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Today, we continue in the book
of Lamentations. Last time I preached, I had the
privilege of introducing the book. It was a lot of fun preparing
for that and getting to understand the genre a bit more. And the background, I know we
spent quite a bit of time walking through Jeremiah, and that certainly
was a great preparation for the Book of Lamentations, but it
was a delight to get to be used by the Lord in preaching such
an introduction last week, and getting to go over that, how
great is God's faithfulness. Well, this morning we're gonna
start our journey through the Book of Lamentations. Our passage
this morning, if you'll turn there, is in Lamentations chapter
one, verses one through 11. The poet writes, how lonely sits
the city that was full of people. How like a widow has she become. She who was great among the nations.
She who was a princess. Among the provinces has become
a slave. She weeps bitterly in the night,
with tears on her cheeks. Among all her lovers, she has
none to comfort her. All her friends have dealt treacherously
with her. They have become her enemies.
Judah has gone into exile because of affliction and hard servitude. She dwells now among the nations,
but finds no resting place. Her pursuers have all overtaken
her in the midst of her distress. The roads to Zion mourn, for
none come to the festival. All her gates are desolate, her
priests groan, her virgins have been afflicted, and she herself
suffers bitterly. Her foes have become the head,
her enemies prosper, because the Lord has afflicted her for
the multitude of her transgressions. Her children have gone away,
captives before the foe. From the daughter of Zion, all
her majesty has departed. Her princes have become like
deer that find no pasture. They fled without strength before
the pursuer. Jerusalem remembers in the days
of her affliction and wandering all the precious things that
were hers from days of old, when her people fell into the hand
of the foe and there was none to help her. Her foes gloated
over her. They mocked at her downfall.
Jerusalem sinned grievously. Therefore, she became filthy.
All who honored her despise her, for they have seen her nakedness. She herself groans and turns
her face away. Her uncleanness was in her skirts.
She took no thought of her future. Therefore, her fall is terrible. She has no comforter. O Lord,
behold my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed. The enemy
has stretched out his hands over all her precious things, for
she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary, those whom you
forbade to enter your congregation. All her people groan as they
search for bread. They trade their treasures for
food to revive their strength. Look, O Lord, and see, for I
am despised. This passage, these first 11
verses, serve as a cry of grief from Jerusalem. Also referred
to in the text as the daughter of Zion, or even Lady Zion in
some translations. It illustrates this very stark
reality of loss following destruction, great and terrible loss. Now,
our text is, it's very moving. It's a very moving description
of sorrow, and it's mingled with a sense of abandonment that only
heightens the pain. It's reflecting that collective
heartbreak of all of Judah, including the poet, who have lost their
identity and security. But the poet knows better. As
Jeremiah writes, he has warned them before. This text, it reveals
stages of grief, deep emotional scars, clearly, that's left by
tragedy, and it serves as a model for even our own understanding
of experiencing loss. It's a great model in this regard.
Very few in history have suffered in such a way. Grieving is no sign of weakness. If done rightly, that is to God
in reverence, it's actually a sign of wisdom to know how to grieve
rightly. Prayers mingled with tears, searching
for the grace that is needed and the mercy to endure, offered
up to the one person who can truly help and save. This is
not only wise, but it honors God. It honors him. In our passage
today, the poet would have us really to bear witness to the
pain and suffering of the people of God. It must drive you to pity them for what poor souls that they
have become. The poet also makes it very clear
that their tragedy is due to the nation's sin and unfaithfulness. That's revealed in these first
11 verses. But what father would God be
to let them to continue in their sin forever? They would not listen to the
prophets that he had sent them. They stoned them, they killed
them, they imprisoned them, but they will listen to the foreign
pagan invader that he would and eventually did send to them.
Now we are to take special note of God's hatred of sin and his
seriousness in dealing with it. It's one thing that we should
be taking note of as we go through this book. As his children, we're
not immune to his chastening. It invites his correction when
we act unfaithfully and we have our own sin that we deal with.
It invites his correction and we need to be equipped to not
only know how to express our grief biblically, but also to
be able to help others through their grief when the providence
of God hurts to the core, when it cuts to the quick. Sometimes
it does. These first 11 verses give us
bits and pieces of grief suffered by the prophet, who's the poet
here, and the people of Judah. So we always have at least two
personalities that are at work here in the writings. We have
Jeremiah himself suffering with them, and then we have his expression
of the city and the people. there are elements of grief that
we will see this morning. So I have two main headings in
my outline if you're taking notes. Number one, elements of grief
in its loneliness. Elements of grief in its loneliness.
And this appears in verses one through seven. And then secondly,
elements of grief in its causes. Elements of grief in its causes.
And we find that in verses eight through 11. So, my first point, elements
of grief and its loneliness. The journey the poet describes
for his readers as he takes them through, again, both his grief
and Jerusalem's grief is composed of a number of elements. For
example, the most repeated word in chapter one is the word all. It appears 16 times altogether. It's repetition, it rings of
the totality of Judah's tragedy. And five times, five times we
hear of the deathly sound of groaning. There is, again, as
I mentioned when I introduced this book, there is also an art
to the poetry of the writer. captured in these words. Now
I believe it is gonna be helpful for us today if I can try to
break things down a bit more for us. So I do have a couple
of sub points to help guide us under this first point in my
outline, which tackles the people's profound loneliness. Verses one
through three. we read of the people's, their
profound pain and their abandonment. So you could put that as a subtitle
if you'd like. Profound pain and abandonment.
And in verses four through seven, we read of Jerusalem's loneliness
as they are facing the empty void. Facing the empty void. Well, let's reread verses one
through three. How lonely sits the city that
was full of people. How like a widow has she become. She who was great among the nations,
she who was a princess among the provinces, has become a slave. She weeps bitterly in the night
with tears on her cheeks. All her lovers, she has none
to comfort her. All her friends have dealt treacherously
with her. They have become her enemies. Judah has gone into
exile because of affliction and hard servitude. She dwells now
among the nations, but finds no resting place. Her pursuers
have all overtaken her in the midst of her distress. Recall last time when I preached
how I mentioned how Jeremiah made use of the literary device
of acrostics. to spell out Judah's grief from
A to Z, really to give a fitting memorial of their devastating
experience, so that nothing would be left out. In these first three
verses, they begin with the first letters of the Hebrew alphabet
in succession, and they trend all the way through verse 22
of the chapter. The Mazarites, a people group,
scholarly scribes who preserved the traditional text of the Old
Testament. It's one of the things that they
could claim. They served somewhere in the
6th to 11th century AD. They used the first word of the
book of Lamentations. They used the first word of the
book as its title, Echa. which translates as how, or in
some of your Bibles perhaps, alas. It could seem odd for us for
them to do this, but it does seem fitting for such a message
of judgment on the people of God. And as we had noted last
time, the perplexing abandonment that they feel from God. Truly
how, how did all of this happen? How did this happen? They reflect
upon what they had. How did this happen? Zion, the
city of God, once known as the epicenter of this region of the
world, the city to which we read of Queen Sheba visiting and others
flocking to, to behold its splendor. where silver and gold was said
to be in such abundance in 2 Chronicles 1 that it was as common as stone. Can you imagine? Now the city sits alone, stripped
of its bounty of people and riches, no longer great among the nations,
no longer a queen, but sits as a widow. This is a great reversal. It is an about face from the
city's former boastings recorded by the prophet in Isaiah 47 verse
eight where the city is quoted as saying in its very proud and
indolent heart, I am and there is no one besides me. I shall
not sit as a widow or know the loss of children. to which Isaiah
prophesied in the very following verse, these two things shall
come upon you in a moment. In one day, the loss of children
and widowhood shall come upon you in full measure, in spite
of your many sorceries and the great power of your enchantments.
You could say she had it coming. Now she weeps, weeping. She weeps,
weeping. That is the sense of what Jeremiah
writes in the first line of verse two, this bitter weeping. There is no respite for her weeping. When she formerly found rest
in the night, now her nighttime is filled with streaming tears
flooding her cheeks. It is a profound picture of grief
that he paints here. Jerusalem enjoyed many lovers. Something that, again, we learn
when we went through the book of Jeremiah. Where are they gone? Where are they now? Now nowhere to be found. As one
commentator asked, where is her husband? She's a widow now. Where's her husband? Did her
husband die or did he abandon her? If abandoned, could it be because
of her many lovers? Or unfaithfulness? She has this
to think about. Regardless of the answer, it
doesn't change the fact that now there is no one to comfort
her. Nobody. This theme of none to
comfort, it's repeated throughout this chapter. Comfort. given to his people
is one of God's repeated gifts that we see throughout scripture.
