INTRODUCTION
All
of us here are ordinary people. We’re not famous. We haven’t done anything
spectacular. After we are gone, few will remember us except for those who have
loved us, among our family and friends. And someday we’ll be forgotten.
It
is comforting to know that God uses ordinary people like us.
I
have been reading a book by Francis Collins, a superstar scientist who is also
a follower of Jesus. I found the book encouraging because if someone so
brilliant and knowledgeable as Francis Collins is a man of faith, it helps me
know that faith in Christ is credible.
I
thank God for the famous believers, but I like to see ordinary people also do
extraordinary things for God. Some of my heroes in the Bible are people you may
never have heard of. They are what people used to call “unsung heroes.”
One
of the ordinary people in the Bible who did something extraordinary is the
little Israelite slave girl who told her Syrian mistress about the God of
Israel, and something important came of it (2 Kings 5). Another ordinary person
who is honored in the Bible is Onesiphorus, who came to St. Paul and served him
in prison (2 Timothy 1:16f). Another is Epaphras, who St. Paul praised as a
mighty wrestler in prayer (Colossians 4:12).
But
the unsung hero I want to tell you about is Ebed-Melech. You’ve probably never
heard of him. He doesn’t get into the Bible story books or into the Sunday
school lessons, but he is worth remembering because he played an important part
in the history of salvation.
Ebed-Melech
lived about 400 years after the days of King David and about 600 years before
Christ was born.
I.
Before I tell you about Ebed-Melech, I need to tell you something about
Jeremiah, because Ebed-Melech is part of Jeremiah’s story.
A.
Jeremiah is my favorite Old Testament character. I like Jeremiah so much
because Jeremiah is so human. His book tells us about his personality, his
struggles, his disappointments, and his love for his people. In Jeremiah you
don’t just have words and actions, but he shares his heart, using vivid
language.
Did
you ever know someone who just hated his job? Jeremiah was called to a job that
he hated. He had to tell his people about disaster that was surely coming
because of their unfaithfulness to their God, and his people hated him for it.
What God asked him to do broke his heart. In one place exclaims:
O,
that my head were a spring of water
and
my eyes a fountain of tears!
I
would weep day and night
for
the slain of my people (9:1).
That
is why Jeremiah was called “the weeping prophet.” In that way he was much like
our Lord Jesus, who we read was “a Man of Sorrows.” But Jesus wasn’t so
continually sorrowful. Jesus went to parties and enjoyed his friends. Poor
Jeremiah was pretty well isolated because all he had to tell his people was bad
news.
B.
So here is what happened. Jeremiah was called by God—against his wishes—to tell
his nation that God was sending disaster upon them because of their idol
worship and their sins.
Because
his message was so grim, Jeremiah was forbidden to marry or to go to weddings
or funerals or to any house of feasting.
Because
he kept telling people that disaster was coming, he was considered a traitor to
the nation. He was attacked by his own brothers, beaten and put into the stocks
by a priest and false prophet, and imprisoned by the king.
But
some of the princes were still not satisfied. They came to the king and said:
“Let this man be put to death, for he is
weakening the hands of the soldiers who are left in the city and all the
people, by speaking such words to them. for this man is not seeking the welfare
of this people, but their harm.”
Zedekiah,
the king, gave in without protest. He said,
“Behold, he is in your hands; for the king can do nothing against you.”
“So they took Jeremiah and cast him into
the cistern of Malchiah, the king’s son, which was in the court of the guard,
letting Jeremiah down by ropes. And there was no water in the cistern, but only
mire, and Jeremiah sank in the mire.”
We
see how weak-willed King Zedekiah was. He knew what he agreed to was evil, but
he didn’t argue. To be put into a cistern would mean slow, painful death, for Jeremiah’s
enemies meant for him to starve to death down in that miry pit.
II.
That would have ended Jeremiah’s career and aborted his mission except for an
unlikely hero, a man named Ebed-Melech. Ebed-Melech was a nobody, but what he
did was magnificent.
A.
Listen:
When Ebed-Melech the Ethiopian, a eunuch,
who was in the king’s house, heard that they had put Jeremiah into the
cistern—the king was sitting in the Benjamin Gate—Ebed-melech went from the
king’s house and said to the king, “My lord the king, these men have done evil
in all that they did to Jeremiah the prophet by casting him into the cistern;
and he will die there of hunger, for there is no bread left in the city.”
Then the king commanded Ebed-Melech, the
Ethiopian, “Take three men with you from here, and lift Jeremiah the prophet
out of the cistern before he dies.”
So Ebed-Melech took the men with him and
went to the house of the king, to a wardrobe of the storehouse, and took from
there old rags and worn-out clothes, which he let down to Jeremiah in the
cistern by ropes. Then Ebed-Melech the Ethiopian said to Jeremiah, “Put the
rags and clothes between your armpits and the ropes.”
Jeremiah did so. The they drew Jeremiah up
with ropes and lifted him out of the cistern. And Jeremiah remained in the
court of the guard.
B.
Ebed-Melech has been called “The Good Samaritan of the Old Testament.”
Ebed-Melech
was a righteous man. He knew that
Jeremiah was a prophet and a good man. He decided that he couldn’t just stand
by and let Jeremiah die.
And
Ebed-Melech was a courageous man. He
knew he was outnumbered. People more influential than he had persuaded the king
to let Jeremiah be murdered. Sometimes it takes great courage to stand with God
for what is right. He was brave enough to confront the king who had given in to
his officials and let them do this evil thing. Ebed-Melech didn’t know that the
king would change his mind. Maybe he would toss Ebed-Melech into the pit to
keep Jeremiah company. Ebed-Melech also didn’t know what the evil princes might
do to him when they learned he had saved the life of the man they hated.
Ebed-Melech
was a righteous man; he was a courageous man; and he was also a compassionate man. Ebed-Melech could
feel what Jeremiah was experiencing. Ebed-Melech knew that in his weakened
state they couldn’t just throw him a rope and drag him out. They might kill
Jeremiah trying to pull him out of the cistern. So Ebed-Melech collected those
rags, let them down to Jeremiah and instructed him to put them under his arms
so that he could be lifted out without injury.
C.
And God rewarded the Eunuch for his righteousness and courage and kindness.
At
the end of the next chapter we read that God told Jeremiah to go and say to the
Ethiopian: “Thus says the Lord of hosts,
the God of Israel: Behold, I will fulfil my words against this city for evil
and not for good. …But I will deliver you on that day,…and you shall not be
given into the hand of the men of whom you are afraid. For I will surely save
you, and you shall not fall by the sword; but you shall have your life as a
prize of war, because you have put your trust in me, says the Lord.”
Ebed
Melech was a righteous man, a courageous man, a compassionate man, and a man
of faith.
I
wonder whether Ebed-Melech knew the 40th Psalm. It’s supposed to have been
written by King David. If he knew that psalm, he would have realized that he
was doing God’s work. In Psalm 40 we read these words:
I waited patiently for the Lord;
he inclined to me and heard my cry.
He drew me up from the desolate pit,
out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock,
making my steps secure.
He put a new song in my mouth,
a song of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear,
and put their trust in the Lord.
(Psalm 40:1-3)
APPLICATION
I
like to read stories in the Bible insignificant people did splendid things.
Ebed-Melech didn’t get much respect. He had two strikes against him.
He
was not a Jew. He was a foreigner, but somehow he had become one with the
people of God and had learned to love the Lord better than most of those who
were born Jews.
Probably
Ebed-Melech was a slave. Many eunuchs were slaves. Boys were castrated so that
they could never marry or have children. That way they could give their full
attention to their work assignments. Some had responsible jobs, but as eunuchs
they would be looked down upon.
In
Israel no one with such a mutilation could worship at the Temple. So
Ebed-Melech was an outsider. But he served and trusted the Lord, and he is
honored by having his story and his name recorded in the Bible.
Theologians
say that Jeremiah was the greatest of the prophets, because without Jeremiah,
Israel’s faith would have failed because of the disasters that befell the
nation when the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and their Temple and carried
the people off to captivity in Babylon.
Without
Jeremiah’s message the Jews would have blamed God for failing to make good on
his promises. Jeremiah convinced them that it was their wickedness and not
God’s failure that caused the destruction of their nation.
But
if Ebed-Melek had not saved his life, Jeremiah couldn’t have succeeded in his
mission.
Whether
we are important or obscure, if we do what we can, if we serve in whatever way
we are able, we can make a difference. Whether anyone else notices it or
not—and even if we don’t realize the importance of what we did—someday our Lord
will tell us: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
Stories
like this tell us how important it is that we not leave God’s work to the important
and talented people. God has work for each of us. And which of us knows the
difference a faithful action may make?
The
lights were dim and the hospital wing was very quiet. In room 322 a minister
lay dying. Softly there came the sound of someone singing:
No one ever cared for me like Jesus,
There’s no other friend so kind as he;
No one else could take the sin and darkness
from me—
O how much he cared for me!
The
pastor opened his eyes and saw a hospital janitor mopping the floor just
outside his door. As the janitor sang on, the pastor began to nod, slowly in
time with the music—just enough to cause the janitor to see the movement and
come to his bedside.
The
janitor reached for the pastor’s hands, took them in his own, and prayed aloud:
“Lord, put new strength in this man.” Then he went on about his mopping.
From
that moment on, the minister began to recover. Today he’s pastoring again.
Ask
God to show you what you can do for him—and do it. It will probably be something you can do for someone else.
No comments:
Post a Comment