"...And I Could Not."

Jeremiah 20:9-Then I said, “I will not make mention of Him,
Nor speak anymore in His name.”
But His word was in my heart like a burning fire
Shut up in my bones;
I was weary of holding it back,
And I could not.

This verse has been a huge conviction to me.

Jeremiah was called by God to be a prophet to Judah. His message was not a very popular one; surrender to Babylon or be destroyed. As a result of his faithfulness in declaring what God told him to tell the people, Jeremiah was rejected, thrown in prison, placed in a pit to die, and many other such discouraging and unpleasant treatment. In Jeremiah 20, after again faithfully repeating what God wanted him to say, Jeremiah was thrown in stocks. He was getting sick of all this. Obeying God, he had been persecuted and rejected, and still no one listened. So he says in verse 9, "I will not make mention of Him, nor speak anymore in His name." Can you really blame the guy for deciding that? I sure can't. Why keep speaking about God when no one listened and everyone persecuted you?

But Jeremiah couldn't remain silent.

He had a message, "But His word was in my heart like a burning fire," and he says, "I was weary of holding it back, and I could not."

He could not.

How could he remain silent when God had given him a message to give to the people? So what if no one listened, so what if they gave him a hard time. It was tiring Jeremiah out to hold back such a tremendous message! God had a message for him to give to the people, and he couldn't just shut up and let them go along their merry way not hearing it!

And he could not.

Jeremiah was mistreated and abused. He was rejected and he was forced to watch the people get punished for their disobedience. What a discouragement. And yet he still had to tell them. He couldn't hold it back.

We, as Christians, are a lot like Jeremiah. In one major way: God gave us a message to tell everyone.

Whether they will listen or not.

Whether they'll mistreat us or not.

Whether we are completely rejected or not.

And yet, I find myself not telling others for just that reason. They'll reject me. They won't listen. They'll give me a hard time.

But, how can I do this? I have a wonderful, liberating message. I have the good news of Jesus Christ! I have been told in the Bible the answer to life's problems, the assurance of life after death, the way to the peace that so many seek. It should hurt me. I should not be able to hold it back.

I can say that I have felt this way before when I talked with certain friends, although I have to admit I ignore it too much. And I can't say with a good conscience that I've felt enough the burning of the Gospel when it's held back. I've let friends slip by without telling them anything, even when I felt I should. I've brushed the feeling aside with the thought of how the Gospel would be recieved, not focusing on the urge to speak out about it. And at times I would refuse to even consider the thought of telling them

But, I should not.

Just like Jeremiah could not.

May we all feel the pain of the supressed Word and obey its urging.