Now let's turn to Jeremiah chapter
7. And I want to begin tonight in
verse 17 of this chapter. This is the continuation of Jeremiah's
temple message. Picture this now. Understand
what he's doing. Here's the prophet of God standing
at the entrance of the temple. The temple of Solomon. And as
people are coming into that gate, that temple gate, Jeremiah is
standing there. and telling them the truth. And it's a truth that by nature
man does not want to hear. It's the solemn truth that God
brings to our hearts and our minds concerning our sinfulness,
our depravity, Our impotence, we're powerless to save ourselves. Our hypocrisy, it's man by nature. That's what Jeremiah is describing
here. And in this section here, it's an expose. He's going to
expose several things here. I've entitled this message, An
Expose of False Religion. False religion in the city of
Jerusalem. False religion among the people
of Judah. How blessed were the people of
Judah down through the ages? Remember when Jacob spoke to
his son Judah from his deathbed, he said, the scepter shall not
depart from Judah until Shiloh come. What a blessing that is.
The king of kings, according to the flesh, would come through
that tribe. How blessed was the nation Judah
that God kept them together amidst all of the destruction and the
desolation that took place in the northern kingdom because
of their sin and idolatry. They were blessed too, but Judah
was blessed even more in a temporal way because God kept them together
and even in their captivity He does that because Christ must
come, the Savior must come and He comes through this tribe.
So how blessed they were and yet they were immersed in false
religion. false religion. The first thing
that Jeremiah exposes in this section is their idolatry. Here's
the expose of idolatry. It reminds me, as I went through
this, it reminded me of what the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans
chapter 3, when he comes to that awful conclusion, which is a
true conclusion, concerning the sinfulness and depravity of man
by nature. Remember in verse 9 of Romans
chapter 3, he made this statement that the Scripture, which is
God's Word, that's what Jeremiah is preaching, the Scripture hath
concluded all under sin. All have missed the mark. He
says later on in verse 23, it's recorded, all have sinned and
come short of the glory of God. All under sin. Jew and Gentile
under sin. Deserving of God's wrath. Earning
nothing but God's disfavor and wrath. And he says there, in
that passage of Romans 3 and verse 11, he says there's none
that seeketh after God. And I remember Brother Mayhem
making this statement one time. He said, now he didn't say there's
none seeketh after a God. Because man by nature is religious. Here's a religious people that
Jeremiah is speaking to. They're coming into the temple
to worship, to worship. They put their trust not in the
God of the temple, not in the Lord Jesus Christ, the promised
Messiah, but they put their trust and their faith in the temple
itself, in the sacrifices themselves. And that's idolatry. That's just
as much idolatry as what they were doing in other places when
they bowed the knee to Baal or when they offered their children
early on to Molech. And we'll see that too. It's
here. The Jeremiah exposes idolatry and he tells them that though
you're coming to this place, this temple, which God ordained,
and God enabled them to build, through King Solomon, this temple
which housed the Ark of the Covenant, all which was a picture of Christ
and the redemptive work of Christ, our mercy seat. who kept the
law and who satisfied justice on our behalf. All this temple,
even though they were coming to that temple, they were not
seeking God. They were seeking their own way
and their own religion. Look at verse 17. He says, Seest
thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets
of Jerusalem? Notice what's going on here.
The children gather wood, the fathers kindle the fire, And
the women knead their dough to make cakes to the queen of heaven,
and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods that they may
provoke me to anger." That's idolatry. Now this is what's
going on in Judah and Jerusalem while at the same time they would
come into the temple to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob. And he says in verse 19, do they provoke me to anger,
saith the Lord? Do they not provoke themselves
to the confusion of their own faces? What he's saying here
is they think, listen, they're hurting themselves more than
anything else. Because you see, this is death. They're praying,
listen, idolatry is death. Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance
is idolatry, and idolatry is death. They're praying to a God
or gods that cannot save. Through the prophet Isaiah, a
hundred years before this, God said, look unto me and be ye
saved, all the ends of the earth. For I'm God, there's none else.
He said, who has declared this from ancient time? Who hath told
this? Have not I, a just God and a Savior? We have to understand
that what Jeremiah is doing here is a call to repentance. Look
at verse 20. He says, Therefore, thus saith
the Lord God, Behold, mine anger and my fury shall be poured out
upon this place. God's wrath upon man and upon
beast and upon the trees of the field and upon the fruit of the
ground and it shall burn and shall not be quenched. Every
temporal blessing that God gave them out of his goodness will
be destroyed. That's what he's saying. This
land will be utterly desolate. So what's he doing? He's calling
religious people to repentance. Now we could understand a preacher
going down to the local bar or the local brothel or to the bad
part of town and calling people to repentance. That's natural.
