We'll read a well-known portion from Jeremiah,
chapter 42, 48,
chapter 48 in Jeremiah.
Verse 10, Cursed
be the one who does the Lord's work
negligently, and cursed be the one who restrains
his sword from blood.
I'd like us to take this verse word
by word, like when you slaughter an ox,
that you cut up the pieces and you
put them all in one place.
Or all separately, look at each one separately.
And as I said, it's a very well
-known portion of scripture.
And even though we may know it very
well, it would be very wrong if we
just take it lightly because we've got used
to it.
For this is a word that is very
sharp, it goes very deep.
It's a serious warning.
Cursed be the one who does the Lord's
work negligently or who is slack in doing
the Lord's work.
And cursed be the one who restrains his
sword from blood.
I just want to remind you that if
you read the Old Testament and you read
a portion that refers to bloodshed, it's not
to be taken in that literal sense, but
in a spiritual sense.
Now, the first portion, cursed be the one
who does the Lord's work negligently.
Now, let's just try and bring it close
to home.
We who are here, how do we treat
God's work?
Now, remember, if you go out here and
you're one who is slack in the Lord's
work or you're negligent about the Lord's work,
you will receive a curse.
Now, let's go to the very first word
here, cursed.
Cursed.
Now, in the Bible, when it speaks of
someone who's cursed, it refers to someone whom
God has judged in a very, very strict
way.
In other words, he is threatening a person
and warning him that if he doesn't repent,
he will take him to judgment where his
wrongdoing will be judged very severely.
So, someone who is cursed is someone who
has got to do with God himself.
And God will pass his final judgment on
that person and he'll come down on that
person in his wrath.
Cursed.
Now, today, I don't want to just preach
at you, but I want to teach you.
And I say that, of all things, that's
the thing to be feared most and you
need to run away from more than anything
else, and that is the wrath of God
and his curse.
Some people are
afraid of snakes.
They've run for their lives if there's a
snake in front of them.
But today I say, that should be nothing
to you, to stand before a snake.
Here's something you need to run away from
with all your might.
That's the curse of God.
Or maybe it's a roaring lion you fear
most.
One that stands in front of you, ready
to devour you.
Now, here's something you need to fear 10
,000 times more than that lion.
Someone was once told, you should pray.
He said, well, I can't pray.
Now, if you can't pray or don't know
how to pray, then I'm going to say
to you, today you should learn to pray,
Lord, keep me, protect me from your curse.
God's curse is the most terrible thing.
Now, that is about the curse.
Now, cursed be the one who does the
Lord's work, Jehovah's work.
The Lord's work.
What is the Lord's work?
This work which you need to do so
diligently.
In Hebrew, there's the word melaka.
And it says, cursed is the one who
does negligently melaka, referring to the Lord's work.
The Lord's work, that which God has been
given or given by God.
If you apply for a job, be it
on a farm or any business, you will
go and if you accept it, you will
be given a job description.
You will be told what is expected of
you personally.
And so, it is here.
The Lord's work is that work which the
Lord has given you to do.
We had the Matric Farewell here at DSS
these days.
And they were asked what they were planning
to do in the following year.
And some said what they thought.
Others said, well, they weren't sure.
Others said they were still praying about it.
Now, you can say that and they can
say that when it refers to the work
of the hands.
Just their normal job.
But it would be terribly sad if they
had to say the same concerning the work
which God has entrusted to them.
About that which God has sent them to
this earth for, which God has said, this
is what I want you to do here
on this earth.
That they say, well, we don't really know
what that is.
Do we realize?
Do we know what God has entrusted to
us?
What work He has given us to do
in His vineyard?
And how, because how can you ever do
the work if you don't even know and
you haven't even recognized what it is?
But then when you know what it is
that the Lord wants you to do, you
need to do it diligently, with all your
strength.
Not negligently.
You're not allowed to be slack in it.
You need to do it with all you
have.
If you read in Proverbs 18, verse 9,
He also who is slack in his work
is brother to him who destroys.
He who is slack.
