“Ah, Lord GOD,” I said, “I surely do not know how to speak, for I am only a child!”Then I said, “Ah, Lord Yahweh! Behold, I don’t know how to speak; for I am a child.”Then said I, Ah, Lord God! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child.Then said I, Ah, Lord Jehovah! behold, I know not how to speak; for I am a child.
4 sermons cite this verse
… He is a kid. And the Lord calls him and Jeremiah says in Jeremiah 1.6, Oh, I can't do that Lord. I am far too young. I am only a youth. And the Lord says, I can't do that. For you will go wherever I send you and speak whatever I tell you. And don't be afraid of the people. For I the Lord will be with you and I'll see you through. So if the Lord calls you don't say, oh I can't do that. I won't do that. No, no. If He gives you a gift, use it. Point number two. You say, what was point number one? You're not all that in a bag of chips, right? Point number two. We all have a part to play in the church with our spiritual gifts. Look at verse 4. Just as our bodies have many parts and each part is a special function, so it is with Christ's body. We are many parts of one body and we all belong to each other. …
… For me, it's this. It's Jeremiah chapter 1, verses 4 through 9. Then the word of the Lord came to me saying, by the way, I didn't make this up myself. Some men at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, back in the, I think 1980 it was, I didn't even know they were going to do this. They got up, they walked over in the prayer meeting, and they laid hands on me. It startled me. It actually scared me. I was the youngest guy in the room. Everybody in there is 70, 80, 90 years old. And there's only 15 guys in there. And they got up. And I never prayed out loud in those prayer meetings because I stuttered so bad. But I went to those Saturday night prayer meetings. And this is what happened. One guy by the name of Phil Anderson got up and he put his hands on me and then the rest of the guys followed him and he quotes this. Let me tell you, listen. …
… the fact that he was being called as a prophet, he says to God, I am but a child. I do not know how to speak. Now, here's a man who is almost manic depressive, if you read the book of Jeremiah. Here's a man who had very little self-confidence. I'm but a child. I do not know how to speak. And God says, do not say, I am only a child. For you will go where I send you, and you will speak to whom I send you. And, you know, later on in the book, you have Jeremiah talking about God's word is a fire in my bones. These men and women, they were humble people. They were almost anxious people. But when they heard the word of the Lord, they turned and they said, thus saith the Lord. There was a power about them. They knew they had something that was not from them. That's who they were. That's why they're paradoxes. They were not arrogant people. …
Of these, Elijah, who lived in the wilderness, and the hundred prophets whom Obadiah fed by fifty in a cave, are examples of the wanderers. And Micaiah, who was appointed the bread of affliction and the water of affliction by an idolatrous king, is the specimen of those who "had trial of bonds and imprisonment." Of those who were sawn asunder and slain with the sword, Isaiah is the chief, who, as tradition goes, was by order of Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, sawn asunder with a wooden saw. And of those who were stoned, none is more famous than Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada, "who was slain between the temple and the altar." But of all the persecuted prophets Jeremiah is the most eminent; i. e. we know more of his history, of his imprisonments, his wanderings, and his afflictions. He may be taken as a representative of the Prophets; and hence it is that he is an especial type of our Lord and Saviour. All the Prophets were types of the Great Prophet whose way they were preparing; they tended towards and spoke of Christ. In their sufferings they foreshadowed His priesthood, and in their teaching His prophetical office, and in their miracles His royal power. The history of Jeremiah, then, as being drawn out in Scripture more circumstantially than that of the other Prophets, is the most exact type of Christ among them; that is, next to David, who, of course, was the nearest resemblance to Him of all, as a sufferer, an inspired teacher, and a king. Jeremiah comes next to David; I do not say in dignity and privilege, for it was Elijah who was taken up to heaven, and appeared at the Transfiguration; nor in inspiration, for to Isaiah one should assign the higher evangelical gifts; but in typifying Him who came and wept over Jerusalem, and then was tortured and put to death by those He wept over. And hence, when our Lord came, while some thought Him Elijah, and others John the Baptist, risen from the dead, there were others who thought Him Jeremiah. Of Jeremiah, then, I will now speak, as a specimen of all those Prophets whom St. Paul sets before us as examples of faith, and St. James as examples of patience. Jeremiah's ministry may be summed up in three words, good hope, labour, disappointment. …