Jeremiah’s Mysterious Commission

If you look at Webster’s dictionary the meaning, or at least the definition that they have there for “jeremiad” is “a prolonged lamentation or complaint.” It also has the definition, “a cautionary or angry harangue.” That’s the way they term the word “jeremiad,” which of course is taken from the name Jeremiah who is in the Bible, the Prophet Jeremiah. But if you look at it the Prophet Jeremiah and what his name actually means in the Hebrew, the definition is “the Lord founds” or “the Lord establishes.” God establishes. Now Jeremiah of course did live through a very difficult period of history for the nation of Judah. And he did prophesy against the demise of the kingdom of Judah. But even in that warning message there certainly was a message of hope, one that could have saved the nation of Judah had they heeded the warning.

It really does depend on how you look at it, the message or the messenger, or the message coming from the prophet. Judah certainly went into captivity but it could’ve been avoided. And even still, even with that history, as difficult as it was for the nation of Judah, after the Jews were carted off into captivity, as we’ll see here today, God continued His work through Jeremiah. God continued working through His prophet. God continued establishing through this prophet, whose very name means that. He established this throne; this covenant that He had made with David was to continue. And Jeremiah had a huge, huge part in the fulfillment of that unbreakable promise.

Let’s look at Jeremiah 1 to begin with here today.

Through the prophet Jeremiah, God actually established the groundwork necessary to restore the government of God over all the Earth. I mean, this goes beyond just a restoration for the people of Judah. God had the entire Earth in mind. In fact, the universe in mind, when He preserved and maintained that throne that He established in David, King David.

Jeremiah 1 here and verse 4. It says, “Then the word of the Lord came unto me saying, Before I formed you in the belly I knew you, and before you came forth out of the womb I sanctified you and ordained you a prophet unto the nations.” So God here is putting special emphasis on the messenger and the message. He after all, set aside this great prophet of God from the womb. That’s unusual, there’s only a handful of people in Scripture that had that, that setting apart that early. John the Baptist, of course Jesus Christ, a couple of others, but also Jeremiah. It’s one thing for God to call someone to a particular responsibility somewhere along the way in life, but it’s quite another to set apart that individual in the womb. This must mean that whatever it was he was going to be doing was important. It was of God.

Here’s what Mr. Armstrong wrote in The United States and Britain in Prophecy: “Notice Jeremiah was set over nations, more than one kingdom. He was a Jewish lad, living in Judah. He was set a prophet over Judah, but not Judah alone—over nations, over kingdoms. He was set over these kingdoms to do two things.” Now listen to this: “First to pluck up, or root out, to pull down, or to overthrow, and second, to build and to plant.” But that’s right there in the first chapter of Jeremiah. What it was that he was supposed to do, what God commissioned him to do

Now as we go through some of these verses in Jeremiah 1, it’s important to consider why it is that so many people are unaware of this history. They’re unaware of this Bible teaching, these facts recorded in the Scripture. Why is that?

Verse 1, just to pick up at the start: “The words of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah, of the priests that were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin: To whom the word of the Lord came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon king of Judah, in the 13th year of his reign.” So this book, part of it anyway, was revealed during the days of Josiah, the last great king of Judah. Josiah led a great restoration project in Judah. He restored so many important truths, but the people of Judah did not endorse those changes, they did not throw their full support behind Josiah. Jeremiah had a relationship with this great king. Josiah is mentioned 18 times in the book of Jeremiah alone. You can look at Jeremiah 3 and verse 6 and see how that the people didn’t come along and support Josiah like they should have.

Verse 3, though, staying here in chapter 1, it says, “It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, unto the end of the 11th year of Zedekiah the son of Josiah king of Judah, unto the carrying away of Jerusalem captive in the fifth month.” So Jeremiah’s message, his work, it spanned the reigns of these four or five last kings of Judah.

Verse 6, it says, here’s Jeremiah, “Then said I, ah Lord God, behold I cannot speak, for I am a child.” He was very young at the time, perhaps in his late teens, viewed by many in the in the city of Jerusalem as just a little kid, just a little child. And yet God told him, you’re not too young for this job. And in fact it doesn’t matter how old you are. You do have a difficult work to do, but as God goes on and says here, I will be with you, I will speak through you. That’s what mattered. And when you think about all that he had to do after Judah’s demise, you can see why God had to select someone so young, ’cause he had quite a work to perform, even as an old man, even as an old patriarch, when God preserved his life and guided him to fulfill that commission.

Verse 7, it says, “But the Lord said unto me, say not I am a child, for you shall go to all that I shall send you, and whatsoever I command you, you shall speak.” See, when God gives us a mission, students, when God gives us a special mission, our responsibility is to go and to follow those instructions, to obey those commands, to fulfill that work. It does take some courage for sure to deliver God’s message. It wasn’t easy for Jeremiah or some of the other prophets.

Verse 8, it says, “Be not afraid of their faces, for I am with you to deliver you says the Lord.” God will encourage us along the way.

Verse 9, it says, “Then Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said unto me, Behold I have put words in your mouth.” See God reminded Jeremiah and He reminds His people today, who’s the source? Where do the words come from? Where does the truth of God come from? We have so much here on this campus, so many things to be thankful for, so many blessings. Our families have been blessed, our children have been blessed. Why? Because we’re something special? Or because we’re trying to submit to God’s words, God’s truth, God’s teachings? That’s what makes the difference. Of course, we’ve got to yield, we’ve got to submit. That’s a difficult task for so many. But if we do it, I mean then God will perform such wonderful miracles and blessings.

Verse 10, “See I have this day set you over the nations,” plural, “and over the kingdoms,” plural, “to root out and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build,” it says, “and to plant.” This reveals Jeremiah’s commission. And really it gives us the theme of his entire book. When you study the book of Jeremiah, you’ve got to study it from this position, understanding this commission, because you keep coming back to it throughout the book. Even at the end of Jeremiah’s book when Babylon came against Judah and took them into captivity, you find all of these fascinating details of God preserving one of Zedekiah’s daughters, a princess, of God preserving and giving favor to Jeremiah, and giving him favor before kings, Gentile kings that hated Judah. It’s all found there in the book of Jeremiah.

Mr. Armstrong wrote in The United States and Britain in Prophecy, “It is well known that Jeremiah was used in warning Judah of the impending captivity and the pulling down, or overthrowing of the throne of David in the kingdom of Judah. But note it,” see it in your own Bible, “Jeremiah was divinely commissioned to pull down and to overthrow that very throne of David and Judah, but notice the second half of the commission: to build and to plant.” God commissioned him to deliver that throne, to remove that throne once Judah fell. To take that throne, to transfer that throne to Ireland, to establish it in Ireland, and then later that throne was moved to Scotland, and then again, later on, moved to Westminster Abbey in London. And that too is covered in the Bible, those three transfers. It’s all in there. God established the throne of David. God has preserved the throne of David because the throne belongs—not to David, not to the people of Judah—but to God. It’s God’s throne. It’s God’s throne.

Notice Luke chapter 1, just to tie this in to the ministry and work of Jesus Christ. This is God’s throne that we’re talking about here. It says, “And the angel said unto her, Fear not Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold you shall conceive in your womb and bring forth a son and shall call his name Jesus. And he shall be great,” it says, “and shall be called the son of the highest.” God’s own Son. “And the Lord God shall give unto him,” note this, “the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David.” God would give to Jesus Christ the throne of David. “And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and his kingdom, and of his kingdom there shall be no end.” Why is it called the throne of David if it just ceased to exist? If it ended when Judah went into captivity in 585 b.c.? Why would God here, five or six hundred years later, refer to this throne again and actually say it was going to be given to this Son, the Son of the Highest? It’s called the throne of David, that’s because it’s connected to mankind. David was just an ordinary man, a shepherd, a teenager when God called him. When he started to work for God. A simple ordinary man who became a king over Israel. And that’s what God is offering to mankind: to become part of this royal family that is God, the God Kingdom. And it all revolves around this throne, the throne of David. But it’s not David’s throne, as I said. It’s God’s throne, a family throne. It’s the God Family throne.

