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When Life Looks Fine but Your Spirit Is Drying Up — Jeremiah (Part 1) · ToddTalks--Spirit By Design: Your Weekly Survival Guide

0:36
SPEAKER_00: The greatest danger facing the people isn't necessarily the enemy standing outside their walls.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: It's the spiritual decay happening inside them while they convince themselves that everything is fine.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: This is Todd Tox, Spirit by Design, where I help you design the spiritual life that you want to have in order to prepare you for the second coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: And today I'm going to be talking about some writings from the Old Testament.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: Because on Sunday in our Sunday school class, we talked about the writings of Jeremiah and the words of Jeremiah, the warnings to his people, which are also warnings to us.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: What happens when a society becomes so comfortable with its own direction that it no longer recognizes how far it has wandered from God?
1:37
SPEAKER_00: Does that sound familiar at all?
1:40
SPEAKER_00: What happens when truth becomes negotiable?
1:43
SPEAKER_00: Morality becomes subjective, religious conviction becomes inconvenient, and people begin believing that prosperity is evidence of the divine approval.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah confronted all of these conditions.
1:58
SPEAKER_00: He was not a popular prophet.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: He was not invited to reassure people that everything was going to be fine.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: He was called to warn his nation, a nation that had become spiritually complacent, morally compromised, and increasingly resistant to the voice of God.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: What do we see happening today?
2:20
SPEAKER_00: The parallels with today's society?
2:22
SPEAKER_00: I think you will see that throughout this discussion.
2:26
SPEAKER_00: Because there are major parallels with our society today.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: The most uncomfortable question for us today is: if Jeremiah were standing in our pulpits, our homes, our schools, our communities, what would he be warning us about?
2:45
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to explore seven warnings from Jeremiah, what they meant to ancient Israel and what they teach disciples of Jesus Christ living in our generation.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: So, part one.
3:00
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah was a prophet that nobody wanted to hear.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: He began his prophetic ministry during the reign of King Josiah around 627 BC.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: He continued through the final years of the Kingdom of Judah and witnessed Jerusalem's destruction and Babylonian captivity in 586 BC.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: He lived during a period of enormous political uncertainty.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: Empires were competing for control, powerful ones.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: Leaders were making alliances to preserve their power.
3:39
SPEAKER_00: Religious institutions continued operating, but the people were drifting away from their covenants.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: Idolatry and injustice were pretty much normalized.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: And many people believed that Jerusalem's temple guaranteed their safety.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: They had religious buildings, religious ceremonies, religious leaders, religious language, and it was all outward.
4:05
SPEAKER_00: Inwardly, they were losing their relationship with God.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah's message was essentially this you cannot abandon the God of your covenants, live contrary to his commandments, and expect the outward appearance of religion to protect you from the consequences.
4:25
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah 2, 13 states, For my people have committed two evils.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: Think about that imagery.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: God described himself as a fountain of living water.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: The people had abandoned a fountain and constructed their own reservoirs which were broken and couldn't hold water.
4:55
SPEAKER_00: They were looking for fulfillment in things that couldn't sustain them.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: So we live in an age of unprecedented access to information, entertainment, technology, wealth, and opportunity.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: Yet access to everything doesn't mean we possess the things that matter most.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: You can fill your calendars, still have empty souls, can accumulate followers and lose all sense of purpose, can become extremely successful professionally while becoming spiritually bankrupt.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: I remember I've listened to multiple times a talk by Matthew McConaughey that said he used to, when he became famous, he would purposefully do things to sabotage himself just to be able to feel, to feel normal, to feel real, because everything was so surreal.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: We can know more about the world than any generation before us while knowing less about the God who created it.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: The question isn't whether we have built cisterns, the question is whether we've mistaken those for fountains.
6:12
SPEAKER_00: So imagine a pilot flying an aircraft with a fuel leak, the cockpit full of sophisticated instruments, navigation system functioning, the aircraft is performing beautifully, but none of those none of that changes the fact that the fuel supply is disappearing.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: You can have every system working and still be flying toward disaster.