He who
is
slack.
We dare not be slack in our work.
And this refers even to our ordinary work.
God says he who is slack, who is
lazy in his work, is brother to the
one who destroys.
No wonder a nation that is lazy and
is not diligent, that it gets nowhere.
God cannot and does not bless that.
Now if you are slack in your own
work and you are referred to as one
who is brother to one who destroys, how
much more if you are slack in God's
work?
Now there's much in the Bible which the
Lord refers to us about where he says
what he expects of us.
Just think of Matthew 28, verse 19.
Just think of that word, that great commission
where the Lord sent his disciples and sends
them, says go into all the world, to
the ends of the earth, making disciples of
people, teaching them to keep all that I've
taught you.
So it's God's will that we should all
be active in furthering his cause, his gospel.
Or if we read in Ezekiel 3, verse
18.
When I say to the wicked, you shall
surely die, and you do not warn him
or speak out to warn the wicked from
his wicked way, that he may live.
That wicked man shall die in his iniquity,
but his blood I will require at your
hand.
So if you find someone sinning, living in
sin, and you don't warn him, he'll die
in his sin, but you will be guilty
if you did not warn him.
I read an amazing word when I was
overseas just recently.
Pablo Sirrus said
in German, If
you protect the wicked people, you are hurting
those that do good.
So if you side and protect, cover up
for the wicked, you are hurting them.
If you are wicked, then you are going
against those that do good, and you will
be as guilty as those that are doing
that wickedness.
If you gossip about someone that does good,
the person listening to your gossip is as
guilty as you are.
If you gossip about someone that does good,
the person listening to your gossip is as
guilty as
you are.
But you listening to gossip, and you don't
check that person that's gossiping to you, you
just let him talk.
You don't warn him, you don't stop him.
You are as guilty as he is.
So God says if I say to someone
that he will die because of his wickedness,
but you do not warn him, then you
are guilty because you did not stop him
from doing what he was doing.
So I say to the matrix, alright, even
if you don't know what you will be
doing next year, but here's something that you
should know what you should do.
If you see someone sinning, you should warn
him.
If someone comes to you and he starts
gossiping, talking about someone else who is not
present, you should stop him and say wait
a moment, let's go to that person you
are talking about and we can then discuss
the matter in that person's presence.
I can't understand why I tell you something
and it seems as if you don't understand.
Why don't you understand?
Is something wrong with you?
Do you want to persist in getting that
curse upon your life?
The first word here, cursed.
I wish we could have a
service
later on or this evening where I could
test you all and ask you what cursed
means, what the Lord's work means and then
you could tell me and I'll know whether
you've been listening or not.
The third word, who
does the Lord's work negligently.
To be negligent,
in Hebrew it means to do
it half-heartedly or just half.
You do the Lord's work but you don't
do it with all your heart.
You do it negligently, just half-heartedly.
If you want to do something half-heartedly,
it would be better that you'd be half
-hearted about what you do at home, be
it your cooking or cleaning your house or
whatever other thing you are doing.
That you can perhaps afford to do half
-heartedly but when it comes to God's work,
that which concerns you and God, that's one
thing you cannot do negligently or half-heartedly.
I remember a young man who was engaged,
this was quite a few years ago, a
white young man.
He said to me, I hear when you're
preaching but when you preach, I don't know,
I don't really understand.
It's as if you're preaching about something that
doesn't exist.
Just last night, the students of the Cedar
College, they had a play here.
And the main message in it was that
the Lord Jesus should mean more to us
than anything else, more even than our child,
our husband or even our parent.
Now this particular young man, he just had
dreams about his fiancée.
And he
said, look, you preach the way you do
because you're not engaged, you're not married, you
don't know what it means to have a
girl in your life.
And that's why you preach the way you
do.
I can tell you only one thing, if
there's a girl in your life, you can't
love the Lord Jesus more than you love
that girl.
And he said, well just last night, I
dreamt about her.
And in my dream, she was here in
my room.
And he even went on to say that
he tried to touch her in his dream.
