An Iron Pillar

When the Lord called the prophet Jeremiah He said, “I have made thee this day a defenced city, and an iron pillar, and brazen walls against the whole land” (Jeremiah 1:18).  In other words, the Lord would protect him and make him resilient against the great persecution that would come to him during his ministry.  And that persecution was indeed great.  The people conspired together at one point saying, “Come let us devise devices against Jeremiah…. Come let us smite him” (Jeremiah 18:18).  On another occasion the chief governor of the temple “smote Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks that were in the high gate of Benjamin” (Jeremiah 20:2).  It was right after this that Jeremiah exclaimed, “I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me” (Jeremiah 20:7).  He was “shut up in the court of the prison” by Zedekiah at one point, put under some kind of confinement later in his ministry, and he also was put in a dungeon and “remained there many days” (Jeremiah 32:2, 36:5, 37:16).  Later the princes begged the king, “We beseech thee, let this man be put to death” and so Zedekiah let them “cast him into the dungeon….  They let down Jeremiah with cords.  And in the dungeon there was no water, but mire; so Jeremiah sunk in the mire” (Jeremiah 38:4-6).  His final fate appears to have been exile to Egypt where he likely died.  With all of this persecution, it’s no wonder that the Lord would need to make Jeremiah “an iron pillar” against the wickedness around him.  The fact that Jeremiah could stay faithful throughout all of this attests to the greatness of the prophet and should inspire us to likewise be resilient against the onslaught of wickedness around us today.  As he testified at one point: “His word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones… and I could not stay” (Jeremiah 20:9).  He knew what he knew, and nothing could stop him from fulfilling the mission the Lord had called him to.