The Books of Jeremiah and Lamentations (eBook)

The Promise-Keeping God

Brian Simmons (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2023 | 1. Auflage
304 Seiten
Broadstreet Publishing Group, LLC (Verlag)
978-1-4245-6758-4 (ISBN)

Infos

The books of Jeremiah and Lamentations chronicle the tragic fall of Jerusalem. God spoke through Jeremiah to warn his people of judgment for their sins, urge them to return to his heart, and promise restoration. The book of Jeremiah shares a detailed, personal narrative of Judah's capture and exile. Jeremiah's heart broke for his people as he prophesied and suffered alongside them, but his tearful warnings of judgment are pierced by soaring promises of a new heart and a beautiful future. The book of Lamentations is the deeply poetic cry of the Weeping Prophet after the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. It provides a prayerful and liturgical framework to mourn loss, voice grief, and confess sin while still hoping in God's ever-present mercy and forgiveness. These timeless prophetic truths balance warning with hope, guiding us in repentance and grief while renewing our confidence in YAHWEH's endless love. 'I will make an everlasting covenant with them, and I will never stop doing good things for them.' Jeremiah 32:40  

DR. BRIAN SIMMONS is a passionate lover of God. After a dramatic conversion to Christ, Brian knew that God was calling him to go to the unreached people of the world and present the gospel of God's grace to all who would listen. With his wife, Candice, and their three children, he spent eight years in the tropical rain forest of the Darien Province of Panama as a church planter, translator, and consultant. Having been trained in linguistics and Bible translation principles, Brian assisted in the Paya-Kuna New Testament translation project. After his ministry overseas, Brian was instrumental in planting a thriving church in New England (U.S.) and currently travels full time as a speaker and Bible teacher. He is the lead translator of The Passion Translation®.

Autor

BRIAN SIMMONS is the lead translator of The Passion Translation®. The Passion Translation (TPT) is a heart-level translation that uses Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic manuscripts to express God's fiery heart of love to this generation, merging the emotion and life-changing truth of God's Word. The hope for TPT is to trigger inside every reader an overwhelming response to the truth of the Bible and to reveal the deep mysteries of the Scriptures in the love language of God, the language of the heart. Brian is currently translating the Old Testament.                After a dramatic conversion to Christ in 1971, Brian and his wife, Candice, answered the call of God to leave everything behind and become missionaries to unreached peoples. Taking their three children to the tropical rain forest of Central America, they planted churches for many years with the Paya-Kuna people group. Brian established leadership for the churches that Jesus birthed, and, having been trained in linguistics and Bible translation principles, assisted with the translation of the Paya-Kuna New Testament.               After their ministry overseas, Brian and Candice returned to North America, where Brian began to passionately work toward helping people encounter the risen Christ. He and his wife planted numerous ministries, including a dynamic church in New England (U.S.). They also established Passion & Fire Ministries, under which they travel full-time as Bible teachers in service of local churches throughout the world.               Brian is the author of numerous books, Bible studies, and devotionals that help readers encounter God's heart and experience a deeper revelation of God as our Bridegroom King, including Throne Room Prayer, The Sacred Journey, Prayers on Fire, The Divine Romance, and The Vision.               Brian and Candice have been married since 1971 and have three children as well as precious grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Their passion is to live as loving examples of a spiritual father and mother to this generation.  

Textauszug

JEREMIAH

Introduction

AT A GLANCE

Author: Traditionally Jeremiah

Audience: Originally Israel, but these revelations speak to everyone

Date: 627–586 BC

Type of Literature: Prophetic literature

Major Themes: Speaking prophetic truth; the coming righteous judgment; the coming hopeful restoration; the new covenant; seeing Jesus in the book

Outline:

I.Jeremiah’s call and commission — 1:1–19

II.Prophecies before the captivity — 2:1–38:28

III.The captivity of Judah — 39:1–18; 52:1–34

IV.Prophecies after the captivity — 40:1–51:64

ABOUT THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH

You are about to encounter one of the most unique books in the Bible, a book that plunges into the depths of despair while soaring to the heights of hope. The book of Jeremiah doesn’t shy away from warnings of judgment and destruction, chronicling the fallout from Judah’s unheeded prophetic revelation-insights. It serves as a warning that the patient heart of God also judges and punishes the hardened, unrepentant hearts of people. Yet running parallel to these warnings are words of tender compassion, holding out the possibility of forgiveness, redemption, and restoration.

It was written by a man known as the Weeping Prophet, the prophet Jeremiah. Before he was even born, he was divinely chosen by God, and he longed through tears for the nation of Judah to respond to the heart of God. God commissioned him to bear a message warning of judgment. God said, “My people … have abandoned me, the Spring of Living Water, and they have dug for themselves cisterns—cracked cisterns that hold no water” (Jer. 2:13). Idolatry was the taproot that fed Israel’s rebellion, which led to their destruction. For generations, God was waiting for them to repent; his heart, overflowing with love, was ready to pour out his forgiveness and grace. But his people refused to heed his voice.

The resulting judgment was disastrous: in vivid, highdefinition, color detail, Jeremiah gives us the sordid history of the last five kings of Judah, the cataclysmic destruction of the t emple, the utter desolation of Jerusalem, and the heartrending captivity of Judah in Babylon. It is a warning for all of the eventual judgment that befalls those whose hardened hearts refuse to listen to YAHWEH’s voice and obey his decrees. And yet this prophetic work is also one of hope. For although Israel had broken her covenant with YAHWEH, leading to the city’s destruction, there was a remarkable promise: “I, the Lord, promise you that a time is coming when I will raise up a righteous Branch who will sprout from David’s lineage. He will rule as their King, and his reign will prosper with wisdom and understanding. He will succeed in bringing justice and righteousness to all” (23:5).

This “Branch” is Jesus Christ, who is from the Tree of Life, the Rod of priestly authority that budded in the Holy Place, the Branch of the Lampstand, and the Righteous One, who makes righteous before God all who believe in him. Jeremiah reveals the message of the new covenant that God makes with his people today: “ ‘This is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel when the time has come,’ declares YAHWEH. ‘I will embed my law into the core of their being and write it on their hearts and minds. Then I will truly be their God, and they will truly be my people. … From the least to the greatest, they will all know me intimately,’ YAHWEH declares, ‘for I will remove their guilt and wipe their sin from my memory’ ” (31:33–34).

Vast in its scope, enduring in its truth, the revelation given to Jeremiah is meant to pierce the hardest of hearts, reminding people that alongside God’s judgment and destruction is his enduring promise of forgiveness and redemption. The Weeping Prophet’s message will convict you and lead you deeper into the ways of God, drawing you closer to his heart.

PURPOSE

Jeremiah was called to follow King Josiah’s national reformation by calling Judah to repentance. He lived in a time of crisis, political turmoil, and national disasters. He was the evening star of the declining days of the Jewish commonwealth before being taken into captivity. YAHWEH spoke to him as a teenager and called him into his true calling—to be a spokesman for God, bearing his message of repentance and forgiveness, punishment and ultimate renewal. This message and its purpose unfolded within a broader historical context, unveiling important revelation-insights into God’s spiritual purposes for the world.

Historically, the events of the book of Jeremiah occurred during a time of remarkable change in the ancient Near East. The Assyrian Empire collapsed, and the dreaded foe from the north, the kingdom of Babylon, strengthened and extended its rule. During this period, the kingdom of Judah experienced its own cataclysmic disaster. This prophetic history is not in chronological order. Instead, it was arranged to address God’s people in the midst of their catastrophe in order to turn their hearts to repentance and offer the hope of rescue and restoration.

Spiritually, Jeremiah reveals heaven’s mercy in calling a rebellious nation back to God. Sin breaks the heart of God, but mercy triumphs! Jeremiah’s book is full of mercy. It reveals the righteous judgments of God, for God’s discipline is a demonstration of his love; it shows God’s principle of restoration; it unveils the revelation of the Branch of YAHWEH; and it prophesies the new covenant that will draw people into an intimate relationship with God, imparting a new heart and wiping clean the stains of guilt and shame.

AUTHOR AND AUDIENCE

There can be little doubt that the book bearing his name was written by the prophet Jeremiah with the assistance of his scribe, Baruch ben Neriah. Jewish tradition holds that Jeremiah also wrote the two books of Kings and Lamentations. He appears on the scene as one full of passion and emotion; Jeremiah was known as the Weeping Prophet. His writing clearly reveals his personality: he wept many tears over his nation and their refusal to repent and honor the God of glory. Perhaps no better patriotic Jew ever lived compared to Jeremiah. Even the prophet Daniel consulted the words of his predecessor, Jeremiah (Dan. 9:2).

The Lord did not permit Jeremiah to marry (Jer. 16:2). He was a priest by birth and a prophet by grace. Jeremiah unceasingly advised Jerusalem to surrender to Babylon, so much so that he was considered a traitor to his nation. He suffered much for the sake of his people. In fact, because of the depths of his sufferings, Jewish tradition holds that Jeremiah is the suffering servant of Isaiah 53. His ministry endured for almost fifty years until he was finally carried off to Egypt and stoned to death at Tahpanhes.

Jeremiah lived about one hundred years after the prophet Isaiah. There were several prophetic voices in Israel and Judah during the lifetime and ministry of Jeremiah, including Zephaniah, Habakkuk (Hab. 2:1), Nahum, Obadiah, Ezekiel (Ezek. 3:17–21; 33:7), and Uriah (Jer. 26:20–23). Additionally, Jewish tradition states that Jeremiah and Zechariah were contemporaries with an overlapping ministry of a few years. God always gave both warning and comfort to his people through his prophets. When Nebuchadnezzar finally destroyed Jerusalem, Jeremiah would have been about fifty-seven years old. He likely lived several decades after that.

Jeremiah pleaded with the people of Judah and Jerusalem to repent of their idolatry and turn from their wicked ways, lest YAHWEH, Commander of Angel Armies, rise up against them with promised punishment. He called them back to faithfulness in their devotion and dependence on YAHWEH. The book also served as a clarion call to subsequent generations of God’s people, with a warning to repent of their sins, a call to worship the one true God, and a reminder of the reality and possibility of YAHWEH’s judgment. It also gave them hope that God’s punishing hand still offered them grace, forgiveness, and redemption while anticipating a period of ultimate renewal through the restoration of Jerusalem and a new covenant between God and his people. We join that same audience, sitting in the same prophetic utterances. These revelation-insights still speak to us with warning and hope.

MAJOR THEMES

Speaking Prophetic Truth. Someone has described prophecy as not only fore-telling events to come but also forth-t elling truth today. As much as he articulated YAHWEH’s plans for the future, Jeremiah’s prophetic ministry pronounced moral truths in the present, confronting people with God’s Word to bring about radical change. In Jeremiah, we find a bold and brave, fierce and fiery, courageous and caring articulator of God’s plans for his people, not only to those in power—t he kings, priests, and prophets of Judah—but also to the regular men and women on Jerusalem’s streets. Even at the expense of his life, when a mob threatened to murder him, Jeremiah spoke truth to power, resting in YAHWEH’s promise that he was “always with you to rescue you” (1:19).

Our world is desperate for a new generation of forth-tellers to proclaim in our day the same moral truths found in this prophetic book, doing what Jeremiah did with his people: urging them to worship YAHWEH alone, orient their lives around his truths, submit to his...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 7.11.2023
• Reihe/Serie: The Passion Translation
• Verlagsort: Savage
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Religion / Theologie ► Christentum ► Bibelausgaben / Bibelkommentare
• Schlagworte: Daughter of Zion • easy to read • exile • False Prophets • God’s Plan For You • Grief • Hope • Idolatry • jeremiah • Jerusalem • Justice • Lament • Modern • new bible translation • New Covenant • New Heart • Old Testament • Passion • Prophet • prophetic word • Weeping Prophet • Yahweh
• ISBN-10: 1-4245-6758-0 / 1424567580
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4245-6758-4 / 9781424567584