Ropes and Rags (Part 2 of 2)

Bob Lepine: When you see someone in need, are you inclined to intervene or maybe cast judgment? How did this happen to that bad person? Or do you leave their plight to someone you deem better equipped to help them? Today on Truth For Life, Alistair Begg challenges us to learn from the example of a bold, compassionate servant. We're looking at chapter 38 in the Old Testament book of Jeremiah.
Alistair Begg: Now having described then the condition of Jeremiah, let me just encourage you to think for a moment about the way in which we see these characteristics of this lovely Ebed-Melech man being given to us. First and straightforwardly, witness his boldness. It would have been one thing for him to hold a conviction to himself, perhaps even to have tried to send a note somehow to the king, to do it in a discreet way, to wait until the king returned to his palace, to catch him in a corridor to say behind a cough, "Excuse me, I just wondered if I might speak to you about Jeremiah sometime? If we could maybe get together and perhaps..." No, he takes himself out of the palace, he goes to the place of judgment, he goes directly to the king, he goes publicly to the king. Witness his boldness. Witness secondly his sense of moral outrage. He went out of the palace and he said to him, "My lord the king, these men have acted wickedly." In other words, this man possessed a sense of moral rectitude. He understood that right was right and wrong was wrong, and that what had taken place in this moment was so clearly wrong that someone had to stand up and say so. All that it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to remain silent. And they remained silent. Out of the wings comes this lovely, gentle, courageous, powerful, dramatic Ethiopian. For him to proceed in such a fashion was to bring himself into the place of disrepute. It certainly was to bring himself into the place of danger. I think the way in which we have this described for us is in order that we might understand that he was not acting on the basis of some random impulse, that all of a sudden his heart ran away with him, that he had a passionate outburst and shouted out or did something. He stands there purposefully, and it is a premeditated act. Witness his boldness, witness his sense of moral outrage, and witness thirdly his resourcefulness. Notice how easily the king is won over again in verse 10. What a vacillating character this man is. Yet in the providence of God, in order that his purposes may be fulfilled, he speaks to the king. So the king says, "Well, in that case, take 30 men from here with you and lift Jeremiah the prophet out of the cistern before he dies." There's something of Nehemiah about this next move. As soon as the signal was given, as soon as the light went to green, Nehemiah revealed his leadership capacities, his purposefulness, and his resourcefulness. So does this man, at least to some extent. That's why, as you follow him, you find him taking the men with him and they're going to a room under the treasury in the palace. He must have said to the men, "Come with me." No big fuss, no bother. They were assigned to him and they followed him. "Where are we going?" they must have said to one another. "Well, he's taking us down to the palace treasury." "Why are we going down there? And why are we going in the basement?" Into the basement he goes, and out of the basement he comes. He's carrying with him a bunch of old rags and old clothes that he has gathered from underneath the temple treasury. The group of 30 are looking at one another and saying, "What in the world is he going to be doing with these things?" He says, "Come on men, let's keep moving. We have places to go. We have people to see." Along with the old rags and the old clothes, he brings with him the rope that is going to be necessary for the liberation of the prophet. Witness his boldness, witness his sense of moral outrage, witness his resourcefulness, and witness fourthly his tenderness and his compassion. So Ebed-Melech took these men, and he took these worn-out clothes and the ropes. Whether they had to bring Jeremiah out directly was not in question. But consider the thoughtfulness and the gentleness of this man as he calls down the instructions to the beleaguered prophet. "Jeremiah." "Yes." "We're going to let down a rope to you, Jeremiah." "Thank you." "Jeremiah, we're going to throw some stuff down on top of the rope. A bunch of old clothes and rags. Don't be put off by this. Don't let them hit you on the head, but they'll be coming down just directly afterwards. Have you got them all?" "Yes." "Then Jeremiah, we don't want to scar you and burn you because we're going to have to pull you out of this mud. It's imperative that we get you out. You mustn't die. We daren't allow you to suffocate. Take the rags that I've thrown down to you and wrap them around the ropes so that when you put them under your armpits, they will act as a buffer against your skin. And when you're ready, let me know, and then we'll start to pull." Don't you like this man already? This Ebed-Melech, this nobody man? Indeed, the name Ebed-Melech may not even be a name. It is possible that it simply translates "one of the king's servants." He doesn't even have a name. You remember it's said of Jesus that he made himself of no reputation. So with the king's permission and with the help of these others, Ebed-Melech hauls the aging prophet out of the cistern and into the safety of the courtyard of the guard. What a scene that must have been. Jeremiah, after all these years of giving himself to the task of proclaiming the word of the Lord, speaking, "Thus says God to you. Leave the city, get on with the Babylonians. It's your only hope of life. Take your children and flee." Then on the receiving end of the charge of traitor. How wrong was that? How immoral was such an allegation? How wrong was it for him to end up in this predicament? Now for him to be hauled out with all the mud coming off his cloak and off his sandals and all of the stench of the rotting cistern. Here these ropes and rags are preventing him from the burning, searing pain that could have been attached if someone less compassionate, less resourceful, and less thoughtful had gone to do the necessary task. Then let me conclude in this way. First of all, do you not see that here there is a challenge that needs to be faced? It's the challenge that is presented to us by this man. It is this: let us learn to be courageous when necessity requires it. If Ebed-Melech had said, "It'll never happen," he could have talked himself out of this. Between the time that he heard the news, processed the information, and adopted a strategy in his mind, if he had simply said, "It's not really possible to pull this off," then he could have said, "Well, there's really no point in making a fuss." Calvin says in a quite wonderful reference to this, "Those who are over-wise are often led, as it were, into inertness." Those who are over-wise are often led into inertness. That's incidentally why many churches go nowhere because the leadership is so over-wise. They think in such logical terms all the time. They are totally paralyzed when it comes to boldness, or to courage, or to faith, or to growth, or to liberation. You find congregations that have actually just remained static and inert and they're going nowhere at all. We have considered the possibilities and have concluded that it is a bad use of resources. We have considered that it may be possible under some circumstances, but we don't believe that now is the time to take these kind of outlandish steps. If this man had figured it in that way at all, there would be no wonderful Old Testament cameo for us to consider in this evening hour. He could have said to himself, "If the king has given in to the fury of these nobles, what's the point in me trying? If I go and stir up a fuss, the next thing I'll know, we'll have a riot. I'll die, and in the meantime, they'll probably stone Jeremiah and get him out of the way for good. I don't think I'll do it." How abundant are the excuses that you and I contrive, determining them to be the products of our logic. But in this man's case, as Kidner puts it, love spoke louder than logic and prevailed. I love that. I'd like to write one line like that before I die: "Love spoke louder than logic and prevailed." So then let us face the challenge that this man provides for us. It is a challenge to proceed on our course, to fulfill our duty, to allow no one and nothing to divert us from the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Will you take up this challenge in the context to which you return tomorrow? Will you give yourself to Christ afresh and tell him that you're prepared to be resourceful and bold, that you long to be useful, that you will not allow yourself to sidestep the issues under the contrivances of logical thinking? You certainly will not put it in opposition to the demands of love and duty. So there's the challenge, and what of the example then to follow? It is clear, is it not, that there is an example to follow. It is an example which combines firmness with compassion. It's an example which is able to use the ropes as they are necessary, but at the same time ensuring that we do not do so without the rags which are equally necessary. Surely Jeremiah would have been justified in intervening with a measure of roughness. It would have been regarded as the evidence of concern. "Jeremiah!" "Yes." "Grab this!" "Ow! You dislocated my shoulders. You pulled my arms out of their sockets. Thanks for getting me out, but I'll never be the same again. Could you have gone a little slower?" "Oh, we had to get you out. Had to get you out!" It would have been justified. People would have said, "It's a shame that Jeremiah walks around like that now, but at least he got him out. If he had stayed, he would have suffocated in the mud or he would have starved to death." Some of us are good with ropes. We are all kinds of ropes. We're by nature rough. We'll yank them out. "They should never have been in there in the first place. Get out of there! Grab a hold of this and get out. It's your own fault. Come out of there! Why did you say that? Why did you do that? Why did you go there? Come on now, I'm dropping the rope. Pull on, hold on." And what if your hands burn? What if it leaves you with marks under your armpits? Just get up and get out. Some of us are good with ropes. Certainly to have dropped down the rags alone would have been absolutely useless in terms of getting him out. What would he have done? He could have used them to, I suppose, wipe some of the mud off the lower part of his body. He could have used them to blow his nose. He could have used them to wipe his brow under the heat of the day as it came to him. But the rags alone would provide no opportunity for evacuation from his sorry predicament. Some of us are very good with rags. Very good with rags. But we want always just to leave people where they are. "There, there now. You're okay now. You'll be fine now." And there's no change. There's no move. There's no liberation. It all sounds very kind. The words are nice and the gestures are meaningful, but there is no evacuation. Hence the combination, hence the example: the ropes with the rags. Do you know the first word that comes on the list in 2 Peter 1 when Peter says, "I want you to add to your faith these things"? What's the first word? Goodness. That's the first word. Goodness. Right in the heart of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5: goodness. Titus chapter 2, in the wonderful section that begins at verse 9 where it says, "The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions," and so on, and it finishes with the phrase, "and to make a people who are eager to do good." Galatians chapter 6: "Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently." Gently. Oh yeah, we're going to need the ropes because he's got to be pulled out. But we'll need the rags so as not to harm him. Isn't that what Paul says to the Thessalonians? "And we as the apostles of Christ were gentle among you the way a mother is kind to her kids." Fundamentalism in evangelical Christianity is masterful with ropes. We are all kinds of ropes. We're missing some of the rags. Liberalism has made a Christianity of rags and has no ropes. So there's a challenge to face, there's an example to follow, and finally, I think there's a glimpse here to ponder. A glimpse to ponder because I don't think it is possible to look into the description of this Ebed-Melech, to spend a moment or two in his company as we've done, without it giving us a glimpse of Jesus. For the law came by Moses, and grace and truth came by Jesus. You see, Jeremiah needed a friend. From the company of those most considered possibilities, no one emerges. From the servant quarters, God stirs from heaven and moves such an unlikely man to fulfill such an amazing purpose. He gives me a glimpse of Jesus. I've found a friend, oh such a friend. He loved me ere I knew him. He drew me with the cords of love, and thus he bound me to him. And round my heart so closely twined these ties that naught can sever. For I am his and he is mine forever and forever. If Ebed-Melech had lived in our day, having gone through the privileged experience described here 600 years B.C., I'm sure that when he walked along the corridor of his palace back to his job and he heard the music, he'd be saying, "Yes," as it goes, "And you just might have a problem that we understand. We all need somebody to lean on. Oh yes, you might have a problem." "That's right, Lord. Yes, we do. And you help me get old Jeremiah, old muddy old Jeremiah. We got him up, Lord. Yes, we did. Yes, we did." He gives me a glimpse of Jesus. In tenderness, he sought me, weary and sick with sin, and on his shoulders brought me back to his fold again. Oh, the love that sought me. Oh, the blood that bought me. Oh, the grace that brought me to his fold. Wondrous grace that brought me to his fold. Ebed-Melech: an Old Testament cameo, ropes and rags.
Bob Lepine: You're listening to Alistair Begg on Truth For Life. He'll return in just a minute to close today's program. Here at Truth For Life, we love hearing from listeners about how the ministry has been a blessing in your life, whether it's about the program or some of the resources we offer. Here's what a few of your fellow listeners have had to say recently. Cynthia wrote and said, "I really appreciate the ministry and how God is using Alistair to help us keep our eyes on the Lord." Patrick said, "So very grateful to God for Alistair and for Truth For Life. Your ministry has been a blessing to me for almost a decade." We have millions of listeners around the globe. People like Cynthia and Patrick who are learning from Alistair's teaching and growing in their faith. It's all because of the monthly giving we receive from our Truth Partner team to help cover the production and the worldwide distribution of this program. You make it possible. Truth For Life is entirely listener-funded, but many of our listeners aren't in a position to help fund the ministry. So if you've been listening for a while, benefiting from Alistair's teaching, will you help pay it forward? Become one of our Truth Partners today. You can visit truthforlife.org/truthpartner or call us at 888-588-7884. One of our customer service reps will be happy to help you sign up. When you do, be sure to request the two-book bundle. Two books from Puritan author and minister John Flavel. This is just one of the ways we will say thank you for your support. The books are titled *Christ and His Threefold Office* and *Christ Humbled, Yet Exalted*. Now here is Alistair with a closing prayer.
Alistair Begg: Father, bring your word, we pray, to bear upon our lives as individuals. Some of us are actually in miry clay on account of the fact that we have never, ever considered what it means that Jesus came to rescue us. We need to cry out to you so that you might put our feet upon a rock and establish our going and put a new song in our hearts. Some of us, Lord, have been standing on the rock and bemoaning how many people are down in the mud. We find it easier to chastise them for their predicament than we do ever to seek to intervene in their circumstances. Forgive us our hard, stony, cold hearts. Some of us, Lord, tonight have been so graciously removed from dire predicaments as a result of the intervention of people like Ebed-Melech, and we bless you for them and we thank you for their memory. We pray that inasmuch as he is a challenge to us, that we may face the challenge. Insofar as he is an example for us, that we might follow the example. To the extent that he gives us a glimpse of Christ, we pray that we may seek him with all of our hearts. For us as a congregation, we pray that you will take a study such as this and burn it into our lives in such a way that we might become by your grace and favor a place that is known for the ropes of truth and the rags of grace. So that unbelieving men and women, those who struggle on the seas of life, the lonely and the wretched, the downtrodden, the disappointed, those who live with the symptoms of sin may be drawn into the fold of Christ. So that they may come to say, "He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock that shadows a dry thirsty land. He hideth my life in the depths of his love and covers me there with his hand, and he covers me there with his hand." For Jesus' sake, amen.
Bob Lepine: I'm Bob Lepine. Thanks for joining us this week. Next week, we begin a study of the apocalyptic visions found in the Old Testament book of Daniel. We'll hear warnings and encouragement as we interpret these prophetic passages together. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth For Life, where the learning is for living.