Jim Styles - Class 2: The Failure of the People

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:00

   The goal of the first class was to have a look at some background on Jeremiah and also the concept of how Jeremiah redirected his life for God. I do think that's impressive to realize in ecclesial life that there are things that happen for which we may train or we may want to be a certain kind of member of an ecclesia or family.

2. 0:19

   And we plan for it, we go to school for it, or we think this is the direction we want our life to go. And all of a sudden God opens another door that we really had never anticipated. And there's a need in ecclesial life to fill another role. And it may not be as exciting a role, it may not be as fulfilling a role for ourselves, or it's not what we wanted.

3. 0:40

   And yet God is leading us down a pathway, or he's put us in an ecclesia where they're asking, somebody needs to do this. Maybe it happens to be in working with the CYC, and that's just not something you ever anticipated. Or maybe it's teaching a Sunday school class, or getting involved in the preaching committee, or whatever it is.

4. 0:57

   And there's an house that's made, there's a need for it in ecclesia, but we sort of look at it and we say, well that's not really my thing. And then you look at Jeremiah and realize that, wow, here he had trained all those years and thought he was going to be a priest.

5. 1:10

   And God just took him in a moment and said, no, that's not what you're going to do. Instead you're going to be a prophet. And Jeremiah went in and fulfilled that need. It's fun to see that. It's not necessarily what we want to do, but there are times in ecclesial life or family life where that's what we need to do.

6. 1:27

   Sometimes it's in a family where all of a sudden there's a need there to take care of an elder person in a family, or a younger person, or a child that the parents can't do it at that time. And that's just, it's really cool to look at the concept of angels bringing things into your life like that, where all of a sudden God's giving you an opportunity to play a part.

7. 1:46

   And don't ever look back and think, well, I can't do that because I didn't train for that, or that wasn't my kind of thing. Just like Jeremiah, there are times where we step in and we do, we fulfill a role that we really hadn't trained for. And we trust God to work that out for us, and we ask for his help every day to make it work.

8. 2:02

   So, class two is to have a look, hopefully, at the failure of the people. I just want to finish up with some things on looking at Jeremiah's family, just so that you don't get the impression that everybody in Jeremiah's family hated him. I don't think they all did. Jeremiah did get some support from his family.

9. 2:18

   Over there on the far right, Shaphan. That family over there, Shaphan must have been an unbelievable spiritual man, him and his wife or whoever it was that influenced all those kids. He had four children, and three of them were extremely faithful. Some of them saved Jeremiah's life. And then you've got Gedaliah and Micaiah down there as well.

10. 2:35

    And he had faithful grandchildren. So there's a family line, which I find really encouraging, that in the midst of all this trouble, in the midst of all the ecclesial mess that Jeremiah is telling us about, there were faithful families in Israel. People who continued the line to their children, their grandchildren. Not that all of them did, but some of them did remain faithful to God right through.

11. 2:58

    And it's fun to see that in the midst of all this trouble. And I have to admit, that was an area I had never noticed until I was looking at Tony Benson's articles on the friends of Jeremiah. So that's an area you can look at. And then there's Barak as well. And you can see the connection that Jeremiah has with Barak.

12. 3:14

    And then Barak's brother, Saria, was the quartermaster of the city at that time. And it seems like Barak was an extremely faithful man, even though he had some aspirations to be somebody else. As you find in Jeremiah 45, God had to tell Barak that, look, even though you want to do this, that's not what's going to happen.

13. 3:31

    And instead, you're going to have to follow through on God's game plan, not what you were hoping for in life. So Barak had to redirect his life as well, not what he was expecting to do. When you look at Jeremiah's social life, I think it's also nice to realize and appreciate that Jeremiah didn't get to do a lot of the things we get to do.

14. 3:50

    You look at Jeremiah 16, and God just says, look at Jeremiah, you're not going to do this. You're not going to do this. You don't get to do that. You're not going to get to take a wife and kids. Nope. So all the different things that young people grow up with today, imagine somebody coming along and telling you that that's it, no wife, no kids.

15. 4:08

    You don't get to do that. Part of wife, that's not going to be for you. You're going to illustrate to the community something different. That at this point in time, God was saying, this is not a time to have wife and children. You're going into captivity. No grieving at the funerals. So God wanted Jeremiah to illustrate this idea that when God takes his community and destroys his wife and takes the remnant up to Babylon at this point and wipes out his house and the temple in Jerusalem, he wanted Jeremiah to illustrate to the community that this is how God feels.

16. 4:39

    He's not going to grieve at your funeral because you had opportunity after opportunity to change and you would not change. And he asked Jeremiah to live this out. Jeremiah was expected to go through and illustrate to the community how God feels. This is the way God feels about you right now. No parties.

17. 4:57

    He couldn't go to the parties that everybody else goes to. There were too many terrible events that were coming on the nations. It wasn't a time to just have parties and be happy and have good times. It was a time to be serious. It was a time to reflect on what have we done wrong.

18. 5:11

    And yeah, if we ever think you got it bad today, just go back and have a look at Jeremiah's life and really have a look at what he was expected to go through. And this went on for years that Jeremiah was expected to present this to the community. Jeremiah's message, when you start looking at like why all this trouble with the community and why would he want to be a prophet right now?

