-Transcript-
Thank you for joining me. Good to be back here at the cafe. Welcome to KJV Cafe. My name is Pastor Clark Covington Pastor of Heartland Community about to church in Lincolnton North Carolina. And today on this KJV Cafe short episode, we are talking about Walking in Judgement, walk in judgement, or text versus a beautiful verse out of the Book of Jeremiah Jeremiah 10:23-24. “Oh, Lord. I know that the way of man is not in himself. It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps. Oh, Lord, correct me. But with judgement not in thine anger. Let’s thou bring me to nothing“. Jeremiah 10:23-24 starts with oh Lord. This that’s 23, 24 starts with oh Lord. This is Jeremiah pleading to God. Amen. Pleading to God that God. Direct us steps because he knows that the way of man, the right way for man is not in man himself. And he knows that God’s correction is good and His judgement is good, but his anger is bad, and then he’ll bring him to nothing. And I just thought it was a beautiful verse. When I read that in my Bible study time, I devotional time with the Lord. I said, oh, I gotta preach on that and sent myself a little note. Hey, it’s okay to make notes when you read the Bible. Amen. Uh and you never know what you could do with that verse. You could uh write it down, you could memorize it, you could share it with a friend, you could post a social media, you could print it up on a t-shirt, you can write it to a call on a card or you could text someone at on and on and on. But anyways, back to the verse What is Jeremiah talking about here Oh Lord, I know the way of man is not in himself. Uh, you know, a corresponding verse is Proverbs 16:9. This is a great verse as well, a man’s heart divides his way But the Lord directeth his steps. A man’s heart, deviseeth his way or devises his way, right? Your heart owes in my heart. Go to, you know, go to Italy and spend a year eating Italian food in the country and riding my bike. That’s in my heart, with the Lord directed his steps and the Lord’s like no you’re going to go to this job. You’re going to be a witness to these people. You’re going to live for me. You’re going to work and uh do what I’ve called you to do, because the end is near and I’m going to call you home and give you internal peace, internal joy in Paradise, but do what I’ve called you to do, right? A man’s heart devises his way but the Lord directeth his steps that’s Proverbs 16:9. So what we learn is that man can’t find his own way successfully. You know, we see here in Jeremiah 10:23 that Jeremiah, the prophet is, you know, it’s interesting when you read the book of Jeremiah, he speaks from the Lord like as in the Lord is speaking as Isaiah has as well. And he also speaks in his own anguish and uh lamentation and frustration, he laments and he cries and says man, I just can’t stop crying. You know, they call Jeremiah the weeping Prophet. Wish I had more tears because I’ve run out. Have you ever felt like that? Have you ever cried about anything as much that you feel like you’re going to run out of tears? That’s how Jeremiah felt about how far off God’s people had become and how God had told them the judgement and told him to preach the judgement and Jeremiah’s preaching, the Judgement, and at the same time, he’s processing it. Amen. And it’s weighing heavy on him. Oh, that burden isn’t always bad. When it lays on you, that could be God’s showing you his way. That could be God’s showing you something that you can then share with others that you can testify to what he believes, Amen. Man can’t find his own way successfully. You know, when I was called to start a church and I prayed and prayed and prayed about what messages to preach especially before we actually had a uh church building. We had a house church there for a couple months and first few messages were uh turned to God and repent from your evil ways and put those online. People didn’t love those. People left me some extra special comments on YouTube but that’s what the Lord put on my heart. And He put that burning on my heart because it is true man can’t find his own way successfully. And so, what we see in culture today is the man trying to find his own way successfully. Now, you know, that’s true in the corporate world. They’ve got, uh, a solution for everything. Heck, they’ve got an acronym for everything. You can change, you could train to be anything, you can train on processes, you can train on, uh workflows and improvements in everything supply chain and yada, yada yada. You can learn anything. You and the corporate world tells you can do anything in school. They tell you the same thing and so it’s natural. The natural sinful man’s going to come home. And say, hey, I can find my own way successfully, I don’t need God. But man, can’t find his own way successfully, and that is how man has gotten a far off from God. And that started. When did that start? That started in the Garden of Eden. Did it? Not Adam and Eve? Yes! Evaded, the forbidden fruit first, but Adam was to blame. He’s the head of the house. He’s the man, he ended up eating it as well and that from that moment on sin entered a picture, and man couldn’t find their own way. Amen. They couldn’t find their own way. Imagine Adam and Eve trying to find their own way back to the Garden of Eden. It couldn’t happen. They were expelled, they were kicked out. Amen. And we are trying to find our own way today through Pagan practices. Like meditation, and all kinds of our wickedness out there in the world. New age thinking relativism individualism every ISM under the sun. Hey, everyone’s saying look, I’ve got a God and that God’s called money and money is going to solve my problems. And money is going to make me look respectful and money is who I’m going to serve, and the Bible tells us, we can’t serve God and Money. Amen. So, man, they can’t find their own way successfully though. They try. And that’s why Jeremiah here is asking God, it’s really interesting. Jeremiah is prophesying on behalf of God and intellectually. He’s kind of chewing on the cut. He’s thinking of these things and he’s saying wait a minute. God I know the way of man is not in himself and it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps. Oh Lord, correct me. Jeremiah saying correct me you got famous verse. We always hear if my people, which are called by my name. I’ll shall turn from their wicked ways, you know, I will then you, you know, repent, I will then heal their land. Isn’t it interesting? It says that verse says, if my people, if my people, if the church, if the saved, if those, that are that are Christian, if they will turn from their wicked ways. Jeremiah the prophet, the great prophet the weeping Prophet the one that’s such a beautiful chapter in the Bible. The one that’s that, God has chosen to to prophesy on his behalf is saying. Oh Lord, correct me. So God’s. Holy correction is a matter of life and death. We need it. Amen! We need God’s, correction and judgement in our life. We need to walk in judgement and that starts with walking to the cross understanding that Jesus Christ, died for our sins and by that blood atonement only by the blood of Jesus. Amen. Are we saved? It’s not of our good works. It’s not of anything that we have done. God says, to us through His word very clearly. I want you to glory in nothing but the cross. You have nothing to glory about. You have no good thing you can do without me it goes on no good tree and bear bad fruit. No bad tree, can bear good fruit. The Bible goes on and on about how these two things are incompatible and that man needs that holy correction, it’s a matter of life and death and Jeremiah understands that and is pleading with God, saying with judgement, please help me and we need to go to God with that. Repentant humble heart. Amen. You know, pride is what gets in the way of a lot of repentance. Is it not? I really don’t want to admit this. I don’t want to ask. So and so to pray for me, I don’t want anyone to know that there’s this problem. But God knows, you know, he knows how many hairs are on your head. He knows every thought in your mind. He knows the desires of your heart. Amen, He knows all things and He will correct us. He will correct us. He will help us. If we choose if we choose that operative, word is choose if we choose to turn to Him. Do we turn to him, or are we just going to continue down a path that leads to destruction? Amen. Jesus many times. The New Testament tells people. You know, He is the Living Water. If you drink from Him, He will never allow you to thirst again. You will never thirst again, you know, spiritually, we will never be thirsty. Again, when we have Jesus Christ in our life. You know, when we turn to God and this is a daily thing daily taking up our cross daily dying to self, daily turning to God and saying, I can’t do it on my own please. Correct me in your judgement. I need you to direct my steps. I need you to help me. I know I need you to show me your way. If we do that every day, then we really can live life. We really can be sure that we are in God’s will because we are submitting to God, and we’re giving God the sovereignty that He desires in our life. We are saying God, we can’t do it. We can’t uh, predict what you want us to do, your ways are so much higher than our ways. So, we’re going to hand over the keys to our car. We’re going to hand over the keys to our heart. We’re going to hand over the keys to every little hidden chamber there in us. We’re gonna, we’re gonna go ahead and get all those Idols out and smash them up and burn them. And we’re going to give it all to you, and we’re going to serve you, and we’re going to bring everything before you. We’re going to go ahead and pray without ceasing because we believe the Bible is the instructions that we have for life. We’re going to do these things and we’re going to receive God’s holy correction which we all need. There is man. I met in church one time that said um Well his his relative told me. I said, how come this man? Won’t go down to altar and they said, well, he don’t think he’s ever done anything wrong. I said, well, yeah, and I can relate to that as a younger man, I always would be sitting in the, in the back view there. And saying, well, the preacher’s preaching, a lot of other people about their sins. Ooh, it’s supposed to be a bad group and then many years later, it was the Lord had a convicted me to call me to preach and I surrendered to preach. Then I realized, no, that preacher is square up preaching at me. Amen. And I needed that. But, uh, we need God’s, holy correction and we can’t let pride get in the way and we can’t get to let the matters of life. Get in the way of a matter that is life or death. Finally here God’s Wrath is something we never want to see. Jeremiah 10:24. Oh Lord. Correct me. But with judgement not in nine. Anger lest thou bring me to nothing. What does it mean for God to bring you to nothing? Well, there’s a lot of layers to that number one. He literally could just eliminate you, God can do that in a heartbeat. Do you understand that you are one heartbeat away from dying as brother? Adrian Rogers used to say, hey, we can die immediate God could take the breath from us because He’s providing it to us. Does that make sense? People will say, oh, you know, Thank God for another year. Thank God for another year. Thank God for another breath for another heartbeat. He’s given it. So, He could take it. But this also this verse also could be Uh dealing with bring me to nothing is and how God will bring the sinner low to show them their need for his salvation and his sanctification. How can a sinner know that there a need? If they don’t have any needs this conversely could be. Why many are given over to reprobate mind after they’ve can just resisted, resisted and rebelled and rebelled and God says fine you want it you can have it. I’ll see at the judgement right, but many still got us dealing with and convicting him. You know, the Bible says that God does not want any to perish. Go to hell. He desires all to come to repentance all to come to Him. But some are hard-headed, some are prideful. Some are stiff next some are like the sheep, it’s just gone astray here, and God’s got to bring him low and Jeremiah recognizes God. By the way, Jeremiah fears God, that’s another very important point and he says, not in thine anger. He wants correction but not in God’s. Anger lest thou, bring me to nothing. Jeremiah. Just want to be brought to nothing. I bet you don’t want to be brought to nothing. I had a preacher that would always say once, um, over the years, never pray for humility, because you don’t want God to humble, you, you know, and what he was trying to say is, woo, God is a way of chastening those that He loves, you know, at some preachers will say, like me. God must really love me because that he doesn’t spare the rod. Amen, and we love the Lord here today. I’m thankful for chasing, I’m one that’s hard-headed. I’m one. That can be stiff-necked and I needed that and I still need it. And I understand that. And we have to understand that that God is very serious in this matter. And sin is a absolute, uh, awful thing to Him. It’s absolutely disgusting. It’s repulsive. So, we need to turn to God, holy and completely and, and humbly so that we get correct mint with judgement and not through His anger and as we get correct in through corrections, through that judgement of God, we will become more like Christ and that is the goal of our Earthly journey here. Our sojourn is to glorify God to share the good news with others and to furnish ourselves more like Christ, they in and day out until we are ready to go. Home to be with him in heaven. Amen. Let’s see. Imagine Christ. He’s with you through the work of the Holy Spirit. If you’ve been saved, He’s all around. He’s omnipresent. Amen. And at the same time, we need to get closer to Him in our personality, in our ways, in our life and we can’t do it on our own. We need Jesus such a simple message here today, but so powerful, please continue to pray. If you haven’t been praying, then start praying for the Lord to correct you. Let the Lord know that, you know, you can’t do it on your own, give it to God and seek His face, turn to Him. Humble yourself, get in that prayer, closet. Get into that King James Bible. Dig deep and just turn everything over to Him and watch as The Potter molds that clay into something. You never could have done on your own into the person. He wants you to be that is more like Christ than you were the day before. Thank you so much for listening.