Jeremiah chapter 9 beginning verse 1 the Bible reads, "Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!" Remember the whole Book of Jeremiah is Jeremiah preaching and warning the Nation of Judah that God's wrath is going to come upon them in the form of the Babylonian army coming and invading and taking the children of Judah captive, destroying the city, destroying the temple.
Of course that all happened with King Nebuchadnezzar and we read about that at the very end of the Book of Jeremiah and elsewhere in the Bible. In the Book of Jeremiah, leading up to that God is constantly warning the people. Jeremiah is weeping over and over again at the fact that people aren't listening to him and they're going to be destroyed. They're going to be doomed.
Jeremiah for that reason is known as the weeping prophet, also because he is the author of the Book of Lamentations. He says, "Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!" He's saying that he has so much emotion about the doom of his people that he literally can't cry enough tears to match the emotions that he feels.
Now, this should be an example for us that we should actually care about the fact that our country is going down the toilet. We should actually care about the fact that so many people around us are doomed. If we really loved people, we would shed a tear for this nation and shed a tear ...
Because when we study the Book of Jeremiah, we find that the United States is in the exact same situation that the land of Judah was in. Where they had been a nation that feared God in the past. They had loved the Lord. They had done great things for God, but now they'd completely turned from God and they were a nation that was filled with wickedness. That's the exact story of the United States in 2016.
Look what he says in verse 2, "Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! For they all be adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men." Now, at the beginning of some of the chapters in Jeremiah, God will show us the human side of Jeremiah a little bit.
For example, a few chapters later in chapter 12, he doubts God at the beginning of the chapter. He starts saying to God, man, why are the wicked prospering and why am I suffering? It gives us some insight into the fact that Jeremiah was human, just like the rest of us. Where here we see that in verse 1 he really loves the people, he's weeping. He's sad for them.
Then at the same time, there's a part of him in verse 2 that actually just wants to get away from these people because they're so sinful. In his heart, there's a part of him that just wants to go out in the middle of nowhere and just get away from all the sin and all the junk, and just live a peaceful life out in the wilderness somewhere.
See, Jeremiah was a man of strife and contention because he was sent to preach a very unpopular message. He's preaching negative sermons to a nation that's about to be destroyed. People called him a traitor, because he's saying, "The enemy is going to defeat you. You're going to lose." Then they say, "Well, you're strengthening the hand of the enemy. You're comforting and aiding and abetting the enemy. Why aren't you on our side?" He's saying, "It's not that I'm not on your side. It's just that God has already revealed that you're going to be destroyed."
Then they're putting him in prison and all that, all throughout the book he's being persecuted. He's constantly fighting. You know what, in his heart there's a part of him that just wants to go out and get a cabin in the woods somewhere and just get away from it all, and just live a godly, peaceful life. You know what, that's not what God called him to do.
I'm finding a trend in 2016 and people always get offended when I say this, but honestly this is what I believe is right from studying the word of God. I do not believe that God wants us to forsake the cities of America and go out in the country and hunker down on some piece of property where we can go off grid and all this stuff.
Look, there's a part of me that wants to do it. There's a part of me where that would sound great to just go live out in some cabin somewhere, some peaceful place. Get away from it all and strategically relocate myself out to the middle of nowhere and get away from the sin and the garbage and the junk. Honestly, I don't believe it's right. I believe that God wants us here in the city, preaching the gospel to the lost.
If you would go to John 17, and again there are a lot of people who disagree with that and they are offended by that, because it's the people that need to hear it basically. The people who want to just let our country go to hell, let four million people in Maricopa County go to hell so that they can go out and live their Little House on the Prairie dream or whatever. Honestly, is that really what life is about?
Congregation:
No.
Pastor:
Is it really about having this wonderful homestead for yourself and your family and separating yourself from society? Look what Jesus said in John 17. Jesus was preaching to what he referred to as an evil and adulterous generation.
Look what he says in verse 14 as he prays unto the Father, "I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 15 I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth."
Now, sanctify means set apart, make holy. What God is saying here is that he wants us to be in the world but not of the world. He says they're not of the world. The world has hated them. I've given them the word of God and that sets them apart from everyone around them. The world even hates them, but he said, I'm not praying that they be taken out of the world, but that they would just be kept from the evil. That God would protect them as they're in the world.
Why are they in the world in the first place? Because Jesus says in John 17 here where he's praying to the father, he says that he's not just praying for them, but he's praying for those who will believe through their word. The whole purpose of us being in the world but not of the world is that we would reach people. Guess where the people are? In the city.
