Jeremiah - Women's Bible Study Participant Book Daring to Hope in an Unstable World

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the book of Jeremiah chapter 49 has a promise for Iran that God will restore its fortunes after it's been destroyed.

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In this Bible Story, Jeremiah witnesses the downfall of Judah.

This story is inspired by 2 Chronicles 36:15-21 & 2 Kings 25:3-21 & Jeremiah 32, 33, 38, 39, 40:1-6, 52.

Today's Bible verse is Jeremiah 38:20 from the King James Version.

It would be foreigners and enemies that show him kindness inspired by the book of Jeremiah.

Listen to God's promise found in Jeremiah 33 verses 6 through 8.

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The books of the Bible, like Daniel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Matthew, and Revelation.

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We have Daniel, we have Ezekiel, Obadiah, Habakkuk, Judith, Zephaniah, Nahum, Jeremiah, Joel. We have all kinds of books that should be read in this particular context.

I think it's--is it Jeremiah or is it--I think it's Jeremiah who he's talking, he's preaching to the people and he's telling them, you can't just keep saying this is the temple of the Lord. We have the temple of the Lord, we have the temple of the Lord, we have the temple of the Lord because yeah, you have the Lord's temple in your presence, but you're not living like you do.

And this whole land shall be a ruin and a waste. And these nations shall serve the king of Babylon 70 years.

But the central role of the prophets was to proclaim God's word, his will, and to woo the people, to encourage them to come back to God and walk according to his plan of sheer goodness.

And then there are minor prophets who their message isn't minor, but they are shorter. And they are to specific people.

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It starts out by talking about the potter and the clay.

And right? So the word of the Lord comes to Jeremiah. Go down to the potter's house and what does the potter do? He's making a vessel out of clay and then he refashions it. Then he reworks it. He decides this is not how I want it. And so he fixes it.

And this is so good because obviously Jeremiah then makes the connection and the connection is hero Israel. This is what I can do. Can I not do this? Can I not take a nation, a kingdom? Can I not take a people that does not belong to me and make them mine? Can I also not take the people that's mine and say you're not living the way I've called you to and he's the potter. We're the clay.

So let's strike him let's not heed any of his words. Basically, we don't have to listen to Jeremiah because honestly, we still have got priests. We still have wise. We still have prophets. We'll listen to them instead but remember what they're doing. They are being false. They're only telling the people what they want to hear not what they need it to hear.

And so we have to recognize that that is that's the reality because there's a place in which you know even the holiest people that we know holiest people that are among us. There's still people right? They're still human beings and their love and their patience is finite as opposed to God whose whose love is infinite whose patience is infinite and yet there are consequences to our behavior.

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Even though you have Jeremiah and those who were left behind over in Egypt and they're going to die there. And you have the other Jews who were brought up to Babylon and they're not going to be left.

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We have Daniel, we have Ezekiel, Obadiah, Habakkuk, Judith, Zephaniah, Nahum, Jeremiah, Joel, we have all kinds of books that should be read in this particular context.

I think it's Jeremiah who he's talking, he's preaching to the people and he's telling them, you can't just keep saying this is the temple of the Lord.

Maybe that in Jeremiah 25 is a prediction of the future but the central role of the prophets was to proclaim God's word, his will and to woo the people, to encourage them to come back to God and walk according to his plan of sheer goodness.

like Isaiah and Jeremiah and then there are minor prophets their message isn't minor but they are shorter and they are to specific people.

or Ezekiel speaking to people of his day or Jeremiah.

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But to realize the story's not over, right? Even though you have Jeremiah and those who were left behind over in Egypt, and they're going to die there, and you have the other Jews who were brought up to Babylon, and they're not going to be left. They're not going to be abandoned. They're not exiled forever, but there is the next step, and that's our step today.

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As we go through these last chapters of Jeremiah, it's almost anticlimactic.

So we have the judgment against the Philistines, the judgment against Moab today.

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jeremiah the weeping prophet is going to talk a lot about uh good shepherds and bad shepherds he's going to talk a lot about the true prophets and the lying prophets and he in today is no different like today is no exception

am i god at hand this is chapter 23 verse 23 am i a god at hand says the lord and not a god far off and this is so key can a man hide himself in secret places so that i cannot see him do i not fill heaven and earth and he says i have heard what the prophets have said who prophesied lies in my name saying i have dreamed i've dreamed

we were commanded in the commandments to not take the name of the lord in vain and i've heard people explain this not only means uttering the name of god without meaning or kind of carelessly but it also i've heard people describe it it also means to not to prohibit it to be a commandment against doing something in the name of the lord that the lord would never endorse right that the doing something in the name of god that actually is really truly actually only done in my own name or in the name of someone else in the name of a political thing or the name of a cultural thing the name of a any any other kind of preference

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He says to God, he says, Lord, you have deceived me and I was deceived. You are stronger than I and you have prevailed. I have become a laughing stock all the day. Everyone mocks me for whenever I speak, I cry out and the word of the Lord has become for me a reproach and derision all the day long.

He goes on to say, if I say I will not mention him or speak any more in his name, there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones and I'm weary from holding it in.

And so here's Jeremiah today after being put, I'm so excited. I'm sorry, I need to slow down. After being put in the stocks, here's Jeremiah who's saying very, very clearly that God is going to, God is going to allow Jerusalem to fall.

This is Jeremiah's heartbreaking. We heard Jeremiah's heartbreaking and he uses it in the, says it in these terms. He says, cursed be the day on which I was born. Would have been better if I just would have died.

And that's where you're going to get to that when it comes to Lamentations.

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There's another covenant here. This language seems to be drawing upon Jeremiah 31. All right, remember Jeremiah had this idea that there would be a new covenant one day.

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It says, Thus says the Lord, Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals, and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from the Lord.

That's probably worth unpacking for a minute. What does this mean in your life to really trust in the Lord versus trusting in mere mortals?

He's like the energizer bunny fully knowing they're not going to, he's still teaching the doctrine, but knowing full well, they're not going to take it.

He preaches for decades and we've already seen some of this in Jeremiah. He uses these very creative metaphors and object lessons.

And then God gives an interpretation. He says, this is verse six of Jeremiah 18. Can I not do with you? Oh, house of Israel, just as this potter has done, just like the clay and the potter's hand. So are you in my hand? Oh, house of Israel.

And I hope that I can be that way in my life.

I quit. I'm done. I will not make mention of him nor speak of him anymore in his name.

But his word was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones. And I was weary with forbearing. I could not stay.

I know the plans I have for you, plans for your welfare and not for harm to give you a future with hope.

I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm to give you a future with hope.

Before I formed you in the belly, I knew you.

And it's helping us, I think, get to know Jesus Christ better.

And your life will mean something for generations, for millennia for people, because we will get to read your story.