When we read through the Bible, it’s easy to get a little discouraged when wading through the books of the prophets.  After all, God never calls prophets to go tell his people that they’re doing great.

But even though Jeremiah is writing to a nation that was punished for their sins some 2500 years ago, there’s a lot in Jeremiah’s messages that we ought to pay attention to in our own lives. Because in a lot of ways, the religious world of Jeremiah might have looked a lot like we see today in many of our own churches.

The problem in Jeremiah 7 wasn't that they weren’t worshiping God. The problem was that they assumed that since they were God’s people, they had the temple, and they were offering all the right sacrifices, that it didn’t matter what else they did, or how they lived their lives once they left the temple.