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Well, good morning and almost afternoon, everybody. Look at all of those cookies that have been brought over in those back tables. Oh my gosh. I knew that we would get a good response on the cookie collection. Thank you all so much. In case you weren't able to bring your cookies to the lunch, we will still be receiving the cookies until 5 o'clock here at the office. All of those cookies are going not to the staff in the back as much as we might want to take them. Those cookies are going to be going to UAFS for their incoming freshman orientation. And that's a partnership that we have with the BCM over at UAFS. There are a few that will make their way into the office or call in control assistance. You see, that's why he's the pastor. That's a great call. I like that. The rest of them will go to UAFS. Now, I I will say that, you know, with all those cookies coming in, only one of you said, Pastor Dave, would you like a cookie? And offered one to me. The rest of you are so focused on ministering to the students at UAFS that you didn't even think about that. Pastor Greg, it would be nice if the chocolate chip was mixed in with that quality control that's happening a little later. I think there are scripture verses in Proverbs about the wisdom of chocolate chip. That translation has not made it my way yet. Make sure you get a copy of the channel. Thank you very much. Okay. And so without going any further, yes, we are collecting cookies, and it's been a great collection. Thank you all for being faithful in reaching out to college students who many of them are away from home, many of them, it's a time of great stress and transition. Nothing makes a person feel more at home and more calm than some fresh-baked homemade cookies. So again, five o'clock is the deadline to bring those by our office today if you weren't able to bring them earlier. But thank you all for being there and helping us out. Now, speaking of people starting new things like these freshmen at UAFS, this coming Sunday is Promotion Sunday. And as you walked in the building and as you walk around the halls, you see all the decorations that Pastor Eli and his team have put together. It's all around racing. We are racing into a new year with Promotion Sunday. When you come here this coming Sunday, you might see some more decoration inside and outside of the building. I think we've uh got some people bringing some special things to look at. Preschool is birth through kindergarten, and the ones who are finishing that and going into first grade, they're moving into our children's department. In our children's department, the ones who have finished sixth grade and are going into seventh grade, they're promoting up to our students' department. So lots of people going in lots of different directions, lots of kids who don't necessarily want to move out of their classes, moving into new classes, especially in the preschool and kids department. If you are a volunteer working with our preschool or our children, we prayed for you last night during prayer night because we know that Promotion Sunday creates a lot of smiles, but it also creates a lot of tears. So that's kind of the way that goes. But be in prayer for all of our kids doing Promotion Sunday this week. Next Wednesday, we start quite a few new activities here at the church and the restart of other activities. One of the ones that's getting a lot of conversation. We have a new Bible study in the book of Revelation that's going to start next week. That's led by David Burton and Ian Bullock, two of our Sunday school teachers here at the church. That's going to be a multi-week class. That class has with it the ability to get things sent to you, lesson plans and things like that, via email. So if you're involved in this, make sure that you give them your email address. We've got some people who might not be able to attend this because they're working in other ministries of the church, but if you would like to get those messages emailed to you, we can get your email address and do that as well. This is sort of a new approach to teaching a Wednesday night Bible study. Some experimental stuff is going on there. Should be really, really strong. That's next Wednesday at 6 o'clock, and it'll be in room 201. It's one of the largest Sunday school classes on the second floor. This week is back to school week for a lot of our Fort Smith students. Last week was back to school week for some of our Oklahoma students. Next week is back to school week for a lot of our homeschooling students. It's a lot of folks going back to school. And a lot of students and a lot of teachers and a lot of employees at schools around the area needing prayers. We have prayer cards in the hallway right behind me here. You can get a card for a school in our area. That card is nothing more than a reminder that you can put on your fridge, on your car dash, wherever you wherever you might see it most. It reminds you to pray for that school and the things that are going on there. Now, next Wednesday is also the restart of our preschool Anawana programs. And that means water slides and all the all the get wet fun that they have out there. And boy, with this heat, uh it's good that if we're gonna be outside, we're gonna have some water games and stuff. I heard that it's gonna reach 230 degrees later today. Well, maybe not that hot, maybe 229. I don't know. But it's dangerously hot out there, and as we pray and throughout the week, let's remember to pray for anyone who has a job that involves working outside. It's very dangerous. If you have friends in our 60 plus group that are either here or maybe they're not part of our church, they're part of another group, but they are in the 60 plus area, and you know that it doesn't matter how hot it is, they're gonna be out working in their garden or something like that. Making a phone call or sending a text, checking in on each other when the weather is like this, always a good idea. Let's look out for each other when the weather is as dangerously hot as it is right now. Also, next week we are restarting our disciple groups. We have a men's discipleship group and a women's discipleship group. They both meet on the third floor. That'll be restarting next week at 6 o'clock. As I mentioned last week, a lot of the work that happens in these discipleship groups, it happens with the uh, I guess we would say the age group that's right under our group, and some of our group mixed into that. But people's lives, friendships get made, people's lives go in a better direction. When there's accountability to one another, you know you're gonna see that guy or that lady in the discipleship group the next week, and you know you're gonna be challenged. Have you been reading your Bible? Have you been doing the things that you need to be doing? Have you been avoiding the things that you need to be avoiding? So great that we're starting these back up again. Uh we are also very happy as a church that we're going to be hosting a marriage seminar that's being put on by the Great Commission Baptist Association for the whole region here. That's going to be at our Chaffee campus. It's a two-day marriage seminar in late September. This is one of those things you might have, uh might be you, might be your kids, might be your grandkids that are married, and their marriage is just a little bit on the rocks. And maybe it's a case of the reason it's on the rocks is because it's anchored in the wrong places in terms of how to define what's good and what's not good. This weekend marriage seminar is September 25th and 26th. People can register for it online. It's going to take place at our Chaffee campus at the Festivity Building. Um, and so we're glad to be able to use that building for things more than just the Sunday morning service out there. That'll be coming up pretty soon. And then on October the 4th, we are having Picnic and Prayer on the Property. Had to make it alliterative because we're a Baptist church. I wanted it to be picnic and praise and prayer on the property. Get another P in there if we could. So what's happening with this? Well, years and years ago, many of you were here when the church purchased property in the tra in the Chaffee Crossing area. Where we currently have our Chaffee campus is not on the property that we bought. Rather, it's a we have a lease arrangement with the festivity building out there because we can't have service out there because right now there's nothing but trees and owls and ticks and stuff like that. All right. So we are spraying the property very heavily to get rid of all the insects. We are trimming the grass down really, really low. We're doing everything that we can possibly do so that on Sunday, October the 4th, we are going to have both of our congregations come together for an outside worship service and picnic on the church property. The church property is located at 9701 Mazard. Don't bother to drive out there looking for the address. There isn't a mailbox with the address on it for you to see. However, we will make sure that everybody has maps printed and the ability to get them on your phone to get to the property on October the 4th. More details are going to be coming up about this. This is going to be a great day. We are going to bring out some electronic equipment out there. We're going to have the grounds ready for a day of celebration, and we're going to be praying about what God would have us do on that property as a church in the years to come. All right. One last thing I want to bring to your attention. We do have a mission trip to England that's happening in early November. And you may say, well, Pastor Dave, November's a long, long time from now. And I would say, not in this group. In this group, we know how fast time can fly, right? We know. We know that November is just a case of, you know, you cough twice and suddenly it's November. You know, we've got six to ten people are needed for this trip. If the Lord is moving you to help out with the mission in England, please contact the church office. We will get you connected with the people that you need to talk to. Ah, take a breath now. All right. Hey, someone's got a birthday today. Someone's got a birthday today. It's Linda Wetzel's birthday. Linda, we're not going to sing happy birthday to you, but we are going to applaud. Linda, I promise you, I'm not going to single you out and embarrass you on your birthday today, okay? All right. One last thing. Uh the new edition of Mature Living magazine is out. Now, I was joking a few weeks ago that every edition of Mature Living has a picture of somebody looking off into the distance, right? So here's the June edition, and we got a guy looking off into the distance. Here's the July edition, and we've got a lady looking off into the distance. Somebody must have called the Mature Living magazine because this time he's looking right at us. Okay. Got his pickleball racket going and all that. Okay. Why do I point this stuff out? Well, if it amuses me, I think there's a small chance it might amuse you as well. Okay. So right now we're going to go ahead and transition into our time of Bible study. Before we do that, however, we will open with prayer. Where's Ryan? Where's Ryan? Okay, Ryan, stand up for me if you would. All right, everybody, look at that young man. That is Ryan Mueller. Ryan is not 60 plus. Ryan is uh 19 years old. And Ryan is one of several young people who are now working with us as interns here at the church. And Ryan drew the short straw. He's working with me. So the thing I do the biggest. Okay. So we that's very good, Ryan. We'll make sure that you get a cookie later. The uh Ryan is working with me in the in the in the different things that I do with 60 Plus. He's also going to be helping us with some data that we need to get updated into our computers. I showed Ryan the the need for data updating. I pulled up his profile in our computer, and the picture that we had of him was when he was nine years old. So we we have some updating to do. What we're going to try to do, ladies and gentlemen, is if we are calling you to update your information, we're going to call you in advance and let you know that the call is coming to update your information because I personally want to do everything I can to make sure that you don't go, don't fall victim for some scammer out there. Okay. And speaking of which, I have already got calls in to the Attorney General's office, the police department, the communication, the community relations department. I'm arranging for an expert in scams against senior citizens to come and be one of our guest speakers here at the 60 plus lunch at some time in the near future. All right. So when that happens, we will open the lunch up to anyone who wants to come to learn more about how to avoid being scammed. In this age of artificial intelligence, it is easier for the con artist to be more convincing than ever. And so we will have a time where we bring everybody up to speed with the best practices of how to handle that nonsense, all right? Okay, let's get out of talking about con artists. Let's get into something good. Let's go to the Lord in prayer and then we'll begin our time of study in God's Word. Bow with me, please. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day. Thank you for this time of fellowship that we've enjoyed with each other. Thank you for the friendships that exist in this room, some that go back many, many years. Thank you for new friendships that are made almost every time we come together. Lord, we pray a prayer of thanksgiving for the meal that we've enjoyed. We pray that you would bless those who worked hard to prepare it and serve it. Lord, we pray that you would bless those who give to this church faithfully so that we have the provision to buy the different ingredients. But ultimately, Lord, we give you thanks because we know that all good things come from you. Thank you, Lord, for salvation in Jesus Christ, up and above everything else. And we thank you, Lord, for this opportunity to go into your word, to delve into its riches, to see how we can apply those things to our lives. But ultimately, Lord, we do this because we know that it pleases you for us to be involved with your Holy Spirit-inspired word. We pray all of this in the mighty name of our mighty Savior, Jesus Christ the Lord. And God's people said, Amen. All right. So, chronological Bible study people, if you've been keeping up with it for the past week or so, let me see a hand in the air. Wow, look at that. That is fantastic. If you had told me back in January when we started this, that we would have so many people still chugging along in our chronological Bible study, I would have said, well, that's wishful thinking. We'll see how it goes. Pastor Greg's mentioned it. I continue to mention it. We are so thrilled that people have stayed with it. Some people have dropped away and then they've jumped back into it. That's fine. That's fine. If you're out of it right now, jump back into it with us. You can pick up anytime you want to. You know that we're in those difficult chapters of the book of Jeremiah. Right? Jeremiah. Jeremiah is one of the most challenging sections of Scripture to read because you can sum up the prophet Jeremiah with gloom, despair, and agony on thee. It is, there is a lot of uh Jeremiah was told when he began working as a prophet, the Lord told him, You are going to bring my word to the people, and they are not going to listen to you. How many people are signing up for that type of job? Right? Jeremiah is known, of course, for the book of the prophet Jeremiah, but he's also known for the book of Lamentations. You get the impression that if you were throwing a party and you were coming up with your guest list, when it came to Jeremiah, you'd probably pause there for a minute. Say, I don't know if we want Jeremiah to come. He has a way of bringing everything down. And that was his reputation. Jeremiah, among the Israelites, was known as a man who was preaching against the good of the nation. That's how they received his messages. The reality was, the reason why Jeremiah's prophecies are so heavy is because the Israelites had been worshiping foreign gods and foreign idols. They were not worshiping the one true God. They were doing whatever they wanted to do. And God, through the prophet Jeremiah, was saying, because of this, because you're not repenting of your sin, because you're keeping on this path of rebelling against God, the Babylonians are going to come and they are going to take over your land. People didn't want to hear that. No one wants to hear that. If we had a prophet in America right now that said, because of all the things that you're doing, you're going to be absorbed and taken over by another land, we would not want to listen to that guy. We would probably say, well, he makes a few good points, but I don't know if I want to hear that kind of news again and again. So today we're going to be in Jeremiah chapter 28. And I like to call this lesson trusting in truth even when truth hurts. And if you don't like that title, I have another one. The popularity of false prophecies is nothing new. Nothing new. Alright? So we're in Jeremiah chapter 28. I'm in the New King James Version. No particular reason, just happens to be the Bible that was on my desk when I was putting the show together here. Jeremiah 28, give you a little bit of background, records an interaction between Jeremiah and a false prophet. This false prophet was named Hananiah. And Hananiah was a false prophet. He was trying to steer people away from listening to Jeremiah, who was telling the truth. And the way that he did this was he told a bunch of lies, but they were lies that people wanted to hear. Why was he doing this? Well, Jeremiah's prophecies were not pleasant, as I mentioned earlier. God's people, the Israelites, they had sinned greatly. They were continuing to sin greatly. They needed to repent. They refused to repent. And God was sending judgment and correction upon them. Jeremiah was saying, you're going to be taken over by the Babylonians, you're going to be carried away from this land, you're going to be in captivity in Babylon for 70 years. Nobody wanted to hear it, even though it was the truth. And so as Jeremiah was preaching, and Jeremiah wasn't alone, there were other men there preaching the truth of God's word as well. As they were preaching this truth, there were people who saw an opportunity to preach falsehood and gain an audience, gain influence with the leaders there in Jerusalem. And so Jeremiah in his prophecies, not once but many times, warns the people of Israel not to listen to the false prophets. And also Jeremiah was calling the people to repent. You see, as Jeremiah preached, if the people had listened to Jeremiah, if they had heard the word that they needed to repent, and if they had repented, then it's very likely that God would have said, I'm not going to send the Babylonians to conquer you now. I'm going to treat you as my own because you are repenting and you're trying to get back on the right path. But Jeremiah's preaching went unheard just as God had predicted. And as a result, Israel was going to be punished for idol worship and disobedience. But the false prophets are there. And the false prophets are saying, Oh, the Babylonians are going to come, but they're going to be defeated at our doorstep. Or the false prophets would say, Well, the Babylonians are going to come, but God is going to wipe them away with a mighty movement of his hand. The Babylonians will come, but God will deliver us. That's what the false prophets were saying. And people wanted to hear that. That's what they wanted to have happen. Babylon had already come through town once by the time we're in chapter 28. Babylon had captured their king, the king of Israel, and deported him back to Babylon. Babylon had captured some of the golden items that were used for worship in the temple, and they had carted those back to Babylon. You see them make a reappearance later in the book of Daniel, but we're not there yet. They had even taken away some of the most influential, rich, and powerful people from Jerusalem and carted them back to Babylon by the time we get to Daniel chapter 28. And so Jeremiah's preaching, people finally got to the point where they were just so tired of Jeremiah's preaching that they accused him of being treasonous, a traitor to the nation. And as you read through Jeremiah, you see various times he is beaten, he is put into prison, he is thrown into the bottom of a well, and he is trying to get his footing in that slippery, slimy, miry mess. Jeremiah suffers greatly for delivering the truth of God's word. Well, here in chapter 28, we're going to have sort of a one-on-one battle between Jeremiah and one of these false prophets that is telling the people what they want to hear. So we're in chapter 28, we begin reading in verse 1. And it happened in the same year, in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fourth year and in the fifth month, that Hananiah, the son of Azur the prophet, who was from Gibeon, spoke to me in the house of the Lord, in the presence of the priests and all the people. Pause here for a moment. So we're getting the setting. We're given the place on the calendar. That's important for what happens later. Jeremiah is there in the temple. He is preaching the word that he normally preaches. The temple is where people go if they want to hear from God. And this man, Hananiah, who also claims to be a prophet, and he's the son of a prophet, so he's one of these second generation guys. He comes up and Hananiah has something to say. Now, to set the stage, this is the point in the story of Jeremiah where Jeremiah has this great yoke upon him. Some of you know what a yoke is, right? A yoke is basically a strong piece of wood that has pieces of leather straps attached to it, and the idea was that you would put that on top of the back of an animal in order for an animal to pull a plow or something like that. Humans weren't supposed to go around wearing yokes on them. So when Jeremiah is walking around with this yoke on him, he stands out in the crowd. People can say something's wrong there, you know. It'd be the same as if we were to go around with a car axle on our backs or something like that. And people would look at us very strangely. So Jeremiah is there in the temple, he's wearing the yoke. This man Hananiah comes up to him, and Hananiah says, beginning in verse 2, Hananiah says, Thus speaks the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, saying, I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon. Within two full years I will bring back to this place the vessels of the Lord's house that Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, took away from this place and carried to Babylon, and I will bring back to this place Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, with all of the captives of Judah who went to Babylon, says the Lord, for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon. Pause here for a moment. So we can imagine that when the Babylonians came and they took the king away, and they took the items out of the temple, and they took away all those leaders from the people, that everyone around Israel was probably saying, Well, that's not good. He took all our stuff. Took all of our people. What are they doing that for? So when Hananiah gets up and says, within two years, God says all of that's going to be returned. We can imagine that the people were like, yay, that's great. That's what we want to hear. We want to hear that things are going to get back to normal. We want to hear that the Babylonians aren't going to have this yoke on us anymore. Jeremiah, he's wearing that yoke over there. He keeps saying that we need to submit to the Babylonians and be their pack animals and be their servants. I want to listen to more of what this guy Hananiah says. He's saying the things that I want to hear. Now I want you to notice something right here. Going back to verse 2, the false prophet says, Thus speaks the Lord, and that version of the word Lord is literally the name Yahweh in the Old Testament. Thus speaks Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, saying, So Hananiah is using the same type of language to introduce his prophecy that Jeremiah is using. He's using the same type of introduction to his prophecy that all of the legitimate prophets of God use. But what he's prophesying is that everything is going to be fine, everything is going to be okay. Well, let's take a look at verse 5. Then the prophet Jeremiah spoke to the prophet Hananiah in the presence of the priests and the presence of the people who stood there in the house of the Lord. And Jeremiah said, Amen. The Lord do so. The Lord perform your words which you have prophesied to bring back the vessels of the Lord's house and all who were carried away captive from Babylon to this place. Pause there. That's a little surprising. Jeremiah is saying, Yes, I hope that happens. Jeremiah is saying, Hey, false prophet, all of those promises that you just made, I would love to see those things take place. You get the impression that as Jeremiah is speaking these words, if we were there, we would feel the sarcasm dripping from his lips. But what he's doing is Jeremiah is revealing that in his heart of hearts he wishes things would go well for the people of Judah. He wishes things would go well for the Israelites. But then he's not finished speaking. We have to look at what he says in verse 7. In verse 7, he says, Nevertheless, hear now this word that I speak in your hearing and in the hearing of all the people. The prophets who've been before me and before you, those of old prophesied against many countries and great kingdoms of war, disaster, and pestilence. As for the prophet who prophesies of peace, when the word of the prophet comes to pass, the prophet will be known as one whom the Lord has truly sent. That is a rather old way of saying, we'll believe it when we see it. We'll believe it when we see it. Now Hananiah had gone ahead and committed in his false prophecy to the idea that everything was going to be fine in two years. Two years. How many things can we forget that happened two years ago? I'm asking the right crowd here. How many things, Ryan, two years is a big chunk of your life because you're 19? Not really. Two years. If you were to ask me, you know, even if I took, even if I kept a detailed diary, hey, what were you doing two years ago this month? I would be at a loss to be able to tell you. Okay? But Hananiah, perhaps he's banking on the idea that people won't remember what he said two years ago. Maybe he's banking on the idea that he can generate enough popularity, enough influence, enough goodwill with people in positions of authority that he can ride a wave of two years. All right? But Jeremiah says, we'll believe it when we see it. Because prophets who speak for the Lord rarely prophesy that peace is coming among a people who refuse to do any repenting. If a prophet is speaking to a group of people, if he's speaking to a nation, and if that nation is guilty of sin and that prophet is saying that the Lord's judgment is coming, and those people refuse to repent, why would the Lord change his mind about what it is that he said is going to pass? You know, we were in Jonah a few weeks ago, right? And in Jonah, Jonah preaches to the people of Nineveh, and what did they do? They repented. They put on sackcloth and ashes. They even had their animals putting on sackcloth and ashes. They were so serious about repenting. And because they repented, God did not send the disaster upon them that had been prophesied. But when God's prophet says doom is coming, and people refuse to repent, there's nothing to halt that doom from coming. And so Jeremiah says, We'll see what happens in two years. We'll see if you're truly a prophet that the Lord has sent. Now that by itself has got some drama to it, but we're just getting into the early parts of the story. Because in the next verse, verse 10, Hananiah the prophet took the yoke off of the prophet Jeremiah and broke it. Hananiah spoke in the presence of all the people, saying, Thus says the Lord, even so I will break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, from the neck of all nations within the space of two full years. And the prophet Jeremiah went his way. Now, I've never had a I've never worn a yoke on my back, and hopefully I never will, unless it's for some sort of demonstration purposes. But from what I understand, the beast who's wearing the yoke is strapped into it to a degree. And I imagine that as Jeremiah had that yoke upon his back and his shoulders, he was strapped into it. And so when it says that Hananiah took the yoke off of Jeremiah's back, we should see that as a few minutes or seconds of struggle. We should see that Hananiah didn't simply just go, I'll take that off your back, Jeremiah, and I'll break it over here. But instead, what we would see is those two prophets in the temple, in the view of all of those leaders and people of Israel, engage in a little bit of a wrestling match. Finally, Hananiah gets the yoke and breaks it and then delivers another prophecy. And he's doubling down on the idea that everything's going to be fine in a two-year period. What's amazing about this to me is how verse 11 ends. Jeremiah doesn't say anything. Jeremiah doesn't give a speech. Instead, what Jeremiah does is he simply went his way. You know, sometimes, how's the old expression go? If you argue with a fool, then you run the risk of becoming just as foolish as the person you're arguing with. I'm sure it's cleaner than that, but that's the gist of the saying, right? All right. Jeremiah, rather than get into a verbal battle with Hananiah there in the temple in front of everybody, he just simply walks away. He walks away. What happens after he walks away? Verse 12. Now the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah after Hananiah the prophet had broken the yoke from the neck of the prophet Jeremiah. The word of the Lord said, verse 13, go and tell Hananiah, saying, Thus says the Lord, you've broken the yokes of wood, but you've made in their place yokes of iron. How many of you have ever lifted up some sizable pieces of iron? Alright. All right. I had some wrought iron in my old Memphis house once. I was having to take these pieces of wrought iron, move them into the backyard. I thought, oh, that's no big deal. You know, it's wrought iron, it's got all this decorative stuff. In my brain, I thought, oh, that's probably going to weigh about 20 or 30 pounds. Picked that thing up, oh my gosh. Iron. Iron has weight to it. Iron is strong, it's heavy, it's not broken easily. God is saying, I'm going to replace that yoke of wood that was symbolic of the servitude that you were going to have under Nebuchadnezzar. I'm replacing it with a yoke of iron to symbolize the type of servanthood you're going to have under Nebuchadnezzar. Verse 14, Jeremiah is still talking to Hananiah. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, I've put a yoke of iron on the neck of all these nations. They will serve Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, they shall serve him. I have given him the beasts of the field also. Then the prophet Jeremiah said to Hananiah the prophet, Hear now, Hananiah, the Lord has not sent you, but you made the people trust in a lie. Therefore, thus says the Lord, Behold, I will cast you from the face of the earth. This year you shall die, because you have taught rebellion against the Lord. And so Hananiah the prophet died the same year in the seventh month. Now when you run the math from when everything started to where it ends here, basically Hananiah had his false prophecy and broke the yoke of Jeremiah. And Hananiah, who said that everything's going to be fine in two years, didn't live out two months. God struck him down. Now, this is a very dramatic story, obviously. Some of the things to be pulled away from this are very clear and very apparent to us. But what are some takeaways that we have from a story like this to our lives today? Well, first let's just recount a few things. Hananiah's false prophecies tried to use the same language, the same speaking style as Jeremiah's true prophecies. You know, sometimes when a person is trying to give you a false prophecy or they're trying to tell you something false about what the Word of God says, they're trying to reinterpret what Scripture says to fit their own agenda rather than following what Scripture says and submitting to it. Even though they're telling a falsehood, they may use a vocal delivery style or an argumentative style that is very similar to the way that true preachers use. They might have all the religious trappings and they might have all of the right words to use, but they're selling you something that's false instead of something that's true. When people come up to me and I have conversations with them, and they'll try to tell me something that I know is false, that they learned in a church, and they'll say something like, Well, Pastor Billy told me that. I don't know a Pastor Billy. I'm not talking about it. If you know a Pastor Billy, I'm not talking about that person. All right. They'll say, Well, Pastor Billy told me that, so it must be true. Okay. Well, that just shows me that they haven't bothered to go into God's word themselves to explore whether or not it's true. Pastor Billy probably had three points that all started with the same letter and they kind of rhymed or something like that. And Pastor Billy used the same type of speaking style as a genuine preacher of a genuine man of God, but what Pastor Billy did was he slipped in something that was a lie, but he made it sound like it was coming from a source of truth. There is nothing new about that. It's been going on for thousands of years. Thousands of years. So Hananiah's prophecy, we know it was false, because two years later, Babylon did not come and return all the stuff that they had taken. Instead, they carried off more people into captivity and they burned all sorts of things to the ground. Hananiah's prophecy was false, but it was, even though it was false, it was very popular. It was very, very popular, especially with people who didn't want to spend any time repenting of their sin. You know, if you've got if you're talking to a crowd of people who don't want to repent, and you tell them that good times are coming and that they don't have to repent, what motivation are you giving them to repent? None. None. We have many, many teachers, many preachers, we should put quote marks around both of those things, teachers and preachers. We have many churches today that basically say, well, come on and join us. We love you just the way you are. Now let me make an important distinction here. We want people to come to church even before they have repented of their sin, because where else are they going to learn that they need to repent of their sin? Right? But everyone who comes into church, I had to do this, you had to do this, before we are welcomed into the membership of the church, if we don't know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, we have to repent of our sins and receive Him as Savior and Lord. We have to understand that our sin has separated us from God and that we need that sin barrier removed, and there's only one way that that is removed, and that is by repenting and having the blood of Jesus poured over our sin. Right? There's a whole lot of people today, a whole lot of churches today, that all you have to do to be a member is occupy a seat and have a pulse. That's basically all it takes. And there's no talk about repentance, there's no talk about whether a person has been saved and born again through the power of Jesus Christ. If you're there and you're willing to show up on a regular basis, hey, that's good enough for us, you can become a member right now. That's the type of prophecy that Hananiah and the false prophets were talking. Good times are coming your way. You don't have to repent, you don't need to change your behavior, you don't have to do anything different. It's been happening for thousands of years. Jeremiah's response to Hananiah was very startling because Jeremiah said, Yes, I hope everything that you're saying about good stuff happening to the kingdom does come true. Yes, may the Lord do so. And this is a reminder that Jeremiah, even though he preached gloom, despair, and agony, in his heart of hearts, Jeremiah wanted the people of Israel to have good lives. He wanted them to repent, he wanted them to follow the Lord. He did not want the calamity to come to occur. There's a reason that we refer to Jeremiah as the wailing prophet, because he had to deliver this message of passion. Pain and suffering to a people that in his heart of hearts he wanted them to have good lives that were right before the Lord. When I'm teaching or preaching, Pastor Greg is teaching or preaching, Pastor Matt is teaching or preaching, when we're preaching and we start talking about sin, some people will immediately are like, oh, don't talk about sin, don't talk about sin. And I always say, if I don't talk about sin, then it's impossible for me to talk about repentance. I don't talk about sin. If I don't address the fact that there is sin in the life of humanity, then how is an unrepentant, unsaved