10/11/2017 PLANT WINTER GARDENS
JEREMIAH 29:4-5 This is what the LORD ALMIGHTY, the GOD of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build house and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 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. 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.” [New International translation]
Summary
Some refer to the Bible as our Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth (B.I.B.L.E). Nowhere is this clearer than in Jeremiah’s 29th chapter, “A Letter to the Exiles.”
Jeremiah was the son of a priest. He prophesized about the destruction of Jerusalem and the hardships the Jewish people would suffer because of their flagrant unfaithfulness to GOD. The Jewish people had entered into covenant relationship with GOD but had broken their word to GOD again and again and again. They had built altars and worshipped other gods. They had even gone so far as to sacrifice their own children to idols. The people’s actions were so defiant that GOD withdrew HIMSELF, HIS protection and HIS blessings.
Jeremiah chapter 29 contains the text of a letter that Jeremiah sent to the exiles who had been deported from Jerusalem to Babylon. The letter contained a message from GOD. The message is a recipe for survival. GOD tells the people that their stay in Babylon will not be short. Most of them would be in exile for a lifetime—seventy years (Verse 10).
GOD tells the people what to do to survive the years ahead. HE tells them to “settle down,” “build houses” “plant gardens” and “eat what the gardens produce,” marry, multiply there, increase and not decrease. HE tells them to pray and seek the welfare of the city in which they live because its welfare is now tied to theirs (Verse 7). GOD tells them that HE still has a plan for them (verse 11), but the people would have to seek and wait on the LORD. HE cautions them not to listen to false prophets, peddling invented “dreams,” and making all sorts of claims about greatness, because they are just lies. Instead, they must work hard and have faith in GOD. If the people seek the LORD in earnest, HE will find them.