Joel, but very important on this edition of KeeLite. This is KeeLite, getting you home with freedom, joy, and faithfulness. And here's Steve Brown with God's roadmap, the Bible. Here's Steve Brown with the Teaching Report today. Thanks, Mike. Hope you had a great weekend, and I hope your time at your church was as beneficial for you as it was for me. I hope you're past your sermon. Minister to you in the same way my past your sermons ministered to me. If you have your Bible open into the book of limitations for those of you who are just joining us, we're in the midst of a rather long old Testament survey. We started this back right after the flood and Noah, and we'll probably continue with it until Jesus returns, and we're up to the book of limitations. We're doing this for a number of reasons. Most Christians carry around a New Testament and think it's the Bible. It's really not. It's just a part of the Bible, and there's so much really good stuff in the Older Testament. And so I decided, now we can't do, because I'm an old guy cramming for finals. So I don't have time to do a verse by verse, line up online, precept up on precept, study of the Old Testament. I mean, that would take 30 years, but so what I'm doing is stopping at each of the Old Testament books, telling you a little bit about the books, giving you some major things. And then what we do is that I become a tour director and go through the book and point out some specific passages that really mean a lot. As I said, we're up to the book of limitations, and we're going to start our study in for a week or two, or two. We're going to reside in the book of limitations. Before we study the book, let's go before the throne. Father, we're glad that we belong to you. Father, we think of the other masters. We've had the masters of sin, the masters of meaninglessness, the masters of greed. We think of other places we've been and other things that we've done. And then you found us and we came home. And father, we're glad that you found us. But father, it's sometimes really hard. Sometimes we wake in the middle of the night and we start to worry about things that may never happen. Sometimes we feel guilty about things that have happened. Sometimes father, we're very afraid. Sometimes we're very sinful and father, we have secrets we dare not share with anybody else. And so we ask that you would meet us right now at the point of our needs. That you would come alongside by your spirit and be the comforter that Jesus promised. Father, heal and cleanse and change and forgive and then motivate us to serve you with great joy in response to the great love that you have shown us. Other way, thankful for all you've done, for your kindness and our nations, we're thankful for your goodness in our lives, for the gift of your Son who died on a cross in our place, but father, your God. And if you had never been kind, if you had never found us, if you had never sent your Son, you're still God. You're on the throne, you're the creator and ruler of the universe, and you're worthy of our praise and worship. And now father, as we study your word on key life, we pray for the one who teaches that you would forgive him his sins for they are many. We would see Jesus and him only, and we pray in Jesus name. I'm in. All right, the book of limitations. Now, before we do the dull stuff and the dull stuff is necessary, we're going to do the pedantic kinds of stuff like who wrote it, and the arguments and the exogetical problems within the book of limitations. I want to, since the rest of it's going to be dull for a day or two, I just want to get you the flavor of this book. One of the most moving passages in the Bible is found in the book of limitations starting at the first verse of the first chapter. Now, you've got to remember what has happened, and I'm going to give you some details on that in just a little bit as we get into some of the spayed stuff that we have to do before we look at the text and what it says to our lives. But you've got to remember Jerusalem is fallen. I mean, this is God's place. You know what I did this morning? This morning in my prayers I prayed for the peace of Jerusalem. We're called to do that as Christians, as God's covenant people, and I thought about all of the stuff that's going on there and how horrible and the death and the devastation and the fear. I have a friend who lives in Jerusalem, and I get emails from my friends often, and they tell me about how hard it is and how painful it is. So this morning I prayed for Jerusalem, did you know that if a sador meal had passed over, the last toast says next year in Jerusalem. And so Jerusalem, the new Jerusalem for Christians, as we talk about it, and the old Jerusalem that is excellent now in time and space, Jerusalem is very, very important. Maybe someday we'll do a prophecy series. No, we're probably not. But we might, you don't know, do a prophecy series, and we'll talk about Jerusalem and how important Jerusalem is to the people of God. Well, you need to know that at one time in history, we're going to talk a little bit about that later, but at one time in history, Jerusalem was devastated. Now, it happened before, but this was big time. I mean, there was no hope. It was over. Things were blown apart. It was horrible. And you might want to, as I read some of this, picture the events of 9-11, my son and I law, and I were in New York a few weeks ago, and we went down to ground zero. That's a powerful thing, and you stand there that big gaping hole, and then you remember the people who died, and you remember the devastation and the tears and the loss. Well, kind of, it's kind of a crossover, and so Jeremiah, and I do believe it was Jeremiah, and I'll tell you why later, with great payfoss and great sadness begins the book of lamentations. Listen to this. How lonely sits the city that was full of people? How like a widow is she who was great among the nations? The princess among the provinces has become a vassal. She weeks bitterly in the night. Her tears are on her cheeks, among all her lovers. She has none to comfort her. All her friends had dealt treacherously with her. They have become her enemies. Judah has gone into captivity under affliction and hard servitude. She dwells among the nations she finds no rest. All her persecutors overtake her in dire straits. The roads, design, mourn, because no one comes to the set feast. All her gates are desolate. Her priests sigh. Her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness. Her adversaries have become the master. Her enemies prosper, but the Lord has afflicted her because of the multitude of her transgressions. Her children have gone into captivity before the enemy, and from the daughter of Zion all her splendor has departed. Her princes have become like deer that find no pasture, that flee without strength before the pursuer. The days of her affliction and roaming Jerusalem remembers all her pleasant things. That she had in the days of old winter people fell in the behind of the enemy with no one to help her. The adversaries saw her and mocked at her downfall. I could just go on and on. I'm already depressed. I don't make it. This is kind of a depressing book. I would suggest you not read it for your devotions at night. Probably keep you awake all night, but we're going to spend some time in it because this is not a book without hope, because you remember Jeremiah was also a prophet of hope. But now that we've looked at that and kind of set the tone, let me just say a couple of things that we need to talk about before we get into this book. Most people just assume that Jeremiah wrote the book because it is described to Jeremiah in the version of the Old Testament that you're probably using. But you need to know that that's in the Septuagint. You say, well, Septuagint is, and if you are ever asked this on a contest and you win some money, send 10% to Eli, Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Old Testament. And it's found there, but you need to know that in the Hebrew text, Jeremiah's name is not used at any place in the entire book of limitations. Also, you need to know that while our English Bible places limitations immediately after Jeremiah, thus connecting the two books to the same author, in the Hebrew text, the book of limitations appears not even close to the book of Jeremiah. In fact, it appears there in a section of the Hebrew Bible under scrolls, along with the song of Solomon Ruth, of Pleasiestes and Esther. And so it's important that we find out who really wrote the book of limitations. Now, those who say, no way, Jose, it was not Jeremiah. You need to know that they are right when they say the style is different between Jeremiah and limitations. They are right when they say that the style of limitations is far more elaborate than that of Jeremiah. The attitude of Jeremiah as seen in Jeremiah as a collaboration is partly coincides with the writer of limitations who is just falling apart. Many believe that the right of Jeremiah is a younger contemporary of the prophet. Now, in favor of Jeremiah, I'm going to do this quick because I'm running out of time. Different styles can be applied to different situations. If I'm writing in a bituary, it will be different than my writing an economic column for a newspaper. There's an earlier reference in the Talmud to the authorship of limitations and it refers directly to Jeremiah. The sensitivity, the national sorrow, with certain Jeremiah. So, put aside everything that all the scholars have said about this book and I'm going to tell you the truth. Jeremiah wrote it. Amen. I've got a new book for you. You're going to like it. It's called, is it really God? When you go to Him, what do you really like? How do you know you're not worshiping an idol? I'll send it to you free if you ask for. Give us a call. 1-800-keylife. You can do that 24 hours a day. Or you can write key life. Post off his box, 5,000, Madeleine Florida, 32794, or key life Canada. Post off his box, 3215 Old Cambridge, Ontario. In 3H, 5 in 3, or you can email us with your regular mailing address, Steve at keylife.org. And ask for the booklet by name, is it really God? When I say it's free, I really mean that. And don't you dare not ask for this booklet because you can't send the contribution. But if you can help us, guys, this would be a really good time. Think about it, because most people are not able to help us. But those that do help their brothers and sisters in Christ pray about it, be as generous as you possibly can. You'll help a whole bunch of other people. You can charge it to your Mastercard Visa Discover Guard, put it in your envelope or any contribution when you request it. I'll send it along how to know that you know him because he said he can. Hey, I got to go. But first, I need to say key life is a listener-supported production of key life network.