So Jeremiah chapter 24 is quite a short chapter
if you compare it to the other chapters that are in the book of Jeremiah.
Nonetheless it's one of the more challenging ones if you've been paying
attention. God gives Jeremiah a vision there but
look at verse number three Jeremiah chapter 24 verse number three
it reads then said the Lord unto me what sayest thou Jeremiah and I said
figs the good figs very good and the evil
very evil. The title for the sermon this morning is good figs
or evil figs good figs or evil figs. Now these figs basically represent the
people of God and as we're going through this I want
you to decide which one you want to be. Are you going to be the good fig or
you're going to be the evil fig? Now you might say well you know I'm going
to church I'm going soul winning I read my bible
surely I'm a good fig. You know I try to live a righteous life and a holy life
surely I'm one of these good figs but as we're
going through them and I'm glad if that's you
if that's what you think I'm glad for that you know but
when we look at this chapter the good figs actually represents
or basically the differentiation between the good figs and the evil figs
basically have to do with how the people responded
with the Babylonian takeover with the Babylonian captivity.
Okay so you know I'm glad you know if you're a soul winner in church or in
your bible serving the Lord I'm glad for that
brethren you are very fruitful then for the Lord
if you're doing such things but the context of the figs here is a slightly
different take it's how you respond to external
forces that are causing you or removing your rights
removing your privilege privileges all right
in the land and I think again this is very relevant
to the time we're in okay as we've been going through Jeremiah I think we've
seen a lot of parallels with Australia I think we've seen a lot
of parallels with God's judgment we've seen a lot of parallels
with your rights and your freedoms being removed
during this time and I expect as time goes on
further removal of our rights and privileges will be taken away
you know and so we pay attention to this and I want you to conclude to say hey
I want to be one of these good figs and as I said it is one of the it's a very
challenging chapter okay because your natural response my
natural response in the time of Jeremiah would be to be
an evil fig okay let's look at verse number one Jeremiah chapter 24 verse
number one the Lord showed me and behold two baskets
of figs were set before the temple of the Lord
so I want you to notice this I don't know if this is a vision
okay that God has given him a supernatural vision or Jeremiah is
passing by the temple of the Lord and he sees these baskets of figs being
put there you know and the Lord's you know pointing him to this all right
but I want you to notice where these figs where these baskets of figs are
located where are they located they're set
before the temple of the Lord this is important okay to understand
what has been referenced here so the temple of the Lord is the house of
the Lord okay so if we want to take this for us in
2021 then we ought to be thinking about Blessed
Hope Baptist Church because our church is the house of the Lord you know your
local church is the house of the Lord and so these
two baskets of figs represents God's people the good figs
the evil figs they represent those that are set in
the house of the Lord now notice this it says after that
Nebuchadreza now remember Nebuchadreza is the same
that is the same person as Nebuchadnezzar
all right Nebuchadreza king of Babylon had carried away captive Jeconiah the
son of Jehoiakim son of Judah and the princes of Judah
with the carpenters and smiths from Jerusalem
and had brought them to Babylon so this chapter begins by giving us the
the time frame of this judgment this captivity that's come
now a new name that's been introduced to us here
is Jeconiah Jeconiah but this is not the first time we hear of king Jeconiah
in in in uh in Jeremiah in Jeremiah chapter two you you may remember
that we came across the name Konyah remember king Konyah
well well Jeconiah Jec we just has je in front of it Jeconiah
is Konyah okay but another name that we're
you know as we're going through Jeremiah chapter 22 i was explaining to you how
these kings had multiple names okay and the name
that we're most common uh or most associated with this king is
that is the name Jehoiakim okay remember you might recall
Jehoiakim who was the father and Jehoiakim
is the son well Jehoiakim also has two other names
in Jeremiah Konyah and Jeconiah it's the same guy
okay just so you understand that the time frame of this
and so what we're looking at here is is Jeconiah
okay or Jehoiakim already been taken into captivity
and not just him it says the princes of Judah
carpenters smiths so people that have you know have skills
okay so Babylon hey we need carpenters we need smiths
get those kinds of people to come into our land from Jerusalem right
and brought them to Babylon so when we look at the
captivity of of Judah in the days of Babylon
there were two two main exiles that took place
okay the first main exile took place here with Jeconiah or Jehoiakim
all right and that's the first one that came into
you know people were being taken into the the lands and the countries of
Babylon and then we have a second one which is
in the time of Jeconiah sorry Zedekiah so Zedekiah was the last
king of Judah and Zedekiah he rebels against
