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Sunday Morning, July 19, 2020, AM "Who Will Dring the Cup?” Jeremiah 49:1-39
Good morning everyone. Welcome to Sunnyside Baptist this morning.
We're glad you can be with us to worship together. As we get started this morning, a few announcements looking ahead this week.
Come back this evening for our evening service tonight. I believe Josiah is going to be sharing with us out of Hebrews, so that will be good.
And then also last Sunday evening, Michael started a new series for us, the Sons of Issachar, looking in First Chronicles chapter 12.
That will pick up next Sunday evening. This Sunday night?
Okay. Next Sunday. Okay, so I got those backwards. So we'll pick up in First Chronicles tonight and then next
Sunday, Josiah. Wednesday, Bible study and prayer. That starts at 630 p .m.
Truth Group. That's going to meet Friday, July 24th at 530 p .m. at the
Barnett's home. So put that on your schedules as well. Our fighter verse for this week comes from the
Psalms, Psalm 34 specifically, verses 9 through 11. O fear the
Lord, you and his saints, for those who fear him have no lack. The young lions suffer want and hunger, but those who seek the
Lord lack no good thing. Come, O children, listen to me. I will teach you the fear of the
Lord. Offering plate is still at the back of the auditorium, so give your tithes and offerings back there.
There's also announcement in your bulletin regarding Operation Christmas Child. It's not too early yet to start thinking about that for Christmas.
Some of the ladies in the sewing ministry have a need for a few supplies, flannel, some large to medium -sized buttons.
If you can help with that, you can talk to Loretta, or Patty Hines, or Barbara Donovan.
All right, any other announcements I'm missing this morning or could mention? Okay, well, we are going to prepare our hearts for worship, and then after that, will open us in prayer.
Heavenly Father, we come before you today, and we thank you for being our creator.
You have given us life, breath to breathe. You are our provider. You send your rain upon the just and the unjust, and your sun rises upon all that you have made.
We give you thanks for you, our Heavenly Father, who has given us to your
Son, Jesus Christ, so that by your Holy Spirit, we may know you, and to love you, and commune with you.
We thank you for bringing us together here on this day, that we may worship you, and glorify you, and give you praise, and to exalt the name of our
Savior, Jesus Christ, who is alive, who has risen, who has ascended, and who reigns from your right hand.
And we ask that you would fill us with your Holy Spirit, that our singing would be true, and beautiful, and good, that our prayers would be sincere, and humble before you, and that our hearing, and the reading, and the preaching of the word would be honoring to you, and that through your word, which is living, and active, and sharper than any two -edged sword, that you would do your work in renewing us according to your
Son, Jesus Christ. It's for his sake that we pray, amen. Before we start,
I'd just like to say that it's been a true blessing to be able to sing praises to the
Lord, Jesus Christ, with you together on Sunday mornings, and that just to be able to hear you sing to the
Lord, and see the expressions on your face, and I just also want to publicly thank our praise team that does a wonderful job of preparing for Lisa and Mom that play instruments, and for Haley, and Jana that sings also, and even back when we started earlier, over Jana, I'm sorry,
Jeanette Renfro that's passed on to be with the Lord, but also for the folks, for Edgar and Joel up in the audio, and sound, and visual live stream booth, and for those that prepare our materials in the office,
Jenny and those, and I'm just so thankful for the team. I won't be with you, just to let you know, but you'll be in good hands with Brother Brian.
He'll be leading music, and so I'll be worshiping with you on live stream, but just to let you know, but if you would stand together for our call to worship time.
We've got a really good passage this morning in Psalms chapter 44. We'll be reading verses 23 to 26.
Read with me together. Awake, why are you sleeping, O Lord?
Rouse yourself, do not reject us forever. Why do you hide your face?
Why do you forget our affliction and oppression? Our soul is bowed down to the dust, our belly clings to the ground.
Rise up, come to our help. Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love.
Our first song this morning is, Behold our God. He is seated on the throne, come let us adore him.
Nothing can compare, come let us adore him. Who has held the oceans in his hands?
Who has numbered every grain of sand?
He is seated on the throne, come let us adore him.
Has given counsel to the Lord? Who can question any of his words?
Who can teach the one who knows all things?
Who can fathom all his wondrous deeds?
Behold our God, seated on his throne, come let us adore him.
Behold has felt the nails upon his hand, bearing all the guilt of sinful man.
God eternal humbled to the grave,
Jesus Savior risen now to reign.
Good morning. Today we'll be in Deuteronomy chapter 12 verses 1 through 18.
Starts out in verse 1. These are the statutes and judgments which you shall be careful to observe in the land which the
Lord God of your fathers is giving you to possess all the days that you live on the earth. You shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations which you shall dispossess serve their gods on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree.
And you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and burn their wooden images with fire.
You shall cut down the carved images of their gods and destroy their names from that place.
You shall not worship the Lord your God with such things, but you shall seek the place where the
Lord your God chooses out of all your tribes to put his name for his dwelling place, and there you shall go.
There you shall take your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the heave offerings of your head, your vowed offerings, your offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks.