Here we are in Phoenix, Arizona where the fields are white unto harvest, we just walked in the door. The reason we're sweating and walked in the door with church invites is because we were just out soul winning. We were just out knocking doors in Phoenix, Arizona. Let me tell you something, there's a virtually unlimited number of doors to knock. It's just three point eight million people just in our county.
In the greater Phoenix area what I consider our mission field, there are about four million people. Yeah, we could go out and hunker down somewhere or move out to Paulden [inaudible 00:07:11], but I chose to move to this city for a reason. I chose to move here because I wanted to go to a mission field where there would be millions of people to reach with the gospel. A lot of people will say, "Well, what do you mean? We can't win souls in a small town?"
Yeah, but here's the thing, when you go to some small town with five hundred people in it, it's not going to take long until you preach the gospel to all five hundred people. Listen, if you're really going to go to that small town and you're going to give the gospel to every one of those people, and you're going to make day trips to the surrounding areas and you're going to reach that county, great.
I'm not against living out in the country, but somebody's got to be in the city here doing the big job. Yeah, we need the small towns to be reached as well, but you know most of these people who say, "Well, are you saying the small towns don't need the gospel?" They go and hunker down in their bunker and they're not doing the soul winning.
Congregation:
Right.
Pastor:
Because here's what they'll say when they get there, "Oh, their houses are too far apart." You've heard it. I've heard it. The houses are too far apart, oh it's a different culture here. It's not like in Phoenix where you just go through the housing tracts and win souls. Then come back to Phoenix then, you know what I mean? Because honestly, I don't know about you, but I believe that my life on this earth is to reach people with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I want to live in a place where I can do that the most effectively. It's funny my uncle, he used to play a guitar and write songs and he would write Christian songs. I remember the one song that stood out to me, because he'd play songs on his guitar and he's singing a song about how he lived out in the country, but he kept looking and seeing that city of souls. He wanted to just enjoy the country with his family, but he said I have to go to the city and win the lost.
People try to say, "Well, but you can't raise your kids in the city because it's too wicked. There's too much sin." Here's the thing though, it was wicked in John 17 and he still didn't want to take them out of the world. He wanted them there being salt and light. "In the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom we shine as lights in the world," that's what the Bible says.
If you disagree, fine disagree but that's what I believe. That's where my heart is, to live in the city. Look, if it got where it was just a complete Sodom and Gomorrah, yeah then I will leave too, but it's not even close to being to that level yet. I'm still here, in it for the long haul. I want to die here and preach the gospel to every creature, because that's what my life is about. I hope that's what your life is about that you don't want to just take care of yourself, but that you care about reaching other people.
Go back to Jeremiah 9. Jeremiah, he's human. He wants to go hunker down. He wants to go live out in the woods somewhere, but he's going to stay in Jerusalem, because that's where the people are that he's preaching to. That's where the soul winning is. That's where God has called him to be. It's something to think about there, to understand that even though that's an urge that we have, Jeremiah stayed and God wanted him to stay and commanded him to stay.
Now, look at verse 3, he's talking about the wickedness of the people amongst whom he ministers. He says in verse 3 of Jeremiah 9, "And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth." This is a common theme in the Bible where the tongue of the lying, false accuser is like and unto a bow and arrow.
Where it says, for example, in Psalm 11, "In the Lord put I my trust: how say ye to my soul, Flee as a bird to your mountain?" It's kind of like what we're talking about here, fleeing off to the mountains, going to that cabin where Jeremiah wants to be. "In the Lord put I my trust: how say ye to my soul, Flee as a bird to your mountain? 2 For, lo, the wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string, that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart." It's amazing how Psalm 11 and Jeremiah 9 really fit together perfectly in their subject matter.
He's talking about the people around him. They're lying about him. They're deceiving. They're false accusers. He says, "They proceed," halfway through verse 3, "from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith the Lord. 4 Take ye heed every one of his neighbour, and trust ye not in any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbour will walk with slanders. 5 And they will deceive every one his neighbour, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity. 6 Thine habitation is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know me, saith the Lord."
This reminds me of Matthew 10, if you would turn there. We're going to go to Matthew 10 and then we're going to look at Luke 12, two very similar scriptures. Here in Jeremiah 9 he said don't even trust your brother. Don't even trust your neighbor because there are so many deceivers out there, so many liars. Well, Jesus talked about this same thing.
In Matthew 10 he talked about especially in the last days and we could cross reference this with Matthew 24, but especially in the last days it says, "Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold." It talks about how the brother would deliver the brother up to death and the father of the child and the children would rise up against their parents and cause them to be put to death in the last days because of the treachery of even people's own family.
Look what it says in Matthew 10:34 Jesus speaking, "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. 35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. 36 And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. 37 He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38 And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me."
