Scripture reading: Matthew 10:24-39.

Sermon text: Jeremiah 20:1-13.

Introduction

After you read the passage in Jeremiah, think of this question:

When’s the last time you felt God had led you somewhere and then abandoned you?

If you’ve never felt abandoned in the process of obeying God, you’ve obviously never gone very far spiritually. I can give concrete examples of times when I felt I had fully obeyed God, only to find myself in the middle of nowhere with no apparent evidence God was anywhere in the universe.

St. John of the Cross, a 16th century saint, referred to this experience as the “dark night of the soul.” When we experience the dark night, we know God still cares, and we know that He has not left us, and we know — in fact, we shouldn’t doubt — that our salvation is secure. However, we feel emotionally and spiritually abandoned, wondering why God would allow this to happen and when He’ll do something to deliver us.

The dark night preceded St. John of the Cross. Jesus experienced it on the cross. In the passage today, we find Jeremiah experiencing it, with the usual despair that accompanies it. However, Jeremiah’s tale of persecution and hardship in the midst of obedience gives us a clear teaching. Believers in God, who are called by the Holy Spirit and born again by faith in Jesus Christ, must never forget our mandate to declare the salvation of Our Lord. Even in the middle of our despair, we must continue to live in obedience and faith, demonstrating to the world that God cares regardless of our feelings.

Sermon

Understanding Jeremiah’s persecution requires some background information.

Jeremiah began his prophetic ministry in the reign of Josiah, the last godly king of Judah, who ruled from 640 to 609 B.C. Jeremiah had received his call from God in 627 B.C. (cf. Jeremiah 1). The years of Jeremiah’s ministry were Judah’s last tumultuous years before the nation’s final destruction by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 B.C.

Jeremiah considered himself a very unlikely prophet. First, unlike any prophet but Ezekiel (who would receive his call in exile in 597 B.C.), Jeremiah was from a priestly family. For the most part, priests and prophets seemed to endure each other more than enjoy each other. (See the Old Testament for details.) Second, Jeremiah was still only a teenager at most when God called him in dramatic fashion, stating, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations” (1:5). As a young man expecting to continue his tribe’s legacy of the priesthood, Jeremiah felt that God had certainly made a mistake in calling him as a prophet.

Jeremiah lived in times of spiritual darkness caused by open apostasy. The people of Judah knew they lived in blatant sin, committing idolatry and oppressing the poor among them. However, the people fully expected God to protect their land because His temple rested in Jerusalem, their capital. It never occurred to the people that God would allow Judah’s destruction as punishment. Jeremiah prophesied to people fully convinced of God’s presence (after all, His temple was located in their capital city) and of their immunity from the punishment promised in the covenant. In other words, like today, the people of Jeremiah’s time stood convinced their sins were not a problem with God. Like today, most of the Jews of Jeremiah’s time probably believed that God would excuse or condone their sin.

Jeremiah’s message, therefore, first surprised the people, then shocked them into anger and resentment. In chapter 19, Jeremiah had stood in the courtyard of the Temple itself and prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem.

We should see a distinct connection between Jeremiah’s action in chapter 19 and Jesus’ clearing of the Temple in the Gospels. In both instances, the ministers of God interrupted officially sanctioned activities. In both instances, the temple authorities reacted brutally to God’s words. In Jeremiah’s case, the temple overseer had him whipped and thrown into the stocks. In Jesus’ case, the cleansing of the Temple provided one more excuse for His crucifixion.

Jeremiah’s reaction should be familiar to anyone in his predicament. He was certain he had obeyed God. Read chapter 19 this afternoon. God had sent this word to him: “I am bringing upon this city and upon all its towns all the disaster that I have pronounced against it, because they have stiffened their neck, refusing to hear my words.” Jeremiah had obeyed in telling God’s warning to the people in the one place where the warning should have elicited a positive reaction.

However, Jeremiah instead found himself beaten and then humiliated by his imprisonment in the stocks. Notice that these stocks were placed “in the upper Benjamin Gate of the house of the LORD.” Everyone going into the Temple through that gate would have ridiculed Jeremiah. Even worse, we should remember that Jeremiah was from the tribe of Levi, the same tribe as Pashhur his persecutor. His fellow tribesmen felt no mercy for this upstart prophet. Instead, they probably saw him as a traitor.

Jeremiah’s reaction toward Pashhur shouldn’t come as a surprise. In Middle Eastern cultures, people often take a second name when some life-changing event occurs. Pashhur didn’t know it, but his persecution of Jeremiah changed his destiny. Jeremiah changed his name to “Terror on Every Side.”  This didn’t mean that Pashhur would bring terror; rather, the Babylonians would terrorize Pashhur and his family. He would see his friends slaughtered before his eyes and stand in mortal fear of his own life. He would witness the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. He would endure the horror of a rampaging army sacking a wealthy city. Then, he would suffer exile in Babylon after a horrendous journey. Terror would fill Pashhur’s life from this point forward. He would die as he would live: In terror of everything surrounding him.

This gives us the information we need to understand Jeremiah’s lament in chapter 20. However, in this lament, we also find clear direction to know how to respond when — not if — we face persecution and the dark night that often accompanies it.

We must first notice that Jeremiah knew he had obeyed God. The word for “deceive” in verse 7 implies simple trust. Jeremiah felt he had been naive in trusting God. He had done as directed, only to believe himself “deceived” instead. Jeremiah may not have expected repentance and spiritual renewal of the nation, but he certainly didn’t expect the brutal treatment dealt to him by Pashhur. Jeremiah felt betrayed.

Jeremiah thought he had the answer: “I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name” (v. 9). Perhaps if he never mentioned God again, no one would persecute him again.

There was only one problem with Jeremiah’s plan: “If I say, ‘I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,’ there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.” When Jeremiah tried to remain silent about God, even to the point of intentional disobedience, he found it impossible to do so. God had clearly called him to prophesy. Jeremiah found it impossible to disobey.

Many believers understand this “fire in the bones.” The fire drives ministers to preach far beyond the time when their health should prevent it. The fire drives missionaries to risk their lives in dangerous areas. The fire drives believers in closed areas of the world to spread the gospel even to the point of death. When you experience the fire, nothing in this life can quench it.

At this point, Jeremiah realized that no amount of opposition would overcome the God he served. His friends had abandoned him; his enemies warily watched for him to stumble so they could destroy him. No matter. To Jeremiah, God appeared as a “dread warrior” who would support him: “my persecutors will stumble; they will not overcome me.” Like many in his position, Jeremiah called for God to wreak vengeance on those who had persecuted him. God would vindicate Jeremiah when He destroyed Jerusalem. Jeremiah would witness this vindication with his own eyes.

Jeremiah could thus sing: “Sing to the LORD; praise the LORD! For he has delivered the life of the needy from the hand of evildoers.” Jeremiah was quoting from Psalm 82, which calls on God to “rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”

Unfortunately, Jeremiah’s joy was short-lived. His life would be filled with misery and danger. The end of chapter 20 reminds us of Job’s lament: “Cursed be the day on which I was born!” Although Jeremiah realized that God remained with him when he obeyed Him, the thought of the coming destruction drove Jeremiah to the point of despair.

This feeling sounds familiar to anyone who naively believes that obeying God brings no risks. We see people in the Church confidently proclaim a calling from God and then expect everything in life to go perfectly for them. We find people in the Church declaring that salvation in Jesus Christ will fix every problem in a sinner’s life. We constantly endure people on TV promising people that following Jesus will give them everything they want: the McMansion in a ritzy part of town, BMW’s in the 3-car garage, a perfectly manicured lawn, and — of course — perfect spouses and children.

I should mention here that I have a page of quotes I find relevant to life. On that page, you’ll find a quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian who was executed in World War II for his part in the plot to assassinate Hitler: “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me,” Jesus said (Matthew 16:24).

If you’re looking for a perfect and painless life, I recommend you look elsewhere. As I said last week, Tertullian once stated, “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” Like Jeremiah, countless believers have found that following the call of God resulted in beatings, ridicule, ostracism, and even death. Read the Bible. Read the book of Acts; read what happened to the Apostles. Read Church history; see what happened to the multitude of believers who proclaimed the faith. Today is the feast day of St. Alban, the first martyr in the British Isles. Read his story and see if obedience comes easy.

We’re not called to follow Christ in ease. We are called to follow Him wherever He leads. When persecution strikes us, we are called to proclaim His Name anyway.

I have a suspicion. I suspect that unbelievers have no problem with Christians remaining joyful when life’s good. After all, it takes no effort to praise God when life’s going well: the children are excelling in school and on the sports field, the marriage is going great, the job’s leading to a promotion, the bank account is overflowing, and so forth. I suspect that unbelievers really want to see how a Christian behaves when life falls apart. Can we praise God then? Can we praise God in the dark nights as well as in the beautiful days of life?

We should note that Jeremiah learned that even when he felt abandoned, God never left him. God protected him throughout the sufferings, even sparing his life and providing for him when the city fell to the Babylonians. The Babylonians spared his life and released him when they burned the city.

This is a tough lesson, but one we must heed. Life brings sorrows as well as joys. We are called to serve God even in the difficult times. As St. James would later write, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:2-4).

There’s one last point. This past Wednesday, we started a study of the Psalms on Wednesday nights. This week, we’ll start studying the lament psalms, the psalms where the writers cry about the sorrows of life. We’ll notice what Claus Westermann noticed: “In the investigation of all the LI [individual lament psalms] of the Old Testament I found to my astonishment that there are no Psalms which do not progress beyond petition and lament” (The Praise of God in the Psalms, p. 74). In every lament psalm, the Psalmists progressed beyond the lament and praised God for His inevitable deliverance of His saints.

Do you feel abandoned today? Worship anyway. Do you feel as if God has betrayed you? Proclaim salvation in Jesus’ name anyway. Remember that Jesus suffered for you and for those persecuting you. If Jesus would suffer for you, He’ll not forget you.

Hold firm; your deliverance has come. Jesus has conquered death and ushered His kingdom into Creation. When we overcome adversity in His name, we proclaim His name to a dying world in need of His forgiveness, redemption, and deliverance.