"It’s All a Conspiracy" Part 2

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"It’s All a Conspiracy" Part 2 9-24-17 Jeremiah 11:9-23

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"The Genesis of Christmas" Part 3

"The Genesis of Christmas" Part 3

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and pray for us. Father, I pray that you would bless us this morning as we look into your word.
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I pray that you would bear us up to worship you.
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Help us to truly know and confess a confidence, an absolute confidence in your sovereign will and your unfailing good.
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I pray that you would lead us to worship Christ, that you would offer to us a clear view of your
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Son from the text, from the word that you have given to us.
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We pray for what we cannot offer of ourselves.
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We ask for your grace. We would worship you in spirit and in truth.
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We pray these things for the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ, with whom you are well -pleased. Amen. I'll invite you to open your
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Bibles and turn with me to Jeremiah chapter 11, and we will again look at verses 9 to 23.
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We began last week by noticing or identifying four intertwined conspiracies.
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And we examined the first two, those that God revealed about the men of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, how they were in conspiring together in idolatry to provoke
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God. How he also revealed the conspiracy of the men of Anathoth, as they conspired together to silence the prophet
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Jeremiah through murder. And we thought how Jeremiah shows us a model of Christ, and that he was sent to preach the
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Word of God, and yet he was conspired against by evil men. He was led like a lamb unto the slaughter.
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And yet, though the men of Judah raged against God's Word, we'll see that he establishes this
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Word in absolute righteousness. We're going to look at God's judgment and God's salvation this morning as the final two conspiracies of our passage.
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Would you please stand with me as we read God's Holy Word? Jeremiah chapter 11, beginning in verse 9 and proceeding through the end of the chapter.
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This is the Word from the Lord. This is a word from our risen reigning
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King Jesus. And so let us receive it. The Lord said to me, a conspiracy has been found among the men of Judah and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
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They have turned back to the iniquities of their ancestors who refused to hear my words, and they have gone after other gods to serve them.
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The house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken my covenant, which I made with their fathers.
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Therefore, thus says the Lord, Behold, I am bringing disaster on them, which they will not be able to escape, though they will cry to me, yet I will not listen to them.
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In the cities of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem will go and cry to the gods to whom they burn incense.
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But they surely will not save them in the time of their disaster.
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For your gods are as many as your cities, O Judah, and as many as the streets of Jerusalem are the altars you have set up to the shameful thing, altars to burn incense to Baal.
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Therefore, do not pray for this people, nor lift up a cry of prayer for them, for I will not listen when they call to me because of their disaster.
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What right has my beloved in my house when she has done many vile deeds?
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Can the sacrificial flesh take away from you your disaster so that you can rejoice?
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The Lord called your name a green olive tree, beautiful in fruit and form.
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With the noise of a great tumult, he has kindled fire on it and its branches are worthless.
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The Lord of hosts who planted you has pronounced evil against you because of the evil of the house of Israel and the house of Judah, which they have done to provoke me by offering up sacrifices to you.
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Moreover, the Lord has made it known to me, and I knew it, then you showed me their deeds. But I was like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter.
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And I did not know that they had devised plots against me saying, Let us destroy the tree with its fruit.
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Let us cut him off from the land of living that his name be remembered no more. But, O Lord of hosts, who judges righteously, who tries the feelings and the heart, let me see your vengeance on them, for to you
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I have committed my cause. Therefore, this says the Lord concerning the men of Amathoth who seek your life, saying,
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Do not prophesy in the name of the Lord so that you will not die at our hand. Therefore, this says the
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Lord of hosts, behold, I am about to punish them. The young men will die by the sword.
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Their sons and daughters will die by famine, and a remnant will not be left to them. For I will bring disaster on the men of Amathoth the year of their punishment.
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And God bless the reading of his word. You may be seated. Throughout the epic that we watch or we read, the enemy seems to gain the upper hand through various diabolical contrivances which unleash a deluge of suffering on the noble heroes and the unwary hoi polloi.
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It is immensely satisfying then, through the climax and the resolution of the story, that the accord of righteousness triumphs over evil, evil which then unravels and evaporates in suitable forms of demise.
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This is the kind of story we like because it is etched upon our souls.
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I will put enmity between you and the woman, between her seed and your seed.
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He shall bruise you on the head, and you will bruise him on the heel. God will triumph through Christ, no matter the conspiracies and the schemes of the enemy.
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The word which men hate in idolatry, that very word God establishes in righteousness.
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We've thought of the conspiracy of idolatry and the conspiracy of murder, and now we turn our attention away from the rebellious schemes of man to the righteous designs of God and the conspiracy of vengeance.
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In response to the conspiracy of idolatry which the sons of Judah have engaged in, in response to the conspiracy of idolatry by which the children of Israel and the children of Judah have broken the covenant,
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God responds to them in verse 11 and says this, therefore, thus says the Lord, behold, I am bringing disaster on them.
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In response to the conspiracy of the men of Anathoth to silence Jeremiah through murder,
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God responds in verses 22 and 23 and says, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts,
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I will bring disaster on the men of Anathoth. This word disaster translates the
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Hebrew word ra 'ah. It means evil, it means wickedness, it means misery, it means distress, it means calamity.
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And I find it instructive that the same word in the Hebrew is used both of the evil which men commit and the punishment, the fitting punishment that God brings upon them for their evil.
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Seven times in 14 verses, this word ra 'ah is used to describe both the wickedness of man and the calamity which
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God promises to bring upon these men. This sevenfold ra 'ah communicates a fullness of disaster coming upon the fullness of wickedness.
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Entrenched were Judah's plans for idolatry. Intricate were
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Anathoth's plans for murder. Yet God's plans for vengeance were more deep and full, more powerful and sure.
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And as the poison of man's conspiracies seeped throughout the whole land of Judah, God's plans for unfailing judgment are injected throughout our passage as the antidote.
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God's vengeance will not fail. There is no amount of deception or intercession or intervention that will keep
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God's vengeance from falling on Judah. And this is what we discover from our text.
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No deception, there is no amount of deception which will hide human beings from the piercing gaze of God.
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There is no amount of deception that will shield human beings from the judgment of a holy
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God upon rebellious people. We discover this as in verse 9, we discover the men of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, their conspiracy has been found out by God.
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These people had conspired to sin. And they planned to sin without consequences.
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They had conspired to sin and they planned to sin without accountability.
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They believed that a veneer of religion and sacrifice would be enough to placate
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God and would make up for their repeated profanities. But God knows who they truly are.
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They met in secret, they whispered with care, yet God heard every word and made their conspiracy of murder known.
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He shows who they truly are. They are the children of the devil who was a murderer from the beginning and the father of lies.
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Their conspiracies are exposed. According to verse 20, God is the
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Lord of everything and everyone, a righteous judge who tries, who examines, who assays the feelings of the heart, the will of the mind, and the most inward parts of the inner man.
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The Lord sees not as man sees. We look on the outward appearance, but the
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Lord looks at the heart. It's a surefire sign of idolatrous thinking.
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It's a surefire sign that we have reduced who
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God is in our minds when we think that as long as people don't know about our sins, that we're better off with God.
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We don't feel as guilty. We don't feel as troubled as long as other folks don't know.
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But what does this say about our understanding of God? Doesn't he know?
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And doesn't he know more truly and more deeply than any other person could ever know?
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What does it say about our view of God when our primary concern about sin is that other people don't know and don't think about what we do?
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The righteous God tries the hearts and the minds, Psalm 7, 9 says, the men of Anithoph wanted to kill
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Jeremiah because Jeremiah was the prophet of the Lord and he was preaching the word of God.
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And because it was the word of God, this word brought light into darkness and exposed who they really were in their innermost beings.
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And this angered them so much that when their sin was exposed to light, it made them angry and then they wanted to kill
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Jeremiah because it's the word of God.
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Hebrews 4, 12 says, the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two -edged sword. It pierces as far as the division of the soul and spirit of both joints and marrow, able to judge the thoughts and the intentions of the heart.
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Why can Scripture delve so deep? How can Scripture bring light so far deep into such murky areas of our lives?
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Because it is God's word and he knows it all. He sees it all.
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Before the word is even on our tongue, he knows exactly what we're about to think.
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He knows it all. Which is why in verse 13 of Hebrews 4, it says this, there is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are open and laid bare before the eyes of him with whom we have to do.
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Which means before the one with whom we have to do, before our righteous creator, the maker who owns us, all things are open.
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They are uncovered, they are bare, they are exposed, and Scripture makes us to know that.
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Scripture brings that to our attention. Scripture does not make us known to God, he already knows.
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But Scripture makes us know that he knows, makes us deal with the fact that he knows.
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That we are uncovered, bare, and exposed. That we are like Adam and Eve trying to do something to cover ourselves before the eyes of whom with whom we have to do.
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Not only that, but we are also, it says, laid bare to the eyes of him with whom we have to do.
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The preacher to the Hebrews at this point reaches for a $10 word in the Greek, tetrachalosmena.
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It's very technical and it means this. The moment when the neck is laid bare for either the sacrifice or the coup de gras in the fight.
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The preacher to the Hebrews is not using tame, positive, and encouraging language at this point.
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He's saying, your maker has you by the throat. And he does.
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He knows exactly who we are. He knows how sinful we are. He knows every deep, dark thought that we have.
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He doesn't take any of our excuses. He takes us on the basis of his own holiness and our sinfulness and he's got us by the throat.
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This same preacher to the Hebrews says later on, Hebrews 10 .30,
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we know, for we know him who said, vengeance is mine, I will repay. And again, the Lord will judge his people.
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And he says in verse 31, it is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of a living
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God. There's no hiding from a God like this and that is exactly why we need a mediator.
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We need a mediator. We need a savior. And this very same holy
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God who's got us by the throat gives us his son that we may be saved, that we may become his children.
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And then instead of having us by the throat, he'll take us by the scruff of our neck.
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You ever notice that about a lion? The lioness is a mighty creature. The crushing force of her jaws is a wonder in nature, in creation.
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She can crush the windpipe of an antelope with hardly any effort at all.
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But then she can also use the same jaws to pick up her little cubs by the scruff of their neck and put them where they're supposed to be to keep them safe and to provide for them.
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God's either got us by the throat or by the scruff of the neck. And the difference maker is
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Jesus Christ. And don't think that Jesus Christ himself is only on one side of this.
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Jesus Christ himself will preside over the judgment day. And for all those who rebel against God, he will preside over their judgment.
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He will preside over their punishment. God the Father and God the Son are in perfect harmony on this, in perfect unity.
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We need a mediator. We need a savior. Judah, however, has rejected
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Christ. Why? How did they do so? Because they rejected the preaching of the word.
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They rejected the covenant and they rejected scripture, God's prophet,
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Jeremiah. They've rejected everything that God sent to them by which they would know the gospel. And so they will have no intercessor.
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Verse 14, God responds to these Jews who pray unfaithfully to idols. And he says to them, therefore, he says of them, therefore, do not pray for this people nor lift up a cry or prayer for them.
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For I will not listen when they call to me because of their disaster. We saw this very same instruction to Jeremiah in chapter seven.
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And we noted there that this seems somewhat out of character for a merciful and long suffering God, that he would tell his prophet, don't pray for this people anymore.
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We also recognized that Judah has committed the unpardonable sin. They have blasphemed everything that God has brought to them.
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And even as they will suffer in the day of their trouble and their disaster and they will cry out to him, but he will not answer.
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Verse 12 tells us they're at the same time going to be praying to all their gods. It's not that they love the
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Lord God and want him to save them, but he won't. It's that they treat God like one of all their many other gods.
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And they're just praying to whatever God will get them out of their trouble. God says this has been going on for many, many, many generations,
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Jeremiah, do not pray for them. No intercession will turn his judgment aside.
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You know, if Judah's problem is they have so thoroughly denied the shadow of the intercessor, they will not know any of the substance of his intercession.
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There is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved except that of Jesus Christ.
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There is one mediator between God and man, the man, Christ Jesus. And if Jesus does not pray for you, you will not know salvation.
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If Jesus does not intercede for you at the right hand of the father, if he doesn't pray for you, there's no salvation in any else.
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You do not need to pray to false gods to intercede. Dead people cannot hear your prayers.
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Mary and Joseph, Peter and Paul cannot receive your veneration nor facilitate
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God's favor. Christ alone must pray for you. Christ alone.
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And he tells you to believe on him for none can come to the father except through him. And there's also no intervention.
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Verse 11, God says they will not be able to escape though they pray to the false gods.
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In verse 12, these gods will surely not save them. God is going to break off the branches from Judah's olive tree and burn them with fire.
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He answers Judah's evil with his own calamity. And concerning the men of Anathoth who want to murder
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Jeremiah, God says in verse 23, a remnant will not be left to them. There is no intervention that's going to stave
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God's judgment upon them. They have conspired together to provoke
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God through prolific idolatry. They will do it their way no matter who he is. They have conspired together to murder his chosen servant and to silence the message from God.
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And all these conspiracies will utterly fail as God himself establishes this word, this hated word.
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He establishes it in righteousness. Every conspiracy of man is exposed, mocked and unraveled by a sovereign reigning righteous king.
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Why are the nations in an uproar and the people devising a vain thing? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take their counsel together against the
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Lord and against his anointed saying, let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their bonds from us.
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And he who sits in the heavens laughs, the
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Lord scoffs at them and then he will speak to them in his anger and terrify them in his fury saying, but as for me,
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I have installed my king upon Zion, my holy mountain. I will surely tell of the decree of the
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Lord. He said to me, you are my son. Today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will surely give you the nations as your inheritance and the very ends of the earth as your possession.
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You shall break them with a rod of iron. You shall shatter them like earthenware. Now, therefore,
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O kings, show discernment. Take warning, O judges of the earth.
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Worship the Lord with reverence and rejoice with trembling.
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Do homage to the son that he not become angry and you perish in the way for his wrath may soon be kindled.
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How blessed are all, how blessed are all who take refuge in him.
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So we are to show discernment. We are to take warning. We are to fear and tremble with all worship and rejoicing.
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These are the true expressions of faith. Will we kiss the ring on the ruling hand of Christ?
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The son. Will we lovingly submit our lives to his saving reign? How blessed are all who find salvation in him.
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And it is unto salvation that the conspiracy of judgment leads.
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It is surprising to me, but consistently throughout the scriptures, God's judgment makes way for his salvation.
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All through the scriptures. It is no accident here as well.
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It's a conspiracy of salvation. The word that men hate, the very word that men hate in their idolatry,
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God establishes that word in righteousness. His righteousness is not only expressed in his vengeance, but also in his salvation.
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So let's pay attention. Let's think about what Jeremiah references here in chapter 11 and in verses 15 and 16.
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It's difficult to understand these verses and their later use. Let's first we go back to when this image is first given to us in Psalm 52.
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Back in Psalm 52 verses 8 and 9. On the day that David the king receives horrific news, he composes this
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Psalm, Psalm 52. It seems that those who practice wickedness, those who are in rebellion to God, King Saul and Doeg, the
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Edomite, have conspired together to do great evil. They have murdered the priests.
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They have killed the priests of God. Those that helped
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David, those that showed compassion on David. The priests of Nob lay dead by the hand of Doeg.
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Evil men have conspired to do wickedness, yet God's word will be established.
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And David's trust is in the Lord and he leaves vengeance to God as we all should.
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And he asks God to take vengeance while David's faith was in God and in his grace.
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Verse 8 of Psalm 52. But as for me, I am like a green olive tree in the house of God.
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A green olive tree in the house of God. I trust in the loving kindness of God forever and ever.
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The chesed of God, the covenant faithfulness of God. David trusts in the grace of God. David trusts in forever and ever.
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He says, I will give you thanks forever because you have done it and I will wait on your name for it is good in the presence of your godly ones.
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Listen to David's worship. Oh, he trusts in God. He's in exile. He's on the run.
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He's hounded by Saul. And unless he confesses by faith, I am like a green olive tree in the temple, in the very house of God.
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God sustains him and God favors him all because of his loving kindness, all because of his grace, it is something that God has done.
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It is not something that David has accomplished. What a beautiful picture. And now for Jeremiah 11 verses 15 and 16.
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God says of Judah, what right has my beloved in my house when she has done many vile deeds?
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Can sacrificial flesh take away from you your disasters so that you can rejoice? The Lord called your name a green olive tree, beautiful in fruit and form.
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With the noise of a great tumult, he has kindled fire on it and the branches are worthless. What the spirit said through David of David, the spirit now says through Jeremiah of Judah.
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David sees himself as God's beloved in the house of God, a green olive tree.
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We come to Jeremiah and David standing in for all of Judah is assumed here.
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And so God says, what right has my beloved Judah in my house? What right does she have to think that she's in favor with me?
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You're like a green olive tree, yes, but now comes judgment. I will kindle you with fire and your branches are worthless.
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Literally in the Hebrew, it means broken, broken.
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The branches of a green olive tree broken off?
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Sounds familiar. This leads us to Romans 11. Romans chapter 11.
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Paul has expressed his great burden, his evangelistic zeal and missionary burden for his own people, the
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Jews. And in verse 17 of Romans 11, he says, but if some of the branches were broken off and you being a wild olive were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree, so on and so forth.
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Don't be arrogant about your salvation. Broken branches.
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Paul reflects on Jeremiah 11 that said the branches of the olive tree were broken off.
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And Jeremiah is reflecting on Psalm 52 about the image of the green olive tree in the house of God.
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And Paul takes his image and says, how are we saved?
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How are we saved when we deserve judgment? The Jews experienced judgment by being broken off and the
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Gentiles experienced judgment by being cut off in exile. But how are we saved?
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There is the rich root of the olive tree into which we must be grafted.
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Who is this rich root? It cannot be Israel. They're under consideration in chapter 11 for their unfaithfulness, for their self -righteous, for the rejection of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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But if we have read chapter 10 before chapter 11, which I highly recommend, we discover that there is a savior and his name is
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Jesus Christ. And it doesn't matter if you are Jew or Gentile, it doesn't matter where you come from, but if you will confess the
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Lord Jesus Christ, you will be saved. What hope? How does this work out?
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Because there's a conspiracy unto salvation. There is a rich, fertile, green root of the olive tree who is the fulfillment of David, who is the fulfillment of Judah.
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He comes as the promised one from Judah, Shiloh to whom it all belongs, to whom all the nations will come.
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It's Jesus Christ who saves Jew and Gentile. It's Jesus Christ who grafts them together into one tree.
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Branches were broken off, Jeremiah 11, so that a multitude of every tribe, tongue, people, and nation would be grafted in,
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Revelation 5. The first conspiracy ensures the second.
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The judgment of God makes way for the salvation of God. And the manner in which all Israel is saved is not ethnic and it is not political.
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It is spiritual because those who believe in Christ are regrafted back into the root. Christ is the root for both
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Jew and Gentile, which Paul says all over again in chapter 15, where he quotes Isaiah 11 .10,
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On that day, the nations resort to the root of Jesse. I wonder if you're ready to confess it's all a conspiracy.
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It's all a conspiracy. When the wicked conspire to cling to their false religion and their fierce hatred against the preaching of the word of God, and they conspire to murder
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God's beloved, and when God answers their rage with his judgment, which makes way for his salvation, we should confess that the word that men hate in idolatry,
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God establishes in righteousness. And if you're still not convinced, think about what the church prayed and asked for.
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When they were persecuted, when they were threatened and they were told not to preach in the name of Jesus, when they were under threat among those from those who hated the message, what did they pray?
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To man's conspiracy of wickedness, they confessed God's conspiracy of righteousness.
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Acts 4, beginning in verse 24, they lifted their voices to God with one accord and said,
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Oh, Lord, it is you who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in him. Oh, what a powerful
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God. Who by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of our father,
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David, your servant said, and this will sound familiar, why did the Gentiles rage in the people's devised futile things?
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The kings of the earth took their stand and the ruins were gathered together against the Lord and against his
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Christ. Now verse 27, here's how they apply it. For truly in this city, they were gathered against your holy servant,
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Jesus, whom you anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate and with the
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Gentiles and the peoples of Israel. They were conspiring together against Christ.
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But verse 28, they were there to do whatever your hand and your purpose predestined to occur.
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That is remarkable. I find that incredibly comforting.
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When it comes to God's good and glorious purposes, they triumph over every wicked plan of the enemy.
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And I can joyfully say, it's all a conspiracy. One that turns out to be
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God doing good for his own glory. Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for the time you've given us in your word. I thank you for again and again showing us that there is hope.
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I pray that we would take full advantage of that hope, that we would not, like Jeremiah's audience, conspire to continue in sin, conspiring to silence your word.
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But that we would take full account of your judgment, that we would confess your holiness and your righteousness.
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And that we would turn to Christ. In whom is our only hope of salvation.
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Knowing that although you broke off the branches. You regraft us into the rich root who is
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Christ. I pray that you would drive these truths home into our hearts and we would be in all confidence that we would worship you and give you the glory.