Flip over to Luke 21. Now, when Jesus said he came to bring his sword he's not talking about a literal sword. He did not preach violence or bring violence. He's talking about the sword of the word of God. He's saying that that word of God that's preached, that's sharper than any two-edged sword would even divide brother against brother. It would even divide the parent against the child.
That's why he says if you love your father or mother or child more than you love Jesus, you're not worthy of Jesus. He's not saying you're not saved. All you have to do to be saved is just believe in Jesus. What he's saying there is that in order to be found worthy of him, in order to be a true disciple, which is different than just being saved.
There are lots of people that are saved that are not following Christ with their life. They're not a disciple. If you had to do all the works and everything, none of us would be saved. We're all disobedient to varying degrees. We've all sinned, and come short of the glory of God, but we are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
If you truly want to be found a worthy servant of Christ, he has to be number one. Sometimes that means choosing him over family, choosing him over a brother, choosing him over a parent, choosing him over a child. That's what the Bible says. That decision should be a no-brainer when the time comes of which side you're going to come down on. Are you going to forsake Christ in order to stay loyal to family or vice versa? That's what the Bible is saying here.
Look at Luke 12:51, "Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division: 52 For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. 53 The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law."
That was probably going to happen anyway, but at least now there's a tangible reason for it. Anyway, the point is that God is telling us you can't always just fully put your trust in people even if they're your physical brother or sister or even if they're a brother or a sister in Christ. We can even expand it to that.
The Bible is saying here that there are people that are going to deal treacherously, that are going to deceive you, that are going to lie to you. We need to be on our guard. The Bible says, "It's better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man." You need to be aware.
A lot of people have this attitude where they come to church and they think anyone at church is trustworthy. Because I met them at church, I mean of course I can trust them with thousands of dollars or of course I can send my kids over to their house for a sleepover. I mean they're church people, but there are Judas Iscariots that creep in. There are wolves among the sheep.
The Bible tells us that they shall be among you. Not that they might be among you, but that they will be these spots in your feasts of charity when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear. He talks about crept in unawares, these people bring in damnable heresies and also they seek to corrupt unstable souls. They find the new believers and corrupt them or even worse, they'll find children and corrupt them.
This is why we need to be sober and vigilant, especially in 2016 with all the perversion and all the deviants and freaks and pedophiles that are out there. Let me tell you something, they come into churches because they look at a church as like a place where they can really thrive because everybody is so trusting. Not here. That's why we don't have children's ministries where we expect you to drop your kid off with strangers. Oh yeah, your little five-year-old goes to that building over there, uh-uh because we are living in perilous times.
God warned us that perilous times would come. We've all heard all the stories about all the weirdos and people that have crept into churches and it's very dangerous. That's why we need to watch our children and we need to keep our children safe. Just because somebody is from church, we don't just blindly trust that person. It's very foolish. I've had people try to talk me into dropping my kids off with strangers that I'd never even met, but they go to our church. They've gone here for years. No way.
My children are more valuable to me than anything in this world, so I'm not going to drop them off with people that I don't even know. I'm not even going to drop them off, my little kids, with people that I even do know. I would only put them with my closest family that I have total trust in. I would not just leave them with anyone, even close friends I wouldn't want to leave them with, okay.
When they're little, when they're young especially the girls, but the boys up until they hit puberty and they get to where they can fend for themselves, we've got to guard them. We've got to protect them. We've got to keep them safe. Maybe you say, "Well, but you know when I grew up, we always had all these children's ministries and bus ministry and everything was fine."
Here's the thing, we're living in different times than when you grew up. This is 2016. You say, "Well, the older preachers don't agree with you." Well, you know what, they grew up in a whole different generation and I'm telling you that in this ... It probably wasn't even safe then either, but I'm telling you right now these people are multiplying at insane rates in the United States. They have no natural predators so they're like a bacteria that is just growing exponentially, and so we have all these homos.
Look, these homos are pedophiles. I mean, that's a whole another sermon. It's a fact and they're in churches. As I demonstrate in Sunday morning, churches are even inviting them in. We need to be on our guard. We need to be careful. Jeremiah says, look take heed every one. If you look down at your Bible there in verse 4 of Jeremiah 9, "Take ye heed every one of his neighbour, and trust ye not in any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbour will walk with slanders."
People today will tell you that you're unspiritual if you're untrusting. "Oh, you don't trust the people at church, well you're unspiritual." Why don't you just trust the Lord and just drop your kid off with strangers? Well, the same reason I wouldn't just trust the Lord and drop my kid off in the middle of the woods, or trust the Lord and drop them off in the middle of a lake, and tell them to swim to the edge.
No, God has commanded us not to trust our neighbor and not to trust any brother, but to be sober, to be vigilant, to be watchful, and to keep our children and our family safe. Not to just blindly trust. The Bible says trust God, trust the Lord, but don't just blindly trust.
