I got a new commentary of Jeremiah the other day in the mail, so I decided to do a study of this book. Jeremiah isn't an easy book to understand. A lot of it is not in sequence and Jeremiah seems at times to be very depressed. In looking at Jeremiah 1 we see Jeremiah's call and commission into a ministry that spanned 5 kings and about 40 years.
In summary of Jeremiah's call and commission, I came to these conclusions:
1. Jeremiah's call and commission was not his choice. Jeremiah actually was a priest through heritage and not a prophet. But, God said that he chose Jeremiah before he had actually existed. That is consistent with what it says in Psalm 139:15,16, where it tells us that God seems all our days when as yet one of them has been. It is an awesome thing to realize that not only is God not surprised by whatever happens to us, but saw it before we were born or existed. God saw Jeremiah before he existed and he also sees you where you are and me where I am.
2. Jeremiah was a youth. vs.6 Jeremiah was about 14-15 years old when he was called. His youth didn't discount who he was or what he was called to anymore than youth is an excuse to sin or not to follow God. Some people say when they are young, I will repent and follow God later in life. By the looks of things, God didn't allow Jeremiah to use that excuse that he was young.
3. God promised to be with him vs.8. God doesn't send us to do things for him. He goes with us. This doesn't mean it will be easy or viewed as a success in the world's eyes. Jeremiah's ministry by worldly standards was a miserable failure. Even his own family and people tried to kill him and wouldn't believe him. He died in exile in Egypt. But, it was a success because he did what God told him to do with God.
4. God gave him the words to say. Jeremiah didn't make things up and it didn't always sound great to listen to Jeremiah. His was not a feel good message. It took courage to say what God wanted him to say. Sometimes it goes against the trend and popularity to do what God wants you to do. But, God honors those who honor him.
I had times when I was in college when it was tempting to follow what everyone else wanted me to do. It is natural to want to be popular. There was a television show years ago called "Cheers". The beginning song talks about going somewhere where everyone knows your name. We all want to feel like we belong and want to feel popular and well liked. I wanted to have the pretty girlfriend and be popular with all my housemates also. But, I didn't want to compromise my values and go to bars and do the things others were doing and that got lonely at times. Jeremiah's ministry was also lonely, but God was with him and he was not alone.
5. God told him the majority would not accept his message. In the last verse of the chapter it says that they will "fight" against him. That is exactly what happened. Jeremiah started his ministry during the popular reign of Josiah. Josiah, who I call the "child king" was very popular. During his reign they found the law in the temple during repair work. Things had gotten so bad that before that they had simply lost the law. When it was read to the king the king repented and proclaimed a time of repentance and fasting. Josiah tried to bring the people back to God. But, Jeremiah continue to speak to the people as though they had not repented. He told them that they had both forsaken and forgotten God. In chapter 2 of the book, he will say that God says you forsook the "fountain of living waters" for "broken cisterns that would not hold water." They didn't like to hear that and rejected, for the most part, what Jeremiah had to say.
