Sermon Tone Analysis

Notes on Jeremiah 32

Dr. Ron Dunn

Jeremiah 32

 

Jeremiah the prophet's in jail.

The Chaldeans are laying siege to the city and Jeremiah has been preaching a rather unpopular message.

He's been going around Jerusalem saying, "You might as well give up...no use in fighting because God has raised up the Chaldeans and has assured them a victory and because of your sins the Chaldeans are going to overthrow the city and carry all of us into captivity...but God has promised that one of these days when the captivity is over He will restore us to the land and the land to us."

So, Jeremiah was going around saying, "There's no use in fighting.

You're fighting a losing battle.

God has ordained that you're going to lose.

Therefore, why fight a losing battle and get killed and not be alive later on when God restores the land.

It would be much better just to give up because we're going to lose anyway.

Just give up so we'll all be alive when God brings us back."

He was sort of preaching a "better red than dead" message".

The house committee on unJerusalem activities met and they investigated Jeremiah and saw that he was preaching an unpatriotic message and they put him in jail.

So, that's the background and that sort of helps us to understand what's happening.

Jeremiah 32:1-5...

        Now that's the sermon that Jeremiah was preaching over and over throughout the streets of Jerusalem and it's understandable that Zedekiah threw him in jail for preaching that kind of discouraging message, isn't it?

Now while Jeremiah is languishing there in that prison something happens in verse 6...

 

Verses 6-10...

We'll stop there for a minute because that's enough for right now.

We'll read the rest later on.

Jeremiah is in prison for preaching this traitorous message.

Now, while he's in prison, he has an unusual visitor.

Now there are three things that make this visit so unusual.

Number one, it was a relative.

Hanamel, his uncle's son.

That was his cousin.

The reason I say this is unusual is that because by this time all of Jeremiah's relatives had disowned him.

Nobody wanted anybody to know that Jeremiah was one of their relatives.

After all the fellow's been going around preaching such an unpatriotic and traitorous message and he's been tried and convicted of treason and thrown into prison that the best thing we can do is forget him and not send him any Christmas cards and don't let anybody know that he's one of us...he's the black sheep of the family so...  If you'd been a relative of Jeremiah's you'd just soon nobody know about it!

So it was unusual that his visitor was a relative...a cousin...  The second thing that made this visit so unusual was the purpose of the visit.

Hanamel had a farm that he wanted to get rid of.

So he comes to Jeremiah and he says to Jeremiah, "Such a deal I've got for you!

I've got a farm and I'm gonna let you buy and the right of possession is yours since you're a member of the family it's only right that if I'm going to get rid of this farm I allow one of the relatives to buy it to keep it in the family."

Now, I don't know that much about real estate, but I'm told that this is not the greatest time to try to sell real estate.

They tell me that this is not the best time of all and it seems to me that you had a farm you were wanting to sell the last place to find a good prospect would be in prison.

I think you could find somebody that was better qualified to buy a farm than going down to the local jail and going up to one of the prisoners and saying, "I've got a deal for you...I want you to buy my farm."

That was the second thing that made it such an unusual visit.

The third thing that made this such an unusual visit was that the farm that Hanamel wanted to sell Jeremiah was in enemy territory!

And it couldn't be occupied by the owner!

No wonder Hanamel wanted to say, "Such a deal I've got for you.

I'm going to let this go real cheap!"

Folks, the Chaldeans had already occupied that part of Judah and the farm was presently being occupied by the enemy and so here comes Hanamel saying, "I want to sell you my farm!"  "Well, where is it?"

"It's not really important where it is... Well, it happens to over yonder in Anathoth."

"Isn't that where the Chaldeans are camping out?"  "Well, near there... But, it's a great deal."

I'll tell you what's even more surprising.

It is surprising to me that Hanamel would have the gall and audacity to offer it but it's even more surprising that Jeremiah bought the thing...which goes to prove preachers have no business sense at all.

Now if that's all there was to the story that would be an interesting story but I want you to note that Jeremiah knew it was going to happen before it happened...

While he was there in prison, "The word of the LORD came to me saying, Hanamel, your cousin is going to come and offer to sell you a farm in Anathoth and I want you to buy it."

Why did God set up this little deal?

I wonder why God made this arrange-ment.

When Hanamel finally showed up and told him about the farm, Jeremiah said, "Then I knew..." and the word means to know from experience... "...this is the word of the Lord..." so he bought the farm.

Now, Jeremiah didn't have any use for this farm...especially a farm in enemy territory, but he was doing it out of obedience to the word of God.

