The Weeping Prophet

Psalm 3

Lord, how many are my foes!    How many rise up against me!

Many are saying of me,    “God will not deliver him."

But you, Lord, are a shield around me, my glory, the One who lifts my head high.

I call out to the Lord,  and he answers me from his holy mountain.

I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the Lord sustains me.

I will not fear, though tens of thousands assail me on every side.

Arise, Lord! Deliver me, my God! Strike all my enemies on the jaw; break the teeth of the wicked.

From the Lord comes deliverance.  May your blessing be on your people.

The prophet Jeremiah was “called” by God before he was even born for an extraordinary life.  It was a life of emotional trauma and loneliness.  It was a life of being misunderstood and hated. A prophet’s life is never easy, but Jeremiah had one of the roughest in recorded history.  Do you want to make your mark in the history books and advance the Kingdom of God?  To be used by God for great things means that you can expect at times to be abused by your fellow man—— but I don’t recall learning that in seminary.

Jeremiah is referred to as the “Weeping Prophet’.  He was a prophet to the southern kingdom of Judah, right before Judah ultimately fell to Babylon and was led away into captivity. God sent Jeremiah to a nation in deep trouble to warn of their impending annihilation – a warning they totally ignored.

And yet, a main part of his legacy was the hope he offered to his Israelites— and to all who call God Almighty their Lord.  He said this: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”  (Jeremiah 29:11, NIV.)  God does want to bless this nation and the nations of the world.  He wants to bless you and me as well.  But He also wants us to hide His word in our hearts and to meditate upon it.  Do you? Do we as a nation?

So quickly, here’s some background: King Solomon ruled over the Israelites in the tenth century B.C. However, the truly stupid actions of his son Rehoboam led to a schism in which the kingdom was split into the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah, each with its own king.

Both kingdoms descended into corruption and sin, despite repeated warnings from prophets sent by God — prophets such as Jeremiah. God warned them, time and again, that they would be overtaken by conquerors, but no one paid attention.  The people appear to have believed that God’s patience and forbearance, in not punishing them immediately,  was leniency or that God was bluffing.  And God is patient—— but there’s a limit, and He does not bluff.

But in 721 B.C., God moved: the northern kingdom of Israel fell to the Assyrians. The southern kingdom of Judah woke up, rallied themselves, and temporarily pulled itself together under King Hezekiah and avoided destruction from the forces of Assyria under Sennacherib through the miraculous intervention of God’s angel. That should have been enough. One angel killed 185,000 Assyrians to show God’s love for Israel and His preparation to protect them!  He can do the same thing today. He is a God of miracles.  As I speak, we are surrounded by His angels!

However, Hezekiah was immediately followed by his wicked son Manasseh. The sons of the Jewish kings quite often were not taught history, I guess.  Manasseh was eventually carried away by the Assyrians and repented of his evil ways. But things got worse again as he was followed by Amon, a completely evil king. Another brief upswing occurred under King Josiah, but after that, Judah was a mess of puppet kings placed by Egypt and Babylon, some reigning for only three months.

Meanwhile, Assyria had been conquered by Babylon. In 586 B.C., the southern kingdom of Judah fell to the Babylonian Empire, and once and for all, Jerusalem was captured,  the beautiful Temple was destroyed, and the city walls were torn down. 

Jeremiah served as a prophet from the days of Josiah all the way through the reigns of Judah’s last four kings: Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah. Jeremiah died in 570 B.C.

He was born to a priestly family about three miles from Jerusalem, and he began preaching about repentance as a teenager. Sadly,  after several years of preaching, even Jeremiah’s family turned against him and plotted to kill him. Over the years, he was whipped, put in the stocks, attacked by mobs, threatened by kings, and ridiculed.   King Zedekiah’s princes had Jeremiah arrested, beaten, accused of treason, and thrown into a deep, empty cistern where he nearly died.  He lived a miserable life through the siege of Jerusalem along with the rest.

Worst of all, Jeremiah was always alone. He was not allowed to marry,  he had no children, and his family abandoned him. The people turned against him and didn’t believe him.

Jeremiah preached a lot of doom and punishment. However, his message was ultimately one of repentance and restoration. God was quick to remind his people that although there would be consequences for their sin, He still had a plan. “I will build you up again, and you, Virgin Israel, will be rebuilt. Again, you will take up your timbrels and go out to dance with the joyful.”

Jeremiah lived at a truly terrible time in history. Not only did he experience the horrors of war, starvation, siege, and captivity, but he was also called upon to tell the people of it, urging them to repent—and no one wanted to hear it.  How long would the typical pastor preach in America if no one came to church?   Oftentimes, when you preach the gospel, people do not want to listen. The passage below well demonstrates the cause of Jeremiah’s agony:

“Alas, my mother, that you gave me birth!” Jeremiah cries in Jeremiah 15:10. Many times, he lamented to God.

Jeremiah witnessed, both in foresight and real time, the destruction of his people. Upon Judah’s captivity, he penned the book of Lamentations, a highly poetic and devastatingly beautiful series of laments about the fall of God’s people. 

But as I mentioned earlier, Jeremiah had hope—it helped him keep at his preaching for over forty years.  That famous verse sums up his hope for his countrymen once they were taken captive to Babylon: “‘For I know the plans I have for you, …plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’”

Jeremiah led a tumultuous life and, most likely, a horrible death. However, his words live on thousands of years later, offering teaching and hope even today. Jeremiah served God even when it meant giving up everything and facing persecution in a culture that had abandoned God. 

Are we willing to do the same?  God’s hand might be upon you right now.

His life was one of emotional trauma, loneliness, being misunderstood, and being hated.  How does a man hold on like this?  But how does any man or woman of God hold on when hated and attacked?  How could Paul press on? How could John, banished to an island, never give up?  How can pastors in Cuba, who are placed in prison cells with the doors welded shut, or imprisoned pastors in China—the worst persecutor of Christians in the world—hold on to their faith, when they are denied food, clothing, companionship, basic medical care, or any sort of compassion?

Jeremiah kept on preaching!  But how could Jeremiah keep preaching?  Why did he not question his call or wonder about God’s goodness in light of all that he experienced?  He saw the beautiful city of Jerusalem torn to pieces, the temple leveled to the ground, and he watched men and women literally eat their own children as they were starving to death!

How can you and I hold on, maintain our sanity, not scream out in despair, not let go of our very faith in all we believe about God when evil seems to be winning, and we see new insane politics, horrifying new weapons of mass destruction, and an unleashing of barbarity, brutality, destruction, mayhem, and the mobs that seem determined to destroy our nation?

Well, here was Jeremiah’s foundation of faith—and we need to plug into his source of faith!   At the beginning of his book, he records these words:

“The word of the Lord came to me, saying, 'Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart;    I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”   “Alas, Sovereign Lord,” I said, “I do not know how to speak; I am too young.”  But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am too young.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the Lord.”  Jeremiah 1:4-8, NIV

Listen, Jeremiah should have been killed many times—— but always miraculously survived right until the time when his work was done.  And after it was done—— after all the work was finished and Jerusalem was no more—— God took Jeremiah home to the eternal and perfect place where God was waiting for him.  Jeremiah was a good and faithful servant—one of the truly great ones.

Friends, before you were born—-He knew you.  Think about that. It’s God that forms us in our mother’s womb—not by accident or some mere happenstance. This is why Christians are opposed to abortion, and this is why the priests should also be opposed to abortion and deny communion to congregants who fund, perform, or assist in the murder of an unborn child.

So God called Jeremiah for a special task.  He was not called to be a social worker, but a mouthpiece for God. In being God’s mouthpiece, Jeremiah naturally addressed the social evils of his day—-as all men called by God must do—-but he didn’t get it backwards!  He served God first—— and thereby also served those who were sorely oppressed. But getting this reversed and thinking that your call is to serve the oppressed does not lead one to serve God—more often than not, you end up serving neither.

God did not call Jeremiah to an easy existence, but to an extraordinary adventure where Jeremiah spoke with, and had intimate communion with God, as only the servant who is called to suffer can.  Jesus paid the ransom for you and me, but just like Jeremiah, he did not redeem us to a life of leisure. Now, a person who comes to Christ in the USA can, in fact, choose a life that’s pretty safe, leisurely, and by and large free from pain… and most do.  But God is still calling the few that will listen to Him… trust Him.. and let Him lift them to a plateau of Christian exhilaration such as Paul, John, Peter, George Mueller, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Brother Lawrence, and thousands of others have experienced. They knew the sublime satisfaction of God being proud of them. That was the secret of their ability to endure the unimaginable. They loved Him and wanted nothing more than to make Him proud….

Paul said this:  Romans 3:3-5 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;  perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.