Jeremiah...

O my soul, my soul!

I am pained in my very heart!

My heart makes a noise in me;

I cannot hold my peace,

Because you have heard, O my soul,

The sound of the trumpet,

The alarm of war.

20 Destruction upon destruction is cried,

For the whole land is plundered.

Suddenly my tents are plundered,

And my curtains in a moment.

21 How long will I see the standard,

And hear the sound of the trumpet?

22 "For My people are foolish,

They have not known Me.

They are silly children,

And they have no understanding.

They are wise to do evil,

But to do good they have no knowledge."—Jeremiah 4:19-22

I LOVE Jeremiah.  The more you read the book, the more you love him.  He truly and sincerely loved God’s people.  His heart was for them as well as broken for them.  He preached and preached for 42 years and nobody listened.  In fact, Chapter 7 tells us the sad result of his preaching...the people went backward and not forward.  

But this is what I commanded them, saying, 'Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people. And walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you.' "Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but followed the counsels and the dictates of their evil hearts, and went backward and not forward.—Jeremiah 7:23-24

 I want to endure as this man endured.  I want to be faithful as Jeremiah was faithful.  I cannot imagine the discouragement he must have often felt preaching a message that no one wanted to hear...a message that made him the focus of jokes, ridicule, humiliation and torture...a message to which no one responded.  I think John MacArthur sums up Jeremiah perfectly:

“He is an intensely human personality, this Jeremiah. He is very human. And yet his humanity does not explain the power of his preaching and the relentless endurance of his faithfulness. He is a man who is mysteriously endowed with power from on high to survive the rejection that marked his entire life. He is so humanly weak that he can’t stop crying, and yet he is so unassailably strong that he will not yield and compromise. He is a powerful personality. He is a lovable personality.”

What an example to us!  Praying I can be faithful to do what my God has called me to do and remember that the results of my obedience are not up to me...they are thankfully in God’s hands.  Praying also, that I draw near to God in brokenness and heartfelt, fervent prayer for the people He has sovereignly placed in my path.