6:34
SPEAKER_00: Think about the crash that was just on the news.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: Um the private jet crash.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: But but they were in moderate turbulence, 600 to 700 feet of altitude deviations.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: That's not moderate, that's severe.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: And their radar may not have been working very well because they were flying right into the heart of a thunderstorm.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: And they got precipitation when it was negative 47 degrees outside.
7:18
SPEAKER_00: That's bad.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: That is not normal.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: That should have triggered something for them to turn and get out of the way, but maybe it was too late at that point.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah is asking us to examine the source of our spiritual fuel.
7:38
SPEAKER_00: So warning number one, seven warnings that Jeremiah gave us.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: And these are for our generation.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: When people redefine good and evil, they lose their moral compass.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah 5, 30 and 31.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: He described something horrifying.
7:56
SPEAKER_00: The people have become comfortable with false prophecy, corrupt leadership, and a population that actually prefers it that way.
8:06
SPEAKER_00: That last idea, the population preferring the corruption, that isn't a problem of leadership.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: That's a problem of people who are willing participants because they preferred messages that made them comfortable.
8:22
SPEAKER_00: So their leaders could say anything and do anything as long as the people heard what they wanted to hear.
8:29
SPEAKER_00: That's a very dangerous condition a society can enter.
8:33
SPEAKER_00: People stop asking whether something is true and start asking whether it agrees with what they already want to believe.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: We see a similar principle in Isaiah 5.20, which says, Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean for us?
8:50
SPEAKER_00: We have to be careful about a culture that increasingly treats morality as a personal preference, where truth becomes whatever makes us comfortable, virtue becomes whatever serves our interests, accountability becomes judgmentalism, repentance becomes an outdated concept, and self-indulgence gets confused with freedom.
9:11
SPEAKER_00: God's commandments don't change just because public opinion changes.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: Not purposely offend, but hold people accountable.
9:43
SPEAKER_00: We're not judging them, but meaning that right is right, wrong is wrong, and we don't just bend our principles as a church in order to make somebody else feel better about themselves.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: In the Book of Mormon, Helaman 5.12 teaches us to build upon the rock of Jesus Christ so that the adversary cannot overcome us.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: Our moral foundation must be Christ, not the approval of the crowd.
10:11
SPEAKER_00: That's where President Oakes meant.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: What he meant is our moral compass should be Jesus Christ.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: And if people are offended by that, that's on them.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: That's not on us.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: Not that we're judging them or offending on purpose.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: But people can take offense, and that's okay.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: You know, when I'm flying, a compass doesn't change north because I don't like the direction that I'm traveling.
10:47
SPEAKER_00: North is always north.
10:49
SPEAKER_00: North will always be north.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: The same is true spiritually.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: We can't redefine righteousness in order to justify our direction and expect to arrive at God's destination.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: So have you, or have we, become more concerned with being accepted by the world than being approved by God?
11:13
SPEAKER_00: That's a good question to ask yourself.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: Warning two.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: Religious activity is not the same thing as spiritual conversion.
11:25
SPEAKER_00: One of uh Jeremiah's most uncomfortable warnings was uh in chapter 7, verses 3 to 11.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: It's known as the temple sermon.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: People were entering the temple and repeating the idea that they were safe because the temple of the Lord was among them.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: They believed their religious identity would protect them, but God challenged their thinking.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: They were participating in religious activity while practicing injustice, oppression, dishonesty, and idolatry.
11:57
SPEAKER_00: Basically, they were being hypocrites.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: They confused the presence of a religious institution with the presence of God in their lives.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: Consider this message: you cannot worship God on Sunday and deliberately disregard his commandments the rest of the week.
12:15
SPEAKER_00: You cannot make covenants and then treat them as optional.
12:19
SPEAKER_00: And you cannot claim discipleship while refusing to become a disciple.
12:26
SPEAKER_00: So we need to ask ourselves some uncomfortable questions.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: Do we attend church but neglect our families?
12:34
SPEAKER_00: Do we talk about the importance of honesty but compromise when money is involved?
12:39
SPEAKER_00: Do we teach our children to pray but rarely pray ourselves?
12:44
SPEAKER_00: Do we speak about the Savior but refuse to forgive?
12:47
SPEAKER_00: Do we make covenants without seriously considering what they require of us?
12:54
SPEAKER_00: See, this isn't an argument against religious institutions.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: It's a warning against substituting religious appearance for a converted heart.
13:03
SPEAKER_00: That's hypocrisy.
13:05
SPEAKER_00: Elder David A.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: Bednar is repeatedly taught about the importance of becoming converted rather than merely participating in outward religious activities.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: The gospel is not simply something we attend, it's something or someone that we become.
13:21
SPEAKER_00: The question isn't whether people can see our religion.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: The question is whether people can see Jesus Christ in the way we live our lives.
13:33
SPEAKER_00: Warning three.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah 23, 16 to 17.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: He warns the people not to listen to prophets who speak from their own imagination rather than from the Lord.
13:59
SPEAKER_00: These false teachers offered reassurances when the people needed repentance.
14:03
SPEAKER_00: They promised peace when the nation was walking toward destruction, and they were selling comfort instead of truth.
14:10
SPEAKER_00: One of the most revealing confrontations occurred in Jeremiah 28.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah announces that Judah must accept the reality of Babylonian domination and submit to the Lord's instructions.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: Then Hananiah, another prophet, publicly contradicts him and promises that the captivity will end within two years.
14:31
SPEAKER_00: Hananiah's message was much more appealing.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: It was optimistic, it was encouraging, it was exactly what the people wanted to hear, but was not the word of the Lord.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: Not every message that makes us feel good is good for our souls.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: Not every popular religious teacher speaks with divine authority.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: Not every inspirational message is revelation.
14:57
SPEAKER_00: And not every warning is negativity.
15:00
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the most loving thing someone can do is to tell us the truth that we don't want to hear.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: That is why we need living apostles and the prophets, which we have in the Church of Jesus Christ, the Latter-day Saints.
15:14
SPEAKER_00: We need to distinguish between personal opinion, cultural commentary, popular philosophy, and the revealed word of God.
15:21
SPEAKER_00: In an LDS context, our responsibility is to study the scriptures, seek the Holy Ghost, listen to the prophet and apostles who hold the keys of the restored church, and act on them.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: A pilot who ignores a terrain warning because he dislikes the alarm isn't demonstrating confidence.
15:43
SPEAKER_00: He's demonstrating a failure to understand the warning system, and he's about to die.
15:51
SPEAKER_00: The warning isn't an enemy of progress.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: A warning is an opportunity to correct course before consequences become irreversible.
16:02
SPEAKER_00: Are you or we surrounding ourselves with voices that challenge us to become better?
16:08
SPEAKER_00: Or voices that continually reassure us that we don't need to change.
16:13
SPEAKER_00: I think that's a we call that a self-licking ice cream cone.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: Warning four.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: A society cannot escape the consequences of abandoning its covenants.
16:26
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah 17, 5 through 8.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah contrasts two kinds of people.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: One places confidence primarily in mortal strength and turns away from the Lord.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: The other trusts in the Lord and becomes a tree planted beside water.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: This is one of the most powerful images in the entire book.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: Notice what Jeremiah doesn't say.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say the person who trusts God will never experience drought.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: He says the tree will not cease yielding fruit even when the heat comes.
17:01
SPEAKER_00: That distinction matters.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: Faith doesn't mean we won't experience adversity.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: In fact, we will.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: Faith means adversity doesn't have to destroy our spiritual foundation.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: And if your spiritual foundation is built on the rock of Christ, it won't.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: In Jeremiah's day, Judah had a covenant relationship with God, but many people were living as though that relationship carried no obligations for themselves, no responsibilities.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: No.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: The Lord was warning them that covenant privileges were not a license to ignore their responsibilities.
17:47
SPEAKER_00: This is an important principle when we restored gospel doctrine.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: Our covenants are not ceremonial decorations, they're sacred commitments that bind us to Jesus Christ.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: Think about baptism, the sacrament, temple covenants, and promises we make to follow the Savior.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: We cannot expect the blessings of discipleship while deliberately rejecting the responsibilities of said discipleship.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: So what are we putting our confidence in?
18:19
SPEAKER_00: Our bank accounts?
18:21
SPEAKER_00: Political systems?
18:22
SPEAKER_00: Today, did you vote?
18:24
SPEAKER_00: Are you putting all your eggs into the Republican or Democrat basket?
18:30
SPEAKER_00: Or if you're in another country, into your political party's hands?
18:37
SPEAKER_00: Are you putting our confidence in our professional accomplishments, our military strength or our technology?
18:45
SPEAKER_00: Those things can have legitimate purposes, but they can't replace God.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: A nation can have tremendous resources and suffer from poverty of character.
18:58
SPEAKER_00: A person can have tremendous accomplishments and still lack spiritual stability.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: The tree planted by water has something that the surrounding wilderness cannot provide.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: It has a living connection to its source.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: So warning five.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah 6.10.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah asks a painful question: To whom shall he speak and give warning so that the people will hear?
19:32
SPEAKER_00: He describes a people who no longer want to listen to the word of the Lord.
19:36
SPEAKER_00: They have become resistant to correction, and this is a dangerous spiritual condition.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: One of the greatest blessings of the gospel is the ability to repent.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: But repentance requires something that pride doesn't want to give us the willingness to admit we are wronged.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you know people or have been someone at one time that was unable to admit to failure or to fault or to being wrong.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: We call this the spirit, the progression of spiritual resistance.
20:11
SPEAKER_00: We hear a warning, we become uncomfortable, we justify our behavior.
20:17
SPEAKER_00: We begin criticizing the messenger, we stop listening, and eventually we lose the ability to recognize the warning as something meant to help us.
20:27
SPEAKER_00: This isn't merely a national problem, it's a personal problem.
20:30
SPEAKER_00: It can happen in marriages, families, friendships, businesses, and individuals.
20:36
SPEAKER_00: The person who cannot be corrected eventually becomes a danger to himself.
20:42
SPEAKER_00: I've had experience with people that I flew with in the past that were unable to take correction.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: And because of that, they were unable to continue in their learning.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: It was very sad because unless you're teachable, you won't progress very far.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: The dis warning six the destruction of a society often begins with the destruction of its families and moral foundations.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah repeatedly condemned injustice, exploitation, violence, and the abandonment of moral responsibility.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah 7, 5 through 7.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: The Lord calls the people to amend their ways, execute judgment, avoid oppression, and stop shedding innocent blood.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: He specifically addressed how they treat vulnerable people, including strangers, the fatherless and widows.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: This is important because biblical righteousness is never about private religious feelings.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: It affects how we treat Other people.
22:01
SPEAKER_00: Conduct business, raise children, treat the vulnerable.
22:04
SPEAKER_00: It affects how we exercise authority.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: What does this mean for our families?
22:10
SPEAKER_00: A society is not strengthened simply by economic growth or technological advancement.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: It's strengthened when individuals learn self-government, personal responsibility, honesty, sacrifice, fidelity, and love.
22:25
SPEAKER_00: Parents cannot outsource the spiritual formation of their children entirely to schools, churches, social media, or government.
22:34
SPEAKER_00: We all have a responsibility to teach our children who they are, why they are here, what is right, and what is worth defending?
22:46
SPEAKER_00: What would happen if we spent as much time preparing our children spiritually as we do preparing them academically or professionally?
22:56
SPEAKER_00: You know, Mosiah 4, 14 to 15 teaches parents to raise children in truth and righteousness.
23:02
SPEAKER_00: What if our children knew how to pray before they knew how to navigate every social media platform?
