Jeremiah 24 ~ Praying God's Word

Please read Jeremiah 24.

Meditate on and memorize verse 7.

I will give them a heart to know Me, for I am the LORD;

 and they will be My people, and I will be their God,

 for they will return to Me with their whole heart.

God took Jeremiah back to His temple and gave him the fig sermon to preach.  The LORD showed Jeremiah two baskets of figs; one contained very rotten figs, and the other contained very good figs.  The good figs represented the people exiled to Babylon.  At the time of this sermon, ten thousand Jews had recently been taken captive to Babylon (2 Kings 24:10-17).  God promised to keep His eyes on them for good, to build them up, plant them, give them a heart to know Him, and bring them back to the land of Israel (Jeremiah 24:5-7).  Those left behind in Jerusalem were like the bad figs that were too rotten to eat.  God promised to destroy them (Jeremiah 24:8-10).

Which fig are you?  Is God taking you through trials of exilic proportions for the purpose of building and planting you?  He wants you firmly established in Him, so you will not be overthrown and plucked up.  God has His eyes on you for good.

Pray Jeremiah 24:2 and 7 over yourself and those for whom you stand guard as a faithful, prayerful watchman (Isaiah 62:6-7).

“LORD, make _________ and me first-ripe, very good figs.

  Do not let us be very bad, rotten figs. 

Give us a heart to know You, for You are the LORD. 

Make us Your people and be our God. 

We return to You with our whole heart.

In Your name, Jesus~”

Jeremiah 23 ~ Praying God's Word

Please read Jeremiah 23.

Meditate on and memorize this phrase from verse 28.

Let him who has My Word speak My Word in truth.

Carefully read Jeremiah 23.  It describes your world. 

God addressed preachers, prophets, teachers, anyone who declared, “I have a word from the LORD.”  God warned people who said, “I had a dream or a vision.  I have an oracle from God.”  The LORD spoke to those who claimed to have revelation from God, but they actually spoke falsehood born from the deception of their own heart (Jeremiah 23:26).

Do not be deceived!  Everything you read and hear must be filtered through the Truth of the Bible.  If someone declares they have a word from the LORD, it must not contradict the LORD’s Word; if it does, that person has perverted the Words of the living God, and God is against them (Jeremiah 23:32, 36).

If you are not currently involved in a Bible study, please start attending one.  Make sure it is actually a study of the Word of God, not the study of a book written about a topic in the Bible.  Learn what God says about a topic before you read a person’s opinion. 

Pray Jeremiah 23:22 and 28 over yourself and those for whom you stand guard as a faithful, prayerful watchman (Isaiah 62:6-7).

“LORD, let ________ and me announce Your Words to Your people.

Use Your Words to turn us back from our evil way and from the evil of our deeds.

We have Your Word; let us speak Your Word in truth.

In Your name, Jesus~”

Jeremiah 22 ~ Praying God's Word

Please read Jeremiah 22.

Meditate on and memorize this phrase from verses 2 and 29.

Hear the Word of the LORD.

Hear the Word of the LORD!

Jeremiah’s next pulpit was at the palace of the king of Judah.  He delivered a six point sermon.  The LORD told the king, his servants, and all the people to do the following (Jeremiah 22:3):

1.     Do justice.

2.     Do righteousness.

3.     Deliver the one who has been robbed from the power of his oppressor.

4.     Do not mistreat the stranger, orphan, or widow.

5.     Do not do violence to the stranger, orphan, or widow.

6.     Do not shed innocent blood.

If the king and his people obeyed God, they would continue to have a king on the throne; if they disobeyed, God would make the palace a desolation (Jeremiah 22:4-5).  King Jehoiakim refused to hear and heed the Word of the LORD.  He was intent on his own dishonest gain, shedding innocent blood, and practicing oppression and extortion (Jeremiah 22:17).  God promised him “a donkey’s burial, dragged off and thrown out beyond the gates of Jerusalem” (Jeremiah 22:19).

Hear the Word of the LORD!  What is God saying to you and those you love?  God does not want your life to be desolate.  Sin desolates life; obedience is required to avert desolation.  Ask God to show you how you are disobeying Him.  Repent of the things God will reveal to you and commit to God that you want to walk obediently with Him.

Pray the opposite of Jeremiah 22:21 to be true in your life and the lives of those for whom you stand guard as a faithful, prayerful watchman (Isaiah 62:6-7).

“LORD, when You speak to _________ and me, we will listen!

Forgive the practices from our youth not to obey Your voice.

Help us to practice obedience now!

Let it be the practice of our children from their youth to obey Your voice.

In Your name, Jesus~”

Jeremiah 21 ~ Praying God's Word

Please read Jeremiah 21.

Meditate on and memorize this sentence from verse 8.

Thus says the LORD,

“Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death.”

Observe God’s Word carefully.  Pashhur in Jeremiah 21 is not the same as Pashhur in Jeremiah 20; they have different fathers (Jeremiah 20:1; 21:1).  Keep in mind that careful observation of the Bible facilitates accurate interpretation, which results in appropriate application of the Truth to your life.

Observe carefully what God said in this chapter.

I Myself will war against you with an outstretched hand and a mighty arm,

even in anger and wrath and great indignation. 

I will also strike down the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast;

 they will die of a great pestilence.  

For I have set My face against this city for harm and not for good.

  I will punish you according to the results of your deeds.

—Jeremiah 21:5-6, 10a, 14a

Did you know God has wrath, anger, and great indignation?  Does it surprise you that God sets His face against people to punish them for their sinful deeds?  Does knowing these truths about God impact your choices and behaviors?  How will you apply these truths to your life?

God gave the people of Judah a choice; they could choose the way of life or the way of death.  God allows you the same choice; which do you pick?

Pray Jeremiah 21:12 over yourself and those for whom you stand guard as a faithful, prayerful watchman (Isaiah 62:6-7).

“LORD, help _________ and me to administer justice every morning

and deliver the person who has been robbed from the power of his oppressor.

We do not want Your wrath to go forth like fire and burn with none to extinguish it.

LORD, keep us from evil deeds.

For the sake of Your Kingdom, Jesus~”

Jeremiah 20 ~ Praying God's Word

Please read Jeremiah 20.

Meditate on and memorize this phrase from verse 11.

But the LORD is with me like a dread champion.

Jeremiah needed a dread champion.  The sermon he delivered in the court of the LORD’s house (Jeremiah 19:14-15) resulted in him being beaten and put in the stocks by Pashhur, the priest and chief officer in the temple.  Upon Jeremiah’s release, he delivered another message; this one was personally for Pashhur.

Pashhur is not the name the LORD has called you,

but rather Magor-misssabib, (terror on every side).

 For thus says the LORD, “Behold, I am going to make you a terror to yourself

 and to all your friends; and while your eyes look on,

 they will fall by the sword of their enemies.  So I will give over all Judah to the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will carry them away as exiles to Babylon and will slay them with the sword.  And you, Pashhur, and all who live in your house will go into captivity; and you will enter Babylon, and there you will die and there you will be buried, you and all your friends to whom you have falsely prophesied.”

—Jeremiah 20:3-4, 6

Jeremiah preached the truth of God’s Word and was persecuted for it.  He was a laughingstock; everyone mocked him.  Jeremiah was tired of the reproach and derision, and he thought about no longer preaching the Word of the LORD.  But that thought created a burning in his heart and bones.  He was wearier holding the Word of God inside himself than he was by the people who mistreated him.  He could not endure not speaking God’s truth (Jeremiah 20:7-9).

What about you?  Do you proclaim the truth of God’s Word despite what others say and do?  Does the Word of God burn inside you ready to be told?  Or are you like Pashhur who told people what they wanted to hear, resulting in deadly consequences?

In the face of opposition and persecution, Jeremiah prayed.  Pray his prayer from Jeremiah 20:11-13 over yourself and those for whom You stand guard as a faithful, prayerful watchman (Isaiah 62:6-7).

“LORD, be with ________ and me like a dread champion;

 let our persecutors stumble and not prevail.

 Let them be utterly ashamed because they have failed

 with an everlasting disgrace that will not be forgotten.

 O LORD of hosts, You test the righteous; You see the mind and the heart;

 let us see Your vengeance on them,  for to You, we set forth our cause. 

We sing to You, LORD; we praise You!

  Deliver our needy souls from the hand of evildoers.

For Your name’s sake, Jesus~” 

Jeremiah 19 ~ Praying God's Word

Please read Jeremiah 19.

Meditate on and memorize this phrase from verse 15.

They have stiffened their necks so as not to heed My Words.

While Jeremiah was at the potter’s house, God told him to buy an earthenware jar.  He took the jar along with some of the elders and senior priests to the valley of Ben-Hinnom, the valley where the people sacrificed their children by fire as part of their Baal worship.  The elders and senior priests should have taught and upheld truth to the people; rather they allowed heinous atrocities to take place.  God promised calamity.  Jeremiah spoke the Word of the LORD to the men then broke the jar in front of them to represent the irreparable breaking God would do to the people.

Jeremiah then walked to the court of the LORD’s house, which was not far from the valley of Slaughter, and spoke to all the people.  His sermon was simple; God promised to bring on the city of Jerusalem and all its towns the entire calamity because the people had stiffened their necks so as not to heed His Words (Jeremiah 19:15).

“Oh generation, heed the Word of the LORD (Jeremiah 2:31)!”  If you are a teacher/preacher of God’s Word, do not be afraid to speak the Word of Truth!  People are perishing for lack of knowledge of the Truth of God’s Word (Hosea 4:6).  If you are a hearer of the Word of God, heed and obey what God tells you to do. 

Pray Jeremiah 19:11 and 15 over yourself and those for whom you stand guard as a faithful, prayerful watchman (Isaiah 62:6-7).

“LORD, let _________ and me live to please You,

 so You do not have to break us like one breaking a potter’s vessel,

which cannot again be repaired.  

Do not let us stiffen our necks.  May we heed Your Words.

In Your name, Jesus~”

Jeremiah 18 ~ Praying God's Word

Please read Jeremiah 18.

Meditate on and memorize this phrase from verse 6.

Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand,

so are you in My hand.

God sent Jeremiah to the potter’s house for another sermon illustration.  Jeremiah watched the potter remake a spoiled vessel into a vessel that pleased him.  God told Jeremiah He would use calamity to reshape Judah into a nation pleasing to Him (Jeremiah 18:11). 

The people responded to God’s Word and invitation to repent was willful disobedience.

We are going to follow our own plans,

and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.

—Jeremiah 18:12b

God called them appalling (Jeremiah 18:13).  Their response to the LORD was audacious!  They forgot God and worshipped idols.  They devised evil against Jeremiah.   God promised calamity, and when it came they would only see God’s back and not His face (Jeremiah 18:13-20).

Hear and heed the Word of the LORD!  If you are a child of God, He will mold you into a vessel pleasing to Him.  You have a choice to make.  You can be a malleable vessel, easily molded by the Potter into exactly what He intends you to be.  Or you can be a stubborn vessel fighting His every touch.  It is a pathetic place to be when God fashions calamity against a person because they refuse to be fashioned by their Creator and Savior.

Pray Jeremiah 18:4 and 6 over yourself and those for whom you stand guard as a faithful, prayerful watchman (Isaiah 62:6-7).

“LORD, forgive _________ and me for being spoiled.

 Make us into the vessel that pleases You.

 We want to be clay in Your hands that You mold,

not clay that You have to deal with. 

In Your Name, Jesus~”