Daily Devotional For Tuesday, August 12. 2027
Good morning Southside! Thank you for taking the time to spend some time with the Lord today. Our daily devotional for today comes from Jeremiah 23:28-29:
“Let these false prophets tell their dreams, but let My true messengers faithfully proclaim My every word. There is a difference between straw and grain! (29) Does not My word burn like fire?” says the LORD. “Is it not like a mighty hammer that smashes a rock to pieces?” (NLT).
Jeremiah 23 sits in the context of false teachers and false prophets. False prophet, false teachers and false preachers always get their information from false sources. They teach or preach or proclaim their falseness only to deceive and control people. This is one reason we read from Jeremiah so much of God’s judgment against His own people. It had to break the heart of God to punish so severely the people He had called and was in a covenant with in Jeremiah’s time.
Nothing has changed since Jeremiah’s times. We see God warning His church about this today in 2 Timothy 4:3, “For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear” (NLT). We see the evidence of pagan, demonic and evil lies encroaching in churches today!
No one wants to hear about sin, be held accountable for their sin, nor repent from their sin. People no longer go biblical truth; instead, they see truth as relative and subjective. Thus, they want to choose whichever truth they want for their lives on the “Buffet Truth Bar.” Jeremiah says that in Jerusalem, homosexuality was widely accepted and affirmed. This is why he makes the statement he does in Jeremiah 23:14, where he references Sodom and Gomorrah, to remind them what God did to these two cities. Depravity in the church or in God’s people is always the result of liberal, depraved teachers/preachers.
Liberal theology condones immorality rather than condemning it. Liberal theology never takes sin seriously. God does, thus the reminder by Jeremiah what God did to Sodom and Gomorrah. With the widespread acceptance of pagan fertility cults, Jeremiah was also referencing adultery, fornication and any other sexual sin. Any time God’s preachers/pastors are soft on sin, they are encouraging and endorsing sin against a holy God. I am reminded of the words of Old Testament scholar Philip G. Ryken:
“This is a warning to any follower of Christ who continues to struggle with homosexual sin, or with any other sexual sin for that matter. To think that it is safe to dabble in lust, pornography, or adultery is to listen to a false message. The lie of pro-gay theology is that homosexual fantasy and intercourse have the blessing of God. That is a false message from a false source. The Bible teaches that all sexual fantasies and actions outside of Biblical marriage are sin. Of course, there is forgiveness for every sin in Christ. But the full extent of God’s grace cannot be learned by minimizing the sinfulness of sexual sin. A sin must be called a sin so that grace can be grace all the way through the Christian’s sexuality” (Source Philip G. Ryken, Preach The Word, “Jeremiah & Lamentations: From Sorrow To Hope, p. 350).
Liberal teachers and preachers today teach and preach that God is not angry about sin, especially sexual sin. Why? Because they do not view it as sin, but as symptomatic of our modern, open-minded culture and unfortunately, church. If there really is no sin, no anger from God, no wrath by God and no judgment from God, then who needs the cross? One point in Jeremiah 23 is that God still punishes sin and will punish sin (see Jer. 23:12, Jer. 23:15, and Jer. 23:19-20). There is no escape from the wrath of God, even in America and American churches.
In Jeremiah 23, Jeremiah weeps and is sad about these liberal prophets, teachers and preachers in Jerusalem (Jer. 23:9). He is not smug or proud about his own ministry, but sad what God has been forced to do because of the sin and disobedience of His own people. This is why in the modern church, biblical preachers do two things: they preach biblical truth and refute unbiblical lies. They expose them and call them out not to be condemning, but to call God’s people to obedience in the Lord. This means that biblical truth must be defended with clarity and humility. Any time we see liberal theology coming into the church, it must be stopped because it is horrific as the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Reflection Assignment: When you are in church, do you ever get angry when the sermon is about a sin in your own life? So instead of thanking the Lord, you criticize the pastor and in essence, you welcome liberal theology into your life and the church. Where in your life are you making excuses for your sin rather than repenting them from them?
Scripture To Meditate On: John 8:31-32, “Jesus said to the people who believed in Him, “You are truly My disciples if you remain faithful to My teachings.(32) And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (NLT).
Prayer To Pray: “Dear Lord, help me to desire Your truth especially when it convicts, challenges and calls out my sin and rebellion against You. I do not want to compromise, or cooperate with liberal theology and liberal lies. Please give me discernment to spot this. I love You Lord. In Jesus’ name, Amen!”
I love you Southside! – Pastor Kelly