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You are listening to the Ron Dunn Podcast.
Ron Dunn is a well-known author and was one of the most in-demand preachers during the
latter part of the 20th century.
He led Bible studies all over the United States, Europe, and South Africa.
For more information and resources from Ron Dunn, please visit rondunn.com.
Would you open your Bibles tonight to the Old Testament, to the book of Jeremiah,
and to the 32nd chapter, Jeremiah chapter 32.
And I'm going to read the first 10 verses.
I'll be reading some other verses in this chapter in the course of the message tonight,
but for the beginning, just the first ten verses, Jeremiah chapter 32.
I think it will help us to understand a little bit better our passage if I give you a little background.
Old Testament is not the easiest part of the Bible to understand.
Prophets are not the easiest part of the Old Testament to understand.
Jeremiah is not the easiest prophet to understand.
And when you plop down in the middle of the book and begin reading it,
you're not to blame if you don't have the slightest idea of what's going on.
So let me just give you some background.
Jeremiah is in prison as he writes these words,
and he is in prison because he has been preaching a very unpopular message.
At the time, the Chaldeans, under the leadership of Nebuchadnezzar, are attacking the city or
taking over the land, and they are engaged in a death struggle to the
end with their eternal enemies, the Chaldeans. And so while this is going on, Jeremiah has been
going around preaching a message that had three points to it and an invitation. Point number one
is that Jeremiah was saying that God has raised up these Chaldeans to use them as an instrument of judgment and chastisement against us.
Because of the people's sin, because of the idolatry and the desecration of the worship of the Lord,
God has raised up these Chaldeans and they are swooping down on them
and they're God's instrument for chastisement. The second point was this,
that no matter how desperately they fight against the Chaldeans, they will not win.
The Chaldeans are going to defeat them and carry them off into captivity. Point number three,
one of these days, though, somewhere down the line in the future, God will deliver them from their captivity and will bring them back to the land.
So those were the three points.
God has raised up the Chaldeans as an instrument of chastisement.
Number two, it doesn't make any difference what you do.
You're not going to be able to defeat them.
God has already preordained.
They're going to win, and they're going to carry us off into captivity. But number three, somewhere down the line, God will, faithful to
his promise, deliver us from that captivity and bring us back to the land. Now here was Jeremiah's
invitation. If we cannot defeat the Chaldeans anyway, no matter how hard we fight, if God has
ordained that they are going to carry us off into captivity anyway, but that one of these days he will bring us back to the land,
then Jeremiah was reasoning it just makes sense
to go ahead and surrender and just give up.
Why get yourself killed in a battle
that God's already determined you're going to lose?
Go ahead and surrender, and at least this way you'll be alive
to enjoy the promise of deliverance later on down the line,
you see. What he was preaching was a better read than dead message, actually. And the House
Committee on Un-Jerusalem Activities met, and they decided that Jeremiah was guilty of preaching
treason, which I guess in a way he was preaching treason. And so they had put him in prison, in the
king's prison. And that's where Jeremiah is.
So that will give us some understanding as we begin reading with verse 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. And Zedekiah king of Judah shall not escape out of the hand of the
Chaldeans, but shall surely be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon
and shall speak with him mouth to mouth
and his eyes shall behold his eyes
and he shall lead Zedekiah to Babylon
and there shall he be until I visit him saith the Lord
though you fight with the Chaldeans you will not prosper
now while Jeremiah is in prison, he has another
word from the Lord in verse 6. And Jeremiah said, The word of the Lord came unto me, saying,
Behold, Hanamil, the son of Shalem thine uncle, shall come unto thee, saying, By thee my field
that is in Anathoth, for the right of redemption is thine to buy it.
So Hanumil, my uncle's son, came to me in the court of the prison according to the word of the Lord,
and said unto me, By 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. Now while Jeremiah is in prison,
he has an unusual visitor.
And there are three things that make this visitor unusual. Number one, it was a relative,
Hanamil, your uncle's son. It was his first cousin coming to see him. I say that's unusual because by this time, all of Jeremiah's relatives had pretty much disowned him
and all of his friends had pretty much denied him.
I mean, after all, here is a man that is guilty of treason against the country and against the king
and is probably going to be put to death and you just soon nobody know that you are related to Jeremiah.
And so it's unusual that a relative would come to see him and expose himself to
possible persecution because of his relationship. The second thing that makes this such an unusual
visit is the purpose of Hannah Mill's visit. He's come to sell him a farm. Now, I don't know a great
deal about real estate. I do know things have not been the best in the last few years for real estate agents.
I know we've got a house for sale, if you're interested,
on 11 acres in Arkansas, make you a good deal on it.
My brother sells real estate.
My father sold real estate, mostly farmland, before he died.
And I do know that they had some hard times. But it would seem to me that even in the best of times, the last place
you'd go looking for a hot prospect would be prison. You know, you just don't normally go to
prison and talk to condemned men and see if they have an urge to buy a farm. The third thing that
made this such an unusual visit was the location of that farm. It was in Anathoth in the country
of Benjamin. You say, well, what's so unusual about that? Well, only this, that the Chaldeans
had already overrun that territory. They were occupying the land there and this country of Anathoth.
They were living on Hanumil's farm. They were collecting the eggs and milking the cows over
there. No wonder Hanumil wanted to get rid of that farm in enemy territory. You can almost
imagine Hanumil said, oh my soul, why didn't I sell that thing when I had the chance? And now
the enemy's occupied it and what am I going to do
with it? And so I guess he thinks of old crazy Jeremiah, a crazy preacher, cousin of his. I guess
he thinks, well, if he's crazy enough to preach like he's been preaching, he's crazy enough to
buy this farm. And so he comes to Jeremiah, and he says, Jeremiah, such a deal I've got for you.
I want to sell you my farm. Well, where is it?
Well, it's in Anathoth.
Oh, Anathoth, right.
Seems to me like I heard that the Chaldeans
had already overrun that part of the country.
I mean, isn't it true that your farm
is now in occupied territory?
Well, if you want to get technical, all right,
it's where it is, you know.
But anyway, you're a relative.
I need to get rid of it.
And the right of inheritance is thine.
We like to keep these things in the family.
So I want to sell you my farm.
And to prove that preachers have no business since,
Jeremiah bought the farm, you see.
Now, it's a strange little story.
I'll bet a lot of you didn't even know this was in the Bible. I bet if I were to ask everybody to list their 10 favorite Bible stories, this
one would appear on nobody's list. Some strange little story tucked away over there in the Old
Testament. Now, what's going on here? What's happening here anyway?
What is God doing?
Is Jeremiah really so stupid
that he would buy a farm
that was occupied by the enemy?
Why did Jeremiah buy that farm?
Well, I know why Jeremiah bought that farm.
Not because he had no business since,
but because God told him to.
That's why Jeremiah bought the farm.
The word of the Lord came unto me, he said,
saying this exact thing is going to happen,
and I want you to buy the farm.
Jeremiah was simply obeying the word of the Lord.
So I know why Jeremiah bought the farm, because God told him to.
But here is the problem.
Why did Hanumil think he would? What in the world gave
Hanumil the idea that he could sell a farm occupied by the enemy to Jeremiah, his cousin?
He may be a crazy preacher because of the way he's preaching, but not many people crazy enough to buy
a farm occupied by the enemy. Why was it that Hanumil came? Hanumil
was not privy of what was going on. God hadn't come to Hanumil. Hanumil was not coming to Jeremiah
because God told him to. Hanumil had no idea what was going on behind the scenes. He had no idea
that God had prearranged this whole thing. Hanumil's motives had to come from something else. Now, can you imagine what was it
that made Hanumil so certain
that he could sell that farm to Jeremiah?
Well, remember what Jeremiah had been preaching.
Jeremiah had been preaching
that even though the Chaldeans were going to defeat us
and carry us off to captivity
and they were going to take away our land,
yet one of these days in the future,
God would deliver us from that captivity
and bring us back to this land,
and it would be restored to us.
So here's the way Hanamil was thinking.
Hanamil walks in and says,
Jeremiah, I've got this farm I want to sell you.
Oh, Jeremiah says, not on your life.
I'm not that crazy. That farm is an
enemy territory. The Chaldeans own that farm now. No, I'm not about to buy that farm. Hannah Mill
would say, oh, excuse me, Jeremiah, I guess I misunderstood your last sermon. I thought you
had been preaching. I thought you said that God had told you that one of these days
he was going to drive the Chaldeans off of this land and give it back to us. I guess
you don't believe what you were preaching then. Because it seems to me if you really
believe what you've been preaching, you'd buy the farm knowing that one of these days
God's going to give it back to you anyway. You see, Hanamil knew that Jeremiah had preached himself into a corner. Jeremiah had only two
alternatives, either buy the farm or admit that he didn't believe what he himself was preaching,
you see. For Jeremiah, it was time to put up or shut up. Put your money where your mouth is.
So I know why Jeremiah bought the farm, because God told him to.
I know why Hanamil came to him to sell him the farm,
because he knew Jeremiah had preached himself into a corner and had no choice.
But the question is, why did God arrange this whole thing?
What in the world is going on here? What God is doing with Jeremiah
is what he does with all of us
from time to time in one way or another.
You know what God is doing?
He is testing the reality of Jeremiah's faith.
He is saying, Jeremiah, do you really believe
what you've been preaching?
Let's test.
Let's see how real your faith is.
It's one thing to preach the sermon.
It's another thing to live the life.
And so what God is doing in this entire story is he is putting
Jeremiah's faith to the test, and that's something that God always does with us. There come those
moments in our lives when God, what he is doing in arranging certain circumstances and allowing
certain things to happen, God is putting us to the test. He is testing the reality of our faith.
How real is our faith?
In other words, Jeremiah,
do you really believe what you've been preaching?
I remember some years ago
when our second son was about eight years old,
we were driving home from church one Sunday morning
and he said in the back seat,
he said, Daddy, did you really mean
what you said this morning,
or were you just preaching?
And you know, I think many times,
now honestly, don't you think this is so?
There is something about coming into the church.
When you come into the church, you sort of leave reality at the door,
and everything that goes on in here doesn't have much to do with outside.
We really don't take much to do with outside. We really
don't take the preacher all that seriously. I mean, we actually don't, we don't expect anybody
to actually take all this seriously and go out here and change your life. We expect the preacher
to preach like he's doing. I mean, that's what preachers do. They preach, and they teach the Bible, and we like it, you know. It's good, and we enjoy it,
but do you mean to tell me that I am to arrange my life, and I'm really to work out the details
of my life according to what the Word of God says? There is something unreal about our coming into
the place of God and listening to preaching. A lot of times we really do believe,
well, he doesn't mean that, he's just preaching.
I'll tell you this much,
preaching is the easiest thing I do in my Christian life.
I have figured out if I could stand behind the pulpit
24 hours a day, seven days a week,
I'd almost be sinless.
I hardly ever preach,
I hardly ever sin while I'm preaching.
The tough thing about my life is not preaching it. The tough thing is living it, backing it up. Do you really believe
what you say you believe? It's easy to believe things. It really is. It's easy to stand up and
say, praise the Lord, I believe this. It's another matter altogether, though, to back it up with your life.
You know, I can remember almost to the day,
and Kay and I were visiting with Jonathan and Martha and Debbie Beasley this afternoon.
We were talking a little bit about this.
I can remember the day.
I can see it just as clearly as I can see you.
When I came to the realization that from here on out,
God was not going to give me the luxury of preaching untested and unlived sermons. I realized, like I say,
I knew it just as clearly as I knew anything in my life that from here on out,
I was going to have to experience
and practice everything I preached.
And I want to tell you something, folks,
that will make you mighty selective
in what you preach about.
But I had for years, I began preaching as a young person, as a teenager,
and I had pastored churches and preached revivals,
and I had preached things that I believed to be true,
and I was trying to live,
but I preached a lot of things that I myself
had never really personally been through and experienced.
And God blessed the Word. He always blesses the Word. But there comes a point in a witness's life, in
a believer's life, in a minister's life, when you have to take that next step beyond simply
preaching that which is true, but becoming the sermon yourself,
which is what Jeremiah was. Jeremiah himself became the message. He became the sermon. And God
let me know in ways unmistakable that I no longer had the luxury of simply believing things easily.
It was going to take some living of it on my part. And he said to me, don't preach the sermon if you can't live the life. And I'll be honest with you folks, God will not always allow
you the luxury of just believing and not experiencing it. God is not always going to allow you the luxury
of believing things and believing God
without ever having it put to the test.
God tests the reality of our faith
because it's necessary, you see.
Because the truth is that you and I
can never really know for certain
that what we're calling faith is the real thing
until it's been put to the test.
An untested faith is a worthless faith.
You remember Peter writing in that first chapter of his epistle,
he talked about these believers who were going through many trials.
These were necessary trials.
He said that the trial of your faith being much more precious than gold that perishes
might be found to be authentic,
might be found to be genuine to the praise of Jesus Christ.
What's he saying?
He's saying the reason that God is carrying you through dark and deep waters right now
is so you can discover whether or not your faith is real.
Whether it's genuine, you'll never know until it's put to the test.
You may be sitting here tonight
and you may say,
well, I trust the Lord.
Why, if I had to do this
or if I had to believe God for this,
sure, I trust God.
Why, I believe God.
I trust Him.
But I suggest that you can never really be certain
that what you're thinking is faith
is a genuine article until it's put to the test.
It may be presumption.
It may be fantasy.
It may be simply a sentimental feeling.
It may be a number of things.
You cannot know for certain
that it's the genuine article
until it's put to the test. An untested faith is a worthless faith. And God's doing us a favor, folks, when He
does it. The fact of the matter is, He really is. Now, I don't know any of us that would want our
faith tested, but really God is doing us a favor by doing it. I mean, if my lifeboat has leaks in
it, I want to know about before the ship goes down.
And if what I'm thinking is real faith is not genuine as I believe it is,
I want to know it before the crisis comes.
I remember in 1981 when they had the Southern Baptist Convention out in Los Angeles,
Kay and my daughter and I drove out there. We all three went out there. We drove instead of flying because we wanted to take a few days vacation.
We spent the first night in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Next morning I was out on the parking lot putting our suitcases in the trunk
and I was bending over into the trunk
and I became aware of a car
pulling up behind me and stopping.
And I turned around and there it was.
A car had pulled up, man and woman in the front seat,
and I could see from where I was that the man had a road map unfolded over the steering wheel.
He rolled down the window, and he said something to me, motioned me over.
I assumed it was some fellow who had lost his way, and he was wanting, you know, direction.
So I went over there, and I said wanting, you know, direction. So I went
over there and I said, yes, sir, what, can I help you? And he reached under that road map and he
pulled out a gold necklace. And he said, would you like to buy a gold necklace real cheap?
I said, no, sir, no. He said, genuine gold, 18 karat gold, make you a real good deal on it.
Boy, I kept looking for the cops to come in any minute, you know.
I said, no, no, I don't know.
I don't need a gold necklace.
He put it back under the road map, opened his jacket.
He had watches hanging from the inside.
He said, you want to buy a genuine Rolex, real cheap?
You know, that's happened to me three times.
I don't know if I just look dumb or crooked, but that's happened to me three times. I don't know if I just look dumb or crooked,
but that's happened to me three times.
I said, no, sir, no, no, I don't want to buy that.
And I went back into the room, and I told Kay about what happened.
You know what she said?
She said, wonder how much he wanted for that necklace
I was so disappointed in her
you'd be a
you don't want to buy that necklace
first place you know it's probably hot, probably stolen.
But the real reason is you don't know if it's real gold or not.
How do you know that's gold?
That could be electroplated.
That could be gold plated.
I mean, you'd be a fool to buy something like that when it wasn't tested.
You didn't have it tested to see if it's real gold.
You know why?
Because all that glitters
is not gold, folks.
And all that believes
is not faith.
And so Jeremiah
had it put to him.
You know what God said?
He said,
Jeremiah,
it's time to buy the farm.
And there come those moments in your life and my life
when it's time to buy the farm.
Put your money where your mouth is.
Listen, if your faith isn't worth investing in,
it's not worth believing in.
I'll never forget when I was pastor there in Irving
there was a mother and father
who had a wayward son
teenage son
really away from God
and they had asked me to put his name
in my little black prayer book
and to pray for him
and I had prayed for him
as others had
and I never will forget
one Sunday night
during a revival meeting
when God really moved and came down.
Here comes this teenage boy down to the altar
and he falls on his knees there just crying
and I go over and talk to him
and this boy comes in repentance
and won't consecrate his life to Christ
but he goes one step beyond that.
He says, Pastor, I believe God's calling me
to the mission field.
Well, I thought that was about the most wonderful thing
that could ever happen.
And so I presented him that night to the church,
and I said, this young man, and everybody knows him,
he's come back to God, he's been away from the Lord,
and not only that, he is committing his life tonight
to be a foreign missionary.
And everybody just praised God and shouted amen.
I thought it was wonderful.
Next morning, Monday morning,
I got a phone call from that boy's mother.
And she said, Pastor, you've got to help us.
You've got to help us.
You've got to talk to him.
I said, what are you talking about?
You've got to talk him out of this.
I said, what are you talking about?
We can't let him throw his life away
as a foreign missionary somewhere.
If your faith isn't worth investing your kids in, it's not worth believing in, folks.
By the way, I call this sermon Jeremiah's Bet, if you want a title.
Because that's a pretty good description of what faith is. It is betting
everything on God's faithfulness. It is betting your future. That's what Jeremiah is doing.
What Jeremiah is doing is saying, I believe that God controls the future. I believe there is a
future with God. I don't believe the last word. I don't believe the last word is the Chaldeans. I don't believe the last word
is the Chaldeans. The last word is
God and I'm betting on Him for my
future.
We've talked about, we talk about everywhere I
go and we've talked about this week
of the pain and the suffering that so many
people are going through and why is it
that sometimes we as Christians seem to
be suffering more than anybody else.
It's enough to make you lose your faith or question the existence of God.
But I want to say to you, if suffering and pain was the last final word,
it would cause you to lose your faith and deny the existence of God.
But that's not the last word.
That's not the final word.
That's not the ultimate word.
The last word you'll find over in Revelation where he says, and God shall wipe away every tear from their eye. That's the last word. That's not the ultimate word. The last word you'll find over in Revelation where he says, and God shall wipe
away every tear from their eye.
That's the last word.
What Jeremiah is saying, listen, these
Chaldeans don't have the last word. They think they
do, but God has the last
word. And I'm betting
everything I am, I'm betting everything
I have, that the future belongs
to God and He'll be faithful to His word.
God testing the reality of our faith.
Now, it'd be wonderful
to just stop right there
and go home and say,
well, isn't that nice?
I mean, Jeremiah passed that test
with flying colors.
But the fact is
that's not where the story ends.
I want you to turn now
to the 16th verse.
Jeremiah 32, 16. Now after I had delivered the evidence of the purchase
unto Baruch the son of Neriah, 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. And then in the
following verses, Jeremiah prays one of the most beautiful prayers you'll ever read. He goes into
great detail recounting all the wonderful things God has done for his people in the past. And he
comes down to verse 24 in his prayer, and he says, Behold the mounts, they are come unto the city to
take it, and the city is given into the hand 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.
Now what's happening here?
Well, Jeremiah has received the word from God,
and then it's been unfolded to him.
Hanamil has done exactly what God said he would do.
He has paid the money.
He has signed the deed.
It has been witnessed, and everybody has left him,
and Jeremiah now is left all alone in his cell in the king's prison. And he begins to think, I bought that farm.
Well, God told me to buy that farm, but I bought it, and it's in the hand of the Chaldeans.
I know God told me to buy it, though.
Of course, I bet right now Hannah Mill's laughing at me.
I bet right now it's going to all the relatives saying,
hey, you got anything you want to unload?
Old crazy Jerry down at the prison, he'll buy anything.
He'll buy anything.
He bought my farm.
He bought my farm.
He said, I know they're all laughing at me.
Oh, but God told me to do it.
I know God did.
I'm almost certain God told me.
Just pretty sure God told me to do that.
I need to pray.
And so he prays, and he starts off with a sigh.
Ah, Lord God.
And that's not the sigh of someone who's weary.
It's the sigh of someone who's worried. He says, oh, Lord God, and that's not the sigh of someone who's weary. It's the sigh of someone
who's worried. He says, oh, Lord God, thou hast told me to do this. You've created the heavens
and the earth. There's not anything too hard for you, and he goes back and talks about all the
wonderful things his omnipotent God has done, but he comes down in the last part of that prayer,
and he says, now, Lord, I want you to look
out there, and I want you to see those Chaldeans as they're approaching the city. He says in verse
24, the last part of that verse, and what thou hast spoken is come to pass, and behold thou seest it.
Jeremiah is saying, Lord, everything you've said has come true so far, but, you told me to buy the field for money and take witnesses,
whereas the city is given into the hand of the Chaldeans.
You know what's happening to Jeremiah?
He's having a relapse of his faith.
He's having second thoughts.
He's having second thoughts. He's having doubts.
What he says is, Lord, everything you have said has come true so far.
But now, Lord, you told me to buy the farm.
And, boy, you know, it's already given into the hand of the Chaldeans, Lord.
You know, Jeremiah, Jeremiah's faith is sagging.
He's saying, Lord, everything you've said has come true so far, but I'm not sure about the next thing. I was in Decatur, Alabama a few
years ago, and I guess it's just a local phrase these people use down there. But every night,
I would have people come up to me after the service service and they'd say, Brother Dunn, we have certainly enjoyed you so far.
Every night they'd say that.
And every night the pastor would get up and say,
well, we've certainly enjoyed having Brother Dunn so far.
And it kind of gave me a tentative feeling, you know, like,
well, son, you've done good so far, but that doesn't mean much.
We're going to wait and see what happens tonight.
I got up one night and I said, would you folks stop saying that? You're making me feel mighty uncertain
here. Well, that's exactly what Jeremiah is saying. He's saying, God, everything you have said
has come true so far, but I don't know about this one. I don't know about this. I tell you,
you would think that you would learn the lesson finally, wouldn't you?
If I were to go back tonight and remember all the times God has delivered me,
all the times God has answered my prayer,
all the times when I thought I was going down for the third time and God scooped me up,
you'd think I'd never doubt him again, wouldn't you?
You'd think a fellow by Jeremiah's status and spirituality,
by this time
there would be no doubt
and yet it doesn't seem to make any difference
how many wonderful things God has done for us
it doesn't seem to make any difference
how many prayers he has answered for us
we still have a hard time believing
well I know God delivered me last year
I know that but I tell you,
this is a whole other ballgame.
Relapse of faith.
The sad thing is this whole beautiful prayer of Jeremiah's
is a prayer of unbelief.
What he's trying to do is to pray himself back up,
you know, into faith,
trying to pump himself up.
Has that ever happened to you?
Have you ever been in a revival meeting
or a church service
and boy, God just came down
and the presence of God was so strong
and you were just being borne along
by the wave of emotion
and choir was singing,
have thine own way and the pastor was pleading and
boy you just oh you know you stepped out and you walked down that aisle and you made a vow you made
a commitment to the lord and everybody praised god for it and you stood up there and they came
by and shook their hand afterward and they said we're going to pray for you and you just felt so
great oh you just felt so great and Oh, you just felt so great.
And you went home feeling so great.
You went to bed feeling so great.
And you wake up the next morning.
And it's morning.
And there's no choir singing.
And there's no preacher preaching.
And you begin to think, oh, boy, I made that commitment last night. Well,
I know it was the right thing to do. I think it was. And you begin to wonder. You know,
in the cold light of day, when you're away from the controlled atmosphere of the church,
when you're away from the persuasiveness of preacher and singing,
and all of a sudden you're faced in the cold of the morning
with the fact you made some big decision
and you made some big commitment,
and all of a sudden you wish you could hear the choir sing
a couple of more verses.
You wish there was some way you could kind of recapture the same spirit.
Has that ever happened to you?
Where in one moment,
you have committed yourself to the Lord or you've stepped out on faith
and at the time you knew
you were doing the right thing,
but later on as time went by,
all of a sudden,
you begin to have doubts.
That's exactly what happened to Jeremiah.
And I want to tell you something.
I'm glad God put that in the Bible.
That makes me know I'm not so bad after all. I used to think that faith was the absence of doubt, but it is not. Faith is the overcoming of doubt. Faith is the courage to act in spite of whatever doubt you may have. John
Calvin said, the mind is never so enlightened and the heart so established that there remain no
vestiges of doubt. And to tell you the truth, I don't know that I could honestly say tonight that
in my Christian life, as God has called me to do different things and as Kay and I have had to step
out in different
times and trust the Lord, I don't know that I could honestly say to you tonight that every time,
every time I've always obeyed the Lord with 100% pure, unadulterated faith. No, the truth is,
most of the time, back in the back 40 of my mind, there have been a few rumors of doubt and
uncertainty. I love what the father of the demon-possessed boy said.
Jesus came down and he said,
Lord, can you heal my son?
And Jesus said, anything's possible if you believe.
And he said, Lord, I believe, sort of.
He said, Lord, I believe.
Help thou my unbelief.
I like that.
I've taken that as pretty much my motto
when it comes to praying about these things.
Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief.
There is some unbelief in my heart.
There is over here a pocket of doubt and uncertainty.
Lord, I believe, but I have to be honest
and say that there are some parts in me that resist this.
It's a very normal and natural thing, friend,
for your faith to sag a little bit in the middle once in a while.
One of my favorite stories is over there in the book of Acts chapter 12.
You remember when Herod put Peter in prison.
He had chopped James' head off with the sword,
and all the Jews and everybody liked that. He said he'd do the same thing with Peter. So he put Peter in prison. He had chopped James' head off with the sword, and everybody, all the Jews and everybody liked that. He said he'd do the same thing with Peter, so he put Peter in prison, and the next
morning he was going to cut his head off, and you know what happened. The church gathered there in
the house of Mary, and they began to pray for Peter's deliverance. That church, that New Testament
church that we were always talking about, that tremendous Pentecostal Holy Ghost, New Testament church,
gathered over there in the house of Mary and prayed for Peter's deliverance. And there's Peter
in that prison. He's asleep. You know, the one thing about Peter, he can sleep anywhere. He's
in the garden of Gethsemane, and Jesus is about to be crucified, and Simon Peter falls asleep.
Now, I tell you this much. I think if I were were in prison and I knew that when the sun came up,
my head was going to come off,
I think that'd pretty much keep me awake all night long.
But there's Peter.
He's sound asleep.
I'll tell you how sound asleep he is.
He's so sound asleep
that the angel has to kick him in the side to wake him up.
You read it.
It says he smote him.
The angel smote him,
popped him and said,
Get up.
Come on, Peter.
Go. And he gets up and he, Get up. Come on, Peter. Go.
And he gets up and he says,
Not in that big a hurry.
Put your coat on.
Tighten up your belt.
Get your shoes over there.
No use leaving your shoes here.
And he gets him and he leads him out past 16 guards.
He was guarded by four squadrons of four men apiece.
16 guards.
They don't have a clue as to what's happening.
Leads him out into the street
and then the angel departs
and Simon Peter is left there.
And after a moment he comes to,
rubs his eyes and he said,
my soul, this isn't a dream,
this isn't a vision.
I've been delivered.
Well, he knows the church is gathered
in the house of Mary praying
and so he makes his way to that church,
to the house. He knocks on that door and a little girl by the house of Mary praying, and so he makes his way to that church, to the house,
and he knocks on that door,
and a little girl by the name of Rhoda
comes to the door,
and she hears the voice,
and she recognizes it's Peter,
and she's so excited.
I mean, they're in there right now
praying for Peter's deliverance,
and there he is right there on the doorstep.
She's so excited,
she forgets to let him in,
and she goes back in there where the church is praying.
Now remember, this is the New Testament church,
the one we're always trying to get back to, you know,
the ones we're always idolizing,
that Holy Ghost Pentecostal bunch
that we're always trying to be like.
There is a New Testament church praying
for Peter's deliverance.
And Rhoda says, it's Peter, he's at the door.
And do you know what this New Testament church,
the one we're always trying to be like,
do you know what this New Testament church says?
She's crazy.
She's crazy.
That's not Peter.
The girl's lost her mind.
She says, no, I tell you, I recognize his voice.
I promise you, it's Peter.
They said, oh, it's his ghost.
They've already killed him.
It's just his ghost.
Now, isn't that something? It's Peter. They said, oh, it's his ghost. They've already killed him. It's just his ghost. Now, isn't that something?
It's amazing.
Here is a New Testament church,
the one we're always trying to be like,
is praying.
I mean, they're praying
and God's knocking on the front door with the answer.
And they don't believe it.
They're not praying in faith, were they?
You say, oh, but preacher,
I thought God only answered praying in faith, were they? You say, oh, but preacher,
I thought God only answered prayer in faith.
Well, I thought that too,
but evidently sometimes He answers prayers by grace as well as by faith.
What I'm trying to tell you tonight is this,
that you are not abnormal, nor are you losing your salvation, nor are you a carnal Christian simply because there come those times in your life when
suddenly you find your faith being stretched to the limit and you, like Jeremiah, say, Lord, I know
everything you've done right. You've done right so far, but I tell you, I don't know about this one.
I don't know about this one. I don't know about this one.
Then there's a third thing.
If you have doubts like this,
there are three things you can do with your doubts.
Two of them I don't recommend.
One, you can do with your doubts two of them I don't recommend one you can publish them
and I don't necessarily mean in a book
I mean you can just open your mouth
and every time you speak
all you're speaking is just doubt and doubt and doubt
now I know there are times we need to go
and talk to somebody for counseling
about our uncertainties and our doubts
but you know what I'm talking about
I'm talking about this kind of thing
and every time you open your mouth,
you don't ever speak grace or encouragement to anybody.
All you speak is doubt and uncertainty.
I don't recommend you do that.
A second thing you can do is you can repress it.
Deny it's there.
And we do that a lot
because we know we're not supposed to doubt God.
And so we don't doubt Him.
I mean, we know we're lying down in the guts of our soul. We know that there is doubt there, but you don't say that's not proper. Have you ever
noticed how we pray? Have you ever noticed how we try to keep up the front when we pray with God?
I mean, even alone.
Are we honest when we get along with God and begin to talk to Him?
Have you ever been mad at God and told Him?
Have you ever been angry at God
and told him, oh no, I would never do that?
Like he doesn't know?
One of the greatest discoveries I ever made
in my Christian life was when I discovered
it was all right to tell God the truth.
Because he knew it anyway.
He knew it anyway.
Listen, I have never confessed anything to God
and heard him gasp in surprise at hearing it.
The Lord has never said,
Oh, I'm so disappointed in you.
I would never have thought that of you.
God knows it already.
I want to tell you something.
You better deal with it
because if you suppress it,
if you try to deny it,
try to ignore it,
it's going to express itself
one way or another sooner or later.
Don't try to suppress it and deny it.
The third thing you can do,
and this is what I recommend,
you can take it to the Lord.
You can tell God about it,
which is what Jeremiah is doing.
I think it's important to realize
that Jeremiah didn't offer this prayer of unbelief
until everybody was gone.
He didn't want to rub his doubt off on anybody else.
But he brought it to the Lord.
And I want you to notice what happened in verse 26. 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? Then came the word of the Lord unto Jeremiah. I wrote out beside that, when then?
Then came the word.
When did it come?
When Jeremiah prayed,
even though that prayer was a prayer of unfaith,
even though that prayer was a prayer where Jeremiah was expressing his doubts and uncertainties,
but when he prayed,
then came the word of reassurance.
So we have the reality of our faith being tested.
We have the relapse of our faith that occurs, and then we have the reality of our faith being tested. We have the relapse of our
faith that occurs, and then we have the Lord reassuring our faith and reestablishing our faith
and giving us a new word of assurance. 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? That sounds
familiar. I seem to remember hearing that somewhere else.
Oh, yes, it's up in verse 17.
It's the last part of Jeremiah's prayer.
Isn't that remarkable?
Jeremiah prays and he says,
Lord, I know there's not anything too hard for you.
And God comes back and said,
You said it.
There's nothing too hard for me.
Now, I want to just say two things
about the word of reassurance that God gives us.
Many a time we walk in darkness.
And we seem to have lost our way.
There are times when outward circumstances contradict everything God has said.
That's the way it was with Jeremiah.
God had said, I'm going to deliver you from the Chaldeans and I'm going to give you back this land.
But you look out there and every scrap of evidence denies that.
And there are those times when outward circumstances
and even our own feelings will contradict everything we're believing God about.
But I want to say to you
that the Lord will not abandon you.
That the Lord will come in His good timing.
He will come to give you a word of reassurance.
He will come to ignite once again the spark of faith.
Folks, listen, you can trust God.
God's not going to get you out on a limb
and saw it off behind you.
He's really not.
I promise you that.
You head on down that road
and you may be walking in darkness and uncertainty,
but you keep doing.
Somebody asked me one night,
I said, preacher, what do I do when I don't know what to do? I said, when you don't
know what to do, do what you know to do. What's that? Just keep on walking. Just keep on obeying.
Do what you know is right. Keep on doing it. Sooner or later, God is going to come to you
with a word of reassurance. He's not going to abandon you. But there are two important things.
First of all, I want you to notice that when God gave to Jeremiah a word of reassurance,
he did not tell Jeremiah anything Jeremiah did not already know.
He simply reaffirmed what he had already said to Jeremiah.
Now there is significance here because you see when
we find ourselves walking in darkness at that time we become very vulnerable to to false teaching. You know how it happens.
Oh, sometimes it gets so dry.
Sometimes you're in a church that is so dead and your quiet time doesn't work anymore.
Your spiritual life is so dry and dusty
and you've gone numb spiritually.
You just don't feel anything and you don't feel
like your prayers are rising above the ceiling and you don't feel it when you read the Bible,
your mind wanders and you just, and you're trying to recapture that old feeling that you once had,
but it's not there and you're so filled with doubts and uncertainties and you're so desperate
to somehow feel God or feel something to the point where you almost accept anything just because it moves.
