Jeremiah chapter six, beginning at verse number one, the Bible reads, "O ye children of Benjamin, gather yourselves to flee out of the midst of Jerusalem, and blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and set up a sign of fire in Beth-haccerem: for evil appeareth out of the north, and great destruction." Now, of course, in keeping with the theme of the book of Jeremiah and in the context of chapter six here, this book is predominantly a warning unto the children of Judah, unto the Jews living in the southern kingdom, about the coming destruction where Babylon is going to come and invade and destroy them and take them captive. Jeremiah's, of course, preaching to these people that they would get right with God so that that would not happen. He keeps telling them that judgment's coming and he's faced with a lot of false profits who preach a lot of lies about how everything's going to be okay and God's not really upset and there's going to be peace in the land.
Jeremiah's preaching a negative message that's not very popular, people want to hear that the king of Babylon's not going to come to Jerusalem but Jeremiah just over and over again is sounding the trumpet, warning that judgment's coming. Here, he's saying to the children of Benjamin, flee out of Jerusalem because there's going to be an enemy coming from the north, referring to Babylon, that's going to come in and destroy.
Now, the reason he's talking to the children of Benjamin is because, if you study the Bible, the geography of the city of Jerusalem is that it is right on the border, basically, of Benjamin and Judah. If you remember when God lined out the different inheritances for the children of Israel in the book of Joshua and he divided the tribes into different geographic areas, Jerusalem is basically right on the boundary between Benjamin and Judah. That was a strategic place to put the capital too, since David is the one who put it there. Although, obviously, it was the place that God had chosen, he uses human events to bring about his will.
If you remember, the tribe of Benjamin were the ones that were the ones that were least likely to accept David as their king because of the fact that he was of the tribe of Judah and their king was King Saul of the tribe of Benjamin. They kind of stuck with his descendants for awhile even when the children of Judah were already following David. The capital was sort of strategically located right there on the border of Benjamin and Judah. Sort of like in the United States, we have Washington DC, right on the border between the north and the south, basically, to try to unite those two different factions. It was the same type of thing in the land of Israel, that's why Jerusalem was located there. If you remember, the southern kingdom of Judah was predominantly made up of three tribes, Judah, Benjamin and Levi. The rest of the tribes were part of that northern kingdom which would be called Israel and later, Samaria, that had already been attacked by the Syrians before this and decimated.
Let's keep reading here, it says in verse two, "I have likened the daughter of Zion," and Zion is just a spiritual term for Jerusalem, it's synonymous with Jerusalem. "I've likened the daughter of Zion to a comely and delicate woman. The shepherds with their flocks shall come unto her; they shall pitch their tents against her round about; they shall feed every one in his place. Prepare ye war against her; arise, and let us go up at noon. Woe unto us! for the day goeth away, for the shadows of the evening are stretched out. Arise, and let us go by night, and let us destroy her palaces. For thus hath the Lord of hosts said, Hew ye down trees, and cast a mount against Jerusalem: this is the city to be visited; she is wholly oppression in the midst of her."
God likens her unto a comely, delicate woman. Not exactly the picture of a strong city that's ready to defend itself against the enemy but rather just a sitting duck that's ready to be wiped out. He is saying, "Hew down the cedars, make great big battering rams. We're going to destroy this city, it's going to be wiped out." Why? Because the Bible said that she's going to be visited, verse six, because she is wholly oppression in the midst of her, at the end of verse six there.
When God talks about visiting or visitation, usually what he's talking about is, coming and punishing someone because of the fact that they've done wrong. He's going to visit. Sort of like where it says, "The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children, to the third, fourth generation." Visited in the Bible or the visitation of the Lord, has to do with God's wrath, God's judgement, God's punishment and one of the sins that he's bringing up is oppression. He says, "She is wholly oppression in the midst of her."
If you remember, a few chapters back we talked about the fact that there was a lot of unrighteous gain going on. There was a class of rulers and a class of elites, priests, and also just governors and judges that were, basically, abusing their power and making a lot of money off of the poor people. That's what they mean by oppression. Sort of like we have going on in the United States today, where we have members of the Congress and Senate that are virtually, all of them, millionaires. It's all dishonest because their salary doesn't pay them millions.
You have to ask yourself, if your salary is X, then why do you have twenty million dollars? Why do you have ... "Oh, they're just really smart with their investments." No. What they're doing is, they're doing insider trading with their investments because insider trading is illegal for every person in the United States except members of Congress. They have all kinds of inside information so they play the stock market. They make money on the way up, they make money on the way down. Whenever one person is winning in the stock market, other people are losing. Other people's retirement fund is being raided by these people who are doing something dishonest. Look, insider trading is dishonest. The system is rigged in their favor and they pass laws like that because they can and they make millions and millions of dollars in the process.
there's nothing new under the sun. Politicians are corrupt now and a lot of the leadership in the land of Judah was corrupt back then. There was a lot of oppression going on where people are being taxed heavily and they're taking money away from the poor people by charging them exorbitant rents and fees and usury and everything else, money lending and things of that nature.
Let's keep reading. It says in verse seven, "As a fountain casteth out her waters, so she casteth out her wickedness: violence and spoil is heard in her; before me continually is grief and wounds. Be thou instructed, O Jerusalem, lest my soul depart from thee; lest I make thee desolate, a land not inhabited."
Now, what kind of violence do you think he's talking about there when he says, "Violence and spoil is heard in her; before me continually is grief and wounds." Well, obviously, that has to do with just a basic robbery, where someone would steal from someone else, rob someone else and take a spoil out of their house. That word spoil, has to do with either conquering someone in battle and taking their stuff or if you think about Proverbs chapter one, where they would basically rob houses that they'd marked out secretly in the daytime, I'm mixing a few Proverbs, but he says, "We're going to get a lot of spoil by robbing people." In Proverbs chapter one, he uses that word. It's obviously just talking about crime, high crime, that's one thing.
Another type of violence that we know was going on, in the land of Judah at this time from other scripture, is that there were people who were actually killing their own children, basically, practicing infanticide. Today we have abortion, it's the same exact thing. It doesn't matter if you kill it right before it's born or whether you kill it right after it's born, it's the same exact thing. The Bible talks about how people at this time, in the southern kingdom of Judah, would make their children pass through the fire. They would basically burn their children. I mean, can you imagine how sick you'd have to be? How evil you'd have to be to murder your own child? To actually give birth to a child and then cause it to pass through the fire unto Molech. They had a religious connotation to it but all it was was infanticide, murder of children.
Let me tell you something, this has gone on in all kinds of societies all over the world for time in memorial. All throughout the Bible we read about it, in history books you read about it. It took place in Polynesian culture in certain islands, it took place in ancient Greece, in Athens and Sparta. It took place in Bible times and it is taking place right now in the United States in the form of abortion, it's the same exact thing. There is nothing new under the sun and it's always been murder and it's murder right now and anybody who participates in it is a murderer, it's that simple. You can try to sugarcoat it, "Oh it's terminating the pregnancy." No, you're murdering your own child. You're murdering your baby. You're murdering an innocent life.
Imagine if they found a single celled organism on Mars, they would say we found life on Mars. If they found a single celled organism on the moon, they'd say we found life on the moon. You find a very complex organism inside of a mother that they would call a blastocyst or a fetus and they'll say "Well, that's not a life." Any of these people would say it's a life if it was found on Mars or if it was found on the moon. Because that's part of their atheistic cult of, "We must find life on other planets to prove that there's no God and that the Bible's not true because the big bang spewed all these universes and there's got to be life somewhere else, and we're going to go where no man has gone before and we're going to find all this life." When it comes to what's right in front of their face, they won't admit it because these scientists, they have an agenda.
These liberals with their death worship and their pro ... It's not pro choice, it's pro death, pro murder. Any woman who is pro choice, I will declare her a whore. What's wrong with you you whore? Why do you believe in murdering your own children? Why do you believe in other women murdering their own children? If you're not pro life, you're probably a whore and I'll just consider you a whore. If you believe that it's okay for women to murder their own child. You probably just want to sleep around with a bunch of dudes and make yourself filthy with your fornication you filthy whore. You know what? This is the language that the Bible uses. I'm only preaching exactly what the Bible teaches.
The Bible says here, "There's violence and spoil in her." He said, "Before me, continually is grief and wounds. Be thou instructed, O America, lest my soul depart from thee; lest I make thee desolate, a land not inhabited." See, we could just substitute America for Jerusalem because Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. He said, "I'm the Lord, I change not; therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed." Over and over again we see the same pattern, where a nation forgets God. A nation that was once godly turns away from the laws of God. A nation becomes filled with crime, filled with violence, filled with abortion and infanticide and God's anger and wrath is kindled and he brings in the heathen hoards to punish them. It's a pattern that goes on over and over again in the Bible. We think that we're special in America. American exceptionalism. Nope, God's not going to make an exception on this one. You shed innocent blood, you reap the whirlwind. That's what the Bible teaches.
Let's keep reading. It says in verse nine, "Thus saith the Lord of hosts." You say, "Oh, hey, how dare you call abortion ..." but here's the thing though, every woman should be ashamed to open her mouth and say, "I'm pro choice." I hope that no woman would ever have the guts to be a member of this church and make such a wicked statement. I hope that she would never even think that it's okay to be in this church and to spout off with that kind of garbage. Good night. I mean, what else? What are we going to condone next, murdering the newborn? I mean, Obama already said that that's fine. Remember the born alive act? He voted against it. Where if they mess up the abortion and it's born alive, that they would have to give it medical care instead of just letting it languish and die a slow painful death, unattended. That's what happens today. Obama, when he was a senator, he vetoed that. He said, "No, let it die. Let it die slow." That's what he voted. That's our so-called President today, in this country.
Verse number nine, the Bible says, "Thus saith the Lord of hosts, they shall throughly glean the remnant of Israel as a vine: turn back thine hand as a grapegatherer into the baskets. To whom shall I speak, and give warning, that they may hear?" Hey, I want to warn somebody. I want to preach the word of God tonight so that someone would repent and get right with God and live their life in a way that's honoring and glorifying him so that he would, basically, bless them and not curse them. Hey, I'm looking for somebody to preach to. I'm looking for someone to give a warning to from God tonight. That's what Jeremiah is saying. Who can I warn? Who can I talk to? Who's listening?
He said, "Behold, their ear is uncircumcised, that they cannot hearken: behold, the word of the Lord is unto them a reproach; they have no delight in it." Now, what does it mean that the word of the Lord is unto them a reproach? You know what a reproach is? It's something that you're embarrassed about. That's what it is. A reproach is something that you're ashamed of, something that you're embarrassed about. It's something that you don't want people to bring up because it makes you look stupid. If you study the word reproach in the Bible you'll see that that's what it means. What the Bible is saying here, is that the word of God is something that the children of Judah are ashamed of at this time. It's an embarrassment to them. "Oh, don't talk about that." You know, "Don't talk about Jehovah God, don't talk about the law of Moses. We don't ..." That's something that we're trying to distance ourselves from.
It's a reproach unto them, they don't want to hear Bible preaching. They're ashamed of Bible preaching, they're ashamed to go to church, they're ashamed to be a Christian. It's a sad thing when people in America today would be ashamed to identified with the word of God or hard preaching. Isn't that terrible that people would be embarrassed? Oh well, yeah, I'm a Christian or well, yeah, I'm a Fundamental Baptist. Yeah, I go to Faithful Word Baptist Church. Yeah, I'm King James Bible preaching guy. You know? That shouldn't be something that we're embarrassed about and Jesus said, "Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and my words." I'd never be ashamed of Jesus. Yeah, but are you ashamed of his words? By the way, that's all of it. Not just the red letters, all right? He said, "Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and my words in this wicked and adulteress generation." It says, "Of him, shall the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes with his father in power and glory." If you think about it, it's the adulterers that ought to be ashamed, it's the wicked that ought to be ashamed. How sad when we're the ones that are embarrassed that we live a clean life.
I mean, listen to me young teenagers, shame on you if you're embarrassed to tell your buddies, "Hey I don't drink." There's no shame in not drinking. "What? You don't drink? What are you some kind of a nerdy little dweeb or something? You can't handle it?" Listen, anybody can handle alcohol, it's not that cool folks. "Yeah, I can really hold my liquor." That's not a badge of honor, that's stupid. I mean, every fool, every derelict, every ghetto welfare recipient who's never worked a day in their life knows how to drink. Every uneducated, illiterate buffoon can drink. I don't care if you're the weakest, skinniest dude who's never picked up a dumbbell in your life, you can drink. You can be an idiot, anybody can. There's no might or strength required to ... I mean, look, all you got to do is be able to lift twelve ounces. You know what I mean? If you can lift twelve fluid ounces, you can be an idiot tonight and there's no glory in that, there's no shame in that.
You know, we ought to be embarrassed of the drunks of this world, the winos of this world, the beer pong experts of this world, they ought to be embarrassed and God's people ought to be proud to say, "Of course I don't drink, because wine is a mocker and strong drink is raging and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise." Go ahead and drink your butt dumber but I'm smarter than that. There's no shame in being Godly. By the way, young man, young lady, there's no shame in being a virgin if you're not married. That's actually something that you ought to be proud of. The one who ought to be ashamed is the one who has been a whoremonger or a whore. That's what the Bible teaches. We ought not be ashamed.
It's a sad day when the word of the Lord is a reproach in American. Where it's an embarrassment or people are trying to hide it or not willing to stand tall for what they believe. There are lots of people who believe just like we do. There are lots of pastors who believe just like I do. You say, "No, that's not true." Yes it is true. There are lots of pastors who believe just like I do but the sad thing is, some of what they believe is a reproach unto them so they don't want to talk about it as much as I want to talk about it or as loud as I want to talk about it.
The bottom line is though, there are plenty of people ... See the Devil, he wants to always get us to feel like we're by ourself. Sort of like Elijah, where Elijah said, "Man, I'm the only one." God says, "No, you're not the only one. There are seven thousand men who haven't bowed the knee to Baal. No, you're not the only one." There are other people out there who are still standing true. The Devil wants us to feel like we're all alone. As a pastor where we feel like, "Oh, I'm the only one." Or as a church member where you feel like, "Man, we're the only ones" or "I'm the only one." It's not true. You know what? A lot of people agree with us on a lot of things, way more than you think. It's just that a lot of people aren't willing to speak up.
Honestly, this whole issue of the homos, and I'm going to do a whole sermon on it this Sunday night. I'm doing a whole sermon on it because the homo parade is coming to town this Sunday. I'm doing a sermon about on Sunday night. You know what? On the issue of the homos, look, more than half the people in this country, I promise you, think that it's disgusting. I promise you that. I don't have any doubt about it. I have no doubt about that but yet if you say it's disgusting. It's ooh! Honestly, virtually everybody that you meet agrees with you. I mean, you look at the poll that was done. It was either the Washington Post or the New York Times where they stated how many Sodomites in the United States, they did a poll of who is straight and who is crooked, you know? Who is straight and who is a Sodomite, queer, homo. They separated it out into those who are bi and those who are homo but honestly, it's all the same. They all go both ways.
