Jeremiah 1

Jeremiah 1:6

The Speech Of A Child I cannot speak: for I am a child.—Jeremiah 1:6. These words were spoken by the prophet Jeremiah. God had called him to carry His message to the people of Judah, and Jeremiah felt he was not fit for the task. It was a very sad message he had to take. He had to tell his fellow-countrymen that unless they turned away from their wicked ways they would bring their country to ruin. It was a very terrible message, a very solemn one, and a very unpopular one, and Jeremiah felt quite unable to carry it. He loved his country dearly, and it hurt him terribly to have to foretell its doom. Besides, he was very young—little more than a boy. So when God asked him to go he replied, “I cannot speak: for I am a child.”Now I wonder if you have ever felt like Jeremiah?

Not that you have a sad message to carry, but you want to do some good in the world, you want to help somebody, and you feel that you can do so little because you are just a child. So you say sadly, “I cannot speak: for I am a child.” Do you know that you are making a great mistake? A child can do a great deal more than he imagines—if only he is willing.1. If you cannot speak you can smile, and a smile sometimes works miracles in driving away gloom, in dispersing the clouds of worry or even of angry and bitter thoughts that sometimes darken the minds of other people.There was a man once who sat thinking black thoughts. He was planning to do a very wicked deed. His little child ran into the room.

It was too wee even to speak, but it just toddled up to his chair, laid its chubby hands on his knees, and laughed up into his face. And the black thoughts vanished from the man’s mind.

They could not live beside that baby smile. He rose up a new man and he stayed a new man from that day forward.2. And if you cannot speak you can be. What do we mean by that? Just by being a child, true and pure and good, you may work wonders in the world.In one of the towns on the Continent they hold every year on the 28th of July a Feast of Cherries. On that day the town is thronged from morning to night with children dressed in white and waving branches of cherry trees, and when night falls they feast on the cherries which they have been carrying during the day.

If you asked any of the inhabitants why that feast was held they would tell you this story.In the year 1432 the town was laid siege to. The general commanding the besieging army demanded the instant surrender of the town and refused to make terms with the inhabitants.

He would not even consent to sparing their lives should they surrender. For a week the people held out, but their provisions ran done and they were starving. Then one man had an idea. He suggested that all the children in the town between the ages of seven and fourteen should be dressed in white and sent into the tent of the general to plead for their own lives and the lives of the inhabitants. It was decided to carry out this plan, and there must have been many sad hearts among the fathers and mothers that night.Next morning the gates of the city were opened and a long procession of children streamed out and made their way into the camp of the enemy. They found the general’s tent and fell on their knees begging for mercy.

Although the general was a fierce, cruel man he was so touched by their innocence and their courage, and so moved to compassion by their pale, pinched faces that he granted their request. Then he ordered food and fruit to be brought, and finally gave the command that each child should be presented with a cherry branch from the gardens near and sent back into the city to carry the good news.So the children by their innocence and helplessness accomplished what the grown-ups could not do, and every year, as the anniversary of the brave deed returns, the town still keeps its Feast of Cherries.3.

Lastly, if you cannot speak you can do. To very few is given the gift of eloquence, but we can all speak by our lives. And, boys and girls, that is going to count much more than any gift of tongues. By a little deed of unselfishness here, by a little bit of self-denial there, by being loving and kind and thoughtful for others you can do much more than if you had “the tongues of men and of angels.”Do you know how God answered Jeremiah? He said, “Say not, I am a child: for to whomsoever I shall send thee thou shalt go, and whatsoever I shall command thee thou shalt speak.” Then He touched the prophet’s mouth as a sign that He had given him the gift of eloquence.If you will let God touch your lives, then they will speak eloquently for Him, and all that they say will be beautiful and good.

Jeremiah 1:11

The Almond Tree A rod of an almond tree.—Jeremiah 1:11. Some of you are fond of making puns—too fond, your friends sometimes think, and they threaten to turn you out of the room if you make another. Did you know that there are puns in the Bible? There are—several of them—and our text today is one.God was speaking to the young prophet Jeremiah and calling him to his life-work, and to encourage him in that work God said to the prophet, “What are you looking at just now?” “A branch of an almond tree,” answered Jeremiah. Now it so happens that in Hebrew the almond tree is sometimes called the “hastener” or the “awakener” because, first of all the trees, it rushes into bloom. In January and February, when other trees are still asleep, it bursts into blossom, and the Hebrews look upon it as we do on our snowdrop. They think of it as the harbinger, the herald of the spring, and they call it by this poetic name, the ‘‘ hastener,” the tree that hastens to meet the spring.

So, “A branch of the hastener,” said Jeremiah, and God replied, “Eight, Jeremiah, a branch of the hastener! So shall I hasten to do what I have promised.”The “hastener” is one of the most beautiful and most prized trees in Palestine.

We know almonds mostly as delicious white oblongs which we love to munch along with raisins, or as sweets coated with sugar; but the people of Palestine know the almond from its very beginning, and they eat the fruit at a much earlier stage than we do.The almond tree is really a cousin of the peach and the apricot. Like the peach it bears its flowers before its leaves. These flowers are white at the tips but shade off to pale pink at the base of the petals, and an almond tree covered with blossoms is one of the glories of the land of Palestine. Immediately the flowers drop off the fruit begins to form and the leaves to appear; and by March the tree is green. The young fruit is enclosed in a downy green pod which is crisp like a cucumber and has a refreshing acid taste. During April and May it is sold in the streets, and the children, especially, love to buy it.

After the fruit is ripe its green cover shrinks to a brown leathery envelope, the kernel hardens, and then you have the ripe almond, the almond that you see in the greengrocer’s window. You pop it into boiling water, the brown covering slips off, and lo! the blanched almond we all delight in.The Jews make sugar almonds as we do, and they also beat the kernels with sugar into a paste not unlike our marzipan or almond icing.

You remember how Jacob told his sons to take with them into Egypt as a present to their unrecognized brother Joseph “a little balm, and a little honey, spices, and myrrh, nuts, and almonds.” They did not grow almonds in Egypt, so the present would be greatly appreciated. Of course Jacob’s almonds would be plain, not sugared almonds, as there was no sugar in his day.The almond is mentioned several times in the Bible. Aaron’s miraculous rod that budded, blossomed, and yielded fruit all in one night was an almond branch. Perhaps it is in memory of this rod that the Jews still carry to their synagogues or churches, on festival days, branches of almond blossom. The flowers of the almond, too, were used as models for the ornaments of the seven-branched golden candlestick of the Tabernacle.Now, you can forget all I have told you about the almond, if you promise to remember one thing—and that is its Hebrew name. It is as the “hastener” I want you to remember it, for it is as the “hastener” that it brings a message to us.The almond hastens to respond to the sunshine and the call of spring.

It meets them half-way. I want you to copy it.

I want you, through life, to meet things and people half-way. I want you to be ready to respond. I want you to meet joy and gladness half-way. I want you to be keen and eager to greet all that is good or beautiful. I want you to be enthusiastic and not ashamed to show it.You know there are some people in this world whom we describe as “wooden.” And a very good description it is! There is no hastening blossom on their trees.There is no answering smile on their faces when you smile to them. They might learn a lesson from the very dogs on the street. When one dog meets another it greets it by wagging its tail, and the second dog wags back a kindly answer.

Don’t be a “wooden” person. Copy the almond tree and give smile for smile, kindliness for kindliness, love for love.And when you are hastening to respond to human love, don’t forget to respond to God’s love. It has come more than half-way to meet you. It has indeed been with you and around you from the day you came into the world. How are you going to meet it? Are you going to answer it? Are you going to return God’s love with love?