19. 5:31

    What Jeremiah had to do, as you're reading through the early chapters of Jeremiah, you're going to see right from chapter one on that Jeremiah's message was consistent. There is an evil that's going to break out from the north and it's going to come down on the community and it's going to wipe you out, going to destroy God's house, that there's going to be a breakout from the north.

20. 5:51

    And what happens at this point is that Jeremiah's message is that, look it, you've got opportunities now to change. You can do something different about this. You can be like a Hezekiah and you can make changes right now and maybe this won't have to happen. Maybe God will relent and change his mind.

21. 6:07

    But once God brings it, it's going to be too late. You've had your opportunity and once it starts, it's just going to go on. So what you find is that this is what Jeremiah had to preach for years. And so he does. All the way through from Josiah's 13th year, he preaches this for all those 31 years of Josiah.

22. 6:25

    And then in Josiah's children, he continues preaching. You get into the reign of Jehoiakim, who's the next one down that reigns 11 years. You get in Jehoiakim's fourth year and finally the Babylonians come down. And you'd think at that point, Jeremiah would have just been so excited because for all those years, he'd been telling everybody the evil was going to come down from the north and they didn't believe him because they thought it was the Egyptians that they had to worry about.

23. 6:51

    Finally, Jeremiah's vindicated and you think, oh, everything's all right. And then God says, okay, Jeremiah, now go tell them they've got to surrender. Oh boy, surrender. And that was just, that's treason. You don't surrender. You don't surrender to the Babylonians. So all, you know, you can just like feel it from Jeremiah's perspective.

24. 7:12

    They would have thought like as soon as the Babylonians come down, now they'll believe me. In fact, there's actually evidence in that they got all excited. They made plans. Let's go talk to the people again. You know, now they're going to believe me and they'll hear what I have to say. And God says, all right, go out and tell them now this time, surrender.

25. 7:27

    And they just, they were blown away. Surrender? Jeremiah is too. It's like, how do you tell them to surrender? Give up and just let it all be destroyed. We're going to Babylon. It was not a very happy message to deliver. And yet that's what God wanted him to do. And you can see how the message does apply to us.

26. 7:44

    This is, we're living in these last times. We have these opportunities right now to make changes in our life and prepare for Christ's coming. And once he comes, it's going to be too late. And that's why it's got to happen now. Now, Jeremiah's mission really was to be a prophet to the nations.

27. 8:00

    That was in chapter one, verse one. So you wonder like, well, what was his mission? His message that he would take to them is that Yahweh is the one responsible for Judah's destruction, not the idols of the other nations. And you may not think that's a big issue. But from God's perspective, if you stand back and look at it from God's perspective, he's been working with this community.

28. 8:21

    He set them up in the days of way back in Joshua's time. They came in the land through the judges, through the kings. He picked Jerusalem with David. He established his house there. This has been Yahweh's place on earth. And they were his people. So when Yahweh destroyed his people, and when he took away his house, and his glory departed, the Shekinah glory you see in Ezekiel.

29. 8:43

    Ezekiel chapters 1 to 11 are all about the chariot of God, the portable throne of God, coming down to Jerusalem, picking up the Shekinah glory in the temple. It moves from the temple onto the portable throne. And the portable throne goes up to Babylon, where the captives were. God had moved his place of central worship.

30. 9:01

    He was up now with the captives in Babylon. Ezekiel 1 to 11 are all about that. This is what the message was. It was trying to get out to everybody. God's changing his plans at this point. He's not going to stay in Jerusalem like he did before. So that was important for the nations to realize.

31. 9:16

    And that's what Jeremiah was supposed to take to the nations. I think that's why he's actually called a prophet to the nations. And in turn, he also tells the nations that because they enjoyed Judah's destruction, they enjoyed watching God's people be run over as captives. He says, you'll pay for your proud boastings in the end.

32. 9:36

    And they, in turn, will have their day when the Babylonians will go after them as well. So that's another aspect of it. But it is really similar to what Daniel was doing when he was delivering his message up there in the north. Now, when you look at the problem of Jeremiah's credibility, if you are still back there in Jeremiah chapter 1, you can see that what happened in Jeremiah 1 is that the message was going to be clear from the beginning that an evil was going to break out from the north.

33. 10:02

    You can see it in Jeremiah 1 at verse 13. The word of the Lord came to me a second time saying, what do you see? And I said, well, I see a boiling pot and it's facing away from the north. That's the New King James right there. And if you look at any of the modern versions, they've got that right.

34. 10:16

    The King James says it's toward the north. No, it's not toward the north. It's away from the north. It's coming down from the north. And the boiling pot's going to dump over and it's going to spill right into the land. Because this was the prediction that the Babylonians were going to come down.

35. 10:31

    But verse 14 makes it clear that out of the north, calamity is going to break forth on all the inhabitants of the land. And God makes it clear that he's calling all the families to the kingdoms of the north. And they're going to come. Each one's going to set his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem.

36. 10:45

    Against all its walls all around and against the cities of Judah. And God says, I will utter my judgments against them concerning all their wickedness. Because they've forsaken me. They burn incense to other gods and worship the works of their own hands. So prepare yourself, arise and speak to them. All that I command you, do not be dismayed before their faces, lest I dismay you before them.

37. 11:08

    Now, here's the problem. Jeremiah goes out and thinks, I'm going to deliver this message. Nobody believes there's going to be any evil from the north. They're all worried about Jehoahaz just got taken down to Egypt. And instead, Jehoiakim gets set up as a power. Or they're looking at, you know, in terms of like, who's powerful in that time.

38. 11:27

    Back in the early days of Josiah, it was the Egyptians down in the south, not the Babylonians who were the power of the day. So the people are listening to Jeremiah. They're sort of laughing at him like, come on, Jeremiah. Yeah, an evil out of the north? You really think somebody's going to come out of the north and get us?

39. 11:44

    No way. We're worried about the Egyptians. That's our problem. We've got to have some kind of defense against the Egyptians. That's where Josiah was focused too, in terms of like, you know, when he goes up there and he's worried. But I do think, if you're ever wondering why Josiah interrupted Pharaoh Nechel, have you ever looked at that incident in the kings and wondered why?

40. 12:03

    Pharaoh Nechel is on his way up from the south. He's going to go fight with the Babylonians, the Syrians up there at Kharkimish. And Josiah stops him partway up, on the way up there. And he gets involved in a war. And Pharaoh just says to him, look, Josiah, get out of here. Go home.

41. 12:17

    You don't need to do this because my problem isn't with you. I'm going up there to fight with these guys, with the Babylonians. You know, there's Israel stuck again between the king of the north and the king of the south. You ever wondered why Josiah got involved in that war? What do you think he was doing?

42. 12:34

    You ever wondered that? See, I think he believed Jeremiah. I think he really believed that an evil was going to break out from the north. And what he tried to do was stop the Egyptians coming up from the south to try to appease the Babylonians in the north and say, look it, you know, I cut the Egyptians off for you.

43. 12:53

    I stopped them. I helped you out. And he was hoping to delay the inevitable that Jeremiah said was coming. I really believe Josiah believed what Jeremiah had to say. And you try to make some sense of that whole incident and try to figure out what in the world is going on. Josiah is a faithful man.

44. 13:08

    And I just think he was looking to the future of his country, which is typical of what Josiah did all his lifetime. Jeremiah's writings, when you look at what happened with them, most of them were written by Barak, at least. We know that Barak copied down a lot of them. He probably reorganized them for Jeremiah's sake to try to present them to Zedekiah.

45. 13:26

    They do contain more words than any other prophet's books of the Bible. That's why Jeremiah just seems like it's long and it goes on in the readings for a long time. And it really does cover a long period of time. And so it's a great opportunity for us to, like, get in there and find out what's going on.

46. 13:43

    Now, for the second class, the goal was to have a look at this concept about the frustrations that were going on and why the people had gotten so far off the track. It's impressive to look back in Exodus 34, I think, at God's amazing mercy, that our God is unbelievably merciful towards us, more so than any of us ever deserve.

47. 14:05

    And he gives us opportunity after opportunity after opportunity to make changes. This is typical of our God. So that nobody in the end could look at God at the judgment seat or look at Christ and say, well, look, if you've just given me one more chance, you know, if I just had this, if you had just given me this thing in my life, then I would have really followed you.

48. 14:25

    So what you'll see in Jeremiah is an example of this playing out, of how God gave them opportunity after opportunity to repent. He really is merciful and gracious and long-suffering and abounding in goodness and truth. And his mercy is from everlasting to everlasting. So in Jeremiah's book, when you look at his prophecy, just know these are the kind of things you can, like, Bible color when you're going through Jeremiah and you start seeing a consistent theme coming out over and over again.

49. 14:51

    But you'll notice in chapter 3, when Jeremiah is told to deliver his message, in chapter 3, he says, look it, here's what I want you to say. Return to me. And in fact, in the New King James, it has yet returned to me, because even though you've done all these things, you know, a man divorces his wife and goes from him to become another man's wife, may he return to her again.

50. 15:15

    So that's based on Deuteronomy 24. And he says, look it, in your law, the way I gave you your law, if a man divorces his wife and leaves her and marries another woman, is he allowed to go back to her again? And they'd all say, no, you can't do that. Well, God says to them, he says, look it, I'm willing to do that for you.

51. 15:36

    I'll go beyond the law. I'm willing to save you in a way that your own law wouldn't even allow for, because I'll take you back. Even though I brought those Assyrians in, they've come down and run through the nation, and God had, in a sense, divorced the northern kingdom, he says, I'll take you back.

52. 15:51

    Yeah, return to me, says the Lord. I'm willing to take you back. That's the kind of mercy that our God has. You see, in chapter 3, verse 7 again, he says the same thing. So that the backsliding Israel had done all these great things, but in verse 6, he says, the Lord said also to me in the days of Josiah the king, have you seen what backsliding Israel's done?

53. 16:12

    She's gone up on every high mountain under every green tree, and there played the harlot. And then I said, after she had done all these things, return to me. But she did not return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it. You saw it. You saw what was going on. You saw how Israel was given an opportunity to return, and Judah, you're not responding.

54. 16:35

    You look down the line there, and look down at verse 12, you'll see the same thing again. Go and proclaim these words towards the north, because this is, you know, Jeremiah, speak to the northern kingdom, up there in the north. Return, backsliding Israel, says the Lord, and I will not cause my anger to fall on you, for I am merciful, says the Lord, and I will not remain angry forever.

55. 16:55

    This is the God we worship. For all the mistakes that we've made in our life, whatever it happens to be, all he's interested in is that we learn from those mistakes, we change our ways, and we return to him, and we change the way we live. This is what he wants. But, as you'll see in Jeremiah, God keeps giving us opportunity after opportunity after opportunity, but finally, when the fire breaks out, when the northern army comes down, when Christ returns, it's too late.

56. 17:24

    You've had all the opportunities in the world to make those changes, God says, and now it's too late. At some point, he cuts off those opportunities for mercy. You'll see in chapter 4, again, in verse 1, If you return, O Israel, says the Lord, return to me, and if you will put away your abominations out of my sight, then you shall not be moved.

57. 17:43

    Then I don't have to do this anymore. All he was looking for is that you could come back. In verse 2, If you swear the Lord lives in truth, and in judgment, and righteousness, then things are going to be okay. That's what God really wants. You skip over to chapter 7, you'll see the same thing coming up.

58. 18:00

    In chapter 7, when he talks about them amending their ways, not trusting in their lying words, look at verse 3. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings. Change. And I will cause you to dwell in this place. Don't trust in these lying words, saying, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these.

59. 18:22

    See, that's what the false prophets were saying. They'd come to the people, and they would say, Look, we're Jews. We have the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. You're those people. There's no way God can remove you. Don't believe Jeremiah. No way that can happen. You're God's people. You know, that message sounded great to them, but it wasn't true.

60. 18:40

    Right? So he says, If, you know, if you'll amend your ways in verse 5, in your doings, and execute judgment between a man and his neighbor, if you don't oppress the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, and not shed innocent blood in this place, and walk after other gods to your hurt, then I will cause you to dwell in this place.

61. 19:01

    You notice how often in the prophets that God is concerned with how we treat people who don't have anybody to stand up for them. They may not have the family that we have. They may not have all the support systems that we have, and yet we abuse them. We treat them in a way that we shouldn't do that.

62. 19:23

    God cares a lot about those brothers and sisters. And sometimes we get used, some of us at least, we get used to having big families in the truth. Or we have positions in a collegial life. And God's watching to see how you treat the poor person, the widow, the stranger, the person that has no family support.

63. 19:41

    What are you doing for them? Well, how are your decisions that you're making that maybe work for your family, how are those decisions working out for those people? You ever thought of that? Because sometimes we just tend to do what works good for me and my family. And I forget about all those other people that are out there.

64. 19:58

    This is what happened here in Israel. This is what was going on. And they cared about their situation, but oh no, they didn't care about the stranger, the fatherless, the widow. They didn't treat them. They weren't worried about them. They just took good care of themselves and their families. And that's what they did.

65. 20:15

    That's a good warning to all of us in ecclesial life, especially arranging brethren. I think that's a real thing that we have to do. We have to really consider how are our decisions going to really impact not just our close friends and our family in the ecclesia, but all the people out there that are just peripherals even, that are just barely holding on.

66. 20:32

    What are we doing to help them? And are those decisions that we're making, are they really going to help them and their children and their families? Or is it just something that, well, if we lose a few of them, that's okay. And this is the kind of thing that Jeremiah goes after these people for.

67. 20:46

    They really weren't taking care of the ecclesia. So it's just good to see that concept about God coming out in this. Now, what happened though, is that God says, look it, if you don't change your ways, then I can't work with you anymore. And he gives them all these opportunities through Jeremiah to make those changes.

68. 21:05

    So then you look at things like Jeremiah 25, where he reflects later on and he says, look at the things I did to try to change you. Jeremiah 25, in verse 4, the Lord has sent to you all his servants, the prophets. This is very much like the account at the end of Chronicles in 36 there, when the Babylonians finally came through and he recounts like what actually happened.

69. 21:27

    So I sent you all these servants, the prophets rising early and sending them, but you have not listened nor inclined your ear to hear. They said, repent now every one of his evil way and his evil doings and dwell in the land that the Lord has given you and your fathers forever and ever.

70. 21:41

    Do not go after other gods to serve them and worship them and do not provoke me to anger with the works of your hands and I will not harm you. Yet you have not listened to me, says the Lord, that you might provoke me to anger with the works of your hands to your own hurt.

71. 21:56

    Therefore, this is why the end has come. And God says, that's the way it is. It's very similar to Jesus. I mean, you compare Jeremiah's time with the time of Christ, they are very similar because Jesus had the same message to his generation. He wanted to gather them like a mother hen would or flocks, but they wouldn't listen.

72. 22:14

    And therefore, then the king was going to send his army and come in and take the city. Or as he says in Luke 13, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. So if you go back and look at what was actually happening in Jeremiah 2, and we'll do a little flipping around here, but spend most of the time in the first few chapters of Jeremiah for this class.