And there you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice in all to which you have put your hand, you and your households in which the
Lord your God has blessed you. You shall not at all do as we are doing here today, every man doing whatever is right in his own eyes, for as yet you have not come to the rest and the inheritance which the
Lord your God is giving you. But when you cross over the Jordan and dwell in the land which the Lord your
God has given you to inherit, and he gives you rest from all your enemies roundabout so that you dwell in safety, then there will be the place where the
Lord your God chooses to make his name abide. There you shall bring all that I command you, your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the heave offerings of your hand, and all your choice offerings which you which you vow to the
Lord. And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters, your male and female servants, and the
Levite who's within your gates, since he has no portion nor inheritance with you.
Take heed to yourselves that you do not offer your burnt offerings in every place that you see, but in the place which the
Lord chooses. In one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I command you.
However, you may slaughter and eat meat within all your gates, whatever your heart desires, according to the blessing of the
Lord your God, which he has given you, the unclean and the clean. May eat of it, of the gazelle and the deer alike.
Only you shall not eat the blood, you shall pour it on the earth like water. You shall not eat within your gates the tithe of your grain or your new wine, of your oil, of the firstborn of your herd or your flock, or any of your offerings which you vow, of your freewill offerings or of the heave offerings of your hand.
But you shall eat them before the Lord your God, in the place which the Lord your God chooses, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, and the
Levite who is within your gates. And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God in all to which you put your hands.
This is God's word. Let's go ahead and pray. Father, we thank you for your word.
We thank you for the consistency that it has in its pages pointing to Jesus Christ, who is our rest, who is our place,
Lord. We thank you for what he has done for us. We thank you for providing us revelation in him.
We thank you for your providential care, Lord, leading us every way that you would choose. We ask that you would prepare our hearts more for worship,
Lord, that we would hear your word, understand it, and apply it to every part of our lives as you would will.
Thank you so much for all that you do. And thank you again for Jesus Christ and his grace. In his name we pray.
Amen. You may be seated. Our next song is also in the handout,
Come, Behold the Wondrous Mystery. And then also go ahead and get your hymnal and turn to page 105.
So we'll sing He is Lord after that. Come, behold the wondrous mystery.
In the dawning of the morning,
He, the bearer and descendant,
Took on flesh to ransom wondrous mystery.
He, the perfect Son of God, In His living, in His suffering, came back.
Come, behold the wondrous mystery. Christ the
Lord Upon the tree, in the stead, see the
Father. Come, behold the wondrous mystery.
When He's a foretaste of deliverance,
How unwavering our hope. Christ in power, resurrected
As we will be when He comes.
Just like a lamb to slaughter, a sinless sacrifice.
But by His death, His loss became our gain. Satan's forces cast him aside.
He is Lord, He is
Lord. He shall bow every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord. Let's pray together.
Heavenly Father, what a joy it is to come together on this day, first day of the week, day
Jesus Christ rose from the dead, the beginning of a new creation.
As we look at your word today and consider the message you have for us concerning the glories of your
Son, we ask for your help that you would warm our hearts to the text, conform our lives to your
Son, that you would be pleased, Father. We ask that you would make us the amen on earth of your will, which is in heaven.
We need your grace for this. We are but servants and slaves, children, infants in your kingdom.
We have nothing to offer to you, except our praise for the one you have offered to us, your
Son, Jesus Christ. So it's in His name that we pray. Amen. Well, we are going to spend our time this morning in chapter 49, but to help us with understanding what is going on in that chapter,
I'll be reading for us from chapter 25 of Jeremiah. So I invite you to turn in your
Bibles to Jeremiah chapter 25, anticipating that we will turn to chapter 49 in a moment.
The series of chapters that we are looking at here at the end of Jeremiah, chapters 46 through 51, deal with sovereign fire and international brimstone.
We've already heard about how God will judge Egypt, how
God will judge Philistia and Moab.
This morning, we'll hear the rest of the nations that God sent
Babylon to conquer. And so we will complete the span of nations from Egypt to Elam, which is a line stretching the full length of the
Babylonian Empire at its height, 1 ,200 miles long. It would be like from here to the
California border or from here to Dover, Delaware, depending on which direction you want to head.
But the next oracle, after we finish chapter 49, will be chapters 50 and 51, which are focused on Babylon itself.
For after God uses Babylon to judge all these other nations, he will also judge
Babylon itself. And this is all consistent with what he said in chapter 25, an oracle of judgment that God gave to his servant
Jeremiah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim. So we turn our attention there, Jeremiah chapter 25.
I'll be reading verses 15 through 29, and I invite you to stand with me as we read the word of the
Lord and hear this message from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who in his spirit proclaimed thus through his prophet.
Verse 15, for thus the Lord, the God of Israel says to me, take this cup of the wine of wrath from my hand and cause all the nations to whom
I send you to drink it. They will drink and stagger and go mad because of the sword that I will send among them.
Then 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 and its kings and its princes to make them a ruin, a horror, a hissing and a curse as it is this day.
Pharaoh, king of Egypt, his servants, his princes and all his people and all the foreign people, all the kings of the land of Uz, all the kings of the land of the
Philistines, even Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod. Edom, Moab, and the sons of Ammon, and all the kings of Tyre, all the kings of Sidon, and the kings of the coastlands which are beyond the sea, and Dedan, Tima, Buz, and all who cut the corners of their hair, and all the kings of Arabia, and all the kings of the foreign people who dwell in the desert, and all the kings of Zimri, all the kings of Elam, and all the kings of Media, and all the kings of the north, near and far, one with another, and all the kingdoms of the earth which are upon the face of the ground, and the king of Shishak will drink after them.
You shall say to them, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, drink, be drunk, vomit, fall and rise no more because of the sword which
I will send among you. And it shall, and it will be, if they refuse to take this cup from your hand to drink, then you will say to them, thus says the
Lord of hosts, you shall surely drink. For behold, I am beginning to work calamity in this city, which is called by my name, and shall you be completely free from punishment?
You will not be free from punishment, for I am summoning a sword against all the inhabitants of the earth, declares the
Lord of hosts. This is the word of the Lord, you may be seated.
Peter tells us that Noah was a preacher of righteousness. And from the moment that God told
Noah of the coming worldwide flood, the clock was ticking, 120 years.
And although Noah preached the truth of God and obediently built the ark, only his wife, his three sons, and their wives were saved from the great flood.
Why did no one else believe Noah, this grandson of Methuselah?
Didn't he have enough credibility to his story as he was building the ark and all these animals began to gather to him?
What were all these people doing? Conservative calculations estimate about 4 billion people could have been living on the earth at this time, which is not a surprise when accounting for their longer lifespans.
But Jesus tells us what these people were doing at this time, as the clock of judgment ticked down to the final moments.
In those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, meaning they were living life normally, until the day that Noah entered the ark and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away.
How could they remain in the dark when the Spirit of Christ, Peter says, through Noah was preaching to these people 120 years and only seven converts?
And Noah had the best visual aid of all. He was building this boat, four stories high by our reckoning, and longer than three space shuttles parked in a row.
It was the space shuttle thing that was really impressive to Noah's neighbors. They said, wow, that thing is longer than three space shuttles.
They remain in the dark because that is where they wanted to hide.
And the Lord God saw the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart were only evil continually.
Genesis 6 .5. It was in that condition where they were suppressing the truth of God in unrighteousness.
It was in that condition where they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
And they exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshipped and served the
Creator, or the creation. They worshipped and served and feared the creature, the stuff that had been made, rather than worshipping and serving and fearing the
Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. Now the story of Noah and the flood,
I think, is instructive for our passage here in Jeremiah, because God had declared, we hear from chapter 25,
God had declared that there was a massive judgment coming. It wasn't a flood, but it was Babylon.
These armies of Babylon, they would be unstoppable. They would succeed in the task for which God had sent them.
All of these nations were coming under this judgment. God warned them.
God forewarned them. And now what will they do? Verse 31 of chapter 25 says,
A clamor has come to the end of the earth, because the Lord has a controversy with the nations.
He is entering into judgment with all flesh. As for the wicked, he has given them to the sword, declares the
Lord. So let's think about the image that we have here in Jeremiah, Jeremiah 25, and how it works out in chapter 49.
God has told Jeremiah to take the cup of the wine of his wrath from his hand, and take this cup of God's wrath, and cause all these nations to drink it.
Who will escape? Who will drink the cup? Some will refuse to drink the cup, but God will make them.
But why did they think they would escape? Why did they think that they would avoid the destruction that was coming in the form of the armies of Babylon?
How did they think they would escape God's wrath? Well, they kept themselves in the dark, just like Noah's generation, because they trusted in idols.
They trusted in fake saviors. Fake saviors.
I was preaching open air one time in Tennessee, around the courthouse of the little county seat in the area we lived, and I was trying to connect the flood.
I figured these high schoolers would know something about Noah's flood from some source.
They would be familiar with that story in the scriptures, and so I was connecting that with the final judgment, as Peter does in his second letter.
And I was explaining that even as a universal flood came and destroyed Noah's generation, but look at Noah.
Look at his obedience. Because of his righteous obedience, all who were with Noah were saved in the ark.
Now, Peter tells us that there's another judgment coming, one of fire. So how will we escape?
How did those who escaped escape the flood? Well, they were with Noah, who righteously obeyed
God and built an ark for them to escape in. So what do we need? I was trying to press this home to those listening, and then a bold young man raised his hand, and he seemed to know how we could escape the fiery judgment of God coming upon us.
He said, we need a rocket. Get off the planet, the fire's coming, so we just need to get a rocket and leave.
And he was dead serious. Now, as foolish as that was, so also are the more sophisticated false saviors presented in each of these nations here in Jeremiah 49.
And why should we be concerned about people with their fake saviors? Why not just, you know, let people believe what they want to believe and have the comforts that they have, no matter if we disagree about those things or not?
The problem is, when we're answering the question, who will drink the cup? Who will drink the cup of the wine of God's wrath?
Who will drink the cup? Those with fake saviors, we are guaranteed in the text.
Those with fake saviors will drink the cup, and they will go drunk, staggering mad under God's wrath.
Let's talk about the first fake savior, verses one through six of chapter 49.
Considering the nation of Ammon, fake savior number one is wealth distribution.
Concerning the sons of Ammon, thus says the Lord, does Israel have no sons or has he no heirs?
Why then has Malcolm taken possession of Gad and his people settled in its cities? Therefore behold, the days are coming, declares the
Lord, that I will cause a trumpet blast of war to be heard against Rabbah of the sons of Ammon, and it will become a desolate heap, and her towns will be set on fire.
Then Israel will take possession of his possessors, says the Lord. Wail, O Heshbon, for Ai has been destroyed.
Cry out, O daughters of Rabbah, gird yourselves with sackcloth and lament, and rush back and forth inside the walls, for Malcolm will go into exile together with his priests and his princes.
How boastful you are about the valleys! Your valley is flowing away, O backsliding daughter who trusts in her treasures, saying,
Who will come against me? Behold, I am going to bring terror upon you, declares the Lord God of hosts, from all directions around you, and each of you will be driven out, headlong, with no one to gather the fugitives together.
But afterward I will restore the fortunes of the sons of Ammon, declares the Lord. The Ammonites and the
Moabites, the Moabites we talked about last week, the Ammonites and the Moabites have a lot in common.
The older daughter of Lot, Abram's nephew, gave birth to Moab, and the younger daughter gave birth to Ben -Ammi, which means son of my people, and Ben -Ammi became the father of the nation called
Ammon, which means inbred, and if you read Genesis 19 you'll know why. Ammon worships
Molech, which can also be pronounced Milcom or Malcolm, so when you read about Malcolm, I'm sorry if you know anyone who's named
Malcolm, or your name is Malcolm, I apologize, but in the Hebrew it refers to the god
Molech of Ammon. Now both
Chemosh, the god of Moab, and Molech, the god of Ammon, demand child sacrifice, and we often find
Ammonites and Moabites together cooperating as they are closely related, very closely related.
When the Assyrian king Tiglath -Pileser III took captive the territories once belonging to Gad, the
Ammonites just moved in. They took over the lands given to Gad by God in his covenant, and now
God brings charges against Ammon and says, does Israel have no sons? Why do you possess this land as if there is no descendants of Gad left?
Why do you grab this land as if it rightfully belongs to you? They grab these lands under the watch care of God, and the
Ammonites aren't interested in the year of Jubilee. They're there to possess the land for as long as they can, and the
Ammonites are very proficient in wealth accumulation. Notice that not only do they eagerly take possession of what is not theirs, and they have no concern for God's covenant with Israel, they are very boastful about the wealth that is stored up in their valleys.
Verse four, how boastful you are about the valleys. And God says, your valley is flowing away.
Think erosion. Think a giant flood washing away all of the wealth of a valley.
Your valley is flowing away, O backsliding daughter who trusts in her treasures, saying, who will come against me?
In other words, they gloried in their wealth -laden valley. They trusted in their treasures.
They thought that because of the distribution of wealth, they would be saved. They said, who will come against me?
Why did they have such confidence? Because look at all the money we have. Look at all the wealth we possess.
But God says, your wealth is flowing away out of your valley as fast as your paganism progresses.
So many today place a prime value on wealth, trusting in it, but wealth is a fake savior.
Proverbs 18 .11 says, a rich man's wealth is his strong city, and like a high wall in his imagination.
It's easy to trust in wealth, isn't it? People note, if the nation is wealthy, then the nation is safe.
If the economy is strong, then we are strong. Really? Is that the case?
People believe that if wealth is amply distributed to my personal accounts, I can weather any storm.
Or, if only wealth were distributed more evenly to everyone, no one would ever have to live in fear anymore.
Really? Is that actually true? God's judgment is coming, and it is unavoidable.
And those with fake saviors drink the cup. They're the ones who go drunk staggering mad under God's wrath.
Jesus asks an important question. What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?
Or, what will a man give in exchange for his soul? Can you imagine the desperate pleading, bartering of a man who has acquired as much wealth as any man can, but has not had any concern for his soul?
It's helpful to remember the case that Jesus refused to adjudicate with the brother who felt that he had not been given his rightful share of wealth.
A father died and left his wealth to his sons, but the older son did not distribute it in such a way that the younger son felt was equitable.
And so he came to Jesus, figuring that Jesus would be all about that equitable wealth distribution.
To which Jesus responded with a parable about a man who had all the wealth he could possibly want, who rested in that wealth, who trusted that wealth, and believed that this wealth would be his shalom.
It would make all things well for him. But, in the story, as it goes,
Luke 12 20, God said to this rich man, This very night your soul is required of you, and now who will own what you have prepared?
So is the man who stores up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God. So we see that wealth is no savior.
It is not what you covet, not what you possess, not what you invest, or what you give away that will save you.
Wealth is a fake savior. God's judgment is coming.
Who will drink the cup? Those with fake saviors will drink the cup, and they will go drunk, staggering mad under God's wrath.
Fake savior number two, safe spaces. This is verses 7 through 22, and here
God addresses Edom. Now, God spends more time addressing Edom than many of these other nations, and perhaps that is because Edom was the nation who came from Esau, Jacob's older brother.
Esau was called Edom because he was hairy and his hair was red, and the name stuck because the land of Edom was red in its sandstone and soil, just like Oklahoma.
Unlike Oklahoma, Edom was a rugged mountainous region which existed somewhere around 6 ,500 feet above sea level, and that's important.
In these verses, we're going to hear of Edom's cities, Timon, Dedan, Basra. Now, Timon to Dedan is a way of saying
Edom from north to south, and Basra signifies Edom's strength, as it was a fortified city, about 19 acres in size, all surrounded by a strong wall.
But as we read, you're going to hear about Edom's ability to hide in the clefts of the rock and on the heights of the hills, and if you've ever seen the pictures of the excavations at Petra, the craggy fortress of Edom, you can understand how they believed in safe spaces.
Ammon trusted in its wealth, but Edom trusts in their safe spaces.
Now, God is going to address this by revealing his wisdom and his truth and his justice in his judgment of Edom.
First, God's wisdom in verses 7 through 12. Concerning Edom, thus says the
Lord of hosts, is there no longer any wisdom in Timon? Has good counsel been lost to the prudent?
Has their wisdom decayed? Flee away, turn back, dwell in the depths, O inhabitants of Dedan, for I will bring the disaster of Esau upon him at the time
I punish him. If grape gatherers came to you, would they not leave gleanings? If thieves came by night, they would destroy only until they had enough, but I have stripped
Esau bare. I have uncovered his hiding places so that he will not be able to conceal himself.
His offspring has been destroyed along with his relatives and his neighbors, and he is no more. Leave your orphans behind.
I will keep them alive, and let your widows trust in me. For thus says the Lord, behold, those who are not sentenced to drink the cup will certainly drink it, and are you the one who will be completely acquitted?
You will not be acquitted, but you will certainly drink it. Timon and the entire region of Edom was known for a strong wisdom tradition.
Job's friend Eliphaz was a Timonite, and it's possible that Job himself was the second king of Edom.
Genesis 36 verse 33. The point is that wisdom was well known in this land, and then
God asks, where did all the wisdom go? What happened to their treasury of good counsel?
Has their sagacity so decayed? How did folly so quickly infect their hearts?
How had stupidity become their drug of choice? In the immortal words of R .C.
Sproul, what's wrong with you people? God lays out the severity of Edom's judgment with a series of questions that demand a response, responses that stretch the mind and call forth wise answers and conclusions.
In verses 9 through 10, he asks and desires an answer that focuses
Edom on the level of destruction that is coming, and then in verses 11 through 12, he wants them to consider the certainty of their disaster.
Notice how he says it in verses 11 and 12 about the orphans and widows, leave them behind,
I'll keep them alive, let your widows trust in me. In verse 12, he says, behold, those who were not sentenced to drink the cup will certainly drink it, and are you the one who will be completely acquitted?
You will not be acquitted, but you will certainly drink it. So in this way, he's pointing to the fact that orphans and widows who had no federal head, no representative to be guilty before the
Lord for this national judgment, that they would still suffer because of the cup of the wine of God's wrath being drunk by the whole nation.
And so he addresses the leaders, he addresses those who are responsible, and he says, you think you're going to escape suffering when all these others who weren't directly responsible for this disaster, they're going to have to suffer, but you won't, and you are responsible?
So you see the way that God is using his wisdom and asking
Edom to respond in kind. God has to instruct Edom and wisdom all over again.
They have become fools. Why are they fools? They're trusting in their safe spaces, their hideouts, their clefts in the rock that they have carved out for themselves.
The safe spaces they believe will save them, but safe spaces are fake saviors, and we ought to care about that because those with fake saviors go drunk, staggering mad under God's wrath.
Here's the truth of it, verses 13 through 16. For I have sworn by myself, declares the
Lord, that Bozrah will become an object of horror, a reproach, a ruin, and a curse, and all its cities will become perpetual ruins.
I have heard a message from the Lord, and an envoy is sent among the nations saying, gather yourselves together and come against her and rise up for battle, for behold,
I have made you small among the nations, despised among men. As for the terror of you, the arrogance of your heart has deceived you.
Oh, you who live in the clefts of the rock, who occupy the height of the hill, though you make your nest as high as an eagle's,
I will bring you down from there, declares the Lord." God's prophet,
Jeremiah, adds his voice to Obadiah's at this point.
For these verses parallel the first four verses in that little prophetic book by the name of Obadiah.
Obadiah wrote an oracle of judgment against Edom. And by the testimony of these two prophets, every word concerning Edom's demise is established.
Now, in tumultuous times, we may wonder if the truth is being spoken, being believed, or being acted upon at all.
And many question if truth is attainable, or if truth is even important.
But we cannot get more assurance that we have the truth than to hear from God this,
I have sworn by myself. When the immutable
God, whose knowledge constitutes the very DNA of truth, when our unchanging, truth -establishing
God swears by His glorious, unfailing name, we have a guarantee that can spin a universe, stop it on a dime, slay a million devils, and raise the rotted dead.
The word of God. He is sworn by himself. So it does not matter what safe spaces
Edom hides in. Bozrah, the cleft of the rock, the height of the hill, an eagle's nest. It does not matter.
All these man -crafted or humanly -appropriated safe spaces prove to be fake saviors in light of the truth of God.
God is telling the truth, and His judgment is coming. Who will drink the cup? Who will drink the cup?
