The Unsung Hero - Rod Butler - 2406

Jesus said in Matthew 28, verse 19, go therefore and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Welcome to go teach all nations, bringing you Christ's teachings through australian and international speakers. And here is today's presenter, Rod Butler. Before we commence our sermon, let's just bow heads. Gracious Father, we thank you, Lord, for the scriptures, for the word of God and Lord, as we open the scriptures today, may the Holy Spirit speak to our hearts. May we be changed, Lord, by the scripture, by those words being driven into our minds, we pray in Jesus name. Amen. Well, the four year old boy's curiosity got the better of him. The 1.8 metre diameter, conical shaped steel cover over the well was finally removed. He was told to keep away from the edge, but being curious, he just had to know what was going on down there. So he crept closer and closer. Only a few feet now, he got down on all fours and he started to crawl to the edge. He got to the edge and then he looked over the edge and he veered. He peered down into the darkness, but he needed to get a better look, so he inched forward even further and he leaned forward again. But this time, his centre of gravity went past the edge of the well. And before he knew it, he went tumbling down into the blackness. Well, there was a worker in the well. And the worker was on his way up on a steel ladder on the side. And this worker heard a scream and instinctively he put out his arm. And the moment he put his arm out, a boy hit his arm and he pulled his arm back in. And that boy's life was miraculously saved, because had he hit the bottom, there was all sorts of equipment on the bottom which would have not been good had he hit it. It was a miracle save. Now, this is the young boy. I've known this story for some time because I was that four year old. I was that curious young boy that had to look down that well. And I was miraculously caught by my father's best mate, Mr. Meekins. Now, Mr. Meekins and my father used to play in the younger days competition. Aussie rules football. And I'm alive today, I believe, because Mr. Meekins was very good at one handed marks. And standing here, I can tell you, I can still remember the feeling of going over the falls. And next thing I know, I'm in someone's embrace. Now, whether my father bought Mr. Meekins a lottery ticket or took him out for dinner or just said thank you, I really don't know. But one thing I do know, that I'm alive today because of Mr. Meekins. And to me, he is an unsung hero. Now, my sermon today is titled unsung hero. And as Maria gave the definition, an unsung hero is someone who does a great deed or deeds, but doesn't get any recognition for doing it or doing them. And my father, as a result of what happened, he then went and filled in that well. He didn't want to take any chances that someone else might fall down that well. Now, many people have died in wells, some on purpose, some by accident. And this morning we're going to examine a story that involves both a well and an unsung hero. And I'm pretty confident you won't have any idea who this unsung hero is. And if you do, can you tell me after the sermon? So turn with me to your bibles. Open your bibles. We're going to be looking at Jeremiah, chapter 38. Jeremiah, chapter 38. And we're going to be reading verses one to six. I'm going to read it from the king James. Jeremiah 38, verses one to six. Then Shapatiah, the son of Matan, and Gadelia, the son of Pasha, and Jukul, the son of Shelamiah, and Pasha the son of Malkiah, heard the words that Jeremiah had spoken unto all the people, saying, thus saith the Lord, he that remaineth in this city shall die by the sword, by the pestilence, by the famine. But he that goeth forth to the Chaldean shall live, for he shall have his life for a prey or a reward, and shall live. Thus saith the lord, this city shall surely be given into the hand of the king of the Babylon's army, which shall take it. Therefore the princes said unto the king, we beseech you, let this man be put to death. For thus he weakeneth the hands of the men of war that remain in the city, and the hands of the people in speaking such words unto them. For this man seeketh not the welfare of the people, but the hurt. Then Zedekiah the king said, behold, he is in your hand, for the king is not he that can do anything against you. Then took they Jeremiah and cast him into the dungeon of Malkiah, the son of Hamelek that was in the court of the prison. And they let down Jeremiah with cords. And in the dungeon there was no water but Maya. So Jeremiah sunk in the Maya. Now, that's just the background to what's going on here. But let's sort of dissect this a bit. We're in the summer of 586 BC, and Jerusalem has now been under siege for about two years, over two years. And the Jews had failed to repent of their lifestyle and they had plenty of warnings, but they had failed to repent and God was going to use Babylon as his instrument of judgement. So the Babylonians, they circled around Jerusalem and put it under siege. And I want you to think about