Jeremiah chapter number 11, beginning verse number 1, the Bible reads,
The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, Hear ye the words of this covenant,
and speak unto the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
And say thou unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Cursed be the man that obeyeth
not the words of this covenant, which I commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them
forth out of the land of Egypt from the iron furnace, saying, Obey my voice, and do them
according to all which I command you.
So shall ye be my people, and I will be your God, that I may perform the oath which I have
sworn unto your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is this
day.
Then answered I, and said, So be it, O Lord.
Now this scripture is really clear, and it has to do with a theme that we've seen over
and over again in the book of Jeremiah.
We're only eleven chapters in, and we've already seen this repeated, and it's going to be repeated
many more times by the time we finish the book of Jeremiah.
The fact that God's covenant with the children of Israel, God's promises to the children
of Israel were not just these unconditional promises, just a carte blanche of, I'll be
your God no matter what you believe, no matter what you, this land belongs to you no matter
how you live your life, no matter what altars you build or idols you set up.
Over and over again, it's emphasized that God's covenant with the children of Israel
that he made with them in the day that he brought them out of the land of Egypt was
conditional upon their obedience.
It's that simple.
See when God makes a covenant, I'm going to explain that word because it's not a word
that we use every day in our modern vernacular in 2016.
When he makes a covenant, he's making an agreement.
He's making a contract.
Now that involves a promise on his part.
That involves an oath on his part, but it's a contractual agreement, meaning that there's
his part of the bargain, and then there's your part of the bargain, or the children
of Israel, their part of the bargain, and it's an agreement made between two people.
It's a covenant between two people.
It's sort of like when you're buying a house and you sign all kinds of paperwork, and you
make these agreements, and they're sworn in front of some kind of a title company.
Someone marks it all down and writes down the terms of the agreement that say, you get
this house and we get your money.
And then the bank is another party that's brought in of, okay, you pay us this much
each month, and the house will continue to be yours.
You stop paying the bill, we're going to come and take the house from you.
It's your house, but if you don't keep your end of the bargain, we're not going to keep
our end of the bargain.
There's an agreement there.
Now would it be possible for God to make an unconditional promise unto mankind?
Yes, it is possible.
An example of that would be when God made the promise never to flood the earth again.
He didn't say, I'm never going to flood the earth again if you obey my voice.
No, he just said, I'm never going to flood the earth again, period.
No matter what mankind does.
So that is an unconditional, but the vast majority of God's promises are always attached
with some kind of a stipulation of something that you have to do on your part.
For example, let's take the most important promise of all, salvation through Jesus Christ.
There is a condition upon salvation.
If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that
God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
So what the Calvinists believe in is a false doctrine called unconditional election.
Unconditional election, meaning that you are elect or chosen or saved based on no conditions
that you meet.
Whereas the Bible very clearly puts a condition upon your salvation, which is faith.
If, and computer programmers understand what we mean when we talk about conditional things.
Because when they do computer programming, they'll use terms like if and then.
If you believe in Jesus Christ, then thou shalt be saved.
It's that simple.
So the condition for salvation is just believing on the Lord Jesus Christ with all your heart
and then you're saved.
Now, after you're saved, there is no additional condition to keep you saved.
Because once you've believed on Jesus Christ, you have present tense, everlasting life.
He'll never leave you nor forsake you.
Nothing can separate us from the love of God at that point.
Once we're in Christ, we're sealed unto the day of redemption.
We have the earnest of the Holy Spirit.
He which hath performed a good work in us, who has begun a good work in us, will perform
it until the day of Jesus Christ.
So there's no condition to stay saved, but there is a condition to get saved.
Believing on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Well, in the Old Testament, the promise that we're referring to in this scripture and in
many other scriptures is that God would give them a land flowing with milk and honey.
Look at verse 5.
That I may perform the oath.
What's an oath?
It's a promise or a vow that he made.
That I may perform the oath which I have sworn unto your fathers to give them a land flowing
with milk and honey as it is this day.
So this oath or promise or covenant has to do with giving them a particular piece of
land which is a wonderful land that flowed with milk and honey, known today as the Holy
Land, the promised land, known as Israel, Palestine.
He says, I have sworn it unto your fathers.
Notice the first phrase there in verse 5.
That I may perform.
He doesn't say, I'm going to perform this oath no matter what you do, no matter what
you believe.
He says, no, you need to do your part so that I may do my part.
And he talks about how he made this covenant with them.
Look at verse number 4, which I commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them
forth out of the land of Egypt from the iron furnace saying, obey my voice and do them
according to all which I command you.
So shall you be my people and I will be your God that I may perform the oath which I have
sworn unto your fathers to give them a land flowing with milk and honey.
So God made promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but these were not a carte blanche
to their descendants.
They had to do their part.
So what's the condition, according to the scripture, on inheriting the promised land?
What's the condition on possessing the land that flowed with milk and honey?
Obedience to the commandments of the Lord.
Isn't that clear?
It's crystal clear.
Now go to Hebrews chapter 8 in the New Testament.
Flip over to Hebrews chapter number 8.
Toward the very end of the New Testament, Hebrews, James, 1st, 2nd Peter.
Find the book of Hebrews and go to chapter number 8 and we'll find a scripture that deals
with this exact subject.
It says in verse number 7 of chapter 8, for if that first covenant had been faultless
then should no place have been sought for the second.
Now let me just stop and point out what is meant here by the first covenant and the second
covenant.
This is what's often referred to as the Old Testament and the New Testament because testament
and covenant are two synonyms.
