I would ask you to open your Bibles to the Old Testament book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah chapter 7 will be the text, the words of our text tonight. Jeremiah chapter 7. The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, Stand in the gate of the Lord's house and proclaim there this word. and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all you of Judah who enter in at these gates to worship the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. Do not trust in these lying words, saying, The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these. For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings, if you thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor, if you do not oppress the stranger, the fatherless and the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place or walk after other gods to your hearth, then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, forever and ever. Behold, you trust in lying words that cannot profit. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods whom you did not know, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, we are delivered to do all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of thieves in your sight? Behold, I, even I, have seen it, says the Lord. Let us pray. O Holy God, we come before your presence tonight. May the words of my mouth and meditation of my heart be acceptable and pleasing to your sight. And may our hearts, Lord, be open and not hardened as we hear this text that you have placed in your Word for us today. We pray that Your Holy Spirit will do His work, bringing all of our hearts to true and genuine repentance, daily walk of repentance. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen. Please be seated. You might have heard the words of many today, very popular words saying, I believe in a relationship, I don't believe in a religion. Well, if that was the case, then John Calvin should have titled his book, Institute of Christian Relationships, and you can see that everyone is actually related to God one way or the other, whether through damnation or through salvation. What the issue is, and should focus our eyes and we see here in our text, is actually that repentance should be over and above religious outward observance. Repentance. And this was the task of Jeremiah. Jeremiah is an Old Testament prophet, which is one of the most hardest, you could say. He was a son of a priest, so he knew the temple. He went to the temple with his father, and perhaps was preparing for a ministry as a priest. We came from Anathota village, just a few miles from Jerusalem. And this is his first preaching. He begins his public ministry in the most public of places with this temple sermon. And he comes in a time of great crisis. All that remain of Israel is deteriorating, both morally and politically. You have Jehoiakim, which is an evil king that now comes in as Josiah. The righteous king has died and the reformed of Josiah has been completely abandoned in the land. And now Israel in the northern kingdom has been deported to Assyria. And the southern little kingdom of Judah is torn between two power plays of Egypt and Babylon, instead of turning to the Lord. And Jeremiah has a hard task here. as in all of his book, to preach a message of sin and punishment to a people that will not repent, that will persecute him. Later on, he's even kicked out of the temple and he has to send Baruch to go to the temple and read aloud his prophecies. It is a message that because of the disobedience will bring to the exile of Israel. In chapter 7 through chapter 10, we have the first judgments that a Babylonian exile will come, it will plunder the land, it will destroy everything that we hold dear. This is a dark message, a message with few spots of light. But because a judgment for an unrepentant nation is inevitable. The word repent is 111 times repeated in this book. And in this chapter we see that God will not tolerate, God will not be fooled by religious people who refuse to repent from their evil ways. And so he calls them to repentance. We will see that there is here in our text a call to repentance. There are conditions of repentance listed for us. And then there is the failure of repentance that ultimately will bring to the exile and the destruction of the temple. We see here the call to repentance in verses 1 through 4, which is a public call. The word came from the Lord. This is a formula saying what is about to be said is a message from God, a prophecy. And God comes and tells Jeremiah, who is young and inexperienced, to go to the gates of the temple, the very inner gate of the temple and the entrance where everyone perhaps are coming for a feast. So the whole Judah is coming to those gates. They're just going through the motions and they're about to truly meet their God and hear what He thinks of their worship. In verse 3 says, Thus says the Lord of hosts, the Elohim of Israel, who guides the armies of heaven, who will guide the armies of the enemy Babylon to destroy and to plunder everything that you hold dear, O Israel. God commands them to repent, to amend, to reform the way, to make their ways good, to enter in a state of