Please join me as we ask God to open our hearts, our minds, with understanding of this is holy and eternal word. Spirit of the living God fall fresh upon us this day. Truly open our hearts and minds, not only to hear, but to understand, to apply, and then to live the word of God to the praise and the glory of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen. Will you please turn with me to the book of Lamentations, Chapter 5. Thank you, brother. It's OK. While you're turning there, let me just tell you, I do not have chicken pox. When my grandchildren go out to play and they're going to be out in the bright sun, our daughters put SPF 35 or 50 on them so they don't burn. When I was a kid, we didn't do that. We put oil on our skin so we would get dark. And so I did that as a young fella. Spent a lot of time at the Jersey Shore. You know, those days were wonderful experiences. We had so much fun. But after we came off the beach and got changed and walked on the boardwalks before driving home, we all walked like this. Don't touch me. Don't touch me. Don't touch me. And so what you see on my ugly face is uglier, but that's because the doctor said we better take care of those now before they're a serious problem. So I've had a bunch of them taken care of. The answer is use SPF 50. Don't use baby oil in the sun. But we did that. I know it's crazy to think we did, but we did. Hear the living word of our living God, Lamentations chapter five. Remember, O Lord, all that has come upon us. Look upon it. Behold our reproach. Our inheritance has been turned over to aliens in our houses, to foreigners. We have become orphans and waifs. Our mothers are like widows. We pay for the water we drink and our wood comes at a price. They pursue our necks. We labor and have no rest. We gave our hand over to the Egyptians and to the Assyrians in order to be satisfied with bread. Our fathers sinned. They're no more, but we pay the price for their iniquities. And servants rule over us. There is no one to deliver us from their hand. We get our very bread at the risk of our lives because of their sword in the wilderness. Our skin is hot as an oven. because of the fever of famine. They have ravished the women in Zion. The maidens in all the cities of Judah, princes were hung by their hands. Elders were not respected. Young men are made to grind at the millstones, boys staggered under loads of wood. The elders of Seath gathering at the gate. The young men have stopped their music. The joy of our heart has ceased. Our dance has turned into mourning. The very crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us, for we have sinned. Because of this, our heart is faint. Because of these things, our eyes grow dim. Because of Mount Zion, which is desolate, foxes walk about in it. But you, O Lord, remain forever. Your throne is from generation to generation. Why do you forget us forever and forsake us for such a long time? Turn back the clock, O Lord, and repair us now, unless you have utterly rejected us and remain very angry with us. May God bless to our reading, our hearing, our understanding, this is holy and eternal word. I think Lamentations is a preacher's nightmare. It's a series of five funeral dirges or laments, which is what it gets its name from. Most of these five poems are very highly stylized. That is, the first, second, and fourth chapters, which are each separate poems, are basic acrostics. That is, each verse begins with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet. So it's A, then B, then C, then D, etc. The third poem is different. It's an extended acrostic. It's interesting because there are three verses for every letter of the Hebrew alphabet. A-A-A, B-B-B, C-C-C. It shows there's a lot of work that went into this writing. This is the fifth chapter, and it's different. None of those stylistic things are found in the fifth chapter of Lamentations. doesn't follow any of those earlier models. It just flows along its own way. I say it's a preacher's nightmare in one sense because it is a book of prophecy, but a book of poetic prophecy that is absolutely filled with endless, painful, sorrowful, heartbreaking reports. of the results of the conquest of Israel at the hands of the Babylonians and especially what happened to the people of Jerusalem when it fell in about 587 BC. There's one bright moment in the middle of this dark book. It's right there in the middle, chapter 3. We know the words because we sing a song based upon it. Jeremiah looks back and has a wonderful moment of reflection. And you know those words, great is thy faithfulness. Your mercies are new every morning. But other than that, if you're feeling depressed, don't read Lamentations. It'll make it worse. I would summarize what we want to look at in chapter five in three interesting statements. First, remember all that has happened to us. Second, is a plea to turn back the clock to the old days, and third and finally, an appeal to repair us now. You'll know this song that Paul Anka wrote. Paul Anka wrote it, he sang it, But no one did it as well as Frank Sinatra. And Frank, when Frank Sinatra sang it, it became such a great hit. It was his greatest hit. It was on the top of the charts in England for 75 weeks. That's how popular it was. His daughter Nancy later reported after he had passed away that he never liked the song because he thought it was too self-serving and self-indulgent, yet because it was so popular, she wrote of him and it later on, it was like chewing gum off the street. It stuck to his shoe and he couldn't get rid of it. You know the song? I Did It My Way. The lyrics tell the story of someone who loved life, who lived life, who had adventures, who loved, who lost, but through it all, you know the words, I did it my way. In that song, you may remember, there's some lines that go, regrets, I've had a few, but then again, too few to mention. I want us to think today about the fact that regrets and remorse just don't cut it. Regrets and remorse just don't cut it. That song, by the way, is filled with conceit and pride, a terrible level of hubris and self-importance. It's all about me. I did it my way. On the other hand, if there's anything you cannot say about the end of the Book of Lamentations, it is that at that point the people of Israel were not filled with any pride or conceit or hubris or sense of self-importance. In fact, it was just the opposite. The people of Israel, but especially those of Jerusalem, were very much abased. They were totally humiliated and humbled. They were crushed. The Babylonian conquerors were cruel in how they managed those that they conquered. In this last poem, as in earlier poems, there are complaints one after another about how hard it is to get by. They say, we can't even get the wood to cook our food. We have to pay for the water that we drink. Their treatment was really harsh at the hands of the Babylonians. To that end, unlike the song, Frank Sinatra sang, they did live their life their way, and they had plenty of remorse, tons of regrets, but it was too late. You know, the problem with regrets and remorse is that it's simply not the same as repentance. Repentance, we know, is turning back away from the evil we have been doing and going in a different direction. They had plenty of regrets. They had endless remorse. But they did not have repentance. for decades under the brutal hands of the Babylonians. I want to suggest we look at two important points this morning. First, toward the end they are saying to God, remember everything that has happened to us. If you look through the four previous chapters, you'll grasp something of what Jeremiah is able to recall at this particular moment. I don't want to dredge up all of the ugly things that are said there, but it isn't hard to find point after point after point. And in those points, you'll notice that there is the lament of all that is gone, everything is gone. In the text before us, I want to suggest there are four things that are gone to begin with. Four critical aspects of life that is normal, gone forever from those who were conquered in Jerusalem. Look at verse 1. The first thing that's gone is honor. Honor is gone. Earlier in the second poem, verse 15, Jeremiah wrote, all who pass by clap their hands and mock at us. They sneer. They shake their heads. Here in verse one, he says, we have become a reproach. We have become a disgrace to others around us. The Psalmist captured exactly what they were going through in their life experience in these words from Psalm 79. We have become a reproach to our neighbors, a scorn, a derision to all those who are around us. The first thing that went was honor. Honor was gone. Second, their future was gone. If you look at verse two, basically it says that everything they had worked and lived to build and to leave to their children, which we love to do, don't we, and to leave to their grandchildren, to leave behind them as an inheritance, everything they had built is now, it says, in the hand of strangers, people from a strange land and a different place. The words that are used there mean that their inheritance is overturned, it's twisted around every way, it's destroyed, it's transformed because it's no longer ours. It's gone, it's taken away. Our honor is gone. Everything we hope for a future is gone. Third, in verse two it says, their homes are gone. In the Bill of Rights, those first 10 amendments to the Constitution of the United States, in the Third Amendment are these words, perhaps you remember it from high school when you had to read it. No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, except in a matter to be prescribed by law. Can't put soldiers in our houses without our permission. And even in a time of war, you have to compensate us. Not so in Jerusalem, because their homes are gone. Cry of Jeremiah is that the people can no longer, they actually don't live in their own homes. Foreigners have kicked them out and taken them over. That is, the homes that weren't destroyed in the fighting, they are now like aliens in their own city, outside their own homes, and they're not allowed back in. Honor is gone. The future's gone. Their homes in the very city some of them are still surviving in, their homes are gone. And then fourth, notice verse three. Families are gone. Everything they knew about family was destroyed. Young men, it says, are like, young men and young women are like orphans without parents because many of the parents were killed. The women, it says, are like widows, wandering the streets with no one to help them or give them any kind of comfort. Our translation this morning said they were like waifs. That's an old English word. We don't use that anymore. Waifs are people that no one cares about. The language here is really strange. It literally says nothing, and no father, and no mother, like widows. Their honor's gone, their future is gone, their homes are gone, their families are gone. The second thing beyond what is gone I want us to see is to see their personal plight. If you look at verses 4, 5, and then 9 through 13, there are a number of challenging pictures that Jeremiah draws for us. First, in verses 4 and 5 and 9, he talks about the challenges of just trying to stay alive in the moment. They whine about the fact that they have to pay for the water they drink. We all do that today, don't we? But in those days, you did not. But when the Babylonians conquered them, whatever drink they got, the Babylonians made them pay for their water. And the wood they used to cook their food, they say in verse four, we get it, but it costs us dearly what little bit of food they have. Verse 5 says the captors are always on their necks. They never give them a moment of rest. They never allow them a moment of peace. When they apparently leave the city, go outside to scavenge for food, find some food outside in the wilderness, they become targets. of the Babylonians who, verse 9 says, freely killed them with the sword because they're outside the protection of the city, their fair game, kill them. It was apparently open season on the resident Jerusalem once they were outside the city walls. What a terrible plight. And then adding insult to their conditions of daily deprivation. the conditions associated with starvation begin to kick in. Look at verse 10. Our skin is hot as an oven because of the fever of famine. Verse 11 relates the women are violated by the storm troopers who occupy the land. Even the future leaders of the nation, the princes it says, have been hung by their hands in torture. And the old men at the gates, verse 12, had been disrespected and dispersed. Goes on in verse 13 to say the young men of the city who were once strong, fit, healthy young men are now pressed into slave labor. They literally take the place of animals who've been eaten. And they're made to push those large grinding stones around by hand to grind the grain. And those who aren't doing that are loaded up with piles of wood that they're forced to carry around for their captors. All this is a truly sad picture. But one which God predicted would come if they did not repent. In Deuteronomy chapter 28, verse 48, God said, therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you. You will serve them in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, in need of everything, and he will put a yoke of iron on your neck until he has destroyed you. All of that's an accurate picture of their personal plight in this, the fifth and final poem of Lamentations. But then there is a third section in connection with that, verses 6 and 7. It's an interesting section because it's here that the residents of Jerusalem, in particular the Israelites, are all going to make excuses for what went wrong. Apparently at some point in their battle with Nebuchadnezzar, they turned to the Egyptians and they turned to the Assyrians and they said, let's make a deal. Nebuchadnezzar's coming, let's all band together so we don't fall to him. Yeah, that didn't work. So toward the end of that, apparently they tried to make another deal in which they said, look, if in fact we fall, We'll pay you to provide us with food. The text says, with bread. But apparently, as you look at verse six, that failed too. And they say it as if this is the cause of it all. Is that really the reason why they're in the pickle they're in? Not really. And then in verse 7, they do that wonderful blame-shifting dance. Do you see it? It's a neat tap dance. They claim that this mess they're in is because of the sin of their fathers, and they're all gone now, and it's their fault. They remember Jeremiah 31, 29. The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge. But they must have forgotten what Jeremiah said in 3130. Every man shall die for his own iniquity. Every man who eats the sour grapes, his own teeth will be set on edge. You can't blame anyone else for your mess. It's your mess. Own it. So we see all that's gone. We see the personal plight. We see the excuse making that goes on. One more thing in this section, in verses 14, 15, and 18, if we read it carefully, we will see dramatic cultural changes. things that transformed Jerusalem and their country. Notice it says the elders no longer sit at the city gate. The way in which we judge ourselves and solve our problems, it's gone. Our system of courts is removed. That's what it was, the elders at the gates. All that's over and done with. The young men once played music