king Nebuchadnezzar never the king Nebuchadnezzar comes in
they take basically all the people into captivity or or they're killed
in the battle and that's basically the end of Judah
okay so there are the kind of two major exiles that took place
so the time frame of this chapter is when the first exile took place
okay so certain people are already being taken into
Babylon now I want you to remember this because we as these people we are losing
our freedoms you know we are losing our rights you
know especially in this covered world now I don't know whether we're going to
retain some of the things that you know our nation the people of this
world have given up you know I don't know whether
they'll ever come back you know but one thing I want you to just
understand you know first of all I'm not saying that things
are as bad as the time of Babylon I mean if you're losing your house if
you're losing your family if people you know around you are
dying okay at the hands of the government or
external powers that may be then yeah maybe we can draw
a closer parallel to the time of Jeremiah but what I want us to do is
take the principles take the lessons that we see here and
apply in our situation because for a lot of us you know the
covered world for a lot of us anyway is is probably the one of the biggest
events that we're going to have in our life
you know there are other generations that have gone through world wars
right world war ii world war one those are major times and you know there was
obviously much greater deaths during that time
much greater changes to the world during those events
we've not gone through anything like this basically for my generation this
would be one of the biggest things that we've seen
in our lifetime and so I don't want to leave you without
direction you know I don't want to leave you with with
being unstable or not showing not sure how we respond or react
as Christians because again there's nothing new under the sun
okay whatever situation we're in you're going to find a story in the bible
and God will teach us how we ought to respond to that situation
we see here people are being taken into captivity now they're losing their
rights they're losing their freedoms well we've seen that and what we also
see here because there were two major exiles
you know we may see you know uh things develop over the years where
we lose more and more of what we've become used to
you know we lose more and more of the normality that we're used to I'm not
saying it's definitely going to happen but I'm just saying if it does happen
I want you as a Christian to come back to the book of Jeremiah
and remind yourself of the things that you've learned okay
now why is this important you might say well pastor Kevin come on
this is the time of Judah this was thousands of years ago
right how can we apply that to Australia today don't forget in Jeremiah chapter
one verse five I'll just read it to you uh Jeremiah says before I for sorry God
says before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee and before thou
came us forth out of the womb I sanctified thee
and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations remember that that's in
chapter one so as soon as we start the book of
Jeremiah we read you okay this is about Judah this is about Babylon you
understand but don't forget Jeremiah is a been
ordained by God to be a prophet unto the nations
plural that means the gentile nations that means
Australia all right so we read this don't don't just think oh this is
history okay no these are real life events these
are real people this is real history this stuff really
happened and God has recorded it for us in the
bible so we can learn thereby okay so let's never have that idea well
this is just about the past no you need to apply this to the now
just a reminder there in verse number one two baskets of figs
all right before the temple of the Lord the house of the Lord
this represents God's people okay we both both baskets represents God's
people verse number two verse number two
it says one basket had very good figs even like the figs that are first ripe
and the other basket had very naughty figs
which could not be eaten they were so bad
actually there was one more thing that I wanted to mention in verse number one
before we look at verse number two don't forget these people that have
been exiled okay they're losing their access to the
temple of God they're losing their access to the house
of God okay and again think about what happened in 2020 you
know for was it was six weeks we lost access roughly or six six to
eight weeks can't remember right now we lost access to the house of the Lord
okay we lost that privilege for a period of time
I want you to just be you know thinking about these things in terms of
what we're seeing here there's a reason why these figs are before the temple of
the Lord okay now in one basket there are very
good figs ripe figs okay it's my mom's favorite
fruit okay I think fig is actually classified
as a flower okay but it's one of her favorites
and you can see when they're ripe they're sweet they're juicy
they're delicious and not only are they very sweet
but they're light on the stomach if you if you've eaten figs you could eat
several figs in one hit okay and so there's one basket that represents those
delicious figs they can be eaten they're sweet
okay it represents the fruitfulness of the fig
but then there's another basket of figs which has very naughty
figs now you when you think of naughty figs you might think of
you know ill-disciplined but naughty if you just
consider the word remove the y for a moment what do you get if you remove the
y from naughty naught zero okay that's what it means
here naughty means zero zero value zero
nutrition they cannot be eaten it's a waste
okay there's no value in these figs which cannot be eaten because they're so
bad all right let's keep going verse
number three as I said these figs don't represent
your Christian life right now it represents your response
to the Babylonian captivity all right now
obviously if these figs have become so bad
they've become what's the word sorry they've gone they've gone bad
so that they used to be ripe they used to be figs that could be eaten
they used to be figs that had value but they've been over ripened they've gone
bad they've gone off okay and they cannot be eaten all right
remember that verse number three then said the lord
unto me what seest thou jeremiah and i said
figs the good figs very good and the evil
very evil that cannot be eaten they are so
evil so we learn another thing about these naughty or
bad figs jeremiah says that these figs are
evil figs now again evil doesn't necessarily mean
wicked all right i mean figs in of themselves are not wicked
even if they've gone bad okay evil in the bible
often has to do the word being harm harmful
okay so jeremiah says look these figs are harmful
they're evil if you eat of them it's going to make you sick it's going to
harm your body okay so that's what jeremiah sees
verse number four again the word of the lord came unto me saying
thus saith the lord the god of israel like these good figs so will i
acknowledge them look at this that are carried away
captive of judah so what do the good figs represent
the people that are being carried away into captivity
you know we want to be the good figs god may allow you to be taken away into
captivity god may allow you to lose your liberties
your freedoms that you so desire god says well those
people are the good figs okay now like i said i
said i told you this chapter is challenging
do you want to lose your liberties do you want to lose your freedoms
do you want to be taken into captivity in some foreign nation where you don't
know the language you know and basically you're just used
you're just to be used for the purpose of other people no one
wants that like no one wants to lose your freedoms and
no one wants that right and this is why it's challenging
because god says those people represent the good figs
those people represent the sweet figs those people represent
a fig that can be eaten that can be used that is useful to work for god
okay so this is what i want you to be challenged with we live in an
environment where you can actually apply this
okay today before you get too nervous about what i'm going to preach you know
we will stick to the biblical passages here
we'll definitely take the context directly from the story at hand
okay let's keep going uh it says there so we'll acknowledge them that are
carried away captive of judah whom i have sent out of this place
into the land of the caldeons look at this for their good
for their good god says those people that have been taken away into captivity
into a foreign land to the land of the caldeons i'm doing it for their good
brethren when you're going through this time this covered land
this covered world okay you're losing your liberties and you see
your liberties being lost you see your access to church
being uh restricted you know what i want you to stop and say
you know what i want to be one of these good figs
god how are you going to use this for my good
that's what you should be asking yourself okay how are you going to be
using this lord i've seen jeremiah you use this
for good i want it to be for my good keep your finger there and
please turn to ezekiel ezekiel chapter one ezekiel chapter one
nobody wants to be taken into captivity nobody wants to lose their freedoms
but it can be for our good brethren it could be
okay ezekiel chapter one for me please in verse number one
because maybe in your minds you think well surely the people that were
extremely wicked they were taken into captivity
surely people that hated god and yet you know what israel the ojuda here
was made up of saved and unsaved people we've seen this already
as we go through jeremiah but you know even safe people
are being taken into captivity you know even great men of god great people of
god are being taken into captivity they're
losing all their freedoms okay ezekiel chapter one verse number one
and it came to pass in the 30th year in the fourth month in the fifth day of the
month as i this is ezekiel was among the
captives by the river of kebar that the heavens
were open and i saw visions of god in the fifth day of the
month which was the fifth year of king
captivity so it's that first exile that's taking place here
the word of the lord came expressly unto ezekiel the priest
the son of buzai in the land of the kaldians by the river kebar
in the hand of the lord was there sorry and the hand of the lord
was there upon him so who got taken into captivity
as jeremiah is putting these things the priest ezekiel
now you may have thought the house of god was full of evil wicked people
no there were still godly people there ezekiel was a priest that's trying to
serve the lord even amongst the corruption that's
taking place in the temple of the lord and the lord allows him to be taken into
captivity okay but what we saw it was for his it
was for his good hey he receives visions of god about
to the hand of the lord is upon ezekiel and ezekiel writes a great portion of
the bible god used him in a great way can you please turn to
esther chapter two turn to esther chapter two
esther give you a moment to turn there i think these are important to look at
if you can turn there to esther chapter two
esther chapter two and verse number five you guys are probably familiar with the
story of esther esther chapter two and verse number five
now in shushan the palace there was a certain jew
whose name was mordecai and basically if you know the book of esther mordecai is
the hero or esther as well okay but mordecai plays
a great role in delivering the jews from certain death
okay so there's this jew named mordecai the son of jaya
the son of shimaya the son of kish are benjaminites
look at this first number six who had been carried away
from jerusalem with the captivity which had been carried away with jeconiah so
you can see jeconiah is mentioned there jehoi kin was mentioned in ezekiel same
king but jeconiah king of judah whom
nebbknezzar the king of babylon had carried away so another great man of
god was taken into captivity this guy is not
you know a priest he's a benjaminite he's just a good believer
he's just a good man of faith he's just a a good person
all right that god would use in a powerful way
and guess what else what his fate was to be carried away into captivity as well
say oh god how could you allow these people to be taken it was for their good
god had a purpose for these people you know having all their rights and the
freedom stripped away god still had a purpose god's hand was
still on these people can you please turn to daniel chapter 1
daniel chapter 1 these people are of course more common to
us more familiar to us daniel chapter 1 please
daniel chapter 1 and verse number 1 daniel chapter 1 verse number 1
we know that daniel is one of the main of course it's his book
one of the main characters and boy it's hard to find a more faithful person than
daniel in the bible you know but daniel chapter 1 verse number 1
reads in the third third year of the reign of jehoiakim king of
juda came Nebuchadnezzar king of babylon unto jerusalem and
besieged it and the lord gave jehoiakim king of juda
into his hand with part of the vessels of the house of
god so not only was this captivity being
taken place but the things that make up the house of
god are being taken away as well which he carried into the
land of shina to the house of his god and he brought
the vessels into the treasure house of his god
and the king spake unto ashpenaz the master of his eunuchs
that he should bring certain of the children of israel
and of the king's seed and of the princes children in whom was no blemish
but well favored and skillful in all wisdom and cunning
in knowledge and understanding science and such as
had ability in them to stand in the king's palace
and whom they might teach the learning and the tongue of the caldians
and the king appointed them a daily provision of the king's meat
and of the wine which he drank so nourishing them three years
and at the end thereof they might stand before the king
now look at verse number six now among these were the children of juda
daniel we know daniel hadoniah michel and azariah so you got three other names
there hadoniah michel and azariah if you don't know who they are verse
number seven says unto whom the prince of the eunuchs gave names
for he gave unto daniel the name of belchezah
and to hadoniah of shadrach and of michel
of mishak and of azariah of abed-nigo so you might be familiar more of those
names those are the three that were cast into the furnace of fire
for not bowing down and worshiping the idol
that Nebuchadnezzar had set up so we have four
great men daniel and his three friends guess what they were also taken into
captivity okay during this time so so far we've
seen daniel his three friends ezekiel
mordecai what are we seeing we're seeing great people of god
that god has allowed to be taken into captivity
to lose their freedoms to lose their rights to lose their access to the house
of god and god says it was for their good i'm
doing it for their good how do we apply that today we are
losing our freedoms brethren okay we are losing our rights we have
lost our access to the house of god but i want to pause and
say you know what god this was for our good this is for our
good i want you to take the lessons of
jeremiah and say lord the way i'm going to respond in this crazy world that we
live in is to respond the same way great people
of god respond in the days of jeremiah in the days of
the babylonian captivity in the days of the babylonian
takeover i'm going to respond in the same way god
because i want to be one of these good figs i want to be nutritious in value
i want to be able to be used of you god and i want to do something good
in me i don't know what may happen i don't know what the future may hold
and again i don't say this to to cause fear
or alarm what i want from this brethren is to just prepare yourself
we may see a secondary loss of rights of privileges we may see a complete
takeover of everything we know that we used to the
normality that we're used to how are you going to respond are you
going to be one of the good figs are you going to be one of the evil figs
you know think about this apply this to your situation
you know god's word is timeless god's word is a spiritual book
it's applicable today just as much it is applicable
