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Jeremiah, God’s Mouthpiece, August 19
It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation
of the Lord.
Lamentations 3:26
.
Among those who had hoped for a permanent spiritual revival as the result
of the reformation under Josiah was Jeremiah, called of God to the prophetic
office while still a youth....
In the youthful Jeremiah, God saw one who would be true to his trust and
who would stand for the right against great opposition.... “Say not, I am a child,”
the Lord bade His chosen messenger; “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.” ...
For forty years Jeremiah was to stand before the nation as a witness for truth
and righteousness. In a time of unparalleled apostasy he was to exemplify in
life and character the worship of the only true God. During the terrible sieges of
Jerusalem he was to be the mouthpiece of Jehovah
Naturally of a timid and shrinking disposition, Jeremiah longed for the
peace and quite of a life of retirement, where he need not witness the continued
impenitence of his beloved nation. His heart was wrung with anguish over the
ruin wrought by sin....
The experiences through which Jeremiah passed in the days of his youth and
also in the later years of his ministry, taught him the lesson that “the way of man
is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” He learned to
pray, “O Lord, correct me, but with judgment; not in thine anger, lest thou bring
me to nothing” (
Jeremiah 10:23, 24
).
When called to drink of the cup of tribulation and sorrow, and when tempted
in his misery to say, “My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord,” he
recalled the providences of God in his behalf and triumphantly exclaimed, “It is
of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail
not.... The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
[238]
27
Ibid., 407, 408
.
28
Ibid., 419-421
.
246