Soul Survivor
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Hitchhiker’s Guide To Suffering
Hitchhiker’s Guide To Suffering
21 But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:
Hope- He is not minimizing suffering or misery… He is finding the positive in it… Look at what he says prior to this....
Look at Lamentations 3.1-20
1 I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath;
2 he has driven and brought me into darkness without any light;
3 surely against me he turns his hand again and again the whole day long.
4 He has made my flesh and my skin waste away; he has broken my bones;
5 he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation;
6 he has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago.
7 He has walled me about so that I cannot escape; he has made my chains heavy;
8 though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer;
9 he has blocked my ways with blocks of stones; he has made my paths crooked.
10 He is a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding;
11 he turned aside my steps and tore me to pieces; he has made me desolate;
12 he bent his bow and set me as a target for his arrow.
13 He drove into my kidneys the arrows of his quiver;
14 I have become the laughingstock of all peoples, the object of their taunts all day long.
15 He has filled me with bitterness; he has sated me with wormwood.
16 He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes;
17 my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is;
18 so I say, “My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the Lord.”
19 Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall!
20 My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me.
Hope- the writer has had suffering- but he is writing about what can happen when one turns in that suffering to God- one can find hope.
And the reason we can find hope is because God is the covenant god of Israel… see Exodus 2.23-25
23 During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. 24 And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. 25 God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.
22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end;
Key to this verse: love… the great love of the lord, the covenant love of the lord… the loyalty of the lord. The God who had called Israel into existence through his covenant with Abraham would not continue to extend his love and mercy to them.
God’s natural divine impulse is to extend grace. God’s compassion always leads him to forgive and start fresh after the worst of judgments...
this passage correlates with Exodus 34:6-7
6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
See Deuteronomy 30.1-11
1 “And when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God has driven you, 2 and return to the Lord your God, you and your children, and obey his voice in all that I command you today, with all your heart and with all your soul, 3 then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have mercy on you, and he will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you. 4 If your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there he will take you. 5 And the Lord your God will bring you into the land that your fathers possessed, that you may possess it. And he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers. 6 And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live. 7 And the Lord your God will put all these curses on your foes and enemies who persecuted you. 8 And you shall again obey the voice of the Lord and keep all his commandments that I command you today. 9 The Lord your God will make you abundantly prosperous in all the work of your hand, in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your cattle and in the fruit of your ground. For the Lord will again take delight in prospering you, as he took delight in your fathers, 10 when you obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes that are written in this Book of the Law, when you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
11 “For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off.
God’s determination to bless and heal is as thorough and unusual as his determination to punish sin
God’s determination to bless and heal is as thorough and unusual as his determination to punish sin
Thus, Lam 3:22 agrees with one of the most extraordinary teachings in the OT. Though Israel sinned against God through idolatry, immorality, oppression, and other forms of long-term covenantal adultery to such an extent that he finally punishes severely, the Lord will still start over with penitent Israelites. In other words, God’s determination to bless and heal is as thorough and unusual as his determination to punish, if not more so. The road back to covenantal relationship may well be long and difficult, especially given the level of sin and the depth of punishment. Nonetheless, it is possible to begin.
23 they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
The fact that you woke up today is a renewal of God’s mercy....
We’ve passed through the night, and God’s mercy is new once again.
, the word “new” does not mean “something that never existed before, but rather a fresh renewal of what has been experienced before.” Each new day the proofs of God’s grace flow from his compassionate nature (Keil, 414). Each new day dawns with the possibility of covenant renewal for a punished people. This opportunity lasts as long as God lasts since it is grounded in his personal character.
“faithfulness” expresses “a characteristic of God in relationship with a human person made manifest in his deeds. Characteristics of such fidelity are consistency, stability, truth, and permanence.” God’s covenantal fidelity and integrity remain intact no matter how things may seem. Human beings may not wish it were so, but judgment for sin as promised proves this faithfulness. Gratefully, so does God’s promise to start anew with a terribly compromised covenant partner, and it is this facet of Yahweh’s faithfulness that the speaker affirms here.
24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”
The writer of Lamentations is in effect saying that he has had so little of material things and pleasure because his hsare has been the Lord… see Psalm 16.5
5 The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold my lot.
26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
57 The Lord is my portion;
I promise to keep your words.
5 I cry to you, O Lord;
I say, “You are my refuge,
my portion in the land of the living.”
The three next verses begin with the word good. Imagine in the midst of all that had and could happen to this individual, he found good.
For people in the year 2024, “good” means those tihngs which conform to our most important and valued concepts. That is so typical of our self-centered thinking and mindset. It is good because it helps us.
But for the OT people, “good” would always- more than anything else- “good” would express God’s will and purposes. So listen to these three and final verses together again, and I will tear them down one at a time.
25 The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.
Waiting for God. How many of you like waiting on God? And please note it is not “good’ to wait on God,,, God knows our inpatience- our selfishness- It says that God is good to those who wait for Him.
This individual will put God’s timing ahead of their own.
31 but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.
That is a good verse, but note what comes before it in that same chapter....Isaiah 40.1-5
1 Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.
3 A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
4 Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.
5 And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
Let’s put Lamentations 3.25 back on the screen.
25 The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.
And so, one of the lessons that the writer of Lamentations has to teach us- and all of the Bible has to teach us- is that waiting for God is not a bad thing. In fact, waiting through trials may be the best thing for us. It is through that wait that God eventually reveals to us His good.
26 It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.
“wait quietly”.... what does that mean?
Faith, that in trial, expresses quiet hope in God and the learning of discipline.
In Lamentations 2, the chapter just before this one.... the Babylonians have destroyed the wall of Jerusalem. Jerusalem has been sacked. And I want you to listen to what the writer of Lamentations says about what that looked like. Read Lamentations 2.1-10
1 How the Lord in his anger has set the daughter of Zion under a cloud! He has cast down from heaven to earth the splendor of Israel; he has not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger.
2 The Lord has swallowed up without mercy all the habitations of Jacob; in his wrath he has broken down the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; he has brought down to the ground in dishonor the kingdom and its rulers.
3 He has cut down in fierce anger all the might of Israel; he has withdrawn from them his right hand in the face of the enemy; he has burned like a flaming fire in Jacob, consuming all around.
4 He has bent his bow like an enemy, with his right hand set like a foe; and he has killed all who were delightful in our eyes in the tent of the daughter of Zion; he has poured out his fury like fire.
5 The Lord has become like an enemy; he has swallowed up Israel; he has swallowed up all its palaces; he has laid in ruins its strongholds, and he has multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
6 He has laid waste his booth like a garden, laid in ruins his meeting place; the Lord has made Zion forget festival and Sabbath, and in his fierce indignation has spurned king and priest.
7 The Lord has scorned his altar, disowned his sanctuary; he has delivered into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they raised a clamor in the house of the Lord as on the day of festival.
8 The Lord determined to lay in ruins the wall of the daughter of Zion; he stretched out the measuring line; he did not restrain his hand from destroying; he caused rampart and wall to lament; they languished together.
9 Her gates have sunk into the ground; he has ruined and broken her bars; her king and princes are among the nations; the law is no more, and her prophets find no vision from the Lord.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground in silence; they have thrown dust on their heads and put on sackcloth; the young women of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground.
Look very closely at that 10th verse....
What is happening? the leaders of Jerusalem are sitting on the ground, quietly, with dust on their heads and mourning clothes on.... don’t miss that point. They aren’t defeated- they are waiting. They know that this too will pass. They know that this too will change.
Now go back to Lamentations 3.26
26 It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.
this text transforms silence from a posture of the defeated to one of the soon-to-be delivered.-Word Biblical Commentary
This silence, however, seems to be one of expectation. Renkema (396) argues that this silence in 3:26 “ought to be understood as more than simply sitting in a sort of paralyzed amazement. The present text speaks rather of a tenacious intensification of ‘being silent,’ of a conscious option for remaining silent.” In other words, this text transforms silence from a posture of the defeated to one of the soon-to-be delivered. Further, this silence does not preclude prayer, given 2:11–19 and 3:19–24. Thus, the silence heightens the waiting that will eventually be rewarded with “the salvation of the LORD” (לתשׁועת יהוה), though at this point the speaker does not specify what such salvation entails.
Remember, “It’s all good”.
27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
It is not the emphasis that you should have the yoke in your youth, rather the point is that you can have the yoke- discipline. We see the bad as bad… but God uses the bad for our good.
Look at Hebrews 12.7-11
7 It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?
8 If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
9 Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live?
10 For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.
11 For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
Your School of Hard Knocks May Be God’s University of Life
Your School of Hard Knocks May Be God’s University of Life
A Thousand Little Deaths Lead To Life
A Thousand Little Deaths Lead To Life
18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands,
10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
11 And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God,
12 saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”
13 Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?”
14 I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
15 “Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.
16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat.
17 For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”