in the days of jeremiah back to jeremiah please
back to jeremiah chapter 24 and verse number six jeremiah chapter
24 and verse number six
god says for i will set mine eyes upon them
for good but notice the next words and i will bring them again to this land
and i will build them and not pull them down
and i will plant them and not pluck them
up again what is the purpose of them being taken into captivity
that god will do good upon them his eyes are upon them for good
brethren you're losing if we lose more and more of our rights our privileges
if we lose our access to church i'm not talking about this building
you know i'm trying to fix up this building as best as we can because i
want to be a comfortable place when we come and worship the lord
i'm not talking about this building i'm talking about church the people of god
being gathered together we may lose our privileges our rights
to to meet the way we want to meet brethren it may happen
but i want to remind yourself what does god say here in verse number six for i
will set mine eyes upon them god's eyes are
going to be upon us for good god can take a situation even
like that and make it for good okay for good
purposes the bible tells us very familiar passage
to all of you romans 828 and we know that all things
all things work together for good to them that love
god to them who are called according to his
purpose please keep your finger there in
jeremiah and turn to first peter chapter five
first peter chapter five
first peter chapter five and then when you when you've turned to first peter
chapter five come back to jeremiah 24
go to first peter chapter five and then go back to jeremiah 24 and verse number
six let's read it again for i will set mine eyes upon them for
good and i will bring them again to this land so god does promise
that those are the good figs that he's going to bring them back
into the land okay we know that there was a 70 year
captivity that took place in babylon before they started to come back and
started to rebuild the city rebuild the temple all these kinds of
things but god continues saying i will build
them
you say pastor kevin are you upset that in 2020 we had to shut down our church
for six weeks or whatever it was i'm not i don't have a heavy conscience i have a
perfectly clear conscience for doing that
you know pastor kevin are you concerned that you know you've asked us to wear
the mask when it was being mandated across all of sydney
i have a clear conscience completely clear conscience
you know why because god says that his eyes are upon us
and it's going to be for our good there are lessons to be learned during these
days during these times okay if that means
we have to give up some of our liberties we give them up
i want to be a good fig i want you to be a good fig
but it's your choice it's your call okay god says i will build them
and not pull them down and i will plant them
and not pluck them up what is god saying you're going to be stronger
you're going to be planted you're going to be further rooted
in god's word in your christian faith if you put
up with these challenges if you put up with these difficulties
if you put up with captivity god's going to make you a stronger person
a good fig a fig that can be eaten that can be useful for god that is sweet
to the taste of god okay look at uh go back there to first peter chapter five
and verse number 10 first peter chapter five and verse
number 10
it says but the god of all grace who have called us unto his eternal glory
by christ jesus look at this after that you have suffered a while
make you perfect establish strengthen settle you
you want to be perfect complete you want to be established
you want to be strengthened you want to be settled
you know what you're going to have to go through a bit of suffering
a bit of hardships okay maybe captivity maybe the loss of everything you have
the loss of everything you own that could happen
okay but i want you to respond not woe is me
i want you to respond god your eyes are upon me and you're going to use this for
my good you're going to strengthen me you're
going to establish me and lord i'm unsettled right now you're going to
settle me is what we saw in first peter chapter five
back to jeremiah 24 please verse number seven
jeremiah 24 and verse number seven
that's not the only thing god's going to do if you want to be one of these good
figs verse number seven and i will give them
and heart to know me that i am the lord
and they shall be my people and i will be their god
for they shall return unto me with their whole hearts what a great promise
you know what i don't know what powers are right now what the weaker powers
that are in this world removing our rights removing our
privileges taking advantage of this covered situation
to further their agendas we know that ultimately it's going to lead to
the antichrist and his kingdom okay things that come
again put yourself in this position all right
you know what i'm going to go through some hardships and some challenges lose
some privileges but you know what god's going to give me
a heart to know him how much how well do you know god
how well do you know god well god's saying i'm going to give you a heart to
know me further you know one of my great desires in my
life is just to know god and the more i know god the happy i am
you know the more pleased i am the more i know god
you know and they shall be my people and i will be their god
for they shall return unto me look at this with their
