Obedience to God’s directives ensures God-promised hope and future.
As Judah spiraled into sin, popular opinion assumed the fall of Jerusalem impossible. False prophets gave false hope, but God’s true prophet Jeremiah declared, “Those prophets are prophesying lies in my name. I did not send them or appoint them or speak to them. They have been prophesying false visions, idolatries, worthless magic, and their own wishful thinking.” (Jeremiah 14:14 NCV) Jeremiah’s audience ignored his true message.
The Jewish people didn’t think God would judge them, but they were wrong. Near the end of the 7th Century B.C., Nebuchadnezzar and his brutal Babylonian army besieged and destroyed Jerusalem. The army carried away thousands of Judah’s best and brightest as slaves and deported many thousand more into exile in Babylon.
God loved His people too much to allow them to continue in their wicked ways. He loved them too much to abandon them. He loved them so much that He allowed the cruelty of the Babylon to discipline His people. He loved them so much that even at the moment of chastisement He had good plans in mind for His people.
Because of sin, God sent His people into captivity. They were refugees forced to start over from nothing. Removed from their Judean homes, they were banished to Babylon – a different climate, a different language, a different culture. The exiled people must have felt like life would never return to normal. But God wasn’t done with them; He promised a hope and future.
As the exiled Jews struggled to support themselves in strange new surroundings, prophetic lies began to surface. Jeremiah once again proclaimed God’s unadulterated message (chapter 29). The Lord censured the false prophets, “Do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have. They are prophesying lies to you in my name. I have not sent them” (Jeremiah 29:8-9 NIV). Apparently, some were trying to foster resistance and rebellion to the Babylonian regime, but God had other plans for His people. Jeremiah’s letter provided welcome comfort and clear advice for the remnant eking out existence in exile.
This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” (Jeremiah 29:4-7 NIV)
God told them to settle down, build houses, plant gardens, invest their lives, and create a growing presence in their new locale. Gardens provided food and provided a source of income which allowed the exiles to serve others, not just take from others. God wanted His people to marry and have kids, even in the midst of difficult times. “Increase; don’t decrease” was His command. Pray for the city in which God had placed them. Their prosperity was dependent upon the city’s prosperity.
The event also aims for educating public about the issue that is causing the viagra no prescription cheap sexless marriage. A female’s anatomy to sensual zones is different than men. online viagra have a peek at this page The quality of erections is a cheapest viagra Go Here matter of proud in men of all age, especially in young men. What is a Vasectomy? A vasectomy is a procedure that blocks sperm from buy viagra online combining along semen. Jeremiah 29:7 offers four prayer targets (Philip Graham Ryken, Jeremiah and Lamentations: From Sorrow to Hope):
- Pray for the economy of the city.
- Pray for the safety of the city.
- Pray for the politics of the city.
- Pray for the people of the city.
No doubt the Jews in Babylon were surprised to hear Jeremiah echo the vocabulary of Psalm 122. Psalm 122 had been used for hundreds of years to inspire prayer for the prosperity of Jerusalem.
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “May those who love you be secure. May there be peace within your walls and security within your citadels.” For the sake of my family and friends, I will say, “Peace be within you.” For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your prosperity. (Psalm 122:6-9 NIV)
Now, they are commanded to use the same prayer for Babylon.
More revolutionary still was the advice to seek the welfare (s?a?lo?m) of the Babylonian regime, to pray for its welfare and not its downfall. Jeremiah by these words cast the people completely adrift from all those things on which they depended and which they regarded as essential to their own well-being, a nation-state, kingship, an army, national borders, the temple. Without all these Yahweh could give the nation new perspectives and a new understanding of their calling. For the present the action lay in Babylon. Such advice would not have been easy to accept for people who had been carried off from their homeland by those for whom Jeremiah was asking them to pray. (The Book of Jeremiah, 1980, Jeremiah 29:1-32)
“This is what the Lord says: ‘When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. 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 hope and a future.’” (Jeremiah 29: 10-11 NIV)
Could the directives God gave to the exiled Israelis help you to walk into your hope and future?
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