Higher Ground

The Call

 

I think I've heard Your voice before, and I've got to hear You just once more. Cos' the dreams that You have building deep inside, lie broken now before me and I cry.

I don't want another plan, cos' LORD, You know I've made my stand. That I only do the things that You command, so please help me now to hear and understand.

 

Is that really You, O LORD? Calling my name out now. Is that really You, O LORD? Showing me higher ground.

 

You say to gain my life, I must die. To all the dreams I've held inside.

As I give them now and lay aside my pride. Somehow I can hear You calling me to bigger dreams and higher heights.

 

Is that really You, O LORD? Calling my name out now. Is that really You, O LORD? Showing me higher ground.

 

I've never gone that far, I'm just afraid to start. But LORD I know it's true, that voice is really You, calling me, calling me, I hear You calling me.

Yes, that's really You, O LORD. Calling my name out now. Yes, that's really You, O LORD. Showing me higher ground.

 

I believe it's You, O LORD. You, calling my name out now. I believe it's You, O LORD. You, showing me higher ground.

 

~ Bob Fitts, "Is That Really You, O LORD?"

 

The word of the LORD came to me, saying, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."

"Ah, Sovereign LORD," I said, "I do not know how to speak; I am only a child." But the LORD said to me, "Do not say, 'I am only a child.' You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you," declares the LORD.

 

Then the LORD reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, "Now I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant." Jeremiah 1:4-10 NIV.

 

The Man

 

Jeremiah was a priest, a member of the household of Hilkiah. His hometown was Anathoth. Although timid by nature, he received the Lord's assurance that he would become strong and courageous. In his "confessions", he laid bare the deep struggles of his inmost being, sometimes making startlingly honest statements about his feelings toward God. On occasion, he engaged in calling for redress against his personal enemies.

 

The Prophet - Pronouncement of Divine Judgment

 

Jeremiah began prophesying in Judah halfway through the reign of Josiah (640-609 B.C.) and continued throughout the reigns of Jehoahaz (609), Jehoiakim (609-598), Jehoiachin (598-597) and Zedekiah (597-586). It was a period of storm and stress when the doom of entire nations - including Judah itself - was being sealed. Ashurbanipal, last of the great Assyrian rulers, died in 627. His successors were no match for Nabopolassar, the founder of the Neo-Babylonian empire, who began his rule in 626 (the year of Jeremiah's call to prophesy).

 

In 605 B.C., the Egyptians were crushed at Carchemish on the Euphrates by Nebuchadnezzar, who succeeded his father Nabopolassar as ruler of Babylon. Neco returned to Egypt with heavy losses, and Babylon was virtually given a  free hand in western Asia for the next 70 years. Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem in 605, and again in 598-597.

 

Jeremiah was ever conscious of his call from the Lord to be a prophet. He lashed out against the sins of his countrymen, scoring them severely for their idolatry. But Jeremiah loved the people of Judah in spite of their sins, and he prayed for them even when the Lord told him not to.

 

Called to the unhappy task of announcing the destruction of the kingdom of Judah, it was Jeremiah's commission to lodge God's indictment against his people and proclaim the end of an era. The Lord was about to inflict on the remnant of his people the ultimate covenant curse (Leviticus 26:31-33; Deuteronomy 28:49-68).

 

He would undo all that He had done for them since the day he brought them out of Egypt. It would then seem that the end had come, that Israel's stubborn and uncircumcised (unconsecrated) heart had sealed her final destiny, that God's chosen people had been cast off, that all the ancient promises and covenants had come to nothing.

 

The Intercessor - Promise of Restoration

 

But God's judgment of his people (and the nations), though terrible, was not to be the last word, the final work of God in history. Mercy and covenant faithfulness would triumph over wrath.

Beyond the judgment would come restoration and renewal. Israel would be restored, the nations that crushed her would be crushed, and the old covenants (with Israel, David and the Levites) would be honoured.

 

God would make a new covenant with his people in which he would write his law on their hearts (Jeremiah 31:31-34) and thus consecrate them to his service. The house of David would rule them in righteousness, and faithful priests would serve. God's commitment to Israel's redemption was as unfailing as the secure order of creation (Jeremiah 33).

 

The very God who compelled Jeremiah to denounce sin and pronounce judgment was the God who authorised him to announce that the divine wrath had its bounds, its 70 years. Afterward forgiveness and cleansing would come - and a new day, in which all the old expectations, aroused by God's past acts and his promises and covenants, would yet be fulfilled in a manner transcending all God's mercies of old.

 

~ Introduction: Jeremiah, The NIV Study Bible, New International Version, Zondervan Bible Publishers, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49506, U.S.A. Copyright 1985 International Bible Society.

 

Before Jeremiah was born, God had it in his mind how Jeremiah would be formed; where he would be born; the family he would be borne to; which chapter in history his life would be a part of; what purpose the prophet's life would fulfill in the divine scheme of things. Jeremiah was but an ordinary priest in the kingdom of Judah, called into the presence of an extraordinary GOD, who then began to pour out His heart to Jeremiah. His heartaches, anguish, love; pending wrath, followed by promise of restoration for his people, Israel.

 

To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven. Ecclesiastes 3:1 NKJV.

 

 

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