Tag: Travis Peterson

Amazing Sovereignty in History

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In the final chapters of the book of Jeremiah, we see the Lord pronounce judgments on many peoples. The Egyptians, Edomites, Moabites, Philistines, and Assyrians, along with others, will receive the judgment of the Lord for their evil. These nations have opposed and abused the people of Israel and Judah, and the Lord will not let them off the hook. But there is one big one left that the Lord still will speak of.

In chapters 50-51, we finally see what the Lord is going to do regarding Babylon. You must see this as fascinating. The Babylonian Empire was a tool in the hand of God. The Babylonians came into the land of Judah, and they brought the judgment of God on his rebellious people. The Babylonians would be the nation that would subdue the Philistines, Moabites, Egyptians, and even the mighty Assyrians. And, when it is all said and done, the Lord would then turn and bring his judgment on the Babylonians for their actions.

Jeremiah 50:1-3

1 The word that the Lord spoke concerning Babylon, concerning the land of the Chaldeans, by Jeremiah the prophet:
2 “Declare among the nations and proclaim,
set up a banner and proclaim,
conceal it not, and say:
‘Babylon is taken,
Bel is put to shame,
Merodach is dismayed.
Her images are put to shame,
her idols are dismayed.’
3 “For out of the north a nation has come up against her, which shall make her land a desolation, and none shall dwell in it; both man and beast shall flee away.

And in case you are curious, the Lord did exactly what he said. The Babylonians came into the land and did damage. They put down enemy nations that never really rose again. They seized power from major players like Egypt and Assyria. And then the Lord brought judgment on the Babylonians just as he promised.

Why think about such ancient history? You should think about this because it tells you something about the Lord our God and how the world around us works. Let’s take a couple of truths from what the Lord did.

First, recognize that no nation is beyond the reach of the power of the Lord. Nobody in 722 BC, when Israel’s northern kingdom was carried away, would have believed that Assyria could fall in around a century, but it did. Nobody would have thought that the powerful Egyptians, the folks who took out King Josiah at the end of the seventh century BC, would fall; but they did. And nobody, after seeing all that, would think that the Babylonians who had firmly established their rule would then lose their own power within a century; but they did.

One lesson for us is to stop thinking that everything we see in our world is unchanging and unchangeable. No nation, no empire, no power structure has ever proved immune to the passing of time or the power of the Lord. The US is not guaranteed to stand. The EU is not guaranteed to stand. No other major nation on the world’s stage is guaranteed to stand. There is no power that can match the might of our Lord. Let us remember that, and let us find our hope in him and not in worldly kingdoms that crumble.

Second, note the sovereignty of God. He used Babylon to judge. Then he punished Babylon for how they did violence. But way, he used them. Yes, and in doing so, the Lord did not sin. He, by his sovereign might and perfect wisdom sent the Babylonians into the land to bring his wrath. And yet the Lord did not cause the Babylonians to do anything that they in their hearts and nature did not already want to do. And so the Lord can also righteously punish the Babylonians for their brutality.

This reminds me of the fact that the Lord God used Judas, the Jews, Herod, and Pilate to accomplish the crucifixion. That was the wickedest action ever taken by humanity. The Lord sovereignly brought it about; however, the Lord did not do wickedness, as he never caused those evil men to do the evil that was in their hearts. And through their actions, their sinful choices, the Lord God accomplished the most wonderful thing we will ever experience, our salvation. God is sovereign, and gloriously so.

When we read a history like the prophecies and then the fulfillments of the end of Jeremiah, we need to remember that God is bigger and greater than we have imagined. And we need to remember that our supposedly strong and invulnerable nations are not nearly so solid as we think. The Lord will do his will. He will even use the free actions of evil men to accomplish that which is most good and glorious. Our best reaction to all this is not to try to figure out exactly how it all works. Our best move is to get on board, to bow to the Lord, and to surrender to the God who made us and who will rule forever. He is holy and his ways are perfect. He is mighty, and no king and no nation and no individual will ever stand in his way.

Where Is Your Mind Stayed?

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Anxiety, fear, even depression are common issues among modern people. One might think that with the rise of technology, the prevalence of medications, and the ubiquity of mental health language, we would be a people who are the happiest and healthiest ever. But, in truth, we as a society are as frightened and miserable as any generation before us.

