For Our Example: full transcript and answers

▶ 0:01 And Jeremiah, of course, Ezekiel was a prophet in the captivity. Jeremiah was the prophet before and during the three captivities, and in Jeremiah 23:14, Jeremiah, through God, lifts up his voice and says, “I have seen also a thing in the prophets of Jerusalem that is horrible. They commit adultery,” number one, sexual immorality. “They walk in lies.” They don’t only lie, they walk in lies and say, “It’s my truth.” How many know people who walk in lies yet they say their truth? Yeah, you probably look at one in the mirror in the morning. Yeah. “They strengthen the hands of evildoers.” Now here’s the kicker: they strengthen the hands of evildoers “so none returns from his wickedness.” And this is the big problem. This is what Sodom and Gomorrah did. They held no one accountable for crime. They held no one accountable for sexual immorality, no one accountable for idolatry, no one accountable for all the abominations they were doing. And Jeremiah says God’s people, Jerusalem, the Jews, were just like them. They’re not holding God’s people accountable.

▶ 1:38 See, but they strengthen their hands, so no one repents, no one is really turning from their evil ways, from their wickedness. Then he says they’re all “as Sodom, and the inhabitants like Gomorrah.” So it’s not just the prophets. The inhabitants, the people listening to these preachers, are as Gomorrah. Do we get it now? See, here’s the problem: when we don’t preach the gospel to repent, turn from your sin, admit you’re wrong and turn from it, we are strengthening their hand to live in sin, and God says that’s just exactly what Sodom did and Gomorrah did. They held no one accountable for doing wrong.

▶ 2:33 We’re going to continue in Jeremiah, and look at God’s message to Jeremiah. God comes to Jeremiah in Jeremiah chapter 1, verse 1, and He gives Jeremiah a message. How many know we’re only allowed to preach the message God gives us to preach? We’re not allowed to preach our opinions and our ideas. We’re not allowed to preach other people’s opinions and their ideas. And so He comes to Jeremiah and He says, “Hey, this is what I want you to tell the people.” “This day I have set you over the nations,” over the unbeliever. The nations is the Gentiles, the pagans, the unbeliever. This message has got to go to the unbeliever. “And over the kingdoms.” A kingdom is where a king rules over you. You’ve got to take it to civil authorities.

▶ 3:31 “This message that I’m giving you is going to root out.” You see, you’ve got to get to the root of the problem. Ain’t that right? Didn’t Jesus say the tree is evil because the root is evil? Yeah. So, Jeremiah, you’ve got to root out the roots of evil, these bad things. “You got to pull down.” The Bible says the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but they’re mighty through God to the what? Tearing down, the pulling down of strongholds. We’ve got to pull down the stronghold of the enemy on people’s lives. “We got to destroy.” And the Bible says that Jesus destroyed the works of Satan. We’ve got to destroy the works of Satan. Amen. “And throw down, and to build.” Now, you don’t root up without planting the proper seed back in there. Amen. You can’t just go around tearing everything up. You’ve got to build, and you’ve got to plant the right seed and get the right root in people’s lives. Now, that’s a good place for an amen. And that’s a good message, isn’t it? Yeah.

▶ 4:40 He also says, Jeremiah, and listen, church, he says, “Jeremiah, I don’t want you to be dismayed or discouraged, afraid and confused before their faces, before their presence, before their person.” And too many of us Christians, when we are confronted by the enemy, we fold. We don’t want to hurt their feelings, or we don’t have an answer to give them, or they threaten us. And He says, “Jeremiah, don’t you be discouraged. Don’t you be afraid of their person, of their faces.” How many could use a little of that in your life? Yeah, courage instead of fear. Yeah, we’re afraid to stand up for who we are in America right now. And then God gives a message to the people. He says, “You’ve committed two evils.”

▶ 5:52 Jeremiah 2:13: “You’ve done two things wrong. You’ve forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and you’ve cut out cisterns that can hold no water,” broken cisterns that can hold no water. Now, I’ve given you an example up here. Here’s a man-made system, okay? It would rain, the water would run down in here, and, you know, if there was an underground source, the system would have water down below, and when the water level was high, you’d have higher water. Now there’s also a vessel. It can be a vessel, container, a bucket with holes in it. He said you’re putting water in buckets with holes in it. Have you ever been at the beach and you dug a hole and the wave come in and it filled up that hole, and then you just watched as that water just disappears? See, that’s systems, that’s a container that won’t hold water. And a lot of people believe in God and they have no life. They don’t have Jesus and the Word, which are life. Amen. Because they got holes, it just runs out. God comes and it just goes out. Here is a spring coming right out of the ground, and it’s coming out of the ground at over 3,000 gallons per minute. Now this is an example of the fountain of living water. The guy who has the property that owns this spring runs this water through a generator, and he has free electricity. That’s how powerful the water is. How many know God wants us to have power? How many know we need the water flowing to have the power? Yeah, we can’t have systems that won’t hold no water. This water’s got to be flowing. It’s got to come from Him, pour out of us, continual strength. And He says that’s the problem with the people. Could that be true in America today? Yeah, we believe in God, but we have no power, we have no life, we have no source within us.

▶ 8:18 Then He gives Jeremiah the message of his punishment, of his judgment for what the people are doing, okay? And He says in Jeremiah 1:14, “Out of the north calamity shall break forth on all the inhabitants of the land.” In other words, war is coming and you’re going to go into captivity. War is going to happen. That’s what He tells them in Jeremiah 1:14, right at the beginning when Jeremiah started prophesying in the days of Josiah. That was the message: war’s coming, captivity is coming. Hallelujah. God’s people don’t like to hear bad messages. They like to hear positive thinking when they really need a spanking. Chapter 2:19: “Your own wickedness will correct you, and your backslidings will rebuke you.” You see, when you do wrong, there is a payment to be paid. You’re going to commit sexual immorality, you’re going to get sexually transmitted diseases, you’re going to break up homes, you’re going to get depressed, it’s going to cause emotional problems. That’s the way sin is. You steal somebody’s car, you’re going to go to jail, you’re going to pay. That person ain’t going to let you just come and steal his car. He’s going to see that you pay for it. Society’s going to see that you pay for it. You see, your own sins, your own backslidings will correct you.

▶ 10:02 In Jeremiah there is three sources of opposition going to come to his message. How many know every prophet had opposition? Ain’t that right? Yeah, we act like nothing is supposed to happen to us, because there’s preachers preaching that and people believe those lies because they don’t read their Bible. There’s going to be three sources of opposition to Jeremiah’s message. I’m going to liken it to the Hurricane Katrina, which wound up being one of the five worst storms in America, in United States history, with winds of 175 miles per hour, did $5 billion worth of damage. Okay, it started as a tropical storm over here in the Atlantic. Then a few days later it diminished. “Ah, it’s not going to turn into a hurricane.” Everybody was relieved. A few days later it grew big. “Now, oh, what’s going to happen next?” The news is following. A few days later it’s twice as big as it was before. A few days later it’s twice as big as it was before, over twice as big. And then a few more days later it is a full-grown hurricane with the eye in the middle and headed toward Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama to do its destruction.

▶ 11:41 Okay, I picked this because it’s an illustration that Christians need to understand. Now, let’s look at the three areas of opposition. Number one, civil government. They’re always punishing our prophets, punishing God’s people. Are you there? Genesis to Revelation, civil government just treats people who want to just live right horribly. Ain’t that right? The second source is temple leaders, religious leaders, church leaders. Church leaders oppose the message that a judgment’s coming. Church leaders oppose the message that God corrects and punishes His people and judges His people.

▶ 12:47 And false prophets, and temple members, church members. You know, church members in Ezekiel are some of the worst. It’s sheep that stomped out the waters and made it muddy for the other sheep. It wasn’t leaders at all, it was just sheep. You sheep are a real problem sometimes. Are you there? Yeah. You distort the Word of God yourself, and then you distort it to other people. You twist it, mangle it like you know what you’re talking about, and you don’t know beans. Hallelujah. And there’s false prophets, folks. There’s just a lot of people preaching a false gospel. That’s the bottom line. Are you there? And they all oppose the right message, the true message. If you don’t say nothing, they got no problem with you. So you silent saints, yeah, you don’t know what’s going on because you’re never talking. You get out there and talk to these people and they hate your guts. They don’t like you telling them they’re wrong. So these are the three sources of opposition, and we’re going to look at these in more detail.

▶ 14:03 But is our civil government today opposing the message of the Bible? Absolutely, absolutely. From governors to state senators to House of Representatives, in Congress, to the President of the United States, they are opposing the message of the Bible that there’s a punishment for violating what is right. Is religious leaders doing it in America today? Absolutely. They’re even collaborating with government officials to promote things to America and demean the Bible in the name of Jesus. How can you do that? You can only preach what Jesus said to preach. You can only imitate Jesus. You can’t imitate somebody else. Here’s the opposition’s effects. Jeremiah starts preaching in Josiah’s day. Josiah is the king of Judah who was a good king. He cleansed the temple, he restored it, he kept the feast. When he read in the Law that God’s people were going to be judged, he sent to the prophet, “What can we do?”

▶ 15:33 And so, as we seen the storm Katrina, there was a storm brewing. His father was evil, and Isaiah was prophesying before that judgment’s coming. Isaiah was preaching it to the other kings, and so the storm was arising. And then Josiah comes along and we have a what? A decreasing and abatement, at least in Josiah. But the prophet said, didn’t say it wasn’t coming. The prophet came to Josiah and said, “It won’t happen in your day because your heart is right with God. You’re doing what’s right. So this isn’t going to happen in your day, but it’s still going to happen.” So the people thought, “Ah, we got a reprieve. The storm has shrunk. There’s a decrease. No war, no captivity, no plagues, no problems.” And then Josiah died.

▶ 16:31 And his son [unclear] sat on the throne, ruled for 11 years, and the Bible said he burned the Scriptures. He took the Scriptures and had his scribe read them, and after he had stopped, he cut that scroll and he threw it into the fire. Then the scribe would read more and he’d cut that off and throw it into the fire. He decimated the Scripture. He had no respect for the Scripture. The Bible says he did evil. He killed innocent blood, he killed innocent people, and he committed abominations. That means sexual immorality, homosexuality, incest, idolatry. All these things that God says He detests are abominations. And then they went into captivity in 597 BC. They went into captivity, first captivity. Now the false prophets are preaching, “We ain’t going to go into captivity. There’s no war coming. Don’t you believe it. We’re going to win this war. We’re going to defeat it. Babylon’s going to turn around.” That’s what the false prophets were saying. And then, poof, they go into captivity. Now the storm has gotten big, and the first captivity and the first destruction and the first correction has come.

▶ 18:04 [unclear] is replaced by Jehoiachin, who only lasted three months, and the Bible just sums him up by saying he did everything Jehoiakim had done. So he detested the Scriptures, he did evil, he created abomination, he killed innocent blood, he did everything Jehoiakim did, so he didn’t last long. Egypt come up and took care of him. Zedekiah gets on the throne. Zedekiah ruled for 11 years, okay, and the Bible says he did evil as Jehoiakim did. That means he detested the Scriptures, he shed innocent blood, he did evil, and he did these abominations all the time, believing in God. They were still going to the temple and keeping the feast and doing, you know, singing. Zedekiah imprisoned the messenger. The temple leaders and Zedekiah imprisoned him, beating him.

▶ 19:04 Church leaders opposing the true message, they put Jeremiah in prison. So Babylon came back. The prophets are prophesying, “They ain’t coming back.” And when they did come back, they said, “We’re going to win the war again.” They didn’t win it the first time. Jeremiah was right the first time. But here they are prophesying, [unclear], you know, speaking in tongues, interpretation, all that goes with it, whatever. But their message is wrong. The city comes. Babylon comes in, in spite of them going to the temple and praying, calling on God, and having the false prophets prophesy a positive message. When God’s saying, “Hey, Babylon’s going to win. If you just surrender to Babylon, no one will die.” “We’re not surrendering to Babylon.” “Oh, hallelujah, that’s a negative confession.”

▶ 20:02 And Jeremiah would say, “All you got to do is just open the gates, surrender to Babylon, nobody will get hurt.” They wouldn’t do it. They lost the war, and this time Babylon destroyed the city, just burnt the city to the ground and destroyed the temple. He didn’t just carry off the temple stuff, this time he destroyed the temple, which these false prophets said would never happen. Are you there? Hallelujah. “Nobody’s going to touch the house of God.” Somebody will when God says, “Touch My house.” Are you there? Yeah, you can think you’re strong because “I’m the temple of God, man, Jesus lives in me, ain’t nothing going to happen.” Well, if God says, “Get him.” Are you there? “But God wouldn’t do that.” Why wouldn’t He? You need a spanking. You need correction. Why would He allow you to continue in your destructive ways and not be a good father and correct you?

▶ 21:09 Now we come to these false prophets and temple leaders and the citizens. Okay. Again, they are teaching no captivity, we’re going to win the war. They’ve already lost twice and they’re still preaching no more captivity, we’re going to beat Babylon, now we’re going to win this thing. The third captivity came. His hometown tried to kill him, his own people. You think that your own family won’t get mad at you if you preach the gospel, you stand up for right? You think it’s going to go well with you? Remember your family? You are living in a fantasy world. You think it’s going to go well with your group of friends when you really stand up for truth and preach truth? No, they’re going to try and destroy you. They’re going to come after you. You silent? Yeah, they don’t care. You just be silent, wear your religion, you know, in a hidden closet, don’t do anything or say anything, don’t rock the boat. Yeah, they like you being shut up. But you speak up and you live up and see what happens.

▶ 22:23 And his own hometown, his own relatives, conspired to kill him. Then they were carried captive in 582 BC, another captivity. I mean, these guys, I mean, one captivity, two captivity, and they still have the same message. Hello, church. And Jeremiah’s message is coming to pass and they still say he’s a false prophet. Imprisoned him, rejected him, beat him, you know, claimed that he wasn’t hearing from God. And then the people of faith, the people of the Jewish people, came during this time and they said, “Jeremiah, we need a word from God.” Okay, they recognized he could preach a word from God. They said, “We need a word from God, and whatever God gives you to tell us, you know, we’ll obey it.” So Jeremiah, he goes and he gets a word from God and he comes back and he says, “Listen, I know you’re lying to me.” This is what Jeremiah said: “You came in deceit. You’re not going to listen to what I said. You came here wanting to hear what you wanted to hear, and I’m not going to give you what you want to hear, and you’re not going to obey what God gives you to say. But here’s what God said: don’t go into Egypt.

▶ 23:49 Stay right here. Give in to the Babylonians and you will live, and I will bless you.” And after Jeremiah got done preaching, they said, “You prophesy falsely. We’re not going to do what you say to do. We’re going to do what we just like.” Jeremiah prophesied, they forced Jeremiah, they wouldn’t listen to his message, and they forced him to go to Egypt with them. And if you know your history, Babylon went down and conquered Egypt, and guess who went into captivity anyway. The people that tried to run away from God’s message, human thinking. So God got them down there, they still had war, they still had plagues, and they still went into captivity. Are you there?

▶ 24:43 So we have these oppositions: the people of faith, the people in the church are some of the biggest false prophets in the church. They believe lies and they just simply say, “Well, I believe it’s this way.” Well, who cares what you believe? What does the Scripture say? “I don’t see nothing wrong with doing this.” Well, it doesn’t matter what you see nothing wrong with. What does the Scripture say? Can I hear an amen? Now, what’s the solution here? Here is the solution, and here is why we’re losing the war in America. Jeremiah, “Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house.” Where did he go? The Lord’s house. “Go to My people, go to where they come to worship Me and learn of Me, and proclaim this word to them.” So here’s these people going in and out of the temple in their real religious ways and bringing their sheep in and doing their little rituals and their sacrifices, and here’s Jeremiah saying, just like Isaiah said, “These sacrifices are nothing. Feast days are nothing. Amend your ways,” and your what? Doings, your actions. Yes, change your ways. Don’t give me these, you know, what good is prayer? What good is worship when you’re living in sin?

▶ 26:14 Then he says, “I will cause you to dwell in this place.” See, it’s not grace and faith that’s going to do this. If you want God’s blessings, you’ve got to what? Amend your ways and your doings. You’ve got to turn from your own wrongs and do right. Now, that’s a good place for a good strong amen. Now, that’s Bible. “Will He be patient with me while I’m learning?” Right, of course. We’re children, we’re family, we grow into maturity. We’re soldiers, we go to boot camp. We don’t learn how to fight the enemy overnight, we grow into that ability. Ain’t that right? But we should be growing. Now, what was their ways and their doings? What exactly were they doing? Jeremiah 7:9: “You steal, you murder,” and hate is murder in the New Testament, “you commit sexual immorality, you swear falsely.” You’re a bunch of liars, and you tell lies about other people. “You burn incense to Baal, you worship Baal, and walk after other gods whom you don’t even know.” You can’t know them because they’re not real. “And then you come and stand before Me in this house.” You come into the church, “this house that’s called by My name.” You come in to worship, you come in to do your religious thing.

▶ 27:40 And you say, “I am delivered to do all these abominations.” I can commit adultery, I can commit incest, I can have more than one wife, I can have all gods lead to the same God, all religions lead to the same God. Hallelujah. “I can do all these. God delivered me because I believe in Him. I can do all these things, I’ll go to heaven, and God will bless me.” Isn’t that prominent in America right now? Oh, it is prominent, and we wonder why we’re not winning this religious liberty battle. We get in our little churches and we do our little thing and we’re not changing our ways, and so God cannot judge the sinner without judging His people. Judgment must begin where? At the house of God. So, “if My people will humble themselves,” and what? Pray. We stop there. “And seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, oh, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land.” So what’s the key? We need to seek God, we need to pray, but that prayer and that seeking should bring us to a change in our life. Then when that happens, God can say, “See, nation of America, here is My people, a light to you. Now I can deal with you who are sinning.”

▶ 29:38 Colossians 2:8: “Beware lest any man spoil you.” Steal, take your possessions by force or any other means. “Beware lest any man.” How’s he going to do it? Through his so-called philosophy, his principles to live by, his ideal, what’s right, and intellectualism, what he thinks is right. They use big words and “vain, worthless deceit.” See, their whole thing is to deceive people, following human tradition or men’s ideas. That’s what’s happening in America, men’s ideals rather than what scriptural truth, following undeveloped primary teachings of the world and disregarding the teachings of Christ. They come and taking the Christian mind and robbing their mind, their thinking. And so we don’t think right anymore, and we promote wrong, just like Jeremiah said. We’re strengthening the sinner that they don’t turn from their wicked way, because our thinking is wrong. Could that be an amen?

▶ 30:56 But the Bible is a book of law, it’s a book of truth. Where in society are we to believe that promoting lies is going to be healthy for our nation? In our public schools, do we send our kids to public schools to be taught lies? Should the public school have a right to teach lies or just truth? Yeah, but they’re teaching lies. See, they are stealing our mind and getting us to believe things that are wrong. They’re getting us to believe they’re right and promote them as right. I made this statement: American Christians make the same mistake the Jews did. The Jews lost the battle, even the good ones. Ezekiel was a good man, Daniel was a good man, Shadrach, Abednego were good people, but they had to be a partaker of the judgment just like everybody else.

▶ 32:04 Can we turn America around? Absolutely. Josiah did. Remember, Isaiah had already been preaching the message that captivity was coming, but Josiah turned from the ways of his father and the bad kings before and did what was right and brought blessing back to Judah. Can we do that to America? Should we do that to America? Should we be compassionate for their enemies that oppose God and don’t believe in the Bible and attacking us? Should we have the compassion to want them to hear the gospel and come to their senses and be saved? Yes. How are they going to hear it if we’re silent? If we let them silence us, how are they going to hear it? And should we have a compassion for the churches in America, the people sitting there, a lot of them with really innocent hearts, really wanting God, and preachers and books are telling them things that are not right? Should we have a compassion for God’s people who are unlearned, that God would come and teach them, and they can have an effect in their home and in their community and the nation? Yeah.