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Jeremiah chapter 20, the Bible reads in verse number one, Now, Pashur the son of Immer the priest, who was also chief governor in the house of the Lord, heard that Jeremiah prophesied these things. Then Pashur smote Jeremiah the prophet and put him in the stocks that were in the high gate of Benjamin, which was by the house of the Lord. Now, Jeremiah has been preaching a lot of unpopular things. He's been preaching a lot of negative sermons. He's been preaching against all the false prophets of his day. And a lot of the things, he was apprehensive about preaching. And he's even going to the Lord and trying to get the Lord to back down a little bit from some of his fierce wrath and anger. But God keeps telling him, no, these people are wicked. These prophets are what you need to preach this and you need to condemn these people and so forth. And so he preaches the word of God faithfully. And in Jeremiah Chapter 20, he starts to reap the consequences of preaching hard against sin and preaching against the false prophets of his day. This guy Pashur, the son of Immer the priest, who was also chief governor in the house of the Lord. Remember when the Bible talks about the house of the Lord, at this time we're talking about the temple. And the temple is there. The Levites are there. The high priest is there. The sons of Aaron and so forth. The people who are running the temple at this time were very compromised. They're teaching false doctrine. They're preaching lies. They're not preaching the truth of God's word. Jeremiah is exposing that. And so they smite Jeremiah. Look at verse number 2. Pashur smote Jeremiah the prophet and put him in the stocks that were in the high gate of Benjamin which was by the house of the Lord. Now the stocks is that thing where they would put somebody's head in between a couple of pieces of wood and lock them in with their hands sticking out and their heads sticking out. And make them a public reproach. Obviously it's very uncomfortable to be locked up like that for a day, two days, however long he was locked up like that. But he's put in a very uncomfortable position. His head is locked in to a round hole in the wood. His hands are sticking through. And he's also exposed to public shame, public mockery, public derision, being locked up like that. It says in verse 3, it came to pass on the morrows of the next day. So he spends basically the night in that condition outside in the stocks. It came to pass on the morrow that Pashur brought forth Jeremiah out of the stocks. Then said Jeremiah unto him, I am so sorry and I'm going to tone down my preaching now. I'm going to calm down. I went a little bit overboard in my preaching against you and your friends. No, here's what he says. Then said Jeremiah unto him, verse 3, the Lord hath not called thy name Pashur, but Magor Mesabib. For thus saith, you know, when somebody calls you that, that's a pretty strong insult right there. Magor Mesabib. For thus saith the Lord, behold I will make thee a terror to thyself and to all thy friends. And they shall fall by the sword of their enemies and thine eyes shall behold it. And I will give all Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon and he shall carry them captive into Babylon and shall slay them with the sword. Moreover, I will deliver all the strength of this city and all the labors thereof and all the precious things thereof and all the treasures of the kings of Judah while I give into the hand of their enemies which shall spoil them and take them and carry them to Babylon. And thou Pashur and all that dwell in thine house shall go into captivity and thou shall come to Babylon and there thou shalt die and shall be buried there. Thou and all thy friends to whom thou has prophesied lies. That's what Jeremiah preached. And Jeremiah had just got done being locked up, tortured, and humiliated, and he doesn't tone down his preaching whatsoever. He preaches a harder message the moment he gets unloosed and the moment he's unlocked from those stocks. Now, a lot of people will criticize preachers that preach hard and they'll criticize preachers that will call out the false prophets and false teachers of their day and say, you know, how dare you spend an entire sermon or how dare you spend 10 minutes in a sermon. It doesn't matter how long you spend. You can spend a half hour. Look, I'll spend five hours if I have to, to expose some fraudulent lying devil of a false prophet. Why not? I didn't know there was a time limit on it, but how dare you spend the, you know, you should have been preaching on Jesus, they'll say. But here's the thing. We need to preach the whole Bible. The Bible does not command us just to preach the gospel. In fact, this is not the best place to preach the gospel. And let me tell you why. Most of the people in here are already saved. How many people in here would say, I know I'm saved. I know I'm going to heaven. Okay, look around. Does it look like we need the gospel preached right now? No, most, and I'm sure that there are some people here that are, that are unsaved, especially among children and so forth. But the vast majority of the people that are here already believe in Jesus Christ. They already know and believe the gospel of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. The Great Commission is not to just preach the gospel. It's to preach the gospel and it's to baptize and it's to teach them to observe all things whatsoever Christ command us. It's to preach the whole counsel of God. It's to preach the entire Bible. Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, does man live. Jesus Christ in the New Testament preached the same way as Jeremiah. Now, in this case, Jeremiah's nemesis is the governor of the house of the Lord. It happens to be this pasture of the son of Emma, the priest. This is the guy who really has it in for him. This is the guy who smote him or hit him. Smite means to hit someone. This is the guy who smote him, arrested him, tortured him overnight into the stocks and so forth. But Jesus preached against whom? He preached against the scribes, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the lawyers, okay? If you look at the names of the people that he called, he's saying woe unto the doctors and the lawyer, and he wasn't talking about physicians. The Bible used the word physician for what we think of as a doctor. When he says doctors, it's like this doctor so-and-so preacher is what he means. He preached against the lawyers, the scribes, the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and who were they? Well, in the case of the Sadducees and in the case of the scribes, they were the high priest and his buddies. The high priest and his buddies were Sadducees at the time that Jesus Christ was on this earth. The scribes were of the faction of the Sadducees. The scribes are the people that are just copying the Bible and writing out manuscripts of the Bible. A lot of those people were the exact people that Christ preached against. Why? Because the Sadducees were teaching serious false doctrine. They were teaching that there was no afterlife. They basically just thought that when you die, that's it. It's over. They didn't believe that there was any kind of an afterlife, any kind of a resurrection. They didn't believe in anything spiritual. They only believed in that which was physical. Therefore, they denied the existence of angels. They denied heaven and hell. They basically had a messed up false doctrine for a religion. And Jesus Christ preached against them, and he preached every bit as hard as Jeremiah because there's nothing new under the sun. Jeremiah is calling out the pasture of his day. Jesus in the New Testament preached against the pastures of his day. The Apostle Paul preached against, by name, Alexander, Hymenaeus, Philetus, Hermogenes, just to name a few of the people that he mentions by name in his letters. And he tells you that he has warned about these people often in Philippians 3. He said, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even with tears that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ. Paul often preached against the false teachers of our day. Look at Matthew chapter 23. Lest someone would try to make a difference between Jeremiah as a preacher and a modern day preacher. You see, the modern preacher cannot relate to anything in Jeremiah chapter 20, by and large. Your average independent fundamental Baptist, even the fundamentalists among us, your average independent fundamental Baptist cannot relate to a single word of Jeremiah 20. They don't know what it's like to be persecuted. They don't know what it's like to be mocked and ridiculed and hated because they make sure that everybody likes them. They make sure that the police chief comes and the mayor comes and the congressman comes and all the city council come and are best buddies with them and their services on Sunday morning. They make sure that they don't offend the conservative people. Yeah, they'll preach against the super liberals and the hippies and the commies and the lefties, but they will basically never offend 50% of the population that's the conservative crowd. But hold on a minute. These people are conservative. The Sadducees, they're conservative. The Pharisees, they're conservative. Pashur, the son of Amor, the priest. Look, these people are not atheists. Are they atheists? No. Are they Buddhist? Are they Hindus? Are they agnostic? Are they teaching, you know, just some radically different Islam? No, no, no. These are people who are professing the name of the same God that Jeremiah worshipped. They're professing to believe on the Lord and they're teaching lies in his name. They're the watered down, compromised, messed up version of the truth. Of Christianity. Okay. Look how Jesus preached in Matthew chapter 23 verse 13. But woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men, for you neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! This is Jesus preaching. If you have a red letter edition, you'll see these words are in red. For you devour widows' houses and for pretense make long prayer. Therefore, ye shall receive the greater damnation. Matthew 23 verse 15. Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you compass sea and land to make one proselyte. And when he is made, you make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves. Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing. But whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor, ye fools and blind. For whether is greater the gold or the temple that sanctifieth the gold. And whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing. But whosoever swereth by the gift that is upon it, he is guilty, ye fools and blind. For whether is greater the gift or the altar that sanctifieth the gift. Whosoever, therefore, shall swear by the altar, swereth by it, and by all things thereon. And whoso shall swear by the temple, swereth by it, and by him that dwelleth therein. And he that shall swear by heaven, swereth by the throne of God, and by him that sitteth thereon. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith. These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone, ye blind guides, which strain it and gnat and swallow a camel. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you may clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead man's bones and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchers of the righteous. And say if we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers, you serpents, you generation of vipers! How can you escape the damnation of hell? Oh, but we need to preach more like Jesus. We need to share more like Jesus. Because Jesus just hung around with all the whores and whoremongers and wicked people and he just had a beer with them and he preached love. He just preached only love. None of this hate speech. I mean, has anybody ever even read even the first book of the New Testament? It's funny, you know, you talk too much about the Old Testament. Get in the New Testament. Oh wait, this is the first book. Book one of the New Testament. And you know what? If you go to book 27, it gets even uglier. Revelation. And you know what? All in between, there's plenty of hard preaching. Look, I could never open the Old Testament for the next 365 days. I could preach for an entire year out of the New Testament and preach hard and rip. And you wouldn't even notice the difference. Okay, the bottom line is that people today want to cherry pick a few sweetness and light things from the New Testament and then just disregard the rest of the New Testament and disregard the entire Old Testament. Look, we could cherry pick sweetness and light from the Old Testament just as much. There are plenty of beautiful, kind, loving, nice passages of the Old Testament as much as there are in the New Testament. The Bible in both Old and New Testaments is a mixture of that which is positive, that which is negative, that which is uplifting, and that which is rebuking and correcting. It's a mixture of both. But today we have positive only preachers who would avoid passages like this, avoid passages like Jeremiah, because they don't want to end up in the stocks like this. And that's the honest truth. And they can lie and say, well, no, I just don't agree with all that hard preaching. I just don't agree. No, no, no, you agree in your heart. You know it's true. You don't want to go in the stocks. You don't want pasture to come smite you. That's why you won't preach hard. And that's the honest truth. What happened to Jesus after he preached this sermon? They killed him. They crucified him. All of the apostles went through different things. Most of them were preserved. God, for a long time, and some even died of old age. I mean, I believe that the apostle Paul died of old age, despite what the legend tells you if you study the Bible. You know, I see Jeremiah ending up in peace. But he went through a lot of persecution a long way. Job went through a lot of persecution. A lot of people in the Bible who did write suffered because the Bible says, listen to me now, Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. If you have a preacher who's never being persecuted, he's just not living godly in Christ Jesus, period. End of story, because it doesn't say most. Now, is everybody going to go to prison? No. Is everybody going to go through the same trials? No, because the Bible says that the devil would only cast some into prison. Revelation 2 10. Okay, but all will suffer some type of persecution. Now, what's funny is that a lot of people say, well, you know, you're not being persecuted. Come back when you're dead and then tell us you're being persecuted. Well, here's the thing. The Bible only said that some would be cast into prison and that some would be killed for the cause of Christ, but that all would be persecuted. So apparently persecution includes other forms of harassment, ridicule, being smitten, just being hit or attacked or, you know, whatever cast out of the synagogue or cast out of whatever business place or whatever. You know, look, if somebody loses their job because of standing up for the Lord Jesus Christ, that's persecution, period. Now, if somebody lose their job because they're lazy and that's just, you know, that's just an excuse. Oh, it's because of my faith. You know, that's another story. But I mean, if somebody actually lose and look, there have been people recently who lost their job because of taking a stand on the word of God. That's persecution. I don't care what anybody says. That's biblical. So we see here that Jesus Christ preached like Jeremiah and he's actually preaching against the same type of people, these apostate members of what, you know, is supposed to be the house of God. They're claiming to worship the Lord, but they have apostatized. Now, that makes perfect sense since when Jesus Christ was on this earth, many people thought that he was Jeremiah come back from the dead. Did you know that? They literally did. That was a rumor that was going around when Jesus was on this earth because Jesus in the book of Matthew, it's also book one, folks, you don't look. Okay, you don't want to read the whole New Testament. Just read one book, Matthew, the first book, and you'll see where Jesus asked the question in chapter 16, whom do men say that I am? What are people saying about me? You know, he's just with his disciples and he says that what, whom do men say that I, the son of man, am? And they said, you know what? Some people are saying that you're Elijah. Some people believe that you are Elijah come back because the Bible had said in Malachi that God would send Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And so some people thought Jesus was the fulfillment of that prophecy and that Jesus was Elijah come back. They said some say that you're Elijah. Some say that thou are Elias. And then they said some say that you're Jeremiah. Now, there wasn't even a prophecy about Jeremiah coming back, but Jesus was so much like Jeremiah that out of all the prophets, they picked Jeremiah and say, you know what? Some say that you're Jeremiah, you know, or one of the other prophets, perhaps. And then he says, you know, who do you say that I am? And of course, Peter says, you know, you're the son of God, this and that. And of course, you know, the scripture is pretty famous. So Jesus was confused for John Lennon. No, Jesus was confused. I mean, look, here's the thing. Buddha, you say, well, John Lennon was, you know, not for many more years in the 60s. OK, how about Buddha? You know, Buddha was 500 B.C. So why didn't anybody say some say that you're Buddha? They could have said that. I mean, Buddha and Buddhism had been around for 500 years when Jesus walked this earth. That's a fact. Some say you're Buddha. Some say you're John Lennon. You know, some say that you're Gandhi. You know, some say that you're Martin Luther King Jr. No, no, they said some say that you're Jeremiah and Elijah. Why? Because those are the two roughest prophets of the Old Testament. So I mean, Jesus did some rough preaching and just the boldness in Jesus reminded them of Elijah. They said, you know, the last time this world ever saw this bold of a preacher was Elijah or Jeremiah, because Jeremiah is a great, powerful, bold preacher. That's what we see. Let's go back to Jeremiah with that in mind. Why? Because we don't want to think that the Book of Jeremiah is some kind of an anomaly. You know, a lot of people with their doctrine, they literally consider the Old Testament almost like just something we would look at in a museum and just kind of look at it and just kind of admire it and just look at it and say, like, wow, that's really interesting that people said and did these things back then. You know, but they don't apply it, though. They think, like, it was like another world, just another era. You know, it's just something that's been covered in dust for years. It's almost like something in a museum where they say, well, you know, the New Testament's for us. The Old Testament is just kind of this distant memory that we kind of just look at it. Isn't that nice? Isn't that interesting? But don't apply it. Yet the Bible says in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, it actually says that all these things were written for our examples. All the Old Testament stories are written for our examples upon whom the ends of the world are come. In the New Testament, we're to take an example from these stories. Take, my brethren, the prophets. This is James. Take, my brethren, the prophets who have spoken in the name of the Lord for an example of suffering, affliction, and of righteousness. Behold, we count them happy which endure. You've heard of the patience of Job and have seen the end of the Lord. Look, the Bible tells in James to look to the prophets and to look to Job as an example for us. Take them for an example of being righteous and suffering affliction and enduring persecution. I'm telling you, it's a major false doctrine, this thing that just says, hey, the New Testament just completely wipes out the Old Testament, just negates it. No, no, no. The Old Testament scriptures are still profitable for doctrine. They're still our example. Look, are there differences between Old and New Testament? There's no question about that. But we don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. The Old Testament is still very relevant, very applicable, very profitable, especially a book like Jeremiah is just as relevant as today's newspaper, for crying out loud. But look at Jeremiah chapter 20 here. Jeremiah just finished being persecuted. He's locked up. He's tormented in the stocks for one day. He comes out and just immediately rebukes pasture to his face, preaches hard, doesn't tone things down. Verse number seven. So that's what he's doing outwardly. So outwardly, if we're an observer at that time, we see Jeremiah standing up to pasture, putting his finger in his face and say, you're not pasture, you're Magor and I'm going to make you a terror to you and your friends that you lie to and preach lies to each other and you're all going to die and your family is going to die and God's going to punish and curse you all. Just no compromise, no backing down, no fear. But, you know, on the inside though, he's struggling. Because why? He's human. So on the inside, because we're reading the book of Jeremiah, we get the inward struggle also in this chapter. The Bible says in verse seven, oh Lord, thou has deceived me and I was deceived. Thou art stronger than I. This is Jeremiah praying to the Lord. And as prevailed, I'm in derision daily. Everyone mocketh me. For since I spake, I cried out, I cried violence and spoil because the word of the Lord was made a reproach unto me and a derision daily. I mean, look, it's going to wear on you just daily. People mocking you, daily people attacking you, being a derision just every day, every day, every day. Eventually it wears on you and it's just like, man alive. And he says here in verse number nine, then I said I will not make mention of him. I mean, he got to the point where he's saying, you know what, I'm done. I'm done preaching. Every time I preach, everybody gets mad. Everybody ridicules me. Everybody mocks me. Everybody attacks me. Everybody hates me. I'm finished, he says. Then I said I will not make mention of him. I'm not even going to mention the Lord. I'm just going to keep my mouth shut. Nor speak any more in his name, but his word was in my heart as a burning fire. Shut up in my bones and I was weary with forbearing and I could not sing. He's saying I just could not stop preaching because it was just like a fire inside me. I had to preach the word of God. I had to preach. Notice what's not an option. Preaching soft. Not even an option. Doesn't even come into his mind. And you know what? Doesn't come into any man of God in the Bible's mind. Hey, let's start preaching lies. Hey, let's start softening the message. No, no, no. Men of God in the Bible, they either are preaching it straight down the line or they're just like, I quit. I can't do this anymore. You know what? That's how it should be. If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. If you can't take the mocking, the derision, the hate, the torture, the beating, then you have to quit. You have to stop. But standing up and preaching lies is not an option. And it never has been and it never will be. Standing up or saying, oh, well, I'm just going to only focus on the positive message and leave out the negative message. Is that what Jeremiah said? No, no, no. He just said, I'm not even going to mention the name of the Lord, though. Because to him, it's either preach it right or don't preach it at all. I love that attitude. Just say, you know, I'm not going to speak any more in his name. Not just, well, let's just preach the stuff people like. No, no, no. He's just like, I just can't be a preacher then. I just can't preach anymore. I just can't prophesy anymore. Because I either have to do it right or not at all. Wood to God, that would be the attitude amongst preachers of just, look, I'm either going to preach everything or nothing. But that's not what we see today. Look, I don't care what anybody says to try to defend people. The bottom line is that there are men of God all over this country, even amongst the independent fundamental Baptists, that are scared to preach the whole Bible. And it's a shame. And it's sad. And, you know, they ought to just either, they either need to get in or get out is what they need to do. Get in or get out. Because it's not even an option for real biblical preachers to trim the message. You either preach everything or nothing. That's what I love about this passage. Look at verse 10. For I heard the defaming of many, fear on every side. Report, say they, and we will report it. What are they saying? They're just listening to every word that Jeremiah says, just waiting for something that they can catch him and that they can report him to the authorities and get him arrested. They want to get him arrested again. They're looking for an excuse to put him in the stocks. Looking for an excuse to put him in prison. And he gets imprisoned repeatedly throughout this book. In the end, he's freed. In the end, he succeeds. But along the way, he gets thrown in prison a few times. He gets physically smitten a few times along the way. But he says, I heard defaming of many. What does defaming mean? People slandering him, attacking him, lying about him. Fear on every side. Report, say they, and we'll report it. These are the reporters. It even uses that word, the reporters. You know, they want to report on this. They want to catch him saying something that they can just nail him for, right? All my familiars watched for my halting. What are his familiars? Familiars are, it could be family, because you notice the similarity of the word family with familiar, but also it could just be people that are really close to him. You know, it could just be not a literal family. Familiars could also be like neighbors, just people that he knows really well, close people to him. He says, all my familiars watched for my halting, saying, paradventure, he'll be enticed and we shall prevail against him and we shall take our revenge on him. Even his buddies are out to get him. Even his familiars, whether that's relatives, whether that's, you know, neighbors or people that are close to him, his familiars are watching for him to have an opportunity to entice him, to ensnare him, to prevail against him, to take revenge on him. For what? Revenge for what? For preaching the word of God. For offending their soft little eardrums with biblical truth. But the Lord is with me as a mighty, terrible one. Therefore, my persecutors shall stumble and they shall not prevail. They shall be greatly ashamed, for they shall not prosper. Their everlasting confusion shall never be forgotten. But, O Lord of hosts, that tryest the righteous and seest the reins in the heart, let me see thy vengeance on them, for unto thee have I opened my cause. Sing unto the Lord, praise ye the Lord, for ye have delivered the soul of the poor from the hand of the evildoers. Of course, verse 12 is once again reminiscent of Revelation chapter 2, when Jesus Christ says, I search the hearts, I try the reins, and I will give unto every man according to his works. The Lord of hosts is the one who tries the righteous, sees the reins in the heart. Jesus said that about himself, because Jesus, of course, is the Lord. So he starts a new phase in verse number 14. But just to bring you up to speed again, verses 1 through 6, with Jeremiah being locked up overnight, let out, and then he rebukes Pashor. Then he prays to the Lord, just talking about the fact that everybody's mocking him, everybody's attacking him, everybody hates him, everybody's out to get him, and just kind of venting his frustration to the Lord. But he says, you know, I know that God's going to eventually see me through, and I know that God's eventually going to punish my persecutors, and they will suffer for what they've done to me. But look at verse 14. This is where Jeremiah just really gets depressed. This is where he really hits a low point. Jeremiah 20, verse 14. Cursed be the day wherein I was born. Let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed. Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying, A man child is born unto thee, making him very glad. And let that man be as the cities which the Lord overthrew and repented not. And let him hear the cry in the morning, and the shouting at noontide, because he slew me not from the womb, or that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb to be always great with me. He's saying, you know, I just wish I would have died in my mother's womb. Cursed be the day wherein I was born. I wish I would have just died and just remained in my mother's body, and that her body would have literally just absorbed the tissue back, and that her womb would have just always been great with me. That I would have just never seen the sun, never seen the light of day. He said, I wish that my mother would have been my grave. I wish I never would have even been born. I mean, he's pretty down at that point. Verse 18, he says, wherefore. Wherefore means why? Why? Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see labor and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame. Why was I even born? Was I just born to be a laughing stock to the whole world? Was I born to just be made fun of and mocked and hated and derided and ridiculed? I mean, what's the point? I might as well have just died in my mother's womb. I mean, that's pretty rough. Who else said things similar to this in the Bible? Job. And Job was the most righteous man on the earth at that time that he lived. Job said some of the same things. You know who else said things like this? Elijah. You know, the exact guys that Jesus Christ was likened unto, the exact guys that were pointed to by name, where James chapter 5 says, hey, be like Elijah. Elijah was a man of like passions as we are. And we see that where Elijah went through a period like this. You know, hey, be like Job. You've heard of the patience of Job. In James chapter 5, he tells us, be like Job. Be like Elijah. We know Jesus was like Elijah. We know Jesus was like Jeremiah. You know, why do they feel this way? You know why they feel this way? You know why? Because they're suffering, that's why. Because they're not living a picture-perfect life where everything is going well. They're enduring afflictions. They're going through persecution, all of them. All of them. But yet today's pastor, today's Christian wants to go through life and not make any waves and for everything to go well and not to suffer persecution, not to go through affliction, they're not reading the Bible and following the example. Look, if you take a stand, if you preach the Word of God, if you live godly in Christ Jesus, you're going to be persecuted. Now, everybody's persecution is not going to be the same. Not everybody's persecution is going to be as serious as what Jeremiah went through. But you are expected to go through something as a Christian, even in the New Testament, believe it or not. I mean, Philippians chapter 1, is that the New Testament? It says, for unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake. What do you think Jesus meant when he said, take up your cross and follow me? What do you think he meant by that? What's the, did he say, you know, take up your sofa, take up your beanbag? Did he say, you know, take up your fur coat and follow me? Take up your fancy jewelry and follow, take up your limousine and follow me? Look, the cross represented punishment. It represented persecution. It represented affliction. It represented someone who had spoken the Word of God and was being hated, mocked, ridiculed, and scorned. That's what Jesus did on the cross. He was mocked. He was scorned. He was ridiculed. He was smitten. He was persecuted for what? The truth. He said, I am the truth. He preached the truth. His word that he spoke was truth itself. And he was nailed to the cross for it. And the Bible calls us also to be willing to suffer for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. But today, and look, this isn't just a message for preachers. It's a very important message for preachers, obviously, because Jeremiah was a preacher. So that application is pretty obvious, isn't it? You say, well, you know, who's a preacher here? Well, you know what? There are a lot of guys in our church that are aspiring preachers. I mean, we're sending out a few guys just in the next few months to start churches. You know? And these guys need to understand what it means to be a preacher. And look, it's better to not even start the job if you're the type of guy that doesn't want to make any waves and doesn't want to have any trouble. Hey, if your attitude is just, hey, I don't want any trouble, you know, you wouldn't hit a guy with glasses, would you? If that's, you know, if that's your attitude, then you have no, don't even go into the ministry. Don't even start preaching. Just decide right now, I'm not cut out for this. I'm too weak. Maybe later, maybe some other time, I'll get stronger in the Lord. But if your idea, and look, there are people who have this idea, believe me. There are people, and I'm not saying in our church. There are people out there who literally have this thought go into their mind. They think to themselves, you know what? Pastor Anderson has really accomplished a lot for the Lord because he's, you know, he's starting all these churches, and he's rallying all this soul winning all over America, and you know, he's really winning a lot of people to Christ for what he's doing. If only he would just quit being such a pain in the neck with the over the top hard preaching. Right? And they think like, you know, if he would just tone it down, and I get emails all the time, just look, just tone it down just a little bit, because you know what? You're just a little over the top. And then, you know, you could be doing so much more, they say. And I guarantee you, I promise you, and I've spoken to them. There are people who think that they're going to go out of here, or go out of one of these other churches, one of these other Baptist churches, and they say, you know what? I'm going to duplicate what Pastor Anderson's doing. Without the over the top, or hardcore, which I don't think any of it's over the top, or I just think I'm just preaching the Bible. But you know, they say, without inflaming the media, you know, without inflaming and enraging the government, and the sodomites, and the media, and everything like that, I can just go out, and I'll take all the stuff that I like about what Pastor Anderson's doing, like the, you know, the soul winning part, and the strong stance on the King James, and the gospel, and eternal security, the believer, and all that stuff, you know, the good stuff. And just tone it down on all this kind of face-ripping, negative, screaming, yelling, hollering, and they literally think that they're going to have like a best of both worlds. It's out there, my friend. It's out there. And listen, my message to you young men that are being trained, we have a lot of guys in our church that are being trained for the ministry right now, praise God. We're just about to bring a whole new crop into the preaching class in a few weeks here. You know, we've got a lot of guys that are younger and single, and they're not ready for the preaching class yet, but they're, you know, they want to be there, and they're going to be there eventually. And you know, we have a lot of guys being trained, and my message to you guys is, you know what? You better just settle it right now that you're ready for the fight, and that you're ready for the persecution, because you can't take part of what you're learning here and just deploy part of the program and expect God to bless it. He's not going to bless it. Because the people who go out of here with the, well, soul winning only, only evangelize, only the gospel, forget all this hard preaching and stuff. You know what? Those people, there's a name for them, they're called neo-evangelicals. They're not independent fundamental Baptists. That's not what independent Baptist is supposed to, independent fundamental Baptists are supposed to have some hair on their teeth and leather lungs and preach the whole Bible and be like Jeremiah and Elijah and Jesus, not a softened up, soft soap, pink tea and lemonade version of that. Don't you dare waste my time that you want me to train you for the ministry and that you want to be sent out of this church to go start a church if that's what's going on in the back of your compromising mind. Don't even come to me. Just look, you need to find another line of work. Plenty of other things to do with your life. And you can still be a great church member as long as you don't try to hold back those who do have the boldness to say what needs to be said. Somebody