Week 29 Jeremiah 14
Enough-was-finally-enough and so the Lord told Jeremiah: do not pray for these people anymore. When they fast in my presence, I will pay no attention. When they present their burnt offerings…I will not accept them.
That’s pretty definitive: Do Not Pray For These People Anymore. But then a couple of verses later Jeremiah said this: Lord have you completely rejected Judah?…Lord, we confess our wickedness…For the sake of your name, Lord, do not abandon us…Please don’t forget us! That sounds quite a bit like a prayer to me. A pretty good prayer. A prayer that Jeremiah wasn’t supposed to be praying.
So the Lord got even more emphatic: even if Moses and Samuel stood before me, pleading for these people, I wouldn’t help them!
Prayer has the capacity to bend events. To alter outcomes. I read king Hezekiah’s story a couple of months ago. When Isaiah forecast Hezekiah’s death Hezekiah prayed. And so he didn’t die! In Hezekiah’s case prayer changed his future. He was going to die right away – but then he prayed and got an extra fifteen-years of life. Injected into the stream of events his prayer reorganized things. Outcome A was definitely going to happen. But prayer was added and Outcome B happened instead.
So prayer can & does change things. But it looks like by the time Jeremiah 14 arrived praying’s Can-&-Does Phase had progressed to the Can’t-&-Doesn’t Phase.
Note: quotes from Jeremiah 14:11-12 19-21 & 15:1 (NLT). The Hezekiah story is in 2 Kings 20:1-7.