Jeremiah chapter 5. The title of this message is the last statement of the
last verse in Jeremiah 5. And what will you do in the end
thereof? I guess in one sense I've wasted a number of hours this week preparing a message that I will
not preach to you today. I had gone so far as to even
print the notes and make the labels for the CDs
and tapes. But on Friday, and since that hour, the Lord
has laid on my heart some thoughts and some words that I hope are
from Him. Because on Friday I attended
a funeral. Funerals are often revealing
times. And it was the funeral of my
uncle whom I loved very much. He was a very kind and a very
gentle and very generous-spirited man. And I can only hope that he had
an interest in the Lord Jesus Christ. I remember on the occasion of
my aunt's funeral, speaking with him and with his pastor, and
his pastor told me that he preached the sovereign grace of God. I've heard since that time that
he has come down with a mind-disabling disease. And now, of course,
my own uncle has passed. But it came to my mind on that
occasion just how thankful that I am for some things. First of all, I'm thankful that
if I lose my strength in my old age, God abides forever my strength. He is the Almighty One And as
I said last week, He does not change. And then also, I thought this,
if I lose my faculties and my words in that hour betray
the depravity of my flesh, He remains not only the righteous
God, but also the Lord my righteousness. It did not depend on what I said
when I had my mind, and it will not depend in that hour if I
lose my mind. He will still be the Lord, the
everlasting righteousness. And then I thought of this, and
I'm thankful of this, Even if my family, if they may represent
in my death just the opposite of what I was, even if they should
bury me among the trappings of a false religion, it will not
change what God, by His grace, has made me in His Son, Jesus
Christ. It absolutely, no matter what
they do with me, if they lay my body in the grave in such
a fashion, I will have already arrived in the presence of Him
who loved me and gave Himself for me. And no matter what is
done, and no matter what is said, and no matter what is not said,
it won't matter where they put me or what they do with me. It will not change my hope and
the ground of my acceptance in the Lord Jesus Christ. And it will not diminish either,
because I'll rest then, even as I do now, in the unchanging,
God-satisfying, justifying work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And for those things I thank
Him and I praise Him and I trust Him. But as I said, a funeral
or a gathering of men and women where somebody has died, it reveals
much more about those who are physically living than it ever
does about the one who has died. And all the remainder of that
day, And even up to this very hour, a verse of God's Word has
been on my mind, and it is that thirty-first verse. I didn't
know exactly where it was. It just kept coming back to my
mind, and finally, yesterday morning, I had to go look and
see where it was and what it was, and this is just what he
says. The prophets prophesy falsely,
and the priests bear rule by their means, and my people love
to have it so, and what will you do in the end thereof? It seems like that if there is
ever a time that my heart weighs the heaviest and it grieves me
the most, it's to stand at the graveside of someone who has
died, and hear what is said on the most part by those who speak
to the family and friends therein, and what it is said. You see, I stood there in that
crowd, and my heart was heavy and grieving And it was not simply
because of this man's death, but more because of what was
being said and how it was received. He says here just exactly how
the situation most often is. The prophets prophesy falsely. and the priests be ruled by their
means, and my people love to have it so." And I stood there thinking, and
this is often, often the case, that here are all of these, those
who speak and have something to say, and most of those who
hear and they speak falsely, but yet everybody delights to
hear what is said. He said the prophets prophesy
falsely, and the people love to have it so. And what he says here is not
only true on such occasions as was Friday, but in every situation
for the most part in this world, whether it be funeral or preaching
or conversation or whatever it is, men speak lies and people
delight to hear those lies. And this is the conclusion of
God. This is not my opinion on the
state of affairs, but this is the conclusion of God, not only
here, but everywhere in this book, and not only in Jeremiah's
day, but every day and age since Adam fell. And this is the state
that the God of truth The all-knowing God says that men and women are
in this very hour. Are there any preachers prophesying
falsely now? Absolutely. Are there any who
proclaim salvation by man's works and worth Absolutely, just go
to a funeral and listen. Are there any who exalt man and
dishonor God? Absolutely. Are there any others
who think and who do and who say what comes to their natural
minds and abandon what God says in His Word? Everywhere. And my thought, another verse
that came to my mind on that occasion were these words of
