Before God hung the stars in all about the valleys, he thought about you. Let's talk about it on this edition of Eli. This is Eli, getting you home with freedom, joy, and faithfulness, and here's Steve Brown with God's roadmap, the Bible. Here's Steve Brown with the teaching for today. Thanks, Mike. Your Bible turned to the book of the prophet, Jeremiah, as we continue with our Old Testament survey. I have given you a whole lot of historical material, delineating the religious and military and political social direction of three different kingdoms, and it's my hope that you remember all of that if you do. You need to get a life, but in order to understand Jeremiah, you really do need to understand the context in which Jeremiah spoke. Now the way we're dealing with Jeremiah, and I may go back and pick up some other verses, but I'm going to expand a sentence as we go along to kind of look at Jeremiah and his message. We started yesterday by talking about Jeremiah, a messenger of judgment. Then we're going to expand that sentence today to Jeremiah, God's messenger, God's messenger of judgment, and then we'll expand that to Jeremiah, God's weak messenger of judgment, and then we'll expand that to God's weak and unsuccessful messenger of judgment. And then Jeremiah, God's weak, unsuccessful, persecuted messenger of judgment. This is the way we're going to get through this book, Jeremiah, God's weak, unsuccessful, persecuted, loving messenger of God's judgment. Jeremiah, God's weak, unsuccessful, persecuted, loving, and vindicated messenger of God's judgment. And then I may go back and pick up some other verses. We were listening yesterday, we talked about Jeremiah, who was a messenger of judgment. Man, you don't want that message. Do I have to tell them this stuff, Jeremiah said, and the stuff is personified or at least delineated in Jeremiah 111 through 16? This was a time of great debauchery, a time when God's people were turning to foreign gods. When they were trying to put their faith in the military might of other nations, and Jeremiah had a message that he didn't want to speak, and that they didn't want to hear. Now this is new material as we look at God's messenger of judgment. You want to know a great verse, you ought to memorize, and the Bible is Jeremiah, the first chapter in the fourth verse. Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you, I appointed you to be a prophet to the nations. Somebody asked me recently, I was speaking at a conference, how long have you known that you would be doing what you're doing? And I said, I've always known it. I mean when other kids were going to be firemen and cowboys and policemen, I was going to be a preacher. I was going to be a religious professional, and you say, where'd you get that? I don't know. I'm wasn't from a particularly religious family. My father was an alcoholic. My mother was a Christian, but maybe the most earthy Christian I've ever known. I mean, I was not that I had a lot of pressure to become a preacher, but very, very early, my earliest memories are that I knew what I was going to be doing today. And then later on, after college and graduate school, I went through a period of agnosticism when I believe all this stuff. And then I still had this monkey on my back. I mean, I couldn't get away from it. I'd always known that's what I was going to do. That's why I went to Boston University because they didn't believe anything, and I didn't either. And if I went there, this is true. I could still put a reverend in front of my name, but I don't have to believe all this nonsense. Well, if you are a Christian, you know that didn't work. I mean, I was trying to be a pastor of a church, and people would die, and I'd stand by open grays, and I didn't, I don't have any answers for them. I used to say the apostles creed, and when I would say virgin birth inside, I said, that's only symbolic. We know virgins don't have babies. And resurrection of the dead, man, I didn't believe dead people got them walked. These of us who were intellectuals and sophisticated didn't believe stuff like that, but it was a symbolic thing. And pretty soon I realized, you know, this is crazy. Nobody would want this job if they didn't believe the stuff. I mean, it is a hard job. What am I doing here? And God graciously made me into the spiritual giant who now teaches you on this broadcast. But anyway, I believe that Jeremiah, and we're going to see this as we go along. And I think that Jeremiah wanted to run too. You know, I never was really happy with doing this. I'd rather do vinyl repair. I mean, I never was a volunteer. I was always a conscript. I always felt like I just couldn't go anyplace, even if I didn't believe it. I couldn't do anything different. And I think, at that point, I identified with Jeremiah, before you were formed in the womb, I knew you. And before you were born, I consecrated you. I appointed you a prophet to the nation. Jeremiah, a lot of times, wanted to just give up and run. Later