15 Why Do I Get Punished for Doing the Right Thing? (Jeremiah 38:1-13)

unknown: Uh uh. Speaker: This is the Wednesday in the Word podcast, and I'm Krisan Marotta. Today we're in Jeremiah chapter 38, verses 1 through 13. This is the 15th talk in our series on the book of Jeremiah. You can follow along with the lecture notes by going to our website, which is wednesdayintheword.com slash Jeremiah 15. So glad you joined us. Well, last week we were in Psalm 130, and Libby taught us that psalm where the psalmist is in the depths of despair. He's desperately aware of his sin, realizes he's guilty before God, and he cries out to the Lord for mercy and redemption, and we see him waiting and hoping and watching for the Lord to act and for to bring his redemption, and then encouraging all Israel to hope in the Lord. And this week we're going to look at a similar situation in the life of Jeremiah. Jeremiah is literally in a pit and he's waiting for the Lord's redemption. And though none of his words or prayers are recorded, I suspect while he was sitting in the pit, he spent a great deal of time praying and crying out to the Lord. And though Jeremiah was undoubtedly a sinner, in this instance he's being punished for doing the right thing. So he spoke the words God gave him to speak, and it lands him in a dungeon. Now, I can relate to both the psalmist and to Jeremiah, and I suspect you can too. Like the psalmist, there are many times where I become acutely and painfully aware of my sin, and I cry out to the Lord for mercy. And sometimes, like Jeremiah, I think I've done the right thing, and yet it all turns out wrong. I vividly remember learning this lesson as a child. I was in elementary school and our class went on a field trip. And upon leaving the place, each student got this old small prize. And when we returned to the classroom, for no apparent reason, a boy in my class accused me of stealing his prize. He had lost his, and he accused me of stealing his. And I insisted I was innocent because I was innocent. And he got so upset over the loss of his prize that it kind of broke my heart. And so I offered to give him my favor. And I remember turning to the teacher, expecting her to shower me with praise and blessings for my generous action, only to have her rebuke me. She said, Well, if I was willing to give up my prize, it proved it wasn't mine to begin with, and I must be lying, and I had stolen it. And so she sent me to detention and sent a note home with my parents. Oh, it was it was just oh mortifying. It was one of those first lessons where I thought, I did the right thing. I tried to do the right thing, and I got punished. And, you know, 40 years later I still remember it. So well, today we're in Jeremiah 38. We're going to look at verses 1 through 13. And in this story, we see Jeremiah being faithful to God and getting punished because of it. So the last time we were in Jeremiah, we looked at chapter 36, where the king did not like the message that Jeremiah brought, so he burned the scroll in the fire, and today we're going to see an attempt to destroy not the message, but the messenger. So you'll recall that Jeremiah began his ministry as Assyria, the dominant world power, descended into civil war, and when they began to lose their power, Babylon and Egypt tried to occupy the power vacuum. They were leaving. Judah is literally caught between all those countries. And in the midst of that turmoil, God calls Jeremiah and says, Tell everybody, Babylon's going to win. They're going to invade Jerusalem, level Jerusalem as judgment for your rebellion to the covenant. You'll be taken into exile, but you will be restored. So the exact dates for the events in this chapter aren't given, but the details suggest that it happened shortly before the end, shortly before the fall, so probably in 588 B.C. And we know that in the summer of 588 BC, the Egyptian army moved into Palestine. Perhaps they came at an appeal from King Zedekiah, or perhaps they came because Babylon was sieging Jerusalem, and they could look at that and go, huh, we're the next one in line. If they take Jerusalem, we're going to be next. And so they're trying to head off an invasion in their own country. In either case, Babylon withdraws temporarily from sieging Jerusalem and they go to deal with the Egyptian threat. And so we're told in chapter 37, when the siege lifts, Jeremiah attempts to leave the city, and a guard accuses him of deserting, of going to join the Babylonians, and he's arrested and thrown in prison. So the big debate is over how chapter 37 and 38 relate. Scholars think they belong together chronologically, but there's a big debate over are these two separate events, or is it one event that is told twice? So in other words, was Jeremiah arrested twice, once in the event that's recorded in chapter 37, and then a second time as recorded in chapter 38, or was he arrested once, and we're told about the event in 37, and then the same event is retold with more detail in chapter 38. And there's a lot of evidence on both sides. So the two accounts have a great deal in common. In both accounts, Jeremiah is charged with treason and placed in a pit. In both accounts, he's handed over to state officials first. In chapter 37, 14 and 15, we're told the officials beat him and put him in jail. In 38, 1 through 4, they quote his preaching as traitorous, throw him in jail, and ask the king for the death penalty. Both chapters say he's released. He has a private meeting with the king, and the conversation is substantially the same in both chapters. They talk about the pending destruction of Jerusalem. And in both accounts, after his release, he is not sent back to the dungeon, but he's kept in the court of the guard. So there's a lot in common. They look like they could be the same event. And those similarities lead people to say, well, they must be one arrest told two different ways. But there are some differences. Here are the differences. In 3716, that verse calls the place where he was held a dungeon. And in 38.6, it calls the place he was held a cistern. So people look at that and go, well, he was held two different places. But those could be the same place. Suppose in a hurricane we convert a school gym to into a shelter for the duration of the storm. I could refer to it as a gym and I would be correct. And you could refer to it as a shelter, and you would be correct. Because we're and we're both describing the place, the same place. It was a school gym, but now it's functioning as a shelter. Well, the cistern, especially since we're told it had no water in it, in 38-6, could have been converted for use as a dungeon. So I could call it a cistern and be correct. Even though it's no longer used as a cistern, you could call it a dungeon and be correct. And I bring that up because that's the kind of thing you've got to be aware of in Bible study. And these are the kinds of things people point to and go, oh look, see, it's an error in the Bible. Well now we know the Bible's not true. That is so easily resolved. That is not an error. That's one thing where I'm absolutely sure of. That's not an error. Could be two different places, but it could also be the same place. Similarly, in 37, 15, and 16, it tells us the cistern house is located in the home of Jonathan, the secretary. And in 38.6, it's called the Cistern of Prince Melchizedek, and they say it's located in the court of the guard. So that sounds at first reading like, oh, that could be two different places. But depending on where Jonathan's house stood in relation to the court of the guard, those could be right next to each other and they could be the same place. So for example, if you ask me where does Charlottesville Community Church meet, I could answer Cale Elementary, or I could say it's right across from Mill Creek. Now you know Charlottesville, and you know, okay, I could find it. I've given you two different landmarks for the exact same location. One might be more exact than the other, but they both would get you to the right place. So the home of Jonathan and the home of Prince Melkaija could be adjacent to each other or right next door, and both names could refer to the same place. So again, we don't know. My personal opinion is we don't have enough information to settle this debate that it could be two arrests or it could be one arrest. He could have been arrested twice in a very short period of time, even for the same kind of offense, or it could have been two similar offenses. So I don't know. This week, I tend to think it's the same event told two different ways, but ask me next week, I may have changed my mind. It's fairly common in Hebrew writings to tell a short version of the story and then follow it with a longer, more detailed version. Genesis chapter 1 and chapter 2 being probably the most familiar example of that, where it's the same story, but it's told with a different emphasis. So I don't think it matters for Bible study, but I bring it up because this is the kind of thing people will point to and say, oh, look, here's an error in the Bible. Clearly these must be the same account, but they're not the same account because look at all these discrepancies, and that is the one thing I'm certain it is not. This is not an error. There are lots of ways to reconcile these accounts. Um, they could be the same, they could be different, but there are just too many possibilities for reconciliation. So, in any case, what we do know for sure is Jerusalem's under siege. Jeremiah's in prison for preaching the message God told him to preach. Life in the city is really bad, and it's about to get worse. And for Jeremiah, it looks like he's about to die alone in a pit because he did exactly what the Lord asked him to do. So, we're gonna see what we can learn from that. Let's look at the story. We're gonna start with 38, 1 through 6. Now, these four guys whose names I can't pronounce heard the words of Jeremiah that Jeremiah was speaking to all the people, saying, and then they quote him, verse 2, thus says the Lord, he who stays in this city will die by the sword and by the famine and by pestilence, but he who goes out to the Chaldeans, which is another name for the Babylonians, the Chaldeans, will live and have his own life as booty and stay alive. Thus says the Lord, the city will certainly be given into the hand of the army of the king of Babylon, and he will capture it. Then the officials said to the king, Now let this man be put to death, inasmuch as he is discouraging the men of war who are left in the city, and all the people by speaking such words to them, for this man is not seeking the well-being of this people, but rather their harm. So King Zedekiah said, Behold, he is in your hands, for the king can do nothing against you. Then they took Jeremiah and cast him into the cistern of Melchizedek the king's son, which was in the court of the guard house, and they let Jeremiah down with ropes. Now in this cistern there was no water, but only mud, and Jeremiah sank into the mud. So we start out with these four men who've been listening to Jeremiah's message, and from what we know they seem to be pretty powerful political people. They're referred to as officials in verse 4. And you'll notice in verse 1, Pashur is named as the son of Melkaijah, and in verse 6, we learn that Melkaijah is the king's son, making Peshur the king's grandson, and potentially he was in line somewhere to the throne. So given that pedigree and the fact that they're referred to as officials, these four men are probably part of the privileged upper class and the ruling authority, and they have some kind of power in Jerusalem. Now, as a prophet, Jeremiah would not be part of that power structure. The prophets in ancient Israel were c were considered outsiders. They were never part of the ruling establishment because their job was to hold the ruling establishment accountable. So the priests had power because they ran the religious life of the nation. The king had, of course, governing and ruling power, he ran the political life of the nation, but the prophets were outsiders. They had to be because their job was to hold everyone else accountable. So the prophets had to be outsiders because people in power tend to act to preserve their power. So if you're part of the ruling class and something is threatening the ruling class, your tendency is to protect that. And when you're backed up against a wall, confronted with something that challenges your power, your position, we usually act to protect ourselves rather than the people we're supposed to protect. So Jeremiah did come from a priestly line, but as a prophet, he would have been speaking as an outsider. And as we've already seen, his message was very unpopular. He's been predicting Babylon would win and destroy Jerusalem, and that's not something anybody wanted to hear. But it's especially bad news if you're one of these four guys and you're part of the powerful ruling elite because you have more to lose than the average person. In addition to all the normal stuff, you can lose your position, your authority, and your power. So it's pretty easy to figure out why these people aren't happy with Jeremiah. They want to kill him because his message threatens everything they they have. So they go to the king and they ask to have Jeremiah executed. Now, if anyone in Israel is supposed to protect the people, and particularly Jeremiah, it's the king. So he is a representative from God. He's been placed in power to ensure that God's will is done for the people, to mediate God's covenant law, and we ought to be able to count on him to protect Jeremiah from these men. So he is God's anointed king. He should stand up for God's anointed prophet and protect him, but he doesn't. He says this amazing thing. And you read that and you go, Really? Aren't you king? Aren't you like the last word? Isn't his job to oppose people like this with really bad ideas? And he has the last word in all governing manners. So of course he can oppose these people. He can enforce the law of Moses. He can stand up for justice, but he does it. Rather than protecting Jeremiah, he turns him over to these four guys who are determined to kill him. So we see Jeremiah being faithful to God in what we know is a really difficult task. The people in power get mad at him, and then the person with the most power fails to protect him. And that hurts. Because we look, they're our parents. They're supposed to protect us. They're supposed to guide us and teach us and keep us safe. It's their job. So it's doubly painful when our parents fail us. But it doesn't have to be parents, it can be anyone with power or authority, any role model or mentor who fails to protect those under his or her wing. It's like this double blow, you know. So it could be a teacher or a pastor or a mentor or a boss or your spouse or your friend. So here's the first thing we learn from this passage. Good deeds sometimes get punished. The people that are supposed to be on our side are not always on our side. Those given the responsibility to protect, to guide, and to lead will sometimes and often fail us. In other words, we need to expect that doing the right thing will sometimes get punished. And it turns out that's a major theme in the Bible. Jeremiah isn't the only one to experience this kind of unjust suffering. In fact, there are a lot of Psalms that bear resemblance to this. This is Psalm 69, verses 1 through 3. I have sunk deep in the mire and there is no foothold. I have come into deep waters and a flood overwhelms me. I am weary with my crying, my throat is parched, my eyes fail while I wait for my God. Sounds a lot like probably what Jeremiah was going through in a pit. And we know that David went through an extended period of time, about about almost seven about 17 years, where he was anointed as king of Israel. But the current king, Saul, was chasing him around the country trying to kill him. So he knew about unjust suffering, and he's not the only one, of course. Joseph is sold into slavery by his own brothers. Daniel's thrown into the lion's den. Nehemiah is attacked for trying to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. And of course, Jesus, our Lord of Lords and King of Kings, is executed on a Roman cross, even though he led a perfect and sinless life and was blameless before both God and Roman law. And when his accusers brought him before their authority, what did Pilate do? He washes his hands and tells them Jesus is in their hands, kind of reminiscent of King Zedekiah. You see, the person in authority who was supposed to protect Jesus said, Nope, out of my hands, I can't do anything, just like we see with Jeremiah. So with all these stories in Scripture of people doing the right thing and suffering for it, it should make us ask, why am I so surprised when it happens to me? Or why are we surprised? And yet often we're shocked when we get punished for being ethical at work, or we get surprised when others assume that we're ignorant extremists just because we believe in Jesus. And yet Scripture says this is the kind of thing you should expect. Now, why? This passage in Jeremiah doesn't address why, but thankfully we have others that do. Look at 1 Peter 4. We're going to look at 12 through 16. Peter answers this very question. He says, Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice in so far as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you're insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. I always love that list. We got murder, thief, evildoer, and then meddling. You know. It's like, oh, I thought I was going to get away, but then he threw in meddling. Now I'm guilty. Anyway. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. So Peter, in that section, I haven't read the whole section, but he gives two reasons why we shouldn't be surprised when we're punished for doing the right thing. The first one is if people didn't like Christ, they're not going to like you. So the darkness hates the light. And if they rejected Christ, they rejected him, they hated his message. You have the same message, they're going to hate you as well. And the second reason is that God has made it clear that testing and trials are part of his curriculum for this life. So trials are just part of the process. They're the testing that matures and stretches and strengthens our faith. And they're not something God didn't see coming, they're not out of his control. It's not like his plan took a wrong turn, and now we have these trials. Trials are part of the plan. He says earlier in chapter one that they are like this test, like gold going through fire, where you heat gold and all the impurities rise to the top, and that's how you purify it. And he uses that metaphor to say that's what trials do for us. They make all that sin and everything rise to the top, but they also sh test your faith. And then when your faith is shown to be the real deal because you went through that trial and you came out the other side with your faith intact, that is a valuable, valuable thing to have. So trials are part of the process God uses to strengthen our faith, to show us our faith is real and to mature it. And then it's a tangible evidence for us because we can look back in our lives and say, oh, when we have those moments of doubt of how do I know if I'm really a Christian? How do I know if I'm fooling myself? You can look back and go, I went through that. I went through that horrible dark trial, and I'm still here trusting God. And people that don't have faith, when they go through those trials, they fall away. You've probably met people who said, Oh, I tried that Christianity stuff, it didn't work for me. Because they hit that point where they look and they go, following God's meaning. I have to go this way. I don't want to go that way. I'm leaving God. Well, real faith says I'm going to follow Him no matter what, no matter how hard it gets. So people, Peter says you're blessed if you're reviled for the name of Christ, because it proves you belong to him, it proves you have faith, and that faith, testing of your faith is a uh brings you into sharing in Christ's glory as well. He probably learned this directly from Jesus. Jesus says in Matthew 5, 11 and 12, Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. So being rejected for following Christ is a sign that you belong to God. And if you belong to God, then you share in the glory that He will bring when He comes back. In the end, He will be victorious, He will bring that inheritance, and we will have a share in it. So you may be rejected now, but there's great blessing and glory to come. So Peter teaches us that to share Christ's sufferings is hope and tangible evidence that you will share in Christ's glory. And that's the reason Jeremiah is suffering. So the suffering can't be avoided. It's part of the plan, it's part of the purpose in this life. God tests our faith and takes our faith through those trials so that it can be proven to be the real deal. It can be matured and strengthened. And then that is evidence that we are in fact His. And in a way that's comforting, because if life is really hard and the Bible says it ought to be easy, that gives me cause to worry. But if life is really hard and the Bible says, yep, that's the way it's going to be right now, life in this world is hard. This is a fallen world, then that's a kind of encouragement. Because I know that being a believer is part of the battle. James makes the same point in his letter. This is James 1.12. Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial. For when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him. So I understand that crown of life in verse 12 is a synonym for life in the kingdom of God or for eternal life. And he says, What makes you blessed is having your faith, having faith in a place in the kingdom of God. So if your faith has been tested, shown through the test to be real, then you are truly blessed because you will inherit the crown of eternal life. So trials are this God-given opportunity to live out our faith, and it makes us stronger, wiser, and more mature. And that's the reason he says to rejoice. Now that ought to change our perspective on trials. Because if we know that there's this great, glorious purpose behind the trial, that it tests our faith, and faith leads to an inheritance in the kingdom of God, then instead of asking, when is this going to end, we can focus on where is this taking me? Where am I going through this? What am I learning? Look at the results, look at the end instead of just the difficult circumstances. So by analogy, if you're dying of arsenic poisoning, pain is not a very good thing because it's not taking you to a good place. But if you're in labor, pain can be a good thing because labor is taking you to something great. It's taking you to this new baby in this new life at the end of the process. And I think it's not a perfect analogy, but I think James is saying trials may feel horrible and painful, but they are taking you someplace you want to go. So they're not like arsenic poisoning, they're more like labor. Yes, they hurt, but they're taking you someplace great. All right. So we can expect to suffer for doing the right thing, but what then? Is that everything? I mean, that's kind of a terrible message if I just stood up here and said, okay, yep, it's going to be hard, gonna be painful. Go go out and, you know, suffer. So, but the story doesn't end there. Let's read on and see how it turns out. Look at Jeremiah 38, 7 through 13. But Abed Melech the Ethiopian, a eunuch, while he was in the king's palace, heard that they had put Jeremiah into the cistern. Now the king was sitting in the gate of Benjamin, and Abed Melech went out from the king's palace and spoke to the king, saying, My lord the king, these men have acted wickedly in all they have done to Jeremiah the prophet, whom they have cast into the cistern, and he will die right where he is because of the famine, for there is no more bread in the city. Then the king commanded Abid Melech the Ethiopian, saying, Take thirty men from under your authority, and bring up Jeremiah the prophet from the cistern before he dies. So Abed Melech took the men under his authority, and went into the king's palace to a place beneath the storeroom, and took from their worn-out clothes and worn out rags, and let them down by the ropes into the cistern to Jeremiah. Then Abid Melech the Ethiopian said to Jeremiah, Now put these worn-out clothes and rags under your armpits, under the ropes, and Jeremiah did so. So they pulled Jeremiah up with the ropes and lifted him out of the cistern, and Jeremiah stayed in the court of the guard house. So now we meet a new character in the story, this guy, Abed Melech, and he's a remarkable guy because he's just an ordinary, average, everyday guy. He's a foreigner, he's an Ethiopian, he's not even Jewish. He's serving in the king's court, and he doesn't really