Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a future and a hope.
Sermons
Thoughts of PeaceJ. Waite Jeremiah 29:11
Duties and Consolations of God's CaptivityA.F. Muir Jeremiah 29:1-14
Captivities and How to Improve ThemW. M. Taylor, D. D.Jeremiah 29:8-13
Concentration of HeartJeremiah 29:8-13
Divine Purposes Fulfilled in Answer to PrayerAnon.Jeremiah 29:8-13
Finding GodH. W. Beecher.Jeremiah 29:8-13
God's Future and Hope for Human RaceZ. Mather.Jeremiah 29:8-13
God's ThoughtsThomas Spurgeon.Jeremiah 29:8-13
God's ThoughtsH. J. Bevis.Jeremiah 29:8-13
God's Thoughts of Peace, and Our Expected EndJeremiah 29:8-13
Heart SearchingsPreacher's AnalystJeremiah 29:8-13
Searching with All the HeartA. T. Pierson.Jeremiah 29:8-13
Seekers Directed and EncouragedJeremiah 29:8-13
The Thoughts of God to His People, Peace and not EvilJ. Stratten.Jeremiah 29:8-13














Such is the consoling word that God sends to his "banished ones" in their affliction. He bids his servant "speak comfortably" to them, even now that their "warfare" is only beginning, and they are having their first taste of the bitterness of exile. Blending with the lamentations of the weeping captives as they "hung their harps on the willows by the waters of Babylon," we can imagine that this gracious word would have a more salutary effect upon them than the living voice of the prophet ever had. What message has it for us?

I. THE MIND OF GOD IS A PROFOUND MYSTERY TO US, BUT HE KNOWS HIS OWN COUNSELS.

1. God has his "thoughts," even as we have ours. We believe in a God who is no mere philosophic abstraction, but a living, personal being, of whose infinite intelligence ours is but the dim and distant reflection.

2. His thoughts are immeasurably higher than ours. "As the heavens are higher than the earth," etc. (Isaiah 55:9). We cannot solve the mystery or trace the course of our own mental processes, and how should we be able to comprehend his? Our minds, with all their utmost range and activity, move but upon the outskirts of the glorious realm of the infinite and eternal thought of God.

3. His thoughts are all conformed to the eternal truth of things. Indeed, they are themselves the eternal truth of things. For what are all created existences - material and spiritual, all laws, forces, etc., but embodiments and reflections of the "thoughts of God? And whatever his purposes maybe they are not variable; they partake of the immutability of his essential nature. The counsel of the Lord standeth forever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations" (Psalm 33:11).

II. GOD'S WAYS OF DEALING WITH US ARE OFTEN PERPLEXING, BUT A GRACIOUS PURPOSE GOVERNS ALL. "Thoughts of peace and not of evil." He concealed within his darkest providences.

1. The constitution of the universe, in spite of all its discords, bears abundant witness to the benign spirit that inspires it. We have no sympathy with that gloomy and morbid view of it according to which, for aught that appears, it might have been fashioned by some spirit of cruelty and hate. True as it may be that "the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together," there is proof enough that "God's tender mercies are over all his works."

2. The Bible has its anomalies, but it is the unfolding of a redemptive purpose. The revelation of God's mercy towards a guilty, ruined world in the person of the Christ is the key to all its historic dispensations. As every chastisement inflicted on the Jewish people had some gracious design in it as regards themselves, so the whole course of their national life and ecclesiastical polity played its part in the development of that world-wide plan. And through all the changes and storms and conflicts that may yet be in store for the Church and the world, Scripture keeps alive the blessed hope of the future. The prophetic word is "as a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawn and the day-star arise in our hearts" (2 Peter 1:19).

3. The saddest experiences in our personal life have their beneficent Divine intent. Every cloud has its "silver lining." Our keenest sorrows often prove to be "celestial benedictions in a dark disguise." God's "thought of peace" is at the heart of all our earthly tribulations (Hebrews 12:6-11).

III. THE ISSUE ALWAYS JUSTIFIES GOD'S THOUGHTS AND WAYS. The "expected end," when it comes, never fails to solve the mystery of the path that led to it. The gracious purpose, hidden in the secrecy of the Eternal Mind, veiled under many forms of dark disguise, is then made manifest. God is his own Interpreter, and the day of his glorious self-vindication will surely come.

"His ways are love - though they transcend
Our feeble range of sight,
They wind through darkness to their end
In everlasting light."

Now these are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent.
I. THE VERY FACT THAT A MESSAGE WAS SENT TO THEM UNDER AN EXPRESS DIVINE APPOINTMENT WAS CONSOLATORY. Wherever God's children are scattered, the written Word is to them a source of permanent encouragement. In the severest ways of justice God does not forget His own children, but has in reserve ample consolations for them, when they lie under the common judgment

II. THE PARTICULAR PROVIDENCE OF GOD, APPEARING ON THEIR BEHALF UNDER ALL THEIR CALAMITIES, WAS A SOURCE OF CONSOLATION.

1. He is the Lord of hosts, of all the armies above and below, and yet is the God of Israel; and though He permits their captivity, He does not break His relation to them — their covenant-God still, though under a cloud.

2. He assumes the active agency in their dispersion. "I have caused them to be carried away." Certainly it must be a great sin which induces a loving father to cast his child out of doors. But sin is a great scatterer, and is always followed by a driving away and a casting out. Yet the fact of God's being the agent in their dispersion is referred to as a ground of consolation; since it reconciles us to our troubles to see the hand of God in them, and to trace an all-gracious and merciful design in them.

III. THE PROMISE OF THE STABILITY AND SECURITY OF THEIR SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC INTERESTS WAS GIVEN.

IV. THE PROSPECT OF A CERTAIN AND FAVOURABLE ISSUE TO THEIR TRIALS (ver. 11).

(S. Thodey.)

People
Ahab, Anathoth, David, Elasah, Eleasah, Gemariah, Hilkiah, Jeconiah, Jehoiada, Jeremiah, Kolaiah, Maaseiah, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadrezzar, Shaphan, Shemaiah, Zedekiah, Zephaniah
Places
Anathoth, Babylon, Jerusalem, Nehelam
Topics
Affirmation, Calamity, Conscious, Declares, Evil, Expected, Future, Harm, Hope, Latter, Peace, Plans, Posterity, Prosper, Says, Thinking, Thoughts, Towards, Welfare
Outline
1. Jeremiah sends a letter to the captives in Babylon to be quiet there,
8. and not to believe the dreams of their prophets;
10. and that they shall return with grace after seventy years.
15. He foretells the destruction of the rest for their disobedience.
20. He shows the fearful end of Ahab and Zedekiah, two false prophets.
24. Shemaiah writes a letter against Jeremiah.
30. Jeremiah foretells his doom.

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Jeremiah 29:11

     1115   God, purpose of
     5013   heart, divine
     6708   predestination
     7217   exile, in Babylon
     8416   encouragement, promises
     9130   future, the
     9612   hope, in God

Jeremiah 29:4-14

     4215   Babylon

Jeremiah 29:10-11

     5704   inheritance, material
     8125   guidance, promise

Jeremiah 29:10-14

     7212   exile

Jeremiah 29:11-14

     6738   rescue
     8160   seeking God

Library
Finding God
Ye shall seek Me, and find Me, when ye shall search for Me with all your heart.' (Jeremiah xxix. 13.) The words of Jeremiah in their relation to God are very appropriate for men and women in whose hearts there is any longing after personal Holiness. Look at them: 'Ye shall seek Me, and find Me, when ye shall search for Me with all your heart'. I like this word, because it turns our minds to the true and only source of light and life and power. We speak of seeking and getting the blessing; but,
T. H. Howard—Standards of Life and Service

The Secret of Effectual Prayer
"What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye have received them, and ye shall have them."--MARK xi. 24. Here we have a summary of the teaching of our Lord Jesus on prayer. Nothing will so much help to convince us of the sin of our remissness in prayer, to discover its causes, and to give us courage to expect entire deliverance, as the careful study and then the believing acceptance of that teaching. The more heartily we enter into the mind of our blessed Lord, and set ourselves simply
Andrew Murray—The Ministry of Intercession

The Spirit of Prayer.
Text.--Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints, according to the will of God.--Romans viii. 26, 27. My last lecture but one was on the subject of Effectual Prayer; in which I observed that one of the most important attributes of effectual
Charles Grandison Finney—Lectures on Revivals of Religion

The Costliness of Prayer
"Lord, teach us to pray."--Luke xi. 1. "And ye shall seek Me, and find Me, when ye shall search for Me with all your heart."--Jer. xxix. 13. IN his fine book on Benefits, Seneca says that nothing is so costly to us as that is which we purchase by prayer. When we come on that hard-to-be-understood saying of his for the first time, we set it down as another of the well-known paradoxes of the Stoics. For He who is far more to us than all the Stoics taken together has said to us on the subject of prayer,--"Ask,
Alexander Whyte—Lord Teach Us To Pray

Putting God to Work
"For from of old men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen a God beside thee who worketh for him that waiteth for him."--Isaiah 64:4. The assertion voiced in the title given this chapter is but another way of declaring that God has of His own motion placed Himself under the law of prayer, and has obligated Himself to answer the prayers of men. He has ordained prayer as a means whereby He will do things through men as they pray, which He would not otherwise do. Prayer
Edward M. Bounds—The Weapon of Prayer

The Iranian Conquest
Drawn by Boudier, from the engraving in Coste and Flandin. The vignette, drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a statuette in terra-cotta, found in Southern Russia, represents a young Scythian. The Iranian religions--Cyrus in Lydia and at Babylon: Cambyses in Egypt --Darius and the organisation of the empire. The Median empire is the least known of all those which held sway for a time over the destinies of a portion of Western Asia. The reason of this is not to be ascribed to the shortness of its duration:
G. Maspero—History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, V 9

The Seventh Commandment
Thou shalt not commit adultery.' Exod 20: 14. God is a pure, holy spirit, and has an infinite antipathy against all uncleanness. In this commandment he has entered his caution against it; non moechaberis, Thou shalt not commit adultery.' The sum of this commandment is, The preservations of corporal purity. We must take heed of running on the rock of uncleanness, and so making shipwreck of our chastity. In this commandment there is something tacitly implied, and something expressly forbidden. 1. The
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments

I Will Pray with the Spirit and with the Understanding Also-
OR, A DISCOURSE TOUCHING PRAYER; WHEREIN IS BRIEFLY DISCOVERED, 1. WHAT PRAYER IS. 2. WHAT IT IS TO PRAY WITH THE SPIRIT. 3. WHAT IT IS TO PRAY WITH THE SPIRIT AND WITH THE UNDERSTANDING ALSO. WRITTEN IN PRISON, 1662. PUBLISHED, 1663. "For we know not what we should pray for as we ought:--the Spirit--helpeth our infirmities" (Rom 8:26). ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. There is no subject of more solemn importance to human happiness than prayer. It is the only medium of intercourse with heaven. "It is
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

Jeremiah
The interest of the book of Jeremiah is unique. On the one hand, it is our most reliable and elaborate source for the long period of history which it covers; on the other, it presents us with prophecy in its most intensely human phase, manifesting itself through a strangely attractive personality that was subject to like doubts and passions with ourselves. At his call, in 626 B.C., he was young and inexperienced, i. 6, so that he cannot have been born earlier than 650. The political and religious
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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