-Transcript-
00:27 `Amen. Glory to God. Welcome to the program.
00:31 Welcome to the cafe. Thank you for joining me. Welcome to the cafe.
00:36 Welcome to the cafe. Hope you’re doing good. Hopefully you’re having a wonderful day.
00:44 We’re going to jump right in here to the second part, a two-part series on the context of Jeremiah 29:11. Very familiar verse. And here I’m preaching about, as we jump in, about God drawing the Israelites, his chosen people to jealousy by blinding them for a season and allowing Gentiles, us, to be grafted in or to be saved, to help draw them back to him.
01:03 And so that’s what I’m getting at here. And so what we’ll do is we’ll just pick it up at this message right now. So again, thank you for listening and we’ll jump right in.
01:10 And I gave the example to our congregation on Sunday morning, the idea of like Christmas and the Jewish individual can’t celebrate a risen Savior, can’t celebrate eternity with the Lord in heaven and all these things by being saved.
01:22 And so, you know, their Christmas is kind of somber, right? Because they’re thinking that they don’t, their Messiah hasn’t come yet and all these other things and they’re waiting for the Messiah and they’re waiting for the temple to be restored.
01:34 They’re waiting for all of these things to happen and we don’t have to wait.
01:36 We have our Savior. We have our salvation. We have the book, amen.
01:39 And so we see here that that is supposed to draw them to jealousy. And you could see again in that instance of why it could draw them to jealousy. Verse 12, now if the fall of them be the riches of the world and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fullness.
For I speak to you Gentiles in as much as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office. If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which aren’t my flesh and might save some of them. So Paul is saying maybe some Israelites will be saved because of what he’s doing.
02:13 For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be but life from the dead? For if the first fruit be holy, the lump is also holy.
02:26 And if the root be holy, so are the branches. And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou being a wild olive tree, that’s the Gentile, were grafted in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree, boast not against the branches.
02:39 But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. Thou wilt say then, sorry, the branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in. Well, because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith.
02:55 Be not high-minded, but fear. For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed, lest he also spare not thee. So there’s so much here in the scripture, but for time’s sake, and just to be brief, we see that we’re God’s people, the Gentiles, that we’re grafted in, and I’m not someone that’s good in the garden, but you can graft in a branch and a plant and all these things.
03:19 So we are grafted in by grace through faith. It’s the gift of God to those that will believe, amen. Israel was blinded by God because of their unbelief, though God’s not done with them. He’ll go back to dealing with them during the tribulation period.
03:29 But we must be humble and fear God, as we are very fortunate for his allowing us to be saved. That is essentially what Romans 11:1-21 is telling us in a very broad sense, that we are God’s people, and that we’re God’s people, number one, to provoke the Israelites to jealousy. Number two, it’s by his grace.
03:49 And number three, we shouldn’t be high-minded and puffed up, saying we’re so great. We’re lucky to be grafted in, because if God did that to the natural branches, if he blinded his own people, why wouldn’t he blind us?
04:00 He certainly could, and he does, amen. Those that reject his free gift of salvation, they’re given over to a reprobate mind.
04:16 As I understand it, in the tribulation period, it’ll be impossible for those Gentiles to be saved because they won’t understand it, amen. They’ll be given over to that reprobate mind.
04:16 They’ll believe a lie, as the Bible says. So we see God is sovereign, even when bad things happen. And yet we know that we can take God’s word to heart, because we are his people.
04:25 Those that have accepted Christ as their savior are God’s people. We are part of God’s chosen people, being grafted in by what Christ did on the cross. It’s God’s grace, amen. Christ shed his blood at Calvary so that we could be saved.
04:39 And when we believe on Jesus Christ and his death, burial, and resurrection, and the Bible tells us that God resurrecting Jesus from the grave is proof that he is the Messiah, when we believe on Christ and what he did for us on Calvary, because we had a sin debt we couldn’t repay, then we’re saved. It’s as simple as that. We don’t need to be a church member.
04:58 We don’t need to have money or connections or status. We don’t need some kind of high-minded theological degree. We don’t need anything other than belief.
