Restoration Of His People

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. - Jeremiah 29:11

We admire that, some people have the skills of restoration. Something that is old and useless will be restored to its original beauty. For example some people have this wonderful skill of restoration with furniture. You can take some old piece of furniture to give coats of paint and varnish and get it down to its original beautiful wood and you're able to restore it to its original beauty. I admire it. Some of you also have the skill of restoring old cars and you may restore the interior, the exterior, the engine and you may make it beautiful. I just admire that kind of work.

God is also into the business of restoration. God is very gifted at it. We're not talking furniture and cars and artwork. We will talk about the skill of the restoration of people. God knows how to restore people.

The definition of restoration Webster defines like this: a) a bringing back to a former position or condition or b) an improved condition.

The word restore, restoration is used often in the Bible. In a BIBLICAL SENSE: a) when God leads people back to him who are estranged or distant from Him. b) When God forgives sin and gives hope. This is what God does with us. He restores us. He takes our old lives as sinful lives, and he restores us into the right relationship with him; and He gives us a new life. How many of you are thankful for restoration in your lives? Amen.

This is what God does. Jeremiah chapter 29 is a chapter of restoration. God promises to restore the Jewish people who have sinned against him and rebelled against him. And it's a good template for us to be reminded about God's restoring work in our own lives. Jeremiah 29:10-14 is one of the most familiar passages of scripture in the whole book of Jeremiah. What we find out here is that chapter 29 is actually a letter. The first few verses tell us that God basically inspired Jeremiah to pen a letter and to write this letter to the exiles, Jewish people who have now been taken captive and deported a thousand miles away from Jerusalem to Babylon which is where they're living now.

Here’s the historical background. In the year 606 BC King Nebuchadnezzar began sieging Judah. Judah was the lower portion of the nation of Israel, it was the kingdom of southern Judah, by the way the people of Judah were so named after the tribe of Judah. The term Jew does not appear to describe the Israelites until this time period. From the Babylonian captivity the people will then forever and even today be known as Jews. The Jews have now been deported to Babylon by the tens of thousands over the period of 20 years from 606 BC to 586 BC. Nebuchadnezzar will come against Judah and bring the country down and eventually overtake the city of Jerusalem. In the process of those 20 years he will deport tens of thousands of Jews to Babylon; they will be uprooted from their country; they will be forcibly removed from their homes. They will be separated from their families and many of them, most of them, will never again return to their homeland.

God loved his people though they worshiped false gods and did wrong. He said I cannot allow you to remain on this wicked path forsaking me, rebelling against me. Therefore, He uses the Babylonian Empire as the rod of his discipline. Three times in the Book of Jeremiah, God calls Nebuchadnezzar, this pagan king, my servant Nebuchadnezzar. In the hand of God, Nebuchadnezzar becomes the instrument that God used to correct the people that God loves, his own Jewish people.

God in this whole story is that his mercy is demonstrated on the front end and on the back end. They didn't have to go to Babylon, they didn't have to be carried off as captives if they had turned back to God and that's the reason why God sent prophet after prophet warning them in advance. So God's mercy was on the front end. God was saying over and over again through the prophets if you'll turn to me the Babylonians won't come. If you turn to me, they don't need to come. If you don't turn to me, they're coming. So his mercy was there, but they didn't heed his warning. They rejected the word of the Prophet, they rejected God and so the Babylonians came and hauled them off to captivity where they spent seventy years. But the beauty of God is not only his mercy in the front end, but his mercy is evident in the back end of this story. Because even after 70 years God displays his mercy to them by bringing them back and restoring them. And this is what he does here in chapter 29.