Author: pastortravislv

I am a husband, and father of three, serving as pastor at Providence Reformed Church in Las Vegas, NV. We came here on July 1, 2015.

Let’s Talk Judgment

pastortravislv

One of the worst human follies is to allow yourself to believe that present actions have no future or eternal ramifications. To live so much in the here and now as to pretend that there is no future, no tomorrow, no forever is a deadly thing. And this is an error that has gripped people through the generations.

In Isaiah’s day, he promised the judgment of God on a rebellious people.

Isaiah 26:20—21 – 20 Come, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until the fury has passed by. 21 For behold, the LORD is coming out from his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity, and the earth will disclose the blood shed on it, and will no more cover its slain.

In these verses, God calls on his people to hide while his judgment falls on the land around them. It is a simple picture of God protecting and preserving his own while he allows his justice to rain down on those around them. This happened in Egypt, when God preserved the Hebrews in Goshen but let judgment fall on the Egyptians.

What got my attention when I read this was the wording of the end of verse 21, “and the earth will disclose the blood shed on it, and will no more cover its slain.” Part of the judgment of God on the people of the land is that he will not allow the earth to hide the sin of the people. The earth itself will disclose the blood shed on it.

Friends, we are total fools if we assume that we can sin in secret and not have the Lord know. We are fools if we believe that the Lord will allow any sin to go unpunished. And we are fools if we believe that a nation will stand under the favor of God when it is full of innocent blood shed by evil men.

Just imagine if, in our own nation, the land was to reveal all the innocent blood shed by people who assumed they were getting away with something. The blood of all the brutalized slaves would be seen. All the blood of innocent babies slain in the womb would cry out against us. The blood of the lives of those who have been consumed by our entertainment industries would stand out against us. The blood of trafficked women and children would serve as testimony against us.

Our nation has a history of many great things, but we would be fools to pretend that our nation does not also have a great deal for which to answer to the Lord. And we are fools if we believe that the Lord will not call the nation to account. The land will show what we have been. The Lord is just and must rightly punish sin, all sin, every sin.

Christians, take note. Our only way of escaping the judgment of God is found in faith in Christ and repentance from sin. All who are in Christ have our sin punished, not in ourselves, but in the Savior who died as a sacrificial substitute. Jesus, while hanging on the cross, took the wrath of God upon himself for every sin the forgiven ever commit. Our hope has never been in the idea that God will allow sin to go unchecked. Our hope is in the fact that the justice of God for our sin has already been done.

But for all not in Christ, the judgment of God is quite real and quite personal. You see, for all who refuse God’s grace in Jesus, there is only one alternative. All who refuse the grace of God and the Lordship of Christ will stand before the bar of God’s justice and receive for themselves the due penalty for sinning against the Holy God who made us. That judgment is infinite in scope, as to sin against the infinitely holy God is an infinite crime. And this is not limited only to individuals. Every nation that opposes the Lord and his ways will face the right judgment of the Almighty.

Our only hope as a nation is to receive the grace of God. As individuals, we are guilty. As a nation, we are guilty. The solution to our problem begins with the spread of the gospel. As individual after individual begins to receive the grace of God in Christ, as family after family comes under the influence of Scripture, then and only then might our nation turn from its rebellion against the Lord before it is too late.

Friends, may we as individuals and we as a nation turn to the Lord to seek his mercy. God is just. Jesus is our only hope. To ignore the coming justice of God is folly.

Two Ways to Handle Scripture

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How do you respond to the word of God? There are really only two options. A person will either hear the word of the Lord, fear God, and obey, or they will turn their back on the Lord and face judgment.

In Jeremiah 36, watch the response of King Jehoiakim when the word of God is read to him. While sitting near a nice cozy fire, the king had a chance to hear God’s word and repent.

Jeremiah 36:22-24 – 22 It was the ninth month, and the king was sitting in the winter house, and there was a fire burning in the fire pot before him. 23 As Jehudi read three or four columns, the king would cut them off with a knife and throw them into the fire in the fire pot, until the entire scroll was consumed in the fire that was in the fire pot. 24 Yet neither the king nor any of his servants who heard all these words was afraid, nor did they tear their garments.

Depending on what one believes the word of God to be, this is either a non-event or a terrifying act of hubris.

While there are many different pieces of evidence for the accuracy, authority, and inspiration of Scripture, I’ll not go into them here. The truth is, the word of God is real. The God who made us has spoken to us. He has spoken through prophets and later apostles. He has recorded his word for us in holy Scripture, what we now call the Bible. And to mess with or ignore the Bible is a serious offense before the Lord.

The king heard God’s word, did not like what it said to him, and chose to cut it up and throw it into the fire. That was a terrible move for him. Eventually, King Jehoiakim died and his kingdom went captive to Babylon just as God had said in the words Jehoiakim cut up. But we are not super worried about Jehoiakim anyway. What we need to think about is our own response to the word of God.

Friends, may we be people who honor and respect the Lord by treasuring his word. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable (2 Tim. 3:16). The word of God tells us who God is and what God requires. The Bible tells us how to be forgiven by God and to live to please him once he has adopted us into his family. May we never ignore God’s word or dishonor God by disrespecting his word.

Do your Land Good and Live as an Exile

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From 606 to 586 BC, the people of Judah were conquered by the Babylonian Empire. At different times, different groups of Jews were taken to live in Babylon. In all, the nation would spend 70 years in exile under the judgment of God. But God promised that, after that exile, he would return the nation to its land.

Of course, there are many false prophets who urged the people not to willingly go to Babylon, to try to avoid the exile. These evil men tried to get the people to believe that God would restore the nation to the land within 2 or 3 years. But God’s word for the people was a call to go to Babylon, settle down, and live godly lives.

Jeremiah 29:4-7 — 4 “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. 6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 7 But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

God had a word for the people who were in exile. Build a house. Have a family. Get a job and feed your family—the whole concept of growing a garden. Pray for your new city. Do good for the city. As you help the welfare of the city, you help yourself. Even if this land is not your ultimate home, do what you can to live a godly life and do the land good.

While modern Christians are not Jews in the 6th century BC, we sometimes feel similar things. WE look around in our land, in our city perhaps, and we feel like strangers and aliens in a foreign land. The nation does not value what we value. The nation can be harsh to our beliefs. The nation participates in grievously sinful acts. What are we to do?

I would suggest that God’s word in Jeremiah is pretty close to what his word would be for us today. WE are not to run away and hide. Nor are we to embrace the sinful worldview of our culture. We are to live godly lives in the real world. Set up a home. Have a family if the Lord provides that opportunity. Work a job. Pray for the nation. Share the gospel. Bring about God-honoring change when you can. Do what you can to do your city good, for in doing your city good, you do yourself good.

False Comfort for Societal Gain

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Jeremiah had a very hard ministry. He spoke to the people of Judah the word of God in a time when the people were not following God. The people disobeyed. The kings of Judah disobeyed. No matter what Jeremiah said, the leaders of Judah would not listen. And, as frustrating as anything, there were others who claimed to be prophets who said exactly the opposite of what God was actually telling Jeremiah to say.

Take a look at these words from Jeremiah, and notice the radical comparison that the Lord makes.

Jeremiah 23:13–17 – 13 In the prophets of Samaria I saw an unsavory thing: they prophesied by Baal and led my people Israel astray. 14 But in the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a horrible thing: they commit adultery and walk in lies; they strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one turns from his evil; all of them have become like Sodom to me, and its inhabitants like Gomorrah.” 15 Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts concerning the prophets: “Behold, I will feed them with bitter food and give them poisoned water to drink, for from the prophets of Jerusalem ungodliness has gone out into all the land.” 16 Thus says the LORD of hosts: “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD. 17 They say continually to those who despise the word of the LORD, ‘It shall be well with you’; and to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, ‘No disaster shall come upon you.’ ”

In verse 13, God said that the people of the northern kingdom had faced his judgment because of their idol worship, their following of Baal. But then God says something about Judah that appears, by comparison, to bring the wrath of God even more. God is going to judge Judah for the evil messages of the false prophets.

And what were those false prophets doing? They were speaking messages not from the Lord as if they were from God. They were telling the people of Judah that it was OK for them to live in sin before the Lord. The false prophets were telling the people to just keep enjoying what they were doing, that God is fine with them, and that no consequences were on the way. As verse 17 says, “They say continually to those who despise the word of the LORD, ‘It shall be well with you’; and to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, ‘No disaster shall come upon you.’”

We could think of this as an interesting historical footnote for us were it not for the fact that the same thing is happening among those who claim to be Christians today. God’s word speaks absolutely clearly about issues of sin and righteousness. And there are those in our day who will claim that things that the Lord says are sin are now OK given our progressive culture. They will claim to have a new word from God allowing evils that the Lord formerly called abomination in his word.

Of course, there are also those who claim to have a word from God that they use to manipulate others around them for personal, financial gain. Evil men claim to have prophecy from the Lord, words from God that God did not speak. They will use this language to get people to send them donations in exchange for the Lord’s healing or the promise of a prosperous business.

Christians, take a note from our text in Jeremiah. It is deadly to claim to have a word from God when God has not spoken it. It is deadly to say that things are right when God has called them sin. It is evil to tell someone that they will have only peace and prosperity with God when that person stands in opposition to the Lord. May we be a people of the word of God who rightly proclaim the word as God intended. May we live in accord with his word and never give anybody false comfort for the sake of societal gain.

The Unenviable Job of a Prophet

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There are so many blessings to following the Lord. There is forgiveness, peace, joy, fellowship, hope for eternity, and so much more. But the truth is, following God is hard, sometimes very hard.

One person who understood this point very well was Jeremiah the prophet. Jeremiah saw miracles from God. Jeremiah had the word of God to communicate to the people around him. But Jeremiah had it hard. The people who lived around Jeremiah were not following God. And the people really did not like it when Jeremiah prophesied that God would bring judgment on the land by allowing the Babylonians to conquer Judah.

Look at this passage where Jeremiah laments his difficult position.

Jeremiah 20:7–11 – 7 O LORD, you have deceived me, and I was deceived; you are stronger than I, and you have prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all the day; everyone mocks me. 8 For whenever I speak, I cry out, I shout, “Violence and destruction!” For the word of the LORD has become for me a reproach and derision all day long. 9 If I say, “I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,” there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot. 10 For I hear many whispering. Terror is on every side! “Denounce him! Let us denounce him!” say all my close friends, watching for my fall. “Perhaps he will be deceived; then we can overcome him and take our revenge on him.” 11 But the LORD is with me as a dread warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble; they will not overcome me. They will be greatly shamed, for they will not succeed. Their eternal dishonor will never be forgotten.

Jeremiah declares that he feels deceived. Of course God has not deceived anybody, but Jeremiah is unhappy about the hardship he is facing. Jeremiah has the word of God. But as he communicates that word, the people attack him. Jeremiah has a message of life for the people. The people reject that message and then turn on Jeremiah, attacking the messenger. And, at times, Jeremiah just wants to quit.

But verse 9 tells us that Jeremiah can’t quit. When he tries to remain silent, he feels like he could explode. Jeremiah says, “there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.” Jeremiah wishes he could stop. He would like a nice, easy, soft life. But Jeremiah cannot have it.

This brings also to my mind the story of John Calvin. Calvin wanted very little more than to live a simple life of study. But he could not. Calvin, in passing through Geneva, was approached by the leader of the church in that city, a man named Guillaume Farel. Farel made it clear to Calvin that Calvin’s genius for theology and for organization was needed in Geneva, and Farel would pray that Calvin would have no peace if he did not do what he should to help. Calvin wanted nothing more than to travel on to Strasbourg, but he feared the curse of God pronounced by Farel, and so stayed and worked in Geneva. The work was hard. The people were often unappreciative and even hostile. Eventually the city banished Calvin and Farel, but then brought them back.

Calvin’s life of preaching and teaching was hard, and I wonder if he would not have spoken like Jeremiah did in our passage. In truth, I think many a pastor would tell you that we have days when we feel like Jeremiah. It would be easier not to confront people with their sin. It would be easier not to warn the culture around us of the judgment of God. It would be easier not to call people to repentance. It would be easier not to tell someone they are unqualified for the ministry they want to do. It would be easier not to tell someone that their doctrinal claims are unbiblical.

But the truth is, the Lord is great. The Lord’s word is perfect. And the ministry of communicating the truth of God to people, whether they be welcoming or hostile, is a privilege and an honor. The true follower of God will have a fire in his or her bones that will not go out until we tell people the truth, even if that telling costs us.

It Didn’t Enter God’s Mind

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God is all-knowing. We know that. We teach and proclaim that. What then do we do with a verse that declares that men did something that never entered God’s mind?

Jeremiah 19:4-6 – 4 Because the people have forsaken me and have profaned this place by making offerings in it to other gods whom neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah have known; and because they have filled this place with the blood of innocents, 5 and have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or decree, nor did it come into my mind— 6 therefore, behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, when this place shall no more be called Topheth, or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter.

Does verse 5 above indicate that there is something God did not foresee? Did God miss the depth of man’s evil? No, not at all.

Contextually, this passage comes in the middle of Jeremiah’s promise of judgment from God upon the people. God lists for the people his grievances against them. There are some who not only worshipped false gods, but who also added the horrible evil of child sacrifice.

In that context, God says that he did not command that the people sacrifice their children, nor did it enter his mind. He is not saying that it did not come to his knowledge that they would do such a thing. Instead, God is letting them know that it would never have entered his mind to command such a thing. God is not going to be pleased by the evil ritual of child sacrifice. Such is at the darkest root of mankind’s heart.

What do we learn here? Of course, we learn that there is nothing in Scripture that points to there being anything God did not know. We also see that God is not at all like the evil and false gods created in the minds of men or inspired by demons. God does not command humans to practice vile things like child sacrifice in order to gain his attention or blessing. And we learn that the human heart is desperately sick, dark and depraved. Mankind, left to ourselves, will go to places God would never command in order to find ways to manipulate deity. But there is only one way to salvation, by grace through faith in Christ.

Blessed or Cursed

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When God sets before you and me a pair of options, be blessed or be cursed, it really should not be hard for us to decide which we want. This is quite often the way that God speaks in Scripture, especially in poetic passages like psalms and Proverbs. God lets us know with simple clarity that one choice will lead to our life while another will lead to our death.

We see one such choice spelled out in Jeremiah 17.

Jeremiah 17:5-8

5 Thus says the Lord:
“Cursed is the man who trusts in man
and makes flesh his strength,
whose heart turns away from the Lord.
6 He is like a shrub in the desert,
and shall not see any good come.
He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness,
in an uninhabited salt land.
7 “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
whose trust is the Lord.
8 He is like a tree planted by water,
that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
for it does not cease to bear fruit.”

Look at the poetic opposites, the antithetic parallelism. We see a description of the difference between a man who is blessed and one who is cursed. The cursed man is compared to a dying shrub while the blessed man is like a flourishing tree. One lives well. The other meets destruction.

What is the difference in being blessed or cursed? This is a big deal, as knowing this is as important a bit of data as a person can grasp.

  • ““Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the LORD” (verse 5).
  • “Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD” (Verse 7).

Look clearly. Trust in man, and you are cursed. Trust in God, and you are blessed. Trust in your own strength, and you will meet destruction. Trust in the Lord, and you will find life.

All in all, this is the message of the Bible. We are weak. We are sinners. We are incapable of making it to heaven on our own. We are incapable of earning the favor of God through any of our actions. And when we trust in ourselves, our strength, our goodness, our power, our wisdom, we die.

God certainly owes us no explanation for why this is the case. God has every right to choose to save us or destroy us based on his own standards and his own reasoning. But this one is not hard to guess as to why God does things the way that he does. To trust in yourself, to try to do things your way, is for you to make yourself your own master and your own savior. To trust in self is to reject the authority of God over you. To trust in self is to say to your Creator that he must take a back seat to your own wisdom and your own will. This will lead you to death. It is not at all hard to see why trusting in self and walking in our own ways leads to destruction.

What is actually harder to understand is why the Lord would be so gracious to us as to allow us to trust in him for life. God has every right to simply destroy all the universe. God has every right to wipe out humanity and start over. After all, he is Creator. His creation is stained with rebellion from Adam on. But God has always intended to display his glory, not in simply making a perfect creation, but in rescuing from a fallen world a people for his glory. The honor of God is magnified in his choice to have mercy on a people, a people he draws to himself and grants forgiveness when they trust in him and not in self.

In Jeremiah, we see this principle spelled out for national Judah. If the people in the land trust in and follow God, they will be blessed. If they do not, they will be overrun by the Babylonians. But in our lives, the principle is more personal and more eternal. Trust in yourself, live only for yourself, and you will face the right wrath of God. But turn from sin and trust in the Lord by surrendering to Jesus in faith, and you will find eternal life and forever goodness.

Two Types of Prophets

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Examining the claims of those who claim faith, we find that the message is not consistent. This makes it hard for people from outside the church to understand our claims. After all, one group will say one thing and one another. Who is to say who is right? One group claims a gospel of salvation by grace through faith in Christ. Another proclaims a gospel of liberation, of financial prosperity, of throwing off of all restraints. Who is telling the truth? Or do we just get to pick and choose?

In Jeremiah’s day, not long before the fall of Jerusalem in the early sixth century BC, there were contradictory claims coming from the religious. And this is important for us to see. You see, God was only putting forth one message, no matter what multiple groups were claiming.

