Jeremiah

As a very young man, Jeremiah was called by God to deliver a message to the nation of Judah. In other words, he was called to be a prophet and when God's chosen people needed a prophet, it was usually to deliver an unsavoury message.

The message in this case is that Judah is being called to judgement, not even repentance. The people are beyond repentance. God's mercy has run out and there would be no need to call on God in prayer for deliverance, this thing was going to happen and it was going to involve famine, sword and pestilence.  Time and again Jeremiah likens the nation of Israel to an adulteress. She has prostituted herself by dabbling in other religions and taking on the practice of worshipping idols, carvings of wood, metal, and stone, lifeless, useless objects, and God is more than ticked off. Jeremiah has to deal with false prophets and is threatened more than once, being thrown into prison and into a large muddy cistern, left to die.

But, he also gives a message of hope, one of renewal, after 70 years of Babylonian captivity. And then he really lets Babylon have it. He predicts a harsh and bitter end to the empire. It will be wiped off the face of the earth. These were harsh words that were delivered, but they all came to pass.

Impressions: Jeremiah finds a hundred ways to say the same thing, but they all mean disease, sword, and pestilence, symbols of God's judgement. It is made abundantly clear that Israel's downfall is the worship of other gods. This is the one thing that makes God more angry than anything else. Jeremiah must have been very unpopular. I think of the guy on the street corner not far from my house that has a large billboard that says, "Repent, for the end is near". Is he a modern day Jeremiah? I see him through different eyes after reading the prophetic scriptures for the last number of days.

Readability: 2 1/2 stars