Jeremiah: God's Knowledge and His Burning Word

God’s Knowledge and His Burning Word
The Call of Jeremiah: Jeremiah 1:1-10

Introduction:
When Nichodemus came to Jesus and asked him how a man could enter the Kingdom of God, Jesus’ answer baffled Nichodemus: You must be born again from above. Jesus said to Nichodemus, “You are a teacher of Israel and you do not know these things?” How could he know? Could he learn it? Nichodemus didn’t need Jesus to teach him how to be born again in order to understand the words of Jesus; Nichodemus needed to be born again! He needed the wind of enlightenment to open his eyes and to give him ears of understanding. But that wind blows where it wills. In our text this morning, we see that wind blowing on Jeremiah.
Read Jeremiah 1:1-10.

I. The WORD OF THE LORD came to Jeremiah (v. 1)

Our English translation doesn’t perfectly capture the full force of what is being described when we read the Word of the Lord came to Jeremiah in verse 1. A literal translation would read, “The Word of the Lord was to Jeremiah”. It means more than that the Word of the Lord arrived in the presence of Jeremiah.

Remember, this was a time when the Law of Moses was unknown to Israel, lost (or perhaps hidden by earlier generations) somewhere in some dark closet in the temple. It will be another five years before its discovery would result in one of the largest mass repentance and revivals in Israel’s history under King Josiah. Calvin describes the religious and social situation in Jeremiah’s day: “every one indulged his fancy in inventing many impious forms of worship.”

The Word was to Jeremiah. God says in 5:14, “I will make My words in your mouth fire.” Think Moses’ burning bush, “the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed” (Ex 3:2). Jeremiah testifies in 20:9:

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.

The Word is a FLAMING FIRE (20:9; cf 5:14; 23:29)

When Jeremiah describes the coming of the Word to him in his own words in verse 4 he says, “Then the word of the Lord was to me…” he describes it as a present continuous action, not a complete act that happened in the past.

When we come to know the Word of God, it is not a mere intellectual assent to propositions about morality and religious matters (although that’s part of it); it is something more- it’s an all consuming, life changing, behaviour modifying, belief transforming, wonderful and fearful increasingly intense, never ending event that grabs hold of your very being and turns your life in a direction you would ever have imagined!

II. Before I FORMED YOU in the womb (v. 5a).
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.” (V. 5)

Two things are taught here, first, that from the womb, we are beings to be known personally, that is we are persons at conception. And, second, it is God who molds us, not random chemical processes. God forms us out of pre-existing matter (DNA which comes form the parents) in the same way that a potter forms a pot out of clay. The craftsmen who make Idols are similarly described as forming them. The irony is that in their ignorance, they believe that they are the ones with the power and the freedom to mould God in their image, when the truth is that God is the one who sovereignly forms us for his purposes which he conceives before we are conceived.
For You formed my inward parts;
You covered me in my mother’s womb.
I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Marvelous are Your works,
And that my soul knows very well.
My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.
And in Your book they all were written,
The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them. (Ps 139:13-16)

III. I KNEW (יָדַע) you (v. 5b)
God says that He knew Jeremiah; He consecrated Jeremiah; He appointed him. It means God chose to set Jeremiah apart as a sacred instrument to tell forth the Word of God to the nations. The question is what does it mean when God says that He knew Jeremiah before he created him? How can God know someone who doesn’t even exist?

First, it helps to understand that God is eternal; his name means I am. God is; there is no was or will be with God. The eternality of God means there is only Today with God; In His view the beginning and the end are right now.

Second, there’s a range of meaning for the word ‘to know’ in Hebrew. The word can range all the way from an objective knowledge to a very subjective knowledge. The question is what kind of knowing is intended by God when he says, before you were formed I knew you?[1] The first meaning is…

1. To know something; to learn or to gain knowledge in a matter.

God uses the word this way in Genesis 3:22 when, after eating the forbidden fruit, God says, “Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil.” This kind of knowledge is important to salvation, but it is not all there is to salvation. God must illumine us from within.

In this text though, it’s obvious that God did not intend to mean that He came to know about Jeremiah the way that we come to know that 2+2=4; or that a couple in the church are having twins. As if one day God said, “Aha, Jeremiah!” One of the attributes of God is His omniscience (His all-knowingness); it is an eternal all-knowingness that knows everything from the beginning to the end. The omniscience of God means that there is something God can’t do: He can’t learn because there is nothing that exists outside of His knowledge.
C.S. Lewis wrote, “Everyone who believes in God… believes He knows what you and I are going to do tomorrow” (Mere Christianity). So when God says before I formed you in the womb I knew you, He is not saying that he learned about Jeremiah. So let’s move on to the second meaning of ‘to know.’

