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But his God did not leave him without encouragement, and His Word to His
despondent prophet was:
"If thou return, then will I bring thee again, and thou shalt stand before Me: and if
thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as My mouth: let them return
unto thee; but return not thou unto them" (15: 19).
If Jeremiah `returns' from his despair to the Lord, the Lord would strengthen and
reinforce him; but as to those who had opposed him, he was not to return to them. If
there was to be reconciliation it must be on the grounds of their return to him.
At one time the situation had been so bad that Jeremiah goes so far as to say that
"Thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived: Thou art stronger than I, and hast
prevailed" (20: 7). Indeed the opposition was such at one point that he says:
"Then I said, I will not make mention of Him, nor speak any more in His name" (20: 9).
But his `I will not' was countered by his `I could not', for he continues:
"But His Word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was
weary with forbearing, and I could not stay" (20: 9).
Jeremiah's suffering in the service of God led him, like Job, to curse the day wherein
he was born (20: 14-18). At the same time he has this consolation:
"But the Lord is with me as a mighty terrible One: therefore my persecutors shall
stumble, and they shall not prevail: they shall be greatly ashamed; for they shall not
prosper: their everlasting confusion shall never be forgotten" (20: 11).
Perhaps in the days in which we live, when the enemy is so very active in opposing
the work of those God has called, we need to remember with Jeremiah "the Lord is with
me", not perhaps, in the present dispensation as a "mighty terrible One", but certainly as
the God "Who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think,
according to the power that worketh in us"; and that power is `exceeding great',
"according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ".