Jeremiah's Prayer: I'm Fed Up!

Jeremiah 18 paints a vivid image of God as the potter and His people as clay. When the vessel is marred, the potter reshapes it—just as God offers to remake us if we repent. But the people reject hope, believing they can't change, choosing evil instead. Despite God's history of faithfulness, they walk away in despair.

Jeremiah’s response is prayer—raw, honest, and emotional. Unlike Moses or David who plead for mercy, Jeremiah asks for justice. His bold cry shows that prayer isn’t about perfection but connection. We can bring our full selves to God, knowing He hears—but trusting He’ll respond His way.

This passage reminds us that prayer is powerful. Whether we’re seeking mercy or wrestling with pain, God invites us to talk to Him. He is the final decision-maker, yet always listening. So don’t hold back—pray boldly, honestly, and continually. The Potter is still shaping lives.

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Transcript

Press means to apply force. When God said press, prayer reaches every single situation. He gave us permission to apply force to every situation that we will go through.

And in this podcast, we are going to learn to apply force to what's applying pressure to us. Greetings, everybody. Welcome to the Press Movement Podcast.

Today, we're going to the book of Jeremiah chapter 18. And this passage is particularly potent in a lot of ways. We are going to the potter's house.

And no, I'm not speaking of the megachurch. I'm speaking of our journey with Jeremiah. As the Lord commanded him, arise and go down to the potter's house.

And there I will cause thee to hear my words. So he goes, and he sees the potter. And he's working on the wheel.

And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter. That means the vessel, whatever he was making was actually damaged in the potter's hand. I don't know that it was damaged because of the potter's hand or by the potter's hand.

But we know that when Jeremiah gets there, whatever the potter is working on, it now has damage. And the Bible says, so he made it again. The potter made it again into another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.

When the potter sees that what he's working on is damaged, he begins to create of it something new based on what he wants to be. Then the word of the Lord came to me saying, O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter, saith the Lord? Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel. Such a potent question by God that he's having Jeremiah opposed to the people can I make you like this potter is making this clay.

God goes on to tell them at what instant I shall speak concerning the nation and concerning the kingdom to build and to plant it. If it do evil in my sight that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good wherewith I said I would benefit them. Now therefore go to speak to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem saying, thus saith the Lord.

Behold, I frame evil against you and divisive device against you. Return ye now everyone from his evil way and make your ways and your doings good. He tells them if I say I'm going to do evil, but you repent, I'll change my mind.

That's actually what he tells them in verse eight. But in verse 10, he tells them, if you do evil and you don't obey my voice, I'll repent of the good I did for you. And their response is in verse 12 and it says, there is no hope, but we will walk after our own devices and we will everyone do that imagination of his evil hearts.

Their response is essentially, we don't have a chance to get it right. It doesn't matter. We can't do this.

And so we're just going to do what we do. I saw a bumper sticker on somebody's car yesterday. It said, I'm on my way to hell.

So I might as well enjoy the ride or something along those lines. And it's the same thing that they're saying here in Jeremiah 18, 12. I'm never going to get this right.

I can't do it. So I might as well do what I want to do. It is the hopelessness of the people that they can change that is causing them to decide to do evil.

With that said, they're also the people who were chosen by God and who have history with God, who can look back and see his faithfulness to the generations before them. They already had proof in their arsenal, if you will, that God has been faithful, that he's heard the cries of their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents of the generations. But they chose to disregard that proof.

Some people out there who feel hopeless, they don't have the same evidence we have. Maybe they've never encountered God or they've never been in a church service or nobody's ever prayed for them in their family. So they don't know him like that.

Their hopelessness is built on ignorance, not ignorance saying that they're dumb or anything like that, but literally not knowing of God. But that is not the case for the children of Israel in this passage. They know of God, they just don't believe he can help them.

And they don't believe they can be good enough for him to help them. It was my mother or grandmother, I can't remember which one, who said, there's now a generation who really believes they can't do right. They can't be perfect.

They can't follow God. And when we say be perfect, I'm not talking in terms of personality. I'm talking in terms of being able to be holy and live right before God.

