FBC Morning Light – August 12, 2022

Well, good morning and good Friday to you. Approaching another weekend, looking forward to the Lord's Day this

Sunday, and I hope you are. I hope you're planning to attend the Lord's house and meet with God's people, worship the

Lord together, and I trust we'll be able to see you as we gather together on the

Lord's Day, if you're in this particular area. Today we're in Jeremiah chapter 37, and there's a lot in this chapter that is really powerful and applicable to us.

The chapter begins by giving us some insight in how things go for a nation when the leadership of that nation rejects

God's Word, doesn't want to hear God's Word. Let me offer this caveat. I am not suggesting that there's a one -to -one parallel between our nation or any modern nation and the nation of Israel.

The nation of Israel was a nation established by God, the kings and so forth were on the throne by God's decree, and these were the people of God in a unique way.

Nevertheless, even though we're dealing with Judah here, and those who are in this chapter, the king and so forth, are

Jews, God's people, there are nevertheless some principles that we can garner from this in our own day.

So here's the king, the king of Judah, he's on the throne, but verse 2 tells us,

But neither he, nor his servants, nor the people of the land gave heed to the words of the

Lord, which he spoke by the prophet Jeremiah. So what happens when a nation as a whole, as a whole, as a people, reject

God's Word? They don't want to hear what the Word of the Lord has to say. Well, I think what they can expect is disaster.

Verses 7 to 10 bring this out. That's especially true when a nation like our nation has been so privileged to have the

Word of God widely and freely proclaimed and distributed in an unprecedented way.

There's been more opportunity in our nation, I think, to hear the

Word of God than probably any time in history. I suppose one exception to that might be

Great Britain, and yet, by the way, what's so great about Great Britain now compared to what it was 125 years ago?

Well, nevertheless, what can be expected? I think disaster. Verses 7 to 10 bring that out.

Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, thus shall you say to the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of me, you're going to be in trouble.

The Chaldeans are going to come back, fight against this city, take it, and burn it with fire. Disaster.

I think that when we see our culture, our society, not merely ignore

God's Word, but hate it, despise it, do everything we can to get it out of our society, then we can expect disaster.

That is the attitude that shows up here, even with Jeremiah, verses 11 and following.

Jeremiah went out of Jerusalem, and he was going to go to the land of Benjamin to claim some property there that was his, and when he was starting to leave, he was accused of defecting to the

Chaldeans. No, he says, I'm not defecting to the Chaldeans, but they didn't listen to him. They seized him.

They brought him to the princes. The princes, who didn't like him, didn't like what his message was, they threw him in prison, threw him in the dungeon, and there

Jeremiah remained many days. But you know what's interesting?

Even when there is such hostility toward God's Word, when a crisis hits, what do the leaders say?

We've heard it in our own society, in our own era, haven't we? What have we heard?

What did we hear, those who were alive then, right after 9 -11? Pray to God for mercy.

What do we hear in various times of calamity? We need to pray.

We need to pray. There's been very generic in how it's been expressed, but we need to pray.

Well, that's exactly what you see here as well. Zedekiah, the king, who didn't want to hear what

God's Word said, he says in verse 3, pray now to the

Lord our God for us. We're in a crisis. Pray for us. Yeah.

What do we call that? Oh, anyway. Pray in the crisis.

I don't want to hear what God has to say unless it's good, but pray in the crisis. And that's another point.

The only thing that people want to hear from God's Word is the positive stuff, is the good stuff.

And that's brought out in verses 16 and 17. Jeremiah was in this dungeon. He was there for many days.

And Zedekiah, the king, the one who didn't want to hear God's judgment, words of judgment, he comes and gets

Jeremiah out, and he says to him secretly, is there any word from the Lord?

Is there any word from the Lord? Do you have a good word for us? Jeremiah says, yeah, I do. You're going to be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon.

That's not exactly what he wanted to hear. Jeremiah ends up back in the dungeon.

And there's one final point I want us to catch here. While Jeremiah is in the mire of the dungeon, and it's a mucky, muddy cistern where he finds himself,

Jeremiah is down in this dungeon, and he gets help that helps him get out of that dungeon. But it's interesting where that help comes from.

Listen in verse 7 of chapter 38. It says, now Ebed -Melech, the

Ethiopian, one of the eunuchs who was in the king's house, heard that they had put

Jeremiah in the dungeon, and he intervened. He ended up getting Jeremiah out.

Now, who is this guy? He's a eunuch. What does that mean? That means that he was a slave, captured from Ethiopia, castrated, and placed in the service of the king.

He's a foreigner. He's a foreigner. He's not even one of God's people. But he has such a respect for Jeremiah, and the word that Jeremiah has been preaching, that he sees the injustice that's being done.

He has more faith in the God of Jeremiah than those who claim to be God's people.

The point here is that help can come to you from the most unexpected places, and our

God who is able to deliver, even from the dungeon and the depths of despair, can use the most unlikely person to bring us out.

I hope that encourages you today. I hope that encourages you in this day of increasing hostility toward those who would hold firmly to, thus says the

Lord. Help comes. It comes even from the most unexpected places.

Well, I hope you have a good rest of your Friday. Let's pray and ask God's blessing on the day. So Lord, bless these words to our hearts today, and I pray that you would give your people a good day, wrapping up their work week and looking forward to the weekend, and especially the

Lord's Day. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. Have a good

Friday and a good weekend, and get together with God's people on the Lord's Day. Good day.