Discipline in the School of God: Chapter 21 - Jeremiah
By J.B. Stoney
In the saddest and most eventful period of Israel's history Jeremiah was called to serve, and there is much in his history to be learned as to the character of vessel which the Lord uses in such a time, and the peculiar way in which He fits it for the mission assigned to it.
Jeremiah was of the priests of Anathoth of Benjamin; he was by birth and association connected with, we may say, the hierarchy of the time ; and he is called to testify against what had been so near and dear to him. God chooses His own instruments, and it is evident that He prearranges everything concerning them, so that the whole of one's life here, even before birth, can be traced to His Ordering, This is very interesting and wonderful. Hence it is said of Jeremiah, " 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." It is remarkable that it is unto the nations, because almost all his prophecy relates to the fall and captivity of Israel, and the subjugation of the surrounding nations, with the assured hope of a bright future. The great and Prevailing feeling of the instrument for this great service is, " I am a child." " Ali, Lord God I Behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child." The sense of powerlessness avails nothing in itself, but when it is felt in the presence of the Lord's assured help, it casts the servant fully on Him, and He helps fully when He is leant on fully. Hence the Lord encourages him thus: " 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." This embraces the servant's first great lesson in the school of God-with the sense that I am but a child--small in human strength, I have assured confidence that I can go wherever God sends me, and that I can speak what He has commanded me to speak.
The Lord consequently confers a gift on Jeremiah. He put forth His hand and touched his mouth, " And the Lord said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth." Thus he gets his commission-a most important epoch in a servant's history, just as was the gift to Timothy by the laying on of the hands of the presbytery; he gets the sense, that not only is he sent into this world as a light, but the definite nature of his service is communicated to him. So Jeremiah receives in figure a revelation from the Lord in relation to the nature and line of his ministry. It is interesting to note the peculiar and distinct way in which every servant is fitted or commissioned for his work. Here by two emblems Jeremiah is furnished with a divine base for his work - by the almond rod, which set forth that the Lord will accomplish what He proposes, " I will hasten my word to perform it " ; and by the seething pot, " the face thereof toward the north," showing the afflicting nature of his testimony against Israel and the nations around. And now, established in heart and purpose, by these visions, the Lord warns, him (vv. 17-19) to gird up his loins and to be of good courage, " lest I confound thee before them." Jeremiah is thus made ready for his service, and hence in chapter 2 the mind of the Lord is revealed to him. The heart of the Lord touching the state of Israel is disclosed to him and it produces the effect on him which it ought to produce on Israel, as he tells in chapter 8 : 18, to the end of chapter 9 : i. " When 1 would comfort myself against sorrow, my heart is faint in me. Behold the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people because of them that dwell in a far country: Is not the Lord in Zion? is not her king in her? Why have they provoked me to anger with their graven images, and with strange vanities? 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? Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!"
