Jeremiah 32 Devotional
by Pastor Mark Hudson
Jeremiah is imprisoned because as Zedekiah told him, “”Why do you prophesy and say, ‘Thus says the LORD: Behold, I am giving this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall capture it. . . .” The king abused his power by putting Jeremiah in prison because the king did not like what Jeremiah said. This is a poor reason to discipline a prophet. But, if you know the Bible, it happens to very good people from Moses to Nathan to Jeremiah to John the Baptist and of course our Lord. And this cancel culture just keeps going. It has never stopped and it never will as long as sinners are on the earth.
Jeremiah never stopped telling others what God told him to speak. I am so thankful for the intelligent people God places in our lives. I think of John Piper, R C Sproul, Al Mohler, and Ravi Zacharias just to name a few. But what of Augustine who was a true pioneer, Luther, Calvin, etc? We still benefit from their works although they wrote ages ago. Yet, as much as we value their intellect, nothing is more important than faithfulness to God and His Word. This is where Jeremiah excelled. Faithfulness to His Word will always be important for Christians and Christ’s church.
Jeremiah preaches words of warning and imminent judgment. Yet Jeremiah is a prophet of hope. After reading some of these warning passages you may wonder why we would call Jeremiah a prophet of hope. In verses 6-44, the rest of the chapter is about hope. The anomaly of purchasing land right before the exile looks unusual if not foolish. But God is promising hope to His people. This is a visual, undeniable expression of God’s grace.
Jeremiah is offered a chance to buy property at the same time everyone is leaving the promised land. This is not a good financial decision but God did not instruct Jeremiah to buy the field for pecuniary interests but to press home His grace. God will discipline His people. But that is not the end of the matter.
In vs. 30-35, God tells Jeremiah why the nation is in such trouble. But then in vs. 37-41, Jeremiah reminds God’s people that because of His grace, He promises to do good to His own. These covenantal verses are at the heart of God’s relationship with His people. Imagine a God that promises to be one with them after all they have done to and against Him? There is nothing in it for God. He gives and gives and gets nothing back in return.
We certainly do not operate that way. If we work we get paid. If we invest, we share in the profits. There is always something in it for us. With God, he receives our sin, our rebellion, our obstinacy, and our shame and He pours out His love, His grace, and His forgiveness. And he makes us His children. God welcomes sinners like us into his family: He adopts us. Adoption is the most sublime of all doctrines. How sweet this truth is to our eternal souls. Yet, adoption makes no sense at all from our perspective. But grace makes no sense to us either.
If we were judging this people, we might want to make it so those we judge would never see the light of day. That is not God’s way. In the midst of judgment, He is thinking about doing them good;planning to bring good to them! 42 “For thus says the LORD: Just as I have brought all this great disaster upon this people, so I will bring upon them all the good that I promise them.” This is hard to understand how God can love like that.
We can have hope as well as the people of Jeremiah’s time. Not hope that we will return to land that was promised to us but hope that extends into eternity. Why do we have hope? Because Christ rose from the dead. This is singular event ought to be brought up often to nonbelievers.
Hope in these uncertain times shines as bright as a diamond against a black backdrop. The church has endured even more difficult times than these. We ought to remind people of their reason for hope. Let them explain why they have hope. Then, kindly, gently, winsomely, tell them why you have hope.