What's this whole thing about?

Remember the message Jeremiah had been preaching?

He had been preaching a two-point message.

1)  God is going to deliver you into the hands of the Chaldeans because of your sin... You're going to be carried off into Babylon and put into captivity.

That's the number one point of his message.

But he said 2) You will be there until the Lord visits us again.

The second half of Jeremiah's message was a message of hope.

Actually the whole sermon, even though at first it doesn't look like it is clearly a message of hope!

This is the part of the book of Jeremiah where it speaks of the prophecies of hope and expectation.

Jeremiah is saying, "Even though you're going to be carried of into captivity the day is coming when God will release you from captivity and will bring you back to the land and all the land will be restored to you...even that farm that is in occupied territory!"

And here's what Hanamel is reasoning...here is how he was thinking...

He was thinking... "If Jeremiah's foolish enough to preach such a message as that then he'll be foolish enough to buy the farm.

Jeremiah won't have any choice!"

He thought this because he knew that Jeremiah had been preaching that God's word says that one of these days everything's going to be made right...one of these days justice is going to be done...all inequities are going to be blotted out...righteousness is going to reign and God is going to restore every acre to His people...so I'll go to Jeremiah and I'll say to Jeremiah 'I want to sell you my farm...' and if Jeremiah says, 'You're crazy...that farm is in occupied territory'...all I have to say is, 'Yes, but you've been preaching that it doesn't make any difference...one of these days God is going to restore the land and brother if that's true, then brother what I'm offering you is a good deal and a great investment...why is it you hesitate to buy it, Jeremiah?

You have been preaching and telling us that the future belongs to God's people and He's going to restore all this and if you refuse to buy it then you're going to have to stop preaching."

See, either Jeremiah had to buy the farm or change his message.

What Hanamel was actually saying was this... "put your money where your mouth is...put up or shut up...you say you believe that one of these days God is going to restore this land...alright, then you shouldn't even hesitate about buying the farm...just prove it and back up your preaching with your pocketbook."

And that's the theme of the whole story.

What's happening of course is this...Jeremiah is a man who is living in the midst of darkness and he's the only one who has any light.

And when the light shines through it is an unbelievable message that regardless how dim and dark the present looks the future belongs to God and to God's people and He's promised that one of these days all will be made right and all inequities will be smoothed out and that the land will be restored to us.

And that was Jeremiah's faith.

And God comes to Jeremiah and says, "Jeremiah, we're going to find out if you're just preaching or if you really mean that.

If that's just an easy sermon...or if you really and truly believe that then you're going to have to buy the farm to prove that you really prove that you believe what you're preaching."

So, with that in mind I want to talk to you tonight about these three things.

1)     God must eventually test the reality of our faith.

There comes a time when you have to buy the farm...that's all there is to it.

I can remember a time in my own Christian life and ministry when the Lord would allow me to preach certain things without having to experience it...do you know what I'm talking about?

You know I could just preach anything and it didn't matter whether I had experienced it or not...if it was in the Bible I preached it.

But, there came a point...there came a time in my ministry when it seemed

that God demanded that I go through everything I preached...that's when I became more careful about what I preached.

I started getting selective.

I read in the Bible one day where it said that tribulation produces patience and I stopped praying for patience!

Knowing how God gives it to you, I decided I could get along without it!

Folks, there are some things I can do without!

You know, I'll just make the best of it.

I don't mind being impatient once I knew how God operates.

But, I think that all of us in growing up in Christ and developing in our faith come to a point...you see, when we are childlike in our faith and immature...and we're in adolescence, God makes allowances just as we do with our children, but folks, when we became a man we put away the things that belonged to you as a child and there comes a point when God will stop letting you believe just anything you want to believe...you're going to have to experience it and test it out and try it!

When God suddenly begins testing the reality of our faith...

By the way, let me just point out something here...we have a tremendous anatomy of an act of faith.

I think it would be helpful for us to just look at it.

Verse 6... "And Jeremiah said, 'the word of the LORD came to me..."

Now, that's the beginning of faith.

In other words, if a person is going to live in confidence and faith there must be a certain sensitivity to the voice of God and all faith begins with a word from the Lord.

I've said it many times and you've heard it that faith is not a means of our getting our will done in heaven, it is a means of God getting His will done on earth.

Faith is not originate with my desire or my wishes or my whims...positive thinking notwithstanding...I believe in positive thinking, but folks, it's not Biblically based...it's not even close to it.

Faith begins with a word from the Lord and that's where all faith originates.

First of all we must have a revelation of God's will to our hearts.