WWUTT 2284 Before You Were Born, I Chose You (Jeremiah 1:4-10)

The Lord said to Jeremiah, I have set you this day over nations and kingdoms to pluck up and break down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.

What does that have to do with us when we understand the text? This is

When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the Word. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, we feature

New Testament Study, an Old Testament book on Thursday, and our Q &A on Friday.

Now here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. In our study of the book of Jeremiah, we come back to chapter one this week.

Last week, I did an introduction to the book, so if you missed any of that, go back and listen where we did an outline of the book, covered the main themes, things of that nature.

Today, we'll actually get into our text. We looked at verses one through three last week, so I'm gonna pick up from there.

Verses four through verse 12. Hear the word of the Lord. Now the word of the

Lord came to me saying, before I formed you in the womb,

I knew you. And before you were born, I consecrated you.

I appointed you a prophet to the nations. Then I said, ah,

Lord God, behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth. But the

Lord said to me, do not say I am only a youth, for to all to whom

I send you, you shall go. And whatever I command you, you shall speak.

Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the

Lord. Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth, and the

Lord said to me, behold, I have put my words in your mouth. See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.

And the word of the Lord came to me saying, Jeremiah, what do you see? And I said,

I see an olive branch. Then the Lord said to me, you have seen well, for I am watching over my word to perform it.

We'll get at least that far today. We'll see if we go any further than that. But coming back up to verse four, this is the first exchange that God and Jeremiah have.

And this is right after our introduction where we are told that Jeremiah is the son of Hilkiah, that he prophesied in the days of Josiah and other kings that are mentioned there.

And so very likely Hilkiah is the same high priest under Josiah who found the scroll in the temple, the book of the law, who brought it to Josiah, read it to him.

Josiah was cut to the heart, tore his robes, realized what had been going on in Israel, in Judah was not honoring of God and the judgment of God was upon them.

So great sweeping legal reforms happened in Judah under Josiah's reign.

Jeremiah is the son of a high priest. And it's very likely that Jeremiah has high priest written upon him.

He is looking at being trained as a priest in the temple and maybe that would become his destiny one day.

He becomes a high priest in succession after his father. But at this time, he's a youth.

And you hear that in the response that he gives to God, behold, I am a youth. I don't even know how to speak.

So we'll get to that here in just a moment. But the word of the Lord comes to Jeremiah. And this is the way of any prophet in the old

Testament or even in the new, they don't choose to be a prophet. And it's the same with the apostles, by the way.

None of the apostles chose to become apostles. This is one of the things that I just loathe about any modern day apostles and prophets.

It's bad enough to me that they're out there gloating, bragging about themselves being an apostle or a prophet.

That's bad enough. Claiming that God is speaking to them when God is not actually speaking to them.

That's what they're claiming by saying that they are an apostle or a prophet. God is speaking words to me, he's not saying to you.

And so you need to listen to me because I have the word of the Lord. They're just lying. It's not true at all.

So that enough is bothersome. But what really annoys me about this, I would say makes me seethe about it the most is that they chose to be that.

They're deciding that they are an apostle or a prophet. That's with the modern apostles and prophets.

And by the way, in case I have to be blunt, they're all lying. None of them are apostles and prophets, but they chose that.

They decided I'm an apostle. They began to call themselves that.

They decided I'm a prophet and God is speaking to me. And so you have to hear the words that I am saying.

None of these persons chose that. God chose them.

100 % of the time, no exceptions. All of the apostles, remember what

Jesus said to the apostles in John 6. This was after Jesus had been saying to the crowds, you must eat of my flesh and drink of my blood if you want to enter the kingdom of God.

They can't stand what it is that Jesus is saying, so they walk away. Jesus looks at the 12 and says to them, how about you?

Are you going to walk away from me too? And Peter says, Lord, where else will we go? You have the words of eternal life.

Peter's kind of congratulating himself with that response. We've chosen to follow you because you have the words of eternal life.

Jesus says to them, did I not choose you, the 12? And that comes up again in the gospel of John with Jesus saying to his disciples, remember that you did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit.

God chose his apostles and prophets. We don't pick that. God is the one who has sovereignly chosen.

Now, oftentimes when it comes to the doctrine of election or the doctrine of predestination, an understanding or an idea that God from all eternity past had chosen whom he was going to save.

He chooses even those whom he is going to call to himself. This is Paul talking about this with the

Thessalonians. I think one of the most clearest passages on this is right at the beginning of Ephesians chapter one, beginning in verse three, blessed is the

God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him.

In love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved.

He chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him.

And by the way, a lot of those statements in the New Testament with regard to being chosen before the foundation of the world, not only says we've been chosen for salvation, but we've been chosen for sanctification.

Those two things are inseparable. If you've been justified, then you're going to be sanctified.

You may have heard me say that in a sermon that aired here on the podcast. I think it was the one that was just this past Sunday.

So we are justified, declared innocent before God through faith in Jesus Christ.

And those who are justified are likewise going to be sanctified. We're going to be grown in holiness as well.

This is by God's appointing. He has chosen this. And it's not just apostles and prophets.

So going back to what I was saying a couple of minutes ago, whenever we start talking about this doctrine of predestination,

God having chosen from before the foundation of the world who will be saved, a lot of times the argument is that God chose apostles and prophets, but he doesn't just choose ordinary

Christians. Whenever we bring up this passage in Jeremiah 1, before I formed you in the womb,

I knew you. Before you were born, I consecrated you and I appointed you a prophet to the nations.

Whenever we bring that up, we talk about God having chosen even before we were born. Those who push back on this idea will say, well, that's a prophet.

Or we'll talk about it with Paul, because Paul says the same thing in Galatians 1, in verse 15, when he who had set me apart before I was born and who called me by his grace was pleased to reveal his son to me in order that I might preach him among the

Gentiles. God had chosen Paul for this before he was born. So whether we say this about Jeremiah in Jeremiah 1 or Paul in Galatians 1, there will be people who will push back on that and say, well, that's different because Jeremiah was a prophet and Paul was an apostle.

But God doesn't just do that for ordinary Christians. That's just absurd. I remember one time

I was having a conversation with a guy that was pushing back on the whole concept of Calvinism.

Like he had written down all these things about Calvinism that he didn't like. And when we just opened up the scriptures and saw that God had called

Paul to this, Paul didn't decide it, God called him to it, appointed him to it, chosen him before he was born.

And when he saw that in the scriptures, he said, well, if he's doing it for Paul, he's doing it for everybody because how does God choose

Paul for this, but it doesn't affect other people? That would be absurd. So even he knew this, even somebody who was opposed to Calvinism just looked at common sense statements in the scripture and drew the conclusion that, well, then that's everybody.

It can't just be Jeremiah and it can't just be Paul. If God is choosing, then he's choosing.

If it was not Jeremiah's will, it was not Paul's will, it was God's will.

And so likewise, the same could be said about any believer that we have come to faith in Jesus Christ because it was

God's will for us. In 1 Thessalonians 1, when Paul is talking about this with the

Thessalonians, verse four, we know brothers loved by God that he has chosen you because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the

Holy Spirit and with full conviction. They know that God had chosen them because they believed.

Belief was the evidence that they had been elect, that they had been predestined, that they had been chosen by God.

That's the order, that's the progression. Paul is not saying you believed. And so that's how we know that God had chosen you because after you believed, he chose you.

That's not what Paul is saying, but rather their belief gave evidence to the fact that God had chosen you before you believed.

You were chosen to hear and to believe because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the

Holy Spirit with full conviction. We know that you were chosen. You were convicted by this word that we spoke to you.

Now, it could very well be that you think that's unfair. Why does

God get to choose that person for a prophet, that person for an apostle, but I can't be one? Again, you might have your mind muddled by these modern apostles and prophets that call themselves that, to think that you can choose that or to think that's even an honorable thing that I would want to do.

I wanna be a prophet or I wanna be an apostle because look how important they are. Look at how many people look up to them.

Look at the kind of ministries that they control and the opportunities that they have and all these kinds of things.

You got stars in your eyes about it. It's almost like rockstar status in an evangelical community.

And that's the desire that you would have to wanna be an apostle or a prophet, but you don't understand what these men went through.

And that's what you don't see demonstrated among modern apostles and prophets today. They don't go through the same kinds of things that the apostles and prophets of the

Bible went through. They are not being beaten, ostracized, kicked out of their families, blown out of town, lives threatened, so on and so forth.

You don't see that among these modern apostles and prophets. And I know that those guys would probably push back on it.

Oh, you know how many death threats I get? And I'll just tell them, get in line, because I get them too. Your life is not as hard as any of these prophets and apostles in the

Bible. These guys went through some stuff and we're gonna see that with Jeremiah, especially the kinds of things that he goes through, how much people will hate him because of the word of the

Lord that he speaks. It's God that they hate. Remember, that's what Jesus said to his disciples.

Remember that when they hate you, they hated me first. The reason they hate you is because they hate me.

And so Jeremiah is gonna go through some really difficult things, the usual kinds of persecutions that prophets would go through, being hated for the word that they spoke because the people to whom they are speaking hate the word of God.

That's the reason why Jeremiah will face all this kind of animosity and persecution. But on top of all of that, there is this grief that Jeremiah feels because he knows the word of the

Lord, because he knows that this people is not going to repent. There are times when

God is going to say to Jeremiah, do not pray for this people because the prayers are not gonna change my mind.

I am going to bring upon them what I am declaring that I'm gonna bring upon them. And Jeremiah knowing this, seeing this people whom he loves, not turning from their sin back to the

Lord, just fills him with grief. And it's the reason why we call him the weeping prophet because of the very kind of grief that he just carried on his shoulders throughout the course of his ministry, several decades of doing this ministry.

And he felt that grief, longing for this people to repent and not come to destruction. And yet they stubbornly continued in this way that provoked the

Lord to anger. So the word of the Lord comes to Jeremiah, once again saying, before I formed you in the womb,

I knew you. And so this is also a declaration of God being the one who makes us in the womb.

It's not just some biological process that is going on, but God is the one who makes us and forms us and shapes us, gives us our very soul and intertwines it with our bodies.

Before you were born, before you breached the womb, I consecrated you,

I declared you holy, even from the womb. Remember as we've been going through the gospel of Luke, chapters one and two, that's as far as we've been through Luke right now, but it was said to Zechariah that when his wife

Elizabeth would be expecting John, who would be John the Baptist, the Holy Spirit would be with him even from the womb.

And this is that same kind of a thing that's being said here of Jeremiah. I consecrated you when you were even in the womb,

I made you holy and separated you for myself, appointed you for this task.

I've been preparing you and readying you for this. Now, as we discuss these things, as we consider and mull over and digest all the different passages that would talk about predestination or God having chosen us before we chose and things like that, surely you're gonna ask, well, where is free will in the midst of this?

Could Jeremiah have refused? The answer to that question is no, because then we would have an entire book of the

Bible that would never have even been written, which surely God had ordained that this would be the case.

So no, Jeremiah could not have refused, but does that take away his free will?

The answer to that question is no, it doesn't. We still have a responsibility to respond to God's word.

Jeremiah is hearing God's word here and he must respond to it. He must submit to God and obey him and do what

God instructs of him to do. We all have a responsibility to do that. You've heard the word of the

Lord. You've heard the gospel, you've heard his commands. Now, how are you gonna reply to it?

And none of us will be able to stand before God on that day, on that judgment day and point the finger at him and say, well, this was your fault because you made me do it.

