[0:00] Take your Bibles, if you would, and turn with me to the book of Jeremiah. We're going to start in chapter 17. I'd like to ask you to be praying for Gary Ledford and that family.
[0:10] Brother Gary is very close to heaven, and it's very hard on the family, so pray for the Cofills and their family. Pray for Brother Randy Sterwalt.
[0:22] He has had five surgeries in the last week or so. He fell down, infection spread because of the chemo, and all the things are happening to his body. He's feeling better, and I talked to his wife today, talked to him yesterday.
[0:36] I really wish you'd pray for him. He needs to know that he is loved, and so please pray for Brother Randy Sterwalt. I want to ask you to pray for Nigeria. You can go on Facebook and see the videos and some of the pictures.
[0:51] Not a place to be afraid at all. Cool, sweet, friendly people. Not once did I feel threatened or feel that you should have felt threatened.
[1:05] I probably don't feel that threatened, but I was coming out of the country, and the guy at the passport thing said, you're a giant of a man. And I was like, I ain't that much bigger than you, buddy.
[1:19] but anyway pray for them let's have a word of prayer first and then we'll jump into a passage of scripture that should change our lives father i love you and i thank you for the chance i get to serve you i thank you for the chance that we get to preach your word god i pray for the ledfords pray for brother gary i pray for miss linda i pray for the cofields i pray for stephanie i pray god that you would give stephen strength as a husband and a dad and a son-in-law i pray you just work in that family i pray god that you'd be with brother randy stirwald i pray you'd meet his needs work in his life and i pray god that you would get him well god let him get back to kenya let him see the work done and i'll give you praise for that and then lord i pray that tonight you'd wake us up it is so easy to get used to where we live and used to what we're doing and to sound exactly like the passage of scripture we're about to read and i pray that you would help us that we would get that right and have the right spirit and i'll give you praise for all you do in jesus name amen jeremiah chapter 17 and verse 1 if you if you take notes what is written on your heart this is like a very harsh verse jeremiah 17 1 the sin of judah is written with a pen of iron and with the point of a diamond it is graven upon the table of their heart and upon the horns of your altars your sin is so deeply engraved in you it is a part of who you are the book of jeremiah is a story of the death of a nation the infection of evil has spread all across the land the kingdom will soon be overthrown it's going to be invaded and overthrown it's been a long process jeremiah preaches for a total of 40 years while god patiently waits for people to listen and get right things are getting worse and worse in spite of jeremiah's clear preaching of the word of god we watch as the same thing seems to be happening in our world that we live in today we can learn from jeremiah how to deal with wrong and world and wicked and the people that hate god the first thing we find is and i hope you'll write some of this down anyway realize the time is short in the new testament there's a verse that parallels where we are in the bible in first corinthians chapter 7 and verse 29 the apostle paul said this i say brethren the time is short it remains since there's so much little time left that those of us that have wives should act like we do not have wives and those that weep as though they do not weep and those that rejoice as though they do not rejoice and those that have things and buy stuff as though they didn't possess anything that they that use this world as not abusing it for the fashion of this world passes away so god's talking to jeremiah and he's telling jeremiah punishment is coming the enemies are about to invade the country the country is going to be destroyed the people are going to be taken away and he tells jeremiah you don't have time to get married you can't get married look if you would in chapter 16 and verse 1 the word of the lord came unto me jeremiah saying you shall not take a wife neither shall you have sons or daughters in this place that's a pretty harsh indictment not to be married not to be able to have a wife not to be able to have children but that's what he said but god was being really kind to jeremiah because as much as you think you bring kids into a wicked world today that was really what was happening in jeremiah's day when my wife was carrying our oldest son chris we were at a i can remember being at a youth camp i was preaching
[5:24] that from our i had a church ministry i was the youth director at the church and i had them there and my wife was very obviously very close to having a baby and some of the people came to me and said how can you bring a baby into this extremely wicked world we live in that was 1975 things were really bad back then it was horrendously bad and that's what they thought i hear that said today but in this passage of scripture god told jeremiah it is that bad son it is that bad things are bad and are going to get worse he said if you get married and if you have a kid verse 4 you need to know they will die grievous deaths and they will not be lamented no one will even go to their funeral and they will not be buried and they will become like manure spread on the face of the earth just thrown out there they will be eaten up by the sword they will die from hunger the birds and the beast will eat their bodies as they lay there on the ground don't get married son don't get married things are about to get really bad in judah and then he said you don't have time to go to funerals jeremiah chapter 16 and verse 5 he said you're not into the house of mourning don't go around people are hurting and look at i want you underline in verse 5 because i have taken away my peace god has reached down into the the country and he pulled out his peace and said no more peace from me no more blessings from me he said i have even pulled away my loving kindness and my mercy and i don't care how rich they are and i don't care how poor they are they will die verse 6 and they will not be buried and no one will say they're sorry they died judgment is coming very soon it's better for jeremiah to suffer without having a wife and kids than to lose them so horribly god has taken his peace and his loving kindness and his mercies away from his wicked people the people do not deserve comfort because they're suffering due their sins they chose their sin they chose their consequences and there's no need to call a preacher and try to put a veneer on it and act like anything else is happening you've been rebelling against me you brought this on yourselves i'm not even going to send a preacher to your funeral just die it's a bad chapter and he said don't go to weddings either don't go to any parties either in chapter 16 and verse 8 they all show you don't go to the house of feasting don't go around people that are eating and drinking for this is what the lord said i have caused verse this is in in verse 9 i have caused voice of myrrh the voice of gladness the voice of the bridegroom the voice of the bride i've taken it away there's no more laughing and giggling because you're about to get married there's no more parties where people are laughing it's about to get horrible there is no time left for a normal life there's no more time for playing games judgment is so close and all will be lost can you imagine when people say to jeremiah because a jewish man ought to be married it's supposed to get married and they go up to jeremiah and say jeremiah why aren't you married and he said because god is about to destroy this place and he told me not to jeremiah why don't you go to funerals because god don't want y'all comforted jeremiah why don't you go to parties it's no time for parties god is about to wring it down or pour it out on us he says i know judgment's coming and everybody's going to suffer you and i need to know something judgment's coming right now coming on our wicked country becoming on everybody who dies every day they die all around the world without the gospel every day they die and wake up in hell every day every day they die and they spend an eternity in agony and pain jeremiah you don't
[9:25] have time for a regular life son i got a job for you to do jeremiah chapter 16 and verse 10 when jeremiah tells these people that the people are so biblically stupid they have they have developed a theology that makes it comfortable to sin they developed a theology that makes it comfortable to live in their nice houses and go to their nice parties and have their nice funerals and do all the nice things they do and when that when jeremiah said boy god's upset here's what they say verse 10 it'll come to pass when you tell the people what i said they'll say well why would the lord pronounce this great evil against us why would god be so mean to us well what is our iniquity what have we done wrong what is our sin that we've committed against the lord our god you're telling me god's upset why would he be upset that's where we live now that's nigeria that's a country where there's churches built that honestly honestly the only church that would look like our building be an independent baptism the other ones they look like a white house they didn't show you that video he said it took four seconds to pan the building with his phone and they're saying what why would god be upset so jeremiah said i'll tell you why chapter 16 and verse 11 because god says you have forsaken me you ought to underline it in verse 11 you have forsaken me you have walked after other gods and you have not kept my law god said you won't know why i'm about to let all this happen to you because i am your god i'm the one that brought you up out of egypt i'm the one that gave you everything you have i'm the one that gave you the land you live in and you walk away from me and you go serve other gods and you don't do what i teach he says in verse 12 y'all are worse than your parents your parents were bad and they taught you bad but you've done worse than them and you know what you do you don't try to find truth you imagine junk in your head and that's how you decide what you're going to do you walk after the imagination of your evil heart you sit around thinking i think this is how church ought to look i think this is how worship ought to look i think this is how a