Father, thank you for your word. Thank you that you are not silent, but you are a God who speaks and that you have spoken through your word.
We thank you for Jesus. We thank you, Father, that he is not only Emmanuel, God with us, but he is also the one who died on the cross for us to make us right with you.
And we ask, Lord, that the Holy Spirit would move with might and power and deep conviction in each of our lives at this time as we reflect upon your word, as your word speaks into our hearts.
And we ask that you would grip us again with who Jesus is and what he has done for us.
And we ask this in the name of Jesus, your son and our savior. Amen.
We're going to be looking at Lamentations chapter three. If you have your Bibles, you might want to turn to that.
And as I was sharing last week, it's a way of pastors, ministers and Bible study leaders can often refer to themselves as referred, talk as if they're going to tackle a book.
And the book of Lamentations week after week has been tackling me.
Part of it is that it talks about a God who causes suffering.
And it obviously raises questions in everybody's mind as to how and why anybody would believe in a God that causes suffering.
And not only is that going to be walked towards again this week in the text, but it also talks about God not forgiving.
And how on earth can you believe in a God that doesn't forgive?
Or at least it seems as if he doesn't forgive or doesn't want to forgive.
And one of the things which is so wonderful about the book of Lamentations is it walks right into these problems.
And it doesn't walk into these problems like a philosophical argument.
It's a poem.
It's not clear whether it would have been just something that was just merely a poem, so to speak, that you would read like a poem if it's meant to be sung.
But it's five separate poems, each of them connected and related to each other.
And it's a poem that speaks deep into our heart and into our experience.
And not giving away the ending, one of the things that I think the book of Lamentations does regularly is there's enough light to understand who God is and enough light to understand who you are.
And on the other hand, it doesn't force itself on us.
And that rather than actually being something which condemns God, it's something which reveals who we are and who we really are in the real world in light of the reality of the living God and how we should then live.
So let's look at chapter 3, verse 1.
And we'll see right off the bat that it's talking about very, very serious issues because it begins like this.
Actually, just before I read it, well, no, let's read it.
I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath.
And the his is referring to God.
I'm just going to read that again.
I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath.
This is a poem that has a lot of pain in it.
And it's a poem that's going to wrestle and articulate hopelessness and even despair.
And in fact, one of the things I guess that the poem is going to set before us isn't that there should be no point in time when you're hopeless.
It isn't that there should be never a time that you experience despair.
In fact, one of the things that the book does is it doesn't shame you if you, in fact, as you read it, are feeling despair or hopelessness.
The book doesn't shame you.
It doesn't keep on telling you that, okay, real, you know, real authentic human beings never experienced this.
Real Christians never experienced this.
It's going to articulate these things without shaming them.
But it will also pose the question, is the hopelessness and despair to be a moment or a way of life?
Is the pain to be a moment or a way of life?
Obviously, people do choose despair and hopelessness as a very long season and maybe even a way of life.
But because we Christians believe that this is ultimately God's word written, the question is, does God, who doesn't shame you over feeling despair or hopelessness,
is he calling you to a way of life centered around pain or despair or hopelessness?
So here again it is.
I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath.
And just, it's very, very concrete poetry.
And it goes like this, it continues on.
He has driven and brought me into darkness without any light.
Surely against me he turns his hand again and again the whole day long.
He has made my flesh and my skin waste away.
He has broken my bones.
He has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation.
He has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago.
He has walled me about so that I cannot escape.
He has made my chains heavy.
Though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer.
He has blocked my ways with blocks of stones.
He has made my paths crooked.
He is, just sort of pause before we read verse 10.
You notice the power of this imagery.
And one of the things about this poem that we have to understand is that it's taken from, in a sense, the point of view of the speaker, the observer.
Just as in other completely different sermons, or apparently different but not really different,
that the talk, when it talks about things which we would call scientific things, is always observational language.
And observational language, in a sense, isn't wrong, because you just speak about what you observe.
If you read about the sun rising, or if somebody says the sun is rising in the east, they obviously, you know that they're just talking about how it looks from your point of view.
And one of the things about this poem is he's talking about things from his point of view, how he's experienced them.
And, you know, even here, you have this double image that God, on one hand, has walled him in and constrained his life.
On the other hand, he's made his way crooked.
