Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
When the Lord gives someone a message for the people through the gift of the "spirit of prophecy," it's a joyous message. And it makes the messenger (the prophet himself) joyous to deliver it.
But there is one outstanding exception: There was one man whom the gift of the spirit of prophecy brought unmeasured sorrow with tears--the prophet Jeremiah.
He is known as "the weeping prophet." He says: "Woe is me, my mother, that you have borne me, a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth!" (15:10). It was his misfortune to live in a time of unparalleled apostasy in Jerusalem. The people were in rebellion against the Lord, and since Jeremiah was at-one with the Lord, they were also in rebellion against him.
Yet, in spite of the heart-pain that was his burden to carry all his life, the Lord also managed to give him some delightful joy along the way in order to refresh his spirit and to keep him from perishing. He tells of one experience the Lord let him have: "Your words were found, and I ate them, and Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; for I am called by Your name, O Lord God of hosts" (15:16).
That experience "fed" his soul and kept him from perishing!
Note: The blessing did not come through some epiphany, some special vision that the Lord gave him: it came through his reading the books of the Bible that he had at that time (don't forget, he had the books of Samuel, Moses, and the psalms of David).
Now we have far more than Jeremiah had at that time, so personally thank the Father in heaven for the sixty-six books of the Bible, which you have. Let His "Word" be the "joy and rejoicing of [your] heart" now and forevermore.
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: May 2, 2009.
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