Can You Hear Him?
Notes
Transcript
Introduction:
I have discovered something profound as I’ve gotten older. I cannot hear as well as I used to, nor can I see as well as I used to.
Many of you have already gone through the transition and you perhaps think that I just said something like, “I cannot cheer as well as I used to,” or, “I cannot ski as well as I used to.”
If that’s use, I sympathize with you.
However, what concerns me more is not whether I can physically hear or see better than I could, but whether or not I can hear the Lord as well as I used to and whether I can see His hand at work. You see, as I grow older in the Lord, I pray that these things are growing in me. I pray that I am able to hear God better than I used to and see Him working all around me.
I pray that I never lose the wonder of God.
Israel had done that. They were God’s people, but they didn’t act like it.
What about you? Can you hear Him?
9 Thus says the Lord of hosts: “They shall glean thoroughly as a vine the remnant of Israel; like a grape gatherer pass your hand again over its branches.”
10 To whom shall I speak and give warning, that they may hear? Behold, their ears are uncircumcised, they cannot listen; behold, the word of the Lord is to them an object of scorn; they take no pleasure in it.
11 Therefore I am full of the wrath of the Lord; I am weary of holding it in. “Pour it out upon the children in the street, and upon the gatherings of young men, also; both husband and wife shall be taken, the elderly and the very aged.
12 Their houses shall be turned over to others, their fields and wives together, for I will stretch out my hand against the inhabitants of the land,” declares the Lord.
13 “For from the least to the greatest of them, everyone is greedy for unjust gain; and from prophet to priest, everyone deals falsely.
14 They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.
15 Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed; they did not know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; at the time that I punish them, they shall be overthrown,” says the Lord.
Pray
Some of you may think it is a drudgery to keep pressing through the same messages from the same book of the Bible as we journey together through Jeremiah. However, God has seen fit to give us this much of the Bible to cover this similar topic of repentance and turning back to the Lord when we’ve strayed.
It seems important to God to record for us these messages by way of reminder, so I will so my best to keep it from being a drudgery, and we must do our best to make sure we are listening to the Lord.
Tonight, as we study this message from Jeremiah to his people, we are going to look at a few different things.
The Message of Jeremiah 6:
Jeremiah’s Warning (vv. 1-8)
The People’s Constraint (vv. 9-15)
The Lord’s Solution (v. 16)
The Prophet’s Responsibility (vv.17-30)
1. Jeremiah’s Warning (vv.1-8)
1. Jeremiah’s Warning (vv.1-8)
We skipped over several of these beginning verses when we read earlier, so look with me in vv. 1-8 again.
Jer 6:1-8.
1 Flee for safety, O people of Benjamin, from the midst of Jerusalem! Blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and raise a signal on Beth-haccherem, for disaster looms out of the north, and great destruction.
Jeremiah promises that judgment is coming against Jerusalem out of the north.
Out of the north is the normal direction of judgment.
Judgment would come either from the north or from Egypt geographically.
Map of the Mediterranean
You’ll notice from this map of the Mediterranean that there is huge desert to the left of Jordan and Amon.
In fact, if we look at this map of the Babylonian Empire at its height, we see that although the Babylonian Empire covered a lot of ground, nobody really wanted to rule over the desert sands. There was just nothing there and it was a wasteland to try to cross.
Map of the Babylonian Empire
So judgment would come from one of these two places and God says that it’s coming from the North.
Let’s continue.
2 The lovely and delicately bred I will destroy, the daughter of Zion.
3 Shepherds with their flocks shall come against her; they shall pitch their tents around her; they shall pasture, each in his place.
4 “Prepare war against her; arise, and let us attack at noon! Woe to us, for the day declines, for the shadows of evening lengthen!
5 Arise, and let us attack by night and destroy her palaces!”
God says that they are coming for everyone. They will spare no one, no matter what class they belong to.
Let’s continue further:
6 For thus says the Lord of hosts: “Cut down her trees; cast up a siege mound against Jerusalem. This is the city that must be punished; there is nothing but oppression within her.
7 As a well keeps its water fresh, so she keeps fresh her evil; violence and destruction are heard within her; sickness and wounds are ever before me.
8 Be warned, O Jerusalem, lest I turn from you in disgust, lest I make you a desolation, an uninhabited land.”
God tells the people that their will be seige and in doing so He is telling them how bad it is going to be.
Notice a few things about the warning.
God gave them time to change things
God gave them the reasons for the judgment to come
2. The People’s Constraint (vv. 9-15)
2. The People’s Constraint (vv. 9-15)
10 To whom shall I speak and give warning, that they may hear? Behold, their ears are uncircumcised, they cannot listen; behold, the word of the Lord is to them an object of scorn; they take no pleasure in it.
God tells us the constraint of the people: they can’t hear the word of the Lord.
It’s not that they can’t physically hear, it is that they do not want to hear.
He says they have uncircumcised ears.
They are not listening for the Lord.
They cannot heed the warning because they won’t receive the Word of God.
18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.
11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.
13 And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
The issue is not that God has not tried to communicate the truth to them.
They have been warned by the prophets
They have the written word
They have visually seen Israel taken into captivity
Their constraint is that they do not want to turn from their sin to the Lord.
God condemns them for prematurely pardoning themselves from sin.
13 “For from the least to the greatest of them, everyone is greedy for unjust gain; and from prophet to priest, everyone deals falsely.
14 They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.
15 Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed; they did not know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; at the time that I punish them, they shall be overthrown,” says the Lord.
The leaders have deceived
They have healed the wound that was supposed to e used to warn and lead them to repentance
They have not been ashamed of sinning
Application
We must be quick to hear the word of God and slow to speak.
We must not attempt to ease the conscience without genuine repentance.
3. They Lord’s Solution (v. 16)
3. They Lord’s Solution (v. 16)
16 Thus says the Lord: “Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’
Notice what God tells them.
Consider the ancient ways
Walk in them
Rest your souls
Application
This is not a call to be old fashioned, but a call to be right with the Lord.
4. The Prophet’s Responsibility (vv. 17-30)
4. The Prophet’s Responsibility (vv. 17-30)
17 I set watchmen over you, saying, ‘Pay attention to the sound of the trumpet!’ But they said, ‘We will not pay attention.’
God has made Jeremiah a watchman
He has a responsibility to warn the people all that God has spoken
Jeremiah is called a tester of metals
His words will be like a fire to them
Application
What do you think our responsibility is to the people of this world?
We must stand in the gap and warn them.
Responsibilities of a watchman:
16 And at the end of seven days, the word of the Lord came to me:
17 “Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me.
18 If I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, in order to save his life, that wicked person shall die for his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand.
19 But if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, or from his wicked way, he shall die for his iniquity, but you will have delivered your soul.
20 Again, if a righteous person turns from his righteousness and commits injustice, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die. Because you have not warned him, he shall die for his sin, and his righteous deeds that he has done shall not be remembered, but his blood I will require at your hand.
21 But if you warn the righteous person not to sin, and he does not sin, he shall surely live, because he took warning, and you will have delivered your soul.”
Conclusion
As we think about these things, times have not changed much.
We still need to heed the warning and listen up.
We still need Jesus to help us have the strength to tell the world to turn to Christ and be saved.
We still need to remember the ancient paths and walk in them.
If we will do this, we will find rest for our souls.
