Jeremiah 38

A Bundle Of Rags

Old cast clouts and old rotten rags. Jeremiah 38:11.

This is an odd text, is it not? what you might call a good-for-nothing text. Well, let us see if we can't find some good even in a bundle of rags.

Do you know the story the story of how Jeremiah escaped from the dungeon? It reads like a chapter in a book of adventure. God makes use of strange people and strange things to serve Him. When He wanted to help Peter to escape from prison He sent an angel to open the doors, but when He wished to rescue Jeremiah He used a black slave and a few old rags. But now for our story.

Jeremiah had displeased the princes of Judah: they did not like his message. So they went to Zedekiah the king and demanded that he should put the prophet to death. Zedekiah was a weak man, but he did not want to put Jeremiah to death, so he gave him up to the princes to do as they would with him.

Now the princes were afraid to kill Jeremiah outright because he was the prophet of God, but they hit upon a much more cruel plan, a plan by which Jeremiah would die slowly but surely. In the court of the guard was a pit or cistern where water was sometimes stored. It was deep, and the entrance was narrow. At that time there was no water in the pit, but the bottom was covered with soft, oozy mud. It would make a splendid dungeon, and there was no hope of escape from it. So they lowered Jeremiah into the cistern and left him to die a slow death from starvation and suffocation.

But help came from an unexpected quarter. Attached to the king's household was a black slave called Ebed-melech, a name which just means “the king's slave.” He was little thought of at court, nevertheless he was a brave man and a faithful friend. Perhaps Jeremiah had been kind to him when everybody else despised him. At any rate he was true to the prophet when other friends deserted him.

Now news came to Ebed-melech of all that the princes had done to Jeremiah, and he went straight to Zedekiah the king and told him all that had happened. The king was really fond of Jeremiah, and when Ebed-melech begged permission to rescue the prophet, he not only gave it but bade him take some men with him to help in the rescue. And now we come to the rags.

Ebed-melech remembered how thin and weak Jeremiah would be after his long fast, so he went first to the royal lumber-room which lay just under the king's treasury, and from thence he took a bundle of rags bits of old garments that had been worn out and cast aside. Then he hurried to the cistern in the

courtyard and lowered the rags into the cistern by means of a rope. He told Jeremiah to slip the rope under his arms and to put a padding of rags between the rope and his armpits so that the cord might not chafe and cut him. Jeremiah obeyed, and then, with a long pull and a strong all together, he was drawn up again into the light of day and the sweet, pure air.

That is the story. But I did not mean to make a sermon about the story. I wanted the rags to speak for themselves, so I must let them get a word in edgeways.

1. Well, I think they tell us first that nothing is “good for nothing.” Everything is of use in the world.

I daresay those rags in the king's lumber-room often lamented the day when they formed part of a royal robe. “Alack, alas!” they would sigh, “what good are we to anyone now, rotting out our existence in this musty, dark old hole?” And yet God had a purpose even for those rags, and never in all the days of their grandeur were they put to such glorious use as when they helped to pull God's servant out of the pit.

Nothing is good for nothing. Old rags, old papers, old iron, old bones all may be chopped up or melted down and turned into something good and useful.

And nobody is good for nothing. It doesn't matter how small you may be, or how humble, God has a place for you to fill and a work for you to do.

2. Secondly, I think these old rags tell us that sometimes humble things are of more use than grand things.

Up above in the treasury were many costly garments and fine jewels, but Ebed-melech passed them all by. They were of no use to him it was the rags he needed.

And the rags did what the jewels couldn't do and what the rope couldn't do. The rope was very strong, but it couldn't help hurting; the jewels were very precious, but they couldn't make a soft cushion. That is what the rags could do.

Do you know the most wonderful plough in the world? It is the humble earthworm. One worm can turn over an acre of land in a year, and if it were not for the worms our soil would become as hard as flint, so that nothing would grow in it. What the bigger and grander creatures can't do the worm does.

Do you know the most wonderful chisel in the world? It is the piddock, or mollusk. Perhaps you have seen its shell on the seashore a little, fragile white shell, not very remarkable and not very beautiful. But that little white shell has changed the geography and the history of Europe. If it were not for the mollusk there would be no Straits of Dover no “silver streak” dividing our land from the continent of Europe; and if you have studied your history you will know what a difference that little streak has made. What has the mollusk to do with it? It has burrowed into the chalk to make a home for itself, and then the sea has washed away the chalk until, at long last, the mollusks have made a passage twenty miles wide between England and France. What the great fishes could not do the tiny mollusk has done.

There is something for the little people to do that the grown-ups can't do. Sometimes I think it is just being happy. God has given the children the special gift of happiness, and I have often heard grown-ups who were feeling worried or sad say, “It does me good to watch the children at their games.” And sometimes I think it is just being loving and kind. For children can love in a special sort of way, and their love makes all the difference in the world to the grown-ups.

You will never be little again, so make good use of your time. Find out what you can do and do it.

3. But lastly I think these rags tell us to be kind kindly. The rope could have pulled Jeremiah up, but it would have hurt him. Ebed-melech thought of the rags, and he took the trouble to find them. Sometimes people spoil all their kind actions by the clumsy, thoughtless way they do them, and they end by doing more harm than good.

There is a fine story told of a kind deed done by Thackeray the novelist, but the best bit of the story is the beautiful way in which the deed was done. One day he went to visit an old lady who was very ill, and he soon saw that the chief cause of her illness was want of food. He thought he would prescribe for her himself, so when he went home he sent her a pill-box.

On the outside was written, “One to be taken when required,” and when the old lady opened the box she found it full of golden sovereigns!

Boys and girls, if you are going to be kind, be kind kindly. It costs a little more trouble, but it is worth it. Don't forget to put the rags on the rope.