Are you are willing to join me on this journey through Jeremiah? Are you willing to keep an open mind? Are you willing to use your imagination? Are you willing to consider my belief that the book of Jeremiah, with a little imagination, can pass as an epistle (letter). Are you willing to apply the warnings of God spoken to a group that identified as His followers in Old Testament times, as warnings to those who identify as followers of Christ now? If you are willing to do all this then I have one more thing to ask, will you weep?

This generation needs a Jeremiah.

When I read through the book of Jeremiah I see parallels in our church culture. The modern church and the people of Judah are travelling down the same path toward destruction. The words of God spoken by Jeremiah should have struck fear in the hearts of the people of Judah. The warnings should have caused mass repentance but they did not. Maybe if this generation had its own Jeremiah it too would ignore God’s call to return to Him. Perhaps if the modern church heard the call of repentance it would ignore it and continue down the same path. Maybe, perhaps, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need a Jeremiah. We need to pray for God to raise up a new weeping prophet.

This generation needs to weep.

Jeremiah was called the weeping prophet for many reasons. To know the depths that God’s chosen people had fallen and the judgment that was coming was enough to cause anyone to weep. It didn’t stop there. He was appointed by God to be a messenger of repentance and hope but he and his message were rejected. He stood alone with no family to support him, weeping with only God to comfort him. I need to weep for those who call themselves followers of Christ but have become lost in the culture. I need to, you need to, we all need to be willing to be left weeping in our loneliness as we embrace an unpopular message of repentance, of turning from the culture of the world to a culture of holiness. We need to be a weeping people.

This generation needs to repent.                                    

Jeremiah addressed a people who were being wooed by the culture around them. While they maintained some of their religious practices introduced by God and handed down from generation to generation, they had incorporated the culture and beliefs of those who did not follow the same God. What seemed harmless to or even productive in their faith became entrenched as part of following the true God. We have done the same! What was once faith in the God of transformation has become a faith in grace without a need to be transformed. What once went counter culture has become intertwined with the ways of this world. Why does this not make us weep? Why do we seek the approval of those around us? Why does church look like the world we live in rather than a new way to live in this world? We need to pray for the strength to be what God calls His followers to be, we need to weep because of what we have become and repent.

This generation needs to be unafraid.

I may not be the modern Jeremiah. You may not be the modern Jeremiah. I must not let myself become a modern day Judah. You must not let yourself become the modern day Judah. We need to stand with the one God calls to be the modern day Jeremiah. We need to repent, pray and weep. We need to be unafraid to be different. We need to be unafraid to be outcasts. We need to be unafraid to speak and live God’s truth. We may not be the main speaker, the Jeremiah of our time but our lives and our words must be light to the church so that the church can be light to the world. This is scary! Not only will we be lonely in the world, we may be lonely in the church just as Jeremiah was in the company of his own people. We have the same call in our lives as Jeremiah and the same possible outcome, “’Get yourself ready! Stand up and say to them whatever I command you. Do not be terrified by them, or I will terrify you before them.’” Jeremiah 1:17 (NIV) Weep, first for yourself and the times you have given over to things not of God and then weep for those who are afraid, for those who embrace the world, for those who want to fit in rather than stand up.

Stay tuned for more posts on applying the truths spoken by Jeremiah to the modern church.