Jeremiah 1:9-10 (ESV)
Then the LORD put out his hand and touched my mouth. And the LORD said to me,
“Behold, I have put my words in your mouth.
See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms,
to pluck up and to break down,
to destroy and to overthrow,
to build and to plant.”
Jeremiah is often called the “weeping prophet” because of his reaction to the message that God gave him to speak to Judah (the southern tribe of Israel). He prophesied from the reign of Josiah to the captivity of Jerusalem (1:1-3). The message he had to deliver was mostly doom and gloom. God was punishing His people because of their disobedience and He was using wicked nations as the tool for that punishment. But, there were also moments in the message of hope and possibility. The above passage is outlining this central theme of Jeremiah’s work. This is a very important theme of God’s plan and God’s universal work in creation. Once the sin of Adam took place all men fell into a mindset that they would only choose evil, continually (Romans 6-8). To redeem mankind, God has to destroy that desire for sin and create a new way. This is what Jeremiah is saying in the above passage. This is the theme of his book:
See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms,
to pluck up and to break down,
to destroy and to overthrow,
to build and to plant.” (v. 10)
If we talked about this in archetypal terms we would say God is the Destroyer and then the Creator. Together He produces a revolutionary moment in the lives of mankind. God sent Jeremiah to give both the Destroyer messages (doom and gloom) and the Creator message (hope and redemption) (see chapters 31-33).
This is the hope we have in Christ. Even though God must destroy the old nature of our lives (through Jesus’ death-burial-resurrection), He creates within us a new nature. Before redemption there must be death and resurrection. God destroys in order to build up.
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