It was a lot smoother than the last time I shared.
We are going to continue this morning looking at the life and ministry of Jeremiah. I picked that hymn because we mentioned last time that the Lord spoke some precious and magnificent promises to Jeremiah. As Jeremiah stood upon the promise of the Word of the Lord, the Lord kept him through all the trials and trainings of life. This is what we have before us.
Let us turn to Jeremiah 1. We are going to read the entire 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,
and I ordained 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 thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee,
and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak.Be not afraid of their faces:
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 root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down,
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 will hasten 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 pot; and the face thereof is toward the north.
Then the Lord said unto me, Out of the north an 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 entering 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, who 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 their faces, lest I confound thee before them.
For, behold, I have made thee this day a defenced 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.
Let us pray.
Lord, we are thankful for all of Your precious and magnificent promises. We are thankful for the promise we found at the table this morning: the promise of eternal life, the promise of forgiveness, and the reality, Lord, of all that You are and all that You have done.
Lord, we are thankful now for Your Word. Through the enabling of Your Holy Spirit, it is more than just words upon a piece of paper; they are words of life. We would turn our hearts unto You, Lord. We would have a desire this day to hear the Word of the Lord.
We do not desire to be in those days where there is a famine for the Word of the Lord, but we want to hear Your voice. We want to know Your voice. We want our hearts to receive Your Word and allow You to prepare us in a fuller and greater way for all the days we are living in.
Lord, we give this time unto You with a great assurance, knowing that Jesus Christ is Lord over this time. Would You be glorified in it? In Thy name we pray. Amen.
As we have been looking at Jeremiah, we are looking at him from the point of view of the training of God’s servants in the last days. We need to remember that we might not all be called to be prophets like Jeremiah, but we are all called to be servants.
This is important because sometimes, as we look at these different ones in Scripture, we can think, “Well, they are a special person. They were called to do this.” Thank the Lord, He called Jeremiah in a special way and used him in a special way. But the Lord has called each and every one of us unto service.
The principles that govern the life of Jeremiah are the principles that govern every life of every servant. We want to learn from him and take up the relevance of Jeremiah.
If we really look at the spiritual conditions in Jeremiah, we find many similarities to the days we are living in. During Jeremiah’s time, there was a lot of outward activity. There was much religiosity going on, but there was a denial of the real power of the life of God within.
They had an outward form of godliness, but there was not that inward reality. We see that this is very characteristic of God’s people in the last days, whether we look at the end of the Old Testament or the end of the New Testament, as we see in the spirit of Laodicea.
In these last days, it is normal that God’s people do not really know their true condition. There is a delusion there. We think that we are in one place, but we find ourselves somewhere else.
It is all about getting distracted. Look over there—Jack’s socks. Have you looked at them? It is like they glow in the dark over there, Jack. Oh no, you need to get the camera over there and show your socks. It is like you turn around and see these glowing socks. Okay, so much for that. I am not easily distracted.
But anyway, we see in the times Jeremiah was living in that they were going through all this form and ritual, but they were not really where God’s heart and His desire was.
Thank the Lord, God in His great love called a Jeremiah. As we looked at last time, we saw how the Lord testified to Jeremiah in a magnificent way: “Jeremiah, I am the One who formed you. I have prepared you. I have comforted you. I have equipped you, and I have empowered you to go forth.”
There was this great empowering and enabling in what the Lord had done for Jeremiah. Not only had He done that, but then He gave him this promise. He said, “I have made you.” It is so important that we note the tense there. It is not, “I will make you.” He says, “I have made you.”
Before Jeremiah had done anything, the Lord said, “I have made you that fortified city, that pillar of iron, like a wall of bronze.” There was a strength there. Then the Lord called to Jeremiah and said, “Now I have done this. Now you need to rise up and go forth.”
This is really the way the Lord works in all of our lives. From God’s side, He reveals Himself to us, and He releases His precious life to us. If we think about grace, He reveals grace to us in Christ. He has released it; He has given us that.
Simply on our side, we are those who receive it and do not take the grace of God in vain. By faith, we respond. It is not a responding of ourselves, but it is that grace within that enables us even to respond to all that He has done.
As we look today, we want to consider more of the ministry of Jeremiah. We are not going to get so much into the message of what he was saying, but more into how the very character and nature of the Lord was formed within Jeremiah.
We have divided this ministry into three parts:
Praise God, we always have to remember this in Jeremiah. If you read Jeremiah, you can really become discouraged; it can be pretty easy. But if you read it closely throughout, every time God sends a message of repentance and judgment, there is always a call to repentance.
God is a God of hope. There is always a call for restoration. He is not just there to say what was wrong; He is there to restore and to build up. That is God’s heart and purpose.
As we look at the character of his ministry, we can see it very clearly in Jeremiah 1:10. This morning, you are not going to have verses up there, so you are going to have to actually use your Bibles. It would be helpful because we are going to be looking at a lot of individual verses.
As we come to Jeremiah 1:10, we see the character of Jeremiah’s ministry, where the Lord says:
I have appointed thee this day over the nations and over the kingdoms,
to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down,
to build, and to plant.
Jeremiah was a prophet to the southern kingdom, the nation of Judah. At that time, they were really in a place of spiritual ruin. They were far from the glory of the days of Solomon. Before the Lord could rebuild everything, He had to tear down, cleanse out, purify, and remove what was not of Him.
The Lord called Jeremiah and said, “You are there to root up. You are there to pluck up the things that are not of Me.” That word means to tear out at the very roots.
The people of God were putting their roots into the things of this world, not into the things the Lord had for them. They were too attached to the things of the world and to other things. The idols of the world had come in and were governing them.
The Lord puts the question to us in a similar way: Where are we putting our roots today? Are we being rooted and grounded in Christ, or are we sending our roots out into the world to get the nourishment, satisfaction, and fulfillment of the world?
If we are, would the Lord come in and root us up from the things that are holding us to this world? We are really pilgrims and sojourners here, and the Lord has a great call upon us to press on and be free from this world.
He also calls Jeremiah to break down and pull down, because they had built up many things that were not of Him. The Lord said, “Before I can start rebuilding, everything that is not of Me needs to be torn down.”
We have to ask ourselves in a similar way: What are we building today? Are we building our paneled houses, like the recovery prophet says there in Haggai? Or are we really about the Father’s business?
In 1 Corinthians, we are reminded to be careful how we build. We are not to be those building with our own natural things, but allowing the very life of the Lord to do that building. Only that which is of Him will remain. Everything else has to be torn down and done away with.
We are thankful for the Holy Spirit within us, who will show us, lead us, and guide us into really knowing the things that are of the Lord and the things that are not.
He also says to Jeremiah—it is really a strong word—“to destroy.” I do not know that much about Hebrew, but as I was looking at the definition, it said this is a strong word.
It implies more than just putting something to the side. It is really coming in almost with an atomic force and utterly destroying something, wiping it out. If it is not of Christ, it is of no value.
Nothing of the flesh, no matter how good it might look or how pretty it might look, if it is not of Christ, needs to be destroyed. It needs to go the way of Calvary and allow the Lord’s life to really come in.
He also called Jeremiah to overthrow, to tear into pieces. Implied in this word is that there is resistance that you are going to incur. He was preparing Jeremiah for spiritual warfare.
In the days we are living in, we find out that as we try to go and pray for things to be overthrown, there will be resistance. That is why we need to take up and be strong in the Lord, so that we can fight that good fight and enter into this call of spiritual warfare.
Praise God, there are four negative things and two positive things. But actually, there are six positive things, because the four things are getting rid of what is not of Christ, and that is really positive.
If you look at it that way, it is all a positive ministry. Then He can build, then He can plant, and then He can really allow the things of the Lord to come forth.
We see this call upon Jeremiah for his ministry, and it is very similar to our Lord as He was upon this earth. If we look at our Lord’s death at Calvary, He was there to root up, break down, destroy, and overthrow.
We remembered that at the table today. From the very beginning, there is the contrast between Adam and Christ. Praise God, when He came in, there was that great uprooting, taking us out of the kingdom of darkness and bringing us into the kingdom of His beloved Son.
He has cleansed us and washed us afresh with the blood of the Lamb. We have a good beginning. Praise God, every day we can allow that blood to continue to cleanse us.
Once He has done that work of the cross, then there can be that building work in His resurrection life. He can build and plant the things that are of Him. Oh, how jealous He is for that.
As we apply Jeremiah to our day and time, we see there are things that need to be torn down, destroyed, and uprooted. But it is all with a purpose. It is not just for destruction; it is for building up, that more of Christ can be seen and testified to in these last days.
If we really desire to be those people who are around at the end time, hastening the coming of the Lord and having His life worked within us, this working of the cross needs to be a daily experience within each one of us.
Praise God, we see in Jeremiah how he allowed the Lord to work in his life, and he sent this message to the people of God so that they too could respond. The tragedy in Jeremiah is that only a few responded.
Thank the Lord, there were some who did respond and stayed faithful, but most did not. It is a tragic end because God, in His great love, cried out so often to the people of Israel to return to Him, but they never returned.
He is crying out to us today for us to return to that simplicity and purity of Christ. Are we going to listen? Or do we think that call is for someone else? Do we think we are okay? Are we deluded like in the spirit of Malachi and Laodicea, saying, “Oh, we are okay. It is everybody else who has a problem”?
Would the Lord search our individual hearts, that we could really be the people He is calling us to be in this hour?
As we said, we are going to look at three aspects of his ministry. First was the character. The second part is the cause, or the motivation, or the reason for his ministry.
If you look at Jeremiah 1:16, you can really summarize Jeremiah’s ministry by this verse. Before that, in Jeremiah 1:13-15, the Lord said, “I am going to bring some out of the north, and they are going to judge Judah. I am going to use these ones to judge you because you are not following Me.”
Then He says:
I will utter My judgments against them touching all their wickedness,
who have forsaken Me,
and have burned incense unto other gods,
and worshipped the works of their own hands.
Forsaken Me. Over and over again throughout Jeremiah, we see that the issue was that the people of God had forsaken the Lord. Because they had forsaken the Lord, they chose other gods, and then they ended up worshiping the works of their own hands.
How we see today that we worship the works of our own hands. Are we doing what is right in our own eyes, as it says in Judges? So often, the things of man get created.
Many times, as we are praying on Wednesday night about various issues before us, we are saying, “Lord, we want to take our hands off. We do not want our hands, our thoughts, or our ideas. We are looking for Your heart and Your way in this. Teach us.”
In order to come into that, there is a denying of ourselves. Praise God, the Lord is so anxious to reveal Himself to us.
This is a recurring theme throughout the book of Jeremiah. As we come into Jeremiah 2:10-13, we see the characteristics of the people of Israel, how they forsook the Lord and were not following Him in a pure way.
Pass over the isles of Chittim, and see;
and send unto Kedar, and consider diligently, and see if there be such a thing.
Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods?
but My people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit.
What the Lord, through Jeremiah, is saying is, “Look at all the nations. They are faithful to their gods. There is only one nation that has abandoned their God, and that is you, Israel.”
“You have the one true God, and you are abandoning Him. All these other nations—the Edomites, the Philistines, the Amalekites, and everybody—they are faithful to those idols, even though those idols never saved them from anything. Those idols are just made with their own hands, but they are so loyal to them.”
But the people of God were so quick to abandon the Lord. When I was thinking about this, I could not help but think of our own nation.
Here we are. God blessed us so much as a nation, to be a place of freedom to worship Him and serve Him, and for the gospel to go out in many wonderful ways. Look around the world today. How many nations in the world are changing their gods? China is faithful to theirs. Japan is faithful to theirs. India is faithful to theirs.
Who is it? The United States has changed its gods. We are doing the work of our own hands. That spirit of humanism has come in. “We can do it.” We acknowledge Him with our lips, but our hearts are far off.
Sadly enough, that has permeated the church of God in the days we are living in. So often, we find ourselves looking for man’s ways and not the Lord’s ways. He is calling us in this hour. This is why this prophecy of Jeremiah is so relevant to us.
What is occurring among the people of God is something that does not occur among any other religions in this world. It is so tragic. One after another, we are abandoning the Lord. We have Him in name, but our hearts are far off. Would the Lord wake us up and bring us back to that place?
We see in Jeremiah 2:13, the Lord says:
My people have committed two evils;
they have forsaken Me the fountain of living waters,
and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.
We can talk a lot about this verse, and there have been many messages on it. But the key thing I want to point out is that they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters. The fountain is singular; the cisterns are plural.
There are many cisterns out there, created by the works of our own hands, that we are trying to use to satisfy our own desires. But there is only one fountain of life, and that is our Lord Jesus Christ. That is what He is calling us back to.
In this day of relativity, we love to have this way and that way—so many man-created cisterns and man-created ways. But the Lord is saying there is one way. There is one fountain of life.
Would we, as the people of God, be satisfied with that fountain? Would we drink from that water and allow Him to really come in and meet us?
The Lord reminds the people in Jeremiah 2 how they got into this condition. He says very bluntly in Jeremiah 2:17:
Hast thou not procured this unto thyself,
in that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God,
when He led thee by the way?
How did you get in this condition? You have done this to yourself by forsaking the Lord your God when He led you in the way.
And now what hast thou to do in the way of Egypt,
to drink the waters of Sihor?
or what hast thou to do in the way of Assyria,
to drink the waters of the river?
Where were they going for help? They were going to Egypt—to the world. They were going to Assyria. They were going to the things of this world instead of returning to the Lord.
As we find ourselves in these days of crisis, which road are we on? Who are we looking to as our help and our sustainer, to hold us and keep us through everything we are going through?
We see how they had done it to themselves. There was nobody else to blame. They had done it to themselves.
The Lord continues on, reminding them of His great love. He cries out with a great cry of love and reminds them in Jeremiah 2:20:
I have broken thy yoke, and burst thy bands;
and thou saidst, I will not serve.
“I was the One who set you free, but you are forsaking Me.” Then He says, “I planted thee a noble vine.” “I am the One who planted you there. What a provision I have made for you.”
Think back to Isaiah and the prophecy of the vineyard: how the Lord planted them in that vineyard, put a wall around them, put a tower there, and made every provision for them. Yet they forsook Him.
That is a wonderful thing we have every Lord’s Day as we take the Lord’s table: we are reminded afresh every week of the bountiful provision we have. Do we avail ourselves of that?
We can say He is our all in all, and we remember Him at the table, but in our daily lives, are we really allowing the Lord to meet us, deliver us, set us free from these things, and keep us on that right path?
The Lord continues to cry out. In Jeremiah 2:29, He says, “Why will ye plead with Me? Ye all have transgressed against Me.” Why are you fighting against Me? I am on your side. Why are you contending against Me?
Then He says, “In vain have I smitten your children.” In vain I have disciplined them. I was trying to discipline them and bring them back to Myself, but it was in vain.
We know in Hebrews 12 that the love of a father disciplines those whom he loves in order to bring them back and restore them. Yes, it may be painful at times, but it has the purpose of bringing us back to Himself.
At the end of Jeremiah 2:31, He cries out again:
O generation, see ye the word of the Lord.
Have I been a wilderness unto Israel?
a land of darkness?
Is there not a cry in this age to heed the Word of the Lord? Has He been a wilderness to Israel? No, He has not been a wilderness. He has been a promised, bountiful land, but they looked upon it as a wilderness.
They said, “We are free. We will come no more unto Thee.” They thought, “We are out of Egypt. We can do our own thing. We have had everything provided, and now we are free.”
What is true freedom? So many believers in the day and time we are living in think that we are set free—and we are set free in the Lord—but we are not set free to serve ourselves. We are set free to serve Him.
We are set free from sin, the world, corruption, and everything that is against the Lord. But it is not for our own enjoyment and our own self-centered pleasure. We are free so that we can now be bondservants to Him. We can be those love-slaves who serve Him.
We can say, “Oh, I am free. I can go do this. I can do that. I can meet here. I can meet there. I can do whatever I want to do.” But no—the Lord says, “I have set you free so that you could, in love, serve Me and serve one another.”
Oh, how this freedom has been misunderstood in the day and time we are living in.
Throughout Jeremiah, we see how the Lord, in His great love, sends out another cry of love through Jeremiah. In judgment, God always remembers mercy.
Chapter after chapter, we see the Lord pointing out, “These things are not of Me. These things are not what I have called you to.” Then, in Jeremiah 3:12-14, He talks about how evil they are and how they are even worse than their treacherous sister Israel.
Then the Lord, the God of hope, comes in and says:
Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord;
and I will not cause Mine anger to fall upon you:
for I am merciful, saith the Lord,
and I will not keep anger for ever.
He says, “Return.” Then He brings them into repentance in Jeremiah 3:13:
Only acknowledge thine iniquity,
that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God.
Repent. Come before Me and acknowledge your iniquity—that you have transgressed against the Lord your God, scattered your favors to strangers under every green tree, and not obeyed Me.
Then He says again in Jeremiah 3:14:
Return, O backsliding children, saith the Lord;
for I am married unto you:
and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family,
and I will bring you to Zion.
There is that place of restoration. He will bring them back to the place where they are to be. His desire is that they would be living in that holy place, that holy habitation of Zion, the city of God. That was where their home was to be, yet they were choosing to worship other gods.
In a similar way, the Lord is calling us to return unto Him, not making our home in other places. What a great encouragement that, regardless of how faithless we have been or how far we have fallen, through repentance and through the blood of the Lamb, there is a place of recovery and restoration.
This is what God is after in this hour. He desires that the testimony which shone so brightly in prior generations would be shining brightly today. Oh, that there would not just be a few, but generations who are really a testimony unto Him.
As we look on down in Jeremiah 4, we see how Jeremiah is pouring out his heart. We see within Jeremiah the impact this message is having upon him.
In Jeremiah 4:19, he says:
My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart;
my heart maketh a noise in me;
I cannot hold my peace,
because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet,
the alarm of war.
He continues crying out to the people. What we see within Jeremiah is a key characteristic of the servants of God in the last days: God’s message, God’s burden, has become Jeremiah’s burden.
It is very difficult to separate Jeremiah from his ministry and from the message he has. It was not something he was passing on haphazardly. The burden of the Lord had first captured his heart.
The message and the messenger were one. This is what God is looking for in these last days. He is looking for those in whom the message and the messenger are one.
How often we can hear a good message. How often we can hear words of truth. But what is the vessel God is using? Is that messenger really in sync with the Word of God? Is that character being formed? Has the burden of God come upon the messenger?
There is a oneness that has been interwoven. It is hard to separate whether it is Jeremiah’s message or the Lord’s message. Who is speaking here? This is what God is looking for in this hour.
It is not perfect messages or perfect messengers—we will never be perfect—but it is those who are available, those whom the Lord can use in this hour.
We see a little more of the condition of God’s people as we come to Jeremiah 5. The Lord is crying out, and we see what He is looking for.
He tells Jeremiah in Jeremiah 5:1:
Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem,
and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof,
if ye can find a man,
if there be any that executeth judgment, that seeketh the truth;
and I will pardon it.
God was looking for one man, looking for a vessel He could use to bring the people of God back. Praise God, this verse was fulfilled in our Lord Jesus Christ. There was One whom God found.
He is also looking for a vessel today. We have said before that He is looking not only for individuals but for a corporate expression. He is looking for a man—for brothers and sisters who come together and stand for truth and justice in these last days.
We know from the letters the apostle John wrote that in the last days, we think of John as love, and that is so true. But what is the other word in his epistles that John uses about love? It is love and truth.
Sometimes our love can be so emotionally based, but there is a true love that comes from the heart of God, one that woos all of us and goes far beyond any emotion we might have.
The Lord was faithful to cry out, but as we look on, we see what He was up against. He goes around the city looking for one. He begins among those who are poor, those who do not have as much.
In Jeremiah 5:4, he says:
Surely these are poor; they are foolish:
for they know not the way of the Lord,
nor the judgment of their God.
The general mass did not know the way of the Lord. Jeremiah says, “Ah, but I will go to the great. I will go to the religious leaders. I will go to those who should really be knowing.”
We do not really know who “the great” were here, but I take it as those who should have known better—those who had been instructed, those who had heard, and therefore those who should know.
Then in Jeremiah 5:5, he says:
I will get me unto the great men, and will speak unto them;
for they have known the way of the Lord,
and the judgment of their God:
but these have altogether broken the yoke,
and burst the bonds.
Everybody was turning their back on the way the Lord was calling them to go and the way the Lord desired for them.
That is why in Jeremiah 5:7 He says:
How shall I pardon thee for this?
thy children have forsaken Me,
and sworn by them that are no gods:
when I had fed them to the full,
they then committed adultery,
and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots’ houses.
Again, He reminds them, “I have fed you to the full,” but they committed adultery. They went to the harlot’s house.
In Jeremiah 5:30-31, we see one of the great tragedies of the condition of the people:
A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land;
The prophets prophesy falsely,
and the priests bear rule by their means;
and My people love to have it so:
and what will ye do in the end thereof?
The prophets were prophesying falsely. The priests were ruling on their own authority. Those spiritual leaders were just doing it on their own authority, using man’s hands and man’s ways. They were not under the headship of Christ.
We see that so much in leadership today. One of the greatest challenges anyone with any responsibility has is not to take up things in your own strength, but to come under that headship of Christ. We say that so often, but is it being lived out in this day?
But then He says, “My people love to have it so.” What will you do in the end? The prophets were prophesying falsely, the leaders were leading falsely, and what was the condition of the people? They loved it.
Everything was fine. Their needs were being taken care of, and they were going on. We are seeing the declension of the people here. We cannot simply blame others.
Sometimes we say, “Oh, if we had a better prophet, if we had better this or that.” So often, it comes down to our own hearts. The Lord gets right to the heart of the matter: “You are really enjoying this.”
Yes, leaders may be doing this and that, but the people are enjoying it. That is why the overall nation was in this condition.
Jeremiah continues to cry out. We have chapter breaks, but really this whole prophecy is flowing on. We come into Jeremiah 6, and again the Lord says to Jeremiah in Jeremiah 6:16:
Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see,
and ask for the old paths, where is the good way,
and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.
But they said, We will not walk therein.
The word here is like a crossroads. There are two ways, two paths. You are at a crossroads. The Lord says, “Look for the ancient paths.”
There is a path of life and a path of death. That is the simplicity of this Christian life. There are two paths we can walk on. We can be walking on a path of life, having the life of Christ, or we can walk on a path of death, which is our own self, the enemy, and the ways of this world.
The Lord confronts these ones and says, “Stand by the ways and see, and ask for those ancient paths. Where is the good way? Walk in it, and you shall find rest for your souls.”
Again, there is that great promise of hope: “You will find rest for your souls.” You are out of rest. You are miserable. But you will find rest. How do the people respond? “We will not walk in it.”
Then He says:
Also I set watchmen over you, saying,
Hearken to the sound of the trumpet.
But they said, We will not hearken.
Oh, what a tragic picture of God’s people in the last days. This is why, as we read Jeremiah, sometimes it can be so stark and so hard. We can have that natural tendency immediately to say, “It is speaking to somebody else. It is not speaking to me.”
That is what these people thought, and that is why they ended up in this condition. We need to hear the Word of God as speaking to each and every one of us, challenging us in this hour to wake up, recognize our condition, return, repent, and allow Him to be who He desires to be among us and among the people of God.
