Sunday Morning 20200119 AM

False Comforts and the Burden of the Soul

Be no comfort at all to go to this man and say, just think about all the free time you have. No comfort at all. But what about more sinister false comforts? What about more believable false comforts? Will an impoverished widow comfort herself with lottery tickets?

Will a failing businessman as a last ditch effort comfort himself by embezzling from his partners? Will a promiscuous woman comfort herself with plans to kill her unborn infant? Is murder really the comfort for adultery?

We learn to despise false comforts in every area of our lives. Why would we accommodate false comfort in the most essential matter of our lives, the condition of our souls? We refuse to listen to the robocalls.

We refuse to answer those emails. We don't want to be taken. We don't want to be deceived. But when it comes to the matter of our souls, how careful are we? Or are we willing just to believe whatever makes us feel good?

We are instructed by this passage where Jeremiah censures the false comfort of his countrymen. They cut themselves off from the true comforts that Christ has been speaking to them through his prophet for 40 years.

They refuse to take the comfort that has been given to them by the word of God. And this situation is very serious for them. The city is about to fall. The temple is going to be destroyed. And as serious as that situation is, that's but a lesser concern to the state of their souls.

And isn't that the case with us as well? As Christ, through his spirit, exposed and condemned the false comforts of the Jews in Jeremiah's day, so also he would have us leave off false comforts for his true comforts.

This is the main idea, I believe, of this passage, the main application, the good of it to our souls, is this, to lay aside false comforts that we may know the true comfort of Christ. Now, verses six through 10 will be our focus this morning.

This is where the heart of the matter is. The lead up in verses one through five is instructive and helpful. The fallout after what Jeremiah says in verses six through 10 is instructive. But this is the heart of the matter.

This is the point of this chapter where God instructs Jeremiah to go to the people in a very clear way, expose what they're trusting in as deceptive, and compel them to flee those delusions, to give up on those false comforts.

As you can tell, we've returned to the timeframe where the Babylonians had the city surrounded. In previous chapters, we've been looking at times in previous decades, opportunities for the people to repent.

Now we've come to the last year, and things are very dire. But during this siege, King Zedekiah, on behalf of his people, on behalf of his officials, sends word to Jeremiah and asks Jeremiah to intercede for the Lord on their behalf.

This seems somewhat natural to do, send word to the most holy man I know and say, pray for me, right? Things are bad, pray for us. Well, he doesn't know if Jeremiah will do that or not, but soon after he does this, lo and behold, Pharaoh marches up out of Egypt with his armies.

The Babylonians lift their siege of Jerusalem and go out to meet Pharaoh. Looks like the prayers are being answered. This makes sense. Pray for us, our city is surrounded. Not too long after that, the city is no longer surrounded.

Wow, that worked really great. And at this moment, when false comfort would make its most progress in the hearts and minds of the people is when God sends a message to Jeremiah to shut all that false comfort down, to make sure that they don't misunderstand the situation.

The Lord Exposes and Rejects False Hope

So listen to verses six through 10 again. Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet saying, thus says the Lord God of Israel. Thus you are to say to the King of Judah, who sent you to me to inquire of me.

Behold, Pharaoh's army which has come out for your assistance is going to return to his own land of Egypt. The Chaldeans will also return in a fight against this city and they will capture it and burn it with fire.

Thus says the Lord, do not deceive yourselves saying the Chaldeans will surely go away from us, for they will not go. For even if you had defeated the entire army of the Chaldeans who were fighting against you and there were only wounded men left among them, each man in his tent, they would rise up and burn this city with fire.

Let's think about the method of the Lord in his censuring of false comfort. The first thing he does is expose the false comfort. He doesn't hide it. He doesn't gloss over it. He doesn't say something to the effect of, well, whatever you may be thinking, here's something better and just gloss over the things that they may be trusting in.

But he brings it to the light, puts clear focus upon the things in which they trust that are delusions, that are self-deceptions and says, look carefully at what you're trusting in. Understand that these things are false.