whole hearts you know what this tells me as we're losing our rights now
the things that the normalities that we're used to
you know it may very well be that we're not seeking god with our whole hearts
maybe you have a great heart for the lord but maybe it's
it's 80 on the lord and 20 on this world
maybe it's 90 on the lord but 10 on this world
maybe your heart is still in this this world you know i've preached previously
that just just seeing the corruption of this world
is causing me to just loosen any kind of attachments that i have to this world
okay and then i look at this and i go well god you've got your purpose behind
that because you want us to be people
that return unto you with our whole hearts
that we love you 100 with our hearts that we don't love a portion of this
world and and uh you know that we give up on
this world and say lord you can have it all
it's my money my possessions my homes the everything that i have is what it's
useless when it comes to you and your kingdom and your heaven
your home your mansion the streets of god
salvation knowing that i can be with you for all eternity whatever i have in this
world lord is worthless compared to the great
promises that you've given me
and lord you know it may very well be that god allows us to go for these
difficulties that we can just come to god with a
whole heart that we can serve him and know him
better than we've ever known him before can you please turn to
psalm 119 keep your finger there in jeremiah 24
please go to psalm 119 you guys probably know psalm 119 as the
longest psalm there is
and while you're turning i'm going to read to you from second corinthian 6 16
second corinthian 6 16 which says in what agreement have the temple of god
with vitals then it says these words pay attention
for ye are the temple of the living god as god have said i will dwell in them
and walk in them and i will be their god and they shall
be my people brethren if you're saved today god says
about you that he will dwell in you and that he will be your god and you
will be his people that's exactly what god said
about those that have been taken into captivity
in jeremiah 24 verse 7 it said and they shall be my people
and i will be their god so when we see these parallels they're speaking about
us who does god want us to be he wants us to
be the people that have been taken into captivity okay
he wants us to be those good figs he wants us to be the people that say well
lord i'm losing everything i'm not really
liking this but i know your eyes are upon me
and i know you're going to do good unto me i know you mean
well for me lord i know you're going to strengthen me
but we saw that god is calling us to be people that return unto him
with a whole heart and when i think about this term the whole heart
psalm 119 talks about this topic the most
so let's look at verse number two psalm 119 and verse number two
it reads blessed are they that keep his testimonies
and that seek him with the whole heart so brethren when we seek the lord god
says do it with your whole heart look at
verse number 10 with my whole heart have i sought thee
oh let me not wander from thy commandments
what else do we notice when we come to the lord with a whole heart
we're going to have a desire to not wander
from his commandments a desire to live a more holy
blameless life look at verse number 58 drop down to verse number 58
same psalm verse number 58 it says i entreated thy favor with my
whole heart be merciful unto me according to thy
word so when we come to the lord and entreat
of him ask of him we ought to be doing it with our whole
heart drop them to verse number 69 it says the proud have forged a lie
against me but i will keep thy precepts with my
whole heart so a desire to keep the the laws of
god the priests of god ought to be coming from a place of a
whole heart sometimes we can do what god wants us
to do it but we don't do it with our whole heart
we do it because we know we need to do it we just do it but our hearts not in
it you know god wants our whole heart to
be in service for him drop down to verse number 145
verse number 145 same psalm 145 the bible reads i cried
with my whole heart hear me oh lord i will keep thy statutes
so when we cry before the lord when we go to him for help
we ought to cry with our whole heart you know this just gives us an idea this
psalm gives an idea how the lord wants us to respond with a
whole heart to follow his ways to keep his commandments to love doing it
to come before me in prayer with our whole heart
you know what when we go through a time of difficulties and loss of
freedoms and whatever maybe loss of our access to church
god's going to build this in us he's going to cause us to to come before him
with a whole heart maybe sometimes we take church for granted
maybe we took our liberties our blessings for granted and when we lose
them it brings us back to the knowledge of
god and say god we need this back and when they get returned back unto us
we come back with that whole heart you know appreciating
what god has given us back to jeremiah 24
now we saw that in jeremiah's time that were to be brought back they'll return
with a whole heart but i wanted to keep something in mind
as well it was 70 years all right many of the people especially
the adults okay that went into captivity
would not come back they would not return to the land
all right so is god saying these things in vain
not because we know the children and the grandchildren
