The Example of Jeremiah

(Transcript of a message preached at Bible Truth Baptist Church, Griffin, GA, on 28 December, 2014.)

 

 Text: Mt. 16:13-14

The old testament is a great resource for “learning…comfort” (Rom. 15:4) and “instruction in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16) as Paul tells us in his epistles. It’s also replete with pictures of the Lord Jesus, since he told the Jews in John 5:39 regarding the scriptures, that “they are they which testify of me.” And since, as the Lord tells us, we live by “every word of God” (Luke 4:4), it behooves us to study the OT, since it’s about 75% of our spiritual diet. Even though parts of it are boring, we need to make friends with it and give it its proper place if we want to grow properly in the Lord.

An outstanding figure from the OT that I’d like to study today is the prophet Jeremiah. I’m finishing up this long book in my daily reading, and I was impressed about how much that we can learn from his life and example, even apart from what he actually prophesied. You know that he’s a significant figure for a number of reasons. One is quite obvious: God inspires him to write the second longest book in the Bible (word-wise, next to Psalms). Another reason is found in our text. When the Jews were trying to identify the Lord Jesus, one of the men he reminded them of was Jeremiah. What a godly, honourable man he must have been, for people to compare the Lord Jesus to him. In this message, I’d like to point out seven things about Jeremiah’s character that are good examples for us and that connect him with the Lord Jesus Christ. Since there are seven, we’ll have to be fairly brief with each, but I hope that they are edifying to you and will encourage deeper study., 

1. Jeremiah had an intimate personal relationship with God. In Jer. 12:1-4, what strikes me was Jeremiah’s reverence for God and his boldness with him. He acknowledges God’s righteousness (v. 1) and omniscience (v. 3), but he feels liberty to express his doubts about God’s ways to the Lord himself. He’s not being rude with God at all. He begins by exalting the Lord, but then he expresses his weakness to the Lord, that he can’t understand God’s ways. He’s not finding fault with God at all…he’s just trying to understand. And God respects that. “For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust” (Ps. 103:14). Where did this intimacy spring from? 

Firstly, Jeremiah loved God’s word. Jer. 15:16, “Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart: for I am called by thy name, O LORD God of hosts.” You can’t be intimate with God and not love his word. Scripture is God’s primary means of communication with us, so if you don’t love what God communicates to you with, you don’t love the Communicator. Think about the people you know who are intimate with the Lord. Don’t they invariably love the Bible? If they don’t, they’re not intimate with the God of scripture, who primarily uses his word to relate to us. [God, including the Holy Spirit, will never do anything contrary to his word; so, in a sense, God has subjected himself to his word. That is why he is said to have “exalted it above all [his] name” in Ps. 138:2.]

Secondly, Jeremiah communicated with God passionately through prayer. In Jer. 7:16, God tells Jeremiah not to pray for the Jews, “neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me…” So evidently that’s what he had been doing. What were his prayers like? I think that 13:17 gives us a glimpse into his closet: “But if we will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride; and mine eye shall weep sore, and run down with tears, because the LORD’s flock is carried away captive.” His prayers were earnest, intercessory cries for those he loved, including the disobedient. That’s why he’s often referred to as “the weeping prophet.” He speaks openly of his weeping here and elsewhere (cf. also 9:1), as a part of his ministry. Christ prayed so earnestly in the garden that he not only sweated but also wept (Heb. 5:7).

2. Jeremiah’s intimacy with God, coupled with personal failure, produced a humble, broken spirit. When you read Jer. 20:7-18, it reminds you of Rom. 7. Jeremiah is down (vv. 7-9), then he’s up (vv. 10-13), then he’s down again (vv. 14-18). Isn’t that comforting?—that the holiest men in scripture were “men of like passions with you” (Acts 14:15), who struggled with the flesh and had their ups and downs. Jer. 20 is sort of “rock bottom” for Jeremiah. He accuses God of deceiving him (absolutely impossible; cf. Tit. 1:2, Heb. 6:18) and then curses his day, indirectly cursing God for giving him life. But before you jump on him, as we’re so quick to do, consider the agony of his ministry, y’all. He was literally a one-man army against the apostate Jews and the nations of the world, whom he prophesied against as well (ch. 46-51). It’s not easy standing alone, is it? Look at Moses and Elijah, the two witnesses in the tribulation and the Lord’s companions on the mount of transfiguration. Both of them collapsed under the strain of the ministry, but you know what happened? The same thing that happened to Jeremiah, Peter, Paul, and others. They were broken and humbled, and God picked them up in his strength and used them for his glory. The longer I live and the more believers I meet, the more I’m convinced that God uses the broken and humble the most mightily. True, God can use a fool like Balaam for his purposes, but don’t forget these principles: “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble (1 Pet. 5:5c).” And, “The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit” (Ps. 34:18). Jeremiah was one of this elite group, the brokenhearted; God touched the spiritual “hollow of his thigh” (Gen. 32:25), and he was never the same thereafter. 

As believers in Christ, we have a choice to follow the Spirit or the flesh from moment to moment (Gal. 5:17), but there are milestones in our Christian life; for example, when we grow out of our carnality into spirituality. Now overall that’s a process, but there is a point of transition. I think that the same is true of brokenness, or, to use the more Pauline term, humility. It’s a process overall, but there are points of transition. You see that here with Jeremiah. This failure doesn’t make him bitter; rather it makes him better. The trial of persecution breaks him and humbles him before God, but he gets up and God uses him, I might argue, even more mightily than before, since he trusts himself less and God more on this side. So failure is not always a bad thing; it’s often what makes us spiritually, rather than ruins us. Our God is fully able to turn the darkest valleys of our lives into the greatest triumphs. If you’ve never seem him do that, just keep your eyes open. It’s still going on all the time and will until the rapture, I believe.

3. Jeremiah obeys God first, then the powers that be. Since he has God in his proper place through intimate fellowship and brokenness, he also has earthly powers in their place. He never ceases to respect the office of his political superiors, even though four of his five sovereigns were wicked men. A great example of his balance is found in 37:16-21. Zedekiah presses him for a word from the LORD, and Jeremiah prophesies to him and reproves him; but note his respect for Zedekiah in v. 20, “…I pray thee, O my lord the king…” And God rewards that respect by moving Zedekiah to transfer him to a better prison and providing him rations. It never pays to disobey or disrespect earthly powers, folks. Paul tells us in Tit. 3:2 to “speak evil of no man,” and the context of that statement is v. 1, “principalities and powers…magistrates.” I know that most of our political leaders are not good men and women, but they still deserve our respect for their office; and if you disagree, that just proves your carnality and rebelliousness, not your spirituality. Have you ever written an evangelical letter to your political leaders? Or do you just sit around complaining about them? I have letters from Dick Cheney, Sonny Perdue, and others that I wrote to, telling them that I was praying for them and including some salvation scriptures for their consideration. Do you really care about these men’s souls, or do you just want to criticize them? I don’t think that Jeremiah would join you, unless you were trying to reach them in meekness, like he did those God put over him. 

4. Jeremiah stays faithful in good and bad times. His ministry begins in the days of Josiah (1:2), very prosperous times for Judah spiritually. But the seeds of wickedness are still in the hearts of the people (1:11-16), if not in their righteous king, and God inspires Jeremiah to warn them even during better times. Jeremiah is deeply touched by Josiah’s death (2 Chr. 35:25), but he’s not derailed by it; to the contrary, he continues preaching through the reigns of Josiah’s four successors, with much opposition. In Eccl. 11:4, we read, “He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap.” The context here is giving as pictured by sowing; if you look at circumstances, you’ll be less likely to give, but the encouragement throughout, I think, is to go ahead and do it and leave the results to God. Jeremiah rose above his circumstances, good and bad, and stayed faithful no matter what times he found himself in. Did you know that good times can be more dangerous spiritually than bad times? What do we tend to do in good times? Relax, become lazy, become indifferent, even turn away from God. So we must be on our guard even in good times, lest we become useless to God because of them. 

5. Jeremiah fulfills his ministry, despite lack of support. When you look at the book as a whole, only four people could really be called his friends: (1) Ahikam, a ruler or scribe (cf. 36:10) who saves his life (26:24); (2) Baruch, his secretary (Jer. 36:4ff.); (3) Ebed-melech, the Ethiopian eunuch who saves his life (ch. 38-39); and (4) Seriah. the “quiet prince” (51:59-64) who carries a book of judgments for Jeremiah to Babylon. Only Baruch was an actual companion of his, while the others assist him at certain points of his ministry. So his ministry, like that of most of the prophets, was a lonely one. James says in Jas. 5:10, “Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience.” Part of their suffering, I think, all the way up to the greatest Prophet, the Lord Jesus, was rejection. Truth has never been popular and never will be. Even our apostle, Paul, was forsaken by all but a few of his friends at the end of his ministry. But his last words are words of encouragement to Timothy to fulfill his ministry, just as Christ gave Paul the grace to finish his. Jeremiah seems to have minimal support from start to finish, but I think that he’s a fine example of the song lyric, “Though none go with me, I still will follow…” and that’s exactly what he does. 

