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Today's Bible Reading:  JEREMIAH 37:1-10, 51:15-52:3: 2 CHRONICLES 36:14, 2 KINGS 24:10-20, 1 CHRONICLES 3:10-16

Jeremiah 37:3

King Zedekiah sent Jehucal the son of Shelemiah, and Zephaniah the priest, the son of Maaseiah, to Jeremiah the prophet, saying, “Please pray for us to the LORD our God.”

It’s almost inevitable when people are in a “pickle”, they pray. When the problems that they face are insurmountable and they have exhausted every other means to resolve them, they pray. When life hits hard and there is no way to hit back, people pray. It doesn’t matter whether they know and follow God, or they are atheists or agnostics, when life caves in we all typically cry out to God. It might be our last ditch effort but it’s all we have left, so we pray.

In our text, Jerusalem was on its last leg. Most of the residents of the city had been hauled off into captivity. “None remained except the poorest people in the land” (2 Kings 24:14). A puppet king named Zedekiah had been placed as their ruler by Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon (2 Kings 24:17). But Zedekiah defied the oath of allegiance he had made to Nebuchadnezzar and openly rebelled against Him. Needless to say that didn’t sit well with the king.

Zedekiah needed help. He had hoped that the Egyptians would come to his aid, but their assistance was only a temporary relief (Jer. 37:5). Now with nowhere else to turn, he turns to the Lord. The irony is that he knew from the prophecies of Jeremiah that it was because of the anger of the Lord that this calamity had come upon them. You see, “neither he nor his servants nor the people of the land listened to the words of the Lord that he spoke through Jeremiah the prophet.” (Jer. 37:2). He wouldn’t hear or heed the voice of the prophet then, but He wanted the prophet to hear and help him now. When people are in a “pickle” they get people to pray for them.

So Zedekiah calls on the clergy to call on the Lord on his behalf. He beckons the prophet to beseech the Lord. We don’t know why Zedekiah didn’t just pray himself. Perhaps he felt like since he had done “evil in the sight of the Lord” (2 Kings 24:19) he couldn’t speak to Him. Or maybe he was embraced by the fact that he wouldn’t listen to His messenger and thought maybe the Lord wouldn’t listen to him. It might even be that he didn’t know what to pray or even how to pray, so he called for someone who knew how. Regardless of the reason, the king pleads with the man of God to petition the Lord concerning his situation.

God hears the prayers of all men. If Zedekiah would have come to the Lord with humility, he would have heard him. Instead he calls on others to pray for him. There is nothing wrong in that. We should all call on everyone everywhere to pray for us. When crisis comes upon on us whether it is by our own doing or caused by others, we must sequester the saints to faithfully and fervently pray concerning our condition. Prayer and involving others to pray for us should be our first response, not our last resort.

Jeremiah was called on to pray for the king. He did. Notice that he didn’t confront or condemn the king for not listening to his prophecies. He didn’t hold the king’s hard heart over his head. No, he just prayed. When called to cry out for someone in crisis, we must not and cannot prohibit prayer for them. They trusted us and our relationship to the Lord enough to turn to us for prayer, we cannot turn them away. So if you need prayer than ask and if you are asked to pray then pray.

Today thank God for all of those who prayed for you during challenging times. Ask the Lord to help you not just be a person who says that they will pray for someone when asked to pray, but will actually pray for them. Ask the Lord to help you humbly ask others to pray for you as a first response to your crisis, not a last resort.