Lamentations 5 | The Lord Restores

Intro

Hey Y’all! How are yall?

has everyone recovered from DNow?

good good.

who is ready for fall break?

Cool cool. anyone doing anything cool?

We are going to the lake to, it’ll be fun.

So i found that on TikTok or insta reels, i have found these videos that if the pop up I’ve gotta watch it.

It’s usually by the same guy, I can’t think of his name.

But what he does is repair stuff. He’ll take like 75 year old tools, to 100 year old toys or like old watches.

But in this one video dude had a watch that was a WW2 era watch, and the video led you to believe it saw WW2 combat in the pacific theater.

And this watch was beat up, I’m straight up beat almost to oblivion.

Water was all in the case, the hands were all mangled.

It obviously didn’t work, the leather strap was destroyed.

But this guy pretty much can fix anything and so the video is just like a 9 min sped video of him fix it, the audio and picture are super high quality.

And it is wild how meticulous he is.

Dude is thorough.

Dude doesn’t Skip and steps doesn’t cut corners. He is a pro.

And I love watching these cause it’s just cool to see how he fixes it. Maybe its like a dad thing, you know the Home Depot sound track is playing, “hows he gonna fix this thing?”

But I love watching it.

You know what is tells me though?

To truly fix something, to truly restore something, you have to get in a scrape every piece of dirt, every piece of rust, every piece of whatever away.

You have to totally clean it out.

This dude goes in and gets to the part that seem unreachable, the parts that feel like they can never be fixed, and fixes them.

It’s a process, it’s probably not super fun.

But it gets fixed.

And when I’m watching the videos I’ve found that I can’t fast forward to the end, it’s not as cool. it loses the wow, because then it just becomes an instant thing.

The effect is lost, you lose the cool factor by just skipping to the end.

I don’t really care about the watch, what we care about is the restoration. How something was seemingly broken beyond repair is made better than new.

And that is where we are going to live to night.

Tonight we are finishing up Lamentation and our study of Lament.

How we think about suffering and why suffering happens matters. If we can’t think about it well, then when it comes we won’t be ready, or see the lord’s glory through it and in it.

Context

So let’s remind ourselves what is going on.

Lamentations, written by Jeremiah during and after the seige of Jerusalem at the hands of Babylon.

Because of the leadership of the kings and the priests. They had steered the people of God away from the right worship of God.

God had had enough, so we get Lamentations. We get the destruction of Jerusalem.

We get God acting out of His justice, instead of His mercy.

Both rightful for him to do. But as we have learned, sin has consequences and the Lord is going to Judge sin.

So that is where we are at, looking at the end of this book and the looking forward to the restoration this promises.

So let get in to this passage, If you have a bible go ahead and turn over to Lamentations. IF you need a bible, throw a hand up and we will get one to you. We want you to have that in front of you.

So Lamentations 5, when you get there look at me.

This is one of the shorter chapters in the book. But let’s read this together.

But before we do that, let’s pray for our time in the word.

Pray with me.

Pray

Okay read this with me Lam. 5

Lamentations 5 ESV

1 Remember, O Lord, what has befallen us; look, and see our disgrace! 2 Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our homes to foreigners. 3 We have become orphans, fatherless; our mothers are like widows. 4 We must pay for the water we drink; the wood we get must be bought. 5 Our pursuers are at our necks; we are weary; we are given no rest. 6 We have given the hand to Egypt, and to Assyria, to get bread enough. 7 Our fathers sinned, and are no more; and we bear their iniquities. 8 Slaves rule over us; there is none to deliver us from their hand. 9 We get our bread at the peril of our lives, because of the sword in the wilderness. 10 Our skin is hot as an oven with the burning heat of famine. 11 Women are raped in Zion, young women in the towns of Judah. 12 Princes are hung up by their hands; no respect is shown to the elders. 13 Young men are compelled to grind at the mill, and boys stagger under loads of wood. 14 The old men have left the city gate, the young men their music. 15 The joy of our hearts has ceased; our dancing has been turned to mourning. 16 The crown has fallen from our head; woe to us, for we have sinned! 17 For this our heart has become sick, for these things our eyes have grown dim, 18 for Mount Zion which lies desolate; jackals prowl over it. 19 But you, O Lord, reign forever; your throne endures to all generations. 20 Why do you forget us forever, why do you forsake us for so many days? 21 Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored! Renew our days as of old— 22 unless you have utterly rejected us, and you remain exceedingly angry with us.

The Vine and the Branches.

Okay, so when I was preparing for this i was reminded of a story from John’s gospel.

and when I was in Israel I got to see this in person.

But it is in John 15, when Jesus is telling the disciples that He is the vine and they are the branches.

Jesus tells them this, John 15:5-6

John 15:5–6 ESV

5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.

What Jesus is describing is a grape vine. They are small little trees that they would plant up in these earthen mounds surrounded by rocks and they kept the weeds out, they kept they predators out, they kept disease out.

I didn’t know this until I saw one up close really, they are not easy to grow and maintain, any sort of weeds get in, it destroys the crop, any sort of bad fruit that is there long enough, it destroys the plant.

SO the vinedresser, the one who takes care of the tree, has to be super diligent about maintaining the plant. If not, the whole thing will die. So anything wrong with it, gets cut away.

So Look at what Jesus is telling them, Abide in me. I’m the only one who can produce good fruit in you.

Basically if you are going to follow me, then do it. If not, you are going to be cut off. What sort of fruit are you producing, is it good fruit? The fruits of the spirit? or is not?

But here is why I bring this up, this is why I was reminded of this.

What did Jesus say, Abide in me or you will be thrown in the fire. Because there is no life in you. Abide in me to have life, apart from me is death.

and what did the Israelites do during Jeremiah’s time?

The forgot God, they did not abide in Him.

They went after other Gods.

What happened to them? The Lord brought His wrath on His people. They were burned up, Jerusalem was burned.

If you go there today you can see the scorch line, and it is from this Babylonian seige event. This burning of Jerusalem.

Why because God had to cut out what was unrighteous from his people.

So who likes going to the dentist?

Yeah no one.

Who has had a root canal? Thankfully I never had to have one.

But do you know why the dentists has to do things? Has to to some really painful things to you? Cause your mouth is vital to your survival. They will pull out dead teeth, cut away dead parts of gums, they will do what they need to to get your mouth healthy.

And it can be a process, it can take multiple visits.

But in the end, your mouth is preserved.

It may be painful but it is cutting out the death, cutting out the decay.

This is what the Lord is doing here in Lamentations, he has destroyed the decay of His people. He has dispersed them until they are ready to come back.

All creation is heading towards something

And so this tells us something,

Everything and everyone, all creation is heading towards something.

When I was in college, studying history.

I had this professor who would always talk about this idea called Teleology. And I had never heard that term before, but basically in a history sense, all of history was building up to something.

The idea was super popular in the early 20th century with communism, because in Marxist thought, the aim of history was get to an ideal utopia of full on communism. The thinking fell out of popularity in the mid post ww2 ear thinking mainly because the thing it became was Soviet Stalinist Russia and it killed about 20 million people.

So people have kinda quit bringing that up. Now the idea is that history is cyclical, and patterns and themes repeat. There will be war, which leads to growth, which leads to stagnation, which leads to decline, which leads to war, which leads to growth, so on and so forth.

But as Christians we also have a teleology, doesn’t have anything to do with communism, but as Christians, as followers of Jesus, we know that the word is heading and building up towards something.

This passage is looking towards that.

Look at the end of this passage.

Lamentations 5:19–21 ESV

19 But you, O Lord, reign forever; your throne endures to all generations. 20 Why do you forget us forever, why do you forsake us for so many days? 21 Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored! Renew our days as of old—

Jeremiah knows that this is temporary and that there will be restoration.

If we read on in the bible, we know that about 70 something years later, Nehemiah comes and rebuilds the city.

He comes in and rebuilds the walls of the city.

the Lord keeps His promise to restore, and to keep for himself a people. The Lord will restore.

You don;t habve to flip over there, but look at how Nehemiah ends and think of how Lamentations was brought on.

Nehemiah 13:30–31 ESV

30 Thus I cleansed them from everything foreign, and I established the duties of the priests and Levites, each in his work; 31 and I provided for the wood offering at appointed times, and for the firstfruits. Remember me, O my God, for good.

Nehemiah restored the worship of God in the temple of God. Everything placed back in order.

The Everlasting Throne

And so here is the last thing that I want you to see.

The Old Testament is pointing to the New Testament, and the New Testament is pointing to the end and restoration of all things.

The history of the Israelites is a microcosm of the coming kingdom.

God has made the promise to seek, save, and restore a people for Himself and His Glory.

Lamentations gives us a glimpse of the everlasting throne of God.

Revelation gives us full view of the throne and the total restoration.

Revelation 22:3–5 ESV

3 No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.

This is the future he church is building for, this the future Jeremiah alludes to, this what Jesus means when he says, the Kingdom is coming.

God on the throne.

P2Christ

So what I want to do right now is, ask you to think. what are you building towards in your life?

CS Lewis has this quote,

“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.”

easy version is, you are going to live forever somewhere. Do you know where?

Just like the guy who restore the old toys and watches we talked about a second ago, the rust is going to be cleaned off, the decayed parts will be replaced or restored.

There is coming a day where the unrighteous are going to be cut out and thrown in the fire.

and the the ones who have Christ’s righteousness will be with Him. worshiping God on the throne.

There is coming a day when all things will be made new.

So a sk yourself. Do you know him. Not know of him, but do you know him?

I want to invite you in to the kingdom. To come and know the lord as king, and savior.

I want you to see that we are all heading somewhere, fire or glory. Where are you headed?

SO we are going to pray in a second and then sing,

and if you are sitting there thinking, i don’t know him, I want you to come talk to me right over here.

Come see Christ as the one who restores, come see chirst on the throne, come see christ as lord, come see chirst as king.