| Home | Our Hope | |
| Bible Study |
|
May 24, 2015 |
| Still Rejecting God | ||
For years prophets such as Jeremiah and Ezekiel warned the people of Israel that God was angry with them because they had turned away from him. God warned them that he would give them over to the Babylonians and they would be driven out of the land. Israel refused to hear God. Instead they found prophets who would tell them what they wanted to hear - that everything would be fine.
In the end God's wrath fell on them. The Babylonians attacked and conquered all the cities of Israel, with Jerusalem being the last. Some of the people escaped from the cities and hid in the countryside for a while. Through Jeremiah, God offered them protection, but they had no faith in God. Instead they were determined to have faith in themselves and protect themselves. Despite the years of warnings from God, despite the wrath of God, they were still rejecting God.
In this lesson we will work through a set of verses from Jeremiah. Before each set there will be some questions. Read the questions first and then watch for the answers to them as we go through the verses. After the verses the questions will be repeated so you can consider your answer. Then you can view the answer to check your answer.
The people who escaped the destruction of Jerusalem were afraid that the king of Babylon would kill them. Some Judeans had killed the king's representative and these people were afraid that they would be blamed. Their plan was to escape to Egypt.
1 Then all the commanders of the forces, Johanan the son of Kareah, Jezaniah the son of Hoshaiah, and all the people both small and great approached 2 and said to Jeremiah the prophet, "Please let our petition come before you, and pray for us to the Lord your God, that is for all this remnant; because we are left but a few out of many, as your own eyes now see us, 3 that the Lord your God may tell us the way in which we should walk and the thing that we should do." 4 Then Jeremiah the prophet said to them, "I have heard you. Behold, I am going to pray to the Lord your God in accordance with your words; and I will tell you the whole message which the Lord will answer you. I will not keep back a word from you." 5 Then they said to Jeremiah, "May the Lord be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not act in accordance with the whole message with which the Lord your God will send you to us. 6 Whether it is pleasant or unpleasant, we will listen to the voice of the Lord our God to whom we are sending you, so that it may go well with us when we listen to the voice of the Lord our God."
The people who had escaped the destruction of Jerusalem
asked Jeremiah to do something for them. What did they ask?
Jeremiah agreed to do this for them. What did Jeremiah say
he would tell them afterward?
What did they promise Jeremiah they would do when they heard
the things he would tell them?
They verbally commit themselves to do whatever Jeremiah's God asks of them but the truth is they are open to offers from other gods and will take the best offer. The truth is they are worshiping another God - themselves - they will make the decision about their lives.
7 Now at the end of ten days the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah. 8 Then he called for Johanan the son of Kareah and all the commanders of the forces that were with him, and for all the people both small and great, 9 and said to them, "Thus says the Lord the God of Israel, to whom you sent me to present your petition before Him: 10 'If you will indeed stay in this land, then I will build you up and not tear you down, and I will plant you and not uproot you; for I will relent concerning the calamity that I have inflicted on you. 11 Do not be afraid of the king of Babylon, whom you are now fearing; do not be afraid of him,' declares the Lord, 'for I am with you to save you and deliver you from his hand. 12 I will also show you compassion, so that he will have compassion on you and restore you to your own soil.
How long did it take for Jeremiah to bring word back to
them?
What did the message say God would do for them?
What did the message say about the King of Babylon?
13 But if you are going to say, "We will not stay in this land," so as not to listen to the voice of the Lord your God, 14 saying, "No, but we will go to the land of Egypt, where we will not see war or hear the sound of a trumpet or hunger for bread, and we will stay there"; 15 then in that case listen to the word of the Lord, O remnant of Judah. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, "If you really set your mind to enter Egypt and go in to reside there, 16 then the sword, which you are afraid of, will overtake you there in the land of Egypt; and the famine, about which you are anxious, will follow closely after you there in Egypt, and you will die there. 17 So all the men who set their mind to go to Egypt to reside there will die by the sword, by famine and by pestilence; and they will have no survivors or refugees from the calamity that I am going to bring on them."'"
What did the message say would happen to them if they did
what they wanted?
18 For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, "As My anger and wrath have been poured out on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so My wrath will be poured out on you when you enter Egypt. And you will become a curse, an object of horror, an imprecation and a reproach; and you will see this place no more." 19 The Lord has spoken to you, O remnant of Judah, "Do not go into Egypt!" You should clearly understand that today I have testified against you. 20 For you have only deceived yourselves; for it is you who sent me to the Lord your God, saying, "Pray for us to the Lord our God; and whatever the Lord our God says, tell us so, and we will do it."
21 So I have told you today, but you have not obeyed the Lord your God, even in whatever He has sent me to tell you. 22 Therefore you should now clearly understand that you will die by the sword, by famine and by pestilence, in the place where you wish to go to reside.
Jeremiah summarizes the message God has for them. What does he tell them they should
not do?
Have you ever promised God something and then not followed through with that promise? Then, later, you tell yourself that you really did intend to keep your word but things became difficult? Then later still you tell yourself, God understands. Maybe the promise was a fast or maybe to tithe something or read the Bible more.
1 But as soon as Jeremiah, whom the Lord their God had sent, had finished telling all the people all the words of the Lord their God - that is, all these words - 2 Azariah the son of Hoshaiah, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the arrogant men said to Jeremiah, "You are telling a lie! The Lord our God has not sent you to say, 'You are not to enter Egypt to reside there'; 3 but Baruch the son of Neriah is inciting you against us to give us over into the hand of the Chaldeans, so they will put us to death or exile us to Babylon." 4 So Johanan the son of Kareah and all the commanders of the forces, and all the people, did not obey the voice of the Lord to stay in the land of Judah.
How did the people respond when they got the message?
Did they obey the message as they said they would? Where did
they run to for safety?
God again warns them that they must not stay in Egypt and if they do they will be destroyed. He says you have still not turned away from your wickedness and turned back to me.
9 Have you forgotten the wickedness of your fathers, the wickedness of the kings of Judah, and the wickedness of their wives, your own wickedness, and the wickedness of your wives, which they committed in the land of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?
Jeremiah makes a point of showing the wickedness of the wives. Earlier, in Jeremiah 7:17-18 God had said "Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18 The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough to make cakes for the queen of heaven; and they pour out drink offerings to other gods in order to spite Me."
15 Then all the men who were aware that their wives were burning sacrifices to other gods, along with all the women who were standing by, as a large assembly, including all the people who were living in Pathros in the land of Egypt, responded to Jeremiah, saying, 16 "As for the message that you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we are not going to listen to you! 17 But rather we will certainly carry out every word that has proceeded from our mouths, by burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, just as we ourselves, our forefathers, our kings and our princes did in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; for then we had plenty of food and were well off and saw no misfortune. 18 But since we stopped burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything and have met our end by the sword and by famine." 19 "And," said the women, "when we were burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and were pouring out drink offerings to her, was it without our husbands that we made for her sacrificial cakes in her image and poured out drink offerings to her?"
What did the wives say about everyone else in Judea?
What did they say was the reason that Jerusalem and all
Judea was conquered by the Babylonians?
What does it mean to pour out drink offerings?
Who is the Queen of Heaven they have been worshipping?
What did the wives say about their husbands?
When times are toughest that's when we are most likely to rely on ourselves instead of God. In those times, if there is anything we think we can do to improve our situation, we are likely to do it, even if that isn't what God wants.
The nature of rejection - They have come to Jeremiah because he was proven to be a real prophet but they will not accept any instruction or correction from God through him.
People will sometimes twist things around to try to avoid the truth. In this case the women have decided that Jerusalem was destroyed because they stopped worshiping their goddess. The truth was that Jerusalem was destroyed because they were worshiping that goddess.
People will often try to justify the wrong things they have done by comparing themselves to others. They may say someone else did something worse and wasn't punished therefore they shouldn't be punished. Or they may say, as we saw here, that everyone else was doing it. The truth is, right and wrong are measured against God's unchanging standard. Everyone is responsible for their own actions.
Despite God's warnings and eventual punishment his people who had turned away from him were still rejecting him. Only after 70 years in Babylon would they return to the land that God had given to them.