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Jeremiah chapter 14, the Bible reads in verse 1, the word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah concerning the dearth. Dearth is another word for famine. This is when it's not raining and therefore crops aren't growing. The grass that the cattle would graze upon is drying up and animals are dying, people are starving. It's pretty much the worst thing that could happen to people, especially back then when they relied upon food from local sources. And if God doesn't send the early rain and the latter rain, people are dying, animals are dying. And so Jeremiah is talking about the dearth here. And what's interesting in this chapter is how it sort of goes back and forth between Jeremiah talking and the Lord responding to him. And when you look at this passage, over and over again, Jeremiah is pleading for mercy. He's trying to intercede for his wicked nation, that God would relax his judgment a little bit. And God just takes a really hard line in this chapter. I mean, in this chapter, God shows no mercy. I mean, he just takes a hard line and just tells Jeremiah, no, these people have chosen to go down this route and that's where they are and it's their fault and they made their bed and they're going to have to lay in it. So it's a pretty rough chapter in the word of God. But the Bible says in verse number 1, the word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah concerning the dearth, Judah mourneth and the gates thereof languish. They are black under the ground and the cry of Jerusalem has gone up. And their nobles have sent their little ones to the waters. They came to the pits and found no water. They returned with their vessels empty. They were ashamed and confounded and covered their heads. Now get the picture here of what he's saying. The nobles, the people who are the wealthiest and who are at an elevated station in life, they're so desperate for water that they're actually sending their little ones, sending their kids out just to basically go foraging and just to go search and find some way to fill up water. Basically, they're saying it's all hands on deck. You know, usually these people's kids would probably be living a comfortable life. Maybe they're doing their schoolwork. You know, they're being homeschooled or they're with various governors and tutors and you know, maybe they're even playing sports or whatever. No, no, no, the kids are being told, go forage, go find water. We're that desperate that we're even sending our kids. Think about how bad it would be for you to send your little ones, your little kids just out to search for water where you're just giving them a vessel and saying, you know what your activity is today? Just go around Tempe and just find some water to put in this thing. That's what they're doing. Even people that are well off, according to this. So the little ones are coming back with an empty vessel. They're coming back ashamed, having failed in the mission that their parents have sent them on. Why, verse four, because the ground is chapped. This is like your lips get chapped. He's saying the ground is chapped. It's dry, what does it mean to have chapped lips? Dry, cracking, that's what the earth is like. The ground is chapped for there was no rain in the earth. The plowmen were ashamed, they covered their heads. Yea, the hind, which is like a deer, the hind also calved in the field and forsook it because there was no grass. I mean, the deer is giving birth to a little baby deer and just leaving it there and just walking away saying, pfft, forget that, I can't even feed myself. I can't even water myself and just leaving its little one to die. You know, it's interesting, I've been learning a lot about Botswana in preparation for the missions program that were starting there in September with brother Garrett Kirschway and one of the things that I was learning about was the Kalahari Desert, how there are certain times of year when rain will come, plants will grow, animals will move into the area and be able to graze upon that grass. But then another time of year that's the dry season, everything dries up, everything dies and the animals all leave. The animals all go somewhere else because they just can't survive. And that's just in the cycle of one year, just in one year's time, it can go from having an abundance of grass to just getting completely dried out, completely chapped and that's why the people and the animals have to migrate somewhere. The very few people stay and survive in those kind of harsh climates in the Kalahari Desert. So that's an example of where you could look at just a dry chapped waters where even animals can't even survive. But notice what it said there in verse number five. Yea, the hind also calved in the field and forsook it because there was no grass. That's something that an animal would do. And today the sad thing is that there are human beings that actually give birth to a child today and then they forsake it. And that's what the Bible would call being without natural affection. God warned us in the last days, perilous times would come. Peril means danger, perilous means dangerous. God said that perilous times would come in the last days. For men shall be lovers of their own selves. Is the first thing he lists in the big list of being traitors, heady, high-minded, being all these different sinful things. But the first thing he said was, this is 2 Timothy 3, he said men shall be lovers of their own selves. He says they'll be without natural affection. Think about how selfish people are, that they would actually go and commit fornication and then when they're faced with the consequence of their actions, they would actually just discard that child. And I don't care whether it's done through so-called abortion or whether it's a giving birth and then just throwing the child in a dumpster. It's both just as wicked, it's just as inhumane and disgusting. Abortion is murder and only an animal would just leave their child and think that that's okay to just forsake your child and just throw it away, discard it, but yet it happens every day in America today because we've gotten to the point where many people are past feeling in this country without natural affection. It's not normal for a parent, especially a mother who carried that child in their own body to not have affection and a bond for the child that they give birth to. Even more so than for men because women are actually carrying the child in their body and they develop a strong bond or at least they should, at least a normal person would. It's a sad state of affairs when children are being forsaken today. The Bible says in verse six, "'The wild asses did stand in the high places. "'They snuffed up the wind like dragons. "'Their eyes did fail because there was no grass.'" So he's basically saying that the asses are getting up into high mountains where they can see better, and their eyes are failing because they're squinting and trying to look really far away to see if they can see any grass, find somewhere else to go. They're not finding anything. Verse seven is where we see Jeremiah speaking to the Lord here. Here's where Jeremiah begins to make intercession after verses one through six, which is the Lord describing the condition. It says in verse seven, "'O Lord.'" So we can tell Jeremiah's talking because he's talking to the Lord. "'O Lord, though our iniquities testify against us, "'do thou it for thy name's sake, "'for our backslidings are many. "'We've sinned against thee. "'O, the hope of Israel, "'the Savior thereof in time of trouble! "'Why shouldest thou be as a stranger in the land, "'and as a wavering man that turneth aside "'to tarry for a night?'" He's saying, you know, God, don't just be somebody who doesn't care, that's just kind of passing through, and it's not that important to you. He's saying, look, you're the God of Israel. Do it for your name's sake. This is quite reminiscent of what Moses did when Moses interceded for the people when he was up on Mount Sinai, and he said, do it for your name's sake, and he's begging the Lord to spare Israel when the Lord was talking about wiping out Israel at that time because of their unbelief, because of their fornication, because of their idolatry, because of their wickedness. Jump over to chapter 15, verse one. Look at chapter 15, verse one. Look what the Lord says. Then said the Lord unto me, though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people. Cast them out of my sight and let them go forth. Now, this shows right here that it's not that Jeremiah wasn't praying hard enough. It's not that he wasn't praying right. It's not like, well, Moses did it. What's wrong with you, Jeremiah? Can't you fix things? God's saying, look, even if Moses and Samuel were praying, it wouldn't fix this. I'm not gonna spare these people. Let's go back to chapter 14. I just wanted to show you that from chapter 15. But he says in verse number 10, or let's look at verse nine. Why shouldest thou be as a man astonished, as a mighty man that cannot save? Yet thou, O Lord, art in the midst of us, and were called by thy name, leave us not. But look at the Lord's response in verse 10. Thus saith the Lord unto this people. Thus have they loved to wander. They've not refrained their feet. Therefore, the Lord doth not accept them. He will now remember their iniquity and visit their sins. Then said the Lord unto me, pray not for this people for their good. When they fast, I will not hear their cry. And when they offer burnt offering and an ablation, I will not accept them, but I will consume them by the sword and by the famine and by the pestilence. Now look, God's not giving an inch here, is he? Why? Because the people are not listening to Jeremiah. Jeremiah's heart's in the right place. Jeremiah's begging for God to be merciful. Jeremiah's trying to intercede for the people. Jeremiah's preaching to these people. And as we know from studying the entire book of Jeremiah, the people are not listening. But Jeremiah wants them to be spared anyway. He wants God to just spare them for his namesake. He just wants to have these people spared just because, I mean, they're Israel. You know, and honestly, I can see where Jeremiah's coming from. I mean, he loves people. He loves the lost. He's trying to say, you know, father, forgive them for they know not what they do. But the truth of the matter is they did know what they were doing. And the truth of the matter is they'd been given many opportunities to repent. Jeremiah keeps preaching to them. Even throughout the book of Jeremiah, God keeps reaching out his hand to them. But honestly, you can take the horse to the water, but you can't make him drink. And you know, all we can do in our lives is preach the truth. All we can do is go out soul winning and knock doors and present the gospel. But we can't make someone believe the gospel. And we can't make someone get the sin out of their life. We can't make people get right with God. That's a personal decision that those people have to make. And even if we pray and pray and pray, people are gonna face the consequences for their actions. Now, I'm not saying that we shouldn't intercede because we should intercede. Many times through our intercessory prayers, God can bring circumstances into people's lives that will make them repent, that will make them get things right, that will make them more open to receiving the gospel or receiving whatever other correction they need to receive in their lives. So I'm not saying that we shouldn't try to intercede for people and try to beg out. But at the end of the day, that's a personal decision on their part. And it's important that we understand that because that's important doctrine. A lot of people have this Calvinist idea that God makes people get saved or that God chooses who gets saved and who doesn't. At the end of the day, that's a personal decision between that person and God, whether they get saved. And there's nothing we can do to make that happen. Now, when I pray for someone to be saved, the way that I pray is, I'll say something along the lines of, Lord, if there's anything in this person's life that's hindering them from being saved or something that's stopping them from being receptive, take that out of their life. Or I'll say this, Lord, if there's something that you could do to get this person's attention, where they'll start thinking about the fact that they're gonna die someday and they're gonna start thinking about the fact that heaven and hell are real, bring those kinds of circumstances into their life. And I've even prayed for someone that I was in the process of witnessing to when there was someone that I really wanted to get saved and I decided for a short time to target that person in prayer. And I learned this from a preacher in California that challenged me on this. And he told me a lot of great stories about people where he had picked a person and just targeted that person and just set out to get that person saved and did a lot of prayer and fasting to that effect just to try to get that one person saved. And he told me about getting some hard cases saved. And he challenged me on that. And he talked about how he would pray for that person an amount of time that he couldn't have kept it up longterm. He just said, okay, for this week or two week period, I'm gonna pray for this one person for an hour a day, just for this one person to be saved. Now, when he told me that, I thought to myself, well, how do you pray for one hour for a person to be saved? Because I know that the Lord does not want us to make vain repetition, just chanting or saying, oh God, let them be saved. Oh God, let them be, that's not biblical prayer. So I said to him, I said, well, how are you praying for an hour a day? You know, this got to be saying, well, he said, oh, he said, I sit down and I make a whole long list of things to pray. He said, I'm not doing a vain repetition. He would pray that God during the time that he's witnessing to them, that God would even keep them up at night, that they would not be able to sleep, that they would just lay in bed and that every scripture that he had given them would just ring in their ears and just keep coming back. And he would pray that they would keep being reminded of things everywhere they go. Things will just keep reminding them of the gospel, reminding them of their own mortality, reminding them of heaven and hell. And that every verse he had spoken to them when he gives them the gospel would just keep reverberating there. It would just keep coming back to them to where they would just have that verse memorized, whether they want to or not. They heard it once, but that it would just keep coming back and coming back and coming back. So he had a whole big elaborate list. I got a whole bunch of ideas from him. And I said, I'm gonna try this on somebody. And I picked somebody that I figured was a hard case, somebody that I thought, this guy's never gonna be saved. He's one of the least likely to be saved. And it was one that I really wanted to be saved. So I made my own list and I decided I was gonna put this into practice. I was gonna try this. Cause I was challenged by this guy and the success stories that he told me of people in his life that he'd been able to win the Lord. So I spent a couple of weeks. But here's the thing about that though. You can't just pray for somebody to get saved. You also have to go give them the gospel. Okay, you don't just pray, oh God, he's not gonna send an angel to do it. You got to go do it. Even in the Bible days, when we're reading stories about angels and everything, that's still not how God got the gospel out. Because even when the angel appeared unto Cornelius, he tells him, go find a guy named Simon Peter and he'll tell you the gospel. You know, why didn't the angel just present the gospel? Because it's people that win people to the Lord. It's man to whom God has committed the ministry of reconciliation. The Lord got people saved directly only when he was a human being, when he was Jesus on this earth, when God became man, then of course, Jesus won people to Christ as a man. But even the famous story of Saul on the road to Damascus or Paul, as he would later be known, when Paul got saved, a lot of people think of him being converted on the road to Damascus, or they'll talk about his road to Damascus conversion. But in reality, that's not what happened. The Lord appeared to him and told him, go and find this man named Ananias. He's gonna tell you what to do. And then he goes and finds that man and that man tells him to wash his sins away, calling upon the name of the Lord. That's when he called upon the name of the Lord. He didn't call upon the name of the Lord for salvation on the road to Damascus. I don't think he fully understood salvation on the road to Damascus. He got that soul winning from Ananias. Cornelius got it from Peter. The Bible says ministers by whom we believe, even as the Lord gave to every man. God uses man to preach the gospel to man and to win man to Christ. It's not just done directly through divine intervention. That's why if you're gonna sit there and spend a bunch of time praying for someone to be saved, make sure that that person even hears the gospel. Go preach the gospel to that person. So anyway, I picked this person and I started just praying for this person an inordinate amount of time praying. I did some fasting and I went through this advice that I'd been given. And I went to this person, I gave him the gospel and he didn't get saved. Not only did he not get saved, but he seemed to just be totally indifferent to what I was saying. He seemed to be making a joke of what I was saying. Didn't care, blowing me off, just no interest at all. But I still, I said, no, you're gonna listen to me. You know, let me finish this. So I got through the whole plan of salvation with him. I made him listen to the whole thing. And I thought to myself, well, so far, you know, that's a flop, right? Then a few days later, I heard second hand from someone else that this guy had repeated to them some of the stuff that I'd been saying in some of the scriptures, not in a positive way, but just saying, oh yeah, he came by, he told me this, he told me this, he told me this. And I was thinking to myself, that's amazing that he remembered it so well, cause that's exactly what I was praying. That the verses would keep coming back, that the points keep coming back. And this guy was able, and when I talked to him, he was in a somewhat, just in a slightly inebriated state. But he was still fully, you know, able. He was sober enough, you know. But I was just blown away that he remembered so much. And I thought, you know, God's working here. This is good, let's keep this thing going. Then about a week later, you know, with a lot of prayer in between, I went back and gave the gospel to him. This time he was totally receptive to it. I spent like 45 minutes talking to him and praise the Lord, he got saved. He got baptized, he got in church, he's a fundamental Baptist. And you know what, it was a great experience. So I can say that, you know, that pastor in California was right. You know, that prayer does work. Now I'm not saying that every person that you pray for in this way is gonna get saved. Because again, he's the one who decided to get saved. He could have decided not to get saved, but you see how the Lord brought circumstances into his life over the course of those two weeks, brought things to his mind, kept it in his mind, kept bringing it back, kept him up at night, whatever it took. I know that, you know, my grandparents have a similar testimony where my grandma was saved, but my grandpa was not. She prayed that he would lose everything if that's what it would take for him to be saved, which would obviously affect her adversely as the wife, but he was making really good money. He was making money hand over fist, and