Jeremiah 2020

So if you'd like to turn to Jeremiah 7, we're gonna be continuing from where we were last week in Jeremiah 6. This is the word that came to Jeremiah. This is verse 1 from the Lord. Stand at the gate of the Lord's house and there proclaim this message.

Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah, who come through these gates to worship the Lord. This is what the Lord Almighty the God of Israel says. Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place. Do you not trust in deceptive words and say, This is the temple of the lord, the temple of the lord, the temple of the lord. If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, If you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place.

And if you do not follow other gods, to your own harm. Then I will let you live in this place in the land I gave your ancestors forever and ever. But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless. Will you steal a murder? Commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to bail and follow other gods you have not known.

And then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my name and say, We are safe, safe to do all these detestable things. Has this house which bears my name become a den of robbers to you? But I've been watching declares the Lord. Going out to the place in Shailor where I first made a dwelling for my name, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people, Israel. While you were doing all these things declares the Lord, I spoke to you again and again, but you did not listen.

I called you, but you did not answer. Therefore, What I did to Shiloh, I will now do to the house that bears my name, the temple you trust in, the place I gave to you and your ancestors, I will thrust you from my presence just as I did, all your fellow Israelites, the people of Ephraim. So do not pray for these people nor offer any plea or petition for them. Do not plead with me for I will not listen to you. Do you not see what they are doing in the in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

The children gather wood? The father lights the fire? And the women knead the dough and make cakes to offer to the queen of heaven. They pour out offerings to other gods to arouse my anger. Bamay the the 1 they are provoking, declares the Lord, are they not rather harming themselves to their own shame?

Therefore, this is what the sovereign lord says. My anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, on man and beast, on the trees of the field, and on the crops of your land, and it will burn and not be quenched. This is what the law the the Lord almighty, the God of Israel says. Go ahead, add your burnt offerings to other sacrifices and eat the meat yourselves. For when I brought your ancestors out of Egypt and spoke to them, I did not just give them commands, but about Ben's offerings and sacrifices.

But I gave them this command obey me, and I will be your gods, and you will be my people. Walk in obedience all I command you, then it may go well with you. But they did not listen or pay attention. Instead, they followed the stubborn inclinations of their evil hearts. They went backward and not forward.

From the time your ancestors left the Egypt until now, day after day, again and again, I sent you my servants, the prophets, but they did not listen to me or pay attention. They were stiff necked and did more evil than their ancestors. When you tell them all this, they will not listen to you. When you call to them, they will not answer. Therefore say to them, this is the nation that has not obeyed the Lord its God or responded to correction.

Truth has perished, is vanish from their lips, cut off your hair and throw it away, take up lament on the baron heights, for the Lord has rejected and abandoned his generation. That is under his wrath. And if you'd like to turn back to Jeremiah 7, it's going to be useful. I think with so much text to have it in front of you as we as we go through it. Let me add my welcome to you.

It's lovely to see you, and there's some new people here. It's great see you too and the people online are watching, wherever you are watching. It's great to have you with us. My name is Phil. I'm 1 of the elders of the church, And actually, I just want a shout out really to 1 of the other elders, Paul Langman.

Where's he gone? Paul Langman there, because he's been drumming for us tonight, but he was not that long ago preaching over New Molden a couple of hours ago. I think he's had to rush over to take up the drums, which is terrific. Thank you, Paul, for doing that. Was going to ask him how it went, and then I thought, well, how do you answer that as a preacher?

He's either going to say he was brilliant, which is probably not Paul, or he might say, yeah, it didn't go very well, or he's gonna say, well, yeah, it seemed alright. So it's a hard thing to answer, isn't it? How did he go? So I'm not going to ask him. Okay.

Let's pray and then we'll look at this passage. Father, thank you for your word. Help us now. To come to it with open minds. Help us to put aside whatever we've come in with tonight, any worries and concerns or just you know, things that are going on in our heads, perhaps trying to get ready in our heads for work tomorrow, whatever it is.

Lord help us to focus on you now. Let your word come to us by your spirit and speak to our hearts and minds and may we be changed by it. In Jesus' name, our men. Last week actually, I was I was watching an interview with a with a hedge fund manager on some business channel and he was from the U. S.

