Saturday, 4/5/14
We speak of Jeremiah as being a
type of Jesus. By that we mean that his life and his hardships were a preview
of the life and hardships of Jesus. The ruling party in Jerusalem that heaped abuse
on Jeremiah differed little from those who would torment Jesus six centuries later.
Jeremiah, born a gentleman, longed
to lead the comfortable life of a highborn gentlemen, but God would not let him
be. He called him to preach against evils, and Jeremiah could not resist God.
Listen to what he said in verses 7, 8, and 9 of Chapter Twenty.
You duped me, O Lord, and I let myself be duped. You were too strong
for me, and you triumphed. All the day I am an object of laughter, everyone
mocks me.
Whenever I speak, I must cry out, violence and outrage are my message.
The word of the Lord has brought me derision and reproach all the day.
I say to myself, I will not mention him, I will speak in his name no
more; but then it becomes like fire burning in my heart. I grow weary holding
it in, I cannot endure it.
Jeremiah told Jerusalem’s people
that unless they cast the evil out of their hearts, they would suffer seventy
years of slavery in Babylon. When the leaders silenced him, he got God’s
message across by carrying a heavy wooden yolk through the streets of
Jerusalem.
As a supreme insult to his
dignified nature, the authorities threw him down a dry cistern, inviting all
the people to shout down abuse at him. Their insults were like the mockery
people shouted up at Jesus when he hung on the cross.
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