Prophet of the Midnight Hour
Aim: To show how Jeremiah’s ministry typifies last days ministry, and that though he was “unsuccessful” as men count success, he was a success before God.
Text: Jeremiah 13:15-17
Introduction: Jeremiah is often referred to as the “weeping prophet”, and it is not hard to see why, not only did he write the next book of our Bible, labelled Lamentations, but his own prophecy often refers to his personal tears and anguish at the situation he faced.
Jer 9:1; 14:17.
In truth his spirit very much mirrored the Spirit of God in judgment, because God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked and is longsuffering, his heart is broken by the sins of men, and so was Jeremiah’s. Like Jesus, Jeremiah wept over the city of Jerusalem and over the people of Judah. His heart aching over their sin. So he is called the “Weeping Prophet” and so he is, but this morning I would like to give him another title and call him the Prophet of the Midnight Hour.
Jeremiah ministered in the last days of the kingdom of Judah. His ministry came some eighty or one hundred years after that of Isaiah, and like Isaiah he ministered to the Southern Kingdom of Judah. His ministered during the reigns of kings Josiah, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin and the last king of Judah, Zedekiah.
As one writer put it, “It was Jeremiah’s lot to prophesy at a time when all things in Judah were rushing down to the final and catastrophe; when political excitement was at its height; when the worst passions swayed the various parties and the most fatal counsels prevailed: . . . to see his own people, whom he loved with the tenderness of a woman, plunge over the precipice into the wide, weltering ruin.”
He was no doubt the prophet of the midnight hour to Judah. And for forty years he faithfully declared God’s Word, for which he received no thanks, nor indeed did he see even the slightest positive movement in response.
Jeremiah makes for an interesting read. His days were not unlike our days, his time, not unlike our time. I am convinced we are into the eleventh hour, and that the church is soon to be removed, the man of sin soon to be revealed and the final curtain soon to be drawn upon human history. What we read in Jeremiah’s prophecy is in so many ways reflective of our on situation. This morning I want to show you three clear characteristics evident in Jeremiah’s days, which are also apparent in our own day.
You see the Judah of Jeremiah’s time was a nation that disregarded God, disobeyed God, defied God and ultimately denied God. And the consequence of their rebellion was judgement. They were carried off into captivity, into Babylon where they remained, according to Jeremiah’s prophecy for seventy years. And every characteristic that revealed their infidelity centred upon their response to God’s message and His messenger. From the princes to the people, this was a nation that had turned from the Truth. Notice how that from prince to pauper there was a wholesale departure toward the Word of God.
I. There Was Antipathy Among The Princes.
A. Jeremiah served under five kings of Judah; of these only Josiah showed any degree of true. spirituality.
1. During his reign there had been something of a spiritual revival, but it was a half-hearted revival.
2. Yes God’s Word was rediscovered and restored to the heart of the nation, but the revival was superficial, like “rice Christians”, the people followed the Lord only because they loved their leader, and that was the direction he took them in.
3. But once Josiah passed away, normal service was resumed, and king after king gave in to idolatry and iniquity of every kind.
3. Each one was a vassal to some other king, either to Egypt or Babylon – and every one of them singly failed to heed the Word of God by the mouth of Jeremiah the prophet.
B. Perhaps this antipathy is seen at its worst when God instructs Jeremiah to write a letter to Jehoiakim.
1. See Jeremiah 36:20-32
2. That is how God’s Word was treated by the kings of Judah is the dark days of the kingdom’s demise.
3. The kings didn’t want to know, they were not only ignorant of God’s Word but they harboured antipathy toward it!.
4. Imagine such a thing – a king of Judah actively destroying God’s Word, BTW, that king should have known better, God’s Word cannot be destroyed, and once His actions were realised God instructed Jeremiah to write the same thing again and more!
a. In A.D. 303 the Roman Emperor Diocletian thought he had destroyed every Bible on earth, and was so proud of himself that he raised an obelisk over the embers of the last Bible and inscribed upon “Extinct is the Name Christian”. But he was so wrong.
b. In 1199 Pope Innocent III also commanded ebvery Bible to be burned – but here we are almost a thousand years later still holding a Bible in our hands.
5. You see Jesus said, “The scripture cannot be broken.” (John 10:35), and again, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.” (Mt 24:35)
a. God’s Word is eternal, and like Jehoiakim, a man may cut it to pieces and burn its pages, but he will never rid the earth of the Bible.
b. And it wasn’t just God’s message the rulers of Judah hated; they had an antipathy toward God’s Messenger.
C. Jeremiah’s message was deeply unpopular, and during the reign of Zedekiah, the last king of Judah he was hated by the establishment and cast into prison under false charges - Jeremiah 37:12-16
1. Ultimately he was lowered into a slime pit - Jeremiah 38:1-13
II. There Was Apostasy Among the Pastors.
A. Come with me now to chapter 23.
1. See Jeremiah 23:1-2
2. Jeremiah 23:9
3. Jeremiah 23:11
B. Do you see what we just read? … This was day of false pastors, false prophets and false priests.
1. There was apostasy in the land, a departure from the truth a deviation from the old paths.
2. What was Jeremiah’s advice, what was God’s command to the people living in such a day and hour? See Jeremiah 6:16
C. The command that God is issuing to His people is for them not to allow themselves to be lead astray by the false prophets and leaders of their day.
1. They are to tread the well-worn path, that is what is meant, the path that countless others have used before them.
2. They are to look back to men like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, David and others who walked the path of obedience and holiness before the Lord and they are to seek that path for themselves.
D. God’s command is that they must not go any old way, but that they take the time to find the right path, that old, well-worn path that represents the best way.
1. But the preacher’s of the day were leading the people astray – they were actually denying God’s message, and defying God’s prophet.
2. Come with me as we examine the prophecy of Hananiah, one such prophet – see Jeremiah 28:1-17
a. Hananiah’s message was set in complete defiance against all the God had revealed through Jeremiah.
b. Hananiah was typical of the preachers of the hour, again and again we are told they cried, “peace, peace; when there is no peace.”
(i) They said everything is OK. There’s going to be no judgment, or if there is it will only be for a little while, a year or two and things will be restored!
(ii) They lied. And apostate pastors, priests and prophets having been lying to people ever since.
4. See also Jeremiah 20:1-6.
a. These pastors, priests and prophets hated the truth.
b. Though they were supposed to be the spiritual leaders of Judah they were a menace to the nation, and God judged them because of it.
(i) Jeremiah 23:25-31
c. What responsibility falls upon a man’s shoulders when he dares to speak for God or to handle the Word of Truth, that is why James wrote, “My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation.” (Jas 3:1)
E. There was antipathy among the princes, apostasy among the pastors, and
III. There was Apathy Among the People
A. Look with me now at the things God had to say about his people.
1. Jeremiah 2:31-32
a. These people were careless about their worship – they had forgotten the Lord, they no longer wound their way to the temple to worship, they had other things to do.
2. Jeremiah 4:22
a. They were careless in their way of life – they were streetwise, they understand how to be men and women of the world, but not men and women of God.
(i) They saw no wrong in idolatry, they worshipped Baal and other gods, after all we all serve the one God, -you call Jesus, I call him Allah, he calls him Buddha – what does it matter?
(ii) They saw no wrong in immorality – they were fornicators and adulterers.
3. Jeremiah 5:31
a. They were careless about their spiritual leaders.
b. They were unmoved by the message of religious teachers, be they true or false.
c. For forty years Jeremiah preached the truth to them but they did not respond.
d. Throughout that same time span others taught other things but they were careless – after all, it’s all relative right?
e. “The priests bear rule by their means,” that is in their own strength, by their own flesh and wits – their religion was man centred, and humanistic.
4. Jeremiah 18:15-17
a. They were careless about the future.
b. They gave little thought to the consequences of their sin- they took no heed to the notion of judgment.
B. Does all of this sound familiar?
1. Governing powers that are antipathetic towards the truth, religious leaders who teach falsehood. People who are careless about the things of God.
2. Jeremiah could just as well have been ministering in 21st century England!
Conclusion: Here is the awful truth. As we read Jeremiah it reads less like history and more like the daily news. This week we read of those in parliament who on the one hand want to repeal our blasphemy laws, but on the other want to introduce a homosexual hatred law that will imprison anyone, pastor or no who dares voice disapproval and criticism of that lifestyle. You can say what you like against God, but you must not speak out against man and his sin. That is 21st Britain today.
The Christmas season passed of course every false pastor lines up to deny the Word of God. “Of course there was no virgin birth,” they say, “ it doesn’t matter!” Of course there will be no cataclysmic return of Christ to the earth.” There will be no judgment; God is way too loving for that sort of thing. It’s just not cricket! And what of those wretched people who keep harping on about these things? As one prominent cleric states, “Any kind of fundamentalism, be it Biblical, atheistic or Islamic, is dangerous.” He went on to say, “"God is not exclusive, he is on the side of the whole of humanity with all its variety." I hate to tell you this, but God is exclusive. What is John 3:5, “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God,” if its not exclusive?
And what of the people? If there is one word that would sum up their attitude in these things, it must be “apathetic”, careless about the things of God both in the church and out of it, careless about their lifestyles, indifferent to the church and to religion – its all the same to them, and this from a nation that spawned the greatest of preachers and missionaries at one time. And judgment? “What a joke – we are a secular society now, we have put that behind us, there will be no judgment – live for today, that’s our motto.”
The truth is our country is in terrible trouble today, not unlike the days of Jeremiah. Antipathetic politicians, apostate churchmen, apathetic people. And perhaps like Judah as a nation we are past praying for. Did you know that three times God told Jeremiah, not to pray for Judah? Three times God said, “Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me: for I will not hear thee,” (Jer 7:16), or something similar. Is that where we are today? I hope not.
What remedy did Jeremiah offer? He offered repentance and the New Covenant. See Jeremiah 31:33-34. There it is; New Testament theology in the heart of Old Testament Scripture! And it’s the same message we preach in these last days. Yes, there will be wrath to the full, but there is also love to the end!
Yes, the establishment is against, and yes, the land is saturated with false pastors and false prophets, and yes, as time goes on people are less and less inclined to hear our message, but if Jeremiah teaches us anything, he teaches us to recognise the hour in which we live and to persevere in the truth, to be faithful to the last, because God doesn’t reckon the worth of service by our degree of success.
For forty years Jeremiah never saw a single response to his message. Not one soul saved. Not one backslider restored. But so what if he wasn’t successful in the eyes of the world, as an obedient and faithful servant he was a success with God, and that’s all that matters for any of us.