goodness, changing from their evil ways to amend both their deeds and their ways, their entire walk of life, their lifestyle. And Jeremiah often sent these words of repentance in chapter 26, verse 13, 35, verse 15. But over and over it falls over deaf ears. God called, but they did not answer. God sent His prophets, and yet they killed them. To the point that God says to Jeremiah in this text, Do not pray for these people, for I will not hear you. Verse 16. Because if you repent, then, it says our text, verse 3, As a consequence, God will allow you to stay. God will permit you to remain in the promised land that He gave you. God will remain and abide in His temple. And this call is not just a public call, but it's also a call irrespective of religious observance. Verse 4 says, God prohibits His people here. It says, you trust in deceptive words. You persuade yourself in lying words. There's a lot of deceptive words that are going around you. You know, I think of preachers in America today who are going and they're saying out loud from the pulpit that somehow if you speak words into existence they become true, that you are blessed, that you are this, that you are that, and that somehow God has a plan for you and it's going to be so beautiful. And these are the deceptive words of false prophets. And what they really fail to realize is that God has no obligation toward our misplaced trust. while we are leading a misguided behavior, as if we can push off God's wrath by our external religious practice. These are false words. They're groundless. They have no basic fact in reality and in the Bible, in the God of the Bible. No matter how persuasive, these are only vain words of false prophets. These false prophets, they are prophesying lying dreams, says Jeremiah 23, verse 32, of promised prosperity and safety. They say, peace, peace, when there is no peace. They keep saying here, our text says, there's almost a chant that they're doing as they're going to the temple, almost a liturgical song they devised, that it says, this is the temple of the Lord. This is the temple of the Lord. This is the temple of the Lord. It's almost like a mantra that is repeated three times here. It's like, we don't have just one part of the temple. We don't have two parts. We have three. We are indestructible. God is here and we are okay. As long as the temple is here, we are safe. God will never allow His temple to be destroyed. Matthew Henry says, it is common for those that are farthest from God to boast themselves most of their being near to church. They trust in the temple magically, as if some sort of talisman in their hands, while they forgot God through the motions. Acted as if God is somehow obligated to protect them, no matter what they do. As if they were safe because God is here, Jerusalem will never be destroyed. And these are absolutely helpless words. When the Babylonians will come and they will destroy and plunder and destroy the temple. God mentioned in verse 12, Shiloh. Shiloh was the place where the tabernacle was when Joshua entered the land. And he's saying, go and see what I did with that place and how he lays in ruins now because of priests such as Eli and his sons. And the Ark of the Covenant was taken away from that place and brought into the Temple of the Philistines. as a judgment over unrepented Jerusalem. And God is saying that, would you think that you would have a better destiny than that? Would you think that the temple is somehow not involved in such a judgment? God will cast this house out of His sight, He says. And therefore we see that God calls everyone, everyone to inward lasting repentance rather than outward temporary religious observance. This is a call to repent chiefly in the act of worship. Listen to what 1 Samuel 15 verse 22-23 has to say about this. As the Lord has great delight in burnt offering and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord. Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams, for rebellion is as true of a sin as witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry." Worship mingled with sin, friends, becomes vain, becomes worthless in the eyes of God, as if you're doing nothing. One would expect that those who go to the house of God will be in the right path. Instead, God is coming there and saying, that is not the case. Their relationship, and I'm afraid many people in North America today, their relationship to the church is nothing short of blind superstition, like good luck charm. Let every church goer know, that without true and lasting repentance, their worship to God is completely vain. Visible church, participation in the church, it does not equate serving God. God requires obedience as a condition for true spiritual blessedness. We sing so many hymns. about saved and peace and well-being. But I'm afraid that we have forgotten many of these ancient hymns that talk about inward repentance, that deal with the heart issue. We come to church, perhaps. Why do we come to church? To hear the Word of God? To be challenged? Or we come here to find a shelter, a quiet place, in a mystical way? Or are we coming to church to be changed? That our whole life gets hold of the holiness of God and that we apply what we heard to our lives. Because that is the call to holiness. The house of the Lord stands for a holy place. And that's what holiness had been forgotten by Israel. Holiness befits the church, not just outward palms and circumstances. That is not holiness. Not just checking the box, but genuine holiness, genuine separation. The church should look not like the world, but separate. And if the church looks exactly like the world, then it has failed to its tasks. And so the question that we need to ask ourselves, even in our undertakings, even as we try to serve the Lord, will we focus on the inward reality of regeneration and salvation, or we somehow lose sight and we start to look at outward buildings, we will remember the regeneration that is needed, that being born again, because unless you're born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God. We must remember that God can dispense of accomplish His work through us if we do not obey Him wholeheartedly. And that is the call to repentance. But what are the conditions of repentance in our text? Verse 5 through 7. And the first condition that we see here is very interesting. God calls Israel to pursue justice. Verse 5 and 6. Here's the condition, the only condition to stay in the Promised Land for the Old Covenant people. Repentance. And that's what it consists of. If you do good, if you... This is a... Two infinitives going together, which means if you thoroughly and truly amend your ways, if you not just halfway, not according to an abased standard of what is good, not in some areas of your life or maybe in questionable motives, no, but if you amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly, that is not partially, execute justice, then God will let you dwell. Jeremiah warns the people of Judah that if they don't execute justice, God will pour out his fury like fire. And justice here refers to creating a state of fairness, not just in courts or government, but in every aspect of our individual life. If we treat one another fairly, It's something that can work only if you stop your evil schemes and start treating each other with right judgments. And verse six tells us what this true justice looks like. Not to oppress or mistreat through violent abuse of power, of authority, burdening, trampling on, crushing those who are of a lower station than yourself. Those without any defense of their rights. And here we have three examples. The foreigner who is disadvantaged. He has no voice. And same for the orphan or the widow. Anyone who has no protection, essentially. so that they can be prey of many wrongs. Because if I take advantage of him, who can stop me? He has no one to appeal to. And that is the sin that God is addressing you. Or worse, shed innocent blood in this place. After all, God said to Cain, your brother's blood cry out from the ground. And he says, am I my brother's keeper? As we saw in these past days, we saw that innocent blood was shed. But then to answer that innocent blood, we're going to shed more innocent blood of countless people. And how foolish, again, for people who are boasting in this outward temple, observant, while they are polluting with their cruel murders. And then it speaks of following other gods. The same people who prostrate before God in the temple, they actually have idolatry in their hearts. And God will bring judgment to these idols. And that is the condition, is you pursue justice with your ways and thoroughly and truly. And that will bring you, therefore, in verse 7, to receive security. Only then, as a result of true inward repentance, through this biblical justice, God will cause you to dwell in this place, the promised land, that He gave from the time of Abraham, He promised. So you see that true peace is available only for those who turn from evil and sow into justice. But what is biblical justice? We heard much talk these days on social justice. Let's look at what Micah 6.8 says. He has shown you, man, what is good and what does the Lord require you but to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Social justice fails in this matter. They tell us we need to repent of sins that someone who lived hundreds of years before me has to repent. The primary focal of this approach is only social, sociological. But it removes inevitably the individual repentance that in this text Jeremiah is after. And it removes also the divine character of God as a just God that we therefore imitate With a just and perfect God, with His perfect law, we imitate injustice. And you deny this, you end up with partiality. You end up with tribalism, not with biblical justice. Notice also from other texts of scriptures, particularly Leviticus 19, verse 15, that biblical justice works both sides. It says, Leviticus... 