By this point in the book of Jeremiah I think what fascinates me is the love/hate relationship that Jeremiah inspires. The people seem to hate Jeremiah. The priests and prophets mock him at every turn. And kings continue to imprison him.
Yet, the kings in particular repeatedly wear out a path to whereever Jeremiah is staying at the time (often in prison) and to ask if he has a word.
It is odd. You would think a person this despised and derided would simply be ignored. They disagreed with everything he said. They ignored his pleas and his prophecies. They found other people to say the exact opposite of whatever Jeremiah had preached.
Yet they kept coming. "Do you have a word from God?" they would ask. As much as they hated him, they could not help themselves from wanting to listen. The truth does that. It is so rare that people will lean in to hear it.
A temptation for Jeremiah would have been to cater to that crowd. Afterall, he too was hungry for a good word for his own people. Yet twice in this chapter he is asked for a word and twice the word is not good, going so far as to say that even if all that was left of the massive Chaldean army was its wounded they would still take the city and burn it to the ground.
Again Jeremiah finishes the day in prison. The truth will do that too! People want to hear a word from God, but they are not always ready to accept a word from God.
May the power of your message this week be its truth.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment