5 Aug Jeremiah Urged Hope in God - Lam

PURPOSE: to teach people that to disobey God is to invite disaster, and to show that God suffers when his people suffer.

The book is composed of five poems. It is interesting to note that each line of segment of a poem begans with a different, consecutive letter of the twenty-two letter Hebrew alphabet. Reading these poems, we can sense the impact of the national disaster of the destruction of Jerusalem. They reflect the need to face the reality of sin, and turn to God wherever we are. God intends to bring us good even in the face of suffering and pain. Suffering is often the pathway to healing. AUTHOR: Jeremiah

GREAT IS THY FAITHFULNESS

Intro: The book of Lamentations is a series of dirges, or songs of mourning, that were written against the backdrop of the Babylonian invasion and destruction of Jerusalem. In the verses of this book, we can see the awful sufferings endured by the people of that city at the hand of their enemies. Still, even in the midst of all the pain and the turmoil, God had His man in Jerusalem to record the events and to bring honor to His Name.

The writer of the book of Lamentations is believed to be Jeremiah. He was known as the Weeping Prophet. A study of Jeremiah’s life reveals a portrait of unending sadness and deep depression. Allow me to give you some of the background for this precious man of God.

1. Received an unwanted call to minister - Jer. 1:5-6.

2. Called to a ministry of preaching nothing but judgment - Jer. 1:9-10.

3. He was forbidden to marry so that he might give himself more fully to his ministry of proclaiming the impending judgment of God - Jer. 16:1-13. As a result he was very familiar with loneliness.

4. He was a man of deep sadness and he wept openly about the sins of his people - Jer. 9:1.

5. He endured depression as the result of his message going unheeded for so long. He even came to the point where he tried to get out of the ministry, Jer. 20:9. His pain is understandable, because in a ministry that spanned some 50 years, there is no record of even one convert.

6. He suffered imprisonment by King Zedekiah because the king did not approve of Jeremiah’s preaching - Jer. 32:5. Even while the Babylonians are invading the city in fulfillment of his prophet declarations, Jeremiah is sitting in the dungeon - Jer. 32:2.

7. After Jerusalem falls and many have been killed or taken captive, the prophet does not gloat or take an “I told you so” mentality. Instead, he becomes broken with the remnant and enters into suffering with them - Lamentations 1-5.

After enduring a life like this; after being rejected, hated, mocked, imprisoned, ignored; after seeing his beloved Jerusalem ransacked, desecrated and destroyed; after experiencing the horror of war, the brutality of the enemy and the pangs of hunger, Jeremiah was still able to stand forth amid the rubble of the city and the bodies of the dead and lift his voice in praise to God for His great, unfailing faithfulness to His people.

How was this possible? Despite his trials and his troubles, Jeremiah had gotten a good grasp on the reality of just Who God is! Jeremiah knew that whether things went well, or whether everything fell apart, God would still be God and that God would be eternally faithful to His people, Ill. Lam. 3:21! Jeremiah was still able to find hope in a hopeless situation because he believed in the faithfulness of His great God.

Like Jeremiah, we all go through times when life seems to fall apart at the seams. When these times come we also need the blessed assurance that God is faithful! Thankfully the Bible gives overwhelming evidence of the unchanging faithfulness of our great God. Ill. The word “Faithfulness” in verse 23. This is word which means “firmness, fidelity, steadiness, steadfastness.” This word pictures God as One upon Whom we can depend. We can be sure that as we face the storms, trials and valleys of life, God will ever prove Himself to be steadfast and faithful to you and me. To put it very simply, you can count on the Lord!

I would like to take this passage and point out three precious words in these verses that tell us why Jeremiah was able to proclaim: Great Is Thy Faithfulness. Notice what these words teach us about the great, unfailing faithfulness of the God of the believer.

Conc: Great is the faith that can stand amid the wreckage of life and declare the praises of God. Jeremiah was that kind of a believer. Are you?

DATE WRITTEN: Soon after the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC

SETTING: Jerusalem had been destroyed by Babylon and her people killed, tortured, or taken captive.

Lamentations is a small book, just five chapters in length. It is, unquestionably, the saddest book in the entire Word of God. The Book of Wailing, of Weeping, of Lamentations.

In a way it might be said to be a litany of tears. The verses have a structure that reflects the Hebrew alphabet. For example, in three of the chapters each verse begins with a different letter of the alphabet, in order. It is almost as if, in English, we were to say, "A is for anguish, B is for Babylon, C is for crying, D is for death," and so on. And the images this book presents are awful: of infants and children starving in the streets, of young women being raped, of young women and young men being slaughtered with the sword.

Now if we read the Book of Lamentations, it is easy to start feeling depressed. It is a book that is filled with sadness, with lament, with suffering. It describes pain, physical pain, emotional pain. It is perhaps a book of the Word that we would rather avoid. And yet it is a book of the Lord's Word, and it has been given to us so that we can read it and learn from it, and, in the process, draw closer to the Lord Himself.

Most of us have a strong tendency to avoid thinking about things that are sad, things that are unpleasant. Some even think that the main purpose of religion is simply to cheer people up and make them feel better about themselves and about life. Certainly the message of religion is a happy one, a very happy one indeed. Religion, indeed, has as its goal nothing less than everlasting happiness. But a person will not arrive at such happiness by avoiding the more unpleasant aspects of life. For each one of us there are things we must face, things we must pass through, if we are eventually to reach heaven.

Now there are many hard things that a person will experience during the course of an average lifetime. And some people will experience not just hard things, but tragedies -- events that bring them close to complete and utter despair. Indeed, if the truth be known, all of us at times pass through such dark tunnels, times when we wonder whether our hearts will ever again be filled with sunshine and with happiness. Not all of us will experience and face external tragedies. But within our spirits, deep within our minds, such states of despair are inevitable as we walk the path towards heaven.

Now a great deal of the horror and dismay that accompanied the fall of Jerusalem can be seen in a small book of the Word called Lamentations. The Book of Lamentations was written by the prophet Jeremiah, and in fact immediately follows the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah is generally known as the prophet who, more than any other, prophesied gloom and doom. And Jeremiah indeed talks of many sad things because he saw many sad things.

It is important to realize that Jeremiah not only witnessed the fall of Jerusalem, but had also, earlier, been given the task of warning people of this impending destruction. The Lord had chosen him to warn the people of Jerusalem of the consequences of their actions, and to implore them to change their ways before it was too late. If they would return to following the commandments of the Lord, they could remain in the land that the Lord had given them. But all that Jeremiah said -- all his warnings -- were met with contempt. Jerusalem sealed its own fate by ignoring and despising the warnings the Lord gave through Jeremiah. (their own sins had beset them).

Jeremiah wept bitterly at the fall of Jerusalem (Jerusalem, after all, represented the things of the church. It was at Jerusalem that men would gather to worship and draw close to their God. And we know that the Lord's church is, essentially, not something outside of us, but within us. As we turn to the Lord, and follow Him, there is within us this habitation of peace, this Jerusalem, where the Lord dwells within our hearts. Then, one day, we realize, that within us there are also spiritual enemies – where once within us there was a Jerusalem spirit, now we have a Babylonian spirit (the world has a Babylonian spirit – that’s a spirit that represents the love of dominion, the love of self and selfishness, -- so much concern for ourselves and for what we want. And as we peer into our spirits, we no longer see Jerusalem as a beautiful city built high upon the hills. Rather, we see it in ruins. We realize much of what we thought we believed, much of what we thought we loved, lies broken within us. (ask yourself this evening, do I have a Jerusalem spirit, or a Babylonian spirit?

The same thing that made Jeremiah cry; ought to make us cry. They very thing that God hates; we ought to hate.

It is a terrible thing to see the world falling apart, and especially the church itself falling apart within us. We can find ourselves questioning whether or not we love the Lord. We can find ourselves even doubting whether He exists. Deep down inside of us everything spiritual seems to disintegrate. We feel confusion, anxiety, pain and fear within our hearts. As we look around at this world-and sometimes in our own family we think they are doomed to hell because they are too wicked to ever be saved. Jeremiah wept bitterly at the fall of Jerusalem. And in our hearts we do the same: we weep at the way in which the church seems to have fallen apart within us.

