Lesson 393 - Senior

Memory Verse

"The Spirit and the bride say, Come.  And let him that heareth say, Come.  And let him that is athirst come.  And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely" (Revelation 22:17).

Cross References

I The True Espousal -" God and Israel

1. Israel's covenant was made by their free choice, [JER:2:1-2]; [EXO:24:7]; [JOS:24:24]; [2KG:11:17]; [2KG:23:3]; [2CH:15:12].

2. God's covenant was made with Abraham and his seed, [JER:2:3]; [GEN:17:2-8]; [ISA:54:5]; [JER:3:14]; [HEB:8:10].

II The Broken Espousal

1. God keeps His covenant, Jeremiah 2;4-7.

2. The Jews break their covenant, [JER:2:7-8], [JER:2:20].

3. God pleads for repentance, [JER:2:9-12].

III Two Great Evils

1. Judah forsakes the Fountain of Living Waters, [JER:2:13]; [PS:63:1]; [REV:22:17].

2. Judah substitutes broken cisterns that could not hold water, [JER:2:13]; [ISA:45:20].

IV The Results of Sin and Backsliding

1. Their slavery, wasted lands, burned cities and desolations are the results of forsaking God, [JER:2:14-21].

2. No washing "with nitre" or "much soap" can remove their guilt, [JER:2:22-24]; [JER:13:23]; [PRO:28:13].

3. Their free will is exercised for evil, [JER:2:25]; [DEU:30:19]; [JOS:24:15].

4. All hope is abandoned because of their evil choice, [JER:2:26-30]; [PS:106:19-21].

Notes

A Prophet Called of God

Jeremiah was born of the priestly line, but he was chosen of God to be a prophet instead of a priest. God Himself gave Jeremiah the message that he was to bring to Judah. It was not a pleasant message, for it foretold captivity for the people and destruction for their homeland.

Jeremiah's position in Jewish history was the exact opposite of that of Moses. The one stands in the glory of the sunrise, the other in the sombre hour of evening twilight amidst the lengthening shadows of the swiftly coming night. The one brought to his people liberty, and became himself the deliverer and leader out of dark and bitter slavery. The other spoke words heavily laden with doom, and he realised in his own experience the fearfulness of the calamities which he foretold. Moses was called to the difficult work of laying the foundation of an independent national existence. Jeremiah saw the splendid structure shattered and deserted. The nation of Israel had grown to its peak in the time of King David and King Solomon when it extended from the Euphrates to the Red Sea; but now it had diminished to a mere patch of land scarcely 50 miles square, and Jeremiah was to see even this disappear.

Jeremiah loved his people and did not want to see them suffer or go into captivity, so he tried faithfully to warn them and spare them the suffering that was ahead. The Lord had forewarned Jeremiah that they would not receive his words. Rather, they would fight against him; but the Lord had promised that they would not be able to prevail against him, for He said, "I am with thee, saith the LORD, to deliver thee."

The Lord's First Message by Jeremiah

The first message Jeremiah brought to his people began with the remembrance of better days in Israel. The Lord remembered when Israel had said, "All that the LORD hath said will we do, and be obedient" [EXO:24:7]).

God in turn gave wonderful promises to Israel, and these promises or covenants the Lord likened to an espousal. The bond of marriage with its vows is the most sacred and blessed covenant known to man in his earthly affairs. If a marriage is founded upon the principles of the Word of God and God's smile of approval is upon the lives of both persons and upon their union, marriage becomes a great source of blessing and strength.

God uses this sacred and profound bond to exemplify the even closer bond that exists between Himself and His people. (Read [EPH:5:25-32].) God said of Israel, "I am married unto you" [JER:3:14]), and Israel in turn had been "holiness unto the LORD." This kind of spiritual prosperity was exactly what the Lord had planned for His people; but they had departed from it and broken their sacred vows.

The Lord asked what they had found in Him that had caused them to leave Him and walk after vanity and become idolatrous. They had forgotten that it was the Lord who had brought them out of Egypt and through the wilderness and brought them into a land of plenty. And after having secured that land of plenty, they had defiled it with their sins and abominations. Even the priests and the pastors had forsaken God and had brought in the abominable idolatry of Baal worship; but still the Lord remembered that they had been a spiritual people, and asked. "What iniquity have your fathers found in me?"

The Indictment of Two Great Sins

Judah's sins were not hid from the Lord. In fact they were so terrible in His sight that even the heavens were astonished and afraid. The people had forsaken the true God who was the fountain of living waters, and then had hewed themselves cisterns, broken cisterns at that, which could not hold water. Anybody should know that a cool spring of mountain water would be far better than stale, stagnant cistern water, but in this case the cisterns did not even hold water because they were broken cisterns.

The meaning of this message is evident: God had done a wonderful and miraculous thing for these people, but they had forsaken this source of blessing, had gone back on their covenanted vows and left the Lord completely. This, in itself, would have been bad enough, but they then searched out a substitute god in the form of an idol. Can you imagine anything more abominable or degenerating than turning away from God who had been revealed to them as the true God, the only God, and the Creator of all, and substituting this imitation? This was truly "broken cisterns" that could hold no water.

The Inevitable Results

Unfaithfulness in maintaining marriage vows always brings tragic results. Only those who have had this sad experience know of the unfathomable depths of sorrow and suffering they go through. Broken homes, scattered, parentless children, even murder and suicide are the results. And for Judah the picture was just as dark. The people were to go into slavery, their lands wasted, their cities burned and without inhabitants; all this they had procured for themselves because they had forsaken the Lord their God.

Though God had planted them a noble vine, wholly a right seed, they had turned into a degenerate plant or a strange vine. To do this they had exercised their own will as a free moral agent and said, "For I have loved strangers, and after them will I go." In spite of all that God had done to plead with them, to try to awaken them to their true condition by smiting their children, they persisted in their choice of sin. Prophets were sent to them, but these were not heeded; instead, the prophets were tortured and killed. Jeremiah as a prophet experienced much suffering because of his faithfulness in trying to warn the people. One time he was thrown into a prison and almost died from starvation and sinking into the mire at the bottom of the dungeon.

Our Day Parallel to Jeremiah's Day

When the Lord looks down upon our country of Nigeria, a country that has religious freedom and the principles of the Word of God, a country that God has so bountifully blessed, we wonder if our time of judgment is not as near as Judah's was when Jeremiah spoke God's message. We still see men and women making so much of graven images today and falling down and worshiping them, so, we are living in an idolatrous nation. Other idols of today are the material things that people are amassing around them; the pleasure seeking, and the self-indulgences that crowd out the true worship of God. Can it not be said that these are the perilous times, the last days, that Paul told Timothy about in the 3rd chapter of II Timothy?

"For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy.

"Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,

Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;

"Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof."

The tide of sin, corruption, moral degradation, is rising in our beloved country. This points forward to a time of judgment, and we believe the judgment is even at hand.

The true preachers of today must preach the same message that Jeremiah preached: Judgment is coming; prepare to meet thy God. Still God is a God of mercy, and that Fountain of Living Waters is still open. The last chapter of the Bible, the 17th verse, says:

"And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely."

And then the 20th verse: "He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus."

Questions

1. Why did Jeremiah follow the vocation of a prophet?

2. To what office was he entitled by birth?

3. State the two parts of the first message that the Lord told Jeremiah to give.

4. Explain the difference between water from a spring and water from a cistern.

5. Tell the spiritual message in forsaking the Fountain of Living Waters and hewing out cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

6. State at least three results that inevitably followed Judah's forsaking of God.

7. Why could this whole calamity be blamed on the people and not on God?

8. In what way is the day in which we live very similar to the day in which Jeremiah lived?

9. State the only way of escape for us from the judgment that are prophesied in God's Word.