By Mark W. Christy, PhD
Jer 26: 11 – “Then the priests and the prophets spoke to the officials and to all the people, saying, “A death sentence for this man! For he has prophesied against this city as you have heard in your hearing.”[i]
Today, many people want words of hope and positivity. When they come to church, they want their batteries recharged. They want to depart from their time of worship with an emotional high and heart filled with an upbeat word. In this context, preachers, who speak the full word of God including all aspects of the gospel, even the undesirable elements, are tempted to tone down anything that may be considered overly invasive, judgmental, or harsh. Instead of preaching divine judgement on sin and the need for repentance, many preachers would rather overlook sin or at least generalize it by referring to it as mistakes or weaknesses. Should a minister dare to openly confront his congregation with any of these less pleasing elements of God’s word, he is almost assuredly going to be chided and derided for his perceived harsh, unloving, and ungraceful spirit. Thankfully, God has given such a minister an example from the Old Testament to look to for encouragement.
In his ministry, Jeremiah was called to bring a hard word from God. Specifically, he had the difficult task of bringing a word of judgement against Judah, a word of invasion by Babylon, and a word of exile. Along with these harsh prophesies, Jeremiah had to confront God’s people in their sins which included even the sacrificing of the children to Molech (Jer 32:35).
Despite such obvious perversity, the people of God maintained their innocence and viewed themselves as sinless (2:35). While God was sending a messenger to proclaim judgement, they were looking for a message of glad tidings and hope. Given Jeremiah’s faithful submission to God’s Word, he was rewarded by God’s people with rejection (7:27; 13:10; 17:23; 18:12; 19:15), a beating and confinement in stocks (10:1-2), a death sentence (26:11), an attempt on his life (38:6), and slander (43:2).
The deplorable treatment of a divinely commissioned man of God was due to His message. While his words were indeed the truth (as hindsight now makes this abundantly clear), God’s people, blinded in their sin, were looking for a message of hope, one like that pronounced by the false prophet Hananiah. In his pronouncement, Hananiah ensured his listeners that God would remove Babylon’s hold over Judah, restore the Temple properties, and return the exiles (28). His message of peace and glad tidings was a message of hope in a time when God’s people desperately wanted hope. Sadly, his hopeful prophetic discourse was no more than lies from the pit of hell from the heart of a person who had no peace with God.
Unlike Hananiah, Jeremiah was God’s chosen instrument who loved God, loved His people, and yearned for them to be blessed. Though he was tasked with bringing a word of judgement, he sought the peace and restoration of God’s people in his call for them to repent (18:11). Moreover, he proclaimed the coming of a new covenant: “I will put My law within them and on their hearts I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more” (31:33-34). Instead of hearing Jeremiah’s call to repentance and his promise of a new covenant, the darkened hearts of his hearers heard only judgement. Since their sin had blinded them to their fallen condition, they interpreted God’s message of truth as harsh words of hopelessness from a false prophet. In the end, the truth of Jeremiah’s words came to pass and judgement fell upon Judah.
[i]All Scripture references are from NASB1995.