"A Bad Investment? A Great Promise!"

Scripture Passage

Jeremiah 32:1-33:26; Ezekiel 26:1-14

Scripture Focus

“This is what the LORD says: Just as I have brought all these calamities on them, so I will do all the good I have promised them. Fields will again be bought and sold in this land…" (Jeremiah 32:42-43 NLT)

Observation

These passages sure are easier to read when there’s at least a bit of hope tucked away somewhere among the verses! And so it is today, with especially rich promises in Jeremiah—promises of the restoration of the people of God and of a descendant from David forever on the throne (e.g., Jeremiah 33:15-18).

In today’s reading—as an object lesson for the people of God—Jeremiah buys a field. Specifically, God lets Jeremiah know that his cousin will be approaching him to sell him a piece of family property—and God lets Jeremiah know that he’s to buy it!

Now, the remarkable thing about that, of course, is that the land of Judah is being utterly ravaged by the Babylonians. Jerusalem is under siege, Jeremiah himself is under arrest within the city, and the piece of property in question is in an area described as “desolate” with no people or animals (33:12)!

All of this makes Jeremiah’s purchase a really bad investment from a purely human perspective. But God has made a promise—the promise of the restoration of God’s people to the land He’d given them. And because of God’s promise, God’s people can be sure that “Fields will again be bought and sold in this land” (32:43). Because of God’s promise, Jeremiah can make what looks like a foolish investment from any other perspective and be confident that it’s going to pay off richly in the end.

There are huge investments made by God-honoring people that don’t make much sense from any other perspective. This world’s “experts” could find plenty of fault with the time and energy and money that believing Christians invest in Kingdom of Heaven priorities. The notion, for example, of honoring God with the tithe has to seem as foolish to most as Jeremiah’s seventeen pieces of silver “invested” in a worthless piece of land. But for the believer, God’s promise trumps everything else. “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8 NIV).

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