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Newington Three Angels Church

Eric Walsh

Man on Fire

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

We thank you, Lord, for bringing us together on your Sabbath and for your mercy and for your grace.

Lord, as we study your word now, I'm asking in a special way that, Lord, you just bless us.

Once again, Lord, I ask that you make me a nail on the wall, a rusty, sorry nail, Lord, but upon that nail I ask that you hang a portrait of Jesus Christ.

Lord, let Eric Walsh not be seen or heard instead, Father.

Let us hear a word from the throne room of grace.

As our prayer in Jesus' precious and holy name, amen.

All right, if you have your Bible, I want you to turn with me to the book of Jeremiah, the 12th chapter.

Our scripture reading will be taken from verse 5.

Jeremiah chapter 12, starting at verse 5.

The Bible says, if thou hast run with the footmen and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses?

And if in the land of peace wherein thou trustest they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling of the Jordan?

How will you do in the swelling of the Jordan?

Our message, again, is entitled, Man on Fire, Training for Trials.

And so we are gonna go, stay in the book of Jeremiah.

We're gonna jump to Jeremiah chapter 38 verse 1.

This is a rich set of scriptures that we're gonna read, passages of scriptures we're gonna read together and study now.

And we are gonna deal with some significant current events and other things as we go through this.

Jeremiah chapter 38 verse 1 says, "'Then Shephatiah the son of Matan, "'and Gedaliah the son of Pasher, "'and Jucal the son of Shalamiah, "'and Pashor the son of Malchiah, "'heard the word that Jeremiah had spoken unto all the people, saying, Thus saith the Lord, He that remaineth in this city shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence.

But he that goeth forth to the Chaldeans shall live, for he shall have his life for a prey and shall live.

This is a very interesting part of the saga that is the book of Jeremiah.

The book of Jeremiah is a book in which Israel has, Judah, sorry, and Jerusalem has already been attacked twice by Nebuchadnezzar.

In the first, a captivity, he took Daniel, in the second 1 he took the prophet Ezekiel.

And now Jeremiah is here, trying to convince the children of Israel that because of their sins, because they have failed to follow God, because they have not been obedient, that the God of heaven has withdrawn his protection.

In fact, Jeremiah says Nebuchadnezzar has become literally the instrument in the hand of God through which he will exact revenge for those nations, including the house of the living God in Jerusalem and the people of Judah, he will exact revenge because they have sinned so terribly against the God of heaven." This is incredible stuff.

Jeremiah had spoken to the princes, that's who the gentlemen listed at the beginning of verse 1 are.

He had spoken to them that in fact, that if you stay in the city, you'll either die by the sword, by famine, or by disease.

Verse 3 says, thus saith the Lord, this city shall surely be given into the hand of the king of Babylon's army, which shall take it." This is a tough prophecy to hear.

The princes of Judah are hoping to keep their nation together.

They're hoping that they can figure this thing out, but as they're looking at their situation, their hope has been built up by prophets like Hananiah a few chapters earlier, who has lied to them and told them that the Babylonian captivity would only last 2 more years.

The False prophets have said that the vessels that have been taken into Babylon would come right back.

Hananiah goes directly against Jeremiah and God cuts off Hananiah's life.

Yet the people of Judah, yet the leaders, the princes in Judah, still would not hear God's Word.

Well, when you look at him, these are some of the major events around his life.

Jeremiah prophesied from the 13th year of King Josiah in about 627 BC, all the way past the fall of Judah in 586 BC to about 580 BC.

His ministry spanned 4 decades and the reigns of 5 kings of Judah.

And you see them listed there from Josiah.

And when Josiah died, he was disobedient and Josiah died.

Even Josiah was the king which started this reformation in Judah.

When he died, Jeremiah wept bitterly and was brokenhearted.

From there, Jehoahaz only reigned 3 years, 3 months, sorry.

And he was taken out by the king of the pharaoh of Egypt.

Then Jehoiakim reigned for 11 years, but ultimately the king of Babylon got him.

Then Jehoiachin only reigned for 3 months again, before we get to the king who was in power.

As Nebuchadnezzar got Jehoiachin, Zedekiah is set up as king and rules for 11 years.

If you go back to Jeremiah chapter 1, the words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, of the priests that were in Anathoth, in the land of Benjamin, to whom the word of the Lord came in the days of Josiah, the son of Ammon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign.

It came also in the days of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, unto the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah the son of Josiah, king of Judah, unto the carrying away of Jerusalem, captive in the fifth month.

This is Jeremiah's overview of his life from his own book.

But verse 4 says, then the word of the Lord came unto me, speaking of Jeremiah, speaking, saying, before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee.

Before thou cameest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

Then said I, Ah, Lord God, behold, I cannot speak, for I am A child.

Church, let me just step back and say that what's going on in the book of Jeremiah is literally in a sense a foreshadowing of what is going on in the world today.

Judah would represent the church or the people of God.

They have been so disobedient, so rebellious, so disrespectful of the laws and precepts of God that God's protection is slowly removed.

Only a remnant of true believers is left.

The sins that Jeremiah and even Isaiah outline around Judah point to greed, taking advantage of the poor, idolatry.

They would even sacrifice their own children to these pagan gods.

They would try to worship God on the 1 hand, but on the other hand, they were doing the idolatrous practices of the world.

They were engaged in the entertainment of the world.

They were taken over by the love of the world, and they believed that God's protection would still last.

But God, even before giving these last warnings during the time of King Zedekiah, he had raised up a man in Jeremiah.

He says that he formed, before he even formed Jeremiah, in the womb of his mother.

He said, before you came forth out of your mother's womb, I had already sanctified you.

That means I set you apart for a holy person, a purpose, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

Jeremiah's calling came before he was born, and I wanna submit to you today, church, that some of you, God has put a calling on your life that existed before you took your first breath.

Jeremiah, just a teenager in Jeremiah chapter 1 when he's having this discourse with God, similar to what happens in the first chapter of the book of Isaiah, he does not believe, like Isaiah did not believe, that he was right for the job.

Moses didn't believe he was right for the job.

And we go through the Bible of all the people who stuttered at the idea of being the chosen 1 for that time to do God's work.

Jeremiah's response is, then said I, ah, Lord God, behold, I cannot speak, for I am a child.

Some of us think, you know what, I've got to grow up in maturity spiritually.

You know, I'm not ready to lead and to take control of things.

But I want to submit to you, church, that it is critical that you understand that the work that God has called you to do in these last days, the work that he has designed for you and put aside for you to do, he will give you what it takes to do it.

In fact, he says this to Jeremiah in Jeremiah 1 in verse 7, But the Lord said unto me, Say not, I am a child, for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak.

Then he says in verse 8, be not afraid of their faces, for I am with thee to deliver thee, to deliver thee, saith the Lord.

God says, don't say you're a child, for you will go to all that I shall send thee, and whatever I command you, you will speak it." Don't say you're a child.

He says, in fact, don't be afraid of their faces.

Listen, we live in a time of canceled culture, Where if you stand up and are a Christian, there are those who will come out and attack you.

My Bible says, do not be afraid of their faces.

That's the promise given in Jeremiah 1 and verse 8.

Verse 9, this is what God says he'll do for you then.

He says, then the Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said unto me, behold, I have put my words in your mouth.

See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out and to pull down and to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant." He says, listen, just like Isaiah, the similarities is interesting.

He said, listen, I'm a man of unclean lips that comes from an unclean people.

God took the coals from off the altar, as Isaiah's envisioned, and puts it and touches his mouth.

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