The absence of persecution in the church is a statement to our shame. There is something wrong in the character of the church when it does not evoke any opposition to itself. It means that the church has been found quite acceptable in the same world that is at enmity with God. It is this contradiction that we want to examine in an account from the life of Jeremiah.
Chapter 38 of Jeremiah gives the account of Jeremiah being placed in a muddy cistern, a hole in the ground. Zedekiah was the King of Israel in those days, and in refusing to heed Jeremiah’s warnings, Jerusalem was conquered.
Now Shephatiah the son of Mattan, and Gedaliah the son of Pashur, and Jucal the son of Shelemiah, and Pashur the son of Malchijah heard the words that Jeremiah was speaking to all the people, saying, “Thus says the Lord, ‘He who stays in this city will die by the sword and by famine and by pestilence, but he who goes out to the Chaldeans will live and have his own life as booty and stay alive…This city will certainly be given into the hand of the army of the king of Babylon, and he will capture it’ ”(Jer. 38:1-3).
The prophecy foretold the defeat of Israel, Judah, and the city of Jerusalem. Those who seek to resist such a word are warned that they are going to perish. If we were living at that time, many of us would have considered Jeremiah to be a false prophet. We would have said that he was saying things that were not in the “national interest,” or that he was “giving aid to the enemy,” or “harassing the church.”
It was exactly that indictment that came to Jeremiah, and I suspect may well be the distinguishing certification of God for the true prophet in the last days. In other words, the prophet’s message must necessarily be subversive to the vested interests of men and their traditional notions of God, and what they think is right. The message may well contradict all that they suppose is true about God and His way: “Would God destroy His own city? Would God destroy present-day Israel, having established it in 1948?”
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 this 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” (Jer. 38:4-5).
A king like that who abdicates his own responsibility to make ultimate judgments, particularly about prophets of God, deserves judgment. Nothing has changed. The leaders of this world are very much of the same spirit. They work according to the polls, i.e., “Which way is the wind blowing? What are the people saying? What do they want?” And the answer to those questions is what they will do.
Then they took Jeremiah and cast him into the cistern of Malchijah the king’s son, which was in the court of the guardhouse; and they let Jeremiah down with ropes. Now in the cistern there was no water but only mud, and Jeremiah sank in the mud (Jer. 38:6).
There was no whisper to Jeremiah of, “Hey, this is only temporary. Stick this out for a day or two. We will be back and get you out.” That pit was intended for Jeremiah’s death. There was no food, no water, no light and no warmth. That was to be his end. There was no thought that he was ever to be retrieved. I do not think that Jeremiah was given any encouragement that there would be a future escape from his predicament. He had the full expectation that this was his end. This needs to sink into our spirits. As far as we are concerned, we should have a realistic anticipation that when the end seems to come, that that in fact is the end. Except it pleases the Lord, it will be the end. But if it pleases the Lord, then there is no pit too deep, too remote or too hidden that He cannot find and rescue us from.
The prophet is suffering the consequences of his obedience to God. He could have been saved this fate had he been more decorous and politic, and careful what he said and how he said it. But in the kind of simple obedience that he rendered, “Thus says the Lord, ‘This city is going to be captured….,’ ” he was inviting this kind of reaction. He did not have his own self-interest at heart, but was bringing upon himself the logical response that his statement would make in his obedience to God. Persecution is proportionate to obedience. God does not call us to the things that are trifles, but to obedience in the things that necessarily will antagonize and run across the grain of the world and what men want to hear.
There was no illumination in that cistern. It was not something made for human habitation. At that time, all the water was gone, and there was only mud remaining. Can you imagine going into that mud and ooze? Where do you find a place lay down for some kind of momentary comfort? The mud is in your eyes and teeth and hair. It is absolutely wretched! I think I would rather be shot, maybe even burned at the stake, than be lowered to die from starvation and thirst in a mud hole.
But Ebed-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 (Jer. 38:7).
“Ebed” means “servant” and “Melech” means “king.” He was a black man and the servant to King Zedekiah. He was also a eunuch. In those days, they fixed a man so that he could render service that would not in any way threaten the harem of these nobles and kings. He was a man of lowly circumstances, being black, a eunuch and a servant. Yet this was God’s provision to bring the prophet up out from death. The lowliest social cast-off is the one that God had chosen to be the instrument of Jeremiah’s deliverance.
This episode may well be a picture of the remnant of Israel in the last days; that its last experience is to be cast off and out and thrown into a pit for death. Her dispersal will again be into the nations and into the dungeons of imprisonment in the last days. And God will save them out of those pits, dungeons and confinements by some lowly thing of His choice like, for example, the predominantly Gentile church. There is a place for the despised of the world in the last days’ purposes of God, and it has to do with the final, ultimate salvation and redemption of His people Israel. This is the way of God from all eternity. It is so much the statement of His wisdom. The thing that the world looks upon as foolish and despicable is the thing that He employs for a most glorious use: to save His ancient people out from death.
And Ebed-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 that 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” (Jer. 38:8-9).
As a eunuch, you do not just go to a king and say, “Hey, buddy, can I make a suggestion?” What an effrontery! For this eunuch to even approach the king and to make mention of a prophet, who is in dishonor, was a remarkable act of courage in itself. And he was not even a Hebrew! The lowly and despised have a greater sense for God and righteousness than the supposed people of God who will be looking the other way. Where were the faithful of God who knew that Jeremiah was going to suffer such a fate? Yet here was a man willing to take the risk of aggravating and endangering himself by encountering the king.
read more: http://artkatzministries.org/articles/jeremiah-–-prophet-of-the-last-days/