73. 22:35

    But back in Jeremiah 2, this is early on one of the first prophecies that God gave to ask him to give. But he talks, and God's trying to give it from his perspective. Here's how God sees the community. And he says it in chapter 2 at verse 32, can a virgin forget her ornaments or a bride her attire?

74. 22:53

    And this is how God sees the community and says, would you expect that? Here's a bride ready to get married. Is she going to forget her wedding dress? Is she going to forget to get all dressed up that day? You know, and that's how he sees his bride, his woman that he had married.

75. 23:06

    Yet my people have forgotten me days without number, even though he had married them and tried to save his community. Why do you beautify your way to seek love? Therefore, you have also taught the wicked women your ways. And on your skirt is found the blood of the lives of poor innocents. There we go again.

76. 23:23

    And have found, and not found it by secret search, but plainly on all these things. Yet you say, because I am innocent, surely his anger will turn from me. This is what the people were thinking. They're thinking, oh, I'm innocent. I haven't done anything. I took my sacrifice. I went up to the temple.

77. 23:39

    I broke bread and drank wine. I went to Bible class. I did all these things. It's not me. Couldn't be me. I'm innocent. God says, well, because of that, I'm going to, his anger, the people thought I'm innocent. Surely his anger will turn from me. And God says, well, behold, I will plead my case against you because you say I have not sinned.

78. 23:59

    It's not me. It's those other people over there. Take care of them, but not me. Why do you get about so much to change your way? Also, you will be ashamed of Egypt as you were of Assyria because right now, at this point, Jeremiah 2, they're thinking about Egypt and they're going to be ashamed of Egypt as they were of Assyria.

79. 24:18

    And indeed, you will go forth from him with your hands on your head for the Lord has rejected your trusted allies and you will not prosper by them. So this was the message Jeremiah had to give to these people. In Jeremiah 3, you have another one where he comes in and he talks about the fact that, you know, God wanted to take them as his wife and he had divorced them, right?

80. 24:38

    But look at what he says in verse, in Jeremiah 3, verse 2. Lift up your eyes to the desolate heights and see. Where have you not lain with men? By the road you have set for them like an Arabian in the wilderness and you polluted the land with your harlotries and your wickedness.

81. 24:54

    Therefore, the showers have been withheld and there has been no latter rain and you have a harlot's forehead. You refuse to be ashamed. That's an interesting concept about these people that you'll see coming up over and over again. They had sinned, they had made mistakes and they refused to be ashamed. They weren't ashamed by it at all.

82. 25:11

    There was no guilt feelings there. They were just, this is their lifestyle. This is what they enjoyed and they did all these things, you know, whatever it was and they just weren't ashamed by it and God says, if that's the case, I can't work with you. I think that's a good indicator, brethren and sisters, that we don't ever want to get to that point.

83. 25:28

    If you're ever wondering, like, am I at that point too? Is that when we make mistakes, when we make mistakes in our families and our collegias, our jobs or whatever it happens to be and we sin before God, we don't ever want to get to that point where it doesn't bother us. If it still bothers us, that's good because that's where these people had gotten to.

84. 25:48

    They weren't ashamed, didn't bother them at all. Look at Jeremiah 3. You know, for all of their backslidings when they went up and Israel had done all their things. You see in verse 8 there, he says, for all of the backslidings Israel had committed adultery, I put her away and given her a certificate of divorce.

85. 26:04

    See, that's this argument that in Deuteronomy 24, once he divorced the northern kingdom, legally under the law, you could not take them back. So their salvation depended on something beyond law and that's typical of what God put in the law. He was always trying to impress them with the fact that the law could never save you.

86. 26:22

    It was going to take something beyond law. So Judah didn't fear but she went and played the harlot also. So it came to pass that through her casual harlotry she defiled the land, committed adultery with stones and trees. Yet for all this, her treacherous sister Judah has not turned to me with her whole heart but in pretense.

87. 26:39

    So what God is doing through all of the mistakes of the community, he's just waiting, hoping that at some point Jeremiah's message will get through or that the effect of other prophets will impact these people. So in verse 12, he says, go proclaim these words toward the north and say, return backsliding Israel, says the Lord.

88. 26:58

    I will not cause my anger to fall on you for I am merciful, says the Lord, and will not remain angry forever. I find that really encouraging for all of us that no matter what mistakes we've made or our children have made or our parents have made or anybody else in our ecclesia has made, when people come back to God and they return to him, God is willing to forgive.

89. 27:22

    That's a wonderful thing about our God. He takes those experiences that somebody went through, like the prodigal son, and he simply says, well that's okay, that was a learning experience. Now you've gained something that you'll have in your experience. You've learned that you don't want that way anymore you've changed as a person and now you've learned to trust your father and he's finally got us to a point that he's after.

90. 27:44

    And that's the way we need to treat our children and our ecclesial members, no matter who they are, when they come back to God. It's just fun to see that that's the way our God is and that's the way we need to be too, just waiting for the people to return. In Jeremiah 6, you find that again the same kind of situation that he talks about that God says that their houses, that's the people of the community of Judah, their houses are going to be turned over to others, their fields, their wives together.

91. 28:09

    For I'll stretch out my hand against the inhabitants of the land, says the Lord, because from the least of them even to the greatest of them everyone is given to covetousness. And from prophet even to priest everyone deals falsely. This is what was motivating the people. They were covetous of what all the other people had.

