And from this text last Sunday morning, we talked about the problem and the tragedy of the false prophet. The false prophet is addressed quite extensively throughout the Bible. The problem of the false prophet goes back as far as the prophets themselves, and it goes forward on through the Bible to the very last book of the Bible. It's the problem down through history, down through the time of the church. And I believe with all my heart the problem in America is much traced right here as any other problem. We looked at the problem as Jeremiah spelled it out for us. In verse 16, he told us that God had not sent them. And then in verse 25 and verse 26 and verse 31, he said that they spoke from their own heart and dreams. It wasn't the message of God that they brought, but it was their own message. It was a message that was born in their own thoughts and in their own heart. And then verse 36, we saw the problem with the false prophet was that they perverted the words of God. They changed them. They turned them upside down. They changed the meaning of them. And in that sense, overthrew that sought to overthrow the true message of God. And then verse 32, the problem of the false prophet was that they lied and and they were reckless or they use likeness, that they were deliberate, that they knew what they were doing. That's the idea of lies. Wherever a lie is, there's always intention. A lie is never a mistake. A lie is intention. It's intention to deceit, to deceive. And so when the Bible says that the false prophets lied, it means they weren't ignorant. They knew what they were doing. And then it says that they use lightness or recklessness. And the idea really underlying that is they have no sense of reverence. They have no sense of the fear of God. All they are concerned about is men. Their ministry looks at men. And had they any sense of the fear of God, they would not use such lightness and such irreverence. They would not be reckless. But they are that. You can imagine these false prophets, that they were entertaining sort of fellows that had no sense of the difference between the holy and the common, had no sense of difference between a political speech and a message that was supposed to be brought from God as a message of the word of God. And they were like that. And then he says the problem teaches us and shows us the problem of the false prophets were that they would themselves were corrupt. We saw that in verses 11 through 14. This is really the bottom line about them. This is you're getting to the root of the problem now, how they can speak of their own heart and say, God says, how they can twist the word of God and how they can use such lies and recklessness because they're corrupting themselves. And that's the problem with the false prophet. But then we began to talk about the tragedy of the false prophet. I come back here because time did not allow us to deal much in depth with the tragedy of the false prophet. I'm not going to cover everything that we did or Go back to that, but I would like to come to the last two things that we were talking about. The first thing that we noted about the tragedy of the false prophet is in verse 10, that the corruption had covered the land as a result of their lack of faithfulness or their wickedness in preaching a message of their own heart and standing against the word of God. It led to corruption. The pulpit is to have a moral impact upon a society. And when the pulpit is corrupt and the pulpit does not thunder forth the Word of God, then the land goes into corruption. That's where we are in America. The devil's always been in America. The wickedness has always been here. But our country has known times of revival. It's known times of the movement of God where conviction came and morality was restored. But the church has been unfaithful. And there's more people that are entertaining people. There's more people that are just have a total man-focused ministry instead of delivering God's message. As a result, corruption has come into the land. The second tragedy is the errors that people have been led into. Verse 13 of verse 32 says, they cause my people to err, to be led astray. They cause them to be led into the false teaching. And ours is a land of much false teaching. And I'm not even speaking of things like Mormonism. And I'm not even thinking of things like Catholicism or things like Jehovah's Witness. I think most of us in this room understand that those things, those teachings are so far from the Bible. And we own ourselves as Protestants. In a sense, we may say, well, we are Baptists. And people like to draw a distinction. But the point is, We certainly have aligned ourselves with those who long ago saw the fallacies of Catholicism and its teaching on works and man's own merit for salvation. Man will never have merit for salvation. No man can save himself and no priest can save a man and no church can save a man. And if a man is not saved in this life, he will not be saved after life. All of that's so clear in the Bible. And then all those other teachings we mentioned. But I speak of things within what has been called Christianity. Things such as easy believism, where people are believing because they've made an assent to truth that they're saved when they've not been converted. They've never been convicted. They've never been converted. They don't love God. They still love themselves. Things like the prosperity gospel that are so prevalent today. where people have departed from the truth of following Christ, and they are teaching a health and wealth and prosperity and setting people up to be defeated by the devil. If they would be faithful and tell people that we must, through much tribulation, enter into the kingdom. That's what the Bible says, that the way is narrow, it's difficult, and there's a cross to carry. And we must carry our cross. We must shun the world and we must conquer the flesh, and we must look to our Lord and be faithful to Him. And then the wicked are emboldened, verse 14, because of the tragedy of the false prophet is that there were so many of them and there were so few of the true prophets that because of their message and their false message, the wicked were really bold. They had been made bold. They've been strengthened in their wickedness. And that, I think, is one of the most alarming things that we're watching in America. We're watching as the wicked are becoming more and more bold. And surely this week is discouraging and disheartening to see how bold the wicked are. And so to see people who are held up in prominence on a television, openly advertised a gay marriage and those type of things. Just bold. The wicked are very, very bold. We see it in politics where people are bold, bold against the things of God. They don't hesitate to stand up against the things of God. We're living in a very bold society. How far it will go, I don't know. You don't know. It's very bold out there. There's such little seem like morality and modesty and ethics, just basic principles that you would think all would agree on, but they don't. And so the wicked are bold in our day. It's on the television. It surely should cause you to cringe if you're watching it and see how bold they are. But then out here, in the world in which we live, so bold. You that are out in the public place, they don't hesitate to take God's name in vain. They don't hesitate to talk about things that they ought not be talking about. Our world is becoming bold. It's like this. It's out of the closet, isn't it? And I don't mean just the gay. I mean it's just out of the closet, that there is just an outright disrespect, disregard for the things of God in our culture. Some people want to say that we're having revival. I don't know how anybody can think we're having revival in America, how anybody could even dream that we're having revival. You and I, my friend, live in the Bible belt. You and I live in a bastion in a sense of truth. And yet, we're not in revival. We're headed more and more to paganism. every day. It's troublesome. Oh, I'm thankful that we must believe in the providence of God and we believe in the sovereignty of God. If it weren't for that, I could not even stand to think about what my grandchildren will face. If I did not believe in the sovereignty and the providence of God, I would just tremble to realize what Sam, in his lifetime, my youngest son, will face. It's a wicked world. Thank God for the sovereignty of God. Thank God that you and I know that God has His purposes and He's working this. But understand, it is the false ministry that is strengthening the hands of the wicked. If everywhere today people went to a house of worship, they were hearing the truth, Spirit-anointed truth, and if it was Spirit-anointed, it would be facing This disregard for God, the supremacy of our land. If God were leading our preaching, the wickedness would be being addressed. You can rest assured of that. God has never changed. God is always the same. And the message of Jeremiah would be the message of our hour if men were being led. Think what would happen just in our town. There's enough people going to church this morning. That if in every church in our town, men were led of the Spirit and people would go out of that place realizing what sin was, what truth was, and conviction would come. But the false prophet has emboldened the wicked. In verse 17, the one I want to come to, is that they are preaching peace to the wicked. And then verse 22, had they preached the truth, people would have turned. These are two things that stand out to me as tragic in this text, that they are preaching peace to those who despise God. Look at verse 17. They say, and I'm going to come back to that, but the idea there is they continue to do this. They keep saying it. It's a continual thing. They keep saying Still unto them that despise me, the Lord has said. They keep doing it. They're still doing it. Jeremiah has stood up and said it's false. It's wrong. These men are wrong. What they're telling you is not true. But has that stopped the false prophet? No, he just keeps doing. He's still doing it. And notice he says still unto them that despise me. The Lord has said you shall have peace. And they say unto everyone that walketh after the imagination of his own heart, no evil shall come upon you. The word imagination is found ten times in our Old Testament. And nine of those times are right here in the book of Jeremiah. And the meaning of the word imagination is the idea of stubbornness. We think of imagination, well the guy is just imagining something in his heart. But it goes beyond that. It goes to an attitude. For sure, they're thinking their own thoughts. But the thing that Jeremiah is saying, that the people are stubborn in their heart. Now, what he's saying when he says that they are preaching peace to the wicked, what they're doing is, the peace that they're preaching is that there would be no judgment. That's what he's talking about. Oftentimes, when we talk about peace, we talk about peace in the heart, peace with others, a peace with God. Now, when there is peace with God, there's no enmity with God. There's when a man is coming to peace with God, there's no condemnation. There's no judgment. That's the idea of these men right here. See, Jeremiah was preaching and he began. preaching about their backslidings, their forsaking God, their turning from God, their turning to all these other false gods. And he said to them, like a wife would treacherously depart from her husband, so you have departed from me. That's what he said to the people of Israel. And then he proclaimed to them the judgment that was going to come. And he said to them, that Babylonian captivity was theirs. In fact, he said that it's going to be for 70 years. For 70 years, you're going to be in captivity. In fact, he told him, he sent a message to Babylon and he said, you might as well settle down and build your houses and marry and give in marriage so that you don't diminish, have children there, because you're going to be there for 70 years. And what he was speaking about was the judgment. that there was a judgment to come. And so when these prophets spoke and said, you shall have peace, what they were saying is there's not going to be any judgment. What they were denying was the essential message of judgment. Now, listen to me, that is always the characteristic of the false prophet. The false prophet is always Whether he does it outright or whether he does it by refusing to deal with the Scriptures that deal with it, he's always characterized by a positive message that has no judgment. Now, you just start listening to it and you see. Remember last week I told you, and this is very important, I wish you'd write this down and remember it, that when you're listening to preaching, it is not only what you're hearing that you should be listening to, But you should be listening to what you're not hearing. What is the thing that's left out? For instance, if you're listening to preaching about Christ and you never hear it said that he's the only way, that he is the way, the truth and the life and no man comes the father but by him. If you never hear the message that Peter spoke in Acts 4.12, that there's no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. And when you start realizing they're not preaching the exclusive gospel, that Christ and Christ alone is the way of salvation, start listening. He's not a way of salvation. There is one God and one mediator between God and man is the man Christ Jesus. That's the Apostle Paul's teaching. And so when you find you're not hearing anything about the judgment. Have you ever thought about the prominence of the message of judgment in the Bible? You that read the Bible, you read it through. Have you ever thought about it? It's always been the message of the prophets. Go back to Elijah. What is the message of Elijah to Ahab and to Jezebel? To Ahab, he says, the dogs are going to lick your blood. To Jezebel he says, the dogs are going to eat you by the walls of Jezreel. The message of judgment. Go to the prophet Micaiah. What does he say? In the last chapter of the book of, I think it is first Kings. He says to Ahab, you're going off to battle, but you're not coming back. And if you come back, you can rest assured, I'm not a man of God. I'm not preaching to you the truth. You're not coming home. That was the message. It was a message of judgment. Right on through Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel. Go through them. Go to Hosea, Joel and Amos and follow those minor prophets through the Bible. Then come to the life of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ came and he proclaimed the judgment. Do you realize that most of what we know about that eternal place of fire called hell in the Bible, we know because Jesus said so. No man would have ever came up with The idea that a rich man died in hell, he lift up his eyes being in torment. And he begged and pleaded that just a drop of water would be placed upon his tongue. And he was told no water is going to be given and nobody that's where you are can ever leave there and come to the place of peace and rest. What man would have ever come up with that? How do you know about that great day when the sheep and the goats be parted left and right? How do you know that? You know it because Jesus told it. And then you come to the great Apostle Paul and you read his writings, Romans 14, 2 Corinthians 5, 2 Thessalonians 2. Always he's teaching about the coming of the Lord and the judgment. And then we must all give an account of ourselves, the deeds that are done in this body. You come on through the New Testament. You look at the writing of Peter and Peter spoke of the great day of the Lord that's going to come and look at Jude. He spoke of those that were being reserved in chains under the day of judgment. And then you go to the book of Revelation. It's all the way through there. I want to say something to you, and I hope that you just think about this. The gospel makes no sense at all if there's not a judgment. The good news that Jesus Christ died upon a cross and rose again. And that if you believe upon him, you'll be saved and he that believes on him is not condemned, but he that believe it not is condemned already. You say, well, we have a positive gospel, we want to preach on the cross and the resurrection. That only makes sense. The gospel makes no sense if there's not a judgment. And it's characteristic of false prophets. that they do not preach in on the judgment. They preached peace to those who were facing the judgment to soothe them. They wanted the people to have peace in their heart. But how can a man have peace in his heart when he's facing the judgment? How can anybody sleep at night when they're going to judgment? In their situation, the armies of Babylon We're outside the walls. And here are people that are terrified. But they don't have to say that way. Here they're troubled in their heart. They see what they see. And here is the false prophet saying, don't be troubled about that. God's not going to let them come into this city. This is the city of the great kings. This is the city of God. This is the place where the temple is. Before it's over, the walls of Jerusalem are burned and destroyed. The temple is burned and destroyed, and they go off to judgment. But you can imagine the terror they felt in their heart. And that's what we have today. People want peace in their heart. But, oh, my friend, there's a judgment to come, and you have no reason to have peace in your heart. There's nothing I can say to soothe you. You're one heartbeat away from God. You're one breath away from judgment. When you went to bed last night, it's just the mercy of God that you're here this morning. And when you go to bed tonight, you're not guaranteed Monday morning. There are people that are in a lot better shape than you that have gone off into eternity. There are people even more wicked than you, you say, that have gone off, but there are people less wicked as far as their practice that have gone off, too. They were proclaiming peace. In other words, there's no judgment. Some of the preaching you're hearing over our televisions, when have you heard judgment? When have you heard them telling people? That they're going to judgment. Now, notice who they're telling this to. They're preaching that there is no judgment, but what's amazing is who they're preaching it to. Those that despise God. and those who stubbornly refuse to follow him. They walk after the stubbornness of their own heart. The word despise looks to an attitude of heart. It has the idea of contempt. It is at its very root, the idea of to scorn. It is translated different ways, but one of the ways it's translated is to abhor. Another way is to blaspheme or to provoke. All of these words are used to reflect that when a man blasphemes God, he does it because he scorns God. He does it because he holds God in contempt. He does it because he abhors God. Now, here is the very reason for the judgment. You may not think in your own life that you scorn God. But wherever you take the name of God, you do so because you hold God in contempt. Anybody that walks in the stubbornness of their heart, God says, you abhor me. You despise me. You say, Preacher, I'm just I haven't accepted Christ. I haven't come to Christ. But Preacher, I don't despise God. That's what the Bible says you do. How do you know about Christ dying on the cross for your sins, for the lies you've told, for the blasphemies you've done, for the things you've stole, for the commandments you've broken. He died on that cross. He wore a crown of thorns. He had been spit in his face. His beard had been plucked from him. He had been nailed to that cross. He had been beaten with a whip. And there he hangs on that cross and the last thing they do is stick a spear up through his ribs. They scorn him. Now how do you know that? And you go on without despising him. You do despise God. It is God's law. These people despise Jeremiah. They despise This message of judgment. They despised the commandments. They were involved in idolatry. Read it in the second chapter. They were involved in breaking of the Sabbath. Read it in the 17th chapter. In all of this, God is saying to these false prophets, they're preaching peace to people who actually despise me. That's what's going on in America, in our churches. People are coming and setting in our churches and they're being told they're going to heaven when they've spent the week cursing the name of God. They spent the week in adultery in their own living rooms. They care nothing about the commandments of God. They don't love their even love their moms and dads, they've shunned them. They're not going to take responsibility for their own parents. And they sit in our churches and they're out for America, but they're being told, Oh, come to Christ, you're saved. You won't go to hell. And this gospel of just an ascent without conversion, without conviction. And here are people in their lives that are living abhorring with contempt against God. I hope you understand, if you're ignoring the commandments of God, God says it's because of contempt. It's the lack of fear, it's the lack of respect. It's a stubbornness. They abhorred the authority of God. They wanted to be like other nations. You think about the work of conversion. The work of conversion, which involves conviction, but the work of conversion is this. Is to bring people to love God and to love his law. You haven't been converted if you don't love God. You don't you haven't been converted if you don't love his law. You haven't been converted if you still walk in the stubbornness of your own heart. You haven't been converted. A man or a woman, a young person that's been converted, they've been converted to love God. That is what conversion is about. If you've been converted, Jesus Christ means more to you than everything else in this world. If you've been converted, He is the pearl of great price. He's the treasure in the field. He is that which is worth giving up everything that this world could ever give you. What is it? What is it about? The gospel is to bring us to love God and to love our neighbor to love. Well, here are these men. They're saying you're not going to have judgment and they're saying it to those who despise God, the same to those who are stubborn. In their own heart, they were refusing. Notice verse 18 through 20, what we see about this is the very opposite of the truth. For who has stood in the accounts of the Lord? Who have perceived and heard this word, his word? Who has marked his word and heard it? Behold, a whirlwind of the Lord has gone forth in fury, even a grievous whirlwind. It shall fall grievously upon the head of the wicked. The anger of the Lord shall not return until he has executed, till he has performed the thoughts of his heart. In the latter days, you shall consider it perfectly. I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran. I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied. What he's saying is it's just the opposite. They're saying there will be no judgment. And the message is just the opposite is true. Had they perceived it, had they heard his word, had they marked his word? I think the idea there is much like we say sometimes, mark this down, mark my word. Listen to me, mark it down and see if it isn't true. And if the prophet had done that, if he had marked the word of God, the message he would have been giving is just the opposite. That the anger of the Lord is going to come. That it's going to be like a whirlwind. It's going to go forth in fury. A grievous whirlwind. There's going to be a tornado. I mean, There's going to be a tremendous tornado and movement of God, destruction. It's going to be a hurricane. It's going to be a hurricane when God moves. And that's what Jerusalem looked like when this was over. Nebuchadnezzar came in there, killed all of the king's sons right in front of him, and then put the king's eyes out, Zedekiah. and then led him to Babylon that way. Destroyed that city. Destroyed that great temple. It was like a hurricane had come through there. A whirlwind. Fury. Here the false prophets have said, it won't happen. God loves you. It's unconditional. He just loves you. Our God is a God of grace and mercy. Oh, God is always a God of grace and mercy. Read Psalm 136. It was His mercy when He destroyed Pharaoh. It was His mercy when He destroyed the armies of Pharaoh. It is His mercy when He destroys the wicked. It is His blessing to the righteous. And so there's a hurricane coming. The message would have been just the opposite. I cannot help but believe If any man has any sense of the Bible and of God in this day and is watching America, he must know we're facing a hurricane. God's not going to turn his eyes away forever. I dare say I'm not a prophet. I'm not the son of a prophet. But I dare say the wheels of God are already turning on America. I think he's delivering us up to foolish leadership in Washington. I believe He's allowed us to trust a lie. He sent pestilence, diseases. He sent natural disasters. And we wonder, is the famine next? What is next? He's brought us to war. We're in a war again. We don't seem to be able to get out of. And we're wondering. We're in Afghanistan and we're in Iraq. Are we going to Iran? And what's going up there in Russia and Georgia? And where is it going? And I tremble. I tremble not only for my son that's already involved, but I know if this country continues in its folly and foolishness, my sons, other sons, and your sons, without regard to what they want, will be called upon to serve just like in the past. You rest assured of it. If it keeps going, you watch the view and tremble before God because of it. You watch the news and tremble before God before what's coming. And you watch them advertise Ellen Degenerate getting married, gay marriage. And we know a whole state and others are... You watch that and understand We're headed to a hurricane. There's a fury that's coming. America has had so much light. We've had the prophets. But our pulpits, all we can do is sit around and hear the positive. How can a man address people? without pleading for the souls of people. How can we keep telling people how good they are and all the good when we know the evil? And we know our sons and our daughters and our grandchildren are going to be affected by it. Some of you are old, and praise God. You can praise Him. You're going to be gone. But it's our children and our grandchildren And so the message is just the opposite. And notice they persisted in this. That's verse 17, I mentioned at the first. They say, they keep saying still, they continually say, and they have no regard for the truth of God. They have no regard for what Jeremiah is saying. What this is emphasizing, it's willful, it's persistent, it's disregard. It's not an honest misunderstanding. It's not an honest misinterpretation. We become comfortable. We like living as preachers across America, middle class and upper middle class and even upper class. We want to be up there with the others. It's a deliberate thing. People have put their flag up and they know which way the wind is blowing. They're not going to take a chance. Undisturbing the status quo. They're not going to side themselves with truth in God and say, it's time for us to quit offending God at the house of God. Peter said judgment begins at the house of God. And if those in the house of God scarcely be saved, what of the rest? Read it there in the fourth chapter of First Peter, if you want to write that down. It's willful. It's persistent. It's disregard. It's deliberate. But come to the second point. Had they spoken the truth, they would have turned them from their evil way. Look at verse 22. But if they had stood in my counsel and they had caused my people to hear my words, then they should have turned them from their evil way and from the evil of their doings. Think about this. Think about the people that go to churches that do not preach the truth. that would be convicted and converted if they heard the truth. Think about the revival that might come to America. How would revival come? I don't know how it can come unless it comes through the church. And here is a message that said where all these false prophets had they lined up with Jeremiah and God's message, people would have responded. They would have turned. They came to church, they came to the assembly. Some come with good intentions, some with faults, regardless of why they come. If the truth is preached, possibly they will be converted. Think about that. I think about a dear uncle of mine. It's over 90 years old. When I was 18 years old, he cursed me to my face. He cursed me and he cursed my family and he cursed my religion. That's what it was about. Somebody said to him, here comes the preacher. And he got so angry, he hated God. But in his latter years, he starts going to church. But where does he go? He goes to a place where finding the gospel in that place would be like finding a needle in a haystack. The Methodists used to be such great gospel preaching churches, and there no doubt are some yet. Loading everything in a basket, but I'm telling you, the Church of John Wesley has changed. You can rest assured of that. And what's sad to me, there's something that draws a person to a church and maybe it is the wrong motive. I'll grant you that. Perhaps many of us come to church for the wrong motive to the assembly. But if somebody preaches the truth. God is so gracious and mighty, wonderful, that he might open our eyes if we came for the wrong motive. More than one young man has gotten saved just going to church with his girlfriend. More than one young lady has gotten saved coming to church with her boyfriend. That's the wrong motive to go to church, you say. But praise God, they heard the truth. But I can't imagine That somebody could go anywhere where the Bible is supposed to be open over a period of time and not hear the truth. Can you imagine that? No preaching today is designed to meet the practical problems of life. I want to talk to you about that just for a minute. There's a great emphasis upon the three keys to a happy marriage, the three keys, five keys. to raising good kids, keeping kids on your team and all that stuff. The problem with this type of ministry, it never gets to the truth. And by that, I mean it never gets to the foundation of the problem. The foundation of the problem is sin and self and life lived without God and in conflict with God. You take three keys to getting a hold of, to getting along with your wife. There's really one key. Your problem is self-love, self-concern, self. I'm not saying that's everybody's problem, but I think we're getting closer to the core. We can't resolve all the difficulties of life, but boy, when people start living God's way, it makes all the difference in the family. They can work through the problems. Much of what is going on is like psychology. Psychology tries to help people to cope. Psychology tries to help people to find peace. Psychology tries to help people to find happiness. And if it's Christian psychology, I suppose we would be pointing people to Christ. And we would be pointing to the morality of the New Testament. Because if you come to Christ and you follow the morality of the New Testament, Everything's going to change in your life. But preaching's a lot like that. We're trying to help people cope. And what we do is we assume people's problem is ignorance about life. Have you ever thought about this need-oriented preaching? Three keys to getting along with your wife. Five keys to keep your kids on your team. What that assumes is that you're ignorant. It assumes that you can't figure out how to get along with your wife. You can't figure out how to get along with your kids. that people are ignorant in life. I'm not so convinced people are as ignorant as we want to think they are. I think people are stubborn in many ways. I think people are self-interested. I think the problem sometimes with people getting along isn't three keys. It's the same problem that I have with Sam and Darren. They both want the same thing at the same time, and one of them is willing to strike out to get it. One of them is willing to have war for it. You don't have to watch two kids play very long, and they're all like that. A lot of times it's the younger one. He's more bold. But people's problem isn't so much ignorance. Man has a basic problem. He lacks peace. He's missing something. But it's a result of enmity with God. If we want to know peace in our heart, we have to know reconciliation with God. That's the whole point Jeremiah is making. Jeremiah said they're saying there's no judgment. But if they had told people the truth, if they had if they had proclaimed the message, God's message, the people would have turned. In other words, they would have been converted. They would have changed. Think about that. It's criminal. It's not criminal to preach against sin. It's not criminal. to preach the commandments of God, to point people to the need of Christ? What is criminal is to never get down to the root of the problem. My goodness, if I have cancer, it would be criminal to treat my skin cancer as just a blister when you knew it was cancer. But you say, I just couldn't bring myself, preacher, to tell you. I couldn't bring myself to tell you you had cancer. So you put a band-aid on that little blister and I'm dying now. And you say, well, that's a criminal offense. A doctor is supposed to diagnose the difference between cancer and a blister. And a preacher is supposed to do the same. He's supposed to get to the root of things. And here Jeremiah is dealing with the false prophets and the greatest tragedy is here. Had they just told the truth, people would have been changed. People could have known. the glories of conversion. They could have known what it is to love God. They could have known what it is to have the love of God in them, where they would love people like God loves us. God loves us not because of what we are and what we deserve, but He loves us because of what He is. That's the whole point of grace. That's the whole point of God's love. God never bestowed his love upon you because of who you are. And if you're thinking about God's love that way, you've got it all backwards. God loves you because of who he is. He's a God of grace and mercy. He looks at you and he feels compassion. He feels mercy because he's that way. And when a person is truly converted, then they have that agape love. They have that kind of love in their heart where they began to love others because of who they are. And think about that. A husband now who treats his wife right because of the love of God that's in him. A wife that treats her husband right because of the love that's in her. And right on through a society where it's not about ourself and it's not merely that we are mostly drawn and that person deserves what I give them. But that I now have been changed. And it's in me. That's what conversion does, it brings us to love God, it brings us to love others. The tragedy is there will never be peace to man in sin. in this world or the next. There's no keys I can give you. There's no message I can give you. There's no message to America. How are we going to resolve the problems of America? We're not until we turn and we're not going to turn until we come back to the truth. And the truth is that we have despised God in this nation. We have abhorred him. We've been stubborn. We refuse. That's what's behind getting the commandments out of public life. That's what the hatred of the Bible is about. Why do you think Christianity is the despised religion? There would never be any problem with Islam in the schools or even Mormonism in the schools or anything else in there. But the moment Christianity is there, because it's the age old battle between Satan and God and there's a hatred, you say you have a negative perspective of this world. It is simply the truth. Anybody can see that Christianity is the despised religion in America. It's despised all over the world. They tell me that more Christians have been martyred in the 20th century than all the previous 20 centuries to get here. But if we were faithful, not all will be saved, but some will be saved. Some will turn. Some will respond. So our message is that, what Jeremiah's message was, that we must turn. We must turn. We must repent. And the message is that if we don't, it's because we despise God and we're stubborn. All the positive preaching in the world will not bring positive results into a godless life. It just won't happen. Great teaching of the New Testament. Through the death of Jesus Christ, we can have peace with God. God has reconciled himself to us in the cross, but the message to us is to be reconciled to God. That everyone in this room. That there is a way of peace. There's a way to have peace with God. There is a way now to be prepared for the judgment to come. That is the message. That man can be saved. That man can be forgiven. That you can be. But you have to turn. You have to turn. Turn, yes, from sin. Turn, yes, from evil. But turn to Jesus Christ to know that Jesus died for your sins on the cross, that He was buried and rose again. And come and lay, as it were, your enmity down. Cease your war with God. Surrender your heart. Be done with your stubbornness. Be done with abhorring God. Be done with contempt of God. Turn. What you will find, the arms of God are wide open to you. The arms of Jesus Christ are stretched out still. The forgiveness of God is deep. It's beyond your ability to even comprehend how deep the Father's love goes. But it goes to the depth of all of your sin. And for anyone who will lay down their weapons of war against God, Come to Jesus Christ, embrace him in the forgiveness of your sin. You find the arms of God extended. But it goes to the heart. It's your heart that God is after. He cares nothing about an ascent to truth. He cares nothing about an empty decision. He's looking inside you. Let's stand together.