Jeremiah 1-20: Come follow Me with Sam

 Welcome! Finally out of the Isaiah chapters!

Jeremiah was a contemporary of Lehi, and in a sense, a capstone to Isaiah. Isaiah was around 100 years earlier and warned of all the things that would happen. Israel then had some ups and downs, mostly downs, to the point where we get to Jeremiah and Zedekiah. Jeremiah was basically the last Prophet before Jerusalem was destroyed and the kingdom came to an end. Here are a couple keys from Jeremiah.

• Jeremiah's humility at not being able to speak is reminiscent of Isaiah 6. Both prophets suffered the same challenge that they knew they had weaknesses that would come out into the open if they opened their mouths. Both times, albeit in different ways, God reminded them that it is the call that sanctifies the word, not the person. When God commissions you to speak, it is good to speak whatever the consequences.
• Like Isaiah, Jeremiah speaks directly to the terrible hypocrisy and neglect of the leaders to follow the gospel. There were ups and downs, but Israel wasn't able to shake this over 100 years. It is interesting as a parallel that Lehi, who had directly received dreams and visions, wasn't able to plug into any of the church or government leadership in Jerusalem for protection and help. When he sent his sons Nephi and company to retrieve the brass plates, they had to do so by revelation and by miracles against Laban and his interests, who should have been the one most open to the will of God as the guardian of the plates.
• Also, it looks like the Israelites were passing their children through fire again, among other terrible things. This is significant for a number of reasons, but I'll just state that and let it sink in for now.
• Finally, by Chapter 20, Jeremiah straight up says this job is not fun, and he wish he never had been born to do this. He also counters himself in the same speech and says that God's word was as a 'burning fire shut up in my bones... and I could not stay.' This is a rare insight into the soul of a prophet, especially a prophet during a wicked time. Have you ever wondered why those prophets even tried? They aren't going to get any earthly reward, everyone is going to think that they are crazy, and they will be lucky not to be abused, tortured, or even killed. What keeps them going? Why do they care? There are some easy primary answers to this question, but as you may have guessed, to really understand what is going on, you usually need to go a little more deep. We have a moment to get an idea of what is going through Jeremiah's mind in these chapters. We can compare that to other places in the Bible and Book of Mormon to get a better picture. That in turn should inevitably lead us to understanding a much higher and holier view of our lives in the big picture. These prophets obviously were not attached to the current lifestyle. In fact, for them it is a polar opposite. By seeing what they were oriented towards, we can orient ourselves in the same way and thereby begin to transcend much of those things the prophets ask us to.