The reasons for this are many. Modern psychologists have a faulty understanding of humanity. They miss the significance of what it means to be created by God or to sin against that God. They also miss the comforting concept of the presence of God, the Holy Spirit, or the promise of eternity. And so the psychological community continues to try to work people through exercises and medications to be able to limp into the future.

But the word of God is clear that there is something else that brings peace to the mind of a child of God. And it is not a modern, atheistic, psychological technique.

Isaiah 26:3

You keep him in perfect peace
whose mind is stayed on you,
because he trusts in you.

Who is in peace? The one kept by God is at peace. Why is she at peace? Her mind is stayed on the Lord. Why is he stayed on the Lord? He trusts in the Lord.

Friends, when our souls are not at peace, our first test needs to be one of where our minds are stayed. Where do you let your mind go? Where do you let your thoughts rest? Is your mind centered on the truth of the Lord and his promise of eternity? Or is your mind centered on the things you fear might come, the things you are afraid could happen?

Many people have told us not to borrow trouble from the future. Jesus himself warned us at the end of Matthew 6 that to worry about the future is a gentile activity. But those who truly consider the Lord and truly believe, they find their minds comforted and their hearts at peace.

Have your minds stayed on the Lord. Make the truth of God the center of your thoughts, and do not let your thoughts move away from that truth. This is where the rubber hits the road in dealing with anxiety. Is the Lord we claim to serve real? Is he capable? Is he good? Are his promises true? Do we understand that any earthly outcome is tolerable in the light of eternity? Do we understand that God will do perfect justice in his time? Do we understand that our light and momentary affliction builds up for us an eternal weight of glory to come (cf. 2 Cor 4:16-18)?

How do you keep your mind stayed on the Lord? There are lots of answers to that. But let’s simply suggest a few:

  1. Regularly spend time in the word of God so that your mind will be stayed on the Lord.
  2. Pray.
  3. Talk about the things of God with mature Christians who will direct your mind toward the Lord.
  4. Encourage younger believers to focus their lives on the glory of God, and this will focus you as well.
  5. Attend worship service and take part in the glorious opportunities we have to hear the word preached, to pray, to sing, to participate in Lord’s supper, and to encourage other believers.
  6. Cut out of your life worthless things that trap your mind in worldliness and fear.
  7. Intentionally force yourself to think eternal thoughts, thoughts of heaven and the return of Christ (cf. Col 3:1-4).

A Faulty Measure

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How much of a pragmatist are you? If you do not know that word, to be pragmatic is to be someone who measures the goodness of an activity by whether or not it works. A pragmatist will evaluate what he or she does based on whether or not it gets the results he or she intends.

You might think to yourself that everybody ought to be a pragmatist. We all want to do things that work. But the problem is, there are things that will seem to be working, productive solutions to the problems of life, but those things can often times be wrong choices.

Of course, the place I find this discussed most is when we talk about activities and practices in a local church setting. By what standard do we measure the kinds of songs we sing, the kinds of sermons we preach, the kinds of outreach we do, or even the way we manipulate the setting of the worship service? Is our goal to get the most people in the room? Is our goal to get the biggest number of people regularly in the church building? Or is there another standard, a greater standard?

There have surely been times in my life when I thought like a pragmatist regarding the worship of the Lord. I thought that whatever promoted strong emotion or whatever drew more people to the service must be a good thing so long as I could not point to specific violations of clear commands. But as time has gone by in my life and in my Christian walk, I have discovered that God has not commanded us to measure our services by a pragmatic measure of greater numbers equals greater success or greater emotion equals greater success. Instead, the Lord has shown us that the exaltation of him, his glory, his holiness, his majesty, in accord with his word, by people genuinely committed to him, these are measures of success. Are we being faithful to the word? Are we painting a true picture of the Lord and his ways?

I thought of this topic as I read through the rebellion of the people of Judah who ran to Egypt during the days of the Babylonian captivity. It seems that part of the reason that God had judged Judah was that the people had been worshipping false gods and goddesses. The people had picked up that evil practice while in Egypt. And they were measuring the rightness or wrongness of that activity, not by the word of God, but by the seeming success or failure the practice was bringing to them.