23:08
SPEAKER_00: What if they understood covenants before they understood consumerism?
23:12
SPEAKER_00: What if they learned self-discipline before self-indulgence?
23:17
SPEAKER_00: Our children don't need perfect parents.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: We're not going to be perfect parents.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: They need parents who are trying to follow Jesus Christ and who are willing to lead by example.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: I would also venture to add that they are they need parents who are willing to teach them discipline and consequences of action.
23:49
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah 8, 8 through 12.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: He describes a people who have rejected the word of the Lord while claiming wisdom.
23:56
SPEAKER_00: He condemns those who suffer who offer superficial healing to a deeply wounded people.
24:03
SPEAKER_00: In verse 11, the Lord condemns those who say in effect that everything is well when it is not.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: This is a warning against treating symptoms while refusing to address the underlying disease.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: This happens throughout Scripture.
24:18
SPEAKER_00: King Benjamin teaches that we must become humble and recognize our dependence on God.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: Alma teaches that we must experience a mighty change of heart.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: The Savior teaches us that we must be born again.
24:30
SPEAKER_00: None of these teachings suggest that discipleship is achieved by simply declaring ourselves righteous.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: Spiritual complacency.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: That is the danger.
25:10
SPEAKER_00: Extraordinary hope.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: But hope is not permission to remain unchanged.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: 2 Nephi 28 21 warns us about being lulled into a false sense of security.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: And Alma 34, 32 and 34 teaches the urgency of preparing to meet God and not procrastinating the day of our repentance.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: The warning is simple.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: Don't wait until the spiritual emergency to begin building a relationship with God.
25:42
SPEAKER_00: I think most of the world is in that regard.
25:46
SPEAKER_00: They've either run away, pushed away, or are waiting for some spiritual emergency in order to start building a relationship.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: God promises a new covenant written in our hearts.
26:12
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah 31, 31 to 34.
26:15
SPEAKER_00: In verse 33, he states, I will put my law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts.
26:22
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't simply want outward compliance.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: He wants to change your heart.
26:28
SPEAKER_00: He wants inward compliance.
26:30
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't want us to obey just because someone's watching.
26:40
SPEAKER_00: That's the difference between behavior modification and spiritual transformation.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: We become new creatures, we change behaviors, we change our desires.
26:50
SPEAKER_00: We can develop a heart that generally seeks righteousness.
26:55
SPEAKER_00: The atonement of Jesus Christ is not simply about forgiving yesterday's mistakes.
27:00
SPEAKER_00: It is also about transforming tomorrow's decisions.
27:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna stop right there for now.
27:08
SPEAKER_00: It's been a long uh long episode.
27:13
SPEAKER_00: I do have a whole other section which I will release on Friday.
27:22
SPEAKER_00: Think about what I've talked about so far.
27:28
SPEAKER_00: Are you outwardly performing the ordinances or the outwardly looking like a disciple of Christ?
27:41
SPEAKER_00: Well, inwardly you do not have that discipleship.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: Do you only do things when others are watching?
27:55
SPEAKER_00: Have you had a spiritual transformation?
28:00
SPEAKER_00: That is what we're seeking.
28:07
SPEAKER_00: As you know, I've released a couple of books.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: Um, a fantasy novel about free will, and that's kind of the moral behind it.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: You've got the my author's link down below.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: But really, what I want to tell you is we can change.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: Anyone can change, you can change.
28:34
SPEAKER_00: Christ is there to help you.
28:38
SPEAKER_00: This is Todd Talk Spirit by Design, where I help you design your best life.
28:43
SPEAKER_00: Now, go out there and start making changes one little bit at a time.
28:51
SPEAKER_00: If you feel like supporting the show, I have a link down below.
28:55
SPEAKER_00: If you feel like giving us a good review, that'd be nice.
28:59
SPEAKER_00: I'd appreciate it.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: And if this has helped you, share it with a friend.
29:05
SPEAKER_00: As always, have a blessed day.