And now God's justice in the way that He judges, verses 17 -22. Edom will become an object of horror.
Everyone who passes by it will be horrified and will hiss at all its wounds. Like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah with its neighbors, says the
Lord, no one will live there, nor will a son of man reside in it. Behold, one will come up like a lion from the thickets of the
Jordan against a perennially -watered pasture. For in an instant I will make him run away from it, and whoever is chosen
I shall appoint over it. For who is like me? And who will summon me into court?
And who then is the shepherd who can stand against me? Therefore, hear the plan of the
Lord, which He has planned against Edom, and His purposes which He has purposed against the inhabitants of Timan.
Surely they will drag them off, even the little ones of the flock. Surely He will make their pasture desolate because of them.
The earth has quaked at the noise of their downfall. There is an outcry. The noise of it has been heard at the
Red Sea. Behold, He will mount up and swoop like an eagle and spread out His wings against Basra.
And the hearts of the mighty men of Edom in that day will be like the heart of a woman in labor."
So after expressing His wisdom and His truth, God now reveals His justice in destroying
Edom. Notice He uses the example of Sodom and Gomorrah, because Edom needs to remember that the
Lord is God, and He is the one who sends fire and brimstone on those who deserve it.
And though many would like to charge God with overreaction, for indiscriminately causing unwarranted damage through His overuse of power, just who is going to bring charges against the judge of all the earth?
Who will successfully arraign God Almighty into their courtroom?
Now, when He says this, I want you to hear the echoes of Job. For who is like me, and who will summon me into court?
And who then is the shepherd who can stand against me? And just a thought, if Job really was the second king of Edom, and Job attempted at some oblique angle to call the
Lord God into his court and question whether or not God was righteous, is this not a scriptural echo of that very same confrontation that God had with Job and said, who do you think you are?
Edom thought that they could establish their own baseline of wisdom, their own baseline of truth, and their own baseline of justice through their safe spaces.
But these were not safe. God is not bound by man's inventive restraints.
Now, folks, do they clamor for a safe space? They think police officers make their spaces dangerous, and so they get rid of the police.
Then they don't like all the murder and mayhem that happens when the police go away, so they bring them back. If there's a lion in the streets, it's best to never go out of doors.
Small -scale free enterprise is deadly. If there's a risk of some getting sick, then force everyone to wear masks.
If stopping protests might create more danger than allowing them to happen, then let them do what they want.
It's about being safe. If singing hymns and partaking in communion and worshiping indoors is perceived as dangerous, then the sword of the state will lay upon the necks of believers and make sure the church buildings remain empty and safe.
But safe spaces can never compensate for folly. And safe spaces cannot deny
God's truth. And safe spaces are not a replacement for God's justice. In our safety -first culture, where it seems that risk itself is equated with sin, it is wise and it is honest and it is righteous to confess that whatever safe spaces we may engineer for ourselves, we will never ever be safe from God.
You might avoid COVID -19. You might avoid the flu. You might avoid riots. You may avoid getting shot.
You may avoid fires, electrocution, and you may avoid paper cuts for the rest of your life.
But it is appointed unto man once to die. And after this comes the judgment.
Trimble, O man. Ponder, O woman. Consider, O child.
It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living
God. Safe spaces are fake saviors who will drink the cup.
Those with fake saviors will drink the cup. And they will go drunk, staggering mad, under God's wrath.
Fake savior number three, echo chambers, verses 23 through 27. It's in these verses that we hear about the city -state of Damascus and some of her satellite cities.
Damascus used to be the capital of Syria, but Tiglath -Peleasar III had conquered
Syria in 732 BC, and he boasts of destroying 592 towns throughout 16 districts.
So Syria was laid waste. Damascus was once a proud capital, but it no longer.
Damascus was under the oppression of Assyria for some time, until suddenly the
Assyrian empire collapsed in the late 7th century BC, mostly because of Babylon's pressure.
Having been so thoroughly decimated in the previous century and lived under oppression for so long, Damascus didn't have the same temptations as Ammon and Edom.
They had no pile of wealth. They had no network of hiding places. They didn't have the same temptations as the next two groups we're going to look at, the
Hazarim or the Elamites. They were not free wanderers, they had no deeply rooted stable government.
Nevertheless, what did Damascus have? They had their words. They had their praise.
They had their claims. As we read about Damascus, we will see that they talked themselves up, but God brought their words down.
No matter how much they had spoken praise of their city or assurance to themselves, the echo chamber was silenced by God's judgment.
Verses 23 -27. Concerning Damascus, Hamath and Arphad are put to shame for they have heard bad news.
They are disheartened. There is anxiety by the sea. It cannot be calmed.
Damascus has become helpless. She has turned away to flee and panic has gripped her. Distress and pangs have taken hold of her like a woman in childbirth.
How the city of praise has not been deserted, the town of my joy.
Therefore, her young men will fall in her streets and all the men of war will be silenced in that day, declares the
Lord of hosts. I will set fire to the wall of Damascus and it will devour the fortified towers of Ben Hadad.
Bad news leaked through the echo chamber. The city of praise, the town of joy, the garrisons full of boasting.
