God’s Final Call
Sunday, November 07, 2010 – AM
By Pastor James May
Jeremiah was probably the most humble prophet of the Old Testament. His heart was broken because of the condition of Israel, and on more than one occasion he wept openly for his people. He was one of very few voices in Israel that continually spoke the truth to the people of God. While most of the teachers in Israel were caught up in sin, lying to the people about their true condition and failing to warn them of the dire consequences of continuing in sin, Jeremiah stood true. He was not well received for the people didn’t want to hear the truth. The lies of those who spoke made them feel better and they just didn’t want to hear the words of this prophet of doom.
There is an old saying that says that history repeats itself and that if we fail to learn from the lessons of the past then we are destined to repeat those lessons. As I look around the church of today, including our own church, I wonder if some people just don’t get it.
The Love of God is reaching out to a wayward people. The Holy Spirit is doing all that he can to draw God’s people into a place of close relationship with Christ; trying to lead us in the paths of righteousness and revealing to us the ways of our Heavenly Father. But like Israel in the days of Jeremiah, I believe that so many of God’s own people simply refuse to hear the voice of the Spirit. We are supposed to be the sheep of God’s pasture and yet there are so many that don’t even know the voice of the Great Shepherd as he calls out in love for them to come into the place of safety.
Notice that all that Jeremiah says is spoken directly to God’s own people. He wasn’t speaking to the Gentile nations. He wasn’t speaking to those who had no knowledge of God. Those who are unbelievers are condemned already. Why should God condemn them more? God’s heart is not set upon condemning mankind, but upon saving mankind. It is God’s will that all men should fall on their face in repentance and that none should be lost. God did not create man in his own image just to lose him to the clutches of sin. God didn’t create the eternal fires of judgment for the souls of men; but for the rebellious angels. If any man goes there, he will go by choice, or by neglect of the great salvation that God has so wonderfully provided through Jesus Christ, his own Son.
I know that you get tired of hearing this message time and again, but I am compelled by the Holy Ghost to speak it over and over, just as Jeremiah was in his day. God is still the same God that he was in the days of Jeremiah. His love has not abated; his longsuffering in waiting for the response of his people is the same, but we must also know that God’s righteous judgments are the same as well. If God were allow his church to continue in sin and not bring judgment upon the House of God; then he would have to turn back the pages of history, raise every one of the souls of Israel who died without God in those days and apologize to them for being an unjust God.
For those among us who might think that we are perfect in our ways and that we are innocent of all charges that God brings against his church, let me just say what Jesus said in Matthew 18:12, "How think ye? if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray?"
You can just see the great love of God reaching out, and the tremendous value that he places upon each and every soul of a man in the next few verses. Yes, I have no doubt that there are a great many sitting here this morning whose hearts are right with God. You constantly strive to keep the Mind of Christ. Your greatest desire is to be so close to Jesus that you share the very heart of God. You cherish the Love of God in your heart and soul and there’s nothing that could ever take the place of God’s Love.
But I also know that not all of us are as close to the heart of God as we should be. There are some wayward sheep around; otherwise I would not feel so compelled to speak this message. And it is to you that God has directed that I speak this morning. One more time the Great Shepherd is calling you by name. One more time the voice of the Holy Spirit will speak to you. I don’t know God’s timetable for your life but just maybe this could be God’s final call to your heart to turn back to him in repentance.
Matthew 18:13-14, "And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray. Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish."
As much as God loves his people, his righteousness and justice must prevail. We, as preachers, must preach the truth by the leading the Holy Ghost. To fail to warn those whom God loves so much to turn from their ways and walk in faithfulness to God would be the ultimate in disobedience and would be the absolute greatest sin we could commit. To not continually bring the message of repentance to God’s wayward sheep, and to fail to reach out in every way possible to rescue them from the path that leads to destruction, would be to miss the very heart of God, and the very center of the purpose of God for the ministry of his shepherd. I would be nothing but a false prophet and a hireling that didn’t care for the sheep if I failed to bring this message to the church every time the Holy Spirit desired for me to do so.
I want you to hear what God spoke to his people through this broken hearted prophet named Jeremiah! God’s heart was broken for the condition of his people, and God transmitted that brokenness through the heart of Jeremiah.
Jeremiah 7:1-2, "The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, Stand in the gate of the LORD'S house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the LORD, all ye of Judah, that enter in at these gates to worship the LORD."
Can there be any doubt that God’s message is for His own people? Like Jeremiah, I stand in very gate of the Lord’s House today to proclaim this word and reveal God’s Word to those who have come to worship the Lord this morning!
Jeremiah 7:3-4, "Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, are these."
In this time in Israel’s history there were many false prophets who were preaching in the temple, bringing lying spirits and the doctrines of devils right into the very Temple where God had established a system of worship for his people. The ritual of blood sacrifices continued as they had for many years. The people kept coming to the Temple, offering their sacrifices, bowing before God and listening to their teachers read from the Law.
But something had changed in the very heart of their worship. Even though they were going through the motions, the true worship of God, and the truth of God’s Law was perverted and the worship was shallow and meaningless. The people were trusting in the lying words of the false teachers and ignoring the truth of what God really wanted from them in their worship. Their body continued to go through the motions but their spirit and heart were far from God.
There is something that we cannot afford to miss in these verses! The false teachers were teaching it and the people were believing it, and it was all a lie! What was this great teaching? From the beginning of the worship in the temple the teaching had been that those who continually came at the appointed time, who continually offered their sacrifices, who bowed their head in reverence and did their duty to the temple were identified as the very “temples of God”! Therefore we hear Jeremiah say, “you call yourselves the “Temple of God, the Temple of God, the Temple of God, but you are far from being the true Temple of God.”
Is this not what is happening in the church of today? I doubt that you will find one pastor, anywhere in the church of today, around the world, who will not stand in the pulpit and tell the people in the congregation that they are God’s own people. No preacher wants to believe that the people of his church are hypocrites. No pastor wants to take the chance of losing a church member because he calls them unfaithful, untruthful and sinners caught up in hypocrisy and denial of the sin in their heart. I am no different. I would love to be able to stand here and bring you a wonderful message that would cause you to believe that you are perfect in the eyes of God and that not one among us has a single problem in the eyes of God. But if I did that, not only would I be lying to you; I would be lying to myself and to God as well.
Pastors around the world are standing before the church this morning and telling the congregation that all is well; that all of you are the temple of God and that all of you have Jesus living in you. You have nothing to worry about. As long as you come to the House of the Lord and offer your sacrifices, do your duty to His house, then all will be well. After all, faithfulness to the House of the Lord is what its all about. Faithfulness to God’s House makes you a part of God’s family, and as such, a part of His temple!
I’m here to tell you that it takes more than faithfulness to God’s House. It takes more than continually offering up your sacrifice and service to the Lord. It takes more than coming to hear the Word of God. Those are only works; good works for certain, and very needful to the Work of the Lord; but works nonetheless; and good works are not enough to be called the temple of the Holy Ghost. It takes more!
What does it take to be a true Temple of God? It takes a heart that is close to God’s heart; a mind that is in tune with the Mind of Christ; and a heart that is so in love with Jesus that your greatest desire in life is to be close to Jesus. It takes a heart that is in continual repentance, broken in Godly sorrow for the many times that we fail, and yet a faith that God has forgiven us so that we can walk before him in victory. It takes a commitment to Christ that makes Jesus the first priority in your life, above family, above friends, above everything else. Anything less, and we become hypocrites. How can we claim to be the chosen people of God if we haven’t chosen to make him Lord? How can we say that we love God above all else and then let everything else take the place that God desires to have in our hearts?
Look at God’s message through Jeremiah to Israel:
Jeremiah 7:5 For if ye throughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye throughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbour;
Jeremiah 7:6 If ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt:
Jeremiah 7:7 Then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, for ever and ever.
The old English terminology may be a little confusing to a few of you so let me say it in plain English:
You have to thoroughly repent and do only those things that are pleasing to the Lord. You have to thoroughly judge your own heart, and fully examine and perfect the way that you treat people and how you talk to them. We have to stop putting down on one another and quit speaking things that put down on one another. There’s a lot of joking that we do, one against another, and joking is fine, but sometimes we take it way too far, then people get hurt.
Secondly we have to have compassion for the lost, for they are without a Heavenly father and are orphans, and widows if you will, who have no one to provide for their spiritual needs. This is talking about backsliders and lukewarm Christians who are far from the heart of God and can’t hear his voice when they call upon him. Instead of speaking evil of them, cutting them down because of their unfaithfulness, or complaining about any privileges that they might have in the church, we should intercede for them and do all we can to encourage them.
Let us never forget what Jesus said, “He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone!” I don’t see anyone in this congregation who qualifies to cast any stones.
When we feel like we have to talk about someone, cut them down, or gossip about them; we are playing right into the hands of the devil. We may as well be guilty of shedding their blood, and in fact, if we continue in that action, we may well face God with their blood on our hands for driving them out of the House of God.
God says that if we will mend our ways, purify our hearts, love our fellowman as God loves us, and then love Jesus and serve him with all our heart, then we can be counted as a part of the Temple of God! It requires nothing less than a full commitment of all that we are to Jesus Christ in Love! Anything less is hypocritical and won’t be sufficient to be called a part of God’s temple.
Jeremiah 7:8-9, "Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot profit. Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not;"
Jeremiah 7:10-11, "And come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations? Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, saith the LORD."
There are a lot of people in the church who have trusted in the words of lying teachers; words that cannot profit them at all. People come to church every week having stolen, not only stolen from their fellowman, but also from God himself. They have stolen the blessings of God and squandered them upon their own lusts. They have stolen the time that God has given to them to serve him and have used that time to do their own thing.
The have committed spiritual adultery, and even in some cases physical adultery. They have taken other things into their hearts that take the place of God and have made those things into idols, whether it’s a spouse, children, lands, jobs or whatever. Anything that carries a greater significance in your life than being faithful to God becomes your god and causes you commit spiritual adultery.
We come to God’s house claiming that we are his people, and yet our heart is far from him and our actions prove otherwise. We haven’t given Jesus an hour of attention all week. We haven’t read his Word even once, and yet we claim we love him and his word. We make promises to God that we will do better next week, but those are promises that we never keep.
We “burn incense to Baal”! You might say that you don’t any such thing, but let me ask you, How much electricity and energy have you burned watching TV, or playing games, or listening ungodly music? Are you burning incense to an idol? Are you walking after, following after and paying more attention to the gods of this world than to the God of Heaven?
Then we come into the House of the Lord on Sunday morning and say, “I’m delivered from sin! I’m free from idols in my life! I’m a born again, Child of God and I’m a faithful servant of Christ!”
How does that make God feel? His own children coming into His House and lying before the very altar of God! How the heart of God must ache for his people who are blinded by lies of their own heart! How the Spirit of the Lord must be grieved to see his people walking in sin and yet living in denial of that sin. How the heart of God must ache to hear his people worship him in Spirit and in truth and not with their lips only!
Do we not believe that God sees our true condition? Do we not understand that God sees past our little facades and sees into the very deepest part of our hearts? Do we not understand that God knows the difference between a true believer and one that has a hypocritical spirit?
Jeremiah 7:12, "But go ye now unto my place which was in Shiloh, where I set my name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel."
Shiloh was the place where the Tabernacle of Moses was set up and a place where God had decided to come down and dwell among his people in the earth. The very presence of Almighty God was in the midst of the camp. The great love of God was reaching out to fallen man, making every attempt to be a Father to his people. There was kept the Law of God. There was found the Ark of the Covenant, marking God’s great promises to Abraham and to Israel. There was found all of the articles of the tabernacle that pointed to the coming of a Savior that would redeem mankind from his sin and give him a way back to Heaven and into the very presence of His Loving Father.
But because of the refusal of Israel to repent, and her continual idolatry and disobedience, God forsook the tabernacle, allowed its holy vessels to be stolen away forever, the tabernacle of God’s presence disappeared from Israel and even though they kept up a form of worship, God was not in it.
God’s final call is going forth! I don’t know how long God will continue this call to repentance and turning back to him, but there will come a day when the call to be a part of the true Bride of Christ will come to an end. The church will be gone and those left behind will be left to a world of delusion, lies and deception, where there will be little hope of survival. God is getting his church ready for the Rapture! Are you a part of that church?
God loves you too much to allow you to go into judgment without giving you every opportunity to turn around. But like road signs on the highway, every warning can be given, and every direction shown to get you to your final destination, but if we ignore the signs and end up lost, it’s not the fault of the signs, nor of the one who built the highway. The fault is our own. We fail to read, we fail to listen, we fail to heed the warning – at that leads to destruction. Is God calling out to you? Do you hear his final call?
