When people reject God, they also reject those who love God. They reject their message, care, concern, and loving effort to draw them back to God. Such was the case with Jeremiah.
Then the people said, “Come on, let’s plot a way to stop Jeremiah. We have plenty of priests and wise men and prophets. We don’t need him to teach the word and give us advice and prophecies. Let’s spread rumors about him and ignore what he says.” (Jeremiah 18:18, NLT)
The Plot to Kill The Prophet
At this point, Jeremiah is beginning to experience what God has dealt with for centuries—hardened hearts, stiff necks, and rebellion. God’s patience and longsuffering certainly outlasted Jeremiah’s, for Jeremiah changed his tune considerably.
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 18:23, ESV)
In fact, Jeremiah decided he would stop prophesying to such hard-hearted people, but he found he couldn’t. On the one hand, he asks God to destroy them—he’s done with them; on the other hand, he finds that he cannot keep quiet.
Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay. (Jeremiah 20:9, KJV)
The Servant Is Not Above His Master
As believers, let us not grow weary in warning the hard-hearted. Let us not be discouraged by their treatment of us who love them enough to warn them. Though this world plots evil against the righteous, let us not forget our Lord suffered the same, and as His servants, we will experience what our master suffered. Have we not a promise which gives us great hope and strength?
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:35–39, KJV)
Thank you for joining me as I read and journal chronologically through the Bible! This devotional reflection comes from Jeremiah 18-22.