And he was commenting on the younger generation. And by that, he meant the people in their twenties who are, you know, recently started work or about to start work or have just started work, you know, that sort of generation. And he was talking about the working from home trend. That obviously we've all got used to or because of lockdown and so on because of the pandemic. And saying that it was a disaster for people in their 20s.

It was quite a gloomy sort of opening to his talk. He said it's a disaster. And he was saying, anybody listening to this, who's in their twenties, get back to the office get back to the warehouse, get back to the shop, wherever you work, insist on going back, push to go back. And I was I was quite surprised about that. And he said, you know, I understand the attraction of working from home.

Quite nice, isn't it? To get up and you just move room or perhaps you don't even move room, you know, and you just do your work. But he said all of the benefits of it are far outweighed by 1 single negative. And that is that as a young person, you need to be around other people at work. You need to be listening to conversations.

You need to be listening to the way they do things. You need to be watching what's going on you know, for with your boss or whatever that he's doing so that you can move forward in your career. See, he was emphasizing, basically, in a in a sort of unofficial way, the need for a mentor, a mentor. You can't do that. You can't learn that.

You can't hear those conversations, you can't see how your boss is doing stuff in your house, in your flat. That's what he was getting at. Now, he progressed in the interview, and he said, look, I think Zoom and I think Microsoft Teams are fantastic technological advances. And in a time of crisis, they enabled us to keep businesses going. You could just about maintain, you know, relationships with people.

But he said they're absolutely hopeless for growth. At best, they will help you stand still while you wait for the crisis to pass. And I think there's some truth in that. Yes. You can have a pit.

I think some Zoom meetings are quite useful actually. But he was basing his assumptions really on the idea that in business, you're either going forwards or going backwards. There's no neutral There's no pause, there's no hold button. And Zoom and Microsoft Teams, Cisco, and all the other ones, has allowed you to sort of pause. But particularly for young people, you've got to start moving forwards again.

And here in chapter 7 at Jeremiah, You see, the prophet reminds Israel of God's promise that if they obey him, he says, then I will be your God and you will be my people, and that's a fantastic promise. But it's conditional if you obey me. And then he carries on, look at verse 24. But they did not listen or pay attention. Instead, they followed the stubborn inclinations of their evil hearts, they went backwards, not forwards.

Did you hear that last bit? They move backwards, not forwards. It's an important verse because, you see, he's saying there's no standing still here. There's no neutral, if you're not growing in your faith, if you're not becoming more like Jesus in a sense, we would say, if you're not developing the fruit of the spirit, then you're going backwards. And what we find here is that Jeremiah, if you remember last week.

He's the Asayer. He's the tester of Israel. Jeremiah finds that God's people are going backwards. Now, I don't know what you think about that. I I mean, spiritually, I guess most of us would be quite comfortably if there's a sort of neutral gear, isn't there?

A neutral phase. Both for ourselves at certain times when we, I don't know, are tired or whatever. But also think about your non believing friend. Or family member, neighbor, or somebody at work. They're not really against God, are they?

They just don't believe in him. So in our hearts, we have them down I think as neutral. The problem is to see, the bible says there's no such thing. If you don't follow Jesus, you're against him. And we have to accept that.

Pete was preaching in proverbs are probably about a month ago now. I've lost track. But I remember him saying it was the sort of thing he was you know, emphasizing at the beginning. Church is not a safe place. So you see, people shouldn't be able to join us here and get the impression that there is a neutral option, that they can enjoy the community and the food, as Tom was highlighting in the notices, you know, and the fellowship but they don't really need to believe in Jesus.

They don't really need a Savior. See, Jesus himself says, there's no neutral when it comes to him. Matthew chapter 12 verse 30, Jesus says, Whoever is not with me is against me. Whoever does not gather with me scatters. So there's no neutral.

We're either going backwards or forwards, and sadly in chapter 7, in our series in Jeremiah, we find that Israel is going backwards. By the way, this is going to be the last in Jeremiah, just to let you know, I was not sure, but I've decided to stop here. Not least because the amount I preach, I'd be about a hundred years old when I got to the end. So I thought, no, I'll let somebody else take it on. But this is the famous Temple sermon.

I wanted to get to this. Chapter 7 is the famous Temple sermon. And In the past 6 chapters, Jeremiah, who who if you remember right back to chapter 1, he didn't want to be a prophet, didn't relish it at all. He was gonna have a difficult message to take to Israel because their awful behavior, their attitude, or their terrible relationship with God, meant that judgment is gonna come upon them from the north. He's been saying that every chapter.

