Jeremiah 6:17

The Bible says in Jeremiah 6:17, “Also I set watchmen over you, saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet. But they said, We will not hearken.” God raises up watchmen for a congregation, for a people, and for a nation. The purpose of the watchman is to be on the lookout for dangers that are coming, and then to warn the people about the dangers. One truth about life on this earth is that there are dangers. Life can be dangerous. If you forget this principle, then you will more easily fall into some place of danger. It is better to see the danger before it comes, and to avoid it. One of the reasons that God gave us His commandments is so that we could avoid the dangers and therefore have a more peaceful and enjoyable life. Jesus said in John 10:10, “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”

Unfortunately not enough people listen to the watchmen. What happens when someone does not listen to the watchmen? We can look at Israel during the time of Jeremiah to find the answer to that because it says at the end of Jeremiah 6:17, “But they said, We will not hearken.” A good example of the consequences of not listening to God’s warnings is found in the next several verses. It says in Jeremiah 6:18-25, “Therefore hear, ye nations, and know, O congregation, what is among them. Hear, O earth: behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened unto my words, nor to my law, but rejected it. To what purpose cometh there to me incense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country? your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices sweet unto me. Therefore thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will lay stumblingblocks before this people, and the fathers and the sons together shall fall upon them; the neighbour and his friend shall perish. Thus saith the LORD, Behold, a people cometh from the north country, and a great nation shall be raised from the sides of the earth. They shall lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel, and have no mercy; their voice roareth like the sea; and they ride upon horses, set in array as men for war against thee, O daughter of Zion. We have heard the fame thereof: our hands wax feeble: anguish hath taken hold of us, and pain, as of a woman in travail. Go not forth into the field, nor walk by the way; for the sword of the enemy and fear is on every side.” This is talking about the nation of Babylon that would be raised up to come against the children of Israel and to conquer them. God made sure that the armies of Babylon were strengthened, and that the children of Israel were weakened. Notice the last phrase of verse 25, “for the sword of the enemy and fear is on every side.” The enemy was provided with the instruments of war, and the children of Israel were given “fear” to ensure that they would not win. One way to be certain to lose is to have fear. For a child of God, our confidence and strength comes form the Lord. We will not fear and we will be strong when we trust in Him. As it says in Ephesians 6:10, “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.” We lose our confidence if we do not trust in the Lord, and then we become susceptible to any fear. On the positive side the Apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” The opposite is also true: “I will fail at all things without Christ which strengtheneth me.” President Roosevelt said, “We have nothing to fear, but fear itself.” That statement is also very consistent with the spiritual reality of the confidence and strength that we will have when we truly are trusting in Christ, but the lack of confidence and fear that we will have if we are not trusting in Christ about some matter. We need Jesus.

The Bible says in Jeremiah 6:26, “O daughter of my people, gird thee with sackcloth, and wallow thyself in ashes: make thee mourning, as for an only son, most bitter lamentation: for the spoiler shall suddenly come upon us.” Notice the phrase, “mourning, as for an only son.” There can be many sufferings in this life. Job learned that all too well. Jesus was called in Isaiah 53:3, “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” One of the benefits of going to heaven to be with Jesus is that finally the sufferings will be over. As it says in Revelation There can be sufferings from enemies, sufferings from loss of health both physical and mental, sufferings from financial difficulties, sufferings from weather and war, and other calamities. But some of the greatest sufferings have to do with what we suffer when we lose a loved one. In the normal course of life children will lose their grandparents and their parents. Such a loss can be very hard on someone who is close to their parents or grandparents. Many people will lose a spouse especially as they get older. The younger is the married couple, perhaps the greater the suffering will be to lose the love of your life if they go to be with the Lord before you. If you live very long on this earth, you will know what it means to stand at a graveside with your head bowed and your heart in mourning over a dearly departed loved one.

With all of the sufferings that are possible in this life, perhaps the worse suffering of all is for a parent to lose a child. Of course, we are assuming that the parent deeply loves the child. A child is so sweet and innocent, and a child holds the promise of the future and of his or her own great potential. And then when we are talking about an “only” child, we are talking about all of the love and all of the hope of a parent centered into this one little being. O how great the pain can be when a mother or a father loses a child because they lose so much of their own heart. This may be the greatest suffering of life: to lose an only child. This is the suffering that the Lord said would befall the children. God knows just how much suffering this is to lose an only child, because the Father watched His own Son die on the cross of Calvary. Not only that, but He willingly gave His Son to such a horrible and untimely death. It says in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” This verse tells us about not only the greatest love and the greatest gift, but also about the greatest suffering. Often we think of the suffering of the cross by emphasizing what Jesus suffered when He died there for your sins and for mine, but there was also the suffering of the Eternal Father watching His own Son die such an ignoble and cruel death.

This I know: whoever has lost a child has been given a sorrow that God Himself suffered. Perhaps there is a special blessing and a special honor reserved for those who are called to such suffering of losing a child. That certainly was the case in Abraham’s life. God said to Abraham in Genesis 22:2, “And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.” The rest of the incident and God’s great pleasure because Abraham was willing to lose Isaac is found in Genesis 22:3-18. “And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him. Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off. And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you, And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together. And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together. And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-jireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the LORD it shall be seen. And the angel of the LORD called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, And said, By myself have I sworn, saith the LORD, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.”

God might ask you to give up your child, and in a way everyone must give up their children because there comes a time when they must leave and live their own life. Can you give your children back to God and trust Him to perform His will for their lives? Even if it turns out to what may seem to you to be a disaster, it all fits into His perfect plan. Everyone is going to die anyway, so do not fear death for yourself or for your loved ones. It would be wiser to fear missing out on God’s will. As Jesus faced the crucifixion and the end of His life at about age thirty-three, Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemanee as it says in Luke 22:40-44, “And when he was at the place, he said unto them, Pray that ye enter not into temptation. And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and kneeled down, and prayed, Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”

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