After the death of Josiah, the people returned to their pagan ways. Therefore, God had allowed Egypt to subdue them. Soon, Egypt was conquered by the great empire of Babylon which meant that soon all of Judah would be under Babylon’s control. Jerusalem had not yet been captured and Jeremiah and other prophets continually warned Judah of impending doom if they did not repent. The people refused to listen. Since God’s temple was in Jerusalem they felt God would not allow the beloved city to be destroyed. Just as Jeremiah warned, God had enough of Judah’s evil practices. He knew that it was time to teach His rebellious people a hard lesson.
Discuss:
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Who was King of Judah when the city of Jerusalem was captured by the Babylonians? What did the Babylonians do to him?
What did King Nebuchadnezzar do with Jeremiah when Jerusalem was captured? What did God say He would do for Ebed-Melech? Why do you think God protected Jeremiah and Ebed-Melech from being killed by the Babylonians?
Judah was taken in stages. Who was taken In the first wave of captives? Who was left behind to stay in the land? What did Nebuchadnezzar do to the temple?
What scheme did the remaining people in Judah present to Jeremiah in order to ask his advice? Did they listen to Jeremiah’s advice? What did the group of people end up doing?
What happened to the remnant of Israelites who went to Egypt? Does the Bible indicate what happened to Jeremiah? In what other places in the Bible can you read about the fall of Jerusalem and the captivity of Judah?
Memory Challenge:
Jeremiah 40:3
Now the Lord has brought it, and has done just as He said. Because you people have sinned against the Lord, and not obeyed His voice, therefore this thing has come upon you.
The spies that Joshua sent returned safely from Jericho with important information that Joshua needed to attack the city. However, before the Israelites could capture the city they had to make it past the first big obstacle—the Jordan River. The river flowed from the north in Galilee to the Dead Sea and at the time was a broad, wide river, filling its banks to the brim. How was Joshua supposed to get all the people safely across to the other side? Joshua trusted that God had a plan. The Ark of the Covenant would be carried down to the river and the people were to follow after it. But, how would they get across? God was about to perform another miracle before His people, this time intending to remind the people that Joshua had been chosen as Israel’s leader after Moses.
Discuss:
Richard Gunther (www.richardgunther.org) | FreeBibleImages.org
The Israelites had been camping for three days near the Jordan River. How were the people supposed to know that it was time for them to move?
What is the Ark of the Covenant? What did it represent? Why do you think God wanted the Ark to lead the people?
What miracle did God perform to help the people cross the Jordan River? How was it similar to or different from the crossing of the Red Sea?
Why did the twelve tribes set up memorial stones after crossing the river? Where did the stones come from? What did they mean?
Memory Challenge:
Joshua 3:5-6
And Joshua said to the people, “Sanctify yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.” Then Joshua spoke to the priests, saying, “Take up the ark of the covenant and cross over before the people.” So they took up the ark of the covenant and went before the people.
Saul knew that God had rejected him from being king and that David was eventually going to be king instead of him. After God helped David defeat Goliath, King Saul was grateful and proud of David and brought him to live with him and his family. David soon became the best of friends with Jonathan, Saul’s son, and the people treated him as a hero. However, Saul began to get extremely jealous of David because of all the attention the people were giving him. Even though David was becoming like part of his family, King Saul began to plot in his heart to destroy David.
Discuss:
Richard Gunther (www.richardgunther.org) | FreeBibleImages.org
David had developed a relationship with God at a very young age (Psalms 71:5) What does it mean to have a relationship with God? How can someone your age begin to seek a relationship with God?
What does the scripture mean when it says, “the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David”? Do you have any close friends? Why is it important to have good friends?
What was the message of the song that the people were singing about David and Saul? How did Saul respond when he heard it?
Saul sent David on dangerous missions. When God gave David victories the people loved David even more. What was Saul’s reaction to David’s successes?
Whom did Saul allow David to marry? Do you think Saul was happy about this marriage?
Saul made it clear to Jonathan that he intended to kill David. What did Jonathan do about it?
Memory Challenge:
1 Samuel 18:14
And David behaved wisely in all his ways, and the Lord was with him.
Author: Thomas White | Editorial Department, Living Church of God
“My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect [mature] and complete, lacking nothing.” – James 1:2-4
We can memorize the verses. We can recite them to ourselves. We can thank God as we look back and recognize how past struggles and losses have benefitted our spiritual growth. But whatever we do, whatever we know, it’s still really, really hard to make ourselves feel truly okay with the fact that as long as we’re human, we’re vulnerable—we can, and will, be hurt.
Mr. Gaylyn Bonjour gave the most recent Living Education assembly, and one of the many biblical truths he addressed was that in order for us to develop the spiritual fruit of longsuffering, we have to suffer for a long time. That, in a nutshell, is what James is saying up there: We can’t achieve holy, righteous character without suffering.
Paid in Character
Dr. Jordan Peterson has talked about how when we work, we’re essentially “sacrificing the present for the future.” We might not feel like working at present, but we know that if we work, we’ll get paid, and if we keep working and keep getting paid, the future will be better, because we’ll be able to buy… you know, food, among other things. Work usually feels pretty tolerable, because we know it’s for something, we know it’s building a better future. As the modern proverb goes, “Ya’ don’t work, ya’ don’t eat.”
Suffering also works that way, in a sense. When we go through a difficult time, or suffer from a loss, God is actually paying us for it in the character He’s growing in us through it. Our hurt and our struggles are “sacrificing the present for the future,” because the character we’re building allows us to show compassion, our struggles make it possible for us to develop empathy. If we don’t work, we don’t eat, and if we don’t suffer, we don’t love.
Saving for a Sunny Day
Now, people sometimes corrupt that truth by saying, “We can only achieve righteous character through suffering,” and that’s on a level of sheer bogus akin to “You should feel guilty if your life is currently pleasant.” Nonsense—if we were paid for our work, but never stopped working long enough to do anything with what we were paid, our work would be pointless, right? Likewise, God knows that if we only suffer, the character we build during all those trials isn’t really going to benefit anybody, because we’ll be too busy dealing with the trials to share it.
So He sends good times our way, too, and during those times, when life actually seems to be going pretty well, He does something extraordinary—He pays us for spending our paycheck. The catch, though, is that we have to spend it on someone other than ourselves. If we use the character we’ve been building through our trials to help others make it through trials of their own, we, in turn, build even more character—and help them to build it, too.
We shouldn’t go looking for new and exciting ways to suffer so that we can build more character—James says that we fall into various trials, not jump into them. But as we struggle, as we go through times of hurt and continue making deposits into our character account, we can be encouraged by the knowledge that we’re sacrificing a tiny, forgettable present for an eternal, beautiful future.
Thomas White was one of the onsite Living Education students for the 2018-2019 semesters. He also has a Bachelor’s Degree in English. Thomas currently works as an Editorial Assistant for the Living Church of God. According to his wife, he eats pizza in entirely the wrong way.
https://www.lcgeducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/kelly-sikkema-XX2WTbLr3r8-unsplash.jpg10001500Jonathan McNairhttps://www.lcgeducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/logo_basic-website-300x94.pngJonathan McNair2020-02-10 14:53:442021-09-03 13:37:11Second Thoughts: Paid in Character
Author: Thomas White | Editorial Department, Living Church of God
For the most recent Living Education assembly, we watched a video about Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong, and if you’ve been a part of the Church of God for any significant amount of time, you’ve heard his name.
He’s been talked about in sermons, sermonettes, publications, telecasts—he can seem more familiar than certain contributors to the Bible.
Because Someone Guided You
In Acts 8, when Philip asks the Ethiopian if he understands
the scripture he’s reading, his candid reply is, “How can I, unless someone
guides me?” That one sentence reveals that even if God is calling us, we can’t
come to a deep understanding of His truth just by reading the Bible. We need
help. We need teachers, like the Ethiopian needed Philip.
I’m sure that’s not a surprise to you. Everyone in the Church can think of someone who served as their mentor in the things of God. We’ll always feel a deep connection to those people—God used them to either shape our lives or change our lives. Whoever comes to your mind as the person who taught you how to obey God, that person is your Philip, and you’ll never forget your Philip.
But you don’t just have one Philip. Actually, there’s a Philip you and I share—one that every single member of God’s modern Church shares, in fact. In an attempt to make that resonate a little more profoundly, let’s quickly play a game I just made up, which I’m going to go ahead and call…
Who taught me the truth of God? That would be my mom, in the most fundamental sense. Okay, so, who taught her? Her dad, my grandpa. Who taught him? Well, originally, Mr. Garner Ted Armstrong, who my grandpa heard preaching the Gospel on the radio when my mom was a tiny kid. And who taught Garner Ted Armstrong the things of God? His parents—one of whom was, of course, Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong. So, between me and Mr. Armstrong, there are really only four degrees of separation.
Your turn.
Maybe you didn’t grow up in the Church. Maybe you’re here because you saw a telecast, or read a magazine article, or befriended a Church member. But whoever introduced you to the truth of God, the right way of reading His word, I can almost guarantee you that there aren’t more than six degrees of separation between you and Mr. Armstrong—because many were his students.
So yeah—people still talk about him, and will continue to talk about him, because you never forget your Philip. And however any of us came into God’s Church, Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong is our Philip by no more than six degrees.
Thomas White was one of the onsite Living Education students for the 2018-2019 semesters. He also has a Bachelor’s Degree in English. Thomas currently works as an Editorial Assistant for the Living Church of God. According to his wife, he eats pizza in entirely the wrong way.
https://www.lcgeducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/armstrong-fair-use-1986.png8181282Jonathan McNairhttps://www.lcgeducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/logo_basic-website-300x94.pngJonathan McNair2020-02-05 09:28:392021-09-03 13:35:07Second Thoughts: Our Philip
King Josiah had worked hard to get Judah back on track to serve and worship the Eternal, but God knew that soon the people would be right back into their old ways of worshiping idols and practicing evil. He needed to send another messenger to warn the people that if they didn’t fully turn to Him they would soon go into captivity like the Kingdom of Israel did. God had picked out a particular young lad named Jeremiah. One day, God came to tell Jeremiah of the plans He had for his life. At first, Jeremiah was nervous and felt like he was too young for the job, but God assured him that He would help him – and He certainly did!
Discuss:
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What was Jeremiah’s biggest concern about being a prophet? What was God’s answer to Jeremiah’s concerns?
Josiah and Jeremiah were both very young men when they began to serve God. What kinds of lessons can we learn from their examples?
Which of God’s commands did King Zedekiah disobey when he made a covenant with the people in Jerusalem? Why was God angry with Zedekiah?
What did the princes do to Jeremiah for warning the people that Jerusalem would be captured (Jeremiah 38)? Who rescued him?
What compassionate act did Ebed-Melech do when he went to pull Jeremiah out of the pit? What can we learn from the story of Ebed-Melech?
Where was Jeremiah when the city of Jerusalem was captured?
Memory Challenge:
Jeremiah 1:7-8
But the Lord said to me: “Do not say, ‘I am a youth,’ for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and whatever I command you, you will speak. Do not be afraid of their faces, For I am with you to deliver you,” says the Lord.
Joshua was preparing to lead the Israelites into the land God promised them. He knew it wasn’t going to be an easy task, and there would be obstacles along the way. There were two big obstacles right from the beginning—the Jordan River and the great, walled city of Jericho. In order to cross over the river and take the city, Joshua would need a plan. So, he selected two men to be spies to go look around the city and bring important information about it back to him. The spies went into the city and found a place to stay in the house of a woman named Rahab. Unfortunately, someone had seen the spies and suspected what they were up to. The two men were in great danger, and Rahab had a risky decision to make.
Discuss:
Richard Gunther (www.lambsongs.co.nz) | FreeBibleImages.org
Why did Joshua send spies into the city of Jericho? Why was it important that they go secretly?
What did Rahab tell the men who came to capture the two spies?
Where did Rahab hide the spies? Why was it dangerous for her to do this?
Why did Rahab want to help Joshua’s spies? What was her request to them?
It would have taken Rahab a lot of courage to do what she did in hiding the spies and requesting that they allow her and her family to be unharmed in the upcoming battle. What does it mean to have courage? As Christians, how can we gain courage?
Memory Challenge:
Joshua 2:11
“And as soon as we heard these things, our hearts melted; neither did there remain any more courage in anyone because of you, for the Lord your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath.”
David had been anointed king of Israel, but he was still just a young shepherd. Though King Saul invited David to his court to be his armorbearer and to play the harp, to his family, he was still just the youngest brother who cared for the sheep. Now, around this time, the Philistines came to fight against the Israelites in a battle. The Philistines brought out their champion warrior and wanted to make a deal. When the Israelites saw that the Philistine warrior was a giant, they were very scared and ran to hide! Even King Saul hid in his tent. When David saw the situation, he knew someone had to do something about it – and that something could only be done with God’s help.
Discuss:
Richard Gunther (www.richardgunther.org) | FreeBibleImages.org
What was the deal the Philistines wanted to make with the Israelites in the battle? Why did no one want to take up the challenge?
How tall was Goliath?
Why didn’t David take Saul’s armor? What things had David done to protect his sheep that let him know God would be with him?
What was Goliath doing every day? Why do you think David was so upset by the things he heard Goliath saying?
What do you think David was thinking about when he went out to fight Goliath? Do you think he was afraid? What should we do when we are feeling afraid?
What did David take with him to defeat Goliath? After Goliath was dead, what did the armies of Israel do?
Memory Challenge:
1 Samuel 17:47
“Then all this assembly shall know that the Lord does not save with sword and spear; for the battle is the Lord’s, and He will give you into our hands.”
