JEREMIAH 33:3
AN INVITATION TO PRAY
[Matthew 7:7-8]
I've always been grateful for the simplicity of God's profound ways. Though His ways seem beyond discovery for the proud heart, they are simple and inviting to those who love Him. Our text today teaches us that God reveals Himself and what He is about in or due to prayer. Life tried and perplex Jeremiah, both his life and by all that was going on around him. Things seemed to be going from bad to worse, for him and for the nation. Was there any hope? Where could he find a solution for the problems and answers for the future?
God here assured Jeremiah that he had only to call upon Him, and God would answer. His answers would be marvelous, for not only does God know the future, He holds the future in His hands, and more meaning fully, He holds our future in His hands.
Jeremiah learned that divine revelation becomes a reality when it is sought (CIT). By calling out to God, he finds God's enabling to live out his God given hope of future restoration in a time of personal crisis and national emergency. His hope and the focus of His ministry was for divine restoration. God now invites him to ask Him for what seems humanly impossible.
I. THE PROMPTING, A SUPERB INVITATION, 3a.
II. THE PROMISE, A SUPERIOR EXPECTATION, 3b.
III. THE PROVISION, A SUPERNATURAL REVELATION, 3c.
Let's cover a little BACKGROUND for our passage. Jeremiah records these verses while he was imprisoned in the court of the guard (where the elders and the king's officials could consult him, v. 1). Jerusalem was under siege. Jeremiah's country men were depraved and rebellious against God. They plotted against his life, to silence him instead of heeding his message. Jeremiah is distressed, perplexed and confounded. God has just answered Jeremiah's prayer for understanding (32:16-25) by assuring him that nothing is to difficult for the God of all mankind (32:27). Though His people were defiant and rebellious, God would unify them in singleness of heart through an everlasting covenant and by putting the fear of God in their hearts. Jeremiah's restored confidence in God, His plan, His provision, and His power make him ready to be challenged by God to ask for the restoration of His people to the will and way of God.
I. THE PROMPTING, A SUPERB INVITATION, 3a.
Notice God's invitation [to us] at the beginning of verse 3: "Call to Me..."
God invites Jeremiah and He invites us to call upon Him. How complicated is that? In any situation, from any place, in any situation language, just call.. This cry doesn't have to be eloquent or profound. There is no requirement of wording or posture, simply call on Him.
Call when you're happy and rejoice in His blessings. Call when your sad and find His comfort. Call when your guilty and encounter His cleansing. Call when you're depressed and hear His word of encouragement. Call when your world is upside down and watch Him reveal a new world to you. Call when your burden is heavy and the Holy Spirit will come and pray for you. Call when your strength is too little and your faith is to weak. Then He will mount you on eagles' wings, you will run and not be weary, you will walk and talk together and not faint (Isa. 40:31). [Incense and Thunder, pp 237-238]
This is also a call for Jeremiah to test the Lord. God stood ready to answer. The thought though is that we must ask if we would receive. God not only wants us to ask He has placed Himself in dependency upon our asking (Mt. 6:10; Jas 4:2).
In creating man with a free will (the ability to make his own choices) and making man a partner in subduing the earth, God voluntarily limited Himself. He made His work on earth dependent upon man, upon what man would do or not do. God commissioned man with the responsibility to subdue and rule over the earth (Gen. 1:28). In God giving man responsibility for life on the earth He also limited His own involvement. God involves Himself as man [His care taker] makes request of Him. Man by his prayer holds the lifeline to the blessings and specific involvement of God in human affairs.
That is the reason Jesus taught us to ask that God’s will be done in the affairs of earth as it is in the affairs of Heaven (Mt. 6:10). The sovereign God has given man the responsibility to realize his need for God’s activity in human affairs and the obligation ask for it. How is God';s will enacted on earth? God brings His will to earth by man's calling out to Him for it.
Obviously we must ask if we are going to receive (Mt. 7:7) and we do not have because we do not ask (Jas. 4:2). That is why we are encouraged to ask by the fact that God will answer with the next part of verse 3.
II. THE PROMISE, A SUPERIOR EXPECTATION 3b.
Our part is to ask; God's part is to answer. Notice the second phrase in verse 3: "...and I will answer you."
His invitation to call includes the assurance that God would answer. God stands ready and able to answer our prayers. We should have an expectation and confidence that He will respond (1 Jn. 5:14-15). The promise is that when you open the door on your side, you will not find it bolted on God's side. God here guarantees that we will receive the sought for aid and assistance. [See also Ps. 55:17; Ps. 4:2l,4; 18:7, 27:7].
