Jeremiah 23 is a chapter where God is very angry and he's rebuking the pastors that are
preaching that which is false and he's railing on them and he's using Jeremiah to rebuke
these men and to tell them what they should be doing.
Now in verse number 1 the Bible reads,
Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pastures, saith
the Lord.
Therefore, thus saith the Lord God of Israel, against the pastors that feed my
people, ye have scattered my flock and driven them away, and have not visited them, behold
I will visit upon you the evil of your doing, saith the Lord God.
Now keep your finger there and flip over to Matthew chapter 12 verse 30.
I think it's interesting that he uses the word visited there.
He says, you haven't visited my people at all so I'm going to visit you with punishment
and a lot of churches, what we refer to as soul winning, they'll call it visitation.
Who's ever been in a church where they call that visitation?
Look what the Bible says in Matthew chapter 12 verse 30 that ties in with this about
scattering the people.
It says in Matthew 12 30, he that is not with me is against me and he that gathereth
not with me scattereth abroad.
So the Bible teaches there that if we're not gathering with Jesus, if we're not going
out and winning souls to Jesus Christ and gathering fruit unto eternal life, the Bible
calls it, if we're not bringing our sheaves in, then the Bible says we're actually scattering.
So he says to these pastors, woe unto you that are scattering the people because
you've not visited them.
You know he's talking about a pastor who's not doing any soul winning.
You know you're not going out there and talking to the people and preaching the
gospel to every creature, going door to door, winning people to Christ, and a lot
of people think that if they do nothing for the Lord and if they don't do any soul winning,
they think that they're just being neutral just by not doing anything.
You know, I'm not going soul winning, but I'm not really harming anything.
But the Bible says if you're not gathering with him, you're scattering.
So you're not a zero.
You're actually in the negative at that point.
If you don't do any soul winning, if you're not preaching the gospel to every creature,
if you're not witnessing to people and giving them the gospel, you're actually scattering.
And that's why he's sternly rebuking these pastors for not visiting the people and for
scattering the sheep and for not winning them to Christ.
Because the bottom line is if our gospel be hid, it's hid to them that are lost.
And the Bible says, I've set you a watchman.
And he says, if you don't warn the wicked, his blood will I require at your hand.
That's what the Bible says.
It's our responsibility to preach the gospel to every creature and not even just as pastors,
but as every Christian.
We've all been given that great commission to teach all nations and to preach the gospel
to every creature.
And if we're not doing it, we're not just neutral, we're actually scattering.
But especially woe unto the pastor that would not visit the people, that would not
go out and preach to the lost and win people to Christ.
Woe be on him.
Paul even said of himself, he said, necessity is laid upon me, woe unto me if I preach
not the gospel.
But look at Jeremiah 23 here.
He's talking about these pastors who refuse to visit the people and therefore they're actually
scattering the people.
It says in verse number 3, I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all countries
whither I have driven them and will bring them again to their folds.
And they shall be fruitful and increase and I will set up shepherds over them.
And shepherd is just another word for pastor.
He says, I will set up shepherds over them which shall feed them and they shall
fear no more nor be dismayed, neither shall they be lacking, sayeth the Lord.
So what's wrong with these pastors?
The first thing that's wrong with them is that they're not doing the soul winning.
They're not visiting.
They're not going out and preaching the gospel.
But secondly, the problem is that they're afraid to preach what needs to be preached.
He's saying these guys are fearful, these guys are dismayed and therefore he's saying
I'm going to have to set up different shepherds, different pastors that don't have that fear.
Go to Jeremiah chapter 1, keep your finger there in chapter 23, that's where we're going
to be all morning.
But look at chapter 1, this is when Jeremiah is first commissioned to be a preacher in
the first place and God speaks on him, verse 4 it says, then the word of the Lord
came unto me saying, before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee.
And before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee and I ordained thee
a prophet unto the nations.
Then said I, Ah Lord God, behold I cannot speak, for I am a child.
But the Lord said unto me, Say not I am a child, for thou shalt go to all that I shall
send thee, and whatsoever I command thee, thou shalt speak.
Be not afraid of their faces, for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord.
Then the Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said unto me, Behold
I have put my words in thy mouth.
See I have set thee this day over the nations and over the kingdoms to root out and to pull
down and to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant.
He's giving him this mission to go out and preach and he's telling him that a big
part of his message is going to be a negative message.
Now there's going to be a positive component there, but look at all the negative words
that are listed in verse 10.
He said to root out, to pull down, to destroy and to throw down.
He's got four negative words there and then he has two positive words, to build and to plant.
See you can't just go to a building site and just start building.
No first you have to tear down the structure that was already there in place.
You have to get rid of it.
You can't just build onto that.
You know if you were going to build a brand new home and there's a rickety old shack
on that property, the first thing you have to do is demolish that property.
And then you also have to come in and you have to flatten out the land and you're going
to come in with a backhoe and you're going to do all the grading and get it all ready
to go.
Then you're going to come in and build and plant.
But you have to have that demolition crew that's going to clear out all the junk.
And let me tell you something, people today have been taught a lot of junk in a lot
of churches and somebody has to come in there with the controlled demolition and take
that thing down.
Somebody has to come in and clear out all that rubble, clear out all that junk, break
up that ground and get ready with a clean slate so that something good can be built
there.
And you're not just mixing the truth with lies.
No you've got to clean that thing out.
And we need some pastors to clean house and to tear down some of this false doctrine.
A lot of people have told me throughout the years, you know, hey don't preach negative
things.
Don't preach against it.
Just preach what's right.
Just preach the truth.
Just preach good and people will figure it out.
But it's not true.
You have to come in and start smashing apart false doctrine.
It's not enough just to preach the truth.
It's not enough to say, here's what the gospel is, you have to preach against the
false gospel and expose it and point it out.
And that's what the Bible teaches and all throughout these books of Isaiah, Jeremiah,
and Ezekiel, they're preaching against false doctrine.
And we see Jesus Christ himself on this earth.
He's exposing the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
When you look at the ministry of the Apostle Paul, he's pointing out Phygelus,
Hermogenes, Philetus, Alexander, the Apostle John is pointing out Diotrophes and
others.
And they are pointing out the false teaching and the heresy and breaking down that false
doctrine so that they can build a structure of biblical sound doctrine where that lie
once stood.
And so that is our job.
And if you're afraid to do that, if you're afraid to get your hands dirty, if you're
afraid to deal with the explosives necessary to take down that structure, then you can't
be a preacher.
You can't be a pastor.
You're not going to be an effective shepherd.
And God flat out said, I'm going to replace you.
That's what he said.
Look at Jeremiah 23.
He says, I will set up, verse four, I will set up shepherds over them which shall
feed them and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed.
He said, woe unto these pastors that are scared to preach what needs to be preached.
I'm going to replace them with a pastor who's not fearful to get up and preach
what needs to be preached, to tear down and to break it apart so that he can build
and plant.
That's what the Bible says in Jeremiah 23.
Look at verse five.
He gives this prophecy.
Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous branch
and a king shall reign and prosper and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.
In his days, Judah shall be saved and Israel shall dwell safely.
And this is his name whereby he shall be called the Lord our righteousness.
Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that they shall no more say the
Lord liveth, which brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt.
But the Lord liveth, which brought up and which led the seed of the house of Israel
out of the north country and from all countries, whether I had driven them and they shall
dwell in their own land.
Now the main fulfillment of this prophecy is talking about, of course, the Lord Jesus
Christ himself, because that branch, that son of David, that king that's going to
be raised up, that in those days, Judah shall be saved and Israel shall dwell safely.
And they're going to be brought out of all lands, whether they've been scattered.
That person is clearly Jesus Christ, the son of David.
I don't think there's any doubt about that.
Now there was a shadow fulfillment of this also with Zerubbabel, okay?
Because they did come back from Babylon.
You have to get the context of the book here.
In the book of Jeremiah, Jeremiah is preaching at a time when the children of Israel are
about to be carried captives into Babylon.
And God's predicting that they're going to be brought back from Babylon and from
all the other nations that they were scattered into.
And he'll set up David, his servant over them.
Well, there's that king Zerubbabel, the governor of the land after they come back,
and he is a descendant of David.
But clearly the primary application here is about Jesus in the millennium, when Jesus
is ruling and reigning from Jerusalem, sitting upon the throne of David, his father.
You know what's not in this passage?
1948, because what son of David started ruling in 1948?
That's what I'd like to know.
Did they all get saved in 1948?
No, that's a fraud.
That whole, you know, that's a whole other sermon.
But what we see here is Jesus, because look at verse number six, it says in his
days, talking about the days when Jesus Christ will rule and reign on this earth
in the millennium, in his days, Judah shall be saved and Israel shall dwell safely.
And this is his name whereby he shall be called, I love this, the Lord our righteousness.
So what name is Jesus going to be known by?
The Lord our righteousness.
Let me tell you something, Jesus is our righteousness today.
When it comes to salvation, the Bible says in Romans chapter 10, it says, brethren,
my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved, for
I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.
For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own
righteousness, have not submitted themselves under the righteousness which is of God.
For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth.
What's the Bible saying?
He's saying my desire for Israel is that they might be saved.
Why are they not saved?
He said, because they are going about to establish their own righteousness.
And listen, if people today are not saved, it's because they're going about to establish
their own righteousness, whether they call themselves Christian or Jew or Muslim, whatever
religious label they go by, if they are going about to establish their own righteousness,
they are not saved.
Even if they claim, oh, I'm Christian, no, if they're going about to establish their
own righteousness, they need to be saved.
Because Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth.
Paul said, and be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law,
but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.
And so that righteousness that is imputed unto us when we believe on Jesus Christ,
that is our righteousness.
That is what gets us into heaven.
That's why Jesus said, except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes
and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Let me tell you something, my righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the Pharisees.
I don't care how separated they are because my righteousness is Jesus.
That's the righteousness by which we get in heaven.
Your righteousnesses are as filthy rags.
But his righteousness being imputed unto us will save us and get us into heaven.
That's our ticket into heaven is through Christ, through his righteousness.
So that's why Jesus' name is called the Lord our righteousness.
And if he's not your righteousness, you're not saved.
The Bible says salvation is not of works lest any man should boast.
That means if anybody thinks it's works, they're not saved because they would boast about
that and say, oh yeah, I'm going to heaven because I'm such a wonderful person.
And what does he keep drawing back to when he talks about the righteousness that
is of the law?
What's he referring to there, keeping the commandments?
So a lot of people will have this twisted view where they say, you know, you don't
have to do good works to be saved, but you do have to stop doing bad things to be saved.
You know, it's not doing works that saves you, but you do have to turn from your sins
and stop doing those bad things in order to be saved.
But here's the thing.
God says keeping the law is your righteousness and it's a filthy rag.
And keeping the law includes not stealing.
Isn't that keeping the law?
Not fornicating, not killing, not committing adultery.
Those are all your righteousness, all those commandments that you keep.
And so if you tell someone, hey, you have to stop doing those things, you have to turn
from those sins or be willing to turn from those sins, here's what you're saying
to those people.
Hey, your righteousness is going to help save you.
It's believing in Jesus and a little bit of your righteousness, you know, where you're
going to turn from some of these sins and stop doing these things.
You're going to, you know, follow the 10 commandments or whatever.
No, it's Christ our righteousness that's going to save us.
So it says in verse nine back in Jeremiah 23, and we need preachers.
By the way, there are a lot of preachers who are right on salvation.
They know it's by faith alone.
They know it's by grace.
They know it's not of works.
They know it's not by the righteousness of the law.
But it seems like they're afraid to fight against the false salvation.
You know, they'll preach it right that it's by faith, but why won't they go after
this repent of your sins crowd?
Why won't they go after this work salvation crowd?
Why won't they go after the lose your salvation crowd?
We need some pastors and preachers that are not afraid to throw down and pluck up and
break down and destroy these lies so that they can build and plant that which is correct.
It says in verse number nine, my heart within me is broken because of the prophets.
It's heartbreaking.
