometimes we fall under that
snare, and therefore we that we don't speak. Whereas if we
do speak, and perhaps the words that we might be able to speak
to one another might be a wonderful blessing, maybe something that
one of the brethren is concerned about. And the Lord in his wonderful
mercy has caused us to read a certain part in the Word of God which
perhaps the Lord has shone upon for our blessing and for others.
So this is something which does indeed profit. Again, we have Malachi, don't
we? Those that fear the Lord spoke often one to another. And we repeat that word, don't
we? And we're aware of it. But do we do it? Or do we occupy
ourselves with things that do not profit? Do we speak about
things that do not profit? We need to speak about things
that do profit. There are two reasons for that.
First of all, it's an encouragement to our souls, and secondly, it
brings honour and glory to our God. So there's every reason
to desire to have spiritual conversation. In years past, sometimes people
met up not to kind of have a feast or enjoy themselves in a natural
way, but to speak about spiritual things, to have some heavenly
conversation. It's a good thing, isn't it? Something that should be desired. And surely that is something
that profits, doesn't it? Again, it means an effort perhaps
to do that. It means an effort naturally
to take the time, and it means an effort naturally to overcome
our own lack of desire. It's so much easier to talk about
natural things, but when the Holy Spirit comes, as the Lord
came and spoke to those two on that Emmaus Road, wasn't it a
time of blessing? Jesus himself drew near. and went with them. What a mercy
when the Lord comes and draws near to us and goes with us. And what's the effect? The effect
is, like it was with those two, they were able to declare, did
not our heart burn within us when he spoke to us by the way? So the Lord comes and draws near
and confirms his favour to warn us As we speak together the things
of God, our heart is warmed. Our heart burns within us. There
aren't many times these days when that happens, but it's good
when it does. Because it lifts us above the poor things of this
vain world. So, then we also have, what is? Another thing, well, of course,
reading the Word of God. Reading the Word of God. Things
which profit. Reading the Word of God is profitable. And when I say that, it's not
just a question of going through the motions and saying, well,
I've read X amount today. It's reading the Word of God
prayerfully and seeking that God will bless his word to our
souls as we read it. It's a blessing to just read
one verse with spiritual understanding and to pause and to meditate
upon it. Sometimes of course the Lord
enables us to read perhaps many chapters which can also be a
blessing to us. But these are things which do
profit And these are things which we should be concerned about,
because as we read the Word of God, what do we do? We can trace
out our experience, our spiritual life, recorded in the Word of
God. And surely we want to know that
we are journeying in the right way, that we're not taking a
wrong turning, we're not wandering down the broad way. It may seem
a bit easy. We want to know we're in a narrow
way. My friends, as you and I read
the Bible, we'll find that God's saints, they walked in a narrow
way. We'll find that they didn't have
an easy life, but they had a blessed life because God was with them. God directed them. God instructed
them. And what did they do? They grew
in grace and in the knowledge of their Lord and Saviour, Jesus
Christ. And so we must conclude, must
we not, that reading the Word of God is one of those things
which does profit. And make time to read the Word
of God. It's easy to be sidetracked and
to read other things, or to do other things, and think, well,
I'll read the Bible in a few moments. And of course, those
moments sometimes disappear. And then we don't read the Bible,
and then we missed out. And therefore, we find ourselves
doing those things which do not profit. Our soul is not healthy. We're seeking after worldly things. My friends, bless God. for such
instruction in his word for us. And then of course the great
favour which is really a great benefit and a great profit is
prayer. Prayer. The word tells us, the
effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man evadeth much. And that is
true. And you and I should be very
concerned to be blessed with the effectual fervent prayer,
the fervent prayer for the blessing of God in our own souls, the
fervent prayer for the blessing of God in other people's souls,
those that we know, those that we love, to seek that they may
be blessed indeed. There's much cause for prayer,
prayer for our nation, and prayer for the prosperity of the Gospel,
and prayer that the Lord will arise and do great things. The Lord has said, I will be
inquired of by the house of Israel to do these things for them.
And we perhaps expect things to happen without any prayer.
We have cause to pray, don't we, for many things as a church
and people, to pray for God's blessing upon the things we're
able to do through our distribution fund and to not forget them.
every day to pray for them, every day, perhaps several times in
a day, and to pray for one another, to bear each other before the
Lord for the prosperity of all of our souls, so that we may
be healthy in the things of God. And then we may, you know, the
result will be, we will love to meet among them. We'll love
to meet with the people of God. When we gather together for worship
or at other times, it will be our joy to meet with the people
of God. And then you see, the things
of the world will become strangely dim, because the things of God
are bright and glorious. And what do they do? The things
of God direct us to the Lord Jesus Christ. And my friends,
there's no greater blessing than being found feeding upon Christ. And the Lord Jesus said, except
ye eat the bread, eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son
of Man, there is no life in you. Let us be very clear about that.
We should be concerned to be spiritually feeding upon Christ
so that we can rejoice in what he has done and not find ourselves
walking after things that do not profit. So we've just run
through a few things that do profit. You know things that
do not profit. We've just gone through a few
things that do profit. And my friends, may we earnestly
pray that God will enable us all to be very concerned that
we may be found healthy in our souls. We're always concerned
about our bodies, but may we be more concerned about the health
of our souls. Because if we are healthy in
our soul, what it will do is produce spiritual blessing, we'll
enjoy the peace of God, we'll enjoy fellowship with the Lord
Jesus Christ, we'll enjoy fellowship one with another and above all
things the name of our God will be honoured and glorified. So may we be found seeking those
things which are above and be very careful about not walking
after things that do not profit. Amen.