Helicopters are coming in over the hill, the military helicopters, to rescue her. A man starts singing, oh beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, for purple mountains majesties above the fruited plain. America, America, God shed his grace on thee. And crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea. And every time I see that movie, I've seen it a couple of times, it makes me cry. As you can tell right now, I want to cry. And yes, it's because the mother is rescued and she gets to go back, but the real reason is it makes me so sad for our nation. You know, America just isn't the America that I grew up with. You know, it's really changed. I am not a news person. I'm a sports person. But every once in a while I figure I need to know what's going on. My DVR is set to tape the Jesse Waters show on Fox. I don't know if any of you have ever watched him. But it's fun to watch because sometimes they do funny stuff too. But sometimes I think, we have lost our minds. This country, what in the world are we doing? And it just makes me sad for our country. And Jeremiah was in that situation. with the nation of Israel. They were going through a really hard time. They had rejected God. He was a prophet through a really hard time. My title of this lesson is Hope Amidst Hopelessness, and there was a lot of hopelessness at that time, and I hope we never get to that point as America. I don't know what God has in store for us, but I want us to focus on mostly the hope instead of the hopelessness. So I'm going to give you a quick overview of Jeremiah, and then we're going to look closely at some of the emotions that he expressed. The book of Jeremiah is 52 chapters long. It's basically his story and his message from God to the nation of Israel, or more specifically, to Jerusalem. And then right after the book of Jeremiah, he has a little book of five chapters called Lamentations. And that is also written by Jeremiah, like I said. And it brings out a lot of the emotions that he was feeling. And so that's where we're going to park on most. If you have your Bible, you can turn to Lamentations. I'll share a little bit as I give a synopsis of his life from the book of Jeremiah. He was the son of a priest. When God called him to be a prophet, he said, thanks, but no thanks. That's in chapter 1. And God wouldn't take no for an answer. So he became a prophet. In chapter 16. God tells him that he must not marry. Now, why would God tell him that? Well, let's read in Jeremiah chapter 16, verses 1 through 4. It says, then the word of the Lord came to me, you must not marry or have sons or daughters in this place. For this is what the Lord says about the sons and daughters born in this land and about the women who are their mothers and the men who are their fathers. They will die of deadly diseases. They will not be mourned or buried, but will be like refuse lying on the ground. They will perish by sword and famine, and their dead bodies will become food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth." So that's why God tells him not to marry. It's going to be so bad here. that I don't want you to marry. The thing about Jeremiah is he kept giving his message over and over and over again, and nobody would believe his message. He saw horrible things and harsh things were done to him because the people didn't like him or didn't like his message. And in chapter 26, the priests and the prophets of the land said that he should be sentenced to death. But some officials disagreed, and they spared his life. And in chapter 37, he was beaten and put into prison. And verse 16 says that he was there for a long time. He was eventually released, but some wanted to kill him. So they put him in a cistern or a well that had no water in it, just mud. And they intended to have him be down there until he died. Now, I don't know if any of you have been in deep mud before. It is not fun. Most scholars think that he was probably in mud up to his waist. And it reminded me of a story many, many years ago when Cecil and I hadn't been married too long. We had cattle and hogs back then. And it was a spring, unlike we've had lately, of a lot of rain. Just a lot of days of rain. And probably one of those springs where our bottom field was just afloat. Anyway, the cattle weren't out in the pasture yet and they were, of course, walking around in the yard and with all the water and all the manure, it just got so muddy in there that they could hardly walk. They were getting up to their bellies. So Cecil said we have to move them and he needed help with the gate. So guess who got volunteered to help with the gate? So I went out there and I had these knee-high boots on, you know, that you just slip your foot into. and I started walking in the yard and I thought I'd be real smart and take wide steps so I wouldn't have to take so many steps but I took that first wide step and of course my foot wanted to come out of the boot but the boot I mean the suction of the mud was just so strong it wasn't going to come out. So I was trying to reach back there to lift the boot out of the mud and Cecil did eventually come help me after it got done laughing so hard he could hardly stand. So after that it was baby steps, you know, lifting the boot up with both hands and I told Cecil, you owe me big time for this. We did eventually get the gate worked, and then I had to get back out, and it was horrible. To this day, when I see a cattle or hog truck on the highway, I think, thank you, Lord, that those days are over with. Cecil used to tell people that if our marriage can survive hog sorting, it can survive anything. Excuse me while I get a drink. So back to Jeremiah. He was down in this cistern in