2. To have Knowledge as in wisdom. Proverbs says that the proverbs of Solomon are to know wisdom. This is a knowledge of practical matters that involve knowing things, but also have practical experience and intuition that comes from following sound advice and doing what it ethical and moral. Although there is divine wisdom in the way that God knew Jeremiah before he formed him in the womb, wisdom is not enough. God’s wisdom and his knowledge and consecration and ordination of Jeremiah is more intimate than just practical ethical knowledge.

3. To know A Person, an acquaintance or a friend or relative.

It’s said in a negative way in Exodus 1:8 where it says “there arose in Egypt a King who did not know Joseph.” It’s also used in Job 42:11 when, after God restored Job, all his acquaintances came to him.

This kind of knowing is an important element of our Christian life. Knowing about God is not enough. When God accused Israel of not knowing Him, He was not accusing them of not knowing about Him. They certainly knew more about God than any other race of people on the face of the earth. But they did not know him as a person?
This is where we say that Christianity is more than a religion, it is a relationship. And without this kind of knowing God, it is impossible to be saved. This kind of knowing is not something we can conjure up, nor is it dependant upon one’s IQ. This kind of knowing can only come from God.

Now here we are getting closer to the meaning of the text, because God obviously knew Jeremiah relationally, but this kind of knowing is dialectical –it implies a relationship between two people. But that kind of relationship is a little one sided in the case of one who has not yet been formed. Let’s move on to an even more subjective form of knowing:

4. To know Carnally, this is physical knowing-

It’s used of Adam in Genesis 4:1 where it says, “Adam new Eve and she conceived a child.” Mary used the same term in the Gospel after Gabriel announced to her that she would bear a son, she said, “How can this be, since I do not know a man?” (Lk 1:34).

This kind of knowing is barely rationalistic or empirical, it has more to do with experience and being united together in an intimate way. It says something of the intimate way in which God knew Jeremiah as he formed him and shaped him- not only his outward appearance- but also his character and his nature and disposition. There is an intimacy in the care God takes with his creation that we creatures often overlook.

God often describes his relationship with his people in terms of marriage. Israel is described as a prostitute whom God marries; and the Church is the bride of Christ. The final kind of knowing and the one which I believe God means when he says ‘before He formed Jeremiah, He knew him’ is this:

5. To Know Intimately and thoroughly; it means to know their heart;

It’s a kind of knowing beyond any human ability to know; Solomon uses this kind of knowing when prays to God saying, “for You alone know the hearts of all the sons of men” (1 Kings 8:39). The Psalmist rejoices in this knowledge of God saying,
O Lord, You have searched me and known me.
You know my sitting down and my rising up;
You understand my thought afar off.
You comprehend my path and my lying down,
And are acquainted with all my ways.
For there is not a word on my tongue,
But behold, O Lord, You know it altogether.
You have hedged me behind and before,
And laid Your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
It is high, I cannot attain it.

Why shouldn’t God know Jeremiah this way? He was the one who formed Jeremiah’s heart; the one who consecrated him for His divine purposes and ordained him to be the mouth of God to the nations. This kind of knowledge involves all the other meanings of knowledge, but it takes that knowledge to a very personal level; more intimate than even carnal knowledge.

This is exactly the same kind of knowing that Paul was talking about in Romans 8:27 when he says,
whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.
The foreknowledge of God is not an objective learning; it is primarily a subjective relationship that precedes our entrance into being. Just as our knowledge of His Word is not an objective knowledge of propositions; but our knowledge of His Word is a burning fire!

Conclusion:
It is impossible to make an application form this message because there is nothing we can do to make God foreknow us. We cannot stoke his Word to flames in our heart. Those are the works of God. And I am glad about that because if it were up to me, I would do it in a half hearted, sin inclined, self serving, indifferent way (if at all). But when God does it, it is rooted in the fat that He is infinitely more loving, infinitely more merciful, infinitely more generous than I could ever be. So, I will close this quote from John Macarthur and an encouragement:
Jeremiah has been known as “the weeping prophet”…. He was threatened, tried for his life, put in stocks, forced to flee from Jehoiakim, publicly humiliated by a false prophet, and thrown into a pit.[2]

Based on his outward appearance, Jeremiah was, if anything, forsaken of God. The same may true of you. Don’t base your opinion upon appearances; if you are a Christian, it is because God foreknew you and formed you in the womb for His own purpose. You are not an accident (even if you were conceived accidentally- or by 2 people who hate each other) and your faith is not a whim or a fluke. It is rooted in a God who never changes and who works all things together for good. You have a great a assurance and hope.


Notes
[2]MacArthur, J. J. (1997, c1997). The MacArthur Study Bible (electronic ed.) (Je 1:1). Nashville: Word Pub.