Jeremiah 19:1

The Bible says in Jeremiah 19:1-2, “Thus saith the LORD, Go and get a potter's earthen bottle, and take of the ancients of the people, and of the ancients of the priests; And go forth unto the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the east gate, and proclaim there the words that I shall tell thee,” Previously in the book of Jeremiah God used a potter and a lump of clay to give us an illustration of the fact that God is the Potter and we are the clay. This time God is going to use a finished potter’s vessel and what can happen to it as an illustration of what will happen to Israel.

The Bible says in Jeremiah 19:3-6, “And say, Hear ye the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem; Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, the which whosoever heareth, his ears shall tingle. Because they have forsaken me, and have estranged this place, and have burned incense in it unto other gods, whom neither they nor their fathers have known, nor the kings of Judah, and have filled this place with the blood of innocents; They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind: Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that this place shall no more be called Tophet, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of slaughter.” Notice the phrase in verse 4, “the blood of innocents.” The false religion that the people got involved with required sacrificing their own children. It said in Jeremiah 7:31, “And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart.” In our own day there is a similar slaughter taking place in connection with the religion of secularism, and that is in reference to the millions of abortions of convenience. God told the Israelites, “We cannot call this place by its normal name. We must call it The valley of slaughter because of all the children that were sacrificed.” If we bring the same conclusion to our day and time, we would have to say that we must call our own country: The land of slaughter. What a terrible truth. And what a terrible future we must have because of this truth.

The future that Israel faced was spelled out very clearly. The Bible says in Jeremiah 19:7-15, “And I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place; and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hands of them that seek their lives: and their carcases will I give to be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth. And I will make this city desolate, and an hissing; every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished and hiss because of all the plagues thereof. And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend in the siege and straitness, wherewith their enemies, and they that seek their lives, shall straiten them. Then shalt thou break the bottle in the sight of the men that go with thee, And shalt say unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaketh a potter's vessel, that cannot be made whole again: and they shall bury them in Tophet, till there be no place to bury. Thus will I do unto this place, saith the LORD, and to the inhabitants thereof, and even make this city as Tophet: And the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, shall be defiled as the place of Tophet, because of all the houses upon whose roofs they have burned incense unto all the host of heaven, and have poured out drink offerings unto other gods. Then came Jeremiah from Tophet, whither the LORD had sent him to prophesy; and he stood in the court of the LORD's house; and said to all the people, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will bring upon this city and upon all her towns all the evil that I have pronounced against it, because they have hardened their necks, that they might not hear my words.” Once a pot has been smashed to smithereens, it has been broken into too many pieces to put back together. This is symbolic of death. That is exactly how you know that God is done with you: you die. In other words, God takes you off this earth. If you have not died, that means that God is still giving you life for a purpose, and one of your goals in life needs to be to find that purpose and fulfill it. The Lord Jesus will continue to work in your life so that you will fulfill that purpose. This concept of God determining that it is over for a particular person is found in First John 5:16-17, “If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it. All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death.”

The Bible says in Jeremiah 20:1-6, “Now Pashur the son of Immer the priest, who was also chief governor in the house of the LORD, heard that Jeremiah prophesied these things. Then Pashur smote Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks that were in the high gate of Benjamin, which was by the house of the LORD. And it came to pass on the morrow, that Pashur brought forth Jeremiah out of the stocks. Then said Jeremiah unto him, The LORD hath not called thy name Pashur, but Magor-missabib. For thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will make thee a terror to thyself, and to all thy friends: and they shall fall by the sword of their enemies, and thine eyes shall behold it: and I will give all Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall carry them captive into Babylon, and shall slay them with the sword. Moreover I will deliver all the strength of this city, and all the labours thereof, and all the precious things thereof, and all the treasures of the kings of Judah will I give into the hand of their enemies, which shall spoil them, and take them, and carry them to Babylon. And thou, Pashur, and all that dwell in thine house shall go into captivity: and thou shalt come to Babylon, and there thou shalt die, and shalt be buried there, thou, and all thy friends, to whom thou hast prophesied lies.” Now we are meeting one of Jeremiah’s personal enemies: a man named Pashur, who was a priest. Jeremiah was a true believer, but his enemy was someone who was supposed to be a religious person. That is very revealing, and is an example of what happens in generation after generation. If you walk in fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ, then you will probably experience the same thing that Jeremiah did. Your enemies will be those who are supposed to be religious people. Often it will be those who have positions of power and authority with religious organizations. Do not let you guard down. Some have done so to their own peril.

In spite of what Jeremiah’s enemies did to him, it is important to notice what eventually happened to Jeremiah’s enemies. Yes, Jeremiah suffered, but the suffering of the wicked ended up being much greater than Jeremiah’s suffering. There are several different classes of suffering that can happen to people. One type of suffering is common to all human beings because we live in a world that is imperfect and bad things happen. There are diseases, and accidents, and natural disasters, and broken dreams that can happen to anyone. Shakespeare called these things “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” This seems to be the type of suffering spoken of in Romans 8:22, “For we know that the whole creation graoneth and travaileth together until now.”

Another type of suffering that can happen to people has to do with those who faithfully follow Jesus. There is a price to pay for following Christ. That is one of the reasons that some people will not do it. Jesus said in Matthew 10:24-26, “The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household? Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known.” There are people who have given their lives because they simply named the name of Jesus as their Lord and Savior. But in spite of this, there is a certain privilege to suffering for Christ. If you do not bear a cross, then you cannot wear a crown. If you really love Jesus and appreciate what He did by dying for you, then you will be glad to suffer for His sake. There is a certain spiritual closeness to Christ that only comes to those who suffer for Him. The Apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 3:10, “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable to his death.”

What the passage in Jeremiah 20:1-6 reminds us of is the fact that what Christians must suffer is much less than what non-Christians must suffer. This is always true concerning eternity, and is often true concerning this life. If you must suffer, it is much better to suffer as a Christian than to suffer as a non-Christian. Believers will suffer at the hands of non-believers, but non-believers will suffer at the hands of God. Jeremiah was hated, opposed, smitten, put into a dungeon, and locked up in stocks. Jeremiah definitely suffered because he served God. But look at what happened to Jeremiah’s persecutors. It says about those who persecuted Jeremiah: “I will make thee a terror,” “they shall fall by the sword of their enemies,” the king of Babylon “shall carry them captive into Babylon,” the king of Babylon “shall slay them with the sword,” “all the treasures of the kings of Judah will I give into the hand of their enemies,” “And thou, Pashur, and all that dwell in thine house shall go into captivity,” “thou shalt come to Babylon, and there thou shalt die, and shalt be buried there, thou, and all thy friends, to whom thou hast prophesied lies.” Who was punished first? Jeremiah was. But who had the worse punishments and the worse consequences? The unbelievers did.

And we are just talking about this life. Even if someone does not get punished in this life, they are still heading towards the final judgment and that will be terrible for the unbelievers. That is what happened to one such unbeliever, a rich man, that Jesus told us about in Luke 16:19-31. Jesus said, “There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence. Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house: For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.”

To avoid going to the same place that the rich man went to (hell), turn to Jesus and find forgiveness for your sins.

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