Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / January 19, 2020 | Stand Strong - Jeremiah In The House

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January 19, 2020 | Stand Strong - Jeremiah In The House · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
0:01
SPEAKER_00: How are you?
0:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, bonjourno.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: Go chiefs, all that stuff.
0:07
SPEAKER_00: So it's great to see you.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know until uh this week, actually, until I saw the tweet.
0:14
SPEAKER_00: Everybody else probably knew this from Patrick Mahomes.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know that he was a believer.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: He talked about his Christian faith.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: And but he should, you know, you'd obviously be a believer after what happened last Sunday happened to you.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: But then somebody came up after Second Service, and uh he or his wife had had uh in Texas had had taught another member of them home, one of his brothers or something, said that the whole family was really affirmant believers, which fits, because I just found out also this week that the owner of the Chiefs is an outspoken Christian, Clark Hunt.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: So anyway, I'm talking to you today about uh the Chiefs.
0:50
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm talking to you today.
0:52
SPEAKER_00: We're in a series, Jeremiah series, and uh it's called Stand Strong, and I hope you'll take the Jeremiah Challenge.
0:59
SPEAKER_00: There are 52 chapters in Jeremiah, five in Lamentations makes 57, four chapters till Easter.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: Please join us.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: Consider joining us and reading those chapters, doing devotionals.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: I've already uh I think posted the chapter 9 devotional, which will be the one for the first one for this coming week online.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: And this morning's message is called Jeremiah in the house.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: And I confess to you that I'm preaching somebody else's sermon this morning.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: Uh fortunately it's Jeremiah's sermon and uh not Tony Evans's, but that's my confession.
1:41
SPEAKER_00: In American history, we have a lot of famous sermons, or at least several.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: Jonathan Edwards preached 300 years ago, Sinners in the hands of an angry God.
1:51
SPEAKER_00: More recently, Martin Luther King Jr., whose day it is tomorrow, famously preached the message.
1:57
SPEAKER_00: I have a dream.
2:00
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: I have a dream.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: This message that I'm going to share with you today is called the Temple Sermon.
2:07
SPEAKER_00: The Temple Sermon.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: Comes from chapter 7 and uh left my Bible in the back there.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: Can somebody uh get me a Bible?
2:16
SPEAKER_00: I'd love to read this to you first.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Carol.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: Very much.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: Open your Bibles or your cell phones or the Bible under the pew to Jeremiah chapter 7.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah chapter 7.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: You need to hear this.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: This is so this is the most famous sermon Jeremiah ever preached.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: So famous that it nearly got him killed.
2:38
SPEAKER_00: It gets uh referred to again in the second half of the book, chapter 26, the temple sermon does.
2:45
SPEAKER_00: In chapter 7, we're told what he said.
2:48
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 26, we're told how they responded to it, and they responded to it by saying, Die, pagans come, you blasphemer.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, we don't live in that day any longer unless you live in Pakistan.
3:01
SPEAKER_00: Pakistan presently has 40 people on death row for blasphemy.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: In fact, uh, a Pakistani who got his doctorate in America and just went over and started teaching at a university in Pakistan one month ago said something that they considered blasphemy about either the Quran or the Prophet Muhammad, and now he's been sentenced to death in the past few weeks and is on death row.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: So they took this stuff seriously.
3:27
SPEAKER_00: And so did the Jews, or they weren't called Jews yet, but so uh did the Israelis, the Judeans they were called, back in 600 BC.
3:38
SPEAKER_00: And that's where we are when we open to Jeremiah chapter 7.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: And we look at the temple sermon.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: Capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D is his personal name, which is Yahweh.
3:59
SPEAKER_00: Stand at the gate of Yahweh's house, at the Lord's house, and there proclaim this message.
4:06
SPEAKER_00: Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah, who come through these gates to worship the Lord.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: Do not trust in deceptive words and say, This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I'll let you live in this place.
4:45
SPEAKER_00: In the land I gave your ancestors forever and ever.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal, Baal, and follow other gods you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house which bears my name and say, We're safe.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: Safe to do all these detestable things?
5:08
SPEAKER_00: Has this house which bears my name become a den of robbers to you?
5:13
SPEAKER_00: But I've been watching, declares the Lord.
5:16
SPEAKER_00: Go now to the place in Shiloh where I first made a dwelling for my name, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel.
5:23
SPEAKER_00: While you were doing all these things, declares the Lord, I spoke to you again and again, but you did not listen.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: I called you, but you didn't answer.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, what I did to Shiloh, I will now do to the house that bears my name, the temple you trust in, the place I gave to you and your ancestors, I will thrust you for my presence, just as I did all your fellow Israelites, the people of Ephraim.
5:45
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Carol.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: So this is an amazing sermon that I am preaching to you today.
6:00
SPEAKER_00: It isn't mine, it's the one God gave to Jeremiah.
6:05
SPEAKER_00: And it starts a little bit shockingly.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: Stand in the gate of the house of the Lord, that's the temple, and preach.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: Really?
6:15
SPEAKER_00: If a Jeremiah I know, named Jeremiah Divine, stood at the door while you were coming in today and was preaching, I wouldn't be happy.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of you would make snarky comments.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: You'd be going by saying, We pay a preacher, he's in there.
6:32
SPEAKER_00: Let him do that, you lead the singer.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure they did the same thing to Jeremiah, standing at the gate, and they probably, and probably during one of these great feasts, Feast of Tabernacles or whatever, thousands of people flooding through.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: He's out there yelling and preaching.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: They're going, whoa, whoa, we got a priest.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna preach us.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: He preaches every single day.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: We don't need you.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: Go to the golf club.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: You know, they need you.
