Jeremiah 29:1-14 (NASB)
1 Now these are the words of the letter which Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the rest of the elders of the exile, the priests, the prophets, and all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. 2 (This was after King Jeconiah and the queen mother, the high officials, the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen, and the metalworkers had departed from Jerusalem.) 3 The letter was sent by the hand of Elasah the son of Shaphan and Gemariah the son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, saying, 4 “This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, says to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 ‘Build houses and live in them; and plant gardens and eat their produce. 6 Take wives and father sons and daughters, and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, so that they may give birth to sons and daughters; and grow in numbers there and do not decrease. 7 Seek the prosperity of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord in its behalf; for in its prosperity will be your prosperity.’ 8 For this is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel says: ‘Do not let your prophets who are in your midst or your diviners deceive you, and do not listen to their interpretations of your dreams which you dream. 9 For they prophesy falsely to you in My name; I have not sent them,’ declares the Lord.
10 For this is what the Lord says: ‘When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place. 11 For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for prosperity and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 13 And you will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. 14 I will let Myself 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 where I sent you into exile.’
Did you know this prophecy, which Jeremiah spoke, has become a source of controversy among Christians? Many articles have been written on this passage with the goal of urging people not to take this prophecy out of context. Now, if you’ve read any of my previous sermons, you know that context is something I care deeply about. Context is key to understanding the Bible. Yet, I disagree with the majority of the articles written about this passage. We will look at what this controversy I’m alluding to is in a moment, but first, let’s look at the context of this prophecy.
I think understanding this prophecy in Jeremiah is crucial if we want to create an accurate Old Testament timeline in our mind. Jeremiah spoke these words to the Jews who had been exiled to Babylon. One person who was part of this group of exiles is someone you are probably familiar with. It was during this 70 year exile that Daniel was in Babylon. Daniel 1:1-2 tells us this: “In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord handed Jehoiakim king of Judah over to him, along with some of the vessels of the house of God; and he brought them to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, and he brought the vessels into the treasury of his god.”
Knowing Daniel's story gives us a better understanding of life in exile for the people of Israel. Daniel 1:6 tells us that, “Now among them from the sons of Judah were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.” Daniel was a youth who was displaced and held in exile in Babylon. I am pointing this out, for knowing that helps us place this prophecy in the correct timeline of the Bible.
When this prophecy was given, the people of Judah had been conquered. They are no longer their own people; they are being forced to live in Babylon. They no longer have their own king, Jehoiakim, but are now under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar. This prophecy is speaking directly to their situation, and Jeremiah is telling them that God is the one who has sent them into exile. He has allowed Nebuchadnezzar to capture them, and this exile is going to last for seventy years.
If you read chapter 28 of Jeremiah, you see another prophet gave a different prophecy. Hananiah told the people that the exile would end after two years. He said, “This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel says: ‘I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon. Within two years I am going to bring back to this place all the vessels of the Lord’s house, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took from this place and brought to Babylon. I am also going to bring back to this place Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and all the exiles of Judah who went to Babylon,’ declares the Lord, ‘for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon.’” (Jeremiah 28:2-4)
After he spoke that “prophecy,” the Lord spoke to Jeremiah and told him what Hananiah said was not true. Jeremiah 28:15-17 says: Then Jeremiah the prophet said to Hananiah the prophet, “Listen now, Hananiah: the Lord has not sent you, and you have made this people trust in a lie. Therefore, this is what the Lord says: ‘Behold, I am going to remove you from the face of the earth. This year you are going to die, because you spoke falsely against the Lord.’” So Hananiah the prophet died in the same year, in the seventh month.
God was not going to rescue them after two years, like Hananiah said. God was the one who had orchestrated their captivity. His plan was for them to be in exile for 70 years. If the people believed in what Hananiah told them, then they would think their stay in Babylon was going to be temporary. God is telling them, through Jeremiah’s accurate prophecy, that their stay, for most of the people, would last their whole lives. Instead of preparing for war and revolting against Babylon, God wants them to settle down, get married and raise a family.
This prophecy of Jeremiah tells them: 5 ‘Build houses and live in them; and plant gardens and eat their produce. 6 Take wives and father sons and daughters, and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, so that they may give birth to sons and daughters; and grow in numbers there and do not decrease.’
They are to go on living. Rather than being in despair and hopelessness, they are to raise families and provide for them. The way it is worded also communicates that they are to do these things independently of the Babylonians. They are to be self-sufficient; building their own homes, planting and eating from their own gardens. But, they are also to: 7 Seek the prosperity of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord in its behalf; for in its prosperity will be your prosperity.’
So, while they are living independently, they are not to be uninvolved in their city. They are to pray for Babylon, and work for its betterment. For if Babylon prospers, all the people within it will prosper. They should work to improve and help it. Yet, at the same time, as verses 8 and 9 warn: ‘Do not let your prophets who are in your midst or your diviners deceive you, and do not listen to their interpretations of your dreams which you dream. For they prophesy falsely to you in My name; I have not sent them,’ declares the Lord.
In other words, don’t let prophets like Hananiah deceive you. I also think this is a warning to not let the diviners or false prophets within their midst deceive them. King Nebuchadnezzar was very interested in the meaning of dreams and prophecies, but the interpreters he was listening to before he started listening to Daniel were not from God. Daniel 2:2 says, “Then the king gave orders to call in the soothsayer priests, the conjurers, the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans, to tell the king his dreams.” Here, in Jeremiah, God is telling His people not to listen to all those people, but to only listen to those who are sent by God.
Knowing that Daniel is one of the people who is in exile in Babylon, we see that he is the perfect example of how they were meant to behave there. We might read through this prophecy in Jeremiah and interpret it to mean that since they were instructed to build houses, plant gardens, get married and raise families while in exile, that this meant they were to fully assimilate into Babylonian culture. If you study Daniel’s life story, you will see that is not the case. While they are being urged to settle into the country for the long haul, they are not being told to become Babylonians.
According to Biblearchaeology.com, at the time Daniel lived in Babylon, it was the largest city in the world. It was not a Jewish nation. It was a pagan nation. In Daniel chapter 3, we learn that Nebuchadnezzar built a giant statue of gold and commanded everyone to bow down and worship it. Those who wouldn’t worship it would be thrown into a fiery furnace, which, of course, is what happened to Daniel’s three friends. Then, years later, after King Darius comes to power, Daniel breaks the new king’s law that decrees that people are only allowed to pray to the king. Daniel prays to God and is thrown into a lion’s den. You can read that incredible story in Daniel chapter 6. In both instances, God comes to their rescue in a miraculous show of power.
I can’t help but see a parallel between Babylon and all nations on this earth. We Christians could say that we are living in exile, for our true home is with God in eternity. As Hebrews 13:14 says, “For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come.” And in this exile, we find that our world, like Babylon, is hostile to Christianity. I live in America, and it is a nation that is not following God. Increasingly, it is looking more and more like Babylon. Some Christians might look around at society and find it is dark and hopeless. Feeling disillusioned, it might seem more prudent to opt out of society and resist marriage; for bringing children into this world seems too depressing. This is an understandable sentiment. Other Christians seem to have decided to simply assimilate into this culture. They’ve not only settled in, but they’ve absorbed and adopted the habits and worldview of secular American life. When we look to scripture for guidance on how we are to live in our anti-biblical society, I don’t think either of those two extremes is our answer. Instead, we should live life to our fullest. We should seek to marry a fellow Christian and raise a family. We should engage with our city, seeking its prosperity, but cautiously and with wisdom, not bowing down to the false idols and sinful practices of our culture. We should live our lives in accordance with God's commandments.
In Jeremiah, the people are being told to do this, knowing that once the exile is over, God will rescue their decedents and bring them back. Beginning in verse 10, it says: “For this is what the Lord says: ‘When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place.
Now this is where the controversy begins. Verse 11 is a popular verse for a lot of Christians. You might have this verse on your wall or a coffee mug. It’s commonly found on Christian graduation cards. It says, “‘For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for prosperity and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.’” What could possibly be controversial about that verse?
A pastor at a church my family and I attended preached a sermon where he said this verse was not a promise for us today. He said we should not apply this verse to our lives because it was not written to us. Was he, and the many other people who write article after article urging people to not take this verse out of context, correct? Was this verse “not written for us”? These people say, because it is not written to us, we should not misapply it to us. One article on the internet said that we shouldn’t apply it to our lives because the exiles in Babylon were slaves, and so we cannot take this to mean God will prosper us individually. Another person said we are wrong if we take this passage to mean that people will individually prosper, for this is only a promise to those specific Jews in exile, as a group, not individually, and therefore, it is not written to us today. Well, by that logic, we should not apply any verse to our lives then; for nothing in the Bible was written to us. If we take that view, how could anything in the Bible be applied to anyone other than the specific people it was written to? Are we to only view the Bible through that lens? Maybe that is what has happened to our society? Maybe that right there is why people feel they can ignore the instructions in God’s word: for if Jeremiah 29:11 doesn’t apply, then certainly all these other far more demanding or scary sounding verses don’t apply either.
I am all for looking at every verse in context. In fact, that’s one of my favorite things to do. Looking at it in context, as we have been doing in this sermon, I find even more reason to apply it to our lives today. Rather than concluding that because the Jews were in exile means God’s idea of prosperity does not mean material possessions or wealth, shouldn’t we conclude that even in the midst of exile, God was still working on His people’s behalf, orchestrating plans to prosper them and fill them with hope? Knowing the people were stuck in Babylon, yet God still had a plan for them, isn’t that even more hopeful to us then? Looking at Daniel’s life, while he suffered for obeying God, ultimately he prospered. Should we not conclude that no matter how dire our present situation, like Daniel and the exiles, we too, may rest in the peace of knowing God is for His people, working to give us a future and hope?
Does God not have a plan for us? Are His plans only for nations and groups, and not for individuals? Of course not! We have this promise from God: He has plans for us. He wants prosperity and not disaster. Why would we ever think that God doesn’t want us to be hopeful for the future? Why do I believe this? Because not only does Jeremiah tell us this, but so does the whole rest of scripture. God promises us a hopeful future, but on one condition, and we see that condition spelled out clearly in the next verses. The prophecy continues: “12 Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 13 And you will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. 14 I will let Myself 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 where I sent you into exile.’”
The condition is this: we can view the future with hope if we seek God out, calling upon Him, and pray to Him, for He will listen to us. But we must go to Him. We must have a relationship with Him. I am afraid there are people who will suddenly pray to God when they are facing trouble, but they do not have a relationship with Him. Like I described in last week’s sermon: they want God to help them when they have problems, but otherwise, they ignore Him. This prophecy is saying, if people will call upon God and stay in relationship with Him, then He will answer them. Then He will help them.
Jesus says, as recorded in Matthew 7:8, “For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” He will let Himself be found by us. Then we find that His plan for us is the best for us. As Jesus also said in Matthew 7:9-11, “Or what person is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf of bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? 11 So if you, despite being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!”
God’s plans for us are not plans of disaster and ruin. His plans are blessings to us. In the Greek, this word for plans is machashebeth, and it means, “thought, device.” God’s thoughts toward us are good. He’s not plotting evil schemes that will ruin us. He’s planning for our best future, which is a future with Him. I think His plans can be boiled down to one goal: keeping us on the path of eternal life.
If we know this about Him, why would we ever not follow His plan? I think it’s because often what God sees as best for us is not what we want. I am sure the Jews did not want to be exiled to Babylon. Yet, from God’s vantage point, given their disobedient history with Him, that was the path He was going to use in order to bring them, as a group, back to Him in 70 years. In our lives today, we might not always love the way God works in our lives to help keep us on the path of following Him. We might find ourselves in difficult situations, even full of suffering, but if we stay close to Jesus, we will find those situations can draw us even closer to God, and in the end, turn out to be blessings. Jeremiah is telling the people: God doesn’t want you to end up in disaster and ruin, His thoughts toward you are for your good, so stay close to Him and call on Him for help.
Last week, I quoted Jesus saying this very thing. In John 10:10, Jesus said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came so that they would have life, and have it abundantly.” That means that Jesus is not like the devil. He does not want to lead us into disaster and ruin. His desire for us is an abundant future. He will not trick us and give us a rock and a snake. He wants to lead us to abundant life. If we follow Him, we can trust Him to lead us into that future. For no matter what we experience in this exile here on earth, for the believer in Jesus, our future is glorious. We can look with hope to an endless future in eternity with Him that is beyond our imaginations.
That is why we can proudly write these words of prophecy on our walls or on our coffee cups, for they are a promise that is still given to God’s people today. Because God is good, we can hold to this promise that God says to each of us who follow Him: ‘I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for prosperity and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.’
Pray: Heavenly Father, we thank You for being a Good Father, who thinks good thoughts toward us. Thank You for always working on our behalf. Thank You for giving us Jesus who made it possible for us to be saved so we can come to You. Thank You for giving us the Holy Spirit who helps keep us on this path toward our eternity with You. We rejoice, in hope and thanksgiving, that You know the plans You have for us and they are plans for prosperity and not for disaster, they are plans for a future with You, and that is our hope. We love You and praise Your name, now and forever, amen.
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