The Prophet Jeremiah Part 16

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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August 24, 2022

The Prophet Jeremiah Part 17

00:00: We're going to pray and we're going to get started. We're going to continue our walk through the book of Jeremiah, so let's pray.
00:05: Lord Jesus, again, as we open up your word, we ask that through your Holy Spirit that you would help us to rightly understand what you have revealed there, so that we may walk and confess and do according to your word by the power of your
00:18: Holy Spirit, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay, hang on one second here.
00:23: I'm going to just slightly adjust that. There we go. All right. Last time we were in the book of Jeremiah, we had begun chapter 18, and we made it just a partway through this portion of the prophecy as it relates to a potter and him making vessels.
00:43: And so I'm going to back up so that we can kind of continue reading this in context. And last week, when we got to the part where God promises that he would relent if they would repent of their sins, we did a little excursus into the book of Jonah.
01:00: Note that this is a recurring theme that we see in Scripture. And by way of reminder, even before we get to that portion, you'll note that God has threatened every one of us, all of humanity, with an eternity in hell for our participation in the rebellion against God because of our sin.
01:17: And so this is good news in this sense that because we have been brought to penitent faith in Christ, God relents of the disaster that we stood rightly condemned to receive because of our transgressions and instead has given us pardon and peace in Christ.
01:33: So Jeremiah chapter 18, verse 1, the word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, rise, go down to the potter's house, there
01:41: I will let you hear my words. So I went down to the potter's house, and there he was working at his wheel, and the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do.
01:56: Then the word of Yahweh came to me, O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done, declares
02:04: Yahweh. Behold, like the clay of the potter's in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand,
02:10: O house of Israel. If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation concerning which
02:21: I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it.
02:28: And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then
02:38: I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it. Now, therefore, say to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, thus says
02:45: Yahweh, behold, I am shaping disaster against you and devising a plan against you.
02:53: Return everyone from his evil and amend your ways and your deeds.
02:58: And of course, we know from history that's not going to be the thing that happens. God's going to have to act in judgment.
03:05: And this is not God's default setting. When provoked over a long period of time, this is how
03:11: God will act. And so we know then that, yes, God acts in judgment. Okay?
03:18: But they say, well, that is in vain. We will follow our own plans.
03:24: And will everyone act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart? Ah, that's the same thing happening today.
03:32: Right? It's, nothing has changed. Nothing has changed. A couple of things really kind of stand out, like just in recent history, recent history.
03:42: The episode I did of Fighting for the Faith on YouTube with the prayer from that woman in that Presbyterian church where she prayed to the rainbow spectrum
03:51: God of pronouns. Okay? Just one of the most egregious, egregious things
03:57: I've ever seen as far as blatant idolatry. And the fact that this is taking place in the church is an actual fulfillment of prophecy.
04:05: You know, the Apostle Paul in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 talks about the great apostasy.
04:12: And what is it? It's within the visible church, people who profess to be
04:18: Christians who are in flat -out rebellion against God. And then, you know, as I, as somebody sent me a link to something that I saw on YouTube that really stood out, there was a
04:30: U .S. senator who was, who made the claim that if Jesus were alive today and doing his ministry today, he would be accused of being a groomer.
04:42: And I about fell out of my chair. It's like, are you kidding me? Really? You know?
04:49: I don't understand why people are so enraged that they can't talk about sex with five -year -olds, you know, that are not their children.
04:59: I don't understand why they're so upset about this, you know. But again, we live in a day where people are going to follow their own plans.
05:07: Everyone act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart. And you'll note that that stubbornness kind of manifests in our day as complete insanity.
05:16: Have you noticed that the world, I would note that 2019 was kind of like the last normal year we've had.
05:24: All right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, 2016 was bad, but it was like normal -ish.
05:31: You know, like, you know, but then when COVID hit, it's like, it's just gotten nuts. No, they don't.
05:45: No, we live in the day now where actually evil is called good and good is called evil.
05:52: And if you speak the truth, well, you are guilty of hate, you know.
05:59: I'm watching with some interest to see whether or not Elon Musk is going to succeed at purchasing
06:06: Twitter. And I'm watching the left lose their minds, right? And the thing is, is that, you know, you know, what all he wants to do is bring back free speech.
06:19: You know, Twitter's not about that. You know, I would remind everybody that the Babylon Bee's account is still frozen.
06:25: They've been locked out of there. Vladimir Putin can post on Twitter, but the Babylon Bee cannot.
06:31: Okay. You know, so, you know, just, you know, if, if you would, if you say something nowadays, if you say that that fellow's name is
06:39: Bruce Jenner, it ain't Caitlyn, his name is Bruce. Okay. The term that the left uses for that, they call it dead naming, right?
06:47: You know, that name is dead to him. You can't dead name that person. And, and, well, yeah, actually that's who he is and that God made him a dude, you know, but if you say that, you speak that truth, you know, you're going to get canceled.
06:59: You can't call someone the name that they don't like, but they can call you racist. Right, right. You can't call him
07:05: Bruce, but they can call you racist, just by virtue of the fact that you're white. Right. So you get the idea.
07:11: And by the way, I've read the book. It's only going to get worse from here. So, you know, buckle up and get a helmet. So, all right.
07:17: So therefore, thus says Yahweh, ask among the nations who has heard the like of this. The Virgin Israel has done a very horrible thing.
