Could we pray together for a moment?
Lord, how we need to see You in Your glory and Your honor, and how we need to understand in our spirits that You have tasted death for us. Lord, in our future, there is no death.
Lord, as we come to You this morning, as we open Your Word, we pray for the pouring out of Your Holy Spirit on the Word. We pray that our own understanding would fall aside and that the wisdom of God would replace it.
Lord, we thank You for another opportunity to look at Your Word together. Amen.
Two things real quick. Since I heard that there was going to be a baptism next week, anyone that does not know the Lord, or does not know Him in His glory and His honor, I think the heavenlies have given us instruction on being baptized: to turn away from this earth, to turn away from this world.
And because it is a spiritual reality, it is a necessity in the life of a Christian—especially, not any more importantly, but especially in young people, with all the things they face. This world is huge compared to this body of Christ.
So I encourage you to examine your hearts, that we examine our hearts, and know the will of God in this issue of baptism. It is vital for this next generation to go on with the Lord. But the devil knows; he has no hand on it.
There was a lot of reference to the light of Christ in the worship time today, in the opening and in some of the worship. And I have got a story about the light of Christ.
When I was sixteen, I was in Boy Scouts, and we took a two-week trip to Maine to canoe and backpack in the Black Woods—the Black Forest up there. Well, that has been a long time ago now, but there was nothing there. You would get in a canoe or a boat, and you could stay out there for two months and never see another person.
The water was so clean then that you just dipped right up wherever you were, dipped right into the water and drank it. It was clear as a bell. I was thinking about the sea, the sea that we sang about. It is going to be so bright. That water was so clear that even the sun going through the water reflected off the shiny rocks.
When we got there, our little group in Richmond had determined that we were true outdoorsmen and knew everything there was to know. We also bought every gadget and piece of equipment that we could possibly ever need. We were prepared to go there and never return.
The first thing they did when they got us there was tell each of us, “Get all your stuff and throw your poncho out on the ground. Then take all your stuff and lay it out on that poncho so we can see everything.”
These guys who were leading us, who were going to be our guides through the woods, would come up to each person. They did it so you were embarrassed, so you felt it. They would say, “Anything that stays on the poncho, you take with you in the woods for these two weeks. Everything else, you are going to pack back up and put on the bus because you are not going to need it.”
And they threw everything we took with us off those ponchos. Everything. No change of clothes—do not need it. You are going to be dirty; you are going to stay dirty. Do not worry about it. All this stuff that we thought we had to have just was not necessary.
They did let us keep cameras because they wanted us to have a record of our trip, I guess for insurance purposes.
All the stuff we needed—well, you have got a cook kit with seventeen pots and pans, and it all folds up in a thing like this. The guy says, “You need the spoon and that one little bowl. That is all you need for your cook gear.” Throw it away.
Then they went to everybody and took our flashlights. We had nice flashlights, you know—batteries. I mean, the thing would blind you at two hundred yards. “We have got to have that. What if something happens?” Well, they said, “You do not need it, because we are going to be in the woods where it is so dark that you will be able to see just fine.”
And it was blackfly season. If you turned a light on out there, you would be suffocated with blackflies. Up there in blackfly season, the blackflies are so thick, they kill cattle—cut off the airways. You do not want those flies anywhere near you. It is real important.
Well, so they took away our flashlights. Sure enough, we got out on the trail, and we were literally already in the middle of nowhere, and we went farther into the middle of nowhere.
It would be pitch-black dark. When it first got dark, you could not see your hand. But as your eyes became accustomed to the darkness, you could see everything. It was just like daylight, because your eyes got accustomed.
Well, what I am getting to is, we do not need our own light for Jesus to shine out of us. We do not need our own added stuff. We do not need to add to the mix. Jesus in us will shine through for the world to see.
We did not need extra light because there was plenty of light. We do not need to add to the light that Jesus has in us, because there is plenty of light. Well, so anyway, that was the story about being in Maine with no flashlights, and it worked out fine.
This morning, I would like, if we can, to look at the Word of our Lord in Jeremiah 10. The name of the message is “The Cucumber Field.” I do not know if I will explain why that is the name of the message or not, but that is the name of the message: “The Cucumber Field.”
In Jeremiah 10, we are going to read the first three verses first.
Hear the word of the Lord,
which the Lord speaks to you, O house of Israel.
Thus saith the Lord:
Learn not the way of the nations,
and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven;
for the nations are dismayed at them.
For the customs of the peoples are vanity.
I am going to stop there in verse 3. I guess what we are going to talk about today is: How would God have us live our lives?
The first verse here makes it pretty clear that we are not to live our lives by the ways of the nations. We are to be set apart from this world as the people of God.
And there is a hope and promise that we will be set apart, for the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Jesus has done everything we need to live apart. We do not need to add our stuff so we can be sure we can live apart.
Just like adding light to the darkness, what Jesus has done is completely and totally sufficient for allowing us to live apart from the nations as the people of God.
I am the Lord your God.
Ye shall not do after the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt:
and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do:
neither shall ye walk in their statutes.
When the Lord called the people out, He called them away completely and totally away from the nations and their ways, their statutes—the way they walked, the way they spent their time, what they did, what they believed in.
He said, “Do not look at that as a picture of how I want you to live. Here is the picture of how I want you to live.”
Ye shall therefore keep My statutes, and Mine ordinances,
and shall do them:
I am the Lord your God.
There is a phrase: “Your mama told me not to ever do that or go there.” Mama was right. And God tells us we should not walk where the other nations walk. We should not hold tight to the things of this world.
And I do. My fists are always clenched, hanging on, white-knuckled. The Lord says we need to turn from that. And where do we turn? To Jesus, to the Light of the world.
What are we to see in this house of God? Where are we, folks? Where are we to focus? We are to see Jesus in each other.
The reason I say that is because the Word says our heavenly Father only sees Jesus in us. Jesus has replaced us; He has replaced the dead man in us. We need to see Jesus in one another.
That is how we will be built up. Jesus is the Rock. A piece of Jesus here, a piece of Jesus here—build a stone wall. It cannot be shaken; it cannot be knocked down. We have, thank God, that gift. It was given to us.
Thank God, we do not have to beg and plead to come into the presence of God. Thank God, we do not have to beg and plead to be in the body of Christ. Thank God, we do not have to beg and plead to be functioning in the body of Christ.
If we keep our eyes on the Lord, focus on Him—love is a big word. Love one another. That is all you have got to do.
I know it is way easier to love than to hate. Hate takes a lot of energy, and I wear myself out. I do. I have to go, “Lord, forgive me.” It feels better like this.
The power of our Lord is there for us to be able to throw away that hate. We may even hate the world. We have to love the world—not love the world, but love the people in the world, their souls that the Lord wants to save.
And thank God, the Word says none will be lost that He desires—not one. Are we helping or hindering God in that promise? We can help or we can hinder.
May we have the grace and understanding and the desire to be the light in this world, to shine brighter than what the world has to offer. Most people are looking for something to make them happy, make them content, make them feel good when they wake up in the morning.
I use medication to wake up and feel good in the morning. But, you know, the joy of the Lord needs to be in us and functioning in us and coming through us. That is what the world needs to see: “This is the joy of the Lord.”
When we open our mouths, what needs to come out? Praise to the Lord. Encouragement to God’s people.
We need to have a desire, a burning desire, to be built up together; to pray for the world, to have concern for the world, but not to embrace the world.
Man, the devil is a deceiver, and that is his job. In the meeting Friday night, we were looking at a couple of Scriptures in Revelation. It seemed like everywhere the name of Satan or the devil was, there was the word “deceived.” The devil deceived. Satan deceived. He is the deceiver.
Well, right there, laid out in the Book, it shows us what God said is the devil’s tactic. How can we turn and not be deceived?
The first thing is, if we turn, we cannot turn like this; we have got to turn like this: to the Word of God.
When troubles come, where do we turn? The world turns to its own understanding, to its own wisdom. Where are we supposed to turn? Well, we turn up.
My tendency is, “Well, let me see if I can handle it first. Then I will look up if that does not work.” Well, God says, in Hosea 7:16, the first part:
They return, but not to the Most High.
Speaking of the nations, they turn to themselves. They do not turn to the Most High. Our instruction is to turn to the Most High first, that God could work that out in me, that He could work it out in us.
I was watching the women’s bobsled yesterday. They cannot turn very far because there is a tube of ice all around them. So when they turn, they crash. How often do we try to turn and we crash?
But just like that bobsled, very seldom did they get out of the death tunnel. It knocks them right back in line. God is there. The work of Jesus is there, not to knock us back in, but to softly carry us back into line—back into the line of the will of God, back into the line of what will build us up together, not what can do harm.
We are going to stay in line. And thank God, that is a finished work of Jesus.
God wants us to turn to Him, to His Word, to our brothers and sisters. Last time I shared, I said, “If you have got somebody that needs to be prayed for, call me. I will pray for them.” Somebody did, and I have been praying. God bless me.
Hosea 7:16, the second part:
Because of the insolence of their tongue
they shall be their derision in the land of Egypt.
Insolence: insulting, contempt—contempt, I am sorry. Our hearts can do so much harm. We have a tongue that enables us to speak, but it is our hearts that do the damage. Our tongue is just a tool.
Our tongue can be used to worship, praise—thank God—to get on our knees and pray, to get on our knees and pray for forgiveness, to get on our knees and pray for one another. Our tongue can be used for horrible things.
But the Lord Jesus in us is there to protect what is so precious, to protect what He has given us.
Derision: object of ridicule, ridicule and scorn, made a laughingstock. When the world uses their tongue, what happens? They become the object of ridicule, a laughingstock. We certainly do not want that to be what we are to the body of Christ.
That is what will happen if we use our tongues improperly. Thank God, Jesus has covered it.
Let us look at Psalm 12:1-4. Psalms is right after Job. We learned that last time. Jerry told me.
Help, Lord; for the godly man ceaseth;
for the faithful fail from among the children of men.
They speak vanity every one with his neighbor:
with flattering lip, and with a double heart, do they speak.The Lord shall cut off all flattering lips,
and the tongue that speaketh great things;
Who have said, With our tongue will we prevail;
our lips are our own: who is lord over us?
“With our tongues, we will prevail. Who is lord over us?” That is a world turning its back on our heavenly Father and our Lord Jesus.
May we be sure we do not turn our back on our Lord. May we be sure we do not decide in our own understanding that we can prevail.
We must build up the house of God. Thank God, that is easy, because it is the desire of our heavenly Father’s heart that His Son’s house be built up. That is easy.
My heart needs to be changed so that I am willing, and that is my desire: to build up the house of God.
Put the trumpet to thy mouth.
As an eagle cometh against the house of the Lord,
because they have transgressed My covenant,
and trespassed against My law.They shall cry unto Me, My God, we of Israel know Thee.
Israel hath cast off that which is good:
the enemy shall pursue him.They have set up kings, but not by Me:
they have made princes, and I knew it not:
of their silver and their gold have they made them idols,
that they may be cut off.
This is the people of God, God’s chosen people. Sound a trumpet. When you hear that trumpet—used to be, that is what they used. Now we get it on the TV and we look up. “What is that about?”
When I was in high school, I had a car that we worked on all day Saturday and Sunday so it would run to get me through the week, so we could work on it again the next Saturday and Sunday so I could get through the week. We held it together with anything that we could find.
My father helped me. Actually, my father did it; I just stood over him. One day, my best friend and I and my dad were working on it. My father was a very small man. This was a big Ford. He was small enough and compact enough that he could step over into the engine compartment, standing right there between the motor and the grill. He was able to work on the car.
Me, I am laid all over it. You get to hurting. I am up under there with the gravel. “Pop, are we going to be able to get it ready by Monday morning?” “Shut up, boy, I am working.” “Yes, sir, Daddy.”
Well, we were all over this thing, grease up to here. My friend and I were not doing anything, but we were covered in grease.
Down at Three Chopt, about ten houses from home, a truck went by with a horn, and they hit the horn. That was a trumpet sound. I mean, loud. Everybody kind of looks up, and you hit your head. Pop just kept on working. Did not look up, did not faze him.
And he says, “Boy, run in the house and see if your mama is gone. It is the trumpet of God. Did He take her? Am I still in the car working on this stupid car? Mama is gone?”
It made me so happy that my father had an awareness. He did not seem to be troubled if he was not going, but he was sure concerned that Mama was gone.
We have got to be ready for that trumpet to sound, that it not be a foreign sound to us, that it not be a sound that we panic at. “I hope I can jump out of my clothes and get going.”
May the devil not tell us that there is anything to fear in the Lord returning to take His people. Like we said, the Book says none will be forgotten.
Where are our priorities? What do we hope for? What do we wish for? What do we dream for? When we lay down to sleep at night, what is our joy?
I have trouble sleeping. A friend who lived next door said, “Herb, I am always having these terrible nightmares.” You are? Like I was going to help him.
I like mysteries, so sometimes I will read mysteries at night. Sometimes I will read the Word. Thank God, to go to sleep, I pretty much start praying, because I pray, I will either go to sleep or keep praying until something happens.
Well, my friend said, “I am not sleeping tonight. I am having these horrible dreams when I do sleep. I am being chased. Man, they want to kill me.” I said, “Who is they?” “Well, everybody.”
I said, “Well, what are you doing right before you go to sleep?” He said, “Well, I get some dinner and I go to bed and I read.” I said, “What are you reading?” He said, “Stephen King.”
No wonder you are not sleeping. I would be under the bed. Are you kidding me? Lord, have mercy on us. Do not let the people of God wrap ourselves up in things of this world to distract us from what God wants to do, what He is doing.
We need to be joyful. God is doing great things—great things. He is restoring His people. He is encouraging them. He is building us up.
Let us not be deceived by the deceiver. Let us not be deceived by the trumpet. It is really not the trumpet that we are worried about. “Boy, go inside and see if your mama was gone.”
Do we set up idols? The people of God in the Book, they set up idols. I could not believe it when Jerry said last week Abraham’s father was an idol maker. I have been looking at this for about five years, reading over Jeremiah 10 here. He was an idol maker. My goodness.
That we would not be idol makers, that our hands would not be busy making idols. They would be busy about the work of God.
For the customs of the peoples are vanity;
for one cutteth a tree out of the forest,
the work of the hands of the workman with the axe.
Do we set up our own idols? Have you got the picture? We need an idol. We have got to go to the woods, cut down this tree, haul it back here, start cutting on it with cutting tools.
Well, the minute they cut that tree off at the bottom, that tree is dead. No life in it. It has no value unless you are going to burn it to keep warm, or build a boat so you can get away from wherever you are or go downriver.
But wrapping it up with gold and silver, standing it back up, nailing it so it stands up straight—that tree is of no value. That idol is useless.
And here is the cucumber field:
They are like a scarecrow in a cucumber field.
The Book says the idols are just like a scarecrow in a cucumber field. My father has a little garden in the backyard, probably about from here to here, I guess. You go out there, man, there is a scarecrow all the time.
There are aluminum pans hanging off everything you look at. There are pieces of hose that he has cut up to look like snakes. He is not nuts. He wants to keep the birds out of his vegetables.
And the birds do not have enough sense to know that that scarecrow cannot harm them. That we would not be dumb as birds and be afraid of the false idols, be afraid of missing what the world has to offer us. Does that make sense?
Do not be afraid of what we are going to miss, but work on what we are going to have.
Keep your eye on the prize. What is the prize? Well, you know, God knows what the prize is. We keep our eyes on Christ. Keep our eyes on Christ. Keep our hearts turned to Christ. Have a desire to be changed into the likeness of Jesus Christ.
For we were predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ. Is God able to do that work now, while we are here on this earth? I pray to God He is doing it, because it says we will be conformed to the image of Christ.
And the sad thing is that everything that is not that image will be destroyed in the end. Not just the world’s stuff, not just the buildings, the houses, these temples, beautiful buildings. But anything in us that is not the character of Christ will be eliminated.
Thank God, it will be gone. The Book says, “As far as the east is from the west,” He will not remember our sin. It will be gone. We can stand in that hope today.
But if we repent and ask forgiveness, the Lord will honor that and throw it away. Throw it away.
When we used to backpack, we were in bear country. You have got to take your food scraps and your food in containers, and I think you have got to hang them in trees.
And I mean not up the trunk of the tree, throw it up on a nail there. You have got to rig a way to get that pouch out here on the limb, hanging down from the limb, but fifteen feet off the ground at the same time, so a bear cannot climb the tree, go out the limb and grab it from this way, and it cannot reach it from this way.
If we take our scraps when we finish our meal and just throw them as far as we can, we are safe. And that bear is going to come there, and he is going to smell where it came from in the sky and end up at your tent.
God throws that stuff so far that, well, it is gone, man. It is like the world is flat and it goes off the edge and it is gone. Thank God. Man, thank God.
If I had to worry about rigging traps to put my sins, to hang them out where God would not be able to get to them, we would spend all our time wasting rope. We would be tied up trying to get our sins away from God. Throw it on a boat and let it float downstream and see if God does not know where it came from by the ripples in the water.
That we can ask our Redeemer to redeem the time that we have lost in the house of His chosen people.
This is what God wants to do. His chosen people—we are God’s chosen people. Hallelujah. Do we live in that light?
Man, I do not know. I look around and, man, well, I love You, Jesus, and I do. I love the Lord. But gracious, sometimes it is hard. Sometimes it is really hard.
And you want to rest. Well, rest, thank God. Find the peace by the still waters and rest in the Lord. But sometimes we want to get up and say, “Well, if I was not a Christian, it would not be so difficult.” It might not be difficult for the next five minutes, but when that trumpet sounds, it will be really difficult then.
But we have a hope. Thank God, we are released from that. We can shake that stuff again, throw it off the scales, get it off of us. Thank God for that.
Do not fear the idols, for they can do no harm, for they have no power. There is no power in what the world has to offer. There is no power in the kings that the world sets up. The power is in our God.
In our heavenly Father, and the one true God, and the living God. I think that is a really good word: the living God.
The enemy sure can sell us all these things we hold dear. And I have got a bigger trailer behind my car, hauling the things that I hold dear.
All that stuff they threw on that poncho that I held so dear: “Need this? You do not need this.” What if God came down and said, “Here is what I am going to show you what you need”? I would go, “I thought I needed that. I really thought I needed that.”
What I needed was to be released from that. May God open my eyes, open our eyes, open our eyes together to what we need.
I do not even like that word, need. What do we need? We need Jesus. We need the Word of God to be alive in us.
There is none like unto Thee, O Lord;
Thou art great, and Thy name is great in might.
Who would not fear Thee, O King of the nations?
for to Thee doth it appertain.
Good news. It is all good news. Thank God, but we have kind of gotten beat up here a little bit in Jeremiah 10.
It is a fact that we would fear the King of the nations, for it is His due. The Lord’s due is that we worship Him, that we honor Him, that we desire to be conformed to His image.
Forasmuch as among all the wise men of the nations,
and in all their royal estate,
there is none like unto Thee.
There you go. In the world, there is none like Thee. And everything they devise, everything they build, everything they conquer—how much conquering goes on in the name of the world and not in the name of the Lord.
This world has been continuously conquering other nations. We are of a nation that cannot be conquered. We cannot be defeated, because Jesus paid the price and took care of it. It is simple, but it is also really big.
Rejoice. Sing hallelujah to the Lord.
That is as far as I got in Jeremiah 10 this time. And thank God, it ends with: God is all. He is everything.
All of the turmoil and troubles that the world has to throw at us, there is an answer to it. There is a rebuttal from the heavenly Father and our Lord Jesus in the Book to sustain us through those things.
That we may know the Word. Read the Word. Sing songs that come from the Word. That really helps me. I am not real good at memorizing Scripture, but if you put it to a song, I can get it.
And in God’s grace, if I can remember that song comes from the Word, then I have got the Word of God in my heart. That is where I can turn when trouble comes and I do not have my Book.
That we could turn to our Lord, that we could turn and look up, and not look around and see if we can figure out how to take care of the trouble. God will take care of our needs. God will take care of our troubles.
And God even gives us joy. We need to be joyful. We need to be joyful. We need to rejoice. We need to worship the Lord. He is worthy. It is His due.
The Word says, “It is Thy due.” May the Lord have mercy on us, that we would remember what is due our Lord Jesus: praise, worship, honor, glory.
Thank you all for allowing me to share some things that have been on my heart.
Lord, without You, we have nothing. But with You, we have everything.
Lord, teach us to cling to and hold and love the things of Your kingdom, and let us step away from the things of this world.
Build us up together, Lord. You have promised it will be done.
We thank You, Jesus, for obeying Your Father. We thank You, Jesus, that You are the Light, and we thank You, Jesus, that You are in us. Amen.