Turn with me once again to God's Word. We'll turn to Jeremiah 29. And instead of reading the entire chapter, we'll simply read to verse 14. Jeremiah 29, verses 1 through 14. It starts on page 904. I don't know how far it goes, but you'll find it if you turn to page 904 in the pew Bibles, or the Bibles in your rows. We don't have pews. Anyway. Let's give our careful attention to the reading of God's Word in Jeremiah 29. Now, these are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the remainder of the elders who were carried away captive, to the priests, the prophets, and all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had carried away captive from Jerusalem to Babylon. This happened after Jeconiah the king The Queen Mother, the eunuchs, the princes of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen, and the smiths had departed from Jerusalem. The letter was sent by the hand of Elassah, the son of Siphon, and Gemariah, the son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah, king of Judah, sent to Babylon, to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, saying, Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all who were carried away captive, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon. Build houses and dwell in them, plant gardens and eat their fruit. Take wives and beget sons and daughters, and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands so that they may bear sons and daughters, that you may be increased there and not diminished. and seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive. And pray to the Lord for it, for in its peace you will have peace. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, do not let your prophets and your diviners who are in your midst deceive you, nor listen to your dreams which you cause to be dreamed. For they prophesy falsely to you in my name. I have not sent them, says the Lord. For thus says the Lord, after 70 years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform my good word toward you and cause you to return to this place. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and go and pray to me with all your heart. Pray to me and I will listen to you and you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart I will be found by you says the Lord and I will bring you back from your captivity I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you Says the Lord and I will bring you to the place from which I cause you to be carried away captive Thus far, the reading of God's holy word, may he add his richest blessing to the reading and hearing of it this morning, remembering that all, that God's word abides forever. Amen. We're continuing our series on untwisting, twisted scripture, and this passage, Jeremiah 29, 11, is one of those verses. Sometimes people may twist this passage in such a way, similarly to the individual who decided that he didn't have a whole lot of time to read his Bible in the morning, so he would just open it up, and whatever verse he read, that's what he would then read, and that would be his message of inspiration for the morning. So he opens up his Bible, and the first verse that he comes to says, if you're right, hand offends you, cut it off, and if you're right, eye bothers you, pluck it out. Well, that's not very encouraging, so he closed his Bible and he opened up, and then he found the passage that said Judas went out and hung himself. This isn't very good at all, and so he closed his Bible and opened it up one more time, and the verse read, and go and do likewise. Now, if this individual simply based his life, practice, and theology on the verses that he would have read, he would have read passages from the Bible, but in the end, it would have meant that he literally had to go cut off his hand, pluck out his eye, and then hang himself like Judas. You see, the point is, is that it's an ability to read the scripture. but it's not an ability to properly apply the scripture. And there are passages all throughout the Bible that individuals will do that with, Jeremiah 29 verse 11 being one of them. The verse says, for I know the thoughts that I think to you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you a future and a hope. Beautiful verse. People appeal to it at times of graduation. Here you are, look out for the future. God knows the plan that he has for you. One of hope. Other times individuals will use it as means of encouragement. And so they'll throw it up on t-shirts. I should say put it on t-shirts. make it a meme, post it on their wall on Facebook. And the idea is this, that if I put my plans forward, God will make it happen. And therefore, whatever I want for college, it's a good thing. God knows the plans that he has for me. Consequently, boom, it'll work out. who's that special someone that you want, whether it relates to some relationship, that boyfriend or that girlfriend. Well, they tick off all the or check off all the boxes. And so consequently, boom, it's a good plan. I put it forward. Other individuals will look at this just simply to go, look, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. And so he's mapped it all out for you. You just have to walk in obedience and faith. And if you do, God has the plans of prosperity and blessing and peace. And so it's yours. And so you're going to be wealthy, and you're going to be healthy, and you're going to be wise, and if it's anything less than that, well, that's your fault. Thanks a lot. People will set this up as a feel-good proverb that basically God will just do everything that you want Him as long as you put it before Him in a good manner, and you can count on that. But is that really what this verse is saying? I mean, after all, there's a lot more to this passage than just simply trying to take one thing that's stated. It's stated in the context of a whole host of verses in a particular situation, at a particular time, with people in a particular place, and doesn't that have any bearing or any significance or any meaning to the verse? It does. And so as we recognize what the general approach or a popular approach to this verse is, firstly, we would just want to challenge that. The basic challenge to that idea as it pertains to this particular verse is one of simple interpretation. There's only one meaning to a text. There are many applications, but there's only one meaning. And as we would set forth a particular meaning in Jeremiah 29, there is no thought, no concept, no idea present here that would note that God somehow serves as a cosmic genie or Santa Claus, that we would just go and rub the holy lamp and consequently put our list before Him, and He then intends a good plan for our lives and so off it will go. There's a historical context. This is written a prophetic book and so there are things that are set within this passage that means that we ultimately have to recognize what's there instead of lifting it and making it fit or suited to what we want it to be. This passage, although God does note, I know the plans that I have for you, and He lays out various things with it, it makes no guarantee of the reward of possessions. Furthermore, it makes no general promise of there being any prosperity or leisure for God's people. And furthermore, it gives no concept or thought that God's people will somehow be removed from suffering so that there will be no experience of it. The rest of scripture testifies to this point. When we look at the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, if there was anyone who we would be able to identify as having the ear of the Father to set a plan before Him so that then prosperity and blessing and tremendous well-being and health and all sorts of good things would come before Him, it was the Lord Jesus. He went about his father's business ever since he was young. He was identified as the one, the only one that had God himself echo from heaven, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Hear him. Twice did that happen. And yet what was the life of Jesus like? Was he in the lap of luxury? Was he in a mansion on the hilltop with multiple rooms, with servants and the abundance of wealth? Well, according to the ideology that says if you lack prosperity and you have less than Beth, you lack faith, then Jesus lacked faith and he lacked obedience. Is that really what we want to say about our Lord? The apostles suffered mightily and greatly in the name of Christ. The same could be made of them. See, the point of the passage isn't to set this declaration of comfort and blessing based on the plan of God in some sort of general manner so that it's memeable. or postable. It's instead to speak to something that is far greater in the context of Israel's life. And so let's look at the context then of what's before us. We're looking in the book of Jeremiah, he was a prophet. He lived basically from 650 to 570 BC, and he had the responsibility of coming before the people of God, not to bring a message that says God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life, but instead that says, if you don't shape up, there's going to be a consequence in your life. It is a wonderful plan of God, but you're not gonna like it. In fact, his message was unwanted. because Israel was caught up in continued disobedience and idolatry. They had all sorts of sinful doings and so Jeremiah had the responsibility for 25 years to come before the people of God and warn them and to tell them that God is marking this and there will be a consequence for your action and that consequence is that you will be removed from the land of promise and you will be taken into captivity. Well, the people resented Jeremiah. They hated what he had to say, and furthermore, they didn't listen. They didn't listen so much so that in 605, the king at the time, Jehoiakim, took the message that Jeremiah had, he cut it up, and he threw it in the fire. He says, what do you think about this message? Well, and Seven years from that point, God told him what he thought because he sent Nebuchadnezzar to go in to Judah to take Jehoiakim captive and led him in chains back to Babylon and he killed him. I know the plans that I have for you, huh? Along with that, Nebuchadnezzar took the articles of the temple. This continued again so that Jehoiachin's son, Jehoiachin, not very clever with names here, had no regard for what happened in his dad's life, and he remained in his position of disobedience, so that at that point, Nebuchadnezzar comes back. And along with Jehoiachin, we then see all sorts of people that are taken back to Babylon. Verse 2, it mentions this happened after Jeconiah the king, the queen mother, the eunuchs, the princes of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen, the