Jeremiah 38:14–39:18

We're going to be starting in the book of Proverbs today. Proverbs 3:5 says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding." And as we go through Jeremiah, we're going to see that trust in the Lord goes hand in hand with faith in the Lord. Trust in faith. They complement each other. The more we trust in the Lord, the more faith we show in the Lord.

Are we willing to trust our life to the Lord? To trust our whole life to the Lord rather than to get trapped in the aspirations of this world to what people aspire to do in this life but not into the eternal realm realm. We can get trapped into that just having all our goals finite instead of infinite. We'll see in the Scripture today that the world wants to stick us in the world in that finite worldly realm like being stuck in the miry clay of the earth. We're going to see Jeremiah how he is trusting his life to the Lord, his whole life to the Lord.

I don't think that Jeremiah got up one day when he was a child and said I have this dreamy desire to be a prophet that nobody's going to listen to. I just have this desire to go out and preach to people that aren't going to listen.

When I was a child, I never aspired to be a pastor. Wasn't like on my list of thing. I think there was like astronaut, maybe policeman, fireman, but pastor wasn't one of them. It wasn't something that I looked at as having a desire for something to become as a child. I didn't have a desire to even be wasn't like first on my list. I want to be a servant to Jesus when I grow up. But the Bible says we are called to be a servant of Jesus in our mature adulthood. And when we hear that calling, it can be the aspiration of our heart.

And we can see Jeremiah saw that calling. In fact, Jeremiah heard that calling when he was still in the womb before he was even born. Am I willing? Are you willing to trust your life to Jesus and be released from the cares of this world?

Jeremiah, his life, his whole life is an inspiration to me. Into a growing changing faith in what God wants to do in all of us. God wants us to be servants to have ministry with him, alongside him through the power of the Holy Spirit. He wants to partner with us in ministry in service. In all your ways acknowledge him and he shall direct your path. You know that takes a lot of pressure off. Which way am I going to go? Where's my path? My path is just to acknowledge him in all my ways and he's going to direct the path. We never have to sit and worry about or think about or plan even which way am I going to go.

Is this the right way? Am I on the right path with Jesus? Just acknowledge him. Live wholeheartedly for him, sold out for him, and he will direct our path. We saw last week in Jeremiah 37 and 38 we had teaching from Micah. It's very inspirational for me. And the princes in 37 there had asked for Jeremiah's life. He Jeremiah's been in prison here for a while. He's in the court of the prisons and the princes are accusing him of being a defector and getting other people to defect. The word of the Lord was to surrender. And Jeremiah was saying this is what the Lord says.

And so the princes wanted to get rid of him. The princes of Judea at the time. They said, "Please let this man be put to death to the king." And came to Zedekiah. And Zedekiah was taking care of Jeremiah in the prison and giving him a daily portion of bread during a terrible seizure. A siege. People are going into seizures, but it's a siege on the city. And there's no food. And it's been going on for a year and a half. And the princes, they're holding on to their life in this world and the status quo that they had. They've been enjoying princehood and they wanted to hang on to that.

And Jeremiah was not giving the message they wanted to hear was they were going to be delivered. Things are going to go on as they had for the last hundreds of years. And God's going to deliver him at the last minute because his temple's here. His house is here. He's not going to let that fall. We can rely on the temple to save us. We have the house of God that he had Solomon build for him. It's going to he's going to protect his temple if not us because we've fallen into sin. We met a man towards the end, Ebed-Melech. And Micah showed us how his name actually means in the Hebrew servant of the king.

And he was used by God to be a servant of the King of Kings. He was, and I love the way Micah put this last week, he was just willing to go. He God was going to do the work. And he had a very hard job really. He had to go to the king and ask for Jeremiah to be released from the miry pit in the sistern where the princes had thrown him to die. Because the princes didn't want to kill him and have their blood on their heads and their children's heads, but they could devised a way to let him die in a terrible way.

And the bottom of a sistern sunk into the miry clay and Ebed-Melech came to the king and said, "I want Jeremiah." He was called of the Lord. The spirit did the rest. And then Micah said, "God will cover your weaknesses if you just hear the calling. If you're just willing to go, God is going to enable you to do it." Another thing Mike has shared with us that really spoke to me was he said, "A couple years ago, he couldn't see himself up here speaking on a Sunday morning. That wasn't his great inspiration. Could see Micah as a kid. I want to get up and preach in front of people on Sunday morning.

But he was called to do it. He was willing to do it. And then God through the power of his Holy Spirit enabled him to do it. And who gets the glory for that? God gets the glory for that. That's why God chooses to use the foolish foolish things of this world to confound the wise. That was me. I could not I mean I was like that's not me. I'm not doing public speaking. But God called me to that position. And then he equips us to do things that we're very uncomfortable doing.

And I've been doing it for years now and I can not honestly say I'm comfortable doing it any still. Even I know my son Clint, he's very comfortable doing it. But one of the worst nightmares I have, and it's a reoccurring nightmare. I have this dream all the time where I'm coming up to preach and there's crowds of people and I'm supposed to speak on 2 Timothy verse 13 or something like that and I can't find it in my Bible and I have no notes and what did I study for this? The only thing worse is if I was still in my underwear and I forgot to get dressed.

Fortunately, that hasn't been added yet. But the a lot of times my worst nightmare is getting up to preach and not being prepared, not having any notes, not having anything to teach on. You know, teachers are supposed to know what they're supposed to be teaching. We're to be empowered by the Holy Spirit, but we're supposed to be in prayer for that and in preparation for that to be used by the Holy Spirit.

And I have been teaching for more than 20 years now. I first first I started teaching when I was first called to youth group couple of years before we went to Honduras you know and youth group met three times a week. So I was teaching like three times a week. Wednesday, youth nights Friday, Sunday, and then we go to Honduras. And Clint and I are trading off teaching in Honduras. But then Clint's gone. So in Honduras for the for eight years, I was teaching like every Wednesday, Sunday, and men's group Friday. And when anyone come down, any teams or anybody who was a preacher, I was like, "You're preaching Sunday."

So, you'd think I'd be comfortable with that. Come back to Wisconsin here and Clint and I after eight years in Honduras, Clint and I are trading off teaching at a Bible study at his house. That's where I met Nate. Nate came on his motorcycle one night. This church was just getting started and I was teaching that and Nate comes up on his motorcycle. He kind of comes in his motorcycle like this and I like what happened to you. Oh, I was in a motorcycle accident. So, I met Nate that night and then we got called to Washington State right after that and Clint continued on here and we planted a church in Washington State.

I ended up teaching every Wednesday, every Friday and every Sunday for the next 10 years. And I never got to the point where it was comfortable. But many many times in Honduras, in Washington State, there's so many projects going on and we were building a building into a church meeting place there also. And in Honduras and you'd have all these workers come and you're working on a Wednesday, working on a Saturday. There's no study time whatsoever. There was so many times throughout the years I've stood up and actually I didn't want to stand. I said we got to cancel. I have no preparation whatsoever. It's Wednesday night and we're work I just made it home got dinner and we'll just cancel it.

And I felt God speak to me back then just said just show up. Just show up and o and lot sometimes I would show up in Honduras in Washington and just have the Scripture where we were last I haven't even read the Scripture just show up and read my word and the Lord used that to show me that all you have to do is show up don't cancel nothing just show up People want to rely on Wednesday that someone's going to be there. People want to want to know you're going to be there on Sunday, not find a note on the door that says, "Oh, we can church.

We're too tired. Just show up. He'll do the rest." And he does. He did the rest. This guy, the servant of the king, he was willing to show up. He was just willing to go. Micah was willing to stand. Let be filled with the Holy Spirit. Then who gets the credit? God gets credit.

Some of the best teaching times I feel I've had were those times when I just showed up and it's like God, what what are you going to do? What are we going to talk about? And then afterwards when God revealed what he had done in the group, it's like God was there. God took that. God gives Let's go Lord in prayer. Lord, we come this morning and thank you and praise you and ask you Lord to fill us Lord as we show up this Sunday. Open hearts to receive your word. Lord, enable me to bring forth the oracles of God through the power of your Holy Spirit this day in Jesus name.

Amen. Jeremiah. Micah actually read 12 and 13, but we're going to start in 12 just because it springloadads into 14. Jeremiah 38:12. And Ebed-Melech, servant of the king, he's the king of kings, and he's an Ethiopian. We see here, he says to Jeremiah, "Please put these old clothes and rags under your armpits, under the robes." And Jeremiah did so. I like the way Micah said this is he was concerned about the comfort of Jeremiah. This guy's name means the servant of the king and he's serving someone else and concerned about their welfare and their well-being. The servant of the king brought comfort in old clothes and rags to Jeremiah so that he would have more comfort.

Strips of cloth. What this was, it's the that is the sign of the Messiah's coming. The strips of cloth and that's the comfort we can bring to the world as servants of the king. We can bring the strips of cloth to the world. The sign that the Messiah is coming. Wh's this babe that was born? Where's this Messiah? He will be wrapped in swaddling clothes. Swaddling clothes means strips of cloth. It doesn't mean a nice fluffy blanket that you buy and the swaddling clothes today. It is strips of burial cloth, old rags that have been ripped for bandages or ripped to wrap up a mummy.

That was how he were. They were to know the Messiah was born and who the Messiah was because he was wrapped in mummy cloth. It's not a normal thing for a baby to be wrapped in, but it was all Mary had and it's what the angel said they would find. And that's how they found the Messiah. They were introduced to him. They were comforted in the Messiah's coming by the strips of cloth. It was the sign of his resurrection. Says, "John ran in first and he saw the linen clothes lying there and Peter came in not believing, but then he saw the linen cloth lying there and he believed."

You see, Jesus came wrapped in burial cloth because he came to die for the world's sins. He was born to die and he was born to rise again. All the other religions of the world, false religions of the world, there is only one true way to God. All the other religions of the world say what we can do from a man, a man that was born here and says what we can do to be right with God, what we can do to find nirvana, what we can do to find eternity, what we can do to please Allah so that we can go to all of heaven.

But there is only one Jesus Christ who came from eternity, died and showed us how to go back to eternity. All the others were born here. They say what sounds good to a man to go there and then they died. They're all dead. But Jesus came from eternity to show us how to get to eternity with him. He came to die and rise again. And we can comfort the world in those strips of life. So they drew up verse 13 Jeremiah with the cords and they took him out of the dungeon. And Jeremiah remained in the court of the prison. Jeremiah had been taken from the court of the prison and thrown into this Jonathan's house that would been converted into dungeons.

And it was called Jonathan's house. And he was thrown into this pit and he sunk down in the miry clay. Back in verse six, it says Jeremiah sunk into the mire. So there there's not a sistern full of water, but it's got mud in the bottom. Verse 40 of Psalms. Psalms Psalms 40:2.

Remember we started with verse one. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. Psalm 40:2 He also brought me up out of the horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and he set my feet on the rock and established my steps.

We can see Jeremiah fulfilling that Scripture. I can see myself fulfilling that Scripture right here. The world wants us to be stuck in the mire of the clay, the cares of this world. The Lord wants to lift us out of that by the strips of the cloth under our arms and set our feet on the king's highway, the right way, departing from evil to set our feet on the rock of our salvation. And he will direct our path. Jeremiah 38:14. And Zedekiah the king sent and had Jeremiah the prophet brought to him in the third entrance of the house of the Lord. And the king said, "Jeremiah, I will ask you something.

Hide nothing from me." So apparently the king has found out Jeremiah has not been killed. He didn't die for Zedekiah had been meeting with Jeremiah in secret. Didn't want people to know. Doesn't sound like the strongest king. It sounds like he's afraid of his princes. He's afraid of those who like their lifestyle the way it is, the way it was. So he meets with Jeremiah in secret. It says here the third entrance of the house of the Lord. This would have been there's the broad gate entrance, the main entrance into the temple and where the Gentiles can go in and the court of the Gentiles.

Then there's the next entrance that the second entrance, but this is called the third entrance. The second entrance was just for the Jewish people and people purified and go into the center of the of the temple. But there was a third entrance that Solomon built that came directly from the palace of the king into the temple. The third entrance. And so Jeremiah then we see we see in 2 Kings chapter 16 verse 18 it's called the king's entrance. The third entrance is called just the king's. No one was allowed to go through this except for the king and the king's court. So he sends for Jere for Jeremiah.

Zedekiah the king sends for Jeremiah. Pull take him out of the court where he's in prison and bring him to me here. Verse 15. And Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, "If I declare to you, will you not surely put me to death?" So he brings Jeremiah into this secret passageway into the temple. Good safe place to meet and talk where nobody can see him because the king's the only one allowed to go through here. He goes, "Go get me Jeremiah and bring him to me and I'm going to talk to him here. I have something I want to ask you, Jeremiah. Hide nothing from me." Jeremiah says, "But if I declare it to you, you will surely put me to death.

And if I give you advice, you will not listen." Jeremiah perceives two things that can happen here. Two possibilities. One, you're going to kill me when I tell you what the Lord says. Two, you're not going to listen. This is his past life. Jeremiah's past life. They're going to kill me if I tell the Lord or they're not going to listen. So Zedekiah the king swore secretly to Jeremiah, saying, "As the Lord lives, who made our very souls, I will not put you to death, nor will I give you into the hands of these men who seek your life." He could have added one more word.

Could have said, "Again, I'm not going to give you into the hands of these men to kill you again. I know I did it last time, but I'm not going to do it again. Zedekiah, we see here, he at least professing belief in the Lord. He believes the Lord lives from what he says. He believes he made our very souls. This is the God of creation who creates souls out of nothing. In fact, you created everything out of nothing. God, creator of the universe, creates from nothing. He speaks and it becomes and then he puts these laws in effect that cannot destroy anything he's spoken.

He spoke our souls into existence. Matter can never not be created nor destroyed after he's created. No one can destroy your soul. No one can touch your soul if it's placed in Jesus' hand. Your soul is as eternal as matter he's created more so because matter will perish one day.

But a soul is eternal and God created it and no one's going to take it from him once we place our soul into his hand. That's how you save your soul. If you go to someone say, "You need to give your soul to Jesus and it'll be protected forever and ever and eternity and they say, "No, it's my soul. I'm saving it for me." You want to save it for you, you give it to Jesus. It's the only way to save our soul. But Zedekiah chose he believes in God, the living God, the creator of very souls, but he fears man more than he wants to please that God.

He knows we tell God we know more than him when we say, "God, that's not you're not giving me what I want. Why are you taking so long to give me what I want? We're saying we know more than God, the creator of the universe.

Why did you do it this way, God? Why did you allow this to happen to me, God? All those things are we're saying we know better than the creator of the universe. Zedekiah is a fear of man more than the fear of God. And you cannot please God by fearing them. That's why he's meeting them in secret again. The princes, they have a good life. They have a good thing going. They're prestigious. They have no room for God and his plans. They're trapped in the mire of the earth, things that will perish rather than the things that are eternal. Much later, years later, the Pharisees, supposed servants, experts of the law, of God, they had a good life going.

They didn't have any room for God in their life. They didn't have any room for God the Son to come into their life. God the anointed Messiah they'd been promised and change things. Show them they're going the wrong direction.

They had a great thing going. They had money. They were just inspecting some goats. They were exchanging money into temple tax and making more money. They were selling things, inspected goats and making a fortune. And people looked up to him and they gave him the best seats in the church. All these seats right along the front here been filled with Pharisees.

They didn't want that to change to make room for God, the anointed Messiah, to come into their life and show them how to be restored to God whom they were separated from by sin. They wanted to stay stuck into the mire and the things of this world. Matthew 16 verse 25 says for whoever desire to save his life will lose it whoever loses his life for my sake will find it the princes in Zedekiah's day Jeremiah's day they don't want to give up their life. They don't want to lose that life. The Pharisees in Jesus day, they didn't want things to change. They didn't want God coming down here in the flesh and telling them that they can't be the renowned rich Pharisees overseeing religious people.

But they're calling the shots. They didn't want to give that up. They didn't want to give up the things that the world had to offer them. Here's a quote. It's attributed mostly to Jim Elliott is he's no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. There's nothing on this world we shouldn't be willing to give up for God, the eternal God who's giving us eternal life that we cannot lose. Our souls are not going to slip through his fingers. It's security. There's nothing here on this earth that is worth giving up your soul. Even if you got the whole world, Bible says that you get the whole world and give up your soul.

