Sunday Morning, "As the Rain and Snow From Heaven.." Part 2

Heavenly Father, we've been singing about the gifts that you have given to us. You have made us in your image, and given us life by your word. You give us breath to breathe. Give us your Holy Spirit. Give us your Son, Jesus Christ, in whom is all our hope.

Or the hymn just said that as the wave notes fall upon the ear, that everything's made right, and we know your peace, that we are in agreement with you. God, I pray that that's true. Help us to listen.

Lord, we believe. Help our unbelief. Lord, we hear, but help us to listen. Help us to receive your word, and consider it not as the critics of your word or the judges of right and wrong. Father, you are the judge.

We don't have you on the witness stand. Your word examines us. Help us to submit to the truth of the word, the truth of your scriptures, all the while remembering that you are God, and we are your creatures.

That while you are always true, we have been often proven liars, and none of us here, none of us here are more righteous than you, more compassionate than you, more just than you, more gracious than you.

So in humility, Father, help us to submit to what your word says, and as children, receive the provision that you as our Father give. And we pray for this attitude, this posture, we pray for this in our lives, looking only to Christ for these graces, because it is with Christ that you are well-pleased.

He is our only, only hope of being right with you. We pray these things in his name, amen. I invite you to open your Bibles to Jeremiah chapter 25, and again, we'll be reading verses one through 14 here in a moment.

God's Word Revealed Personally, Persistently, and Prophetically

Last week, we talked about the word, God's word revealed, God's word revealed. His word is revealed personally. He speaks to the situation. He knows exactly who we are. He knows exactly what's going on in our hearts and what's going on in our world.

He knew it back in Jeremiah's day, he knows it today when he speaks. He speaks personally to the situation, and he speaks personally through his servants, and there is no greater servant than his son, Jesus Christ, man of very man who speaks to the human condition as no one else can.

God also reveals his word persistently. We looked at the phrases again and again, again and again, rising early and speaking, rising early and sending. God is persistent all day long and all history long, God has been speaking his truth, his word for our good and for his glory.

He also speaks prophetically, his word is revealed prophetically, which whenever you hear the word prophet, you should think of two things, a highway and a horizon. The highway is heading somewhere. Sometimes we focus on the horizon, we think of a prophet, we think of everything that is being said will come to pass, but most of the prophet's job was about the highway, the what is and what ought in our world, and this is the way things are, but this is the way things should be, especially in light of what will be, and that's the way that God's word is revealed personally, persistently and prophetically, and that's what we looked at last week.

We're gonna read the text again, so if you would please stand with me, Jeremiah 25, verses one through 14, and we stand in honor of the King of Kings, Jesus Christ, who was revealed here in this text.

The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, King of Judah. That was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar came into the King of Babylon, which Jeremiah the prophet spoke to all the people of Judah and to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem saying, from the 13th year of Josiah, the son of Ammon, King of Judah, even to this day, these 23 years, the word of the Lord has come to me and I have spoken to you again and again, but you have not listened.

And the Lord has sent to you all his servants, the prophets, again and again, but you have not listened, nor inclined your ear to hear saying, turn now everyone from his evil way and from the evil of your deeds and dwell on the land which the Lord has given to you and your forefathers forever and ever.

And do not go after other gods to serve them and to worship them and do not provoke me to anger with the work of your hands and I will do you no harm. Yet you have not listened to me, declares the Lord, in order that you might provoke me to anger with the work of your hands to your own harm.

Therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, because you have not obeyed my words, behold, I will send and take all the families of the North, declares the Lord, and I will send them as a king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land and against its inhabitants and against all these nations roundabout.

And I will utterly destroy them and make them a horror and a hissing and then everlasting desolation. Moreover, I will take from them the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones and the light of the lamp.

This whole land will be a desolation and a horror and these nations will serve the king of Babylon 70 years. Then it will be, when 70 years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, declares the Lord, for their iniquity and the land of the Chaldeans and I will make it an everlasting desolation.

I will bring upon that land all my words, which I have pronounced against it, all that is written in this book, which Jeremiah has prophesied against all the nations, for many nations and great kings will make slaves of them, even them, and I will recompense them according to their deeds and according to the work of their hands.

And this is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. A couple of weeks ago, as is tradition on any one of our children's birthdays, I took Ben to go get his birthday donuts in the morning and like it was on the day he was born, the roads were a mess and there was ice here and there and so we took the side roads and took it slow and made our way there and I was explaining to Ben all the tricky things about driving on slick roads and as we kept off of the highway and made our way to go get the donuts, we noticed a truck spun around backwards up on the highway and all sorts of emergency lights and things were just a mess.

Things were a mess. Things were a mess on the roads that morning. And the truth of the matter is the world is a mess today and we don't have just a few cars piled up, we have a seven billion human pileup.

Things are a mess because of sin. People keep swerving around truth. Keep swerving around truth which is really hard to do. If you're made in God's image and try to swerve around his truth, it's like trying to avoid the universe.

You're not gonna be successful. The way that God made us and the way that God made things in this world happened to work really well in one particular way and then as we try to say, no, I think I'll try my way, whichever way that might be, and we try to swerve around God's truth, we end up in the pileup that we are in.

As we said last week, God's word keeps on doing what God's word does irrespective of whether we agree, pay attention or anything. God's word does what God's word does. To remind us of that in Isaiah chapter 55, we have this visual and I'll begin reading in verse six because the call to come to the Lord, the call to come to Christ, the call to be saved is always connected with the call to believe what God has said, the word of God.

Verse six, seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return to the Lord and he will have compassion on him and to our God, he will abundantly pardon.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Okay, here's the illustration, the water cycle. Verse 10, for as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bare and sprout and furnishing seed to the sower and the bread to the eater, so will my word be, which goes forth from my mouth.

It will not return to me empty without accomplishing what I desire and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it. So God's word always succeeds, whether we're a part of that success or not.

God's word always succeeds, even if we are on the wrong end of it. And the truth of the matter is, as we see in our passage, swerving around God's authoritative word crashes straight into God's sovereign will.

You can't avoid God, can't swerve around him, can't swerve around what he says, because you're just gonna end up right where he said you were gonna be all along. Swerving around God's authoritative word crashes straight into God's sovereign will.

God's Word Rejected by Plugged-Up Ears, Filthy Hands, and Wicked Hearts

Last week, we talked about God's word revealed. This week, we're going to talk about God's word rejected in verses three through eight. We've talked about the why. Why would people want to avoid God's word?

Well, because we don't like people telling us the is and the ought and the what will be. We want to define for ourselves the way the world is. We want to believe a version of the world that fits well with us, and we want to say what ought to be done, what ought not to be done.

We are the self-determiners about right and wrong for ourselves, and we don't want anyone else telling us the way the world is or the way we ought to live. That's just the way we are in our sin. And that's why God's word is often avoided as much as possible.

That's the why, but let's consider more of the how. How is God's word rejected? What are the ways in which God's word is refused and rejected? Well, first of all, by plugged up ears. Plugged up ears. You'll notice this in verses three and four and seven.

Verse three, from the 13th year of Josiah, the son of Amon, king of Judah, even to this day, these 23 years, the word of the Lord has come to me and I have spoken to you again and again, but you have not listened.

The same is said in verse four. The Lord has sent to you all his servants, the prophets, again and again, but you have not listened. And verse seven, you have not listened to me, declares the Lord. Now, obviously, when he says you have not listened three times, he's not saying that they were deaf, that they had an inability, a physical incapacity to hear the sounds of the words being spoken.

And even then, he's not saying that they were ignorant of the language with which he was speaking. They actually did receive the message in some sense. The sonic energy impacted their oral cavity, sending impulses through the auditory nerves to the brain, but the desired response was lacking.

In other words, God sent his prophets and went to their front door and said, ding dong. And they were met with a loaded shotgun, not the desired response. The fact that they understood what Jeremiah was saying is evidenced by the fact that they tried to kill him from time to time.

Well, that's enough of that. Let's do away with him. So their rejection was not because they could not hear, they heard, but they did not agree with what was being said so they rejected it. The challenge is, of course, if we don't like what we hear from God and we only selectively pick from the things we like about God and what he says, and then we selectively pick from what other people say, what we end up doing is creating our own little echo chamber where we only ever hear the things we want to hear.

That was going on in Jeremiah's day. It's not a new thing. Safe spaces are not new inventions. That was going on in Jeremiah's day too. Look with me at chapter eight, chapter eight, verses eight through 11.

