How Jeremiah got to where chapter 20 is

"When God's Word is translated, it's still God's Word and it's translated because God said His purpose, intent, desire, His work is to take it and put it in the language of everybody. And when it's put into their language, it's still God's Word. If you have the proper text, properly translated, you have God's Word in that language.

"I want you to understand, though, that the bottomline issue in that is not so I can walk around and say, 'I've got God's Word in my hand.' It's so I can say, 'I have His Son.' You get that?

"You remember one of the brothers said to you earlier this morning, 'The written Word and the living Word, they bear one wonderful name. They're both called the Word of God.'

"Jesus said, 'I'm the way.' Psalm 119 says, 'Show me thy way.' It calls the Book 'thy way.' Jesus said, 'I'm the life.' He said, 'Thy Word is truth. I'm the life.'

"Christ is OUR LIFE. Christ is the way because He's the truth, and He's the truth because He's the life and 'it's the words that I speak unto you, they are life.'

"Understand please the importance of your Bible and the Bible issue. STAND clearly and boldly. I challenge you, old or young, come to the place where you understand the verses and truth about this and there's nothing to stop you.

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Jeremiah 1: [12] Then said the LORD unto me, Thou hast well seen: for I will hasten my word to perform it.

[13] And the word of the LORD came unto me the second time, saying, What seest thou? And I said, I see a seething pot; and the face thereof is toward the north.

[14] Then the LORD said unto me, Out of the north an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land.

"When something's seething, it's boiling and the steam and the smoke is just coming up. God says, 'That's what the Gentiles are going to do to Israel; they're going to come and destroy Israel and take them away captive.'

"Then He tells him in verse 17 to 'gird up thy loins'. When He says that, did you ever see the TV show Dirty Jobs? That's what girding up is about. In John 13, when Jesus is going to wash their feet, He girded Himself.

"God says, 'Jeremiah, you got a dirty job to do,' and Jeremiah's dirty job was he was going to go deliver a message that said to Israel, 'Judgment's coming and there's no way to stop it. It's on the way.'

"Now, God told him in verse 19: '[19] And they shall fight against thee; but they shall not prevail against thee; for I am with thee, saith the LORD, to deliver thee. God said, 'I'm going to take care of you, Jerry; just go do my Word.'

"If you come to Jeremiah 7:16, how would you like to have these instructions? [16] Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me: for I will not hear thee.

"That's a great prayer promise, isn't it? You know, when people go to the Bible to get prayer promises, why doesn't anybody ever go get that one? 

"Isaiah 55 is where people love to quote that passage, [8] For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.

[9] For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

"People love to quote that. I heard a guy on Moody radio just the other day say, 'Oh, I love that verse about God's promises . . . '

"You ever read over at the end of Jeremiah where He says, 'I know my thoughts for you; I'm going to destroy you, clean your plow and wipe you out.' Why don't people quote that one? People quote that verse, 'God forbid that I should sin against God for not praying for you.' Here's one.

"See, you can't just go to the Bible and pull a verse out just because you like it. You know, that's the 'Judas hung himself' kind of thing. Go pull a verse out and go hang yourself. You say, 'Well, I don't like that one.' Look up another one: 'Go do likewise.' You say, 'Don't like that one.' Then go get the one that says, 'What thou do, do with haste.'

"You better not start with 'Judas hung himself' if you're going to follow those other two verses. If you don't rightly divide the Scripture, and put things where they fit . . . How would you like to go out and tell people, 'God said don't pray for you and the judgment's coming and you can't stop it.'

"Jeremiah 7:27: [27] Therefore thou shalt speak all these words unto them; but they will not hearken to thee: thou shalt also call unto them; but they will not answer thee.

"God says, 'Jerry, don't pray for them but keep preaching.' You get that?! That's Jeremiah's life. And he does that for FOUR decades. That's how he got to where chapter 20 is!

"He didn't just walk into chapter 20 because he went down to Wal-Mart and couldn't buy something because his credit card was overdrawn. He got to chapter 20 because he was preaching a message that nobody wanted to hear."

(new article tomorrow for certain)