I start this Bible Study as I start everyone that I have started, with mixed emotions, excitement to see what God is going to show us through this study and anxious that I will write what God wants us to learn. I know that America will not have a future if we don’t repent and look to God to save our nation. I pray as we look at Jeremiah we will see what is happening to our nation.
Jeremiah’s life and teachings had a profound effect on the future development of both Judaism and Christianity. In the New Testament, many passages indicate that both Jesus and Paul not only accepted certain ideas from Jeremiah but gave them a central place in their own interpretations of the meaning of religion. For this reason, along with others, Jeremiah is often regarded as the greatest of the Hebrew prophets.
Jeremiah was the premier prophet of Judah during the dark days leading to her destruction. Though the light of other prophets, such as Habakkuk and Zephaniah, flickered in Judah at that time, Jeremiah was the blazing torch who, along with Ezekiel in Babylon, exposed the darkness of Judah’s sin with the piercing brightness of God’s Word. He was a weeping prophet to a wayward people. They called him the Weeping Prophet because his heart was so tender. “His message was one of hope and warning. The Israelites were getting away from their destiny and God was trying to call them back. Jeremiah was faithful when God gave him a strong word and challenged him to execute that word. You and I are living at a time which is probably like the time of Jeremiah. Ours is a great nation today, and we have accomplished many things. We have gone to the moon, and we have produced atom bombs. Although we are a strong nation, within is the same corruption which will actually carry us down to disaster. Today God is left out of the picture totally—absolutely left out. If the Bible is mentioned, it is mentioned with a curled lip by some unbeliever. The ones who are believers and have a message from God are pushed aside. That is why I say to you that I think we are in very much the same position that Jeremiah was in. For that reason I know this book is going to have a message for us today.