The Jewish Remnant in Egypt: Learn God’s Ways

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SYLLABUS
STUDIES IN THE BOOK OF Jeremiah

JEREMIAH 43-44
Lesson #39
THE JEWISH REMNANT IN EGYPT: LEARN GOD’S WAYS

• Memory Verse: 2Sam 22:22
• In our previous lesson Jeremiah was giving God’s counsel to the remnant left in the land of Israel.
  • He advised them not to leave the Promised Land to go to Egypt as many of them wanted to flee from the Babylonian army.
  • The remnant did not listen to Jeremiah. Instead they took Jeremiah captive and went to Egypt thinking they would be safe from Nebuchadnezzar.
  • However, we must remember that Nebuchadnezzar is only a tool in the hand of God that brings judgment on His people. While they think they can outrun Nebuchadnezzar’s army, they cannot outrun God.
    • What is the message for us today?
    • Often we make decisions based on fear.
    • We do what we think will be wise, when in fact to make a decision based on fear, puts us in the greatest danger.
      • Because Egypt represents the world in scripture, the tendency is to trust in the things of the world of which you are familiar.
      • In other words, to trust in your own strength, in your wisdom, in money, influence, etc. is to trust in the things of the world. These are the things the world values.
      • Jeremiah told the people left in the Promised Land to stay in the land where God put them, and to humble themselves before God and trust in Him.
• Read Jer 43:1-13 Jeremiah’s last parable
  • Notice that even though Jeremiah does not want to go to Egypt, he finds himself a captive of his own people in Egypt. He does not stop talking.
  • Notice that these Israelites are back in Egypt in the same spiritual place that the Israelites were before Moses and Joshua brought them to the Promised Land.
    • What is the message for us today?
    • If you do not move forward in your spiritual relationship with God, you move backward.
      • Moving backward spiritually is the result of the following actions:
      • A hardened heart toward God.
      • The sin of unbelief.
      • Disobedience.
      • A lifestyle of sin.
  • Jeremiah continues to bring God’s message to the Jewish remnant in Egypt.
    • The parable of the hidden stones. (Jeremiah’s last parable)
      • To the Israelite mind, stones were significant in Israel’s history.
      • When the Israelites entered the Promised Land under Joshua, they were to construct a pile of stones in the middle of the Jordan River and on the shore. (Jos 4)
        • These piles of stones were to remind them that it was God that gave them the Promised Land. They did not conquer it in their own strength.
        • Now they were losing the land God had given them. Not only were they losing it, but they were willingly leaving it to the enemy.
      • The stones were buried in the brick kiln.
        • This was supposed to remind them of their period of slavery in Egypt when they made bricks for the Pharaoh at the time when Moses brought them out of Egypt into the wilderness.
        • The ashes of the brick kiln were marks of persecution and slavery against their Israelite ancestors.

Read Exo 9:8

The ashes sprinkled before God was a call to God to bring retribution on Egypt for their treatment of the Jews.

Even though hundreds of years had passed since the time of Moses, God had not yet fully punished Egypt for their slavery of His people.

Now the remnant of Israel has put itself in Egypt just when God will bring the long awaited retribution for Egypt’s persecution.

But the stones are hidden in the kiln because the remnant is not willing to face the fact that God is in control and His timing of retribution is in process.

In going to Egypt, the remnant is putting itself in the path of God’s retribution on Egypt.

• • • • The parable says that Nebuchadnezzar will come to Egypt to sit on the stones.
        • Nebuchadnezzar did not stop his military advance with Israel. He eventually took all the nations around Israel including Egypt. This was the beginning of the end of Egypt as a great nation of unparalleled cultural advancement. Egypt has never fully recovered the heights of power and prestige that she possessed during the days of the Old Testament.

God would cause Nebuchadnezzar to burn the temples to the sun god (Beth-shemesh means house of the sun). (12-13)

Egypt would also suffer for their idolatry. God expects even the non-believers to recognize that there is a God of creation out there. (Rom 1)

The king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, was also an idolater, but God is using him as an instrument of God’s wrath against all ungodliness. Later in history, Nebuchadnezzar would also suffer God’s judgment for his own sins of idolatry.

• • • • • Jeremiah tells the remnant of Jews in Egypt that they will suffer death and slavery.
    • It is interesting to notice that Jeremiah’s death at the hands of the remnant of his own people will be by stoning.
• Read Jer 44:1-30 God’s Judgment on Egypt
  • The remnant has settled in various cities in Egypt. They did not all stay together.
  • God reviews His actions:
    • You can run but you cannot hide from God.
      • That which the remnant feared the greatest was exactly the judgment God would cause them to endure.
      • The Babylonians would eventually take control over the nation of Egypt. None of Israel’s enemies escaped the hand of Babylon.
    • God is very clear to say that He is the one that destroyed Jerusalem and the temple. (2) While it occurred at the hands of the Babylonians, it is God who is in control. No army or enemy can overrun and defeat God’s people unless God permits it.
      • God gives them His reason for permitting so great a desolation. (3)
      • The sin of idolatry prompted God’s anger.
    • Even though God was angry with the Israelites, in His love and mercy He sent the prophets to warn the people. (4)
  • Why did God review His actions and remind them of all that has happened from the beginning of the book of Jeremiah?
    • Verse 8 tells us that they were returning to the same kinds of idolatry in Egypt that they practiced in the Promised Land. This same idolatry brought God’s judgment on them with the coming of the Babylonian army.
    • They had not learned anything about the ways of God. (9)
      • It is very important for God’s people to learn the ways of God. We learn the ways of God by studying the Word of God, specifically the Old Testament.
      • To learn the ways of God means we learn:
        • …What God expects of His people.
        • …To Distinguish good from evil.
        • …His standards and His principles.
        • …How God deals with individuals that love God.
        • …How God deals with individuals that ignore God.
        • …How God deals with nations.
        • …The nature and character of God.
        • …How God guides, trains, and tests His people.
        • …How God punishes His people.
  • God’s judgment on the remnant in Egypt:
    • They will all die in Egypt by various means. (13)
    • The means of God’s judgment will be by sword, by famine, and by pestilence.
  • Notice that the men are not the leaders in their own houses as they should be. (15) They know their wives are practicing idolatry but do nothing to correct them.
    • The men join together to uphold the practice of idolatry in their homes.
    • They use man’s reasoning to replace God’s command. Man’s reasoning said:
      • Our ancestors practiced idolatry so it must be OK.
      • Everybody is doing it openly so it must be OK.
      • Our kings and priests did it, so it must be OK.
    • Man will be judged by the law of God and not the universal practices of man.
  • Man’s irrational rationalization:
    • Notice that in verse 17 the remnant disregard God’s warning through Jeremiah.
    • They attribute the evil that has fallen upon them to God instead of recognizing that the evil is a consequence of their own sin.
    • They attribute the blessings they have received to have come from the idols.
      • They specifically mention the “queen of heaven”. (18)
        • Who is the queen of heaven?
        • This is a female goddess that is prevalent around the world today incorporated into many religions. (Catholicism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, New Age, etc.) She is called by many different names to indicate that she is the mother of the earth, a queen lady from heaven.
        • The messages through her all have a similar theme:

World unity.

Peace through her.

Salvation through her.

• • • • Originally the queen of heaven was Semiramis the wife of Nimrod in Gen 10.
      • Read Isa 47:1-15
      • This goddess, Semiramis, was especially popular in Egypt with the worship of the triune gods, Isis, Horus, and Semiramis.
    • When man hardens his heart against God, everything in his thinking turns upside down. His thinking becomes irrational and flawed.
  • The small number that escape judgment :
    • Through Jeremiah, God tells the remnant that a small number of them will escape God’s judgment because they turn away from their idolatry. (28)
    • These are the only ones of the remnant that will one day return to the Promised Land from Egypt.
• Application:
  • Learning the ways of God helps us avoid a lot of pitfalls in life. When a person rationalizes to justify his own behavior, he is a fool thinking he will escape God’s judgment.
  • As humans we all do this to some extent or another, or at some time or another. This is why we need to study the Word of God, so the Holy Spirit can convict us of sin, to bring us to repentance. He is the one that keeps us on track.

Homework
Jeremiah 45 -46

• Application of Jer 43-44
  • How much do you know of the ways of God?
    • Does God always punish sin?
• Preparation for Jer 45-46
  • Read Jer 45:1-5
    • What did God say to Baruch when he was in a complaining mood?
    • What does complaining tell God about you?
    • What beautiful thing do you see in God’s words of encouragement to Baruch?
  • Read Jer 46:1-28
    • According to this passage, who puts leaders in authority over the people? What verse tells you this?
• Memory Verse: Luk 14:27