Destination: Jeremiah 1-52 | Skip Heitzig

[Music] can you imagine some of the scenes of history that took place just behind me David Solomon and the kings of Israel walked here in the New Testament Peter Paul and of course Jesus were frequently on this temple mount but now we want to focus on Jeremiah the Prophet whose heart was broken over the idolatry that took place here and in the hearts of God's people the Book of Jeremiah is our destination in our flight over the Bible from 30,000 feet before we take off let's learn more about Jeremiah our flight takes a sobering turn as we see the Book of Jeremiah come into view this prophet suffered public humiliation and frequent persecution but he was unwavering in declaring God's Word despite the personal cost well Jeremiah was a bullfrog no I'm just kidding do you remember that song Three Dog Night I said I just had to say that and actually that was my first introduction to the name Jeremiah I wasn't a Bible reader growing up so it was that three dog night song joy to the world that I first heard of Jeremiah so when I read the Book of Jeremiah I couldn't get that out of my mind every page Jeremiah was a bullfrog was a good friend of mine and that shows you how how biblically illiterate we can be as Americans sometimes in fact a lot of us know more about songs like Three Dog Night than we do about the actual Prophet Jeremiah but we're going to overview the 52 chapters in the Book of Jeremiah and because there's so many we can only overview them by way of outlining it and drawing out some very important salient principles now do you remember the story of Chicken Little our Chicken Little walked out one day and an acorn fell on her head I think I have the story right and she shook and she was so scared that half her feathers fell out and she said the sky is falling the sky is falling and I have to go tell the King Jeremiah had a very precarious position of declaring to the nation of Judah that the sky was falling judgment was coming the Babylonians were on their way but he was up against a group of prophets false prophets who were saying just the opposite the sky is not falling everything's just fine there's nothing at all to worry about so Jeremiah because of the situation had to be both tough and tender and really that's a good way to remember Jeremiah he was a tender warrior he had enough toughness to get the job done but he was also very tender toward God's people and that that shows up through this book in fact by the way I would say that's a good qualification for any leader a leader needs to be tender because if he's just tough then it can come off as prideful arrogant aloof non caring but if you're you're too tender you can't really be a leader and call very important decisions at a time of crisis I've always loved the description of a good pastor by Stewart Briscoe he said a good pastor should have the mind of a scholar the heart of a child and the hide of a rhinoceros Jeremiah had such a make up he's a tender warrior in fact Jeremiah reminds us of Jesus did you know by the way that that was one of the rumors going around about Jesus remember when Jesus asked them in Matthew 16 whom do men say that I the Son of Man am and they said some say you're John the Baptist others say you're Jeremiah or one of the prophets now why would they say that well there are certain characteristics about Jeremiah that were present in Jesus Jeremiah could be tough Jesus could be tough like the time he said to the Pharisees woe unto you hypocrites over and over again he used that term on the other hand Jesus was tender like Jeremiah and said to the paralytic son be of good cheer your sins are forgiven Jeremiah is called the weeping prophet because of some passages in this book and in the next book the book of lamentations also written by Jeremiah the Prophet Jesus wept over Jerusalem as he saw Jerusalem for the final time before his crucifixion and he wept and said o Jerusalem Jerusalem how often I would have gathered you like a hand gathers her young but you were not willing now I want to give you an outline of the book and it's an outline that I came up with and I hope it's helpful and it's it's really comprised of one chapter the bulk of all of the rest of the chapters and then the final chapter okay so we have preparation number one proclamations number two and prediction number three so here's the outline chapter one is the preparation of Jeremiah formulated that is God calls him God prepares him with what he's about to be doing preparations of Jeremiah formulated then chapters 2 through chapter 51 our proclamations of Jeremiah foretold the rest of the book is really a book of proclamations proclamations against Judah and against nations so under number two large a it's proclamations against Judah that's chapters two through chapter 45 and then proclamations against the other nations that's that be the large be under - and that's chapters 46 through 51 then the third division is simply the last chapter and that is the prediction of Jeremiah fulfilled everything Jeremiah has said would happen to Judah happened and it's recapped in that last chapter let's go to Jeremiah chapter 1 verse 1 the words of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin this is just a little town about three miles from Jerusalem to whom the word of the Lord came in the days of Josiah the son of Ammon the king of Judah in the thirteenth year of his reign it came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah the king of Judah until the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah the son of Josiah the king of Judah until their carrying away of Jerusalem captive in the fifth month so we just read a bunch of verses and you read a bunch of names you might be thinking ah so what so so let me just give it to you this way Jeremiah had a 40-year ministry that spanned at the reign of five different kings not all of them are mentioned here so I'm gonna mention them all in order first of all the reign of Josiah Josiah was a good guy he