May we please Almighty God to
bless us together this evening as we meditate in His Word. Let
us turn to the prophecy of Jeremiah in chapter 29 and we'll read
verse 11. Chapter 29 in the prophecy of
Jeremiah and verse 11. For I know the thoughts that
I think toward you, saith the Lord. thoughts of peace and not
of evil, to give you an expected end. It's worthwhile just pondering
such a wonderful statement as this, and indeed the verses which
surround this verse. because it shows the wonderful
love and mercy and grace of Almighty God. And although it was written
many years ago to the captives in Babylon, of course it has
application to the Church of God down through the ages and
it has really a relevance to each of us today. And as we think
of the scene here, we perhaps know, or if we don't know, Jeremiah
was a wonderful prophet of the Lord, raised up to speak against
Judah in Jerusalem, against the ways that they were acting, the
things they were doing, the disobedience toward Almighty God, and the
warnings that he gave them. And the difficulties that he
faced, because he was faithful in the warnings that God had
directed him to give. And so he didn't have an easy
path at all. Jeremiah had a greatly difficult
path, really, but he continued to be faithful. He didn't say,
well, I've had enough of this. I'm giving up and I'm going somewhere
else. No, he was faithful and he continued to prophesy that
which God had given him to say. And now, what had occurred was
that Nebuchadnezzar had come and had fought with Judah, the
Israelites in Judah, and he'd been around Jerusalem for some
time, and then he finally attacked them, and there was a great defeat,
and they were taken captive. And many of them were killed,
and they were taken on a long journey from Jerusalem to Babylon
right across desert, very inhospitable land. And there they were found
in Babylon, many, many miles away from their home. And you may say, well, of course,
surely God would say, well, I told you so. And this is your place
and you're going to suffer now for 70 years, as I've prophesied,
as I've told you. But in fact, we find how merciful
God was, how compassionate God was, how kind He was. And instead of telling Jeremiah
to write harsh things to these people, He directs him to write
wonderful words of encouragement. And He directs them how they
are to live their lives. He doesn't say, well, I've told
you you'll be there for 70 years and I've rethought it and now
perhaps just a year or so. No, God, He doesn't relent. My friends, we should recognize
that what God says comes to pass. But the Lord hadn't said that
He would forsake them. He hadn't said that He would
leave them alone. And therefore we have these words
before us that we read together in this letter that Jeremiah
was commanded to write to these people who had been taken captive
to Babylon. And as we read, we read the instructions,
they were to build houses, they were to marry, etc. And he says, 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 he caused to be dreamed, for they prophesied
falsely unto you in my name. I have not sent them, saith the
Lord. For thus saith the Lord, that
after seventy years be accomplished of Babylon, I will visit you
and perform my good word toward you in causing you to return
to this place. Well, that was an amazing and
a wonderful promise to them, wasn't it? But it didn't stop
there. Because the letter goes on in
very encouraging words. For I know the thoughts that
I think toward you. No one else knew them. Only God. For I know the thoughts
that I think toward you. And that's so today, isn't it?
We're all here tonight or listening to us. None of us know the thoughts
of God towards each other. But my friend, God knows. And
it'll be a wonderful blessing for us tonight if the thoughts
that God has toward us is indeed along the same lines that Jeremiah
was commanded to write to these people in Babylon. For I know
the thoughts that I think towards you, saith the Lord. Thoughts
of peace. Really? Yes. Thoughts of peace. Do they deserve peace? Of course
not. But God, in his wonderful mercy,
says to them, these great and glorious words, Thoughts of peace. The thoughts of God. Peaceable
thoughts. Isn't it wonderful? We'll just
pass on for the moment. And not of evil. They should
have had evil, naturally. The Lord says, not of evil. Isn't that so wonderfully gracious? You see, God is not vindictive. Sometimes we tend to be vindictive,
don't we? We think, oh, but I'll say that
and I'll do that. That'll teach them God wasn't
like that. No, what a mercy it is. We have
therefore such a gracious God and not of evil to give you an
expected end. That means they can look forward
to a time of spiritual and to a large extent natural prosperity. And they could humbly expect
it because God had spoken it. And how true that is for all
of us today. We have God's word, which tells
us glorious and wonderful promises. And we can we can humbly expect
those promises to be fulfilled. By faith, we can lay hold of
them. What a blessing. And let's move
on. Then shall you call upon me and
you shall go and pray unto me. So this is the reaction of the
wonderful and blessed work of God in the souls of his people. There's not a void, there's not
an emptiness, there's something that needs to be done. And so
he tells us, and ye shall seek me. What a blessing it is then
if you and I today, we find in our hearts a desire to seek the
Lord Many things naturally we seek after. But the greatest
blessing is to be found seeking the Lord. Seeking that He will
look upon us. Seeking that He will bless us.
Seeking that He will do us good. And you see, it doesn't just
stop there. It doesn't say, and you shall
seek me. There's a glorious promise. And
find me. Well we read, don't we, in the
New Testament, seek and ye shall find. That must be an encouragement,
an encouragement to us all, to be found seeking unto our God
and believing that we will find. The seeking will not be in vain. If we seek in faith, we are blessed
by that humble and blessed grace of God, to earnestly seek, we
shall find. That must be an encouragement,
surely. When we look at ourselves and
realise, well, we don't even deserve to be able to seek. We
don't even deserve to find. And here is the gracious promise
given to these Israelites who were in this situation where
they'd wandered far from God. They disobeyed God to such an
extent that he brought the judgment to pass upon them. So they were
taken captive and now they were in Babylon. But the Lord hadn't
forgotten them. He hadn't cast them off. And so he comes and says, And
ye shall seek me and find me. You know, and then there's one
further qualification. When you shall search for me
with all your heart. Surely the inference in here
is that it may not be an easy occupation. we may not receive
the blessing as quickly as we think we should. But yet, if
the Lord enables us to earnestly seek, to prayerfully seek, that
he would indeed be gracious to us, that he would indeed remember
us with a favour he bears unto his people. We have examples in the Word
of God. We had that woman who lost that
very precious item and she swept the whole house to find it. She didn't just sweep one corner.
She didn't just sweep perhaps one room. She swept everywhere. And so when we're seeking, indeed
when we're searching, As it were, we seek everywhere
that God will be gracious to us and that God will bless us. And we don't know in which way
God will bless us. And we don't know how God will
bless us. What we know is we need to be
blessed. And so what a mercy this is when
we search for him with all our heart. Now again this you know
is God's gift toward us because naturally our hearts are alienated
with God that means our hearts are at enmity we're an enemy
of God there's no natural desire to
search after God and so what a favour if God comes
and puts into our heart this desire to search for Him, the
Lord Jesus Christ. And ye shall seek me and find
me. See, those who are walking this
way, they will seek. It's an evidence of the life
of God in our soul. If you're not seeking, there's
no evidence, is there, of any life. But if you are seeking,
and if God's given you grace to seek, that means to earnestly
pray for Him, to bless you, to encourage you, to help you, to
show that you are one of His children. This will be really
from your heart, won't it? It won't be just a vain thought
in your mind, which fleets in or fleets out. It'll be with
you. It'll be with you. during the
day, during the night. And He shall seek me and find
me when He shall search for me with all your heart. And then
He says, promise, you see, God's promises. Very blessed, aren't
they? Very humbling, aren't they? And
I will be found of you. We're a true seeker. We're earnestly
seeking. By the grace of God, the result
is we shall find. What does that mean? It means
this. Seek on. Search on. Don't give up. Press on. It may not be easy. Probably won't be easy. You may
say, well, why won't it be easy? Well, it's easy to find out why
it won't be easy. It's because the devil doesn't
want you to. And therefore he'll produce all
manner of reasons and all manner of distractions to turn you away
from this blessed occupation of seeking unto the Lord. And I will be found of you. Who's speaking? The Lord. And
I will be found of you, saith the Lord. That's a promise, isn't
it? You see, these promises are in
the word of God for us today. They were all those years ago. They have been down through the
history of time. That's still true today. What
a wonderful favour that is for us in our lowest state to come
and to plead with our God. Such a promise. We can tell the
Lord, Lord, thou hast said you will be found of me. And that's
why I'm praying, I'm seeking earnestly that I might indeed
find thee the great and the glorious God. And then, and I will turn
away your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations
and from all the places. Whither I have driven you, saith
the Lord, and I will bring you again into the place whence I
cause you to be carried away captive. What a promise that
was. to the captives. We may not be
carried away in a physical way, but the devil may have carried
us away captive. Captive in our minds, captive
in the things that we've said, the things that we do. What a blessing it is then to
realise we have this gracious, kind and merciful God to bring
us back. to deal very, very graciously
with us. Having gone through those few
verses, which were really a very wonderful encouragement, I believe,
we come back to this 11th verse where the Lord says, The thoughts, and I think toward
you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace. Thoughts of peace and
not of evil. The Lord Jesus himself, when
he was on the earth, spoke these very wonderful words about peace. And it is wonderful to be able
to read words of peace. And in the 14th chapter of John,
We read on 27th verse, peace I leave with you, my peace I
give unto you, not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let
not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Surely these words are to encourage
seekers, may be written to encourage the disciples. these words were
spoken to the 11 disciples in the upper room after the Lord
had instituted the Lord's Supper on that Passover night, the time
before he was to be betrayed. And therefore he gives these
wonderful encouraging words, as you can read in the 13th 14th
15th and 16th of John glorious words of the Savior to his disciples
to those disciples then and to all his people to be encouraged
by it and he says previously verse 26 but the comforter which
is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my name He shall
teach you all things and there's no greater teacher than the Holy
Ghost. When the Holy Ghost speaks to our soul, to our heart, what
wonderful instruction it is. No one teaches like Him. But
the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send
in my name, he shall teach you all things and bring all things
to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you. Sometimes we journey on, sometimes
we think, well, What has God said to me? How have I been corrected? How have I been instructed? What
direction have I had? And sometimes it may seem just
like this, all our evidences appear to be dark. can't seem
to find them can't seem to recognize them well we are to seek again
the Lord will come and touch our hearts and bless us and then
to realize the Holy Spirit who is the comforter he sent to comfort
us as we journey on through life and what a glorious comforter
he is There's no one like the Holy Spirit, my friends. No one
else knows what comfort we need. No one knows how to apply comfort
to our hearts, but the Holy Spirit. And I'm sure the greatest comfort
is granted to us when the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, is revealed
to us as a wonderful Saviour, a wonderful Redeemer, that One
who is our amazing substitute. Yes, how great is our God. And so then, he says, peace,
And there is peace when the Lord comes to us, wherever it may
be. God doesn't have any rules. God
comes to his people when he see fit in whatever place. Yes, there's
no limits to God's mercy. There's no limits to God's goodness. There's no limits to the favor
of almighty God. And so here we have this wonderful
statement, peace I leave with you. There it is. It doesn't
just flash it past us. It leaves it with us. And it
is, I believe, like this. There's a wonderful peace in
believing. When God gives us grace to believe
the great truths of the gospel, And it enters into our heart.
There is peace. Peace indeed, because we realize
God Himself has revealed this to me. God Himself. And I know it was by Spirit. It was what I needed. It's what
I prayed for. It's what I sought for. Now the Lord has come. Peace
I leave with you. My peace I give unto you. Not
as the world giveth, give I unto you. The world gives things and
sometimes we lose them. Sometimes they're taken away.
But you see, what God gives, it's forever. He doesn't tantalize us. It gives. My friends, it remains. So we
have such a great and wonderful statement. Peace I leave unto
you, my peace I give unto you. Not as the world giveth, give
I unto you. Then he says, let not your heart
be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Sometimes our hearts
are troubled, especially when we look at ourselves and we see
so much evil and so many wrong things. We perhaps think, can
ever God dwell here? Yes, he can. It's not because
of our goodness. It's because of his mercy. It's
because of his love. It's because of his grace. That's
why he dwells within us. How humbling. And what a blessed
privilege it is to be a partaker of this wonderful blessing, of
this wonderful favour. And so he says, the thoughts
of peace and not of evil. We thought perhaps the Lord would
deal with us as our sins deserved. We thought perhaps he would never
hear our prayers. He would never hear our cry.
You turn us away. You tell us there's no hope for you.
My friends, the Lord never says that. The devil does. Don't believe him. You can always
point the devil to the word of God, the truth of God. You see,
he won't be able to answer. because he knows it is the very
truth of the word of God. And so to think of this, not
of evil, to give you an expected end. Well, if you and I are traveling
along through this earth and if you and I are seeking for
the blessing of God, we are seeking really for the evidence from
God to speak to our hearts, to show to us that we are on this
journey which ends in glory. That's the end. The Lord's work
in the soul brings us home to glory. What a wonderful blessing. What a wonderful favour to think
of that. So utterly unworthy and especially
when we come to consider what had to be done in order to bless
us with this glorious prospect. It means that all our sins have
to be forever washed away, ever taken away. And we can't do that.
But there is one who can and there is one who does and there
is one who has. And that is the glorious Saviour,
the Lord Jesus Christ. And just think of this. He loved
us so much, so much, that he was willing to endure so much
hardship. And he was willing to be crucified
upon that cross at Calvary. He was willing to endure the
hidings of his father's face, all so that he could pay the
price for our redemption. And that price was his death,
set forth in the shedding of his most precious blood. How valuable, therefore, was the life and the death of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Because without it, there'd be
no peace, there'd be no joy, there'd be no happiness, there'd
be no prospect of glory at last. But because of what the Saviour's
done, we do have that good hope through grace that it is well
with our soul. How important that is. Is it
well with our soul? Well, if we have the evidence
of God's work toward us, the evidence of his peace, we can
with assurance know that it is well with our soul eternally. Amen.