Well it’s a privilege tonight to begin a new evening sermon series this evening. This sermon series is going to be called “Indispensable.” “Indispensable.” And it comes from 1 Corinthians 12:22, which says, “On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable.” We give a lot of air time to the famous and the big names, as it were, and to the visible parts of the body, but hopefully during this sermon series we’ll slow down and pay particular attention to passages of Scripture that have characters who are nameless, who have no name as we find in Scripture, but yet had a significant impact for the kingdom of God.
We’ve had an illustration, really, of that this evening of how each part is indispensable in our kids who helped with singing and playing this evening. If you were to hand the piano part to the violinist, the violinist would tell you the piano player is indispensable and the same goes the other way. The piano can’t make those sounds that the violin does. The same thing works with the choir. When we think about the body of Christ, the choir is almost an illustration of this. There are voices that hit the pitch absolutely perfectly and those voices help all the other ones to find that pitch. But they might struggle with the rhythm a little bit, so there might be one smaller voice in the back that nails the rhythm and it helping keep the one that seems to be the real leader going in the right direction. Each voice is critical, each part of the choir is indispensable, and each part of the body of Christ is indispensable. And as Paul, again, wrote in 1 Corinthians, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable. We don’t often see those people or pay much attention to them. You might even now be thinking, “Well what are some examples in the Bible of these people without names?” And that kind of proves the point, doesn’t it? We’re not paying a whole lot of attention to them if we can’t readily think of them.
And we have actually seen several of these characters over the last several weeks. The thief on the cross is unnamed, and yet he shapes our understanding of faith and of salvation. The centurion at the crucifixion who declared, “Surely this man was the Son of God!” He also is nameless. But there’s many more. The shepherds to whom the angels appeared and then who went into town telling what they had heard in a way that the people were amazed at what the shepherds said. And yet we don’t know their names. Pharaoh’s cupbearer. He helped Joseph get out of prison and he helped feed, indirectly, all the people that would come to Joseph to be fed. The author of Hebrews is nameless. We don’t know his name, and yet he wrote one of the best sermons surely ever written. You can think of the boy who brought the fishes and the loaves. Naaman’s servant girl. The sailors on the ship with Jonah who did what Jonah should have done and cried out to God. They remain nameless. Even Balaam’s donkey had a role to play and remained nameless. And we’re going to look at several stories like this in the coming weeks.
And the point of this is not to say that we should all be nameless and anonymous or that we, if we have a role up front, should wish that we had a role in the back, etc. But it’s simply to shed light on the impact that each one can have for Christ and for the kingdom. The role that each one of us can have. So if you would take your Bibles in hand, this evening we’re going to be looking at Jeremiah chapter 38. Jeremiah chapter 38. That will be on page 666 if you’re using the pew Bibles.
Before we read that, I want to give us a little context to orientate us in this passage. We find two main characters here. We find Jeremiah. He’s the prophet of God. He’s God’s mouthpiece. And we find Zedekiah who was the last king of Judah. And so Zedekiah is the king of Judah and what we’ll see is that he’s not much of a leader. He’s indecisive. He waffles back and forth on the positions that he takes. And this is a particularly troubling character trait for a leader in the situation in which he finds himself. And that is that Jerusalem is under siege. Jerusalem is under siege from Chaldeans. They’ve encircled the city. However, another ancient superpower is rising and the Egyptian army is starting to make their way north towards Jerusalem and they’re beginning to attract the attention of this Chaldean army and to draw them a bit away from this siege of Jerusalem. And in the midst of this, in the midst of superpowers in the world and kings that have made names for themselves, we find that the word of the Lord comes to the prophet Jeremiah. And the message that he receives from God is at the center of this passage.
So we’re going to look at the response to God’s Word in three couplets. First, we’ll see politics and prophecy. Secondly, we’ll see ropes and rags. And thirdly, we’ll see servants and sovereigns. Before we read this passage, however, let’s go to the Lord in prayer.
Heavenly Father, we need Your help as we come to Your Word. We need You to illumine our hearts and minds. We ask that You would give us wisdom as we look at Your Word, that You would help us to hear Your Word, that You would help us not to be proud but that we would submit and be under Your Word as we hear it read. Lord, we ask that You would bless the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts and that You would guide us as we seek to understand Your Word this evening. It’s in Jesus’ name that we pray, amen.
