Unbeliefs Blind Wrath Jere 26 1 15
Series: Lenten - Old Testament Sermons
March 24, 2025
Rev. Nathan J. Rusert
Oculi, The Third Sunday In Lent 23-March-2025 Sermon Text: Jeremiah 26:1-15 Sermon Theme: “Unbelief’s Blind Wrath!” I. The Light Shines In The Darkness! (Vs.1-6) II. Darkness Hates The Light! (Vs.7-11) III. The Light Triumph’s Through Suffering! (Vs.12-15) by Rev. Nathan J. Rusert
Episode Notes
Oculi, The Third Sunday In Lent 23-March-2025
Sermon Text: Jeremiah 26:1-15
Sermon Theme: “Unbelief’s Blind Wrath!” I. The Light Shines In The Darkness! (Vs.1-6) II. Darkness Hates The Light! (Vs.7-11) III. The Light Triumph’s Through Suffering! (Vs.12-15) by Rev. Nathan J. Rusert
I.N.R.I. Psa 25:15 My eyes are ever toward the LORD, For He shall pluck my feet out of the net. Oculi - “eye” Sunday calls us to repent of staring into the darkness and return to the Light of the world. God the Holy Spirit, The One Enlightener and Renewer of our eyes through the Gospel teaches, Heb 12:1-2 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, (2) looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Our eyes need light to function. Why are cave crawfish blind? For generations they’ve lived in darkness. Each successive generation of crawdads raised in the darkness loose genetic information. Soon they are born without the ability to see light - they have devolved. Staring into the darkness has stolen their sight. Perhaps we can learn from the blind cave crawdads. What happens when we raise generations in spiritual darkness? We loose the ability to see the Light of the World - Jesus. Interesting fact about total darkness in a cave, your mind begins to imagine it sees light where no light is present. If you trust the illusion you only stumble deeper and deeper into darkness until you smack your head on a stalactites or trip over a stalagmite, or fall into a chasm and are injured to die in the darkness if no rescue comes. Spiritual darkness pours forth from lighted screens that we stare at late into the night. We are blinded to Jesus by the darkness that we idolize as entertainment until we can no longer see.
The Creator of our eyes and the gift of sight - Jesus preaches, Luk 11:33-36 "No one, when he has lit a lamp, puts it in a secret place or under a basket, but on a lampstand, that those who come in may see the light. (34) The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore, when your eye is good, your whole body also is full of light. But when your eye is bad, your body also is full of darkness. (35) Therefore take heed that the light which is in you is not darkness. (36) If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, the whole body will be full of light, as when the bright shining of a lamp gives you light." Is the light in you darkness? The Lamp of the Gospel is placed upon the lampstand of the local congregation. Here is where the Light of Life - Jesus shines into the darkness of our fallen world. Are you with Jesus, or against Him? Do you gather with Him every Lord’s Day and whenever the Light shines through His Word in the darkness? Or has a demon muted your mouth to shine forth confessing Jesus as Lord and inviting all to come with you every Sunday to the Light? Do you leave the Divine Service with a heart swept clean and put in order by the Holy Spirit forgiving you your sins - only to invite seven more evil demons to control your life the other six days of the week? How are your eyes? Is the light in your darkness? Repent! Be like blind begging Bartimaeus crying out, “Jesus , Son of David, have mercy on me! Lord, that I may receive my sight!” Turn from the darkness of: “Unbelief’s Blind Wrath!” I. The Light Shines In The Darkness! (Vs.1-6) II. Darkness Hates The Light! (Vs.7-11) III. The Light Triumph’s Through Suffering! (Vs.12-15)
I. Wisdom teaches, Pro 20:12 The hearing ear and the seeing eye, The LORD has made them both. Idolaters of human wisdom worshiping ‘scientism’ and trusting the myth of molecules to man evolution walk in darkness of the devil’s lie. Honest biologists and geneticists realize that both the seeing eye and hearing ear couldn’t have evolved by random chance processes. It takes too much information to make them function. In our natural world we see organisms losing genetic information, never gaining new information and functions. Man stumbles in the darkness of the Lie that we can be our own gods. We scoff at the Light of God as He reveals Himself to the world in the Holy Bible.
The prophet Jeremiah was called to shine the Light of God’s Word to a nation blinded by sin. He was called, as a young man in his twenties, to preach in Jerusalem. The Lord put His Word into Jeremiah’s lips and would make his face hard as flint rock to preach the truth. The first twenty-eight years of his call to preach was under the protection of the last righteous king of Judah - Josiah. King Josiah at eight years old ascended to the throne after his father was assassinated. His heart, like King David, sought the Lord. Cleansed the temple of all idols. In restoring the temple the forgotten book of the Law was rediscovered. King Josiah was 26 years old. Hearing it read, King Josiah tore his robes in anguish and prayed for Jerusalem. He cleansed Israel of its pagan worship destroying the altars at Bethel of Jeroboam’s man made religion. He celebrated the passover throughout Judah as had not been done since the days of the judges centuries before. Our Lord shone His Light in the darkness of Judah’s idolatry one last time before judgment would fall on that nation through the Babylonian empire.
King Josiah dies battling Pharaoh Necho, who had warned him to stay out of the fight. Pharaoh Necho sets up wicked Jehoiakim as Judah’s king. (Vs1-2) The Chronicler records, 2Ch 36:5 Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. And he did evil in the sight of the LORD his God.” A foreign power had appointed a ruler over Judah, still God in His mercy sends a preacher into His Temple to call the nation to repentance. Just as Jesus, the Son of David and David’s Lord, is sent to preach the Father’s Word in the Temple when the Rome had appointed a wicked king to rule over Judah.
Why was Jeremiah to preach? (Vs.3) The Lord sought to show mercy to His people walking in the darkness of devilish deception and death. God the Holy Spirit would call them through the preaching of the Gospel. He forces no one to believe. Here is the paradox of saving faith in Jesus - it is totally the work of God the Holy Spirit through the Word of Jesus preached. Those who shut their ears and close their eyes to the Light it is totally their own stubborn rebellion that damns them. We don’t have the power to follow Jesus, but we can reject the Holy Spirit’s call and choose to run with Satan in darkness and unbelief. Still in mercy Jesus preaches in the Temple in Jerusalem up to the 11th hour! He preaches until His crucifixion. Then fifty days after His resurrection He sends forth God the Holy Spirit to gather the faithful through preaching and baptism. The Church gathers and preaches in the Temple at Jerusalem, until the darkness of persecution scatters them to bring the light of the Gospel to the world.
What is the content of the sermon our Lord sends His prophet to preach? (Vs.4-6) It is the same as Jesus preached from the day Satan took us captive in spiritual darkness through rebellion and sin. History records, Mar 1:14-15 Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, (15) and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel." Evil king Herod tried to snuff out the preaching of John, soon he would execute him, but the Light shone through Jesus preaching the same Word of the Father. So much so that when Herod hears of Jesus’ preaching and miracles he exclaims, Mar 6:16 ...., "This is John, whom I beheaded; he has been raised from the dead!" The Light of God’s Word shines brighter in the darkness of these last days! Jesus preaches through His Church - “Repent and believe the Gospel!” Now is the day of salvation! “Blessed are those who hear the Word of God and keep it!”(Lk 11:28)
Who heard Jeremiah’s preaching? (Vs. 7) The holy elite of Judah heard God’s Light shining through Jeremiah’s preaching. Surely they would listen? The Bible experts and those who lived God’s commands heard Jesus preach and saw the signs showing that He was the Light of the World - surely they’d listen....
II. Light and darkness are opposites - they cannot exist together. Jesus preaches, Joh 3:17-21 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. (18) "He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. (19) And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. (20) For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. (21) But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God." The devil, the world’s darkness, and our fleshly desires hate the Light! (Vs.8-11) The preacher preaches what he is called and sent to preach. The church council gathers to plot how to get rid of him. How dare he preach against our grand building, that it shall one day be a heap of ruins void of God’s presence. If we don’t get rid of that man - our congregation will fall apart.... Dark souls refuse to repent and return to the Light. Jesus is accused of being in league with Satan! Their hatred is foolishness - Satan doesn’t fight against darkness - a Stronger Man Jesus the Light is here to drive out the darkness of unbelief, fear, and sin. Walk in His light as children of the Light - repent of the darkness of sin in your ears, eyes, and life!
The darkness wants to shut up a preacher of the Light even if it means his death. Jeremiah, John, Jesus were judged worthy of death by the religious elite of their congregations. Darkness still works the same.
III. The Holy Spirit teaches us of Jesus, Joh 1:4-5 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. (5) The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. The Light of the World triumphs through suffering! (Vs.12-15) Jeremiah gives his defense. He wasn’t a free agent. Jesus gives His defense. The Word they were sent to preach was God the Father’s Word and it was His gracious work they carried out. Repent! See the Light of God’s grace - He is still “your” God! He continues to chase you with His goodness and mercy in Jesus turning you back to the Light by the power of the Holy Spirit echoing the Gospel through the ages in His Church.
You kill prophet after prophet. Crucify the Messiah. Martyr all the apostles. Depose pastor after pastor - you cannot stop the Truth, the Life, the Way - the Light of the world from shining! Just as the sun rises daily by God’s command and the darkness of night flees, so the Gospel will continue to shine throughout this entire world, and then Jesus will return in glory and great power.
