Sunday Morning, February 16, 2020 AM

Let's pray together. Father, I thank you for gathering us here today. We give you the praise and the glory for the ways in which you've been answering our prayers all week long.

Lord, we know our future is so often a fog to us. We just don't know how it's all going to turn out exactly, even in our confidence that you will do us good for your glory.

Father, when we look back at the path we've been on, what do we see but your grace, your faithfulness, your blessings, your mercy?

And so we give you the praise. Father, as we turn our attention to this particular story in the book of Jeremiah, we are here feeding on your holy words, which reveal your

Son to us, our bread from heaven. And so we ask that you would help us to feast.

We pray that you would nourish our souls. We pray that you would give us not just a good understanding of the text, but hearts ablaze to follow

Christ. Your transforming work would not stop with our minds, but it would affect our hearts, change our souls, redirect the course of our feet and the work of our hands and the words of our mouths.

We ask for these mercies in the name of Christ. Amen.

I invite you to open your Bibles and turn with me to Jeremiah 38, and we'll be looking at verses 14 through 28 this morning.

Jeremiah chapter 38, verses 14 through 28. If you've been reading ahead at all, you know that the destruction of Jerusalem is in the very next passage, chapter 39.

And so what we have come to at this point are the last days of Jerusalem. Here is the last prophet in Jerusalem speaking to the last king in Jerusalem.

Everything is on the line at the very end. So we consider

Jeremiah. We have to remember what he's been through, not just as of late, but also all 40 years of his prophetic ministry.

Jeremiah has been ridiculed, opposed, threatened, falsely accused, beaten, imprisoned, and just recently thrown into a pit.

But God has, by means of his servant, Ebed -Melech, delivered Jeremiah, and now

Jeremiah, still a prisoner, confronts the king.

This is where we pick up Jeremiah 38, verses 14 through 28. I invite you to stand, if you're able, as we hear the words of the spirit of Christ through his prophet

Jeremiah, Jeremiah 38, beginning in verse 14. The king

Zedekiah sent and had Jeremiah the prophet brought to him at the third entrance, that is, in the house of the

Lord, and the king said to Jeremiah, I'm going to ask you something. Do not hide anything from me.

And Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, if I tell you, will you not certainly put me to death?

Besides, if I give you advice, you will not listen to me. The king Zedekiah swore to Jeremiah in secret, saying, as the

Lord lives who made this life for us, surely I will not put you to death, nor will I give you over to the hand of these men who are seeking your life.

And Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, thus says the Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel, if you will indeed go out to the officers of the king of Babylon, then you will live.

This city will not be burned with fire and you and your household will survive. But if you will not go out to the officers of the king of Babylon, then this city will be given over to the hand of the

Chaldeans and they will burn it with fire and you yourself will not escape from their hand. And king

Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, I dread the Jews who have gone over to the

Chaldeans for they may give me over into their hand and they will abuse me. Jeremiah said, they will not give you over.

Please obey the Lord and what I am saying to you, that it may go well with you and you may live.

But if you keep refusing to go out, this is the word which the Lord has shown me. Then behold all the women who have been left in the palace of the king of Judah are gonna be brought out to the officers of the king of Babylon and those women will say, your close friends have misled and overpowered you.

While your feet were sunk in the mire, they all turned back. They will also bring out all your wives and your sons to the

Chaldeans and you yourself will not escape from their hand, but will be seized by the hand of the king of Babylon and this city will be burned with fire.

And Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, let no man know about these words and you will not die.

But if the officials hear that I have talked with you and come to you and say to you, tell us now what you said to the king and what the king said to you, do not hide it from us, we will not put you to death.

Then you are to say to them, I was presenting my petition before the king not to make me return to the house of Jonathan to die there.

Then all of the officials came to Jeremiah and questioned him and so he reported to them in accordance with all these words which the king had commanded.

And they ceased speaking with him since the conversation had not been overheard. So Jeremiah stayed in the court of the guard house until the day

Jerusalem was captured. This is the word of the Lord, you may be seated.

