Sermon Notes

1:6 But I said, “Hold it, Master God! Look at me. I don’t know anything. I’m only a boy!” 7-8 God told me, “Don’t say, ‘I’m only a boy.’ I’ll tell you where to go and you’ll go there. I’ll tell you what to say and you’ll say it. Don’t be afraid of a soul. I’ll be right there, looking after you.” God’s Decree. 9-10 God reached out, touched my mouth, and said, “Look! I’ve just put My words in your mouth—hand-delivered! See what I’ve done? I’ve given you a job to do among nations and governments—a red-letter day! Your job is to pull up and tear down, take apart and demolish, and then start over, building and planting.” 26:8-9 When Jeremiah had finished his sermon, saying everything God had commanded him to say, the priests and prophets and people all grabbed him, yelling, “Death! You’re going to die for this! How dare you preach—and using God’s name!—saying that this Temple will become a heap of rubble like Shiloh and this city be wiped out without a soul left in it!” All the people mobbed Jeremiah right in the Temple itself… 12-13 Jeremiah spoke next, publicly addressing the officials before the crowd: “God sent me to preach against both this Temple and city everything that’s been reported to you. So do something about it! Change the way you’re living, change your behavior. Listen obediently to the Message of your God. Maybe God will reconsider the disaster he has threatened. 14-15 “As for me, I’m at your mercy—do whatever you think is best. But take warning: If you kill me, you’re killing an innocent man, and you and the city and the people in it will be liable. I didn’t say any of this on my own. God sent me and told me what to say. You’ve been listening to God speak, not Jeremiah.” 16 The court officials, backed by the people, then handed down their ruling to the priests and prophets: “Acquittal. No death sentence for this man. He has spoken to us with the authority of our God.”

As a young man of about 20 (13th year of Josiah’s reign), Jeremiah was called into full-time prophetic service. As the son of Hilkiah, a priest living in Anathoth (3 miles northeast of Jerusalem, in the land of Benjamin), he was a priest by birth. But through God’s sovereign call, he became a prophet. His prophetic ministry ran for about 40 years, from 626-586 BC, after the fall of Jerusalem.
In his call experience, God gave two visions to Jeremiah to under-line the nature and importance of his call. An almond tree rod (Jeremiah 1:11); Because it flowers earlier than the other trees, it signified the near fulfillment of God’s proposed judgment; and a pot of boiling water, tipping southward from the north, symbolizing Babylonian invasion. (Jeremiah 1:13).
Jeremiah’s call also required that he not marry nor have a family, to symbolize the barrenness of a land under judgment (Jeremiah 16:1-13). In that this was rare among the Jews of his day, this probably raised questions among the people about his normalcy.
The first three verses of Jeremiah 1 give us historical background. Israel, the Northern Kingdom, had already been carried into captivity by Assyria a hundred years before. Now Judah, the Southern Kingdom, was rushing headlong on a course which would lead it to the same judgment. Josiah, the last good and godly king of Judah, had come to the throne, and Jeremiah was born and began his ministry.
Josiah’s reform was brief; as soon as he died, things deteriorated again. But in this lesson, we are made privy to Jeremiah’s call experience and God’s providential care of the one God called.
Regarding his call and ministry, there are certain things that we are invited to keep in mind:
• The call to ministry forces us to consider our inadequacy.
• The call to ministry often requires the proper consideration of our priorities, and an openness to the criticism of others
• The call to ministry may result in open opposition from others.

4 This is what God said: 5 “Before I shaped you in the womb, I knew all about you. Before you saw the light of day, I had holy plans for you: A prophet to the nations—that’s what I had in mind for you.”
Though, these verses are not in the printed lesson, they establish the context for where our lesson begins.
Here, we see the preparation of God. The remarkable thing is that this preparation began long before Jeremiah was even conceived. God said, “I started getting you ready, and the world ready for you, long before you were born.”
*This speaks to the foreknowledge and sovereignty of God—that He has a plan for each of our lives that was conceived before we came into the world. But this should not be interpreted to suggest that we are pre-destined to follow the plan that God has for us. Each of us is a free moral agent, capable of walking in God’s plan for us, altering God’s plan for us or ignoring God’s plan for us. We bear responsibility for the choices that we make.
6 But I said, “Hold it, Master God! Look at me. I don’t know anything. I’m only a boy!” 7-8 God told me, “Don’t say, ‘I’m only a boy.’ I’ll tell you where to go and you’ll go there. I’ll tell you what to say and you’ll say it. Don’t be afraid of a soul. I’ll be right there, looking after you.” God’s Decree.
Here, we see the provision of God. Jeremiah's response is to try to shrink from God’s call, similar to Moses, Gideon, Isaiah, and others. Jeremiah pleads youth and inexperience; says he has no ability to speak (as Moses did).
God’s answer to Jeremiah is what it was to the others: “I am with you. I will be your voice. I’ll speak through you, give you the words. I’ll give you the power to stand. I’ll give you the courage. I’ll be your wisdom. I’ll be whatever you need. Whatever demand is made upon you, I’ll be there to meet it.”
*This is the promise God makes to all of us—to be with us all the way, regardless of where that way takes us.
9-10 God reached out, touched my mouth, and said, “Look! I’ve just put My words in your mouth—hand-delivered! See what I’ve done? I’ve given you a job to do among nations and governments—a red-letter day! Your job is to pull up and tear down, take apart and demolish, and then start over, building and planting.”
Here, we see the promise of God’s power on display. As with Isaiah, God touched Jeremiah’s mouth. Jeremiah’s words, then, become the key to his power and authority, for it is the living, burning, shattering, building, mighty power of the word of God.
Jeremiah was to be given a word for all the great nations of the world of that day—to Egypt, to Assyria, even to Babylon in its towering might and strength. God picks out an obscure young man, of whom no one has ever heard, from a tiny little town in a small, obscure country, and says to him, “Look, I have set you over all the nations and kingdoms of the earth. Your word, because it is My word, will have more power than all the power of the nations.”
*That is a remarkable description of what is our heritage as Christians, in Jesus Christ (James 5:16).
God said that, through the word of Jeremiah, He would plant a hope and a healing. His word was to, “pull up and to tear down, take apart and demolish.” Metaphorically, the charge was to raze the hearts of the people, stripping away all the sinfulness that had been cultivated over generations. Only then, after spiritual impoverishment, would people’s hearts be ready to receive the words of spiritual life that God had prepared for Judah.
*There are still things God needs to tear down—points of pride, moments of discourtesy, habits and reactions of worry and anxiety and anger and frustration that we’ve fallen into or given way to; we may not even know about them. We all have areas like these in our lives. And the work of God is to open our eyes to these things, to destroy them and root them out—and then, always, to build and to plant. God never destroys merely for the purpose of destroying; He destroys in order that He might build up again.
26:8-9 When Jeremiah had finished his sermon, saying everything God had commanded him to say, the priests and prophets and people all grabbed him, yelling, “Death! You’re going to die for this! How dare you preach—and using God’s name!—saying that this Temple will become a heap of rubble like Shiloh and this city be wiped out without a soul left in it!” All the people mobbed Jeremiah right in the Temple itself.
Over the span of years of prophetic ministry, Jeremiah was repeatedly harassed by those he was sent to serve. The men of his town and household opposed him (Jeremiah 11:21-23; 12:6). He was opposed by false prophets (Jeremiah 23:14-21), most acutely in his conflict with Hananiah (Jeremiah 28:1-17). And in Jeremiah 26 (and succeeding passages), a coalition of priests and prophets charged him with blasphemy for predicting the destruction of the Temple (Jeremiah 26:1-6; 36:1-7; 38:6-13).
In a trial of impeachment, the priests and prophets accused Jeremi-ah of treason. They believe that, because the temple was God’s house, it was inviolate, and that the city was protected, because it was the city of God. They could look back over hundreds of years of history when God had indeed protected this city. So, their belief was, “It can’t happen here!” But Jeremiah, under God’s anointing, was preaching it would happen. Thus, they charged him with blasphemy and treason.
*The mercy of God gives great latitude to us—the spiritual temple. But that latitude is not perpetual—not if God says differently. We should always guard against an attitude of hubris that may suggest that, “It can’t happen here!”
12-13 Jeremiah spoke next, publicly addressing the officials before the crowd: “God sent me to preach against both this Temple and city everything that’s been reported to you. So do something about it! Change the way you’re living, change your behavior. Listen obediently to the Message of your God. Maybe God will reconsider the disaster He has threatened. 14-15 “As for me, I’m at your mercy—do whatever you think is best. But take warning: If you kill me, you’re killing an innocent man, and you and the city and the people in it will be liable. I didn’t say any of this on my own. God sent me and told me what to say. You’ve been listening to God speak, not Jeremiah.” 16 The court officials, backed by the people, then handed down their ruling to the priests and prophets: “Acquittal. No death sentence for this man. He has spoken to us with the authority of our God.”
Verses 10 and 11 are omitted from our printed lesson; they convey the passion of those that accused Jeremiah of blasphemy. But as the printed lesson pocks up in verse 12, we should note that there is no deviation on Jeremiah’s part. He does not alter his message one bit: “Change the way you’re living, change your behavior. Listen obediently to the Message of your God. Maybe God will reconsider the disaster He has threatened.” This took courage!
Regarding himself, Jeremiah does what men and women of God have been done all through Scripture: leave it in God’s hands.
*If you are unjustly ridiculed for the stance God has given to you, do not defend yourself. The battle is God’s; trust God to see you through. This is what Jesus did (I Peter 2:23-25). Too often, we seek to vindicate ourselves. It is perfectly all right to explain things as far as possible. But when it is evident that nobody is willing to listen, then just put it in God’s hands.
The official verdict of the trial was that Jeremiah was acquitted.