- Man, Jeremiah chapter number 20
is a really fascinating chapter
because I think it really shows Jeremiah,
who's been sometimes known as the weeping prophet.
He's the author of Lamentations,
but I feel like we really see him at a low point here.
And what's interesting about this
is that we really get an insight
into what's going on inside his mind and inside his heart,
because obviously he's got a public ministry
where he's out there preaching the word of God,
and he's dealing with false prophets like pasture and others.
But then, you know, we see kind of the struggle
that he's going through in his own mind
and in his own heart as he's very depressed
and at a very low point in his ministry here
after spending a day in the stocks.
Now, I think that this sermon could be appropriate as well
this time of year, because this time of year
can either be the most wonderful time, you know,
for some people, but for some people,
this is actually a depressing time of year.
And so it seems like people can kind of go either way,
either they really like this time of year
or they're enjoying it.
And maybe some years they're enjoying it
and other years they aren't.
It can sometimes highlight, you know,
depressing aspects of our lives or whatever.
It just depends on your situation.
You know, I personally love this time of year
mainly because of the new year.
I really liked the idea of kind of pushing
that reset button, starting over new goals,
new plans for the year.
So that's kind of where my mind is in December.
But I know everybody's different
and different people are going through different things.
And I know that all of us in our lives
are gonna go through these low points
like Jeremiah is going through here.
If you haven't already, you will in the future.
And you're probably gonna go through a bunch of them
because that's unfortunately just the way that life is.
And if even great men of God like Elijah and Jonah
and Jeremiah went through periods like this,
well, chances are we're gonna experience this as well.
And I think there's a lot we can learn here
from what Jeremiah is dealing with.
Now let's start out with just the basic story
that sets up what Jeremiah has to say.
So Pasher, the son of Imur the priest,
this bogus, false prophet, this phony,
this enemy of the word of God, enemy of righteousness.
It says in verse two that Pasher smote Jeremiah the prophet
and put him in the stocks
that were in the high gate of Benjamin,
which was by the house of the Lord.
And it came to pass on the morrow
that Pasher brought forth Jeremiah out of the stocks.
And what you may or may not understand about the stocks
is that this is something that's very uncomfortable, right?
And what I'm picturing,
and obviously we don't know exactly the culture
of when this happened,
but what I'm picturing with the stocks
is that thing that we often see
like in a cartoon or something
where the guy's got the head through the thing
and he's got his arms in it
and they're throwing tomatoes at him or whatever.
So I don't know exactly what this is,
but I'll guarantee you it's something physically awkward,
physically uncomfortable, physically torturous
and also publicly humiliating.
Notice he's in the high gate, he's in the stocks,
he's being publicly humiliated,
he's going through pain and suffering physically
and this experience only lasts for one day.
But let me tell you something,
you know, when you're being tormented,
that can be a pretty long day, you know?
And so he goes through this experience on this day
and so this is a low point for him
because he's very upset about having to go through this.
This was a big deal to him at the time,
being in the stocks for one day.
And so the first thing he does
when he comes out of the stocks
is he gives a piece of his mind
to this worthless jerk that put him in the stocks.
He's pretty mad at that guy, obviously,
who smote him and put him in there.
And so it says halfway through verse three,
then said Jeremiah to him,
the Lord had not called thy name pasture,
but Magor Mesebib.
You know, you want to talk about name-calling in the Bible.
Some people get super offended by name-calling,
but Jeremiah is doing some name-calling.
Oh yeah, Magor Mesebib.
For thus saith the Lord,
behold, I will make thee a terror to thyself
and to all thy friends,
and they shall fall by the sword of their enemies,
and then I shall behold it,
and I will give all Judah
into the hand of the King of Babylon,
and he shall carry them captive into Babylon,
and shall slay them with the sword.
Moreover, I will deliver all the strength of this city
and all the labors thereof,
and all the precious things thereof,
and all the treasures of the Kings of Judah
will I give into the hand of their enemies,
which shall spoil them and take them
and carry them to Babylon.
And thou, pasture,
and all that dwell in thy house shall go into captivity,
and thou shall come to Babylon,
and there thou shall die and shall be buried there,
thou and all thy friends to whom thou has prophesied lies.
Right, so I mean, he's mad and he comes out of this thing
and he's ripping on this guy who put him there and says,
you're gonna die, your friends are gonna die,
you're a liar, you're a false teacher,
you're not a prophet of the Lord.
Right, so he lashes out at this guy.
So if you're reading the scripture up to this point,
you think that Jeremiah is just a pretty tough guy.
You know, it's like he goes through this
torturous day in the stocks.
And then he comes out and he's just like,
I'm not gonna tone down my preaching at all.
In fact, I'm gonna preach the hardest sermon ever
against the guy who just put me in here.
But what's interesting is that
the chapter doesn't stop there.
You know, the Bible isn't just this book
about just these mega superheroes
who are just always feeling great,
always just, you know, filled with faith
in the Holy Ghost and just ready to, you know,
fight against the devil and everything like that.
Obviously we're talking about a real human being here
with Jeremiah.
So he comes out of the Starks and, you know,
he preaches this hell fire and damnation sermon
against the guy who put him there.
But then look at the very next breath.
He's like, you're a liar, you're a false prophet.
God's gonna punish you.
That all sounds great.
Total faith in the Lord, fullness of the Holy Spirit,
standing his ground, standing on the word of God,
calling out false teaching, calling out the false prophets.
But then look at the very next breath in verse seven.
Oh Lord, this is when he gets back by himself now.
He's like, oh Lord, thou hast deceived me
and I was deceived.
Now he's singing a little different tune in private here
than what he said publicly, right?
He says, oh Lord, thou hast deceived me and I was deceived.
Thou art stronger than I and hast prevailed.
I'm in derision daily, everyone mocketh me.
For since I spake, I cried out, I cried.
Violence is spoiled because the word of the Lord
was made a reproach unto me and a derision daily.
So now he's upset, he's traumatized
from being in the stocks.
He goes to the Lord in prayer and he complains to God, right?
And obviously complaining is not necessarily the best thing.
We shouldn't be complaining.
But here's the thing, if you're gonna complain,
complain to God, not other people, right?
Because when the Bible says, you know,
the people complained and it displeased the Lord,
these are people publicly complaining,
complaining to other people, whining.
