A Secret Meeting With The King

“King Zedekiah sent for Jeremiah the prophet and received him at the third entrance of the temple of the LORD. The king said to Jeremiah, ‘I will ask you a question; hide nothing from me.’ Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, ‘If I tell you, will you not surely put me to death? And if I give you counsel, you will not listen to me.’ Then King Zedekiah swore secretly to Jeremiah, ‘As the LORD lives, who made our souls, I will not put you to death or deliver you into the hand of these men who seek your life.’

“Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, ‘Thus says the LORD, the God of hosts, the God of Israel: If you will surrender to the officials of the king of Babylon, then your life shall be spared, and this city shall not be burned with fire, and you and your house shall live. But if you do not surrender to the officials of the king of Babylon, then this city shall be given into the hand of the Chaldeans, and they shall burn it with fire, and you shall not escape from their hand.’ King Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, ‘I am afraid of the Judeans who have deserted to the Chaldeans, lest I be handed over to them and they deal cruelly with me.’ Jeremiah said, ‘You shall not be given to them. Obey now the voice of the LORD in what I say to you, and it shall be well with you, and your life shall be spared. But if you refuse to surrender, this is the vision which the LORD has shown to me: Behold, all the women left in the house of the king of Judah were being led out to the officials of the king of Babylon and were saying,

“‘Your trusted friends have deceived you

and prevailed against you;

now that your feet are sunk in the mud,

they turn away from you.’

‘All your wives and your sons shall be led out to the Chaldeans, and you yourself shall not escape from their hand, but shall be seized by the king of Babylon, and this city shall be burned with fire.’

“Then Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, ‘Let no one know of these words, and you shall not die. If the officials hear that I have spoken with you and come to you and say to you, “Tell us what you said to the king and what the king said to you; hide nothing from us and we will not put you to death,” then you shall say to them, “I made a humble plea to the king that he would not send me back to the house of Jonathan to die there.”’ Then all the officials came to Jeremiah and asked him, and he answered them as the king had instructed him. So, they stopped speaking with him, for the conversation had not been overheard. And Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard until the day that Jerusalem was taken.”

God called me to preach shortly after I had come to faith in Christ Jesus the Lord. Almost immediately I began preaching in a prison farm in Kaufman, Texas. Later, I preached on the streets of the Marsalis Zoo, in various nursing homes situated in Oak Cliff, and wherever I could find people willing to allow me to speak. Soon after these halcyon days of declaring what God had done in my life, I was invited to leave the church in which I had come to faith. Too many Black people from my parish, the prison farm, were coming to faith and requesting baptism.

Among my responses to this situation was aiding a friend who was starting services in Cedar Hill, Texas. I worked with Ben until he was compelled to focus his energies on another project due to events beyond his control. I knew I just had to preach, and so I rented the gymnasium of the S. Gus Alexander, Jr. Elementary School in Duncanville, which was near our home at that time. I began to visit door-to-door in the area where we were living.

As I visited, one of the first people to respond to my invitation to join in our services was a large man who confessed Christ at the conclusion of the first service conducted in that gymnasium. This gentleman shortly began visiting with me in that neighbourhood, and we had a few people that responded positively to our invitation to join us in our services each a Sunday morning.

One evening, not long after these first hesitant steps into ministry, my friend knocked on my door, insisting that I accompany him on a visit. He was somewhat secretive, clearly hesitant to tell me who we were to visit or where it would be. I rode as he drove a circuitous route into the Oak Cliff section of Dallas. Soon, I was quite lost. At last, we pulled up in front of a luxurious looking house and walked to the door. Ringing the doorbell, two men dressed in dark suits opened the door, glaring at my friend. Despite their dark looks, it was apparent they knew him because they invited us in and immediately began to frisk my friend and myself.