Lord, we are so thankful for Your wonderful presence. We are thankful for being able to come and remember You at Your table, and for the fresh reminder of how we have been released and how You have paid that price.
Lord, we are thankful now that You have given us Your Word and Your Holy Spirit. As we come to Your Word, may we really feast upon it. Allow us not to be distracted by technical glitches and stuff, but to know the anointing and enabling of Your Holy Spirit, that we may be encouraged in these days in which we are living.
We realize the times are difficult, very perilous. But we are thankful, Lord, that You have words to encourage and strengthen us. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Let us look at Jeremiah 1.
The words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, of the priests who 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, until the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the exile of Jerusalem in the fifth month.
What I would like us to consider is the life and ministry of Jeremiah, or the person and ministry of Jeremiah. Today, we are really going to focus on the person of Jeremiah. Then, probably in a few weeks, Lord willing, we will look at the ministry of Jeremiah.
Why are we looking at Jeremiah? We are looking at him because, in Jeremiah, we see the training of God’s servant in the end days. We are all very aware of the days in which we are living, and we see how the Lord called Jeremiah to be His mouthpiece during an extremely difficult time—what some would say was the darkest age of Israel.
We want to allow the Lord to train us because we are living in dark days, and we need to have that same spirit of Jeremiah. We may not all be called to be prophets, but we are all called to be servants. Each and every one of us has been called by the Lord.
We cannot simply say, “Well, Jeremiah was a prophet and I’m not, so that excludes me.” Each one of us has been called to be a servant of the Lord. In His great, magnificent display of diversity, He uses us in various ways. He used Jeremiah one way, and He uses us in many different ways. Yet the principles of training are very similar whenever the Lord calls us.
As we look at the setting of Jeremiah, we realize that he lived during the time of three kings: Josiah, Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah. The last two were simply vassals of other kingdoms—Egypt and Babylon. They really had no authority or power.
Josiah, however, was in the lineage of David and was raised up to draw the people of God back. We see that Josiah had a great heart for the Lord.
We should also remember that, about one hundred years before this, Judah had seen their brethren in the northern kingdom taken captive into Assyria. Even though the Lord had called the northern kingdom to repent and return, there was no response. Because of their lack of response to God’s call, they were judged and taken into captivity.
God’s love was also displayed to Judah through various prophets. Joel, Isaiah, Micah, and Zephaniah had already been sent. Yet, again, there was very little response from the Lord’s people.
It is tragic that, if we look at ourselves today, the Lord calls over and over again to the people of God. But how much response is there? In those days there was so little response, yet in His great love the Lord raised up Jeremiah. He desired to wake up the southern kingdom of Judah.
Jeremiah may be called the last cry of the Lord’s love before judgment. He prophesied up to the time when they were taken away into Babylonian captivity. He kept crying out and sharing the Word of the Lord, but tragically there was so little response.
The Lord warned. The Lord spoke. The Lord poured out His love through tears in many different ways. Yet, tragically, the people of God continued in their own way, doing their own thing, and the Lord did bring judgment.
Still, today, in His great love, He is crying out to us in that same spirit. Are we those who can respond?
As we look at Jeremiah, we see many lessons to learn. There are many similarities between the spirit of that time and the spirit of our time. We want to be those who have ears to hear what the Lord is saying, because we see God’s great cry of love.
God’s love is many-sided, and we see many aspects of it, but it always has one purpose in view. When God cries out to us and displays His love—as He displayed His love when we took the table—it is to draw our hearts to Him and to fix our eyes fully upon Him.
He desires that we would be like doves having a single eye, with a single heart toward Him, so that He could use us and we could be the people of God He is calling us to be, rather than being distracted by so many things. This was the cry of God’s love through Jeremiah.
In Jeremiah, we see not only God’s great love, but also aspects of that love that we do not often see: the sorrow of God’s love, the jealousy of God’s love, and the judgment of God’s love.
When there is genuine love, there is sorrow. Anyone who has been in love has experienced sorrow. If you do not love someone and something happens, there is very little sorrow about it.
God is jealous. He is jealous that the bride would be made ready for His Son. He is jealous that we, as the people of God, would return to the simplicity and purity of our devotion to Him. He is jealous for us.
We also see the judgment of God’s love. Sometimes we do not equate judgment with God’s love, but when God sees something unholy, something dishonoring among His people, it would actually be a failure of His love not to point it out.
As a parent disciplines children, there is a judgment and a discipline that comes. Yet all of this has one purpose: the end is not judgment. The end is to draw our hearts back to Him, so that we can be the people He desires us to be.
The question before each one of us is this: Will we respond? We have heard many cries in recent years and recent days to return to the Lord. We heard one last week through Kenny, as he shared about the passion seen in the life of David.
God calls us over and over again to return to Him. But are we responding? Are we, within our individual hearts, responding to the Lord?
Jeremiah first ministered during the reign of Josiah. Josiah had a great heart for the Lord. He was driving out idols, restoring the temple, and bringing things back to the way God desired.
Yet, as we see in Jeremiah, even though Josiah’s heart was right with the Lord, the people’s hearts were not. They were simply going through the motions. There was outward form and much religious activity. They used the correct words and did things outwardly, but it was not truly honoring to the Lord.
This was similar to what Paul writes in 2 Timothy: one characteristic of the end days is that there will be people who hold to a form of godliness but deny its power.
The people in Jeremiah’s time, and those at the close of the New Testament, had lost sight of what it meant to be the privileged and called people of God. Have we lost sight of that? Do we realize the privilege into which we have been brought? Do we realize the calling God has upon our hearts and lives?
One characteristic of God’s people in the end times is that we do not know our true condition. At the end of the Old Testament, in Malachi, they had no idea what their true condition was. They thought they were one thing, but God told them, “You do not love Me.” They responded, “What do You mean? We do this. We are doing all this for You, Lord.”
Likewise, in Laodicea, at the end of the New Testament, they thought they were rich, but they were blind, poor, and naked.
Yet God, in His great love, did not give up on His people. He did not give up during Jeremiah’s time, He did not give up during the New Testament, and He does not give up in the days in which we are living.
We are thankful that, as we look at Jeremiah, we can see how he responded to the Lord. In spite of difficulties, circumstances, and situations, the Lord used Jeremiah because he saw God’s heart and God’s desire for His people.
Jeremiah saw the true condition of the people, and there was a great contrast between what was upon God’s heart and the condition of His people. It is tragic today in Christendom, brothers and sisters, that so much of what God desires and what our condition is are not in sync. We are going one way, while He desires something else.
Jeremiah was faithful in spite of the conditions in which he lived. Though he was largely alone, he continued crying out and pleading with the people of God. He warned them, told them of their condition, and called them to return: “You are going down this path of destruction. God is calling you to return to Him. Come back. Repent.”
Every time Jeremiah brought what we might call a judgmental message, there was always hope: “Repent, return unto Me, and I will bless you. Return to the joy that I have for you.” It was not condemnation. He pointed out their condition for the purpose of bringing them back into all the joy and blessing God had for them.
In Jeremiah, we see the very nature of end-time ministry. It is a ministry that is not appreciated. It is a ministry that must remain faithful even when there is very little response. It must go on in spite of outward conditions and circumstances.
We should not merely say, “Oh, Jeremiah was this great man of God.” Jeremiah put his pants on just like the rest of us. He was a regular old guy, and God called him just as He has called each one of us.
In the first part of Jeremiah 1, we see four things:
May the Lord help us to see that, in a similar way, He entreats, encourages, equips, and empowers us to serve Him and to be about His business.
Now the word of the Lord came to me saying,
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
And before you were born I consecrated you;
I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.Then I said, “Alas, Lord God! Behold, I do not know how to speak, because I am a youth.”
But the Lord said to me,
“Do not say, ‘I am a youth,’
Because everywhere I send you, you shall go,
And all that I command you, you shall speak.
Do not be afraid of them,
For I am with you to deliver you,” declares the Lord.Then the Lord stretched out His hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me,
“Behold, I have put My words in your mouth.”
When the Lord calls Jeremiah, it is a beautiful testimony of what the Lord has done for Jeremiah and for each one of us. In verse 5, He says, “I formed you.” Do we realize that each one of us is fearfully and wonderfully made?
He says, “I knew you.” It is not as though we suddenly appeared and God discovered us. He knew us before we were born. He says, “I consecrated you”—or, as most translations say, “I sanctified you.” He set Jeremiah apart and appointed him to be a prophet to the nations.
In the same way, God has done this for each one of us. Do we realize the greatness and majesty of His love—that He knew each one of us before we were even born, when we were in our mother’s womb?
He has formed us, and He has a purpose for each one of us. None of us is here by chance. God has a specific call for every one of us, that we might fulfill His heart’s desire.
Sometimes we rationalize: “I can see why the Lord has a call for Jeremiah. I can see why the Lord has a call for Stephen Kong. But not for me.” No—the Lord has a call. He has fearfully and wonderfully made you, just as He made Jeremiah and every other person. He has a call to which He desires each of us to respond.
Jeremiah’s response is very similar to the response we might have: “Alas, Lord God, I do not know how to speak. I am a youth. I cannot do this. I cannot do that.”
Jeremiah was not rebelling. There was humility there. He saw how magnificent the Lord is. The Hebrew expression for “Lord” speaks of the sovereign and mighty Lord. Jeremiah acknowledged Who God is, and in the light of Who God is, he saw himself as nothing.
It is like Mary’s response when the angel visited her in Luke. She asked, “How can this be?” That was not doubt or rebellion. It was beyond imagination that the sovereign, mighty King of the universe would choose one like Jeremiah—and that He would choose to work out His heart and purpose through each one of us.
The Lord not only entreats Jeremiah; He encourages him. How does He encourage him? With these wonderful, simple words: “I am with you to deliver you.”
Those words ring throughout the ages. I pray that the Lord’s words to Jeremiah—“I am with you to deliver you”—would be very real and present to each one of us. They are powerful words. There is simplicity in them, but there is also great power.
Do we look down upon them as elementary? These words are essential in our Christian and daily life. Do we know that the great I AM is with us every day—that all He is and all He has done are with us?
In Isaiah 43, the Lord says, “Thou art Mine. I have called thee by name.” Even though we pass through waters and rivers, they will not overflow us. Even though we go through fire, we will not be scorched. Why? Because He is with us to deliver us.
The I AM, Emmanuel, is with us every day, brothers and sisters. Yet we often fail to recognize that. I fail quite often. Then I find myself getting excited, agitated, and making Stella’s day miserable. But I can come back to this reality: I do not have to be controlled by that.
The Lord does not come to Jeremiah and say, “You need to straighten up,” or, “You need more faith.” He simply says, “I am with you.” He does not point to our lack; He draws our eyes to Himself.
He gets our eyes off ourselves, off all our lack, and draws our eyes to Him. Do we experience the I AM every day?
Sometimes we draw everything back to ourselves. We say, “I cannot pray. I cannot do this. I cannot do that.” We wallow in who we are, and the Lord says, “Get your eyes off yourself.”
The only way we can pray, respond, and worship is by seeing Him. Our worship is a response to seeing Him. If we focus on ourselves, it paralyzes us. We become, as I was going to say, “unfunctioning” members in the body of Christ. That is not the right word, I guess, but we will make up a word.
We sit there and say, “I do not know how to pray. They pray so much better. I am too young. I do not know how to express things.” But where are our eyes at that point? Our eyes are upon ourselves.
The Lord wants our eyes off ourselves. That is why we have the table: to bring us to remembrance and refocus us, so that our eyes are upon the King. As Isaiah said, “My eyes have seen the King.” Praise God, Jeremiah’s eyes saw the King.
This is a great lesson from Jeremiah: not looking at ourselves, but looking at Him.
The Lord not only entreats and encourages Jeremiah; He equips him. In Jeremiah 1:9, He says, “I have put My words in your mouth.” He is not asking Jeremiah to speak his own words or come up with something. He puts His words in Jeremiah’s mouth, touches him, and gives him the anointing.
Praise God, Jeremiah was available. One precious thing about Jeremiah is that he was available for the Lord to train him. Are we available? When the Lord calls us, sets us apart, and touches us, are we available for Him to train us?
As He trains us, He equips us and calls us to service. He is not calling us to serve in our own strength or power. We serve through what He has done. Not only does He equip us, but He empowers us.
The word of the Lord came to me saying, “What do you see, Jeremiah?”
And I said, “I see a rod of an almond tree.”
The almond rod speaks of resurrection life. We remember how Aaron’s rod blossomed after it had been laid before the Lord. Jeremiah was to go forth in resurrection life, and we also go forth serving the Lord in the power of resurrection life.
We do not go forth in our own strength, energy, or desire. He empowers us. We go forth in the power of His resurrection life. This is why we can say, “Not I, but Christ.” We have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer we who live, but Christ Who lives within us.
In that power, even when the message is difficult, there is resurrection life within us. The Lord has entreatied, encouraged, equipped, and empowered Jeremiah. He has done the same, in a very specific way, for each one of us in Christ.
We need to see the greatness of the salvation into which we have been brought, and to know it freshly and truly every day of our lives.
Now gird up your loins and arise, and speak to them all which I command you.
Do not be dismayed before them, lest I dismay you before them.
Now behold, I have made you today as a fortified city, as a pillar of iron, and as walls of bronze against the whole land,
To the kings of Judah, to its princes, to its priests, and to the people of the land.
They will fight against you, but they will not overcome you,
For I am with you to deliver you, declares the Lord.
