In Jeremiah 20, the prophet accuses God of deceiving or seducing him into being a prophet against his will. In effect, he accuses God to making him a prophet and it bringing him nothing but hassle.
Landing hard on the idea of winning and losing, Jeremiah explains the bind he is in. If he speaks God’s Word he gets flak from the people. If he doesn’t speak, he has inner torment at not doing what is right as the Holy Spirit, or his conscience, or both burn him up inside. He says, if I speak I’m hurt outwardly and if don’t speak I’m hurt inwardly. I can’t win. But though Jeremiah can’t win, God will win. God wants Jeremiah to speak so Jeremiah will speak. If he stands against God’s plan, Jeremiah knows he cannot win.
But the flipside of that is also true. Although Jeremiah has got to speak because it’s what God wants him to do, if he’s on God’s side then he can’t lose. The persecutors are against God so can’t win. But God is with Jeremiah so he can’t lose.
Jeremiah doesn’t just say I can’t win. Instead, knowing that God always wins, and God is with him, Jeremiah says: we will win. With God against them, Jeremiah’s enemies can’t win. With God on his side, Jeremiah can’t lose. Though Jeremiah is real about the terrible situation he’s in, he knows God is with him, God will win so he can’t lose.
The God who always won in Jeremiah’s day is the same God who always wins today. The God that nobody could win against then is the same unbeatable God today. The winning God who was with Jeremiah is the winning God who is with us.
Just as the religious leader were set against Jeremiah, so the religious leaders in Jesus’ day were set against him. The God who vindicated Jeremiah was the God who vindicated the Lord Jesus. We have a choice to either set ourselves against God and his man, Jesus, or to give ourselves to him so that he might be with us. If God always wins, the end of those who reject his man, Jesus, is destruction. They can’t win. But for those who accept Christ, Jesus says, ‘I am with you to the end of the age’, and he cannot lose and, if we’re in him, nor can we.
Just like Jeremiah, we’ve been saved for a purpose. We’ve been called to speak about the greatness of Jesus and his gospel. Like Jeremiah, we’ll run into people who simply don’t want to hear it and hate us for saying it. But if we love Jesus, we won’t be able keep silent.
There’ll be times we wish we could. If we speak, we get mocked and attacked but if we don’t speak, we get burnt inside by the Spirit prompting us to speak. But if we know the God who always wins is with us, if we know those who stand against him can’t win, we can share the gospel boldly and speak of the greatness of Jesus faithfully, knowing – hard as some people’s response to us might be – the God who always wins is on our side so we cannot possibly lose.