we know the next generations came back and returned unto the lord with a whole
heart okay now that's an important point to
make because your decision of right of
choosing to be a good fig or an evil fig has lasting consequences
to your descendants to your children to your grandchildren all right your
decisions are going to have an effect you know i want my kids you know if we
lose our rights and our access whatever you
know and and i suffer for that and i suffer
with that for the rest of my life well i know that if i desire to be this
good fig that my children are going to benefit from it that my
grandchildren going to benefit from it that we're going to be able to continue
this lineage of a people that love the lord and one
day they're going to be able to come and be able to return them to the lord
with a whole heart they're going to be strengthened by the lord
they're going to be used by god they're going to be sweet to the taste of god
but what we'll soon see that if you choose to be one of these evil figs
all right one of these figs that are bad one of these figs
that are not naughty that you may lose your descendants
you may lose your children your children will not want to be in the house of the
lord your children will not want to continue this lineage
you know that god would would have us to have and so really
the choice is yours you know your response has lasting
effects or consequences on your descendants look at verse number eight
and as the evil figs which cannot be eaten
they are so evil remember think of the word harmful
okay surely thus saith the lord so will i give zedekiah the king of judah
and his princes and the residue of jerusalem that
remain in this land and them that dwell in the land of egypt
i might read verse number nine and i will deliver them to be removed into all
the kingdoms of the earth for their hurt these are the evil figs
for the good figures for their good for the evil figs is gonna hurt them to
be a reproach and a proverb a taunt and a curse
in all places whither i shall drive them
verse number 10 and i will send the sword and famine
and the pestilence among them till they be consumed from off the land
that i give unto them and to their fathers
these are the evil figs now let's look at verse number eight again
okay so when we see so i will give king zedekiah
we're talking about the second the second major exile
that took place okay after king jehoiachin
but notice who are these people who are these evil figs
who are these figs that are going to lose their lives okay
it says at the end of verse number eight that uh
and the residue of jerusalem that remain in this land
now if you know the history of the story here okay those that said no
you know what i'm gonna i'm gonna fight the king of babylon i'm gonna fight this
judgment to come we're gonna stay in jerusalem we're
gonna go to war all right those that's they're the people
that stay in the land that said no we're not going to take this we're not
going to lose our rights we're not going to lose our freedom we're not going to
be taken into captivity that's not going to be for us
and you can see where they're coming from they mean well they know this is
their land they know this is supposed to be an
inheritance from god they know that they receive this land
because of god's blessings when god led you know the israelites
out of egypt right but it's these people that god is calling
for evil figs
the figs of no value the figs that become harmful to those around them
not only them it says here at the end that remain in the land look at this and
then that dwell in the land of egypt so then there was another group of
people that said you know what things are getting bad here all right
things are getting horrible here we need to flee and they flee to egypt
right they don't stay in the land to fight they know there's a problem they
don't decide well you know jeremy's been saying you know
hand yourself to the captors i'm not going to do that either i don't want
that rather let's flee to egypt we'll be
safe in egypt god says no even them that dwell in the
land of egypt there's come in this judgment you're not going to flee
you're not going to you know escape this okay
these are the people that are the evil figs the bad figs
the naughty figs okay
you know this reminds me of a story when i was in primary school
i don't know how old i was maybe 10 and uh there was a
there was a kid in my school uh who had six fingers
six fingers in one hand okay so obviously a
genetic defect and if i recall correctly it was his little finger and there was
like another little finger coming out of the little finger okay and
uh you know some of my friends or i don't
care if they were really my friends or just people in you know my year basically
said oh you know there's this kid with six fingers
do you want to go and have a look i was like yeah
i mean a child's curiosity yeah yeah yeah i'd like to see that
that's unusual that's different right and so we went to the to the kid with
their six fingers and and uh you know i i i wasn't trying to tease him or be
rude i was just curious you know i think of a child's curiosity
that's the response that i had you know i wasn't i wasn't trying to be
mean to him i wasn't there to make fun you know
in fact i felt sorry for him that he had this sort of unusual
defect but anyway so a few of the kids i don't know how many there were maybe
seven or eight of us we got together we just you know ask him can you show us
your finger whatever they come to the teacher all right guys