After the Lord has done all of this, He calls Jeremiah to respond. He says, “Gird up your loins. Stand up. Get ready. Go out.” The Lord has equipped and empowered him; now Jeremiah must stand up and go forth.
God has called us in the same way in this hour to be ready. Having done all, stand, and go forth in the power of His name.
It is marvelous what the Lord tells Jeremiah: “I have made you.” At this point, Jeremiah has not had many transactions with the Lord. Yet the Lord does not say, “I will make you a fortified city, a pillar of iron, and walls of bronze.” He says, “I have made you.”
The Lord had already made Jeremiah a fortified city—strong and defended, a place into which nothing could break. The Lord Himself was Jeremiah’s defense.
The Lord had made him a pillar of iron, able to stand and not be moved under pressure. The Lord was Jeremiah’s strength and his ability to stand. The Lord had made him walls of bronze—unbreakable walls.
In that day, mainly the gates were made of bronze. Yet the Lord told Jeremiah, “I have made the whole wall around your city bronze.” He was reinforcing His provision.
The Lord has done the same for us. He has equipped and strengthened us. He is fully for us—our shield, our defense, and our mighty fortress. A mighty fortress is our God. He has provided all of this for us in Christ Jesus.
God’s side is to reveal and release His provision. He revealed and released His full provision to Jeremiah, and then called Jeremiah simply to receive it and respond to it.
Is that not what the Lord has done for us? By His marvelous grace, He has revealed and released everything for us in Christ Jesus. He has given us everything, and He calls us to receive it and respond by His grace.
Often we pray, “Lord, I need grace. Give me grace.” But sometimes that prayer seems unable to be answered because the Lord says, “I have already given it to you. I gave you My Son, full of grace and truth. You have it. Receive it and respond to it.”
Do not take the grace of God in vain. At Calvary, when we received Christ, He released that grace to us. He has become our peace. Have we received that peace? He has given us faith. Have we received that faith and responded to it?
He has given us everything in Christ Jesus. Have we responded to it?
The Lord told Jeremiah that many would fight against him, but they would not overcome him. As we look through Jeremiah’s ministry, we see that he was despised and rejected. The Lord never promised him an easy road.
From the beginning, He told Jeremiah that his message would be difficult and that everybody would be against him: kings, worldly rulers, priests, religious rulers, the religious system, and, in general, the people.
Yet what was Jeremiah’s comfort and encouragement? “I am with you to deliver you.” The Lord’s presence with us is not based upon our worthiness but upon His love for us. He has loved us, and that is why He is for us.
Jeremiah responded faithfully. But in that response, he experienced rejection. In Jeremiah 12, even those in his own hometown tried to kill him. In Jeremiah 20, even the high priest had him arrested and put in chains.
This is the nature of end-time ministry and what the Lord is calling us to in this day and time. It is difficult because we all want to be popular and accepted. There must be a denial of ourselves as we go the way the Lord has for us.
When the Lord was on earth and asked His disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” one answer was Jeremiah. The life of Jeremiah, with all its suffering, looked so similar to the Lord’s life.
Turn to Jeremiah 20. This is toward the end of Josiah’s life, as Josiah was preparing to depart and other kings would be coming in. In the New American Standard Bible, the paragraph heading reads, “Jeremiah’s Complaint.”
O Lord, Thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived;
Thou hast overcome me and prevailed.
I have become a laughingstock all day long;
Everyone mocks me.For each time I speak, I cry aloud;
I proclaim violence and destruction,
Because for me the word of the Lord has resulted
In reproach and derision all day long.But if I say, “I will not remember Him
Or speak any more in His name,”
Then in my heart it becomes like a burning fire
Shut up in my bones;
And I am weary of holding it in,
And I cannot endure it.For I have heard the whispering of many,
“Terror on every side!
Denounce him; yes, let us denounce him!”
All my trusted friends,
Watching for my fall, say,
“Perhaps he will be deceived, so that we may prevail against him
And take our revenge on him.”But the Lord is with me like a dread champion;
Therefore my persecutors will stumble and not prevail.
They will be utterly ashamed because they have failed,
With an everlasting disgrace that will not be forgotten.
As we look at Jeremiah’s testimony in this chapter, if we are honest with ourselves, most of us have had this kind of prayer at some point. If you have not had this prayer, we could say that you have not been playing the game—you are sitting on the bench.
If we are involved and serious about following the Lord, at some point we will have controversies with Him. Although He tells us what lies ahead, we say, “I did not realize it was going to be that bad. I did not realize it was going to be like this.”
The wonderful thing about Jeremiah’s humanity is that he is perfectly transparent with the Lord. He knows the Lord in such a way that he opens his heart. He does not hide it.
There is a great lesson for us: in a right spirit, we can open our hearts before the Lord. We can say, “Lord, I do not understand why I am going through this.”
Jeremiah says, in effect, “I have been faithful. I have declared Your Word, not my word. I have been faithful to what You said, and all this is happening to me.” We see this throughout Scripture. Job cried out this way. Elijah cried out this way.
It speaks of a very personal and intimate relationship with the Lord—a relationship in which one can cry out like this.
Jeremiah came to the point of saying, “I am not going to speak anymore. I am going to keep my mouth shut.” Yet when he tried to hold it in, the Word became a burning fire within him.
We may say, “I am not going to tell anybody about Jesus anymore because every time I open my mouth, they make fun of me and put me down.” But the love of Christ burns within us. We cannot hold it in. We must share it and allow the love of Christ to come forth.
The Lord may not call each one of us to walk the exact path of Jeremiah, but we are to walk in the same spirit of Jeremiah. Our circumstances may be different, but Jeremiah was faithful.
Even in his wrestling with the Lord, the Lord did not say, “Okay, Jeremiah, I have had enough. I am finished with you.” No, the Lord was there encouraging him and continuing on with him.
Jeremiah was going through difficult times. He heard the whisperings, mockery, and denouncements. What made the hurt even greater was that his trusted friends were the ones doing this to him. They were waiting for his fall.
But Jeremiah’s testimony does not end there. In verse 11, he says, “But the Lord is with me.”
The I AM is with me. Jeremiah had come into reality. It was no longer merely God telling him, “I am with you.” Jeremiah could now say, “The Lord is with me. He has delivered me.”
The Lord is a mighty champion—a champion whom everyone dreads. Jeremiah had weathered the storm, gone through the trial, and allowed the Lord to keep him. He was strengthened in the power of the Holy Spirit within him.
Sing to the Lord, praise the Lord!
For He has delivered the soul of the needy one
From the hand of evildoers.
What a mighty deliverance. This is how reality is worked into us. Brothers and sisters, as we go through trials, the teaching we receive and the Scriptures we know no longer remain merely in our heads. As we go through reality and deny ourselves, they become established in our hearts.
This is a heart message from Jeremiah. His heart cries out: “The Lord is with me. The Lord has delivered me. The Lord has done everything.”
Jeremiah takes no credit, because he knows that only the Lord was his stronghold, his fortified city, his defense, and his shield. This is the character and nature of a servant of God in the end times.
The Lord desires that there would be those with the spirit of Jeremiah in the days in which we are living—those who truly know God’s heart, His purpose, and His design. We get to know that heart by spending time with Him.
The Lord is looking for those willing to stand for His truth in the midst of opposition from the spirit of this age and the spirit of this world. He is looking for those willing to cry out, plead, and warn the people of God concerning their true condition and what is coming upon them.
In His lovingkindness and tender mercy, He is still calling today. He is calling us by His love to wake up and respond to Him.
He is looking for those who will be faithful in spite of rejection and suffering. Sometimes, when we face rejection or suffering, we want to pack it up and say, “I have had enough. I cannot take anymore.”
That is true: you cannot take anymore. But there is a life within you that can take much more, and He desires to prove Himself to you in every situation.
Would there be those willing to stand for God’s heart, willing to cry out the truth, willing to be the voice of the Lord in this hour, and willing not to care about themselves? Would there be those who bring us back to Christ as the standard?
Christ is the answer.
Many standards are being established today, even within religious systems. We may say, “If you are a good Christian, you will be at two meetings a week,” or establish other outward requirements. But the standard is Christ.
This is the cry of Jeremiah, and it is like Paul’s word to the Corinthians. Paul was jealous for them, that they would return to the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.
Israel had become complicated. They had their idols and everything else going on. The spirit of this age and the spirit of Babylon around us bring much confusion. There is much in the name of the Lord that is not of Him.
The Lord needs those who will cry out in the spirit of Jeremiah, calling for a return to the simplicity and purity of our devotion to Christ—Christ and Him alone.
Lord, we are thankful that You have given us Your Word. We are thankful for ones like Jeremiah, who were available and willing to go through the way of life to which You called them. We are thankful for the encouragement they can be to us.
Lord, as we consider Jeremiah, we are not here merely to learn history lessons about a man. We want to capture the very spirit and essence of the life of Jeremiah. As we capture that spirit and essence, may it direct us unto You.
Lord, we say, as Peter did, “You alone have the words of life.” We return to You in this hour. Work in a mighty way to rule and overrule in the midst of everything going on, and may our hearts return unto You. In Jesus’ name, amen.