NORTHSHORE CHURCH OF CHRIST

About 600 years before Christ was born, while Jehoiakim was king of Judah, Jeremiah dictated words from God to Baruch the scribe, who wrote them on a scroll.

“I am banned from going to the house of YHWH,” Jeremiah told Baruch, “so you are to go, and on a day of fasting in the hearing of all the people in YHWH’s house you shall read the words of YHWH from the scroll that you have written at my dictation. You shall read them also in the hearing of all the men of Judah who come out of their cities. It may be that their plea for mercy will come before YHWH, and that every one will turn from his evil way, for great is the anger and wrath that YHWH has pronounced against this people.”

Baruch followed Jeremiah’s instructions. All the people of Judah proclaimed a fast and came to Jerusalem, and Baruch read Jeremiah’s words from the scroll in the house of YHWH.

A fellow named Micaiah heard Baruch’s reading and slipped away to tell the officials in the king’s house that someone was in the temple reading words against the people of Judah. The officials sent for Baruch to bring his scroll so he could read it to them.

They told Baruch, “Sit down and read it.”

After he finished, the officials looked around at each other with fear in their eyes. “We must report these words to the king,” they decided. Turning to Baruch, they said, “How did you write all these words? Was it at Jeremiah’s dictation?”

Baruch answered, “He dictated all these words to me, while I wrote them with ink on the scroll.”

The officials then said, “Go and hide, you and Jeremiah, and let no one know where you are.” They knew there could be serious blowback from the king because the words were harsh towards his kingdom.

They brought the scroll to Jehoiakim, and the king had his man Jehudi read it to him in the presence of all the officials. In the fire pot before them, they had a hot fire going because it was winter, and Jehoiakim began taking the parts of the scroll that Jehudi had finished reading, cutting them off, and throwing them into the fire. Three of his men—Elnathan, Delaiah, and Gemariah—urged the king not to burn the words, but he wouldn’t listen to them. Jehudi finally finished reading, and the king threw the last scrap of paper into the fire.

There was no fear in the king or any of his servants who had just heard the words. They had just burned the word of YHWH—it was gone. They didn’t believe it would come to pass.

The king ordered that Baruch and Jeremiah be seized, but YHWH made sure they were hidden from the king’s designs.

Do you think that was the end of the story? Can men just burn and ban the word of God and remove His hand from upon them? Can we simply set God’s word aside with no consequence? Does burning the Bible make God vanish away?

The word of YHWH came to Jeremiah again: “Take another scroll and write on it all the former words that were in the first scroll, which Jehoiakim the king of Judah has burned. And concerning Jehoiakim you shall say, ‘Thus says YHWH, you have burned this scroll, saying “Why have you written in it that the king of Babylon will certainly come and destroy this land, and will cut off from it man and beast?” Therefore thus says YHWH concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah: He shall have none to sit on the throne of David, and his dead body shall be cast out to the heat by day and the frost by night. And I will punish him and his offspring and his servants for their iniquity. I will bring upon them and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem and upon the people of Judah all the disaster that I have pronounced against them, but they would not hear.’”

The first word was a warning; the second word was a promise of judgment. The first word was a hand of mercy extended and an opportunity for repentance; the second word was a firm expectation of God’s wrath.

You can attempt to ban God’s word. You can try to cast off His restraints. You can plan your own life and do it all your way. But God’s word will come upon you in the end. He will do what He intends.

We must not ban God’s word personally. He is my God and your God, and we are subject to His direction in every aspect of life. He formed me in my mother’s womb.

We must not ban God’s word as a family. He is our God. He formed and designed the family and set a purpose for father, mother, and children.

We must not ban God’s word in the marketplace. He demands honest scales.

We must not ban God’s word in the town square. He demands justice and will punish those who accept bribes and who judge with partiality.

We must not ban God’s word in the country’s capitol. The kings of the earth are subject to YHWH. God gives kings a mandate to punish wrongdoers and protect the innocent.

Burning the word of the Lord today is just as bad as it was for Jehoiakim, and those who do rightly fall under the judgment of God almighty. Help us, Lord, to bow our knee to King Jesus, love His word, and do it all the days of our lives.

(See Jeremiah 36 for the events recounted above.)

Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that
you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do,
in the futility of their minds.
They are darkened in their understanding,
alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them,
due to their hardness of heart.
They have become callous
and have given themselves up to sensuality,
greedy to practice every kind of impurity.

When Paul says Christians should “no longer walk as the Gentiles do,” he reveals a couple of truths. First, we who name the name of Christ used to walk as the Gentiles. We were among the nations of the earth, “following the course of this world” and “carrying out the desires of the body and the mind” (Eph. 2.1–3). Second, the Gentiles continue to walk this way. We are surrounded by men and women who have veils over their hearts, who do not understand spiritual things, who are ignorant of things concerning life, and who have wholeheartedly enslaved themselves to their own senses and pleasures.

We should never wish ourselves back in that situation with the world, and we should pity those trapped by their own passions and lusts. They are bound in absolute slavery. A slave to an earthly master can be free with regard to the Lord—he may own nothing of physical value but own everything in Christ. Likewise, one who has never been a slave to another man may be in a locked box constructed of his fleshly desires, impure thoughts, and sensual passions—he may be the richest man in town yet in abject spiritual poverty.

Notice the state of their minds. Futility. Darkness. Ignorance. Their minds are locked in this futility because their hearts are hard toward the Lord and towards his righteousness.

Notice their way of living. They are callous, having built up hard skin to shield themselves from the pain of guilt and the warning of shame when they break God’s holy law. They give themselves up to whatever makes them feel good at the time and then block out the nagging conscience trying to break through in the background of their minds. They lie to themselves. “She eats and wipes her mouth and says, ‘I have done no wrong’” (Prov. 30.20).

But that is not the way you learned Christ!—
assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him,
as the truth is in Jesus,
to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life
and is corrupt through deceitful desires,
and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,
and to put on the new self,
created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Notice how we have escaped that life of slavery to sin—we learned Christ, we heard about him, and we were taught in him. The truth is in Jesus! Our minds had to change from being focused on pleasing ourselves to being focused on pleasing our Lord. We learned true freedom this way.

We learned to take off that old man, to stop walking in our old ways. We repented of our sins and our old manner of walking.

But simply taking off the old jacket will not suffice—we still get cold. Therefore, we must put on a new self. The old way of walking must be replaced by a new way. It starts with a renewal of our minds in Christ, and then we can put on the new self which is created in the likeness of God himself! We learn what true righteousness and holiness are because the truth is in Jesus.

If the new self is “created after the likeness of God,” is this something we do unilaterally (by ourselves)? We do not create—God reserves that power for himself—so this creation is something God does in us. But we do take off the old self and put on the new, do we not? Yes! This walk with God is something we do together with him. Once God has shone his light of grace into our hearts (2 Cor. 4.3–6) and woken us up from our spiritual stupor, then we joyfully walk beside him in repentance, even as he continues to work on us, creating a new heart and a new mind—renewing us in Christ Jesus.

It happens as we learn, as we hear, as we are taught in Christ.

In the next installment, I plan to consider specific activities we should take off and what we should put on to replace them, as we finish Ephesians 4.

I have done it and didn’t even realize what was happening. I would speak out against some sin, and someone would push back: “You’re a Christian; you have to be tolerant,” or “You’re a Christian; you have show love,” or “You’re a Christian; you have to turn the other cheek while I smack you on the other side.” Shamefaced, I would shut my mouth and wonder at how quickly I had violated my own standards. Had I offended someone? Jesus would never do that.

Wait.

To the contrary, Jesus often offended His enemies. He made His own disciples uncomfortable at times…many times (see John 6 for a good example).

Why do we Christians so often fall victim to worldly people telling us when we ought to speak and when to shut up? Why are we so sensitive to the feelings of everyone around us?

Western society has pounded this into our heads: it’s good to tolerate everything. We Christians always want to be on the side of good, so when we don’t tolerate something, it hurts us to know that others think we are bad. The world has made us feel like sinners for speaking out against sin.

What a load of garbage we have bought! We have lost the vision of the early church, who, even in the face of heavy persecution, were accused of turning the world upside down (Acts 17.6). They didn’t coddle their listeners, nor did they snip off the less digestible bits from the gospel so it would go down smoother. No, they straight up told people they were sinners in need of repentance, lost in need of a Savior, blind in need of supernatural healing.

Do we avoid hot-button issues like sexual promiscuity, homosexuality, infant murder in the womb, drunkenness, spousal abuse, child abuse, male and female roles, disciplining our children, wives submitting to husbands, husbands loving their wives, the proper use of the tongue, etc.?

I used to think we should “just preach the gospel” (by which I meant to just tell people they needed Jesus, I suppose). After all, people are not going to hell because they are homosexual; they are going to hell because they have not bowed the knee to Christ. Yes. However, they must understand the sin in their homosexuality. Their Creator roundly condemns their lifestyle, and they are guilty of rebellion against the one true and living God. They must understand and confess their depravity before they can come to the cross.

John the Baptizer preached repentance to the people and gave the people practical advice on what they needed to quit and what they needed to start (Luke 3).

When someone from the world tells us we should quit preaching Jesus because we are offending them, we should push back on their “should.”

We could say: “Do you understand you are using the language of morality when you say I should not offend you? You are saying I am wrong. Where are you getting your standard of morality, pray tell? I have a mandate from God on high to preach and teach the truth. Where is your authority?” Isn’t that what Jesus did after He overturned the tables in the temple and the chief priests and elders challenged Him (Matt. 21.12-17, 23-27)? There are only two authorities: from heaven or from men.

We should not let the world tell us what is right and wrong, and when we stop preaching the truth because they demand we not offend them, we do exactly that.

Of course, we may be guilty of a wrong heart while we preach against sin. Our brothers and sisters in Christ can help give us moral direction, but the world is not qualified to spiritually guide us.

So let us speak and write boldly, with moral clarity, and with the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ. The world does not dictate our standard—Jesus does!