It's heartbreaking when you see preachers that won't preach right.
That's what he's saying.
All my bones shake.
I'm like a drunken man and like a man whom wine has overcome because of the Lord and
because of the words of his holiness for the land is full of adulterers.
For because of swearing, the land mourneth.
The pleasant places of the wilderness are dried up and their course is evil and their
force is not right for both prophet and priest or profane.
Yea in my house have I found their wickedness, saith the Lord, wherefore their way
shall be unto them as slippery ways in the darkness.
They shall be driven on and fall thereon, for I will bring evil upon them even the
year of their visitation, saith the Lord.
And I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria.
They prophesied in Baal and caused my people Israel to err.
I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem a horrible thing.
They commit adultery and walk in lies.
Now watch this key phrase.
They strengthen also the hands of evildoers that none doth return from his wickedness.
They are all of them unto me as Sodom and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah.
Now this is a key phrase here that he rebukes the pastors for strengthening the hands of
the evildoers that none doth return from his wickedness.
See if you jump down to verse 22, look what the Bible says.
But if they had stood in my counsel and had caused my people to hear my words, then
they should have turned from their evil way and from the evil of their doings.
Here's what God is saying in verse 22.
If these pastors would have preached hard on sin, the people would have gotten the
sin out of their lives.
Isn't that what it's saying?
He's saying look, if they would have stood in my counsel and caused my people to
hear my words, then they should have turned from their evil way and from the evil
of their doings.
But instead of that, instead of rebuking sin and preaching hard on sin, which would
have caused people to turn from it, instead they strengthen the hands of the evildoers
that none of them turned from his wickedness.
There's a little more explanation given in verses 16 and 17.
Thus saith the Lord of hosts, hearken not unto the words of the prophets that
prophesy unto you, they make you vain.
They speak a vision out of their own heart and not out of the mouth of the Lord.
They say still unto them that despise me, the Lord has said ye shall have peace.
You know, this is like the prosperity preachers of today.
This reminds me of Joyce Meyer with her book, God is Not Mad at You.
What is she doing with that book?
God is not mad at you.
Maybe God is mad at you though.
You know, I'm going to write a book called God Might Be Mad at You.
It's true.
I mean, but she says on the back of this book, she says on the jacket, look, God's
not mad.
It doesn't matter what you've done.
It doesn't matter what you believe in.
God is not mad at you.
How many times does the Bible say I'm angry, my wrath is kindled, my anger is burning
hot with it, but God's not mad at you.
What's she saying?
She's looking at people that literally despise the Lord.
Look at verse number 17, literally despise the Lord and she's saying to them, you
shall have peace.
You know, God's going to give you your best life now and God wants to bless you
and even people who are doing horrible things and that are haters of the Lord and
despise the Lord, they're telling them, hey, you'll have peace.
Basically just a positive message for everybody as if God is this Santa Claus where he knows
if you've been good or bad, but he's going to pretty much give you your presence
anyway because he's just nice, you know, like that.
He's just going to give it to you no matter what you do.
And they say unto everyone that walketh after the imagination of his own heart, no evil
shall come upon you.
Unbelievable.
That anybody could even say these things, but yet these are the type of things that
are being preached.
I mean, how could somebody write a book?
God is not mad at you and it sells.
It's out.
You see it at Walmart, you see it at Barnes and Noble.
Who is buying this?
People who don't know this book at all, people that don't even own a King James
version and people who don't even probably pull down the NIV off their shelf and even
look at it.
Not that it would do them any good.
People who just have no clue who God is to actually believe such a bizarre message
that no matter who you are, God's not mad at you.
It's bizarre.
But people believe this stuff because it sounds good and makes them feel good.
We need to get back to the Word of God and see who God really is and we need pastors
and preachers who will get up and tell us who God really is and not be afraid to
call a spade a spade.
And honestly, you say, well, why are you preaching this?
Well, the bottom line is that we need to replace the preachers in America today.
They need to be replaced.
Oh, let's straighten them out.
Well, you know, let's straighten them out.
But a lot of them just need to be replaced and they need to be replaced by a new generation
of young preachers that would rise up and not be afraid and that would rise up
and know the Word of God and know who God is.
And that's why I'm preaching this chapter, hoping that the hearts of men would be stirred
to say, you know what, I'm going to be this kind of preacher that I see in Jeremiah 23.
I'm going to be that man.
The Bible says in verse 18, for who has stood in the counsel of the Lord and have
perceived and heard his word?
Who has marked his word and heard it?
Behold, a whirlwind of the Lord is gone forth in fury.
But God's not mad at you.
Well, who is he mad at?
Who's he so furious?
What's this whirlwind about?
It's just a big whirlwind that just wants to give you a big hug, you know.
No, he's got a whirlwind of fury.
What's it mean to be furious?
I mean, furious is really angry.
He said, it shall fall grievously upon the head of the wicked.
The anger of the Lord shall not return until you have executed, until you have performed
the thoughts of his heart.
In the latter days, you shall consider it perfectly.
I have not sent these prophets.
Yet they ran.
I've not spoken to them.
Yet they prophesied.
You know, it reminded me of that in the marching design, that Rabbi Wiener.
You remember him?
And he basically says, you know, a lot of people say that, you know, if you don't
obey God's commandments, you know, you're going to have a bad life or go to the nether
world or, you know, you mean hell?
Oh, no, we don't believe in that.
We don't believe in hell.
But here's what's so funny.
Not only is he denying the fact that anyone will go to hell for any reason, this Jewish
rabbi.
And he's a reformed Jewish rabbi, which, by the way, is the most common denomination
for a religious Jew to be.
Not only is he denying that anyone will go to hell for any reason, but he even says,
you're not even going to have a bad life.
A lot of people think that you'll have a bad life if you don't obey the word of
God.
It's like, yeah, you are going to have a bad life if you don't obey the word of
God.
So he's basically saying, forget heaven and hell.
He's saying, you can just completely disregard God's word and you won't even have a bad
life.
Then why in the world would anybody even listen to this guy or any religious leader?
I mean, in that case, let's eat, drink, and be married because tomorrow we die,
if that's the philosophy.
But there are people out there teaching this stuff, whether it's that rabbi, whether
it's Joyce Meyer, whether it's Joel Osteen or whoever else.
These people need to be replaced.
The Bible says in this scripture, in verse 21, I think this is an often misunderstood
scripture in verse 21 because it says, I've not sent these prophets, yet they ran.
I've not spoken to them, yet they prophesied.
And I think a lot of people misinterpret that verse and they'll say this, you know,
if God hasn't sent you to preach, if God hasn't called you, then don't do it.
Don't preach, don't pastor unless you've been called.
And by being called, it's this mysticism that they believe in.
Who knows what I'm talking about?
You know, it's like this mystical, I was called to preach on April 21, 2009, you know,
the whole room lit up and everything.
And it's just this mysticism and emotion of, you know, the call to preach.
Are you sure you've been called, brother?
If you can be happy doing anything else, don't do it, you know.
And all this stuff about, are you called, I've been called, I know I've been called.
I was called to preach on December 13, 2008.
But here's the thing, I don't believe in it.
Because here's what the Bible says, if any man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth
a good work.
It's okay to just desire the office of a bishop.
And then he says, if any man be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful
children not accused of riot or unruly, and he lists all those qualifications.
But he says if anybody meets the qualifications, if anybody desire the office of a bishop,
great.
He doesn't say wait for a special calling or an emotional or charismatic type experience.
He says that if you desire it, if you're qualified, do it.
And the Bible even said in Numbers chapter 11, would God that all God's people were
prophets and that he would put his spirit upon them.
So this is something that anybody who desires to do it and anybody who is equipped and
able to do it is called.
You know, you don't have to have this special call.
It's just something that is kind of entered into this Baptist folklore.
So they'll look at this and say, you know, here it says, you know, these prophets,
they ran and I didn't send them.
I didn't speak to them.
See, you got to be called.
No, here's what it's saying.
These people are preaching something that he did not tell them to preach.
That's what the scripture is actually saying.
He's saying these people are saying that they got a word from me that they never
got from me.
Now here's the thing, he's saying I've not spoken to them.
Well, guess what?
If you own a Bible and you read it every day, God has spoken to you.
Here's where God spoke to you.
I've never heard from God in an audible voice from the time I've been saved until
this day.
Everything that God has ever told me has been through this book in my hand, the King
James Bible.
This is where I've learned everything.
So don't misunderstand that verse.
He's telling you preach what I told you to preach.
He's not saying, hey, you have to be specifically given an engraved invitation from me.
An angel has to show up to you and tell you I want you to preach.
But he says in verse number 22 there, but if they had stood in my counsel and it caused
my people to hear my words, then they should have turned them from their evil way
and from the evil of their doings.
Honestly, preaching works.
And preaching against sin works.
He says if it would have been preached, if the sins would have been exposed, they would
have turned from them.
And it's so true today that so many paths are afraid to preach when really there's
nothing to be afraid of because if they would just preach, people would receive it
and people would change.
And I've noticed that whatever you preach about, you know, wherever you sow that seed,
that's where you reap a harvest.
And if you preach on a certain sin, people will get that sin out of their lives, thank God.
And if you don't preach on a certain sin, that sin will abound.
That's why it's so important to preach against things like fornication and preach
against things like adultery and drunkenness.
Why?
Because we don't want those things to be once named among us.
We don't want those things to creep in.
And so in order to stop those things from creeping in, you have to preach hard against them.
And if you don't, it just becomes a fornication fest.
It just becomes a den of iniquity in the church.
And listen, even when hard preaching happens, sin creeps in because people are human and
because obviously, you know, there are sinners and everybody's a sinner and things can
go wrong and so forth.
But how much more when it's not even being preached?
I mean, I can't even imagine.
I mean, I've preached hard on sin and then I've noticed that sometimes maybe I'll go
a few months without covering something and then I'll see it'll start to creep in somewhere
in the church and then I'm just thinking to myself, good night.
What about these people who are never preaching hard?
What kind of a den of iniquity is over there?
Because I mean, you just you relax on something just a little bit and you see
it creep in.
We need to be sober.
We need to be vigilant and we need hard preaching.
You know, I need hard preaching.
I need to hear hard preaching.
You need to hear hard preaching because it reminds us of the dangers of sin and it
allows all of us to turn from our sins on a continual basis in our Christian lives
as we hear hard preaching that will make sin exceeding sinful and that will demonize
sin unto us so that we will take that right path and that we will live a godly life
that would please our Savior Jesus Christ.
So the Bible says in verse number 24, can any hide himself in secret places that I
shall not see him, saith the Lord?
Do not I fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord?
I have heard what the prophets said that prophesied lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed,
I have dreamed.
How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets that prophesied lies?
Yea, they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart, which think to cause my
people to forget my name by their dreams which they tell every man to his neighbor
as their fathers have forgotten my name for Baal.
The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream.
And he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully.
We have God's word, so that's all we need.
I'm not even looking to dreams and things because I have the whole word of God right
here.
This is enough for me to preach for the rest of my life.
And he says in verse number 28, the prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream.
And he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully.
What is the chaff to the wheat, saith the Lord?
Is not my word like as a fire, saith the Lord?
Is like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces.
And both fire and a hammer are both destructive forces, aren't they?
Fire is used to destroy things.
And a hammer is used to break things apart and destroy them.
Because he's specifically saying, this isn't the hammer that hammers a nail into a piece
of wood in this particular context.
It's the hammer that breaks the rock in pieces.
It's the slamming of a sledgehammer into a rock and it's shattering into pieces.
That's what God's saying that his word does.
God's word is likened to so many things in the Bible.
It's likened unto bread.
It's likened unto our daily food.
It's likened unto water.
It's likened unto soap.
It's likened unto gold.
It's likened unto honey.
I mean all the different likenesses.
But not only is the Bible our spiritual food, not only is the Bible our foundation
where God says building your life on the word of God is like building your house
upon a rock.
But God also says that his word is a two-edged sword that will divide.
And he also said that his word is like a hammer that will break rock in pieces.
And he also said that his word is like a fire that would burn up and consume that
which is false and that which is a lie.
And so God said, my word is like a fire, saith the Lord, and like a hammer that breaketh
the rock in pieces.
Verse 30, therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, saith the Lord, that steal
my words every one from his neighbor.
Now what's he talking about here when he says the prophets that steal my words
every one from his neighbor?
He's talking about a preacher who just repeats things that he heard other preachers say
instead of preaching that which actually came from the Lord.
He's saying these prophets steal my words every one from his neighbor.
They're not preaching my word.
They're preaching what they took from the other prophet.
And how many preachers are just repeating things over and over again where one preacher
says it and then another guy repeats it and then pretty soon people are just repeating
it and repeating it and repeating it and repeating it and repeating it and nobody
stops and thinks, wait a minute, is that biblical?
There are so many sayings and things that you just hear repeated over and over again
that have no biblical basis at all.
And they're just stealing the word every one from his neighbor.
Just repeated, repeated, repeated.
Let's think of some together, shall we?
Some of those things that are just repeated over and over again, they just start to,
here's one, repent of your sins to be saved.
That's not in the Bible, okay?
It's all through the Book of Mormon, you know, repent of your sins.
It's all through the Quran.
Yeah, Shekinah, there you go.
You know, these pastors are like, oh, the Shekinah glory of God.
You know, I guarantee you if you went up to every pastor that said the Shekinah
glory of God and asked, what does that word Shekinah mean?
Oh, or they'll just tell you, oh, it just means glory, but that's not what it means.
I always thought they were going back to the Hebrew my whole life when they said that.
Turns out it's the female side of the Jewish false God.
God doesn't have a feminine side.
God is masculine.
Okay.
But yeah, they'll just say, oh, yeah, Shekinah glory, Shekinah glory, Shekinah glory.
Just keep repeating it.
You know, here's, here's another one that's just repeated all over again.
To be saved, you have to turn from sin to the Savior.
Turn from sin to the Savior.
No, you don't turn from sin.
That doesn't even make sense.
Because after you get saved, you're still going to commit sin.
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
There's none righteous, no, not one.
We still are going to sin after we're saved.
But does it, oh, turn from the sins.
That doesn't even make sense because that's an incongruous idea there.
See, let me just explain it to you this way.
If I were to switch from shell to Chevron, that makes sense, right?
I was getting my gas at Shell, now I'm getting my gas at Chevron.
So I turned from shell to Chevron.
Does that make sense?
Okay.
Or let's say I turned from Qdoba to Chipotle.
That makes sense.
They're both almost exactly the same anyway.
But you're going from one restaurant to another, does everybody understand?
Okay.
So that makes sense.
It would not make sense to say, you know, I switched from Shell to Chipotle.
That makes no sense, does it?
You know, I switched from Food City to Men's Warehouse.
What are you talking about?
It doesn't even make sense.
Because they're two totally different things that have nothing to do with one another.
You know, one is a place where you're buying clothes, one of them is a place where you're
buying food, it just doesn't make any sense.
How can you turn from sin to the Savior?
What Jesus is a new sin or something, or that sin was your old way to get you to heaven
and now Jesus?
That doesn't make any sense.
See, here's what the Bible says, that you turn from idols to Jesus.
Well that makes sense, why?
Because an idol is something that you pray to, an idol is something that you're trusting
for salvation, right?
An idol is something that you're worshiping.
Now instead of trusting and praying to and worshiping an idol, you're trusting, praying
to and worshiping Jesus, does that make sense?
Yeah, turn to God from idols.
Turn to Jesus from maybe a religion that you were following that you thought was going
to get you to heaven, now you're trusting Jesus to get you to heaven.
Or you turn from Buddha to Jesus, does that make sense?
Buddha to Jesus makes sense.
Muhammad to Jesus makes sense.
Hinduism to Jesus makes sense.
Turn to Jesus doesn't make sense because no one's trusting their sin to get them to
heaven.
I've never yet run into somebody, who I said, why are you going to heaven?
And they said, because of all the sins I've committed, that's going to get me to
heaven.
Never one time has anybody been trusting their sin to get them into heaven.
Never one time has anyone prayed to their sins.
No one has ever worshipped their sins, have they?
It doesn't make sense, okay?
Now you could say, well, I turned from sin to living a godly life.
That would make sense.
Wouldn't that make sense?
I turned from sin to good works.
That makes sense.
But guess what?
That's not salvation.
That's a 12-step program.
That's turning over a new leaf.
Salvation's by grace through faith.
You could say, I turned from dead works to faith in Christ as salvation.
That makes sense.
So it's just one of those things that just they steal the words, everyone from
his neighbor of, hey, turn from sin to the Savior, amen, sounds great.
Seven years tribulation.
Nowhere in the Bible does it say seven years tribulation.
Oh, the Antichrist is going to make a peace treaty with Israel at the beginning of the
seven years.
Not in the Bible.
Here's what the Bible actually says.
He shall confirm the covenant with many for one week.
Goes into their computer and comes out, he's going to make a peace treaty with Israel
for seven years.
Just it doesn't say that anywhere.
Come on, help me out, people.
What's that?
I can't understand your I don't speak Australian.
Burdens?
Oh, well, that's I'm not.
He see, here's what Lewis is reading ahead to verses 33 through 40, which are not part
of my sermon.
All right.
Did you get ahead of the chapter, the burden?
Oh, I guess I guess Garrett read the whole thing.
So he didn't really get ahead.
It's not in the New Testament, like, like new Christians, they say, what, what should
I follow in the Old Testament, and they say, just do what you feel like.
Hate the sin, not the sin.
Yeah, there we go.
Yeah, Gandhi's famous quote.
Mahatma Gandhi said, you know, love the sinner, hate the sin.
And how many times have we heard pastors repeat that?
A hundred times.
And they're quoting Gandhi.
And then you show them David's quote from Psalm 139.
And they look at you like you have two heads.
When you show them what the Bible said in Psalm 139 by David, and then you but there,
but the the Gandhi quote rolls off their tongue, love the sinner, hate the sin, love
the sinner.
And you know what?
Gandhi is not saved.
God, he's not a Christian.
Remember?
He would have been a Christian if it weren't for Christians.
Well, you know what?
I would have been a Hindu if it weren't for Hindus, buddy.
Yeah, put that in your pipe and smoke it.
If I would have been a Hindu if they didn't worship Satan.
There's my quote for you, Gandhi, you know, I'd be a Christian if it weren't for
Christians.
Well, you know what?
Go to hell then, Gandhi.
Because you know what?
There's no salvation in any other, for there's none other name under heaven given among
men, whereby we must be saved, Gandhi.
And yet Christians will quote that quote from Gandhi, I would be a Christian if it weren't
for Christians.
Love the sinner, hate the sin.
They'll quote Gandhi today, who was a Satan worshiper because that's what Hinduism is.
They worship all kind of demons.
What else is repeated?
Yeah.
Okay.
We've got to get off the marching to Zion theme though.
Yeah, judge not, just judge not, period.
Instead of the whole, you know, where Jesus explains, judge not that you be not judged
for with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged.
Just a short and just, just repeat it over and over and over again.
Look, we need to stop just repeating stuff that we've heard and look, don't even just
repeat stuff that I've said.
We need to get into the word and figure out what the truth is and get the word
directly from God as preachers and as prophets.
We need to get it directly from God through our own reading and our own study and through
the Holy Spirit speaking to us and not just steal every man, our words, my name.
Now let me say this, if I hear a good, a good sermon from somebody, I'll re-preach
it.
You know, it's not like, Oh, well I don't want to preach that cause I heard him say
that.
But the difference is that you actually fact check it, study it, internalize it, understand
it, and then preach it in your own words, preach it in your own way.
I've done that.
I could, I could list for you sermons that I got from other people that I learned from
other people and re-preach.
But you have to absorb it and make it your own and then fact check it and search the
scriptures whether these things be so, not just getting up and just repeating and repeating
and repeating things that didn't come from the Lord.
They just came from your neighbor, your fellow preacher is what he means by neighbor
there.
He says in verse number 31, behold, I am against the prophet, sayeth the Lord that
use their tongues and say, he said, they say, he sayeth, okay.
Now what does that mean?
They're basically claiming that God said stuff that he didn't say.
Now this is my pet peeve when people quote God and God didn't really say it.
I mean if you're going to say, well here's what Jesus said, you better be able to show
me chapter and verse on that.
Or if you're going to say, well here's what God said, then I want to see it in
the Bible.
But a lot of people will just say, well, you know, God told me to, to, to buy this
building or God told me to, to, you know, go do this and that.
But it's all just from their own heart is what it is.
It's a, it's a figment of their imagination.
Now the Holy Spirit will bring to our remembrance the things that Christ has spoken unto us,
but he doesn't just say to us random things that are not in the Bible.
And I always tell people when they try to tell me, well, God told me, and then
they start saying a bunch of stuff that supposedly God told them.
I always tell them, well here, let me write that down in the back of my Bible as
scripture then.
Because if that's the word of God, I want to make sure I have it in my Bible since
that's what God said to you.
Let me write that down.
In fact, we need to get this written in everybody's Bible because man should not
live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God.
So if God said that, then it needs to be recorded in scripture.
And oh, well, you know, what was your name?
Frank.
Okay.
Well, this could be the book of Frank and we're going to add that in there.
That's why I tell people, because honestly, people are too, people are just too loose
about just adding to God's word.
And the Bible says the words of the Lord, he said, every word of God is pure.
He's a shield unto them that put their trust in him.
Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee and thou be found a liar.
Add thou not unto his words.
And the, I see billboards where they just have these corny, cheesy quotes and then
they say God at the end.
You know, if, if you must swear, use your own name, God, you know, or stuff like
that on a billboard.
That's blasphemous because first of all, God's not that corny and cheesy as all these
dumb jokes that you put on the billboard.
And number two, that's not God's word.
And it's blasphemous to put that quote and say that God said it when God didn't
say it.
And I, if I had a nickel for every time somebody said, well, Jesus said, and then
they just start giving all their own opinion, this all just long, big, long opinion
comes out.
This is what Jesus said.
Where did he say that, but he didn't say it.
And that makes them a liar.
And so God is saying here that these prophets, they say, he sayeth, but he's, I
didn't say that.
I never said that.
I mean, how would you like it if someone went around quoting you and claiming
that you said a bunch of stuff that you didn't say you'd be angry, wouldn't
you?
You know, you'd be, you know, there are even people who file lawsuits because
they've been supposedly quoted as saying something that never was said.
And yet people sometimes are just so quick to take what comes out of their own
heart, what they dreamed up, what's in their own imagination, their own feelings
and emotions, and just say, this is what God told me.
This is what the holy spirit said and on and on.
And they just add things to the word.
And what does the Bible say?
I'm against them.
Now I would hate for God to be up in heaven saying, I'm against Stephen Anderson.
I mean, can you think about how that would feel?
Put your name in there.
God said, I'm against your name.
You go, Whoa, what did I do?
I need to fix it.
And why is he against them?
Because they're saying that he said things that he didn't say.
And he says, behold, I'm against them that prophesy false dreams, say it the Lord,
and do tell them and cause my people to err by their lies and by their lightness.
What does lightness mean?
Lightness is when it's the opposite of gravity.
It's the opposite of taking something seriously.
Using lightness is when you are flippant or casual and not taking things seriously.
Somebody who would just say, well, here's what God said, or here's what Jesus said
without stopping to be serious and make sure that they accurately give us what God
said from the Bible.
They just lightly, casually just throw things out there as the word of God that are not
really God's word.
He's saying they cause people to err by their lies and by their lightness.
Some of it's just lying.
Now what, what's the difference between lying and lightness?
Well lying is intentional.
See if I had some false information and I accidentally passed it on to you, you wouldn't
call that lying, would you?
If I thought that something were true and I said it to you and it turned out later
it wasn't true, you wouldn't say I was lying.
You'd say I was mistaken, wouldn't you?
You were mistaken.
You would not call that lying because lying is intentional.
Lying is when you know the truth and you say something other than the truth purposely.
That is what lying is, okay?
What's lightness?
Lightness is just basically when you're mistaken, you know, cause you didn't take
the time or take it seriously to get the information right.
Now certain things you don't take that seriously because they're not that serious,
because they're not a big deal.
You might accidentally say oh yeah he's in that room, oh sorry I thought he was in there,
he's actually over here.
Who cares?
But you know what?
Are we to use the word of God with lightness?
I mean should we get up behind a pulpit with lightness?
Should we get up behind the pulpit and say wow this might be true?
Just preach it, just say it, yeah it could be or I don't know, I heard somebody
say it, it sounded good.
Time to fact check it?
Just preach it.
There have been times when I have come across some groundbreaking doctrine in the Bible,
not that it was groundbreaking because there's nothing new under the sun, but it was groundbreaking
to me, something that was new to me, something that I had newly learned.
Obviously there are all kinds of people out there who believed it before me no matter
what it is.
But I found something new, but I didn't want to just get up and just with lightness
just the next Sunday morning just get up and preach it.
So many times I've taken three months, six months, nine months to digest a doctrine that
is new to me, something that I've learned from the word of God just to make sure that
I don't just with lightness get up and preach something false, especially if it's
real different than what most people are saying.
You know I just want to go back and study the Bible and make sure that I'm right
about this and make sure there's nothing that contradicts it before rolling out that
sermon because you don't want to use lightness with the word of God.
And so there are two problems, he says, with preachers when they lie and preach things
that are just false and when they use lightness, basically not taking the responsibility seriously
of learning the word of God and preaching an accurate sermon.
That's what he's saying.
Now those of you who want to preach someday, and I know we have a lot of guys in our
church that would love to preach someday and be a pastor, and I think that's great.
And the more that we have the better because that's what we need today.
We need pastors and preachers that will rise up and be a new generation that will
preach the word of God faithfully and be shepherds that will feed God's people according
to his will and according to his heart.
But I think that one of the big things that is needed amongst this new generation
of preachers is that they must not use lightness when it comes to knowing doctrine
and knowing the word of God.
It needs to be taken very seriously that they study to show themselves approved unto
God, a workman that needed not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
And people are constantly asking me, you know, what can I do to prepare to be a pastor
and what can I do to learn and grow in that area?
And you know, one of the biggest things that you can do is just read the Bible a lot.
And people sometimes say, well, what's the secret to understanding the Bible?
Well, number one, be saved.
I'm sure you've got that down.
You got to be saved.
The Holy Spirit has to be in sight.
But number two, I'll tell you the big thing, just do a lot of reading.
Really?
That's it?
Yeah, it's not complicated.
Well, what about all these pastors who just don't understand the Bible and they preach
so much false doctrine?
It's because they're not doing the reading.
I'll guarantee you that that's why.
And I've even heard, I've heard some of these pastors get up and say, I've read
the Bible 89 times and I've read the Bible a hundred times.
And you know what?
I say, you're a liar because I've heard some of your preaching.
And I've heard the, I've heard the junk that you preach and I've heard the way you
always misquote the word of God every time you speak.
And if you'd read it that many times, you would know what it says and you wouldn't
be making the constant mistakes that you're making from the pulpit.
Now look, everybody makes mistakes.
Everybody gets things wrong.
I'm sure I've gotten things wrong.
I'm sure I've made mistakes.
No one is perfect.
But when somebody is just continually, continually butchering what the word actually says and
continually preaching that, which is false, and then they're going to sit there and
tell you, Oh, I've read the Bible X amount of time.
You know, first of all, why are you up there bragging about how many times you've
read the Bible anyway?
Because you know what?
If you really knew the Bible, you wouldn't have to keep telling us how many times you'd
read it.
We'd just know by listening to your preaching.
This guy read the Bible a lot just by listening to you.
When you have to get up and give that number of, Oh, I've read it this many times.
You know, it's because you didn't really do it.
You're a liar.
Now.
I'm not saying these people are all liars, but I'm saying that I've heard some that
are for sure a liar because they don't know what the Bible says.
And then they say that and you're like, no, what did you, did you have your eyes
open?
Did you have the light on when you were reading it?
Were you reading it in English?
You know, because they're not.
And so I'm telling you young men, if you want to be a great preacher, if you want
to be a great pastor, one of the best things, and even if you're just kind of toying with
the idea of possibly pastoring someday, the best thing you could do is learn the Bible.
That's the main thing that is the problem today.
It's it's not just the lies, it's the lightness.
And so we need men who will read and study and look, you say, well, I'm busy.
Well, then you're not going to be able to do the job then.
Okay.
Cause you have to make time to learn it.
But one way to do it is to get it on audio.
You know, you get the Alexander Skirby reading the King James, and it's great to listen
to it in the car and you'll get so much of it that way.
If you're, if you're an auditory learner, I'm an auditory learner, I learned more
from listening than from reading.
Some people are the other way around, but you can get it in your car, in the CD player,
you read it, take it with you to work, put it in your lunch bag, put a New Testament
in your pocket.
Bible memorization and Bible reading are the key to understanding scripture.
That's the key.
And when you have people that are making a lot of mistakes, it's just because they're
ignorant of the word.
They haven't done the reading.
They haven't done the memorization.
That's what we need.
And I don't need to see your degree from some university.
I don't need to see how many times you claim that you've read it or whatever.
I want to talk to somebody who actually knows the Bible and knows doctrine and understands
what I'm talking about, to where I could actually talk to you about Bible stories
of the Old Testament and you actually know what story I'm talking about.
Or I can actually talk to you about doctrines taught in the epistles in the New Testament
and you actually are familiar with the scripture that I'm talking to because you've
read it repeatedly.
Maybe you've even done some Bible memory.
That's what we need today is people, you know, I mean, think about it.
If you wanted to choose a restaurant to go to or someone to cook your food, do you really
care how many degrees they have on the wall or do you just want to taste the food?
I mean, think about it.
If the food tastes good, do you really care where they went to school?
Do you really care how many hours they spent in training and learning and reading
and studying and which countries they visited in their quest for the ultimate culinary
art?
No.
What I care about is does the food taste good?
Because the proof is in the pudding.
And I'm telling you, we need a new generation of young chefs, I mean, preachers.
I'm hungry, okay?
This is what happens when I preach and I'm hungry.
We need a generation of wives who cook for their husbands and cook breakfast and cook
lunch and cook dinner and it tastes good.
I'm sorry, that's the wrong sermon, wrong sermon.
We need pastors and preachers, but look, the pastor is a spiritual chef.
Spiritual cook.
This is the cookbook.
This is where the food comes from, right?
See this is like, here's how preaching is, and I'll close with this thought, because
this is a sermon for preachers, you know, and for people who want to preach some
day.
You say, well, you know, I'm never going to be a preacher, I'm not a preacher.
What do I get out of the sermon?
Well, you know, this kind of preaching you should be listening to, okay?
And this is the kind of preaching that you should gravitate toward.
But I always tell people who are learning how to preach, I always tell them that preaching
is like cooking, because you're feeding the people.
That's what God said in this chapter that we just looked at.
He said that the pastors feed the flock of God.
Well, there are three great elements to being a great cook.
To being a great cook, you have to have three great elements.
Number one, you have to have the right ingredients.
Because you can have a great cook, but if they're buying cheap, junky ingredients,
it's going to come out in the food, isn't it?
If it's a bunch of GMO, hydrogenated, filled with preservatives, I don't care how skillful
they are at polishing the apple.
If they're using junky, cheapo, expired ingredients, the food's not going to taste
good.
So number one, you've got to start with the right ingredients.
Number two, you have to have a good recipe to be a good cook.
You have a good recipe.
You follow a good recipe in order to get your proportions right and everything.
And then number three, to be a great cook, you have to be able to deviate from the
recipe.
That's how you achieve perfection.
Because if you're just a robot that just takes the right ingredients and then you have
a great recipe and you just boop, boop, boop, everything's just down to the milligram,
it's going to come out good, but it's not going to come out perfect.
Perfection is achieved when you can then taste it and add just a little pinch of this
and a little pinch of that in order to deviate from the recipe to bring it to the next
level.
That's how it is with preaching a sermon.
Here's what you have to do.
Number one, you have to have the right ingredients.
The King James Version.
I don't care how good of a preacher you are, if you're preaching on the NIV, I don't
want that GMO, partially hydrogenated, preservative-laden garbage that you have to say.
I don't want to put that stuff into my body.
I don't want to put that stuff into my soul either.
So you've got to have the right ingredients.
And by the way, that means actually using the King James Bible, not just one verse
at the beginning of your sermon and then blah, blah, blah, but that there's a lot
of nutritious ingredient put into that sermon, a copious amount of verses from the King
James Bible, the right ingredients.
Number two, you have to have a good recipe, which would be your outline, your sermon
outline.
That's like your recipe, right?
And so sometimes you may borrow recipes from other people a little bit, but you have
to, number three, be able to make that recipe your own.
And you have to be able to deviate from the recipe.
Now, if you as a preacher just write out a sermon and you have that recipe and it's
a great recipe, but you just get up and just read the recipe to us and it's just
recited to us with no deviation, it's not going to be as good of a sermon as if
you can deviate from the recipe, which in preaching that would be the Spirit's leading.
Because when you preach, the Holy Spirit should lead you and guide you.
And sometimes when you're preaching, the Holy Spirit will bring things to your mind
in the sense that Bible verses will pop into your head, not that he's going to just
tell you things that aren't in the Bible, but that the Holy Spirit will bring all
things to your remembrance.
It's always when you're preaching, Bible verses will pop into your mind that weren't
even in the recipe, that weren't even in the outline, that you didn't even think of.
And then, oh yeah, that's perfect.
And then you can preach that extra verse, that extra point.
Because sometimes people will come to church and God knows that they need to hear a certain
thing and that they need to hear, I mean how many times have you brought a visitor
to church and the sermon was exactly what they needed to hear?
Or you came to church and you're like, wow, we were just talking about this or
this is just what I need to hear.
And so basically, you know, the Spirit can lead you like that when you're preaching.
But here's the thing.
If you don't have any Bible verses in your heart, then how's God going to bring that
to your remembrance which you don't have in your mind and in your heart?
So being a great cook is like being a godly preacher is that you have to have the right
ingredients, you know, the right recipe, the sermon outline, and then you have to
be able to deviate from that outline.
And the only way you're going to be able to deviate from the outline is if you're
preaching from your heart.
Because if you're just a machine that's preaching from a piece of paper, you're not
going to be able to preach from the heart and you're not going to be able to deviate
from the outline, which that deviation is when the Holy Spirit's bringing the Word
to your mind.
How is he going to bring it to your mind?
Because you've read it so many times and because you've memorized it so many
times that it just comes to you while you're preaching from your memory brain.
You know, the Word of God is the sword of the Spirit.
It's what the Spirit uses in our hearts and in our lives.
But here's the thing.
We got to give him the tools, folks.
How can the Holy Spirit use that which isn't there?
You got to have the Word in your heart in order for God to be able to have that
full arsenal of Scripture to pull out and use in any given sermon as the Spirit leads.
I pray that this sermon would inspire a generation of preachers that would understand
that the preachers out there, many of them are scattering the flock.
They're not doing the soul winning.
They're scared to preach what's right.
They're just borrowing phrases and buzz phrases from their neighbor.
They're just preaching the same things over and over again.
They're leaving out a big part of the message and they're adding to God's Word and they're
not doing it.
Look, we need a generation that would rise up and feed the people as God would have
them fed.
Let's borrow heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you for this chapter, Jeremiah 23, Lord, that was pinned down thousands
of years ago but yet it is applicable today.
We look at it today and we say, wow, this is really accurate to what we see, Lord.
Please help us to not fall into this category where you would say that you're against us.
And help us, Lord, to study, to show ourselves approved unto you, and in Jesus' name we
pray.