Word of Salvation – Vol. 35 No. 34 – September 1990

 

Trusting In Deceptive Words

 

Sermon by Rev. J. Rogers on Jeremiah 7:1-26

 

Introduction

 

Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ,

Every Sunday morning when we come together to worship the Lord and we hear the Law of God read to us.  Week by week we are reminded in this way of the kind of life God expects us, His people, to live.  But as that Law is read to us,we are also made aware of our short-comings and the sins we have committed against the Lord in the past week.

What do we do?  We confess them.  We seek His forgiveness once again.  And then we are assured, through some passage of God’s Word, that God is gracious and forgives the sins of those who come to Him in repentance and faith.

Habit?  Sure!  A good habit?  Too right!  After all, doesn’t John say: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.  But if we confess our sin He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.”

But as we perform this very important part of our worship every Sunday, I wonder, do we really mean it?  Is our repentance sincere?  Is it a really heartfelt sorrow and turning away from sin?  Or could it possibly all just boil down to vain repetitions?

Oh come now, you say, surely not us!  We are, after all, (and how we remind ourselves of it!) the covenant people of God, the covenant people of God, the covenant people of God!

Oh dear, that was an unfortunate slip of the tongue – wasn’t it? – having just read that passage from Jeremiah!

Exposition

Let me give you some historical background to this sermon of Jeremiah’s.

Manasseh had reigned for nearly fifty years and for half of that time he had behaved more wickedly than any of the nations that God had kicked out of Canaan at the time of the conquest under Joshua.

But then he got converted and brought in a reformation.  But by that stage he, and so many other kings before him, had done too much damage.  The rot was well set in.

When he died, his son Amon became king and he undid whatever good Manasseh had been able to achieve.  And the people loved it.  Amon only lasted a couple of years before he died and then his son Josiah, only an eight year old boy, became king.

Josiah was truly a good king.  He brought in a really thorough-going reformation.  But do you know what happened after he died?  You guessed it.  His son, Jehoiakim, was as ungodly as Josiah had been godly.

It was probably at this time that Jeremiah delivered this sermon that we have just read (cf. the possible parallel in Jer.26:1-6) – near the beginning of Jehoiakim’s reign.

It was nearly the end for Judah – as it had been a 100 odd years before for their northern brothers, Ephraim (as the northern kingdom was sometimes called, and as Jeremiah refers to it in vs.15).

There were two classes of sins Judah was guilty of: ethical unrighteousness and idolatry and with it all – hypocrisy.  And now, God had had enough of their apostasy, their spiritual adultery, their fake repentance their presumptuous reliance simply on the physical presence of the Temple of God and the priests and the altar in their midst.

“Go to the Temple, Jeremiah, and tell them: That’s it.  I have had it.  You think, just because I promised David an everlasting kingdom (2Sam.7), that you can do what you like to the strangers who come to live among you – have you forgotten that you were once strangers?!

You think, just because “I have chosen Zion … (for) my resting place forever” (Ps.132:12:13ff), that you can ignore my social security laws (you know, the sabbatical year when all debts had to be wiped off the slate, and the year of Jubilee when all the land had to be returned to its original, hereditary, owners, and so forth).  You think you can ignore those and oppress the widows and orphans!

You think you can shed innocent blood – maybe Jehoiakim was eliminating a few political opponents; or maybe there had been a few administrative scandals and Jehoiakim had found some scapegoats well down the chain of command and so the big guys got off – you think you can shed innocent blood like that!

            And steal – with your huge rents.

            And commit adultery.

            And make promises you’ve absolutely no intention of keeping.

            And offer sacrifices to Baal and other gods.

You think you can do all these things and then come into my house and say, “Thank God, oh thank God, we are saved.  Hallelujah.  We are the covenant people of the Lord”, – just so you can go out that door and do all those abominable things all over again?!”

Instead of being my holy house, you have made it a den of thieves!

When I brought your fathers out of Egypt, what did I really command them to do?  Did I command them to keep this feast and perform that ceremony and bring this sacrifice and that offering?  Oh sure I did.  But was that really the most important thing in my mind – instructions?