19 verse 15, you shall do no injustice in judgment. And look what it says, you shall not be partial to the poor, both sides, nor honor the person of the mighty. Which means that is biblical justice. It doesn't look with preference. And at the same time again, individual repentance should not neglect the corporate aspect and even national dimensions. We are not denying, but the problem is that neither a fundamentalist approach that only look at the regeneration of the individual and neither what comes to be known as social gospel as biblical balance. Because these two concerns are not meant to be separate. The conversions of souls And justice are not divorced from one another. In fact, as individuals repent, then society benefits. But what we see, as we see at the time of Jeremiah, is lawlessness. It's lack of repentance. It's forgotten justice. And not out there, but in the church. There are bodies of churches. Entire denominations where the homosexuality is rampant. They place it outside. Everyone is welcome here and their church is a desert. They write it on their doorpost. And then there are churches where sexual abuse of defenseless children is perpetrated by abstinence manipulators that will not look like but the most religious, often even church leaders, or skilled religious pretenders. There are churches, even conservative churches, where leaders exalt themselves like little popes, live in luxury. They preach sermons that they take from copy and paste, like the false prophets of Jeremiah's day. Jeremiah 23, verse 30 to 40 speaks of this. Stealing the Word of God from one another. And underneath the covers of their Bibles, what do unbelievers see? No wonder with the church going hand in hand with this wickedness. Then we see lawlessness in society. Then we see that our gathering storm is actually not outside there. It's not out there. It's from within. And that is the scary part. Because again, there is a Christian aspect of justice here. Martin Luther, when he started his reformation and he posted his 95 thesis to reform the church, he pointed, the number one thesis was a lifetime of repentance. And that's what he was contesting in Catholicism. Not a one-time decision that you took long ago. And there is a way we have perverted the Reformation because we say, woe to anyone that says to a believer, you need to repent. You need, as a believer, a day, daily repentance, a day growth in sanctification. How many sins we put on board through the years? How many do we still need to repent of? how much integrity is in our daily walk. And this call to repentance is not just addressing unbelievers. In fact, these people who are going to the temple are covenant people living in the promised land that are on the verge of a disaster for their disobedience, for the failure toward repentance. And that is our third point, verse 8 to 11. What is the failure of repenting? Well, first of all, in verse 8, is thinking to get away with robbing God. Look, says verse 8, get smart, pay close attention here. Jeremiah repeats this charge that these people are trusting in deceptive words of no value, worthless words, no benefits. In the end, they are taken from broken cisterns that give no water. They are fooling to think that you will never suffer because God is here. That is a lie. Failure to our repentance means that you hold on to sin while you keep going on the house of the Lord. Verse 9 through 11. Here's why God says this. Listen to His question. Do you really think that you can hold on to these sins and serve God? I mean, use your head, almost. Verse 9 says, there's a serious here of a question. Would you steal? Will you continue to steal? Would you continue to murder? Would you continue to commit adultery? Would you continue to swear falsely? All these are breaches of the second law, the second table of the law, the Ten Commandments. But these flow out of a breach in the first table, a false idea of God, idolatry. Changing, suppressing the truth. It speaks of making offerings to Baal. Because that was the way we can get favor for our crop. And they follow other gods. They buy into every novel religious commodity on the market. Does that sound familiar? inexistent gods that cannot save, contrary to the living God, whose mighty works and words they have known from of old and yet they reject. And then verse 10, simultaneously to that, to all this holding on to sin, you come and present yourself before my face, you bring them before my nose, in my house, which is called by my name, supposedly set apart for worship before God's presence. And then they say this meaningless recitation of a formula, thinking that that will give them salvation. It says, we are safe, we're delivered, we are saved, we have reformed ourselves. We have free ourselves so that we can keep on sinning. This is referring to physical deliverance, but not without spiritual application. They think that God is pacified while they pollute sacrifice with their unclean hands. And Jeremiah has words of deliverance throughout his text. But I would not suggest a North American Christian to look to Jeremiah 29 11 and says, This is for me today, because that is not the case. Maybe for the pilgrim fathers who came in this land long ago, but it's not for us today. These unrepentant people think of themselves, we are spared from the judgment, saved from any danger, we have favor with God, there is no barrier with our God. You discharge this religious formality, thinking to tear yourself away from any consequence, only to keep on doing, continue to do these abominations, only to indulge in all these The testable acts. That's how God sees it, as something no short of a sacrilege. Stephen Charnock, the Puritan, said, It is a sad thing to be a Christian at a supper, heathen in our shops and devils in our closets. In the face of such affront, verse 11 says, Has this house called by my name become to your eyes, which means that's how you use it, a den of robbers, a cave of thieves, a hiding place for burglars and bandits? I mean, you gotta love or hate Jeremiah. There's no way in between. Because he is unhindered in his frankness, in declaring the truth. The worship which is a place of refuge for the believer. That's how God intended. A place of refuge for the faithful. It is turned into a place of refuge for criminals. Think of it. Robbers do not dare openly to do evil. They actually would like to dress up a little bit, cunningly, to be unnoticed. And when they're hidden, that's where they act and steal. And if the fact that God uses this picture, it shows you how widespread it was back then. From a house of God full of believers to a house of sin. And who picks up these prophecies? Who picks up these prophecies but the Savior Jesus Christ? As He comes into the temple and He takes a whip, And he kicks out the money changers and tax collectors from the temple. We see this in Matthew 21, Luke 19, Mark 11. Christ attacks the greediness that is done in the house of God in large or small forms. Even Judah, one of his 12, betrayed him for a few pieces of denarii. What would have he thought as he saw the Savior doing this? Huh? The love of money, root of all evil. And that is what our Savior did. He went because He is the One who executes justice. And He will execute justice. The same One who showed mercy. He will have His justice. And judgment will begin with the house of God. His whole ministry of Jesus started with the word repent. For the kingdom is near. That is the message of Christ. Of which many have made an idol. They think that Jesus It's something else. No, Christ is the true and purest temple. And to the disciples who are marveling over these glorious, beautiful buildings, He says, not one stone shall be left. That everything devastated because they failed to recognize the Savior. Christ alone brings the restoration of all things. He is perfectly pure. And this is your Savior. This is the one you worship. This is the one you have to look like. And in case you don't know, God says, I myself have seen it. Which means I have caught that robber in their act. Though they scheme, even if possible, to deceive God. Sin deceives us, friends, into thinking that a double allegiance will pass God's checkpoint. That I can have this double allegiance and that somehow I come to the checkpoint and it's going to be all fine. This is our deception. We are deceived on grace. Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Never! How widespread is our midst today is the deception of presuming in the grace of God. Thinking that I will be okay, though I continue in sin. As long as my conduct passes unnoticed, my claim to Christianity is all that matters. They mistake the patience of God for His approval. Turning the grace of God into a license for immorality. You have been going through the book of Jonah these days. There's one thing that I want you to think of. You see, that book was written It's something that is not in the text, but it's very important. It was written by a... Jonah was one of the rare prophets of Northern Kingdom of Israel. And so the fact that that story is there, tells you that, look, there is a pagan group, unchristians, and they have repented instantly. And then you have Northern Israel, which over and over and over again, the Lord sends His prophets, and they fail, fail, fail, fail to repent. That... is the judgment, we are Northern Israel, I wish we were Ninevites. Because the uncovenantal, immediate, and meticulous repentance was in itself a judgment over the stubbornness of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. America, North America, that went through so much, years of crisis, years of, you know, towers going down, and now we have this virus, and we speak in our culture, we have this idea. Yeah, long ago, there used to be awakenings, yes? And yet through all this season, there has been no repentance, no talk of God in our nation, in our news. Only more violence and lawlessness. More apostasy among those who pretend to be Christian. The progressive Christians are coming out. More exaltation of sodomy. more mixing of biblical justice with things that are not biblical. True awakenings, for those who really long for it, needs to understand that it only comes with true and inward and lasting repentance. Instead, when things like that take place, then you can see how God abandons nations that rise and fall. God abandons entire nations to their own desires. Romans 1 speaks of this. And John Calvin, when he comments on Romans 1, he says, when a nation does that, when a nation comes to a public, just not toleration, and even in the church, it's like, there's no hope of reformation. That's our deception. We're deceived on the grace of God. And we're deceived on idolatry. You see, a distortion or a suppression of the true God of the Bible, will soon enough result in all sort of vile practice. I mean, as an ex-Catholic, here in chapter 