PROPHET’S MESSAGES Lesson # 7

JEREMIAH 2:14-19 PSALM 8

SECOND INDICTMENT

I. Introduction:

Q What happens to someone who gets seriously hooked on drugs? Do they act humane?

Q What happens to the man who cheats in business and cheats on his family? Does that person act like how humans were meant to behave?

An = No, they do not. Such persons were once beautiful babies. They were not meant to be such people. They were created to be something else. They have left their true origin and what they were intended to be.

Note: In Jeremiah’s day Israel was headed, especially after 609 B.C. to be a vassal state again. They were created to be a free people. When the Lord was among them, and they were loyal to their Lord and obeyed His instructions, they were always delivered from their oppressors. When one sees the content of the Mosaic Law one begins to see that such thinking breeds another kind of deliverance. It gives dignity and self-respect. God wants His people to be free and not dominated by other humans and have high self esteem. As they submit to God and learn to fear the Lord (2:19), they lose the dread and fear of human beings and gain healthy self esteem and a healthy environment for their fellow citizens to live in.

Note: Jeremiah wants to remind them of what God had intended for them. God made human beings and is vital that they understand that they were made in the image of God.

II. Who All Humans were meant to be: Psalm 8.

Q According to the creation story in Genesis, why did God create the universe and specifically the earth?

An = He was making the humans a home. We are the final, crowning part of creation. It is on the last day of creation that God makes the human beings. We are the crown of creation. We do not have the largest bodies, nor do we have angelic powers. We are dependent on the created world for air to breathe, food and water and the right temperature to live. We are vulnerable, but we are the reason God made the earth.

>>>>Have someone read Psalm 8:1

Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens.

Note: The Lord created all the earth and all the heavenly bodies with just the sound of His voice. He is endless in power and glory and yet with all this power He extended all his attention to make a living space for us.

>>>>Have someone read Psalm 8:2

Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe the avenger.

Q What keeps us safe in this world from humans who wish to hurt us according to this verse?

An = Oddly enough it is the praise of God by the smallest and weakest of the human race that keeps us safe. Humility is highly prized. He humbly used all His power to serve us and humility is what He values. This humility is the attribute of those who understand reality.

>>>> Have someone read Psalm 8:3-5.

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor.

Q How high a view of mankind does the Scripture have?

An = According to Genesis 1 and 2 it is very high. The people who steal, cheat on their spouses, do drugs, become drunks have lost their way. They act without regard for others because they do not understand what life is truly about.

Example: I was in an Auto Parts store recently and the line was long. They opened another check-out stand and motioned to myself and a woman to come to that line since we were next. However, a man cut in front of everyone else, including the woman, and bullied his way to buy his battery. He was handsome, dressed well, and he paid in cash. Next he left his cart blocking the check-out isle and stalked out of the store. The lady behind me was aghast at his behavior. I thought he was a jerk and wondered if he was raised by his parents to act so rudely. This man certainly was out of touch with reality. God did not make men to be rude, discourteous to others and to leave all their trash lying around. This man was less than a man. He did not understand the greatness and wonderfulness of being a gentleman, of being courteous. He was weak, self-centered and certainly despised by all who beheld his behavior. His good looks, money and nice clothes did not seem appropriate.

Note: Human beings were meant to have dignity and to see others as having dignity. Our understanding of ourselves should match our understanding of others. In fact, God meant humans to be rulers.

>>>>Have someone read Psalms 8:6-8

You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet: all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild, the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.

Q What did God design the humans to rule over?

Q What is man not to rule over? What is missing from mankind’s dominion?

An = Other men and women. Our greatness is that we can manage and rule His world, but not to rule over others. We are to love, not selfishly rule, others.

Note: Notice one other thing about this Psalm. The wonderful description of what it means to be human in God’s eyes is bracketed by another understanding that is essential to a healthy understanding of life. We are to be surrounded by our choice to praise God: Psalm 8:1 and 8:9.

>>>>Have someone read Psalm 8:1 and 8:9

Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens. (8:1)

Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! (8:9)

Note: If we are busy praising God, we are not praising ourselves.

Q Ever notice how hard we work at praising ourselves?

Q Do you respect those who “toot their own horn”?

An = We get so wrapped up in telling others how wonderful we are and all the time we are dropping in the eyes of others. We are also dropping in true worth. When we are busy praising God and obeying God our self-respect and worth rises!

Note: Jeremiah knows this well, because the Lord has told Him. The Lord loves Israel and sees that their behavior was destroying them and their true greatness.

III. The Second Indictment: Water From the Wrong Well Will Poison You. Jeremiah 2:14-19.

>>>> Have someone read Jeremiah 2:14.

Is Israel a servant, a slave by birth? Why then has he become plunder?

Q What does the Lord ask Israel in verse 14?

An = Was Israel always this way? No, she was delivered from slavery at the Red Sea and was delivered in battle after battle recorded in the books of Exodus, Numbers, Joshua, Judges, and Samuel. What Jeremiah was shown was that they now were on the verge of becoming slaves and plunder. Israel’s greatness and security against being slaves again was in their worship of God.

>>>> Have someone read Jeremiah 2:15-16.

Lions have roared; they have growled at him. They have laid waste his land; his towns are burned and deserted. Also, the men of Memphis and Tahpanhes have cracked your skull.

Note: These verses speak of Israel’s military defeat at the hands of Assyria (the Lion) and Egypt (men of Memphis and Tahpanhes) who have shaved their head. The shaving of the head probably refers to the death of Josiah and the deposing of his son Jehoahaz by Egypt after the battle of 609.

Note: A few years after 609, the Armies of Babylon under Nebuchdrezzer defeated the Egyptian armies. A few years earlier the Empire of Assyria had fallen (612).

>>>> Have someone read Jeremiah 2:17-19.

“Have you not brought this on yourselves by forsaking the Lord your God when he led you in the way? Now why go to Egypt to drink water from the Nile? And why go to Assyria to drink water from the Euphrates? Your wickedness will punish you: your backsliding will rebuke you. Consider then and realize how evil and bitter it is for you when you forsake the Lord your God and have no awe of me,” declares the Lord, the Lord Almighty.

Q What is Jeremiah telling them in verse 17?

An = They brought this fate on themselves.

Q Are the two themes we mentioned last week of forsaking the Lord and not profitable here in these verses?

An = Yes they are. Their own deeds have brought them down and their experience is going to be bitter and evil.

Q What does the last phrase of verse 19 mean?

An = These people no longer fear God and so they are given over to fearing man.

Q What about those in our church or group who do not fear God, what do they fear?

An = Not having power, success, money, prestige, good looks, popularity.

Q Are there leaders in our nation or in our churches who do not fear God?

Q Do Bible believing Christians often fear something else besides God?

IV. Next Week. Read Jeremiah 2:20-37: The Court Case Continues