There's a line from the story of John the Baptist and King Herod. When King Herod had arrested

John the Baptist for preaching against incest. Imagine we're not too far off from that day in our country.

But John the Baptist was preaching up against incest and Herod was the prime example of that for he had his brother's wife.

And so Herod arrested John the Baptist. His wife wanted to kill John, but Herod left him alive.

And it's interesting that he still wanted to listen to John. Even though the things that John said he did not agree with he still wanted to listen to John.

And in the King James in Mark 6 20, the turn of phrase sticks in my memory.

Says that when Herod heard him and when he heard him he did many things and heard him gladly.

He did many things, which is an expression which means he became greatly perplexed.

He was very disturbed. That's what the other translations have. My own personal translation was he got all worked up.

He got all worked up when he heard John speak. It's a kind of a sad verse where he had him in prison because he opposed him.

He had him in prison because he planned to punish him. He had him in prison and eventually was convinced to kill, to behead

John the Baptist. And yet he has him come and speak to him. And he talks with John the Baptist and he wants to hear him.

It stirs him all up, but he never really does anything about it. It says when he did many things, but of those many things, the one thing he never did was repent.

This is a very sad verse. It diagnoses a kind of spiritual malady, a particular disease of the soul, wherein the sinner who is dead in trespasses and sins, cringes in wonder, squirms uncomfortably, but like when you drive past an awful wreck, cannot seemingly look away from the sight.

It's as if this particular kind of sinner is in the feet of Moses out in the wilderness and sees upon the hillside a burning bush.

And he stays there and he considers it and his mouth is open. He's staring at the wondrous sight, but he never turns aside to go remove his sandals and worship on holy ground.

He just stays afar and looks at it perplexed.

There's another haunting turn of phrase concerning another king,

King Agrippa. Paul was in prison. He had been falsely accused, like John the Baptist in prison, falsely accused.

And Paul had made his appeal to Caesar, but before he gets to that point, he's now making his case to King Agrippa.

And the procurator Festus was also present. And Paul is now pressing the point to King Agrippa.

But again, in the King James, the phrase sticks in my head out of Acts 26, 27 through 28.

King Agrippa, Paul says to him, King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest.

Now listen, then Agrippa said to Paul, almost thou persuadest me to be a

Christian. Almost thou persuadest me to be a

Christian. So John, the prisoner, preaches to his captor king.

Paul, the prisoner, preaches to his captor king. And Jeremiah, the prisoner, preaches to his captor king.

These three kings were not like the magi who sought out Christ to worship him.

These three kings stand at the precipice of repentance. It seems that they're on the very verge of salvation.

That they were lost to the void of damnation. This morning, as we consider

Jeremiah's position as he is engaging with King Zedekiah and the situation that is upon them both in the form of judgment, should lead us to consider how it is that we often wrestle with our responsibility and our approach in calling sinners to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.

When we are concerned and even convinced of somebody else's pending judgment, how are we to engage with them?

And very often, mixed in with this, we're not always talking to someone about the day to come that it is appointed to man once to die and then comes the judgment.

But if we're concerned about their soul at all, it's because their lives are full of sin and full of the problems of sin and the pending consequences of the sins that they are engaged in.

So we're very often trying to reason with them and trying to persuade them to turn around from their path of destruction.

How are we to engage with someone in such a situation? How did the prophets do it? How did the apostles do it?

How has Christ instructed us? And I think we're reminded of all these matters today in our passage. If there's a way to sum it up, it would be this.

Tell God's word, trust God's will. Tell God's word, trust

God's will. That would be our approach. That's the approach that John took,

Paul took, Jeremiah takes. It's instructed by Christ. There's four words

I want us to remember in how we are to biblically and faithfully deal with those who are in opposition, that those who, according to John 3 .36,

abide under the wrath of God. Those who remain in opposition to the kingdom of Christ.

And the first of the four words is this one, rebuke. Rebuke. Now, this is the first word because it happens first in our passage.

I don't know if this is always the first word that we're supposed to use, though it could be. When dealing with someone who is, that we are concerned for and even convinced that they are in opposition to Christ, rebuke is often very necessary.

It could be the very first thing you use, even if you don't know the person. Some of you know who

Tom Askell is. The other day, he had a fainting spell, hit his head very hard in his fall and had to be transported by ambulance to the

ER, doing much better now. But on the way, as he's in the ambulance, he's not even talked to anybody at his church.

He hadn't even been able to communicate to his own family members, and yet he is in the ambulance and on the way to the hospital and one of the

EMTs working on him is just cussing up a storm, using Christ's name in vain, lots of profanity.

And Tom gets worked up enough at this point to finally communicate to someone for the very first time.

And all he can do is whisper very, very softly in a kind of a groan, fear

God, which was an appropriate way to begin a conversation with that young man.

Fear God. We are to conduct ourselves with wisdom toward outsiders.

We are to make the most of every opportunity. We are to let our speech always be with grace as though seasoned with salt so that you will know how you should respond to each person,

Colossians 4, 5, and 6 tells us. Now, always with grace as if your speech is seasoned with salt, does that mean that we are never to say anything that is confronting?

Does that mean that we are never to rebuke or to call someone up to consider their ways and be wise?

No, of course we should. We should. Rebuke is part of this.

And Jeremiah begins with a buke, doesn't he not? Doesn't he? Look, he rebukes

King Zedekiah. King Zedekiah is coming to him and he wants to talk to him and engage with Jeremiah.

And Jeremiah begins with a rebuke. I know your ways.

You'll probably just kill me if I tell you. And even if you don't kill me, you're never gonna do what I say anyway.

That's a rebuke. But to understand the need for that rebuke and the aim of that rebuke, we need to consider three elements.

First of all, the religious credentials of Zedekiah. If Zedekiah had a

PR department department, and they were concerned about his spiritual resume, you may have heard some, you may encounter something like this.

Zedekiah is a religious man. He is very spiritual. Worship is a critical part of his life.

He has the highest regard for the word of the Lord and the prophet of God. And this will be the way that the

PR line would read. I think that reflects

Zedekiah's own self -understanding. And we see repeated examples of Zedekiah sending word to Jeremiah, asking him questions, requesting prayer for him and his people, seeking counsel.

Zedekiah even led the people in making covenants before the Lord, we find in Jeremiah 34.

He did nothing to dampen the people's zeal for the temple of the Lord either. He encouraged it.

And even in our passage, do we not see Zedekiah bolstering his religious credentials? He wants to hear a word from the

Lord and look how he arranges for a private meeting with Jeremiah in a holy location, the third entrance in the house of the

Lord. He brings the imprisoned prophet of God out of his confinement to meet in this special venue.

And was Zedekiah only looking for privacy? No, plenty of places he could have a private conversation with Jeremiah, but he selects this entryway, to the temple, he selects it for its significance, for its atmosphere.

And by this gesture, he's showing honor to the prophet of God. And it seems that Zedekiah may be seeking a more favorable response from Jeremiah than he has been getting as of late.

And in this, he is kind of like Balak, the Moabite king, maneuvering the prophet for hire,

Balaam, around from one venue to the next, hoping to gain a better advantage by simply altering his point of view.

Modern perspectivalism will fare no better. Jesus remains supremely glorious, no matter how the nations may rage against the

Lord's anointed. No mountain, no valley, no plateau, no plain will give anyone a vantage point in which

Christ is less authoritative and less glorious. To him, we all have to do.

Zedekiah is trying to get on Jeremiah's good side. He wants to get a good word from the

Lord. And look how he's flashing his religious credentials. He can access the prophet of God anytime he wants to.

And it seems to provide some kind of comfort to him. He's not really gleaning so much from the words

Jeremiah is speaking, but just some from the act of it, the action, the effort, the custom of, oh yes,

I consult with the prophet regularly, yes. To what end? We should behold with mercy and compassion, great concern.

We should behold with concern where the man dead and trespasses in sins lies there in his coffin, frocked and gilded with the trappings of religion and the gleam of spirituality.

It may very well be that the rebuke is what God will use to raise the dead. A rebuke from the word of the

Lord, an imperishable seed. Jeremiah rebukes

Zedekiah because of Zedekiah's character, his recalcitrant corruptions. Jeremiah speaks disparagingly to this religious king.

You'll probably have me killed if I tell you. And even if I tell you, you won't do what I say. Why would he say that?

How dare he rebuke such a religious man such a spiritual leader?

But Jeremiah knew Zedekiah. He knew his habits. He knew his ways. Jeremiah suffered greatly due to the corruptions of this king's character.

Zedekiah had not listened to the preaching of God's word. Zedekiah, you must remember, is the son of Josiah. He has listened to Jeremiah's preaching for all 40 years of Jeremiah's ministry.

For decades, he has heard Jeremiah's preaching and he has not repented and he is two -faced and he often works against the things of the

Lord. And this is why Jeremiah is saying what he is saying. And notice how

Zedekiah responds. Jeremiah throws two rebukes at him. One is, you'll probably have me killed.

Two, you won't do what the Lord says. You won't listen to me.

You won't give adherence to what I say. Two rebukes. How does Zedekiah respond?

He responds to one of the rebukes and says, as the Lord lives, I will not have you killed.

I won't kill you if you tell me. Very pious, very holy. But what he leaves unsaid says it all.

He speaks piously in an orthodox way. His response seems unassailable, but what does he not emphasize?

He gives no promise that he will do what the Lord says. Just makes no mention of that at all.

Martin Lloyd -Jones says, we have somehow got hold of the idea that error, error is only that which is outrageously wrong.

And we do not seem to understand that the most dangerous person of all is the one who does not emphasize the right things.

Zedekiah does not emphasize this. This is the most important part of it. It actually, for Zedekiah's sake, matters much more that he would repent of his sins than Jeremiah's safety.

So we have this righteous correction. Jeremiah complains to Zedekiah, if I tell you, will you not certainly put me to death?

Besides, if I give you advice, you will not listen to me. Then we could say, well, this is Jeremiah feeling very sorry for himself. He's the weeping prophet.

He's always upset. He's always sad. And here is one more example of his whining ways. This is no shallow whining.

This is an accurate expectation. This is a valid concern. This is the way Zedekiah has conducted himself for the 40 years that Jeremiah has known him.

This is the way Zedekiah has been reigning for the last 11 years. And so what Jeremiah speaks is both true and necessary.

This man, for all of his religious credentials, has exhibited a deep and abiding corruption of character.

He has not at all turned from his wicked ways. He has not been pliable to the spirit of Christ preaching through Jeremiah.

And if this contradiction is not made obvious to him, there is no hope for him. As long as he remains flashing his religious credentials and saying, this is how spiritual

I am, and that's all that he ever does, and nobody calls him on it, there's no hope for him.

There's no hope for him. It matters not if he honors the prophet and haunts the temple and swears by God.

If he will not repent, he is doomed. And so Jeremiah rebukes him.

Rebuke, I think, is most difficult not when the subject is most rebellious. At that point, there's little risk, and the repentance is most obviously needed.

Rebuke is most difficult, I think, when the subject is full of reasons and proofs why they are in no need of rebuke.

You know what I mean. That if you rebuke said person because of your concern for their soul or your concern for the direction that they're going, they may very well explode with such statements as, anyone can tell you my bona fides, everything

I've always said, everything I've always written, everything I've always worked for. How can you dare question me?

And so we must proceed with wisdom. The Lord's bondservant, 2

Timothy 2 .24 says, the Lord's bondservant must not be quarrelsome. The object is not to get into an argument, right?

But to be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition. What's the hope?

If perhaps God may grant them repentance, leading to knowledge of the truth.

We give them the word. We tell them God's word, then we trust God's will. And what we hope is the case in God's will is that he would grant them repentance.

And God is pleased to do that through the preaching of his word. And they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.

That should be our approach. Rebuke. Rebuke is about winning someone in agreeing with God over and against their sin.

You wanna see repentance in this person's life. You yourself wanna be somebody who repents of their sins and confesses and agrees with God about what sin is and that you should be against it.

And you wanna see that with others in your life. How do you win them to that?

You can be winsome with that. You can take a very direct approach or you can take, sometimes that's the most effective way, like Jeremiah was at a time, sometimes you can take a more alternate route to rebuke.

I'll give you an example. Some of you knew about, some of you were present at the rally last

Tuesday down at the Capitol for State Bill 13, which is being, trying to push through committee to be voted on to abolish abortion in Oklahoma to end the killing of infants in Oklahoma, which is a very worthy thing to be involved with.

And one of my old professors, Dr. Ledbetter, was up on the stage for a moment or two. He told some stories from the

Bible to make the point. To put it into context, for some reason, the many who are pro -life are against abolishing abortion.

And there's some political reason behind that that's very confusing. But nonetheless, Dr. Ledbetter was pointing out the fact that the people who rallied there had a conundrum, that there are two groups, those who are abolitionists trying to end abortion and those who are pro -life trying to regulate abortion.

And he says that there's a conundrum here. There are two groups saying almost the same thing. They kind of look like the same crowd, but somehow they're opposed to each other.

And he says, how do you sort this all out? So he told the story of Solomon and the two harlots, told it in detail.

So when it came down to the critical moment, only one of the two harlots was actually interested in saving the life of the baby.

He said, and that tells everything. And it was a very effective way to issue a rebuke.

May God give us wisdom to know how to do that. As we pray for those, you have someone in your mind, you have someone that you love and you care for, and you know that they're heading the wrong way.

As you pray for their soul, as you pray for God to get ahold of them and turn them back from their evil ways, be praying about how

God would have you put his word, put his truth in front of their life, consider their ways and be wise and turn away from destruction.

The first word is rebuke, second word is plead. And then we see Jeremiah pleading with Zedekiah in verses 17 through 20.

Now, rebuke does not mean tell off and plead does not mean nag and manipulate, but he is pleading, is he not?

Verse 17, Jeremiah says to Zedekiah, though says the Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel, if you will indeed go out to the officers of the

King of Babylon, then he will live. The city will not be burned with fire, but you and your household will survive.

And he says it again. Verse 20, please obey the

Lord. And what I'm saying to you, that it may go well with you and that you may live. He is pleading with the

King. He is compelling the King to escape the judgment that is certain to come.

That there is hope for Zedekiah. He does not have to hold out against the word of the Lord to suffer a wretched end.

He can give up. There's no holding onto his throne anyway. There's no holding onto the city anyway.

He cannot keep his kingdom and receive the deliverance of God.

The judgment for his sins and the sins of his people, well, it was definitely set, but there's still a way of escape.

Jeremiah has been preaching this. Any within Jerusalem who wished to save his life as it was would lose it.

But if anyone there would give up their life in Jerusalem, they would then keep their lives out of it.

Those conditions have been made repeatedly clear by Jeremiah to the King, to his officials and to all the people.

And it was exactly that message why the people wanted to kill Jeremiah. They said, you're causing harm.

You're not helping us. You're not doing good for us. You're actually harming us by telling us that we have to give up our lives in order to be delivered.

Nevertheless, Jeremiah does not change the message, even though he has gone through all this suffering, even though he had just been pulled out of a pit, even though the

King has brought him to this holy location, even though the King is giving him great honor. He tells the

King exactly the same thing he's been saying before and pleads with him to escape.

How much hope Jeremiah have? That Zedekiah would listen to him this time, right?