it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to be saved. And so she prayed, God, let him lose everything if that's what it will take. He did lose everything. And he got saved, became a Baptist deacon, became a great soul winner, you know, but he had to lose everything first. And he never really made it financially after that. He always was just, you know, on an average income. He never made it big like he had before he was saved thereafter, because the Lord knows that we can't handle too much money as Christians, as human beings. So he keeps us, you know, within our means. And then, you know, I could go through stories, but you know, I've got another story I could tell you of something real recent where, you know, someone that I know, a godly person was praying for a certain loved one to, you know, kind of lose everything and kind of get in a position where they'd be more receptive. They did lose everything, but still haven't gotten saved. And you know what, that person may never get saved. That doesn't mean that God didn't answer prayer though, because if God afflicted that person, and if God brought the gospel to that person, and if God put that person in a position where they'd be more likely to receive the gospel, and if the Holy Ghost of God just kept reproving them of that sin of not believing on Christ, and it kept coming back, then you know what, God's done everything he can do at that point. Right. And so we need to realize that at the end of the day, salvation is a personal decision. Well, you say, well, they'll only be saved if the Father draws them. But Jesus said, if I be lifted up from the earth, I'll draw all men unto me. That's right. Everyone is drawn to some extent. Everyone has the opportunity to be saved. Everyone has a chance. Now, if we pray, we can help people's chances. And if we go preach the gospel, we're helping that person's chance of being saved. But at the end of the day, it's their personal decision. A lot of people struggle to understand this. I don't know why, because to me, it's not that complicated. I hope everybody here understands the difference. But you know, my brother had an illustration like this. He said that if you walked into JCPenney to buy a necktie, and you walk in and there's a display case, the ties are there, the price tag is on the tie, it's all right there, you have the opportunity to either purchase that tie or to walk out without buying a tie. You had every opportunity to get a tie at JCPenney. There were plenty of options and whatever. But if the salesman would have come over and helped you and said, hey, can I help you find anything? Oh, you're interested in a tie? Here, let me show you what we got here. Hey, this one looks like it would do well on you. You know what, you're probably more likely to buy a tie when somebody, that's why these businesses even hire salesmen. Because they know they're gonna sell more clothing. They're gonna sell more books. But you wouldn't really have to. They could have just lined up the cash registers and everybody's at the cash register just sort of waiting for a customer who could easily walk in. They've seen the advertisements. They saw the TV commercial. They heard the radio ad. They got the mailed in flyer. They could easily just walk in and buy the tie, take it up the cash register and buy. What do you need a salesman for? You know why you need a salesman? Because you're gonna sell more ties that way. Okay. Well, you say, well, this is a carnal example. But here's the thing, Jesus often used carnal examples in order to give us a spiritual truth. And so the parable of JCPenney continues. So you could line up, you could line up a bunch of guys at the cash register just sitting there saying, well, you know, if they want something, they'll come buy it. And that's your average church today. They got the church house all set up and they're saying, well, people want, and obviously you don't buy salvation, it's free. But they just stand behind the cash register. No parables ever exact, is it? The world isn't JCPenney, folks. But the world's not a fishing net either. You know, and the world's not a field either. It's a parable. You know, your average church today is standing behind the cash register just saying, well, you know, if they want something, they'll buy it. And they're doing their nails and they're on a personal phone call, right? And they're hanging out, they're eating lunch, sitting behind the counter, customers are confused, customers are perplexed. They don't know where to find the ties. They don't know where to find the, well, if they looked hard enough, they'll find it. Back to my personal conversation, back to filing my nails as a lady. God forbid dudes are filing their nails at JCPenney. But then again, that's the day that we're living in. You know, that's what the average church is doing. Just sit back and just say, well, you know, the advertisements have gone out. I mean, everybody knows there's a church here. Everybody knows who Jesus is. Everybody in the United States has heard of Jesus, which is true. Everybody around the world's heard of Jesus. Don't let them tell you that people in the other parts of the world never heard of Jesus. The Muslims have heard of Jesus. He's mentioned frequently in the Quran. Of course, it lies about him. Oh, they've heard of Jesus. They've, you know, if they wanted to be saved, they'd come, we don't wanna bug them. We don't wanna pester them. We don't wanna get in their face and say, hey, can I help you find something? We might offend them. Plus, I'm tired. I wanna sit on my rear end behind this cash register. You know what? That's not how JCPenney operates. But that's how your average church operate. Just sit back and wait for them to come to us. And then we can tell ourselves, well, they have the opportunity to buy everything in the store. It's all right there. But what if you hired a few salesmen that would go out and go to that person and say, hey, let me take you to exactly what you need. Now, my wife used to work in a bookstore before we were married. And in that bookstore, this is what she was taught. Whenever someone asks where a book is, you take them to the aisle where that book is. She said, you take the book off the shelf and put it in their hand. And then they're like twice as likely to buy it. Because if you just pointed it on the shelf and then walk away, then they're gonna walk over and look at it and then they might just put it back on the shelf and decide not to buy it. But when the sales associate puts it in your hand, you kinda feel like you have to buy it at that point. Who knows what I'm talking about, right? I mean, you know, I've