Scripture, He that glorieth. Let him glory in the Lord. Let him speak the praises of
God. But if you don't know God, if
you have no understanding of the Word of God, If you think
everything that is done is for man, then you have nothing and
no reason to praise and glorify God for. Are there any preachers
in our day who preach such as God speaks of here in Jeremiah
6? Look over in Jeremiah 6 and verse
10. He says, "'To whom shall I speak
and give warning, that they may hear? Behold, their ear is uncircumcised,
and they cannot hear, they cannot hearken, they are spiritually
deaf. Behold, the word of the Lord
is unto them a reproach, They don't delight in it. They have
no delight in it. It's a reproach unto them. Therefore,
I am full of the fury of the Lord. I am weary with holding
in. I will pour it out upon the children
abroad and upon the assembly of young men together. For even
the husband with the wife shall be taken, and the age with him
that is full of days. and their houses shall be turned
unto others, with their fields and wives together. For I'll
stretch out my hand upon the inhabitants of the land, saith
the Lord. For from the least of them even
unto the greatest of them, every one is given to covetousness,
and from the prophet even unto the priest, every one deals falsely." A man cannot say what God says
that he is. He cannot say what he says that
men are. He cannot tell this matter of
the gospel to men, and they will not tell it or receive it unto
themselves. He says this, they have healed
also the daughter of my people slightly. They're like they deal with people
who have cancer by prescribing them an aspirin, or by prescribing
them a Band-Aid, a man or a woman who needs surgery. And this is
the desperate state of men and women as sinners in this world,
and they offer a balm that is no healing. What do they do? He says, they say, peace, peace,
when there is no peace. They say it in the gravesides. They say it in the hospital rooms. They say it in the pews. They say it in the land everywhere
they go. They have a message that offends
nobody. They preach peace, peace, when
there is no peace. They say peace with God is by
your decision. Or peace with God is made by
your works, what you do. Or peace with God is made if
you'll come down the aisle, or if you'll pray a so-called sinner's
prayer, or if you'll join the church, or if you'll let us dip
you in the baptismal waters or sprinkle you with water. They
offer peace, peace, when there is no peace in those things. I'll tell you what, men who preach
the gospel are most often labeled the hardest, the strictest, the
most unkind, the most uncaring, the most unlovable. But I'll
tell you this, the only person who demonstrates true love to
you or anybody else and their soul is that person who tells
you the truth. And that's all there is. If I had a problem, a sickness,
a bodily affliction, and it was severe, it was terminal, and
yet, by the grace of God, I'd receive some kind of a cure or
a remedy or a medicine, and I see that you have the same problem,
and I shut my mouth, and I say to you, everything's going to
be all right. But I don't tell you what your
real problem is. And I don't tell you what the
real remedy is, because I've experienced it in my own self,
and I know it to be true. How could it ever be said that
I loved you, that I preached in love? No, the Gospel has to do rather
in Jesus Christ, and it says that He made peace by the blood
of His cross. The only peace there is with
God is a God-wrought peace. It is that peace that He made
in Jesus Christ through the suffering of His death on the cross. And
to preach the gospel is to tell the truth about how God really
is. Isn't it a shame in this day?
When you begin to set forth the most elementary things that are
to be said and taught in this book about God, it comes to men
and women as shocking. They say, that's not our God. And they're absolutely right.
But it is the God of the Bible. It is the God who alone is the
Savior. It is the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob,
and beside Him there is no other. It is to tell the truth about
man, what he is as a sinner. What God says is our condition,
not what we think that it is or what some man says it is.
But what does God say we are? It's to tell the truth about
Christ. is to tell the truth about who
He actually is and to tell what it is that He came into this
world and accomplished in justly saving sinners through His death
and burial and resurrection, that being the one act of God
by which He declares the sinner saved. There isn't anything else. And we can be satisfied to hear
the lies of men and the praise of men and just die in our sins,
but if we have any interest in our souls, if we have any sight
whatsoever of what our true condition is, we have to be pointed to
the only one who is the pure, the Lord Jesus Christ. It's to preach who died on that
cross. It's to preach what He actually
accomplished in His dying on that cross. It's to preach where
He is now. It's to speak of Him and Him
alone. And that's not happening in many
places today. We'll get a good moral lesson
on how to live. We'll get a lesson on how to
find contentment in our personal life or something like that.