Jeremiah 14:13-16 – 13 Then I said: “Ah, Lord God, behold, the prophets say to them, ‘You shall not see the sword, nor shall you have famine, but I will give you assured peace in this place.’ ” 14 And the Lord said to me: “The prophets are prophesying lies in my name. I did not send them, nor did I command them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a lying vision, worthless divination, and the deceit of their own minds. 15 Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who prophesy in my name although I did not send them, and who say, ‘Sword and famine shall not come upon this land’: By sword and famine those prophets shall be consumed. 16 And the people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem, victims of famine and sword, with none to bury them—them, their wives, their sons, and their daughters. For I will pour out their evil upon them.

Jeremiah was carrying the word of God to the people. He was warning against the coming judgment of God. He warned the people to turn from their sin. He warned them to prepare for the invasion to come and the captivity to follow.

But other prophets were assuring the people that there was no judgment they would face at all. These prophets told the nation that soon prosperity would overtake them. These men were gaining personal wealth and social status by telling the people things the people already believed and wanted to hear. They were preying on the people’s greed and lust and idolatry to gain influence. And God promised that these men and their followers were in big trouble.

But how do we know? How can we tell who is right? How can we know who speaks the real message of God and who is misleading us? Notice what Jeremiah tells us about himself.

Jeremiah 15:16

Your words were found, and I ate them,
and your words became to me a joy
and the delight of my heart,
for I am called by your name,
O Lord, God of hosts.

Jeremiah tells us that he has the words of God. But, in our world today, who now has the word of God? Who has a genuine message from God? Let me make it simple for you. The one who has a true message from God is not the one claiming personal, supernatural, spiritual revelation. The one who is talking to us from God is not the one who claims that the word of God and the ways of God have changed. The person with the message from God is not the person who is trying to shape Christianity according to the present culture or according to the modern intellectual theories of oppression and power playing. No, these are not and have never been the voice of God.

What is the voice of God? Scripture, Holy Scripture, the Bible is the word of God. The same Scripture that was completed in the first century, that has been preserved for generations, that has been translated for our ability to read it, that is the word of God. And the one who is bringing us the message of God is the one who loves the word, communicates to us the word, and is faithful to cleanly handle and interpret the word. The one bringing us the voice of God is the one not telling us new things, but the old, old story of the holy God who rescues sinners in Christ, God the Son. The one telling the truth is the one who lets Scripture speak for itself, who upholds God standards for justice, for faithful living, for kindness, for marriage, for sexuality, for honesty, for worship, and for all that God commands.

Do you want to know who is telling the truth? Do you want to hear the voice of God? Open the Bible. Study it faithfully and prayerfully. Do not look for hidden codes and secret mysteries. Do not look for ways to make it say the opposite of what it actually says. Just love the word and you will be loving the voice of God. Do not fall for those who claim to speak for God while ignoring or inverting the word of God. But follow the counsel of those who honestly, simply, clearly, and faithfully open the word to the people.

An Odd Sermon Illustration and the Purpose of Our Lives

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I don’t think I’ve ever used a pair of underwear to make a sermon point—nor do I intend to do so in the future. But in Jeremiah 13, the Lord asks the prophet to make a point to Judah with a loin cloth. The illustration is simple. He takes a new loin cloth, clean and whole, and buries it in the ground. Then, after several days, he digs it up again, and it is now ruined. And God says this is a picture of what has happened to Judah.

Jeremiah 13:8-11 – 8 Then the word of the Lord came to me: 9 “Thus says the Lord: Even so will I spoil the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. 10 This evil people, who refuse to hear my words, who stubbornly follow their own heart and have gone after other gods to serve them and worship them, shall be like this loincloth, which is good for nothing. 11 For as the loincloth clings to the waist of a man, so I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me, declares the Lord, that they might be for me a people, a name, a praise, and a glory, but they would not listen.

Much of the book of Jeremiah is like this passage. Judah has turned from the Lord. Because they have turned, they are in deep trouble.

Before we start thinking that God is being harsh here, remember a few things. First, we have no right to ever judge the actions of God. Second, the people of Judah agreed to follow God according to his standards and accepting God’s promised consequences for disobedience. Third, God had given them warning after warning for centuries. Fourth, the people were not only refusing to follow the law in general, but they were actually rebelling against their ultimate purpose.

