Doing My Part - Wrapping Up Jeremiah

Jeremiah’s Message to Us.

This lesson wraps up a month of Jeremiah. In previous lessons, we have seen that Jeremiah lived an prophesied in the last days of Old Jerusalem, a time when the Babylonian Kings were about to be the instrument of God’s judgment on the people of Judea. Judgment, yes but Jeremiah also brought a message of redemption. Jeremiah proclaimed in graphic fashion, out of which he, himself lived, that God had called Judea to be His people and to have a fellowship relationship with Him.

However, throughout their history, the people of Judea and Israel, the Northern Kingdom, had rebelled against God by their social and economic practices and most detestably by their overt worship of other gods, the gods of the Canaanites, most notoriously, the public o worship of Molech, the demi-god who required the sacrifice of their children n the fire on the “high places.”

Nevertheless, God was, of course not surprised by Judea’s unfaithfulness and had already made a plan to purge them of their sin and then redeem them back to Himself to restore the loving relationship. Jeremiah prophesied both aspects of God’s message to His people.
Jeremiah says the same things to us today. We are just as rebellious as the Judeans, yet God as a plan to redeem us as well. And since we are, since before time, a redeemed people, God calls us to act like it. Jeremiah has taught us that God gives each of us a call, obeying that call comes at a price, Doubt will certainly come and we must learn to deal with it, and yet, to find the blessing of the relationship God wants to give each of us, we must pay that price and do our part in His Kingdom work.

Obey Without Delay – Jeremiah 32:6-9. In this passage, God tells Jeremiah to buy a piece of land from a near relative even though the land is about to become worthless. However, God had a longer-term plan that He had not revealed at that time. The point was that He called Jeremiah to do this act as an exercise of faith. In so doing, Jeremiah exercises his own personal faith and grows stronger in his relationship to God within, yet as an independent subset of, God larger plan. And in this case, as in all cases, God’s larger plan is a part of God’s even larger plan. God’s plans are like Ezekiel’s “wheel within a wheel” or the rings of an archery target. God’s plan, as revealed grow larger and larger. The great mystery of this is that though God’s macro plans grow larger and larger in our sight as He reveals them to us, in a micro sense, they grow smaller and smaller in the sense that they become more and more personal to each of us as individuals. That is the great duality of God’s nature. (It is why I refer to God as “Jehovah – Nike,” the God who runs along side me and talks with me as a friend, yet at the same time, is grand enough to “Just Do it.” This lesson is a clear statement to us that for us to see more of God’s macro and micro plan, we have to obey without delay and let Him reveal it as His wills in His perfect timing.

Yield to God’s Purpose. The author of the lesson asserts that as we begin to obey God, then we begin to yield to God’s purpose within our own hearts. A side point here is that while “as a man thinketh so is he,” when we have a weak will to obey God, but nevertheless are willing to give God our weak will and do what He says and act out of that now God-driven will, God will begin to “reveal Himself, His purposes and His ways,” as Henry Blackaby would say.
A particular question that God asks in verse 27 is whether “there is anything to hard for Me?” That’s a question we can all answer, “of course not.” That is, when we answer with our “Sunday School mind.” In reality, I submit that each of us has at least one thing that we (erroneously, but realistically) aren’t totally sure that God can handle. At least, I confess, I do.
God’s Plan Revealed. Lastly, in 32:37-41, we begin to see that macro will of God revealed. God has told Jeremiah to do this crazy thing of buying the worthless land that is about to be seized by the Babylonians.

Yet, one detail of the command is very important and gives a clue to what God has up His proverbial sleeve. God tells Jeremiah to make sure the deed to the land is “signed, sealed and delivered” to a very safe place, a place safe even from the Babylonians. The reason? After 70 years of captivity, God will free the land and return it to Judean control. At that time, the plot of land would revert back to Jeremiah’s family and they world have the evidence to prove it. Thus, God shows that He is ‘way ahead of Jeremiah and the people here.

The End of Jeremiah. We learn that unlike some of the other prophets, Jeremiah does survive. He is deported to Egypt where he lives out his days. While he did not return, he knew that God world return the people to the land. There is hope for us in that final gift from the Book of Jeremiah. Even if it takes longer than our life-time, God is not “asleep at the switch.” He will bring about His purpose. We can count on it. We can be anchored in it.

In Romans, Paul talks about anchoring our faith in Christ. The word picture that Paul uses is the Greek word for a particular anchor that was typically used by a ship making anchor in deep water outside the port. At low time, the ship could not come into the port because of the rocks and shoals, so to anchor it until high tide, they would dislodge the anchor and physically carry it on its chain in a small boat or dingy, over the rocks and shoals into the water of the port to await the time the tide would rise and the ship would reel itself into the safe harbor. It is that anchor that Jeremiah sees. While he cannot see the safe harbor anchorage, he has sent his dingy over the shoals into it and knows that God has firmly placed the anchor there. The anchorage is secured even though unseen. Jeremiah knows that in God’s timing his “anchor holds and grips the solid rock.

In our lives, we need to hear Jeremiah’s lesson. Send out or anchor, take the bold step to follow God when He calls us until “faith shall be sight.” Then we wait patiently and expectantly for God’s High Tide. It not only WILL happen, it HAS happened.

Epilogue – (The following are some unabashed editorial comments by John. “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”) Is there a coded message in Jeremiah for us as “Christian America,” and not just for us in a Sunday School class? Let’s see hmm.
We have always thought of ourselves as the chosen ones, the lost tribe of Judah – true believers. America was founded on Biblical principles. You know, “In God We Trust,” and that sort of thing. But apparently, we can’t trust in God any more or so says the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. So in whom do we trust now? Is it in ourselves? If that is so, is that a new thing? Are we the first people who were God’s chosen people who thought they had a better idea? Jeremiah would not say so – neither would the tens of thousands of Judeans who were force marched into captivity in Babylon.

In the news, we also see some movement on abortion. Since Rowe v. Wade, countless little people have been murdered – in the “high places?” Were they sacrificed on the altar of self? If so, are the first people to do this? (See above.)

In his book, Revolution, George Barna points out, amid a lot of criticism from core church people, that the church as we know it is losing ground fast. We have already seen this in Europe where church attendance has dropped to single digits. Admittedly, church attendance is not the “tell all’ statistic of real spirituality, but like fecal chloroforms to us public health types, it is an indicator of greater problems.

I noted today that the fight for control of Baghdad (modern day Babylon) seems to be spiraling out of control. It seems that Iran (ancient Persia) has or is about to have “the Bomb.” That is an ominous development. Are we, as Bob Dylan might say, “On the Eve of Destruction?” Is judgment sure and coming? Has the “coiste-bodhar” (the Death Coach) already been sent out? Maybe, maybe not. But even if it has, take the final macro look at what Jeremiah says.

Even though God brings judgment, His judgment falls on those whom He loves for the sake of discipline – to bring them back to Him. Even if we fall – He won’t. He will bring us back to Himself. I will close this with some words of Comfort from the pen of Gordon Jensen.

Redemption Draweth Nigh - Written by: Gordon Jensen
Years of time have come and gone, Since I first heard it told,
Of how Jesus would come again some day, If back then it seemed so real
Then I just can’t help but feel How much closer His coming is today
[Chorus] Signs of the times are everywhere, There’s a brand new feeling in the air
Keep your eyes upon the eastern sky, Lift up your head redemption draweth nigh
Wars and strife on every hand, And violence fills the land
Still some people doubt He’ll ever come again, But the Word of God is true
He’ll redeem His chosen few , Don’t lose hope soon Christ Jesus will descend
. . . Lift up your head redemption draweth nigh

Dealing with Doubt

Porgy and Bess . (View at the end the libretto from It Ain't necessarily So." )

Based on the Novel, Porgy by DuBose Heyward, in 1935 George Gershwin debuted his opera, Porgy and Bess. Through revisions and additions, later productions made the opera his most famous and an integral part of the American theatre repertoire. Set on “Catfish Row” in South Carolina, the opera tells the ultimately tragic love story of the two protagonists, Porgy and his girl, Bess. The opera is has a number of famous songs. One of the most famous is It Ain’t Necessarily So, in which a character named “Sportin’ Life” gives his cynical take on the Bible to justify his bent to doing his own thing – living his life of unbridled pleasure. It ain’t Necessarily So expresses one main reason that doubt exists in life, doubt about what God says to us – denial. I don’t want it to be so – so it “ain’t” so. However, there are other reasons to doubt what God says. Today’s lesson, taken from Jeremiah 20:1-18, examines the phenomenon of doubting God as told through the words of the Prophet, Jeremiah

God Speaks Truth Jeremiah 29:1-6.

We find Jeremiah as he is smack in the middle of “Dealing with Doubt” because the evil priest, Pashhur, has had Jeremiah arrested and is holding him in the stocks overnight. In this time, stocks were usually accompanied by close quarters in a cramped position, thus Jeremiah is not only humiliated and embarrassed but is also uncomfortable.
The reason for his treatment was that in the previous chapter (Chapter 19) God has told Jeremiah to go out into the valley Hinnon with a clay jar, break the jar a prophesy that because of the people’s sin, the nation will be destroyed like the jar – broken and not able to be repaired. The place of the prophesy is significant. The Valley of Hinnon, more precisely, The Valley of the Son of Hinnon, was the famous garbage dump on the Southeast side of Jerusalem where the fires never go out and the “worm never burns.” It is a prototype of our picture of Hell Fire. It is in this place, that the Jews have committed the ultimate abomination against God, the ritual murder of their children in sacrifice to the God, Molech.

This bad treatment notwithstanding, Jeremiah remains firm in his insistence that God has told him what to say and further, that Pashhur will come to personal ruin as God has re-named him “Magor-missabib” which means “terror is on every side.” God will, and ultimately, uses the aggressive resurgent Babylon to capture and destroy Jerusalem as they were on their way to Egypt to attempt to do the same thing. It should be noted that God has already set history into motion centuries before as the internal geo-politics of this region begins to take shape manifesting the desire for dominance of the great powers of the world: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon and Persia. God evinces His inimitable manner of using the black heart of man to bring about His [God’s] perfect will played out on the stage of history on which we thought we were the players.

Be Honest in Your Doubt (Jer. 20:7-10)

Perhaps hiding behind his words, Jeremiah is really dealing with doubt. When he is free, he confronts God with the charge that God deceived him. Jeremiah’s opening charge to God was bold indeed—you deceived me, Lord. He asserted that God had virtually forced him into accepting the prophetic call. Almighty God had seized a helpless young man and prevailed over him—Jeremiah never really had a chance. Really/ I don’t think so. God never seizes our free will – it is too precious to Him. Nevertheless, Jeremiah feels that way.
Further, he states that he would like to get out of this situation by keeping his mouth shut and not speaking of this any more. But that won’t work because he feels the pull of the words too strongly. Jeremiah knows that God is telling the truth, that terrible things are going to happen to his people and that he, Jeremiah, must give them the message so that they might repent and stave of doom. But as we learned last week, this word from God comes at a high price. Jeremiah is now the laughingstock of the community.
In all this, Jeremiah gives us an important lesson that he had not even intended to give us. That is to honestly confront our doubts with God. When we feel or believe that It Ain’t necessarily So, we have the rare and special privilege to go to God and say so. We are not, I assure you, going to take Him by surprise. Only by getting our doubts out on the table can God deal with them in our lives and thus allow us to receive the blessing He has for us.

Remember Who’s in Control (Jeremiah 20:11-13).

Deal with it He[God] does. At the time when Jeremiah most needs encouragement, God shows him who is really in control and Jeremiah “gets it.” He says:
11But the Lord is with me like a violent warrior. Therefore, my persecutors will stumble and not prevail. Since they have not succeeded, they will be utterly shamed, an everlasting humiliation that will never be forgotten. Jeremiah sees [and tells us] that God is a strong warrior who will ultimately prevail. If we are ridding with Him, we will prevail also. Those who stand in God’s way will be run over. Jeremiah closes his passage with a newly found doxology: "Sing to the Lord! Praise the Lord, for He rescues the life of the needy from the hand of evil people.”

Let me encourage you in the words of the author of this weeks’s lesson, “if you are dealing with doubt right now, circle the action in the previous activity that you will take and trust God through your doubts. If you are not presently facing doubt, recognize that doubt and weariness will come. Commit to God that when they do, you will continue to trust Him.” -- It’s ain’t easy, but it is necessarily so.

See now the text of "Sportin' Life's take on the gospel. Do you ever come up with this sort of doubt?

It Ain't Necessarily So

-by Geroge Gershwin

It ain't necessarily so, It ain't necessarily so,

De t'ings dat yo' li'bleTo read in de Bible, It ain't necessarily so.

Li'I David was small, but oh my! Li'I David was small but oh my!

He fought big GoliathWho lay down an' dieth, Li'I David was small, but oh my!

Wa-doo - Zim bam boodle-oo, Hoodle ah da wa da - Scatty wah. Yeah!

Oh, Jonah, he lived in a whale, Oh, Jonah, he lived in a whale,

Fo' he made his home inDat fish's abdomen. Oh, Jonah, he lived in a whale.

Li'I Moses was found in a stream, Li'I Moses was found in a stream,

He floated on waterTill ol' Pharaoh's daughterFished him, she said from dat stream.

Wa-doo - Zim bam boodle-oo,Hoodle ah da wa sa - Scatty wah. Yeah!

It ain't necessarily so, It ain't necessarily so,

Dey tell all you chillun De debble's a villunBut'tain't necessarily so.

To get into Hebben,Don't snap for a sebben!Live clean,

Don' have no fault.(Look at me!) I jus' takes dat gospel

Whenever it's pos'ble.But wid a grain o' salt.

Methuselah lived nine hundred years, Methuselah lived nine hundred years,

Say, but what's good o' livin' When no gal'll give in To no man what's nine hundred years?

I'm preachin' this sermon to show

It ain't nessa, 'tain't nessa,'tain't nessa, 'tain't nessa,

'Tain't necessarily so.

Paying the Price To Serve God

Today’s background passage is Jeremiah 26:1-24 focusing on 26:1-16. In this passage, we learn that serving God is or can be a very hard, hard thing. Sometimes in America, we are not used to hard, hard things. Life has been really pretty good here. Our service to God has, for the most part been socially acceptable. Nevertheless, that is a blessing for which we should be greatly thankful and strive on to serve more. For many, though it is not so. Serving God faithfully is costly.

Two Great Missionaries who Paid the Price - The learner’s quarterly tells us of two great missionaries and the cost they paid to serve God: Bill Wallace of China and Jim Elliott. This brief story of Bill Wallace is taken from The Christian History Institute.

“When I was trying to decide what I would do with my life, I became convinced God wanted me to be a medical missionary. That decision took me to China." Bill Wallace made that decision in 1925 when he was seventeen years old. When he sailed as a Southern Baptist Missionary, he was a direct answer to prayer; Christians in Wuchouw had been praying earnestly for a missionary doctor.
“He spent his life fulfilling his youthful decision and in the end died for it. His commitment was so sincere that he turned down a high-paying job in the United State. Bill's total commitment kept him in China through various uprisings, the Japanese invasion and World War II.
“He performed surgery with bombs bursting around him. At one point, he moved the hospital up river on a boat to escape the Chinese. Urged to flee from China, he replied, "I will stay as long as I am able to serve." His commitment took him back to Wuchouw, China after the Communist takeover.
“When America entered the Korean War, anti-American feeling ran strong in China. Mission boards urged their people to leave China. Bill refused. Although he was known as one of the best surgeons in China and many Communists had profited from his skill, the Communists did not spare him.
“Before dawn on December 19, 1950, they raided his home. Bill Wallace, a man utterly dedicated to Christ and to healing others, went to prison. Claiming they found a gun under his pillow, the Communists accused him of being a foreign agent. Brutal interrogation followed. Disoriented by lack of sleep and beatings, Bill signed a phony confession. The peaceable man became depressed, but posted scripture verses on his cell walls to focus his faith. He witnessed about Christ to everyone who passed his cell.
“Two months after his arrest, Bill was found hanging in his cell. The Communists claimed he killed himself, but his body told a story of terrible abuse. Armed guards tried to hide their handiwork by burying him in an unmarked grave.
“Faithful Chinese Christians did not allow that. Risking their own lives, they laid him to rest with a proper ceremony. Above his grave they placed this sign: "For Me to Live Is Christ." "He was a martyr not because he died but because he so identified with the Chinese that they considered him one of them," said a missionary nurse who worked with him.

Likewise, Jim Elliot knew what it was to pay the ultimate price for serving Christ, his life. The following is excepted from “The Seeking Life” a product of Dr. Stanley’s In Touch Ministries.
The life and death of Jim Elliot was a testimony of a man committed to the will of God. He sought God's will, pleaded for it, waited for it, and—most importantly—obeyed it. He martyrdom at age twenty-eight and subsequent books on his life by his former wife, Elisabeth Elliot, have been the catalyst for sending thousands into the mission fields and stoking the fires of a heart for God. He was an intense Christian, bent on pleasing God alone and not man.
"[He makes] His ministers a flame of fire," Elliot wrote while a student at Wheaton College. "Am I ignitable? God deliver me from the dread asbestos of 'other things.' Saturate me with the oil of the Spirit that I may be aflame. But flame is transient, often short-lived. Canst thou bear this my soul—short life? In me there dwells the spirit of the Great Short-Lived, whose zeal for God's house consumed Him." “Elliot was a gifted writer, speaker, and teacher. He had a commanding presence while a student at Wheaton, even starring on the wrestling mat where he became a champion. “Many of his friends were convinced Elliot's spiritual giftedness should be concentrated on building up the church in America. “Elliot, however, wanted God's will, not man's. After many protracted and solitary prayer sessions, Elliot sensed God's call to a foreign field, specifically South America. "Why should some hear twice," he said, "when others have not heard [the gospel] once?" “Correspondence with a former missionary to Ecuador and hearing of a tribe—the Aucas—that was never reached with the news of Christ's redemption set his course. “In the winter of 1952, Elliot and a friend who shared his vision set sail on a freighter, the Santa Juana, for the jungles of South America.
“Elliot's focus on obedience to God's will led to a disciplined and slightly unorthodox courtship of Betty Howard, whom he met at Wheaton. They longed to be husband and wife, but Elliot would not agree to the marriage yoke until he was certain of God's plan. “Elisabeth and Jim both were called to Ecuador as missionaries. Almost one year after arriving, they were finally engaged. On October 8, 1953, they were married in a civil ceremony in Quito, Ecuador. After their wedding, Elliot continued his work among the Indians and formulated plans to reach the Aucas. “In the autumn of 1955, missionary pilot Nate Saint spotted an Auca village. During the ensuing months, Elliot and several fellow missionaries dropped gifts from a plane, attempting to befriend the hostile tribe. “In January of 1956, Elliot and four companions landed on a beach of the Curaray River in eastern Ecuador. They had several friendly contacts with the fierce tribe that had previously killed several Shell Oil company employees. “Two days later, on January 8, 1956, all five men were speared and hacked to death by warriors from the Auca tribe. Life magazine featured a ten-page article on their mission and death. "They learned about the Aucas as they and their wives were ministering to the Quichua-speaking and Jivaro Indians. The Aucas had killed all strangers for centuries. "Other Indians fear them but the missionaries were determined to reach them. Said Elliot: 'Our orders are: the Gospel to every creature.'"
“Elliot wanted God's will. It ended in his death, but it was a death whose seed still brings forth fruit for the gospel's sake. Many Aucas eventually came to accept Christ as Savior when Elisabeth Elliot bravely returned to share Christ with those who killed her husband. Her books, Shadow of the Almighty and Through Gates of Splendor, speak passionately of the power, majesty, and sovereignty of God while chronicling the life of her husband.




The story of Jim Elliot is now a feature movie, The End of the Spear, which is highly recommended to Christians.




Well, like Wallace and Elliott, Jeremiah accepted a tough assignment knowing it come at a high price. The History of Ancient Israel by Michael Grant says of Jeremiah:
He felt a degree of social isolation rare and terrible for a man of his people and region. His refusal to get married did not help; for that was equally rare. But his fears were more than just a baseless persecution mania, because the sorts of assertions he made could not fail to arouse the bitterest hostility. Yet behind the abrasive manner was a lonely, self-desperate person, whose up-hill, unpopular task left him desperate. “Why is my pain unending, my wound desperate and incurable? . . . I curse the day I was born. . .. The “Dark Night of the Soul” was something he felt powerless to overcome.

Yet, because of this intense struggle, his relationship with God, YHWH, was carried on “within a framework of extraordinarily close intimacy.” From within this framework of intimacy, he preached a number of sermons. It is sometimes difficult to determine whether the sermons are individual events, re-tellings of the same event or his re-staging the same words, much like Jesus did in His teaching, where in He preached the same or similar sermon to different people at different times. Remember there was no mass media in that day.

Accept God’s Tough Assignment.

One Such sermon is found in Jeremiah 26: 1-7, perhaps a re-counting of Jeremiah 7.
Say to them, “This is what the LORD says: If you will not listen to me and obey the law I have given you . . . then I will destroy this Temple as I destroyed Shiloh, the place where the Tabernacle was located. And I will make Jerusalem an object of cursing in every nation on earth. as he spoke in front of the LORD's Temple.”

What excuses might Jeremiah have given for not delivering the message to his audience? I could think of a lot. Never the less, Jeremiah accepted God’s assignment regardless of the cost

Don’t Buckle Under Pressure (Jer. 26:8-14)

Now, as you might imagine, this was not well received. The people and the priests wanted to kill Jeremiah for being blasphemous or unpatriotic or just because he didn’t say what they wanted to hear. However, Jeremiah did not give in and recant. He states in his own defense.

"The LORD sent me to prophesy against this Temple and this city," he said. "The LORD gave me every word that I have spoken. But if you stop your sinning and begin to obey the LORD your God, he will cancel this disaster that he has announced against you.

Perhaps some might think my next movie allusion is a bit crass, but one of my favorite movies is The Blues Brothers. Two broken-down jailbird musicians from the South Side of Chicago set out on a quest to raise money to save the orphanage in which they grew up. In so doing, they take crazy risks and anger about every political group and ethnicity imaginable, but they feel it is OK in the end be as John Belushi says: “we’re on a mission from God.” Do people feel that because they claim to be Christians or religious God will protect them? Such is reckless behavior and not born out by the facts. God does not shield us from the price. To do so would be to rob us of the “extraordinarily close intimacy” that Gods us to have with Him.


Trust God for Results (Jeremiah 26:15-16)
At the end of this sermon, from custody. Jeremiah tells the people, the King, the priests and the mob,

“ But if you kill me, rest assured that you will be killing an innocent man! The responsibility for such a deed will lie on you, on this city, and on every person living in it. For it is absolutely true that the LORD sent me to speak every word you have heard."
At that point, the fear of the Lord takes over and his captors relent. God has intervened to save Jeremiah, just as He promised in Chapter 1, remember?

