I, Jeremiah
First Person Transcriptions from the Prophet Jeremiah
by Edwin Walhout
Published by Edwin Walhout
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2010 Edwin Walhout
Cover design by Amy Cole (amy.cole@comcast.com)
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Table of Contents
Introduction
1 Growing Up
2 My Temple Sermon
3 Sermon Results
4 My Friend Baruch
5 Plots Against Me
6 I Am Depressed
7 I Become A Living Parable
8 My Ostentatious Sash
9 Desecrated Sabbath
10 A Clay Jar
11 Worthless Idols
12 Prostitute Judah
13 Not One?
14 Rash Jehoiakim
15 Jehoiakim’s Palace
16 My Wooden Yoke
17 A Rival Prophet
18 A Remarkable Letter
19 Putrid Figs
20 Letters Back and Forth
21 Am I A False Prophet?
22 Emancipated Slaves
23 In A Dungeon
24 In a Muddy Cistern
25 Secret Advice
26 Farm Purchase
27 Jerusalem Is Destroyed
28 I Am Protected
29 Gedaliah Assassinated
30 Fickle Johanan
31 Buried Stones
32 Obstinate Exiles
33 New Covenant
The West Michigan Time Travel Institute has made several exploratory expeditions into the past, and now for the first time we are contacting a person from Bible times. We found Jeremiah living in Tahpanhes, Egypt, with a small band of Jews who had fled from the king of Babylon. He is a middle-aged man not yet fifty years old. My asssociates in Michigan set me down a short distance away, where I was able to pitch a folding tent under a grove of trees.
* * * * *
Growing Up
The year is about 580 B.C. Jeremiah is wearing a long worn-out robe. He is sitting on a pillow on the floor in the little hovel where he lives. His beard is long, his hair uncombed, but the smile on his face is warm and he is clearly glad to see me. He bids me sit down on a pillow, and I ask, Jeremiah, can you remember when you were a boy growing up? Please tell me about it. How did it happen that you became a prophet? I watch as Jeremiah’s eyes glaze over, as he thinks far into his past. Perhaps he has never before been asked this question, and he is trying to recollect things that happened way back then.
(Based on Jeremiah 1: 4-19)
My father was a priest. His name was Hilkiah. From time to time he would have to work in the temple – it was only about three miles away from the village where we lived, Anathoth. When I was a boy I would sometimes go to Jerusalem with him and help him.
I remember one day my father was rummaging through an old neglected storage room and found an ancient papyrus scroll gathering dust. He took it home and began to read it. It was the book of the Law of God – nobody knew anything about it. I remember how excited he was.
My father brought it to the High Priest, and he became very excited also. The High Priest examined the document carefully, and he could see how far away we had all slipped from the laws Moses wrote.
The High Priest showed the scroll to King Josiah. The king then asked the priests to take turns reading the scroll to him. Hardly anything of what Moses wrote was being done. We had forgotten the Law of God. We didn’t do the daily burnt offerings or the sin offerings.
King Josiah told the priests they must do what the Law says. Most of the priests were happy to do that because they wanted to be faithful to God. King Josiah promised to support them wholeheartedly even if some of the people complained.
I lived through that excitement during my childhood years. The country was coming back to God and it had a profound effect on me. It made me understand we need to live the way God wants us to live. God created the world and he created us also. God knows best how we ought to live.
Of course, that didn’t make me a prophet, nor even a priest like my father. I was still a boy. But then things changed. King Josiah was killed in a battle by an Egyptian army.
That was bad enough, but the results of his death were even worse. The man who became king next, Jehoiakim, was the opposite of Josiah. He cared nothing for the temple or for God’s law. So the whole reform movement fizzled out and came to nothing, because the king was not behind it.
I was in my late teens by that time. People began to use idols again. They didn't bring sacrifices as they should. They didn't keep the sabbath. They didn't show that they obeyed God at all. Even some of the priests didn’t seem to care.
I wondered why God would permit such things to happen. Everything had been going along so well, and now it had come to a dead halt. Why? Didn’t God know what was happening? Didn’t he even care? I struggled with questions like that for a long time.
You ask me how I became a prophet. I can remember two separate incidents which made a big difference in my life when I was a boy.
First. I was walking home one day from Jerusalem, three miles, thinking about God and the wicked people in Jerusalem. I was wondering whether God knew such wicked things were happening. I remember asking myself if God even cared about us in Jerusalem and in our country of Judea.
Then my attention wandered a bit. I was walking past a grove of almond trees. It was springtime and the trees were all in bloom. I stopped to admire them and I plucked a few flowering twigs from one of the trees to bring home to my mother as a small bouquet.
I carried them in my arms, admiring them and inhaling their rich fragrance. I thought about our Hebrew word for almond (shaqed). It sounds very much like our Hebrew word for watch (shoqed). I connected the two words: almond, watch.
All of a sudden it struck me that God was indeed watching. He sees what is happening to us. He did see the wickedness and irreverence and godlessness which were becoming so bad in Jerusalem and our other towns and villages.
It was as if God was saying to me then and there, Yes, Jeremiah, I do see what is going on down there. I am indeed watching.
Second. Later one day I was helping my mother prepare the evening meal. I built a fire and put on a pot of water to boil. I noticed the pot was leaning a bit one way, and wondered whether it would tip over. The pot was tilted somewhat toward the south, away from the north. I decided it wasn’t too bad and let the water come to a boil the way it was.
Then I started daydreaming. Suddenly I knew what was going to happen, what God was planning to do! God was preparing those awesome Babylonian armies up north. The nations up north would boil over, just like the water boiling over in my mother's pot.
Soon they will be spilling out of their country down here to us. They will attack us and destroy us. That is how God is planning to punish us for our sin and for ignoring his holy Law. I knew this with the absolute assurance that it was God himself speaking to me.
Slowly it dawned on me that God put those two incidents in my life for a purpose. He gave them to me, not to someone else. I didn’t know what for, but I couldn’t escape the feeling that God was telling me I had to do something about it. I had to make some kind of personal response, but I simply didn’t know what to do. If you can come back again tomorrow I will tell you about it.
* * * * *
My Temple Sermon
Jeremiah's problem is understanding why God allowed King Josiah’s reform to be stopped, and what God wanted to do about it. So today I am eager to hear him explain it. Jeremiah greets me cordially, invites me to sit on a pillow.
(Based on Jeremiah 7:1-15)
After I struggled with these questions for a long time I understood that the Lord was pressuring me to do what I could to make things right. Me, not someone else. God was appointing me to be the one to warn the people and call them to repent.
That was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. No way could I do that. Who would listen to a young man just twenty years old? Moses was full of excuses when God called him to deliver his people from Egypt, and so was I.
I’m too young to do this, you need an older more experienced person with a good reputation. No, God said, Don’t say you’re too young, for you will indeed go wherever I tell you to go, and you will say whatever I give you to say.
But nobody will pay any attention to what I say. Let me worry about that, God replied, I will see to it that what needs to be torn down will be torn down, and that what needs to be built up will be built up.
But they might punish me, put me in prison, even kill me if I offend them. Yes, God replied, they may do such things to you; you have to endure them; but trust me, I will not let them kill you.
When my excuses ran out, it was as if God had said to me, See, I touch your lips with my finger, and I put my word in your mouth; it is now up to you to go to these people and tell them what I have revealed to you. You have seen my word, now go and do something about it.
You asked how I became a prophet. That's the story. At the very next Passover festival I went to the temple and told about what God had showed me. I stood at the entrance of the temple where dozens of men would be passing in and out. I began to speak. I had to shout because otherwise no one would stop to listen. At first nobody paid any attention. But when I kept speaking, insisting that what I was saying was a word from the Lord, some of the men stopped to listen.
I expected to get into trouble, but I had to speak out, and I did. The Lord had put his word in my mouth. I kept it up until they stopped me, dragging me away somewhere until they could decide what to do with me.
But that is getting ahead of the story. I must first tell you what I said to the men of Judah there at the temple gate. I think of it as my Temple Sermon. I told them that I had a word from the Lord for them. I insisted it wasn’t just my own ideas I was describing, but the word of the Lord.
Then I had to say something which would catch their attention, so I told them about Shiloh. I said to them, If you do not change your ways and start obeying the Law of God again, then God will do to this city what he did to Shiloh.
What is so important about Shiloh? Well, Shiloh is the village where the tabernacle and the ark used to be. One time, years ago, we took the ark into battle and it was captured by the Philistines. Then the village of Shiloh was destroyed.
I told the men at the temple, that is what is going to happen to this city of Jerusalem if you do not repent and keep the Law of God. God will send armies from the north to do the same thing that the Philistines did long ago, destroy the place where the tabernacle is. I knew the reference to Shiloh would catch their attention. And I knew it would make them angry.
Why? Because they said Jerusalem is God's city, it is where his temple is. God will never let his city and his temple be destroyed like that. Don't you know that a hundred years ago, when the Assyrians destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel, God protected Jerusalem? We can trust the Lord to take care of his own city.
That reference to Shiloh was really what got their attention, but I had to say more than that. I had to tell them what was wrong. This is how I challenged them: Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, and then come and stand before God in his house, which bears God’s name, and say, We are safe -- safe to do all these detestable things? Has this house, which bears God’s name, become a den of robbers to you?
People did not treat each other justly in this city. And I told them so. The men of Judah did not care about what happened to others, poor people, widows, orphans, strangers -- all were mistreated. They did not care if others would suffer because of something one of them did.
There was more. Farmers were praying to the god Baal to give good crops. They prayed to our god Yahweh too, of course. But why not get more help from Baal? What can it hurt? The men of Judah were even constructing altars to some of these other gods inside the temple of the Lord! First they went to one, then to the other, even in the temple itself! That is simply intolerable, I told them, you cannot allow that to continue. If it does, God will destroy this temple and this city.
Well, that sermon caused some controversy! Come back tomorrow and I’ll fill you in.
