On 9-28-14, Jeremiah 33:1-11 will be our Adult Sunday School/Uniform Series/International Sunday School Lesson herein is my commentary. This lesson is known by some as Future Peace and Joy or Improbable Possibilities

Future Peace and Joy

Or

Improbable Possibilities

 Jeremiah 33:1-11

International Sunday School Lesson

September 28, 2014

                                                                                 

Commentary

By

Jed Greenough

How many times did Jeremiah share what God had given him about the fate of Jerusalem and its people?  I haven’t gone back to add them up but this system of warning and encouraging must be important to God and therefore must be to us too as the tally we can add up not just in Jeremiah but throughout the Bible are beyond numerous.

Today we all love to revel in the fact that one day Christ will return and we will join Him forever and what a wondrous joy that will be but we seem to forget this other part that will happen also.

Matthew 24 tells us first how dreadful it will be.  That the distress will be unequaled from the beginning of the world and but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened or no one would survive.

God shows His consistency by revealing what will happen if we fall away and what the reward will be if we don’t.  He told the Israelites generations before as we can read in Leviticus 26 that if they failed to obey He would bring upon them this sudden terror, wasting, fever and destruction they were now experiencing in Jeremiah’s time.  The list of God’s hostility towards them takes many paragraphs so the seriousness is apparent.  But again, consistently, the reminder of the great rewards for obedience is in the same chapter.

For us these books like Jeremiah should be a reminder and an example not just of the rewards but the inevitable punishment that will come for disobedience as God will not tolerate sin.  Like Leviticus or today’s Jeremiah 33 show both the punishment and the rewards, the aforementioned Matthew 24 in Jesus’ words also tells us both.  Will we listen?  The difference is all the other examples such as Jeremiah lead up to this coming moment.   Last chance!

For Discussion:

1.      Discuss tearing down the city to fight the Babylonian invaders.

2.      Discuss God’s wrath.

3.      Discuss God’s turning His face towards them in forgiveness.

4.      Discuss those who follow God bring honor or dishonor to Him.

5.      Discuss examples such as these for us today.

6.      Discuss our warnings are for the last time.

7.      Discuss verse 8.

Upcoming Lessons

10-5-14    Rejoice Anyway or Yet I Will Rejoice, Habakkuk 2:1-5; 3:17-19

10-12-14   Even So, My Redeemer Lives or I Know That My Redeemer Liveth , Job 19:1-7, 23-29

10-19-14   Hope Complains or I Will Call on God, Job 24:1, 9-12, 19-25

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 Biblica. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved