Reading:
Jeremiah 1
This title has nothing to do with a youth's conceited
idea of his own importance, but the very reverse of any
such idea, for it indicates how God selected a weak and
insignificant instrument through whom He could bring His
own throne to bear upon the nations. The rule committed
to Jeremiah was a spiritual one, and God still seeks to
influence and govern world events by spiritual means
through a praying Church.
Jeremiah has a very real message for us in this
connection. We can be helped by all the men of God
described in the Scriptures, for they represent spiritual
principles which are not limited to any particular time,
but are eternal in their significance and abiding in
their value. Jeremiah, however, seems to me to have a
special application to the time in which we live; and as
we study his story we can find how he illustrates a
divine instrument which is nothing in itself but has
tremendous throne influence on current affairs.
JOSIAH'S
PASSOVER
One of the
most significant and important events in his time was the
re-discovery of the book of the law by Hilkiah. The first
effect of this discovery was that king Josiah intensified
his reforms and summoned a great national gathering for
the celebration of the Passover. He himself stood to the
Word of God, and all the people declared themselves ready
to do the same. Jeremiah, however, a man who could never
be content with the merely external, had his
reservations; he did not believe in the downright
genuineness of it all, so far as the people as a whole
were concerned. And he was right.
Josiah himself was doubtless genuine, and meant all he
said, but it seems perfectly clear that the people
themselves were not wholehearted in their committal. The
ground of Jeremiah's reservation was the
"notwithstanding" of 2 Kings 23:26, which shows
that the long drift away from God's requirements could
not be reversed by a mere emotional outburst called
revival, but needed something much more radical. So
Jeremiah was not carried away by the good and apparently
sincere movement. He had spiritual perception which
pierced through the outward appearance.
Such perception can be painful. Jeremiah found that his
discernment got him into trouble all along the line. His
reserve was not due to temperamental or constitutional
cynicism, as though he were one of those negative people
with a critical and destructive attitude, even towards
the best that is. No, Jeremiah was far too sensitive
spiritually for this, and would have been only too glad
to have found something which did truly represent heart
adjustment to God. He was a heart-stricken man, ready to
weep day and night for the people's misfortunes (9:1).
There is a great deal of difference between the passing
of critical judgments, censorious attitudes, a
discontented spirit, constant fault-finding, and the
sorrowing heart of a man who truly suffers with God. It
is easy to see faults and flaws; it costs nothing to
criticise; but it is very painful to see with the eyes of
God and to sorrow with Him over the difference between
mere professions and what is genuinely according to His
mind. Let me say that critical people are no use to God;
He will give no anointing to them, for they bring in
death and not life. Jeremiah represents an entirely
different spirit. His suffering ministry seemed to pull
down and root up, but it also had a positive building
result. All this is made clear in the account which we
are given here of his call.
JEREMIAH'S
I CANNOT
Jeremiah's
immediate and spontaneous reaction to his calling and
commission was to say, "Ah Lord God, I
cannot...". This may not sound very spiritual but
actually Jeremiah's sense of personal inadequacy was an
indispensable factor in his whole calling. The Lord knows
whom He is apprehending and sending, and we can take it
as settled that if Jeremiah had been a man full of
confidence in himself, God would never have called him.
This sense of personal weakness and emptiness is
essential to God; this is where everything begins in a
life marked out for divine purpose. If the Lord were
doing some small things, partial things, He might have
used a less empty vessel. There are people who enter
God's service full of confidence in themselves, and in
some measure they are used by God. Their usefulness,
however, is very limited until they realise that God's
full purpose requires that the work should be wholly of
Him, with no room for man's sufficiency. Most of us begin
before we have learned this lesson, but as we come more
clearly into the light of God we realise that the height
of the value of God's purpose in and through us, will
correspond with the depth of our conscious dependence on
Him. It is basic that God's servant should be aware of
his own weakness.
Had Paul been asked to answer Jeremiah's confession,
"I cannot speak..." he would probably have
pointed out that God has chosen the weak and foolish
things, and even the things which "are not" for
His greatest works. Had he continued, however, with his
own testimony, he would doubtless have described an
experience in which he was given a new awareness of his
personal inadequacy which made him more dependent and
therefore more usable. "We despaired even of
life" was the negative side of this experience, but
its positive value was found in the purpose, namely
"... that we should not trust in ourselves, but in
God who raiseth the dead". The man who comes down to
zero will find that God meets him at that point, for this
principle of conscious personal insufficiency is one
which God will insist on, and will take pains to
establish in us, even at the cost of deep suffering on
our part. While such an explanation may be hard for some
to receive, it may well be a comfort to others whose
strange trials have made them inclined to fear that they
can never count for God at all. It is always the Lord's
way, to empty us of self strength so that we be endued
with His power. Jeremiah's call suggests that it will
always be "a child" whom God will set over the
nations.
GOD'S
I WILL
God's
answer is always resurrection power. Jeremiah's
perception made him dubious about the genuineness of the
people's allegiance to God under the old covenant, but
his ministry was far from being negative, for it was he
who first propounded the glories of the new covenant. He
may have felt as weak and insignificant as a child, but
he had a big part to play in the history of God's people,
and in fact when the seventy years of captivity had
closed, his was the ministry of recovery for, "...
that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might
be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of
Cyrus..." (Ezra 1:1).
Here, then, was the Lord's immediate reply to His
servant's difficulty; He gave him a commission which was
based on a vision. "What seest thou?" He asked
Jeremiah, giving the prophet the opportunity to tell of
the almond tree which was full of miraculous
significance. Aaron's almond rod budded, blossomed and
bore fruit in one night, so being a type of the Spirit of
resurrection in priesthood. All the other rods remained
dead, as would have done the rod of Aaron if it had not
been given miraculous new life, and so become a symbol of
Christ's fulfilling His priesthood in the power of
resurrection. It was as if God was explaining to Jeremiah
that his ministry was not going to be fulfilled on the
basis of what he was or was not; the work would be
fruitful by reason of the mighty power of resurrection
life. So it proved, again and again. There was so much
opposition that at one point Jeremiah determined that he
would not speak any more. He found, however, that there
was a fire - a divine fire - in his bones which set aside
all his carnal resolutions to be silent and constrained
him to speak anew in the power and victory of
resurrection. How important it is for us all to have the
fire in our bones!
Again, he was put into a dark dungeon so miry that it
threatened to engulf him and would certainly have died
there but for God's merciful intervention through
Ebed-melech. At times it seemed to him that God was as a
mighty man who could not save, but the Lord never
disgraced the throne of His glory and Jeremiah was always
delivered. The almond tree means that whatever may
happen, God will always see to it that the end is victory
by resurrection power. So Jeremiah not only survived but
was the means of producing a God-glorifying remnant who
emerged from their seventy-year grave in Babylon to come
back to Jerusalem and to its true testimony. The vision
of the almond tree was a private promise to Jeremiah: the
fulfilment was for all to recognise.
The final assurance of this call gave the guarantee that
Jeremiah would have a charmed life until he had finished
his God-given task. He did not die a violent death; he
did not starve; but he lived on until the work was
completed. The story is an amazing one, for he had to
pass through indescribable vigours and perils, seeming to
have every evil force against him. He ought to have died
a score of deaths, but he survived every attack and lived
on through forty-two dangerous years. So it was that he
proved what we can all prove, and that is that frailty
and inadequacy are sometimes the very qualifications for
a powerful spiritual ministry.
FAITH'S
AMEN
Unlike
Daniel, Jeremiah was never made a ruler by men. He was,
of course, a priest, and it was in terms of priestly
ministry that he exercised his authority. He did not
serve in association with the temple and its sacrifices,
but he served in the secret place of heart communion with
God. It was there, in that inner life of prayer, that he
wept over the tragedy of the blind and stubborn people
(13:17); there that he kept alive his vision of God's
glorious high and eternal throne (17:12); and there that
he found sweet dreams which were no airy optimism but
substantial purposes of God (31:26). Even while he was
shut up in prison he maintained his prayer watch with God
and found fresh inspiration to ask for, and receive, the
impossible (33:3). He ruled by prayer.
So fervent and persistent was this man's prayer life that
there were times when God Himself had to tell him to stop
(7:16; 11:14; 14:11). The last of these references seems
to indicate that God did not want to silence Jeremiah,
but only to forbid him from asking for a superficial
amelioration of the people's lot and a return to the old
order. Jeremiah understood this, and kept his prayers
focussed on the future, and especially on the new day
when Israel herself would seek God with all her heart
(29:14).
Although Jeremiah was such a man of prayer he was no
recluse. He witnessed fearlessly as well as praying. He
wrote messages to the captives in Babylon as well as
interceding for their good. He bought his nephew's field,
and he visited the potter's house. He lived an active
life, but his chief contribution to the current affairs
in his day - and far beyond it - was through his ministry
of intercession. He prayed before he spoke, and he prayed
afterwards. When he had completed his business affairs,
he turned to prayer (32:16).
He ruled for God. His prayers not only kept alive a flame
of hope at a time when men were in despair, but in due
time they rebuilt and replanted God's people in restored
Jerusalem. More than this, they spanned the centuries to
inspire Hebrew Christians when once again their holy city
was destroyed (Hebrews 8:10), and still today they
inspire us to take fresh note of the glories of that new
covenant which turns away from dead religious observances
to a living and personal knowledge of God by the Holy
Spirit. Jeremiah's perception of the unreal did not stop
at negatives but led on to this blessed prospect of
vital, spiritual union with God. It may seem fanciful to
speak of a child over the nations, but was it not our
Lord Jesus Himself who said, "Fear not, little
flock: for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you
the kingdom" (Luke 12:32)? Jeremiah's history may
help us to understand something of how God is working
with us so that this divine intention may become a
reality.
From "Toward
the Mark" July-August 1972, Vol. 1-3.