Word of God. Since hindsight always has twenty-twenty office, he stuck with it and continued to serve the Lord.
Jeremiah
Notes ferred the pleasant messages of the false prophets to the strong words of God's true servant, because the human heart wants to rest, not repent. It wants peace, but it wants it without having to deal with the basic cause of unrest—unbelief.
1 Dennis J. Hester, compiler, The Vance Havner Quotebook (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1986), 124. 2 Some Hebrew scholars connect the name Nimrod with the word marad, which means "to rebel." Certainly the building of the Tower of Babel was an act of rebellion against the Lord. Nimrod chased and conquered other peoples the way a hunter chases and catches game. 3 King Hezekiah used a similar image (Isa. 38:12). Our lives are a weaving that one day will end, and God will cut it off the loom. 4 Some commentators see the hammer as Babylon, but Jeremiah 51:24 seems to require something or someone other than Babylon; otherwise Jeremiah would have used "you" instead of "they." 5 Remember, this didn't happen when Cyrus took Babylon, for his army was in the city before the Babylonians even knew it. He had diverted the waters of the Euphrates and entered under the gates. It was Alexander the Great whose army destroyed Babylon in 330. 6 Before the farmers threshed their grain, they would stamp down the earth to make sure it was hard. This may be the image here: God was stamping down the nation and preparing to cut them down like so much grain in the field. 7 The Jews often wanted to go back to Egypt, because there they had plenty of food and security, even though they were slaves. It's tragic when people sacrifice fulfillment for comfort.
The people of Israel resisted God's messengers and challenged their authority from the time of Moses to the days of the apostles. It's difficult to name a prophet or apostle who didn't suffer persecution. If Jeremiah showed up today at the United Nations or some senate or parliament and spoke as he did to the leaders of Judah, he would probably be laughed at and thrown out. But it's a dangerous thing to be a "popular preacher" who has no enemies and pleases everybody. "Prophets are almost extinct in the religious world today," said Vance Havner. "The modern church is a 'non-prophet' organization."1
3. True patriotism isn't blind to sin. Charles Jefferson wrote:
He [Jeremiah] loved his country so passionately he was willing to die for it as a traitor. He loved his country so intensely that he would not leave it even after Jerusalem was in ruins.2
Imagine a patriot like Jeremiah being called a traitor! Yet many a courageous leader who has dared to expose lies and call a nation to repentance has been called a traitor and publicly abused.
POSTLUDE
A true Christian patriot isn't blind to the sins of the nation but seeks to deal with those sins compassionately and realistically. Both Jesus and Jeremiah were true patriots when it came to giving an honest diagnosis of the diseases of the "body politic" and offering the only correct solution. They didn't heal the wounds of the people slightly and say, "Peace, peace." They both recognized that a nation's greatest problem is not unemployment, inflation, or lack of defense; it's sin. The nation that doesn't deal with sin is wasting time and resources trying to solve national problems, which are only symptoms of the deeper problem, which is sin.
Defeat doesn't finish a man—quitting does. A man is not finished when he's defeated. He's finished when he quits.
Richard M. Nixon J eremiah died an old man, probably in Egypt, and like the grave of Moses, his burial place is a mystery. The brave prophet has long turned to dust, but the words that he wrote are still with us, because God's Word endures forever.
He wrote a long and difficult book, and we haven't been able to deal with everything he wrote. However, you can't help but glean from his life and ministry some clear and important lessons that apply to all of God's people today.
4. God's servants occasionally have their doubts and failings. Jeremiah was weak before God but bold before men. He wasn't afraid to tell God just how he felt, and he listened when God told him what he needed to do. Though he once came quite close to resigning his office, he stuck with it and continued to serve the Lord.
1. In difficult days, we need to hear and heed the Word of God. Since hindsight always has twenty-twenty vision, it's obvious to us that the leaders of Judah did a very stupid thing by resisting what Jeremiah told them to do. Judah had sinned its way into trouble and judgment, and they thought they could negotiate their way out, but it didn't work. What they needed was faith in God's Word and obedience to God's will. Had they confessed their sins, turned to God, and submitted to Nebuchadnezzar, they would have saved their lives, their temple, and their city.
Jeremiah was a prophet of the heart. He wasn't content to give a message that dealt with surface matters; he wanted to penetrate the inner person and see the heart changed. He boldly told the people that the days would come when they wouldn't remember the ark or feel a need for it. In fact, the days would come when they would be part of a new covenant that would be written on the heart and not on tables of stone. This was radical religion, but it was God's message just the same.
2. True prophets of God are usually (if not always) persecuted. The civil and religious leaders of Judah pre-
Any servant of God who tries to reach and change