this. It wasn't that long ago when we had lockdowns and people suffered psychological traumas from being locked down for a month or two. You imagine being locked down in the city for years and while you've been locked down, you got no way of escape and people are dying. There would be serious trauma amongst the people. This is serious. But why would they want to put Jeremiah to death? Well, Jeremiah was prophesying that this is judgement and you better give up and you better surrender or you'll die. And of course, this was against the prevailing narrative. And the narrative of the leaders and the religious leaders were that you've got to fight. And the false prophets were saying that if you do fight, we'll be victorious. So they couldn't tolerate someone saying, no, no, you've got to give up, you've got to surrender or you'll all die. So what did they do? They had to silence Jeremiah. He had to be cancelled, as they say today. And there was no free speech back then. Now, the king was Zedddy Kaya at this stage in Zedddkiah's life. He's 31 years old, but he's ruled by the princes. He's a weak character. I just want to go through how he got to be on the throne. Okay. It's now 6923 years earlier, and good King Josiah has been ruling for 31 years. There's been many reforms in Israel and Judah, and things are going great. But good King Josiah has a momentary lapse of judgement and he picks a fight with Neko II of Egypt. And Neko says, no, I've got no quarrel with you. Stand aside. But he doesn't. He takes on the egyptian army and unfortunately for him and Judah, he is killed. And at the time, that was his family tree. There was Elikim, there was Shalom, and there was Mataniah. And Elikim had a son, Jehoiakim. So he's killed. So the 16th king is gone, and by popular demand, Shalom, who became Jehoiahaz, becomes the 17th king. But he had one problem. He was sympathetic, like Josiah, to the Babylonians. Because we're in a period of time where there's a change of the empires. The Assyrians are on the way out, the Babylonians on the way in, and Shalom was backing the Babylonians, but the Egyptians still had control of Palestine. So Neko takes Shalom prisoner and he dies in Egypt and he puts Eliakim on the throne. He becomes the 18th king. And Eliakim wasn't a particularly good king, and he's there for eleven years, but he dies and then he puts his son on the throne. But his son is sympathetic to the Egyptians. But guess who's running the power now? The world is now run by the Babylonians. So Nebuchadnezzar steps in and he takes Jehoykim prisoner and he puts Mataniah, who's later called Zeddddkai, on the throne, and he becomes the last king of Judah, Zedekiah. And the story is now, we're now ten years, eleven years into Zedddkiah's reign. Do you think that the people of Judah had enough warning or notice that they were about to be judged? Do you think they were in any way not aware that their lifestyle was wrong? Well, let's have a look at this. This is the groupings of the prophets of when they had their ministries. And you'll notice some trends here. You've got 722, where Samaria falls and the kingdom of Israel, the northern kingdom, is no more. You look at all the prophets who had something to say to warn them about that. Then you go further on because you've got the southern kingdom still around and you've got all those prophets. And then, of course, in 612, Nineveh falls, and then in 586, Jerusalem and falls, and the kingdom of Judah goes into a wasteland. And then later on, when they come back to rebuild the temple, they needed two more prophets to encourage all the people to rebuild. So they had no excuses for not knowing judgement was coming. There's some powerful prophets in that lot. There's Daniel, there's Ezekiel, there's Jeremiah. And our story today is from Jeremiah had a lot to say. So what was conditions like? What were the conditions like in society back then? Well, in 592, Ezekiel has been given a message to tell the people. And we're told in Ezekiel eight that the priests were worshipping idols. They were worshipping tammers, they had secret sun worship and they were allowing idolatry. So the religious leaders were corrupt. And then in 591, he's given another vision to show what the society is like. And let's look at this. This is eye watering when you see what the society was like in Judah and in Jerusalem at this time. There's murder, there's idolatry, oppression of widows and orphans, extortion, protection rackets, violations of Sabbath, false witness, sexual immorality, framing people, incest, adultery, contract killing and loan, racketeering, theft, deprivation of justice. But it goes on. The jewish leaders, according to this, illegally plotting to confiscate the wealth of the innocent and then in being involved in extortion and murder. These are the religious leaders. Now this is what God showed Ezekiel and then the priesthood. Well, there was no distinction between the holy and the profane in their worship. And they were violating the Sabbath and they were failing to teach the people. So could you say that the people were in any way excused for not knowing that they were doing the wrong thing? No way. I mean, if this was our society today in this area, you would think, well, this is pretty wild. So this is what it was like. Their cup was full unless they immediately changed, judgement was coming. And Jeremiah was told to tell them. And in Jeremiah 25, in verses nine and eleven, he said this, he said this to the people. Now this was in 605. This is now 20 od years before judgement hits. He's told, behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith the Lord and Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land and against the inhabitants thereof, and against all these nations round about, and will utterly destroy them and make them an astonishment and hissing and perpetual desolations. And this whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon 70 years. So the folk here had no excuse. They were doing the wrong thing. They were told about it. They were told, if you don't repent, this is what's going to happen. They didn't repent. The other thing here is this is the condition of God's chosen people. And it highlights the point that God's chosen people or God's remnant church isn't a function of the people that are attending. It's a function of the truths that they have. And this point's brought out really well when Jesus meets the woman at the well, a samaritan woman, and he says to her, ye worship, ye know what? We know what we worship. For salvation is of the Jews. In Jesus'mind, there's no always lead to no, no, salvation is of the Jews. Because the Jews had the oracles of God now, the fact that the Jews were unpleasant people, the priests were similar. They were conniving, they were even murderous. They killed the messiah, but they still had the oracles of God. So why could Zedekiah not stand up to the princes? It says there that. He says, what could I do? Well, he was smart enough to know that the princes ruled the military, and whoever rules the military has the power, and that if he didn't go along, he could be killed also. And they put Jeremiah into a dungeon. Now, when we think of the word dungeon, I don't know about you, but I think of a big room with iron bars and water, sort of comes through a little slot in the doorway. And my food. That's what I think of a dungeon. Well, that's not what the dungeon is. If you go back to the Hebrew, the Hebrew word for dungeon here is the word bo r boar. And it's translated in the English. It's translated pit 42 times, dungeon eleven times, well nine times, and fountain one times. This was a well that was used as a dungeon. So think of a wells can be little, they can be bit bigger. But think of a well. This was a dungeon. And it's interesting, when you go back to the story of Joseph. Where did they put Joseph? They put him in a system, and it's the same Hebrew word, B-O-R boar. The only difference between Joseph's dungeon or his pit or his well was that it was dry on the bottom. But in Jeremiah's well, it was full of mire, it was full of mud. So let's keep reading, because the situation now dramatically changes. Now, when Abimelek, sorry, Ebed Melek, the Ethiopian, one of the eunuchs, which was in the king's house, heard that they had put Jeremiah in the dungeon. The king then sitting in the gate of Benjamin Ebert, Melek went forth out of the king's house and spake to the king. So the story is, there introduced this guy called Ebermelek. We know he's an Ethiopian, we know he's a eunuch. So what does that tell us? Well, ibad melek, firstly, his name means servant of the king. If you remember, Ruth's husband was. Sorry, Naomi's husband was Elimelech, which means God is king. His was slave of the king, or servant of the king. He was an Ethiopian. And the word Ethiopian in the Hebrew is the word kush, K-U-S kush, or kus. And kus in the Hebrew means black. And it's translated into the English and the Old Testament. Ethiopia 19 times, kush eight times and Ethiopians three times. So this guy was a dark skinned gentile, a dark skinned cushite, and he was a eunuch in the royal court. So what would a eunuch be doing in a royal court? We know eunuchs can't have children. They've been surgically altered. But foreign eunuchs were very popular in royal courts because they had no families, they had no allegiances to anyone. There was no dynasty sort of goals for them. They had no loyalties to the military or the aristocracy. They could easily be killed and replaced, and usually they were quite well educated. But there were some downsides. Being a eunuch in a king's court, holding some royal official position, you were easily killed in coups and there would be no repercussion. And also, as a eunuch, you were blemished and you could not attend any services in the temple, even if you did become take on board the jewish faith. So let's talk about the Kushites, because this is important, too, for the story. Cast your mind back now. Noah's ark, where do they go? Well, firstly, we have Japheth went north, Shem went to the Middle east, and ham went to Africa, and down the side of the Red Sea, and there's their children. And you'll see Kush there in that red section in ham, where Africa is. And when you look at that, Kush had a son called Nimrod, and Nimrod travels from kush, by the way, ham was cursed. He goes to Shem, the area of Shem, and Shem was God's line through the Semites, and he starts a city called Babylon in the land of China. So you can sort of see already the influence of the corrupting of the Semites. And, of course, Africa is populated through Kush. Now, why would I say that? Well, here's another blow up of that area. You can see the Nile, and you'll notice on my diagram there, you'll see some little green things on the Nile river. They're called cataracts. What's a cataract? A cataract is a rapid, or where there's boulders where the big flowing river suddenly goes. You can't navigate ships. So when you look at the population of that whole area, up until the first cataract, which is modern day as one that was commonly where Egypt was, but below that, there was another area, and that was the area. There's Egypt, was what they called Nubia. Now, there's a lot of debate on where Nubia comes from. As a name. But a lot of scholars believe Nubia comes from the word nub, which is gold in egyptian, because that was an area where most of the gold was coming from. Precious stones, gold. And that was the region you'd go through. You'd follow the Nile if you wanted to go to Africa. And down the very bottom there, I've got it. There, you'll see a little town called Soba. That's where the white Nile meets the blue Nile, and that's modern day Khartoum. So most of Kush was, in today's term, not Ethiopia, it was actually Sudan. And the kingdom of Kush was from the second category down to around where modern day Khartoum is. I like to do these kind of things. If you superimpose on that map to scale a map of the Northern Territory, you'll see that Alice Springs is roughly around Napata, which was where the capital was. And Alexandria is roughly where Darwin is. And if you've been to the Northern Territory, most of the towns and cities are on the main highway. You go off the main highway and there's nothing there. There's only 500,000 people in the Northern Territory. And like in Egypt, you get off the Nile river, you're in desert, there's not much there. So if you want to think about, in australian terms, Egypt, think of Northern Territory and the Nile river being the main highway from Alice Springs up to Darwin with all the towns on it. It's interesting when you look at the relative size. Well, there's a cataract. There's the first rapids at Aswan. Now, in recent times, last century, they built two dams. There's the upper and the lower Aswan dams. The second cataract's underwater. There's the third cataract, that's in modern day Sudan. And you'll see the Nile gets into areas where you can't navigate ships. And the reason why jip was so strong was because the army could march down the side of the Nile in Egypt. And the navy, with all the provisions, could be on boats. But the cataract stopped the boats. And that was one of the reasons why the Assyrians couldn't get in there and the Babylonians couldn't get in there because they couldn't supply their armies. There's the fourth cataract, now underwater. There's the fifth and the 6th cataract. That's down getting towards Khartoum in Sudan. Now, from Khartoum you've got another 3000 kilometres to the Lake Victoria of the Nile. And you'll see in these egyptian art works, you'll see there's lighter skinned Egyptians and there's darker skinned people. Those darker skinned people are the Nubians or the Kushites. And by the way, the Kushites also had pyramids. There's lots of pyramids in modern day Sudan. Now, the Kushites were also very strong. There was what they call the 25th dynasty. And for 88 years, the Kushites ruled all of Egypt, all the way to the Mediterranean. And one of their kings was Tahaka. And in the Bible, he features, because he's the guy. When Senakrib spokesperson, the assyrian king spokeperson, a guy called Rab Sheikh, was going to Hezekiah, saying, unless you give know, you'll be destroyed. You can't withstand us. We're the Assyrians. If you recall, the story takes this letter and he puts it before the lord in the temple, prays about it. Well, at that time, to put the Assyrians off, God raised up to Harka to send an army north, and he heard about. And he had to break off the siege of Jerusalem, and they were saved. And there's lots of statues of that 25th dynasty, and they're made of black stone because they are black skinned people. Now, it's quite interesting that the Kushites ruled Egypt for 88 years. That's longer than Babylon was an empire. So they were quite powerful. And they were well known as soldiers for their archers. Their archers were extremely accurate and they fought and won many battles based on the strength of their archers. Now, in Genesis 812. Sorry, Genesis, chapter ten, verse 812, we have the story of Nimrod. And then in numbers twelve to one, we have the story of Moses. He gets told off by his family because he married a Kushite woman, Zippora. And then in two chronicles 14, this is 340 years earlier, we have the