Setting the Captives Free - Part I

The children of Israel were in captivity and they were given a word of encouragement from Jeremiah. This is actually a letter which he wrote to them about what to do in captivity, and what God was going to do outside of captivity. "This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: ‘Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.’ Yes, this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: ‘Do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have. They are prophesying lies to you in my name. I have not sent them,’ declares the Lord."

 "This is what the Lord says: ‘When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,’ declares the Lord, ‘and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,’ declares the Lord, ‘and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.’"

 Father, bless your word. May the Spirit of God be the teacher here right now. Lord, many of us sense we are bound. We are captive, God. But you promise you will set the captives free. Father, help us to learn the reasons and the release of what you have for us. Lord especially for the person who’s confused and doesn’t understand: "God, why this? God, I don’t understand this. This doesn’t make any sense." God, you’ll make it clear. They’ll say, "Yes, God. I understand. I see what’s happening in my life, and I trust you completely Lord. I trust you completely." Oh God, thank you for the time we can share with one another in love. We bless you and praise you in Jesus’ name. Amen.

This last Sunday, I was in Boston at the graduation of my son from Boston University. I sat out in the football field with about 15,000 people listening to a lot of people speak. The commencement speaker was a very interesting person, because he had been a hostage during the hostage crisis in Lima, Peru. In fact, he was a Catholic priest who’d been held captive and he was offered to be released. He was the only hostage to whom they offered freedom and he chose to stay so that he could minister among the hostages.

 He stood there out in that sun--there was sun in Boston!--and he said, "It’s hard to believe that here I am." He said, "Three weeks ago, I was a hostage. I was in captivity. We were told that if they tried to rescue us, we would all be killed. We did not know if we would live or die. We did not know if we would be there days, weeks, months, or years. We did not know." It was four months. He said, "I can’t believe it. I was a hostage. There were armed gunmen all over the place. Our lives were in danger. We lived in horrific circumstances." He said, "Today I’m free. I can’t believe it. Three weeks ago, I was there and today I am free."

Many of us can identify with that. We may have never been a hostage in captivity, but we felt like we were in captivity. We felt like we were bound. You ask, well what’s captivity? You might say it’s just hard times. It’s tough times. It might be the place that you live. It might be the people you work with. It may be your financial circumstances. It may be with strained relationships and you say, "Life shouldn’t be like this."

 I mean, we read in Isaiah 42, the first seven verses prophecy about the Messiah coming; and it says the Messiah is coming to set the captives free. You would say, if the Messiah came to set the captives free and I believe in the Messiah, then why do I feel like I’m in captivity? Why the hard times? Why the tough times? Why the difficult times? Why am I in this financial situation? Why am I in this living situation? Why am I in this relationship situation? Why am I in this help situation? Why am I in this emotional situation? Why am I here? Why don’t the things that God promises are supposed to happen, I see in other people’s lives, but not in mine? Do you ever have questions like that? If you didn’t, you’re probably lying! We all have, right? We’ve all been there.

 I find great comfort that a lot of the great saints in the Bible, the greatest individuals mentioned in the Bible, they all had their times of captivity. They all had their difficult, tough times that God brought them out of. The promise in Jeremiah 29:11 is that God has plans and He wants to release us from captivity, wants to prosper us, wants to bless us, has a hope for us, has a future for us. And we can take that verse and say, yes God, I claim that, I believe that; but the reality of the situation is that I’m not there. I feel like I’m a hostage. I feel like I’m in some sort of captivity.

 So I want you to look with me at some individuals in the Scriptures who had their own captivity. You see, there are various reasons for captivity. Now here in Jeremiah 29, we see that God’s people, the Jews, were in a captivity. They were taken out of their homeland of Judah. They were taken from their homes, from their friends, from their families, from their professions. They were taken, so to speak, as hostages or prisoners of war and taken to the land of Babylon. Jeremiah has an encouraging word that "it’s going to be a long time, folks. Hunker down."

 Now, why were they in captivity? Why were they taken from their farms and their vineyards, their jobs, and their friends and families, and taken to a foreign land among a foreign people? They were literally captives. They were literally held hostage. Go back to Jeremiah 25 and we find out that one reason for captivity is because we have not responded to the continuous admonitions to repent. They say, is sin always the prompt for captivity? Absolutely not. Is it sometimes the prompt for captivity? Absolutely so. Sometimes we’re there because God has said over and over again, "Hello! Wake up! I’m trying to get your attention! These things aren’t right!" And instead of listening to the admonitions of the Lord, we continue on a track and we end up in captivity.

 Now look at the warning through Jeremiah in Jeremiah 25 beginning at verse 1. "The word came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, which was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. So Jeremiah the prophet said to all the people of Judah and to those living in Jerusalem: For twenty-three years--from the thirteenth year of Josiah son of Amon king of Judah until this very day..." Twenty-three years. Got that? Long period of time! I mean, these people are hearing the word, and hearing the word, twenty-three years. "...the word of the Lord has come to me and I have spoken to you again and again." God says, twenty-three years. I have said it again and again and again. Is God patient? Yes, twenty-three years. The Word of the Lord came again and again and again. "But you have not listened."

 Why captivity? I spoke, you do not listen. "And though the Lord has sent all his servants the prophets to you again and again..." Notice the repetition? Again and again to them. "You have not listened or paid any attention. They said, ‘Turn now, each of you, from your evil ways and your evil practices, and you can stay in the land." In other words, captivity won’t happen if you repent. If you turn from your ways. "You can stay in the land the Lord gave to you and your fathers forever and ever."

 Verse 6: "Do not follow other gods to serve and to worship them. Do not provoke me to anger from what your hands have made. Then I will not harm you." verse 7--twenty-three years! Long time, right? They didn’t listen for twenty-three years. How often? "Again and again." It wasn’t just a little shot in the dark. They heard this again and again. And God says, "I’m not going to harm you. One more chance.

 Repent." verse 7: "But you do not listen to me, declares the Lord. And you have provoked me with what your hands have made and you have brought harm on yourselves." We can bring harm on ourselves. "Therefore the Lord Almighty says this: because you have not listened to my words, I will summon all the peoples of the north and my servant Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon." A pagan became God’s servant. "declares the Lord, I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and against all the surrounding nations. I will completely destroy them and make them an object of horror and scorn and everlasting ruin. I will banish them from the sounds of joy and gladness. The voice of the bride and bridegroom. The sound of millstones and the light of the lamp. The whole country will become a desolate wasteland and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years."

 Now sometimes we’re in captivity because we made our own captivity. The word of the Lord came to us. God spoke to us. Scripture came strongly to us. We didn’t listen. We went our own way. These people, God gave them twenty-three years. How often? Again and again. Over and over. Again and again. And some people say, well I’m in this sin and God hasn’t judged me. It’s okay because nothing has happened. So it’s okay with God. No, God’s just patient. But at some time, his patience is going to run out. And there are a lot of believers who will live in sin. They’ll walk in sin and they’ll say, I’m okay. And then all of a sudden some day comes and "Oh, what did I do to deserve this? Why is this happening to me?"

They think that one little prayer of repentance, one little of confession will get them right back where they were. But sometimes God’s restoration isn’t just like that. Is his forgiveness immediate? Yes. Is his restoration? No. In this case, there was a seventy year period of time. So sometimes, we’re in our situation because we’ve made our own bed and we’re sleeping in it. But there are other reasons too. You know, sometimes God just wants to refine our character. How many of us know we have a flawed character? Amen? How many know that we need character development?

The Bible speaks about the fruit of the Spirit. Now in Genesis 37-50 we read about a great man of God, Joseph. Joseph is one of my Bible heroes. This is Old Testament Joseph. New Testament Joseph was, of course, Jesus’ father. Not his biological father, but his whatever father. You know what I’m saying. The Old Testament Joseph in Genesis 37-50, we call him a patriarch with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He’s the last one. In Genesis 37, he’s seventeen years of age and God gives him all kinds of visions and revelations. These visions he receives say he’s going to be the leader. In fact, he’ll lead his own family and he kind of flaunts this by saying, "You know what? The sun, moon and stars all bow down to me!" And you could see pride.

What does God do with pride? He doesn’t like it. He wants to smash it. One of the worst kinds of pride is spiritual pride. Oh what a soul winner I am! Oh, I can lay hands on people and--boom!-- things happen! And God says, "You know what? I can’t deal with that." Now Joseph, you know, is a type of Jesus Christ. You study the life of Joseph, and his life is so similar to Jesus’. It seems like everything he did was really right. Yet everywhere he turned, everything happened to him. You say, why was it that God called him at seventeen to be a great leader, gave him visions and dreams, and it ends up that his brothers hated him. They sold him into slavery. He ended up in Egypt. He ended up in Potiphar’s house. He served so well as a servant he was put in control of the entire household. Then Potiphar’s wife came to seduce him. There will always be a Potiphar’s wife there. You’ve got to learn how to say no. And Joseph did the right thing. She said, "Come to bed with me." He ran, left his coat there, ran. And Potiphar’s wife lied. It ended up that Joseph did right but ended up in jail. He sits in a rotten stinking Egyptian jail, but you know what he does? He serves God! And so much so, that the jailer put him in control of the jail--there’s his leadership skills again. He interprets dreams.

He says to the one guy who’s restored to Pharaoh, "Remember me." The guy forgot him for two years more in jail. He keeps doing the right thing, but he’s in captivity--thirteen years from the age of seventeen, prime of life, to thirty. No family, no wife, no kids, no place to worship. I mean, he could worship God, but he’s away from it all and he’s faithful to God. Now what in the world was God’s purpose of serving in Egypt away from his family, away from his surroundings. Then bad goes to worse in jail.

What’s God’s purpose in that? What was God doing through all that--between the ages of seventeen and thirty? Some people say, at thirty my life is over! Actually, in the Bible, most people’s lives began at forty. So there’s hope! So, if you’re fifty, you’re just beginning! Psalm 105. And Caleb was how old when he conquered a mountain? Eighty? Eighty-five? All right, so that’s just the beginning. Psalm 105. Now here the psalm speaks of Joseph. What was God’s purpose in thirteen years of captivity for Joseph? What did God want to do? Psalm 105:17 "And he (that’s God. If you read the context of Psalm 105, "he" is God) sent a man before them. Joseph." All right. Here’s God’s "sent man". God sends Joseph. He has a plan and purpose for Joseph to protect God’s people, to end up getting them in Egypt during a famine in the land. God sends him. How’s he send him? Joseph was sold as a slave. Here’s this great man of God, called of God, right? Anointing on his life! Right? God calls him to be a great leader.

They bruise his feet with shackles, his neck was put in irons. Now why’s he going through this? First a servant and now in prison in shackles. Why’s he going through this? Until...don’t you like that word?! Okay, this will pass. But until it does, ‘til... "what he foretold will come to pass." Now what did God foretell? He would be a leader. He would be used of God and lead many people, even leadership over his own family, even though he was the second of the youngest, he’d lead even his older brothers. "till what he foretold came to pass. Till the word of the Lord proved him true". Now that word "proved" means tested or refined, like to prove silver and gold. God had to prove him, to test him, to refine him. So Joseph’s in captivity for thirteen years. That’s a long time, isn’t it. Seventeen years of age and age thirty. Those thirteen years of either being a servant in a household doing what’s right and ending up in jail.

Not a fun time. God was using it to refine his character. And sometimes the only way God can do some work on our character is to get us in a difficult situation. How many of us have learned more in difficult situations than in good times? That is the real test. You know, we’ve been hearing this thing about the air force. This woman who committed adultery and the air force says you’re gone from us. If I leave, give me an honorable discharge...and so forth. And I heard a military officer say what’s the big deal? Everybody’s doing this stuff. You know, adultery’s no big thing today. And I heard a military officer say, oh it was so good. Because she lied about it. She disobeyed a command. First of all, it was against military policy. Number one. Then she lied about it and said she wasn’t doing it and she was doing it. She continued on. And one of the military officers said something. It was such a gem. He said, the only test we have for following orders in the battlefield is if people follow orders now. It was that simple. If you can’t pass the test now to follow orders, how are you going to do it under fire? And I heard that on the radio and said, boy is that right! What’s the big deal about adultery? What’s the big deal about covering up? Well, if you’re going to do it here, we don’t want you on the battlefield! And why does the military have all these orders? Why the chain of command? Why the thing about following orders now? Why this stupid thing about polishing your shoes and your clothes so neat and your bed is just this way and you march just this way? Cause if you can’t handle this, pal, when the bullets are flying, we can’t count on you. You follow it.

So God does things to test our character. If you can’t run with the footmen, what are you going to do with the chariots? So God has those ways to test and refine our character. And it’s at those times of pressure and stress, just like finances. The Bible says if you can’t handle a little, God’s not going to give you any more! How can he trust you with more if you can’t handle what you have? Those are tests for us and God had for Joseph character development to refine him. And boy, when he was ready to serve, he was the humblest guy around. He went to Pharaoh and Pharaoh says, I hear you can interpret dreams. I hear you can tell the meaning. And Joseph says, no it’s God. I only do what God says. It’s no longer "sun, moon, and stars bow down to me". He learned his lesson and spent the rest of his life as a humble servant. You see why his captivity was there? So if you’re in God’s furnace and you’re in God’s school of character development, God loves you! He wants to do a work on you and you just let him do it.

Now another reason that sometimes we’re in captivity is because we try to do God’s work. We try to take it upon ourselves. And that is what happened to Moses in Exodus 2. Now you think about Moses. God spared him. They were killing all the babies and Moses’ mother spared him. Jacobed put him in a little ark with pitch on it and floated him down the river. I mean, you talk about a provincial saving of a life! Pharaoh’s daughter comes out to the Nile River and little Miriam is there, Moses’ sister. She says, why don’t I get a Hebrew woman to nurse the baby for you. Pharaoh’s daughter says, good idea. So Miriam goes back and gets Moses’ mother and she nurses him until he’s ready to be weaned. But Moses is raised in Egypt as a son of Pharaoh. He has the education. He has the opulence. He has the opportunities. I mean, he’s got it made, so to speak. But he knows he’s a Hebrew and he sees Hebrews being oppressed. But he tries to take God’s work into his own hands and he spent forty years in captivity. Let’s look at Exodus 2:11 "One day after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Glancing this way and that, and seeing no one (you always think you’re going to not see anybody--ha ha ha), he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand." Wrong thing to do. Should he have stopped the fight? Yes. Should he have killed a man? No. Now, if God was going to set his people free, cause they were crying out, and if Moses would just wait on God’s timing, it would have happened. Right? Cause God said, I’ve heard your groaning. I’ve heard your praying. I’ve heard your crying out and I’m going to set you free."

But Moses was a little too willing to do God’s work. My grandpa told me one time, "I’m going to plant some peanuts for you." He said, "I’m going to go into your backyard. Now son, you’ll see this plant come up. You won’t see peanuts on this plant. They’re in the ground. Now when the plant dies later in the year, you’ll have peanuts." Well, I said, "that’s wonderful." The plant came up and I wondered how my peanuts were doing. So I dug them up and I saw the little green peanuts on the roots and I said, "This is great!" and I buried them. And I never had any peanuts, because I couldn’t wait. Guess what word God always speaks in my ear? "Wait!" I couldn’t wait and I messed it all up.

Well Moses couldn’t wait on God and let God do his business his way. So what happened? Drop over to chapter 3:1. Where does Moses end up? "Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father in law the priest of Midian and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and he came to Horeb the mountain of God." For forty years, Moses from being Pharaoh’s son, step son, he’s now a shepherd on the back side of the desert. Does God have a sense of humor or what? By the way, you know how God prepared most of his people? By being shepherds. I found out by the way that a lot of farmers are the greatest preachers. Cause if you can lead animals, take care of animals, you can do a pretty good job with people. Usually. So God has Moses as a shepherd and then he says you’re going to shepherd my people Israel. So, Moses rushed God and took judgment into his own hands. I’m telling you, you take judgment into your own hands when it’s God purpose to judge, don’t mess up what God’s doing. God says, vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord. Let God do it. Don’t rush ahead of God. Don’t try to do God’s work unless God tells you what to do. And in Moses’ case, he decided that this Egyptian needed to die because he was oppressing a Hebrew, when God wanted to kill them all in the water. God already had that in mind as judgment. Moses didn’t have to pull that thing off by himself. He could have waited. So, there’s a warning with it. Now here are just some of the reasons why we go into captivity. Some of it is our own making: we don’t repent, it comes on us.

Sometimes God just has to refine our character and the time will come. And sometimes again, we just try to rush ahead and don’t wait on God. We try to do God’s work not God’s way. And so we might be in captivity. We might be in difficult situations. There are many reasons why we get into captivity, but God’s promise is that if we seek him, we press into him, we have the promise that he’s going to release us from it. You say, when is that going to be? We don’t know. Sometimes, it’s awful long. For Moses it was forty years. For the children of Israel in this one case it was seventy years. Now, be thankful. Jonah was only in the belly of the whale three days. But I bet those three days were like an eternity. The apostle Paul, mightily called of God, ends up in Arabia for up to three years. See, God has a purpose for our captivity. Sometimes it’s judgment. Sometimes it’s refinement. Sometimes it’s just for us to listen to God. God had to talk to Elijah. Elijah was running and hiding saying, "Oh God, kill me! Oh God, I’m the only one left!" And God said, "No Elijah. You’re not. I’ve got to get hold of you and get your attention." So forty days he ran and fled until he finally got to the same mountain, Horeb. And then God spoke to him. How? In a little quiet voice. "Elijah, you’re wrong. I had to get you here so you would listen to me. All right? And here’s what I have to tell you: I’ve got seven thousand who’ve not bowed to Baal or kissed his feet."

And so, we might say, "Jesus you said you’re going to set the captives free. Why don’t I have a Get Out of Jail card? You should give this to me." And yes, he did, but sometimes there are those seasons. And if you look through the Scriptures look at those great men of God. Joseph had his time. Moses had his time. Elijah. What about David? Anointed king! Psalmist’s heart! Worship leader! And he winds up running for his life from Saul. And by the way, he was the one who tiptoed in the camp. There’s the spear. There’s King Saul. He could have been just like Moses. But he said, "I can’t do this. I can’t touch God’s anointed." He said, "God will have him go in battle or God will take his life some other way. But I’m not the one." So David ran and hid in caves. But where did some of that heart for God go? "God I’m in the desert and I cry to you! God I’m in a dry and weary land!" And he sees the deer with no water come to a little stream. And he sees how the deer pants for the water so my soul longeth after thee. You read the psalms and you read a lot about the wilderness and the desert and the dry and the weary and the refreshment of the Lord. God uses those times. Jeremiah 29:11 is a promise which we can bank on. But it may not be at this moment. It may be that God is doing a work in us and we claim the promise and we cling to the promise. We wait upon the Lord and we let God do his work as we get ready to release from his captivity.

I want you know that every man or woman of God who went through captivity were released and boy did God have a work for them. Did God have a plan for them! Did God have a use for them! And they were good plans. And they were wonderful plans. And God seems to take you from the pit to the pinnacle just like that. The only problem is, we don’t know when it will be. We don’t know when. And so God calls us to trust him. And by faith. And the real test is how you’re going to handle that time. Cause if you don’t run with the horsemen now, you’ll never keep up with the chariots later.