Tax without context is pre-tax. Let's talk about it on this edition of Keyline. That was Steve Brown, and I'm Mike Keller, the program keyline, a program without an agenda, except to see you grow in risk. Here's Steve with a Teaching Portrait. Thanks Mike, if you have your Bible open it to the book of Lamentations. If you were listening yesterday, I took some time to read some very moving and beautiful, but poetry field filled with pathos from the first chapter of the Lamentations. And this whole book is like that, because it was written to people who were absolutely devastated. And then yesterday we began what is the dull part of any book when you start looking at the Bible, and that's like who wrote it? When was it written? When was it wrote? Do you know I have a minor in English? When was it written, et cetera? And so that's the kind of dull, exegetical work you have to do with each book, because a text without a pretext, no, a text without a context is a pretext. Listen, I'm doing the best I can. So stay with me and this will get better. Yesterday I talked about who wrote the book of Lamentations. And most of you guys, especially if you're in the Bible study, well, that's a simple question. Jeremiah wrote it, of course he wrote it, and I said not so quick, that while your English Bible has the name Jeremiah in it, your English Bible primarily comes from the Septuagint, which is a Greek translation of the Old Testament. But if you go back to the Hebrew text, you will find that the name of Jeremiah is nowhere in that particular text. And I gave you some reasons and I ran through them yesterday. A lot of Bible believers believe that this is just not Jeremiah. Maybe a younger colleague or contemporary of Jeremiah, they say the attitude is different. The style is different. It really is. This is, this Lamentations is a lot more elaborate, the poetry is more intricate than anything you'll find in the book of Jeremiah. Then in favor of the Jeremiah authorship, and I gave you some of this yesterday, is the recognition that styles are different for different occasions. For instance, there's a lot of question among some scholars, and I'm not a scholar, but I don't have any questions about it. Some scholars about whether the Apostle John wrote the book of Revelation, the same John who wrote the gospel according to John, and the letters from John. And one of the things they point out is, look, that's different, man. It's different Greek. The language is different, but when you begin to realize it, the book of Revelation is dealing with a totally different subject, was written toward the end of his life. It was a man with great maturity. You ought to read the first book I ever wrote. It was called Where The Action Is, and it was written during the God Is Dead movement, and Revel published it. And it's awful. Well, actually one's a bad. I got an award for being one of the significant books of that year, and I told everybody that I was going to be a famous Christian author. I think two people bought it. My mother and my brother wouldn't have bought it, except I knew some dirt on him and made it by it. But if you got, I'm not a great writer now, but if you compare my writing today with my writing in that first book, when I was a young pastor years ago, there is a significant difference in style. And so a lot of times when so-called scholars bring up a difference in style, it's a red airing. So I would suggest that that's not that important in this. And there's an early reference, and I mentioned this yesterday in the Talmud to the authorship of lamentations, and it specifically refers to Jeremiah. And when you see the sensitivity that Jeremiah the prophet has to the sorrow and the pain and the rebellion and the sin of God's people, this is a guy with a pastor's heart. And if you read lamentations and you read Jeremiah, you think it may not be the same guy, but it's the same heart. And then Jeremiah was living at the time of the fall of Jerusalem. We know that for a fact. And the book of lamentations has all of the earmarks of somebody who watched it, who had seen it, one who was ripped apart when they saw the herd of God's people. And so in a very simplified version, those are some of the facts that scholars deal with. Sincere, Bible believers really can take both sides of that issue. If the book of Jeremiah is not, if the name Jeremiah is not in the text, then you don't have to say the Jeremiah right. But put aside everything I just told you. And I ended the broadcast by saying yesterday I'm going to give you the truth. Jeremiah is a very close friend of mine. Trust me on this, he wrote it. That is not, that dog's not going to hunt at a graduate school of theology, but nevertheless. I'm right, they're wrong. The next question is this, when was it written? Well, it was written very close to the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC. Now, we saw earlier, the writer was there and he saw it, and his heart was just broken over what he saw. This book shows a man who couldn't sleep because every time he closed his eyes, he saw Bahara and the starvation and the pillage of the beloved city of Jerusalem. And I would suggest that if you're going to put a date on when the book of Jeremiah was written, that would be the date, 536 BC, or shortly thereafter. Now, let me show you some interesting characteristics of the book of limitations. And this is not going to help you in being more obedient or living a more Christ-like life or having a deeper prayer life, but you can show off and be self-righteous with it. If you take this information, just some interesting side lights. In Hebrew, the title of the book is taken from the first word of chapters 1, 2, and 4. And the Hebrew word means literally, you say, what? That's what the word means. How, or at last, or something like that? Now, our English title limitations comes from the Greek word for lament or to cry aloud. Most of the book of limitations is in the form of an acrostic. There are five points of lament, five great points of sadness and pathos. The first four are in a acrostic form in the sense that they start with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet and follow that throughout each verse, taking the next letter of the alphabet. Now, that's not true of the last chapter. And I don't know why. There are those who suggest that the last chapter may have been written that way and that in the translation of the text, we've lost that across it. Hey, wake up. Don't you go to sleep on me. This is important stuff. First four chapters are four dirges, if you will. And the fifth is more a prayer point. Now, the book of lamentations is read, by the way, at the commemoration of the burning of the temple by Titus in 78. And that was later, but it's used in that ritual. When it's read on that occasion, this is interesting to verses 21 and 22 are reversed. You don't have time to get that in the fifth chapter. Restore us to the O Lord that we may be restored, renew our days as a bold and less thou hast utterly rejected us and are exceedingly angry with us. Well, those are reversed in the ritual so that the ritual itself will end on an upbeat instead of a downbeat. We saw that the time of Jeremiah and we talked about this before were three great powers. Let me just tell you a little bit about them because when you see the way these play, it puts into context what's happening in the book of of lamentations. We saw that Egypt had been the big kid on the block. 4,300 years before the birth of Christ, the Egyptian peoples formed two states. You were upper and lower Egypt. Now, upper in the Nile Valley and lower in the lower valley and the Delta. Now, historically, with some exceptions, these two peoples formed one nation and they were ruled by 26 great dynasties. Increasingly Egypt on once great nation could not stand against the armies and the cultures of the Babylonians and the Persians and finally the Greeks. In 663 and 525 BC, they tried to once again bully their way to be the big guy on the block but it didn't work and they ended as a great military power in the world. Now, another great power going on at this time was a Syria for some 200 years prior to the ministry of Jeremiah and the book of lamentations of Syria had been the dominant power in the world. In 722 BC, Sargon, the second, the King of the Syria conquered Samaria. 701 BC is Syria attacked Judah in the person of Sinacarib Sargon's son and for a time instituted the fear of God in the southern kingdom, scared him to death. Now, I want to tell you about one more power because there's a lot of confusion about this. Let me do this quickly. During the time of Jeremiah Babylon was the world's greatest power. While for a brief time Egypt made an effort to achieve that place, they failed. By large you won't believe this as we study a number of the prophets and we'll do that later on. Babylonia was a great contrast to a Syria. Babylonia was by and large, not militaristic. It was even called the city of pleasure. In other words, they were lovers and not fighters. So now you got the information tomorrow we'll get into the text and really dig in and get some stuff that we can use for our daily lives. But someday you'll thank me for this. You think about that? I'm in. Hey, we'll get into the text tomorrow. Hey, do you have our summer magazine? You don't. You ought to write for it. There's some good stuff in here. There's a piece by Brian Chapel at the Covenant Seminary called The Power of Joy. And I wrote a piece called The Law, God's Gateway to Freedom. There's a question and answer column. Pretty pictures. A lot of great resources to get you and those you love home with freedom and joy and faithfulness to Christ as you're counting achievements. Absolutely free. Give us a call 1-800-key-life. You can do that 24 hours a day. A write-key-life. Post office box 5,000, maintenance Florida, 3-2-7-9-4. I've only said that a thousand times. And then key-life Canada. Post office box 3-2-1-5-0. Cambridge, Ontario, in 3-H-5-3. You can email us at Steve at key-life.org. And as I said, the magazine is free, but if you could help us financially, I promise that we'll be faithful with every gift that you see. We squeeze every time for the benefit of God's glory and the blessing of God's people. If you can help us, you can charge our Master Guard, Visa Discover Guard, including in your envelope for any contribution of any size. When you request it, I'll send you the cassette teaching, the five aspects of God's love. Listen, I gotta go. 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