Jeremiah 44:15-19 – 15 Then all the men who knew that their wives had made offerings to other gods, and all the women who stood by, a great assembly, all the people who lived in Pathros in the land of Egypt, answered Jeremiah: 16 “As for the word that you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we will not listen to you. 17 But we will do everything that we have vowed, make offerings to the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her, as we did, both we and our fathers, our kings and our officials, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. For then we had plenty of food, and prospered, and saw no disaster. 18 But since we left off making offerings to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything and have been consumed by the sword and by famine.” 19 And the women said, “When we made offerings to the queen of heaven and poured out drink offerings to her, was it without our husbands’ approval that we made cakes for her bearing her image and poured out drink offerings to her?”

Imagine, God says to these people that they must stop worshipping this false goddess. They turn to Jeremiah, and with a straight face say that they will not obey. Why? When they worshipped the false goddess, they had more stuff. When they stopped, they went hungry and captive to Egypt. So they will worship her again.

Jeremiah, of course, will follow up this section with the truth of God. They were captive because of the worship of the false goddess. The Lord had been merciful to them for a season, even in their rebellion, but they would not turn from their evil. Their measure was wrong. Their actions were not OK when they had more stuff or wrong when they had less. The proper measure for their actions is the command of God, not the amount of food on the table.

Friends, be very careful measuring your choices or the choices of your church by pragmatism. The only measure of the rightness or wrongness of what you do and the attitude with which you do it is the word of God. What does Scripture tell us worship is about? What does Scripture show us that the church is about? What methods does God prescribe for Christian living, evangelism, social engagement, etc.? Growing in number is no proof of God’s favor. Diminishing in social influence is no sign of God’s disfavor. Faithfulness to Scripture leads to the favor of God. Ignoring the word of God will lead to his disfavor. So be sure you do not use the wrong measure.

Thanks But No Thanks

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As the city of Jerusalem was threatened by the invading Babylonian Empire, there was much political intrigue taking place. Some men wanted Jeremiah the prophet dead for speaking the Lord’s judgment on Jerusalem. They thought he was unnecessarily disheartening the men.

After one failed attempt to kill Jeremiah, a servant of the king rescued the prophet. And Jeremiah and King Zedekiah had a chance to have a conversation. Jeremiah told the king that the city would be taken. And Jeremiah told the king that, if he wanted to be spared by the Lord, he needed to surrender himself to the king of Babylon.

Jeremiah 38:17-20 – 17 Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “Thus says the Lord, the God of hosts, the God of Israel: If you will surrender to the officials of the king of Babylon, then your life shall be spared, and this city shall not be burned with fire, and you and your house shall live. 18 But if you do not surrender to the officials of the king of Babylon, then this city shall be given into the hand of the Chaldeans, and they shall burn it with fire, and you shall not escape from their hand.” 19 King Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “I am afraid of the Judeans who have deserted to the Chaldeans, lest I be handed over to them and they deal cruelly with me.” 20 Jeremiah said, “You shall not be given to them. Obey now the voice of the Lord in what I say to you, and it shall be well with you, and your life shall be spared.

Consider that King Zedekiah received the most favorable answer he could have possibly received given the circumstances. There is a simple action that Zedekiah could take, and action commanded directly by the Lord, that would spare his life and keep his city from the torch. This is, in so many ways, a no-brainer.

Want to guess what happened? The king, of course, does not listen. His fears and his understanding of the situation would not allow him to obey the command of God. He was too scared of the unknown. So he tried to escape on his own, and he suffered greatly for it.

Is there a lesson here for us? Of course there is. God’s word is true. God gives us counsel that goes against our this-worldly wisdom. And when God tells us what is right, we need to obey, even when we are afraid to do so. There is nothing to be gained by surviving a few more years in a besieged city only to fall in disobedience to the Lord. And there is nothing to gain by compromising the word of God for things that will eternally pass away.

The king heard the word of God, heard the promise of God, heard that he could be safe. His response was basically, “Thanks but no thanks.” Let’s not respond that way to our Lord.

Faith is a Gift

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Why don’t they believe? This is a common question. It may be the most common objection that I know of to a reformed understanding of salvation. People, out of a desire to understand why some people do not entrust themselves to Christ, will raise the question of why this would happen. And the only place they can land where they are comfortable is to say that people do not believe because, though God gave them every opportunity, they simply chose not to.

I thought about this in a recent rereading of Matthew. In our church, we will soon be returning to Matthew for our sermon series, and I thought I’d better remind myself of what has passed. And in Matthew 13, Jesus speaks in many parables. The disciples are very curious as to why he would do so.

Do you remember how Jesus responded?

Matthew 13:10-11 – Then the disciples came and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” 11 And he answered them, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.

Why did Jesus speak to them in parables? Why don’t they believe? To the disciples, Jesus responded by pointing out an answer that is a little different than what the disciples wanted to know. Jesus points out that, for the disciples, they should be thrilled that they do believe. Why? It was granted to them to believe. It was given to them to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven. The disciples have been given a gift, a kindness from God.

Note, please, that the gift from God is a free gift. Nothing, absolutely nothing, obligates God to give the disciples this knowledge. There is nothing that would make God a bad person or a wrongdoer if he did not give it. It is a free thing that God may do, to show his kindness, for his pleasure.

Jesus then speaks to the disciples about those who do not get to hear the message clearly. He cites Isaiah 6, where the Lord told Isaiah that all his preaching will dull the sight and harden the hearts of the people to whom he preaches. And Jesus says that this is what is happening with the parables.

But what are we to do with that information? How are we supposed to feel? Jesus says this to the disciples.

Matthew 13:16-17 – 16 But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. 17 For truly, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.

What the disciples were to do was to see that they had been blessed by God. Why were they blessed by God? Were they blessed because they chose to believe? No, that is not at all what Jesus says. They were blessed in that they were granted by God the message they were hearing. It is not that they had faith that made them a step better than those around them. On the contrary, their blessing is that God gave them eyes to see and ears to hear. Jesus said, “Blessed are your eyes.” He was telling them that they were blessed because God chose to reveal something to them that others around them were not receiving. They were gifted by God with the gift of faith.

Even Idolatry is a Symptom

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When studying biblical counseling, I found myself regularly looking at the differences between symptoms and causes. Sometimes a person would come and talk with me about a struggle they were having. But after we would talk for a while, we would discover that their struggle was a symptom of a greater, deeper struggle within. They were feeling concern about the fruit on the tree, but we were able to look down to find the problem at the roots.

In my reading of Jeremiah, I find a fruit and root problem relating to idolatry that surprises me a bit.

Jeremiah 16:10-13

10 “And when you tell this people all these words, and they say to you, ‘Why has the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us? What is our iniquity? What is the sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?’ 11 then you shall say to them: ‘Because your fathers have forsaken me, declares the Lord, and have gone after other gods and have served and worshiped them, and have forsaken me and have not kept my law, 12 and because you have done worse than your fathers, for behold, every one of you follows his stubborn, evil will, refusing to listen to me. 13 Therefore I will hurl you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.’

This is a passage where Jeremiah is communicating God’s judgment on his rebellious people. This is just before the captivity of the southern kingdom, their being carried off to Babylon. But notice the difference in the problems of the two generations in that section.

God says that the older generation is particularly guilty of idolatry. But the younger has done even worse. What could possibly be worse than being fool enough to bow to a statue and seek its aid against the command of God? The Lord says, “Every one of you follows his stubborn, evil will, refusing to listen to me.”

What then is worse? God tells us here that a generation that follows its own stubborn, evil will, a generation that refuses the word of God, that is worse even than the generation of forefathers who bowed to idols. Something about dad and grandpa bowing to a calf was less evil than Junior saying, “I don’t care what the Lord says, I’ll just do things my own way.”

Now, this is not to say that idolatry is not an evil deserving hell. God is clear that it is. But God says that there is something worse in the heart of mankind when we follow our own stubbornness, our own evil, our own rotten hearts and completely ignore the Lord.

Idolatry is a symptom of a deeper problem. Bowing to a statue is a symptom of the disease that came out in the next generation. The disease is trusting one’s own heart, ones own wisdom, one’s own ways above the Lord. And God says that self-trust, that following your own heart, is even more evil than being confused enough to make an offering to a figurine.

What in the world are we to do with this? We must recognize that our hearts are not trustworthy. Jeremiah tells us that in the next chapter.

Jeremiah 17:9-10

9 The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?
10 “I the Lord search the heart
and test the mind,
to give every man according to his ways,
according to the fruit of his deeds.”

Our hearts will lead us away from the Lord. The infection of human sin and human self-reliance will turn us from the God who made us. That disease leads to spiritual death. We must be humble enough to stop following our hearts, stop listening to our urges, stop believing ourselves, and start relying on a solid source of truth. We need God’s word. We need God’s wisdom. And this is found in the clear and perfect revelation of God in Scripture.

