Make a U-Turn Before It's Too Late

Sermon Starter:  Make a U-Turn Before It's Too Late
Text:  Jeremiah 18:11, 18:15
Purpose:  To show Christians the progression of sin's deceit and encourage believers to turn back to the Lord.

Introduction.

I.  The Progression of Sin  [c.f., Jeremiah 2:32; 3:21; 6:16; Malachi 2:8]

All sin goes through a progression; as we continually give in to our habits, our vices, our wrong desires, our evil ways, our hidden faults - sin begins to entangle itself around our heart.  Every sin has the potential to poison us.  If we continue to go down the dark path of our own devices, we will find our heart growing colder and colder toward Jesus.  Here is the progression:  Jeremiah 18:15-16

     A. Forsaking or forgetting God.  All sin begins with the basic step of forsaking His ways and His laws.  The people of Israel had decided to forsake the Lord; they forgot Him in their daily walk and they forgot to meet with Him and get to know Him.  Once we forget God, we move on to ...

     B.  Worshipping something else.  Sin is not committed only once; its purpose is to change our hearts so that sin is committed again and again.  What happens as we habitually revisit the same sins perpetually?  We are worshipping at the altar of our man made idol.  Once we have fallen in love with an idol, we may ...

     C.  Cause others to stumble.  Sin does not just affect me; the secret sins are the worst.  We work all the time to hide them, but all the while - we are leading ourselves and others away from the Lord.  Even if we don't deliberately tell someone to watch a bad movie, the bad movie may affect us so much that people can no longer see Christ in us.  Many other examples could be cited. 

     D.  Walk continually in the wrong way. Just because something is new doesn't make it bad; however, the best kept truths are ones that have existed for thousands of  years as revealed to us in the Holy Bible.   It is these truths that Satan will attack and that false idols will keep us away from. 

     E.  Desolation.  Desolation is always the end of sin; often times, God doesn't have to do anything.  Our sin destroys us, brings us enormous guilt, and causes us to hate the very thing that we have done.  In fact, a part of us may die.  (2 Samuel 13:15) 

In other instances, such as Jeremiah 18:16, we will find ourselves outside the protection of God as a laughing stock amongst others.  This sin could literally kill us; make a U-turn!  Turn back to the Lord.


II. The Promise of God.  Jeremiah 18:7-8.  [c.f., Ezekiel 33:14]

While it is true that this portion of scripture is speaking primarily of the ways of God among the Jews or among other nations, nations are made up of individuals.  Surely in many ways, the way He deals with nations is similar to the way He deals with people.

God proclaims that if He has decided to destroy a nation, His anger can be reversed through one step:  a.  Turn from their evil.  This means, to turn not only our hearts, love, and affection away, but to turn our lives away.  We shall no longer look at sin, consider sin, entertain sin, love sin, or do sin. 

Conclusion.

Mountain of God or Mountains of Sin - Sermon Outline

Sermon Outline

Mountain of God or Mountain of Sin

Scripture:  Ezekiel 6 and varies

Introduced May 2011

Sermon Outline

Introduction:  Mountains are often linked to worship; for some reason, mountains are linked to Holy worship … or profane worship … even in people’s minds.  In one episode of Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls goes into the mountains to be close to God after a traumatic experience in her life.

Mountains rise … they get higher … they bring the worshipper closer to Jehovah … or, closer to sin … depending on the object of the worshipper.

A.  The Mountains of Israel became Mountains of Death – Ezekiel 6.  God, through Ezekiel, were condemning the people of Israel for their sin.  These were the warnings.

1. God will bring a sword against Israel.  6:3  In other words, they worshipped idols.

2. God’s heart was broken with their whorish ways.  6:9  God’s heart was broken with their whorish ways.  They had impure hearts.
   
   Some individuals in different denominations have written about how God’s heart needs ‘comforting’ or ‘consoling’.  Although it is very difficult to defend the idea that God’s heart needs some sort of comforting … we do see from this verse that there are times when God feels emotions which He may choose to rectify through chastising His kids.  One of the emotions he feels is a broken heart because of the whorish ways of man.  This makes sense as the Holy Ghost, Himself, also expresses emotions depending on how we relate to Him.
1. Ephesians 4:30 – Grieving the Holy Spirit
2. 1 Thessalonians 5:19 – Quenching the Holy Spirit
3. Genesis 6:3 – He strives with man
4. Revelation 22:17 – He convinces sinners to come to Christ

3. People of Israel committed evil abominations.  6:11 They had unclean hands.  In other words, the mountains of Israel, during the exile time of Israel, were evil.  [Side note:  For a thorough discussion of these evil abominations, consider reading the Preachers Outline and Sermon Bible or a good commentary on the “high places” the Israelites had built.  However, be careful with discussing this with your Bible study or congregation.  Some of the unfruitful works of men are not worth discussion, especially if they will inflame the passions of weaker Christians.]

B.  The Mountains of Israel Were to Be God’s Holy Mountain – The Mountain of Zion

1. His foundations is in the holy mountains.  Psalm 87:1
2. God is holy; that is why we worship at His holy hill.  Psalm 99:9
3. God’s mountain is sometimes expressed as His dwelling place.  Psalm 43:3
4. From God’s holy mountains does He answer the psalmist.  Psalm 3:4
5. Psalm 24 – Only some may dwell in the Holy mountain/hill of God.

C.  Only Some May Dwell in the Holy Mountain of God

In the pages of Ezekiel 6, we see that the mountains are described as very sinful and troublesome.  It makes sense, then, that God “cleanses” His mountains and the places of Israel in order to cleanse out the people’s sins. 

Then we notice throughout the Psalms that there are tons of places that speak about how God dwells in holy mountains.

We come, however, to Psalm 24 and we realize that if we are to be close to God and able to dwell with Him in His holy mountains (which means, metaphorically, to dwell on high with God) – there are certain requirements.  They include:

1. Clean hands.
2. Pure heart.
3. Not lifting his soul unto vanity (some commentators suggest the translation should be not lifting his soul unto idols.  This is not a contradiction of the Scriptures; we learn in Isaiah 44:9 that they who make graven images are vanity.  Vanity and idol false worship are linked in the Old Testament.)

Charles Spurgeon suggests that another way to look at this section of Psalm 24:4 is to see that two descriptions are characteristic of those who can live with God: 

1)     Abstain from evil doing [clean hands]

2)     Abstain from evil thought [pure heart]

Conclusion / Decision / Invitation:

The mountains of sin or the mountains of the LORD … to which are we attaining?  As noted, mountains “rise”.  Are we continually seeking higher and higher pleasures of sin … or are we seeking the highest Divine Being – God Himself?  A great blessing is promised to those seeking Him (Psalm 24:5)

What if you are currently living for the mountains of sin?  Ask the LORD to cleanse you … let His cleansing work surround you and accept his chastisements if that is what will be necessary.  Then, begin the continual, daily work of living a Holy life.  Know that you cannot, on your own, attain to His holiness.  Rather, He has already done this for you – Ephesians 1-3.

Sermon Outline Creation Date:  2011.  Mountains of sin or Mountain of God.  This particular sermon has a literary device in it that may not be readily apparent to the reader or hearer.  I do not know how effective it will be … however, please note that in the first half of the sermon – we describe what the Israelites were not.  Notice the words in italics match that which is preached in section C, clean hands, pure hearts, idols.

Section B. of this sermon is optional … however, I thought it would be a great bridge between Section A & C since if the hearer knew nothing of the Lord – the hearer might not understand the holy nature of God and His ways.

Tip:  If you use Microsoft Word, consider taking the bare essence of the outline and placing it in the header of the document which will appear on every page of the sermon.  When it prints out, you can look at your outline at any time during the sermon and you will sound like you thoroughly know your content to your hearers.  May the Lord Jesus be praised!