Be a Discerning Christian!

13th Sunday after Pentecost, 8/22/10
Jeremiah 23:23-29


Be a Discerning Christian!
I. Reject what’s false.
II. Hold on to what’s true.


If you use email, you probably receive plenty of emails forwarded to you by your friends and family members. Some of those messages contain dire warnings. One of common warnings is about messages containing viruses which will do unimaginable damage to your computer if you open the email message. Well, you wonder if the message is true or not. One of the websites you can use to check is out is www.Snopes.com. It allows you to verify some of the things that people forward to you via email. If you check it out on Snopes, you’ll often find out that the entire message is false. It’s a hoax. It’s another case of “reader beware.”

This morning we’re focusing our attention on hardships in the lives of Christians. Those hardships comes in countless forms—physical, mental and emotional suffering, financial hardships, relationship hardships. The prophet Jeremiah adds another one to that list, one we might not have considered. It’s the hardship of not believing everything you hear and read about our God. It’s the hardship of dealing with those who spread what is false about our God instead of what’s true. And the stakes are high. Your eternal soul is involved. To make matters worse, it’s not so much what non-Christians say about our God. We know that what they’re saying is false. It’s what some Christians say and the false teachings they perpetrate.

That’s what Jeremiah was facing about 600 years before Jesus was born. Jeremiah shared from God the message for the Jews to repent of their sins and turn back to the Lord as their only God. But the people heard a far different message from the other prophets in Jerusalem. The Lord warned them, “Don’t believe everything you hear.” In other words, be discerning. Let’s make that the focus of our thoughts this morning. Be a discerning Christian! May our God enable us and empower us for that task as we take his words to heart.

Part I.

There are those in our religious world today who feel no accountability for what God says right here in his word. They may claim that what God said long ago no longer applies or they may consider what is written here to be only the thoughts of other human beings and not the word of God. Or they may hide behind the truth that we have a loving God who surely wouldn’t make such demands on us today. They may think that God doesn’t really care what we say about him as long as we’re sincere in what we believe.

But they’re wrong. Listen to what the Lord says, “Am I only a God nearby,” declares the LORD, “and not a God far away? Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him?” declares the LORD. “Do not I fill heaven and earth?” declares the LORD. “I have heard what the prophets say who prophesy lies in my name.” God’s basic message to anyone who thinks it doesn’t matter what we say or believe about him is this: I see. I hear. I know.

Jeremiah lived during a time of tremendous empire upheaval. The Babylonians had invaded the land of Judah. Even though there was still a descendant of David sitting on the throne of Judah, he was merely a puppet of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon. As a conquered nation, Judah was required to pay vast sums of tribute to the Babylonians.

Jeremiah’s truthful message to his fellow Jews at this critical time was quite simple. First, he told them that the Lord was using the Babylonians to teach the Jews a lesson. In other words, the Lord was behind all this. He was punishing them for decades of idolatry, perversion, greed and injustice. The Lord demanded that the Jews worship him alone. They paid no attention. The Lord demanded that they conduct themselves as his chosen people, not as the heathens around them. They paid no attention.

Jeremiah called them to repent. He called them to turn back to the Lord and to follow his commands and decrees. He encouraged his fellow Jews to worship the Lord as he had carefully prescribed in books such as Exodus and Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

But the false prophets opposed him. They even went so far as encouraging the people in their worship of idols, of the false gods of the people around them and of their perverted worship practices.

And they gained an audience because they told the Jews exactly what they wanted to hear. They encouraged resistance to the Babylonians, when Jeremiah encouraged compliance because this was from the Lord. They told the people that all would soon be well, when Jeremiah had told them that 70 years of exile was coming. They foretold prosperity, whereas Jeremiah foretold destruction.

The Lord wanted his people to know that there was a distinction that had to be made between what is true and what is false. He told them, “Be discerning. Reject what is false.”

You might want to ask yourself, “Why would a prophet proclaim what is false?” One of the answers is that’s what the people want to hear. They didn’t want to repent and change. They wanted to keep on living as they were.

And the same holds true today. People don’t want to be told that what they’re doing is wrong. They want to be told their lifestyle is acceptable. They don’t want to be confronted with their sins; they want to be told they’re OK with God just as they are. And we’re not exempt. If we take to heart today’s message, our God sees, hears and knows everything about us. Frightful, isn’t it? We’d rather hear that God’s too busy to be concerned with our occasional sins or that he overlooks our indiscretions. We’d love to hear that God accepts us just the way we are. But nothing could be further from the truth. So be a discerning Christian! Reject what’s false! The Lord calls us to repent of our sins, to turn from them and to receive his gracious forgiveness which Christ won for us. The truth of the matter is that our sins were so serious it cost Jesus his life. But he willingly died for them on Calvary’s cross. He died in our place and made us his own by faith in him. As one of his people, be discerning! Reject what’s false.

Part II.

And when we do that—when we reject what’s false—what we have left is the truth.

But our world has a problem with truth. You see, if I admit that truth exists, then I must accept it. Not to do so would be foolish. But that won’t do, not for the masses of people in our world. So instead, they make truth subjective. They allow one thing to be truth for me and something different or even opposite to be truth for you. Our world leaves it to the individual to decide what is truth. But that leaves us with no truth at all.

You and I know better. We know that what Jesus says is true and he says this about God’s word, “Your word is truth” (John 17:17). Jesus also once said, “I am…the truth” (John 14:6). He is the embodiment of truth. What he says is always the truth, for, as God, he cannot lie.

And whether that word is spoken from the lips of Jesus or written here by men under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that word has the power of God. The Lord reminds us of that power with these words, “Is not my word like fire, and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?” He compares his word with two different forces.

First, he likens it to fire. We often think of fire as a destructive force as it consumes buildings and forests and personal belongings. But that probably isn’t the picture the Lord had in mind here. Fire also refines. It purifies. As gold is melted by fire the impurities are drawn off and pure gold remains. Likewise, God’s word refines us. The Holy Spirit—often represented in art by a flame of fire—comes to us through God’s word, convicts us of our sin, announces to us God’s forgiveness through Jesus and works saving faith in our hearts. He brings us the forgiveness of all our sins. He sanctifies or makes us holy. In other words, he refines us and makes us saints in the eyes of God. That’s what the truth of God’s word does.

But that word is also like a hammer. Just as a large hammer can crush rock, so the word of God can crush stony human hearts. It judges our thoughts and attitudes. It exposes our sins hidden deep within us. It allows us no excuses and announces God’s righteous wrath. For those who refuse God’s saving truth it brings God’s eternal condemnation.

So why does the Lord share this message of the power of his truth with people who were listening to false prophets? Because the truth of his word exposes the lies and crushes those who speak falsely about our God. How could the people have been so foolish to believe that worshipping idols was acceptable? God’s First Commandment plainly forbids it. How could they think they could worship God with acts of perversion? His word forbids it. How could they think that they were blameless before God yet indulge in greed, corruption and the oppression of other people? God’s word clearly forbids such things.

God’s point is that they should have tested what the false prophets were saying with what the truth of his word proclaims. He wanted them to be discerning and to hold on to the truth.

We often declare to each other how blessed we are to have the truth of God’s word. But what do we do with that truth? Do we use it to expose what’s false, or is it much easier just to go along with the crowd for a while at least and enjoy ourselves? Do we share God’s truth to expose what’s false in a loved one’s life, or is it easier just to say nothing?

Again, we have the truth of God. It exposes our sins. It graciously announces our forgiveness in Christ. He’s our Savior, the world’s only Savior. That’s God’s eternal truth. Be a discerning Christian. Reject what’s false and hold to what’s truth. Amen.