Day Fifty-Five -- Famine, sword, and plague . . .

Jeremiah 10:14 to Jeremiah 23:8

Jeremiah's messages to the people of Judah and Jerusalem were not well received for several reasons, not the least of which is he was unwavering in telling them they were headed for divine judgment.  This judgment would come upon them in various ways, but the ones Jeremiah seems most often to mention are famine, sword and plague.  Their land will not produce food to sustain them, their kings and fortified cities will not be strong enough to protect them, and illness and disease will not be cured.  Jeremiah's message is so unpopular that even the people of his hometown plotted to put an end to it.  "Do not prophesy in the name of the LORD or you will die by our hands" (Jeremiah 11:21).  God, however, intervened on Jeremiah's behalf, and he continued to proclaim the messages the LORD gave to him.  They would have their effect not only on the unfaithful but upon Jeremiah's personal life as well as the LORD told him that he must not marry or have children, for not even his family would escape the death and destruction that was coming upon Jerusalem.

The personal cost of accepting a prophetic call from God can be daunting, and Jeremiah was not above taking his complaint to the LORD.  "Whenever I speak, I cry out proclaiming violence and destruction.  So the word of the LORD has brought me insult and reproach all day long" (20:8).  In spite of this Jeremiah realizes that he cannot refrain from speaking for God's word "is in my heart like a fire," and he ends up praising God even as he continues to rue the day of his own birth.  Very few of us have to pay such a personal cost to follow the ways of God, but on the other hand we cannot live unaffected by the demands of our own calling.  How is it that we are challenged and do we have the courage to honestly talk to God about it?