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JEREMIAH PERSECUTED

LESSON IX., FEBRUARY 28, JEREMIAH 38:1-13

Golden Text—”I am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee.”—Jer. 1:19

This lesson tells how the faithful Prophet, Jeremiah, was persecuted because he boldly declared the word of the Lord which foretold only trouble upon Israel, and how the government foolishly thought to avert the trouble by persecuting the Lord’s warning messenger, instead of by heeding his wise counsel.

In this the faithful Prophet typified the faithful of the Gospel age who will also suffer persecution in some shape or form, if they boldly declare the whole counsel of God; for, until the Kingdom of God is established in the earth, “all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” (2 Tim. 3:12; Phil. 1:29.) And the Apostle Paul points those of the Gospel Church, who are running for the prize of our high calling, to the noble, self-sacrificing faithfulness of the ancient worthies who endured so much for their faithfulness to the Lord and his truth.—Heb. 11.

The deliverance promised to Jeremiah in the words of our golden text was not to be a deliverance from persecution or even from death, but merely such protection as would prevent his enemies from prevailing against him to hinder the Lord’s purposes in him. The Lord does not engage to deliver his children from all the ills of this present life. They are permitted to share them with the rest of mankind, and even to suffer injustice and abuse and often martyrdom for righteousness; but if faithful unto death—loyal and true to God and to his truth and to conscience—their glorious deliverance will come at last with an abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ—those of the Gospel age into the spiritual phase of that kingdom, and those of the Jewish age into the earthly phase of it. During this time in which God’s people pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven,” they, as its representatives, suffer violence as foretold (Matt. 11:12); and as it was with the Master, so it is with his followers, the violence comes more from worldly-spirited ones in the nominal church than from the open rejecters of God.

As with the Master, so with the true followers, the persecutions may be more open and more severe at some times than at others, but no radical and complete change may be expected until the kingdom is the Lord’s and he is the governor among the nations. (Psa. 22:28.) “Then shall the righteous [the wheat of this Gospel age] shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” (Matt. 13:43.) No longer shall they suffer the scorn, contempt and opprobrium of the world with Christ (2 Tim. 2:12; Rom. 8:17), but they shall be glorified with him as joint-heirs with him in his kingdom which shall bless the whole world, including those who ignorantly persecute them now, and bringing all to a clear knowledge of the truth.

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— February 15, 1892 —