‘Rising early and speaking’ – it is a form of words which demands a daily fulfilment. Rising early and speaking, he never left this message. Today you will hear even preachers saying, ‘Well, yes, we must preach the gospel. Perhaps once a month, perhaps once in three months there will be a distinctive or special piece of gospel reasoning, a call to come to Christ. But the Old Testament example tells us that this urgent message is something which is to be given constantly. You are to keep it up over years. You are to be always doing it and looking for opportunity. ‘But ye have not hearkened.’ Jeremiah had spoken whether they had listened or not, and so are we to speak.
You are to preach to all, and these opening verses repeat the word ‘all’ several times, and so does the rest of the chapter. Jeremiah addresses his words to everyone. There are some friends and some whole movements of churches in this country who love the gospel. But although the gospel is loved, they tell us, ‘You mustn't preach it generally; it isn't for everyone.’ Their conviction is that you can only preach to enlightened people – if you can figure out who they are. The old-fashioned term used to be ‘sensible sinners’. There must be a restricted proclamation, not an open proclamation. Jeremiah has never heard of this, neither has Isaiah, neither has anyone else. Look through the Book of Acts and the apostles are preaching without restriction to everyone. They do not distinguish between types of hearer: everybody is to receive this message. ‘How can that be? say those who wish to restrict the proclamation. That means you are offering salvation, the gospel, to people who are non-elect and that is a foolishness and it’s wrong. You can't do that and you mustn't do that.’ The Bible doesn't know anything about that. The preaching is always universal to all regardless of what their status may be, elect or not.
Jeremiah says here that the fourth year of Jehoiakim was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar: this was the year 605 BC. During that year Nebuchadnezzar came against the Hatti country (Palestine). It was while he was away on this expedition that he received news of the death of his father, Nabopolassar, and returned home quickly to receive the crown. That same year, 605 BC, the battle of Carchemish had been fought and won by Nebuchadnezzar, and Egypt was decisively beaten. But Daniel 1:1 makes the first year of Nebuchadnezzar to be the third year of Jehoiakim. Is there a contradiction here? No, the two are using different ways of counting the years of a king’s reign. Referring to the first attack on Jerusalem, Edwin Theile says (in ‘The mysterious numbers of the Hebrew kings’), ‘This was the attack in which Daniel and his companions were taken to Babylon. It should be noted that this was the third year of Jehoiakim according to Tishri reckoning, but the fourth year according to Nisan years as mentioned in Jeremiah 46:2.’ He explains that different dating systems began the year in different months, and Jeremiah and Daniel were using different systems. In addition some systems counted the accession year as the first year and other systems referred to the first full year as the first year. There is no contradiction.