In Jeremiah 3:14 The Lord said, "I will take you one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion". Zion here is a type of the true church of God. One mark of that church is that they have leaders who are "shepherds after God's own heart" who feed God's people with the knowledge of God and with an understanding of His ways (Jer. 3:15). You can know that you have come to Zion when you have found leaders like that. And you can be sure that you haven't found Zion when your church leaders are not like that. Godly leaders do not major on intelligence, but on compassion and love for God's people. They do not exploit God's people, they are not interested in people's offerings but in their walk with the Lord.

God told Jeremiah something similar to what He told Abraham when Sodom was to be destroyed. Abraham had pleaded saying, "If there are ten people in Sodom will You spare the city?" God said, "Yes. If there are ten righteous people in Sodom, I'll spare that city" (Genesis 18:32). And here the Lord said to Jeremiah, "If you find one righteous person (not ten but one) anywhere in Jerusalem, I will pardon her." (Jer. 5:1) But Jeremiah could not find even one. Can you imagine the condition of a city that does not have even one righteous person in it! Do you know that one righteous man in a church can bring the blessing of God upon that church? One righteous man can bring the blessing of God upon a fellowship and into a home. One righteous man plus God is a majority anywhere. Be righteous men and women and you will turn the tide against Satan wherever you go, for God will support you mightily.

In Jeremiah 15:19 the Lord told Jeremiah: "You must never go back to them. You must influence them. Don't let them ever influence you". Don't let the world influence you; and don't let corrupt Christendom influence you. Don't let backslidden pastors and money-loving preachers influence you. Let God influence you - and then influence others towards godliness. God's promise is that He will make us "a fortified wall of bronze such that people will not be able to prevail over us" (Jer. 15:20). Hallelujah!

In Jeremiah 20:7-11 (Living) Jeremiah says, "Lord, You have never allowed me to speak a kind word to these people. It is always judgment, judgment". Many like to get a reputation as being balanced in their preaching. That may be all right for teachers. But no prophet was ever balanced. The prophets were all imbalanced in their ministry. They had a message from God and they kept on preaching the same message forever. Jeremiah preached the same message of judgement for 40 years. In the Body of Christ too, God raises up prophets who have a particular burden. Other Christians may not have that burden. But the Lord gives a prophet very often a single burden. Then he must be true to that if he wants to remain the Lord's prophet, and not allow other well meaning Christians to divert him into a more "balanced" ministry. The day he succumbs to that pressure and becomes "balanced", he will cease to be God's prophet to his generation. God gave Jeremiah a single message of judgement without one kind word to the people of Judah. And for 40 years he faithfully stuck to that task - and he was God's spokesman until the end.