In the Bible record there are a number of occasions when individuals, faced with the call of God to some particular service, responded with less than enthusiasm. It is as if they were saying, "Lord, you've made a mistake! I'm not the person you're looking for!"
Moses felt himself to be a nobody and in any case he had never been a good speaker (Ex. 3.11; 4.10). Isaiah was overwhelmed with a sense of his own sinfulness (Is. 6.5). Peter left his nets to follow Jesus, but was later overcome with a deep awareness that he was "a sinful man" who could no longer continue with the Lord (Lk. 5.8). He got over that, but later, after his denial of Jesus, knew very deeply his personal failure (Lk. 22.33, 61-61; Jn 21.15-19). As for Paul, he was going the wrong direction anyway - persecuting the followers of Jesus (1 Tim. 1.12-16).
Today we focus on Jeremiah, who protested the Lord's call on the grounds of his youthfulness and inability to be a public speaker (1.6).
Jeremiah was a prophet who lived during the latter part of the seventh century and the first part of the sixth century BC. During his long ministry he warned God's people that catastrophe would fall on the nation because of their idolatry and sin. He lived to see this prophecy come true with the fall of Jerusalem to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, the destruction of the city and the Temple, and the exile to Babylon of Judah's king and many of the people. He also foretold the eventual return of the people from exile and the restoration of the nation.
Jeremiah was brought up in the town of Anathoth in the northern part of Judah. His call came in the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah who had become king at the age of eight and was a good king who introduced many reforms (2 Kings 22.1-23.30).
The Word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, "I chose you before I gave you life, and before you were born I selected you to be a prophet to the nations" (v.5).
God was saying to Jeremiah, "I have always had a plan for your life. This is my purpose in your life."
John Wesley once told his friend Adam Clarke, "If I were to write my own life I should begin it before I was born." Edith Schaeffer, who with her husband Francis, founded the L'Abri movement, has written the story of their life in a book called The Tapestry. She does just that - she begins with the purpose of God before they were born - all the elements that God was weaving together into the eventual picture of his great plan.
Try to put yourself into Jeremiah's shoes. God has had this plan for Jeremiah all along. We sense a measure of discomfit, a feeling of being trapped into a plan drawn up without his knowledge. Now belatedly his consent, commitment and action were being sought.
Those who know J.R.R. Tolkien's book, The Hobbit, can reflect on the early scene where the dwarves come to Bilbo's house. Gandalf has sent them and they make all their plans to regain the dwarvish treasure at the Lonely Mountain. They assume without consulting that he will go along with them. Throughout the story Bilbo is the reluctant adventurer and hero.
We notice three elements in what the Lord is saying.
First, the Lords speaks of foreknowledge - the words "I chose you" in GNB are literally "I knew you." God's knowledge is not just a matter of the mind, but the relationship of love. It is a word that speaks of a commitment that unites the one knowing to the one loved.
Then the Lord speaks of setting apart - "I selected you", literally "I sanctified or consecrated you." Already he was set apart for God. It doesn't mean that Jeremiah came into the world with a moral inclination towards goodness. But it does mean that, from the start, God had reserved the prophet for himself. It's like Paul writing in Gal.1.15, "But God in his grace chose me even before I was born, and called me to serve him."
Thirdly, the Lord speaks of appointment. There is a second word which the Good News Bible has caught up into the word "selected". It literally means, "I have set you apart and have given you as a prophet to the nations." It is as if he was put into orbit and even before he was born his course was plotted.
Jeremiah is quick and to the point with his protest. Even acknowledging the "Sovereign Lord", he gives his two excellent excuses, "I don't know how to speak; I am too young."
I can't add straight - don't expect me to be an accountant. I have an allergic reaction to animal hair - no way am I going to become a vet. My eyesight is getting poor - I can't take up needlework now. I don't know how to speak - and you expect me to be a prophet! What a liability in one called to be a preacher!
But he also pleads his lack of experience - "I am too young" - still a youth. I haven't completed my apprenticeship yet. I have no idea whether I can do what you are expecting of me." We have already noted that Josiah, who was king at the time, became king at the age of eight.
While Jeremiah is fully aware of his own inadequacy, God reminds him of his forgotten resources.
First, the Lord reminds him, "I am sending you. I will be with you" The key to the work of a prophet is that he is sent by God and God will be with him. He needn't be afraid of anyone - even though they do their worst, God will rescue him. As Paul puts it in Rom. 8.31, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" It may not always be deliverance from trouble, but it will be deliverance in and out of trouble.
Second, the Lord promises the words to speak. "Then the Lord stretched out his hand, touched my lips, and said to me, 'Listen, I am giving you the words you must speak…' " (v. 9).
With lips anointed by the touch of the Lord's hand, Jeremiah would not be speaking on his own account. This would not be a comfortable task. In chapter 20 we read of Jeremiah's unease about the kind of message he had to bring - "But when I say, 'I will forget the Lord and no longer speak in his name,' then your message is like a fire burning deep within me. I try my best to hold it in, but can no longer keep it back" (v. 9).
Third, the Lord promises authority - "Today I give you authority over nations and kingdoms to uproot and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant": (v. 10). This was not an authority independent of Jeremiah's relationship with God. It was based on the Lord's commission and presence and on the Lord's words which the prophet is to speak.
And what is the Lord's call to us - to you and me? What is it that God is specifically calling us to be and to do - here in Buderim at this particular time? What are the things about which we say that God can't be calling us because we just can't do it? Not me, Lord! You've got the wrong person!
Each of us will have to examine our own hearts about the specifics of the call of God that we try to evade. As a whole congregation, however, we still have before us the Great Commission (Mt. 28.18-20). How are we to "make disciples" in our own community? Do we have a deep commitment of both love and urgency about this task?
The Lord's three promises to Jeremiah are surely for us too. In fact we find them in the Great Commission itself. His promised presence - "I will be with you always." Not our words, but his truth - "teach them to obey everything I have commanded you." All on the basis of his authority - "I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Go, then, to all peoples everywhere and make them my disciples."
Let us depend on his promises and be continually available to do his will.
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