- 00:00
- All right we are going to pray and we're going to get started and James DeBoer's hand is up.
- 00:08
- Does he have a question already? We haven't even got started. Let's pray and then we'll figure out what to do with James here.
- 00:14
- Lord Jesus again as we open up your word we ask that through your Holy Spirit that you would help us to rightly understand your words so that we may not oppose you but instead abide in your words that promise us life eternal and that we will never taste death.
- 00:28
- All this by the merits of Christ who suffered in our place and took our sin upon ourselves so that we can be forgiven and reconciled to God.
- 00:35
- We ask this in Jesus name. Amen. All right so James DeBoer hang on a second here
- 00:43
- I'm going to check my chat. He said oops accidentally raised my hand. Okay so it was just an accident. Okay absolvote you know he's forgiven.
- 00:53
- We are going to continue with our study of the book of Jeremiah. Today in Jeremiah 17
- 00:58
- I'm going to give a little bit of how some of the ancient pagan practices work because you need to understand the idolatrous background of this portion of Jeremiah.
- 01:12
- So here's what it says in this opening portion. The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron with the point of a diamond.
- 01:19
- It is engraved on the tablet of the heart and on the horns of their altars. Now I make a quick aside here.
- 01:26
- God knows that diamonds are the hardest substance here you know that we have.
- 01:33
- So you talk about diamond drill bits and things like this. So when God talks this way this kind of speaks to us modern people who recognize yeah the hardest thing ever is like a diamond.
- 01:44
- Okay so it's written with a diamond on the point of the heart on the horns of their altars. While their children remember their altars and their asherim beside every green tree and on the high hills and on the mountains in the open country your wealth and all your treasures
- 02:00
- I will give for spoils as the price of your high places for sin throughout all of your territory.
- 02:06
- You shall loosen your hand from your heritage that I gave you and I will make you serve your enemies in the land that you did not know for in my anger a fire is kindled that shall burn forever.
- 02:19
- Now real quick this is obviously a reference to the idolatrous practice of worshiping
- 02:25
- Asherah and here's the issue. Asherah is in the asherim.
- 02:32
- These are fertility deities and an Asherah pole is well let's just say it looks a lot like a human phallus and this is intentional and if you want to understand what's going on with this and how
- 02:47
- God is talking about beside every green tree and on the high hills he's talking about the religious sexual practices that go with the worship of Asherah so and all of this comes from Egypt and if you've ever heard the story of Isis and Osiris and you know the legend behind that then
- 03:10
- Osiris is basically a fertility deity and the idea is is that how the narrative works in all of these pagan religions which have their anchoring and kind of like gnostic
- 03:21
- Egyptian religion is that the fertility deity the male aspect of it he germinates the seed at the beginning of the winter solstice and then he comes to maturity and at the harvest the fertility male deity is beaten into a bazillion pieces so if you think of like ears of corn you know starts off with ears of corn and then you have all these pieces of corn and so the idea then is is that there's this constant mythological cycle of death and resurrection death taking place after the harvest as human beings consume the harvest and all of the pieces of the fertility deity are then consumed the only thing left is the seed and then at the winter solstice you have the the the re -germination of this of the woman you know the one the earth if you would who then bears and all this kind of stuff so what ends up happening in these pagan gnostic religions is they take the human sex act and it becomes part of the religious practice for the purpose of fertility so if you've ever heard of magic sex or things like this it's kind of along those lines so as part of their practices they set up altars in high places every like every hill every high place ends up getting its old pagan altar with with images to Baal and Asherah you get the
- 04:57
- Asherah pole and then at the correct time of year then the people who worship these deities those who are initiated into it they participate in sexual rituals which are then to kind of invoke fertility which will then cause the earth to become pregnant and then give birth nine months later at the harvest time with the crops and it's just gross yeah it's a load of hoopla so you know so when
- 05:30
- God talks about them on every green tree in high place there's other passages that describe their activity in kind of group sexual terms and it's just wrong and so the idea here is is that this wasn't just somebody saying
- 05:48
- I've abandoned Yahweh to worship Asherah they put on a pretense of worshiping
- 05:54
- Yahweh oh I believe in Yahweh but I'm hedging my bets and so I worship Asherah and Baal and all these other deities and participate in the ritual practices of worshiping these fertility deities which is also going to involve sexual immorality so you'll note that sexual immorality seems to be one of the almost predictable byproducts of false religion it's just crazy how that all works so and God then has promised that he's going to punish them and you'll note that he's kindled a fire that will burn forever here
- 06:33
- God is talking about in making allusion to hell he's referring to the unquenchable fire that Jesus further reveals so for this this rank breaking of the first commandment and also a whole host of other commandments along the way that that God is going to act in judgment and the the destruction that they see physically of Judea of Jerusalem is is just if you would a foretaste of the real punishment the real punishment is that a fire is kindled forever and God is invoking eternal punishment in hell here so that says
- 07:09
- Yahweh cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength whose heart turns away from Yahweh he's like a shrub in the desert and shall not see any and not and shall not see any good come he shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness in an uninhabited salt sea so trusting in man here this is another idolatrous concept here we we
- 07:37
- Americans have a really weird thing we do we we put a lot of trust in our politicians I don't know what that's about um you know any of you voted for the fellow who's currently in the office you were trusting in him and there was a lot of Christians trusting in the guy previous to him and even prophesying that he was going to be re -elected you know and yeah none of this really plays out really well so blessed is the man then who trusts in Yahweh who trusts whose trust is is
- 08:06
- Yahweh he is like a tree planted by water that sends out its roots by the stream does not fear when heat comes for it leaves its leaves remain green it is not anxious in the year of drought for it does not cease to bear fruit so you know the the the wonderful juxtaposition here as far as imagery the one who trusts in false gods or trust in man they're like a shrub in the desert we've you know if you've ever driven through the
- 08:33
- Mojave desert you know of California you know you get these occasional shrubs kind of distanced from each other you know and whereas the one who trusts in Yahweh is like a very very bountiful fruit tree um that is that is planted in a very great spot and even in drought it still bears fruit that's that's the image you know the juxtaposition and so you can see this that this is one of the recurring themes here is that sin and idolatry have really very little to offer humanity in fact they have zero to offer to humanity and whatever benefits you think that they offer in the short term in the long term it's going to take you to hell but in reality you're not gaining anything real wisdom comes in believing in and abiding by the words of God found in scripture and seeing that his commandments that they are holy and that they are good and they are given for our benefit not in order to bind us up it's it's really just fascinating how always and again people think of the law of God as somehow some kind of a fetter to keep you from experiencing the good life when in reality sin is the thing that the devil is trying to convince you to engage in to convince you to cast
- 09:54
- God's commandments behind you and the devil promises you the good life and in reality it's not a good life at all there's nothing there sin is not your friend sin is not a plus and anyone who says to me well you know you preach salvation by grace through faith alone so you're basically saying we can do whatever we want it's like are you kidding me it's like what you know slavery to sin is slavery
- 10:22
- Christ has set us free from that so here comes another one the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick who can understand it now this this flies in the face of every
- 10:41
- Disney movie ever okay just follow your heart right that's gonna get you know you know and always and again you know in light of this passage
- 10:50
- I like to say things like you know to the to the fellow who says well the
- 10:55
- Lord laid it on my heart it's like well then I don't want to hear it whatever you have to say that comes after that well the
- 11:01
- Lord laid on my heart stop I just anything that's touched that thing I don't want to have anything to hear do with it okay it's you know forget it okay
- 11:13
- I mean I don't I don't even like eating food that falls on the floor okay you know so there
- 11:18
- I am you know I'm making an egg or something like that and then I flip the pan up and one of my eggs ends up on the floor guess what the dog's eating that thing
- 11:25
- I ain't touching it all right huh five second rule myth busters debunked that and I will never be the same yeah so yeah
- 11:35
- Luther's more like a three -second dog yeah he's a yeah he yeah he's he's pretty jolly on the spot anyway so you know but the idea then is is that if I'm not going to eat an egg that's falling on the floor there's no way
- 11:46
- I'm going to listen to anybody saying that I have a message that the Lord laid on my heart no no no no that ain't working here the heart is deceitful above all things desperately sick you can get a spiritually transmitted disease that way so I just you know
- 12:00
- I'm not gonna listen to what everybody's shaking their head at me all right so I the
- 12:07
- Lord I search the heart I test the mind I give to every man according to his ways according to the fruit of his deeds now for Christians we recognize then and this is where I'm going to make a big distinction today we recognize the difference between an award and a reward and I want you to listen carefully to what
- 12:27
- I say all right so this this past week was quite momentous as it came to the uh the awards ceremonies at the
- 12:35
- Oscars okay because no one's talking about which movie won everyone's talking about Will Smith and and Chris Rock and but all of that being said the way the world works is that you apply yourself to excellence you do the right things you go above and beyond above and beyond and you are awarded you are awarded accolades glory honor power wealth and over and again when people think in terms of self -righteousness they think that somehow that salvation is an award or that God awards them on the day of judgment totally different than what the biblical concept is the biblical concept is an inheritance and God rewards very different and in order the one that God rewards first and foremost has faith in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins and justification salvation as a gift not by works that being said then
- 13:40
- God does reward good works he does not award glory or things like that I make that distinction because this is
- 13:49
- I think is a useful one so it is true that God will give to every man according to his ways and let me give you a text that I think is helpful along these lines in fact let me do this
- 14:01
- I'm you know it's like you know I'm I love having an hour to teach because I can go down my bunny trails hold on a second here bunny trail uh since we're you know we're just a couple months away from Pentecost Sunday it's like it's like two months from right right now right uh then the week after that we got
- 14:22
- Trinity so in the Athanasian Creed which is a creed we sadly we only confess once a year and I've really
- 14:31
- I no one's going to stop me if I say you know if we have a fifth Sunday we're going to confess it on the fifth
- 14:36
- Sunday no one's going to stop me you know it's like the church council go why did you do the Athanasian Creed twice this year you're not going to do that so it's like this is on me all right
- 14:47
- Athanasian Creed there's a there's a bit here that is uh that oftentimes leads to questions and the
- 14:55
- Athanasian Creed is the creed that we confess on Trinity Sunday and it lays out the doctrine of the Trinity just wonderfully that being said the tail end of it the very last portion of the
- 15:07
- Athanasian Creed talks in this way and by the way if you're sitting there going well where in the creed does it talk about hell
- 15:13
- I would start here um let's see so at for as a rational soul and flesh is one man so god and man is one christ who suffered for our salvation descended into hell rose again uh the third day ascended into heaven is seated at the right hand of the father god almighty from whence he will come to judge living in the dead at his coming all people will rise again with their bodies and give an account concerning their own deeds those who have done good will enter into eternal life those who have done evil into eternal fire this is the catholic faith whoever does not believe it faithfully and uh firmly cannot be saved so what ends up happening is is that people read this and they so they hear this in the
