Jeremiah (1-31) 7:1 Commentary and Bible Study

Jeremiah is appointed to what you might think would be a soul-destroying mission, because he is the prophet-evangelist of the last generation before the destruction of Jerusalem and the captivity, and God has told him that his preaching will largely be fruitless, because the people will not repent, will not turn, and yet he is to do it with all his heart, and as earnestly and as diligently as he possibly can. No matter what they do to him – and they do terrible things to him – he is to continue to preach the possibility of their salvation if they will to repent. Now, not everybody will be lost, because there is this constant reference in the chapters to a remnant, a small number, who will turn, and for their sakes this will be preached. But not only for their sakes, because even the majority of them in the land, who will resist the message, will be judged by Jeremiah's words; the appeal of God must be made, and their obduracy and stubbornness therefore demonstrated and illustrated. But here in chapter 7 he particularly addresses the religious, but the religious, obviously, who are not saved. So ‘the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord’, introduces a new section.