Tearing Texts From Their Contexts:
Prosperity? Bring It On!
Beginning: I want to begin this morning by doing something I don't think I have ever done before in a sermon. And that is, I want to begin my sermon by reading a couple of love letters. Being the romantic that I am, this should come second nature to me. I don't know why I have never read love letters to begin my sermons before, however, I want to start this morning. So here goes. I'm going to read a couple of excerpts of some of the most famous love letters ever written. You see if you can guess who wrote them. Here's the first one...
My Dearest Friend,
...should I draw you the picture of my heart it would be what I hope you would still love though it contained nothing new. The early possession you obtained there, and the absolute power you have obtained over it, leaves not the smallest space unoccupied.
Any guesses who might have wrote that? Lynn to me? Good guess. Lynn used to write me letters like that all the time. But this letter was written much earlier in American history. Let me read a little more. Because it really is a beautiful letter.
I look back to the early days of our acquaintance and friendship as to the days of love and innocence, and, with an indescribable pleasure, I have seen near a score of years roll over our heads with an affection heightened and improved by time, nor have the dreary years of absence in the smallest degree effaced from my mind the image of the dear untitled man to whom I gave my heart.
That letter was written by Abigail Adams to John Adams, her husband, who became the second president of the United States. Written December 23, 1782.
Let me read you another very famous love letter written in early American history. A least parts of it. It's addressed to...
My very dear Sarah:
The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days -- perhaps tomorrow. Lest I should not be able to write you again, I feel impelled to write lines that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more.
...If it is necessary that I should fall on the battlefield for my country, I am ready. I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in, the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how strongly American Civilization now leans upon the triumph of the Government, and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution. And I am willing -- perfectly willing -- to lay down all my joys in this life, to help maintain this Government, and to pay that debt.
But, my dear wife, when I know that with my own joys I lay down nearly all of yours, and replace them in this life with cares and sorrows...
I cannot describe to you my feelings on this calm summer night, when two thousand men are sleeping around me, many of them enjoying the last, perhaps, before that of death -- and I, suspicious that Death is creeping behind me with his fatal dart, am communing with God, my country, and thee.
Sarah, my love for you is deathless, it seems to bind me to you with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence could break; and yet my love of Country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly on with all these chains to the battlefield.
The memories of the blissful moments I have spent with you come creeping over me, and I feel most gratified to God and to you that I have enjoyed them so long. And hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes of future years, when God willing, we might still have lived and loved together and seen our sons grow up to honorable manhood around us. ...something whispers to me -- perhaps it is the wafted prayer of my little Edgar -- that I shall return to my loved ones unharmed. If I do not, my dear Sarah, never forget how much I love you, and when my last breath escapes me on the battlefield, it will whisper your name.
Forgive my many faults, and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless and foolish I have oftentimes been! How gladly would I wash out with my tears every little spot upon your happiness, and struggle with all the misfortune of this world, to shield you and my children from harm. But I cannot. I must watch you from the spirit land and hover near you, while you buffet the storms with your precious little freight, and wait with sad patience till we meet to part no more.
...Sarah, do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for thee, for we shall meet again.
As for my little boys, they will grow as I have done, and never know a father's love and care. Little Willie is too young to remember me long, and my blue-eyed Edgar will keep my frolics with him among the dimmest memories of his childhood. Sarah, I have unlimited confidence in your maternal care and your development of their characters...O Sarah, I wait for you there! Come to me, and lead thither my children.
Sullivan
Sullivan Ballou wrote to his wife Sarah just one week before he and 27 of his closest comrades and 4000 Americans in all would die in the battle at "First Manassas". Written July the 14th, 1861, Washington D.C.
My wife would tell you I don't have a romantic bone in my body, but even I am taken back by Sullivan Ballou's love letter to his wife and sons.
The French are known for their love letters. And perhaps none more than this Frenchman's. See if you can guess who he is. It's written from Paris, December 1795. And in it he writes to his beloved Josiephine, in which he says...
