You're listening to a sermon podcast from Paramount Church in Columbus, Ohio. To learn more, visit paramountcolumbus.com. Well, as I mentioned earlier, today is the last Sunday of the month when we celebrate the Lord's Supper together and then also dedicate a portion of our service to corporate prayer, which we'll do this morning. That means that the time for preaching is abbreviated a little bit as I invite you to turn with me in your copy of God's Word to the sermon text this morning, Lamentations chapter 4, verses 1 through 6. Lamentations chapter 4, verses 1 through 6. As we've been working our way through the book of Lamentations, we have felt a lot of challenging truths about our world and about ourselves, and today certainly that's true as well. But it works to our advantage because of our hope in the gospel. And, especially on a Sunday when we celebrate the Lord's Supper, we have this opportunity in the Word of God to prepare our hearts by doing something kind of interesting. It may be something that the watching world would be surprised to see us do, and that is to see the way that the Bible mixes both the sadness of sin and the fallen world. with the joy of knowing Christ through the gospel. And of course, we're regularly reminded in our church of what we mean when we talk about the gospel that we use that word. We don't simply mean one of the four gospels in the New Testament. We don't simply mean any kind of generic message of good news, the kind that a king may send out when a victory has been won, which certainly is a way that the word gospel has been used. But we consider it in the way the Bible uses it. And it is unique because the gospel for Christians is an announcement of good news. And it's an announcement of good news, not about something that we have done, but it's an announcement of good news about what someone else has done on our behalf, that person being Jesus of Nazareth. That Jesus entered into our world, understanding our true need, which we see throughout the book of Lamentations, and He has brought into us Himself and His answers. That's why even in the midst of a fallen world where we see so many troubles on the news and social media and in our own lives, that we have ultimate hope because we know Jesus Christ has redeemed us by his grace, and he is sovereign, the sovereign king of the universe, and he is under absolute control over all things as he works his redemptive plan in our lives and in the world. So this morning to prepare our hearts for the Lord's Supper, and of course also for this time of corporate prayer, We want to see from this text in Lamentations 4 three realities of the fallen world as seen through this book. And remember, the book of Lamentations is personifying the people of God in the midst of their sin and the judgment that God brought as discipline upon them, and therefore we can see not only some church history or biblical history, But we can even see these realities in our own world today and in our own lives. And it's our prayer that God will use these texts to increase our joy in the gospel. So join me as we look at this text and we notice three realities of what it means to live in a fallen world. The first reality is that wealth in this world is rusted. Even in the book of Lamentations, the wealth of God's people was rusted. Very close to a B-52's lyric, but it's not quite there. It gets the sense of what we're talking about. We heard even earlier in ABF. that we are to lay up treasures in heaven where moth and rust do not destroy, because in this world, moth and rust do destroy. We see it here, even looking at just verse one, as the author of Lamentations reflects upon the effects of God's discipline and the tarnishing power of sin in the people of God at this time. He says in verse one how the gold has become tarnished, and the fine gold become dull. The stones of the temple lie scattered at the head of every street." This verse is drawing our attention to the material but also the spiritual wealth that was lost under the fall and the ongoing disobedience of God's people. When you see here the reference to gold, actually twice, how the gold, and then again, the fine gold, represents often in scripture the purity and glory of God's people. But here we find that it's tarnished, uses that exact word in the English, how the gold has become tarnished and the fine gold become dull. That's that sense of wealth that was relied upon and enjoyed and now it has been lost and tarnished. But of course, we know that there's more to this life than just the materialism or wealth of our lives. There's something more important, and it's represented in the next part of this verse, where we read that the stones of the temple lie scattered at the head of every street. Think about that. The stones of the temple, which reflected the spiritual wealth or the spiritual vigor of the people of God, has been scattered at the head of every street. Think about all the streets moving north and south, east and west. At the head of every street, stones of the temple have been scattered. This is a picture of both material and spiritual wealth that's lost because of disobedience to God in sin, because of His discipline, which is loving and good upon His people, as well as His judgment upon the world for sin. This is the reality of the world that we live in. There's no way to avoid this. We see it even without the Bible. We can look at the world even with fallen human eyes and see that this world is not okay. Things are not working in the way that we know that they should. And this text reminds us of that very thing again. We even can look to history at some of the greatest moments or what have often been called the seven wonders of the world and look at where they are now. The seven wonders of the world, some