was a good king he brought in reformed spiritual reform not quite revival but almost real spiritual Reformation and so toward the end of that rain came the Prophet Jeremiah that's first Josiah after Josiah Jehovah has his son became King now he's not mentioned because he only lasted three months and then he was deposed by the Egyptians so he barely even got the throne warm Jehovah has did and he was dethroned and taken to Egypt the Egyptians put in Jehovah has his place his brother named Eli akin okay it gets worse because they changed his name to Jehovah Kim so Alya Kim aka jaha Kim took the place of Jehovah has by the Egyptians now he lasted that is Jehovah Kim 11 years now while he was King Jeremiah came to Jehoiakim and said hey whatever you do don't rebel against the Babylonians don't mess with Nebuchadnezzar don't rebel he didn't listen he rebelled the Babylonians took him off the throne and put somebody else in charge Jehoiachin see how bad it gets from a like him to Jehovah Kim - now Jehoiachin now jehoiachin he didn't last long either he lasted three months and ten days the Babylonians took him off the throne took him captive of Babylon and put a guy last guy mentioned here Zedekiah and King Zedekiah last sit on the throne of Judah he was the final King until 586 BC when the Babylonians came in destroyed the city Zedekiah fled for his life they caught him down in the Jordan Valley and gouged out his eyes and took him to Babylon that's what Jeremiah was up against verse 4 then the word of the Lord came to me saying before I formed you in the womb I knew you before you were born I sanctified you I ordained you a prophet to the nation's that's a very important verse it's one of my favorite verses in the Book of Jeremiah and when I read it I can't help but think I am so glad that Jeremiah's mother didn't terminate the pregnancy because God said I knew you before you were born my plan for your life started way before you even came out of the womb it shows us how the Bible views life and the sanctity of life and when life begins I have to do is look at the Bible life begins in psy goat form as soon as that sperm and egg unite and the cells start dividing at that very primitive stage personhood exists now I want to tell you a little story this was the story that a bioethics professor gave to her class to challenge faulty human reasoning here's the story she said how would you advise a mother who is pregnant with her fifth child based on the following data her husband had syphilis she has tuberculosis the first child was born blind the second child died the third child was born death the fourth child had tuberculosis now the mother is considering an abortion the professor went on would you advise her to have one most of the students agreed she should have an abortion based on the medical data of the parents the teacher then said congratulations you've just killed one of the world's greatest composers Ludwig von Beethoven that's the medical history of his family God says Jeremiah before you even became a bullfrog no I mean a prophet before you were even born I knew you and my plan for you began very early on and to me that's exciting to think God has a plan for us let's discover what it is then I said verse six ah Lord God behold I cannot speak for I'm a youth is probably between age 20 and 25 when God called him but the Lord said to me do not say I am a youth for you shall go to all to whom I send you and whatever I command you you shall speak do not be afraid of their faces for I am with you to deliver you I think that's really good because sometimes when you look at a crowd of faces you know there are some people in a crowd that have yes faces there's other people who have no faces they just look grumpy they're not necessarily but if you look at their face and then you project oh what are they thinking about me it can get really weird so God tells this young man don't even worry about looking at them I'm gonna put my words in your mouth now something that you've probably noticed about some of the greatest people in the Bible that God has used is that when God calls them oftentimes they're the very ones who think I can't do this and thus they're qualified because they don't trust themselves they're now having to trust the one who called them so when God called Moses did Moses go you know I'm finally glad you asked it's about time do you know who I am he said Lord they're not gonna listen to me I'm a man of uncircumcised or faulty speech uncircumcised lips when God called the prophet Isaiah woe is me for I am undone said young Isaiah I'm a man of unclean lips I live in a generation of unclean lips when God called Paul the Apostle you know what Paul said about himself I Who am less than the least of all the saints this grace was given that I might preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ you notice a pattern that God calls people like Jeremiah but they're very familiar with their own inadequacy their own inability their own inexperience as was this 20 to 25 year old prophet but Paul told young Timothy let no man despise your youth or don't let them look down on you because you're young I'm sure this 20 year old or 25 year old young prophet the idea of going before the kings of Judah and the people in Jerusalem and the priests at the temple and then the emissaries to the nation's that he would speak was a daunting task but that was the calling and I got to tell you this this is an interesting fact about Jeremiah because it sounds really good God's calling him you get all excited he preached for four decades he didn't see one single conversion not one person turned no one listened to him no one admitted his words into their hearts no one took it to heart and so we would look at then go he was a failure maybe he shouldn't have gone maybe he was right he is young and inexperienced but he's not because later on in captivity they would read this book I'll show you that in a minute it's fabulous and he also predicted the captivity in the return of the captivity which would comfort the Jews for generations to come he was God's spokesperson though he didn't see immediate results there were eventual results chapters 2 through 45 is the proclamation of Jeremiah against Judah and though they are DiNunzio Tory in nature something striking about Jeremiah is his words are filled with tenderness and pathos look at chapter 2 verse 1 moreover the word of the Lord came to me saying go and cry in the hearing of Jerusalem saying thus says the Lord I remember you the kindness of your youth the love of you betrothal when you went after me in the wilderness in a land not sown he's getting him to look back over their history when they used to live in Egypt and were slaves in Egypt and then God brought them out in the desert and they only had God to trust him they had no water they had no food man I had to fall from heaven water had to come from the rock and it was that daily trusting in God God said I missed that I longed for that I loved it when it was just you and me and there wasn't all the the fancy organizational rigmarole that you have place between you and me I miss just those early days now this is very similar to what the Lord Jesus said to the Church of Ephesus right remember from where you have fallen you have left your first love that tender relationship that a person has with Christ you remember it remember it well it was just the Bible and you trust God the Holy Spirit will reveal things to you and he'll guide you in his word and then he started learning a few things and become a little smarter and then you got maybe even weird I don't know God says I just miss it when it was just that innocent early stage of our relationship you know as a pastor one of the things that break my heart is to see people that I've counseled or married over the years not getting along sitting across from me in an office looking at each other and one says about the other I don't love her anymore I don't love him anymore and I'm thinking goodness I remember 10 years ago you I mean your eyes were like puppy eyes you're like little drool coming out of your mouth when you looked at her now you you don't want to be around what happened what happened to that it wasn't overnight I'll tell you that it was a long slow erosive process of a couple leaving their first love and with the Church of Ephesus I mentioned them that little postcard that Jesus wrote in Revelation guess what that was written 60 years after the church was founded in 60 years time a church that was a light to that part of the world it's completely dwindled away very short period of time this can happen okay let's move on to verse 9 therefore I will yet bring charges against you says the Lord and against your children's children I will bring charges this is legal terminology for filing a lawsuit in the Old Testament in court verse 13 for my people have committed two evils speaking now these are proclamations against Judah my people have committed two evils they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters and hewed themselves cisterns broken cisterns that can hold no water let me explain that there were two ways of getting water back then one was through rivers streams and the other was rainfall collected in cisterns now when water ran in a stream moving water that's what it was it was moving water the Hebrews called it living water it's alive it's not stagnant it's moving quickly and that's where the term living water even in the New Testament derives its meaning from a moving stream of fresh water the other way is by rainfall and because they didn't have an abundance of rivers in that part of the world they depended on yearly winter rainfall so when the rain came the early rain the Ouray in Hebrew the latter rain the mush in Hebrew they would always collect the water in these big rock swimming pools called cisterns that would collect the water problem is once you dig out the cistern you may not realize until it's done that the rock you used had an inherent defect a fissure a crack so you get it all done you plaster it all and then just a little bit of seismic activity in a single year and there's a huge crack and all the waters drained out so God saying you guys left moving water living water my refreshment and you've had to replace my refreshment the source of refreshment with your own devices you've gotten refresh by forming alliances with Egypt forming alliances with the Syria you've forgotten to trust me you've left the refreshment you've turned two broken cisterns that can hold no water remember the day that Jesus went to Samaria and saw that woman at the well remember what he said to her one of the things he said hey if you drink of this water you'll you'll get thirsty again but whoever drinks of the water that I give will never thirst he spoke about living water and then she was all talking she said sir give me some of that living water so I don't have to run to the well every day and pick it up he spoke about living water you could write that saying over every human endeavor what is it you're you're looking for happiness from in your life drink of this water and you'll thirst again relationship is it drink of this water you'll thirst again a lot of money drink of this water you'll first again position drink of this water you'll thirst again broken cisterns NBC had a TV special a while ago a while back and it was called the mystery of happiness who has it and how to get it that's what the show was called the mystery of happiness who has it and how to get it and they asked people what is happiness I don't know how you'd answer it but let me tell you a few answers that people on TV had one guy said happiness is ten million dollars he had a figure in mind another person said happiness is just more ready cash another person said happiness would be a castle if I had a castle another person in the documentary said a private island that would be happiness and then one guy predictably said a bunch of women I think that's happiness for you not the women now I do see striking similarities to what happened to Judah and what is happening to America and I'm not going to follow it down to the pinpoint they're just some things that are hauntingly familiar for instance we have decided to rule got out of national life so to speak for the most part god that once was okay even in national life even in public prayers even in political arenas it's just so dicey now to do that in public schools you can do anything almost except pray God has been ruled out of national life out of public life out of scholastic life there's even a group as you know they've been for some time trying to strike the phrase out of the Pledge of Allegiance it says one nation under God 67 percent of Americans that's a lot isn't it 67 percent that's most of them right believe there's nothing called right and wrong there's no such thing as right and wrong definite right definite wrong black and white 67 percent of Americans are existential in their worldview there's no such thing as right and wrong now over the years I've been listening to a lot of people politicians and religious leaders and I hear religious leaders often say if America doesn't turn soon God's gonna judge America and while I agree with that I'll say something that's probably controversial I think maybe perhaps it's already started it's not going to come it's here and it's been here for a while we just don't see it the reason I would say that is because one of the first indicators that God has decided to judge a nation is when he turns that nation over to its own desires that's Romans chapter one when God does that okay you want that you can have that and judgment has begun and God's wrath is turned on them by simply giving them their own desires Arnold Toynbee the historian wrote out of 22 civilizations that have been appearing in the history of the world 19 collapsed when they reached the present moral condition of the United States of America go down to verse 14 return he says o backsliding children says the Lord for I am married to you I will take you one from a city two from a family and I will bring you to Zion chapter three verse twenty-two same message return you backsliding children and I will hear heal your backslidings now you've heard the term backslide or backsliding it's it's a term that comes from the Old Testament sixteen times the word appears in the Old Testament it simply means to leave your original position I remember when you were in the wilderness remember we just read that the love of your betrothal how sweet it was when you just trusted in me they left their original position they back slid in their relationship with God so you'll find that throughout this book and you'll find something else Jeremiah is very colorful he uses colorful language he's a good communicator he draws pictures for your mind to see there's 21 different metaphors for judgment used in Jeremiah alone besides other word pictures for a number of other things for an example go to chapter 4 verse 3 look at this example of same message against Judah for thus says the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem break up your fallow ground and do not sow among thorns break up the hardened untilled that's fallow ground now every winter every winter after the rain stop the last part of the winter and that part of the world farmers go out and that's where they do this they break up the fallow ground they pull the weeds they pull thorns they move rocks and debris and they they take the hardened top break it up with a plow so that the seeds they plant will take root and grow and bring a harvest and so spiritually speaking can you apply that break up the fallow ground as a che Ironside put it the ploughshare of conviction must overturn the hardened soil of the heart that's the message God is saying to these people in Jerusalem let the conviction of God really dig into your heart feel what I'm saying let that top soil that has allowed you to listen to words of prophets and preachers and turn them off let them sink in break up the fallow ground even Jesus gave a beautiful parable of the sower and the seed and you remember he said some of the seed fell among the thorns which choked up the seed and it became unfruitful in other words the farmer didn't get out there and pull those weeds that can grow and choke up the seed here's a believer who's torn between the things of the world and the things of the Lord he has too much Jesus in him to be really satisfied in the world but really too much of the world in him to really be satisfied in Jesus there choked seeds break up the fallow ground chapters 5 and 6 are prophecies that were given during the early reforms of that first King I mentioned King Josiah the good guy who brought a measure of revival a measure of reform but it was really superficial it didn't last very long and so there was this emotional uproar and other people saw the emotion and they decided to be a part of it but over time it didn't last there's an old saying that a friend of mine likes to use he said you know sniff any Pig can fly in a hurricane there's a good wisdom in that any Pig can fly in a hurricane you just get enough storm going on and a lot of people get involved in the storm wound flying around but so what how long will it last a lot of time what poses as revival isn't revival at all is sin an emotional eruption without lasting fruit that was one of the problems in Jeremiah's time chapter 6 verse 13 because from the least of them even to the greatest of them everyone is given to covetousness and from the Prophet even to the priest everyone deals falsely they have also healed the hurt of my people slightly saying peace peace when there is no peace okay let me explain there's two groups back then two groups of leaders that wanted to spare the people from the panic of an impending invasion from Babylon you follow me now these two groups that wanted to spare the people from the panic of the impending invasion of Babylon were politicians and prophets false prophets now the politicians wanted to do it by forming alliances with other nations instead of trusting God we'll make these political will sit down and negotiate with Egypt in Assyrian form a strong political alliance and thus sparing the people from what happened anyway second were the prophets who wanted to preach fun messages relevant messages feel-good messages and keep out all of God's judgment because people don't like to hear that and so they were spiritual quacks that's what it means when he says you have healed the hurt of my people slightly saying peace peace when there is no peace you guys you politicians you prophets are simply treating the problem superficially it's like putting a bandaid on on an arterial bleed anybody you would treat that way is it quack you just can't treat it so superficially you have to treat it radically drastically you need a surgeon in there I read a description one time by an author who described the condition of our world right now and the condition of some spiritual leaders and politicians like this he said the world's like a ship that is sinking they don't know it but the can - knows him he knows the ship is sinking so the captain turns to the whole group of people on the boat and he says ok let me just tell you something all the rules are drop now if you're in 2nd or 3rd class you can move up to first class free of charge all the drinks are free you're gonna have as much booze as you want you can party in the dining hall if you'd like play soccer in the dining room you break the lamps we don't care we want you to have a good time so what do all the people aboard think what a cool captain he gives us so much freedom he's like so nice he thinks about us what they don't know is they'll be dead in five minutes the nation is sinking and you've got these false prophets and flimsy politicians who are healing slightly the heard of the people chapter seven through 10 we called them the temple discourses and that's because he preached them where do you think the temple very good so Jeremiah is called by God to go now up to the gates of the temple and give these messages to people who are going to church going to Temple including priests including the people who would bring the sacrifices chapter 7 verse 2 stand in the gate of the Lord's house and proclaimed there this word and say hear the word of the Lord all you of Judah who enter in at these gates to worship the Lord thus says the Lord of hosts the God of Israel amend your ways and your doings and I will cause you to dwell in this place do not trust in these lying words saying the Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord are these you get the picture people were saying as long as we go to church man everything is going to be ok long as we go to the temple you know judgments coming I want to go to Temple I went to Temple today everything is ok the Temple of the Lord now it's mentioned three times temple of Lord temple or temple Lord of these I think to symbolize the three great feasts that the people all over the land had to go to three times a year alright pass over Pentecost and Tabernacles they had to appear in Jerusalem and they thought as long as we're going to the temple everything's okay it was all superficial listen carefully this is what they did wrong they retained the symbol of worship they threw out the substance of worship was all about the symbol God cared about the substance do you really worship me and love me and submit to me see for them it was all about a ritual done in a place rather than a relationship with a person they wanted the ritual in the place God wanted the relationship with the person himself the Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord are these verse 16 is so severe God tells Jeremiah not to pray for these people anymore now I'm showing you that because this is the one and only time in the Bible where God tells one of his servants stop praying because I won't even listen to you when you pray for these people anymore I'm done it's over I'm Way done judgments coming chapter 9 verse 23 again part of the temple discourses thus says the Lord let not the wise man glory in his wisdom some of you tonight are bright wise you have advanced degrees you think clearly and with perspicuity you got brains you're wise let not the wise man glory in his wisdom let not the mighty man glory in his might maybe you have position power clout you know people you can get on the phone and people will move because you're mighty let not the rich man maybe God has blessed you financially glory in his riches but let him who glories glory in this that he understands and knows me that I am the Lord exercising loving-kindness judgment and righteousness in the earth for in these I delights the Lord so they boasted in minds money and might now that those were their idols minds their brains money their pocketbook and their might their power they were basically were fat and sassy and grew in their prosperity and had forgotten God I want you to listen to this I'm gonna I'm gonna read something to you by one of our presidents now this was spoken by President Abraham Lincoln way back in 1863 so I wonder have we gotten any worse at all as a nation from 1863 till today okay so listen to what he assessed the nation as back in 1863 we have grown in numbers in wealth and in power as no other nation has ever grown but we have forgotten God and we have veinly imagined in the deceitfulness of our own hearts that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own close quote there's a man who saw it for what it was there's a man who's a was a clear thinking godly leader we've turned from God we've forgotten God we think it's all about us look what we've done they're under you're on your way down as a nation when you think that chapters 11 through 20 are filled with personal experiences of Jeremiah there's the plots of evil men and leaders in Jerusalem as well as Jeremiah preaching very extravagantly with visual aids we'll just touch on a few of these chapter thirteen God becomes Jeremiah's fashion consultant it says Jeremiah here wear this beautiful pure linen sash which was the symbol of the pride of Judah then he was still wadded up and bury it under a rock by a river and it got soiled and he was to bring it out and display it to all the people and that's how he began his message chapter 16 go over to that God tells Jeremiah the Prophet not to get married to remain single sort of a bummer isn't it he says don't get married Jeremiah don't have a kid don't have a family in this place cuz this place is the place of judgment it's gonna get really bad here you're not gonna want a family verse 2 of chapter 16 you shall not take a wife nor shall you have sons or daughters in this place which was unusual because did you know back then Jewish men by age 20 were typically married typically married to Joseph and Mary when they had Jesuses they were teenagers probably certainly Mary was in fact there was a saying by some of the rabbi's that said of a list of the people that won't go to heaven first on the list a Jewish man who has no wife so if you didn't get married they thought you're weird something's off with you God says don't do it don't get married for thus says the Lord concerning the sons and daughters who are born in this place and concerning their mothers who bore them and the father's who begot them in this land they shall die gruesome deaths they shall not be lamented nor shall they be buried they shall be like refuse on the face of the earth they shall be consumed by the sword and by famine and their corpses shall be meat for the birds of heaven and for the beasts of the earth now over in chapter 18 Jeremiah is invited to pottery barn that is he says he's told go down to the house of the Potter which is down in the Kidron Valley it's always down where the springs of water were because the amount of water they needed for their craft and he was watching a Potter worked something on the wheel and pot got marred in the Potters hand and the Potter had to discard it and reshape it and have a pot as long as there was water in it you could reshape it if you leave it alone and it loses its moisture and gets hardened the only thing you do with it is you break it and you grind it up and it becomes refuse or part of the path go down to the potter's house he's told to watch an illustration of what God was going because of the hardness of Judah's heart chapter 19 Jeremiah's told to get a pot from Pottery Barn from The Potter's House now a dried pot and to smash it in front of the people showing the God will break the pride of Judah and smash the nation in captivity so this isn't Smashing Pumpkins this is smashing pottery chapter 19 verse 1 that says the Lord go and get a Potter's Earth and flask and take some of the elders of the people and some of the elders of the priests verse 10 then you shall break the flask in the sight of the men who go with you and say to them thus says the Lord of Hosts even so I will break this people in the city as one breaks a Potter's vessel which cannot be made whole again and they shall bury them in tow fete a valley there and a little incinerating area there until there is no place to bury so some of Jeremiah's preaching you notice is very visual now keep that in mind because when we get to the Book of Ezekiel that guys like really visual and people remember that it is true I've somewhere read that people will remember 10% of what they hear and they'll remember 50% of what they see so if you can visualize you can empathize that's why when we take people to Israel and we show them the land their Bibles different they see it now and it is true I mean I I've seen movies over the years with my wife and she'll say hey I look at a title of movie go where to see that movie she goes oh you've already seen it I go no I've never seen that movie what had this in it and that and this was said I go I never saw it I know what I saw I never saw it and then we'll turn it on and just a few scenes go by and I remember what I see more than what I hear and I go I've already seen this now here's what's really bad for people who give messages like myself people remember 10% of what you hear of what they hear people will remember 25% of what they hear if it's told them twice which means you'll only remember 25% of this message if you go by the CD and listen to it again if not only 10% of the message so 25 percentage retained it if they're told that twice let me repeat that now I'm just kidding you get you get the idea okay verse 1 of chapter 20 let's quickly move through now Tosh or the son of Emer the priest who was also chief governor in the house of the Lord heard that Jeremiah prophesied these things and posher struck Jeremiah the Prophet put him in stocks that were in the high gate of Benjamin which is by the house of the Lord verse 9 I just want you to see his response to all of this mistreatment Jeremiah said I will not make mention of him nor speak any more in his name here is Jeremiah the Prophet quitting the ministry handing in his prophetic cleats hanging them up he didn't want to be a prophet anymore I guess you could say he wants to be a nonprofit organization I don't know but he doesn't want the job anymore he quits I quit look at the end of verse 9 but his word was in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones I was weary of holding it back and I could not I've had that experience there have been low very low times in life in ministry and what takes a person back up what fuels a person again not a therapist even more than a vacation somewhere all those though those are good but truly it's God's Word the truth of God's Word getting in touch again with truth and immersing yourself in the truth of God's Word the two guys on the road to emmaus they were so desperate so despondent Jesus walked up to him and started speaking to them about prophecy in the Messiah and after Jesus disappeared remember what they said to each other did not our hearts burn within us as he spoke to us along the way and as God speaks to you in his word he'll revive you that's why we insist spend daily time with the Word of God I don't feel like it so what let the desire be the engine the feeling be the caboose don't let the caboose pull the engine don't let the feeling run your life let the decision run your life make the choice do it let God revive you immerse yourself in it it was Dwight L Moody who said I believe that the Bible is inspired because every time I read it it inspires me Martin Luther used to say the Bible is alive it speaks to me it has feet it runs after me it has hands it grabs ahold of me let God's Word revive you as it did this Prophet Jeremiah chapter 21 to 29 illustrate the certainty of the captivity that is coming over and over again in this chapter or in this section Jeremiah illustrates the coming captivity and in chapter 29 he sends a letter to captives who won't even read it for years to come for years to come and he's going to tell them in this letter prepare for a long stay okay now before we read a very important section of this letter that they get and you can you'll hear and you'll say P I can see how that would encourage him when the Babylonians came against the Judeans they didn't do it once they didn't do it twice they came three separate times until they were wiped out 605 BC was time number one Daniel the prophet was taken during that time Danny was just a little boy he wasn't a prophet yet and he was taken from his home in captivity of Babylon at 605 BC 597 BC was the second time most of the leadership and the spiritual leadership was taken captive during that time as well as a large number of the nobility and then number three 586 BC and in the summer of 586 BC July 18th 586 BC to be exact the temple was completely leveled and the people were taking the rest of them to Babylon ok first 10th chapter xxix here's part of the letter imagine reading this in Babylon you're thinking it's all over God doesn't love us for thus says the Lord after seventy years are completed at Babylon I will visit you and perform my good word toward you and cause you to return to this place Daniel read this very verse before he got the Daniel 70 weeks prophecy anyway verse 11 for I know the thoughts that I think toward you says the Lord thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you a future and a hope then you will call upon me and go and pray to me and I will listen to you and you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart there they were there they would be in captivity by the river of Babel and weeping thinking God is over is done with us will never return they get this letter from Jeremiah the Prophet written years before and God is saying look you're in captivity but it's not over the captivity was God's spanking you to get you to this place where you cry out for him and the whole purpose of the captivity was to bring you back to him and you'll be back in the land after 70 years that is the purpose of discipline is it not to restore a relationship between a parent and a child I remember the times I I would have to spank Nathan I mean just last week no I'm just kidding when he was quite young when he was quite young and I'd have to hated doing it well sometimes it was fun no it was it was never was never fun I always hated doing it I hated it I knew he hated it but the purpose was to bring him back and bring more importantly his will to be aligned with my will how do you break a child's will without breaking their spirit that's the tension parents so God is a plan for you when you're not in alignment with his plan he'll enact discipline to restore you back in alignment with his plan so that God can do for you what he's always wanted to do for you but hasn't been able to until you're aligned with his plan and purpose that's the bulk of the letter that he writes chapter 33 33 our predictions of God's future plans for Messiah and the new covenant one of the most important sections in all of the Bible if your fallen asleep wake up right now because this is important chapter 31 verse 31 behold the days are coming says the Lord when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah not according to the Covenant I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt my covenant which they broke though I was a husband to them says the Lord but this is the covenant that i will make notice the emphasis I will do this I will make this not you I will do it with the house of Israel after those days says the Lord I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts I will be their God and they shall be my people oh what a difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant the Old Testament in the New Testament the law and grace you see the Old Covenant tried to control your conduct the New Covenant promises to change your character here's an analogy that really helped me out the difference between the old and the New Covenant the Old Covenant it's like you're confined to sheet music you have to play the song you have to play the score by watching the sheet music the New Testament you suddenly have the ability to play by ear all the same notes this time there's a song it's in your heart it's intuitive it's there you hear it you feel it and just play it by ear it's not mechanical it's deep in the fiber Romans 3 says by the law is the knowledge of sin but in the New Covenant is the knowledge of God's forgiveness chapter 34 through 45 Jeremiah tells more about his own personal life by the way Jeremiah of all the prophets tells more about his own personal life than any of the other prophets in all of the Bible sir some prophets we don't know anything about except their name others we know their name and where they're from others we know their name and who their dad was we know a lot about Jeremiah he spills the beans about his life look at chapter 38 verse 6 so they took Jeremiah this is a guy prophesy gets in trouble prophesize gets in trouble now they take Jeremiah cast him into the dungeon that is a cistern of malkia the king's son which was in the court of the prison and they let Jeremiah down with ropes and in the dungeon or cistern there was no water but Meyer that deep dark muddy sediment so Jeremiah sank in the mire this has got to be the lowest time in this dudes life he's on ropes it's dark and he gets sunk in the mire let's take this right-wing fundamentalist conservative preacher and get him out of here and they stick him in a cistern where a person will die of starvation suffocation or hypothermia if he goes deep enough in that cold mud after the winter rains well the story goes on he gets released from there but he has to stay in the courtyard of the prison of the king's house that became a prison his stay in the courtyard and he stays in the courtyard and lives the rest of his days there until 586 BC when that City is captured and destroyed by fire and Jeremiah the Prophet is released now chapter 39 is Jeremiah's eyewitness account of the fall of Jerusalem chapters 40 through 42 recounts how Jeremiah stays in Jerusalem and ministers to the Jerusalemites who were there gives them God's Word during those three chapters then chapters 43 and 44 he gets taken to Egypt it's a weird deal but I don't have enough time to get into it gets taken to Egypt and in Egypt he's his life is preserved and he ministers to the people in Egypt chapter 46 through 51 is a whole list of prophecies not to Judah but to the nation's so we have the proclamations against Judah chapter 46 for 51 proclamations against the surrounding nations like Moab Egypt Philistines Damascus as well as Babylon ultimately and finally now the last chapter chapter 52 this is the prediction of Jeremiah fulfilled chapter 52 is called an historical supplement doesn't that sound boring a historical supplement I look at it as a prophecy fulfilled chapter 52 recalls in a nutshell form all that Jeremiah was predicting and Isaiah by the way of the fall of Judah and Jerusalem by the Babylonians and shows how it was fulfilled in one succinct chapter by the way what city in the Bible is mentioned more than any other city than any other city in the Bible what's mentioned the most Jerusalem second to Jerusalem what's mentioned most Babylon interesting that Babylon and Jerusalem are these two cities set against one another throughout the scripture even tell revelation 17 and 18 great Babylon is fallen is fallen and Jeremiah records the name Babylon a hundred and sixty-four times or more than all of the rest of the Bible mentions it put together and now is the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon let's just finish up two verses verse 4 now it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign in the tenth month on the tenth day of the month that Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon and all of his army came against Jerusalem captain in stit built a siege wall against it all around verse five so the city was besieged until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah it was a two-and-a-half year siege this final member I said there's three attacks this final attack started January the 15th 588 BC and finally fell the city fell on July 18th 586 BC two and a half years after the beginning of the siege it fell then the walls came down and were leveled the beginning part of August according to history thus fulfilled the words of Jeremiah verse 13 he burned the house of the Lord and the King's house all the houses of Jerusalem that is all the houses of the great he burned with fire next time you're walking around Jerusalem I would encourage you to walk down toward the Kidron Valley and as you're walking down out of the dung gate toward the Kidron Valley off to your right are the ancient digs of the City of David or the city that was around during this time and you can go down and you will see stone walls that have been uncovered and these dark marks on the stone and you asked the tour guide what's all this black it looks like soot he says these are the soot remains from the fire that burned the city of Jerusalem in 586 BC you can see today visual proof of Jeremiah's words when he prophesied them now fulfilled still today in 2008 I want to close with this thought when you get a phone call what do you do let me let me rephrase it when you get a phone call what should you do you should answer it you don't always do it you you see who it is you should answer it and then you should act upon any pertinent information that you're given in the phone call but do you know that every year in Finland in the last several years has been a an international cell phone throwing competition truly coming up in August will be the 8th annual mobile phone throwing competition championship it's August 23rd if you're in the area of Finland and you really got to go to this event originally began is a little local event in a small town last year hundreds of people from as far away as Canada Belgium Russia came and the gold medal last year went to Finland's lossy at Tel a tallow he flung his Nokia phone 89 meters people gathering together to throw cell phones has it come to this what should you be doing with the telephone answering it acting upon what you hear here is God through the Prophet Jeremiah calling them beseeching them answer me calling me and I'll answer you Jeremiah 33:3 but they'd rather throw the cell phone away it's rather throw it away and so the wages of sin is death death came judgement came but you should know something else about God has seen in this book judgment is coming but God's mercy will overshadow even the harshest judgment Jesus is always there saying behold I stand at the door and knock If any man will hear my voice and open up the door I'll come in with him and fellowship with him and he with me

Channel: Skip Heitzig

Views: 3,039

Rating: 4.6226416 out of 5

Keywords: How to study the Bible, How to read the Bible, Jesus, Skip, Skip Heitzig, How to know God, Jeremiah, judgment, restoration, protective, God, people of Israel

Id: hUwNjGB9SB0

Length: 59min 4sec (3544 seconds)

Published: Mon May 13 2019