Crossway Pond Sermon Podcast · Crossway Christian Church

Jeremiah vs Pashur

·36 min·2 clips

Pasher beats Jeremiah and puts him in the stocks at the temple gate.

Dave Ripper begins with a calm, familiar church-room greeting. He names the weather, school break travel, the hockey game, and the people gathered in person and online. He then pauses for pastoral reflection before moving into Scripture. Ash Wednesday comes first. He describes a service led by the church’s 20-something community and notes a younger longing for older Christian roots. From there he turns to Jeremiah and Pasher. The contrast is sharp. Jeremiah will not repeat comforting lies, while Pasher keeps people feeling good by saying what they want to hear. Dave recalls Josiah, the young king, and the priest who finds the lost scroll of Deuteronomy in the temple. When the people hear it, they seem to repent. They clear out idol worship from the temple. But the old patterns do not go away. They simply move somewhere less visible. That shift becomes the warning. The sermon says hidden religion can still be false religion. Dave points to the kind of speech that says everything is fine when it is not. He quotes Jeremiah’s accusation that prophets and priests alike practice deceit and dress wounds as if they were not serious. The line lands hard on purpose. A major movement of the spiritual life is to stop living inside self-protective illusion. Jeremiah’s job is not to make people feel good. His job is to help them become good. Dave sums the message up as a move from outward cleanup to inward change. God is not looking only for behavior modification. He wants heart transformation. The sermon keeps pressing that difference. Removing idols from the temple matters, but it does not solve the deeper problem if the same loyalties remain in private. Dave stays with that tension instead of rushing past it. The tone remains pastoral, but the warning stays sharp. He wants the listener to notice how easily people settle for religious performance. He also wants them to see that honesty before God is where healing begins. The closing prayer gathers the themes together. It asks for truth, protection through wilderness and storm, and the completion of the work God has begun. The sermon ends with blessing and a final invitation to connect with the church community.

As heard by us

A steady sermon about false peace, honest repentance, and heart-level change.

This sermon on Jeremiah and Pashur keeps its focus on a hard but familiar warning: religious confidence can outrun honesty. Dave Ripper begins with Ash Wednesday and a church story, then moves into Jeremiah's clash with a leader who told people everything was fine.

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Why you'd press play

Hear why false peace is not the same as God's peace.

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