"No Longer on Speaking Terms" April 29, 2018 AM

The Mercy of God’s Revelation in Prayer

Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, you, such a good God, you continually give to us what you know we need in our frailties and our limitations so much better than we do you know what we need.

We thank you for being a faithful and good Father calling for us to come to you in dependence, trusting that because of Christ and by the power of your Spirit who indwells us that you would hear our requests, that you would answer them in the best possible way and in the best possible timing.

We intercede for the Powells, their work in France, for their protection and for their ministry opportunities as they deal with the churches in their area. We thank you that you make difficult things turn into good things through this car accident.

Give Ryan and Dana wisdom as they raise their children and pray that you would just draw them to yourself and hold them fast in their work. We pray for Vern and Denny Johnson that you would give them the vehicle they need to do the work that they're supposed to do there and in Africa.

We pray for the Wilcox as they travel, as they're going to come visit us soon. Father, please give them safe journeys. Lord, you know these needs. We have needs here this morning. As we come together, we need to hear from you.

We need to hear from your word. We need to see Christ. We need to be renewed in your image. Please move us along in our our pilgrimage. Let us not be static and laid back to press on, to press in. We ask that you give us unfailing confidence.

The word you have given us is truly the word which reveals Christ and so this is a word of life, that is a word of absolute truth and authority. I pray that this morning you would stir us up, stir us up to the work that you have for us.

We ask these things for the sake of Jesus Christ with whom you are well pleased. Well, please open your Bibles and turn with me to Jeremiah chapter 18. Jeremiah chapter 18. Last time we were together, we looked at verses 1 through 12 at God as the potter.

God is the potter and we as the clay. That key verse, if it will help you remember, is there in verse 6. After seeing the potter at work, God says, can I not, O house of Israel, deal with you as this potter does, declares the Lord.

Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. That about sums it up. In light of that specific message, in light of that kind of totalitarian claim on Judah, we find it somewhat unsurprising that despite God's call to them to repent in light of who he is and who they are, that they reject him, that they reject his message.

And we read that a couple of weeks ago in verse 12. I want to start with verse 12 this morning, spend some more time looking at that verse. And we're going to look at verses 12 through 17 this morning.

The Disastrous Rejection of God’s Message

Would you please stand with me in honor of the reading of God's word? Let's hear this message given to us through Christ. This is the word of the Lord. But they will say, it's hopeless. For we are going to follow our own plans and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.

Therefore, thus says the Lord, ask now among the nations, whoever heard the like of this, the virgin of Israel has done a most appalling thing. Does the snow of Lebanon forsake the rock of the open country?

Or is the cold flowing water from a foreign land ever snatched away? For my people have forgotten me. They burn incense to worthless gods and they have stumbled from their ways from the ancient paths to walk in bypaths, not on a highway, to make their land a desolation, an object of perpetual hissing.

Everyone who passes by it will be astonished and shake his head. Like an east wind I will scatter them before the enemy. I will show them my back and not my face in the day of their calamity. This is the word of the Lord.

Please be seated. By the end of verse 17, I hope that you can see the problem. God and Judah are no longer on speaking terms. In verse 17, we have Judah who does not listen to God, no matter what he says or who he says it through.

So often and so thoroughly do they stop listening to God that God says in the day of their calamity, he's going to turn his back on them. He's not going to listen to them. And they may throw up some desperation, please, but he's not going to listen to them.

They're no longer on speaking terms. That's an idea that I think really, that image, that phrase, that often brings to mind broken relationships in our lives. I think that's an idea that covers verses 12 all the way through the end of the chapter.

We're just going to look at verses 12 through 17 this morning at the disastrous rejection of God's message. And it always is a disaster when we reject God's message. Anytime we find the message of God being rejected by human beings, the end result is disaster.

I'm thinking of a story in 1 Kings. In 1 Kings chapter 22 in verses 1 through 40, we have a story that starts off with King Ahab. So you may know where that's going. King Ahab, who is king of Israel in the north and King Jehoshaphat, king of Judah in the south.

They get together because they want to retake Ramath Gilead, an area, a town that should belong to Israel and not to some foreigner. Well, Ahab needs some help. So he calls on King Jehoshaphat to combine the armies and the horses and the chariots together.

And we're all going to work together and take back this land. Well, Jehoshaphat comes and he meets with King Ahab at the threshing floor of Samaria there at the city gates. And it's all pomp and circumstance.

Both of them are sitting on their thrones and everyone is attending them. And Ahab has in his pocket 400 prophets. They're on his payroll. And therefore, when Ahab is asked by Jehoshaphat, well, what does God say?

Ahab says, well, I've got 400 prophets here who can tell us what the Lord wants us to do. Jehoshaphat says, we can't go into battle unless we get approval from the Lord. And so Ahab says, well, let's listen to the prophets.

And 400 prophets come trotting out and parading around and they all say the same thing. God's going to give you the victory. Go fight. You'll win. Ahab's amazing. He'll win. And Jehoshaphat smells a rat.

And he says to King Ahab, don't you have any real prophets around here who will actually tell us what the actual Lord says? And Ahab says, yeah, there's one, but I hate him. He always says bad things about me.

His name is Micaiah. And Micaiah is not really welcome at the threshing floor at Samaria. He's not really welcome in the presence of the king unless it's, you know, really urgent. And so Ahab sins for him.

And meanwhile, the prophets get the idea that they're sinning for another prophet. So they better up their show. So Zedekiah makes these horns and he goes around and he's pretending to gore the other prophets and says, this will be you, Ahab.

You're going to gore all the enemy and kill them all. And they're just having a wonderful time. 400 prophets all saying the same thing. All of them to a man agreeing together about something that is not true.

Anyway, the messenger goes and finds Micaiah and says, okay, look, King Ahab is sent for you. And everybody's saying that he's going to win the battle. So you better say the same thing too. And Micaiah says, I'm only going to say what God says.

So he brings Micaiah before Ahab. Micaiah is looking around. He sees all the antics going on with all these 400 prophets. And Ahab lays it out for him and says, okay, what does the Lord say? And Micaiah says, go fight, win.

You're going to be awesome, Ahab. You'll win the day. Being really sarcastic. And apparently this is his usual routine with Ahab because he knows what Ahab wants to hear. And Ahab says, how many times must I adjure you to tell me nothing but the truth from the Lord?

They don't have the greatest relationship. And Ahab then prophesies, Micaiah then prophesies and says, I see all the sheep of Israel scattered without a leader. Meaning, Ahab, you're going to die. And Ahab turns to Jehoshaphat and says, didn't I tell you he doesn't say anything good about me?

So Ahab rejects what God says. He doesn't like what God says. And so he rejects the message of the Lord. But isn't this an opportunity for Ahab to repent? To say, whoa, rather than resist this all-powerful God, rather than resist the word coming through this authenticated prophet, I should stop and repent and humble myself before the Lord.

Ahab had done that before, temporarily. He needs to do it again. He needs to hear the message of the Lord. But he rejects it. And the end result was that Ahab dies. They go into battle and Ahab feels like he's got a bullseye on his back.

And so he tells Jehoshaphat, you wear your royal robes and I'm going to go out disguised like a normal soldier. Brave, brave Ahab. And they get into the battle. The enemy closes in on who they think is the king of Israel.

Discover it's not really him. And the battle continues until it says, at a chance, at random, some enemy bowman fires an arrow that finds its way into Ahab's body. And he bleeds out and dies. We need to know that the result of rejecting God's message is disaster.

It's disaster. To reject what God says means that we reject how God saves. Rejecting what God says means rejecting how God saves. He gives us the message of the gospel. We are born again of living seed, the word of God.

He tells us who he is. He reveals himself to us through his son, Jesus Christ, telling us who he is and calls us to repentance, to faith in Christ. If we reject what God says, we reject how he saves. Well, let's look at this message.

What is the message? The message is in verses 1 through 11 in Jeremiah 18, something we looked at a couple of weeks ago. And as you read verses 1 through 11, and I counted a few times to make sure I have it right, the amount of, I think it's 15 times in 11 verses, 15 times in 11 verses, we read something like, God says, God's word, God's voice, God speaks.

15 times in 11 verses, there is this emphasis on God's revelation of himself, giving the truth, his truth to those whom he wants to hear, but they're not listening, but it's 15 times. It's a generous, thorough communication.

It's also a personal, intimate communication. In verse 1, we hear about the word that came from the Lord that, by verse 5, we read about the word of the Lord who came to Jeremiah. Not only is this a thorough, generous communication, this is a personal, intimate communication.

And if there's a way to understand what's going on here, picture in your mind the cross of Jesus Christ and put quotation marks on each side. Everything that God says, he says through his son, Jesus Christ, he communicates to us his word through the word who is God the son, Christ.

Consistently, we're reading in Jeremiah about the word of the Lord who came to Jeremiah to communicate with him. Who is this? Except God, the son, through whom we know only through whom we know the father.

What a gracious, saving purpose in communicating. God's act of revelation is all about God's act of salvation. He's revealing himself to us through his son that we may know him and by faith in him be saved.

How gracious, how merciful that God reveals himself to us. You know, the people of Nineveh got a way shorter message than what Judah got. For three days, they had a reluctant, prejudiced prophet grumbling his way through their streets saying, in 40 days, Nineveh will be overthrown.

How are you going to get anything out of that? And yet, Nineveh repented. Judah, it's the word of the Lord again and again and again and again and all different. How generous of God, how gracious of God to give his word, to this message to this people.

It's mercy that God would condescend to provide a message. It's mercy. It's an opportunity to repent. It's here is God and this is what he's like and we have to believe in him. It's mercy that God would provide a message.

It's mercy that we would share that same message. But what an affront, what an insult to his compassion, what an insult to his long suffering that we would take up the message that he has given to us and then begin to revise it.

And that doesn't really work today. We better not say that. Definitely don't say that. Get in trouble. Begin to reject it, begin to revise it, begin to resent it. But there's God's message. What are we going to do with it?

If we reject it, then the end is disaster. Notice man's rejection there in verse 12. But they will say, God says, I know what they're going to say. I'm giving this message anyway. I'm long-suffering.

I'm merciful. But they will say, it's hopeless. It's hopeless. We are going to follow our own plans and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart. The phrase, but they will say, is actually expressive of a repeated action that's going on then.

It has been going on and it will continue to go on. It's just the way that they respond. They say, oh, it's hopeless. We're just going to do what we're going to do. They keep on saying, it's hopeless.

I wonder at that expression, it's hopeless. I'm trying to understand it. Is this the despair of an addict? Say what you want. It's hopeless. I just, I know I'm going back. Is this the defiance of a traitor?

I don't care who you are, what you say, I'm going to do it my way. And it seems to be a mixture of both. After all, they make plans and act on them according to the imaginations of their heart. It's very much what happens in Jeremiah 2 .25 after God is calling the wayward Judah back to himself as he had married Judah to himself and then she abandoned him to leave him for false gods.

He calls her back but she says, it's hopeless. I have loved strangers and I will follow after them. It's the madness of sin. I think it's important that we note, according to verse 12, after the very generous communication of God, 15 times in 11 verses, it's focused on God speaking to his people but then they say, it's hopeless.

It's not going to work. We're going to follow our own plans and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of his own evil heart. I hope that we can see that listening to and favorably responding to God's message is totally incompatible with following our own plans and doing things our own way, acting according to the stubbornness of our own heart or, let's use a modern translation, being true to yourself, trusting your feelings.

That is greatly celebrated by our culture. That's applauded in our world. The idea that here's someone that no matter what authorities say, you're going the wrong way, that's not a good idea but this person is true to themself and they will be independent and they will be creative and they'll find a way through and prove everybody wrong.

That is the hero of our culture today. Be true to yourself. Trust your feelings. Don't let anybody ever tell you that you're wrong. That is the American hero and heroine of our day in every movie, in every TV show, in every novel, short story, on and so forth.

Do we understand that what often God is appalled at, God is so very often appalled at what men applaud. Men applaud it and God is appalled at it. We hear that in Jeremiah 5 verses 30 and 31. The same word appalling that we have here in verse 13, in Jeremiah chapter 18, the very end of that verse.

The virgin of Israel has done a most appalling thing by saying it's hopeless, we're going to go our own way, be true to ourselves, and I don't care what you say God. God says that is a most appalling thing.

That term appalling pops up periodically through Jeremiah and Jeremiah 5 verse 30 says a horrible and appalling thing has happened in the land. What is it God? What is so horrific and appalling? The prophets prophesy falsely, the priests rule by their own authority, and my people love to have it so.

But what will you do at the end of it? They're applauding, yes prophets speak your own word, yes priests do things your own way, oh we love that independent spirit that you have, and God says yeah what's the end result?

Disaster. It's disaster. The same idea is there in Jeremiah 2, it's even there in Jeremiah 23 in verse 14. God describes his people's rejection of him as appalling and then says they are all to me, all of Judah to me is like Sodom and her inhabitants like Gomorrah.

Because verse 12 of Jeremiah 18 is the attitude of Sodom and Gomorrah. No matter what you say or what you do God, it's hopeless. We are going to follow our own plans and each of us are going to act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.

No matter what Lot has said to us as he's lived among us, no matter what Abraham said to us when he rescued us from Chedolamor and the northern coalition, no matter what Melchizedek king of Salem and priest of God most high, no matter what he said to us, we are going to do our own thing in our own way.

It is the attitude of Sodom and Gomorrah. So fixated, so fixated on raping Lot were the men of Sodom that when the angels struck them blind they wore themselves out trying to find the door. It's the attitude of Sodom and Gomorrah.

No matter what God does or what he says, we're going to do what we want to do. It's disastrous. It's disastrous. They have forgotten me, God says. They burn incense to worthless gods. Literally, in rejecting God's message, they forget God.

They burn incense to worthlessness, literally. They're just burning stuff for no reason. This is exactly what he says in Jeremiah 2, 11 through 13. He talks about we have the same problem, the same term, appalling.

Has the nation changed gods when they were not gods? But my people have changed the glory for that which does not profit. Be appalled, be appalled, oh heavens, at this. And shudder, be very desolate, says the Lord, for my people have committed two evils.

They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and they have hewn for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water. That's the image of what they're doing here. It's the same idea that they have forgotten God, they've given up on God, they're not going to listen to God, and they're going to burn incense to worthlessness.

They're going to expend their lives and worship that which is worthless, and it's like they have forsaken the fountain of living waters, where they are always to be satisfied in God, and they've decided to dig for themselves a hole in the ground that can hold no water, and they just keep pouring water in.

What a desolate life. They have stumbled from their ways, from the ancient paths, to walk in bypaths, not on the highway. Again, Jeremiah is reaching back to something previous in Jeremiah 6 16, where he, where the Lord says to Judah, stand by the ways, and ask, and see where the ancient paths are, which is the good way.

Then, and walk in it, and then you will have rest for your souls. Sound familiar? Come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. But they said, we will not walk in it. This rejection of God's message is entirely tied to rejecting God's authority.

We don't want to be told how to live. We don't want your set of values being imposed on us, and what we do. We don't want you informing our decisions. We want to be free to do as we please, follow our hearts.

And the end of this is disaster. Is it natural disaster? Is it unnatural disaster? But we have disaster put in front of us. Verse 14. The language of disaster is in verses 14 and 16 and 17. This odd set of questions here in verse 14.

Does the snow of Lebanon forsake the rock of the open country? Or is the cold flowing water from a foreign land ever snatched away? Two mountains are in view here. This is a rhetorical question, easily answered by those who live in Judah.

But for us, we'll have to do a little bit of homework. So you have to look north above Israel, and you're gonna see Mount Lebanon and Mount Hermon. In between them is a fertile valley. Why is it fertile?

Because Mount Lebanon, of course Lebanon literally means the White Mountain, it always has snow on its upper heights. And as the seasons change, some of that snow melts and flows down to the valley. Keeping that valley fertile, well watered, green, it works well.

What happens when the White Mountain goes bald? Something must be seriously wrong, and disaster is what awaits the valley. What about this foreign, this cold flowing water from a foreign land? Is it ever snatched away?

Does it ever go away? See, when you look up at Mount Hermon, which is right next to Mount Lebanon, this is the Lebanese mountains, and you look at Mount Hermon, and its snow melts, and it flows down, and it gets into some streams that gets into a little body of water we now call Lake Hulay.

And then out of Lake Hulay, it drains into what we call the Jordan River, which then flows into the Sea of Galilee, which then again flows into the Jordan River, and goes all the way down the backbone of Judah.

And so every time you go to the Jordan River, every time they went down to the Jordan River, there is cold flowing water from a foreign country, and it's always there. It's always flowing. For that to be snatched away, for that to disappear, how many things must have gone wrong for the Jordan River to dry up?

A lot of things have to go wrong. It would be a catastrophe. And God's saying this, as catastrophic as it would be for the White Mountain to go bald, and the Jordan River to dry up, it is also that catastrophic for the image of God to be devoid of the Word of God.

For my people to reject my message, that is catastrophic. How catastrophic? What will happen to them? What will happen to their land? Verse 16, all of their independent spirit, do it my own way, has accomplished this, to make their land a desolation, an object of perpetual hissing.

Everyone who passes by it will be astonished and shake his head. The word astonished and desolation are the exact same word, which means it is so bad, it is so desolate, that for you to look at it, your own soul is desolated.

Perhaps you have seen carnage. Perhaps you have seen destruction. And there is this involuntary hiss of air. It all happens to us. You can't help it. That is the scene of what happens when the Word of God is rejected.

The involuntary shaking of the head. The language of natural disaster is informative here. The picture of, in verse 14, and the result of it in verse 16, the picture of natural disaster is helpful for us.

We're always hearing about natural disasters. Creation seems bent on destroying itself. Storms, fires, floods, earthquakes, eruptions, famines, diseases, and so on. These disasters are undeniable, but in what way are they natural?

Are they consistent with God's original design? Are they merely the random, disadvantageous collision of molecules and microbes? No. These unnatural disasters, these unnatural disasters are the sovereignly governed consequences of Adam's sin, of humankind's rejection of the message of God, of God's authority.

The rupture of the image of God results in chaos and all the rest of creation. So when God deals with his people, as he wants to put the image of God on display, the result, the punishments, the consequences of them breaking covenant very often are these unnatural disasters.

Famine, destruction, so on. I think it teaches us something. I think it shows us that we who are made in the image of God, that what we do impacts the place where we do it, and how we live impacts where we live, and there's this connection that is inherently here, that we're made in God's image, and we're this unique intersection between God and others and the world around us, that when we do not live according to the Word of God, there are horrendous consequences.

If there really is disaster in the world today, just ask Adam and Eve. How did it go? Rejecting God's message. What was the result of you doing things your own way? And the answer that they would give is disaster, which has led to all the other disasters that we know.

The Greatest Catastrophe: God Turning His Face Away

Here's the real ultimate disaster. Here's the greatest catastrophe. In verse 17, like an east wind, I will scatter them before the enemy. I will show them my back and not my face in the day of their calamity.

That's the catastrophe. I will show them my back and not my face. That is total opposite of the blessing the Levites were to say over the people of Israel. May God bless you and keep you. May he cause his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you.

May he lift up his countenance upon you and grant you peace. May he look favorably upon you. But this is the greatest disaster when he turns his back. No longer on speaking terms. That is the greatest catastrophe.

Are you on speaking terms with God? Are you on speaking terms with God? Ahab wasn't. He had 400 prophets who were said to be speaking with the voice of God. But he wasn't on speaking terms with God because he was only listening to what he wanted to hear.

Are you on speaking terms with God? Jeremiah was. Because the word that came from the Lord was the word of the Lord who came to him. And Jeremiah knew who God was because he met God through the person of Christ.

The only way we're on speaking terms with God is when we meet God through Christ. He's our mediator. He's the one who reveals the Father to us. God is gracious to give us his message. Does it always? Does it always make us feel warm and fuzzy inside?

No, it doesn't. It can be very challenging. Very disconcerting. But you know, it's all been given to us. That Christ will reveal to us that we only know God. Rejecting what God says means rejecting how God saves.

If anything, this should encourage us all the more to be a people of the word. If the end result, of course, is disaster for rejecting God's message, what is the end result for receiving God's message and welcoming God's message and sharing God's message as it has been given to us?

How blessed is the man who does not walk, sit, and stand there in the scoffers and the ungodly but his delight is in the law of the Lord. In his law, he meditates day and night. He'll be like a tree planted by rivers of water and whatever he does shall prosper.

Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. True life, true vibrance, what it really means to live as human beings. We can't know that unless we are feasting on the word of God.

Unless we are being nurtured by the word of God. Here's some good news. This great catastrophe in verse 17, the disaster of the curse and in this catastrophe of verse 17 where God shows them his back and not his face.

If you will look to Christ and hold fast to him, you will find Christ has borne the curse for you on the cross and he has suffered this catastrophe in your place for your sake. That God turned his back on his son instead of you.

That you would always know the favor of his face and that with Christ, the risen ascended Christ as your mediator, you will always, always, always be on speaking terms with God because of who Christ is and what he has accomplished.

Let's close in prayer. Father, I thank you for the time we've had in your word. I pray that you will solidify the importance, the absolute need for us to receive your message and not reject it, even if it's difficult to hear, even if we don't like what you say and how you say it, that we would receive your message and that we would know that it's truly life to us, to feed on your word.

We thank you for the mercy and the grace of giving us this word that we may know you and live in you. We pray these things in Christ's name, amen.