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How is Jeremiah an example of enduring opposition and resistance to share God’s Word? What obstacles to witnessing for Christ do you face and how can you overcome them?
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17 Replies
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Jeremiah faced opposition and resistance his entire ministry. He was threatened, assaulted, put in prison, and left to die in a mud filled cistern. He met opposition from all levels of society. He was threatened by people from his home town. The scroll recording his message was cut up and thrown in the fire by the king. He was continually opposed by the false prophets who pacified the people with a distorted message regarding their future.
The obstacles I face to witnessing for Christ are not as harsh as those Jeremiah faced. But they are the same as all Christians who live in our nation. Societal norms have changed to accept what is unacceptable to a follower of Christ. Christians face inaccurate and degrading portrayals in the media. They even face governmental interference in the way they conduct their commercial business. The words of a believer are restricted in public schools and the workplace.
Given all of this, Christians in our nation are still free to read the Bible and worship God openly. They are not threatened with imprisonment or death because of their beliefs. But the obstacles American Christians face continue to become more and more severe. These impediments must be fought with continual prayer and persistance in showing the love of Christ to those around us.
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Jeremiah was faced with criticism from others because of the message that he was preaching. It wasn’t a popular message and it contradicted what some of the other prophets were saying. It is difficult to say what others do not what to hear, and when you face rejection and imprisonment, it takes boldness and commitment to continue doing what God has called you do. Jeremiah had to be sure that God had spoken these things to him in order to continue to preach in the midst of so much opposition.
The obstacles that we face as Christians nowadays is that everything we believe is true in the Word of God often contradicts what our society believes and practices. We have to be bold in what we believe and say, because the world criticizes and persecutes us for speaking the truth about sin.
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One encouragement from Jeremiah is that our obedience and faithfulness to sharing God’s truth is all He asks of us – not results. The outcomes belong to the Lord and if people reject Him, it doesn’t mean we’ve failed the Gospel. It just means we need to pray even harder that they will turn to Him and be saved. It’s all in His timing and according to whether people are willing to bow to Christ’s authority.
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Jeremiah’s focus was on obeying what God called him to do from day one. I think for Jeremiah, prior to going into “full-time ministry”, he had some idea that the people and the surrounding he was asked to proclaim God’s word would be of a resistant and opposing nature but again God made his calling on Jeremiah very clear from the start. He like any other human had highs and lows but he consistently took what he was wrestling with to the Lord in prayer and remained faithful to God and his calling. I think obstacles are when we take oppositions personally and hold ourselves personally responsible for the results. After years of going through these obstacles and various challenges, I now try to keep it simple: I speak as God directs and let the results be in His hands.
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It is perfectly fitting to see Jeremiah as an example of enduring opposition and resistance to share God’s Word in at least two regards. If you view the prophet against the backdrop of the opposition with the apostate Judah and the false prophets who were popular with the people he has to contend with, it is not out of place to appreciate him as an example of enduring opposition and resistance to share the word of God. The duo are formidable enough to weary out the prophet in the discharge of an unpopular message of repentance to a completely apostate Judah.
It is gratifying to know tho moral and the spiritual condition the state of Judah when Jeremiah was called to minister. Judah has completely lost touch with the word of God and has completely relapsed into idolatry when Jeremiah was called to minister. The job was made absolutely difficult for him with the opposition from false prophets who were given to prophesying sweet things to the community against the sharp warning from the lord that was the hallmark of Jeremiah’s oracles. These coupled with the seeming failure of his ministry which evidently was not producing any positive effect on the society, this no doubt can be damning and devastating.
The society I am Calle to minister is not different. The obstacles presented against the gospel ministry of my time are multi-faceted. It ranges from complete lost with absolute, to sexual perversion, from occultism to religious fanaticism. The list is endless. To overcome it is to come to term with my scope of assignment. I have determined that mine is to be obediently faithful to my calling as a preacher and leave the department of result and outcome to God. I appreciate that I am not called to be successful but to be faithful.