Where Change Begins
Notes
Transcript
The Old Testament is a fascinating book to study. It requires study because there are usually many degrees of separation between the accounts contained, and the reader. We usually read of people that lived in a different time than the penman, and usually a different place and culture as well. The penman who wrote the words lived in a very different time as we do, who are residents of the 21st century, and probably all of us here as citizens of the USA in the Western world. There are a lot of differences between us and the people in the Old Testament!
It’s a fascinating study primarily because no matter how many differences there are between us and OT characters, the heart issues are not very different. In fact, each one of us can feel like God put a certain person in the Bible just for ME, because that’s exactly what I’m going through! This alone should remind us that God’s Word is still relevant today.
In our text this evening, we’re going to see a situation that is both light years away from how we live today, but yet right next door. May God speak to our hearts with His ever-relevant Scriptures!
I. The Way of the Heathen
I. The Way of the Heathen
Jeremiah 10:1-2
What was the way of the heathen? What was God condemning?
A. Man’s efforts
A. Man’s efforts
Jer 10:3-4, 9
Consider the work and human skill involved!
Woodcutters
Sculptors
Carpenters
Metalworkers
Painters
Weavers
There’s a lot of industry going on here! People are using their talents and abilities! Men congratulated themselves on all that they had accomplished together. What were the results?
B. Results
B. Results
They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not:
They must needs be borne, because they cannot go.
Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil,
Neither also is it in them to do good.
But they are altogether brutish and foolish:
The stock is a doctrine of vanities.
Every man is brutish in his knowledge:
Every founder is confounded by the graven image:
For his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them.
They are vanity, and the work of errors:
In the time of their visitation they shall perish.
All this work by all these people resulted merely in lifeless deities. These statues couldn’t move, they couldn’t talk, or see, or hear. They couldn’t do anything for the devoted idolaters who made them. In fact, they were much like the ones who made them. (“Brutish”) Such effort with NO results!
II. The God of Creation
II. The God of Creation
As we know, Jeremiah was sent to proclaim the word of the LORD to a wicked nation. In chapter 9, we see Jeremiah’s weariness and distress with the people’s sin.
Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears,
That I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!
Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men;
That I might leave my people, and go from them!
For they be all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.
And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies:
But they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth;
For they proceed from evil to evil,
And they know not me, saith the Lord.
This behavior of the people in clinging to pagan idols was even more wicked, considering the God that they forsook to follow idols!
Jer. 10:6-7, 10-13, 16
Why would anyone turn from the Almighty to construct fake gods out of wood and stone? Why turn from the Omnipotent One to impotent ones? It comes down to a preference for man’s effort, man’s knowledge, and man’s self-love.
But this is just Israel’s problem, right? None of us have any problems like this, or know anyone who does. But as this chapter goes on, we see that there isn’t as much separation between us and the Old Testament as it may appear.
III. The Way of God’s People
III. The Way of God’s People
A. Desertion
A. Desertion
We know that Israel had adopted heathen idolatry, but the prophet Jeremiah got even more specific with their sin. They had not only copied pagan practices, but had forsaken their God-ordained ones.
Jer. 10:19-21
If Israel in general adopts idolatry, the tabernacle may be a quiet and lonely place. If Israel forsakes God, the tabernacle may be a deserted place. But if the tabernacle becomes a spoiled and ruined place, it is because even the Levites—God’s ordained ministers of the temple—have forsaken it! Israel is God’s chosen people, but it’s not too hard to picture some Jews forsaking God. But even the priests had deserted the tabernacle! How could God’s people do this? What were they doing instead?
Jer. 10:21b
The pastors—leaders of God’s people—“have not sought the LORD.” Why? What have they sought instead? They have followed their own knowledge and wisdom…their own efforts. And what is the result?
B. Judgment
B. Judgment
Jer. 10:17-18, 22
God always judges sin. And praise to His name, He always blesses repentance!
He that covereth his sins shall not prosper:
But whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.
IV. The Response of the Servant
IV. The Response of the Servant
I have often been glad that I am not in Jeremiah’s position. He was given the very difficult task of proclaiming judgment to a wicked, rebellious people who would not listen, but would fight and resist Jeremiah.
Then the Lord said unto me, Out of the north an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land. For, lo, I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the north, saith the Lord; and they shall come, and they shall set every one his throne at the entering of the gates of Jerusalem, and against all the walls thereof round about, and against all the cities of Judah. And I will utter my judgments against them touching all their wickedness, who have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto other gods, and worshipped the works of their own hands. Thou therefore gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak unto them all that I command thee: be not dismayed at their faces, lest I confound thee before them. For, behold, I have made thee this day a defenced city, and an iron pillar, and brasen walls against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against the princes thereof, against the priests thereof, and against the people of the land. And they shall fight against thee; but they shall not prevail against thee; for I am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee.
Back in Jeremiah 10, after the prophet condemned the practices of the heathen, and condemned the despicable idolatry and unfaithfulness of Israel and the Levites, and lifted up the majesty and power of God, what did he do? After speaking God’s message in pointing out the sins of his listeners, where did he turn his focus?
Jer. 10:23-24
What humility! What honesty! Jeremiah was uniquely equipped to see the gory details of Israel’s sin, but he didn’t point the finger at others; he humbled himself before God. “O LORD, correct ME!”
Correct: chastise, instruct.
Judgment: i.e. a legal decision from the judge.
“Whatever I need, Lord, give it to me! Don’t let me go astray. Correct me!”
Why did Jeremiah respond this way? At a time when he was almost the only one faithful to God and obeying God, why would he ask for God’s correction?
O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself:
It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.
What was the way of the heathen? It was to think highly of his own efforts, and celebrate his own ideas and accomplishments. What was the way of God’s people? It was to forsake the Word and worship of God, and cease to seek after God. It was to direct their own steps.
Jeremiah realized that except for God’s preserving grace to direct his steps, he would end up joining in the sins of idolatrous Israel. Jeremiah was God’s preacher to Israel. How would Israel see a good example of repentance and obedience, if Jeremiah was busy condemning them in his own self-righteousness? How could God bless Jeremiah’s preaching if Jeremiah was lifted up in pride? There is a place for God’s judgment (Jer. 10:25), but that is God’s business in God’s time. We must humbly submit to Him now, lest we be the ones who are judged.
Folks, our church is in a precarious position. We are experiencing very concerning conditions of division and disunity. No, God hasn’t forsaken this church and removed His candlestick, but where we are right now is not His design for His churches. We cannot stay where we are.
Because of this division, we all might feel like we’re in Jeremiah’s position. “I see it correctly, but those people do not!” I have seen firsthand that there is a spirit among some of waiting for God to correct those people over there so the church can move on. But precisely who needs correcting depends on who you ask. And not everyone can be right…except if we will, like the prophet Jeremiah, plead with God, “O LORD, correct me!”
Are you willing to be corrected? This isn’t about “whose fault this is.” Jeremiah didn’t entertain that question. This is about realizing that without God, every single one of us will go astray, seeking our own way. Every single one of us will fail and will be judged. And so we—you, me—need to be corrected.
Where does change begin? Change begins in my heart. Change begins with you saying, “O LORD, correct me!” Will you pray and ask God to do that work?