We all understand that by nature. But going to the biggest church
in town? going to the center of religion
and calling them to repentance? Well, Christ said the same thing.
He said, except you repent, you shall likewise perish. He's calling
them to repentance. And we have to understand that
this true repentance, which is the gift of God, is repentance
of sin in light of Christ, God's grace and God's mercy. The Apostle
Paul stood on Mars Hill. And he preached that great message
about the creator God. That's how he began. He called
him the unknown God because they didn't know God. To know, to
listen, to be ignorant of God is to be in idolatry. That's
what it is. And he said, let me preach to
you the unknown God. And he began with the God of
creation and he brought it all the way down to the God of salvation,
the God who saves by grace. And he talked about a time of
ignorance for the Gentiles because that word was not revealed to
them in so many years under this old covenant time. And he said
God looked over that time of ignorance, meaning this. What
he meant by that was this. God didn't immediately destroy
them. God was long-suffering. Paul
mentioned that in Romans 9. But he says now through the preaching
of the gospel and the coming of Christ that God has commanded
all men everywhere to repent. All men everywhere, not just
the dregs of society, but the most respected, well thought
of religious people who do not know Christ. You need to repent. And he says,
because he's appointed a day in which he will judge the world
in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained and that
he hath given assurance unto all men. and that he had raised
him from the dead. In other words, that repentance
has to come in light of Christ. Repentance is of all sin. It's repentance not just from
this sin or that sin or any specific sin. One old preacher said that
man must repent of not only what he does but who he is, a sin
nature. what we are by nature. And then
we have to repent of sins. What comes forth from that sin
nature? The actions and the activity
of sin. And then we have to repent of
our own righteousness. Man thinks so highly of himself.
And we'll see more of that in the next chapter, but it's here
too. That's what they were doing. They were coming to worship God
thinking God would accept them because of their worship. But
this repentance must be of all sin, even religious sin, self-righteousness,
idolatry. Hebrews chapter 9 and verse 13
makes this statement. For if the blood of bulls and
of goats and the ashes of an heifer, sprinkling the unclean,
sanctified to the purifying of the flesh, that's the old covenant
sacrifices that set them apart temporally and ceremonially.
It says in verse 14, how much more shall the blood of Christ,
who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot
to God, listen to this, here's the repentance, purge your conscience
from dead works to serve the living God. Dead works and idolatry. That's what it is. What soothes
your conscience? What soothes the guilty conscience,
the disturbed conscience? Well, is it religion? Is it your
works? Is it your baptism? Is it your
attendance? What is it? Is it how men and
women think of you? How they highly esteem you? Well,
you see, if it is, then you're... Is it the blood of bulls and
goats? The blood of bulls and goats can never take away sin,
the scripture says. What soothes, what cleanses,
what eases, settles your conscience? And my friend, if it's anything
but Christ and Him crucified, if it's anything but His blood
alone and His righteousness alone, it's dead works that need to
be repented of. What was soothing their conscience?
Well, he mentioned it back over there in verse 4 of chapter 7.
Listen to what he says. Trust you not in lying words
saying the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. the temple
of the Lord. That's what soothed their conscience.
Not Christ. Not the sovereign grace and mercy
of Almighty God. Not the blood of the Lamb. Not
His righteousness imputed. No, it was the temple. We've
got the temple. How proud. That's idolatry. And it takes an expose to tell
us that. We don't know that by nature,
do we? You see, that's where we're brought to in repentance,
just like Saul of Tarsus. All the things that soothed his
conscience. He was a Hebrew of Hebrews, a
Pharisee of Pharisees, circumcised the eighth day of the tribe of
Benjamin, touching the law of Pharisee and blameless. But he
said, when I saw the glory of God in Christ, then all that
became what? Dumb, that I may win Him and
know Him. in writing to the Thessalonian
believers. He says that others who saw their
testimony of Christ show of us what manner of entering in we
had unto you, he says. In other words, how the apostles,
how the preachers and evangelists came to them, what message they
preached. And he says how you turned from
idols to serve the living and true God. That's what Judah must
do. Now we know that man will not
repent on his own. Man by nature, so hard-hearted,
that's what we are by nature, so hard-hearted, so dead-hearted,
we will not repent. We will not even be affected
except in an angry way. That's why they got angry at
Jeremiah. Man loves darkness and hates light. But when God
the Holy Spirit turns that light on within our hearts and our
conscience, the circumcised heart, the broken heart, the contrite
heart, then we're brought to repentance. But there has to
be an expose first. I've got to be exposed for what
I am by nature. I've got everything that I trust
in that is in any way A rival or a replacement of Christ has
to be exposed for what it is. And that's what Jeremiah is doing.