40 years of watching this young man grow into an old man who refuses to really repent, always around the fringes and dipping his toe into the religious world and having the trappings of spirituality, but never really actually bowing the knee to God.

And yet there is still hope. There's still a few hours left before the whole thing comes crashing down.

Jeremiah, with long suffering, with compassion, says the same thing that he's been saying before.

And you see it in the text. He doesn't short arm this. He does indeed plead with Zedekiah.

I remember there was a youth minister at a church. One time he was in the back of the auditorium and the family came in who had not been at church for a while.

And their son was in great rebellion. It was, I mean, the elders had been praying for him and so on.

It was before the service and people were milling about and this young man had grown up in the church. He knew the words of the call, repent and believe.

And this youth minister had invested in this young man and hadn't seen him in a little while and things had been rough.

He goes up to this young man and I was there just barely in earshot. And he looked at the young man eyeball to eyeball and he said this, as long as Christ is on his throne and you're still breathing, there's hope.

And whatever the excuses may be, compel the escape but cancel each excuse.

Notice that Zedekiah went to all the trouble of bringing Jeremiah to this secret meeting at the third entrance of the temple.

Why did he do all of this? Because he wanted to hear something different than what he had been hearing. He was tired of hearing. He didn't wanna hear anymore that he had to give up his throne and give up his kingdom and turn himself over to the

Chaldeans. He didn't wanna hear that anymore. But he hears the same thing as he heard before.

So now here he gives Jeremiah his excuse. He's afraid of what might happen if he surrenders to the

Chaldeans. What might happen? He's afraid of the Jews who have already gone over to the Chaldeans, who have heeded

Jeremiah's counsel and left the city and surrendered. He's afraid that the officials of the

Chaldeans will hand him over to these Jews. And what might these Jews do to their king?

They may abuse him. It's a word that means mock him, scorn him, embarrass him.

This is what he is afraid of. This is his fear that he gives to Jeremiah.

I'm afraid they're gonna make fun of me. No matter that Jeremiah told him that if you continue along this path, you will be captured by the king.

You will be brought before him and all this great disaster will occur to you. Zedekiah ended up watching his sons be killed, be put to death one after the other right in front of him.

The very last things his eyes saw because then the king Nebuchadnezzar put out his eyes and he lived blind in exile till he died.

But what he was afraid of was someone might mock him. Someone he knew might say some things that embarrassed him.

And that, he said, was why he would not choose deliverance.

What deceptions the devil may weave upon the mind, a veil upon the eyes, stopping the ears, hardening the heart.

This is a miserable excuse and Jeremiah gives it no credence.

He isn't trusted in the least. He says, no, they won't. And don't you know, if the destruction that will happen happens, you will be taken out before the king of Babylon and the women who were in the palace are gonna come out and they're gonna mock you in front of everybody.

He just destroys Zedekiah's excuse. He says, you're gonna get mocked either way.

Give up, save your life. Don't continue down the path of destruction. What is it?

What is the excuse that you anticipate? If you were to plead with someone that you are concerned with even convinced that they are headed towards destruction, what is the excuse that you anticipate?

What is it? Think about that, pray about that, get ready to cancel it. Whatever it is, it cannot possibly be given any credence whatsoever.

What is any excuse that we may make in light of the judgment of God? We are to tell

God's word and trust God's will. Now we need to be aware of something that the plea that we make, the plea that we make is what?

If any man wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow after me. This is the essential, critical call of Christ.

By analogy, it was what the Jews had to do. They had to give up their life inside of Jerusalem and give it all up to be saved and delivered.

Their lives would be spared. The critical call is what Christ says. Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow after me.

To give up on oneself, as Paul listed all of his credentials and all the things that he may lay claim to and lay it all aside as dung.

That we would all make a pile of all of our bad deeds and a pile of all of our good deeds and flee it all for Christ and Christ alone.

To deny ourselves and follow Christ. Let us be aware that that essential message of Christ to deny oneself, that this definition of repentance is thought today to be a message which is racist, bigoted, impossible and harmful.

