Jeremiah 12:5 “If you have run with the footmen, and they have wearied you, then how can you contend with horses? And if in the land of peace, in which you trusted, they wearied you, then how will you do in the floodplain of the Jordan? For even your brothers, the house of your father, even they have dealt treacherously with you; yes, they have called a multitude after you. Do not believe them, even though they speak smooth words to you.”
God’s words to Jeremiah were both powerful and profound. God encouraged Jeremiah to regard his present challenge as a preparation for greater challenges to come. Jeremiah was certainly in a challenge like a hard fought race with the footmen. There was a sense of spiritual, mental, and emotional exertion involved with the persecution from his fellow villagers from Anathoth and his question regarding the prosperity of the wicked and why God did not seem to deliver justice to them. Yet even with the appreciation of that challenge, there were greater challenges to come.
By analogy, Jeremiah could expect to run against horses in the future. He needed to learn how to trust God and to draw on His strength in his present challenge, in order to prepare him for the greater challenges in the future. If he found it difficult in Anathoth, how would he fare in the Jerusalem? Later on, Jeremiah would have to spend a night in the stocks, confinement in a cistern, and imprisonment in the court of the guard. The troubles he was having in Anathoth were nothing compared to the troubles he would have later in Jerusalem, Babylon, or Egypt.
This analogy supplies the same lesson as the analogy of the footmen and the horses. Your present circumstance is a challenge, yet a greater one waits for you today. If you complain about the simple things God has already asked you to do, then you lack the spiritual strength to do what He wants you to do next. The effect of the questions must have been that of emphasizing the prophet’s sense of his own weakness, and thus driving him to yet completer dependence upon God. God never calls us to content with horsemen, until He has trained us by the lesser strain of contending with footmen.
Jeremiah also seems to have been a little afraid of the people among whom he dwelt. They had evidently persecuted him very much, mocked him, and laughed him to scorn; but God tells him to make his face like flint, and not to care what they say. God says,"If thou art afraid of them, ‘How wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan?" This ought to be a rebuke to every Christian who is subject to the fear of man. You can live less than you should as a Christian or more depending on your faith. Its time to not be fearful of Satan, but to rebuke him and carry on for Christ.
The region surrounding the Jordan was a place of jungle growth and the lair of lions. Jeremiah was not fearful of the wild beasts. For Jeremiah, the smaller challenge was the adversity and hatred he faced from the men of Anathoth, men of his own village, and family. The greater challenge was the multitude they had called against him. The open adversity comes when you try to run with the horsemen. The bigger challenge comes when you stand against the flood of discouragement the enemy will send against you. People will always attack those who seek a close relationship with God. I don't know why, but its inevitable. Just like Jeremiah you must have the faith that you can rise above your adversity. You must believe you can hang with the horsemen and stand against the flood.
"If God be for you, who can be against you?"
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