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Jeremiah, the 32nd chapter is
where we're at this evening. And as you're turning there,
I was hoping Steve Dawson would be here tonight, but he's working
or late at work, getting awful late or whatever. But I had a
real estate question. Maybe somebody in here can answer
it. When is it a bad time to buy
property? Well, I'm sure somebody loaned
it to you, some bank or some credit card. No, it ain't. At a 20% interest. That's one
bad time to buy property or land. Anybody else ever thought about
that? Well, we find in Jeremiah 32, Jeremiah is given a proposition
to buy some land. Now, in our day and time, you
know, there is something called eminent domain, which the government
can take over and seize your land. If they're planning, say,
like a eight-lane highway right through the middle of your house,
you know what? That's pretty bad. And if you're about to buy
that house, you ain't going to buy it. I saw something on the
news the other day where there was a sinkhole in the front yard
where there was a pond in that It's a home out in the country
and the thing just sunk and the pond disappeared and everything.
So the value of the property just bottomed out and the homeowners
were just devastated and everything. Can you imagine going to buy
something like that? That wouldn't be too good of
an idea. If the economy is tanking, probably not a good time to buy
a home. You think about it, if we were
on the brink of war, Might not be a good time to go to war. Or buy a piece of land. If you
were in jail, which is what Jeremiah's condition was, wouldn't be a
good time to buy a piece of land because you couldn't tend to
the land. Back in 587 B.C. is when Jeremiah 32 is taking
place. And what's happened, Nebuchadnezzar,
the king of Babylon, who has been reigning for about 18 years,
going and conquering lands left and right, he's come back for
the second time to Jerusalem. And as he's come back this time,
he has besieged it. In other words, nobody's coming
in, nobody's going out. The place is surrounded, there's
no way as far as food getting in, food, you know, there's nothing
transported in and out. So, Jeremiah is in a prison,
but he is very sensitive to God's Word. I want you to notice the
first five verses in chapter 32. The Word of God says, The
Word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth year of
Zedekiah, king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar. For then the king of Babylon's
army besieged Jerusalem, and Jeremiah the prophet was shut
up in the court of the prison. which was in the king of Judah's
house. Now here is the reason why Jeremiah
got locked up. I want you to notice. It says
in verse 3, For Zedekiah, king of Judah, had shut him up, saying,
Wherefore dost thou prophesy and say, Thus saith the Lord?
Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of
Babylon, and he shall take it. And Zedekiah king of Judah shall
not escape out of the hand of the Chaldeans, but shall surely
be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon, and shall
speak with him mouth to mouth, and his eyes shall behold his
eyes. And he shall lead Zedekiah to Babylon, and there shall he
be until I visit him, saith the Lord. Though you fight with the
Chaldeans, you shall not prosper. Now, if you had somebody that
was inside the city and you're being besieged, that would be
a very discouraging message. In other words, you're all going
captive. It ain't no use to fight. It ain't going to work and it
ain't going to help. So, at the worst, it would be treason. So,
here are the kings at Achaia. He locks Jeremiah up to get him
to shut up so he don't discourage everybody. Now, I want you to
look over in chapter 33. In chapter 33, look down in verse
4. In verse 4, "...for thus saith
the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the houses of this
city, and concerning the houses of the king of Judah, which are
thrown down by the mounts and by the sword." When they besieged
Jerusalem and they finally entered in, the houses were destroyed. They were just leveled to the
ground. Great destruction. Can you imagine trying to get
a loan on a piece of property in there? Probably wouldn't happen. Who would want to buy a piece
of property around Jerusalem at that time? Well, Jeremiah's
got a cousin, and his cousin's got a sweet deal. It's kind of
like, I remember I was told somebody,
they moved London Bridge out in the middle of the desert,
out somewhere in Nevada, and you can buy a piece of it. Now,
you know what, that's not too sweet a deal. It's kind of a
dumb deal if you think about it. But here, Jeremiah, I want
you to notice what his cousin does. He comes a sweet-talking.
And he says, in the middle of this siege, Jeremiah, well, first
off, the Word of God comes to Jeremiah in verse 6. And the
Lord told him, Behold Hananiel, the son of Shalem, thine uncle,
shall come unto thee saying, by thee my field, that is in
Anathoth, for the right of the redemption is thine, to buy it.
So Hannah Meal, mine uncle's son, came to me in the court
of the prison according to the word of the Lord, and said unto
me, By my field I pray thee, that is in Anathoth, which is
in the country of Benjamin, for the right of inheritance is thine,
and the redemption is thine, buy it for yourself. Then I knew
that this was the word of the Lord." Now, if you think about
this situation, If you had a cousin like this, you wouldn't think
you'd want to be around a cousin like this. Anybody got any cousins
that's always selling something, always trying to pitch you a
deal, trying to get you to do something? Yeah, some got some
like that in every family, just about it seems like. Well, here,
if you can imagine the situation, this cousin's property in Anathoth,
it is being occupied by the Babylonians because they're besieging Jerusalem.
And if you have an army and you're coming in, you've conquered this
land, you know what, pretty much Babylon owns the land, don't
it? So if Babylon owns the land, that's like somebody saying,
you know, I've got a, that's a nice Chevy SUV right there.
I think I'll sell it to you. Anybody want to buy it for $20? You know, it ain't going to happen,
is it? It just won't happen. Here, this
property that the cousins got, if you think, now why is he selling
this property? Possibly because the city's besieged. What's he going to do with it?
The land's no good. Babylonians are on it. He's hungry. Remember, there's hardly any
food in the city if he's been besieged. He's needing some money. He's needing a transaction. Maybe
he's trying to escape. We don't know exactly why he
was selling it, but it sounds pretty much like a shifty deal,
doesn't it? So, what does old Jeremiah do? He heard what God
said. Then he knew God's Word was true. So, in verse 9 it says, I bought
the field of Hannah Meal, my uncle's son. that was in Anathoth
and weighed him the money, even seventeen shekels of silver. He paid him the money for it.
Then he seals the deal. Notice what he does in sealing
the deal. I subscribed the evidence and sealed it, took witnesses
and weighed him the money and the balances. Then I took the
evidence of the purchase, both that which was sealed according
to the law and the custom, that which was open, and I gave the
evidence of the purchase unto Baruch the son of Neriah, the
son of Messiah, in the sight of Hananiel, mine uncle's son,
and in the presence of the witnesses that subscribed the book of the
purchase before all the Jews that sat in the court of the
prison." So here He's purchased it. He's sealed the deal. He
signed the contract. He's got it notarized. He puts
it in a safe place. Now, why does he purchase this
land? One reason is because God told
him to purchase the land. So he buys the land. Now, if
you were Jeremiah, wouldn't you kind of have some questions about
giving your cousin 17 shekels of silver for a piece of land
that You really can't go out and do anything with because
you're in prison. And even if you weren't in prison,
you couldn't go to it anyway, or the Babylonians would probably
chop your head off. Now, you know, Jeremiah's probably got
some questions going through his mind. But first thing I want
you to notice, Jeremiah is simply obedient. He's simply obedient
unto God's Word. Oh, how that ought to preach
to us. I want you to notice in verse 13 through 15, he charges
his secretary, who is Baruch. And he says, before all the witnesses,
thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, take these
evidences, this evidence of the purchase, both which is sealed
and this evidence which is open, and put them in an earthen vessel
that they may continue many days." Now, back in that day and time,
what they would do, they would write like on a scroll, and they'd
stick the scroll in an earthen vessel, a pot, a piece of pottery. Now, some of y'all probably have
heard, of the Dead Sea Scrolls that were found back in the 50s,
I think it was, in a bunch of earthen pots. That's the way
they stored things. Now these Dead Sea Scrolls that
were found in 1950-something, they're over 2,000 years old. Think about that. That's a good
way to store something, ain't it? Got an empty pot, you want
to store something, put it in the pot. As long as it ain't edible. It might get sour. But here,
he stored it up. And he's got his secretary doing
the legwork, so to speak. What Jeremiah's got, he's got
faith in God's Word. He believes what God says, so
he is obedient unto His Word. What he's doing, he's walking
by faith. Now, he knows they're going to
be in captivity for 70 years. Now, you know what? Jeremiah's
not going to be around probably 70 years later. Because he's
getting up years already. So here he is, he's buying this
land, but back in that day and time, the Jews, if you owned
land, it had to stay within the family. You couldn't trade it
off to another family, you couldn't trade it off to another tribe.