92. 28:26

    They wanted stuff like that. They wanted the things of the people of this world. They were used to that in the days of Manasseh. We want to keep that up. We want to go after all those fun things. And they were covetous and they were dealing falsely with one another. They really weren't up front and truthful.

93. 28:42

    They were just like covering up with deceit as to how they dealt with each other. And they have also healed the hurt of my people slightly saying, peace, peace, when there is no peace. Now that comes up a number of times in Jeremiah. This idea that the false prophets, if I was a false prophet in Jeremiah's day and Jeremiah would come in and give a message, then I would come in behind him, very much like a Judaizer in the days of the Apostle Paul, and I would say, oh, come on, fellas.

94. 29:09

    There's no way Jeremiah is right. We're all set. There's nobody from the north coming down. You know, the Egyptians are down there and right now they're sort of powerful. Well, that's all right. We'll make a deal with them. Everything's going to be fine and we're going to have lots of peace. Don't worry about all this stuff Jeremiah is saying.

95. 29:26

    You're all fine. Just continue living, you know, keep the money coming in to the prophets and the priests and everything's just fine and dandy. And this is what the prophets did. They kept saying, peace, peace, when there is no peace. Jeremiah is actually very frustrated with this because this was the common message of the prophets.

96. 29:44

    And now I have to go tell all the people this? They're not going to want to hear me. They're going to want to listen to those false prophets over there. And Jeremiah wonders, like, how he's ever going to make a dent in that? But that's what the people were used to. You look in Jeremiah 8, again, of how these people, when he talks about it in Jeremiah 8, at verse 6, that God says, I listened and heard, but they do not speak aright.

97. 30:05

    And no man repented of his wickedness, saying, what have I done? Everyone turned to his own course and as one horse rushes into the battle. Even the stork in the heavens knows her appointed time. She knows. The natural animals out there, they know. They respond to situations, but not my people, God says.

98. 30:22

    The turtle dove, the swift, the shallow, they observe the time of their coming, but my people don't know the judgment of the Lord. You know, these animals, they prepare for their future. They realize something's going to happen. They know they're going to have a baby or they know something's happening in terms of, like, you know, storms that are coming and they make preparations.

99. 30:39

    But not my people. They don't even see the judgment that's coming. So how can you say, we are wise and the law of the Lord is with us? Can't you see the false priest saying that? Oh, we're the wise ones. We studied this stuff. We know our Bibles really well. And we have the law of the Lord with us.

100. 30:55

     And it doesn't say anything about the northern kingdom coming down. Instead, it says God loves us and we're going to have peace. And that's what the false prophets would do. That's what the false priests would do. And poor Jeremiah is wondering how he's ever going to make a dent in this. But verse 9, you know, the wise men are ashamed.

101. 31:11

     They're dismayed. They're taken. And behold, they've rejected the word of the Lord. So to what wisdom do they have? What wisdom have they got in the end? Therefore, God says, I will give their wives to others. And their fields to those who will inherit them. Because from the least even to the greatest, everyone's given the covetousness and they deal falsely and they predict peace.

102. 31:30

     This is what was happening in the days of the prophets. So Jeremiah's message really is, look it, you've got to change. God's going to come down and judge the community and he's giving you an opportunity now to make changes. But you need to do it before the end comes. You can't just wait until you see some last sign and you see the Babylonians coming down and then all of a sudden you say, Jeremiah, I believe, I'm going to repent and now I'm going to change my ways.

103. 31:55

     God says, that could be too late for you. You've got to change now because once it starts, it's not going to go back. I'll give you all these opportunities until it starts. So when you're reading through the early chapters of Jeremiah, have you ever noticed he uses two analogies, two metaphors to illustrate the concept?

104. 32:11

     One of them was the fire. You'll see the fire constantly being referred to. Now in California, we know what fires are like when they break out and I remember you guys have fires up in here. All the rain you've had lately, you're not going to be worrying about fires but we have fires come through our area and once a fire breaks out, there's real emergencies that can arise.

105. 32:28

     They can sweep through an area and the winds pick up and they wipe out a lot of homes and so what a great example to show what this would be like. Once God kindles the fire in the north and it starts coming down on the community, there's no stop to this. Nobody's going to bring buckets of water and put this one out.

106. 32:45

     God says, you have until then but once the fire starts, then it's going to break out. Anybody know what the other one is? There's one other metaphor he uses and all you ladies here that are moms will all know this one. Oh yeah, you remember this one. Come on. A woman in labor with her child.

107. 33:04

     You see it pop up in Jeremiah quite a few times and he says, you know what this is like. It's just like a woman who's in labor and the labor pains start and what are you going to do when the pains start you're going to say, I don't want to have the baby yet or I don't want to have this baby now or whatever.

108. 33:20

     You can't do that and you know that in practice. So once it starts then it will carry through to its finish. And those are the analogies that he uses constantly through these early chapters that they could understand. Very similar to Christ saying in the New Testament that you've got to be ready. You've got to prepare now.

