Anton Beetge - 11 February 2024
A Future and a Hope (Jeremiah 29:11)
As we continue to zoom in on Africa’s most loved (but, sadly, most abused) Scripture verses, and try, with God’s help, to rightly divide the word of truth, we come to spend time in Jeremiah 29:11, a glorious promise for the people of God when we look at it with eyes of faith. In this study, we aim to clear away some unbiblical flotsam and glory in God’s grace through Jesus Christ.
Scripture References: Jeremiah 29:11
From Series: "Rightly Handling the Word of Truth"
A series examining some of the most misapplied verses of Scripture.
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“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.” These words can be readily found on bumper stickers, bookmarks, pens, Bible covers, cell phone covers, and an array of other consumables in many local Christian bookstores. There is a reasonable chance that you may own such a consumable.
Jeremiah 29:11, YouVersion reveals, is one of Africa’s most popular Bible verses. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’m not about to shame anyone for their Jeremiah 29:11 pillowcase. My goal in this study is not to bash anyone who has appreciated this verse, or to divest it of the glorious promise that holds for the people of God. My goal is to help us to better understand and appreciate this promise, for our joy and the glory of God.
It was a real blessing to prepare for this study, and I am confident that there is much for us to take comfort from in these words. But just like we enjoy a good cup of coffee best when it has been prepared properly in a plunger rather than simply by injecting it into our veins, or smoking it in a pipe, so we will see and savour Christ and his word best when we understand it in its proper setting.
The series that we have been going through recently on the most popular verses in the African church is not designed to boast in theological correctness or cleverness. It is really all about the glory of God, the objective truth of the word, and our joy in Christ. At the end of the day, being able to understand the Bible as God intended is essential for a living faith in the gospel. One might describe the series on the most loved, but most misinterpreted, verses in the Bible as being all about the gospel.
The gospel is at stake, whenever we divide the word of truth. If we wrongly divide the word of truth, we go astray, and waste the life-saving medicine that God has given us in the Scripture. When we rightly divide the word of truth, lives are changed and God is glorified, “for the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). So let’s dig together into Jeremiah 29:11 in its surrounding context.
Much of Africa is biblically illiterate. People have not been taught how to ascertain and interpret the meaning of the Scriptures. It shows as people are offered lies, empty promises, and watered down, false gospels week after week from the pulpits across our continent. We cannot simply make Scripture say whatever we want it to say. Truth is not relative or fluid. Peter says of Paul’s writing: “There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures” (2 Peter 3:16). In other words, there is a meaning, and the words of Scripture can be twisted to pervert that meaning. We must take care not to do that.
There are some helpful categories we can use when trying to discern the authors intention in a particular text. Included in these categories are the tools of context and genre. Jeremiah is one of the Major Prophets, which means that he wrote more than some of the others. Most of his writing is a mixture of narrative (telling what happened) and prophecy (speaking authoritatively on God’s behalf, warning, and exhorting).
Narrative is fairly easy to understand as a genre because we are most familiar with this type of writing. The author of narrative simply intends to relate a record of events. He may place significance in the order or events or emphasise the details of those events. Regardless, the genre itself is fairly easy to understand.
Prophecy, on the other hand, makes use of pictures, illustrations, and emotive language to communicate realities, which challenge the boundaries of language. Some things are far too momentous to be able to put into simple words and so images—word pictures—must be used to call for emotional response and even a change of behaviour in the hearers.
As we examine Jeremiah 29:11 we want to do so within its given context. The reasons for doing this are at least twofold.
First, we must recognise that the Bible, and the book of Jeremiah, was not written to us. The book of Jeremiah was written to Jews living about 600 years before Christ. We are dealing with a very ancient text. We cannot therefore take what was written to them and apply it straight to our own lives. Rather, we must first see how the original audience would have understood and applied it and themselves and then, by examining our relationship to the original hearers, apply it to our own lives. To appropriate Jeremiah 29:11 directly to our own lives would be like sitting next to someone on a plane, seeing them type “I love you” to one of their contacts, them, warm and fuzzy, hugging them and returning the sentiment. This would be inappropriate because the message was not written to you.
Further, we must recognise, in our individualistic age, that this promise was given in the context of community. This promise was included within a prophecy for the covenant people of Israel, not for individuals to interpret as they saw fit.
Second, without context you can get a very backwards understanding of a phrase. Imagine someone walking past airport security, speaking on his phone, and saying, “They’re going to drop that bomb tonight.” He might have been referring to the email that the company would send out later that evening announcing retrenchments but, taken out of context, and forced into the context of airport security, a very different meaning might arise. We must be careful not to behave like airport security guards, assuming and forcing our own context onto the prophet’s words.
As we turn our attention back to Jeremiah 29:11, we might call the context for the verse “justice.”
Justice
Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream, for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, declares the LORD.
“For thus says the LORD: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfil to you my promise and bring you back to this place.”
(Jeremiah 29:4–10)
Jeremiah was called to be a prophet around 627 BC. He was a young man and served the Lord for more than forty years. He was known as “the weeping prophet,” and his message was not well-received by his hearers. He prophesied during the reigns of Kings Josiah, Jehoiakim and Zedekiah.
He was the weeping prophet because his was largely a message of judgement and woe to a faithless, idolatrous people, who claimed to serve God, but were not actually interested in serving him on his terms.
Their sin was idolatry. Jeremiah speaks of how the people had forsaken God, the fountain of living water, and had instead tried to hew out cisterns for themselves—and broken cisterns at that. This is a powerful illustration of the sin of idolatry. In idolatry, one turns away from the living God to hew out broken, pitiful imitations, which cannot hold water. We try to make gods for ourselves to fill the ache for worship that God put within each of us, but these imitations cannot deliver. They couldn’t deliver then, and they cannot deliver now. They are broken and pitiful.
God speaks about how he had freed his people from their bonds, which refers to their freedom from slavery in Egypt and perhaps even their captivity to paganism prior to calling Abram. And yet, even having been freed in these miraculous ways, they had committed adultery and done all these evil deeds against the Lord.
In chapter 2, God speaks about Israel being like a young donkey in its lust. This gives the sense of them being out of control and wild and thoughtless in their sin. Israel’s behaviour was determined by the orientation of the heart. In the same way, although true believers do struggle with temptation because of their flesh and the presence of sin, we have been freed from the power of sin and so we will live accordingly. If you are a child of Satan, you are going to act like a young donkey, with your actions dictated by your flesh. But if you are a child of God, you will not behave like that. Yes, you may be tempted, but you know that sin will not satisfy. You are not going to be happy with it. If you are happy with sin, your heart is dead. And this was God’s indictment of Israel. They were happy in their sin. They were pursuing other gods.
In chapter 3, the prophet speaks about how Israel had committed fornication with everyone possible, waiting on the side of the road for anyone who was passing by. It sounds ridiculous and disgusting, but that is what sin does to us. Because we were created for worship, we are always going to be looking for something to worship. We either worship the creature or the Creator. If you will not worship that which you were created to worship, there will be something of a prostitution of the heart that takes place.
Israel was a bride to God, but they had forgotten the ornaments they were wearing. That’s not natural. If you are a bride about to get married, you are going to be acutely aware of what you are wearing. You are going to be bursting with excitement because you are about to get married to the one you love. If we are not bursting with excitement and joy at the prospect of worshipping God, it may be an indication that we don’t love God and are not in fact, a part of his bride.
God calls their attention to his covenantal blessings, which were meant to cause them to set their affections on Yahweh. Although the descendants of Abraham were the nation of Israel, the covenant community, not all Israel was of Israel. Not every Israelite was the real deal. As Isaiah had earlier said, “This people draw near with their mouth and honour me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me” (Isaiah 29:13). Not all Israel was truly Israel and the same danger is present today.
There is such a thing as being in the church, and receiving the blessings of being a part of the church, but in fact being far from God. Friend, don’t assume that, because you are one of the members, because you attend the gatherings faithfully and live a clean life, you are one of God’s people. It is possible to be self-deceived just like the Israelites were. They received all the covenantal blessings. They were a part of the visible people of God, and yet many were just as lost as the Gentiles. This is the truth that God highlights to them in Jeremiah’s prophecy.
In short, Israel’s sin was idolatry. They had turned away from the blessed Creator and had worshiped the creature.
We see, by looking only a few verses back, that Israel was in Babylon to stay. In fact, they were in for seventy long years. They were given a promise about returning to Israel, but that promise would be realised a long time later. They were told essentially, “Dig in for the long haul. Build houses, engage in business, etc. This won’t be over quickly.”
I highlight this context because the tragic irony of Jeremiah 29:11 is that preachers use this verse, which comes on the heels of the judgement poured out on Israel for idolatry, to feed and justify the idolatry of modern men and women. The tragic irony of Jeremiah 29:11 is that it comes on the heels of judgement against idolatry, and yet it is used to justify and feed idolatry today. Can there be anything more tragic and more blasphemous to a holy and jealous God?
“I know the plans I have for you.” Let’s be honest: What do the “plans” that God has for you entail? When you hear a TV preacher reciting this verse, what do his hearers have in mind? Is it not health, wealth, and prosperous living? What do you have in mind?
Jesus said, ““No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money” (Matthew 6:24). Perhaps you might say, “No, it’s not money and wealth I’m after; it’s just an easy life: a life without hiccups, hurdles, bumps, and potholes—a life without unpleasant surprises, dreaded news, hard times, and suffering.” Perhaps those are the plans that you are hoping that God is promising to have for you.
I’m sorry to disappoint you, but they’re not. Let’s take a quick survey of some of God’s words in the Bible about suffering.
- John 16:33—I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.
- 1 Peter 3:14—But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled.
- 1 Peter 4:1—Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin.
- 1 Peter 5:10—And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
- 2 Timothy 3:12—Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.
- Psalm 34:19—Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all.
- Romans 8:18—For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
- 2 Corinthians 4:8–9—We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.
The truth is that God is far more interested in our holiness than our comfort. The all-wise Creator, who loved sinners enough to send his only Son into the world to redeem them, knows us. He knows how fickle, stubborn, and downright stupid we are. He knows that, thanks to the world, the flesh, and the devil, left to ourselves, we will not seek him. We will not depend on him. In short, we will not have the holiness without which no one will see God (Hebrews 12:14).
But can’t I have the holiness and an easy life? Is there no way to avoid suffering? Why is it that God would allow his saints to suffer rather than to prosper? What is his purpose?
- James 1:12—Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.
- 2 Corinthians 4:17—For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.
- Psalm 119:71—It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.
- Philippians 3:10—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death.
- Romans 5:3-4—Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.
Believer, do you not desire these things? Do we not desire to receive the crown of life? Do we not desire the eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison? Do we not desire to learn God’s statutes? Do we not desire to know Christ and the power of his resurrection?
Then why do you run after, hanker after, and dream about that which, far from helping you to receive these desires of your heart, instead impede them. They block them and obstruct them. They ensure that you will not receive the crown of life, that you will miss out on the eternal weight of glory, that you will forget the statutes of God, and that you will not know Christ and the power of his resurrection.
Brothers and sisters, the first thing we need to recognise about Jeremiah 29:11 is that, just like the Israelites had sinned and were suffering judgement for spiritual adultery, so we too have committed spiritual fornication. Realising that, let’s not expect that God will now aid our spiritual adultery by giving us those things that feed it. It’s precisely like a husband whose wife is involved in an ongoing affair promising to drive her to the adulterer’s house, pay for their illicit dates, and send them on holiday. Never! Nor will God fund our adultery.
Do you want to be wealthy, comfortable, and prosperous by worldly standards? Consider how few of those who are wealthy will enter the kingdom of God. Those who are surrounded by the comforts of this world do not easily feel any need to seek after God. The young ruler went away sorrowful because he had great possessions. We have as much reason to delight in the comforts of this world as a donkey has reason to delight in the weight of its burden.
On the other hand, consider how God works through affliction. Afflictions are God’s workmen on our hearts to pull down our pride and security. “It is good for me that I have been afflicted” (Psalm 119:71). As John Flavel wrote,
Oh my heart, my arrogant heart, is it right for you to be discontent when God has given you the whole tree with clusters of comfort growing on it, because he allows the wind to blow down a few leaves?