Here's the second thing. Look at verse 21 now. The second
thing that Jeremiah exposes here is the sinfulness and emptiness
of their religion. Paul wrote in Romans 3 and verse
12. He said, There's none that doeth
good, no, not one. Man by nature thinks, well, I'm
not perfect, but if I do enough good, that'll be OK. That'll
make up for what I did wrong. There are even people who, you
know, I think sometimes we joke about this, but there are people
who really believe that when you get to judgment, God's going
to have a scale there, and he's going to weigh your good works
against your bad works. And whichever one comes out weighing
the most, if it's the good works, you'll go to heaven. If it's
the bad works, you'll go to hell. That's what we think by nature. That's kind of like a caricature
of how men think, but in some way, some way now. Again, if
you're trusting anything but Christ and Him crucified and
risen, His blood and righteousness alone, it's sin in God's sight. That's another thing. Sin has
to be measured as it relates to Christ. The Holy Spirit convicts
God's people of sin, because why, the Lord said, because they
believe not on me. And that's not just talking about
the sin of unbelief, that's included now. And unbelief is the mother
of all sins, that's true. But here's what he's saying,
is that the Holy Spirit will bring us to a conviction that
without Christ, if I don't have Christ, I'm nothing but sin in
the sight of God, and anything that proceeds from me is sinful.
Even my religion. There's none good. No, not one. You know, David, look back over
at Psalm 51 that I read. And here's what Jeremiah tells
him in this expose. And they're sacrificing. Now,
where did they get the idea to sacrifice? Where did that come
from? To exactly where it comes from. It comes from God. Who
made the first sacrifice? God did. Genesis 3, 24. He slew
an animal, made coats of skin. And right after that, what do
you see? You see Abel bringing the sacrifice. And Jeremiah,
basically, he's going to tell them this. He's going to say,
God is not accepting your sacrifices. God won't have them. Doesn't
want them. They're a stench in his nostrils.
What's the problem? Well, here's David in Psalm 51.
And he says in verse 16, listen to this. He says, He says, For
thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it. Thou delightest
not in burnt offering. And then he says, The sacrifices
of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O God,
wilt thou not despise? You see that? Do good in thy
good pleasure and design. Build thou the walls of Jerusalem.
Now listen to verse 19. Then shalt thou be pleased with
the sacrifices of righteousness. And then he says burnt offering,
whole burnt offering. And then shall they offer bollocks
upon thine altar. What's the problem? Now, go back
to Jeremiah 7. What's the problem here? Well,
look at verse 21. He says, Thus saith the Lord
of hosts, the God of Israel, Put your burnt offerings unto
your sacrifices, and eat flesh. And you know what he's saying?
He's simply saying this. He's not accepting their offerings,
their burnt sacrifices. He says, you might as well sit
down and eat them for dinner. That's how much good they're
doing. You may as well eat them. Because they're not doing any
good at all as far as acceptance before God. At least you'll have
a good meal. At least your belly will be full.
But as far as acceptance before God, as far as worship, As far
as anything that's pleasing to God, they are absolutely no count. No good. Well, what's the problem? Well, look at verse 22. He says,
I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day
that I brought them out of the land of Egypt concerning burnt
offering or sacrifices. Now that sounds like that God's
saying, well, I didn't even talk to him about sacrifices. That's
not what this is saying. It may be in the translation
a little bit, but what he's saying is that it wasn't the sacrifice
itself that was at the forefront of what a sinner needed as far
as acceptance with God. Now, the sacrifice, what does
the sacrifice represent? It represents Christ. Not the
sacrifice itself, you see. Not the blood of bulls and goats.
They can never take away sin. That earthly high priest brought
in a physical lamb and it could never take away the guilt. What
was it all about? It was not about the animal,
the sacrifice, the ceremony, the religious exercise. That's
what he's saying. It's about Christ. And when you
lose sight of that, when you lose sight of Him, and then it's
about the heart. Look in verse 23. He says, But
this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I
will be your God, and you shall be my people, and walk ye in
all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto
you. Now God did speak of sacrifice
from the beginning, but not this kind of sacrifice. It was a sacrifice
of worship. It was not the sacrifice of hypocrites. You see, David said, then shall
we offer the sacrifices of righteousness. These weren't sacrifices of righteousness. These were sacrifices of self-righteousness. They didn't portray and picture
and testify of the grace of God in the salvation of sinners based
on the blood, the righteousness of the promised Lamb of God.
It didn't picture God's mercy undeserved, unearned mercy. They looked at these things as
their holiness and their righteousness, you see. They wanted something
other than what God was willing to give through His Son. Look
at verse 10 of chapter 7. He says, you come and you stand
before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say,
we are delivered to do all these abominations. In other words,
it's kind of like the modern Catholic confessional type thing. It has the kind of attitude,
well, I can do all these things as long as I go to confession,
or as long as I go to church, or as long as I bring a sacrifice. It's OK. This will cover it. This lesson of sacrifices was
taught early on by God as a picture of God's mercy and grace in the
salvation of sinners through the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's
not what these folks were doing here. And when he says, you require
obedience and not sacrifice, you know, what he's simply saying
there is, look, if you have that attitude, that the sacrifice
will cover all my sin no matter what I do and plunge headlong
into, it's no good. It's no good at all. That kind
of attitude is an abomination to God. God taught that early
on in Israel's history. You remember King Saul? That
was in his life twice. It's recorded back over in 1
Samuel 13, but turn to 1 Samuel 15. Look at this. Saul disobeyed God, and God took
the kingdom away from him. That was a conditional covenant.
First time, Saul, what did he do? He acted the part of a priest. You know, Saul was from the tribe
of Benjamin. He wasn't from the tribe of Levi. He couldn't be
a priest. But he took upon himself the authority and the office
of a priest when he didn't wait for Samuel to come and he offered
sacrifices to God before they went into battle. He disobeyed
God. The second time here in 1 Samuel
15 is when Saul failed to do what God commanded him. in destroying
the Amalekites and destroying all their possessions and not
taking anything for himself or for the people. And the reason
that was God's judgment on the Amalekites for what they did
to the children of Israel when they first came out of Egypt. The Amalekites were the first
wicked, idolatrous nation that attacked the people of God in
Exodus. And God said, I'll judge you.
And then he waited a while. His judgment wasn't immediate,
but he commanded Saul to take the army down there and wipe
them out. Saul didn't do it. And listen to Saul's reasoning
here. Look at 1 Samuel 15 and verse
20. He says, Samuel came and said,
Now you've done evil on the side of the Lord. And Saul said unto
Samuel, Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and have gone
the way which the Lord sent me, and have brought Agag the king
of Amalek, And have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. In other words,
he captured the king. Well, he was supposed to kill
him. That was God's judgment. He says, but the people took
of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief of the things which
should have been utterly destroyed. Now, why did they take them,
Saul said? Look at it. To sacrifice unto
the Lord thy God in Gilgad. Well, that sounds good, doesn't
it? Well, they were just bringing
these things back to sacrifice. No, God didn't say bring them
back to sacrifice. God said destroy them. Verse
22, Samuel said, He hath the Lord as great delight in burnt
offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord.
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice and to hearken than
the fat of the rams, for rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.
and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry because thou hast
rejected the word of the Lord he hath also rejected thee from
being king now the same thing basically is going on in Jeremiah's
day at the temple no obedience to God just religion and that's
why this is an expose of false religion you know obedience to
God always began with the sacrifice but the sacrifice was never intended
to replace disobedience with disobedience and it's just like
when when we come to Christ by faith we must have a proper sacrifice
we must come to God with the blood of Christ but if we come
thinking that his blood replaces our obedience as the fruit of
God's grace, then we're no better off than those that Paul anticipated
in Romans 6. Shall we sin that grace may abound?
You see, that kind of thinking reveals no love for Christ. When
God took the people out of Egypt, it wasn't only that they could
give God sacrifices, it's so they could follow Him in obedience
and worship and service, which included sacrifices, but not
this kind. Not hypocrisy. Not empty vain
sacrifices aimed at hiding sin and justifying and excusing it.
They were using religious ceremony as a cloak for sin, as an occasion
to the flesh. Well, my friend, let me tell
you something. We must have Christ for salvation. His sacrifice. His blood alone washes away all
our sins. His righteousness alone justifies
us. But any who claim to rest in
Him and believe in Him, but who use that truth of grace to hide
or excuse their sin are no better off than these right here. Religious
hypocrites. Look back at Jeremiah 7. Look
at verse 24. Here Jeremiah exposes the essence
of all sin and depravity. Here is the essence of all sin
and depravity. It's like Paul said in Romans
3.12, they're all gone out of the way, they're all together
become unprofitable. Why? It's because of unbelief. Look at it. But they hearkened
not. They hearkened, they wouldn't
hear. Nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and
the imagination of their evil heart and went backward and not
forward. As they're entering the temple,
thinking they're approaching God, Jeremiah says, you're going
backward, you're getting farther away from God. In verse 25 he
says, he says, since the day that your fathers came forth
out of the land of Egypt, unto this day I have even sent unto
you all my servants, the prophets, daily rising up early and sending
them, yet they hearken none. They would not hear. They would
not believe God. They hearkened not unto me, nor
inclined there, but hardened their neck. They wouldn't bow.
