Jeremiah 1:1

The Bible says in Jeremiah 1:1-3, “The words of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah, of the priests that were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin: To whom the word of the LORD came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign. It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, unto the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah the son of Josiah king of Judah, unto the carrying away of Jerusalem captive in the fifth month.” The three verses give us a very clear definition of who was Jeremiah and when he lived in Israel. Jeremiah was a priest, and thus he was of the tribe of Levi. Jeremiah prophesied for a very long time. He started giving his prophecies as a young man during the reign of King Josiah, and Jeremiah continued to prophesy all the way until the last king of Israel, Zedekiah, and until Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians and the people taken away captive. Jeremiah 1:2 tells us where Jeremiah’s words came from. It says, “To whom the word of the Lord came.” God has spoken. God has given words to certain men, and those men wrote down God’s words so that all generations could hear the words, know the words, and be blessed by the words that came from God. God did not give Jeremiah ideas per se: God gave him words. As it says in Second Peter 1:19-21, “We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”

We are told what God said to Jeremiah when God called Jeremiah to be a prophet. The Bible says in Jeremiah 1:4-5, “Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.” What the Lord said to Jeremiah in Jeremiah 1:5 tells us many truths. It tells us that God is the creator. God is the life-giver. When conception occurs, that is the creative work of God, forming a human being and creating one more life. How much God loves life. It says in Genesis 1:31, “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.” When God makes a life a good thing has happened, no matter what are the human circumstances surrounding the development of that life. God loves life so much that He made it very easy for a woman of child-bearing age to conceive. That is one of the reasons that men and women should wait until marriage to have sex: so that children will be conceived having both a loving father and a loving mother to help take care of them.

Even before God allows conception to take place, God has a plan for that life. That is how great the mind of God is, and that is how well He plans everything that happens. When it comes to life and death, there are no accidents. It says in Hebrews 9:27, “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.” There is an appointed place and time for each of us to die. God makes that appointment. What is revealed here in Jeremiah chapter one makes it clear also that it is appointed unto men once to be born. In other words God makes that appointment also. If God makes the birth appointment, then He also makes the conception appointment. Conceptions are not accidents. Conceptions are permitted and used of God to bring a new life into the world. Just as God had a purpose for Jeremiah’s life, God has a purpose for every life. One of the benefits of becoming a believer in Jesus is that you start learning what that purpose is.

According to Jeremiah 1:5, God’s will for Jeremiah’s life was that he be a “prophet unto the nations.” A prophet is someone who speaks forth the Word of God. God has given His Word, but He uses some human beings to learn His Word, and then to speak forth His Word. Other believers are called to help and support the “prophet.” One of the ways for you to serve Christ in this world is to either become a prophet (also known as a preacher), or to help and support that preacher by the means that God has given to you or by the gifts that Christ has given to you.

We are given Jeremiah’s initial response to God’s calling in Jeremiah 1:6-8. It says, “Then said I, Ah, Lord GOD! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child. But the LORD said unto me, Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak. Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the LORD.” Basically, Jeremiah gave two reasons for saying to the Lord that Jeremiah could not be a prophet. For one thing, Jeremiah said, “I am a child.” Evidently, Jeremiah was a teenager or a very young man. Jeremiah made it very clear that he had not yet reached manhood, and he thought he was too young to do something like this for the Lord. It is true that when it comes to being a preacher for the Lord, older is usually better. For example, pastors in the New Testament are called “elders” because an elder is an older man. Older should mean wiser, both from a practical standpoint, and from a spiritual standpoint. Churches are warned not to select a “novice” for a pastor. It says in First Timothy 3:6 concerning selecting a pastor that a church should choose, “Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil.” But in spite of these things, Jesus does sometimes call a very young person to do a work for Him.

As a matter of fact there are some very definite benefits to having such a calling as Jeremiah’s at a very young age. For one thing the older that you are, the more that you have sinned. This point is made clear in the incident in the life of Jesus involving the woman who was taken in adultery. It says in John 8:6-11, “And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou? This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.” The older that you are, if you are honest, the more readily that you should easily recognize and admit that you are a sinner. In other words an older person has probably sinned more than a younger person. The opposite is also true. The younger that you are, the less that you have probably sinned than those who are older. That is one of the reasons that God loves little children so much: their innocence. In heaven, we will be like children instead of like adults. We will be holy instead of being sinners.

As in the case of Jeremiah sometimes God does call a younger person to do the work of Christ, where one might normally expect an older person to serve. It does say in Matthew 21:15-16, “And when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying in the temple, and saying, Hosanna to the Son of David; they were sore displeased, And said unto him, Hearest thou what these say? And Jesus saith unto them, Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?” Timothy was a young man serving as a preacher, and the Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy in First Timothy 4:12, “Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.” If you are young, you might lack some confidence that comes with experience, and you might lack some knowledge that an older person might have; but if Jesus has called you, He can more than make up for any deficiency that youth might cause you to have. If you are young, trust in the Lord. The Lord will be your strength and your wisdom.

Jeremiah attempted to use his youth as a reason to think that he could not be a preacher, and Jeremiah also said in Jeremiah 1:6, “I cannot speak.” To be a prophet or a preacher means that you must speak. One of your primary responsibilities is to speak. But Jeremiah was just sure that speaking was one thing that He could not do. Jeremiah is not the only person who ever thought that. Moses thought it too when he was called. God said to Moses in Exodus 3:14-15, “And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you. And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.” And then notice what Moses and the Lord said in Exodus 4:10-12, “And Moses said unto the LORD, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue. And the LORD said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the LORD? Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say.”

One of the problems in speaking is knowing what to say. The Lord solved that problem with Jeremiah by saying to him in Jeremiah 1:7, “whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak.” Jeremiah was not supposed to give his own words, but Jeremiah was supposed to give the words that came from God. The message of the prophet and the message of the preacher should be the Word of God. We have a vast quantity of things to say as long as we stick to the Word of God. One of the values of expository preaching is that once you have finished explaining one verse, then go on to the next one. You will never run out of material because the Word of God is inexhaustible. Paul wrote to Timothy in Second Timothy 4:2, “Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.” After you get over the fears that Jeremiah and Moses had: that you just cannot speak, eventually after speaking for a while, you might fall into the temptation of speaking too much your own ideas. A preacher should be preaching the Word of God, not his own ideas. Some have fallen into preaching a kind of Christian humanism in which they speak forth their own wisdom instead of the Word of God.

The Lord said to Jeremiah, “whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak.” There is one more important principle about preaching that we are taught from this verse: a preacher’s message must come from God. There will be people who will want to tell you what to preach. Do not do it. If they have a message, let them preach their own message. You must preach the message that God gives you, and so you must go to Jesus in prayer to get that message. Your own personal contact with the Lord should determine the message that you preach. God has a message that He wants to get out to a certain group of people, and He wants to use whoever He has called to get that message out. That is why Jesus said in Mark 16:15, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.”

$Description: Description: C:\BibleGemsDoc\Image37.gif$

___________________________________________________