If you will turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Jeremiah and we're going to be looking at
chapter 38. Now let me give you a little recap of what's happened so far. In the first chapter,
God chose Jeremiah to be his prophet and his message was that, Judea, you are going to fall to the
Babylonians, you need to give up, do not fight it. And then there are several passages in which he
tells God's people of their sin and even the sin of the nations. But there is also the promise of a new
covenant. Now one of the other things that the book of Jeremiah is known for is the biographical
sections. And we're going to see today what he went through as God's servant. So we not only have his
sermons and his messages, but a picture of the life of one of God's servants in the Old Testament. So
let's give our attention to Jeremiah 38. Shephatea, the son of Matan, Gdala, son of Pasur, Jehukal, son of
Shalamiah and Pasur, son of Malakja, heard that Jeremiah was telling all the people when he said
this is what the Lord said, whoever stays in this city will die by the sword, famine, or plague. But
whoever goes over to the Babylonians will live. They will escape with their lives, they will live. And
this is what the Lord says, the city will certainly be given into the hands of the army of the king of
Babylon who will capture it. Then the official said to the king, this man should be put to death. He is
discouraging the soldiers who are left in the city as well as all the people by these things he is
saying to them. This man is not seeking the good of these people, but they're ruined. He's in your
hands. King Zedekiah answered, the king can do nothing to oppose you. So they took Jeremiah and put
him into the cistern of Malakja, the king's son, which was in the courtyard of the guard. And they
lowered Jeremiah by ropes into the cistern. It had no water in it, only mud. And Jeremiah sank down
into the mud. But Ebed Melik, a Kushite, an official in the royal palace, heard that they had put
Jeremiah into the cistern. And while the king was sitting in the Benjamin gate, Ebed Melik went out
of the palace and said to him, my Lord the king, these men have acted wickedly in all they have done to
Jeremiah the prophet. They have thrown him into a cistern where he will starve to death when there is
no longer any bread in the city. And the king commanded Ebed Melik, the Kushite, take 30 men from
here with you and lift Jeremiah the prophet out of the cistern before he dies. So Ebed Melik took the
men with him and went to a room under the treasury in the palace. He took some old rags and worn out
clothes from there and let them down with ropes to Jeremiah in the cistern. And Ebed Melik, the
Kushite, said to Jeremiah, put these old rags and worn out clothes under your arms to pad the
ropes. And Jeremiah did so and they pulled them up with the ropes and lifted them out of the cistern
and Jeremiah remained in the courtyard of the guard. Then King Zedekiah sent for Jeremiah the prophet
and had him brought to the third entrance of the temple of the Lord. I'm going to ask you something
the king said to Jeremiah, do not hide anything from me. Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, if I give you an
order will you not kill me? Even if I did give you counsel you would not listen to me. But King
Zedekiah swore this oath secretly to Jeremiah as surely as the Lord lives who has given us breath,
I will neither kill you nor hand you over to those who want to kill you. And Jeremiah said to
Zedekiah, this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel says, if you surrender to the officers
of the king of Babylon you will be spared and the city will not be burned down. You and your
family will live. But if you will not surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon the city
will be given over to the hands of the Babylonians and they will burn it down. You yourself will
not escape from them. King Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, I'm afraid of the Jews who have gone over to
the Babylonians for the Babylonians may hand me over them and they will mistreat me. They will
not hand you over, Jeremiah replied. Obey the Lord by doing what I tell you then it will go well
with you and your life will be spared. But if you refuse to surrender this is what the Lord has
revealed to me. All the women left in the palace of the king of Judah will be brought out to the
officials of the king of Babylon. Those women will say to you they misled you and overcame you.
Those trusted friends of yours, your feet are sunk in the mud. Your friends have deserted you.
And all your wives and children will be brought out to the Babylonians. You yourself will not
escape from their hands but will be captured by the king of Babylon and this city will be
burned down. Then Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, do not let anyone know about this conversation or
you may die. And if the officials hear that I talked with you and they come to you and say,
tell us what you said to the king and what the king said to you, do not hide it from us or we
will kill you. Then tell them I was pleading with the king not to send me back to Jonathan's
house to die there. And all the officials did come to Jeremiah and question him and he told them
everything the king had ordered him to say. So they said no more to him for no one had heard
the conversation with the king and Jeremiah remained in the courtyard of the guard until
that day Jerusalem was captured. Let's pray. Our heavenly Father, we ask now that you will
bless the reading of your word and help us this morning to understand what you are saying to
us. Be with us now. Amen. Have you ever heard this statement and I'm sure you've had, he
reached the bottom of the barrel. Now what do we mean by that? Well what we are saying is that
someone has lost a lot and they have reached into the bottom of humiliation. They no longer have
what they had. They have seemed to have lost it all. And that happens to a lot of people in this
life, doesn't it? You could lose your job, go broke, you could be so bad off that you have to
rely on handouts simply to make it. You may at one time have had a job in a nice office,
been a professional, but for some reason you no longer have it. And you now have to work a
manual labor job like washing dishes. It could be that you got a divorce, not of your own
choosing, but because of circumstances which were outside of your control and the life that
you once had, it's no longer there. And you may even be reduced to poverty. You may have
given up a career for your spouse, but then he betrays you. And now you have nothing. Or you
may be a businessman who had a plan and you thought it would go your way, but the unforeseen
circumstances, the marketplace didn't work out. You lose a lot of money. And now you've got to
find another job. It happens to other people, but it can also happen to Christians. We are not
absolved from hitting rock bottom. I want you to think for a moment of believers in Muslim
countries. They hear the word of God, they become a Christian, then what happens to them? Their
family won't have anything to do with them. It gets around the person is a Christian, so he
loses his job and no one will hire him. He is reduced to nothing. He's in poverty. Or think
about ministers, for instance. They may preach the word of God. They may expose sin, but the
church may not like it. The power brokers in charge don't want him talking about their sins. And so
he is fired and has nowhere to go. And even the average believer, if they proclaim the name of
Jesus and try to be obedient, they may suffer. They may face ridicule. They may hit rock bottom.
Well, today, I want to look at the prophet Jeremiah because he literally hits rock bottom. And one
of the most well-known sections of the book of Jeremiah is this one right here in which he is
placed in a cistern. And a cistern is in the ground and it is used for collecting water. It is
not a well. It has a narrow opening, larger at the bottom, and if you are put in one, you just
cannot escape. And yet, while he hits rock bottom, God does not leave him without hope.
So this morning, let's look at hitting rock bottom, but also the hope we have. God's people, they
can be put in the exact same situation, maybe not literally, but their circumstances can wind up
just like this. And I want you to think of what Jeremiah had gone through. From the very
beginning, God says to him, you're going to go to these people. They're going to be hard-hearted.
They're not even going to listen to you. But you go anyway. And you tell them the Babylonians
are coming. Surrender. The Babylonians are my instrument of judgment. And he is not a very
popular person. What he is saying is actually treasonous. And if you look at the chapter before
us in chapter 37, he is placed in prison for the first time. And you see it in verses 6 through
8 when he says, then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet. This is what the
Lord, the God of Israel says, tell the king of Judea who sent you to inquire me, Pharaoh's
army, which is marched out to support you, will go back to its own land to Egypt. Then
the Babylonians will return and attack this city. And they will capture it and burn it
down. So what do the officials do? Prison time. He's put in prison for doing what God has
called him to do. Now, at the end of chapter 37, he is either released and goes back to
preaching, or he's still in prison proclaiming God's word. And look what happens here. In verse
2, he's added again, preaching, this is what the Lord said, whoever stays in this city will
die by the sword by famine or plague, but whoever goes over the Babylonians will live. The result?
The power brokers don't like what is saying. They don't like the effect that it is going to
have on the soldiers. And I want you to notice that in the King James it says he's causing the
soldiers to have weak hands. They're scared, they're trembling, they have limp hands because of the
fear of the Babylonians. So they consult King Zedekiah, and he's wimpy too. I want you to notice
what he says in verse 5. Here, I can't do anything about them. You take them and you deal with them.
He's the king. He could have put a stop to this. He could have listened to God's word. But he doesn't.
And so Jeremiah is put into his cistern a very, very deep pit where he will die or he will starve to
death. Anyway, you put it, it's a form of execution. Now, he's not the first person in the Bible to be
put into a pit. Joseph, by his brothers, when he repeated the dream that the Lord gave him, Daniel
was thrown into a pit full of lions. David often said his life was like that of being in a pit.
And Stephen the martyr may have been thrown into a pit to be stung. There seems to be in the Christian
life this downward movement. Jeremiah and other Christians, they're what you might call a suffering
servant, like what we find in Isaiah 53 where it says of the future Christ, he was despised and we held
him in low esteem. We considered him punished by God, stricken by him and afflicted. And you talk about
prophets and harsh messages. Well, that's what Jeremiah did. And how's he treated? Like trash, thrown
away. And we say, ah, the blessed life. He was blessed. He was blessed by God. But oh my, how he
suffered for doing what God wanted to do. It was his calling. Now I want you to think for a moment about
what God calls us to. Let's think of the ministry for a moment. We think of those successful ministries
where people are seemingly coming to the church. He groves. And we think to ourselves, ah, the preacher
is so polished. He's part of the Kiwanis Club, the Rotary Club. He is smooth. And everybody comes to him.
He's got the connections. And then you compare that person with Jeremiah. How can it be? Jeremiah would
not make the cover of seminary publications because he would be considered a failure. Jeremiah would not
make the cover of many denominational magazines because he got in trouble. Yet he was doing exactly
what God wanted him to do. And he lost his reputation. He lost his freedom. But he obeyed God. And think of
churches as well. Those little bitty churches who faithfully preach the gospel may have some problems.
People may not want to go to them because of the message that they preach about sin and redemption.
Let's go to the larger churches where everything meets my needs. Or let's look at the life of Jesus.
When he preaches a sermon on God's choice and election, people desert him. And one moment they're singing
and praises the next minute they're calling for his execution. Jesus was called to a ministry of
humiliation and suffering. And we've got to think about our own lives at times. We all want success.
We all want the good times. We all want the blessing. But what about going down to the pit? What about going
into darkness? What about going down into the depths of public opinion? Could God call people to that?
And the answer is yes. And He does. Now I'm not celebrating it as something you should desire.
But what I am saying is that sometimes this is the calling. And it is not easy. But we are called above
all to be obedient to what He is called. Now I could leave you at this point and you would say there is
no hope, all is misery. But that's not true. Yes, He suffered. But look at what else is happening here.
Does God take care of His people even when they're in a pit? Yes, He does. And I want you to notice here,
it does not come from the power broker. It does not come from the person who should have taken care of this,
Zedekiah. He is the last king of Judea. This guy has no backbone. He is a wimpy person. And you see it
over and over again where in verse 5 he basically says here, I can't do anything. You court officials
take care of it. In verse 10, He tells a foreigner and not Israelite, go get him and take 30 men with you.
And in verse 16, look at what it says here. But King Zedekiah swore this oath secretly to Jeremiah.
And surely as the Lord lives, who has given us breath, I will neither kill you nor hand you over to those
who want to kill you. Why secret? Because he's scared, scared, scared, scared. And over and over again in this
passage, the mighty king of Israel has no backbone at all. And what is going to happen to him is that
he does not listen even though he has a curiosity about the word of God. And Jeremiah tells him that. You're not going to listen.
So he tells him, Zedekiah, surrender and you will live. But if you don't, you're going down, down, down, down.
And I want you to notice what he is going to face. Embarrassment, destruction. And it says, ironically in verse 22,
your feet are going to be sunk in the mud. So who helps them? Who helps Jeremiah out? A Kushite, someone from Africa.
And it says in your Bibles, he's either an official or a unit. Now in the Bible, a unit can be used of officials who were
not castrated or he could have been castrated. He was probably captured. And that name means servant of the king.
And notice here how tenderly he helps Jeremiah out. He goes and gets rags from the king's palace and places them under
the armpits because if you're going to be carried up by ropes that are around your armpits, it's going to tear at your skin.
Probably that's the way Jeremiah was lowered with no padding. But he gives them the padding and brings him up and saves Jeremiah.
Ebed Melik, really the true servant of the king. But as we look at this instrument of grace, it should remind us all of
another servant of the king who is by far, far greater than Ebed Melik. The true servant who pulls us out of the pit, Jesus.
And listen to what the apostle Paul says in Ephesians chapter four, verse nine. This is why it says, when he ascended on high, he
took many captives and gave gifts to his people. What does he ascended mean referring to Jesus, except that he also descended to the
lower earthly regions. He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens in order to fill the whole
universe. And he is the one who carries us with them to the glories of heaven. Because Jesus Christ was humiliated.
He went into this world. He entered into the depths of human sin and misery, and he entered into the depths of the cross.
But when they lifted him up, he carried us with him to glory because he was the true servant of the king, Jesus.
And now as we get ready to come to the Lord's table, let's look to the one who went into the pit to pull us out.
Let's look at the wonder of his great love for you that he risked everything to take you out of the cistern of sin and guilt and lift you up.
I don't know anyone in this world who would lower themselves to bring others up. I don't know anyone who would descend so that others may ascend.
I don't know anyone who is willing to be humiliated so I can be glorified. But there is one Christ. And as we come to the table this morning, that's why we come.
There's someone to lift you up out of the pit that we find ourselves in. Let's pray.
Our heavenly Father, we ask now, O Lord God, that you will show us how Jesus has lifted us up, even when we are called to suffer for the kingdom of God.
Hear our prayer. Amen.