Flight JER01 - Part B

Individual churches, individual congregations can lose steam, can lose the love relationship. And you say, I don't want that to happen to us.

Then don't let it happen to you, personally. Because what happens to all of y'all happens to all of us. And so all we are is the combination of all of us. So you keep your heart right with the Lord. You let this speak to your heart. You get back to that intimacy with Christ. Every day, we're making a choice to draw near to God or stray away from Him. Today on Connect with Skip Heitzig, Skip shares how God called His people back to Himself through the prophet Jeremiah. And why it's important to cultivate intimacy in your relationship with the Lord. Before we begin, here's a great resource that will give you fresh insight on what Jesus' resurrection means for you. It's pretty obvious that this world is filled with imperfect people.

And that's on purpose. God is into restoring human beings. You know, He could make perfect people and then populate heaven with perfect people, but He doesn't do that. He takes people who are dinged up, who've been beat up, bruised by time, damaged by sin, and He does a full resto job on them. Complete restoration. Celebrate the joy and beauty of redemption with The Morning That Changed Everything with Skip Heitzig. This DVD collection of six hope-filled Easter weekend messages is our thanks to you when you give $35 or more today to help connect more people to God's word and the redeeming love of Jesus Christ. Restoration is based on redemption, and redemption is tied to resurrection.

To give, call 800-922-1888 or give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer. Okay, we're in the book of Jeremiah today as we get into the teaching with Skip Heitzig. My frame, that is my skeletal structure, was not hidden from you when I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

Your eyes saw my substance being yet unformed, and in your book they were all written the day's fashion for me when there was as yet none of them. David is going to the womb for an example of God's power. He goes to the heavens, but he goes, now look in the womb, because God's view of personhood begins at the moment of conception. And so a professor in an ethics class presented this dilemma to his students. He said, how would you advise a mother pregnant with her fifth child based upon the following? Her husband has had syphilis, she had tuberculosis, the first child was born blind, the second child died, the third child was born deaf, the fourth child had tuberculosis, now with this pregnancy the mother is considering an abortion, would you advise her to have one? Most of the students agreed that this mother, this woman, should have an abortion. And the professor then said, congratulations, you've just killed one of the greatest composers ever, Ludwig von Beethoven.

The professor went on to say, those were the circumstances in that family. All of that to say this, God has a plan for you, and it began long before you were even born. God chose this prophet when he was yet unformed. That's how God begins with this calling. So it's pretty exciting to know that God chose you way, way before you even came into this world. Verse 6, then I said, Ah, Lord God. Not a great reception to God's word.

Ah, Lord God. Behold, I cannot speak, for I am a youth. Now, Jeremiah is probably in his 20s at the latest. The Lord said to me, do not say I am a youth, even though he was a youth. Don't begin with that.

Don't dwell on that. Don't say that I am a youth, for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of their faces. You know, this is good for any speaker, because when a speaker looks at a crowd of faces, there are what experts call yes faces and no faces. There are faces who, their resting face is very pleasant. But there are others whose resting face, they just look grumpy.

They can't help it. My resting face, if I just look serious, it's pretty grumpy looking. And I'm looking at some pretty grumpy looking dudes right now.

And not all, not all y'all. Some are yes faces, some are no faces. But what do you tell a 20 something who says I'm afraid to speak?

Well, don't be afraid at looking at their faces. Don't go by that, because I've called you. For I am with you, verse 8, to deliver you says the Lord. Do you ever notice in Scripture how God uses the very people who think they're unqualified to be used? Moses said, I can't speak. I'm a man of uncircumcised lips, or I stutter.

God sent him to be a spokesman. Isaiah, when God called him, said woe is me, I'm undone. I am a man of unclean lips. I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. God said don't worry about it.

I'll clean your lips, I'll give you the power. And so he finally said, here I am, send me. Paul the apostle said, I'm less than the least of all the saints. And yet he recognized God called him to speak the unsearchable riches of Christ. The general principle is this, God chooses the most unlikely, the weakest.

Doesn't look for the best or latest model, and usually the people who say, man I'm awesome. I can't believe God isn't using me more. God will often bypass to find the ones who say, I don't know if God could ever use me.

Bingo. You're the one I've been looking for. I've had you on my mind all along, even before you were born. I'll put my words in your mouth, and I will be with you, says the Lord. Well, Jeremiah is called, that's chapter one. So that's that first part of the outline, Jeremiah's preparation is formulated. He goes from here and he preaches for four to five decades. A long, healthy ministry.

Are you listening now? Here's the most important part, very long ministry, but absolutely unfruitful. We would call Jeremiah's ministry unsuccessful. Most ministry boards, most mission boards would call him home. Dude, you've been there 40 years, you've been there 50 years.

You haven't seen a single stinking convert. You're coming home, we're not going to pay your wage, you're off the mission field. Jeremiah didn't see one person, at least recorded, obey him or turn back to the Lord. So was he operating in his sweet spot, in his peace zone?

I don't think so, but he was obedient. He did what God called him to do. Jeremiah chapter 2 to chapter 45 are those proclamations I told you about. And these are the proclamations against Judah. Jeremiah reviews their backslidings, but he does it with pathos, with tenderness. Look at chapter 2 verse 1, Moreover, the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Go and cry in the hearing of Jerusalem, saying, Thus says the Lord, I remember you, the kindness of your youth, the love of your betrothal, when you went after me in the wilderness, in a land not sown. He's reviewing their history when God called them out into the wilderness of Sinai, out into the desert.

And there they were, obeying the calling of God, leaving Pharaoh, being delivered to the Red Sea, trusting completely in the Lord, learning how to walk by faith, learning to believe in water coming from a rock and bread falling from heaven. And God says, Man, I remember those early years, and I miss them. I miss that relationship we had.

I miss that trust that you had. So in the most beautiful relational terms, God is rebuking His people, but He's saying, What I miss most is you and us and the relationship of intimacy that we had. This is similar to the Church of Ephesus in the New Testament, in Revelation chapter, chapters, the first few chapters, there are seven letters to seven churches.

And the first letter that Jesus gives, really a postcard, it's just a very short little few words. He says to the Church of Ephesus, I have something against you. You have left your first love. You didn't lose your first love, I hear that often misquoted. You've left your first love.

You don't love me the same as you did at first. He said that to the Church of Ephesus. Here's what's amazing about that. We believe that Paul the Apostle founded the Church of Ephesus in AD 52. In AD 62, ten years later, Paul the Apostle writes the letter to the Ephesians, a very tender, healthy letter. In AD 66, it has grown to the point where the Apostle John needs to move there and pastor the church that Paul started. So we have AD 52, AD 62, AD 66. In AD 96, John gets exiled to the island of Patmos. He gets a vision from the Lord, and right out of the chute, he sends a first postcard to Ephesus saying, you have left your first love. I have that against you. Only 44 years after the Church of Ephesus was founded by the Apostle Paul, it is backslidden to a state where Jesus has to rebuke it for leaving that love relationship. That should be a warning to us. Church history is littered with movements and churches that go this way.

They start out well, they can even mushroom and be even bigger, but then they start to decline. Individual churches, individual congregations can lose steam, can lose the love relationship. And you say, I don't want that to happen to us.

Then don't let it happen to you personally. Because what happens to all of y'all happens to all of us. And so all we are is the combination of all of us. And so you keep your heart right with the Lord. You let this speak to your heart. You get back to that intimacy with Christ. Verse 9, therefore I will bring charges.

I can see this is going to take a while. I will bring charges against you, says the Lord, and against your children's children. I will bring charges, that's a legal term, for I'm going to file a lawsuit against you in court. Verse 11, has a nation changed its gods, which are not gods? But my people have changed their glory for what does not profit.

What he means by that is you've left that glorious relationship with the only true and living God. And you have put up altars all around Judah. You are worshiping pagan gods.

You are listening to false prophets and bad politicians. And you have fallen from your glory for what does not profit. Verse 12, be astonished, O heavens, at this and be horribly afraid. Be very desolate, says the Lord.

Verse 13, for my people have committed two evils. Here's the first, they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters. Here's the second, they have hewn themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water. Thousands of years ago, there were only two ways to get water. Number one, moving water, a river, a fountain, a spring, a well, a spring that bubbles up and moves. And if it's moving water, like a river, they called it living water. That's where the term living comes from.

It's moving, it's not stagnant. Or they would collect rainfall. There are two basic rainfalls in the land of Israel.

The early rain, called the Yireh, and the latter rain, called the Malkosh. When it rained early in the season, in the winter, and late in the winter, early spring, in places where there wasn't living water, they would collect it in a cistern. They would take a rock, they would cut out a big hole in it and dig it deeper and deeper, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 feet deep out of solid rock if it would maintain it. But there was a problem when digging out a cistern, sometimes they would dig it out and they would find this fissure that is in the rock. And they wouldn't know it until the rain came and they collect all the water and they go the next day hoping to get water and it's empty because the crack, it leaks out.

They would then go in and try to plaster it and fix it. And sometimes they were successful, sometimes they weren't. So here's what God is saying. There's two things you've done wrong. You've forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, true refreshment, and you have turned to your own passions and visions and devices to get filled up, to get satisfied on your own and you've discovered it doesn't work because all of those pursuits are nothing more than broken cisterns that hold no water. You've forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, you've dug out broken cisterns that hold no water. If you forsake God or if you stop seeking God, one thing will happen to you, you will get thirstier and thirstier and thirstier and you will never be filled up, no matter where you seek. Jesus said to the woman at the well of Samaria, and you could write this over every earthly pursuit, drink from this water and you will thirst again. If you're seeking fulfillment in a relationship, drink of that water, you'll thirst again. If you're seeking fulfillment for your life in a position, a job, a career, drink of that water but you'll thirst again.

If you look for it anywhere else other than God, you'll just get thirstier. I think it needs to be said on this day, July 3rd, the eve before July 4th, that we in this country, what Jeremiah said to his country, I think we could say to this country. I think we live in a nation that has basically tried to rule God out of national life, push God out of the public square, don't mention God, don't mention Jesus ever, and don't ever pray at a public meeting or get a lawsuit filed against you, I know, or pray in public schools, they don't know about students taking tests, they always pray in public schools.

Teachers just don't know about it. But, you know, for years I have heard people say, America better watch out or God is going to judge America. I am under the belief that you are experiencing the judgment of God. I think it's future, oh it will be worse, but I think we are under God's judgment now.

I developed this in our study in Romans several weeks ago. I commend you listening to that because the first step or evidence that God is judging a nation is when He gives them over to what they so desperately say they want. You want independence from me, you want no morality, do what you want, sleep with who you want, male or female or anybody or anything, have it. When God gives you over to those desires, it's an indication that God is judging that nation. So I think it's already begun. Arnold Toynbee, who was a very renowned historian, said that out of 22 civilizations appearing in history, 19 of the 22 collapsed when they reached the present moral condition of the United States of America. He said that a generation ago.

19 of them, in his expert study on human history, collapsed. You might be witnessing now, like Jeremiah was witnessing, the very collapse of our nation under the judgment of God. I'm not trying to scare you, but I want to prepare you.

There's hope for us, as you know. Chapter 3, verse 14. Return, O backsliding children.

I'll speed it up, I promise. Says the Lord, for I am married to you. There's another relational term.

I will take you, one from one city, two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion. He'll bring them back. Go down to verse 22, return, O backsliding children, and I will heal your backsliding. Sixteen times in this book, 1, 6, 16, the word or term backsliding or backslidings appear. You're familiar with what a backslider is, right? It just means to move backward. If you want to get an illustration of backsliding, have you ever tried to climb up a slide on a playground? If you try to climb it and you let go of the side rails, you will backslide. You'll slide backwards. You will lose ground.

You may try to gain ground, but you will more quickly lose ground. So this is a metaphor, and the book of Jeremiah is filled with a metaphor like this, 21 different pictures of judgment, and that's because Jeremiah was a good communicator. He didn't just help people hear it. He wanted people to see it, so he chose very, very vivid language for that to happen. Here's another example, chapter 4, verse 3.

See, we're making progress. For thus says the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, Break up your fallow ground, this is our agricultural terminology, and do not sow among thorns. Circumcise, different metaphor obviously, Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, and take away the foreskin of your hearts, You men of Judah, you inhabitants of Jerusalem, Lest my fury come forth like fire and burn, So that no one can quench it because of the evil of your doings. Now, chapter 5 and chapter 6 happen to be during that reform I told you about, remember I mentioned King Josiah, the good king, who heard the law, tore his robe, humbled himself, turned to God in sincerity.

Some of the leaders did too, but it was really a superficial turning as far as the general population was concerned. You know, okay man, the king's into this, we better get into it too. Any pig can fly in a hurricane. And anybody can jump on a bandwagon. And it's like, there's a Jesus movement happening, I'm going to jump on. And there's a revival happening, okay I'm going to get in, because the king, I want him to be happy with me, so I'll do it too. So it was very superficial.

It wasn't a national turning at all, there was no real change. So chapter 6, verse 13, kind of isolates one of the problems here. It says, Because from the least of them, even to the greatest of them, everyone is given to covetousness. And from the prophet, even to the priest, everyone deals falsely.

They have also healed the hurt of my people, slightly saying, peace, peace, when there is no peace. Now there's a couple of bad groups here. One group is politicians, which I generally find is a bad group anyway. Just honestly speaking, very hard to find a good one. I find good godly ones, very rarely. They're out there, but I also know God uses them.

I know God uses them, and God sets them on thrones, and brings them down, raises them up. The Bible says that, and we're told to pray for them. Anybody in elected office you should pray for, whether you voted for them or not, whether you like them or not, whether you like their policies or not, whether you agree with their tweets or not. You're to pray for every single leader, is that right or wrong?

Okay, yeah. So, bad group number one, politicians, here, and I'll tell you why in a minute. Bad group number two, prophets. And as suspect as politicians are, preachers are often, I'm very suspicious of preachers.

I am one, but I'm still very, very skeptical of many of them, if not most of them. And in this case, you had politicians and prophets, preachers, who wanted the people of Judah to not be worried about the reports of Jeremiah saying, the sky is falling, the sky is falling, Babylon is coming. They wanted to quiet that kind of anxiety in the hearts of the people. And so, politicians went to form alliances with other nations rather than trusting God.

We covered that last week. And prophets wanted to preach fun, feel-good, happy messages. Enter Jeremiah the prophet, who brought truth, and they didn't want to hear the truth, and it will get him in trouble. That wraps up Skip Heitzig's message from the series, The Bible from 30,000 Feet. Right now, here's Skip with an important message. You know, you can never be out of Jesus' reach.

No matter what you've done, no matter where you've come from, no matter where you're going, He loves you, and He's ready to welcome you when you come to Him. That's great news that the world needs to hear. And you can help share that news and keep these teachings coming to you through your support today. Your gift helps connect more people with the love of Jesus. Here's how you can give right now. Visit connectwithskip.com slash donate to give your gift today. That's connectwithskip.com slash donate. Or call 800-922-1888.

Again, that's 800-922-1888. Coming up tomorrow, Skip Heitzig shares how God's word motivated Jeremiah to keep living for the Lord, and how it can do the same for you. And for Jeremiah, likewise, God's word motivated him to keep on in ministry.

You know, D.L. Moody was a preacher in Chicago a century ago. He said, I know the Bible is inspired because it inspires me. Something about God's word that gets me, yours truly, out of many a rut. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the cross and cast all burdens on his word. Make a connection, connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.