And now comfort is as foreign to them as the thought of their
own sovereign rule. They know their days are over
as a nation. What comfort is there left to
be had, considering what they've already lost? The same with her
so-called friends. They're friends. There's a great
reversal there. It reminds me of Proverbs 14,
verse 20, which reads, the poor is disliked even by his neighbor,
but the rich has many friends. The city's riches are all gone
now, and so are her friends. In fact, it says, they've turned. They're now treacherous, that
word treachery. It invokes an understanding of
that there was a faithfulness, a trust that's been violated. Now they're vying for control
of the land that's been deserted. They're like vultures picking
a dead carcass, these fair weather friends. Verse three. Exile is what Jerusalem
knows now. That's what they know, exile.
Some, few, deserting to neighboring nations with no hope of return,
because truly, what is there to return to? It's all gone. And most of them
being exiled to the far off land of Babylon, a far off land that
they've only heard rumors about. profoundly experiencing the pain
of finding no resting place. Friends, that is another theme
that runs throughout this book. Rest is a theological theme that
runs throughout all of scripture. Rest does. From the rest that
God enjoyed on the seventh day, Thus inaugurating the Sabbath
day all the way through the rest won by Christ and enjoyed upon
his second advent by all that belong to him in the new heavens
and new earth, an eternal rest. It runs throughout scripture,
the theme of rest. What Israel and Judah had once
known under the old covenant was the gracious gift from Yahweh. of land promised to the patriarchs
with all of its accompanied blessings. That was the rest they knew.
That was their former rest where the presence of God dwelled among
them with the traveling ark and the now destroyed temple. That was the rest they knew.
It's gone. The temple is gone. Where they
were commanded to worship and bring their offerings. where
the ritual, the sacrifices would be carried out. The loss of all
this seemed like a death blow to them, an identity crisis. They also suffered an identity
crisis. That's hard for us to see sometimes.
But truly, that's another thing they were suffering. And those
of you that have suffered in some similar way to that, perhaps
you can understand or appreciate a little bit how hard that is
to shake off. You can understand the loss of
material things, but how do we even know me and my place in
the world? And during that, who are they
without the rest promised them in a land secured by God's presence?
Who are they now? We, too, today, beloved, we,
too, in the land of the free and the home of the brave, we
are multiple generations away from the American Revolutionary
War that you could say made our present rest today what it is,
okay? There's a lot of other factors
involved, but we're several generations from where it started. Try to
look past all the political messes that we have made for ourselves
in our own version from falling from grace. Try to look past
that, because by far, the general population of the United States
enjoys a type of rest that very few else in the world enjoy. There's a growing and popular
genre of literature these days, and it's one of apocalypse, and
it's popular even in my own home. It's been a popular thing in
literature for a long time now, really. People are drawn to the
thought of surviving something like an EMP, knocking out all
electricity, forcing us into some sort of 19th century existence,
right? How would we cope? How would
we cope? I realize, as you probably do
here, in comparison to Judah's devastating loss, we Americans
losing the conveniences of electricity seems trivial, perhaps even insulting
to the memory, but still, there would be cries going up to heaven. The question of many would be,
would God understand? Would he hear us? Would he respond? In Christ we know, but for many
they wouldn't understand this. Christ is always the key. For
Judah, as we will realize as we walk through all five chapters
of the book, God's silence is deafening. It's so silent that
it's deafening. No word from God is offered in
response to their cries. It's another thing we can be
looking for as we go through the book. There's nothing recorded
of that in the book of Lamentations. Jerusalem's profound desolation
and loneliness, it's a reflection of how grief can isolate a person,
make you feel like you're alone on an island where nobody understands. Their loss of identity, honestly,
it began centuries earlier. They just didn't know it. As
their hearts grew cold toward their God who redeemed them from
slavery in Egypt. It started a long time ago. Beloved, for those of us in Christ,
in the security of the new covenant made secure by the blood of Christ,
sealed by the Holy Spirit, Christ, our Lord, he meets us in our
isolation. We have a great high priest who's
gone before us, always interceding for us, mediating for us. What
a blessing it was to hear last week, going through the eighth
chapter of our confession, of who Christ is and how great he
is. That's who we have. He meets
us in our isolation. A very classic text confirming
the Lord's closeness is found in Romans 8, verses 38 and 39. Paul writes, for I am sure that
neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things
present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth,
nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from
the love of God and Christ Jesus our Lord. Nothing. Can you find
anything in there that falls outside of that list? No. And that love of His is an ever-sustaining
love. It is steadfast. And it equips
us to endure whatever comes our way. Blessed is our Savior. Let's talk about my second sub-point
here, facing the empty void that they had. Verses four through
seven. Verses four through seven. Let's
read those verses again real quick. The roads to Zion mourn,
for none come to the festival. All her gates are desolate. Her
priests groan. Her virgins have been afflicted
and she herself suffers bitterly. Her foes have become the head.
Her enemies prosper because the Lord has afflicted her for the
multitude of her transgressions. Her children have gone away,
captives before the foe. From the daughter of Zion, all
her majesty has departed her. Her princes have become like
deer that find no pasture. They fled without strength before
the pursuer. Jerusalem remembers in the days
of her affliction and wandering all the precious things that
were hers from days of old when her people fell into the hand
of the foe and there was none to help her. Her foes gloated
over her. They mocked at her downfall. These verses begin like the first
verses begin alphabetically. Here we start with the fourth
letter of the alphabet through the seventh. The poet continues
spelling out the devastating loneliness that they felt in
the city and the people themselves. These verses, they focus on the
loss of religion as they had known it for centuries and the
travail that they suffered by the strong and how the weak and
the innocent suffer along with them. Although it's already suspected,
as we read this book of Lamentations with the knowledge that we already
have, it is not until verse 4 where the name of this afflicted city
is first named. It's Zion, God's dwelling place
on earth. It's Jerusalem. In the Old Covenant,
that mostly meant the physical city of Jerusalem focused in
on the Temple Mount. But the temple's destroyed now,
it's gone. It's holy raiment has been taken
away to a foreign god. The roads, the roads that once
ran busy with pilgrims ascending to Jerusalem to worship, now
they're empty. There's no one going up to the
festivals to worship. They mourn these roads. Deuteronomy 16 verse 16 commanded
at least three visits per year for the faithful Jew. But there
are even more festivals that could have invited a pilgrim
to come to Jerusalem on these roads. They're now mourning. The roads are mourning. It sounds
similar, to the groaning of the whole creation that was subjected
to corruption, brought by Adam's failure to keep covenant, awaiting
a day when Christ will come and return that will do more than
return creation to its former glory, so to speak, before the
fall of man, the new earth. the heavenly Jerusalem, it won't
depend upon what was supposed to be the faithfulness of Adam
and his progeny to cultivate it. Christ, the second and better
Adam, who is God himself, will be its husbandman, its cultivator,
its king. The final consolation of Christ's
redemption is the church's great hope and expectation for this
new earth, this heavenly Jerusalem. For Jerusalem in verse four,
for them, there seems to be no hope at all. The loss of hope is devastating
to a person. And the groans extend, as the
text reads, to the shepherds of Israel, to the priests. They're
groaning. The young women who once danced
freely at the festivals, they're afflicted as well. In Jeremiah 13 verse 21, he questions
Judah's false prophets, including the king, asking, what will you
say when they set as head over you those whom you yourself have
taught to be your friends? Jeremiah is talking about Babylon
conquering the land of Judah. In Deuteronomy 28, verse 44,
as Moses dictates the curses for Israel's disobedience, he
reads, quote, he shall lend to you and you shall not lend to
him. He shall be the head and you
shall be the tail. It's part of the curses that
they would face for disobedience to the covenant of unfaithfulness. Again, Jeremiah saying, what
will you say when they're sitting as head over you? These people
that you think you're friends. It's a great reversal, a turn
of events. This curse has now come upon
them. Verse five in our text says, her foes have become the
head. They are now reduced to becoming
the tail. How could this be? That is the question that the
reader should be asking themselves as the poet writes it out. Now
we're no longer the head. How can this be? Didn't God dwell
among us? Verse five makes it clear how
this could all be. It doesn't leave anything up
to the imagination. It is for the multitude of her transgressions.
The sinfulness of sin had marked the chosen people of God for
promised judgment. Even the innocent are affected,
writes the poet. The children, they're not responsible
for violating the covenant. It was their parents, the leaders
of the land. Yet they are carried off into
captivity. You know, wartime is particularly
devastating to the children who can be separated from family.