6:55
SPEAKER_00: You know, go somewhere else.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: But God sends them to ground zero.
7:00
SPEAKER_00: God sends them to the temple.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: God sends them to the gate of the temple and tells them to preach.
7:05
SPEAKER_00: Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Jew who enter through these gates to worship the Lord.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: The interesting five words for worship in the Hebrew.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: This is the one that talks about lying prostrate.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: You know how you see Muslims five times a day in Islam?
7:19
SPEAKER_00: Get the rug, lie fully face down, right?
7:22
SPEAKER_00: Have you seen that?
7:23
SPEAKER_00: On TV or something?
7:25
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
7:25
SPEAKER_00: So that's this word, proscanel in the New Testament.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: It's it's a prostrate worship.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: Now, God's this is a little bit of God, you know, poking them because He's gonna say, you know what?
7:37
SPEAKER_00: You may be lying down prone on the outside, but you're standing up on the inside in defiance of my commands.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: You're not really meaning it.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: Now I happen to like, you know, I think I think it helps you sometimes.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: Some of you found it helpful to kneel by your bed when you pray.
7:56
SPEAKER_00: We always had our kids when we were raising them up every night in family devotions, had them kneel down by the couch just because there's a kind of a bodily thing there, a reverence thing.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: But the fact of the matter is, there were times I was growing up, my folks did it too.
8:10
SPEAKER_00: When I had the transistor radio with a ball game running up to my ear, and I was listening to the ball game during prayers.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: And when my dad caught that, believe me, I was in deep, deep doo-doo.
8:22
SPEAKER_00: So, um, so you know, your body, your bodily form in prayer can help you in prayer, but of course, it all starts right here, right?
8:32
SPEAKER_00: Before God listens to your prayer, he looks at the man, he looks at you.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: So he says, I want you to go, and I want you to say, hear the word of the Lord, all of you who are going in to prostrate yourselves before the Lord.
8:43
SPEAKER_00: This is what the Lord of Armies, some of you will remember our study last fall.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: This is Yahweh Tzva'ot.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: This is what the Lord of Armies says.
8:52
SPEAKER_00: Correct your ways and your actions, and I'll allow you to live in this place.
8:56
SPEAKER_00: Notice that this sermon, though it is not a happy meal, okay, it starts off with happiness with grace and with mercy.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is shocking.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: This should comfort you.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: For hundreds of years, God has been saying, I'm gonna exile you.
9:14
SPEAKER_00: You are so misbehaving.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I made an eternal promise to Abraham, the land will eventually be Israel's, but you know what?
9:22
SPEAKER_00: The temporary enjoyment of my blessings depends on your obedience, so I am ready to kick you out at any moment.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: And at this point, they're only 20 years away from being kicked out.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna be crushed, but in his grace and in his mercy, God, who unbelievably still calls for your wandering loved ones to come back to him, despite the fact they may have been away from him for decades, says to them, though you've been away from me for hundreds of years, literally, if you will just repent and come back to me, you know what?
9:59
SPEAKER_00: I'll take it back.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: I'll let you live in this place.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: I won't kick you out of the land.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: Is that amazing?
10:05
SPEAKER_00: Can you say thank you, Lord?
10:07
SPEAKER_00: Can you be grateful for the fact that no matter how far you wander away from God until the very last moment, God's always begging you to return, and his heart of grace and mercy is so incredible that you see people who've wandered away from him for decades coming back to him later in life.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: And it's just, it's just a sign.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be in heaven, we're gonna go, what?
10:32
SPEAKER_00: You're here?
10:32
SPEAKER_00: And they're gonna go, you're here.
10:35
SPEAKER_00: And we're all gonna go, yeah, it's only God's grace and God's mercy.
10:39
SPEAKER_00: And then God continues in verse 5, if you really correct your ways and your actions, if you act justly towards one another, it's not just that you're, you know, not really worshiping me, it's you treat each other with such a lack of integrity, your tongues, you slice each other up, you're so mean.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: If you no longer oppress the resident alien, the fatherless and the widow, if you quit treating people that you consider underneath you as people that are unworthy of you, if you quit looking down on people, and if you no longer shed innocent blood in this place, or follow, now he moves to the what we call the first table of the commands.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: The two tables of the commands, this is just the way we talk about it.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: First four commands are about God.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: Have no other gods before me, don't take my name in vain, right?
11:26
SPEAKER_00: Commandments five through ten, called the second table.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: Table, tabul, tabul, table of the commands, are the commands about our relationships with each other.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: Don't murder, don't steal, don't cheat, don't lie, don't covet, and so forth.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: So he's moving to the first table, and he says, Stop following other gods.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: Then he says it again, I will allow you.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: This is the real issue.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: We're coming down to it, folks.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna let the enemy take you out, and you I know it's hard for you to believe, but I'll allow you to live in this place.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: I'd like you to stay here, folks, in my in the holy land, the land I gave to your ancestors long ago and forever.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: Even if I kick you out, I'll eventually give it, you know, in 1948, you know, in a long time, a long time from the future, it's gonna come back, you know.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: I promise it.
12:19
SPEAKER_00: So I just I just want to start as as we lead the little happy meal portion of this of this uh sermon.
12:26
SPEAKER_00: Just want to say, thank God that our God is the God of second chance, who's ready to give us grace and mercy.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: Say amen.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: It's just great.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: Now, now, now.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: All right, let's put the hammer down, God.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: And God puts the hammer down by saying, I'm going to indict you in three areas.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna indict you in the area of attendance without action, worship without obedience, and word without life change.
12:48
SPEAKER_00: You, your attendance at what we call church, your attendance at the temple, which you think is somehow gonna earn you brownie points, but there's no action.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna doubt you're because your religious activity, your worship, but you the other six days of the week, there's no obedience.
13:03
SPEAKER_00: You got the, you're talking the talk, but you're not walking the walk.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: Third, the word.
13:07
SPEAKER_00: You listen to the word and there's no response, there's no life change.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: You sit there and you stare at the priest, you stare at the guy, you hear the word, and you don't do a thing different.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
13:15
SPEAKER_00: So that's what he's gonna say and the rest of it, and he dives right into it in verse four.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: He says, Stop trusting deceitful words, stop chanting.
13:24
SPEAKER_00: This is the temple of the Lord.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: And I suspect, you know, that they did it with a little quaver in their voice and sort of rolling the L's and the R's.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: This is the temple of the Lord.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: The temple of the Lord.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: The temple uh one more time and I'd lose my voice.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: So you got the picture, you know, you've heard people who, for whom the it's a little bit artificial, you know, it sort of turns us off a little bit.
13:54
SPEAKER_00: It's artificial instead of authentic, but they're so religious and they're so in love with the temple, and they're all about, God says, you know what, you're all about the attendance, and that is just making me nauseated.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: So I just don't care for that.
14:10
SPEAKER_00: Especially since you don't act during the week correctly.
14:14
SPEAKER_00: You steal.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: Again, second table of the commandments.
14:17
SPEAKER_00: He says, you know, I hate the way you treat each other.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: Steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: Now also, you also, first table of the commandments, burn incense to other gods, follow other gods that you've not known.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: And then do you come and stand before me in this house?
14:34
SPEAKER_00: In this house that bears my name?
14:38
SPEAKER_00: You think it's your house?
14:39
SPEAKER_00: You think you own this house?
14:41
SPEAKER_00: Just because Solomon built it, so it's your house?
14:44
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: This is my house.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: And you come and stand before me in this house which bears my name, and he says, We're rescued, we're saved.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: This is our hiding place.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: So we can continue doing whatever we want during the week.
15:01
SPEAKER_00: Now, let's just, you know, be honest about this.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: If you had asked an Israelite in that day, what does the temple of the Lord, the house of the Lord, mean to you?
15:14
SPEAKER_00: They would have said to you something that had blown your mind.
15:18
SPEAKER_00: They'd have pointed out to you that the temple meant a whole lot more to them than this building means to you, as it should, because they would have pointed out to you that their temple, the house of God, was the Garden of Eden in a desert world.
15:32
SPEAKER_00: Connor included this in a sermon about six months ago.
15:36
SPEAKER_00: But you know, the Garden of Eden was more than just the Garden of Eden, Genesis chapter 2, it was a holy place because God came down to walk and talk with his people, his beloved Adam and Eve, and so it was a holy place.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: It was a sanctuary.
15:49
SPEAKER_00: And so when Adam and Eve followed Satan and went the other way away from God and rebelled against him, God, of course, could no longer walk and talk with him.
15:57
SPEAKER_00: He couldn't fellowship with sin, and so he cast them out.
16:01
SPEAKER_00: He distanced them and he put up at the entrance and exit to the garden, he put up what are called special angels that guarded it, and they're called Herubim.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: Remember that cherubim?
16:14
SPEAKER_00: Swords and so forth.
16:15
SPEAKER_00: Cherubim, keep that word in mind as we get into the Holy of Holies of the temple and of the tabernacle.
16:22
SPEAKER_00: So he set them up so that Israel couldn't come back in.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: Now, many years later, when they got out of Egypt, remember they come to Mount Sinai, and God says, I want you to build a temple, a tent, a tabernacle with a most holy place in it, where I will come and I will dwell with you, and I will be in your midst wherever you are, and I will lead you, and I will guide you through the wilderness and then into the promised land, and I will be there with you.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: And so we have the Ark of the Covenant, where we have those wonderful elements in there, the rod that budded, and the two tablets, and so forth.
16:59
SPEAKER_00: You have these things, and that's where God would come.
17:05
SPEAKER_00: And after 40 years in the wilderness, they carried that tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant, and they carried it across the Jordan River, and they set it up in a little town called Shiloh, and there's where it was for over 300 years, while Gideon and Samson and Samuel, all the judges, that's during their period.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: And little boy Samuel came to Shiloh, and that's that's where he would wait and help with the tabernacle, help with the sacrifices, and he would never actually go into the Holy of Holies.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: That was just for the high priest Eli, where the Ark of the Covenant was set up.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: And what were those things on the top of the Ark of the Covenant, those giant creatures with wings?
17:52
SPEAKER_00: The answer is that they were cherubim and they were guarding the Garden of E, the holy place, the sanctuary against any sin.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: And an average person, any normal person, any sinful person could not go into that place.
18:05
SPEAKER_00: Yes, that's what the temple is, that's what the tabernacle is, that's the place where God is.
18:12
SPEAKER_00: And that's where God's people said, This is a special place for us.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: This is where God is.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: That's why we say the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.
18:26
SPEAKER_00: And God says, I don't care for that for a moment.
18:30
SPEAKER_00: You're making me sick.
18:33
SPEAKER_00: C.S.
