Prayer and Intercession: 4. Jeremiah and Intercession

Jeremiah was an Old Testament prophet, he had words from God to give to the people of Israel but he also prayed for them too. In Jeremiah 6: 17 God says,
“I set watchmen over you.”

A watchman is another name for an intercessor. God had set people up to watch over the Israelites in prayer through the course of history, and at this time it happened to be Jeremiah. To draw a physical parallel alongside this spiritual truth, you could look at the times when people lived in fortified settlements and men were set up to watch out for invasion and to fight off any attack: Or you could look at today where we have the equivalent with CCTV cameras and house alarms; intercessors are set to watch over a place not in the natural but in the spiritual.

In Jeremiah 11: 14 God tells Jeremiah not to pray for the people anymore because He will no longer hear because the people are so wicked. Jeremiah though, is so heartbroken for the Israelites and how they have turned from God that He continues to pray. Although this does not change God’s mind it just shows the compassion and fervent prayer that can come from the heart of someone who is truly moved by God’s heart and by the great need for what they are praying about.

God was not unjust in His dealings with the Israelites at this time for He had a bigger plan and God went on later in the book of Jeremiah to talk to him about how He would restore Israel, so Jeremiah was able then to pray into the future.

If our prayers are answered or not we must keep seeking God and remain faithful to prayer, because when we spend time in prayer we find the way forward, and God’s way is not always necessarily our way!

Sara Jukes

2003-10-27