A Message to the Pulpits of America — Shane Idleman

God's Holy Standard Above Every Other Attribute

Holiness stands above all the other attributes of God, even more so than God is love. Holiness stands out more than any other attribute. The angels fell down in the holy presence of God. Leaders, kings, priests, prophets fell down in the holy presence of God.

This holiness of God, there's a holy standard that can't be compromised. It can't be debated. It can't be missed. And that's what's happening in the church. The problem isn't that we raise our standard and miss it.

It's that we lower it and we hit it. Let me say that again. We do not raise our standard of holiness and we miss it. We lower it and we hit it. It's burning. His word is in my heart like a burning fire.

It's shut up in my bones. I'm weary of holding it back and I cannot. This message of holiness. I believe God is calling the church to a place of holiness. Not weirdness. Holiness. He often called his people.

Jeremiah's Call to Bring God's People Back

That was the whole role of the prophet. Do you realize that? The whole role of the prophet, of course to prophesy, foretell, all these different things, but was to go and call the people back to God. Jeremiah.

God says, before I even formed you in the womb, Jeremiah, I called you and I sanctified you to be a prophet among my people. He said, oh, but I am too young. God said, you're not too young, Jeremiah. You will go to who I send you.

You will preach what I tell you to preach. You will do what I command you to do. And the Bible records that God touched the mouth of Jeremiah and he said, you will pull down. You will root out. You will destroy the unfruitful works of darkness.

Jeremiah, that's your job to convict the people because without conviction there's no turning to God. He was called to do that. He was created to do that. Yet in our modern, comfortable churches today, in our society, we don't need that anymore.

We're good. No, we're not good. We need that more now than ever before. And halfway through Jeremiah's ministry, he's pushing forward and God says, listen, Jeremiah, go tell the people that they're listening to prophets who are prophesying of their own vision, of their own heart.

Don't even listen to them. They're telling the people, peace, peace, when there is no peace. There's no safety. Tell the people, don't listen to these guys because what are they doing? They're causing the people to walk according to the dictates of their own heart.

And God says, I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran. I have not prophesied to them, yet they spoke. But had they truly stood in my counsel, had these teachers truly stood in my counsel, they would have turned the entire nation back to God.

God's Word as Fire Against False Prophecy

Is not my word like a fire, like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces? He told Jeremiah, tell my people they have perverted the words of the living God by not warning and instructing and encouraging and calling the people back.

That was the role of that prophetic element in the Old Testament, is to call the people back. And sadly, we read in 2 Chronicles that God said, I sent my messengers. God said, I sent my messengers, rising them up early and sending them.

Because why? I had compassion on my people. That's why I sent these difficult messages. See, it's not that God's angry, He's calling a church back to Him. But He called, He said, I sent messengers to my people.

Rejection of God's Messengers and the Loss of Remedy

What happened? Did they listen? No, it says, they mocked my messengers, despised at my word, and scoffed at my prophets until the anger of the Lord arose against His own people until there was no remedy.

What do you do when God says, you want it, you got it?