man ought to live in my opinion having a man having money and having material goods and and living for myself i think that's good i think that's good and so you've made all this junk up you'll listen to me he said in verse 12 and he said there will be consequences verse 13 he said i'm going to throw you out cast you out that's a rough word that's what they did to jonah when they threw him out of the boat it's the same word they used it's like god said i am so fed up that i can throw you out of what i gave you i can throw you out of what i gave you and i'll throw you to a land you know not you'll be going somewhere where you've never been before and you don't know anything about living there and you will serve other gods yeah you like them well go serve them and i need you to underline this in verse 13 and i will not show you favor go ahead you picked go do your thing go worship the other gods i'm throwing you out of my country throwing you out of my land sending you somewhere else but while you're there you need to know something i ain't helping you i'm not answering your prayers i'm not working your life see they had developed a theology that allowed for their sin then imagination of their heart they were like i should get to make my decisions i should do what i want to do i should be able to think this out i don't need to know what god's got to say i need to do what i want to do and they believe they were all right they could not believe god would punish them when jeremiah said i can't get married because all hell's about to break loose in our country they were like what what why would god do that i don't get it what's he upset about what have we done wrong we're a good
[13:26] people they had adjusted their truth so they could be comfortable with their sin but in the middle of the dark storm there's always hope jeremiah chapter 16 and verse 14 he said there's hope after punishment you gotta read verse 14 and 15 if you like the bible you'll like this he said y'all aren't going to say anymore that i'm the god that brought you up by the land of egypt you're gonna quit saying that that's what i did for your great great great grandparents now y'all gonna say i'm the god that brought you back from all the foreign countries now you're gonna say look at it look at verse 15 the lord liveth that brought us the children of israel from the land of the north from babylon from all the other countries from the lands whether god drove them out but god said i will bring them again into their land that i gave unto their fathers in the middle of the threats and the warnings god tells him i still got a plan for you in the middle of all he's saying man he's he's angry let's just be blunt honest he's angry but he says i got a plan he said like i brought you up out of egypt i'll bring you back and when you do wrong you suffer when you do wrong you suffer we need to realize that sin has consequences look at jeremiah 16 17 my eyes are upon all their ways they haven't hid from my face they haven't hid from my eyes i can see their iniquity and i will recompense their iniquity and their sin their twisted perversion and their sin i'll pour it out double on them i didn't say that by the way you should underline that double word in verse 18 double you see oh god loves me so much you let me do what i want to do god's happy with me being a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a murderer or a liar or a cheat or or whatever it is i'm doing god said oh no i'm not i'll come at you with double i'll come at you with double i'm gonna beat the slop out of you you're gonna figure out i'm god and i don't like it but i will restore you god will reestablish you after he humbles you and you humble yourself before him how are you handling what god's doing in your life isn't it amazing even right now you're shaking your fists in his face and why are you doing this would you let that happen for who are you god looks down and says i'll tell you who i am we're of god and i can do what i want to do and you need to get lined up with me i don't line up with you we don't make a god we don't have a god that we can get lined up with us the god of heaven's like wait a minute you got that equation backwards god will finally get his people to where he can use them to share the truth go jeremiah 16 and verse 19 if you would this is what's beautiful now he is gonna whip them and spank them because he's got to knock this sin out of them see they're so proud and stiff-necked and arrogant that no matter what happens they don't get right so they need a double whipping now you probably never raised kids that were rebellious but i did and there'll just be sometimes when a little swat just don't get it done sometimes you got to knock them into tomorrow that's what we used to say back in the old days sometimes they need to realize you ain't getting away with that one time chris and stephanie were in the uh carport and we didn't have we had a window unit we turned to erica to show when it got 85 degrees outside now i turn it over it gets 68 degrees but anyway but mama mama heard them betty heard them talking and they were saying who you like to give
[17:26] you a spanking more mama or daddy and they both agreed we prefer mama because she can't hurt us so betty walked out the door and said all right we're actually gonna find out if i can tan your eye god god says you know i'm gonna use you but to do that i gotta knock the starch out of you to do that i gotta get you to humble yourself before me but when you do look what he's gonna do with them in verse 19 this is beautiful y'all know israel's coming back and when they come back look what's gonna happen in verse 19 oh lord my strength and my fortress my refuge in the day of affliction look at this the gentiles shall come unto thee from the ends of the earth surely our fathers have inherited lies and vanity and things wherein there is no profit shall a man make a god unto himself and they and are they gods therefore behold i will this once cause them to know i will cause them to know my hand and my might and they shall know that my name is the lord all around the country of judah and israel were false wicked gods and the israelites had decided that they didn't love the god that created the earth and they chose the gods that other countries made with their hands and instead of worship of the god that made them they began to go after these other stupid false gods that were rocks and sticks and and and mud and gold and silver and and metal and they were working we're going after them and god came down and said you know you'll figure out something here i am your god and i will discipline you and when he did he said and once you get things right i'm going to use you and then he says and guess what those pagans that you used to go after they're going to realize the gods they made weren't any good anyway they're coming to see you to hear about the real god because god's going to use jerusalem in the future to make a big difference god will bring his people out of captivity he will cause them to get right he will eventually use them for his purposes the pagans will come to the god of israel realizing their false gods were nothing you need to remember this and never forget it god still has plans for israel but you know what it takes to get a country and a people and a search ready utter and total collapse and destruction of all you trust in god's in the business of knocking props out we lean on our money we lean on our health we lean on who we know we lean on our little gods and you know what god does he brings people to the end of themselves he brings people down to where they're just collapse at his feet and fall on their face when they finally get bankrupt spiritually physically emotionally every way they say i need you god and they can see god and his power and his love and his grace you know why they need to be knocked so hard chapter 17 verse 1 because it is ingrained in them their sin has become a part of them it's it's like second nature to them to do wrong it's written with a pen of iron it's not written with a feather dipped in ink this is like etching in metal this is like it's like the carving on this piece of wood here but it's been done with a point of a diamond which can cut anything it's graven on the table of their hearts their sin is so much a part of them that only harsh judgment will make them repent and turn back to god the sin ran through their political system their school system their personal lives and their homes it was indelibly written on their hearts and here's what god's saying curse you curse you if you choose not to trust me
[21:32] you trust anything else we're like no no wait a minute god don't curse yes he does look at jeremiah chapter 17 verse 5 thus saith the lord cursed be the man that trusts in man that makes flesh his arm that means he goes to a man to give him strength whose heart departs from the lord he shall not see when good comes i'll let him dry up and blow away god wants to be trusted but my husband should help me here no your husband's not equipped to help you here but my wife but my friends but my church but my pastor the blunt truth is there's only one person you can trust and it is the god of the bible he is the god of the bible and god said i curse you if you go to anybody else but me curse you if you go to anybody else but me i am god no stump of wood no other man i am god but if you'll choose me i'll bless you chapter 17 and verse 7 blessed is the man that trusteth in the lord and whose hope is in the lord oh happy and blessed is the guy that says my money's not the answer my government's not the answer some of y'all about freaking out over an election like like it's a big deal whoop-dee-doo what's the wall street doing whoop-dee-doo god in heaven said won't you just look up here i'll take care of things i'm the one in charge here cursed if you want to look at other stuff blessed if you want to look at me they had trust they those that trust god prosper under all circumstances what the book says you ready say where's the set what jeremiah 17 8 he that he shall be as a tree planted by the waters that spreads out her roots by the river and when the heat comes that tree doesn't even know it because her leaves are green she doesn't worry about drought well she's planting next to a river and she never quits giving forth fruit i wish i could take you to adequipa for a minute take you out in the desert a desert as brown as this carpet more brown than this carpet deader than anything you have ever seen in your life but i get you anywhere near an irrigation ditch and there's stuff growing like crazy because water's always running through there and god said to them trust me i'll plant you next to the water trust me and when the heat comes you won't know it trust me and you'll always give forth fruit trust me trust me trust me trust me trust me and god says and you don't know your heart like right now you're going oh yeah i do i do yes i do it you're right see that's why they said earlier you remember what they said well why would he be upset because their heart told him he's doing good say man i'd give what i ought to give i serve like i ought to serve i love my wife like i love my wife i do right like i ought to do right i'm a good guy well in jeremiah chapter 17 verse 9 he said the heart's deceitful desperately wicked you can't know it you know we can talk ourselves into believing anything we want to we can make an excuse for our sin we believe ourselves to be more right than we are but jeremiah 17 10 god said but i know your heart look i the lord search the heart you're over here going my imagination got this worked out i got a good heart i'm trying to do the right thing everybody knows i got a good heart everybody knows i'm trying to do the right thing this is good god goes you don't know your heart i know your heart and what you're doing i don't like
[25:32] it and so i'm fixing to slap you into tomorrow so you quit trusting your heart and you start trusting me amen so you won't go about what other people say why are you asking other people when you could ask god we trust in ourselves and our money like the foolish bird that's next and my time is well past gone but this bird this bird in the in the in chapter 17 this bird if you go to chapter 17 verse 11 if the partridge sits on eggs and hatches them not he so so is he that gets riches and not by right and leaves them in the midst of his day you know you get all that money together you think you're something you lose it all like a dumb bird you're like a dumb bird lays eggs and forgets to hatch them because you know you're supposed to trust me you're supposed to trust me and then he says i want y'all to honor me on the sabbath day because you see that sabbath day was the way of saying i trust god i can remember as a boy growing up and going to the little country church out in the middle of the farm fields that you've probably never even seen so the whole building would have fit in this auditorium twice probably and we would sit there and the windows open slatted pews and some of the gardeners the pennington side of the family was spiritual love jesus and so my dad's there and i'm there but the rest of everybody in there somehow related to pennington's and the gardeners right there with their tractors plowing on sunday i can remember hearing my parents say we make more money than they do and we take sunday off we're going to honor god by the way you may laugh at that but chick-fil-a makes more money than the ones that are open on sunday but anyway not trying to promote christian chicken or nothing you know what it was about was i can trust god take care of me i don't have to work today you don't have to work for your salvation you don't have to work to walk with god they would worship god and god would bless them it was not what they could do but what god could do are we more concerned about this world or the next world you see in these two chapters right here jeremiah stop it son i'm moving in our world we're like we're like the people what do you get so excited about why you why you act like we ought to be so excited about jesus we're just living our lives we're good what we think the question is is the word of god written on our hearts so that we seek god more than anything on this earth do we believe that god is truly at work in our world in the new testament attitude of this same passage it says this in colossians 3 1 if you're really saved if you then be risen with christ seek those things which are above where christ sits on the right hand of god set your affection on things above not on the things of this earth for you are dead and your life is hid with christ in god and when christ who is our life shall appear and when i was a boy they used to say that guy's so heavenly minded he's of no earthly good i can remember as a 14 and 15 year old boy thinking i hear everybody say it but that ain't what the bible says in the bible you're supposed to be so heavenly minded that you could be some earthly good hey man i figured that out at 14 them old people went to my church didn't know that but anybody read the bible know it say man but you but you know what can i say this we're so earthly minded we're of no heavenly good let's be honest how much money i got in my bank account how's the market doing how's my retirement plan doing how's my health i need to go to the doctor and make sure i'm in good health i need to eat right and work right because i can take care of this body and live here this is all that matters heaven's not real if you're risen with christ seek those things which are above set your affection on things above
[29:34] that's where your life is hid with christ in god you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you