Some may say, "Can God answer all the great and formidable needs of life?" Look at verse two of Jeremiah 33. "This is what the LORD says, He who made the earth, the LORD formed it and established it, the LORD is His Name." This is a reminder that the One whose name is YHWH is the sovereign Creator of the earth. He is the One who established it (32:17) meaning “puts in it place and sustain it." The verbs made (asah) and formed (ysr) are first found in the creation story [Gen. 1:7,16,25-26, 31 7:2, 4,18; formed- Gen 2:7-8, 19]. If He canb create the worlds and hold them in their place, He can create an answer to your prayer and properly enact it. These words of praise serve as a reminder that He who created this world has power to answer all prayer and restore any one or any nation. [Jeremiah might be imprisoned but God is not bound. Let Jeremiah pray to Him at a time when He may be found ... and God is saying that time is right now. ]
The fact that God desires to answer and is able to answer and that we see so few answers to prayer is a call to confess of our prayerlessness and repent of it. Our lack of consecration to uphold our responsibility to ask has held back God's blessings from the world. He has been ready to save, but we have not been willing to sacrifice our love affair with the world to ask.
Yet ask we must. Take up your sacred privileged and call upon God. Beseech Him for protection, help, or deliverance in time of need. He stands ready and able to answer, but we must ask for His assistance. Think of how God is hindered and disappointed when His children seldom pray, and if they do, most seek only for their selfish desires. The weakness of the church, the lack of the Holy Spirit' power, is all due to the lack of prayer. How different the state of the church and the world would be if God’s people were to call on Him unceasingly (1 Thess. 5:17)!
Do you remember what a man of prayer Daniel was? [One of the three best intercessors along with Noah & Job in the OT according to Ezekiel 14:14, 20]. In Daniel 9:2-20 he cried out to God for his people. He told God to look at his repentance and asked God to remember the prophetic promise to Jeremiah (Jer. 25:11-12; 29:10) that He would restore His people from Babylonian captivity after 70 years. God heard, forgave, and took action to bring about the restoration of His people (Dan. 9:19-20).
Yes, God could take care of our needs and our problematic world without our asking. But He has bound Himself to us and we must acknowledge our need for His involvement (Mk. 6:22-24). We must call upon Him who can accomplish what our feeble strength could never do, whether we be all together or alone. We must ask! We must humble ourselves (2 Chron. 7:14)! Lay aside our wilfulness and preoccupations and seek His face in prayer.
It is our fault that God does not cheer our minds with a joyful and encouraging word, because we have closed the door to God, so as to prevent Him from offering us the encouragement for which we long. Yet though we expect God to be favorable to us, we do not give entrance to His grace, because we bolt our hearts closed, as it were, by shutting off communication with Him. Thus God say to us, Cry to Me, and I will answer you.
III. The PROVISION, A SUPER-NATURAL REVELATION, 3c.
God though does not simply answer as the third part of verse 3 states. "...and I will tell you great and mighty things which you do not know."
God wants to reveal great and unsearchable (besurot- inaccessible or impenetrable) things to us. The principle adjective impenetrable is used of strongly fortified cities (Deut. 1:28; Jer. 34:7) protected by high walls. The idea is that the greatest things of God are not learned, attained, or conquered by human strength or wisdom but first received by seeking the Lord through believing prayer. The things of God are inaccessible to the searching and attaining of natural man (1 Cor. 2:14). They must be revealed by the Sovereign Creator. Because Jeremiah asked the Lord to teach him, God showed him hidden things and granted promises that gave Jeremiah assurance and encouragement for the future in the midst of man's rebellion.
Inaccessible here refers to matters and answers so far beyond human insight that they require divine revelation and grace. Things beyond the grasp of what we already know (or can be learn by empirical study alone). He will make known to those who ask things unattainable by human discernment and human strength. God can reveal what He desires, to whom He desires, when He desires. The only prerequisite given here was that one like Jeremiah, one with devotion and desire should call out for God's answer.
The people of Israel though had made void the promises of God, by a life of sin, by a life of self-sufficiency, by a life of not calling on the Lord so that He would have opportunity to answer them. Those who expect to receive blessings from God, must call upon Him. Promises are given, not to do away, but to invigorate and encourage prayer.
This word (as the former) came to Jeremiah when he was in prison. No confinement can deprive God's people of His presence; no locks nor bars can shut out His gracious visits. Oftentimes as our afflictions abound our consolations much more abound, and we have the most reviving communications of His favor when the world frowns upon us. [Paul's sweetest epistles were those that bore date out of a prison. Henry, M. (1994). Matthew Henry's commentary on the whole Bible: complete and unabridged in one volume (p. 1295). Peabody: Hendrickson.]
God stood ready to burst upon the prophet with great and mighty things that had been previously inaccessible. Right within the prison walls, Jeremiah was handed this expansive good news.
Many of us find ourselves to be prisoners of certain circumstances. Instead of feeling shut up by them we can be like Jeremiah and allow that prison to be the very place where God whispers His holy secrets into our hearts. Perhaps I should not say secrets; God means for us to share what it is we learn inside their walls of difficulty and despair. [Guest, J., & Ogilvie, L. J. (1988). Jeremiah, Lamentations (Vol. 19, p. 222). Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc.]
[The great blessing of prayer is the answer of the presence and companionship of in prayer and due to prayer. Spurgeon said that there are common experiences and feelings such as repentance, faith, joy, and hope which are enjoyed by the entire family of God. But there is an upper realm of rapture, of communion, and conscious union with Christ, which is far from being the common dwelling place of believers. This supernatural revelation or revealing of God is available to all who would follow His call to Christ-likeness.
We have heard of the privilege of the apostle John to lean on Jesus' bosom, of being in the Spirit on the Lord's day, of Paul being caught up into the third heaven, and of Paul and Silas praising God in jail. There are heights in experiential knowledge of the things of God that the greatest scientific knowledge and philosophic thought has never even approached. God alone can bear us there, but the chariot in which He takes us up, and the fiery steeds which carry that chariot are prevailing prayers.
Prevailing prayers are victorious with the God of Mercy (Gen. 28:19; Hosea 12:4; Lk. 18:1-8). Prevailing prayer lifts the Christian to Mt. Carmel, and enables him or her to cover heaven with clouds of blessing, and earth with floods of mercy and causes the fire of God to fall on the altar of sacrifice. Prevailing prayer bears the Christian aloft to Mt. Pisgah, and shows us the inheritance of God's pilgrims in the promised land; it elevates us to Mt. Tabor and transfigures us there until the likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ radiates through our inner man. If you would reach to something higher than ordinary experience of fallen man, look to the Rock that is higher than you, and gaze with the eye of faith through the window of prevailing prayer. When you open the window on your side, it will not be bolted on the other. (Spurgeon, Charles H. Morning and Evening, Sept. 9).]
God is the only one who knows what the future hold for you. He wants to prepare you for that future right now. He will help you understand why you are going through what you are presently experiencing. He will help you understand what He is wanting to prepare you for not only here on earth, but preparing you for in heaven also. God is doing a work of eternity in us here and now. Be encouraged. Be strengthen. Call upon the Lord God!
Have you got a problem that is too big?
Do you have a situation that is too complex?
Are you faced with a dilemma that would that would stump the smartest man in the world?
Just give your problem to Jesus... And He will solve your problems in incredible ways that you never thought possible!
Whatever your problem...
whatever your situation...
whatever your burden...
Whatever your need, God has just the right answer for you.
Be encouraged. Be strengthen. Call upon the Lord God!
In CLOSING
Nothing in the world was so precious to Jeremiah as the God who tried and perplexed him so. God spoke to him and speaks to us in the midst of it all and bids us to pray with confident expectation of His answer.
Has this not been the case thus far in your walk with Jesus? Hasn't God answered and blessed the faith and zeal of His people? If He has so blessed our weak prayers and devotion, what great and unsearchable things would He reveal and release if we would yield ourselves whole heartedly to call upon Him?
When men and women prayerfully turn to God with their whole heart, He will most certainly answer. His answer will not only concern the ordinary things of life but He will lift us up into the extraordinary, the place of relationship and fellowship only found by those who consecrate themselves to call upon Him.
God calls you to accept this invitation and involve yourself in this great enterprise called prayer. Call upon Him with great expectation and experience His self-revelation that He has reserved uniquely for you.
Will you accept His invitation? Will you pray? The accomplishment of part of God's will on earth depends on you & is initiate by your prayers. The Father is waiting, will He fervently, devotedly & constantly hear from you?
