2 Baskets Of Figs Series

Sermon preached by Rev. Larry C. Brincefield on October 31, 2004

Title: 2 Baskets of Figs

Text: Jeremiah 24:1-7

Introduction

1. There are great many things that divide us into groups…

We are divided by our sex…there are men and women…

We are divided by race…blacks, whites, Hispanics, and so on…

We are divided by religion…Catholic, protestant, Muslim, Jew.

In our country today…it is very obvious that we are sharply divided by politics…

It saddens my heart to see some of the conflicts between different groups…

2. But as we continue to study Jeremiah this morning…

We will see the people of Judah divided into 2 groups…

and, we will find that this same division continues until today…

and, of all the things that divides us…

this division is most important…

it is more important that the division between man and woman…

black and white…

Democrat and Republican…

Jew and Gentile…

Or any other division that you could think of.

3. In our text today, we see that God gives Jeremiah another vision…

Throughout Jeremiah we see God using various visions and object lessons to communicate important things to Jeremiah.

We’ve already talked about the vision of the boiling pot and an almond branch.

Some of the other object lessons that God uses with Jeremiah are:

A linen belt in Jeremiah chapter 13…

A field trip to the potter’s house in Jeremiah 18…

Broken clay jars in Jeremiah 19…

And with each vision, God uses something common…

Something that Jeremiah and the people would find easy to understand…

And here in chapter 24, God uses a vision of 2 baskets of figs.

And these 2 baskets of figs represent 2 groups of people…

These 2 groups represent that important division that existed in Jeremiah’s day…

And it continues to have great importance even today

Let’s stand together as we read God’s Word.

Read Text: Jer. 24:1-10

Body

1. Background

A. Some versions of the Bible starts out with Jeremiah saying, “God caused me to see” or “The Lord showed me”

Jeremiah was spiritually tuned in to God so that God could use him in a special way…

And God showed Jeremiah this vision of the 2 baskets of figs.

And God used Jeremiah to write a letter of encouragement to the people of Judah who went into captivity (chapter 29; which we will study later).

B. It is my hope that this morning,

that we will be spiritually tuned in to God in such a way

that He will cause US to see this morning…

and that He will give us a vision…

and that He will be able to use us as an encouragement to the Church.

C. Jeremiah had been warning the people for around 20 years about God’s coming judgment.

But by and large the people ignored him…

Refusing to return to God.

D. We see that the judgment has finally arrived…

Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon invaded and attacked…

Jeremiah had warned the people over and over and over again…

The boiling pot balanced precariously over Judah had finally boiled over…

Judgment had come.

Jeremiah warned them that when that time come…

God didn’t want them to try to escape…

God didn’t want them to be left behind…

God wanted them to submit to this Babylonian King and go into exile

Many of them were carried away into exile…

But some of them ran to Egypt to escape the Babylonian army…

Or they were able to avoid capture in their own country.

From the human perspective, these people who were able to avoid the exile…

They were the lucky ones…

They avoided capture…

They avoided the exile that would eventually last 70 years…

They were able to return to Jerusalem…

And they were probably pretty proud of themselves…

And meanwhile, they were probably saddened about their brothers and sisters who were captured…

E. But things aren’t always as they seem.

Verse 1 tells us that the Babylonian army took the officials, the craftsmen, the artisans, the skilled workers…

The Babylonians knew that they would need skilled and strong people to help them in their construction and building programs.

Do you remember the story of Daniel?

And Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.?

How they king wanted to train them and they were to eat the kings food…

but they refused and wanted to eat fruits and vegetables…

and as result, they were healthier and better nourished than the rest of the people who were eating the king’s rich diet…

That happened during the exile that is taking place in our text that we are studying today…

That’s the background up to this point, in a nutshell…

2. Let’s look at the Vision that God gave Jeremiah

A. The Lord showed Jeremiah 2 baskets of figs that were placed in front of the temple of the Lord…