have a name. The name given him here, Abed Melech, is a title, and it simply translates servant of the king. So this is like calling him teacher or gardener or something. It does, it's not really a name, it's more of a title. So we have this no-name foreign slave, and he ends up saving the day. And there are a lot of unnamed heroes like him in scripture. Read through a lot of the Old Testament stories, and you'll there are countless times where you see a serving girl or an unnamed servant or a slave or a woman passing by or somebody, they don't even get names, and yet they are the people that God uses to turn the entire situation around. And most of our biblical heroes started out just as unknown ordinary folks. So Abraham was unknown before God called him. Esther was a peasant girl who became queen. David was, of course, the runt of his family before God chose him to be king. And then, of course, we have Jesus coming from Nazareth. And you have Thomas saying, Can anything good come from Nazareth? And here we have this unnamed foreign servant, just an ordinary guy going about his ordinary duties, who ends up doing what the king should have done in the first place and saving Jeremiah. And that's encouraging because I think we can take from that there are times where you may just be going about your ordinary day, doing your ordinary things, and you will act as that unnamed hero in someone else's life, and you may not even know it. So our lowly unnamed servant notices Jeremiah in the pit. He goes and tells the king about it. And the language suggests that Abid assumes there's been some mistake. Like, oh, Jeremiah couldn't possibly be in the pit without the knowledge of the king. This must have happened without the king knowing about it, because how could the king have left a prophet to die? And even though we, the reader, knows the king approved of this sentence and he knows exactly where Jeremiah is, his language also acts like he's playing dumb. So it suggests he's like, what? They put him in a cistern? Oh my goodness, that's terrible. Let's go get him out. Like, oh, I knew nothing about this. So here's the second thing we learn. The first thing we learned is expect suffering. Good deeds will sometimes meet with punishment. But the second thing we learn is suffering is not the end of the story. So doing what God thinks is right will sometimes get you in hot water. You may be mocked or reviled or outcast or even physically harmed, but it's not the end of the story. God is at work in our sufferings. As we learn from Peter and James, God has a plan for those sufferings, and those sufferings take us to a place where we want to go. So here we see God at work in the midst of our suffering. He's providing a way out for Jeremiah through a very unexpected source. So sometimes our friends may fail us, but it may be our enemies who rescue us. Or it may just come from a place, our salvation may come from a place we never expected. So there's, you know, kind of expect some nameless heroes. We see Abraham met by an unknown priest named Makilzedek, who was a servant of Yahweh. Daniel saved from the lion's den by an angel. Paul and Silas get released from prison by an earthquake, and of course we see Jesus raising from the dead. Suffering is not the end of the story. There is salvation and redemption. So David says in Psalm 40, I wait, this is one through three, I waited patiently for the Lord, and he inclined to me and heard my cry. He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, and he set my feet upon a rock, making my footsteps firm. Many will see and fear and will trust in the Lord. So the next time you find yourself in a slimy pit, metaphorically, hopefully, first of all, don't be surprised. But second, wait and expect God to save you and look for that unnamed, nameless hero. It may be surprising. I mean, sometimes our problem is we're so disappointed by the suffering or the circumstance that we don't notice the person sitting next to us holding our hand. And they could be that hero in our lives. Or we could be so upset, for instance, that our mother failed us that we take for granted the teacher who loves us like a mother, or so upset that our friend abandoned us that we don't notice that new person who moved in next door who's dying to spend more time with us. So or we can be so disappointed by a boss's criticism that we don't hear the praise of our colleague. And sometimes I think we miss the encouragement, the exhortation, the way out that God is offering us because we expect it to be one way and he's quietly acting in another way. So part of what Jeremiah shows us is that when you're in a pit, you can expect God to act in some one way or another. It may not be what you expect, it may be what you expect, but often it's not. As we learned from Psalm 130 last week, God will act. So our job is to hope and wait and watch. Psalm 135 and 6 says, I will wait for the Lord. My soul waits, and in his word I hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than