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Lesson OneJeremiah: The Faithful God Rebukes and Preserves His Faithless People5 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson TwoEzekiel: How God Gives Hope When Hope is Gone5 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson ThreeGod Preserves His Divine Record: The Old Testament Canon5 Activities1 Assessment
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Course Wrap-UpCourse Completion1 Activity1 Assessment
Participants 103
Discussion Questions
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How is God’s loyalty demonstrated throughout the book of Jeremiah?
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15 Replies
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How is God’s loyalty demonstrated throughout the book of Jeremiah?
Jeremiah’s ministry to Judah was evidence of God’s faithfulness to His people. Jeremiah was called to address the sins of the people and call them back to God. God could have abandoned Judah to the lies of the false prophets of the day, but He continued to be faithful by speaking truth to them through His prophet.
Even though much of the book of Jeremiah concerns the coming judgment for Jerusalem and Judah, there are messages of hope woven through Jeremiah’s words. God speaks of restoration and the glorious Millennial reign of Israel’s eternal king. He speaks of preserving a remnant. God is faithful to give some words of hope to His unfaithful nation.
The last chapter of the book closes with an encouraging account of the treatment of the Jewish King Jehoiachin who had been captured in an earlier invasion by the Babylonians. After thirty-seven years of captivity, the Babylonian king, Evil-merodach, released Jehoiachin. He set Jehoiachin upon a throne and allowed him to eat his meals at the king’s table. This incident parallels the future for all true believers who follow God faithfully.
God was personally loyal to the man Jeremiah throughout this book. God promised to deliver him even as He called him in chapter 1. God saved Jeremiah from many attempts on his life. He saved him from attempts by people from his home village to kill him. He saved him from starvation in a muddy cistern by using a palace official to rescue him.
God was personally loyal to Jeremiah through Jeremiah’s periods of sadness and depression. When Jeremiah would in effect lash out at God, God did not abandon him but lovingly corrected his corrupted thinking. God was faithful to Jeremiah through a long discouraging ministry and did not give up on him.
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God’s loyalty is demonstrated by the fact that he spares the lives of most of the people, not having them destroyed, but allowing them to be taken captive. They could have easily been totally wiped out by the Babylonians. God still loved His people and He allows them to hear the Word through Jeremiah that they need to repent. God’s ultimate plan is always to save His people and have them return to a place of obedience and devotion to Him. Some of the ways that God corrects us is not pleasant, but it is always for our good.
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He always provides hope to the Israelites, even while they endure the consequences of their erring ways. Through symbolic statements and actions Jeremiah demonstrates God’s love for His people and His faithfulness.
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God is faithful to what He says in His word (biblical) and to what He wants from us. Obedience to what God wants leads to His loving care and all that comes with that, However, disobedience will lead to punishments and God doing what He has done to allow us a chance to repent and return back to God’s love, mercy and grace.
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Some of God’s loyalty on display throughout the book of Jeremiah: God’s grace and mercy on Jeremiah’s life when angry and fraudulent religious leaders and officials wanted him dead. Despite the difficult task that was placed before Jeremiah, he remained loyal to God throughout his life. As for the nation of Israel, God gave them chance after chance to turn back to him. Although Israel didn’t turn back, it showed God’s patience and loyalty. A group called the Recabites in Jeremiah 35 surprisingly and in an encouraging manner displayed loyalty to God in the midst of an unfaithful nation. The justice carried out in the destruction of Jerusalem is God displaying his loyalty to his Word and to his people. Mindsets normally do not and cannot change unless a set of circumstance that is beyond the human reach happens. As painful as it was for God to allow the destruction to happen, He allowed it knowing that there will be a remnant that would fully return to Him. Finally, the promised hope of a new covenant which now is faith in our Lord Jesus shows the loyalty that God has towards anyone that is willing to turn back to Him for salvation.
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How is Jeremiah an example of enduring opposition and resistance to share God’s Word? What obstacles to witnessing for Christ do you face and how can you overcome them?
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17 Replies
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Jeremiah faced opposition and resistance his entire ministry. He was threatened, assaulted, put in prison, and left to die in a mud filled cistern. He met opposition from all levels of society. He was threatened by people from his home town. The scroll recording his message was cut up and thrown in the fire by the king. He was continually opposed by the false prophets who pacified the people with a distorted message regarding their future.
The obstacles I face to witnessing for Christ are not as harsh as those Jeremiah faced. But they are the same as all Christians who live in our nation. Societal norms have changed to accept what is unacceptable to a follower of Christ. Christians face inaccurate and degrading portrayals in the media. They even face governmental interference in the way they conduct their commercial business. The words of a believer are restricted in public schools and the workplace.
Given all of this, Christians in our nation are still free to read the Bible and worship God openly. They are not threatened with imprisonment or death because of their beliefs. But the obstacles American Christians face continue to become more and more severe. These impediments must be fought with continual prayer and persistance in showing the love of Christ to those around us.
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Jeremiah was faced with criticism from others because of the message that he was preaching. It wasn’t a popular message and it contradicted what some of the other prophets were saying. It is difficult to say what others do not what to hear, and when you face rejection and imprisonment, it takes boldness and commitment to continue doing what God has called you do. Jeremiah had to be sure that God had spoken these things to him in order to continue to preach in the midst of so much opposition.
The obstacles that we face as Christians nowadays is that everything we believe is true in the Word of God often contradicts what our society believes and practices. We have to be bold in what we believe and say, because the world criticizes and persecutes us for speaking the truth about sin.
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One encouragement from Jeremiah is that our obedience and faithfulness to sharing God’s truth is all He asks of us – not results. The outcomes belong to the Lord and if people reject Him, it doesn’t mean we’ve failed the Gospel. It just means we need to pray even harder that they will turn to Him and be saved. It’s all in His timing and according to whether people are willing to bow to Christ’s authority.
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Jeremiah’s focus was on obeying what God called him to do from day one. I think for Jeremiah, prior to going into “full-time ministry”, he had some idea that the people and the surrounding he was asked to proclaim God’s word would be of a resistant and opposing nature but again God made his calling on Jeremiah very clear from the start. He like any other human had highs and lows but he consistently took what he was wrestling with to the Lord in prayer and remained faithful to God and his calling. I think obstacles are when we take oppositions personally and hold ourselves personally responsible for the results. After years of going through these obstacles and various challenges, I now try to keep it simple: I speak as God directs and let the results be in His hands.
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It is perfectly fitting to see Jeremiah as an example of enduring opposition and resistance to share God’s Word in at least two regards. If you view the prophet against the backdrop of the opposition with the apostate Judah and the false prophets who were popular with the people he has to contend with, it is not out of place to appreciate him as an example of enduring opposition and resistance to share the word of God. The duo are formidable enough to weary out the prophet in the discharge of an unpopular message of repentance to a completely apostate Judah.
It is gratifying to know tho moral and the spiritual condition the state of Judah when Jeremiah was called to minister. Judah has completely lost touch with the word of God and has completely relapsed into idolatry when Jeremiah was called to minister. The job was made absolutely difficult for him with the opposition from false prophets who were given to prophesying sweet things to the community against the sharp warning from the lord that was the hallmark of Jeremiah’s oracles. These coupled with the seeming failure of his ministry which evidently was not producing any positive effect on the society, this no doubt can be damning and devastating.
The society I am Calle to minister is not different. The obstacles presented against the gospel ministry of my time are multi-faceted. It ranges from complete lost with absolute, to sexual perversion, from occultism to religious fanaticism. The list is endless. To overcome it is to come to term with my scope of assignment. I have determined that mine is to be obediently faithful to my calling as a preacher and leave the department of result and outcome to God. I appreciate that I am not called to be successful but to be faithful.