Judgment's coming from Babylon. Judgment's coming from the north. And last week, we saw that it was even described as a holy war because Babylon are a tool of the sovereign God. And so here, chapter 7, this temple sermon, Jeremiah is really gonna get in their faces now because they're still not listening. And he's going to get in their faces because he's going to talk and preach to them outside of the Temple Gates.

Look at verse 1. This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, stand at the gate of the Lord's house and there proclaim this message. Hear the word of the lord, all you people of Judah who come through these gates to worship the lord. This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel says, reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place. So Jeremiah's told by God, go and stand at the gates and proclaim the message, the 1 we're going to look at this evening, write in the faces, of the people that are coming through the gate, of the priests and the prophets, the teachers of the law.

Remember they were partially held responsible last week, if you were here, teachers the law, the prophets, the priests, for saying peace, peace where there was no peace. And God is saying, right, I want you to go and you're going to give the same message, it's the same message, basically, but you're going to do it right at the front, right at the temple. And the phrase all you people of Judah tells us something actually, because in those those little words, all the people of Judah, it indicates it was a festival time. So Jerusalem would have impact, and a lot of Judah, a lot of Israel, would have heard the message as they came to the temple. It's also true though, isn't it when you think about it?

If you're standing at the gates of the temple, it's also true that Jeremiah's focus in this message tonight is on, I suppose you'd say, the religiously observant person, because the people who were working didn't bother going to the temple, people who didn't go, were not hearing. He's talking to the people going in. He's talking to the the person who would have perhaps felt morally superior, because they went to the temple, they gave sacrifices, they gave money. It's a bit. That's why it's so relevant, isn't it to us?

Because we're the religiously observant in this country. We go to church. That's a very small percentage. So a lot of you here tonight, you've been this is your second time today. That's an even smaller percentage.

We're the religiously observant, Jeremiah is talking to us. And he addresses here 3 things. That the religiously observant person might have been relying on to avoid this judgment that's coming. And that's what we're gonna look at now. And the first 1 is the temple itself.

So will the temple save Israel. This is the first point. Verse 4. Do not trust in deceptive words and say this is the temple of the Lord the temple of the lord, the temple of the lord. If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I will let you live in this place.

In the land I gave to your ancestors forever and ever, but look, you're trusting in deceptive words that are worthless. Reform your ways and actions and I'll let you live in this place is a call to change. He's been saying it for 6 chapters. It's a call for Israel to turn back to God and away from the way they've been acting. So it's still a message with some hope.

Because he's standing outside the gates of the temple saying, change, reform. But then he goes on to highlight where many of them have put their trust. This is the temple of the lord, the temple of the lord, the temple of the lord, the people have put their security not in a relationship with the living God, but in the building, in the temple. See, they believed that whilst the temple remained in Jerusalem, God wouldn't allow harm to come to the city. Now it's hard for us here in what is, let's be honest, a relatively unattractive building.

To really grasp how important the temple was for them. It was beautiful on the inside. It was beautiful on the outside. It had pure bronze columns. It had golden lamp stands.

It had wooden carved cherubim, 10 feet high. With huge outstretched wings. But, of course, inside was the very presence of God for Israel. So they believe they were safe and secure as long as the temple stood. Basically, it's Temple theology.

It's what we're talking about. Their belief is in the temple. It's based on God being in the temple, not a relationship with God. And they'd have got this sort of thinking from other scriptures. Psalm 132, let me just read you this verse.

For the Lord has chosen Zion. He has desired it for his dwelling, saying this is my resting place forever and ever. Here, I will sit enthroned for I have desired it. But Jeremiah shows them just how wrong temple theology is. Look at verse 12 to 15 here.

Go now to the place in Shiloh, where I first made a dwelling for my name and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people, Israel. We don't need to read it all. Shiloh was a place where the Israelites camped, and they set up the tent of meeting as they prepared to take the rest promise land. Listen to this from Joshua, chapter 18 verse 1. The whole assembly of the Israelites gathered at Shiloh and set up the tent of meeting the country was bought, brought under their control.

So the tentor meeting was set up in Chile. It was where the ark of the covenant was kept, It contained the earthly presence of the Almighty God. And God stayed with them at Shiloh for many, many years. So if you remember I don't know if it depends whether you can remember this from reading it. When Samuel is called, I love this story, because he do you remember, he keeps getting woken up And it's God speaking, but he thinks it's Eli.

And he keeps getting woke up, and he runs down the corridor and goes, here I am, and he gets sent back, and it's not you know, it's God speaking to him. So eventually, he's called and he's called to serve in the temple and to serve Eli. Only it's not the temple. So in verse 21 of 1 Samuel 3, it says this. The Lord continued to appear at shiloh, and there revealed himself to Samuel through his word.

So all of that story, which we know really well, I don't know if you realized it or not, was not going on in Jerusalem was going on in Shiloh. But the presence of God was removed from Shiloh because the people didn't obey God. They took the ark of the covenant It's amazing this. They took the ark of the covenant as basically a lucky charm onto a battlefield and lost. And the Philistines took the arc of the covenant.

They gave it back because they realized the whole thing was a dangerous thing to hold on to. But that was it. They'd got it wrong. They hadn't obeyed. So Shiloh was destroyed once by the Philistines.

And then again, actually, by the Syrians, when they took the northern tribes off into captivity. The point Jeremiah is making is the people of Jerusalem knew what had happened at Shiloh. They knew that God was there in, you know, in their presence with Samuel, and it had been destroyed. So why believe in the temple now? Why say all, the temple of the lord, the temple of the lord, the temple of the lord, as if You know, God won't do anything now, because we've got the temple.

Well, you had the tent of meeting at Shiloh and he destroyed it. Jomae 7 verse 14, therefore, what I did to Shiloh, I will now do to the house that bears my name the temple you trust in, the place I gave to you and your ancestors. Faith in a building rather than a living relationship with God will end in disaster. And Jeremiah is pointing out that it may well end in a disaster that God causes. God may destroy the temple that they've put their faith in.

When I was thinking about that, I was thinking about how, you know, I found it interesting, but how does this apply to us? But I did think I have to say, I don't know if you notice when you go around the country. The amount of empty churches that you now see that are wine bars and, you know, nightclubs and art galleries. And I thought about that, and I was thinking of a few, I mean, there's a very pretty church in Nottingham, that is his picture and piano. But in fact, I read, I was looking up just to check and it said, and somebody wrote on TripAdvisor, I hadn't been to church for years, but this 1 was well worth a visit.

I remember going to an open day at York University with Matthew. And we stayed at the travelodge in the center of town. And when we got there, we saw it was next to a church, thought that was great, it wasn't great. We didn't get a lot of sleep. It was a club and a bar.

In Heddington, in Oxford, near Oxford Brooks, there's an old Baptist Church that is now a Muslim mosque. And I was thinking about those, and yes, it's a sadder, shouldn't it? But it should also warn us I looked when I looked up the pitch and piano in Nottingham, I discovered that it was a unitarian church for most of his history. And the unitarian church, which I'll be honest, I also had to look up, doesn't believe in the trinity, hence unitarian. But neither does it believe in predestination.

Neither do they believe in original sin. Neither do they believe in the infallibility of the bible? So it's no wonder God closed it, isn't it? It's a good thing, frankly? God is not interested in worship in a particular building.

He's interested in a living relationship with a faithful people. And Jeremiah tells them that their worship in the temple was worthless because of the hypocrisy within their hearts. Look at verse 9, will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to bile? And follow other gods you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my name and say, we are safe, safe to do all those detestable things. It's shocking, isn't it?

So let's just reflect on our own attitude to Cornerstone. See, if you're like me, you may not have been here long enough, that's fair enough. But if you're like me, you love this church. I love this church. I love the energy.

I love the family feel. I love the faithfulness to the Bible. I'm excited when new people come and it's encouraging when they come and say like we were hearing last week, I wanted to come to a church that preaches the whole bible. That's great, isn't it? I'm amazed at how many new people come, and they've read the statement of faith, and they've listened to sermons online before they come.

We want to be a church that follows the Jesus of the Bible. But if God was to stop you now and just question your life and your relationship with him, Would you find yourself saying, yeah, but but Cornerstone Church. Cornerstone Church. Cornerstone Church. Because that's wrong.

Don't put your faith in a building or a structure, put your faith in a relationship with the living God. So 1 of the reasons, by the way, I do think we have to be careful and please don't get misunderstand me. I'm all for redevelopment of this particular hall. But we have to be careful about buying buildings and building buildings. This isn't grand.

So, yes, let's change it. Be practical, but there is something good about renting a school like we do on Sunday mornings. Who's going to put their faith in the dining hall of a secondary school? There was a guy we've got to know when we're in America sometimes in Tampa. And They've got a church which has grown, and it got, I don't know, got to x thousand people, you know what the American churches are like.

Then they borrow 26000000 dollars and built this new complex to house 20000 people or 50000 people, and it isn't after 10 years, it isn't growing as fast as they would like. And they're now worried. They're worried that they've built this thing, and the interest on the 26000000 is presumably climbing. And it's an issue. Why put yourself through that sort of thing?

It's not about buildings. It's an amazing complex. I've been to see it. There's an old people's home and there's, you know, lots of stuff involved in it, but come on. Jeremiah makes it quite clear the building won't save Israel.

The second issue with them is this, will their religious behavior save Israel? The short answer is no, we looked at this last week, we touched on it, and he picks it up again in verse 6. If you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place. And if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I will let you live. Here, live in this place.

What I found interesting about that is he describes their worship of other gods as self harm. I I really that really struck me when I was preparing this. Why is it self harm? Well, because they're putting their energy, their security, their worship into things that can't respond, that things aren't real. They're not real these gods.

They're putting time and love and, I guess, money into God who was silent. That is self harm, isn't it? Look at verse 17, I really like verse 17, a bit depressing when I found out what he meant. Do you not see what they're doing in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, the father lights the fire, and the women knead the dough and make cakes?

That's quite an idyllic picture, I think. You know, the children gathering wood, the women are in the kitchen. Sounds good. I I was not really men were playing with fire or sounded like fun. But look at the end of the verse.

Why are they doing all this? To offer to the Queen of Heaven. See, the Queen of Heaven is a false God. Most of the commentators think it was a sexual God of some sort. Is that harmless?

No. Look at 18. They pour out drink offerings to other gods to arouse my anger. But am I the 1 they're provoking declares the lord? Are they not rather harming themselves to their own shame?

That's the same phrase harming themselves, self harm. They're making all this effort to a God that doesn't exist. Real eye opener, I found on self harm, you spend time, you spend money, you spend energy on anything other than God. And you're harming yourself. So the other element of their religiosity apart from this worship of false gods is the stuff we spent time on a lot last week, which was the worthlessness of their sacrifices.

Here at the gates of the Temple, he's really strong. Verse 21. This is what the Lord Almighty the God of Israel says, go ahead, add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices and eat them eat yourselves. For when I brought your ancestors out of Egypt and spoke to them, I didn't just give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices, but I gave them this command, obey me and I will be your guard and you will be my people, walk in obedience to all I command you, that it may that it may go well with you. But they did not listen or pay attention.

Instead, they followed the stubborn inclination of their evil hearts, they went backwards and not forwards. Dar, am I saying, look, I've got no use for your sacrifices and your burnt offerings, God, sorry, has no use. You may as well eat the meat yourself. The meat that was supposed to be offered to me, God, because it's of no value to me. Now that would have been really shocking to the heroes as they went into the temple, they were probably going into sacrifice.

That would have been really shocking because they put their trust in the sacrificial system. Do you remember last week, they were buying expensive spices from Sheba and sweet calamus and stuff like that. Superficial sacrifices, by the way, are constantly brought up as an issue by the prophets in the Old Testament, all the time, because they could see that it was a real problem. And people, including us, I think, Don't we love to contribute something to God? As if you know there's some power left with us?

Works are very appealing. And sacrifices can be works. Jose chapter 6 verse 6 and he says this. For I This is God speaking again. For I desire love not sacrifice, an acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.

Now it couldn't be clearer. I desire love rather than sacrifice. I desire acknowledgment rather than burnt offerings. Again, I was thinking about this idea and of God telling Israel to eat the meat of the burnt offerings themselves. What's our equivalent?

Because we don't do sacrifices now. What's our equivalent? The thing I could think about was actually giving. We don't talk about giving at this church very much. But we're called to give sacrificially to the church, to God's work.

And so it does have a similar connotation, I suppose, in the sense of giving professionally. The only difference is we don't give to remove sin. Jesus start with sin. We give out a response out of our love out of our hearts. But it does seem to me that there's a principle there in chapter 7 of Jeremiah that you know, if we if you're giving money but you have no heart forgot, if you're not seeking to obey him in your life, then if you're spiritually going backwards, not forwards, then it may mean that God says to you, you know, Don't bother giving me the money.

Have another Starbucks. Have another takeaway meal. Your monies have no value to me. I want your heart. I want your heart says God and then out of that generosity and love will flow.

If your giving is not sacrificial, if it's just an afterthought, why do you think it's pleasing to God? Remember years ago in a different church. And I was well, we didn't really have a treasure, but anyway I was involved in the giving stuff. And So I got a list sent to me of people we're giving had stopped. Not amounts, just said those 5 people have counselled their diary debits or whatever, and most of them left the church.

I was fine. 1 of them was an elder. I thought that's a bit odd. So after another month or so, I know he was still on the list of having canceled, I went up to him and said, Is there a problem? You know, do you need to talk about anything?

Because you've canceled your standing order, your direct debit or whatever yours. And he said, no. I don't think so. And I said, oh, do you want to check? Because I don't think I think it stopped.

I thought I was trying to be, you know, polite. I was quite young. And he said, okay, yeah, fine. And he came back to me the next week, and he said, yeah, sorry, it just stopped. I've started it again.

And that's fine. But I was thinking about it afterwards thinking that means you didn't even notice. You know, in in what sense is it sacrificial if you don't even notice it going out. If we are just This is why we don't have collection here, if you are new and you wonder why this church doesn't have a collection. We don't want people's unthought through pocket change.

That's not what God wants. God wants your heart. Then he wants you to think about it and pray about it and give sacrificially. So God is saying here, look, Don't put your trust in buildings. Don't put your trust in some sort of religious thing.

Whether it's a sacrificial system, whether it's what you do. And thirdly, final point. And I was going to say actually, will the fact that Jeremiah cut his hair at the end, Savage well. But actually, if you read verse 29, let's just turn over to verse 29. Cut off your hair.

And throw it away, and I was thinking that's a random thing. Anyway, take up a lament on the Fahrenheit for the Lord has rejected and abandoned this generation. So the answer is no, it's not gonna save so we'll move on from that. Cutting his hair didn't help in terms of Israel. So what is the third thing they could have been putting their trust in?

I think it's the prayers. Of Jeremiah. So will the prayers of Jeremiah save Israel is the third point? Look at verse 16. God says, so do not pray for these people, nor offer any plea or petition for them.

Do not plead with me for I will not listen to you. Again, that's a shocking verse, isn't it? Are you shocked by that? Don't pray for them. You know, it's it's it's as if he's anticipating that Jeremiah is going to do it and he doesn't want to Basically, say no to Jeremiah, who's telling him, don't do it.

Now, if you if you know your Bibles, this this should have an echo here of Moses in your heads. In Exodus 32, the Lord says to Moses, I have seen these people and they are stiff necked people, words We've had Stifinet in this passage tonight. There are Stifinet people, now leave me alone, he says to Moses, so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation. But Moses, it says, sought the favor of the Lord, and a couple of verses later on, he prays for God to change his mind.

Listen to this. Moses says to God, turn from your fierce anger, relent and do not bring disaster on your people. Remember your servants, Abraham Eizer and Israel to whom you swore by your own self, I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever. Next verse, verse 14, then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened. So he got it relented when Moses had prayed, and he doesn't want that to happen here.

So he forbids Jeremiah from interceding on behalf of Israel. Isn't that a frightening concept that someone can be so hard hearted that God says, don't waste your time paying for them. 1 commentator, in fact, there were quite a few comments I didn't really agree with on this, but including this in a way. But 1 commentator says this, praying breath is too precious a thing to be lost and thrown away upon people hardened in sin. I get it.

But I have to say I struggle with this. When I was preparing this, this is the point I this is the point I really struggle with. Because surely, we're to pray for people that don't know Jesus We want them to come to know Jesus. We want people to turn back to God. We want people to be reformed and change your ways or whatever germ eyes.

Point at the beginning. So I hope we pray for our friends and neighbors and people at work. So when I was looking at this, I think what the way I've settled on it is to say, that's what we have to do. We have to pray for people and we have to speak the gospel out to people. And yes, there may be people that are so hard of heart that they won't turn to God even if we're praying for them.

But that's not for us to guess who they are. It's not for us to decide, or he's too hard hearted, won't pay for him. It's not for us to anticipate which prayers God will answer in the way we want him to answer them. We'll just keep going. Let's just keep going and praying for people and speaking the gospel out to people.

But here, the prayers of Jeremiah weren't uttered, because God said no. So they couldn't put trust in Jeremiah saving them. So there are 3 things that Israel put their trust in and in all instances that trust was misplaced. Firstly, the building, secondly, their own religiosity in terms of sacrifices, Thirdly, the prayers of the prophet. So what about us as we finish?

What do we put our trust in this wrong? To start with. See, what's so interesting though about this sort of passage is just like last week, yes, there were things to learn from it. We've talked about some things tonight and buildings and stuff like that. But in the end, seeing the self harm and the things that Israel put their trust in that meant they were going backwards, when you look at those things, it should drive you to Jesus.

That's really the answer, isn't it? We should put our trust in Jesus, somebody we can serve, and we can worship because he's real, and he's with us. And what we do for him is so far from self harm, because it helps us continue to go forwards in the faith, not backwards. The other thing is Jesus dealt with all 3 of these issues. Did you think about that as we went through them?

The temple was where God dwelt on earth in Jeremiah's day. But today, God is present through Jesus being in us and us in him. So when Jesus left the disciples, he said it was good that I'm gonna go, both to prepare the way for us. Because 1 day we'll be in heaven, but also so he can send the comforter, the Holy Spirit to us. So right now, if you're in this room, you follow Jesus Christ, then the spirit dwells in your heart.

That's a fact. So there's no temple where God dwells anymore. He dwells in us by his spirit, so we're the temple. 1 Corinthians 6 says, do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit who is in you? Whom you have received from God, you are not your own, you were bought at a price.

The temple as a building is gone, Let's not try and replicate it by bringing back big buildings that we think are fantastic. We're his temple. We're the people here. We're his temple. Wherever we meet together, even in a dining hall of a secondary school or an old warehouse or a theater or wherever churches meet.

Doesn't matter, because God is present in us. Then, if we turn to religiosity and the sacrifices, We know that's all changed. We live in a post I don't know what you want to call it, post cross era. Jesus took the punishment for our sin, on himself, so he is the only sacrifice we ever need. The great high priest he's called.

Sacrificing his body for us. We don't need to do more sacrifices. Hebrews 9 verse 12. He did not enter, by means of the blood of goats and calves, but he entered the most holy place once for all by his own blood. So obtaining eternal redemption.

The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean, talking about the sacrificial system, it sanctifies them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more then will the blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleansed, consciences, from acts that lead to death so that we may serve the living God. We don't need sacrifices to make us right with God. Jesus is enough. He's dealt with our sin.

So we're free we're free to joyfully serve him. Not in guilt, but in response. To his love. And thirdly and finally, if we're in Christ, we don't have to rely on a priest or a prophet praying for us. The last rites or any of that stuff that you get in some religions.

We have the son of God into seeding for us. His people, we're his people, we're his bride. He loves us. 1 day he's gonna return to take us to be with him in heaven. And right now, we're sitting with God into seeding on our behalf.

1 John 2, But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous 1. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for hours, but also for the sins of the whole world. That is amazing, isn't it? We're the temple where God dwells by his spirit. The spirit brings glory to the son Jesus, he is the 1 true sacrifice and he now sits at the right hand of the father into seedy on our behalf.

Praise God. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for what we've just looked at, the issues that the Israelites got sort of waylaid in. All these things that they put their trust in, which was wrong and which in in some ways when we hear about things like the the shiloh situation was just obvious, but yet somehow they ended up doing it. Lord help us to keep our trust in Jesus, that we won't look elsewhere whether it's in a building or whether it's in religious ceremony of some sort, whether it's in a sacrificial system, whether it's in hoping for, you know, prayers from a priest.

Whatever it is, lord. Help us to turn from those and turn towards you. In our own faith law, we want to go forwards not backwards. There is no neutral. Help us to do that, that we may grow in our faith, grow in our love for you, grow in the the let the fruit of the spirit grow in us, that we will be kinder and gentler and those other things.

It would help us this evening to be excited as a church family, that you are present here with us, and that we are yours. In Jesus' name, amen,