The Point of No Return
(Jeremiah 7:16-24, 30-31, 15:1-6)
1. We home-schooled our kids, and that meant we had to face a number of challenges. As they got older, how would we teach them Driver’s Ed?
2. Fortunately, others blazed the trail before us;they make videos about everything, including an excellent Driver’s Ed course. As a matter of fact, I picked up a few pointers myself.
3. The term "a stale green light."
4. Another term: "the point of no return."
5. As God deals with people, we can detect some points of no return.
6. And, in the context of the Book of Jeremiah, it happened to Judah in 586 BC
Main Idea: God is patient and long-suffering, but His patience has boundaries. Sometimes we humans can move to the point of no return.
I. The Point of No Return BUILDS
A. Builds to a Point Beyond PRAYER (7:16)
When we pray, we are to pray in accordance with God’s will. God’s will: devastation
B. Provoking God through IDOLATRY (7:17-19)
1. Prayer to the "Queen of Heaven," Astarte (Ishtar)
2. Evidence in Amos 5:26 and Jeremiah 2:4-8 implies that this worship of the Queen of Heaven had been secretly practiced for centuries. As Bible scholar J.A. Thompson comments:
"Whatever may have been the official religion in Israel, the women had indulged in a peculiarly women’s kind of worship for centuries…."
3. The problem was not a lack of clarity. In Exodus 20:2-5, where God gives the 10 Commandments, it says:
And God spoke all these words, saying, "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.
"You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God...
Just as human nature is drawn to images (artwork is more emotional than most people realize), so it can be drawn to a female deity, even resulting in the semi-deification of Mary, Jesus’ mother. This is not consistent with the Scriptures.
C. Habitual Offenders with STUBBORN Attitudes (7:20-24)
In the world of criminal prosecution, sometimes an individual has a track record of crime; if so, they may try to prosecute him/her as a "habitual offender." As a result, the individual will spend more time in jail because the courts have decided that crime is a way of life for such a person.
Even after Jerusalem was destroyed, some survivors fled to Egypt and forced Jeremiah to come with them. They continued to worship the Queen of Heaven in Jeremiah 44:17-19
Can you note the weak spiritual leadership of these husbands who just looked the other way?
D. Horrible RELIGIOUS Crimes (7:30-31)
1. In the Valley of Ben-hinnon they constructed Topheth, meaning a "fireplace."
2. They practiced human sacrifice to pagan gods there. Human sacrifice was forbidden and an abomination before God, but they did not care.
3. This provoked God’s wrath like nothing else.
Ben-hinnon is also known as Gehenna, a word Jesus used for hell. At the time of Jesus, a garbage dump, where a fire constantly burned, consuming the relentless supply of garbage from a large city like Jerusalem.
Gehenna is a place on earth which communicates the nature of hell. For example, in Mark 9:47, Jesus says, "And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where ’their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.’"
II. The Point of No Return Recognizes No NEGOTIATION (15:1-6)
A. Even MOSES and SAMUEL could not bargain delay (1)
These were the ultimate bargainers with God. In a way, they served as spiritual lawyers.
If the best negotiators could not succeed, what chance did Jeremiah have?
B. Appointed to DOOM (2-3)
Sometimes people are beyond help.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. – A Rhode Island woman is accused of punching and biting her 11-year-old son’s school principal after she was told the boy was being suspended.
Police say 30-year-old Aleyda Uceta also bit an officer trying to arrest her after Friday’s incident at Roger Williams Middle School in Providence.
She is charged with assault on school officials, assault on police officers and resisting arrest.
Police say Uceta punched Principal Rudolph Moseley Jr. in the face and bit his left arm after he told her that her son would be suspended for three days for refusing to go to a room for misbehaving students.
Attempts to reach Uceta by phone for comment were unsuccessful.
C. Wrath delayed from the TIME of Manasseh (4)
In 2 Kings 21, God announced that Judah had hit a new low under the reign of Manasseh, and that God was going to annihilate Jerusalem. Two years after Manasseh’s death, his 8 year old grandson, Josiah, becomes king. Josiah turns to the Lord, and God delays the destruction of Jerusalem until after his death. Jeremiah begins prophesying at the end of Josiah’s reign.
D. God HIMSELF was out to get them (5-6)
III. We Can Experience “The Point of No Return” TODAY
A. As a NATION
Genesis 15:16, "In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure."
Some have paralleled the evil of child sacrifice with the evil of abortion…human life
Are we at the point of no return? We cannot say.
We can hope not. Whether we are or not, our job is to be faithful to the Kingdom of God, because our citizenship transcends our earthly country. We have to make this our focus. The Kingdom of God transcends nations, including their rise and fall.
B. When the TRIBULATION begins
Matthew 24:21-22, "For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again. If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened."
C. As a disciplined BELIEVER
I Corinthians 11:3-32, " But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord so that we will not be condemned along with the world."
Annanias and Saphira…(Acts 5)
D. As an APOSTATE
Hebrews 6:4-6, "For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame."
I don’t believe that a truly saved person can lose his salvation. But there are plenty of people who we think are saved and are not. Like Judas Iscariot, who was the treasurer of the disciples, they later show their true colors. There are always tares among the wheat.
E. As Unsaved At DEATH
Hebrews 9:27, "…it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment…"
Revelation 20:15, "And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire."
F. But those who fear that point have not usually REACHED it!
Luke 23:39-43 and the case of the thief on the cross being saved is a case in point. I have given you the text in your notes.
God is patient and long-suffering, but His patience has boundaries. Sometimes we humans can move to the point of no return.
Are you playing on the edges of the point of no return?
