WWUTT 2354 We Are Delivered in Vain (Jeremiah 7:9-20)

The people of Jerusalem and of Judah have stolen, murdered, committed adultery, sworn falsely, made offerings to Baal, then they come and stand before God and say,

We are delivered! But they use the Lord's name in vain when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the

Word. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we feature New Testament Study, an Old Testament book on Thursday, and our

Q &A on Friday. Now here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. In our study of the book of Jeremiah, we come back to chapter 7, picking up where we left off last week.

God has warned Jerusalem not to trust in these deceptive words.

This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. Meaning what?

They had put their trust in the temple rather than God Himself. Believing that they could go about and sin in whatever way they wanted to sin, and judgment was not going to come upon them, or at least their enemies, misfortune and judgment will not come down on us because we have the temple of God.

But their affections were not for the Lord. Their affections were for the false gods and the passions of the pagans around them.

So when they called on the name of God, or when they swore allegiance to Him, it was simply said in vain.

Their hearts were not really for Him. And we've seen this kind of rebuke before in Jeremiah chapter 5, verse 2, though they say as the

Lord lives, yet they swear falsely. So they may say, they may claim the temple of God, but judgment is coming upon them soon.

So let me pick up where we left off last week, Jeremiah 7, verse 8, and I'm going to read through verse 20.

Hear the word of the Lord. Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail.

Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say,

We are delivered, only to go on doing all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes?

Behold, I myself have seen it, declares the Lord. Go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first, and see what

I did to it, because of the evil of my people Israel. And now, because you have done all these things, declares the

Lord, and when I spoke to you persistently, you did not listen, and when I called you, you did not answer.

Therefore, I will do to the house that is called by my name, and in which you trust, and to that place that I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh, and I will cast you out of my sight, as I cast out all your kinsmen, all the offspring of Ephraim.

As for you, do not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or prayer for them, and do not intercede with me, for I will not hear you.

Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, and the women knead dough to make cakes for the queen of heaven, and they pour out drink offerings to other gods to provoke me to anger.

Is it I whom they provoke, declares the Lord? Is it not themselves to their own shame?

Therefore, thus says the Lord God, behold, my anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, upon man and beast, upon the trees of the field and the fruit of the ground.

It will burn and not be quenched. Which was the same kind of judgment that came upon Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities of the plains, wasn't it?

Same sort of thread of judgment. God would pour out his judgment so that not even anything would grow there after his fire would pour down upon them.

Now, that kind of judgment is not the judgment that will come upon Jerusalem and all the surrounding location in Judah and everywhere else.

It will be the Chaldeans that will come in, but they will ravage everything and it will be as if even those things that grew cannot grow there any longer because of the devastation that will be wrought by their enemies.

So again, coming back to verse eight, and this was the verse that we ended with last week. Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail.

And that goes back to what was said in verse four, do not trust in these deceptive words. This is the temple of the

Lord. So they were treating the temple like a good luck charm. Nothing bad's ever going to happen to us. We can go about doing whatever we want to do and God is going to be for us because we're his people.

We're the people he called out of slavery, gave to this land, had us build this temple, dwells with us so that they find an excuse to go about doing whatever sin they want, thinking that no recourse is going to come against them.

And so God calls out their sins specifically. Here's what it is that they have done. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal and go after other gods that you have not known and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name and say, we're delivered only to go on doing all these abominations.

There's some similarities here to the way that we might go out and evangelize.

One method of evangelism is to use the law of God, that you bring a person to an awareness of their sin.

Most people have heard of the 10 commandments, even if they couldn't name you any of the 10 commandments, they might be able to remember thou shalt not murder.

And that's about as far as it goes. But if you ask somebody, have you ever, have you ever lied before?

Yeah, I've told lies. Have you, have you ever looked at someone with lust? Well, Jesus says in Matthew chapter five, that's the same as if you've committed adultery in your heart.

Have you ever hated somebody? Jesus says that's the same as if you've murdered them in your heart before.

Have you taken the Lord's name in vain? You know, you ask some of these questions so that in asking these questions, they come to realize they're not really as good as they think they are.

As said in Romans chapter three, the law of God stops every mouth. And we, we become aware of our own rebellion against God when presented with his holy law and realizing that we haven't kept it.

And if we've even failed at one point, then we are guilty of the whole thing as said in the book of James.

We understand that concept, even when it comes to executing the laws of our land. If somebody murders someone else, they can't stand before the judge and lay out all the other laws they've kept.

Look at how much good I've done and you're going to, you're going to hold it against me for breaking this one law.

Yeah. It's going to be as if you've broken the whole law. That's what it's going to be. And then a sentence issued against a person for murder.

If a judge lets a person go based on the, on their merits of all the other good stuff and they, that they've done, we would call that judge unjust for not holding that man accountable for murder.

Doesn't matter how much good he's done. He killed somebody. He deserves the penalty.

I mean, really the penalty for that should be the death penalty according to what the Bible says, though, uh, in this day and age in America, it's amazing if somebody even gets a life sentence in prison for killing somebody else.

But again, we use the law to bring a person to an awareness of their sin and that they deserve judgment, especially when it comes to standing before God.

We can't stand before God and claim ourselves to be righteous when we look into his holy law and recognize that we're not righteous.

And so God uses the law in this way, highlights Jerusalem sin so that they may become aware of why

God is angry with them. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely all these things

Jerusalem was guilty of and then also make offerings to bail and go after other gods that you have not known.

This is right at the very start of the law. I am the Lord, your God, you don't get another one.

Don't raise up any graven image. And here they're making offerings to the bales and going after other gods you have not known.

And then verse 10, you come and stand before me in this house. Again, the temple of the Lord, you stand before me here, which is called by my name.

And you say, we are delivered only to go on doing these abominations.

So they'll come before God's altar, they'll sacrifice. They may even believe that by these sacrifices, this is what we have to do to atone for our sins.

And then they go about doing more sin. All I got to do is go and offer an ox or a goat or lamb or whatever else.

And then I'm cleansed and I can go about sinning in the way that I was doing before.

And I, you know, consciously, they're not thinking about, I'm going to go back to sinning. They're just going to go do what they want in their flesh to do.

And God is showing to them, this is your heart. It's not for me.

It's for the passions of your flesh that you go after other, all of these other things.

And then you would dare stand before me in my house and call me by my name and say, we are delivered in his name and then go on doing all these abominations.

Verse 11 has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes.

Behold, I myself have seen it, declares the Lord. These are the same words that Jesus used when he cleansed the temple in all three synoptic gospel accounts in Matthew, Mark and Luke, Matthew 21,

Mark 11, Luke 19. When Jesus is driving out the money changers and those who are selling sacrifices, he said it is written.

My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you make it a den of robbers.

He was showing them that they were committing the same evils that their fathers had done back when they stood in the house of God and said, we are delivered.

And in the meanwhile, they go about stealing, murdering, committing adultery, swearing falsely, worshiping false gods.

You've made this a den of robbers. Behold, I myself have seen it.

And so verse 12, go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first and see what

I did to it because of the evil of my people, Israel. Now, Shiloh was a sanctuary city about 20 miles to the north of Jerusalem, but it was in Israel, right?

Jerusalem is in Judah, or at least it's right there on the border of the northern and southern kingdoms.

The northern kingdom was Israel. Southern kingdom was Judah after the split that happened following Solomon's death.

So Jerusalem really stands in between. But a little bit to the north there was it was a capital city that was thought of by Israel to be the place where God would dwell with them, that place called

Shiloh. And God did indeed dwell there before the temple was constructed, mentioned in Judges and first Samuel chapter one.

And because of sin that continued in that place, God had shut down that site.

So that would no longer be the place where God would meet with his people. And so as God had removed his presence from there, so he was going to remove his presence from Jerusalem as well.

Go see what happened to Shiloh. I had my name dwelling there at first when the tabernacle was there.

But because you did not listen, I remove my name from Shiloh. I'm going to do the same to this place.

Verse 13. Now, because you have done all these things, declares the Lord. And when I spoke to you persistently, you did not listen.

And when I called you, you did not answer. Therefore, I will do to the house that is called by my name to the temple and in which you trust and to that place that I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did at Shiloh.

And I will cast you out of my sight as I cast out all your kinsmen, all the offspring of Ephraim.

So everything that God had done before had served as a type of what he was going to do again, and this time doing it in Jerusalem.

Now, Ezekiel, when we get to that book, Ezekiel is the one who actually sees the presence of God, leave the temple and go up on the hillside and sit and watch as the

Chaldeans are going to come against Jerusalem and destroy it. And the Chaldeans are going to be successful in doing so because God's presence is not there anymore.

They'll even be successful in carrying arc, carrying arc. They'll be successful in carrying off the arc of the covenant.

Unlike the Philistines, when the Philistines tried to do that, they were plagued with all different kinds of curses.

But the Chaldeans will be successful at it because God's presence won't be with the arc anymore. It's not that the arc itself was sacred.

It's that God dwelled there. But since he's removing his presence from Jerusalem, the

Chaldeans are going to have their way with Jerusalem, unlike the way the Assyrians were able to take

Jerusalem. And so picking up in verse 16, things shift a little bit here.

Now, God is speaking directly to Jeremiah and perhaps any other pious person who may be grieved of heart over the sins that Jerusalem has committed, all the evils that have been done in Judah.

And he's going to say to them these words, as for you. Do not pray for this people or lift up a cry or prayer for them and do not intercede with me, for I will not hear you.

Now, why is God saying that? Don't pray for this people. Don't even lament over them.

Why? Why is God saying that? Because he means to pour out his judgment, the judgment is coming, so interceding on their behalf is not going to change my mind.

That's what he's saying to Jeremiah. This is now going to happen, it's going to be carried out.

Don't use this verse, though, as an excuse to not have to pray for anybody. Like God told

Jeremiah, you don't have to pray for Jerusalem because I'm going to bring judgment. And you're looking at somebody else's life and you might think of them.

Well, God is definitely turning them over to their depravity to be judged. And so I can't pray for them anymore.

There's no point. I would be wasting my prayers. Well, you don't know that. This is

God's word to a prophet. So you don't know in your circumstance, in your life or with your acquaintances, if they are truly that depraved or if they are reprobate,

God has given them over to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. We still should pray for friends and family and others.

And you're probably aware that the Pope, Pope Francis, is sick right now. And it's being said that his situation is dire.

He may not last very much longer. I pray for Pope Francis, that he would repent of the evil doctrines that he's believed and that he would truly come to the

Lord Jesus Christ. I mean, it would mean stepping down as Pope. He couldn't sit in that position anymore because that position is antichrist, but that he truly would be convicted over his sin and repent before he dies and the day of his judgment comes.

Because, as said in the book of Hebrews, it is it is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living

God. I would not want that upon my my greatest enemy. I hope that they would repent of their sin and come to the

Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. So I would pray even for such a man like Pope Francis, that he would repent and come to know the truth of the gospel before he has to stand before God in judgment.

And there's no one from whom we should be willing to withhold those prayers, praying that God would indeed deliver them.

In this particular circumstance, God is is saying, here's what's going to happen and I'm not going to change my mind.

So verse 17, do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

The children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, the women need dough to make cakes for the queen of heaven, and they pour out drink offerings to other gods to provoke me to anger.

You're probably aware the Roman Catholic Church refers to Mary as the queen of heaven. I believe the Eastern Orthodox do as well.

The only time that phrase is used in the Bible is in the book of Jeremiah. And it's in reference to a false goddess.

The way that the Roman Catholics treat Mary is like a goddess, it doesn't matter whether they think of her as being less than Christ, less than God, you know, we're not worshiping her as God.

OK, doesn't matter. You think of her as less than God, but you still worship her. They still offer up prayers to her and even offerings to her and build cathedrals in her name.

And they pray to her, believing that she will be more persuasive with Jesus than they can be.

I'm sure. In fact, I would I would dare to say that in Roman Catholicism at large around the world, over a billion adherents to Roman Catholicism.

I would go as far as saying that they probably pray to Mary more than they pray to God because of that reason.

They think that Jesus can be more persuasive or can be better persuaded by his mother than by us little peons down here on Earth trying to pray to him.

So we're going to pray to his mom because she can convince him better than we can. That is so blasphemous.

God has never said to pray to lesser beings than him, why would we do such a thing?

We can go directly to the God of the universe and to think he doesn't want to hear from us, to think that he can't be interested in our prayers unless it comes through Jesus mom.

That's absurd. That is so incredibly arrogant and blasphemous. We see self -professing

Christians in the world today doing the very thing right here that God is saying that Judah is guilty of.

Children gather wood, fathers kindle fire, women need dough to make cakes for the queen of heaven.

And they pour out drink offerings to other gods and they provoke me to anger.

Even the other sins that we read about previously. Those things such as stealing, murdering, committing adultery, swearing falsely, making offerings to bail.

This is happening even in many evangelical churches in America and in other parts of the world.

They are doing these wicked things, claiming to be of Christ, but they look way more like the world with a choir robe on than they actually look like followers of Jesus.

This is a scary thing to be in this place. And these warnings that are being given here to Judah, warnings that are every bit as relevant to our world today.

Verse 19, is it I whom they provoke, declares the Lord, is it not themselves to their own shame?

Therefore, thus says the Lord God, behold, my anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place upon man and beast, upon the trees of the field and the fruit of the ground.

It will burn and not be quenched. And this is why part of my ministry has involved calling out teachers, false teachers and false churches, calling them to repent, to turn from their wicked ways back to the sound words of what we have in scripture or what was said previously in the book of Jeremiah, the old paths back in chapter six, come back to the old paths.

Come back to the way that was laid out for us by God through the prophets and apostles that we have right here in the

Bible. Stop inventing new ways, stop acquiescing to the culture, stop entertaining the goats and acting like clowns in the worship service.

Repent of these worldly ways and seek Christ to be purified.

Church is for worshiping God. It's for the saints of God. It's it's not to make something that's going to be the most attractive to people who don't want to be there worshiping

God. Let us understand what the word says about us, about God, about how he is to be worshipped.

And turn from our wicked ways. And he will hear from heaven and forgive our sin.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we've read here, and I pray we do see the application even in these ancient words.

How does this pertain to how things are today and how we need to turn from our wickedness and to the

Lord so to be cleansed and then walk in holiness, not returning to those wicked ways any longer?

Convict people even in your churches today. Of these abominations, convict their hearts of stealing, murdering, committing adultery, swearing falsely, making offerings to false gods, going after other gods that they have not known.

And may that conviction lead to a godly grief that leads to repentance so that they may come to Christ and go and sin no more.

Thank you for your grace and your patience toward us in Jesus name. Amen. This has been when we understand the text of Pastor Gabriel Hughes for all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books, and more.

Visit our website at www .utt .com. If you'd like to submit a question to this broadcast or just send us a comment, email when we understand the text at gmail .com

and let your friends know about our ministry. Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in the study of God's word when we understand the text.