COMPLAINT AND RESTORATION.
Jeremiah 15:15-21.
This is one of the laments of Jeremiah. There is a complaint here (Jeremiah 15:15-18), and also a reply from the LORD (Jeremiah 15:19-21).
JEREMIAH 15:15. The prophet is bold in his approach: “O LORD, thou knowest.” The LORD does know all our troubles; He knows our prayers even before we ask Him (cf. Isaiah 65:24; Matthew 6:8). So we too may boldly approach the throne of grace (cf. Hebrews 4:16).
“Remember me,” pleads the prophet. Of course, the LORD has not forgotten His servant. The plea is rather for the LORD to make His presence known to him.
“Visit me” calls upon the LORD to bring deliverance. “Revenge me of my persecutors” also speaks of the LORD vindicating His servant in the face of his enemies.
The prophet appeals to the “longsuffering” or ‘forbearance’ of the LORD, and pleads “take me not away.” ‘Take me not away’ by death, or ‘take me not away’ into exile. “Know” that it is “for thy sake” that I have “suffered rebuke.”
JEREMIAH 15:16. “Thy words were found, and I did eat them,” he remembers (cf. Ezekiel 3:1-3; Revelation 10:9-10). The prophet looks back to the day when the LORD first put His words into his mouth (cf. Jeremiah 1:9).
“Thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart.” Many a Bible student can reflect upon their own first calling into Christian service in a similar way. The whole world lay at our feet, and God was with us!
“For I am called by thy name, O LORD God of hosts.” The name Jeremiah contains the name of the LORD within it. And Christ has set His name upon us, and sends us forth bearing His name. So Jeremiah might expect that, since the name of the LORD was so entwined in his life, so it would be in the LORD’s interests to vindicate His servant!
JEREMIAH 15:17. The prophet gave voice to his disappointment. Unfortunately self-pity leads to self-righteousness: “I sat not in the assembly of the mockers, nor rejoiced” (cf. Psalm 1:1). In effect, ‘this is not my fault.’ It seemed that the LORD’s hand was heavy upon him because he dared not compromise his message, so he “sat alone.” This was all the LORD’s fault, he argued, “for THOU hast filled me with indignation.”
JEREMIAH 15:18. We can hear the tears in the prophet’s voice as he makes his complaint. “Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable?” It is a fair enough question, often asked of God: “Why?” Why me? Why this?
But the complaint finally oversteps the bounds of holy boldness when Jeremiah accuses the LORD: “wilt thou be altogether unto me as a liar, and as waters that fail?” After all, the LORD is the ‘fountain of living waters’ (Jeremiah 2:13) – but sometimes it seems that we thirst for want of a word from God (cf. Amos 8:11).
JEREMIAH 15:19. There is an immediacy about the LORD’s reply: “Therefore thus saith the LORD.” Jeremiah had been bold in his approach, but had possibly overstepped his mark; but God called him, in effect, to repentance: “If thou RETURN, then I will bring thee again.” To return is to turn around and double back. Sometimes this is what we need to do: return to the place where we first got out of step with God’s will in our lives. He is always ready to receive His own servant back, and to let him “stand before” Him again.
The prophet is called back to his task: to “take forth the precious from the vile.” It is the word of God that the preacher needs to be speaking forth, not his own self-pitying self-righteous complaints. When we are discouraged we are quite simply called back into service. Then the reassurance is restored: “thou shalt be as my mouth.” And success is promised anew: “let them RETURN unto thee; but RETURN not thou unto them.”
JEREMIAH 15:20. The LORD restated the promise that He had made when He first commissioned Jeremiah: I will make thee a “brazen wall” unto them. “They shall fight against thee but not prevail.” “I am with thee” to “deliver thee,” saith the LORD (cf. Jeremiah 1:18-19).
JEREMIAH 15:21. The LORD does not promise that His servant will be free from suffering, but rather that, ultimately, He will “deliver” him out of “the hand of the wicked,” and “redeem” him “out of the hand of the terrible.”
God’s purposes are in no way thwarted by persecution, but rather, somewhat ironically, helped forward by the sufferers’ steadfastness.
