A brief overview for Sunday school teachers and Bible study leaders, of Lifeway’s “Explore the Bible” lesson of Jeremiah 7:1-15, for Sunday, June 18, 2023, with the title, “Personal.”

(A video version of this overview is available on YouTube at:

INTRO:  In 1870, France was at war with Prussia (what we know as Germany today). The Germans had the better of it early, and their army advanced all the way to Paris. But the Parisians were “cheerful,” one observer said. They thought their city was invulnerable to enemy armies. The entire city was surrounded by a wall 30 feet high, and there was a moat in front of that. There were 16 fortresses in the walls that made a 60-mile ring around the city, with 500,000 soldiers guarding it. The Bois de Bologne, the huge “Central Park” of Paris, had 100,000 sheep and 80,000 cattle to feed the people in a siege. They were not worried; they trusted their defenses. Their city would not fall. Victor Hugo, the famous French author of “Les Miserables” said “There has been an Athens, there has been a Rome (but) Paris will conquer.”

But on Monday afternoon, September 19, 1870 the Prussians cut off all roads to Paris, and the city was under siege. It went on for months. The Prussians began shooting artillery into the city, and the food began to run out. Soon they were eating horses and pets. People were dying, and starving — and on January 27, 1871, about four months after the siege began, Paris surrendered. Their trust that Paris could not fall, was misplaced. (David McCullough, The Greater Journey, pp. 268-301)

The people of Judah and Jerusalem in Jeremiah’s day found themselves in a similar position. They trusted that because they had “the Temple of the Lord” with them there in Jerusalem, they would be delivered from their enemies — but God told them through Jeremiah this was NOT so, if they didn’t get their lives right with Him.  

Another way you could begin this lesson would be to ask your group to share a sermon that they will always remember, then say: today we are going to look at one of the prophet Jeremiah’s most famous sermons, his Sermon at the Temple Gate.

CONTEXT

This is our 3rd lesson in the Book of Jeremiah. In Chapter 1 we looked at how God called him to preach, and despite his objections, God says “I” will help you do it — a good word for all of us as He calls us to serve. Then in Chapter 2 we saw how God’s people had left their first love in God, and made a very poor decision by trading Him for things that don’t satisfy. Now today in Chapter 7 we will look at one of Jeremiah’s most famous messages: the Temple Sermon. 

OUTLINE

I.   The Setting of the Sermon (:1-2)

II.  The Message of the Sermon (:3-11)

III. The Example of the Sermon (:12-15)

I. The Setting of the Sermon (:1-2)

A. Who it came from

:1 AGAIN we see this: and this is the 3rd week in a row we’ve seen it; every lesson so far: “The word that came to Jeremiah FROM THE LORD saying.” 

We see the name of Yaheweh (YHWH or Jehovah) 8 times in just the first 4 verses!  In the Old Testament, when you see “LORD” in all 4 capital letters like that, that means in the Hebrew text, it is not actually the word “Adonai” or “Lord,” but YHWH, the personal name of God. So this isn’t just “any God” who speaking to them, this is YHWH, the God the Bible says made heaven & earth; who appeared to Moses in Exodus, and who delivered Israel from Egypt — THIS God; YHWH — not Baal or anyone else.  We see this name of Yahweh all through Jeremiah and the rest of the Old Testament too; watch for it!

And as I said, His name appears EIGHT TIMES in just the first four verses here; AGAIN really emphasizing, for the 3rd week in a row: these are NOT just Jeremiah’s words; they are GOD’S! So we need to treat them that way. What the Bible says is not just “somebody’s opinion;” it is God’s word! 

This is the one thing we must not concede when we are talking with people about the Bible: what is in it is NOT just another “opinion;” they are the words of God. Never back off of that! 

B. Where it was

:2 What did God tell him: “Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house and proclaim there this word”

So where was Jeremiah to preach this? “The gate of the Lord’s house” — “the Lord’s house” was the Temple, so i.e., the gate to the Temple in Jerusalem.

So it would be like someone standing at the front door of your church on Sunday morning, preaching to everybody who was coming in. 

??? WHY do you think God had Jeremiah preach this message at the Temple gate??? 

(Because the message was to God’s people who were coming to the temple to worship. He wasn’t preaching to “the lost Gentiles” of other nations and so on. This message was to Judah, to those who were supposed to be God’s people.   In the same way, this message is to US as God’s people today too! 

II. The Message of the Sermon :3-11

Verse 3 starts “Thus says the LORD God of hosts” (here it is AGAIN! This isn’t just Jeremiah speaking; it is GOD!)

Then he begins the message: “Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place.” 

Let’s be very clear here: ??? What does God want them to do???

(He wants them to change the way they are living. He says “amend your ways” and “deeds.” Sometimes we may be challenged to believe a certain thing, like the doctrine of the Trinity, or sometimes to change an “attitude,” like pride or something like that.  But here God is very specific and clear: He says, I want you to change what you are DOING: your “ways,” your “deeds.” 

??? And what does He say He will do if they change their deeds??? 

(I will let you dwell in this place. He’s talking about Jerusalem, and the Promised Land He had given them.

??? Which implies what??? 

(If they DON’T change their ways, they will NOT get to stay there; that He would cast them out.)

So God gives the people of Judah a very clear message here: change your ways, and you get to stay here; if you DON’T, you will not. Pretty clear. 

BUT NOTICE the attitude of the people that we see in :4. God has Jeremiah tell them: “Do not trust in deceptive words, saying, ‘This is the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord.’” What was going on here was, they thought since the Temple was there, that they were invulnerable to enemy attacks; they had “the Temple of the Lord.” It almost became like a “superstitious thing” to them: just keep saying “the Temple of the Lord” and we’ll be ok! 

??? Have you ever known someone who had a superstition???  People with superstitions feel like: as long as I do “X”, nothing bad will happen.

(Some people have a rabbit’s foot; or a “good luck charm.”

Since it’s baseball season, here’s a couple from baseball:  “rally caps” are kind of like that: “If we turn our cap around, then we’ll come back & win!   OR: “if someone has a no-hitter going, don’t say anything or you will ruin it.”  Or famous batting champion Wade Boggs, always ate chicken before a game; it wasn’t just for the nutrition; it was a superstition. Some baseball players have a lot of superstitions.  

You/your group can talk about some superstitions you’ve heard of for a while, then I’d say: Judah had become kind of like that with the Temple. Well, we’ve got our Temple; it’s our “good luck charm,” as long as we have it, we’re going to be ok.

But just like the city of Paris, it was a FALSE TRUST. The walls of Paris did not save them in 1870, and the Temple of Jerusalem would not save the Jews in 587 when the Babylonians invaded.  

I think there is some application for our country today: for a couple of centuries we have been protected from foreign invasion by the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and more recently by our military might. To many Americans, invasion is unthinkable: We are “America, land of the free and home of the brave”! But I believe God may be saying to OUR country today: don’t have a false trust. “Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place,” otherwise there is a judgment coming. 

Then in :5 God repeats the message: “amend your ways and your deeds,” but THEN He gets SPECIFIC, and tells them some of the specific ways and deeds He needs them to change:

— :5b “practice justice between a man and his neighbor”

— :6 “Do not oppress the alien or the widow”

— :6 “Do not shed innocent blood in this place”

— :6 “Nor walk after other gods to your ruin”

NOTICE two key words in :5 & :7: 

:5 “IF” you amend your ways

:7 “THEN” I will let you dwell in this place.

“IF” and “THEN” are key words of what we call a “conditional promise”: IF you do this, THEN you will get that. 

EX: “IF you work 40 hours, THEN you will get $1000.”

      “IF you obey me, THEN you’ll get a popsicle.”

      “IF ….. THEN …”

??? So what is God’s conditional promise here???
(IF you do amend your ways, and do these specific things, THEN I will let you dwell in this place.” But the key is, we have to change our ways. 

This is important. God is saying, I’m not just asking you to “go to church;” I’m not just asking you to “be religious.” I need you to change your ways, in some very specific things.

SO I think to apply this, we need to think about OUR own lives. What might there be in OUR lives today, that God might say: I need you to change this, specifically? Maybe some of those same things from :5-6, maybe some different things. 

I think a key question each of us ought to ask ourselves today is: 

??? IF God were going to ask me to change one specific thing in my life that I am doing, what might it be??? Now, I don’t think I am going to ask my class to respond to that out loud — if you have a group that is really comfortable sharing like that you can, but otherwise I’d just ask them to ponder it silently: “IF God would ask me to change one specific thing in my life that I am doing, what would it be?”  God IS specific like that. And if you are a Christian, His Spirit will speak to your heart, and He will convict you about sin. He will show you. And I have no doubt He is saying something to each person here, about something we need to change. 

God’s specific: and He’s saying, “Amend your ways.” 

So in :4 God had said “Do not trust in deceptive words,” now in :8 He says again, “Behold, you are trusting in deceptive words to no avail.” Then He says in :9, “Will you steal, murder, and commit 

adultery, swear falsely, offer sacrifices to Baal and walk after other gods …”

??? What are these things He is listing here, can you see it???

(They are each from the 10 Commandments! Stealing is the 8th commandment, murder is the 6th commandment, adultery is the 7th commandment, worshiping Baal — a Canaanite god — and other gods is breaking the 1st commandment.) 

So God’s basically saying: “Will you break all My commandments” and  :10 “THEN come and stand before Me in this house … and say, ‘We are delivered!’ — that you may do all these abominations?” 

I.E., He’s saying, you can’t break all My commandments, and then run back here and think I’m going to save you, because you’re in the Temple! He says, that’s not going to work. 

And we can do the same thing today: if we break God’s commandments Monday through Saturday, and then come to church Sunday and think, “We’re all good and right with God; He is going to help and bless us.” NO, He’s NOT. He’s not happy with that kind of “religion.” He says here in :8, “You are trusting in deceptive words to no avail.” Don’t think you can just break God’s commandments all week and think He’ll be happy with your worship Sunday; He’s not!

AN EXAMPLE of this that some of you parents and teachers, and those in your class can appreciate: we’ve all seen a child who would just continually act up & disobey you & mistreat others — then try to smile and coddle up you, as if they’d done nothing wrong. Some of you can share specific examples of this. You don’t like that — and God is saying here, HE doesn’t either! 

In fact He tells them in :11 here, “Has My house, which is called by My name, become a den of robbers in your sight?”

Jesus quotes this verse in the Gospels when He’s throwing the moneychangers out of the Temple: “You have made it a robber’s den.” He’s not happy with that inconsistency/hypocrisy. We can’t break God’s commandments all week, and think He’ll be happy with our worship when we come to church.  He says, you’ve got to “amend your ways.” You have to change — and God won’t be satisfied with anything less than that. 

Then He shows what will happen if they don’t; He gives: 

III.  AN EXAMPLE of His judgment

:12-15 “But now go to My place which was in Shiloh, where I made My name dwell at the first, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of My people Israel.”

:15 = “I will cast YOU out of My sight, as I have cast out all your brothers …”. 

God said to them: Go look at Shiloh — what is Shiloh? If you go to Joshua 18:1, it says “the whole congregation of the sons of Israel assembled themselves at Shiloh, and set up the tent of meeting there” — then :10 says: “And Joshua cast lots for them in Shiloh before the Lord …”. So Shiloh was a place where “His name dwelt at first” in Israel. It was a special place of worship where they set up the tabernacle.

But Israel disobeyed God, and that worship place at Shiloh was destroyed. Evidently there were some ruins there, that they could go look at, and see what happened when God judged them.

So God was saying: LOOK AT THEM! See what happened to that worship place at Shiloh?He says in :15 in the same way “I will cast YOU out of My sight, as I have cast out all your brothers.” In other words, see what happened to THEM? This will happen to YOU if you don’t change your ways.  

This is a very sobering message. And it applies to US today. Could God possibly do a similar thing with OUR country?  

ONE EXERCISE I might do here, is show 2-3 pictures of ancient ruins: “Does anyone recognize this picture?”

— the Sphinx/Pyramids in Egypt

— Coliseum in Rome

— Acropolis in Greece

— THEN = Anyone recognize this picture? (This is actually from “The Planet of the Apes” — a distopian movie about when civilization as we know it is destroyed, and apes have taken over.   

It’s a very “melodramatic” scene — but also very sobering if you think about it:  that the USA may end up like some of those other ancient empires that are now ruins. But it could very well happen.

It’s a sobering thought, but this is a sobering message from the Lord. It’s supposed to get our attention. He’s saying THIS IS WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO YOU IF YOU DON’T CHANGE YOUR WAYS!

But this doesn’t just apply to “countries.” It applies to us personally too. Can we look at what God has had to do to other people — either to discipline or to judge them — and learn from them? 

??? Who are some people, in the Bible, or in history or your own personal experience, who might serve as warnings of what might happen to us if we don’t repent of sin?

— I think of Samson in the Old Testament. He just kept on messing with evil, with Delilah, and he ended up losing his power, losing his eyes — then losing his life. 

— King David who sinned: he lost his child, he lost his kingdom for a time; his kingdom was never the same. 

— Ananias & Sapphira in Acts: they lied to the church, and God struck them down dead!

How far do we have to look for people today who didn’t repent of sin, and who paid for it? We see people all around us, that we know, in our families, at work, in town — and in the media — who are not repenting of sin, and who are suffering for it. So we need to take this seriously on a personal level: don’t continue in sin. Listen to God and turn away from it, before He has to discipline or judge you for it. That’s the lesson in Jeremiah 7 today.

Now, I would not want to fail to mention, at the end of this class, that God is gracious.

— He was gracious to Judah. He had given them so much time, and was even now giving them another opportunity to repent and change their ways.

— And He is gracious to us. Thankfully He has provided the means of salvation and forgiveness for us in Jesus’ death on the cross, so that if we will hear His warning, and repent of our sin, and change our ways, and come to Him, He WILL forgive us, and help us to live for Him. (Share the GOSPEL here)

But we need to make sure we DO actually change our ways. Don’t take His grace for granted. And don’t continue in sin without confessing it to Him and changing it. Because as we see in Jeremiah’s message at the Temple Gate, God DOES take our sin seriously!

And then you might close your class in prayer this Sunday, by asking God to help you and your group to take your sin seriously, and ask Him for the grace to help you TURN from the specific sins of your lives, and “amend our ways” so that He might bless you. 

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