Jeremiah 1:4-10 Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,… I. WHAT IT IS, IN SPIRITUAL LANGUAGE, TO BE A CHILD. This is one of the most comforting of Gospel names, when it unites us with God as our Father, and thus implies that there is the holy principle of a new birth unto righteousness within us. 1. A child in this sense, is one who has been translated out of his own unrighteous nature into the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ; and this translation takes him at once from under the dominion of the law, and brings him into the glorious liberty of the Gospel. 2. A child, in scriptural acceptation, because he feels himself to be a sinning child, will bear submissively, every trying dispensation that shall be laid upon him, and in a child-like spirit. 3. Every child of God's adoption will study the will of God, and strive to make it his own. II. WHAT INFLUENCES WERE OPERATING UPON THE PROPHETS, WHEN HE SAID, "I CANNOT SPEAK, FOR I AM A CHILD." 1. There was the influence of a fallen and diseased nature. It is a great blessing to be able to look into the drowning sea of our own evil hearts, and to know the things we ought to pray for, and the rocks and quicksands it is our interest to avoid. But it is perilous to linger too long in an enemy's country, and to roll our meditations overmuch through the defiled places; because the very sight and knowledge of what we are, in our natural weakness and deformity, if they are steeped for too long a time in the bitterness of soul humiliation, will be apt to produce a feeling of darkness akin to despair. 2. There was a distrust of God's providence. This is a common sin in very many, who are without a question, children of the covenant. They have a faith, but it is not equal to their emergencies; there is a light in it, but it does not warm them; it staggers and hesitates, when it ought to be going forwards and realising. III. WHAT IT WAS THAT GOD INTENDED HIS PROPHET TO UNDERSTAND, WHEN HE REPLIED, "SAY NOT, I AM A CHILD," etc. 1. First He taught him that His simple word is the best rock for dependence: "Thou shalt go and thou shalt speak." This is the way in which God most loves to teach His children, because it is the simplest, I do not say the easiest lesson, for their faith to embrace. It is a trial for their confidence to improve. 2. But God's word to the prophet, "Say not I am a child," implies more. Jeremiah was to work for God; but God was to work in Jeremiah, and to supply him with a strength fully equal to what he had to do. Here is another link that binds God in His omnipotence to a covenant child in his weakness. (F. G. Crossman.) Parallel Verses KJV: Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, |
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