Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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Tone of specific sentences
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Picture this, it is the middle of the night.
You are startled awake by a sudden noise.
You open your eyes and you make out the shapes of the furniture in your bedroom because your eyes have fully adjusted to the dark.
Then suddenly, without a hint of warning someone turns on all of the lights in your room.
I want you to think about the agonizingly painful brightness of that scene!
Hold it in your minds.
Why?
Because it helps us to capture the message of Lamentations.
The light shines brightest when you are in the midst of the deepest darkness.
This is message of some of the most famous verses in our Bibles.
We all know these verses, but have we really stopped to consider the message of Jeremiah in the context of Lamentations?
Of deep morning and despair?
Only then does the intended message of Jeremiah’s lament come through.
Jeremiah is dealing with the lament that comes from sin and judgement.
He is in the lowest low of his entire life and ministry, he is looking around at the calamitous aftereffects of God’s judgment on Jerusalem for her sin.
He is trying desperately to make sense of it all, he is trying to keep his head above water.
He is trying to find hope in the midst of utter ruin.
And it is here, covered up by the blanket of darkest night, that a brilliant ray of the light of God’s glory pierces through the gloom and the despair, and gives Jeremiah overwhelming hope!
CONTEXT IS KEY!
586 B.C.?
1010 B.C.- David begins to reign in Hebron
966 B.C.- Completion of Temple
931 B.C.- Division of Northern & Southern Kingdom
722 B.C.- Destruction of Samaria (Assyria)
586 B.C.- Destruction of Jerusalem (Babylon)
The destruction of Jerusalem was a long time coming!
As soon as the kingdom divided and Israel and Judah began their prolonged spiral of decline into sin and rebellion, God began sending them warnings by means of the prophets.
For 345 years God sent message after message, but His people did not listen.
So finally after hundreds of years of warning God brought judgement upon Jerusalem.
And Jeremiah experienced it all.
He lived through the worst of God’s judgment.
And here he is in the aftermath writing Lamentations.
Lamentations is made up of five poems.
Each poem is a lament.
It is a funeral like message of grief.
Even the meter of the poetry to the ears of its original audience would have sounded mournful and filled with sorrow.
The first four poems are written as an acrostic, much like Psalms 119.
Jeremiah is lamenting to God the grief of his heart over the effects of sin, and in the midst of that grief he finds overwhelming hope.
Even in the midst of your darkest grief, God offers you overwhelming hope.
How do we find this overwhelming hope?
I want to look at three truths from the book of Lamentations that will cause the glorious light of God’s hope to shine in our hearts.
I want to start by setting the scene.
I want us to feel what Jeremiah felt as he wrote these poems.
Let’s start by looking at several different passages in Lamentations that we could entitle:
Picking Up the Pieces
Hurricane Ian
WWII Aftermath
Aftermath 2
Aftermath 3
Remember, Jeremiah is not writing this lament during the long siege of Jerusalem.
It is not in the midst of the siege, but is the wake of the destruction.
He is walking the nearly deserted streets of Jerusalem singing his funeral lament.
We need to feel what Jeremiah felt as he gazed upon the destruction caused by sin and rebellion.
How did the aftermath of Judah’s sin make Jeremiah feel?
A. Despair
How lonely sits the city that was full of people!
Speaking anthropomorphically of the city of Jerusalem.
She was once full of life and energy.
She was alive with the rejoicing of God’s people.
With the praises of Yahweh.
David ruled here by means of God’s mighty arm.
Solomon built palaces so grand that the queen of Sheba came to visit.
Jerusalem was a gem of a city, blessed by God Himself!
Now- she sits alone!
She is like a widow!
Imagine the loneliness of a widow as they roll over in bed, and still after all these years, expect to find their significant other.
She was great among the nations!
She was a princess, but now she has become a slave.
Can you hear the despair of Jeremiah?
Can you feel the devastation of sin?
Oh, if we could only take heed!
Young people, you who are still greatly enticed by the sins of the world if you could only grasp the grief of Lamentations!
Hear the words of Jeremiah!
Feel his despair over the sins of Judah.
Take heed to his warning!
Do not become him!
Can you hear the despair in vv.
2-4?
Weeps bitterly in the night!
Can you hear the weeping in the city?
Tears on her cheeks.
Can you feel the hot tears running down the faces of those left alive?
Among all her lovers she has none to comfort her! Jerusalem had turned from God and gone after other lovers.
Like a prostitute she had turned to worshiping idols and trusting in other nations to take care of her.
Where are they now?
She has none to comfort her!
In fact all her “Friends” have now become her enemies.
The roads to Zion should be filled with people coming to worship God at the different festivals.
It should be a place of worship and praise and joy.
But now?
Those same roads are filled with those who are mourning.
The gates of Jerusalem (where the esteemed elders of the city would gather), are now desolate.
In fact they lie in burnt ruin.
The priests groan.
The virgins have been afflicted.
The city herself suffers bitterly.
Can you feel the end result of sin?
It leads only to despair!
Turn from it!
Before it is too late!
How else did the aftermath of Judah’s sin make Jeremiah feel?
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