Please turn to Jeremiah 6. I am going to read Jeremiah 6:10-20:
To whom shall I speak, and give warning, that they may hear? behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken: behold, the word of JEHOVAH is unto them a reproach; they have no delight in it. Therefore I am full of the fury of JEHOVAH; I am weary with holding in: I will pour it out upon the children abroad, and upon the assembly of young men together: for even the husband with the wife shall be taken, the aged with him that is full of days. And their houses shall be turned unto others, with their fields and wives together: for I will stretch out my hand upon the inhabitants of the land, saith JEHOVAH. For from the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely. They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace. Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore they shall fall among them that fall: at the time that I visit them they shall be cast down, saith JEHOVAH. Thus saith JEHOVAH, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein. Also I set watchmen over you, saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet. But they said, We will not hearken. Therefore hear, ye nations, and know, O congregation, what is among them. Hear, O earth: behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened unto my words, nor to my law, but rejected it. To what purpose cometh there to me incense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country? your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices sweet unto me.
I will stop reading there.
Who is this passage talking about? As we just read these ten verses, what do you think? Who do you think is in view?
If we asked individuals in the churches or the pastors, elders, or deacons, they are going to say that this is speaking about Judah and Jerusalem since they were unfaithful. They were wicked people. They were always getting in trouble with the Word of God, which is true. But the thing is that the churches tend to think that they are not wicked, that they are not unfaithful, that they are not in trouble with God, and that everything is well between them and God.
This is interesting because God wrote the Bible over a period of about 1500 years, from the days of Moses all the way down near the end of the first century A.D. Of course, for this length of time, God used prophets of Israel to write His Word. We have much of the history of Israel recorded in the Bible, and much of it is information that points out their failings, their sins, their constant transgressions against the Law of God. God commanded them to obey His Law, and they repeatedly failed to obey His Law.
So it could be easy for the New Testament church to look at all of the wickedness and all of the rebellion of Israel and say, “We have our faults. We know that we are not perfect, but we are not that bad.”
We can see why the church would do this. The Bible was completed by the end of the first century. Right? In about 95 A.D., the Bible was finished. God is not going to add unto His Word. From that point, He has not and He will not all the way till the end of the world. This Book, the Bible, is the completed Word of God, all 66 books. There is no additional revelation of any kind.
This is how we know that tongues are not of God and that any kind of supernatural revelation is not of God. Since the completion of the Bible, however, God could no longer write about the sins of the New Testament churches. The church age went from 33 A.D. until 1988, a span of 1,955 years, and for only about 60 or so of these years was the Bible still opened; that is, God was still bringing additional revelation.
Yet we still find in some of the Epistles, like 1 Corinthians, God pointing out the sins of the New Testament church. We also find in the book of Revelation letters that were addressed to the seven churches in Asia Minor and we see God finding fault with these churches. They had errors and they had sins early on during the six decades that they were in existence before God completed the Bible.
For instance, let us go to Revelation 2 and read a couple of verses there. We will see that God is looking at the church as He says in Revelation 2:12-14:
And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write; These things saith he which hath the sharp sword with two edges;
This is referring to the Word of God. It continues:
I know thy works and where thou dwellest, even where Satan’s seat is: and thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith, even in those days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth. But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication.
This was during the first century A.D. The churches were basically just getting underway and Satan already has a seat there. He was already seated as we read that they were involved with idols and with fornication, which spiritually points to being unfaithful to the commandments of God. This was early on and you can read these kinds of statements about the other churches as well.
In Revelation 2:18, God is speaking to the church in Thyatira. Then in Revelation 2:20, we read:
Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.
Again, these were the same kinds of charges. Why were they given these kinds of charges? It was because the council at Jerusalem in Acts 15 met to discuss whether or not they should keep the Law of Moses or what parts of the Law of Moses they should keep—for example, circumcision—because there were some Judaizers, Jewish believers, who thought that certain laws ought to be kept.
So a council of the early church convened and they determined that, “No, you do not have to be circumcised and you do not have to keep the Law of Moses.” Here is the law that God gave the New Testament church. We read in Acts 15:19-20:
Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God: But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood.
This is it. These are all of the laws that God gave the New Testament churches, and yet we find in Revelation 2 that they were already committing idolatry and that they were already involved with spiritual fornication, which were two out of the four laws.
Each one of the laws has spiritual meaning. Basically it is saying, “You, the church, must obey the Word of God. If you fail to obey, it is idolatry. You are putting something ahead of God’s Word. If you fail to obey, it is also spiritual fornication.”
As far as “things strangled,” there was a man who had been forgiven much. Then he had someone who owed him a little whom he grabbed by the throat and said, “Pay me that thou owest.” Even though his lord had forgiven him much, he was strangling the man. This points to no forgiveness, which is what the church has developed today as they have put forth doctrines and gospels that offer no forgiveness to the hearers. There is no salvation through false gospels.
In relation to “blood,” God is jealous of the blood of Christ. There is not to be any other blood.
So all of these laws point to the fact that the church must be faithful to the Bible. This is really what each one is emphasizing.
In 33 A.D. is when God poured out the Holy Spirit. In about 95 A.D., He finished the Bible at the end of the writing of the book of Revelation. So in this short space of time, they had already fallen into sins.
Is there any difference between the church and Israel? Is there? The church thinks that there is. The churches and congregations of the world think that there is.
Well, yes, there were a few problems in the churches of Asia Minor and the Corinthians had some trouble; this is true. But it is nothing like God writes about Israel. God writes whole books: Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, etc. He goes on and on as He lays out the sins of Israel.
Of course there is not a whole bunch about the churches, like there was about Israel, because God finished the Bible after a few decades. But what if He had kept writing into the church age, into the Dark Ages, up until the Reformation?
Why was there a Reformation? It was because the churches were unfaithful. Keep in mind that we have one denomination around today that was around then. Other denominations formed at the time of the Reformation that are still here today.
It was the churches who were burning people and putting people to death for wanting to have the Bible in their own language. At times, this was the purpose for announcing them as heretics. It was because they wanted to share the Word of God with others in an understandable way.
People naturally do not like the Word of God. Normally, people want to remain in darkness. They want to continue being ignorant because this is where they think they can remain in peace. This is where they think that they can have the enjoyments of this life. But the Bible, the Word of God, reveals and shines the light into their lives and reveals God’s commandments, but it also reveals that they are not keeping them. Therefore, it reveals that they are sinners under the wrath of God and subject to destruction. Naturally, people would much rather be in darkness and not have this information.
This is why for centuries the Catholic Church performed its mass in Latin. Even in this country up to just a few decades ago, people went to mass and did not understand a word that the preacher was saying; and they were fine with this. Some people today want to go back to this because they can have the trappings of the church—all of the beautiful scenery, the stained-glass windows, the crosses and the crucifixes, and the Lord’s Table—and they are not bothered with actually hearing the Word of God because it is in another language.
Believe me, there are many people who would like this. They could leave without being troubled at all. They would not hear any words from God that would reprove them or that would rebuke them or that would condemn them. Instead, it would be a pleasant experience for many people.
So God gave the Law to the church and the church broke the Law of God within the first century and all throughout its history. If God had written down what the churches have done over the centuries, we would have a pretty big Bible. He could have done this just as He did with Israel’s faults and Israel’s sins. Instead, He determined to close it off in the first century A.D.
The church misunderstands this lack of condemnation. They misunderstand the size of this condemnation, because God did condemn them. They misunderstand since they are not condemned repeatedly as Israel was, because it was not God’s plan to continue writing His Word.
Let us just read a little bit more of Revelation 2. In Revelation 2:20, it said that Jezebel was teaching:
…to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.
Then we read in verse 21, Revelation 2:21:
And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not.
They had 1,955 years from the cross. This was the space of time. They went contrary to God’s Law and to the Bible, but God did not bring judgment upon them until the proper time. They had “space to repent.”
Did the church repent after this allotted period of time was up and the church age was over? No, they did not repent. What did God do? He ended the church age. We read in 1 Peter 4:17:
For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God…
So He began the judgment process and the Great Tribulation began.
