Jeremiah 23.9-31

Pentecost 9

Hymns: 478, 362, 313, 366

How could the prophets of God tell the people of God things that God had not said? How could the Old Testament priests led the people of God in prayers and sacrifices to the Baals, the pagan gods of the Canaanites, told the people to offer their children as human sacrifices to the gods, told the people that en-gaging in group sex was a way to worship God and that God did not have an opinion one way or the other about selfishness or adultery or divorce, about stealing or greed or about whom they worshiped as God as long as they worshiped someone or some-thing whom they called god? How could the prophets make up ideas about life after death, deny the existence of hell and tell people that as long as they put forth some effort they would go to heaven after they died because God was a softy and would never keep anyone from going to heaven as long as there was a spark of goodness somewhere in their heart.

As I read the verses from the prophet Jeremiah it had to become clear to you that God condemned the prophets who did not preach his Word but instead preached their own twisted, immoral and pagan ideas that approved of unbelief, immorality and claimed that everyone would go to heaven no matter what they believed, how they lived or whether they repented of their sins. Because of the false preaching and false doctrine of many of the prophets of the Old Testament, the souls of millions who believed their pagan ideas are not now in heaven but are suffering eternally in hell. And whether it is the false preaching of the Old Testament prophets or New Testament ministers, let there be no doubt that GOD DOES NOT TOLERATE THE IDEAS OF FALSE PROPHETS.

In this series of sermons based on the theme: First Century Bib-lical Doctrines for Twenty-First Century Biblical Christians, we have already established sever key truths: 1) Every word in the Bible is true and without error because God the Holy Spirit gave those words to the men whom he chose to write the Bible, 2) The doctrine that we confessed in the church today is no dif-ferent from the doctrine that was confessed in the church in the first century because the truth of God does not change, and 3) A denial that every word in the Bible is true will ultimately lead to the denial that Jesus is the world’s only Savior from sin, the only way to eternal life in heaven.

This morning we want to be clear that God will not tolerate any prophet or preacher who changes the truth of God’s Word by substituting it for his own brand of religious ideas.

That should not surprise us. How much untruth about something you said or did would you tolerate? If you knew that word was circulating among your family and friends that claimed that you had been unfaithful to your spouse, that you were addicted to Internet pornography or that you were delighted that over a mil-lion unborn babies are aborted every year, would you tolerate that? Would you want people thinking that of you? Yet that is exactly what some leaders of the Christian church, that is, some pastors and professors at theological seminaries say about God ...that he understands why people have adulterous affairs, that such affairs are not immoral, that any kind of sexual intimacy, gay or straight, outside of marriage, is part of our social recrea-tion, and that if someone doesn’t want to deal with the mistake of getting pregnant it’s alright to get rid of the mistake by get-ting an abortion because God is delighted with that idea.

And understand this: it is a sin to commit adultery and, in the eyes of God, adultery includes the physical act of intimacy with someone who is not your spouse, or even the thought of doing so...lust! Abortion is the killing of the unborn. But God defines murder also as hatred and sinful anger we hold in our heart. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him (1 Jn 3.15). And again, If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen (1 Jn 4.20). We reject the sins society accepts, but that does not mean that we are not guilty of them. And unless we repent heaven will be lost to us.

Jesus says, For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what make a man ‘unclean’ (Mt 15.19,20a).

It should not surprise us that God has zero tolerance for any amount of error in the preaching and teaching of his word. And he clearly does not tolerate when people who claim to be minis-ters of the gospel invent their own ideas about what people are to believe about God. He opposes them, our text says. He is against them because they are false teachers and because their false claims will lead those who listen to them, not to heaven but to hell through the path of unbelief.

We have been conditioned to hear reports from "experts" and not be surprised if those same experts change their mind at some point in the future. When the experts tell us one day that caffeine is harmful to us, but then, after further review, tell us that caffeine is good for us, we end up believing that the experts don’t know what they’re talking about...there are no real experts who can tell us what’s good for us and what isn’t.

When religious experts preach from their pulpits and teach in their classrooms that what the Bible points out as being sinful is no longer sinful...that even though the Bible says that Jesus rose from the dead new biblical scholarship shows that he didn’t... when the Bible says that it is necessary to believe that Jesus alone paid for the sins of the world if you expect to go to hea-ven, but now it is evident that there is nothing in the Bible that clearly states what a person must believe or what is necessary to be saved...God opposes these "experts" because they are invent-ing their own ideas which will condemn those who believe it!

God gave us his Word because we need to know that our sins condemn us, actual sins and sins of the heart, sins of adultery and abortion and lust and hatred and anger. We need to know this so that we acknowledge and repent of our sins. But God also gave us his Word so we can know that Jesus is the perfect Savior, both God and man, who himself paid for our sin and makes us perfect who believe in him. Only through faith in Je-sus are we forgiven...but we ARE forgiven! There is no room for error, no toleration for anything less than the truth. Our forgiveness and salvation depends on it.