Jesus Christ, of course, has a wife or a bride, that He’s about to marry, as so many scriptures bring out: Ephesians 5, Revelation 19:7. Jesus is to marry His bride, the church, and that marriage, that family, will have offspring, will have children.

Isaiah chapter 9.

We have the Father, Jesus was the Son of the Highest. We have the Son mentioned in Scripture. We have the wife, or the bride referred to; children. Oh, but don’t say God is a Family. That would be blasphemy, people say. What? God is a Family. God is a Family. It comes right out of God’s Word. Why are there families today? Why is there marriage? Where did it come from? I mean, man has done his level best to try to destroy that institution, but where did it start to begin with? Who created it? Who made it? Which civilization made it? Which nation started marriage? Well, hey, why don’t we do marriage? That sounds interesting. God established those institutions. God ordained marriage and family. It started at the beginning with man. It comes from God because God wants for us to learn, through marriage and family, what our incredible human potential really is all about. So plain, so clear, and yet so misunderstood, universally misunderstood in this world.

Isaiah 9 and verse 6: “For unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder and his name shall be called wonderful, Counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting father, the Prince of peace. Of the increase,” verse 7 continues, “of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom to order it.” It’s just going to go on and on and on. And here’s David’s throne mentioned again. “To order it, to establish it with judgment and justice, from henceforth even forever, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.” It’s a government of peace, a government of love, a family government. A government of law, the family administering the laws of God, and those laws bringing peace to this Earth, finally. Human beings fight and kick and resist against it, but it’s the only way to live that peaceful life.

In the United States and Britain in Prophecy, this is toward the end, how Mr. Armstrong concludes this work, it’s a sobering warning. He says, “God is going to keep multiplying chastening direction upon our peoples until they do turn from their evil ways, until they turn to the ways that cause peace, happiness, prosperity, all the good things.” There’s a way that causes that and it’s the way of God, the way of God’s law. God’s law is a good thing. God gave it to man so we might be blessed with peace and prosperity, happiness, as he says. Mr. Armstrong continues, “How unthinkable that our Maker shall have to force our peoples to be happy, to have peace, to be able to enjoy prosperity, to yield to, to accept our own choice, eternal life in abundant well-being and joy for all eternity.” He says, “How unbelievable that human nature, desiring these blessings, has insisted stubbornly in going the way that cuts them off and causes punishment, correction, and then refuses to be corrected until it’s multiplied in intensity sevenfold.”

He says finally, “How great is our God and what love for our peoples He expresses in patiently tolerating and correcting us, until we accept His boundless blessings.” This is the God of love that we worship, patiently waiting on man to come around, to learn the lessons that we obviously need to learn.

2 Samuel 7.

What a God of love. What a God of patience. Do you see God as a hard and austere God, who sent those people of Judah off into captivity and slavery? What a cruel God! Or do you see God as a God of love? A Father who pleaded with those people of Judah, who pleaded with them through one reign, through the reign of another king, and then another king, and then another king; through a faithful prophet of God, turn to me Judah, or before Judah, turn Israel, as God said through Ezekiel. Why will you die? It doesn’t have to be this way. That’s a God of love, you see, reaching out to His children, just like any father would, seeing his son getting involved in drugs or immorality of some kind, and crying out. I mean, he can’t force that son to go a certain way, not if he’s beyond, you know, the teen years. He’s a free moral agent, that young man. But what father wouldn’t scream and reach out and plead to get that son back on track before it’s too late? Before he makes a permanent mistake that ends up killing him, or causing some other kind of curse.

2 Samuel 7:12, “And when your days be fulfilled and you shall sleep with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you,” this is God speaking to David, “which shall proceed out of your bowels and I will establish his kingdom he shall build an house for my name,” that’s of course referring to Solomon, “and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever.” God told David that his son, Solomon, would build a house, would build a temple. And He also said to David that that throne would be established forever. It does exist today! Otherwise what, I mean, what do we have to stand on spiritually? If the throne doesn’t exist? If God just threw out forever, over and again in Scripture, and then all of a sudden it disappeared and God’s too weak to keep it going? What kind of God would that be? What would that say about His power or lack thereof? Of course the throne exists today! It resides in England because of God’s covenant with David. It was an everlasting covenant.

Look at 2 Samuel 23 on your own time.

An everlasting covenant. What does ever-lasting mean? What does for-ever mean?

Verse 13, staying here in chapter 7: “He shall build an house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever.” That Hebrew word for name there could also be translated family. God was establishing a family throne in David, a line that would continue. And you can read, this is covered in The United States and Britain in Prophecy, God covers all the details of well, what happens if some of those kings are not faithful, like Solomon for instance? He got into all of those sexual perversions, all of that sin, all of that lust and evil, and what happened? Well God punished him. The nation divided because of his sins. It split into Israel and Judah. There was punishment there.

But God saved that throne; God preserved that throne with that little nation of Judah, for David’s sake, the Scripture says. For David’s sake. Because of the covenant that God made with David. Now if He went to that length to hold onto it, to preserve it when it split in two in the days of Jeroboam and Reheboam, could not God preserve that throne in the days of Zedekiah? Even as Zedekiah was being carted off into captivity, even as his sons were being killed? Was it too difficult for God at that point, to save that throne, to preserve that throne? Or did God keep His word?

Verse 14, “I will be his father and he shall be my son, if he commit iniquity I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men,” verse 15 says, “But my mercy shall not depart away from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before you.” Saul’s line did end. His dynasty ended rather abruptly. But God here promises that it’s not going to be that way with David’s line. David’s line would continue.

It says, “And your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you, your throne shall be established forever, according to all these words and according to all this vision, so did Nathan speak unto David.” The throne, you see, must continue.

Verse 18, it says, “Then went king David in and sat before the Lord and said, Who am I, oh Lord God?” He was just blown away by this! “Who am I? And what is my house, what is my family, that you have brought me hither to? And this was yet a small thing in your sight, oh Lord God, but you have spoken also of your servant’s house for a great while to come. And is this the manner of man, oh Lord God?” I mean, you’ve spoken of my house, of my line, for a great manner to come, or an everlasting time period here. David, as I said, he was just taken aback by this, by this promise that God made of preserving that throne.

The throne in Britain today, it’s the greatest royal throne that this world has ever known—ever. And people won’t stop to ask why, or to look into the roots of that throne. How did such an unparalleled royalty begin? Where did it start? Who came up with it? How did it develop along the way? Why does it still exist? Even though we see Britain just falling apart, and yet still, you look back at the royal wedding earlier this year in April, and some commentators said some 2 billion people tuned in to watch this. Two billion people! What is it about that royal wedding that makes it so special? That heightens so much interest? Why not some other royal wedding? I mean, there’s other royal families in the world. You think another one would bring people out in droves to watch it on television? Two billion of them? What is it about this family? What is it about this throne? Do we just like the fairytale story or is there something more? There is something more to it. There’s not an in-depth understanding, don’t get me wrong, but there’s something more to it. There’s a reason why it’s such a compelling story; and it gets back to, whether people realize it or not, it gets back to this two-fold covenant that God made—I don’t have time to cover it in Jeremiah 33—that the throne would be established and never lacked for a man to sit on it. And then there’s another covenant there about a faithful ministry that would be proclaiming this message, even to this day.

These are unbreakable promises that the omnipotent God made to David, that He revealed in Scripture, that He repeated in Scripture. And He used a great prophet in that critical time period, back in the last days of Judah, even as Judah was just full of all these sins, here comes Jeremiah, set apart from the womb, to uproot, and to overturn. And then God used that man to go into a faraway land, even as Judah was falling apart, He used that man to go into a faraway land and to plant, to plant, so that that royal line, so that that family throne might continue forever.