Scripture Introduction
Throughout the story of redemption, one of the key characters is the prophet—one who tells God’s people who God is, and what he expects from them.
That reminds me: did you know that Atheism is a non-prophet religion? I have one more: who was the greatest female financier in the Bible? Answer: Pharaoh’s daughter—she went down to the bank of the Nile and drew out a little prophet.
Moses was a prophet, and like all Old Testament prophets, he preached. Certainly, on occasion, prophets predicted future events, but they mainly revealed God’s word and related it to God’s people. Like the New Testament pastor, they were not priests, but preachers or teachers. And Jeremiah 18 is a grand example of this work.
As we seek revival and reformation in our church, our in community, and in our country, I think we do well to refresh our thoughts about the ministry of preaching. Since I will be out of the pulpit the next three Sundays, this seemed to me a good place to drive our stakes and make sure that our desires are for what God promises to give.
[Read Jeremiah 18.1-18. Pray.]
Introduction
J. I. Packer wrote the introductory essay in the book, The Preacher and Preaching. Entitled, “Why Preach?” Packer says there is “honest uncertainty as to whether there is a viable rationale for pulpit work in our time.” He then defends this ministry “because preaching is of the very essence of the corporate phenomenon called Christianity as I understand it. By that I mean that Christianity, on earth as in heaven, is fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ, and the preaching of God’s Word in the power of God’s Spirit is the activity that brings the Father and the Son down from heaven to dwell with men” (p. 1).
After that exalted description, Packer readily admits that not all preaching is good, and that over the years he has “heard as much bad preaching as the next man and probably done as much [him]self as any clergyman you would like to name. Nonetheless [Packer continues] having observed how preaching is conceived in Scripture, and having experienced preaching of a very high order, I continue to believe in preaching and to maintain that there is no substitute for it, and no power or stature or sustained vision or close fellowship with God in the church without it. Also, I constantly maintain that if today’s quest for renewal is not, along with its other concerns, a quest for true preaching, it will prove shallow and barren” (p. 3).
It is that goal—renewal and fellowship with God—that prompts me to turn to Jeremiah 18 and consider the ministry of the prophet and the response of the people in the advancement of God’s kingdom. With Jeremiah as a primary model for Biblical and prophetic preaching which God blesses to his people, please note five important applications:
1. We Must Understand the Prophet’s Ministry
It seems to me that there are at least six characteristics of faithful preaching we must appreciate and love in order to receive the blessing of God.
1.1. Prophetic Preaching is Radically God-Centered
Politicians are concerned with people’s perceptions. Opinion polls determine their speeches and direct their behaviors. They survive and thrive when the constituency feels that their politicians vote their views.
The prophet, in contradistinction, must cater to what God thinks. He cares about people deeply, but he cares about them for God, not for themselves. His ministry focuses on what God is doing, what God requires, what God wants, what God expects. He aims to expose how our thoughts about God need correcting, and to explain God’s views. God is the central character of prophetic preaching. Explain Main Idea.
1.2. Prophetic Preaching is Realistic about Evil
Some of you will remember Mr. Clinton’s testimony under oath: “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is. If the—if he—if ‘is’ means is and never has been, that is not—that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement…. Now, if someone had asked me on that day, are you having any kind of sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky, that is, asked me a question in the present tense, I would have said no. And it would have been completely true.”
The prophet does not carefully parse sin to get us off the hook. He does not call breaking of the 7th commandment “having an affair,” the first four definitions of which have to do with business. The prophet uses words for sin which shock us even in our coarse world: “adultery, prostitution, whoring, harlotry.” He boldly names evil because he knows what we have either forgotten or refuse to admit—sin destroys people, churches and nations.
1.3. Prophetic Preaching Requires Change
Jeremiah always stands against the status quo. “That’s the way we have always done it” are words you never hear from the prophet. He does not reject the past out of hand, but neither does he assume that the way we did things yesterday pleased God. Prophetic preaching restlessly urges us toward the change which the Bible calls “sanctification,” the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.
1.4. Prophetic Preaching is Relentlessly Hopeful
“Are you sure, pastor? Wasn’t Jeremiah the ‘weeping prophet’?” You are correct; he preached and wept over Israel while they were taken into captivity by Babylon. At the same time, every word from this man reminds us that that God restores when we return.
The priests who opposed Jeremiah are remembered for preaching, “Peace, peace!” Yet God said of them, “They heal my people’s wounds lightly.” Cowardly preaching applies a Band-Aid to a gangrenous wound. The “hope” offered is a false one. We should say to the preacher, “Do not promise me peace where there is no hope. Instead, show me the path, narrow and hard though it may be, as long as it provides what it promises.” The prophet is hopeful because he knows the way of peace.
1.5. Prophetic Preaching is Relevant to Life
Pastor Jeremiah did not believe in a personal, private, and pietistic religion. His God commanded conformity of all of society to God’s will. Governments, social organizations, business practices, issues of justice, truth, and mercy—these and all others fell under the preaching ministry of the prophet. He is just as concerned with telling us how to care for the poor on Thursday as he is with how to worship on Sunday.
Maybe without realizing it, we have shrunk the areas of acceptability for pulpit application. I think I share the feeling of reticence that many pastors have about speaking to broader issues. We in the church are so sensitive to the possibility of being wrong that we pressure the preacher to narrow down the topics he addresses. But when we do so, we sacrifice relevance.
1.6. Prophetic Preaching is Restless for the Christ
The Old Testament prophets do not name Jesus, but the coming Messiah is foremost on their minds. They knew they needed a savior, so to preach prophetically is to preach Christ Jesus and him crucified.
2. We Must Long For the Prophet’s Pattern (Jeremiah 18.1-6)
The pattern is simple: Jeremiah hears the Word of the Lord, receives an object lesson to explain and illustrate it, and then applies it to the people of God—the word explained, the word illustrated, the word applied. Preachers did not develop this pattern because congregations like stories to help the time pass. This is God’s pattern for prophetic preaching. And I believe this reveals two mistakes common in churches today.
First is what we might call the “lecture pulpit.” God’s people certainly must be taught God’s word, will, and ways. But note well: Jeremiah 18 is no academic discourse on the doctrine of God’s sovereignty. It teaches God’s sovereignty—in one of the clearest presentations in the Bible: “Oh house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done?” But this is no abstract, dry, lecture; it is truth driven into the lives of God’s people. Of course, such lectures have an advantage—they can avoid application, puffing up with knowledge that never touches God.
A second error is preaching applied to those who are not in the church. Israel ends up overthrown by a pagan nation, one clearly more ungodly than they. Yet the prophet preaches to the people of God, not to the pagans out there. Let us long for pastors who faithfully challenge us to faith and works.
This is exactly the pattern I seek to follow. If I am not doing so, or am doing it poorly, tell me. If I do not give enough illustrations to show you how the text applies, help me think of others, or ask me to help you apply it. If I am following the pattern, then tell others that God’s word is preached here. If you are not excited about bringing people to this church to hear God’s word explained, illustrated, and applied, then let us find out what is wrong and correct it.
But be sure of this: truth taught without illustration and application to us here in the church is not Biblical preaching because it does not follow the pattern of the prophet. We must long for this pattern.
3. We Must Respond to the Prophetic Principles (Jeremiah 18.7-12)
Verses 7-12 reveal the two key ways God works in the daily lives of nations and people.
The first principle is Responsibility and Recompense. When a nation or a kingdom or a people refuse to hear the Word of the Lord, to turn from their evil ways, and to be conformed to the Law of God, then God will visit them with disaster: Jeremiah 18.10: “If it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good I had intended to do to it.” Even if God plans to bless a nation, but they insist on rebellion, then he will punish.
