It will be in Jeremiah chapter 2, beginning with verse 20, and I'll read to verse 26. 20 to 26, in Jeremiah chapter 2. For of old I have broken thy yoke, and burst thy bands, and thou saidst, I will not transgress, when upon every high hill and under every green tree thou wander'st, playing the harlot. Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, holy, a right seed. How then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me? For though thou wash thee with lye and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord God. How canst thou say, I am not polluted, I have not gone after Balaam? See thy way in the valley, know what thou hast done, thou art a swift dromedary traversing her ways. a wild donkey used into the wilderness that sniffeth up the wind at her pleasure. In her occasion, who can turn her away? All they that seek her turn away. Excuse me, all her that seek her will not weary themselves in her month. Will not weary themselves in her month. They shall find her. withhold thy foot from being unshod and thy throat from thirst. But thou sayest, there is no hope. No, for I have loved strangers and after them will I go as the thief is ashamed when he is found. So is the house of Israel ashamed. They, their kings, their princes and their priests and their prophets. Well, we'll stop right there for now, and we'll look at what Jeremiah has to say about Judah this afternoon. Shall we pray? Loving Father, we do ask that you will open up the scriptures to us, and bless according to your word, that you may show us those things hidden therein, that we may receive these things, not only as the historical fact of how Judah strayed away from you, Lord, but also how the human heart has a certain willingness to depart from the true and living God. We thank you, Father, in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, as we look at this passage this afternoon, we find four pictures of apostasy that are given in this selection here this afternoon. As we have been looking at the book of Jeremiah, we find that Jeremiah is chosen of God to go to Judah and to be a prophet, a voice, if you will, in the ear of God's people that they might receive certain warning and rebuke for their apostasy, their turning away from the Lord, and of their following after false gods. I think perhaps in a practical way it's very easy for us to see how people can follow after false gods. Because even today we find there is a great flirtation with the gods of the East. Certain Eastern gods and mystical gods and New Age gods and various ancient idolatries which have long been held by many different people. But as in this particular case, Israel was being infected by false gods. Israel knew the true and living God. And so it knew the true worship of God. It knew the true ceremonies that God instituted in the past that they must execute and they must worship the Lord by or through. And we find that even today, as a Christian nation, we find that though our nation was founded upon certain Christian principles and beliefs and doctrines, if you will, yet we find that America flirts with false gods, and that there are many peoples which have come to America and have brought their gods with them, and we find that the various gods of the age have become a great seduction, if you will, to America. And I think we probably can say this globally too, because we know that there is a, obviously there is a great deal of emphasis upon Islam, and there is a great deal of emphasis upon Buddhism. There's a great deal of emphasis upon the various pagan beliefs, witchcraft, white witchcraft, and Wicca, and various Gaelic beliefs, such as the Druid worship, and just all sorts of kinds of worships and practices which have been around for a long time and in many ways they have infiltrated into America and to the population through people migrating here and through the various diversity so-called that is going on. But let us just look at this for a moment here. Judah has broken her yoke. She set up high places. This is out of verse 20 and the The application I wish to make here is that traditional Christian America has fallen to its high places too. So let's just look at the passage for a moment here. We see here that it says in verse 20, for of old I have broken thy yoke and burst thy bands and thou saidest I will not transgress when upon every high hill and under every green tree thou wanders playing the harlot. I'm going to read a contemporary version along with this, because it also helps for us to see how that it can be put into a little bit different language for explanation. So I'll read the second aspect of this for explanation for you. Verse 20 out of the Bible in Basic English, and this Bible in Basic English translation actually dates back, I think, to 1904. It was one that was done by... a particular theologian, and I've kind of misplaced his name right now, but it goes like this, verse 24. In the past, your yoke was broken by your hands, and your cords parted, and you said, I will not be your servant, for on every high hill and under every branching tree, your behavior was like that of a loose woman. And so we find that, going along with what Jeremiah is commissioned to do, we find that he points out to Judah that they are now acting like the yoke which was put upon them by God, in the sense of a partnering with God, that they might believe the true and living God. They have broken that off from their neck. As we know, sin is a dominant feature in the nature of all men. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. That's no surprise to us. And so in what sense did God yoke with the nation of Israel? Well, we know that because God called Abraham out of the year of the Chaldees and God commissioned him to go forth, unto a land that he would show him, a land which would be fertile, a land filled with milk and honey, as it were, a land that would be prosperous, that he gave Abraham a covenant, that he promised Abraham a seed, and that through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that covenant would be established, and that seed would come forth, and we know that that translated into the promise of the coming Messiah, and that in the Gospel of Matthew, for instance, in the genealogy, we find the lion of the tribe of Judah emerging as that promised one that would come in the fullness of time and would be born of a virgin. But, of course, at this juncture in history, in the 7th century, when Israel was now turning away and straying from the Lord, they had turned away from this very partnership that God had made with them. We may be reminded of the invitation that God gave to those in the gospel where he says, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. When we yoke up with the Lord, we find that he sustains us and keeps us and preserves us and gives us every bit of blessing that he intends for his people to prosper under and to enjoy. And so did Jehovah God give to Israel every bit of blessing and hope and prosperity and fruitfulness that he would bless them with, that they might enjoy. And Israel cast aside that yoke that they had with the Lord God, Yahweh. So we find that in that case, this becomes a illustration too here that Jeremiah gives. He illustrates that they have cast off the yoke, like a a pair of oxen that I yoked up and I'm ready to go forward and to till the soil and to plant the seed and to bring forth the harvest and to receive the bountifulness of God's blessing. Israel cast it off. They cast aside this very thing. What is America doing today? Traditional Christian America is disappearing, if you will. It's kind of like this is at the beginning point, right? When we talk about something that Israel is casting off, they're not only casting aside their true worship of God, but this became a progressive thing. This became one of those areas where the starting point was to leave off the worship of the true Lord and Savior, the true God, the true and living God. Remember the divided kingdom? Well, after Solomon died, we find that the kingdom divided between Judah and Israel, and there were two places of worship. One was set up at Dan and one at Beersheba, and then there was the worship of the Lord at Jerusalem. But what did the other two represent? But a split in the kingdom, a divided kingdom. And we find that pretty much from that time on, the glory of that golden age disappeared, and the blessing went along with it. And ultimately ended up with the prophets coming onto the scene, making these certain pronouncements about Judah and Israel. and that they had left off that worship. I'd just like to bring some application to this to us today by saying this, that today, in my viewpoint, it seems to be that America wants to break its traditional yoke with Christianity. And everything that is going on today seems to sever that. Whether it's the cultural diversity, which is being emphasized, or whether it's the political correctness society, which is, of course, very dominant in our society today. And of course, this is gradually sweeping into the laws of the land. And we know that there's been a lot of laws that have changed. having to do with morality, and having to do with cultural diversity, and having to do with marriage, and just a whole bunch of different things that have taken place already. And of course, to secularism, that represents traditional Christian America being broken from society. That's what that represents. To you and I as Christians, it means to embrace something like that is to depart from the faith completely. We have to remember Israel was a theocracy. It was meant to be governed by God. It was not meant to be governed by a secular, theocratic system. But that's what they were seeking to accomplish. Eventually, they would become, in a sense, a secular theocratic system, making gods unto themselves. And of course, in this particular case, as history reveals, they would take many of these false gods of the day and incorporate them or assimilate them into their own belief system. So, in other words, America is disappearing. It is like breaking the yoke of traditional Christian America. Though we find there are still many churches who are remaining true, when you come to the secularism of society, there is a breaking of that yoke of traditional Christianity. Secondly, Judah is a vine corrupted. And we see this in verse 21. He says, yet I had planted thee a noble vine, holy, a right seed. How then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me? Here is the second illustration Jeremiah gives. He says, Israel, Judah, was a noble vine. We think of the great vine. Well, and even in John chapter 12, 15, excuse me, we have the vine and the branches. We have that illustration given to us as it is, as Christ is our true vine, and we are the branches attached to it. Well, the The illustration of Judah being a vine is one which is in the Word of God, of course. And it was planted by God. This vine with its branches was planted by God. God is the author of the noble vine. But you see, what does Judah do? Judah has corrupted the vine. She has corrupted her way. By breaking her ties with Jehovah God and taking unto her other gods, She has corrupted herself, and she is no longer the noble vine, but she is like, as Jeremiah says, a degenerate plant of a strange vine. And we know that a wild grapevine just does not yield the fruit, or the flavor, or the blessing that the noble vine yields. Of course, in California it's noted for grapes and so forth, and we get that whole sense of a vineyard which is just beautifully manicured and trained to produce the right kind of fruit. And Israel is like a vine which is corrupted. She is a wild grapevine on her own. She is cast off her husbandman, if you will. She is cast off her husbandman. the Father, Jehovah God. She is cast off her husband, and she has taken unto herself the sense of a wild grapevine, unmanaged, untamed, untruthful, and no longer the blessing that God intended. The way of application, we have a corrupted Christian America. What is it morphing into? Once America leaves its traditional secular view of Christianity, once it leaves that, once it discards the Ten Commandments, once it takes down its cathedrals, it destroys its monuments, It uproots the cultural and the moral mores which hold America to Christian tradition. Once it does all of that, then it becomes corrupted. What's it doing now? America is making morals of its own. It's setting up its own moral standard. And we find this happening, of course, in just about every newspaper and every television ad. I don't know if you've been watching the ads, but if you watch television ads, you'll see what corporate America is doing to rid itself of the concept of Christianity or of God. And you can see it right in the ads. A very strong emphasis upon Eastern mysticism, yoga. There's a very strong emphasis upon Buddhism. There's a very strong emphasis on secularism and just plain humanism. All of these kinds of things have a very strong emphasis within the ad content on televisions and magazines and in the media. Of course, to say nothing about the schools and all of this. So we have a sense that America is being corrupted. the corruption of Christian America. The foundations are beginning to erode from it. I don't want to give a too desperate view of this, but I think it's good for us to see just like how that Judah gradually found its way away from the Lord Remember the divided kingdom, and then you have the ten tribes to the north, the one tribe in Jerusalem, and you have the various evil kings that did not rule well, and that corrupted their way before God. And gradually all of this system of corruption seeped down into the very fabric of the life of the people. And of course that's what we see now today. We see that America is being corrupted by the top down, from the top down actually. If you have evil kings, then the people will grow very lax in their following the true morality which God establishes, in this particular case, through theocracy, but in our particular case, through Christian belief and tradition. and the Word of God. Let us not forget the Word of God, because that is what God was giving to Israel, was the Word of God. And that's where true Christian tradition comes from, is the Word of God. not from a man that might set himself up as a vicar of Christ or something, if you catch my drift. But see, so Judah is a vine corrupted, she is a wild grapevine, the illustration is showing here, and by application, corrupted Christian America is an example of that, I think, today. Thirdly, Judah was a stain, unwashed, She is a stain unwashed and here we look at verse 22. In verse 22, it says, for though thou wash thee with lye, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord God. So now Jeremiah uses the example of being washed. There's a stain on Israel, on Judah. There's a stain on Judah. How are you going to get rid of that stain? Well, probably this is something that all you women know about. You know how to remove stains. You know what to get to remove that stubborn stain in your tablecloths, or on your pillowcase, or on your sheets, or on your clothes. If you, you know, the clothes you wear, some of them more susceptible to staining than others. Well, here is Judah. She has broken the yoke. She is beginning to stray away from the Lord. She has become a corrupted vine. She's no longer following her husbandman, the true father that was given to her, the true husband that was given to her. And we find that she has a stain upon her nature, upon her. She's stained now. And Jeremiah says, you can't wash this out with lye, with soda, or with soap. You can't wash it out. You know, there's some really, really, really stubborn stains and you got to get out the big guns, the women say, get out the big guns and try to get that stain out of that cloth, you know. But they could not, you cannot wash this out. Apostasy is a terrible stain. It's a terrible stain. It is a turning away from the faith. Remember how Judah came to the Lord. Remember how she came in the beginning. God called her. God elected her. God elected that nation, that people, and called them unto himself. And in this sense, Judah did not elect itself. It cannot take its own stain away. We might think of sin, you know, the kind of the parallel in the scripture would be sin. We cannot wash our own sin away. We cannot cleanse ourselves. We can't, there isn't anything we can do to get rid of the sin or the degradation, as he puts it here in verse 21. You