the watchman for the morning, more than the watchman for the morning. If you think about Jeremiah in the pit waiting for the sun to come up and bring light, it's it's just this powerful image to me of waiting for God to act. And remember our very first lesson in Jeremiah, well, actually, maybe it was our second lesson, where we looked at Jeremiah's call. He was explicitly told to expect this kind of thing, but he was also told that God would act. This is from Jeremiah 1, verses 18 and 19. Now behold, I have made you today as a fortified city and as a pillar of iron and as walls of bronze against which the whole land, uh, as walls of bronze against the whole land, to the kings of Judah, its princes, its priests, and to the people of the land. They will fight against you, but they will not overcome you, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the Lord. So remember, Jeremiah was told when he was called, brace yourself, this is gonna be a hard call, but speak the Lord's word and don't be dismayed. So it's gonna be a bumpy ride, it's not gonna be evil. All the people are gonna oppose you, but they will not overcome you. He says he's made them, God is gonna make him like an impregnable as a fortress or a fortified city. And here we see one, we see that call lived out. So that this is a fulfillment of that prophecy. The officials are trying to kill Jeremiah, but God saved him through an ordinary, unnamed servant. And did you notice all the detail we're given about the extreme care that Abed Melech uses to raise Jeremiah from the pit? So we're we're told in detail about him going to the storeroom basement, finding these rags, telling Jeremiah to put him under his armpits and lifting him out. And if you think about that, he's dying. He's in a pit of mud and we're worried about rope burn. I mean, he's got such bigger problems. Why are we worried about the rope burn? And yet the detail says God is taking care of everything, not just the big, huge, he's about to die of starvation alone in a pit, but even the let me make sure you don't get rope burn. And I think that speaks to the idea that it may look like God has abandoned him, but God has not abandoned him. He's sitting in a pit, and it may look like God is like, oh, what? He's he's given up, he's out of control, Jeremiah's hopeless, and yet God is about to act, he's bringing salvation, and he's bringing it in all these wonderful, tender kind of details. And I think that's often the case. God resolves our trials in ways we least expect through people we may never have noticed, and the timing in a way that we could not have predicted. And yet it's often bigger and better than we imagined. So following Christ may demand more of you than you ever thought you could give. You may suffer unjustly. It may be in a big way, or it may be a little way. It may be, you know, on a public national stage, or it could just be in your family, or in your workplace, or in your neighborhood, or uh, you know, a small group. It may be a big way, it may be a little way. We don't, it could be anything. But being faithful will require you to endure things you didn't think you'd be able to endure. But the promise is the reward is better than you ever imagine. When God acts, it will astonish you, it will overwhelm you. You won't be able to believe his goodness. And when he finally acts in history to put everything right in the end, to complete his work of redemption, it's going to be bigger and better and more glorious than any of us have imagined. So the lessons from this, from Jeremiah in a pit, is expect suffering. Expect that sometimes you will do the right thing and you will get punished for it. That's not a surprise. That is evidence you belong to God. And because you belong to him, there will be hope, redemption, and salvation. He will not abandon you, he will get you out of it. So as the Psalm 30 ended last week, and the encouragement, O Israel, hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him there is plentiful redemption. He will redeem Israel from all his iniquities. I think that's the same hope for Jeremiah. God will act, his love is steadfast, it will never fail, it will never give up, there will be redemption. So, suffering is part of this life, but it is not the end of the story. It is a part of a process that will bring us into our inheritance. Let's pray. Father, thank you that you are a God who loves us enough to rescue us from pits, from pits of our own making, and from pits we stumble into by following you. And I just pray that you would write this hope on our hearts, that in those dark nights when we're tempted to give in to fear and despair, that you would write this faith and hope and waiting into us so that we would know that your rescue is coming, your love is sure, and your plan is great and glorious. And no matter what or how the outcome turns out, that it is all part of the process of making us your children and bringing us into your kingdom. In Jesus' name. Amen.