The Ambassador Group

Jeremiah

00. Jeremiah: Introduction

01. Jeremiah: The Prophetic Calling of Jeremiah

02. Jeremiah: The Crisis Within and Without

03. Jeremiah: The Last Five Kings of Judah

04. Jeremiah: Rebuke and Retribution

05. Jeremiah: More Woes for the Prophet

06. Jeremiah: Symbolic Acts

07. Jeremiah: The Crisis Continues

08. Jeremiah: Josiah’s Reforms

09. Jeremiah: Jeremiah’s Yoke

10. Jeremiah: The Destruction of Jerusalem

11. Jeremiah: The Covenant

12. Jeremiah: Back to Egypt

13. Jeremiah: Lessons from Jeremiah

Welcome to another in-depth exploration in the Book of Jeremiah, written by Imre Tokic, Ph.D., LLD, edited for audio and produced by the Ambassador Group.

Exploration 2 The Crisis Within and Without 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 The New King James Version If we could pick 1 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.

Look at the extreme measure needed to solve it.

All through the Bible, many stories took place against the backdrop of 1 crisis or another.

The situation during the time of Jeremiah and his ministry was no different.

God's people faced many challenges, 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 leadership 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.

A Quick History When the Israelites had finally entered the Promised land, after years of wandering in the wilderness, it wasn't long before troubles began.

All it took was for a new generation to arise, 1 that didn't know the Lord, Judges 2 verse 10, And a spiritual crisis started that in many ways infected the nation all through its history.

It's a problem that, indeed, has infected the Christian church as well.

Let's listen to Judges chapter 2, verses 1 through 15.

As you listen to these verses, answer this two-part question.

What caused the crisis and How was it made manifest?

Now the angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bochem, and he said, I brought you up from Egypt and have brought you to the land which I swore to give to your fathers, and I said, I will never break my covenant with you.

And you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land, but you shall break down their altars.

So now I say, I will not drive them out from before you, but they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare to you." When the angel of the Lord spoke these words to all the Israelites, the people lifted up their voice and wept.

They named that place Bochim, Weepers, and they sacrificed there to the Lord.

And when Joshua had let the people go, the Israelites went every man to his inheritance to possess the land.

And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord which he did for Israel.

And Joshua, son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being 110 years old, and they buried him within the boundary of his inheritance in Timnat-Hedez, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Geash.

And all that generation were gathered to their fathers, and there arose another generation after them, who did not know, recognize, understand the Lord, or even the work which he had done for Israel.

And the people of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals.

And they forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt.

They went after other gods of the peoples round about them, and bowed down to them, and provoked the Lord to anger.

And they forsook the Lord and served Baal the God worshipped by the Canaanites and the Ashtoreth, female deities such as Ashtoreth and Asherah.

So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he gave them into the power of plunderers who robbed them And he sold them into the hands of their enemies round about, so they could no longer stand before their foes.

Whenever they went out, the hand of the Lord was against them for evil, as the Lord had said, and as the Lord had sworn to them and they were bitterly distressed.

In the New International Version, verse 11 says, Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord.

Each generation, 1 after the other, moved 1 step further from God until the nation was being exactly what the Lord had told them not to do.

Due to their sin, they faced 1 crisis after another.

But even then, the Lord had not given up on them.

Judges chapter 2 verse 16 tells that the Lord sent them judges who delivered them from their immediate woes.

But the Lord raised up judges who delivered them out of the hands of those who robbed them.

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 100 years.

Under David, then Solomon, it grew into a regional power.

After the death of Solomon about 931 BC, the nation split into 2 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.

White wrote those words in her book entitled Prophets and Kings, page 88 and 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 depressing, distressing, and painful consequences.

Think about the problem of the next generation not having the values and beliefs of the 1 before it.

How have we as a church approached and handled this issue?

How can we learn to transmit our values to those who follow us.

The 2 Kingdoms The 2 Kingdoms After the division of the nation, Things went from bad to worse.

In the Northern Kingdom, King Jeroboam made some terrible spiritual choices that had a long-lasting impact for evil.

Listen to 1 Kings chapter 12, verses 26 through 31 with this question in mind.

What does this glimpse of Old Testament biblical history indicate to you about how immediate circumstances can so blind your judgment.

Jeroboam said in his heart, now the kingdom will return to the house of David.

If this people goes up to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem to sacrifice, then the heart of this people will turn again to their Lord, to Rehoboam, king of Judah, and they will kill me and go back to Rehoboam, king of Judah." So the king took counsel and made 2 calves of gold and he said to the people It is too much for you to go all the way up to Jerusalem Behold your gods Oh Israel who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.

And he set the 1 golden calf in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan.

And this thing became a sin, for the people went to worship each of them even as far as Dan.

Jeroboam also made houses on high places and made priests of people who were not Levites.

The king's introduction of idolatrous worship helped set the nation on a disastrous course.

The apostasy introduced during Jeroboam's reign became more and more marked, until finally it resulted in the utter ruin of the Kingdom of Israel.

White in her book, Prophets and Kings, page 107.

In the 12th year of Ahaz, king of Judah, Hosea, son of Elah, began his nine-year reign in Samaria over Israel.

He did evil in the sight of the Lord, but not as Israel's kings before him did.

Against him came up Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, and Hosea became his servant and brought him tribute.

But the king of Assyria found treachery in Hoshea, for he had sent messengers to sow king of Egypt and offered no tribute to the king of Assyria as he had done year by year.

Therefore the king of Assyria shut him up and bound him in prison.

Then the king of Assyria invaded all the land and went up to Samaria and besieged it for 3 years.

In the ninth year of them in Hala and in Habor by the river of Gozan and in the cities of the Medes.

This was so because the Israelites had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt and they had feared other gods.

In 722 BC Shalmaneser king of Assyria put an end to the country and deported its inhabitants to different parts of his empire.

There was no turning back from this exile.

For a time, Israel disappeared from history.

Things weren't as bad in the southern kingdom, at least not yet, but they weren't great either.

And, as with the northern kingdom, the Lord sought to spare these people from the calamity that the Northern Kingdom faced, only now from the threat of the Babylonians.

Unfortunately, with rare exceptions, Judah had a series of kings who continued to lead the nation into deeper apostasy.

What do these verses say about the reign of some of Judah's kings?

Second Chronicles chapter 33 verses 9, 10, and 21 through 23.

So Manasseh led Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to do more evil than the heathen whom the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites.

The Lord spoke to Manasseh and to his people but they would not hearken.

Verses 21-23 Amon was 22 years old when he began his two-year reign in Jerusalem.

But he did evil in the sight of the Lord, as did Manasseh his father.

For Amon sacrificed to all the images which Manasseh his father had made and served them and he did not humble himself before the Lord, as Manasseh his father finally did, but Amon trespassed and became more and more guilty.

Jehoachin and nephew Mataniah, name changed to Zedekiah.

2 Kings 24 verses 8, 9, and 17 through 19.

Jehoiachin was 18 years old when he began his three-month reign in Jerusalem.

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Jeremiah

02. Jeremiah: The Crisis Within and Without

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Parent Series

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Recorded

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Jeremiah

03. Jeremiah: The Last Five Kings of Judah

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The Troublers of Israel

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Prophets Under the Influence?

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Who Lit Your Fire?

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When the Truth is Forbidden

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Gripped by Sin

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