Audio Transcript:
Welcome to Missions on Point, the Propempo perspective on church and missions.
Welcome back to Missions on Point. This is episode 235. On Missions on Point we talk about missions content for the church without the banter and blather. So, let’s get right into it. Today we are considering how we can preach about missions from the prophet Jeremiah, in both the book by his name and in Lamentations. If you’re wondering how we can do that at all, go back to the first two episodes in this series where we make the claim that biblical theology will rightly lead us to applications about missions from all of scripture. It’s not necessarily going to be the main thing you say, it might just be a side point, or a single comment. Nevertheless, missions should always be in the back of our minds, if not in the front, and it should frame everything we say, especially when it comes to applying scripture to the church.
Jeremiah was a priest who prophesied before, during, and after Jerusalem’s fall to Babylon. With the help of his scribe, Baruch, the book of Jeremiah is a collection of writings over the prophet’s lifetime, like a scrapbook. Its arrangement is often topical rather than historical. And for a number of reasons, Jeremiah’s nickname is “the weeping prophet,” but he was also really tough, determined and longsuffering. The three main themes of this book are 1) Jeremiah the prophet, 2) the city of Jerusalem and the nations of the world, and 3) the Messiah and the Old and New Covenants. When Jeremiah talks about judgment it is against two things: Covenant infidelity and worldwide sin in general. And the answer to both problems comes from a new unbreakable covenant where God gathers an international people for himself.
Since Jeremiah is not exactly a chronological book, I will group our considerations into those three topics that I just mentioned.
First, we consider Jeremiah the prophet in this book named after him. It’s interesting to note how much of the prophet’s life is itself a part of the prophet’s ministry. The prophet teaches us something about the messenger of God’s word. In a similar way, preachers and missionaries today have a prophetic voice. They do not have the office of prophet and bring in new revelation, but they still have a burden to speak the word of God faithfully. Not only that but the messenger is often the message too, through living as an example of the gospel, a life transformed by grace.
Jeremiah has a call to ministry not too different than the prophet Isaiah, whom we saw last time. Jeremiah was set aside by God from before he was born. Chapter 1 of this book has this emphasis, that God has put his word in Jeremiah’s mouth and that God is watching over his word to perform it. Missionaries too must understand their call. It will certainly not be in the same sense as the prophet, but there very much needs to be a calling by God to this vocation. And it’s vitally important for the missionary to know how to discern that. It does not come from self-appointment because someone just has a good feeling about it. The church appoints the missionary to their service.
In chapters 11-20, we also see Jeremiah the prophet as a focus in this book as he struggles with God and with Judah. Jeremiah experienced intense opposition to him and to God’s word that he spoke. He endured great suffering and persecution. The abuse he endured led him to question God and complain that God’s word had become a reproach and a derision for him. But at the end, he concluded that it was impossible for him to not speak God’s word, and expressed confidence that God’s enemies would not overcome him. There’s an application here too for the missionary who suffers, especially in the face of those who reject God’s word. Our confidence is that God is watching over his word to perform it.
In chapters 21-29, Jeremiah confronts the false prophets and corrupt priests. The prophets got their visions from their own minds and they ran even though God had not sent them. And a key feature that identified the false prophets was that they did not preach a message of repentance to Judah. Likewise, the Apostle Peter says that just as there were false prophets in the Old Testament, there will be false teachers today too. This is never more present than on the mission field where many self-appointed preachers have no accountability to a sending church to guard their life and doctrine.
Second, we consider the city of Jerusalem and the nations of the world in the book of Jeremiah
Not only does the prophet teach us about the messenger of God’s word, but the prophet’s message will inform us about the message that we speak too. The content of Jeremiah’s message teaches us something about the content of the message of the preacher and the missionary too. As Jeremiah wept for Jerusalem, so too did Jesus, and the Apostle Paul, and Christians as well. We weep for the rejection of the Jews, even though it brought about the salvation of the Gentiles. We ought to weep for the destruction of any people. We ought to weep for the nations that are under God’s wrath even now, in rebellion against him.
First up in Jeremiah’s message is that he preaches against Israel’s covenantal adultery. This is especially clear in chapters 2-6. God was rejecting his people, because they were like a faithless spouse, and disaster was coming, so they should repent. In a similar vein, this is the message for the church, that judgment begins with the household of God. We must not be like the nations of the world but stand separate from them.
