Jeremiah 20:7-18

In continuation of my Pastor's "Faith Under Fire" series in Jeremiah, the background to this passage is found in Isaiah 5 - it is a society that is lost in their wealth, greed, and wickedness.    It was a society not so unlike ours today; as indicated by one response given after 9-11 to why God would allow a tragedy like that to happen?    The response was, since we have pushed God out of our culture, what do we expect?

Jeremiah's message was not surprisingly unwelcomed and not liked by his culture, so they in turn attacked the messenger.   And Jeremiah 20:7-8 records Jeremiah's laments as he felt let-down.   Yet, in vs 9, it showed that he was not able to turn from his calling and he felt the need to declare the TRUTH despite the attacks and facing a culture that wanted him to slip and fail (vs 10).   He placed his trust in God (vs 11-12) and even sang praises to Him (vs 13).   And, even though he sank back into despair (vs 14-15,18); vs 3-6 show that the next day, after all his struggles, he got back up and kept to his message.    So, Jeremiah went through the fire, and sometimes even struggled, but in the end, comes through.

We don't go through trails alone, and it is comforting to know that "If we are faithless, He remains faithful - for He cannot deny himself"  (2 Tim 2:13)     A couple of other interesting related quotes were along the lines of:

• If there is no joy in your religion, there is a leak in your Christianity
• It takes both the rain and sunshine to make a rainbow

I find encouragement from this passage, and from the second part of Philippians 1 we studied in class on Sunday.   I do feel that there are some people who have become more vociferous in their opposing views in class; and while my non-confrontational nature wants to shrink away from it all and thinks it would be easier to just give up and walk away from teaching, but like Jeremiah and Paul, I feel like I should continue to declare the truth and should not give up despite opposition.   Even though, in some ways, I feel like they are waiting for me to slip up so they can pounce, yet, I just remind myself that I have always tried to handle accurately the Word of Truth; and I just need to continue to do that.    And, it is just better now that I am aware of what the opposing views are, so that I can be prepared to give a response.   By becoming more prepared to give an answer, it just helps me to grow in my knowledge and understanding.  I pray that God will grant me wisdom and grace as I lead the studies.