Alright, please take your Bibles and turn to Lamentations 4. Today we find ourselves on the other side of our climactic look at the concepts within Lamentations 3. If you've been following, as many of you have, then you know this means that we're kind of on the backside of the book. If you think of, Lamentations is like a hill. You climb it to the climax, and the climax is in the middle of the book in Lamentations 3, and then now we're kind of on the backside of that hill, working ourselves back down the hill. We've come to the climax of what the book has desired to tell us, and now we're reinforcing the concepts that are meant to point us no matter which side of the hill you're on, to its peak. Even in the midst of tremendous trials, we learned in Lamentations 3, we are drawn to the contemplations of God's love and His faithfulness. And of course, this week thus, as we've been studying, these contemplations of God's faithfulness are going to give way to more contemplations of chastening. and recall that being specifically because of the structure, the direct nature of this book. So recall together the structure of this book. And I know I'm beating a dead horse at this point. For those of you who have been here for all of these, you know the structure very well. And I hope you know the structure very well because we can't really separate easily what Jeremiah is doing in the book from its structure. So we have this A, B, C, B, A poetic structure to the book as we've walked through. And we've seen the first three components of this five-component structure. We've seen in chapter one Jerusalem's sorrow, and that's going to be correlated to what we'll study next week in chapter five, the remnant sorrow. And then we saw in chapter two the elements of God's anger, and that's correlated to the elements of God's angers. We're going to study them this evening. And then chapter three being Jeremiah's sorrow, giving way to that hope. This he recalled to his mind, therefore have I hope, he said, it is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed because his compassions fail not, their mercies are new every morning, great is thy faithfulness. And we've talked through the structure of the book and I'm not necessarily going to rehash all of that together with the number of verses and such, but we do find ourselves back in that structure here in Lamentations 4. Now, as we step into Lamentations 4, as I desire to do, we're going to study the book together, or the 22 verses together, we're going to study its contents, and then I want to divert our attention to some elements of Jesus Christ, trying to draw us through the climax of lamentation in God's faithfulness and draws to the reality of the outworking of that faithfulness in the person and work of Jesus Christ. And so you can expect that to be the case again this evening as we walk through the text. So you're there in Lamentations 4, beginning in verses 1 and 2, the Bible says this, How is the gold become dim? How is the most fine gold changed? The stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street. The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter." So Jeremiah contemplates here the gold that has been overlaid upon the temple and he then likens that to, as he says here, the sons of Zion. So he begins with the physical and then he kind of tries to make it metaphorical. And as we think about this concept, let us never forget how much gold was in that temple. Consider the record of the building of the temple in 2 Chronicles 3, 6-9. The Bible says, And he garnished the house with precious stones for beauty, and the gold was gold of Parvahim. He overlaid also the house the beams, the posts, and the walls thereof, and the doors thereof with gold, and graven cherubims on the walls. And he made the most holy house, the length whereof was according to the breadth of the house, 20 cubits, and the breadth thereof, 20 cubits, so as square as the Holy of Holies was, right? And he overlaid it with fine gold, amounting to 600 talents, and the weight of the nails was 50 shekels of gold. And he overlaid the upper chambers with gold. Okay, so this is a golden building, right? The whole building is gold. He overlaid everything with gold. Now, It was just gold everywhere. Solomon spared no expense. He cut no corners. Even the nails were weighted in gold. It must have been a truly glorious sight to behold by any conceivable measure to view this temple that we often call Solomon's temple. And this adds the necessary weight to our understanding of Jeremiah's lamentation here. The gold, he says, has become dim. For anyone who would have seen that temple complex, for anyone who would have been there to see the glory of that temple, and now Jeremiah on the backside of this describing it, perhaps the idea of the gold becoming dim may be because it was blackened by the temple having been burned. And so, whereas there was before this bright and shiny gold, now it has been blackened, it has been dimmed. He says that the fine gold has changed, most likely there the idea being that it has been removed, right, as the temple had been plundered by the Babylonians. He speaks of the stones of the sanctuary, which we read about a few moments ago in 2 Chronicles, that he overlaid things with fine and precious stones, having been poured out, perhaps the idea there being that the temple is in rubble, that the walls were knocked down, whereas the fine stones were once a part of that temple complex, now that they are just a part of the rubble, on the ground and then of course would be plundered. And then he likens these things to the sons of Zion. The luster and the glory of God's people that they once have is now dimmed, is now poured out, is now emptied, is now changed. The dignity and the reflection of power and of grandeur and of glory is now gone. The temple was so beautiful. It reflected the essence of the nation's power, their belief in themselves as a unique and a special people upon the earth. And the irony, of course, in this, as we learned from the last chapter, is that it was exactly this unique and special place that the people had in the eyes of God that caused his chastening to fall on them so severely. It was because they had this covenant relationship with God that God could not simply let them continue in their sin because God was going to be faithful to those he loved. We continue then in verses three through five, the Bible says, Even the sea monsters draw out the breast. They give suck to their young ones. The daughter of my people has become cruel like the ostriches in the wilderness. The tongue of the suckling child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst. The young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them. They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets. They that were brought up in scarlet embraced dunghills. So Jeremiah then continues speaking of the sons of Zion and the dimness and the destruction. And he does so through several contrasts here, first in nature and then through the state of the people of Israel. He says even the sea monsters. And the idea here alludes most certainly within this context to great whales, perhaps other larger mammalian sea creatures which are no longer with us. The word That we find here translated sea monsters is used 28 times in the Old Testament. It's variously translated whale Serpent and by far the most often translation is dragon and we would you know There's there's a lot of debate about that within Christian circles and whatnot But there's no reason to think that some larger serpent creature of some sorts. It was not real we see it in almost every culture and has drawings of these large serpent-like creatures. If you think of China, if you think of England and all of the crests on English armor and such, even down in South America, we see these things. And so the question is, why would we think here whale rather than, say, serpent or dragon? And the reason why we would think this is because Jeremiah, if we take the text at its word, is most certainly, without question, emphasizing a mammal here. And that's because mammals are the only type of animal who nurse their young with milk produced by mammary glands. And here he talks about these sea monsters drawing out the breast and giving suck to their young, right? And so if these sea monsters are giving suck to their young, then they're mammals. And the mammals, the large mammals that we know in the sea, are whales. Right? So this is where we would get the idea that he's speaking of a whale here or some other mammalian creature that is no longer with us. So that's the idea. But the contrast being painted here is that even these beasts, even these large, brute beasts will give suck to their young, right? They'll provide for their young. They have the means by which to feed their children. Then he goes on and he says but unlike the these sea monsters who care for their children The women of Israel first he talked about the sons of Zion right being like dim gold there in verses 1 & 2 and then he says in verses 3 through 5 and the daughters of Zion these women have become more like Ostriches than like these these sea creatures. They've become more like ostriches and we have seen this contrast before the idea of The ostrich in scripture as it's painted is Really the concept of abandoning one's motherly duties We find the same illusion in Job 39 to ostrich neglect It's an allusion to the periodic tendency of the female ostrich under certain conditions to either destroy her own eggs or to abandon her young Also, the fact that when the ostrich chicks emerge from their eggs, it is actually not the mothers who take care of them. Somewhat uniquely in the animal kingdom, it is the male who takes care. We also see this with penguins to a degree. But it is the males who take care of the chicks after they are hatched, not the females. So what we find in scripture then, as alluded to here and as alluded to in Job 39, is a uniqueness in the animal kingdom that God has built into the ostrich whereby it can almost become a picture of motherly neglect. And that is the picture that we see here, a hardness toward one's own young. And Jeremiah says the men, the sons of Zion, have become dim, they have become wasted, they have been poured out on the ground, and even the mothers have exuded a neglect unto their children. And this is much to the sorrow of Jeremiah. We've described this suffering before. We're not going to spend long on it. But he shows the idea of the suckling child's tongue cleaving to the roof of their mouth. That's what happens when a person becomes very dehydrated and there's just not even enough moisture within them for their mouth to stay moist. And the picture of that in scripture is that the tongue begins to stick to the roof of your mouth. And it's a picture of dehydration, of starvation. And the young children then asking for bread and there's no bread to be given. And then he shows this within the picture of this contrast that these were children who, in years past, fed delicately, they ate lavish foods, they were fairly wealthy, well-to-do, and now they're desolate in the streets. They were brought up in scarlet, scarlet being a royal color, the idea of wearing lavish clothing, and now they embrace dunghills. So once again, there's this picture of desolation. And in verses six through eight, we see why. For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom that was overthrown as in a moment, and no hand stayed on her. Her Nazarites were purer than snow. They were whiter than milk. They were more ruddy in body than rubies. Their polishing was of sapphire. Their visage, that's a face, is blacker than a coal. They are not known in the streets. Their skin cleaveth to their bones. It is withered. It has become like So we begin to see why here as we see the iniquities of the people being drawn out. We'll see this more as we continue. Jeremiah considers and he says here that the punishment for this iniquity is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom. This comparison may sound strange. We often elevate Sodom as one of the greatest pictures of judgment in the scriptures, right? Fire and brimstone being rained down on a city. All of the inhabitants, man, woman, and child being utterly obliterated with the exception of Lot and his two daughters. And yet, as one truly considers, it is perhaps not a surprising comparison for those in grief, because at least Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed in a moment, right? But Jeremiah describes the anguish and the suffering of inevitable death preceded by starvation. by sorrow and by that grasping and that seeking for life and for sustenance when there is no life or sustenance there. Jeremiah thinks back to those consecrated few in the nation who had separated themselves unto God through the Nazarite vow. Those who reflected the essence of legal and ceremonial purity before the Lord. They were those who would walk around and they would walk around in whited garments similar to the priests. And one would know that those whited garments were intended to reflect in externalities the purity that these Nazarites sought for in their hearts. And then Jeremiah's thoughts turned back to the siege once again. These men are now gone like the rest. They're starving. Remember that idea of the faces being blackened. An idea of starvation. An idea of being beaten by the sun. The concept of their skin cleaving to their bones. If you've ever seen pictures of starving people, that's what it looks like. You can see the actual outline of the bones beneath the skin because the body has eaten away the muscle in order to live. And this is the picture. Starving, withered, great shame. He continues to explain this contrast in verses 9 and 10. They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger, for these pine away stricken through the want of the fruits of the field. The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children. They were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people." And this, of course, brings this to its worst end. Again, we're not going to dwell on this. It's not pleasant. It's painful to think of. But Jeremiah effectively expressing the idea that there is more mercy in those that were killed by the sword, they're better off than those who were not, because those who were not were then relegated to a life of suffering and slowly dying through hunger, so much so that the women would consume their own children. in their starvation and in their desperation. Verses 11 and 12. The Lord hath accomplished his fury. He hath poured out his fierce anger, and hath kindled a fire in Zion, and hath devoured the foundations thereof. The kings of the earth and all the inhabitants of the world would not have believed that the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem. In these verses we observe an effective summary of Jeremiah's contemplations that all of these things reflect the accomplishment of the Lord's fury, right? That's what we're looking at in chapter four, God's anger. We saw it in chapter two, we see it in chapter four. There's real parallels between them, the fury and the anger of the Lord against the inhabitants of Israel. Consumed in a manner that no king on earth ever would have believed could happen to Jerusalem. As with all of the lamentations, so too with this one. Jeremiah then begins. after an elaboration of the pain and suffering to acknowledge all of the reasons for such in verse 13. For the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her, they have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood so that men could not touch their garments. They cried unto them, Depart ye, it is unclean. Depart, depart, touch not. when they fled away and wandered. They said among the heathen, they shall no more sojourn there. A couple of weeks ago, we painted a contrast in Lamentations 3 between feelings and reality, if you recall. This is one of those times where this understanding can be brought into full practice. After a description of such misery and sorrow, one would be tempted to think of God in a rather negative light. How could God allow such a thing? to happen to his people whom he says he loves. How could God bring about the circumstances that would lead to such suffering? But this is where Jeremiah again reorients us and gives us context for this suffering. Don't ever forget that this suffering is at the tail end of hundreds and hundreds of years of prophets calling them to obey. Of hundreds and hundreds of years of prophets saying this thing would happen. going thousands of years, if we really want to talk about going all the way back to the promises of Deuteronomy 28 and 29, we're talking about nearly a thousand years of God's promises coming to fruition. They should have known it was coming, right? So don't lose that context. This is that same thing. Every time you have somebody come up to you, and if they're genuine, genuinely asking, how could a loving God allow for the things that you read about in the Old Testament? How could a loving God allow for Canaan to be wiped out? How could a loving God allow for his people to go through the suffering that they went through? And anytime you're trying to answer those questions to someone who's genuinely seeking them, if they're an unbeliever, bring it to the gospel. Always do that, right? But if they're a believer or they're seeking and they're trying to reconcile with this thing, never forget the context for the suffering that we read about. Never forget that the context of the flood in Noah's day was 120 years of him preaching righteousness. Never forget that the context of Canaan's overthrow was 450 years where the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full from the days of Abraham. Never forget that the context of Israel's suffering, of Judah's suffering in these days was prophets begging them to repent for hundreds and hundreds of years. And Jeremiah brings us back to that context here. Reminding the reader that it was for the sins of the people that these things came about. That these sufferings were not mysteriously, it did not mysteriously appear. God was not fickle and angry and he just finally said, okay, that's it, no warning, I'm just going to wipe you out now. The people wandered as blind men in the streets, fully unwilling to acknowledge the depravity of their own sin. And by the way, it's the same thing when you're reading the revelation of Jesus Christ, isn't it? Never forget that the events that we read about in the revelation of Jesus Christ will come at the tail end of, to this point, 2,000 years of gospel preaching through Christ's church. 2,000 years of the word of God being dispersed throughout this world thus far. And never forget that when those terrible things begin to fall, and a third of the earth's population is destroyed, and rivers are being turned to blood, and the moon is being darkened, and the sun is being turned up, and all of these things are happening, never forget that the response of the unbeliever to that, as a general rule, will be to shake their fist at God, in anger, rather than to repent. as God would call them. Don't forget those things. That's essential context to God's judgment. We continue reading in verses 16 through 19. The anger of the Lord hath divided them. He will no more regard them. They respected not the persons of the priests. They favored not the elders. As for us, our eyes yet held fast for our vain help. In our watching, we have watched for a nation that could not save us. They hunt our steps that we cannot go in our streets. Our end is near. Our days are fulfilled, for our end is come. Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven. They pursued us upon the mountains. They laid wait for us in the wilderness. Jeremiah says that the anger of the Lord has what he says divided them. has dispersed the Jews among the heathen is the idea there. They've been divided from their country. They've been divided from one another. No divine regard was given to their rank from the greatest to the least, from the eldest to the youngest. They all suffered the same fate. They were all dispersed. They were all divided. And as for the nation, everyone they sought to get help from failed to help them. This overthrow was not aimless. They sought help from Egypt. Egypt failed. They sought help from Assyria. Assyria failed. And then when Babylon came in, they came in driven, intentional, and brutal. Their persecutors were swift and powerful. Jeremiah describes that here. And so our chapter ends in verses 20 through 22. The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits, of whom we said, under his shadow we shall live among the heathen. An interesting context change here. He turns toward Edom. He says, Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uds. The cup also shall pass through unto thee. Thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked. The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion. He will no more carry thee away into captivity. He will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom. He will discover thy sins. I find the end of this chapter very intriguing. Jeremiah speaks of living among the heathen in the shadow of the Almighty. that would be living among the heathen in Babylon and those who had come from Babylon. He calls for Edom to rejoice while they can. He says, Edom, enjoy glorying over Israel while you can. And we've seen those in Jeremiah and Ezekiel. We've seen the prophecies whereby Edom chose to rejoice over Israel's fall. And even as we look into history and we compare that with the prophecies of Ezekiel and Jeremiah, it would appear that Edom even helped with the overthrow. They allied themselves with Babylon to overthrow the nation of Israel at the time. As we're studying through the intertestamental period, we're going to see those resentments from that bubble up. It's going to be a while, though, before we get there. In the national sense, in the nation of Israel, because of Edom's choices within the days of their overthrow. So he says, Edom, rejoice while you can, because this cup of God's wrath that we're drinking right now is going to be passed to you next, right? It's coming to you next. And then notice the final verse here. He says, the punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion. He will no more carry thee away into captivity. Chastening is over. He carried you away. He did what he said he would do. Now it's time for others to be judged. Last time we were together in this passage, we considered the blessing of chastening. You remember that from the end of Lamentations 3? We talked about the chastening hand of the Lord and we talked about how chastening is a mark of God's faithfulness. It's been a little while now. We took quite a break between Christmas and New Year's and such. The wise King Solomon, the apostle Paul, both likened God's chastening as to a father who chastens the son in whom he is well pleased, in whom he desires and has a vision for what that son could be. So he chastens him in order to help mold him into the kind of man that his father knows and desires him to be. And as I read this final verse, my mind has gone and goes every time to those wonderful times of comfort and reconciliation following the chastening of my children. When I sit them down and I explain to them their wrong and their sin, and then they receive the consequences for their wrong, and then afterwards you can hold them in your arms and you can say, okay, it's over now. It's done. And that it's over now is not just the idea that, okay, the pain is over. But it's also the idea of, okay, now there can be full reconciliation. There can be a call into reconciliation. Now there is nothing between you and I. And chastening is only effective when my children and I walk away from such an experience being reconciled, being right, that there's nothing between. That there's nothing between me and them. It's all done, it's all over with. And that's the spirit that floods over me as I read this, as Jeremiah writes it. And he says, the punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished. He will no more carry thee away into captivity. It's done. He's done his work. And just as my children, they turn their hearts back to me, and we joy together in fellowship and love following chastening. So too, that's the call here, is it not? Okay, God's done what He promised He would do. He had to do it. He promised He would do it. You asked for it. You got what you asked for. He's being faithful to you. He's doing what He said He would do, and now that's over. And of course, naturally, the idea is now come back to your loving Father. Now, I've told you already the unique direction that I'm going to go in our application with this. And in some ways it's almost my desire here because we're on the you know We can't we came straight from Jeremiah into this and there's been a lot of Suffering and a lot of death and a lot of shame and a lot of sorrow My applications have sought to almost be a little bit of a ball to put, it's like some aloe vera on a sunburn, right? That idea of just looking for something to cool the sorrow. You all are well acquainted with the sorrow. at this point, the devastation. We've considered the tremendous devastation of sin in the lives of those who pursue it and indulge its empty promises. And we're tempted to look at Judah's ignorance and their apathy. We're tempted to look at their hundreds and hundreds of years of ignorance and of refusal to obey and of rebellion and to say things like, well, they did have it coming. They should have known better. But don't we all? Right? We all had it coming. We all should have known better. And so what I'd like to do this evening is to simply consider a few instances of interaction within the scope of the ministry of Jesus. And in doing so, remember what it was Jesus was doing as he ministered on this earth. What we see in the judgment in Noah's day, what we see in the judgment of Canaan land to an extent, what we see in the judgment of the people of Israel is we see the culmination of judgment at the end of years and years of rebellion. And this is again, as we mentioned, what we also see in the revelation of Jesus Christ. We see the culmination of years and years and years of rebellion in this final outpouring of God's wrath upon the earth. But there is a unique difference in the revelation of Jesus Christ, isn't there? There's a unique difference because it is not simply the rebellious nature of man's sinful heart, as we see in the flood, and as we see in Canaan, and as we see in the judgment here, that we are considering, we are actually considering those who have rejected the finished work of Jesus Christ. That the wrath of God is poured out upon the earth because the wrath of God for the sins of the world has been poured out on Christ. And he bore those sins, and he bore that wrath And yet even after Jesus bore all of that wrath and bore all of those sins and says, simply believe on me, come unto me, follow me and your heart will be cleansed and those sins will be washed away and you will be right with the Father, man still has rebelled. Man still refuses, even when there is a way through the finished work of Jesus Christ to be delivered from the realities of their sinful choices, to be given the means by which to follow God, to be given the power to walk within the scope of God's plan and God's desire. Man still says no. And so there is this different context within which we find the revelation of Jesus Christ where the wrath of God is being poured out for the iniquity and the sin, but it is rooted in the reality that they have failed to believe on the name of the only begotten Son of God. And as Jesus walked on the earth, he ministered within the context of the kingdom of heaven, right? He would call out, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And as he ministered, as he performed those miracles, and as he did those wonders, and as he forgave men's sins, and as he healed, and as he fed, he did so seeking to reflect the nature of his kingdom, the nature of his love. And as we go through these three accounts of Jesus and the manner in which He interacted with people, what we are considering is the heart of God toward people within the context of the finished work that Jesus would accomplish on the cross and the grace and the love that God desires to extend toward sinners. And it's a wonderful reminder of just how God, through Christ, has dealt with us. Because we're sinners, and as we've talked throughout the several, the last couple of weeks, we struggle with rebellion and pride, and we can be short-sighted too, and we can learn all of those lessons, but the uniqueness of our situation is, for we who are in Christ, he's already bore that wrath, hasn't he? He's already born that wrath. The kind of wrath that we see in the captivity, the kind of wrath that we see in the flood, we are as those who, if we've accepted Christ as our Savior, who have stepped into the ark and so have been delivered from that wrath through the ark that is Christ. And so let's remember a few things about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. this evening. Remember, first, Christ's compassion. It was not long after Christ's temptation in the wilderness that Jesus was passing through a certain city. And there he saw a man full of leprosy. Now, biblically speaking, leprosy is one of the clearest pictures of what we call original sin in the Bible. It consumes, sometimes fast, sometimes slowly, but it always inevitably consumes. You have it, there's nothing you can do about it. Now, in our day, there's medical treatments for leprosy. But in that day, there certainly was not. If you got leprosy, you went outside the city, you separated yourself from everyone that you knew, anyone that comes up to you, you yell, unclean, unclean, and they stay away from you and you stay away from them and you live out however many years of your life you can possibly live out before this disease consumes you unto death. And this is a picture of sin, is it not? of the isolation that sin drives you to from the life of God, of the sorrow of sin as it slowly and inevitably consumes a man until he's just an empty shell of himself. Until at the last, that man, an empty shell of all of his former potential, is entirely overcome. And it is just such a man that Jesus met on a day in Luke 5. So we read in Luke 5, verses 12 and 13. And it came to pass, when he was in a certain city, behold, a man full of leprosy, who, seeing Jesus, fell on his face and besought him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And he put forth his hand and touched him, saying, I will. Be thou clean. And immediately the leprosy departed from him. On this day, the man comes to Christ and he says, Lord, if you are willing, I know you can cleanse me. A very true statement and one which inspires a question, right? Is Christ willing? Because we know he can do it. The question is, is he willing? This man can offer nothing to Jesus. This man has not been interviewed. He has not sought to him diligently per se. It is just that Jesus was coming into a city and a certain man was there and he fell on his face and he made a request. Lord, if you're willing, I know you can cleanse me. And Jesus' response was clear and as simple as it could be. I am willing. Be clean. And he touched the leprous man, and the man was leprous no more." The world is lost in the leprosy of its own sin. Christ purchased the solution for that through His blood. And any and every man who would ask the Savior for compassion upon him will find that Christ was willing, even unto death, to make him clean. Jesus says in John 6, verse 37, "'All that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. Our Savior is compassionate. Don't forget that. God is compassionate. It's easy to read Lamentations. It's easy to read Jeremiah or any of the prophets for that matter and to see in this the shame and the pain and the punishment and the frustration and the suffering and to become jaded, to become to lose sight of the fact that everything that was happening in Lamentations, and in Jeremiah, and in Isaiah, and in Ezekiel, it was all directed to helping God's people get to the Messiah. God did everything he did within the context and the anticipation of the day when his son would come and bear that sin in himself. Christ is compassionate upon those who are lost in their own sinfulness. Christ is compassionate upon those who seek to follow him, even with their feet of clay. It is the truth of great comfort that we know and that we are assured that our God is not only able to save and able to forgive and able to lead us into his love and into his grace, but that God is willing to do these things. Any God in any truth, in any truth claim system, in any religious system, ought to be able to offer some sort of absolution or forgiveness. But in no other religious system was the God so willing to offer it that He purchased it with His own blood. That He within Himself secured the means by which His followers can obtain it. We don't have to climb up to the highest hill. We don't have to crawl on our knees. We don't have to say rote prayers over and over again. We don't have to give our firstborn children. We don't have to slay all of our calves and all of our sheep. God provided not just the willingness but the solution in himself. And it shows just how God, just how willing God is that we would be clean. He does not demand remuneration. Much to the contrary, there is nothing that we can give God which he does not already have and he has not already fully accomplished within himself. He is not a God who demands worthiness, for how can a sinful man be worthy of a limitless God? What is man that God is even mindful of him? God is willing because God is compassionate, because the very essence of who God is is wrapped up in his love for us. And for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, he hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace we are saved. As the hymnist so aptly states, "'Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home." So we praise God for his compassion, and we don't lose sight of the fact that God is compassionate. We don't lose sight of the fact that God is willing to cleanse, if only we'd be willing to fall down upon our faces before him. Second, remember Christ's perspective. We read two chapters later in Luke of Jesus entering into the house of a Pharisee named Simon, and he does so to eat. And while he was there, a woman enters in, a sinner in the city. The idea of her being called a sinner was most likely that she was a prostitute or a woman of ill repute in some way. She was not in an honorable profession. And she enters into this house, the house of this Pharisee, Simon, with an alabaster box of ointment. And she proceeds to stand at the feet of Jesus to wash his feet with her tears. to wipe them with the hairs of her head, to kiss his feet, and then anoint them with this ointment, which was very expensive. And Simon the Pharisee observes this with a measure of indignance, frustration, thinking to himself that if Jesus only knew, if he was a true prophet, and he only knew what kind of woman this was, What kind of impurities this woman had. What kind of history this woman had. The kinds of things that this woman had done. The defilement that this woman had experienced. That he would never ever let this woman touch him. But Jesus did not share this perspective, did he? Much to the contrary, Jesus spoke up in verse 40 of Luke 7, and he said this. Jesus answering said unto him, Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee. And he said, Master, say on. There was a certain creditor which had two debtors. The one owed 500 pence and the other 50. And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him the most? Simon answered and said, I suppose that he to whom he forgave most. And he said unto him, thou hast rightly judged. And he turned to the woman and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet, but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Thou gavest me no kiss, but this woman, since the time I came, hath not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil thou didst not anoint, but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment. Wherefore I say unto thee, her sins which are many are forgiven, for she loved much. but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. Jesus offers a unique perspective here which is essential to understanding the heart of God and the divine perspective. We're tempted to see sin by levels and degrees, aren't we? That there are really bad sinners and