the mud. It must have been horrible. I don't know how long he was there before a man came to the king and asked him if he could get him out. And the king gave permission. Scripture tells us that they took 30 men, a lot of ropes. They took old rags, told Jeremiah to put them under his armpits so it wouldn't do so much damage to his armpit. But it took that much to get him out of that well. It must have been awful. So he gets out of there, and then in chapter 42, they talk about there being only a few people left in the city. And they say to Jeremiah, in chapter 42, verses 5 and 6, then they say to Jeremiah, may the Lord be a true and faithful witness against us. If we do not act in accordance with everything the Lord your God sends you to tell us, Whatever it is favorable or unfavorable, we will obey the Lord our God, to whom we are sending you, so that it may go well with us. We will obey the Lord our God." So 10 days later, God gives Jeremiah the answer. And the answer was that they were supposed to stay there. They were not supposed to go down to Egypt. And then in chapter 43, Verse 2, this is how they reacted. A bunch of men's names at the beginning, and it says, they said to Jeremiah, you are lying. The Lord our God has not sent you to say you must not go down to Egypt to settle there. Isn't that often like we are? I'm going to obey the Lord no matter what. And then we see a command and think, well, unless it's that, then I'm not going to obey. That's the way they were. They're going to obey as long as it's something that I want to do. But if it's not something I want to do, I'm not going to do it. So I think you can see what a hard life Jeremiah had. I remember one time, he sometimes filled in pulpits around the area for pastors that were gone. And one time he was up at Spencer, and greeting people after the service, one lady said to him, Young man, why aren't you a preacher? And Cecil said, no way I want to be a preacher. I'd have to deal with people. And that's true. You know, we aren't always the easiest. Pray for our pastors as they have to deal with people. But he would just as soon be out on his tractor and not have to deal with people. But Jeremiah, he did not. Have an easy life. And now we're going to go over to Lamentations, where we're going to focus on more. Where Jeremiah reveals his really raw feelings of what he was going through. And maybe some of these we can relate to. I'm going to start on Lamentations chapter 1, verses 12 and 13. It says, this is nothing to you, all you who pass by. Look around and see, is any suffering like my suffering that was inflicted on me, that the Lord brought on me in the day of his fierce anger? From on high, he sent fire, sent it down into my bones. He spread a net from my feet and turned me back. He made me desolate, faint, all day long. Now I want you to realize that in these verses, often, Prophets and we've talked about this before we talked about it last year in prophecy. Sometimes it has a double meaning Sometimes when Jeremiah is talking he's talking about the city of Jerusalem and the people there, but he's also talking about himself He's being very real with his feelings and you can see it here. We see suffering and sorrow and it's just All you pass by don't you don't you see how much I'm suffering and And then in verse 16, he says, this is why I weep and my eyes overflow with tears. No one is near to comfort me, no one to restore my spirit. And here we see self-pity. And if you've ever had that feeling in your life where you are so down that you tell yourself that no one really cares. He expresses it again in verse 21, the first part of 21. He says, people have heard my groaning, but there is no one to comfort me. Remember when we read that God said you can't have a family? So he had no wife to go home to at night and say, man, I've had a bad day. Let's talk about this together. He just had no one. And that feeling that he had no one to comfort me, that leads to loneliness. He must have felt awfully lonely as a prophet. And we can sometimes feel that way too, even when we're surrounded by a bunch of people. Have you ever felt that way? That you're surrounded by a bunch of people, yet you feel alone. I was trying to, as I was thinking about that, the best example I could think of was after Cecil passed away, you know, coming to church was hard for a while. You know, it's just coming by myself when you're so used to years and years of going with your spouse. And there was one Sunday especially that I felt that way. And of course I got to sit by the Doherty's. But then the worship team sang the song 10,000 Reasons And when it came to that part of, and on that day when my strength is failing, the end draws near and my time has come, I just couldn't do it anymore. So I just shut my eyes and I was standing there crying. Then I realized it got kind of quiet around me, and I opened my eyes and, bless her heart, of course Elijah and Jude and Titus were seven years younger than they are now, and Jude and Titus were getting hugged by Andy, they were crying, and Titus was getting hugged by Christa, she was crying, and I looked back and a couple rows behind me were crying, and it almost made me want to laugh at that point, you know, because I messed everybody up. But you know, that lonely feeling went away because I knew people cared, you know, they really did. And there were other people feeling that way too, and they sympathized with me. And oftentimes when we feel that loneliness, we have to remind ourselves that we're not alone. Then turn to Lamentations chapter three, verses one through six. It says, I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. He has driven me away and made me walk in darkness rather than light. Indeed, he has turned his hand against me again and again all day long. He has made my skin and my flesh grow old and has broken my bones. He has besieged me and summoned me and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship. He has made me dwell in darkness like those long dead. You know, he is feeling like God has abandoned him. You know, I'm walking in darkness and not in light. And this is the prophet of God saying this. And have you ever felt that way? And look at verse 8. He says, even when I call out or cry for help, he shuts out my prayer. In other words, Jeremiah is saying, I might as well not even be praying about this because I don't think God is hearing a word that I'm saying to him. God isn't listening anymore. And maybe we can take a lesson from that. When we feel that way sometimes, just tell a few close friends what you're going through so they can be praying for you. You don't have to put it on Facebook and announce it to the world. But if you have some good close friends that you know will keep your confidence, Let's just be honest sometimes like Jeremiah was with his feelings. Like I said, this is a prophet of God. I wonder how hard this was for him to admit, you know, I am feeling so low. I don't even think God hears my prayers anymore. It would have been amazing. So don't be afraid to tell some people when we are down like that, because we do have people that will help us. Look at verse 17 in chapter 3. He says, I have been deprived of peace. I have forgotten what prosperity is. There was no peace in his life. There was no financial security in his life. And then in chapter three, verses 40, 64 to 66, this is what Jeremiah says. Pay them back what they deserve, O Lord, for what their hands have done. Put a veil over their hearts, and may your curse be on them. Pursue them in anger and destroy them from under the heavens of the Lord. He wants revenge for his enemies, and he wants it bad. Have you ever felt like that? I admit I have. Sometimes when I see people on the news doing something, get them, Lord. They deserve to be punished for this. You know, that's the way we are. He sounds a lot like Jonah, doesn't he? And then the Holy Spirit usually convicts me of, I need to be praying for their salvation and not for their... But, you know, that's what Jeremiah is saying. Put a veil over their hearts. I don't want them to be saved, Lord. I want you to take them out. He was feeling these emotions deeply. And maybe we can understand those emotions when we read some horrible verses in chapter 4, verses 9 and 10. These verses say, those killed by the sword are better off than those who die of famine. Racked with hunger, they waste away for lack of food from the field. With their own hands, compassionate women have cooked their own children who became their food when my people were destroyed. Can you imagine? We can't even imagine how bad things were. Jeremiah says that to die in the battle was a whole lot better than dying by famine, at least it was fast. And it says that, notice that these are compassionate women. They're not cruel. It was probably a child who had died of starvation, so to save the other children, they cooked that child so their other children would have something to eat. I mean, we cannot imagine how bad it was. These were tough, tough times, and I don't want this to be a downer lesson, but I want you to understand how severe it was, because then I want us to turn back to chapter 3, verses 21 through 23. These are some of the best love verses in scripture, probably some that you have memorized. I know I do. One of our best known hymns, Great is Thy Faithfulness, is from these verses. I love that hymn. But let's read verses 21 through 23. Yet this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope. Because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. Today we looked at the context of these verses. Sometimes we just recite those verses and don't realize what setting they are in. But when you understand what was going on all around Jeremiah, and then he says, Yes, I call to mind, and therefore I have hope. The other day, well, it was a few weeks ago, I was in my Bible that I was reading at that time, Everyday Bible by Selwyn Hughes. I think I've said it before here, when I read through my Bible in the year, I like to use different versions and different devotional Bibles and stuff. And this one, He has a portion of the Old Testament, part of a psalm, part of the Proverbs, and then part of the New Testament, and then he has a devotional after every day. And there was one day, especially, that just really spoke a lot to me, and that's what this lesson is based on, really. And there was one sentence in there, he developed it, but one sentence in there that has stuck with me, and I've used it again and again in my life, and he said, stop listening to yourself. Start talking to yourself. Let me say that again. Stop listening to yourself. Start talking to yourself. In other words, when you're having all those dark things and all those clouds come into your life and what if, what if, what if? Stop listening to yourself saying that and call to mind. This is what Jeremiah did here. But this, I call to mind. and therefore I have hope. It's what we put in our minds, and that has stuck with me, and I've used it so often. Jeremiah is saying, this is what I know to be true. And if we were with Jeremiah at that time, we might have said, really? The Lord's great love? Compassions that are new every morning? I am not seeing it, Jeremiah. Where is it? I have no idea. I cannot see that. But Jeremiah said, this is who God is. And this is the rock I have to stand on. And if I do that, I am going to have hope, even when there's hopelessness all around me. And ladies, I don't know what's in store for us in our individual lives, as a nation, as a world. Things are pretty much a mess out there, but we need to have our anchor in God. You know, every so often, we come to a crossroads in our faith. And we have a choice to make. Are we going to believe God or are we going to forsake him and just go with the flow? I have a movie at my house called Billy the Early Years. Has anybody ever seen that? A movie about Billy Graham and his early life. And I love that movie. I was watching it again about three weeks ago. I have to just tell you this one part. It just makes me laugh every time. The first Bible college he went to down in Florida, there was this girl that he really liked. But she eventually told him, Billy, I'm in love with this other guy. I just don't see you amounting to anything. That went well, didn't it? But in that movie, It talks about two evangelists. One was Charles Templeton. He was a famous evangelist that Billy Graham kind of started out with. They were good friends. And Charles Templeton actually had more people coming to his crusades than Billy had, you know, and sometimes they teamed together and worked together. And in the movie, it brings out the fact that they lived through World War II. And when they watched news footage of all that went on in World War II, long story short, Charles Templeton said, I don't believe in God anymore. How can this be real? You know, and he walked away from it. And he tried to persuade Billy Graham to walk away from it. And there's a scene that is just so touching. Billy Graham goes out in the woods by himself. He lays down his Bible on a stump. And I don't remember it verbatim. But Billy says, God, I don't understand all that's going on in the world. I don't understand all that's in here. But you've told us to walk by faith. So I'm going to choose to walk by faith with you for the rest of my life, for whatever you have for me to do." And look how God used him. And that's crossroads. Crossroads in their faith. There's another personal World War story. I had a good friend growing up. She was a good friend of Bev and I. Lynn Ewan, Phyllis would know her, her dad Vern, she was Bev's age but they let me hang out with them so the three of us had some good times together. Her dad was a World War II vet and he saw a lot of action, went through Italy, went through Europe and Lynn said he'd never talked about it, and a lot of World War II vets were like that. They'd never talk about it. And one time they had moved down south and they were up for a visit, and those girls were doing something, and Cecil was visiting with Vern, and Cecil came out later and said, your dad told me this and this and this. And Lynn was just astounded. He never talks about that. I don't know why. Maybe it was after all those years he felt like he could talk about it. Maybe it was because Cecil pestered him with questions, which is probably true because Cecil loved history and he knew Cecil loved history. But he shared with Cecil that he was with a troop that was the first to go in one of those concentration camps. And he pulled out his billfold and he had a little black and white picture in there. And he said, I keep this with me to remember. And it was just bones and bones and bones, skeletons just stacked high. He said, I keep this in my billfold to remember. And then he held out his right hand and it had a little tremor to it. And he said, I got that on that day. And he said, I've never gotten rid of it. But he walked faithfully with God. He chose, I believe in God, no matter how ugly this world gets. Crossroads in our faith. Hebrews chapter 11, I love that chapter. If you read my Bible in chapter 11, I have circled all the times it says by faith, by his faith, through faith. And so on. There's just so many times when God says, it's by faith. And ladies, sometimes it gets so dark out there that we don't see it, whether it's just an individual thing in our life, maybe something horrible has happened, something you just don't understand, or whether it's our world. You know, but let me read Hebrews 11 verses 39. talking about all the people that it's talked about in Hebrews 11, and it says, these were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. You know, it was a lifetime of faith. They didn't see it here on earth. They didn't, and we won't either sometimes. But gals, just stop listening to yourself. Start talking to yourself. Have verses ready in your mind that you can go to when those dark thoughts come in your mind. And by the way, if you know someone that you think has come to the crossroads of their faith and has forsaken God, don't stop praying for them. They can turn back. They can. That's what the prodigal son tells us. He walked away from his father, but he came back. So we don't give up on people. But may we walk by faith until he comes and takes us home. And I pray it's before the surgery. Let's pray. Father, I am grateful for your word. And I just pray that as a nation, we don't face as dark a time as Jerusalem did during this time. But I pray, Lord, that no matter what we come through in our lives, help us to be daughters who walk by faith Help us to stop listening to ourselves and start talking to ourselves of your many great and precious promises. Thank you for those verses and in lamentations that we cling to, Lord. And when we see the dark kind that that was written in, what a treasure, what a treasure, what a hope. This I put to mind and therefore I have hope. Lord, help us to be children of hope. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. I told you to be sure you got lots