The Wakeful Word and the Tipped Cauldron Text: Jeremiah 1:11-19
Introduction: The God Who Is Not Asleep
We live in an age that desperately wants God to be a respectable, distant landlord. The deist wants a God who created the world and then politely retired to a remote corner of the cosmos. The therapeutic pagan wants a god who is a cosmic affirmation machine, a celestial therapist who would never dream of using words like judgment or wrath. And the practical atheist, who may even warm a pew on Sunday, lives as though God is profoundly asleep, indifferent to the details of his life, his business, his nation, and his sins.
All of these imaginary deities have one thing in common: they are safe. They are manageable. They do not interfere. They do not make demands. They do not hold us to account. They are, in short, nothing like the God of the Bible. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is not asleep. He is not distracted. He is not indifferent. He is intensely, meticulously, and sovereignly involved. He is, as our text will show us, watching.
The call of Jeremiah is a splash of cold, bracing water in the face of a sleepy and compromised people. Judah was in a state of terminal decline. Their worship was corrupt, their politics were treacherous, and their hearts were filled with idols. They were going through the religious motions, but they were banking on the idea that God was not really paying attention. They assumed that His covenant promises were a form of tenure, and that His covenant threats were mere hyperbole. They were about to receive a rude awakening.
In this passage, God gives His newly commissioned prophet two visions. These are not mystical, abstract snapshots for Jeremiah to puzzle over. They are divine object lessons, clear as a bell, designed to communicate two fundamental truths for ministry in a time of crisis: First, God’s Word is certain to come to pass. Second, God’s judgment is certain to come upon the unrepentant. And flowing from these two truths is a third: God’s man must therefore be fearless.
The Text
Now the word of Yahweh came to me saying, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” And I said, “I see a rod of an almond tree.” Then Yahweh said to me, “You have seen well, for I am watching over My word to do it.”
The word of Yahweh came to me a second time saying, “What do you see?” And I said, “I see a boiling pot, facing away from the north.” Then Yahweh said to me, “From the north the evil will break open on all the inhabitants of the land. For, behold, I am calling all the families of the kingdoms of the north,” declares Yahweh; “and they will come, and each one of them will put his throne at the opening of the gates of Jerusalem, and against all its walls round about and against all the cities of Judah. I will speak My judgments on them concerning all their evil, whereby they have forsaken Me and have burned incense to other gods and worshiped the works of their own hands. Now, gird up your loins and arise and speak to them all which I command you. Do not be dismayed before them, lest I dismay you before them. Now behold, I have given you today as a fortified city and as a pillar of iron and as walls of bronze against the whole land, to the kings of Judah, to its princes, to its priests, and to the people of the land. And they will fight against you, but they will not overcome you, for I am with you to deliver you,” declares Yahweh.
(Jeremiah 1:11-19 LSB)
The Divine Pun (vv. 11-12)
The first vision establishes the absolute certainty of God's Word.
"Now the word of Yahweh came to me saying, 'What do you see, Jeremiah?' And I said, 'I see a rod of an almond tree.' Then Yahweh said to me, 'You have seen well, for I am watching over My word to do it.'" (Jeremiah 1:11-12)
God asks a simple question, "What do you see?" This is the fundamental task of a prophet: to see what God shows him and to report it accurately. Jeremiah sees a rod of an almond tree. This is not a random botanical sample. God is making a divine pun, a play on words that is lost in English but powerful in Hebrew. The word for "almond tree" is shaqed. The word for "watching" is shoqed. God is saying, "You see a shaqed? Good. Because I am shoqed over my Word."
The almond tree was the first tree to "wake up" and blossom in the spring, a sign that winter was over and a new season of activity was beginning. This vision is God's declaration that He is not dormant. His Word is not hibernating. The winter of Judah's complacency is over, and the season of God's action is here. What He has spoken, He is now actively bringing to pass.
This is the bedrock of all reality. God's Word is performative. It does what it says. The world was spoken into existence. Salvation is spoken into our hearts. And judgment is spoken against rebellious nations. We must understand that every promise and every threat in the Scripture has this shaqed/shoqed quality. God is watching His Word. He is the guarantor of its fulfillment. This is why we can stand on His promises with absolute confidence, and why the world should tremble at His warnings.
The Tipped Cauldron of Judgment (vv. 13-16)
If the first vision is about the certainty of God's Word, the second is about its specific, imminent, and judicial content.
