Ignore the Message-Bearer

Jeremiah 18:18-23

The life of a prophet of God was not all that joyful, the people of Judah want to ignore Jeremiah they were refusing even to notice that he was speaking to them.  They were not that different than our time, for they had a false belief that no matter what they did, God would continue to bless them. 

I bet you have passed by a street preacher, some seem to not have a message of grace but judgment much like Jeremiah, and what do we do with such people?  We notice them, but we discount their message, and often we cross the street so that we do not have to encounter them, sounds like what they were doing to Jeremiah.

Maybe it would help us if we heard the prayer of our Jeremiah’s, for this is the prayer of Jeremiah: “Hear me, O Lord, and listen to the voice of my adversaries.  Should good be repaid with evil?  They have dug a pit for my life.  Remember how I stood before you to speak good of them, to turn away your wrath from them.” (Jeremiah 18:19-20)  A great question “Should good be repaid with evil?”  The answer is never, but often when it is this writer whose desire is to be a Christ follower, but he forgets the grace that has been shown to him, and has an attitude of just nuke them, Lord.  Now Jeremiah was not up on nukes, but listen to his prayer; “Therefore deliver up their children to famine; give them over to the power of the sword; let their wives become childless and widowed.  May their men meet death by pestilence, the sword in battle strike down their youth.  May a cry be heard from their houses when you bring the plunderer suddenly upon them!  For they have dug a pit to take me and laid snares for my feet.  Yet you, O Lord, know all their plotting to kill me.  Forgive not their iniquity, nor blot out their sin from your sight.  Let them be overthrown before you; deal with them in the time of your anger.”  (Jeremiah 18:21-23)

If Jeremiah were living today, that prayer would be very close to Lord nuke them, every last one of them.  You may be wondering how he could do such a thing, it got personal, the people he was ministering to wanted to kill him, and all he was doing was trying to get them to see and repent before God brought about judgment.

But as a follower of Jesus Christ that should never be our response, but to model our Lord. 

In John’s gospel chapter 1 and verse 11, “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.”  The prophet Isaiah shared this with us in Isaiah 53:4-6, “Surely he has borne our grief and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.  But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”  That grace, that is the grace Jesus shows to you and to me, and yet we are so not like Jesus when we want to kill or harm those Jesus came for and died to redeem.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice