Jeremiah 8:18 – 9:1
1 Timothy 2:1-7
“Starting with Lament”
I wonder if you noticed the immense grief and frustration of the Prophet Jeremiah in our first Scripture reading this morning. “My joy is gone; grief is upon me; my heart is sick,” he laments, “I am broken, I mourn, and horror has seized me.” And then he goes on to describe how his head is like a spring of water and his eyes like a fountain of tears because he is weeping day and night for his people.
This is why Jeremiah is often called “the weeping prophet,” because he lived in a time when God’s people were turning away, doing terrible things, and suffering the consequences of their sin – being conquered by Babylonian powers and being sent into exile. And Jeremiah, the young prophet appointed by God to speak the Word of the Lord to the people and call them back, is absolutely devastated by the fact that they are not responding in good way.
If you go back a little in the book, chapter 7 is an account of all the wrong things that the people are doing. It includes injustice, oppression of foreigners, orphans, and widows, shedding innocent blood, and … Read more »