I was in a revival meeting at a church that your pastor knows very well.
Some years ago, a musician and I were there together in a revival meeting,
and it was like unto the one I talked about the other night.
It was dead.
I mean, really dead.
But it was not dead just for the meeting.
It was dead all year long.
It was the kind of meeting
you're glad that you're going home
Wednesday night when it's all over.
I'll tell you how bad it was.
I'll tell you how terribly dead it was the last night of the meeting the singer who usually
did 30 to 45 minutes of music after 10 minutes he turned to me and he said it's
yours well I tell you we were sitting there the pastor and I sitting there on
the platform and there weren't many people out there.
We were singing.
But I noticed one elderly woman.
I'd not seen her before.
First time I'd seen her.
Sitting out about middle ways.
And during the singing, that woman raised her hands like this.
I leaned over to the pastor and I said,
that must be a visitor.
He said, yes, it is.
Well, I got up and preached and I gave an invitation and of course nobody came.
And so I turned it over to the pastor and he sung another verse.
And this woman, the one that raised her hands, this elderly lady,
came down and spoke something to him.
And so he got up and he said, this woman has come tonight, and she wants to say a word.
She's asked if she couldn't say a word.
And she has a big old Bible with her, and she opens it to some obscure verse in Ezekiel,
and reads it and begins preaching and telling people they need to get down here on this altar
and get on their knees and pray.
And she said, let's sing another verse.
I mean, there she is.
And we sing another verse, and of course, nobody comes.
I mean, it is awful.
And boy, she's not dismayed.
She turns to Isaiah, reads another obscure verse out of Isaiah,
says a few words about it, and she speaks to the women.
She said, now, ladies, let's lead the way.
Some of you get down here on your knees.
And three or four women got up and came down to the altar.
And the musician came over to me.
He said, do you think this is a god or the devil?
I said, I don't care.
It's something.
I don't care. It's something. I don't care. It's something. I mean, there's somebody moving. There's somebody grunting out there. And sometimes you get so dry and thirsty.
And you know what? Somebody will come and say, yeah, you know what you need?
We have discovered this new church.
It has this new truth.
And that's what you need.
You need this new truth.
Or you need this experience.
I was the same way you were,
and all of a sudden God showed me something I'd never seen before,
and I had this great experience.
That's what you need.
Boy, you'll say, I'll jump at anything.
I'm ready to do anything.
I'm so miserable.
I'll do anything.
Listen, let me tell you something.
When you are discouraged and depressed
and you're walking in spiritual darkness,
you are so vulnerable to all kinds of false
teaching because you're willing to do anything just as long as you feel something. I want to
tell you something. When John wrote his epistle warning the people of the days in which the
Antichrist would come with their false teaching, do you know what he said to them? He said,
little children, let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning.
There are going to be false teachers, Antichrist coming,
and they're going to be spouting false doctrines.
But he said, you make certain that what you heard from the beginning,
not what you've heard lately, not what you've heard,
not the latest revelation,
but let that which you heard from the beginning abide in you.
Paul writing to young Timothy,
telling him that in the last days
perilous tides shall come
and preachers will come
preaching false doctrines.
And do you know what Paul told Timothy?
He said,
Timothy, when those preachers and teachers come
with their new doctrine and teaching,
he said,
you remember what you learn
from your mother and your grandmother.
Eunice and Lois.
Do you remember when they used to have TEL classes
and Sunday school classes?
Anybody here old enough to remember TEL Sunday school class?
It was usually a woman's class.
TEL, Timothy, Eunice, and Lois.
Anyway.
Paul says to Timothy,
he says,
Son, when these false teachers come and they bring all this new,
fancy, slick-sounding doctrine,
he said,
you remember
what you were taught as a child.
And you remember
what your pastor, me,
told you.
These Johnny-come-latelys,
I tell you folks,
I don't understand.
I mean, we may have a pastor
that has faithfully
for years and years
and years and years
taught us the Word of God,
lived before us
a clean, righteous life,
and then some guy
comes on television
we don't know beans about,
but he's slick
and perfumed and everything, and we'll believe anything he says just because he's on television we don't know beans about but he's slick and perfumed and everything
and we'll believe anything he says
just because he's on television.
Paul says, Timothy, you remember,
I've proven myself.
I've got a track record.
You know the life that I've lived before you.
And I want you to remember this.
When the false teachers come,
you remember what you were taught as a child,
what your mother and grandmother told you,
and what your pastor told you.
And I want to say to the young people here tonight,
well, and to anybody else for that matter,
if there ever comes a time in your life
when you don't have any better reason for believing that the Bible is true
other than your mother said it was,
that's a good enough reason.
If the time ever comes when you don't believe and you have no reason
for believing that this Bible is the Word of God, the only reason you've got to believe
is because your pastor said it was, that's a good enough reason for right now. Remember
what you learned as a child, what you were taught. Dr. Karl Barth, who is supposed to
have been and is said to be the greatest theologian
of the 20th century,
wrote, oh, how many volumes?
24 volumes on church dogmatics.
There are big books with little print
and a lot of pages in them.
Gigantic mind.
Swiss theologian.
Greatest of the 20th century, we're told.
He was being interviewed one day,
and the reporter said,
Dr. Barth, you've written all these books on church dogmatics.
How do you know it's true?
Karl Barth said, my mother told me it was.
That's what Paul would say.
Listen, everyone here tonight,
you're going to be in a situation sometime
when you're going to be so desperate to feel God,
so desperate to find something.
If you're not careful,
the devil will slip you a Mickey,
a false teaching, a mickey. A false
teaching. False experience.
That's the first thing. Second thing,
and this is, we'll close.
When you find yourself
in that spiritual experience
where everything is
dead and dry,
and you don't know what to do, where everything is dead and dry.
And you don't know what to do.
As I said, you just do what you know to do.
You keep on walking.
And God will eventually send to you a word of reassurance.
Do you remember in John chapter 4
the nobleman who came
to Jesus and said,
my son is about to die, would you
come home with me and heal him? And Jesus
does something very unusual. He
reacts in a rude manner.
He said, that's a trouble with you people. You're always
wanting signs. I'm not going to give you a sign.
Go on home, your boy's alright.
And the Bible says the man believed Jesus and went back home. I figured not going to give you a sign. Go on home, you boys, all right. And the Bible says the man believed Jesus
and went back home.
I figured it up one day.
It was about a 20-mile walk
from where the man lived to where Jesus was,
about a day and a half's walk.
I've tried to imagine that father
making that lonely walk by himself.
Boy, it must have been a long walk.
Of course, he had anticipated that on the way back
he'd have Jesus with him.
And that if his faith began to
sag a little bit, all he had to do is
kind of look over there and there's Jesus right
there. Oh, I tell
you, there have been times in my life I'd given
everything I owned if I could just open my eyes
and see Jesus standing there in the flesh.
But I didn't
see him.
And so the father walks
and he gets about halfway home
and one of his servants
meets him on the path
and says,
your boy is all right.
And he said,
well, when did he start getting better?
And the servant told him
and it was the same hour
when Jesus said,
your son lives.
Now the point, folks,
is this,
that you keep on walking and do what God
has called you to do. And sooner or later, God will send a servant across your path with a word
of reassurance. Do you know what I'm talking about? Oh, it's the most thrilling thing in all
the world. I'm not saying that God will call you on the phone or you'll look out and there'll be
red letters in the sky giving you some word. What I'm saying is that you may be sitting in church like you are tonight and the pastor's preaching on something a thousand miles
from where you are and he throws away a little verse of scripture, just kind of quotes it in
passing, and all of a sudden that verse becomes to you the living word of God and the light turns on
in your heart and you've had a word from God. You may be in the grocery store and you may be shopping
in one lane and here's somebody talking in the next store and you may be shopping in one lane and hear somebody
talking in the next lane and they say
something, just a snatch of a conversation
that wouldn't mean anything else to anybody
but it means something to you. It's the Word of God
to you. You know what I'm
talking about? Has that ever happened
to you? It's one of
the greatest things in all the world.
You just walk and walk and
walk and walk but walk and walk.
But you know that sooner or later,
God's going to send a word of reassurance across your path.
It may not mean anything to anybody else.
And it would be fruitless to try to explain it to them. But to you, it's a word.
In 1975, in August, I resigned my church
where I'd been for nine years
I had wanted to stay there the rest of my life
I had no interest in going anywhere else
but I had been dealing with the growing realization
that God wanted Kay and I to enter into a traveling ministry
and so I resigned my church on the last Sunday
in August was my last Sunday in August
was my last Sunday.
Of course, I knew God was going to reward me
for doing such a wonderful thing.
I mean, it takes some faith for a young man
to step out and not have any guaranteed salary.
I had an organization, but it was just me and Kay.
There was nobody on the board supporting us or anything.
Of course, I wasn't worried.
I knew God was highly impressed with what I was doing.
And I knew that I was doing a great and noble thing
and God was going to bless me.
I was going to have great meetings and have great offerings.
It was just going to be wonderful.
First meeting I had in Shreveport, Louisiana.
Not to say anything about the city, but I'll tell you what,
boy, it was one of those churches, you know.
I sat on the platform on Sunday morning
during the song service and cried
because I was not back at my own church.
And I said, well, God's just testing me this week.
I know this is a test.
And I'm going to pass it.
Next week will be better.
And next week wasn't better.
And I'd go home at night, and I couldn't sleep at night
because I was saying, why did I leave my church?
Well, this is a test.
God's just testing me.
Next week will be better.
And it wasn't.
And it wasn't. and it wasn't and it wasn't and it wasn't
and then our son died
and I didn't understand
Lord
I mean I'm going through enough right now
and when
and you think if you step out
and do what God wants you to do,
that God's going to sort of, you know, be kind to you.
And all of a sudden, things just fell apart.
And I went into a real tailspin.
I went for six months and never prayed outside the pulpit.
I prayed in the pulpit because you have to.
But every time I'd try to pray, you know what would happen?
The devil would be there saying, yeah, you prayed for your son too,
and look what happened to him.
You missed God.
And things got so bad,
I was in such despair,
I knew that I'd made a mistake.
I'd missed God.
But I couldn't go back to my church
because they'd called another man.
And I was out of the will of God.
I knew it had to be
because all of these bad things
were happening to me.
And I was living in desolation.
Well, I got in one day from a meeting.
Kay picked me up, and we drove home,
and on the way we stopped by the post office
to check the mailbox, see if we had any mail in there.
And I got out of the car, went into the mailbox,
and opened the box, and there was one piece of mail there.
It was a light blue envelope with those red and blue slashes around.
It was an overseas air mail envelope.
I picked it up and turned it over, and it was written to me,
and I saw the return address on that letter.
And when I saw that return address on my letter, I knew God had spoken
to me. I didn't open it. I knew what was in it. I took it out to Kay. I said, honey, here's
the mail. She took that. She didn't open it either. She saw the return address on it, and she knew what it meant.
And we sat down there in that car,
and we cried because God had given us a word of reassurance.
And from that moment on,
there were no more doubts
that we were doing exactly what God asked us to do.
You say, preacher, what was that letter?
I'm not going to tell you.
It would mean a thing to you.
It would mean absolutely nothing to you.
It would just confuse you more than anything else.
But I knew what it was, and Kay knew what it was.
It was God sending a servant across my path with a word of reassurance.
You can trust God, folks, to give you the word of reassurance when you need it.
Let's bow our heads now for a moment. Thank you.