6. Jeremiah stays with his people, despite their errors, but admonishes them for them. When Jerusalem falls, the captain of Nebuchadnezzar’s guard, Nebuzaradan, offers Jeremiah safe escort to Babylon and sustenance there (40:4). But Jeremiah declines and stays with Gedaliah the governor until his assassination, then with the fugitives led by Johanan, who drives Gedaliah’s assassin into exile. The fugitives stubbornly decide to emigrate to Egypt, against Jeremiah’s warnings (42:7-22), but he meekly accompanies them, rather than striking out on his own (43:5-7). With both Gedaliah and Johanan, I think, he shows that his heart is with the people, rather than on his own self-interests. Nebuzaradan had told him “all the land is before thee” (40:4); i.e., he could dwell wherever he wished, but he chooses to join himself to Gedaliah. I think that he could have justifiably parted with Johanan, since Johanan rejected the word of the Lord, but Jeremiah again puts the people before his own self-interest, even though he knows that they’re headed for trouble. To apply this to believers today, you’re not going to find a perfect church, and most of the time you’ll have to lay aside your own views on non-essentials to keep unity. When Paul speaks of the unity of the Spirit in Eph. 4:1-6, the aspects of that unity are core things like the Trinity and salvation, not minors like diet and holidays (Rom. 14). To get along with the body, folks, you have to give up some things. You can’t have everything your way. So many spoiled, selfish Americans make lousy church members. But Jeremiah, who was more spiritual than all of the Jews put together, laid aside his personal interests in the interests of the group. Does that remind you of someone else? But we’ll get to that in a few moments…

7. Jeremiah is honoured by his people as a whole, in the end. In Mt. 16:14, he’s mentioned with the best, as one of them. So if Jeremiah wasn’t revered by his people during his lifetime, he was thereafter, since hindsight is always clearer than foresight. As a believer in Christ, this reminds me of the future judgment seat of Christ: even if the church doesn’t honour you down here, they will up there. You will get the honour you deserve from a perfect, righteous judge (2 Tim. 4:8), no matter what anyone thinks or says about you down here. What a comfort that is! Because of the weakness and sinfulness of our flesh, even as believers, we don’t treat one another right much of the time. Some of your deepest wounds may come from other believers rather than unbelievers. But up there, God will set everything straight. So be of good cheer, Christian soldier. There somebody up there watching everything going on, inside the church as well as outside, and your work will not go unrewarded. “For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shown toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister” (Heb. 6:10).

So that’s a sevenfold survey of the Jeremiah’s exemplary character, but this message wouldn’t be complete without pointing out how all of these things are pictures of a greater prophet to come, the Lord Jesus Christ.

• Christ had the most intimate communion with God that man has ever seen. He said before raising Lazarus that the Father “hear[d] [him] always” (John 11:42) and that he did “always those things that please him” (John 8:29).
• Although Christ had no personal failure, as such, he did learn “obedience by the things which he suffered” (Heb. 5:8), which took self-humbling, according to Phil. 2:7-8.
• Christ obeyed God first, then the powers that be. He was not a rebel or revolutionary by any stretch of the imagination. He came to fulfil the law, not destroy it (Mt. 5:17) and to “confirm the promises made to the fathers” (Rom. 15:8); he paid his taxes, even though he was so poor that he had to get them from a fish’s mouth (Mt. 17:24-27); and, when put on the spot about submission to earthly powers, he struck a perfect balance between heavenly and earthly obedience (“Render unto Caesar…”; Mt. 22:21).
• Christ was faithful in good times and bad times. In his public ministry, he ministered at feasts and when he didn’t have time to eat, when the public praised him and when they called for his blood. Even before he went public, he faithfully labored as a carpenter in a Podunk town (John 1:46, “Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?”)
• He fulfils his ministry despite lack of support. His closest followers desert him in Gethsemane, and even though John the Beloved is present at Calvary, he’s not crucified with Christ. Seems like he and Peter should have been hanging beside Christ rather than two thieves, doesn’t it?
• He stays with his people, the Jews, despite their errors, but admonishes them for it. Christ was a Jew among Jews, born under the law, and he never dissociated himself from his people. He was primarily sent unto them (John 1:11), just like the other prophets before him, and he faithfully admonishes them, even unto death.
• Christ is honoured by his people, as a whole, in the end. Though rejected by them the first time he comes, the next time he comes it will be “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the LORD” (Mt. 23:39). The Jews will realize their error and give him the honour due unto his name. 

It all comes back to Jesus, doesn’t it? Any goodness or virtue that we see in the OT and NT saints all traces to him. Jeremiah was a great man, one of the greatest who ever lived, but he, like so many others, was only a shadow of the greatest man, the man Christ Jesus. Let me close by asking you a question. Has your spiritual hunger led you to Jesus Christ? We’ve all met good men and women in our lives, but admit it—none of them are perfect, and none of them can satisfy you completely. That place in your heart, dear one, is reserved for Jesus Christ. The sooner you realize that and come to him, receiving him as your Saviour, the one who died for your sins and rose again, the more blessed you will be. We’d now like to give you an opportunity to do that, as we sing a song of invitation.