They did worse than their fathers. Verse 27, Therefore thou shalt
speak all these words unto them, but they will not hearken to
thee. Thou shalt also call unto them, but they will not answer
thee. Why do you suppose God sent Jeremiah to preach to them
when God himself knew they wouldn't hear? Well, it's an expose. It's showing us and them what
man is by nature. He says in verse 28, But thou
shalt say unto them, This is a nation that obeyeth not the
voice of the Lord their God, nor receiveth correction. Truth
is perished and is cut off from their mouth. There's no truth.
There's no truth. You see, salvation is in Christ
who is the truth. It's the truth that sets sinners
free. It's by His power and His goodness
and His mercy. Look at verse 29. He says, Cut
off thine hair, O Jerusalem, and cast it away, and take up
a lamentation on high places. The cutting off of the hair,
the shaving of the head was indicative of a lamentation, a sorrow. He's saying you ought to be sorrowing
over this. For the Lord hath rejected and
forsaken the generation of His wrath. Verse 30. For the children of Judah have
done evil in my sight, saith the Lord. They've set their abominations
in the house which is called by my name to pollute it. Bringing
these vain, empty, religious sacrifices. It's unbelief. Verse 31. They have built the
high places of Tophet which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom.
To burn their sons and their daughters in the fire which I
commanded them not, neither came it into my heart. Their religion
was not from the heart of God. That's what he's saying. Their
religion was from their own evil heart. And that verse shows us
how far down into sin man can go if God removes his restraints. You know what he's talking about
there, don't you? Burning their sons and their daughters in the
fire. Somebody said that they were even doing that up until
the time of King Josiah when he made his reforms. But we know
under King Manasseh, who was Josiah's what? Grandfather or
great-grandfather? I think grandfather. Or great-grandfather,
doesn't matter, but it's just before Josiah, that there was
a place called Topheth. And it was just south of Jerusalem,
right outside the city there. And it's where they set up a
statue of the god Molech and offered their children as sacrifices,
burning them with fire. And God said, I didn't command
you to do that. That's not my heart. That's the
evil heart of unbelief. And so look at verse 32. Here's
the last thing. Jeremiah exposes them as under
the wrath of God. Paul said, there's none righteous,
no, not one. He said that all every mouth
may be stopped and all the world may be guilty before God. This Tophet, look at verse 32.
Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that it shall
no more be called Tophet, nor the Valley of the Son of Hinnom,
but the Valley of Slaughter. As I said, that was southeast
of Jerusalem in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom. It's the place
that came to be called Gehenna. It was where they worshiped Molech,
burnt their children. And King Josiah, in his reforms,
he turned it into a garbage dump where the fires were kept burning
to burn trash, animal carcasses, and even dead bodies. And it
was a vivid picture of hell. In fact, Gehenna was the word
that the Lord used in his preaching for hell. He knew that they would know
what he was talking about. And he says this place here,
he's going to turn Jerusalem and Judah into the valley of
slaughter. Look at verse 33, and the carcasses
of this people shall be meat for the fowls of heaven, meat
for the buzzards, and for the beast of the earth, and none
shall fray them away. Nobody's going to come out and
scare them away. There's not going to be anybody left. Verse
34, Then will thy calls to cease from the cities of Judah and
from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth, there be
no happiness, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom. That's a time of joy. That's
what he's talking about. There'll be no times of joy,
no times of celebration. And the voice of the bride for
the land shall be desolate. You see, this expose of false
religion shows this. that any religion no matter how
outwardly noble or moral or sincere or dedicated it appears any religion
without Christ any religion without heart without truth without grace
leaves nothing but death and desolation that's it That's what
he's exposing here. In other words, it's like John
said in John 3, he said, He that believeth not, the wrath of God
abides on him. There's no hope. I don't care
how noble and religious or new and improved a person becomes,
there's no hope of eternal life. There's no hope of forgiveness.
There's no hope of glory. without Christ that's the whole
point and that's what this exposes and you think about this don't
you thank God the day that he exposed us for what we are but
in the same way he revealed Christ to us and in us by the power
of the Spirit