Jeremiah 1:6

The Speech Of A Child

I cannot speak: for I am a child. Jeremiah 1:6.

These words were spoken by the prophet Jeremiah. God had called him to carry His message to the people of Judah, and Jeremiah felt he was not fit for the task. It was a very sad message he had to take. He had to tell his fellow-countrymen that unless they turned away from their wicked ways they would bring their country to ruin. It was a very terrible message, a very solemn one, and a very unpopular one, and Jeremiah felt quite unable to carry it. He loved his country dearly, and it hurt him terribly to have to foretell its doom. Besides, he was very young little more than a boy. So when God asked him to go he replied, “I cannot speak: for I am a child.”

Now I wonder if you have ever felt like Jeremiah? Not that you have a sad message to carry, but you want to do some good in the world, you want to help somebody, and you feel that you can do so little because you are just a child. So you say sadly, “I cannot speak: for I am a child.” Do you know that you are making a great mistake? A child can do a great deal more than he imagines if only he is willing.

1. If you cannot speak you can smile, and a smile sometimes works miracles in driving away gloom, in dispersing the clouds of worry or even of angry and bitter thoughts that sometimes darken the minds of other people.

There was a man once who sat thinking black thoughts. He was planning to do a very wicked deed. His little child ran into the room. It was too wee even to speak, but it just toddled up to his chair, laid its chubby hands on his knees, and laughed up into his face. And the black thoughts vanished from the man's mind. They could not live beside that baby smile. He rose up a new man and he stayed a new man from that day forward.

2. And if you cannot speak you can be. What do we mean by that? Just by being a child, true and pure and good, you may work wonders in the world.

In one of the towns on the Continent they hold every year on the 28th of July a Feast of Cherries. On that day the town is thronged from morning to night with children dressed in white and waving branches of cherry trees, and when night falls they feast on the cherries which they have been carrying during the day. If you asked any of the inhabitants why that feast was held they would tell you this story.

In the year 1432 the town was laid siege to. The general commanding the besieging army demanded the instant surrender of the town and refused to make terms with the inhabitants. He would not even consent to sparing their lives should they surrender. For a week the people held out, but their provisions ran done and they were starving. Then one man had an idea. He suggested that all the children in the town between the ages of seven and fourteen should be dressed in white and sent into the tent of the general to plead for their own lives and the lives of the inhabitants. It was decided to carry out this plan, and there must have been many sad hearts among the fathers and mothers that night.

Next morning the gates of the city were opened and a long procession of children streamed out and made their way into the camp of the enemy. They found the general's tent and fell on their knees begging for mercy. Although the general was a fierce, cruel man he was so touched by their innocence and their courage, and so moved to compassion by their pale, pinched faces that he granted their request. Then he ordered food and fruit to be brought, and finally gave the command that each child should be presented with a cherry branch from the gardens near and sent back into the city to carry the good news.

So the children by their innocence and helplessness accomplished what the grown-ups could not do, and every year, as the anniversary of the brave deed returns, the town still keeps its Feast of Cherries.

3. Lastly, if you cannot speak you can do. To very few is given the gift of eloquence, but we can all speak by our lives. And, boys and girls, that is going to count much more than any gift of tongues. By a little deed of unselfishness here, by a little bit of self-denial there, by being loving and kind and thoughtful for others you can do much more than if you had “the tongues of men and of angels.”

Do you know how God answered Jeremiah? He said, “Say not, I am a child: for to whomsoever I shall send thee thou shalt go, and whatsoever I shall command thee thou shalt speak.” Then He touched the prophet's mouth as a sign that He had given him the gift of eloquence.

If you will let God touch your lives, then they will speak eloquently for Him, and all that they say will be beautiful and good.