Take refuge in the Lord who comes for you.

 

Sermon for Trinity 5, July 17, 2022

Grace and peace be multiplied to you from the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in abundant mercy has given us a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Jeremiah 16:14-21  ¹⁴Nevertheless, listen to this.  The days are coming, declares the Lord, when people will no longer say, “As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the children of Israel out from the land of Egypt.”  ¹⁵But they will say, “As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the children of Israel out from the land in the north and from all the lands to which he exiled them.”  For I will restore them to the homeland I gave to their fathers.  ¹⁶Look, I am sending for many fishermen, declares the Lord, and they will catch them.  After that I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt for them on every mountain, on every high hill, and in the crevices of the rocks.  ¹⁷My eyes are watching everything they do.  It is not hidden from me, nor is their guilt hidden from my eyes.  ¹⁸But first I will pay them double for their guilt and their sin, because they defiled my land with the carcasses of their disgusting idols, and they have filled my inheritance with their abominations.  ¹⁹The Lord is my strength and my fortress, my refuge in times of trouble.  Nations will come to you from the ends of the earth and say, “Our forefathers possessed only false gods, worthless idols, and there was nothing good in them.  ²⁰Can a man make gods for himself?  Yes, but they are not gods!”  ²¹Therefore I will certainly teach them.  This time I will teach them my power and my strength, and then they will know that my name is the Lord. (EHV)

Take refuge in the Lord who comes for you.

Dear fellow redeemed,

            In the days before Noah, the world became so wicked and so godless that God determined to destroy everything.  Only God’s faithfulness to His promise of a Savior caused the Lord to spare Noah and his family, as well as the other living things needed to repopulate the earth.  By the time Jeremiah lived, God’s people had likewise fully abandoned the God of their patriarchs.  Instead, the people were enticed by the idolatry of surrounding peoples, and refusing to heed God’s warnings, they listened instead to false prophets who contradicted what God had clearly spoken, hoping that the peace and prosperity the lying liars were proclaiming would somehow overcome God’s warning.

Hundreds of years later, St. Paul wrote to the Galatian congregation, “Do not be deceived.  God is not mocked.  To be sure, whatever a man sows, he will also reap.” (Galatians 6:7)  In our day, too, it has become more and more common for the average person to ignore what God has clearly spoken.  St. Paul forewarned about times such as this when he wrote, “There will come a time when people will not put up with sound doctrine.  Instead, because they have itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in line with their own desires.  They will also turn their ears away from the truth and will turn aside to myths.” (2 Timothy 4:3-4)  Lest we also suffer judgment and eternal condemnation for following Satan’s lies, Take refuge in the Lord who comes for you.

Whether we speak about Israel, or any other people on earth, God’s Word is always relevant, and always applies.  No one can be saved without trust in God’s unchanging message, for by His Word the Lord produces saving faith in people who could never earn or deserve it.  Furthermore, as we study God’s word, we soon become aware that what is so comforting to those of us who believe can actually be terribly frightening to those who follow other gods.  This explains why faithful Christians are often unwelcome in today’s public sphere.  It is just as Jesus warned, “Whoever listens to you listens to me.  Whoever rejects you rejects me.  And whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.” (Luke 10:16)

In our sermon text, God promises sure rescue for a remnant of those people He had sentenced to exile for their rebelliousness.  God would return them to the promised land He had given to their forefathers.  Then, finally recognizing God’s grace, the deliverance of their forefathers from slavery in Egypt would fade from their consciousness as they rejoiced for their own rescue instead.

There is much for us to see in this text: we see that God neglects nothing but He sees and knows everything; we learn that judgment and punishment are certain for those who refuse to honor Him.  Most important, we see God’s mercy applied to sinners who don’t deserve it, and we see His determination to save those He calls to faith.

The Lord assured Jeremiah, “My eyes are watching everything they do.  It is not hidden from me, nor is their guilt hidden from my eyes.”  Jeremiah had the unenviable task of preaching God’s Word to a nation of people that wanted nothing to do with it.  They rejected and abused Jeremiah just as they had rejected and abused God’s love.  The multitudes before the flood lived in open rebellion against the Creator of all things, and for their wickedness, judgment fell upon the whole world.  Many times throughout their history, Jacob’s descendants lived in wickedness so extreme that the book of judges ends with the troubling thought, “In those days there was no king in Israel, and every man did whatever was right in his own eyes.” (Judges 21:25) 

Today, we too live in times in which vast swaths of society want nothing to do with God’s Word.  Everyone seems to be guided by personal feelings and selfish desires, many claiming wickedness is good and good is evil.  How much is this cesspool world also permeating our thoughts and actions?  How often do we assume that what worldly people do is also good for us?  Have we become so accustomed to evil that we barely notice it in our own hearts?  I pray that we never sink into this mire.  

Even though the modern world rejects the idea of a just and righteous God, we know that Judgment Day is coming.  Jesus said, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.  Rather, fear the one who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew 10:28)

Remember, however, that while the application of God’s Word brings terror to the unbeliever, it even more so gives comfort to believers.  For Jeremiah and other faithful ones, God’s all-seeing, all-knowing presence comforts us with the sure confidence that He is always taking care of us and always knows and provides exactly what we need for each moment in time.  We have every confidence of enjoying eternal peace with God because Jesus promises, “The one who believes in the Son has eternal life, but the one who rejects the Son will not see life; instead, God’s wrath remains on him.” (John 3:36) 

The Lord of heaven and earth declared, “I will restore them to the homeland I gave to their fathers.”  Just as the Lord restored the fortunes of a remnant of the Israelites after their exile, so God will bring those who believe in His Son into the paradise of heaven.  Like those restored after decades of exile, none of us deserve God’s mercy.  Yet, God is ever merciful and after His law has done its work of bringing us to repentance, the Good News of His love for us in Jesus brings us the faith in Jesus that justifies us and prepares us to enter God’s high heaven.

At the same time, we are assured that those who abuse us will get their just reward.  As the writer to the Hebrews says, “For we know the one who said: ‘Vengeance is mine.  I will repay.’  And again: The Lord will judge his people.  It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” (Hebrews 10:30-31) 

God certainly will not be stopped in carrying out His plans.  For the unbeliever, that brings terror and there will be no place to hide.  The Lord spoke to Jeremiah, “Look, I am sending for many fishermen, declares the Lord, and they will catch them.  After that I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt for them on every mountain, on every high hill, and in the crevices of the rocks.”  While many in Israel may have assumed they could escape God’s wrath through earthly alliances, simple cunning, or armed might, God would root out every person He intended to send into exile.  There would be no escape.

Likewise, in our times, many assume that God is a mythic idea of our ancient, uneducated past, but there is nothing in heaven or on earth further from the truth.  Those who are now so defiant will, at the moment of Jesus’ return in glorious judgment, fulfill God’s prophecy: “Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us!’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’” (Luke 23:30)  But instead of escaping God’s wrath, they will hear Jesus’ righteous declaration, “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire, which is prepared for the Devil and his angels.” (Matthew 25:41)

Now, there are many sects that want to use God’s Word to terrify and control people.  Yet, the purpose of the Word is to bring us together with God in peace and harmony.  Jesus said, “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:17)  Therefore, the same words, which terrify those who would hide from God, give us comfort and hope.  When Jesus called His disciples and sent them out on their mission of rescue, He said to them, “Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” (Mark 1:17)  In God’s rescue mission throughout the last two thousand years, He has been sending out fishermen casting the net of His Gospel, and no matter the storms of life, the Gospel continues to gather people like you and me who once were lost but have now been found by the grace of our God.

Take refuge in the Lord who comes for you.  God’s Son, Jesus, came into this world to reconcile you with His Father in heaven.  In that long ago day on a hill outside of Jerusalem, where Jesus’ enemies conspired to do away with their rival, “God made him, who did not know sin, to become sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)  By His holy life, Jesus provided the righteousness you need to stand before the Creator in peace and joy.  Christ’s righteousness was put on you in the waters of Baptism by which your sins were washed away and you were cleansed completely. 

Dear friends, all around the world, today, we again see mockers and liars who refuse to believe in the one true God.  The circumstance of God’s people in the world is not so much different than it has ever been.  The devil has always been on the prowl looking for souls to steal.  His followers do his dirty work with their lies and manipulations, whether they realize it or not. 

However, Jesus remains our sure and certain hope.  Peter once answered Jesus, “‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’  Jesus replied, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.  And I tell you that…on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not overpower it.’” (Matthew 16:16-18) 

Jesus gave His life on a cross to reconcile us with God, and after three days in the tomb, He rose to live forever as a sure sign that Jesus is the Christ, and we too will be raised to live in glory with Him.  Cling to Jesus with the same confidence of His servant Jeremiah who could boldly say, “The Lord is my strength and my fortress, my refuge in times of trouble.”  The Savior who rescued you from darkness and death is coming again in glory to judge both the living and the dead.  He is coming to take you home to heaven as reconciled, forgiven children of the Living God.  Keep looking up in confident hope for Jesus’ return.  Take refuge in the Lord who comes for you.  Amen.

The peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting.  Amen.