of them are more familiar, like the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. Relatively though well-preserved, though you've seen pictures of it online or in school books, that erosion and tourism has had enormous impact upon this world wonder. Or the hanging gardens of Babylon, which are nowhere to be found, perhaps even likely mythical, or the statue of Zeus at Olympia, destroyed by fire in the 5th century AD, only descriptions of it remain. Or the temple of Artemis at Ephesus, which is in Turkey, mostly destroyed by arson and plundered, only ruins remain. Or the mausoleum of Harnacanassus in Turkey, The ruins exist, but much of the structure has been dismantled and repurposed. The Colossus of Rhodes in Greece, destroyed by an earthquake in 226, and then the remnants were sold for scrap. or the lighthouse of Alexandria in Egypt, mostly destroyed by earthquakes, some ruins are now submerged underwater. These highest points, these wonders of our world cannot survive the tarnishing effect of sin that is not only a part of just the world's operation, but continues to operate in the hearts of every single person, even us. We have remaining sin. This destructed temple serves as a warning and as a reminder to us to care for our own souls, which the Bible clearly tells us, as Christians, is the temple of the living God. Because our God is not a God who simply entered our world and kept at a distance from us, but rather by his grace and by his work through the person and work of Jesus, has by his spirit indwelled us, that he has actually entered into us and changed us. We belong to him, and he belongs to us. Therefore, we should take this warning, and we should take seriously our own souls. In particular, what we are putting into our souls, if we think of it that way. Maybe the intake of what's coming in through our ears, or through our eyes, through our interaction with the world. It's not a challenge to be separate from the world where we have no contact with the world, of course. We are in the world to be a continuing light of God's grace and mercy, of His redemptive purposes, but nevertheless to be set apart, to be different, to be different than the world. And this is yet again a reminder to us. of the joy that we have in the gospel. One of the things that I love about the book of Lamentations is that it is not only teaching us to lament the loss that we experience because of sin, but it is giving us an occasion, or we might say a backdrop, on which we can see the glory of the good news of Jesus Christ shining all the more brightly. Even here in this verse, the stones of the temple lie scattered at the head of the street. The Bible uses this very kind of language to restore our spiritual heritage in Christ, referring to him, which may be familiar to you, as the chief cornerstone. the true and better cornerstone on which our spiritual foundation is built. Therefore, when we read these words and we lament with the people of God, as the people of God, for loss in the fall and because of sin, we at the same time look to something like the Lord's Supper as the reminder of how Jesus has, by his grace and power, overcome this for his chosen people. Again, it is our challenge to think carefully about the intake of truth and the output, that's kind of a clumsy way to put it, but the intake and the output of our lives. The kinds of things that we are then putting into the world. What kind of words are we speaking to the world that they might know the grace and power of Jesus and what he's done for us? Not because of anything that we have done, but simply because he's chosen to be merciful to us. The second reality we see in this text, if we look at verses two through four, is the way that sin in the fall brought an abuse to what is considered most precious. We find this preciousness abused because sin is sinister. Sin, as we saw recently even, is a insane worker. The sin is the very heart of our insanity. We have seen so many things in the book of Lamentations and throughout the Bible that reflect to us the insanity of sin. It is insane to disobey the living God. It makes no sense whatsoever, and yet we do it. Everyone does it. We have been taken over by the insanity of sin, and we need God to put us right again. And I know that when I say that, there are many of us and our own thoughts as we're working through them, and certainly people in the world who would take real issue with the idea that sin has made us insane, spiritually insane. But that's what it means to be insane. No one who is insane knows they're insane. They cannot see it. This is why sin is such a problem. The Bible is so clear to give us a revelation of God to us that we are not relying upon our own vision of the world, but we're relying on His vision of us. He is speaking with unique clarity and power into our lives the truths that we cannot see. because being spiritually insane because of sin has blinded us from seeing the truth. This is why we are so delighted to make so much of the grace of God, because grace does not rely upon us to do anything. It doesn't rely on us to say certain things. It does not rely on us to mean things really with our hearts in order to earn God's favor. Grace says, I favor you because I favor you. I love you because I love you. And that's the way that it must be. Because if there's anything that I could do to impress the God of the universe, who has no equal, he wants for nothing, he never sleeps nor slumbers, he does whatever he pleases all the time, I'm never going to measure up. There's no amount of good works. There's no amount of good thinking. There's no amount of good feelings. There's nothing I can do to appease this God. If I am going to know him and if I am going to become his friend, it can only be because of sovereign grace. And that's why when we come to a text like this and we see the worst of news, we have reason to rejoice. because we know that the God of grace has shown his grace to us in the person and work of Jesus. As he has converted us, opened our hearts, delighted us, delighted over us, the gospel is no small thing. It is beautiful and life-changing, and it meets us in the very darkest of moments. Listen to these dark moments as they are put in the words of Lamentations 4, 2 through 4. This is the next reality of the preciousness abused. Zion's precious children, once worth their weight in pure gold, how they are regarded as clay jars. You see the contrast there? Another contrast between pure gold and clay jars. Those who were most precious, most delighted, and most rejoiced over, most protected, most cared for, most held at the heart, are now mere clay jars, the work of a potter's hands. It means that they're at the mercy of whoever is in control of them. Notice what he says then, he raises the stakes in verse three. Even jackals offer their breasts to nurse their young, but my dear people have become cruel like ostriches in the wilderness. using a couple of natural metaphors there of jackals. You know what a jackal is. To think that a jackal in some way would be better than a human mother is an appalling thought. Talk about insanity. That's insanity. Or even what you know of maybe ostriches in the wild, which they may seem pretty tame at the zoo, but out in the wild are dangerous, can be cruel. This is the contrast of what has happened under the power of the fall, and because of the discipline and judgment of God. Verse four, the nursing baby's tongue clings to the roof of his mouth from thirst, going without in great need. Infants beg for food, but no one gives them any. This is all the more striking, I think, as we see this verse even reflecting the very reality that is playing out in our own country and in many countries like ours because of the plague of abortion. This is the very thing that the Bible is talking about, the preciousness abused in children who ought to be those that we hold closest to us, the most defenseless, the most helpless, not cared for. And here we have this bad news yet again. But, in the midst of it, we see the good news of the gospel. Because we see that in other places in scripture, it's reflected over and over again to us, like it is here, to draw a distinction between fallen people, like us, left to ourselves, and the perfect, righteous, glorious God of all creation, left to himself. When left to himself, he does not abuse what's precious. Left to himself, he is a compassionate father. Just as we read in Psalm 103, as a father has compassion on his children, the Lord has compassion on those who fear him. He is the ultimate picture. And listen, how has God been compassionate to you? Christian, if you are a Christian, how has God been compassionate to you? In a million different ways, but at the center of it all is the work of Jesus Christ. because he gave himself, his own son, to enter into our world and to take our place, that he came to be the very propitiation for our sin, the sacrifice for us, so that then he would open his arms wide and he would bring us in like a compassionate father, like a loving mother, tenderly caring for his children. to hold them and keep them, and because He does whatever He pleases, He is pleased to control our lives, both the good and the bad, for our good forevermore. This is the message of the gospel. This is the message of the Bible. And it's coming through even here, through the darkness of a frowning providence, as we've considered also recently from the book of Lamentations. But before we celebrate the Lord's Supper, one more reality which is presented to us in verses five and six is that even dignity is defiled under the fall. Look at verse five. Those who eat delicacies are destitute in the streets. Those who are reared in purple garments, those who are glorious, those who are royal, those who are the most celebrated, those who are at the highest position of the culture huddle in trash heaps. The punishment of my dear people is greater than that of Sodom, which was overthrown in an instant without a hand laid on it. This is a reference of another aspect of the culture or the world of the people of God, that the fortune of the elite is even lost and defiled. They scavenge in the streets. Listen to those words, the judgment is worse than Sodom. It's a picture that's shared here of the bodies of the dignified wasting away in hunger and suffering, even leading to cannibalism. Imagine the king or queen of England on the streets begging for food and shelter. It's a picture that, to use another kind of natural metaphor, you've seen this also in your history books in school, perhaps in a museum. Either images or the real thing of mummies that are unearthed and shown where we can look inside their tomb. One of the most striking things when they're unwrapped is to see the gaunt, leathery skin of just loss and time taking its toll. It's this kind of picture that's being used to describe the spiritual state of God's people under sin because of the ongoing effects. But nevertheless, it is giving us another reason for hope. Because just as this is an effect of God's judgment, exhausted on the people, God's wrath exhausted gives us gospel hope because we have the New Testament message, which is represented in the Old Testament plan that Jesus Christ is the one who has borne the wrath of God for me. He is the one who has been, as I said earlier, become the propitiation for our sins. You could turn briefly there just for a moment to Romans chapter three, starting in verse 21. Listen to these words. which share with us again and again what our ultimate hope in Christ is all about. That He did not simply come to set up a new system. He didn't simply come to retool a few things in our lives. He came to give Himself for our greatest need, and that is the forgiveness of God, and to be in his covenant family forevermore as sons and daughters, no longer as sinners, no longer as enemies, not even just as friends, but now. Apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, attested by the law and the prophets in the Old Testament of the Hebrew Bible. The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. It's that reminder, again, when we think about the grace of God, how do you come into God's family? You don't come in working. You don't come in making your own investment. You don't meet him halfway. He sticks his hand out, you stick your hand out. But rather, what is required of you in order to be a part of God's family? Faith alone. Because there's nothing else that I have to give. There's nothing else that I could do. And even that, even that in Romans, is a gift of God. Because I didn't become a Christian until I was 18. I grew up in a church-going family. I knew about the Bible. I was the vice president of FCA, not a Christian. I did not have faith in Christ. I was sort of loosely Christian, but it wasn't until June 21st, 1995, that Jesus Christ changed my heart. He granted me the gift of faith by His grace, and my eyes were opened to see the beauty of His mercy toward me, and everything started changing for me. Of course, it doesn't eradicate our sin. It doesn't mean that we don't continue to sin and struggle. We do, but God is caring for us in the midst of that. He's using all of it, even these dark moments in His Bible, to encourage us and to help us and to change us. The righteousness of God is through faith alone in Jesus Christ to all who believe. It's repeated. Since there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. They are justified, hear this, justified freely by what? By their works, by all of the works that they can do, by all of the ways that they can shape up their lives, by all of the arguments that they can make to defend them. That is not what the Bible says. The Bible says they fall short of the glory of God, they, we, I, am justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Listen to this, God presented Him as the mercy seat by His blood. That's actually in, this is the CSB, it's actually the word that you might have in your Bible, propitiation, an atoning sacrifice by which God the Father poured out His wrath on His Son and therefore has become our substitute, our sacrifice, absorbing the wrath of God that I deserved, taking it away so that I may know God's mercy and love forevermore by his blood." He says it again. Paul cannot say it enough. This is a major issue for Paul. God presented him as a mercy seat. This is verse 25 of Romans 3, if you lost track. By his blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness because in His restraint, God passed over the sins previously committed. God presented Him to demonstrate His righteousness at the present time so that He would be just and justify the one who has faith in Jesus. Therefore, even in the midst of frowning providences, even in the midst of these pictures and these troubling realities of the fall in the world, which can be so unsettling, when we look to Christ with the eyes and heart of faith, knowing that he has shown us grace and that we know him by grace alone, when we come to the Lord's table and we take of the bread and the fruit of the vine, we do so rejoicing because God has done everything necessary in order to care for us, to direct us, and to take us to the very end of his kingdom, which we celebrate today in the Last Supper. We want to be people who rejoice in the good news. That's why we have named our church Paramount Church. If you're sort of new here, our church is named Paramount Church because in 1 Corinthians 15.3, the apostle Paul says that he delivered to people everywhere that he went. what was of first importance, and that that's the good news of Jesus Christ, what he's done for us. That in his mercy, he came to us in our darkest, worst moment, and he did what we could not do for ourselves and more. And he continues, without sleeping or slumbering, to work on our behalf every single day. This is the humbling reality of the gospel, that we've done nothing to deserve this, and we can do nothing to lose it. Therefore, we're empowered all the more to be a force for good in the world, to make the gospel known, to exalt Christ, to make the gospel and His good news paramount. That's what we're trying to do. And we have an opportunity this morning to do that as we take the Lord's Supper. What I wanna do this morning is to invite those who are going to lead us to sing once again to come forward as I pray, and I'll go ahead and give some instructions about the Lord's Supper. If you're visiting with us today, and perhaps you're not a Christian, or you're visiting, and you're not sure about your faith in Christ, then this would be a time for you to observe and not take the Lord's Supper. The Bible's very clear about that. Taking the Lord's Supper is a means of aligning, showing our alignment with Jesus, that we belong to Him, He belongs to us. But for those of us who are here, and we know that we belong to Christ, we've seen the way that His grace has opened our eyes, that we take the Lord's Supper with a unique meaning, a unique investment of our own lives, to consider our lives. How can we love God? How can we enjoy Him more? And therefore, I wanna encourage you to think about that today. And so I'm gonna invite you to stand as you're able as we sing again, and then we will distribute the elements of the Lord's Supper before we take it, and then we'll have this time of praying together in our service.