Trinity 8
Jer
23:16-29
8/11/19
“It shall be well with you.” “No disaster shall come upon you.” That’s what the false prophets were telling
the people of Judah at the beginning of the sixth century B.C. They were saying that everything was going to
be just fine.
As I considered these words, I
thought about how they compare to the message we receive from politicians about
the looming financial crises that face our nation and state. We know about the enormous debt owed by the United
States federal government, and the state of Illinois. We know about the impending insolvency of
Social Security. Various communities
face similar crises related to their pension commitments.
On the whole, it seems to me that
the message we hear from politicians takes one of two forms. The first is nothing. It is easier if the problem is just
ignored. It seems that everyone wants to
go about with business as usual. The
other is that sometimes there are voices that acknowledge the problem. However, the answers that could address the
problems are too painful, and therefore politically unpopular. And so in the
end they just “kick the can down the road.” So for example, during the sixteen
years of Presidents Bush and Obama, the federal debt ceiling was raised
eighteen times. Again, it is easier to go about with “business as usual.”
But I don’t think even the
politicians of our day are declaring, “It shall be well with you.” “No disaster shall come upon you,” when it
comes to these issues. And remember, that’s what the false prophets were
claiming was the message from Yahweh.
They were telling the people that God
said everything was going to be fine.
Their message could not have been
further from the truth. You didn’t need to be a prophet to see that danger
threatened. The Babylonians had replaced
the Assyrians as the great power in the near eastern world. They were asserting
their power over Judah. Already twice,
they had taken exiles of people from Judah back to Babylon. In 610 B.C. they took the very elite of
society like Daniel. In 597 B.C. they
took the next level, such as a priest like Ezekiel.
King Zedekiah was now on the
throne. In the previous chapter Yahweh
had sent Jeremiah to the king with this message: “Thus says the LORD: Do
justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who
has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the resident
alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this
place.” The king and those in power were
not acting according to God’s instruction of the Torah. And the root cause was very simple – they
were worshipping false gods instead of Yahweh.
Jeremiah
was calling the king to repentance. He
told him that judgment would come on Jerusalem and why it would come as he
said, “And many nations will pass by this city, and every man will say to his
neighbor, ‘Why has the LORD dealt thus with this great city?" And
they will answer, "Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD
their God and worshiped other gods and served them.’”
The
prophets were no better. Just before our text Jeremiah said, “But in the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a
horrible thing: they commit adultery and walk in lies; they strengthen the
hands of evildoers, so that no one turns from his evil; all of them have
become like Sodom to me, and its inhabitants like Gomorrah.”
And it
wasn’t just the prophets. The people
wanted to hear this message because they had turned away from God. Jeremiah says in our text: “They say continually to
those who despise the word of the LORD, ‘It shall be well with you’;
and to everyone who stubbornly
follows his own heart, they say, ‘No disaster shall come upon you.’”
These
were not true prophets. Jeremiah
challenged: “For who among them has stood in the
council of the LORD to see and to hear his word, or who has paid attention to
his word and listened?” The Old
Testament describes the prophets as those individuals who were provided access to
Yahweh surrounded by his holy angels. Because of this access, they received the
real deal – the word of Yahweh.
These false prophets had none of
this and the results were disastrous. We
hear in our text: “I did not send the prophets, yet they ran; I did not
speak to them, yet they prophesied. But if they had stood in my council, then
they would have proclaimed my words to my people, and they would have
turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their deeds.”
False
prophets exist in our own day. No longer
do they claim to speak for Yahweh – in fact most of them don’t claim to be
religious at all. But they have a message about how to think and live, and they
declare: “It shall be well with you.” “No disaster shall come upon you.”
We hear the voice of the false
prophets that begins in academia and then spreads through media and popular
culture as it says there is no such thing as truth. Instead, you need to determine your truth. That truth may include some
vague version of “spirituality,” but it cannot include truth claims based on
revelation from God. The voice of the
false prophets says that there is no truth - no norms or standards – for the
use of sexuality. And so sex outside of marriage, living together when not
married, homosexuality and the common use of pornography are all perfectly fine
and beneficial. The voice of the false prophets says that the rich and full
life must be filled with things, gadgets and experiences – you must have the
great stuff the world offers; you must travel and have experiences to be fulfilled.
How much are we allowing these voices
to influence us? After all, even as those who are a new creation in Christ
through baptism, there the old Adam is still in you that despises the word of the LORD. He still wants stubbornly to follow his own
heart. Are we silent when we should
speak? Do we live and think in the ways of the world when it comes to sexuality? How do the views of the world impact our
stewardship as we return a portion of God’s blessings back to him?
After
all, the Lord knows everything about us – our every thought, word and
deed. In our text Yahweh says, “Am I a God at hand,
declares the LORD, and not a God far away? Can a man hide himself in
secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the LORD. Do I not fill
heaven and earth? declares the LORD.
I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy lies
in my name, saying, 'I have dreamed, I have dreamed!’” The false prophets’
sins were not hidden from God. And yours aren’t either.
God
knew about the sins of the false prophets. And in our text Jeremiah declares, “Behold,
the storm of the LORD! Wrath has gone forth, a whirling tempest; it will
burst upon the head of the wicked. The anger of the LORD will not turn back
until he has executed and accomplished the intents of his heart. In
the latter days you will understand it clearly.” Those latter days arrived in 587 B.C. when
God sent the Babylonians as the instrument of his judgment. They destroyed the temple, tore down
Jerusalem’s wall and took all but the poorest of the land into exile in
Babylon.
Yet
do not think that God’s anger against
your sin has turned back without executing the intent of his heart. The false prophets had not stood in the
council of Yahweh. He had not sent them.
But there was one who had – who had from eternity. The Son of God – the second person of the
Trinity – as true God had stood in
council of Yawheh. And God the Father did send him. He sent him into the world as he was
conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. He sent Jesus as the One who spoke the true
words of God to us, because he is the Son of God.
For
the true prophets sent by Yahweh, their experience was often was one of
suffering. Jeremiah himself was rejected,
beaten, put in stocks, and even thrown into a well. Jesus Christ did not come in the latter
days. Instead his presence began the
Last Days. He came as the final end
times prophet who did what no human prophet could ever do. As true God and true man, Jesus came to
suffer as the sacrifice for your sins. God’s
anger against your sin was poured out on him as he suffered and died.
But
on third day, God raised Jesus from the dead.
He vindicated him as the One who had carried out the Father’s will to
win your salvation. Jesus’ resurrection
has defeated death and given you the living hope. You have shared in Jesus’ saving death in
baptism. And so you will also share in his resurrection. Ultimately, your existence can only end in one way – resurrection
life with our Lord. And even if death intervenes before our Lord’s return, you
who are in Christ can never be separated for Christ. To die is to be with the
Lord.
In
our text today God says through Jeremiah, “I did not send the prophets, yet they ran; I
did not speak to them, yet they prophesied. But if they had stood in my council, then they would have proclaimed my words to
my people, and they would have turned them from their evil way,
and from the evil of their deeds.”
Jesus Christ
has spoken the word of God to us.
Through his word he now turns us from evil ways; he turns us from evil
deeds. At the end of our text God says, “Is not my word like fire,
declares the LORD, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?” This
word of God crushes us in our sin, as God works repentance. It is a word that the Spirit uses to repress
and subdue the old Adam - that bashes him so that he doesn’t run the show.
And as the exalted Lord who has
poured forth the Spirit, Christ’s Spirit is at work through his word to lead
and enable us to live in the ways of God.
We learn that the life of faith – the life of the baptized child of God
– is one of love and service toward others.
It is a life that sees the blessing and goodness of God’s ordering that
he has revealed in the Ten Commandments and their explanation by Jesus and the
apostles. The Spirit leads us to recognize, “Yes, that’s what I want to be!”
“Yes, that’s what I want do do.”
And then the Spirit who has created
the new man in us, leads and enables us to seek to live in these ways. For sure, this happens in the midst of
struggle. There is no quit in the old Adam until we die or the Last Day. That
alone is when he is finally killed. But
the resurrection power of Christ is already at work in us to lead us in this
struggle. And we know that the struggle
can have only one outcome - Jesus Christ will have the final word when raises
us up on the Last Day.
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