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Newington Three Angels Church

Eric Walsh

Mocking the Remnant

We're gonna start in the book of 2 Peter 3 and verse 4.

And the Bible says here, The Bible says here, knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days, scoffers walking after their own lusts, and saying, where's the promise of his coming?

For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.

A message this Sabbath is entitled, Mocking the Remnant.

Father God, we thank you for this opportunity to study your word.

Once again, Lord, I pray that you make me just a nail on the wall, a rusty, sorry nail, Lord.

Upon that nail, Lord, I ask that you hang a portrait of Jesus Christ.

Instead, Father, let us hear a word from the throne room of grace.

This is our prayer in Jesus's name, amen.

All right, so we're gonna start in dealing with 1 of my favorite Bible characters, and that is the prophet Jeremiah.

As an overview of Jeremiah's life, it's interesting that Jeremiah, his ministry spanned more than 4 decades, and he was the prophet during 5 different kings of Judah.

When his ministry started, Josiah was king, and there was a great reformation taking place in Judah.

But after Josiah's death, which the Bible tells us Jeremiah mourned and lamented heavily, a series of kings came up, none of whom rose to the stature of Josiah, each causing different problems, all related to Josiah, of course.

Jeremiah had to warn Judah that God was telling them to unite or to cooperate with the king of Babylon, basically to become vassals and to avoid the full onslaught or the most terrible onslaught that Babylon could give them.

But of course, they were very angry with Jeremiah for this.

They mocked him and questioned his loyalty to the kingdom.

Jeremiah 28 happens just after there was a great meeting between many of the nations that the King of Judah was trying to pull together to go against Babylon.

Jeremiah was brave enough to stand up and tell them, you can't do this, it won't work, you cannot go against God, What God is saying is true.

And then he even tells Zedekiah himself, the king of Judah, that this will not make any sense.

You cannot go against what God is telling me to tell you.

And it starts in Jeremiah chapter 1, where God, when he gives Jeremiah his commission that he is going to be a prophet and a preacher, because he was also a priest, of course.

But when he told Jeremiah what his life work would be, his calling on his life.

He said to him, do not be afraid of their faces.

And so Jeremiah in boldness would preach the truth, so much so that he made many enemies.

In Jeremiah 28 and verse 1, it says, And it came to pass the same year in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah, in the fourth year and in the fifth month, that Hananiah, the son of Azar, the prophet, which was of Gibeon, spoke unto me in the house of the Lord, in the presence of the priests and of all the people saying, thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel saying, I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon.

So Jeremiah has been saying, listen, We're going to be in captivity 70 years.

Babylon is gonna be risen to the top of the world in terms of power.

Hananiah, another 1 from a priestly lineage, as Gibeon was also, like Jeremiah's hometown, was also a city for priests.

And he says in the temple, in the house of the Lord, in front of all the other priests, Hananiah says, the God of Israel, the Lord of hosts, spoke to him, and he said, I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon.

Then he goes on to say, forget Jeremiah's 70-year prophecy, and verse 3 says, within 2 full years will I bring again into this place all the vessels of the Lord's house that Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, took away from this place and carried them to Babylon.

Then he says in verse 4, And I will bring again to this place Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, with all the captives of Judah that went into Babylon, sayeth the Lord, for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon.

So he says, first of all, Jeremiah's lying.

He says, second, Jeremiah's inaccurate because Jeconiah will come back and reign as king.

We'll get back to that again in a second.

He says, and all of the vessels will be brought back.

The vessels are key in the story of the scripture because these are the very same vessels that not only did Nebuchadnezzar take and were argued over here as to be coming back, but later on in the book of Daniel, this is where the king of Babylon, Belshazzar, actually uses these, Belshazzar uses these to serve foreign gods.

So there's a lot of relevance around this.

And Hananiah is saying, everything is gonna be brought back.

He says again, I will break the yoke of the King of Babylon.

Jeremiah standing there as this lie, this blatant lie, Hananiah had not spoken to God.

Verse 5, then the prophet Jeremiah said unto the prophet Hananiah in the presence of the priests and in the presence of all the people that stood in the house of the Lord, even the prophet Jeremiah said, Amen.

The Lord perform thy words thou has prophesied to bring again the vessels of the Lord's house, and all that is carried away, captive from Babylon into this place.

Jeremiah, I believe here, is using sarcasm.

I could almost imagine Jeremiah walking up to him and clapping slowly like this, as if to say, well done.

But Jeremiah is speaking sarcastically, I believe, because here he says, nevertheless, hear thou now this word that I speak in thine ears and in the ears of all the people.

The prophets that have been before me and before thee of old prophesied both against many countries and against great kingdoms of war and of evil and of pestilence.

He says, listen, prophets like Isaiah prophesied the destruction of kingdoms.

They spoke of the war that was to come, of pestilence to come, of great evil.

They did not speak of smooth, soothing words.

Verse 9, the prophet which prophesieth of peace, when the word of the prophet shall come to pass, then shall the prophet be known that the Lord hath truly sent him.

The prophet which prophesieth of peace, the word of the prophet shall come to pass, then the prophet be known, shall the prophet be known that the Lord has truly sent him Jeremiah says listen you prophesying all of this peace but the only way we're gonna know if you're talking the truth is when we see that peace come to pass and I want to tell you that we live in a time of prophets of peace Prophets of peace that are telling you that God is too merciful to destroy the world.

Prophets of peace that tell you don't worry about the signs of the times, everything is happening as it was.

Prophets of peace and prosperity that tell you that if you have faith in God, you should be driving a Bentley and living in a mansion.

But these are all prophetic lies, just as Hananiah's lie was.

We live in a time when even in our own denomination, There are many preaching sermons.

I heard 1 pretty well-known Adventist pastor preach a sermon, put down the trumpets.

We sing a hymn that says, lift up the trumpet and loud let it ring, let it ring, Jesus is coming again.

But this group says, put down the trumpet.

Others are saying, in 1 sermon I heard they said, The end is not yet.

That was the title of the sermon from Matthew 24.

So there are many who are saying we ought not be worried about the prophecies.

They're prophesying peace, even in our day.

But let me tell you something, things are only getting worse.

A Friend of mine was debating this with me when I sent around some of the current events in a text Saying that everything is really just happening as it was just like it says in 2nd Peter 3 and 2nd Peter 2 2nd Peter 3 in verse 4 Saying listen things always happen the same but it's funny while the church while church folk are saying Everything is happening the same as it always has, the world is saying that things are getting worse.

Says here, why California wildfires are getting worse.

And then in the article, and I believe this is maybe from Time magazine There's a great picture up top here of how these fires are burning in, California And this is what they say.

The warming climate has dried out California's landscape Turning it into a tinderbox It's no coincidence that last year vegetation was at record levels of dryness.

In the part of California where the most destructive fire in the state's history was burning.

1 study showed that the burned areas consumed by California's wildfires have increased by more than 400% between 1972 and 2018.

We are living in a time when things are getting worse Fires in California, they said there's people saying it's climate change, but it's not just climate change NBC News I was watching just today said 1 of the national news Stations here in the state said that in fact, it's also because we have not been managing the forests.

Well So there's a lot of edge dry vegetation to burn but it's not just America.

This was Australia earlier this year In Australia nearly 3 billion animals were killed or displaced by Australia's fires You can see the poor kangaroo here hopping around and the fires in the background.

3000000000 animals, at least 1000000000 of them killed.

Yet stronger storms are coming, not just fires.

40 years of Data confirm hurricanes are getting stronger.

According to the data, the likelihood of a hurricane developing into a Category 3 storm or greater with sustained winds of over 177 kilometers an hour, or 110 miles, has increased by 8% every decade since 1979.

Every year, year over year, by decade, things are getting worse.

People say, well, we've always had earthquakes.

But when you look at significant earthquakes, greater than 6.0 Richter scale, going all the way back to 1900, this cuts it off a little bit here, you can see that destructive and deadly earthquakes have increased significantly.

Even just since 1980, this is since the 1980s here, you can see there's a trend of magnitude 6 plus earthquakes have gone up over the 10 years.

But it's not just the earth or the storms.

It's also mass shooting incidents and fatalities.

We have watched in America more and more cases of senseless murder.

Now, yeah, there's always been murder, there's always been killing, there's always been war, But the mass shootings in America are very different.

There's no point, no purpose, nothing to really gain.

Yet we have watched as the number of people victimized and shot in these situations continues to increase in America.

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Mocking the Remnant

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