Will you please turn to the book of Jeremiah? Jeremiah chapter 1. We will read the whole chapter.
The words of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah, of the priests that were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin;
to whom the word of the Lord came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign.
It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, unto the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah the son of Josiah, king of Judah, unto the carrying away of Jerusalem captive in the fifth month.
Now the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,
Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee,
and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee;
I have appointed thee a prophet unto the nations.
Then said I, Ah, Lord God! behold, I cannot speak; for I am a child.
But the Lord said unto me, Say not, I am a child;
for to whomsoever I shall send thee thou shalt go,
and whatsoever I shall command thee thou shalt speak.
Be not afraid because of them;
for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord.
Then the Lord put forth His hand, and touched my mouth;
and the Lord said unto me, Behold, I have put My words in thy mouth.
See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms,
to pluck up and to break down and to destroy and to overthrow,
to build and to plant.
Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Jeremiah, what seest thou?
And I said, I see a rod of an almond-tree.
Then said the Lord unto me, Thou hast well seen;
for I watch over My word to perform it.
And the word of the Lord came unto me the second time, saying, What seest thou?
And I said, I see a seething caldron; and the face thereof is from the north.
Then the Lord said unto me, Out of the north evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land.
For, lo, I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the north, saith the Lord;
and they shall come, and they shall set every one his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem,
and against all the walls thereof round about, and against all the cities of Judah.
And I will utter My judgments against them touching all their wickedness,
in that they have forsaken Me, and have burned incense unto other gods,
and worshipped the works of their own hands.
Thou therefore gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak unto them all that I command thee:
be not dismayed at them, lest I dismay thee before them.
For, behold, I have made thee this day a fortified city, and an iron pillar, and brazen walls,
against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against the princes thereof,
against the priests thereof, and against the people of the land.
And they shall fight against thee; but they shall not prevail against thee:
for I am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee.
Jeremiah chapter 31. We read from Jeremiah 31:31-34.
Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:
not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt;
which My covenant they brake, although I was a husband unto them, saith the Lord.
But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord:
I will put My law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it;
and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord;
for they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord:
for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more.
Shall we pray?
Dear Heavenly Father, how we do praise and thank Thee that through Thy beloved Son, we are able to enter into Thy very presence and to behold the glory of the Lord. We do thank Thee for Thy presence with us this morning, and we do ask Thee, Lord, that Thou wilt open Thy word to us.
We pray that Thy word truly may become life and spirit to us. We pray that Thy word will really be so exalted in our midst that, Lord, we may exalt Thy name. We just commit this time into Thy hands and trust Thee to speak to each one of us. We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.
Last time, we shared on Isaiah, and this morning we will share on Jeremiah. Both Isaiah and Jeremiah are God’s prophets. They are holy men of God who spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. They were men of God raised up in their times to be the very conscience of the nation.
They all prophesied on condemnation, visitation, and consolation. That is, they prophesied words of judgment, of God’s visitation, and also of recovery. In many ways, these two prophets are alike. Both prophesied for over forty years—a long period. Yet, as we look into these two prophets, we find that they are different also, in their persons as well as in their messages.
Isaiah lived under good kings; the only exception was Ahaz. He lived in a time of prosperity. Jeremiah lived under wicked kings; the only exception was Josiah. He lived in a time of distress.
Isaiah prophesied about the eighth century before Christ, and Jeremiah prophesied a hundred years later, in the seventh century before Christ. Isaiah came from a noble, or even royal, family of Judah; but Jeremiah came from a priestly family. Their training was very different.
Isaiah is like an eagle that soars high up in the heavens and fixes its gaze on the sun. He saw the Lord high and lifted up on His throne. He saw the Messiah—His birth, His ministry, His suffering, and His glory.
Jeremiah is like an ox who plows a hard, barren field, his heart and his eyes all upon the earth. But, of course, occasionally he raised his head and saw the glory of the Lord.
The prophecies of Isaiah are very comprehensive; they have a very wide horizon. But Jeremiah, even though he was raised up as a prophet not only to the nation of Judah but also to all nations, has prophecies mainly focused upon Jerusalem and Judah.
Isaiah is a prophet of faith. Jeremiah is a prophet of love. And, if you want to add Ezekiel, he is a prophet of hope.
Isaiah gives you the impression of a regal manner. He seems to stand aloof and stand alone. But Jeremiah gives us the impression of his humanness. He lives among his people. He is one of us.
Now, in order to understand the book of Jeremiah, the first thing we need to do is to know the time in which he lived.
In Jeremiah 1:1-3, we read:
The words of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah, of the priests that were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin;
to whom the word of the Lord came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign.
It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, unto the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah the son of Josiah, king of Judah, unto the carrying away of Jerusalem captive in the fifth month.
So we know that Jeremiah prophesied in the days of Josiah. In the thirteenth year of King Josiah, the word of God came unto Jeremiah.
Now, if the call of Jeremiah to be God’s prophet came in the thirteenth year of King Josiah, and at that time he was a child, brothers and sisters, we have to remember that the word child is not a correct translation. The Hebrew word is na’ar, and that word really means one who has not yet had a recognized place in the community. It refers to an unmarried young man, probably between the ages of sixteen and twenty.
So, if the call came to Jeremiah when he was between sixteen and twenty years of age, then Jeremiah must have been born in the last days of King Manasseh. Now, we know King Manasseh was the worst king that Judah ever had. He was a wicked one, and because of his wickedness, the nation of Judah was going to be destroyed.
Josiah came to the throne when he was eight years of age, but the Bible says he did what was right in the eyes of God. When Josiah was sixteen, in the eighth year of his reign, the Bible says he began to seek the God of David. When he was twenty, in the twelfth year of his reign, he began to cleanse Judah of idols. And when he was twenty-six, we find that the work of reform came to its peak.
So you find that the call of Jeremiah came just one year after Josiah began the reform. But unfortunately, even though Josiah’s heart was right before the Lord and he did what was right, that official reform seems not to have really reached the hearts of the people.
Outwardly, there was reform. Outwardly, the people followed the king. But inwardly, we find that the hearts of the people were still estranged from God, and they were still going after other gods.
Now, God was looking for reality. Because there was a lack of reality, God raised up Jeremiah. On the one hand, he was sympathetic with Josiah’s reform; on the other hand, he showed the people that God was not satisfied just with outward things. God called them to really return and turn to Him with their whole hearts.
After Josiah died, his son Jehoahaz became king for just three months, and he was removed by Pharaoh of Egypt. Pharaoh put Jehoiakim upon the throne. So Jehoiakim was actually a vassal to Egypt, and he was a wicked king.
History tells us that when he became king, he tried to build a great palace. But there was no money, so he forced the people into forced labor. He did not pay their wages. He allowed Josiah’s reform to relapse, and pagan practices began to come back. Morality degenerated and deteriorated. This king was a wicked one, and Jeremiah prophesied during that period. As a matter of fact, Jehoiakim even killed prophets.
After Jehoiakim died, Jehoiachin came to his stead. But he was king only three months and ten days. The king of Babylon brought him to Babylon and put Zedekiah in his stead.
Now, Zedekiah was a weak person. You find that he wavered. He was so weak that he was actually under the control of his generals and officials.
It was at the end of his reign, in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, that the nation of Judah was destroyed and the people were taken into Babylonian captivity. Jeremiah prophesied during that period. He was God’s spokesman in that time. It was a very difficult time, yet Jeremiah was able to prophesy faithfully as God’s representative to His people.
According to Jeremiah 1:1-3, it seems as if Jeremiah prophesied in three periods. The first period was during the reign of Josiah, probably twenty years. His messages were mainly appeals. He appealed to the people of God to repent and to return. This was reinforced by warnings of God’s visitation and God’s judgment.
Then, in the second period, he prophesied during the reign of Jehoiakim for eleven years. The messages were chiefly warnings, deepening into irreversible judgment.
In the third period, he prophesied under the reign of Zedekiah, until Jerusalem was captured. You remember that some of the remnant went into Egypt, so this period lasted about fourteen years. During that time, his messages were mainly of the impending judgment of God, but, thank God, coupled with promises of recovery.
So altogether, Jeremiah prophesied for over forty years—a long time.
In studying the book of Jeremiah, it is very, very important that we know Jeremiah the man. Of all the writings in the Old Testament, we find that the book of Jeremiah has a characteristic: it is a prophetic autobiography.
It is not only a book of prophecy. Of course, it is also a book of history; there is much history there. But it is also a book of biography. The life of Jeremiah is intertwined with history and with his prophecy. So it is very important to know Jeremiah the person.
Now, the name Jeremiah means, “The Lord is exalted.” In a time when the people of God rebelled against God and brought disgrace to God to such an extent that God allowed His own people to be taken captive, Jerusalem destroyed, and His temple destroyed, it seemed as if God was put under great reproach by His own people.
Yet it was during that time that Jeremiah was able to exalt the Lord. He was able to exalt the Lord in His judgment. He was able to exalt the Lord even before the captors, because even Babylon recognized that it was God’s hand. In other words, he was a prophet whose name was Jeremiah: “The Lord is exalted.”
He was the son of Hilkiah. This Hilkiah is not the high priest Hilkiah who discovered the book of the law in the temple in the time of Josiah. This was a common name.
This Hilkiah was a priest, but most likely he was a descendant of Abiathar. We know that Solomon deposed Abiathar and banished him to his house in Anathoth. Thus, Jeremiah came from a priestly family who lived in Anathoth.
Anathoth was about three miles northeast of Jerusalem. So Jeremiah was not brought up in Jerusalem; he was reared in Anathoth. Yet from Anathoth you could see Jerusalem. It was only three miles away, about an hour’s walk.
Now, Jeremiah, being born into a priestly family, must have been trained from his childhood to be a priest. A Levite, a priest, was numbered when he was only one month old. In other words, the training of the priest started very early. So he was trained to be a priest; but when he was between sixteen and twenty, God called him to be a prophet.
A priest is to represent the people before God. A prophet is to represent God before the people.
As a prophet, Jeremiah sympathized fully with God. So he pleaded lovingly with God’s people that they should return; and if they did not, they would be punished.
But as a priest, he was in full sympathy with the people of God. When he saw the inevitable destruction, of course his heart was broken. So we find that when God and His people were on a collision course, Jeremiah was caught in the middle, and that broke his heart.
So far as Jeremiah’s temperament was concerned, he seemed more fitted to be a priest than a prophet. Why? Because his temperament was rather timid, gentle, tenderhearted, and sympathetic. He loved the people, and he wanted to be loved. That was the kind of temperament Jeremiah had.
Now, that is the temperament of a priest, but God called him to be a prophet. You find again a collision between God’s call, His errand, and Jeremiah’s temperament. That created much agony of soul, as you find in the book of Jeremiah.
He had a priest’s heart but a prophet’s voice.
Even in the book of Jeremiah, sometimes you find that he had controversy with God. Yet he loved God so much that he always yielded. You find how his character was developed during that period, how he was faithful to God and to God’s people to the very end.
Even though he loved the people, he was hated by everybody. Yet he stuck with them to the very end. He did not seek anything for himself. He was a real man of God.
Furthermore, you find that his heart was so full of love toward God’s people. When he saw that God’s people were going downward and would not return, how he wept over them.
In that sense, he was very much like our Lord Jesus, who wept over Jerusalem. In many ways, Jeremiah is a type of Christ—full of love and sympathy, of tender love.
He did not weep for himself. He wept for the people of God.
Now, sometimes we may think, does God make a wrong choice in sending such a person to be His spokesman at such a time, pronouncing such severe judgment? Humanly speaking, we may think that God seems to have chosen the wrong person.
Yet, brothers and sisters, think of it. If God should choose a very strong, proud, arrogant person to deliver these messages of condemnation to His own people, he would misrepresent God. Even though God was pronouncing His judgment, God’s heart was broken.
So He needed someone whose heart was broken to represent Him, even in presenting severe words of condemnation. God knows what He is doing.
Of all the Old Testament prophets, probably there was no one who suffered as much as Jeremiah. He was not only a weeping prophet, but he was a suffering prophet. He was misunderstood by his own people.
He was persecuted by kings, princes, prophets, and people. Aside from his inward agony and torment, he was one who suffered greatly. He was so misunderstood.
He was beaten, put in a dungeon, and considered a traitor to the nation—greatly misunderstood. Yet all the time, he loved the people and he loved God.
Now, brothers and sisters, in the New Testament, we can think of another one: the Apostle Paul. You find almost the same thing. If you read Paul’s epistles, you really need to know that person. Of all the apostles, how Paul suffered for the name of the Lord.
In a sense, brothers and sisters, if we are true to God, if we really love God’s people, and if we really desire to see God’s people walking in the way of God, we will find that we will be misunderstood. We will be persecuted. But that is the way it is, and we need to be prepared for it.
Three times in the book of Jeremiah, we find that God commanded Jeremiah to write down what he had prophesied. In other words, he prophesied orally first, and then later God commanded him to put those words down in writing.
In Jeremiah 30:1-3, that was the first time God told Jeremiah to write down what he had prophesied. For what purpose? That one day, when God’s people returned from captivity, they might read it.
Then, in Jeremiah 36:1-3, in the years of Jehoiakim, God told Jeremiah to write down all that he had prophesied in order to warn the people, with the hope that they would return to God.
Of course, we know how he spoke and it was written down, and then the book was destroyed by King Jehoiakim. So God told Jeremiah again to write what he had written and add many more words to it.
Basically, we find that the book of Jeremiah, probably most of its contents, was spoken by Jeremiah and written down in ink on a scroll. That is how we have this book of Jeremiah. Of course, we know there must have been some editing work to do.
You can see in this book of Jeremiah that it is partly prophecy, partly history, and partly biography. It is not all prophecy.
You find that many portions of the book of Jeremiah are dialogues between God and Jeremiah. Some are his soliloquies, or his confessions. Others are prophecies to Judah, Jerusalem, the people, the kings, and also the nations. Some chapters are really history.
Jeremiah, in writing this book, sometimes used the personal pronoun I to represent himself. But sometimes the I represented the nation of Judah, especially the godly remnant.
You can see in his prophecy that there is a development. In the beginning, there is condemnation: God condemns His people because they have left God and violated His covenant.
Then, following condemnation, there is judgment, or visitation. God visits them with judgment. Yet following that, God always comforts them with the promise that one day God will return to them and they will return to Him.
Here you find that Jeremiah, in his prophecy, represents the moral government of God.
God loves His people. His heart toward His people is full of affection. His thoughts toward them are peaceful and good. But because of the rebellion of His people, out of His love, He has to chastise them.
But we have to remember that when God chastises people, He chastises them with love—with tears, as it were, in His eyes.
Even though the people seemed so blind and so hard, nine times in the book of Jeremiah God says, “I rise up early, sending My prophets to warn you, to try to bring you back.” In a sense, God knew that the people would not repent; even so, His heart toward them was so warm. He was still trying, trying, and trying.
You see the longsuffering patience of God toward His own people. Even before the nation of Judah was taken into captivity, God said that there would be seventy years of captivity, and that He would return to His people and His people would return to Him.
He would make a new covenant with them, not like the old covenant. It would be a new covenant of grace. God said He would do everything for them. He would change their hearts so that they would really love the Lord, and they would enter into a blessed time with the Lord. This is the gist of his prophecies.
There are many ways to divide the book of Jeremiah. I think probably the simplest way, so far as I know, is given by G. Campbell Morgan.
G. Campbell Morgan says that Jeremiah 1-13 is the prophet’s call and commission; Jeremiah 14-51 is the prophet’s ministry; and Jeremiah 52 is the historical appendix. I think that is the simplest way to divide the book of Jeremiah.
Now, what we would like to concentrate on for a little time is Jeremiah 1, because in this chapter we find the call and commission of Jeremiah.
In a sense, we find in that call and commission the main principles of God’s calling to ministry. We are all called to a certain ministry. We may not be called to be prophets, but we are all called to minister—to minister to the Lord and to minister to the house of God.
I believe that in this call of Jeremiah, we can see certain principles governing this matter of calling to ministry.
First of all, you find in Jeremiah 1:2: “The word of the Lord came.” When we come to this matter of calling, the first thing we need to remember is the sovereignty of God.
It does not begin with man; it begins with God. Everything spiritual, in the spiritual realm—and ministry included—has to be initiated by God, not by man.
Man may have the desire to serve and may be willing to serve, but the call has to come from God. That is the sovereignty of God. Sometimes we say that God does not need volunteers. If He needs someone, He drafts him.
So the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah.
God said, “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee; I have appointed thee a prophet unto the nations.”
Here you find three things. First, God said, “Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee.” Before Jeremiah was formed in his mother’s body, God already knew him. That is divine election.
Even before the foundation of the world, before we came into being, before we were formed, God already knew us.
The word knew here in Hebrew has a deeper meaning than merely knowing or having knowledge. That word means knowledge to the degree of commitment. In other words, God not only knew, but He had already committed Himself to what He knew.
Now, I think that is marvelous. Even before the foundation of the world, God has chosen us in Christ Jesus. He knew us. He knew us so well that He had fully committed Himself to us, to bring us to the place where we should be.
Now, there is divine election. Brothers and sisters, I think there is nothing more assuring than this matter of divine election.
According to His foreknowledge, He has predestined us to be conformed to the image of His beloved Son. Whom He foreknew, He also called; whom He called, He also justified; and whom He justified, He also glorified.
The one whom God knows, to him God is committed.
Secondly, He said, “Before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee.” Jeremiah began to be formed in his mother’s womb, but before he was ready to come out of the womb, God said, “I already set you apart.”
“I have set you apart for Me, for My service, for My purpose.”
Now, brothers and sisters, do you not know that even before you came out of your mother’s womb, God had already set you apart for Him? You are not supposed to live a day for yourself.
Even before you were born, you were already set apart. Hallowed, sanctified, simply means God has taken you apart from everything else and separated you for Himself. God has a purpose for you—to fulfill His purpose.
Then, thirdly, you find, “I have appointed thee a prophet unto the nations.” After Jeremiah was born, when he was between sixteen and twenty, God’s calling came to him and said, “I appointed you. I appoint you to be a prophet.” It is divine appointment.
Nobody chooses to be a prophet, or a teacher, or something else. It is all by divine appointment. God has appointed each one of us to be what He wants us to be, that we may serve His purpose.
So when the divine calling comes, it is in these three steps: first, God knew us; second, He sanctified us; and third, He appointed us.
You remember the Apostle Paul said in Galatians 1:15 that God set him apart from his mother’s womb and called him by His grace.
Now, that is not only true with Jeremiah and with Paul; that is true with you too. Every one of us has been set apart by God from our mother’s womb. When the time comes, He calls us. He appoints us to do what He wants us to do.
It may be a prophet. It may be a teacher. It may be a housewife. It may be a doctor. It may be a nurse. It may be whatever. But whatever God has appointed us to do, we do it as unto the Lord. It is our ministry to the Lord. It is our calling to serve the Lord in that capacity.
Now let us see how Jeremiah responded. He responded, “Ah, Lord God! behold, I cannot speak; for I am a child.”
You know, if people think they are ready for God’s call, most likely God has not called them. You may have a desire to serve God. You may be prepared for it. But, strangely, when God’s call comes, if it is God’s call, invariably you find that you are not ready and you are unprepared.
You will find that you are not sufficient. You are not adequate. That is the strangest thing. You may be prepared for many years, and when God’s call comes, you find that you are not sufficient.
Jeremiah said, “Behold, I cannot speak.” Jeremiah was trained to be a priest. A priest is not supposed to speak a lot, but to work a lot. He was trained to use his hands, not to use his mouth. So he said, “No, I cannot speak.”
Do you remember another person? There was a person who was eloquent and mighty, and had forty years’ training in the palace of Egypt. He was an orator and a warrior. When he thought he could speak, he could not even convince one of his fellow citizens.
After another forty years, when God’s call came to him, you know what he said? “Lord, I cannot speak. Who am I? I cannot speak.”
It is true, he could not speak, because after forty years in the wilderness he had no audience but a few sheep. You cannot make a speech to dumb sheep. That would deprive you of all your eloquence.
Dear brothers and sisters, it was when his eloquence was gone that God said, “Now you can speak for Me.” God said, “I will put My word in your mouth and teach you what to say.”
Brothers and sisters, in serving the Lord, if we think we are sufficient, if we think we are eloquent, most likely God cannot speak through us, because we speak. But when we stop speaking, then God is able to use us to speak.
So Jeremiah said, “I cannot speak.” That is fine. That is the one God wants to use. So God touched his mouth and put words in his mouth.
Now, brothers and sisters, how important that is. A prophet is not supposed to speak his own words; a prophet is to speak the word of God. If he knows how to speak and talks a lot, who knows who is talking—God or that person?
So here you find that Jeremiah found his insufficiency. Brothers and sisters, if you read 2 Corinthians, you find the Apostle Paul saying, “Who is sufficient for such a ministry?” He said, “Our sufficiency, our adequacy, is in God.” He makes us adequate, not ourselves.
How can we serve God? We cannot. How can we be ministers of the new covenant? We cannot. It is too serious. It is life and death to souls. We cannot do that. But our sufficiency, our adequacy, is in God.
The second excuse Jeremiah used was, “I am a child.” He was between sixteen and twenty, not fully grown yet. I wonder whether it was because God could not find a more mature person, or whether God purposely chose an immature person.
In 1 Corinthians 1, you find that God chose the foolish to confound the wise. God chose the mean, the lowly person, the weak person, the person who is nothing, so that nobody can boast.
Here you find God chose a child, a young man, not fully grown. It is the sovereign dealing of God.
Now, God made him a prophet. As God’s prophet, he had two works to do. Negatively, he was to pluck up, to break down, to destroy, and to overthrow; positively, he was to build and to plant.
It seems as if the negative work is double the positive work. Actually, God’s purpose is always positive. God wants to build. He wants to plant.
In the New Testament, you find the same idea in 1 Corinthians 3: to build and to plant. We are God’s field; we are God’s building. So far as life is concerned, we are like a field that God is going to plant. So far as growth is concerned, we are like a building, a house.
So God’s purpose is to plant and to build. But before He can plant and build, He has to destroy, break down, throw down, and pluck up. Why? Because there are so many things there that are not of Him.
There was so much in the nation of Israel that had to be destroyed before God could do the work of building. It had to be broken up and plucked up before God could plant. God had to do this negative work.
Even today, you find the same thing. In the church of God, there is so much that needs to be broken down, destroyed, plucked up, and overthrown before God is able to really plant and build.
Unfortunately, we find that it seems God has to take much time doing the negative work before He can actually do the work that He wants to do. That is a prophet.
In the days of Jeremiah, there were false prophets. These prophets told the people, “Peace, peace. Everything is all right. Go on. Nothing is wrong.”
“We have a temple here in Jerusalem, and God dwells in the temple. He will never leave us. Nobody can really overthrow us.”
“Peace, peace,” but there was no peace to the wicked. These were false prophets trying to please people.
But a true prophet is one who is able to deliver the message that anything not of God has to be cleared away, so that God is able to build and plant what is His.
God said, “I make you a prophet. You go to whomsoever I send you. You say whatever I have told you to say.”
“You will be against kings, priests, people, and nations; but I will make you a fortified city, an iron pillar, and brazen walls against the whole land.”
He seemed to be a person against everybody. It was because everybody was against God.
Brothers and sisters, do we want to be popular? If the world is against God, if the religious world is against God, you have to be Antipas—against all. But, of course, that broke the heart of Jeremiah.
Then God, to strengthen his commission, gave him two visions.
The first vision was this: “The word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Jeremiah, what seest thou? And I said, I see a rod of an almond-tree. And the Lord said unto me, Thou hast well seen; for I watch over My word to perform it.”
God showed Jeremiah a rod of an almond tree. Now, Jeremiah, being trained to be a priest, of course knew exactly what it meant when he saw this vision.
In Numbers 17, you remember that the children of Israel argued among themselves that everybody was holy and that everybody could approach God. Why was it that only Aaron served as priest?
God said, “Let each tribe take a rod—a dead rod—and place it overnight before the ark of God.” The next day, only Aaron’s rod budded, and it bore almond blossoms.
Because of that, Aaron was chosen to minister unto God. In other words, how do we serve God? We cannot serve God with a dead rod.
We are as dead rods. We cannot serve God with our natural energy. It is dead worship, dead service. We can only serve God with what is resurrected.
The almond tree is the first tree that buds after winter. So in Scripture, it always speaks of resurrection—resurrection. Here God was saying, “You are going to serve Me in the power of My resurrection life.” That is the only way to serve God. Jeremiah understood.
Then the second vision was a seething caldron with its face from the north. In other words, God was showing Jeremiah the thrust of his prophecy: from the north judgment would come, and the people of God would be punished. But it was because of God’s love toward them.
Now finally, what does God want us to learn from this book of Jeremiah?
Jeremiah lived toward the end of the nation of Judah. This people was a covenant people with God. God covenanted with them at Mount Sinai.
But from that time, even to the time when the nation was destroyed, you find how these covenant people consistently and persistently violated God’s command.
They worshipped the works of their own hands. They were not thankful to God. They brought disgrace to God and to the name of God.
Yet here you find a man who was able to exalt God in that kind of situation. He was there representing God among His faithless people, and he was there calling them to come back to God.
When they heard Jeremiah, they heard the voice of God pleading.
He was not able to bring the nation back to God. The nation went into captivity. Yet his ministry was not in vain. Why? Because there was a remnant who heard Jeremiah.
Eventually, you find that a remnant returned from Babylonian captivity to rebuild the house of God, and eventually to bring in the new covenant. Now, there was Jeremiah.
Now, brothers and sisters, where are we? We are living at the end of the church age.
We are also a covenant people. God has made a new covenant with us, sealed by the blood of His beloved Son. It is a covenant of grace.
The covenant God has made with us far surpasses the covenant He made with the children of Israel. That was a covenant of law: “You do this, then I will be your God.”
But we are a privileged people. God has covenanted with us with a new covenant. He said, “I will do everything. All you need to do is respond to Me, respond to My grace. Do not waste My grace. Do not fall from My grace. That is all you need to do.”
Yet, brothers and sisters, even toward the end of the first century, when you read Revelation 2 and 3, you find that even then the church had left its first love.
All through the ages, the church of God has been drifting further and further from the grace of God. The church worships the works of its own hands. It becomes a worldly institution.
Outwardly, they worship God, but there is no reality there. God is not happy. He is not satisfied.
Throughout the ages, you find that He sends His prophets—New Testament prophets—to His own church, to point out to them what is wrong and urge them to return and turn back to God.
Brothers and sisters, we are at the very last stage. Apostasy is upon us.
This is the time that we need Jeremiah. We need people like Jeremiah, who are in full sympathy with God—not people who condemn others arrogantly. That misrepresents God.
You know, God’s heart is broken over His own people—scattered, without a shepherd, perishing, deceived.
God wants people like Jeremiah, who could weep with God, who are able to pronounce strong words, but with tears; who are in full sympathy with God, desiring that there will be a return.
God’s people must come back to the new covenant, to know the grace of God, and to be a testimony for Him in these last days.
Now, brothers and sisters, God needs Jeremiahs today—weak, maybe timid, maybe, and yet loving God more than anything else; willing to lay down their lives and stand with God against all opposition.
Sometimes, under trial, there may be weakness. But you find Jeremiah: he might appear weak before God, but he never appeared weak before the people. He was faithful to God’s command.
Brothers and sisters, that is what we need to learn. May God raise up among His people many Jeremiahs who understand God’s heart, who will cry over God’s people.
Even though, in a sense, you may not be able to see the whole church restored, God will restore a remnant who will be faithful to God.
I believe this is the challenge of the book of Jeremiah.
Shall we pray?
Dear Heavenly Father, we do praise and thank Thee for giving us this book of Jeremiah. We do pray that the spirit of Jeremiah may come upon us, that we may, in these last days among Thy people, humbly serve Thee and serve Thy people with faithfulness.
Oh, how our hearts cry out to Thee that Thy people will hear Thy voice and return to Thee, to that covenant relationship with Thee, that we may glorify Thy name. We ask in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.