They lack the maturity to be able to cope with such a loss. And the mothers and the fathers
knew this, of the suffering of their children. Can you imagine? Verse seven records what often
happens to people when they lose the good things that they once
took for granted. And again, we see the common
phrase in Lamentations, that there was none to help her. They're
remembering what they once had. Yeah, it's gone now. You should have given it the
thankfulness and the gratefulness and the attention of your heart
when you had it. You know, that's, we've all been guilty of that
in a way. But now there is none to help her. And to add to the
violence that was suffered, their enemies gloated over them and
mocked their new position as the tail, not the head. You know,
one day, one day Jesus, the true Israel, he would suffer similar
taunts as he hung on the cross. atoning for the sins of possibly
even some of those that were mocking him. He endured the insults
of priests telling him to save himself. He endured the insults of priests
telling him to come down if he is who he really claims to be.
Well, praise God forever and ever that Jesus did not meet
their challenge and come down from the cross, because he had
that power to do so. He was faithful to keep that
covenant to the end. Rather, he stayed and he endured
the mockings, the jeerings. A very big difference between
Jesus' endurance of the mockings and Jerusalem's experience was
that Jesus was completely innocent. and Jerusalem was full of guilt. God ultimately raised up Jesus
and transformed him to receive his eternal reward as king of
kings with a people mighty in number and faithfulness. We too,
beloved, we too can trust that God will continue to transform
us into the very image of Christ. And he will use whatever means
he deems necessary. And so often it is through these
trials. Our call is to endure. That call
remains. But we can trust that our Lord
and his spirit will sustain us. We have hope. My second point in my outline
is witnessing elements of grief in its causes, verses eight through
11. In verses one through seven, we just went through, we encountered
elements of grief in its loneliness, which help us to see their devastation
and how profound their loneliness was. Now in these remaining verses,
we're gonna encounter their elements of grief in its causes. Just
like I did in my first point, I'm going to break down my second
point to help us understand the flow here a little bit better.
If what encountered are causes of grief, then may it affect
a godly grief. May our grief be a godly grief.
I'm giving verses eight through nine the subheading of May It
Be a Godly Grief. In these verses, we reread of
Jerusalem's appalling guilt of sin, how it's displayed. Let's
read verses eight and nine. Jerusalem sinned grievously,
therefore she became filthy. All who honored her despise her,
for they have seen her nakedness. She herself groans and turns
her face away. Her uncleanness was in her skirts.
She took no thought of her future. Therefore, her fall is terrible.
She has no comforter. O Lord, behold my affliction,
for the enemy has triumphed." The prophet Jeremiah, he labored
for decades. exposing Judah's unfaithfulness
to God. They treated him badly for it. Isaiah earlier had likened God
as Israel's husband. Isaiah 54 verses 5 and 6 reads,
For your maker is your husband. The Lord of hosts is his name,
and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer. The God of the
whole earth he is called. For the Lord has called you like
a wife, deserted and grieved in spirit, like a wife of youth
when she is cast off, says your God. One of the main storylines in
the book of Hosea is how the Lord pursues Israel as the unfaithful
wife. Her treachery was prophesied
to her, yet she remained blinded by her sin. Steadfast in her sin. God remains
faithful to his covenant threats in punishing Israel. Hear Judah. And yet, seeing lamentations
through the lens of the New Testament, we see his purposes of true mercy. It's true mercy in judging his
people. Verse eight says she became filthy. Literally an object of derision. Filthy fits that understanding.
