Warning to an Apostate Nation

The fact is, for whatever giftedness God has prepared you for whatever task he has called you to do. He predestined that before you were ever conceived.

Therefore that is why you exist that in mind, it ought to give you some trust in the ministry ministry which you remain around your community and think about how bad the world has become. It's worth noting that many great nations have gone down similar roads before on today's grace to you. John MacArthur considers the prophecies of Jeremiah in a study dealing with ancient nations and some frightening similarities that we share with them. John calls this series God's word to an ungodly society. Follow along as John shows you how to follow Jeremiah's example the bold stand he took for the truth in a culture that hates truth we live in a day when God is completely ignored. Men plunge headlong in device busy giving full expression to their reprobate minds in our own country justices breaking down the standards are being perverted God is been replaced by money, sex, and human ego seems to me that man is gone beyond the bounds that God set stands on the edge of an eternal night. Our nation has for the most part forgotten God, I would have to say that worse than that, they pretty much mock God as the Scripture says we could say, alas, there is no fear of God in them.

Evil abounds in our society and sadly has even filtered its way into the church. I really believe that we've gone too far, too far in the church and too far in our nation, and I think we face a divine judgment. In these days, the prophet Jeremiah face the very same kind of time he faced the nation on the brink of a disaster. And this was not just any nation with the nation of Israel especially love specially chosen specially made the objective of God's plans and purposes in reaching the world.

And yet this nation and rejected God and because they had rejected God. God was going to come against them in a very severe judgment and Jeremiah was the prophet of doom. Jeremiah is the one who brings to them the word of God. Just before the judgment comes to pass. It could be summed up, perhaps in Jeremiah chapter 5 verses 22 and 23.

This is what it says fear ye not, we set the Lord, will you not tremble at my presence who have placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree that it cannot pass it, and though it's waves toss themselves yet. Can they not prevail.

Though they rule or yet can they not pass over it. But this people pass the revolting and a rebellious heart. They are revolted and drawn and that is very graphic language. It is true of Judah and I offer you the thought that it is also true of America. What is Jeremiah really saying well the first thing that comes to mind as you look at the verses. This he is saying does not. My Majesty cause you to fear me. The first statement of verse 22. Are you not in all of a God who can bound the sea with a strip of sand and no matter how fierce the sea becomes a no matter how it sounds and beats up on the shore. It knows its limits and it is restrained, the almighty power of Jehovah God is so clearly manifest in the works of his creation. Paul said that man is without excuse if he doesn't see God in creation. That is essentially what Jeremiah saying your mind should be stirred to realize the creative power of the providential majesty of God and should melt your willing to worship and obedience when you know that God controls the elements, the pride of the waves as stated by the hand of God. Spurgeon said I can scarcely conceive a heart so callous that it feels no awe or a human mind so dull and destitute of understanding is fairly to view the tokens of God's omnipotent power and then turn aside without some sense of the fitness of obedience." As all this no lesson for men. How can we sin against the greatness of such a God. And yet Jeremias is still my people are revolting and a rebellious people have they forgotten that the same God that stops the roaring of the sea and confines it to its limits is the same God.

The roaring of a sinful man and can find that man within a certain tolerance, the sea knows it's bounds it's one up on man. This is the great lesson man shakes his puny fist in the face of Almighty God and forgets that it is God controls everything. Poor puny man. The little creature I could crush like a moth says God will not be obedient to me. My people are revolting in a rebellious people. They go astray, and I think is a most insightful thought here. He says that I have placed the sand for the bound of the sea.

How amazing it is saying is anything but formidable sand can be picked up and it drips through your fingers. You can pick up a handful of it and throw it at somebody and it's harmless sand can be moved around sand is not particularly strong, and yet with one simple little band of sand. God controls the raging roaring of the mighty oceans of the earth got an effective saying this something stronger than sand. I have given my people. I've given my people Israel.

My promises my word, my covenant, my love, my forgiveness but the strength of all my love and all of my covenants and all of my promises have not been able to restrain their rendering and they are rebellious and have overstepped their bounds man you see is not like the sea sea knows its limits. Man doesn't and man overstepped the bounds man breaks beyond the categories that God has given. Even Adam man innocent man without sin overstepped his bounds. How far worse his sinful man and so this is the thrust of what Jeremiah is saying throughout his great prophecy.

My people are a revolting and a rebellious people, and they have not considered mighty God. They have gone too far in Jeremiah's time was the time of the Holocaust. Jeremiah was 8100 years later than Isaiah everything. Isaiah said was going to happen did happen at the end of Jeremiah's time. Isaiah you remember it said the judgment was coming and Jeremiah says it's here. Jeremiah says the Babylonians are going to arrive in the Babylonians are going to slaughter you and the Babylonians are going to take you into captivity, and that is exactly what happened. Jeremiah stood on the edge of the Holocaust. Jeremiah was the prophet of the end of the glory days of Israel. The late Dr. Moorehead said it was Jeremiah's lock to prophesy at a time when all things in Judah were rushing down to the final in mournful catastrophe when political confusion was at its height when the worst passions swayed the people's hearts in the most fatal councils prevailed to see his own people whom he loved with the tenderness of a woman plunge over the precipice into the wide welter in ruin. That was Jeremiah's lot. Jeremiah was the prophet of Judas midnight our Isaiah prophesied at 11 o'clock and Jeremiah prophesied at midnight.

Jeremiah treats for 42 years 42 years, during the reign of five kings. Jeremiah preached the first of those kings was a man named Josias and if you read the Old Testament you know that Josias was a good king and near the end of the reign of Josiah. There was a period of Reformation in Judah, a period of of great revival if you will, and Josias, you know, went to the high places where all the idols had been erected for the groves where the people in worship the false gods of the pagans around them and Josiah let a great Reformation and he tore down the high places and he demolished the idols and he removed idolatry from the land of Judah. He was a great reformer, but before all this happened, the prophet does hold said this Josias you lead a Reformation with no permanent results.

All of your efforts will not last beyond your lifetime and the reason is this the people will follow you because they are attached to you as a person, not because they are truly attached to God. And so the revival in June. It was a revival based upon Josias and not on God. Josiah was a charismatic celebrity. He was an attractive human being and the people followed Josias through a reform in the moment.

Josias died.

The reform ended while that speaks to our time. I'm afraid that what looks like a revival in a Reformation in our country is nothing but a preoccupation with certain celebrities I wonder to myself whether all this being said in the name of Christianity as an attachment to certain personality. We are celebrity conscious much of our evangelism is based upon some celebrity getting up in front of a group and saying this is what happened to me. Would you like it to happen to you or some speaker less charisma about him who can move people to follow himself, and I fear that what we're seeing today, intending to call revival is nothing more than a preoccupation with certain famous people.

I question whether it has any lasting valuable Josiah was followed by manager who heads Joe has only on the phone for three months. He was bad. He was followed by Jehoiada Kim enjoy Kim you'll be sad to know put back all the idolatry that Josias Jordan put it all back. Jehoiada Kim was followed by Jehoiada Kim who also only ruled for three months and he was bad and then the fifth of the kings and Jeremiah's life was a man named Zedekiah he was a vacillating cowardly weakling who saw the nation swiftly sliding down the slide of depravity into ruin and extinction. He couldn't do anything about it because of the evil of his own life.

Josias Jehovah has Jehoiada Kim Jehoiada Kim and Zedekiah five kings of phony revival and forbade kings and then came the Holocaust and Israel was slaughtered and led into the Babylonian captivity, where the Bible says they hung their hearts on the willows because they had no more song to sing the glory days were gone there land was decimated for 42 years. Jeremiah preached listen to this for 42 years, it got worse.

Jeremiah preached during the time of Josiah because Jeremiah knew what hell they knew that it wasn't real revival that wasn't real Reformation.

It was a façade and he knew what was coming. He knew the inevitability of the judgment and he wasn't fooled by what appeared on the surface to be a revival. As I look at our own country today. I have to feel a little bit like a Jeremiah I see a lot of activity around the concept of Christianity, but I question its validity. I'm not sure it's really centered on God. I'm afraid it centered more on personalities. I believe we stand here Holocaust in our own country and I believe this quasi-Reformation will have little lasting results.

Look at the church. If this were true revival there would be such a running abounding overrunning attitude of righteousness that we would all be caught up in it because true revival always results in righteous living, always. I don't necessarily see that as I look at the church. I look at the church I see divorce I see the breakup of homes. I see no commitment to care for the children.

I see it encroaching materialism. I see gluttony. I see the desire for fame. I see a success madness. All of these factors I see in the church belie the fact that there's a genuineness to the revival I feel were doomed society. Hell bound godless on the edge of night, they save a lot of Christian John so you where we fit in a way to take part in this world I would by the world's fair. Laugh at the world's jokes sit while it's entertainment.

That's what we been doing in the church. What is your minute how to get along in a dying nation. How did he confront an apostate people. Let's find out. I want to talk it on the responsibility of the godly and ungodly day responsibility of the godly and ungodly day how to live on the edge of the Holocaust how to live in a doomed society. Three things to recognize the right number one a divine mandate a divine mandate was to be our position in the society and godless humanistic atheistic, materialistic, indulgent society.

What is it to be in a society where there is religious tokenism and even a bow now and then thrown in Jesus Christ.

How are we to live in that society.

Are we to get engulfed in it. I would abide what it's selling is not how are we to view ourselves number one we are to know we have a divine mandate and this is the first reality facing Jeremiah in his dying nation. Chapter 1 Jeremiah chapter 1, Jeremiah had to face this fact people and I want you to get this that he was called out of that society that he had a divine mandate that lifted him out of that society. He was to preach judgment that was his calling.

I think we been way, way too soft on this we receive everybody we want to water down our evangelism so people can get into. Don't even believe the right thing.

We want to accept anybody. Lets out the word Jesus from between their lips. We don't want to condemn anybody. We want to make sure we soft soap and cajole and pamper everybody so nobody gets offended because in the name of love we might lose. Nobody loves more than God. Nobody loves more than Jesus and nobody in the Old Testament that I can find love more than Jeremiah. Please. Nobody cried more, but nobody preached a stronger message of judgment either. See had to realize that he had to preach to the issue of the day that he couldn't bypass it in the name of love or anything else he had to confront that evil society where it needed confrontation people opposite me know.

I have the so-and-so person. I know they're doing this but I just feel that I better not say anything because they might get offended if you ever sold us that hunk of baloney would we ever get, not from Jeremiah 3 features can be seen in chapter 1 verses 4 to 10 that lead us to comprehend his divine mandate three features the tell us he was set apart for God service. First, he was prepared by God. Verse four then the word of the Lord came in to me saying before I formed the in the womb I knew the and before thou came us forth out of the womb I sanctified the and I ordained the prophet unto the nation. There, now that's a pretty hefty bit of information for Jeremiah to handle before you were born I knew you before you were born I sanctified you before you were born I ordained you a prophet to the nations. Jeremiah, your life has one intention you are to be set apart from these people to speak to these people and by the way Jeremiah gives messages not only to Judah but to all of the nations surrounding as well. He was a prophet to the nations, prepared by God before he was ever born. First of all, before I formed the means before he was conceived.

God knew it. That's predestination. That's foreordination. God knew him set his love on him, called him before he was conceived before he ever came out of the womb, he was ordained as a prophet… An artist wants to make a beautiful piece of sculpture finds a suitable piece of marble to shake. God doesn't do it that way. God creates the marble to start with. God doesn't pick up the pieces of what you are and make you into what he wants you to be. He starts from before you were ever born to set in order what he has for your life. God gives the biography of Jeremiah in 11 short Hebrew words when he says before you are conceived. I knew you before you came out were born I sanctified you and ordained you a prophet to the nation. There is a life history that begins in the timelessness of eternity past, as God begins to set things in motion for the creation of this profit and it ultimately ends when this age is over, and Bibles are no more in the prophet's silence. What a man a man for a crisis when we face a crisis. We think of a program when God faces a crisis.

He immediately thinks of a baby because God uses people. People ordained by his own sovereign decree. Jeremiah had to know at the very beginning that he was especially appointed by God to be separated from the system to be a voice for God and I will tell you why this is important unless you have a sense of a divine call before you were ever born.

You will never be committed to the degree it takes to make a difference in your world. If you think you're some Johnny-come-lately or some tack on or some add-on or some final move by God, who couldn't get it done another way, you've missed the whole point of your life. The fact is, for whatever giftedness God has prepared you for whatever task he has called you to do.

He predestined that before you were ever conceived. Therefore that is why you exist. With that in mind, it ought to give you some new thrust in the ministry you had ministry for which you were made. So God wants Jeremiah to know the first of all, he was prepared by God, the beloved. That's true of us. We stand in the midst of a society on the edge of the Holocaust. Do we really understand that God has prepared us as he did Esther for just such a time as this.

You really believe that God has created you and redeemed you and set you here in this place to pull you apart from the world to accomplish a ministry for him or of you found yourself engulfed in the system, we begin to see our calling will make a difference is true of all Christians. Sadly, most people in the church today who call themselves Christians perhaps are are so busy with creature comforts so busy fitting into the current fashion of the world, making sure they dress ride and they drive the right car of the right stuff in the house and had the right job and climb the social ladder to the right associations in all this so busy doing that, that we get lost in the system and we have no sense of a predestined call of God to come out of that system and stand as a review. As Paul said to the Philippians coming apart as lights and holding forth the word of life. Jeremiah told nation of Judah should've been a witness. The whole should've been a witness to all the other nations, but they all fail. So God had to pick up this Jeremiah, who almost was alone and what he did, but I believe God is called us all to the kind of separation. Why believe certain of us are appointed to preach, but all of us are called to speak to this nation.

Some of us have voices louder than others. Not necessarily more effective.

That's John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University in seminary is lesson today is from the book of Jeremiah, and it's part of his study called God's word to an ungodly society. John this notion of dealing with an ungodly society. I can imagine that a lot of us at one time or another have thought of unbelievers as adversarial the enemy and that the way to deal with them is to force a biblical standard of morality on the culture, but you've made the point that moralism can be more dangerous than immorality. So talk about that for a minute. Well yes II think of morality gives you the illusion that you're a good person somebody who lives in an immoral life has to face the fact that they're not a good person and they probably know it, although it doesn't seem to be able to change the way they act. Moral people are always the toughest people to reach with the gospel because there they're not sure they need to be saved from anything. Witness the classic illustration of all illustrations of that fact would be the Pharisees right there is immense danger in morality on its own without it being attached to divine truth and genuine conversion and salvation and that fact. Reminds me to mention a message that I gave some years ago called the danger of moral reformation. I actually gave that message fill after I had visited the White House and talk to the White House staff in Washington and they had been asking me questions about how as Christians working in the White House. They deal with people in the other parties and that the activists who do things that are against God against the Bible against the life of the church and you know, even against lifelike like things like abortion law. How should they view that and I said you have to view those people, not as the enemy but as the mission field, and that struck a chord with them.

In fact, we had some interesting conversations and dialogue about that and they actually listen to that message. The that the White House at that particular time staff because they obviously when you get into grappling with the sins that defined some political parties today. Obviously gross kinds of things you have abortion you have the mutilation of children you have the breakup of marriage you have the destruction of everything. It's right to be righteously indignant. It's right to have a righteous anger and that's a legitimate thing Christ showed that when he cleansed the temple his righteous anger. There was not against immoral people.

There was against moral people so if he's righteously angry with the moral we certainly would be righteously angry with the immoral, but in either case, whether the moral or the immoral we we can't allow ourselves to turn them into an enemy that we simply want to denounce. We we have to see them as the mission field and so we have this message.

The danger of moral reformation. You can go to the website G2 I.org and search for the title the danger of moral reformation. You can download both the audio and the transcript of that message I think will be a very great help to you, grace to you exist to give you access to the word of God in a way that you can understand it. That's were all about. Take advantage of that. As we have it available for you. Again, the title of that message. The danger of moral reformation right in front. This message could revolutionize how you interact with those you disagree with on political issues and every issue for that matter. It will help you see why people don't just need to change their actions, but they need spiritual transformation to download the danger of moral reformation. Contact us today. You'll find that lesson@ourwebsiteg2youwhy.org the title again the danger of moral reformation that lesson as well as our current series titled God's word to an ungodly society and every sermon from John's 50+ years of public ministry.

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I'm Phil Johnson inviting you back for our next broadcast another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time on grace to you