As for you, do not pray for these people. Do not raise up a cry or a prayer on their behalf, for I will not be listening when they call out to Me in their time of disaster. Sermons
I. WHILST SIN IS PERSISTED IS THERE CAN BE NO REMOVAL OF DIVINE JUDGMENTS. The righteousness of God has, after long-suffering mercy, brought these upon his people. The wisdom of their imposition is infallible; and they spring from the depths of an inscrutable, infinite love. Whilst, therefore, the condition which involved their imposition is unchanged, it would be presumption to suggest their removal. It is rather for the righteous conscience of saints sorrowfully to approve the action of the Supreme Magistrate, as he draws his cordon round the transgressor and compels him to capitulate. The real calamity in connection with these judgments is the spiritual wrongness which necessitates them, and not the physical conditions through which they are executed. Most men suppose that if the pain or inconvenience is removed the evil is at an end, and the question between them and God settled. They still go on to sin. Impunity confirms and hardens them in their transgression. We have not learned the real lesson of calamity until we have detected its moral sources or occasions, and sought to rectify them before God. II. DIVINE JUDGMENTS MAY IN CERTAIN INSTANCES BE GREATER MERCIES THAN THE REMOVAL OF THEM WOULD BE. When judgment continues to rest upon the transgressor, it is not mere vengeance which is represented, but mercy working on the lines of severity. It is God's emphasis upon his commandment which must be heeded. The blessing that is latent in it waits the appearance of a repentance not to be repented of. Like pent-up waters, it will flow in an overwhelming stream when once the barriers of law have been removed by the sinner's return to God. - M.
Therefore pray not thou for this people. It is futile to pray for those who have deliberately cast off the covenant of Jehovah and made a covenant with His adversary. Prayer cannot save, nothing can save, the impenitent; and there is a state of mind, in which one's own prayer is turned into sin; the state of mind in which a man prays, merely to appease God, and escape the fire, but without a thought of forsaking sin, without the faintest aspiration after holiness. There is a degree of guilt upon which sentence is already passed, which is "unto death," and for which prayer is interdicted alike by the prophet of the new and of the old covenant.(C. J. Ball, M. A.) People Anathoth, JeremiahPlaces Anathoth, Egypt, Jerusalem, ZionTopics Behalf, Calling, Cry, Disaster, Distress, Ear, Hearken, Lift, Listen, Petition, Plea, Prayer, Prayers, Trouble, VexationOutline 1. Jeremiah proclaims God's covenant;8. rebukes the peoples' disobeying thereof; 11. prophesies evils to come upon them; 18. and upon the men of Anathoth, for conspiring to kill him. Dictionary of Bible Themes Jeremiah 11:14 5159 hearing Library First, for Thy Thoughts. 1. Be careful to suppress every sin in the first motion; dash Babylon's children, whilst they are young, against the stones; tread, betimes, the cockatrice's egg, lest it break out into a serpent; let sin be to thy heart a stranger, not a home-dweller: take heed of falling oft into the same sin, lest the custom of sinning take away the conscience of sin, and then shalt thou wax so impudently wicked, that thou wilt neither fear God nor reverence man. 2. Suffer not thy mind to feed itself upon any … Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety "And we all do Fade as a Leaf, and Our Iniquities, Like the Wind, have Taken us Away. " The Medes and the Second Chaldaean Empire Backsliding. The Tests of Love to God Covenanting Confers Obligation. Jeremiah Links Jeremiah 11:14 NIVJeremiah 11:14 NLT Jeremiah 11:14 ESV Jeremiah 11:14 NASB Jeremiah 11:14 KJV Jeremiah 11:14 Bible Apps Jeremiah 11:14 Parallel Jeremiah 11:14 Biblia Paralela Jeremiah 11:14 Chinese Bible Jeremiah 11:14 French Bible Jeremiah 11:14 German Bible Jeremiah 11:14 Commentaries Bible Hub |