What was Juda’s purpose? God says he made Judah his people for this reason, “that they might be for me a people, a name, a praise, and a glory.” God rescued Judah as a people, drawing them out of Egypt and entering into covenant relationship with them, so that these people would shine forth a light on the glory of God for the world to see. Their purpose for existence as a nation was to show the greatness of God. And they, as a nation, were not only failing to show the glory of God in general, but were particularly rebelling against their purpose, behaving in dishonorable ways, and still wanting the protection and provision of the Lord. And it was for this reason that God was going to bring in enemy nations to destroy Jerusalem and ultimately take Judah captive for 7 decades.

God wanted his people to know that Judah would go into exile, and it would be because the people of Judah would not obey the Lord and live to his glory. But what shall we learn from this? Like the people of Judah, all human beings have been created by God, in the image of God, for the glory of God. There is no person on earth whose reason for existence is not the glory of God. And all people everywhere have a choice to either glorify God in their submission to the Lord or glorify God as God judges them for their sin. We all deserve the latter. It is the grace of God that offers us the former, the opportunity to glorify God by coming to him for grace and then living in obedience to his word for his glory.

Get personal here. You are made by God. God, as your Creator, has the right to tell you why you exist. You exist to display God’s glory. You, in fact, will display God’s glory for eternity. And you have a responsibility. All humans have failed to live up to our responsibility. Thus, we all deserve for God to eternally judge us and display his glory by enacting his just retribution on us for fighting against him. But God calls us to turn from fighting him, to trust in Jesus and Jesus’ finished work on the cross, and to be saved by his grace through faith in Christ alone. If you will repent and believe, God will save you, change you, and empower you to find great joy in honoring him with your life. Then you can obey the commands of God and find that your whole purpose for being is to magnify the perfection of God.

Which would you prefer to be? Would you prefer to display the glory of God by being an object lesson of his justice? Or would you prefer to be a trophy of his grace and kindness? Jeremiah used a rotten loin cloth to illustrate the destruction we all deserve for not being what God created us to be. But in Christ, God can make us new and useful to him for his glory and our joy. Will you trust Jesus? Will you then give your life for its real purpose, the honor, the glory, the name of God?

Learn Not the Way of the Nations

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Some believers I know are fascinated by other world religions. Others are fascinated by the occult or by creepy, scary stories of mysterious, spiritual happenings. Some still cling a bit to superstitions like horoscopes or folk tales. And I think we know, if we think biblically, that these are bad ideas.

But I wonder if these are the only bad ideas that we are willing to learn too much about from time-to-time.

Jeremiah 10:2-3a

2 Thus says the Lord:
“Learn not the way of the nations,
nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens
because the nations are dismayed at them,
3 for the customs of the peoples are vanity.

Learn not the way of the nations. In this instance, Jeremiah is communicating God’s message against idolatry, astrology, and superstition. We are not supposed to be like that. Nor are we to fear what the nations fear. When people get creeped out by Friday the 13th coming up on the calendar, a full moon, or a black cat crossing the path, we should not join in. These are vanity.

But those things are not the only vanities of the nations. They are just the easy ones. There are other false beliefs, false gods, false customs and practices of the nations that Christians often find fascinating. For example, it is quite popular among some believers to find a great deal of personal satisfaction in understanding the ways of the world, in speaking the language of the lost, in really identifying with those who do not know Christ. Of course, there is a way to show love and kindness and understanding to the world around you that is beautiful, helpful, and evangelistic. But there is a folly in letting yourself become so familiar with the thoughts and practices of the world that you begin to treasure the world’s opinion of you as a smart, nuanced, non-judgmental person who is not like all those other Christians.

I certainly have known a few believers who have found a good deal of satisfaction in their worldly understanding. Perhaps these are folks who are really up on the latest Netflix series, the hottest new music, or the juiciest celebrity gossip. Perhaps these are just Christians who want to look smarter than the rest by using the terms, labels, and arguments of the culture in many settings. Perhaps these are Christians who take pride in the workings of political movements that most other believers oppose.

We want to be a relatable people. We do not want to be unable to communicate with genuine folks who live next door. But the word of God tells us that many of the fears, practices, and beliefs of the lost world are vanities that we should not consume. Our minds are to be filled with the word of God, the ways of God, the law of God, the holiness of God, and the glory of God. There is nothing good about knowing more about the arguments of a philosopher than the heart of Jesus. There is nothing good about knowing how to sing the songs of the world rather than the songs of the word. There is nothing good about gaining the approval of the culture, being seen as thoughtful and winsome, if you compromise the clean and clear gospel.

Yes, let’s know our neighbors. Let’s listen and understand. Let’s be kind. But let us not learn the ways of the world so as to be drawn into their vanities.