Prophets Who Spoke Truth to Deaf Ears: Jeremiah and Jesus
Jul 13, 2025He had endured more than his share of bruises. The beatings were not the worst part. Neither were the jeers from the crowd nor the long hours spent locked in stocks at the city gate. What wore him down was the loneliness. The silence after the sermon. The way his words seemed to vanish into the air as if no one had heard them. He had stood in the very heart of Jerusalem, God’s chosen city, and proclaimed the Lord’s message with fire in his chest and tears on his face, only to be met with laughter, resistance, and contempt from the very people he longed to save.
Jeremiah was not just weary from the pain. He was weary from the futility. The more he spoke, the harder their hearts became. The more faithful he was to God, the more isolated he became from everyone else. He was not tired of ministry. He was tired of being hated for telling the truth.
And so Jeremiah made a vow in his heart.
But if I say, "I will not remember Him or speak anymore in His Name," then in my heart it becomes like a burning fire shut up in my bones; And I am weary of holding it in, and I cannot.
—Jeremiah 20:9
That fire had a name. It was the voice of the Living God. And no matter how deep the wounds or how dark the cell, Jeremiah could not contain what the Spirit had poured into him.
Jeremiah was not punished for rebellion. He suffered because of obedience. His suffering did not come from the hands of distant nations or foreign kings. It came from the very people who claimed to speak for God: the priests who offered sacrifices, the prophets who claimed visions, the kings who ruled from David’s throne, the elders who sat at the gates, and the officials who enforced the law. They all heard the word of the Lord, but they refused to receive it.
They were not ignorant. They were resistant.
They did not reject Jeremiah because he spoke falsely. They rejected him because he told them what they did not want to hear. They honored tradition, but despised truth. What they longed for was not revelation, but reassurance. They didn't crave a word from heaven. They desired for God to bless their rebellious way of life.
They wanted a prophet who would confirm their choices, not confront their sin. So they tried to silence the voice that burned with holy fire.
Echoes of Fire
Jeremiah’s life did not unfold as a series of disconnected trials. It became a living parable. Every rejection, every wound, every tear was a signpost pointing beyond itself. He was a prophet shaped by sorrow and formed in the furnace of obedience. His voice rose into a generation that had chosen silence. And the more faithful he became to the voice of the Lord, the more painful it became to live among people who no longer wanted to hear it.
Centuries later, the pattern would repeat.
Another voice would rise. But this time, it was not just a prophet. It was the voice of the Word made flesh. He did not come to echo the fire of old, but to reveal its source. His presence was not a new message. It was the fulfillment of every message spoken before. The fire that once burned in bones now walked among them, speaking with authority, calling them to return.
Jesus came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. They did not turn away because they were confused. They turned away because they understood. His words confronted their pride. His presence exposed their hearts. Like Jeremiah, He was not rejected for deceiving the people, but for telling them the truth they refused to face.
The fire that once burned in Jeremiah’s bones now stood among them in human form.
And they still covered their ears.
Jeremiah's Six Moments of Rejection
These moments aren't intended to be an exhaustive or comprehensive list. They are only mentioned to drive home a point.
Beaten by Pashhur (Jeremiah 19-20)
Jeremiah stood beneath the open sky where the stench of burnt offerings mingled with the distant cries of children who had been given over to false gods. His message was delivered at a place called Topheth, located deep in the Valley of Hinnom. In that cursed ravine outside Jerusalem’s southern walls, the people of Judah had built altars to Baal. It was there that they had burned their sons in the fire.
At God's command, Jeremiah shattered a potter's earthenware jar in front of the elders of the people. He declared that valley, filled with the ashes of idolatry, would become a valley of slaughter. And when the people heard him, they did not repent. They arrested him.
Pashhur, the chief officer in the house of the Lord, took Jeremiah and had him beaten. Then he was placed in stocks at the Upper Gate of Benjamin and subjected to a public and painful punishment. The gate was one of the main entrances into the temple courts. Every passerby would see him. Every priest would walk past his swollen face. Every official would glance at the man who dared to speak what no one wanted to hear.
Jeremiah, bloodied and bound, did not flinch. He looked at the man who claimed to guard the house of the Lord and gave him a new name: Magor-Missabib—Terror on Every Side. Then he delivered a prophecy of judgment. The man who had once stood as a defender of sacred space would soon become a symbol of its downfall. His power would collapse. His name would be a warning, not a protection.
Threatened with Death: The Temple Confrontation (Jeremiah 26)
The message came at the beginning of the reign of King Jehoiakim when the temple of the Lord still stood in gold and glory. Crowds gathered daily in its courts. Priests offered sacrifices. Prophets claimed to speak in the name of the Lord. It was a place filled with tradition, memory, and sacred rhythm. But beneath the surface, the foundation was crumbling.
Jeremiah was commanded to stand in the court of the Lord’s house and speak every word the Lord had given him without omission and without apology. His message was not aimed at foreign nations. It was directed at the people of God. He did not speak against the idols of Babylon. He spoke against the hardened hearts of Jerusalem.
If you do not listen to Me and follow My law, I will make this house like Shiloh, God declared. The people knew what that meant. Shiloh had once been the center of worship. The Ark of the Covenant had rested there. But it had been abandoned and left desolate because of the people’s disobedience.
To say that the temple would become like Shiloh was to speak of judgment. It was to declare that God’s presence would no longer dwell among them. It was a warning that what they believed to be sacred could still be taken away.
The priests, the prophets, and all the people seized him. There was no hesitation, no deliberation. They dragged him from his place of preaching and cried out, “You must die!” Their fury was not because they misunderstood him. It was because they understood him perfectly. His words were not vague. He was calling into question the very heart of their national identity, the safety of their religion, and the future of their city.
They believed the temple was their shield. They thought its presence meant God’s favor. Jeremiah shattered that illusion with a single sentence. And for that, they were ready to take his life.
It was only because certain officials who remembered the words of the prophets before him stepped in that Jeremiah was not executed on the spot. His life was spared, but not because the people repented.
The lesson remains sharp. The greatest danger to a prophet is not from outsiders who deny the faith. It is from insiders who refuse correction.
Imprisoned by King Zedekiah (Jeremiah 32)
The walls of Jerusalem were beginning to shake. Babylon’s army surrounded the city like a tightening noose. The people were starving. Fear had settled like smoke in every household. Still, King Zedekiah refused to listen.
He had heard Jeremiah’s words before. The prophet had not changed his message. God would hand the city over to Nebuchadnezzar. The king would not escape. The Babylonians would take him captive. The city would burn. That message could no longer be tolerated.
So Zedekiah ordered Jeremiah to be confined in the courtyard of the guard. The prison was within the palace grounds. It was close enough for the king to monitor him, but far enough to muffle his words. Jeremiah had been stripped of freedom, but not of clarity. Even in chains, the word of the Lord was not silent.
It was in this place of confinement that one of the most striking events in Jeremiah’s ministry occurred. God told him to purchase a field in Anathoth, the land of his ancestors. At first glance, it seemed absurd. The city was under siege. The land was about to be conquered. There would be no crops, no homes, no harvest. But God was not finished with His people. And Jeremiah was told to act on that hope.
So from his prison cell, Jeremiah signed the deed. He weighed out the silver. He sealed the documents. He handed the scrolls to Baruch for safekeeping. And he declared that houses and fields and vineyards would once again be bought in that land.
This was not a transaction. It was a testimony.
While the city crumbled, God was planting the seed of restoration. While kings resisted judgment, the prophet embodied hope. Even when locked behind walls, Jeremiah showed that God's promises extended beyond destruction. The days of discipline would come, but so would the days of rebuilding.
Zedekiah had tried to silence the voice of God by imprisoning His prophet. But the Spirit cannot be confined. The Word does not fade just because the world no longer wishes to hear it.
It is a dangerous thing to suppress truth simply because it offends the powerful. Zedekiah’s throne would not last. His kingdom would fall. But the message Jeremiah delivered would endure.
When leaders reject truth to protect their power, the end is always the same. The kingdom crumbles, and the Word of God stands alone, faithful and unshaken.
The Scroll in the Fire (Jeremiah 36)
Thrown into a Cistern (Jeremiah 38)
By this point in his ministry, Jeremiah had become a threat too dangerous to ignore. The Babylonians were closing in, and the prophet's words only fueled the fear of collapse. He had warned that the city would fall, that the siege would not be lifted, and that surrender was the only path to survival. For this, the officials called him a traitor. They claimed his words discouraged the soldiers and weakened the morale of the people.
But Jeremiah had not spoken to weaken them. He had spoken to wake them.
Still, the truth was too heavy. The princes of Judah approached King Zedekiah and demanded that Jeremiah be silenced permanently. They did not call for an execution in the public square. They requested something quieter, something that could be done without notice. And the king, weak-willed and afraid of their anger, gave them permission.
Jeremiah was taken to the courtyard of the guard, then lowered into an empty cistern. It was nothing more than a deep pit carved into the ground. There was no water in it, only mud. And as he sank into it, inch by inch, he was left to die alone in the darkness.
There was no trial to weigh the accusations. No defense raised in his name. The temple offered no protest. The people lifted no voice. The prophet who had once wept over the city was now lowered into its filth. He was abandoned by the very leaders he had urged to return to the Lord. But the Lord had not abandoned him.
There was a man in the palace who feared God more than he feared the officials. His name was Ebed-Melech, a Cushite, a foreigner and a servant in the royal household. He went to the king with courage and clarity. He spoke the truth. What had been done to Jeremiah was wicked, and the prophet would die if no one intervened.
And for once, Zedekiah listened.
With the king’s permission, Ebed-Melech gathered thirty men and returned to the cistern. He did not act with haste or cruelty. He lowered ropes along with old rags to cushion the prophet’s arms and protect his frail body as they pulled him from the pit. Slowly, gently, Jeremiah was lifted out of the mud. He had been lowered in silence. He was raised in mercy.
The contrast could not be clearer.
The religious leaders conspired to destroy him. A foreign servant risked his life to save him.
God often sends deliverance from unexpected places. While the powerful seek to protect themselves, the faithful step forward in quiet obedience. And though the prophet was surrounded by corruption, God was still present, even in the palace of a failing king.
Jeremiah did not die in the pit. But he did carry the memory of it.
Because every servant of God, at some point, knows what it feels like to be lowered into the mud while others walk by and say nothing.
Dragged to Egypt (Jeremiah 43-33)
The walls had fallen. The temple was gone. The smoke of Jerusalem’s destruction still lingered in the sky. Babylon had done what Jeremiah said it would do. The judgment had come just as the Lord had warned. But even in ruin, the people still resisted the voice of God.
A remnant remained in Judah. Small in number, shaken by fear, and desperate for safety, they came to Jeremiah with a request. They asked him to seek the Lord on their behalf. They promised they would obey whatever God commanded, whether the word was easy to receive or hard to bear.
Jeremiah listened. He waited. He prayed.
Ten days later, the word of the Lord came. They were not to go down to Egypt. God would plant them in the land if they stayed. He would build them up and not tear them down. He would show compassion and protect them from the king of Babylon. But if they fled to Egypt, sword, famine, and plague would follow them.
The message was clear. Stay and live under God’s protection, or flee and walk into judgment.
They refused to believe him.
They accused Jeremiah of lying. They insisted that his words had been manipulated by others. They claimed to love the Lord, but only when His word aligned with their plans. And so they gathered their families and their possessions, and they fled south toward Egypt, toward what they thought would be safety.
And they took Jeremiah with them by force.
He had spent decades warning them not to trust in foreign alliances. He had pleaded with kings not to turn to Egypt for help. And now, in a bitter turn, he was carried there against his will.
But even in Egypt, the word of the Lord did not stop.
Among the cities of exile, Jeremiah continued to prophesy. He warned that Egypt would not be their refuge. He declared that the judgment of God would follow them across borders. They had not escaped the reach of His Holiness. They had simply carried their rebellion into another land.
Jeremiah stood before the people again and confronted their stubborn hearts. They had returned to idolatry. They had begun offering incense to the queen of heaven, just as they had done in Judah. And when Jeremiah called them to account, they insisted that things had gone better for them when they worshiped false gods. They preferred the illusions of prosperity over the demands of repentance.
And so Jeremiah preached. Again.
There was no city left to save. No altar left to cleanse. No throne left to challenge. Yet he spoke, because the word of God was still alive. And even when the people dragged him into exile, even when they rejected his voice for the hundredth time, he remained faithful to the fire that burned in his bones.
The prophet of God had not been vindicated in life. He had not been restored to honor. He was not welcomed as a hero after the fall of Jerusalem. Instead, he was forgotten, accused, taken captive by his own people, and silenced in a foreign land.
But Jeremiah’s story reminds us that obedience is not measured by the comfort it produces. It is measured by faithfulness to the voice of God, even when no one listens.
The Fire in Flesh
The rejection of Jeremiah was not an isolated event. It was the unfolding of a pattern that would find its fullness in Christ.
Jeremiah was not despised because he deceived the people. He was hated because he told the truth. He exposed the corruption of the priests, confronted the disobedience of kings, and shattered the illusion that the temple alone could protect them from judgment. He stood in the holy places and declared that holiness could not be inherited or assumed. It must be lived.
For this, he was beaten. For this, he was mocked. For this, he was thrown into prison and lowered into the mud. The people who should have welcomed the Word of the Lord covered their ears. And when they finally lost everything he had warned them about, they still refused to listen.
Centuries later, the same voice rose again. This time, it was clothed in flesh.
Jesus did not merely speak the word of the Lord. He was the Word of the Lord. He entered the courts of the temple and called it a den of robbers. He exposed the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and Sadducees. He wept over Jerusalem, not with bitterness, but with a holy sorrow. He warned that not one stone of the temple would remain on another. And He declared that unless they repented, they too would perish.
He was not rejected because He lacked authority. The crowds were astonished at His teaching. They had never heard anything like it. But the leaders feared His influence. The people resented His demands. And the same city that once silenced Jeremiah now turned its back on the Son of God.
Jesus, like Jeremiah, was betrayed by His own. Insiders, not foreigners, handed him over, not by strangers, but by those who claimed to know the Scriptures. And as He stood before the high priest, before Pilate, before the crowd, He remained faithful to the truth, knowing that obedience would lead Him to the cross.
The rejection of Jeremiah foreshadowed a greater rejection. His suffering pointed toward a deeper suffering yet to come. The prophet was thrown into a cistern; the Christ was hung upon a tree. The prophet was taken to Egypt against his will; the Christ was led like a lamb to slaughter.
And in both stories, the warning was clear. God had spoken. And the people did not want to hear it.
That is not just history. It is a mirror.
The word of God still speaks. The call to repent still confronts. And the temptation remains. Not to reject God outright, but to push Him aside when His truth becomes uncomfortable.
Jeremiah stood alone in his generation. Jesus stood alone in His. And the question that lingers is whether we will be any different.
Will we listen when truth pierces our pride?
When God speaks, are we willing to hear, even when He says what we don't want to hear?
Are we willing to speak when it costs us something?
Or will we, like those before us, turn away from the only voice that can save us?
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