How can you say we are wise and the law of the Lord is with us? This is what Jeremiah's countrymen were saying. So how can you say that? He says, behold, the lying pen of the scribes has made it into a lie.

Did you know it's possible to take up the word of God and then take up a pen and write about the word of God in the name of God and lie? Did you know that's possible? That people did that in Jeremiah's day and people still do that today, that in the name of God, referencing scripture, they write about the word of God and they lie?

That's nothing new. It goes all the way back to the garden of Eden. Verse nine, the wise men are put to shame. They are dismayed and caught. Behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord. And what kind of wisdom do they have?

Do you hear that? They don't agree with God's word and yet they still say, we're wise men. He says, well, what wisdom do you have if you reject God's word? Verses, verse 10. Therefore, I will give their wives to others, their fields to new owners, because from the least even to the greatest, everyone is greedy for gain.

From the prophet to the priest, everyone practices deceit. So God says there's going to be, the whole society is gonna unravel. They're gonna be conquered. Awful things are going to happen because everyone, everyone is greedy for gain.

Everyone is practicing deceit. They're lying so as to gain some advantage for themselves. What is it? Money, man's approval, whatever the motive is, they're deceiving for some manner of gain. Now, verse 11, they heal the brokenness of the daughter of my people superficially, saying, peace, peace, but there is no peace.

So this is the basic message of the false scribe, of the false teacher is that they say, shalom, shalom, wholeness, wellness, completeness, everything is as it should be. Peace, peace, but there is no peace.

And that's a very superficial way to heal our brokenness and our sin and our struggles and our opposition to God is to simply say, oh, everything's fine. Today's version of shalom, shalom is God loves you.

There goes the rod. It's a signal, I'm sure. God loves you just the way you are. It's the just that's the problem, right? It's the, you don't have to change anything about yourself and God is in full acceptance and approval of you.

Shalom, shalom, it's a very super superficial way to heal our brokenness, our sin. If we fill our ears with pleasing sounds, we go deaf to God. When I was in Boston, I noticed that everyone walking around about 80 of the people walking around as I was traveling from point A to point B, they all had headphones in, all of them, various kinds.

Some of them were to cover the whole ear, some of them were just barely in there, but they all had headphones on. And everyone was in their own little world and I was thinking, what does that really mean?

Everybody has their headphones on. And then I realized they were all using the subway and nobody wanted to hear the screeching of those awful breaks on the subway. They were actually just trying to protect themselves from what people now call noise pollution.

And so they filled their ears with pleasing sounds so they did not have to hear the screeching of the breaks. And I soon wanted to join their cult. I understood the appeal. But if we fill our ears only with what we want to hear, we're going to go deaf to the word of God.

There's a warning about this in the New Testament, 2 Timothy 4, verses three and four. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine. Because sometimes sound doctrine sounds like the screech of the subway to our ears.

But wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. Did you hear that?

They will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires. This is like King Ahab in the Old Testament. He had 400 prophets. 400 prophets on his payroll. And you know what was neat about these prophets?

They always said the same thing in unison to Ahab. And the content of what they said, whatever Ahab wanted them to say, it was a good deal. He had them, he hired them. And you know, we have the same temptation to only listen to what we wanna hear, but then we go deaf to God.

We go deaf to God. There's an important question for us in this passage. Are we like those who do not listen to the word of God? God is so personal in speaking to us. He's so persistent in coming after us with his words.

He wants us to know who he is. He wants us to know his son, Jesus Christ. He wants us to know the forgiveness of sin. He wants us to know how to live the way that he made us to live in the joy and the grace of the life that he has made.

Are we listening or do we reject his word saying that we know better? Do we listen to the hiss of the serpent and say, I don't agree with God's word anymore. I'm like Adam and Eve, we'll go our own way.

God's word is rejected by plugged up ears and by filthy hands. Filthy hands are in view in verses five through eight. Verse five, God says, turn now everyone from his evil way and from the evil of your deeds, evil ways, evil deeds.

He says in verse six, you have provoked me to anger with the work of your hands. He says the same thing again in verse seven, provoke me to anger with the work of your hands. In verse eight, he says, you have not obeyed my words.

See God's word is rejected not only by plugged up ears, I'm only gonna listen to what I wanna listen to, but also by filthy hands, by actually rebelling against the truth of God's word. There's a close connection between listening and obeying.

Any parent knows that. Every child seems to have their unique way of not listening. Oh, I didn't hear you. Oh, I forgot. I didn't understand. There's a long list of excuses or I couldn't find what you, so on and so forth.

There's a lot of ways in which we do not listen, but listening and obeying are intrinsically tied together. When there's been no obedience, there has been no adherence. If the kids wanna go play outside, you say stay out of the mud hole, it's gonna be pretty obvious whether they obey or not.

It's obvious if they listen. Now notice the reason why God says what he says. He says in verse six, do not provoke me to anger with the work of your hands and I will do you no harm. And then verse seven, he says, you have not listened to me, the Lord in order that you might provoke me to anger with the work of your hands to your own harm.

Do you hear that? Isn't that the reason why we instruct and rebuke and discipline and restore our children is because we're saying to say, you better not do that or I'm gonna do you some harm. You're gonna get some sort of punishment, some sort of corrective here.

Why is that? Because if you reject what I'm saying to you, and if you disobey the instructions that I am giving to you, you are gonna go off and you're gonna do yourself harm. You hear God's fatherly heart here, but they reject his word with filthy hands.

They reject his word. How we really feel about the Bible is borne out in our daily behavior, right? How we really feel about the Bible is borne out in our daily behavior. When we really think about God's word, it's fairly obvious.

Now God says that they have rejected his word by plugged up ears, filthy hands and wicked hearts in verses four and six and seven. In verse four, he says, you have not inclined your ear. They refused to incline their ear.

They didn't wanna listen at all. Verse six, he says that you do not provoke me or do not go after other gods to serve them and to worship them. And he says in verse seven, you have not listened to me declares the Lord in order that you might provoke me to anger.

It's a wicked child or creature indeed who would willingly, purposefully provoke their parents or their creator to anger. Notice his language of evil way and evil deeds. This is verse five, turn out everyone from his evil way from the evil of the deeds.

The way, the evil way, the way speaks to one's perception, their set of priorities, their desires, their passions. The way speaks to one's chosen direction, one chosen's orientation. The deeds follow the way like steps follow a path.

And so God says repentance from both is necessary. Repentance from the way that you have chosen and the steps that take you down that way, the very deeds themselves. He calls them back from that, but it is their wicked hearts that lead them to reject God's word.

They would rather bow down to the idols. They would rather bow down and worship rocks than incline their ears to receive God's word. We certainly muster a great deal of effort to pursue our own passions.

Will we pursue the word of God? Is God going to have to chase you down like wayward livestock? That's a question that hit home for me when I was reading through my Bible this year. I come to Psalm 32 verses nine through 11.

Do not be as the horse or as the mule which have no understanding, whose trappings include bit and bridle to hold them in check. Otherwise they will not come near you. I don't wanna be like that. I was made in the image of God.

I'm not a mule, I'm not a horse. I was made in the image of God to live by every word that proceeds from his mouth. There's real true life to live in his image according to his word. Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but he who trusts in the Lord, loving kindness shall surround him.

Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you righteous ones and shout for joy. Oh, you who are upright in heart, that should be my assessment of hearing God's word and responding. God's word is rejected by plugged up ears, filthy hands, wicked hearts.

And yet God's word remains. God's word remains. We see this in verses eight through 14. And just as in the previous chapter, we saw seven I wills strung together, so also we see it again. Seven I wills in verses eight through 14.

Let's hear them again. Therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, because you have not obeyed my words, behold, I will send and take all the families of the North, declares the Lord. And I will send to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land and against its inhabitants and against all these nations roundabout.

And I will utterly destroy them and make them a horror and a hissing and an everlasting desolation. Moreover, I will take from them the voice of joy, the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones and the light of the lamp.

This whole land will be a desolation and a horror and these nations will serve the king of Babylon 70 years. Then it will be when 70 years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation declares the Lord for their iniquity and the land of the Chaldeans.

And I will make it an everlasting desolation. I will bring on that land all my words in which I have pronounced against it, all that is written in this book, which Jeremiah has prophesied against all the nations.

For many nations and great kings will make slaves of them, even them. And I will recompense them according to their deeds and according to the work of their hands. Do you hear what God says? You have rejected my word.

