Jeremiah - by F.B. Meyer

"Jeremiah has always a fascination to Christian hearts, because of the close similarity that exists between his life and that of Jesus Christ. Each of them was "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief"; each came to his own, and his own received him not; each passed through hours of rejection, desolation, and forsakeness. And in Jeremiah we may see beaten out into detail, experiences which, in our Lord, are but lightly touched on by the evangelists...

...There is an especial message in the ministry of Jeremiah for those who are compelled to stand alone, who fall into the ground to die, who fill up what is behind of the sufferings of Christ, and through death arise to bear fruit in the great world of men, which they passionately love.

1

"THE WORD OF THE LORD CAME UNTO ME"

(Jeremiah 1:4, 12, 13)

     If the days of David and Solomon may be compared to spring and summer in the history of the Kingdom of Israel, it was late autumn when our story opens. The influence of the spiritual revival under Hezekiah and Isaiah, which had for a brief interval arrested the process of decline, had spent itself; and not even the reforms of the good king Josiah, which affected rather the surface than the heart of the people, would avail to avert inevitable judgment.

    The northern tribes were captive on the plains of Mesopotamia, whence, in the dawn of history, their race had sprung. And Judah, unwarned by the fate of her sister Israel, was rapidly pursuing the same path, to be presently involved in a similar catastrophe. King and court, princes and people, prophets and priests, were infected with the abominable vices, for committing which the Canaanites had been expelled from the Promised land centuries before.

    Every high hill had its thick grove of green trees, within whose shadow the idolatrous rites and abominable license of nature worship were freely practised. The face of the country was thickly covered with temples erected for the worship of Baal and Astarte, and all the host of heaven, and with lewd idols. In the cities, the black-robed chemarim, the priests of thes unhallowed practices, flitted to and fro in strange contrast to the white-stoled priests of Jehovah. The people were taught to consider vice as part of their religion, and to frequent houses dedicated to impurity. All kinds of evil throve unchecked. The poor were plundered, the innocent falsely accused; wicked men lay in wait to catch men; theft and murder, adultery and idolatry, like spores of corruption, filled the foetid air and flourished on the tainted soil (2:20, 27, 34; 5:2, 8, 26; 9:2).

     But it was in Jerusalem that these evils came to a head. In the streets of the holy city, the children were taught to gather wood, whilst the fathers kindled the fire, and the women kneaded dough to make cakes for Astarte, "the queen of heaven," and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods. The Temple, with so many sacred associations, was the headquarters of Baal worship; its courts were desecrated by monstrous images and symbols, and its precincts were the abode of infamous men and women. It seemed as though the king of Sodom had dispossessed Melchizedek in his ancient home. Below the Temple battlements, deep down in the valley of Hinnom, scenes were constantly witnessed that recalled the darkest cruelties of heathendom. There was the high place of Tophet, which derived its name from the clamour of the drums that drowned the cries of the babes flung into the fires. It was an awful combination. "The Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord!" was the cry of the heartless formalist; whilst below the sacred shrine such scenes of devilry were rife. Ah me! would that it had been the last time in the world's history when the profession of true religion had been accompanied by the license of vice and the service of the devil!

    In such a Sodom God's voice must be heard. The Judge of all the earth must warn the ungodly of a certain retribution, only to be averted by swift repentance. The Good Shepherd must seek his wayward sheep. Better believe that there is no God, than think that He would be speechless in the presence of sins that frustrated his election and long education of Israel, and threatened to terminate its very existence as a people.

     Yet if God speak, it must be through the yielded lips of man. For if his voice struck the ear of sinful man directly, it would either paralyze him with dread, or seem indistinct, like the mutterings of thunder. Therefore in every age the Divine Spirit has gone through the world seeking for the prepared lip of elect souls through which to utter Himself. He seeks such today. Men are still the vehicles of his communications to men. To us, as to Ezekiel, the Divine Spirit says, "Son of man, thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from Me."

from the introduction and chapter 1 of the book, Jeremiah,Priest and Prophet, by F. B. Meyer
Out of print, but if you can find a second-hand copy and read it, you will be challenged and blessed.