I was planning to begin another series this week on Daniel, and I've thought over the last several weeks, I think I need to take one more message in Jeremiah and Lamentations, where we've been for the last couple months. So I invite you to turn back there in just a few minutes. We'll be in Jeremiah chapter 32. I want to end today by giving a brief summary of these books that we've studied, so we see the big picture. And then zeroing in one more time on a specific passage that just as I look back across the times that I've spent before the Lord and preparing to serve you in this section of scripture, it's the one passage that stands out as the one that God has used most in my life. Jeremiah, as I've pointed out every week, was a prophet, a spokesman for God who lived about 600 years before Jesus. He preached messages that confronted the population, and especially the politicians, the kings, and the prophets in Jerusalem. He confronted them over their disobedience to God. And he warned them of impending military overthrow. He also announced that after the horrors of overthrow, there would be hope, but it's certainly the messages of horrible, impending judgment that dominate Jeremiah's messages. He preached these messages of coming judgment during the reigns of the last five kings in Jerusalem. And his last chapter, Jeremiah chapter 52, describes the judgment that fell during the reign of King Zedekiah in 587, 586 BC. What are these books all about? Jeremiah and Lamentations. As we've tried to point out numerous times, they're like scrapbooks. And they open with sermons, what we would call vintage Jeremiah. Three messages that Jeremiah preached that kind of encapsulate what the 50 years of his ministry looked like. The first 10 chapters are Jeremiah's call to ministry, and then three vintage sermons. In the first one, he confronts the people for cheating on God. In the second one, he calls them to turn to God. And in the third one, he says, God hates your worship. In the next 10 chapters, chapters 11-20, Jeremiah recounts Messages that God gave him to speak, but what's distinctive about this section is that Jeremiah describes the tough personal experiences, his own reactions. More than any other prophet, he describes his reactions to God's word. So for example, he describes how he experienced drought with the rest of the nation, chapter 14. God commanded him never to get married. He would remain single his whole life, chapter 16. Chapter 20, he's imprisoned. And throughout these personal experiences, Jeremiah is reacting. For example, in chapter 12, he pours out his lament. In chapter 15, he basically tells God, I don't know if I can trust you anymore. In chapter 18, he's begging God to remember him. And in chapter 20, I think it's where his life reaches the lowest point. He says, God, you deceived me. You tricked me. You enlisted me in your service, and then you have delighted in kicking me again and again and again. Wow. God calls us to faithfully serve him, and that involves heavy difficulties. And you know what God's okay with? God's okay with His people who trust Him struggling to trust Him and telling Him how hard it is to trust Him. In the third major section, of this prophecy, Jeremiah describes the hard future. Chapters 21, 22, and 23 emphasize the hard future that's coming to the kings. There are six messages to kings in 21, 22, and 23, and they end at the beginning of chapter 23 with this wonderful anticipation of a perfectly righteous Davidic king who's going to come. And then, beginning in the middle of chapter 23 and going all the way to chapter 29, there are messages confronting the false prophets, who keep telling the people, Jeremiah says devastation's coming, don't listen to him, everything's gonna be just fine, you don't have to change anything that's going on. Peace, peace, when there was no peace. One of the most famous messages in Jeremiah comes in chapter 29, when he tells the people that exile's gonna last 70 years. But beyond that, after those 70 years, there is a hopeful future. And these passages about the hard future remind us that everyone who refuses to submit their lives to God will face judgment. And the world is full of people who will tell you what you want to hear if you want an easier way than the hard truths of God's word. Following the Lord is not easy, but we must take him at his word. That message of hope after 70 years of captivity is in some ways a precursor, a whetting the appetite for a very hopeful section. It's really the only section of Jeremiah that centers on hope. And it's chapters 30 to 33. It's the very heart of his prophecy. And here he announces very famously at the end of chapter 31, Jeremiah 31 will be the longest quotation of the Old Testament and the New Testament. At the end of Jeremiah 31, Jeremiah announces that God is gonna make a new covenant with Israel, and we learn from Jesus and his apostles that the Gentiles, non-Jews, get grafted into these promises, and the promises are this. If you will relate to God on the terms of this covenant, which we find out that Jesus put into effect when his blood was spilled, if you will relate to God on the terms of this covenant, your sins will be forgiven, your heart will be changed, and you will forever be reconciled to God. The fifth section of the book is historical accounts that demonstrate that the people's hearts were not changed by the exile. Hitting rock bottom didn't change the people's hearts. The first portion of this section, chapters 34 through 39, recount the history before the exile when the kings and many of the bigwigs in Jerusalem are trying to get rid of Jeremiah. They're searching for him. because they hate what he's saying. They want to