Jeremiah was called into the prophetic office at an early age. When God called him, he tried to excuse himself by saying that he was just a child. However, God told him that He was going to put His Word in Jeremiah’s mouth and that it would be his responsibility to proclaim that Word to His people. According to Jeremiah 1:10, he was set by God over the nations and over the kingdoms, and by the command of the Lord he was “To root smoulders and to pull down, To destroy and to throw down, To build and to plant.” Jeremiah was instructed by God to “not be afraid of their face,” indicating that the people to whom he was sent would be hard of heart and have their faces set against any messenger who would try to change them.
Jeremiah’s message was not one of “suggestion,” of which we hear so much today. It was a message that laid it on the line to idolaters, ungodly priests and false prophets. A sample of his style is seen in 5:30-31 where he observed, “An astonishing and horrible thing Has been committed in the land: The prophets prophesy falsely, And the priests rule by their own power; And My people love to have it so. But what will you do in the end?” This great prophet called God’s people to “stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and to walk in it. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it’” (Jeremiah 6:16).
After going to the people, being threatened by them and told by them that they had no intention of listening to his preaching, he determined that he would quit. Beginning in verse seven of chapter 20, Jeremiah made his complaint to the Lord, reminding Him because of his preaching what the Lord commanded that he was made “a reproach and a derision daily.” In verse nine, he voiced his determination in the following way. “Then I said, ‘I will not make mention of Him, nor speak anymore in His name.” The next word in the text is “but.” This word lets one know that he is to look for a contrast. The words that follow the word “but” have been a source of encouragement to many preachers, teachers and others. The prophet continued, “But His word was in my heart like a burning fire Shut up in my bones; I was weary of holding it back, And I could not.” So intense was Jeremiah’s love for God’s Word that it burned in him like a fire in his bones. His love for God’s people caused him to realize that he neither could nor would hold back the proclamation of it.
Where is our “fire” today? There are those in the church today who have a fire to be like all the denominations around us. Their hearts are as cold as ice concerning the biblical teaching of the oneness of the church. Their interests are no longer focused on what pleases God but on what makes one feel good. Their remedy for this is like those of Ephraim who had “joined” themselves to idols (Hosea 4:17); instead, they joined themselves to the false doctrines of men. To them it is much better to have the ear soothed with machinery in worship and to have the fellowship of men than it is to be pleasing to God by obeying His Word.
There are others whose fire is the obtaining of material goods or of participating in the things of the world. Their fire smolders on a Sunday morning, but soon after leaving the meetinghouse, the fire dies, to be revived a week later, if something more interesting doesn’t attract them.
If a fire isn’t kindled in us by the Word of the Lord that causes us to be more zealous for His cause, we can be assured that on that great and final day that we will be “on fire” in the place where the worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched. Brother, sister or friend, where is your fire? Is there in you a burning fire in your bones to find and to obey the truth, then to walk in that truth? Will you not rekindle it today before it dies and you die with it?