109. 33:39

     Make your changes now because the Son of Man is coming at an hour you don't expect. And so we try to prepare now. You look at, for example, just to show you some of the places where that pops up. Here's one of them that the sin of Judah is written with the pen of iron and he talks about in verse 4 of Jeremiah 17 that you, even yourself, shall go of your heritage which I gave you and you're going to let go of it.

110. 34:02

     And I'll cause you to serve your enemies in the land which you do not know. For you have kindled a fire in my anger which shall burn forever. Once it starts, the fire would not be put out. You see again in Jeremiah 4 earlier on when he said to circumcise the foreskins of your heart in verse 4, lest my fury come forth like fire and burn so that no one can quench it because of the evil of your doings.

111. 34:24

     And you'll see that one pop up quite a few times. An example of the woman in labor would be in Jeremiah 6 when he talked about the evil of the people coming out of the north country and the people say there in Jeremiah 6 verse 24, we've heard the report of it. Our hands grow feeble, anguish has taken hold of us, pain as a woman in labor.

112. 34:42

     And they realize that we're under these terrible labor pains and once this starts there was no turning it back. Now you wonder like how did this happen? Well, it's because the Jewish religion had become so formal and legal. You know, and he warns them about not talking about the Ark of the Covenant because the people thought that since they had the Ark they were all set and they thought the Ark would save them.

113. 35:04

     I guess it would be very similar to us today thinking well, you know, we have the truth, right? We call it the truth. We have the truth so you know, God's got to somehow work with us because we have the truth. That's sort of how the people felt about the Ark and about Jerusalem and about all of their tabernacle and all the things that they had, the temple that was built.

114. 35:23

     People always looked at the stuff and looked at the official stuff and thought well because we have all this then you know, God has to be working with us. That must be proof that we are the people. And they looked at their offerings in God. We looked at some of this stuff a little bit earlier I think in class one.

115. 35:38

     So that was what was happening and they thought that their circumcision was going to save them. I think that one was in class one as well. So our warning today I think for all of us is we've got to be careful because yeah, we do have the truth. We've got our wide margin Bibles all marked up and colored very nicely, right?

116. 35:57

     That's us today. A lot of us have been baptized into Christ. We are God's special people. He tells us that in Peter, you know, that we have been brought into his family and we have privileges that other people of this world do not have. We've got our daily reading chart and we go through it and we read through our daily readings and we check them off and we have that and we take our bread and wine tomorrow on Sunday morning.

117. 36:19

     But what we've got to be careful of, brethren and sisters and the young people that are here, is that those things in and of themselves don't save anybody. And instead, what can happen over years is that we can learn to lean on those things instead of what they were supposed to do to our life.

118. 36:38

     They were supposed to change us and conform us to the image of Christ. They're supposed to change how we talk to each other so we don't get angry at each other so we don't mistreat each other. We care for the fatherless and the widow and the poor and those who have no one to take their cause.

119. 36:53

     That's what this is supposed to do. It teaches us to learn to look at somebody who's committed whatever sin it has been and they come back to us and we say, you're forgiven because that's how God is. This is what these things are supposed to do and if all of those things up there don't do that, if they haven't changed our life, then we just have a formal religion like the Jews did.

120. 37:15

     We just have something that we go through the motions and whether we've got our nice wide margin Bibles all marked up and whether we can quote passage after passage, it doesn't matter because it hasn't conformed us to the image of Christ. That's the great challenge of our community, I think. Anytime you've been around for a number of years and Christadelphians have now, the tendency of all religious people right through the Bible was that when years went by, what would happen in generation after generation is that the new generation would latch on to the formal part of the religion and miss what it was supposed to do.

121. 37:47

     They lost the intent and we don't want to let that happen in our community today. We want to emphasize to change characters what this is supposed to do to us. We take the bread and the wine tomorrow. Our presiding brother reminds us that what we do is we remember the covenant that we made to die with Christ to sin.

122. 38:04

     This is supposed to change the way we live and we examine ourselves at that point to make sure we're doing it the right way instead of just letting it become some kind of formal religion for us. Otherwise, we'll hear those words that Christ warned us about, depart from me and I never knew you.

123. 38:19

     Even though you went through all these things, I never knew you. It actually happens in the book of Zechariah. I remember that story in Zechariah about the Jews that came up from Bethel in Zechariah 7 and they came up as the temple was getting finished and they were finally finishing it and they're in the fourth year of Darius and only two more years the temple will be done and these Jews from Bethel they come up and they ask the priest at that time and they say, look, we've been doing all these sacrifices, God.

124. 38:43

     We've been keeping all these days. We've been remembering when we got carried off to Babylon. We've been going through all this stuff. Do we really need to keep doing that now that the temple's almost done? And God looks at them and says, were you really offering sacrifices to me? To me? That's the way the New King James words.

125. 39:01

     It's like, to me? That wasn't for me. You were doing that for yourself, not for me. It's sad that that could ever happen in a community of people that they're going through all the motions and God looks at them and says, that wasn't for me. You did that for you. So you look good in front of everybody else so that you would feel better about your life but you weren't really doing it for me.

126. 39:22

     And it's a sad commentary on what had happened. So when we come to our memorial service tomorrow and any week when we do it, I mean, we have to remember that the goal is to humble ourselves at that, reflect on what God has done in our life, thank God for his kindness and his mercy, and go away committed to put Christ's life into practice and to show mercy to other people.

