Jeremiah The Weeping Prophet

Jeremiah 9:1-4 5/18/25 A.M.

This morning I want to go to the Book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah 9. Jeremiah is known as the WEEPING PROPHET. A. I have known some people who LIVE a LIFE of MISERY. Some people are MISERABLE mainly because of their own attitude. They think everyone OWES them something. We’ve all known someone like that haven’t we? Always complaining and whining. Really they have an easy life. Plenty of money and a decent place to live. They may even have family that cares about them but they’re just MISERABLE. Man it is hard to take people like that. Do you know what would do them folks some good? Drop them off in the middle of AFRICA and let them spend a month over there. I bet they would get a NEW PERSPECTIVE of LIFE. Maybe drop them off in South Dakota.

B. ILLUS: Back around 8 years ago, a group of us from church went to Red Shirt Village on the Sioux/Lakota Reservation in South Dakota. Sister Donna Craig had done mission work there and she still had friends there. So that gave us an opening to get into the School Gymnasium. We gave away food, clothing and household items for the folks up there. We put NEW WINDOWS in Peter Two Bulls home. We had a church service there in the evening. Looking back now, I was naive in what I thought we could accomplish. I know now after talking to Peter Two Bulls and Sister Donna that it would take a regular presence there in the village to really make an impact.

Just showing up there for a few days didn’t really make much difference to them. They were glad to get what we gave them but it didn’t really change their lives.

But I said all of that, to say this. It made an IMPACT on MY LIFE. It was an EYE OPENING EXPERIENCE to see how some people, even here in the United States of America, still live. It made me APPRECIATE WHAT I have but more than that, it made me APPRECIATE WHERE I was BORN and HOW I was RAISED!!! The things my MAMA and DADDY taught me. You see, so many of the people of Red Shirt Village LIVE IN MISERY but there’s a WAY OUT. Peter Two Bulls has spoken here at our church since then. He’s not miserable. Others have broken free from what, I Believe to be, SPIRITUAL BONDAGE. It’s almost like there’s a DARKNESS over that RESERVATION. But here’s the KEY. Most of the folks there have never came to the REALIZATION that there’s a better way to live.

And I’m gonna get POLITICAL HERE, but a lot of the POLICIES of the United States Government have ENSLAVED them there on that RESERVATION.

And so some people are MISERABLE because of the SITUATION they find themselves in.

C. And then I’ve known people who are MISERABLE and they have BROUGHT IT on themselves. The CHOICES they have made and the LIFESTYLE they have lived have brought MISERY to them.

And listen, it’s hard to watch, but I’ve seen people lay in UTTER AGONY as they take their last breaths. What a HORRIBLE thing it is to see someone in MISERY.

After reading through the Book of Jeremiah, I think you could say “the WEEPING PROPHET” lived a miserable LIFE. AND FOR GOOD REASON!!! This guy had it rough.

He was BEATEN.

Put in STOCKS.

Thrown in a CISTERN full of MUD and left to DIE.

He was SENTENCED to DEATH.

He was called by God to PREACH against all kinds of SIN and IDOLATRY but yet he was told by God that the people wouldn’t LISTEN!!! Look at what God told him in …

Jeremiah 7:27

“Therefore thou shalt speak all these words unto them; but they will not hearken to thee: thou shalt also call unto them; but they will not answer thee.”

AND ..... THEY ..... DIDN’T ..... LISTEN.

As we look at these Verses this morning I want you to see the BROKENNESS of Jeremiah.

Let’s go ahead and read Verses 1 -4 of Jeremiah Chapter 9.

“Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!

2 Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! for they be all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.

3. And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith the Lord.

4 Take ye heed every one of his neighbour, and trust ye not in any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbour will walk with slanders.”