Three Conditions for Being a Spokesman for God by Zac Poonen

In Jeremiah 15:16-21, we see three conditions to be a spokesman for God.

First of all: “Lord, I found Your words, and Your word has become for me the joy and delight of my heart” (Jer. 15:16). God’s word must be the joy and delight of your heart. Just like a businessman has joy in making money, your joy must be in getting into God’s word. Many want to be preachers today, who do not spend time digging into God’s word, and who don’t look at God’s word as the joy and delight of their hearts.

Secondly: “I did not sit in the circle of merrymakers” (Jer. 15:17). When other people in Judah were partying and having fun, Jeremiah went away by himself to be alone with God. If you don’t discipline yourself to stay away from the jokers of this world, you can never be a spokesman for God. I am not saying that humour and clean jokes are wrong. But many Christians don’t know where to stop in such matters - they are perpetual jokers. Jeremiah made sure that he didn’t spend time with such people.

Thirdly: Jeremiah made a complaint to God in verse 18 saying, “Lord, why have You let me down? You have been to me like a deceptive stream, like unreliable water. I come to the stream thinking there is water there and there is none. You have let me down.” The Lord said, “Don’t ever say things like that to Me.” the Lord rebuked Jeremiah for speaking words of unbelief (Jer. 15:19). God never lets us down. He is not like an unreliable stream. Jeremiah was depending on his feelings and looking at his circumstances. The Lord told him, “If you return to Me, and get rid of the habit of speaking worthless words (like the ones you just spoke - idle, useless words and words of unbelief) and ensure that you speak only precious words (of faith and goodness), then you will be My mouthpiece.”

How many of you want to be God’s mouthpiece? I am not talking about being a preacher of dead sermons that come from some book you read, but being God’s spokesman. If you want to be that, then don’t waste time in useless company, but redeem your time and spend it digging into God’s Word. Let that be your delight. Get rid of useless conversation and speak words of faith always and only good words in all your conversation. Then the Lord will make you His mouth. There is no partiality with God.

It is the longing of my heart to become this person whose mouth speaks only the Word. When my husband was alive, we never spoke of anything else, everything was centered on the Word and on Christ. This is because it is all my husband ever talked about. It was not contrived but the natural outflow of his walk with God. Even when he taught physics and chemistry, all of his examples were somehow connected to Christ. He found the gospel expressed in all the laws of science. No worldly or useless conversation was heard in our home.

Now that he is gone, I have trouble keeping the Word of God in every conversation, let alone making it the center. I did not realize how much of this was due to the leading of my husband. I hate that my children and I speak so many useless things throughout the day. These things are not evil, they are simply useless.

I am most distressed about this when my three older children come to visit, who are at different levels of being prodigals (though 2 are very involved in church activities) because I simply cannot maintain a conversation about Christ with them. Two or three sentences is all I get in, and then the conversation always takes a turn to other matters and I cannot ever tie it back to the gospel. I get so frustrated because I do not know how to do it.

I know that my husband would be disappointed in me, and I am praying for God to lead me where I need to be. Obviously, I am not as grounded in the Word as he was. There is another post in which another brother asked if we feel like living water is gushing out of us. I do feel this in me, and I assume if I did, that would resolve the problem.

Thank you for this post. It is very necessary for people to understand. I would not limit this to those who want to be a spokesman of God. It applies to all of us who want to follow Christ.