Obviously just going around and complaining to everybody
is annoying to the people around you.
And it's also sending the wrong message
to the people around you.
Seems like you're being ungrateful to God.
You're not rejoicing in the Lord.
You know, you're not trusting in the promises of God.
But obviously because we're human and we're not perfect,
we're gonna have those thoughts.
We're gonna have those feelings.
We're gonna feel sorry for ourselves.
That's why we should take that stuff
to the Lord in prayer, okay?
So you think about the song, you know,
♪ Are you weary, are you heavy hearted ♪
♪ Tell it to Jesus, tell it to Jesus ♪
And then here's how the song goes,
♪ Tell it to Jesus alone ♪
What's the, you know, just tell it to Jesus, all right?
Because people don't wanna hear, obviously,
constant complaining about what you're going through.
So it's good to tell those things to the Lord in prayer.
And so he's really upset.
Now he seemed pretty upset when he was talking to Pasher
in a different way, angry.
But when he's talking to the Lord here,
he seems pretty despondent to me.
He seems like he is in despair here.
And he used some pretty strong language here.
Oh Lord, thou hast deceived me and I was deceived.
What does he mean by that?
Well, first of all, remember,
this is not a statement of absolute fact
that God deceived Jeremiah.
This is Jeremiah saying that that's how he feels, right?
Like you've deceived me.
This is Jeremiah talking to God.
And obviously we know that God can't lie, okay?
So God's not a deceiver.
We know that.
But the idea here is that Jeremiah feels like
he's gotten all these promises from God.
God told him at the very beginning of the book of Jeremiah
that God's gonna be with him
and he's gonna be able to protect him
and he's gonna be able to stand before all the kings
and rulers and all these great men and whatever.
And if you remember in Jeremiah chapter one,
Jeremiah was reluctant to serve God in the first place.
And God has to talk Jeremiah into being a prophet,
being a preacher, 'cause he didn't really want the job.
He said, "Oh, I'm a child, I can't speak."
And God's telling him, "Say not, I'm a child.
"You're gonna go wherever I send you."
And so God talks him into it.
And so Jeremiah is saying basically,
you know, where are the promises?
Where is the protection of God?
Where is the power of God?
You know, it's sort of like what Gideon says
when the angel Lord comes to Gideon and says,
"The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valor."
And he says, "Well, if the Lord be with us,
"then where be all his miracles?"
You know, it's kind of the same idea
where Elisha says, "Where is the Lord God of Elijah?"
And so Jeremiah is saying, "What's the deal here?
"You've promised me that you're gonna bless me,
"that you're gonna protect me,
"that you're gonna take care of me,
"and yet here I'm going through
"this horrible trial and tribulation.
"It doesn't feel like you've made good
"on your promises here.
"It's like I've been ripped off."
Now, obviously Jeremiah has not been ripped off.
We have not been ripped off.
God has not deceived us.
God has not treated us unfairly,
but it sure feels that way sometimes, right?
That we feel like, "Hey, what's the deal?
"I thought that things were gonna turn out better.
"I thought that things were gonna turn out differently.
"I thought that I was gonna be blessed by God
"for doing the right thing."
And look what's happening.
We all are gonna go through these low points.
Think about the children of Israel in Egypt.
Things got worse before they got better.
You know, Moses shows up to deliver them.
They get on board with the man of God.
They get on board with the promises of God to be delivered.
But in the short term, things get worse
and they have to go gather the straw by night
so they can make the bricks by day.
And he said, man, you put a sword in the hand
of the Egyptians to slay us with.
You've made us to stink before the Egyptians.
And so often we're gonna go through those really low points
where it feels like God is not answering our prayer.
God is not coming through for us.
God is not blessing us.
But what we have to understand is that the story isn't over.
If we keep reading in the book of Jeremiah,
we're gonna find out that when pasture and all his buddies
are going to Babylon to die there,
you know, Babylon, or excuse me.
Yeah, the Babylonian captain is handing Jeremiah money
and telling him, man, you can go wherever you want.
You wanna live here, you wanna live there.
Here's some money.
You know, Jeremiah ends up okay,
especially in comparison with the bad guys.
He ends up actually doing pretty good.
You know, consider the end of Job.
Not necessarily, obviously at the time
did it seem like God was blessing Job,
but God blessed the latter end of Job.
You've seen the end of the Lord.
And so you have to think about the fact
that the story's not over.
But I think we've all probably been at a point
where we feel like we have got a bum deal,
where we got the short end of the stick,
where we haven't been treated fairly,
where it doesn't seem like God came through on his promises.
And that's what Jeremiah is saying.
You know, you deceived me and I was deceived.
He's saying, you know, you prevailed over me.
You're stronger than I.
Look at verse seven.
Now it's stronger than I and has prevailed, right?
Because basically what he's saying is, you know,
you talked me into doing this job.
You prevailed upon me to do this.
You were stronger than me.
I didn't want to do it.
I said no, but you pushed me into doing this.
And I feel like I got ripped off that I've been deceived.
Where are the promises?
Where's the protection?
Where are the blessings?
What's going on?
Now look, personally, I like to see stuff like this
in the Bible because it matches reality.
You know, it's funny when you're out soul winning,
you always run into that guy who's like,
you know, I don't believe in God
'cause you know, I went over to Vietnam
and I saw some stuff and whatever.
It's like, well, hold up.
Did the Bible talk about the world being a place
of just unicorns, rainbows, and sweetness and light?
Because if the Bible was all sweetness and light,
and then you went and saw a bunch of rough things
in Vietnam, I could see why that would make you question
the reality of the Bible.
But guess what?
The Bible has some really gnarly things.
So if you went and saw some gnarly stuff in Vietnam,
that checks out.
That tracks with what I'm reading in the Bible,
that the heart is deceitful above all things
and desperately wicked, that all the thoughts
of the imaginations of man's heart from his youth up
are only evil continually, that man without the Holy Spirit,
man without being regenerated, without being saved,
without Christ in his heart, is going
to be a rotten person capable of all kinds of horrible things.
And even saved Christians, if they're not
walking in the spirit, if they're walking in the flesh,
they're capable of a bunch of horrible things too.
Therefore, the world ends up being a horrible place
in many ways.
We live in one of the best parts of it, thank God.
But man, other places of this world,
the Bible says the dark places of the earth
are full of the habitations of cruelty.
And so obviously, if we see gnarly things in this world,
that matches up with what we see in the Bible.
And when I see the man of God despairing,
when I see people getting frustrated in the Bible,
it just lets me know that the characters in the Bible
are real people.
They're not super humans that I can't relate with.
Like, oh, sure, Jeremiah, he's just the Superman.
Now, Jeremiah is a man of like passions to you and me.
Elijah was a man of like passions,
like we are, the Bible says.
And yet he prayed earnestly that it might not rain,
and it rained not on the earth by the space
of three years and six months.
He prayed again, and the heaven gave rain,
and the earth brought forth a fruit.
Hey, God uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things,
and that should be encouraging to us.
Say, hey, I don't have to be perfect.
I don't have to be special.
I don't have to be unique or special.
God can use a Christian who wants to be used.
And if you're going through a low point, join the club.
And don't just think like,
oh, there's something wrong with me.
I'm so depressed,
and everybody else has it so good and so easy.
Well, really?
Because in the Bible,
I'm seeing a lot of despondency and despair,
even from great people.
That's just life.
Life has those seasons.
And so, very startling words from Jeremiah
when he says, "Thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived.
Thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed."
Then he kind of explains what the problem is
from his perspective.
I'm in derision daily.
You say, "What's derision mean?"
Well, you know, it's pretty much defined
in the next phrase, "Everyone mock at me."
So he's saying, you know, everybody is making fun of me.
Everybody's mocking me.
Everybody's ridiculing.
People aren't taking me seriously, you know?
And here's the thing about human beings,
they want to be respected.
Especially we as men, we really want to be respected.
In our homes, in our marriage,
we want our wives to respect us.
This is the number one instruction given to husbands
is to love their wives.
And the number one instruction to wives
is that she reverence her husband, right?
Because women, they really want to feel loved.
Yeah, sure, men, we want to feel loved too,
but we really want to be respected.
And women want to be respected too,
but they really want to be loved.
And so at the end of the day, human beings want respect.
When Jesus died on the cross,
the Bible says he despised the shame.
He didn't like being humiliated.
No one likes being humiliated.
We want to be respected at our job.
When we go to our job, if we work hard
to gain certain skills and get good at our job,
we want the people around us to respect us
as an electrician, or as a plumber,
or as a carpenter, as a computer programmer.
We want to be respected in our field.
That's normal.
I'm not talking about having some big overinflated ego.
Obviously that can get out of control.
I'm just saying a normal human being
wants his wife to respect him.
He wants his coworkers to respect him.
He wants his underlings to respect him.
He wants his boss at work to respect his abilities
and his work and everything.
It's just pretty normal.
You know, nobody wants to be made fun of,
mocked, derided, and ridiculed every day.
You know, in Jeremiah, he just finished
the worst kind of a ridicule session
where he's in the stocks, locked up,
put in a humiliating, stupid position,
and having people make fun of him all day.
And he can't just close the browser window,
turn it off, go in his room, shut the door.
He's publicly locked out there to just be mocked
and humiliated for a full day.
Obviously this has gotten to him.
It's gotten through and made him very upset.
And so he says, "Man, this is not what I signed up for.
You've deceived me.
That army recruiter lied to me, you know?
The ministry recruiter lied to me
about what it was gonna be like being a preacher."
He said, "Man, everybody mocks me."
Verse eight, "For since I spake, I cried out,
I cried violence and spoil because the word of the Lord
was made a reproach unto me and a derision daily.
Then I said, I will not make mention of him
nor speak anymore in his name."
He's just like, that's it, you know what?
I'm done, I'm sick of it.
Everybody's making fun of me every single day.
Nobody's listening, bunch of idiots.
You know what?
Nuts to it, I'm done is what he says.
He says, I'm not gonna make mention of his name anymore.
You know, if God wants me in the ministry,
then you know, it's not gonna be able to be this way.
And so he says, that's it.
I'm not gonna make mention of him.
I'm not gonna speak anymore in his name,
but his word was in my heart as a burning fire
shut up in my bones and I was weary with forbearing
and I could not stay.
I mean, this is a really famous verse of course,
but it's even better when you get it
in the context of the story.
You know, he's just so upset
about this experience that he had.
He's just like, that's it, this stinks.
I quit, I'm done preaching.
I'm not even gonna mention the name of God anymore.
It's over, I'm done.
And then he's just like, dude, I just have to preach.
I just can't help but preach the word of God.
And you know, one of the things that I think
that we could learn from this is that we as Christians,
we need to get the word of God so saturated
into our hearts and lives.
It's just such a part of us that it just can't be removed
and that we are so filled with the Holy Spirit
that we just can't help but speak the word of God.
We just can't help but give the gospel.
We just can't help but win souls.
We just can't help but speak God's word
because it's just who we are.
And we just can't stop, we can't forbear.
Even if we got bitter and mad and just said that's it,
I'm done soul winning, I'm done preaching on me,
and then it's just like, ah, we have to do it.
We just can't stop because it's just who we are.
You see, we all have kind of like an autopilot,
'cause a lot of the decisions that we make in our lives
are obviously conscious decisions.
We decide to go here, do this, say this,
but then a lot of things that we do,
we kind of just do them without really thinking that much.
You know, you just kind of, like, did you really,
I hope you didn't wake up this morning and decide like,
I'm going to church today.
You know, I hope that you just got up
and just kind of came to church on autopilot, right?
And I would say most people in this room,
they didn't just go like, dog gone it,
I'm going to that evening service.
Honey, we're going to church tonight.
What, what?
You know, no, actually most people
are just kind of on a routine autopilot.
Yep, Sunday, it's church day.
Let's go.
You're not really, you're just on autopilot.
Just autopilot is Sunday morning, Sunday night,
Wednesday night, autopilot reading my Bible,
autopilot praying, autopilot singing hymns.
Hey, that's the way that we should be
to where that shows our default mode, right?
And here's the thing, a lot of times, you know,
let's say you practice a certain swim stroke
or something, right?
But if you're throwing in the water,
you're going to kind of default to something
that you're not really thinking as much about,
but hopefully you've practiced the right stroke enough
to where it just kind of naturally comes to you, right?
Now, if you throw an untrained person in the water,
they're going to be flailing and doggie paddling
and whatever.
You get a little bit of instruction,
and while you're being trained,
you're really thinking really carefully about every movement
and what you're doing with your feet and your hands
and everything.
But then when you're kind of not thinking,
you get sloppy and you default to something stupid.
But then if you keep practicing enough,
pretty soon you're defaulting to the perfect form
and you just swim perfectly
without even thinking about it, without even trying,
'cause that's just how you do it.
And we could really plug in any other sport,
whether it's a certain running form,
whether it's boxing or whatever sports you do,
eventually doing it the right way becomes the default.
Whereas when you first start,
maybe like you start playing the guitar or something
and you're holding the guitar wrong
and somebody says like, no, no, no,
you gotta hold it like this.
And then all of a sudden it's like,
it's really awkward, this new form.
But then after a while, that becomes the default.
That, and then the other way feels wrong.
Does everybody know what I'm saying?
We need to get to where living right is the default.
That's just what feels normal.
It's not like some big effort.
It's not some big challenge.
It's not some big decision where it's just who we are
to follow God, follow the Bible, read our Bibles,
pray, go to church.
That's just how we act, what we do.
That's our default setting and that it's awkward
to try to do the wrong things, you know?
And obviously nobody's gonna be perfect at this,
but I think you understand what I'm saying.
I think if I walked into a bar or a casino
or a nightclub, I'd feel pretty awkward.
I'd be kinda like, you know, what do I do here?
What is this?
What's going on?
Amen, I don't wanna fit in a place like that.
I don't wanna get used to going to places like that
or get comfortable in a place like that.
But if I walked into a church,
I'm just totally at home, church is my thing.
Whereas some people probably feel like
a little bit of a fish out of water
when they come into church.
And they're totally comfortable down at the casino,
they're totally comfortable down at the bar or whatever,
walking into churches a little bit.
We wanna get to where our default settings
are as right as possible.
None of us are ever gonna be perfect,
but we wanna constantly be improving in this area.
And I think that Jeremiah is a guy
where all he knows how to do is serve God.
All he knows how to do is preach hard sermons.
All he knows how to do is go soul winning.
You know, it's just like, so no matter what,
you throw him in a situation
and when he's just panicking or upset or whatever,
his autopilot is to do the right thing.
And think about Job.
I mean, Job loses everything.
And obviously some of this is actually directly quoted
from the book of Job,
or obviously it's not necessarily quoting it,
but it's saying the exact same things that Job is saying.
And the point is that Job ends up losing everything, right?
He has 10 kids, they all die.
His wife is treating him like garbage,
telling him bless God and die, right?
Curse God and die.
And basically just telling him to just eat whatever
and die, basically, in modern vernacular.
Basically, she's blowing him off, the kids are dead,
all of his wealth is gone.
And again, people are looking down on him,
not respecting him, making fun of him.
He talks about, toward the end of the book of Job,
people that are low class,
people laughing at him and making fun of him.
Whereas those people, he would have had nothing to do
with them 'cause he was like a classroom,
now they're making fun of him.
So Job is going through just the worst situation,
and he's physically hurting and everything,
but what's his default setting?
What's his knee-jerk reaction?
Like no time to think, just he's thrown into,
I mean, here's the thing, you're gonna be in shock
if your 10 kids just died, you just lost all your money,
aren't you gonna be in shock?
So he's in shock, he doesn't have time to plan
or think, he just reacts.
And what's his reaction?
Naked came I out of my mother's womb
and naked shall I return thither.
The Lord gave and the Lord took away.
Blessed be the name of the Lord.
That's the default mode for him, because that's who he is.
So his knee-jerk reaction is to just say, you know what?
God's good anyway, I'm just gonna trust God,
though he slay me, yet will I trust him.
And obviously he does some complaining,
like Jeremiah does, and he's upset, he's human,
he's feeling it, but his default is to do right.
And so Jeremiah, his default is preaching the word of God.
He can't just decide, well, I'm just gonna go through life
not preaching anymore, not soulening anymore,
not talking about the Bible.
I'm not even gonna mention the name of the Lord again.
A guy like Jeremiah just can't do that.
And you know what, that's how we need to be,
where it's just who we are.
No matter how discouraged we get,
no matter how bad things get, no matter what we face,
no matter what trials and tribulations,
it's just, of course we go to church,
of course we read our Bibles,
of course we preach the gospel,
of course we live a clean life.
That's how we need to be.
And I think that's one thing
that we learned from this passage,
trying to quit on God and he can't even quit,
just not happening for him.
And that, you know, would to God we would all be like that.
We just can't stop, we just can't quit.
Look, we've spent our whole lives seeing people quit.
How many people have quit the church over the years,
quit soul winning, quit serving God,
quit preaching, whatever, a lot.
You know, we want to get to the point
where we're not going to quit.
You know, we can't, we couldn't quit if we wanted to,
want to be addicted to the ministry.
And so he says in verse number 10,
"For I heard the defaming of many, fear on every side."
Verse 10, "Reports say they, and we will report it.
All my familiars watched for my halting,
saying peradventure he will be enticed
and we shall prevail against him
and we shall take our revenge on him."
You know, it's one thing to be out there publicly humiliated
in the public square, in the stocks,
made fun of publicly by unsafe people,
by worldly people, by the general public.
How about when it's coming from your own family?
How about when it's coming from your own close friends?
How about when it's coming from people living in your house?
And what does he say?
He says, "My familiars."
Okay, who are his familiars?
This could be relatives.
That's probably what this means.
Relatives, family members, could be close friends,
whatever they are, these are not strangers.
These are people close to him.
And what are they doing?
What are his familiars?
And how many of his familiars?
Is it some of them?
Is it a few of them?
All my familiars.
Now, maybe he's exaggerating
'cause he's going through a bad time,
but it's gotta be a lot of people for him to say that.
Okay, he says, "All my familiars,
they're just cheering for me to crash and burn."
I mean, isn't that terrible?
I mean, how would you like your mom and dad
to be cheering for you to crash and burn?
Or your brother and sister
cheering for you to crash and burn?
How would you like your close friends,
neighbors, relatives, just hoping that you will fall?
That's terrible, isn't it?
