Opposing the opposition -
Jeremiah 11:18-20
This week I was drawn to the book of Jeremiah. God called him to a difficult task at a difficult time.
Jeremiah was calling out to the people of God but they wanted none of it.
In fact they had enough of Jeremiah and planned to kill him because he would not stop testifying for God. It seems it did not matter who he approached great or small they refused to listen to him.
Jeremiah was told by God to warn the people of God that the wrath of God was coming and that destruction and exile were near.
This message struck such a deep cord within me I decided to go Old Testament this week.
I made myself a sandwich board sign to wear and paraded myself at the busiest intersection of town at the height of Friday rush hour.
On one side I wrote Repent or Perish and on the other side was Turn 2 Jesus. I thought the messages were simple enough and clear.
I took this different approach to get into the mind and character of Jeremiah because I empathized with him. In my mind I wanted to be sure I was willing to go all the way in preaching the Good News of Jesus Christ.
Here on Sunday I have a captive audience so to speak but out there in the fallen world it is a very different environment.
To my surprise a man showed up whom I recognized and he sat in the park near me and began to pray and read his bible while I marched back and forth.
Yes I had prayed before I went out but I had not expected the Lord to send me a prayer warrior to encourage me. Saints I want you to know that God has got your back today and every day.
Together we witnessed for 3 hours to a few positive horn honks and thumbs up. There were only two motorists who shouted profanities but my prayer warrior told me he had prayed for them too. One lady passing by with an out of state licence plate gave me a cold bottle of water. It was a hot day. God bless her.
Being a Pastor you get to wondering if anyone is listening and you get to wondering how else can I tell the world about Jesus.
The Lord told me through this exercise in faith that sometimes it's not us its them. Do you ever get worn out by people who just never seem to hear you when you speak?
Let me illustrate.
My wife claims this is one of my bad habits – she says that I hear her when she is speaking but I do not listen to her.
Friends this is an ailment that affects not only husbands and wives but God’s Saints as well.
You dear Saints may have noticed that it is very, very difficult to share your faith with unbelievers in a way that will engage them in the conversation. It does not have to be a serious conversation about creeds or doctrines just a simple admission by you or a simple “amen” as you are talking can cause people to flinch or pull away from the conversation.
Sadly our culture in North America has become a godless culture that is more ready to spend time taking in what the culture has to offer rather than considering what the Living God has to offer.
These are hard times for the churches across North America. Peoples hearts are cold. We have the greatest message the world could ever hope to hear but people shut their ears and hearts to it.
So what are we to do? Well the Bible has a great example for us in the Prophet Jeremiah.
Today’s scripture passage reveals how the people of God responded to Jeremiah as he was trying his level best to call people back to repentance and worship. Sometimes it seems no matter what we try to do, those who we are trying to reach, just don’t want us to share with them what God has put on our hearts.
I’m reminded of an old movie Cool Hand Luke where the actor Paul Newman is sent to a Southern chain gang for cutting off the heads of parking meters. In order to break him of his anti-authority attitude there was a Warden who orders him to dig a ditch in the sweltering heat of the day.
The orders change several times and the ditch gets deeper and longer until finally the Warden comes over to inspect the progress.
The Warden looks at Paul Newman and asks - who took all this dirt out of my ditch? Fill it up and put it right back where you got it from, this is my prison. Now Luke AKA Newman must put all the dirt back into the ditch but this time its pouring rain instead of boiling hot out. Mud is heavier than dirt. But Luke does it.
His act of obediently suffering this punishment wins him the respect of the rest of the prisoners.
This for me is an example of how former church members and the lost souls of our culture are treating you and me when it comes to professing the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
They say don’t tell me about Jesus and the Bible then they say if you have to tell me, tell me it the way I want to hear it. I only want it so deep and so long and I only want to hear it when I’m good and ready to hear it. For me they seem to be acting like that Warden from the movie Cool Hand Luke.
Everything has to be according to their terms and those terms constantly change moment by moment. What a frustrating and futile exercise it has become to communicate with people of this kind of mind set.
They seem to pour water on our message making it harder to share and we like Cool Hand Luke are trying to lift up the word of God against all these obstacles.
So what are to do? We are to heed the words of St. Paul as he tried to encourage a young preacher in a big city.
2 Timothy 4:2-5 KJV
2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine.
3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
5 But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.
Saints the times we live in call for patience and not just any kind of patience.
The Bible calls it Long Suffering – in the Kings James Version of this passage.
Now some of you married people are still looking back and forth at each other – because I said long suffering. I’m not talking about that kind of long suffering.
What you married people are experiencing is called edification. You're making one another better day by day.
There is no marriage in Heaven by the way so you had better enjoy it here and now and rejoice in it as a blessing.
We are to suffer as Christ suffered. Jesus went to His own people even His own family who rejected Him.
That did not stop Jesus from doing His Father’s will – to carry out that which He was called to do for sinners like you and me.
Hebrews 12:2 KJV
2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Despising means - to regard as negligible, worthless, or distasteful
The shame was negligible to Jesus. It did not amount to much to Him. Even though He was the Lord of Lord's and the King of Kings, He was willing to suffer humiliation for our souls. For Jesus it was a small price to pay for our forgiveness – it weren’t nothing.
Bloodied, beaten and half naked He walked were you and I should have walked as a convict guilty of sin.
But Jesus had no sin and committed no crime. He carried our cross that day such is the love of our Savior.
Jesus considered His humiliation a small price to pay in order to win our freedom from sin.
It was distasteful but He did it willingly and not half-heartedly.
Saints that should be our attitude when we profess the glory, the praise, the wonder and the love of God to our fallen world.
It is a small price to pay to publicly acknowledge all that God has done for us.
This is especially true when we are talking to a backsliding brother or sister or a soul who is completely lost in this sin filled society.
It should not be a big deal, it should not hurt our pride to share this great news.
It should be no big deal to parade around the center of town calling people to Repent and turn 2 Jesus.
Compared to what Jesus has already done for us sharing the Good News of Christ cost us nothing.
Jesus paid it all – All to Him I owe – Sin had left a crimson stain but He washed it white as snow.
Luke 9:26
Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.
Saints we need to live in the attitude of the Prophet Jeremiah. We need boldness! We need to be fearless. We need to be relentless.
Proverbs 11:30 KJV says....
30 The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that winneth souls is wise.
We must get to work at reaching out to the church and the lost and win them back to Jesus.
Look how hard Jeremiah worked at it;
Jeremiah was thrown in prison for sharing what God put on his heart to proclaim. Jeremiah Chapter 37.
Jeremiah was thrown into a cistern/well Jeremiah Chapter 38.
He was taken to a foreign country (Egypt) against his will – Jeremiah Chapter 43
He was rejected by his neighbours – Chapter 11:19-21.
He was rejected by his own family Chapter 12:6
He was rejected by the religious leaders the false priests and prophets Chapter 20 & 28
He was rejected by friends Chapter 20.
He was rejected by his audience Chapter 26:8
Even the king rejected his words Chapter 36:23
Through it all, through it all I’ve learned to trust in Jesus, I’ve learned to trust in God.
Saints it is going to get harder not easier for us to proclaim the message of salvation to our culture but that does not mean that we quit because it is hard.
Here is a quote my wife shared with me the other day and now I share it with you because I listen to her.
God found Gideon in a hole
He found Joseph in a prison
He found Daniel in a lion’s den
He has a curious habit of showing up in the midst of trouble, not the absence of it
Where the world sees failure God sees the future
Next time you feel unqualified to be used of God remember this;
God tends to recruit from the pit not the pedestal
You are His workmanship and no weapon forged against you will prevail. Isaiah 54:17
You are on the front lines of the battlefield every day. I'm on a pulpit every Sunday.
You Saints, are doing the heavy lifting trying your level best to proclaim to those all around you that Jesus saves sinners.
Do not grow weary in your efforts, do not give in to the heat of the day or the pouring rain.
In every circumstance proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ.
Do the work of a Saint – proclaim that His kingdom is coming and tell the saved and unsaved to prepare to meet their God.
Be a Jeremiah to our world today. Tell them over and over again in love. Come to Christ before its too late.
1 Peter 4:16-19
Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf. 17 For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?
18 And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? 19 Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator.
Tell the world that you’ve decided to follow Jesus and tell the backslider and the lost that they need to get right with God - Amen
