God's Suffering Servant

by Toms, A. F. | Category: Gems From Jeremiah | Nov 1991

What would you do with old rags and worn out clothes? Most people would throw them away as useless, but Ebed-melech the Ethiopian found a use for them. The story of how he made use of such material is found in chapter 38 of the book of Jeremiah.

Jeremiah was cast into a dungeon by the princes of Judah, and he sank in the mire to the bottom of the dungeon. The princes wanted to put him to death because God's message which he had been speaking was not acceptable to them. There is little doubt that he would have died in that miry pit had God not intervened and sent Ebed-melech the kind Ethiopian to his help. Ebed-melech went boldly to the king and told him of Jeremiah's plight and received his permission and the help of thirty men to lift the prophet out of the dungeon. It is the way that he went about the rescue that is appealing. The matter was urgent, and he might well have reasoned that the only thing that mattered was to haul Jeremiah out of that pit as quickly as possible, regardless of how painful it might be for him. Ebed-melech, however, was a kindly man who had a careful thought for others, and snatching up some old rags and worn out clothes he took them with him. When he reached the pit he lowered them down to Jeremiah telling him to put them under his arms to pad the ropes, and so the dear man was lifted out of

his prison with the minimum of discomfort.

Thank God for Ebed-melech and his old rags. We should always feel thankful that God has included details like this in His holy Word, for there is a lesson for us to learn from them. "Be ye kind one to another", the scripture says (Eph. 4:32). It is a lovely thing when Christians go Out of their way to show such kindnesses, not only to fellow Christians, but to all persons who touch their lives. There is surely no more effective way of presenting Christ to a world lost in sin than by such little acts of kindness. "Actions speak louder than words" someone has said, and very often they do.

The foregoing comments are, however, by way of introduction for the main purpose in drawing attention to this episode in Jeremiah's life is to show how typical he was of the Lord Jesus as God's suffering Servant. There are so many similarities between Jeremiah and the Lord Jesus. Both could be described as "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief' (Is. 53:3). Both of them wept over Jerusalem because of the unwillingness of the people to hear God's Word. It was written of the Lord Jesus that "He came unto His own, and they that were His own received Him not" (John 1:11), and the same was true of Jeremiah. Both of them were rejected, and both suffered at the hands of men. Jeremiah was beaten before being cast into prison, and we are reminded how the Lord Jesus was stripped and beaten and eventually led out to Calvary.

By nature Jeremiah was a very sensitive man, and not one to whom public speaking came easily. When God called him he said, "I cannot speak: for I am a child" (1:6). He was not the sort of man that one would have expected God to call to such a hard task, but God strengthened him specially for it: In fact God said to him:

Behold, I have made thee this day a fenced city, and an iron pillar, and brasen walls, against the whole land (1:18).

For over forty years he stood boldly for God against princes, prophets, priests and the people, and he never wavered. How like the Lord Jesus he was in all this. Psalm 80 refers to the Lord as "the Son of Man whom Thou madest strong for Thyself" (v.17). There is no doubt God intends that when we read about Jeremiah we should be reminded of the Lord Jesus as God's suffering Servant.

Psalm 69 is a Messianic psalm, and we all think of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus when we read its words:

Save Me, 0 God; for the waters are come in unto My soul. I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I 'am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow Me (vv 1,2).

Deliver Me out of the mire, and let Me not sink: let Me be delivered from them that hate Me, and out of the deep waters (v.14).

When we link these words with those of Jeremiah chapter 38, and think about God's servant sinking in the mire in that deep dungeon, we can see how vividly he portrays the Lord Jesus as the suffering Servant:

Jeremiah had been called to suffer as well as to serve, and so were all God's servants. God said about Saul of Tarsus the day he was saved on the road to Damascus, "I will shew him how many things he must suffer for My name's sake" (Acts 9:16). But he was no exception, great servant though he was. The early Christians were all called to suffer. To the Philippians Paul wrote:

Because to you it hath been granted in the behalf ~ Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer in His behalf (Phil. 1:29).

We leave the thought with you for your meditation that if we are going to follow where Christ leads the way, there will be suffering involve~ The Saviour said:

If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily, and follow Me (Luke 9:23).

Can you think of taking up a cross without some measure of suffering?

But the pathway of suffering brings its own compensations, for the Master went on to say:

Whosoever would save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for My sake, the same shall save it (Luke 9:24).

He stated a principle in those words which He repeated on a number of occasions. If we are willing to lose for His sake, we will gain in the life to come. So by faith we look ahead to another day that is coming when suffering will give place to glory. We shall be so glad in that day that we joined the ranks pf those who follow a suffering Master, and that we have not shrunk from taking our cross and following Him.

Measure thy life by loss instead of gain, Not by the wine drunk, but by the wine poured forth; For love's strength standeth in love's sacrifice, And whoso suffers most, hath most to give.

Toms, A. F. | Nov 1991
Gems From Jeremiah