all of you you know you got detention this was during
lunchtime or recess you're in detention it's like what sir like what you know
and basically you know he's thinking that we're mocking him and teasing him
maybe now as an adult i look back and i think yeah obviously we shouldn't have
done that okay you know trying you know but our
child doesn't think that way right and so you know we're taking into
captivity as it were right a whole bunch of us
and he's leading us to some classroom and and you know i'm just on the way to
as we're walking amongst this group i'm thinking all right there's a whole bunch
of us he probably doesn't even know who i am
he's never been my teacher uh and you know and i you know i don't
believe in this justice i i don't deserve to be in detention
during lunch and uh this isn't right you know i wasn't there to cause any
problems it wasn't even my idea to go and see
this guy's finger so it's you know so what am i going to do i'm going to
escape all right so i'll never forget we ran around the corner of a building
teachers walking a whole bunch of kids and i just stay back i'm like yes
and i see them keep walking they don't notice that i stayed back
it's like yes i got away from the judgment you know i escaped to egypt
i'm going to be safe here well never you know
later on after lunch when i was in class that same teacher comes into my
classroom you know pulls me aside and i can't
remember how what i'm going to but basically
i got in more trouble than the kids that actually went
into you know and just copped it you know i got a bigger
uh you know correction i can't remember what he was right now but
i learnt a lesson there sometimes it's better even if it's not your fault
even if you think it's not justified so just take the punishment that comes
you know we've just been there you know just being caught up
you know in in the mess if you try to run away
there can come a greater judgment we've seen the same thing happen here in
jeremiah those that decided let's just get out of here let's just run to egypt
that's a good place to be god says no your judgment you know wait i'm going to
send the sword the famine the pestilence you're going to
be consumed you're going to be destroyed you're not going to have descendants
you're not going to have children that are going to be able to return and
come back to the lord with a with a whole heart so this is what
we learn in this story brethren i want you to be one of the good figs
not an evil fig
you know as we lose these these freedoms and access to church and
you know your heart and you know my heart initially is to fight these things
to go you know what this is not fair this is not right
let's run and hide or let's just stand up and fight no matter what
those thoughts have crossed my mind and i'm sure it's crossed your mind
but as i look at the story of jeremiah you know
because i kept thinking as a pastor of two churches you know
i don't want to make decisions on my emotions or decisions in what i think
best okay but i need a story in the bible i
need a situation in the bible that i can see parallels with with my
current situation and make my decisions from a biblical
standpoint whether i like it or not whether it's
not about me liking something it's about lord what can you teach us
from your word and let me walk in accordance to your
word i want things to go well with me lord
i want things to be good i want your eyes upon me
lord even if i lose my privileges and my rights and my freedoms
i still want you to work in me and i want you to do something great in me
i want you to settle me i want you to strengthen me i want you to build me
and lord i want my descendants i want my children to love you with all their
hearts i want my grandchildren to continue
loving you with all my heart with all their heart sorry
and i look at the story well the people that are in that category
are the good things the people in this category the people of god
are the ones that said you know what i don't like it i don't like being taken
to captivity but it's god's will i'm just going to
surrender to the situation i'm going to give in to the capitals as
long as god's eyes upon me i'm happy to do this and brethren
we are in a situation in 2020 2021 where we can actually apply this okay
if you feel unsettled i've got a way to settle you
it's to be one of the good figs all right
and you may lose a lot we may lose a lot i don't know
i'm hoping things return to normal okay i don't know
okay but think about this story when you're unsettled
when you decide you know what i'm gonna stay here i'm gonna fight no matter what
you know this is not fair i'm gonna escape and run away
it's not going to end well for you especially it's not going to end well
for your children and your children's children
all right we see this here in the bible and it's my job to just be a jeremiah
it's my job just to preach god's word it's your decision
as to which basket of figs you want to be part of the good figs
where god can use it where god can strengthen you where god will use your
descendants to return and with a whole heart and serve god in
a mighty powerful way or you decide to be someone that is a
fighter someone that says no i'm not this is not fair
you run away or whatever situation may be you know you end up as one of these
evil figs and you're going to lose your descendants
your descendants are not going to be the people
that return back to the lord with a whole heart okay let's pray