I mean, this was a chest thumping, back slapping, high fiving time for independence. They were finally out from underneath the thumb of the
Assyrians and they had their city back. And they were very joyful about that, congratulating one another on their endurance.
Finally, their time had come. A happy echo chamber to be sure, but the sounds of reality break through and interrupt the reverie.
There are many echo chambers available today because the information age is also the a la carte media age.
It is easy to selectively craft a sound cloud of voices and perspectives which cradle one's opinionated spine like 36 inches of memory foam, sink in and smother.
One of the most famous echo chambers in the Bible is 1 Kings 22. I'll leave it for you to read as your homework, but it is very interesting how the king of Israel had surrounded himself with 400 prophets who always told the king what he wanted to hear.
And he was set on canceling the one prophet who would tell him the truth.
And I believe that Ahab, as he was bleeding out in his chariot on his last night on earth, wished he would have listened to the word of God rather than only to his echo chamber.
Now echo chambers can be very small. You don't need 400 prophets. The smallest echo chamber is this.
The fool has said in his heart there is no God. Proverbs 18 .1
says, he who separates himself seeks his own desire. He quarrels against all sound wisdom.
Now for some, having a personal arsenal of self -assurances is not enough, and they feel they need an army of some kind.
Paul warns Timothy, the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine. But wanting to have their ears tickled, what will they do?
What will they do? They will accumulate for themselves, collecting like baseball cards, teachers in accordance with their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.
What's the remedy? Preach the word, in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction.
Sober at all things, enduring hardship, do the work of an evangelist. Why? Why would we care?
Because echo chambers are fake saviors and God's judgment is coming. Who will drink the cup?
Fake savior number four, open borders. Verses 28 through 33.
When you think about the coming onslaught of Babylon and their massive armies and their siege
Indians, and how well they understood the craft of taking a country, conquering towns, and laying waste to even fortified cities.
Surely there's a people group out there who could avoid all such unpleasantness by just being flexible, being on the move, like these nomads of Kadar and Hazor.
Surely their dynamic style of culture would keep them flexible and a step ahead of judgment, and would they not be left around to plunder the leftovers?
Would they not collect the treasures left behind on the shore of Canaan as the tide of Babylon receded?
But let's see if these nomads were able to be saved by their borderless wandering.
Verse 28, concerning Kadar and the kingdoms of Hazor, which Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, defeated.
Thus says the Lord, arise and go to Kadar and devastate the men of the east. They will take away their tents and their flocks.
They will carry off for themselves their tent curtains, all their goods and their camels, and they will call out to one another, terror on every side.
Run away, flee, dwell in the depths, oh inhabitants of Hazor, declares the Lord. For Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, has formed a plan against you and devised a scheme against you.
Arise, go up against the nation which is at ease, which lives securely, declares the
Lord. It has no gates or bars. They dwell alone. Their camels will become plunder and their many cattle for booty, and I will scatter all, scatter to all, the winds, those who cut the corners of their hair, and I will bring their disaster from every side, declares the
Lord. Hazor will become a haunt of jackals, a desolation forever.
No one will live there, nor will the Son of Man reside in it. The Kadarites and the
Hazorim were a people free to live where they wanted and how they wanted.
They were at ease, without care, living securely, though they had no gate, no wall.
They could always just move to a new place when they wanted to, seeking prosperity and safety as they saw fit.
And this open border mentality, this no boundaries style, did not save them from God's judgment.
For Nebuchadnezzar had made a special plan just for them, and he executed it to perfection, for God had decreed their desolation.
Now, there are many today which seem to have a desire as well to live without borders, to erase borders, to do away with boundaries.
What do they despise? National borders, fiscal borders, property borders, legal borders, moral borders, religious borders, spiritual borders, sexual borders, gender borders, away with them all.
Why? Because paganism means a coming together as one.
Freedom is the operative word, freedom to do whatever, wherever, to whomever, however they want.
God calls that lawlessness and defines sin as lawlessness.
They want to be as free as a bird on the wind, just like these nomads, but God promises a wind of judgment which scatters.
They hope to plunder the wealth of a collapsing system, like these nomads, but God promises to turn what they have already into plunder and to destroy the rest.
Open borders are fake saviors. Lawlessness is no savior. God's judgment is coming.
Fake savior number five, strong government, verses 34 through 39. That which came is the word of the
Lord to Jeremiah, the prophet concerning Elam, at the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah, saying,
Thus says the Lord of hosts, Behold, I am going to break the bow of Elam, the finest of their might.
I will bring upon Elam the four winds from the four ends of heaven and will scatter them to all these winds, and there will be no nation to which the outcasts of Elam will not go.
So I will shatter Elam before their enemies and before those who seek their lives, and I will bring calamity upon them.
Even my fierce anger, declares the Lord, and I will send out the sword after them until I have consumed them.
Then I will set my throne in Elam and destroy out of it kings and princes, declares the
Lord. But it will come about in the last days that I will restore the fortunes of Elam, declares the Lord.
Strong government. Elam was noted for their proficiency with the bow, the bow and arrow.
They had a technological superiority over other nations. They had better, better skill and better weapons.
They were strong in their military and they were strong in their government. Elam was known for their traditional and strong monarchy.
Notice the way in which God says, I will destroy this by how
I will set my throne in Elam and destroy out of it king and princes.
