Please turn with me to Jeremiah 29, these first 14 verses. Our subject this evening is the exile. The exile. As I said a moment ago, the island of Ireland knows all about exiles. We are an emigrant people. Just over 39 years ago, I stood on the docks of Belfast about to board a ship that was going to carry me eventually to America. I embraced my 52-year-old father and stepped onto the ship. I never saw him alive again. And that is something that happens again and again among our people and in our psyche. And the folk songs of our country are often sad songs, songs of home and longing and exile. Probably few of us here don't have relatives in North America or South Africa, Australia or New Zealand. To be in exile means to be away from home and to be in a place where we don't really want to be. And the New Testament tells us that as Christians in the world, we are exiles. Peter writes in 1 Peter 1, verse 1, to the elect, exiles. Hebrews tells us in Hebrews 11, verse 13, that we are strangers and exiles on the earth. So when we read at the beginning of this chapter in the title that it's a letter to exiles, we're interested. This concerns us. The original exiles to whom it was written were the kings, nobles, soldiers, and craftsmen of Judah. In 597 B.C. they were taken into exile 700 miles from their home to Babylon. Their world was turned upside down. Babylon at this time wasn't an especially cruel place. They weren't oppressed at first. That's a myth. But it was very strange. The landscape, the language, the faces, the skin color, the customs, even the weather. Everything was different. They weren't used to it. They felt a profound loneliness, a homesickness, an inner dislocation. This is God's letter to these exiles. Jeremiah sent it several years after they went into exile. It went in the diplomatic pouch. King Zedekiah was sending diplomats to Nebuchadnezzar. And Jeremiah used these men to carry his letter to the exiles. It's been called one of the most important documents in the Old Testament. If my sermon is a little bit longer than usual this evening, you'll forgive me. At least I hope you'll forgive me. It's such an important document that we don't want to miss anything. How God wants his people to live in exile. There's nothing more important for us to hear, more vital for us to know. What counsel do we need from God? We too are exiles like these Jews in Babylon. What does God want to say to us? I want to look at the three pieces of counsel to exiles in this chapter. First of all, in verse 4 and verses 8-9, the call is this. Understand God's providence. Understand God's providence. We can sometimes think of providence as an impersonal thing, a machine, the remote abstract outworking of divine laws. But providence isn't an it. Providence is a he. Our catechism makes it very personal. God's works of providence are his, his most holy, wise and powerful, preserving all his creatures and all their actions. And friends, if ever anything seemed to have nothing to do with God, this was it. Look at verse 1. All the people, Nebuchadnezzar had carried into exile. The emperor of Babylon had done it. King Jehoiakim had rebelled. And although he had died in the meantime, The invasion was set in motion and wouldn't be stopped. The Nebuchadnezzar had come and taken the best of the people, the cream of the people, away to Babylon. And he'd left the puppet Zedekiah on the throne. And this seemed absolutely the reverse of anything that God would plan or God would want. How could this be God's will? for a heathen king to take his people into exile. But in fact, as we read in verses 4 and 7, this is God's doing. Verse 4, this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel says, note these words, to all those I carried. into exile. Not Nebuchadnezzar. God says, I did it. Verse 7, I have carried you into exile. That's the first thing they need to hear. This is God's doing. For better or worse, this appalling tragedy is not outside God's control. It's not outside God's purposes. He is personally involved. This is in God's providence. And friends, that is true for each one of us also. Whatever your exile may be, whatever your testing, whatever the tragedy in your life, whatever your difficult times, God not only knows about it, but God has decreed that it should happen exactly as it has happened. Paul tells us in the New Testament that he works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will. And that is something for us to hold on to even in the bad times, perhaps especially in the bad times. To say, I can't explain this, I don't understand it, it's really hard. But I know that God is in this somehow. And God has a reason. Understand God's providence. They were in exile. But in a sense, things were about to get worse. There were a number of phony preachers among the exiles. I'm afraid phony preachers are not a new phenomenon. They've always been there. And these men were making a good living for themselves with seeker-sensitive sermons, telling the people exactly what they wanted to hear. And these