The Bible says, "If a man also lie with mankind as he lieth with a woman, they've committed abomination." They said, it was two point three percent of the US population. This was a major poll by the Washington Post, I believe. It was recent, it was in the last couple of years, they said two point three percent. You know what that means? That means that more than ninety five percent of people in this country are not a Sodomite. Now, if you watch TV you think it's like twenty percent, ten percent, thirty percent, I mean, I went to community college and I quote that statistic and they said, "Oh, there's no way. It's like ten or twenty percent." They said, when I was at the community college. I'm like, "No, this is the study." I cited the exact study and they said, "What? Do you live in a bubble, man? You ever go outside much?" Because he just thinks homos are everywhere. That's because you're on a college campus. That's because you're hanging out at bars and stuff, you're hanging out in weird places.
Because, honestly, who here ... Well, I'm not going to ask for a raise of hands because I already know the answer but let me just ask you to think about this, okay, those of you who go soul winning, which is more than half of the people here, praise God. Those of you who go soul winning, who go door knocking, how often do you knock on the door of a Sodomite? Is it all the time or is it pretty rare? Pretty rare, yeah. Matt says one in fifty. I'd say it's less than that. It's at least, it's one in fifty or less but okay, now ask yourself this question, how often do you knock on the door of someone who claims to be a Christian? It's like eighty percent of the doors. Okay, how many times do you knock on the door of someone who's actually saved? I mean, a lot. Way more than you'd run into a Sodomite. I mean, virtually every time I go soul winning, usually I run into one person who's already saved. You know what? That just tells me that there's way more of us than there are of them but we're all scared. They march up and down the street with their pride parade and then we have like a reproach parade where we're all just kind of like ... It's backwards, isn't it?
Look what the Bible says, the word Lord at the end of verse ten. "Is unto them a reproach; they have no delight in it." God, doesn't, not only does he want us to not consider his word a shame or a reproach, he wants us to like it. He wants us to delight in it. Not only just to delight in that which is positive but to delight in the warning. Delight in hard preaching. Delight in all parts of scripture and all preaching of scripture that's biblical. We should delight in all of it.
Says in verse eleven, "Therefore I am full of the fury of the Lord." I wonder how many preachers today would make that statement. We need some preachers to get behind their pulpit this Sunday and say "I'm full of the fury of the Lord." I mean, this country would be a different place. Think about that. "I'm full of the fury of the Lord, I'm sick of holding it in." Right? He said, "I am weary with holding in. I'm sick of it. I'm going to pour it out upon the children abroad, and upon the assembly of young men together." These bunch of young people that think they need some special service in another building where it's all going to be contemporary and watered down and liberal and made for teenagers. No, I'm ready to pour out the fury of the Lord in hard preaching on the youth of our church. They all need to hear it. This young generation needs it more than anybody.
"For even the husband with the wife shall be taken, the aged with him that is full of days." That's part of the warning about what's going to happen. And their houses shall be turned unto others, and their fields and wives together: for I will stretch out my hand upon the inhabitants of the land, saith the Lord." Just again, just warning about the judgement that's coming and how Babylon's coming to destroy.
Verse thirteen, "For from the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness." One of the great problems with Judah at this time was the love of money. The love of possessions. That's what covetousness is usually referring to. Because the word covetousness means desiring that which does not belong to you. That often refers to money and possessions, it can also refer to, of course, coveting thy neighbors wife. That's another issue that comes up with covetousness. When he talks about everybody, least to greatest, being afflicted with covetousness, I believe he's talking about the love of money here, just materialism.
Isn't that indicative of the country that we live in today? Where there's a lot of covetousness. Where people are really excited, not about church, not about the things of God, necessarily but they're very excited about a new car, a new house, making money. It's amazing how people have moved across the country just to come our church. Like, they've moved their whole family across the country just because we want to attend Faith Word Baptist Church and people think they're crazy. People think like, "Whoa, you did that?"
Here's the thing, they wouldn't even bat an eye if you said, "I'm moving across the country for a job opportunity because they're just paying that much." I mean, "Well, how much are you getting paid?" If you named a high enough number, any member of your family would just be like, "Oh, just go for it." I mean, if you went high enough with it, right? "I mean, they are going to pay me two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year at that job in Phoenix." "Well, you'd be a fool to pass that up. I mean, go for it. I mean, what's holding you here? Just go, just do it." Then you say, "Oh, I'm moving for church." It's like, "What are you doing? Are you in a cult? What are you doing? Are you nuts?" Because it just shows you where people's priority is and where their heart is. Covetousness is a language they can understand. You start talking about soul winning and preaching and their, "What?" They glaze over at that.
"From the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely." Not only were the people they problem, but the religious leaders. The prophets, which are the preachers and then the priests, which are the Levitical priesthood, they're all dealing falsely. They're all a bunch of liars and cheats and frauds, et cetera. The Bible says this, "If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness." When the spiritual leaders are dealing falsely, think about what the common man's going to do when the pastor isn't even close to being on track. It's a sad state of affairs.
The Bible says in verse fourteen, of the prophets and priests, "They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace." Now, slightly there means that they're doing it deceitfully. By slight means by craft or you think of Ephesians 4 where it talks about the cunning craftiness whereby false teachers lay in wait to deceive. It says, with their slight of hand. Slight of hand tricks, have you ever heard of that? That's where a magician will, "Yeah, see, I removed my thumb from my hand right here." Slight of hand. I know that wasn't very impressive but you know, there were a few toddlers who I had going there for a minute. Slight of hand, slightly, it means they're doing it deceptively.