How dare you say I leave my identity behind? How dare you say that I leave all of this that makes me who

I am behind to identify with Christ alone. But plead we must.

Plead we must. And if we would plead, this would be a very biblical thing for us to do.

Isaiah 55. Oh, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters.

And you who have no money, come buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without cost.

Why do you spend money for what is not bread and your wages for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me and eat what is good and delight yourself in abundance.

Incline your ear and come to me. Listen that you may live. That's a biblical way to speak with someone.

Do not only rebuke and to plead, but also to warn. To warn. Jeremiah warns

Zedekiah. Verse 21, but if you keep refusing to go out, this is the word which the

Lord has shown me. Then behold, all the women who have been left in the palace of the King of Judah are gonna be brought out to the officers of the

King of Babylon. And those women will say, your close friends had misled and overpowered you. While your feet were sunk in the mire, they turned back.

They will also bring out all your wives and your sons to the Chaldeans, and you yourself will not escape from their hand, but will be seized by the hand of the

King of Babylon, and the city will be burned with fire. Notice in this warning that Jeremiah is detailed.

He tells Zedekiah exactly what is going to happen. He does not leave it in a fog.

He doesn't say something like, well, who knows what may happen? He doesn't say,

I don't even wanna think about what may happen. He doesn't say,

God only knows what may happen. He says, what will happen?

Now, if you love someone, this is what you will do. You will be detailed with the truth of God's word.

Let me give you an example of a father to his son. And this is something that fathers should do for their sons.

And if you're in a role as a father towards someone, this may be exactly what you need to do.

Proverbs chapter five, verse seven. Listen to the way in which the father warns his son away from folly and he uses details.

Now then, my sons, listen to me and do not depart from the words of my mouth. Keep your way far from her.

That's the adulterous woman. And do not go near the door of her house or you will give your vigor to others and your years to the cruel one and strangers will be filled with your strength and your hard earned goods will go to the house of an alien.

And you groan at your final end when your flesh and your body are consumed.

And you say how I have hated instruction and my heart spurned reproof. I have not listened to the voice of my teachers nor inclined my ear to my instructors.

I was almost an utter ruin in the midst of the assembly and congregation. There was more that the father said to his son and he was in detail.

He was in earnest pleading for his son to flee from folly and to choose wisdom. And so he went into detail in his warning of his son and did not

Christ give us the details. He said to forsake all to follow him, to give up on saving our own lives that we may find in him our absolute savior.

Why? Because if we would not follow Christ, if we would not confess him, if we would not choose him, if we were not his sheep called by him, what was left?

Well, what is outside the camp of Israel? Judgment. Outer darkness.

Christ called it the furnace of fire. He called it weeping and gnashing of teeth. He gave the details repeatedly.

So we need to be detailed. We need to actually say what the scriptures say. This is why

I'm concerned. And we need to be definite about this. What is the point of warning someone and saying, or I could be totally wrong.

If you will not repent, you will perish under the judgment of God or not. It could be that God won't.

I'm not God, who knows? This is the fashion of modern leading evangelicals today.

Doesn't make them very evangelical, does it? Warn fools from their folly.

Warn the sinner from the judgment. Be detailed and definite. We get our details and our definiteness from the scriptures, not from our own personalities and assertions.

And if you don't know how to do it, read the word for it. If you don't have the word memorized, just read it to them.

Share it with them. Have you ever sat across from someone? Have you ever sat across from someone who's about to die and they're a rebel against Christ?

Have you ever done that? What do you do? You can speak with them.

You can pray for them. Read them the word. There's still hope.

Their heart's still beating. Christ is still on his throne. There's still hope. Thief on the cross, he was saved.

Don't give up on it, but warn them. Warn them. And then you're gonna have to let go.

Verses 24 through 28, we find that Jeremiah has to let go of the whole situation. Zedekiah does not respond to what

Jeremiah says. He just says, don't tell anybody we talked. Don't tell anybody we talked.