smiths, had departed from Jerusalem. Basically, we see that the city is under siege, the treasury of the Lord in the temple, as well as that of the king, are taken, the gold is cut up and hauled off, and boom! They are in the land of Babylon. The only ones who are left are the very poor. The rest of Israel is basically, or the rest of Judah is there in the city, or in the nation, undergoing then this circumstance where they're sitting there going, what in the world is happening to us? It's a mess. And so what's the message then of the passage? The message is, as these people are sent off, as these people go their way, Jeremiah, who's still back in the land, sends off a letter. And in this letter, he tells them, this is what the Lord still says for you. This is what's to take place. This is what's to happen now in your life. Yes, you've left the land. That in and of itself was extremely significant. Remember, we're talking about the people of God in the Old Testament. These were the individuals who were in captivity in Egypt for some 400 years, and consequently, God raised up Moses, and with that, then brought about the plagues, so that he then said, you will be my people, I will be your God, in fulfillment of the promise he had made to Abraham, and consequently says, I'm taking you to a place, to a land, The land that they are in, the land whereby God said, this is your inheritance, this is the display of my blessing upon you. And they had it for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years, until finally their disobedience and their idolatry was such that God said, enough. And so now these individuals have all been pulled out of the land. and are sitting here wondering what in the world is going on. And firstly we see that God doesn't leave them. That God comes actually and speaks to them through this message. Look at verse four. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel. Look again at verse 7, you see the reference to the Lord as well. End of verse 9. And the point is that God is telling Judah, this isn't happening by accident. I warned you and this is my action in your life. This isn't some aspect of misfortune. This isn't simply that you woke up and you didn't play the lotto numbers right and you just had a series of bad luck. This is God showing concern for his people and out of love acting in a manner of judgment. And yet as they're in this situation of judgment, they're then giving a message of false hope. Because if you look in chapter 29 and some of the verses that we didn't read, you find out that there are prophets who are coming along to them and basically saying, hey guys, it's not so bad. This is only gonna last for a couple of years. This isn't going to be that long. Yeah, this really stinks right now, and it would've been better if we didn't have to go through all this, but hey, what's 24 months in Babylon? It's not that bad. You get to see another culture. You get to have another experience. You get to see another part of the world. And guess what? Israel, they'll come. They'll help us. The armies will be raised up by the king, and they'll come in, and they'll intervene, and we'll be able to go back, and it'll all be better. And the Lord is saying, no. Just to let you know, my plan for you, you're here 70 years. You can kind of see the way in which this weight is falling down further on them. God brought us into captivity. It's not as good as these other guys are telling us. And we're away from it all. We're hopeless. Our whole life has been changed. Our whole world has been turned upside down. Everything that had meaning and significance and purpose to us, it's all gone. No more going to the temple for worship. No more connection to the land. No more celebration of Jubilee and the years of promise and the elimination of debts and the restoration of the land and boundaries. No more feast days. No more celebrations. We're stuck in a pagan land, hearing a foreign language, dealing with the loss of connectivity, the loss of freedom, even the loss of our lives. People knowing that if we're here for 70 years, they're not going back. They're not going to be buried where the plot of ground is. So what do we do? How do we think about this? And notice what the Lord then says. You've been carried away. It's going to be a long while. Verse 5 and following. build houses, dwell in them, plant gardens, eat their fruit, take wives and beget sons and daughters, take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands so that you may bear sons and daughters, that you may be increased there and not diminished. Seek the peace of the city where I've caused you to be carried away captive and pray to the Lord for it, for in its peace you will have peace. I did this, stop having a pity party. Be busy and get to work. Recognize where you are. Interestingly enough, if we took the interpretation of 29 verse 11 and applied it to this passage, then we all have to be carpenters and gardeners. Build houses. Raise vineyards. The Lord's point is, I've pulled you away. You have this circumstance before you now, yes. Go about your lives living as my people and pray for the individuals that you're interacting with. Live your life and do good. Bless others with prayer and peace. And then what does God say? Eventually, you'll go back. This will end and