The sermon teaches that God tears down false battlements in the church, the believer, and the unrepentant sinner. Institutional power, human relationships, morality, personal strength, and self-righteousness cannot secure anyone before God’s judgment. Conviction is presented as a merciful work that brings sinners away from self-reliance and toward sovereign grace. The believer’s lasting assurance rests in the Father’s electing love, Christ’s blood and righteousness, and the Holy Spirit’s faithfulness, forming an eternal stronghold that cannot be destroyed.
Theological center: Salvation and assurance depend wholly on God’s sovereign grace and Christ’s redeeming righteousness, not on human merit or strength.
Applications: Trust God alone · Abandon self-righteousness · Rely on sovereign mercy · Trust Christ’s finished righteousness
Primary texts: Jeremiah 5:10 · Colossians 3:2
“Go ye up upon her walls, and destroy; but make not a full end: take away her battlements; for they are not the LORD’S.” Jeremiah 5:10 WE have been talking very freely during this last week of “glorious victories,” of “brilliant successes,” of “sieges,” and of “stormings.” We little know what the dread reality is of which we boast. Could our eyes once behold the storming of a city, the sacking of a town, the pillage of the soldiery, the barbarous deeds of fury, when the blood is up and long delay has maddened their souls. Could we see the fields saturated with blood and soaked with gore, could we spend one hour amongst the corpses and the dying. Or if we could only let the din of battle and the noise of the guns reach our ears, we should not so much rejoice, if we had anything of fellow f…