My lack of understanding of the term Servant

 Jeremiah 25:8-14

My very first mentor was Jack Archer, and Jack had been a high school all-star and joined the U.S. Coast Guard right out of high school. When his tour of duty was over, he was offered a full Football Scholarship at Texas Christian University, Ft. Worth, Texas, and had an illustrious football career there.  After receiving his degree in Geology, he went to Corpus Christi, Texas, and became quite prominent in the Gas and Oil Industry for many years. While in Corpus Christi he was very active as a Methodist Lay-Witness Minister and did a lot with the youth in the community.  Jack was invited along with a group of prominent men in the Corpus Christi area to the Howard Butts Laity Lodge, and it was that weekend that Jack entered into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  I share this story because Jack was a servant of our Lord; he used both his wealth and his time to share Christ with men like me.  But like all of us Jack was a mess, and each time I was putting him in a place that only God should be, he would pop my bubble with some very worldly act.

So when I think of a servant of the Lord, a list of men pop into my head, and it is because they have entered into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  Jesus came to serve, and not to be served, and these men allowed Jesus to serve through them.

Looking at Jeremiah 25:9, “I am going to send for all the families of the north--this is the LORD's declaration-- 'and send for My servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and I will bring them against this land, against its residents, and against all these surrounding nations, and I will completely destroy them and make them a desolation, a derision, and ruins forever.”   Maybe I have a poor understanding of what it is to be a servant of God? 

Do you recall Nebuchadnezzar making a gold image and requiring all the people to worship at the sound of the music?  They were to bow down and worship the golden image that the king had set up.  Anyone who didn't bow down had signed their death certificate, they were to be killed.  Now we should find this of interest; King Nebuchadnezzar proclaimed God, as the only God after Daniel interprets the dream that all other false prophets had no understanding of.  You will find that in Daniel 2:31-45, and in verse 47, “The king answered and said to Daniel, “Truly, your God is God of gods and Lord of kings, and a revealer of mysteries, for you have been able to reveal this mystery.”  And then we have the fiery furnace and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego telling the King they would not bow to the golden image he had set up, and into the oven, they went.  Can you recall what these men of integrity said to the King?  You will find it in Daniel 3:16-18, and this surprising confession of the King in Daniel 3:26-30, the King called the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego the "Most High God."

After that we find the King proclaiming to all nations and people a statement of faith, and this from an unbeliever, “How great are his signs, how mighty his wonders!  His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion endures from generation to generation.”  (Daniel 4:3) 

You will find that God referred to King Nebuchadnezzar as His servant three times in Jeremiah and later God called King Cyrus of Persia, a servant.  God called both of these Kings as tools or instruments to fulfill His plans.  

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice