Jeremiah 38:1-13

Hey, hey, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This morning we're going to look at Jeremiah chapter 38, verses 1 through 13, and see that Jeremiah finds himself possibly with a slow, slow death, cold and hungry in front of him. But then an unlikely advocate comes along. So let's have some coffee, we'll pray. We'll find out about what the Lord has in store for Jeremiah. Let's pray.
Father, we thank you so much for this day. We thank you for this Word. We thank you for time in your Word. God, we thank you for giving us historical accounts, stories of what happened in the past. And Father, they're just real life. And they're hard. They are hard, Lord. And we pray that we would learn from them, and that your Spirit would teach us things from them, how we are to think and live. and hope. We pray in Jesus' name that you would help us. Amen. We go to Jeremiah chapter 38, the first 13 verses.
Now, Shephatiah the son of Matan, Gedaliah the son of Pashur, Jucal the son of Shalamiah, and Pashur the son of Melchiah, heard the words that Jeremiah had spoken to all the people, saying, Thus says the Lord, He who remains in this city shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence. But he who goes over to the Chaldeans shall live. His life shall be as a prize to him, and he shall live. Thus says the Lord, this city shall surely be given into the hand of the king of Babylon's army, which shall take it."
So what are they? These are these officials, these princes of the people. ran into a few of them before. So we've got Matan, Gedaliah, Jucal, and Pashur. A bunch of them have been mentioned before. And they've essentially summarized Jeremiah's preaching for the last 10 years of Zedekiah's reign. Essentially, hey Babylon's gonna win. It's probably better just to defect or something.
And what do they say about this? Therefore the princes said to the king, please let this man be put to death. For thus, he weakens the hands of the men of war who remain in this city, and the hands of all the people, by speaking such words to them. For this man does not seek the welfare of this people, but their harm." They say, we got to put this guy to death, King. His message is like a rot in the morale of the troops. The people, they're being disheartened by his message, and they're not good.
We gotta get rid of this guy. And so this is their desire, right? And it makes sense on an earthly level. If I was sitting in the kingdom, I could imagine saying the same thing. Unless Jeremiah's words are true. But they don't want them to be true. They don't believe Jeremiah. And so in their reasoning, in their minds, this guy's gotta die. He's a problem.
This is just the real story of what's going on in Jerusalem. And so, how does Zedekiah respond? Well, verses five through six. Then Zedekiah the king said, look, he's in your hand. For the king can do nothing against you. So they took Jeremiah and cast him into the dungeon of Melchiah the king's son, which was in the court of the prison. And they let Jeremiah down with ropes. And in the dungeon, there was no water but mire. So Jeremiah sank in the mire.
Okay, so imagine this. They want to kill him, but instead of just going, stabbing him to death or something, instead they want him to face a cold and excruciating, torturous death. They put him down in this dungeon, most likely a cistern or an old well or something.
There's nothing in there anymore. The water's gone, but it's still got mud, muck, mire in it. And they lower him down in there. They don't give him any food. So he's going to die of starvation and exposure. Just stuck in the mud. Cold. Hungry. Until he dies of starvation. That's what their plan is. And then something remarkable happens in verse 7.
Now Obed-Ebed-Melech, Ebed is the word for servant, Ebed-Melech is king, so a servant of the king, the Ethiopian, somebody who is black in skin, not from Egypt, but further south up the Nile River. One of the eunuchs who was in the king's house heard that they had put Jeremiah in the dungeon.
When the king was sitting at the gate of Benjamin, Ebed-Melech went out of the king's house and spoke to the king, saying, My Lord the King, these men have done evil in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet, whom they have cast into the dungeon, and he is likely to die from hunger in the place where he is. For there is no more bread in the city.
Then the king commanded Ebed-Melech the Ethiopian, saying, Take from here thirty men with you, and lift Jeremiah the prophet out of the dungeon before he dies. So Ebed-Melech took the men with him, and went into the house of the king under the treasury, and took from there old cloths and old rags, and let them down by ropes into the dungeon to Jeremiah. Then Ebed-Melech the Ethiopian said to Jeremiah, please put these old clothes and rags under your armpits under the ropes. And Jeremiah did so. And they pulled Jeremiah up with the ropes and lifted him up out of the dungeon. And Jeremiah remained in the courtyard or in the court of the prison.
So Ebed-Melech goes and he talks to the king. This is evil what they've done. He's gonna die of starvation. And Zedekiah, after he's relinquished control, the princes seem to have a lot of power. But when this Ethiopian unlikely guy advocates for Jeremiah, Zedekiah for some reason turns and he says, all right, take 30 men, go get the stuff you need and go save him. Put him in the courtyard. And they do it. So it seems like Zedkai has some type of remorse and it's this Ebed-Melech who ends up saving the day, rescuing Jeremiah from certain torturous cold death.
So that's what this is about. Now we need to ask ourselves what's the best verse to summarize this. In my Bible I have, let's see here, I have verse 4 underlined. That's what the princess had said. I also have verse 9 underlined. That's what the Ethiopian said to Zedekiah. That's what I've underlined in my Bible. Maybe you want to underline something different, that's fine.
So let's go ahead and talk about seek calling. What are we called to do? Well I think in life one of the things I continue to learn is I'm not writing the script. I have agency in life. I get to make my own decisions. I get to do things and say things and think things I want and yet I'm not writing the script here. That's one of the things that I've that I learned from this section here.
Another thing I learned from this section is that Zedekiah represents a whole bunch of people, especially politicians and even Christians that sometimes behavior and words seem a little bit confusing. You scratch your head up because, oh, what's Zedekiah doing? Does he believe Jeremiah or not? Does he care about Jeremiah or not? Is he following the Lord or not? And I think, I hope that's not what my legacy and reputation is. I wonder how people will think about me. Well, people will be like, well, we didn't really know where Brian stood.
Sometimes he played religious, and other times he didn't seem to have much space in his life for the Lord. Sometimes he seemed to care about God's people, but at other times, well, he was just kind of on his own. I've been thinking a lot about Recently just the Lord's been having my mind dwell on things of my early childhood and life and think how often I even did that. Neither hot nor cold. Just kind of sometimes I'd be religious and sometimes I wouldn't be. Sometimes I'd want to be at church and sometimes I'd want to just be dwelling in my own sin. Who in the world was I?
What are people going to think about you? Will they know that you were a salt in the light? Will they know that you followed the Lord? Will they know that your actions more often lined up with your love for God, that you believed? Or do you just kind of play around with religion? How will people talk about you at your funeral? Will they know where you stood? Let's go ahead and pray. Father, we pray that you would please help us.
Lord, fill us with your Holy Spirit. Father, we pray that we would not be unknown in where our commitment lies. Father, we pray that we would follow after you, that we would love you with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and that we would love others as we would want to be loved. Father, we pray that you would please, we can't do this on our own. So we thank you for your son, Jesus Christ. We pray that our lives would be centered around the prophet you have sent us and your son, and that we would listen to you, that we would walk in your ways.
Help us, God, we pray in Jesus's name. Amen. Well, may the Lord protect you and guard you. May he stir up your spirit to serve him, to walk in his ways, and to love him. I pray that you'll tell someone about him today. and that you'll be comforted even by God himself as his spirit dwells in you. I'll see you next time. Bye.