Now she's despised. Her nakedness has been exposed. You know, even in our post-Christian
world, in our culture, the majority of society, even today, would
sense the shame if their own nakedness was exposed. But not
half the shame that would have been felt by a Jew in the 6th
century BC. Not half of it. On a community
level, This same metaphor of nakedness, of exposed nakedness,
it could refer to now the exposed land, the nature of the land
being open for attack, for looting, which indeed happened. But really,
it is the shame felt by Jerusalem that Jeremiah is conveying here,
that utter shame. For verse eight ends with Lady
Zion groaning and turning her face away. She can't bear to face even her
enemies, many who once allied themselves as friends. She can't
bear to look at them. All weakness has been exposed,
and all hope for avoiding catastrophe has been dashed. She groans and
turns away. You know, it's even worse when
your sin finally has come to a point where you are caught
in it and you know there is no concealing that sin. All the fears, the consequences
of that sin you know are coming true, that they will come true. That you feel your heart fall
out There is no hope for avoiding consequences for their sin. She's
starting, Lady Zion is starting to understand this more and more. Jerusalem had been warned repeatedly
by Jeremiah and other prophets who repeated in their ears the
consequences of unfaithfulness and disobedience. I referred
to Deuteronomy chapter 28 earlier about the curse. But verses 15
through 68, a very long passage in Deuteronomy 28, we see Moses
listing the consequences of such actions of unfaithfulness, of
disobedience, actions from a hardened heart. The curses are listed
such as, you know, being cursed in their daily activities, suffering from diseases, experiences
defeat and despair, not merely depression, despair, loss of
all hope. Their enemies will overpower
them, leading to a life of oppression and loss, even dire consequences,
such as famine, siege, even cannibalism. during times of extreme distress. The people being scattered among
the nations, serving foreign gods, living in fear and uncertainty
every day. I was already warned to them. Verse
nine continues the thoughts found in verse eight. Based on the
lewdness of the city, Exposed on the first line in verse nine,
it really is somewhat surprising that Jerusalem could be ashamed
of anything. Let's read what the prophet wrote
of them in Jeremiah chapter six, verse 15. He writes, were they
ashamed when they committed abomination? No. They were not ashamed at
all. They did not know how to blush,
he writes. Therefore, they shall fall among
those who fall. At the time that I punish them,
they shall be overthrown, says the Lord. They didn't even know
how to blush. Fall they did, as verse nine
picks up in the second line. Therefore, her fall is terrible. And then that, again, that repeated
theme. She has no comforter. Rub it in. Let's remind everyone
who's reading our pain, we have no comforter anymore. Three times now, Jeremiah notes
that Jerusalem has no comforter or helper. God has seemingly
abandoned her. Her lovers and friends have left
her, they even mock her, and her enemies are overly oppressive
and cruel. For the first time, seen in verse
nine, Lady Zion is speaking, and she speaks in her distress,
crying out to God. She says, O Lord, behold my affliction,
for the enemy has triumphed. For you'd only listen and give
me a word, but God does not answer. This compounds her distress. The prophet writing all of this,
even on behalf of Lady Zion, he knows of the how and the why
of what is happening. He knows. He even knows the promises
of restoration. But the people don't. They have
been very poor students of the Word of God. God, in fact, does restore them.
The nation of Israel, however, never regains its former glory,
but true Israel, seen in Christ, consequently seen in his church,
does endure and does strengthen. God meant for this judgment in
time of exile to teach them in ways that conventional means
of teaching failed to produce. God still does that with his
church today. He still does. One of the more sad stories that
can be heard among the masses today, I think, is how persons
can feel so unworthy of God's love and forgiveness that they
fail to believe upon the person of Christ and what he's accomplished
for poor sinners. I can't go to him. Those people do not understand
that no one is worthy of Jesus and his unconditional forgiveness, but that his purpose was to come
and save sinners, sinners like you and me. And regardless of our pasts,
Jesus saves to the utmost. Yeah, there are consequences
to sin, and that troubles us. Even after receiving Christ as
Lord and Savior, we can suffer consequences to our sin. But
now God uses even those consequences to sanctify and strengthen and
prepare us for eternity in heaven. And he glorifies himself in the
process. Dear friend, do not let your
shame from receiving Christ's love keep you from receiving
Christ's love and his redemption that he offers. Pray that your
grief that you have, that if it's a result of sin,
which certainly does happen to Christians, that it may be a
godly grief. that Paul would later write in
2 Corinthians 7, verse 10, that it would be a godly grief, a
grief that leads to repentance and salvation. But regretfully,
for much of Jerusalem's grief, it was of a worldly sort, a grief
because of the loss of worldly things and status, a grief that
Paul says produces death. My last sub-point, verses 10
and 11, is about spiritual sustenance in the midst of sorrow. Let's read these two verses,
these last two verses, 10 and 11. The enemy has stretched out
his hands over all her precious things, for she has seen the
nations. Enter her sanctuary, those whom
you forbade to enter your congregation. All her people groan as they
search for bread. They trade their treasures for
food to revive their strength. Look, O Lord, and see, for I
am despised." There wasn't a thing worth anything that Babylon did
not either destroy or take for themselves. The temple and its
holy things, they were granted no sanctuary. They had no exception
for the looting. All was for the taking. God had
abandoned His footstool on the earth. The people's harlotry
with the nations, idol worship would be their portion,
and the Baals, they would have to save them. Let them save them. Of course, Those things either
would not or could not save. Ophir were their friends that
they had at best in Egypt and Edom and Ammon. Jeremiah had
prophesied that Judah did not even charge for her harlotry. She gave herself for free. Now she was utterly despised. God would not answer Lady Zion's
cry in verse nine. He didn't. Would he still remain
silent to the fact that pagans have invaded his temple? Even
the holy of holies? Don't let this escape what Jeremiah
is trying to convey here. Listen to me, Lord. Hear me.