And there's these constant, multiple, very, very concrete images from his point of view.
And the poem is a bit of a, it will move you through things.
And as it goes through to verse 18, it's going to move to this conclusion that his hope is completely and utterly gone, and he's caught in despair.
Continue reading at verse 10.
He is a bear lying in wait for me.
In other words, to kill me.
He, a lion in hiding.
He turned aside my steps and tore me to pieces.
He has made me desolate.
He bent his bow and set me as a target for his arrow.
He drove into my kidneys the arrows of his quiver.
I have become the laughingstock of all peoples, the object of their taunts all day long.
He has filled me with bitterness.
He has sated me with wormwood.
He has made my teeth grind on gravel and made me cower in ashes.
My soul is bereft of peace.
I have forgotten what happiness is.
So I say, my endurance has perished.
So has my hope from the Lord.
Now, some of you, before you came to this service, might have been in a good mood.
Some of you might have been trying to get into a good mood.
Some of you are thinking, wow, that describes exactly how I feel.
Just before we go anything further, you know, Christians are ones who understand that Jesus is their Savior and Lord.
And they've come to trust him as their Savior and his disciples.
And a disciple is one, in a sense, who follows another person, who trusts another person to be the wise guide, the leader, the model, the emulator, the one who provides.
And one of the things that Christians learn from Jesus is that ultimately the words of Scripture, God uses many, many different authors.
But ultimately the word of Scriptures are the words that God wanted to have there.
And if you think about it for a second, this gives these words very, very, very great power.
God wanted this expression of hopelessness and despair to be in his word.
Like God wanted it.
It wasn't as if he was sort of, he got caught up with watching angels play.
And while he got caught up watching angels play, some human being snuck this in or God's enemy snuck this in or the devil snuck this in.
And, you know, then, you know, after a couple of centuries of God watching angels play, he sees and he goes, oh, dang, this part, I didn't want this to get in the Bible.
What's this doing there?
That's not what happens at all.
That, in fact, this very, very powerful language of being broken, of ruin, of hopelessness, God wanted this text to be in the Bible.
Now, before I go any further on this, I need to tell you something about, so, you know, just give me a bit of mercy for a second here.
There's a bit of a grammar geek moment, a little bit of mercy.
But some of us love different grammar and structural things.
Other of us go, okay, here's my time for a nap.
But it's actually really, really important here to understand something that's going on in this.
If it wasn't for the fact that the poem is an acrostic, and that means that every, the first, like, the Hebrew equivalent of the letter A begins the first verse.
And, in fact, actually this, if you go back and you look at it, one of the reasons you can understand that this is the heart of the whole book of Lamentations is that, so an acrostic is where the first word of the first line begins with, in a sense, our letter A, then B, then C, then D.
The second word of this, the second verse, you know, is B and C.
And chapter 1 and 2 are acrostics.
There's 22, at this time of, in Hebrew, there's 22 letters in the alphabet.
And so chapter 1 and chapter 2 are acrostics.
But chapter 3 is like an acrostic on steroids.
It is, if you're reading it in the original language, it's like, okay, that's an acrostic.
Whoa.
That's an acrostic.
Whoa.
And then you go, whoa, this is an acrostic.
Because chapter 1 and chapter 2, every, in a sense, verse or stanza has three poetic lines.
But it's only the first word of the first line that has, in a sense, the first letter.
But when it comes to chapter 3, there's still, in a sense, three poetic lines for every letter of the alphabet.
But every single line begins with the letter A in the first three.
And then in chapter, and then verses 4, 5, and 6, in a sense, the Hebrew letter for B, every word is like that.
And so the way the whole book is structured, it's an acrostic and it's an acrostic.
Whoa, this is like really a huge acrostic.
It draws your attention to it, which is what, in a sense, God wants.
God wants your attention to be drawn to the despair.
But he also wants your attention to be drawn to what happens next.
And this is the other thing which is really cool about this, is that if this was like a book like Isaiah or Ezekiel or the book of Proverbs,
because in the book of Proverbs, like the first ten chapters are a whole group of, in a sense, psalms or poems.
And so scholars try to debate about whether, you know, this poem here connects with this poem or this poem or this poem or this poem.
And chapter 4 is, chapter 3 is actually four different poems.
Verses 1 to 24, verses 25 to 39, verses 40 to 47, and verses 48 to 66 are all actually four separate poems.
But because it's an acrostic, you understand that the author is holding them all together and you're to understand them all together.
And so here we come up to verse 18 in this poem.
And we have this very powerful, you know, look again at verse 17.
My soul is bereft of peace.
I have forgotten what happiness is, so I say my endurance has perished.
So is my hope from the Lord.
We're coming to the end of the first poem.
And then verses 19 and 21, there starts to be a little bit of a transition.
It goes like this,
Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall.
In the Bible, usually when they use the word remember, it's asking the God to do something.
It's not just remembering.
But because you now look, because I have returned to you and I'm asking you,
can you note this and do something about it?
So it begins to be a bit of a transition from this thing of my hope is, my endurance has perished.
My hope has perished.
Verse 19, Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall.
My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me.
But this I call to mind and therefore I have hope.
And then listen to these next three verses, which is the end of the psalm.
But it's all part of this bigger poem that makes up chapter three.
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.
His mercies never come to an end.
They are new every morning.
Great is your faithfulness.
The Lord is my portion, says my soul.
Therefore, I will hope in him.
Now, just a couple of things.
I shared this in the first week.
This is the best known part of the Book of Lamentations.
In fact, many people, it's the only part of the Book of Lamentations they know.
And it's not unusual for those verses to be in a little prayer card or a little fridge magnet
or to be a little greeting card or something like that.
And it's very, very interesting that usually when these verses,
if you could put this image up now, that would be very helpful.
Usually when these verses come up, it's with something like this.
You have a beautiful scene of a cottage at a lake or you have a beautiful scene of a farm in the middle of the countryside
and everything is green and everything is lush and everything is peaceful and everything is wonderful.
And that's how people see and understand this verse.
But now you understand that to see that card like that, and I'm not going to diss that card.
I'm not saying that if you have that card in your fridge and you find it helpful, throw it in the garbage.
I'm not going to say that at all.
If that works and helps for you, that's good.
But in a sense, it's a type of a romantic view of what life is like.
And it doesn't speak to people who are caught in despair.
If you could put up the second image, this would be very, very helpful.
You have to understand that these five poems have been written, are being written,
while somebody sits in the ruins like this.
In fact, I was just thinking that maybe I should ask Amy to make a postcard card with those ruins and the words.
And the words,
And that is something to put on your fridge, because that's exactly the context within which this is being said.
The person who says this, the poet, is saying these words, singing this song, praying this prayer,
making this confession in the midst of the ruins.
In the midst of the ruins.
And in fact, you won't understand the rest of the poem, or you won't understand chapters 4 and 5,
the poems that finish after this, if you don't understand,
that just because the poet comes to this recognition,
doesn't automatically mean that his reality is now like being in a farm,
or in the countryside, or in a cottage, or wherever your happy place is,
and everything is green, and everything is prosperous, and everything is safe, and everything is peaceful.
The poet comes to this profound realization.
And as they come to this profound realization, they're still in the ruins.
And they're going to be in the ruins tomorrow,
because ruins don't get, in a sense, unruined or rebuilt,
just instantly.
This text isn't talking about magic.
Now look again at the text.
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.
His mercies never come to an end.
They are new every morning.
Great is your faithfulness.
The Lord is my portion, says my soul.
Therefore, I will hope in him.
This is the heart of the whole poem.
In one level, you might say,
George, that doesn't make any sense,
that all of a sudden, he's just gone through this profound experience
of speaking of hopelessness, and his endurance is gone,
and now all of a sudden, this pops up.
But I would like to suggest to you that that's exactly realistic.
That's exactly realistic.
I've had many, many, many times when I've just felt very, very, very down,
very, very completely overwhelmed,
and all of a sudden, something like this pops into my mind.
You know, I've had many, many times when I've just felt angry at the world
or nobody loves me or completely down,
and all of a sudden, unbidden, so to speak,
or maybe I've shot up the odd little prayer,
God, why don't you do something about that,
and all of a sudden, something will come up into my mind,
some act of kindness, some act of love,
some person who does love me,
some person who does care for me,
some memory of joy.
And part of the problem for we as human beings have,
and this is, this, you see, that's exactly how these things happen.
Part of the question then is, what do we do with it?
Where do we go with it?
I mean, I know for me, there are many, many times in my life
that I hang on to the suffering.
I hang on to the sorrow.
I hang on to the bitterness.
I hang on to the pain.
I, in a sense,
the door opens to think about something different,
and it's as if I do all in my power to shut that door,
to close that window,
to cover the light,
to repress that moment of hope,
or joy,
or love,
or peace,
or truth that comes to start to flood me
in the midst of my pain.
So I would say that rather than being artificial,
this actually describes human experience.
Some of us might not think of the human experience as being like this
because we've become so accustomed
to almost,
without even thinking about it,
the second that there is a pleasant thought,
a hopeful thought,
that we close that door immediately.
And that's why one of the things about this whole poem,
from the beginning to the end,
is such an important thing for us to reflect upon
and enter into.
Because it starts to maybe show a little bit into us.
There's several things.
As the poem goes on and continues,
and chapter four and chapter five goes on,
pain doesn't go away quickly.
It doesn't go away instantly.
This isn't like a technique or magic.
It isn't as if reality is like a bank machine
where you put your card in,
you just press the options,
and the options just mechanically follow.
And God isn't the sort of God.
Like, why would you think,
I mean, it's as if we want a God
who's like a cash machine,
but if, like, why would we worship that?
I know we worship money.
Why would we want a God who works like a machine
that you just press a button
and then something transpires?
The fact of the matter is,
is that emotionally,
we can live,
we can be in pain.
I mean, the pain might be real.
The ruin might continue to be real.
We are dealing with the ruin of our relationship,
the ruin of our finances,
the ruin of our friendships,
and those things don't get solved or healed
just right away,
and the pain that goes away with it
doesn't go right away.
And in that sense,
this poem and the whole book of Lamentations
is profoundly emotionally accurate.
But at the same time,
at the same time,
even in the midst of pain,
part of the reason that pain is pain
and that suffering is suffering
and ruin is ruin,
is that we have in our very, very deep bones
that that's not what we were made for.
That it's out of whack.
That it's not our true resting place.
That our true resting place
is somewhere quite different.
And so one of the things
which is so remarkable,
I'm going to be spending longer time
on this verse, obviously,
because it's so important
to understand our experience
and the message of the book of Lamentations
and what happens next.
But this,
these three lines
make these powerful lines,
the steadfast love of the Lord
never ceases.
That it's part of God's essential nature
that he is a God of steadfast love.
And actually,
a better way to understand it
is covenant love.
It's not just that God is love,
but it's a covenant language.
It's relationship language.
It's the language of God
desires to have people
who are his children
who are his
and his love for his children
never ceases.
It's clear relational love.
It's not an emotion.
Although it's not
separate from emotion,
but it's not primarily emotional.
It's a conscious willing
for relationship
in the good of the other
and a delight in the other.
It's in a sense
everything that you want
from a friend
to a spouse
to relationship with children
to pets
to places.
It's all of the senses of love
all woven together
in the context of relationship.
And this is part of God's
essential nature
that never ceases.
His mercy
never comes to an end.
He never stops
being a merciful God.
And they are new every morning.
Great is your faithfulness.
There's this idea that
it's got,
as I said in the attitudes,
it's not that God is old
and stale,
but that he is eternal
and new every day.
It's as if he is him
for the very first day.
Everything is fresh.
It's never stale.
And that his faithfulness,
his faithfulness
is something
which characterizes him.
He's unstoppably himself.
And the Lord is my portion.
In other words,
that's this sense
that I belong to the Lord
and he belongs to me.
That that's where my identity
and my destiny
ultimately is rooted.
That if there isn't a God
like this that does exist,
then I have no hope.
And despair, in fact,
should just be the rest
of the way of my life
unless I can grab
a few moments of joy.
And one of the things
which is so wonderful
about this
is that the writer of this,
writing this amidst the ruins,
all he can do
is think back to the Exodus
and think back
to how God deals with Israel
on Mount Sinai
and he can think back
about maybe
what happened,
how Gideon defeated Midian
and he can think back
to things like this.
But for we as Christians,
this text poses riddles
that only Jesus fulfills.
See, one of the things
which is so different
between Jesus and Buddha
is this,
that Buddha constantly said,
look not to me,
look to my Dharma.
Don't look at me.
Like some Buddhists will tell you,
if you see the Buddha
on the road, kill him.
As this sense
that it's not about Buddha,
it's about his way,
it's his doctrine.
And the Buddha keeps saying,
okay, it's not about me,
it's about my doctrine.
But the thing which is different
about Jesus
is it is about him.
Jesus says,
I am the way,
the truth, and the life.
And so what we understand
is that everything
in the Bible
is pointing to Jesus.
That those things,
the part of the Bible
that are written before him
in a sense
are posing riddles
or jumps of faith
which only start
to become clear
when Jesus arrives.
You see,
Jesus is described
as Emmanuel.
In other words,
Jesus is with you
in your mess.
Jesus is with you
in your ruins.
Jesus is with you
in your despair.
He is with you
in your pain.
He is so with you
that ultimately,
even though he himself
had never broken
his relationship with God
and was sinless,
he is so with you
that he takes upon himself
the sin and the punishment
that is proper to you.
And he's also Savior
that on the cross
he doesn't die
for the things
that he has done
wrong himself,
but he in a sense
the ruin that you deserve,
the punishment
that you deserve
is laid on him
and the destiny
that he deserved
and was properly his
is offered to you.
And even this language
of God's compassion
and his steadfast love,
once again,
that only makes,
those are all
relationship languages
but only the God
revealed by Jesus.
It's only when we understand
that there's the Father,
the Son,
and the Holy Spirit
and that Jesus is God,
the Son of God,
made flesh,
it's only when we understand
that from all eternity
there was the Father,
the Son,
and the Holy Spirit.
So from all eternity
love could truly exist
in no other system
of thought,
no other spirituality,
no other religion.
Is there a proper understanding
that, like,
where does love come from
in any of those?
Like, if everything is one,
how can there be love?
If everything just comes about
from chance,
like, how does love
make any sense?
If God is a singular God
like Allah,
then how can there be love?
Does he have to create
to have somebody to love?
But this profound insight
that God's love
is unending,
this is posing a riddle
that only Jesus in the Gospel
starts to explain.
that long before there were
human beings
there was love.
And God did not have
to create human beings
so that he had someone
to love.
Long before there were angels
there was love.
And that when any one of you
have a sense
that the ruin
of my relationships,
the ruin of my life,
the ruin of my hopes,
that there's something wrong
and broken with that
and that something like love
must be real,
if you have that longing
and yearning,
only the biblical Gospel
makes it clear.
Only the biblical Gospel
is love from beginning to end
and is an invitation
for you
to enter into
love took flesh
and died for you
because he loved you.
and to know him
is to know a love
that would die for you,
that would take your ruin
into his life,
that you might know
the destiny of love.
Only the Gospel.
So now it changes.
If you look at it
in your English language Bibles
very, very closely,
you'll notice the transitions
because it goes from the singular
to the plural
and it goes...
So now in a sense
he's going to talk about this
a little bit more.
What we're going to see now
is that it's as if he...
Well, look what happens
in verse 24.
Sorry, verse 25.
Because 25, the poem changes.
The Lord is good to those.
See, now he's no longer
talking about me.
I am the man.
He's talking to those.
He's talking to the people.
The Lord is good to those
who wait for him,
for the soul who seeks him.
Just notice that.
Isn't that like...
It's a very, very profound...
It's a verse well worth
meditating upon
in the spiritual life.
That on one hand
what we do is we wait
and on the other hand
we seek.
You see, it's the language
of relationship.
It's the language of persons.
Isn't it?
That like...
What does a husband
and a wife do
in their marriage?
On one hand
they seek the love
of the other.
On the other hand
in a sense they wait.
There's this dance,
this balance
between seeking and waiting.
And it's woven here
into the structure
of the poem.
It's one of the ways
that reading a poem
like this helps
to structure you
to understand
what it means
to have a relationship
with the living God.
And by better understanding
the relationship
with the living God
through Jesus,
it helps you
to understand yourself
and your relationships.
But it's a very wonderful
verse to meditate upon.
I'll read it again.
Verse 25.
The Lord is good
to those who wait for him,
to the soul who seeks him.
It is good
that one should wait quietly
for the salvation
of the Lord.
It is good for a man
that he bear the yoke
in his youth.
And just sort of pause here.
There's a bit of a play here
and a bit of a point
to Jesus.
In chapter 1,
verse 14,
we bear the yoke
of our sins.
Now the poet is saying,
if you understand
great is the faithfulness
of God,
his steadfast love
endures forever,
it is good to wait for him
and to bear that yoke,
the yoke that comes
from the God
whose compassion
never comes to an end.
And this points us through
to Matthew chapter 11
where it says,
Jesus says,
my yoke is easy
and my burden is light.
And there's this,
once you see that,
when you look at this verse
in 1.14
and then you realize
how Jesus is fulfilling
these two things.
Verse 29.
Verse 28,
I should say,
let him sit alone
in silence
when it is laid on him,
that is the yoke.
Let him put his mouth
in the dust.
In other words,
that is just,
in a sense,
to make yourself
prostrate before the Lord,
to make yourself
helpless before him.
There may yet be hope.
Let him give his cheek
to the one who strikes,
let him be filled
with insults.
And what this is just
really talking about
is that if you understand
that the steadfast love
of the Lord never,
that if you understand
that the steadfast love
of the Lord never ceases,
his mercies never come
to an end,
they are new every morning,
great is your faithfulness.
The Lord is my portion,
says my soul,
therefore I will have hope.
And when you start
to understand that,
in a sense,
that God is the God
who really does exist
and that he's calling you
into a relationship
with himself
and he will accept you
if you come to him
in the person of Jesus,
not weighing your merits
and your accomplishments,
but parting your offenses,
there is a sense
that there can be purpose
even in seasons
of pain and punishment.
Verse 31,
For the Lord
will not cast off forever,
but though he cause grief
or sorrow,
he will have compassion
according to the abundance
of his steadfast love,
for he does not willingly afflict
or grieve the children of men.
I just want to pause here.
These three verses
combined with 22 to 24
are in some ways
the high water mark
of the doctrine of God
which is being presented here.
And they're very key
to understanding
what's going on.
For the Lord,
verse 31 again,
For the Lord
will not cast off forever,
but though he cause grief
or sorrow,
he will have compassion
according to the abundance
of his steadfast love,
for he does not willingly afflict
or grieve the children of men.
Here's what it's saying.
Punishment is a moment,
but God's love is forever.
Punishment is a moment,
but goodness is forever,
love is forever,
truth is forever,
justice is forever,
mercy is forever.
Those are God's fundamental attributes.
The fundamental attribute of God
is not punishment.
The fundamental attribute of God
is not anger.
He is properly angry at evil,
but he punishes
and the punishment is done,
and in a sense,
the punishment
has a beginning and an end.
But God's goodness
has no beginning,
no end.
His love has no beginning,
no end.
His mercy has no beginning,
no end.
God's love is not
that who he fundamentally is,
and that's what this text
is capturing
in poetic language.
See, once again,
I mentioned this a little bit,
I think,
in my last sermon,
but it's a very,
very important point
to understand
that many people
in our culture,
when they talk,
they talk as if
what really is needed
is a God
who is beyond good and evil.
And I said,
I challenge this,
that's what we really want.
Like, if you think about it
for a second,
if your son or your daughter
said that I'm going to pursue
a life that is beyond
good or evil,
would you be happy
if they said that?
Well, maybe you would.
But maybe,
let's say,
you're seeking to enter
into a relationship
with somebody,
you'd like to have a boyfriend
or a girlfriend,
and if you start to get
to know the person,
they say,
by the way,
I'm pursuing a life
that is beyond good or evil.
Well, would you be happy
about that?
Like, what on earth
can that possibly look like?
Like, if you think about it,
a person pursuing
a life beyond good or evil
would be the type of person
who could,
in the morning,
early in the morning,
capture a cat and kill it,
and then later on in the day
could maybe do an experiment
against their will
on a human being,
and then after that
they could listen
to some Bach,
and then maybe
they could go to church,
and then maybe
they could tell you
how much they love you
and give you roses.
And in a sense,
if you had a person
who could do all of those
types of things
with no type of sense
that there was anything
inconsistent about it,
what you would think
is that there was something
broken in that person,
something missing
in that person.
Because the fact of the matter
is that we never want
a God that is beyond
good or evil,
just as we would never want
to date a person
who is beyond good or evil.
We would never want
to be married to somebody
who is beyond good and evil.
We want to be married
to somebody who's good.
We'd want our children
to be kids who are true,
that are loving,
not beyond good and evil.
