Jeremiah (Program #11) – A Word concerning Israel’s History

On Mount Sinai, Israel was in the dawning of a divine revelation. God had revealed the law to them as a portrait, a picture of Himself. And opened His heart’s desire to them that He would be everything to them, even a Husband that they would be a people to Him and eventually become even His duplication. But the history of Israel reveals how quickly they have departed from this revelation and this sunrise soon became a sunset, leaving Israel in darkness and under the chastising hand of Jehovah. This was the situation when God had to call a young boy to be a prophet for Him. Jeremiah was raised up by the Lord because Jehovah found no one among His kings, princes or even His priests that would be faithful to Him and speak His word to the people. To see Israel in the sunset of the divine revelation becomes a sober warning to us today – never to forsake Him, the fountain of living waters.

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Jeremiah (Program #10) – A Word concerning Israel’s History

Many people think the book of Jeremiah is not easy to read nor to understand. Well, it maybe hard to ready because it seems to be full of the failures and degradation of God’s people, Israel. Yet despite page after page of such failures, there are wonderful crystals of God’s economy and of the new covenant and of Christ Himself. It’s hard to understand because much of it is based on the history of God’s people and what has led up to the time when God called a young man, even still in his mother’s womb to be a prophet for Him and speak on His behalf to the rebellious and unfaithful people of Israel. This was the prophet Jeremiah.

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Jeremiah (Program #9) – Israel’s Sin against Jehovah, Jehovah’s Punishment upon Israel (2)

During one of the dark hours in Israel’s history, Jehovah poured His heart out to Jeremiah, the prophet that He raised up to speak to Israel on His behalf. Listen to his word and see if you can sense in His speaking the anguish of a distraught husband over the unfaithfulness of a wife to whom He had been faithful to the uttermost. Jeremiah 3:6-9 “Then Jehovah said to me in the days of Josiah the king, Have you seen what Israel the apostate has done? She went up on every high mountain and under every flourishing tree and committed fornication there. And I said, After she has done all these things, she will return to Me; but she did not return…And I saw that because of all the adultery that Israel the apostate committed I divorced her and gave her a certificate of divorce, And because she treated her fornication lightly, she polluted the land and committed adultery with stones and trees.”

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Jeremiah (Program #8) – Israel’s Sin against Jehovah, Jehovah’s Punishment upon Israel (1)

The Lord told the prophet Jeremiah that He held two things against Israel above all else. First, they had forsaken Him, the fountain of living waters. And second, they had hewn out for themselves broken cisterns incapable of holding water. The context of this passage is in chapter 2 of Jeremiah. And in a way can be considered the conversation between a distraught husband and an unfaithful wife. Listen to this sweet and intimate way that Jehovah began His word to Israel, “I remember concerning you the kindness of your youth, The love of your bridal days, When you followed after Me in the wilderness, In a land that was not sown. Israel was holiness to Jehovah, The firstfruit of His increase;” (Jeremiah 2:2b-3a) As we consider these two great sins before Jehovah, sins that did not only plague Israel but also that we ourselves have to be constantly aware of.

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Jeremiah (Program #7) – Jeremiah’s Call and Commission

The Bible tells us that on earth there is always a battle raging between God and all those who oppose Him and fight against Him and His purpose. But God does not fight directly against such ones. His way of fighting is always in the principle of incarnation, involving His people, specifically those who are absolutely one with Him. Such was the case in the Old Testament with the prophet Jeremiah. In the degrading and shameful condition His people Israel were in, God called and sanctified the prophet while he was still in his mother’s womb. Listen to Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you; And before you came forth from the womb, I sanctified you. I have appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

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Jeremiah (Program #6) – God’s Faithfulness in Fulfilling His Economy

Though the Bible was written by many hundreds of years and written by scores of different authors, there are several consistent theme that run through from the beginning to the end. The most significant of which maybe seeing God as a flowing fountain or a river. This picture, the flowing fountain, the river of life, really reveals God in His divine economy in a marvelous way. And we see it quite profoundly in the book of Jeremiah.

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Jeremiah (Program #5) – The Intrinsic Content of Jeremiah

In Hebrews, the New Testament book, the apostle Paul who is the likely writer of Hebrews quotes the prophet Jeremiah. Listen to Hebrews 8:10-11 “For this is the covenant which I will covenant with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will impart My laws into their mind, and on their hearts I will inscribe them; and I will be God to them, and they will be a people to Me.” This marvelous prophecy from the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah revealing the coming new covenant impressed the apostle enough to include it in the New Testament. But this is certainly not the pointer in this Old Testament book to what God in His divine economy has in store for His elect.

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Jeremiah (Program #4) – The Intrinsic Content of Jeremiah

For all of the notable differences between the covenant of law that characterizes the Old Testament and the new covenant of grace in the New Testament, it is the consistency of the whole of the divine revelation that is most striking. Because all the elements of the New Testament are visible in seed form in the Old. Some of the most profound and significant of these seeds are found in the prophet Jeremiah. One very good example is 2:13 “For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, To hew out for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, which hold no water.” This same thought and even some of its language can be seen throughout the New Testament gospel of John and in the Epistles of Paul. The seeds planted in the Old Testament are developed in the New and consummate in the ultimate expression of God in His divine economy, the New Jerusalem.

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Jeremiah (Program #3) – Crucial Aspects of the Divine Revelation in Jeremiah

The Lord Jesus in the gospel of John chapter 5 speaking to the religionists of His day told them, “You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that testify concerning Me. Yet you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.” (John 5:39-40) Well, the clear message in this strong word to them and to us is that the whole Bible – both Old and New Testament – reveal Christ and should bring us to the very Christ it reveals every time we touch it. How crucial it is for us to keep such a view in mind whenever we come to the word of God especially in the Old Testament book such as Jeremiah.

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Jeremiah (Program #2) – An Introductory Word

Much of the history in the Old Testament concerns the great failures and sins of the children of Israel. They were all the time disobedient to the Lord, transgressing His laws and straying far from Him in their deeds and actions. Yet in Jeremiah we get a clear window into how God interprets and evaluates the failures of His people. In chapter 2, He tells Jeremiah of the two great evils committed by Israel, His people. What would He enumerate above all the others? But the answer reveals much about God’s heart and about our own living before Him.

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