"Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O Lord God of hosts." Jeremiah 15:16
Jeremiah 15
Then said the Lord unto me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people: cast them out of my sight, and let them go forth.And it shall come to pass, if they say unto thee, Whither shall we go forth? then thou shalt tell them, Thus saith the Lord; Such as are for death, to death; and such as are for the sword, to the sword; and such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for the captivity, to the captivity.And I will appoint over them four kinds, saith the Lord: the sword to slay, and the dogs to tear, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the earth, to devour and destroy.And I will cause them to be removed into all kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh the son of Hezekiah king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem.For who shall have pity upon thee, O Jerusalem? or who shall bemoan thee? or who shall go aside to ask how thou doest?Thou hast forsaken me, saith the Lord, thou art gone backward: therefore will I stretch out my hand against thee, and destroy thee; I am weary with repenting.And I will fan them with a fan in the gates of the land; I will bereave them of children, I will destroy my people since they return not from their ways.Their widows are increased to me above the sand of the seas: I have brought upon them against the mother of the young men a spoiler at noonday: I have caused him to fall upon it suddenly, and terrors upon the city.She that hath borne seven languisheth: she hath given up the ghost; her sun is gone down while it was yet day: she hath been ashamed and confounded: and the residue of them will I deliver to the sword before their enemies, saith the Lord.Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have neither lent on usury, nor men have lent to me on usury; yet every one of them doth curse me.The Lord said, Verily it shall be well with thy remnant; verily I will cause the enemy to entreat thee well in the time of evil and in the time of affliction.Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel?Thy substance and thy treasures will I give to the spoil without price, and that for all thy sins, even in all thy borders.And I will make thee to pass with thine enemies into a land which thou knowest not: for a fire is kindled in mine anger, which shall burn upon you.O Lord, thou knowest: remember me, and visit me, and revenge me of my persecutors; take me not away in thy longsuffering: know that for thy sake I have suffered rebuke.Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O Lord God of hosts.I sat not in the assembly of the mockers, nor rejoiced; I sat alone because of thy hand: for thou hast filled me with indignation.Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuseth to be healed? wilt thou be altogether unto me as a liar, and as waters that fail?Therefore thus saith the Lord, If thou return, then will I bring thee again, and thou shalt stand before me: and if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth: let them return unto thee; but return not thou unto them.And I will make thee unto this people a fenced brasen wall: and they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee: for I am with thee to save thee and to deliver thee, saith the Lord.And I will deliver thee out of the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem thee out of the hand of the terrible.
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"In Jeremiah 14, there is the positive infliction of a dearth, causing death and destruction, as a mark of God's displeasure.
"Judah mourns, and the gates thereof languish; they are black to the ground; and the cry of Jerusalem is gone up."
Their nobles are all in sorrow, but above all the prophets were wicked (verses 14, 15). Those who ought to have been the best in Israel were really the worst. God's displeasure was most strongly expressed against the false prophets.
This condemnation of the people is so strong that in Jeremiah 15 the Lord declares that the state of things now in Jerusalem and in Judah was such that even if the best men that had ever lived and those most known for their prayers of intercession were to appear in the land, they could not alter His fixed determination to judge the land.
"Though,"
says He,
"Moses and Samuel stood before Me, yet My mind could not be toward this people: cast them out of My sight and let them go forth" (Jer. 15:1).
And what then was the righteous to do? What could the righteous man seek? We find the answer given by Jeremiah himself:
"Thy words,"
says he,
"were found and I did eat them; and Thy word was to me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart; for I am called by Thy name, O Jehovah God of hosts" (Jer. 15:16).
This was his resource, and that of all the faithful in a day of apostasy.
The words of the Lord always become more precious to the pious heart in a day of ruin when judgment is about to fall. So the apostle Paul when warning the elders of Ephesus pointed out this resource.
"Now,"
says he,
"I commend you to God and the word of His grace" (Acts 20:32).
Seducers, wolves, and perverse men, all these he anticipates will be spoilers among the flock, but his counsel is, "I commend you to God and the word of His grace." So in Timothy where Paul speaks of the last days and of perilous times coming, he says,
"All scripture is given by inspiration of God,"
conveying particularly this value for the Old Testament Scriptures. "All scripture" includes the New Testament as well as the Old.
Then again Peter points to the same feature of God's word. Peter was about to depart; he had this intimation from the Lord. He was soon to let slip the earthly tabernacle. In view of his absence as an apostle, he reminded them to keep in remembrance the words of truth they had heard (2 Peter 1). The word of God is always to be the distinguishing mark, and the anchor of hope for the believer in God."
William Kelly: From Jeremiah
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