Please open your Bibles to Jeremiah chapter 5. We're going to study from verse 10 to verse 31, beginning at verse 10, going to the end of the chapter. Listen now to God's holy, inerrant, and life-giving word, beginning at Jeremiah chapter 5, verse 10. Go up through her vine rows and destroy, but make not a full end. Strip away her branches, for they are not the Lord's. For the house of Israel and the house of Judah has been utterly treacherous to me, declares the Lord. They have spoken falsely of the Lord and have said he will do nothing. No disaster will come upon us, nor shall we see sword or famine. The prophets will become wind. The word is not in them. Thus shall it be done to them. Therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of hosts, because you have spoken this word, behold, I am making my words in your mouth a fire and this people would and the fire shall consume them. Behold, I am bringing against you a nation from afar, O house of Israel, declares the Lord. It is an enduring nation. It is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you do not know, nor can you understand what they say. Their quiver is like an open tomb. They are all mighty warriors. They shall eat up your harvest and your food. They shall eat up your sons and your daughters. They shall eat up your flocks and your herds. They shall eat up your vines and your fig trees, your fortified cities in which you trust. They shall beat down with the sword. But even in those days, declares the Lord, I will not make a full end of you. And when your people say, why has the Lord done all these things to us? You shall say to them, as you have forsaken me and served foreign gods in your land, so shall you serve foreigners in a land that is not your own. Declare this in the house of Jacob, proclaim it in Judah. Hear this, oh foolish and senseless people who have eyes but do not see, who have ears but not hear. Do you not fear me, declares the Lord? Do you not tremble before me? I place the sand as the boundary for the sea, a perpetual barrier that it cannot pass. Though the waves toss, they cannot prevail. Though they roar, they cannot pass over it. But this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart. They have turned aside and gone away. They do not say in their hearts, let us fear the Lord, our God, who gives the rain in its season and the autumn rain and the spring rain and keeps for us the weeks appointed for the harvest. Your iniquities have turned these away and your sins have kept good from you. For wicked men are found among my people. They lurk like fowlers lying in wait. They set a trap. They catch men like a cage full of birds. Their houses are full of deceit. Therefore, they have become great and rich. They have grown fat and sleek. They know no bounds and deeds of evil. They judge not with justice the cause of the fatherless to make it prosper. They do not defend the rights of the needy. Shall I not punish them for these things, declares the Lord? Shall I not avenge myself on a nation such as this? An appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land. The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule at their direction. My people love to have it so. But what will you do when the end comes? The grass withers, the flowers fall, and the word of our God abides forever. Amen. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for a difficult passage, but one important for us to know and study. So would you bless your word by the ministry of your spirit? Would you cause it to do the work you've given it, particularly blessing us in the strengthening of our faith? We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Most Christians today, I think, or many at least, are very familiar with Romans chapter 1. It provides a pretty good description of what's going on in our own culture. In Romans 1, Paul denounces the idolatry of ungodly people and the sin and the judgment that comes. But the problem for many Christians is, though we find Romans 1 insightful, we do not think about how equally insightful is Romans 2. Now Paul's doing the business of proving that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And so Romans 1 is going to talk about the ungodly people who deny God. Romans chapter 2 talks about the hypocritical sins of those who claim to know God, who claim Him. Now Romans 2 with its highlighting on the sins of religious people fits very well with the emphasis of the prophet Jeremiah as he spoke to the people of Judah around the year 600 BC. Jeremiah's approach encourages Christians today not merely to be fixated on the heinous sins of a pagan culture around us. It's actually a challenge because right now the heinous sins of the pagan culture are really heinous. It's a little staggering what the news brings virtually every day. But the Bible says don't become so fixated on that. that you fail to see your own sins, the sins of the church and its people. Michael Wilcox points out that in Jeremiah's long diatribe against Judah, it is the church, not the world, that's under scrutiny. It is among God's people in God's city that Jeremiah is discovering evil. Well, starting in verse 10 of chapter 5, the prophet is going to be giving a warning, therefore, against false security. That's our first point today. We have a warning against false security and the disaster it will bring. And this false security arises from false teaching about God's character. Look at verse 12. They have spoken falsely of the Lord. Now the particular falsehood they've been harping on and emphasizing is one that's very common today. Keep reading, he will do nothing, no disaster will come upon us, no sword, we shall not see sword or famine. And so they denied, despite the enormity of their sins, they denied that God would ever judge them. They did not think that God's judgment would ever fall. It was a denial of God's holiness, a denial of God's justice. And of course, on the one hand, whenever people deny that there's a judgment from God, the result is, on the one hand, an increase of sin. But on the other hand, there was an inability to face the deadly destruction that laid just around the corner. They were hindered from repenting and being saved because of this lie that God does not judge. Now, many, if not most people today, make the same mistake of assuming that there is no judgment from God. Atheists, of course, deny God's judgment, having replaced a personal deity with an impersonal process called evolution. Yet even today, genuine atheists are rather few. Instead, it's people who fill out census forms with the answer Protestant or Roman Catholic, who then pass laws promoting abortion, who engage in sexual indecency, who take advantage of the weak and vulnerable, and do all of it without the slightest anxiety that God will ever judge them. I'm referring to the liberal church, the nominal worldly church, and it was the special project in the 20th century of the liberal theology to persuade people that there is no judgment from God. The result is a church-going culture that is worshiping God in man's image, in the image of a sin-tolerant humanity. Well, Jeremiah shows that the lie that God will not judge arose among the people of Judah for another reason. And namely, it was a false application of the doctrine of election. Israel was God's chosen people, so it stood to reason, they thought, that God would never let them be destroyed. Look back at verse 12. No disaster will come upon us, nor shall we see sword or famine. J.A. Thompson writes that Jeremiah's generation, stressing rather the privileges of covenant membership rather than its obligations, has deluded themselves into thinking that the God of the covenant would overlook their covenant breaches. It's very common today. And we're going to emphasize the privileges of salvation by grace, but very little about the obligations. Now, some people will say, well, it's because you're preaching the Old Testament. Back in the Old Testament, God was the kind of God who judged these sorts of things. But we're living in the New Testament. My friends, the book of Revelation is in the New Testament. And read chapters two and three, where Jesus presents letters to the seven churches. And what does it show? That God cares very much about the doctrine in our churches, about the godliness in our churches, about spiritual vitality and integrity. And he says, I will remove your lampstands. Go visit Turkey today. And see that God did remove those lampstands. This is not an Old Testament thing. It is the same God. What a mistake it is. Based on the Bible's wonderful teaching of God's sovereign grace, what a mistake it is to fail to realize that he is a God who judges. Peter said, let judgment begin with the household of God. It's the chastisement of God upon his people who bear him no fruit. Now it's not as though Judah had not been warned about this. God's servants had long been delivering his word. The problem is the people kept rejecting the prophets and their message. And we see this in verse 13. This is part of the false security that they rejected the word of God. The prophets will become when? This is the people saying this. The word is not in them. You see, Jeremiah and others like him were considered empty windbags. That would be one translation of it. Now we need to realize, too, the Hebrew word for wind also means spirit. And they're saying that it's not the Spirit of God speaking in them. Jeremiah is just this cranky person who's a downer. By the way, isn't that the cultural depiction of the prophets? Culturally marginalized people who commit the greatest of all sins today, bad style. And they're dressed weird, and they're on the margins, and they're saying things. Just tune them out. That's what Jerusalem was saying. They're not speaking words we should take seriously. In fact, they said, thus shall it be done to them. What they were saying is that Jeremiah was the one who needed to be judged for the heinous sin of preaching God's judgment. How much like our own times, and yet how wrong they were. My friends, the atheists are wrong when they assume there is no God and no judgment. Despite all the evidence of design and sovereignty in the universe, the liberals are wrong when they project their own lack of concern over sin onto God's character. And the Christians are wrong if they preach a doctrine of grace that removes the danger of God's chastisement against prevailing and unrepented sin. Now Jeremiah is going to make this point by returning to what is now a familiar metaphor, that of a vine that is going to be cut down. Verse 10, go up through her vine rows and destroy but make not a full end, strip away her branches for they are not the Lord. Now you remember The idea of Israel as a vineyard, it shows on the one hand that God owns them and God wants a harvest from his redemption. You know, God wants a harvest in your life. You're saved by grace apart from works to works. God wants a harvest of glory, a harvest of gospel vitality out of your and my life. And the image of the vineyard is a way the Old Testament shows that. The problem is the people of Judah had not glorified God. They had not lived according to his word. They had not been worshiping him and him alone from the heart. John Mackay explains that the vine here is the nation. The branches growing on it are the people who constitute the nation. This is what he's getting at when he says not to cut it down completely. He says don't cut the whole vine down. What he's referring to is the kingdom. The people will remain the people as a nation. But the individuals who were in rebellion against God were going to suffer pruning by the scissors of His wrath. Verse 10, for they are not the Lord's. You see, God's true people are saved by faith, but then are characterized by faithfulness. In contrast, look at verse 11. The Lord complains, the house of Israel and the house of Judah have been utterly treacherous to me. That refers to their idolatry. And all this bad growth was going to be pruned away. Now moving from the metaphor to the reality, we are told again that the Lord was going to bring disaster on the people by means of a deadly invasion of foreigners. Now Jeremiah is writing this sometime around the year 600. It's hard to know exactly. It's not even clear that he could have told you when he wrote it who he was talking about. He might have said the Assyrians. But it's actually the Babylonians. And what an accurate description this is of what they will be like. Look at verse 15. Behold, I am bringing against you a nation from afar, O house of Israel. Well, they were far away. They were from their homeland in Mesopotamia. It is an enduring nation. It is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you do not know, nor can you understand what they say. So it's not going to be some Johnny-come-lately. No, it's an ancient established people with strength and power. And they're going to be alien. The idea that they're going to speak a language you don't know, that's to incite special terror. Their ways could not be anticipated. There would be no way to plead with them for mercy if they could not understand you. Philip Reichen notes another angle on this by citing a scene in the Vietnam War movie, Platoon. And in the scene, an American outpost is suddenly attacked at night by the Viet Cong. And they're on the radio with the headquarters. And while the fight's going on, the people back in headquarters, they're hearing it. They're hearing the shouting. They're hearing the shooting. But then the shooting dies down. And all they hear is what to them is chattering in a foreign language. It's the Vietnamese soldiers who are the only ones left. And then the alien voices incited increased terror. That's what's going on here. By the way, it's interesting that Moses, centuries earlier, writing in Deuteronomy 28, 49-15, makes clear that this is, in precise details, this was the punishment designed should the people of Judah and Israel break God's covenant. Look what Moses said centuries earlier, Deuteronomy 28, 49 to 50. The Lord will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, swooping down like the eagle, a nation whose language you do not understand, a hard-faced nation who shall not respect the old or show mercy to the young. Well, as Moses had foretold, this will be a singularly deadly enemy. Verse 16, their quiver is like an open tomb. They are all mighty warriors. Now when a tomb is open, it's expecting the bodies of the dead. And that's exactly what the Babylonians had in mind when they began shooting their arrows. And war always brings destruction and misery. Your own army is bad enough. In the times of the Civil War, it was bad enough to have your own country's army march through your lands. Everything was going to be stripped. All the pigs were going to be eaten. All the fields were going to be harvested. Why? They had to feed the army. But that's nothing compared to when the enemy army comes, because now there's fire and there's destruction, there's slaughter, there's wanton destruction. And this is how it will be, verse 17. It's interesting that the emphasis is on the last one. because they were trusting in their own strength and their fortress cities. And that trust, that false security would be shown when the Babylonian war machine ground them down. Now, this graphic depiction of conquest and destruction was designed, of course, to shake the people out of a false security, to awaken them that they need to be restored to God. Now, you and I look back on these events, and by the way, one of the benefits of preaching the prophets is you learn the whole Old Testament. You really can't understand the Old Testament if you don't know about the Babylonian captivity, and now you do. We're gonna learn more about it. And we look back and we go, wow, that actually happened. Yes, it did. What a tragedy it was. But you see, the lesson is applicable today. Notice that all these good things that the Lord is going to take away from them in such a violent way are things that he himself had given as a blessing, things he himself had provided by his loving hand. You see, what happened is they were offered in service to idols, and therefore, they are lost. That's the principle for us today. Today, you say, well, I'm not worshiping Baal or Asherah. What about fame, fortune, and pleasure? They're the idols that win hearts today, and they're the sources of a false security. You see, it's only when we trust the Lord that we gain the true desire of our hearts. The false security of money, of position, of beauty. There's nothing wrong with saving money. There's no reason, nothing wrong with seeking to do well and to advance into position. Nothing wrong with celebrating good things in life until we make them our God. They become the object of our obsession. Our hearts are given to them. Our idle thoughts are going in their direction. It all becomes a false security and we thereby lose the very blessings that God would have been happy to give us if only we worshipped him, if only we were trusting his name. Jesus made this point to a rich man who put all of his trust and all of his delight in his wealth. And he pointed out to him how little it was going to do him when God came to claim his life. Jesus said, Luke 12, 20 to 21, you fool. This night, your soul is required of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God. Notice Jesus did not say, oh, you're going to be judged if you have treasure. No, no, no. It's the poverty towards God. It's the trust in things, the false security apart from God. And so it's not surprising that Judah's idolatry led to such a devastating judgment. But what's surprising is that the Lord was so temperate. Look at verse 18. But even in those days, declares the Lord, I will not make a full end of you. He's going to devastate them, but it's not going to be a final end for Judah. They're not going to be erased from history, although they certainly deserve that. Now, why is that? Well, the reason is God's purpose of redemption according to His Word. This is the house of Judah. This was right about the covenant. God's covenant promises must be kept. They were the chosen people of God, although as Paul makes clear, merely being Jewish did not make you a chosen person of God. The elect are the people of faith and holiness. But the nation was that through which Jesus was going to come. And so there would again be fruit on the battered tree of Judah. There'd be a remnant to survive the disaster. There'd be a return from the coming exile. If you don't know the books of the Bible, you should read about Daniel and Ezekiel and the days of the Babylonian exile. As Esther, that was the time of the exile, and God was with them. And then Esther, Ezra, and Nehemiah, 2 Chronicles, how God provided for him. There would be a remnant. God's mercy would prevail. Isaiah famously foretold how the stump of this fallen tree would yield the savior of the world and the people who would be saved through him. Isaiah 11, one, there shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse and a branch from his root shall bear fruit. And yet while Judah awaited that day of redemption, for now, verse 19, the Lord wants them to learn a lesson. When your people say, why has the Lord our God done all these things to us? You shall say to them, as you have forsaken me and served foreign gods in your land, so shall you serve foreigners in a land that is not yours. Now here's a vivid example of the biblical principle of reaping and sowing. Paul says this in Galatians 6, do not be deceived, God is not mocked. What you reap, you will sow. And you say, well, I thought we were saved by grace. We are saved by grace. But when it comes to blessing or chastisement, we reap what we sow. And Judah had polluted the lands with fallen gods, false gods. They had worshiped the abominations of the Gentiles. Well, if that's what you want to do, the place to do that is Babylon. That's what the Lord's saying. And so you want to serve the foreign gods. I will give you the best opportunity to do so. Now, we too should learn from Judah's experience. I think this especially applies if we have professed faith in Jesus Christ. How many people in America today, in South Carolina today, in Greenville today, would click on the census, Christian, evangelical Christian? and have professed faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But what a false security there is if that assertion of belief is not evidenced by the manner of our life. We are living in a time where just as rife as the idolatry of Judah in the time of Jeremiah is today is the rifeness of a cultural Christianity that does not bear the fruits of the grace of God and bear true proof of salvation. Listen to how Jesus is going to take this very idea, not just this passage, it happens a lot in the Old Testament, but Jesus is going to pick up the whole vineyard analogy. He's going to say this, John 15, five to six, I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. From apart from me, you can do nothing. But then he says, if anyone does not abide in me, He is thrown away like a branch and withers. The branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. That's a description of professing believers who are not abiding in the Lord Jesus, who are not alive, who are spiritually dead. Well, let me ask you, are you walking in sincere faith? Are you seeking to glorify God in your daily life and also in your life ambition? I think a good test of our hearts is that when you lie awake at night and your mind begins to wander, to what does it turn? Do we think, do we dream of fame and glory and the accolades of the world? Or does our mind wander to the hopes and dreams of a godly life? Children, grandchildren, spiritual children who know the Lord of an opportunity to serve the Lord Jesus. Oh, how our idle thoughts betray us. Well, the question is not whether or not you sin. This passage is not saying if you profess faith in Christ and you sin, God is going to judge you. It's not what it's saying. Solomon said there is no one who does not sin. First Kings 8 46, the Bible tells us Jesus understands our weakness. He knows our mortal frame. David sinned, but he was beloved of the Lord because he sought him with all of his heart. There was sincere, sincere fervor for the Lord. There was a life that not only professed him, but that was sacrificed before him. The lesson of Jude is that we must not cherish a false security by presuming that God will not judge. That we must seek our only security in a humble, repentant faith that worships the Lord and him only. Here's how Isaiah put it. Here's true security. Isaiah 26 3. You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in you. Well, the remainder of Jeremiah 5 is going to add to this warning against false security. A second warning against spiritual complacency. The rest of the chapter is devoted to that. First, there's a warning against false security, then against spiritual complacency. Look at the rebuke of verse 20. Declare this in the house of Jacob. Proclaim it in Judah. Hear this, O foolish and senseless people who have eyes but do not see, who have ears but do not hear. Well, God has shown His foolish people, but they don't see. The Lord has spoken, but the senseless have not heard. And that charge is made because of their failure to benefit from the message that God had been giving them through His prophets. We think of how that would happen in the time of Jesus Christ. Jesus would come to the same city. The Son of God would come, and he would preach, and he would teach, and they would not believe him. It's a great encouragement to preachers today. You know, the problem with unbelief is not the problem with the message. We don't need to change the message. The problem is not even the messengers, if they're faithful to the Word of God. No, the problem lies in the total depravity of sinful men and women who do not and cannot believe God's Word because they will not endure it. And yet the Lord would still have Jeremiah speak again. And what he's going to do is he's going to convict their spiritual complacency in three terms. In terms of their irreverence, their ingratitude, and their infidelity. First, he assails their irreverence. Look at verse 22. Do you not fear me, declares the Lord? Do you not tremble before me? Psalm 111 verse 10 says, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. But my friends, the very heart of folly is to live as if God didn't matter. and how easy it is to profess God, but then to live as if he didn't even exist. It didn't matter what he thought. The consequences of my actions and thoughts towards him don't even occur to us. That's what he's talking about, this irreverence. Now, when we talk about fearing the Lord, we don't mean some cringing, servile terror, but it's a reverential awe by which the Lord is held in the highest respect. Do you not hold me in reverential awe? Do you not respect me as the God of the universe? And see, the lack of that reverence accounts for their inability to know his word. Well, there are so many reasons. Why, we should have reverence for God, but verse 22 is going to turn, the Bible will often do this, to His power over creation. He's the God of creation. He's the God who made everything. Is He not worthy of reverence and fear? Now in this case, look at verse 22, I place the sand as a boundary for the sea, a perpetual barrier that it cannot pass. Though the winds toss, they cannot prevail. Though they roar, they cannot pass over it. Now, there might have been other examples of God's majesty and authority, but the point here is the way that nature stays within the boundaries that God set for it. And yet his people do not. Look at verse 23. But this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart. They have turned aside and gone away. Now, God's referring to the worship of idols by which the people showed utter disrespect for God's glory and authority. And the fact that the sea, in the Bible, the sea is a symbol of chaos. And yet even the sea stays within the boundaries God has given it. But what does that say about the stubborn refusal of Judah to live according to God's word? Their stubbornness exhibited a suicidal defiance against the Almighty. Philip Ryken writes, only a stubborn heart would refuse to revere the God of creation. If even the seas obey him, he ought to be praised and obeyed. Let us not be irreverent towards God. Now secondly, their spiritual complacency is seen in ingratitude. Verse 24, they do not say in their hearts, let us fear the Lord our God, who gives the rain in its season, the autumn rain and the spring rain and keeps for us the weeks appointed for the harvest. You see, the point is that they should be grateful to God because of the rains that he got, the way he provided for them year in, year out. But of course, the idea of harvest was a sore spot. The Canaanite false gods were fertility gods. They had gone to the Baal altars to hedge their bets because they weren't willing to trust the Lord for the rains and the harvests. and yet he'd been faithful. It's shown, he makes reference to the way the Feast Weeks show this. There's a seven week period between the Feast of Passover and the Feast of Pentecost. At the end of Passover, the first sheaf of the barley harvest is waved before the Lord, and they're trusting him for the rain that's going to be needed, so that seven weeks later, the wheat harvest would come in, and the Feast of Weeks of Pentecost began with the waving of the wheat harvest that had come in. And the lesson was to be we should be praising God because he keeps his promises. He is faithful They should be saying let us fear the Lord our God, but they would not Well my friends again when we are not thankful for the Lord's blessing So that we praise him so that we dedicate what he's given for his service. We not only show this spiritual complacency we also threaten God's provision of those blessings. Look at verse 25, probably referring to famines that the Lord gave them as punishment for idol worship. Your iniquities have turned these away. These are harvests. Your sins have kept good from you. And so much of our difficulty in life is explained by that statement. Your sins have kept good from you. When we take God's good gifts and we use them sinfully, we use them for our own pleasure with no idea of what He desires and how He intends, how often we lose the very bounty our hearts foolishly worshiped in His place. Now this doesn't mean that every time disaster strikes that God's judging you for idolatry, but it does mean that if you've been committing idolatry, and how often we are, if we've loved the lifestyle, if that's where our heart has been, if the things that we have and have lost were things that we loved in place of God, it's a call for us to repent, to confess our sins and seek his mercy. Well, the final most dreadful sign of spiritual complacency is seen in the infidelity and the injustice within their culture. Verse 26 and 27, the Lord assails the powerful for the way they exploited the poor and weak. For wicked men are found among my people. They lurk like fowlers lying in wait. They set a trap, they catch men. Like a cage full of birds, their houses are full of deceit. Now the analogy is being made between the way a fowler, a bird hunter, did his hunting. They would hide nets in shallow pools or in the brush and they'd be hiding nearby. And when the flock of birds would land, they would pull the net and they would have them all inside. And this is an analogy for how they were exploiting vulnerable men and women. Instead of feeling shame, they reveled in their success. Look at verses 27 and 28. They became great and rich. They have grown fat and sleek. Verse 28 suggests this was pervasive throughout the ruling class. There was an exploitation of the poor by the rich. Why? Because they controlled the courts. And they failed to do their duty to extend God's mercy to those in need. Here's what he says. They know no bounds in deeds of evil. They judge not with justice the cause of the fatherless to make it prosper. They do not defend the rights of the needy. Now this accusation makes clear that there is a difference between fair and unfair business practices, between godly and ungodly business practices. Let me do an easy example today, but it's an important one. The way that banks today, banking is a fine industry, but not when that college student, that 21-year-old with a low income gets that, he didn't even apply for the credit card, it comes to him in the mail. and telling him that he or she can live beyond their means. That's the net. What's the trap? The 25% interest rate. The whole business model is based upon enticement and entrapment. Why? To be fat and sleek. To have power and glory. It is wicked. When agreements are made, they should be kept. When advertisements are often, they should be true. Here's the question, are we enriching ourselves at the expense unfairly of others? Perhaps we say, well, no, frankly, I'm not. But look, he's going to push harder. But have we taken cause with the fatherless? Are we showing mercy to the weak? Are we concerned by those who were structurally disadvantaged? You think of the cause of single mothers today. This is the importance of Christian mercy ministries today. God desires that we would care and show interest in the fatherless. He is father of the fatherless. He's protector of widows. God in his holy habitation. Psalm 68 verse five. Well, distressing as was the behavior of Judah's ruling class, what's interesting is how the Lord describes the corruption of the religious class. He actually shows more alarm about it. Look at verses 30 and 31. This is going to end the chapter. An appalling and horrible thing has happened to the land. We just talked about the ruling class exporting the people, devising traps just to keep them poor and to siphon all their money, but now he's appalled. This is worse than that. What's he going to say? It is false teaching. within the church to which he refers. That is what he's going to say. An appalling and horrible thing has happened. The prophets prophesy falsely. The priests rule at their direction. More terrible than the economic exploitation of the weak is false teaching in the church. And here's the logic. What will happen to Judah? If those entrusted were proclaiming God's word, instead were to teach lies. What will happen today if the evangelical church stops preaching and teaching the truth of God's word? What happened to Judah is the answer. What will happen when the spiritual leaders imbibe of the values, the success measures, the techniques of the culture, the very thing happening today? The answer is seen in Jeremiah 5. This is the appalling thing when the church will not be the church, when the pulpit will not preach the word of God. But as Jeremiah so often does, let's not forget the pew. My people love to have it so. Now I'm reminded of what Aaron said when a vexed Moses came down from Mount Sinai to find the people of Israel dancing around the golden calf. And Moses wanted to know why Aaron thought this was a good thing to do. I've loved his answer. It's Exodus 32, 22. You know how the people are. They're trying to have a successful church here, Moses, and they wanted a golden calf. Well, so also today, pastors turn away from God's word in order to get the big church, the big salary, and the big name. And it's for this reason that the Bible so highly loves faithful pastors who go on preaching God's Word and leading worship in a reverent, God-honoring way, despite the cross on which their churches will try to crucify them. I have to say, I'm getting old enough that I get phone calls from younger pastors, and even this week I was on the phone with a weeping minister for the way his church is crucifying him. His PCA church is crucifying him for preaching God's Word and for making the most obviously necessary changes to worship. Well, Paul explained, he said to Timothy, preach the word, rebuke, reprove, exhort, for the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passion. 2 Timothy 4, 1-3. Well, Jeremiah concludes with a sober question to the church. Like the people of Judah, for those who will not endure the sound teaching of God's word, look at the very last statement. But what will you do when the end comes? Ha ha, that's the rub. What will you do when the end comes? The end was about to fall on Judah. And when the Babylonians arrived, there was nothing to do but suffer and die to experience the wrath of an offended God. My friends, how much better for us now to make room for God's word in our hearts. to humble ourselves, to reference God, and to say what Augustine said, when the Bible and I disagree, I'm wrong and it's right. When the Bible upbraids us and says, hey, what are you doing? Let's open our hearts for that word. Let's cultivate the reverence, the gratitude, the faithfulness, which alone will attest that our faith is real and saving. But if you do not, the end will still come. And what then will you do? Well, as Jeremiah concludes his prophecy in chapter five, we're reminded, as we will be so often reminded in this book, of the essential role of the preaching of God's Word and the believing, the preaching and hearing, the believing and obeying of God's Word. In so many ways, it's central to the book of Jeremiah. In so many ways, Jeremiah is a commentary to this question, what happens when the Word is preached and you believe it, versus what happens when the Word are preached and you will not? Well, with that emphasis in mind, let me go back to verse 14, because in the midst of this diatribe, there's a little aside between God and Jeremiah that's going to provide us the point of emphasis. Remember in chapter 13, that the people were accusing the prophets of being windbags. Don't listen to Jeremiah and people like him. Look at the way they're dressed. They're out of style. What he's saying is out of tune. He's the one who needs to be judged. There's a little conversation in verse 14. God answers, he says, because you have spoken this word. Now the you there is plural. He's talking to Judah. Okay, because you've said that about my prophets. But then it's in the singular. He addresses Jeremiah and he says, behold, I am making my words in your mouth. It's a singular your. Okay, prophet, that's what they've said about my word. I am making my words in your mouth of fire, and this people would, and the fire shall consume them." Well, let me conclude our study today with two observations, and the first is this. When faithful ministers preach the words that God has given, it is God himself who is speaking to the people. It is my words, he said, in your mouth. And so it is, whenever the Bible is faithfully preached and taught, there was in this case a complete identity between Jeremiah and his words and God and his words, my words in your mouth. And this, by the way, is why preachers need to preach the Word. My opinion has no authority at all, but when I preach the word of God, it is, my friends, it is not me the minister. It is God who is speaking through the faithful proclamation of his word. Look at verse 14. Therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of hosts. the sovereign and almighty God. My friends, to neglect or refuse what is preached from God's Word is to neglect or refuse God with disastrous results. Then secondly, God's Word proclaimed by faithful servants is given power by God. to accomplish his will. Behold, I am making my words in your mouth a fire, and this people would, and the fire shall consume them." You see, when Jeremiah was threatening God's destruction of Judah, God himself was going to make that word come true. And likewise today, when the preacher tells you the truth from the New Testament, things like Romans 6.23, the wages of sin is death, Things like Hebrews 9.27, it is given man once to die and then comes judgment. It not only is true, God will make it true because he will cause his word to have power to be true. It will be true in your life. Not because of the word of the preacher, but because it is God's word in his mouth, God through it will light his fire. How wonderful the same is true when the gospel promises of Jesus are faithfully preached. When the preacher says from Acts 1631, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you will be saved. Not because of the preacher, because God will cause his word to be true. And if you will believe in Jesus, you'll be forgiven and be saved. When the preacher promises that the blood of Jesus, God's son, cleanses us of all our sins, 1 John 1, 7, God himself will keep that promise and he will forgive yours. And so the lesson is clear. When God speaks, let's have reverence for his word. Let us listen. He speaks to us today in his written word. And so when you read it, God is speaking to you. Oh, listen. He speaks to you in the preached word of the pulpit. Do not be foolish. Do not be senseless like Judah. Eyes that see and ears that do not hear. Now believe God when He speaks so that the fire of God's Word will cleanse you, remake you from the inside out. Believe His Word and then go on and live a reverent, grateful, and godly life. Oh, what a great thing is a reverent, grateful, and godly life. Father, we pray for this for ourselves. Help us to profit from the preaching of your word. This is not an easy passage again, Lord. It's something we need to know. And we thank you for the grace that you've given us. But Lord, we also recognize that our salvation, our justification is not an end in itself, though the true end is your glory, that you'd be glorified in the fruit of our lives. And Lord, we know that we sin. We know that we are always going to fall short. We know that in this life, as your own word says, we will never be perfect. But Father, give us the heart that seeks after you. Give us a humble and sincere religion. Let us not be spiritually complacent. Let us be reverent and grateful, and help us to be godly. And Lord, we are blessed by your word that we will have the smile of your favor, and we will serve you in our time. We pray for this in Jesus' name, amen.