Then the officials said to the king, let this man be put to death, for he is weakening the hands of the soldiers who were left in the city and the hands of all the people by speaking such words to them. For this man is not seeking the welfare of this people, but their harm.
– Jeremiah 38:4
What a picture. Jeremiah continues to be persecuted and opposed for proclaiming God’s Word. Here he is specifically labeled as harming people by speaking God’s Word to them. As I read that, I think about cultures where those who share the gospel are seen as a threat. I think about tribes and villages in the Himalayas where sharing the gospel is seen as introducing a foreign, competing God. And as a result, people have been stoned for sharing the gospel in those villages. I think about governments that do not want the gospel to spread in their country. They see it as a threat to them, as harmful to their nation.
Jeremiah 38:4 encourages us to be faithful witnesses when facing opposition.
Then I think about my own culture. Here God’s Word and those who believe it… Living according to it and being so bold as to share it is seen as offensive… Even dangerous. To define marriage according to the Bible or to define gender or understand sexuality according to God’s Word is seen as offensive and harmful to others. I just pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ in many places around the world as well as in the context where each of us lives, that we would trust God’s Word and that we would share God’s Word with conviction and compassion no matter what people around us in the world may think.
Oh God, we pray for that kind of steadfast conviction, the Jeremiah-like conviction that we see here in Jeremiah 38. We pray for this in our lives. When people say we are doing harm by sharing the gospel, well help us to be wise, God. We know that many people in the name of the gospel have done harmful things throughout history. God, we don’t want to do that. Please keep us from doing that. Lord, please help us to be holy. Please help us to be Christ-like. Please help us to be loving, to lay our lives down in love for others, to do justice, and to do all these things with your Word in our mouths even when it is seen as offensive or harmful to people around us.
Prayer for the Persecuted Church in the Frontlines.
God, please help our brothers and sisters who are being persecuted today by governments, families, and cultural settings that are strictly opposed to the gospel and will persecute Christians much like Jeremiah was persecuted here. God, we pray for the strength of your church in those places. And God we pray for the strength of the church in all the places where each of us lives. God, help us to hold fast to conviction and to live it out and proclaim your Word with compassion, with love, with humility, with kindness toward every single person around us in ways that lead to their good as we love others sacrificially by sharing your Word with them and living according to it.
Oh God, we pray for this, particularly on the front lines of unreached people around the world where the gospel is going for the first time to places where it has not been received. God, we pray that you would give grace to laborers who are spreading the gospel there, to do so with steadfast conviction and that you would provide for their every need as they do so. God, we pray that you would open eyes to the goodness of your Word. In all the nations we pray according to your Word in Jeremiah 38:4. In Jesus’ name we pray, 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.
