Jeremiah’s prophetic ministry is filled with hard truths. His ministry was difficult because he was again and again tasked with a message of coming judgment. Yet, in the midst of all of this, we see a wonderful window of hope in chapter 29. Those taken captive from Jerusalem to Babylon went in essentially two great waves as we’ve seen in previous readings. To those who were taken in the first wave, Jeremiah sends a letter. This is the context of the early parts of chapter 29.
To those in exile comes a message of hope. Yes, there will be 70 years of captivity in Babylon (29:10a). Yet, when the time comes, God is going to bring them back. He will be faithful to His promise (29:10b).
Truly, God knew all of this was going to happen in advance. If you read Deuteronomy, there are blessings and curses laid out before the people of Israel. Amongst these, there is the promise that if they turn away from God that He’ll send them into exile; but, if they turn back to Him, they can return to the promised land (see Deuteronomy 30:1-3). God promised that after exile there would still be hope for those who seek Him, and this is the basis for the reiterated promises in Jeremiah’s letter.
To those in exile, God says that He has plans, and they are good plans. He has plans for welfare, not for evil, to give a future and a hope (Jer. 29:11). Now, is this a promise that the future holds only good things for the believer today? Oftentimes people take these specific promises to a specific people and apply them across the board to all Christians today.
“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
Jeremiah 29:11, ESV
Perhaps, a better way to view these things is to see what they teach us about the character of God. First, God is faithful to His promise. God put forth these conditions in His law hundreds of years before this all took effect, and He was faithful to uphold His promise. Secondly, we see that God is a God who plans. He had plans for Israel, He had plans for Babylon, He had plans to send His Son, and surely, He has plans for those in the world today. He had plans for the captives in Babylon, that at the right time, they’d return home to their own land. A future and a hope. What should encourage us most about this is not that God has necessarily planned all good things for our future. Instead, we should see that God is a God who plans and that as the Bible shows us again and again, He is omniscient. God had put these plans in place before any of the sinners in Judah who were contemporaries of Jeremiah had even been born! He had plans for the punishment of their sins and plans to relieve them of the punishment at the right time.
Likewise, we know that He had planned that at the fullness of time His Son would come into the world (Gal. 4:4) and that He would lead us to a greater promised land, going before us to prepare a place for us (John 14:1-3). We see in this text today the good news of a God who plans, who is perfectly able to keep His plans, and who is likewise faithful to keep them. It might not mean that life will always go easy for us, but we can have the assurance that the One who is good is ultimately executing His plans in the earth today.
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