← ArchiveJeremiahJeremiah 32DateJune 28, 2026SpeakerTony ButlerTextJeremiah 32Passages in this sermonJeremiah 320:56John 128:37TranscriptClick any line to jump there.0:00Music.0:30Good morning, Bethel. As Pastor Josh said, my name is Tony Butler, and I get the privilege of bringing the word this morning. I want to welcome everyone that's both here and online. Pastor Josh always has a good little applause, so thank y'all for being here this morning. It's my honor to teach today. Pastor Josh asked me to teach Jeremiah 32 this morning,0:56and so when he said that, I thought, all right, great. I love teaching history. Jeremiah is a great history book, and I couldn't wait because, like I said, I just love history. And, you know, I probably could have been a really good history teacher had it not been for that silly notion that you actually have to go to school and get a degree. So, but God said, no, no, I don't want you to teach a history lesson today.1:28I want you to teach a message on hope in a hopeless situation. So many of us face those from time to time. Maybe you're going through one right now, and today's lesson is going to be on just that. It's hope in a hopeless situation. But before we get started, I want to open in a word of prayer. And here's what I want you to pray.1:56Pray that God teach me what I need to know today. Simple, simple statement. God teach me what I need to know today. So let's go to the Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, I just pray now that as we look at your word, as we look at Jeremiah, that you open us, open our eyes up to the things that we need to know, open our ears that we need to hear. And then, Father, I pray that you convict us, convict our spirit to live out the things that we learned today.2:21I thank you for this opportunity, Father, to stand and represent you. I just pray now that you bless this time, and we ask this thing and these things in Jesus' most precious name. Amen. So, our lesson today, like I said, is on hope within hopelessness. And I need to start by defining hope. First of all, hope is a noun.2:51Hope is not a verb. We use it improperly all the time. The definition of hope is a confident expectation. Like, a hope is a confident expectation. For instance, the great song, you know, my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. My hope is, that's a noun in that. If we use it improperly as a verb, like we're so prone to do, I may say, I hope I don't put you all to sleep today.3:19That's the wrong way to use the word hope. Hope is definitely a noun, as a Christian anyway. As a Christian, we should always look at hope that way. It is, it's the centerpiece around Jeremiah 32. And so, we're going to be looking at that today as we look at our lesson.3:49When you think of hope, we're going to think of something that we cling to. If you've ever rode the monorail at, say, one of the Disney parks or even at a big airport where you go from terminal to terminal, you know, you step inside this train and it's got all these bars in there. And you, you know, as it's moving, you just hold on to the bar just to kind of stabilize yourself. The kind of hope I'm talking about is, say you were on the outside of that monorail.4:19And you're clinging to that thing with every fiber of your being to keep from falling off of it because it's life and death. That's the hope that I'm talking about, that we're going to be talking about today. The hope that we cling to with every fiber of our being so that we don't fall to our death, so that we don't fall to destruction. So, we look at Jeremiah 32 and let me ask you a question.4:47Have you ever gotten disciplined for doing something wrong? Well, I didn't finish the sentence. Have you ever gotten disciplined for doing, because I have plenty of times. Have you ever gotten disciplined for doing something wrong that resulted in a positive change in your life? Wow, that's good. I'm hoping one day that'll happen with me.5:16That's what Jeremiah, the book of Jeremiah is basically about. It's about judgment unto restoration. Now, when most people think of judgment, they think of judgment unto destruction or unto death. A great example right now for judgment unto restoration, has anybody driven on I-20 lately? It looks like it is going through judgment unto death.5:45But the state of Alabama is promising it will be judgment unto restoration, I promise you. And, you know, my hope is that it doesn't take the amount of time that it took for Israel to be restored unto restoration. We don't have 70, I don't have 70 years. So, we see in chapter 32, hope in what appears to be a hopeless situation. And where we see the hope, we see it in a real estate transaction.6:16So, a quick history on just kind of going through the book. There's 44 verses in this book. I figured if I give each verse three minutes, tell a story here and there. I've got 140 minutes this morning. You laugh. Judah was in the 10th year of Zedekiah's reign as king. Pastor Josh touched on that last week. Zedekiah was a king that did not do God's bidding.6:47Jeremiah, Judah's prophet to God, had been placed under house arrest by Zedekiah for a prophecy that Zedekiah did not like. He didn't appreciate it. Now, let me remind you of Zedekiah's fate. Again, Pastor Josh touched on it. He was taken captive. He gets blinded and then he eventually gets put to death. So, here's Jeremiah's prophecy.7:15We see it starting in verse three of chapter 32. Thus says the Lord, Behold, I am about to give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, and he will take it. Jeremiah made one statement and then he followed it up by, you know, I'm going to give this city to the king of Babylon and you need to pay attention. He's going to take it. And Zedekiah, king of Judah, will not escape out of the hand of the Chaldeans.7:42Chaldeans, Babylonians, same thing. It's a whole other story for another day, but same thing. But he will surely be given into the hand of the king of Babylon and he will speak to him face to face and he will see him eye to eye and he will take Zedekiah to Babylon and he will be there until I visit him, declares the Lord. And then he adds this, if you fight against the Chaldeans, you will not succeed.8:07Now, when I read this and I thought about what Pastor Josh was saying about Zedekiah being blinded. And I see where Jeremiah says, and you will speak with him face to face and see him eye to eye. I thought, Jeremiah, that's cold. You know, he's going to take his eyes. And so Zedekiah does the only logical thing that he can think of.8:35He ignores the message and he tries to silence the messenger by placing him under arrest. That's typical human logic. There's no divine logic in that. And by the way, you may can silence the messenger, but you'll never silence the message. God's word is going to prevail always. So we jump, look at verses 6 through 15, we see a prophecy to the prophet.9:02Now, I found this interesting. It's never enough for someone to merely preach God's word, but they should also practice it to prove hearers that they believe it themselves. I had a situation many years ago where I was asked to preach a sermon, and the topic was unity and love.9:22And so I worked out this sermon, and I got all the points I wanted, all the Bible verses I wanted. And I got it ready, I prayed over it, and God came to me and said, you can't preach this. Why not, Lord? Lord, I mean, I'm preaching what you asked me to preach. I've got it here.9:52He said, you can't preach it because you're not living it. I thought, wait, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. This is on unity and love. I said, in my church, I'm one of the unifiers. I go out of my way to make sure we have unity, to show the people love, to, you know, to make people feel welcome. And God says, that's fine you do, and that's your church, but you're not doing it in my church. You know, your church stops at those walls. Mine don't. And he reminded me of a situation.10:22We do a camp. We've been doing a camp for many years. And he reminded me of a situation where one of our campers that we have known for years, a little girl that came from a pretty rough home life, her mother kept putting her in situations that were not healthy. And she was at camp one year, and for some reason, I don't know why, but I got in a phone conversation with the mother, and she made a request of me to do something that was extremely unhealthy for her daughter.10:49And that's when I became a little righteously indignant, so I thought. And I told her what I felt about the situation, and it didn't go well. And God says, yeah, you think you were righteously indignant with her? What was righteous about that? Was I glorified? Was she edified? I said, well, no, she don't like me anymore.11:17Okay, well, what about that daughter that you were standing up for? Well, she don't like me either. Matter of fact, some of the friends of that daughter don't even like me. He said, and so that's righteous indignation? Sounds like you just got something off your chest. You just took advantage of an opportunity. He said, before you teach this lesson, you need to clear that issue up. It was like two days before I was supposed to preach.11:47So I went to this, I found, finally got and was able to get in touch with this woman, and I apologized to her sincerely. I told her that I did not treat her in the love that God would expect me to treat her. And I asked her for forgiveness. And she accepted my apology, and she said she forgave me. And God said, now go teach the lesson. That's how he deals with us in these situations. Listen up, church. God is not going to let us encourage others with something that we are incapable of doing ourselves.12:16We may say something, but if it's empty words, it's going to go nowhere. And let's be honest. It's so easy to preach God's word to others, but it's so difficult to preach it to ourselves. In verses 6 through 9, God is prophesying to the prophet. Verses 6, he said, Jeremiah replied, the word of the Lord came to me.12:43Watch. Hannibal, the son of your uncle Shalom, or Shalom, is coming to you to say, buy my field in Anathoth. For yourself, for you own the right to redeem and to buy it. You can understand, Anathoth is a battlefield. It's like, imagine the real estate market in Kiev, in the Ukraine, in the West Bank, in Palestine, in Iran, in Lebanon.13:04I mean, you know, you've got a real estate agent that says, I've got a great three-bedroom ranch house here with a nice garage on the end of it. And all of a sudden, a missile drops, boom, and he said, I've got a great one-and-a-half-bedroom ranch house with a really open carport on the end of it. I mean, that's what's going on, and that's what God's telling Jeremiah, you've got a great piece of property here.13:35And Jeremiah's like, really? You think so? And so, Hannibal did and said exactly as the prophecy predicted, which confirmed to Jeremiah that it was indeed the word of the Lord. It's interesting how the preacher, how the prophecy, when turned inward, Jeremiah needed confirmation.14:00God would bring prophecy to Jeremiah, and he would spout it out to the masses. But when we get, you know, a message to us, you sure, Lord? You sure you really want me to do that? And as I read that, I thought, you know, I feel like I'm in good company now. Jeremiah purchased the land. In doing so, he was preaching a sermon by what he was doing and not by speaking.14:30He bought a piece of property in a place that nobody would buy a piece of property. He took this land, and he purchased it at a time when the fortunes of Judah couldn't have been worse. The field was in the hands of the Babylonians. Jeremiah was in prison. He's buying real estate while he's in prison. And the future of the nation couldn't have been darker.14:59Jeremiah knew this because of the prophecy he made to Zedekiah. So, in purchasing the land, Jeremiah got the attention of the people that was able to affirm God's great promises to them. He had tried to put it, or did, he had to put his money where his mouth was, and God eventually had blessed him for it. It's a great lesson for all of us. So, after this, looking at verses 17 through 14, Jeremiah prays a unique prayer.15:25And I found this prayer fascinating. Because every time I pray, it's always, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme. It may be honorable things. You know, heal this person, bless this ministry, you know, all these different things. But to me, I look back on my prayer life, and it's always, thank you, Lord, now gimme, gimme, gimme.15:50I praise you, Lord, now gimme, gimme, gimme. This prayer that Jeremiah prays, he never asked God for anything. No intercession, no personal requests. With every sentence, Jeremiah declares God's glory, sovereignty, and power. I've said it before in here. I love to hear Mary West praise because that's what she does.16:18She declares God's majesty, God's glory when she prays. Verse 17 says, O Lord God, you yourself made the heavens and the earth with your great power and with your outstretched arms. And then he adds this, this is so important. Nothing is too difficult for you. That statement is key to today's lesson. It says in verse 18, You show faithful love to thousands, great and mighty God, whose name is the Lord of armies, the great one in counsel and powerful in action.16:47Another statement of his glory, his sovereignty, and his power. You perform signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, and you still do today. Now, when I read that, I was thinking, he's talking about now. But when I read it, I'm thinking, still today. Both in Israel and among all mankind. Still today, among all mankind.17:16That covers us. You think this only applies to 580 CBC? You brought your people Israel out of Egypt with signs and wonders and a strong hand and an outstretched arm and with your great terror. Another statement. Your majesty, your power, your glory. You gave them this land you swore to give to their ancestors, a land flowing with milk and honey.17:43More statement to him. They entered and possessed it. They did not obey you or live according to your instructions. They failed to perform all you commanded them to do, and so you have brought all this disaster on them. Look, siege ramps have come against the city to capture it, and the city, as a result of sword, famine, and plague, has been handed over to the Galadians who are fighting against it.18:07What you have spoken has happened. This is his prayer. He's yet to ask God for anything. He's just declaring God's majesty. True prayer begins with worship and focuses on the greatness of God. When was the last time we'd have prayed a prayer to God where we only spoke of his majesty?18:36And nothing else. That spoke, this prayer spoke volumes to me. And I may be the only one in the room that needed to hear that. But it spoke volumes to me. Because, as I said, my prayers have always been, thank you, Lord, I praise you, Lord, not gimme, gimme, gimme. Maybe we should all stop and pray a prayer like Jeremiah does from time to time. And then we look at the prophecy of the siege of the destruction of Jerusalem in verses 26 through 25.19:07I'm skimming over this a little bit. Before God addressed what he was about to do to Judea and Israel, he poses a question to Jeremiah. He says, look, in verse 27, he says, look, I am the Lord, the God over every creature. Is anything too difficult for me? And when Jeremiah come to terms with that, and it didn't take long, I'm sure.19:33That was the motivating factor to buy this piece of land in this battlefield that nobody would ever buy. I'm hoping he got a great deal on it. It says, do you see yourself in a hopeless situation? Is there anything too difficult for God? I'm asking you this morning. This is what sealed the deal for Jeremiah to purchase his land. Then God goes into detail on how the Chaldeans will destroy the city.20:02If this were a movie, we would begin to hear the music start to crescendo. The city will be burned. Ironically, the city spent a great deal of time burning incense to idols. He lists all the evil Israel and Judah have committed against him with their idolatry. How they turned their back on him. How they rejected his prophets.20:32This is what's been going on since Israel's youth, as we read in verse 30. From their youth, the Israelites, Judeans, have done nothing but what is evil in my sight. I've heard parents say that. Since the day you were born, you've been in nothing but trouble. We've heard that. And that's what God is saying to Israel. This is building. The music's getting a little bigger and a little louder. In verses 31 to 32, then God starts naming names.20:59Music builds bigger. I will therefore remove it from my presence because of all the evil the Israelites and the Judeans have done to anger me. They, their kings, their officials, their priests, not my priests, their priests, their prophets, not my prophets, their prophets, the men of Judah, and the residents of Jerusalem.21:14God left no one out. God is about to wipe out a generation to prepare for a new one. This rings a bell.21:44That's what he did with the Exodus generation as they left Egypt. God is about to tear up the interstate to make it better. Verse 36. It sounds like God is about to lower the hammer on Israel. He says, now, therefore, this is what the Lord of God, the God of Israel, says to the city about which you said it has been handed over to the Babylonian king through sword, famine, and plague.22:03God reminds Jeremiah of the prayer he prayed. He said, this is what's about to happen. Here it comes. Look out. Get ready. And then in verse 37, it says, I will gather them from all, excuse me, and then all of a sudden, verse 37 begins, with this, but God.22:33And at that moment, hope walks in. All this evil, all these things, all this calamity that has been named, and God is saying, you know, from your youth, you've been nothing but trouble, and you did this, and you did this, and you've done this. And in verse 37, but God, and here walks in hope. He says, I will gather them from the lands where I banish them from my anger, fury, intense wrath,22:59and I will return them to this place and make them live in safety. They will be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them integrity of heart and action so that they will fear me always. I will make a permanent covenant with them. I will never turn away from doing good to them.23:27I will put fear, the fear of me in their hearts so that they will never turn away from me. I will take the light in, I will take the light in them and do what is good for them. And with all my heart and mind, I will faithfully plant them in this land. God is saying, with all my heart? Wow. Just as I have brought all this terrible disaster on these people,23:58so I am about to bring on them all the good I am promising. Fields will be bought in this desolate land that was handed over to the Chaldeans. Fields will be purchased because I will restore their fortunes. God is saying all this to a bunch of people. He was just listing all these evils they've done.24:28How they've been troubled since the day they were born and hope walks in with this but God moment. And for some reason, I can see Jeremiah saying, What? Wait. You're going to do what? You're going to do this for us after all of that? That's the great message that you're going to bring to these people that did so much evil?24:53Of course, it's going to be 70 years later. You know, I could stop here. And all I've done is give you a hopeless story with a promise of a great ending. Best case, you would go home with a little more knowledge about Jeremiah. So what is the application of this chapter?25:24Because the word of God always has an application. I think the obvious cliche message would be when God is in the mix, there's always hope and hopelessness. But the whole time that I was preparing this lesson, two things kept turning over and over in my head that I couldn't let go. I couldn't get rid of. Not that I wanted to, but it just kept burning in my soul over and over and over.25:53One is the Schenkel family. If you don't know who I'm talking about, this is a family, this is a couple, Michael and Emily Schenkel. They just recently had a child. Early in the pregnancy, the doctors told them things are going bad. This needs to end. You need to end the pregnancy. And Emily and Michael said, but God.26:24And the doctors said, no, you don't understand. But here is the situation. And they said, but God. And this kept going on and on and on until now we have a new little Schenkel. A healthy little Schenkel. The doctors kept saying, this has got to stop. This has got to end. See, they had hope. They had a hope in a situation that was hopeless. That story fit perfect into the lesson today.26:54But the next thing that kept going around and going over and over and over in my mind that I could not get rid of was a phrase we hear all the time from Pastor Josh. Jesus in my place. And I thought, okay, Jesus in my place. I get it, Lord. Christ on the cross for my sin.27:23Took my place. Took my curse. Took my beating. I understand that. You want me to share the gospel. I get that. You can trust me. I'm going to share the gospel. Don't worry. And he came back and he said, Jesus in my place. I'm thinking, okay, I got it, Lord. I understand. Jesus in my place. I understand the whole concept. It's great. It's a real quick, easy way to share the gospel. I get it. And I was starting to feel like I was in the movie Field of Dreams.27:52Jesus in my place. It just wouldn't stop. What am I missing here, Lord? As a parent, as a teacher, you've probably done this where you've taken a child's head by the hand and pointed it and turned it to what the obvious thing you want them to see. And he almost, kind of like he did that to me. He did that and he said, what's in front of you?28:20My Bible.28:29Jesus in my place. What? I'm not getting this. What does John 1 say? In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God. The Word was God. And? And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. The light went off. Jesus in my place. Jesus in place of me.29:00Jesus in place of my bad attitude. Jesus in place of my fears. Jesus in place of my worries. Jesus in place of our cancers. Because Jesus is where we get our hope. You think, you think, you think when, when Gabby and the San Diego family and Jared and all of the people in this church who absolutely love and adores Caleb, they didn't have Jesus in their place?29:21They didn't have Christ to call upon during that time? That gave them hope? You think the, the, the, the Schenkel family didn't have Jesus in their place that gave them the hope that they needed? When we have Jesus in our place, we have hope.29:53And as I started out in this sermon, hope is a noun. And a noun is a person, place, or thing. Our hope is not a place or a thing. Our hope is a, is a person. And that person is Jesus. That is where our hope is. And that's what gives us hope in hopelessness is when we have Jesus in my place. That takes the place of me.30:21That takes the place of the things that, that I'm trying to control. I got family and loved ones that are not doing what they should do. And, and, and I'm trying to change them. Get out of the way and let Jesus do it. Let that noun that we're, we're talking about. The one that gives us hope. The one that gives us confidence. That's the Jesus. That's the hope that we should have. That's where we get it from. Jesus in my place for salvation.30:50But Jesus in my place don't stop at salvation. It's where it just begins. It's where it starts. We start getting in God's word and getting Christ in us. Now I have continually Jesus in my place. And that's where our hope is going to come from. So let me, let me say this. If you can hear my voice today, whether here or online, and you've never come to know Christ as your savior.31:18You've got Jesus in your place. Jesus hung on a cross for the sin of the world. They put his dead body in the grave and they, he raised, he was resurrected. He was raised from the grave. And he became a living, risen savior. And that's important because Christ is going to give out eternal life and dead people can't do that.31:45How can somebody dead give out life? You know, there's the four key, four key people in the New Testament. John, he says, believe in Jesus. Whosoever believes in him will not perish and have everlasting life. He that believes on the son shall have life. And he that does not, does not receive life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.32:11Peter says, believe and repent. Not repent, you know, so you'll hear the repent from sins, plural. No, it's not sins, it's sin. It's the sin of unbelief. Repent from that sin of unbelief and believe in Jesus. Paul says, believe in the gospel is the power of God into salvation. Christ died on a cross for the sin of the world, was buried and raised again for the sin of the world.32:42According to the scriptures. And then finally, Jesus says, follow me. Which message do I take for salvation? All of the above. You put your faith in Christ. You put your faith in the work that he did for us on the cross. But it can't stop with some academic understanding, some academic knowledge. You got to follow Christ.33:12It's got to be follow me. Because without that, it's just knowledge. And we can't go through life with just knowledge. Because we have to have Jesus in me if we're going to have hope in this life. For my brothers and sisters in Christ, this has got to be a daily intake. To grow Jesus in me. So that I always have the hope that I need to go through the struggles in life.33:41When those punches in the stomach come along. When those situations in life come along. And we think, oh, this is hopeless. No, it's not. No, it's not. We have the hope in the person of Christ. We've just got to learn how to put Jesus in me as brothers and sisters in Christ. Let us pray.← Previous in JeremiahJeremiah: Our Righteousness Has a Name (Jeremiah 33:14-16)Next in Jeremiah →Jeremiah: Where Glory Once Dwelt (Jeremiah 39:1-10)More sermons on Jeremiah →