The crying of Jeremiah—the message from the Lord—is so desperate. Jeremiah is precious, but it is also so sad because we see the impact it has upon him. We see the sorrow that he goes through over and over again.
The Lord’s burdens became Jeremiah’s burden. As the Lord’s heart is heavy, Jeremiah’s heart is heavy.
At the end of Jeremiah 8 and the first part of Jeremiah 9, we see Jeremiah crying out to the Lord:
My sorrow is beyond healing,
my heart is faint in me.
Behold the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people
because of them that dwell in a far country:
Is not the Lord in Zion?
is not her King in her?The harvest is past, the summer is ended,
and we are not saved.For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt;
I am black; astonishment hath taken hold on me.
The burden captured Jeremiah in such a way that he was dismayed. He was overwhelmed with the condition of the people.
As we are praying in this day for the Lord to do a great work of recovery, has the Lord’s burden for His people captured our hearts? Are we disconnected from the burden of God, or has the burden of the Lord really come in and won our hearts over, so that we are crying as this prophet Jeremiah cried?
I had to ask myself, when was the last time I was in anguish over the people of God? We talk a lot about loving His house and loving the people of God, and we see our condition. When was the last time I cried about it?
I cry if the Yankees lose. I cry when Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte retired. But when was the last time I cried over the condition of the people of God?
Oh, would the Lord touch my heart? It has become so cold. I do not want to have a cold heart in this hour. I want my heart to be alive and to have a fleshly heart that He can work and use.
Do not cast this off for other people. Jeremiah is speaking into each one of our hearts because He wants us to be attuned with the burden of the Lord—not a theology, not a doctrine of stuff, but a real heart. What is God’s heart in this hour?
Oh, that He would capture us, that we would be those who are weeping as Jeremiah wept. A true prophet, a man of God with that true power, is not just one like a pipeline through which a message can come without affecting him.
It is a burden impacting his life in such a way that his heart and desire are that of the Lord. It is no longer our burden; it is His burden. As you read through Jeremiah, sometimes you do not know whether it is Jeremiah speaking or the Lord speaking, because the message and the messenger are one.
Jeremiah went through this training of sorrows. He saw this sorrow. He had to go through hard times because that is how the Lord has to train us. We are so self-centered and can be so strong in ourselves that we have to go through some difficulties to be trained.
We see it in the life of Paul. He had to be in prison. Joseph was in prison, and then see how the Lord used him in a marvelous way. John was on the isle of Patmos. Moses was in the wilderness.
Are we willing to undergo that training of the Lord?
In Jeremiah’s training, there was a time of sorrow, but there also came a time of persecution. Through persecution, the Lord continued to press him in upon Himself.
In spite of difficult times, Jeremiah was faithful. Look at Jeremiah 11:1-3. Jeremiah knew he was not very popular, but in faithfulness he stood up and said:
Hear ye the words of this covenant,
and speak unto the men of Judah,
and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem;
And say thou unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel;
Cursed be the man that obeyeth not the words of this covenant.
That is a strong message, but it was a wake-up call. Jeremiah was crying out to wake up the people of God, and praise God, he was faithful to deliver that message.
Yet, in his faithfulness, he continued to suffer more and more. He went through persecution because people within his own hometown, those close to him, began making a plot to do away with him, eliminate him, and silence him.
But Jeremiah 11:18 says:
And the Lord hath given me knowledge of it, and I know it:
then Thou shewedst me their doings.
Jeremiah was in a place where the Lord revealed this evil plot to him, and the Lord saved him from it. The Lord was defending him and keeping him.
The oddity here—which ends up not being that odd, but occurring rather frequently—is that he was persecuted by the ones closest to him. This was his hometown. These were the ones he had grown up with, and they were the ones plotting against him.
We see this throughout Scripture. The psalmist, in Psalm 55:12-14, cries out about a companion, a friend, one with whom he had sweet fellowship in the house of the Lord. They walked together in the house of the Lord, and then that person turned on him.
There was such sweetness and companionship there, but then there was this turning. It should not surprise us because we see this within our Lord. The Lord came unto His own, and His own received Him not.
It was not like He came to strangers. He came to His very own. In this day and time, we do not need to be surprised where some of the difficulties come from. They can come from those nearest and dearest to us.
We see Jeremiah’s response in Jeremiah 12. He cries out to the Lord. He does not understand it. In Jeremiah 12:1, he asks, “Why? Why is this occurring? Why is this happening to me?” Then in Jeremiah 12:4 he asks, “How long, Lord?”
The Lord responds in Jeremiah 12:5. He does not really answer Jeremiah’s question, but He gives him a response. Sometimes we ask the Lord why, how long, and all these things, but the Lord comes back with a response.
If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee,
then how canst thou contend with horses?
and if in the land of peace, wherein thou trustedst, they wearied thee,
then how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan?
This is God’s training. It is like, right now you are just walking along with some footmen, but let Me tell you, there are days ahead when you are going to have to run with horses. How are you going to handle it?
You are getting trained now in days of peace, but what are you going to do when the onslaught comes? Let us not faint.
I am afraid I always have to do sports analogies, but to me, it is like getting tired out in the pregame warm-up and not being able to compete in the game. The exhibition game tires you out, and then you cannot compete in the real game.
The Lord is saying, “Wake up. This is the training time in the days we are living in.” Praise God, it is still called today. This is training, and be encouraged: it is going to get much worse.
If we faint now, what are we going to do when more of this onslaught comes upon us, when things get more and more difficult?
We talk about this country losing our freedoms, but if you compare this country to many other countries, we still have tremendous freedom of religion and freedom to serve the Lord.
How are you going to handle it when they say, “You have a choice. You can say the name of Jesus, or you can say another name. If you say the name of Jesus, they are going to shoot you and you are going to die”?
This is the time to train. This is what the Lord is calling us for.
Even in this training process, look down in Jeremiah 12:6. Who were some of those against Jeremiah?
For even thy brethren, and the house of thy father,
even they have dealt treacherously with thee.
Some family members were against him. We know how our Lord’s brothers treated Him in the early part of His life, before His death and resurrection. We need to realize that anything can be out there against us.
Would the Lord help us to keep our eyes on Him, so that we could be strengthened as Jeremiah was strengthened?
What was Jeremiah’s strength? The hymn we sang: “Standing on the Promises.” Do we know those precious and magnificent promises that we can continue to stand on?
This was not Jeremiah’s only training. The training gets a little deeper. Look over in Jeremiah 15:17. In all that Jeremiah is going through, he has the training of loneliness.
I sat not in the assembly of the mockers, nor rejoiced;
I sat alone because of Thy hand:
for Thou hast filled me with indignation.
There was a loneliness. Loneliness can be one of the greatest challenges any of us ever face. The question before us in loneliness is: Is the Lord enough for us? Is God enough for us?
When we feel alone, all of a sudden we feel isolated. It opens us up to all the accusations of the enemy: “Nobody loves you. Nobody cares. God has abandoned you.”
But what kept Jeremiah through the loneliness? The promise in Jeremiah 15:20:
And I will make thee unto this people a fenced brasen wall:
and they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee:
for I am with thee to save thee and to deliver thee, saith the Lord.
That same promise is with each and every one of us. In the midst of our loneliness, we find out that we are not alone. The Lord is with us, and He is ever faithful there.
But there can be times when we go through trials, testings, and trainings related to loneliness.
Jeremiah’s training continues in Jeremiah 16. The Lord tells him, “Jeremiah, you are not going to be able to take a wife.”
He had to deny himself even of what God had ordained. God was the One who created marriage. God was the One who said, “Let the man and the woman come together.” But He was telling Jeremiah, “I want to use you in such a way, and I want to train you in such a way, that you will deny even these natural things, so that I can use you.”
It reminds us of Luke 2 and Anna, who was there all that time fasting and praying. She was not praying for her own interests; she was there praying for the consolation of Israel. She was there for God’s heart. God’s heart had captured her.
Anna was a young widow, and she spent many, many years in the temple, standing for God’s heart in undistracted service—not distracted by the things of the world and not distracted by what others said about her.
We see this great faithfulness in Jeremiah. He was faithful with an unpopular message.
Are we willing to share an unpopular message? Actually, within my own self today, I would a lot rather be standing up here talking about Psalm 23. In myself, I would be more comfortable.
I am not one who naturally enjoys this. I am not naturally drawn to Jeremiah, but the Lord has me here, and some of the words are kind of tough when you look at Jeremiah.
Are we willing to be those who share an unpopular message, a rejected message? They called Jeremiah a false prophet. They said, “You are saying judgment is coming. Where is all this judgment? We do not see anything happening. Nothing is happening to us.”
It is like those mockers Peter speaks of, who say, “You say the Lord is coming back. Where is He? You say these are the last days. Where is the Lord?”
Those are mockers—ones who mock what the Lord is trying to do in these days. Jeremiah was not deterred by being rejected.
He was also faithful, even though it was an unfulfilled message in his lifetime. He saw part of it. He saw some of the judgment as they were taken captive into Babylon, but he never saw the recovery and restoration through Ezra or the coming of the Lord.
The challenge we have before us is this: Can we stay faithful when we are rejected and do not see a lot of fruit? As we faithfully serve brothers and sisters, as we faithfully serve the Lord, can we continue to be faithful in what He has called us to do, in spite of being rejected and unpopular?
Or do we want to be those who are popular, accepted, and have a lot of friends? There is a loneliness in this hour for those who are really following the Lord. Would we be willing to do that?
