Preaching On The Church Steps

Preaching on the church steps

Jeremiah 7-10 8/20/06

Let me give you something to think about this morning. Suppose as you come to church this morning I was standing on the church steps and before you entered the building, I began my sermon. I just started to preach to you while you are going to the inside of the church. What would you think of that?

I know about what you would do. You would first of all check to see about getting a pulpit committee together and then check on having me committed. But this is exactly what the Lord told Jeremiah to do. Look at verse 2.

Here are the people getting ready to go into the temple and all of a sudden they hear the words hold it; they all turned and looked and the prophet begin to preach his sermon on the church steps.

Now there are several movements in his sermon that we want to examine this morning and it is obvious that we will just hit the high spots. The first movement we see is WORSHIP EXAMINED. Jeremiah talks to them about their worship. Look at what he says in verse 3. To paraphrase those words, Jeremiah is saying clean up the way you live. There was a need to clean up the way they were living and thinking even in the worship service.

But I want you to see something else in verse 4. I think he is talking about the song service here. They were singing songs like wherever He leads I will follow knowing all time it was a lie. They would follow if He was leading them to a place they wanted to go to start with.

Let me ask you; do you look at the words you are singing? If you do, do you really mean them. Jeremiah was ringing out the lies the people were singing in the song service.

Now look in verse 9. Jeremiah is telling what is going on in the lives of the people. They were going to the worship service and their lives were like lost other person in the city. Jeremiah said will you steal murder, commit adultery and worship false gods?

One of the things about the prophets is they called sin, sin. They would not be greeted well in the honey churches today. Today we want to call sin by different names to make it sound better. We want to call stealing embezzlement. We want to call adultery an affair. But the prophets of old called it sin and Jesus Himself called sin, sin and I will never do any less.

Now I want you to move down into verse 16. Verse 16 says something that is very interesting. The Lord says Jeremiah, pray not for these people and don’t cry over them. Now why did the Lord tell Jeremiah not to pray for the people and not to cry over them? I believe I have the answer to this question. It was because judgment was on the way. When judgment is on the way, there is no use to pray. It has been said that prayer may delay judgment but preaching the Word will hasten judgment. I believe that is the way it is.

He moves from worship examined to chapter 8 and WICKEDNESS EXALTED. Look at verses 4-6 in chapter 8.

These people bragged about their sin. The same thing is happening in America today and don’t think for a minute it isn’t. They even write songs about their sin today and what is more astonishing is that people will buy them.

Verse 6 really sums it up about wickedness exalted. The Lord says like a horse running into battle because the horse doesn’t understand the danger in it. People are running into sin as fast as they can go today and ignorant of the danger of it. For instance, a person says I have never received Jesus publicly as my Lord and Savior. Do you realize the seriousness of being lost without Jesus for an eternity? Do you understand that you will by your own choice go to hell where you will always be dieing but never dead? Do you realize being lost means that you will be in outer darkness all alone?

Listen, when a society gets to the point that they no longer blush because of their sin; then they have come to the point where they have exalted wickedness.

Now I want you to look at verse 20. Verse 20 is one of the most evangelistic verses in the Bible. What the verse is saying, it may be saying to some of you this morning. God have given the opportunity for repentance. God has given the opportunity to return. Now it is over and the harvest is past and summer is over and you are not saved.