The second principle is return and reward. When a people recognize their sin and rebellion, return to God, reform their government and society and personal lives, then he rewards: “Turn from your evil, amend your ways and deeds, and I will relent of the disaster I had planned.”
So how did Israel respond to these two prophetic principles? Jeremiah 18.12: “That is in vain! We will follow our own plans, and will every one act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.”
I doubt they said those words, but their response revealed that was in their hearts. How does that happen? In happens when we lose hope. Israel refused to believe in the greatness of God’s grace. They doubted that returning to him was the path to reward. So they rejected Jeremiah’s message.
How will we respond? I’m not going to tell you that we do not need to change. We have not seen one person converted in our church in more than ten years! That shows a serious problem! But such is no excuse for giving up hope; it is a call to come back to God.
I wonder though, are we too proud to accept correction, and too insistent that we have done nothing wrong? How will we respond to the prophetic principle?
4. We Must Walk in the Prophetic Paths (Jeremiah 18.13-17)
In verses 13-17, Jeremiah tells the people of two errors: 1) they have forgotten God; 2) they have stumbled over and left the ancient paths.
The same is true today. Modern man believes that every problem has a physical or psychological cause. Bad behavior can be blamed on defective genes or poor circumstances. We must never forget, however, that rebellion from God is the source of every problem. As unsophisticated and politically incorrect as it may seem, we need the Word of God, counseled in the power of the Spirit of God, through the grace of the Son of God to the Glory of God the Father. Otherwise, we have forgotten God in our foolishness and sin.
Modern man also leaves the ancient way. Jeremiah 6.16-19 explains the danger of so doing: “Thus says the LORD: “Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’ I set watchmen over you, saying, ‘Pay attention to the sound of the trumpet!’ But they said, ‘We will not pay attention.’ Therefore hear, O nations, and know, O congregation, what will happen to them. Hear, O earth; behold, I am bringing disaster upon this people, the fruit of their devices, because they have not paid attention to my words; and as for my law, they have rejected it.” Will we reject the prophetic paths, or walk in them?
5. We Must Receive the Prophet’s Ministry (Jeremiah 18.18)
Each of us, myself included, naturally fights against prophetic preaching. That is what it means to have a sin nature. We do not like to be rebuked, corrected, convicted, counseled to change. The people of Jeremiah’s day persecuted him with a three-fold strategy.
First, they plotted against him because they could hear more pleasant words from other sources: “Why should we listen to Jeremiah, when other pastors bring a better message?”
Second, they slandered and gossiped, “striking him with the tongue.” They spoke about him behind his back; they criticized his flaws; they exaggerated every error he made. What they did not do was offer a word of encouragement for the courage to try to preach the Word.
Then third, they counseled each other to refuse to listen to him anymore. The opponents spoke together to stir up one another to give Jeremiah the silent treatment.
Martin Luther once noted that if we preach 10,000 Bible truths, but fail to preach on the issue with which our people are struggling and sinning, we have failed to preach the Gospel. Bible preaching is not simply speaking truth—it is preaching the truths that lead you to despise self-righteousness and depend wholly on the work of Christ. For that to happen, you must have your sins exposed.
Lamentations 2.14 Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions; they have not exposed your iniquity to restore your fortunes, but have seen for you oracles that are false and misleading.
We are a smart and wealthy congregation. We are the people in the majority and we have the power and influence to get our way. For us, faithful preaching must always reveal the temptation to trust in our strength instead of Christ.
1Corinthians 1.17-19 : For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
If we as a church look at our ministry and how we are salt and light to this community, and we say, “God is pleased with us, with our church culture, with our attitudes and behaviors and how they impact the people around us,” then maybe we do not need a prophet.
Is that what Jesus would say if he came here today? Or would he say, “My people, it’s not too late; turn from your ways, stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls”?
I do not think everything is well; but have hope that God can change us, if we want his Spirit working through the preaching of his Word.