squelch the messages he's giving. The end of chapter 39 is actually a snippet, a little history of the downfall of Jerusalem, the exile. And then what happens in chapters 40 to 44 describes the way the people were acting and responding to God's word after the exile. And I titled the message, People's Hearts Are Still Squirrely. People are always saying, oh, that's what God says? Then I'm going to do this. If that's what God says, let me figure out a way to suppress that and do what I want. A history of hearts unchanged. Chapters 46 to 52 are prophecies regarding the surrounding nations. And in this passage, God basically announces through Jeremiah what's going to happen to all of the nations that Israel is prone to either trust in as allies or to fear as enemies. And God essentially says, I'm over the nations. And you don't need to fear them. You need to fear me. In the seventh and final section, which I'm bringing lamentations in, Jeremiah has five poetic laments over Jerusalem's tragic fall. In chapters 1 and 2, there is just detailed description of the reasons for anguish. As Dave preached last week in chapters 4 and 5, there's a purpose to the anguish. Sorrow is moving in a direction of humbling us and driving us to God to repent of our sin and be restored in our relationship with Him. And at the center of this book of Lamentations is chapter 3, where The grieving people are led by Jeremiah to recommit themselves to hoping in all of God's good promises. Despair is inappropriate for God's people. Sorrow is appropriate. Despair is not. We who trust the Lord are going to wait and keep waiting in hope on him to fulfill all of his promises. Do you see how these books magnify God? He's the authority over the nations. He is a God of fierce wrath toward sin. He is a God who keeps giving strength and hope to the people who trust him. This book repeatedly shows God as patient with people and fierce with people and assuring people. that his righteous king is where they need to set their hope. And these books should drive us to fear God and to be faithful to him and to let sorrow that he allows into our lives drive us to him. The book should drive us to God. I pray that our times in Jeremiah and Lamentations have led to repeated self-examination, confession of sin, trust in the Lord, specifically trust in Jesus, the righteous King who's going to rule on earth forever over all in covenant relationship with God through him. I pray that it has driven us to hope in the midst of despair. These books are intended to drive us to God. Now, I want to look very briefly at Jeremiah 32, one specific passage that I want to dip back into. If I look back in the future on 2024, I think I'm going to remember it as a year in which God has pressed Jeremiah 32 into my soul. If you're in Jeremiah 32, I'm going to pick up reading actually in the middle of the chapter, but I just want to get us up to speed. The first five verses set the stage. Jeremiah 32 is taking place right around 588, 587 BC. We're within one year of the ultimate downfall of Jerusalem. Babylon has already put the city under siege, and Jeremiah is in prison for telling the king of Israel that Babylon's gonna win. In verses six, seven, and eight, the strangest thing happens that year. Jeremiah's relative asks him to buy a piece of land to get him out of debt. This is something that the Old Testament law legislated as a way for dealing with debt, that you ask your relatives to redeem a piece of property. Considering the circumstances, this is an easy decision for Jeremiah. You don't buy land when Babylon is about to take over, right? But in prison, God says, Jeremiah, I want you to go buy it. So from prison, Jeremiah gets his assistant Baruch to negotiate the deal and to purchase the land. It's land in Anathoth, which is already under Babylonian rule. Verses nine through 15 describe how Jeremiah obeyed God, purchased the land, even though it made zero sense. And now comes the passage that stands out to me. In verses 16 through 25, Jeremiah complains, but it doesn't sound like a complaint until the very last verse. I start in verse 17. Here's Jeremiah's prayer. Ah, Lord God, you're the one who's made the heavens and the earth by your great power and your outstretched arm. But you repay the guilt of the fathers to their children after them, O great and mighty God, whose name is the Lord of hosts." Great in counsel and mighty in deed, your eyes are open to all the ways of the children of men. You're just. You reward each one according to his ways and each one according to the fruit of his deeds. You've shown signs and wonders. And now he starts recounting biblical history. He mentions how God brought them out of Egypt with a powerful arm in verse 20. In verse 21. Verse 22, you gave them this land which you swore to give to their fathers. Verse 23 basically is a summary of the book of Joshua. They entered it, they took possession of it. And then starting in the middle of verse 23 is the rest of Israel's history. Until the point in which Jeremiah is living. Verse 23, middle of it. But they did not obey your voice or walk in your law. They did nothing of all you commanded them to do. Therefore you've made all this disaster come upon them. Now look at the siege mounds that have come up on the city to take it. Because of the sword and famine and pestilence, the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans. That's a reference to the Babylonians who are fighting against it. What you spoke has come to pass. Look, you see it. And now here's the point of the prayer, verse 25. Yet you, O Lord, have said to me, buy the field for money and get witnesses, though the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans. You're the God of creation. You're the God of historic covenant-keeping love. Why are you leading me into a situation that makes absolutely no sense? God, it's like you're commanding me to waste my money. on this good-for-nothing piece of real estate. You're the God of all power, the God of all love, yet this? What a powerful prayer. I'm gonna state the main point in two parts, the first now and the second part at the end. Because God is God and is sovereign over the future, he leads us into trials that make no sense right now. God leads us into trials that seem inconvenient. In fact, when you step back from it, it really looks like they're calculated. They're calculated to confuse us. They're calculated to crush us. Why are you doing this to me right now? These things could be small things in the lives of believers, You're just trying to take a week of vacation that's so necessary for your family, and you spend the whole week navigating canceled flights and sick kids. Or it could be really, really big things. God leads us into a relationship that we end up ending, and it results in the trial of singleness. God leads us to get married, but your spouse ends up changing and leaving. God leads us to be parents, and then he allows us to deal for decades with disability, with rebellion, or with loss. God leads us to invest in a church that ends up having lots of problems, and it seems like all of those years and investment was just a waste, and it leaves us crying out like Jeremiah. I know you're sovereign, God. I know you can do anything. You're the God of creation. You're the God of historic covenant-keeping love. Why are you ruining my life? I'm thankful that God answered Jeremiah. And God's answer to Jeremiah in the first verse is almost humorous to me. I'm gonna unpack these three answers very briefly. The first answer is, When God leads us into seemingly pointless trials, remember that he's as mighty and as merciful as we've always confessed him to be. You see, in verse 27, God's response to Jeremiah is, Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me? I don't know if you have this noted in your Bible, but you might want to draw a circle around verse 27 and a line back up to verse 17, because God's basically saying, Jeremiah, yep, where your prayer started, that's true. You confess that I am the creator, that I'm almighty, nothing's too hard for me? Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh, and nothing is impossible with me. Trials can ruin people. They can act like earthquakes that unsettle the foundation under us that we, for our whole lives, thought was secure. And when that happens, so many people say, what I've been believing all these years is not true. God must not be there because if he was powerful and he was loving, he wouldn't do this to me. And God brings us right back to the rock and hard place, to where we say, God, yes, you are the creator. One of the greatest ways that you can strengthen your spirituality is by studying creation. Creation is reality. It's real. You look outside. It's real. You've got to deal with reality. And creation is shouting the glory of God. Over the last few months, I've been trying to read a few of the best new books on creation. In my opinion, the best so far is Gordon Wilson's book, Darwin's Sandcastle. Ron has gotten a few copies of this, and I think they're available out in the back, along with my all-time favorite book, Hallmarks of Design by Stuart Burgess. Gordon Wilson, of course, is the writer of the documentaries, one of which we've watched here in the last two years, The Riot and The Dance. In this book, Darwin's Sandcastle, Chapter 7 is called Alphabet Soup and Chapter 8 is called Micro Machines. These are delightful and compelling chapters that unpack the profound information and complex systems within proteins and cells. And he points out that information in systems can't evolve, and complex systems can't evolve by, quote, unintelligent, unguided mutations. Wilson says, you don't need to be a car mechanic to know that automobiles are designed by automotive engineers. That's intuitively obvious. How much more a living cell, because they're far more complicated than cars. When the trials that God ordains in our lives shake the foundations of our certainty, We have to go back to the most basic facts of reality, and that is creation is shouting the glory of God. When Gordon Wilson finally makes his case in that chapter on information and then builds into it the systems and the information that controls systems, He ends simply saying, to God be the glory, evolution be damned. Creation is screaming God's glory, and evolution is a lie. You don't need to run tests on cars to see if they have designers. You have to look at it. It's screaming design. It's screaming it. And when the trials that God ordains shake our lives at the foundations, we have to go back and say, God, I don't know why. It doesn't make sense to me, but I do know that you're the creator. And I do know that the Bible records history of your love. And I can't make sense of how your might and your mercy fit into what I'm dealing with. But I'm going to trust you and I'm not going to run from you. Second, when God leads us into hardships that seem pointless, remember that he's full of justice towards sin. And that's why we're struggling, because we're living in a cursed world. And that's why we're hoping, because injustice won't reign forever. God reminds Jeremiah in verses 28 through 35 that Israel's sin has provoked his anger, and he goes into some detail. One commentator simply says, the people's sins had made judgment inescapable. And Jeremiah needs to acknowledge that facet of his struggle. He hates this world in which he's living. It's under Babylonian siege. And yet when he steps back from it, there's a good reason for it. In fact, it's the reason he's been preaching for 40 years. He's continually said, your sin is going to bring this about. And he's just got to be honest and say, God, you're just. And that's making life difficult right now. And it's what fills me with hope for endurance right now. You're just. Third. When God leads us into hardships that make no sense to us, we have to remember that today's trials will only make sense when all of God's promises come to pass. In verse 37, God says, I'm gonna regather my people. Verse 38, they'll be my people and I'll be their God. That's covenant language that is echoed in every marriage in which a man and a woman say to each other, I'm yours, you're mine. That's covenant language Verse 40, God says, I will make with them an everlasting covenant, but I will not turn away from doing them good. This is an echo of what was in the previous chapter, chapter 31, the new covenant. God has planned this from eternity past. See, God had asked Jeremiah to buy land, and it seemed absolutely pointless. The only way that that trial would make sense is if God's promises actually came to pass. Why would Jeremiah remain faithful to God when God calls him to do seemingly pointless things? Why would he remain faithful? Because God's not done. Because God's gonna fulfill his promises. Why do you keep following Jesus, hardships and all? Why do you keep raising children for Christ, full of hardships? Why do you keep investing in church when it all seems to be trials heaped upon trials? And many of them just seem calculated to confuse you and crush you. Why keep going? Because God's God. And He's not done. God is God. He's sovereign over the future. He leads us into trials that make no sense. But our enduring faith screams to the watching world that God's going to do all he's promised. And our hope is anchored in the promises of God, not in comfort and ease right now. I just want to end by speaking to Deanna and Kaylee. I need to tell a little story about Kaylee first. And then I want to speak to both of you. Kaylee was baptized two weeks ago in Indiana, of course, this morning. Two weeks ago, I had had self-inflicted trials Saturday night before and lost about an hour and a half or so of preparation. I was praying for Kaylee's baptism all week, but I had to cut my preparation of the message short. And I was just praying that God would use the message to speak to Kaylee in particular. And God did it in some amazing ways. One of those ways was I ended up focusing in the middle of my Lamentations 3 message on 2 Corinthians 7, which I learned after the fact. I talked with her at about 5 o'clock that afternoon and learned that it was her favorite passage in the Bible. And Lamentations was driving through sorrow to repentance in a way that she had been taught from the New Testament. God often causes sorrow in order to drive us to repentance. And I felt like, wow, on a day of particular personal weakness, God spoke to her in a more powerful way than I ever could have if I had directed words to her. I always prepare messages with several people and their situations in view, not because I'm speaking to one or two people, but just because I always want to be thinking about the real pressing needs in our congregation. And so I've been preparing this week with Deanna, praying for her, with Kaylee, praying for her in mind. And I just end this brief meditation on Jeremiah 32 saying, You both have to be prepared that God is going to be in control as he leads you into trials that seem calculated to confuse you and to crush you. You're going to feel like it's a detour. I know what my life should be about. You're going to feel like, I was driving on the highway, and then all of a sudden, traffic jam, detour, get off. What was supposed to be a couple hour trip is now going to be twice as long. God, what are you doing? And you guys need to know that God leads you into trials. It's His plan. It's not a detour. It's not a side plan. It's not a rabbit trail. It's His plan. And right now, I pray that you will go back to square one and you will be settled. Creation is screaming the glory of God. And the Bible is a record, if you boil it down, of His covenant love. cover to cover. God loves people forever who commit their lives to Jesus as the only way of being right with him. If you guys have, and you have testified to it, if you guys have committed your lives to Christ, the mediator of the new covenant, you're forgiven. Your hearts have begun the renovation that is going to end in glorification when there is not a shred of selfish rebellion in them. And you guys forever belong to God. And you have to anchor that down right now that when trials happen and the storms of life beat against your houses, that you say, I know a couple things for sure. God is almighty creator and he is the God of covenant keeping love. And I pray when you stand on the glories of your God, your house, it's gonna get beaten, but it's not gonna fall. Let's pray. Oh God, I pray that you would help all of us in here. Remember, that you are as glorious as creation and scriptures are shouting, that you're full of justice, and that you're full of faithful love you're gonna bring to pass all of your promises. Oh God, I pray that for those in here who are not followers of Jesus, that they would commit their lives to you today, that they would take refuge in Jesus as their only hope for being forgiven, changed, and forever reconciled to you. And I pray that those of us who are in Christ, trials and all, would recommit ourselves, renew our devotion to you for Jesus's glory and our good. I pray, amen.