No it wasn’t, and you know it.  This is where I placed the emphasis: “Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you will be my people; and you will walk in all the way which I command you, that it may be well with you (vs.23).  But you didn’t.  And you still don’t.  Oh yes, you go through all the motions.  You say all the right words and sing the right hymns and know all the right prayers.  But the next day it doesn’t mean a thing to you.’”

The command of the text

Well, how is it with us, people of God?  Do we not claim to have been grafted into the covenant people of the Lord?  Do we not claim that the new Temple, the ultimate Temple of God, is – not just among us – but actually is us as we are united to Christ?  Indeed we do.  Well then, the Lord’s demands are exactly the same for us today as they were for Judah then.  “He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me” (John 14:6) – not he who makes loud professions.  “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour, Christ Jesus; who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify us for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds (Titus 2).”

Brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ, if we claim to be grafted into the covenant people of God – and we do – let us make sure that we are descendants of Jeremiah, not Jehoiakim!

As we come, Sunday by Sunday, to bring our thank-offerings to Him; as we come, Sunday by Sunday, and rejoice in the fact that we are “the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord”, may they not be deceptive words.  The Lord wants righteousness and truly contrite hearts, not empty ritual.

Are we really coming clean with God?  Because if we are not, this text comes to us this evening with one simple imperative: “Amend your ways … Truly amend your ways and your deeds and truly practice justice with your neighbour (vs.3,5).”

And the passage we have read, gives us four good reasons why we should keep this command.

Let us look at them together.

Reasons to keep Jeremiah’s command

1.  We find the first one in vs.11 and it is simply this:
            “Behold, I, even I, have seen it, declares the Lord.”

People of God, we human beings are masters of deceit.  And we are masters of self-deceit.  We go through all sorts of mental gymnastics to justify ourselves sometimes, don’t we?  Your wife speaks to you about something that she’s not happy about and you show your class as the best defence lawyer in town!

There are all sorts of reasons why, when I do something wrong, somehow it’s not so wrong as when others do it.  With them, it’s an open and shut case.  Of course it’s sin!  But when I do it, well, there are all sorts of extenuating circumstances.

That’s right, isn’t it?  C’mon you all know it.

And so, we try to hide things from our wives.  Or our husbands.  Or our children.  Or our parents.  Or our elders.  Or our minister.  Sometimes we’re not very successful.  Because while we are very good at deceiving ourselves, it’s a lot harder to deceive others.

But with practice, we can.  And so you may well kid all your family and friends and elders.  You may well fool even your wife as to the true state of your heart.  That’s not surprising really.  After all, man can only “look on the outward appearance (1Sam.16:7).” But I plead with you this evening, do not fool yourself.  Because there is one person you cannot hoodwink – and that is God, who “looks on the heart.” “Behold, I, even I, have seen it,” declares the Lord.

2.  The second reason, brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ, why we should amend our ways, is found in vs.15:
            “I will cast you out of my sight.”

Yes, God sees but He won’t just sit there looking at us in our hypocrisy and let it go by.  “Oh come now Jeremiah, you’re overdoing it a bit, aren’t you?  Don’t be so intense.  Don’t be so extreme, Jeremiah.”  “Am I?  Go look at ‘My place which was in Shiloh,’ God replies in vs.12, ‘where I made my name dwell at the first, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel (the northern kingdom).”

Do you remember the story?  Many years ago the Philistines had captured the Ark.  It caused them all sorts of problems so they gave it back.  But it never returned to Shiloh.  And eventually the whole Tabernacle complex in Shiloh, in fact the whole town of Shiloh, was later destroyed.  But it was that magical attitude toward the Ark and the Tabernacle (the predecessor of the Temple) that led to its capture in the first place.  “If we just have the Ark and a couple of priests with us in the battle, we’ll be right!” they said.

And here they are doing the same thing hundreds of years later.  “Ah, we have the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord… We are delivered!”  That was the official “Temple theology” of the time.

People of God, the right history, the right heritage, the right confessions, the right Psalms, the right baptism, the right prayers are not what God wants – first and foremost.

I dwell “with the contrite and lowly of spirit (Is.57:15).”  Why is there no church in Ephesus today?  Because the Ephesian Christians forgot their first love and relied on their theological orthodoxy.  “Oh Ephesian Christians,” said Jesus in Revelation 2, “‘Remember therefore from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you, and will remove your lampstand out of its place unless you repent (Rev.2:5).”

But they didn’t.  And He did remove their lampstand.  And He will do it to us.  Forget “Oh, but we are the Reformed Churches, the Reformed Churches, the Reformed Churches.”

Look at Germany.  The home of the Reformation.  But the last 2-300 years?  The womb of every, heresy, so it seems.  Look at Presbyterianism in NZ with grief not condescension.  That Church had such a formative influence on this country.  So NZ became ‘Godzone’!  Look at Holland.  The most reformed country on earth not so many years ago!  Even a reformed prime minister!  But in the last half decade?  The vanguard of the new ‘morality’.  Look at her Churches, the spiritual mother of many of you.

That hurts, doesn’t it?  But, very likely, it hurt Jeremiah to say, “Look at Shiloh”.  Jeremiah may have been a descendant of Eli, the last priest in Shiloh.  If he was, Shiloh occupied a special corner in Jeremiah’s spiritual ‘baggage’.  It was almost as if he was crying, “Look at my mother, she was a phoney.  She was a fake.  So God destroyed her.  Oh Judah, amend your ways or the Lord will do the same to you!”

“I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brothers, all the offspring of Ephraim.”

3.  Thirdly, and horribly, we should amend our ways because: …
            Read vs.16.

“Jeremiah, in all your weeping, in all your sorrow over your people, don’t pray for them.  I’ve called to them by any number of prophets, but they wouldn’t listen.  I want no more prophets crying to me for them.  And if you do my ears are shut Jeremiah.  I refuse to hear.”

Jeremiah was the last prophet before the Temple was destroyed.  He actually saw it all happen.

In 2Corinthians 2:15, Paul, a NT prophet, says “For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life.”  It seems Jeremiah had a one-sided ministry – at least toward the end.  The sword of God’s Word in his mouth cut only one way.  He was a stink up the nose of those who were perishing – the stink of death to death.

I have had enough Jeremiah!  Don’t pray for them anymore.  They’re well past the point of no return.  I have gone an extra 100 miles with them!  But I’ll go no further.  I’ll hear no more.

Because, while they worship me, they worship the ‘queen of heaven’ as well.  ‘All that Jehovah has spoken we will do,’ they said at Sinai.  But they have done nothing of the sort.  They have not loved me with all their heart and all their soul and all their mind and all their strength.  They have divided their hearts – between me and other gods.

Do we do the same, people of God?

There were two classes of sins Judah was guilty of: ethical unrighteousness and idolatry.

After we have confessed our sins before the Lord on Sunday morning, do we go away from that with a wholehearted desire to flee all sin?  Or are there some pet temptations that we love to give into?  Do we allow sin to dwell in our hearts?  Are we whole-hearted in our service?

Do we have our idols?  The temptations are great, brothers and sisters, in this materialistic age.  Why is it that we are too tired to worship the Lord twice – or even once! – on His day?  Or do any active service for the Lord in His Church?!  Is it because we are just working too hard, too long at our jobs?  Our businesses?  Our studies? – even after our daily bread is well supplied?

Jesus said, “You can’t serve God and money.  It’s got to be one or the other.  And covetousness is idolatry, Paul tells us (Col.3:5).  Are we single-minded in our worship?  There comes a time when God says, “Enough!”  God only strives with man so long.  A very long time for sure.  But not forever!  There is a point of no return – when you drive God to the end of His tether and He says, “I will listen no longer.”

But this command of God to Jeremiah not to pray for his people doesn’t appear to be part of his sermon at the gate of the Temple.  Maybe God gave him this instruction later in life.  I don’t know.  The book of Jeremiah doesn’t seem to be too fussy about chronological order.  But obviously, the Holy Spirit, in putting the book of Jeremiah together as it is, wanted us to have this horrible possibility (of going past the point of no return) in mind, as we listen to the message of Jeremiah’s sermon.

But it appears, when Jeremiah preached this sermon, that the point of no return had not yet been reached.  So let us return to his sermon and see the fourth reason why we should amend our ways if we worship the Lord hypocritically.

4.  And that reason is this (vs.3):
            “Amend your ways and your deeds, (and) I will let you dwell in this place”.

Judah had almost gone too far.  But here is Jehovah still holding out his arms and crying, “Throw the idols out!  I’ll still take you back despite all you’ve done.  Please come back to me.”

“Throw out those other gods and return to me, Oh Israel!  Remember me?  I carried you through the wilderness for forty years (even though you grumbled all the way) like an eagle carries her young on her wings.  I brought you into a beautiful land flowing with milk and honey.  You ate the fruit of vineyards you did not plant – I gave them to you.  You lived in houses you did not build – I gave them to you.

And what have you done in return?  You actually became, at one point, more wicked than any of those nations I kicked out before you – which I did precisely because of their wickedness!  And on top of that, you have flitted after this idol and that Baal like a female dog in heat flits after any male dog who comes her way.  But Israel, you are mine and I want you to return.  Amend your ways.  Oh Israel, if you truly amend your ways you can live in this land of plenty, which I gave to your fathers, forever and ever.  I’ll shower on you all the blessings that the wife of the Almighty should have!  All the blessings of salvation are yours, if you will truly amend your ways and worship me single-mindedly and serve me whole-heartedly.”

Congregation, what does our Lord say to us today – if the state of our heart is the same as Judah’s.  And let’s be honest with ourselves (that’s the first thing God wants); to some extent it will be true of each one of us, won’t it?

In Rev.3, the Lord Jesus speaks to a church in a similar condition to Jeremiah’s Judah, Laodicea.  The Christians there were not whole- hearted in their obedience and service; they were lukewarm.  They were not single-minded in their worship; they trusted also in their riches.  And Jesus pleads with them; “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him, and will dine with him, and he with me.”

This is often used as a general Gospel text.  But it shouldn’t be really.  Sure, God holds out His arms in grace to the whole world – but He commands all men everywhere to repent.

That’s not the picture here.  God speaks to those who are, or should be, His own people in a different way.  And so here is Jesus, with an aching heart, hurting as only a spurned husband (or wife) knows how to hurt.  He stands at the door of His own house, knocking, calling to His own bride.  As He stands there He hears the shallow laughter that springs from the “pleasures of sin enjoyed for a season.”  And as He knocks with the left hand, He holds in His right hand, the “pleasures that last for evermore. (Ps.16:2).”  So He calls out, “My dear, Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love Him (1Cor.2:9).”

As He stands there a little longer, He hears why His knock has still not been answered.  No time!  Too busy clinching another profitable business deal or finalising the contract to build another barn for all our goods.  So He calls out, “My dear, you have no time to worship me because you have worshipped money.  You say, ‘I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing.’  But that’s not so!  You are really ‘wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.’  ‘I own the cattle on a thousand hills … The world is mine and all it contains (Ps.50).’  And you can have it all, for ‘the meek will inherit the earth.’

Throw those idols out – whatever they are; riches, human wisdom, cradle to grave security from your gracious father, the Prime Minister, or whatever.  I alone offer security beyond the grave.  Worship me only, and with your whole heart.  ‘For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds … I will let you dwell in this place, in the land (of salvation) forever and ever.’

People of God, this is why we should really amend our ways this morning because there is the Lord;
            – He wept over Jerusalem
            – He sweat blood over Jerusalem
            – He poured out His life unto death over the real Jerusalem

Surely His grace must run out, musn’t it?  No, it’s not.  This evening, He stands at the door of the hearts of His people – knocking.

For us, the point of no return has not been reached – thank God.  Our house has not been left to us desolate.  He still sends us prophets.  And if they are faithful, they still warn.  But also, if they are faithful, they still hold out the mercy that God still holds out;

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him, and will dine with him, and he with me” – and what a feast that will be!

Conclusion

Beloved congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, how does the state of your life on Monday compare with the appearance of your worship on Sunday?  After you’ve confessed your sins and heard the words of grace and been reminded that we are “the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord”, are they deceptive words – in your case?

If that is so people of God, let us repent.  Let us be genuine with God, for;

“If you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly practice justice between a man and his neighbour … nor walk after other gods to your own ruin, then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land (of salvation) that I gave to your fathers forever and ever.”

AMEN