Stop Playing with Sin

Hey, hey, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. I'm not going to fool around with you. I'm not going to play around with you. Guess what? I ain't got no coffee because I just got back from Colorado. I've been gone for a long time. I've missed you.
I've wanted to get back into God's Word. So it's actually like 9.30 at night here, but I just want to make sure we get right back where we left off. So we're going to be at Jeremiah chapter 4 beginning at verse 4. We'll go through verse 18 and we'll see what the Lord has for us today.
Let's have some coffee, we'll pray, and we'll get into God's Word. God, we thank You so much for the blessing it is to get to read Your Word. What a joy it is to get to spend time looking at Your Word, studying it. And Father, we pray that it wouldn't just fall on deaf ears, but that You would let us understand it, and that it would also be applied to our lives. Please, God, help us. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Here we go. We are at Jeremiah chapter 4, beginning at verse 5. Declare in Judah, and proclaim in Jerusalem, and say, Blow the trumpet in the land, cry, gather together, and say, Assemble yourselves, and let us go into the fortified cities. Set up the standard toward Zion.
Take refuge, do not delay, for I will bring disaster from the north, and great destruction. The lion has come up from his thicket, and the destroyer of nations is on his way. He has gone forth from his place to make your land desolate. Your cities will be laid waste without inhabitant, for this clothe yourself with sackcloth, lament and wail, for the fierce anger of the Lord has not turned back from us. And it shall come to pass in that day, says the Lord, that the heart of the king shall perish, and the heart of the princes, the priests shall be astonished, and the prophets shall wander. Then I said, Ah, Lord, surely you have greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, You shall have peace, wherein the sword reaches to the heart. At that time it will be said, to this people and to Jerusalem, a dry wind of the desolate heights blows in the wilderness towards the daughter of my people, not to fan or to cleanse. A wind too strong for these will come for me. Now I will also speak judgment against them. Behold, he shall come up like clouds, and his chariots like a whirlwind. His horses are swifter than eagles.
Woe to us, for we are plundered. O Jerusalem, wash your heart from wickedness, that you may be saved. How long shall your evil thoughts lodge within you? For a voice declares from Dan, and proclaims affliction from Mount Ephraim. Make mention to the nations, yes proclaim against Jerusalem, that watchers come from a far country, and raise their voice against the cities of Judah.
Like keepers of a field, they are against her all around. Because she has been rebellious against me, says the Lord. Your ways and your doings have procured these things for you. This is your wickedness, because it is bitter, because it reaches to your heart." Well, that's kind of a rough passage, but we need to ask ourselves, A, what's this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize this? And C, what are we called to do? So what's this about? Right, this is...
God prophesying that there's gonna come destruction against Jerusalem. This is a hard thing, right? And Jeremiah even says, like, he's really beat up about this. All of this is, almost all of this is God's voice speaking, but we saw in verse 10, Jeremiah's even like, Lord, this is hard. Ah, Lord God, surely you have greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, you shall have peace, whereas a sword reaches to the heart. God, Jeremiah's wrestling, like, hold on, I thought we were supposed to have peace, shalom, and yet now we're getting destruction, the swords, the heart.
But what he doesn't understand is that what God continues on, why are they about to be judged? Because of the idolatry that's still in their hearts. There may be all these outward reforms that are happening, even under Josiah and stuff like that, but God says He's not impressed by it. It's good, but it's not going to stop the judgment that's coming because of the idolatry in people's hearts.
Did you catch that? He said, Behold, a dry wind of the desolate heights blows in the wilderness towards the daughter of my people, not to fan or to cleanse. A wind too strong for these will come for me. Now I will also speak judgment against them. He said the wind is coming because it's a judgment against them. Behold, he shall come up like clouds. He's speaking of King Nebuchadnezzar here. He's speaking of the king who's going to come with his fierce wrath, bringing the judgment of God. And his chariots like whirlwind, his horses are swifter than eagles.
Woe to us, for we are plundered. This is the judgment that's going to come, but did you notice? O Jerusalem, wash your heart from wickedness, that you may be saved. How long shall your evil thoughts lodge within you? That's what I have underlined as the best verse to summarize this section of verse 14. This is a section of Jeremiah that's a woe. This is the exact same way that God looked upon the thoughts of the hearts of men in Genesis chapter 6. And what did He see? That their thoughts were only evil continually. See, man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. So judgment is coming, and Jeremiah is going to see a judgment that is so terrible that it will fill his soul that it will pour out in the book of Lamentations.
But make no doubt about it. God's judgment is just. The peace would come, but it would come through Christ towards those who were faithful, who trusted in the Lord God alone. But as for the nation, corporately, God was judging them, and He was calling them all to repentance.
But He knows, even far up in the North, they're not. Verse 15, a voice declares from Dan and proclaims affliction from Mount Ephraim. I make mention to the nations. Yes, proclaim against Jerusalem that watchers come from a far country and raise their voices against the cities of Judah. Like keepers of a field, they are against her all around, because she has been rebellious against me, says the Lord. There are watchmen way up in the north.
We're saying the enemy's coming because Judah has been rebellious. There are even people in Jerusalem at this time who thought because they had the temple of God there, because Judah was in that vicinity of Mount Zion, that somehow they were going to be saved. God's not mocked. He won't be played a fool.
So what's this section about? This is, again, God's warning of the coming judgment because of their sin. What's the best verse? I already told you, I have verse 14 underlined in my Bible. I think that's what's getting at the heart of it. But maybe you would underline something different in your Bible. Last see calling.
What are we called to do? Are we still playing around with sin? Do you play around with it in your life? Do I play around with it in my life? Are we serious about walking in holiness? And this isn't legalism. God has given us peace in Christ. We can't do this of our own will, our own determination. We can't pick ourselves up by the bootstrap. But yet we do have a responsibility. The same is here. The people of His covenant who profess that He is our Lord, that Yehovah is our God, we must turn. Turn from our sin. Sins in our thoughts. Sins in our words. Sins in the things we do. No longer walk in the darkness, but walk in the light as He is in the light.
You know, I'm always kind of surprised in the book of Revelation when God is talking about the different lampstands. And Jesus is walking around the different lampstands, and he has seven lampstands, and he's got the seven stars, and he knows the seven spirits. The point is, what does he say there? That he may remove the lampstand.
There may come a time in churches when we forsake the gospel, when we become consumed with our own lives, with our own comfort, that we no longer think God's thoughts, We no longer submit ourselves to the Lord. We may have taken vows a long time ago, saying that God's Word was the only infallible rule for faith in life, and that we would listen to it when we needed correction in our doctrine or in our life. But then we end up turning our hearts, turning our hearts, our lives away from the elders, away from God's Word.
And we submit to the Lord. May we be repentant and follow after Him. Let's pray. God, we thank You for this day. We thank You for Your Word. We thank You for the joy of Your salvation. We pray, knowing that You are a good Heavenly Father. Please help us, Lord. Help us to walk in Your ways. Give us strength, in Jesus' name. Amen. May God bless you. May you walk in the joy and peace of Jesus Christ, and I'll see you next time. Bye.