18:33
SPEAKER_00: Lewis expresses what God is trying to say here when he said, a cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: It's a shocking thing to say, but of course, what he means is that for God, attendance without activity is nauseating sham to him.
18:56
SPEAKER_00: It's a phony kind of religion.
18:59
SPEAKER_00: And he spews it out of his mouth.
19:02
SPEAKER_00: Has this house, God says, which bears my name, he says it again, is my house, not your house, bears my name.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: Has it become a den of robbers in your view?
19:12
SPEAKER_00: Notice Jesus picked this up just before he died.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: They were angry enough to kill Jeremiah for the way he blasphemed in their mind, God's holy place, God's holy temple.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: Jesus used the same language, and they actually killed him, by the way, what they did in chapter 26.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: They grab hold of Jeremiah.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: And I'd grab hold of him too.
19:35
SPEAKER_00: If he was stealing my thunder, if he was scooping my sermon, if he was standing at the front door and he was preaching, and all you guys were out there and nobody was in here, I'd go out there and I'd grab him by the ears, too.
19:44
SPEAKER_00: So anyway, they do that with Jeremiah.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: And they say, die, pagan scum, you blasphemer.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: And Jeremiah, by the way, you look at that, it's gonna be really funny when we get there.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: But he says, do whatever you want.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: But uh let me remind you of that verse in Leviticus that says that if you shed innocent blood, God will hold it against you.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: I just want to let you know, this blood in here, this is innocent blood, and that would be murder one.
20:11
SPEAKER_00: So, but do whatever you want.
20:13
SPEAKER_00: Oh, and they backed off at that point, nearly killed him later.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: But that was their response to this because he called it a den of robbers.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: They're going, this is a den of robbers, a den of thieves.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: You can't help thinking of a den, you know, there's a tour in Kansas City, a gangster tour, and they they show you the old place where the where the famous uh Prohibition era gangsters, friends of Al Capone in Chicago, where they hung out.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: And that's what they're thinking of.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: They would go, okay, this is our hiding place, this is our safe place, this is the temple, this is a place where no one can ever catch us.
20:47
SPEAKER_00: And God goes, in words from Jane Austen, he liked her as much as I do.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: I may be quiet, but I'm not blind.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I too have seen it.
20:56
SPEAKER_00: I see what you're doing.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: They're going, this is our hiding place, man.
21:03
SPEAKER_00: This is our den.
21:05
SPEAKER_00: We know we can meet here.
21:08
SPEAKER_00: You know, down through the years, let's be honest, people have always, from the very beginning, wanted to know how can I please God?
21:16
SPEAKER_00: How can I placate God?
21:17
SPEAKER_00: How can I get God on my side?
21:18
SPEAKER_00: How can I make God like me?
21:20
SPEAKER_00: How can I manipulate him a little bit?
21:21
SPEAKER_00: How can I make sure he'll make me prosper and help me out?
21:24
SPEAKER_00: And the answer more often than not that people in societies have come up with is oh, I can do that through religious acts, through rituals, through perhaps the lighting of candles, through perhaps the burning of incense, through perhaps certain ways of saying things or certain prayers or rolling a prayer wheel or doing certain things.
21:47
SPEAKER_00: By doing that, if I light enough candles, if I give enough money to build a big enough temple or whatever else, then God will sort of be in my debt and I can guarantee that He'll be on my side.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: It's sort of a way of working.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Whereby we get God in our debt by doing religious things.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: But then we get together like they did, and they say, well, this is our hiding place because this is where God actually lives.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: God actually maybe comes down through the wormhole from heaven.
22:16
SPEAKER_00: If you like Star Wars, Star Trek fantasy or whatever, you understand that in quantum physics now there is this rather amazing idea that perhaps maybe even the light from distant stars didn't take 10 billion years to get here.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it came through a wormhole.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's how you get from one place to another.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: You didn't know that's that's how you can go.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: You don't know all this.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: You haven't been to the Star Wars movie.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, so I I'm this is this is a little pagan carnal of me, but when I was thinking about the ark and how God would suddenly be there, I was thinking, I bet there's a wormhole from heaven.
22:52
SPEAKER_00: So anyway, they're going, this is where God is.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: We've got him with us, right?
22:57
SPEAKER_00: Now we can't get near because we've got the cherubim there.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: We'll just let the high priest go there.
23:02
SPEAKER_00: But he's in our midst.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: We've got the temple.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: And they would quote to each other, Psalm 46, right?
23:08
SPEAKER_00: That David wrote hundreds of years before, that say, No one can ever conquer us because God is our refuge and strength.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: Though the earth be removed and the mountains fall into the midst of the sea, Psalm 46.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and we will not fear, we'll not be afraid, because we have God on our side.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: There is a river in the city of God whose streams make Jerusalem happy.
23:30
SPEAKER_00: That's the river Gihon.
23:31
SPEAKER_00: And they delight the city of God, which is the holy dwelling place of the Most High.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: God is within her, she will not fall.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: They said, The Lord of armies is with us, the God of Jacob is our stronghold.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: And they would say to each other, Babylon, Shmabylon, they can never take us over.
23:49
SPEAKER_00: A hundred years ago, remember the Hezekiah and all the Assyrians that had 200,000 in their army, and they were laughing at us.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: They were saying, We're just gonna knock your walls down.
23:56
SPEAKER_00: And Hezekiah prayed a hundred years ago.
23:59
SPEAKER_00: Don't you know that story?
24:00
SPEAKER_00: And how the angel of the Lord killed 186,000 of them overnight, and they ran back home with their tails between their legs.
24:07
SPEAKER_00: God will never allow the temple to fall.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: This is where God is, this is the holy place, this is his temple.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: Blasphemy! Who are you to say that God's gonna allow the temple to be fall to fall?
24:17
SPEAKER_00: Don't you believe Psalm 46?
24:19
SPEAKER_00: Haven't you ever heard the story of Jonah?
24:21
SPEAKER_00: Jonah went and he forecast, like you, he forecast the fall of Nineveh.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: Did it fall?
24:26
SPEAKER_00: No, it didn't fall because God's a God of grace and he's a God of mercy, and we got the temple, and we got the city of God, and this is our lion's den, baby, and we're safe.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: You can see what they're thinking, can't you?
24:39
SPEAKER_00: You can sort of sympathize with them.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: And here's young Jeremiah with all this kutzpa, he's got to be bold, he's got to say something that sounds exactly like blasphemy.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: And he says, God says it's gonna fall.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: Why?
24:52
SPEAKER_00: Because you've got attendance without action, and secondly, you've got worship without obedience surrounding this sermon.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: We have God saying on both sides, what use to me is frankincense from Sheba?
25:03
SPEAKER_00: Sheba, Queen of Sheba, that's southwest Saudi Arabia today, Western Arabia.
25:10
SPEAKER_00: That's how far they had to bring frankincense.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine how much that cost, a little bit of frankincense?
25:17
SPEAKER_00: This incense to burn?
25:18
SPEAKER_00: We used to spend the money and burn it in my college dorm room because we never wanted to change our sheets or ever clean the room, and you had to cover the smell somehow.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: So we had loads of incense in our room.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, that's just a bad picture.
25:32
SPEAKER_00: Or sweet cane from a distant land.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: Sweet cane only came from Marco Polo country, from India.
25:37
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine how much that cost them?
25:39
SPEAKER_00: But I mean, temple attendance was popular in those days.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: They flooded in there, and worship was a booming business.
25:45
SPEAKER_00: The incense was costly, the sacrifices were costly, but they were willing to pay it.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: They were into religion, folks.
25:52
SPEAKER_00: This is a way to get God on our side and guarantee his friendship.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: What use to me, though, God says, is the sweet smells.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: Your burnt offerings aren't acceptable.
26:02
SPEAKER_00: Your sacrifices don't please me.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: Obey me, and then I'll be your God, and you'll be my people.
26:10
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is a common theme in the Old Testament.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah, Micah, Amos, Hosea, Samuel, who said to King Saul, to obey is better than sacrifice, to hearken better than the fat of rams.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah chapter 1, a year ago, I stood here and I quoted to you, What are all your sacrifices to me?
26:32
SPEAKER_00: asks the Lord.
26:33
SPEAKER_00: I've had enough of burnt offerings, rams, fat, well, fat, cat.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: I have no desire for the blood of bulls, lambs, or mill goats.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: When you come to appear before me, would you just stop bringing your useless offerings?
26:42
SPEAKER_00: Your incense is detestable to me.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: Why does God say that since he commanded it?
26:47
SPEAKER_00: The answer is.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: The answer is there's no obedience, there's no reality, it's artificial, it's sham.
26:53
SPEAKER_00: When you spread out your hands in prayer, I'm going to refuse to look at you, even if you offer countless prayers.
26:58
SPEAKER_00: I won't listen.
26:58
SPEAKER_00: Your hands are covered with blood.
27:01
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
27:02
SPEAKER_00: What I want is for you to obey, wash yourself, cleanse yourselves, remove your evil deeds from my sight, he says.
27:09
SPEAKER_00: Stop doing evil, learn to do what's good, pursue justice, correct the oppressor, defend the rights of the fatherless, plead the widow's cause.
27:16
SPEAKER_00: You go, well, I qualify.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: For one thing, I don't go around saying, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, to speak a Bible church, to be a Bible church.
27:26
SPEAKER_00: I don't do that.
27:27
SPEAKER_00: And when's the last widow or orphan I've stepped on?
27:30
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm a good guy.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden we think a little bit harder.
27:35
SPEAKER_00: I love how Phil Callaway says it in his recently booked, To Be Perfectly Honest.
27:39
SPEAKER_00: He says, I exaggerate, prevaricate, and fudge, and to be honest with you, I learned it at church.
27:46
SPEAKER_00: The church my family was part of seemed to reward falsehood.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: Nothing seemed to be more important than a person's outward appearance.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: So from an early age, I learned to fake my faith.
27:57
SPEAKER_00: Whenever anyone asked, I'd claim I'd been having my devotions.
28:01
SPEAKER_00: I'd say, I love to tell the story of Jesus and his love when I would sooner have had my eyebrows plucked out by spider monkeys than to talk to anyone about God.
28:14
SPEAKER_00: What have you been up to, Philip?
28:15
SPEAKER_00: The truthful answer would have been when I haven't been coveting or gossiping, I've been lusting.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: And honestly, I kind of enjoy all three.
28:23
SPEAKER_00: But instead, I'd say, uh, just struggling to memorize the gospel of John, brother.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: Nah, I know none of you are like that at all, but I mean, just think about it for a minute.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: The songs we sing sometimes, it's a little difficult.
28:40
SPEAKER_00: If you think about the words, it should be difficult to sing.
28:44
SPEAKER_00: All I want is you.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: All I want is you.
28:55
SPEAKER_00: Like my kids and grandkids to do well.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: Like some coconut cramp.
29:05
SPEAKER_00: Shake it, long horns and really like the chiefs to win.
29:09
SPEAKER_00: Lord.
29:11
SPEAKER_00: Especially the one about the Chiefs.
29:13
SPEAKER_00: You know?
29:14
SPEAKER_00: All I want is you.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: All I want is you.
29:17
SPEAKER_00: I lift my hands in your name.
29:19
SPEAKER_00: I thought we lifted our hands when the cops came.
29:22
SPEAKER_00: No.
29:23
SPEAKER_00: Um shout to the Lord.
29:25
SPEAKER_00: Last time we shouted is when Danny came out in the Christmas program with toilet paper coming out of his back part of his pants.
29:31
SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean, let's be honest.
29:33
SPEAKER_00: We if we're not careful, we're a little sloppy.
29:38
SPEAKER_00: We talk a certain way, don't necessarily walk that way.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: And so we need to remind ourselves, this will be quick, but we need to remind ourselves of God's three priorities in what order they are.
29:50
SPEAKER_00: His priority one is the heart, that is spirituality.
29:54
SPEAKER_00: Right?
29:56
SPEAKER_00: Before he looks at what you do, he first looks at your heart.
30:00
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, priority is obedience, morality, what you're doing the other six days of the week.
30:05
SPEAKER_00: Priority number three is your worship, or we'll call it your religiosity.
30:09
SPEAKER_00: Does he want it?
30:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
30:12
SPEAKER_00: But it's less important than the other two.
30:15
SPEAKER_00: The priority one is clear.
30:17
SPEAKER_00: Even in the New Testament, Jesus says, love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your might's first and greatest commandment.
30:25
SPEAKER_00: That's God's first priority.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: Second priority is obedience.
30:28
SPEAKER_00: Go make disciples of all nations.
30:29
SPEAKER_00: Teach them to obey everything I've commanded you.
30:33
SPEAKER_00: Priority number three, religiosity, or worship.
30:35
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, God's spirit.
30:36
SPEAKER_00: Those who worship him must worship him spirit and the truth.
30:38
SPEAKER_00: I want you to worship me.
30:39
SPEAKER_00: I want you to do it right.
30:41
SPEAKER_00: Right?
30:42
SPEAKER_00: I want you to do it effectively.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: I was uh humming a tune.
30:50
SPEAKER_00: I don't think it was a Christian tune.
30:52
SPEAKER_00: It might have been.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: And my buddy, who I won't embarrass, says to me, I maybe we're playing golf at the time or something.
31:01
SPEAKER_00: He goes, Who sang that?
31:04
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Chris Tomlin or Michael W.
31:07
SPEAKER_00: Smith or something.
31:07
SPEAKER_00: And he goes, let's keep it that way.
31:11
SPEAKER_00: Oh, thanks.
31:12
SPEAKER_00: Thanks a lot.
31:14
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's just the way he is.
31:18
SPEAKER_00: That's our friendship.
31:19
SPEAKER_00: We're just close.
31:20
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing we wouldn't do for each other, and we've never done anything for each other.
31:23
SPEAKER_00: So um, so you know, uh, but God never does that.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: God never says, let's keep it that way.
31:30
SPEAKER_00: God, God cares about your singing, you know, no matter how bad it is.
31:34
SPEAKER_00: He wants your worship, but the thing is, other stuff's more important.
31:39
SPEAKER_00: He says, I want, but I don't need your worship, your sacrifice.
31:42
SPEAKER_00: I want it, but I don't need it.
31:43
SPEAKER_00: So he says, David says in Psalm 50, God says through David, I have no need of a bull from your stall, goats from your pens, every animal of the forest is mine, cattle in a thousand hills.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: If I were hungry, I wouldn't tell you.
31:57
SPEAKER_00: I want obedience, priority two, before your religious acts, your worship, right?
32:03
SPEAKER_00: What right have you to recite my laws or take my covenant on your lips?
32:07
SPEAKER_00: You hate instruction, he continues in Psalm 50.
32:10
SPEAKER_00: Your friends with thieves are adulterers, use your mouth for evil deceit.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
32:15
SPEAKER_00: And listen, without your heart, priority one, I don't enjoy your worship at all.
32:20
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 51 in the next chapter.
32:23
SPEAKER_00: Uh you don't delight in sacrifices, David.
32:27
SPEAKER_00: All right, bring it.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: Don't take pleasure in burnt offerings.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: You know why he says this?
32:30
SPEAKER_00: This is the Psalm of Repentance.
32:32
SPEAKER_00: He's committed adultery.
32:33
SPEAKER_00: He's been caught.
32:34
SPEAKER_00: Committed adultery at Bathsheba.
32:37
SPEAKER_00: And he realizes this priority.
32:39
SPEAKER_00: David realized, what?
32:41
SPEAKER_00: You know what?
32:42
SPEAKER_00: Loads of people, loads of people come to church.
32:45
SPEAKER_00: People have come to Topeka Bible Church.
32:47
SPEAKER_00: Over the years I've been here so often.
32:50
SPEAKER_00: The week, a few days after committing adultery.
32:53
SPEAKER_00: Fornication.
32:54
SPEAKER_00: We do that without a hesitation.
32:55
SPEAKER_00: Somehow think that by going to church we can make it a little better and get God on our side.
32:59
SPEAKER_00: David at least was smarter than that.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: David goes, You know what, you don't want my sacrifices today.
33:05
SPEAKER_00: Heavens know you don't want my sacrifices.
33:08
SPEAKER_00: Not after I disobeyed you in that way.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: This is his confession, psalm of adultery.
33:12
SPEAKER_00: And he says, You don't delight in my sacrifice, you don't take pleasure.
33:15
SPEAKER_00: Sacrifices of God that you want for me today are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: So worship without spirituality is just formalism.
33:27
SPEAKER_00: That's all it is.
33:28
SPEAKER_00: It's just fake, it's sham.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: It's formalism.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: Worship without obedience, which is what Jeremiah's temple sermon is about.
33:35
SPEAKER_00: That's just rank hypocrisy.
33:37
SPEAKER_00: That's rank hypocrisy.
33:38
SPEAKER_00: It's talking the talk on Sunday, not walking the walk Monday through Saturday.
33:43
SPEAKER_00: God says, You think this temple is yours?
33:48
SPEAKER_00: It isn't.
33:49
SPEAKER_00: That's why we why we like this uh bumper sticker when we see it in front of us on the road.
33:54
SPEAKER_00: Forget world peace, visualize using your turn signals.
33:56
SPEAKER_00: You know, we'd like something practical, and God's the same way.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: He'd like to see something from you that's real and not sham.
34:07
SPEAKER_00: Let me say it one more time quickly, we'll leave it.
34:09
SPEAKER_00: These are God's three priorities, and they are in this order.
34:15
SPEAKER_00: All right?
34:16
SPEAKER_00: Put first things first, and the other things come easily.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: Put the other things first, and you lose both the first and the other things.
34:26
SPEAKER_00: The third criticism God has, the first one is attendance without action, second is worship without obedience, and the third is the word, coming and listening to the word of God without life change, going to the temple, hearing the priest, hearing the study of the word of God, and going away with absolutely no change, with no response at all.
34:44
SPEAKER_00: Stand at the crossroads, God says.
34:46
SPEAKER_00: Look, I want you to ask for the ancient paths.
34:49
SPEAKER_00: We're talking now about the covenant with me back in Moses' day, we're talking about God's word.
34:55
SPEAKER_00: Ask for the ancient paths where the way to good is.
34:58
SPEAKER_00: Literally the road to a town called good is.
35:01
SPEAKER_00: Get on that road, walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls, for yourselves.
35:06
SPEAKER_00: The phrase that's picked up and quoted by Jesus in Matthew 11 take my yoke upon you and learn of me, I'm weak and lowly of heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
35:18
SPEAKER_00: The same Jesus who picked the den of robbers phrase out of this sermon also picked the rest for your souls phrase.
35:26
SPEAKER_00: But they said, nah.
35:29
SPEAKER_00: No thanks.
35:31
SPEAKER_00: We won't.
35:32
SPEAKER_00: God says they won't listen to you.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: They hear the word and they say, I'm not gonna do it.
35:39
SPEAKER_00: In fact, God says, now, why don't you go to my place that was at Shiloh?
35:43
SPEAKER_00: You think there's no way I'll ever destroy this temple?
35:46
SPEAKER_00: You think it's your sort of magic amulet?
35:48
SPEAKER_00: You think it's your thing that, you know, it's gonna protect you forever?
35:53
SPEAKER_00: It's your security blanket.
35:54
SPEAKER_00: Why don't you go to the place where my ark of the covenant was for over 300 years, Shila, where I made my name dwell at first when you came across the Jordan River?
36:03
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
36:04
SPEAKER_00: See what I did to it because of the evil of my people Israel.
36:08
SPEAKER_00: And he's talking about this place in the desert.
36:11
SPEAKER_00: It's 20 miles northeast of Jerusalem, where they set up the tabernacle at God's command after they came over the river Jordan, 1399 BC, and during Gideon, during Samson, during the time of the judges, all the way up through the first years of Samuel.
36:27
SPEAKER_00: Remember the boy Samuel?
36:28
SPEAKER_00: His mother brought him and left him here with the priest Eli.
36:32
SPEAKER_00: This is where the most holy place on earth was.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: This is where the wormhole was.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: This is where God would come down.
36:39
SPEAKER_00: This is where he'd be with his people, by the way.
36:41
SPEAKER_00: Here's the Ibex, the scapegoat that they would sacrifice once a year.
36:46
SPEAKER_00: And here's where the tabernacle was.
36:47
SPEAKER_00: And the reason I show it is partly because I'm taking my group there this summer, because it is, as archaeologists like to say, the sexiest archaeological dig in Israel these days for the last three years.
36:58
SPEAKER_00: A Christian that I know well, consider a friend named Scott Stripling, the head archaeologist, has been digging it and they have found the exact place where that tabernacle was.
37:08
SPEAKER_00: The government of Israel, this is the direction of Jerusalem, and God says, Why don't you go up from Jerusalem and why don't you look at what I did to Shiloh?
37:17
SPEAKER_00: If you don't think I'm going to destroy the temple, go up and look at the five feet of solid burned ash that you see where the tabernacle used to be, where the Ark of the Covenant was.
37:28
SPEAKER_00: Israel's government has built a multimillion dollar building here because they recognize this is a super holy place.
37:35
SPEAKER_00: Just remarkable.
37:36
SPEAKER_00: By the way, last time I was there, there was a Christian group walking right along here.
37:39
SPEAKER_00: A woman stooped down right along the path, picked up something, yelled.
37:44
SPEAKER_00: It turned out to be a coin from this varied time, 1100 BC approximately.
37:50
SPEAKER_00: Just astounding.
37:51
SPEAKER_00: Just astounding.
37:52
SPEAKER_00: So you can see why I'm excited about it.
37:54
SPEAKER_00: But God's point is here, here's Shiloh.
