"Only The Consequence Of Idolatry" – Jeremiah 18:15 “Because my people hath forgotten me, they have burned incense to vanity, and they have caused them to stumble in their ways.” The study first dismantles the comfortable idea that idolatry is someone else’s images: idolatry is not merely an object, it reaches deep into the heart, and the incense most burned today is vanity. You meet someone and within fifteen minutes they are boasting: there the incense was lit, and an atmosphere that could have been a moving of God now edifies nothing. From there it traces the anatomy of drifting away —loosening, breaking off, and beginning to see everyone with annoyance until you find fault in everything— and what is lost when the bond breaks: the Holy Spirit cannot remain, and there is no communion with the Father. It continues with the discipline of leveling the road, walking it again and again until the stones are gone; and it walks through seven more passages: the straying sheep of Psalm 119:176, the one who departs from wisdom in Proverbs 21:16, the bird that leaves her nest in Proverbs 27:8, those who wandered blind in Lamentations 4:14, those who became vain in Jeremiah 2:5, the heart taken by idols in Ezekiel 14:5, the honor of lips only in Matthew 15:8 and Isaiah 29:13, and the wandering stars of Jude 13.
I. Idolatry is not only an image.
A. It is always ready to come and destroy us, and it reaches deep into the heart.
1. “I worship no images”: but idolatry is not merely an object.
2. What are we most attached to? Does it stir you to rise in the morning and kneel?
3. More is spent on the day’s rush; and that rush will not yield the well-being in time.
B. When we give in to the things of life, lukewarmness comes.
1. We labor more for ourselves than for the road.
2. And lukewarm, we will not know God as He deserves to be known.
3. The Word is what uncovers God to our eyes, by the Holy Spirit.
II. The anatomy of drifting away.
A. It comes when one loosens, when one breaks off, when one lets go.
1. One begins to see people not with love, but with annoyance and anger.
2. You find a reason in everything, you look for a fifth leg on the cat.
3. When we look for something in everyone to separate us, the drifting is our own.
4. Drifting carries an act: separation, tearing; and life is no longer the same.
B. Around us are angels who see it all and carry it to the Father.
1. The bad days begin, the sad days, and to crown it the day of disgrace.
2. And the day of disgrace is so called because grace is gone: it fled, it cannot remain.
3. More years may be lived, but there is nothing left to set right.
C. One separates from the Lord because one was once joined to Him.
1. Not the visitor, nor the lukewarm who never made that covenant: the one who has known God.
2. If the blood of Christ cleanses us, the deity dwells and reigns in the just.
3. When the bond breaks, the Holy Spirit departs, and there is no communion: one cannot pray.
4. Every prayer must end in the name of the Lord, for at the right hand is the Son.
III. Burning incense to vanity (Jeremiah 18:15).
A. The priests poured a fragrant oil, and that smoke meant that God was present.
1. That ended when grace came: it was the Old Testament, it was the law.
2. And the incense most burned on the earth is vanity.
B. Within fifteen minutes someone is already boasting: there the incense was lit.
1. An atmosphere that could have been a moving of God, and nothing is edified.
2. How many lies are wrapped in it? Deceit is easy; and it comes from vanity.
3. I need not seek to please people: that, in the end, is vanity.
C. There was no vanity in Jeremiah: kings and companions mistreated him.
1. He ended in Egypt, and there they killed him; but he was the one God had chosen.
2. To follow idols is what is called vanity: worshiping what neither hears nor sees you.
3. They thought that in pouring the oil that scent was incense; and it was vanity.
4. They strayed because none reproved them; the Holy Spirit reproves us.
D. Choosing vanity is not complicated: it is easy.
1. One must learn to discern and perceive: the most interesting thing for one who has a spirit.
2. That vanity is the pretense of knowing; and there is the drifting: idolatry of oneself.
IV. Leveling the road.
A. Some roads must be walked again and again, until the stones are gone.
1. Vanity is easy; but the drifting says: I cannot deal with problems.
2. “I cannot stand him, I cannot stand her”: then face it, walk it, level the ground.