But we need to remember something. Despite everything, the Lord still loves us. He is still with us. Indeed, when we go through states of such deep despair, He is then closer to us than at any other time: watching over us, protecting us, sustaining us. When Jeremiah saw his beloved city in ruins, he did not give up hope. Despite all the sadness, all the tragedy, recorded in the Book of Lamentations, Jeremiah still speaks of hope (the 9/11 may come; the tsunamis may come; the katrina’s may still come): "'The LORD is my portion,' says my soul, 'Therefore I hope in Him!' The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD." (I don’t know what your situation or problems is this evening; But I do know that Jesus is the problem solver) Don’t tell God how big your problem is, but tell your problem how big your God is. And indeed there was reason to hope. The Lord had not forgotten Jerusalem. About fifty years later the city would start to be rebuilt and the Jews would start returning home from Babylon.

And so too with us: we should not give up hope. States of spiritual despair, states of spiritual temptation, might feel as if they are going to last forever, but they do not. (trouble don’t last always) Rather, they are a stage through which we pass -- and through which we must pass -- on our way to heaven.

God allowed Jerusalem – because of their sinning (and he allows us) to go through despair so that they would know and experience what life would really be like without the Lord. He allowed them and us to see just how weak we are all by ourselves, and how much we truly need Him -- how much we need His salvation. The Lord allows us to experience despair -- total utter despair.

And then, after you have suffered a while, learned a lesson, repent (acknowledge your wrongdoing) and call upon him for deliverance, He and He alone brings us out of despair – with outstretched arms.

The Book of Lamentations is not, then, a book we should overlook because we might think it to be too sad and depressing. Yes, it talks about sad and depressing states. But it is a book about life. It is a book about our lives, and about the course that our lives will take as we walk the path to heaven. It is a book which helps us see that the Lord is not only with us when things are going well and when we are feeling happy. He is with us through the hard times as well. He is with us not only when we feel good about ourselves. He is also with us when we feel totally wretched and depressed about ourselves and about our own wickedness. He is with us when we weep from despair. He is always with us because He loves us, and He cares, cares deeply, about the state of the church within us. And if we trust in Him, and wait for Him, and obey His Word, then in time He will restore and He will rebuild Jerusalem -- the Habitation of Peace -- within our hearts. He will deliver us from destruction and from despair and He will save us and bless us with happiness and with peace forevermore.

Do not be defeated by despair. Do not give up. The Lord is with you in whatever state you are. And if you hope in Him, then He will save you. Jerusalem will be rebuilt. The Habitation of Peace will be restored.

This lesson is a reminder that sin, in spite of all it enticing ways and excitement, carries with it heavy weights of sorrow, grief, misery, and pain. This book describes the deep mourning of the prophet, Jeremiah (called the weeping prophet; the book called the book of tears-a funeral song written for the fallen city of Jerusalem), at the destruction of Jerusalem and of the temple. "How lonely sits the city that was full of people! How like a widow is she, who was great among the nations! The princess among the provinces has become a slave!" (Lam. 1:1)

The fall of Jerusalem involved a great deal of terrible human suffering, both physical and emotional. Jerusalem, the "Habitation of Peace," had become a site of terrible destruction. For those who lived there, and for those who worshiped there, it was a most horrible tragedy. Instead of being elated over the fact that his prophecies had been fulfilled, he wept bitterly over the miseries of his people (his tears flowed from a broken heart). He wept because his people had rejected their God- the God who had made them, loved them, and sought repeatedly to bless them. It was his people’s sinfulness and selfishness that brought them much suffering and eventually took them into exile. Put one way, Jeremiah’s heart was broken from the very things that break God’s heart. Jeremiah said in “chapter 2:11- my eyes fail from weeping, I am in torment within, my heart is poured out on the ground because my people are destroyed, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city (2:11).

Jeremiah’s two books focuses on one event—the destruction of Jerusalem. The book of Jeremiah predicts it, and Lamentations looks back on it.

Jeremiah grieves deeply because of the destruction of Jerusalem and the devastation of his nation. But in the middle of the book, in the depths of his grief, there shines a ray of hope. God’s compassion if ever-present. His faithfulness is great. Jeremiah realizes that it is only the Lord’s mercy that has prevented total annihilation. This book shows us the serious consequences of human sin and how we can still have hope in the midst of tragedy because God is able to turn it around for good.

Lamentations is a sad funeral song for the great capital city of the Jews. The temple has been destroyed, and the people are in exile. God had warned that he would destroy them if they abandoned him. Now afterwards, the people realize their condition and confess their sin.

God’s warnings are justified. He does what he says he will do. His punishment for sin is certain. It is only by confessing and renouncing our sin can we turn to him for deliverance. How much better to do so before his warning are fulfilled.

It is true that we will all probably face some kind of tragedy in our lives; (it doesn’t matter whether your sins brought it on – or just because you live in this world) – But in the midst of our afflictions and trials, there is hope in God. God is faithful; he will not always (psalms 30:5- David said “for his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor last a lifetime; weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.) It is kind of like a shot given by the doctor, the discomfort of God’s anger lasts only for a moment, but the good effects go on for a long time. Psalm 103:9-10. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever, he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.

So, no matter how difficult your life’s journey, you can always count your blessings and no that there is hope in God.

Note: Even in his wrath, there is mercy.  Each year this book was read aloud to remind all the Jews that their great city fell because of their stubborn sinfulness. 

5 Aug Jeremiah Urged Hope in God - Lam. 3:25-33, 55-58 25 The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; 26 it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD. 27 It is good for a man to bear the yoke while he is young. 28 Let him sit alone in silence, for the LORD has laid it on him. 29 Let him bury his face in the dust— there may yet be hope. 30 Let him offer his cheek to one who would strike him, and let him be filled with disgrace. 31 For men are not cast off by the Lord forever. 32 Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. 33 For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men.

55 I called on your name, O LORD, from the depths of the pit. 56 You heard my plea: "Do not close your ears to my cry for relief." 57 You came near when I called you, and you said, "Do not fear." 58 O Lord, you took up my case; you redeemed my life.

Verses 21-36 Having stated his distress and temptation, the prophet shows how he was raised above it. Bad as things are, it is owing to the mercy of God that they are not worse. We should observe what makes for us, as well as what is against us. God's compassions fail not; of this we have fresh instances every morning. Portions on earth are perishing things, but God is a portion for ever. It is our duty, and will be our comfort and satisfaction, to hope and quietly to wait for the salvation of the Lord. Afflictions do and will work very much for good: many have found it good to bear this yoke in their youth; it has made many humble and serious, and has weaned them from the world, who otherwise would have been proud and unruly. If tribulation work patience, that patience will work experience, and that experience a hope that makes not ashamed. Due thoughts of the evil of sin, and of our own sinfulness, will convince us that it is of the Lord's mercies we are not consumed. If we cannot say with unwavering voice, The Lord is my portion; may we not say, I desire to have Him for my portion and salvation, and in his word do I hope? Happy shall we be, if we learn to receive affliction as laid upon us by the hand of God.

Verses 37-41 While there is life there is hope; and instead of complaining that things are bad, we should encourage ourselves with the hope they will be better. We are sinful men, and what we complain of, is far less than our sins deserve. We should complain to God, and not of him. We are apt, in times of calamity, to reflect on other people's ways, and blame them; but our duty is to search and try our own ways, that we may turn from evil to God. Our hearts must go with our prayers. If inward impressions do not answer to outward expressions, we mock God, and deceive ourselves.

Verses 42-54 The more the prophet looked on the desolations, the more he was grieved. Here is one word of comfort. While they continued weeping, they continued waiting; and neither did nor would expect relief and succour from any but the Lord.

Verses 55-66 Faith comes off conqueror, for in these verses the prophet concludes with some comfort. Prayer is the breath of the new man, drawing in the air of mercy in petitions, and returning it in praises; it proves and maintains the spiritual life. He silenced their fears, and quieted their spirits. Thou saidst, Fear not. This was the language of God's grace, by the witness of his Spirit with their spirits. And what are all our sorrows, compared with those of the Redeemer? He will deliver his people from every trouble, and revive his church from every persecution. He will save believers with everlasting salvation, while his enemies perish with everlasting destruction.