They mean the exact same thing.
They're used interchangeably in the book of Hebrews.
The Old Covenant or the Old Testament was the agreement that God made with the children
of Israel when he brought them out of the land of Egypt.
Now we call the 39 books, we call that the Old Testament and we call the 27 books the
New Testament which makes sense because that's primarily what those sections of scripture
deal with.
But when the Bible talks about the Old Covenant, the first covenant, the first testament, what
he's specifically referring to is the Mosaic law.
He's specifically referring to the agreement that he made with the children of Israel when
he brought them out of the land of Egypt and said, you are going to be my people, I'm going
to be your God, I'm going to give you a land that flows with milk and honey, you will be
a royal nation, you will be a kingdom of priests, you will be a peculiar people if you keep
my commandments, obey my voice, okay?
Nothing to do with personal salvation here.
This isn't about personal salvation.
See, salvation under the Old Covenant was by grace through faith.
Salvation under the New Covenant is by grace through faith.
That's not what changed from Old Covenant to New Covenant.
What changed was that in the Old Covenant, God chose the physical nation of Israel to
be his people and he gave them a specific land and that was conditional upon their obedience.
And there were certain rules of who could approach unto the tabernacle, who could approach
unto the temple, and specifically who could approach unto the holy place and the most
holy place within the tabernacle or within the temple.
In the New Testament, the New Covenant, it's been expanded to where anyone who believes
on Jesus Christ is a member of that holy nation, is a member of that peculiar people,
is part of that holy priesthood.
That's why we as Baptists believe in what's called the priesthood of the believer because
in 1 Peter 2, he says that if you are saved, you are a nation of priests, you are a peculiar
people.
And it's amazing to me how every independent Baptist church I've ever been in has preached
repeatedly about how we are to be a peculiar people.
We've all heard that, right?
If you've grown up in church, that's a pretty common sermon on being a peculiar people,
being different than the world.
Now, use that scripture from 1 Peter 2.
But they don't even seem to understand, though, the theological ramifications of that because
in the Old Testament, he told the children of Israel when they came out of the land of
Egypt, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you'll be a peculiar people.
And he said, you'll be a chosen people.
You'll be God's chosen people.
And then in the New Testament, he says that we're the chosen people.
We're a chosen generation.
So it's funny how they latch on to the peculiar people part of that verse, but they ignore
the chosen people, the chosen generation, and they say, well, we're not the chosen people,
the Jews are the chosen people.
You're stuck under the old covenant there.
Under the new covenant, the Jews are not God's chosen people.
Under the new covenant, Christians are God's chosen people.
Anyone and it's not restricted to a physical geography.
It's not restricted to a certain nationality.
It's just if you believe on Christ, if Christ dwells in your hearts by faith, you are one
of the chosen people.
I've even got the t-shirt to prove it.
That's why we have that teacher, we are the chosen people because of the fact that that's
what it says in 1 Peter 2 verses 9 and 10.
But look what he says here.
If the first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for
the second.
Now, if you just took that verse by itself, it would be a little bit shocking like there
was something wrong with the old covenant, but it wasn't that there was anything wrong
with it from God's perspective because look at verse 8, for finding fault with them.
Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house
of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with
their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of
Egypt, because they continued not in my covenant and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.
So remember, that covenant that he made with them, according to Jeremiah chapter 11, when
he brought them out of the land of Egypt, was conditional upon their obedience to his
commands.
Did they continue in that covenant?
No.
And therefore, God regarded them not, meaning he doesn't any longer recognize them as the
heirs of that covenant anymore.
They no longer inherit those promises.
He does not recognize them.
Do you understand what that means?
I regarded them not?
I mean, think about it.
If someone died and they left a great inheritance and the descendants came to claim that inheritance
and let's say they couldn't really prove that they were a legitimate descendant, then the
court might say, hey, we do not regard you as an heir.
We don't regard you as someone who should inherit this man's wealth.
That's what this is saying.
See, Abraham had a bunch of wonderful promises given to him.
And the promises were made to Abraham and to his seed, the Bible says, and God does
not regard the children of Israel as the seed of Abraham because they did not continue in
his covenant.
The physical descendants I'm talking about now.
And instead, the Bible says that it's Christ who is that seed.
The promises were made to Abraham and to his seed, you read Galatians 3 on this, Christ
is the seed.
If you be Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise.
So he says here, they continued not in my covenant and I regarded them not, saith the
Lord, for this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those
days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their mind and write them in their hearts
and I will be to them a God and they shall be to me a people and they shall not teach
every man his neighbor and every man his brother saying, know the Lord for all shall know me
from the least to the greatest, for I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and
their sins and their iniquities while I remember no more, in that he saith a new covenant,
he hath made the first old, now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish
away.
So let me ask this, is the old covenant still in effect?
No, it's not in effect.
It has been replaced, man, I love that word.
It's been replaced by the new covenant.
It's not just that there are two covenants now in force, side by side in tandem, no,
that which decayeth and waxeth old is the first covenant, the Old Testament, not again,
we're not saying the scriptures are going to go away, we're saying that that agreement
is no longer valid, that covenant, that bargain or however you want to say it, a contract
that he made with the children of Israel.
Now you say, well, Pastor Anderson, this is directing the new covenant at Israel and Judah.
That's because we're reading the epistle to the Hebrews.
Okay, so obviously if we're reading the epistle to the Hebrews, who is he trying to reach
out to and bring into the fold?
Hebrews.