If you do, they'll probably try to kill you. Which in one sense was sage advice. But Jeremiah had to recognize his limits.

Now, there's something here. Zedekiah is not saying to Jeremiah, if you continue to preach in God's name,

I will kill you. That's not what he was saying. He was saying, look, let's not tell anyone we talked because I think that they're gonna come after you.

Jeremiah said, okay. Okay. Jeremiah had to let him go.

Jeremiah could not constrain the king. He could not make the king his prisoner. He could not make the king repent.

He could not make the king go out to the Chaldeans and save his life and spare the city from burning.

He couldn't do that. He recognized his limits. And you have to leave room for wrath.

You have to leave room for wrath. And Romans tells us that we have to leave room for wrath. Vengeance is mine. I will repay, sayeth the

Lord. Leaving room for wrath primarily means that we do not take our own personal vengeance.

Right? But it also means leave room for wrath. That's God's domain.

That's God's business. And he is good and right to bring that business to bear.

There is a time to wipe the dust off of our feet and move on. Jesus told us that.

There is a time to refuse to throw pearls before swine. That's true.

But no one should be eager for that. No one should be eager for that.

Remember that God is love and that God is light. God is love and he is patient and long -suffering and merciful and God is light.

Meaning there is no darkness in him at all. And he is holy and he is just. And we must not think that we are more loving or more righteous than God.

When the freight train of God's wrath comes hurtling towards your stalled car on the tracks, it will come after an amazing amount of long -suffering, patience, righteousness, and goodness from God.

And I may bang on your door trying to wake you up from your drunken stupor. And I may be snapping tow lines while you ride the emergency brakes, but I will not be laying down on the tracks as an impotent, useless, defiant opposition to God's righteousness and justice.

I am not in opposition to God. Right? If you're a follower of Christ, if you're trusting in him, you are not in opposition to God, are you?

You're not in opposition to his ways. And if judgment comes, it's because it's good and right and comes after much long -suffering.

And so you should not pretend like you're more merciful than God and try to stand in the way of that.

No, warn the sinner. Warn the sinner. Tell them

God's word and then trust in God's will. And there is where we ought to be. And all is not lost.

Listen, all is not lost when the sinner is lost, if there is a message that is made all the more clear.

All is not lost if the sinner is lost, for there is a message made all the more clear.

Let me read you a passage and then we'll close with prayer. Ezekiel 33, 28 through 33.

God says, I will make the land a desolation and a waste, and the pride of her power will cease, and the mountains of Israel will be desolate so that no one will pass through.

Then they will know that I am the Lord when I make the land a desolation and a waste because of all their abominations which they have committed.

Who will know that he is the Lord? Those in exile, those who survive. But as for you, son of man, your fellow citizens who talk about you by the walls and in the doorways of the houses, speak to one another, each to his brother saying, come now and hear what the message is which comes forth from the

Lord. They come to you as people come and sit before you as my people and hear your words, but they do not do them, for they do the lustful desires expressed by their mouth and their heart goes after their gain.

Behold, you are to them like a sensual song by one who is a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument.

You're there for the show. For they hear your words, but they do not practice them.

So when it comes to pass, as it surely will, then they will know that a prophet has been in their midst.

So all is not lost even in the judgment of God. Judgment may fall upon a sinner, but what if we still have the message?

What if we're still clear about the word of God? Then those who remain will know and see all the more clearly the truth.

May God give us the grace to do this. Father, we come before you this morning and confess that these things are hard for us.

We see Jeremiah in the situation and know that there are people that we have been speaking with and praying for for many, many years.

And we fear for them and we don't know what to do next, but Father, you have given us wisdom in Christ.

You have made your will clear in your word and you would have us warn and plead and rebuke.

And we would tell your word even as we trust your will. Help us to be faithful to what you have called us to do.

We pray these things for Christ's sake, amen. Do you stand for our song of benediction?