Jeremiah chapter 38, beginning in verse 1. Hear now the Word of God:
“Now Shephatiah the son of Mattan, Gedaliah the son of Pashhur, Jucal the son of Shelemiah, and Pashhur the son of Malchiah heard the words that Jeremiah was saying to all the people: ‘Thus says the Lord: He who stays in this city shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence, but he who goes out to the Chaldeans shall live. He shall have his life as a prize of war, and live. Thus says the Lord: This city shall surely be given into the hand of the army of the king of Babylon and be taken.’ Then the officials said to the king, ‘Let this man be put to death, for he is weakening the hands of the soldiers who are left in this city, and the hands of all the people, by speaking such words to them. For this man is not seeking the welfare of this people, but their harm.’ King Zedekiah said, ‘Behold, he is in your hands, for the king can do nothing against you.’ So they took Jeremiah and cast him into the cistern of Malchiah, the king’s son, which was in the court of the guard, letting Jeremiah down by ropes. And there was no water in the cistern, but only mud, and Jeremiah sank in the mud.
When Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, a eunuch who was in the king’s house, heard that they had put Jeremiah into the cistern – the king was sitting in the Benjamin Gate – Ebed-melech went from the king’s house and said to the king, ‘My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they did to Jeremiah the prophet by casting him into the cistern, and he will die there of hunger, for there is no bread left in the city.’ Then the king commanded Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, ‘Take thirty men with you from here, and lift Jeremiah the prophet out of the cistern before he dies.’ So Ebed-melech took the men with him and went to the house of the king, to a wardrobe in the storehouse, and took from there old rags and worn-out clothes, which he let down to Jeremiah in the cistern by ropes. Then Ebed-melech the Ethiopian said to Jeremiah, ‘Put the rags and clothes between your armpits and the ropes.’ Jeremiah did so. Then they drew Jeremiah up with ropes and lifted him out of the cistern. And Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard.”
May God add His blessing to this the reading and hearing of His most holy and inerrant Word.
Politics and Prophecy
One of the things I find hardest about being a parent is managing expectations. If we’re planning something that the kids are looking forward to, it’s ecstasy. Everything is great! If for some reason those plans have to change – anguish! It happens at the flip of a switch and of course it gets even more complicated to manage the kids and their expectations as they get older and have their own likes and their own interests and their own dislikes. For one of them, announcing that we’re having grits for breakfast elates enthusiasm; for the other, it might bring him to tears! It’s a tragedy! The very same news that we might deliver is greeted with a very different response. And that’s what we see in our passage. Many people hear the same message, but their reactions to this message, their reaction to the word of the Lord is very different.
So as we think about politics and prophecy, look with me again at verses 1 to 4. While Jerusalem is under siege, Jeremiah receives a word from the Lord. It seems like they’re holding back the enemy, right; they’re under siege but they’re holding them back. They’re pulling together all the supplies they can. They’re doing what they can to survive. They’re keeping watch. Surely they’re rotating soldiers. They’re probably hungry but they’ve got a cause that they’re willing to suffer for. They’re going to save their city. They’re rallying and they’re doing what they can to save this city. But what is it that God says to Jeremiah? Look at verse 2. “Thus says the Lord: He who stays in this city shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence, but he who goes out to the Chaldeans shall live. He shall have his life as a prize of war, and live. Thus says the Lord: This city shall surely be given into the hand of the army of the king of Babylon and be taken.’” Surely this is not the message that Jeremiah was hoping to be able to deliver to the people. He would have been hoping something more along the lines of, “We shall fight them on the beaches! We shall fight them on the landing grounds! We shall never surrender!” Right? That’s what we would think we would do to rally the troops. But what does God say? He says to turn themselves over.
In the last minutes of a championship game, no coach ever huddles his team up to say, “Guys, we’re down 1, there’s a few minutes left to go…let’s hit the showers! I’ll warm up the bus!” That never is what happens. We rally. We want to fight for the cause that we have. But the word of the Lord is given to Jeremiah, and as God’s prophet he knows that he must deliver the message that he has received. He must deliver the message that he has received no matter how difficult a message it is to deliver.
But then look at the politicians. We see the officials here. You see their names listed out in verse 1. They’ve heard what Jeremiah has to say and they take it as a treasonous act. Look at verse 4 where it says, “Then the officials said to the king, ‘Let this man be put to death, for he is weakening the hands of the soldiers who are left in this city, and the hands of all the people, by speaking such words to them. For this man is not seeking the welfare of this people, but their harm.’” So their claim is that Jeremiah’s message is causing everyone to lose heart; they’re not going to be willing to fight any longer. And they believe, “If we could just be a little more positive in our branding we could just turn this around.” They’re blaming Jeremiah for low morale and causing the people to not want to fight. And they’re saying that Jeremiah wants them to lose. And they say, “This man is not seeking the welfare of this people, but their harm.”
And if we’re honest, it’s hard for us not to agree with them. Right? They just want Jerusalem to survive. That’s what they’re looking for. And they want for their soldiers to be victorious. Who wouldn’t want that? What’s wrong with that? They want the city to survive and not be destroyed. “We just want the welfare of the people and not their harm.” Of course the challenge is really in defining what exactly is the welfare of the people. And there are lots of challenging situations that we’ll encounter throughout life that will require wisdom and discernment to navigate. But here’s a way of discerning God’s will that you can take to the bank. If you’re being tempted to do something that is in clear conflict with God’s Word, that’s not God’s will for your life. It’s that easy. If you are tempted to do something that is in clear conflict with God’s Word, that is not God’s will for your life. And that’s what these officials are doing. They’re picking and choosing the parts of God’s Word that they would prefer to obey; they’re rejecting God’s clearly revealed word through Jeremiah because it doesn’t fit their plans.
And I don’t think honestly there could be a better summary of how the world often describes the Bible or the church or Christians today, often, than the claim made here about Jeremiah, that they’re not seeking the welfare of these people but their harm. This is so often what we hear. That if the Bible disagrees with anything I believe about myself, then the Bible is harmful to me. It’s doing harm to me. And of course there’s not a culture or a thought process or an ideology on the planet that is not critiqued by God’s Word. So we shouldn’t be surprised when what God’s Word teaches is at odds with what we simply believe about ourselves or what the world teaches. So the question then is, “How do we know when we’re on solid ground?” And the answer is so simple. We must look to His Word. We often sing, “How firm a foundation you saints of the Lord is laid for your faith in His excellent Word. What more can He say than to you He has said, to you who for refuge to Jesus have fled.” His Word is our firm foundation.
Now this is going to mean that we are often going to be misunderstood. It will be seen as running against the stream of culture. It will mean that we will be treated unjustly, and for many of us it will mean that we will suffer. There’s no other firm foundation, however, on which it is safe for us to stand. We can’t adjust the message of God’s Word. We can’t change the message of God’s Word. We can’t massage the message of God’s Word in an attempt to have it serve our needs like the politicians of Jeremiah’s day. But rather, like the prophet Jeremiah, we must receive it as it is given to us.
Ropes and Rags
So we have seen politicians and prophets. Now let’s consider ropes and rags. Look with me at verses 5 and 6. “King Zedekiah said, ‘Behold, he is in your hands, for the king can do nothing against you.’ So they took Jeremiah and cast him into the cistern of Malchiah, the king’s son, which was in the court of the guard, letting Jeremiah down by ropes. And there was no water in the cistern, but only mud, and Jeremiah sank in the mud.” Here we find the response of the officers. As we saw in verse 4, they go to King Zedekiah and basically say, “This guy is making us lose. This is the reason that we’re going to lose this war. He is a traitor and he deserves death!” And in verse 5, we see King Zedekiah’s pitiful response. He says, “Behold, he is in your hands, for the king can do nothing against you.” Come on, Zedekiah! You are the king! What do you mean, “the king can do nothing against you”? Of course you can do something!
This line is strangely reminiscent of Pontius Pilate in Matthew 27 when it says, “When Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd saying, ‘I am innocent of this man’s blood. See to it yourselves.’” This is the similar thought process that Zedekiah was surely having. He might have felt like he was hedging his bets here. Maybe he thought he could go along with the pragmatism of his officials and also at the same time not be the one who had to reject God’s prophet. But disobedience is disobedience and he allows these men to take Jeremiah away. And you can sense there’s even a certain amount of caution in the way that these officials try to kill Jeremiah. It says in verse 6 that they let him down by ropes. And maybe they hoped to claim that they didn’t actually kill Jeremiah by throwing him into the cistern and he hit his head or whatever the case may be and he died. But no, “We lowered him down in there. We didn’t kill him. He just happened to starve while he was down there.” Maybe they wanted to save their own reputations. Maybe they didn’t want Jeremiah to die as he was thrown into the cistern so that he could suffer longer. Such was the hatred for this man. Either way, it doesn’t look good for them as Jeremiah describes it here in these verses.
And what a hopeless situation this is for Jeremiah, the prophet. All he’s done is be obedient in these verses, right? He’s proclaimed the message that God has given him and he is thrown into a cistern. A cistern was likely a deep pit, probably kind of bulbous in shape, with no kind of walls that you could climb up from. And it likely had a narrow opening at the top that would have made it extremely difficult and really impossible to climb out and escape from. And so verse 6 also says that when he was lowered in, not only was he lowered into the cistern, but he sank down in the mud. This is a hopeless situation.
We see this in Psalm 69. David poetically describes a miserable situation for himself, right? He was a man who experienced so much suffering and persecution and he is no stranger to suffering and to difficult situations. And yet the poetic image that he shows, that he chose to describe his suffering is this. “I sink in deep mire where there is no foothold.” And then goes on later in the psalm to say, “Deliver me from sinking in the mire. Let me be delivered from my enemies, from the deep waters. Let not the flood sweep over me or the deep swallow me up or the pit close its mouth over me.” So the poetic image that David uses to express the worst possible situation in his mind is the literal situation that Jeremiah finds himself in. He’s stuck. He’s stuck down in the mud. And he’s in a pit with just a narrow opening above him that he can’t reach.
To add insult to injury, Jeremiah’s name actually means “God will raise up.” So he’s been lowered into this pit and now he’s sunk into the mud, he’s as deep as it goes, and his name is “God will raise up.” And you can just imagine the blow that would be as maybe a friend secretly ran over to encourage him and called out his name into the cistern – “Jeremiah! Jeremiah!” I would have gritted my teeth, rolled my eyes at least. “Call me anything else but, ‘The Lord will raise up.’ I’m as low as it gets. My name isn’t true anymore. Anything else. What am I doing down here so low if God will raise up?” But an unlikely hero emerges – an Ethiopian named Ebed-melech.
Now at this point, halfway through the second point, you might be wondering, “Wasn’t this introduced as a sermon series about anonymous characters in the Bible?” Yes, it was, and we’re getting there! We are there! Verse 7 says that Ebed-melech is an Ethiopian, so he’s not a Hebrew. But the name, Ebed-melech, is very Hebrew, and it means “servant of the king.” Now it seems a little suspicious to me that this Ethiopian would have a Hebrew name that so perfectly aligns with his actual role, with his job description. And it seems more likely to me that this wasn’t his actual name and at most it was just a name given to him upon arrival as he got to Jerusalem and began to serve the king. Oftentimes, when I introduce myself to people, the first question I get is, “Oh, Peipon? Where does that come from?” And I tell them that my best guess is that it was really an Ellis Island mishap! It seems that my dad’s grandparents got on a boat, they came to The States, they arrived in New York, and then when asked what their name was, they said it and the response was something like, “That’s great, but this is your name now! It’s Peipon!” That’s what it is. We don’t have any other history on it. It doesn’t seem to belong to any people group, any country anywhere, but that’s what our name is now. It’s an Ellis Island mishap! And maybe that’s what happened to this poor Ethiopian – it was a Port of Joppa mishap as he arrived in Israel.
But look with me at verses 7 through 13 as we see how this servant of the king responds:
“When Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, a eunuch who was in the king’s house, heard that they had put Jeremiah into the cistern – the king was sitting in the Benjamin Gate – Ebed-melech went from the king’s house and said to the king, ‘My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they did to Jeremiah the prophet by casting him into the cistern, and he will die there of hunger, for there is no bread left in the city.’ Then the king commanded Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, ‘Take thirty men with you from here, and lift Jeremiah the prophet out of the cistern before he dies.’ So Ebed-melech took the men with him and went to the house of the king, to a wardrobe in the storehouse, and took from there old rags and worn-out clothes, which he let down to Jeremiah in the cistern by ropes.”
So what do we have here? The king’s servant catches wind of what’s going on and senses there has been a gross injustice. He leaves his station at the king’s house and goes out to where the king is at the Benjamin Gate. He was likely there hearing and judging over civil cases and civil suits there at the Benjamin Gate. He’s busy. And here comes his servant from his house to say that what these officials have done is wrong. And Zedekiah immediately tells his servant to take thirty men, draw Jeremiah up out of the cistern, and this really proves Zedekiah’s previous statement that the king could do nothing to be the pathetic lie that it was. And so the king’s servant, Ebed-melech, takes off with these men to rescue Jeremiah but not before he goes rummaging around in the king’s closet to get some rags.
And this is a beautiful picture, I think, of this servant’s care for God’s prophet. He got thirty men with him and a command from the king and they could have surely just rushed on and done what they had set out to do, but Ebed-melech, the servant of the king, makes time for Jeremiah’s comfort. And so the fact that Jeremiah was speaking God’s word and had caused the officials to carefully consider how best to kill him is one way of responding to the message. But the same fact that Jeremiah is the man with the word from God has inspired the king’s servant to think about how to make him more comfortable.
Now would I even be the minister of missions if I didn’t draw some sort of application as relates to our missionaries. This image of the ropes and rags is really a rebuke to me as I think about how we support our missionaries. These are God’s ambassadors in lands that most of us will never visit, that most of us can’t communicate well within – we don’t know the languages, we don’t know the cultures. And we have sent these men and women there to be missionaries from our church. And yet how often is it that when we consider our missions pledging and our missions giving, how often do we just think, “Well that’s enough. They’ll be fine.” Rather than thinking if there is something more that we can do. “Can we make them more comfortable? Can we aid them in their work in some other way that will make life better for them as an encouragement from one of their sending churches?” Do we go rummaging through the storehouses of the king to help them not just so that they have enough to skimp by, but to even offer them some comfort as they serve?
And it’s also important to note, I think, that this isn’t just about something extravagant, right? We’re talking about rags and ropes. There are so many small and humble things that we can do in support of our missionaries in ways that encourages them and lightens their load. We can send emails. We can write letters. We can come up to them after they’ve given a report to us on a Sunday night and we can encourage them and tell them what an encouragement they are to us having heard their reports and hearing a dispatch from the front. We can go and visit them in the places where they serve if we find ourselves nearby. We can express interest in them outside of missions conference week. We can look at the people in the bulletin and pray for them throughout the week. There are many creative ways that we can express to them that we value their work, that we appreciate them, and that we want to support them as best as we are able.
So as we think about the servant of the king, I want you also to notice how unlikely a hero he is. This takes place in Jerusalem. This is the capital city of God’s people. And yet who comes to the aid of the man of God? First, he’s a servant. He doesn’t have particular influence or sway. He does what the king commands. Second, he’s an Ethiopian. This is near modern day Sudan. He likely would not have looked like most of the other people in Jerusalem and could have easily been looked at as an outsider. Lastly, he was a eunuch. This means that he was deformed in such a way that he would not have been permitted to participate in worship in the temple.
There’s nothing about him that says, “Here’s the guy that God’s going to use to answer the call,” and yet this is the man God uses to rescue Jeremiah. And because of his actions, we have this book of Jeremiah; we have Lamentations in our Bibles. Jeremiah was used to preach to the remnant. This man was an unlikely servant. And we have words to the song that was sung this evening. “Great is Thy Faithfulness” comes from Lamentations. How many hearts have been encouraged having read just that verse from Lamentations? We wouldn’t have that without the servant of the king’s obedience.
Servants and Sovereigns
So we’ve covered politics and prophecy. We’ve covered ropes and rags. Finally and very briefly, let’s think about this servant and the sovereign. As we think about obedience to God’s Word, I want us to think about how that goes well beyond the wisdom that’s required to interact with the culture that we talked about under our first point, or doing the right thing, which we saw from the servant of the king in the second point. Both of these are important, but there are eternal ramifications to heeding God’s Word. First think about the servant. How was the servant of the king able to do what he did? What was his reward? Look at chapter 39 verse 16. It says, “Go, and say to Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will fulfill my words against this city for harm and not for good, and they shall be accomplished before you on that day. But I will deliver you on that day, declares the Lord, and you shall not be given into the hand of the men of whom you are afraid. For I will surely save you, and you shall not fall by the sword, but you shall have your life as a prize of war, because you have put your trust in me, declares the Lord.’” We see there in verse 18 that God will deliver him. And why, because he acted bravely? Because he was obedient? No. Because he looked the part? No. Because “You put your trust in me.” And God makes the same offer to each one here tonight. If you put your trust in Christ, your life can be spared, so put your trust in Him.
And consider the sovereign. Consider King Zedekiah. What became of him? King Zedekiah was too proud to listen to God’s Word. He would not submit. He would not obey. He would not turn himself over to the Chaldeans even after hearing that instruction from Jeremiah multiple times. He called the man of God to himself, seeking counsel, and blatantly ignored it each time. Also in chapter 39 you can see what becomes of him. You can see a picture of judgment. He tries to flee the city eventually and he’s captured and one of the most terrifying episodes in all of Scripture occurs. He and all his sons are captured and his sons, his children are brought out before him and killed, right in front of him. And then immediately they gouge king Zedekiah’s eyes out so that the last thing that he will ever have seen was his children’s murder. The last image ever in his mind that would ever enter his mind was that of his children being murdered. And this is because he was proud. He would not heed the word of the Lord. This is a picture of hell. This is a picture of judgment. And so I urge you to think of the sovereign and the servant, and if tonight you are ignoring the Word of the Lord, having heard it again, you are in danger. So let us follow the example of this anonymous servant of the king and simply put our trust in Christ that our lives may be spared.
Let’s pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Word. Help us to not only have had Your Word enter our mind and to become aware of what it says, but help that Word travel to our hearts. Lord help us to submit. Help us to put to death our pride and submit to You, our King. We pray all this in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.