Coffee & Devotions

Jeremiah 3:1-5

Return to the Faithful God

With Bryan Schneider · Sharon RP Church

Published June 13, 2025

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0:007:50

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Opening Prayer

Thank God for the privilege of serving him and spending time in his Word, and ask the Holy Spirit to help us love one another, read, and understand.

Read

Scripture Passage

Jeremiah 3:1-5

A — About

What Is This Passage About?

God portrays Israel's idolatry as a wife's unfaithfulness to her husband. Though the people have polluted the land, refuse shame, and will not return, God graciously calls them to leave their sin and come back to him.

B — Best Verse

Which Verse Best Summarizes the Passage?

Jeremiah 3:1-3

Bryan explicitly points out the markings in his Bible: the end of verse 1, verse 2, and the statement that Israel refuses shame in verse 3. Together they place God's call to return beside Israel's pervasive unfaithfulness and shamelessness.

C — Called or Christ

C — Called to Do

Do more than hear God's Word: turn away from sin and return to him. Love him and follow his ways instead of treating sports, entertainment, money, or any other desire as a god.

Devotional Study

Transcript of the devotion. Minor transcription errors may remain.

Hey, hey, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This morning we're at Jeremiah chapter 3. We just have five verses to do, so let's have some coffee, we'll pray, and we'll get into God's Word. Oh, you can't have that. That's caffeinated this morning. Nope, nope, nope. All right.
Let's go ahead and pray. God, we thank you so much for the blessing it is that we get to serve you. We thank you for time together in your word. We pray that we would please love you and love each other. We pray that your Holy Spirit would help us to read your word and to understand it in Jesus's name. Amen. Okay, let me get my glasses here. Oh, whiny, whiny, whiny. Okay, here we go. Can you hold this and I'll hold my Bible? Okay. All right, here we go, Alba. All right.
They say, if a man divorces his wife and she goes from him, she becomes another man's. May he return to her again? Would not that land be greatly polluted? But you have played the harlot with many lovers. Not too close to my mouth. Yet return to me, says the Lord. Lift up your eyes to the desolate heights and see. Where have you not lain with men? By the road you have sat for them, like an Arabian in the wilderness, and you have polluted the land with your harlotries and your wickedness. Therefore the showers have been withheld, And there has been no latter rain. You have had the harlot's forehead. You have refused to be ashamed. Will you not from this time cry to me? My father, you are the guide of my youth. Will he remain angry forever? Will he keep it to the end? Behold, you have spoken and done evil things as you were able."
All right. We have three questions, are ABCs of reading the Bible? A, what's this about? B, what's the second? No, what's the best verse to summarize? And C, what are we called to do? That's right. All right, so what's this about? So God is talking to the people like they in pictures. So almost like he's the husband and Israel God's people are the wife, right? Like daddy and mommy.
And he says, if a husband was to say to his wife, and they get divorced and she goes and she goes sleeps with another man, would it be, and he divorces her, would it be good for them to come back together? No. And yet, And yet here he says, but you have played the harlot with many lovers, yet return to me. He says, I'll look over your sin. I'll deal with your sin. But come back to me. He says, they're like the wife who went and slept with other men. And he says, I'll forgive you. I'll bear the shame. Just come back to me. But they won't do it. Yeah, he shows them a great bit of love. And they won't return to him. Yeah, that's why he says you have polluted the land with your harlot trees and your wickedness. Bible said that the church is God's what? People. Yeah, like husbands love your wives as Christ loves the church. So the church is like God's bride. Yeah, God uses different imagery to try to explain his love for us.
And so the point being is they aren't ashamed of their sin at all. And they won't turn back to God. Kidding me? I'm not kidding you. That's what it's like every time we sin and we won't turn from it and turn back to God. God says, that's wrong. Yeah. So, in my Bible, you see right here what I have underlined? I have verse two, or the end of verse one, you see right here? Well, look. But you have played the harlot with many lovers, yet return to me. And then I have verse two, you have polluted the land with your harlotries and your wickedness, and then you refuse to be ashamed. That's what I have underlined in my Bible.
What do you think about seek calling? What are you called to do after learning about this? If you were an Israelite, what would it be for you? If you were in their shoes, what should you do? Read the Bible every day. Okay. Well, they're hearing from Jeremiah. The prophet's telling it to them in their ears. Is it good enough just to read? What do you got to do? Pray. Well, you got to do what it says, don't you?
Right, so he's saying, turn back to me, turn away for your sin and turn back to me. Can we turn back to him? Yeah. Yeah, we should turn back to him. We should love him and go after his ways. So God is gracious. God is good. Until our dying breaths, we may have the opportunity to repent, to turn back to him. So should we go after other gods? But in our country, people will treat sports like gods, and they'll treat entertainment like God, and they'll treat money like God, and they'll treat whatever the things that they love like God. And they may say they even still love God.
Like in the ads, they just need everything, and we already got a Toyota, and it's... Yeah, right. They want they want us to buy in the advertisements, right? They want us to if we just buy all these nice cars where our lives would be happy. And we already bought one. Oh, yeah, daddy has a has a redneck junkyard car, right? But does it work? Mm hmm. Can we be content with that? Yeah. Hey, you ready to pray? Okay, let's pray.
God, you know our hearts. You know how easy it is for us to go after the things that we may desire. Father, we pray that you would forgive us and turn us towards yourself. Father, please help us to love you. Please, let us love you with all of our hearts, all of our soul, and all of our strength. Let us be faithful to you. Thank you that you love us, even though we're sinful people. Thank you for seeing us in Christ. In his name we pray. Amen. Well, may God bless you and keep you. May you walk in the ways of your God. And we'll see you next time. Say bye-bye. You wanna say bye? I don't know what that is. Oh, bye-bye.

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