Conclusion – The old B.B McKinney hymn says:
“’Take up thy cross and follow me,’ I heard my Master say; ‘I gave my life to ransom thee, Surrender your all today.’ Wherever He leads I’ll go, Wherever He leads I’ll go, I’ll follow my Christ who loves me so, Wherever He leads I’ll go” (B. B. McKinney, “Wherever He Leads I’ll Go” [Nashville: Broadman Press, 1936], Baptist Hymnal, 1991), 285.

Where ever? Whenever at whatever cost? Really? We’ll see.

Starting Now

I am writing this from Brookwood Hospital.

Starting Now

Taken from Jeremiah 1: 4-19, this lesson begins the series by helping us to come to the realization that God calls, equips and directs each of us for His service.

Discovering Your Destiny -

Just like Jeremiah See Jeremiah 1: 4-10, each of us has call to service - a destiny.
The call was formed before we were because God‘s planning is eternal. It didn’t just come up because one day, God figured out that we could actually do so something for Him. Actually, as it turns out, we really can’t do anything for Him. Not even Billy Graham can. It is only through

Christ who lives in us that we can do something - in fact "all things" as Paul says. See Ephesians.
Jeremiah was called to prophesy - give God’s word to the whole nation of Judah. Maybe our individual call maybe diffferent. But the call isn’t important, the caller is. Calls can’t be measured or compared to see whose call is more "important." That misses the whole point. In your judgment, whose call is more important, that of Billy Graham or that of Henrietta Mears, the youth worker who won him [and Bill Bright] to the Lord?

Jeremiah protested his call - "I’m just a kid." Like most of us have come to think with a call. Few of us see and receive it readily as did Mary the Mother of Jesus when she said "be it unto me and thou hast said."

God promised to be with Jeremiah and empowers him to do the work. So it is with us. God never sends any out "at their own charges." That would set us up for inevitable failure and would be counter productive to God’s greatest lesson for us to learn which is that we need God for everything we do from salvation on down to the very air we breathe.

God "set his words in Jeremiah's mouuth." Again, so it is with us. God’s word is truth. We cannot speak the truth is our words are not God’s words.

God Equips You. Jeremiah 1:11-16.

God specifically equipped Jeremiah with two visions that nobody else had - the almond tree and the boiling caldron. Jeremiah saw in those two "equippings" that just as spring follows the budding of the almond tree, the fulfillment of the prophesy would follow its utterance. Specifically, the politics of the great kingdoms to the north would "boil over" and flow over and consume Judah.

The revelation of the two visions gave Jeremiah great confidence to stand up against kings and people who didn’t want to hear his words. That courage was supernatural and was in itself, a great "equipping." We most of us called to do such a thing, a similar "double portion " of courage from God would be needed - and being needed it would be supplied by God.

Get Busy Serving. (Just Do it!)

Jeremiah 1:17-19. God called Jeremiah to "just do it" now. God said tat He, God, had given Jeremiah the strength to do this - now. When God gives a gift, He gives it now. Jeremiah didn't have to go to the seminary or even take an on-line course. He was called to speak now.

When God calls us to service, the time is always "now." That doesn’t necessarily that we take the action now, but it means that we make the irrevocable commitment now. Remember that "now" is a unit of time which God created for man as a convenience for man. It doesn't apply to God himself. If God had a wristwatch, the time on it would always be "now." This is a function of God’s "eternalness."

God tells Jeremiah is this passage that he has recast or reconstituted him as an "iron pillar or bronze walls" so as to be able to stand against even the whole land of Judah. In each confrontation, Jeremiah was called to act "now." In so doing he Jeremiah would prevail because He, God, has already prevailed.

To sum it up.

• God call each of us to serve Him, not because He needs the work done, but because we need to serve Him. He promises to fully equip us for the call. The time for us to act is now.
  

Are you up to the task?