welcome today to our midweek bible study
called morning glory
i'm so happy that you are joining me
today on this program
i would like to ask you to grab your
holy bibles
let's go today over to the book of
jeremiah
chapter 15 and we want to get into the
subject of
food for the inner man
praise the lord now let's begin in
prayer
heavenly father as we go into your word
we ask that your holy spirit would
illuminate the scriptures
so that we can have understanding of
them
and help us to walk in your grace to be
hearers
and doers of your word we thank you that
you
speak to us through your word and you've
got something today that will feed
us and we give you praise for that in
jesus name
we all agree and say amen
now we're in jeremiah chapter 15
and let's start in verse 1. then the
lord
said to me even if moses
and samuel stood before me my mind would
not be
favorable toward this people cast them
out of my sight
and let them go forth well that's a
pretty dramatic statement from the lord
to say that even if moses and samuel
were here
i'm not going to listen to their prayers
of
intercession now we know that
these two men are mentioned moses and
samuel because
of their great levels of prayer and
intercession for
the people of god we see it with moses
in the book of exodus chapter 17
verse 11 the classic story and so it was
when moses held up his hand
that israel prevailed and when he let
down his hand
amalek prevailed but moses's hands
became heavy
so they took a stone and put it under
him and he sat on it
i hope they had a cushion maybe they put
on top of the stone
okay and then it says and aaron and her
supported his hands one on one side and
the other on the other side
and his hands were steady until the
going down of the sun
so joshua defeated amalek and his people
with the edge of the sword
but even moses with this great
intercessory
prayer heart could not move god
to stop from what he was about to do
against his own
people the nation of judah now what i'm
sharing today
let me just go ahead and say this i'm
not trying to make
hidden illusions or concealed statements
about the nation of america
god works differently in the new
covenant
than what he does from uh our
understanding of the old covenant
and so i'm not trying to say that god's
going to judge america or wipe america
out
i'm not trying to make a statement like
that or convey something like that i'm
simply trying to work through
an understanding of jeremiah 15 so that
we understand the context
of what we're going to be viewing today
and when you understand the context
it makes a lot more sense so moses a
great man of prayer
and the same with the prophet samuel
and we see in first samuel chapter 12
verse 20
then samuel said to the people do not
fear
you have done all this wickedness yet do
not turn aside from following the lord
but serve the lord with all your
heart well israel wanted a king
and the lord was their king but that
wasn't good enough for them they wanted
somebody
physical they wanted a man who would
fight their battles and
set up a government and all of that and
they got it
and uh they're going to regret it
because they're going to be welcomed to
the world of
taxation they're going to be welcome to
the world of the military draft where
the king can just take your son
you know if he looks like a good soldier
he'll just take him he could so the king
and
uh all of the things that are going to
be established through that
are going to be something that
eventually will be a great burden for
the people of israel
and really david did a great job as king
solomon took the nation of israel into
what was called the golden age
but really if you examine it more
closely it was really the golden age of
taxation
because when solomon uh when his reign
was finished
you know the people really kind of
vented what was on their heart
hey we've been taxed to pieces i mean
hey you're taking 80 percent of our
income
so you know this whole king thing works
only
when god is behind it through the right
leader
who will not abuse the people of god and
of course david did a good job
of honoring god's word god's ways
but nevertheless even though the people
made a mistake
it was a it was a very grievous mistake
in verse 23
samuel said this moreover as for me
far be it for me that i should sin
against the lord
in ceasing to pray for you but i will
teach you the good
and the right way so samuel said well
you've made a big mistake but you know
what i'm not going to stop praying for
you
because that would be a sin for me to do
that
so you could technically say that a
prayerless life
is actually sinful in the eyes of god so
we need to pray for our leaders pray for
the church pray for the nation of israel
the bottom line is just good to pray
praise the lord
now even with these great examples of
prayer
even if moses and samuel stood before me
my mind
god say he's saying my mind's not going
to change towards them
and you'll understand why better when
you read
verse 2 and 3 and it shall be if they
say to you
where should we go then you shall tell
them thus says the lord
such as for death to death and such as
for the sword to the sword
and such as for the famine to the famine
and
such as for the captivity to the
captivity
and i will point over them four forms of
destruction those four forms are
number one the sword ouch
what a painful way to die number two the
famine
which is pretty excruciating the there's
a lot of pain involved in starvation
number three uh captivity that's no fun
being hauled off to somewhere that you
don't want to go
and leaving the area that you're
comfortable with especially
when where they're going to be taken to
is literally 1 000 miles away
that's a long hike that's a long journey
to make
under good conditions much less when
you're being marched through the desert
as a captive foe and number four
through the dispersion they're going to
be dispersed
all over the place now you will have
many that are going to settle there in
babylon many of the jews eventually come
back
but a lot of them stay there and of
course many others
also because of the northern dispersion
that's already taken place in the
captivity with the assyrians
uh it's the jews will literally be
spread all
over the world now pastor stephen why is
all of this
going on verse 4 i will hand them over
to trouble
to all kingdoms of the earth because
of manasseh the son of hezekiah
king of judah for what he did
in jerusalem well this is really
uh it's an amazing story
of manasseh he was the son of hezekiah
hezekiah
you know he was about to die he was the
king of judah hezekiah was about to die
and said lord hey you know i served you
and i've been good to you and you've
been good to me and we've got a good
thing going on
lord would you let me live and the lord
said i'm going to give you 15 more years
well
in that 15-year time frame he had
another son
and that son was the young man that
became
king at the age of 12 and his name was
manasseh and you would think with a very
godly father
hey this is going to turn out really
good it turned out
really really bad now later on
manasseh is going to repent and he's
going to get his own life right with
god but he had pulled the nation and
took
into such a pit of sin that he out
sinned all of the other heathen
paganistic nations that were around him
so all of the other canaanite nations
that god originally told the israelites
with a mandate
drive them out because their sin is so
bad
that the land is ready to vomit them out
well
the people of judah they had outdone
as far as the sin level all of the
uh canaanites so and that was all under
the leadership
of manasseh he took judah into a level
of apostasy
and sin that had never been seen before
in even the entire land not just of
israel but even in the land of canaan
now what exactly did manasseh
do well the first thing and the number
one thing he did
is that when he became king after his
father hezekiah died
when he became king he immediately began
to
undo all of the godly reforms
that his father had made and there were
a lot of reforms that
uh were good because reformation
is very important you're getting things
in line or reforming things
into a biblical kingdom
governmental structure but that doesn't
necessarily mean that you have revival
because revival deals with the heart
reformation deals with structures
and formats and doctrine and teaching
and that's extremely important
okay uh such as the uh the reformation
led by martin luther
which was a enlightenment or
illumination
that the just shall live by faith we're
not justified by our good works
because you can never be good enough to
get into heaven because all have sinned
and have fallen
short of the glory of god but uh here's
manasseh
going around undoing all the
reformations that his father had
established number two manasseh
rebuilt the shrines of baal and ashura
plus he added all of the new gods
that he incorporated from his knowledge
of the northern kingdom of israel
all of the surrounding false deities he
brought them all
in into jerusalem number three
he desecrated the holy temple there in
jerusalem
by putting altars to foreign gods
to demons literally there in the temple
itself oh he was pretty brazen wasn't he
was he was uh
he was a wild one that's for sure and
you have to understand really without
getting into the uh
the ugliness of it what he was actually
doing there
at the temple uh he desecrated it
but by bringing in the asteros
astra was the female deity that the
canaanites
worshiped uh she was the goddess of
fertility
so when he's putting that statue of this
pagan god of fertility or goddess of
fertility there in the
temple really what he's doing
is he's turning the temple into a
brothel
where there is now cult prostitution
taking place there at the temple it's
bad
it was really bad so there's going to be
a big penalty for it
but he he really sunk the nation deep
and
he wasn't even done he also
sacrificed his own son burning him
publicly in fire to the wicked evil idol
idol called molek so he takes his own
son
who was supposed to rule in his place
later and he burns him
there at the altar of molech what a
disgusting thing
wow incredible next
he murdered many innocent
people we see this in second kings
chapter 21
i think it would be good for us to see
this second kings 21
verse 16 moreover
manasseh shed very much innocent blood
so it's not it's not the shedding of
blood of like his enemies this is the
shedding of innocent blood
he's killing good people that are saying
king please please don't do this this is
not right
oh kill that person so he's shedding
a whole lot of innocent blood till he
had filled
jerusalem from one end to another
wow so that that was a lot of blood uh
incredible
the rabbinical teaching is that
the esteemed prophet isaiah
you know who uh goes right before the
book of jeremiah
that it was manasseh who actually had
isaiah the prophet executed and he did
it in a very
gruesome way he had the prophet isaiah
sawn
cut in half now we do know that the
apostle paul
spoke in hebrews chapter 11 verse 37
about the saints from the old testament
who kept the faith
and some of them went through great
suffering and persecution because they
did not compromise their faith
and he mentions those who were sawn
asunder or in other words those who were
cut in half
and while paul does not mention that
that was isaiah
in that category jewish
rabbinical teaching uh does have it
recorded in their history that yes
isaiah was one of those people cut in
half
so he was uh uh this uh king manasseh
was a really really
bad guy um let's go further number six
he pulled the entire nation of judah
into the occult practices of black magic
the dark arts really nothing short of
full-blown
satanism we see this again in second
kings chapter 21
this time in verse 6. speaking of
vanessa it says
also he made his son pass through the
fire
practiced sooth saying used witchcraft
and consulted spiritists and mediums he
did
much evil in the sight of the lord to
provoke
him to anger so all of this is built to
the point
where judah is not repenting
and the lord is telling jeremiah look
even if moses and samuel start it
praying
lord stop stop stop your judgment the
lord says it's gone too far
i'm not going to stop uh with the
judgment that i'm going to bring
because of the great evil that's been
done
so that's the purpose and when we
understand the context what we're going
to see in just a few minutes
begins to paint a more accurate
picture now what happens in the nutshell
to manasseh
is that when the babylonian army
sweeps down into the land of judah now
remember israel was split
into the northern kingdom and the
southern kingdom
after the death of solomon and the
southern kingdom
you had the big tribe of judah judah
means praise you could call it the tribe
of praise
anyhow judah was a very large
tribe but their neighboring tribe was
that of benjamin and i like
i i like the tribe of benjamin if i
relate to any tribe spiritually you know
pastor stephen what's your spiritual
tribe
well it would probably be benjamin
because it talks so much in the bible
about of benjamin
how their men were left-handed so i'm
left-handed in case you haven't noticed
and i'll drink it with my left hand and
all that stuff so
perhaps if i would have been back in
those days i would have been of the
tribe of benjamin
and benjamin you know produced uh some
pretty well-known people you had
saul the first king you had the apostle
paul
who was his initial name was saul
of course he would have been named after
the king saul from the tribe of benjamin
so it created a lot of noble people but
that tribe was a very small tribe and it
was basically over time
just kind of absorbed into judah so all
of the southern kingdom which is judah
and benjamin
now known basically as judah all got to
just
defeat it and take it into captivity by
the babylonians
and their invasion into the land of
israel now
the captured people which was almost
everybody was
marched they were all marched to iraq
that's a thousand miles away
and there in a dirty filthy
dungeon prison cell sat manasseh
the former king of israel and you know
when they started that march
the babylonians put hooks through the
noses of of the king and you know
the the so-called royal family and
anybody that was in high official
they put hooks through their nose
including manasseh a metal hook through
his nose
hooked onto a chain boy can you imagine
having somebody yank that chain
whoo and put a uh a yoke around his neck
with a chain i mean he was just he was
loaded up with uh
a new type of jewelry so marched him a
thousand miles through the desert
but while he's sitting in that horrible
dungeon cell
he repented and said lord uh what we
don't we don't
actually know what his prayer was um
there is an apocrypha
prayer but it's it's apocrypha uh
in let me say it like this it doesn't
belong in the canon of scripture because
it's not legit it's something that
somebody made up
some other time uh so it's not it's not
the real prayer of manasseh
but he obviously prayed some type of
prayer because god restored him and he
and it says that he repented
so he turned his heart back to the lord
and it was a deep repentance and the
wildest thing happened
uh yes god forgave him but the lord
gave him favor in the eyes of the king
of babylon
and the king of babylon takes him out of
the prison and sends him back
to judah back to israel as the king wow
i mean it's it's amazing and so when
manasseh gets back
he's a changed guy he has had a uh
he has gone from the darkest of the dark
now god has
cleansed him and forgiven him and he's
just wanting to live right now he starts
a reformation
and he's like pulling down all the idols
and all the garbage that he had
initiated he stops it and uh it starts
to cleanse the temple
uh the only problem was that he was
changed
but the people had had a taste for sin
judah had gotten a taste of of nasty
things
and for whatever reason they said we
don't want to give it up
we want to keep it and god said because
of that
because of that judgment's coming and
manasseh tried to lead them into uh you
know revival but they would they refused
they were like nope
we like our idols we like what we're
doing uh
vanessa you can do whatever you want to
do but judah just said
we're not changing for anything and so
that's why
they were all taken into captivity
and when they reached babylon
it's amazing babylon is really
only about two or three miles from the
modern day city of
haila h-i-l-a which is there in iraq
because it's still the ancient city of
babylon still there it's just
you know pretty much in ruins and stuff
like that but uh
you can still see it on google maps and
everything
but when i was in berlin germany some
years back
there at the pergamum museum
you can see the actual literal
babylon gates that the jews
from judah literally walked through
those same gates
when they were ushered into they were
the gates on the northern side of the
massive city of babylon which was one of
the wonders of the world and the hanging
gardens that it had and all of that
they walked literally through those
gates and you can go to germany to
berlin
and they they moved them from babylon
all the way to germany
and you could actually touch them and
there are these beautiful blue
uh tiles with uh these engravings of
dragons and you know
uh creatures that they worshipped and so
forth but uh it's very beautiful
uh but you think wow that's pretty old
several thousand years old
but my friends that all happened because
of the great sin that the people were
all tangled up in now here's the prophet
jeremiah saying repent
because you're all going to go into
captivity oh no we're not yes you are
no we're not and back and forth god's
working through jeremiah trying to
awaken the people
to repentance and they're not having
anything to do with it
so let's go now to
verse 11. jeremiah 15 verse 11 the lord
said surely
it will be well with your remnant surely
i will cause the enemy to intercede with
you
in the time of adversity and in the time
of affliction
now verse 14 and i will make you cross
over with your enemies
and to a land which you do not know
for a fire is kindled in my anger which
shall burn upon
you and that's exactly what happened
they were taken to a land that they did
not know now we need to continue on it's
going to get very interesting verse 15
oh lord you know remember me and visit
me this is
jeremiah crying out to the lord lord you
know remember me and visit me and take
vengeance for me on my persecutors
oh he's getting a lot of persecution not
from the babylonians
you know uh when judah
was in jerusalem was ransacked and
everybody's taken captive
the babylonian soldiers with their
general came
up to jeremiah they didn't kill him they
said hey we know who you're you are
you are the one trying to speak to your
nation
to repent of their wicked ways we knew
all about you we heard the reports
and uh so jeremiah you know he was let
go to do whatever he wanted to do that's
what the general said hey you can
you can do whatever you want you can
come with us if you want who wants to go
to babylon
or you know if you want you can stay
here so
oh my goodness so he was protected but
he's saying lord
to uh take vengeance for me on my
persecutors the persecutors are not the
babylonians
they are the jews who are refusing
uh with like uh these hardened foreheads
to hear anything that the prophet is
saying and they're saying
to him you're the false prophet you're
the liar
you're the one making up stories you're
the one upsetting the government and
you're the one
causing all the chaos and you're the
problem in other words and
you know that really began to wear on
him and it was very very
difficult for him now
verse 16 jeremiah continues to
talk to the lord your words were found
and i ate them and your word was to me
the joy
and rejoicing of my heart so here
jeremiah tells the lord
how much the lord's word means to him
he says your words were found
the fact that they were found implies to
us
that there was searching going on by
jeremiah
searching praying waiting spending time
with the lord so that he could acquire
that word
and he would get that word and then he
would prophesy that word and he would
share that word
now he said your words were found and i
ate
them when he got the word of the lord
he didn't do with it what the the other
jews did when he got the word
he didn't debate it he uh he ate it okay
when he got the word he didn't doubt it
he ate it
but when he would give it to the jews
they would despise it they would say oh
no we don't believe that
that's not god speaking through you and
on and on it went
and so this was his strength and he
says your word was to me the joy
and rejoicing of my
heart now right after he
makes this amazing declaration
of the beauty of god's word and really
how
it is the engine of his ministry
he continues to say some things that
reveal
he's in trouble and god is going to
correct him
god's going to correct him i would say
firmly
but also lovingly he there is a
correction
it needs to be made because he's getting
off track
my friends what jeremiah has said in
verse 16
is 100 truth but here's the problem that
jeremiah had
he's talking about the way he used to
live
oh yes he had the initial prophetic
commissioning
and the beauty and the glory of that and
god telling him things like hey
before you were even born i had already
ordained you
and set you apart as a prophet wow i
mean so he's getting all this great
stuff and god's saying i'm gonna
i'm gonna make you like so strong that
no matter how hard they resist
you'll be stronger still and the word
will prevail and and
jeremiah is launched into a very
powerful ministry
that is a nation-shaking ministry other
nations outside of israel outside of
judah
are hearing about this great prophet but
it has the the persecution
and the isolation also of having the
stand and having to stand alone
when so many others have compromised
it's beginning to get to him
and that daily devotion has gotten
disrupted
my friends it is true that when you find
the word of the lord
and you eat it that it will produce
joy and rejoicing in your heart
but that cannot be a once a month
experience that cannot be a once a year
experience
you cannot be the prophet and have a
blistering word
uh that that's straight from heaven and
you give it to the king and you give it
to the royal court
and you think wow that was awesome well
i'm good to go for two weeks
you know i did my job well you you still
have to have that word for your own
strength
wow praise the lord so here
we see the power source of jeremiah's
ministry what is it
it's the searching to locate
and find what we could call the
preceding word
in other words god's still talking we
live in a different age we live in a
different time
we live in a different decade we live in
a different year so god has things to
say about our current
situation what's going on in our world
and our nation
that we need to be listening to so we
need to find and search
for the preceding word what is the
preceding word
is the word proceeding out of the mouth
of god right now
in other words it's the now word what is
god saying
right now so
the very thing that sustained
jeremiah which was finding the word
and eating the word okay that very thing
which sustained him
which he previously practiced he has now
drifted from and you see it quite
clearly
in these next few verses that we're
going to look at now
he says for i am called by your name o
lord god of host
i did not sit in the assembly of the
mockers and there were a lot of mockers
people saying all the babylonians are
never going to overtake us they'll go
back
and even if they attack we'll fight them
off
you know we all know the history the
jerusalem
judah was completely conquered and
hauled away
verse 17 i did not sit in the assembly
of the mockers
nor did i rejoice i sat alone because
of your hand that's very very important
in a culture or society that wants to
call wicked good and wants you to agree
with it
and if you don't agree with it well uh
you know we're going to stigmatize you
and we're going to basically force you
to stand
on your own well that will either do two
things
one it will either cause you to crumble
or two
it will cause you to stand and become
like a pillar
a foundation a rock that others look to
and that they're blessed and encouraged
by and you actually impart
strength and grace to them i sat alone
because of your hand
for you have filled me with indignation
why is my pain
perpetual and my wound
incurable which refuses to be healed
watch this what he's about to say next
will you surely
be to me like an unreliable stream
as waters that fail can you believe i'm
reading words that jeremiah said
pastor stephen i thought this guy was a
top prophet uh he was
but he's like also like elijah we're
told in james
chapter 5 in the new testament that
elijah was a man
who was human just like you and i are
and elijah also had his
pity party moment and he had a meltdown
moment
well here you're seeing that moment with
jeremiah the prophet
and he basically tells the lord
that that he considers the lord to be an
unreliable stream
as waters that fail now
in the hebrew it's even worse it denotes
not only
an unreliable stream but it also denotes
the meaning of
a deceitful lying stream
i told you he's in trouble he's in
trouble
and the lord's going to correct him why
pastor stephen what happened to jeremiah
he drifted from that place
of finding that word and eating it
he told the lord that that was a
practice of his
but he has drifted from that and you
know what
he is pulled back from his ministry and
he's not prophesying the way he's
supposed to be
he's complaining he's not declaring what
god said
and you know blasting those stubborn
people who refuse to yield
and say thus says the lord like it or
not this is what god says he's totally
backed off of it
he's gotten flustered he's gotten
confused and he's gotten dismayed and
that
is a far cry from what finding the
the now word will do because when you
have that preceding word from the lord
you find it and you eat it it will be to
you
joy and rejoicing in your heart of
regardless what's going on out there
incredible incredible so he hasn't found
that word in the wild
that's why he's now saying god you're a
lying
deceitful spring of water that i can't
trust
in israel you have these
wadis these streams and sometimes during
rainy season they can flow
and overflow and you think that's a lot
of water but
when it gets dry and it's not raining
those can dry up and so it could leave
you with
a i don't know really what to expect
from this stream
and that's how he's trying to cast god
as being
verse 19 therefore thus says the lord
okay
so jeremiah has said his thing and he
meant it
now god is going to respond to that
thus says the lord if you return
all right so whenever you see that
phrase
return return to the lord if you return
it's the same thing in the new testament
whereas in the new testament written in
greek it would give the word
our english word repent in the new
covenant it says
repent here under the old covenant it's
the same meaning just spoken with a
different type of statement
that statement was return to the lord
so the lord says if you return in other
words jeremiah the issue is not with me
it's with you and if you repent
aren't you glad god doesn't pull any
punches aren't you glad that god doesn't
say well i'll tell you what
i really have been on vacation too much
and i i let the angels run the show for
a while and
you know me and jesus and the holy
spirit we left to the father distant
edge of the galaxy and
you know we had a nice time we're just
now getting back and sorry things kind
of got out of control while we're gone
but you and i both know that that's
never going to be the case
if something's off it's not with the
lord ever
and we have to find in search and see
what's going on
so he says if you return in other words
you've drifted you're out of place
you have abandoned your prophetic
ministry you're not speaking with fire
and anointing and unction like you
should be
you've drifted so whenever you're ready
to get right we can get on with
things if you return then i will bring
you back back what back to that place
of full power full anointing prophets
office prophets ministry
because you can't prophesy when you're
in
uh gloom and despair and hopelessness
you can't you're the the faith is
completely knocked out of you
you've prophesied by faith all the gifts
of the spirit they operate by faith and
if you're not in faith
there's not going to be any prophesying
going on
if you return that i will bring you back
you shall stand before me now that
that phrase you shall stand before me
denotes that god is king
you standing before him means that you
are his ambassador
therefore he's saying jeremiah i will
reposition you back
into that position of being a vice
regent for me where you are literally
speaking on by
my half so whenever you're ready to
repent get right
let's get this thing rolling again
then i will bring you back you shall
stand before me if you take out the
precious
from the vial this gets into the
physical element of separating metal
you could call it metallurgy or assain
of metals
where you have to get the impure away
from the pure so if you take out the
precious
from the vile you shall be as my mouth
look jeremiah if you'll get all this
complaining
and all of this oh they haven't been
nice to me if you get all of that
dismiss all of that and get back on task
get back on the focus get back to
searching out that word
finding it and eating it if you're
willing to make that separation
then you're gonna stand before me and
you're gonna be one that will continue
to declare
my word praise the lord
and what is going on also
is that the people of judah they're
pressuring
severely pressuring jeremiah
to go along with their sin
come on jeremiah it's no big deal so
they're trying to get him to compromise
his beliefs and to
give compliance to their sin
and he's not going to do it now he is
not giving into that
but he is wearied by
the lying deceiving pressure that
they're trying to bring against him
so god's just trying to say get back on
assignment
get back with me get back into my word
and be able to separate
what they're calling good as wicked and
evil
can't you remember we talked about
manasseh i told you all the things that
he had done
that out did everything the original
canaanite nations had done
and now they're trying to tell jeremiah
oh it's okay
there's nothing wrong with this so
jeremiah
he has to regroup and get back on the
word and be ready to unload and say no
if god says this is wrong it's wrong if
god says this is right it's all good
but the moment he said it's wrong and
evil it can never be changed it's evil
and it's wrong
and you just you refuse to compromise
and you make that stand and when you do
when you make that separation
when you take out the precious from the
vile he says you shall be as my mouth
but if you've got mixture if you if
now you're a muddy stream and he cannot
speak through you the way
he wants to because you're compromised
on the inside
you have to deal with those things you
should be as my mouth now he says
let them return to you but you must not
return to them let them now you're going
to start prophesying again
so they're gonna come back let them
return to you but don't you dare
go over and side with them and say hey
as i understand you know everybody's got
their things and
just go ahead god understands no no no
don't don't do that
they're gonna come back keep giving that
word but don't you go over to them
and side with them and give uh give in
to uh
and make compliance with their sinful
ways don't absolutely don't you do that
and i will make you to this people a
fortified bronze wall
and they will fight against you but they
shall not prevail against you
it's just like arrows hitting against a
bronze wall
bouncing off all of their verbal uh
statements and all of their
hurling accusations it's not going to
affect him god's going to make him like
a bronze wall
i will deliver you from the hand well
let me back up just a little bit finish
at verse 20.
he says and they will fight against you
but they shall not prevail against you
for i am with you to save you
i am with you to save you and deliver
you
says the lord i will deliver you from
the hand of the wicked
i will redeem you from the grip of the
terrible
and my friends i want you to know today
right now that that is a preceding word
from the lord
that is a now word if you will believe
it and if you will
eat it and consume it it will produce
that joy
and that happiness within your spirit
that regardless of pandemonium and
weird bizarre things going on not only
in our nation but throughout the planet
you can be strong and god will deliver
you and protect you from the wicked
and you will be kept safe you know it's
amazing you think how did jeremiah
live through this i mean there's people
getting
chop the pieces with the sword there is
famine people are starving to death
it's a real mess but he went right
through it he just
just keep preaching that word stay
faithful to the lord and he just went
right through it went right on through
it
and even when the the the army showed up
itself they said hey you can do whatever
you want
praise the lord so he gets back on track
because there's a lot more in the book
of jeremiah of course he gets back on
track
he just needed some correction and i
believe that
if you will seek out that word because
there's all kinds of voices now on the
internet
saying uh everything from doom gloom to
uh you know from every end of the
spectrum and all in between
so you have to really get into the
scriptures and spend time with god
hang out with the lord and that word
will come to you
and i know for so many of you that you
watch these programs
not so much because you're just like
well i wonder what pastor stevens
talking about or
you know or uh what kind of a shirt is
he wearing today or something like that
those things you know that's not what
it's about you come here
because you're looking to find that
word you are you are a seeker a hunter
for that word that you can find and no
oh that's the word that's it
and then you want to eat it and then it
will relieve anxiety or pressure or
worry or fear
and you will be left in a place of
strength and even joyful
and happy on the inside now
once jeremiah has made that commitment
to repent
to return to the lord and he does then
the lord doesn't waste any time
i'm not going to get into it really but
in jeremiah chapter 16
he says don't even take a wife well you
might think pastor stephen why
well look what he said the word of the
lord also came to me saying
you shall not take a wife nor shall you
have sons or daughters in this place
for thus says the lord concerning the
sons and daughters who are born in this
place
and concerning their mothers who bore
them and their fathers who begot them in
this land
they shall die gruesome deaths
so all those attractive young ladies
that you know he's thinking hey maybe
that one would make a good you know wife
god says no
none of them have any interest in me at
all they don't want to serve me
they want to worship demons and idols
and they're all going to die
gruesome deaths so don't even think
about getting married
and jeremiah see he's he's still he's
hearing that from the lord so he's
getting that word
and he's eating that he's like okay uh
lord i'll lock on with you with that
and then it's the lord said they shall
be consumed by the sword
and by famine and their corpses
shall be listen to this their corpses
shall be meet for the birds of heaven
and for the beast of the earth for thus
says the lord do not enter the house
of mourning nor go to the mint or the or
bemoan them for i have taken away my
peace from this people
says the lord loving kindness and
mercies now
in the mentality of a jewish person
living during that day
the ultimate desecration in the mind of
a jew
is to die a death in which
your body is greatly dishonored upon
death or after death
and the lord is telling jeremiah that
the punishment and the trauma
coming up upon the nation will be so
severe that even all the nice young
ladies
that are that are going around they're
all going to die too
not only will they die nobody's going to
be there to bury them
the babylonian soldiers they're
certainly not going to bury anybody they
don't care about that they're just let
the bodies fall
right on the ground where they kill them
at those that die by famine
your body's just gonna lay there and
birds
will lay on your body or land on your
body and eat you
and wild animals like dogs will tear you
apart and eat you
in the minds of a jewish person in this
culture in this time
that was the most horrifying uh
awful thing that could ever happen to a
person that
there's something about that in the
mentality of them
that they want there to be dignity and
death and jeremiah is saying
you're not going to have any it's going
to be worse than you can even imagine
your bodies are just going to decompose
in front of
everybody else and animals are going to
eat it so it was really really bad
and still and still they would not
repent
my friends regardless of what's going on
in the earth and we want to pray for our
nation
pray for our our president pray for
israel and the prime minister
and uh for world evangelism as well for
souls to be saved
the most important thing is that you
feed on that word
that sustains you now i do have a word
from the lord for you today
and i believe that this will be uh a
word that you can eat
and you will find that it will produce
in you the same thing that jeremiah
found
when the lord spoke to him when he found
the word and it caused
joy and uh and happiness on the inside
of his heart
and this would be this one more chapter
over jeremiah chapter 17
verse 7 and this is what it says
blessed is the man who trusts
in the lord and whose hope is the lord
for he shall be like a tree planted by
the waters
now see yourself right now as a tree
planted by the waters
which spreads out its roots by the river
okay so you're by a river there's a
river going by and your roots are going
down real deep
and it says that person will not fear
when heat
comes okay so whether it's financial
heat
or the heat of a medical report that's
not good
or the heat of a job layoff or you know
recession or things like that
it says that you will not fear when heat
comes
but its leaf will be green
well pastor stephen how can our leaf be
green when everybody else's is brown
they're not living off the let me say it
like this
they're not eating the word that's
life-sustaining
life-guiding life-providing it's
supernatural word
they're not they're not eating it
they're not even looking for it they're
they're eating the news but its leaf
will be green
and you will not be anxious in the year
of
drought so even if there is a drought
even if there are layoffs
you will not be anxious or worried
because you have roots
in the lord that go down real deep into
that water that river of god
and you'll always always be green
no matter what no matter and no matter
where you're at
this word will prevail over any external
circumstances that are in the earth
today
whether it's sword or famine or drought
it doesn't matter
this word when you eat it will take you
above all these other things nor
will cease talking about you as a tree
nor will cease from yielding fruit
so you'll always be yielding fruit well
pastor stephen uh
i just heard that this one company laid
off thousands of people how can we be
yielding fruit
well that's up to god as to how but you
will
if you believe that that word is able to
sustain you
and let me tell you right now if you
drift
like jeremiah did from finding
that word and eating it you will go into
depression you will go into doubt
and unbelief you will go into fear and
if you maintain that it will get worse
and you will go into
hopelessness but that's not going to
happen to you
jeremiah said your words were found and
i
ate them and your word was to me the joy
and rejoicing of my heart say right now
say this out loud with your mouth right
now i'm not going under
i'm going over say i cannot be defeated
because i am in christ and my
leaves will always be green
say i will never wither i will never
wither
my roots go into the river of
god's word i will always be fresh
and strong and healthy
praise the lord well pastor stephen
we'll just see if jeremiah can
make it or not well he made it we know
the rest of the story
uh arrows flying swords ripping through
the
through the land and he's just you know
he's just doing his thing
get back on task jeremiah get back on
the word speak
prophesy say the word that god is saying
god is saying speak what god is saying
and let me say it's good i really do
believe in my heart
that the end will not yet come until we
have the great
harvest and we we've uh have seen the
church harvest many souls
but we have never seen a great end time
outpouring of the spirit of god
with great miracles and power and great
amounts of souls pulled in
like what has been prophesied and spoken
of in scripture
so my friends we need to stay busy stay
on task
stay focused i believe
that god is not done with america that
god is going to do some surprise things
in america
praise the lord so be looking for it and
uh
nothing's going to stop it socialistic
doctrine is not going to stop it
atheistic communism is not going to stop
it the the word is going to prevail
god has a uh he still has a mighty
mighty remnant
and god always works through the remnant
that's how he worked with israel that's
how he's working with america
because israel belongs to god and
america belongs to god
both nations were dedicated to the lord
and god is not through yet with the
destiny of
america the church will accomplish his
purpose and we will see
the great commission fulfilled praise
the lord
so unpack your tribulation suitcases
get a refund on your tickets to move out
into the remote wild yukon
uh probably not a good idea you're
probably gonna die from mosquitoes out
there
come on back get plugged in do what god
called you to do
be where god called you to be stay on
task
stay on task stay on the word
and you'll just keep moving forward
you'll keep moving forward
and it's going to be good it's going to
be good praise god
heavenly father thank you for your word
we thank you that
as we search for it we find the meal
that feeds us and makes our hearts happy
so i thank you father god that you have
spoken and you have said that
we are like the tree that's planted by
the waters
the roots going down and we're always
going to be green regardless of the heat
i thank you father that your people have
a supernatural exemption
from the heat of the earth's
systems of babylonian systems of sin
of all the stuff that goes on out there
we thank you for a protective hedge we
thank you for the blood
covenant of the lord jesus christ and we
choose to believe your word and stand on
it and we thank you father we thank you
that even if a thousand followed our
left or ten thousand
at our right it will not come near us
we have protection and we're gonna stay
green we're gonna keep on praising you
we thank you father i pray you bless
your people
bless your people with their spiritual
food
for their inner man we give you praise
in jesus name amen
and amen if you're watching today and
you don't know
the great jehovah god as your god
maybe you've been bowing down uh like
the jews of old did
at this point and uh you're into
idolatry and you're worshiping
all kinds of things my friends
there's only one true god the father his
son
whose name is jesus and the holy spirit
three distinct persons but yet one god
it's a mystery uh we'll we'll do some
teaching on that some other time
but you must give your heart to the lord
jesus christ
laid his life down came to earth laid
his life down as a ransom for you
so that you could receive forgiveness of
sins he took all of your sins
upon him upon himself he bore them at
the cross
in calvary there in jerusalem about 2
000 years ago
if you put your faith and trust in him
he'll give you
new life on the inside and he'll forgive
you of all your sins if you want to
receive him right now as your lord and
savior
pray this after me say lord jesus
please forgive me of my sins come into
my heart
and save me now i give my life
completely to you
write my name in your book of life
thank you jesus for saving me thank you
that i belong to you
now in your name i pray amen
and i and amen welcome to the family of
god if you're a christian
but you have gotten away from the lord
and you're off in sin
and you're hearing this message the holy
spirit's convicting you
and he's endeavoring to pull you back
back into the heart of god
come back right now pray this prayer say
jesus
i walked away from you and i've been in
sin
but i repent and i return to you
i ask that you forgive me of all of my
sins
wash me clean oh god with your with your
blood
thank you jesus thank you and i come
back and i'm staying with you
thank you jesus amen and
amen praise the lord forever somebody is
getting delivered right now from drugs
somebody is getting completely set free
from drugs
uh there are some that are watching me
um
the drug would be heroin you're being
set free
right now from heroin praise the lord
there are a few that for some reason
holy spirit is touching this area today
those who would have addiction there are
a few also you've been on crystal meth
you're being completely set free right
now and the lord's going to heal your
brain
and he's going to make everything
beautiful in your life he's going to
restore you
so begin to praise him right now and
thank him hallelujah
glory to god receive your deliverance
right now i break all controlling powers
of the enemy off of your life receive
god's healing power now in jesus name
god's delivering anointing receive now
in jesus name praise the lord and you're
sweating you're being drenched in sweat
right now
all of that stuff is coming out and the
desire is completely leaving you for
that
you're also being cleansed from evil
spirits praise the lord praise the lord
praise the lord hallelujah glory to god
glory to god let's just praise the lord
for a moment
those of you that are being delivered
begin to open your mouth and praise the
lord as you praise the lord a new
language will also come out of your
mouth called tongues
just begin to speak that out because
you're being filled right now with the
holy spirit
yes
glory glory glory and i declare today
that the lord
is faithful he is faithful praise god
hallelujah let's take holy communion
grab some
unleavened bread i like to use these
little wafers because they're easy to
keep in the refrigerator
and they last a long time but if you
have something else
that's small and flat you can use that
praise the lord
and also some grape juice and we're
going to pray and take communion let's
do that right now
heavenly father we thank you for the
bread and the juice we pray over it
we set it apart as holy this is now the
flesh of jesus and his
precious blood father when we look at it
we see
we still see a little piece of bread and
grape juice but we thank you that this
is
the body and the blood of christ under
the
hidden form of bread and juice thank you
father as we receive the body of jesus
we thank you
that you have you have a meal for us
you have spiritual food for us for our
inner man
lord let us always be well fed let us
always search out that food and eat it
and and just eat it thank you father god
we believe it
woo hallelujah thank you father some of
you have received
some very accurate prophecies from very
good sources
yet you still doubt the word for some
reason don't doubt the word stop
debating it stop
you know analyzing it just eat it eat it
and then it will produce
the the nourishment and strength that
food carries in it when it goes into
your system
so receive it and believe it by faith
father we thank you
in jesus name amen amen
some of you have felt have felt hesitant
to believe
certain prophecies over your life
because you think it's too good and i'm
not and you think you're not worthy
but it's not based on your worth through
your merit because or mine because we
don't have any
on our own it's based on who we are in
christ
so if that's what the lord says i would
say agree with it
believe it eat the word and then you'll
see it come
to pass because it's what god wants to
do in your life
so go ahead and let him have his way and
bring him glory and believe the word
father thank you for the blood of jesus
thank you for forgiveness of our sins we
ask that you would
wash all of our sins away we thank you
father god that when you forgive us of
our sins you also completely forget them
we give we praise for that for sure
hallelujah
we thank you for your goodness we thank
you father it was even your love
it was even your love to allow
judah to go into captivity so they could
see
the consequences of their sin and
hopefully repent
as many did like manasseh lest they end
up in a worse scenario
which is dying their sins and go to hell
so father we thank you that you're so
good you do everything to try to stop us
from sin
and help us we thank you for your mercy
the great links you go to us
you go you go through to in order to
reach us
and to help us we thank you father god
we thank you you helped jeremiah
when he got off track you helped elijah
when he got off track
we thank you father we make those
adjustments and stay very very close to
you
if that is something that needs to be
adjusted we give you praise we thank you
father god in
jesus name we agree and say amen
let's receive the blood of jesus christ
praise the lord hallelujah
before closing today let me remind you
my friends that we are
in the midst of raising ministry funds
for a project
that is called internet studio
refresh we're going to refresh this
studio
which is our internet studio that we use
on wednesday morning
and we're going to refresh the main
sanctuary studio the back wall area
which is the sunday morning uh internet
studio
so it's the refreshing of two internet
studios
our budget goal is twelve thousand
dollars and
anything that you would like to sow into
that would be a great blessing just
please listen to the holy spirit and
just do whatever he would
impress upon your heart to do and i'm
sure that we will reach that goal
and we will continue to present all
messages
of the great word of god in a spirit of
excellence praise the lord so thank you
for helping us on this project and until
next time
stay blessed always eat your spiritual
meal
find it and eat it all up
god bless you see you next time bye bye