Cursed is he who does the work of the Lord with slackness and cursed is he who keeps back his sword from bloodshed.
– Jeremiah 48:10
What a verse. Just let’s camp out on the first part of that verse. Cursed is he who does the work of the Lord with slackness. The picture here in Jeremiah specifically applies to prophets who were to speak the word of God with boldness and with zeal, but who were not doing that.
Jeremiah 48:10 teaches us to seek God and share the gospel eagerly.
Even when we think about the second part of this verse and keeping back his sword from bloodshed, and even just thinking about the application of this verse in our own lives, looking at it through the lens of the New Testament, the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, and the commission, not just prophets, but all of God’s people have been given to make disciples, who make disciples, and to pursue holiness and to walk with God and love God with all your heart, soul, and mind and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. We are to do all of these things, not with slackness, but with eagerness, with all of our hearts.
And so it’s a sobering question that we all need to ask. Are we slack in the work of the Lord? Are we giving ourselves to God’s work according to his Word, with all of our hearts, with zeal, with all that we have? Or are we doing so half-heartedly? Cursed is he who does the work of the Lord, of God, with slackness. Oh, God, we pray that you would keep us from slackness in your work, that you would save us from slackness in your work. God, that it would not be so in our lives.
Jeremiah 48:10 teaches us to repent from our halfheartedness.
And we confess, I think, oh, God, I can speak for all of us, that we are sometimes, and for some often, slack in your work. So we ask for your forgiveness, oh, God. This verse just leads me, us, to confession for slackness in your work in a variety of ways, in our pursuit of you, in our prayer lives, in our meditation on your word. God, forgive us for being slack in our pursuit of holiness, for being slack in fighting sin. Lord, we pray that you’d forgive us for being slack in sharing the gospel.
God, please help us to be eager in your work, wholehearted in your work, wholehearted in pursuit of you, wholehearted in prayer, wholehearted in approaching your word, wholehearted in loving you with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, wholehearted and loving others as ourselves. God, help us to eagerly love, serve, care for others around us today. Help us to eagerly build up your church, our brothers and sisters in Christ. Help us to eagerly, intentionally, wholeheartedly share the gospel with others. God, may it not be said of us that we were slack in your work.
Prayer for the Ndzwani People
And, God, as we pray today for the Ndzwani people of Comoros and Madagascar. There are 378,000 of them, no known followers of Jesus. God, we pray that you’d forgive us for being slack in getting the gospel to all the peoples of the world. And we pray that you would help us to be eager and wholehearted in this work in each of our lives with this commission that you’ve given us. We intercede now for the Ndzwani of Comoros and Madagascar. Please, oh, God, we pray, save them from their sin. Please cause the gospel to go to them and to other unreached people like them.
And please help us to do this work of proclaiming your gospel among the nations… In all the ways you call each of us to do that, with our lives, our resources, to the full. God, we pray all of this according to your work in Jeremiah 48:10, in Jesus’ name… In the name of the one who has died on the cross to forgive us for our slackness… And to change our hearts that we might serve with eagerness. May it be so in our lives. In Jesus’ name, amen.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder and Chairman of Radical, an organization that helps people follow Jesus and make him known in their neighborhood and all nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, and Don’t Hold Back.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
