Jeremiah 19-20 He Couldn't NOT Speak

God had another action sermon for Jeremiah to deliver to his country’s leaders.  He was to smash a clay pot in front of them and tell them that God said, “I will soon bring a disaster on this place that will amaze and frighten everyone who hears about it.  The people … have quit following Me … they burn their children in the fire to Baal.  That is something I did not command or speak about; it never even entered My mind … At this place I will ruin the plans of the people… I will completely destroy this city.  People will make fun of it … I will break this nation and this city just as someone breaks a clay jar that cannot be put back together again.”

 

The government sure didn’t like those words, and Jeremiah paid for the sermon with a beating and a night in the stocks.  But the next day, he went to the highest officer of the Temple and told him that God now had a new name for him:  “Terror On Every Side”.  God said, “I will soon make you a terror TO YOURSELF and to all your friends … I will give all the wealth of this city to its enemies.”

 

In other words, destruction would start from within.  I can’t help thinking that this is exactly what’s happening to America right now.  Laws and directives are making us become a terror to ourselves because they threaten our very economic existence, as though we’d bombed ourselves.

 

I don’t like these messages.  Jeremiah didn’t like those he received, either.  He’d gotten to the point where he said, “I will forget about the Lord.  I won’t speak anymore in His name … But then His message becomes like a burning fire inside me, deep within my bones.  I get tired of trying to hold it inside of me, and finally I cannot hold it in.”  I’m taking a lesson from Jeremiah and just writing what I sense God saying through what I read in His word each day. 

 

Jeremiah didn’t quit.  He soon said, “The Lord is with me like a strong warrior, so those who are chasing me will trip and fall; they will not defeat me.”

 

Father, thank You for speaking to my heart.  I never want to stop hearing from You.  Help me to be faithful only to write what I hear You showing me.  May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing to You.

 

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford