Today’s passage: Jeremiah 15:1-21

Helpful thoughts:

• Chapter 14 ended with the people pleading for God’s forgiveness, though they were not truly repentant.  They didn’t really want to change, they simply wanted God to withhold any consequences.  Worldly sorrow.
• God was not going to relent from judgment any longer.  Verse 2 indicates that what was coming was absolutely just and in truth, what Judah had been moving toward themselves through their actions.
  • When we do things that bring about hardship (Natural consequences), we should expect those hardships to come and not be angry with others when they do.
• Jeremiah struggles in his role as a prophet to a people who do not want to listen.  In that role, he pities himself.  God called him to repent.

Questions to consider:

1. How do we generally tend to view hardships?  Are hard things simply hard or are they evil?  How might we respond differently to hardships that we bring on ourselves as opposed to hardships that others bring upon us?
2. What pain do you think Jeremiah wanted out of his life?  When he called God a deceitful brook, what was he implying God was supposed to do for him?
3. How did God’s answer re-orient Jeremiah’s view?  Are we to find rest in the ways that we think God should make our hardships go away or is God the rest we need in the midst of the hardships in this life?  Does He build us a fortress with things in this world or is He our fortress?

Today’s passage: Jeremiah 14:1-22

Helpful thoughts:

• Verses 1-6 give a description of drought in Judah.  7-9 is the prayer to request rain. 10-18 explains God’s response.  And then 19-22 is an appeal from the people.
• The people of Judah were being taught by prophets who were not accurately conveying the Word of God.  They were false prophets.
  • One of the results of unbiblical teaching is a people who continue in sin while participating in religious activity, and expect God’s continued blessing.
• In their desperation, the people of Judah acknowledge that God is truly the only one who can bring rain and heal their land.
  • God will respond toward this apparent repentance in the next chapter.

Questions to consider:

1. How can a group of people know they are being taught false doctrine?  With the access we have today to God’s written word, how many people in the church should be well aware of it’s contents?
2. Are there any examples in our culture today of people who consider themselves religious, Christian, but who are not following Christ and still expecting “blessing?”
3. What seems really good about these words of repentance in verses 19-22?  What aspect of this request might you be leery of?  What would continued fruits of repentance look like?

Today’s passage: Jeremiah 13:1-27

Helpful thoughts:

• God does not become great when we decide to cling to Him.  He is great, and He shares his greatness with us when He causes us to cling to Him.
  • The picture of the linen loincloth points to the grace of God.
• Verse 23 reminds us that sinners cannot make themselves righteous by nature.  We need forgiveness and rescue.
  • Part of the sadness of this chapter is the reality that God had offered Himself to the people of Judah and they continually rejected Him.

Questions to consider:

1. How do the illustrations of this chapter point us to the truths of the gospel?
2. How does God prove Himself to be great, holy, good, loving, gracious to us?
3. Why are we able to grow in wanting to do what is right, even for the right reason?  How does this leopard lose his spots?  What does God do (2 Corinthians 5:17)?  And therefore, who deserves all the glory and praise?

Today’s passage: Jeremiah 12:1-17

Helpful thoughts:

• This chapter gives us an appeal and question, and then the Lord’s answer.
  • Jeremiah’s question is similar to that of Psalm 73.  Why are the wicked able to prosper in this life?  Why doesn’t God seem to judge them?
  • God reminds him, his own people, even his own family, have become wicked.  Judah was not an innocent nation being judged.
• God does tell Jeremiah that the surrounding nations would see their day of judgment.  And, that there would be a remnant that would return.  God’s people would dwell in the land.

Questions to consider:

1. What often becomes the means by which we measure God’s blessing?  Why are there times we might think that God is blessing the lost more than the saved?
2. If the blessing of God was entirely tied up in our earthly resources, what would be the end and goal of our salvation?  Whose “glory” would be most important?
3. What was the nature of Jeremiah’s appeal in verse 1?  What did he know about God?  What can we learn from the fact that God heard and responded as He did?  Does God care about relationship with you?

Today’s passage: Jeremiah 11:1-23

Helpful thoughts:

• Israel had heard the words of the covenant with God and agreed to them.  They broke the covenant over and over.
  • Israel wanted to sin against God and then expect Him to hear their prayers and come to their aid.  They were not interested in relationship or repentance.  They were not interested in being loyal to God.  They wanted to use Him for their own selfish interest.
• The “Iron furnace” is being used as a metaphor for the hardship Israel had endured as slaves in Egypt.
• Verses 18-23 record a plot to kill Jeremiah by the people of the village of Anathoth (Jeremiah’s home!) and God’s response.

Questions to consider:

1. What had to be true of the values and desires of Jeremiah’s heart to endure this plot by his own neighbors?
2. What role does God have in your daily life?  Would you characterize your activities with Him as a relationship or as a pursuit of an ideal or an interest?  Would you say you are growing in knowledge of God or growing in your relationship with Him?
3. How does the concept of relationship affect your prayers, your activities, your Bible reading, etc.  How does the concept of a relationship with God change the way we would look at repentance?  Is repentance just stopping being bad and starting being good?  When are a married couple restored in their relationship?  How do they know they are doing well?  How would that relate to our relationship with God?

Today’s passage: Jeremiah 10:1-25

Helpful thoughts:

• Verse 23 is incredibly counter-cultural and entirely true.
  • Every false god is the invention of someone who was created by God.
  • Every false religion is the invention of someone who was created by God.
• God, Himself is the portion (Or the inheritance) of His people.
  • Israel and Judah preferred the gods and religions that came out of the hearts of man.
• In verses 24-25, Jeremiah pleads with God in solidarity on behalf of Judah.

Questions to consider:

1. When we look at any and every false religion, including humanism/atheism, what will we find?  What does man really want (Or want to avoid) in the end?
2. Are there ways that people could make Christianity (Or some of the major components, like Jesus, the cross, the love of God, etc.) into a man-centered, man-affirming, making everything go my way right now kind of a religion?
3. What are the “gods” of our culture and our day?  Is the church today completely innocent of the sins of Israel and Judah?  Are there any ways we have been tempted to worship multiple gods “alongside” of Jesus Christ?

Today’s passage: Jeremiah 8:18-9:26

Helpful thoughts:

• God’s love does not lack emotional affection.  Even in His justice, there is a grief for those who are judged.
• Verse 8 depicts an astounding truth.  When a person speaks peaceably to his neighbor when there is deceit, he has not withheld the arrow!  His faking of peace is an arrow shot.
  • God will avenge this sin.
• In Jewish custom, people could be hired to wail and mourn (Verses 17-18).  There were actual professional mourners.  They were often hired by the rich to attend their funerals.

Questions to consider:

1. What is the irony of calling on professional mourners?  What should Jerusalem have already been doing all along?  What would have brought about their repentance so many times before?  If all they could muster up was paid professionals, what was the sad truth of their spiritual condition?
2. What is the main message of verses 23-24?  What delights the Lord?  And in turn, what also is our greatest delight?
3. What does the final statement in verse 26 confirm about the Lord’s requirement of us?  Beyond simple religiosity, what does a follower of Jesus love and live like?

Today’s passage: Jeremiah 7:28-8:17

Helpful thoughts:

• Verse 27 leads us into this next passage.  What Jeremiah is about to say, no one is going to listen.
• God’s Word never returns void.  It always accomplishes exactly what God sent it to do.  (Isaiah 55:11)
  • Sometimes God sends His word to show His glory through righteous judgment.
• Chapter 8, verse 3 is such a sad truth…so very sad.

Questions to consider:

1. What sins does God specifically use to show Judah’s rejection of Him in this passage?  How far had they gone in their sinfulness?
2. What did Judah (And Israel) look for MOST before God (Verse 15)?  When we desire ease and prosperity more than we want God, what happens?  What do we receive when we desire Christ first (Philippians 4:4-9)?