It had to stay in the family. That's why Jeremiah, that's why
Hananiel came to Jeremiah, because he was the kinsman redeemer,
the closest one in the family to purchase the land, therefore
he sold it to Jeremiah. Jeremiah purchases it, he keeps
it, and he keeps the title deed in a safe place. But now I want
you to notice, as he walked by faith in that day and time, You
know what, there's a lot of ways we can visibly look at how we
walk by faith in our day and time. You know what, I think
of Judd Hatcher, automatically, because we've just been talking
about him, going in the middle of Sao Paulo. Now, you know what,
I don't know who'd want to go in the middle of Sao Paulo unless
somebody called, the Lord called them right in the middle of Sao
Paulo, especially because it's a rough city. When we went in
there, it's huge. It takes you at least two to
four hours to drive through a city, depending upon traffic. Now,
you thought Lexington traffic was bad. Let me tell you that.
It's a huge city. Huge. And, you know, every so
often you see prisons. Every so often in the city. There's
more, many, many prisons within that city. He wants to go right
in the heart of that city. Now, you know what? If God's
calling him there, he's going to go there. You know what? That's walking by faith. There are ways in our lives we
walk by faith. You know what? You witness to
people at times. And when you witness to somebody
you know, in the back of your mind, somebody might make fun
of you for witnessing, for taking a stand for Jesus Christ. Somebody
might call you a Jesus freak or something weird. They might
make fun of you, laugh at you. Why do you do that? Because you're
walking by faith. You believe God's Word and He
can prosper His Word. Therefore, we walk by faith in
a lot of different ways. Why do you come to church? You
know, there's a lot of churches that close down on Sunday night,
Wednesday night now. And the more time goes on, more
churches close down. You know why people from New
Life come to church? Because they want to hear the Word of
God. They want to be encouraged in one another. They know we pray for one another.
And you know what? There's a lot of love going on right around
here in New Life Baptist Church. And you don't want to miss out
on that. And you know what? Those that are missing out on
that, you know what? They don't know what they're missing out
on. So there's a lot of things we do by faith. You know what,
we come right in the middle of Woodhill. You know what, that
man told me at the bank the other day that was out there, the older
fellow, he said, when I told him where the church was, he
says, oh, the ghetto, huh? I said, what? And then I had
to explain to him what was beside us and who was beside us and
beside beside us. And I said, but y'all to come.
I said, you know what, there's plenty of people to witness to.
Plenty of people need the gospel there. I thought it was very
interesting. I was very upbeat about it. I
think it's very encouraging. I think that's where we ought
to be, is where sinners are. Because that's who needs the
gospel, is people who are lost and don't know Jesus Christ.
Why do we come on Sunday morning? Why do we worship the Lord? It's
because of faith. Why do we try to help out an
alcoholic? When half the time we know the
alcoholics are probably using us. Why do we try to help out
people in need? Because we believe God can change
a person's heart. Why do we give? Why do we give
to missions? Why do we tithe? Why do we do more than tithing?
Because we believe God will prosper His Word. That's faith. And that's
what Jeremiah was living by. And even so, that's how we need
to live our lives. So, at the end of this transaction,
Baruch takes the jar, he takes it and tucks it off in a safe
place. I don't think they had safes back in that time, but
he tucked it off in a safe place so it would be around long after
Jeremiah's gone. What does Jeremiah do just as
soon as that transaction's done? Look in verse 16. What Jeremiah
does, Well, look back in, I think I skipped over a verse or two.
Look back in verse 15. For thus saith the Lord of hosts,
the God of Israel, houses and fields and vineyards shall be
possessed again in this land. God says they're going to be
doing some transaction. There's going to be some wheeling
and dealing. People are going to purchase land. People are going to possess
land. They're going to plant vineyards. Everything's going
to start prospering again in this land. God told him that. Now, here's Jeremiah's response
in verse 16. Now, when I delivered the evidence
of the purchase unto Baruch the son of Nehemiah, I prayed unto
the Lord, saying, Ah, Lord God! Or, Alas! Or, Oh! Can you imagine, Jeremiah? He's kind of like, oh, what have
I done? I've done spent all my money,
and I don't know what I spent it on. I spent it on a field
that's out in the middle of nowhere. He's kind of doubting, it seems like.