But how is it that God, who is infinitely holy, how is it that
He could ever look upon us and favor us and bless us who are
nothing but sinners in ourselves? And the gospel has to do with
how He in Jesus Christ has done that. Listen to what He says in Ezekiel
13. He says, because, even because
they have seduced my people saying peace, and there was no peace,
and one built up a wall and others daubed it with untempered mortar. What happens when you build a
brick wall? And you just use mortar that's not the proper
mortar. You use that which has not been
mixed properly. Oh, you lay up a really nice,
pretty wall that looks so solid and secure, but the first wind
or the first thing that comes against it, it falls. That's the way he says that a
false gospel is. Man can tell you what you want
to hear. We can be told things that really kind of tickle our
ears and please us in this flesh. And we can be like a man who
leaps out of an airplane with an empty parachute pack. We can
pull and depend on as sincerely as we want to that parachute,
but if there isn't one in it, we're going crashing to the earth. And you know, that's virtually
the picture Christ gives in Matthew 7. It's like He's saying that
there are those who have a trusted parachute into which they're
going to leap out into eternity and meet me. They're going to
say, and they're going to trust in the fact that they've preached
in His name, that they have cast out demons in His name, that
they have done many wonderful works in His name, And they're
going to find out that that is emptiness and nothing but sin,
iniquity. He said, I'll say unto them in
that day, I never knew you. You think that will come as a
shock to some of these preachers? My wife opened a magazine and
she saw an ad, an ad to take you into a certain country, a
certain part of the western part of this state where you can go
visit where America's pastor lives. America's pastor. One who has
for all his days said, peace, peace, when there is no peace. I don't care how nice a guy acts. I don't care how eloquent his
words. I don't care how charismatic
he is. I don't care how many have received
what he says. If he stands up before men and
says to men that there are more ways to God other than Jesus
Christ and Him crucified, he is a false prophet. Period. Jeremiah 14, Then said I, O Lord
God, behold, the prophets say unto them, Ye shall not see the
sword, neither shall ye have famine, but I will give you assured
peace in this place. You won't see the sword. God's
not going to deal – He's a God of love. He's not going to deal
with you like that. Wait and see. If you want to
know how God deals with sin, look at it when it is made to
meet on the head of His Son, and He says to the sword of justice,
Awake, O sword, and smite the shepherd. Jeremiah 23. They say still unto
them that despise me." Oh, we love God. That's not what he
said. He said the natural mind, the
mind that you and I come forth from the womb with, the mind
apart from a gracious work of God's Spirit, the natural mind
is enmity against God. We don't love God by nature. They say still unto them that
despise me, the Lord hath said, Ye shall have peace. And they
say unto every one that walks after the imagination of his
own heart, No evil shall come unto ye. You go to heaven the
way you want to go, and I'll go to heaven the way I want to
go. You do what you want to do. You know, after all, truth is
not absolute at all. It's relative with whoever it
is. No. Christ said, I'm the way,
the truth, and the life. In lamentations, Jeremiah, who
is the weeping prophet, these are the lamentations of Jeremiah. Thy prophets have seen vain and
foolish things. I believe what I have to say
this day, the Lord has put on my heart. But I won't go so far
as to say, as some do, the Lord woke me up, the Lord spoke to
me out of heaven, the Lord did all these things to you, because
unless I speak according to what He says, it is a vain and foolish
thing for you to believe in, and they have not discovered
thine iniquity. You say, preacher, You remember
there was a man, a king, and God sent his prophet. He was
known for what he preached, but this man despised him. The prophet's name, I believe,
was Micaiah. And this man said, whenever Jehoshaphat,
another king, asked him, he said, isn't there somebody, doesn't
the Lord have a real prophet in this place? He said, there's
one, but I hate him. Why? Because he doesn't ever
have good things to say about me. He prophesied evil against
me. That's what people think by nature
of a gospel preacher. He doesn't have anything good
to say about me. Well, let me tell you this. You
may think that I never have anything good to say about you, but I'll
still give you a higher place than myself. But whatever I am
brought by God's Word to say about you, whatever it is that
I must say that God says about you, I could never tell you,
I could never assure you or explain to you just exactly how bad you
are in yourself before divine holiness. You see, if the Lord was to open
up the very curtains of our heart and enable us to see down into
that great abyss of depravity and rottenness and covetousness
and selfishness and self-righteousness. It would be such a horrible,
shocking sight that it would instantly destroy us. He said, they've not discovered
thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity, but have seen
for thee false burdens and causes of banishment. And all these
things carry on to this day, to this hour, in the pulpit,
by the graveside, wherever it is, it's the same thing. And
the great majority of people like to have it so. Sometimes I ride on the way to
service, and I pass by places that are called places of preaching
and worship, and their yards will be full of cars, people
crowding in to get there. Why do they delight where there
is no gospel? Because they are told what they
want to hear. People want those who will tell
them how good they are, how needed they are, how much God needs
them, how loved they are, how talented they are, what sacrifices
they've made, and on and on and on. But God says there's none good,
there's none righteous, There's none that seeketh after God,
no, not one. Romans 3, just read it. He says all sin and come short
of the glory of God. He says that man at his best
state is altogether vanity. Men imagine this, that they're
going to stand before God, and on one side of the scales of
divine judgment are going to be standing all the good things
that they've done, and on the other side all the bad things
that they've done, and they're believing that what they've done
that's good is going to outweigh that which they've done that's
bad, and God's going to accept them on that basis. But there's
just one problem. outside of Jesus Christ on that
scale in the place of that which is good and right and true, there
will be nothing. Because everything we do, even
that which we do that we think is good, is sin. Read Philippians 3 and see what
Paul says that he found out after that Christ came to him and showed
him what he was. He looked and he said, I was
a Pharisee, I was a Jew, I was a Hebrew of Hebrews, I was regarded
highly by my contemporaries, I sat as a student, at the feet
of the greatest teacher of my day, Gamaliel, I did all these
things, and as far as outwardly touching the law, I was blameless. But as I said, I found out that's
all done. That's all it is. It's all nothing but filth and
corruption. And I cast all of that aside. I pray that I might not be found
in that, but that I might be found in Jesus Christ, in that
righteousness which He gives through faith." He said, I was before a blasphemer. You read the Bulletin article
today. There's only one way that a sinner, especially a double-dyed
religious sinner, who's come in the portals of religion, embraced
it, been in it, taught by it, and all this, grew up in it,
has a resume in religion, you might say. There's only one way
that they're ever brought to cast that all aside, to repent
of it, and to trust in Jesus Christ and His blood alone, and
that's by the omnipotent grace of God. to confess everything before
Christ as nothing and less than nothing, nothing but sin. If you look back in this chapter,
it's filled with the truth of judgment and with the truth of
mercy. Turn back. I'll have to move
quickly through it. Look at verse 1 of chapter 5.
He said, Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and
see and know and seek in the broad places thereof. If you
can find a man, if there be any, that executeth judgment, that
seeketh the truth, and I will pardon it. Now, there are a few things that
have to be said about that. Number one is this, none among
us is to be found. None is among us. And not only
that, if we ever in the least sense can be found as described
by this, it has to be the grace of God. It has to be the Spirit's
work within us. But mostly, the fact is God. Now, this is nothing but judgment
all the way through this chapter. And yet, sown in the midst of
that judgment, Joe is grace. He said, look out there and see
if you can find a man that executes judgment and that seeks the truth. And I'll pardon. We'll never find that. And yet,
in truth, God has already given such a man, the man Christ Jesus,
who is the truth himself, the sinless one, the one separate
from sinners, Jesus Christ the righteous, the one who has already
executed judgment in himself for his people through his death
on the cross. He's that man. Look down at verse 2. And though
they say the Lord lives, surely they swear falsely. They say
we believe in the living God. That's a lie. That is a lie. Preachers and people say God
lives, but they do not really believe it. If they did, they
would not dare portray Him in a false way. They would not seek
to diminish His power and His will. They would not seek to
steal His glory. They would not deny His decree
of predestination. They would not deny His choice
in election. They would not deny His glory
in salvation. They say, I love the Lord. No,
you love your God. That little God that somebody
made for you in religion, that little God that you've hewn together
out of the fabric of your fallen imaginations, but not the true
God. If they believed that He lived,
they would not speak of Him in such debasing terms and dishonor
Him by such man-exalting methods. They would not. Somebody said, well, I believe
in grace, but no, whatever you believe, I'm talking about in
your heart of hearts. That's why all these preachers
who say they believe one thing, but they preach another. They
don't believe it. Whatever you believe in your
heart, whatever's in the well is what comes up in the bucket.
Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. That's what
we believe. We believe and we do according
to what we believe. When I stood in a Baptist church,
so-called, at one point when the Lord taught me the truth,
It was obvious to me, it was without any decision in my part,
it was obvious and inevitable to me that if this was the truth
of the gospel, then all of this phony, foolish methodology, it
had to stop if I preached. There would be no more coaxing
anybody down the aisle. There would be nobody praying
a foolish sinner's prayer rehearsed. They would be not trying to get
anybody to do anything that they didn't want to do. Look at verse 3. O Lord, art
not thine eyes upon the truth? Thou hast stricken them, but
they have not grieved. Thou hast consumed them, but
they have refused to receive correction. They have made their
faces harder than a rock, and they refuse to return. Therefore
I said, surely these are poor, they are foolish, for they know
not the way of the Lord, nor the judgment of their God. I
will get men to the great men, and I will speak unto them, for
they have known the way of the Lord and the judgment of their
God. But these have altogether broken
the yoke and burst the bonds." He said, in places where once
the gospel was preached, by men who once believed the gospel.
He said, I looked on every part and in every point where it was
supposed to be, and I found every one, prophet and people alike,
the same. That's the universal depravity
of man. That's the condition of this
world, especially this religious world, apart from the grace and
mercy of God. He says, they know not the way
of the Lord. They know not the way of the
Lord. You see, Christ says, I am the
way. Romans 3, he says, And the way
of peace have they not known? There is no fear of God before
their eyes. They've got all kinds of ways.
But they don't know the way. They're trusting on all different
kinds of ways. You tell them a way of them doing,
or a way of ease, or a way without the offense of the cross, a way
that glorifies flesh, a way that seems right to a man, though
it be the way of death, they love it. But shut them up to
the one way. to the one way God can be just
and the justifier of us, the way of an imputed righteousness
rather than the way of a personal righteousness, and they say,
no way. No way we're believing that.
You mean to tell me that what I do doesn't have anything to
do with my salvation? No, I mean to tell you that what
you do is the sin that God in Christ has to save you from. Look down at verse 6. Wherefore,
a lion out of the forest shall slay them, and a wolf of the
evenings shall spoil them. A leopard shall watch over their
cities. Every one that goeth out thence
shall be torn in pieces, because their transgressions are many,
and their backslidings are increased. How shall I pardon thee for this? Thy children have forsaken me,
and sworn by them that are no gods. When I had fed them to
the full, then they committed adultery, and assembled themselves
by troops in the harlot's house. They were as fed horses in the
morning, every one named after his neighbor's wife. Shall I
not visit for these things, saith the Lord, and shall not my soul
be avenged on such a nation as this?" If you read in Romans, the first
chapter, you will find that the sins that describe the very hour
in which we live, the adulteries, the fornications, all the homosexuality,
all these things, it will show in those verses that they are
not the result of no light, but they are the result of light
rejected. He said, that which may be known
of me in this creation of my eternal power and Godhead. He said, they have seen that
light which declares that I'm God and there's no other, but
yet they have turned and made for themselves gods and made
themselves to be gods. They're like Gomer. He said,
I fed them. What did they do? They turned
to idols. When Gomer was in her adulterous state, married though
she was to Hosea, And he, in his love, would go to her door,
the very door that behind that door she lay with her false lover. He would leave food and provision
for her at that door, and she would find it and say, my lover's
brought it to me. And that's the way we do as sinners.
We attribute what we have as the result because we prayed
so much, or we read the Bible so much, or we're living right,
or we do all these things. That's what man says. But the truth is, if we have
anything, it's the free gift of God, absolutely His gift. Look down in verse 10. He says,
"'Go ye up upon her walls and destroy, but make not a full
end. Take away her embattlements,
for they are not the Lord's.'" Now, preach something nice to
me, preacher. Well, I'm afraid the first chore is to tear down.
He said the prophet has to tear down before he can build up.
And I don't think there's ever been a time, a generation when
that was any more true than now. That man has such a security
in false religion and in a false God and in another Jesus that
before anything can ever be built up, there has to first take place
a tearing down. For the house of Israel and the
house of Judah have dealt very treacherously against me, saith
the Lord. They have belied the Lord, and
said, It is not he. The Lord didn't do this, just
the devil. Neither shall evil come upon
us, neither shall we see sword nor famine, and the prophets
shall become wind, and the word is not in them. Thus shall it
all be done unto them. Wherefore, thus saith the Lord
God of hosts, because ye speak this word Behold, I will make
my words in thy mouth fire, and this people wood, and it shall
devour them. Lo, I will bring a nation upon
you from far. O house of Israel, saith the
Lord, it is a mighty nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation
whose language thou knowest not, neither understandest what they
say. Their quiver is as an open sepulchre,
it's death. They are all mighty men, and
they shall eat up thine harvest. and thy bread, which thy sons
and daughters should eat, and they shall eat up thy flocks
and thine herds, and they shall eat up thy vines and thy fig
trees, they shall impoverish thy fenced cities wherein thou
trustest with the sword. Nevertheless in those days, saith
the Lord, I will make not a full end with you, and it shall come
to pass when ye shall say, Wherefore doth the Lord our God all these
things unto us? Then shalt thou answer them,
like as you have forsaken me, and served strange gods in your
land, so shall ye serve strangers in a land that is not yours." In other words, God was saying
He was going to bring a nation against this nation of Israel. He says, I do all my pleasures. In Isaiah, he said, calling a
ravenous bird from the east to do my purpose. What did that
mean? He was talking about a king,
a mighty king. He called his ravenous bird in
his divine purpose to come and to eat up and devour the people
because of their sin, because of their idolatry. And I dare
say at this very hour, it seems like in our land, in this very
country, there are a thousand ravenous birds on every hand
coming from every direction of every kind to devour the people. Why? He said, because you've
dealt treacherously with me. You said, Lord, if you'll do
this, we'll do that. You lied. If you'll give us that,
we'll do that." No. You sought to bargain with God. You've imagined that you're not
as bad as the gospel preacher says that you are. But he said,
I'm the one that told him to say it. God says their prophets' words
will be like wind, and that wind will only fan the fire of human
fallen flesh the fire of their enmity against the true God.
And the lies of these false prophets will consume and destroy a multitude." You see, that's the worst ravenous
bird of all. That false prophet who goes and
he devours what you have, he devours everything about you. He brings you under his control
and he tells you lies that will bring your soul down to hell.
You say, how do you know who they are, preacher? Open this
book and ask God to show you from this book what the truth
is. He said, if they speak not according
to this Word, it's because there's no light
in them. How could one ever give you light?
if there's no light in them. And if they speak not according
to this book, it's because there's no light in them. The Apostle
Peter in the New Testament, he says, But there were false prophets
also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers
among you, who privately shall bring in damnable heresies, even
denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves
swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious
ways, by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil. spoken of. And through covetousness
shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you, whose
judgment now of a long time lingers not, and their damnation slumbers
not." But even as he pronounces this judgment,
And even as he commands this true prophet to tear down all
that is not of God, he still remembers mercy. There are among
these words of judgment words of grace. Look back in verse
10. He said, Go ye up upon her walls
and destroy, but make not a fool in. You remember what God told the
devil concerning Job? He said you can go and take all
that he has. You touch his health and all
these things, but not his life. Make not a full end. Look down at verse 18. Nevertheless,
in those days, saith the Lord, I will not make a full end. with you, I'll not totally destroy
every living soul." When God brought that judgment on the
world in the flood, it was a widespread judgment, but He saved a people. When He brought that judgment
on Sodom and Gomorrah, consumed all the peoples in the cities
of the plain, but He saved a people. In His wrath, He remembered mercy. He says, nevertheless. That's
because God remembers His covenant. He remembers to have mercy. He
remembers His Son. He remembers His sacrifice. He remembers His people. Turn over to Psalm 89. Psalm 89. This is how He deals
with His people. in Jesus Christ. He remembers
that covenant. He remembers His Son. He remembers
the sacrifice that He made. And look down in verse 30. He
speaks of the seed of Christ, or the children of Christ. He
says, if His children forsake my law and walk not in my judgments,
If they break my statutes and keep not my commandments, then
will I visit their transgression with the rod and their iniquity
with stripes. Nevertheless, my lovingkindness
I will not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness
to fail. My covenant will I not break,
nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. Once have I sworn
by my holiness that I will not lie unto David. His seed shall
endure for ever, and his throne as the sun before me. It shall
be established for ever as the moon, and as a faithful witness
in heaven. But thou hast cast off and abhorred. Thou hast been wroth with thine
anointed. Thou hast made void the covenant
of thy servant. Thou hast profaned his crown
by casting it to the ground." You've done everything wrong. He said, but I remember my son.
I remember those who are in my son. I remember His cross death. I remember all my promises that
are yes and amen in Him. Look back in Jeremiah 5 at verse
19, And it shall come to pass, when ye shall say, Wherefore
doeth the Lord our God all these things unto us? Then shalt thou
answer them, Like as ye have forsaken me, and served strange
gods in your land, so shall ye serve strangers in a land that
is not yours. And this is what all of Adam's
family has surely done. Bound in such bondage, taken
captive by Satan at his will, bound to the lust of their own
flesh, bound to the legalism of religion, bound to this world
and what it offers. But God has a word of grace. He has a gospel word, a word
that will be joined with his invincible power and spirit.
And this is mercy for him to warn us and grace that he makes
a way of salvation. You see, left to ourselves, we
just self-destruct. Verse 20, Declare this in the
house of Jacob, and publish it in Judah, saying, Hear now this,
O foolish people and without understanding, which have eyes
and see not, which have ears and hear not, Fear ye not me? Dost thou not fear God? That's
what that dying thief said that Christ saved. He said that to
the earth. Don't you fear God? You see,
it says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Fear
ye not me, saith the Lord? Will ye not tremble at my presence,
which hath placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual
decree, that it cannot pass it? And though the waves thereof
toss themselves, yet can they not prevail? Though they roar,
yet can they not pass over it? But this people hath a revolting
and a rebellious heart. They are revolted and gone, neither
say they in their heart. Let us now fear the Lord our
God that giveth rain, both the former and the latter, in his
season. He reserveth unto us the appointed
weeks of the harvest. Your iniquities have turned away
these things, and your sins have withholden good things from you." When things happen in this world,
oh, it's got to be this cause or the other, if God If it's
a famine because there's no rain, it's global warming, all these
kind of things, anything but denying the very God who he says
is omnipotent and who sets the bound of the sea, that crash
as they will, roar as they will, they cannot pass beyond his boundary. For among my people are found
wicked men. They lay wait as he that set
his snares. They set a trap. They catch men. As a cage is full of birds, so
are their houses full of deceit. Therefore they are become gray
and waxen rich. They are waxen fat. They shine. Yea, they overpass the deeds
of the wicked. They judge not the cause, the
cause of the fatherless. Yet they prosper in the right
of the needy. Do they not judge? Shall I not
visit for these things, saith the Lord? Shall not my soul be avenged
on such a nation as this? He says, a wonderful thing and
a horrible thing is committed in the land. What's the horrible thing? That's
our sin and God's judgment against it. He said, don't they know who
they're messing with? But he said, there is nothing
but sin and rebellion and idolatry. But there's a wonderful thing, and that's the name that was
given to Christ in Isaiah. His name shall be called Wonderful,
Glorious. That's Christ and Him crucified. Well, the prophets prophesy falsely,
and the priests bear rule by their means, and my people love
to have it so. What will you do in the end there? Where are you going to be in
all this? You're going to be standing right there with those
people who hear and listen to what the prophets falsely prophesy
and say, and delight in it? You're going to hear the truth.
You're going to trust your own self, your own righteousness. You're going to live and go with
the flow. Follow the way that seems the
right to a man. The ways thereof are the ways
of death and perish." What will you do in the end thereof? Old Robert Hawker said, are there
any such to be found who rule in the minds of men by such false
allurements to ruin, and are cherished by them to their hurt? Are there those doctrines false
and ruinous as they are, yet so delightful to their minds
that they love them and would hate every one that would attempt
to undeceive them? Let these points be considered
as they ought, and if things are found to be so, so that there
in numerous instances how pointed and unanswerable is the question
that closeth all. What will you do in the end thereof? What can all such do but lay
down in sorrow from all false guides and errors and delusions
which tend to fill the mind with vanity and hide Christ from the
soul? Lord, deliver us. He's the only
one that can. Came fresh to my mind when there
are many speaking lies, and all by nature love to have it so. When they speak peace, peace,
when there is no peace. Or worse than that, when they
tell men how to make peace, rather than preach Jesus Christ who
has already made it through the blood of His cross. Only God. Only God. God has said that if
a man can be found that seeks the truth and executes judgment,
the Lord will pardon the iniquity of His people. Thank God he has. He has. Job said, If there be a messenger
with him, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to show unto
man his uprightness, then he is gracious unto him, and saith,
Deliver him from going down to the pit. I've found a ransom. God already has found a man. He said, I looked all over and
there was none. There was none. But one said, I will. He's the
man Christ Jesus. He's the God man. And he shed his blood. When that
word was spoken by the prophet Isaiah, which is nothing but
the word of God himself, awake, O sword, against my shepherd
and against the man that is my fellow. Saith the Lord of hosts,
smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered, and I'll
turn mine hand upon the little ones. Go to thee, man. Trust in the
man, Christ Jesus. Tell him of that one that he
himself first found, the one who is everything that we're
not, holy and harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, made higher
than the heavens. Tell him that he's all this and
more, and not only so in himself, but also in his people. lead before Him the sacrifice, the righteousness
of Jesus Christ alone. As that prophet says in Isaiah,
buy the truth and sell it not. It's the Father who has appointed
Him to be such. It's the Father who has given
Him to be such. And may we be found in Him who
is true, found to be one with Him who was made sin and a curse
for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. I'll tell you this, if you can
stand in our day, And you can hear the lies that
people are being told. And you can look at them and
how they delight in it and not do so yourself. It is the grace
of God. If you haven't swallowed this
thing, hook, line, and sinker, it's divine mercy to your soul. If all your family and all your
friends around you and all your acquaintances, you know, that
you live by all your life, people that you love, and you hear them speaking lies,
not according to this book, and they're so delighted in it, You don't delight in it. If you
have hope in Christ, in God's sovereign grace and mercy in
Him, then praise be to His name. Rest there. Oh, it may grieve us. But Christ said, he that endures
to the end, who by God's grace is found believing on Christ
and only Christ, shall be saved. I love what the psalmist said.
He said, mark the perfect man, notice him, and behold the upright man. For the end of that man is peace. Who is that person? It's those
people in Christ. He's the only one that that actually
fits. But God says, as he is, so are
we in this world. Every believer in Christ is perfect
in Christ. perfect before God, not in their
flesh. Everyone in Christ is upright
or righteous in the sight of God. They've been made righteous
by God imputing His righteousness to them. And therein is going to be peace.
It may not be peace in this world, but it's going to be peace. Peace. The prophets prophesy falsely. And the priests, they rule by
their means. They got their ways. They got
the ways they rule over people. Their superstition. And my people love to have it
so. And what will you do in the end? Our Father, this day we praise
You for such amazing grace to Your people. Lord, we hear You say that they
are not of this world, and how we feel it to be so on such occasions
as Friday. We pray that You would cause
us to look neither to the right or to the left, but to you alone,
to Jesus Christ and Him crucified, to that salvation which you have
wrought, whereby all the praise and glory goes to you alone. that it is none by the works
or the will or the worth of men, but solely by the bloody death,
the very righteousness of God in Jesus Christ. Cause us to rejoice in him, to
delight in the things of your gospel, and help us to bear a
true and faithful witness before our generation in these days.
Because, Lord, the only hope that any of these that we love, any of these that we would be
concerned for their souls, the only hope for them is that you
will take your mighty gospel and by your Spirit, show them
who you are and who the Lord Jesus Christ is and what they
are, and how you as a just God can only justify a sinner in
Him alone. We thank you and we praise you.
May you get all glory to yourself. And may every word that is spoken
of myself be stricken from the memory of all. And may your word
bring by your Spirit that desired end and not return unto you void. For we pray and thank you and
praise you in the name of Christ. Amen. Amen. Thank you.