Now, "They've healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly saying peace, peace when there is no peace." It'd be sort of like this, you went to the doctor and he heals you by just telling you, "You're fine, you're cured. Yeah, I just need three hundred dollars but yeah, you're fine. You're totally cured. Yeah, just go ahead and sign the pen pad there. All right, see you later. Have a good day." Turned out, you're filled with disease but he just gives you a clean bill of health to make you feel good. That's what the pastors were doing at that time. Basically telling people that everything's fine when they're sick, when they're dying. They're saying, "Peace, peace." Basically, they're saying God's not mad at you when he is mad at you. They're telling you you're saved when you're not saved. They're telling you that you're right with God when you're not right with God. They're telling you that God approves of your lifestyle when he doesn't approve of your lifestyle. That's what they're doing.
We have an epidemic of this today in the United States also. Positive preaching, and look, I'm all for positive preaching but it needs to be balanced with negative preaching. I think preaching should be about two thirds negative and one third positive. That's pretty much how the Bible is. If you read the Bible that's about how it shakes down. Now when I'm out soul winning, it's like ninety percent positive, ten percent negative because I'm preaching the good news, the Gospel. I cover the part about them being a sinner and Hell but then ninety percent of the message is a really positive message about the Gospel, the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, salvation by faith, eternal security of the believer. That's a real positive message but God's people need a diet of preaching from the word of God that comes from the whole Bible.
If you study the Bible, you'll find that there's a lot of negative preaching in the Bible, more so than positive preaching but the false preacher is easy to identify because he always preaches a positive message, all the time. Why? Because he, basically, just wants people to like him and being positive is going to make you liked of a lot of people. Whereas, the real preacher decides what God wants him to preach and if it's positive, if it's negative, he's going to preach the whole book.
I mean, this is what I love about Wednesday nights because on Sundays I choose topical sermons. On Sunday morning, I did the sermon about the resurrection. "Unto us which are saved." You know? I picked that topic and this coming Sunday I've got some topics picked out and in mind. What you end up doing, as a preacher on Sundays, when you pick sermons like that, you end up preaching more often on things that you like and portions of scripture that you like than on the ones that you are not as familiar with or don't care for as much. On Sundays I pick topics and obviously there are certain things I like to preach about more than others. I'm probably going to end up focusing more on those things than I ... You know, I try to be balanced, of course, but you're not going to end up being totally balanced. There are going to be certain favorite scriptures that keep coming out and there's going to be a little bit imbalance toward what you like to talk about. That's just being human.
On Wednesdays, we go chapter by chapter through a book of the Bible. Now, this forces you to preach on everything in the Bible. That's why I like it because it forces me to preach on things that I would never preach on. I've often preached on a Wednesday night and thought to myself, I never would have preached on this chapter. I never would have chosen this chapter ... I'm not saying this chapter. Because this chapter is a really popular chapter for preaching. I'm saying there are other times when I come across a chapter and I think to myself, you know, if I was just picking a sermon. I never would have preached on this chapter. This is the last place I would have turned but I'm glad that I did because God wants me to preach the whole Bible. When you get in a book like Jeremiah, you buckle up because we're going to be in Jeremiah for one year because Jeremiah is fifty two chapters and we're doing one chapter a week. It's a year of preaching and buckle up because it's pretty negative. It's one of the most negative books in the Bible. "Oh, you're being so negative." No, it's not me, it's the Bible, it's Jeremiah. It's the Word of God that's negative.
You know what? I remember there was a period in the book of Isaiah, when I was preaching through the book of Isaiah, there were several months of doom and gloom on Wednesday. Then, on Sunday I'm trying to do more positive, uplifting sermons to kind of balance it out, you know? I'm telling you, when you preach through the Bible verse by verse ... How about this, when you actually read the Bible, you expect negative preaching because you've been reading your Bible. I mean, think about it, if you read your Bible this morning, chances are you probably read some hard preaching or something negative. If you're reading the whole Bible. People who are just like, "Whoa." When they hear hard preaching, it just shows they don't read the Bible. Or they're really shocked by negative sermons, it's just because they're not reading. Because if you're doing the reading, you're getting kicked in the pants every morning when you read your Bible, so you're used to it.
Anyway, it says, "They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace. Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination?" No, they paraded up and down the street about it. Were they ashamed at all when they committed abomination? "Nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore shall they fall among them that fall: at the time that I visit them ..." Again, that word comes up. "The time I visit them, they shall be cast down, saith the Lord."
Now, here's one of the most famous verses in the whole Bible, if you're a Fundamental Baptist. Fundamental Baptists love this verse, all right? It says, "Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein." In fact, a friend of ours Brother Manley Perry, is starting a church in San Antonio, Texas in one month and it's going to be called Old Path Baptist Church. That's actually a pretty popular name for churches because of the fact that this verse is such a powerful verse. Where God says, stand in the ways and see and ask for the old paths, where is the good way and walk therein. Why is the old path the good way? Why isn't the new path the good way? Here's why, because the Bible's old. Right? The Bible's old. There's nothing new about the Bible. Even the New Testament is two thousand years old so there's nothing new about this book. Even the translation that we have in English isn't new. It's from 1611, it's over four hundred years old.
The reason that the old path is the good path is because the old path is a biblical path. Anything that's brand new isn't the biblical way because if it were the biblical way, it would've been around already in some manifestation. Now, obviously, the biblical way manifests itself differently in each generation. We're told go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. We're told to be in the highways and in the hedges and from house to house but that looks a little different in 2016 than it did two hundred years ago because now we have cars and we have airplanes. You know, that can get us a little further so that we can get a little bit more done more efficiently but in principle, we're doing the same thing. We're knocking doors, we're preaching the Gospel, we're walking down the street finding every unsaved person we can and presenting the Gospel to them. It might go from knocking a door to ringing a doorbell or buzzing an intercom but it's the same principle of just going to the lost, going to their homes, going up and down the street and just finding people wherever they are and giving them the Gospel. There's nothing new under the sun and so the old paths are still right.
We don't need to be changing with the times in the sense of forsaking biblical doctrine for that which is new and trendy. People sit there and say, "Well, you got to change on this homo thing." Or, "You have to change on the roles of men and women because our society has evolved to the point now where men and women have the same exact roles and there's a gender equality now," and all this but here's the thing, I'm not going to evolve. I'm stuck and if that means going extinct then so be it. I'm not going to the next stage of evolution. I'm going to remain homo sapiens, okay? The point is, here, that they say, "Well, we're evolving," but we're going backwards. That's not called evolution, that'd be devolution. Going to the Devil is what we're doing. It's devolution, going backwards.
See, it's not evolving to say, "Oh, now we accept a lifestyle that fills people with disease." That's going backwards. "Hey, now we have this great lifestyle that we're embracing. Only one catch, you're fifty times more likely to get AIDS if you do it, but other than that it's great. Oh, by the way, it's completely filthy and perverted too and you're going to be filled with disease and by the way, your rates of domestic violence are going to go through the roof and your rates of murder and your rates of abuse and pedophilia are going to go through the roof but it's all part of progress. We're evolving." No, you're going backwards. That's not evolution.
"Oh, but we're getting smarter." No, we're getting dumber. As a country we're becoming more foolish, more uneducated. You see, the King James Bible is written in the language of the common man, it really is. If you want to know what the educated elite spoke like, then get some elite literature from the seventeenth century. The King James Bible is written right around the time of Shakespeare. Right? You know what? I guarantee you that the King James Bible is a lot easier to understand for you than Shakespeare but even Shakespeare is a popular entertainer who's trying to entertain the common man on some level. You could go back and read writings of nonfiction, get yourself some nonfiction from the seventeenth century and then tell me how hard the King James Bible is to understand.
The bottom line is that the King James Bible is written in the language of the common man at that time and the Bible itself, in it's original language, the New Testament, you've heard a million times probably that it's written in Koine Greek. Do you know what Koine means? Common. That which is common or profane. That which the common, average person speaks, that's the language that it's written in. You say, "Well no, Pastor Anderson, it's written in a very formal language." No, it's just that we've become so dumb that reading normal language sounds fancy to us. It sounds really just sophisticated when in reality, it's really simple.
"There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light. That all men through him might believe. He was not that light but was sent to bear witness of that light. That was the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, the world was made by him. He came into his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." Isn't the Bible just really hard to understand? It's just so high and lofty in it's language. No, it's just that we have degenerated to a texting language where we just can't understand.
Here's what's interesting, language is constantly moving backwards. Any language, pick your language in this world today. If you go back in time, it was more complicated in the past and it's simpler now. If you ever study ancient languages, from two, three, four thousand years ago, you will find that they were much more complex than the language that we speak. Why is that? Because people are getting so much smarter. No, it's because people are getting dumbed down. Okay. That's why Old English is more complicated than Middle English and Middle English is more complicated than Modern English and Modern English is more complicated than Contemporary English. Pick your language. You look at Spanish, the farther you go back in Spanish, the more complicated it is. The farther you go back in Greek, the more complicated it is. The newer, the simpler, the more dumbed down. Why? Because we are going backwards as a society but if we get on the old paths, we can get back on the right track.
See, we're not doomed. I'm not up here saying, "We're all doomed. We're dumb, doomed and deemed unfit to read the Bible." We, basically, have an opportunity to ditch modernism. I'm not saying ditch technology, I like using technology to spread the Gospel, but why don't we ditch the Rick Warren, Bill Hybels style of Christianity, the modernistic rock and roll Christianity where we get a twenty minute sermonette, with hardly any meat even on the bone and it's all music and it's all a worship experience or whatever. Why don't we ditch that and get on the old paths? Why don't we get on old fashioned preaching and old fashioned King James Bible? You say, "Why do you sing the old hymns?" Well, one of the reasons is because the new music's just too shallow. We need to seek the old paths where it's the good way.
Now, he's not saying just pick the old paths because they're old. No, no, no. Only where it is the good way. Because there's some old junk too. Because the Devil goes back all the way to the Garden of Eden so you can find all the Devil's garbage in the past also. Don't just say, "Well, older's always better." Because it's not always better but we do need to seek the old paths wherein it's the good way, with that qualifier there.
The Bible says here that they didn't want it. "He said, they said, we will not walk therein." Verse seventeen. By the way, "we will not walk therein" means we don't want to walk therein. In the King James language that's so hard to understand. It says in verse seventeen, "Also I set watchmen over you, saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet. But they said, We will not hearken. Therefore hear, ye nations, and know, O congregation, what is among them. Hear, O earth: behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened unto my words, nor to my law, but rejected it." That's interesting because he's calling out to the rest of the world. He's preaching to the Gentiles there. He's preaching to everybody in the world, saying, "Hey everybody, see these people right here? These people are blowing it. These people are disobeying God and I'm going to punish them. Take a lesson from what I'm doing to Israel."
"To what purpose cometh there to me incense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country?" Think of sugarcane right? That's the mention of it in the Bible. "Your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices sweet unto me. Therefore thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will lay stumbling blocks before this people, and the fathers and the sons together shall fall upon them; the neighbour and his friend shall perish. Thus saith the Lord, Behold, a people cometh from the north country, and a great nation shall be raised from the sides of the earth. They shall lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel, and have no mercy; their voice roareth like the sea; and they ride upon horses, set in array as men for war against thee, O daughter of Zion."
You know, I hate to even bring this up but I just had ... It's just funny. These flat-Earthers and they like to take this super duper literal interpretation of verses to the point where they just make zero sense. Their ridiculous thing. How about people coming from the sides of the Earth? If it's flat, then how can it have sides? Boom. Anyway, that was for free tonight but anyway. Yes, the Earth is a sphere, right? Can I get an amen on the Earth being a globe? All right. Anyway, it's bizarre, again, you say, "What's that got to do with the price of tea in China?" Well, we're talking about people being dumbed down, that's a prime example.
Let's keep reading. He said in verse twenty five, "Go not forth into the field, nor walk by the way; for the sword of the enemy and fear is on every side. O daughter of my people, gird thee with sackcloth, and wallow thyself in ashes: make thee mourning, as for an only son, most bitter lamentation: for the spoiler shall suddenly come upon us. I have set thee for a tower and a fortress among my people, that thou mayest know and try their way." That's a great verse right there. "I've set thee for a tower and a fortress." I mean, that's what we ought to be. We ought to be a tower tonight, we ought to be a fortress. We ought to be a bastion of the truth. We ought to be one that's standing tall and watching out for others and warning others. Think about what a tower's for. For seeing the danger and warning people about it, right? It's also a place that you go to for a refuge. The Bible says, "The name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous runneth into it and is safe."
The Bible is saying here, I've set thee for a tower and a fortress among my people. We need to be a stronghold of truth. We need to be a stronghold of the old paths. "That thou mayest know and try their way. They are all grievous revolters, walking with slanders: they are brass and iron; they are all corrupters. The bellows are burned, the lead is consumed of the fire; the founder melteth in vain: for the wicked are not plucked away. Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the Lord hath rejected them."
What we get here is a picture of someone working with metals and they're trying to purify those metals and by doing so they're hoping to get that which is pure, pure silver in the end. What they're doing is they're getting it very hot and they want to separate the silver from the dross, they want to get rid of the metals that aren't as precious so that they can have a pure silver. It's interesting that there's a lot of copper that's mined in Arizona. In fact, copper is one of the five C's of Arizona. Right? Copper, cotton, climate, cattle ... No, it's ... John, help me out. It's not cactus. It's citrus. Citrus, cattle, cotton, copper, climate. All right, these are the resources, the natural resources of Arizona. Copper is a big one.
I've actually toured a copper mine in Arizona as a field trip with the children. It was really interesting. What's interesting about it is that they mine the copper and right there, they refine it to ninety percent purity. Okay? Then they send it to somewhere else where it gets refined to ninety nine percent purity, then it goes to a third location to become ninety nine point nine. It takes a whole step and a whole facility to go from ninety nine to ninety nine point nine, that's the hardest part. It goes from ninety over here, ninety nine over here, ninety nine point nine here. Sadly, a lot of the copper mines are closing in Arizona just because the government regulations and the taxation and rules, they can't compete anymore so people are buying their copper from somewhere else, where they don't have the government that we have here.
Copper is being refined and melted and you want it to be as pure as possible so you can make whatever you want to make with it, electrical wires, or they probably use the really dirty stuff for the pennies, they don't seem very pure. Whatever the application, copper can sometimes be used on rooftops, and all manner of sculptures and all manner of uses, electrical wiring being one of the big ones in our homes. You have to get rid of all this other stuff and it's done by melting. You get it really hot and then you can separate out the components and so he's talking about the bellow there with the ...
Think of the word billows, what are billows? See the Bible's not really that hard to understand, because you know what billows are, right? No you don't, okay. Anyway, the hymn, you know, in the hymns like, there are a lot of hymns about the billows, what's the song where the billows roll? Like the sea billows roll, since Jesus came into my heart. What else? What's another billow song? Okay, sing that part for me. What part? I don't remember that hymn. It's hard to jump into a song in the middle. I could sing the whole It is Well but I'm trying to think. When sorrows like sea billows roll. Billows is a similar word to bellows, it's a similar word there. Okay, let's just get off that, let's just ... I don't want to.