You know, I thank God that my parents
have always loved me, supported me.
They've always been super encouraging,
and they've always been there for me
when I'm going through bad times.
You know, but I can imagine it'd be pretty bad
if they weren't, but you know what?
I've had other family members turn on me,
other relatives disappoint me and be complete enemies.
And you know what?
It's very hard to deal with compared to just random people.
It's sort of like, you know,
in those prophecies in the book of Psalms,
where he's saying, you know,
if it would have been somebody else,
but it's like, but you, but thou, you betrayed me.
You know, and it's, it's a foreshadowing of Judas,
you know, in Psalm 109.
And he's cursing Judas and, and let his days be few
and let another take his office.
That's of course quoted in the book of Acts.
But you know, man, when somebody close to us
stabbed us in the back, close buddies, best friends,
whatever, man, that hurts.
But you know what?
There's no temptation taking you,
but such as is common to man.
Cause Jeremiah went through the same thing
where all my familiars, he said, watched for my halting.
They're just, they're just waiting for me to trip up.
They're just waiting and hoping that I'll screw up.
Wow. What does the Bible say in the New Testament?
A prophet is not without honor,
save in his own country and in his own house.
That's just the reality of life.
Remember Jesus, his own brethren,
all of his brothers making fun of him,
not believing in him, ridiculing him,
and seemingly even wanting him dead.
And we know one guy's brothers really wanted him dead,
Joseph, because they were ready to,
they were ready to murder him.
But then they decide, well, instead of murdering him,
let's make a little money.
You know, they talked about murdering him.
Then they're like, well, we'll just sell him into slavery,
which, you know, that could sometimes
be a fate worse than death.
Who knows where you're gonna be taken
when you're human trafficked to some foreign country?
That could be worse than dying, who knows?
You know, God, of course, was with Joseph,
but they didn't know how that was gonna turn out
when they sent him off like that.
But it says that they're all just waiting
for him to fall, saying, her adventure,
that means maybe, verse 10, halfway through,
he will be enticed, and we shall prevail against him,
and we shall take our revenge on him.
Now, look, what did he even do to these people
that they have to get revenge on him?
You know, basically preaching the word of God
just offended them so much, they gotta take revenge, okay?
But the Lord is with me.
You know, so Jeremiah, he still believes,
and he still knows that God's on his side.
The Lord is with me as a mighty, terrible one.
Therefore, my persecutors shall stumble,
and they shall not prevail.
They shall be greatly ashamed, for they shall not prosper.
Their everlasting confusion shall never be forgotten.
So you can again get that vibe of how he's feeling
when he gets out of the stocks.
The way he talked to Pastor,
he's kind of talking that way again about these enemies.
So what I want you to see in this chapter
is kind of the emotional roller coaster here, okay?
Because it's like, he starts out at this high point,
ripping Pastor, a new one,
when he gets out of the stocks, right?
But then he's like, oh man, God, you've deceived me,
and I was deceived, and everybody's making fun of me,
and whatever, you know?
But then he's just like, man, I'm not,
in fact, I'm so done,
I'm not even gonna preach the word of God anymore.
I'm not even gonna mention the name of God anymore.
I'm done, but then he's like, oh, I have to.
And then all of a sudden now he's back up here again,
saying, God is with me.
The Lord's on my side.
He's like a mighty, terrible one.
And so everybody should be shaking in their boots
about God who's gonna go to bat for me.
So it's like, he's back up here again, right?
You think he's just gonna stay up here
for the rest of the chapter?
The way I asked that question
is clearly not gonna be that way, and we already read it.
So spoiler, already happened before the service.
But it says, "The Lord's with me as a mighty, terrible one."
Verse 12, "But O Lord of hosts that try us the righteous
and see us the reigns in the heart,
let me see thy vengeance on them.
For unto thee have I opened my cause."
He's saying, "God, please avenge me."
Right, we think of the famous Psalm.
"Unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.
O my God, I trust in thee.
Let me not be ashamed.
Let not mine enemies triumph over me."
And then he says in verse 13,
and this verse 13 shows total faith in God's promises.
He was doubting the promises of God earlier
'cause he said, "Oh, you've deceived me, Lord,
and I was deceived."
You know, what's going on, God?
Now he's coming back with faith saying,
"Sing unto the Lord, praise ye the Lord,
for he hath delivered the soul of the poor
from the hand of the evildoers."
I mean, in verse 13, Jeremiah is so confident
in what the Lord's gonna do, it's already done for him.
In verse 13, it's like the enemies have already been punished.
I've already been blessed.
I've already gotten the happy ending here.
He's just like, it's a done deal.
It's good to go.
So we're up here on the roller coaster, right?
Then in verse 14, it's like,
"Cursed be the day wherein I was born."
(screams)
"Let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed."
So look, you can see the back and forth here
between despair, trusting in the promises of God,
despair, trusting in the promises of God.
And here's what I think is going on.
I think that his situation is calling for despair,
but he keeps defaulting to the promises of God.
Kind of gets back to that concept
that I was talking about earlier
about your default settings.
And I think that because he's so filled with the Spirit,
he's so inundated with the Word of God,
he's been such a man of faith for so long
that he just can't help but just keep just believing
the Bible and just believing the Word of God
and just knowing that God's gonna come through.
But then the situation is making him despair.
So it's like he despairs
and then his training kicks in, as it were.
And now all of a sudden he trusts God again.
But in verse 14, we're back to despair, aren't we?
And this is the part that is extremely similar
to Job chapter three.
Curse it be the day wherein I was born.
Let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed.
Curse it be the man who brought tidings to my father,
saying, "A man child is born unto thee,"
making him very glad.
You know, it's kind of messed up to curse this guy.
This part always cracks me up,
like, why is it that guy's fault?
Like, the guy who came and told the news,
like, "It's a boy when I was born."
He's just, I mean, he's just, he's so mad,
he's so despondent, he's so despairing.
He's like, "Man, I wish I'd never even been born."
And in fact, curse it be the guy who announced my birth.
Curse it be the doctor that delivered me.
Or it's like, whoa, what's the deal, man?
Why is it his fault?
Curse it be the man who brought tidings to my father,
saying, "A man child is born unto thee,"
making him very glad.
Again, I don't think that this really makes sense.
You know, I think that what he says
about the Lord being a mighty terrible one
and going to bat for him, that makes a lot of sense.
Singing to the Lord because he elevated the lowly
and brought down the proud, that makes a lot of sense.
It doesn't really make a whole lot of sense
to say, "Curse it be the guy who announced my birth."
The guy, I mean, talk about killing the messenger.
But again, what are we expressing here?
Just total frustration, anger.
And here's the thing, when people are going through
a bad time, they're gonna lash out.
They're gonna despair.
They're gonna lash out.
Remember the sermon from this morning?
Comfort the feeble-minded?
You know, when people are experiencing times of weakness,
you know, sometimes we gotta come alongside those people,
strengthen them, comfort them,
and not just say, oh, I don't like the way you're reacting.
I don't like the way you're acting right now.
You know, it'd be sort of like if your wife's in labor.
Here's a good illustration.
If your wife's in labor and she's in an extreme amount of pain,
she might be yelling, screaming,
saying things that are terrible things.
And look, my wife doesn't tend to do this at all.
But like, I remember when my first child was born
being in the hospital,
the woman next door was saying all kinds of wild things.
I mean, she's just screaming profanity
at the top of her lungs and just screaming at her husband.
She was cursing everybody, you know,
everybody who brought tidings about everything ever.
And so this woman was screaming and yelling
and saying all these wild things.
And you know what I didn't think to myself?
What a horrible person.
Cannot believe the mouth on this woman.
You know, I was just thinking to myself,
hey, you know what?
She's giving birth, she's yelling stuff, whatever.
I'm not saying I condone it.
I'm not saying that it's great,
but at the same time,
I'm not gonna just stand in judgment
and look down upon her for getting mad
and yelling stuff while she's giving birth.
You know, and here's the thing,
when you go through extreme pain and suffering
and when other people,
you know, give people some slack is what I'm saying.
You know, and I'm thankful that, you know,
when I've gone through hard times and I was upset
and I was kind of in Jeremiah 20 mode sometime,
'cause I've been in Jeremiah 20 mode,
and when I've called pastor friends or relatives
in Jeremiah 20 mode, you know,
I'm glad that they didn't just, you know,
get mad at me and just reject me and not help me
because I was in a bad mood or something.
You know, I'm thankful because, you know,
I'm thinking of my dad in particular
because my dad has been one of the most
helpful people to me in times of crisis,
in difficult times, in times of crisis.
I've called my dad and, you know,
I've said some pretty rough things to my dad.
I'm not saying that they were negative toward him.
I'm saying like, I said rough things to my dad.
And you know what, my dad,
he always stayed really cool and calm
and he like, he heard me out and he listened to me
and he kind of let me vent and kind of let me go crazy
on the phone and say a bunch of wild things.
And then he's like talking me down, giving me wisdom
and not just flipping out like,
"I can't talk to you when you're like this, bye."
He understood that like the reaction was warranted
based on the stuff I was going through.
And so he was patient with me and he listened to me
and he let me vent a little without just telling me,
you're overreacting, stop it.
It's like, is Jeremiah really being totally logical here?
- Cursed be the man who announced my birth,
the one who told my mom it's a boy.
- In fact, not just curse him,
let that man be as the cities which the Lord overthrew.
Turn his butt into Sodom and Gomorrah.
- That's what he's literally saying.
Let him be like the cities that the Lord overthrew.
The cities that the Lord overthrew
are Sodom, Gomorrah, Adma, and Zebulim.
He's saying, turn the one who announced my birth,
make him desolate and a wasteland
and fire and brimstone like Sodom and Gomorrah.
Now that makes no, that's not reasonable necessarily,
but you know what, do you really read this and think,
oh, Jeremiah's a horrible person, how dare he?
Jeremiah's just not loving.
He's just not Christ-like.
He's just a bad person.
No, it's like you haven't walked a mile
in Jeremiah's shoes here.
Just like I hadn't walked a mile in that woman's shoes
who's giving birth, so I'm not just gonna think,
she's a horrible person.
Oh man, imagine being married to that monster or something.
That's not what I'm thinking.
Because I'm just thinking to myself like,
wow, you know, that's kind of funny
that she's going crazy like that, but I get it.
She's in excruciating pain.
She's lashing out.
Different people handle things differently.
And like I said, my wife doesn't tend to do that,
but you know what, if my wife did say something crazy
while she was giving birth or something, you know what,
I'd be pretty forgiving of that.
I wouldn't just be like, oh, you know,
I'm still kind of mad about what you said
while you were dilated to a nine and a half
and just couldn't quite get to the 10,
'cause there was just that little tiny lip of cervix
that just wouldn't go away and the baby's just stuck
and you're stalled at a nine and a half, you know?
And I'm just like, well, you know,
I'm a little offended by what you said.
It's like, what?
You see what I'm saying?
Help people's upset, comfort the feeble-minded,
support the weak, help people out
when they're going through hard time.
And you know, it's not just my dad.
My dad's been that way for me.
But you know what?
Some of my good pastor friends have been that way too,
where I called them up and was upset.
And you know what?
They helped me.
They didn't judge me.
And you know what?
I'm always telling my pastor friends too.
I always tell them, look,
I don't want to be a person that you try to impress.
I always say, impress someone else.
Because I want to be the person who you can be real with,
where you can come to me when you have a problem.
And I don't want you to ever feel like you can't come to me
because I'm judging you or something like that.
I always tell them, I've seen it all.
I've dealt with gnarlier things.
I've seen things that you people couldn't believe.
And so just, hey, whatever you bring at me,
nothing scares me, nothing surprises me.
Like, I'm not gonna judge you.
I love you and I'm gonna help you.
And when you call me, you know that I am gonna help you.
That's all I care about is helping you.
Don't quit the ministry without talking to me first.
Don't do anything drastic.
Don't, you know, just call me and let me help you
and tell me whatever it is
and I'm not gonna freak out about it, right?
And you know what, thankfully, you know,
some of them have taken me up on those things.
And that's the kind of relationship
that I wanna have with my friends.
Not like that I'm the person that you try to impress.
'Cause frankly, when my pastor sent me here
to start a church, you know,
I didn't feel like my pastor really loved me
and cared about me that much.
And it turned out he didn't, so I was right.
But here's the thing, is that I only wanted to impress him.
So basically, the only time I reached out to my pastor
when I was first pastoring, you know,
my sending pastor, my former pastor,
the only time I reached out to him
was just to tell him how good things were going.
So I never told him about the problems,
the headaches, the setbacks.
But when we had like a big day, big attendance,
bunch of salvation's baptism,
that's when I'm sending him letters
and telling him about it.
And he's printing the letters in the bulletin.
And so he's getting the praise reports.
But if I would have had a problem or been despondent,
I would have never felt like I could pick up the phone
and call him.
You know what I'm saying?
But you know what we all need?
People in our lives though,
that we can pick up the phone and call and be real with
and tell them what's actually going on
and tell them what's really up if we need help, okay?
And you know, if you're gonna be that kind of a person
for other people,
if you're gonna be that shoulder to cry on,
you can't just freak out over a little profanity,
over just something that's said that's over the top
or unreasonable.
This is some unreasonable stuff, okay?
Turn the guy who announced my birth into like the wasteland
of the aftermath of Sodom and Gomorrah.
That's a pretty wild thing to say.
So, you know, if people come to you and they're upset
and they say some wild things,
why don't you give people some grace, be patient,
be cool, and not freak out.
But you know, the holier than thou's, man,
everything that they hear, they just act like,
"Oh, that's so bad."
And, "Oh, I would never be in a situation like that.
I would never say or do anything like that."
Or, you know, it's just like, "Well, okay, great.
That's really great, but that's not really helpful
to the person who is dealing with that stuff."
Right?
You know, it's like the ex-NIFB specializes
in this kind of preaching.
- If you have those kinds of problems in your marriage,
you're just a beta male.
You're just pathetic.
You're just a loser.
You just suck as a husband.
- It's like, "Oh, thank you, sir."
Very helpful.
And it's like a problem that probably 90% of the people
in the congregation have dealt with at some time or another.
And, "Oh, you suck, and I've never had this problem.
I've been married for X amount of years,
and I've never had that problem.
I've never had to deal with."
And it's like, "Wow, la-dee-dah, you're so great.
You're so cool.
We all bow to your superiority, but you know what?
That's not really helpful for the people
that are in that crisis."
And the Bible talks about it in Second Corinthians,
chapter one, "The Lord comforts us in all our tribulation
so that we can comfort them that are in any trouble
with the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God."
And so it's like, we go through stuff,
and then we can empathize with other people
who are going through stuff.
And when they tell us we don't just freak out,
we're just like, "Hey, that's gnarly, but you know what?
I've been through some gnarly stuff too.
Let me help you.
What can we do to fix it?
What can we do to solve it?"
You know, when somebody comes to me for help,
you know what I'm trying to do?
I'm trying to solve the problem.
I'm looking for solutions.
I'm not trying to figure out how I can blame or insult
or criticize the person who's coming to me desperate.
You know, when I get a call
from someone who's a drowning man,
you know, I'm not sitting there telling him,
"Well, did you get swimming lessons?"
You know, I'm like, "Okay, let's get you the ring.
Let's get you the life raft.
Let's get you help.
Let's get it fixed," right?
Does everybody understand what I'm saying?
Let's get bro a swimming lesson later.
But for now, I'm not gonna give him a swimming lesson.
I'm gonna get him out of the water.
We're gonna fix the immediate problem, you know?
And I'm not gonna add insult to injury.
I mean, think about it.
It's like, if somebody got hurt in an accident,
are you gonna walk up and start criticizing?
They're driving.
I mean, it's like, you know,
you can have those conversations way later,
but the first thing to do is just to work on the problem,
fix the problem.
And you know, I'm a solution-oriented guy.
And so I'm more interested in just fixing it
than trying to figure out who's to blame or, you know,
it's just like, let's just fix it.
What do we do to fix it, right?
And if my friends call, if my pastor friends call me up
and they're experiencing a crisis
or going through something difficult,
you know, my number one goal is just to elevate them,
help them fix it, help them be encouraged,
help them to keep going, help them to continue.
And you know what?
I want them to know that they can call me
and that I care about them and that I want to fix things.
And you know what I'm not going to do?
I'm not going to throw them under the bus if it helps me.
I'm not going to be like, well,
let's see how this is going to turn out,
whether I'm going to help you or not.
No, if it's right, I'm going to do it.
If it's wrong, I'm not going to do it.
Popularity, public opinion, who's winning, doesn't matter.
I don't care about being on the winning side.
I care about being on the right side.
I'd rather be a loser on the right side
than a winner on the wrong side.
And so, yeah, Jeremiah's lashing out,
saying some crazy things, but you know what?
He's in a rough spot.
Cut him some slack, don't judge him.
Let that man be as the cities which the Lord overthrew
and repented not.
Let him hear the cry in the morning
and the shouting at new times.
I mean, he just wants this guy miserable in the morning.
He wants him miserable at night.
Who even is this guy?
Who is this random person that's being cursed in such a way?
Oh, well, here's what he did wrong,
because he slew me not from the womb.
That's real reasonable, right?
This guy should have just killed me
and just told my parents he was already dead.
I found him this way.
I found him dead.
Now, obviously, if we took this literally,
it's a pretty wild thing to say.
But obviously, this is Jeremiah just expressing
extreme frustration, extreme despair.
And when people go through our times,
they're gonna express extreme frustration
and extreme despair.
And so again, let's get back to marriage for a second.
You know, that stuff that your wife said,
maybe even not during childbirth,
but what about just during extreme frustration,
extreme despair, those things that she said,
why don't we not bring those up anymore, right?
The stuff that your husband said
in times of extreme frustration,
extreme despair, extreme low point,
why don't we just forget it and quit bringing it up?
Why keep remembering those things
and bringing up those things?
Why don't you just understand, you know what?
I know that you say things that you don't mean
when you're angry, when you're in pain,
when you're sad, when you're frustrated,
when you're depressed,
you say things you don't mean.
Forgive and forget, let it go.
I mean, look, you say,
well, you don't know what my husband said to me.
I don't know, did he say this kind of stuff?
'Cause this is some wild stuff.
Oh, I just can't forget what my wife said to me.
Well, I doubt it was any weirder than this
because he slew me not from the womb
or that my mother might've been my grave
and her womb to be always great with me, right?
He's saying like, if I could've just died in the womb
and then she just never gives birth to me,
I just stay in there.
And of course, this is something that sometimes happens
where a baby will die and just become assimilated
into its mother's body.
Obviously, this is not the norm.
Usually when a woman loses a pregnancy,
it ends up being born as a stillbirth,
it ends up being miscarried and coming out.
But you know what, there are situations
where it'll just stay in there, you know?
And of course, it's not an ideal situation,
not a good situation, but it is a thing.
You know, my mother's womb, and this is an alternative,
'cause it's like, well, he could have slain me from the womb,
or better yet, I could have just stayed in the womb.
Just never even came out, and then bro's off the hook.
He's not being required to do infanticide.
You know, that my mother might have been my grave
and her womb to be always great with me.
Wherefore, why, came I forth out of the womb
to see labor and sorrow that my days
should be consumed with shame?
Why was I even born just so that I could just work
and be miserable and be hated and be ashamed
and be mocked and ridiculed?
Why am I even alive?
Now, we're waiting for the roller coaster
to hit another high point, 'cause it's like up, down,
up, down in this passage, right?
But here's the funny thing about this.
That's the end of the chapter.
And then the next chapter's just like,
totally different chapter, totally different day,
totally different timeline.
I mean, that's the end.
That's not just the end of the chapter.
That's the end of that story.
That's the end of that episode.
That's the end of that situation.
'Cause then it's like the word of the Lord
came unto Jeremiah from the Lord,
and the king Zedekiah said unto him,
"Pasher, the son of Melchiah, and Zephaniah,
"the son of Mahasiah the priest, saying,
"Enquire, I pray thee, of the Lord, for us.
"For Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon,
"maketh war against us, if so be that the Lord
"would deal with us according to all his wondrous works,
"that he may go up from us."
Then said Jeremiah unto them, "Thus shall ye say,
"tis that..."
I mean, this is a totally different story.
Nothing connected to what we just read.
Because in chapter 21, we're at a different time,
different situation, where Pasher is actually coming
to Jeremiah on orders from the king
to actually ask his advice.
This is totally different than Pasher placing him
under arrest and throwing him in the stocks.
And the thing about the book of Jeremiah
is that the book of Jeremiah is not arranged
in chronological order.
There are things in the book of Jeremiah
that jump around a little bit.
It's more thematically organized,
and certain books in the Bible are like that,
where they're organized by subject and theme,
and there are duplicates of certain stories and things
giving it to us from different angles.
Like, you'll notice that the children of Israel
go into captivity to Babylon twice
in the book of Jeremiah, right?
It happens around, what, chapter 39 or something,
and then it happens again in chapter 52,
and it's just like, what's going on here?
But that's just the way the book of Jeremiah is.
But the thing is, this chapter 20
is a self-contained episode.
This is an episode, okay, that is self-contained.
It's not directly connected to the chapter
that comes right after.
That's a different time, different week, month, day, year.
It's not the same situation at all.
And the reason I'm making a big deal out of this
is just to let you know that chapter 20 is the whole story,
and it doesn't get a happy ending.
It leaves on the note of despondency.
It leaves Jeremiah despairing.
And this goes to show that in our lives,
God is not always gonna answer our prayers instantly.
He's not always gonna fix our situation instantly.
It's not always gonna happen in the short term.
We gotta have faith that it's gonna happen in the long term.
It takes faith because here's the thing.
He's totally upset, he's despondent,
but does that mean he's gonna quit?
Well, we already know he's not gonna quit
'cause we already know he can't quit.
He's trying to quit, he can't quit.
He's gonna keep going.
That's what we know for sure.
But this is how he feels.
God doesn't fix a situation immediately
or immediately encourage him.
He just has to just grind it out.
And he keeps grinding.
Other days are better.
He feels better on other days.
Probably goes through ups and downs
just like the rest of us.
Ultimately, God blesses him in the end.
And he gets the longest book of the Bible, actually.
Because a lot of people might think Psalms
is the longest book.
That's the longest book by the number of chapters.
But in other ways, Jeremiah's the longest book.
Jeremiah's an extremely long book.
Even though it's only 52 chapters to Isaiah 66,
the chapters are longer.
So it's the longest book by some metrics.
So, like I believe word count, it's gonna be the longest.
And so, you know, you get the longest book in the Bible.
Oh, and by the way, a little bonus book,
Lamentations into the Bargain.
I mean, being the author of the big one,
being a major prophet, well, it's not all a picnic
when it comes to actually living that life.
And so our lives aren't necessarily
gonna be a picnic either.
And so what we need to understand,
and I hope that this sermon is helpful to you.
I hope it's encouraging to you.
I'm not trying to be a downer.
You know, one of the things about the sermon
is I thought like, I don't know,
is this sermon too much of a downer?
But I love this chapter.
And when I'm going through hard times,
this is like a chapter that I go to.
I go to Jeremiah 20 just to relate to it
if I'm going through a bad time.
I find this chapter helpful.
I hope that you do too.
If you're in despair, I hope that it helps you relate
and understand I'm not alone here.
Somebody else is going through the same thing
and maybe you're doing well right now,
well then you know what you should work on
if you're doing well, if you're in a good mood,
if you like this time of year,
if it is the most wonderful time of year for you
and you're just loving the Christmas season
and you got all kinds of hot cocoa flowing
and cookies and fun and caroling and gifts, great.
But you know what then you should work on?
You should work on getting your default setting calibrated,
building the right habits,
build the Bible reading habit,
build the prayer habit,
build the soul winning habit,
build the church habit,
so that when you do get hit with that fiery trial,
which is certainly going to try you,
you will default to righteousness.
The way Job did, the way Jeremiah did,
you want to get that default swim stroke
to where we throw you in the water
and you just automatically do it.
You don't have to think about it anymore.
That's why I add another word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word.
We thank you especially for Jeremiah chapter 20.
Lord, it's so amazingly relatable.
And it's nice to know that Jeremiah
was a man of like passions as we are.
Lord God, help us to endure
whatever trials and tribulations.
Help us not to lose faith.
Help us not to lose hope.
Help us not to despair.
And Lord, help us to work on getting
those default settings calibrated
so that autopilot is righteousness in our lives.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.