After it says that “she repented not,” look at what we read in Revelation 2:22:
Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation…
This is what happened. This is where we are right now, and yet it was God’s good pleasure to overlook the sins of the corporate body, like Israel as He overlooked their sins. Even though He would chasten them and bring an enemy against them, He kept restoring them, in a sense, when they would have a good king.
This was because it was God’s plan to keep Israel functioning until Christ came. Yet, finally, He did put away Israel as the people of God and they became no longer His holy people. They were no longer His representatives of the Kingdom of God upon earth.
But the church says, “Yes, but God would never do this to us! There is no way that God would do this to us!”
Why do they say this? Why do they think this? Why does the church feel that it is impossible for God to do with them what He did with Israel, especially since they are following the same pattern and sinning against the Law of God just like Israel did repeatedly? Why do they believe that God would not put them away?
There are two reasons. Number one, they failed to recognize how God wrote the Bible. Number two, they have a misunderstanding of grace. They completely misunderstand grace.
Look at what God said in Romans 11, which is a chapter where God is speaking of the casting away of Israel. We read in Romans 11:15:
For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?
This is referring to Israel. Then go down to verse 17, Romans 11:17:
And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert grafted in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree;
God is using Israel, which is a corporate body, and He is using a figure of branches being broken off while He is referring to another entity, which is also a corporate body, the corporate body of the church.
Then it says in Romans 11:18-20:
Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. Thou wilt say then…
He is putting this as if the churches were speaking:
…The branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in. Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear:
This is a warning. This is a warning from God. The church was not to think that they were above what God had done to Israel. They were not to think that it was impossible for God to do with them what He had done with Israel. They were to fear this and not be proud and think that they were above the judgment of God.
Then we read in Romans 11:21:
For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee.
This is a very clear warning to the church that they had better obey, that they had better listen to the Word of God, that they had better hearken to His Word. He is warning them that if they failed to listen, what He did to Israel could very well happen to them. Of course, when God gave space of 1,955 years, there was much wickedness in the church, many false teachings, and yet God did not judge them. Because of this, they developed callousness and hardness of heart towards God, “We can do as we please. We can sin. Of course, we are not perfect. Therefore, we can sin and God will not judge us because we stand by grace.”
Is this true? Do the churches stand by grace? What is grace but that people sin and are saved by grace. We are saved by grace, are we not? “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.” Grace overlooks sin. When someone becomes saved, God forgives all sin: past, present, future. He has forgiven every sin that they ever committed, because Jesus paid for their sins if they are a true child of God “from the foundation of the world.”
This is all true. But the church, which is a corporate body, takes the idea of grace, which is only true between God and an individual, and they apply it to themselves. If they taught falsely, they recognized this as sin. However, they believed that God would cover this by His grace.
God does not cover the churches, just like He did not cover Israel, by grace. Churches, like Israel, stand in a works relationship towards God. As long as they were faithful, then God’s Spirit would have remained with them. If they were unfaithful, He threatened that He would take away His candlestick in Revelation 2. He promised that He would remove the light of truth or the light of the Gospel out from the midst of them, as He has actually done today. Since the Great Tribulation began, the Holy Spirit came out of the midst and is no longer within the congregations, within the midst of them.
So it is the churches wrong understanding of grace that permits them to think that they can basically sin at will against the Law of God, the Bible, and that there would be no problem, that there would be no threat of God removing His blessings from them. But this is false. This is completely false. This is a wrong idea. We cannot take the grace that the Bible speaks of towards a sinner, an individual, and apply it to the whole church, to the whole corporate body.
The other thing is that the churches failed to realize how God wrote the Bible. He wrote in parables. Before the completion of the Bible while the churches were in existence during the first few decades, God had the Bible in an ongoing process. Therefore, how was He going to address the sins of the church that would come after the Bible was completed, the churches that would be around for many centuries; actually, for 1,955 years? How could He, in other words, have the Bible be meaningful to the New Testament church?
Basically, what the church did to ward off the judgments of God, to remove themselves from the wrath of God, was that they developed a Biblical teaching, a hermeneutic that said that when God was speaking to Israel, He was speaking to Israel, and that when God was speaking to Judah, He was speaking to Judah, and that when God was speaking to Jerusalem, He was speaking to Jerusalem. They believed that none of this language applied to them. In other words, they turned the Bible into a nice history book. They could read all about the history of Israel and maybe glean some moral teaching. In essence, it gave them a nice history as a foundation for their churches.
Is this all that the Bible is? Most of the Bible consists of the Old Testament. A vast amount of the Bible deals with Israel and Judah and Jerusalem and statements of this nature.
So the church distanced themselves from Israel and Judah. Because God has so many negative things to say about Israel and Judah, they do not apply what God has said about them to the New Testament church.
For instance, in Matthew 24, Christ is answering the disciples’ question, “What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” Jesus responds to them throughout this chapter. At one point, He says, “When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation…stand in the holy place,” and the church still somehow thinks that this is over in the Middle East even though when Christ was on the cross “the veil of the temple was rent in twain” exposing that once holy place to all of the world, meaning that it was not holy any longer. If that holy place is not holy, then Jerusalem is not “the holy city” and Israel is not “the holy people”; but again, they failed to understand this.
So God says, “When ye shall see the abomination of desolation…standing where it ought not,” the only “holy place” that could possibly be in view is the churches and congregations, because this has to do with the end of the world and the sign of His coming. We know that it has been almost 2,000 years since these words were recorded in Matthew 24. Then it says, “Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains,” and they persist in believing that this is referring to the Middle East.
Preterism is a theological doctrine. Preterists believe in a doctrine that insists that everything in Matthew 24 happened in 70 A.D. when Israel was destroyed by the Roman army. They insist that this is when this happened; but how they relate 70 A.D. with the end of the world and the sign of Christ’s coming, I do not know. I do not know because there is no way to do this.
So what God is doing is that He is using Israel and Judah and a type and figure of the New Testament churches, which is in keeping with the Lord Jesus’ teaching that He spoke in parables and “without a parable spake he not unto them.”
Why would He speak in parables? There are many reasons. One reason was to instruct us how to understand the Bible because He is “the Word…made flesh.” The Bible says, “In the volume of the book it is written of me.”
He spoke in parables to teach us that when we go to the Bible, we must look for a deeper spiritual meaning, for hidden truth. Yet they ignore all of this. They do not want anything to do with this, which is a big reason for why the churches of our day do not understand the Bible. They do not understand the Bible. There are a few things that they might get, but they fail to understand the teaching of the Bible as a whole.
So they do not understand the end of the church age when they read, “Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains,” and yet God’s people realize that this has to be referring to the church. They recognize that “the mountains” are representative of God Himself, His Kingdom, which is the Bible, and that they are to get out of the church.
This is the spiritual interpretation of the commands of Matthew 24, and God hid this information for centuries until our day. He then opened up His Word, which had been sealed; and even by this language, God was indicating that there was hidden truth. In order to discover hidden truth, we have to follow the Bible’s methodology of “comparing spiritual things with spiritual,” Scripture with Scripture, as well as understand how God wrote the Bible.
Let us look at a few instances where the Lord identifies Israel with the church. In Acts 7:37-38, it says:
This is that Moses, which said unto the children of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear. This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina…
So God uses the word “church” to describe “Israel.”
Look also at Galatians 4:22-26:
For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth [or corresponds] to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.
I only went here to point out how God speaks of two “Jerusalems” and that He assigns spiritual meanings to both of them: one on earth; that is, the earthly church; one in heaven; that is, the heavenly church, the eternal church.
When Christ says concerning the church that “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it,” it is the “Jerusalem which is above” and it comprises all of God’s elect, everyone whom He saves. Never once did “the gates of hell,” or the grave, prevail against one of God’s elect. He has never lost a single soul who was predestinated to salvation “from the foundation of the world.”
But how about the earthly church? What happened to the seven churches that were listed in the book of Revelation? They are all gone. They are gone due to unfaithfulness. And what happened to many churches over the hundreds of years of the church age? Many of them are gone or they have been given over to apostasy.
Does this not mean that “the gates of hell” are prevailing against them? How do we then determine that this means that “the gates of hell” will not prevail against your Presbyterian Church or your Baptist Church or your Episcopal Church? It is because God is not referring to the earthly church with this statement but to the heavenly, and He uses Israel and Jerusalem to represent this.
1 Corinthians 10 also has a passage that would be good for any pastor to read. It would be good for any pastor to examine his church in light of what the Bible says here. In 1 Corinthians 10:1-4, we read:
Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; And did all eat the same spiritual meat; And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.
You know, if Mr. Camping was reading a passage, for example, in Jeremiah, and saying, “This represents this spiritually, and this other thing represents that spiritually,” the churches would cry out, “You are using your own interpretation. You cannot spiritualize these things!”
What did God just do? What did He just do in Galatians 4 in relation to two sons who were born to two women, “which things are an allegory”? It does not indicate this in the book of Genesis. It gives this account as factual history.
What is God doing here in 1 Corinthians 10 when He is referring to eating “spiritual meat” and drinking “spiritual drink…of that Spiritual Rock”? This is referring to history, to the wilderness sojourn of the nation of Israel, and it is spiritual, spiritual, spiritual. How did Christ speak? He spoke “in parables.” That is, “The kingdom of heaven is like”…rocks and bread and water, just like we have here.
But they say, “I am going to blind my eyes and stuff my ears. I will not hearken! I will not listen! If I start admitting that, yes, God wrote the Book spiritually, then I am going to have to look at Matthew 24 a little bit more honestly and realize that Christ was saying, as He indicates in that passage, that there will come a time when there will be many false christs, many false gospels, and that those in Judaea have to flee and get out.”
This would open up the Scriptures to many things if they would only begin there, because they would then realize that they have to get out of their church. But God is aware of this and He is the One who says, “He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted.”
God is the One in charge of this and He is telling us that if they would do away with their own man-made rules and their private interpretations of how to understand the Bible, if they humbled themselves and came to Him crying out, “O Lord, it is a mess! It is just a royal mess! Across the whole church landscape, it is a desolate wilderness. None are teaching truth. I understand and recognize this. May You have mercy on me,” if they perhaps humbled themselves this way, God might convert them and draw them out.
It goes on to say in 1 Corinthians 10:5-6:
But with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted.
Again, Israel was our example. Think about this. How many people were in the nation of Israel during their most populace time? Let us say that they had ten million or maybe even twenty-five million, whatever you want. It could have been five, ten, or even twenty-five million. Who knows? These were the people of God or the representatives of the Kingdom of God upon earth. In all of the world at that time, it was a few million.
How many people are in the church today? There are about two billion people in the church today. Was God going to be more concerned about a small, little, tiny nation than He is about two billion professing Christians? Was He only going to write a great amount of information in the Bible about just a few million and have it only apply to them, and then just have a few statements made to almost two billion professing Christians?
No, they were our example. What He wrote about is to be applied to the church age, especially at this time of the end when this applies to nearly two billion people. God, of course, knew how the church age would develop and conclude and how many people there would be. It is just obvious that two billion people are far more important than a handful of million. It is far more important for God to speak to these two billion directly than it was to speak to a little nation, and so He made them our example.
Then in 1 Corinthians 10:7-8:
Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand.
What was the sin of the church that we read about in the book of Revelation? It was fornication. They were taught to commit fornication and to be involved in idolatry, and here God is warning that the church was not to get involved with fornication “as some of them.” Then He says that 23,000 fell in one day because 23 is a number that He identifies with the Great Tribulation.
This is what He said in Revelation 2 to the church in Thyatira, “If you commit fornication, I will give you space to repent.” Then He says that they “repented not” because He knows “the end from the beginning,” and then He says that He will cast them into “great tribulation,” which identifies with this number of 23,000 who were destroyed “in one day.” The total number who were destroyed was 24,000, as 1,000 additional deaths occurred over the next day or over the next couple of days.
Then we read in 1 Corinthians 10:9-11:
Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents. Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer. Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.
This basically sums this up. This sums it up. God had Israel go through all of these things or permitted them, their fornication and their murmurings and so forth, as an example, a pattern to the New Testament churches and congregations.
Let us go back to Jeremiah 6:10 and look at this. We read:
To whom shall I speak, and give warning, that they may hear? behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken: behold, the word of JEHOVAH is unto them a reproach; they have no delight in it.
God is speaking to the church of our day or perhaps He is even speaking to someone here or to someone who is listening on Paltalk. For them, the Word of the Lord is like a reproach and “their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken.” To “hearken” means what? Does it just mean to hear, to listen?
It is like when you have children and you tell one of them to take the trash out. Then you ask them, “Did you hear me?” They respond, “Yes, I heard. I will do it.” Then you get caught up in something else and a half hour or an hour later you realize that the trash is still there and that they did not take the trash out.
Did they hearken? Did they listen? Yes, they heard you. They heard you, but hearkening is listening and obeying. It means to listen and to obey.
For instance, God in this passage is saying:
To whom shall I speak, and give warning, that they may hear?…
In this verse, God is speaking and giving warning; so we can definitely relate this to our present day, to May 21 of 2011, Judgment Day. Do you hear this? Have you heard this?
Of course you have. Of course you have if you have come here or if you have listened to Family Radio. Maybe you are younger and your parents believe these things, so you have heard this. You have heard this. You have listened to it.
Are you hearkening, though? Are you hearkening or are you still planning for college? Are you still planning for what you are going to do in the summer of 2011? Do you have plans for the beach? Do you have plans for work? Are you thinking about a family, about having a nice big family?
If you are thinking about any of the above, then you are not hearkening. You are not listening with an understanding and you are certainly not listening with the intent to obey.
God is warning us. How does He warn us? He uses His people, like Jeremiah, who actually bring the Word. He uses people in our day, His ambassadors, who are just simply believers who hear this from His mouth.
Do you remember what it says in Ezekiel 33 about the “watchman”? We hear it from His mouth, and then He commands that we warn the people, that we sound the trumpet. Let us read this in Ezekiel 33:6-7:
But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand. So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me.
We are warning them from Him. Where is the mouth of God? What do we call the Bible? We call it the Word of God. This Word comes out of His mouth. This is the mouth of God.
God also likens His Word to a sword. The watchman would see the sword coming; that is, as we were reading the Bible, obeying Christ’s command to watch therefore, we were to watch. Where were we to watch? We were to watch in the Bible. We were to be reading the Scriptures. At the proper time, He would open up the understanding of His people. They would see the judgment of God. They would see His sword coming. They would sound the trumpet and warn the people, and God says that the warning is from Him. It is not coming from Harold Camping or from Family Radio. It is not coming from any individual person, because God is the One who is revealing these truths. He is the One who is teaching that May 21, 2011 is Judgment Day. This is all coming from Him.
Here is how God looks at this idea of an ambassador. Turn to 2 Corinthians 5:18-20:
And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.
This is a pleading, a beseeching. This is from God who wept at the grave of Lazarus. This is from God who wept over Jerusalem, as He said, “How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” They would not! Later on in Jeremiah 6, they say, “We will not hearken.” They will not listen and obey. They will do things their way, their own way. They refuse to listen.
This is exactly what is going on in the churches today. They are not going to listen. To listen, they would have to humble themselves and approach the Bible in a very lowly way and recognize that God is the Author and that He is the One who defines His own terms. If He wants to call the church “Judaea” or if He wants to call the church “Babylon” or if He wants to call the church whatever He wants to call it, so be it.
We are to understand that He is the Author, that this is His Word. If He says, “Come out of her, my people,” this is just as much a legitimate command as “Thou shalt not kill” or “Thou shalt not steal.” “Come out of her, my people” or “flee to the mountains” and depart out of Judaea are commands of God. Disobedience to them will bring the same penalty as someone who transgresses one of the Ten Commandments.
Let us stop here.