there are less bad sinners. Really bad sins and less bad sins. As I sit across people from the jail, If I were to ask each one of those persons that sits across from me, there would probably be a general sentiment in them that I have somehow accomplished something or that I am somehow a person of righteousness unto which they could never attain because of their past and their choices. If we were to compare my past and my choices with their past and their choices. And yet we find here that Jesus does not see things on that plane. Does he? Based upon this perspective, this earthly perspective, we assign to ourselves and to others degrees of hope or expectation as it relates to our relationship with God. But Jesus did not see things that way, did he? In Israel's day, they had sinned greatly and their sins were egregious and their consequences tremendous in the days of the captivity. And yet here we find this woman taken in sin by Christ's own testimony, her sins were many, right? Jesus admits that. And by Simon's perspective, the gravity of her sins were sufficient to disqualify her from God's grace. By Simon's perspective, her sins were many and his sins were few. And yet Jesus didn't see it that way, did he? By Simon's perspective, God must, by nature, reject this woman for the shameful choices that she had made, but this was not Christ's perspective, was it? Much to the contrary, Christ presents the heights of God's grace as more than equal to the depths of her sin. and beyond this reflected to Simon that the abundance of grace on her behalf was not only sufficient, but that the abundance of grace on her behalf seems to have led her to a deeper degree of love in her heart for the things for which she was forgiven. Because she well understood just how much she had been forgiven for. And we see the same perspective being offered in Lamentations. The sin of the nation was great. so great that God had removed them from their land. He had levied upon them the deepest degree of consequence that Deuteronomy said God would possibly ever levy upon the people. But in the final verse of our chapter, we find Jeremiah saying, and now it's over. God's chastening is finished. with a definitive expectation that what God had torn down, he had both the desire and the intention of rebuilding. That the gravity of one's sinful choices serves only as a backdrop to the power of God's grace in the lives of those who come to him for cleansing and for forgiveness. And what a blessed truth this is. What a blessed perspective that our God has, whereby he does not see the sinner, the repentant and humble sinner, and say, because of your sins, I reject you. He says, because of your faith, I receive you. Thank God for that perspective. Don't lose that perspective. Don't forget that perspective. One more reflection this evening. We remember Christ's compassion, we remember Christ's perspective, we remember as well Christ's gentleness. I take you to one of the most ambiguous of the tales of Christ's interaction as our final consideration. Jesus had gone early to the Mount of Olives, likely to pray, that's why he went there, right? After which he came early in the morning to the temple where he sat down to teach. It was then that the Pharisees and the Sadducees, companions of convenience, they didn't really like each other, right? But they were companions of convenience, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And so they worked together and they bring to Jesus a woman who had been taken in adultery. And they put her into the middle of the crowd and they accuse her of being, of her adulterous behavior. And then we read our Lord saying in John, 8 verses 5 and 6, Now Moses in the law commanded us that we should be stoned, but what sayest thou? This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. So Christ replies, shouldn't have said he said, he replied by stooping down on the ground and writing something as if he did not hear them. No one knows what he wrote. But then he does speak to them. And we see this in verses 7 and 8. So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. Now again, we don't know all the ins and outs of what's going on here. Was this woman actually an adulterer? Was she actually caught in the very act? What was Jesus writing on the ground? We don't know the answers to these questions and that is by, in confidence we know that this is by God's design, right? We don't need to know. We do not need to know what he wrote in order to understand this passage. If we did, he would have told us what he wrote. But we do hear his words. He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And we do see the reaction of the crowd in verse nine. And they which heard it being convicted by their own conscience went out one by one, beginning at the eldest even unto the last. And Jesus was left alone and the woman standing in the midst. The statement brought to mind the reality, very similar perhaps to Simon, the Pharisee. Jesus says in both of these cases that the, well, in the case of Simon and the woman, he says, her sins are many, but they're forgiven. Simon, do you realize that your sins are many too? That's the implication. You're a sinner too, but see, you're not showing me love because you're not perceiving the forgiveness. You are not perceiving the forgiveness. because you are gauging your righteousness on your externals rather than what's going on in your heart and recognizing that your heart is just as deceitful and sinful as that woman's. She just lived it out in her body and you chose not to. She loves me and her love is being expressed toward me more because she realizes her state. You're not expressing that same love to me because you simply don't realize your state. And here we have this woman, presumably taken in adultery, and Jesus looks up and he says, he that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. You be the first one to start stoning. And they all filter off one by one, leaving just this woman and Jesus. After which Jesus said to her this, in verses 10 and 11, when Jesus had lifted up himself and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more. Jesus