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Text: Jeremiah 29
Jeremiah writes an epistle, a letter, to the Israelite captivity in Babylon explaining how to be fruitful in a strange land. He also warns about false prophets among the people and names them.
Be fruitful in a foreign land (vss 1-7)
- Learn to accept the chastening hand of God. How? By accepting your circumstances.
- You can actually increase and be fruitful if you’ll accept your circumstances.
- If you were an Israelite in Babylon back in that day, and you thought it was God’s will for you to be back in Jerusalem, you’d never build anything, plant anything, or start a family in Babylon because you don’t believe you’re in the right place. You’d waste time trying to get back to Jerusalem, you’d waste time with goals for your life that have no basis in the reality of your situation.
- Jeremiah instructs them to accept what is happening as the work of God and, dare he say, enjoy their own labor in Babylon.
Be not deceived (vss 8-14)
- There will be false prophets who set false hopes in front of you. Don’t listen to them otherwise, you’ll become unfruitful.
- But instructions like “don’t be deceived” or “don’t be scared” have no meaning unless it is explained. It’s like a parent telling their kid not to drop the glass. You’ve watched it happen and maybe done it. Someone is carrying something heavy or fragile, doing their best to not drop it and here comes the useless instruction, “Don’t drop it!” To which I reply, I’m not planning on it.
- Proper expectations
- There is a timeframe the LORD is working with.
- The instruments of regathering
- Call unto me
- Pray unto me
- Seek me
- Search for me with all your heart
- And these would’ve been the things that would’ve prevented judgment in the first place.
God punishes false prophets (vss 15-23)
- God is judging false prophets at home and abroad.
- False prophets are made an example (vss 20-23) – The LORD make the like Zedekiah and like Ahab…
- Jeremiah names names
- Shemiah criticizes Jeremiah from Babylon, calling him mad and encouraging his arrest. He says Jeremiah made himself a prophet which is ridiculous because of what it has cost Jeremiah in his life (vss 24-29). It reminds me of Paul dealing with the Galatians at the end of that letter. He says I’m done talking about this, I bear in my body the marks of Jesus Christ. My Christianity has cost me and I’m done arguing with people whose religion didn’t cost them anything.
- Shemiah will be cut off from his people (vss 30-32)
- Caused the people to trust a lie
- Taught rebellion against the LORD
- 2 Peter 2:1-3, 12-14, 17-19.
