(new article tomorrow)
"This passage probably gets preached on more than any other passage in the Book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah 20:
[7] O LORD, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived: thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed: I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me.
[8] For since I spake, I cried out, I cried violence and spoil; because the word of the LORD was made a reproach unto me, and a derision, daily.
[9] Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.
[10] For I heard the defaming of many, fear on every side. Report, say they, and we will report it. All my familiars watched for my halting, saying, Peradventure he will be enticed, and we shall prevail against him, and we shall take our revenge on him.
[11] But the LORD is with me as a mighty terrible one: therefore my persecutors shall stumble, and they shall not prevail: they shall be greatly ashamed; for they shall not prosper: their everlasting confusion shall never be forgotten.
"When you look at the five major prophet books, Isaiah is probably considered the greatest. Ezekiel is the most difficult to understand; there's things in his book that are really tough. Daniel is the most beloved, the one everybody likes the most. But Jeremiah is, without a doubt, the most heroic of the prophets," says Richard Jordan.
"He's one of my favorite characters in the Bible because when you look at his life, and you understand what's going on with him, he demonstrates what a Believer does when things around about him are all falling apart.
"His whole nation collapses in front of his face; the community, the nation, the world about him. They just all go to pieces and you learn about hope in Jeremiah in an hour of despair and darkness.
"In Romans 15:8, Paul talks about the patient and comfort we get from the Scripture that gives us hope and that's something that the Book of Jeremiah, when you see what he goes through . . .
"We talk about the nation Israel as being God's nation in the earth, separated from the Gentiles, but you have to remember what God did with Israel is He set them apart from the nations in order to make them the exemplary nation.
"It's sort of like the city on the hill concept; He set them up here to be separate so He could demonstrate through them what it would like to be a nation who had the God of the Bible as their God; who's laws were given by God.
"As Deuteronomy says the Gentiles said to Israel, 'What nation is so great that has God so near to them?'
*****
"In God's dealing with Israel, debt is called slavery. America got rid of personal slavery in the 1800s, but we instituted almost immediately institutional slavery and part of it is debt. In Israel debt was for emergencies and it was always to be short-term. When you look at how Scripture sets up that system and look at where we are now, you say, 'Boy, things are just going to come to a screeching halt sooner or later.'
"Well, in Jeremiah's life all those chickens had come home to roost in Israel. What you see in Jeremiah, for the most part, is what people go through, especially Believers, in the final years of the collapse of a nation.
"It's a time when there's political and economic crisis. A time when there's tremendous shocking moral decay; when there's increasing international threats, when there's a failure of national leadership.
"One of the things about Jeremiah that strikes me is his life covered a period in the history of the nation Israel very much like in my life, and with many of you others, in our nation.
"Jeremiah was called early in life to be a prophet. He was a P.K. (preacher's kid), raised in the home of people who had an interest in the spiritual life of the nation. His daddy probably was the high priest during the days of King Josiah. Josiah was the last king of Israel who restored Israel back to spiritual worship.
"In the days of Josiah, the temple had been in a mess and he sent his high priest to go through some paperwork in the basement and discovered a copy of the law of Moses that had long been lost.
"When he found it, King Josiah said, 'Woah, this is God's Word! We haven't been doing God's Word; we've got all this Baal worship and paganism,' and he restored the law to Israel and there's a tremendous spiritual reformation. They had the last big spiritual revival in Israel before the Babylonian captivity.
"Now, the revival didn't last long. Jeremiah was there in II Chronicles mourning at the funeral of Josiah. Jeremiah watched his nation for 40-some odd years go down and Israel get crushed under the heel of Babylonian captivity and be carried away. He watched his nation collapse.
"Jeremiah ministered for over 40 years. There's not one record of a convert that he ever had. You look around this room and we've got more Believers associated with us than Jerry ever seemed to have in his book. He never seemed to have any success in the preaching that he did.
"He was constantly mocked. People were laughing at him, they were scorning him, they were persecuting him. He never had any seeming success but he remained faithful to the task God gave him. All the personal struggles, all the attacks, all the dangers, all the sorrows.
Jeremiah's call to the ministry is in Jeremiah 1:
[4] Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
[5] 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.
"Here's God's preparation. Calvinists like to take that verse and say, 'See, God preordained a life map for this guy,' and use it for hokey things, but what the Lord is saying to Jeremiah there is, 'Before you were born I was working in your family. I've been working in your lineage way back there with your parents and your grandparents. I've been working in your family, and where you are right now is the result of me working in Israel and in your heritage and I've ordained you. I've called you to be a prophet.' "
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