been in that situation. They put it in your hand, you feel like an idiot. Like, oh, thanks for going through all that trouble. Psych, not buying it. You know, you feel kinda like, you feel dumb. So it's kinda, you say, well, that's high pressure. Well, not really. I mean, they're just taking it out and putting it in your hand. You say, well, you know, that's kinda, I don't know. I mean, shouldn't we just kinda let the Holy Spirit work? Hey, you know what? Let the Holy Spirit work, but why don't you work too? Why do you wanna sit on your butt and talk about the Holy Spirit working? Why don't we both work? Why don't we do our part and let God do his part and we can get some people saved? Why don't we, see, we need to get in the yoke with Jesus to where it's us and him pulling together, working together. Not just, okay, Jesus, you're over in the yoke. Okay, I'm gonna sit down and have a cigarette. You go ahead and pull that yoke, Jesus. That's your average church spiritually today. That's what they're doing. They're on a smoke break that lasts for years. You know, what we oughta be doing is going out and listen, brother, I'm on commission spiritually. And you know what? That's true because the Bible says that we gather fruit unto eternal life and we reap a harvest of souls. And God said, he that gathereth, it reaps wages unto everlasting life. You know what? God said, I'm gonna reward every man according as his work shall be. Those who are sitting behind the counter of that JCPA, they're getting a spiritual minimum wage. Because they didn't sell anything. Ah, you're so carnal. You know what? Some people, they get a little too over spiritual, to quote unquote, because there's nothing spiritual about laziness. They get this overly spiritual, just high-minded, arrogant, and let's just call it what it is, Calvinist, of like, oh, we're so enlightened and we're so spiritual that we just understand how we just sit back and let God do everything. And we're so spiritual, as we just sit back and just allow the spirit to work and the spirit just works and works and works, while we just get just lazier and sedentary. Look, that is not being spiritual. That's being carnal. Because the Bible's a book about working, about serving the Lord. Notice the word serve. Serving the Lord. Jesus said, occupy till I come. And I think a lot of people misunderstand that verse. They think occupy means like occupy space. Occupy a chair, occupy a bean bag. Like that's what they think it means. Occupy is the verb that goes with the noun, occupation. And what's your occupation? It's your job. He said, occupy till I come. He's saying, worked. We'll work till Jesus comes. We'll work. And then we'll work some more after he comes. Let's keep working. Work. Son, go work today in my vineyard. But he answered, I will not. That's your average church today. Not willing to go work in the vineyard. And then, you know, I have way more respect for somebody who says, and I know people that say this. You know what? I think soul winning's great. I love to be a part of a soul winning church. I love to see people get saved. But you know what? I'm not gonna go soul winning. Just because honestly, it's not my thing and I'm kinda backslidden and I don't enjoy it. So, but I'm glad everybody else is doing it. You know, I have way more respect for that person that just admits, you know what? Soul winning's great, but I'm a little backslidden. I'm skipping it. I'm not into it. Maybe someday, but, or maybe never. I have way more respect for that guy than the guy who goes like, oh, well I'm backslidden and I don't wanna go soul winning. So I'm gonna come up with a doctrine that soul winning's bad. I'm gonna come up with a doctrine that soul winning doesn't work. I'm gonna come up with a doctrine that God wins people, the Lord, all by himself. And we just sit back and just let it happen. Isn't that, doesn't that sound so wonderful and spiritual? As the world goes to hell, because the Bible says if our gospel be hid, it's hid to them that are lost. And the Bible says, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven. The Bible says, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. The Bible says to go into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in. That my house may be filled. Does that sound like God's saying, sit behind the desk and wait for them to come to you? Well, if they have a question, they'll come ask me. No, he said, you go compel them to come in. You know what compulsion means? What does compel mean? What does it mean to compel someone? Compel means, and the story is Luke 14. It's the man who's made a great wedding feast for his son. And he's trying to get people to fill the table because all the food's been made and he doesn't want it to go to waste, okay? This is what compel would look like, okay? I'm gonna compel Brother Dominique to come. Hey, Brother Dominique, I want you to come to this dinner I've prepared, right? And you know, tell me no, be polite about it though. Just kind of, you know, turn me down. Hey man, you wanna come to dinner at my house? We got dinner ready, there's extra plate at the table. You wanna come? No, I'm all right, it's okay. Listen, I really want you to come, okay? I mean, listen, it's going in the trash if you don't eat it. I want you to come, all right? Get your wife, kid, all right? Let's do it, all right? Now, here's the thing. I'm not forcing him, you know, I'm not gonna force him. If he just says like, no, I'm not coming, you know, then I'm gonna say, all right, no problem, see you later. Okay, but here's the thing though. But you see how I'm kind of putting a little pressure on him, like, I'm urging him, like, look, this is gonna be the best meal you've eaten a long time, buddy, you know what I'm saying? You know, I'm just kind of putting, look, we gotta understand what God wants us to do with soul winning. Look what was said unto Paul in Acts, and notice the word Acts. Why isn't that book called The Sitting Around of the Apostles? Or why isn't it called The Prayers of the Apostles? Now, there's a lot of praying in that book, but there's also a lot of action to go with the prayer. So that's why it's not called The Bible Studies of the Apostles, or The Calvinist Meditation and Navel Gazing of the Apostles. It's actually called The Acts of the Apostles. And remember when he's preaching so hard, what does Agrippa say? Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. And he says, man, don't let it be almost, let it be altogether, he says. He said, I want you to be just like me, except without this chain, because he's chained up, you know, he's in prison. Yeah, I want you to be like me, except for you to not be in jail. Paul wasn't one of these people who said, hey, I'm against confrontational soul winning. You know, and I'm not saying to be rude to people. We shouldn't be rude. I'm not saying to put your foot in the door or something like that. I mean, that's obviously, that's over the line. But I'm saying there should be an urgency. There should be a preaching of now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation. Not to be rude, and look, if people don't want to hear it, then you move on. Obviously people don't, I'm not saying to cram it, hey, you're gonna listen to me. Now that's only for close friends and family that you're targeting in prayer, you know, for two weeks. That's the people you say, no, you're gonna listen to me, all right. But I mean, strangers, people that you don't know that well, obviously you're not gonna be that forceful with them. But you know what? You don't want to just be so lackadaisical about it either. You know, I mean, do you care? Do you want these people, you know, get out there and say, listen, like, you don't want to go to the door and be like, I mean, you don't really want to hear the gospel, do you? I mean, you wouldn't, I mean, yeah, you probably don't want me to take 10 minutes and show you, right? Because I can go, you know, I mean, I don't want to be too pushy now. You know, why don't you tell people, hey, you know what? I can show you right now from the Bible how to be saved. You'd like to know that, wouldn't you? That's the way I say it. You'd like to know that, wouldn't you? You know, I'm kind of nodding my head, trying to get that. And look, if they say, hey, no thanks, I'm not interested, then it's all right, God, you know, I'm not rude. I say, hey, all right, God bless you, have a great day. Now I've seen people who do this wrong, okay? Oh man, that just reminds me. We've got these soul winning seminar DVDs in the back from Brother Jimenez, are they all, they're already gone. Stock that shelf, Brother Baker, all right? As soon as the service is over, because it looks like they flew off the shelves even before the service. But Brother Jimenez did like a three hour soul winning training seminar. We put it on a DVD and we want everybody to get one. So we're gonna have them on the back shelf. Whoever wants one to learn more about soul winning. And he covers a lot of good just etiquette and stuff like that. I've been soul winning with people literally where they knock on somebody's door and the person says they don't want to, you know, like, oh, no thanks, I'm not, you know, I don't have time or whatever. And they just go like. And then I have to like, and then I have to smooth it over. I'm like, all right, thanks, see you later. You know, God bless you, have a great evening. Cause they're just like. Or I've heard people say like, oh, no thanks, I'm not really, I don't have time. And then they're just like, are you serious? I mean, this is your soul. You know, and they're like angry. Like, what do you mean? So you just don't care? Just don't care about Jesus, the gospel? Shake the dust off at that door. You know, you want, you know, if people say no, but you know what I'll do though? I try to get them to listen if I can though. So in a nice way, polite, I mean, I'll say to them, hey, you know, can I take, can I just take five minutes to, you know, to, you know, present this to you, even though it's really gonna take 10. But you know, have you got five minutes or so? And if they say like, no, I don't really have time. I'm not really interested, I'll always say to them, all right, well, let me just leave you with one verse. You know, and usually nine times out of 10, they'll take that one verse. And at least you planted a seed. But then what I'll do is I'll present the verse. And if they seem like they were interested in the verse as I'm showing it to them, if they seem like, oh, cause I've had some people when I show them the one verse or quote the one verse, they'll go like, oh, wow, that's really interesting. You know, they seem like they were, then I'll say, well, look, let me just show you the rest of it, it'll only take me like, you know, five minutes or so, if you got a few more minutes, I can show you the rest. And then sometimes that second time they'll be like, okay. But then sometimes I'll say, you know, I mean, have you got just a few minutes, I could go through with you. And then sometimes they'll just still say like, no, no, we're, you know, we're busy, but thank you anyway. Then it's like, all right, God bless you, have a great day. But sometimes, but you know what? I'm trying to get them to listen. You know, within the realms of staying polite, you want to kind of, you know, express the urgency that you really want to show them. Like sometimes, like for example, you'll ask sometimes if you can show it to them and they'll say like, well, I don't know. You know, they're kind of like, if they're acting like, well, maybe, but I mean, we're kind of leaving sort of in like three hours. Then I just say to them, you know, I don't just go like, oh, okay, we'll see you later then. You know, at that point, I'll say like, well, look, this is only gonna, come on. It's gonna take a few minutes. Let me just show you. Ah, you're so carnal using these slick sails. Shut up, you fool. Why don't you love souls? Why don't you want to compel them to come in? Why don't you want to pull them out of the fire? Hating even the garments spied by the flesh. Why don't you love people? It's no skin off my back whether people hear the gospel. I want them to be saved because I love them. That's the only reason. So you're just trying to fill up the church. Soul winning doesn't fill up the church. Have you noticed that? That's why other churches are quitting soul winning because it doesn't work to bring people to church. It works to get people out of hell. But we're talking about everything except Jeremiah 14. So let's get back to Jeremiah 14. Don't forget to pick up those disks from Brother Jimenez on the back. But let's get back to the passage. You know, it's important though because that's what this passage is about. It's about Jeremiah begging for God to spare people, but God's not gonna spare them because they're not making the personal decision to turn to the Lord themselves and they have to do that themselves. Whether that's to be saved, they have to make that decision or even if they're already saved, let's say they're in sin, it's also their personal decision whether they get in or out of sin. Whether or not the chastisement of the Lord is gonna be upon them. So I believe we left off in verse 12. At the end of verse 12, the Lord just finished taking a really hard line saying, I'm not sparing these people. They're all gonna die, no mercy because they're not even listening to your preaching. Look at verse 13, this is Jeremiah's response. Then said I, Ah Lord God, behold the prophet saying to them, ye shall not see the sword, neither shall you have famine, but I will give you a sure at peace in this place. So Jeremiah is bringing this up to God like, well, I mean, are these guys just totally out to lunch? Is there any truth in what they're saying? And he's also kind of making an excuse for the people saying, well, God, it's not really their fault because they have these preachers lying to them. I mean, Joyce Meyer's telling these people, God's not mad at you, but it sounds like you're really mad. You know, Joel Osteen's telling them your best life now, but it sounds like they're gonna die of the worst painful death, which is starvation and dehydration. Then the Lord said unto me, verse 14, the prophets prophesy lies in my name. I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them. They prophesy unto you a false vision and divination and a thing of naught and the deceit of their heart. Therefore, thus saith the Lord concerning the prophets that prophesy in my name, and I sent them not, yet they say, sword and famine shall not be in this land. By sword and famine shall those prophets be consumed. And the people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword, and they shall have none to bury them, their wives, nor their sons, nor their daughters, for I will pour their wickedness upon them. So whose fault is it that they're suffering? It's not God's fault. He said, I'm gonna pour out their wickedness upon them. You see, that's why the Bible says in Ezekiel, back to the soul winning illustration that we've kind of been talking about throughout this sermon, God says that if we give the gospel to someone and they reject it, it says their blood's on their own head. That's why Paul, when he had done a whole bunch of soul winning and preached the word of God everywhere in Ephesus, he said, I'm free from the blood of all men, for I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. He said, I'm free from the blood of all men, but in Ezekiel it said, if you don't warn them, their blood's on your hands. Their wickedness, look at verse 17. Therefore, thou shalt say this word unto them, let mine eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease for the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breach and with a very grievous blow. If I go forth into the field, then behold the slain with the sword. And if I enter into the city, then behold them that are sick with the famine. Yea, both the prophet and the priest go about into a land that they know not, meaning they're gonna be carried captive into a foreign country, Babylon namely. Hast thou utterly rejected Judah? This is what Jeremiah's praying. Hath thy soul loathed, Zion? Loath means hated. Why hast thou smitten us and there is no healing for us? We looked for peace and there's no good, and for the time of healing and behold, trouble. We acknowledge, O Lord, our wickedness and the iniquity of our fathers, for we've sinned against thee. Do not abhor us for thy name's sake. Do not disgrace the throne of thy glory. Remember, break not thy covenant with us. Are there any among the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause rain? Or can the heavens give showers? Art not thou he, O Lord our God? Therefore we will wait upon thee, for thou hast made all these things. But the problem is, Jeremiah's kinda trying to speak for his whole nation, but they're not really with him on this. Now, some people are. There are other godly men that we're gonna meet throughout the book of Jeremiah, even great men of God, such as Barak, the scribe, who's a character later in the book of Jeremiah. Also, Ebed-Melech, the Ethiopian, is a main character that God says he's gonna bless, that's a righteous man. You know, so obviously Jeremiah's preaching to people. There are a lot of people that are hearing him and being saved on a personal level. But as a nation, he's not speaking for the nation. This would be sorta like if you prayed God bless America. Is it really gonna work? If you say, oh God, we acknowledge that we're wicked, God. I mean, God, we know we're, we know we're backslidden, Lord. We know we need to get, because here's the thing, the vast majority of this country thinks that it's okay to be a homo, that it's okay to commit adultery, that it's okay to do all these things that God prohibited. I mean, I just looked at a poll that was just put out a week ago by Gallup. So this isn't some shady backroom poll where they called 50 people or something. It's just a major Gallup poll. And the Gallup poll purported to show the major religions of America and how they believed about certain subjects. And then also to poll the irreligious. So they didn't poll any fundamental Baptists, unfortunately. I didn't get the call. You know, they didn't even mention Baptists. They didn't even mention, you know, a lot of right. But they talked to Catholics. They talked to Protestants, which no Baptists are not Protestants. Protestants are just Catholic light, okay? But they polled Mormons and they polled Jews and they polled those who have no religion. This particular poll did not, I don't think include the Jehovah's false witnesses, but I've seen them included in other similar polls to this. But in this particular poll, they asked them about issues like abortion. They asked them about sodomy, what the world calls homosexuality, what the Bible calls sodomy or filth or perversion. Doesn't use the word perversion, but it does call it filth, vile, sodomy, strange, queer. That's what strange means. But anyway, they asked about all these things and it was pretty interesting just how many people can call themselves religious. They call themselves Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, Mormon, and still think these things are okay. I mean, it was mind blowing. For example, I don't have the numbers in front of me, so I'm just gonna give a ballpark. You're gonna have to look this up on your own if you wanna get the exact data. Just came out like a week ago, poll of five major religions or whatever in America. But the Jews had less morality than the people with no religion. You know, so it was like 70, if 75, and I don't have the exact numbers, but it was like if 75% of the irreligious, the atheist or agnostic, if 75% of them thought that abortion was wrong, it was like, or that it was okay. 75% thought abortion's fine. Then the Jews, it was like 