Jeremiah 6:27

The Bible says in Jeremiah 6:27-30, “I have set thee for a tower and a fortress among my people, that thou mayest know and try their way. They are all grievous revolters, walking with slanders: they are brass and iron; they are all corrupters. The bellows are burned, the lead is consumed of the fire; the founder melteth in vain: for the wicked are not plucked away. Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the LORD hath rejected them.” These verses are a clear statement of the ministry to which Jeremiah was called. God reminds Jeremiah that God raised up Jeremiah for a very specific purpose. But God also reminds Jeremiah that this ministry would not see results. The people would not turn and would not listen. The Lord wants to give everyone a fair chance. Everyone has an opportunity to turn to the Lord. The Spirit of God is everywhere in the world trying to touch hearts and to draw men and women to the truth. It says in Psalms 19:1-4, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun…” At the judgment no one will be able to say that Jesus did not try to save them. Everyone will admit that the Lord did everything tat was necessary to work in their hearts. If they do not get saved, it will be their fault and not God’s fault. It says in Romans 14:11-12, “For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.”

We live in a day that is not unlike the time in which Jeremiah lived. The Lord may call any of us to a ministry similar to his. The Lord might prepare us and give us a message, and then send us out to the people of the world to deliver that message. But the people might have a hard heart and refuse to listen. That is what happened to Jeremiah, and it also happened to Jesus at times in His ministry on the earth. Jesus said in Matthew 7:13-14, “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” Jesus said in Luke 10:10-16, “But into whatsoever city ye enter, and they receive you not, go your ways out into the streets of the same, and say, Even the very dust of your city, which cleaveth on us, we do wipe off against you: notwithstanding be ye sure of this, that the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you. But I say unto you, that it shall be more tolerable in that day for Sodom, than for that city. Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon, which have been done in you, they had a great while ago repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment, than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted to heaven, shalt be thrust down to hell. He that heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me; and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me.”

It is interesting to notice that the Lord said in Jeremiah 6:29, “the founder melteth in vain.” And then the Lord says in Jeremiah 6:30, “Reprobate silver shall men call them.” The refining of a precious metal has a spiritual application. In order to refine metals like gold or silver, a burning heat is applied to them. In that way unwanted impurities are burned away and the metal that remains is more pure than ever before. Sometimes when you are going through a very difficult time in your personal life, you might ask the question, “What is going on here. Why did God allow this to happen to me?” It may be that God is working in your life using the firey trials to burn away at your Christian character and to burn away at your soul, so that you will end up being more spiritual and more pure when it is all over. It says in First Peter 4:12, “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:” It also says in First Peter 1:7, “That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:”

Be careful how you respond to the fiery trials that the Lord sends your way. Make sure that you allow them to accomplish what God wants them to accomplish spiritually speaking in your Christian growth and character. If you do not, then you are in danger of having the same fate experienced by the children of Israel during the time of Jeremiah. They did not respond correctly to the trials that God brought upon them, and those trials were designed to cause them to repent and improve their actions. But they did not correct their behavior. In spite of the trials that God sent to them, they continued on in the same way. They did not become precious metal with the impurities burned out of them. “the founder melteth in vain.” They became “Reprobate silver.”

The Bible says in Jeremiah 7:1-4, “The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, Stand in the gate of the LORD's house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the LORD, all ye of Judah, that enter in at these gates to worship the LORD. Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, are these.” This is a very revealing passage of scripture that tells us God is interested in the heart of man and in the spiritual condition of man, and not in the externals of religion. One of the externals of religion has to do with the buildings that are erected as meeting places for the believers. The best example of a meeting place was the Jewish temple. God gave the orders to Moses for the building of the tabernacle. Eventually the temple was constructed after the same pattern and idea. The Bible says about the tabernacle in Exodus 33:7-11, “And Moses took the tabernacle, and pitched it without the camp, afar off from the camp, and called it the Tabernacle of the congregation. And it came to pass, that every one which sought the LORD went out unto the tabernacle of the congregation, which was without the camp. And it came to pass, when Moses went out unto the tabernacle, that all the people rose up, and stood every man at his tent door, and looked after Moses, until he was gone into the tabernacle. And it came to pass, as Moses entered into the tabernacle, the cloudy pillar descended, and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the LORD talked with Moses. And all the people saw the cloudy pillar stand at the tabernacle door: and all the people rose up and worshipped, every man in his tent door. And the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp: but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle.”

In the times of the New Testament the temple has been done away with. Instead of having the physical building of a temple, we now have our own bodies as the temple of the Holy Spirit. Our bodies represent the presence of God because the Holy Spirit is within each one who believes in Jesus. This presence of the Holy Spirit within each believer has been manifested to us who live in the age of grace much more completely than it was manifested in the days of the Old Testament. For example, it says in First Corinthians 6:19, “What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?”

Once God allowed the Old Testament temple to be destroyed, God did not replace it with any other building. Any building that is used for Christian gatherings is done so for practical considerations only. If a group of Christians is going to meet some place for prayer and Bible study and singing, they need to be able to get out of the rain, and the sun, and the weather. God never did establish that a building must be used for this purpose, but Christians do it for practical purposes. Jesus clearly set aside the notion that people must go to some particular building in some particular place to worship God. The Bible says in John 4:21-24, “Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”

In the New Testament times in which we live, a church building has a practical purpose only. The word “church” was first used by Jesus, and the word refers specifically to people, and not to a building. Jesus was speaking to Peter, and Jesus said in Matthew 16:18, “And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” The word “church” literally means “those that are called out.” It means the believers in Jesus. Never in the New Testament does the word “church” refer to a building. There are not even any church buildings in the New Testament. When buildings are mentioned as being used for gatherings of Christians, the building involved is a home, probably because that is what they had. For example, it says in First Corinthians 16:19, “The churches of Asia salute you. Aquila and Priscilla salute you much in the Lord, with the church that is in their house.”

There is nothing wrong with using a church building if it is used for practical purposes. Do not call the building a church. The people who believe in Jesus are the church. If you are going down to the church building, then say that you are going down to the church building. Do not say that you are going down to the church. Do not think of the building or any geographical location as a holy place. If you believe in Jesus, your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost. “…Christ in you, the hope of glory,” so it says in Colossians 1:27. People do not understand the true worship of God when they think that the building is holy or that they must go to the building to be close to God. To do so would be to make the same mistake that was made by the children of Israel in the day of Jeremiah. And we know what they said that proved how little they and how far they had gone away from the true worship of God. They said lying words. They said, “The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, are these.”

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