Do a little research on the word billows and bellows. Anyway, the point is here that they use air and wind to get the fire really hot. They want to get it really, really hot so that they can separate out these metals and, basically, what the Bible's saying here is that the bellows are burned, the land is consumed to the fire, the founder melteth in vain for the wicked are not plucked away. What we see here is a picture of a guy who's a founder, who's working in a foundry, who's trying to purify metal and he's failing to do so. Does everybody kind of see that? It's not working. He can't get the junk out. He's trying to get it hotter and hotter. His equipment is failing and the metal is still not pure. Does everybody get the picture here? He says here, because the wicked are not plucked away. He can't get the junk out.
In verse twenty eight he says, "They're all grievous revolters." Okay, basically, no matter what God does to these people he can't fix them. He's trying to purify them, he's trying to work with them. He's turning up the heat in their life and he's trying to purify them and it's just not working. Then he says in verse thirty, "Reprobate silver shall men call them because the Lord hath rejected them." The picture here is, you're working with a batch of metal and you're working with it and you're working with it and you're working with it and you just can't fix it. You just can't make anything usable out of it, you just can't get the junk out of it so finally you decide, you know what? I'm just going to have to throw it in the trash and start with another batch. This batch is unsalvageable. Does everybody understand? It can't be salvaged. I'm working with it and it's not working, therefore it can't be salvaged.
Now, God is explaining in this scripture that there are people like that. He's saying, these people are reprobate. Now, this is the first time the word reprobate's ever used in the Bible. Reprobate is a word that we're not too familiar with in our vernacular in 2016. It's just not a word that we use. It's not a word that's used a lot in the Bible. When there are words that are only used a little bit in the Bible and when we're not really familiar with them in our every day speech, I've found that God often does us the great favor of giving us the definition of that word the first time it's mentioned. Whenever you want to know what a word means, sometimes going to the first time it's mentioned in the Bible, will give you a definition right there built in. Here we have the definition of reprobate, the word reprobate means rejected, that's what it means. "Reprobate silver shall men call them." Well, why would you call them reprobate? Why would you call them reprobate? Because the Lord has rejected them. Which is why they're called reprobate. Okay? Reprobate is that which has been rejected. You can even see in the etymology of the word why it would mean that. If you think about probate or probation, it's like a testing that's happening. Reprobate, it's like that which has been tested repeatedly and has been finally given up on or rejected. Okay.
Now, this word is key because it's found throughout the New Testament and I believe that the definition of this word is consistent every time it's used in the Bible. I don't think that any of the mentions in the Bible are aberrations where this word means something totally different. No, it's clear that the word reprobate has one meaning. Rejected, reject. You could just call it a reject.
Now, it's one thing to be rejected of man. Let's say you ask a girl out on a date and she tells you that she's washing her hair. It's one thing to be rejected of a person or being rejected, maybe you go out soul winning and you say, "Hey, I'd like to present the Gospel to you." And you're rejected. When you're rejected of people, it's not a big deal, is it? You shake it off. You move on to the next girl, the next door, the next whatever but when you're rejected of the Lord. I mean, game over at that point.
I mean, where do you turn? When my father and mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up. When the Lord forsakes you? When the Lord rejects you? You're doomed. Now, here's the good thing. Those of us who are saved, he'll never leave us or forsake us. He hath said I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. Can anything separate us from the love of God? No but the Bible's real clear in that passage, he's talking to the saved. In Romans 8, he's talking to the saved when he says nothing can separate us from the love ... See, it's the unsaved that are in danger of becoming reprobate.
Now, most unsaved people aren't reprobate. The vast majority of unsaved people are not reprobate. God keeps giving them another chance and giving them another chance and they keep hearing the Gospel and they go through life and God loves them and wants them to be saved but there's a type of person that the Bible teaches where they don't want to retain God in their knowledge, they hate the Lord and the Bible says, "Therefore God gave them over to a reprobate mind." To do those things which are not convenient. In the verse that I would consider the key reprobate verse in the New Testament, Romans 1, where he talks about the reprobate. Three times in Roman 1, he says this phrase, "God gave them up, God gave them over, God gave them up." You get that idea of being rejected of the Lord which is consistent with Jeremiah 6:30.
The moral of the story is, that we need to go out and reach people with the Gospel while they can be saved. Again, it's only a minority but some will reach a point where it's too late for them. Now, when people die, it's too late but there could be a time before people die where it becomes too late for that person, biblically, where they become reprobate. This is where there are a lot of discussions of how a person gets to that point. I think some key areas that we see in the Bible of how a person gets to that point, first of all, someone who would add to or subtract from God's word reaches that point, according to the Bible. Also during the time of the tribulation, a person who takes the mark of the beast will get to that point because the Bible talks about, once they receive the mark of the beast, they're done. Another way that a person could get to that point is through the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit where they would get to that point. Don't shy away from that doctrine, that's a biblical doctrine.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for Jeremiah, chapter six, Lord. I pray that there are people here who have an ear to hear and not only is hard preaching and warnings from your word, not only is that type of preaching not a reproach unto them but they actually delight in it, Lord. May that ever be said of our church and of us as individuals and help us to heed the warnings tonight, Lord, for your people to follow your commandments, Lord. Also, Lord, I pray that if there's any unsaved, I pray that they would heed the warning that it's possible for them to become reprobate if they just continue to reject the Lord and his word. We thank you, Lord, for our church. Bless us as we go our separate ways and in Jesus name we pray. Amen.
