Tuesday, April 24, 2007

God's Rewards


Jeremiah 1:19 KJV
And they shall fight against thee; but they shall not prevail against thee; for I am with thee, saith the LORD, to deliver thee.
Having read the book of Jeremiah I know that the Jews did in fact fight against him. Jeremiah's ministry was as difficult one as we are aware of in the Bible (though none of the prophets had a really easy ministry). The question I asked this morning was, "Did his enemies ever prevail against him?"

Jeremiah's ministry was never successful in the modern sense of the term. He saw no converts. He was thrown in a dungeon. He was eventually forcibly taken to Egypt by a band of rebellious Jews where it appears he died.

God did protect Jeremiah in the sense that he was recovered from the dungeon, the Jews were never able to take his life, nor were they able to silence his message, and he was never taken into Babylonian captivity.

However, I have to think that Jeremiah's real rewards were heavenly. God's promise has to be more than merely, "You will survive your ordeal.” God was in fact honored through the ministry and life of Jeremiah and that must translate into great blessings in eternity. As Paul wrote in Romans 8:18, For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

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