Lesson 132:
Jeremiah 1–6
During the reign of King Josiah,
God called Jeremiah, explaining that he was foreordained to be a prophet to the
nations of the world and to preach repentance to the Southern Kingdom of Judah.
The people had forsaken the Lord and were worshipping other gods. Jeremiah
prophesied that the people of Judah would suffer at the hands of an opposing
nation as a punishment for their sins.
---Before
class, write the following question on the board:
What are some things you hope to
do during your life?
---Write your
responses to this question in your class notebooks.
---Share?
---Ponder whether
there are specific tasks you are meant to accomplish in your lives.
---God
revealed to a prophet named Jeremiah truths about his mission on the earth.
---In Jeremiah 1:1–3 we read that in the thirteenth
year of the reign of King Josiah, who ruled over the Southern Kingdom of Judah,
Jeremiah received a revelation from the Lord.
---What did Jeremiah learn about himself and
his relationship with God?
---What can we learn about ourselves from the
fact that God knew Jeremiah before he was born
Before we were born, our Heavenly Father knew
us and we existed as His spirit children.
---Jeremiah’s
experience of being ordained before he was born is known as foreordination.
---To help
students better understand what foreordination means, share the following
statement:
“The
doctrine of foreordination applies to all members of the Church, not just to
the Savior and His prophets. Before the creation of the earth, faithful women
were given certain responsibilities and faithful men were foreordained to
certain priesthood duties. Although you do not remember that time, you surely
agreed to fulfill significant tasks in the service of your Father. As you prove
yourself worthy, you will be given opportunities to fulfill the assignments you
then received” (True to
the Faith: A Gospel Reference [2004], 70).
---Write the
phrase Before we were born, … on the board.
---Based on what you have learned about
foreordination, how would you complete this statement?
We were given specific responsibilities and duties
to perform during mortality.
---What are some of the responsibilities and
duties that the Lord may have ordained His children to do in this life?
---In what ways can we identify the specific
duties or responsibilities we are to perform during mortality?
---If you
have not yet received your patriarchal blessings, ponder what you should do to
prepare to receive it.
---For your
YW, the Individual Worth value experience number 2 in the Young Women Personal
Progress booklet [(2009), 30] encourages young women to learn how to
prepare to receive a patriarchal blessing.
---Read Jeremiah 1:6 aloud looking for how Jeremiah
responded when he learned God had foreordained him to be a prophet.
---How did Jeremiah respond to the Lord?
---Which specific promises might have been
comforting for Jeremiah to hear? How might these promises have helped him?
---What can we learn from this experience
about what the Lord will do for those He calls to His work
When God calls us to do His work, He will
help us do what He has asked.
---What are some examples of the work the
Lord has called us to do? When has the Lord helped you do the work He has
called you to do?
---In Jeremiah 1:11–16 the Lord revealed to Jeremiah
that a nation would come from the north and inflict judgments on the people in
consequence of their wickedness.
---Imagine you
are in the prophet Jeremiah’s position.
---Turn to a neighbor and tell what you found.
Jeremiah
1:18–19. “I have made thee this day a defenced city”
This promise from the Lord to His
newly commissioned prophet Jeremiah illustrates that He would fortify and
strengthen Jeremiah against the onslaught of opposition he would face as he
commanded the people of Jerusalem to repent. The Jews did not want to hear
Jeremiah’s calls to repentance and warnings of destruction. The animosity,
anger, and rage heaped upon him by the Jews could be compared to a city that is
under siege. Nevertheless, the Lord’s promise is sure: “They shall not prevail
against thee; for I am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee” (Jeremiah 1:19).
---Look at
the chart “The Kingdoms of Israel and Judah at a Glance” at the end of
lesson 102 and find “Jeremiah.”
---Who else was preaching around the same
time as Jeremiah?
---Jeremiah,
Lehi, Zephaniah, and Habakkuk were some of the prophets commanded to tell the
Jews that they must repent of their wickedness or be conquered by another
nation.
---In Jeremiah 2:1–12 the Lord declared through Jeremiah that His
people had loved Him when He had delivered them out of Egypt and given them a
promised land. Now, however, the people had gone astray by worshipping idols
and had defiled the land.
---The Lord
then taught about the people’s spiritual condition using the image of a water
container.
---DEMO---2
pitchers, 1 with a hole.
---If you were going to store water, which of
these would be more useful? Why?
---The Lord
referred to cisterns, or large containers that hold water, as He taught
Jeremiah about the people’s weakened spiritual condition.
---What two evils had the people committed?
---In what ways is the Lord like a “fountain
of living waters”?
---The broken cisterns represented the false gods the Israelites had chosen to
worship instead of the Lord.
---What did the Lord teach about false gods
by comparing them to broken cisterns that cannot hold water?
(False gods
do not have the power to help us or to satisfy our needs and desires.)
---What can we learn from this analogy?
---Explain
that Jeremiah 2:14–3:5 records that the Lord taught
that the people’s wickedness would bring them great sorrow and that the false
gods they had chosen would not save or help them (see Jeremiah 2:28).
--- Jeremiah 3:6–11 says that the Lord compared the
kingdoms of Israel and Judah to two sisters. One sister (Judah) watched the
other sister (Israel) refuse to listen to the prophets and saw her ultimately
reject the Lord. As a result of this rejection, the Northern Kingdom of Israel
had been destroyed by the Assyrians in the century before Jeremiah was born,
and the Southern Kingdom of Judah had witnessed it.
---Read Jeremiah
3:10 aloud and
look for how the Lord described what Judah did after the destruction of Israel.
---How did Judah respond after seeing Israel
suffer for not turning to the Lord?
(You may
need to explain that the word backsliding
refers to reverting to faithlessness,
sinfulness, or slothfulness.)
---What doctrine of the gospel involves
returning to the Lord from a sinful condition?
If we repent and come unto the Lord with our
whole hearts, He will heal our waywardness.
---How does the Lord heal us and help us resist
temptations?
---Testify
that as we turn to the Lord with our whole hearts, He will help us to change
and not repeat sins of the past.
---Consider
sins in your lives you may need to be healed of. Turn to the Lord.
---In Jeremiah 4–6 Jeremiah pled with the people to repent. He
warned them about the consequences they would experience if they did not
repent.
---Silently
read the chapter headings for Jeremiah 5 and 6, as well as Jeremiah
5:25, looking
for some of these consequences.
---Report.
---Although God loves us and wants to spare us
unnecessary pain, we bring pain upon ourselves when we sin. The Lord allowed
the Israelites to suffer many of the consequences of their wickedness. However,
He also promised that He would not allow the people to be completely destroyed.
*** quotes
for students to read
During the reign of King Josiah,
God called Jeremiah, explaining that he was foreordained to be a prophet to the
nations of the world and to preach repentance to the Southern Kingdom of Judah.
The people had forsaken the Lord and were worshipping other gods. Jeremiah
prophesied that the people of Judah would suffer at the hands of an opposing
nation as a punishment for their sins.
“The
doctrine of foreordination applies to all members of the Church, not just to
the Savior and His prophets. Before the creation of the earth, faithful women
were given certain responsibilities and faithful men were foreordained to
certain priesthood duties. Although you do not remember that time, you surely
agreed to fulfill significant tasks in the service of your Father. As you prove
yourself worthy, you will be given opportunities to fulfill the assignments you
then received” (True to
the Faith: A Gospel Reference [2004], 70).
Jeremiah
1:18–19. “I have made thee this day a defenced city”
This promise from the Lord to His
newly commissioned prophet Jeremiah illustrates that He would fortify and
strengthen Jeremiah against the onslaught of opposition he would face as he
commanded the people of Jerusalem to repent. The Jews did not want to hear
Jeremiah’s calls to repentance and warnings of destruction. The animosity,
anger, and rage heaped upon him by the Jews could be compared to a city that is
under siege. Nevertheless, the Lord’s promise is sure: “They shall not prevail
against thee; for I am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee” (Jeremiah 1:19).
---Although God loves us and wants to spare us
unnecessary pain, we bring pain upon ourselves when we sin. The Lord allowed
the Israelites to suffer many of the consequences of their wickedness. However,
He also promised that He would not allow the people to be completely destroyed.
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