Recalibrate The Sights Of Your Faith Series

First of all, let’s review what the aim of our faith, love and trust should be. Our target is none other than the Lord, right? Simple. How can you go wrong on that? All of you know that the true God is the Triune God. All of you know that Jesus is your Savior. It seems that enough has been said. With a rifle, normally, you don’t have to readjust the sights on your scope that often, that is unless you have been bumping it against things. In reality the scope of our faith is daily being batted about, so that we constantly need to take the time to sit down and recalibrate our sights. Paul warns us: “If you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall” (I Corinthians 10:12)! BEWARE, if you think that you cannot lose sight of Christ. We are always in need of God’s tools for the recalibration of our sights. Jeremiah says to us, as well as to the Jews, “Reform your ways and your actions and obey the LORD your God” (Jeremiah 26:13).

What had happened in Jerusalem that incited God to angrily threaten to destroy his own temple? If we go back in the book of Jeremiah, we hear what God told Jeremiah to say, “Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, ‘We are safe’ -- safe to do all these detestable things? Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the LORD” (v. 9-11). The Jews knew the name of the Lord, just as we do, but they had emptied that name. They attached it to false gods. They attached it to the temple in such a way, that they thought the mere mention of God’s name would protect them, though they had utterly turned away from the truth of that name. They thought that as long as they visited the temple from time to time, God would be happy and condone their sinful actions. This goes to prove that they did not know the God behind the name. He never condones sinful actions.

God called the prophets of Jerusalem adulterers (cf. Jeremiah 3). Sometimes God used this symbolically, meaning that they gave up their love for him, and they had committed themselves to false gods. But God also uses the term literally (Jeremiah 23:14). The false religions that these prophets followed were fertility cults, which emphasized the lusts of the body. Since that was their focus, God’s moral law concerning marriage went right out the window. They thought that the Lord would not be displeased by their lack of regard for marriage, but God says, “I have been watching!”

Then they have the gall to say to Jeremiah, “You must die! Why do you prophesy in the LORD’s name that this house will be like Shiloh” (Jeremiah 26:9,10). Like I said, they knew the name of the Lord, but they didn’t understand who he was or what he wanted. There is always that same danger for us. Though we trust in God as the source of all good and our guide for true morality, the world and our flesh serve as the devil’s tools, warping our understanding of God’s will. Daily in the newspapers and on television, on the job and at school, we are presented with the world’s godless view of things. We are constantly exposed to a misguided morality, which is off-base and therefore stands in opposition to our Lord and the cross he bore, because, as Paul says, “Their mind is on earthly things” (Philippians 3:18,19).