Jeremiah

JEREMIAH

Scripture references:
The Book of Jeremiah;
2 Chronicles 35

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JEREMIAH’S ROLE IN SCRIPTURE

Jeremiah was born during the forty-four-year reign of Manasseh, Judah’s most wicked king. God called Jeremiah to his prophetic ministry during the reign of Josiah, who led the last great religious revival in Judah. For forty years, until the Babylonians swept into Judah to destroy both Jerusalem and Solomon’s beautiful temple, Jeremiah waged a lonely and futile crusade to turn God’s people back to the Lord and to urge the people to submit to the Babylonians whom God would send to discipline them.

During his lifetime, Jeremiah was persecuted as a traitor and his life was frequently threatened. Yet, he lived to see his predictions of judgment come true. Tradition says that after the destruction of Jerusalem Jeremiah found his way to Babylon, where he wrote the haunting poems of the Book of Lamentations.

Despite the dark cast of most of Jeremiah’s prophecies, he was also given the privilege of recording God’s promise that one day God would make a new covenant with the house of Israel (Jer. 31). Twice Matthew quoted Jeremiah’s prophecies that related to the Savior’s birth and death (Matt. 2:17; 27:9).

EXPLORING JEREMIAH’S RELATIONSHIPS

Jeremiah’s relationships with his people(Jer. 16). Jeremiah is rightly known as the weeping prophet. He was called to live among God’s people but to isolate himself from them. In summarizing chapter 16, the Nelson Illustrated Bible Handbook sums up this theme:

To communicate the grim reality of the approaching disaster, Jeremiah is told not to marry and have children. Children born in his day will only die of deadly disease and lie unburied in the streets (1–4). Also, the prophet is not to mourn the death of friends, for God has no compassion left for Judah. Nor is he to take part in any feasting (5–9). Instead, Jeremiah is told to speak words that condemn, and hold up the sin and faithlessness of God’s people (10–13). A distant generation will know God’s blessing once again (14–15). But for this people there is only death (16–18): disaster is assured (p. 323).

It is hardly surprising that the people to whom he ministered shunned Jeremiah, or that he felt isolated and alone.

Jeremiah’s relationship with God (selected Scripture).Without human companionship, Jeremiah constantly turned to God as friend and confidant. Jeremiah often expressed his pain and anguish to the Lord, and looked to him for strength to continue his unpopular mission.

Jeremiah’s call (Jer. 1:5–19). When God first spoke to Jeremiah, He informed Jeremiah that before his birth God had set him apart for a special purpose. The Lord warned Jeremiah that his ministry would be unpopular, for he would announce the coming judgment of Judah. “ ‘They will fight against you, / But they will not prevail against you / For I am with you,’ says the Lord, ‘To deliver you’ ” (Jer. 1:19).

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The wooden yoke the false prophet Hananiah broke off Jeremiah’s neck was replaced with a yoke of iron, and shortly afterward Hananiah died, as Jeremiah had predicted.

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Jeremiah’s neighbors (Jer. 11:18–23). Jeremiah grew up in Anathoth. The Lord revealed to Jeremiah that his friends and neighbors were plotting to kill him because of his preaching against idolatry. Deeply shaken, Jeremiah called on God to judge them even as they threatened to kill him if he did not stop prophesying. God told Jeremiah that in the coming Babylonian invasion “there shall be no remnant of them, for I will bring catastrophe on the men of Anathoth” (11:23).

Jeremiah’s wounds (Jer. 15:15–21). The prophet would not have been human had he not felt the antagonism of his people intensely. He cried out to the Lord:

Why is my pain perpetual

And my wound incurable,

Which refuses to be healed?

Will You surely be to me like an unreliable stream,

As waters that fail? (Jer. 15:18)

God responded not by relieving the pressure but by assuring Jeremiah of His protective care:

And they will fight against you,

But they shall not prevail against you;

For I am with you to save you

And deliver you. (Jer. 15:20)

Jeremiah’s only solace (Jer. 20.) Jeremiah lived under intense pressure for the forty years of his ministry in Jerusalem. His situation is summed up here: “I am in derision daily; / Everyone mocks me” (v.7).

Jeremiah tried to stop preaching, but “His word was in my heart like a burning fire / shut up in my bones; / I was weary of holding it back, / And I could not” (v. 9). Yet when Jeremiah spoke out, his listeners reported his words to the authorities and plotted revenge. The intensity of Jeremiah’s pain is powerfully expressed in chapter 20:

Cursed be the day in which I was born!

Let the day not be blessed in which my mother bore me!

Let the man be cursed

Who brought news to my father, saying,

“A male child has been born to you!”

Making him very glad.

… … … …

Why did I come forth from the womb to see labor and sorrow,

That my days should be consumed with shame? (Jer. 20:14, 15, 18)

Through it all, only Jeremiah’s relationship with the Lord sustained him, and he kept his heart and mind focused on God: “But the Lord is with me as a mighty, awesome One. / Therefore my persecutors will stumble, and will not prevail” (Jer. 20:11).

To the people of Jerusalem Jeremiah must have seemed harsh and bold, yet Jeremiah was a painfully sensitive person who suffered intensely. What sustained Jeremiah was that he was able to share his emotions with the Lord and in God find both reassurance and strength.

JEREMIAH: AN EXAMPLE FOR TODAY

Jeremiah lived in a time of apostasy. His society had abandoned the Lord and deeply resented Jeremiah for confronting their sins and affirming God’s standards. Jeremiah’s contemporaries not only rejected Jeremiah’s message; they ridiculed and hated the man. Jeremiah couldn’t help being deeply hurt by all the antagonism focused on him.

Despite the hostility of those around him, Jeremiah faithfully proclaimed God’s Word and warned of judgment for forty years. Without human companionship for most of this time, Jeremiah was forced to turn to the Lord. Jeremiah poured out his heart to God, expressing his anger, his sorrows, and his anguish. God encouraged Jeremiah, but did not let the prophet draw back from his painful ministry.

In the end, Jeremiah’s predictions of doom and destruction all came true. The prophet was vindicated, but never appreciated. Only after his death was Jeremiah given the respect and appreciation he always deserved. How striking that when the crowds of Jesus’ day were asked who they thought Christ might be, their first response was that He was possibly Jeremiah or one of the other great prophets (Matt. 16:14)! What, then, do we learn from Jeremiah’s example?

•     Jeremiah reminds us that we too may be called to face opposition. If we are, we need to be as faithful in our ministry as Jeremiah was in his.

•     Jeremiah challenges us to speak out against the evils in our day. We are likely to be labeled “intolerant” and our words may evoke hostile responses. But we are to be true to God whatever pressure others may bring to bear.

•     Jeremiah prods us to share our inner life with the Lord. God understands and cares, even when no one else seems willing to listen. God will not only listen, but He will encourage and support us in our labors.

•     Jeremiah encourages us to look beyond the present time to envision a future in which God’s will is done. However dark the present may be, the future that God will bring is bright indeed.

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