In fact,
what we want,
ultimately,
is what the Bible here
is describing,
that the good and the true,
the just,
things which are just
and things which are loving,
things which are beautiful
and things which are mercy,
that these things
never come to an end
and they never stop,
and that if you press
into any one of them,
it isn't that the others fade
or become contradictory,
but that the more
you press into goodness,
the more you press into love,
the more you press into truth,
the more you press into justice,
the more you press into mercy,
and you want a reality,
you want a God
that,
in fact,
as you go more into goodness,
more into truth,
more into justice,
more into love,
what they do
is they illuminate each other
and are at harmony
with each other
and are at one
with each other
yet remaining themselves.
And that which is
your true longing
of your heart
is that which is revealed
here in this poem.
We need to wrap this up.
Let's continue.
Verse 34.
To crush underfoot
all the prisoners
of the earth
to deny a man justice
in the presence
of the Most High
to submerge a man
in his lawsuit
the Lord does not approve.
It's just poetically saying
God never thinks
that these things are right,
by the way.
Verse 37.
Who has spoken
and it came to pass
unless the Lord commanded it?
Is it not from the mouth
of the Most High
that good and bad come?
Why should a living man
complain,
a man,
about the punishment
of his sins?
This is a very important verse.
Why should any one of us
complain?
See, this is the heart.
The memory verse
for this week
is the difference
between godly grief
and worldly grief,
godly sorrow
and worldly sorrow.
And in a sense,
worldly sorrow,
worldly grief,
we can be upset
that we got punished.
We can be upset
that we got caught.
But the heart
of godly grief
is a sorrow
that we actually
had done something
which is wrong
and a hope
that there is some way
that that can be paid for,
that that can be amended,
that that can be dealt with,
that the sorrow
and the pain
that we have,
that we would have done
something like that
which was both wrong
and hurtful,
that there can be a day
that that can be mended
so that there's both
a sorrow for the wrong
that is done
and a longing
for mending
as opposed to merely
how dare you punish me,
how dare you say
that that was wrong,
how dare you question me,
how dare you,
how dare you cut me off
because if I did that
and feel sad and sorrowed,
not because
you've done anything wrong,
but because you have consequences.
And this psalm
is raising this particular issue
in a very powerful way,
this poem.
And if we believe,
it's from our point of view,
because God isn't responsible
for moral evil,
from our point of view,
it's pain,
from our point of view,
it's sorrow.
That's what we experience.
But if God is,
in fact,
not in control
of things that cause pain,
how can we believe
that he is in control
of things
which are good?
If he is not in control
of things
that cause you sorrow,
how can we believe
that he is going to be
in control
of those things
that bring you joy
and blessedness
and peace,
that in fact
will bring you salvation?
Verse 38,
it is,
is it not from the mouth
of the Most High
that good and bad
has come?
Why should a living man
complain a man
about the punishment
of his sins?
That's the end
of the second poem.
Now the poet
urges people to pray.
He goes like this,
let us test
and examine our ways
and return to the Lord.
Let us lift up
our hearts and hands
to God in heaven.
We have transgressed
and rebelled
and you have not forgiven.
You have wrapped yourself
with anger
and pursued us,
killing without pity.
You have wrapped yourself
with a cloud
so that no prayer
can pass through.
You have made us
scum and garbage
among the people.
All our enemies
open their mouths
against us.
Panic and pitfall
have come upon us,
devastation
and destruction.
Now how does that
fit in with the other things?
We have to go back
to the sermon
I did last week,
but required forgiveness
is privilege
and abuse.
And what the poet
is saying
is that God
never gives privilege
and he never abuses.
I talk about more
in the sermon
that I go through yesterday,
but the whole point
that he is saying this
in light of verses
22 to 24
and what's going to happen
next is he's
all saying,
listen,
these things have come
upon us,
we have done these sins,
we have done these things
which are wrong.
It's because of our
wrongdoing
and our unrepentant heart
that God has closed
his ears,
that God doesn't want
to hear about what,
just like if
somebody has hurt you
and then they want you
just to pretend
as if nothing has happened
and you close your ears
to them,
that's not your fault,
that's their fault.
And anybody who demands
that you change
while they are unchanged
is wrong.
And he's just saying,
listen,
you guys,
we've turned our back
on God,
we've complained
about the fact
that he's punishment,
all we've done
is blame shifting,
all we've done
is these things,
it's time to return
to the Lord
because his steadfast love
never comes to an end
and his mercies
are new every morning,
return to the Lord.
And that's how
the poem ends
from verses 49,
but once again
it ends
verses 48 to the end,
it ends within
the context of pain.
It ends with the sense
that the Lord
is going to be
the final word
and it ends
with the sense
that not only
do we understand
that there is somehow
in the mystery of God
that in his mercy
he has paid
the price of forgiveness,
that in his mercy
he is both punished
and even though
we are now
not still perfectly righteous
that somehow or another
he has made a way
for this,
that even those
who've been responsible
for the pain,
in the enemies,
they also too
will be judged.
I think,
let's just read it
very quickly,
verse 48,
my eyes flow
with rivers of tears
because of the destruction
of the daughter
of my people.
My eyes will flow
without ceasing,
without respite
until the Lord
from heaven
looks down and sees.
My eyes cause me grief
at the fate
of all the daughters
of my city.
I have been hunted
like a bird
by those who are
my enemies without cause.
They have flung me alive
into the pit
and cast stones on me.
Water closed
over my head.
I said,
I am lost.
I called on your name,
O Lord,
from the depths
of the pit.
You heard my plea.
Do not close your ear
to my cry for help.
You came near
when I called on you.
You said,
Do not fear.
You have taken up
my cause,
O Lord.
You have redeemed my life.
You have seen
the wrong done to me,
O Lord.
Judge my cause.
You have seen
all their vengeance,
all their plots
against me.
You have heard
their taunts,
O Lord,
all their plots
against me.
Their lips and thoughts
of my assailants
are against me
all the day long.
Behold,
they're sitting
and they're rising.
I am the object
of their taunts.
You will repay them,
O Lord,
according to the work
of their hands.
You will give them
dullness of heart.
You will curse.
your curse will be on them.
A blessing is,
in a sense,
a bestowal of energy
towards thriving.
And a curse,
in a sense,
is a removal
of that blessing
so that the normal
forces of entropy
take place.
Verse 66,
You will pursue them
in anger
and destroy them
from under your heavens,
O Lord.
The final word
is Lord.
Lord.
And a theme
is going to be
addressed more
in the next two.
But the heart of it
is this fundamental idea
that from beginning
to the end,
God is just,
God is merciful,
God is loving.
And we have sinned
and we need to call
upon him.
And those who are
completely and utterly
repentant,
all they will know,
in a sense,
is God's punishment.
But for those of us
who understand
that we are not perfect,
we can call upon him
for mercy.
And God comes,
relates to us,
not weighing our merits,
but pardoning our offenses.
He'll do that for you.
He will do that for me.
He has done that for me.
So,
in the midst of your pain,
in the midst of the ruin,
there is a Lord
who does hear your prayers
who will be with you.
Jesus is Emmanuel.
He will.
Let's bow our heads
in prayer.
Father,
we give you thanks
and praise
that you do not shame us
for feeling sorrow.
You do not shame us
for feeling pain.
You do not shame us
when we call out to you
and cry out to you
in confusion
and in anguish.
That you are a big God,
a God of love,
and that you can hear
this honest expression
of our pain
and of our confusion.
And we give you thanks
and praise, Father,
that often unbidden
comes into our lives
at different points,
remembrances of you
or longings
and yearnings for you.
And we ask that you
help us, Father,
to be gripped
by the message here
of Lamentations 3,
to be gripped
by the idea
that your steadfast love
endures forever.
Your faithfulness
never comes to an end,
that they are new
every morning.
That you are, in fact,
a God
who is both good and true,
loving and beautiful,
just and merciful,
and it never comes
to an end.
And you have provided,
Father,
for our great need
in the person
of your Son.
And we ask, Father,
that even though
our emotions
might not change
very quickly,
that we still have
to live with
the situation
that we are in,
that you are the God,
you are our God,
you are our God
of love and justice
and mercy
in the midst
of the ruins.
And we ask
that the Gospel
would so grip us
that we can call out
to you,
looking for that day
when we will see you
face to face
and all tears will end,
all suffering will come
to an end,
and we are in your presence
forever.
And we ask this
in Jesus' name.
Amen.