Jeremiah 28:5-9 - by Don Neuendorf
OK, so I never got back to blog on the Gospel lesson for last week, but I preached on it and that sermon audio is posted (for what it's worth), so you can check that out if you want.
I really wanted to preach on the Jeremiah text because it has always fascinated me how he openly confessed that he didn't want to preach. He tried not to preach. But he found that he had to - and whenever he did, he had to tell the truth... which was bad news and got him into trouble...
Next Sunday's lesson is an example. Jeremiah would LOVE to be able to say that the prophet Hananiah is telling the truth. He'd love to be able to say that God is going to deliver the Israelites and bring all the captives back to Jerusalem, etc. "Amen! May the Lord do so!" he says.
It would be like me preaching about today's false prophets. I really would love to be able to say that *everyone* gets to go to heaven. God is just going to make all the problems go away. Or, following some false teachers, that mankind is evolving and is just going to get better and better and better.
But it's not so. God's truth is harder - but at the same time it is also more encouraging and hopeful. God's law is sterner, and yet God's Gospel, his good news, his forgiveness, is freer. God warns us about wars and rumors of wars, about divisions even within families. And yet, he promises the only real peace - the arrival of the Prince of Peace.