There are two extremes, it seems, throughout church history. You have some, like the radical Anabaptists, that sought to get off the grid, sought to get out of all politics. They didn't enter into the army. They didn't pay their taxes or didn't want to pay taxes. They viewed themselves as this foreign nation within the nations of the world.

And so they were, led them to be kind of exclusive. And that's one extreme that I think this text would tell us, this is not the way that God has us. The ship is sinking, but it's not sinking so fast that we can do some good in this world. The world is coming to an end. The nations of this world will be destroyed, But at the same time, it's not necessarily promised in this generation.

We have many more generations potentially to come. And we're to live not of this world, but we're in this world. And the Lord has called us as sheep. He's going to send us into this world. And I thought for a long time, why did the Lord not, once we're converted, once we're saved and we're out of this world, we've been separated from this world, zap us into heaven immediately.

Let me, okay, we're good, let's get to heaven. That would be glorious to be glorified immediately, to not have to live in this dark and evil world that we live in. God has a purpose for this church. And it's not for us to go and isolate ourselves, but to go into this world and live our lives that God has called us to live, that we may be salt, that we might be the preservative influence upon this world because God has another generation, we hope, we have another generation that He's not willing that they perish, that He's long-suffering. In some sense, why has the Lord not returned yet?

What keeps the Lord from returning and destroying this world and taking us all to heaven? Well, he's long suffering and he's not willing that any shall perish. And if the Lord would have came back in 1974, I wouldn't have even been born. I wouldn't be going to heaven. But if He would come in 1984, I would have been born, but I wouldn't have been saved.

So He needed to wait because I'm one of his chosen ones. And so he's waiting to redeem his people. And he's not going to come back until he's redeemed all his chosen people. And so he's long-suffering, not willing any of his people perish. So because it's going to take some time to redeem his people from multiple generations.

He's called us to go into this world and live the Christian life as a saver of this world, as a preservative of this world. And in that, We're called to build homes, go to work. We're called to do our professions for the glory of God. We're called to be evangelists. And so we live in this world, but we're not of this world.

And so this is a balanced position that we see in Jeremiah. This is not their place. This is exile. This is not our home. We're pilgrims, we're strangers.

But we're to live in this world underneath the rule of King Jesus to do what we can to redeem people out of this world and be a preserving grace to this world.