127. 39:44

     That's the impact that it was supposed to have on our lives. So when you look back at what happened with Josiah's Reformation, why didn't it work? It looked great on the surface. They had this formal religion going really good but the people didn't really know God. They had no personal relationship with God.

128. 40:02

     It was just a formal, you know, ritualistic thing. And so they had all these opportunities. All the opportunities were there but for those that didn't take advantage of the opportunity, they never really got to figure out what it was all about and it never really changed their lives and God says they never really knew him.

129. 40:19

     They didn't know him. They just never understood what God was all about because what we want to do is come to love the Lord our God with all our heart and all our soul and all our strength and all our mind and do that to each other. And this is the consistent problem through Paul's letters or whatever.

130. 40:35

     It's very easy to have a formal religion and miss the impact of that and how it's supposed to change our life. So what we want to do is look back at God's character in Exodus 34 and realize that it's there about what a loving and a merciful God we have who also balances it with justice and mercy.

131. 40:54

     It's a balance that's there but our tendency sometimes in the community is to really emphasize the judgmental part and forget the fact that wow when people come to us that are repentant remember how long-suffering and gracious and merciful our God is and he's called us to live like him. That's the goal for every believer is to learn to live like God.

132. 41:16

     So Jeremiah would go on and say look at about these priests he would say look at Jeremiah 2 he says I brought you into this bountiful country to eat its fruit and its goodness in verse 7 but when you entered you defiled my land and made it my heritage and abomination the priests didn't say oh where's the Lord they didn't really care about Yahweh their God and those who handled the law they didn't know me they didn't even know me they had their Bibles all marked up they could quote their Bible passages but they didn't know God I think that's a great warning of Jeremiah for us today so they ended up changing the glory of God into something which did not profit very similar to what Paul would have quoted in Romans chapter 1 or look at Jeremiah 4 my people are foolish they do not know me they have not known me they don't know me they don't have a relationship with me they don't understand what I'm trying to do something happens in their life and they don't realize I'm talking to them and they just go on their way trying to have all their fun and games and have the stuff that they want and their covetousness they're wise to do evil but to do good he says they have no knowledge this is all happening during Josiah's reformation Jeremiah 9 they just proceed from evil to evil they do not know me look what they do they bend their bow their tongue is like a bow like bent for lies and this is what they're doing they're not valiant for the truth

133. 42:37

     on the earth they talk to their neighbor and they don't trust any brother they take heed to any brother and they don't trust any brother for every brother is utterly supplet and every neighbor will walk with slanders everyone will deceive his neighbor and not speak the truth they've taught lies with their tongues and they've taught their tongues to speak lies and they wear themselves to commit iniquity see in verse 6 there it is again your dwelling place is in the midst of deceit through deceit they refuse to know me and this is what we really want to go for for the younger people that are here that's really our goal all the bible readings you do all the classes you go to all the Sunday school you go to all the stuff you learn from your parents the goal is to develop a relationship with God and the Lord Jesus Christ you come to know them like a friend and you want to live like them that's what we're after and all the other stuff that we do is just to get us to that point but don't ever lose track of where we're headed and what we're trying to get at you can't lose track and get all caught up in the peripherals of the mechanisms and lose track of what the goal is the goal is that you learn to live like God and so we read all about it but you can see how often there he mentions they have not known me you can find that about Jehoiakim when Jeremiah 22 that section we looked at earlier shall you that's Jehoiakim

134. 43:51

     reign because you enclose yourself in cedar oh yeah you took good care of yourself built your cedar house and that's what makes you king because you have all this stuff did not your father Josiah that would be eat and drink and do justice and righteousness and then it was well with him he judged the cause of the poor and the needy see how that comes up again now I think that's a key concept about family life and ecclesial life how are we doing on taking care of those who are poor and those are needy are we just taking care of those that are in pretty good shape he judged the cause of the poor and the needy and then it was well was not this knowing me says the Lord this is what God does God takes care of these poor and these needy he cares about them and this is what he says this is what we should be doing and really a formal religion doesn't get you to do that it doesn't do that at all instead it's more about how I look and making sure I'm taken care of and my family's taken care of but not thinking about the poor and the needy so this is Josiah when you look back at him you realize alright he did know God so our goal rather than sisters and young people really to keep in mind for all of this is that we've got to get to know God that's really the thrust of the whole Bible is that you come to know him Jesus said it in John 17 isn't this eternal life

135. 45:08

     eternal life now when he says eternal life I don't think he's using it like we do eternal life he's not talking about living forever he's using it the way John uses eternal life in his gospels and also in his letters eternal life is a kind of life it's not a life that just goes on forever like everlasting life eternal life is a quality a kind of life and that's how that's why John would say you already have eternal life abiding in you but we don't have immortality but we do have eternal life and this is what he stresses that really eternal life is when you live like God it's a kind of life and the eternal life is that they may know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent and that's really our goal in all of our Bible readings all of our classes all of our home discussions all of our Sunday school classes and CYCs is that in the end we come to know God have a relationship with him lest we make the mistake of the people of Jeremiah's time and have a wonderful formal religion that had no power to change their lives