The point is that even humanity bowing to false gods is a symptom of the folly and the rebellion bound up naturally in our sinful hearts. WE need spiritual heart transplants, a procedure only performed by the Lord at our salvation. And we need to trust the word of God over our desires, as our hearts will still mislead us if left unchecked.

How do you guard yourself from the danger of a rotten heart? First, come to Jesus if you have not yet done so. Second, regularly and prayerfully open the word of God and saturate your life with it. Third, be a part of a faithful, Bible-teaching, Bible-believing church where you can sit under the exposition of the word in classes and from the pulpit. And fourth, remember that your heart, even transformed, is not totally trustworthy. Always check your desires, not by spiritual experience, but by the clear and unchanging word of God.

Some Thoughts on Justice and Accusations

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When significant accusations are made against a person, especially when issues of loss are involved, how do we deal with them? Do we take the modern legal motto of innocent until proven guilty? Do we use the criminal justice standard that says that guilt must be proven beyond doubt? Do we take the civil standard that guilt must be proved simply by preponderance of the evidence? Do we take the line of the #MeToo movement in which we believe all accusers regardless of evidence?

The problem here is that none of the above standards is the best standard. Why? None of those is the standard of the word of God. It may surprise you to realize that the Lord actually spoke quite clearly to his people about what must be the standard met in a case of accusation. And the Lord made it clear that there are also consequences for malicious false accusations.

Deuteronomy 19:15-21 – 15 “A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established. 16 If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing, 17 then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days. 18 The judges shall inquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, 19 then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. 20 And the rest shall hear and fear, and shall never again commit any such evil among you. 21 Your eye shall not pity. It shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

First, note that a charge will not be established without a witness (cf. Num 35:30; Due 17:6-7). The idea of a he said she said or a she said he said claim is simply not admissible. I’m not going to deny that, in our era of modern technology, video surveillance, DNA evidence, and all the rest perhaps this model could shift a bit. There are methods of proof that were not available to the men of the second millennium BC. But it should be a normal standard that we do not attempt to adjudicate claims of one person against another person without a witness and without any sort of physical evidence. Something other than the claim of the accuser has to point toward the guilt of the accused.

Note, in the issue of witnesses, the Scripture is also very clear that any person with evidence regarding a crime is obligated to come forward. It is a crime to conceal a crime in the biblical standard (cf. Lev 5:1).

But, if a person makes an accusation, particularly one that includes consequences for the one accused, the accuser also is to be held accountable for their actions. There is no such thing as a free pass at making a charge against someone if that charge is intended to do the accused harm. Deuteronomy 19:19-21 above shows us that one found to be bringing a false accusation was actually subject to the penalty they attempted to have imposed on the one they accused if they are found to be a malicious witness (cf. Due 5:20). Deuteronomy 17:6-7 adds the provision that one who accuses another of murder must also be the first one to begin the execution of the murderer. Thus, God intended to dissuade people from making false accusations by making it impossible for a person to simply accuse and then walk away.

You might wonder how it could be that God would speak so strongly seemingly on the side of the accused. Obviously the Lord does not want victims to not see justice. Obviously God does not want people to be afraid to speak out and tell the truth. So why would God make this seem so hard?

The answer is one of ultimate justice. When dealing with fallen humanity, we must understand that mistakes are going to be made in our criminal and civil courts. And we must make a decision as to where we err. Will we err on the side of punishing the innocent or acquitting the guilty? Obviously we want to do neither, as both are injustices. But the Lord has shown us in his word that it is better to err on the side of not punishing someone than to err on the side of wrongly punishing someone.

Why would that be? The answer lies in the truth of the absolute justice of God. Even as we are prone to error in our judgments, the Lord our God never makes a mistake. God will perfectly do justice. No one who appears to get away with a crime in their lifetime will find that their sin goes unpunished. God is just. He will always see to it that justice is done.

If we punish someone wrongfully, we can do nothing to give back to them what they have lost. But if we fail to punish a person who turns out to be guilty, the Lord will perfectly do justice. Thus, a belief in the Lord and in his word is what helps us to see exactly where to risk erring.

Let’s also remember that biblical justice, as a friend pointed out to me recently, is more than punishing the guilty. Biblical justice is about the glory of God. Justice is about restoring as much as possibly can be restored when wrong is done or crimes are committed. Justice is also about sanctifying people, preventing future crimes, bringing about purity in a land, and teaching all people to treat all people as image-bearers of God.

The hardest part of this concept given our social and political environment is that I would never want a man or woman, a boy or girl, to be afraid to tell the truth. If a person has been abused or attacked, they need to know that it is safe for them to speak out. At the same time, we must not develop a culture in which every accusation is so completely believed as to destroy a person’s career and reputation without any form of evidence.

What then must we do? IN general, we love those who accuse and love those who are accused, protecting the dignity of all humanity—people created in the image of God. We do not pretend that any person’s accusation is not a big deal. We do not make anyone think we will not take them seriously. And we counsel, and we apply the healing grace of the gospel to all our wounds. But that cannot mean that we automatically pre-judge all who are accused. As we see in Leviticus 19:15, “You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor.” We do not defer to the strong or the weak, the rich or the poor, the accuser or the accused.

We love the accused by seeking genuine, biblical justice. Are they guilty? Is there real evidence? Are there witnesses? If there are , we love the guilty best by doing justice so as to punish crimes and to call for repentance. WE preach the gospel to the guilty and point them to the Savior. That may not get a woman her job back or keep a man out of prison, but eternal life is worth far more than any loss in this present world.

But what if the accusation is proven false? Then we must consider biblical justice there too. False accusers are attempting, for some reason, to damage other people with their words. Can we discern intent? Can we find out that a person was malicious in their motivation? IF so, then we should enact just penalties for that crime.

What if we cannot discern intent? What if there may be a genuine false belief based on a problem with memory or simple misunderstanding? Or what if the one accused might be guilty but we just cannot prove it? Is justice thwarted? Of course not. In such a situation we entrust the situation to the eternal justice of God, we strive to biblically comfort the hurting and the oppressed, and we move forward knowing that, at the final day of judgment, the Lord of Heaven and Earth will do rightly.

Prosperity Does Not Equal Favor

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One of the more insidious lies from all of human history is the idea that, if God is with us, we get good things. The counter is that, if God is upset with someone, they always get bad things. The truth is, the favor or disfavor of the Lord is shown far more in eternity than in every day-to-day. King Ahab had a pretty nice kingdom. Job had it pretty rough. But which of them was faithful to the Lord?

As Jeremiah preached against the people of Judah, he had to speak against people who were smug. They assumed that they were fine, because they were experiencing prosperity. But look at how Jeremiah warns them.

Jeremiah 13:12-14

12 “You shall speak to them this word: ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, “Every jar shall be filled with wine.” ’ And they will say to you, ‘Do we not indeed know that every jar will be filled with wine?’ 13 Then you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord: Behold, I will fill with drunkenness all the inhabitants of this land: the kings who sit on David’s throne, the priests, the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 14 And I will dash them one against another, fathers and sons together, declares the Lord. I will not pity or spare or have compassion, that I should not destroy them.’ ”

The Lord is speaking through Jeremiah, and his warnings will catch the people by surprise. Jeremiah says that these people have lots of wine. They respond by saying they know that, and they assume that this means that they are powerful, strong, successful, perhaps even favored. But then the Lord tells them that the very wine they love, the very thing they think of as the sign of their success, that is going to be the tool that the Lord uses to bring about their destruction.

I wonder how much we have forgotten this lesson. The things that our society thinks are marks of our prosperity, marks of our strength, marks of our enlightenment, so many of those very things can be the instruments of our destruction. We revel in our freedom. We rejoice in our financial prosperity. But we forget the Lord. WE think we need no favor but our own strength. And we will, if we do not turn to the Lord, find that what we rely on will be the very thing that the Lord uses to show his judgment on us.

But even outside of national issues, this can be true in churches. When we think we are strong, when a church gets proud of a program, a building, or a certain number of people, we can find ourselves in trouble. The Lord builds his church. If we start chasing numbers and dollars and praise from the community, we will find that we are no longer seeking what really matters, the favor of the Lord. May we not let, even in the church, our prosperity be the tool that tears us down. May we love the Lord and love one another to his glory and our good.

It Matters Who Is Our Maker

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In Jeremiah 10, the prophet speaks to the nation of Israel to warn them against learning the ways of the surrounding nations. He especially warns against astrology and idolatry. And then he takes some time to point out the silliness of bowing to statues. After all, Jeremiah reminds them that they know of the wood that was cut and the work of the smith and the sewing of the clothing for the statue. But then to think that the statue that you watched being put together is somehow your deity, that is absurd.

At the end, Jeremiah takes the people back to one place. Who made you? The God who made you is the real God. A god you made, not so much.

Jeremiah 1011, 14-16

11 Thus shall you say to them: “The gods who did not make the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from under the heavens.” …
14 Every man is stupid and without knowledge;
every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols,
for his images are false,
and there is no breath in them.
15 They are worthless, a work of delusion;
at the time of their punishment they shall perish.
16 Not like these is he who is the portion of Jacob,
for he is the one who formed all things,
and Israel is the tribe of his inheritance;
the Lord of hosts is his name.

Stop and consider the question of creation. It really matters who made us. If we exist at the creative decree of the God of the Bible, everything else must align to that fact. If God really formed us, then God is God and we are not. If God made the universe, he is infinitely wiser than us, infinitely stronger than us, infinitely greater than us. If God made us by his power and for his glory, then we exist under his ownership, and we owe him our fealty, we owe him the right due the Creator. If God made us, he has the right to define what we are to be and how we are to live.

Jeremiah reminded the people that the God who made us is real and all other things we bow to are simply man-made objects. It makes no sense to worship what you make yourself. And we must remember that we are creation, owned by God, under his rule. WE must live as his subjects for his great glory. And we must reject the notion that we can do anything to overthrow him or redefine him or otherwise shape the world that he made to our whim.

Anger Turned To Love

pastortravislv

Do you remember the way many gospel presentations used to begin? So often, people would start a presentation of the plan of salvation with the statement, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.” Of course, when that statement was made in the 1950s, people in the U.S. had a general understanding of who God is and that we all have failed to live up to his standard. Thus, the statement of God’s love came as a relief and a light of hope for those who might have thought themselves beyond the reach of the grace of God.

When we discuss issues of salvation with people who are outside of the faith, often our path will be to focus on the love of God. Of course, this is good, as God is gloriously loving. But, if we are not careful, that presentation of love today can paint a false picture of the actual situation between humanity and God.

What do I mean? When all we let people know is that God loves them and really wishes they would be a part of his family, we do not paint a true and biblical picture. Instead, we paint a picture of desperation. We make God look like a guy who really wishes the sweet girl would go with him to the dance. And such has never been the biblical portrayal of our Lord.

Isaiah 12:1

You will say in that day:
“I will give thanks to you, O Lord,
for though you were angry with me,
your anger turned away,
that you might comfort me.

I think we gain something beautiful to remember about the gospel and about our own experience with the Lord from Isaiah 12:1. This in no way takes the loving nature from the picture of God, but it does clearly portray our position before the Lord.

The Lord tells the people how they will sing of him. He was angry with them. But he turned his own anger away that he might comfort them. Anger turned to favor is the glorious gospel picture.

The theological word for this is propitiation. The concept is that of God having righteous anger against us for our sin. But God, by means of a sacrifice, satisfies his anger so that he can now look upon us with favor.

Now consider the difference. IF I start the gospel presentation with a soft and sappy love of God, I miss some very important truths. God is holy. God is rightly, perfectly, terrifyingly angry over my sin. He should be. And I have earned his wrath. But God, by his choice first, decided to satisfy his anger by means of presenting God the Son as the perfect sacrifice for my sins so that two things can be true. On the one hand, God can look upon me with love and kindness because of what Jesus has done. At the same time, God can be clearly seen as perfectly just, as my sin is perfectly punished.

That is a bigger gospel than is a gospel of a lonely, longing, deity who just deeply wishes you would consent to have him as yours. Yes, God loves, but his love is far deeper than all that. God’s love is based on God’s perfectly turning from his righteous anger and providing the only sacrifice that could ever work so that he might look at us with favor.

Now, is that the picture painted in the Scripture? Yes, Isaiah 12:1 looks that way. But is that the gospel picture?

Romans 3:23-26

23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Jesus is our propitiation, put forth by God himself. Jesus is the sacrifice who turns the anger of God into his favor on us. And God did this to prove his justice. This is the gospel, and it is better news than God loving me and having a wonderful plan for my life. IN fact, God does love me and have a wonderful plan for my life, but that comes toward the end of the gospel, not at the beginning. The gospel begins with the holiness of the infinitely perfect God, his choice to turn his own anger away, and my eternal benefit at his gracious hand.