just can't get rid of it on your own. And Jeremiah brings this out. For thou, for those that wash thee with lye and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord. And so she could not be cleaned with soda and soap, as it were. She couldn't do it herself. Why? Because what had she done? She had truly left off the worship of the true and living God, and she had taken to herself her New Age gods. And when we think about America today, what has it done? It is abandoning its Christian heritage. That's what America is ultimately doing. She's abandoning her Christian heritage. She's getting rid of the Christian traditions, she's corrupting the Christian faith. And she is taking unto herself what we call new age gods. Well, we know they're really old age gods. There's nothing new under the sun, as Solomon says in the book of Ecclesiastes. But to take under herself and to sin, to sin in this great way, which she does sin, we find that it is not possible to be cleansed as a human being. one might be cleansed. She cannot do it. And so this is a part of the problem that we find here. I won't just look up a passage here for a moment. Take me a second, I trust. Going to turn to Psalm 51 for a moment. Well, we're all familiar with Psalm 51 and how the David pleads to God for mercies. And so God comes, David comes to God and he says, wash me, cleanse me, make me new as it were, or create in me a clean heart of God. So here is the, here is the, the actual way to get cleansed, rather than through the improper means which Judah has chosen. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness, according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgression. Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity and cleanse me from my sin, for I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, only thee have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. Behold, I was shaped in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward part, and in the hidden part. Thou shalt make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me hear the joy of gladness, that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Hide thy face from my sin, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation, and my tongue shall sing aloud thy righteousness. O Lord, open thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise. For thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it. Thou delightest not in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. Do good in thy pleasure unto Zion. Build thou the walls of Jerusalem. Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering. Then shall they offer bulwarks upon thine altar." But David came to the conclusion that he could not cleanse himself. that only God could do this. And Israel, Judah must do the same. But Jeremiah was saying, you have a great stain and you cannot wash it out with the usual means. You must come to God and to be cleansed. And of course, we see America in this condition. What can it possibly do to reverse course? It can only come through repentance. It can only come through as God himself might coins the hearts of people who have rebelled against him. Secular America in its present state will not return. They will not. Christian America can turn, but secular America needs to be converted. The influence of Christian America on secular America was that it was able to live by the morals and traditions and heritage of Christian America. But if Christian America leaves its true foundation and follows false gods, secular America will never follow. It will never seek to know God. God alone has to change the hearts of men, of people. And so we find here that Judah was in a hopeless state. Basically, it's hopeless. They're just not going to ever recover unless God do a work in their heart. Judah is a lustful animal. She lusted for false gods. And we see this in verse 23 to 25, basically. And I'll read it, first of all, I'll read it out of the Bible in basic English, verse 23. How are you able to say I am not unclean? I have gone after the bales. See your way in the valley, be clear about what you have done. You are a quick-footed camel twisting her way in and out, an unrestrained ass used to the wasteland, breathing up the wind in her desire at her time. who was able to send her away. All those who are looking for her will have no need to make themselves tired. In her months, they will get her." And so we find that Judah is a lustful animal. She's like a wild animal which is lusting after its mate, to put it kind of in a common sense. and we find that she will not be turned. Like an animal acting out its natural instinct, we find Judah has turned away from God and is pursuing after false gods. I can't help but thinking how that America is in such a pursuit after false gods today. Yet America knows the true Christian faith. It knows it traditionally, it knows its heritage, but it's like it has an instinct only for false gods and what the false gods have to say to them. Yoga has become a national epidemic. They put it in the kindergartens with the children. And it's from an Eastern mystical, religious, Hindu belief system. And yet, for some reason, America says, oh, this is a good thing. We should tell our little children this. Instead of telling them, thou shalt not murder, or thou shalt not steal, or thou shalt not lie, or thou shalt not bear false witness, or thou shalt not believe in any other god besides the true and living God, what do they do? They lay them on a mat on the floor and tell them to twist themselves in all sorts of contortions and to set in a lotus position and to meditate on nothing and just open their minds up to nothing and think about nothing. And it's ludicrous, it's just plain ludicrous. Yet we find that every impulse of advertising and education and secularism is focused on Eastern mysticisms, Look at Oprah Winfrey. If you know anything about Oprah, you know that she believes in false gods. Buddhism and Hinduism and all these kinds of beliefs, she's very much involved in all of those things. written books about it, sells everything she can on the subject. And many of the big names in Hollywood, of course, are involved in Christian science. And to say nothing about the whole emphasis about the New Age beliefs. Mother Earth concept, which involves the the aboriginal Indians, as it were, of our own Native America, yet we find that it is not alone, isolated to the American Indian. We find mysticisms and animism, believing in many different spirits, is something which is really among many, many belief systems of the world. They believe in the animal spirits, and they believe in the spirit of the water, and of the trees, and of the various fish, and all kinds of different things. This is nothing new, of course, but yet it is given as something that is promoted today. The goddess spirit, the Gaia spirit, all of this is, of course, very much promoted. It is part of the New Age movement and it is followed and taught and explored. I'll have to tell you that since the church bought this building next door, and I've gone through everything that was left there, and there's more yet to go through, but I have found just about every belief system known to in the world that this woman was exposed to. including Jehovah Witnesses, and Christianity, and Guideposts, and the Bible, and I've found verses in Braille, and everything else. And I'm just saying that to say this, people are exposed to the Bible, as well as to false gods. And they make their choices to follow their false gods. And as far as I know, Lynn Stanhope, to my knowledge, never became a Christian, though she had Christian heritage in her background, Christian tradition. And, you know, I can't say that definitively, but as long as we have been here in this church, you know, she never came here to attend church or anything or have anything to do with Christian tradition. But she was exposed to everything going. I found just about everything you can think of for religions, in her personal effects. So we have Judah, and Judah was exposed to all these worldly belief systems all about her, and what does she do? She went after them like an animal that is lusting after another animal, in heat, as it were. She wanted to experience these things, and I think that's at the heart of what America is doing. They want to experience as many things as they can, and America is like that. It's become such a diverse culture. Whereas it used to be that people would come here and assimilate into the culture, we find now today they come here and they diversify the culture. They don't assimilate into the culture. It's much the same in Europe today with the Muslim faith. They don't go to Europe and to Britain and to Germany and various other parts of the world. They don't go there to assimilate into the culture. The Muslim people go and set up their own communities. They don't assimilate. And they mean to do that. That's a purposeful thing. They do not mean to assimilate. They want to be separate and to have their own belief system and so forth. And of course many people have converted to that kind of thing just because to America and to many of the peoples of the world, they are drawn aside unto those things, like an animal that is lustful and desirous of others, of other types of cultures. And we find this to be true. Israel was in a state of apostasy, and Jeremiah was using every means that he knew to tell Judah, that they were going in the wrong direction. And that they could not, they could not do anything to change this direction unless they repented, unless they turned back to God. God alone is the only one that could restore them. And I think that's an important application that we make, that whether it's about some personal aspect of our own lives, or whether it's about secular America or Christian America, We cannot do anything about these things unless we are willing to repent and turn to the Lord. Unless we're willing to understand that, like David, we realize that we have to appeal to God to cleanse us and to restore us and to transform us again onto that true and living vine that would truly bear branches from the true vine, which is our husbandman, even Christ himself. So, that's where we are today in our study. We'll come back next time and look further at this whole subject and trust that you are getting some things out of Jeremiah. Shall we pray? Loving Father, we do thank you for your word and I pray, Lord, you will continue your work in us and in our country, even in the secular America that somehow, God, you will cause people to repent and turn to you. And that Christian America might realize of the great waywardness that has taken hold and would turn again unto you. I pray, Father, for your mercies in all this, that it may be to the praise and glory of God in Jesus name. Amen. Number 124, I'll send with a good worship type hymn, 124. I'll hail the power of Jesus' name. Oh, hail the power of Jesus' name. Let angels prostrate fall. Bring forth the royal crown.