Bible Recap Week 32

As we journey through 2 Kings 2 Chronicles, Nahum, Zephaniah and Jeremiah, we're confronted with some of the Bible's most difficult passages. God's judgment is unmistakable, nations are falling, kings are failing, and prophets are calling people back to repentance. It can leave us wondering: Do we really know the heart of God?

In this episode, Pastor Julie and Kayla explore what these chapters reveal about God's character. Is His judgment at odds with His love? Why does He allow consequences? What can we learn from the revivals of Hezekiah and Josiah, the warnings of Nahum, Zephaniah, and Jeremiah, and the repeated invitation for God's people to return to Him?

Together, they unpack the historical context, highlight key themes, and point to the consistent heartbeat of God throughout Scripture; a God who is holy, just, patient, compassionate, and always pursuing a relationship with His people. If you've ever struggled to reconcile the God of the Old Testament with the God revealed in Jesus, this conversation will help you see that His heart has never changed.

Join us as we discover that even in passages filled with warnings and judgment, God's desire has always been restoration.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey everyone, and welcome to the Waterfall Bible Weekend Podcast. This podcast is one of the tools that we're using this year as we need to read through the Bible together. It's a chance for us to think about what we do. What's the idea? What's confusing? What might you be saying to us along the way? What is it that we are focused on in the week? What if we need to say about this? So you can live like Jesus. Love like Jesus. I I love spending time in the work with you like this. So let's get started.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Water's Edge Bible Recap Podcast. I'm Julie.

SPEAKER_02 1:21

And I'm Kayla, and we're so glad you're joining us again this week as we continue reading through the Bible together.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Every week before we record, Kayla and I ask ourselves one question. Out of everything that we read this week, what's one thing that we just couldn't stop thinking about? And once again, this week had several ideas.

SPEAKER_02 1:41

Yeah, we really did. We talked about Hezekiah, Josiah, Jeremiah, Nahum, Zephaniah. There was so much packed into all of this week's readings, but as we kept talking, we realized all of these books were pointing us towards one bigger question.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Yes. Who is God really? Because if someone only read parts of the Old Testament, they might come away thinking that God is always angry, right? That He's always judging and always correcting. But the more we read, the more we realize something. The prophets weren't trying to hide God's heart, they were actually revealing it.

SPEAKER_02 2:18

Yeah, that's actually where Jeremiah grabbed me. We know him as the weeping prophet. And I started asking myself, why? Why is Jeremiah always crying? Was it because people were rejecting him? Was it because his ministry was difficult? Or was there something much deeper?

SPEAKER_01 2:35

Yeah, I wondered that too. And the more that I continued to read, the more I realized that Jeremiah wasn't crying because life was hard. And I mean it definitely was for them, but he was grieving because God's people kept walking away from the God who loved them. His heart was beginning to reflect God's heart. And I had to stop and ask myself, what makes me weep?

SPEAKER_02 2:58

Oof, that question stayed with me too. Because if we're becoming more like Jesus, shouldn't our hearts begin to break over the things that break his? I mean, it's like that song we sing, Lord, break our hearts for what breaks yours. And sometimes I think we get emotional over things that in the grand scheme of eternity won't really matter much. But Jeremiah Jeremiah wept because people were missing the God who loved them.

SPEAKER_01 3:25

Exactly. And I don't know about you, but I want my heart to become more like that. I don't want it to be hard, I don't want to be angry, but I want it to be broken in the right places. So let's jump back a little bit to the reading from Kings and Chronicles when we read about Hezekiah. His story surprised me because here's a king who trusted God. It tells us he did really well in the beginning of his reign, right? He prayed, he watched God perform incredible miracles, then God graciously gives him 15 more years to live. And somewhere after that, his heart becomes, it starts to drift away, it becomes prideful.

SPEAKER_02 4:09

Yeah, that challenged me too because we tend to think our biggest spiritual danger is when our life is falling apart. But Hezekiah's struggle came after God had blessed him, and sometimes success can become just as dangerous as the suffering.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

It's my thoughts exactly. Sometimes it's easier to depend on God when we know that we need him, but then when life is going really well, when prayers are being answered and things are comfortable, that's when pride can quietly slip in. And pride is so sneaky. It doesn't usually announce itself, right? It just slowly shifts our focus away from God onto ourselves.

SPEAKER_02 4:48

Yeah, Julie, do you think Hezekiah realized it was happening, or do you think it was more of a slow drift?

SPEAKER_01 4:56

I think it was a drift. Very few people wake up in the morning and decide, hey, I'm gonna stop depending on God today. It usually happens little by little, right? One decision, then we make another bad decision, then another, until one day we just hopefully one day we realize that our confidence isn't where it used to be.

SPEAKER_02 5:16

Yeah, that word drift has been in my mind all week because that's exactly what happened to Israel over and over again. They didn't abandon God overnight, they slowly just drifted because they had stopped listening. So then we read about Josiah, and what I love is that his story almost goes in the opposite direction. Instead of drifting away, you see him running towards God.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Yes. And what starts that change? It was God's word, right? The book of the law was found, he hears it, and his heart breaks. He tears his clothes, not because he got caught, but because he realized how far they had wandered away from God.

SPEAKER_02 5:59

Yeah, I love that his first response wasn't, oh my gosh, how do I fix this? It was humility. He let God's word examine his heart before he tried to change everyone else's.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

Yes, that's such a good observation. I I tend to fix, I want to fix things right away. Um, but sometimes we want scripture to change the people around us, and Josiah allowed it to change him first. And I think that's why God used him so powerfully.

SPEAKER_02 6:27

Yeah. You know what's really interesting is Hezekiah and Josiah were actually both kings. They both loved God, they both experienced his blessing, yet one slowly drifted and one kept turning back toward him. And that really made me think, what's the difference here?

SPEAKER_01 6:46

Yeah, I think the difference is exactly where Jeremiah is going to take us, right? One heart slowly became proud, the other stayed soft before God. And as we get into Jeremiah, that's really what God keeps calling his people back to. Not outward religion or empty rituals, which they were doing, but a heart that's fully his.

SPEAKER_02 7:08

Okay, so let's jump into Jeremiah. One thing I had almost forgotten until this week is that Jeremiah was actually really young when God called him. And his first response wasn't, great, let's do this. Here I am. It was, I don't know how to speak, I'm too young. And I think that's encouraging because I know a lot of people feel like God can't use them because they don't feel qualified. Um, and I mean, me personally, I have those same thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

Yeah, I've had those too quite often, and I love that. God didn't say, You're right, you're too young. He said, Don't say, I'm too young. And then he reminds Jeremiah. He says, I'll be with you. It's never been about Jeremiah's ability, it's not about our ability, it's about God's presence, and honestly, I think that is true for all of us. Yeah. One phrase that I highlighted this week was in chapter four. God tells his people to be circumcised in heart, and that's such an interesting picture.

SPEAKER_02 8:13

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up because I wanted to understand what that meant. So I actually dug into that a little bit. And circumcision of the heart is really a picture of wholehearted commitment to the Lord. God wasn't asking them for another outward religious act, he was just asking for their hearts that were completely surrendered and belonged to him.

SPEAKER_01 8:37

Yes, exactly. And that's something we keep seeing over and over again. People were saying all the right things, right? They were offering sacrifices, they were keeping the traditions, um, but their hearts were far from God. They had wandered, and God has always, always cared about the heart first, right?

SPEAKER_02 8:57

So that actually became one of the biggest themes I noticed this week, too, was people were saying all the right things, but they were living completely different lives. And they looked religious, but they weren't listening to God anymore. Um, they became stubborn, they refused to hear or make corrections, and Jeremiah keeps describing them as people who simply wouldn't turn back.

SPEAKER_01 9:18

That hit me too. It's so easy to read and think that how could Israel keep doing this, right? We see them again and again. They keep turning their backs on God, but then I realized how often do we do the same thing? We're not maybe making golden calves, but our priorities, right? Our time and our trust. Again and again, scripture shows God's people drifting away. And it hasn't changed today. We still can drift. Um, but God keeps calling them home.

SPEAKER_02 9:49

Yeah, one of the saddest parts for me was reading about the false prophets, actually. They just kept saying, peace, everything's fine, don't worry.

SPEAKER_01 9:57

But Jeremiah says there wasn't peace. Yeah, that feels incredibly relevant today. Not because God is calling us to live in fear, but because there's always a temptation to listen to voices that tell us exactly what we want to hear instead of what we need to hear.

SPEAKER_02 10:14

Oh, that's good. I think that's an important distinction. The problem wasn't that God was being harsh, the problem was that people preferred comfortable messages over the truthful ones.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

And one thing this reminded me of is how important it is for us to know God's word for ourselves, right? Healthy pastors and teachers, ministry leaders should always point people back to scripture, not themselves. That's one of the reasons that we do this podcast. It's not to replace someone's time in God's word, but we want to come alongside you as we all keep growing together. The more familiar we become with God's voice, the easier it becomes to recognize when something doesn't line up with his truth.

SPEAKER_02 10:58

Right. And I love that because it takes the pressure off trying to figure out who to trust, right? Instead, the invitation is know Jesus, know his word, stay close to him. The better you know the genuine article, the easier it is to recognize when something isn't. Um, okay. Can I ask you one more thing? Because this is what stayed with me all week. Why do you think Jeremiah cried so much?

SPEAKER_01 11:29

I don't think Jeremiah was just emotional. Um, I think his heart had become aligned with God's heart. He wasn't standing outside Jerusalem saying, I hope you get what's coming. He was pleading with them, right? Warning them, begging them to come back. He loved them enough to tell them the truth. And that challenged me because truth without love becomes harsh. But love without truth isn't really love. And Jeremiah had both.

SPEAKER_02 12:02

There was another part I couldn't stop thinking about. Um, Jeremiah described what's coming with such vivid detail, and reading it was hard, and I found myself wondering what it must have been like for Jeremiah to actually see those images in his mind, or for the people to hear those warnings.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

Yeah, I can't imagine. I think it's another reminder that judgment was never something that Jeremiah enjoyed preaching. He wasn't excited about it. His warnings were coming from a broken heart because he knew where sin was leading. One sentence that I wrote down in my Bible this week was sin is a thief. It promises freedom, but it steals our joy. It steals peace and relationships, it steals trust, and ultimately it steals life. And that's exactly what Jeremiah is trying to help people see. God isn't trying to ruin their lives, he's trying to rescue them before sin destroys everything.

SPEAKER_02 13:02

That's such a different way to think about judgment. Um, sometimes we picture God punishing people because he's angry, but when you really step back, he's warning them because he loves them and he sees where the road leads.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

Yeah. Can I share something that really struck me this week? Well, something else. I've been reading through the Gospel of John alongside our Old Testament reading, and I found myself thinking, if all I had were the prophets, would I misunderstand God's heart? And then I remembered something beautiful. Throughout the Old Testament, God faithfully revealed himself through his covenant, his mighty acts, his law, and obviously the prophets. But in Jesus, we received the fullest and clearest revelation of who God is. Jesus didn't come to change God's heart, but he comes to reveal it.

SPEAKER_02 13:53

That's so good. I love that because when we read Jeremiah through the lens of Jesus, we realize they're not telling two different stories. The prophets, the prophets weren't revealing a different God than Jesus. They were just preparing people to recognize him. And suddenly God's patience, his mercy, his justice, and his love all made so much more sense.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

Exactly. When we want to know what God is like, we look at Jesus. He is the perfect picture of the Father's heart.

SPEAKER_02 14:25

All right, let's jump to Nahum for a minute. Because at first I honestly struggled with it. After reading Jonah a couple weeks ago, I kept thinking, wait, didn't Nineveh already repent?

SPEAKER_01 14:37

Yes, they had. That doesn't carry us either. Each one of us has to respond to him ourselves.

SPEAKER_02 15:11

Yeah, that that stood out to me. Sometimes we hear that God is patient and he absolutely is, but his patience isn't permission to keep walking away from him. His patience is an invitation to come back.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

Yeah, that's beautifully said. God's desire has always been repentance before judgment. We see that over and over again throughout scripture. And then we get to Zephaniah. And honestly, this book starts pretty heavy. There is a lot of judgment, a lot of warnings, but then when you keep reading, you discover something beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 15:46

Yes, I highlighted the end of chapter three. I think it's one of my favorite passages that we read this week. It says, The Lord your God is with you. He will rejoice over you with gladness, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing. And can we just stop there for a second? Because this picture of God singing over his people, I don't think I'd ever really slowed down to imagine that before.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

Neither had I. And isn't that amazing? After all the warnings and all the correction, right? All those calls to repentance, that's how Zephaniah ends. Not with God's anger, but with joy. And that tells me something about God's heart. God doesn't delight in judgment, he delights in restoring his people, and we are his people.

SPEAKER_02 16:34

You know, as we've been talking through this week, I I keep noticing something, and it's that every book feels different, but yet every book keeps pointing us back to the same God.

SPEAKER_01 16:45

Yeah, it does. Hezekiah reminds us how easy it is to drift, right? Josiah reminded us what humility looks like. Um, Jeremiah shows us God's grieving heart. Nahum reminds us that God is patient, but also just, and Zephaniah reminds us that God's desire is restoration. So different books, same God.

SPEAKER_02 17:09

I think that's part of the reason why your thought about John's gospel is staying with me because sometimes people read the Old Testament and think, oh, God seems so different, but he's not.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

Yeah, he's really not. Jesus didn't come to introduce a new God, he came to reveal the Father more fully. And when we read the prophets through the lens of Jesus, we don't see two different stories. We see one story, one God, and one rescue plan. Um, so all the way from Genesis straight through to Revelation, one story.

SPEAKER_02 17:45

So maybe here's the question we've been asking ourselves all week: what breaks God's heart? It's not that he enjoys correcting his people, his heart breaks when the people he loves turn and walk away from him.

SPEAKER_01 17:59

Yeah. And that makes me ask another question: What breaks my heart? Am I more moved by what's happening in my life and politics or social media than I am by people who don't know Jesus? Jeremiah's heart was broken because God's heart was broken. And I want my heart to look more like that.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

Let's let's make that our challenge this week. Don't don't just ask what did I learn, but let's let's ask, what am I learning about God? Or what did I learn about God? Because that's really what the prophets were trying to show us.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

Yeah. And one more question to add to this week. Where has your heart started to drift? Maybe it's pride, like Hezekiah, right? Maybe you've become comfortable or you've been saying all the right things while your heart feels pretty far from God. But the beautiful thing is that God is still calling his people back. That has been his heart from the very beginning. So from Genesis through the prophets through Jesus, and it is still his heart today.

SPEAKER_02 19:10

That's good. Well, that's all we have time for today. Thanks so much for joining us for another episode of the Water's Edge Bible Recap Podcast. I really hope that these conversations help you not only understand scripture, but truly fall more deeply in love with the God who wrote it.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

Yeah. And again, if you're behind in your reading, don't quit. Just open your Bibles up today. Start where you are. God isn't waiting for perfect progress, but He is inviting each one of you into relationship. So thanks for spending this time with us. Keep reading, keep growing, and keep looking for Jesus on every single page. We'll see you next week.

SPEAKER_00 19:49

Thanks so much for listening to the Water's Edge Bible recap. I look forward every week to walking in the Word with you. You can find more information about Water's Edge Church at www.watersedge.faith. And you can listen to our weekly message on any platform under the Water's Edge website or by downloading the Water's Edge app.