It's not worth it. Verse 17. 38:17 Jeremiah. Then Jeremiah said to his Zedekiah, "Thus says the Lord, the God of hosts, the God of Israel." Here's the word from the Lord for you, Zedekiah. If you surely surrender to the King of Babylon's princes, then your soul shall live. This city shall not be burned with fire, and you and your house shall live. One more chance. If you do this, you will live. Jeremiah knows he's not going to do it. This is Jeremiah knows that because God keeps telling Jeremiah, "This is what you're going to say. If they do this, they're going to live, but they're not going to listen to you and it's going to burn."

So Jeremiah knows he's not going to listen to him, but they still giving him one word. If you just surrender, you're going to live and your whole household is going to live. Verse 18, but if you do not surrender to the king of Babylon and his princes, then this city shall be given into the hand of the Chaldeans. They shall burn it with fire, and you shall not escape from their hand." Zedekiah the king said to Jeremiah, "I'm afraid of the Jews."

I hear you. I hear what you're saying. But I'm afraid of man, these particular Jews that have already defected. If I defect now, they're going to deliver me into their hand and they're going to abuse me. I don't know what his rationality is here. Maybe it was he condemned them and they defected and then now he defects so they're going to want to get back at him. But Jeremiah comforts him in his fear. Says this is just one thing. You're afraid of your own princes here that haven't defected yet, and you're afraid of those that have. They're both men and not God. But Jeremiah then comforts him in 20 says they're not going to deliver you into those peoples.

You're not going to that's you're worrying about something that's never going to happen. How often do we worry about something that never happens? You ever been worried about something but then it didn't happen? I wasted all that time worrying. No, we don't usually say that. I wasted my time. I'm just going to worry about something else.

You know, when we trust in the Lord and we show our faith, one way to do it is by not worrying. A Christian funeral where a child has died is not like any other religion. They have a future and a hope they're going to see that child again. And when we put our faith in God that he is God and he knows more than us, we show the world the peace of God which surpasses understanding.

When we choose to let the Holy Spirit guide us and not worry about one possibility or another, we show truth in our life to the world. Truth. Trusting the truth, we show we really trust the truth in our lives shows our faith to the Lord.

There's no bigger way than to entrust a loved one to God. And peace and trust. There's no bigger way to show Jesus to the world. I don't wish that on anybody. It's one of the hardest things we can ever do is to lose a loved one in the crime of their lives. But it shows a trust in God the world can't understand and hopefully will seek to understand. It's a It's one of those tests that you never want to take, but one you really want to pass. Many of you have taken. Some of us have taken it and failed.

But if you remember back in school, you fell failed a test. It's okay. Another one came along, you'd have to take it again or you get to take it, please. Verse 20. But Jeremiah said, "They shall not deliver you. Please obey the v voice of the Lord which I speak to you. So it shall be well with you and your soul shall live. Please just listen to me. But if you refuse to surrender, this is the word the Lord has shown you. You refuse to send surrender and you are going to refuse. This is what the Lord says. Verse 22. Now behold, all the women who are left in the king of Judah's house shall surrender to the king of Babylon's princes.

And those women shall say, this is a quote from the captive women of the household of Zedekiah and the other princes, "Your close friend, your close friends have set upon you and prevailed against you. Your feet have sunk in the mire and they have turned away again.

These women got it. What's really sticking them to the earth? What's sticking them in the meer is the things of the world. They're stuck in the things of the world other than trusting in the things of God. They're stuck in the temporary perishing things that so many people today can get stuck in.

You know, I was riding around with my grandson the other day, Zephaniah. You guys know Zephaniah? Riding around with Zephaniah. And Zeph and I just kind of out of the blue, he goes, "You know, I had a clump of slime one time and it got really gross. It was cool at first, but you know, and but I would play with it outside. Every time I drop it, it pick up junk and I put it in the car. It fell on the floor and there's hair all over. Dog hair, cat hair, dasha hair. Couldn't get it out of my slime. And I hold it up to the sunlight.

