• Jeremiah lived about 100 years after the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah had saved Jerusalem from Assyria. Jeremiah tried to save Jerusalem from Babylon, but failed.
• Jeremiah lived through 40 terrible years. He was called to be a prophet in 626  b.c.  Twenty years later, in 605  b.c. , Jerusalem was partly destroyed. It was further ruined in 597  b.c. , and finally burned to the ground in 586  b.c.  Jeremiah experienced the end of the monarchy, the final agony of the nation of Judah. He was a pathetic, lonely figure, who was God's final appeal to the Holy City, which had become hopelessly and fanatically attached to idols. Jeremiah cried out that if only they would repent, God would save them from Babylon.
• As Assyria had been the background of Isaiah's ministry 150 years earlier, so Babylonia was the backdrop of Jeremiah's ministry.

• The northern kingdom, Israel, had fallen, as had much of Judah, the southern kingdom, which had suffered reverse after reverse, until Jerusalem was all that was left of the once great kingdom of David and Solomon. But still the people of Jerusalem ignored the continued warnings of the prophets and grew more and more hardened in their idolatry and wickedness. The hour of doom was about to strike.

• From the beginning of his ministry, 20 years before the issue was settled, Jeremiah insisted that Babylonia would be the victor. All through his incessant and bitter complaints over Judah's wickedness, the following ideas recur again and again:
•  1. Judah is going to be destroyed by victorious Babylonia.
•  2. If Judah will turn from her wickedness, somehow God will save her from destruction at the hands of Babylon.
•  3. Later, when there no longer seemed to be any hope of Judah's repentance, came a message of renewed hope: if Judah, as a matter of political expediency, will submit to Babylon, she shall be spared.
•  4. Judah will be destroyed, but she shall recover and yet dominate the world.
•  5. Babylon, the destroyer of Judah, shall herself be destroyed, never to rise again
• Paulson comment - "Even though Haley's Handbook doesn't list this, I see that Jeremiah's biggest message was that they rejected God's WORDS - and that is the same message that needs to be preached in America today! We can learn from Jeremiah how to preach today - note, that the consequences are different then than today, but still - nobody says it better than Jeremiah!"

• Jeremiah was the leader among the brilliant constellation of prophets clustered around the destruction of Jerusalem.
• Ezekiel, a fellow priest, somewhat younger than Jeremiah, preached in Babylonia among the captives the same things that Jeremiah was preaching in Jerusalem.
• Daniel, a man of royal blood, held the line in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar.
• Habakkuk and Zephaniah helped Jeremiah in Jerusalem.
• Nahum, at the same time, was predicting the fall of Nineveh.
• Obadiah, at the same time, predicted the ruin of Edom

Note that these are the verses, with a few exceptions, that Jeremiah preached about concerning God's words and how God's own people rejected them.

• 1:4-10, especially verse 10!
• 3:12
• 5:14
• 6:19
• 7:4
• 7:8
• 7:27
• 11:8