Sunday Morning, June 23, 2019 AM Part 2

you would encourage us, that you would stir us up, that your will will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

I thank you that we gathered together at the Lord's table today. Here we commune with Christ in remembrance of his sacrificial propitiating death upon the cross and that today we declare our risen

Lord's death, his full salvation, until he comes.

I pray that you would help us to do all these things, for we need you to be at work.

All the works we may do here today will mean nothing unless you work. So fill us with your spirit, glorify yourself in us today.

We pray these things for Christ's sake. Amen. I invite you to open your

Bibles to Jeremiah 29. We'll be reading verses 20 through 30 or verse 21 through 32 in a moment.

Verses 21 through 32 will be our reading, but it is important that we remember that Judah is living in two places.

Some of them are in Jerusalem, some of them are in exile, some of them still have the temple, some of them live in the middle of pagan temples, some of them live in familiar territory where friends and family who's left speak their language.

The rest of them live in exile, surrounded by people who don't know their language and don't care.

They live in two different places and God is using a servant Jeremiah in both places.

Jeremiah preaching in Jerusalem, sending letters to those who were in exile, and that's the situation that we're looking at in our text today.

We're going to hear about Jeremiah as he writes letters to those who are in exile, those who are false teachers in exile, and one man in particular who's sending letters from exile back to Jerusalem to stir up trouble.

And so we see that Jeremiah is given a hard task, one of striving and struggling and arguing and contending for the faith.

So if you would stand with me, I'm going to begin reading in verse 21 of Jeremiah chapter 29.

These are the words of the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, concerning Ahab the son of Goliath, and concerning Zedekiah the son of Mosiah, who are prophesying to you falsely in my name.

Behold, I will deliver them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, and he will slay them before your eyes because of them a curse will be used by all the exiles from Judah who are in Babylon, saying,

May the Lord make you like Zedekiah and like Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire, because they have acted foolishly in Israel and have committed adultery with their neighbors' wives and have spoken words in my name falsely which

I did not command them. I am he who knows and am a witness, declares the

Lord. To Shammai the Nehelamite you shall speak, saying, Thus says the

Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, because you have sent letters in your own name to all the people who are in Jerusalem, and to Zephaniah the son of Mosiah the priest, and to all the priests, saying,

The Lord has made you priest instead of Jehoiada the priest, to be overseer in the house of the Lord over every madman who prophesies, to put him in the stocks and in the iron collar.

Now then, why have you not rebuked Jeremiah of Anaphoth, who prophesies to you?

For he has sent to us in Babylon, saying, The exile will be long. Build houses and live in them, plant gardens and eat their produce.

Zephaniah the priest read this letter to Jeremiah the prophet. Then came the word of the

Lord to Jeremiah, saying, Send to all the exiles, saying, Thus says the

Lord concerning Shammai the Nehelamite, because Shammai has prophesied to you, although I did not send him, and he has made you trust in a lie.

Therefore, thus says the Lord, Behold, I am about to punish Shammai the Nehelamite and his descendants.

He will not have anyone living among his people, and he will not see the good that I am about to do to my people, declares the

Lord, because he has preached rebellion against the Lord. This is the word of the

Lord. You may be seated. And so we have a blog war going on in which openly published letters being traded from two different sides.

There are particular names involved, but these are letters published for everyone to read and to follow along with the conflict.

The exiles seem to be on the brink of flunking out of the school of hard knocks.

They are in exile because they have not listened to God. They are being punished because they don't listen to God's prophets, they listen to false prophets.

That's their habit. And it appears that they're continuing in that pattern, even in exile.

Unless they totally flunk the school of hard knocks, God patiently, long -sufferingly, sends another letter from Jeremiah to them, including the instruction in verses 8 and 9 of this chapter to reject false prophets, to not listen to these false dreamers.

And yes indeed, Jeremiah does tell them the exile will be long. They are to build houses, live in them, plant gardens, harvest them, get married, have children, make sure they get married and have children, to not decrease but to increase, to do all they can for the prosperity even of Babylon, praying for the success of Babylon, because in Babylon's prosperity they will do well as well.

And that is the message that Jeremiah sent. It's the word of the Lord. And this did not fall on amiable ears in exile.

They did not want to believe that they would be there a long time. They felt it would be somehow traitorous of them to go into business as usual.

But they needed to. Now this morning we're going to talk about this fact

God always gets the last word. God always gets the last word in all these different kinds of conflicts.

Sometimes there may be a particular argument, a particular blog war that we think that will never come to the end, and yet the truth of the matter is

God always gets the last word. And we, our duty, our responsibility is to make sure that our words are in agreement with his.

His word is eternal, it's never failing. So let's make sure that our words are in agreement with God's word.

Which means that we're going to need to do more in some situations than agree to disagree.

In fact, as the church, we're going to need to agree to disagreeably disagree.

There are some areas about which we may agree to disagree. Fish tacos comes to mind.

We can agree to disagree about fish tacos. And fuchsia lampshades.

We can agree to disagree on fuchsia lampshades. Matters of taste, style, matters of preference, we're used to that approach.

We'll agree to disagree on a matter of style, preference, and taste. More substantially, as brothers and sisters in Christ, we may agree to disagree about the best translation of Scripture while agreeing all the while on its inerrancy, infallibility, and sufficiency.

We might agree to disagree about the exact mode and meaning of baptism, which is why we have different evangelical denominations, while agreeing all the while on the need for the sign, and that the salvation of God is wrought entirely apart from the sign of baptism.

We might also agree to disagree on the precise details of Christ's return while agreeing all the while on his visible, sudden, bodily return, the consummation of all our hope.

But are we always, to take that approach, are we always to agreeably disagree?

Are we always to take each matter that comes to us and say, well, let's agree to disagree?

Must we agree to disagree with those who deny that Christ will ever return?

Are we to agree to disagree with those who require baptism for salvation?

Must we agree to disagree with those who claim that Scripture is inaccurate, immoral, or unclear?

We must do more than that. We must do more than that. We must disagreeably disagree.

Now, we can't keep people from disagreeing with the plain truths of Scripture, but we are responsible for the manner in which we disagree.

And it seems to me there is far too much agreeableness in our disagreements these days.

When it comes to moral character, when it comes to the heart of the Christian faith, when it comes to questions about the salvation in Christ or the damnation of men, we must do more.

We must do more than agree to disagree. So, let's talk about these false prophets.

In the text, verses 21 through 23, we see the proven character of these false prophets about whom

Jeremiah writes. Their proven character. They break at least three of the

Ten Commandments, and the first commandment that we see that they break is that they bear false witness.

They bear false witness. They are unfaithful in their words.

Verses 21 through 23. Notice that they, at the very end of chapter,

I mean verse 23, it says that they have spoken words in my name falsely. Falsely, which

I did not command them. Right? At the middle of verse 21, they are prophesying to you falsely in my name.

They are lying. They are bearing false witness, breaking the ninth commandment.

Now, to say that God has said something that he has not said is a terrifying lie.

It's a terrifying lie. That kind of blasphemy is an odious worm that hangs off the end of a person's tongue.

The body of the worm stretches all the way back to the primal betrayal.

To say that God or to suggest that God has said something he has not said vibrates with a very hiss of the serpent.

Now, to bear false witness against your neighbor is a terrible sin. To bear false witness against God Almighty?

To speak lies in the name of the God of truth? It's like the image of God dry -heaving.

That anyone would make this their calling, that anyone would take upon themselves this habit, even make speaking falsely in the name of God their vocation, their source of income.

That is a testament to the depths of the self -deception of sin.

When we look at the character of these false prophets, they are unfaithful in their words. Unfaithful in their words.

The problem of false prophets is not unique to the time, the days and times of Israel.

As we read in the New Testament, they were common to the early church. False prophets still exist today.

False prophets still operate today. They're false prophets, they write blogs, they host shows, they publish books, they give talks in which they claim that God has said certain things as truth which are in fact lies and God has never ever said them.

So has God indeed made gay people prophets who are to call the traditional church to repentance for our idolatrous views on marriage?

Is that true? According to the Bible, Nate Collins from Southern Seminary, Revoice, Revoice Conference in St.

Louis with the PCA, is that true? Is it true that God has declared whiteness as inherently wicked?

That whiteness will keep us from entering the kingdom of heaven? Is that true?

According to the Bible, MDiva, Jamar Tisby, Dr. Bradley in Woke Church, is that true?

Has God said that those who reject the further prophetic downpour of the

Holy Spirit are defecting, compromising, and false? Is that true according to the

Bible? Beth Moore, New Apostolic Reformation, is that true? Now are these ideas that we can agree to disagree about or should we disagreeably disagree?

I think we should disagreeably disagree. False prophets are unfaithful in their words.

Now these false prophets as well take God's name in vain. As we look at verses 21 through 23, the false prophets

Ahab and Zedekiah speak falsely in God's name. So they say, in the name of the

Lord, hear this message, that God has spoken this. So not only are they bearing false witness against God, but they take

God's name in vain. That's the third commandment they break. Well, it's the third commandment in the list.

They aren't faithful in their worship then. They take God's name in vain. They walk about using

God's name all the time, but they do so in flippant, light, casual, empty ways.

God has not spoken, but they say he has. Their words are not God's words, but they say that they are.

They they bear God's name emptily. They attach the holy name of God to unholy ideas.

They bear God's name in vain. They make the prophets today, false prophets today, make homosexuality

Christian. They make racism righteous. They make feminism spirit -led.

They syncretize worldliness with godliness and have a worship that is emptiness.

They are unfaithful in their worship. Thirdly, these false prophets commit adultery. They are unfaithful to their wives.

Verse 23 says, they have acted foolishly in Israel and have committed adultery with their neighbors' wives.

Now, it's not just Jeremiah calling out these men who are unfaithful in their moral character, but it is the

Lord of the universe. Jeremiah doesn't live in the exile. He's not there to see what's going on, but the

Lord says, I know and I am a witness. The Lord knows and he is a witness of the things that they are saying and the things that they are doing.

And so God, to whom belongs vengeance, will use Nebuchadnezzar himself to deal out justice to these two false prophets and they will be burned in the fire.

And so the names Ahab and Zedekiah actually become curse words. They actually become curse words in and among the exiles.

We need to remember that the one who would declare God's Word to God's people, the one who would declare God's Word to what

God's people, is only qualified, so say the scriptures, if he is a man who is above reproach, the husband of one wife, not fond of sordid gain.

The character of the man who preaches God's Word matters to God. And these false prophets were unfaithful in their moral character, unfaithful to their wives.

Do you think that sexual perversion among those who claim to speak for God is an issue about which we can agree to disagree?

I think we're gonna have to disagreeably disagree on that one. Now we have the proven character of these false prophets, but notice the preferred conflict.

The preferred conflict. What is the issue that Shemaiah the Nehelamite wants to fight about?

You know, and if you discover what someone is willing to fight over and to let go, you learn a lot about their perspectives, their beliefs, their character.

Just look at what people are willing to fight over and to fight for, what they're willing to let go and let it be.

Shemaiah the Nehelamite, now that title is very strange.

Best guess is that it means dreamer, which of course Jeremiah has warned the people about in verses 8 and 9.

Shemaiah, probably the dreamer is his special title, does not like the tone or the content of Jeremiah's message to the exiles.

He particularly does not like the idea of the exile being long.

And so he writes a series of letters, Jeremiah says, in his own name and he sends them to the people living in Jerusalem, to the priests, and one priest in particular, which is

Zephaniah. Zephaniah, the son of Messiah, the brother of Zedekiah, the false prophet.

Zephaniah, his brother's a priest back in Jerusalem, he's second in charge of the temple, he's called the overseer.

And this is his job to keep order. And he's not keeping

Jeremiah quiet, he's not punishing Jeremiah, and Shemaiah doesn't like that.

