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Chapter 4
A Legacy of Written Texts
(Jeremiah through Malachi)
Jeremiah
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He Knew About Now, Then
Jeremiah’s work breaks almost seventy years of complete silence of
prophecy in Israel. As the prophecies of old pertain to that time, they also
apply to today; you need to see the application in both times from a spiritual
point of view.
The people were accustomed to their ways, and Jeremiah spoke on behalf
of God, which must have been a new development in the prophetic
tradition of staleness. We fall away and are quickly distracted from what we
cannot see or understand. The words fall idle or perhaps the words were
not easily accepted, and we descend into a status quo. Powerful friends at
court protected Jeremiah early in his career, and he probably assisted in the
reforming activities of King Josiah of Judah.
However, after Josiah’s death, Jeremiah fell into increasing disfavor with the
religious and civil leaders; speaking openly was much more difficult—the
price was higher, as it always is. The reverential awe that had previously
surrounded prophecy had disappeared. On various occasions, he was placed
under house arrest, denied a public forum, thrown into a dry cistern that
served as a dungeon, and widely regarded as a traitor and defeatist in time
of war. After the final defeat of Jerusalem, Jeremiah was carried off into
Egypt against his will by die-hard resisters of the Babylonian conquest.
Jeremiah’s prophetic words are clearly absorbing, but perhaps a little subtler
now than when he spoke them. Who could deny the reality of their
application as spoken from the heart? Would any prophet do less than what
God asks, regardless of what the suggested price might be? Apply these
words personally, take them to heart, and consider the consequences as love
moves within you to deepen a spiritual realty. What is revealed today will
certainly fly in the face of accepted theology. These words resounded deeply
within my heart; perhaps they will ring true within yours as well: “Before I
formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”