Jeremiah
Jeremiah 1:5, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” God chose Jeremiah to be His spokesman in the closing years of Judah and its worst kings. God also chose Jacob over Esau before they were born (Romans 9:11). His point in both cases was that He can work with anything. God does not make us robots, but He can use what we are to make something miraculous.
Jeremiah 2:11 – 13, “Has a nation changed its gods which are not gods? But My people have changed their Glory for what does not profit. Be astonished, O heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid; be very desolate….For My people have committed two evils; they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn for themselves cisterns – broken cisterns that can hold no water.” Many nations have followed in Judah’s footsteps, abandoning reality in favor of illusion.
Jeremiah 6:16 – 17, “…Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; then you will find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in them.’ Also, I set watchmen over you, saying, ‘Listen to the sound of the trumpet!’ But they said, ‘We will not listen.’” Jeremiah appealed to his people to turn back to the Law and the words of the prophets, but they would have none of it. Despite disasters, miracles, and clear predictions, Judah believed in themselves rather than their God. Humanity has not changed.
Jeremiah 7:11, “Has this house which is called by My name become a den of thieves in your eyes?…” Jesus compared the operation of the Temple in His day (Mathew 21:13) to that of the time of Jeremiah. How would they characterize the Temple of God (the church, Ephesians 2:19 – 22) today?
Jeremiah 9:23 – 24, “…Let not the wise glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty glory in his might, nor let the rich glory in his riches; but let him who glorifies glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight…” After several chapters about the reasons for the coming destruction of Judah, Jeremiah gave a concise summary of the right path that was being ignored. Such a description could well fit into any age.
Jeremiah 10:7, “Who would not fear You, O King of the nations? For this is Your rightful due. For among all the wise of the nations, and in all their kingdoms, there is none like You. But they are together dull-hearted and foolish; a wooden idol is a worthless doctrine.” The God of Israel was and is the only God who provided physical evidence. People in other nations, as they heard about Him, saw the clear difference between this God and their own, which is why Paul kept finding Gentiles in the synagogues he visited.
Jeremiah 10:23 – 24, “O Lord, I know the way of man in not in himself; it is not in man who walks to direct his own steps. O Lord, correct me, but with justice; not in Your anger lest You bring me to nothing.” As validated by the horrors of human history, people do not have the wisdom to plan and implement a functional society. Humility leads us to God’s course corrections.
Jeremiah 12:1 – 2, “Righteous are You, O Lord, when I plead with You; yet let me talk with you about judgment. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why are those happy who deal so treacherously? You have planted them, yes, they have taken root; they grow, yes, they bear fruit. You are near in their mouth but far from their mind.” Jeremiah’s complaint could aptly describe every age. But in the message that follows, God lets him know that the lives of the wicked will fall apart eventually. Be patient.
Jeremiah 17:7 – 8, “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord, for he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes; but its leaf will be green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit.” In the midst of many pages of condemnation is a short paragraph directed toward the few who still trusted the Lord. Those who care about God always are few in number, but will survive the hard times brought about by the wicked.
Jeremiah 17:9 – 10, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.” Some have taken this passage out of context to “prove” that all people are uniformly wicked. However, before and after this passage about the wicked are descriptions of those who trust the Lord. The wicked may be the majority, but the faithful also exist.
Jeremiah 20:9, “Then I said, ‘I will not make mention of Him, nor speak any more in His name.’ 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.” Jeremiah was severely persecuted for his messages from God, so he tried to keep it inside, but was unable. In every age, the message of God causes repercussions on the messenger. But trying to hold the message back becomes intolerable to the faithful.
Jeremiah 20:18, “Why did I come forth from the womb to see toil and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?” Jeremiah faced all sorts of difficulties in his career, from verbal abuse to imprisonment in a muddy pit. He was so certain of his relationship with God that he could express complaints like this, yet repeatedly recover and praise God again. Although few of us endure the magnitude of Jeremiah’s suffering, we still must develop those communication skills, not being limited to grandiose phrases with Elizabethan pronouns.
Jeremiah 23:5 – 6, “‘Behold, the days are coming,’ says the Lord, ‘that I will raise to David a Branch of righteousness; a King shall reign and act wisely, and execute judgment in the earth. In His days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell safely; now this is His name by which He will be called: the Lord Our Righteousness.’” After more than two chapters of detailed descriptions of the devastation soon to befall Judah, Jeremiah ended with a ray of hope: the Messiah would still come. The bad choices of people cannot derail God’s objectives.
Jeremiah 23:23 – 24, “‘Am I a God near at hand,’ says the Lord, ‘and not a God afar off? Can anyone hide himself in secret places, so I shall not see him?’ says the Lord, ‘do I not fill heaven and earth?’” Certainly some live in a state of permanent self-deception, but the majority can be brought back to the reality the God sees everyone all the time, and, more positively, is near by and available. Maintaining that viewpoint often requires help, which is the task of those who have committed to trusting Him.
Jeremiah 25:11 – 12, “…These nations shall serve the king of Babylon 70 years…when seventy years are completed I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity…and I will make it a perpetual desolation.” Historically, Judah served Babylon from 606 to 536 BC, and the city of Babylon has not been rebuilt to this day. When Daniel read this passage in 536 BC (Daniel 9:1 – 2), he knew that this Captivity was completed and immediately began to pray for the promised release.
Jeremiah 31:33 – 34, “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor and every man his brother saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me…” The major difference between the covenants is that, under the Law, Israel was composed of a vast majority unfaithful people. Under the New Covenant, only the faithful gain entrance.
Jeremiah 33:15 – 16, “In those days and at that time I will cause to grow up to David a Branch of righteousness; He shall execute judgment and righteousness in the earth. In those days Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will dwell safely. And this is the name by which she will be called: The Lord Our Righteousness.” During the final siege before the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem in 586 BC, Jeremiah gave Israel hope that the Messiah would still come. No descendant of David was a king in Israel until Jesus, 600 years later.
After Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Babylonians, the remnant which remained appealed to Jeremiah, “Pray for us to the Lord your God, and according to all that the Lord your God says, so declare to us and we will do it.” (42:20). When Jeremiah had delivered that message to remain where they were and not go to Egypt, they replied, “You speak falsely! The Lord our God has not sent you to say, ‘Do not go to Egypt to dwell there.’” (43:2). So they went to Egypt. There is nothing new under the sun.
Jeremiah 44:18, “But since we stopped burning incense to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything and have been consumed by the sword and by famine.” Many fled Judah for Egypt when the Babylonians invaded. There, they adopted many pagan ways. Any clever speaker can draw parallels with carefully selected current events to entice the gullible. But Jeremiah had an unblemished record of completed predictions to validate that their misery was self-inflicted. The majority rarely care about evidence.
In the 7th century BC, any good political scientist could have predicted that Babylon’s huge army would overwhelm all the small countries around Israel: Philistia, Moab, Ammon, Edom, Syria, Lebanon (Jeremiah 47 – 49). But to predict the fall of the great Babylon in less than a century and the restoration of Israel was against all odds (Jeremiah 50 – 51). God validated His messages with specific predictions, not vague generalities. The God of Abraham is the only One with physical evidence.
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