popular preachers were saying, we're only here for a few weeks, you know. We'll soon be going home. People loved that. They crowded to hear them. They paid their money in great sums. This was the message they wanted to hear, just as such preachers are popular with naive and silly people today. They tapped. into the mood. They scratched the people where they itched. They told them what they wanted to hear. And that's always good business. The Lord has a different analysis. Verse 8. Do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have. Their prophesying lies to you in my name. I have not sent them," declares the Lord. You're not going home in a few weeks or a few months. That's a lie. That's wishful thinking. You're going to be in Babylon for a long, long time. Forget for the present about going home. Face reality. You are here to stay. This is the bracing honesty of our God. He reminds us, and He's honest with us. He says to you and me, it's unlikely that your circumstances are going to be dramatically transformed. You're not going to wake up tomorrow morning with all your problems solved and your life perfect. I haven't got a little spiritual pill to give you to make everything right. Unless Christ returns, God isn't planning an immediate ideal world. That's the deal. That's His providence. These preachers saying it's going to be over soon and everybody's going to be happy. Jeremiah says they're liars. That isn't going to be the case. It's going to be a long, hard struggle. But the point is that it's not some black hole in which God's purposes for us are lost. Hold on to this. I have sent you into exile. That's a solid basis for us to build on. We may have painful problems in our lives, perplexing mysteries, But we know that God is doing this and He knows what He's doing. Understand God's promise. Then secondly, in verses 5 to 7, we're called to give ourselves to God's program. We're called to give ourselves to God's program. He has a program for His people. He doesn't want them to waste their years of exile. He doesn't want them to spend their time dreaming about the good old days, full of regrets about a golden past. He doesn't want them to waste their years in fantasies and daydreams about a bright future. He wants them to live in exile, here and now, to His glory. We are called to glorify God here on earth. What is God's program? What is it that we are to be doing here on earth? It's surprisingly earthy. If you read these verses, you will see that it involves bricks and spades and wedding dresses and nappies. That's God's program. That's God's program. It's not highfalutin. It's not airy-fairy. It's very, very down-to-earth. Build houses and settle down. Plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters. That's His program. In other words, settle down in Babylon. Plan for the long term. Build houses. Don't just live in temporary tents. Plant gardens. Don't depend on the local chip shop. Rear families. And you see how God urges them to rear families for three generations, 70 years. Find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage so that they too may have sons and daughters. This is long-term planning by God for Babylon. Give yourselves to living rich, satisfying, creative, fully human lives here in the place of exile. Here, my friends, is the value the importance of ordinary things, if any things are ordinary. Our homes, our families, our daily work, our gardens, our amusements, our recreations. This is God's program for His people. This is where we are to live for God. This is the time when we are to live for God. This is the only time we have. We are to bloom where God has planted. You get in this passage the echoes that we noted in the message this morning, the echoes of creation blessing. He says, multiply there and do not decrease. The same thought we had this morning, be fruitful and multiply. the echoes of covenant. In Deuteronomy 28.30, God promised to His rebellious people that if they disobeyed, you will be pledged to be married to a woman. But another will take her and ravish her. You will build houses, but you will not live in them. You will plant a vineyard, but you will not even begin to enjoy its fruit. Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation. Here's the curse of the covenant. And amazingly, God says, in exile, I'm going to cancel the curse of the covenant. I'm going to cancel the curse in exile and you'll be able to live beautiful, productive, fruitful lives to my glory in Babylon. There's an even greater surprise to come. Verse 7, what a shock these words must have been. Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. God, are you serious? Seek the peace of Babylon? The prosperity of Babylon, this horrible, heathen place? Yes, says God. Be good citizens in Babylon. Contribute to the society of Babylon. Play your part in Babylon. Be salt and light in Babylon. Be Daniels in the place of exile. Don't opt out. Don't be ostriches. Don't be rebels. Don't be uninvolved. Commit yourself to the community where God has placed you with all its wickedness and all its sin. and try to improve it. Seek the peace and prosperity of Babylon. Isn't that what we were talking about at the beginning of the service? Except it's getting like the peace and prosperity of Sodom and Gomorrah that we're going to have to seek. But we're to do it. Work for their shalom, says God. Their well-being, their wholeness, their prosperity. My friends, what would happen if the people of God took this verse seriously in our nation? If the people of God were to rise up and say, we're going to seek the prosperity of this land, of this society, of this nation. But we may say, would this not lead to assimilation? Would this not lead to us blending into the society and becoming worldly and becoming part of it? Would we not be safer to stay away from it? Could we not be contaminated? Well, we could. But we shouldn't be. For our commitment is not to be in the world's terms, but on God's terms. Look at verse 7. Pray to the Lord for it. It's not just to be Do good array. And again, what a shock. Pray for it? The only thing they wanted to pray for Babylon was for its destruction. But God says, pray on its behalf. Because if it prospers, you too will prosper. I'm open to correction here. But as far as I know, this is the only passage in the Old Testament where the people are commanded to pray for their enemies. Pray for Babylon. Pray for its prosperity. There are echoes here of Psalm 122 that we sang at the beginning of our service. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. I will seek your prosperity. Peace and prosperity. And now God takes these same two words. You're not able to pray for Jerusalem because you're not in Jerusalem. But pray for Babylon. Pray for its peace and prosperity. Our prayers for the city of God are to be offered for the greatest enemy of the city of God. Here is the outreach of the gospel. Here is the grace of the people of God. One recent commentator says, this rings true to the authentic mission of the priestly people of God, to be a vehicle of God's shalom for those outside, even the oppressor himself. To be a vehicle of peace, a vehicle of blessing, a channel of God's grace to our dark world. Do you pray? for our Babylon? Do you pray for our political leaders? Do you pray for what's happening in our society? Do you pray for the opinion formers, the people in the media, the people in the economy, the educational world? Do you pray for these people? Not angrily, not vengefully, but with a heart of love and of kindness that God will deliver them and show them a better way. What wonderful advice this is. What a beautiful balance. We are not to waste our time fretting about our exile. God says, live life to the full. Be salt and light in this world and pray for its betterment. Give ourselves to God's program. But then thirdly and lastly, in verses 10-14, we have to set our hope on God's plans. To set our hope on God's plans. God has more for us than productive this-worldliness. We are to be more than good citizens of Babylon. We are to be people of hope, no matter how involved we become in serving God here. And this is the important thing. Essentially, we are otherworldly people. We are in exile. We are to work for Babylon. We are to pray for Babylon. We are to live in Babylon, but it's not our home, not our ultimate home. We're just passing through. So God then, in His perfect balance, after urging the people to build their houses and plant their gardens and rear their families and pray for the city, He brings in the heavenly note. Two aspects here. First of all, an immediate hope. An immediate hope. A hope for the here and now. God has something wonderful for His people in Babylon. They're cut off from all the supports of their religion. No temple, no services, no sacrifices. By the rivers of Babylon we sang. We sat and wept when we remembered Zion. How can we sing the songs of the Lord in a foreign land? You can, says God. You can. And my plan for you," he says, is that you'll sing the Lord's song more sweetly, more melodiously, more truly in exile than you've ever sung it before. Because part of His purpose in sending them into exile was that they would come to know Him in a new way. with a new intimacy and a new longing. Look at verses 13 and 14. You will call upon Me and come and pray to Me. You will seek Me and find Me. When you seek Me with all your heart, I will be found by you. All the props have been taken away. All the support structure. All the system that upheld them. Their life has been knocked to pieces. And they've nothing left but God. And it's in that moment that they seek God as they've never sought Him before. And they find Him in a new closeness. And that's partly why God had sent them away. Not to banish them from His presence, but to bring them into His presence. Not so that they would be further from Him, but so that they would be closer to Him. Not so that they would know Him less, but so that they would know Him better. You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all of your heart. Think about that. Is that not partly why God leaves us in exile so long? Supposing at the moment of your conversion, you were taken immediately to heaven. Supposing that happened to everybody. It would be challenging to be a gospel preacher, admittedly. I urge you to believe in Christ, and the moment you believe in Christ, you'll die and you'll be taken to heaven. That could be a barrier in some people's minds. Suppose that happened. Sometimes we may think, I wish I was in heaven. But how much would we lose? Would you not say that you've come to know your Savior better in all the struggles and the ups and downs of life? You've experienced the kindness of Jesus, All the prayers He's answered. All the times He's helped you. Yes, you've come through, some of you have come through very hard times. But as you look back, you say, but yes, they were hard. But I learned about God. I learned about His faithfulness and His love. I learned lessons that I'll never forget to all eternity. They'll always remember God's goodness to me on this earth. Don't we find it true that suffering produces perseverance and perseverance, character and character, hope? Would you have wanted to miss it? As you sit in heaven at the end, each one of us who is in Christ will be able to say, goodness and mercy all my life. have surely followed me. And in God's house forevermore my dwelling place shall be." So exile, you see. Exile is a place of finding God and knowing God and coming closer to God. But it doesn't end there, because there's the ultimate hope, the return to the land. Verses 10 and 14. This is what the Lord says When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill to you my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. I will gather you from all the nations and the places where I have banished you. I will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile, going home. We laugh at the sentiment of the old Victorian song, but we know it's true. Home, sweet home. There's no place like home. I've had to travel in many countries and I've talked to many homesick people. They think often of home. They look for the day when they'll go home. God says, I'm going to take you home. You're not going to be here forever. It must have seemed impossible at this moment. But as we know, it happened. And they were to live every moment in Babylon in the light of this expectation, we're going home. And in fact, the Jewish people did this. It's a fact of history that one of the great greetings of Jews at their family gatherings and their feasts. They would look at each other. And it was always the same. Next year in Jerusalem. Next year in Jerusalem. They were a people who were going to be going home. They never forgot home. That was the psalm, wasn't it? If I forget you, Jerusalem, may skill depart from my right hand. And what a difference it must have made to these people in exile and to their children. And say, children, we're here, but we're not going to stay here. God is a better place for us. And God's going to come and God's going to take us back to that place. And they were to live all their years in the light of their home going. And isn't that Jesus' promise to a group of frightened, vulnerable men? Do not let your hearts be troubled You believe in God, believe also in Me. If I go to prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with Me, that you also may be where I am." This is the hope that sustains us in our exile. We are going home. Home again. In exile, is there anything more fundamentally important than this? to set our hope on God's plans. Yes, live in Babylon. Live to the full. That's your duty. Do all you can for Babylon. But the heart, the heart's not there. The heart's elsewhere. That glorious verse 11, that each of us should take and memorize and bind to ourselves. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future. Do you believe that? Comments on these words, listen to this comment. There is not a single item of evil in his plans for his people, neither in motive, nor in conception, nor in revelation, nor in consummation. All is good. All is blessed. I know the plans I have for you. And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love Him. What a marvelous chapter this is. What a marvelous blend. How transforming God's counsel is. Live today to the full. Live it in the light of eternity. Ultimately, there is no dichotomy or separation, in a sense, between our life here on earth and our life in heaven. They are both to be lived to the full to the glory of God. We are reminded of the prayer of our Savior in John 17. Praying for us tonight, I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. My prayer is not that you should take them out of the world. How much greater our joy will be when our exiles ended, to know that we haven't wasted our lives. We haven't thrown them away. We've used them to the full for God. How much sweeter will be eternity if we are able to say what Jesus said, I have brought you glory on earth, I have completed the work you gave me to do. Amen. Let us bow in prayer.