was not trying to say that if this was indeed the fact that she was taken in adultery, that any of that was okay. Nor was Jesus trying to say here that God does not care about our sinful choices. What Jesus was doing is he was teaching a lesson to those who thought themselves to be above her. And the lesson was maybe spend a little bit more time looking at yourself and a little bit of less time looking at others. It doesn't mean that others won't suffer for their own consequences of their sinful choices. It doesn't mean that God is just overlooking sin. But what it does mean is that those Pharisees and Sadducees were sinners too. And their consciences made it very clear to them that that was the case. Notice that Jesus does call this woman to go into sin no more, but he also highlights a gentleness with which he desires to lead men and women from darkness into light, and the gentleness with which Jesus seeks to bind the wounds of those who have been devastated by sin. And these are important elements to remember as we seek to understand what God was doing in the days of Judah's captivity. A nation that was wholly destroyed by the consequences of their own sinfulness, showing us in no uncertain terms just how important the future ministry of Christ would be. And not for them, but for all who would believe. So we remember Christ's compassion, we remember Christ's perspective, we remember his gentleness. The life of Jesus Christ bearing for us this testimony of the tremendous love and the degree to which God would in himself extend his love through the very death of his son Jesus Christ in order to redeem men from their own sinful choices. The law. The law under which the nation of Judah and the nation, the northern tribes of Israel, were sent into captivity. The law under which the nations of Canaan, those pagan nations of Canaan, were wiped off the face of the earth. The law by which God brought the flood and the tremendous destruction in the days of Noah. It is cold and unfeeling and objective. The promises of God which were played out in Judah's destruction were objective and were necessary, a reflection of God's holiness and a reflection of God's righteousness and we do not discount that. We do not discount the consequences of sin and as we consider the consequences that we read in Lamentations 4 echoed from Lamentations 2 and we think about, I don't even want to dwell on it because it's so I mean, those consequences, the suffering of the people in that day, it's so terrible. But it's an outworking of sinful choices, isn't it? And the call throughout the prophets was, come unto me that I may heal you. And the exemplification of that is in Jesus Christ. And the question for us is, do we see it? we who are now 2,000 years after the death of Christ, we who have been delivered perhaps for many years from the consequences of our own sinful choices through the finished work of Jesus Christ and through the indwelling Holy Spirit and through the cleansing of the Word of God, we who perhaps have grown up in Christian homes or we've been sheltered from many of the deeper implications of the devastation of sin in this world, have we become either calloused to the tremendous amount of forgiveness that we need, have we become calloused to those who are around us, feeling some measure of elevation within ourselves, looking down at those who are living in the devastation of their sins rather than recognizing that we're not for God, I could be there too. And also, Does it work in you the desire to go out and to see others called out of that? Does your heart grieve when you see these cultural figures, politicians, movie stars, musicians, and you see the number of people that are desperately seeking unto these institutions for meaning? Do you, does it well up inside of you a passion to help people understand how empty those things are and how much more there is in Christ? Are we living within the context of Christ's compassion and his perspective and his gentleness? His desire to redeem others from the consequences of their own sins? And then finally, let me ask you this one as well. Have you fully translated the finished work of Jesus Christ into your life, or are you still living under the guilt and the condemnation of your sinful choices, having not fully recognized and appreciated all that Christ has done for us on the cross? This can go both ways. I just presented a pendulum swing. On the one end, we become self-righteous, judging others, feeling as though in ourselves, because of the things that we've avoided in our lives, that somehow we're better than others. On the other hand, we can fail to understand and appreciate what Christ has done for us, and so still live under the shame and the condemnation of the sin that Christ bore on the cross. Happy is the man that can find that place where he recognizes Christ's gift, and he recognizes what Christ has done for him. But he also recognizes that he is not unlike any other person that is lost in the deceitfulness of their own sinful choices. The only difference is the light of the gospel has shined into our hearts. We have received it with gladness. And Christ has thus produced in us a healing and a righteousness, which we could never produce in ourselves. And let us take all of these things with us as we step into the week. Let us take all of these things with us as we contemplate again the sorrows of Lamentations 4 and the judgments therein. Let us remember that everything that Judah was going through in that day foreshadowed just how important the finished work of Christ would be. Just how important these elements of Christ's ministry and the reflection of his compassion and his perspective and his gentleness are to our lives and to the lives of those who are around us. And thus seek to walk and operate within that balance of understanding God's holiness and serving him because of his graciousness and his mercy. Thank you for listening to Pastor Jamin Wickler from Legacy Baptist Church in Buffalo, Minnesota. More information about Legacy Baptist Church and a library of sermons are available at www.legacybaptistchurch.net.