Main Thing Podcast
This podcast encourages others to love God and people by leading them to know and follow Jesus’ truth.
Main Thing Podcast
The Weeping Prophet: Jeremiah's Heart for a Broken World (Jer. 8:18-9:1)
We dig into the book of Jeremiah and discover striking parallels between ancient Judah's cultural decline and our modern world, exploring how God's truth speaks to divisive times.
• Understanding the historical context of Jeremiah as the "weeping prophet"
• Exploring the tension between God's righteousness and His grace in a world that rejects His truth
• Confronting how cultural pressure and comfort numb our hearts to sin and spiritual urgency
• Examining why crisis often brings spiritual awakening while revealing superficial faith
• Learning to balance truth-telling with genuine love when sharing faith in a hostile culture
• Recognizing we are "not in management" - our job is to faithfully share God's message, not control outcomes
• Developing Jeremiah's heart for the lost through intercessory prayer and continued faithfulness
• Finding peace when prayers seem unanswered by trusting in God's ultimate sovereignty
Amen, reminder for us to recall in today's divisive and dark culture, from foundational truths and scripture to the hot topics of today's culture, allow this podcast to inspire and motivate you on your faith journey. Well hello, steve, welcome back. Good morning, glad to be here with you today. Again. Happy to be here. I'm excited to embark on another series. We're going to be digging into Jeremiah a little bit, and I think what we'll find through this study is that there's a lot of similarities between what happened with Jeremiah back then and what we're going through today. So what I'd like to do is just fill everyone in on a quick contextual study, just kind of what's going on around the scene during that time, and then I'll read the passage and we'll jump right in. One of the things that in my research that reminded me of the time of Jeremiah was the conflict that Jerusalem was going through during this time. Jeremiah was there with the last five kings in Judah. He witnessed the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon in 586 BC and God used Babylon for judgment on Israel. That time, egypt attempted to control Judah but was defeated by Babylon. I mean this was a time when Babylon was the place. I mean this was the epicenter of military and cultural reign. A couple of theological things as we go through that will continue to come up is that Judah was urged to return to God but refused, and Jeremiah is known as the weeping prophet because he basically begged Judah to turn and they didn't. Babylon was used as God's instrument of judgment, and this is in Jeremiah when the new covenant is mentioned. God says that the law will be written on their hearts, we'll have a personal relationship with God and there will be forgiveness of sins. And that's when you really begin to see and in times before but the messianic hope of our life in Jesus Christ. And so Jeremiah faced persecution, imprisonment. And so Jeremiah faced persecution, imprisonment and rejection, but ultimately he remained faithful to God's call. And so we're in today.
Speaker 1:We're in Jeremiah, chapter 8, verses 18, through chapter 9, verse 1. Jeremiah is gone. Grief is upon me. My heart is sick within me. Behold the cry of the daughter of my people from the length and breadth of the land. Is the Lord not in Zion? Is her king not in her? Why have they provoked me to anger with their carved images and their foreign idols? The harvest is past, the summer is ended and we are not saved For the wound of the daughter of my people is my heart wounded. I mourn and dismay has taken hold on me. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why, then, has the health of the daughter of my people not been restored? Oh, that my head were waters and my eyes a fountain of tears that I might weep day and night for the slain of the. In this, steve, we see obviously Jeremiah's grieving over Judah's unfaithfulness and impending judgment. But why did it matter to Jeremiah that Judah was unfaithful?
Speaker 2:Well, I think, first and foremost, this is his people. Well, I think, first and foremost, this is his people, you know, and God sent him to these people to instruct them, to teach them, to try to keep them on the right track, and they're rejecting the law of God and the teaching of Jeremiah and insisting on going down an opposite path that's going to lead them to destruction. So I think Jeremiah understands this is not going to end.
Speaker 1:well, you know and he cares deeply for these people. There's a dynamic happening in the text. There's a tension between God's righteousness and His grace and I was just speaking with a good friend of mine. I started discipling one of my neighbors in the neighborhood and he had some real awesome questions. You know, when someone's fresh and they just start reading the Word, they're like why is this there? Why is that there? And one of the things he mentioned and it brought memory to me when I first began mentioning was this tension of God in the Old Testament. Why did he seem so angry and wrathful? How can we read Jeremiah and read other texts in the Old Testament and balance out that tension in our own minds as we're reading? And preparing.
Speaker 2:Well, the reason we struggle with that is because we don't understand the holiness of God. The Bible tells us our God's a jealous God. He created us, he owns us, he is our master and he will not compete with any other gods. And so, truth be known, he has the right to smash us like a bug, but he doesn't because of his grace. And so we question these things because we don't understand, I think, the effect that our sin has on the heart of God, effect that our sin has on the heart of God, and you know, when we think about what he's done for us. Israel's a prime example. You know, he's brought them out of slavery, he's cared for them, he's fed them, he's watered them, he's taken care of them, and their response is to worship other gods.
Speaker 2:See is to worship other gods, right, see. And so there is a wrath of God that in modern-day Christianity for sure no-transcript. And I like to tell people I'm not your judge, but you do have one, because we have so many in modern Christianity who believe there is no judgment, it's just all sweet love and kumbaya. So, yeah, I think that if we better understood the holiness of God, I think that if we better understood the holiness of God and we understood what it means when we say he is God with a capital G, then those questions wouldn't be as hard for us.
Speaker 1:Right right, many in our culture, not so much in America, I mean. Some people may argue that we're being targeted in America, but truly we don't experience persecution. There have been moments I'm thinking of a preacher in Arizona just two years ago got shot in the head as he was preaching on a street corner. Some of us may be targets here, definitely in other countries. How does this truth impact us today? In other words, when we're out sharing our faith and we're living the testimony of Jesus, obviously there are going to be people in the world that don't like that because they're of the world. And how do we have a sense of urgency? How do we grieve, like Jeremiah grieved over sin, because, I'll be honest, steve, I mean living in the world we live in it's easy to be desensitized to sin, and so I see something in Jeremiah that I guess I would like to have a little more of. So how do we seek after that or really try to get the heart of the Lord in that way?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I think you've got to genuinely believe God is who he says he is. You've got to genuinely believe there is a place called heaven and hell, and you've got to genuinely believe that everyone's headed to one of those places. And so we all will receive the blessing of God at the end of our time here on planet Earth or we'll receive the wrath of God. It's our choice, and so we are so spoiled in this country we don't know what difficult is. I get amused. These millennials sit in the coffee shops with their $2,000, $3,000, $4,000 laptops, drinking $8 coffee and they think they've been abused, they think they're not getting a slice of the American pie and life is horrible.
Speaker 2:But what it really boils down to is, as you said, between our cultural understandings of what sin is because unfortunately, I think most people are getting their understanding from wherever not from Scripture but so between cultural understanding and our lack of knowing the Word of God and a reverence for a holy God. We naturally don't have a broken heart for lost people and it happens so easily. It just happens as you go through your life. You know the next thing. You know you're watching things on TV you wouldn't watch five years ago because it's so commonplace, right, you know? And so we have to get back on our knees and into the Word and allow God to speak into us before we'll have a heart for a world that's unfortunately dying and going to hell.
Speaker 1:Right, a world that's unfortunately dying and going to hell Right. Could that be part of the reason why some of the greatest movements of God happen after crisis? Because it seems like in our lives that's the one thing that gets our attention as humans, that's exactly right.
Speaker 2:There's an old saying in ministry that you can have your best opportunity to talk to somebody about Jesus after they're married, after their children are born, after a death in their family, and those are just normal life cycles we all go through. But something like 9-11, we saw people flooding back to the church, but it didn't last long. We got short memories. I think the reality is that when we're in pain, we're looking for relief.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, and our problem is we're not looking for the one who gives that relief when we're not in pain.
Speaker 1:And COVID was interesting too, because there were some churches that experienced the decline and others that experienced an uptick right after COVID. And in my mind, while COVID was happening, I remember thinking like, oh, this is going to be great for the church, people are going to flock to the doors. But it wasn't like that and I've always wondered why. Because that was a pretty big crisis, but there's so much skepticism surrounding the whole ordeal.
Speaker 2:Well, I believe God is growing His church and I believe he's purging his church at the same time. Yes, I'll give you an example. I don't know how many times I'm at a local restaurant right down the street after COVID and I'd observe somebody in our church and they're eating lunch, no mask, and they're like little social butterflies, speaking to everybody in the restaurant, and then they see me. Oh, we're just so scared of COVID, we're going to get back.
Speaker 1:No, you're not scared of.
Speaker 2:COVID, you didn't really want to be here and for whatever reason, covid gave you your exit, and so I think God's purging his church also, and I think we're going to be a stronger church for it, not just us. I think across the world In those times of crisis, you tend to lose the fringe those that aren't really bought in. They don't really have a deep relationship with Jesus. It's novelty to them. They're interested, but they've never come to Christ, they've never bought in. And so, yeah, I think that in COVID, exposed the fringe is what I believe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's good. So how do we balance love for people with the urgency of God's truth? So we, as believers, we know that there's a heaven and hell, we know that there's a lost and dying world, we know that the time is urgent, but we also know that we can't push people too hard. And so what's the balance with that? How we do evangelism, how we love the lost in our world.
Speaker 2:It's a difficult balance. I think we have to tell the truth, regardless of the consequences. Jeremiah certainly did that. He paid a high price for being faithful to God's truth and today we pay a price I wouldn't say a high price, but we pay a price for being faithful to God's truth and we have to remember that we are not holy God.
Speaker 2:We didn't write the book. We don't have the authority to change the book to make people feel better about their sin, and I've had many conversations with people who, basically, are talking to me wanting me to condone their sin and be in the church, and I always say to them I'm in advertising. God called me to tell you the story in the book and your job is to figure it out between you and him when you are exposed to the truth. And so we don't want to be mean, hateful evil and unfortunately, some Christians go down that path. I think that's a tragedy. Go down that path. I think that's a tragedy.
Speaker 2:I think that when we walk away from someone we've shared Jesus with, the worst thought they ought to ever have about us is that was a nice guy. I don't believe what he said, but he's a nice guy. Yeah, I always cringe when I see the guy on the street corner screaming at people and things. You're not going to hate anybody to heaven, Right. So everything we do should be done in love and genuine love. Not a make-believe love, but a genuine love. We genuinely care about them. We genuinely want to see them in glory with us one day, and it should break our hearts when they reject that.
Speaker 1:I love. I think the first time I heard you say that was Sunday when you shared a story. I forget the exact story, but you mentioned you were talking to someone and you told them you're not in management. You know how you can't control that. I love that. I'm like I'm going to use that that was a good one. So how does Jeremiah's compassion reflect God's heart for the lost?
Speaker 2:Well, I think when we look at Scripture overall and I believe in the sovereignty of God deeply I believe he calls us, he draws us. Scripture says that. Where I differ with some others is I don't think he predetermines the outcome of that drawing. I believe firmly we have a choice in that choice in that. And so you know, we have to realize that people have a choice that they're going to make and we want to do everything we can to love them into the proper choice so they become a believer, part of the kingdom of God, just like us. But we got to tell the story. We got to tell the story, yeah.
Speaker 1:Right. One of the things I realized just recently and I've been listening to you since I was saved, 13, 14 years ago the power of a story. You know you tell stories well and you know when I'm looking at the gospel accounts, jesus told stories and we connect with people through stories and just like reading the narrative of Jeremiah and connecting with that, we're seeing the distraught and the sin in Judah and we're seeing his heart and how he's one of the prophets and he's reflecting the heart of God and it seems to me, like you said earlier, the tension in our culture plays such a factor on the numbing of our hearts and to me that's a sad state to be in.
Speaker 2:Yes, well, I think we're a reflection of Judah. I think you can read Jeremiah and you see as if you're looking in a mirror. We're in that time. We're an incredibly blessed nation. God's been so good to us and we chase our own idols, we chase our own gods and we can't figure out why God would have a problem with that. You know, as I said recently, we have redefined Scripture. You know, we have an epidemic of people living together outside of the marriage bond and they don't seem to have any problem with that. But if you don't put your grocery cart back at the grocery store, you're a sinner, you know. So we've created our own moral code and unfortunately, we're naive enough to think God's going to follow our created moral code. Right, he never did that before, so I'm pretty sure he's not going to do it now Right, yeah?
Speaker 1:Amen. What does Jeremiah teach us about intercessory prayer? I mean, we know that he had a heart of God, we know he cared for his people and we know he prayed for his people. What can we learn from that?
Speaker 2:Well, I think the key to intercessory prayer is you're faithful from that. Well, I think the key to intercessory prayer is you're faithful. You're faithful, you've got a heart for something or someone and you lift it to the Lord over and over and over and over. You know that New Testament passage knock, seek and ask is in the perfect tense Keep knocking, keep seeking, keep asking until you get a breakthrough or an answer in that prayer.
Speaker 1:And even though Jeremiah didn't get the answer immediately he was looking for, god did answer his prayers eventually, that's right, there was a young lady that I prayed with a few weeks ago and there was some issues with her unborn child and it was from pretty serious issues and we prayed and then she came up to me last week saying, hey, everything is good, we got a good report, and that's exciting to see when God comes through. But so many times there are situations like that and it doesn't turn out well. So what would you say to those who maybe have been praying about something specific but God hasn't answered and in their mind it doesn't seem like he's listening or that he will answer favorably for their situation?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've taught this over the years and it comes from deep within me. My middle son was a twin and I had a little girl and we lost her at seven months of age with a malignant brain tumor. She was born with it. Nobody knew, and I was completing my master's in seminary at the time and, ironically, taking the theology class and so went to lunch with Professor J Terry Young one day and I made the famous statement that we all tend to make. You know, dr Young, when I get to heaven I'm going to ask God why little babies have to die.
Speaker 2:We all think we have questions, and Dr Young was about legally blind.
Speaker 2:He had these big old Coke bottle glasses and they were four inches thick, so his eyeballs were this big, looking at me, and he said when you get to heaven, when you walk into the throne room of God, you won't have any questions. Now that may seem oversimplified, but as one who's lived through that, I can tell you that I believe, when we see the face of Jesus firsthand, that we won't have any arrogance, we won't have any malice, we won't have any questions, we won't have any malice, we won't have any questions. And so we ask those questions, and I say this with all love and kindness, because we really don't trust him. If we really believe he's sovereign, whatever he does, it's going to be all right. You know, we may not understand why, and that's hard for us. I'm not saying the questions are not legitimate. What I am saying is they come out of a place of insecurity and doubt in our God, and so I believe deeply in his sovereignty and that whatever he does or allows to happen, he's still in control.
Speaker 1:Amen, yeah, amen. Well, I think we'll end it on that note, brother, unless you got anything else. No, that was good. Well, thank you, steve. Thank you, see you all on the next one.