back to indexBerean Community Church Bible Study 4/2
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I'm pleading for repentance, deeply sorrowful, mournful, intense emotions. 00:08:54.620 |
Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello. 00:09:22.620 |
Testing, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, testing, testing, 1, 2, 3. 00:09:36.760 |
Please go ahead and get situated in your tables. 00:09:44.260 |
Our Heavenly Father, we are so grateful to you. 00:09:49.360 |
God, we thank you so much for the precious truth that you have for us in your word. 00:09:54.420 |
But thank you, God, for your fatherly love that leads us. 00:09:57.840 |
I pray, Lord, that each opportunity that we have, such as these, 00:10:01.600 |
that we would join in our hearts to love you, to worship you, but to truly learn from you. 00:10:06.860 |
We ask, God, that your spirit would cause such conviction in our hearts 00:10:11.480 |
and also, Lord, that you would bear the fruit you desire to see in our lives. 00:10:15.520 |
We want to lift this time up to you, Lord, both in our singing, in our discussion, 00:10:20.300 |
in even our fellowship, and also, Lord God, the time of in-depth study that we do. 00:18:28.360 |
Okay, those of you guys who are coming in, please go ahead and take your seat. 00:18:35.360 |
I want to highlight that, you know, we're really grateful they've been opening up the cafe. 00:18:41.660 |
For those of you guys who are seeking a place to study or do some of your work, please know that on Wednesday, April 9th, starting from 10.30 a.m. the cafe will be open for you guys to come in and do that here. 00:18:57.480 |
Okay. Also, as the Passion Week is approaching, it is a really opportune time to evangelize to 00:19:08.540 |
our friends and family. We will be hosting a Cafe Gospel Night on April 12th. That's a Saturday at 00:19:16.960 |
7 p.m. here in the Fellowship Hall. Okay. This evening will include both some musical presentations, 00:19:25.140 |
refreshments, etc., but we will be presenting the gospel in proper form and at length. So please 00:19:31.820 |
invite, you know, your non-believing co-workers or friends, and then please do sign up. If you want to 00:19:38.240 |
use that QR code to sign up, and even if you want us to, as a team, the outreach team, to join you in 00:19:44.320 |
prayer, you can put your, you know, name in, who you hope to invite, and you can put some details down so 00:19:49.580 |
that we can lift them up by name in prayer. Also, I want to highlight our Passover meal. Please make 00:19:57.940 |
sure if you have not participated in that, sign up for it. For those of you guys who have participated, 00:20:05.160 |
you still can. It's not only exclusive to those, but we did mention that the space is limited because 00:20:11.520 |
we're going to be hosting it in here, and we do have to make a special table arrangements. So please make 00:20:17.320 |
sure to sign up for that early as possible. As the week approaches, we've been mentioning that we do 00:20:23.000 |
need volunteers. So actually, as the QR code is up there, if you're available and can lend a hand, 00:20:28.400 |
please go ahead and do that now. We do need volunteers to help with food prep on Saturday and Sunday. That's 00:20:35.560 |
a kind of a highlight area because, you know, we really want to have that fellowship time together 00:20:40.140 |
as a church, and it is quite the undertaking and big endeavor. So please make sure to volunteer for 00:20:45.740 |
that if you have time. Another highlight is that kind of spring cleaning, cleaning and maintenance day 00:20:52.500 |
is going to be coming up Saturday, April 26th. So just mark your calendars for that. You know, 00:20:58.220 |
save the QR code and link for that to help serve and lend a hand in cleaning up the whole church facility. 00:21:04.080 |
The final thing is, for those of you guys who are newer to the church, we are going to be starting a new membership 00:21:09.400 |
class. This class is going to take place starting from April 27th at 9 30 a.m., and it will run for eight weeks. 00:21:16.400 |
So as you're here, and if you are thinking about committing to the church, you know, that class is a mandatory one 00:21:22.940 |
for our membership process, and it'll cover all the core doctrines and also philosophy of ministry for the church. 00:21:29.240 |
So please make sure to sign up for that. Okay, then I would like to switch it over to some of the pre-discussion 00:21:35.360 |
questions. As we hit, you know, some of the more, I guess you could say, difficult passages, whether it's the 00:21:42.520 |
prophecies, then we're going to go into Psalms, and then we'll do Proverbs and Revelations. There's a few weeks 00:21:46.980 |
left. Please know that all the normal inductive study methods you apply, it still is going to glean for you 00:21:55.380 |
these various observations, and you can just share that and the questions you have. But specifically for 00:22:01.020 |
this, I asked if you can discuss, because, you know, kind of the nature of the chapter we read was so 00:22:08.520 |
intense, talk about the tone, talk about, you know, the repeated idea, and where is the emphasis in the 00:22:14.340 |
chapter, etc. But also, number three, make observations and detailed questions about what's the difference 00:22:21.620 |
as a comparison of the covenant of old and a new covenant of promise. Okay? So go ahead and take some 00:22:27.500 |
time to discuss. At eight o'clock, we'll be back for teaching time. Thanks. 01:11:56.120 |
chapter 29 to chapter 33, embedded into the heart of Jeremiah, is a beautiful segment on God's mercy 01:12:03.340 |
and future plans for the nation of Israel, okay? However, how many of you guys have heard this one? 01:12:10.180 |
It says, this whole land will be a desolation, a horror, and these nations will serve the kings of 01:12:17.660 |
Babylon 70 years. My guess is none of you guys have that placard on the wall or memorized on the tip 01:12:25.080 |
of your tongues because obviously the tone is so different, okay? So when we study the books of 01:12:35.200 |
prophecy, part of the reason why I mentioned this idea of you have to know the tone is because the 01:12:41.180 |
book has a movement that's typically incredibly forceful. Why? If you imagine, do you remember a 01:12:50.840 |
couple sessions ago, I said, imagine you're at the pool and you're the lifeguard, and you see all 01:12:56.600 |
these kids running around and jumping off where they shouldn't be jumping off and nose diving into 01:13:01.200 |
stuff and crack their head, right? What would you do? And I talked about a meme where this young girl 01:13:06.500 |
who's a lifeguard just starts screaming, walk, right? Well, I use that analogy again to say, if you imagine 01:13:14.320 |
the nation of Israel just disobeying every rule there is around the pool, running amok and doing 01:13:20.980 |
whatever they want, the book of prophecies are often actually interjections of God speaking to his 01:13:27.860 |
people. Listen, you keep doing that, you're going to crack your head. So a lot of the tones of the 01:13:36.200 |
prophets are something that we have to look out for, and specifically for our book in Jeremiah, 01:13:40.480 |
Jeremiah, it is heavily confrontational, it's incredibly urgent, and it's pleading for repentance, 01:13:46.840 |
it's deeply sorrowful and mournful, and what's more, the emotions are so intense that there is this 01:13:54.820 |
poetic repetition that you guys have already seen in our chapter, but on almost every major movement of 01:14:02.000 |
this whole book, there is intense emotion through it all. For example, look at what Jeremiah says in 9.1, 01:14:08.900 |
Oh, that my head were waters, my eyes were fountains of tears, that I may weep day and night for the slain 01:14:15.920 |
of the daughter of my people. My soul, my soul, I'm in anguish. This is the tone of the whole book, okay? 01:14:26.460 |
The whole book is just repeat of this, and that's why a lot of people, I think, when they read prophecy, 01:14:31.480 |
they kind of start moving away from reading it. I mean, who wants to read, like, you have to read 29 01:14:38.860 |
chapters, an incredible rebuke to get to a beautiful passage like this, right? It can be difficult. But 01:14:46.340 |
coming to just a quick hermeneutical rule again is this. When we read prophecy, you should interpret it 01:14:54.140 |
as a literal proclamation with a very clear intended message. It's typically a rebuke, call to repentance, 01:15:01.520 |
a warning, or a word of hope with elements of foretelling of future events. Let me take a moment 01:15:09.460 |
to pause there. Why am I saying this rule? Because if I summarize that, it just says, read it literally. 01:15:17.320 |
That's it, okay? It's because the common kind of mistake, the common error in looking at prophetic 01:15:25.160 |
books is you think that there are weird mystical sayings about the future, strange oracles and 01:15:32.020 |
visions, and weird kind of drama. And yes, the book of Jeremiah has tons of them. I believe there are seven 01:15:38.860 |
movements of different pictures. The reason why earlier I gave you the photo of this is because God made 01:15:44.820 |
Jeremiah take these jars. And he said, take them. And in front of everybody, start crushing them on the 01:15:51.260 |
floor. But is that like very difficult to understand? Is that so difficult to interpret? The answer is no. 01:15:58.780 |
There is a clear message behind that. Whether it's you're not listening to me, I have to get your 01:16:05.660 |
attention, that kind of stuff, okay? So my point in this is, please do not first and foremost look at 01:16:13.620 |
prophets like difficult fortune telling or foretelling of the future that we'll never know because we're 01:16:20.100 |
not supposed to know the times or specifically when. And that's true. If you keep asking, when is this? 01:16:27.220 |
When is this? You're coming at it with an expectation where you're not going to get the answer. But if you're 01:16:32.580 |
coming at it with what is God's word to these people in their moment, it's not only clear, it's so abundantly 01:16:41.520 |
clear. There's drama presentations, reiterations and explanations for them to get the clear message. 01:16:47.680 |
Okay? All right. With that said, I'm still on this idea of what's the tone? Okay? What is the tone? 01:16:56.720 |
And for us, understanding the tone of the whole book makes us even appreciate more. 01:17:02.240 |
How in the world do we jump from, like, you people are not listening to me, like, judgment's coming for 01:17:10.820 |
you, to this, where God says in Jeremiah 31, I asked you guys to read the whole chapter, 01:17:17.200 |
where he begins by saying, "The Lord appeared to him from afar, saying, 'I have loved you with an everlasting 01:17:23.360 |
love. Therefore, I have drawn you with loving kindness. Again, I will build you and you will be rebuilt, 01:17:29.840 |
O virgin of Israel. Again, you will take up your tambourines and go forth to the dances of the merry 01:17:35.360 |
merry-makers.'" Okay? So in this sense, if we had time, we'd camp out. And my exhortation to you is, 01:17:44.320 |
rather than looking at the book of prophets like, "Oh, those are really difficult books about the future," 01:17:49.680 |
rather look at them as incredibly, emotionally intense moments of proclamation. 01:17:57.040 |
And you're supposed to feel it. You're supposed to feel this emotion. Chapter 31 is very repetitive, 01:18:03.200 |
isn't it? The terms of God's love, His kindness, His desire to rebuild, the way that He addresses 01:18:10.400 |
Israel, and keep this in mind that He's referring to them as a virgin. Okay? It's actually so repetitive. 01:18:17.280 |
If you read the prophets and you come across repetitions of God's judgment and His wrath, 01:18:23.360 |
you're supposed to feel it. And if you hit moments like this, when we're talking about His word of hope 01:18:29.920 |
for the people, you have to feel it. Okay? So that would be kind of like the first reading of the text. 01:18:35.440 |
And then you do a second reading, walking through, and I ask you guys to try and outline chapter 31 if 01:18:43.200 |
possible, and for sure try to outline our paragraph, verse 27 through 37. Okay? Remember, I love outlines. 01:18:53.600 |
If you did an outline for today, did you really prepare for today? Did you really do a Bible study? 01:18:58.880 |
The outline process makes you identify where are the thoughts leading to? Okay? What is God's point? 01:19:09.040 |
It helps you break up this huge chunk in paragraph and say, "Where are the identifiable pieces?" So, 01:19:15.840 |
let's do a walk through together. In the second reading, thinking through, "What are the promises of God?" If this whole 01:19:22.000 |
tone is, like, essentially, everlasting love and restoration. If the whole tone is love and mercy, 01:19:32.560 |
what are the promises of God? Here, you will notice that he has this repeated little phrase where it 01:19:39.120 |
says, "Days are coming. Behold the days." Right? And it already kind of tells you the outline. So, in our 01:19:45.840 |
paragraph from verse 27 to 28, I notice here that he says, "I'm going to sow the house of Israel," and then he 01:19:52.960 |
explains it. "Just as I watched them and I plucked them and broke them, then I'm going to bring, and to 01:19:59.680 |
bring disaster. So, I'll watch over them to build and to plant." First promise, future replanting and 01:20:06.800 |
rebuilding of Israel and Judah. Right? I'm sure you guys all got that. The next outline point would be, 01:20:15.280 |
he says in verse 29, "In those days," and he describes how before the fathers ate the sour grapes and the 01:20:21.440 |
children felt it. And then here he says, "But each man who eats the sour grapes, his own teeth will be set 01:20:27.840 |
on edge." So, what we notice is, he says, "In the future days, it's not going to be where one man sins and 01:20:36.240 |
everybody gets judged." Right? It says, "Individual responsibility and consequences." Then, verse 31 through 34, 01:20:44.080 |
here is the crux of our paragraph and such a beautiful promise of God. "Days are coming," he says, "I will make 01:20:51.760 |
a new covenant." And here you should have all kinds of questions, right? Even though, yes, maybe immediately 01:20:58.720 |
all your New Testament passages start coming in and all your theology about how did Jesus fulfill this for 01:21:04.560 |
our sake. I'm going to leave that to you to discuss and to just think about, but we're just going to think 01:21:10.240 |
about it here. It's like, how would the people here, like in this moment, hear this? They've been just 01:21:18.000 |
told like, "Oh my goodness, I can't believe how much of a sinner you are. You have any idea how upset God 01:21:24.480 |
is with you?" Et cetera, et cetera, right? And then to hear, "God is going to make this new covenant with you." 01:21:30.560 |
And then, in the second part of that, from verse 33 to 34, he gives the details, and then I'm going to 01:21:38.320 |
give you this portion as just kind of like my summary of what are the promises of this new covenant. And I'm 01:21:44.320 |
sure you guys identify them as God saying that I'm going to internally transform you, that I will put 01:21:51.280 |
my law in their heart. That there's going to be a personal, private knowledge of God. At that time, 01:21:59.200 |
they're going to know me. It's going to be so sweet. We don't have to do this like, "Do you understand? Do you 01:22:04.320 |
understand?" and speak to each other like somebody doesn't know. And what's more, there's going to be 01:22:09.760 |
forgiveness. A kind of forgiveness where God says, "I will not remember your sins." Amazing, right? 01:22:16.960 |
My admonition to you is, if again, you thought that the book of prophecy was incredibly difficult, 01:22:26.880 |
"Oh, I'm not a scholar. I can't study the prophets." If that's you, please know like this doesn't take like 01:22:34.240 |
a degree to just identify. Let me just break it down. What is he promising us? 01:22:39.520 |
And when we do that, we realize not only is it just simple, he's reiterating them in so many 01:22:45.360 |
different ways. And then finally, in the last segment, okay, in Jeremiah 31:35-37, he starts 01:22:52.960 |
speaking in such beautiful terms. So long as there is sun fixed order, so long as you're not able to 01:22:59.280 |
measure the heavens or the foundations of the earth, so long as that's the case, I will never cut off Israel. 01:23:07.520 |
This is a promise that God is not going to be done with them, right? Such assurance, such security. 01:23:15.920 |
So, the reason why I say this is because again, in your reading through the prophets, 01:23:21.920 |
there's a sentiment where it's easy, okay? There's a sentiment in which your identification of what his 01:23:31.440 |
promises are should highlight those very things God wants to emphasize, okay? I'm going to give you guys 01:23:38.800 |
kind of like a couple quick notes again, which is this. I want you guys, as good students of the 01:23:45.440 |
scripture, to know that there is something kind of plain about studying the scriptures, and it's you 01:23:50.400 |
being safe. What I mean by that is, what it literally says, allow it to just say, okay? If he starts 01:23:58.640 |
talking about, I'm going to, you know, give the, this nation all these boundaries, go ahead and just 01:24:05.440 |
think like, that's what he's going to do. If he says, I'm going to raise up this individual and cause 01:24:09.920 |
him to resurrect, then obviously you're going to be like, that's the guy. If there's a forerunner for 01:24:13.520 |
Jesus, then he's going to be there. Whatever the passage literally says, you can take as like, 01:24:18.320 |
unless the scripture says otherwise, unless in the context it says otherwise, I'm just going to take 01:24:24.400 |
it at face value. Okay. The reason why I say this is because, for example, 01:24:30.640 |
part of the reason why I think sometimes people are fearful of prophecy 01:24:39.200 |
is because there has been so much historically, even like, even though maybe we're, we're not like 01:24:46.400 |
accustomed to it here, just across the board, there has been a kind of tendency to, to, 01:24:51.440 |
to study the passage allegorically. What do I mean by this? In our passage in verse 27, to us, it says, 01:24:58.400 |
when I will sow, oh, sorry, behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will sow the house of Israel 01:25:04.080 |
on the house of Judah with the seed of man and with the seed of beasts. Okay. The typical immediate 01:25:11.840 |
question is, what does that mean for me? And so did you know that even individuals like John Calvin, 01:25:17.440 |
if you guys go and use your, you know, BibleStudyTools.com, etc., there's a commentary by Matthew Henry. 01:25:23.920 |
These individuals made direct correlation from these passages, this text, to us. So if you look up this 01:25:31.600 |
text in their commentary, they'll say, the sowing of Israel is like our modern-day evangelism. God has 01:25:38.160 |
so desired the seed to go forth and to multiply, and that is the work of evangelism. Whoa. That's a huge 01:25:45.680 |
jump, isn't it? But if you go to prophecy and you keep wondering, like, what does that mean for me? What 01:25:50.480 |
does that mean for me? You get into error that way. What's more, the seed of beasts, they'll describe as 01:25:57.120 |
this means the prosperity of the Christian nations. When the scripture is being used to develop, like, 01:26:02.400 |
the political system, when the scripture is being used to develop the land, there's even going to be 01:26:07.200 |
prosperity, and that's what he means by the seed of beasts being there as well and being replanted. 01:26:12.160 |
In some sense, that sounds nice, but is that what he's saying? No. He explains himself. Verse 27, 01:26:21.120 |
verse 28, that as he's watched over the nation of Israel, he's going to watch over them and replant 01:26:27.120 |
them. Right? Okay. So I want to just kind of highlight for you guys and do a quick pop quiz, right? 01:26:39.680 |
Here, the way that we've been studying the biblical hermeneutics, we said that there is a literal 01:26:44.880 |
HG hermeneutic. The H stands for historical. Thank you. And the G stands for 01:26:55.120 |
grammatical. You all fail. Anyway, I'm kidding. Okay. It's a literal historical grammatical hermeneutic. 01:27:03.840 |
Okay? That's the way that we're trying to read the passage. Yes, there's a prophet speaking to the 01:27:10.160 |
people, but what he's saying is actually literal. Now, what's interesting is people who practice 01:27:15.600 |
allegorical, like, interpretation will accuse us and say, "Are you saying it's literal? Like, 01:27:21.920 |
God is literally going to take the nation and plant them?" It's like, no. When we say literal, 01:27:27.600 |
we mean we take the figures of speech that God employs and uses, and then we take their meaning 01:27:33.440 |
literally. What we don't do is make huge jumps to spiritualize those texts. Okay? So I know I kind 01:27:41.040 |
of went long there, but I just want you to know, again, one of the primary kind of common errors of 01:27:45.760 |
studying prophecy and making it difficult is to think, like, what does this mean for me? How does this apply 01:27:50.960 |
now? Et cetera, et cetera. And that makes it tough. Moving forward, we said first reading, pay attention 01:27:58.400 |
to the tone because it's such an intensely emotional text. Second reading, pay attention to the details of 01:28:05.600 |
future promise. And don't just make huge jumps to, "That's me. That's me. That's me." Okay? Third reading, 01:28:14.080 |
we want to talk about the historical context. And what is the covenant context? You guys looked at, 01:28:21.200 |
he has reference to the previous covenant and the immediate covenant. And what I want to say is, 01:28:26.960 |
okay, so if we see that, we have to give attention to the historical context. 01:28:31.280 |
Just a quick note is this: Jeremiah is speaking to a people who are already being taken captive. 01:28:40.160 |
Starting from 605 BC down to 586 BC, this is the time where God's judgment is being carried out by the 01:28:49.280 |
nation of Babylon. Babylon's growing in their power. Assyria is already diminishing. And there's waves of 01:28:56.160 |
people being deported and taken captive. Ultimately, coming down to 586, where Judah becomes destroyed 01:29:03.360 |
utterly. Okay? This kind of information, it would be difficult just to pick up from reading the book. 01:29:10.480 |
But you can actually pick it up as you read it. My recommendation is, again, whenever you're 01:29:14.720 |
studying the Bible, go ahead and take a look at your study Bible. Just do a quick search on context, 01:29:20.240 |
historical context of the book, and you'll realize that this text that we're reading is given to people 01:29:27.920 |
who are already suffering the consequences of their sin. Take a moment to think about that. 01:29:34.160 |
Take a moment to think about that and how you appreciate this text. Okay? Now, 01:29:39.120 |
earlier I mentioned that you guys took a look at this and he said that God, or in this passage, 01:29:46.720 |
Jeremiah highlighted the difference between the old covenant and the new. Okay? But I want you guys to 01:29:53.280 |
take a moment to appreciate this kind of talk because when we think about prophecy, 01:29:59.440 |
prophecy actually, in some sense, is what I like to call enforcement of covenant. 01:30:07.840 |
What do I mean by that? Essentially, long ago, the nation of Israel looked at God and said, "God, 01:30:14.160 |
we love you. Thank you for delivering us. We'll do everything you say." Right? So what did God do? 01:30:21.120 |
Through Moses, God gave them a covenant, which is often called either the Sinai covenant or Mosaic 01:30:27.040 |
covenant. Right? And God said, "Then this is how you're supposed to walk before me. Walk before me, 01:30:32.720 |
holy and consecrated. Walk before me, devoted to me, have no other gods." And so the Ten Commandments and 01:30:39.440 |
all the commandments of the rituals were all for how the people were supposed to be faithful to him. 01:30:46.320 |
It was the rules of their relationship. It was the defining of their walk with God. Okay? 01:30:52.240 |
When we come to prophecy, a lot of times it's so emotionally intense. It's because 01:30:57.600 |
see how God feels when the people break that covenant. Jeremiah chapter 3, verse 1-3. Take a 01:31:06.480 |
moment to follow along in this text with me. God says, "If a man divorces his wife and she goes 01:31:13.200 |
from him and belongs to another man, will he still return to her? Will that land not be completely 01:31:19.840 |
defiled but you? You're a prostitute with many lovers, yet you turn to me, declares the Lord. Raise 01:31:26.960 |
your eyes to the bare heights and see, where have you not been violated? You have sat for them by the 01:31:32.960 |
roads like an Arab in the desert, and you have defiled the land with your prostitution and your wickedness. 01:31:38.080 |
Therefore, the showers have been withheld and there has been no spring rain. If you have a prostitute's 01:31:44.160 |
forehead, you refuse to be ashamed." What he's saying there is that there is this brazenness about 01:31:51.840 |
their sin. To say that you have a prostitute's forehead is actually just saying you have such 01:31:57.040 |
brazenness, there's no guilt. You just keep doing it in such a rebellious fashion that you have no conviction 01:32:03.920 |
that that's sin. You have no conviction that's hurting your husband. This is the way the word of prophecy 01:32:12.640 |
comes. And so when we think about it, it's not just a harsh rebuke, it's God calling them and saying, 01:32:21.280 |
do you understand what covenant relationship we had? Do you remember what as a people you committed to? 01:32:28.160 |
And then, so now think back, do you remember when I highlighted for God to call them and said, 01:32:35.040 |
I'm going to rebuild you, O virgin Israel? How much they would have heard that and said, oh my gosh. 01:32:44.560 |
So, I have another passage, but I want to take time to just move forward and say, 01:32:49.280 |
when we think about prophecy, just to wrap up the third reading, so to speak, and you read that portion, 01:32:55.200 |
yes, like the prophecies has with it all these details about the future, but keep in mind the 01:33:03.200 |
context of their relationship now, or now meaning in that text. But also keep in mind this idea that 01:33:10.080 |
covenant was so important to the understanding of this. For God to have a relationship with them, 01:33:16.320 |
it would be one thing to be like, you know, I'm going to give you common grace like I give everybody else. 01:33:20.400 |
Do you understand that God is a God who, in His love, desires to define that relationship? 01:33:26.800 |
God is a God who binds Himself. He gives Himself so lavishly, so incredibly fully and thoroughly, 01:33:35.920 |
that He uses the covenant, that He uses these parameters of a relationship, so that we would 01:33:43.040 |
know exactly what we can expect from Him. Okay, in thinking about that, the fourth reading you should 01:33:49.600 |
do whenever you read prophecy is you should be thinking about the character of God, the character 01:33:54.400 |
of man, and the relationship. What do I mean by this is, yes, I mean, again, are these points that I'm 01:34:00.160 |
giving you so unique to prophecy that you don't do it with other texts? No, this is not like so unique, 01:34:06.160 |
but precisely because when God speaks in the word of prophetic language, He regularly starts to say, 01:34:14.880 |
this is my perspective on what you're doing, right? That's the kind of picture that I'm trying to 01:34:20.000 |
highlight for you over and over again, is prophecy is God's introduction of this is how I see 01:34:25.920 |
you right now. And so whenever He says that, it tells us about Him, right? Typically how holy He is, 01:34:33.360 |
typically how, you know, methodical He is, how intentionally He is, and all that kind of stuff. 01:34:38.000 |
And I'm going to leave it to you to discuss, especially in the passage that we learned today, 01:34:43.680 |
what does it tell us about God? Well, I want to highlight for you something that just jumped out from 01:34:52.000 |
the greater context in chapter 31, verse 20. He says, "Is Ephraim my dear son?" And Ephraim, 01:34:59.760 |
this part, you know, you can just, most of your Bibles will have like a number, and it'll kind of 01:35:05.440 |
define, it'll say like, oh, northern Israel, okay? It's because the people were already scattered and divided, 01:35:12.320 |
he has different names for, you know, kind of different sect of the people. But he says, "Is Ephraim my dear 01:35:19.760 |
son? Is he a delightful child?" Indeed. "As often I have spoken against him, I certainly still remember him." 01:35:32.080 |
Like, you gotta just camp out and meditate on that, right? To ask like, okay, so clearly God is looking 01:35:41.440 |
at such a wicked and sinful people. He said, "I'm going to pluck you and destroy you." But then, 01:35:48.720 |
now he's talking to his prophet, and he's like engaging with him, right? And Jeremiah better be careful, 01:35:56.720 |
because if Jeremiah goes way too far and be like, "Yeah, you guys are a bunch of losers, you punks, 01:36:02.240 |
you know? God's done with you." Because I started thinking about if I was Jeremiah and hearing all this 01:36:07.280 |
stuff, I would be tempted to be like, "And you guys are trash. Utter trash." But then God says, "But is Ephraim my son?" 01:36:21.520 |
He's asking Jeremiah, "Do you understand how I see Ephraim?" And he says, "It's my delightful son. I'm going to 01:36:28.800 |
remember him." Wow. What does that tell us about our God? When God says that he is the heavenly father, 01:36:36.400 |
he truly is the heavenly father, right? He is going to personally be the one to discipline them, 01:36:43.280 |
and he's going to personally be the one to restore them. So beautiful. And what's amazing about this text is, 01:36:51.040 |
even though this portion of it's like, "Oh, I have all these plans for you." Remember what I said is, 01:36:56.240 |
in context, they're experiencing the deportation, and then they're going to experience the destruction, 01:37:01.680 |
but God says there's going to be a very specific period of time, and no more. And just in the same 01:37:09.600 |
way that my word of judgment against you is going to come exactly, my word of restoration for you will also 01:37:18.080 |
come perfectly. That's our God. So I want to kind of conclude with that note. If you guys, again, 01:37:27.600 |
have avoided the books of prophecy because you thought that there would be way too many confusing 01:37:33.680 |
things, my word to you today is actually it's very, very clear. If we ask the right questions about what 01:37:40.880 |
what is he promising? What are the covenants? And what is his character we're going to glean so much? 01:37:46.480 |
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for giving such a word of hope to us. 01:37:58.480 |
God, we know that your word is sure. I pray, Lord, that you would help us to believe. We also know, 01:38:05.760 |
Father God, that just like the nation, we see our own sins, we see how frequently we fail, 01:38:12.960 |
and we understand, Lord God, how frustrating it can be. But thank you, God, that you give us hope of 01:38:20.000 |
change. You grant to us hope of redemption and transformation. We know you will do a work in us 01:38:26.640 |
in the same way that you have always done a work in your people. We thank you, God. It's in Christ's 01:38:31.600 |
name. Amen. Okay, so next week, we are studying the book of Psalm chapter 27, as we will be hitting the 01:38:39.840 |
poetry section of the Psalms. Also, as a short article, I wrote covenants of the Bible. Okay, so 01:38:48.000 |
the scriptures has really important milestones of how God used his covenants to give a people the 01:38:58.160 |
revelation of himself, his promises, or the stipulations of how he wants to relate to the people. I just kind 01:39:04.480 |
of list for you those biblical references. It's not like you have to memorize them and all that kind 01:39:09.760 |
of stuff, but just know those key milestones because those biblical covenants should dictate how we see 01:39:16.640 |
God's redemptive history. Okay, I mentioned in there a little bit about how over time, theologians have 01:39:23.600 |
identified other more theological covenants, but we don't like to use those because those are more like 01:39:30.640 |
man's summary of the workings of history. Rather, we would just like to work off of biblical covenants, 01:39:36.320 |
okay? All right, here are the discussion questions for you guys. Since they're a little long, I'll 01:39:41.280 |
explain them a little bit. I do want you to imagine yourself as an Israelite, okay? Hearing Jeremiah just 01:39:48.000 |
go off, you know? What would be your response? But more specifically, if you were the Israelite hearing 01:39:54.560 |
these words of future promise, but you're looking at your friends and your people getting deported, 01:40:00.480 |
what do you think your response would be, okay? Number two, uh, we discussed a lot about how the 01:40:07.440 |
passage today in chapter 31 reveals God's character. If you have more observations to share, please share 01:40:13.520 |
them. But I do also want you guys to think about indirectly, he doesn't say a whole lot about us or the 01:40:19.440 |
people, but indirectly, what are the things that we can deduce and conclude about the needs of the people and the 01:40:26.240 |
character of the people. Thirdly, meditate and appreciate God's God for the new covenant. We 01:40:32.240 |
know that the new covenant is supremely better, but continue the discussion on how is it better? 01:40:37.920 |
Why is it better? And again, just think about like, why is covenant even necessary between God and people? 01:40:44.400 |
Okay? And then just for fun, do you think God will give Israel a future land? Okay? Why or why not?