You see, he died so we could be sinless. So it doesn't make sense to say we have to sin because in that same breath, you're then declaring his death didn't work. If he died to take away my sins, if he died to make me free, if he died to make me whole and holy, and I say he can't do that, or that's not possible, it's also saying that his death didn't work.

But when God is giving you hope, just as he did us through his blood, that you can change, you can turn, you can be free. It is not for us to say, no, I can't. But that is exactly what these people do.

So the prophecies continue against them. But when we get to the prayer, it's actually a result of what we see in Jeremiah chapter 18, verse 18. And they said, come, let us devise devices against Jeremiah.

For the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Since God's not going to change his mind about Jeremiah and what he's saying isn't going to change, come and let us smite him with the tongue is what they decide. And let us not give heed to any of his words.

In other words, we're just going to tune you out. This still feels familiar to me because in these last days, the Bible notes that we're going to have itching ears and follow preachers that will speak to us things we want to hear. Essentially, that's what they're saying.

Since he's not going to change his message, we're just not going to listen. We're going to talk about him. We're going to come for him.

We're going to tune him out. We're not going to listen to anything he says. And that's where Jeremiah begins to pray.

And I kind of laugh at this prayer, not because it's funny, but because I believe God calls all kinds of people. And you kind of see that here for Jeremiah begins to pray. Give heed to me, O Lord, and hearken to the voice of them that contend with me.

Shall evil be recompensed for good? For they have digged a pit for my soul. Remember that I stood before thee to speak good for them and to turn away thy wrath from them. Therefore deliver up their children to the famine and pour out their blood by the force of the sword.

And let the wise be bereaved of their children and be widows and let their men be put to death. Let their young men be slain by the sword in battle. Let a cry be heard from their houses when thou shalt bring a troop suddenly upon them.

For they have digged a pit to take me and hid snares for my feet. Yet Lord thou knows all their counsel against me to slay me. Forgive not their iniquity, neither blot out their sin from thy sight, but let them be overthrown before thee.

Deal thus with them in the time of thine anger. Okay. So nothing about that was funny, but what is kind of comical to me is the kind of people that God uses.

Because in studying these prayers, we've seen historically like a Moses or Abraham or David who make intercessions for the people who are begging God have mercy, who want him to stay his hand, so to speak. Don't do what you're saying you're going to do. Don't hurt them.

But that's not Jeremiah's testimony. Jeremiah says, you know what? They don't want to hear you and they're turning on me. Kill them, kill their kids, kill everybody and do it the way you feel like doing it because I already know you're mad.

He is that person and that is his prayer. Now, whether that is right or wrong, I'm grateful God gets to be the judge because ultimately God is the decision maker. But this is proof you can pray for whatever you want, but God is going to respond in his own way.

It's not that it doesn't matter. It's that he meters out how he handles his children. And Jeremiah may have been the good child at this moment and they were the bad kids and he had plans for the bad kids, but they're still his kids.

And so whenever you're talking to God, whether it's an issue with your brother or sister in the Lord or whatever, you have to remember he loves them both, even in his anger. And we can ask for what we will. And I'm grateful, as I said, that God calls different kinds of people, but it doesn't mean God's going to do it just the way you want him to do it.

So I pray today that you take away from this. It's okay to pray for what you want, that God is hearing, that he cares about you, but also that God is the final decision maker. Have a blessed day and remember to press because prayer reaches every single situation.

Join the movement, join the community, like, share and subscribe to this podcast. Visit us at PressToPray.com or find us on Instagram or Facebook. Did you know that when you are quiet, your voice is missing to God's ears? I know some of us have prayed and we're wondering how long should I pray about this? Why should I pray if God already knows? How will I know God is answering? And what do I do when I feel like God's not listening? But God is listening for your voice.

It's too quiet in this world for the troubles we have. You have to raise your voice and God wants to hear from you. It's Too Quiet, a book about prayer.

It's designed to answer your prayer questions and build your faith. Visit PressToPray.com.