Darkness thought it won when Jesus was crucified and laid down His life for us sinners. His body was put into our cold dark tomb, but three days later - the Light burst forth with new life - victory through suffering! Unbelief’s blind wrath is vanquished by the Light of Truth - Jesus! Let His Light shine into your eyes daily through His Word! Amen.
Sermon Text: Jeremiah 26:1-15
Sermon Theme: “Unbelief’s Blind Wrath!” I. The Light Shines In The Darkness! (Vs.1-6) II. Darkness Hates The Light! (Vs.7-11) III. The Light Triumph’s Through Suffering! (Vs.12-15) by Rev. Nathan J. Rusert
I.N.R.I. Psa 25:15 My eyes are ever toward the LORD, For He shall pluck my feet out of the net. Oculi - “eye” Sunday calls us to repent of staring into the darkness and return to the Light of the world. God the Holy Spirit, The One Enlightener and Renewer of our eyes through the Gospel teaches, Heb 12:1-2 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, (2) looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Our eyes need light to function. Why are cave crawfish blind? For generations they’ve lived in darkness. Each successive generation of crawdads raised in the darkness loose genetic information. Soon they are born without the ability to see light - they have devolved. Staring into the darkness has stolen their sight. Perhaps we can learn from the blind cave crawdads. What happens when we raise generations in spiritual darkness? We loose the ability to see the Light of the World - Jesus. Interesting fact about total darkness in a cave, your mind begins to imagine it sees light where no light is present. If you trust the illusion you only stumble deeper and deeper into darkness until you smack your head on a stalactites or trip over a stalagmite, or fall into a chasm and are injured to die in the darkness if no rescue comes. Spiritual darkness pours forth from lighted screens that we stare at late into the night. We are blinded to Jesus by the darkness that we idolize as entertainment until we can no longer see.
The Creator of our eyes and the gift of sight - Jesus preaches, Luk 11:33-36 "No one, when he has lit a lamp, puts it in a secret place or under a basket, but on a lampstand, that those who come in may see the light. (34) The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore, when your eye is good, your whole body also is full of light. But when your eye is bad, your body also is full of darkness. (35) Therefore take heed that the light which is in you is not darkness. (36) If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, the whole body will be full of light, as when the bright shining of a lamp gives you light." Is the light in you darkness? The Lamp of the Gospel is placed upon the lampstand of the local congregation. Here is where the Light of Life - Jesus shines into the darkness of our fallen world. Are you with Jesus, or against Him? Do you gather with Him every Lord’s Day and whenever the Light shines through His Word in the darkness? Or has a demon muted your mouth to shine forth confessing Jesus as Lord and inviting all to come with you every Sunday to the Light? Do you leave the Divine Service with a heart swept clean and put in order by the Holy Spirit forgiving you your sins - only to invite seven more evil demons to control your life the other six days of the week? How are your eyes? Is the light in your darkness? Repent! Be like blind begging Bartimaeus crying out, “Jesus , Son of David, have mercy on me! Lord, that I may receive my sight!” Turn from the darkness of: “Unbelief’s Blind Wrath!” I. The Light Shines In The Darkness! (Vs.1-6) II. Darkness Hates The Light! (Vs.7-11) III. The Light Triumph’s Through Suffering! (Vs.12-15)
I. Wisdom teaches, Pro 20:12 The hearing ear and the seeing eye, The LORD has made them both. Idolaters of human wisdom worshiping ‘scientism’ and trusting the myth of molecules to man evolution walk in darkness of the devil’s lie. Honest biologists and geneticists realize that both the seeing eye and hearing ear couldn’t have evolved by random chance processes. It takes too much information to make them function. In our natural world we see organisms losing genetic information, never gaining new information and functions. Man stumbles in the darkness of the Lie that we can be our own gods. We scoff at the Light of God as He reveals Himself to the world in the Holy Bible.
The prophet Jeremiah was called to shine the Light of God’s Word to a nation blinded by sin. He was called, as a young man in his twenties, to preach in Jerusalem. The Lord put His Word into Jeremiah’s lips and would make his face hard as flint rock to preach the truth. The first twenty-eight years of his call to preach was under the protection of the last righteous king of Judah - Josiah. King Josiah at eight years old ascended to the throne after his father was assassinated. His heart, like King David, sought the Lord. Cleansed the temple of all idols. In restoring the temple the forgotten book of the Law was rediscovered. King Josiah was 26 years old. Hearing it read, King Josiah tore his robes in anguish and prayed for Jerusalem. He cleansed Israel of its pagan worship destroying the altars at Bethel of Jeroboam’s man made religion. He celebrated the passover throughout Judah as had not been done since the days of the judges centuries before. Our Lord shone His Light in the darkness of Judah’s idolatry one last time before judgment would fall on that nation through the Babylonian empire.
King Josiah dies battling Pharaoh Necho, who had warned him to stay out of the fight. Pharaoh Necho sets up wicked Jehoiakim as Judah’s king. (Vs1-2) The Chronicler records, 2Ch 36:5 Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. And he did evil in the sight of the LORD his God.” A foreign power had appointed a ruler over Judah, still God in His mercy sends a preacher into His Temple to call the nation to repentance. Just as Jesus, the Son of David and David’s Lord, is sent to preach the Father’s Word in the Temple when the Rome had appointed a wicked king to rule over Judah.
Why was Jeremiah to preach? (Vs.3) The Lord sought to show mercy to His people walking in the darkness of devilish deception and death. God the Holy Spirit would call them through the preaching of the Gospel. He forces no one to believe. Here is the paradox of saving faith in Jesus - it is totally the work of God the Holy Spirit through the Word of Jesus preached. Those who shut their ears and close their eyes to the Light it is totally their own stubborn rebellion that damns them. We don’t have the power to follow Jesus, but we can reject the Holy Spirit’s call and choose to run with Satan in darkness and unbelief. Still in mercy Jesus preaches in the Temple in Jerusalem up to the 11th hour! He preaches until His crucifixion. Then fifty days after His resurrection He sends forth God the Holy Spirit to gather the faithful through preaching and baptism. The Church gathers and preaches in the Temple at Jerusalem, until the darkness of persecution scatters them to bring the light of the Gospel to the world.
What is the content of the sermon our Lord sends His prophet to preach? (Vs.4-6) It is the same as Jesus preached from the day Satan took us captive in spiritual darkness through rebellion and sin. History records, Mar 1:14-15 Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, (15) and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel." Evil king Herod tried to snuff out the preaching of John, soon he would execute him, but the Light shone through Jesus preaching the same Word of the Father. So much so that when Herod hears of Jesus’ preaching and miracles he exclaims, Mar 6:16 ...., "This is John, whom I beheaded; he has been raised from the dead!" The Light of God’s Word shines brighter in the darkness of these last days! Jesus preaches through His Church - “Repent and believe the Gospel!” Now is the day of salvation! “Blessed are those who hear the Word of God and keep it!”(Lk 11:28)
Who heard Jeremiah’s preaching? (Vs. 7) The holy elite of Judah heard God’s Light shining through Jeremiah’s preaching. Surely they would listen? The Bible experts and those who lived God’s commands heard Jesus preach and saw the signs showing that He was the Light of the World - surely they’d listen....
II. Light and darkness are opposites - they cannot exist together. Jesus preaches, Joh 3:17-21 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. (18) "He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. (19) And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. (20) For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. (21) But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God." The devil, the world’s darkness, and our fleshly desires hate the Light! (Vs.8-11) The preacher preaches what he is called and sent to preach. The church council gathers to plot how to get rid of him. How dare he preach against our grand building, that it shall one day be a heap of ruins void of God’s presence. If we don’t get rid of that man - our congregation will fall apart.... Dark souls refuse to repent and return to the Light. Jesus is accused of being in league with Satan! Their hatred is foolishness - Satan doesn’t fight against darkness - a Stronger Man Jesus the Light is here to drive out the darkness of unbelief, fear, and sin. Walk in His light as children of the Light - repent of the darkness of sin in your ears, eyes, and life!
The darkness wants to shut up a preacher of the Light even if it means his death. Jeremiah, John, Jesus were judged worthy of death by the religious elite of their congregations. Darkness still works the same.
III. The Holy Spirit teaches us of Jesus, Joh 1:4-5 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. (5) The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. The Light of the World triumphs through suffering! (Vs.12-15) Jeremiah gives his defense. He wasn’t a free agent. Jesus gives His defense. The Word they were sent to preach was God the Father’s Word and it was His gracious work they carried out. Repent! See the Light of God’s grace - He is still “your” God! He continues to chase you with His goodness and mercy in Jesus turning you back to the Light by the power of the Holy Spirit echoing the Gospel through the ages in His Church.
You kill prophet after prophet. Crucify the Messiah. Martyr all the apostles. Depose pastor after pastor - you cannot stop the Truth, the Life, the Way - the Light of the world from shining! Just as the sun rises daily by God’s command and the darkness of night flees, so the Gospel will continue to shine throughout this entire world, and then Jesus will return in glory and great power.
Darkness thought it won when Jesus was crucified and laid down His life for us sinners. His body was put into our cold dark tomb, but three days later - the Light burst forth with new life - victory through suffering! Unbelief’s blind wrath is vanquished by the Light of Truth - Jesus! Let His Light shine into your eyes daily through His Word! Amen.
Content Copyright Belongs to Emmanuel Lutheran Church
5761