I don't want people to trust me. I don't want somebody, "Here, watch my kid." No. I don't want to watch your kid. Look, I know that I'm a perfectly safe person to leave your kids with, but you know what, I don't want anybody to leave their kids with me because then if they leave their kids with me then they're going to want to leave them with somebody else who is not safe, because they're just leaving them with this person.
I want to teach people no, you don't just turn your kids over to other people. Guard them, protect them, watch them like a hawk. It's not unspiritual to question your fellow men. It's unspiritual to question the Lord. I have total trust in the Lord, but that doesn't mean we trust even of the "brethren" because there are a false brethren the Bible tells us.
Let's keep reading here in Jeremiah 9 verse 7, "Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, Behold, I will melt them, and try them; for how shall I do for the daughter of my people? 8 Their tongue is as an arrow shot out; it speaketh deceit: one speaketh peaceably to his neighbour with his mouth, but in heart he layeth his wait." Again verses 3-8 there are just going on and on about how deceptive these people are and how you've got to watch out for these people. Even though they were known as God's people in Judah, they weren't trustworthy.
Look at verse 9, "Shall I not visit them for these things? saith the Lord: shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this? 10 For the mountains will I take up a weeping and wailing, and for the habitations of the wilderness a lamentation, because they are burned up, so that none can pass through them; neither can men hear the voice of the cattle; both the fowl of the heavens and the beast are fled; they are gone.
11 And I will make Jerusalem heaps, and a den of dragons; and I will make the cities of Judah desolate, without an inhabitant. 12 Who is the wise man, that may understand this? Who is he to whom the mouth of the Lord hath spoken, that he may declare it, for what the land perisheth and is burned up like a wilderness, that none passeth through? 13 And the Lord saith, Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice, neither walked therein; 14 But have walked after the imagination of their own heart, and after Baalim, which their fathers taught them."
He's, again, just talking about the utter destruction that's going to come to Jerusalem, where the hills are going to be on fire. It's going to be a habitation of dragons. What's he talking about there? What he's referring to is wild animals. When a lot of people leave an area, the animals move in. You don't really think about this, but if you move into a house that hasn't been indwelled in maybe nine or ten months, there will be all kinds of bugs and animals that have just taken residency in that house.
I even saw a news article about parts of Detroit that were just run down and vacant and the animals had moved in. They were starting to have just a problem with just wild animals walking down the street, because animals were kind of ... The Bible talks about that how they would come in and take over land. He talks about how he would give them the land little by little so that they could kind of kick the animals out and everything. Because when man doesn't dwell there, the animals take over.
The dragons there's, we're obviously not talking about something that's a fire breathing, flying medieval villain. What we're talking about is various types of reptiles and lizards that are known as dragons that live in the desert. Basically we're talking about desert creatures of whatever the size that are referred to as dragons. Now, a dragon possibly there could have been great reptiles.
Well, we know that there were great reptiles in the past known as dinosaurs. The word dinosaur was not invented until the 1800s. When the Bible talks about dragons, it's talking about various reptiles. In fact, a dragon could be a huge reptile in certain cases known as a dinosaur. I don't believe that's the case here, but in other places because a dragon is just sort of a generic word for certain types of reptiles. Even today we have animals known as what?
Congregation:
Komodo dragon.
Pastor:
The Komodo dragon. Is there another one?
Congregation:
Bearded dragon.
Pastor:
Bearded dragon. What else? That's it? All right. The bearded and the Komodo, all right. There we go, so dragons. The point that he's making is that this is going to become such a wasteland. So many people are going to be killed or taken into captivity that there's going to be so much vacancy there that animals are going to move in. It's going to be that empty. It's going to be that desolate.
Of course we know seventy years later they're going to come back and rebuild, but it's going to be desolate there for a while. He said Jerusalem is going to be heaps and it's going to be a dwelling of dragons. Heaps are piles. It's going to be piles of rubble. That's truly what happened. I mean, the temple was destroyed, the walls were destroyed. They had to completely rebuild when they come back seventy years later, which was a miraculous thing.
Let's keep reading. It talks about in verse 14, "But they have walked after the imagination of their own heart, and after Baalim," now we all know what Baal is, right? B-A-A-L. That is the false god that a lot of the people in Canaan would worship. The children of Israel when they would turn away from God, they would turn onto Baal.
Baal is also known as Baal-zebub in the Old Testament, and then in the New Testament it's one word, Baalzebub, all right? There's Baal-zebub and then there are other variations on that name Baal, also Bel, B-E-L, also Belial, B-E-L-I-A-L. This variation, Baalim, has to do with the fact that the I-M ending, the Hebrew ending I-M is a plural ending. That's why you have the cherub, singular, but cherubims with the I-M there or the seraph, and these are English words of course. The English word seraph, English plural, seraphims. It adds the I-M and an S there.
