Jeremiah chapter 29. We'll be
looking at verse 11 through verse 14 this evening. Jeremiah chapter 29, verse 11
through verse 14. The title of the message is,
God's Thoughts of Peace. God's Thoughts of Peace. Scripture says, For I know the
thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, faults of peace
and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Then shall you call upon me. You shall go and pray unto me,
and I will hearken unto you." And ye shall seek me and find
me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart, and I
will be found of you, saith the Lord. 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 caused you to be carried away captive." God's thoughts of peace. To the
believer in Jesus Christ, the Lord Himself is the only true
source of our peace. He is the only true source of
any comfort that we experience or we have any part of spiritually
in this life and the next. He is the source of it all. But we know this, we have not
seen Christ with our eyes. We have not seen God who is in
unapproachable light. What then is our refuge? What
is our comfort? What is the source of our comfort
in this life? It is the Word that God has given
us. This is how we may know God,
only by thus saith the Lord. This is the only way you'll ever
know God, is through His Word. This is the only way that even
the believers in Christ find comfort and peace, is in His
Word. In His Word. God's Word to every
man who is tired of sins. Are you tired of sin? Then He is a fountain of refreshment. Where? In His Word. He's left
this fountain. It just keeps flowing. It doesn't
stop. He's a fountain of refreshment
to everyone that hungers and thirsts after righteousness.
He will satisfy them. How? By giving us His righteousness. You see, I hunger and thirst.
I love His righteousness. Someone asked Charles Spurgeon
if he had to be granted one thing of the Lord in this life, what
would it be? And he said to be holy without
even thinking, to be without sin whatsoever. That's our desire. That's our
desire. And all these refreshments, these
sweet and precious promises that are given to us are in His Word. David said, how sweet are thy
words to my taste. Are these words sweet? They should
be. They should be. They should be
sweet to the taste. Now, the words of men are not
sweet. The words of men fail us. Even
the most sincere of God's saints can promise and it could fail. We are limited. We are weak and
we are sinful creatures. And if we rely on someone, even
someone who is faithful, they can fail. But this is not true
of God. God cannot fail. He cannot fail
in any of His promises. Not one. Will God ever fail to
fulfill His promise to us? He said, All flesh is grass,
and the glory of the man is as the flower of the grass. The
grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the Word of the Lord endureth
forever. His Word. His Word. To us who have believed on Christ,
His Word is the sweetest music to our ears. He is the first
love of our hearts and His Word is our wisdom and understanding.
And the desire of our will is to be lost in His. That's my
desire for my will. That's what I want. I want my
will to be lost in His. To where it's one with His. And I know we have this. If we're
believers in Christ, we have this in the inner man. We have
this in the new man. We have this righteousness. We
have this desire. This is where it comes from.
The old man doesn't produce this desire. It is the new man that
produces this that God has made. James says, Wherefore, lay apart
all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with
meekness. What? The engrafted word. The word engrafted means to write
on. To put into. Isn't that what
His promise was? That He would write His law on
our hearts? That was His promise. That's
our covenant. It's the covenant that He made
for us before the world began that He
would write His law on our hearts. He has the implanted Word. How is it that believers in Christ,
even when they're babes in Christ, when they hear something, they
may not necessarily understand why it's wrong, but they know
it's wrong. It's because the Word of God's
engrafted in their hearts. They can perceive that. Now,
they may not be able to explain it. They may not be able to understand
it, but who cares? When God gives them that, then
they'll be able to explain it. Until then, run away. Get away
from it. The red flag goes up. Go on.
Get out. You don't have to stay. Don't
stay. The Word of God is a revelation of His love. I love that Psalm
45. I spent a lot of time preaching
on that Psalm. And it says, my heart is overflowing. This is God speaking. My heart
is overflowing with love. My heart is overflowing. And
my pen, my pen is like a ready writer. He's ready to write. And He has written His Word for
us. Thus saith the Lord. Now at this time, in our text
here, Judah, for the most, for some part, had been taken captive. Yet there were others who remained
stubborn and rebellious against the Word of God that told them
to submit to the king of Babylon. God had told them, He said, if
you don't submit to the king of Babylon, I will come in and
I will destroy you and I will destroy this land. But if you
would submit, then I would let it go. But you won't submit.
You won't submit. And so this word here, God's
word, is first of all a word of warning. A word of warning. Look at verse 17. It says, Thus
saith the Lord of hosts, Behold, I will send upon them the sword
and the famine, the pestilence, and will make them like vile
figs that cannot be eaten. They are so evil. And I will
persecute them with the sword and with famine and with pestilence
and I will deliver them to be removed to all the kingdoms of
the earth to be a curse and an astonishment and a hissing and
a reproach among all nations whether I have driven them."
Why? Because they didn't listen to my word. They didn't listen
to my word. He sent His Word by Jeremiah,
and they did not pay attention. They did not listen to His Word. God's Word is authoritative,
and when God speaks, we should listen. Anything else should be drowned
out compared to His voice, His Word. He said, if you will not submit,
but these that He is writing to in this chapter, If you look
back at verse 1, he says he's writing to the residue of the
elders which were carried away captive. You see, he's writing
to the ones who have submitted themselves. So these thoughts
of peace, these are not for anyone who has not submitted themselves
to the Word of God. These thoughts of peace, these
thoughts of love, these thoughts of joy are only given to us by
the Word of God And only to those who have submitted to the Word
of God. Only those who submit to God's revealed will. And God told him, he said, not
to listen to anyone else. He tells these captives, he says,
when you're carried away captive, don't listen to anyone else but
my Word. Don't heed anyone else's Word
but mine. You know, God's Word is the only
thing that really matters. My opinion really doesn't matter.
And you know what? Your opinion really doesn't matter.
It's thus saith the Lord. Whatever God says, that's important.
Whatever we think is not important. It's just not. And God says that
they were to submit, not even to their own dreams. Look at
this in verse 8. It says in verse 8, it says, Thus saith the Lord
of hosts, the God of Israel, Let not your prophets nor your
diviners that be in the midst of you, deceive you, neither
hearken to your dreams which you cause to be dreams." He said,
don't even trust your feelings about this. It doesn't matter
what we feel about something. A lot of us get passionate about
something, but you can be passionately wrong. Most of the times when
we're passionate about something and not affectionate, there are
two different things between passion and affection. Affection
is enduring. Passion only lasts for a moment.
So usually what we're passionate about is something that we shouldn't
even be messing with anyway. Usually it's affection. Those
things that we are affectionately attached to. Like God's Word. We should be affectionately attached
to God's Word. And listen to what God says rather
than listen to what men are saying. Rebellious men would not submit
to God's Word, to God's sovereign will, which was to deliver them
in captivity. He was to deliver them. He said, I'm going to deliver
you. And these men refused to believe that God would do such
a thing. How dare you, Jeremiah, say something like that, that
God would deliver us into the hand of a heathen? Aren't we
Jews? Aren't we His people? Surely
God would not do such a thing. What did they do? They used their
own reasoning rather than hearing the Word of God. They wouldn't
hear the Word of God. These were false prophets who
claimed to have the Word of God. They talked of peace, but it was not of God. When God speaks to the soul of
man, He doesn't speak first of peace, does He? Oh, no. You see, he convinces men of
sin, righteousness, and judgment. The Holy Spirit comes and he
is made to quake before the living God because he is a sinner. But this world is not like that,
is it? The preaching of today is not like that. What is the
word today? Peace! Peace! Peace! Peace! Everybody just let's get
along. Let's just cast aside every doctrine
and just get along with each other. Let's just cast God's
Word behind our backs and we can just all melt together and
we'll be just fine. In Jeremiah 28, and you can read
it later, there's a man named Hananiah that did that. He said,
hey, Jeremiah, why you got that big yoke on your back? God said,
in two years, he's going to take that yoke off. Jeremiah said,
well, that'd be great. But that's not it. And he said,
oh yeah? And he took that physical yoke,
he put it off, and he tore it up. He beat up that wooden yoke. And God says, you go tell him. He just tore up a physical piece
of wood. But I'm going to put an iron
yoke on them that they won't be able to get out of. He said,
I will make you captive and you will serve the King of Babylon. That was His Word. That was His
Word. It was not popular, I'll tell
you that. God's Word is never popular.
There are very few times when there have been masses of people
at one time serving God. Very few times. Why? This is always the heart of the
natural man to resist and refuse the Word of God. Is that not
what Romans says in Romans 8, 7? Because the carnal mind is
enmity against God. Your mind and my mind naturally
are at war and hatred with God. We're born that way. It's not
some way we become. It's not we're born and then
with a blank slate and then we grow bad as we grow up. No, we're
born evil. We are born kicking and screaming
and lying and hating God. That's how we're brought into
this world. For it is not subject to the
law of God, neither indeed can be. You see that? ability and
willingness. We're not only not willing to
listen to God's Word, we're not able, able to hear God's Word. Why? The Scriptures are very
clear that man is born dead in sins and he cannot save himself. This is God's Word. This is God's
message. This is God's Word to every one
of us. to every false preacher who may
appear religious. But how do you know a false preacher?
Well, you can know him by what he says, and you can know him
by what he does. I tell you, you can go feed the
hungry, but if he's still working for his salvation, get away. Get away, he's a false prophet.
You see, their salvation's never finished. Works religion is never
finished. It's always having to work more
and more. You always got to do more. It's
never enough. It's a perpetual thing. Paul
says in Romans 10, 3, for being ignorant of God's righteousness,
going about to establish their own righteousness, they have
not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God. What is it to submit to the righteousness
of God? For Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. That's God's
Word. If you're going about to establish
your own righteousness, God says, you're not submitting to my righteousness.
You don't have my righteousness. And let this be known that there
is no comfort in the Word of God for anyone who believes in
false freewill works religion. There is no comfort. I've got
nothing but a sad message of destruction for anyone who would
add anything to the work of Christ. Anything. Paul says, if you add
circumcision, Christ will profit you nothing. Nothing. This is God's Word. The prophets of our day refuse
to believe the gospel message that there is no hope for the
natural man. I tell you by the Word of God,
there is no hope for the natural man. There is no hope in yourself
to save you from sin. You cannot save you. I cannot save you. God must save you. If you're going to be saved,
it is only by the free grace of God alone. That's it. I'll tell you what, I don't deserve
to be saved. Do you? And I'll tell you what,
if you deserve to be saved, you're not. You're not. You have no part with me. You
have no part in God's Word. Why? Because this Word here speaks
to captives. That's the first thing I want
you to see this really, really quickly. This Word is to captives. It says in verse 1, to the residue
of elders which are carried away, captives. This is who he's writing
to. It's the prisoners. To someone
without hope. To someone who can't break free.
To someone who is cast down and can't get out. We must submit to this message
that there is none righteous, no not one. There is none that
understandeth. There is none that seeketh after
God. They are altogether become unprofitable. There is none that
doeth good. No, not one. Have you submitted to that? Unless the Son sets you free,
you will die in your sin. without any hope." Has God made it plain how helpless
we are? Is that not clear in His Word?
He said, the only thing that matters is My Word, not what
you feel, not what your false prophets think. My Word. And you are captives. And without Me, you can do nothing. That's what God says. Are you
a prisoner in need of freedom? Are you a sinner in need of grace?
Well, great! Because I've got a message for
captives. I've got a message for people who are sinners. I
don't have a message for righteous folks. You need to go somewhere
else. Because this place is for sinners. If you're a sinner, then you've
got a good place right here. This message, Jesus said, I came
not. to call the righteous, but sinners
to repentance." Isn't that wonderful? It is if you're a sinner. It
is if you're a sinner. If you've got no hope, that's
a wonderful message. Now, second of all, the Word of God has an
appointed time of salvation. Look at this. Look in verse 10.
"...concerning these that are held captive, for thus saith
the Lord..." Here's the Word of God. that after seventy years
be accomplished at Babylon, I will visit you and perform my good
word towards you in causing you to return to this place." Seventy
years are determined. That's it. No more, no less. God has set the date. You know how long they were in
captivity? Take a guess. Go ahead, take a wild guess how
long they were in captivity. Seventy years! And God brought
them out. Exactly. Seventy years. Not two, like that false prophet
said. Seventy. That's a long time. One thing that a hopeless sinner
has to understand is this. God does things in His own time. I was so excited. When I saw J.D. and Cook come
in, weren't you? We were so excited. We were thrilled. Wednesday night, it was dark
outside, and they come in here thinking, oh man, what a displace,
you know? And I was so excited, but I had to really hide that
excitement because I needed to tell them the truth. I needed
to tell them God's Word. And what was my word
to you? Sit down, shut up, and listen."
That was it. You see, the time of their spiritual
birth was not in my hands. But I knew this, the only place
they'd get it is if they sat and heard the Word of God and
waited. What else is a hopeless man going
to do but sit and wait? I'll tell you what, if a man's
shut up to God's Word, he'll do nothing but sit at his feet
and beg for mercy until he gets it. God has an appointed time that
he will release his children. He has an appointed time in which
He will take away their sins. He has an appointed time that
He satisfied His justice. When Jesus Christ came into this
world, He came as a man, lived as a man, was righteous as God
for our sakes. And He died once on the cross
for our sins. That was the appointed time in
which our sins were put away. Put away. I wasn't even born
then. It doesn't matter. My sins were
already gone. My sins were gone. Now, I didn't know that. I didn't
have any clue of that. I didn't have any revelation.
I didn't have any promises of that. Until when? Until the appointed
time that God came to me. Now God came to me at a different
age than He came to J.D. He came to me at a different
time than He came to you. Why? It's God's time. Why do
we try to meddle in the business that only God should be the one
doing? Why do we waste so much time
meddling and just declare His Word and shut up and move on? Listen to this. Listen to the Word of God's purpose. Verse 11, For I know the thoughts
that I think toward you. That word, thoughts. The word, thoughts, here means
Purpose. It means decreed. And it means affection. See,
that's important. The way I came about this text,
very interesting. Audrey had brought me her Scripture
memory verse from her school. And it's in that NIV version. I don't like it. I don't like
it at all, especially after I saw this. It says, in that version,
it says, I know my plans for you. You see what they've done? They all think God's got a plan
for your life if you just don't screw it up. That's what they
think. God's always got this plan. It's
very fragile. You've got to follow it or it'll
mess up somehow. Oh no, that's not what that word
means. That means He decreed it from eternity. He purposed
it from eternity. He purposed my salvation from
eternity. He put me in Christ from eternity. When He was all by Himself alone,
He purposed to save me. That's what it means. He says,
I know my purposes toward you. I know my purposes. I'll tell
you what, sometimes I have difficulty seeing His purpose. Sometimes
I look and I'm so afraid and I'm so fearful. Does that do anything to His
purpose? Did that move Him in any way
from His purpose? No. He had a purpose before I
felt that way. He accomplished my salvation
before I felt that way. He saved me, redeemed me, called
me, keeps me. And friends, there is not one
thing that I'm going to do to fall out of His hands. He will
keep me to the end. Because He says, I know my thoughts. He said, you don't have to know
my thoughts. I know my thoughts towards you. And here they are.
Here's God's thoughts. Thoughts of peace. Thoughts of peace. God thinks
of peace towards you. He's always thought of peace
toward His people. He's thought of us in peace because
He's always thought of us in His Son. God don't think of peace when He thinks about us alone. Only because we are in union
with His Son. Only because He purposed to save
us. And you know what? The Scripture
says that Jesus Christ, when He came into this world, He said,
Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He might save His people. No. He shall save His people
from their sin. God said, My servant, when He
comes, He will not fail nor be discouraged. All the salvation of God rests
on the shoulders of Jesus Christ. Do you realize He is responsible
for every believer? Every elect person of God He
is responsible for? In other words, if one is lost,
then he is dethroned from heaven and he is a failure. If there
is one person in hell for whom Christ died, this night he is
a failure. But that's not my Redeemer. I
don't know who that is. My Redeemer liveth. My Redeemer
is successful. He saved me. He purposed to do
it. And He's always thought of peace
toward me. Why? Because Christ has made
peace by the blood of His cross. It does not say that God has
made peace because Gil Burns is such a nice fellow. Just not that. Our peace comes
by his blood. Our peace comes by his blood. God. says to all you hopeless sinners,
I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. And I will have compassion
on whom I will have compassion. And whom He will, He hardneth. Who do you suppose receives mercy? Only those that need it. If you don't need mercy, then God's not unjust to give
you what you want. Harden your heart. Let you go
on. I'm so glad God was merciful
to me because I needed mercy. He is a God that thinks of peace
toward His people. I know that God is sovereign,
but I also know this, that anyone who seeks mercy at
the feet of Christ, through faith alone in Christ, will find mercy. He has not refused one who has
come seeking absolute free mercy. Not one. Now, if you come with
something, Oh yeah, He's going to reject you. But if you come
with nothing but your sin, He says, come in. Come and buy wine
and milk without money and without price. Come unto Me, you that
labor and are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. Take My yoke
upon you, and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart,
and you shall find rest unto your souls. Mercy. God is a God of peace
and God of mercy. Do you believe on Christ alone?
Then you should rejoice in the Word of God. God only thinks
of peace towards you. And look at this. He says, "...and
not of evil." Do you realize that everything
that happens in this life, in this world, is for my good? And the same is true of every
believer. All things work together for
good. To them that love God, to them
who are called according to his what? Thoughts. According to
his purpose. Now. We are never to judge one
instance or one circumstance and then base God's love and
affection and goodness on what one thing happened to us. Why? All things work together. Not
just the one thing. All things will work together
for your good. This world spins for you. If there were no more of God's
elect in this world, this world would cease and He would come
and He would take us home. The only reason this world goes
around. God's still calling His people. That's so wonderful. That He thinks only of good things.
And lastly, He gives us this. He said, to give you an expected
end. Now, there's nothing I like better
than to know the end of the story before I begin reading it. I don't like surprises. I'd much
rather just know it. It'd be great. Well, God says
there's no surprises here. There's no surprises. I'm going
to give you the ending of this story. I'm going to give you
the ending of all history, of all time. God has chosen a people,
Christ redeemed them, He will call them, and when He comes,
He'll take them home, and they'll be forever with Him in glory,
rejoicing and singing His praises. The end. Well, eternity. I don't know. I don't know what
else to say. Well, that's the end of the existence of time,
but eternity rolls, and we'll rejoice forever with Him. And expect it in. You know this
word means hope. A good hope. Scripture says that God loved
us and has given us an everlasting consolation and a good hope through
grace. Comfort your hearts. Establish you in every good work
and word. I'm so thankful that God thought
of me, who was not worthy of one thought. What is man that thou art mindful
of him, and the son of man that thou
visitest him?" I'm a sinner in nothing at all. But Jesus Christ is my all in
all. Is He yours? Look what God says,
and I'll close with this. Look at verse 12. He says, "...then
shall you call upon Me, and you shall go and pray unto Me, and
I will hearken unto you." Notice the shalls and the wills. Who's
the one that shall do something? We shall do something. What does
He say we'll do? He said, we'll call. Did you
call? I called! I called. Why did I call? Because He told
me to call. He decreed for me to call. And
you know what He said? He said, I'll answer. I'll listen
to you. He said, you shall seek Me and
find Me. Now, is that not great? When you search for Me with all
your heart, and I will be found of you, saith the Lord. Is that
not gracious? God is so gracious. Why would
we doubt for a moment His gracious hand when He's already promised
us in His Word He is going to save us. You call me, I'm here. And yet we doubt. I set you free. And we doubt. Hold fast to God's Word, friends. It's the only faithful and true
thing in this world to hang on to. I pray that God would, by his
grace, bless us with this, that we may hold fast to Christ, trust
his thoughts toward us, not my thoughts. Let's stand and we'll be dismissed
in prayer.