Craig Carlisle reminded students at the University of Mobile about the relevancy of Scripture while sharing a message from Jeremiah 17. He encouraged students to always choose Christ as their first response during challenging and uncertain times like we are facing today.
Carlisle is the president of the Alabama Baptist State Convention. He is serving in his second term as Alabama’s state convention leader and is the first director of missions/associational mission strategist to serve in this role. He has served the Etowah Baptist Association since 2017. Carlisle was instrumental in the launch of a new emphasis in bi-vocational ministry: Calling Out the Called Alabama.
“This may be a passage you haven’t spent a lot of time looking at,” Carlisle acknowledged during a March 12 chapel service at the university. “Jeremiah is a book about a struggling prophet; a book about a man whom God called out to be His mouthpiece in a very difficult time in the history of the people. He had a message that they needed to hear, but they continued to reject his message.”
Closer look
While sharing about the historical context to set the stage for this passage, Carlisle encouraged students to look at the personal application for their own lives today.
“In Jeremiah 17, the prophet Jeremiah has a word for us that I hope and pray will speak to your heart this afternoon,” Carlisle said. “Martyn Lloyd-Jones, a well-known British pastor said, ‘This is the glory of the Word of God. It is always up to date, and it is always relevant.’ I want you to see if you can pick up on the relevance of what Jeremiah said a long time ago and see how it applies to your life and my life today. The book of Jeremiah is the story of the death of a nation. It’s a portrait. As you read the book of Jeremiah, it happens right before your very eyes. The kingdom of Judah slowly falls apart under the infection of evil that is spread across the face of their land from the king down to the common people.
‘Patiently waiting’
Carlisle continued, “By the time you get to chapter 17 in Jeremiah, it has been heading toward the inevitable climax of the judgement of God. The nation is going to be invaded, the kingdom is going to be overthrown… this has been building for years. It didn’t happen suddenly. By the time we get to chapter 17, Jeremiah has been ministering for something like 40 years, and God had been patiently waiting on the people to repent. God had been patiently waiting on the people to finally listen to what Jeremiah had to say and to turn from their evil ways, and He waited to see if there would be any inkling of a last second repentance. Surely, somehow, they’ll hear the Word and the message and turn toward God, but they persisted in their evil. They chose not to listen to what God had to say. They chose not to hear what he was saying through Jeremiah. In spite of all the warnings, and in spite of all the preaching, and in spite of all that this faithful man of God did, they rejected what he had to say.”
Helpful reminder
Carlisle then asked students to reflect on where they turn for help during challenging times — reminding them that Christ should always be their first response.
“The times in Judah were continually worsening, and the times in which we live today are continually worsening,” Carlisle said. “The primary message of the prophecy of Jeremiah is how to face an increasingly cruel and tough world. I want to ask you today, in a world like we live in, to whom will you go in worsening times and more challenging times perhaps like we’ve not ever seen before? To whom are you going to turn to help you in times like this?”
Carlisle noted the lessons we can learn from this Old Testament passage while emphasizing the need for repentance and complete reliance of God.
“So, God begins now to teach Jeremiah some important lessons — some profound lessons about life and humanity,” Carlisle said. “He opens his eyes to some new truths about humanity, and if we want to understand this day in which we live and what is happening in this tumultuous and turbulent hour, we have to understand what God teaches Jeremiah. In order to understand what Jeremiah is saying, we must allow our eyes to be open to our sin. The second thing that Jeremiah teaches us is that there are only two ways by which we can live. This was important for Jeremiah to understand, and it is equally important for us to understand. It is one or the other, never both. It is either trusting in God or trusting in man. We all have tried the solution of man to work out our problems.”
Carlisle continued, “As we move forward into chapter 17, it seems to be saying to us that it is only by the utter collapse of all that men trust in that they will ever turn to God. We seem to be able to trust in almost anything, but when it comes to trusting in God, we sometimes seem to be a little hesitant and a little reluctant.
‘To the end of ourselves’
“Sometimes it seems like the only way that God can get our attention is to bring us to the end of ourselves. Why would God have to do that? Why would God have to bring us to the end of ourselves? The reason is we resist Him. We resist, and we resist and we resist. You know that happens when we resist? We get ourselves in all kinds of trouble. As a matter of fact, we even borrow trouble. Trouble that we wouldn’t have had if we had listened to what God had to say and obeyed what He wanted us to do. But it seems like when we get in that trouble, that’s when our eyes open up and we see who God is. We then see His power and His might and His love.”
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