07:27: Does the snow of Lebanon leave the crags of Sirion? Apparently it doesn't. Do the mountain waters run dry, the cold flowing streams?
07:35: But my people have forgotten me. They make offerings to false gods.
07:41: And yes, there are false deities. I don't care, you know, all the pressure that's being put on us to acknowledge that every religious truth claim is, has valid and equal weight in whatever, you know, you know, the scripture's clear.
07:58: These are false deities. There is only one God. And they made them, and they made them stumble in their ways in the ancient roads and to walk into the side roads, not in the highway, making their land a horror, a thing to be hissed at forever.
08:13: Oh yeah. And God has a right to take idolatrous nations and make them live in squalor, if he wants to, as a form of punishment.
08:23: So everyone who passes by and is horrified and shakes his head, like the east wind,
08:28: I will scatter them before the enemy. I will show them my back, not my face, in the day of their calamity.
08:35: Then they said, come, let us make plots against Jeremiah, for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet.
08:43: Come, let us strike him with the tongue, and let us not pay attention to any of his words.
08:50: All right. Now this one needs a little bit of unpacking. And here's what I mean by this. All right.
08:56: So we Lutherans are familiar with a similar argument, and the similar argument goes like this.
09:04: How dare you criticize the Roman Catholic Church? Jesus said the gates of hell will not prevail against the church, and you're saying that the
09:13: Roman Catholic Church is an apostasy, and that it's wrong to pray to the Virgin Mary and to dead saints, and that purgatory doesn't exist, and salvation is by grace through faith apart from words.
09:22: How dare you? You're saying that Jesus was a liar, and that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church.
09:29: That's one of their arguments. And you sit there and go, yeah, well, you're saying that in isolation with the other passages.
09:38: Christ always maintains a remnant for himself, for sure. But apostasy is apostasy, no matter how large, and no matter how many people believe it.
09:48: If a billion Christians believe in praying to the Virgin Mary, does that make it biblical? No. Okay.
09:55: So same thing here going on. So come let us make plots against Jeremiah.
10:01: So you're going to note the people hearing Jeremiah's prophecy, they've now gone all
10:06: Ahmed the dead terrorist on him. I kill you. I kill you. How dare you say the truth to me?
10:11: All right. And here's the argument. For the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet.
10:20: Well, of course we're not in error. It's the same argument, and it doesn't hold any weight.
10:29: All right. Come, let us strike him with the tongue. Let us not pay attention to any of his words.
10:35: So hear me, O Yahweh, and listen to the voice of my adversaries. Should good be repaid with evil, yet they have dug a pit for my life.
10:50: Wait a second. I know a guy who did nothing but good and was repaid nothing but evil, right?
10:57: That would be Jesus, right? And they dug a pit for his life. Yeah, in fact, they even gave him a cross and nailed him to it, right?
11:05: So you'll note that in this life, if karma were true, all right, what a horrible doctrine that is.
11:15: If karma were true, then Jesus should have been the wealthiest man in his day. Should have been.
11:28: Right. Yeah, that's right. So apparently the reason that he was crucified is because he was the worst human being on earth.
11:35: But here's the truth of the matter. In one sense, you can say that about Jesus. He definitely was the worst person who ever lived because all of my sin, all of your sin, was laid on him.
11:47: The sin of the whole world. So you'll note there's a constant theme in scripture. And how then, as Christians, how do we overcome evil?
11:55: With good, even if that requires us to lay down our life, right?
12:00: So remember how I stood before you to speak good for them, to turn away your wrath for them.
12:08: Therefore, deliver up their children to famine. Give them over to the power of the sword.
12:13: Let their wives become childless and widowed. And may their men meet death by pestilence, their youths be struck down by the sword in battle.
12:21: And so what is Jeremiah doing? This is close to like an imprecatory psalm. You know, he's praying that for the impenitent ones who will not hear the word of the
12:28: Lord and will not repent, that go ahead and this is what I, over the years,
12:33: I've referred to this as going, you know, God go all Burger King on them. They don't want your forgiveness, then give them your wrath.
12:41: Because that's what, those are really your two choices. And you sit there, really is it that simple? Is it really that binary?
12:47: Yes. And God created us male and female and you either choose evil or you choose good. There's no in between.
12:53: You either choose forgiveness and mercy or you get wrath. So may a cry be heard from their houses when you bring the plunder suddenly upon them, plunderer.
13:02: For they have dug a pit to take me and laid snares for my life. Yet you, O Yahweh, know all their plotting to kill me.
13:10: Forgive not their iniquity, nor blot out their sin from your sight.
13:16: Let them be overthrown before you. Deal with them in the time of your anger. And that's the thing.
13:22: You don't want to be forgiven. You don't want to repent. You don't want to acknowledge your sin.
13:29: Okay, have it your way. Wait, your sin doesn't have to be forgiven.
13:37: So thus says Yahweh, go by a potter's earthenware flask. Take some of the elders of the people and some of the elders of the priests and go out to the
13:46: Valley of the Son of Hinnom at the entry of the potsherd gate. Valley of the
13:52: Son of Hinnom, by the way, is a place where they would sacrifice children to Molech. Okay, terrible, terrible sight.
14:00: And then proclaim there the word that I tell you. You shall say, hear the word of Yahweh, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem.
14:07: Thus says Yahweh of hosts. Saba is an army, so a lord of armies, the God of Israel.
14:13: Behold, I am bringing such disaster upon this place that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle because the people have forsaken me.
14:22: They have profaned this place by making offerings in it to other gods whom neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah have known.
14:32: And because they have filled this place with the blood of innocence and have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, which
14:42: I did not command or decree, nor did it come to my mind. And you're going to note here,
14:48: I'm going to kind of point this out. It's going to sound a little bit odd, but work with me here.
14:57: Have you noticed that human beings, that sometimes when they discover, when a couple discovers that the female is pregnant, that they're not keen on wanting another child?
15:09: Okay. Nowadays, they just abort the child, murder them in the womb. Back in the day, abortion wasn't a thing, at least the way it is now.
15:20: And so what they ended up doing with their unwanted children in a religious ceremony, under religious pretenses, oh, we're doing this for the sake of the people so that fertility can come on the land.
15:34: They would offer their children as sacrifices. So in our days, it's just clinical and scientific and sterile.
15:44: Back then, they had to cover their murder with religious activity. Yeah. So is it any wonder that some people actually argue in our day that abortion is the sacrament of feminism?
16:00: It really has become that. No, you're doing it for the good of the child. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
16:07: I know. I'm killing this child so that it will never have to experience poverty.
16:13: I'm killing this child because it's unwanted, and I would never treat it kindly. This is for its own good.
16:19: One thing I've noticed is the same people who condone abortion are the same ones that say, you deserve to live a happy life.
16:26: Yeah. They're also the ones that say that the death penalty is actually really important. Yeah, no, the inconsistency of the way sin gets you thinking is crazy.
16:38: So therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares Yahweh, when this place shall no more be called Topheth, or the
16:44: Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter. So God is basically saying this place, the Valley of the
16:49: Son of Hinnom, where the people would offer their children in sacrifice to Baal and Molech, it'll be rightly named the
16:56: Valley of Slaughter, which is what it is. And in this place, I will make void the plans of Judah and Jerusalem.
17:02: I will cause their people to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of those who seek their life,
17:07: I will give their dead bodies for food to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the earth.
17:13: And I will make this city a horror, a thing to be hissed at. Everyone who passes by it will be horrified and will hiss because of all of its wounds.
17:23: And that's exactly what happened after Nebuchadnezzar came and broke everything and destroyed everything.
17:29: At that time, what ended up happening is that the temple just was in ruins.
17:34: The wall had breaches in it and things like that. And it was that way for 70 plus years.
17:42: So I will make them eat the flesh of their sons. That's part of the punishments of the
17:48: Mosaic Covenant. Read the fine print in the book of Deuteronomy. And their daughters, and everyone shall eat the flesh of his neighbor in the siege and in the distress with which their enemies and those who seek their life afflict them.
18:00: Then you shall break the flask in the sight of the men who go with you and shall say to them, thus says
18:06: Yahweh of hosts, so I will break this people and the city as one breaks a potter's vessel so that it can never be mended.
18:15: Men shall bury in Topheth because there will be no place else to bury. So this holy site will then become a graveyard.
18:24: That's the idea. Thus will I do to this place declares Yahweh and to its inhabitants making this city like Topheth.
18:32: The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah and all the houses on whose roofs offerings have been offered to all the hosts of heaven, the drink offerings have been poured out to other gods, shall be defiled like the place of Topheth.
18:49: That was the other bit of this. Have you noticed that where idolatry reigns even to this day, food offerings and drink offerings are a thing?
18:59: I've never been to Thailand or to an Oriental nation that practices
19:06: Buddhism, but I like watching travel shows. One of my favorite
19:13: YouTube channels are Kara and Nate. They traveled to 100 countries in five years.
19:19: It was really interesting. One of the things I've noticed in these travel channel shows or travel channel type shows when they show places like Thailand and other places is that people there are constantly making little food offerings to deities.
19:36: They have these little images set up. One of the weirder ones I heard about on a guy who went around looking at the different alcoholic beverages that they had in different countries.
19:52: It's not How Beer Saved the World. I forget the name of the show. It was on the travel channel.
19:58: In Thailand, there was even a deity who was known for mischief and things like this.
20:05: If your home was being tormented by this particular deity, the proper offering to offer him were cigarettes and whiskey.
20:14: Is he Irish? No, he's not Irish. Good question though.
20:27: They were doing the same thing. Idolatry just has to do crazy things like this. Here's the thing.
20:38: The food offerings that were brought into the house of Yahweh, they were actually eaten by the priests and also the people who brought them.
20:45: No, the food wasn't spoiled. Even the tithe that was brought in, the tithe was like a
20:51: Thanksgiving feast. The purpose of the tithe was for people to eat in the actual presence of God.
20:58: A portion of it went to the priests and the rest would be consumed by their family members.
21:07: You'll note always Satan has to mimic God. Satan can't invent anything.
21:14: All he can do is twist the good that God has made. Then Jeremiah came from Topheth where Yahweh had sent him to prophesy.
21:25: He stood in the court of Yahweh's house and said to all the people, Thus says Yahweh of armies, the
21:31: God of Israel, Behold, I am bringing upon the city and upon all its towns all the disaster
21:36: I have pronounced against it because they have stiffened their necks refusing to hear my words.
21:45: That's the problem, isn't it? It was sin. Refusing to hear the words of God always cracks me up in a terrible way.