Of particular interest is the nation of Judah, and we return to talking about how God judged them in the second half of the book, in chapters 34-45. Of interest is how king Jehoiakim rejected the word of God and tore fragments of Jeremiah’s scroll as they were read and burned them in the fire. In response, God had Jeremiah write down this message again. Jeremiah was falsely accused and arrested for supposedly deserting to the Chaldeans. He told the people to surrender to the Babylonians and was placed in a cistern. He told them not to go down to Egypt, and he was accused of lying. And here is one of the applications for us. We must obey God rather than man. Even should we be mistreated, and despite what everyone else is saying. God’s word must be affirmed and proclaimed no matter what. The temptation to rely on something other than God’s word is especially prevalent in missions.
Yet, after God judges Judah, he then judges all the nations of the world. This is perfect evidence that God cares enough about the nations to warn them of his judgment. And we too should have the same concern for every nation of the world. In this judgment, God is often making a distinction between those who are his people and those who are not. Yet, even as God judges these Gentile nations, he promises to many of them hope. And we know that their hope is realized in the new covenant, of which most of us listening to this podcast are probably beneficiaries. Praise God that there is hope and not just judgment for Gentiles like me.
And last, for this point, Jeremiah has a special interest in the city of Jerusalem itself. The final chapter of the book focuses us here. The temple was burned down and the treasures of the temple were carried off to Babylon. And only the very poor remained in Jerusalem. This one city was the center of the world. And all nations should weep as they see the temple destroyed, just as we should all mourn the death of Jesus, the true temple of God.
This book focuses on Jeremiah the prophet, and Jerusalem verses the nations of the world. And third, we consider the Messiah as he relates to the Old and New Covenants in the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah’s hope in a new covenant is of utmost concern for the preacher and missionary today, for the new covenant provides the basis for the church going into all the world to do global missions. The book of Hebrews chapter 8 narrows our focus on the very middle of this book, chapters 30-33. Smack in the middle of judgment comes the promise of restoration for Judah and Israel. Yet, the author of Hebrews clearly interprets this as the promise of the new covenant that Gentiles now are a part of. The hope of a return from exile is ultimately the hope of the resurrection. And the promise is the gift of the Holy Spirit to write God’s law on our hearts. God forgives our iniquities and remembers our sins no more and this covenant is promised to be eternal and never broken. A righteous branch would spring up from David, fulfilling the promises of the Old Covenant, and his righteousness would be counted as the people’s righteousness. This is the only hope for people from every nation, not just Israel. The New Covenant is what makes missions a natural application. And every time we preach from the Old Covenant, we should be ready to contrast it with the New. God’s one nation, has been rejected, the Old Covenant broken. And the only hope for the Israelites is the same hope for every nation, the New Covenant in Jesus.
Finally, I want to quickly address the book of Lamentations, which was most likely also written by the prophet Jeremiah. It’s a series of acrostic poems of the Hebrew alphabet. Thus, these poems were a little easier to memorize and they represented the worshipper who offered lament from “A to Z”. These laments range from the protest of suffering to the penitence of humbling turning to God. The only bright spot in them is found in God himself. The most famous verses are found in chapter 3:22-24 which say, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him.’” I have three quick applications for missions from lamentation in general, which is exemplified in this book of Lamentations.
First, we pour out our hearts to God. Lamentations teaches us to cry and mourn in our worship. Evil is rampant, and we need relief, but we must accept the consequences of sin and our only hope in God. Lamentation is a pattern for Christian witness in this world. Suffering is normative, especially for those who are faithfully following Christ. Missionaries ought to go to the field expecting to suffer, and through that suffering, and their faithful response to it, God will use their laments to call a lost and hurting world to hope in God.
Second, the steadfast love of God is our only anchor. The Lord takes up the cause of those who suffer through his redemption of mankind. Likewise, the missionary who has compassion for a suffering world must draw attention to the mercy and forgiveness of God as our only true rescue from God’s just punishment for sin.
Third, lamentations is future oriented. Restoration is often inconceivable in the present. Yet, God does promise a final end to all suffering and injustice. God’s punishment will be complete. And lamentations teaches us that prayer and hope are the right response to God’s promised restoration. Likewise, missions is future oriented. We go into a lost world that is faced with suffering, but the hope that we offer is not immediate relief, putting a band-aid on the chronic problems. Global missions aims at the global restoration that only the return of Jesus Christ can accomplish.
Lamentation lifts the faithful sufferer out of their own troubles and turns their eyes toward our heavenly home. Conversations on global missions could use more consideration of suffering and lamentation as normative to the task before us. Local churches are God’s plan for where we learn to face suffering with lamentation, and where the comfort of the hope of the gospel is most readily applied. Praise God for his faithful, steadfast love to us through it all.
Thanks for joining us today on Missions on Point. We trust that you'll find more help and resources on our websites at Propempo.com and missioserve.org. We are so thankful for those who support us, enabling us to produce this podcast. Now to God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever. Amen.
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