One of the greatest things we see in Jeremiah through his ministry is the great longsuffering of God’s love. Throughout Jeremiah, we see his great love for the people.
This is characterized by one little phrase that is used nine times throughout the book. In Jeremiah 7:13, the Lord says:
I spake unto you, rising up early and speaking,
but ye heard not;
and I called you, but ye answered not.
“Rising up early and speaking.” Over and over again, the prophet is doing that. When I think about rising up early and speaking, I think of those who really have a care, who really have a commitment.
They have a relationship with the Lord in which they are denying themselves. Not many of us love to rise up early. But they are rising up early for the sake of others. They are rising up early for the sake of the Lord.
These prophets rose up and spoke God’s heart in such a way that they were faithful unto it. Would we be those in this hour who are rising up?
I had to take the challenge. I read this verse, and it really challenged me. The Lord said, “Mac, when was the last time you rose up and prayed for My interests? When did you get up early? When did you deny yourself a little sleep for My name’s sake?”
I came up short. This is why Jeremiah is so convicting. But if we allow the training of the Lord to work within us in this day, we will be those constrained by His love.
We will be those the Lord can use to pray in for His interests, for His will to come upon this earth, that His burden will become our burden.
We said that an aspect of Jeremiah’s ministry is the comfort of his ministry. It is summarized and presented greatly in Jeremiah 30 and 31.
We do not have time to go through the details of those two chapters, but if you look through Jeremiah 30 and Jeremiah 31, you see over and over again the Lord’s precious and magnificent promises.
The key phrase is, “I will.”
In Jeremiah 30:3, “I will restore the fortunes of My people.” In Jeremiah 30:10, “I will save thee.” In Jeremiah 30:11, “I am with thee to save thee. I will deliver thee.”
Over and over again, we see His precious and magnificent promises. This restoration is coming. Yes, it is after discipline.
In Jeremiah 30:24, it says:
The fierce anger of the Lord shall not return,
until He have done it,
and until He have performed the intents of His heart:
in the latter days ye shall consider it.
After we go through the training, the discipline is child-training. As we go through that discipline, as we come under His hand, then we start to understand: “Oh, this is what He wants. This is what He is after.”
We were with the kids down at Willow Run yesterday, and we asked them what they had heard, what they remembered, and what they had been blessed by in the ministry. Friday night, our brother Stephen Wells from the Emporia-Royal Rapids area had shared.
Little Patrick, his nephew, is always the first to raise his hand. We said, “Patrick, what did you get?” Patrick said, “The Lord is going to get your attention one way or the other.”
I said, “What a lesson to learn at a young age.” He is calling us now to get our attention. But if He does not get our attention, we might have to go through some discipline. Through that discipline, He will get our attention then, and we will understand what He was after.
I think His desire is that we would hear now and really know His voice.
What a glorious hope the people of Israel had. But it is tragic how only a few responded. Then that judgment did come, and they were taken away captive into Babylon.
The question we have for ourselves is: How are we going to respond in this hour? The Lord is crying out to us—the church, the people of God, our very selves.
We are in that same condition of Judah. We are in that spirit of Laodicea, that spirit of Malachi. We desire that we would really be praying that the Lord could have a testimony, a church without spot or wrinkle, that He could really form Christ in us.
One of my prayers is that we would not repeat the sins of these people who simply thought the message was for somebody else.
The Lord is speaking to each and every one of us in this hour. It is not for someone else. They ignored the call of God. He had to wake them up through discipline.
The Lord continues to call us in this hour. Are we going to ignore that call, and then allow Him to have to discipline us later, and only then see?
Would we have an ear to hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches—each one of us having an ear to hear, not thinking it does not apply to us?
The Lord needs Jeremiahs in this day and time. Men and women of God need to be raised up who would be in accord and sympathy with God’s heart and God’s desire—those who would really cooperate with Him to hasten His return.
May we be found faithful as we go through trials and challenges, sorrows, persecutions, misunderstandings, and loneliness. As we go through these things, may we learn Christ. May we learn and be strengthened in Him.
May we allow the reality of Christ to really be formed within us, to hasten His return. May the Lord protect us from ourselves and deliver us from ourselves, that we could be the people of God He is calling us to be in the days we are living in.
Let us pray.
Lord, we are thankful so much for Your unfailing and unending love. It truly is a love that will never let us go. We do come, and we put our trust in You.
Lord, we are thankful for Jeremiah. We are thankful how You, through him, were able to show forth Your great love for Your people and Your jealousy for a testimony.
We know it is in love that You point out things that are not of You so that You can root them up and tear them down. There is always that purpose of building, planting, and restoring.
We simply pray that we would not resist You, that I would not resist You in this hour. May I be one willing to cooperate with You.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.