Jeremiah 20:9 says: “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.” The first part says: “Then I said, I will not make mention of Him, nor speak anymore in His name.” Jeremiah is saying that he is no longer going to prophesy or proclaim the Word of God, or what God tells him to. Why is that?
Why Did Jeremiah Decide to Stop Prophesying?
Jeremiah thought that he wasn’t good enough. He wasn’t good enough to be a prophet, to proclaim God’s word. He thought he had dishonored God, he thought he had done no good in God’s eyes even though he was a prophet, a man who had a deep, intimate relationship with God. A man who talked to God and God told him what He wanted him to tell others, but he still had sin, he still had daily troubles. He thought he wasn’t good enough for God. So, to resolve this, he wasn’t going to prophesy anymore for God. This is a temptation that all of us go through. That we are not good enough for God, and that God cannot use us because of our sin, so we just decide that we won’t. Whenever those thoughts cross your mind, that God cannot use you, think of these people from the Bible.
Examples of Others Whom God Used Though They Had Sinned
Noah, the man who God saw was the ONLY person who should be saved from the flood, among his family too, was a drunk. In Genesis 9:21 we read that Noah became drunk by wine and lay naked in his tent. David, the man who was the man after God’s own heart, King David, King of Israel, the writer of many of the Psalms, had an affair. In 2 Samuel 11, he saw Bathsheba bathing on the rooftop and he had lust for her and he called for her and had an affair with her. THEN to cover up what he had done he had Bathsheba’s husband, one of David’s greatest fighters in battle, be killed because of his past sin.
Saul, the man who persecuted and KILLED Christians, and drug them through the streets making a bad name for them because they were followers of Christ, later turned to Paul in Acts 9 on the road to Damascus, turned his life around and went on many missionary journeys and brought many souls to Christ. Peter, one of the 12 disciples, one of Jesus 12 closest companions, denied Christ 3 times in Luke 22. But Peter went on in Acts 2 on the Day of Pentecost and was the cause of over 3,000 people turning their lives to Christ. God still used all these people with their flaws, and he can use you too. Jeremiah said that he was done prophesying for God because he thought he had too much wrong in his life.