And this is for their good that they would do away with false comfort. In many ways, because they had stopped listening to the word of the Lord, it wasn't that they weren't listening to anything, they were.

As they took in information in the rebellion, they mixed it together like some cheap poultice and put it on a deep, gaping wound and the great physician says, that's not going to help. That's not going to cure.

You need to get rid of this. What were their hopes? What were the three things that they were hoping for that we see from this text? Well, they had the hope that God would deliver them. They might hope that God would deliver them.

So the guy does send word to Jeremiah, he has a hope that maybe this will work out. Maybe if Jeremiah prays for us, God will be kind to us and we won't be destroyed by the Babylonians, by the Chaldeans.

Yet Zedekiah's request runs headlong into a concrete wall of reality. The truth is that God was finished hearing intercession for the people. The reckless speed of their idolatrous sin and the incredible weight of their guilt combined for an unavoidable train wreck of judgment.

In Jeremiah chapter 11, this is what the Lord said, Jeremiah, verse 11. Therefore, thus says the Lord, behold, I am bringing disaster on them, which they will not be able to escape. Though they will cry to me, yet I will not listen to them.

And why God won't listen to his people, we'll hear in a moment. Then the cities of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem will go and cry to the gods to whom they burn incense, but they surely will not save them in the time of their disaster.

For your gods are as many as your cities, O Judah, and as many as the streets of Jerusalem are the altars you have set up to the shameful things, altars to burn incense to Baal. So God is saying, when bad things come about and they're in their moment of catastrophe, they're gonna cry out to me for deliverance and I'm not going to answer them.

Why not? Because they think of me like they think of the Baals and the Asherah and the queen of heaven and Molech. I'm just another God to throw up a prayer to and maybe it'll work out. So they don't really know who he is.

They don't really worship him. They're really not repentant believers, are they? They're just throwing up a prayer and hoping it sticks the way they do with all their idols. Now, what has God said to Jeremiah, verse 14?

Therefore do not pray for this people, nor lift up a prayer or cry for them. I will not listen when they call to me because of their disaster. Now listen very carefully to this language, to the offended jealousy of a holy and good God.

Verse 15, what right has my beloved in my house when she has done many vile deeds? Can the sacrificial flesh take away from you your disaster so that you can rejoice? Is this something where God's covenant bride can go out and commit various acts of prostitution with all these other nations and all these other gods and then come skipping back to the temple and offer up some sort of pittance, some little sacrifice and make everything right?

No, that's not the kind of worship that God prescribed. That's not the religion that he organized. That's flippancy, that's hard heartedness. And when people say, God will forgive me and deliver me just because he's God, they don't know who God is.

Forget who it was, it was a Russian princess of some kind. Of course, God will forgive us, that's his job, right? That's the attitude of many. God has to forgive, that's his job, that's what he does. Anybody asks, then just fine.

Any old flippant prayer will do, right? As a matter of the state of your heart. That's a false comfort. So they had comfort that maybe God will deliver them, but that's a false comfort. They might hope that Pharaoh would deliver them.

For long before Zedekiah sent word to Jeremiah, hey, send up a prayer for us, long before that he had labored to engage Pharaoh in a political treaty. Prophet Ezekiel tells us in Ezekiel 17, verses 15 through 18, how it was that Zedekiah sent envoys down to Egypt to compel Pharaoh to send up horses and to send up cavalry, to send up troops to alleviate their siege by the Babylonians.

And God says, this is not going to work. Zedekiah was put into his kingship by Babylon and he betrayed the orders, the authority of Nebuchadnezzar. But more importantly, and before that, Zedekiah had broken covenant with God.

And God says very clearly, this is not going to work. In fact, when God addresses Egypt about this matter, he says in Ezekiel 29, verses six through seven, he takes up the words, the very image of Rabshakeh, Ezekiel 29, verses six through seven.

This is what he says to Egypt for their leading Judah astray. Verse six, then all the inhabitants of Egypt will know that I am the Lord because they have been only a staff made of reed to the house of Israel.

When they took hold of you with the hand, you broke and tore all their hands. And when they leaned on you, you broke and made all their loins quake. A false comfort. No, Egypt really is a battered reed that when they would trust Egypt, it would shatter and slice their hands.

So that's a false hope. Finally, they may hope that fighting would deliver them as they see in verse 10. They had a thought that maybe, just maybe we can defend the city. Maybe we can kill enough and wound enough of the soldiers of Babylon that they will give up and they will not continue their siege.

But God assures them, even if every last soldier in the Babylonian army is wounded, lying in their tents, bleeding, they will get up and successfully assault this city and burn it with fire. So this is the way in which God ends false comfort.

He exposes the false comfort and then tells them, no, that is not going to work. Why won't it work? It goes against his word. Jeremiah had warned them not to trust in Egypt. And what about this fighting?

Why can't they win the battle? Why can't they, you know, David and Goliath? Why won't this work out? Because they're covenant breakers. And God told them that if they broke covenant with him, they will be under the curse.

And here's the curse when they go out to fight when they're not following the Lord. Deuteronomy 28, 25. The Lord shall cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will go out one way against them, but you will flee seven ways before them.

And you will be an example of terror to all the kingdoms of the earth. Every one of their comforts, every one of their hopes that maybe things would work out and things would be all right was counter to the word of God.

Counter to the established truth given by the prophets, given by Moses. So what comfort is that? Taking comfort in the things that are in disagreement with the word of God. And so God does not allow the Jews to continue in any of their delusions.

And the way that he handles it is rather sharp. This isn't just popping someone's bubble. This is also washing it suds down the drain. This isn't blowing out somebody else's candles. This is dumping their birthday cake in the trash.

Even if every last one of them were wounded, they're still going to burn your city. And that's harsh. It gets the attention. It says your comfort is no comfort at all. Why is that important to us? Why is that important to us?

2 Corinthians 13, five says, test yourselves. To see whether or not you are in the faith. Examine yourselves. Or do you not know this about yourselves that Christ is in you? Unless indeed you fail the test.

Test yourselves. Examine yourselves. Where is the comfort for your soul? When you think of your soul, do you think of it at all? What is the comfort of your soul? We have to be careful with that. Proverbs 30, verse 12 says, there is a generation that is pure in their own eyes.

But they are still not washed from their filthiness. There is a generation who believes that they are pure because they have given themselves a self-assessment. And as we know that love covers a multitude of sins, those who are in love with themselves cover all their sins.

And do not see themselves for who they are. And many times rely on false comforts. A false comfort is no comfort at all. It will end. The false comfort will end either by piercing the one who tries to lean on it.

Or it will end by the faithful application of the word of God to wash away what is false, to direct us to hold what is true. What false comforts must be exposed and ended in our lives? We do not live in a walled city surrounded by a foreign army ready to destroy us.

If that were the case, who knows what we'd be thinking about, who knows what kind of comforts or hopes that we might have. Our situation is the same, however, for all people, that we are made in God's image, made for his word, and that fallen in Adam, in rebellion to God, we have a lot to answer for.

That God is holy and we are not. That there is a rupture in the relationship between maker and creature. So what comfort do we have for our souls? What view do we have of the standing, of our standing with God?

Is it possible that any of us resort to false comforts and harbor false comforts when considering whether or not we're growing in the faith, whether we are really pursuing Christ, whether we are growing in holiness, in the things that ultimately matter?

Flourishing, Exhaustion, and the Favor of Men

Well, what are some of the false comforts that must be exposed and ended? I think the first one is flourishing, flourishing. Flourishing is the new standard. It is the new standard of righteousness for many today.

If I were a relevant preacher, I would mention flourishing at least 3 .5 times in every sermon. If you wanna raise money as a short-term missionary or a long-term missionary, or for some sort of compassionate work, if you wanna raise money, you must mention flourishing in every paragraph on your website.

It's the thing. What is human flourishing? It is preached by many as the outcome, indeed, the very aim of the gospel. It is utilized as the scales upon which morality itself is arbitrated. Is it good or bad for human flourishing?

