Gospel

If you got a Bible, we're going to read in two parts of the Bible. We're going to go back to the Psalms, where Mr. Sharp already was, Psalm 40. Not quite the middle of your Bible, but Psalm 40, the 40th Psalm.

And we'll read verse number 1. And here, David says, Now let's go just a little further in your Bible to the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah, a little farther on. It's a big book, so you should be able to find it.

Isaiah, then you'll have Jeremiah. And we're going to go to chapter 37. Jeremiah, chapter 37.

Jeremiah 37, verse number 17. We're going to be reading a lot of funny names here, but these are the names of these people that lived in this day. It says, Then Zedekiah the king sent and took him out.

That's Jeremiah out of prison. And the king asked him secretly in his house and said, Is there any word from the Lord? And Jeremiah said, There is. For he said, For said he, Thou shalt be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon.

Let's go down to chapter 38, verse 1. Then Zephittiah the son of Mattan, and Gedaliah the son of Pasher, and Jucal the son of Shalamiah, and Pasher the son of Malchiah, heard the words that Jeremiah had spoken unto all the people. Verse 4. Therefore the princes, that's the same men we just mentioned, said unto the king, We beseech thee, let this man be put to death. For thus he weakeneth the hands of the men of war that remain in the city, and the hands of all the people, in speaking such words unto them.

For this man seeketh not the welfare of the people, but the hurt. Then Zedekiah the king said, Behold, he's in your hand, for the king is not he that can do anything against you. Then took they Jeremiah and cast him into the dungeon of Malchiah, the son of Hamalek, that was in the court of the prison.

And they let down Jeremiah with cords, and in the dungeon there was no water, but mire, so that Jeremiah sunk in the mire. Now when Ebed-Melech the Ethiopian, one of the eunuchs which was in the king's house, heard that they had put Jeremiah in the dungeon, the king, sitting in the gate of Benjamin, Ebed-Melech went forth out of the king's house, and spake unto the king, saying, My lord, the king, these men have done evil in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet, whom they have cast into the dungeon, and he is like to die for hunger in the place where he is, for there is no more bread in the city. Then the king commanded Ebed-Melech the Ethiopian, saying, Take from hence thirty men with thee, and take up Jeremiah the prophet out of the dungeon before he die.

So Ebed-Melech took the men with him, and went into the house of the king under the treasury, and took hence old cast cloths and old rotten rags, and let them down by cords into the dungeon to Jeremiah. And Ebed-Melech the Ethiopian said unto Jeremiah, Put now these old cast cloths and rotten rags under thine armholes under the cords, and Jeremiah did so. So they drew up Jeremiah with the cords, and took him out of the dungeon, and Jeremiah remained in the court of the prison.

Now God will bless to us the reading of his precious word. You know, we often hear people say to us, you know, I don't know why you read that Bible. It's such a boring book.

Well, I don't know what Bible they're reading, because my Bible, it's full of wonderful stories. Now I know there's lots of hard stuff in the Bible. Stuff that we don't understand, and stuff that I won't understand probably till I get to heaven.

But there is so much stuff that we do understand, and real stories about real people. And the reason God has included them in the Bible, not just to tell us a good story, because they are, but also to show us little pictures of what this thing called salvation is all about. It tells us in the New Testament, these things are written for examples that we can learn from them.

So we've read this story, and it's a great story. But God wants us to learn something. He wants us to learn something from his word, and if we're going to learn something, even what we've already heard in the meeting, we're going to hear about the gospel in these verses.

There's different people in these verses that we read. There was a king. His name was Zedekiah.

Unfortunately for Zedekiah, another king had surrounded the city. They were fighting against them, and this man, the prophet Jeremiah, he had come to the king a while before, and God had spoke to Jeremiah, and he said, you tell the king that if you surrender, if you lay down your arms, and you go out to the king that's coming against you, your life will be preserved. You won't die.

And so that was the message that he told the king. But you know, other people heard it and said, we're not going to surrender. I mean, and when other people heard it, they started thinking, well, should we fight, or should we surrender? So the king, in order that the other people wouldn't listen, he threw Jeremiah in jail.

He said, I'll let him think about what he said for a little while. And so there he is in prison, and I don't know how long he was in prison. It doesn't really tell us.

But after a little while, and I suppose when the fighting was still going on outside the walls, Jeremiah said, okay, I've given them long enough time to stew there in the prison. Let's bring them out again. And so they bring Jeremiah in before the king, and now the king asked them a second time, and this is what we read there.

He says, okay now, is there any word from the Lord? He thought that maybe if he made it hard on Jeremiah, if he put him in an uncomfortable position, that maybe Jeremiah would change the words that he was going to speak. But you know what the king didn't understand? What Jeremiah was saying wasn't Jeremiah's own words. They were the words of the king.