These things are happening. That's what is being conveyed
here as some of these most grievous atrocities are being brought
to the forefront. Deuteronomy chapter 23 verse
3 says, no Ammonite or Moabite may enter the assembly of the
Lord. Even to the 10th generation, none of them may enter the assembly
of the Lord forever. And yet it's happened. God's answer to their ears was
a deafening silence. thus adding to their loneliness. Verse 11 speaks of some of the
harder, more difficult things to witness of their fall and
destruction. The years-long siege had decimated
the city. No one was unaffected. Later
on in Lamentations, we'll find that the poet goes into further
detail of the effects of the siege, but for now, we hear of
a great reversal. You know, what kind, really,
what kind of oppressive and unkind mind would the people of Jerusalem
possess, namely the rich and the well-off, as they lusted
for wealth over the needs of their neighbors? All they wanted
was more wealth, putting their hope and future in their collections
of their treasure. You know, God turned things around
now for them. What they wouldn't give for a
piece of bread, Those treasures now are being spent and depleted
just to try to survive. They could have bought omers
of bread, if I could use their language. Lots of bread, and
now that jewel could just get you a piece of it. Again, ladies,
I am groans. Look, oh Lord, for see, see,
for I am despised. To the unsuspecting and the unlearned,
this may seem like God is uncaring, unforgiving, and unloving. But
the ultimate theme of redemption in scripture, it's not thwarted
by the period of judgment that Judah suffered. We know this.
In fact, God would himself send his only begotten son to take
on flesh and suffer even greater loss and loneliness than Judah
could even comprehend. Even going through all of this,
greater than what they could comprehend. As was read in the call to worship
this morning, those first five verses of Isaiah 53, it tells
of the suffering servant who was despised and rejected by
men. He bore our sins, and the grief
He bored of absorbing God's wrath. I love the way that was put last
week. His wrath that he suffered was
absorbing God's wrath on the behalf of those who would believe
on him, who would trust in him alone. Beloved, when we are tempted
to think of our suffering that God uses to sanctify us, that
it's unfair, that it's unloving in some way, Just look back to
the cross of Christ and see what our Lord suffered in his innocence
to save sinners like you and me. And then see how your complaining
can even turn into thanksgiving. As we read of so many of these
songs of lament in the Psalms ending in thanksgiving. You look to the cross. I'm gonna
wrap things up here now. Christ, he became the embodiment
of our grief and suffering, having endured the ultimate sorrow of
the cross. His presence affirms that not
only does he understand our pain, but he also, he transforms it.
He invites us into a relationship where our brokenness can be met
with divine healing. Endurance, producing faith, producing
maturity in Christ. This connection draws believers
to see their suffering in lights of Christ's redemptive work.
It keeps our eyes and thoughts where they gotta be, on Him,
not on our pitiful circumstances. We also better understand through
this book that it would be inhuman not to grieve the kind of loss
that Judas suffered, that they experienced. You know, when good
things are taken away, it hurts. That's real. But we must also see and protect
our hearts against having those good things become replacements
of the person of Christ. becoming idols. It happened to
Israel, the people of God, who had witness to God's majesty,
the supernatural power. It happened to them. The Bible
teaches that this is impossible to do outside of faith placed
in Christ alone. So Peter tells us, it is better
to grieve over loss due to suffering for the name of Christ than to
suffer for the sake of sin. May that be so for you and me.
Dear Father, may our children know this and fear you. May our
parents and our grandparents remember this and fear you. Let's
pray.
Lam 1:1-11 Echoes of Desolation: The Elements of Grief Observed
Series Lamentations
| Sermon ID | 119242225484179 |
| Duration | 53:54 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Lamentations 1:1-11 |
| Language | English |
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