The whole purpose of this book is to reach out to the Hebrews and explain to them your
old covenant is no longer valid and if you want to have salvation and beyond that, if
you want to have any part in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, if you want to have any part in
the inheritance of your fathers, you better get on board with this new covenant.
You're not grandfathered in because of Grandfather Abraham.
You know, you got to get on the new covenant, buddy.
And people will say, well, it's just for Israel.
No, it's the epistle to the Hebrews.
That's why he's emphasizing that because we could go to the epistle to the Romans, epistle
to the Galatians and it's going to be emphasizing how it's for them because that's who the letters
being written to makes perfect sense.
Now if you would go to Deuteronomy chapter number 28, I don't want to spend all night
on the subject because I've preached on it many times, but the reason that I've preached
on it many times is because I'm preaching through the Bible, chapter by chapter, verse
by verse, and it just keeps coming up.
And I didn't put it there, but you get to chapter 11 and there it is again.
And if something comes up over and over again in the Bible, that tells me it's important.
That tells me it needs to be emphasized.
And I'll make some application to us personally in a moment, but we need to lay down these
doctrines strongly today because we're living in a day of strong delusion, we're living
in a day of scriptural ignorance, and we're living in a day of Zionist false teaching
that disregards 90% of the book of Jeremiah and just takes a few verses out of context.
That disregards all of the Apostle Paul's epistles in regard to Old Covenant versus
New Covenant and just focuses on a few verses in Romans 11 that are again being taken totally
out of context.
So while they ignore Galatians 3, ignore Galatians 4, 5, 6, they're basically just cherry picking.
We are going a little deeper here at Faithful Word Baptist Church by actually going through
the entire book of Jeremiah verse by verse, leaving no stone unturned.
And when we're done with it, we're going to understand this doctrine really well.
And I'd rather lay down these doctrines too clearly and too many times than not enough.
As Apostle Paul said, to write the same things unto you, to me indeed it is not grievous,
but for you it is safe.
To repeat that which is important doctrinally and repeated a lot.
Now Deuteronomy 28 is a chapter that has a few parallel passages that teach the same
type of context in Leviticus and elsewhere in Deuteronomy.
And the basic concept here is that if you obey the Lord, you'll be blessed.
And if you disobey the Lord, you will be cursed.
And that's what this chapter is about.
It says in verse 1, and it shall come to pass if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the
voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command
thee this day, that the Lord thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the
earth.
Now did he say, even if you don't obey, you'll still be set on high above all the nations
of the earth.
No, but today Israel, so called, over in the Middle East, total disobedience to God, total
rebellion against God, totally a false god and a false religion that they worship, not
even close to being the god of the Old Testament, but yet people will set them on high above
all the nations of the earth and say, hey, that's the most important nation, amen?
Amen, amen, yeah, that's right brother, Israel, we got to bless, God will bless those who
bless them and curse those who curse them.
Well, is God going to have to curse himself?
Because God placed a curse on Israel in this chapter.
And Moses placed a curse on Israel in this chapter.
The Apostle Paul placed a curse on Israel in Romans chapter 11.
He says that if you don't obey, jump down if you would to verse 15, it shall come to
pass if thou will not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do
all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day, you'll be blessed
anyway because of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, for the father's sake.
Is that what it says?
For Abraham's sake, I'll still bless you, no.
He says, all these curses shall come upon thee and overtake thee, cursed shalt thou
be in the city and cursed shalt thou be in the field.
And it just goes on and on, I mean the cursings and the cursings and the cursings all the
way down through the end of this chapter.
I mean, it's 68 verses.
The first 14 verses have to do with the blessings, okay.
Then you have 54 verses about the cursings.
I mean telling them just all these horrible things, you know, go home and read it.
Just all the horrible things that are going to happen to you.
Now how can anyone even begin to make the case that the people in Israel today are obeying
the voice of the Lord their God?
Basically what I would emphasize as somebody who actually understands the New Testament,
I would emphasize you don't believe in Christ, you have nothing.
Without Jesus, you have nothing.
You know, if you don't believe on the Son of God, the wrath of God abideth on you.
I mean for me it's just case closed at that.
Just end of story.
If you don't have the Son, you don't have the Father.
If you don't believe in Christ, you have God's wrath on you.
But even if we were to just take this warped dispensational two covenants in effect, you
know, John Hagee style belief or whatever that basically, well, all God is expecting
them to do in order to live in that land is just follow the first five books of Moses.
You know, as long as they follow their Torah, that's their covenant.
Now look, I don't believe that for one second.
That's a very bad doctrine.
But I'm just saying even if you were to suspend your disbelief for a moment and just pretend
that that were real, let me ask you this.
Are they following the Torah over there?
No.
Okay.
How many animal sacrifices are they doing every day?
Are they doing the morning and evening sacrifice?
Are they killing the Passover lamb and putting the blood on the doorpost?
Are they actually going through the trespass offerings and the sin offerings and the cleansings?
No, they're not.
Those things have all gone out the window.
And of course the ridiculous nonsensical answer comes back, well, they don't have the temple.
But here's the thing about that, God made these commands long before the temple was
ever in place.
In fact, the temple wasn't even God's idea.
That was David's idea.
It was David's idea to make that temple.
And God said it was a good idea and go forward with it, but actually he told them to make
the tabernacle.
But even when he told them to make the tabernacle, he clearly gave another option right after
the Ten Commandments.
I mean, just look at the Ten Commandments.
It's right there.
It's at the end of the same chapter.
