JUDGMENT FOR IDOLATRY

Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me: for I will not hear thee [Jer. 7:16].

God says, “Jeremiah, you don’t need to pray for these people until they turn to Me.” This is an awesome verse. God says that it is no longer useful to pray for the people. The nation has gone too far away from God. Unless they will turn to God, there is no hope for them.

I believe there are times when we do not need to pray for folk to be blessed. I visited a member of my church in the hospital and prayed for him, then a man in the other bed asked me to pray for him. I asked him whether he was a Christian, and he said he believed in God. I told him that didn’t make him a Christian, and then I explained the gospel to him and asked him to put his trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. He said he could not accept that, but he wanted me to pray for him. I told him, “Brother, I will pray for you, but not the way you want me to pray for you. You want me to pray that you will get well and that God will bless you. I am going to pray that you will be saved—that is the only prayer I can pray for you.” I believe we do too much praying for people to be blessed of God when we ought to be praying that those people will be saved.

This is what God is saying to Jeremiah. “Don’t stand there in the temple and pray that these people will not go into captivity. Pray that they will turn back to Me. You are giving them My message, and that is the important thing to do.” This gets right down to the nitty–gritty, doesn’t it? God is not as interested in your ritual on Sunday as He is in your behavior on Monday. The place to judge whether a Christian is genuine or not is not to watch him in church on Sunday but to see him at work on Monday.

McGee, J. V. (1991). Thru the Bible commentary: The Prophets (Jeremiah/Lamentations) (electronic ed., Vol. 24, pp. 53–54). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.