Jeremiah 29:11 Without the Rose Colored Glasses

Stop Reading The Bible with Rose Colored Glasses

Jeremiah 29:11 I will bless you with a future filled with hope—a future of success, not of suffering.

The prophet Jeremiah was talking to the people of Judah in Babylonia, at the beginning of the exile. He was left behind in Palestine and wanted to make sure that the people of Judah knew that God was with them and they were still going to face false prophets and false Gods. He wanted them to know that their God was not like all of the other ‘gods’, that he was the God of everywhere, and would help them right where they were.

One of the most often used ways to interpret the Old Testament books as guide in our lives today is to apply its message directly to our own lives. Straight up, apply this one verse, Jeremiah 29:11, directly to our lives would seem to be a magic pill. Hope, success and no suffering.

Before we do that, however, let’s look at what happened to the people of Judah in Babylonia. Knowing 2 things for sure; God does not lie and the bible is infallible, we should get a good understanding of what this text might have meant to them and what it might mean to us.

1) The Chaldeans doing what they always did, in fact what was common for the time and area, deported large chucks of the conquered nation back to Babylon and leaving many who survived the attack in the area. The king seems to have taken the leading citizens back to Babylon, leaving the poor and the farmers to famine.

2) The land that was Judah was no more, and absorbed into the empire, making those who left “homeless.”

3) It appears that they Jews, who were exiled, unlike those exiled from Israel by the Assyrians, were settled in a single community in their new home.

4) To these Jews, the exile was unexplainable. There entire existence was explained by God’s promise of the Land and to use them to shape human history as he protected them. Now there was no land, they were NOT protected. Their understanding of the scripture was evidently not complete, or the scripture was wrong.

5) We know from Daniel that the Jews were treated rather poorly if they set their faith above the other people living in the city.

On the whole, the Jews were ripped from their homeland, and their home land was destroyed. They were mocked and beat upon, and at times killed for their beliefs. The only strong point was that they had a sense of community, in that they were allowed to settle in the same area. However, history has not been kind to Jews who were settled in a community, and it seems to have played no better in Babylon than it did anywhere else.

Looking once again at the verse, “I will bless you with a future filled with hope—a future of success, not of suffering,” it seems that on an individual basis, this was nonsense. They remained in captivity for nearly 4 generations, with not hope and no home land, the whole time knowing that the scripture they based their entire view of the world on was wrong.

Looking at it and taking the Long View, it has some validity, as I assume it was intended to. Jerimiah wanted them to know that for 70 years they were not going anywhere, but as a people, not to lose help. 3 or 4 generations hence they would go home, and that should be their hope of the future. That would be their success.

Not suffering is harder to understand. From the moment they returned to Judah until today, suffering has been a part of their lives. The only way I can make sense of it is to put it in contrast to what the average person of that age could expect. Historically, people had horrible lives if they were not in a position of power. As we discussed earlier, these were the privileged ones, or their descendants. They could expect some peace, based on temporal power, because of the return to their territory and kingdom.

Another way to see success, Joy, Happiness and no pain is to see that God’s original promise was going to be fulfilled in the body of Jesus. Jesus would deliver these things, to everyone. Heaven is the promise, and the kingdom of God has come, though not yet universally, and the promise has been fulfilled.

At NO time is he talking to YOU. He is talking to a nation, a group, not to an individual Jew.

He Forgot Where the Ladder Came From - 1 Kings 11

Used by Permission: www.GoodJobNotes.com

Everything we do, every breath we take, every good or bad thing we have ever been able to do is a gift from God.  That is not to say that God "allowed: our evil," but rather than he allows all actions.  He loves us enough to give us freedom, and we generally choice poorly, or at least, I generally choose poorly.

The story of 1 Kings is an awesome example of the wisest person who has ever lived making some pretty heavy duty mistakes, because he forgot where his money, his wisdom and his very life came from.  He forgot God.

Let me lay it out for you, from 1 Kings 11-  Solomon was the king that asked God for wisdom.  At the point of the history where 1 Kings 11 happens, Solomon is very deep into one particular sin that God has warned him about.  He had 700 wives from the surrounding kingdoms.  When I was young I was taught that the 700 wives were the sin, but that simply is not true.  That was a pretty common thing for the oriental kings.  The problem was that God had told him NOT to marry foreign women.  That line two has been the cause of much problem in our history, because it seems to say one nation is better than another.  That misses the point too.  God tells Solomon not to marry foreign wives because they have foreign gods, and he will start to worship those gods.

Again, I was taught that this was an example of men giving women what that wanted, and that being a sin.  Again, that is not the point.  The bible is pretty clear about how husbands are supposed to love their wives, and the standard is pretty high.

Solomon wanted to make the kings happy, to make himself and his nation safe and rich.  He substituted his wisdom for God's wisdom. He made his wives happy by building temples and alters too all of their gods so his country would be safe, because if his wives were happy, their fathers were happy too.  He was wrong.

He forgot where his wisdom, safety and money came from.  He forgot how God had pulled him from darkness to light. He started to think he had brought himself to his high state.  He forgot who gave him the ladder that carried him to his present life.

So God took it all away.

Deciding who is really in charge is hard in our world.  We live in a world of short sound bites like, "If it is going to be, it is up to me," so if we wait on the Lord, we are perceived as weak and unwilling to "do what it takes," to succeed.  "Successful people are willing to do what unsuccessful people are unwilling to do," is another Solomon type word of wisdom.  Our world encourages us to take the world on with our own hands, make our own path, be in charge of our own destiny and fortune.  Remember how well it worked out for Solomon when he forget whose ladder it was that he was climbing to wealth and riches.

This is God's world, and we are his children.  Never forget whose ladder it is you are climbing.

Remember, David was a Sinner Too!

There are 2 things you have to remember about David.

1) David was a Sinner too.

What sin means to you, however, might not be the same that Sin means to God. The way I keep it straight in my mind, to keep me humble but also to keep me under the protection that David enjoyed, is that if you break a Law of God, you have sinned. To keep in simple, when Jesus was asked what the most important law to follow, instead of saying, ALL of them, which I would expect, he said something else altogether.

In Luke 10:27. "He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’ ; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ”

So keeping it simple, your first thought should be about God, then right after that you should be worried about other people. If your first thought is about how anything impacts your life, your emotions, your finances, your anything, you are sinning. Self Centered actions are the center of Jesus' answers.

That is a tad scary for me. I most definatly sin.

So did David, yet in Psalm 27: (NLT) David says with confidence and faith, "The Lord is my light and my salvation— so why should I be afraid? The Lord is my fortress, protecting me from danger, so why should I tremble?"

He does not say, Please Be My Fortress, he says the Lord is his fortress, and yet he was a sinner. When I read this psalm today, I saw hope.

Normally, I don't like reading the psalms. They are either too difficult for me to integrate into my life, or they are to simplistic. Today I was reading "Good News for Those Trying Harder," by Alan Kraft,  I discovered this biblical explanation for sin.(I will review this book when I finish it.) When I read it, a crisis in my daily life prevented me from continuting in my reading, so all got, until I read Psalm 27, was that I was a far worse sinner than I had thought.

But then I read what David counted on from the Lord, and hope surrounded my being. He too was a sinner, and yet he continued Psalm 27 with: "When evil people come to devour me, when my enemies and foes attack me, they will stumble and fall. Though a mighty army surrounds me, my heart will not be afraid. Even if I am attacked, I will remain confident."

I want some of that.  I am a sinner who loves the Lord, but today I feel attacked, beat down and nearly hopeless.  So What is the secret.  What did David had that I do not?


First, you have Jesus.  So you are ahead.  Way ahead.  But yet, David has this scary weird confidence. Verse 4 clears it up, and it is the second thing that you have to remember about David.

Pslam 27:4 "The one thing I ask of the Lord— the thing I seek most— is to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, delighting in the Lord’s perfections and meditating in his Temple."

2) David had  as his first and only request  the desire to live with the Lord all the days of his life.  That is goal 1 for him.  

Does your prayer life always start with the absolute feeling and expression of gratitude that you do get to spend the rest of forever with the Lord?  Do you love the fact that you are saved, or has that become a secondary part of your Christian Life?

I know my gratitude frequently comes after the situation.  I need to reach into my life and express my gratitude for the forever I have already be given, then I too can share David's confidence.