You do not listen to my word. You disobey my word, but I will do everything that I said I would do. Since the fall of man, our favorite pastime is to make sport of God's unchanging word, but no matter what new complaint or criticism, the Bible remains.

God's word remains. And even a single I will of God refutes seven billion I won'ts of man. God's word remains sovereign, severe, and it remains scripture. We see the sovereignty of God's word in verses eight and nine and also verse 12.

One thing that's really impressive in verse 12 is that after he says he's going to use the King of Babylon to do his will, and in verse 12 he says, then it will be when 70 years are completed, I will punish the King of Babylon and that nation, declares the Lord for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans, I'll make it an everlasting desolation.

It's God, his sovereign right and power to raise up and cast down. Even nine, we see how sovereign God, take all the families of the North, all the different city states, all of the nation, and I will send them and will bring them against this land and against its inhabitants and against all of them.

Nebuchadnezzar, this is the first year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, and he was one of the first who ever lived on the face of the planet. And God says, come here, Neb, Neb, and he comes. Sovereign God is.

According to his word, Isaiah chapter four, empire about through a love, be assured to call it to mind, this long past for I am God, and there isn't from the beginning, and from it done, saying my purpose will be established, calling a bird of prey from a far country, I will bring it to pass.

I have. That is good news, this throne and does what when I say, and beloved son, you deserve in your sins, and that I raised them up the third day to give you mediator as your representation, and I child forever, that this God forever.

It is good news, but my son, Jesus Christ will come, there will be no more disease, no more death, no more sin. It's the same God who has demonstrated time and time again throughout history, his son, no matter how many people reject it.

Also, God's word remains severe, which is one of the reasons why it is often. Through this passage, we find time and again, God judging, God saying, I will judge in this way, and I will cause disaster in that way.

And it's pretty intense. He talks about the slaughter of tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people. He talks about enslaving, though about silence. The voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, the voice of the bride, that all the way.

We are made in the image of God. Others rightly steward the creation responsibly. We are the gods in this way. And he says, when the word, when the image of God, when those made in the image of God, reject the word of God, everything that makes living in the image of God, gladness of our worship and our praise to the God who has given us all things.

The voice of the bride and the voice of love one another in human society, married, and this became the cornerstone of loving. We do not relate to one another properly. Instead, we have misery. Sound of the millstones and the light of the lamp, meaning that the, and there's no more, we'll end up in a desolation because God, we receive the judgment of God.

The Bible is severe, isn't it? I mean, when you read it, it's pretty severe. The Bible is a sword, but it's still more passionate than we are, or gracious, so he must know better than we do. And Timothy 3, 15, and they are God breathed so that they are, that the very words that were put down in Hebrew and Aramaic and in Greek were put there, the very words of themselves were breathed out by God through holy men who were born along by the Holy Spirit.

We have the very words of God in our own language. What a gift. No wonder it's so attacked. No wonder it is so attacked. There is no person who has ever lived upon this planet so lied about other than Jesus Christ.

He is the clearest revelation of God. No wonder the most lies that have ever been told about one person have been told about him. And this book is God's word for us. The Holy Scripture is given to us.

No wonder that this is the most lied about piece of literature ever written. A book that has been written by over 40 different men in three different languages, over 1500 year time period on three different continents, that 66 different scrolls put together into one book and it all testifies to one person, Jesus Christ.

What a gift. C .H. Spurgeon wrote, my brethren, when you hear that a learned man has made a new discovery which contradicts the scriptures, do not feel alarmed. Do not imagine that he is really a great man, but believe that he is just an educated idiot or a self-conceited fool.

And I truly think he meant that in the best of ways. Here's the good news. Because God's word remains, so also does his gracious call to repent and believe on his son, Jesus Christ. Because God's word, no matter how often it's rejected, that word still remains.

Listen, if you try to swerve around Christ on the cross, you're gonna crash straight into Christ that is coming and you don't wanna be there unless he himself is your mediator who stands before God in your place, on your side.

Let's close in prayer. Father, I thank you for the time you've given us in your word. I pray that you would help us to truly value it as we should. You know what we need and you have given us what we need.

Help us to rejoice in that provision. Thank you. Thank you for the manna. I pray these things for Christ's sake, amen.