He says that if you want to build an altar unto the Lord and make sacrifice to the Lord,
this is what you do.
You make it out of dirt.
You pile up a mound of earth and that is your altar to the Lord.
So you don't need a temple to make sacrifices unto the Lord.
You need a pile of dirt.
You need a mound of earth.
Or, he said, if you want to make an altar out of stones.
And this is what's familiar to you if you grew up in Sunday school and they showed you
the flannel graphs or showed you the Sunday school papers that you color where they have
the altar made out of stones, the pile of stones.
And the Bible gives two options.
He says you can make an altar of earth unto the Lord or you can pile up stones.
And even when the temple was built, you see, for example, Elijah building the altar of
the Lord that had been in disrepair.
Not the altar in Jerusalem.
Not an altar where the sacrifices are made in the temple, but rather just a pile of stones
made according to the teachings of the book of Exodus where burnt sacrifices could be
made unto the Lord.
So this idea of let's just throw out hundreds of commands that tell us to do burnt sacrifices
because we don't have our precious temple is bizarre to say the least.
Let's just ignore hundreds and hundreds of commandments because we don't have the temple.
When God specifically made allowance for that and said, look, you build an altar anywhere,
anywhere you want.
Now were they supposed to make certain pilgrimages to Jerusalem?
Of course.
But there was allowance made for a pile of stones or a mound of earth to be used as an
altar unto the Lord to offer burnt sacrifice thereon as Elijah did.
Did God condone of Elijah's altar?
Well, he came down with fire from God in heaven.
And not only that, but when Elijah prayed for the fire to come down on Mount Carmel
in 1 Kings 17, he said, let it be known to all these people that I've done all these
things according to your word.
Everything I just did is what you told me to do, where he dumped the water on, where
he digged the trench around it.
That was all commanded by God.
But Rabbi Hochflem knows better because the Talmud says that if they don't have the temple
then they can't do their sacrifice and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Now, the real reason why they quit doing sacrifices is because Jesus is the Lamb of God that's
once for all slain.
It's almost like they subconsciously know that, that there's no need for the sacrifice,
although they're damned because they've not put their trust and faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ.
It'd be very easy for them to be saved.
Very easy to be saved.
All they'd have to do is just receive Jesus Christ as their Savior, just believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ.
And then the veil would come off, they'd understand the word of God, but then they wouldn't be
Jewish anymore, now they'd be a Christian.
And then they'd go to a Baptist church, God willing, and they would sit down right next
to Gentiles and pretty soon their children would marry little Gentile children and pretty
soon no one would ever even know that they'd ever even been Jewish once a few generations
went by.
It's the truth, my friend.
Let's go to Jeremiah chapter 11.
Let's make practical application here though.
There are a lot more promises in the Bible than just God's promise of salvation and just
God's promise of the land or the promise of being the chosen nation that he gave the children
of Israel.
There are all kinds of promises that God gives us in our lives and those promises usually
have some kind of a stipulation attached on our end.
Like how about this promise?
Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.
What were the things?
Food, clothing, and drink.
We would have food, water, and clothing if we'll seek first the kingdom of God.
So there's a promise but there's a stipulation attached to it.
How about this?
Prayer.
Whatsoever we ask, we receive of him because we keep his commandments and do those things
that are pleasing in his sight.
So if you keep his commandments and do those things that are pleasing in his sight, he
will answer all your prayers.
That's what the Bible says.
These things have stipulations.
One of the most often quoted promises in the Bible is, but my God shall supply all your
need according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus.
When you actually look up that scripture in Philippians chapter 4, you'll see that leading
up to that, he's talking about their generosity and their giving and because they were generous
and because they gave, God promised to supply all their need according to his riches and
glory by Christ Jesus.
Why?
Because the Bible says, give and it shall be given unto you.
The Bible teaches that if you give to the poor, you are lending to the Lord and what
he has borrowed, he will pay again.
So over and over again, there are all these promises about God's blessing in our lives
or answered prayers or good things he's going to do for us, but there are terms to the agreement
that we have to keep on our end.
Not only that, but those of us who have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, although there is
nothing we could ever do to lose our salvation, although we are eternally secure and saved
and sealed in Christ, if we want God's blessing in our life, if we want God to bless us, we
must obey God's commandments.
You can't just go through life disobeying God's commandments, disregarding his word
and expect God's blessing on your life just because you're his child, just because you're
saved.
See, it was pretty easy for Chloe to be born into my family this morning.
Now it wasn't very easy for my wife, but it was pretty easy for Chloe.
In fact, the problem was she had her hands up like this, so my wife had to give birth
to the baby with the head and the hands.
So that made it a lot harder.
She's just sitting there like this, you know, while my wife does all the work.
So the bottom line is that it's really easy to be born into a family.
Mom does all the work, but once you're in that family, you are either going to be blessed
and rewarded and treated well, or you are going to be chastened and chastised and cursed
if you do not obey your mother and your father.
It's that simple.
It's not just, oh, well, I'm a child of my parents, so no matter what I do, they're going
to treat me well, they're going to bless me.
No, that's not the way it works.
Now no matter what you do, you'll always be their child.
No matter how disobedient you are, no matter how many rules you break, they're still your
mom and dad, they're still going to love you, you're still in the family, but does that
mean you're going to be blessed?
No, you could be severely chastised and chastened.
You could be one who received his blessing or cursing, and it's the exact same way in
our Christian lives.
This doctrine that's out there that says, well you know what, God is just going to bless
you no matter what, because He just loves you unconditionally.
Well here's the thing, just because He loves His children unconditionally, doesn't mean
He blesses unconditionally, He doesn't.
You will have many of the curses of Deuteronomy 28 come upon you if you disregard God's word,
and you will receive the blessings if you do what's right.
The path to God's blessing is through the door of obedience, and even common sense should
tell us that.
That if we disobey God, He's going to scourge us, as He said in Hebrews chapter 12, and
that if we obey Him, He's going to pour out all kinds of blessings upon us, and He's going
to give us all kinds of good things, and He's going to treat us, well who do you think
I'm going to treat better, a child who's rebelling and refusing to obey, or a child who is obeying
and respectful and humble?
They're obviously going to get the blessings.
That's common sense, and it's taught throughout the Bible.
Go back to Jeremiah chapter 11 if you would.
He said in verse number 6, Then the Lord said unto me, Proclaim all these words in the cities
of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying, Hear ye the words of this covenant,
and do them.
For I earnestly protested unto your fathers in the day that I brought them up out of the
land of Egypt, even unto this day, rising early and protesting, saying, Obey my voice.
Yet they obeyed not, nor inclined their ear, but walked every one in the imagination of
their evil heart.
Therefore I will bring upon them all the words of this covenant, which I commanded them to
do, but they did them not.
What's he saying?
He's saying, I'm going to bring upon them the words of this covenant.
What he's saying is, I'm going to bring upon them the words of Deuteronomy 28, verses 15
through 68.
I'm going to bring those curses upon them.
All those things are going to happen because they disobeyed.
So the covenant that God made with Israel is not a positive only covenant.
It has a positive side and it has a negative side, and you choose as an ancient Israelite
which side of that coin you want to be on.
And in the New Testament, you choose, as a believer in Christ, do you want to be blessed
of the Lord or do you want to be chastened of the Lord, chastised of the Lord.
Children, you choose whether your parents bless you or curse you.
Now let me say this.
When I was a child, my mother's here tonight, and there were times when I felt like, as
a teenager, well, no matter what I do, my parents are going to be on my case.
This is how teenagers often feel, right?
My parents have it in for me and no matter what I do, they're going to have it in for
me and I'm going to get yelled at.
And I remember one time, I even said this, I said, even if Jesus were living in this
house, he would get yelled at in this house.
And I wasn't being blasphemous or anything.
I was serious.
It just meant, literally, I feel that there's no way to win in this house.
But here's the thing.
Looking back, I was completely wrong.
Okay, Mom, I was wrong.
Because honestly, I wasn't doing everything I was supposed to do.
And teenagers can often be wise in their own conceit because they're at a transitional
period where they're coming out of childhood and they're coming into adulthood and that
is a difficult time in anyone's life.
Now I've heard a lot of people say nowadays, and this seems to be kind of a trendy teaching
that I've heard out there, is like, hey, there's no such thing as a teenager.
It's just a young man.
And they're basically just saying, you know, you're just making allowance for them to be
rebellious by saying that, you know, there's a teenage phase or whatever.
But here's the thing.
It's real, folks.
It exists.
And you can sit there and wish it away and write all these books about how, oh, there's
no such thing as a teenager and back when I was a boy, you know, you just became an
adult when you're 12 or whatever.
But it's really not true.
And obviously, we know that in our own lives and in the lives of people we've known, there
is a time of transition where you're older than a child but you're not quite yet an adult
yet.
And I designed it that way because of the fact that, you know, you can't just leap from
being a child to just being a man and having a wife and kids and running your house.
You know, there's got to be a gradual growth process there and a gradual transition.
But because of that, sometimes teenagers make the mistake, though, of thinking that they
are much smarter than they really are.
And what the wise teenager will do is realize that they don't know everything and that they
may think that they understand how the world works but actually when they get to be 20
years old, 30 years old, they're going to realize how little they knew about the world
that we live in and how little they knew about what it means to work for a living and to
have a marriage and to raise children.
You know, you learn that over time and you keep realizing, wow, my parents were right
about that or, oh, they were right about that too.
But teenagers think often that they know everything and I was the same way.
You know, when I was a teenager, I often thought that I understood so much more about this,
that, and the other and then turned out, guess what, I was wrong.
So the key for a teenager is to be humble and to realize that you don't know always
as much as you think you know.
Now, there's nothing wrong with being a teenager and wanting to expand your horizon and maybe
challenging some of the ideas that you were taught and challenging some of the things
that you were brought up with because you're trying to become your own person.
And you know what?
This is an important time to develop your own walk with God and to stop just leaning
on the faith of your parents but to develop your own faith in God.
Get out the Bible and start reading it for yourself, understanding it for yourself and
making the doctrines of the Bible your own doctrine of, hey, this is what I believe,
not because my dad said it or my mom said it, because I'm reading my Bible and I'm confirming
the things that I've been taught.
But the stupid teenager just goes to try to disprove everything that their parents are
telling them.
What a righteous teenager would do would go to the Word of God and try to prove that the
things that their parents are telling them are right as a starting point.
Then study and look, if there's something that the parents have taught you that is just
in total contradiction of God's Word, then at that point you go with what the Word of
God says.
But you should go into it assuming that your Bible-believing Baptist parents are teaching
you the truth and teaching you right, and then you go to prove all things in the Word
of God.
But how did I get off on this teenager thing?
Did somebody help me out?
So I thought to myself, but then once I got closer to the Lord and started reading my
Bible more and got in a better church that was teaching me more, I started making changes
in my own life.
