<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Village SDA Church

Ron Kelly

Adventist Education: The Educating of Jesus

Father, we're here before you with all of our great need, flaws and foibles and so much worse than words could even describe at times, but Lord, through your divine grace being transformed, and this morning, Lord, seeking to be instruments of transformation, Thank you for everything you've done in these last few weeks Taking our young people down to an outdoor education in which your glory and beauty was manifold, and blessing so many people in rediscovering the power of your presence in physiology and natural law through our immersion program.

And now, Lord, I'm praying, lay your healing hand on us.

Do more than we could ask or think and bless us as we take on Some challenging subject matter this morning in Jesus name.

Amen You have your Bibles Open them up if you would to Jeremiah chapter 40.

And I'm gonna go after this a little different than the first service.

You know, there's an old adage out there, and it says this, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him what?

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

How in the world did they come up with a saying like that?

You need to know, and I won't take as much time as I did in the first service, but you need to know that before Zedekiah was made King, Nebuchadnezzar, who had Daniel back in Babylon and who had Ezekiel going with him, Nebuchadnezzar made Zedekiah promise in the name of his God that he would not rebel.

And about 3 months after Nebuchadnezzar is gone, the rebellion's on, and it will last 11 years, and about 9 and a half years into that, God will direct Nebuchadnezzar back.

This time, after a siege of about a year and a half, Jerusalem will fall.

Nebuchadnezzar knew this was the true God, and yet the fury of those soldiers and the wrath of the king was meted out on the people.

Now, Jeremiah survived through a faithful message and the provision of God.

His servant Baruch, from which part of our scripture reading came, was lamenting that his senior prophet was in jail and things weren't working out and God said, look, quit looking for good things inside this system.

It's not coming to you, but I'll give you your life.

Now, in Jeremiah chapter 40, we have Nebuchadnezzar Dan, who is the personal emissary of the king to Jeremiah take good care of him the word was clearly enough communicated and Jeremiah was not on the on the Execution list instead.

Jeremiah chapter 40 says, the word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord after Nebuchadnezzar, captain of the bodyguard, had released him from Ramah, when he had taken him bound in chains among all the exiles of Jerusalem and Judah, who were being exiled to Babylon.

Now the captain of the bodyguard had taken Jeremiah, and he said to him, The Lord your God promised this calamity against this place.

And the Lord has brought it on and done just as He promised, because you people sinned against the Lord and did not listen to His voice, therefore this thing happened to you." Now, I want to know, why does Nebuchadnezzar get off with so much confidence and so much cockiness and so much need to tell the prophet why this happened.

Why does there have to be this encounter?

I can have no doubt, but amongst the annals of Babylon and the communiques of the king, there was this knowledge of the excellency of Daniel's God.

And how many of those Babylonian soldiers felt a bit remorseful that they had destroyed the temple of the living God?

And Nebuchadnezzar then is compelled to say to Jeremiah, this didn't need to happen.

Now, it's important this morning that we start here, but let's go just a little bit farther.

Flip over a chapter or 2, and now Jeremiah, after having been given choice, he can go back to Babylon and live a VIP life.

Nebuchadnezzar, Dan and the king will take good care of him, or he can be a faithful prophet and shepherd and stay with his people.

And in the prospect of it all, the Babylonian emissaries and protégés of the king leave.

And that remnant, led by Gedaliah, and some, what will turn out to be very proud men, say to Jeremiah, we need a word from God.

Then they said to Jeremiah, may the Lord be a true and faithful witness against us.

God, you witness against me if I don't do what I'm saying I'll do in your presence and in the presence of a witness.

At the heart of this journey this morning, which is a very difficult journey to make, I want you to understand that what the Scripture says is true.

What God builds up, sometimes he tears down.

And it goes against everything in his person in the same way that a parent who would like to do so much for a child, finding that child in rebellion, watches like the prodigal as things are torn apart and wasted.

And yet in the larger lesson of self-discovery and coming to oneself, God does allow it.

If we do not act in accordance with the whole message with which the Lord your God will send to us, whether it's pleasant or unpleasant, we will listen to the voice of our Lord, our God whom we are sending you to so that it may go well with us when we listen to the voice of the Lord our God.

Now, that's quite a setup to what's about to happen.

Now, at the end of 10 days, verse 7, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah.

And I'm going to skip over some of it because I've got to cover a lot of ground.

Verse 11, the short version was, stay in the land.

Verse 11, don't be afraid of the king of Babylon, whom you are now fearing.

Don't be afraid of him, declares the Lord, for I'm with you to save you and deliver you.

Now I'm gonna skip over a lot, go to chapter 43.

But as soon as Jeremiah, whom the Lord… verse 1, whom the Lord their God had sent, had finished telling all the people all the words of their God, that is, all these words, Azariah the son of Hoseaiah and Johanan the son of Kareah, and all… this version says, the arrogant men said to Jeremiah, you're telling a lie.

The Lord your God has not sent you to say you are not to enter Egypt and reside there." Now let's have a little empathy for them.

Over the last 20 years, the shadow of Babylon has hung over the city.

And 3 times Nebuchadnezzar came, he took Daniel in the first group, Ezekiel and all the rich and all the tradesmen in the second group, and in the last group he did a lot of murdering, if that's the word for war.

And when it was all said and done, blood ran in the streets, walls were torn down, houses were burned, the temple was destroyed.

And after all of that, you'd think there'd be some credibility.

But Jeremiah's got to confront the elements.

Chapter 44, the culture was so bad that even after testifying that God would witness against them, which He did, we find this encounter.

Verse 7 of chapter 44, Now then thus says the Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel, why are you doing great harm to yourselves?

So as to cut off from you man and woman, child and infant from among Judah, leaving yourselves without a remnant, provoking me to anger with the works of your hands, burning sacrifices to gods in the land of Egypt where you are entering to resign." Verse 10, but they've not become contrite even to this day.

Verse 11, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I am going to set my face against you, which is what they witnessed and prayed and asked for, for woe even to cut off all Judah.

As far as the message that you've spoken to us, this is now another dialogue with those who want to run to Egypt instead of doing what God said.

As far as the message you've spoken to us, in the name of the Lord, we're not going to listen to you.

But rather, we will certainly carry out every word that has proceeded from our mouths by burning sacrifices to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, just as we ourselves, our forefathers, our kings, and our princes did in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem.

For then we had plenty of food, and we were well off, and we saw no misfortune.

But since we stopped burning sacrifices to the Queen of Heaven and Pouring out drink offerings to her, we've lacked everything, and we've met our end by the sword and by famine." And then the women get in the picture, and there's quite a fierce conversation that follows in that chapter, which I don't have time to go over.

Friends, how does a culture go so far off that after a prophet has announced decade after decade and it comes true, How does it go so far off after people say, pray for us, and He takes 10 days to do it, and God witness against us if we don't listen?

How does a culture go so far off that they misconstrue and re-twist the data and say, the God, the Queen of Heaven is the 1 that has been really taking good care of us.

This morning, if there was a need for men and women of wisdom, it is today, for there is nothing new under the Sun we are swimming in boatloads of data and Wisdom is the great need now.

Let's go 1 more place before we jump a little farther in let's go back to Second Chronicles chapter 36 Second Chronicles chapter 36 And let's understand before we get going, the big picture.

2 Chronicles chapter 36, looking at verse 15 and 16.

In verse 11, we start the discussion of Zedekiah, which is the 1 who promised before God to Nebuchadnezzar he wouldn't rebel, and he did.

And finally, verse 15, the Lord, the God of their father, sent word to them again and again by his messengers Because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place but Let's think of those arrogant men and women that we just read about in Jeremiah 42 and 43 and 44 But in spite of those constant message jurors and messaging they continually mocked the messengers of God, despised his words, scoffed at his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people and there was no remedy." Whoa.

Now, let's get on with the educating of Jesus.

I've taken a few minutes in each of these sermons to remind you, like Paul did in 2 Corinthians 11, with some foolishness, you could say, and yet a desire to link.

Somebody might watch this sermon that hasn't watched any of the rest.

So I need to remind you, I received my salvation, I received my calling or occupation, and I received my lifelong wonderful marriage partner through Christian education.

The other thing is that I'm married to a teacher, in my opinion, the best teacher in the world, but it's all right with me if there's a bunch of other best teachers in the world out there.

My father-in-law is an education superintendent.

I pastored an academy church for almost 20 years.

I sat on an education board for the same length of time.

I've sought to build up the work of God however I can, wherever I can, wherever I go.

But more than that, my education costs more than most people.

My mother started fighting my father when I was born 56 years ago Saying he'll go to that school.

No, he won't Baxland 7th Avenue's mother agnostic Laissez-faire Catholic dad But you know what I went I was there 2 years We couldn't afford the bill School board chairman calls up and says your kids will have to go home if you can't come if you don't pay the bill.

It was certainly more than my parents can take.

Back to Menu

Adventist Education: The Educating of Jesus

Transcript

Sponsor

Recorded

Sound Doctrine