Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / March 15, 2020 | Stand Strong - The King, The Slave, And The Prophet

Transcript

March 15, 2020 | Stand Strong - The King, The Slave, And The Prophet · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: How are you doing?
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: So that song, that inspirational song by Mariah Peters, is the theme of our Jeremiah series.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: And by her permission, our title is Stand Strong.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: And we hope some of you are taking the Jeremiah Challenge because of the Wuhan virus, because of the coronavirus, COVID-19, we are doing the service online as well as live on Facebook.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: And let me encourage you to take the Jeremiah Challenge with the rest of Topeka Bible Church.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: We're reading Jeremiah and Lamentations by April the 12th.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's Easter Sunday morning.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Each week I'm writing four devotionals this coming week, chapters 41, 42, 43, and 44.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: So this morning's going to be awesome.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it's from Jeremiah 37 and 38, because we're in a little bit of a different situation here.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: I've turned this morning's sermon into more of a story, especially for those who've talked their children into watching online.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: So let's start with a word of prayer and then we'll get going.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we uh we trust in you, for you are our God, and you are the God of the whole earth.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: And uh you knew that back in November something would happen in the Wuhan province of China that would somehow affect the rest of the entire world just months later.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: That was not a surprise for you, and uh and Lord, we ask that this morning we be able to adopt that stance of faith over fear that you ask from us.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now guide us as we tackle this very interesting passage, this story out of the Bible, in Jesus' name.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm told that a man appeared before Saint Peter at the pearly gates.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: And Peter asked him, Have you ever done anything of particular merit?
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I can think of one thing the man offered.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Once on a trip, I came across a band, a gang of bikers who were threatening a young woman.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: I told them to leave her alone, but they wouldn't listen.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I approached the biggest and most heavily tattooed biker, and I smacked him on the head, kicked his bike over, ripped out his nose ring, and I threw it on the ground.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I yelled, You're not listening.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: I warned you, leave her alone.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: St.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Peter was impressed.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: When did this happen?
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Just a couple of minutes ago, the guy said.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: The lesson there is it can be dangerous to give a warning to some people.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah the prophet learned the danger of giving warnings to people through a painful experience over and over again throughout his life, but in this morning's story, it not only ruined his health, it nearly cost him his life.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: That story comes to us from Jeremiah chapters 37 and 38, and I've titled it The King, the Slave, and the Prophet.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: The prophet's name, you know well, Jeremiah.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: He grew up in a sleepy little village of priests called Anashof, two or three miles north of Jerusalem.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Jerry figured he'd grow up to be a priest right there in his hometown, where he wouldn't get into any trouble.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: And he would have lived and died there, and he would have never been heard of again.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Except that one day when he was 16 or maybe 17, God stopped him in his tracks and turned his world upside down.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: God called him to be a prophet.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, but no thanks, said Jerry.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be a priest just like my dad and every other man I know.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: No one ever gets mad at priests, they help people.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone gets mad at prophets, they confront people.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a people person.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Job like that just scares me to death.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, I don't know what to say.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm too young.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'll do it when I grow up.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, but no thanks.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, but you're my huckleberry, said God.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: I chose you before you were born, so get used to it.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be with you all the way and I'll tell you what to say.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: But you're right, you're not gonna be popular, because you're gonna be warning people that unless they turn back to me, judgment is coming, and they're not gonna like that.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Jerry eventually stopped staring at his feet and he said yes to God.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: And as it turned out, he wasn't popular.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: But his popular friends are long since forgotten, and Jeremiah is known as one of the greatest prophets in the Bible.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Year after year, Jeremiah went up and down the streets of Jerusalem.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: He pled and he wept and reminded the people of God's love, and he warned them of coming judgment.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: How did he do it?
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: He used object lessons.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Once he took a clay pot to the temple courts, and in front of the whole crowd, he hurled it to the pavement and he smashed it, and he told the people that the nation of Judah was going to be smashed.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: God said so.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: For this, the governor put him in stocks outside the temple for everyone to make fun of, but Jeremiah was just getting started.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: He also painted vivid word pictures.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: The enemy would come like a roaring lion out of a thicket, he said.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Enemies would sweep over the land with chariots like a whirlwind and horses faster than eagles.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Why can't you just be like the other prophets?
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: People would say to him.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Why can't you say, Don't worry, be happy, everything's gonna be okay.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Jerusalem's the apple of God's eye.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, no enemy against us will stand.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Why in the world do you make us sick with your gloom and doom talk?
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah would reply, because you've made God sick by praying to every other God but him, and sacrificing your babies to idols and stealing from the poor.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why God warns that unless you turn back to him now, he'll turn this city into rubble and you into captives.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Judah didn't turn back, but kept piling up the sin, and years went by, and now God's word was about to come true.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: The enemy would come like a roaring lion out of a thicket, Jeremiah said in chapter 4.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: He was talking about the lion of mighty Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar, its king.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: And in the year 605, the lion bounded down out of the thicket and roared at Jerusalem, seizing captives, and then retreated back into the thicket again.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah pleaded and begged the people to turn back to God.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: No need, they said, we've just lost a few people, but the rest of us are safe.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: We're obviously the ones God loves.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: He won't let us fall.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: Plus, we agreed to pay taxes to the King Nebuchadnezzar, and that'll keep him tame.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: But a few years later, when the lion seemed quiet, they stopped paying taxes.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Big mistake.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: In the year 597, the lion sprang from the thicket and raked to Jerusalem with his claws, killed that king, took 10,000 captives, and retreated back into the thicket again.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: But now it was snarling, its fangs bared, and Jerusalem could feel its hot breath.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: Nebuchadnezzar chose the new king, named him Zedekiah, and growled one more time, and it'll be the last time.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, Jeremiah, the Bible tells us, was going in and out among the people, repeating his warnings over and over again.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: But the people ignored him.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And King Zedekiah's officials, the nobles and priests and other prophets, just hated him, paid no attention to the words that the Lord was speaking.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: And King Zedekiah himself, well, he was a marshmallow, no spine, no backbone, gave in to whoever was in front of him at the time.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: And every time he opened the door, someone different was there.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: One day there was his palace officials, godless and hostile, who told him to grow a spine and shut Jeremiah up permanently.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Then there were the false prophets in town who told him, Don't worry, be happy, everything's fine, and got Zedekiah to sing along with them on the chorus of sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows, everything that's wonderful is sure to come your way.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then there was the earnest and sober prophet Jeremiah, and Zed the king fluttered from one to the other like a kid in a candy store, unable to decide.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Everything, every time things got nice and quiet, he'd listen to his officials and the false prophets.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: But every time the lion roared, he sent a secret message to Jeremiah asking, Is there a word from the Lord?
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Then Jeremiah would tell him the truth that he didn't want to hear, and he would ignore it.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Once it looked as if the false prophets were right.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: The jackal dog of Egypt actually crept north into Judah to see if it could catch the lion napping.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: But the lion was not napping, and the greatest army in the world left its crouching encirclement of Jerusalem to go deal with the jackal.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: That was good news.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: The enemy's gone.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: The false prophets were right.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: What does Jeremiah have to say now?
