Jeremiah 29:1-14 Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke
Build on the Rock Summer Series 9 July 29, 2018 “Houses In Babylon”
It has been said that there are three rules to consider in order to understand real estate, and they are: “location, location, location.” And while that may be overstating the point just a bit, there is a good deal of truth to the saying. One of the reasons that many of us are excited about a building project for GraceSahuarita is that the new location seems to have so much to offer. Instead of forcing people to make their way to this place west of the freeway, we’re looking to move to a location where people very naturally travel and conduct business, and that appears to be a very positive development. And certainly it’s the same way with our personal homes. So many of the factors that go into our decisions are based on the particular location of the house. How are the schools in that area? What are the views like? Crime rates? What activities or amenities are available? We look for a location that suits our needs and balances with our available finances. The biblical building project that we are discussing this morning comes with a bit of a surprise about this very point: its location. In our lesson, we hear about God instructing his people, the Israelites, to build houses in a most surprising location: in Babylon. That is surprising because Babylon was the enemy. Babylon was far from the Promised Land, that special place where God had established his people. I have been trying to come up with some sort of modern equivalent for us here in Sahuarita, but I’m not sure there’s any way to quite capture the situation. It would be something like God telling us not to build our houses in Sahuarita or Green Valley, but maybe to build in Mexico where we might not know the language as well. Or maybe to build in Phoenix where, let’s just say if you thought it was hot here this past week… Or if you think Tucson traffic is bad… So maybe it’s more like we have to imagine that Phoenix attacked Sahuarita and Green Valley, carried us away from here and brought us there, and then God instructs us to build houses and settle down with our new friends in Phoenix. That’s why the Israelites were in Babylon. They were carried off into captivity. But there is a little more explanation necessary. Our lessons throughout our summer series have taken us through highlights of Old Testament history, the history of God’s people the Israelites. We discussed how they left Egypt and eventually made their way to the Promised Land. And we heard how God promised success and prosperity to them in the land. But that was conditioned on them obeying his laws and decrees. God’s promises were dependent on the people listening to his instructions. But throughout their time there, they failed to live up to what God had said. Again and again they worshipped other Gods or joined in the pagan practices of their neighbors. Again and again they forgot what God had commanded. Finally, God carried out the punishments that he had threatened. Briefly described, God allowed the nation to be split into two. The northern tribes eventually were carried away by the Assyrians and disappeared. The remaining tribes of Judah in the south were the ones years later attacked by the Babylonians. And God was using this, too, to accomplish his purpose of chastising his people. There in Babylon, the people heard different messages. It is clear from our verses that some people were telling those who had been carried off to Babylon, including the king and court officials and skilled workers, that they would be leaving Babylon soon. They would be able to head back home and this was a very brief setback for them. Meanwhile, Jeremiah, God’s true prophet, sent them a letter with the opposite news. He told them that the captivity would last for seventy years, which almost certainly meant that many of them would never make the return trip. And so he also had the surprising advice that they were to build their houses in Babylon and settle down. They were to plant gardens and eat their produce, raise families, and do in Babylon almost all of the things that they would have been doing in the Promised Land. And just as surprising, maybe even more so, they were to pray for their captors. They were to pray for the land where they were living as captives,