Jeremiah 14:1-15:9

Have you ever prayed and felt that you were not connecting with God, that you were not getting through, so to speak?  This happens at times.  Maybe we are not in fellowship with God.  (If I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear. Psa. 66:18)  Maybe it is a time when I need to persist and to perhaps strongly seek God’s face in fasting and in periods of meditation.

But what if our prayer is not the thing that God desires?  Prayer must be according to His will (1 John 5:14).  Today’s passage is just such a situation.  Jeremiah prayed a beautiful prayer, with all the right words, but God did not hear him.  And God made it clear He would not answer this prayer, even if two of the greatest intercessors in all of sacred history were to ask.  Here’s the story …

•    14:1-6: Jeremiah speaks of the harshness of the droughts plaguing Judah.
•    14:7-9: Jeremiah does what we would do: he asks God to bring relief from the drought.  It is a magnificent prayer.  He prays for the sake of the LORD’s Name.  He confesses their sins which are against God.  He acknowledges God as “the Hope of Israel, his Savior in time of trouble.”  And he reminds God they are His people.  Jeremiah said all the right things.
•    v10-12: God tells Jeremiah That in fact they are a wandering people and that He does not accept them.  Jeremiah is not to pray for them, the 3rd time God has said this to Jeremiah (7:14; 11:16).
•    v13-18: Jeremiah again speaks, “Ah LORD God”, as he does when he doesn’t understand God’s response (1:6; 4:10).  What about the prophets who are prophesying peace?  God responds by saying that those prophets are liars, that they and their crowds will die, and that God Himself will weep over it.
•    v19-22: To all of this the people then cry out for mercy, seemingly using all the right words.  They wonder why God is not accepting them; after all they have acknowledged their sin against God.  And they recognize God is their only help!  (By the way, the fact that these right words are in fact a lie from the people is dealt with later (17:1-13).
•    15:1-9: Nevertheless God’s response to Jeremiah is graphic: “Even if Moses and Samuel were to stand before Me, My mind would not be favorable toward this people.”  Because of the sins in the time of Manasseh God has determined a terrible, though predictable, judgment upon Judah.

What does this tell us about prayer?  Certainly we should come to God with a humble heart, a life free of unconfessed sin, and desiring His glory.  But God’s answer to us does not ultimately depend on us having a right formula for our words.  It ultimately does not depend on us at all.  God’s answer depends on His will.  What is He planning to do?  When we come with our requests, as He bids us do, then we must listen for His answer.  We are not there to tell God what to do, though we will tell Him our heart’s desire.  We are there to understand His will and to allow Him to lead us to the center of HIS will.