04 What is Wrong With Religion? (Jeremiah 7:1-15)

Thank you for joining us for Wednesday in the Word: What the Bible means and how we know. I'm Krisan Marotta. This is the fourth talk in our series on the book of Jeremiah. Today we'll be looking at chapter 7, verses 1 through 15. You can follow along with the lecture notes at wednesdayintheword.com slash Jeremiah 4. Thanks for joining us. Well, I don't know if any of you saw the movie The Godfather, the old movie. There's a scene in that movie where Michael Corleone, who's the one of the main characters, he's aspiring to be the next Godfather, the head of the organization. And there's a very famous scene near the end of the movie. Now, I should say I'm not recommending this movie, although I imagine it's tame by today's standards. When I saw it, I was a kid, and I had nightmares for weeks afterwards. I remember it as very violent and disturbing, although I imagine today it's probably much considered much tamer. But there's a scene near the end of the movie that's famous. Michael's attending the baptism of one of his nephews, ironically, as the nephew's godfather. And the priest chants in Latin as he sprinkles water on the infant's head. And each time he asks Michael a question, then it cuts away, and we see Michael's hired assassins brutally murder one of his rivals. So the priest says, Do you believe in Jesus Christ? And Michael says yes, and then it cuts away to see his thugs murdering someone, and then it cuts back, and the priest says, Do you renounce Satan? And he says yes, and then it cuts away and we see him, you know, another person being gunned down. And then he says, Do you renounce all of Satan's ways? And each time Michael answers yes, we see another one of his rivals executed. And the scene is powerful and disturbing because it's not only graphic, but it juxtaposes two things that ought not to be juxtaposed, religion and violence. So we know that a profession of faith and a commitment to God should not coexist with that kind of evil, murderous action. Religion ought to make a difference. Believing in God ought to mean that we love the things of God and the values of God, and therefore we ought not to be running around murdering people. So the film shows these two things that ought to be incompatible but are not. And it's disturbing. Now, since that movie came out, our culture's changed, and I think at least at the time the movie was made, the filmmakers were consciously trying to make the point these two things don't belong together. And it was shocking to see them juxtaposed. But I think now our culture would tell you, oh yeah, those things absolutely do belong together. In fact, I think the world blames religion for a lot of our problems, the wars, the genocides, and inequalities. And they there's this idea now that if we could just escape this religious thing, then the world would be a better place. You've probably seen that bumper sticker that says coexist in each of the letters as a symbol of a different religion. That it kind of suggests that the religion is the source of all our problems, and if we could just grow up and get past it, all this religious stuff, then we'd finally get along. So why would people think that? What's wrong with religion? That's the question we're going to tackle. And if we're brutally honest, I think we have to acknowledge that some of the there's at least some truth in what our culture claims. You can't just look at world history and contemporary politics and ignore the fact that people who claim to be religious seem to cause a lot of problems and that religion doesn't solve a lot of the problems we think it ought to solve. And you've probably known someone who made a profession of faith and then lived a totally inconsistent life with that faith, or maybe they walked away from it. So what's up with that? Why doesn't religious work? And I should say by religion, I mean that set of outward behavior and practices and ethics and rituals that we do to mark ourselves as believers. So I'm talking about the outward trappings of religion, the things we do to express the fact that we're believers or the things we avoid doing. So the set of behavior or practices or ethics or rituals that we do as part of a claim to faith. So to answer that question, we're going to look at Jeremiah chapter 7, verses 1 through 15. What's the question, what's wrong with religion? So, as always, let me review where we are in history, what the setting for this book is. You remember that Jeremiah was a prophet to the southern kingdom, and after the death of David and Solomon, Israel faced a civil war over who would be the next king, and that divided the kingdom. Ten tribes gathered around one of Solomon's sons and formed what we call the northern kingdom, and made their capital Samaria. The two southern tribes of Judah and Benjamin formed the southern kingdom, kept their capital in Jerusalem, and chose a different one of Solomon's sons. So we had this divided kingdom. And then in 722, the northern tribes were conquered by Assyria and taken into exile, leaving Judah to struggle on alone. Jeremiah began his ministry around 627 BC, as the Assyrians, who had been the world's superpower, went into their own civil war over who would be their next king. And as they got distracted by their civil war, both Babylon and Egypt sought to step in and take over and become the next superpower, and Judah is caught geographically between them. So in the midst of all that change and turmoil, Jeremiah gets his call and he's told to warn Judah that Babylon is going to come, that God is going to use Babylon to judge them for their disobedience to the covenant, and that they too will be taken into exile, but eventually God will restore them. So this particular passage, chapter 7, is known as Jeremiah's Temple Sermon because of where it's set. It consists of essentially three oracles that Jeremiah gave to the people, warning them about religion. And I'm going to break it into three sections. Verses 1 through 7, which where he proclaims the word of the Lord, and he basically says, exposes the folly of ignoring the Ten Commandments and then going to church as if everything is okay. So he criticizes, here's what's wrong with your religion. Then 8 through 12, which is a description of their apostasy, it kind of escalates and says, here's the greater folly of using religion to hide from God. And then 13 through 15, which is the announcement of judgment. That's the climax of the passage where he says, Here are the consequences of your actions, here's the judgment that's going to follow. And each one of the sections kind of builds in intensity until we get to the climax. So let's start with verses one and two. So here's the context for where these oracles, these sermons are delivered. He's supposed to stand in the gate of the temple as people are coming in to worship. So basically, like this is like a pastor standing at the back door of church as people are coming in for their Sunday service, and he is this is what he's supposed to say to them. Now remember, Jeremiah started his ministry during the reign of King Josiah, and Josiah was one of the good kings. He instituted many reforms during his reign. He removed the altars to the foreign gods, he rebuilt and repaired the temple, he got them celebrating Passover again as well as the other festivals, and people started coming back to worshiping Yahweh under Josiah, but then the next king, one of his sons, Jehoiakim, was not very reform-minded. He came to the throne about 609 or 608 BC, and he put everything back, the foreign idols, he couldn't care less about worshiping Yahweh, and so during his reign, Judas slipped back into their idolatrous ways. So what we have here is a situation where they're still going through the motions. They're still coming to celebrate all the feasts and rituals and sacrifices that Josiah put back in, but they don't really understand them, they don't really care about them. So the Hebrew word for worship, when he says, who come to these gates to worship the Lord, it comes from the idea of bowing down and prostrating yourself. It literally means to like get on your hands and knees and put your face down to the ground. And the idea is that you're acknowledging and giving allegiance to someone who allegiance is due. So your worship is this willing acknowledgement that God is Lord and this joyful acceptance of his covenant demands. But that's not what's going on in this worship. Here, as we'll see as we go through the passage, the people are going through the motions. They've gotten back in the habits and the rhythms of worship. They've gotten back into the habits of celebrating these festivals and rituals, but their hearts are not in it. And so during these festivals, people would come from all over the country to Jerusalem, to the temple to participate, and then they would return home and worship other gods. So the setting for this sermon is probably during one of the festivals, because it was very common for the priest to stand at the gates around the temple and come in, and as the people come in, he would welcome them and ask them to prepare for worship, to consider their spiritual state before entering. And that's what Jeremiah is doing. But instead of encouraging them, he's going to rebuke them. He's going to say, Let me tell you what your spiritual state is, and it's not good. So the first oracle starts out as a warning. He criticizes them, but indicates they still have an opportunity to change. So we're going to look at three through seven, and notice that this section is framed by the phrase, I will let you dwell in this place. So the section begins with that phrase and it ends with that phrase. We see it in both verse 3 and verse 7. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place. Do not trust in deceptive words, saying, This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly practice justice between a man and his neighbor, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, nor walk after other gods to your own ruin, then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, forever and ever. So the first thing that ought to strike us about this passage, at least what struck me, is the irony that he's talking to religious people. So he's standing in the gates of the temple, essentially talking to the people coming to church and says, amend your ways or reform or literally make good your ways and your doings. Well, that's the kind of message you'd expect him to say to the drug dealers and the prostitutes, not the religious people. So that ought to get our attention and say, what's coming next? What's wrong with their religion? What are they doing that he wants them to change? And God tells them they need to change and he will allow them to stay in this place, and that is ambiguous. This place could be the temple, it could mean Jerusalem, or it could mean the whole of the promised land. And I think whichever way you take it, the idea is the same, different commentators, different take it different ways. Historically, we know they lost the entire land, so I tend to lean toward that, that he means the land and uh itself. But in any case, when they lost one, they lost the other. So when they lost the temple, they lost Jerusalem, they lost the land, and vice versa. So the force of the message is repent and you will avoid the punishment for disobedience. They have to change, they have to turn away from their wrong practices and turn back toward God. So what's the problem? What are they doing that's wrong? And that's we're going to get the first answer to what's wrong with the religion. And we see that in verse 4. At the core of it, they are trusting in deceptive words, or literally words of deceit. Instead of trusting in the word of the Lord, they're trusting in words of deceit. And remember how significant the phrase the word of the Lord is in this book. It appears so often it's in once out of almost every 20 verses throughout the book. So they're meant to trust in the word of the Lord, but instead they're trusting in words of deceit or deceptive words. This cheap alternative. And what are those deceptive words? It's the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. Essentially, they think that going through the rituals of religion is going to protect them. If they practice all the religious practices, if they celebrate all the feasts in the Old Testament, if they go through all the festivals that are prescribed, then God is obligated to protect them. So because they're doing the right rituals in the right city at the right temple, they think, we're good. We are in good shape. God must approve of us. But their lives tell a different story. Saying the right things does not guarantee the protection of the Lord. This reminded me, when I was a kid, we had all these ridiculous beliefs about car trips. So, you know, seatbelts weren't invented until I was about six years old. So we had all these rules and rituals that were supposed to keep us safe in the car. Some of these may you may remember these. Like when you drove past a cemetery, you had to hold your breath. And when you went through a tunnel, everyone had to put their hands on the ceiling. And when you drove over a bridge, everyone but the driver had to lift their feet off the floor. So I know. It was it was a thing. We had to do it. Did anybody else have to do these when you were a kid? Do you remember these? It was like, don't step on a crack, you'll break your mother's back. Well, we had all these, you know. Hold your breath when you go past the cemetery. So we thought they worked because we were kids. And that's essentially how the temple is functioning for Israel. There's this widespread belief that the presence of the temple alone guaranteed their safety. Now, I imagine their theology was a little more sophisticated than our car theology, but the end result was the same. They would say, look, God chose Israel to be his people. He chose Jerusalem to be his dwelling place. He promised David's descendants they would rule over his throne forever. Therefore, it's natural to conclude that God will not allow his earthly dwelling place, the temple, or his chosen royal family, or his people to come to any harm. So the temple is like this ultimate lucky rabbit's foot. If we've got that, we're good. It's like a guaranteed get out of trouble free card. And so this preoccupation with the activities and the rituals of worship, with no concern for things like widows and orphans and all the ethical demands of the law, he says, that's not it. That's not good enough. But the people were like, we've got the temple, we've got the rules, we've got the rituals. We don't need to bother with those things like justice and righteousness and morality. We've got this guaranteed protected fortress in our midst. And Jeremiah says, that's a word of deceit. The Lord is not obligated to guarantee the safety of Jerusalem or his people just because the temple's there. He's not obligated to protect you because you've gone through the motions of religious worship while rejecting his sovereignty and his moral demands. So his presence in the temple is an act of grace, but the temple itself, the practices are of no value if their hearts aren't in it and if God is no longer Lord among his people. So Jeremiah claims this kind of temple theology is nothing more than empty superstition. What they really need is repentance. They need a profound spiritual renewal. So here you have all these Israelites coming from all parts of Judah to participate in this grand assembly. They're singing, they're excited, we're going to the temple, we're going to go through all the motions like all these people come out of nowhere on Christmas and Easter to come to church, and they think God's pleased with them because we're in the right place, doing the right things, saying the right words at the right time. And so they can forget about what's true in their hearts. As long as they were religious, God's going to take care of them. So here's the first thing that's wrong with religion. People become religious to get what they want. They were going through the motions because they wanted God to protect them, but they didn't really want Him as Lord. And it's the same reason people worship idols. Because idols had all these rules and rituals to get you what you wanted. So you might have an idol for the harvest and an idol for the battle, and an idol for fertility, and an idol for health. And you did what that idol prescribed, and then you got what you wanted. So you go through whatever motions or or requirements that particular idol required, and then you get what you want. And they were treating God that way. And also not only treating him that way, but then thinking, well, and if he doesn't come through, I've got all these idols to fall back on. So worshiping idols was about getting what you wanted. So if God didn't let them get pregnant or have a good crop or win a battle, then they just tried another God to see if that one would give them what they wanted. Instead of trusting that God knew what they were what he was doing, they were obsessed with getting their own way or what they wanted. And so Jeremiah criticizes them because they're coming to worship for the same reason that they worshiped idols. They want something out of it. They're being religious to get what they want. Does that sound familiar? Do we want that? I mean, when I'm brutally honest with myself, I have to say yes. I want my life to be easy. I want to stay healthy until God calls me home. I want to avoid tragedy and accidents and pain and suffering, you know, and I want a happy marriage and friends who like me, and I just want my life to sparkle with blessing. You know, that's not too much to ask, right? And somewhere deep inside, I think if I just do this enough, if I pray enough, if I study the Bible enough, if I go to church enough, if I'm on the committees, if I do that discipleship thing, if I do all that enough, then God will bless me. If I do what God wants, then He'll give me what I want. And Jeremiah says, that's a word of deceit. When I was a new believer, one of the first tests of my faith was learning exactly this lesson that God does not always give me what I want. I was in college and it was the night before a big test, and as I was studying, a Jewish guy who was in my class came down and interrupted me and said, So how do you know Jesus is the Messiah? I'm like, okay. So I dropped everything, stayed up till all hours of the night, evangelizing him. He did not become a believer. In fact, to this day, as far as I know, he is not a believer. But I went into my test thinking, I'm gonna ace it because I did my part, I did the right thing. God is now going to just supernaturally bring the words to my mind, and I bombed the test. Like blank blue book, turned, knew nothing, couldn't remember a thing. And it rocked my faith because being smart was my idol, and God was tearing it down. So it was not only this thing that I idolized, it was God didn't do his part. I did the religious thing I was supposed to do, and so it was God's turn to help me ace this test, and he let me fail. And it was this huge test of my young faith to say, am I gonna follow a God who doesn't give me what I want? Am I gonna follow him when his will and my will go different directions? And I had to learn to say, I want your will, not mine. So, as we've talked about in Jeremiah, and we're gonna see in more detail later when we get into some of his life, having a real relationship with God does not mean things are gonna go well for you right now or that you'll get what you want. That's one of the main themes of the book. God's about to destroy Jerusalem, he's about to do the unthinkable, but that unthinkable is part of his plan. So a real relationship with God is something richer and deeper and more. Like any good parent, he does not always give us what we ask for, but he does give us what he wants for us, and that is far that is blessing indeed. It may look like failure now, it may look like things are going wrong, but he promises this will be in the end a supreme blessing, what more wonderful than your wildest dreams. Because here's the key: God loves us too much to change our circumstances without changing our hearts. Our circumstances in the end are not important. What's important is that our hearts learn to love him, to follow him, and to trust him. That we move from sinful, hardened heart people to people who love him. And that's what he's after. He doesn't give us an easy life because Because he doesn't want to change our circumstances, he wants to change our hearts, and sometimes we need those circumstances to get at the sin and the problems in our hearts. So he has promised to deal with the biggest problem we've got: sin and guilt. And that doesn't always mean an easy life. He has promised a new heart and a new life in his kingdom under his rule, which will be far greater than we ever imagined. But it doesn't mean right now he's a vending machine dispensing blessings or easy lives in exchange for acts of religion and worship. He's a personal, loving father who gives us what we need in love, in discipline, and with gentleness and wisdom. But that doesn't always feel like it's what we want, but in the end it's what's best. Okay, the conditions under which the Lord will continue to bless his people are spelled out in 7, 5 through 6. He says, if you truly reform your way of life, your actions, if you act justly with one another, don't oppress the alien, widow, orphan, shed no innocent bloods, chase after no other gods. Those are all heart issues. Those are the moral and ethical demands of the covenant. He's basically saying, going through these motions of festivals and rituals are nothing without the humble broken heart behind them. What I want is that humble broken heart fully devoted to him, not the outward forms of religious practice. Okay, let me move on to the second oracle. I'm running a little long there. So the second one gets even more critical. It's a description of their apostasy, and notice it is bracketed by the phrase behold, or some translations might say, look. The point is watch, get your attention, look at this. And we see that in verse 8 and verse 11. Behold, you are trusting in deceptive words to no avail. Will you still steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely and offer sacrifices to Baal and walk after other gods that you have not known? Then come and stand before me in my house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered, that we may do these abominations. Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den become a den of robbers in your sight? Behold, I, even I, have seen it, declares the Lord. So once again he says, You're trusting in a word of deceit. You're believing something that's not true, namely that religion practices are going to keep you safe. So verse 9 mentions six of the Ten Commandments explicitly, and these were the basis of the covenant. These were like the marriage vows between God and his people. The Ten Commandments were the basic stimulations about what stipulations about what this covenant was, and they're violating them. So he says, you can't claim to be in a marriage relationship, a covenant relationship with me, and completely ignore the vows that are fine the foundation of our relationship. Then ignore them and then come and stand before me like everything's okay. So this is my Godfather movie analogy, like Michael Corleone. They violate the basic agreement of their relationship and then come to the temple and say, we're safe, we're good, because we've done these religious things. And God's furious with that hypocrisy and that mockery of their relationship. So this is the second thing that's wrong with religion. The first is we use it to get what we want. The second one is we use religion to hide our hearts from God. We can pretend to have a relationship with Him because we're going through the motions. We can fake it, basically, by looking good on the outside. So we think that by being religious, that coming to the temple, participating in the ceremonies, that protects us from having this real relationship with God. And we can do whatever we want and hide the fact that our hearts are turned away from him because outwardly we look pretty good. So we can use that religion to pretend, to hide the fact that our hearts are turned away from him while our actions fake it. And that's what he accuses them of, deluding themselves into thinking they can continue to break the covenant, committing all the evils in verses five, six, and nine, and then think they're safe because they've done the festivals, they've done the sacrifices, they've gone through the motions of temple worship. And the result of that thinking is the Lord's house has become a robber's cave. And that's an apt metaphor because robbers and thieves would go out to plunder and pillage, and then they'd return to their hideout where they were safe. So that was their safe place, they were away from the eyes of the law, and they could lay low until they were the law stopped pursuing them, and then they could go out and rob again. And he's saying, that's how you're using the temple. You're going out to plunder and pillage and worship other gods and lie and steal, and then you come back to the temple and say, We're good, we're safe. And he's Jeremiah reminds them, this is not a sheltering place for covenant breakers. God is watching and he says, I have seen. There is no hiding from me. I see what's in your heart, whether you're trying to hide it. So he says, I see what you do outside church as well as what you do inside church. And that can be a terrifying phrase uh thought. And Jesus picks up this phrase when he comes to the temple in Jerusalem about 600 years later. He walks into the temple, he sees the money changers and the souvenir stands and the people making a profit from religion, and he throws them out and says, My house is supposed to be called a house of prayer, but you have turned it into a den of robbers. The same idea. You're using religion like it's a lucky rabbit's foot, like it's a get out of jail free card, just like they were in Jeremiah's day. So do we do that? Do we use religion that way to protect ourselves from God, to hide the fact that we have sinful hearts? So I was thinking about this. I thought, yeah, you know, you know, I love Bible study, I love doing it, I love teaching it. But it's a funny thing about Bible study. It's possible to study and really have a great relationship with God and meet him and encounter him in a personal way. And I've had times where study has been like that, but you can also use Bible study as an alternative, as kind of a way to hide from God, so without actually having to deal with any kind of relationship with him. So you can get a lot of answers about God without having a relationship with God, and I've been there too, using it to kind of as an excuse not to meet him in prayer or confess things I need to confess or face into things I need to face. So we can use religion to hide our hearts from God rather than as an invitation to encounter him in prayer and humility. All right, the final oracle in this passage then is his announcement of judgment. And this oracle is framed by the mention of the city of Shiloh. We see it in verse 12 and in verse 14, and he reminds them what happened to Shiloh. So this was Shiloh was one of Israel's old centers of worship. It was about twenty miles north of Jerusalem. And during the days of Samuel and Eli the priest, the town of Shiloh housed the building where the Ark of the Covenant was kept. So it was the center of worship during the time of Samuel, but by Jeremiah's day, it was no longer the center of worship, and it was and um but it had been the site where the tabernacle was for almost 400 years, and the tabernacle had the Ark of the Covenant, the symbol of God's presence among them. So it was the precursor to the temple in Jerusalem. Let's look at twelve through fourteen. But go now to my place which was in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel. And now, because you have done these things, declares the Lord, and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you did not hear, and I called, but you did not answer. Therefore I will do to the house which is called by my name and which you trust, and to the place which I gave you and your fathers as I did to Shiloh. So the people of Jeremiah's day had this powerful physical proof that the Lord could dispense with Jerusalem the temple in Jerusalem the same way he dispensed with the tabernacle at Shiloh. Shiloh was destroyed by the Philistines in about 1050 BC, and it was part of the northern territory of Israel. Remember, the northern tribes have already been wiped out by the Assyrians about a hundred years before this scene is taking place. And God's drawing a comparison, and he's saying, Shiloh, where the tabernacle used to dwell, look at it and think about Jerusalem where the temple dwells now. And his point is simple. If I didn't spare Shiloh because I had my dwelling there when the people were wicked and acting idolatrously, what makes you think I'm going to spare Jerusalem just because my temple is there when the people are acting wickedly and idolatry? Now Shiloh was part of the northern tribes, and the people in Jerusalem thought they were better than the northern tribes because they had Jerusalem, they had the temple, they had the real, they were the real Israel, unlike the northern tribes. So they would have thought, well, sure, the northern tribes were destroyed and carried into exile. Shiloh was destroyed, but that was the northern tribes. We're the good guys, we're the real deal. We have the real temple, we have the real city of Jerusalem. God would never hurt us. And God is pointing out through Jeremiah, that's that's wrong thinking. If the wickedness of the people in Eli's day brought destruction on the sanctuary, what do you think is going to happen to the people of our day, of Jeremiah's day, who've done the same thing? So here we get the third problem with religion. So the first one was we use it to get what we want. The second one is we use it to pretend or fake having a relationship with God. And the third one is we can use it to compare ourselves to other people and think we're better off, just like the Southern tribes did with the Northern Tribes. So we can look up and down the chain and say, Well, I'm doing better than that, Christian, because I'm doing XYZ and I never miss church, and I go to all the committees and I pray every day and I never forget my Bible study, or whatever measure we want to measure with, we can always find someone who doesn't look as good on the outside as we do. And so we can be, you know, a Sunday morning Christian versus someone who's really on fire for the Lord, and we have all these comparisons, and in the end, we look at those comparisons and we use them to say, I'm doing good, I'm okay, I think I'm doing fine. And for the people in Jerusalem, they were comparing themselves to the northern tribes and saying, well, we're way better off than them. And God says, if Shiloh was destroyed because they were worshiping idols, then Jerusalem's going to be destroyed for the same reason. There's no favoritism. God sees the heart, not what's on the outside. He we have no idea looking at someone's outward behavior where their heart really is. They could be in a wonderful place with God or they could be faking it, and we have no real way of knowing. And God says, I'm the one that sees. I know. You're not hiding from me. There's no favoritism with him. As Ephesians says, we have one Lord, one Savior. We have the same problem, sin, and we all need the same solution, the cross. So we have one faith, one hope, one Lord, one baptism, one savior. There's no super Christians and fleshly Christians or a hierarchy of faith. We all are gonna get there in the end in the same way. And then the final, we get the conclusion, the epilogue in verse 15, he says, I will cast you out of my sight as I have cast out all your brothers, all the offspring of Ephraim. So he says, Not only will the temple in Jerusalem be destroyed just like Shiloh was destroyed, the people are gonna be sent into exile just like the people in the north were sent into exile earlier. So notice what he does. God realizes they're trusting in their religion. They're trusting in the fact that they have the temple, that they can do the sacrifices, that they can do the feasts, and so he takes that away from them. They're using religion to get what they want, they're using religion to hide their hearts from him, to compare themselves and thinks to others and think they're okay, and so he takes their religion away from them, but he doesn't take himself away from them. So he says, if if this is what you're trusting in, if you're trusting in all this outward trappings, all the things you can do to be religious, I'm gonna take that away. He destroys their temple, he sends them out of the land, but he doesn't take away his relationship with them, just their ability to practice the outward forms of their religion. So his presence is still with them, his mercy, his grace, his love and compassion, but he does take away their ability to practice their religion. And so this is our fourth and final observation about what's wrong with religion, and that is religion disappoints. Ultimately, all those outward things we do are not going to get us anywhere if our hearts aren't right. And God has a history of taking away the things that keep us from trusting Him. So if we put something in His place, whether it's religious practices or an idol of some sort, fortune or fame or health or whatever it is, if we're using that to hide ourselves from Him, He takes it away and that hurts. Because what we've been relying on and trusting in is gone, and we feel that lack, but that lack is supposed to drive us back to God. It's through that pain, through that disappointment, He's inviting us, look to me for life, come back to me. I'm the source of all those blessings you're seeking. And he works through those disappointments to show us those things we thought we wanted are not really what's going to fulfill us. We won't find life and joy and blessing apart from him. We won't solve the problem of our sin and guilt apart from him. There is life to be found, there is hope and blessing to be found, but we find it at the cross with a humble and broken heart. Because in the end, we don't really want to protect ourselves from him. We don't really want to settle for feeling okay because we're better off than someone else, at least on the outside. We want to be saved. We want to be forgiven and redeemed and made worthy to be loved and forgiven and accepted. So religion disappoints because it doesn't deliver and it was never meant to. The outward expressions of our faith were not meant to save us. And this is actually becoming a big deal in our culture right now because there are at least two different movements that I'm aware of where what they call religious practices or spiritual formation or spiritual disciplines, I think they're they can be a good thing, but these two movements have taken them one step too far, where they're the becoming the instrument of blessing. They're actually starting to teach, if you do these things, then guaranteed you will be blessed. If you don't do these things, you're settling for God's second best, and so on. And that's a dangerous, dangerous message. And I think that's what Jeremiah is preaching against here. That's the word of the seat that says, we've got the temple, we've got the right things, we're doing the right things, therefore God will bless us. But religion, the outward, remember, I defined religion as the outward set of behaviors, practices, and rituals that we do, that is not ever going to fulfill us in and of itself. So if you think religion's gonna get you what you want, whether it's economic success or easy life or good health, then you're gonna be disappointed. Religion will not get you that. If you think religion's gonna protect you from God, that you can fake having a relationship with him because you're doing all the right things, at some point you have to face him and consider the state of your heart. And if you're hiding from him, allowing your heart to stay turned away from him, that's going to disappoint you. So, you know, we a lot of us live our lives in kind of an effort to reduce disappointments. You know, keep your expectations low so you won't be disappointed. And most of us know that if you live long enough, disappointment is just part of life. So that things that we hope will fulfill us just don't turn out to be that fulfilling. That great job isn't as great, or the perfect marriage turns out to need a whole lot of work, or parents who don't treat you right, or children make decisions you wish they never would have made. And our lives on this earth always include disappointment. But the encouragement is that God is working through that disappointment. Those things were not meant to be our fulfillment. They were not meant to be the ultimate blessing. God uses those disappointments and the failures of this fallen world to help us see Him. So we can use religion to kind of try to keep ourselves safe as an insurance policy against all those disappointments. And God says, that's not gonna do it. That's not, you're looking in the wrong place. So, what's wrong with religion? Religion is about trying to get what you want. It's about doing the things that God wants you to do so that you never actually have to face Him and deal with the problem of your sin and deal with the problem of your guilt and where you're gonna find a Savior. Religion can be all about feeling better about ourselves now because we look better on the outside than other people, but in the end that will disappoint us because all those things are empty. So we see in this passage people trying to live two lives. They go through the motions of religion at the temple when it's convenient, but then they go back and turn toward idolatry and worshiping other gods when as soon as they walk out the door. So, like Michael Corleone baptizing his nephew in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and then turning around and murdering his rivals, they're pretending, they're faking a religion. So, what's wrong with religion is that can become a way for us to manage an unpredictable God or to pretend that we have a relationship with him when we don't. But the challenge of the passage is to seek him with your whole heart. As to humble yourself before him, to face squarely into the fact I'm sinful through and through. There's nothing I can do about that sin left to myself. There's nothing I can do that requires God to bless me, but thanks be to God, because of the blood of Jesus Christ, He has promised to forgive me, to love me, and to save me from that very sin. And that's saving faith, that's true worship. Let's pray. Father, we pray that you would make these words real to us, that they wouldn't just be theology or things we read in the passage, but that we would be able to see into our hearts, to know if we're faking it, to know if we're hiding from you, and that you would confront us in your love, you would draw us to you, and make us people who truly trust you, who not just go through the motions because we think it will keep us safe, but we go through those motions because of the joy of following you and loving you and wanting to know you better. And if anything was wrong or confusing or heretical, we pray that you would blow it away like chat, and that you would write what's true in our hearts. In Jesus' name.