I wake filled with thoughts of you. Your portrait and the intoxicating evening which we spent yesterday have left my senses in turmoil. Sweet, incomparable Josephine, what a strange effect you have on my heart! Are you angry? Do I see you looking sad? Are you worried?... My soul aches with sorrow, and there can be no rest for you lover; but is there still more in store for me when, yielding to the profound feelings which overwhelm me, I draw from your lips, from your heart a love which consumes me with fire? Ah! it was last night that I fully realized how false an image of you your portrait gives!
You are leaving at noon; I shall see you in three hours.
Until then, mio dolce amor, a thousand kisses; but give me none in return, for they set my blood on fire.
Any guesses what famous Frenchman wrote that letter? In addition to being a brilliant military mind and feared ruler, Napolean Bonaparte (1763 - 1821) was a prolific writer of letters. He reportedly wrote as many as 75,000 letters in his lifetime, many of them to his beautiful wife, Josephine, both before and during their marriage. This letter was written by the future emperor just prior to their 1796 wedding.
One year later (Spring 1797), while away on an extended military campaign Napoleon writes again...
To Josephine,
I love you no longer; on the contrary, I detest you. You are a wretch, truly perverse, truly stupid, a real Cinderella. You never write to me at all, you do not love your husband; you know the pleasure that your letters give him yet you cannot even manage to write him half a dozen lines, dashed off in a moment! What then do you do all day, Madame? What business is so vital that it robs you of the time to write to your faithful lover? What attachment can be stifling and pushing aside the love, the tender and constant love which you promised him? Who can this wonderful new lover be who takes up your every moment, rules your days and prevents you from devoting your attention to your husband?
Beware, Josephine; one fine night the doors will be broken down and there I shall be. In truth, I am worried, my love, to have no news from you; write me a four page letter instantly made up from those delightful words which fill my heart with emotion and joy. I hope to hold you in my arms before long, when I shall lavish upon you a million kisses, burning as the equatorial sun.
I read all these different love letters to you this morning because I want you to see how, when it comes to letters, it matters greatly who wrote them, and to whom, and when. To what circumstances in life did they address? Matters that can only be resolved by reading, not just a well worded snippet of this letter or that, but the entire context.
- Was the letter written before marriage?
- Or after?
- Was it a happy marriage?
- Or sour?
- Was it written from home?
- Or from afar?
- Was it written during war?
- Or peace?
- Were the chances of writer & reader seeing each other again good?
- Or poor?
Those are questions that are often answered by the context in which the little snippet of the text is found. <Tear Pieces Out of Each Letter> And the worst thing we can do is to tear a little piece out of this letter, and tear a little piece out of that letter, and tear another piece out of another letter and throw the rest of the letters away. Because the context of the letter can be entirely lost. And the little snippet we tore away may come to mean something the original author never intended.
And the reason I bring that to your attention this morning is because the little snippet we are looking at this morning is another text that has been torn of its context. And the tearing has robbed the verse of so much of its meaning.
The text torn from its context that we are looking at this morning is...
Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
And most well meaning, Christian people who quote that verse today, who "claim" that verse as their own today, who "hear" the Lord saying something very precious and comforting to them today-- have no idea that verse has been ripped from the middle of a letter. A love letter, of sorts. A letter written by a specified author, to a specified reader, about a specified situation. And the very first verse in the chapter gives us all that information. That is, it sets the context in which our text this morning is torn. Jeremiah 29:11 says...
Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
I know people who read that verse and the first thought that comes to their mind is...
"Prosperity? Bring It On!"
But Jeremiah 29:1 says...
Jeremiah 29:1 This is the text of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders among the exiles and to the priests, the prophets and all the other people Nebuchadnezzar had carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.
This letter wasn't written to you or I at all. We're reading someone else mail this morning! Have you ever done that? Going through the mail. Opening. Glancing. Pitching. Keeping. And then accidentally coming across a letter written to someone else! That's what we're doing this morning. We reading someone else's mail!
This letter was written by Jeremiah, God's prophet, in Jerusalem, to God's people who were trying to survive in Babylonian exile. After the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, had carried them away into captivity and enslavement. An enslavement, Jeremiah says, that was orchestrated by God.
Jeremiah 29:4 This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon:
"I carried" into exile. Nebuchadnezzar was the king God used, but God did the carrying. As God was using His prophet Jeremiah to do the writing of this letter, to those God had carried into Babylonian captivity. A letter in which God basically says to His people, "Get used to it. You're going to be there a while."
Jeremiah 29:5 "Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce.
Jeremiah 29:6 Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease.
Jeremiah 29:7 Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper."
Jeremiah 29:8 Yes, this is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: "Do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have.
Jeremiah 29:9 They are prophesying lies to you in my name. I have not sent them," declares the LORD.
Evidently, false prophets were telling God's people what they wanted to hear. Instead of what God wanted them to hear. A problem preachers still have to this day. Writing to the young preacher, Timothy, the Apostle Paul said...
2 Timothy 4:3 For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
In one way or another THEY WILL PAY THEM TO HEAR WHAT THEIR ITCHING EARS WANT TO HEAR! And what the Babylonian captives wanted to hear in Jeremiah's day was that their time of deliverance from their Babylonian captivity was near. They wanted out of there. They wanted out of their imprisonment! Now! They wanted their enslavement over! Pronto! That's what their itching ears wanted to hear. Instead, God had His prophet Jeremiah pen them a letter that said...
Jeremiah 29:10 This is what the LORD says: "When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place.
Seventy years.
- For most Babylonian captives that would be a life time.
- For most Babylonian captives that was a death sentence.
- For most Babylonian captives that meant they would never see Jerusalem again.
Their children might live to see God's deliverance. Their grandchildren. But not them. They would live, and die, in Babylon.
HOWEVER, God would not forget! Even after seventy years of hardship, God would remember. And God would come to His people again. And fulfill His promise to them. And bring them back to Jerusalem. And through the prophet's letter God explains to His people why, by giving them two reasons.
First, God says in our text torn from its context this morning, the first reason God says he will not abandon His people in Babylon is...
Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
God is not through with them. There is still something God wants to do with them, through them. Do you see the difference between this...
...AND THIS!
God's not talking about making anyone rich. God's talking about a future plan God has for these Babylonian exiles. And the NT tells us what that is.
Galatians 4:4 ...when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law,
Galatians 4:5 to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.
God was not going to abandon His people in Babylon because God was going to bring His Son Jesus into this world through them. And that made those Babylonian captives part of God's plan of salvation! And you and I can thank the Lord that a faithful remnant of those people held on in Babylon, through trying times. Shadrach, Meshach & Abednego tossed into the fiery furnace among them. Daniel thrown into the lion's den among them. We can be thankful for those who would not shrink from death in passing their faith in the Lord God Jehovah along to their children and grandchildren in Babylon, until the day the Lord came for them, fulfilled His gracious promise to them and brought them back home to Jerusalem. From whence Jesus would come!
Amen? Amen. We have a lot to be thankful for when it comes to the faithful remnant of that generation. The majority of which lived and died in Babylon and never saw Jerusalem again. They would turn and face toward Jerusalem when they prayed, the Bible says. Even at pain of death for doing such a thing. Yet they prayed on just the same. But most would never personally see Jerusalem again.
Revelation 2:10 ...be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.
...the NT says. There was a faithful remnant in Babylon about which such a thing could be said. They lived & died in Babylon, trusting, believing, in seventy years, God would come for them. And all because God had said to them, God's prophet, Jeremiah, had penned God's promise to them...
Jeremiah 29:10 This is what the LORD says: "When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place.
Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
As God has a wonderful plan for His people today. But that isn't it. Jesus was coming into the world FROM them. Jesus is coming again into this world FOR us! And He's coming to take us out of our Babylonian captivity, out of this world of sin. Not the modern land of Iraq! The wonderful plan God has for us is heaven! With Him! With His Son Jesus! With our loved ones who have already gone on to Him! Please, please, do not cheapen what this verse says by "appropriating" this verse for yourself, by tearing this text from its context, from the letter in which it is written, and "making" it say someothing it doesn't.
