Jeremiah 39:11-18

Hey, hey, good morning, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This morning we're going to wrap up Jeremiah chapter 39. Jerusalem has been taken. Zedekiah has been captured. His eyes have been ripped out as his children were killed right in front of his face. The city's been burned with fire. But what happens to Prophet Jeremiah?
Let's find out. Let's have some coffee, we'll pray, and we'll get into God's Word. Ready to pray? Father, we thank you so much for your word, and we thank you for caring for us. Lord, we pray that as we read your word, your Holy Spirit would please help us to understand it. And Lord, we pray that we would not just grow big old 10-gallon heads, big brains, but little hearts. We pray that we would be able to understand your word, and that you would even change the ways that we think and live. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. at Jeremiah chapter 39. We're going to read verse 11 to the end of the chapter. Okay? So, it's just two paragraphs. It's right here. Actually, you want to read verse 11? Sure.
Now Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar did a battle and gave charge concerning Jeremiah to Nebuchadnezzar. I'm the captain of the guard. Take him and look after him and do him no harm, but I do. But do to him just as he says to you. So Nebuchadnezzar Adan, the captain of the guard, said, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar, and committed him to Gedaliah, the son of Ahiakim, the son of Shaphan, that he should take him home. So he dwelt among the people.
Meanwhile, The word of the Lord had come to Jeremiah while he was shut up in the court of the prison, saying, Go and speak to Ebedmelech, the Ethiopian, saying, Thus says Jehovah of Hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I will bring my words upon this city for adversity and not for good, and they shall be performed in that day before you. But I will deliver you in that day. says the Lord, and you shall not be given into the hand of the men of whom you are afraid, for I will surely deliver you, and you shall not fall by the sword, but your life shall be as a prize to you, because you have put your trust in me, says Jehovah. All right, so there's a little bit of backstory there. All right, so I just told you that Jerusalem had been conquered, the city set on fire, stuff like that.
Jeremiah was in prison. Zedekiah had put him in the core of the prison, in the middle of the prison, and before the people came, before the Babylonians came, and they destroyed the land, and they captured the king, and killed the sons, and gouged out his eyes, you know what happened? The king had allowed the princess to put Jeremiah in a, like a pit, a well, or a cistern, something like that, and a whole bunch of mire in it, like mud.
Imagine being in a well, stuck in a bunch of mud, and nobody's going to give you food. Any frogs? No frogs. Just death and hunger and cold. I want some froggies. Yep, no froggies. Fish? No fish. There's no water in it. It's just muck and mire. Nothing. Everything else is dead down there. Spiders? No, it's, well, maybe spiders, but imagine them biting you. I don't know.
But the point being, Dan, there was one guy in Ethiopia, not even Israelite. His name was Ebed Melech, and he goes to the kings at the time and he's like, this isn't good. You shouldn't do this. And so he goes and he tells the king that, and the king says, fine, go rescue him. Take 30 guys and go rescue him.
And he does. He sends down ropes and he gets old rags and clothes, tells Jeremiah to put them underneath his arms so they pull him out of the mud. He doesn't get hurt. And so before the Babylonians capture Jerusalem, Jeremiah is still in prison. And he has Ebed Melech, this Ethiopian guy who'd saved him, come to him.
He said, and he says, here's what the Lord says. You're afraid of the Babylonians that they're going to kill you, but they're not going to kill you. The Lord says they're not going to kill you because you trusted the Lord. And then the Babylonians come.
They take over the city, but they don't kill Jeremiah. Nope. We're gonna lift on a little bit of a cliffhanger with that, but it seems like no, probably won't. But Jeremiah's not killed. Instead, he's given over to the princes and the princes give him to an Israelite and they say, do to him whatever he asks. He's actually, Jeremiah's cared for instead. Quite a change of events, huh?
Imagine being the prisoner of the king and the king lets the officials throw you down in a well to kill you, but an Ethiopian saves you. And then you're in the courtyard and the Lord says to go get the Ethiopian and tells the Ethiopian he's going to live, but the Lord hasn't told you what's going to happen to you. And then the Babylonians come and they're destroying everything. They take over the city and they take you out and they save your life.
How would you feel about that? Okay. I would be all for it for that. You might sigh of relief? Well, if I got out, you know what I would do? I would take a big nap. You would take a big nap. Well, maybe he is going to take a big nap. Maybe he's still sad, though, as he's seen all these horrible things happening in the city. As they let him out, he sees, oh man, this is horrible and ugly because wars is not a pretty thing, especially siege warfare. Because they've surrounded the city and people are starving to death. Women are taking and eating their own children.
What do you think? Should you be barbecued tomorrow night? I would eat the frogs. You would eat the frogs instead? There are no more frogs. There's no more even donkeys. They've killed everything. They do? you blow a hole in the base camp and blow them up. There's no such thing as blowing them up at that point. They didn't know about gunpowder. No nuclear bombs, no gunpowder, no bullets, nothing. Nothing like that. This isn't funny. This is an ugly, ugly thing that Jeremiah is living through.
And yet God has spared his life because he trusted in the Lord. He trusted in the Lord and God spared his life too. But didn't anyone told you? Well, if the Lord promises it, is it going to happen? Yeah. And so that's what the Lord does for them. They trust him.
That doesn't mean they're spared from seeing all the hardships and the judgment that God's brought upon the people for their idolatry and not trusting him. But their lives are spared. So what do you think this section is about? It's only two paragraphs that we went through, but tell me what do you think it's about? I think it's about God sparing Jeremiah. Yeah, I would say God sparing Jeremiah and Ebed Melech's life. So Ebed means like a servant and then Melech is the king. So the servant of the king. He's a eunuch. He serves the king. Yeah. So he's an Ethiopian. He's from like up the Nile River, south of Egypt. Yeah. Okay.
So, uh, let's go ahead and talk about sea calling. What are we called to do? How does this apply to your life and my life? Um, uh, not to rebel against God and trust in him. Okay, yeah, so trust in the Lord. Trust in the Lord, don't rebel against Him, listen to God.
Yeah, I think those are good. Anything else? Um, no. Yeah, I think that's pretty good. Yeah, is the Lord always good to us? Yeah. Does it mean we're gonna have super easy lives? No. Nope. Maybe hard lives. May not be easy. But can we trust Him? Yeah. Yeah.
You ready to pray? God, we pray that even when persecution or trial, hardship or famine may come, Lord, we pray that we would not be like a plant that sprouts up quickly, but its roots are in the rock. And when the sun of persecution and the heat of trials and things feed against us, Lord, we pray that we would not shrivel up. We pray that we would be planted in good soil and that we would endure and bear fruit. even 50, 100 fold. But Father, we know that only your Holy Spirit can do this. And so God, we pray that you would indeed fill our lives with trust, with love, with good works that flow from following and trusting you. We pray that we would be like Ebed Melech.
Lord, that's who we are in the story. We're not naturally Jewish people. We're just as strange as an Ethiopian eunuch serving an Israelite king. Lord, we are the goyim, the Gentiles, serving a Jewish king, serving Jesus Christ. As a father, we pray that you would please let us trust in you, always and forever, and bear good fruit. We pray these things in Jesus's name. Amen. May the Lord bless you. May you serve the king, Jesus Christ, forever. We'll see you next time. Say bye. Bye. Bye.