Must God be murmured against for throwing that overboard which would sink you in a storm. For destroying that which would assist your enemy in the siege of temptation. For cutting off that which would endanger your everlasting life. Oh inconsiderate and ungrateful man. Are not these things that you grieve for the things that have ruined thousands of souls.
Do you want your vices crushed? This is the way: to have the food and fuel removed that feeds them. For as prosperity gave birth and fed them, so adversity when sanctified is a means to kill them.
Do you want your heart to rest only in the bosom of God? What better method could providence take to accomplish your desire than pulling from under your head that soft pillow of creature delights on which you rested before? And yet you fret.
Family, we need to watch and keep our hearts at all times, but especially in times of prosperity. Let’s not desire that station that will numb us to spiritual things, which will weigh us down and keep our hearts here on earth with our treasures. With God, let’s be more committed to our holiness and his glory than our comfort.
And so, I trust you are persuaded of the importance of context when trying to determine the meaning of a verse. We have seen that the context for Jeremiah 29:11 was in fact one where God was meting out justice on Israel for their idolatry by sending them into exile in Babylon, and so, whatever Jeremiah 29:11 promises, it cannot be promising to aid and abet the idolatry of the people of God! Justice.
But now we turn to the promise itself. We serve a God with whom there is so often a pairing of justice and mercy. So, having seen the justice, let’s turn to examine the mercy.
Mercy
Now we come to the meat of the promise: “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” (v. 11). We see that, in spite of their horrific treatment of God—the God who had rescued them from darkness and ignorance, freed them from their slavery in Egypt and called them to himself, and given them the Promised Land flowing with milk and honey—he did not intend to utterly destroy them. The Lord did not intend to forsake them. He did not intend to give up on them, shun them, or bear a grudge. Indeed, we see that God was not really inflicting punishment on them, but rather corrective discipline, which would serve to drive them back to their loving husband.
Friends, this is the God of the Bible. He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He visits iniquity on the children to the third and fourth generation but shows steadfast love to thousands of those who keep his commandments. This is a God worthy of our worship. This is a God worthy of our adoration, love, devotion, loyalty. And yet, we like the Israelites, have spurned the good gifts of God.
We have received the light and truth of the gospel and yet we have served ourselves rather than him. We have been given life, health, strength, and happiness, and yet we have proudly thought that we ourselves have earned these things. We have not worshipped him or given thanks to him, but rather, thinking ourselves wise, we have become foolish and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling birds and animals and creeping things.
We have broken the relationship with our Creator. We have no right to presume upon promises like Jeremiah 29:11. God is holy. He visits iniquity (sin and wrongdoing) on the children to the third and fourth generation. As he sent disobedient Israel into exile for forty years, so he will not overlook our sin.
Friend, you have no claim on the promise of Jeremiah 29:11 if you are not a part of God’s covenant community. If you are not a part of those people whom God has chosen to set his love upon, you cannot expect that God’s plans towards you are good.
The Israelites proved their inability to keep God’s law time and again, and so God made a new covenant. He sent Jesus to live the life we are unable to live, in order that he might die in our place, drinking the cup of God’s anger and wrath against sin, so that everyone who believes in him, who calls on him as their Lord and Saviour, and who hides in the shadow of his wing, will by no means be cast out, but will be welcomed, forgiven, washed clean, and called a child of God (see Acts 2:38).
These are the people of God, the children of Abraham who inherit the promises, the ones who have the faith of Abraham and so prove to be his children. In the time of Jeremiah, the Gentiles in pagan nations could not claim Jeremiah 29:11 as theirs. Similarly, random people today cannot grab at it.
But all those who have entered into the new covenant with God by faith are the children of the promise. They are the ones to whom this promise is fulfilled. Finally, we come to see what is our future hope.
Future Hope
Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the LORD, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the LORD, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.
(Jeremiah 29:12–14)
He delivered, bringing them back from Babylon and restoring them to Israel, but the true fulfilment comes to the children of the new covenant.
If the promise of Jeremiah 29:11 was only for the Israelites to return to Israel, there is no application for us today. But we know from the writer to the Hebrews that the promises to Israel were not fulfilled prior to Christ. Yes, they were eventually restored to the land of Canaan, but there awaited an even greater fulfilment of the promise. “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.”
You might not know the plans God has for you, because right now you are suffering. Like the Israelites, you may be undergoing the corrective discipline of God. You may be suffering and wondering if there is any hope. But God assures us that he knows the plans that he has for us. Even when life doesn’t make sense. When we find ourselves struggling to understand it all—struggling to come to terms with it and to see how any of it makes sense. God promises that He knows the plans that he has for us.
And more than that, he tells us that his plans for us are good! They are plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Most people read that and think, “Great! There is something good around the corner for me.” And praise be to God, this life is full of God’s blessings and mercies!
But brothers and sisters, our welfare, future, and hope is not for this life only. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied (1 Corinthians 15:19).
What is life? Is it not a mere mist, a vapour which arises in the morning and disappears when the sun shines on it? Is it not a flower of the field which is here today and gone tomorrow? What hope and future is there in these few short years filled with much suffering?
In Christ, we have hope for much more. We have hope for more than a few years of happiness and leisure. We have hope of eternal life. We have hope of seeing God! Not only will God not aid and abet our idolatry by giving us earthy pleasures to draw us away from himself, but he will also not give us so little. He loves us far more than that. He is a father who will not allow his Son to eat candyfloss now, because he has a feast planned for him in half an hour.
As Piper so famously says, the problem is not that our desires are too big; the problem is that they are far too small. Why would we settle for making mudpies in the slums when we could live in a mansion by the sea?
Family, we truly have all that God promises in Jeremiah 29:11 and more. We are just sometimes too bogged down to see it. Sometimes we have grown so used to staring at our feet as we trudge through this life that we forget to look up and see our destination ahead. We have grown far too comfortable with this world. Our ambitions are far too small. We have reduced the promises and bounty of God to the scraps that this fallen world has to offer when, in fact, God promises us the whole earth. The redeemed earth. The earth without sin and spot and blemish.
And more than that, we are promised God himself! Oh, that we would lift up our eyes and gain perspective for our joy!
God promises to hear our prayers. Friends, are we praying?! It’s our inheritance and the promise of Jeremiah 29. “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Brothers and sisters, do we seek him with all our heart? Do we cry out to him in prayer, desperate to get a glimpse of his glory? Are we content with spiritual lukewarmness, or are we searching the Scriptures, meditating on the word, meditating on the character of God, the promises of God, and pleading daily with the Lord to melt our hard hearts?
We have the promise that we will find God. But we are not going to stumble over him. This verse is not speaking about salvation. We do not seek God in salvation. Scripture is clear that we were dead in our trespasses and sins. We cannot seek for God. “To whom shall I speak and give warning, that they may hear? Indeed their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot give heed. Behold, the word of the LORD is a reproach to them; they have no delight in it” (6:10).
God seeks us in salvation. But Jeremiah 29:13 is speaking about those who know God—the people of God. We do not stumble over God. We must seek him with all our heart. God does not want divided love and half-hearted worship. He didn’t want it in old covenant Israel and he doesn’t want it in us.
God wants all of our hearts, but the promise is there that we will find him when we seek him in this way. “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfil it?” (Numbers 23:19).
Jeremiah 29:11 is indeed a glorious promise. It is indeed worthy of being among the most loved, most treasured, and most meditated verses in all of Scripture. It indeed holds forth a promise to new covenant believers, and those promises are actually far greater than many preachers realise, only they are not promises which appeal to a heart untransformed by the love of Christ.
God wants to give us himself. He is our welfare, our hope and future. Although we deserve wrath and rejection, his plans toward his people are not for judgement but for grace, peace, and joy everlasting. Only we must not presume, like the Israelites, that this promise is for us, thinking that we can define the content of the future hope. God will give us his gracious plans as we seek him with all our heart. Church of Christ, we serve a great God who delights to do us good. He will do us good. Will we see, savour, and seek him according to our faith in this promise?
AMEN