This, oh, Lord God, is like a groan. Now, you know what? That's what
the Spirit of God does within the child of God, doesn't He?
When we don't know how to express ourselves, when we don't know
how to pray sometimes, the Spirit Himself makes intercession for
us. Making groanings which cannot
be uttered is what the Word of God says. And you know what?
There's times, sometimes when I'm praying, I just groan. And there's not words to say.
You can't put things into words sometimes. And here's what Jeremiah's
doing. And you know what? We can learn
a lesson from Jeremiah's prayer life. There's some good stuff
in how he's praying, and I want you to notice how he prays because
we need to implement this kind of prayer in our life. Jeremiah,
first off, he falls on his knees, I believe, and he's probably
lacking a little understanding. And you know what first thing
you need to do when you lack understanding in something? You
need to cry out to God. And God gives wisdom, and he
gives it abundantly. But we need to pray. And here
is Jeremiah's soul crying out, Ah, Lord God! Our Ah, sovereign
Lord! He knows God is sovereign. And
what he does in this prayer, he worshiped God. He worships
God, and he worships in his prayer. Notice the first thing he does
in worshiping God, as he approaches God, he starts listing some of
the attributes of God. Notice the things that he says
about God. First off, he calls Him Creator. Thou hast made the heaven and
the earth. And then He talks about His great
strength. He's all-powerful. He's made
the heavens and the earth by His great power and His stretched
out arm. And then He talks about how He's
omnipresent. His arm is stretched out all
over the place. And He talks about His omniscience. Nothing is too difficult for
Thee. You know what? The only person
that there's nothing too difficult for is somebody who's omniscient.
He knows it all. And if he knows it all, it ain't
nothing too difficult. If Brother Chick wanted me to
do some wiring, I'd probably catch something on fire, because that'd
be too difficult for me. But you know what? That wouldn't
be too difficult for him. But boy, if I put a paintbrush
in your hand, uh-uh. But God is all-knowing. Therefore, because of that, nothing
is too difficult for him. And then he talks about his loving-kindness.
He talks about his covenant-keeping. That's who God is. And notice,
this is Jeremiah approaching God, and what he's doing as he's
approaching God, he's thinking of who God is by thinking of
his attributes. He says, you show loving-kindness
unto thousands, And then you recompense the iniquity of the
fathers into the bosom of their children after them. In other
words, he is also a just God. He is a loving God, but he is
a just God. And he says, the great, the mighty
God, yes, he is almighty, he is the Lord of hosts, the Lord
of armies, is his name. Well, you know what? Isn't Jeremiah
just worshiping and praying? You know what? When you start
thinking about Jeremiah's prayer here, he's saying a lot more
about God than his problem. Now, how do we pray? You know
what? When you start thinking about
God and you start speaking more about who God is and reflecting
upon who God is, your problem gets smaller because nothing's
too difficult for Him. Nothing. Nothing is too difficult
for Him. His eyes, notice it says, your
eyes are open upon all the ways of the Son of Man. There's his
omniscience again. He sees all things to give everyone
according to his ways and according to the fruit of his doings. Then what Jeremiah does, he reflects
upon the work of God. And notice how he remembers his
works. mainly of redemption, of how
God redeemed Israel out of Egypt. Now, that happened hundreds of
years before Jeremiah's writing. And he says, "...which has set
signs and wonders in the land of Egypt even unto this day,
and in Israel, and among other men, and hast made thee a name
as at this day. And have brought forth your people
Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs and with wonders,
with a strong hand, with a stretched out arm, and with great terror."
What is he talking about? He's talking about God's deliverance,
God's salvation. And you've given this land which
thou didst swear to their fathers to give them, a land flowing
with milk and honey. God redeemed them. What's Jeremiah
doing? He's thinking upon God's redemption.
Now, you know what? We as God's people living on
this side of the cross ought to be more thankful for the redemption
than those that were on the other side of the cross. We see the
fullness of it. And you know what? When we pray,
we ought to be awful thankful for what Jesus Christ has done.
What great redemptive work He has accomplished! In verse 23,
what He does, He acknowledges the sin of Israel. Verse 23,
And they came in and possessed it, but they obeyed not your
voice, neither walked in your law. They have done nothing of
all that thou commandest them to do. Therefore thou hast caused
all this evil to come upon them. He acknowledges the reason the
evils come is because of sin. Is that not true of what's happening
in the United States of America? You know, whether it's Planned
Parenthood, whether it's... Boy, you think of a list of stuff.
You know what? We've got problems because of
sin in the United States of America. But hear what Jeremiah's doing. He's praying. And his prayer
contains as more praises than his focusing upon his problems. Verse 24, Behold the mounts that
are coming to the city to take it. And the city is given into
the hand of the Chaldeans that fight against it, because of
the sword, the famine, and the pestilence. And what thou hast
spoken is come to pass. Behold, thou seest it. Here's a problem. And he's saying, There's famine,
there's pestilence, there's sword, the Chaldeans have got us surrounded. And you said to me, O Lord God,
buy thee the field for money and take witnesses? Doesn't that
sound like an odd request? In the midst of it seems like
your life's about to be killed, you're about to end your life,
you only go buy a piece of property. You know, when life throws you
hard questions, what do you do? Verse 17, Our Lord God, behold,
thou hast created the heaven and the earth by thy great power,
and you've stretched out your arm, and there is nothing too
difficult for you. You know, when you don't understand,
you've got to go to the one who has the understanding. You see,
Jeremiah was simply obedient before he even started asking
questions. He was obedient and he walked by faith. Notice he
goes on to say in verse 26, Then came the word of the Lord unto
Jeremiah, saying, Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for
me? That word hard means marvelous or wonderful. Difficult? Is there anything too awesome for me? It's what God
is saying. Nothing. There is a song, and
I remember they sang it at Ashton Avenue years ago. It was in a
choir. Nothing is too difficult for
thee. Nothing is too difficult for thee. Anybody remember that
song? That's a good little song, stuck in the back of my head
for all these years. Though I can't sing it, it's still stuck in
the back of my head. What do we do? We approach the Lord in
prayer in awe of who He is. When you approach God in prayer,
think upon His attributes, of who He is, and of how He's worked. And you know what's going to
happen when you pray and you think upon the Lord and who He is?
how nothing is too difficult for Him, how He stretched out
the heavens, and how He stretched out the earth, and how His loving
kindness and His covenant has been entered into with us, and
how we have the covenant blessings because of Jesus Christ, and
we have redemption through His blood. And you know what? You
think upon that, and you pray, and you think upon the attributes
of God, what's going to happen is your faith is going to be
strengthened. Your faith is going to be strengthened to trust in
Him more. You know what, as you go through
a trial in your life, the more you focus upon Him, the smaller
that trial really looks, because nothing's too difficult for our
God. May we be people of prayer with
a focus upon the Lord our God. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Our Father in heaven, As you worked in Jeremiah's life
years ago, and how you walked by faith, may we also be a people
of faith, trusting in You. Lord, You have
created all things, and all things were created for Your good pleasure. And Lord, without You there is
nothing that can exist. Therefore, we know nothing is
too difficult for you. Lord, you consistently show mercy
to us each morning. Your lovingkindness has been
displayed in Jesus Christ, who suffered, bled, and died
for our sins, was buried rose again, lives to make intercession
for us, Lord, we want to praise You for
who You are. We want to see Your mighty work
within our midst. Lord, we want to see You raising
people up, speaking Your Word, proclaiming Your truth, emboldened
to witness, not ashamed of the Gospel, calling upon Your name, And Lord, You delivering in a
mighty way as only a mighty God can. We want You exalted in all things. May we see Your glorious majesty
even more clearly as we walk with You, as You guide us by
Your Spirit. Lord, we pray You meet our needs. And we give you thanks for that. For Christ's sake, Amen.
Anticipation in Real Estate
Series Jeremiah
When life throws you hard questions, what do you do? When you don't understand, what do you do?
We can learn a lot about obedience, prayer, and faith from Jeremiah's purchase of a piece of land in Jeremiah 32.
| Sermon ID | 85152213297 |
| Duration | 30:00 |
| Date | |
| Category | Midweek Service |
| Bible Text | Jeremiah 32; Jeremiah 33:4 |
| Language | English |
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