All I see is junk. And it was gross. And it got worse and worse. And I And I tried to clean it. There's no cleaning it. And I come to the conclusion that slime is gross. Wherever it gets, outside, inside, it goes around this world and it becomes gross. And I said, "Ze, there's a message there somewhere. Think about this." And he said, "You know, Jeremiah was in the miry clay and he's clay. Jeremiah's clay. He was made from the clay like we are. You could do this in your pottery message." I'm going, "Yeah, I could." So like the slime Jeremiah the clay of the Lord goes into the miry clay and he gets stuck in there.

He gets stuck in the contaminants of the world. And if I had a ball of clay and I was going to throw it and just like the slime, if it falls on the ground, it gets contaminants in the clay. It have to be removed before you can do anything with it on the wheel. All kinds of foreign contaminants. In fact, if I had a piece of clay, I was getting ready to throw it on the wheel and it fell next to me in the pottery shop, there is little pieces of hard clay. No matter how hard you try to keep the pottery shop clean, there's going to be clay in it.

It's just it's a given. And the clay dries out, becomes hard. So, this wet clay you're about to use falls down and gets hard clay in it. And you cannot put it back on the wheel because you're going to be throwing it. You're going to hit that hard clay and it's going to blow up. You can try to be made into a vessel and it's going to blow up because of the contaminants from this world are invading the clay.

We're called to be a servant of the Lord and not to be stuck in the miry contaminants of this world. How can we do that? We as vessels, as clay to be used of the Lord, how can we go through this world without being contaminated by this world?

In Matthew 5:14, it says that we are the light. City set on the hill cannot be hidden. And that's the key right there to not being stuck in the miry clay. And the wiry of the earth is to be the light of the earth.

This is my prop here. This is the earth. This is the picture of the earth. And the earth has a lot of water. It has earth. This is literally earth. And we're called to be the light. We're called to be the light of the earth. See the light through. You can see the light in the earth. Is the light part of the earth? No. We're not to be part of the earth. We're to be the light of the earth. In fact, the light can through the power of the Holy Spirit pass through the earth and out the other side and it's not picking up any of the slime stuff.

The slime will pick up the earth, the contaminants. Look, it passes right. That's clean light coming through there. Only through the power of the Holy Spirit can we be the light of the earth. It's appetizing. We look at it and go, "No, no, no." But you know what? In heaven, we're going to look back and say, "How did we think that was appetizing? How do we think that those things of the earth were of any important whatsoever?

Verse 23. So they shall surrender all their wives and the children to the Chaldeans. You shall not escape from their hand, but shall be taken by the hand of the king of Babylon, and you shall cause this city to be burned with fire. Then Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, "Let no one know these words. Secret meeting. Jeremiah just gives Zedekiah the word of the Lord and Zedekiah says, "Let no one hear these words or you shall die."

If anyone hears these words that you just spoke to me, you shall die. But if the princes hear that I've talked with you and they come to you and they say declare to us what you said to him what you said to the king and also what the king said to you do not hide it from us and we will not put you to death. Then you shall say to them I presented my request before the king that he would not make me return to Jonathan's house to die there. Jonathan's house is the sister. Looked at the dungeons, the sister. It was where he was dying in the miry clay.

So the king's like, "They're going to come to you." The prince says, "As soon as you leave here, they're going to come to you." Say, "What did he talk about? Let us know everything that was said. What did the Lord tell you to tell him? What did he say to you? And don't worry, we're not going to put you to death this time. We just want to know. Verse 27. Then all the princes came to Jeremiah and asked him, and he told them according to all these words the king had commanded. So here we see J J J J J J J J J J J J J Jeremiah listening to the king's advice and not telling them all that was said, but that he requested he not go back into the miry clay.

So they stopped speaking with him for the conversation had not been heard. So no one heard. There was leakers about. He said, "Go get Jeremiah and bring him to me here in private where I can talk to him." And they knew that they did. The princes knew that Jeremiah had been taken to the king, but they didn't know what was said. There was leakers, but they weren't in the inner circle. We didn't even know if anybody else was there. It could have been just Zedekiah. Maybe he didn't trust anyone because there were so many leakers. But the king knew there was leakers. He said, "They're going to tell him that I sent for him.

The women who got captured knew there was leakers. They said your close friends would set upon you and prevail against you." Zedekiah is kind of a very lonely place. He doesn't know which way to go. Which is a good message. When we don't know which way to go, go God's way.