Thus, we know what good and bad are. We'll say, what is flourishing? I think a way for us to understand it would be like this. The gospel of flourishing is the health and wealth prosperity teaching remixed.

Rather than your word of faith bringing about your personal health, wealth, and status, now your works of faith bring about others' health, wealth, and status. In Prosperity Gospel 1 .0, if you're not personally flourishing in your health, wealth, and status, something's wrong with you.

Your Christianity is illegitimate. In Prosperity Gospel 2 .0, if you're not helping others flourish in their health, wealth, and status, something is wrong with you, and your Christianity is illegitimate.

It's just the evolution of the idea. But all of this relies on the same false comfort, assessing our lives in terms of materialism, the matter, the matter of my wealth, the matter, my body, the matter, the health that I have, the status that I have, the access that I have.

This is all important now, materialism. Flourishing is no indicator of righteousness or godliness, spirituality or justice. The fantastically wealthy and strong and the hideously poor and weak alike are shown in scripture as either righteous, just, and close to God, or unrighteous, evil, and reprobate.

The difference, the relationship to the word of God, the relationship to the personal word, Jesus Christ. Are they justified in the righteousness of Christ? Are they born again of the spirit full of the life of Christ?

That's what makes the difference, and the way in which we think about everything then changes. But dearly beloved, we have the same materialistic mindset as Prosperity Gospel 1 .0 and 2 .0 when we stop praying for our daily bread.

All right, I got it covered.

We stop praying for our daily bread when we grow lax in repenting to the finished work of Christ and there at the cross by faith, confessing our sins in light of his completed righteousness, trustingly know our forgiveness in his accomplished redemption.

When we leave that off, and that is not our daily comfort of our souls. When everything is going well in body and bank and business, we are tempted to take comfort in these gifts God has accorded for our watchful stewarding.

Are we relatively healthy and wealthy? Yeah. Are things going well? Take no comfort in these blessings. This is not an indicator of how God thinks of you. These are not the standards of right and wrong, justice or injustice.

This is no indicator. These are gifts from God that we would take in his name to his glory that we would steward whatever cup he has given to us. Is it full and overflowing? Is it empty? Is it bone dry?

What is it? Will we make the most of it for his glory? Take no comfort in these blessings. They may soon evaporate in the high noon of trials. Our bodies may be broken. Our minds may be overthrown, but that doesn't mean that God has given up on us.

What is the standard? This is the name of the Lord. Lord giveth and Lord taketh away, but blessed be the name of the Lord. There's the comfort. The name of the Lord, his saving reign. There's our comfort.

A second comfort, a false comfort, which must be censured. Is that a fatigue? There's a false comfort. It's a false comfort, which comes at the cost of body, soul, and family. There's a kind of zeal for God that is without knowledge, that offers comfort through exhaustion.

A badge of righteousness worn only by the weary, because I've done so much for God, so much more than others for God, but that's false. We do not improve our standing with God based on how sacrificially we have helped others flourish or how sacrificially we have spent time away from our families to preach to the lost or how we have broken our health in order to serve God.

This does not provide any comfort for our souls. I think of Luther and Whitefield ruining their health, afflicting themselves to the point of mental instability, all in the name of pursuing righteousness, a high spirituality, but it was all in vain.

It was all in vain. I reflect on Murray McShane, who died at 29, partly due to his incessant pace. Some of his last words were these, the Lord gave me a horse to ride and a message to deliver. Alas, I have killed the horse and cannot deliver the message.

So I've learned that godly people tend to be busy people, but dearly beloved, I mean, as we are diligent, take no comfort in the number of things that you're able to cross off your list. This is not comfort for our souls.

Saul of Tarsus accomplished more than any Jew and still needed to be born again. The apostle Paul, same man, accomplished more than any of the other apostles. And still, what did he say? But by the grace of God, I am what I am.

And his grace toward me did not prove vain, but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me. You see the comfort? He looked to the grace of God, that was his comfort, not his list of accomplishments.

He knew the status of his soul based upon the grace of God in Christ, not based on what he's accomplished. All of our labors, all of our best works will fade and be forgotten. It will not matter unless what is done for Christ.

Ecclesiastes teaches us this lesson very well. Now, if we are faithful and we want to be faithful in our love for Christ, if we are faithful to what he has called us to do, putting one step in front of the other, doing what he has called us to do, at the end of it all, what do we say?

What did Jesus tell us to say when we finished all of our labors, when we enter in through the pearly gates of splendor? What is to be said? So you too, Jesus says, Luke 17, 10, so you too, when you do all the things which are commanded you, say, we are unworthy slaves.

We have done only that which we ought to have done. So wearing yourself out for Jesus is no comfort to the state of your soul. Third false comfort is that of the favor of men, the favor of men. It must be incredibly gratifying to be well thought of, at least well spoken of, by the great majority of the people that you know.

You may get thumbs up for your posts and many followers for your tweets, but what of it? What of it? What comfort is that? Paul writes, Galatians 1, 10, for am I now seeking the favor of men or of God?

Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ. Listen, if everybody you know says nice things about you, that doesn't make you right with God.

It doesn't even make you growing in grace if you are in Christ. We live in a world where the new golden rule is, do not offend. How much stock can you put in the opinions of the people of this culture when their whole job is to flatter?

How much stock are you gonna put in those opinions? Jesus says we should not be overly invested in what men think and say concerning us. Matthew 10, 28, do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul.

Rather fear him who was able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Put things in perspective. What is man in view of what God thinks? The favor of men, let's be clear, the favor of men, having a good name and a good reputation, is no more of a sinful acid than wealth is or working hard.

Wealth, health, a good name, diligent labor, those are all good things, but none of them are to be a comfort to our souls. None of them are to inform our standing before God. None of them can be good proof for what is holiness.

There is one man in whom God is well-pleased and he is the Christ, Jesus. And if we want the favor of God, then we've got to have Christ. We have to have him by faith alone. We have to be in him, united with him.

That he is our savior, that he is our king, that his name is our name. That's a true comfort. A fourth comfort that we may take falsely to our hearts is that of fastidiousness. And I've been working for many years to get that word into one of my sermons.

Now, if you flourish and accomplish much and enjoy a good name in this life, God be praised. And if you are fastidious in your doctrines and your convictions, that too is a blessing from God, but it's a false comfort for your soul.

Vance Havner observed that many people are straight as a gun barrel and just as empty. I've met some of those. We have absolutely no cause to be sloppy with what we believe from the scriptures. And we have every admonishment and encouragement from the scriptures to be diligent, to labor hard in understanding what it is that God has done for us and to live in holiness.

But being fastidious is no comfort to our souls. If we are exact with our doctrine, and that would be a good thing to do, as much as we can, as much as our ability is, we should know who Jesus is and what he has done for us.

We should dig deep in those treasures. But if we are exact with our doctrine, have we thereby merited our salvation? Are we saved by faith plus doctrinal alacrity? Are we saved by grace plus keeping oneself unspotted from the world?

Good doctrine reminds us that we are saved in such a way that no one can boast, right? That our growing in Christ is his grace at work. And every holy conviction that we hold dear should remind us of our weakness, not our superiority.

It should remind us of our need for Christ, not our mastery of his ways. It's a last comfort to think of something that's a false comfort to us is formalism. Maybe we don't have that as much as a concern since we are here in a Baptist church and we have very little overt liturgy.

And yet there's enough form and formalism that even good old fashioned Baptists can take false comfort in these forms. Let us take no comfort for our souls in the forms of religion rather than the substance of religion.

Many have told me in light of their eternal judgment, as I question where they are with God, they will tell me that their comfort for their everlasting soul, their everlasting eternity with God is based on a form of something they did.

That their comfort for eternity is in the form of an altar call. I walked the aisle or I prayed a prayer. I got baptized. I joined a church. I tithe regularly. You know what's missing in all of those things?

The Savior, Jesus Christ. The Savior, Jesus Christ is missing in all those forms. Where's the substance? Religion, like flourishing and diligence and a good name and robust doctrine. Religion is a good thing.

God made religion as soon as he made us in his image and called us into regular communion with him. He made religion from the very beginning. Religion with all of its necessary forms and some not so necessary is to be used for communion to meet with God.

When you use religion for a covering to make yourself look good rather than communion to meet with God, then you've turned religion into a false comfort, indeed a harsh taskmaster. It becomes a curse rather than a blessing.

True Comfort in Christ and the Call to Prayer

Well, in coming weeks, we're going to consider the godliness and compassion of censuring false comfort in our own hearts and helping others to do the same. We're also going to look at this text and we're going to think about where do these false comforts come from and what are their evils?

How do they impact us and our families? And then the Lord wills we'll spend some time considering the blessings of what true comforts were available to Jeremiah and his countrymen and what are available to us, the true blessings of comfort.

I have a letter to read, a part of a letter, because in all of this, I want to emphasize the blessing of true comfort in Christ that sometimes trials and difficulties are specifically meant by our good and heavenly Father to strip away the false comforts.

The things that we have up on our trophy cases that were never meant to be there, they're tools for the tool belt, not for trophies up there. And the trials that we go through, many times God reaching up and taking down those trophies from the trophy case.

There goes your health, there goes your wealth, there goes your good name, right? There goes your ability to be diligent in all these different things and expend your energy and he just takes down the trophies.

He says, those aren't supposed to be up there at any time. Those were tools for your tool belt to spread the fame of my son, Jesus Christ. And you put them up on the trophy case and said, these are my comfort, but they shouldn't be there.

What should be there? What should be our true comfort? Well, I have a letter to read you. It's from Early Rain Covenant Church. This is our sister church in China. Their pastor, Wang Yi and elder, Ken Defu have been imprisoned for the sake of Christ and the gospel.

And this is their letter. And I read it to you because we need to hear from our sister church and pray for them. And also because herein, we are reminded of true comfort. We invite all sojourners throughout the world who belong to the universal church to pray fervently for pastor Wang Yi and elder Ken Defu, who are being imprisoned for the sake of Christ and of the gospel, as well as for their families.

Pray for all of us. We will also pray for you. In this age, which Jesus Christ brought about through his incarnation, through his perfect life, through his betrayal and trial, through his substitutionary death, through his resurrection and ascension, through his gift of the Holy Spirit, in this age, may we testify through our suffering that Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, and that he is the light of the world.

We also invite churches who are currently being persecuted to fix their eyes together with us upon the crucified and risen Jesus Christ. Through the Holy Spirit, may we be united to the King of kings who ascended to the right hand of the majesty on high, who is our eternal high priest and prophet of the last days.

May we be strong in his grace as we keep on fighting despite repeated setbacks. We do this to fulfill the great commission and to spread the gospel that the glorious name of the triune God might be praised.

May God help us and allow us to experience together the breadth, length, height, and depth of the love of God until the day that we see him face to face. May blessing, and honor, and wisdom, and wealth, and glory, and power, and authority be to our Holy Father who is in heaven, to the Lord Jesus Christ who obtained our salvation, and to the Holy Spirit, our helper, who continually helps us, amen.

Early reign covenant church. I would say that God has graced them with understanding of true comfort. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the time you have given to us, and we pray for our brothers and sisters who are under siege.

They are wheat sown among tares, and the enemy is persecuting them. We pray for their continued strengthening. We thank you for their faithful testimony. We pray that you would provide them with every advantage.

That they need to continue in faithfulness. We pray for those who have unjustly sentenced their pastor and their elder to these prison sentences for things that they have not done against the state. And I pray that you who holds the hand of reprobate kings in your hand to turn them which way that you wish, we pray that you would turn things to the glory of your son in every way that that might be, but we pray for mercy for the pastor and the elder and their families, and pray that you would comfort them and encourage them and provide for them in this time.

Lord, I pray for us. I pray that you would help us to do the work, the heart work of putting aside false comforts so that our attention may be exclusively upon Christ, that we may exalt him. We pray these things for his sake.