Zephaniah on occasion would go to Jeremiah to discover what the word of the Lord was. Not that he'd always follow it, but he was interested at least, and he was at least neutral or somewhat friendly with Jeremiah over his history, and Shemaiah thought he should take a different approach.

He thought Zephaniah should shut Jeremiah up to punish him, to throw him into the iron stocks, and to make sure his voice was not heard in the temple.

And he was saying, that's your job, Zephaniah, why don't you get busy with this? So Jeremiah finds out about this letter and Zephaniah reads it to him.

You know, Shemaiah writes this blog and Zephaniah reads it, it's about him and by him doing his job right, so he, about Jeremiah, and so he says hmm, and then he forwards it as a link on to Jeremiah.

Why don't you read this? It's essentially what happened. So obviously

Zephaniah is not against Jeremiah, and so he just lets him know what Shemaiah is trying to do, and so Jeremiah has to write a letter to counter back.

Another blog to counter that blog, it's a blog war, so he writes another letter back to the exiles concerning Shemaiah that everybody knows what's going on.

It is about Shemaiah, but it's not to Shemaiah exclusively, and this is like a broad public thing, because in particular he says, verse 31, "...send

to all the exiles, saying, Thus says the Lord concerning Shemaiah the Nehelamite, because Shemaiah has prophesied to you," meaning all you exiles, "...although

I did not send him, he has made you trust in a lie." How do they know? Well here comes the sign, "...therefore

thus says the Lord, behold, I'm about to punish Shemaiah the Nehelamite and his descendants, and he will not have anyone living among this people, and he will not see the good that I'm about to do to my people, declares the

Lord," because he is pre -trebellion against the Lord. So you're going to know he's false because he's not going to make it out of this time of exile, because it is going to be long, he's going to die in exile, and none of his descendants are going to survive so as to see the restoration of the

Jews back to their land. That's going to be the sign that proves Shemaiah is a false prophet.

Martin Luther wrote, "...whom God intends to destroy, he gives them permission to play with Scripture."

Whom God intends to destroy, he gives them permission to play with Scripture.

There are things that we don't play with, there are things that we don't simply agree to disagree about.

We're going to have to fight. We're going to have to fight about flatter sexuality, we're going to have to fight about intersectionality, we're going to have to fight for complementarianism, six -day creation, the inerrancy of Scripture, and the exclusivity of Christ for salvation.

We're going to have to fight for it. These are not things that we can agree to disagree about.

Now, I think that sometimes we get a little tired, I think we get a little weary,

I think we get a little overwhelmed, and say, well, what in the world can I do? Maybe sometimes we feel discouraged and say, you know, it doesn't matter anymore.

We need help to be joyful followers of Christ, joyful followers of Christ, while disagreeably disagreeing.

I had an old professor who once told me, you know, tell people the truth and smile while you do it. You know, it's not a burden to tell the truth, it's a joy to tell the truth.

And if we're going to disagreeably disagree, we need to see from the text how to do that, see from the example of Christ how to do that.

How do we disagreeably disagree in a Christian way? I think that's a difficult thing for us to wrap our heads around sometimes.

Well, we can do that without yelling, we can do it while smiling, and it does not require for us to spray -paint

Orthodox slogans on liberal sniffing churches. How do we do that?

First of all, we use clear words. We use clear words. You notice that from the text that Jeremiah calls a lie a lie, he calls adultery adultery, he calls rebellion rebellion.

Alright, using clear words. Now, he's not using those words for cutting down and trying to destroy someone, he's using those clear words for cutting through.

Cutting through all the fog, cutting through all the euphemisms, cutting through all the confusion.

We have to use clear words. If we're going to disagreeably disagree, we're going to use clear words.

I think this is the first way we win. The first way we win through Christ is using clear words.

I remember having a discussion with someone I'm somewhat related to, and I was talking about, somehow we got into the topic of abortion, and he suggested something about how, you know, the answer isn't just to outlaw abortion, and that we really spend too much time thinking about that.

In reality, we need to think about the situation of these women and where they come from, their background, and so on and so forth, and be more concerned about their needs than we are about whether or not they should have an abortion.

And it occurred to me, and I said this to him, that murder is never the answer for sexual immorality.

Murder is never the answer for sexual immorality. And how can

I say that? Well, the Bible gives me clear words. The Bible gives us clear words, and if we will use clear words, we can cut through a lot of the fog and be able to say what's true.

Now, that's not to write off and condemn as forever lost to the gospel or to Christ those who have abortions, those who have been thinking about it, even those who have been in the industry.

That's not what that's saying. But until we cut through all the confusion on all of the deceits of the enemy, we're not going to be able to talk about what we need to talk about and call for repentance and turning to Christ as a

Savior who forgives all kinds of sinners. So we need to use clear words, and we should call folly foolishness.

We should call sexual perversion gross abomination. We should call sleeping with another person's spouse adultery.

We should call sexual activity of any level outside of marriage fornication. We should use the words that God uses.

We should use clear words. That's how Jesus handled things.

We should follow his example and win by using the vocabulary favored by the

King of the universe. You see, God's going to get the last word. Christ is going to get the last word, so let's use his words.

Let's use his words. And in the end of all things, that's what really matters. So Christ is the one who gets to have the last word on Nate Collins' so called

Christian LGBTQ plus prophecy. And Christ is going to call it abomination, perversion, uncleanness, and witchcraft.

And Christ will have the last word on woke church's intersectionality. He's going to call it bitterness, pride, racism, and divisiveness.

And Christ is going to have the last word on Beth Moore's egalitarian mysticism, and he's going to call it rebellion, divination, lying, and folly.

These are the words that Scripture uses. These are the words we find in the Bible. Why are we tiptoeing around on eggshells when

Christ has crushed the head of the serpent? Snakes lay eggs, too.

We don't have to tiptoe around those eggs. Use the words that God's word.

That's how we win the blog war, the idea war, the culture war. Use clear words, the words of Scripture.

And we can disagreeably disagree with false teaching like that. And again, it's not writing people off or being angry, it's saying, actually that's called this.

Secondly, use curse words. Use curse words. I don't mean be a profane person, use filthy language.

There's plenty of that. People don't know what anything else to say, so they just say the worst thing that comes into their head. But notice in the text what the people did with the names of Ahab and Zedekiah.

This is very helpful. They turned the names of Ahab and Zedekiah into curse words.

Not profanity, but curse words. Curse words.

And by that, they're using them as cautioning words. Ahab and Zedekiah were unfaithful to their wives, unfaithful in their worship, unfaithful in their words.

They were false prophets who got burned in the fire by Nebuchadnezzar. Now there's a cautionary tale, if there ever was one.

And so the exiles began using their names in a formulaic curse when someone else started to exhibit the tendencies of Ahab and Zedekiah.

May the Lord make you like Ahab and Zedekiah whom Nebuchadnezzar burned in the fire. Roasted, I think.

Roasted in the fire. It's very cautionary, isn't it?

Like, oh, what are you talking about? I'm not like Ahab and Zedekiah. Yes, you are. You need to change.

You need to turn around. I am glad in terms of cautionary words, curse words, that notoriety and indigestion persists around such names as Tim Haggard, Bill Gothard, Jimmy Swaggart, and Bill Hybels.

Because pastors and preachers who do those kinds of sexually perverted things should have their names etched in infamy as a curse and a warning.

Don't do that. I'm glad for the cringe that still comes with the names like Jim Baker, Robert Tilton, Mark Driscoll, James MacDonald, who all love sordid gain more than the sovereign

God. They are the Ahabs and Zedekiahs of our day, and if we simply say, well, we're not going to talk about their name, and we're not going to say anything unnice about these people, and we'll just pretend like they weren't ever on the radio, or that they were never on TV, or that they never did anything wrong, we're not following the example of Scripture.

And what is the example of Scripture? To warn us.

To caution us. Who among us would welcome the invocation, may God make you like Jimmy Swaggart and Robert Tilton?

That's fighting words. Who wants to have that reputation? If we don't acknowledge these curse words and apply them as cautionary warnings, not only are we not being honest with the

Bible, but we are not doing a good service to our children and our grandchildren, who don't have any idea who those people are.

They need to have cautionary tales in their life. Here was someone who said they were a person of God, a man of God, and here's what they did, and here's the disaster that they created.

Why is it that a whole generation of people in the United States of America think that socialism is a good idea?

It killed over a hundred million people in a hundred years. Why would anybody think that's a good idea, except for the fact that we no longer use curse words?

We just use profanity. But we stopped using curse words. We stopped cursing Marx. We stopped cursing

Lenin. We stopped cursing the people who killed tens of millions of people in their atheism.

Well, in the same way, if we don't have those negative examples, like for instance,

Ahab and Zedekiah, it's going to continue. So I was studying this text,

I just stopped, I had to stop, and I wrote on the back of my hand, which I often do, God deliver me from being a curse word.

I don't want my name to be a curse to my wife, to my children, to my church, to my community.

How wretched is the man destroyed by sin? Solomon did this for his son.

Solomon did this for his son. Proverbs 5, 11 through 14. He painted a picture of the bitter end of sin, gave it to his son to hold on to.

The bitter end of adultery, particularly, Proverbs 5 verse 11. He says, and you groan at your final end, when your flesh and your body are consumed.

And you say, how I have hated instruction, and my heart spurned reproof.

I have not listened to the voice of my teachers, nor inclined my ear to my instructors.

I was almost in utter ruin in the midst of the assembly and the congregation. Solomon says, son, that's going to be you unless you turn from your immoral ways.

And we pray, do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

You see, we're told that God will not allow us to be tempted beyond what we were able to bear, but with it he will provide the way of escape.

And I believe that sometimes that way of escape are the curse words that we need to have in our mind.

Do I really want to end up cursed like that? Do I want to become that kind of a blight upon my family and my church and my community?

We ought to use the words that when the temptation comes, and when the path of sin is laid so easily before us, we should say, that's from hell!

That's damned! And curse the thing that would destroy us. Because we cannot simply agree to disagree about immorality.

We must disagreeably disagree with immorality. We also should use careful words.

By using careful words, I'm not saying use compromising words, which is sometimes what it's thought to be meant.

But I want you to see that Jeremiah was very exact. Verse 24, to Shammai the

Nehelamite you shall speak, saying, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, because you have sent letters in your own name to all the people who are in Jerusalem, and to Zephaniah the son of Maasaiah the priest, and to all the priests.

He could have just said, I read that one letter you sent. These are all the different things that you've been up to.

Here's your established pattern, here's how willing you are to spread this lie. The Lord has, and this is what you said, and he quotes him.

This is exactly what you said. I'm gonna write a portion of your letter back to you. Like when you read the blog in the blog war, there's that little quote offset.

Use careful words. Jeremiah states to whom Shammai wrote, how he wrote, what he wrote.

He's careful to note in the text how he came by that information. Somebody actually showed me your letter,

I read it. You know, you wrote the letter, I read the letter you wrote. It's important when we're disagreeably disagreeing with false teaching that we not speak second or third hand, that we actually have the actual text, the actual transcript, full context.

If I'm gonna say something about a false teacher, it's because I've read their words and the places that they chose to put them.

And so much so that you don't have to take my word for it, you can go see it for yourself. Use careful words.

And if we're gonna disagreeably disagree with immorality, we should make sure that the evidence is properly attested to by two or three witnesses, not jump to any conclusions too soon.

Listen, there is absolutely zero rush to turn someone's name into a curse word. We should always, always, always desire it to be the other way around.

And somebody who does sin so grievously and hurt so many is not lost to Christ, even if their name has become so harmful, they can still be saved.

That's not what we're saying, but we are saying that sin has consequences and sometimes it has very, very grievous consequences.

So use careful words. Also notice that it is the

Lord, it's not Jeremiah, it is the Lord who takes vengeance. And that's why we can smile when we say what we say.

That's what we can be clear, that's how we can be careful. It's the

Lord who takes vengeance, not Jeremiah, and that needs to be carefully parsed as well.

I was thinking this morning about how weary this can become sometimes, especially as we see

Jeremiah in the situation. We know that Jeremiah at some point says, you know, I'm done, I don't want to preach anymore,

I'm get so tired of being the guy that everyone's upset with, and being in the extreme minority, and so on.

There's a lot of weariness that can come with this. I was thinking about Christ's own example in Psalm 110.

Psalm 110. The Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.

The Lord will stretch forth your strong scepter from Zion, saying, rule in the midst of your enemies.

Your people will volunteer freely in the day of your power. In holy array, from the womb of the dawn, your youth are to you as the dew.

We picture Christ, the right hand of the Father. We picture Christ ruling and reigning, and his people who love him volunteering freely to follow him.

The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind. You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

And he comes back to this right hand. The Lord is at your right hand. He will shatter kings in the day of his wrath.

He will judge among the nations. He will fill them with corpses. He will shatter the chief men over a broad country. He will drink from the brook by the wayside.

Therefore he will lift up his head. Now, depending on how you interpret this, but here's the point.

As Christ goes forth and conquers and fights and wins, he stops to take a drink from the brook.

His head comes up, and the advance continues. Christ does not tell us to do it on our own, to struggle against lies, to fight against false prophecy, and so on, on our own.

But there is a cure for weariness. There is water for the thirsty, and Jesus calls it living water.

And he promised living water to the woman in Samaria, and at the

Feast of Tabernacles he stood up in John 7 and said, anybody who wants is thirsty, come to me and drink, and he offers living water, and the text specifically says this was the promise of the

Holy Spirit. And in the triune vision of the New Jerusalem, who do we see except, we don't actually see

God, but there's God on the throne, a lamb is on the throne, and from the throne flows the river of living water, who is the

Holy Spirit. Let's drink and lift up our heads. If we grow weary in the fight, it means that it's time to stop and take a drink.

It's time to commune with the one whom we love, it's time to rejoice in the strength of his truth, and we get to stop by the river and take a drink this morning as we're in the

Word and as we take communion. As we take communion, this is an opportunity to take a drink and lift up our heads.

Communion means that we're not only coming together, we're agreeing together. Okay, here's our agreement.

Think about the broken body and shed blood of Christ. Here's our agreement, our communion.

When we take communion, when we take communion, we are not agreeing to disagree about the exclusivity of Jesus Christ for salvation.

Oh, far from it. By taking communion, our agreement, we are not agreeing to disagree about the nature of salvation, by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

By taking communion, we are not agreeing to disagree about the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Far from it. By taking communion, we are not agreeing to disagree about whether Christ will return, or the nature of holiness, or obedience to God's Word.

No, this agreement is our agreement about who Christ is, what he has said, all that he has done.

So very much as we come to the table of communion where we agree, although there are some things we could agree to disagree about, this agreement, this communion, sets us apart and sanctifies us into a position, a place, where we agree to disagreeably disagree about those who would propose heresy, false teaching, immorality.

You know, we're coming together to agree ultimately, specifically, in our love for Jesus Christ. Here is our table of communion where we come to agree.

And you know, that's not optional. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 16 22, if anyone does not love the

Lord, he is to be accursed. But here, here, we gather in communion in our love for the

Lord. Let me pray for us. Father, I thank you. I thank you for the truth of your

Word. I pray that you come to these things.

Father, I know that Jeremiah was weary. We can often be weary when it comes to the false teaching that can plague our churches and harm our loved ones, our neighbors, acquaintances, friends.

Lord, please help us to have a clear understanding of what it is that we need to hold fast to, where it is that we need to disagreeably disagree.

Help us to do so in joy and in love and in hope of the gospel. Help us to follow your

Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ, in all that we do. We pray these things for Christ's sake. Amen.