7 of Jeremiah describes the Queen of Heaven and the people going to offer sacrifices at the Queen of Heaven because that's what's going to give prosperity. And Mary in Italy is called the Queen of Heaven. And the Pope goes to Rome to offer flowers to the Queen of Heaven. How foolish is that? And even modern day example of idolatry are in a church today that we introduce foreign ideas into the church. Whether it's New Age, whether it's Marxism, we make categories, idols. Gender becomes an idol, homosexuality, even the skin color becomes an idol. And God is only my instrument that I'm going to use in order to feed that idol. Forsaking God is the root of all sin. And that's our deception, that we worship, And according to our text, notice that calling the name of the Lord in vain includes careless, unrepentant worship, blatant sin tolerated in the church, as well as little sins and partiality that we tolerate, like in the book of James, between people. And that is what causes, as Ralph Erskine said, "...the hypocrite's joy destroys his sorrow, his false confidence destroys his repentance, his fear destroys his love, and his pretended love to God destroys his fear of Him." So it comes to the point that you're no longer even sensitive to the call of God to repent. That you're hardened. And God repudiates, rejects that external religion when we seek false compensation to our sin while our heart continue in perversion. Do you want to be found at the time of Jesus coming among the den of robbers? Among the Pharisees? Be sure that as you trifle with God, He will frustrate the design. All this impacts our worship gatherings and even As we approach our Lord's Supper, not only are we called to examine if we are in the faith, but we are called to examine our life and our walk. Does our walk match our talk? Ultimately, the people of Israel will not repent, and their glory, the temple, will be destroyed. Tragic. That's why Jeremiah is called the weeping prophet, because he would not have it But the people, it's now deported in exile. God has to destroy this physical outward temple to then build the temple again in the heart of all of these people. For sacrifice acceptable to God is not external, but it is a contrite spirit and a broken heart. Some may say now at this point, are we not in the New Covenant? We're not the Israel of old. Therefore, I'm not under these threats and judgments that they had to go through. Well, we have an identity in common. We both are the people of God. And all that is written about Israel in the Old Testament should stand as a warning for me and you as Christians. Because it is still a holy God that we have to deal with. And He claims complete loyalty on us as our Lord. The same misplaced confidence continues today. Even in the New Testament, God threatens some of the unrepentant churches in the book of Revelation that are about to die, that are about to be vomited out of the mouth of God. And that God will remove His candle from them. The candle of the Gospel. I mean, look at the past 2,000 years of church history, and look how God removed the candle of the gospel from Europe, when once it was flourishing as a type of judgment and hardening, hardening, complete blindness. And He's about to do the same to America. God is not obligated or mandated to protect lifeless institutions. We say, in God we trust, in God we trust, in God we trust. No, it is on our money that we trust. It is in our power that we trust. It is an open sin that we trust. Let us turn to God. It would not be surprising if in 20 years from now, much of the Christian world and North America will be gone. Simply gone. Just as it was in Europe. Because God... curse and forget the nations that forget Him, or worse, that pretend to be under God, but they are no longer under God, and they disobey Him blatantly. And to them and to all of us, God calls us to turn back. But like for Jeremiah, he says, turn back to me, but I know you wouldn't. Isn't that tragic that God has said to say these words? Jeremiah, go and preach this to people. None of them will repent. Say to them, turn to me, but I know that you wouldn't. But that's where repentance starts, an individual. Because all the religious observance in the world that we can offer will not suffice. Because God places inward repentance above religious and outward religious observance. Let us pray. Gracious God, we are humbled now. as we meditate upon the terrible destiny of your old covenant people because of their failure to repent, their continuous and stubborn rebellion against you. And Lord, so we are reminded of Jesus Christ who came and cleansed the temple, who himself was the temple that they crushed upon the cross. And we pray, Lord, that even today, those who are listening, that you will cause us to repent. unbelievers to come out of this cloth of just going through the motions and turn to the Savior before it is too late. And also, Lord, we pray for those who are believers that still need, and we still need much, to weep, to repent, to look to You for strength. O God, may You call this nation back to You. But even if You wouldn't, may You be glorified, because Your name is what matters, not ours. We thank You in Jesus' name. Amen.