you'll be restored. I haven't forgotten you, I've done this in order to teach you, I've done this in order to remind you that I am God and that you're to be in submission to me, and that you're to have no other gods before me, that you're not to have any other connection than with me. Your dependence is on me, your support is from me, your life is lived before me, and so you are going through this time of hurt and suffering in order to learn from your disobedience, to be purged from your sin, and consequently to recognize that I'm here. And furthermore, as you then go about your life, and you have marriages and kids, you're perpetuating a seed that will one day return, thus evidencing faith in what God has revealed. And so what does God then say? In light of all that, verse 11, God is saying, it's bad right now. It is hard right now, it is difficult right now, but don't look at this in the context of God is out to get us because I have a plan, I have an intention, I have a purpose. And that purpose isn't to ultimately undo you and to decimate you. My plan is ultimately to bring about an even greater purpose and greater good through you. And so as you're humbled then, you will be connected to me. And you will find restoration in a relationship with me. One of the keys that's then important in what God says here is that he's not talking to the children of Israel in captivity individually. He's not going to Jacob and saying, Jacob, I've got this for you, and then he goes to another individual and says, and you, Reuben, I've got this for you, and you, so and so, and then repeating the same thing individually. He's talking to the covenant people of God as a whole. He's identifying them as his people who are called by his name, and he consequently then says, this is the work that I'm doing in you. My plan for you is not forsaken. I am restoring you for good and for the future. I am at work in your life so that ultimately that which I intend to do will be accomplished. And through it, your being away will cause you to long for me more. Your being away will pull you away from your false worship. Your being away will remember, cause you to remember me and repent of your sins and to be restored. And through all of this, I have not forgotten that which is the greatest and biggest and most significant thing in terms of my plan. And through you, I still will accomplish it. The sending of the one who will crush the head of the serpent. Because what happens? Israel or Judah goes back, things are restored, the walls are rebuilt, worship occurs, lives are lived, marriages take place, children are born, and eventually comes the one who ultimately brings about that key for future hope, future glory, and peace, the Lord Jesus Christ. The point of this passage isn't to give us a meme. It's not to give us some security blanket that just gives us strength from day to day that even when things are super, super hard, we can just go, well, we know the plans that God has for us, even though that's true. It's to direct us to something more in the context of the life of Israel, and yet, there are applications for us to gain from this. There still is a benefit to this verse. Remember what I said at the outset, that there is only one interpretation to a text, but there are multiple applications. And the applications are then seen in the things that we learn, the lessons to be drawn from this, the benefits that we gain through this verse being here. Just a few to close with. This first one is the lesson that we learn about God. I mean, God is throughout this. God brings them into captivity, God speaks to them, God says that he doesn't forget them, and with that he then says, I know the thoughts that I have for you. Thoughts of peace and not of evil. Think about what that teaches us about God for a moment. God knows all his works and his thoughts. What are your works like? Do you know all your works? Do you know all your thoughts? There's half the thoughts that we have and they go away. Then there's so many thoughts that we have in the middle of the night that we then get up in the morning and totally forget. We have thoughts that contradict other thoughts that we have. We have thoughts for our thoughts, about our thoughts, which consequently lead us to then no thought at all. And we just find just this chaos of this symphony of our mental state. And there's no real agreement or connection to our thinking, and yet look at God. God has it all worked out. He has it all laid out. Even as these individuals are pulled away from the land of promise to be judged by it, he says, I've got it all under control. This is still a part of my intention and purpose. My thoughts and my works and my intentions are all in total agreement and there is no uncertainty. I'm gonna orchestrate this all to occur like that. The thing we ought to be amazed by is just simply how great and wondrous is our God in relation to what he thinks, what he intends, what he accomplishes, and what he had set out to do. And consequently, we just bow in humble adoration and worship because he can say, I know the thoughts, the plan, the intention that I have. but this then does speak to us as it pertains to the lesson of His design for His people. The lesson here is that if God knows what He's doing and His intention and purpose is for good and not for evil, then we draw strength and encouragement and comfort to know that as the people of God, Whatever is taking place in our lives has an intended in and a designed plan by him. Wherever He takes us, corporately and individually, it all is in accordance with what He has set out to do. And every moment and every curve and every dip and every hill and every mountain is all a part of a gift from Him and not a curse. Because the end goal. is the goal that His people would be identified and sanctified perfectly as the Lord Jesus Christ. It's also a lesson of noting that God has intention in what He does. There's nothing that happens in the lives of his people that is somehow haphazard or that was somehow accidental or that he swerved into it and went, oh yeah, that's a lot better. Happens in our lives a lot, right? You work on some project and it just accidentally comes to be and you went, I never intended that, but we'll go with it. Not with God. How does it help us? that you may be patient in adversity and thankful in prosperity. How does it strengthen us? Because there are times of testing and there are times of discipline, as the people of God experienced in the old, so the people of God in the new will also have. And what does James say? Let patience have its perfect work in you. Patients can work through testing and discipline because God has an intention that he's ultimately seeking to accomplish by it. It may be long, but it doesn't last forever. It may be hard, but it ultimately leads to the glory of God and to your connection with God's people in glory. It may hurt and it may be challenging, but God always uses it for the purpose and sake of the deliverance of his people. Whether it's the deliverance from ongoing sin in our life, Or the deliverance from this world. It means that we also then are filled with hope. not because we rip this one verse out and consequently say, see, here is hope, but we see what God has done in the lives of his people, that yes, God acted, that yes, these individuals went through hardship and calamity, that they were called to live and work, which they did, and at the right time, God brought them back as he said he would. it means that we have hope as well. Hope because of God fulfilling this verse ultimately in the Lord Jesus Christ. Hope because God ultimately was able to bring about the seed of the woman who came and was born of Mary, conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, and brought forth into this world. living a life of perfection before the living God and thereby showing himself to be that one who is the lamb who would be slain in order to remove our sin and our curse. It points us to the fact that God keeps his promises. And every one of us, as we are here as the people of God, we testify to that because the Lord Jesus Christ's name is on us, his name is uttered through our lips, his glory shines through us, and we have identified ourselves as his people. And yet, what does this also tell us? Remember the Lord Jesus said, I've got to go away, but I will one day come again. In the meantime, as it were, we live as those who are in exile. We are strangers and we're pilgrims living in a foreign land. And yet, what do we do? We build houses, we dwell in them, we plant, we act, we work. For what purpose? waiting for the time in which God will ultimately fulfill that next promise, that the Lord Jesus Christ will come again and take us to Himself. And in the meantime, He works the way of peace in our life. The peace of assuring us that as we are connected to the Lord Jesus, we are not at war with Him, the recognition that He provides for us in our day to day, that He testifies that the things that occur in our lives are the means of causing us to be conformed after the image of the Son, and ultimately He will take us home. He will bring us to dwell with the Lord Jesus forevermore as Christ prepares a place for us and as we then will enter into eternal glory. which eye has not seen, nor ear has heard, nor has entered into the heart of man. So that all of us who trust in the Lord Jesus will then stand together, being able to bask in the wonder of God's accomplishment of his plans, his intentions, his purpose. Echoing with all the saints that he is great and glorious and wondrous, because he's accomplished exactly what he intended to do. The beauty of this passage that we have before us today isn't because you can extract a verse and lift it from its context and consequently say, what a wonderful idea. The beauty of this verse is to leave it in its context, to see how it fits together with all of the passages that surround it, consequently point us to the wonder and glory of our God as He plans, as He purposes, and as He accomplishes His will. Let's give thanks to God for that. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, We rejoice in knowing that you have provided this for us and that you have assured us and testified to us that you are working. You do that which you set out to do. And that even through the midst of challenge, you use it. You bring it about, you direct it to its appointed end. so that your people would grow and be matured, to be restored in relationship with you, but also that ultimately we would see how glorious you are. Help us to see that and build us up in it accordingly as we pray. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.