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EREMIAH came onto the prophetic scene roughly a century
after Isaiah. He would have been a young man at the time of his calling, as is
evidenced by his objection in Jeremiah 1:6. His protest was that he was too
young & inexperienced to be a mouthpiece for God. It seems he was sincerely
humble; feeling appropriately inadequate.
Jeremiah was a descendant of the Levitical priestly line (vs.
1). He may have been born to a priest, but God made him a prophet. How? By
aiming His word squarely at Jeremiah (vs. 2 & 4). It was no use for
Jeremiah to claim ineptness. God had picked him to be a preacher long before he
was even born (vs. 5). Even more importantly, Jeremiah wasn't required to come
up with his own words. He only had to give the ones that God gave him (vs. 7).
Not that this task was exactly going to be easy. He was sure to be opposed and
resisted (vs. 8). It's a good thing that he was not on his own. He was blessed
with particular help and authority from God Himself (vs. 9-10).
One of the things that was common in Jeremiah's ministry was
lots of illustrations. God kicked off His long series of revelations to
Jeremiah with a "rod of an almond
tree" and "a seething
pot" (vs. 11 & 13). Right away God put Jeremiah to work preaching
against the unbelieving Jews around him. And, God added some negative
reinforcement (vs. 17) as well as positive (vs. 18-19) to spur Jeremiah forward
in his responsibilities.
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