THE CRISIS (WITHIN AND WITHOUT)Lesson 2

Key Text:

“ ‘ “Israel was holiness to the Lord, the first fruits of His increase. All that devour him will offend; disaster

will come upon them,” says the Lord’ ”

Jeremiah 2:3

If we could pick one word to describe the human condition since the Fall, it would be crisis, the extent of which can be best understood by what it took to get us out of the crisis: the death of Jesus on the cross. The crisis must be pretty bad; after all, look at the extreme measures needed to solve it. All through the Bible, many stories took place against the backdrop of one crisis or another. The situation during the time of Jeremiah and his ministry was no different.

God’s people faced many cha-llenges, both from within and from without. Unfortunately, despite the terrible military threat from foreign powers, in many ways the greatest crisis came from within. “Within” meant not just a corrupt leader-ship and corrupt priesthood, which were bad enough, but “within” was in the sense of people whose hearts had been so hardened and damaged by sin and apostasy that they refused to heed the warnings that God was sending them, warnings that could have spared them from disaster. Sin is bad enough, but when you refuse to turn away from it—talk about a crisis!

CRISIS

WITHIN

From Joshua to Solomon

± 1400 – 931 BC

The divided kingdom

± 931 – 586 BC

WITHOUT

Babylon

CAUSES

Mistakes Attitudes

FROM JOSHUA TO SOLOMON“And they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt; and they followed other gods from among the gods of the people who were all around them, and they bowed down to them; and they provoked the Lord to anger.” (Judges 2:12)

CAUSES OF THE CRISIS GOD’S SOLUTION

The judges

The people turned away from God and worshipped other gods.

The unified kingdom

Solomon turned away from God and worshipped other gods.

± 1400 – 1050 BC

He sent judges to deliver them. He also unified the kingdom.

± 1050 – 931 BC

He divided the kingdom. He let them suffer the consequences of their mistakes.

After the era of the judges, the nation entered a time of relative peace and prosperity under what has been called “the United Monarchy,” the rule of Saul, David, and Solomon, which lasted about one hundred years. Under David, then Solomon, it grew into a regional power.

SAUL DAVID SOLOMON

The “good” times, though, did not last. After the death of Solomon (about 931 b.c.), the nation split into two factions, Israel in the north and Judah in the south. Much of the blame can be placed on the misguided rule of Solomon, who, for all his wisdom, made numerous mistakes. “The tribes had long suffered grievous wrongs under the oppressive measures of their former ruler. The extravagance of Solomon’s reign during his apostasy had led him to tax the people heavily and to require of them much menial service.”—EGW, Prophets and Kings, pp. 88, 89. Things were never the same again for God’s chosen nation. Everything the Lord had warned them not to do, they did, and thus, they reaped the doleful consequences.

T H E D I V I D E D K I N G D O M“Therefore the king asked advice, made two calves of gold, and said to the people, ‘It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Here are your gods, O Israel, which brought you up from the land of Egypt!’” (1 Kings 12:28)

1. The Northern Kingdom, Israel. Ten tribes led by Jeroboam.

2. The Southern Kingdom, Judah. Two tribes led by Rehoboam, Solomon’s son.

Israel quickly left God behind and began to worship calves that Jeroboam made. No king in Israel was faithful to God.Finally, Shalmaneser—King of Assyria—destroyed the kingdom.

After Solomon died, the 12 tribes were divided into 2 kingdoms:

THE DIVIDED KINGDOM“But he [Amon] did evil in the sight of the Lord, as his father Manasseh had done; for Amon sacrificed to all the carved images which his father Manasseh had made, and served them.” (2 Chronicles 33:22)

The kings of the Southern Kingdom were mostly faithful to God.Nevertheless, apostasy spread throughout the kingdom since the destruction of the Northern Kingdom.

The two worst kings reigned in that time: Manasseh and Amon (2 Chronicles 33: 9, 22).God sent many prophets to avoid the consequences of their sins.

CRISIS WITHOUT: BABYLON“And now I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, My servant; and the beasts of the field I have also given him to serve him.” (Jeremiah 27:6)

God didn’t abandon His people during that crisis. Nevertheless, the people was severely disciplined so they could come back and enjoy full divine communion.God began to submit all nations to Babylon since they defeated Egypt in Carchemish in 605 BC.God used Jeremiah to tell the people of Judah to surrender to Babylon.The people didn’t believe God would fulfill His word. They went unrepentant for 20 years, since King Jehoiakim until King Zedekiah.

M I S TA K E S“For My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn themselves cisterns—broken cisterns that can hold no water.” (Jeremiah 2:13)

God had promised protection and prosperity if Israel was faithful (Jer. 2:2-3). However, the people abandoned God (“the fountain of living waters”) and worshipped idols (“broken cisterns”).

“The priests did not say, ‘Where is the Lord?’”

“Those who handle the law did not know Me.”

“The rulers also transgressed against Me.” “The prophets prophesied by Baal, and

walked after things that do not profit.”

What did their leaders do (Jeremiah 2:8)?

AT T I T U D E S

The Jews fooled themselves. They thought they were good people and God would never punish them (Jer. 2:23).There was a saying: “The temple of the Lord are these” (Jer. 7:4). Everything was alright. As long as they worshipped God in the temple, everything else didn’t matter?They ignored God’s warnings. They didn’t meditated on their ways. They didn’t regret their sinful thoughts.That’s a strong warning for us. How is your relationship with God today? Is religion just form for you? Have you surrendered your heart to God? Are you living in communion with God every day?

“Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem; see now and know; and seek in her open places if you can find a man, if there is anyone who executes judgment, who seeks the truth, and I will pardon her.” (Jeremiah 5:1)

“It will be well for us to consider what is soon to come upon the earth. This is no time for trifling or self-seeking. If the times in which we are living fail to impress our minds seriously, what can reach us? Do not the Scriptures call for a more pure and holy work than we have yet seen?”

E.G.W. (Selected Messages, book 2, cp. 53, pg. 400)

Further Thought: “Ye shall not do after all the things that we do here this day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes” (Deut. 12:8). “When thou shalt hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, to keep all his commandments which I command thee this day, to do that which is right in the eyes of the Lord thy God” (Deut. 13:18). “In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Judg. 17:6, 21:25).

There’s a crucially important contrast presented in these verses, especially in this day and age when many people revolt against the idea of being told by an outside authority what to do, or being told what is right and wrong.

Yet, we can see here a clear distinction between these two worldviews. In one, people do whatever they think is “right” in their own eyes; in another, people are to do what is right in the “eyes of the Lord thy God.” The problem with the first position is that, so often in history, what is “right” in someone’s own eyes is often wrong in God’s. That’s why we have to submit everything, even our own conscience, to the Word of God.

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