story where another Nubian, or Kushite, king, he heads north with an army of a million men and chariots. And this is at the time of King Asa. So the Kushites were to the ancient Israelites. They were fearful. They were a fearful people. And here we have Ebed Melek in the court of Zeddkiah. He's a Kushite. Got all the history there. He's obviously clearly intelligent because he's a member of the royal court, but he's working for Zeddkiah. So let's keep reading. This is what he says. My lord the king. These men have done evil in all that they have done to Jeremiah, whom they have cast into the dungeon. And he is like to die for hunger in the place where he is, for there is no more bread in the city. Then the king commanded ibn Melek, the ethiopian, saying, take from thence 30 men with thee. Take up Jeremiah the prophet, and out of the dungeon before he die. Now, just on this point here, the king is in the gate, conducting his business. The gate is a public place. People come and go. He's in a public place. This eunuch has the presence of mind and the conviction to go to the public place where the king's sitting. And he calls out the princes that they've done evil, and by default, the king. Now, normally, that would be what we call career limiting. You could end up without your head doing that kind of thing. But he's there because he believes and knows that Jeremiah is a prophet, and he's there because he wants to do something. He sees the need, and he's got to act. And he does act. He has the courage of his convictions. This is his esther moment. And we know that in Esther 440, it says, who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom of such a time as this? Well, who knows whether God put him there for such a time to save Jeremiah? So Eva Malik took men with him and went into the house of the king under the treasury, and took thence old cast clouts and old rotten rags, and let them down by cause into the dungeon to Jeremiah. So you say to yourself, well, okay, he's got permission now to go and rescue this guy Jeremiah. Why would he get old rags? Well, I don't know about you, but if you've ever been lifted up by a rope, say, under your arms, or it can be quite painful, we don't know how big these ropes were. They could have been little skinny ones, which would have been agonising, or they could have been big ones, I don't know. But he had the presence of mind to know, I've got to do this gently, because he will not be in a good condition. And to get an idea of what sort of condition he would be into, just look at this statement by Josephus. Whereupon, when the king had granted them such permission, they presently came into the prison and took him and let him down with a cord and into a pit full of mire, that he might be suffocated and dive himself. So he stood up to the neck in the mire, which was all about him, and so continued. Now, I don't know about you. Have you ever walked with gumboots in mud? And you walk, and off goes your gumboot because the mud hangs onto it. Can you imagine pulling a man up to his shoulders in mud out of a system? Do you think that would take a bit of force? Do you think those ropes could do some damage if it wasn't done carefully? Well, here's Ibad Melik with the presence of mind to realise this had to be done delicately. He probably hadn't eaten for days. He was probably weak. But also pulling him out of that mud may not be easy. And Ibad Melech the Ethiopian said unto Jeremiah, put now these old cast clouts and rotten rags under thine armholes, under the cords. And Jeremiah did so. So they drew up Jeremiah with cords and took him out of the dungeon, and Jeremiah remained in the court of the prison. So Jeremiah is saved by Ebid Melek, and thus ends Ibad Melek's contribution to biblical history. So I want you to come forward now about 615 years, and we're in Luke ten. And in verse 29, Jesus has an audience with all these scribes and pharisees and these learned people, and he's asked the question, who is my neighbour? And then Jesus tells them the story. And thank you again, Maria, mentioning the good Samaritan. And I'll read this just from verses Luke ten, verse 30 to 35. And Jesus answering said, a certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment and wounded him and departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance there came down a certain priest that way. And when he saw him, he passed on the other side. And likewise the Levite, when he was at that place, came and looked at him and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came whence he was, and when he saw him, had compassion on him, and he went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And then on the morrow, when he departed, he took out two Danari, sorry, two pence, and gave them to the host and said unto him, take care of him, and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I'll repay thee. Now, this story was outrageous to the Jews. This was a Samaritan, a hated, reviled Samaritan, with all the corrupted doctrine that they believed. They had, the idolaters and all that sort of stuff. They were showing