Every preacher has to be WHO HE IS if he is going to be effective for the Lord. If he tries to be like someone else, he is going to be ineffective.
God is a God of variety:
• Cloud formations are different
• Trees are different
• Flowers are different
• Birds are different
• The fish in the sea are different
• We are all different
And the fact is; preachers are different also!
Isaiah ministered seven hundred years before the birth of the Messiah.
• God used Isaiah to tell us how this Savior of sinners would come from the presence of God, be born of a virgin, live a holy life, and do miracles that no one else could do.
• Isaiah also prophesied that the Messiah would shed His blood, like a sacrificed lamb, to pay for the sins of the world. Once His sacrifice was completed, He would conquer death and rise from the grave, providing eternal life to all that believe in Him.
Today we want to look at another great prophet, by the name Jeremiah and we will see that he is different than Isaiah. Let’s look at-
I. THE MAN
Jeremiah was a Jew. He was born in a small town just four to five miles from Jerusalem.
A lot of great people have come out of small towns. I wonder if they had small town jokes during Bible times.
Illus: Someone said that you live in a small town when:
• The local phone book has only one yellow page
• Third Street is on the edge of town
• You leave your jacket on the back of the chair in the cafe, and when you go back the next day, it's still there, on the same chair
• You don't signal turns because everyone knows where you're going, anyway
• No social events can be scheduled when the school gym floor is being varnished
• You call a wrong number and they supply you with the correct one
• Everyone knows all the news before it's published; they just read the hometown paper to see whether the publisher got it right
• The city limits signs are both on the same post
• The City jail is called amoeba, because it only has one cell
• The McDonalds only has one Golden Arch
• The ZIP code is a fraction
• There's no place to go that you shouldn't
• A "Night on the Town" takes only 11 minutes
• The mayor had to annex property to eat a foot-long hot dog
There are a lot of benefits to being born in a small town. Jeremiah came from a very small town.
As we read the Book of Jeremiah, we can learn many things about this man that we can not learn from the other prophets.
A. HIS CALLING
Jeremiah's father served as a priest in the temple in Jerusalem. He was the son of Hilkiah, a priest of Anathoth. You might say he was a “Preacher’s Kid”.
Look at Jeremiah 1:4-10, we read, “Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. Then said I, Ah, Lord GOD! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child. But the LORD said unto me, Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak. Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the LORD. Then the LORD put forth his hand, and touched my mouth. And the LORD said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth. See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant.”
These scriptures are amazing. Notice, the Lord said in verse 5, “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.”
If people read this verse and believed what it said, WE WOULD NO LONGER HAVE ANY ABORTIONS!
This verse of scripture tells us that God has a purpose for every child, before they are born. Just think how we as a nation:
• Have killed some of our best citizens
• Have killed some of our best doctors
• Have killed some of our best politicians
• Have killed some of our best preachers and missionaries
• Have killed some of our best Sunday school teachers
• Have killed some of our best craftsmen
Only God knows what the abortionists have done.
God wanted Jeremiah to know that God had a plan for his life from the womb to the tomb.
B. HIS CHARACTER
The prophet Jeremiah allows us to see what is going on INSIDE of his life as well as OUTSIDE of his life.
The other prophets seem to hide their feelings; but Jeremiah let’s us know how he felt!
• He was a man of deep feelings and sensibilities. Out of this comes the other book he wrote entitled Lamentations.
• In this book there are a series of five laments over the serious spiritual and moral condition of God’s people.
• Lamentations has been described as a funeral service over the destruction of the Holy City.
• Isaiah and the other prophets come across as bold, fiery preachers, but Jeremiah appears more compassionate and gentle.
Perhaps this is the reason God told Jeremiah not to be afraid of their faces. In Jeremiah 1:8, we read, “Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the LORD.”
This does not mean that he would not face his enemies fearlessly. He often did, and with the wrath of God upon his lips.
• He rebuked the sinners
• He resisted the false prophets
• He boldly declared God’s truth
Jeremiah’s prophecy is probably the most negative of all the prophecies in the Bible. He is seen expressing deep grief over the predicted fate of his people, knowing that they are beyond any further help from God.
Look at Jeremiah 8:20-22, we read, “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved. For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt; I am black; astonishment hath taken hold on me. Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?”
For this reason he is often called “The Weeping Prophet”.
He was not altogether a prophet of doom, for he could speak of the New Covenant that God would one day make with His people.
Look at Jeremiah 31:31-34, we read, “Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD: But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
As we have seen already, the nation of Israel was no longer a unified nation. It had become two nations: Israel and Judah.
In Jeremiah's day, God delivered Israel into the hands of their enemies because they did not believe the message of the prophets and repent of their sin.
Thus, of the nations of the Jews, only Judah remained. Jeremiah’s prophecies dealt with Judah.
C. HIS PREACHING
Look at Jeremiah 20:7-8, we read, “O LORD, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived: thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed: I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me. For since I spake, I cried out, I cried violence and spoil; because the word of the LORD was made a reproach unto me, and a derision, daily.”
Jeremiah is saying that he has been conned by no less a person than God himself.
God had called him to be a preacher and when he preached what God inspired him to preach, all he got was abuse.
God more or less told him that He wanted Jeremiah to preach to these people, but they were not going to listen to him.
Every Bible preacher can relate to how Jeremiah felt.
Illus: A very popular preacher on television was asked why he always preached on a certain topic and overlooked the other topics in the Bible.
He said, that this was the only message God had called him to preach.
He gave the impression that God has called some preachers to preach portions of the Bible, NOT THE WHOLE BIBLE! That is ridiculous!
He must not have heard Paul’s instruction to, “Preach the Word.” This means the whole counsel of God’s Word!
We have always had these preachers who cherry pick the scriptures, but God always calls men to preach the whole counsel of God’s Word.
Listen, we preachers know that when we preach on certain things this Bible teaches, we are going to be unpopular.
• This is why many television preachers preach on certain topics. They know that if they preached on certain passages that deal with the sins of the people, they will immediately lose their audience.
• This is why some of these mega-churches preach a social gospel. They know that if they were to really preach the Word of God, it would empty their pews.
Jeremiah believed fervently in what he was preaching, and this made him the topic of conversation around many dinner tables in the evening.
But some of the things he was preaching upset the authorities.
• He was telling the government of the day that the way they were behaving was wrong.
• He told them that what they were doing would lead to the downfall of the country.
• He spoke of the ways that people were being encouraged to find spiritual answers in non-spiritual ways.
• He was also outspoken in the way he opposed the church for seeking human ideas rather than seeking out God’s answers.
So Jeremiah needed silencing.
Jeremiah might have expected the Jewish church leaders to be on his side, but even they tried to put him down.
One of the priests, Pashur, went as far as having Jeremiah beaten.
Look at Jer. 20:2, “Then Pashur smote Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks that were in the high gate of Benjamin, which was by the house of the LORD.”
Yet when it got too much to take, and Jeremiah decided to give up, he found that he couldn’t. The call to preach became, as he described it, like fire.
Look at Jer. 20:9 “Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.”
WHAT IS HE SAYING? He is saying that when God calls a man to the ministry, that person has to deliver what God has placed on their heart to preach.
We have a lot of people today that state that God has called them to preach God’s Word, but years go by, and they can not remember the last time they preached a sermon from God’s Word.
Illus: Even the IRS today recognizes that a lot of preachers that claim God has called them to preach, are in question. They say to be qualified to be a preacher, you have to preach so many sermons a year, conduct so many funerals and officiate so many weddings.
God calls a man into the ministry, and Jeremiah described it well when he said it is like, “…a burning fire shut up in his bones….”
Conclusion:
I. THE MAN (1 of 2)
II. THE MESSAGE (2 of 2)
