Here in the first chapter of Jeremiah we see how Jeremiah became, if you will, Jeremiah the prophet. In 1:4-5, though a young man during the reign of the youthful king Josiah, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “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.” Jeremiah is concerned with such a calling at a young age, to which the Lord responds by saying in 1:7-8 “Do not say, ‘I am a youth,’ for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of their faces, for I am with you to deliver you,” says the Lord.“ He is assured that the Lord will put His Word in Jeremiah’s mouth, but that the message will be to “root out and to pull down, to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant.” Oh dear ones, sometimes God calls us to root out and pull down before we can build and plant, but as long as His Word is in our mouths by His Spirit, we can know that it will bear fruit. Why such a message? Well, we are told in 1:16 that the nation had “forsaken Me, burned incense to other gods, and worshiped the works of their own hands.”