needs to say it like it is. And I'm telling you that in order to succeed, the reason why Faithful Word Baptist Church is growing and thriving and succeeding, the reason that the guys that we've sent out to start churches are growing and thriving and succeeding, the reason that our friends and familiars across this nation who are one with us in spirit in the sense that they tune in and listen to the preaching and they're active in their local Baptist church, the reason why they're succeeding is because they have the whole program, not just only the soul winning part. Look, the only the soul winning part is like a chair that's supposed to have three legs and it only has one leg and you sit on, you're going to fall on your face. You need to have the whole program. You need to have the threefold cord that is not quickly broken, not a one dimensional ministry. You need to have a full proof ministry that preaches all aspects of the Bible. And listen, the New Evangelical Movement has been a failure. The New Evangelical Movement teaches that the only thing that matters is getting people saved. Let's not preach hard. That's going to turn people away. Let's just focus on the main thing, the gospel, Jesus, salvation. Let's just keep it on the bottom shelf. Let's not preach anything deep. Let's not preach anything controversial or offensive. Let's just focus on Jesus and the gospel. That movement is a flop. It's a flop. It's a failure. Look, it's been out there. It's been done. It's been around for decades now, and it fails. And here's why it fails. Because when you don't preach hard, then the church abounds with sin, the church abounds with false prophets, the church abounds with false doctrine, the church abounds with perversion, and the next thing you know, you're not even preaching the gospel anymore. You're preaching something else. It's true. And look, you know, a pretty good example of this is Calvary Chapel. You know, I'm sorry to offend people who love Calvary Chapel, but Calvary Chapel is basically they want to be Baptist without saying we're Baptist, so they're an undercover Baptist where they take Baptists off the sign, put a little picture of a dove, Calvary Chapel sounds real non-committal, non-denominational, right? Okay? And then basically their emphasis is, you know, they're not going to preach. I mean, when was the last time some Calvary Chapel preacher was on the news or, you know, in hot water for preaching too hard? They keep it basic. They basically have a stated purpose of, hey, let's just keep it basic, stick with the basics, Christ alone and him crucified. It's all about reaching people with the gospel. Let's keep it real casual, real laid back, kind of a Southern California mentality, Costa Mesa mentality, all right, OC style, and we're going to just, you know, prophesy smooth things. And here's how that turned out now. Now the Calvary Chapels, half of them don't use the King James Bible anymore. And now the Calvary Chapel's founder, Chuck Smith, says, I think you might be able to lose your salvation. And so now you'll run into a lot of Calvary Chapels where they literally believe that you can lose your salvation. Now look, don't get me wrong. There are Calvary Chapels where the true gospel is being preached because I've gone soul winning in certain areas near a Calvary Chapel where you'll run into the people who go to that Calvary Chapel and you'll ask them about salvation and they'll tell you, I'm saved, I'm trusting Jesus Christ as my Savior, you know, it's not of works, I can never lose my salvation, and they're doctrinally sound and they're using a King James. There are Calvary Chapels out there that are like that. But then you'll go to other neighborhoods where everybody who goes to that Calvary Chapel is telling you they don't know they're saved or it's work, salvation, or it's about, you know, turning over a new leaf in your life and all this type of junk and that believe you can lose it. That's something that you'll find in Calvary Chapel now as a teaching that you, because look, and I know this because a lot of my cousins and aunts and uncles were involved in Calvary Chapel over the years. I've had familiars that were involved in Calvary Chapel and when they heard this stuff about losing your salvation, they freaked out and they quit going to Calvary Chapel because they're like, whoa, what's going on here? Because they thought it was a Baptist type doctrine. You know, they thought it was the gospel by faith alone, eternal security of the believer, eternal life, Jesus will never leave us or forsake us. We're sealed unto the day of redemption. But you say, well, how can that happen? How can that, because here's why. When you don't preach solid doctrine, deep doctrine, when you keep it shallow, what happens is you end up bringing in a bunch of unsaved people is what you end up doing. Half, you say, isn't that great to bring in unsaved people? No, it's not great. We're supposed to go out and get people saved and then bring saved people to church. That's what the Bible actually teaches. It doesn't teach that the church is supposed to be this just gathering of a bunch of unsaved people to preach to and get them saved. So what happens is when you keep the doctrine vague and when you prophesy smooth and soft things and you don't go deep and you don't teach anything controversial and you don't preach hard, what happens is you're inviting sin into the church. You're inviting false doctrine into the church and false teachers. That's why a lot of these Calvary Chapel pastors, they were able to come in and go through that whole system and come out teaching that you can lose your salvation. Others went through the system and taught that you couldn't lose it because they already believed that before they went in to Calvary Chapel. And listen, people that are at Calvary Chapel, like I said, some Calvary Chapels that are actually preaching the Bible, the King James Bible, and that actually believe in the eternal life that Jesus promised us, you know, but here's what they are, babes in Christ, because they don't get any strong meat because they don't want to offend. So yeah, okay, there are people there that are babes in Christ and they're going there and they're learning stuff, but it's time to graduate to big boy church. Time to put on the big boy pants and come down to Faithful Word Baptist or come down to some other independent Baptist church and actually, you know, crack open Jeremiah chapter 20 and have it actually mean something to you. Because when you're walking around all day in a Hawaiian shirt and flip flops just saying, hey, man, what's happening, bro? Everybody's cool, man. Hang loose, baby. Now, look, I'm all for hanging loose, but now when it comes to doctrine, I'm going to look, I'm all for hanging loose, but now when it comes to doctrine, I don't want to hang loose doctrinally. I don't want my doctrine to be far out. Okay, you know, look, there's a time to hang loose and there's a time to tighten things up in the house of God and preach hard and get serious and not have this lackadaisical laid back, super relaxed. Look, there's a time to put on a Hawaiian shirt. There's a time to put on flip flops. Many have seen me in flip flops, but you know what? There's a time to get serious and to rip some face. You can't, listen, you can't be everybody's buddy all the time and be a preacher. Listen to what the Bible says, my friend, in the New Testament. You dolters and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God, whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. I don't know how to make it any clearer than God's Word just made it right there. If you're a friend of the world, you're the enemy of God. I don't know what else to say, my friend. That's what the Bible says. So if you want to get along with everybody, you're basically saying, you know what? I want to go out of here and start a church and be at enmity with God, because I want to get along with all the people in my community. No, no, no. There are going to be people in your community that are going to want to put a brick through your window if you preach right. And if nobody wants to put a brick through your window, you're not preaching right. And this is not me just up here being dramatic or up here just going over the, here he goes again. This is me telling you the truth tonight. Now, this doesn't just apply to preachers, though. Also in our Christian lives, there are people who want to have everything. And they don't realize that life's about trade-offs. They want to have it all, don't they? I mean, they want everything in their family to be right. They want to get along with all their immediate family and extended family. They want to get along in their neighborhood. They want their finances to be just completely secure, completely diversified portfolio. They want their health to be right. They want to go to church and have peace and sweetness and light. And they want their job secure and comfortable. And they literally just want to have everything in life. They don't want to trade-off anything. They don't want to sacrifice anything. They don't want to give up anything. They just want to have it all. But that's not what God has called us to do. There are some times we're going to have to make decisions in life. We're going to have to make trade-offs. And then there are other, and then, okay, let's talk to the women for a while because, you know, the preachers are men, of course, when we talk about a pastor. But what about the ladies? You know, there are ladies who literally, they just want to have a perfect, you know, just storybook life, okay? They don't want their husband to make any waves. And they want to keep their children just completely sheltered and have this perfect little life where their lessons are in Latin, violin, speech, and debate. And what's the other one? Is that the trifecta? The homeschooling trifecta, Latin, violin, and speech and debate or something? You know, their little perfect little home. You know what? We need to understand that life is about trade-offs and life's about sacrifices. And we need to understand that sometimes life's going to get a little bit ugly if you serve the Lord. And you can't expect it all to be perfect. Now I'm not telling you, hey, go out looking for trouble. Hey, make waves at your job. Look, at your job, you need to shut up and do what you're told at your job because that's what God commands you to do. The job is not the place for you to be on a soapbox anyway. It's a place for you to be on your knees scrubbing floors or doing whatever you're being told to do. I'm not saying go to your job and start something, but you know what? One of the kind of trade-offs I'm talking about is that sometimes your family's going to tell you, hey, we don't want to have anything to do with you because you're this over the top Christian. You're too zealous. You're too fired up. We don't want to have you to the barbecue because we know that you hate alcohol. You know, and then they start to ostracize you and punish you. Or hey, we want you to come to Thanksgiving and the gay uncle, quote unquote, is going to be there. The filthy sodomites going to be, it's like, oh, you have to accept him and treat him polite. You know, these are the type of things that people are being confronted with today. These are the type of situations that people are being put in that can divide people. And if you're one of these people that wants to just get along with everybody, look, there are some times when we need to have some division and honestly they're going to be, look, I'd rather, I'd rather my kids grow up and see the good, the bad, and the ugly of being in a real Bible believing church. And maybe somebody has to be dragged out and thrown out of the building sometimes. Maybe there are hecklers or protesters or people. You know, I'd rather that my kids grow up and see that than to just shelter them in some storybook little chapel somewhere. You know, I'd rather take them to a hair-legged church and actually have them experience life. You know, I'd rather that they get out in the ghetto with us and knock some doors and win some souls with us, right, than to learn Latin. I'd rather that they learn soul-winning. You know, I'd rather that they learned how to preach or how to win people to Christ. And you know, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with learning Latin except it's a dead worthless language. Other than that, it's great. You know, I'd rather that my kids learn how to speak Spanish. Quit learning Latin and start learning Latino. Put an O on the end and I'm for it. Why don't you learn Spanish so you can win somebody to Christ? Not trying to win a Latin spelling bee with a bunch of white and nerdy dweebs. Well, you know, look, the bottom line is we need to get out there and live for the Lord and be ready to be persecuted. Somebody might eventually have to lose their job legitimately even if they were just doing their job and doing what they were supposed to do. Somebody might get physically assaulted at some point. Somebody might, you know, God forbid, but everybody in the Bible went through it. You know, somebody's going to get cursed and attacked and hated and ridiculed or unfriended on Facebook or blocked or reported or whatever. It's life. It's serving the Lord. It's to be expected. And we need to make a decision now that whether we're a man, woman or a boy or a girl, we're going to serve the Lord and let the chips fall where they may. We're going to be like the people of the Bible. And again, I'm not saying to be foolish or to look for trouble or to cause problems for yourself, but you know what? I never have to go looking for trouble. I just open my mouth and start speaking what the Bible teaches and trouble comes and finds me. And trouble will come and find me. You know, people always talk to me about how, you know, it's hard to separate from their super worldly friends and their super liberal friends. And I think to myself, you know, when I got right with God, when I was 17 years old, it wasn't hard for me at all because I didn't do it. They separated from me. You know, and here's the thing, I'll be honest with you. From the time I was about 13 to the time that I was 16, really 12 through 16, we went to some pretty liberal watered down churches and I'll tell you, I bought into, I'll be honest with you, I bought into the new evangelical mentality. I bought into the Calvary Chapel mentality. If you would have talked to me when I was 15 years old, I would have said, hey, the only thing that matters is just reaching people with the gospel. It's just all about getting people saved and, you know, we don't need to spend so much time preaching all these other doctrines and I was watered down and I, you know, I had a little of that Gandhi garbage, you know, that had been taught me. That you know, if you would have talked to me when I was a teenager, I got sucked into some of that for a while when I was a new evangelical but when I was 16, I started seeing through it. I started reading the Bible. I got off that junk and really what really changed, I started changing when I was 16 but when I joined a church like this church and the church I joined back then was a lot like this church, Regency Baptist Church in 1998 was a lot like Faithful Word Baptist Church in 2016 and I joined that church. The pastor was preaching hard and that's when I really had a dramatic change in my life. I was already changing a little bit but when I got in church, that is when I really had a major change in my life. That's when I started knocking doors, winning people to Christ, you know, started, you know, getting things out of my life that didn't belong there and I'll tell you what, I mean all of my friends forsook me just because every time they're around me, it's just I'm talking about the Bible, I'm talking about soul winning, I'm talking about, you know, and I just changed and they just started just not calling me back, just kind of not, yeah, well, yeah, sometime we'll get together, you know, and it got a little lonely there for a while until I made some new friends because at my new church, there weren't really a lot of people my age at the new church. You know, at the new church, there was a teenage youth group but then when I turned 18, they're like you're 18, you're out of the youth group and then the next person my age, the next person age wise was like 28 years old and he was married with kids so I couldn't really relate to him as a single 18 year old, okay, because they shipped off all the young adults to Bible college and there's like a void there between the teenagers and the marrieds. So I had to make a trade off there, right? I had to sacrifice the fun and the friends that I had, a lot of buddies that I had in the new evangelical churches, a lot more socializing there to go to Regency Baptist where the social opportunities for me were very limited and eventually they were gone when I was, you know, pushed out of the youth group after I graduated from high school and turned 18, you know, I, you know, I had to sacrifice social life, right? Here's the thing, that's what life's about, it's about trade offs but there are some people who, you know what they'll do? They'll say, oh, you don't have my demographic at that church? You don't have people my age at that church? Oh, you don't have enough young marrieds at that church? Or you don't have enough senior saints at that church? Or you don't have enough children between the ages of 8 and 10? I'm just going to go down the church to the church that does even though it's liberal, even though it's watered down, even though it's not taking the stand that needs to be taken because the fundamental church only runs 50 or 60 people and they don't have my demographic. You don't think that happens every week in America? Because let me tell you, it does. I talk to people all the time who make that decision. Well, I would go to that fundamental Baptist church that's starting up but, you know, I got to have friends for my kids or there's more buddies my age and whatever. Now thankfully our church is to the size now where we have kids in all ages. We've got teenagers, we've got children, boys, girls, babies. We pretty much have every month a baby that you want to have. We have every month, you know, we have a lot of, there's a hundred kids here. And we've got, you know, now we don't have a lot of seniors. I'll admit that. There's very few seniors here. So you know, the seniors are all going down the street because they don't have enough old people to talk to. But honestly, we, you know, we have a few older people but we pretty much have all ages. But here's the thing, a lot of fundamental Baptist churches, they don't have this. And guess what? We didn't have this seven years ago. And you know what? The people who came here in 2008, the people who came here in 2009, you know, they didn't have all the social opportunities but they still came because it was right. You know, you got to decide what's important to you in life. You got to make trade off. Don't expect everything to be perfect in your life. Expect a fight. If you start serving God, the gates of hell are going to try to prevail against you. But if the Lord's with us, we can stand. And that's why I'll just close with verse 11. We'll back up to verse 11. But the Lord is with me. You know, that's what we need to keep in mind. Even, you know, he's really depressed at the end. I don't want to leave on that note where he's like, kill me now. I wish I was dead. I wish I was never born. And you say, Pastor Anderson, have you ever felt that way? Yes, I have felt that way. I have wished that I was dead before. Okay. That's how, you know, I'm just being honest. You know, I'm not going to go on and on about it but I mean, but listen, I will never commit suicide. Just so you know. So if they ever say I committed suicide, they murdered me. All right. I mean, I just want to go on the record saying that right now. I will never commit suicide. I promise. All right. You know, I got to be careful because if I'm like, yeah, there's been times I wished I was dead. And then like, you know, I get murdered a week later and they're like, well, you did say that. No, don't feel that way. All right. Never going to commit suicide for the record. All right. Please investigate. But anyway, verse number 11. Keep this in mind. But the Lord is with me as a mighty, terrible one. Now here's the thing. You know, we love the fact that the Lord is our shepherd. You know, we love the fact that the Lord is our tower. We love the fact that Jesus Christ is the bread of life. And we love the fact that Jesus Christ is the everlasting Father. But you know what? Sometimes you just want God to be your mighty, terrible one to protect you against all the weirdos. You know, the mighty, terrible one that's going to revenge you on your enemy. So honestly, you know, it's okay if everything in your life isn't perfect because guess what? Everybody's life is perfect. You got to keep fighting. Don't stop. Don't stop. Keep on going. And if you want to preach, settle it in your heart. The Bible says count the cost before you start building the tower. Decide that you're ready to endure affliction. Settle that in your heart. If you're not ready to make that commitment, you're not ready to be trained for the ministry, number one. Number two, if you're ever in the ministry, the only options are quitting and preaching hard, no-holds-barred. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for the example of a great man like Jeremiah, Lord, a rough chapter, Lord. But then again, most of the chapters in the book of Jeremiah have been rough. It's a rough series, Lord, but thank you so much that we can learn from it and profit from it. Help it not to be an antiquated museum item for us, Lord, but help it to be our daily bread today. Jeremiah chapter 20 is our daily bread, Lord. Help us to eat it, swallow it, and let it be a part of us, Lord. Let these words sink down into our ears and let us realize that no trade-off is too great when it comes to serving you and that we should be ready to endure a great fight of afflictions, as you said in the book of Hebrews. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.