Jeremiah 31-Lamentations

And our first lesson is called Greater Than the Exodus from Jeremiah 16 and verse 31.

The truth that we're aiming for here, the Lord is gathering His people to Himself, and we can take a meaningful part by helping even just one person come closer to Christ.

And here's a thought that gives me a fire in the bones for teaching this lesson.

The gathering of Israel can sound so enormous that people sometimes wonder where they fit into that picture.

They hear about missionaries, temples, nations, and then they look at their own opportunities and think, "What could I possibly contribute?" Jeremiah lets us see both the size of the work and the care within it.

This lesson can help your students to see that their efforts can make a difference in this great work.

It matters.

There is somebody out there that they can help.

What should the teacher know? One of the things that I love about Jeremiah is that even with all the warnings and the rebukes, there are some really wonderful promises, uh, from God of, of what He can do for his people here.

Yes, they were gonna be scattered.

Jerusalem would fall.

But that wasn't gonna be the end of the story.

All throughout this book, the Lord makes promises that He would, once again, gather His people together in the future.

All throughout the Old Testament, when the Lord's people spoke about the power and the nature of their God, when they talked about Jehovah, when they wished to point to an example of His power, His sovereignty, there was a specific event, a miracle that they always pointed to: the Exodus.

They worshiped the God of the Exodus, the God that was able to free them from Egypt, direct them through the wilderness, part the Red Sea for them, and lead them to their promised land.

No other miracle since then in the Bible, in their minds, compared to that miraculous display of their God's strength.

But Jeremiah says something really interesting in chapter 16, verses 14 and 15.

"Therefore behold the days come," sayeth the Lord, "that it shall no more be said, 'The Lord liveth that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt,' but, 'The Lord liveth that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands whither He had driven them,' and I will bring them again into their land that I gave unto their fathers." Now, that's saying something.

He's saying that in the future there will be an even greater, more impressive event that will eclipse, in magnitude, the Exodus.

That event? The gathering of Israel, the restoration of God's people to their promised land.

That was going to be even more impressive.

It's gonna be so amazing that people aren't gonna go around saying, "The Lord liveth that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt," but, "The Lord of the gathering liveth." Now, there's something important to understand here.

This prophecy has multiple fulfillments, like most Old Testament prophecies.

Uh, w- what gathering is Jeremiah referring to when, when he talks about this? Well, there, there's multiple, multiple interpretations.

He could be talking about the ancient return of the Jews to the city of Jerusalem.