Jer. 1:9 π Jer. 1:10 π Jer. 45:4 π Jer. 45:5
“‘And do you seek great things for yourself? Do not seek them; for behold, I will bring adversity upon all flesh,’ says the Lord. ‘But I will give your life to you as a prey in all places, wherever you go.’” ( Jer. 45:5; top )
Jeremiah didn’t want to be a prophet and even begged God to be excused, however the Lord said, “Behold, I have put My words in your mouth.” ( Jer. 1:9; top ) These are the kinds of words to get in one’s mouth, while everyone today is clamoring for their ministries, gifts and acclaim.
The word of God is not meant for us to find what we feel the Scripture shows us as an applicable pattern for establishing a New Testament church. The Scripture is presented to us to bring us to a place of surrender, obedience and selflessness before Almighty God. Then we can be used as God intended us to be used; what an enormous gulf between that and what we feel we should do for God.
Notice God’s regimented order for Jeremiah’s life with the Lord. The Lord said, “See, I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out and to pull down, to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant.” ( Jer. 1:10; top ) The first steps for Jeremiah were to root out, destroy and pull down all those pretentious religious activities by getting the people to repent. If they would yield and repent, then the nation of Israel could be planted and rebuilt; if they refused, then judgment would follow. Did they repent? They did not. Who were Jeremiah’s greatest enemies? The religious leaders of his day.
The priests and rulers scorned and laughed at Jeremiah’s old-fashioned teachings of holiness and obedience to God, the same way our present generation scoffs at Biblical morality today and, unless we repent, we will be judged even harsher than in the case of Jerusalem, where the Babylonians destroyed most of the entire city.
Jeremiah wasn’t the vindictive type of person; he had no liking for rooting out and throwing down anything. But he had a heart for his people, and saw in his heart that their destruction was near if they didn’t repent.
God’s heart, being even more tender than Jeremiah’s, must have almost broken to see His plan for Israel being destroyed. (But He had yet another plan.)
Oh! The patience and longsuffering of God. He has waited for almost 2,000 years for the great commission to be fulfilled, and our generation has failed Him, too.
Our pious Bible studies have produced no Jeremiahs.
Our denominational procedures and loyalties have exceeded our loyalty to Almighty God.
Our evangelism attempts have produced no Pauls.
One partial Scripture verse - “But I will give your life to you as a prey in all places, wherever you go.” ( Jer. 45:4; top ) - offends and intimidates us all as an end-time judgment is visible even to the unbeliever. Possibly there is yet one uncompromisingly honest person amongst God’s family, like Jeremiah?
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