person going to come to the place where they realize they need a savior? You know? Jeremiah knew that the wrath of God was coming. And he knew that the only way that Judah, the kingdom of Judah, could avoid that was through repentance. Jeremiah also reminded the crowd that prophecy is only good if it is fulfilled. How many of you remember a guy by the name of Harold Camping? Good. I'm glad you don't know who this man is. Unfortunately, I have to tell you, right? Some of you do know. All right. Unfortunately, I'm going to tell you who Harold Camping is. Roughly 15 years ago now, Harold Camping had a radio program. And on several conservative Christian radio stations carried Harold Camping's program. And Harold Camping had, in his own mind, gone through the book of Daniel and gone through the book of Revelation, and he had determined that Jesus was coming again in 2011. And he shared this with his radio audience. He said, Jesus is coming again in 2011. And he said, he went even further. He said, I don't know the exact day or the exact time, but I know it's in May. All right. And there were many, many people who took that word from Harold Camping and they thought, you know, I got to get ready. And some people got ready by running up their credit cards, because after all, the rapture's going to happen. Let Bank of America worry about all that debt. Okay. And some of them sold their homes, some of them liquidated their assets and gave it to their kids and all this kind of thing. And the people that were taken in by Harold Camping's teaching, for the most part, were people that we would see here at the 60 plus lunch. Okay? Well, I don't have to tell you that May 2011 came and went and Jesus did not come again. And Harold Camping then issued an apology saying that his math was off, but that Jesus was coming again very soon, and to listen to his radio broadcast for more details. Well, clearly after May 2011 came and went. Harold Camping used verses from the book of Daniel, verses from the book of Revelation. He used verses that were there in our Bibles. He talked to his audience using the same type of speaking that one would expect a Bible teacher to use. But he had a false prophecy. He had a false prophecy. People who should have known better liked the idea of Jesus coming again real soon, and they believed in what he said. But what he said was not the word of God. His prophecy did not come to pass. Just like Hananiah's prophecy did not come to pass. Hananiah, wanting to get the audience on his side even further, took that yoke that God had told Jeremiah to put on his shoulders. Jeremiah was told by God, take a yoke and put it on your shoulders. You can read about that in chapter 27, verse 2. He took that yoke off of Jeremiah's shoulders and broke it into pieces. Jeremiah, surprisingly, doesn't retaliate. He just walks away. But we see that in walking away, the Bible says the Lord spoke to Jeremiah shortly thereafter. I don't know how small a time passes for shortly thereafter to come into play. But what you need to understand here is that the emphasis in the book of Jeremiah is that God didn't keep Jeremiah waiting. God spoke to him shortly thereafter. And Jeremiah went to Hananiah and pronounced God's judgment. The first thing Jeremiah said was, The Lord, and that's again Yahweh, has not sent you. You persuaded the nation to trust in lies. Therefore, this is what the Lord says. I'm about to remove you or send you from the face of the earth. I often wonder how did Hananiah die? My imagination likes to think that he accidentally stepped into the basket of a catapult and it fired, and there he goes. And he was sent from the earth. That's just my imagination. That's just my imagination. But here's what I will tell you. The phrase sent from the earth clearly implies the fact that he's going to die. So Hananiah was warned, you're going to die. God is going to send you from the face of the earth. Jeremiah even says, This very year you are going to die. He didn't say you're going to die in two months. He said, This very year, you're going to die. Sometime this year, you're going to die because you preach rebellion against the Lord. Why does Hananiah get the death sentence for issuing false prophecies? Well, if you go back to the book of Deuteronomy, if a person was a false prophet during the time of Moses, the people were supposed to take him and stone him to death. It was a capital crime to be a false prophet, to say that God had said something that God had not said. And so Hananiah's punishment does fit the crime for which he is accused, based upon the word of God. But we see that Hananiah is struck down two months later. Hananiah said, everything is going to happen in two years. God said everything's going to happen to you. And God strikes him down in two months. Why did God give him two months? Why didn't God just strike him down right there when Jeremiah was talking to him? Thought about that a while. The only answer that I can come up with is that God must have been giving Hananiah an opportunity to repent. Even though Hananiah was preaching a false word of God that avoided repentance, God in his mercy gave Hananiah eight weeks to repent of the sin that he had committed. But God's patience only went so far, and when Hananiah refused to repent, God decided to take him from the face of the earth. So what do we conclude with this? Well, first we conclude that God is very serious about how people deliver his word and how people receive his word. I have often said the most dangerous place a person can be is behind the pulpit on Sunday morning when they haven't prepared what it is they're going to say. I'm going to bore you guys with the Tennessee story for a couple of minutes. And we had a mixture of Southern Baptist preachers, missionary Baptist preachers, and some Baptist preachers that didn't have affiliation with any group, they just declared themselves to be Baptist. And we had in Tennessee, the missionary Baptist preachers prided themselves on the fact that they went up to speak on Sunday morning with no notes and no preparation so that they could just let the Spirit tell them what to say. I'm not saying that's the same here in Arkansas, that's just the way it was in the area I was in Tennessee. All right? That to me is terrifying. To get up in front of a group of people and just wait to see what God wants me to talk about with no preparation, no study, no learning, no pouring over commentaries to see what preachers of the past have said about this and all that. But these guys would brag on it. They would say, Well, you know, you Southern Baptist guys, you get your notes from Nashville about what you're going to be preaching. But us missionary Baptist, I'm doing the Tennessee accent, aren't I? All right. Us missionary Baptist guys, we we just get up in there and we let the Holy Spirit tell us what to say. And I would say, where are these notes from Nashville that you think that all of us Southern Baptist preachers use? Because I could save a whole lot of time in my life if I had access to those. Wasn't too surprising that when you would have conversations with the missionary Baptist preachers about what they had talked about on Sunday, they couldn't tell you. They couldn't say, Well, I spoke on this particular scripture, or I spoke on this particular topic, or I spoke on this particular focus of Christian living. Instead, they would simply say, Well, I just got up there and let it rip. Alright? Now, if you belong to a church, I know we have people in here that aren't part of our congregation, if you belong to a missionary Baptist church, I'm not trying to dissuade you from being active in your church. I will say, though, that I think we do it better here. In that when we go up to speak, we have poured over a section of Scripture. We have asked the Holy Spirit to illuminate it for us. We have prayed that the words that we would speak would be the words that God wants spoken, that we would be prepared to share that passage in thoroughness, in spirit, and in truth. And we don't run the risk of getting up there and saying something that we may feel rather than something that we've thought about and meditated on and we feel confident God wants us to share with a group. If you want to stay behind and argue with me, I get it. It'll be fine. It'll be fine. But you know something? When you get in front of a crowd of people and you're not prepared, your goal is less, I'm going to share God's word, and your goal becomes, I want to make those people happy. I want to make those people entertained. I want those people to feel like they can come back here next week and get more of the same. And the problem with that is that once you start preaching to gain influence, once you start preaching to gain support of people, rather than sharing the word of God, you risk offending the very God who wrote the Bible that needs to be shared. Alright? God was angered because Hananiah had caused the Israelites to trust in the lies that he was sharing. Hananiah steered the people away from the truth of God and instead into a feel-good, false theology that he was spreading. But here's the thing: God preserves his word, ladies and gentlemen. God preserves his word. God has preserved his word down through the centuries, down through the millennia. God has preserved his word. There have been people who've wanted to change God's word. There have been people who've wanted to burn all copies of God's word. There are people who, even today, take God's word and try to rewrite it to make it fit their agenda. But God's word is preserved. God's word is inspired by his Holy Spirit, and it is preserved by his almighty power. And so when we see these false prophets pop up from time to time, whether it's Harold Camping or the latest version of that, we should never worry. Because those people come and go. And they get their influence gets removed from the face of the earth. But the truth of God's word still stands. And as long as we are people who are dedicated to being on the right side of God's word, we have nothing to fear from false prophets. As long as we are people who say it's what God's word says that matters, not what Pastor Billy says, we don't need to worry about Pastor Billy because God's word will continue to stand. So today, as we wrap things up, I would encourage you as you're reading through the book of Jeremiah, just know that Jeremiah, in a lot of ways, is kind of like us. Because he's living in a time where a lot of people don't want to hear the truth of God's word. Or they think the truth of God's word is too restricting or too limiting, or it doesn't allow you to live the life the way that you want to live it. Ladies and gentlemen, even though there's some lamentation involved from time to time, stick true to the word of God. Stay true to God's word having authority over you, having authority over your life, having authority over your decision making. And when we do that, when we do that, we are the type of people who inevitably do repent. We are the type of people who do receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and we are the type of people who are added to the kingdom of God. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time and your word. Thank you for the example of your servant Jeremiah. Thank you, Lord, that we don't have to fear false prophets if we have you as Savior and Lord. Lord, I would pray that if we have found ourselves listening to a false prophet because we like what the prophet says, if we have found ourselves being willing to ignore the truth of your word, and instead we've been entertained by the speaking of someone who is trying to entertain, then we would just repent of that, Lord, and turn back to you. If we have loved ones, children, family members, neighbors, friends who are under the influence of these false prophets, may we be people who gently correct them and steer them back to the Word of God, not for our glory, but because we love them and we don't want them living a life believing lies. Ultimately, Lord, we thank you that your word doesn't change. We're not waiting for the Bible 2.0. Your word is sufficient in all that we need. You do not need to change your word to keep up with modern times. Thank you, Lord, that that gives us security and stability in a world that seems to change more and more every day. We love you, Lord Jesus. It's in your mighty name that we pray, and God's people said, Amen. Sorry to keep you here a little bit later today.