Jeremiah 1 ● A life known and called by God

we're going to start a new book study tonight so open your bible to the book of jeremiah we're continuing our study through the old testament and can i be completely honest with you tonight and tell you that part of me was dreading starting jeremiah not just because it's a very long book it is it is but that's never bothered me before here i i've been yeah here i am turning through jeremiah for the last it's uh it's because i think it hit so close to home the book of jeremiah is about a man who had a prophetic ministry to his nation at a time when it was deteriorating rapidly and he was made to witness that deterioration and he spoke to it and he spoke to those who were in charge and they didn't accept his message and his beloved nation not only continued to spiral into moral collapse but it was eventually invaded by the babylonian army many many people were killed and the the rest of the people essentially were taken off into exile to the babylonian empire which is the way the babylonians basically treated the people they conquered and jeremiah is known as the weeping prophet his book that follows this one immediately lamentations the word lamentation means to cry to weep and he wept he wept over the demise of his nation and the reason that i was not looking forward to doing this book to be completely honest with you is because i have been in a period of mourning for my own country i've been i've i've literally been grieving and and it's bothered me and i've gone you know to the lord and i've talked to sue about it and and and i've struggled with my emotions frankly going back and forth from anger to disappointment to discouragement and probably everything in between and it has been a a challenging journey to say the least and so now we're going to go through jeremiah where he does the same thing with the nation of israel his beloved nation the focus of his prophetic insights were directed mainly to the southern kingdom of judah you'll remember that david's grandson rehoboam was a very foolish young man when he took the throne following his father's rule now his father was solomon and rehoboam tore the nation of israel into two parts there was a a civil war and they divided into a northern kingdom which retained the name of israel the capital of the northern kingdom was samaria and then the southern kingdom the kingdom of judah which had the capital of jerusalem the kingdom of israel the northern kingdom fell first to the assyrian empire and then the assyrians were conquered by the babylonians and then finally the babylonians many years later conquered the southern kingdom of judah and jeremiah lived during that entire decline he saw it coming he saw it end with an invasion of the land as we look at the first three verses of the book of jeremiah we are given kind of an introduction of both the man and his ministry if you look with me in your bible it says the words of jeremiah the son of hilkiah one of the priests who were in anathoth in the land of benjamin to whom the word of the lord came in the days of josiah the son of ammon king of judah in the 13th year of his reign it came also in the days of jehoiakim the son of josiah king of judah and until the end of the 11th year of zedekiah the son of josiah king of judah until the captivity of jerusalem in the fifth month and so in just these first three verses of the book we actually several important things about jeremiah and about his ministry at this time first of all we learned that he was born into a priestly family did you notice that he talks about the fact that he was the son of hilkiah one of the priests and that means he was a descendant of aaron the brother of moses all right we know also that he came from the city of anathoth it was actually not a city it was a village and it was about three miles from jerusalem we know that the city of anathoth was a levitical village within the tribe of benjamin now remember the levites and the priests didn't get their own land allotments and so they had to live in cities or villages that were given to them that existed within other tribal regions and this particular small village was in the tribe of benjamin and it was not only a levitical village it was also interestingly enough one of the cities of refuge you'll remember that those cities were set aside one in each of the the tribal units to be a place of refuge if someone accidentally killed someone else they could run to a city of refuge and there be safe from the avenger of blood until their situation was resolved in whatever way it was resolved uh we also see from these first three verses that jeremiah began his prophetic ministry during the reign of king josiah and that his ministry lasted all the way until the babylonian invasion which took place during the reign of zedekiah who was the last king of judah actually jeremiah leaves out two different kings when he mentions the kings during which he had a prophetic ministry he leaves out jehoia has and joha kin both of whose reigns only totaled six months together so that's probably why he left them out their reigns were insignificant and then you'll remember that josiah the first king during which jeremiah had a prophetic ministry was the last of the good kings josiah was a godly man for the most part and he uh he died very early on i think he was in his 40s probably early 40s when he when he uh passed away and uh after he did die uh the kingdom uh the southern kingdom of judah was led into a time of just moral chaos and as we've already said uh ultimate captivity so beginning in verse 4 if you look with me in your bible there jeremiah begins to record his own calling from the lord and he says in verse 4 now the word of the lord came to me saying and this is an interesting message before i formed you in the womb i knew you and before you were born i consecrated you which means i set you apart right for this particular ministry and he says i appointed you a prophet to the nations that last statement is very interesting jeremiah was a man who prophesied specifically to the southern kingdom of judah but the lord calls him a prophet to the nations which is very interesting in light of the fact that um his his his prophecies involve not just judah but the surrounding nations as well but these two verses also give us some very important insights into helping us understand how god sees us before we're born yeah you heard me right how god sees us before we're born because we see in these two verses the timeless existence of god that he is not bound by time as you and i are bound in time we all in this room have a birth date which is a a a month and a day and a year in which we were born and our our parents probably waited anxiously for the day of our birth or they dreaded it i don't know which might be the case but i was the last of four kids that came in five years and i don't think they were necessarily looking for well i shouldn't say that but anyway my parents had a lot going on suffice it to say god doesn't have to wait however for someone to be born to know them isn't that cool my my parents had to wait your parents had to wait to get to know you god doesn't have to wait for you to be born to get to know you or even to call you into the area of ministry that he has set aside for you to function in isn't that cool because we see it in these verses that the lord speaks to jeremiah and says before i even formed you in the womb i knew you i knew you and before you were even born i set you apart to do this work of prophetic ministry even before you were born now it's important to understand and this is i want to really underscore this it's important to understand that just because god has a foreknowledge of events that doesn't mean he fixes those events there are way too many christians that i hear from who make the assumption that because god foreknows an event he fixes that event in other words it it is predetermined people do you understand there's a huge difference between predestination and predetermination something that is predetermined would be determined before time it's going to happen that way the bible doesn't say that about the way god treats you and i it does say we're predestined but that's not the same thing we it says that we are predestined according to god's foreknowledge god doesn't have to wait for things to happen to see how they're going to turn out he knows how everything is going to turn out he's seen your birth he's seen your death he's seen your beginning he's seen your end and that includes to ever everyone he knows exactly how the the end is going to take place because the end he doesn't have to wait for the end because god exists outside of time god created time he is not limited by it very important for us to understand as christians it's difficult for us to understand as christians because we are captive to time i cannot tell you what's going to happen an hour from now from now i have to wait god doesn't have to wait he exists outside of the realm of time and so the whole passage of time lies before him and he knows the beginning from the end and the end from the beginning and so he can speak to someone and say i knew you before you were even formed in the womb i called you before you were even born but that doesn't mean that god fixed things in time very important to to to uh remember that so it uh you know frankly shouldn't surprise us that uh jeremiah existed in the thoughts and purposes of god prior to his conception so but you have to ask yourself the question why did god say that to jeremiah i mean why tell him why tell him why say to him i i knew you before you were even conceived i called you before you were born i i gave you this ministry to accomplish before you were even born why say that well i believe that the reason that the lord said things like that to jeremiah was because that knowledge that knowledge that his life and his ministry was part of god's ordained plan purposed ahead of time would provide incredible confidence and great strength in the coming days and years when life got hard because people life got hard for jeremiah essentially jeremiah was given a ministry to speak prophetically to the southern kingdom of judah and god said i'm gonna i've got a message for you to tell them and it's pretty much bad news and you're going to warn them and you're going to warn them and then you're going to warn them some more and they're not going to listen to you they're never going to listen to you and then there's going to come a point where you're no longer going to warn them you're just going to say it's too late it doesn't matter what you do now the end is coming and that's the message i've given you and they're not going to like you for giving that message in fact they're going to persecute you for giving that message but i want you to know something when those persecutions happen when those difficulties come upon you i want you to know something and i want you to gain strength from this i want you to know that i called you i knew you before you were conceived and i called you before you were born i want you to know that this is my purpose for your life i i don't know if that is if that resonates with you in any way but as a pastor i am fairly passionate about the things that i'm sharing with you right now because i've understood over the course of 30 years pastoring this church and about however many years i was in the ministry prior to that that how important calling is because in any sort of a ministry life gets hard and there's a point in time where anybody who's called into the ministry has to look at their life and say um this isn't what i signed up for this isn't fun this got very unfun here's the point if you think you got yourself in the ministry you're going to think to yourself well i'm just going to get myself out because i don't need this grief i gotta tell you something i feel really bad for professional ministers who go to school seminary or whatever the thing might be and who make a determination based on a career choice and then they put their name out there or their resume and they get hired somewhere to a church to minister and and life gets hard do you know how many ministers have quit the ministry and gone into the insurance business in some certain denominations the number is just astronomical you know why because nobody would put up with this you know for by choice nobody would but jeremiah would never choose this life for himself it's like you know i can't wait to get into this ministry of telling people the bad news and then having them reject me and then having me them persecute me i can't wait to get started there's no way this you can't pay me enough you can't say enough things there's not enough incentive the only thing that's going to keep me going in the ministry the only thing that's going to keep you going in the ministry god called me that's why i'm here because believe me there was a lot of times i wanted to quit i'm sure there were many times jeremiah thought about quitting so why don't people quit because they're called it's it's it's it's it's an ordination that comes not from man it's fine it's great when men recognize that but listen we don't ordain people god ordains people to the ministry we recognize his ordination as the church and we may confer some sort of legal standing on people or even ecclesiastical standing on people but it has to come from god first if it doesn't come from god don't even put your toe in the pool because you know it's going to get bitten off not to be too graphic you know the apostle paul talked about his own calling in similar kind of terms as jeremiah let me show you this from the book of galatians uh chapter one look at this paul writing here but when he who had set me apart before i was born that sounds similar and who called me by his grace was pleased to reveal his son to me in order that i might preach him among the gentiles i did not immediately consult with anyone so notice that paul talks about his calling in in that sense he came to understand that his calling like jeremiah's was one that happened before he was even born and you'll remember that in both of paul's letters to timothy he made reference to that reminder of calling why because you got to hang on to it look what he said it's in actually both first and second timothy he said in first timothy do not neglect the gift you have which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you and from ii timothy for this reason i remind you to fan into flame the gift of god which is in you he's talking about the gift of god that came with the calling right because god never calls somebody that doesn't also gift them to accomplish what he has called them to do he called jeremiah to be a prophet and he gifted him with that prophecy and we'll see that here in just a moment but the reminder was essential because paul knew the kind of heat that timothy was going to come under for simply being a christian and church history tells us timothy was martyred just like paul he ended eventually gave his life who in the world would start a career that's going to end with martyrdom who in the world i can't wait to sign up where do i sign up get me on that list no way there's only one reason one reason you stick with it god called me this is god's calling in my life do you see the importance here do you see what causes a person to stick with it but you know it's interesting jeremiah didn't consider himself ready for the calling that god gave him look at verse 6 then i said ah lord god behold i do not know how to speak for i am only a youth but the lord said to me do not say i am only a youth for to all for to all to whom i send you you shall go and whatever i command you you shall speak i want you to stop there for just a moment because this is a very interesting exchange between jeremiah and the lord it's interesting that god god calls jeremiah to this place of ministry and what does jeremiah do he immediately processes this thing through self rather than saying lord you called me to this area of ministry and i just trust that you're going to give me everything i need what does he do similar to what moses did right when he got a call from the lord um but i don't think i'm ready for this because i just don't and you know it's one thing to understand our weaknesses and there's nothing wrong with understanding and even admitting a person's weakness but you have to understand that jeremiah is throwing this as an objection to the calling just like moses did he objected to being called i i'm slow of speech moses said and what did god say to moses who gave man his mouth you think that's a problem for me see what we do we take the calling of god and we place our limitations over the top of it oh i could never be a pastor i could never teach the bible i could no oh i could never do that you see what we do we do the same thing jeremiah did we project our limitations on god's abundance and we say well my limitations trump your abundance sorry i know that you want me to go do this ministry but look look at the man that i am and i want you to notice that what god says to jeremiah he says don't say that don't say that jeremiah you know why this isn't about you you're making it about you this is about me this is about obedience to my command i can handle anything that you lack i can take care of any limitation that you have doesn't matter what it is i can take care of it don't worry i am not limited you may be but i'm not so don't make this about you it's about me and that's why god goes on to say wherever i send you you go and you talk you speak you tell them what i tell you to say and that's all you have to do you see what he was telling jeremiah all you have to do is be faithful i'm not saying to you i think you're the coolest thing since sliced bread god's not saying that at all he's saying you're my chosen vest in law go be faithful and immediately we go oh but i can't oh you just go be faithful i know what you are i know who you are and i know your limitations but your limitations don't limit me because i am god right we got to remember that guys i know you hear me saying it but we've got to remember it we got to remember it your limitations don't limit god the ministry that he gives us is not only created by him but it is empowered by him and you know what if you don't get this through your head you're never going to walk by faith because walking by faith is faith in his power not yours it's faith in his ability not yours it's faith in his abundance not a focus on your limitations walking by faith is keeping your eyes on him and getting them off yourself because you see our natural human tendency is to look inward that's why jeremiah did it that's why moses did it hey even isaiah did it now his came out slightly different he recognized how unworthy he was to speak the words of the lord remember what the lord had to do remember he cried he