on, we're going to see that everything he tried failed. At least I had a couple of successes. I mean, this is a man you don't want to hire to be your chief sales manager if you want to go bank, unless you want to go bankrupt. But when Jeremiah wanted to run, and I'm going to reach you one of the truly great passages in Scripture. Later on, when we get to Jeremiah, when he wanted to run, he remembered that before God hung the stars, before God hollowed up the valleys and created the world, he knew Jeremiah. Before Jeremiah was formed in the womb, God says, I knew you, and I called you to be a prophet. You know that wonderful story about Helen Keller? I probably told it a dozen times on this broadcast, but it's one of my favorite stories of all time. Helen Keller, as you know, was deaf, she couldn't hear, and she couldn't speak, and she couldn't see she was blind, and how do you communicate to somebody like that? Well, they finally were able to work out a communication system by writing on the palm of her hands. And they call Phillips Brooks, who was then the rector at Trinity Church in Boston. If you go down to Copley Square in Boston, you can see a statue of Phillips Brooks with Jesus standing behind him. Phillips Brooks was a godly man, and they called him to come and tell Helen Keller, as they wrote on the palm of her hand. They call Phillips Brooks to come and tell her the old story of Jesus and his love about what happened on the cross, and those who were there said that Helen Keller and Phillips Brooks sat down in chairs in the e to knee, and he began to tell about Jesus, and they began to write on the palm of her hand. Somebody who was there said about halfway through the presentation, Helen Keller stood up and said in that croak voice of hers, I knew him, I knew him, I just didn't know his name. Let me ask you a question, when you came to know him, was it brand new or was it like going home? I mean, was there something in your life that was pursuing you, a reality that was not there, a sense that you belonged in a different place? I asked more people that question, and more often than not, like 90% of the time, people say, well, it was brand new, and then they go, you know, now that I think about it, it wasn't just brand new, I knew him, I just didn't know his name. People will say, no, man, I was a total pagan, I had lunch with her today, and he was giving me his confession about his past, total pagan, but when you came to know him, what was it like? He said, well, it changed my life, it was new, and then he said, no, it really wasn't. I knew him, I just didn't know his name. CS Lewis said that when he would sit down and write, you remember, he was an atheist until his 30s, and then became one of the great apologists for the Christian faith later, and if you haven't read the work of CS Lewis consider yourself uneducated, you ought to read his stuff, but don't think of it as good for you, think of it as being fun, and you'll enjoy it. But CS Lewis said that every time that he would sit down and work on something to be published, there was this, there was the sense that somebody was watching, that somebody was behind him, that somebody was looking over his shoulder, and he said in his win some way of speaking, to say that I was searching for God, was like saying a mouse was searching for a cap. I knew him, I just didn't know his name, and there's probably no place in scripture where it is so clear and so wonderful, but God says before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Now I don't want to go off onto a doctrine of election thing here, because I believe that we're free and we're responsible, and that God is sovereign, and if you're a believer you are elect from the foundation of the earth. You say, Steve explain that to me, I can't, you know, if you stand before God and you don't feel confused, then you're standing before an idol. Who has known the mind of the Lord the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans? As a matter of fact God is infinite and we are finite, he's everything, we're nothing. He owns the ocean, we've got a little boat in the middle of the ocean, and if you stand before God and aren't confused, then you probably simply don't understand what's going on here. So I can't explain how God can be sovereign and elect me and know me from the foundation of the earth, and at the same time hold me responsible and give me real freedom, I don't understand that, but the Bible teaches all of that. But the doctrine of election is a family secret. It's a wonderful family secret. You see, you see if God called you before you did anything good or bad, that means he won't let you go, when you do something bad. If God called you from the foundation of the earth, you'll never let you go. You think about that. I mean, hey listen, if you don't have the book that we're offering this month, I'd love to send it to you for you. It's called from panic to power. 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