Power to Accomplish What God Desires: Where Does It Come From?—Part III

Imagine being ripped out of your home and bound with chains, cast into a line of slaves and marched hundreds of miles to live in squalor in a land that is not your own! You saw your property destroyed and neighbors killed as they stood in resistance! Some of your family was taken from you! You are not sure where they are, or if they are even alive! All you can think about is, “WHY? Why is all this happening?”

Jeremiah is writing to such an audience as this in Jeremiah 29 in an effort to provide them some encouragement. He writes to Israelites who have lost everything and are living as refugees in Babylon! And, why are they in this predicament? As a people, they became desensitized to the evil and unholy practices of the nations around them and allowed compromise to creep into their lives. The power they had available to them was hindered because they did not stay true to the power source. A long history of defeating nations more powerful and larger in size than them was forgotten and negated because they became dependent upon their own wisdom, power, ingenuity and fleshly desires. Thus, the Babylonians were allowed to enter Jerusalem and capture God’s people, sending them into exile!

Now, which of these two groups do you suppose is in more danger—the exiles in Babylon, or the Israelites still living in Jerusalem who were not taken into captivity? The answer is: the group who refuses to learn from the circumstances they have experienced! God has an interesting message for both groups. To the exiles, He says:

For thus says the LORD, '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. 'For I know the plans that I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you,' declares the LORD, 'and I will restore your fortunes and will gather you from all the nations and from 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.' (Jer. 29:10-14)

However, to the Israelites still in Jerusalem He has a quite different message:
thus says the LORD of hosts, 'Behold, I am sending upon them the sword, famine and pestilence, and I will make them like split-open figs that cannot be eaten due to rottenness. I will pursue them with the sword, with famine and with pestilence; and I will make them a terror to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a curse and a horror and a hissing, and a reproach among all the nations where I have driven them, because they have not listened to My words,' declares the LORD, 'which I sent to them again and again by My servants the prophets; but you did not listen,' declares the LORD. (Jer. 29:17-19)

Don’t let your circumstances deceive you! Those humbled by exile would be rescued and restored, while those living in Jerusalem would be destroyed? Those with the Temple in their midst did not have the presence of God in their midst? Those removed from the Promised Land had a future, a hope, and would be heard by God? What is going on? Isn’t this backwards?
Do you want to experience the power of God? Be humble, teachable, moldable, and open to His discipline and direction! Don’t let your circumstances fool you—they may just be in place to get your attention and allegiance. God’s power is for those who are seeking Him. If your trials and struggles move you to seek Him, give thanks for them because you will quickly find that He also has a future and a hope for you !!!

Click to listen to this week's sermon.

-Scott