Jeremiah 15 (click link for chapter)

This Chapter has a wholesale condemnation of the residents of Jeremiah's Judah:
1. To Death
2. To the Sword
3. To Famine
4. To captivity
(look at Revelation 22:11)

Four forms of destruction:
1. Sword
2. dogs
3. birds
4. beasts

v.6
God is weary of relenting and his patience is at an end. He is going to destroy them, leaving a remnant...

v.10
Jeremiah laments his birth to his mother. He is a man of strife an contention to the whole earth. (look at jude v.2-4) Everyone curses him.

Then God promises good to the Remnant. It seems like a promise to Jeremiah, himself, in light of his suffering in being the bringer of such bad news. The adversaries will "intercede" for him and his remnant will be blessed. I wonder if any alive today are distant relatives of this man.

Troubling passages, indeed.

Jeremiah prays for God to take vengeance on his persecutors (among the leaders of the peole of Judah).

v. 17
Jeremiah was removed because he loved the Word of God. He was filled with indignation and removed himself! This is that bitterness that the righteous feel in the "days of noah", as destruction looms over the stubbornness of sin in the land and the church.

v. 19
God warns Jeremiah not to return to his people (to let up on the prophetic message) and promises to bless and strengthen him.
"...I will redeem you from th egrip of the terrible."

jeremiah really is going to experience that grip.

This is for us, people. The churches in America are flying headlong into prostitution with wealth and power, just like Jeremiah's Judah. There is stubbornness in compromise and heresy all around us. Justice perishes, and the ways of the Lord are subverted to fulfill men's hunger for power and mammnon.

Don't mess around with this stuff. Join with Jeremiah in faithfulness, and remove your selves, gathering around Jesus. Jeremiah found the word adn ate it (v.16). Will you? Please consider that it is entirely possible...probable...actual...that the churches around us are compromising to an astounding depth with stubbornness...

And God's Judgment on our "nation" has to do with that unfaithfulness. God will strike the church with the very power she has lusted after. It won't be long until the state persecutes every form of church that denies the world and operates in the power of the Spirit...