* * * * *
Sermon Results
Jeremiah seems happy to see me every day. He seems to enjoy remembering the time long ago. Today Jeremiah tells about what happened after he spoke his first sermon as a young man at the temple gate.
(Based on Jeremiah 26)
As you can see I survived that first sermon. I’m still alive. But I remember the occasion very vividly.
People stopped to listen to me, all right. I didn’t talk nonstop. Once in a while someone would interrupt me and ask a question. People would come and go, and then new people would stop to listen. I must have repeated that message a half-dozen times.
The priests soon heard about me and my warnings in the temple gate. Also some of the prophets and princes of the city. Then somebody called the temple police and they arrested me and put me in a cell to wait for trial. The officials of the city called a meeting to decide what to do with me.
I find it rather ironic, even now when I think about it, that the persons who were loudest in their criticism of me were the very people who ought to have been listening and supporting me -- the priests. I think they knew well enough who I was and what I was thinking. My father was one of them, a priest. Everybody knew Hilkiah, the priest from Anathoth.
And the prophets, those men who had studied in the temple school and could read the scriptures – they knew who I was. And they knew what I was thinking. I had been agitating for months to have this message from God brought to the attention of the authorities. I didn’t have many personal friends among that older group of priests and prophets, however. I think most of them were upset that I, not even at the age of manhood, had dared to criticize them.
Interesting, the friends I did have -- at least the men who defended me and kept me from being killed on the spot -- were not priests or prophets, but a few of the officials themselves.
When the officials were all in place, I was brought before them by the priests and prophets. They made their accusations and I was given opportunity to reply briefly. And after those preliminaries the priests offered their opinion to the court as to what should be done about me.
I must be put to death, they advised. You heard him, they said. He has been prophesying against this city. That is treason. He deserves to die. Treason is punishable by death, and that is what this young upstart deserves. He is a traitor.
The officials of the court then said to me, What do you have to say to that? How do you reply to this accusation and this recommendation of death?
I answered respectfully. I told them that what I said was not my own invention, it was the word of God. It is what God told me to say. They may well put me to death, I said, but they still must deal with the word of the Lord. I told the city fathers again that if we do not change our ways this city will be made like Shiloh, and they understood well enough what I meant. Just as God sent the Philistines earlier to make Shiloh a ruin, so too Jerusalem would become a ruin.
I understood full well the problem these princes of the city were facing. They could easily dismiss me as a traitor to Jerusalem and put me to death; or they could recognize that what I said was the truth and then let me go.
But how could they tell? Who could prove that my message was God’s word or not? The priests and prophets said it was not God’s word. Jerusalem after all is the city of God, that is where his temple is, how can we think he would let it be destroyed? To believe that, in their opinion, was not only treason but impiety as well.
The priests kept saying things like this: Do you think God cannot protect his own city and his own temple? Look what he did during the time of Hezekiah. When the city was surrounded by Assyrians and the people in the city were starving, God rescued them and sent the Assyrians home in panic.
Surely if he did it then he will do it again. We have nothing to fear. This is the temple of the Lord and he will protect us. Jeremiah is wrong. What he is saying is not the word of the Lord, it is his own invention. He deserves to die.
The priests came up with another very powerful argument. There was another prophet named Uriah a few years back. This Uriah said things very much like what I had been saying about the city and about the temple. When he got into trouble Uriah ran away to Egypt. But King Jehoiakim sent some police down to Egypt to find Uriah and bring him back. He was executed.
So, my accusers said, this is the precedent we should follow. Jeremiah deserves to be put to death. This is the way we deal with traitors and false prophets. When I heard that argument I did not have much hope of surviving.
Then one of the elders came up with a different precedent. He told about the prophet Micah who also prophesied much the same thing that I was saying now. But King Hezekiah took Micah’s message to heart and did not kill him. Instead he led the people in humbly waiting for the Lord to deliver the city. That is why the Lord spared Jerusalem then, and surely he will do it again, but only if we repent and serve him faithfully. Otherwise the Babylonians will come and plow this city like a farm. That too was a powerful argument from this elder.
I am thankful to say that one or two of the nobles of the people listened to me and defended me. They did agree that I was speaking on behalf of God and therefore did not deserve to die. One of these men, Ahikam, became a friend in later years. What a true and excellent man of God he was.
Well, the upshot of it all was that they released me with a solemn warning not to do such a thing again. Keep your mouth shut and no harm will come to you, they said. I thought to myself, How can I keep my mouth shut when God’s word is in me like a fire in my bones?
The officials said to the priests and the prophets, This man should not be sentenced to death! He has spoken to us in the name of the LORD our God. And so I am still alive today to tell you about it.
* * * * *
My Friend Baruch
Before I left Jeremiah yesterday he said he wanted to tell me about his long-time friend Baruch. Baruch is his only friend from boyhood days who is still with him. He is away now, Jeremiah told me, helping to plan a great meeting of Jewish people for next Passover here in Egypt; perhaps he will come back soon for you to meet him.
(Based on Jeremiah 36)
Let me tell you about my friend Baruch, about a scheme we hatched up soon after my Temple Sermon. Baruch was the same age as I was, and we shared a lot of things together. I told him all about what happened after my Temple Sermon; and he was with me all the way. He was just as anxious as I was to warn the people of Jerusalem that God has destruction in store for them if they continue their wicked ways.
Well, several months passed and we got this bright idea about how to warn the people again without getting into trouble about it. I asked Baruch if he would read a message from a papyrus scroll, much the same way as I had spoken it. He said Yes.
The city fathers of Jerusalem had forbidden me to preach in the city again, so we figured we could outwit them by having Baruch read the same kind of message. Baruch is really a brilliant person, smarter by far than I am. He can not only read and write our Hebrew language, he can even do it in Egyptian hieroglyphics and in Babylonian cuneiform.
So Baruch bought some sheets of papyrus and some ink and we sat down to decide what to write on it. Perhaps I should explain that I can read but not write very well. Actually Baruch became my scribe for the rest of my life. He does all the writing. So we talked about what to put on the papyrus scroll that he would read next Passover.
Well, about Baruch and me. We were both bothered that nothing much was changing in Jerusalem. If anything it was getting worse. People continued to use the temple -- God’s temple -- to make sacrifices to the Queen of Heaven, just as if she was a wife to Yahweh. Incredible. Revolting. An insult to God. So together we decided just what to say to the people this time, pretty much the same as what I had preached earlier.
Passover came and Baruch stood in the gate of the temple and read the things we had written. What happened? Well, you can imagine. About the same reaction as when I preached my Temple Sermon. Baruch read the whole message about three times before the temple police stopped him.
The princes took him into a nearby office and made him read the message to them in private. They were just as angry with what we had written as they were earlier with what I had spoken. I knew they would be. Baruch knew they would be, but he didn’t care. If they made trouble for him, he planned to say, I didn’t write this, someone else did.
That is exactly what happened, and when the princes asked him who wrote it, he said nothing. When they persisted, and said, Was it him? meaning me, he nodded. Then they said, We’ve got to bring this to the attention of King Jehoiakim. So they let Baruch go and went to report to the king.
In the meantime one of the princes came to find Baruch and me. Baruch was telling me what had happened when this prince showed up. This man warned us to hide quickly because the king was going to be angry and there wasn’t much chance for us to avoid being put in prison, and perhaps even executed.
So that’s what we did. We got out of town and went back to my home in Anathoth. That was three miles or so north of Jerusalem. We were safe enough there, at least for a time until things cooled down.
Later we heard what happened when Jehudi, the king’s secretary, read the scroll to the king. I can just see him doing it. Jehudi read a few columns and when he was about to roll it up to get to the rest, the king took a knife, cut it off and threw it into the fire. I also learned that several men warned the king not to do that. I don’t know why exactly. Perhaps because they wanted it as evidence against me. Perhaps because they thought it really might be a word from the Lord -- which of course it was.
Anyway the king ordered us to be arrested and put in prison, but they could not find us. The affair died down. Our friends knew where we were hiding and they let us know how things were going in the city. They’re the ones who told us about the king burning the scroll.
I asked one of these friends to find more papyrus for us, and he did, bringing it to us while we were still keeping out of sight. I thought, and Baruch agreed, we have to rewrite that burned scroll. So we proceeded to do that. We could remember pretty well exactly what was in the first one -- the two of us together. But this time when I dictated it I added some warnings especially for our careless king, Jehoiakim. I warned him that he would come to no good end if he persisted in ignoring the word of the Lord and permitting idolatry to continue in the kingdom and in the temple.
To be honest I didn’t really think my voice, or even Baruch’s and mine together, would make much difference in what the king and his people did. Still, I had to do it. Something in me, surely the word of God himself, pushed me to do what I could to warn the people about what was going to happen if we did not change our ways.
I was filled with youthful enthusiasm in those days. How else would I dare to rebuke a king? However, I soon lost all that brashness. Tomorrow I’ll tell you what happened during the next few months.
* * * * *
Plots Against Me
Jeremiah and Baruch fled to Anathoth, Jeremiah’s village, for safety. He plans to tell me today about what happened while they were hiding there.
(Based on Jeremiah 11:18 - 12:6)
My friend Baruch felt he could safely go home to Jerusalem after a few weeks or so in hiding. Nobody really blamed him for reading my scroll in the temple. They all blamed me.
Baruch and I had plenty of friends, some in Jerusalem where Baruch lived, and some in Anathoth where I lived. Boys and girls, now grown up of course, but we knew each other for years as we grew up together. A year before, when I preached my Temple Sermon, these friends were kind, but they let me know it was unwise to do that and bring that trouble on me. I didn’t think too much about it, figuring they didn't see things exactly the way I did.
But now, this second time, they thought it was doubly unwise to have written that scroll and to have Baruch read it in public. Even though they were still my friends they disagreed with me. I think they really wanted to keep me out of trouble, and they had not heard the word of the Lord with the same intensity I had.
We talked about it again and again. Some friends were very critical in their opinions, others were more considerate and kindly. Most of them agreed, however, that my ideas were not very patriotic, not very supportive of our city and our rulers. How could I speak against Jerusalem if in fact I really believed that this was God’s city? My closest friends were beginning to drift away from me.
But I was home in my own village of Anathoth. I felt comfortable and safe there. The people who were trying to arrest me were in Jerusalem and I was not concerned that they would chase me here.
How naive I was! I found out that even here in my own home town people were secretly plotting to hand me over to the authorities in Jerusalem. I learned quickly not to believe every nice thing people might say to me. They might well be doing something else behind my back. In God’s good care, however, I did have a few true friends who warned me what was happening, so I managed to keep from being arrested.
I can understand, I suppose, that some of the people in Anathoth would think I was undermining morale and siding with our enemies when I talked about God’s punishment. I can understand that all right. But my own family? Even my brothers and sisters, some of them anyway, turned against me. That was hard to take. My own family didn’t understand what I was doing, didn’t hear the message God was sending to us all.
I began to feel isolated, ostracized, no longer respected among the very people who were my friends and family. Except for a few close friends I stood alone. I sat alone.
I did not like it at all, what was happening. How can such bad results come from such a good thing? I said the things God showed me to say. Baruch read the things God told me to write. Why would doing right produce such troubles? How does God expect me to keep on doing it when it just turns everyone against me?
Do you know what these so-called friends were saying? Let’s cut off his name from the land of the living. I wasn’t married. I had no children. If they betrayed me to the authorities in Jerusalem, and if I was executed for treason, future generations would know nothing about me. I would not only be dead, but would be erased from memory.
In our Jewish society that’s about as bad a fate as you could wish for anyone. Fathers want to have sons to carry on the family name, to perpetuate their memory for generations to come. Our patriarchs want to make a name for themselves. But now my opponents wanted to cut me off. Not that I cared all that much about carrying on the family name. I never did get married or have children. My name will be cut off anyway. But they showed their dislike for me in that wish -- really it was a curse.
But how did I feel about the people cursing me?
I wanted God to destroy them! God, I prayed, do to them what they want to do to me. Even if they already have children and think their future is secured because of it -- Lord, destroy them and not only them, but their children too.
In fact, this is precisely what the Lord had showed me from the beginning. If we do not change our ways and return to the Lord our God, as good king Josiah had been leading us, then that’s what will happen. The Lord will send enemies down from the north. Maybe from Assyria. Or maybe from Babylon. But they will come down and destroy us and our city and our temple. Our future will be cut off altogether.
Now as I look back on it, I was wrong in praying God to take vengeance on these people just because they offended me. I was looking out for myself, not for the Lord. And that was not right.
Do you know how the Lord answered that prayer of mine? He said, If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in safe country, how will you manage in the thickets by the Jordan?
I smile now when I think about it, but it was misery then. God was saying, You think you have it bad? Just wait, it’ll get worse! If you can’t take this little insignificant opposition now, how will you ever manage to survive when the going really gets rough? That’s what God answered me.
And I can see, from my perspective now, that God was right. Things did get a lot worse.
* * * * *
I Am Depressed
This is a very hard story for me to write today, just as hard as it was for Jeremiah to tell it. Jeremiah tells me how he felt when his friends and family turned against him and when he thought God was not blessing him.
(Based on Jeremiah 15:10-21)
I can remember being very discouraged way back then, when for the first time I really felt opposition from even my friends and family in my home town. The first time, after I preached my sermon in the temple, it was sort of an experiment, and I figured it would not have much effect anyway.
But that second time, when it was Baruch who read the words I wrote, and then when the police were looking all over Jerusalem for me, it finally sunk in that I was in deep trouble. None of that seemed right. It didn’t seem right that my life should be threatened simply because I spoke the words which God told me to speak -- the truth.
I plunged deep into despair and disillusionment. I was really discouraged. Deep down to the core discouraged. I didn’t know what to do.
I remember well one of the very lowest moments. I thought about suicide, and I wished I had never been born. I cursed the day of my birth. That was about as low as a person can get.
Looking back, I was not altogether without faith in God. I knew very well that it was an unforgivable sin to curse my father or my mother. Whoever did that, the Torah said, must be put to death. So I didn’t curse my parents -- just my birthday. It amounts to the same thing, I suppose. Wishing I had never been born.
I hadn’t cheated anyone. I hadn’t cursed anyone. I hadn’t done wrong to anyone. Yet everybody was cursing me, trying to get me arrested and possibly put to death. Why did I have to go through this injustice just because I spoke what God told me to speak? Why didn’t the Lord take care of me?
How did I pull out of that depression? Slowly. Very slowly. Gradually I realized the Lord was taking care of me. The people trying to arrest me were not succeeding. As the months passed I realized two things: first, that my life is entirely in God’s hand -- he will protect me as long as he needs me to speak his words.
The second thing: I sensed that God was saving me now for a much more difficult period ahead when God's punishment will come true. Our people, these same people who are now resisting the message from God, will be carried off to some faraway land to suffer for their refusal to repent. And God will have work for me to do through that difficult time.
That’s how I emerged from that first sorry depression. It didn’t come quite as easy as I have just now indicated. I was wishing through it all that God would punish my tormentors to prove I was right and they were wrong. It didn’t happen.
In reality I was blaming God. I was thinking, God is like a brook which runs strong and cool in the springtime but soon dries up in the hot summertime. God sends me off to do something and then when the going gets rough abandons me. I had to learn how to deal with that sense of unfairness before I could come back to my senses. God was preparing me to be the kind of prophet he needed in the future. I had to overcome that sense of being treated unjustly.
Do you know what the Lord said to me? He said, Jeremiah, you must repent. That’s astonishing! God sent me to the people of Jerusalem to insist they must repent, and when trouble comes he tells me I must repent!
So I learned the hard way that I must not let my own feelings get in the way of doing God’s will. Yes, the people must repent of their sins. But I must not imagine that I am without sin. I too need to recognize my own failure -- I thought God was unfair to me -- so I too needed to repent.
God helped me understand if I repented, if I came to accept that God would take care of me, he would make me a wall of strength that no one could push over. Then I could be his spokesman. I must not look to people for approval, but only to God. Then people would look to me for wisdom and guidance, for a word from the Lord.
So, my life changed from that point on. I had been a more or less normal teenager, enjoying being with friends. But now I became a loner. My family didn’t want to associate with me. Some of my friends had become cool. I was on a different path.
I walked alone. I lived by the words of the Lord, as if I were eating them. They were my spiritual sustenance. I did not turn to other people for support or approval, but to God. They must turn to me but I must not turn to them.
So then, that is enough for now. I’ll tell you how I got back into the work of the Lord, and a new way of doing it. Tomorrow then.
* * * * *
I Become A Living Parable
Depression is no easy thing to overcome. For me it is usually just a matter of waiting it out and trusting that the Lord will sooner or later ease me back to better mental health. So I was more than ordinarily curious to hear Jeremiah tell how he emerged from his depression.
(Based on Jeremiah 16:1-13)
You don’t know what you are getting into when you agree to follow the Lord. When I look back at that first year or two I was rather detached from it. Here was God’s message. I believed it and I spoke it but I myself had not really committed myself body and soul to it. It was a job I had to do, and I did it.
But that was not enough. God would not let me go with partial involvement. He had to get me thoroughly, completely, totally involved.
What God asked of me was to make myself the message. God asked me to incarnate the message, to be the message. I had to become an object lesson to the people, so that every time they saw me they would see and hear the word of God. I must become the message, and the message must become me.
Three things the Lord required of me to become that living parable.
First, I must not marry.
Like any young man, marriage was something I contemplated doing at some time. My parents were already looking out for a suitable partner for me. I had several girl friends, one of whom might someday become a bride for me.
But after that first sermon of mine, and after this recent fiasco with the scroll reading by Baruch, I could sense a growing coolness on the part of my friends, both male and female. They began to think I was not only a religious zealot but a little bit odd because of it. They didn’t want to be associated with such a controversial figure as I was becoming – someone who got into real trouble with the authorities.
So gradually it dawned on me that the Lord did not want me to get married. This would be a message to the people from God. How so?
I would be saying to them, Look I am not going to marry and have children, because there is no future for them. You have families and children but they will all die and perish. This land will be devastated when the armies of the north come and ravish our cities and destroy our people. If you do not repent, both you and your children will have no future.
Whenever people would see me they will think, Oh yes, he isn't married, he doesn't think there is a future for us.
The second thing the Lord required of me was not to attend funerals.
You know how important funerals are. People come to offer sympathy, to provide support and comfort for the bereaved. You represent God, so to speak, when you bring this support and comfort to a funeral.
Why would God not want me to go to funerals? Because God himself did not feel sadness over the death of wicked people. The people as a whole have rejected the Lord. Their death is not a holy death. They do not die in the Lord. So the Lord has no comfort for their survivors, no word of encouragement for the wicked.
That is what the Lord was asking me to incarnate in my life. People will know, when I refuse to attend a funeral, that I am acting out the will of the Lord in heaven. There is no balm from Gilead for the healing of these sorrowful souls. God has no compassion for them, and I must demonstrate that in my own life. So I never went to funerals in Anathoth or Jerusalem.
Third, along with the previous two prohibitions came another: no partying.
My friends were not inviting me to their gatherings, at least not as happily as before. And they were finding excuses not to come to mine. I was becoming a social outcast. So it came to me as a word from the Lord that I must not to go to celebrations, parties, joyful gatherings of my friends and acquaintances.
This was not easy, as you may well imagine. I was not a great partyer to begin with, but I usually liked to be with people. I never participated in wild parties, like the alcohol idol parties some of the young people of Jerusalem seemed to enjoy every month or so. But now, it seemed, the Lord did not want me to participate in any kind of pleasant or happy gathering.
Why? Because God himself was not happy about what was going on in the cities and villages of Judah. I must become an object lesson to bring the message that God was calling them to change, to put away their idols and to live godly upright lives. God was not happy with his people and I must incarnate that unhappiness in my own life by refusing to attend any happy gathering.
Did I become a recluse? No. That would have voided everything I was saying. I remained visible, active, present. I appeared in public. I spoke out. I explained everything that I was doing. The people heard from me the word of the Lord which said that God will throw them out of this land, God will cleanse the land of the pollution we are making.
And I was the living parable who kept reminding them of it. I had to be seen and heard, even if it elicited mockery, derision, scorn, hatred, persecution.
I didn’t much like it, but I had no choice. What the Lord called me to do enveloped my entire life. The message I brought had to come not just from my lips and heart but from my body as well. The young man named Jeremiah ceased to exist as he had been. He had become absorbed into the word of the Lord.
I can tell you some of the things I did from time to time. I was an oddball and I knew it.
* * * * *
My Ostentatious Sash
I was bothered by yesterday‘s conversation. Is that what it takes to be a prophet? Give up everything that makes life enjoyable? No family, no fun, no sympathy for others. It’s like a living death. Jesus said to deny yourself and follow him. Is that what he meant? Like Jeremiah? I’m not sure I’m able to deal with that yet. So today I’m interested to hear how Jeremiah continued his life and what the Lord told him to do.
(Based on Jeremiah 13:1-11)
The Lord required me not only to bring a message but to be a message. I began to think about ways in which I could do that. I thought of various things. None of them seemed to be very useful.
Until one day an idea popped into my mind -- planted there by God, I am sure. I must get a beautiful linen sash and tie it around my waist. It must be a magnificent sash, bright, beautiful, colorful, one that people would notice and talk about. So I did that, I ordered one from a tailor in Jerusalem. I told him to make it the most gorgeous, attractive, eye-catching sash he had ever made in his life.
I wore that sash for weeks, no, months. Whenever people saw that sash they knew it was me. That is precisely what I wanted to have happen. I wanted people to see me now -- I wanted them to see me with this gorgeous sash and somehow see it as a message from God.
People made fun of me, I knew, but still I had to keep the word of God, like it or not. That’s what this belt around my middle was intended to do.
Of course people commented about it. And whenever they did I told them that it was a sign. And when they asked, A sign of what? I told them, It’s a sign of our pride. We think we are really something special. We are proud and boastful because we think we are the people of God, people God has chosen, even though we don’t keep his Law. This ostentatious sash is a picture of our godless vanity.
I could see them shake their heads in mockery. How silly can you get?
Well then, just when people became accustomed to that loud sash of mine, I took it off and buried it among the rocks just south of Jerusalem, in a place we called Purgatory Chasm.
People soon noticed that I was no longer wearing my gorgeous sash. And of course they asked about it. And of course then I explained God's message.
I explained that God is going to remove us from this land, just as I removed the sash from my waist. I buried that beautiful sash in the rock piles of Purgatory Chasm, and that is what God is going to do to this vain and rebellious people. God is going to bury us in a far distant land, just as he buried our brethren, Israel, a hundred years ago in the land of the Assyrians.
They shook their heads in disgust.
There was more to that object lesson, however. After a number of weeks again, time enough for people to get used to my not having the sash anymore, and time enough for that sash to be ruined by the weather and rain and wild animals tearing at it, I went to get it back.
Of course now it was only a dirty rag, spoiled completely for any useful purpose. But I tied the rag around my middle anyway. People could see that it was the same one I had worn previously, but now it was a dismal mess which anyone else would be ashamed to wear.
The people, of course, were curious. They asked about this again. I told them, this is a picture of what we are now. God had bound us about his waist like a magnificent sash, but we have left him and now we are nothing but a worthless ornament for God.
O people of Judah, do you not see? Do you not hear? Do you not understand what you are doing? The Lord has chosen you from among all the nations of the world to be his own precious possession, to be a most brilliant adornment to him, but you have left him. You have gone after other gods, bowing down before idols, beseeching those worthless lumps which have no voice and have no life to give you blessing. They cannot hear, they cannot speak, they cannot answer. Why do you turn away from Yahweh your God to the gods of the Canaanites? Return, O people of Judah, return to the Lord, and become again the beautiful people who adorn the robe of God.
* * * * *
Desecrated Sabbath
Jeremiah appeared weary and discouraged this morning when I arrived for our interview. Maybe he was sick. I offered to cancel the appointment so that he could rest,but he declined, explaining that it was not a physical thing but mental.
(Based on Exodus 31:12-17 and Jeremiah 17:19-27)
I’ve been thinking about what to say to you today. The subject I’ve chosen is close to my heart, and to think of what my people have been doing makes me dejected and almost sick.
Let me go back to the great reform which King Josiah had begun when I was a little boy. He ordered the temple to be renovated -- I think I mentioned this before -- and while that was going on my father, Hilkiah the priest, discovered a dusty scroll in an unused closet. It turned out to be a copy of the Law of God, we call it the Torah.
When they read it, the priests and King Josiah discovered that the sabbath day was very important in the Law of God. It was so important that God called it the sign of the covenant. The sabbath, along with circumcision and Passover and some other rituals, is what makes us different from the nations around us.
When we say the sabbath is the sign of the covenant, we mean that it represents our complete devotion to the God who brought us out of the land of Egypt. Violate the sabbath and you say that you do not care about obeying God. If in your heart you are truly serving the Lord with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength then what you do about the sabbath day shows it. You keep it faithfully and meticulously.
On the other hand if in your heart you are more concerned with being successful and getting rich, then you are likely to pay no attention to the sabbath day.
King Josiah and the priests did their best to enforce the sabbath laws. When caravans of heavily laden donkeys arrived on the sabbath day they would have to wait outside the gates of Jerusalem until the sabbath was over. Merchants could not sell their goods and housewives could not buy their groceries on the sabbath.
But after King Josiah was killed, his son King Jehoiakim was more like his wicked grandfather Manasseh than his godly father Josiah. People began to do business on the sabbath day again, just as they had during Manasseh's reign. They argued, What’s the sense of waiting outside while our fruits and vegetables get older and soggier. Let us bring them in while they are fresh and sell them for a better price. Never mind that the sabbath is violated; that is such a silly law.
So the next thing the Lord put me to work on was this violation of the sabbath day. But what could I do about it?
By this time the authorities were used to me and did not make much trouble for me any more. I was allowed freedom in the city and in the temple. People simply let me talk and paid no attention. You know, that’s just Jeremiah. Let him rant and rave. He’s half crazy. I knew they thought this about me. But still I had a message to bring from the Lord, whether the people liked it or not.
So I went to the temple, the same place I preached my first sermon, and said, This is what Yahweh says, Keep the sabbath day holy. Do not bring loads through the gates of the city on the sabbath day. Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy. This is a day the Lord has made holy. It is the sign of the covenant between Yahweh and Israel.
People paused to listen but quickly went on their way. They wanted no part of it.
So I made it a bit stronger and more specific. I shouted, If you continue to break the covenant, if you continue to despise the Lord your God, then the Lord will surely destroy this city altogether. Then there will not even be a gate to bring a load through. People of Judah, repent, stop this unholy trafficking on the Lord’s day. Return to the Lord and keep his sabbath day holy by doing no work.
What effect did I have? None. Business carried on as usual that sabbath day too. The authorities did not care enough to rebuke me, let alone arrest me. As far as they were concerned I was harmless because no one paid any attention to what I said or did. Very few people came to me and expressed appreciation for my call to obedience. There were a handful, but they made no difference in the city as a whole.
I still get choked up when I think about this, so let’s not speak anymore now. Come back tomorrow morning when it is cool again. In the meantime I will think of something else to talk about.
* * * * *
A Clay Jar
Yesterday when I returned to my tent from Jeremiah’s home, a stranger was rummaging around inside. He ran away when he saw me coming. Fortunately nothing was missing. I asked my people back in Michigan to send a lock box and some items of food. So this morning I found the supplies neatly stacked a few feet behind my tent. I brought Jeremiah a banana. He had never seen one before.
(Based on Jeremiah 18:1-11 and 19:1 - 20:6)
People mocked me whenever I spoke to them. Obviously they did not believe me when I predicted the Lord would send the Babylonian army to destroy our holy city and temple if we didn’t change our ways. I kept trying to find new ways of making the people pay attention to God.
One day I was walking along a side street in Jerusalem, near the Gihon spring. Nearby was the potter’s house. I stopped to watch him making his clay jars.
The potter did not like the way his work was going. Maybe the clay wasn’t quite wet enough, or maybe it was too wet, or maybe his fingers slipped. I don’t know. But he was disgusted with it. He took that whole lump of clay and threw it back on his table where he could knead it down again. I watched him do this, and I watched as he put that lump of clay back on his wheel and began to shape it again. This time it turned out all right and he made it into a very handsome jar which he could sell for a nice profit.
When I asked him about it, he said it happens fairly often. He wants his work to be nearly perfect before he will consider putting it in his kiln and then put it up for sale.
Well, I saw a sermon in that clay. God is the potter. He takes his clay, that is us, his people Israel, and he tries to mold us into a beautiful nation. But it doesn’t work; we insist on living ugly and sinful lives; so he takes us and punches us down and starts over.
So I had another sermon for the people. If you do not repent, I said, God is going to take us like a lump of clay and knead us down. He will send the Babylonians to do it for him. And then after a while he will start over, making us the nation he wants us to be.
People, do not despise the Lord, I shouted. We are in God's hands as a lump of clay, and he is shaping us into a beautiful piece of pottery. But we are spoiling it. We are turning to other gods. We are doing wicked things that make God horrified. People, stop this defiance of God. Else we will be like a lump of clay that God squashes down to make way for a new start.
Some time later I went down to this potter’s shop again. This time I had another object lesson in mind. I bought one of his pots, the finest and most beautiful one he had. I carried it back into the city, holding it out in front of me very prominently, so everyone could see it.