In this last passage of scripture from Jeremiah's sixth sermon, we find Jeremiah grumbling before the Lord. Then we see the Lord basically telling him to stand up and be a man; to stop his whining, to repent of it, and, if he will turn away from his complaining, then the Lord will take care of him even in the midst of the coming judgment.
Please don't take exception to my paraphrasing that the Lord is telling Jeremiah to buck up and deal with the problem at hand. The fact is that the Lord often speaks to us with a certain amount of "tough love", especially when we are feeling sorry for ourselves. He is our Father, after all, and what father would not say that if the times warranted it? There are times for compassion, and there are times for toughness, aka truth. The truth here is that feeling sorry for ourselves is just sin. Yes, we are human, and yes, sometimes we like to just wallow in self-pity.
The truth also is that it isn't always about us. Especially when we have been given an assignment from God; there is no time for self-pity. There is work to be done...God's work...and we are to be willing vessels without complaint.
I am thankful that we have our brothers and sisters in Christ to encourage us to go on, as Paul was thankful for those who remembered him in prayer and supported him as best they could during his ministry, especially those times spent in jail. We all have times such as Paul and Jeremiah, where it is difficult to go on, and sometimes, in our humanness, we grumble a bit. Yet, at all times we are thankful to be used of God for His glory. I believe it is just the flesh in us that grumbles, while the Holy Spirit in us keeps moving us forward. The best we can do at those times is just as Jeremiah did...voice it honestly before the Lord, for He knows our hearts already anyway...we can hide nothing from Him. And then face up to the music, the mild rebuke from the Lord, and pick ourselves up by His power and encouragement and by the hope that He gives, and move on in the battle.
This discourse between Jeremiah and the Lord picks up at chapter 15, verse10:
Jeremiah cries out: "Woe is me, my mother, that thou has borne me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth!" Words reminiscent of Job's suffering (Job 3:1). "I have neither lent on usury [charging interest], nor men have lent to me on usury; yet every one of then doth curse me."
To which the Lord replied: "Truly, it will be well with thy remnant; truly I will cause the enemy to entreat thee well in the time of evil and in the time of affliction."
Can you hear the compassion the Lord has upon Jeremiah; can you hear how much the Lord understands our fears and anxieties and helps us through them with promises of great hope? His first response to Jeremiah is not one of rebuke, but of tender encouragement for Jeremiah's concerns. It isn't until Jeremiah persists in his self-pity that the Lord issues the tough love rebuke. And even then, it is the words by which Jeremiah begins to accuse the Lord that brings forth this rebuke.
Jeremiah goes on: "Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable; which refuseth to be healed? Wilt thou be altogether unto me as a liar, and as waters that fail?"
This is where we sin; when our self-pity becomes bigger than our God. When out of our suffering we forget ourselves, and forget that this is GOD to whom we are speaking. Much as a child who, now that he has his parent's attention, becomes overly emboldened and a bit cocky to his parent...and then gulps back his fear as he realizes he went a bit too far that time! This realization strikes him right about the time his parent puts the child back in his proper place with a quick cold rebuke. The child is not always aware that it is out of love that the parent brinks this rebuke and that it is for the sake of the child rather than for the parent. So it is with us and our Father God. So it was with Jeremiah and the Lord.
"Therefore thus saith the Lord, If thou return [repent], then will I bring thee again, and thou shalt stand before me: and if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth: let them return unto thee: return not thou unto them. [In other words, don't become as these evil people have become before me...let them become as you are, obedient, but do not let yourself become disobedient as they are.] And I will make thee unto this people a fenced brazen wall: and they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee: for I am with thee to save thee and to deliver thee, saith the Lord. And I will deliver thee out of the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem thee out of the hand of the terrible."
God makes this promise to Jeremiah, that even though he must be included in this evil to come, he will be protected to a great degree in the midst of the evil. We will see further in this study exactly what the Lord does to bring His promise to pass for Jeremiah's sake.
Meanwhile, we take encouragement from this: that if we repent, and we remain upright and trusting of the Lord and His goodness, we have that hope as well of being spared the worst of what is to come. The rain falls on the just and the unjust, but in all things God is sovereign and He will decide what we are to bear and what we will be spared from bearing.
This is our confident hope in Him: that as Jesus Christ is our covering, as well as our strength, we will receive mercy from the Lord in times of need. We see it in small ways in our lives every day as financial needs are somehow met at the eleventh hour, as serious health issues become less scary as we walk through them with the Lord and are often completely healed of them as well, as the burden of our fears for our wayward children are left at the cross of Christ with this confident hope that He loves them even more than we do, and thus He will see that they are kept safe until HE brings them to repentance, as only He can do.
It is seeing these hopes realized in the small things, that prepares us to hope confidently when in the midst of the greater battles yet to come.
Please don't take exception to my paraphrasing that the Lord is telling Jeremiah to buck up and deal with the problem at hand. The fact is that the Lord often speaks to us with a certain amount of "tough love", especially when we are feeling sorry for ourselves. He is our Father, after all, and what father would not say that if the times warranted it? There are times for compassion, and there are times for toughness, aka truth. The truth here is that feeling sorry for ourselves is just sin. Yes, we are human, and yes, sometimes we like to just wallow in self-pity.
The truth also is that it isn't always about us. Especially when we have been given an assignment from God; there is no time for self-pity. There is work to be done...God's work...and we are to be willing vessels without complaint.
I am thankful that we have our brothers and sisters in Christ to encourage us to go on, as Paul was thankful for those who remembered him in prayer and supported him as best they could during his ministry, especially those times spent in jail. We all have times such as Paul and Jeremiah, where it is difficult to go on, and sometimes, in our humanness, we grumble a bit. Yet, at all times we are thankful to be used of God for His glory. I believe it is just the flesh in us that grumbles, while the Holy Spirit in us keeps moving us forward. The best we can do at those times is just as Jeremiah did...voice it honestly before the Lord, for He knows our hearts already anyway...we can hide nothing from Him. And then face up to the music, the mild rebuke from the Lord, and pick ourselves up by His power and encouragement and by the hope that He gives, and move on in the battle.
This discourse between Jeremiah and the Lord picks up at chapter 15, verse10:
Jeremiah cries out: "Woe is me, my mother, that thou has borne me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth!" Words reminiscent of Job's suffering (Job 3:1). "I have neither lent on usury [charging interest], nor men have lent to me on usury; yet every one of then doth curse me."
To which the Lord replied: "Truly, it will be well with thy remnant; truly I will cause the enemy to entreat thee well in the time of evil and in the time of affliction."
Can you hear the compassion the Lord has upon Jeremiah; can you hear how much the Lord understands our fears and anxieties and helps us through them with promises of great hope? His first response to Jeremiah is not one of rebuke, but of tender encouragement for Jeremiah's concerns. It isn't until Jeremiah persists in his self-pity that the Lord issues the tough love rebuke. And even then, it is the words by which Jeremiah begins to accuse the Lord that brings forth this rebuke.
Jeremiah goes on: "Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable; which refuseth to be healed? Wilt thou be altogether unto me as a liar, and as waters that fail?"
This is where we sin; when our self-pity becomes bigger than our God. When out of our suffering we forget ourselves, and forget that this is GOD to whom we are speaking. Much as a child who, now that he has his parent's attention, becomes overly emboldened and a bit cocky to his parent...and then gulps back his fear as he realizes he went a bit too far that time! This realization strikes him right about the time his parent puts the child back in his proper place with a quick cold rebuke. The child is not always aware that it is out of love that the parent brinks this rebuke and that it is for the sake of the child rather than for the parent. So it is with us and our Father God. So it was with Jeremiah and the Lord.
"Therefore thus saith the Lord, If thou return [repent], then will I bring thee again, and thou shalt stand before me: and if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth: let them return unto thee: return not thou unto them. [In other words, don't become as these evil people have become before me...let them become as you are, obedient, but do not let yourself become disobedient as they are.] And I will make thee unto this people a fenced brazen wall: and they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee: for I am with thee to save thee and to deliver thee, saith the Lord. And I will deliver thee out of the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem thee out of the hand of the terrible."
God makes this promise to Jeremiah, that even though he must be included in this evil to come, he will be protected to a great degree in the midst of the evil. We will see further in this study exactly what the Lord does to bring His promise to pass for Jeremiah's sake.
Meanwhile, we take encouragement from this: that if we repent, and we remain upright and trusting of the Lord and His goodness, we have that hope as well of being spared the worst of what is to come. The rain falls on the just and the unjust, but in all things God is sovereign and He will decide what we are to bear and what we will be spared from bearing.
This is our confident hope in Him: that as Jesus Christ is our covering, as well as our strength, we will receive mercy from the Lord in times of need. We see it in small ways in our lives every day as financial needs are somehow met at the eleventh hour, as serious health issues become less scary as we walk through them with the Lord and are often completely healed of them as well, as the burden of our fears for our wayward children are left at the cross of Christ with this confident hope that He loves them even more than we do, and thus He will see that they are kept safe until HE brings them to repentance, as only He can do.
It is seeing these hopes realized in the small things, that prepares us to hope confidently when in the midst of the greater battles yet to come.
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