And they were sitting at the table and
he stretched out his hand to touch her
and then he woke up and then he
noticed he was holding the leg of the
table.
And he said, look, you just can't compare
that love to a girl with anything else.
You can't even love the Lord like that.
And I said, well look, I don't know,
we'll have to wait and see, but I
won't stop preaching what I preach because even
the Bible teaches us this.
It didn't take long and that girl
left him, even though they were engaged to
each other already.
And I said to him, well what do
you say now?
He nearly went over his head.
And I could just say, well, you have
got what you deserved for having spoken in
that way.
One could say in that blasphemous way.
And God taught him a lesson because he
didn't even get married to that girl.
And whether you've got a dozen children or
even if it's only one, Jesus must mean
more to you than even that one child.
And he said, it's too difficult.
You expect too much.
The love to the Lord must be greater
and far more than the love towards a
parent or to a wife or to a
child or to anybody.
And even towards that work which the Lord
has entrusted to you.
Judges.
And there's another word which we find in
judges.
Judges.
Chapter five.
Judges.
Verse twenty-three.
Curse Meroz said the angel of the Lord.
Utterly curse its inhabitants because they did not
come to the help of the Lord.
To the help of the Lord against the
warriors.
Meroz was a city
near to the border of that land.
And the Lord commanded that they should be
overcome.
Those warriors should be subdued.
But even though the Lord had commanded them
to go out into battle, Meroz and its
inhabitants were not prepared because those warriors had
iron chariots.
They were afraid.
There were others that were waging war against
them already but these people were not prepared
to go and assist them.
And the angel came and said the inhabitants
of the city must be utterly cursed because
they did not come to the help of
the Lord.
What a strange thing.
That they were cursed twice, three times because
they didn't come to help the Lord.
Have you ever thought of that?
That God expects you to assist Him.
God sends those preachers wherever it is.
Even at school He sends the preachers.
Some listen, others don't.
And then God says, I expected that you
also would help and assist, but because you
didn't, you will be cursed.
Utterly cursed.
Do you hear that?
Also you men, God is expecting you to
assist Him, to work together with Him.
For He does His work.
He sends out His warnings.
But He expects you to work together with
Him, lest you be cursed.
Utterly cursed.
He expects you to help and assist Him.
That He will even say, thank you for
assisting and helping.
If you address a crowd and you make
a point and you get absolutely no reaction,
no one supports you in what you say.
That can be very difficult.
Where are those today who are prepared to
assist God?
To work together with Him, to support Him
in what He says and does.
That we say, surely this is what God
has said and that we reinforce it and
support it.
And that you don't do it half-heartedly,
negligently, but that you do it with all
your heart, all your strength.
Now let's move on from that word negligence,
or negligently.
Now we go on to the next curse.
Cursed is the one
who restrains his sword from blood.
What does that mean?
Who holds back his sword from shedding blood.
When they wanted to arrest the Lord, Peter
did not hold back his sword.
He used it and cut off the ear
of the servant of the high priest.
But the Lord said, Peter put back your
sword in its place.
Because Peter was acting and fighting with flesh
and blood.
And our battle is not with flesh and
blood, but against powers and principalities.
Now Peter used that sword, but we need
to use the sword of the Spirit.
In Hebrews 12 verse 4 it says, you
have not resisted sin to the point of
the shedding of blood.
So it's not a battle against people, but
against sin.
So
we We
Christians, we don't fight against people and kill
people and shed blood in that way.
Christianity is not like Islam, where their faith
teaches them that they can kill someone who
is a non-Christian.
But the Lord taught us even to love
our enemies.
The Lord spoke to Saul, the king of
Israel, he said, go out and destroy the
Amalekites.
He
said,
go out, kill men, women, children, even little
babies and the oxen and the camels and
the sheep.
Everything you must completely destroy.
Now that word applies to us as well.
But not in the same sense that we
must go out killing people.
But it refers to sin.
And maybe we categorize sin and can categorize
sin in different ways in our own life.