When they go after Baalim, this would be basically putting that plural ending on the end of Baal's name. It could be various Baals or different varieties of Baal, multiple Baals would be Baalim, all right? That's who they're going after, false gods, as their fathers had taught them.
Look at verse 15, "Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink. 16 I will scatter them also among the heathen, whom neither they nor their fathers have known: and I will send a sword after them, till I have consumed them." He's saying they're going to be killed and then they're going to go captive, and then among the captives, he'll send a sword after them to kill even more of them while they're in captivity. This is major judgment.
Keep in mind, Jeremiah is preaching this before it happened. As we go forward in the Book of Jeremiah, there are all kinds of preachers who are saying, "You're too negative. You're preaching lies." They get him thrown in prison. They get him in trouble with the king, because he's preaching all this doom and gloom and destruction before it comes to pass.
We look back at this and we know that this all happened, but it's a little harder for Jeremiah to preach this because he's having to preach it by faith. He's never seen any of this and the people around him don't want to hear this message.
Just like today if you preach a sermon about the destruction of America, the doom of America, the sins of the USA, people would get really upset. They'd say you're not being patriotic enough or something like that, but it's the word of God. Our country is not more righteous than Judah. We are going down that same road. There's nothing new under the sun. We're doing all the same things.
Let's keep reading. It says in verse 17, "Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Consider ye, and call for the mourning women, that they may come; and send for cunning women, that they may come: 18 And let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters." He's saying we need to get some really skillful singers that can actually make us sad so that we can actually cry about what's that.
What he's trying to say is people had a hardened heart. He's trying to get through to people and it's like they don't care. He wants them to be sad. He wants them to weep, but they're just laughing, eating, drinking, and being merry, and hey who cares that our country has turned away from the Lord? Who cares that we've gone after Baalim? Who cares about the murder and the abominations and the whoredoms?
Jeremiah is begging them to weep. The Bible says in James the same type of thing, when it says, "Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will lift you up." He says, "Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will lift you up." God calls us to weep over sin, but we're told to be happy all the time.
Now, there's a time to rejoice and there's a time to mourn. We don't need to always be happy and rejoicing all the time. There's a time to be sorry and weep. We're told that if we are sad, we need to take pills to fix that because we should just be happy all the time. I remember the song we used to sing while we were kids, "I'm inright, outright, upright, downright happy all the time."
I remember I won a guy to the Lord at my work and this guy was unchurched. He heard that song at church, the inright, outright, upright, downright happy all the time and he said, "That sounds like somebody is on drugs or something. That's why they're just happy all the time." He said, "That's not normal." This was just an unchurched guy, he said, "Hey, that's not normal. You're not going to be happy all the time." I'm like, "Yeah, you've got a good point about that song."
We're not happy all the time. Now look, I'm happy most of the time. I believe that the joy of the Lord is our strength. Look, I believe that we should rejoice every day, because the Bible says, "This is the day which the Lord hath made, we will rejoice and be glad in it." I'm not trying to rain on your parade and tell you to be gloomy on a daily basis. I don't believe that. I'm happy. I'm on the winning side. Greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world.
Congregation:
Amen.
Pastor:
There is a time to get angry and there's a time to be sad and weep and mourn. We have lost that today in Christianity where we think it's just all happy, joy, positive, the Joel Osteen style Christianity and it's not biblical. Then a guy gets mad in the pulpit and screams about sin and they say, "Oh, he's not filled with the Spirit. That guy is walking in the flesh." Wait a minute, what about when Saul was filled with the Spirit and hacked up a couple of cows. What about that story?
The Bible says the Spirit of the Lord came upon him and he started hacking up the cows. Tell that to Peter, put that in your animal loving pipe and smoke it. What about when Jesus was filled with the spirit and drove the money changers out of the temple with a whip?
Congregation:
Yeah.
Pastor:
The Bible is so clear in Saul's case where the Spirit of the Lord came upon him and he was filled with anger. Why? Because there is a righteous anger. Now, most of our anger is unrighteous because we get angry over dumb things. We get angry over selfish things. We get angry over petty things that we're quick to anger. The Bible tells us to be slow to anger, but there is a time to be angry with the righteous indignation against sin. There is a time to be sorry and to mourn and weep.
Listen, if you have a loved one that dies, there's a time to mourn there. I knew a lady who had one only son and he drowned, and after two and a half weeks, they were trying to put on antidepressants because you need to get over it. I mean your only son died a couple of weeks ago, you're probably still going to be sad. That's normal. You go through a grieving process. We don't mourn like those who have no hope. We are supposed to pick up and move on at some point. People go through things where they should be sad.
