True to the Word

I just want to read a couple of verses in the prophecy of Jeremiah, Jeremiah chapter 32. Jeremiah chapter 32, we'll read it in verse number 1. The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar. For then the king of Babylon's army besieged Jerusalem, and Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the prison, which was in the king of Judah's house.

For Zedekiah king of Judah had shut him up, saying, Wherefore dost thou prophesy, and say, Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it. Let's go down to verse 6. And Jeremiah said, The word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Behold Hanumel, the son of Shalom thine uncle, shall come unto thee, saying, Buy thee my field, which is in Anathoth, for the right of redemption is thine to buy it. So Hanumel, mine uncle's son, came to me in the court of the prison, according to the word of the Lord, and said unto me, Buy my field, I pray thee, that is in Anathoth, which is in the country of Benjamin, for the right of inheritance is thine, and the redemption is thine, buy it for thyself.

Then I knew that this was the word of the Lord, and I bought the field of Hanumel, my uncle's son, that was in Anathoth, and weighed him the money, even 17 shekels of silver, and I subscribed the evidence, and sealed it, and took witnesses, and weighed him the money and the balances. So I took the evidence of the purchase, both that which was sealed, according to the law and custom, and that which was open, and I gave the evidence of the purchase unto Berech, the son of Neri, the son of Mazzii, in the sight of Hanumel, mine uncle's son, and in the presence of the witnesses that subscribe the book of the purchase, before all the Jews that sat in the court of the prison. And I charged Berech before them, saying, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, take these evidences, these evidences of the purchases, both which is sealed, and this evidence which is open, and put them in an earthen vessel, that they may continue many days.

For thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, houses and fields and vineyards shall be possessed again in this land. Now, when I had delivered the evidence of the purchase unto Berech, the son of Neri, I prayed unto the Lord, saying, Ah, Lord God, behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee. Just go down to verse 24, Behold, the mounts, they are come unto the city to take it, and the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans that fight against it because of the sword and of the famine and of the pestilence.

And what thou hast spoken is come to pass, and behold, thou seest it. And thou hast said unto me, O Lord God, buy thee the field for money and take witnesses, for the city is given into the hand of the Chaldeans. Then came the word of the Lord unto Jeremiah, saying, Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh.

Is there anything too hard for me? Now, God has promised to bless to us the reading of his precious word. Now, I'm sure that most here, at least, know the context of the book of Jeremiah. And certainly, there's a lot of tears in the book of Jeremiah, the book of lamentation.

I think weeping or crying appears over 50 times in the words of Jeremiah. And he was crying not for himself. His tears were not shed because of his situation per se, but rather as he looked at the situation in the land.

As he saw that it was about to fall, the king of the Chaldeans, Nebuchadnezzar, has actually here, he has come upon the land, he is laying siege on the land, and this land is literally ready to fall. And not only is he knowing this, but his situation tells us that he is in prison. He's not out observing this.

He had been out, but now he is in prison, and he is bound in prison. And yet, here he is in prison, where he could have made a lot of excuses for his situation. He could have taken a lot of liberties because of how he was being treated.

But what I want to just impress on your hearts this afternoon in these very few minutes is that it didn't matter what his situation was. He was a man that was going to honor the word of God. It didn't matter how people were treating him.

It didn't matter what his physical presence and condition was. It was a man who had purposed in his heart to honor the word of God, even in desperate times, even when the city was literally falling around him, when everyone else had turned from the word of God, even the king, Zedekiah. We see that in a few chapters later.

Jeremiah is not chronological, but you go into chapter 37, and there we see where Jeremiah is cast in the prison. And he's cast in the prison because of the word of the Lord that he brought to Zedekiah the king. And I suppose after Zedekiah figured he had enough time in the hole there with the rats and all the other things, he brings him out again and he says, Is there any word from the Lord? As if maybe the circumstances would cause him to speak something else.

And he says, Yes, there is. And it was the very same thing that he had told him before. A man that purposed in his heart to honor the word of God.

You know, before we can honor the word of God, we have to know the word of God. We live in a day-to-day. We've been hearing it lately.

Just a conference I was at not long ago. I forget actually who said it. But the generation that we are now, the electronic age, when we have got away from feeling paper in our hands to iPads and iPods.

And I'm not saying anything against them. I enjoy them just like the next person. But we have become people and our knowledge of the word of God is limited to sound bites.

Just little portions of it. Just a little scripture here and there. And we're getting away from knowing the word of God.

Knowing the context. Knowing its continuity. Knowing as it moves along.

And until we know the word of God, we cannot intelligently honor the word of God. And so there is a need to get back into this book to know the word of God. I'm not going to say we know everything.

I mean, we hardly know anything of the word of God. But there is a responsibility that is incumbent upon us, young, old, or older, that we know this book. And I know we live busy lives.

And I know that we don't have time to do it. But listen, for our spiritual well-being, for our spiritual health, we have to make time. We have to take time to get into the word of God.

Here was a man, and I got three little points here. He was going to find out three things about scriptures. The first thing he was going to find out is that scripture doesn't change according to circumstances.

Scripture is unchanging. My brother back in Canada, he's an accountant. And he hates, I think it's about June or July, he hates that time of year.

Because that's when, you know, the revisions from the government, from the Canada Review Agency show up. And he says there's usually, you know, a volume, a tome of changes from the year before for the tax laws. And he says, you've got to get in there, you've got to update, you've got to revise it.

And everything is always changing. Listen, the word of God doesn't change. And it doesn't change according to our circumstances.

Here's a man, and he's in prison. And God tells him, God comes to him and says, listen, your uncle's son, your nephew's going to come. And he's going to tell you to purchase this piece of land back in Anatol.

18 years before, is it? This same uncle had led an insurrection that was going to try to put Jeremiah to death. And God had delivered Jeremiah from it. But now, God says this nephew is going to come.

And it's your right, the right of redemption. And it's your right that you must buy this parcel of ground to keep it in the family. And so here comes the nephew.

Here he comes along and he says exactly the same thing the Lord had told Jeremiah. And so now Jeremiah, he knows it's from the Lord. And he listens to it.

And he doesn't allow his personal circumstances to blur obedience to the word of God. He is going to honor the word of God in spite of his circumstances. He could have said many things to that boy when he came.

Buy the parcel of land. Here's a memory jog for you. Remember 17, 18 years ago? You tried to kill me.

You tried to front this uprising that would put me to death. And now you want me to buy this piece of ground? Well, it's because of his purpose to honor the word of God. He looks past those personal circumstances and he is obedient to the word of God.

You know, some people, when we discuss scriptures with them or when people speak to them, they say, yeah, but you don't know my circumstances. And they try to justify their disobedience to the word of God by their circumstances. Listen, the word of God circumvents any circumstances.

The word of God is our point of reference. The word of God is that compass that will guide us as we go through this life, as we head to heaven and home. You know, someone had said something a while back and it stuck in my mind.

You know, there are many people, especially younger people. I was one of them. And, you know, we expect someday to be in the will of God.

Not today, but my purpose down the road is to be in the will of God. But listen, if you are not in the will of God today, then you cannot be in the will of God in days to come. Because things that will happen to you today could literally annul any goodness, any good thing that you could do for God in the future.

There's obedience to the word of God. And it's unchanging. And the scriptures, even though the land was changing, even though the circumstances were changing in that land, he knew that he had to be obedient to the word of God.

There are many, many, many tangents, many lines that we could go from this, but we could bring them all in, whether it's our personal appearance in the world, because the world is changing. Does that mean we change our standards? No. When it comes to a local assembly and the truths and the pattern that we have in the word of God because sometimes we get the perception and it's only a perception that maybe we could improve on those things.

Does that make sense? No. The word of God is unchanging. And the pattern is the same today as it was at the very beginning of the church age.

And so all these things that we try to justify or minimize when it comes to our obedience to the word of God, ultimately, in that coming day, this is going to be the point of reference as to our life, as to whether it gets burned up in the fire or whether there is that well done, thou good and faithful servant. And so scripture is unchanging. But not only was scripture unchanging, scripture is demanding.

Scripture demands things. And it's not open for, you know, it's not open for, well, yes or no, like the buffet or the smorgasbord, pick and choose what we want. No.

Scripture demands. There are commandments in the word of God. And here is Jeremiah.

And understand this. Jeremiah knew this, that him buying that piece of land, he was never even going to see it. He wasn't.

In fact, at the very time, the reason the uncle was trying to sell it, you know why the uncle was selling it? Because the Chaldeans had already taken over that part of the nation. They were already in that land. And here comes the uncle saying, do your duty, pay the redemption price.

It's incumbent on you to do it. And Jeremiah said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. He says, it's already been taken by the enemy.

I will never see that. And he could have made up a whole slew of excuses. But instead, what does he do? He's obedient to the word of God.

And in spite of never enjoying it for himself, he obeys the word of God, and he pays the price. He goes down, and there it is. It's done in front of Baruch there, and those men, and they do it openly, and they do it hiddenly, and there's a twofold witness to the fact that this man was obedient to the word of God.

You know, there are some things, and I don't live in the past, okay? I know sometimes we wish for the past, but, you know, the past is gone. We don't live in the past. We live in the present.

We live in the now. We don't live in the future. The future, that's going to be a wonderful thing, but, you know, it's just people that are deluded, sometimes they long for the future instead of dealing with here's right now.

And, you know, when it comes to the word of God, and it comes to our obedience of it, it is going to make demands upon us. Listen, it will alienate us from the world for sure, but listen, it might even alienate us from other Christians. And I just don't mean Christians of, you know, apart from the assemblies.

Sad to say that young believer that sometimes when you're going to be obedient to the word of God, and you're going to be obedient to the demands of the word of God, you will find that there will even be a pushback from some that are Christians. And here's this man. In spite of what he knew that he would never himself enjoy it, in obedience to the word of God, he was willing to pay the price.

But not only is it unchanging, and not only did it make a demand upon him, listen, the word of God makes demands, and it makes demands upon believers of all age group from the youngest to the oldest. It makes demands on us. But it will test us.

And it tested this man. You know, you can see him as he comes to these people to sign off on this deal. And there'd be people around that say, Jeremiah, you're nuts.

You know, are you out of your mind? You're never going to enjoy that. You're never going to partake of that. And you never did.

But you know what? When the children of Israel came back into that land, because that transaction had been sealed, that part, that property in Anathot, it was in Jeremiah's family still, even when the others came back. But he himself, he was tested as to the stand that he would take. And you'll be tested.

You will be tested. And as I said, sometimes the testing will come from those in the assembly that should be our example, young people, young sisters. You will be tested as far as even headship, as far as the cutting of the hair, as far as the outward adornment.

You will be tested. And thank God we run into young sisters and they see the Word of God and they're obedient to the Word of God and they follow the Word. And even as they're tested by others saying, listen, it's okay to do that.

It's okay to wear. It's okay to look like that. It's not okay according to the Word of God.

And thank God for those that will honor the Word of God, that know that it's unchanging. It doesn't change with the seasons. It doesn't change with society.

It doesn't change with the assemblies as they seem to morph from generation to generation. So here was a man who in spite of opposition, in spite of all that others said to him, he was willing to honor the Word of God. Oh! You know, there was a little bit of... There was a little bit of doubt maybe in his mind afterwards and sometimes there will be.

There he is as he's making that stand and he says, there's nothing too hard for thee. He's telling God this. He says, there's nothing too hard for thee.

And then we didn't read some of those other verses where he starts to think of all the things that are coming to pass. The Chaldeans are coming in. The land is being overwhelmed.

The crops are being looted and all these things. And maybe his mind is changing just a bit. But then when he prays, when he looks to God for the sustenance, the very same thing that he had claimed to give him the courage to do what he did, it's the very same thing God says back to him.

We read that down in verse 26. He says, The Word of the Lord came to Jeremiah saying, Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for me? Oh, dear child of God.

We live in a day when the Word of God is being set aside. We have seen what has happened to denominations around us when they did that, very specific times when they did that and look where they are today. And as we set aside the Word of God for the ideas of men, for the whims of men and looking at the world and grabbing these things and looking at and grabbing, we can see the mayhem and the confusion that ensues.

Oh, would to God that we might purpose as we leave this conference, as we go home on Monday, that we will take a stand for the Word of God. Be a Jeremiah and be willing, be willing to buy that parcel of land.