The last few days, I have been reading the book of Jeremiah for my devotional time, and I have seen many parallels between ancient Israel and modern-day America. No, this is not a prophecy post; I am just going to share a few observations and thoughts from what I have read the last few mornings.

The children of Israel had gone after idols, and the prophets were speaking lies. God ordained Jeremiah as a prophet; to root out and pull down, to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant. Israel had been duped by false prophets declaring peace, peace when God was saying captivity. Israel had utterly forsaken the ways and Word of God, and Jeremiah would have his life threatened for speaking the true Word of God, the message of repentance.

The end of verse eight in chapter two; records these words, “The prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after things that did not profit.” Chapter three, verse ten says that Israel did not turn to God with her whole heart but only in pretense.”

How many prophets and teachers in the American church are doing the same, they are prophesying by a false spirit and teaching damnable heresy; how many are sitting in the pews and buying these lies, “turning to God” only in pretense but without a true heart of repentance? So many in the American Church hate posts like these, the charge of why do you have to bash the Church comes up. God told Jeremiah not to look at the people’s faces because the people would not receive the truth, they wanted the lie of peace, peace.

2 Timothy 4:3-4 TLV “For the time will come when they will not put up with sound instruction, but they will pile up for themselves teachers in keeping with their own desires, to have their ears tickled. ⁴ And they will turn away from hearing the truth and wander off to myths.”

The American Church, by and large, has itching ears; they have turned aside to fables – fables of prosperity, signs and wonders, and a grace that does not demand holiness. Last year Charismatics and Evangelicals joined together for something called The Return, which ended up being nothing more than dozens of three-minute prayers by celebrity preachers who were selling new books and selling t-shirts with The Return on them. God will not be mocked, and there is nothing more mocking than false repentance from supposed leaders in the Christian church.

In chapter seven, Jeremiah stands in the gates of the Lord’s house and rebukes the people for trusting in lying prophets. Quit believing the lying prophets! Quit believing the lying prophets. Every prophet got everything wrong in 2020! Quit listening to them, take Jeremiah’s warning to heart, and quit listening to false prophets. Quit trusting shepherds who sugarcoat a message and leave out the gospel. We need truth in this hour, and we need repentance, not national repentance; I am talking about repentance from the pews and the pulpits. 2020 should have killed our games, no more seeker-sensitive. Pastors are supposed to feed the sheep, not entertain the goats. We wonder why we don’t know our Bibles, why kids leave the faith during college, they walk away because we have entertained them instead of equipped them.

I love the Church, I love the body of Christ, and I’m praying for a reformation. We don’t need a revival because the revival we’ve been sold won’t change us, it only exists to entertain us. We need a reformation. We need a return to gospel preaching, we need a return to repentance, we need a return to family devotions, and we need a return to strong confessional churches. Churches that don’t shy away from doctrine and begin feeding their spirit doctrine again. I’m all for devotional encouragement, I’m incorporating more of it into my reading, but many try to live off that, which is why the American Church is weak.

Look at these words from Jeremiah 9:24-25 (25-26) TLV “Days are soon coming,” declares Adonai, “when I will punish all who are circumcised and yet uncircumcised— ^{25 (26)} Egypt, Judah, Edom and Ammon’s children and Moab, and all that have cut the corners of their hair—that dwell in the wilderness. For all the nations are uncircumcised but all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart.”

The Christian will be judged just like the world. There is a lie in the Church today, if we agree with the world, if we’ll sympathize with the world, they’ll like us. No, the Bible promises hatred of the world. Scripture says to be the friend of the world is the enemy of God! This woke-church, progressive Christianity is making people twice the sons of hell as the leaders are. I don’t need to dialog with people who challenge the authority of the Bible, and those people are certainly not my brothers and sisters in the Lord. There is a harsh judgment coming for many who abandon the Word of God. We hear lots of talk about a great end-time revival, yet when you read the New Testament, the writers constantly warn of a great falling away, an apostasy, a rejection of faith.

I stopped at the end of Jeremiah chapter eleven today. I read these words in the middle of the chapter; “For I earnestly forewarned your fathers in the day that I brought them up out of the land of Egypt until this day, forewarning early and often, saying ‘Listen to My voice!’ ⁸ Yet they would not obey or incline their ear, but each one walked in the stubbornness of his evil heart. Therefore I brought on them all the words of this covenant—which I commanded them to do, but they did not.” ⁹ Then Adonai said to me, “A conspiracy has been discovered among the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. ¹⁰ They have turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers who refused to hear My words. They have gone after other gods to serve them.” (TLV).

“The house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken My covenant which I made with their fathers.”

It’s time for the Church in America to wake up from its stupor. It’s time we reject false prophets and quit listening to ear-tickling preachers. They may have the right lingo, they may even talk about repentance, but are they doing it? Are they leading you in it? Are the people you are listening to living holy before God? God doesn’t need America; if America goes the wrong way, the Kingdom of God isn’t lost. All these teachers that say God is depending on us to shift the nation? Friend, God is sovereign, and He will do whatever He wants with any nation. We are not in power, God is, and it’s time the American church ditches the lie of God being dependent upon us. No, we are dependent upon Him, and this nation is where it is today; the Church is where the Church is at today because we have forgotten that God really is God.

Take some time and read a few chapters of Jeremiah each day; let it speak to you, convict you, and challenge you to change. We need a reformation. We need to root out false teaching, we need to pull down idols, we need to destroy and throw them down, and most importantly, we need to build up and plant – plant truth and build up each other in sound doctrine.