This “Series” of Bible Studies will be different than most on the Website, our Website. While certainly based on the Bible, and always exegeting (discussing, explaining) a verse or group of verses from the Word of God … we will center all the comments around the subject of “prayer.”
Lessons from Scripture … focused on prayer.
In response to the many invitations to pray (really, commands to pray) our Lord issues us!
Like, merely as an example:
“Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.” Jeremiah 33:3
Where the verb “call” is “qara” in Hebrew, here being an imperative (required for obedience) and simply meaning “to speak or proclaim out loud” some vital sound. It can even mean “to plead in court!”
The “me” is God Himself, Jeremiah recording the Words of the Almighty!
In fact, our Verse is loaded up front with two personal pronouns referring to Deity. What Power, what Authority stands behind this prayer promise!
“Call unto ME, and I will answer thee!”
The verb “will answer” is “anah,” meaning “hear” 42 times in the King James Bible, but “answer” 242 times! It is also rendered “speak” and “testify” and “give” a few times!
But there’s more …
“Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.” Jeremiah 33:3
The verb “shew” (“show”) is “nagad” in Hebrew. Used hundreds of times in the Old Testament (370 to be exact) it means “to expound” twice! Also “to tell,” 222 times, that many! And “to declare” 63 more times! God as Revealer! Why, the Book of Revelation (meaning “to reveal”) could be an answer to this prayer!
The adjective “great” is “gadol.” (529 times in the Bible) It means “large,” both in magnitude and extent! Like “deep” and “wide!” Or “many, many” then too “of superb quality!”
“Mighty” is different! “Batzsar” means “fenced in!” Or “gathered, fortified, made inaccessible!” Things “walled up, withheld,” almost “private” things! Only once, right here,” is it translated “mighty,” in all the Bible!
Things “not known” translate “lo yada.” Not even “familiar” with! Never have “experienced” previously! And certainly have “not mastered” at any point in time!
Wow!
Really, Jeremiah 33:1-10 is amazing, one of the most “about-faced” Passages in all God’s Word! God is sending punishment to a sinning Judah, the whole Nation. Then … God is yet too going to bless her (Judah) abundantly!
“Moreover the word of the LORD came unto Jeremiah the second time, while he was yet shut up in the court of the prison, saying, Thus saith the LORD the maker thereof, the LORD that formed it, to establish it; the LORD is his name. Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not. For thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel, concerning the houses of this city, and concerning the houses of the kings of Judah, which are thrown down by the mounts, and by the sword; they come to fight with the Chaldeans, but it is to fill them with the dead bodies of men, whom I have slain in mine anger and in my fury, and for all whose wickedness I have hid my face from this city (Jerusalem).”
But … God continues:
“Behold, I will bring it (Jerusalem the City, Judah the Nation) health and cure, and I will cure them, and will reveal unto them the abundance of peace and truth. And I will cause the captivity of Judah and the captivity of Israel to return, and will build them, as at the first. And I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, whereby they have sinned against me; and I will pardon all their iniquities, whereby they have sinned, and whereby they have transgressed against me. And it shall be to me a name of joy, a praise and an honour before all the nations of the earth, which shall hear all the good that I do unto them: and they shall fear and tremble for all the goodness and for all the prosperity that I procure unto it.”
Wow!
God’s Plan, revealed!
But still, Jeremiah, in fact all his future readers as well …
Call unto Me about these things!
Ask Me to fulfil My Promises!
Claim these mighty Deeds as Reality!
This is the “context” of Jeremiah 33:3.
Yet it can certainly be applied in our lives, too. In our “puzzling” times and “hard” places … as we trod forward, serving the Lord.
Amen!
— Dr. Mike Bagwell
More tomorrow, the Lord willing, about Prayer!