Caption transcript for Jeremiah: “Hope and a Future” (8/9)

• 00:01 David Hart: Jeremiah foretold the return of the Jewish people back to their homeland after 70 years of captivity, but also the coming of the
• 00:11 Messiah for the whole world. Coming up next on "Our Jewish Roots."
• 00:20 male narrator: In the sixth century BC,
• 00:22 one man stood alone against the pervading wickedness of God's
• 00:25 people and the land of Judah.
• 00:29 The prophet Jeremiah was chosen by the Lord to warn of impending
• 00:33 judgment that would come at the hands of the Babylonians.
• 00:38 Visions of an exile left him heartbroken and in tears,
• 00:43 but Jeremiah remained faithful to his calling and recorded a
• 00:46 message that would speak to generations yet to come.
• 00:51 Standing tall with faith and God,
• 00:54 he understood better days were coming
• 00:58 and there was hope over the horizon.
• 01:06 David: We are so glad you've joined us today.
• 01:07 I am David Hart.
• 01:08 Kirsten Hart: I'm Kirsten Hart. Dr. Jeffrey Seif: Jeffrey Seif.
• 01:10 David: This is the last program in the series,
• 01:13 and I--it's crazy what Jeremiah had to go through.
• 01:17 In this whole series, as we've heard and seen,
• 01:20 he didn't waver at all.
• 01:22 Dr. Jeffrey Seif: That's true.
• 01:23 He really was steadfast to your point.
• 01:25 We could all use some of that, couldn't we?
• 01:27 Kirsten: And God was steadfast with his message of
• 01:31 repent or else 70 years, but he was steadfast in that 70 years.
• 01:36 It wasn't like, you know,
• 01:38 oh, you're just always gonna be in Babylon.
• 01:40 I appreciate that God gave an end to that time.
• 01:43 Dr. Jeffrey Seif: That's true.
• 01:45 So it helps you be steadfast if you know
• 01:46 it's not gonna go on forever.
• 01:49 The--Jeremiah didn't survive the 70-year period himself,
• 01:53 but he saw hope over the horizon.
• 01:56 I know it's something we really like to talk about.
• 01:58 And what do you think of this?
• 01:59 I think one of the reasons why he was as steadfast as he was,
• 02:02 he shared his feelings.
• 02:03 He was very open about his life and his circumstance.
• 02:06 That takes some of the pressure out and helps us to endure, yes?
• 02:09 Kirsten: He was open and honest,
• 02:10 but he did give the people hope.
• 02:13 And that's what today's program is about.
• 02:15 David: Right, we're gonna hear more from you in a bit.
• 02:17 Right now, let's hear more of Jeremiah's story.
• 02:27 narrator: Jeremiah has been a faithful servant of the Lord.
• 02:30 The message given to his people Judah had largely gone unheeded,
• 02:35 recorded for many years by his devoted scribe Baruch.
• 02:40 But while the prophetic message had led to Judah's exile,
• 02:44 there was a better day coming.
• 02:47 There was still hope over the horizon.
• 03:01 [speaking in Hebrew]
• 03:07 [speaking in Hebrew]
• 03:17 [speaking in Hebrew]
• 03:27 [speaking in Hebrew]
• 03:37 [speaking in Hebrew]
• 03:47 [speaking in Hebrew]
• 03:57 [speaking in Hebrew]
• 04:07 [speaking in Hebrew]
• 04:17 [speaking in Hebrew]
• 04:27 Dr. Jeffrey Seif: This is the program I have been wanting
• 04:30 to do this entire series.
• 04:34 It's almost like I endured everything to get to this.
• 04:38 I say that because if you look at the Jeremiah text,
• 04:42 it's checkered with a lot of really tough stuff.
• 04:45 I mean, judgment and it's heavy.
• 04:48 It was hard for me to read it.
• 04:50 It was hard for me to teach it.
• 04:52 And frankly, I'm glad to get through it to get to this.
• 04:58 I'm not ashamed of it because it's in the Book and if it's in
• 05:00 the Book, it needs to be in the conversation coming
• 05:03 from the Book.
• 05:04 But I'm so much more predisposed to want to look at the good
• 05:08 news, rather than the bad news.
• 05:11 I suppose what makes the good news so good
• 05:13 is the bad news is so bad.
• 05:14 But check this out.
• 05:17 There is a passage in Jeremiah, I want you to remember this one
• 05:23 for the rest of your life.
• 05:27 In chapter 33 the Prophet says,
• 05:31 "Behold, the days are coming, saith the LORD."
• 05:35 So it's futuristic from this prophet's vantage point.
• 05:40 What does he say?
• 05:41 And here's what I want you to hear.
• 05:44 "I will perform the good word which I've spoken concerning the
• 05:51 house of Judah, the house of Israel.
• 05:54 I will perform the good word."
• 06:01 Now, I want to land on that
• 06:04 because I think it is so important.
• 06:08 You know, in days gone by, and I should say,
• 06:11 there are trends in Christian culture.
• 06:15 There's fads, you know, fad, "for a day."
• 06:20 You know, and they go under different names,
• 06:21 you know, the Word of faith movement, and this.
• 06:24 And oh, these people that are into healing,
• 06:27 these people are into prosperity.
• 06:29 And people can make fun of that.
• 06:32 I think that's tragic because when you boil it down,
• 06:36 what are those ministers saying?
• 06:39 What's the message saying?
• 06:41 The ethos of it is, that is, the distinguishing characteristic of
• 06:46 it is, God will perform the good word which he has promised.
• 06:54 And in a world where so many are intoxicated with despair,
• 07:00 never mind what they do to get their mind off their pain.
• 07:03 They get intoxicated by other things,
• 07:06 not because they're wicked people,
• 07:07 just because they're people in pain.
• 07:10 People do things.
• 07:11 You know, when they haven't got time for the pain,
• 07:12 they get into things.
• 07:14 There's a lot of pain in this world.
• 07:16 There's a lot of problem in this world.
• 07:18 I like it here in the text where the Word of the Lord is,
• 07:25 "I will perform the good word concerning you."
• 07:32 And when you look at the gospel,
• 07:36 the gospel is good news from ancient Jews.
• 07:42 And to be sure, that is the God's honest truth.
• 07:47 In Jeremiah's day, they were in a bad way.
• 07:50 He spoke tough to them, and they had it coming.
• 07:53 But he didn't just tell them what they had coming,
• 07:55 he let them know what God had up his sleeve,
• 07:59 deliverance, redemption.
• 08:02 God was gonna raise up someone from David's line and in his
• 08:06 name, Judah will be saved, not just Judah,
• 08:10 but the world.
• 08:11 We're gonna see that as we look more deeply into this.
• 08:16 And I want you to remember that God is all about wanting to
• 08:19 accomplish the good Word, the good thing.
• 08:24 I know when I began this journey,
• 08:25 people had prayed over me and prophesied over me.
• 08:29 And I'm so glad that God, at 66 years of age,
• 08:33 that I'm just pressing on.
• 08:35 And I'm glad I stayed in it with the Lord to see the good things
• 08:38 that he's doing with me and through me.
• 08:40 It's not about me, it's about you.
• 08:41 It's not even about you, it's about him.
• 08:43 It's about God performing the good Word that he has for us.
• 08:48 And it is a good Word because to be sure,
• 08:50 yes, there is hope on the horizon.
• 08:59 [speaking in Hebrew]
• 09:05 [speaking in Hebrew]
• 09:15 [speaking in Hebrew]
• 09:25 [speaking in Hebrew]
• 09:35 Dr. Jeffrey Seif: Jeremiah 29:11 is probably the best-known
• 09:39 text in Jeremiah.
• 09:42 It's one of the more popular Old Testament texts.
• 09:45 Many people know it.
• 09:47 They don't know it the way I'm gonna recite it,
• 09:48 however, because we do it with the Hebrew in mind.
