Call to Commitment

  

Chapter 2

 Israel’s youth

Not everything that happened to Israel up to this point was bad. As Moses poured out the Lord’s plagues upon Egypt, Israel enjoyed wonderful protection in Goshen. The first Passover was a profound, spiritual celebration, and on the next day in the middle of March, the 15^th of Abib, they left Egypt from Ramases. They departed before the eyes of the Egyptians, who were burying their firstborn. From a place called Hahiroth, they experienced a glorious, supernatural crossing of the Red Sea, followed by Miriam, tambourine in hand, leading the ladies in a joyous dance and song composed for the occasion. It was sung by all:

 I will sing to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously;

The horse and rider He has thrown into the sea.

The Lord is my strength and my song, and He has become my salvation;

This is my God and I will praise Him, my father´s God and I will exalt Him.

In the wilderness, they camped at Elim and were refreshed by twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees. At the desert of Sinai, the people began to gather and eat manna, which the Lord provided for them. The manna had a pleasant taste, like wafers of honey, and a variety of uses. It could be ground or beaten with a mortar, baked in pans and made into cakes, boiled, or prepared with oil like pastry.

 They saw the might of the Lord, when they gained a military victory over the Amalekites. Spiritual forces were at work, as the army of Israel battled in Rephidim. Moses sat on top of the hill, Aaron and Hur supporting his hands, because Israel gained victory with the upraised hands of Moses. He built an altar there and called it Jehovahnissi…  The Lord is My Banner.

 Israel lived under the glory of God, manifested in a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night. The pillars led them, wherever they were to go. Besides, there was a glorious, life-or-death manifestation of God on Mt. Horeb or Sinai. The people purified themselves and met with the Lord at the base of the mountain. They heard the loud blast of God´s trumpet, felt the mountain quake, while Sinai smoked and thunder and lightnings filled the atmosphere. They received his incomparable law and covenanted, “All the words which the Lord has said we will do.” Civilized nations around the world have patterned their justice systems, according to this law. 

  

                  Chapter 1:7-19

 

Holy Spirit preparation

Please open your own Bibles. The entire text will not be included in these articles.

We can make a comparison between Samuel, to whom God spoke, launching his ministry, when he was only twelve-years-old, and a very young Jeremiah. “Samuel did not yet know the Lord” (1 S.3:7), and did not recognize His voice, so that God had to call to him three times, before he understood, through Eli, Who was speaking to him. Samuel knew his old superior and went to him, before he came to know God. To whom anyone resorts for answers determines his spiritual relationship. Anyone can judge his own life by Samuel’s example to see whether or not he has direct contact with God. Once Samuel had a genuine encounter with God, all that was expected of him was to deliver His word to Eli.

 It is obviously essential that the Lord’s servant must have personal knowledge of Him at the onset of his calling in life. We can see that, certainly, Jeremiah already knew God and, of course, God knew him, because he speaks freely with the Lord at the beginning of his book. God preordained him to be a prophet to the nations… to our nation and to every nation, through the inspired Book, which contains his writings (v.5).

Jeremiah’s person and ministry

In 1976, a well-known and appreciated 75-year-old preacher, named Vance Havner, from the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, publicly reminisced about his life’s calling. He said, in his heavy southern drawl, “I never knew the day when I did not feel called to preach.”  He preached for the first time at age 12. Charles Spurgeon was not much older, when he began to preach. The first time that he was invited to preach in London, some smiled at his country accent. They had no way of knowing that one day London would not have an auditorium big enough to attend the crowds that came to listen to him.

 All good commentators agree that Jeremiah was very young, when God called him into the prophetic office: "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations." Jeremiah spoke very literally, when he argued of his incompetence for the ministry, particularly because of his youth: "Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, I cannot speak, for I am a youth." Adam Clarke estimated that he was about 14-years-old.

 He was born a priest, therefore of the tribe of Levi, and came from a Benjamite town, called Anathoth. When Solomon was a new king, he deposed his high priest, Abiathar, banning him from Jerusalem and sent him to this town a few miles northeast of the great city (1 K.2:26-35). Abiathar came first to David in exile, having escaped the massacre of the priests in Nob (1 S.22:20). Jeremiah could have been a descendent of the disgraced high priest, although from the time of Joshua, Anathoth had been given as a residence for the priesthood (Josh.21:18), so already there were priests living there.

 There is no mention of a wife or family, but his father was Hilkiah. Possibly, he was the high priest, whose timely discovery of the Book of the Law in the neglected temple, ended King Josiah’s search for the true God, which began when he was 16 years old (2 K.22:8). It happened in the 18^th year of Josiah’s reign and brought revival to Judah.   

 A contemporary of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, was also a priest. However, a prophet, unlike a priest, is not born a prophet, but called by a God, who does as He pleases. It is His way to call the unlikely ones and we see that pattern throughout the Bible, particularly in Christ’s calling of His disciples. 

 

 I want to encourage my brothers and sisters in Christ to read from the writings of a man of God, whose name we don’t often hear these days. Yet he was a vessel, who made a significant impression, not only on the church, but on the entire world, through great missionary endeavors.

 Albert B. Simpson was raised in a strict Calvinistic Scottish Presbyterian tradition, to the extent that, when he came under deep conviction of sin, his parents, either did not know how to help him or, more probably, thought that it was improper to interfere with God’s work of salvation. However, young Simpson struggled under the weight of sin for too long and found no relief, until he discovered a line in Walter Marshall’s Gospel Mystery of Salvation, “The first good work you will ever perform is to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.” This little ray of light, given by a human writer, brought Simpson to commit his life to “Jesus Only”, his burden was lifted and he was gloriously converted.

 A. B. Simpson was founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, a movement which was dedicated to taking the gospel to the far ends of the world. This is the movement, to which A. W. Tozer belonged and, in fact, Tozer wrote Simpson’s biography, Wingspread. My father also belonged to the C&MA and loved to read Simpson’s Christ-exalting books. 

 “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!”  Matthew 17:5

 At the same time, I find things in which I disagree with Tozer, although they are not many and certainly not vital matters. We should follow no man exclusively, because we are all brothers in imperfection and we only find perfection in Christ. I mention Tozer, because you will see that I have presented some of his thoughts previously and I want to do some again. Here are some things that Tozer had to say concerning loyalty and following man. Tozer was a pastor, principally in two churches in his lifetime, one in Chicago and the other in Toronto, so he is speaking on this subject from a pastoral standpoint. He always pointed his people to Christ alone:

 In Rut, Root or Revival, chapter five, he said: “Faith in Jesus is not commitment to your church or denomination. I believe in the local church… I believe in the divine assembly. We ought to realize that we are, as a group of Christians, a divine assembly, a cell in the body of Christ, alive with His life. But not for one second would I try to create in you a faith that would lead you to commit yourself irrevocably to a local church or to your church leaders.”