Latest / Dwelling Place: The Bible for Moms / #167. When Your Expectations Don't Match God's Plan | Jeremiah 41–46 for Christian Moms

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#167. When Your Expectations Don't Match God's Plan | Jeremiah 41–46 for Christian Moms · Dwelling Place: The Bible for Moms

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  Steph: This is The Dwelling Place from Entrusted Ministries.
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  Steph: I'm Stephanie Hickox, and as we near the end of Jeremiah, focusing on chapters 41 through 46, I kind of want to summarize it by saying more bad stuff happens to more bad people, and more bad stuff happens to
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  Steph: good people, too.
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  Steph: Yet even in the trials and tribulation, the Lord kindly reminds us what our expectation and hope should be in When Zedekiah, the last king of Judah, is carried off to Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar puts Gedaliah in his place as governor.
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  Steph: A man named Ishmael kills Gedaliah and everyone with him.
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  Steph: Though this Ishmael is over a thousand years removed from Abraham's son Ishmael, he seems to be just as battle hungry as he was.
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  Steph: Next, 80 men appear grieving what has happened to Jerusalem.
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  Steph: They're mourning and long to bring offerings to the temple.
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  Steph: Ishmael deceptively welcomes them, feigning his own mourning, but he slaughters 70 of them, putting them in a cistern.
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  Steph: Ishmael's evil anarchy meets resistance, but unfortunately when Johanan tries to take him down, Ishmael escapes.
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  Steph: Johanan goes to Jeremiah, and as I read our main scripture for today, I want you to try to discern, are they being sincere in seeking the Lord or not?
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  Steph: Thankfully, as we keep reading, the Lord will make that clear for us All the people from the least to the greatest came near and said to Jeremiah the prophet, Let our plea for mercy come before you, and pray
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  Steph: to the Lord your God for us, for all this remnant, because we are left with but a few, as your eyes see us, that the Lord your God may show us the way we should go and the thing
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  Steph: that we should do."
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  Steph: Jeremiah the prophet said to them, I have heard you.
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  Steph: Behold, I will pray to the Lord your God according to your request, and whatever the Lord answers you, I will tell you.
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  Steph: I will keep nothing back from you."
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  Steph: Then they said to Jeremiah, May the Lord be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not act according to all the word with which the Lord your God sends you to us.
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  Steph: Whether it is good or bad, we will obey the voice of the Lord our God to whom we are sending you, that it may be well with us when we obey the voice of the Lord our God."
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  Steph: At the end of ten days, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah.
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  Steph: Then he summoned Johanan the son of Kareah and all the commanders of the forces who were with him, and all the people from the least to the greatest, and said to them, Thus says the Lord, the God of
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  Steph: Israel, to whom you sent me to present your plea for mercy before him.
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  Steph: If you will remain in the land, then I will build you up and not pull you down.
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  Steph: I will plant you and not pluck you up, for I relent of the disaster that I did to you.
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  Steph: Do not fear the king of Babylon, of whom you are afraid.
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  Steph: Do not fear him, declares the Lord, for I am with you to save you and to deliver you from his hand.
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  Steph: I will grant you mercy, that he may have mercy on you and let you remain in your own land.
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  Steph: But if you say, 'We will not remain in this land,' disobeying the voice of the Lord your God and saying, No, we will go to the land of Egypt, where we shall not see war or hear the sound
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  Steph: of the trumpet or be hungry for bread, and we will dwell there,' then hear the word of the Lord, O remnant of Judah.
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  Steph: Thus says the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel: If you set your faces to enter Egypt and go to live there, then the sword that you fear shall overtake you there in the land of Egypt, and the
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  Steph: famine of which you are afraid shall follow close after you to Egypt, and there you shall die.
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  Steph: All the men who set their faces to go to Egypt to live there, shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence.
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  Steph: They shall have no remnant or survivor from the disaster that I will bring upon them.
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  Steph: For thus says the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel: As my anger and my wrath were poured out on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so my wrath will be poured out on you when you go to Egypt.
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  Steph: You shall become an execration, a horror, a curse, and a taunt.
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  Steph: You shall see this place no more.
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  Steph: The Lord has said to you, O remnant of Judah, Do not go to Egypt.
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  Steph: Know for a certainty that I have warned you this day, that you have gone astray at the cost of your lives.
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  Steph: For you sent me to the Lord your God, saying, Pray for us to the Lord our God, and whatever the Lord our God says, declare to us and we will do it.
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  Steph: And I have this day declared it to you, but you have not obeyed the voice of the Lord your God in anything that he sent me to tell you.
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  Steph: Now therefore, know for a certainty that you shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence in the place where you desire to go to live.
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  Steph: When Jeremiah finished speaking to all the people all these words of the Lord their God, with which the Lord their God had sent him to them, Azariah the son of Hoshaiah and Johanan the son of Kareah and all
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  Steph: the insolent men said to Jeremiah, You are telling a lie.
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  Steph: The Lord our God did not send you to say, 'Do not go to Egypt to live there.'
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  Steph: But Baruch the son of Neriah has sent you to us to deliver us into the hand of the Chaldeans, that they may kill us or take us into exile in Babylon."
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  Steph: So Johanan the son of Kareah and all the commanders of the forces and all the people did not obey the voice of the Lord to remain in the land of Judah.
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  Steph: But Johanan the son of Kareah and all the commanders of the forces took all the remnant of Judah who had returned to live in the land of Judah from all the nations to which they had been driven, the
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  Steph: men, the women, the children, the princesses, and every person the captain of the guard, had left with Gedaliah the son of Ahikam.
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  Steph: son of Shaphan, also Jeremiah the prophet, and Baruch the son of Neriah.
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  Steph: And they came into the land of Egypt; for they did not obey the voice of the LORD
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  I know that that's a longer passage, but I thought it was so shocking that initially they truly seemed to be sincere.
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  Didn't you feel like, "Yay!
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  Someone finally gets it.
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  Someone's going to honor the Lord"?
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  It's just my assumption, but perhaps the Lord took 10 days to give word to Jeremiah so that the true intentions and motivations of their heart would be revealed Even though every word that God has declared has been fulfilled,
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  they still want to rely on earthly power instead of his supernatural strength.
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  It's really easy to look down our noses at it, but the last time your kiddo got sick, was your first response to pray or to reach for a home remedy or call the doctor?
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  That's just one simple example, but how often do we look to earthly solutions instead of asking for help from a God that so deeply wants to walk alongside us?
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  And I'm so thankful that in this situation, I did not have to judge the intentions of these people and that God could see right through it He knew exactly what they were doing, and that's why I'm so in
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  awe that in verse 11, God once again said, Do not fear him, for I am with you to save you and to deliver you from his hand."
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  He offers his presence even though he knows he will be rejected.
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  the availability of our Lord is astounding.
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  May we never take it for granted because there will be a limit, just as there was with these people that chose to go to Egypt.
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  Unfortunately, Jeremiah and Baruch are taken there against their will We witness God's heart and his investment in the people in 44:4.
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  Yet I persistently sent to you all my servants the prophets saying, Oh, do not do this abomination that I hate!'"
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  It has an exclamation point, Which is rare when we have a quotation of the Lord's words.
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  His persistence and vigilance leaves the people with no excuse.
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  They are guilty.
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  They continue to rebel, and it's to these Judeans that flee to Egypt that God says, Your wives have been making offerings to other gods, and you've just stood by."
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  Instead of confronting their passive leadership and committing to be faithful to the one true God, They double back and say, We're going to keep making offerings to the Queen of Heaven.
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  It actually seems like things started to go wrong when we started following you."
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  What they're claiming is that once King Josiah started all his reforms and the people started to follow God, that's when things started to go bad for Judah So they decide to go back to worshiping the other gods and
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  see how it goes for them.
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  at this point, it's been made clear to us that Josiah's reforms were effective outwardly, but for many people, it didn't penetrate their hearts.
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  And that's why when we read 44, verses 26 and 27, we recognize how justified the Lord is.