• 09:51 If you look in chapter 29:11, "I know the thoughts I have for
• 09:58 you, or I know the plans I have for you,
• 10:02 or I know the intentions I have for you,
• 10:05 says the Lord."
• 10:07 And he goes on to say, "Plans for your welfare,
• 10:11 and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope."
• 10:18 This series on Jeremiah is punctuated
• 10:22 with the theme hope for the future.
• 10:26 And it's not just some novel idea out of positive thinking,
• 10:29 actually, it's tethered to the literature explicitly.
• 10:35 Now, this text is so optimistic, one could wonder if it's coming
• 10:39 from the same person that's been casting aspersions on Judah
• 10:45 because of their sinfulness.
• 10:47 It comes out of the same mouth.
• 10:50 It comes out of the same heart
• 10:52 because it comes from the same God.
• 10:58 I noted a text in the first segment,
• 11:00 and the 29:11 text is precipitated in verse 10
• 11:05 by the same thing.
• 11:07 "I will remember you, and perform the good
• 11:12 word toward you."
• 11:16 Oh, don't you love it?
• 11:18 I can recall Paul, he writes Timothy and he says,
• 11:22 "Stir up that word that was given to you when you were
• 11:26 prophesied over when hands were placed on you to," stir that up.
• 11:33 There's an infusion.
• 11:35 There's a prophetic Word.
• 11:36 There's an appointment with destiny.
• 11:40 I remember I got a phone call, oh,
• 11:42 11 or 12 years ago.
• 11:43 It was a television producer, Ken Berg.
• 11:47 He said, "Jeff, do you have a minute?"
• 11:48 "Yeah," I said, "What do you need?"
• 11:50 I remember I was driving in the car.
• 11:52 And he and he was asking me to get involved in this ministry
• 11:55 when its founder, Zola Levitt, had passed.
• 11:58 And Ken said, "You know, Jeff, everything you've done in your
• 12:01 life, look at it as preparation for this."
• 12:06 Well, never mind what I've done in my life.
• 12:08 I think of what the Lord has done in my life.
• 12:11 I certainly never thought I'd be here.
• 12:13 I never thought I'd have the opportunity to talk on
• 12:15 television going coast to coast and even beyond.
• 12:20 In saying that, I don't want to make myself sound great.
• 12:23 You know, there's so many things in life that I've done
• 12:26 that I never thought.
• 12:28 But there were-- there's is a story of a
• 12:31 guy that turned to the Lord.
• 12:32 And, you know, God had plans.
• 12:36 I never thought I'd make it to university.
• 12:37 I flunked out of high school, got into Bible college on
• 12:40 probation, wound up getting a graduate degree from Southern
• 12:44 Methodist University from Cambridge University in England.
• 12:48 I never thought that would happen.
• 12:50 I never thought I'd be talking to you,
• 12:52 but there were promises.
• 12:54 There were prophetic words that were given and those--
• 12:58 I think the Lord watched over his Word to perform it.
• 13:01 And in saying that, honestly, I'm really not trying to make
• 13:05 myself sound great at all.
• 13:07 I'm just saying, when I hear in Scripture,
• 13:10 "I know the plans I have for you says the Lord," I want you to
• 13:13 know that there's someone who really believes it because as he
• 13:18 looks over his life, he's experienced it.
• 13:21 Now, this isn't a story for Jews.
• 13:23 It's not a story for people that talk on television.
• 13:26 It's a story for the world.
• 13:28 It's the story of the ages that's written in the pages that
• 13:32 God has a plan for sinners, even people that don't deserve it,
• 13:39 even people that have spurned him.
• 13:42 The good news is the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.
• 13:46 And yes, even you, even you, God has plans for you,
• 13:52 and he'll watch over his Word to perform it.
• 13:55 Would you dare believe with me that even for you,
• 13:58 there's hope over the horizon?
• 14:02 ♪♪♪
• 14:04 ♪♪♪
• 14:14 male announcer: Our resource this week,
• 14:16 the series "Jeremiah: Hope Over The Horizon" on DVD.
• 14:19 The prophet Jeremiah was called to warn Judah that judgment was
• 14:23 coming at the hands of the Babylonians.