throughout the city and entertained us. Their sounds are silenced. The joy we once knew that made us want to dance and rejoice, it's all gone. It's gone, it says, not only from the streets, but it's gone from our hearts. And verse 15 says, all that remains is mourning and grieving, and after weeping, more mourning and more grieving. That is what this poem is like. Closes in verse 18 with the fact that the city is so deserted, it's turned over to the animals. Whether you think they're jackals or coyotes or foxes, they wandered the streets like people don't belong there. Because that's how much it's abandoned. That's what life has become like. But second, at the end of this chapter, you will see that they plead for God to turn back the clock to the old days and to repair us. Turn back the clock and repair us. I think that sentiment is easily understood by most of us today. All of us some point in life perhaps long for the good days of yesterday, although when I met the dermatologist and he said, there's only one thing to do with these. We gotta freeze them off now or you're gonna have problems later. For a moment I thought, oh, if I could go back to being a teenager, I wouldn't be on that beach until I turn red like a lobster. But you can't go back. You can't turn back the clock. You can't go back and say, what if only, although we sometimes long for it, there are some different translations of verse 21. Some like to say it says, turn us back to you and we will return to you. No, God doesn't work that way. He isn't gonna force us to turn. Either we turn back to him or we don't. It's up to us. However you look at it, it is a clear plea to have everything that has happened somehow go away. And for life to return to what it was before they were conquered. It is perfectly understandable to want to turn back the clock. It's also equally clear how they would want everything that has been destroyed in life to be repaired. The harsh reality is for them and for us that some things can never be repaired or restored to the way they were before. The dead who died in that city at the sword, they can't be brought back to life. The dead who have already died from starvation cannot be brought back to life. The dead who have died are gone. You can't go back. You can't turn back the clock. All you can really do is acknowledge, and it's interesting, I love looking at Jeremiah and realize that Jeremiah preached for 40 years. Jonah preached for three days. Jonah preached for three days and it says, all of Nimnah, from the lowest to the highest, everyone repented. Jeremiah preached for 40 years, and they said, get out of here. Who cares? What Jeremiah asked them to do is, verse 19, acknowledge one thing. You, O Lord, you reign forever. Your throne endures from one generation to another throughout all time. So they ended up living with regrets, and remorse, but regrets and remorse don't cut it. In fact, regrets and remorse, most counselors will tell you, are harmful to your well-being. As a Christian pastor and counselor, I've told people living with regrets and remorse deprive you of the joy and hope of eternity in Jesus Christ. Don't regret it, don't have remorse, repent of it, turn from it, find the joy of living in Jesus Christ, repent of sins, which the people of Jeremiah's day did not do for 40 long years. That's what prompts this book of lamentations, these five very difficult funeral dirges. all because the people regretted but never repented. They had way too many regrets and not nearly enough repentance. And what this record shows us is that they suffered immeasurably as a result of not repenting of their sins when they had the opportunity. They suffered because they found excuses not to take responsibility for their own sins. They could have up to the moment of conquest said, we did it our way. But after the moment of conquest, They paid a severe price for doing it their way. God does not call us to have regrets. He does not call us to have remorse. He calls us to repent of our sins, to trust Jesus Christ and him alone to cleanse us by his Holy Spirit from every unrighteousness. May God help every one of us to see today the sin in our own hearts, in our own lives, and to repent today, because there's time today right now for us. Before, without repenting, we also suffer great loss like the people of Jeremiah's time. before we lose our honor, our future, our homes, our families, as Israel did in those sad, dark days. Let us pray. Eternal God, our Father, you have not given us this dark, sad poem for us to have remorse and regret, but for us to see their failed example in not repenting of sin. Grant to us today in these quiet moments before we break the bread and drink this cup, to make our humble confession of sin before you. All those things that we keep hidden, but that are destructive to our life. The selfishness that we keep living as we live it our way. Help us today to repent, to turn from it, to find in you the forgiveness that the residents of Jerusalem never found. Grant us, we beg in Christ's name and for his sake, amen. Let us stand together to sing hymn number 178, O Sacred Head Now Wounded, 178.