21:52: It makes me sad that over and again when I have to prepare a segment for Fighting for the
21:57: Faith and I'm working through the sermon archive of a big popular megachurch,
22:05: God's word barely makes any appearances anymore in some of these megachurches. I don't know what they've done with Jesus.
22:10: I don't know what they've done with God's word. All these fellows, all they ever talk about is themselves. It's really bizarre.
22:19: That's a tacit form. If you were to think of it, we're not going to actively attack
22:24: God's word. We're just going to quietly put it away. It's just not going to make any appearances whatsoever.
22:34: That's right. Because I haven't figured out the rhythm of resurrection yet. I'm working on it, though.
22:40: The rhythm is going to get you. The rhythm is going to get you. Anyway, all right.
22:46: Now, Paschler, the priest, the son of Emer, who was chief officer in the house of Yahweh, he heard
22:52: Jeremiah prophesying these things. Then Paschler beat Jeremiah the prophet and put him in the stocks that were in the upper
23:00: Benjamin gate of the house of Yahweh. And I want you to consider just what's really going on here for a second here.
23:09: This guy is the chief officer in the temple of Yahweh.
23:15: All right. He's running security there in the temple of Yahweh. And Jeremiah is an actual prophet of God.
23:24: The prophecies he's been giving are being recorded and become part of the
23:31: Bible itself. Subsequent generations will truly acknowledge
23:36: Jeremiah to be a prophet of Yahweh. He's speaking truth in the temple of God, and he's now been beaten and put in the stocks.
23:46: Of course, my question is, what kind of church is this? I mean, at Kongsvinger, how long has it been,
23:54: Marilyn, since we've had stocks here? Not in my lifetime. Not in your lifetime? Okay. All right. I just think that's an odd thing.
24:02: It's an odd artifact to have in a church, you know. This is the prayer room.
24:08: This is the torture room. Right. Yeah, Mikey. Okay. So the
24:15: Benjamin gate coming into the temple complex itself, there were several gates. So you have gates coming into the city of Jerusalem, and then there were several ascent gates coming into the actual, into the temple complex itself.
24:28: Okay. So Pasher beat Jeremiah the prophet, put him in the stocks that were in the upper room in the of the house of Yahweh.
24:37: He's prophesying words Yahweh gave him, and he's now in the stocks. So the next day when
24:42: Pasher released Jeremiah from the stocks, Jeremiah said to him, Yahweh does not call your name Pasher, but terror on every side.
24:52: Okay. And it's like, you just feel him going, wait, what? Okay. For thus says
24:58: Yahweh, behold, I will make you a terror to yourself and to all of your friends, that they shall fall by the sword of their enemies while you look on.
25:06: And I will give all Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall carry them captive to Babylon and shall strike them down with the sword.
25:15: Moreover, I will give all the wealth of the city and all its gains and all its prized belongings and all the treasures of the kings of Judah into the hand of their enemies who shall plunder them and seize them and carry them to Babylon.
25:28: And you Pasher and all who dwell in your house shall go into captivity. To Babylon you shall go, and there you shall die, and there you shall be buried, and you and all of your friends to whom you have prophesied falsely.
25:44: Now, this is going to kind of pick up a theme here. And that is, is that one of the things you see in scripture, and I would say also is happening in our day, is that God has an interesting thing that he does for false prophets.
25:59: What they are most known for sometimes can be the very thing that God will judge them with.
26:06: All right, I think of Fred Price here in this particular case. Fred Price, when I was growing up in Southern California, his face was constantly on television over the weekends.
26:17: And what was Fred Price? He was one of the original prosperity preachers, all right?
26:24: And he was notable because he was one of the first of these prosperity preachers who bought a
26:31: Rolls Royce, all right? And he was famous for talking about how your words, your faith -filled words create reality.
26:41: You have to positively confess and all this kind of stuff, right? And it was,
26:47: I think, a year ago that we did an episode, and I called it Fred Price's Mount Carmel moment because he got
26:54: COVID. And for all of his decreeing and declaring and his claim that we had authority over sickness and money and all this kind of stuff, all of his decreeing and declaring got him absolutely nowhere.
27:07: He ended up on a ventilator and then died, all right?
27:13: So here you have Pasher, who's not only like the chief officer there in the temple, he's also falsely prophesying.
27:20: And he wasn't keen on the true words that Jeremiah was speaking, so he had him beaten and locked up.
27:27: And so for his punishment from God, he was going to be dragged off to Babylon.
27:34: And his words were going to be shown definitively by God that they were false, and he was going to die in the place that he was assuring people they would never go.
27:45: God does not mess around with these false prophets. And even though his judgment is slow in our day, it might seem slow, it's not slow, when
27:57: God finally acts in judgment, I can think of a whole host of people that I would not want to be on the day of judgment,
28:03: Ken Copeland being the top of the list. And you'll note that God is rather good at making sure that the punishment fits the crime, so that when the punishment is meted out, people know exactly why that person is being punished, all right?
28:23: So now Jeremiah, he's going to talk a little bit of here because, you know, dealing with Yahweh can be a little bit challenging.
28:34: He says, I know what that's like.
28:46: You see the comment section on my YouTube channel? Holy smokes, it's the wild west there. Okay, you know, yeah, the keyboard warriors are really fun.
28:58: So whenever I speak out, I cry out, I shout violence and destruction for the word of Yahweh has become for me a reproach and a derision all the day long.
29:06: If I say I will not mention him or speak any more in his name, there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I'm weary with holding it in, and I cannot.
29:18: Okay, I would note that that's kind of a, that's a little bit more common than you think, all right?
29:26: So I think about the fact that, you know, when I was a kid, I wanted to be a pastor and wasn't sure if I should.
29:33: After I became a Lutheran, I was really kind of confused. I thought best if I not become a pastor because I still had to figure out what
29:40: Lutheranism was all about. You know, going from the Nazarene to Lutheranism is like going from darkness to light, and I still had to figure out how the light worked.
29:49: But I've kind of figured out I'll never become a pastor, and then I started getting that, that like splinter right in my brain that I can't never itch kind of thing, and I went to one of my pastors.
30:05: I went to Pastor Swirla, and I said, you know, Pastor Swirla, I think I might be being called into the pastoral office.
30:13: They said, oh, knock that off. The feeling will go away, just you know. But it didn't, and you know, in order to get me into the pastoral office,
30:23: God literally like wrecked every other option. It's like, you know, it's like He left me like this path and no other.
30:30: It's like, seriously? Really? And then, you know, and you can tell that God decided that I was really going to have to pay for, you know, dragging my feet because He stuck me in American Siberia, and we're experiencing third winter today.
30:50: Yeah, I wish I could. Yeah, but you know,
30:59: I remember my old friend Ken Silva. You know, it's like we hated doing heresy hunting when we were working together, and Ken, he actually tried to like get out of it, and he disappeared for a couple weeks.
31:17: I like called him up. I'm like, Ken, what are you doing? He's like, I told God I don't want to do this anymore, but then
31:23: I can't help it. I got to get back in the fight. You know, and so it's got, you know, interesting stuff.
31:30: So poor Jeremiah, he doesn't want to speak God's words, but there they are. They're inside of him burning, and he's,
31:35: I can't hold it in any longer, right? For I hear many whisper.
31:41: Hear their whisper, terror on every side, and that's always the thing about evil. They'll never confront you to your face.
31:47: They'll always whisper behind your back, and you know, you can tell that somebody's turned against you because things have gone tepid in the way they talk to you.
31:56: Terror on every side, denounce him. Let us denounce him. Say, all of my close friends, yep, watching for my fall.
32:06: Perhaps he will be deceived, and we can overcome him and take our revenge on him.
32:11: How dare you tell us that we're going to go into captivity, but Yahweh is with me as a dread warrior.
32:18: Therefore, my persecutors, they will stumble. They will not overcome me. They will be greatly shamed, for they will not succeed.
32:26: Their eternal dishonor will never be forgotten, and that's a hint at eternal damnation.
32:35: Oh, Yahweh of armies who tests the righteous, who sees the heart and the mind, let me see your vengeance upon them, for to you
32:42: I have committed my cause. Sing to Yahweh, praise Yahweh, for he has delivered the life of the needy from the hand of the evildoers.
32:53: Cursed be the day on which I was born, the day when my mother bore me.
32:59: Let it not be blessed. Cursed be the man who brought the news to my father. A son is born to you, making him very glad.
33:07: Let that man be like the cities and the Yahweh overthrew without pity. Let him hear a cry in the morning and an alarm at noon, because he did not know me in the womb, so my mother would have been my grave and her womb forever great.
33:24: Why did I come out of the womb to see toil and sorrow and spend my days in shame?
33:30: Now I'm going to note something here. He's talking about the difficulty, the actual suffering that people go through who preach the truth.
33:38: There is nothing easy about it, and I'll tell you who I've never heard preach a sermon on this text.
33:45: Joel Osteen. Because Joel Osteen doesn't preach anything about real suffering, about bearing the reproach of Christ, of what it costs to believe and to confess and to do the truth.
34:04: So Jeremiah wasn't having his best life now. Good night. He must have given a negative confession.
34:11: Could you imagine Joel Osteen just reading this passage? Curse be the day on which I was born.
34:17: It just doesn't work. It doesn't fit. Now hang on a second here.
34:28: I'm going to check questions on what we've done so far, and let's see.
34:36: That cough mixture will give me chest hair. Okay, so Tony, I think your point validates why the liturgy was changed to combine
34:44: Palm Sunday and Passion Sunday. Yeah, so I'm glad you guys were talking about that. Okay, some argue abortion is health care.
34:51: In some instances it may be, but this is just an excuse. It is not health care.
34:57: It's murder. Through and through, it's murder. Most of the time, yeah.
35:08: It's the rarest of rare occasions where taking the life of the child is like the only option to save the mother.
35:15: That's the rare one. Yeah, we just popped them right out via c -section early.
35:25: All right, let's see here. Rachel, so I saw an article about a man who set himself on fire on Earth Day in front of the
35:33: Supreme Court and died. A man immolated himself in front of the
35:38: Supreme Court because the world's going crazy. Yeah, Stephen Elliott had the actual, yeah, so the
35:55: Memeology 101 video with Matthew Dowd saying Jesus would be a groomer. Yeah, it's crazy. It's absolutely bonkers.
36:01: Yeah, the link is in the chat. I recommend if you've clicked the link, have a barf bag handy.
36:08: Okay, I mean the Jesus he believes in is the exact opposite of the actual Jesus. Exactly, Jesus who said it would be better for a millstone to be tied around your neck and thrown into the depths of the sea than to cause one of these little ones, one of my little ones, to stumble, right?
36:29: You know, yeah. Rachel says, went to India, saw a lot of altars. Yeah, so pastor, could you explain
36:36: Judges 11 31? All right, let's take a look. I don't know. I have to see it first.
36:47: Judges 11. Well, wait a second. Doesn't Scripture say thou shalt not judge? Oh, sorry, pastor humor.
36:59: Okay, all right. Oh, this text is horrible.
37:08: Okay, so this helps a little bit here, okay? Whoever put the title over this section of Scripture is one that recognizes what's really going on here.
37:23: And this is a theme that you can actually see in Scripture. Men who make rash vows, all right?
37:30: This is something we should never do, period.
37:36: Christ says, let your yes be yes and your no be no. So keep that in mind.
37:42: And I'll give you an example. You know, I had a boss back in the day who was prone to making rash vows and making promises that he couldn't even deliver on.
37:55: You know, I'll play you in darts. Okay, so we're playing darts. If you hit a bullseye right now, then
38:01: I'll give you a five dollar pay raise. You know, he doesn't have the authority to do that. And I hit the bullseye. I said, well,
38:06: I was just joking. Yeah, rash vow, right? Okay, crazy kind of stuff.
38:12: So this is a section about a rash vow. The Spirit of Yahweh was upon Jephthah. And Jephthah is going to be a judge here, and he's going to be
38:20: God's instrument to help free the Israelites yet again from slavery to another tribe because of their idolatry.
38:28: So he passed through Gilead and Manasseh and passed on to Mizpah of Gilead. And from Mizpah of Gilead, he passed on to the
38:34: Ammonites. And Jephthah made a promise to Yahweh and said, if you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when
38:43: I return in peace from the Ammonites shall be Yahweh's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.
38:50: So Jephthah crossed over the Ammonites to fight against them, and Yahweh gave them into his hand, and he struck them from Arur to the neighborhood of Mineth, 20 cities, and as far as Abel Karamim, with a great blow.
39:05: So the Ammonites were subdued before the people of Israel. But when Jephthah came to his home at Mizpah, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with tambourines and with dances.
39:14: She was his only child. Terrible story, by the way. He ends up offering her up. A similar thing happens in one of the
39:25: Saul's, you know, on one of these conquests. He's acting as God's agent against a particular group of people, and Saul makes a rash oath, you know, if anyone has anything to eat before we've conquered our enemies, then that person will be put to death.
39:42: And Jonathan wasn't even aware that his father had said that, and Jonathan, during the battle, came across a beehive and took some of the honey, and it lit up his eyes, and he wanted to share some with the other men, and what ended up happening is that there was a whole rigmarole, you know, about this, and when it finally was revealed that Jonathan had done this despite the king's rash oath,
40:06: Saul was ready to kill Jonathan for it, but the people said, no, he's done nothing wrong.
40:12: Okay, so this is a section that has to do with making rash oaths, and this is not to Jephthah's praise at all.
40:22: This is a tragic story, and God did not tell Jephthah to do this, to offer up his daughter, and note when he made the vow, he said, whatever, you know, so if it had been the family cat, you know, come here,
40:38: Tabby, you know, you're dead, you know, it just, it's such, it shows something really, really wrong here.
40:46: So God uses a man who's sinful in his theology, and his piety is really off, yeah.
41:04: The motive is not listed, the motive is not listed, but let me go back to the words and see if we can at least get at, if you will give the
41:15: Ammonites into my hand, whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me. Yeah, he's bargaining, it's a rash vow, bargaining with God, and God had already told him he would give him the victory.
41:29: Yeah, this was done, yeah, yeah, quid pro quo doesn't work with God, okay.
41:39: Okay, so are burnt offerings different from those of food offerings that were eaten?
41:47: Okay, so when you bring a burnt offering, a portion of the burnt offering was still eaten, all right, so a portion of it was still given to the priests, and then the rest of it was usually consumed and burned up, and when you read the details in the book of Leviticus regarding all of the different sacrifices, it's very interesting, the portion that usually gets burned up are the entrails and the fat, okay.
42:13: Right, you know, so and what God forbids, he specifically says this, that you are forbidden from eating the fat and these things, and so that's the portion that ends up getting burnt in the burnt offering.
42:28: Now, you know, for the most part, there may be an exception or two, and some of the other more exotic offerings that are offered in the book of Leviticus, but I'm doing this from memory, but if you have never taken a look at all of the book of Leviticus and kind of worked it all out, you basically, there's an offering for just about every sin you can possibly think of under the sun, which basically,
42:50: I consider Leviticus like kind of the subtext of it, forgiving sins is a bloody affair, you know, there's nothing easy about it.
43:02: Yeah, you know, all right, so hopefully that answers our question regarding Jephthah and his offering of his daughter, which was done out of unbelief, rather than believing the
43:15: Lord, he bargained with the Lord, and that went very poorly for his daughter. Now, let me see if I hit this, there we go, okay, all right, let's see here,
43:27: Kai says, the German lady said, German lady, I guess that's Marlena, I said that women priests in every, in diocese, yeah, same here in Finland, situation is even worse,
43:40: Chris Rose will speak on the same conference as our parliament member, yeah, she was on trial recently, real quick,
43:47: Kai, was Pavi found not guilty, or what, you know, she was, huh, she was found not guilty, and they're appealing it, oh wow, okay,
44:01: I look forward to meeting her, by the way, that's, oh my goodness, yeah, yeah, the, let's just say the state -run
44:09: Lutheran churches all in Germany and Scandinavia, they are a full -on apostate at this point, and if you, let me just put it this way, if you have no good church to attend, all right,
44:25: God would not be keen on you attending an apostate church with a priestess, all right, we're told to mark and avoid heretics and those who teach contrary doctrines, who act contrary to God's word, it would be better for you to stay at home and tune into Kongsvinger or read your bible with your family than to attend a church like that, so, yeah, my goodness,
44:52: Fred Price and Creflo Dollar, yeah, I remember that one, oh, what was his name, there was a fellow who, a prosperity preacher who lived down in the
45:02: Bahamas, and he and his wife were killed in his private jet, they had an accident, and they perished in their private jet on final approach to their
45:10: Bahama airport, so, you know, just, I see things like this and go, that is not an accident, that is, that's like the hand of God, right, all right,
45:23: Molina says, Jealousy might catch fire if he read the passage like that, yeah, I know, if he has hypertension, he'll have a heart attack, all right, a little off topic, any thoughts on Mike Winger?
45:33: Okay, so, Tony, my thoughts on Mike Winger is, Mike Winger is, if I could describe him as anything that I've seen in my life, he reminds me kind of an old school 1980s, 1990s type evangelical, mildly charismatic, but he has a love for the word of God, and there's a lot of things that he says that are, that there's some, there's a lot of truth in what he says, and there's also some error in what he says, and so,
46:02: I always make this recommendation, whoever you listen to, especially Rosebro, don't listen with an open mind, always listen with an open
46:11: Bible. Winger does take efforts to back the things he says up with scripture, and I've noticed that he has begrudgingly lately begun to speak more clearly and boldly against some of the false teachers.
46:27: He did a wonderful, like, very long review of a Joel Osteen sermon, and Joel Osteen knocked, gave him a copyright strike for it, okay, which
46:39: I could have told him that he would do, because we've had to change things up in the past regarding how we deal with Joel Osteen.
46:46: There's a group of false teachers that we already know what's going to happen if we critique them.
46:53: They're going to claim copyright. They have no regard for the laws of fair use, and so, this is why we twist up their faces and distort their voices and things like this, because by transforming their stuff, it makes it harder for, they're not automatically notified by YouTube that somebody has critiqued their content.
47:19: They have to manually claim it, and those hoops are a little harder to jump through.
47:26: So, yeah, but my thoughts on Winger is that as far as mildly charismatic old -school evangelicals go, he's kind of a quintessential example of a dying breed within evangelicalism, and he has some good things to say.
47:46: I listened with interest when he did his segment on women pastors, which
47:53: I thought was interesting, and I thought that the most useful thing that he said in the midst of all of that was that, don't give me your opinions.
48:01: We need to learn as Christians how to think biblically, and he's correct about that. So, I would say that there's much that I can say amen to in Mike Winger, and then there's some things that I can't say amen to at all.
48:14: So, you know, I would, if I had a private conversation with him, we'd have an open
48:20: Bible discussion on a few things, so that's the best way I can put it. All right, all right, so she was not guilty, as well as Bishop.
48:29: Good, all right, thank you. I'm old enough, I'm old enough to have increased the length of my arms.
48:35: Okay, all right, Mike Winger, good, okay, good. I thought his Bart Ehrman critique concerning Mark was good.
48:42: Bart Ehrman, yeah, anybody who takes Bart Ehrman to task is doing a godly thing. So, Bart Ehrman, you know, he's just been a mess the whole time.
48:52: All right, let me, we've kind of worked our way through the questions. Let's keep working our way then through Jeremiah chapter 21.
48:59: Jerusalem will fall to Nebuchadnezzar, and we all know from history that this is exactly how this went down, but this message from Jeremiah given to him by God was not well received.
49:12: Okay, this did not get people excited in a we need to repent kind of way.
49:18: So, this is the word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh when King Zedekiah sent to him Pasher, the son of Malchiah and Zephaniah, the priest, the son of Messiah, saying, inquire of Yahweh for us.
49:33: So, apparently the kings wanted, they were going to inquire of Yahweh, and they went to Jeremiah. Inquire of Yahweh for us for Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, is making war against us.
49:42: Perhaps Yahweh will deal with us according to all of his wonderful deeds and will make him withdraw from us.
49:53: What? You can just see Jeremiah going, well, what about that idol right there?
49:59: That one over there? And what about? Okay, so Jeremiah said to them, thus you shall say to Zedekiah, thus says
50:08: Yahweh, the God of Israel, behold, I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands and with which you are fighting against the king of Babylon and against the
50:18: Chaldeans who are besieging you outside the walls, and I will bring them together into the midst of the city.
50:25: I myself will fight against you with outstretched hand and strong arm in anger and in fury and in great wrath.
50:34: Now, a little bit of a note here. This then is a type and shadow of God's judgment that, you know, that will take place at the end of the world, right?
50:45: You see similar themes. When Christ returns in glory to judge the living and the dead, what's he riding?
50:53: A white horse. What's he swinging? A sword. How deep is the blood?
51:03: For the horse. Waist deep for the horse. So when Christ returns, you're going to note this here, he's coming back and Christ himself is going to fight humanity.
51:15: He's going to be putting armies and humans to death himself, and the blood flowing as a result of this is going to result that Jesus' horse is going to be waist deep in human blood.