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  Therefore, hear the word of the Lord, all you of Judah who dwell in the land of Egypt.
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  Behold, I have sworn by my great name,' says the Lord, that my name shall no more be invoked by the mouth of any man of Judah in all the land of Egypt.
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  saying, "As the Lord God lives, behold, I am watching over them for disaster, and not for good.
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  All the men of Judah who are in the land of Egypt shall be consumed by the sword and by famine until there is an end of them God will not be mocked.
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  And this God who earlier said through Jeremiah that when we call to him, he will hear and answer us, he has set a limit and a boundary to their manipulative and deceptive ways And once again, we can appreciate
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  that God sees to the heart because there are two men in Egypt that did not choose to be there God continues to be attentive to their cry.
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  Chapter 45 is brief, but what we witness in Jeremiah and Baruch is incredibly applicable for you and I If we look at the dating of this section, it would actually have been chronologically placed in chapter 36, but perhaps
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  Jeremiah included it here so that those being exiled could relate to Baruch's despair The word that Jeremiah the prophet spoke to Baruch, the son of Neriah, when he wrote these words in a book at the dictation of Jeremiah,
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  in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah: Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, to you, O Baruch.
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  You said, "Woe is me!
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  For the Lord has added sorrow to my pain.
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  I am weary with my groaning, and I find no rest."
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  Thus shall you say to him, Thus says the Lord, Behold, what I have built I am breaking down, and what I have planted I am plucking up.
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  This is the whole land And do you seek great things for yourself?
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  Seek them not.
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  For behold, I am bringing disaster upon all flesh, declares the Lord.
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  But I will give you your life as a prize of war in all the places to which you may go Time and time again, we've read the words of Jeremiah and the grief he was enduring by faithfully delivering
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  God's message to a crooked and rebellious generation.
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  There's a drawing created by artist Gustave Doré that shows Baruch in a prison cave with Jeremiah, faithfully inscribing all the words the Lord was giving him, even as Jeremiah was despairingly crying out to the Lord.
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  He has been a steadfast and reliable companion for decades.
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  But here we're shown a moment of weakness as he questions, God, is this really how my life is going to go?"
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  Uh, don't leave me hanging here, but can you relate to Baruch's woe is me feelings?
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  Many days following Christ seems much harder than I expected it to be when I was younger And that's why I need to keep coming back to the Word of God because God corrects his perspective Reminding him, "Your expectations
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  are off.
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  Stop seeking great things for yourself."
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  He does promise to give him life, but it doesn't really sound that Baruch and Jeremiah are living comfortable, enjoyable lives I believe that they have incredible blessings in heaven, but on this earth, their job was to make much
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  of the Lord and to not expect that it would equate to comfort or happiness for them It reminds me of Jesus' words, Whoever lays down his life for my sake will find it."
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  and Paul's words in Philippians, "My every hope and expectation is that Christ be glorified."
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  If you're struggling because you find yourself laying down your life more than you expected, I wanna pray with you and for you that God would give you the strength to endure joyfully in His presence.
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  Heavenly Father, we are in awe of the way You continue to offer Your presence and Your blessing to people who repeatedly rejected You we long to be exceedingly different to be marked by the quickness of the way that
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  we turn to you May we run to your strength First and foremost, rather than worldly wisdom, we pray our expectations would be pure and righteous before you, that our every hope and expectation would be that Jesus Christ is
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  glorified in and through us.
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  Often, we struggle to lay down our hopes for our own lives, our marriages, our parenting, our homes, our appearances.
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  We face disappointment and despair on this earth, but we thank you once again that you dwell with us through it all.
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  And Lord, we praise you that your presence is truly all that can satisfy us as you purify our desires and our motivations we ask that our example would be contagious to our families May our kids learn from a
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  young age to throw off the temptations and pleasures of this world.
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  May you give them a maturity and understanding that your glory is our greatest and most delightful aim.
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  Thank you, Jesus, that you offer us yourself here and now, and also the hope of heaven It's in your name we pray.
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  Amen.