Now, Jedekiah remained now Jeremiah remained in the court of the prison until the day that Jerusalem was taken. And he was there when Jerusalem was taken. Chapter 39. In the ninth year of Zedekiah, king of Judah, in the 10th month, excuse me, Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, and his army came against Jerusalem and besieged it. In the 11th month of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, and the ninth day of the month, the city was penetrated. That's a year and a half. 18 months that the siege happened. We're going to hold out and we're going to hold on. That's what the princes are thinking.

This is our lifestyle. This is our stuff. We don't want to give it up. This is our prestige. This is our society. We have a social standing here. We have the temple. We have the temple of God. We're going to be saved. We're not going to do anything that is God telling us to do that we don't want to do because we got the temple. Temple's going to save us. Where's Shiloh today? Where's Shiloh in this day? In fact, Jeremiah says that don't say you got the temple, it's going to save you. Where's Shiloh? It's gone.

Shiloh had the tabernacle, didn't save him. Shiloh had the ark, didn't save him. They don't put their trust in anything but God and giving their life to God wholeheartedly that save them. God doesn't need a temple. It's a footstool. Verse three, then all the princes and the king of Babylon Babylon came and they sat in the middle gate with the rest of the princes of the king of Babylon. So it was when Zedekiah, the king of Judah, and all the men of war saw them that they fled, and they went out of the city by night, by the way of the king's garden, by the gate between the two walls.

And he went out by the plain. But the Chaldeans's army pursued them and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho. And when they had captured him, they brought him up into Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon at to Riblah, to the land of Hamath, where he pronounced judgment on him. And the king of Babylon killed the sons of Jer of Zedekiah before his eyes in Ri. And the king of Babylon also killed all the nobles of Judah. Moreover, he put out Zedekiah's eyes, and he bound him with bronze feathers, and he carried him off to Babylon, fulfilling the prophecy of Jeremiah said, as Clint brought up a couple weeks ago.

You're going to be taken to Babylon, but you're not going to see it. And the Chaldeans burned the king's house and the houses of the people with fire, broke down the walls of Jerusalem. Then Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, carried away captive Babylon, the remnant of the people who remained in the city, and those who defected with him, and the rest of the people who remained. But Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guards, left in the land of Judah of the poor people who had nothing, and gave them vineyards and fields at the same time. Now Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, gave charge concerning Jeremiah to Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, saying, "Take him and look after him and do him no harm, but do to him just as he says to you."

So Nebu Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, sent all the kings of Babylon's officers. Then they sent someone to take Jeremiah from the court of the prison and to commit him to Gdalia the son of Aim and the son of Safon and he that he should take him home. So he dwelt among the people. Meanwhile, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah while he was still shut up in the court of the present, saying, "Go and speak to Abed Melik, the Ethiopian." And Micah brought up this portion of Scripture last week, too, that the servant of the king got the blessing from the Lord for being the servant of the king.

And here at as as they were all taken away somehow Ebed-Melech is preserved is saved the Ethiopian maybe because he was an Ethiopian that he didn't that he stuck out from the Jews but mainly it was because he had the blessing from the Lord that says verse 16. Continue on. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, behold, I will bring my words upon the city for adversity and not for good, and they shall perform in that day before you, but I will deliver you in that day, says the Lord, and you shall not be given into the hand of the men who whom you are afraid.

For I will surely deliver you, and you shall not fall by the sword, but your life shall be a prize to you. Because you have put your trust in me, says the Lord. He was the servant of the king. He was willing to go. He was willing to do go and do a very controversial thing. As for Jeremiah's life, trusting in the Lord goes hand in hand with our faith in the Lord. The more we trust in the Lord, the more faith we show in the Lord to the world and to those in the world. They're stuck in the mire of the world.

We are all called a bed molec. We're all called to be servants of the king of kings, servants of Christ. And a servant of Christ is a servant to someone other than himself. I'm a servant. Well, who are you a servant? I'm a servant to myself. No, a servant is to other people. That's what servanthood is. You serve other people's. If you just serve your own lusts and ambitions, you're not a servant. You're called self-s servant. Servant has to do with others. A servant serves unto Christ. And who we do to the least of these, we do it unto Christ. We do it as unto Christ.

And Christ takes it as unto himself. What you did to the least of these, you did it unto me. If the last is first in the kingdom of God, he who is last is become first. So if you're last, how many people are in front of you? How many people go before you? Everyone really. You're the last. So when you place everyone else in front of you, that's a servant to the Lord. In Ephesians 4:11, it says that God gives gifts to the church. That's us. God gives us gifts, spiritual gifts, and it lists them here. It lists five of them. Verse 11, Ephesians 4:11, he says, "And he gave himself, these are the gifts, and he himself gave some to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastors, and teachers."

That's five-fold ministry. A lot of people talk about some to be apostles and it's a little a apostle. It's not a the 12 apostles as a capital A apost word apostle in your Bibles translated as being something different than the small a apostles which really just means sent ones in the Greek. So the 12 sent ones were a different group. This is not talking about the twel apostles. This is talking about missionaries. Like Paul said, how are they going to hear if they're not sent? These are the sent ones. God gave the sent ones as a gift to the world for the church because they're going to go out and build the church.

They're sent out to show the church and to grow the church. The prophets bring forth the word of God. There are prophets today. I'm prophesizing right now. Bringing forth. When I read the Bible, I'm bringing forth the oracles of God's. That is what a prophet did.

This isn't talking about an Old Testament prophet bringing forth the written word of God to be sealed and to be the word of truth to test all things by. This is someone in the church who brings forth the oracles of God to encourage the church, to edify the church. That's what the prophet was to do. Bring forth words of God of encouragement. That's a gift to the church. Evangelists again are to grow the church like the missionaries that their specific talent gifting is to witness to those stuck in the my and say do you want to be unstuck? This is how you do it.

Here, let's put some strips of cloth under your arm. Let me start by serving you. The strips of cloth, sign of the Messiah to come, the anointed one. I'm going to show you the sign of the Messiah as a gift and give you an opportunity to receive him. And that is a gift to the church because it grows the church in believers like the missionary and some pastors and some teachers. So there's a gift to the church is a pastor. We can say thank you Lord for Clint. He's a great gift.

And teachers, pastors, teachers, very very similar pastors role really and it says so in the Bible in the New Testament that they look after the souls of the flock. That's more of a responsibility than just preaching. The pastor is involved in a personal level of the lives of the souls of his church and teachers. All these are gifts that involve others. You can't have any of these five gifts to the church without serving other people. Serving people that are unbelievers and wanting them to become believers to bring their soul into restoration with God the creator to pro prophetically bring forth the word of God as people need it to encourage them to pastor them the flock to teach them the word of God all servant.

All these gifted people are servants to verse 12 the church for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry. All these gifted servants are to equip those to be servants in ministry. That's these five great gifts are for to turn people into servants, not to turn people into inward. You're good. You're a good person. You need to build yourself up before you need to like yourself before you can like somebody else.

But to build them up into a humble servant putting others before them for the work of ministry to edify the body of Christ. God has made each person different. We're all different people. We all have a way to serve God more uniquely than somebody else.

Seek your own walk with Christ. Not one that I tell you to walk. Not one that another well-meaning Christian meddler tells you need to walk. But get up and find your walk by being willing to be used by God. And you will find it and he will confirm your path or he'll change it. You know, God can change your direction if you're going the wrong way. He's the door. He can open a door and he can close the door. He is the door. We have to be just willing to go through the door.

And even if you just can't handle it, mainly people. Maybe you just can't handle people. Maybe God made you to where you can't handle people. People aren't doable to you. You want to be a hermit. You can still find someone who can handle and assist them, encourage them, be a part of it.

And if you can't do that, even if you're not equipped to do something or to help someone who is equipped to do something, then you can still serve God as a really bad example. But we don't want to be that servant. We don't want to serve as a bad example. We don't want to be miss. We want to be the person who is willing. If you're not willing, that's the bad example. Everyone needs to be willing. And God will use the willing. We saw the servant of the Lord. All he was willing. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Lord, we praise you. We thank you.

We ask, Lord, you guide us into the servanthood you have before us and each one of us individually that you would bless us for that. And Lord, that we would put our trust in you and show our faith to the world. Jesus name we pray. Amen.