July 29, 2022: Day 160 – Jeremiah 1-6

We quickly find out why Jeremiah is called the weeping prophet.  He is given the task to speak to the people of Judah, the southern kingdom.  God tells him specifically that he is given the task to: “uproot, tear down, destroy and overthrow.”  That’s not very comforting.  Jeremiah is given the task to be a prophet of the Lord right at the time when Jerusalem is about to be overthrown, which is literally the worst thing that could happen to the nation both politically and spiritually.

I love the calling of Jeremiah where he states that he is too young.  God rebukes him and tells him that he had been chosen from even before he was born to carry out this task.  The Providence of God always wins out over our own reasoning and thinking.  As in most of these prophecies what God is most angry over is the fact that his own people have turned their back on him and have taken up in worship the gods of the surrounding nations.  They have completely been unfaithful to him.

He tells the nation of Judah, the southern kingdom, that disaster is going to come from the north.  We end in chapter 6 with the siege of Jerusalem.