37:56
SPEAKER_00: Here's Shiloh.
37:57
SPEAKER_00: Would you go up and check?
37:58
SPEAKER_00: At the downfall of Shiloh, what I did?
38:01
SPEAKER_00: They were so evil, Eli's sons were stealing God's meat from the sacrifices and stealing money from the people.
38:08
SPEAKER_00: And so God says, I'm going to destroy you.
38:10
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
38:11
SPEAKER_00: And he told the boy Samuel about this, you know, in the middle of the night.
38:15
SPEAKER_00: So he brought the Philistines up, brought the Philistines up from the coastal area, and they attacked.
38:21
SPEAKER_00: Now, the Israelites go, We've got the magic power thing.
38:25
SPEAKER_00: We got the ark.
38:26
SPEAKER_00: It'll melt faces.
38:28
SPEAKER_00: So they carry it into battle.
38:29
SPEAKER_00: You know, the Philistines freaked out.
38:32
SPEAKER_00: Philistines know about the Ark of the Covenant, God being there.
38:35
SPEAKER_00: You know, they've seen the Nazi movie, they saw it happen to them, maybe, or something.
38:38
SPEAKER_00: So they've seen the faces melt and they go, We're gonna die, we're gonna die.
38:42
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and then they go, let's die nobly.
38:44
SPEAKER_00: And so they go up and they fight.
38:46
SPEAKER_00: And God, who'd planned this all along, allows them to take the Ark of the Covenant.
38:51
SPEAKER_00: The news gets back to Eli.
38:52
SPEAKER_00: He falls off, breaks his neck, his grandchild is born that day, and they call him Ichabod, which means washburn.
38:59
SPEAKER_00: And so they uh which means no glory.
39:02
SPEAKER_00: And anyway, so God allows the Philistines to take the ark where it goes on a seven-month ride around to three of the five major cities of the Philistines, and the ark, they put it in there just to show it off, and they put it at the they put it before their huge, they have other gods, their huge god Dagon, huge God Dagon, who is the father of Baal, you know, in their mythology.
39:24
SPEAKER_00: And at all three of those places the next morning when they open the door, there's the god Dagon who's fallen, and it's not like he's just fallen and he's broken.
39:33
SPEAKER_00: He is decapitated with a perfect slice in his neck, the same way a hundred years later, David sliced off the head of their hero, Goliath.
39:43
SPEAKER_00: Okay, just to and he's and he's bowing down before the Ark of the Covenant as if God is saying, I can handle my own battles, thank you.
39:51
SPEAKER_00: All right?
39:52
SPEAKER_00: So this is the Philistine temple, and as a result, they freak out after everybody's catching the plague and everybody's and all that stuff.
40:00
SPEAKER_00: So they send them back to Israel.
40:02
SPEAKER_00: And eventually, of seven years later, uh David brings that Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, reunites it with the tabernacle, the empty tent, which they bring down from Shiloh, and then David's son, as you know, by God's command, changes the tabernacle into a temple, which is what they're saying.
40:20
SPEAKER_00: No, it'll never be destroyed.
40:22
SPEAKER_00: And God says, Would you just go up the road here and look at how I allow my own house, my own temple to be destroyed?
40:31
SPEAKER_00: That's the point here.
40:32
SPEAKER_00: In fact, just go to my place.
40:34
SPEAKER_00: See what I did to it because of the evil of my people, and because you've done the same things, this is my declaration, because I've spoken to you time and time again, but you wouldn't listen.
40:43
SPEAKER_00: I've called to you, but you wouldn't answer.
40:45
SPEAKER_00: What I did to Shiloh, I'm gonna do to the house that bears my name, the house in which you trust, the place I gave you and your ancestors.
40:51
SPEAKER_00: Blasphemy! Kill him! But he was telling the truth.
40:57
SPEAKER_00: And God says, I'm really serious about this, folks.
41:00
SPEAKER_00: I really do care about authentic worship as versus the artificial thing.
41:07
SPEAKER_00: Please don't come to my place and fake it.
41:10
SPEAKER_00: If you attend, you'd better act.
41:12
SPEAKER_00: Attendance is no substitute for holiness.
41:18
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, if you worship, then you'd better obey.
41:23
SPEAKER_00: If you raise your hands, if you raise your voice, if you engage in any other religious activities and service, thank you for doing it, but it's no substitute for obedience during the week.
41:35
SPEAKER_00: And finally, if you hear, if you're listening to the word, if you open the word during the week, if you listen to sermons, then you better respond.
41:44
SPEAKER_00: You better be willing to change your life when you hear me talking.
41:47
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
41:49
SPEAKER_00: Matthew West sings a song.
41:52
SPEAKER_00: He says, I don't want to go through the motions, I don't want to go through the motions one more day.
41:57
SPEAKER_00: I just don't.
41:59
SPEAKER_00: I want your all-consuming passion, the passion for you, to fire my life.
42:06
SPEAKER_00: Would you bow your head with me in prayer before Jeremiah sings that song?
42:10
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we thank you for the reminder that you really do care for us, you love us, you want to keep us in the land, you want to bless us, but wow, you just can't stand it when we fake it.
42:25
SPEAKER_00: You really want reality, you want our heart, you want our hands, and you do want our mouths, our tongues, to sing and to talk it.
42:35
SPEAKER_00: But you really need for us to walk it.
42:37
SPEAKER_00: At the same time, I pray that you'll give us the grace to do that.
42:40
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name we pray.
42:42
SPEAKER_00: Amen.