Sermon Tone Analysis

“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.’”

[1]

It is most humbling to realise that we cannot boast of anything we possess or of who we are.

Before ever life began, God was at work in the life of His child determining who that child would be and how he or she would be equipped to live out life.

From a practical point of view, we did not choose our parents, where we would be born or even what genetic gifts we would possess.

Some individuals are prepared to argue that we are the result of a sort of genetic crap shoot—a mindless dance of an almost limitless recombination of strands of DNA.

However, the Word of God reveals a mighty hand guiding the life of the Christian.

I am not addressing unbelievers who have determined that they are masters of their own fate.

Likely, such individuals have scant interest in anything a Baptist preacher might say.

For the most part, I am addressing professing Christians who profess to believe in a God who is intimately involved in guiding their lives.

Most professing Christians believe that their life is not defined by serendipity or accident.

Knowledgeable Christians are confident that God both cares for them and that He has directed their life even before they were born.

Where does a child of God derive such confidence?

What has God said to give such comfort to one who believes?

The questions are not inconsequential or serendipitous.

Rather, such queries lie at the heart of our understanding of who we are and how we are said to be in the image of God.

The understanding of our personhood lies at the root of the revulsion we feel in the knowledge of the slaughter of the unborn and motivates our opposition to condoning taking the life of those who require care and assistance.

We who know God, who understand His work in our life and our position before Him, are not merely uncomfortable at the thought of taking life; we stand athwart society’s efforts to justify killing the most vulnerable in society.

While the teaching of our relationship to the True and Living God is woven throughout the warp and woof of the Word of God, one particular passage in Jeremiah’s writing informs us of God’s work in the life of His child before the child is even conceived.

*BEFORE I WAS BORN* — The Prophecy of Jeremiah begins, not surprisingly, with the Prophet’s account of his appointment to divine service.

He speaks first of the period in which he prophesied.

We need to have this information in order to understand some of the prophecies.

“The words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, one of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, to whom the word of the LORD came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign.

It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, and until the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the captivity of Jerusalem in the fifth month” [JEREMIAH 1:1-3].

Jeremiah then gives us the specific statement concerning his appointment.

“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.’”

[JEREMIAH 1:4, 5]

This divine announcement will receive our full attention during the message; but it is important to take a moment to note Jeremiah’s response to God’s announcement.

“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’”

[JEREMIAH 1:6-10].

In a recent message, I commented on Jeremiah’s appointment to divine service.

In that prior message, I stated, “Long years ago I took to heart God’s admonition to Jeremiah when he began his service before the LORD God.

‘Now, gird up your loins and arise, and speak to them all that I command you.

Do not break down before their faces, lest I break you before them’ [JEREMIAH 1:17].

[2]

“As intimidating as his listeners may be, the preacher must watch that he does not he jump from the frying pan of congregational opposition into the fire of God’s humiliation.

When a preacher seeks peace with man, he can find himself at war with God.

Since I’ve just cited God’s command to Jeremiah, it is appropriate to examine Jeremiah’s appointment to preach.

When God first called Jeremiah as His servant, the young man hardly qualified as a fire-breather.

In fact, his initial reaction to God’s call was decidedly timid.

Protesting that he was but a youth, Jeremiah, like Moses before him, attempted to decline the divine commission [see JEREMIAH 1:6].

“Do you blame him?

Jeremiah was a member of the priestly clan [see JEREMIAH 1:1]; and the LORD gave him a devastating message.

Jeremiah must have shuddered at the thought of telling his countrymen and his fellow priests that everything they held dear—the nation of Israel, the city of Jerusalem, even the temple of the LORD itself—was about to be judged and destroyed.

“In spite of the young man’s fears, God pressed His demand—‘Dress yourself for work.’

The life of priestly ease Jeremiah once enjoyed was finished.

Jeremiah was now a prophet of God given one mandate: ‘Say to them everything that I command you’ [see JEREMIAH 1:17].

From this point onward he would be under appointment from the True and Living God.

“The newly appointed prophet had every reason to be fearful—literally all the great men of Israel would stand against him [see JEREMIAH 1:18, 19].

Therefore, The LORD commanded him, ‘Do not be dismayed by them, lest I dismay you before them.’

The Hebrew word ‘dismayed’ (hatat) also means ‘broken’ or ‘cracked.’

If Jeremiah abandoned his confidence in the LORD and cowered before men, then God would break him.

Only confidence in the LORD would enable him to succeed in his new appointment.

“Jeremiah was charged to say all that God commanded him to say [see JEREMIAH 1:7].

This same concept is conveyed in the text today, ‘Preach the Word.’

We who preach are to preach ‘the whole counsel of God’ [ACTS 20:27] and not merely preach the parts that give no offence.

It is Christ the Lord who empowers His servant for this holy office of declaring the truth of God.

Of this you may be certain, the faithful pastor will offend—not out of any love for controversy, but because preaching Christ crucified is an offence.”

[3]

What I want you to note at this time is that Jeremiah did not seek appointment.

I understand that Paul speaks highly of men who “aspire[] to the office of overseer,” stating that such an individual “desires a noble task” [see 1 TIMOTHY 3:1].

However, all the desire one can muster will not move the hand of God—He must appoint; man must not promote himself.

Moreover, God’s appointment does not appear to be precipitous or capricious—He has planned whom He would have to serve Him and in what capacity such service is to be rendered long before an individual ever imagined that he would be serving the Living God.

We know that the redeemed are elect from before the foundations of the world.

Paul writes, “Blessed be 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 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” [EPHESIANS 1:3-6].

Therefore, since we were chosen in Christ “before the foundation of the world,” is it difficult to understand that those whom He will appoint to holy service are likewise appointed before they are even conceived?

If God gives life, then there is no difficulty to realise that He can appoint whom He wills to serve in whatever capacity He deems best.

Thus, we likewise see the LORD God speaking through Isaiah,

“But now hear, O Jacob my servant,

Israel whom I have chosen!

Thus says the LORD who made you,

who formed you from the womb and will help you:

Fear not, O Jacob my servant,

Jeshurun whom I have chosen.”

[ISAIAH 44:1, 2]

Take note of a simple matter when God says,

“Thus says the LORD who made you,

who formed you from the womb and will help you:”

[ISAIAH 44:2]

The pronoun is masculine, singular in this strophe.

Though God appears to be speaking broadly to the nation, He addresses Israel as one someone in the womb.

It is a means by which God is affirming the sanctity of the unborn child, even in the womb.