If you will, turn with me in your Bibles to Jeremiah.
And today I'm going to be reading from verse 13 through verse 16.
This is one of the major prophets of the Bible.
We are in a section in which Jeremiah has an awful task.
He has to tell God's people about their sin and their false expectations.
And today is one of his tough messages to God's people.
And Jeremiah is complaining before the Lord.
Let's listen to what he says.
What I said, alas, sovereign Lord, the prophets keep telling them, you will not see the sword
or suffer famine.
Indeed, I will give you lasting peace in this place.
Then the Lord said to me, the prophets are prophesying lies in my names.
I have not seen them or appointed them or spoken to them.
They're prophesying to you false visions, divinations, idolatries, and the delusions
of their own mind.
Therefore, this is what the Lord says about the prophets who are prophesying in my name.
I did not send them, yet they are saying no sword or famine will touch this land.
Those same prophets will perish by sword and famine.
And the people, they are prophesying to will be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem
because of the famine and sword.
There will be no one to bury them, their wives, their sons, and their daughters.
I will pour out on them the calamity they deserve.
Let's now pray and ask God to bless what he has written.
Jesus, we now ask that you will help us to see what Jeremiah was not only telling the
people of God in Jerusalem, but also to us today.
May we be servants who find our peace in you.
I make this prayer in your name.
Amen.
We want peace.
Who doesn't want peace?
Harmony, agreement, accord, friendship.
One of the worst things that can ever happen to you is to work in a place in which there
is no harmony.
It can also be terrible to be in a relationship in which there is constant discord.
And it is a problem a lot of us face which upsets us.
It is only the outliers of society who like to stir things up and create constant conflict.
And what do we see in our world today but that type of conflict, whether we are talking
the war in Ukraine or Israel, the deep divide in our nation, the problems in our home, and
what often goes on inside of us because of those conflicts that we see all around us.
The cry is for peace and harmony.
And sometimes we will go to great lengths to try to secure that type of peace.
Sometimes there are good methods, but often there are bad methods of trying to get that
peace.
Before World War II began, there was a conference in Munich.
It was an attempt by the Allies to assuage Hitler from starting a war.
And what they did in that conference with leaders from Britain, France, Germany, and
Italy was to give Hitler the Sudetenland, hoping that this would satisfy him.
And one of the famous pictures in a newspaper occurred when the British Prime Minister,
Neville Chamberlain, stepped off a plane and said that we are going to have peace for
our time.
And everyone was relieved.
But within a short time, war broke out. The peace that he promised was a vapor.
It didn't last.
It didn't bring any peace at all.
And today the false prophets and priests of our own era have a way of trying to get people
to believe in peace, but it's often a peace that won't last.
In fact, it may be destructive.
And what we see here in the words that I've just read is a description of the false peace.
The promise of peace, but it will not bring everlasting peace or relief to God's people.
Let me explain to you what's going on here.
Let me give you the background of these words, Jeremiah.
The kingdom of God was supposed to represent God and his faithfulness through the laws
that he had given to his people.
They were supposed to have one God, no idols.
It was supposed to represent the relationship of a husband with their wives.
But there were many gods in Israel, not one.
They were supposed to have a just society with care for those who were orphans or widows.
The laws were supposed to be just, but they weren't.
In the week, the poor, the orphaned suffered.
They were supposed to be a kingdom where God was loved as well as the neighbors.
But it wasn't that way in Israel at all.
There was a lot of hatred.
There was bloodshed.
They had not listened to the word of God.
They had disobeyed the word of God, and that's where Jeremiah comes on to the scene.
Jeremiah tells those people, God is fed up with you.
He has been merciful to you.
He has sent you as messengers to say, turn back to the ways of God, and they have not
listened.
They don't care what God said.
They had a façade of religion.
They had a façade of biblical Judaism, but it really wasn't true.
And the false prophets came on to the scene, and they said, don't listen to Jeremiah.
Don't listen to him that the wrath of God is going to come upon you by the Babylonians
who are going to come into the city of Jerusalem, put it to the sword.
Don't listen to him that that superpower of the era with its upgraded chariots will tear
down the temple and burn Jerusalem.
Don't listen to him.
Instead, there's going to be peace.
Peace!
That's what God says.
And so we have a conflict between Jeremiah, who represents truly what God says, and the
false prophets, who say there's going to be peace.
And over and over again in the book of Jeremiah, he says these prophets are saying peace, peace.
But there is no peace.
And you can look at verse 13, where Jeremiah really complains to God and says, alas, sovereign
God, the prophets keep telling them, you will not see the sword or suffer famine.
Indeed, I will give you everlasting peace in this place.
And in verse 14 and following, you get God's reply.
There are a bunch of liars.
They're following the desires of their own hearts, not the word of God.
There will not be peace, but there will be destruction for those false prophets and even
the people who listen through them.
Now that was Israel's day.
What about our own day?
Do we often have a desire for peace, and we place our trust in institutions that do not
deliver?
Ever since the First World War, there has been an attempt to have international organizations
that will bring peace, such as the League of Nations.
Did it work?
No.
Since World War II, you have had the United Nations, because the nations of the world
did not want to see conflict.
Did it stop conflict?
In the world, did it bring everlasting peace?
No, it didn't.
And in our own country, we turn to the prophets and priests today, the diplomats, the elected
officials who are promising peace, peace, and they will always have a program, but it
doesn't bring peace.
In fact, it seems to have made things a lot worse.
And another way we try to find peace personally is we either turn to drugs or alcohol or
even to the modern psychological movement.
Now I am not against counseling.
I am not against psychology.
But I've got to tell you the truth.
Most of the research that is done in psychology can't be repeated.
In other words, it works in one place, won't necessarily work in another place.
I was listening to an Ivy League educated counselor.
And he was telling about his work in counseling at a very prominent mental hospital in Northern
Virginia.
Here's what he said.
After working there for years and using the cutting-edge techniques of counseling in psychology,
not one person changed.
Not one.
And we have people, and this is another insight he said, that we have people who are in bad
relationships.
They want unconditional love.
They want that unconditional peace.
So they'll go to their counseling group where they will seemingly get that unconditional
love and peace.
And he said, you know what the problem is?
They have changed one idol for another.
They have tried to seek it in a relationship.
Now they've tried to seek it in a group.
But it is not coming from God.
Can counseling be good?
Yes.
I'm not against counseling.
I'm not against psychology.
But just beware, it can be a false idol.
It can be an idol that brings a false sense of peace.
And how does that song go, looking for love in all the wrong places?
Sometimes we're looking for peace in all the wrong places.
What we want is not false peace, but true peace.
Matthew Henry, that Puritan commentator, put it this way, peace is such a precious jewel
that I would give anything for it, but true.
To have peace, it has to come from truth.
It has to come from peace with God.
Now one day God will bring peace to this world.
It's going to be transformed.
But it does not promise us in this age that there will ever be peace amongst nations or
even people.
In fact, Jesus says, I have not come to bring peace but a sword.
And that is often the place that we find ourselves in this conflict, conflict, conflict.
But the Bible tells us we can still have peace with God.
And what does Jesus say in John chapter 14, when he's telling his disciples he's going
to go to the cross, his face is set towards Jerusalem.
He tells them he is going to be betrayed.
And he's going to leave them.
And what does Jesus say?
Peace I leave with you.
My peace I give to you.
I do not give to you as the world gives.
How Jesus are you going to give them peace?
Because Christ went to the cross to die for our sins.
And the ultimate reason we do not have peace with God, and we often feel guilty, unloved,
is because we have never realized truly that Christ died on the cross to do away with the
enmity between God and man.
The warfare between you and God has ended.
And Jesus is the peace bearer.
Now let me tell you why this is important.
Because you're going to face experiences in your life which are going to make you feel
like you are responsible for the troubles that are brought upon you.
Whether at work or in your personal relationships.
You will be rejected.
You will suffer devastation.
You will suffer loss.
And what is the mindset of God's people at times?
It's my fault.
And we go a step further and we say, God is against me.
Why have you forsaken me?
Oh God.
And if there is an individual in the Bible where the world around them could say, you
see, this is what happens to you Christians when you start preaching the gospel.
You get martyred and it's your own fault.
And we can think of Stephen who told God's people the truth and they stoned him.
Now I wonder if in Stephen's mind or if we were in the situation, what would we think?
I shouldn't have done this.
God's mad at me.
But God wasn't mad.
And what does it say that when he was breathing his last breaths, Jesus was standing on the
right hand of God.
He was swimming Stephen into the heavenly kingdom.
He had that type of peace.
Some time ago Billy Graham had a wonderful story.
It is a beach scene and there are rocks near the beach.
I guess it was a cliff.
And inside one of those crevices by the sea was a small bird that was at peace despite
the storm.
The storm raged but the little bird was at peace.
And what Billy Graham said is that is what it's like to have the peace of God.
To know that life can be full of conflict but it doesn't mean God is against you.
That's the true peace for those who follow Him.
And the reason it is that way is because Christ took the storm.
Christ took the heat.
Christ took the punishment that you and I deserve.
And that's why we come to the Lord's table.
The peace that is true.
The peace we should prefer.
Let's pray.
Our Heavenly Father, we come before you now.
Help us to take off the blinders of this age so that we can see you, Jesus, as the offering
of peace to God.
And help us, our God, to find rest for our souls in Christ.
Help us this morning as we come to the table where peace is found.
Amen.