"Terror on Every Side" Part 1 July 22, 2018 AM

Heavenly Father, we are gathered here because you have sought us out and you did not let us run away and stop our ears.

You've gathered us here this morning to hear your word. I thank you for searching over hill and vale to find me, a broken and wayward sheep.

Thank you for your grace. Lord, you know that we are not here by our good merits or our good fortune, but in your purpose, because of your mercy and in your grace, you desire us to hear a word from your word.

I ask that you would bear us up in this time, that you would grant us your

Holy Spirit, that he would fill us, that we would see

Jesus Christ clearly in this word. We have no hope other than the hope you have given us in Christ, and what a hope.

Lord, I pray that you would work your will in our hearts today as we hear the truths of your word.

We thank you for providing for us all that we need, all that we need to love you and to live for you.

We pray these things for the sake of Jesus Christ, with whom you are well pleased.

Amen. Will you please stand in reverence to Christ, who is revealed in Jeremiah 19 verses 1 through 9.

Thus says the Lord, go and buy a potter's earthenware jar and take some of the elders of the people and some of the senior priests.

Then go out to the valley of Ben -Henom, which is by the entrance of the potsherd gate, and proclaim there the words that I tell you, and say, hear the word of the

Lord, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. Thus says the

Lord of hosts, the God of Israel. Behold, I am about to bring a calamity upon this place at which the ears of everyone that hears of it will tingle because they have forsaken me and have made this an alien place and have burned sacrifices in it to other gods that neither they nor their forefathers or the kings of Judah had ever known.

And because they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent and have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, a thing which

I never commanded or spoke of, nor did it ever enter my mind. Therefore, behold, days are coming, declares the

Lord, when this place will no longer be called Topheth or the valley of Ben -Henom, but rather the valley of slaughter.

I will make void the council of Judah and Jerusalem in this place, and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies and by the hand of those who seek their life, and I will give over their carcasses as food for the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth.

I will also make this city a desolation and an object of hissing. Everyone who passes by it will be astonished and hiss because of all its disasters.

I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they will eat one another's flesh in the siege and in the distress with which their enemies and those who seek their life will distress them.

This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. How did it come to this?

How did it come to this? You think of the sermons and the stories of Jeremiah.

We gain some context for understanding how it all came to this. Chapter one of Jeremiah is an excellent chapter to read.

It will give you needful context for whatever part of Jeremiah you're in.

If you are looking at a verse or a passage in Jeremiah and you don't know how it all fits, go back and read chapter one and you'll see how it fits.

In chapter one, we see that the sovereign word of God came to Jeremiah and the sovereign words of God came through Jeremiah.

Jeremiah was commissioned as the prophet of God to preach the words of God, which were most needful and most certain, and that Jeremiah, when he was preaching, would preach to tear down and to build up, to uproot and also to plant, and that no matter who he preached to, whether Judah or the nations, that as long as Jeremiah would preach the word of God, God would make sure that Jeremiah in his message would overcome.

He would make him as a prophet.

This is something that we ought to refer to time and again, the way in which Jeremiah, the book, operates, whether we're reading one of his sermons or reading one of his stories.

Jeremiah has been commissioned by the word of the Lord to preach the words of the Lord, and this is the first of five words that we need to hold on to if we're gonna understand

Jeremiah. The first word is commission. Jeremiah is commissioned in chapter one. The second word we need to think of when we're wondering where we are in Jeremiah is corruption.

Corruption. Jeremiah has been commissioned to preach to a people that is thoroughly corrupted. For example, in chapter five, verses 30 and 31, it says, an appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land.

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? Third word is collapse.

And you see this in chapter seven, and it's also a theme in our passage as well. The valley of the slaughter.

There's going to be so much destruction. The entire society is going to collapse. All of the relationships, all of the norms, everything about being a

Jew, living in society will be completely undone and unraveled.

And this is described in the image of the valley of slaughter. So Jeremiah's commission is to preach to a corrupted society about their coming collapse, and they are utterly condemned to this end.

Chapter 11, verses 11 through 14. This is Jeremiah's word. Therefore, thus says the

Lord, behold, I am bringing disaster on them, which they will not be able to escape.

They are condemned to this doom, though they will cry to me, yet I will not listen to them.

This is a shocking verse. That doesn't seem fair, that God would reveal himself to Judah, that he would call them to live in his holy city, where the temple is on the temple mount, and say, no matter what you say, how you pray to me,

I'm not going to listen to you. I'm going to make sure that you are destroyed. It sounds unfair, but let

God be true, and every man a liar. Verse 12 explains it. Then the cities of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem will go and cry to the gods.

They will cry to the gods, to whom they burn incense, but they surely will not save them in the time of their disaster.

For your gods are as many as your cities, O Judah, and as many as the streets of Jerusalem, and are the altars you have set up to this shameful thing, altars to burn incense to Baal.

Meaning that Yahweh, the Lord, the one true God, as far as Judah was concerned, was just one more

God to pray to, hoping it would work out. So he's not going to listen to them, because they're idolatrous, and even when they think they're worshiping the

Lord, the one true God, they envision him in their mind as a god that's okay being worshiped with other gods, which means they have even idolatrized

Yahweh, and they don't know him. So God says, I'm not going to listen to them, and then he tells

Jeremiah in verse 14 of chapter 11, therefore do not pray for this people. Do not pray for this people, nor lift up a cry or prayer for them, for I will not listen when they call to me because of their disaster.

So he says, I'm not going to listen when they pray. Jeremiah, you don't pray for them because they are condemned.

They are reprobate. The fifth word, the fifth C to remember as we are going through Jeremiah, is a surprising one after what we've just said, and that's compassion.

It's compassion. Jeremiah 12 and verse 15, God says, it will come about that after I have uprooted them,

I will again have compassion on them. After the uprooting will be a planting. After a tearing down, there will be a building.

He says, I will bring them back, each one to his inheritance, each one to his land. So you see that God has compassion in mind, even as he has condemned this people to utter collapse because of their corruption.

The message that he has sent through his prophet whom he has commissioned. That helps us understand what's going on in the book of Jeremiah.

That's what we see in the stories and the sermons of Jeremiah, but that is a fulfillment of what

God had already told Moses in Deuteronomy 31 16. The Lord said to Moses, behold, you are about to lie down with your fathers and this people will arise and play the harlot with the strange gods of the land into the midst of what they are going and they will forsake me.

Same language as we have in Jeremiah, they will forsake me and break my covenant which

I have made with them. That is what the story of Jeremiah is about. About how

Judah, what was left of the nation of Israel, how Judah forsook the

Lord, breaking his covenant and the fallout that occurred.

Breaking the covenant. That's the heading of our first point, a broken covenant.

But it would do us well to think about why that is important. Breaking the covenant.

Now is that a big deal? I mean it happened a lot, right? I mean it happened a lot.

It happened even in Moses' day and Joshua's day a little bit. It happened especially in the days of the judges.

Certainly happened in Saul's day and how many bad kings were there versus good kings and how much idolatry was there in the in the nation of Israel and the nation of Judah.

So breaking the covenant, is that kind of like breaking the speed limit? It just kind of happens all the time.

You get in trouble then you keep it five under for a while and you break the speed limit again. Let's not have that impression about breaking the covenant.

It's not like breaking this, it's not like exceeding the speed limit. It's like trying to overthrow the government and failing.

That's what breaking the covenant is. It's like trying to overthrow the government and failing. And you know what?

It never works out so well for the people who try to overthrow the government and then fail. It just doesn't work out so well for them, does it?

That is what's happening in Judah. Judah is trying to overthrow the government of God.

It's not going to work and God is going to execute every member of that coup.

The covenant is very important. Another big picture. As goes the image of God, so grows the kingdom of God.

Think Genesis 1 26 to 28. God makes man in his own image. It is according to his own likeness and he says to Adam and Eve, he says to humanity made in his image, you're going to go throughout all the earth.

You're going to subdue it. You're going to be my image everywhere. His kingdom. As goes the image of God, so grows the kingdom of God.

Because of sin, this image must now be reborn and renewed and that only happens through Christ.

Wherever we find the image of God being reborn and renewed, we find the kingdom of God growing.

The way in which God governs this movement, this growth of his kingdom, is his covenant.

The covenant that God made with Adam and with Noah and with Abraham and with Israel and with David all have to do with how the image of God is supposed to live in the world so as to advance the kingdom of God.

They are to, by mediating his authority and holiness and truth and wisdom, they are to love

God supremely, love each other rightly, steward the creation responsibly, and that's what all the covenants have in common.

And so they harmonize into the fulfillment of Jesus Christ, who comes as the mediator, as the

Messiah, and he comes and does everything that the Father asks him to do, even obedience to death on the cross.

And by the shedding of his blood, he says he brings in the new covenant, which is all based on his faithfulness.

His faithfulness. When we read in the Old Testament about someone breaking the covenant, we should not think to ourselves, oh well, that was an

Old Testament problem. We ought to think of the New Testament relevance that Jesus Christ, he is ushered in the new covenant by his blood, and we should equate any attempt to overthrow the government of God in the

Old Testament, any attempt to break the covenant in the Old Testament, with warring and raging and acting against Jesus Christ.

So that's our big picture, and I think we need the big picture, because if we don't have the big picture, and we know where we are in the book, we'll be following the stray cats of moralism yowling for our attention, and we'll talk about proper burial practices and forbidding cannibalism, which is not what this passage is about.

This passage is about Jesus Christ, and this passage is calling for us to hear the word of the

Lord. Hearing the Word of God remains our only hope for the renewing of the image of God.

So broken covenant, chapter 19, verses 1 through 9. These nine verses, we should think of them like a sentencing hearing in a court of law, and in verses 1 through 3, the court is brought into session.

Verses 1 through 3, thus says the Lord, go and buy a potter's earthenware jar, and take some of the elders of the people, and some of the senior priests, and then go out to the valley of Ben -Hanom, which is by the entrance of the potsherd gate, and proclaim there the word that I tell you, and say,

Hear the word of the Lord, O kings of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem.

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel. Behold, I am about to bring a calamity on this place, at which the ears of everyone that hears of it will tingle.

Court is in session. God is the judge.

God is the judge. His words are heard in this court.

He's the one who lists the charges in verses 4 through 5. He's the one who passes sentence in verses 6 through 9.

And why is he the judge? We read it right there in verses 1 through 3. He is Lord of hosts.

He is Yahweh Sabaoth. He is creator. He owns all of creation.

Therefore, he's the judge of the universe. He's also God of Israel. So, by merits of the covenant he has with Israel, he is their judge.

He is the judge of Judah. He's all -powerful. He's everywhere present. He's all -knowing.

He's infinitely holy, good, and just. God is the judge. Jeremiah is the bailiff.

Jeremiah is the bailiff. The Lord tells Jeremiah to make his courtroom ready.

Jeremiah collects the principal representatives of Judah, gathers them just outside the Potsherd Gate.

The Potsherd Gate at the southeast corner of Jerusalem court is held here.

You understand that the Potsherd Gate is also known as the Dung Gate. It is a widely used gate.

Many people use this gate, the southeast corner of Jerusalem, because they are taking out their garbage.

And so, there are a lot of people who are leaving, walking out of Jerusalem with their carts full, their donkeys weighed down, and their arms full as they descend out of Jerusalem.

But when they re -enter, all their burdens are gone. What happened to all their garbage? They threw it in the

Valley of the Son of Hinnom, Topheth. You look to the south of Jerusalem, when you exit the

Potsherd Gate, you look to the south of Jerusalem, and what do you see? From east to west, there is a valley, a very deep valley, and this is called

Topheth. It is a blood, abyss of fire, nadir of evil.

There are two kinds of smoke that rise up out of Topheth. Two kinds of smoke that rise from this hole of hell.

Trash is not the only thing burning down there, because Molech, the eater of children, lives there too.

And by holding court just outside the Potsherd Gate, in view of this place,

God forces the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem to look upon the evil that they have perpetuated, and look upon the doom that they have embraced, fire and destruction.

Jeremiah is the bailiff. He only speaks the words that he has heard from the Lord, and so he calls court to session.

He calls all of Judah to hear the word of the Lord, but they're not gonna hear.

They are intentionally deaf. They have stopped their ears.

So God speaks a word that will be heard, but not by Judah. A word that will be heard by the nations that live on after Judah's destruction.

A word that will make the ears of all who hear of this destruction tingle.

Well, what will God do for his spiritually deaf people? They don't want to listen, so he gives them a sign.

He gives them a sign. The sign of the bakbuk. You know what a bakbuk is?

The New American Standard manages to take a five -letter Hebrew word into three rather long

English words. A potter's earthenware jar, which is basically a little vase.

It's an earthenware jar about eight inches tall. It has a large, weighty body, very narrow neck, a rim around the top, and a little handle coming from the rim down to the body.

It can be used for all sorts of things, but the reason why it's called a bakbuk is because when you pour liquid out of it, the air trying to get into the container makes a sound like, that's why they named it that.

Isn't that more interesting than calling it an earthen jar of a potter? So he goes and buys this jar, this bakbuk, from the potter.

Now Jeremiah had just been to the potter's house. He had gone there in chapter 18. He had gone there for a sign as well.

When he had gone to the potter's house the first time, he saw the potter at work with his wheel.

And in Jeremiah 18 verses 4 through 6, we read this, but the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter.

This is clay that is still malleable. He's still trying to work it. So he remade it into another vessel as it pleased the potter to make.

Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 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 you are in my hand, O house of Israel.

And he goes on to make the same application to all the nations, to everybody who has ever lived.

Such is the sovereignty of God that as it pleases him, so he does with us.

What a sobering thought. Now let's think of an even more sobering thought.

What happens when Judah's form is no longer malleable, no longer soft and workable like the clay on the potter's wheel?

What if their idolatry and their immorality and their injustice are as hardened in them as an earthen jar hardens when placed in a fiery brick kiln?

This little jar is still in the potter's hand to do with as he pleases.

This fire jar is still controlled by the sovereignty of God.

And so Jeremiah calls court into session. We know who the judge is.

We're about to hear the charges read, but he holds Exhibit A.

And when Jeremiah is done using Exhibit A, it will have to be relabeled

Exhibits B through Z. God has made a covenant with Israel, and Judah, what remains of Israel, has broken that covenant.

Now God will list the charges. So we move from the present tense calling to order in verses 1 through 3 to the past tense indictments against Judah, verses 4 and 5.

The charges are now read, because this calamity will come because they have forsaken me.

They have forsaken me and have made this an alien place and have burned sacrifices in it to other gods that neither they nor their forefathers nor the kings of Judah had ever known.

And because they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent and have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, a thing which

I never commanded or spoke of nor did it ever enter my mind. So you see that the calamity that God will bring is a just calamity because of these charges that he has

Jeremiah read. And they are all based on the fact that God had this covenant relationship with Israel where he had specified how they were to love him supremely, how they were to love each other rightly, and what they were supposed to do with the land he gave them.

And they have broken the covenant in every possible fashion.

Forsaking God heads the list of the charges. It requires some thought.

How can one abandon God? How can you abandon God if you live in Jerusalem? How can you abandon

God if you live in view of the temple? How can you abandon God when you are able to go to the temple and offer sacrifices?

How can it be possible that you abandon God when you live in the city where the prophets and the priests have access to the holiest scriptures and tell you what they mean?

How could it be that they've forsaken God? What an incredible claim.

And yet God demonstrates they have forsaken him by the list of the other claims.

You see God's people have not abandoned God in a physical way. They have not physically evacuated from the temple, but by spiritual adultery in God's place.

Judah made the temple Jerusalem and all of Judah an alien place.

It says an alien, a strange place. The Hebrew word for this is the same used for another woman.

It's spiritual adultery. You see when God sees Judah mixing the worship of Baal and Molech and the queen of heaven with his worship, he says, that's adultery.

That's fornication. Hosea and Ezekiel said the same.

So they have forsaken God because they do not worship him alone. They commit spiritual adultery.

And, you know, idolatry always leads to injustice. If you find injustice in the world, the root of it is always idolatry of some kind.

That's the way it was in the life of Israel throughout the scriptures. You see,

Jeremiah is standing along the southeast corner of Jerusalem and to the south he can point and say, look at the smoke there in Topheth.

And then he can point upwards up to the north and he can point at the temple and say, look at the smoke rising up there look at them both.

And he says, this is idolatry. This is injustice. This is the great sin.

They fill this place with the blood of the innocent. They build the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, a thing which

I never commanded or spoke of nor did it enter my mind. You see Leviticus 21 through 6,

Moses by the spirit specifically forbids the children of Israel as they are entering into this land of Canaan full of wretched and pagan idols.

He specifically forbids them from worshiping Molech, which means that they would have to offer up their own children as burnt offerings to gain the favor and the prosperity that Molech offers.

Now Josiah, a good king tried to stop that practice. They were down in the valley of Ben -Hinnom down in Topheth.

They had shrines that they had built to Molech and they were down there offering up their children and Josiah says, no, we're going to stop that.

We're never going to have that again. He made all the nation break down the altars and the high places and to stop worshiping

Baal and Molech and the queen of heaven and he brought this sweeping and enforced social reform to end idolatry in the land of Israel and he said what we're going to do is we're going to defile

Topheth. We're going to defile the valley of the son of Hinnom and we are going to fill it with trash, with putrid things.

We're going to fill it with the carcasses of the criminals so that no self -respecting

Jew will ever want to go back down there and worship Molech. That was his plan. But you know when you try to bring about social reform and moral reform without hearts truly repenting, you're just covering up rotten boards with whitewash and that was the case because as soon as Josiah died, the kings that followed him had no trouble at all ramping back up the sacrifices to the false gods and interestingly now they're saying that they're offering sacrifices, they're offering their children to Baal.

Why not Molech? You see when moral reforms do not emerge from truly repentant hearts, this results in new perversions of old practices.

They just change the label. They just change the label. Instead of calling it worship to Molech, they called it worship to Baal.

Are you worshiping Molech? No, no, of course not. I'm worshiping Baal. Oh, okay.

They relabeled the sin but that doesn't change the nature of the sin. Relabeling sin doesn't change the nature of the sin, it just changes our attitudes about that sin and the idolatry goes on and the injustice goes on and the innocent are killed.

Well, they break the covenant in every conceivable way. They're worshiping the creature rather than the creator who's blessed forever.

They forsake him and break his covenant and they kill the innocent and lead one another into further perversions of sin.

They've broken the covenant in every possible way they can and so sentence is passed in verses 6 through 9.

Therefore behold days are coming declares the Lord when this place will no longer be called Topheth or the Valley of the

Son of Hinnom but rather the Valley of Slaughter. Valley of Slaughter. I will make void the council of Judah and Jerusalem in this place and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies and by the hand of those who seek their life and I will give over their carcasses as food for the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth.

I will also make this city a desolation and an object of hissing. Everyone who passes by it will be astonished and hiss because of all its disasters.

I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters and they will eat one another's flesh in the siege and in the distress with which their enemies and those who seek their life will distress them.

You know the destruction is of a particularly total manner when names get changed.

We no longer talk about the World Trade Center we talk about Ground Zero and Topheth was never called that again and the

Valley of Ben Hinnom was never called that again it was just called the Valley of Slaughter because of the magnitude of the destruction the number of those who died.

The Valley of Slaughter you see the slaughter would come by the Babylonians so many people would die that there would be no more place to bury them and so they were tossed into the valley south of Jerusalem without a real burial.

Nobody had the energy or the space to bury the dead anymore and so the bodies were just left lying out for the vultures and for the jackals.

This was a cursed way to die all the nations knew it that's why they would hiss and stare in astonishment at the awful and cursed end of this people and because we resemble what we revere and we begin to look like what we worship those who worshipped

Molech the eater of children would eat their own children and eat each other in the siege of Babylon.

This is God's judgment when we read in Romans 1 that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven and that this wrath is manifested in him turning those idolaters over to their own reprobate minds to be destroyed in their own sin that's what we have here he's just turning them over to the end of Molech whom they worship.

He said they broke the covenant of God and this shattered the image of God they no longer were living in the image of God and so that made them enemies of God in his kingdom.

Is there any hope in this passage? Well it's at the very beginning how many times do we see in verses 1 through 3

God say hear listen pay attention verse 2

God says proclaim the words that I tell you never just look at verse 3 say hear hear the word of the

Lord oh kings of Judah inhabitants of Jerusalem thus says the Lord of hosts the God of Israel behold that means pay attention

I'm about to bring a calamity upon this place at which the ears of everyone who hears it will tingle how many times does

God say just listen listen pay attention to the words that that I'm saying through my prophet hear the word of the

Lord hear the word of the Lord if we're going to hear the word we need to reverence the word and you look at verse 3 and you hear the one speaking look at how

God announces himself he wants them to pay attention he wants them to hear and so he says

I'm Yahweh Sabaoth I am the Lord of hosts I am the God of everything you got to pay attention

I'm the God of Israel don't you remember the God who promised all these wonderful things to Abraham Isaac and Israel and to his sons and the one who has been faithful to you all these years and has always revealed himself in mighty wonders don't you remember who

I am pay attention you see God wants him them to reverence him and thus they will reverence his word that he speaks do we really know with whom we have to do fear the

Lord is the beginning of knowledge and it's the beginning of wisdom do we really know who Christ is in his glory do we reverence him and what he says in his word as king of kings and as lord of lords he is the who is faithfully revealed and glorified his father he is the one who is the image of the invisible

God he is faithfully satisfied all of God's demands and so carries in his own person carries the new covenant with him into the true holy of holies he is the ark of the covenant as the word of God he accomplishes the will of God and advancing the kingdom of God and he will never ever as those before him break the covenant he will not even slightly dim the image of God and the question is left for us whether or not we will do homage to the son psalm 2 will we kiss the son blessed are all those who find refuge in him when you take up the word of the

Lord by the Holy Spirit we are receiving the words of Christ himself this is why a lot of the old timers complained about those red letter editions it's all to be in red they said these are all the words of Christ not just some of them do we reverence the word of the

Lord it must be a proper reverence if we are going to be changed and renewed into the image of God delivered out of this shattering disastrous in that we see in Jeremiah 19 and we have to desire the word of the

Lord as well you see God talked about a word that would come that would that would leave a tingling in the ears of those who heard it far better that our ears would tingle than that they be tickled far better that we would hear the real word of the

Lord than the word of somebody else saying it's from God but only to say things they think we want to hear the word tingle yeah that expression actually comes from first Samuel 3 verse 11 where remember

Samuel the prophet boy who had the the the nighttime word from the

Lord and he thought it was Eli talking to him but it was actually God the word that God told little

Samuel to say to the high priest Eli was a word that would tingle the ears about the destruction of Eli and his sons and his family because of his perversity because of his sin if we truly reverence the word we will prefer the word making our ears tingle than settling for the tickling of our ears by false prophets that Paul warns

Timothy in the latter days that they will not they will not endure sound doctrine but they will heap up for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires so that they would tickle their ears and say wonderful things to them this was what's going on in Jeremiah's time in Jeremiah 6 verse 13 it says for from the least of them even to the greatest of them everyone is greedy for gain greedy for gain for wealth and from the prophet even to the priest everyone deals falsely now listen to this this these prophets and priests who are entrusted with the word of God what do they do they have healed the brokenness of my people superficially saying peace peace but there is no peace why is there no peace were they ashamed because of the abomination which they have done they were not even ashamed at all they did not even know how to blush that's why there's no peace that's why there's no healing because there's no repentance nor even conviction therefore they shall fall among those who fall at the time that I punish and they shall be cast down says the

Lord now listen verse 16 thus says the Lord stand by the ways and ask for the ancient paths where the good way is walk in it and you will find rest for your souls what does

Jesus say to those who are weary and heavy laden come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest rest for your souls but they said we will not walk in it we should desire the word of the

Lord no matter what that word is those who tickle the ears of the damned seek the praise of men at the cost of eternal souls c .s

lewis says there is a there is the safest road to hell is the gradual one with a gentle slope soft underfoot without sudden turnings without milestones without signposts better that our ears tingle better that our eyes bug out and our heart pound and our palms sweat at the prospect of the judgment of God Jeremiah is the right thing in preaching this message he's telling

Judah days are coming this is the language from lamentations days are coming when on the ground in the streets will lie young and old virgins and young men fallen by the sword slain in the day of God's anger he will slaughter not sparing these are days with terrors on every side and there will be no one who escapes or survives in the day of the

Lord's anger if judgment is the word of the

Lord then that's the word we should desire and the challenge for us then if we're going to reverence the word and desire the word we need to amen the word we need to amen the word of the

Lord Jesus said amen a lot he said verily verily that's

King James truly truly amen amen there are two ingredients to amen faith and repentance those are the two ingredients of amen let me show you example of that we read verses four and five the sins of verses four and five and then we read verses six through nine the scenes of wretched destruction verses six through nine if we think that the scenes of verses six through nine are more horrible than the sins of verses four five we need to repent and God help us for our unbelief are we more compassionate than God we're certainly not as holy as God but if we think that those awful scenes of verses six through nine are somehow worse than the sins of verses four through five we have need to repent from that position and take

God's side on the matter and to say amen yes God you are just I am

I am undone reading this but God you are just you are holy and you are good we are not nearly enough consumed with the cross of Jesus Christ not nearly enough concerned about our sin not nearly enough shocked and appalled and aghast at sin because we're not nearly enough consumed with the cross of Jesus Christ do you want to know the cost of sin see

Christ died on the cross under the wrath of God he dies like a covenant breaker like an enemy of God's kingdom there he is forsaken by God abandoned by men and the whole of creation starts falling apart about him when you look there you see the cost of your sin and repenting by faith say amen amen

God's judgment on your guilt and Christ's salvation of your soul let us not stop our ears or flee the conviction of the

Holy Spirit we think about the message of Jeremiah 19 1 through 9 we should come away and recognize this that the only end for those who reject

Christ is terror on every side I believe Jesus called it outer darkness where there is only weeping and gnashing of teeth let's pray father as we have looked at your word this morning and recognize that you are good and that you are just you clearly speak your word you still call for us to hear you call for repentance and faith

I ask that we would amen your word that you would give us the grace to confirm your goodness and the truth of your word lord

I pray that you would leave no one here this morning in doubt of where they're at I pray that you would not leave anyone here in the danger of facing terror on every side