David Wilkerson confronts the churches who worship with hands raised while secretly clinging to sin, revealing through Jeremiah 8 that God's people have lost all understanding of his judgment. Unconfessed sin doesn't just wait for eternity; it destroys marriages, ministries, and character right here on earth.

Preached: December 29, 1996

Main Points:

• God's questions in Jeremiah 8 aren't aimed at the heathen but at his own beloved people. Why do you cling so stubbornly to secret sin? Why don't you blush anymore when you sin openly? Why won't you go to God for full deliverance?• People can weep, search the scriptures, and study the law with genuine devotion while still refusing to let go of their idols. That mixture of worship and hidden sin, not outright rebellion, is what sickens the heart of God.

• The reason God's people race toward destruction like wild horses charging into battle is stated plainly in verse 7: my people know not my judgments. They've mistaken endless patience for the absence of consequence.

• A pastor caught in slander waved off David Wilkerson's warning and said, "Then I face the judgment of God," not understanding what he was actually saying. A man leaving his wife said, "I guess I'll just have to face the consequences." Neither man had the slightest concept of what that judgment costs.

• God names two present-day judgments directly from Jeremiah 8: I will give your wives to others (divorce, broken homes, generational fallout even into grandchildren) and I will give your fields to others (loss of ministry, career, everything built over a lifetime).

• A third judgment: serpents that bite and cannot be charmed, meaning the poison of bitterness, rejection, and unforgiveness that seeps into unsurrendered sin until godly people, especially those who should be gentlest with age, become mean, hardened, and full of venom.

• Judgment is never vindictive; it's redemptive. God has never once turned his back on someone who genuinely hates their sin and cries out for deliverance, even when they haven't yet found victory. The one thing he asks is that people stop making peace with what should be surrendered.

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