jeremias

1. Lesson 2

2. Key Text:
“ ‘ “Israel was holiness
to the Lord, the first
fruits of His increase.
All that devour him
will offend; disaster
will come upon them,”
says the Lord’ ”
Jeremiah 2:3

3. If we could pick one word to describe the human condition since the Fall, it would
be crisis, the extent of which can be best understood by what it took to get us
out of the crisis: the death of Jesus on the cross. The crisis must be pretty bad;
after all, look at the extreme measures needed to solve it. All through the Bible,
many stories took place against the backdrop of one crisis or another. The
situation during the time of Jeremiah and his ministry was no different.

4. God’s people faced many cha-
llenges, both from within and
from without. Unfortunately,
despite the terrible military
threat from foreign powers, in
many ways the greatest crisis
came from within. “Within”
meant not just a corrupt leader-
ship and corrupt priesthood,
which were bad enough, but
“within” was in the sense of
people whose hearts had been
so hardened and damaged by
sin and apostasy that they refused to heed the warnings that God
was sending them, warnings that could have spared them from
disaster. Sin is bad enough, but when you refuse to turn away from
it—talk about a crisis!

5. CRISIS
WITHIN
From Joshua
to Solomon
± 1400 – 931
BC
The divided
kingdom
± 931 – 586
BC
WITHOUT
Babylon
CAUSES
Mistakes Attitudes

6. “And they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, who had brought
them out of the land of Egypt; and they followed other gods from
among the gods of the people who were all around them, and they
bowed down to them; and they provoked the Lord to anger.” (Judges 2:12)
The judges
The people
turned
away from
God and
worshipped
other gods.
The unified kingdom
Solomon
turned
away from
God and
worshipped
other gods.
± 1400 – 1050 BC
He sent judges
to deliver them.
He also unified
the kingdom.
± 1050 – 931 BC
He divided the
kingdom. He let
them suffer the
consequences of
their mistakes.

7. After the era of the judges, the nation entered a time of
relative peace and prosperity under what has been
called “the United Monarchy,” the rule of Saul, David,
and Solomon, which lasted about one hundred years.
Under David, then Solomon, it grew into a regional
power.
SAUL DAVID SOLOMON

8. The “good” times, though, did not
last. After the death of Solomon
(about 931 b.c.), the nation split into
two factions, Israel in the north and
Judah in the south. Much of the blame
can be placed on the misguided rule of
Solomon, who, for all his wisdom,
made numerous mistakes. “The tribes
had long suffered grievous wrongs
under the oppressive measures of
their former ruler. The extravagance of
Solomon’s reign during his apostasy
had led him to tax the people heavily
and to require of them much menial
service.”—EGW, Prophets and Kings,
pp. 88, 89. Things were never the
same again for God’s chosen nation.
Everything the Lord had warned them
not to do, they did, and thus, they
reaped the doleful consequences.

9. “Therefore the king asked advice, made two
calves of gold, and said to the people, ‘It is
too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Here
are your gods, O Israel, which brought you up
from the land of Egypt!’” (1 Kings 12:28)
After Solomon died, the 12 tribes
were divided into 2 kingdoms:

10. “But he [Amon] did evil in the sight of
the Lord, as his father Manasseh had
done; for Amon sacrificed to all the
carved images which his father
Manasseh had made, and served them.”
(2 Chronicles 33:22)
The kings of the Southern
Kingdom were mostly
faithful to God.
Nevertheless, apostasy
spread throughout the
kingdom since the
destruction of the
Northern Kingdom.
The two worst kings reigned in that time:
Manasseh and Amon (2 Chronicles 33: 9, 22).
God sent many prophets to avoid the
consequences of their sins.

11. “And now I have given all these lands into the hand of
Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, My servant; and the
beasts of the field I have also given him to serve him.”
(Jeremiah 27:6)
God didn’t abandon His people during
that crisis. Nevertheless, the people
was severely disciplined so they could
come back and enjoy full divine
communion.
God began to submit all nations to
Babylon since they defeated Egypt in
Carchemish in 605 BC.
God used Jeremiah to tell the people
of Judah to surrender to Babylon.
The people didn’t believe God would
fulfill His word. They went
unrepentant for 20 years, since King
Jehoiakim until King Zedekiah.

12. “For My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken
Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn themselves
cisterns—broken cisterns that can hold no water.” (Jeremiah 2:13)
God had promised protection and
prosperity if Israel was faithful (Jer. 2:2-3).
However, the people abandoned God
(“the fountain of living waters”) and
worshipped idols (“broken cisterns”).
 “The priests did not say, ‘Where is the
Lord?’”
 “Those who handle the law did not know
Me.”
 “The rulers also transgressed against Me.”
 “The prophets prophesied by Baal, and
walked after things that do not profit.”
What did their leaders do (Jeremiah 2:8)?

13. The Jews fooled themselves. They thought they
were good people and God would never punish
them (Jer. 2:23).
There was a saying: “The temple of the Lord are
these” (Jer. 7:4). Everything was alright. As long as
they worshipped God in the temple, everything else
didn’t matter?
They ignored God’s warnings. They didn’t meditated
on their ways. They didn’t regret their sinful
thoughts.
That’s a strong warning for us. How is your
relationship with God today? Is religion just form
for you? Have you surrendered your heart to God?
Are you living in communion with God every day?
“Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem; see
now and know; and seek in her open places if you can
find a man, if there is anyone who executes judgment,
who seeks the truth, and I will pardon her.” (Jeremiah 5:1)

14. “It will be well for us to consider what is
soon to come upon the earth. This is no
time for trifling or self-seeking. If the
times in which we are living fail to
impress our minds seriously, what can
reach us? Do not the Scriptures call for a
more pure and holy work than we have
yet seen?”
E.G.W. (Selected Messages, book 2, cp. 53, pg. 400)

15. Further Thought: “Ye shall
not do after all the things
that we do here this day,
every man whatsoever is
right in his own eyes” (Deut.
12:8). “When thou shalt
hearken to the voice of the
Lord thy God, to keep all his
commandments which I
command thee this day, to
do that which is right in the
eyes of the Lord thy God”
(Deut. 13:18). “In those days
there was no king in Israel,
but every man did that
which was right in his own
eyes” (Judg. 17:6, 21:25).

16. There’s a crucially important
contrast presented in these
verses, especially in this day
and age when many people
revolt against the idea of being
told by an outside authority
what to do, or being told what
is right and wrong.
Yet, we can see here a clear
distinction between these two
worldviews. In one, people do whatever they think is “right” in their own
eyes; in another, people are to do what is right in the “eyes of the Lord thy
God.” The problem with the first position is that, so often in history, what
is “right” in someone’s own eyes is often wrong in God’s. That’s why we
have to submit everything, even our own conscience, to the Word of God.

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