God called Jeremiah to be His prophet in about 626 BC, about one year after Josiah, king of Judah, had turned Judah away from idolatry and toward God. However so thirsty for false idols was Judah that quickly after Josiah's death they immediately returned to worshiping the idols of foreign countries and returned to child sacrifice.
Jeremiah's ministry was one of preaching against false prophets causing him to become persecuted. He laments the difficulty of speaking God's word and is full of regret that being a prophet of the one true God has caused him to be a laughingstock and a target for physical persecution. He was beaten, put in stocks, and thrown down a well, all for preaching the word of God.
One wonders how a Word-Of-Faith preacher like Joel Osteen or Creflo Dollar will do when alone and confronted by someone who threatens physical violence for preaching the word of God. Jeremiah tried to warn Judah of the coming tidal wave of retribution that God was handing out in the form of the Babylonian empire, and for his efforts of following God's word and trying to turn the Jews back to God, Jeremiah was physically assaulted, nearly killed, and treated like a pariah. I don't know for sure but I'm willing to bet that when Babylon rolled over Jerusalem, not a whole lot of people went up to Jeremiah and said "Gee, you were right."
What Jeremiah went through was an ancient echo of what is going to happen to us as God's plan unfolds. When you look at what is happening in the church, or what passes for the church now, Jeremiah's words become chilling:
What Jeremiah went through was an ancient echo of what is going to happen to us as God's plan unfolds. When you look at what is happening in the church, or what passes for the church now, Jeremiah's words become chilling:
30 “An appalling and horrible thing Has happened in the land: 31 The prophets prophesy falsely, And the priests rule on their own authority; And My people love it so! But what will you do at the end of it? (Jeremiah 5:30-31)
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