My parents started treating me really well.
I realized that the fault was on my end, because when I started being a better son, both my
mother and my father started treating me really well.
And I could have done that earlier, but I just thought to myself, oh, it's their problem.
And there are a lot of wives who are the same way, where they think, oh, it's my husband's
problem.
But really they need to submit to their husband.
And just like I needed to submit to my parents.
Just like children need to submit to their parents.
And we need to understand that there is a way to receive praise of authority figures
in our lives.
And the Bible says that if we do well, we will receive praise of them.
Rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil, the Bible says.
Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power?
Do that which is good, and thou should have praise of the same.
Romans chapter 13.
So in your family, children, if you want mom and dad to treat you well, and I hope
every kid is listening to me, all the children are listening to me right now.
If you want mom and dad to treat you well, kids, you obey them.
And don't just do the minimum, do some extra housework.
Do a little extra schoolwork.
Do a little extra helping out with your siblings.
And guess what?
Your parents will bless you.
Your parents will treat you well when you do that.
Or you can just sit there, it's not fair, but you know what?
You're young and the Bible says foolishness is bound in the heart of a child, but the
rod of correction will drive it far from him.
So if you want to be an adult so badly, teenager, then start thinking like an adult and being
pragmatic like an adult and thinking to yourself, hey, guess what?
If I play my cards right, my parents are going to treat me a lot better.
So if I'm smart, I'll push that button and the light bulb will come on.
Instead of just bashing my head against the wall trying to resist my parents.
But this is how it is with God.
It's the exact same thing.
Oh, God's not blessing me.
Why don't you start doing more for the Lord?
Why don't you start getting more serious about your walk with God and see how his attitude
toward you changes and see how well he treats you.
It's the same thing.
Look if you would at verse number 11, it says, therefore, thus saith the Lord, behold, I
will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape.
And though they shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto them.
This is speaking of the children of Judah.
He says in verse 14, therefore, pray not thou for this people, neither lift up a cry of
prayer for them, for I will not hear them in the time that they cry unto me for their
trouble.
I mean, what a terrible situation to be in where you're in trouble and you're crying
out to God for help and he's not listening.
I mean, that's a pretty, you're in a bad place at that point.
Well, that's the result of disregarding God's word because the Bible says, if I regard iniquity
in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.
The Bible says that he that turn, and I'm paraphrasing this, but he that turns away
his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination.
Now that might even be exactly quoted, but it's pretty, it's pretty close.
All right.
But anyway, he said, look, if you ignore and turn away your ear from hearing God's law,
he's not pleased to hear you asking for stuff.
It'd be like if I told my son, son, do this housework, do this chore, do these things,
right?
Disregards my commands.
And then, hey, dad, can I get the keys to the car?
Hey, dad, can I have $10, what?
This is an abomination that you're asking me for these things when you've not done my
commandments.
And God gave us that parent-child relationship also as a wonderful illustration of our relationship
with the Father in heaven.
He says in verse 15, what if my beloved to do in mine house, seeing that she has wrought
lewdness with many and the holy flesh has passed from thee, when thou doest evil, then
thou rejoicest.
The Lord, and here's a key doctrinal point here, the Lord called thy name a green olive
tree, fair and of goodly fruit.
With the noise of a great tumult, he hath kindled fire upon it, and the branches of
it are broken.
Notice, he's speaking to the children of Israel, he's speaking to the Jews, the children of
Judah, and he's saying that God has called your name, what?
A green olive tree, a healthy, flourishing olive tree, and it's fair and it's of goodly
fruit, but, he says, with the noise of a great tumult, he hath kindled fire upon it, and
the branches of it are broken.
Go to Romans chapter 11, because in Romans chapter 11, the apostle Paul refers to this
idea of the children of Israel being a green olive tree, and of branches being broken off
from that olive tree.
Look at Romans chapter 11, and in order to get the full picture of Romans 11, obviously,
it should be read within the context of the entire book of Romans, but Romans 9 through
11 really form a trilogy of scriptures that go together very well, that all kind of fit
together to give us a complete picture of God's view toward Israel in the New Testament.
But in Romans chapter 11, we have this idea of the olive tree.
It says in verse 13, for I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles,
if I magnify mine office, if by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are
my flesh, and might save some of them.
So he's saying that his ministry is primarily toward the Gentiles, but he's really hoping
also to provoke them to emulation.
Emulation means what?
To do the same thing.
Emulation is when one person copies that which another person does.
So he's saying, I'm reaching out to the Gentiles hoping that the Jews will also be provoked
to emulation and that I might save some of them also.
Verse 15, for if the casting away of them, meaning the Israelites, be the reconciling
of the world, what shall the receiving of them be but life from the dead?
Which is, again, a hypothetical.
It's not just saying, oh, they're for sure going to be received back into the fold.
No, no, no.
If.
If they believe on Christ, not just carte blanche.
And again, I already belabored that earlier in the sermon.
There's plenty of other scripture on that.
If the first fruit be holy, the lump is also holy.
And if the root be holy, so are the branches.
And if some of the branches be what?
Broken off.
Isn't that what he said he would do in Jeremiah?
Talked about breaking off branches?
If some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, were grafted
in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree, boast
not against the branches, but if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee.
Thou wilt say then, the branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in.
Well, because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith, be not high-minded
but fear.
So here's what he's saying.
Yes, it is true that the Israelites have been broken off.
They're no longer God's people because of their unbelief.
But that made a place for you to step in and fill that role as being the chosen generation,
the royal priesthood.
You got to step into that privileged status as being one of God's chosen people.
He says, well, you're right.
But he's saying, don't get arrogant or prideful.
What is he saying?
Don't look down upon people because they're Jewish any more than upon any unbeliever.
Don't hate the Jews.
Some people, they go too far with this, where they actually get to where they just hate
all Jews or where they would think that the Gentiles are better than the Jews.
What we teach has never been that.
What we've always taught is that there's no difference between the Jew and the Greek.
You see the difference there?
No, you don't because there isn't one.
I'm just messing with you.
There is no difference between the Jew and the Greek.
I'm just kidding.
But there's no difference between the Jew and the Greek.
So we don't teach here, hey, Gentiles are better than the Jews.
Is that what we teach?
No.
We teach that there's no difference.
Anybody who rejects Christ is in the same boat, whether they're Jew or Gentile.
Whether you're a Jew or a Muslim, we're not going to side with the Muslims against the
Jews, but we're also not going to side with the Jews against the Muslims.
We're going to basically just be against both, Jew and Muslim.
But we're going to be against them in the sense that we are against their false religion,
we're against their agenda, but we love the individual Muslim, we love the individual
Jew, and we want to win them to Christ.
Look, people can sit there and lie about me all they want and say, he hates Jews, he's
anti-Semitic.
But here's the thing.
Have you been with me all the times I've knocked the doors in Tempe, which southern Tempe is
filled with Jews.
And how many Jews I've pleaded with to be saved.
Why would I plead with them to be saved?
Look, I've sat and given, look, 99% of them won't even give you the time of day.
But that's not because of the blood that's in their veins, folks.
It's not because of their Jewish blood.
No, it's because of an indoctrination in a false religion.
That's why they're not giving you the time of day.
Nothing to do with race, folks.
But when I found Jews that were willing to listen, I've sat and taken the time and given
them the gospel and lovingly pleaded with them gently, kindly to be saved.
That's the true love of people when you want to win them to Christ.
Not this attitude of just, ah, you know, the Jews, blah, blah, blah.
You got to get a balance in your life here.
Don't go overboard, folks.
Don't get to the point where you're boasting against the branches to the point where you
think that the Greek is better than the Jew.
No, there's no difference between the Jew and the Greek.
And this isn't complicated to just say, hey, we're equal.
But people, it's like they seem to go the wrong way, one way or the other, instead of
just saying, look, there's unsaved people and there's saved people, and it doesn't matter
what path they take to hell.
They're all going to the same place, whether it's the path of Islam, the path of Judaism,
or anything else.
So the Bible says here, well, because of unbelief, they were broken off, and now standest
by faith.
Be not high-minded, but fear.
For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed, lest he also spare not thee.
Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God on them which fell severity, but toward
thee goodness, if thou continue in his goodness, otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.
And they also, if, if, underline, circle, highlight, put a star by it.
If they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in.
Is he saying, oh, in the end times, they're going to be, they're coming back, they're
going to be grafted in.
No, no, no.
If they abide not in unbelief, they'll be grafted in, for God is able to graft them.
And again, look, it's up to them whether they get grafted in or not.
It's up to them to believe on Christ.
Now I just want to point out one last thing here.
It's ironic that the epistle to the Romans has this parable about, hey, be careful.
You can be broken off too.
What's ironic about that is that the Roman Catholic Church claims that there's something
special about the Church at Rome.
And one of the things that was a test of faith throughout the Middle Ages, like I preached
on Sunday morning and Sunday night about the Inquisition and the different persecutions
that the Catholic Church carried out, the test of faith was often that you had to acknowledge
the infallibility of the Pope and the infallibility of the Church at Rome.
You see, where the Roman Catholic Church even came from was a doctrine in the first few
centuries AD that exalted the Church at Rome above other churches.
You have all these different churches in the Bible, Church at Ephesus, Churches of
Galatia, Church at Corinth.
But this doctrine came out that said the Church at Rome is special.
And the bishop of the Church at Rome is following in the footsteps of Peter himself.
Because they're basically claiming, according to their tradition, that Peter was the bishop
at Rome.
So these Catholic bishops of Rome are following in the footsteps of Peter himself.
So they basically started to have this idea that the Church at Rome is somehow above other
churches.
And therefore the bishop at Rome has the preeminence above other bishops.
And that's who slowly evolved into being the Pope.
The Pope is the bishop of Rome.
But what's funny about that is that God specifically tells the Roman Christians that if they don't
continue in God's goodness, they'd be broken up.
So why does the Church at Rome think they have a carte blanche to just worship idols,
teach pagan superstition, reject the Gospel of Christ, and somehow we're just supposed
to just believe, well, hey, that's the true church because it goes back to Peter.
Well, couldn't that branch of Christianity just be broken off if they don't continue
in faith?
Isn't God specifically telling the Romans?
And I think everything in the Bible is there the way it is for a reason.
I think there's a reason why God put this in Romans.
He could have put it in a different epistle.
He put it in Romans saying, hey, listen, Church at Rome, if you don't continue in the faith,
you don't continue in the goodness, you're going to be broken up.
And look, that Roman Catholicism that we have today and that we've had since the very
early centuries of the AD period, it's a branch that's not connected to the vine.
It's not connected to the olive tree at all.
And they can trace that branch all the way back, you know, as far as they want.
But that branch broke off a long time ago.
Oh, man, look at this elaborate, you know, list of popes going back.