78% thought it was fine. Or if X amount of atheists, maybe 70 some percent of atheists thought that it was fine to be a homo, well then like even more Jews thought it was fine to be a homo. I mean, isn't that, it was bizarre. It's like being Jewish made you less moral than even somebody who's just an atheist, you know. And you say, well that's not true because I met a pro-life Jewish person. Yeah, but these are statistics, so it's what the majority is. So yeah, okay, if 75% believe one way, that means 25% believe the other way, I get that. But the majority of the Jews were actually the most immoral of the religions polled. The sad thing was the Mormons came in, you know, as the most clean cut, you know, the most straight laced, but of course that's because they're not pulling fundamental bad bits because we would kick their butts in that poll if we did, you know that's true, okay. But, you know, even the Mormons, it was like 22% of them thought these things are wrong. Which still means that there's, you know, 70 some percent that think it's okay. I mean, it's unbelievable. So as a nation, even the religious people, even the Catholics, the Protestants, the Mormons, the Jews, even they're just in huge numbers saying, hey, murder is fine, being a pervert is fine, adultery is fine, it's really unbelievable. So if we sit there and pray for God to bless our nation and our nation doesn't change their ways, and our nation's not even sorry for what they've done, but rather they are proud of it. You know, they're marching down the street with pride. I mean, now even abortion is becoming cool. Where they say, hey, I had an abortion, I'm proud of it. They have billboards like that. Hey, I've had abortions, abortions are wonderful, abortions are cool. I mean, a Jewish actress just came out last week and said abortion is cool. She literally said, I love Judaism because with Judaism, abortions are cool. That was the exact quote, I saw her say, and then you say, well, she doesn't represent Judaism. Well, she represents 75% of Judaism, you know? I mean, she represents a certain section. But look, and I realized there are even Baptist churches that are just accepting of these bizarre things. That's why God can't bless America. Sitting around saying God bless America, well, no, no, no, we need to fix, how about let's fix America? And this kind of goes back to what I was preaching on Sunday night of this thing of like send, oh God, send revival. God's up in heaven. It's kind of like with Jeremiah and the Lord in this passage there's kind of a disconnect. Are you noticing the disconnect in this passage where Jeremiah keeps saying the same thing to God and God keeps saying the same thing back? And it's like Jeremiah's not really getting the Lord's message and the Lord's not getting Jeremiah's message because guess what? They're kind of at an impasse here. Jeremiah's like, bless us anyway. We're the chosen people. We're Israel, we're Judah, we're Zion, we're Zion. And he's just, no, don't even come at me with that Zionism, Jeremiah. They're gonna eat the fruit of your own wickedness. That's what, I mean, that's what's going on in this chapter. There's a dichotomy. If you read this chapter carefully and if you draw lines between what the Lord's saying and what Jeremiah is saying, it's two real different things. I'm not saying that Jeremiah's ungodly for doing it. He's trying. I, you know, I'm glad, I mean, I think what Jeremiah is doing is a good thing here, but he's sort of just an exercise in futility in the end because you know, you can't, you can take the horse to the water but you can't make him drink. Now I don't think Jeremiah wasted his life for one second because number one, he did reach individuals. And that's what our life's about. We're not, I do not believe that we're ever gonna fix America. America is on a downward spiral. America is on a bobsled to hell. And honestly, I don't believe that we're gonna fix that. But I do believe that we can be ambassadors for Christ and that we can hold forth the word of life in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation among whom we shine as lights in the world. I'm not discouraged at all. I'm excited. I'm fired up. I wanna do great things for God. I think we can see many people saved and I'm not one of these people that says, well, we're in the land of seeing church age so the church isn't gonna grow and churches are gonna get smaller. No, no, our church is getting bigger. It's getting bigger and bigger and, you know, would to God it will continue to keep growing, getting bigger, that's what it looks like it's doing. Keep it going, keep on growing. Hey, we can do big things for God, but you know what? Even if we're running 10,000, that's a small percentage of our nation of 340 million. So the bottom line is we can reach the individual and we can warn everybody. That's the goal. Warn everybody, reach the individuals. That's our soul winning plan. Warn for, we're not gonna save 4 million people in Maricopa County because they're only 3.9 million people. But even we're not gonna save 3.9 million people because we're going to warn 3.9 million people with the gospel, we're gonna strive to preach, but narrow is the way that leads into life and few there be that find it. That's all we can do. So I commend Jeremiah's efforts here in begging God for mercy. But at the end of the day, the Lord just has to break it to him. Sorry, buddy, don't pray for this people for their good because they gotta change first. They're not willing to change. Well, they're gonna eat the fruit of their own doings. And so Jeremiah continues. He doesn't get discouraged. He keeps preaching because we're only in chapter 14 and there's 52 chapters. Let's bow your heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much, Lord, for men like Jeremiah. He is the weeping prophet, Lord. He's weeping in this chapter. He loves people. He loves souls. He's trying his best, Lord. He's praying and he's also doing the work. Help us, Lord, to understand the hard truth of Jeremiah chapter 14 and that prayer isn't alone gonna do it. We also have to convince people to accept the Lord. And if they're not gonna do that, well, then there's nothing else we can do for that person, Lord. Help us to love people, Lord. And Lord, if we love people, that means we're giving them the gospel. Help us to love friends and family. Help us to pray earnestly for those that we care about to be saved because prayer does work. And help us also to get out there and roll up our sleeves and work in your vineyard and gather wages like a salesman on commission, Lord. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen.