Alone Before God

Jeremiah’s Warning of Judgment and the Day of Standing Alone Before God

The message this morning is from Jeremiah 25, verses 1 -29. If you're using the Pew Bible, that's page 652, Jeremiah 25, verses 1 -29. The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, that was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, which Jeremiah the prophet spoke to all the people of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

For 23 years, from the 13th year of Josiah, the son of Ammon, king of Judah, to this day the word of the Lord has come to me, and I have spoken persistently to you, but you have not listened. You have neither listened nor inclined your ears to hear, although the Lord persistently sent to you all his servants the prophets, saying, Turn now, every one of you, from his evil way and evil deeds, and dwell upon the land that the Lord has given to you and your fathers, from of old and forever.

Do not go after other gods to serve them or to worship them or provoke me to anger with the work of your hands, then I will do you no harm. Yet you have not listened to me, declares the Lord, that you might provoke me to anger with the work of your hands to your own harm.

Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, because you have not obeyed my words, Behold, I will send for all the tribes of the north, declares the Lord, and for Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, my servant, and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and against all these surrounding nations.

I will devote them to destruction and make them a horror, a hissing, and an everlasting desolation. Moreover, I will banish from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the grinding of the millstones and the light of the lamp.

This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. Then after seventy years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity, declares the Lord, making the land an everlasting waste.

I will bring upon that land all the words that I have uttered against it, everything written in this book, pardon me, which Jeremiah prophesied against all the nations. For many nations and great kings shall make slaves even of them, and I will recompense them according to their deeds and the work of their hands.

The Cup of the Lord’s Wrath for Judah and the Nations

Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel said to me, Take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. They shall drink and stagger and be crazed because of the sword that I am sending among them.

So I took the cup from the Lord's hand and made all the nations to whom the Lord sent me to drink it. Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, its kings and officials, and make them a desolation and a waste and a hissing and a curse as it is this day.

Pharaoh, king of Egypt, his servants, his officials, all his people, and all the mixed tribes among them, all the kings of the land of Uz and all the kings of the land of the Philistines, Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod, Edom, Moab, the sons of Ammon, all the kings of Tyre, all the kings of Sidon, all the kings of the coastlands across the sea, Dedan, Tima, Buz, and all who cut the corners of the hair, all the kings of Arabia and all the kings of the mixed tribes who dwell in the desert, all the kings of Zimri, all the kings of Elam, and all the kings of Media, all the kings of the north, far and near, one after another, and all the kingdoms of the world that are on the face of the earth.

And after them the king of Babylon shall drink. Then you shall say to them, Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Drink, be drunk, and vomit. Fall and rise no more because of the sword that I am sending among you.

And if they refuse to accept the cup from your hand to drink, then you shall say to them, Thus says the Lord of hosts, you must drink. For behold, I begin to work disaster at the city that is called by my name, and shall you go unpunished?

You shall not go unpunished, for I am summoning a sword against all the inhabitants of the earth, declares the Lord of hosts. God bless the reading of his word. Now please be seated. You know, there's a day coming, a day coming when every man, woman, and child who ever lived is going to stand before God.

And when you stand before God, there will be no cover, there will be no excuses, there will be no insulating layer between you and him. There will be no one to blame for your sin, no one to throw under the bus in your place.

You, God. That's it. You know, Jesus spoke about this day. He told parables about this day. He warned about this day. He's told us some of the most terrifying words in all Scripture could happen upon this day if you go to God and between you and him is only you and him.

Jesus said, he may say to you, I never knew you'd depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. Most frightful words in Scripture. The prophet spoke of this coming day when you would stand before God. The apostle Paul wrote that we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.

This day is hastening on when you will be called. You will be called, not invited. You will be called, not given a choice, as though you could say, well, I'm busy that day. I have other obligations that day.

I need to go test out my oxen that day. I just got married. No, you'll be called and brought before the Lord. There's a time coming when all will have a resurrection. As Jesus says in John chapter 5, a resurrection to life, a resurrection to judgment.

Brethren, whether you believe in Jesus Christ or not, Jeremiah 25 is like a trailer for a movie, like a precursor of that great day when every one of us, man, woman, child, is going to stand before God.

As John says, we shall see him as he is. The difference will be, for the believer, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And if you don't believe in Jesus Christ, I believe you shall see him as he is, but not be like him.

And therefore, hear those terrifying words, I never knew you. Are you ready for that day? That day that is precursored in Jeremiah 25? Lord willing, this message from that chapter will prick your spirit.

You who believe in Jesus Christ will be uplifted in spirit and brought to a higher confidence and a greater faith in him. You who resist the gospel of salvation, Lord willing, God by his spirit is going to crush your pride and take away all these insulating layers that you have raised up between you and him.

Because when you stand before God, you're going to stand, as does Judah here in Jeremiah 25, alone before him. The first seven verses of what I read has the prophet setting forth God's indictment of the people.

And then in verses 8 -14, the prophet describes to them this punishment that the Lord is going to visit upon the convicted and guilty sinners. And then verses 15 -29 is that terrifying passage about this cup of God's wrath.

This cup which must be drunk by those who filled the cup with his wrath by their sin. In the scripture, to drink a cup is to experience fully what was put into that cup. And here, in this case, this is not the cup of salvation as in Psalm 116, and drinking down and experiencing in your life the joys of salvation.

But rather experiencing fully the fury of God's wrath at your sin. Jeremiah 25 was interestingly grounded in the current events of the day that was fulfilled in its awful and its awesome entirety soon after it was spoken.

About 20 years after Jeremiah spoke these words, Jerusalem was defeated. And the temple was ransacked. That's 586 B .C. and the people were taken exile. This passage, what a preview, what a trailer that only what's the appetite for what is going to come later.

That final and great day when Christ fulfills everything and calls all humankind to come before him. For each of us stand alone before God. And here, Judas stands alone. Here in Jeremiah 25, Judas stands alone.

For centuries, they had ignored the prophets. They had mocked the prophets. They had persecuted the prophets. They killed the prophets. Judgments came in small steps and then greater and greater steps.

If you read the book of Judges, you'll get this pattern where they worshiped other gods. They rebelled against God. God sent the invaders. He would give them into the hands of the Philistines and the Moabites or whoever the peoples were.

And the people would then call out to God for mercy and they'd repent and God would remove the invaders and give them freedom again. And then they'd fall back in that pattern and be judged and God would hear them when they cried out again.

This pattern would ever increase. It had been going on for centuries here. Well, Jeremiah 25 is really their last warning. And when this warning came, the fourth year of Jehoiakim, King of Judah, which was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, they stood alone.

They stood alone with nothing between them and him but their sin. God had stripped away everything that they had once run to in order to protect themselves, to insulate themselves from God's discipline.

Now, how did this happen? Well, the fourth year of Jehoiakim, King of Judah, that was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, is a period that we can date very, very accurately. History confirms that that was 605 B .C.

Now, Jeremiah doesn't give us this date, but we know that the fourth year of Jehoiakim, son of Josiah, King of Judah, that was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, was 605 B .C. And 605 B .C., when Jeremiah gives them this final warning of what is coming, that they need to surrender to God's will, which is going to be enacted by Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, God stripped away everything that could stop them from that judgment.

All the insulating layers they had previously raised up. What was that fourth year of Jehoiakim, that first year of Nebuchadnezzar? And why does that lead me to preach in this message, this theme of standing alone before God?

We're not going to go into a lot of historical detail, but in 605 B .C., at a place called Karshemesh, a little north and east of modern-day Lebanon, there was a great battle, which had much influence on the ancient Near East and its development.

Here's what happened. The Egyptian armies and the Assyrian armies came together as allies, and there they met Babylon, allied with Persia and the Scythians and one other who I can't think of off the top of my head.

Egypt and Assyria were going to stop Babylon's growing influence and military might. Well, Egypt and Assyria were crushed. Assyria was no more. They stopped being a people, as it is to this day. Egypt, to this day, never regained their military dominance.

What is so important about that, in terms of this message? Who was Assyria? Assyria was one of the nations that God said, you shall not go and make covenants with them, and yet they went and made covenants.

They went to them for protection. You know Isaiah chapter 7? Do you remember when King Ahaz refused to ask a sign of God? They were being attacked by this Syrian, not Assyrian, but Syrian and Israelite, the ten northern tribes.

They had come together, and they were coming against Jerusalem. And everybody shook in their boots. They were so scared because this huge army was coming at them. And Isaiah comes to King Ahaz and says, the Lord will not let it happen.

Now I'm paraphrasing. Ask him for a sign to prove this. And Ahaz says, very piously it seems, I will not test the Lord, I will not ask for a sign. Why won't he ask? Because he had already gone to Assyria for help.

Their other favored go-to, sometimes to help them against the Assyrians, was the Egyptians. We're done with history. Because at Karshmish, the Egyptians and Assyrians were crushed by the Babylonians under the leadership of a general, and because of that victory, King Nebuchadnezzar.

So Judah stood alone, with nowhere to run. With this awesome judgment coming upon them, all the curses of disobedience from Deuteronomy 28 being fulfilled by God through Nebuchadnezzar, no one to go to.

They can't go to Egypt and say, will you protect us from them? Egypt is scampering back south to Egypt. They can't go to Assyria and say, get your great army and protect us from the Babylonians. Because they were crushed by the Babylonians.

Nowhere to run. Nothing to insulate them from God. This is Nebuchadnezzar's first year as king because of that victory. This is why Judah stands alone. Their allies are gone. I wonder if you and I are often in that same position that Judah was for so long.

When God sent one nation to judge them, instead of accepting the discipline of God, instead of hearing the conviction for sin and repenting, we raise up allies to guard us against that conviction. Our own personal Assyrians or Egyptians make excuses.

We blame others. Oh, if only she hadn't, then I wouldn't have. So like calling up the Egyptians to protect us from this coming conviction. And some say, sure, I've done wrong. We rank our sins. I've done some wrong, but I never did the big ones.

I stole a little bit here and there, but I've never murdered. Maybe I've lied a little bit, but I haven't committed adultery. We get this ranking. We call up these insulating layers that protect us, that keep us from hearing the true convicting power of God.

You only have to read Matthew 5 in a cursory manner to set all that aside. But this is what we do. We raise up these insulations between us and God. We raise up these things that will protect us, that will make us hard against the convicting word of God.

And then there's the great Assyria of comparison. Do you ever do this? When you feel the conviction that God's word brings to you, you say, well, okay, that's starting to hurt a little bit, but I'm not as bad as that guy over there.

Again, it's like ranking the sins. Do you ever do that? Do you ever get this comparison thing going? Have you ever heard that? You know, the old saw, S-A-W, I have to be careful here. I once spoke about being a pinch hitter to people here, and they didn't know what a pinch hitter was, so there's expressions I have, and that's because I'm the oldest guy in this place that maybe you don't know, but a saw, S-A-W, not the tool.

It's just a story. This is the old saw about comparisons. There was a guy in a town, a little town. He's the worst guy in town. He was foul-mouthed. He was a womanizer. He was a drinker. He was violent.

He was fighting and brawling all the time, and he died. Well, his brother, who wasn't such a bad guy, was very wealthy, and he came, and he went to the pastor's that he found there, and he wanted a funeral done for his brother, and he paid the pastor a lot of money, $10 ,000, to do the funeral if you would say, my brother was a great guy.

Well, the first pastor we went to said, no, I can't lie like that, even for $10 ,000, and he goes to pastor after pastor until he gets to a pastor who's really bright, probably a Reformed Baptist, and the Reformed Baptist says, sure, I can do that.

So at the end of the funeral, he says, you know, the deceased who we're talking about today, he was a brawler. He was the worst man in town. He was violent. He was a drinker. He was a womanizer. Everything that's wrong with humankind was wrong in him, but compared to his brother, he was a great guy.

That's a little bit humorous, but we do that, and we bring it up as an Assyria, as an Egypt, to protect us from this coming conviction of God's word, to not confess our sins because we say, okay, compared to him, I'm pretty great, but the Lord has no interest in that other person.

When you stand before God, the only subject will be you, and the only sins discussed will be yours. You're going to stand alone as Judah did, all your allies gone, all your defenses stripped away, and that's what's so important about the fourth year of Jehoiakim and the first year of Nebuchadnezzar because when Nebuchadnezzar became king, he became king because their former allies were done with.

Judah had no one to call up in order to slow down this coming judgment. Now, interestingly, Judah could not, nor can you or I, claim foul against the Lord by saying that he didn't warn. Listen again to verses 3 through 7.

For 23 years, quarter of a century, from the 13th year of Josiah, the son of Ammon, king of Judah, to this day, the word of the Lord has come to me, and I have spoken persistently to you, but you have not listened.

You have neither listened nor inclined your ears to hear, although the Lord persistently sent to you all his servants and prophets. Now, Jeremiah there, he's going back centuries before himself and saying that this has been going on for a long time.

Jeremiah's just in a line, a progressive line of revelation of the prophets calling Israel to repentance, showing them their sin, pleading with them to come to the grace of God, persistently. And here's their message.

Turn now, every one of you, from his evil way and evil deeds, and dwell upon the land that the Lord has given to you and your servants from of old and forever. You've been warned. You've been told. Amos 3 .7 says, For the Lord God does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants, the prophets.

When one day you're called and brought before God, whether you will or not, you will not be able to say, I wasn't warned. You never told me. This preacher this morning, myself, is warning and telling you you're going to stand before God.

You need to be ready because there will be nothing between you and him. Your comparisons to other people are gone. Your ranking of your sins is taken aside. Everything you might call up has been defeated and is no longer even there.

The prophets said, Turn now, every one of you. The Gospel says, Turn now, every one of you from your evil ways. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Believe he died for your sins. Turn now. This word now in the Hebrew is really interesting because it has the idea of a plea, of a please, if you will.

It's God, by his prophet, pleading and saying, Turn now. Please turn. I beseech you to turn from your evil ways. To Ezekiel, the prophet, he says, Because I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked.

God doesn't take joy when he condemns a sinner to hell forever. When you stand before him and you and he has to say, Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. That doesn't give him any good pleasure in his spirit.

It's quite the opposite. And he says, Turn now. This has been the message for centuries. It's the message today. Turn now. God pleads with you. As the Apostle Paul says, We're ambassadors. And we plead with men to turn from their sin and come to Christ.

You've been warned. The Gospel itself is a warning. Jesus told his disciples when they were talking about other sinners, he says, No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you all likewise will perish. John 8, 24, I told you that you would die in your sins for unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins.

Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you know that he is the only preparation for this day when everything is stripped away and it's you and God and the answer for your sins? The Gospel itself is a warning.

The Gospel itself, that Jesus Christ became God, became man, that God in the flesh dwelt on earth, that God in the flesh and Jesus Christ died for our sins. The Gospel itself is a warning. Judah had been warned of this coming day as you today are being warned.

Well, they ignored. For centuries, for all this time, for 23 years of Jeremiah's preaching, they ignored what he was saying. And the question to you is, will you ignore? Will you ignore? I look out and I see mostly members here, people who stood here and given testimony of Jesus Christ.

Only you in your spirit know the truth of what you told us that we believed. Do you ignore this warning to come to faith in Jesus Christ to confess your sin? You've been indicted. You've been warned and everything is going to be stripped away when you see God and you will.

The Sentence of Judgment and the Curses of Disobedience

Here in Jeremiah, the indictment was read and the guilt was established. It remains only for the sentence to be read. That's verses 8 through 11 where the sentence that is going to be brought about is given to them.

Again, they're warned, they're told. Therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, because you have not obeyed my words, behold, I will send for all the tribes of the north, declares the Lord, and for Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, my servant, and bring against this land and all its inhabitants and against all the surrounding nations, I will devote them to destruction.

As God told Joshua to devote Jericho, the things devoted to destruction, the things that Achan reached for and brought sin upon Israel, but it was devoted, it was set aside by God to this destruction.

And this is all pretty clear. I mean, all the blessings that God had promised for obedience had a counterpart for disobedience. And that's in Deuteronomy 28, and you can read that, if you will, this afternoon.

Deuteronomy 28, you'll see this, and Nebuchadnezzar is the one who's going to bring about the curses of Deuteronomy 28, 15 to 68. So where does judgment begin? Judgment begins with those who are graced with the light of God's word, with those who saw the Lord's mighty works, and that's Judah, that's Israel.

Judgment begins with us, brethren, we who've been enlightened by the Holy Spirit and given faith to believe and given the Holy Spirit to empower us to follow what we believe. With we who've enjoyed the privileges of God that He bestows upon us, and we become so used to them, we become so accustomed to them, we begin to think it's our right, that it's just the way things are, and we have to become kind of lackadaisical about it, and we forget what Peter writes.

For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God, and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? Very consistent with Jeremiah, where God says, if I'm bringing my own people to destruction, will I not judge you, O Babylonians?

And, of course, that's a paraphrase. I begin to work disaster at the city that is called by my name, that city where my name resides, and shall you then go unpunished? You shall not go unpunished. Well, what's happening here?

God in history bringing about circumstances that bring about his will. He's bringing them to their senses or trying to bring them to their senses by saying, okay now, Judah, as it were, this is just me and you.

Assyria's gone. Egypt's gone. All your former allies are gone. It's only Babylon, and Nebuchadnezzar is not really open to negotiations, and who are you going to bring against him? The circumstances that bring us to our senses.

It's not just these grand movements in history, these big things. It's you and me personally where God does bring these circumstances into our life. Judah had the word of God proclaimed by the prophets as their enemies grew stronger and their armies grew weaker.

They look for help from Egypt who's scurrying back home to Assyria, and whoops, they don't exist as a nation. So we lose a job, and we start looking for another, but we fail to stop and repent of all the trust that we placed in the job rather than he who gave us the job.

We lose a wife. We fail to repent for having treated the daughter of Christ like a rag doll, or worse. And on it goes. These circumstances that God brings into our life, we ignore. Like Judah ignored and said, where are all our allies?

Where are all these buffer zones that we erected to protect us from this coming judgment? And they fail to stop and say, well, they're gone, and why? And they fail to remember that the prophet said this is exactly what was going to happen.

I give you some homework for this afternoon. I want you to read just chapter one of Haggai. Read the first chapter of the book of Haggai. They thought that the drought that they were suffering was because there was no rain.

They thought that their empty pocketbooks were because of economic factors. But what does God say? He thunders from heaven. He says, I blew it away. We fail to take the circumstances in our life seriously and look at them and say, God is leading me somewhere.

God is showing me something. Look at your situation, attribute it to God, whatever it is. If God is giving you a good, easy, consistent life, if your job is secure, your checkbook is full, praise God for that.

If the opposites are true, look to God and see where, unlike Judah, but where do I need to repent and go to God for forgiveness and ask for restoration. The circumstances he brings about, not just the big things in history like the Battle of Carthage in 605 B .C., the things that he's doing today in March of 2023 with you and me or this church, you and me as individuals, we as a body corporately.

What is he showing me? And where do I need to repent and come to him? Interestingly, in verse 12, then after 70 years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity, declares the Lord, making the land an everlasting waste.

You know, your superscription, most of these, on top of Jeremiah 25, says 70 years of captivity. I'm not really sure that's the main point, that they'll be gone for 70 years, though Daniel, when he's reading Jeremiah, knows that the end of the exile is coming soon.

But it's the punishment. And here, God is going to say, God is going to punish Babylon. He's going to punish the king of Babylon. Now, wasn't Nebuchadnezzar God's servant? He was. That's what God said, Nebuchadnezzar, my servant, is being sent to punish.

He's going to do my will, which he did, didn't he? And yet he says, I'm going to punish the king of Babylon. Why? It was very applicable to us today. It's because they went too far. They were given reign by God to make exiles of Judah.

But what did they do? It says in Scripture, in Jeremiah 25, they made them slaves. God didn't tell them to make slaves. Exiles. These people who were sent to Babylon by the will of God, who were told to pray for that city, to help Nebuchadnezzar and his kingdom to flourish.

These people were to do good for the city. And yet Babylon, taking that upper hand, turned them into slaves. They went too far. God didn't tell them to make them slaves. He didn't tell them to murder men, to enslave boys and girls.

He didn't tell them to rape women. He didn't tell them to ransack his holy temple. Psalm 137 says, Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites, the day of Jerusalem, how they said, Lay it bare, lay it bare, down to its foundations.

O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed, blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us. Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock. You know, there's very few things so dangerous to us as having, or so we think we have, an upper hand.

You know, a boxer, when he sees an advantage over an opponent, he pursues his opponent. He uses that upper hand. He takes advantage of it. He lords it, as it were, over the other guy. You know, one thing I've always liked about the New England Patriots, though as a football fan in most sensibilities, I hate them with a perfect hatred, but I've got to give it to them.

It's the fourth quarter. They're halfway through the fourth quarter. Tom Brady's up 45 -3 against the other team. He's got the ball. He's on the 30-yard line. And they're playing well. And what does he do?

He scores again and again and again. And then he puts his foot on their throat. But see, that's sports. That's entertainment. To drive the other team into the ground is what he's supposed to do. But what does Paul say to us?

What would he say to the Babylonians? If anyone thinks that he stands, take heed lest he fall. You know, we get this upper hand like Babylon had the upper hand over Judah, and they abused it. And we get the upper hand.

We feel like we have a spiritual superiority because we spotted something in a brother or sister. And we lorded over them. So I think this is very applicable to us today. I would ask you, has a brother come to you according to God's word and the responsibility that word brings to us to help you as Jeremiah tried to help Judah?

So here this brother comes and he's got scratches all over his eye where he had taken the log out. He thought and he prayed. He wrestled with God all night. He came to you to show you this speck. And what do we do?

Do we ignore the prompting of God that led him to you? No, we go nuclear. We bring up an Assyrian or an Egypt to protect us. You've no right to be so judgmental. Who do you think you are? It's none of your business.

You don't know what you're talking about. But think of this. The Lord who had sent Nebuchadnezzar violent, idolatrous, and proud, and arrogant. Think of what he sent to Judah. But here you may have a brother or sister.

And how grateful we must be that he doesn't send a Nebuchadnezzar against you. But a brother or sister who's for you. And yet we push it away. We bring up our allies and we insulate ourselves from that convicting word that they might bring because that speck in our eye is none of your business.

On the other hand, were you the one sent to administer the wounds of a friend? Ask yourself, were they wounds or were they blows? Were they the 40 lashes, not less one, but on and on? Did you chase him down, allow no respite to thop, and think and consider?

Did you demand to be correct more than to be right? If God is placed just in such a place as that, take heed lest you join Babylon in overreach. Did you build up or did you tear down? Was that brother driven to despair or was he given hope?

Was Jesus' forgiveness set side by side with sin? Was the power of the Holy Spirit placed in the four as the only strength? Or with Babylon, blow after blow, enjoying dominance. As you brush off your epaulets and admire your shiny new medal of holy valor, take heed.

Because you might be the one who needs to ask forgiveness from the one you lorded it over. Just as Babylon went too far against Judah and will therefore be punished by God for that. Jeremiah 25 is all about sin and the punishment that goes with it.

The Cup of Wrath, the Cross, and the Call to Repent and Believe

Have you ever wondered what happens to your sin? I mean, we know that we're forgiven by the cross of Jesus Christ. We know that God remembers our sins no more by faith in him who was crucified for me.

But have you ever wondered what actually happens to your sin? How is it that God remembers the memorial? I mean, they don't just go poof. They don't just disappear like a magician's sleight of hand. Many, many years ago, I read a story about a gypsy who cursed a man.

And when the man figured out that his misfortunes were because of this curse, he tracked down this old gypsy and he convinced him to take the curse away, which he agreed to do. But once that curse had been brought into existence, it couldn't simply be dismissed.

It had to go somewhere. Something had to happen to it. And so the old gypsy finally takes the curse and transfers it from the man into a pie, a gypsy pie. And that's the end of that story. But it's just an illustration that sin doesn't just go away.

Something has to happen to it. And this is illustrated in the cup of God's fury in Jeremiah 25. Verse 15, Thus says the Lord God of Israel, Take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it.

They shall drink and stagger and be crazed because of the sword that I'm sending among them. I said at the beginning, a cup in the Bible is used metaphorically. It means to experience something. As when the psalmist says, I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord.

He'll drink it to the bottom and take into his very being the joy of knowing God by faith in Jesus Christ. But another psalmist writes of another cup, this one more like the one in Jeremiah 25, where he says, For in the hand of the Lord there's a cup with foaming wine well mixed and he pours out from it and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs.

This cup of wrath, being filled with what? Well, God's fury. But what brings a drop of fury into that cup? Your sin, my sin, Judah's sin, here even Babylon's sin, all being remembered, all being poured into that cup, all that has to be resolved.

It can't just go away. You know, the prophet told the nations, or God told the prophet to tell the nations if they say they won't take it, you tell them, you must drink. That term in the Hebrew, you must drink, is actually the same as Genesis 2 .17, where it says, If ye eat of that tree, you shall surely die.

Something like, in dying you shall die. Well, here in Jeremiah 25, the certainty of the cup is the same Hebrew form of verbs. Something like, you must drink, is drinking you shall drink. That thing has to be emptied.

Someone has to experience it. It doesn't just get poured away and evaporate. When I was a boy, my dad liked the Kingston Trio, and they had that song, Oh Sinner Man, where are you going to run to? When I was a little kid, I didn't know what sinner was.

I couldn't figure out what they were saying. I was all immersed in the westerns of the day. Western shows on TV were real popular. I thought it was, Oh Sinner Man, like the Cinnamon Kid, like the Waco Kid, something like that.

Years later, I mean in my Christian life, I realized he sung, Oh Sinner Man, where are you going to run to? In the book of Revelation, as the lamb begins to bring his wrath upon them, as they're drinking that cup of God's wrath, they call on the rocks to fall on them, but there's nowhere to go.