Look at all this tradition.
Look how far back it goes.
But you know what?
If you could follow that back with a spiritual view, you'd get to a point like almost at
the very beginning and you'd be like, oh, broken off, not connected to the trunk, dead,
withered, ready to be cast into the fire and burned.
So this whole idea of the Church at Rome having a carte blanche to teach whatever pagan idolatry
they want is sort of like the idea that says, oh, the children of Israel can do whatever
they want and they're still God's chosen people.
And the Catholic Church is still the true church because Peter.
And the Jews are God's chosen people because Abraham.
It's the same foolish mentality that says that you can totally apostatize and you're
still God's people.
No, the Roman Catholics are not God's people and the Jews are not God's people.
I don't care who they think is in their ancestry because spiritually they're not following
in Peter's footsteps or in Abraham's footsteps and therefore they are not God's people.
It's that simple.
The real reason why the Church at Rome was given preeminence had nothing to do with Peter
anyway.
It had to do with the Roman Empire.
So because the Roman Empire had its seat of political power in Rome, then that's where
the Church at Rome got this extra power because it's in Rome and Rome is the capital.
That's the true story.
But I digress.
Let's just quickly finish up.
I'm just about done.
Jeremiah chapter 11.
What we have at the end of this chapter is God talking about how he's going to protect
Jeremiah.
And this is another theme in the book of Jeremiah because Jeremiah's life is in peril all throughout
the book of Jeremiah.
He's constantly being thrown in prison.
People are constantly wanting him dead.
And this is one of the best stories in the Bible of God protecting someone because Jeremiah
in the end comes out completely unscathed.
I mean in the end, everybody else is dying.
Everybody else is going into captivity.
Everybody else is suffering.
And Nebuzar Adan, the captain of Nebuchadnezzar's host, specifically takes Jeremiah aside, releases
him, sets him free, gives him money, and basically tells him that, you know, basically
God told him to do that because he knows that it's God's will, that Jeremiah has been a
man of God.
And so for some reason, this heathen basically gives him money, sets him loose, and tells
him you can stay here, you can go to Babylon, and Jeremiah ends up being safe, he ends up
being preserved.
You know, God is able to keep us safe and keep us preserved.
Even when everybody's after us and people want us dead or threatening us.
Now there are some people who are, you know, the Bible says the devil shall cast some of
you into prison.
There are people who are martyrs.
And the Bible says be thou faithful unto death and I'll give thee a crown of life.
But many people, though, God actually preserves and protects.
Some people get this idea that because we believe what the Bible teaches about the tribulation,
they think like, oh man, everybody's going to be dead and everything.
But here's the thing, God's going to preserve a lot of people through that period, a lot
of people through that period.
Some will be cast into prison, many will be beheaded, but many will make it through and
be alive and remain under the coming of the Lord.
And it's not going to be just because they went and hid somewhere.
Look, did Jeremiah go hide somewhere?
I mean this guy was preaching hard, he was on the front lines, but yet God, look, many
are the afflictions of the righteous, but out of them all the Lord delivers them.
What about the Apostle Paul?
He was stoned, beaten, shipwrecked, all of it.
But in the end, he lived to be an old man.
And he said, out of them all the Lord deliver me.
And the Lord, he said, will deliver me from every evil work.
He said, I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.
And he talked about how God had preserved him and kept him safe.
See the prosperity gospel says you're going to go through life without going through trials
and tribulations and you're just going to have blessings and prosperity.
The true story is that you go through trials, tribulations, hardships, maybe even beatings
and imprisonment, but in the end you're blessed.
Mark the perfect man, the end of that man is peace.
And even if we do die a martyr's death, of course, we share an eternal glory in heaven
with the Lord Jesus Christ.
So he talks about this and I'm just going to show you this verse in verse 21.
It says, therefore, thus saith the Lord of the men of Anathoth, that seek thy life, saying
prophesy not in the name of the Lord that thou die not by our hand.
Look, if you look at verse one of the whole book of Jeremiah, it says that Jeremiah's
from Anathoth.
And so this conspiracy, and the Bible uses the word conspiracy, that had to do with killing
Jeremiah and having him put to death is from his own hometown.
It's from his own kindred.
Even his own relatives, the Bible said, were in on it, wanting Jeremiah dead.
And as the Bible says, the prophet is not without honor, save it in his own country
and in his own house.
And it says in verse 22, therefore, thus saith the Lord of hosts, Behold, I will punish them.
A young man shall die by the sword, their sons and their daughters shall die by famine,
and there shall be no remnant of them, for I will bring evil upon the men of Anathoth,
even the year of their visitation.
But Jeremiah ended up coming through it unscathed.
So God can protect us.
We need to just trust him with the outcome.
Whatever God's will is for our lives, we need to just trust him, obey the Bible, do what's
right, and let the chips fall where they may.
He is able to deliver us and keep us safe.
If it's his will that we're not delivered, so be it.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord.
Thank you for the clear doctrines of Jeremiah chapter 11.
And Lord, help us never to make the mistake that the Jews have made or the mistake that
the Roman Catholics have made of just thinking that because of some lineage or heritage or
fathers that somehow we have a carte blanche to just do whatever we want and expect God
to bless us, Lord.
Help us never to think those kind of foolish thoughts, but help us to realize that the
path to your blessing is through the door of obedience, Lord.
And help us to trust you even in the face of death threats, even in the face of bodily
harm.
Help us to always trust you to be our preserver and our protector.
And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.