cried out he goes ah no no i'm unclean i live among a people who are unclean and i and you're just too holy and you know the lord had to have an angel come over and remember took a tong off the the altar in this vision he was having and touch his lips with it so as to kind of give him this visual picture of the fact that you know it's okay isaiah you're gonna be okay just chill all right i'm i'm doing this is my work in you i know the man that you are i know the people you live with this is my work let me do my work in you through you are you willing to let god use you as his vessel are you willing oh but pastor i if you start your sentence your next sentence with that you've missed the point it's not about you we don't hesitate by saying but i we say hey you know that's what god wants to do that's his business i'll just be faithful right i've had people ask me many times how do you get up week after week speaking the word of god they say don't you feel unworthy to speak the word of god i was like yeah of course i do but if i'm going to let that stop me i would never teach it's his word it's not mine right and i'm not saying i have the freedom to stand up here as a hypocrite i'm not saying that my point is if you and i have to attain to some level of perfection before we're willing to speak words of truth we'll never open our mouth of course we feel unworthy we ought to but but i still have a calling to be faithful right okay and so knowing that people are going to oppose him god god promises here oh and this is i love this look at verse 8 do not be afraid of them for i am with you to deliver you declares the lord isn't that a wonderful promise do not be afraid of them doesn't that sound a lot like what jesus said to his disciples do not let your hearts be troubled right kind of the same sort of thing he exhorted jeremiah not to allow fear to enter into his heart because fear what does fear do we've talked about this fear paralyzes doesn't it it keeps us from going forward so don't let fear rise up in your heart jeremiah because let me tell you something people are going to get angry and they're going to be spitting mad and they're going to wag their bony finger in your face and they're going to threaten you within an inch of your life but don't be afraid because i am going to deliver you verse 9 then the lord put out his hand and touched my mouth so jeremiah is obviously seeing a vision here and the lord said to me behold i've put my words in your mouth again this is kind of similar to how isaiah was called you know during his calling into prophetic ministry verse 10 he says and this is really interesting very interesting terminology see i have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms to pluck up your bible may say to root up and to break down to destroy and to overthrow to build and to plant and what's interesting about verse 10 is that jeremiah is pictured here by the lord as doing more than just speaking prophetically um he's he's he he's he's given us a kind of a picture here of of jeremiah actually doing things with his prophetic word does that make sense i want to call your remembrance to moses when he was sent to egypt to convince pharaoh to release the the jewish people from their captivity and you'll remember that he brought those plagues but you remember that none of the plagues began until moses spoke it he spoke these plagues and it was it was like this prophetic thing that brought these things forth right and so it's sort of a similar picture of of god setting jeremiah in this position where he speaks these things into being whether it's uprooting of nations or building up of a nation or whatever the case might be in fact when you look at verse 10 once again look with me in your bible look where it says see i have set you this day over nations that that that phrase set you over is actually in the hebrew it suggests a title uh something like deputy or um vice regent where someone is given the authority of someone to go and do things in the name of the one who granted them the authority and that is what god is saying here to jeremiah that the word that he's given to him to speak over nations and kingdoms and so forth would actually be used by the lord to do the uprooting to do the tearing apart to do the overthrowing but also to do the building up and the uh the planting and so it's it's really a fascinating sort of a picture of how god uses prophecy to speak to things and make them happen did you ever catch that god's still speaking and making things happen you know with ezekiel there was same sort of a thing he said the lord said to ezekiel speak to those bones that were lying in that valley and and speak to them that they might come to life the lord just didn't say he didn't say now ezekiel just sit back and watch while i do this he said no son of man speak speak life into those dead bones do it and it will happen do you get the picture that's what we're seeing also in the ministry of jeremiah now as we get to verse 11 we're going to see that jeremiah has his first vision concerning the people of judah and it almost is going to sound like a riddle and i'll explain it to you as we go through it verse 11 and 12 and the word of the lord came to me saying jeremiah what do you see and i said i see an almond branch then the lord said to me you have seen well for i am watching over my word to perform it and we're all kind of going huh why didn't he just say hey jeremiah i'm watching over my word to perform it what that means is i'm watching to make sure that this is carried out and fulfilled but what's this almond branch have to do with anything what do you see jeremiah i see an almond branch that's right you've seen well and just to let you know i'm watching over my word well the key words here because what god does and he does this often in the scripture is he does a play on words and the two key words in those verses are almond and watching all right first of all the word that's rendered almond comes from a root word that signifies to be awake and the reason they talk about the almond tree as the awake tree in israel is because it actually begins to blossom in late january and so it's the first of the trees of the year to actually begin to blossom and then to bear fruit all right so it's think about now it's the awake tree so keep that in your mind here but the word watching is also used here and it is also interestingly enough related to the hebrew language in the hebrew language to the almond tree so god is using a play on words to associate using this almond branch with watchful activity that is soon going to take place because it's the remember the almond tree was the first of the trees to blossom it's going to happen soon in the year this is god saying to jeremiah in essence i'm watching over my plans to soon bring them to fruition and i will continue to watch over them so that they are accomplished it seems like a lot of trouble to go to to make a simple statement to you and i we're kind of like why didn't you just say that but you know it's the way the lord does he often gives a picture to kind of speak of the thing that he's saying now the next word that comes to jeremiah essentially outlines the nature of his prophetic ministry and it begins in verse 13 in your bible it says the word of the lord came to me a second time saying what do you see and i said i see a boiling pot facing away from the north and by the way if you were ever around a big boiling pot and it was starting to tip over you'd want to make sure you weren't in the place where it was going to be pouring out because you might get scalded that's the picture that jeremiah is seeing a boiling pot that is tipping over from the north and then in verse 14 the lord explains what this vision means then the lord said to me out of the north disaster shall be loose upon the inhabitants of the land or shall be let loose rather verse 15 for behold i am calling all the tribes of the kingdoms of the north and that speaks of all of the nations that israel or excuse me that babylon had conquered and now made up the babylonian empire and he says i'm bringing them from the north declares the lord and they shall come and every one shall set his throne at the entrance of the gates of jerusalem against all its walls all around and against all the cities of judah so in this vision the lord is basically speaking to jeremiah about the impending judgment upon jerusalem and all the cities of the southern kingdom well you know what's a little bit kind of crazy about this this early prophecy came during the time of josiah and remember josiah was a godly king he was a godly man started off very very young as king and he began to seek the lord and he as he as his devotion to the lord grew he began to bring some incredible reforms into the country and that had to be very exciting for jeremiah to see as a godly man himself to see a king on the throne who's making good decisions you know we're going to do this better we're going to get rid of some of this idolatry and we're going to root this stuff out of the kingdom and all the and there's there has to be an excitement among those who love the lord and jeremiah receives this vision of this boiling pot what do you see jeremiah i see a boiling pot facing from the north tipping from the north that's right and that's judgment that is coming even in the midst of this uptick in the moral environment the moral atmosphere of israel they have been wallowing in idolatry for so long that god is telling them now that judgment is coming uh because of their chronic idolatry which of course the lord refers to as spiritual adultery verse 17 he goes on oops did i i missed the last part uh i missed 16 excuse me and i will declare my judgments against them for all their evil in forsaking me and then god emphasizes their evil they've made offerings to other gods there it is and worshiped the works of their own hands but you now speaking to jeremiah dress yourself for work your bible might say gird up your loins because that's actually what the hebrew means there you and i we hear that and we're like what does that mean well remember the men wore long robes and when they would go out into the field to work or when they would go into battle they would be told to gird up their loins meaning they would take their robe and they would wrap it around through their legs and around and they would tuck it into their belt because it would give them freedom of motion the ability to move quickly and run and and make it is that sort of thing to work and so whenever the lord would say to someone prepare yourself for action the term in hebrew was gird up your loins whether you were wearing a robe or not and so here in the esv they use the phrase dress yourself for work arise the lord says and say to them everything that i command you and then he the lord adds this do not be dismayed by them lest i dismay you before them and now there's an interesting statement he says do not be dismayed by their faces by the the look they give you if you if you are then uh i will dismay you before them and that kind of a strange sort of an idea isn't it it's kind of a thing like don't be intimidated by the look on their face or i will intimidate you in front of them verse 18 and behold or excuse me and i behold i make you this day a fortified city an iron pillar and bronze walls against the whole land against the kings of judah its officials its priests and the people of the land they will fight against you but they shall not prevail against you for i am with you declares the lord wow these last comments of the chapter ought to really have bolstered jeremiah's confidence a bit because you know jeremiah as we've already mentioned got more than just a little pushback to his ministry from those who are in the highest levels of israel's leadership but god says right here in these verses i've made you a fortified city i i've i've made you uh essentially bronze walls and and and so that that even though the people are going to come against you i promise you they will not prevail against you because i am going to deliver you so the lord promises jeremiah deliverance here but he doesn't tell him that life isn't going to be hard because life is going to get hard for jeremiah you

Channel: Calvary Chapel Ontario

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Keywords: Bible, Bible teaching, Thru-the-Bible, verse by verse, Calvary Chapel, Bible study, Christianity, New Testament, Old Testament

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Length: 40min 42sec (2442 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 03 2020