mercy where the religious leaders weren't. They would have been very uncomfortable about this story. But when you look at this story, Ibad Melech, is an example of the good Samaritan. Let's just go through it. The victim, well, one was a man from Jerusalem, one was Jeremiah, the prophet. The attackers, well, we had violent robbers and we had four violent princes. The leaders. The first person was a jewish priest. Well, the first person who condemned was really the king. He just turned a blind eye. Then the second person was the Levites. But in Ebet Melik's story, it was the court officials. They executed all the. They put him in the well. And the third person, we have a reviled Samaritan, comes along and a gentile cushite comes along, and these are the ones that do what we should be doing. And the first action was in the good Samaritan risks life stopping and helping. I mean, he could have been taken out by robbers stopping, but he put that aside because what was important was the need in front of him. And in Evit Melek's case, he was given 30 men. If you go back over the story, he's given 30 men. Why was that? Because Zeddakai realised that a lot of people didn't want Jeremiah around. And you better take 30 guys with you, just in case there could be some trouble. So Ebid Melek risked his life saving Jeremiah. So Ebad Melek is an Old Testament version, an unsung hero of the good Samaritan. And then there was a follow up. He took him to the end and paid for his recovery. And Ibad Melek carefully removed him from his well and he went into the court, which was basically, he was under house arrest in the court. But it's much more comfortable. And that answered the question for all time. We have this quote. Thus the question, who is my neighbour? Is forever answered. Christ has shown that our neighbour does not mean merely one of the church or faith to which we belong. It has no reference to race, colour or class distinction. Our neighbour is every person who needs our help. Our neighbour is every soul who is wounded and bruised by the adversary. Our neighbour is everyone who is the property of God. Now, it's interesting today. Today we have the world trying to divide us all up into groups, identity, politics, you're this, you're that. And of course, those groups then have friction. It shouldn't be in the church. In the church, it doesn't matter who you are, where you come from, where your class is, what your colour is, we are all brothers and sisters in Christ, which is against what the prevailing narrative is today. So we have to remember that. Paul says, I want to know nothing about you. Save Jesus Christ. Well, on Tuesday, three days before Jesus faced the cross, he had a big day. He was hounded by the scribes and pharisees, and with tears in his voice, he calls them out. And in chapter three, he calls out the religious leaders as hypocrites, as blind guides and fools, as white, as sepulchres, and as I like this one, a generation of vipers. When have you called someone recently a snake? And Matthew 23, verse 38, says he then left the temple and said, behold, your house is left unto you, desolate. Then in chapter 24, he goes up onto the mount of olives with his disciples. And it's getting dusk, the sun's going down. And he goes through all the signs and conditions of the last days and the signs of the second coming before Jesus. Then in chapter 25, it's now evening, he tells the parable of the ten virgins. He then tells the parable of the merchant visiting a far country. Then he tells the parable of the separation of the sheep and the goats at the second coming and the characteristics of the sheep and goats. Then in Matthew 25, in verses 30 onwards, which was our scripture reading, and thank you, Natalie, for reading so well. We have the characteristics of those sheep, those people before Christ returns the last day, people taken to heaven, represented by the sheep. They've developed characters so fine tuned to helping and caring for others, they don't even realise they're doing it. If you help someone, do you think, wow, I did a good thing today, or do you just carry on as if that's just life? Well, last day people, they are an army of unsung heroes. And that being those unsung heroes gives them the opportunity to open the door for people to say, why are you doing this? And you can tell them about the God you worship, that Jesus is coming back. Now, we said the definition of unsung hero is someone who does great deeds or a deed, but receives little or no recognition for doing it or doing them. Did Ebit Melek receive a reward? Well, there's no specific Bible reference that he got any sort of commendation or, good on you, ib melek, we've saved the prophet. No, the story just ends. But in chapter 52, we have this really, really interesting clue to what could have happened and what does happen. In chapter 52, we have the details of the fall of Jerusalem, and it's terrible. The city was set on fire, the temple burnt, the walls were broken down. The remaining living citizens who didn't get killed were taken captive. And Zeddakaya, the king, and his family were