None of us are gonna be able to do that. It's Romans nine. That's the skeptic in Romans nine that says, well, who then can resist his will?

Why does he find fault when he's the one who made me this way? That's the skeptic who is asking that question in Romans nine and you don't wanna be on the side of the skeptic.

How is it that God has foreordained, but we also have the responsibility for responding to God in obedience?

The answer to that question is very mysterious. There are a lot of things in theology that are very mysterious.

How does the Trinity work? How does the incarnation work? Jesus having a human will and a divine will.

How is it that we have been foreordained from before the foundation of the world, but we also have a will by which we choose to obey or disobey?

Yeah, all these things are rather mysterious. Answers that will be, yeah, answers given to us later.

Questions that we will have answered later. That's what I wanted to say. But for now we hear and so we must obey.

And Jeremiah does so, not without a little bit of pushback and some pushback that sounds somewhat familiar.

In fact, look at verse six. Then I said, ah, Lord God behold, I do not know how to speak for I am only a youth.

Who does that sound like? Well, Moses didn't say I am only a youth, but he did try to get out of God's appointing because he was not able to speak.

At least that was the excuse that he made. I have fumbling lips. I can't talk. Who are you to ask me to do this kind of thing?

And the Lord really comes down on him for that saying, did I not make man's mouth? Do I not make him speak or mute?

Like it's the Lord that even determines whether a person sees or is blind. And so God says to Jeremiah, do not say

I am only a youth for to all to whom I send you, you shall go.

And whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of them for I am with you to deliver you declares the

Lord. Wouldn't that be some assuring comfort, a comforting assurance.

If you were to hear God say to you, you have no reason to be afraid because I am with you.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to hear God say that? Well, the fact of the matter is he has said that to us.

He has said that to every one of us, you have no reason to be afraid of them because I am with you.

Romans 8 31, what shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies.

Who is to condemn Christ Jesus is the one who died more than that who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?

So the Bible tells us God is on our side. What reason do you have to fear anyone?

Even if they destroy your body, God has your soul and the promise for you is eternal life in Jesus Christ.

Do not be afraid of them. God says to Jeremiah, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the

Lord. Then the Lord put out his hand, touched my mouth, just like the

Lord did with Isaiah. So we see him doing here with Jeremiah. And the Lord said to me, behold,

I have put my words in your mouth. See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.

And believe it or not, my friends, God has given the same to us. Not that we can be modern prophets, not in the sense of a prophet being chosen and appointed the way that we see it in the

Old Testament and the revelation of God given to him that he would take the word of God to the people.

But we all are prophets in the sense that the word of the Lord has come to us in the scriptures.

It's right here in the Bible. And we too become set over nations and over kingdoms to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant when we go out with the word of God so that others may be cut to the heart by this word, as said in the book of Hebrews, the word of the

Lord sharper than any two -edged sword cuts right to the heart of the person. Whenever we talk about sin, the need for repentance, the salvation that is in the gospel of Jesus Christ, we are prophetically declaring something that has authority over each and every person, so much authority that it sets the one free who believes in Jesus Christ, free from sin and the wages of sin, which is death, free from the wrath of God that they were under because of their sin against God.

And we are set over nations and over kingdoms with the word of God that we are to take to this people.

And when they hate us for it, and it's because they hate God, but we have nothing to fear of them for God is with us.

Let's finish there. We'll pick up again in Jeremiah chapter one next week. Heavenly father, we thank you for what we have read.

And I pray that it does fill us with confidence. We have nothing to fear of them because we have been delivered in Christ, brought into your kingdom, made your people, and the king is on our side.

May that be a great comfort to us today. And may it be a word of encouragement that we can give to another.

May it be a word that guides us and motivates us to wanna share the word of Christ with others because it is only by faith in him that a person can be saved.

It's in Jesus name we pray, amen. This has been, When We Understand the

Text of Pastor Gabriel Hughes. For all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books, and more, visit our website at www .utt

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