51:29: That's a pretty graphic picture, right? And here you have God saying to King Zedekiah, I'm going to fight against you.
51:37: In fact, I'm joining the Chaldeans and I'm going to fight against you with outstretched arm. Zedekiah's face should have appropriately turned white and he should have repented in sackcloth and ashes.
51:50: I will strike down the inhabitants of the city, both man and beast. They shall die of a great pestilence.
51:56: Afterwards, declares Yahweh, I will give Zedekiah, the king of Judah, and his servants and the people in the city who survived the pestilence, the sword, and the famine into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those who seek their lives.
52:12: He shall strike them down with the edge of the sword. He shall not pity them or spare them or have compassion.
52:24: Well, that would give one nightmares. All right. And to this people you shall say, thus says Yahweh, behold,
52:29: I set before you the way of life and the way of death. He who stays in the city shall die.
52:38: So no, even in the midst of this, God is giving compassionately.
52:44: You want to live? You can live. You want to die?
52:50: You can die. So you who want to live, you have to trust me and my words in the prophet that I've sent.
53:00: So here's how you live. He who stays in the city will die by the sword, by famine, by pestilence, but he who goes out and surrenders to the
53:09: Chaldeans who are besieging you shall live. Now, that's a scary thing to do, by the way.
53:15: Okay. Really scary. You sit there and go, all right, well, God's gonna,
53:23: I am gonna die. So you come out, you're waving your little white hanky, I surrender. Right?
53:30: That guy lives. Everybody who stays in the city, dead.
53:37: But this takes faith. Those who believe the word of God are saved.
53:47: They do not die. God provides a way out. When Christ returns in glory to judge the living and the dead, does everybody on planet earth perish by the sword of Christ?
54:00: No. Who lives? The ones who listen to Christ. Who dies?
54:08: The ones who stay in their sin. Right? What's he saying?
54:15: I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know.
54:23: I don't know if he's sitting on the fence or not. So, we'll keep reading and see what the
54:29: Zedekiah does in response. All right. So he who goes out and surrenders to the Chaldeans who are besieging you will live and shall have his life as a prize of war.
54:39: For I have set my face against the city for harm, not for good, declares Yahweh. It shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon and he shall burn it with fire.
54:48: Again, what happens to planet earth at Christ's return? The whole planet burned with fire. This is a type and shadow of Christ's judgment.
54:57: So, and to the house of the king of Judah say, hear the word of Yahweh, O house of David.
55:03: Thus says Yahweh, execute justice in the morning and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who's been robbed.
55:10: Lest my wrath go forth like fire and burn with none to quench it because of your evil deeds. Behold, I am against you,
55:16: O inhabitant of the valley. O rock of the plain, declares Yahweh. You who say, who shall come down against us or who shall enter our habitations?
55:26: I will punish you according to the fruit of your deeds, declares Yahweh. I will kindle a fire in her forest and it shall devour all that is around her.
55:37: God's not messing around, you know. And here's the thing, God extends mercy and forgiveness.
55:45: He continues to extend mercy and forgiveness and he continues to extend mercy and forgiveness and the call is to repent.
55:54: And at some point God says, time's up. See, today is the day of salvation.
56:00: Today is the day of God's mercy. I cannot tell you if tomorrow is. Well, I'll get around to repenting, you know, when
56:08: I'm on my deathbed. Really? Really? How do you know you're going to have one of those?
56:15: How do you know you're not going to perish with your vehicle careening off of a cliff? Are you getting hit by a, you know, sugar beet truck?
56:26: Right? You don't. Today is the day of salvation. God calls us to repent today. He doesn't say to do it tomorrow, you know.
56:34: Or Rachel says, or hit by a bus. Touche. Yeah, right?
56:41: So thus says Yahweh, go down to the house of the King of Judah and speak there this word. Say, hear the word of Yahweh, O King of Judah, who sits on throne of David, you and your servants and your people who enter these gates.
56:53: Thus says Yahweh, do justice and righteousness deliver from the hand of the oppressor, him who has been robbed.
57:00: Apparently as King Zedekiah wasn't exactly known for justice and helping those who really he was supposed to minister for.
57:08: Do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place.
57:14: For if you will indeed obey this word, then there shall enter the gates of this house kings who sit on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, and they and their servants and their people.
57:25: But if you will not obey these words, I swear by myself. You know that God has to swear by himself.
57:31: You know, he doesn't, has no one greater to swear by. You know, this thing that God does. I swear to me. Yeah, I swear by myself,
57:37: God says. Declares Yahweh that this house shall become a desolation. For thus says
57:42: Yahweh, concerning the house of the king of Judah, you are like Gilead to me, like the summit of Lebanon.
57:48: Yet surely I will make you a desert and an uninhabited city. I will prepare destroyers against you, each with his weapons, and they shall cut down your choice of cedars and cast them into the fire.
58:01: Many nations will pass by the city and every man will say to his neighbor, why has Yahweh dealt thus with this great city?
58:08: And they will answer because they have forsaken the covenant of Yahweh, their God, and they have worshiped other gods and serve them.
58:17: Weep not for him who is dead, nor grieve for him, but weep bitterly for him who goes away, for he shall return no more to see his native land.
58:27: All right, this is where we'll pick up. We'll pick up the message of the sons of Josiah next time. All right, good to see you all.