I was given a Bible Promise Book by a dear friend one year for Christmas. A well meaning gift. Three hundred sixty five promises, one for each day of the week! Kind of like a daily devotional. Based upon the false assumption that every promise in the book is mine! Including this one! When it's not. And yet I hear people quoting this verse all the time out of context and making it mean something it never meant. The worst of which is that God is promising some some kind of materialistic plan of prosperity for our life here today on earth! Many are using Scripture that way today, filling stadiums with their teaching, wearing tailored suits and Rolex watches and smiles that cross their faces from ear to ear. Driving expensive cars and living in large houses. I thought the days of such "Health/Wealth" tele-evangelists were over. But they're back. And their message is simple, "Prosperity? Bring It On!" When that is not the life Jesus said His people would live upon the earth. What did Jesus say? Jesus said...
John 16:33 ...In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."
Jesus said...
John 15:20 Remember the words I spoke to you: 'No servant is greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also...
But...
Revelation 2:10 ...be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.
If you are beginning to see how God is talking about so much more than money and materialistic prosperity this morning, shake your head up and down.
Revelation 2:10 ...be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.
And a remnant in Babylon was. And many of their children and grandchildren got to go to Jerusalem. From whence Jesus came! The remnant that remains faithful until Jesus comes again gets to go to heaven.! That's the plan God has for our life! Amen? Amen. Forgiveness of sin. And the gift of eternal life.
Now that's only the first reason God gives through Jeremiah's pen why God would not abandon His people in Babylon. Because the plan God had for their life. The other reason that God would come and fulfill His gracious promise and bring His people back home in seventy years was because of what those seventy years in Babylonian captivity produced in their lives. And what it produced was repentance. After suffering seventy years in Babylonian captivity for their sin... God, through Jeremiah's pen says...
Jeremiah 29:12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.
Jeremiah 29:13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
Jeremiah 29:14 I will be found by you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile."
Their hearts will have changed. And if there is anything that God finds irresistible it's a changed heart.
Psalms 51:16 You do not delight in sacrifice, <David said, after he had sinned, and after he had suffered sorely for his sin> or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
No? What then?
Psalms 51:17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
And David found forgiveness in the eyes of the Lord. And I seriously doubt there is anyone in this room who has even come close to doing what David had done.
Jonah was sent by God to Nineveh to proclaim...
Jonah 3:4 ..."Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned."
...because of their great sin. God had had it with them. But, the Bible says...
Jonah 3:5 The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.
And...
Jonah 3:10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.
When the prodigal son "came to his senses" in the midst of the sinful pig pen his sin had cast him in, the Bible says he returned home. And...
Luke 15:21 The son said to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son."
Luke 15:22 But the father said to his servants, "Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet."
Luke 15:23 "Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate."
Luke 15:24 "For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found."
There's something about a truly broken, and changed, and repentant heart that God finds irresistible! And after spending seventy years grieving over their sin that led them into seven decades of Babylonian captivity...
Jeremiah 29:12 Then...<God, through Jeremiah's pen, says,> you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.
And God would forgive His people and take them home.
Financial analysts are wondering if the last ten years might not be another "Lost Decade" when it comes to financial investments left in the stock market. Ten years of practically no pay off at all, if not loss, for most people's life savings. God's people in Babylon lost seven decades of their life! Seventy years living in Babylonian captivity, before they were sufficiently shook to their senses about what their sin had done to their lives. Whole generations wiped out! Before they began to truly seek God, and find God, because they were finally seeking God with all their heart.
Jeremiah 29:13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
...God had assured them. Then...
Jeremiah 29:14 I will be found by you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile."
What's it going to take to bring you back? What's it going to take to shake you to your senses? To break your heart for the pig pen your sin has cast you in? What's it going to take for you to repent? For you to ask God for His forgiveness? For sinning against Him? What's it going to take? Seventy more years? In Babylonian captivity? With nothing to show for it but the scars? Or have you had enough? With heart sufficiently broken, who's ready to come home?
Ending: We're going to sing an invitation hymn to give those who have had enough, the opportunity to come home. To get out of your seat and respond to the greatest love letter ever written. A love letter written by a Heavenly Father, through His prophet, about His Son, Who died on the cross for your sin. To give you the chance to turn from your sin, to be forgiven of your sin, to be set on your feet again, so that you can serve Him, and go to Him, when He sends His Son again to bring His children home.
If that's your decision, we'd love you to go with us. Who would you come, as we stand and sing?
