Give us of your oil.
Here we have King Zedekiah, his servants, and his people, asking the prayers of the prophet of God, whose word of counsel and warning they had all along despised. The verses remind us of the parable of the ten virgins; for, as there, the foolish say unto the wise, "Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out," so here the foolish king and people entreat the aid of the wise servant of God when, as the midnight cry came to those virgins, so the dread judgment of God came to them. "Pray now unto the Lord our God for us," say they who had refused to listen when he spoke to them from the Lord their God. Note—
I. HOW GRIEVOUSLY WICKED THE PEOPLE HAD BEEN. (Cf. Jeremiah 37:2.) It was with them as with the family of the rich man told of in Luke 16:1-31. He, being in torments, thought of his five brethren who were all of them living in sin. There, as here, there were none righteous. And so with Sodom and Gomorrah.
II. YET HOW VERY ANXIOUS THEY WERE FOR THE PROPHET'S PRAYERS. Luke 16:3, "Pray now," etc. Reasons of this were:
1. They had waked up to the conviction that the prophet's message was true.
2. They were in sore peril, and knew not how to help themselves.
3. They knew that the prophet had power with God.
4. They felt they could not go to God in prayer themselves. How much of the asking for the prayers of God's ministers on the part of those who are on their death bed is owing to like causes!
III. HOW USELESS SUCH PRAYERS ARE. Did the prayer of Dives do any good? or of the five foolish virgins? or those of the prophet, for we may suppose that he did pray? Now, the reasons of their uselessness are such as these:
1. To have granted them would have defeated God's purpose in regard to his people. That purpose was to purify them, to separate them from their sins. But they did not wish when they asked these prayers to be severed from sin, only to be relieved of trouble. But such desire could not be granted; therefore God held them down to the consequences of their sin.
2. Their request was an insult to God. Such men are well described in Mrs. H.W.B. Stowe's book, 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' where one of them, Haley, is thus spoken to by a comrade: "After all, what's the odds between me and you? 'Tain't that you care one bit more or have a bit more feelin'; it's clean, sheer, dog meanness, wanting to cheat the devil and save your own skin, Don't I see through it? And your 'gettin' religion,' as you call it, arter all, is too p'isin mean for any crittur; run up a bill with the devil all your life, and then sneak out when pay time comes! Boh!" Is there not a vast amount of this meanness? Its despicableness is only equalled by its uselessness.
3. It would make God the minister of sin.
CONCLUSION. Learn, unless there be true repentance, neither our own prayers nor those of other people, though they be the greatest saints of God, will avail us anything. Even coming to Christ apart from repentance will fail us. "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit," etc.—C.