We often study about God’s people, the Israelites. You may remember that after King Solomon died, the kingdom divided in two. Ten tribes became Israel and were unfaithful to God. The two remaining tribes, called Judah would obey God some of the time and disobey God at other times. God would punish both Israel and Judah when they worshipped idols and did not obey His laws. Finally, God allowed the nation of Assyria to take the tribes of Israel away from their homes and live in another country. God warned the nation of Judah to be faithful or they would also be taken from their homes.
God warned his people through prophets. One of the prophets sent to the people of Judah when they were wicked was a man named Jeremiah. Some people call him the weeping prophet because he was sad about the way the people of Judah were disobeying God. He also wrote a book called Lamentations, a sad look at the city of Jerusalem after God allowed the enemies to destroy the city when the people would not repent.
God told Jeremiah to tell the people to repent of their sins so God would not destroy Jerusalem. The people would not listen to Jeremiah. Sometimes they made fun of him. A couple of times they put him in jail for teaching God’s word. One of the times he was put in a large pit that was filled with mud and left to die. Finally, some people begged the king to let them rescue Jeremiah. When he began to preach, God told Jeremiah that most people would not listen to him. However, He wanted Jeremiah to keep preaching to them so that when God’s punishment came upon them, they would know why it happened.
Though God punished His people by letting another nation take them from their homes and destroying the city of Jerusalem, He loved His people very much. He wanted them to love Him and keep His law. God told Jeremiah to tell the people that He would allow them to come back to their homes after they had lived in the other nation for seventy years. After the seventy years God would bring the people back and take care of them. The people learned their lesson because they did not serve idols any more.
Jeremiah also prophesied about Jesus many hundreds of years before He was even born. He talked about Jesus coming to be a king over His people and bringing salvation to all people. Of course, Jesus does have a kingdom—the church and because He died for our sins, we can be saved. We can learn much from Jeremiah.
Lessons From Jeremiah
- God loves His people very much and is very sad when they disobey Him
- Eventually God will punish His people if they do not repent
- Sometimes people will not listen to God’s word but we must still teach
- Sometimes people are mean to God’s teachers