3. If you hide today and tomorrow, you end up an unpleasant recluse.
4. Let the grandchild open the refrigerator twenty times: with grandchildren there is no time for pride.
B. It is a warning about the danger of departing from God and His teachings.
1. Love your neighbor, be a servant of Christ, wash the brethren’s feet, forsake not the assembling.
2. One does not read the Scriptures and drifts further; and makes a gospel to fit oneself.
3. We depart from the teaching because we select what we liked of the message.
V. Like a lost sheep (Psalm 119:176).
A. After exalting the Word all chapter long, he ends confessing his tendency to stray.
1. He likens himself to a straying sheep and asks God to seek him and rescue him.
2. Despite his straying, he affirms he has not forgotten the commandments.
3. David was the king who established a nation; and his sons did not make it easy.
B. How often can we feel ourselves astray?
1. The trouble came, your thought is disturbed, and you know not whom to seek.
2. Whom should one always seek? God; and where does one go? To prayer.
3. How easy it is to forget the commandments: “I just cannot bear it anymore.”
4. Leave off the vanity of thinking we are more special beings than others.
VI. He that wandereth out of the way of understanding (Proverbs 21:16).
A. “Shall remain in the congregation of the dead.”
1. The way of wisdom means an upright life and the fear of God.
2. That is how the road is leveled: helping the fallen up, feeding the hungry.
3. Departing leads to ruin, and at last to spiritual or physical death.
4. The congregation of the dead: they breathe and live, but receive no divine instruction.
B. In life you decide alone.
1. The Word is given as counsel; but how you will act, you decide.
2. You speak, you opine, you murmur; but remember that the wise man builds.
3. Whoever gains wisdom is a delight on the earth: he has a worth he does not grasp.
VII. As a bird that wandereth from her nest (Proverbs 27:8).
A. The image conveys exposure, instability and vulnerability.
1. No one likes to protect today; and the human being is easily made vulnerable.
2. The nest is the place of safety and of purpose.
3. To depart from it can bring risk or loss.
B. All that comes into life is to level roads.
1. The troubles you think greater than anyone’s, many have already passed through.
2. The evil day does not make a just man slip: it makes him work, and it strengthens him.
3. Give thanks to God where we are tried: count how many taps of water are in your house.
VIII. They wandered as blind men (Lamentations 4:14).
A. It describes Judah after the destruction of Jerusalem.
1. They had a pole of idolatry on every corner, on the hills, in the trees.
2. When destruction came, they wandered blind: faith had died.
3. When you do not know what to do, it is because you walk blind: there is confusion.
4. And confusion leads to desperation and to no direction: one is lost, stumbling.
B. A people dishonored, disoriented and broken.
1. “Polluted with blood” reflects the violence and judgment that had fallen.
2. If you do a favor, you tell half the world: that incense of vanity does not profit.
3. Let not your left hand know what your right does: why boast? That no longer counts.
IX. They became vain (Jeremiah 2:5).
A. “What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me?”
1. He who becomes vain has no weight in morals, in love, in passion, in surrender.
2. There was no valid reason to depart: God is just and faithful, and never forsakes His own.
3. Yet the people chose to follow vanities: empty idols, worthless things.
4. And in doing so they became like what they followed: empty and without purpose.
B. We are called to reflect.
1. To stop and think calmly on causes, consequences and meanings.
2. To consider our acts, thoughts and experiences, to correct and to decide better.
3. By not deciding, and by not saying at home what must be said, one drifts away.
X. Idolatry begins in the heart (Ezekiel 14:5).
A. They burned the temple for which so much was fought: they profaned it and made it a mockery.
1. That is life’s business: to fight so that what is holy is not profaned.
2. It happened through their drifting: the incense was for themselves, out of pure vanity.
3. If it befell the house of Israel, we in the time of grace must take care.
B. The problem was not merely outward, but of the heart.
1. They had let the idols take the place that belongs to God.
2. God lets them feel the consequences, that they may understand and return to Him.
3. Coming to church is where we are made warriors.
4. While we please God there is no problem; if the Lord casts off, the devil tears us apart.
XI. This people honoureth me with their lips (Matthew 15:8; Isaiah 29:13).
A. “But their heart is far from me.”
1. God sees if we honor Him with lips only: as for talking, everyone talks.
2. True worship is not outward nor ritual: it must be born of the heart.
3. Like her who wept at Jesus’ feet and wiped them with her hair.
B. It is a call to spiritual authenticity.
1. To honor with words, without obedience or sincere love, is empty and unacceptable.
2. If you never open the Bible, you know nothing; and you lose your useful spiritual life.
3. Spirituality is not for one: children too must begin to be spiritual.
4. How? Make them meek; teach them to love the Lord.
XII. Wandering stars (Jude 13).
A. Jude writes concerned for the false teachers who had crept into the church.
1. This Jude was a disciple, not the one who sold Jesus: we must understand that.
2. Raging waves that foam out their own shame, their sins and their disgrace.
3. Wandering stars, without course, out of their orbit: instability and perdition.
4. Their end is eternal darkness: complete separation from God.
B. A warning against those who feign faith but live unrestrained.
1. What is done in secret will be known publicly.
2. Profaning carries consequences; better not to have been born than to profane the sacred.
3. Because it is to meddle with the Holy Spirit; and when He rises, it is great peril.
4. Let us always strive that our Lord never depart from our midst.
Christian Church Mega Zoé · Pastor Edermira Cruz
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