Sunday Morning, March 10, 2019 AM

The Gospel as the Only Plea Before God

Heavenly Father we come before you this morning and confess that we we have no plea we have nothing to say before you to win your approval to convince you to love us accept us forgive us. We've just got one thing.

And that's the fact that Jesus Christ is your only begotten dearly beloved son born of a virgin living a righteous and complete life having died upon the cross for our sins he is risen again. And at your right hand this is own this is it.

This is the person and work of Jesus Christ. Your son is the only reason why we may know you and love you and pray to you. Be known as your children. Be filled with the love of the Holy Spirit. Have hope of everlasting life.

So father we we come just as we are with one plea which is who is Jesus Christ. And we look to you today as your children knowing that we must not stay as we are for you have purposed in saving us through Christ to change us and to conform us to your own image an image that is perfectly revealed in Christ.

So here today we come to your word as those made in your image. We need your word. We need it more than our necessary food. And we ask that you would be so gracious and kind as to serve us the food from your word.

We are hungry. Amen. Jeremiah 26. We'll be looking at verses 1 through 7 1 through 11. The title of the sermon is shooting straight. May get you shot. And as promised from last week when we looked at first Peter chapter 4 verses 1 through 7 and and really considering the fact that all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.

This is the inevitable consequence of simply following Christ. We see Jeremiah hearing the word of the words of Christ preaching the words of Christ following Christ and lo and behold he is persecuted he is targeted.

And we'll see that today in verses 1 through 11 of Jeremiah 26 just to remind us where we are in the book. In Jeremiah 24 we learned about two baskets of figs and only the grace of God makes the difference whether we're in the good basket or the bad basket.

And we heard about a this was a sermon given after an invasion by Babylon not the invasion but an invasion where the king was taken away and many of the leading people of Judah were taken away. The gold of the temple was taken away.

That happened in 597 BC. Then chapter 25 began and we went through chapter 25 and saw that we had backed up a few years to 603 BC that in the fourth year of Jehoiakim Jeremiah is preaching and giving a message and warning about the big invasion yet to come when Jerusalem will be destroyed and in a catastrophe.

And that's of course going to happen in 586 BC. So we're jumping around as far as the dates and today we're going to be reading a passage where we see Jeremiah preaching in 607 right at the beginning of Jehoiakim's reign.

So when Jeremiah is preaching in chapter 26 chapter 24 has not happened yet or chapter 25. So things sometimes are put out of order in terms of history in the Bible but they are put together according to God's themes that he wants us to see.

And I think we'll find that in in our text. Last last week we were in first Peter 4 1 through 7 and we were instructed there to arm ourselves with a particular mindset that even as Christ suffered in the flesh so we are to arm ourselves with that thought so that we understand that all of our suffering is suffering in Christ.

And it is impossible it is absolutely impossible for Christians to suffer outside of Christ. We may suffer for our own sins doing wrong things and have consequences. But even this and even in this we are still in Christ and repenting of our sins and asking him to help us as we live through those consequences.

But we need to understand that our suffering is for Christ and Christ alone. This week we're going to be in Jeremiah and see how Jeremiah suffers. So if you will stand with me I'm going to read Jeremiah 26 verses 1 through 11.

And this is the word of the Lord in the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah. This word came from the Lord saying thus says the Lord stand in the court of the Lord's house and speak to all the cities of Judah who have come to worship in the Lord's house.

All the words that I have commanded you to speak to them do not omit a word. Perhaps they will listen and everyone will turn from his evil way that I may repent of the calamity which I am planning to do to them because of the evil of their deeds.

And you will say to them thus says the Lord if you will not listen to me to walk in my law which I have set before you to listen to the words of my servants the prophets who I have been sending to you again and again but you have not listened.

Then I will make this house like Shiloh and this city I will make a curse to all the nations of the earth. The priests and the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the house of the Lord.

When Jeremiah finished speaking all that the Lord had commanded him to speak to all the people the priests and the prophets and all the people seized him saying you must die. Why have you prophesied in the name of the Lord saying this house will be like Shiloh and this city will be desolate without inhabitant.

And all the people gathered about Jeremiah in the house of the Lord. When the officials of Judah heard these things they came up from the king's house to the Lord to the house of the Lord and sat in the entrance of the new gate of the Lord's house.

Then the priests and the prophets spoke to the officials and to all the people saying a death sentence for this man for he has prophesied against this city. As you have heard in your hearing this is the word of our Lord.

You may be seated. There was a recent policy change from the city's fire department was announced. Our firefighters will no longer conduct search-and-rescue inside burning structures. It is simply too hot.

They might get burned. Wouldn't that be strange. If that were true. I mean what are firefighters supposed to do. Well yes fight fire. But they are trained for that. When they sign up they know that that is what they're signing up to do.

But what if a fire department said something like that they might get burned. We're not going to do any more of this search-and-rescue inside of a burning structure. It's too hot. We might get burned.

Jude wrote to the church and says in verse 3. Beloved. While I was making every effort to write to you about our common salvation I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the Saints.

What might be involved in contending earnestly for the faith. Many things are listed in Jude. But also these things at the end of the letter verses 22 and 23 he says. Have mercy on some who are doubting.

Save others snatching them out of the fire. Search-and-rescue and burning structures. So what firemen are called to do is what Christians are called to do spiritually. Snap save others snatching them out of the fire and have an on some have mercy with fear with reverence hating even the garment polluted by the flesh.

What what is involved in that. It's it's it's incumbent upon us that we preach repentance to snatch people from the fire having mercy on them with the fear of God hating the garment polluted by the flesh means that we preach repentance that you and I say to those we care about.

You must stop you must stop believing these lies and you must stop living these ways and you must turn back from your sins. Repentance is part of what we must say part of what we must say and we can never preach repentance without risking persecution.

We can never preach repentance without risking persecution. We can never preach biblical repentance without risking costly persecution but risk free preaching saves no one. Risk-free preaching saves no one, not even the preacher.

1st Timothy 4 verse 13 Paul says to the young preacher Timothy, until I come give attention to the public reading of scripture to exhortation and teaching. So read the scripture out loud, preach it and teach it.

Do not neglect the spiritual gift within you which was bestowed on you through prophetic utterance with the laying on of hands by the presbytery. Take pains with these things and be absorbed in them so that your progress will be evident to all.

Here's the verse, verse 16. Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching. Persevere in these things for as you do this you will ensure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you. Pay close attention to what you're teaching, what you're preaching.

Make sure not to stray from from the things that you're supposed to say. This is what makes sure that the gospel is being preached so that people may be saved. But gospel preaching includes repentance.

Jesus came preaching and he said repent and believe the gospel. Repentance is essential to the message and it's risky. Every call to repentance invites persecution and that's the theme of these 11 verses.

Every call to repentance invites persecution but shooting straight, saying you need to repent, shooting straight is absolutely necessary in this. So I want to give you some keys to shooting straight and then I'm going to share with you some secrets about getting shot.

We'll see how far we get. We have to shoot straight, tell the truth, call to repentance. There are some keys to shooting straight. We see these in the life of Jeremiah. We see it in terms of authority, that Jeremiah knew on what authority he said what he said.

It was very clear. Notice verses 1 and 2 of chapter 26. In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word came from the Lord, saying so the word arrived and the word spoke.

Thus says the Lord. Stand in the court of the Lord's house and speak to all the cities of Judah who have come to worship in the Lord's house. All the words that I have commanded you to speak to them do not omit a word.

The word shows up and says I have a word from the Lord to give to the people as I command you so speak these words don't leave out a word. Where's the authority coming from? It's not from Jeremiah's personality, it's not from the dearth of his experiences, it's not because Jeremiah knows more about the way the world works.

Jeremiah stands up to preach because he has a word from the Lord. The authority is from Christ himself. The word came saying. The word showed up and said thus sayeth the Lord. When Christ was born of a virgin and he grew up and was 30 years old, he came after being baptized by John the Baptist, he came and he was the word and the word came saying thus sayeth the Lord.

We find it New Testament, we find it Old Testament. The word comes saying thus says the Lord. He said it to Jeremiah and he said stand and speak all the words I have commanded you to speak. Jeremiah comes preaching as Christ tells him to speak and he preaches to Judah saying thus says the Lord.

The authority is important. If you're gonna shoot straight make sure that the authority with which you speak is clear. And God brings to their attention all the the law that he had set before them and all the prophets that he had sent to them in verses four and five.

I have set my law before your eyes, you have been seeing this law, you have been studying this law, I've given this to you. So long ago in Deuteronomy chapter 6 verses 4 and following it says, Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. These words which I am commanding you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise up.

You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates. And they actually did that. They actually wrote things on the sides of their doors and they actually put things on their hands and on their heads and so that visually they were always looking at the law of God, the Word of God.

What God wanted them to do was to, in every step they took in normal life, from the time they got up to the time they went to bed, everything that they thought when it came to their work, their labor in the day, based on what was attached to their hands, everything that they did should be thought of in terms of the Word of God.

Where they lived should be understood in terms of the Word of God. Everything that they thought should have this gate of God's Word right on the front of their head so that wherever they looked and whatever they did and however they lived, they would be understanding it in terms of the Word of God.

That's what they were called to do. And when they didn't, God sent prophets and said, get back to it. Because man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And God is telling his image, those made in his image, again and again and again, you're not supposed to live without my word.

What kind of life is that? That life is no life at all. And he sent his prophets again and again and again to tell them to pay attention to his word. So when Jeremiah shoots straight, he does so by the authority of God, not his own authority.

We want to grow in grace, we want to help one another, that's why we are a church, we're here to help one another grow in Christ. And to do that, we have to have what Jesus often said in the in the King James, verily, verily, truly, truly, Jesus says, listen to this, pay attention to this.

And we have to have that as part of our vocabulary when we talk with one another. If we want to help each other grow in Christ, if we want one another to grow in wisdom, and to grow in our understanding of the truth, to grow in holiness, to grow in our use of authority, in our submission to authority, if we want to grow in godliness, if we want to grow in godliness and love God more, love each other more correctly, take care of what God has entrusted to us in the right way, if we want to grow in godliness, to grow into the maturity in Christ, we have to have verily, verily, we have to say that to one another.

Verily, verily, dear brother, have you thought about this from the Word of God? Dear sister, have you thought about this from the Word of God? We have to speak the Scriptures into one another's lives.

The Scriptures, the authority of Jesus Christ into one another's lives. And before we ship forth our verily, verily, we need to sound out our amen, amen. Because that's all verily, verily is in the Greek, is amen, amen.

Have we so settled it in our heart? Amen, amen. That's what God says, yes indeed, I agree, I'm on God's side. And when that amen is settled in our hearts, then we may ship out the verily, verily to one another.

Because we are submitted to the Word of God. How clear are you when claiming authority? When you share with someone, hey look, you really need to think this way, you need to change your life this way, and we got to help each other in that.

But how clear are you when claiming authority? Do you revert to feelings? Well, I feel like you need to hear this. Do we revert to experiences and stories? Well, something happened to me once upon a time.

Or do we go to the Scriptures and say, here's a word from the Lord. It's not my word, it's the Word from the Lord. That is our authority. And when we shoot straight, we better shoot straight with the Word of God as our authority, not because we feel this way or we've had this kind of experience.

I was reading through Ezekiel as part of my Bible reading this year, and I came through Ezekiel, and in chapter 13 there are many woes against the prophets who speak according to their own heart. Woe to the prophets who speak by their own heart.

So first key to shooting straight is being clear in our authority, and the second key to shooting straight is understanding the audience. Notice where Jeremiah goes to preach. The Lord sends him to the court of the Lord's house, the court of the temple.

He says, stand in the court of the temple, the Lord's house, and speak to all the cities of Judah. And in verses 5 through 7, we see this. It's the message of the prophets to those who have not listened.

Again, Jeremiah comes and says the same things that they weren't listening to before, but we also hear that if they do not pay attention, if they do not repent, they're going to end up a curse to all the nations of the earth.

So if they do not repent, they will become a message to all the nations. And Jeremiah obeyed the Lord so that in verse 7, the priests and the prophets and all the people heard what Jeremiah was saying.

So when we think about the audience to which Jeremiah preached, he went to the most public place he could, the highest place, in fact, in all of Jerusalem, to speak to all the people who were there. So he spoke to all the people, the officials heard what he said, as well as the prophets and the priests, and he told them all the very same thing.

He told them all the very same thing. It didn't matter that the people weren't the priests and the priests weren't the prophets and the prophets weren't the officials. It didn't matter what their particular situation was.

It didn't matter their background. It didn't matter what they had experienced in their past. He said the very same thing to all of them. The very same thing to all of them. There was no vantage point epistemology.

Well, you can't know what I know because you haven't experienced what I've experienced. That's a lie from the pits of hell. There was no ethnic Gnosticism. Well, because you don't know my background and know my culture, then your word means nothing to me.

Actually, the same word was preached to all. Even the destruction of the people of Judah would become a message to all the nations of the earth. You see, God's authority proves binding for all audiences.

God's authority proves binding for all audiences. There is a word that is important for missions but can be misused in missions and that word is contextualization. It's a $10 word to say this. People who live in different cultures aren't going to understand what you're saying when you use idioms and other kinds of cultural references.

They're not going to understand you and you got to understand how they think and their experiences so you can relate to how they understand the way the world works. When you preach the Bible to them, you have to be conscious of their culture so you don't go over certain tripwires.

Here's a good use of contextualization. The Master's Academy International, which is the mission arm of John MacArthur's church, has sent several missionaries across the world and they write back and they talk about different challenges they face.

I've read a couple of their books and what they do is they say, okay, here's what's going on in this culture. Here's what's going on in this culture. Here's what they believe about the Bible. Here's what they've been taught to believe about the Bible.

Here's what they've been taught to believe about God. Here's the sins that are so easily besetting to the people here that may be different from other places and here's what they do. I say, here's all the cultural issues in this culture and every single one of these marks a path of repentance.

To give up on the wrong ideas about God. To give up on the wrong ideas about the Bible. To give up on the sins that have so been enshrined in their culture. And that's a good use of contextualization.

It's seeing what is a part of a culture. We should do this in our own cultures. What is it about us that we think is okay that we and the things that we believe wrongly about God and the Bible and so on.

Each one of those things marks a path for repentance. The wrong way of using it is saying, well, because these people are different and live in a different time and they have different language, things like the substitutionary atonement of Christ isn't for them.

A justification that we're righteous in the sight of God through faith in Christ is not a doctrine that should be taught to people from Eastern cultures. And that's happening in missions today. The wrong use of contextualization.

But time and again we look in the Word of God. We find that the same message is given to everyone. And if there's any contextualization, it's simply marking the paths of repentance. What the Jew had to repent from, and there was much, was different than what the Gentile had to repent from, though there was much.

But they both were repenting to the same message. I think it's important for us to consider. Jeremiah preaches the same message to all the people. So if you're reading in books and you come across things called, well, let's put it this way.

If you're reading a book somewhere and someone wants to quote a Latin American theologian, they're quoting a Roman Catholic who believes in liberation theology, wherein someone is saved not because their sins are forgiven, but because the oppressed are no longer oppressed.

When someone begins to quote and talk about black theology, feminist theology, liberation theology, queer theology, Latin theology, you know you found a false prophet. Thirdly, accuracy. If you're gonna shoot straight, you gotta be accurate.

Notice that Christ tells Jeremiah to speak all the words he commanded him to speak. He says to herald all the words he commanded him to say. He said it in verse 2. He says, speak to all the cities of Judah who have come to worship in the Lord's house all the words that I have commanded you to speak to them.

Do not omit a word. Do not omit a word. That word means don't eliminate a single word of what I've told you to say, though it probably would have been less offensive if Jeremiah had omitted at least a couple of words that got the crowd so upset.

But he wasn't allowed to omit a single word. He also, the term in the Hebrew also means don't diminish a single word. So the words that God gave Jeremiah to say, he had to say it without diminishing one of the words, softening it or obscuring it.

He wasn't supposed to obscure a single word, to use a term that may hide the real meaning of it so that, you know, I don't get shot. When God told Jeremiah to preach, he said do not omit, do not diminish, do not obscure a single word as we are so, have a tendency to do.

Jesus knew what he was saying when he was discipling his followers and said don't fear man, fear God. Don't fear man and what they may do, fear God. Because if we fear man, we are going to get rid of certain words and we're not going to use biblical terms anymore.

We're going to diminish certain biblical terms, we're not going to use those anymore. We're going to obscure them and hide them so that people will not be so upset when we shoot straight and say what the Word of God says.

As careful as Christ incarnate was to speak exactly what the Father told him to say, so also he speaks through the Spirit in the Old Testament, every single word. The scriptures cannot be broken, Jesus says in John 10.

2nd Timothy 3 16 says that all scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness. All scripture, all scripture. Jesus says in Matthew 5 18 that heaven and earth may pass away but the Word of God will not pass away, not even a yod or a serif, the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet that looks like an apostrophe or the smallest little flange coming off one of the letters is how accurate the Word of God is and how it will not fail.

When you think about how accurate the scriptures are and how accurate the preachers of scripture must be, Jesus when he was speaking with the Sadducees who did not believe in the resurrection from the dead, when you died that was it, and he was talking to them, he spoke to them from the only books of the Bible they thought were authoritative, the first five books of the Bible, and he said, have you never read where it says that God says I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?

I am the God in the present tense, not the past tense. So Jesus disproves the Sadducees' rejection of the resurrection by the tense of a verb. Paul, when he's teaching in the book of Galatians about who the true offspring of the saving offspring from Eve and from Abraham, he quotes Genesis and says God says seed, not seeds, that there is just one and that is Christ.

So he goes down to the to the number of a word, whether it's plural or singular, the exactness of the Word of God. We're gonna shoot straight, know the authority by whom we speak, the audience to whom we speak, the accuracy that is necessary.

Accuracy. Why is it so important that Jeremiah speak accurately? Well it's the problem of the day. In Jeremiah 26 we're reading an abbreviated version of a sermon that was given to us in full in Jeremiah 7.

Jeremiah 7 has the full sermon and we have what was going on then. The problem was inaccuracy. In verse 4, this is the same sermon but with all the expanded material, so here it is. The Lord of hosts says, verse 4, do not trust in deceptive words, saying this is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.

People thought they were safe because they had the temple. God loves us because we have the temple. Verse 8, behold you are trusting in deceptive words to no avail. So it's very important that what Jeremiah says, he says exactly as God told him to say.

First Thessalonians chapter 2 verses 2 through 4, we read about Paul talking to the Thessalonians about how it is that they came preaching. He says, but after we had already suffered and been mistreated in Philippi, as you know, we had the boldest in our God to speak to you the gospel of God amid much opposition.

So they're shooting straight and they're getting shot. Notice how they do this, for our exhortation does not come from error or impurity or by way of deceit, listen, but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not as pleasing men but God who examines our hearts.

This is the way we're to speak, with the authority of God to the audience he sends us and with the accuracy to which we are held. No omission, no diminishment, no obfuscation of the Word of God. We say what God says without apology.

This is the Word of the Lord. We don't have to defend it. As Spurgeon said, we just have to unleash it. And fourthly, notice the aim in the last key to shooting straight. What is the aim of all of this?

Why stress the authority of God? Why speak to all these different people, the same message for all people? And why be so careful to say exactly what God says? What's the aim of all of that? Well notice verses 3 and 4.

Perhaps they will listen. This is our aim. Perhaps they will listen and everyone will turn from his evil way. That I may repent of the calamity which I am planning to do to them because of the evil of their deeds.

And you will say to them, thus says the Lord, if you will not listen to me to walk in my law which I have set before you. Well then he brings judgment as we see in verse 6. So it comes down to this. If everyone will turn away from their evil, then God will turn away from the calamity that he will bring upon their evil.

But if they will not listen, then God will surely judge. Some of you have an itch in your eye because the Bible said God may repent. Good. Numbers 23 19 says, God is not a man that he should lie or son of man that he should repent.

He's immutable. He's unchangeable. He is consistent, always consistent, unchanging in his holy merciful character. And so he forgives the repentant in Christ. He turns away from the judgment that he would send upon those who are unrepentant.

He's unchanging in that. He's unchanging in his holy character. He's unchanging in his merciful character. He does not repent from himself. He acts always consistently. And that's what he's saying here.

And the aim is that Jeremiah would preach with the authority of God to the audience to which he was sent, accurately giving them the Word of God so that they would turn. So that they would turn away from their sins.

Isn't that what you want for those that you love and care about and are caught up in foolishness? Caught up in lies? Lives are full of profanity, uncleanness, lives full of sin. They're in rebellion to God and in fact really trying to rebel against many other authority structures.

And their lives, you see their lives and you know that it's a mess. You know why it's a mess? Because they're against God. You want to see repentance in their lives. You want to see the grace of repentance at work in their lives.

They're turning away from their sins and they're turning to Christ and holding fast to him for salvation alone. Maybe that's you today. Maybe your life's in a mess. Maybe nobody knows but inside you're just a mess.

In your life, your heart, you know you've been convicted by the Holy Spirit. You know that your life is full of foolishness. That you would rather believe lies than the truth because the lies seem better.

That you treasure the things that God calls unholy and this puts you in rebellion against God. Maybe that's you. The call is to repent, to turn away. Jesus likened it to dying on a cross, sacrificing all that you know about yourself saying that is not as important as God is and God is right about me and all of my sinfulness and the lies that I believe.

I'm with him against myself. I need change. I need new life. I need forgiveness of my sins and the only forgiveness of sins that I can hope for and the only change that I can hope for is through Jesus Christ my Savior.

That's the aim. Beloved, if your aim is repentance, if you want to see repentance in the lives of those that you love, if your aim is repentance you have to shoot straight. Preach every word to every man every time and you might get shot but that's okay.

We'll talk about that next week. Let's close in prayer. Father, give us the courage to shoot straight. Give us the humility to trust you to shoot straight. That we won't deviate from your word but we'll say what you say.

We'll say it in the way that you say it. Aiming for the good of those that we speak to. Like Jeremiah did. He loved his countrymen. He spoke the truth to them but he loved them and these things go together.

Lord, I pray that you would remind us of these things. That we are to cite your authority, make it clear that we're not the ones who are making this up. Please help forgive us and cleanse us from being respecters of persons.

You're not a respecter of persons and we're not to be either. We're to say the same message to everyone. Father, do not let us omit a word or hide it or apologize for it. Help us to aim true. Help us to aim true.

We thank you for this reminder from your word this morning. We pray these things for Christ's sake. Amen.