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, with all the evidence against him, Jeremiah refused to budge.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: The jackal will be chased back into Egypt, he said, but Nebuchadnezzar will be back.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Don't kid yourselves, Jeremiah said.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: God is fighting on Babylon's side in this one.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: If the religious and military leaders hated the prophet before, that sent them over the top.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: They began looking for an excuse to arrest and kill him.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then they found one.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: The captain stood by one of the city gates.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: There was an uneasy quiet over Jerusalem.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: People were allowed to come and go, but everyone was suspect.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: The captain watched the people go and come, scanning every face, and then he leaped forward, grabbing one man and pulling him out of the crowd.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: It was Jeremiah.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: You are deserting, going over to the Babylonians, he accused.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's crazy.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's not true, said Jeremiah, who was only going back to his hometown to get the title to his portion of land.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: We don't buy it, said the captain, and he dragged them off to the king's officials who licked their chops.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: They beat him brutally and then tossed him into a dungeon cell where they forgot about him.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: And while he lay there with welts all over his body, the Egyptian army did get chased back home.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: While Jeremiah lay there in the dark, the lion did return to Jerusalem and crouch outside the city walls, waiting, watching, growling.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: And Jeremiah grew weaker and weaker.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: And he would have died there, except that one day the door of his dungeon creaked and opened.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: It was a guard for the palace.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: He was being sent for secretly by King Zedekiah to be questioned.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: It was quiet in the king's private quarters.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: The guard had ushered Jeremiah in, closed the door, and waited outside.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: The two men faced each other alone.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: The king in his royal robes, fearing that he might be wrong.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah battered in rags, knowing he was right.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: The king looked at Jeremiah nervously.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Is there any word from the Lord?
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: He said.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah looked at him and thought, I could say what the king wants to hear and be free.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: He made his choice.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, he said, there is a word from the Lord.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: You will be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: There was silence.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Let me ask you this, Jeremiah said, How have I sinned against you or the people that you should put me in prison?
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: There was no answer.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: And where are those prophets now who said that the king of Babylon would not come against you?
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: No answer.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: There was no answer.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah went on, I'm asking you not to return me to the dungeon to die.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: King Zedekiah summoned the guard.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: Transfer this man to a cell in the court of the guard, he said, and give him a piece of bread to eat each day.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: And with that, the interview was over.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: The siege continued.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: The lion crouched outside, sharpening its claws.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: There was no hurry.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: The days turned into weeks, the weeks into months, the food grew scarce.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: One day, King Zedekiah faced a gang of four of his officials in his private quarters.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: He was trapped.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Zedekiah had never grown a backbone, never been true to anything, and even though these men worked for him, he was at their mercy.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: And they knew it.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: We need to put the prophet of doom to death, they said.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: You've confined him to the court of the guard.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's minimum security.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: And he's calling out to people every day that if they stay in the city, they'll die, that God wants us to go out and surrender because the city is gonna fall.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's crazy talk, it's treason, but when people are starving, they'll listen to anything.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: He's killing morale.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Let us take care of him once and for all.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get rid of him.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: The king stared for a moment and then he looked away.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: He's in your hands, he said quietly.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: I can't do anything to stop you.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: It was Zedekiah's Pilate moment.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the gang of four and their soldiers now were huddled around a hole in the ground in a corner of the courtyard of the guard, a hole that opened into a cistern twenty feet deep that had been carved out of limestone, out of the limestone rock to catch water runoff when rain fell in Jerusalem.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: They'd taken off the stone cover of the cistern and they were lowering the man down through the hole into the cavern.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: There was no water at the bottom, no water really left in Jerusalem, just a slimy mire at the bottom.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: And when they'd moved his body through the hole, they just dropped him.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: He fell 15 feet and he sank into the mud.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: They rolled the cover back on, wiped their hands, smiled at each other, and walked away.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: And the man was stuck in the absolute dark, left there to die.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: That man was Jeremiah.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: And no one knew.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, one man found out, but he didn't really count.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: He was a nobody.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: He was an Ethiopian to begin with, meaning that he was an alien in Judah, a Gentile amongst Jews, a black man, an African, and a slave.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Within the Hebrew culture, this man counted for nothing.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: He had no real identity, for his personal name had been taken away, and he was simply called Abed Melech, which means the king's slave.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: But Abed Melech had proven himself trustworthy and had advanced to head servant status because he was intelligent.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: He had learned that murder was now being done underground in a cistern.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: He knew it wasn't unusual for prisoners to be dropped into cisterns, but it was unusual for such prisoners to come out alive.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: Archaeologists have now unearthed a cistern just 20 miles from this one that contained 12 skeletons, perhaps, of prisoners like Jeremiah.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because Ebed Melech was a man of integrity, he didn't hesitate to risk his life to get involved.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because he was clever, he didn't go to the king privately.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: But he knew that to be successful, he needed to put the king on the spot publicly.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: So Abed Melech left his work, left the palace, and went to the gate where the king sat every day to hear complaints and make decisions, because even though war was going on outside the walls, the king was still trying to win friends and please people.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: The crowd split apart, separating for this strange black man, and he made his way to the front.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: No doubt the king was surprised to see his own servant approach him with a request in public.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: What a strange confrontation that must have been.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: Two men facing each other, one man very weak, the other man very strong.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: The weak one was the king.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: The strong one was the slave.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: My lord the king, he said in front of everybody, these men have done evil to the prophet Jeremiah.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: They have put him in the cistern in the court of the guards, and they've left him to die without anyone knowing.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: He's gonna starve to death if we don't get him out.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: It was a brilliant move.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Sitting in the seat of justice, the king was trapped in front of everyone because justice was clear.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: So acting as if he had nothing to do with Jeremiah being down there in the first place, the king spoke, said, Well then get him out.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Take 30 men from here with you and lift him out before he dies.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: You, you, and you, the black man pointed, follow me, and off he went.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: Ebon Melech stopped in the palace on the way and grabbed a handful of rags.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: What are those for?
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: Someone asked.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: To cushion his arms, to keep the ropes from tearing his armpits up, was Ebon Melech's reply.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now they all huddled over the hole.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: They'd taken off the cover and they'd called down to find out if the prophet was alive, and they'd gotten a weak reply.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: They'd lowered the ropes with the rags tied to them.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: Put the rags under your armpits, Ebedmelech called down, and let us know when you're ready.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: At last Jeremiah croaked up that he was ready, and they began to pull, slowly at first, until he came out of the mire with a great sucking sound, and they drew him carefully up, up, until they dragged him over the side, and he lay on the ground, emaciated and starving.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: He had to be returned to his cell in the court of the guard, but he was alive.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: The only man alive in all of Jerusalem who was God's spokesman, God's voice.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: They'd almost lost him.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: They would have lost him, he would have died had it not been for a black man, a Gentile, an African.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: The lion outside the gate played with its prey like a cat plays with a mouse, taking its time building siege ramps and battering rams, camped all around, as far as you could see, in thousands of tents, men with armor and weapons and food.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: Inside the small city, there was almost no food at all.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: Rich and poor alike were starving.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: And yet no one thought of turning back to God.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: They still worshiped their idols, ignored God, they refused to believe that the lion would ever strike.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna ask you something.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: Hide nothing from me.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: It was King Zedekiah talking to Jeremiah, whom he'd secretly brought from prison again.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: If I tell you the truth, you'll put me to death, said Jeremiah.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: And if I give you advice, counsel, you won't listen to it.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: As the Lord lives, I will not put you to death, I will not give you again into the hands of my officials, the king promised quickly.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: The two men stared at each other.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: And finally Jeremiah spoke.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: All right, this is what the Lord has told me.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: He said, if you give yourself up to Nebuchadnezzar, the city will not be destroyed, and you will live, you and your family.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: But if you don't, the city will be destroyed and you won't escape, either you or your family.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: I beg you to listen and to obey the voice of the Lord in this.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: The king has Hesitated a moment.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: This was the crossroads.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: This was his moment of decision.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: This was the moment of truth.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: And he blew it.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: He chose fear over faith.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: I can't do it, he said.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: I just can't.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm afraid of what might happen.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, he said to Jeremiah, let no one know we talked.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: If my officials ask you, tell them nothing.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now go.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah left with his guards back to prison.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: He would survive the fall of the city.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: And Jeremiah didn't, and Zedekiah, though he didn't know it, had blown his last chance, his absolute last chance, blown it into smithereens.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: He had defied God for the last time.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: The lion crouched on its haunches, ready to pounce.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: And with a snarl, it leapt through the air toward its prey, toward the holy city, toward the people, who included the king, a slave, and a prophet.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: What a story.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll tell you the rest of the story next week.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: But today, each of these characters, these three characters, leaves us with a valuable lesson.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lesson that we gain from the cowardly king, King Zedekiah, and that lesson is that fear over faith leads to death.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: Faith over fear leads to life.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, at every point in life, and especially at this point in your life, you have a choice of fear or faith.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: King Zedekiah chose fear over faith, and it ruined him, his family, and his country.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: We have a page on our website that Teresa's put up.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's called the Faith Over Fear page, and it's updates on the coronavirus.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: I encourage you to look it up.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: You can get there from our Facebook page or from a number of directions.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: DiscoverTBC.com, faith-over-fear.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: Look that up.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: And remind yourself during this pandemic, regularly, that God calls us not to panic.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: He calls us to faith over fear.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's the lesson from the cowardly king.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lesson from the slave as well, from the courageous and compassionate slave.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: And the lesson there is that faith moves us to courageous acts of compassion in crisis.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, no matter how insignificant you think you are, you are not as insignificant as a black Gentile from Africa was in Jewish Jerusalem in 600 BC.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I tell you that no matter how small you think you are, how insignificant, God will give you the opportunity to do something great in your life.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: But it all starts with trusting Him.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: We say, trusting Him.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: Ebon Melech is praised as a humanitarian, as a man of compassion and a man of courage.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: He was so kind to cushion Jeremiah's arms, so thoughtful.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I tell you that he was far more than that.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because after the city falls, or while the city is falling, there's a word from the Lord especially addressed to the slave.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: You'll never find this elsewhere in the Bible until you get to Jesus.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: A special word directly from God to a Gentile and a slave and a black man.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: And what God says is tell Abed Melech this.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: And here it comes, because what?
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because of your courage?
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because of your compassion?
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because of your charity?
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because you trusted in me, declares the Lord.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: No, this is a man who trusted in God, who somehow believed in the same God as Jeremiah.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: How did that happen, you wonder?
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think I know how it happened.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah, outside the temple, in one of his major speeches, speaking of the depravity of those people, asked a rhetorical question that was quite strange.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Can the Ethiopian change the color of his skin or the leopard his spot?
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: I can pretty much guarantee you that in 600 BC, in Jerusalem under seas, there was only one black man from Ethiopia walking around.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: Clearly, this was a man that Jeremiah knew, that Jeremiah had spoken to.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: This is a man who had come to faith in the God of Israel.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: And listen, during this crisis that we face in our world today, during every crisis, do show yourself courageous.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: Do show yourself compassionate.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: Be like that woman that we read about this last week that is taking groceries to elderly folks who are afraid to leave their house lest they catch the coronavirus.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: Be compassionate like that, but listen carefully.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: Eternal life is not God's free gift to those who meet some sort of standard of courage and compassion and charity.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: No, eternal life is God's free gift to those who put their trust in the one who came to earth to speak the truth like Jeremiah, suffer like Jeremiah, but then die for our sins.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's faith that moves us to acts, courageous acts of compassion in crisis.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: Put your trust, your faith in Jesus Christ.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, the lesson from the suffering prophet from Jeremiah himself, and that is don't expect a life of ease.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: Don't expect that you necessarily will escape every virus that comes around, or that you'll live till you're a hundred and ten.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: Expect suffering.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: But God says, fear not, I'll be with you all the way, and everything will be okay.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: Bow with me in a word of prayer.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: Father, we thank you for this stirring story.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: How relevant Jeremiah's story and this book is to our present crisis.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: The crisis around the world, the crisis that tests our faith, the crisis that causes some people to fly into fear and into hysteria.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: Make us, Heavenly Father, because of our faith in you, people who trust, people who act encourage, people who act with compassion, people who have trusted in you, who expect suffering, but know that every single day, in every way, at all times, you will be with us, and all will turn out okay.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name we pray.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.