This morning, and for the past couple of days, I have been reading about the Prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah was given the task of prophesying to the people of Jerusalem that their city would be handed over to the Babylonians and completely destroyed.
Over a period of time Jeremiah suffered a lot for speaking the word of God. He was falsely accused of being a traitor to the Babylonians and, subsequently, thrown into a vaulted cell in a dungeon. He stayed there for a long time, til King Zedekiah had him taken out. The king allowed Jeremiah to stay in a courtyard and be given bread as long as there was bread in the city.
Soon after that, three men heard what Jeremiah was saying about the soon-to-come destiny of Jerusalem and got really mad. So they went to King Zedekiah and complained, and were given permission to do with Jeremiah whatever they wanted. So they dropped him down into a well that had no water where he sunk into the mud at the bottom and was left to die.
A man named Ebed-Melech learned what had been done to Jeremiah and actually went to the King Zedekiah and spoke up for the prophet. The king told him to go ahead, take some rope and 30 men and for heaven's sake go get Jeremiah out of that well before he starved to death.
So, once again, Jeremiah was rescued.
When the time came for God's word to be fulfilled, city of Jerusalem was truly captured by the Babylonians and burned to the ground. Jeremiah was taken away along with all the other citizens of Jerusalem.
Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon, however, had heard of Jeremiah. Nebuchadnezzar told his people to take Jeremiah out of the general population of Jews that had been captured and to let no harm come to him. So, once again, Jeremiah was rescued, allowed to stay in a courtyard, and was given provisions.
While Jeremiah was in that courtyard, the word of the Lord came to him for Ebed-Melech, the man who had spoken up for Jeremiah and had him rescued from the well.
The end of Jeremiah chapter 39 reads: "While Jeremiah had been confined in the courtyard of the Guard, the word of the Lord came to him: "Go and tell Ebed-Melech the Cushite, 'This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: I am about to fulfill my words against this city through disaster, not prosperity. They will be fulfilled before your eyes. I will rescue you on that day, declares the Lord; you will not be handed over to those you fear. I will save you; you will not fall by the sword but will escape with your life, because you trust in me, declares the Lord.'"
The first thought that came to my mind when I read this was that God did not tell Ebed-Melech what to do, where to go, or by what means he was going to be rescued. God simply said, "I will rescue you because I know you trust Me." So, to be rescued, Ebed-Melech just had to keep doing what he was doing.
Now, if this had been me God was speaking to, I would have started stressing about what I needed to do or where I needed to be or what I needed to make sure to not do, etcetera, etcetera, for God to rescue me and save my life. But the POINT of all this is just that; trusting God.
There's nothing we can do to make a rescue happen or to make salvation happen. God says it, it's going to happen; we just have to trust.
Trust can be scary. Faith in the unseen can feel frightening simply because what we are trusting is something we cannot see. The New Testament says faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen. That almost sounds redundant, doesn't it? But it's the truth. That's a good reason to read the Bible a lot and get it down in our hearts. The Bible shows us God's track record.
Over and over, consistently, God has kept every single one of His promises. If we need further encouragement or assurance, we can simply talk to other Christians who can give us further examples of when God has kept promises to them. God keeps His promises.
God keeps His promises.
God speaks to us today the same promise He said to Ebed-Melech hundreds of years ago: I will rescue you because you trust in me.
GOD KEEPS HIS PROMISES.
God will rescue us from anything life throws at us. Because we trust Him. Please be encouraged today and know that God's love for you is huge and enormous and unsurpassed. He will. He will. He will continue to be the faithful God he has been since the beginning of time; He will continue to keep His word, to you, to me, to everyone.
God's faithfulness has nothing to do with our actions but everything to do with WHO GOD IS. Go today and know that God is with you always, every moment. God will never let you down, and he will never let you go.
Amen.
