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"So do not pray for this people"

Text: Jeremiah 11:14

WHEN GOD REFUSES TO HEAR PRAYERS

Message after message had been preached to the children of Judah. Again and again, His messages were rejected! The people had conspired to set aside God and His covenant. Instead, they clung to the idols they adored. The inevitable happened!

“So do not pray for this people,
or lift up a cry or prayer for them;
for I will not hear them in the time
that they cry out to Me because of their trouble.
What has My beloved to do in My house,
Having done lewd deeds with many?
And the holy flesh has passed from you.
When you do evil, then you rejoice.”
Jeremiah 11:14-15

1. “So do not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or prayer for them”

a) Jeremiah was told not to pray for the children of Judah.

b) God would not hear the prayers.

i) Of intercession.

ii) Nor personal prayers of the people even if they were in trouble.

iii) God knew that their prayers were fashioned after the prayers made to idols.

2. “What has My beloved to do in My house, having done lewd deeds with many?”

a) Technically, they were called “My (God’s) beloved”.

b) The Temple was “God’s house”.

c) But the Temple was filled with all kinds of obscene idols!

d) It was also polluted by the wicked deeds of the devotees!

e) How could they be called God’s beloved and they were worshipping idols?

3. “And the holy flesh has passed from you”

a) The children of Israel/ Judah were meant to be “holy flesh”.

b) That possibility had now passed from them.

c) They were anything but holy.

4. “When you do evil, then you rejoice”

a) This was a sad observation.

b) Only when the people did evil were they able to rejoice!

c) Their rejoicing in the Lord was long gone.

d) How could God hear the prayers of such people?