The words, rather, of God. And so Jeremiah knew that God's word does not change. And so when the king asked him, is there any word from the Lord? Jeremiah told him exactly the very same message.

You know, there are a lot of people, and they come to meetings just like this, gospel meetings. And they come every night, and I don't know, sometimes I think they're hoping they're going to hear something different the next night. Oh, our messages are different every night, but they all really have the same impact.

They have the same word in it. And the message from the word of God, as we've been hearing tonight, is that we have a problem. And that problem is the problem of our sin.

And it's real. And in fact, what we read back there in Psalm 40, it's sin is likened to being in a horrible pit. In a pit of sin, where we can't get out, and we're sinking deeper and deeper and deeper into that pit.

And we have no strength. We have no power on our own to get ourselves out. And he says, he brought me up also out of a, not just a pit, but a horrible pit.

You see, sin before a holy God is something that is horrible. Oh, we like sin. Sure.

We enjoy sin. And we think sin is fine. And you know what, for a little while, sin is fine.

Sin is enjoyable. But after a little while, after it starts to get a hold on us, and after it starts to affect us, not only for time, for this life, but for eternity, we realize how bad sin is. And so, we can't change the message.

The gospel message is a message from God. It's not the words of the men that stand here and preach. They have to preach the Word of God.

And maybe you're hoping, I go there some night, and they tell me, you're okay, things will be fine, you'll get there the way you are. Listen, that's not what the Word of God says. The Word of God says, we have come short.

We do not measure up to the standard that is what God is Himself, absolute perfection. And so, here's this man, this king, should have known better. And he thought, well, if I just throw Jeremiah in prison, just make his life miserable, maybe he'll give me a better word.

Listen, it's God's Word. And God's Word doesn't change. Just as God does not change.

He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. His Word does not change. Everyone else changes.

We all change. Every single day, every single hour of the day, there is change taking place in us, in our lives, in who we are. But this Word that we speak, it comes from an unchanging God.

And God's Word declares very plainly, very clearly, that we are sinners. Oh, we don't like it. We rebuke it.

We get up in arms against it, but that doesn't change it. We can dislike it. We can moan and groan and complain all we want.

But it won't change the fact of the clear Word of God. And there, Zedekiah that day, is there any word from Him? He wasn't just saying, is there any word? He was actually meaning, is there a new word? Oh, that you'd have a new word. And yet he told them exactly the same thing.

But there was some other man in this story that we read. There's a man and his name is Zephitiah. He was one of the princes.

He was one of the chief princes. And he didn't like the word that Jeremiah was saying neither. Because when Jeremiah was saying, the only way you're going to live is if you surrender, you put down your arms, and you go outside and say, I give up.

That's the only way you'll live. Well, there were some in the army that were thinking, well, maybe that's what we should do. Maybe if we surrender, then at least we'll live.

We might be slaves, but at least it's better to be a living slave than a dead warrior. And when they were thinking this way, this man, Zephitiah, he says, kill Jeremiah. Kill the prophet.

We don't need that word going forth, because it's making the people question our authority. It's making the people wonder, should we surrender? And these men were trying to silence the Word of God. They were enemies of the Word of God.

You know what, tonight, there is an enemy out there, and he's trying to silence the Word of God. He is trying to make it so you don't hear the Word of God, so that you don't listen to the Word of God, so that you don't pay attention to the Word of God. And listen, this enemy is real.

Well, we might not see him. We might not be able to put our hands on him, but listen, this enemy is just as real as you are in this meeting tonight. And I'm speaking about Satan.

I'm speaking about the devil. Listen, he is a real being, and his desire, that which impels him along is to try to distract people, try to dissuade people, try to keep people blind, so that they won't listen to the Word of God. That's what this man, Zephatiah, was like.

He said, listen, the only way that we can get the people to do what we want is to kill the messenger, kill the preacher. But you know what? If they had even killed Jeremiah, it still wouldn't have changed what God said was going to happen. God said that that city was going to be overwhelmed, and the only ones that would be safe, the only ones that would live were those that would surrender.

Even if they killed the preacher, God's Word would have still come to pass. And down through history, Satan has raised up men, evil, wicked men and women to kill the preachers, to kill the messenger, so that the Word of God won't go far. But that won't change a thing.

If you were to kill all the preachers, all the Christians in this world, then that wouldn't change the end result that God says, the wages of sin is death. And even though these men, even though these men hated the Word of God, and they hated the messenger, it did not change the fact. It didn't change the outcome of what God said.

Listen, there's something you have to understand. God has declared the way things are going to be. And even though we might not like it, even though we might say that, God, you're wrong, it's going to come to pass.

Because God is almighty. God is all-powerful. And what God has declared is going to be, that's exactly what's going to happen.

And so they wanted to put Jeremiah to death. And the king said, well, he said, he's in your hands, do what you want. And so they took Jeremiah, instead of putting him back in a regular prison, they took him to another place, and the dungeon that they threw him in was not like a nice cell, it was an old well.

There was no water in the well, but it was full of mire. And it says there that when they put him in, it says, and they put him in the dungeon where there was no water but mire, so Jeremiah sunk in the mire. Now, it wasn't that he was up to his ankles.

This time of year, up our way at least, we still got snow going away, and I was out for a walk last week before I left, and there was two or three kids, and they were down in the ditch, and they had their nice rubber boots on, and the one little girl, she had her foot stuck in there, you know how it gets in there, with the suction, and I watched her, she pulled her foot out, and she was jumping around because her boot was still in the mud. And she pulls her boot out, and she put, this isn't what Jeremiah was in. It says there that he sunk in the mire.

That word there, sunk, is the same word used in other places for drown. So it was right up to his chest. There he is in that mire, and he could probably hardly breathe as that mud and that gunk was all around him, and he stuck, and he sunk in the mire, down in that well.

Probably the walls were all wet and slippery, and maybe you could have seen, there would have been finger marks on the side of the well where maybe he tried to pull himself up. And the more he tried to pull himself up, probably the deeper and deeper, he sunk in that mire. You know, that's a picture of, the Bible's full of pictures, and that's a picture of what we read in Psalm 40, about that horrible pit, the horrible pit of sin.

And you say, well listen, I'm just a young person, I'm not a big sinner yet. I mean, I know older people, and they've done a lot of things. They've been to jail, they've been with the police, and I'm not as bad as them.

Listen, I don't care how much or how bad you sin, you're in your own well, you're in your own pit. And that mire that you're in, it's something that you cannot escape from by yourself. And maybe you're like Jeremiah, maybe you're clawing at the side, trying to get yourself up, but Jeremiah was absolutely helpless to get himself out of that pit, and out of that mire.

And I don't know how long he might have tried, and I don't know how long he might have cried, because Jeremiah, he is the weeping prophet, and maybe this was a good time for Jeremiah to have a good cry, as he's crying, crying out for someone to help him, and nobody's listening. Nobody's listening as he's crying out. Maybe, maybe there is somebody here tonight, and you know about your sin, and you believe the Bible, that the end of sin is death.

Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. And maybe you've been crying out, and looking for help, looking for something, looking for peace, and you think, nobody hearing, nobody cares. And Jeremiah, perhaps was just this way, thinking as he cried out, help me, I'm down here in the pit, and he thought, nobody cared.

But you know what he didn't know? There was somebody that cared. There was a man up there, and he cared about Jeremiah. And when he heard what they had done to him, he sprung into action to deliver Jeremiah from that pit.

His name was Ebed Melech. And Ebed Melech, he would have stood out in that country because he was a foreigner in that country. He was from the country of Ethiopia, and he would have stood out as being different in that country.

People, when they saw him, would have seen him, and they understood that he's not from around here. He is someone that is different. And yet here was someone from a foreign country that had a care for Jeremiah.

You know who cares for you tonight? Someone not just from a foreign country, but someone from heaven. The Lord Jesus. He cares for you.

He knows your condition. He knows the problem. He knows that if you're left by yourself the way you are, that you will, in fact, perish.

And that's exactly what Ebed Melech said. He said, if you don't get him out of that pit to the king, he's going to die. The Lord Jesus in the glory in heaven, as he saw the plight of men, he saw us in our sin, he saw us in the muck and mire of sin, he knew that unless he came down to where we were, we would all perish in our sin.

And so as he speaks to the king, he talks to the king concerning Jeremiah. The king says, okay, take 30 men with you. And those 30 men, I'm sure Jeremiah, he didn't pick skinny people like me, he probably got these big heavy guys with the big muscles.

He says, I know this is going to be a hard job. And he got those 30 men and on their way there, they stopped at this place and they picked up a bunch of rags and some rope and they made their way down, down, down to the pit. And maybe Jeremiah, maybe he's given up by now.

Maybe he's finished crying because he thinks I'm going to die. And there's, he's there in that muck and maybe not even looking up. Wouldn't he be surprised when he heard a voice say, Jeremiah! Jeremiah! And he looked up and there was this big face of Eben Melech looking down at him.

You know what? The Lord Jesus is calling you by name tonight. He knows you by name and He knows what you need. And the Lord Jesus is calling down to the sinner tonight through the gospel, through the preaching of the Word of God.

He is calling out to individuals because He wants to help you. He knows that you can't help yourself. And there's Eben Melech as he's looking down and he's calling out, Jeremiah! And as Jeremiah looks up, probably he's wondering, who's this that's coming to help me? And the next thing he knows, a bunch of rags fall down.

And Eben Melech says, put them under your arms. And he'd take those rags and he'd stuff them under his arms and then the next thing, this rope would drop down on his head. And he took the rope and he put it around him and he tied a big knot and got it good and tight and Eben Melech was saying, is it all tied? And Jeremiah said, yeah, I'm ready to go.

And there was Eben Melech and those 30 men and they would start to pull. And you know what it's like to get your one foot out of the mud? Well, just think getting your whole body out of the mud. And maybe they just, Jeremiah maybe thought like he was going to be pulled right in half, but he was holding on and those men were pulling and pulling and pulling and finally he's out of the mud.

And they pulled Jeremiah up hand after hand, those 30 men, pulling him up out of that pit and they grab him and they stand him right on the ground, right on the solid rock and Jeremiah was thinking, oh man, this feels good. This feels, instead of the muck and the mire, to stand on that solid rock. Well, you know what, when it come to our salvation, God didn't send 30 men down, didn't send 31 to save us, he just sent one, his only son.

And just as Eben Melech would have stood out in the crowd in his day, I want to tell you the Lord Jesus stood out in the crowd in his day. There was no man like him. People, when they listened to him, they were amazed.

He spoke words that they never heard before. When they watched him do things, they never saw miracles like that before. He stood out in the crowd and oh, this is the one that God sent.

He sent his only son, down from the glory, the Savior came, down to the cross and the death of shame. And where as Eben Melech had those 30 men to help him pull Jeremiah out of that mud. When it come to the Lord Jesus paying the price for your sin and for my sin, he went all alone, all alone to the cross, there on that cross, nailed through his hands, through his feet.

God shut the lights out for three hours. God punished the Lord Jesus as far as your sins and my sins are concerned. That which had caused us to be in a horrible pit, it was laid on the Lord Jesus Christ and the Lord Jesus alone, by himself.

He paid the price so that he could rescue us from the horrible pit of sin. You know, what would you think of Jeremiah? He'd been down in that pit probably for a few days by then and this rope clunks him in the head and he looks up, Eben Melech, tied around and Jeremiah says, well you know what, I think I'm gonna try to climb out a couple more times. I think I can get it the next time.

Maybe, you know, I was able to feel a bit of movement. You say, Jeremiah, you're crazy. Jeremiah, you're nuts.

You need someone to help you and here's help now. Why don't you grab it? Of course, Jeremiah, he grabbed that rope because he knew without it, he knew without help from above that he was gonna perish and yet there are some people, maybe some in this room tonight and you've heard the gospel. You know that you need to be saved.

You know that there's only salvation through the Lord Jesus and yet for some reason you think, I'm just gonna wait a bit longer. I'm just gonna keep trying as best as I can and not saying that I won't get it but you know, just maybe not today. That was probably Jeremiah's only opportunity.

That was the only time that Ibn Melech was gonna come by and he grabbed that opportunity and he allowed them to do for him what he couldn't do for yourself. You see, salvation isn't what you do. You can't do nothing.

Salvation is all about what the Lord Jesus did on the cross. He satisfied God as far as your sins and my sins are concerned. What do you think Jeremiah did that day when he got up there? Yes, I'm sure he was happy to stand on solid ground but I am sure mud and all.

He probably wrapped his arms around that big man Ibn Melech and he gave him a big strong hug and I'm sure he said, thank you. Thanks for rescuing me. Thanks for delivering me from that horrible pit.

That's what it is to get saved is to understand that without the Lord Jesus, I am lost and just trusting the Lord Jesus as my savior and salvation is just simply thanking God for giving his son to die for my sins and Ibn Melech, you know, we would have thought that was pretty rude of Jeremiah not to even thank Ibn Melech for what he did. You see, the Lord Jesus has already died on the cross. He's already paid the price for sin and he's waiting for you tonight to simply say thank you.

Thank you, Lord Jesus for dying for me. Thank you, Lord Jesus for suffering the punishment that my sins deserve. What do we read there in Psalms? It says here, He brought me up also out of a horrible pit out of the miry clay, set my feet upon a rock and he hath put a new song in my mouth even praise unto our God.

Jeremiah, I'm sure anybody that came near you know what Ibn Melech did for me? He pulled me out of a pit. I was going to drown in that pit and he would have told everybody Ibn Melech, Ibn Melech. You know what people who get saved do? They tell other people about their Savior.

You know what the Lord Jesus did for me? He loved me enough that He died on the cross. He brought me out of the horrible pit and set me on a rock and I'm saved. What about you tonight? Are you saved? Have you ever trusted the Lord Jesus as your Savior? He wants to be your Savior tonight.

He can be your Savior tonight if you just trust Him even as we pray.