also killed. But then in chapter 52, verses 24 and 25, we have these really interesting verses. And the captain of the guard took Zaraiah, the chief priest, and Zephaniah, the second priest, and the three keepers of the door. These are temple officials. He also took out of the city an eunuch who which had charge of the men of war, and seven men of them that were near the king's person. So he's taken the government officials. One was a eunuch and the principal scribe of the host, that's the, I guess, the secretary of the army, the guy who's running the army, who mustered the people of the land, and three score citizens that were found in the midst of the city. Then in verse 27, it says how they were taken to see Nebuchadnezzar, and he smote them all. So it reads like Zedddkai's government and officials were all killed. So was it all over for Ibad Melek, our unsung hero? In two chronicles 16, verse nine, it says, for the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show himself strong in behalf of them whose heart is perfect towards him. If we turn to Jeremiah 39, so if you get your bibles, if you still got your finger in chapter 38, turn to chapter 39. We're going to be reading from verse 15 to 18, Jeremiah 30 915 to 18. Now, the word of the lord came unto Jeremiah while he was shut up in the court of the prison, saying, go and speak to Ebert Melek the Ethiopian, saying, thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of heaven. Behold, I'll bring my words upon this city for evil and not for good, and they shall be accomplished in that day before thee. But I will deliver thee in that day, saith the Lord. And thou shalt not be given into the hand of the men of whom thou art afraid. For I will surely deliver thee, and thou shalt not fall by the sword, but thy life shall be a prey or a reward unto thee, because thou hast put thy trust in me, saith the Lord. So Ibad Melek did get his reward. He wasn't killed, and he was terrified that he would be said he was afraid. So what can I learn from this story of Ibad Melek, this unsung hero just buried away in Jeremiah? What can I learn? Well, here's my takeaways for me from this story. Where I am placed can provide unique opportunities to serve God and his people. Now, where I am and where you are are different. There are people that only you can reach that I could never. We each have been placed in certain positions for God to use to reach certain people. And even Melek, a black skinned eunuch gentile cushite, was put in the court of Zeddkiah to save Jeremiah. So don't ever, you know, I'm disadvantaged. Doesn't matter. Wherever you are, God's got a purpose. I should act immediately when I see someone in need. If I see someone in need, it's not good to pontificate. I might do something. You might help them. Just do it. Just go for it. Help them. If Ibert Melek had have sort of taken that attitude, I think Jeremiah would have just died in the well, he acted immediately. When I see a person in need, I can trust God to direct me. Now, Ibad Melek, he did something very courageous. He obviously had faith in God through the prophet Jeremiah. So he put that faith in God and he went and confronted the king. Now that takes a lot of courage, because that person can kill you. So when you see a person in need, you just trust that God's going to direct you. And he will. I must act with courage of my convictions. You can't judge the heart. But if you see someone in need, and it's obvious, just go with your convictions and try and help. And if they sort of say you're a space invader, go away. Okay. But usually people respond to help. And sometimes people are too proud to ask for help, and you can see them floundering. So just step in and offer help. If you see there's a need there, just do it. I should seek the cooperation of others to help those in need? Well, sometimes you'll see situations, and it may be beyond your capacity by yourself. But you know, people who are God fearing, who also have the same conviction, go seek them out collectively. Help the people or that person. Now, it's interesting. Eban Malik, he couldn't pull Jeremiah out by himself. Of those 30 guys who were sent to protect them in case the princes wanted to get involved again, I'm sure of those 30 soldiers, there's quite a few of them probably were pulling. So Ebid Malik needed help to save Jeremiah. And sometimes we need help to address a person's need. So just ask those people, can you help us? We've got to solve someone's problem. They're in trouble. I can achieve great things for God with simple resources. And in Iber Melek's case, he had old rags and cords. Well, if we see a need, don't wait around thinking you might need some sophisticated, I don't know, whatever it is, if you've got something that can solve the problem, just grab it and do it. The goal is to help them. The goal is to help people. And finally, my joy is to see people now helped. My reward will be in heaven. When you help people, you don't do it for monetary gain or any sort of pat on the back. You do it because that person needs help. The last day, people represented by the sheep in that parable that are separated from the goats, they're so fine tuned that every act they do is to help people and it's what they love doing. They're not even aware they're doing something marvellous because their character is set and is imitating what Christ did. I want to just close with this story. Voyager one is a spacecraft. Now, there's a connection here, so don't panic. Launched in 1977 with the initial purpose of studying the outer solar system. After it left Saturn, travelling at 64,000 kilometres an hour, which, by the way, is more than 20 times the fastest rifle bullet, and fulfilling its primary mission, it ventured out into the solar system. That is the voyage of spacecraft. Astronomer and atheist Carl Sagan persuaded the flight team to turn the camera around where it come from and capture one last image of Earth. Now, that's the picture that was taken. Okay, you say to. So what are those bands of colour? Well, those bands of colour, unfortunately, were just light flares in the lens of the camera. But this is a photograph. It's the famous pale blue dot photograph. It was taken on February 14, 1990, nearly 34 years ago, and it was taken 6 billion kilometres away from Earth. Now, by the way, Voyager one is still travelling. It's currently 24 billion kilometres away. It's now left our solar system. That's the pale blue dot photograph. You say, big deal. What's that mean? Well, unfortunately, on the screen there, it's not the best resolution, but there's a pale blue dot there and I'm going to circle it. It's right there. That pale blue dot, which is in the original photograph, was less than one pixel. That was Earth. And Carl Sagan then wrote a book. In 1994, he wrote a book called the Pale Blue Dot. And I'll just read this quote from it because it's interesting. Carl Sagan, astronomer and absolute rabid atheist. But this is what he says. Consider again that dot that's here, that's home, that's us. Honour everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you've ever heard of, every human being who ever was lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering. Thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. And then he goes on to say, our posturings, our imagined self importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. That last bits where he got it all wrong, how do we know that? Well, because Ephesians one four says, according as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame. Before him, in love, our world fell down a pit and was mired in the sin, the mud of sin. And our world was helpless to get out by itself. We have romans five, verses eight to ten. But God commanded his love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us much more. Then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if we which were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. So there is hope for all of us. Before we were even created, God had in place a rescue plan. Now the world was doomed to die. But Jesus stepped up, and what he did on the cross gave authority back to him. Matthew 28, verse 18. All power and authority is given unto Jesus. He has taken the planet back over. So how do I respond to such love? Well, I submit to Jesus. And when I do, I'm changed. And the more I'm changed, the more the moat in my eye gets removed a bit. And I start to see more clearly the needs that are around me. Many years ago, I had a friend of mine say to me, mate, you're like a brother to me. But he said, boy, you've got no feelings. And he said that because he was having all sorts of problems and I was oblivious to it. I was off riding motorbikes and doing all the things you do, and he was struggling. But the more we focus on Christ, the blinkers come off. We can sort of start to see needs and we need to act. And we need to see needs in people that aren't just the people we hang out with. We need to see people who may be of other religions, of other ethnicities, other cultures. And with Christ in my heart, I can see the need and I can help. Now people will listen to us when they perceive that we care for them. These days, there's so many gimmicks and scammers. There's always, what's the catch? What's the catch? Well, if you are helping people unselfishly, people think, this person really does care for me. You don't have to do any witnessing. They start asking you questions, why are you doing this? What do you guys believe? So this is also the entering wedge of outreach, and that is meeting people's needs and helping because people respond to that. When they know you care, they will listen to you. I want you to think about your relationship to Jesus. If you've already submitted to Jesus, that's good. But if you've wandered away, then as we sing resubmit to Jesus today, and if you've never given your heart to Jesus, give your heart to him today. Think what he's done and what he can do in your life. This message was made available by the Dora Creek Seventh-day Adventist church. For more resources like this, visit Doracreek.church. It's been a pleasure bringing you this program today, here on 3ABN Australia Radio.