It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. Lamentations 3:26.
(OFC 187.2)
Among those who had hoped for a permanent spiritual revival as the result of the reformation under Josiah was Jeremiah, called of God to the prophetic office while still a youth....
(OFC 187.3)
In the youthful Jeremiah, God saw one who would be true to his trust and who would stand for the right against great opposition.... “Say not, I am a child,” the Lord bade His chosen messenger; “for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak. Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee.” ...
(OFC 187.4)
For forty years Jeremiah was to stand before the nation as a witness for truth and righteousness. In a time of unparalleled apostasy he was to exemplify in life and character the worship of the only true God. During the terrible sieges of Jerusalem he was to be the mouthpiece of Jehovah.
(OFC 187.5)
Naturally of a timid and shrinking disposition, Jeremiah longed for the peace and quite of a life of retirement, where he need not witness the continued impenitence of his beloved nation. His heart was wrung with anguish over the ruin wrought by sin....
(OFC 187.6)
The experiences through which Jeremiah passed in the days of his youth and also in the later years of his ministry, taught him the lesson that “the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” He learned to pray, “O Lord, correct me, but with judgment; not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing” (Jeremiah 10:23, 24).
(OFC 187.7)
When called to drink of the cup of tribulation and sorrow, and when tempted in his misery to say, “My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord,” he recalled the providences of God in his behalf and triumphantly exclaimed, “It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.... The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
(OFC 187.8)