This morning's message, God reveals hurtful truth. Sometimes we get ourselves in the situations that sooner or later there's a reckoning day. I don't know, sometimes your children find it out from other sources that you're a liar. They find it out that you've lied to them most of their lives or whatever. And hopefully it'll come a day when you yourselves tell them that. We will see here where God reveals why he said, you have to hate your mother, father, sister, and brother, even your own self to be my disciple. These are truths that we learn over a period of time and it can't be divulged to us at once. And in unveiling that truth, he has to do it in such a way that you remain faithful to him and not be torn apart. A lot of times, we go and sneak and rummage through a person's cell phone, through their wallets, through their belongings, through our friends or someone else tells us hurtful things, and God hadn't revealed that to us. and we're torn all apart and we treat that person or we meet that adversity in a way that's animosity, animosities. Because I say animosities instead of animosity, we show animosity to it. But it's animosities or facetious because we go after that with a vengeance. We go after that the wrong way. This morning we're going to see how do you go about the right way, the godly way. How do you hear something and then keep that something to yourself? How do you react to that something you've heard? How do you establish the truth? How do you deal with the truth after hearing it? And being a godly person, what surrounds that truth? And how to go forth and be a better person after knowing that truth? So as we try to peel that back some, we will read chapter 11 of Jeremiah. Remember, Jeremiah had been praying for these people. He had been a prophet to these people, but he was confused when God called him, and he was from Anatah. And he said, he's just a young person. But God says, though you're a young person, you're going to do what all I tell you to do. Don't be confounded. Don't be dismayed. Don't be confused at the people. Because some of the people that's confound you if you allow them to be your own relatives. They will be those of your own household. Jesus didn't deviate from that message when he said he come to bring us forward and not peace, and that your enemies will be those of your own household. Those of your own household because everybody has not the love of God. Everybody has not the love of God. And you can't let it get personal. What happens a lot of times in life, which causes bitterness in us, which causes us to say things we shouldn't say, is bitterness. And we allow that bitterness to grow. And that bitterness comes from idle words spoken, it comes from harbored Emotions, and that's why we have to get away from emotions. As I told you about that picture of Adjustment Bureau, when the guy told Matt Damon that they had emotions, but they had to learn to manage them and handle them in a different way. You have to learn to manage your emotions. feelings in a different way. It reads, The word came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, Hear ye the words of this covenant, and speak unto the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And say thou unto them, Thus said the Lord God of Israel, Cursed be the man that obeyeth not the words of this covenant, which I commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace, saying, Obey my voice, and do them, and according to all which I command you, so shall ye be my people, and I will be your God, that I may perform the oath which I have sworn unto your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey as it is this day. Then answered I, and said, oh, so be it, O Lord. Then the Lord said unto me, proclaim all these words in the city of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying, hear ye the words of this covenant, and do them. For earnestly I protested unto your fathers in the day that I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, even unto this day, rising early, protesting, saying, Obey my voice. Yet they obeyed not, nor inclined their ear, but walked every one in his imagination of his evil heart. Therefore I will bring upon them all the words of this covenant which I commanded them to do. But they did them not. And the Lord said unto me, A conspiracy is found among the men of Judah and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And they are turned back to the iniquities of their fathers, which refuse to hear my words. And they went after other gods to serve them. The house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken my covenant which I made with their fathers. Therefore, thus said the Lord, behold, I will bring evil up on them, which they shall not be able to escape. Though they shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto them. Crying is a metaphor, a different word for praying. Though they cry out to me, though they pray to me, call upon me. He said, I will not hear them. I will not save them. He says, Then shall the citizens of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem go and cry unto the gods unto whom they offer incense. They will go to these gods. They're going to these gods this time of year also. And this Bible class, this church, I always tell you to study, to read. And we've been reading the book of Jeremiah. I said, well, read the whole book. And we should be reading the whole Bible. So in context, we know what they have done. And you can't explain it all in one day, one sermon. And a lot of times the people, if you hold on more than an hour, they're ready to go. but they leave out of the church and forget what you tell them at that time because they love the world. They're not denying themselves. So they will get right back into the world doing the same thing. And it's a whole new day. The next Bible study of the next church service. What did these people do? Well, they served other gods. We've read that the women were baking cakes to the queen of heaven, that the men supported them, that the children was along with them, that they had Christmas, that they had Easter, they had all these holidays, that they had broken God's covenant. This was about the Sabbath day, that they wanted to go out, that they wanted to celebrate every holiday. And the priest hadn't talked to people. And the leaders wasn't God-fearing leaders. So we have the same situation we have today. None of the politicians really, and I speak as a whole, are godly people. And none of the church people are teaching the people. So what you have is a whole nation that's gone away, that's gone astray from God, and does not do what God had told them to do. They're into paganism. And you hate to see these things that your children are standing up, your parents and things are standing up. They're wrong. The employers are standing up their own, and it's all about the dollar. It's all about paganism. You didn't tell them about these holidays, and you put these holidays before life. You didn't lie to them. They found out you didn't lie. There ain't no such thing as Christmas. There ain't no such thing as Santa Claus. But they won't work on these holidays or coming up to these holidays because of this pagan god. So the employer says, well, we need to make money. If you're not here on Thanksgiving, right when we open up for Christmas, we're going to open up early so the people won't get trounced at the doors. You need to be here. Well, no, we got to celebrate this holiday. We got to celebrate this holiday. It's Thanksgiving. OK, well, the whole world is not in sync with God. That was a feast day for the people of God, the Feast of Harvest. I told you that. I think it was Feast of Harvest or Tabernacles. I forgot which one it is. But that was a day to celebrate. But the world is not in sync with that. So you have to do a little giving and taking here. So what happens is most of us are full on Thanksgiving Day after 3 or 4 o'clock anyhow, right? So what's wrong with going to work that night? Because you have to do what you have to do. You're the one that's fueling the fire. Now they're going to lose their jobs picketing and boycotting because of this pagan holiday that really is not a holiday. These are the gods that you invented. You're going to serve these pagan gods. Now this is the, you know, that's why I say you get tangled up in the world stuff, you go crazy. Because, let's understand this, the people are ignorant because they, who will be the customers that are in there Thanksgiving night? Who's going to be the customers that wait in the snow, wait outside in the cold, and in the dark hours of the night? Is it the 1% of they can buy a television with $100 off or $200 off any time of the year? More than less likely, it's going to be the poor people trying to get a deal. trying to get a pagan deal for a pagan holiday. Walmart is designed around poor people. They said Target probably fare better in this economy and this holiday because Walmart is more for poor people. But let me get this now. The poor people leave their jobs, not report their jobs, to buy pagan merchandise at a pagan retailer who won't allow you time to be with your family that they want to open up so they could get pagan people like you in that night to buy stuff so you could go in that night and buy stuff but you can't go in that night and work? It's hard to figure this out. It's hard to figure it out. Okay, so they said another reason God was destroying them, the reason they had 70 years in captivity, was the 7 Sabbath years that they had broke. A year for each. time they broke that Sabbath. It was years that they hadn't celebrated the Sabbath of God. He's a covenant God. He just now told you, don't break the covenant. They had broke the covenant. They had broke his Sabbath. He said, my Sabbath you will do. He's going to establish that in the kingdom. The Sabbath, remember the Sabbath. But what was the merchandisers? They were sitting back. Well, we can't wait until the Sabbath is over so that we can buy and sell. They were sitting outside the gate. One of the prophets had to come and run them away. Have you read Ezekiel yet? You've been studying Ezekiel where the people were outside the gates. Their mind really wasn't on the Sabbath. They couldn't wait till the Sabbath was over so that they could do pagan stuff, so that they could sell and do everything. But this nation is saying, let's see, we've already slipped it in a little bit. So we've moved the Sabbath, but now we want to overrule their Sabbath, let them pollute their Sabbath so that we sell alcohol. It's going to make no difference what day we sell alcohol. So you can sell alcohol any day, all day. It's no sanctity to that day at all. But the retailers went along with that. The retailers went along with that, right? The people must go along with it because they have to have somebody to sell to. So God said, well, let's get them. Don't pray for none of them because all of them are corrupt. Unless there's a demand, it shouldn't be a supply. It shouldn't be a supply. OK. OK. We're right here. He says there's a conspiracy. The conspiracy wasn't that just the people were sitting down to do this and plot it out. is that Satan is a spirit that broadcasts in the world, and you can pick that spirit up. That spirit is a spirit in the world. There'll be spirits, many. There are lying spirits out there. There's treacherous spirits. There are spirits of jealousy out there. There are spirits of envy out there. There are spirits of hate out there. All these things was in the world, and little naive Jeremiah here, he's thinking all along, Well, let me pray for my people, pray for those in my neighborhood, and pray for these. Let's keep reading though. He says, for according to the numbers of their cities were their gods, O Judah, and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem, had yet they set up altars to that shameful thing, even altars to burn incense unto Baal. Therefore, pray not for this people, neither lift up a prayer for them, for I will not hear them in the time that they cry unto me for their trouble." Okay, let me just pray for me and my own and mine. Okay? See, God has to show you this slowly. Stop praying, gentlemen. Don't pray for them. But Jeremiah had been preaching for a while now. He had went against the Reformer Josiah. He had went against the Reformation of Josiah because he seen that it was just eye dressing, that it was just something the people were doing to go along with that this was the way everybody else was going. And the only way that they could not be found out is to go along to get along. And that's what we have to watch out for, going along to get along. And the conspiracy. was that they were all the time working against God, praying to their gods, and this was coming back in breaking of God's covenant. It had come to the priest of Anitote. Anitote, during the time of Josiah's reformation, we're reading 2 Kings, I think it is 23rd chapter, where the priest was able to eat at the tables in Jerusalem, but they were not allowed to serve in the tables of Jerusalem. So just to eat, just to be able to be a part of this, they wanted to keep the status quo and to keep Jerusalem being prosperous because at least they were eating. There are a lot of times people say, well, at least in Egypt, we had this to eat and that. But you were slaves in Egypt. But some people like slavery. They like being in bondage. Some people are not thrilled unless they're given somebody else to rule and reign over their lives. Christ said us here to be free. But it's some people that can't take that authority or that responsibility, so they give it to other people. These priests were mad at Jeremiah because when he started preaching this message, it was cutting off their food supply. So, if you read in the 20th verse, in the 23rd verse there, let's go down further, it says, 21st verse, Therefore thus saith the Lord of the men of Anatod, They seek thine life, saying, Prophesied not in the name of the Lord, that thou die not by our hand. Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, Behold, I will punish them. The young men shall die by the sword. Their sons and their daughters shall die by famine. Now these were the men of his own hometown. Jeremiah didn't know this while he was preaching and talking for them. But God didn't reveal this to him at the first. That's why as we, in the Word of God, as we learn throughout the years, line upon line, precept upon precept, we get stronger. We have to learn sometime that you have to lay in the bed with lions. You have to do like Daniel. Daniel was in the lion's den with the lions. He didn't kill the lions. I don't know if he patted them on the head or what he did. Sometimes you have to allow the lamb and the bear to lay down together. Is that the metaphor we read in the book of Isaiah, the book of Daniel, where the lion and the lamb are laid down together, the children play on the asbestos holes? In other words, there are a lot of dangerous things in the world that you have to allow to exist that are not dangerous to you. Because you're a child of God, nothing could come upon a child of God. Paul didn't just kill the serpent that latched on his hand, he just shook him off into the fire. Sometimes you don't hate that person, it's the spirit that's in that person that's wrong. Now, that takes a lot of Christianity to understand that. Because eventually that person will come back and hurt you, and you'll realize, well, that person, I shouldn't have prayed for him. I shouldn't have did this. But see, you're a child in it, and you should learn. That's why you need to not forsake the assembling together of yourself. Because those that you trust are sometimes the ones that put that dagger all the way in. Okay, Jeremiah was praying for the, okay, he says, now pray not for these, I don't understand this. Well, turn over to the 12th chapter. Fifth verse, it says, if thou hast run with the footmen and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses? And if the land of peace wherewith thou trustest, they wearied thee, then how will you do in the swelling of Jordan? Okay, it's not dangerous yet. You wait till the tribulation come, the deep tribulation. It's no problem now. It's no problem now, but it's hard. But see, the preachers and the people are not telling you how to deal with hard times. They saying, just come to Jesus, everything will be easy. No, a lot of time, that's when it really get hard. That's when you really see that you need God. that you need God, that when you dwell in the midst of scorpions, that when you dwell in the midst of backbiters, when you dwell in the midst of haters, covenant breakers, liars, cheaters, and connivers, you really have a problem. But the thing is here, now look at his warning to the other churches though. That doesn't give you a right to hate. That doesn't give you a right to be better, because the mission is accomplished. That's what Balaam did. That was one of the rationales of Balaam, that he couldn't curse the children of Israel. So that if I could get them to fornicate, if I could get them to acting like I act, if I could get them to be angry, if I could get them to commit fornication and adultery, they'll curse. They'll be damned of themselves. Because he who God had blessed, he has blessed. Who he has cursed, he has cursed. But we have to unravel that further, but not this morning. But see, misery loves company. But look, if you don't understand, we were talking about it on the way up here. A lot of people say, oh boy, General, let Romney have it. Rubio didn't stand with Romney. Well, if you don't understand, like one of the reporters said that, it's just like, I hope you understand the analogy. You ever heard of building a straw man? You've heard of that? You know what I'm saying? Well, anyhow, what happened was, since he's been lost, he's got millions of dollars.