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If you will turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Jeremiah and we're going to be looking at

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chapter 38. Now let me give you a little recap of what's happened so far. In the first chapter,

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God chose Jeremiah to be his prophet and his message was that, Judea, you are going to fall to the

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Babylonians, you need to give up, do not fight it. And then there are several passages in which he

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tells God's people of their sin and even the sin of the nations. But there is also the promise of a new

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covenant. Now one of the other things that the book of Jeremiah is known for is the biographical

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sections. And we're going to see today what he went through as God's servant. So we not only have his

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sermons and his messages, but a picture of the life of one of God's servants in the Old Testament. So

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let's give our attention to Jeremiah 38. Shephatea, the son of Matan, Gdala, son of Pasur, Jehukal, son of

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Shalamiah and Pasur, son of Malakja, heard that Jeremiah was telling all the people when he said

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this is what the Lord said, whoever stays in this city will die by the sword, famine, or plague. But

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whoever goes over to the Babylonians will live. They will escape with their lives, they will live. And

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this is what the Lord says, the city will certainly be given into the hands of the army of the king of

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Babylon who will capture it. Then the official said to the king, this man should be put to death. He is

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discouraging the soldiers who are left in the city as well as all the people by these things he is

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saying to them. This man is not seeking the good of these people, but they're ruined. He's in your

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hands. King Zedekiah answered, the king can do nothing to oppose you. So they took Jeremiah and put

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him into the cistern of Malakja, the king's son, which was in the courtyard of the guard. And they

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lowered Jeremiah by ropes into the cistern. It had no water in it, only mud. And Jeremiah sank down

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into the mud. But Ebed Melik, a Kushite, an official in the royal palace, heard that they had put

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Jeremiah into the cistern. And while the king was sitting in the Benjamin gate, Ebed Melik went out

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of the palace and said to him, my Lord the king, these men have acted wickedly in all they have done to

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Jeremiah the prophet. They have thrown him into a cistern where he will starve to death when there is

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no longer any bread in the city. And the king commanded Ebed Melik, the Kushite, take 30 men from

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here with you and lift Jeremiah the prophet out of the cistern before he dies. So Ebed Melik took the

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men with him and went to a room under the treasury in the palace. He took some old rags and worn out

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clothes from there and let them down with ropes to Jeremiah in the cistern. And Ebed Melik, the

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Kushite, said to Jeremiah, put these old rags and worn out clothes under your arms to pad the

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ropes. And Jeremiah did so and they pulled them up with the ropes and lifted them out of the cistern

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and Jeremiah remained in the courtyard of the guard. Then King Zedekiah sent for Jeremiah the prophet

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and had him brought to the third entrance of the temple of the Lord. I'm going to ask you something

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the king said to Jeremiah, do not hide anything from me. Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, if I give you an

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order will you not kill me? Even if I did give you counsel you would not listen to me. But King

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Zedekiah swore this oath secretly to Jeremiah as surely as the Lord lives who has given us breath,

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I will neither kill you nor hand you over to those who want to kill you. And Jeremiah said to

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Zedekiah, this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel says, if you surrender to the officers

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of the king of Babylon you will be spared and the city will not be burned down. You and your

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family will live. But if you will not surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon the city

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will be given over to the hands of the Babylonians and they will burn it down. You yourself will

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not escape from them. King Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, I'm afraid of the Jews who have gone over to

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the Babylonians for the Babylonians may hand me over them and they will mistreat me. They will

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not hand you over, Jeremiah replied. Obey the Lord by doing what I tell you then it will go well

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with you and your life will be spared. But if you refuse to surrender this is what the Lord has

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revealed to me. All the women left in the palace of the king of Judah will be brought out to the

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officials of the king of Babylon. Those women will say to you they misled you and overcame you.

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Those trusted friends of yours, your feet are sunk in the mud. Your friends have deserted you.

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And all your wives and children will be brought out to the Babylonians. You yourself will not

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escape from their hands but will be captured by the king of Babylon and this city will be

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burned down. Then Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, do not let anyone know about this conversation or

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you may die. And if the officials hear that I talked with you and they come to you and say,

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tell us what you said to the king and what the king said to you, do not hide it from us or we

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will kill you. Then tell them I was pleading with the king not to send me back to Jonathan's

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house to die there. And all the officials did come to Jeremiah and question him and he told them

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everything the king had ordered him to say. So they said no more to him for no one had heard

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the conversation with the king and Jeremiah remained in the courtyard of the guard until

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that day Jerusalem was captured. Let's pray. Our heavenly Father, we ask now that you will

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bless the reading of your word and help us this morning to understand what you are saying to

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us. Be with us now. Amen. Have you ever heard this statement and I'm sure you've had, he

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reached the bottom of the barrel. Now what do we mean by that? Well what we are saying is that

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someone has lost a lot and they have reached into the bottom of humiliation. They no longer have

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what they had. They have seemed to have lost it all. And that happens to a lot of people in this

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life, doesn't it? You could lose your job, go broke, you could be so bad off that you have to

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rely on handouts simply to make it. You may at one time have had a job in a nice office,

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been a professional, but for some reason you no longer have it. And you now have to work a

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manual labor job like washing dishes. It could be that you got a divorce, not of your own

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choosing, but because of circumstances which were outside of your control and the life that

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you once had, it's no longer there. And you may even be reduced to poverty. You may have

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given up a career for your spouse, but then he betrays you. And now you have nothing. Or you

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may be a businessman who had a plan and you thought it would go your way, but the unforeseen

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circumstances, the marketplace didn't work out. You lose a lot of money. And now you've got to

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find another job. It happens to other people, but it can also happen to Christians. We are not

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absolved from hitting rock bottom. I want you to think for a moment of believers in Muslim

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countries. They hear the word of God, they become a Christian, then what happens to them? Their

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family won't have anything to do with them. It gets around the person is a Christian, so he

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loses his job and no one will hire him. He is reduced to nothing. He's in poverty. Or think

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about ministers, for instance. They may preach the word of God. They may expose sin, but the

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church may not like it. The power brokers in charge don't want him talking about their sins. And so

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he is fired and has nowhere to go. And even the average believer, if they proclaim the name of

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Jesus and try to be obedient, they may suffer. They may face ridicule. They may hit rock bottom.

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Well, today, I want to look at the prophet Jeremiah because he literally hits rock bottom. And one

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of the most well-known sections of the book of Jeremiah is this one right here in which he is

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placed in a cistern. And a cistern is in the ground and it is used for collecting water. It is

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not a well. It has a narrow opening, larger at the bottom, and if you are put in one, you just

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cannot escape. And yet, while he hits rock bottom, God does not leave him without hope.

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So this morning, let's look at hitting rock bottom, but also the hope we have. God's people, they

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can be put in the exact same situation, maybe not literally, but their circumstances can wind up

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just like this. And I want you to think of what Jeremiah had gone through. From the very

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beginning, God says to him, you're going to go to these people. They're going to be hard-hearted.

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They're not even going to listen to you. But you go anyway. And you tell them the Babylonians

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are coming. Surrender. The Babylonians are my instrument of judgment. And he is not a very

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popular person. What he is saying is actually treasonous. And if you look at the chapter before

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us in chapter 37, he is placed in prison for the first time. And you see it in verses 6 through

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8 when he says, then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet. This is what the

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Lord, the God of Israel says, tell the king of Judea who sent you to inquire me, Pharaoh's

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army, which is marched out to support you, will go back to its own land to Egypt. Then

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the Babylonians will return and attack this city. And they will capture it and burn it

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down. So what do the officials do? Prison time. He's put in prison for doing what God has

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called him to do. Now, at the end of chapter 37, he is either released and goes back to

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preaching, or he's still in prison proclaiming God's word. And look what happens here. In verse

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2, he's added again, preaching, this is what the Lord said, whoever stays in this city will

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die by the sword by famine or plague, but whoever goes over the Babylonians will live. The result?

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The power brokers don't like what is saying. They don't like the effect that it is going to

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have on the soldiers. And I want you to notice that in the King James it says he's causing the

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soldiers to have weak hands. They're scared, they're trembling, they have limp hands because of the

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fear of the Babylonians. So they consult King Zedekiah, and he's wimpy too. I want you to notice

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what he says in verse 5. Here, I can't do anything about them. You take them and you deal with them.

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He's the king. He could have put a stop to this. He could have listened to God's word. But he doesn't.

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And so Jeremiah is put into his cistern a very, very deep pit where he will die or he will starve to

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death. Anyway, you put it, it's a form of execution. Now, he's not the first person in the Bible to be

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put into a pit. Joseph, by his brothers, when he repeated the dream that the Lord gave him, Daniel

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was thrown into a pit full of lions. David often said his life was like that of being in a pit.

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And Stephen the martyr may have been thrown into a pit to be stung. There seems to be in the Christian

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life this downward movement. Jeremiah and other Christians, they're what you might call a suffering

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servant, like what we find in Isaiah 53 where it says of the future Christ, he was despised and we held

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him in low esteem. We considered him punished by God, stricken by him and afflicted. And you talk about

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prophets and harsh messages. Well, that's what Jeremiah did. And how's he treated? Like trash, thrown

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away. And we say, ah, the blessed life. He was blessed. He was blessed by God. But oh my, how he

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suffered for doing what God wanted to do. It was his calling. Now I want you to think for a moment about

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what God calls us to. Let's think of the ministry for a moment. We think of those successful ministries

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where people are seemingly coming to the church. He groves. And we think to ourselves, ah, the preacher

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is so polished. He's part of the Kiwanis Club, the Rotary Club. He is smooth. And everybody comes to him.

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He's got the connections. And then you compare that person with Jeremiah. How can it be? Jeremiah would

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not make the cover of seminary publications because he would be considered a failure. Jeremiah would not

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make the cover of many denominational magazines because he got in trouble. Yet he was doing exactly

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what God wanted him to do. And he lost his reputation. He lost his freedom. But he obeyed God. And think of

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churches as well. Those little bitty churches who faithfully preach the gospel may have some problems.

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People may not want to go to them because of the message that they preach about sin and redemption.

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Let's go to the larger churches where everything meets my needs. Or let's look at the life of Jesus.

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When he preaches a sermon on God's choice and election, people desert him. And one moment they're singing

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and praises the next minute they're calling for his execution. Jesus was called to a ministry of

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humiliation and suffering. And we've got to think about our own lives at times. We all want success.

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We all want the good times. We all want the blessing. But what about going down to the pit? What about going

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into darkness? What about going down into the depths of public opinion? Could God call people to that?

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And the answer is yes. And He does. Now I'm not celebrating it as something you should desire.

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But what I am saying is that sometimes this is the calling. And it is not easy. But we are called above

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all to be obedient to what He is called. Now I could leave you at this point and you would say there is

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no hope, all is misery. But that's not true. Yes, He suffered. But look at what else is happening here.

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Does God take care of His people even when they're in a pit? Yes, He does. And I want you to notice here,

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it does not come from the power broker. It does not come from the person who should have taken care of this,

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Zedekiah. He is the last king of Judea. This guy has no backbone. He is a wimpy person. And you see it

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over and over again where in verse 5 he basically says here, I can't do anything. You court officials

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take care of it. In verse 10, He tells a foreigner and not Israelite, go get him and take 30 men with you.

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And in verse 16, look at what it says here. But King Zedekiah swore this oath secretly to Jeremiah.

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And surely as the Lord lives, who has given us breath, I will neither kill you nor hand you over to those

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who want to kill you. Why secret? Because he's scared, scared, scared, scared. And over and over again in this

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passage, the mighty king of Israel has no backbone at all. And what is going to happen to him is that

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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.

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So he tells him, Zedekiah, surrender and you will live. But if you don't, you're going down, down, down, down.

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And I want you to notice what he is going to face. Embarrassment, destruction. And it says, ironically in verse 22,

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your feet are going to be sunk in the mud. So who helps them? Who helps Jeremiah out? A Kushite, someone from Africa.

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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

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not castrated or he could have been castrated. He was probably captured. And that name means servant of the king.

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And notice here how tenderly he helps Jeremiah out. He goes and gets rags from the king's palace and places them under

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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.

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Probably that's the way Jeremiah was lowered with no padding. But he gives them the padding and brings him up and saves Jeremiah.

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Ebed Melik, really the true servant of the king. But as we look at this instrument of grace, it should remind us all of

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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.

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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

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took many captives and gave gifts to his people. What does he ascended mean referring to Jesus, except that he also descended to the

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lower earthly regions. He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens in order to fill the whole

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universe. And he is the one who carries us with them to the glories of heaven. Because Jesus Christ was humiliated.

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He went into this world. He entered into the depths of human sin and misery, and he entered into the depths of the cross.

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But when they lifted him up, he carried us with him to glory because he was the true servant of the king, Jesus.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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There's someone to lift you up out of the pit that we find ourselves in. Let's pray.

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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.

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Hear our prayer. Amen.