SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/20/2014
9:10 AM
My Worship Time Focus: God’s Word
Rejected PT-3
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Jeremiah
38:1-13
Message of the
verses: We will be looking at the
third sub-point under this third main point in Warren Wiersbe’s outline in
today’s SD.
“He is in your Hands” (Jeremiah 38:1-13): “1 Now
Shephatiah the son of Mattan, and Gedaliah the son of Pashhur, and Jucal the
son of Shelemiah, and Pashhur the son of Malchijah heard the words that
Jeremiah was speaking to all the people, saying, 2 "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.’ 3 “Thus says the LORD, ’This city will certainly be given into the hand
of the army of the king of Babylon and he will capture it.’" 4 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." 5 So King Zedekiah said, "Behold, he is in your hands; for
the king can do nothing against you." 6 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 into the mud. 7 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; 8 and Ebed-melech went out from the king’s palace and spoke
to the king, saying, 9 “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." 10 Then
the king commanded Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, saying, "Take thirty men
from here under your authority and bring up Jeremiah the prophet from the
cistern before he dies." 11 So Ebed-melech took the men under his
authority and went into the king’s palace to a place beneath the storeroom and
took from there worn-out clothes and worn-out rags and let them down by ropes
into the cistern to Jeremiah. 12 Then Ebed-melech the Ethiopian said to
Jeremiah, "Now put these worn-out clothes and rags under your armpits
under the ropes"; and Jeremiah did so. 13 So they pulled Jeremiah up with
the ropes and lifted him out of the cistern, and Jeremiah stayed in the court
of the guardhouse.”
As we look at this paragraph we can see a great number of
wicked men and two good men, Jeremiah and Ebed-melech.”
Dr. Wiersbe has the following to say about these wicked
men: “Angry because Jeremiah’s words
were hurting the war effort, four of Zedekiah’s officials banded together to
urge the king to kill the prophet. We
know nothing about Shephatiah. If
Gedaliah was the son of the Pashur who
had put Jeremiah in the stocks (20:1-6), he was certainly no friend of Jeremiah
or to the truth. Jucal we met before
(37:3); he may have been related to the guard who arrested Jeremiah (v. 13).” (Now an end note) “For example, eight men named Shelemiah are
found in the OT, so it was a popular name.
Because of this, we can never be sure of family relationships.” “This Pashur must not be confused with the
Pashur mentioned in Jeremiah 20. They
accused Jeremiah of not seeking the welfare of the people, and yet the welfare
of the people was the thing to which he hand dedicated his life!”
We can see the weakness of Zedekiah the king as he did
not oppose his own officials. He could
have had them put to death, but instead he allowed them to try to put Jeremiah
to death as they put him in an old cistern where there hopes were that he would
be forgotten about. However God did not
forget Jeremiah and he raised us Ebed-melech who was an Ethiopian eunuch went
to the king to have Jeremiah rescued from certain death. Now we have written about eunuch’s when we
studied the book of Daniel so we will not go into detail about them here. Dr. Wiersbe writes that he was the Good
Samaritan of the Old Testament.
It was this spineless man who gave this eunuch permission
to rescue Jeremiah and so he took 30 men to help and then pulled him out of the
pit.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I read in Psalm
139 that God has given each of us so many days to live, and even though we don’t
know how many we have we should use them to bring glory to the Lord.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Use today to bring glory to my King.
Memory verses for the
week: Colossians 3:1-2.
1 Therefore if you have
been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is,
seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set
your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Moses” (Numbers 20:11-12).
Today’s Bible
question: “What was it that troubled
Paul so that he prayed earnestly for it s removal?’
Answer in our next SD.
7/20/2014 9:32 AM
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