Call to me and I will answer you and I will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.
– Jeremiah 33:3
Did you hear that? This is God speaking to his people in the book of Jeremiah saying call to me. This is an invitation from God. Call out to me and I will answer you. Just imagine being Jeremiah, hearing this invitation from God. Call to me Jeremiah and I will speak to you. I, the God of the universe, will speak to you, and I’m going to tell you great things that you’ve not known. I’m going to tell you hidden things that you would not know any other way apart from calling to me and me answering you, what an invitation.
Jeremiah 33:3 Teaches Us How to Read the Old Testament
Now, we always want to be careful when we read in the Old Testament and we see specific promises at specific times to God’s people in specific circumstances, not to just immediately say, “Okay, that promise is for me in this time and this circumstance in the same way, especially when we consider the differences between the old covenant and the new covenant and we look at commands and promises that we see in the New Testament that are reiterated in the Old Testament.”
All that to say the New Testament makes abundantly crystal clear that you and I have been invited into a relationship with God like this, that we have been invited to call out to him. And God has promised to answer us and to reveal himself to us, to reveal great and hidden things that we would not know otherwise.
Responding to the Invitation of God
It all begs the question are you and I taking advantage of this invitation? Are you and I responding to this invitation? This is an invitation for you and me today. This is why we get up out of bed in the morning, maybe even before we get out of bed, but as soon as we get out of bed, as soon as possible in our day, we come before the Lord and we call out to him. Why would we go on through our day and spend so much time day after day after day, just doing stuff in this world when we’ve been invited in the middle of it all to call out to the God over this world and to hear and receive, to be answered with great and hidden things that we have not known.
God, we praise you for this invitation. Who are we? We’ve sinned against you. We’ve rebelled against you. We deserve separation from you. We deserve judgment before you for all of eternity. And you, by the blood of Jesus, by the grace of your hand, your abundant mercy, you have invited us into relationship with you. God, we praise you for this reality. And so we pray that you help us to live in this, God. I pray this in my own life. I pray this over every single person who’s listening right now that you would teach us to call to you and to expect to hear from you, to go into our room as you told us, Jesus in Matthew 6, close our door and pray to you who are unseen, the father who’s unseen. And the father who sees what is done in secret will reward us.
Jeremiah 33:3 Shows Us the Great and Hidden Things About God
You will tell us great and hidden things we’ve not known in your word and by your spirit. God, we want to know you. We want to see your glory. Lord, we want to see great things in you. We want to see your hand work in great ways. We want to call to you for these things. God, we want to ask you to do that which… God we want to ask you to do immeasurably more than all we could ask or imagine. Oh, God, make us a people who are doing Jeremiah 33:3 all the time. Calling to you. You answering us and revealing, telling us great and hidden things that we’ve not known.
In Jesus’s name and God as we pray for this in our own lives. We pray on behalf of people who don’t know they can call to you, who don’t know your grace and your mercy in the gospel. We pray for the Khmer people of God. Lord, we pray for the Khmer people of Cambodia who are spread out in different countries, unreached people group. God, we pray that the Khmer people would hear the good news.
You’d send out laborers with the good news. You would open eyes to the good news, open hearts to the good news that they can know you. See great and hidden things in you through Jesus. What he’s made possible. God, we pray for the spread of the gospel. God, we pray for the spread of this good news among all the nations. In Jesus’s name, among all the nations that the nations might call to you and see and hear great and hidden things they’ve not known. In Jesus’s name. We pray. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
