Day Nineteen

Jeremiah 29:10-15

10.) "For thus says the LORD: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you My promise and bring you back to this place.

11.) For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

12.) Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will hear you.

13.) You will seek Me and find Me, when you seek Me with all your heart.

14.) I will be found by you, declares the LORD, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the LORD, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.

15.) "Because you have said, 'The LORD has raised up prophets for us in Babylon,'

         People love to take verse eleven completely out of context and apply it to something in their own lives. The Bible was written to people of old and it also speaks to us today, but verse eleven was written to the Jews in the darkest time of their history. We are not there yet. However, we seem to be heading in that direction. Verse thirteen is more apropos to our current situation.

         This was the time of the Babylonian captivity. The best and the brightest of the Jews had been taken to Babylon and were now, in some capacity or another, working for the Babylonians. Even though some had important jobs, they were still slaves. All that was left behind in Israel were the aged and the infirm and those not mentally sufficient to be of any use to the captures. Jeremiah was one of these, an old man referred to historically as the ‘weeping prophet’ because of the anguish he felt for his people. If they had returned to the Lord rather than going their own sinful ways, they would have been fine. Jeremiah had tried to warn them, but they would not listen. Now, Israel was defenseless against their neighbors and their cities were continually ransacked. The old men were systematically killed, the women were trampled in the dust and any youth were taken away. Before it got too bad, Jeremiah wrote a letter to those taken into Babylonian captivity. This passage is from that letter. It was hand delivered by a courier.

         While those left in Israel slowly died off, those in Babylon died a different death. A Spiritual death. No longer were they allowed to worship their Lord. No longer could they govern their own lives. It was here that Daniel was thrown into the lions’ den for not worshipping the king and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were thrown into the fiery furnace. So long as they were useful, they could live. Otherwise, their deaths tended toward the gruesome.

         The Jews were a beaten people. But the Lord, through Jeremiah’s letter, offers them hope. He sets a time limit on their captivity of seventy years. During that time they were to marry and have children and work hard and prepare for the return to Israel. Although it is not mentioned in the Bible, Jewish history tells that it was here in Babylon that their system of synagogue worship was born. Jews gathering together in secret to worship their Lord. They have held onto the synagogue method of worship ever since, even when the Temple worship was reinstituted. The captivity made them stronger, but the cost was brutal.

         As Christians, we are facing the same thing on a national level and a personal level. Christians make the best citizens, but we are mocked. We have seen the stirrings of violence toward Christians. It is because we have moved away from the Lord. The time is coming when we will suffer greatly.

         And then, these verses will mean even more to us. Jeremiah 29: 11.) For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

12.) Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will hear you.

13.) You will seek Me and find Me, when you seek Me with all your heart.

         Our prayer today is to start seeking Him with all our heart now. Not when disaster starts, but now. Are you willing to do the things you need to do to strengthen your own spirit and your church’s spirit and your country’s spirit? It starts with seeking Him with all your heart.