Look, when we see our country going down the toilet, how can we just be happy about it or have no emotion? There should be tears. I've shed tears for our nation. We ought to shed tears for America. We ought to get angry at the people who are destroying America. These are normal emotions.
Today we're told that we have to suppress normal feelings and normal emotions. They're taking away part of our humanity and trying to turn us into some kind of an automaton or some kind of a drone that never feels any anger or sadness. Seriously, I'm not kidding, I mean to the point where they tell you, "Oh, hate is wrong." Everybody has hate. That's part of who we are.
Look, God has hatred as part of his character. God is love, but yet there's a lot of talk in the Bible about both people and things that the Lord hates. We can't just ignore that aspect of God's character. We can't ignore that aspect of our own character. Now, should we hate our brother without a cause? No. Should we hate our brother and sister in Christ? No.
Look, there is a holy hatred and there is a time to hate. The Bible says at Ecclesiastes, "A time to love and a time to hate." We're just told, "Oh, that's hate speech," and I'm like, "Yeah, your point? Some of the things I say are hate speech." They're like, "Oh, but it's hate."
Look, I would expect that from a bunch of gaytheists and fagnostics, but the thing that surprised me though is that now Christians are saying that. It wouldn't be anything hateful. Sometimes I want to say to people like, "You know, there are times when I am hateful, but this isn't one of them." Like what are you talking about?
I'll get up and preach something that has nothing to do with hate at all, and it's just like, "You're hateful." Or I'll preach like, "Hey, women should stay home with their kids." That's hate speech. Like what? You can't even figure out where these people are coming from.
Now, sometimes when I'm accused of hate speech I'm just like well guilty as charged, but a lot of times it's like whoa. Nine times out of ten I'm not even hating. I'll tell you when I'm hating. You won't have to like pin me down. I'll admit it when I'm hating on something or someone.
They want to strip parts of our natural, normal human emotions to where it's wrong to be angry. It's wrong to hate. It's wrong to be sad. These are normal parts of our character. Then they want to remove them from God, where God is just only love and he's only happy and he's only proud. No, God is angry with the wicked every day.
Congregation:
Amen.
Pastor:
Elsewhere the Bible says he's slow to anger and of great mercy and long-suffering. Get the balance in your own life and get the balance when you study the word of God. Don't try to just simplify God to a positive only God. If you're one of these positive only people, do me a favor and just next time you're coming to church when you're about to get in the car and you're like, "All right kids, get in the car. Let's go to church," just remove the negative battery cable and see if you make it to church, because you have to have both.
It's like, "Hey, I'm running a positive only vehicle here." You're not even going to get the thing started. This is the mentality we have today. We have a lot of churches today, they're not even starting up. The lights are coming on, but nothing is there. No, the lights aren't even on. You're trying to turn the thing and nothing is happening.
They're like, "Why aren't we getting anywhere? Why aren't our lives being changed? Why aren't we making a difference in our community?" Because you're positive only, let's get an alternating current going or at least if you're going to have DC, you need to have both positive and negative terminal connected.
Let's go down, if we would, in Jeremiah 9 here he's talking about the mourning, verse 19, "For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, How are we spoiled! We are greatly confounded, because we have forsaken the land, because our dwellings have cast us out. 20 Yet hear the word of the LORD, O ye women, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth, and teach your daughters wailing, and every one her neighbour lamentation.
21 For death is come up into our windows, and is entered into our palaces, to cut off the children from without, and the young men from the streets. Speak, Thus saith the LORD, Even the carcasses of men shall fall as dung upon the open field, and as the handful after the harvestman, and none shall gather them.
23 Thus saith the LORD, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: 24 But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD."
There's a similar statement in the New Testament where he says, "Him that glorieth let him glory in the LORD." Here he's a little more specific, "Let him glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth." If you know the Lord and you know that he exercises not just loving-kindness only but he exercises loving-kindness, judgment. What's judgment? Is that good or bad? When God's judgment comes down on you, that's bad. He executes loving-kindness and judgment.
That's something to be proud of if you actually are one of the people that understands that. See, glorying in something means to be proud of, or to boast in something. He says, "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom." If somebody is smart, they shouldn't go around being proud and pumped up and thinking that they're so wonderful, because hey I'm so much smarter than everybody else. There are people who are smart that are like that, right?
Then he talks about the mighty man and you know that men that are very strong because they spend time in the gym and they're all buff and everything, a lot of times they glory in that, don't they? They wear the muscle shirt and they kind of just have to stretch every once in a while, I'm just stretching, you know. They want to show off their muscles and glorify their strength.
We know that the rich are like that too, right? He said, "Let not rich man glory in his riches." For the people that are wealthy, it's not even that they like that car that much, it's just that they want to show off the car, show off that. It's called conspicuous consumption when people buy things just to show them off, just to impress people, just to show everybody how much money I have.
Glorying in riches, he's saying you know what, life's not about being the smartest person, although wisdom is a great thing to have. It's very important, but we shouldn't be proud of that and be arrogant about that. Life's not just about getting stronger, although the Bible does say, "A wise man is strong; yea, a man of knowledge increaseth strength."
Life's not about riches. The Bible says, "They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." No, greater than having wisdom, greater than having riches, greater than having physical strength and might or even metaphorical power, greater than all of that is to know the Lord.
Congregation:
Amen.
Pastor:
To know him and to understand his workings in this world, to understand the word of God. That is the greatest pursuit of our lives. He says in verse 25 and this is key. I want to just spend a little time in the closing minutes of the sermon on these last two verses. This is key doctrine here.
It says in verse 25, "Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will punish all them which are circumcised with the uncircumcised; 26 Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, and the children of Ammon, and Moab, and all that are in the utmost corners, that dwell in the wilderness: for all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart."
Now, what's God saying here? God is saying here that just because you're circumcised or just because you're Jewish or just because you're of the people of Israel does not exempt you from the wrath of God. He's saying the day is going to come I'm going to punish the uncircumcised with the circumcised. They're both going to be punished together.
Why? Because all of these Gentile nations are uncircumcised he said. Keep in mind it's still the Old Testament. He said, "The children of Israel are all uncircumcised in heart."
Now, today we could say the exact same thing. If we were to look over at the Nation of Israel today over there in the Middle East, they are uncircumcised in heart. It means nothing. If you would go to Romans 2, it means nothing the fact that they've been physically circumcised. He says I will destroy them both. Why? Because they're uncircumcised in heart.
Now, in the New Testament the Bible goes even further and says, look circumcision does not profit anything. We don't practice circumcision in the New Testament. He says that I didn't compel Titus to be circumcised, Paul said and he pointed a false brethren crept in unawares trying to get everybody circumcised. He said, "In Christ neither circumcision nor uncircumcision availeth anything, but a new creature; but faith which worketh by love."
It's faith in Christ, it's being a new creature, that is what makes us God's people in the New Testament. We don't practice circumcision in the New Testament, but even in the Old Testament amongst the children of Israel where circumcision was commanded he said if you're circumcised but you're not circumcised in your heart, your fate will be identical to that of the uncircumcised.
Look if you would at Romans 2:28, "For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: 29 But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God." Now, this scripture couldn't be any clearer but yet probably ninety some percent of my Independent, Fundamental Baptist brethren would disagree with what's being preached right now, even though I'm just reading it directly from the Bible here.
The Bible clearly says, "He is not a Jew, which is one outwardly," but yet that phrase, as simple as it is, goes right over the head. Listen, I'll admit it for many, many years this verse went over my head and I literally memorized this entire chapter and it still went over my head. I had Romans 2 memorized before I understood this. Why? You say how could you read this hundreds of times in order to memorize it?
How could you memorize the whole chapter? Because the whole chapter is building up to that climax, that point is being made throughout chapter 2. Not to mention all the other verses that are like unto Romans 2:28-29. The first New Testament chapter that I ever memorized was Philippians 3. When I was a teenager on a church camp, I memorized Philippians 3 to win a prize.
It said right in the chapter, "For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh." He's talking to a bunch of Philippians. He's talking to Gentiles and said we're the circumcision because we believe in Christ.
Congregation:
Amen.
Pastor:
We are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands. It's funny how I just heard these scriptures, but you're so brainwashed today because the media is Zionist and the TV preachers are all Zionists. The churches are pastored by people who come from Bible colleges that ingrain this. It was ingrained in me and it was six months after I started this church, about ten years ago and you say, "Well, when did it finally click with you?"
I was preaching a sermon and I started to say something along the lines of well, you know that land belongs to them. They're the chosen people and blah, blah. As it was coming out of my mouth, I literally just started to say it and I thought to myself, "Am I about to say this because it's true or because it's just something I heard my whole life and I'm just repeating it?" We tend to repeat things.
I mean the Bible says, "We cannot help but speak the things that we've seen and heard." When you hear something over there, so I started to just say it because it was just I'd heard so many preachers say it. Just right then something just told me, "That isn't right. I don't think that's right."
I went home and I read the whole Bible two times, cover to cover. Not in one sitting now. Over the next six months I read the Bible two times, cover to cover, just trying to understand this subject and it was just so clear. It was so crystal clear. Once I opened my mind to, "Wait a minute, maybe that's not true." I read it twice and then I preached after the six months, because I don't want to just go off half-cocked and start preach something until I know I'm right.
I read through the Bible, cover to cover, twice just looking for this one thing and then I got up and preached the truth on this subject. People, they can't see it but it's right there my friend. It's right in your lap, in your Bible. It's right there, what does it say? "He is not a Jew, which is one outwardly."
That means that when we get on the airplane and we see the guy with the Yarmulke on the back of his head, that guy is not a Jew. Somebody could say, "Oh, he's a jew." No, he's not, because the Bible says, and you almost have to break it down word by word, "He is not a Jew, which is one outwardly." I wish I just brought a big picture that said like, "Not a Jew."
Show the guy with the black hat and the fringes and the real thick glasses, and everything you know like not a Jew, right? Then show a Bible believing Christian and say, "This is a Jew." Actually just hold up a mirror to you, the one who is a Jew inward. Look, are we not the circumcision if we worship God in the spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh?
If you say that we're not the circumcision, then you're making God a liar because God said we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in flesh. John Hughes wants to come to us to try and tell you, "No, you're not the circumcision. No, you're not. Let me check your flesh." Get your hands off me. That's not relevant. The Bible says that I am circumcised in the spirit and that's the only one that matters in the New Testament.
Congregation:
Amen.
Pastor:
Not only that, but I'm a Jew because I'm one inwardly.
Congregation:
Amen.
Pastor:
Here we have crystal clear scripture that some people just don't want it. Here's the thing, I never rejected this teaching because nobody ever told me. Nobody ever explained it to me like I'm explaining it to you now that David Lee Roth is not God's chosen people. Nobody ever told me that Captain Kirk and Spock were not Jews. No one ever told me that Larry, Curly, and Moe were actually not Jews. No one ever told me that Adam Sandler, Jeff Goldblum, and Steven Spielberg were not Jews.
I was told my whole life that they were Jews. I was told my whole life that they are God's chosen people, and that God will bless those who bless them and curse those who curse them. Nobody ever told me this. I actually had to figure it out on my own, so it took me way too long to figure it out.
I can't understand how somebody could explain this to you right now and you could say, "I still think they're God's chosen people. I still think that Richard Dreyfuss is Jewish. I still think that ..." Help me out, who are some other?
Congregation:
Jerry Seinfeld.
Pastor:
Yeah, I still think Jerry Seinfeld is a Jew. I just still think that. Well, you know what? You didn't get that from the Bible. That's not what the Bible says. "Think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.
Congregation:
Yeah.
Pastor:
The Bible is real clear on this. God will destroy the circumcised and the uncircumcised together. It's believing on Christ that gets the blessing of God on your life.
Congregation:
Amen.
Pastor:
That's what makes you elect. "Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth." See, it's being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus that makes you chosen. Otherwise, those people over there in the so-called Nation of Israel that reject our Lord Jesus Christ and spit three times when they hear his name, those people might as well be Moab according to Jeremiah 9.
Even in the Old Covenant they'd be considered Moab if they're worshiping another God. If you don't have the son, you don't have the father. Even under the Old Covenant, they're considered like unto the heathen, because they're uncircumcised. How much more in the New Covenant when circumcision does not profit at all under the New Covenant, in the New Testament? Oh, it's heresy. No, you're the heretic calling unsaved people God's people. What kind of a crazy doctrine is that?
Look, we all believed in it and time passed for a lot of us, because we were brainwashed, but you know what you don't have an excuse after somebody explains it to you though. You're still, "Well, God's blessing Israel." What? I thought God's wrath abides on you if you don't believe on the son. Well, except in this case, it's the land. Yeah, even a toddler is laughing about that.
Anyway, let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, thank you so much for this great chapter Jeremiah 9, Lord. Please help us to heed the warnings in the chapter, Lord. The warnings about how sometimes even family or friends or fellow church members can do us dirty, Lord. We need to be careful and not just blindly trust the people around us, Lord. We need to have all our confidence in you and to be sober and vigilant in these perilous times, Lord.
Also Lord, just the warning of how Judah was destroyed and how America is going down that same path, Lord, help us to cry aloud and spare not and preach the truth in the midst of this crooked and perverse nation. Lord, help us not to go hunkering down like Jeremiah was tempted to do. Lord, help us to stay right here where the battle is, on the front lines.
Help us to do our best to reach as many people with the gospel of Jesus Christ as we possibly can, Lord. Including the non-believing, Christ-rejecting so-called Jews, Lord, they need to be saved through your son, Lord. Help us preach to them also and not to just think that they have a free pass. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
