Sermon: God's Word Brings the Hammer

Julius: The first reading will also serve as the sermon text this morning from Jeremiah chapter twenty three. This is what the Lord of armies says. Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They are giving you false hope. They proclaim visions that come from their own hearts and are not from the mouth of the Lord. They keep saying to those who despise me, The Lord has said that you will have peace. And to everyone who walks in the stubbornness of his own heart, they say, No harm will come to you. But have any of them stood in the council of the Lord? To see and hear his word? Who has listened to his word and heard it? Look, a storm from the Lord, his wrath has gone out, like a whirlwind twisting down, whirling over the heads of the wicked. The Lord's anger will not turn back until he has completely fulfilled the purposes of his heart. In later days you will understand it fully. I did not send these prophets, yet they ran. I did not speak to them, yet they prophesied. But if they had stood in my counsel, they would have made my people hear my words, and they would have turned from their evil ways and from their evil deeds. Am I a God who is only nearby, declares the Lord, and not a God far away? Can anyone hide 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 who prophesy lies in my name have said. They have said, I have had a dream, I have had a dream. How long will this be in the hearts of these lying prophets? These prophets proclaim the fantasies of their own hearts. They think that they can make my people forget my name with the dreams each one tells his neighbor, the way their fathers forgot my name because of Baal. Let the prophet who has a dream tell his dream, but let the one who has my word speak my word faithfully. What has chaff to do with grain, declares the Lord? Is not my word like a fire, declares the Lord. And like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces. The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Grace, mercy, and peace are yours from God our Father and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen. We pray. Lord, sanctify us in the truth. Your word is truth. Amen. On May 22nd, 2011, one of the deadliest tornadoes in history struck Joplin, Missouri. It killed 162 people. But an additional tragedy beyond the fact that so many people died is that so many people didn't listen to the warning. The sirens were going off, but people ignored them. When the second siren went off, people thought it meant all clear. And so instead of taking shelter and hiding, they were destroyed by the storm. Now, you've all lived in Nebraska a lot longer than I have. What do you do when a tornado siren goes off? Are you the kind of person who says, All right, here we go, grab the flashlights down to the basement if you have one? Or are you the kind of Nebraska that says, I've heard that before. Let's go out on the porch and see what happens. Now maybe you can argue about what you should do when you hear a tornado siren, but you see what happens when warnings keep coming and nothing happen happens, it gets easy to ignore those warnings. And unfortunately sometimes that happens with God's word. God's word does have a lot of warnings, and we'll hear some of them today. But because a lot of those warnings happen and nothing bad immediately comes, we think, maybe that one's safe to ignore? Is something bad really going to happen? Jeremiah here gives a pretty stormy forecast. And the problem is there were other prophets, false prophets, who were giving a competing forecast saying just that. no, blue skies and sunshine, nothing bad is going to happen. Why don't you go out and sit on your porch and relax? Of course, the Lord doesn't want tragedy to strike us when we ignore his warnings. And so today, God's word. Brings down the hammer for our own good. And he brings down the hammer not primarily against us, but against those who falsely proclaim peace. God's word brings the hammer against those who falsely proclaim peace. And that's what the prophets were doing in Jeremiah's day. We read about it in Jeremiah chapter 23. They were saying, The Lord has said that you will have peace. People love that message. It was a nice message. The only problem was, as Jeremiah said, they are giving you false hope. And how can you tell? How can you tell? Because sometimes the Bible does say you will have peace. How can you tell these prophets are saying it falsely? Well, you can tell because of the people to whom they're saying this message. We heard, they keep saying to those who despise me. The Lord has said that you will have peace. And to everyone who walks in the stubbornness of his heart, they say, No harm will come to you. These people despised God and walked in the stubbornness of their own hearts. In other words, they weren't listening to all of God's words. Yes, God's word has a message of peace, and what a wonderful message it is. And it's one that you know and believe. Jesus comes down on Christmas, and what do the angels say? Peace on earth, good will toward men. Jesus lives perfectly for us so that God is not angry with us, so that he has favor on us. Jesus dies for us to take the storm of God's wrath in our place. Jesus rises again to prove that we will have peace with God now and forever. And Jesus ascends into heaven to rule over all things according to his good purposes. For your eternal salvation. That gives you peace, doesn't it? But part of that message is that the grace of God teaches us to say no to ungodliness. Teaches us to walk in step with the spirit that we've received and not to take advantage of it. And not to abuse God's grace. And that's exactly what these people were doing. It says they despised God, they were walking in the stubbornness of their hearts. In other words, they were saying, God will forgive me anyways, no matter what I do. And so it doesn't matter. I can do whatever I want, I can keep sinning, I can keep ignoring God's warnings, nothing bad will happen to me. And to that, Jeremiah had to share this forecast. He said, Look, a storm from the Lord, his wrath has gone out like a whirlwind, twisting down, whirling over the heads of the wicked. The Lord's anger will not turn back until he has completely fulfilled the purposes of his heart. In later days you will understand it fully. Even as these false prophets are standing here saying, Blue skies and sunshine, you will have peace, you can ignore God and despise him, and nothing bad will ever happen to you. Jeremiah comes and says, Look up. And your eyes look up above the heads of these false prophets, and you see the swirling storm cloud above their head about to strike. Jeremiah says, Watch out for these people. They're giving you a false forecast. Look what's going to happen. And in their lifetime, many of them did see this. For so many years, they said, you can do whatever you want, you never have to repent. And nothing bad's gonna happen. And for years that was true. Until finally God brought his purposes to fruition. The storm came down, the Babylonians invaded, and they slaughtered the false prophets, they destroyed the city, they tore down the temple, and they took the rest of God's people into exile. And Jeremiah said, See, don't trust in them. And the Lord says, In later days you will understand this. He's saying that this destruction of Jerusalem was just a sneak preview of judgment day. When everybody who has said, It's fine, you will have peace, you will have peace, you will have peace, will finally see what has been swirling above their heads. When the Lord comes down and completely fulfills his righteous wrath against those who despise him and hate his word and hate his grace and hate his love. Jeremiah is warning us. But you already could have known that prophets who talk like this, who share only gospel and never law, You already could have known that they were liars, because you know the counsel of the Lord. That's what Jeremiah says. You hear these people? Listen to this. Have any of them stood in the counsel of the Lord to see and hear his word? What distinguishes false prophets from true prophets is pretty simple. False prophets share their own ideas, true prophets share words of the Lord, what they've seen and heard from the Lord in the counsel of the Lord. And what's the counsel of the Lord? Well, we have a nice picture of it in Genesis chapter 18. In Genesis chapter 18, the Lord comes down in human form with two angels to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Godless places who ignored God's words and never repented. And before God destroys and brings that judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah, he says this Should I hide from Abraham what I'm about to do? God said, I have to tell Abraham. He's my friend, he's my chosen one, he's my believer, he's a prophet. I'll tell him, I'll let him in on my plans. And so he tells Abraham what he's going to do to Sodom and Gomorrah, and Abraham reacts like any believer should. He starts praying. He says, Really, Lord, do we need judgment? He prays for the people to be spared from judgment. The Lord has brought you into his counsel. Even better than Abraham, you have the dreams and visions and words of the Old Testament recorded and collected for you. You have the inspired writings of the New Testament writers, Jesus' disciples. It's written for you to know exactly what God says and what his plans are, his good and gracious plans. Jesus grace coming into the world, yes, teaching us to say no to ungodliness. To live in harmony with the Spirit and have eternal life. You know God's plans. And your response, like Abraham, then can be prayer. Lord, spare people from judgment. Keep them from listening to false prophets. Help them and help me repent and not walk in a stubbornness of heart, but always look to you in faith for grace and forgiveness and for strength to change my life. The Lord brings the hammer down on those who falsely proclaim peace because He wants to give you real peace. And another way you can tell if someone is a false prophet who's gonna share false words is if they call themselves into ministry. And so that's what God's Word does next. It brings the hammer down on those who call themselves into ministry. These last two Sundays I've been to two different installations for new pastors. We had one down in Plymouth, and last Sunday we had one in Omaha. And this afternoon we have another one in Omaha, a new pastor at Gethsemane there. Three different guys with a very important thing in common. None of them chose to go to those places on their own. None of them sent themselves to those churches. They didn't sit down and say, hmm, I feel like being a pastor. I'm gonna Google what churches have openings, maybe give an application, see who offers the best salary, and then I'll show up and say, hey, I'm your pastor now. That's not how it works. They needed to be called by God through those churches. They needed to be sent. They couldn't send themselves. And what does Jeremiah say about the false prophets in his day? I did not send these prophets, yet they ran. I did not speak to them, yet they prophesied. I did not send them, but they ran. Old Testament picture, right? Here's the king, he has a message, he has messengers. The messengers aren't allowed to just go running off and say whatever they want. They have to wait for the king to say, Hey, say this and send them to go. And that's how it works for pastors, too. Pastors aren't allowed to say, hmm, I felt God shake me. I felt God give me a dream. I felt a vision. And I've decided I'm going to be a pastor right here, right now. No, you're not allowed. You need to be called. You need to be sent by God through the church. And why is that so important? Because if the ministry is just your idea and your dreams, well, then you'll probably say and do anything to make sure it succeeds, instead of saying and doing anything that your boss who sent you tells you to do. A few years ago, there was a pretty famous pastor out in Seattle in a really big church, and everybody loved him, but they didn't know that behind the scenes he was a bully. Well, finally, the leadership of the congregation said, You can't be a pastor and a bully, and so they kicked him out of ministry. And big surprise, for a couple years, no other churches said, Hey, come be our pastor. They didn't want this guy to be their pastor, so what did he do? He started his own church. He said, the Lord told me, the Lord told me to start a church here. And so he started a church over there. And then he said, I had a dream. I had a dream that this property would become available and we could buy it for our church. And lo and behold, the property became available, and they bought it. It was his idea, it was his dreams. And so who do you think his ministry is based primarily on? Not the message, not the Lord, but the messenger and his feelings and his dreams that the Lord supposedly gave him. But Jeremiah says here, when you act like that, when you preach like that, these prophets proclaim the fantasies of their own hearts. Fantasies of their own hearts. When someone says the Lord told me, you get to say, Where in the Bible? When someone says, I had a dream. You say, let me check that away against what God clearly says. And God clearly says, I need to send the messenger. I need to send preachers. Now that's one way to see if you have somebody who's a false prophet. But of course, there's the easiest way, the clearest way. The clearest way is just what I said: to open up the word of God. And that's finally what God does here in Jeremiah. God's word brings the hammer when People share his word faithfully. When people share his word faithfully, there's not just false prophets in the world. There's a lot of them. That's why Jesus warns us about them. But there's true prophets true too. And there's the word of God clearly in the scriptures. And this is what you get to use to know who's telling the truth and who's lying. You can tell. It's not just in Jeremiah's day, there were lots of false prophets. A few hundred years before Jeremiah, there were two kings deciding whether to go to war or not. And so this king got together 400 prophets, and they all said the same thing. They said, Go to war, you're gonna win. And both of the kings said, Hmm, awfully suspicious. Is there a prophet of the Lord around here? Yeah, there's one, he's in jail. Well they went and got him. They brought him out. And they said, All right, you tell us, what do you think? What does the Lord say? And he said, Woo, go to war, you're gonna win. And they said, No, no, no, quit just telling us what we want to hear, say what the Lord actually says. And he said, If you go to war, you king are gonna die and your army's going to be scattered, you're going to lose. And the king said, See, this is why we don't like listening to you. There are 400 people saying one thing, one person saying another, and both kings knew who was telling the truth. Because the truth isn't a matter of majority. It isn't a matter of what really sounds good to you. It's a matter of of what God's word says. But you can hear right there that there's a problem. Even when everybody can tell that this one person is telling the truth, the big problem is not that they don't know that's what God says, it's that they don't want to believe it. They don't want to hear it. And that's why God describes his word like he does here. God's word is not just information to help you make a good decision. God's word is like this. Is not my word like a fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks rocks in pieces. God's word is like fire. God's word is like a sledgehammer. You can tell the difference. Right before this, Jeremiah says, Let the prophet who has a dream tell his dream. Let the one who has my word speak it faithfully. What does chaff have to do with grain? You can tell the difference. The Lord isn't afraid of false prophets. He isn't afraid of them saying what they have to say, because he knows that his word stands out, like chaff and grain. Let's not imagine I invite you all over to dinner later today. And I put half of you on one side of the table. Half of you on the other side of the table, and I give this side of the table sweet corn, and I give this side of the table the husk. How's the meal gonna go for the different halves of the table? Will you be able to tell a difference? Of course, because over here they're gonna be eating delicious sweet corn, nourishing body and soul, yum, and over here they're gonna be chewing on a husk, staring angrily at the people over there. One side nourishes you, one side doesn't. That's what God's word is like. One side, Jesus says, is the eternal words, the words of eternal life, like the bread of life that fills your soul. Another side leaves you empty and judged. It's easy to tell the difference. And because God's word is like fire and like a hammer, he can even get us to believe it. Even people who have been stubborn. You know what happens when you keep sinning again and again when you know God says it's wrong, it kind of deadens your conscience. And you think, not a big deal. And eventually that drives out your faith. That's why it's so dangerous. But God's word is like fire. It has the power to sear your conscience once more to make you think, no. And lead you to repent and receive forgiveness from God. When we walk in the stubbornness of our hearts, it's like we have hearts of stone. We just don't listen. We don't want to listen to God. But God's word comes in like a sledgehammer and gives us a broken and contrite heart and then restores it to gives give us a new and living heart by the power of God's Spirit that listens to God's word. Yes, God's word judges false teachings and false living, but it also is powerful enough to give us new life through faith in what He says. That's really why God's Word brings the hammer. It's not because he wants to hurt us or smash us, it's because he wants to save us. There's quite a few examples of that when that tornado struck. When that tornado struck, F five tornado 2011, right in its path, was one of the most sturdy buildings on earth, a pizza hut. Wasn't going to stand. And the manager in there, a man named Christopher Lucas, heard the warning and he actually took it seriously. And so he gathered his three employees and he gathered the fifteen people in the store, and he brought them into the store's freezer. And he took a strap and he pulled the freezer door shut and he held it tight as firmly as he could. And when the storm passed over, or really I should say passed through that pizza hut, it destroyed the restaurant and it ripped the door away with Christopher Lucas with it and he died. But everybody inside the freezer lived. He took the warning seriously, so seriously that he saved the lives of everyone around him, even at the cost of his own. That's what God's word is like. You know, Jeremiah, a few chapters before this, he said, I'm done sharing God's word. People get mad when you point out false prophets and things like that. I'm done. But he couldn't hold it in. He said, God's word is like fire in my heart. I have to share it. And that's what it's like for us too. God's word is all about our Savior. Yes, who came to kindle fire on earth and show the difference between truth and falsehood, but it's because he wanted to save us. It's because God's word points to him, the one who who throws us in the rock of ages, cleft for us, a place that we can hide. And he closed the doors shut and clung to that cross and took the storm of God's wrath for us at the cost of his own life. So that we could be safe. That's what God's word tells us about. And so when the warnings come, listen and hide yourself in that rock of ages cleft for you. Listen to the words of your loving Savior and be saved. Amen.

Jeremiah 23 · chapter mention Genesis 18 · chapter mention Genesis 18 · chapter mention