• 14:26 What we find woven through his writings is a message of hope
• 14:29 and deliverance.
• 14:30 These nine programs feature Bible teaching by Dr. Jeffrey
• 14:33 Seif with special guest, Dr. Michael Brown.
• 14:36 Contact us and ask for the Jeremiah series on DVD.
• 14:42 David: There are lots of ways you can find us on social media.
• 14:45 One of those things is our Levitt Letter
• 14:47 that we produce monthly.
• 14:49 Kirsten, you write for that a lot.
• 14:51 Kirsten: I do. I write for it.
• 14:52 I help edit it.
• 14:54 It's a wonderful periodical that goes out every month to probably
• 14:59 so many of you that watch our program.
• 15:01 And I just want to say there's a section in the Levitt Letter
• 15:05 where people can write in with thoughts
• 15:07 or questions to the ministry.
• 15:09 We would love for you to let us know your personal takeaways
• 15:14 from the series of Jeremiah.
• 15:16 It's easy to contact us.
• 15:18 You can snail mail, which is the old way of writing a letter,
• 15:21 or email us and let us know what this series meant to you.
• 15:24 David: And the great thing about the Levitt Letter
• 15:26 is it's free.
• 15:27 It's free to you.
• 15:28 Dr. Jeffrey Seif: Yes, and it's all about communication
• 15:31 in so many ways.
• 15:33 We're in the communication business
• 15:35 or the communication ministry.
• 15:37 Do you know the word "communication" is related to
• 15:39 the word "ammunition."
• 15:41 That is, it's with munition to communicate.
• 15:44 Armies go forward and if they advance beyond the resources or
• 15:49 they get in trouble, those resource lines are called the
• 15:51 lines of communication.
• 15:54 We endeavor to communicate with you,
• 15:56 but I want to ask you please, communicate back.
• 15:59 Let us know that you're out there in the world and send a
• 16:03 check to help us do it to resource what we do.
• 16:07 God blesses those who are a blessing.
• 16:09 It is a principle in the Scripture that's firmly rooted.
• 16:13 I want to know--I want you to know that I give
• 16:15 to the ministry financially.
• 16:16 I made a big donation recently. I'm not bragging.
• 16:20 The ministry doesn't even know it, I just did it.
• 16:22 God knows what we do. He sees our hearts.
• 16:23 He watches us.
• 16:25 I know he'll bless you if you're game to be a blessing.
• 16:28 Kirsten: And we are blessed from all
• 16:29 of your insight and teaching.
• 16:30 We have more from you coming up.
• 16:33 But first, we have Dr. Michael Brown,
• 16:35 who has been our special guest with wonderful insight on the
• 16:39 Book of Jeremiah For this whole series.
• 16:42 And here's Dr. Michael Brown, as he wraps up the final portion of
• 16:46 Book of Jeremiah.
• 16:50 Dr. Michael Brown: Jeremiah has some of his strongest words
• 16:53 of rebuke for King Jehoiachin, and this man,
• 16:57 early on in his reign, is taken into Babylon.
• 17:00 He's only king for just a few months,
• 17:02 and God rejects him as an evil man.
• 17:04 And he's taken into Babylon, and there,
• 17:07 as a young man, languishes year after year after year.
• 17:12 And we get to the end of the Book of Jeremiah,
• 17:14 the very last chapter, and it tells us in the 37th year of his
• 17:18 captivity, the king raised him up and gave him
• 17:22 food at his table.
• 17:23 There's even an inscription, an ancient Babylonian Scripture,
• 17:26 that mentions his name,
• 17:27 which seems to be with his daily food rations.
• 17:29 Archeologists have discovered this.
• 17:31 And there's an amazing lesson.
• 17:33 God says through Jeremiah, "Even if you were like a signet
• 17:36 ring on my right hand, I cast you off."
• 17:38 But then he tells his grandsons Zerubbabel and Haggai,
• 17:41 "I'm gonna make you like a signet ring on my hand."
• 17:44 What's the lesson?
• 17:46 This is something we can learn from the text,
• 17:48 and the rabbis have deduced this as well,
• 17:50 that he must have repented in exile.
• 17:53 And even though God made a decree of judgment against him,
• 17:58 repentance changed that.
• 18:00 That's how powerful repentance is.
• 18:02 Wherever you find yourself, whatever situation in life
• 18:05 you're in, if you're literally under the judgment of God,
• 18:08 if you'll humble yourself as Jehoiachin did,
• 18:11 and if you'll repent, God will still raise you up.
• 18:14 There can be light at the end of the tunnel.
• 18:16 The Word of God says God gives grace to the humble.
• 18:21 If you've sinned, if you've missed it,
• 18:22 if you've fallen short, turn to him in genuine repentance.
• 18:26 He will take what Satan means for evil and turn around for
• 18:29 your lasting good.
• 18:40 Dr. Jeffrey Seif: It's just about over.
• 18:43 I get one more shot.
• 18:46 An eight-part series, three teaching components each,
• 18:52 I want to go out with a home run,
• 18:53 that's what I want to do.
• 18:56 And I want to preach the gospel in Jeremiah.
• 19:01 In chapter 33, verse 15, the Lord says that he will cause a
• 19:05 shoot of righteousness to grow up from David.
• 19:11 And in verse 16, "In those days Judah shall be saved."
• 19:18 Well, there was a root that sprung up.
• 19:23 In Isaiah, the prophet envisioned that a branch will
• 19:26 spring forth from the stump of Jesse,
• 19:30 specifically David's father, and that the Spirit of the Lord will
• 19:36 be upon this personality to bring justice and righteousness
• 19:40 in the earth.
• 19:42 And pray tell, who of David sons lived up to that?
• 19:48 None were particularly glorious but if you look at one who
• 19:52 sprung up who's known for righteousness,
• 19:55 the Lord our righteousness, could it be the one spoken of in
• 19:59 Matthew when we read in the first verse of the first
• 20:03 chapter, "This is the book of the genealogy of Jesus the
• 20:07 Messiah, the Son of David, the son of Abraham."
• 20:12 Is that who we're talking about here?
• 20:15 I think so.
• 20:19 And it says here of him, "In those days Judah will be saved."
• 20:27 Now, the Judah in Jeremiah's day was constituted by people who
• 20:35 were worthless pieces of human wreckage.
• 20:38 That's what he's been saying throughout the Book.
• 20:42 But God is gracious to overlook an offense.
• 20:49 To be sure, there's punishment for purposes of discipline,
• 20:53 but God has a plan,
• 20:56 and he watches over his Word to perform it.
• 21:01 Is it just something for Jews, however?
• 21:05 "Oh, yeah, the Jewish people.
• 21:06 Yeah, yeah, the chosen people, you know, they got it good.
• 21:09 The people of the Book."
• 21:11 Well, the last time I read the Book,
• 21:13 I heard that all people in Messiah Jesus
• 21:16 are grafted into this tree.
• 21:19 It's a big family.
• 21:21 When I look in the Bible, there's a story there,
• 21:23 and Paul is explicit that individuals of non-Jewish
• 21:26 extract are grafted into this olive tree.
• 21:32 There's different branches, Jews and non Jews together,
• 21:37 and that is the story of the church.
• 21:40 That's something new that God is doing in the world.
• 21:43 It's not just for the Jew, it's for you.
• 21:46 It's for me and you, it's for everyone.
• 21:49 And that's the gospel truth, that is,
• 21:51 to say that God so loved the world,
• 21:55 that he gave his only Son that whoever would believe in him,
• 22:01 irrespective of past sins and circumstance,
• 22:05 whoever, irrespective, would not perish,
• 22:10 but have everlasting life.
• 22:14 That's the newer testament version of the story.
• 22:17 Here in Jeremiah, he's explicit that God will raise up unto
• 22:24 David, through him, I should say,
• 22:27 this messianic deliver and through him,
• 22:31 people will be saved, all people.
• 22:36 When I look in Jeremiah's world, there' tough stories there,
• 22:39 but he sees beyond it and he knows,
• 22:43 indeed, there's hope over the horizon.
• 22:48 ♪♪♪
• 22:50 ♪♪♪
• 22:58 David: Our prayer has been that you've had a takeaway
• 23:00 from this series.
• 23:02 I know that we have.
• 23:03 All about hope, there is hope for all of us.
• 23:06 Dr. Jeffrey Seif: Yes.
• 23:08 What I endeavored to do, quite frankly,
• 23:09 is look at the Jeremiah story and see how Jeremiah's world,
• 23:13 in so many ways, it's like our own.
• 23:16 And I wanted to connect the dots to and point Jeremiah to Jesus.
• 23:20 Kirsten: Which you did. David: So well.
• 23:22 Kirsten: And I just want to say thank you for taking a book
• 23:26 that could be very difficult, has a difficult message,
• 23:29 and you made it applicable to everyone.
• 23:32 And that's your genius, and we're thankful for what we've
• 23:36 learned from you.
• 23:38 Dr. Jeffrey Seif: Well, thanks for that,
• 23:39 and I mean it sincerely.
• 23:41 But if that's all that I did, it's just history that is
• 23:44 connecting Jeremiah to Jesus.
• 23:47 What I really want to do is connect Jesus to you and in
• 23:52 talking about the hope that's available through Jesus.
• 23:56 I don't want it to be a story of yesteryear or just something
• 23:59 that percolates among people complimenting each other here
• 24:02 on a TV set.
• 24:03 I want to get it from your television set into your life
• 24:07 and heart.
• 24:08 And I really want you to know that the kind of hope that the
• 24:10 Lord made available through Jeremiah in his abysmal world,
• 24:15 that's available to you as well.
• 24:18 But it's not simply making your way to a good Bible-believing
• 24:21 congregation, and indeed, I want you to do that.
• 24:24 I want you to reach up to heaven and ask God to send his Son
• 24:27 into your world.
• 24:28 He didn't just want to come into the world in general.
• 24:31 He wants to come into yours in particular.
• 24:34 And as we know from Jeremiah and elsewhere in Scripture,
• 24:37 he's a God of hope.
• 24:39 Kirsten: He is, and chapters 30 to 33 are all about the Messiah
• 24:43 and the New Covenant.
• 24:45 And it's so beautiful that God says,
• 24:47 "This New Covenant isn't on stone.
• 24:50 It's not something right here.
• 24:52 I want to write it in your heart."
• 24:54 And there's the beauty that we can attach our lives to and say
• 24:59 he wants do something new in our hearts.
• 25:02 And that is the message of the gospel in the Bible,
• 25:05 and that is what he wants to bring to you today through this,
• 25:08 I believe, is he wants to do something new in your heart,
• 25:11 write a beautiful new story and a new covenant inside.
• 25:16 Dr. Jeffrey Seif: Isn't it great that we can push a reset
• 25:18 button, you know, and we can get a--we can get a second start.
• 25:22 You know, if being born didn't work out,
• 25:24 we can be born again.
• 25:26 David: I was thinking about my favorite Scripture that I've
• 25:29 used since I was in college, Galatians 6:9.
• 25:32 It says, "And let us never get tired of doing what is right,
• 25:35 for after a while we'll reap a harvest of blessing."
• 25:38 And I love this part that says if we don't get discouraged
• 25:41 or give up.
• 25:42 Jeremiah didn't give up.
• 25:44 He may have been discouraged a little bit,
• 25:46 but he didn't give up with his message of hope.
• 25:48 Dr. Jeffrey Seif: Yeah, there's an old Dutch expression,
• 25:50 "God doesn't promise us an easy voyage,
• 25:52 but a safe harbor at the end."
• 25:54 And speaking of end.
• 25:57 Kirsten: Of our program.
• 25:58 Dr. Jeffrey Seif: We gotta go.
• 26:00 But as you go, please shaalu shalom Yerushalayim.
• 26:04 David: Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
• 26:11 ♪♪♪
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