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Jeremiah
“ PA S T O R , Y O U R S E R M O N this morning was terrible.” “Pastor,
you gave a miserable sermon. It was awful!” “Pastor, you don’t know
how to preach. Why don’t you quit?” Sunday after Sunday, the people
of the First Critical Church told their pastor how they hated his preaching and his sermons, how they wished he would quit, how they wanted
him anywhere else except their church.
What you will be
Suppose you were that pastor. How long would it
reading about
take for that kind of talk to wear you down, make
you want to leave, encourage you to get out of
1:1-19
God calls Jeremiah to be
the ministry and go into a completely different
a prophet
career?
2:1– 28:17
What about the career you have now? Suppose
Jeremiah condemns Judah
you are a doctor, a dentist, or a nurse. Every
for its sins
patient you have tells you how incompetent you
29:1– 35:19
are. When you write a prescription, people throw
Restoration will follow
it away. When you give advice, people don’t lispunishment
ten. Or suppose you are a counselor, and every
36:1- 32
person you counsel laughs at what you say and
The king burns the Word
ridicules your advice.
of God
Now you know what life was like for Jeremiah.
37:1– 38:28
He was rejected by family, friends, neighbors,
Jeremiah is put in prison
kings, commoners—just about everyone. But
39:1-18
for forty years he kept on preaching, and this
Nebuchadnezzar captures
Jerusalem
book records his sermons. Not many pastors
have their sermons preserved for 2,600 years,
40:1– 45:5
The survivors still refuse to
especially preachers who were continually
obey God
rejected!
46:1– 51: 64
The little southern kingdom of Judah was
Messages of judgment on
on the brink of disaster, threatened by mighty
surrounding nations
Babylon. God called Jeremiah to encourage his
52:1- 34
people to submit to Babylon’s domination as the
The fall of Jerusalem
Lord’s discipline. If the nation surrendered to
Babylon, God would protect them from being destroyed or taken captive. Then
eventually, if Judah turned from its sin and back to God, God would restore
the nation to independence again. Jeremiah’s message was plain and simple:
Return to the Lord God, or face his judgment.
For most of his ministry, Jeremiah lived under the tyranny of evil kings who
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