Men At Best

Today’s Passage –  Jeremiah 18 – 22 (Click on the references to listen to the audio – click here  to view the text from the Blue Letter Bible website)

(Second Milers also read – Acts 13 – 15; Psalms 91 – 95; Proverbs 19)

Listen to this morning’s Scripture song – Isaiah 51:11

Read the “0819 Evening and Morning” devotion for today, by the late Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

Read a previous post from today’s reading – “The Potter’s House”

“Give heed to me, O LORD, and hearken to the voice of them that contend with me. Shall evil be recompensed for good? for they have digged a pit for my soul. Remember that I stood before thee to speak good for them, and to turn away thy wrath from them. Therefore deliver up their children to the famine, and pour out their blood by the force of the sword; and let their wives be bereaved of their children, and be widows; and let their men be put to death; let their young men be slain by the sword in battle. Let a cry be heard from their houses, when thou shalt bring a troop suddenly upon them: for they have digged a pit to take me, and hid snares for my feet. Yet, LORD, thou knowest all their counsel against me to slay me: forgive not their iniquity, neither blot out their sin from thy sight, but let them be overthrown before thee; deal thus with them in the time of thine anger.” (Jeremiah 18:19-23)

Have you ever heard the expression: “They may have been the best of men, but they were men at best?” Basically, it states that even good men are merely human and even though they are good most of the time, they also have their faults. In our reading this morning, in chapter eighteen, we see the humanity of Jeremiah coming through. He prays for God to destroy the people in Judah who had forsaken God and had turned against him. He even asks for their children to be punished. This is not the heart of someone who truly loves the people that he is ministering to.

Jeremiah was human, and he had an extremely difficult ministry. He had the job of preaching to the people of Judah at a time when God’s patience for their behavior had already run out. The people did not like or listen to what Jeremiah had to say and they often punished him for speaking the truth to them. But I don’t think that Jeremiah was always speaking the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15), sometimes he was angry at the people he was trying to reach, and in his flesh, he wanted God to judge them. I am reminded of Jonah who despised the Ninevites that he was sent to preach to.

Also, notice in chapter twenty that Jeremiah attempted to quit preaching:

“O LORD, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived: thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed: I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me. 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 any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.” (Jeremiah 20:7-9)

God did not let Jeremiah give up, however. “For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance” (Romans 11:29). God wouldn’t let him sit on the sidelines, His word was burning in Jeremiah’s heart and had to get out. But, Jeremiah was discouraged and at one point wanted to quit. He was human.

This is not a “let’s pile up on Jeremiah” devotion. I am merely pointing out that the best of men in the Bible got discouraged, angry, disgruntled, bitter, and even at times sinned against God. I am not rejoicing in their failures, but I am encouraged because I often feel as they do. I get discouraged, bitter, and angry. I sin against God often, I get mad at God’s people sometimes, and I want to quit about every other week. I am human and so are you.

What are we to do? We need to keep getting back up, dusting ourselves off, confess our failures to God, ask for His help, and keep doing what He has called us to do. We may someday see the great results of our work, or like Jeremiah, we may not. Judah was in worse shape after his ministry than before. But, we can have the satisfaction of knowing that we did what God had called us to do and we will hear God say, “well done.”