One sin, you can say, well, that's a
real father in our lives, or a mother.
Or maybe we say it's just a small
baby sin.
But the Lord says, destroy everything.
That's why the Lord also says, If your
right hand causes you to stumble and to
sin, chop it off.
And if your eye causes you to sin,
pluck it out.
Or your foot, rather, hit it off.
Then that should be a stumbling block to
you, that it stands in your way as
you serve the Lord.
But Saul and the children of Israel did
not obey God.
When they captured the king of the Amalekites,
he fell on his knees and he begged
for mercy.
And he said, please spare my life.
I will serve you all my life and
do anything for you.
And Saul spared his life.
We must take God at His word.
In the book of Kings, chapter 22,
chapter 20, chapter 20, first
Kings 20 verse 42.
You.
life shall go for his life and your
people for his people."
They had gone into battle and had overcome
the enemy and they came back
with the enemy
as a prisoner.
So they had taken the enemy prisoner for
they had to do that.
So the Lord had said if you take
your enemy captive and you let him go
you will need to give your life in
his place.
So the prisoner had to be guarded very
closely and so that it the prisoner could
not escape but the guard was not on
his guard and the prisoner escaped.
And then the Prophet came and said you
let go that person who was the enemy
who was cursed you let that person go.
Your life shall now go for his life.
What would have happened to him and his
people will now happen to you and your
people.
Now maybe someone visits you and maybe this
person visiting you is is one of those
who serves the Lord negligently half-heartedly but
he comes to you the Lord gives him
into your hands now you should be the
one to speak to him to warn him
to do what God expects you to do
with him but you just let him go.
So that curse that was on his life
now you inherit.
What would have happened to him will now
happen to you.
So in a way God is sending him
to you he's giving him into your hands
but if you don't do what God expects
you to do you just he just gets
away with it you let him go you
haven't warned him you haven't helped him you
haven't assisted in any way God could turn
around and say look that what I actually
meant for him you will now get.
And God says to you while he's there
he says now you use your sword now
you need to get to work but you
don't because you've got you've got two good
manners you've got all the reasons in the
world not to do it what God is
telling you and that person gets away untouched
and God says those curses which were meant
for him will now fall upon you.
Jeremiah 48 verse 10.
Cursed be the one who does the Lord's
work negligently and cursed be the one who
restrains his sword from blood.
You heard of that city that was cursed
three times.
Of the Lord and his temple it was
said holy holy holy but what if it
says cursed cursed cursed what future is there
for you if that curse is on your
life?
At the Matric farewell we heard of a
certain story as something which happened in Germany
a
boy who had just passed
Matric went to his uncle and said uncle
you need to congratulate me I've just passed
Matric.
And the uncle got out 10 euros
and said well congratulations and gave him the
money.
And the uncle said to the boy well
tell me what are you going to do
now that you've passed Matric?
He said well I'll study.
And the uncle said yes and after that
he said well I'll get my degree.
Yes and after that the boy said well
I'll go and get myself a job.
Yes and after that
the boy said
well then I'll look for a nice girl
and get married and build a family.
And the uncle said yes and after that
and well eventually the boy said well look
obviously eventually I'll die.
And the uncle said yes and after that
and the boy said I don't know.
The uncle said well my boy I've just
met the biggest fool ever.
Someone who's written Matric and he doesn't even
know what will happen to him after death
he says you are the biggest fool.
One could say such a person hasn't even
passed his first year in school.
Cursed be the one who does the Lord's
work negligently who's slack in it.
And who holds back his sword when things
go wrong.
Be it lies or deceit or lusts of
the flesh.
You hold back your sword.
And because you hold back your sword when
evil is taking place for because you've withheld
it that sword will now be used on
you.
Let's bow our heads.
Lord write your words into our hearts and
minds.
May these words be written indelibly into our
hearts and minds.
These words that cursed is the one who
does the Lord's work negligently and cursed be
the one who holds back his sword.
Amen.
Remember the Bible refers to the Bible as
the sword of the Lord.
God's word is our sword.
You should use it.