05:06 You know, we are justified by faith, amen? And that’s another theme throughout the whole Bible. And so we see here that we are God’s, and that the promise that God gave through Jeremiah the prophet to his own people, the Israelites who are in captivity, we can take that same promise to heart. We can take that.
05:26 We can say, yes, that’s for us, amen? And so we should fear God and obey him because he has a good plan for us in the long term. He has a good plan for us. Now, if we go into Jeremiah 29, we’re gonna go down to verse four here.
05:38 We’re gonna see what it says. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, unto all that are carried away captives, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem unto Babylon, build ye houses and dwell in them, plant gardens and eat the fruit of them.
05:56 Take ye wives and beget sons and daughters, and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters, that ye may be increased there, not diminished.
06:03 And seek the peace of the city, whether I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the Lord for it, for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.
06:13 Verse eight, for thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, let not your prophets and your diviners that be in the midst of you deceive you, neither hearken to your dreams which ye cause to be dreamed, for they prophesy falsely unto you in my name. I have not sent them, saith the Lord.
06:28 And then here in verse 10, for thus saith the Lord, that after 70 years be accomplished at Babylon, I will visit you and perform my good word toward you in causing you to return to this place.
06:39 And then we have our text verse. For I know the thoughts I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you an expected end.
06:47 And so here in Jeremiah 29:4-11, we get kind of the explanation for what God is up to. And we also get instructions by God for what to do in captivity. And so we see here, first off, to take the latter part, that God’s saying, don’t be tricked.
07:04 Some people are gonna tell you everything’s okay. You’re not gonna be in captivity. You’re gonna return to your promised land.
07:08 Everything is okay. And then you go through the book of Jeremiah. There’s a lot of false prophets.
07:15 And Jeremiah condemns these false prophets, sometimes to their face, amen, because they’re teaching God’s people and certainly leadership, hey, this is what’s gonna happen. It’s gonna be okay. You don’t have to do anything.
07:29 You’re not really being judged. You’re gonna go back to the promised land. And what God is saying is, no, number one, you are being judged.
07:35 Number two, you’re gonna be there 70 years. That was a long time then. It’s a long time now, right? That’s a lifetime, right? You’re gonna be there a lifetime.
07:40 And by the way, I’ll return you after that time. But in the meantime, I’ve got some things I want you to do. I’ve got some things I want you to do.
07:46 And so we see here a very interesting principle that it’s really surprising, right? God is telling us, you know what? I have some things I want you to do while you’re in captivity.
07:59 So we have sin and unbelief and judgment leading to this captivity. We have arrogance and pride, I’m sure was there, but God judged them and allowed them to be held captive.
08:09 And we can see often in our society today, a very similar parallel, especially again, when you look at COVID and a lot of things that have happened over the years in our country, here in America, you can see a lot of judgment coming our way, amen.
08:25 I believe even if you have a wicked leader you don’t like, well, guess what? I mean, God allowed that person to come to power as a form of his judgment. He says, oh, you want this wicked leader? Here you go. Now see what happens.
08:30 And you have all these bad things happen. And so God in the midst of all this surprisingly says, you know what?
08:39 Build, go ahead and build. You know, that’d be the last thing I would do if I was in captivity, I wouldn’t be thinking about, now let me see, let me build a house, you know? What do people say here? Oh, I want my forever home.
08:46 Well, you want your forever home in your own town and God’s saying build there, you know, build up and work, you know, work hard and marry and multiply. You know, be fruitful.
08:58 Again, another thing, you know, people today say, do I really want a child to enter into this society, into this wicked world? Does God want me to? You know, I think this is a great indication of what God would have us to do in these last days.
09:18 Absolutely, I believe that he wants us to work and that he wants us to build, amen? And think of this, you know, in a lot of different levels. He wants us to work, literally go to work. Don’t be lazy, okay? Do something for God.
09:32 The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few, right? Get out there and work and at the same time, don’t just work to provide for your family, though that is good, but work in the ministry.
09:43 Don’t just build a house to live in, but build in the ministry, right? Be workers, be builders, get married, amen. Have a family, but don’t just have a family like, okay, you have a physical family, right?
09:57 And you’re being fruitful, which is great, amen? We’ve got three kids, amen, and I would love more, to be honest with you, but three has kept us pretty busy. But not just physical, like having kids, but spiritually, being fruitful, working in the ministry to win souls to him, right?
10:15 To multiply, we are to be fruitful so that when we’re brought before God in the day of judgment, we feared him and we reverenced him enough to go out there and serve him and believe him.
10:25 We had faith that he was who he says he was. He’s a rewarder of them that diligently seek him to paraphrase Hebrews 11:6. And we brought souls to him, amen. Now he does the saving, but he looks at us to plant the seeds.
10:39 And so we’re the one that are planting the seeds that are living our faith out day by day, that are witnessing to others, that are abstaining from the sinful things, that we’re not getting caught in the trap by the author of confusion to do things that will throw people off or get them on a bad track, amen.
10:53 People are looking, they’re looking for a peace that only God can provide. And are we showing them that? And when we do, and the Lord wins them as we plant those seeds and we give them a gospel track and we give a testimony, we might share it on social media. We may talk to someone in person.
11:13 We tell people what God has done for us, that God saves them in these last days, amen. Miraculously saves them. And that’s being fruitful for God. And that’s surprising that he wants us to build and to work and to marry and to multiply.
11:26 And then he says, seek the peace, seek the peace. You know, a lot of clergy out here looks like they’re ready to go protest something. But here in Jeremiah 29:11, he tells us to seek the peace.
11:40 So what does this all say about our text verse and about God? God has thoughts to give us peace despite our living in a place of captivity. And I’ll also say calamity, right?
11:50 And this is brought on by our sin, our sin. I asked my congregation on Sunday morning, what did the Garden of Eden look like? It was perfect.
11:56 When did it get compromised? When sin entered the picture. What happened? Death entered the picture. Things got very difficult for man and woman once sin entered the picture.
12:04 And so we are in captivity because of sin. But God has plans for us while we’re held captive. We’re not to be idle.
12:14 And you know what? We’re not to have an attitude of giving up. I believe there’s some Christians that have just done with the world. They’ve read enough Bible to understand how wicked the world is.
12:23 And they have checked out and said, I’m done. Well, God’s saying, check back in, get to work, be fruitful, do what I’ve called you to do. And in due time, since I’m sovereign and I have full control as your God, I will bring you home when I see fit.
12:36 We need to trust God and we need to be fruitful and working for him. We need to think about the scripture and realize that God knows the future and the future is bright for the believer. Friend, the future is bright for the believer.
12:52 Don’t let anyone deceive you. All we must do is seek him today with all our heart and he promises to hear us. You know, there’s no longer an excuse for grumbling and mumbling.
13:01 There’s no longer an excuse for, oh, why God? And oh, this won’t, you know, I can never get over this. You know, God is good and his plan is perfect. And in the end, all wrongs will be made right by a sovereign God.
13:16 And so if we know the end, and let’s say we’re here in the middle to the end of the story, I believe we’re at the latter part of the last days. And so we’re here at the end of the story and we know the very end, well, we should be jumping for joy. We should be rejoicing that God has told us even through Jeremiah 29 and through Romans 11, Romans 11, that we’re part of his people.
13:46 And then Jeremiah 29, that he has a plan for us as we deal with captivity. God didn’t say, look, I’m gonna leave you in captivity and I’ll be nowhere to be found. God says, seek me and you’ll find me, you know, knock and it’ll be given to you, right? Open the door.
13:54 God is more than willing to provide us with discernment, to give us understanding over these days and times if we’re willing to seek him. But are you willing to seek him today?
14:05 I hope and pray that you are for your sake so that you can have this peace and so you can have this direction, amen. So you can know what to do for God in these last days because God put it in his book. We are out of time today.
14:27 Thank you for listening. If you wanna hear more of our program, check out kjvcafe.com. Tune in next time. Take care, God bless and amen.