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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Steven Conway

Deceived

Why don't you open your Bibles with me to Jeremiah chapter 19.

In Jeremiah the 19th chapter, God asked Jeremiah to go and get some of the old people and some of the old priests.

And he asked them, or he asked Jeremiah to take them to the city dump.

It was known as the Valley of Hinnom, or Tophet.

It's the place where the decaying bodies of animals would be tossed and all of the garbage of the city would be dumped.

There was a fire that burned in that place which was always seemingly going.

In Jeremiah chapter 19, beginning with verse 10, God has asked Jeremiah to take an earthen vessel with all of these men and we'll pick it up there.

Then shalt thou break the bottle in the sight of the men that go with thee and shalt say unto them, thus saith the Lord of hosts, even so will I break this people and this city as 1 break at the potter's vessel that cannot be made whole again and they shall bury them in Tophet till there be no place to bury.

Thus will I do under this place said the Lord and to the inhabitants thereof and even make this city as Tophet.

And the houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah shall be defiled as the place of Tophet, because of all the houses upon whose roofs they have burned incense unto all the host of heaven and have poured out drink offerings unto other gods.

Then came Jeremiah from Tophet, whither the Lord had sent him to prophesy.

And he stood in the court of the Lord's house and said to all the people, thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, behold, I will bring upon this city and upon all her towns all the evil that I have pronounced against it, because they have hardened their necks that they might not hear my words.

Bow your heads with me for an added word of prayer.

Father, we pray for the presence of the Holy Spirit to be with us, that he may lead us and guide us into all truth, that the scriptures may come alive as we study together this evening in Jesus' name, amen.

It was 1 thing for the prophet Jeremiah to take these men to the city dump and to throw down this piece of pottery.

It was quite another thing for Jeremiah to come into the very midst of the temple court With all of its busyness and all of its activity and all of the worshippers there and to make this pronouncement In Jeremiah chapter 20 verse 1 the Bible says now Pasher the son of Emmer the priest who was also chief governor in the house of the Lord he was the chief security guard as it were He heard that Jeremiah prophesied these things verse 2 then pasher smote Jeremiah the prophet and Put him in the stocks that were in the high gate of Benjamin Which was by the house of the Lord Jeremiah is simply doing what God has asked him to do.

He has taken these gentlemen down to the city dump.

And after prophesying, the Bible says that pastor comes, Jeremiah is beaten, and then he is placed in stocks in front of the gate so that everyone who comes into the temple and comes out of the temple sees Jeremiah.

Now, these stocks were designed to bend a person's arms in an unnatural position.

And the Bible says that Jeremiah was there all night long.

Anyone who came into the temple, that's the prophet who was always prophesying doom.

Why did Pasher have this response to Jeremiah's prophecy?

Keep your finger there, Jeremiah chapter 20, and turn with me to Isaiah the 39th chapter.

Isaiah chapter 39 beginning with verse 1, and I will read in your hearing.

At that time, Merodach, Baladon, the son of Baladon, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah.

For he had heard that he had been sick and was recovered.

And Hezekiah was glad of them and showed them the house of his precious things the silver and the gold and the Spices and the precious ointment and all the house of his armor and all that was found in his treasures There was nothing in his house nor in all his dominion that Hezekiah showed them not.

Then came Isaiah the prophet unto King Hezekiah and said unto him, What said these men?

And Hezekiah said, They are come from a far country unto me, even from Babylon.

Then said he, What have they seen in thine house?

And Hezekiah answered, All that is in mine house have they seen.

There is nothing among my treasures that I have not showed them.

Then said Isaiah to Hezekiah, hear the word of the Lord of hosts.

Behold, the days come that all that is in thine house and that which thy fathers have laid up in store until this day shall be carried to Babylon.

And of thy sons that shall issue from thee which thou shalt beget shall they take away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.

Judah had been living under this dark cloud, the dark cloud of Isaiah's prophecy, ever since he had spoken these words.

And even at this very time in Jeremiah chapter 20 every effort was being made by Judah and its rulers to keep the nation from ever experiencing this fate Jeremiah's was a voice which plainly stated that all their buddy-buddying with the surrounding nations was useless, Babylon would indeed come and crush not only the surrounding nations, but Babylon would also crush Judah.

The 1 option that the people of God hadn't explored was in fact the divine solution to their predicament.

Remember I suggested that, or I shared with you that, the temple had been reopened under Josiah, and all of the sacrifices, morning and evening, were being offered.

All of the feast days were being observed all of this along with The other little worship practices that they like to do on the side So Judah was going through all of the motions.

They were coming to Sabbath school, and they were coming to divine worship service, and they were attending prayer meetings, and they were going through all of the religious motions.

Judah's real problem, however, was a problem of the heart.

They knew how to act, but their hearts were not right.

Jeremiah chapter 3, verse 10, and I'm going to read through these passages rather quickly.

Jeremiah chapter 3 verse 10 Judah hath not turned unto me with her whole heart but faintly saith the Lord this is the New English translation unfaithful Judah has not turned back to me with any sincerity.

Jeremiah chapter 4 verse 4, circumcise yourselves to the Lord and take away the 4 skins of your heart.

Jeremiah chapter 4 verse 14, O Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved.

Jeremiah chapter 5 verse 23, but this people have a Revolting and a rebellious heart they are revolted and gone Jeremiah chapter 17 verse 5 Curse it be the man that trusteth in man and make it flesh his arm and whose heart departeth from the Lord Jeremiah 17 9 I'm sure you all know this 1.

The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it I The Lord searched the heart.

I try the reins even to give every man according to his ways and according to the fruit of his doings.

Jeremiah 29 13 And ye shall seek me and find me when ye shall search for me with all your heart Jeremiah 32 39 we read it earlier today and I will give them 1 heart and 1 way I say again Judah knew how to play religious games Judah knew how to go through all of the motions But what Judah did not have was a heart experience Pasher had Jeremiah beaten and thrown in stocks because this is how you treat what you cannot dismiss.

This is how you treat what you cannot deny or destroy.

You overpower it, you suppress it, you belittle it, you attempt to humiliate it in hopes that it will go away.

But Jeremiah's voice would not be silenced.

It was a cry that called for more than just that which was outward, but it called for that which was of the heart.

You see, and I'll come back to this, If Pasher and the other leaders had accepted Jeremiah's counsel, they would have essentially said, Jeremiah, you are right, and all of our efforts and all of our religious rounds have had absolutely no effect in terms of changing the heart of the people.

Now how many of you like to admit when you failed?

Someone might ask what was so difficult about heart religion?

What made that so difficult that men would want to silence Jeremiah by killing him?

Friends, I would suggest to you tonight that dealing with the heart means that you've got to do some dirty work.

Dealing with the heart means you've got to do some dirty work.

Recently, I have come to the conclusion that I want to stop simply giving Bible studies.

I had several people who had come to me for Bible studies.

And I wanted to give a different type of Bible study, not just because I wanted to do it, but based on the context or the circumstances under which I was approached to give Bible study.

And I was led to Begin a series of Bible studies that would deal with the heart You know people would love to sit down and study about the second coming Love that.

Oh, yeah, praise God Amen love to study about the United States in Bible prophecy or any number of those topics What I discovered is that I could only get through 1 Bible study which the aim of that study was to deal with the matters of the heart And what I suggested to these individuals who came is, listen, you've got a sin problem in your life.

So what we're going to do by the grace of God is open his word and try to get to the root of what it is that keeps driving you towards these behaviors.

Not simply look over promises of God's ability to forgive because I think you know God can forgive.

Not simply look up promises about God's love for you because I think you know that God loves you.

The ax needs to be laid to the root so that you can have an experience deliverance at the very foundation of your experience.

And then it became crystal clear to me as I began to think about it in my own life, when I'm dealing with matters of the heart, it means I've got to get my hands dirty.

It means I've got to look at things that I really don't want to look at.

In fact, I have built my entire life around avoiding these things and so when it comes to dealing with the heart No 1 wants to do it Because no 1 wants to get dirty Now I want you to think with me, dear friends.

If we choose not to go to matters of the heart on an individual or personal level, how much more should we expect a collective group of people to desire to deal with matters of the heart.

If it's difficult for 1, it would then be more difficult for a hundred, a thousand, so forth and so on.

In Jeremiah, chapter 17, verse 9, again, The Bible says that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked my wife she likes to She likes to watch a particular program, and she'll go on the internet and pull it up.

This is a program that tracks people as they lose weight.

So my wife drug me in to watch 1 of these, and I was horrified by what I saw.

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Deceived

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