King and princes. The Elamites were a very strong people group. Their capital, Susa, actually became one of the four royal capitals of the
Mede and Persian empire, and that was probably due to their strength and tradition of their monarchy.
The name actually means the Lord country. They had a strong government.
But what Elam trusted in, God undoes and teaches them who is the true king of kings.
He sets his throne in that place. Fact check me on this, but I do believe that Susa was the location of the drama which occurred with Esther.
And I do believe that God did take out Haman, who was a prince, and establish his rule very clearly through the fool
Ahasuerus. Prophecies come true. The tribes of Israel, you may remember, also wanted a savior in the form of a strong government.
They wanted a king, just like the nations around them. And they were concerned about all the unrest in their area, and so they demanded a king.
They wanted a strong government. So God said, okay, since you reject me as your king,
I will give you what you ask. I will give you heavy taxation and heartache for your children.
First Amendment 12. You know, somewhere along the lines, we stopped honoring our fathers and mothers.
I mean, can any of us here trace our lineage and look at all of our ancestors which came before us and find among them a clean record?
Can we see anything in our ancestry that says that we did not, at some point, our ancestors suffer at the hands of government overreach?
All of the immigrants, all of those who have been harmed in their history.
None of us have a record that says none of our ancestors were oppressed.
We've all been impacted somewhere along our ancestry by the imprint of the fist of some government somewhere.
It's very clear in the history of our world, when has the state ever been a savior?
Why do we trust the state now to be the savior? Why do we trust the state now to be the savior of the poor and the savior of the sick and the savior of the ignorant and the savior of the criminal and the savior of the oppressed?
The state carries the sword, Romans 13 says. The state carries the sword to punish the evildoer.
Biblical imagery consistently envisions the state as a beast of some sort. The best a state can be is a well -trained, chained guard dog.
It was never ordained by God for any other purpose. The state cannot heal.
The state cannot love. The state cannot forgive. The state cannot save. And whoever would make the state their savior will soon have it as their slaver.
A strong government is a fake savior. God's judgment is coming.
Who will drink the cup? Those with fake saviors will drink the cup and will go drunk, staggering mad under God's wrath.
Now in conclusion, each of these kingdoms thought that they would have a reason to escape the armies of Babylon, to escape the wrath of God.
They all had their reason why. Their confidence. Their fake savior. But God assures each of them that he would particularly judge exactly the reason for them thinking they would escape
God's wrath. He isolates their false saviors all through the text and says, particularly,
I will judge that. So what reason would you offer?
Would you offer some fig leaf excuse or some blame -shifting logic when it comes to the judgment of God?
What would be your reason? Edom has its reasons. Elam had its reasons.
What would yours be? Why you would escape the wrath of God? Look back with me at verse 12, chapter 49.
For thus says the Lord, behold, those who were not sentenced to drink the cup will certainly drink it.
And are you the one who will be completely acquitted? You will not be acquitted, but you will certainly drink it.
In reflection on that text, I think it is clear there was only one person who did not deserve to drink the cup of the wine of God's wrath, but Jesus Christ did drink it.
And he prayed deeply and earnestly about that very cup in the garden of Gethsemane.
If it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Not my will, but yours be done.
Christ himself is the propitiation for our sins. And if Christ died upon the cross, drinking the cup of the wrath of God, if his own son drank the cup of the wine of his wrath, what makes anyone think that they will be acquitted, that they will not drink it?
But it is all about who will drink the cup. If Christ has drunk the cup for you, in your place, and for your sake, you certainly will be acquitted.
Not guilty. No condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Wealth, safe spaces, echo chambers, open borders, strong governments, all proposed to save us from sin, to save us from the effects of sin, promised to restore all that was lost in the fall.
But these are all fake saviors. And those with fake saviors go drunk, staggering mad under God's wrath.
There was only one savior whom God answers, whom God has raised from the dead, Jesus Christ, his anointed.
Psalm 20 verses 6 through 7. Now I know that the Lord saves his anointed, his Messiah. He will answer him from his holy heaven with the saving strength of his right hand.
Some boast in chariots, and some in horses. But we will boast in the name of the
Lord our God. Jesus Christ is the one mediator between God and man.
There was no other name under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved.
And that name is not Caesar Augustus, it is Jesus who is Lord. He is the King of kings, he is the
Lord of lords, he is the way, the truth, and the life. He is the heir of all things.
He is our savior in whom we must boast. And we must boast because he's the only savior.
Jeremiah 9, 23 through 24, and we'll close with prayer. Thus says the
Lord, let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might.
Let not a rich man boast of his riches, but let him boast of this, that he understands and knows me.
This is eternal life, Jesus says, knowing God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent, that he understands and knows me, that I am the
Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness on earth. For I delight in these things, says the
Lord. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for the time you've given us in your word. I thank you for the oracle of judgment that you sent against these nations, and that you sent this word, which was breathed out by you and profitable for us, to know what is true, whatever wrong, how to get right, and how to live your way.
Give us supreme confidence in Christ, we pray. Amen.
Do you stand with me for our song of benediction? We're going to sing the song we sang last week,
Christ, our hope in life and death. Father, in the grace of the