"The word of Yahweh came to me a second time saying, 'What do you see?' And I said, 'I see a boiling pot, facing away from the north.' Then Yahweh said to me, 'From the north the evil will break open on all the inhabitants of the land.'" (Jeremiah 1:13-14)
Again, God asks what Jeremiah sees. This time it is a boiling pot, tilted and ready to pour out its scalding contents. The face of the pot is toward the south, meaning it will spill its contents southward, over Judah. And God makes the meaning explicit: "From the north the evil will break open." This is not a vague premonition of "bad things." This is a specific prophecy of military invasion. The great Mesopotamian powers, like Babylon, would always invade Israel from the north, following the curve of the Fertile Crescent.
God says that He is the one "calling" these pagan armies. History is not a random series of events. God is the one who sets up kings and brings them down. Nebuchadnezzar would later be called God's "servant" (Jer. 25:9). The boiling pot of Babylon is on God's stove, and His hand is on the handle, ready to pour.
And why? Verse 16 gives the reason, and it is the language of a covenant lawsuit. "I will speak My judgments on them concerning all their evil, whereby they have forsaken Me and have burned incense to other gods and worshiped the works of their own hands." This is not arbitrary suffering. This is sentencing. They had broken the first and second commandments. They had abandoned the true God for idols, for things they had made themselves. This is the perennial sin of man: to worship the creature rather than the Creator. Whether it is a carved image in a pagan temple or the worship of the state, the self, or the economy in our own day, the sin is the same. And the God who is shoqed over His Word is also shoqed over His covenant. He will not allow it to be trampled indefinitely.
The Bronze Prophet (vv. 17-19)
Given the certainty of the message and the severity of the judgment, what kind of man is needed to deliver it? God now turns from the vision to the vessel.
"Now, gird up your loins and arise and speak to them all which I command you. Do not be dismayed before them, lest I dismay you before them." (Jeremiah 1:17)
"Gird up your loins" is a command to be a man. It means tucking your robes into your belt, getting ready for hard work or for a fight. This is not a call to a soft, therapeutic conversation. It is a call to courageous, confrontational proclamation. And it comes with a terrifying warning. "Do not be dismayed before them, lest I dismay you before them."
This is the logic of fear. You will either fear God or you will fear man. You cannot do both. If Jeremiah chooses to fear the faces of the princes and priests, God will give him a real reason to be afraid. God will strip him of his divine courage and leave him to his own trembling resources. The fear of God is the only antidote to the fear of man. A man who fears God need fear nothing else. A man who does not fear God will be afraid of everything.
But with the warning comes a glorious promise.
"Now behold, I have given you today as a fortified city and as a pillar of iron and as walls of bronze against the whole land... And they will fight against you, but they will not overcome you, for I am with you to deliver you," declares Yahweh." (Jeremiah 1:18-19)
God does not send Jeremiah out to be a martyr in the sense of a victim. He sends him out to be a fortress. Notice the imagery: a fortified city, an iron pillar, bronze walls. Jeremiah is to be immovable. He is to stand against the entire corrupt establishment: the kings, the princes, the priests, and the people of the land. The whole nation will turn on him.
And God says, "they will fight against you." This is a guarantee. Faithful ministry will always provoke a fight. If you are preaching the unvarnished Word of God and no one is fighting you, you are almost certainly doing it wrong. But the promise that follows is just as certain: "but they will not overcome you." Why? Not because Jeremiah is naturally tough or eloquent. The reason is stated plainly: "for I am with you to deliver you." The presence of God is the only security for the servant of God.
Conclusion: Gird Up Your Loins
The message to Jeremiah is the message to the church in every age, and especially in our own. We live in a culture that has forsaken God and worships the works of its own hands. The cauldron of judgment is boiling. And God is not asleep; He is watching over His Word to perform it.
Therefore, the call to us is the same. Gird up your loins. Be men. Arise and speak all that He commands us. We are to preach the whole counsel of God: His law and His gospel, His wrath and His mercy, His judgment and His grace. We must not be dismayed by the sneering faces of the new pagan establishment.
We have the same promise. As we stand on His Word, God makes us into a fortified city. They will fight us. The media will fight us, the academy will fight us, the government will fight us, and sometimes, even the compromised church will fight us. But they will not prevail.
For the Lord Jesus Christ, the greater Jeremiah, stood against the whole world. They fought Him, and they thought they had overcome Him when they hung Him on a cross. But the almond rod of God's promise blossomed on the third day. God was watching over His Word to perform it, and He raised His Son from the dead. Because Christ has prevailed, and because He has promised "I am with you always," we can stand as iron pillars in a gelatin world, knowing that His kingdom is the one that cannot be shaken.