So, Jeremiah was called by God from a small town where everyone knows your name to Jerusalem, where he was constantly being called out of his name. He was hated and disrespected so much that several times, he damn near had a nervous breakdown.
Why, cuz’ Jeremiah didn’t preach you’re blessed and highly favored, but God is gonna tear this playhouse down with y’all in it, starting with the First Jerusalem Temple of Praise and Performance, unless you do right!
Well, Rev. Pashur began hearing about Jeremiah’s doomsday messages and had him arrested, beaten, and put in a holding cell. Why, cuz again, Jeremiah refused to sugarcoat messages that gave an amen to the people being content in their ratchetness.
Upon release, Jeremiah went home and had it out with God. You lied to me. Since you knew me before I was born, you should have known I ain’t for all this.
I say and do exactly what you tell me, and for it: I’m buked, scorned, talked about as sure as I wish I had never been born. No wife, no kids. But I feel like Michael Jackson, I can’t help it if I wanted to. I can’t help but speak your Word. I can’t rest if I don’t. And Lord, I’m miserable.
And how did God respond to this outpouring of anger, disappointment, and confusion toward him? He kept speaking to Jeremiah, and Jeremiah, who couldn’t help it, kept on speaking to the people what they didn’t want to hear and getting more beatings and prison until Jerusalem fell to Babylon with the people taken into captivity, just as God had said.
As for Jeremiah, the respect he never got from his own, he got from his enemy… Nebuchadnezzar, the ruthless king of Babylon, issued orders to ensure Jeremiah’s safety and even invited him to Babylon.
But this man of God, who was often anguished about his call and God, chose to stay with his people, the poor who had been left behind. Jeremiah wanted them to know that just as God had never left him when he was angry or when he doubted, God would never leave them or forsake them either.
Reference – Jeremiah 1, 20, 40
