The Mercy of God

Embracing God's Mercy in Our Mourning

Bible Passage: Lamentations 3

Intro:

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Good Morning

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Bible in 5 Years

Goal of all my messages:

Show you Jesus in the scriptures - HE is the main character and Hero of the entire Bible.

The Bible is just one long story

Starts in a Garden, Ends in a City; Everything in between is pointing to Jesus. EVERYTHING.

What Are We Studying Today? - Lamentations 3

This is going to be so much fun, we are going to pick apart most of this chapter verse by verse and look for God to reveal His mysteries.

In fact, I want to change this up a bit:

I don’t want you worried about following your outlines today. I want you focused on the scriptures, on the Word of God.

We are going to bounce around Lamentations all morning.

Here are our 3 points today:

1. The LORD is faithful and offers mercy.

2. The LORD is Good to those who hope in Him.

3. The LORD is worthy of our worship.

Background on the Text

We will dig into these points, but first: Where does this book come from?

Habakkuk: Do you remember what he was so terrified of? Babylonian Invasion

Daniel: 586BC we see the great prophet chained and carted away into exile and slavery.

Jeremiah:

Written just before the invasion

Warning about the severe consequences of their idolatry and injustice

Predicted the destruction of Jerusalem and exile to Babylon

Known as the “Weeping Prophet”

Lamentations Author: Unspecified - Likely Jeremiah.

Lamentations features an Acrostic structure:

Ch1, 2, 4: each verse begins with successive letters in the Hebrew alphabet. 22 Hebrew letters, 22 verses.

Ch3: this pattern is multiplied by 3: 3 a’s, 3 b’s, etc.

This is done to point us at Ch. 3.

The main message in the book of Lamentations is found in Ch. 3.

Define: Lament - a long and loud cry that ascends to God from a person who endures unspeakable pain or loss.

Job - Psalms - Lamentations

God’s Word speaks to every area and experience in our lives.

Nobody gets through life without tears and pain.

Here in Lamentations, we see an entire book of the Bible that is devoted to God speaking His Word into our grief and into our sorrow.

To orient you to the book...

Lamentations describes in excruciating detail (not an easy book to read) the grief and sorrow that God’s people experienced as a result of the fall of the great city of Jerusalem (586BC).

Recap:

God brings His people out of exile in Egypt and into the Promised Land.

In the time of Solomon, son of King David, Solomon built a temple and the Glory of the Lord came down to that temple.

But after that time, one king after another, led God’s people on paths of idolatry.

It became increasingly clear during the time of the prophets, that rather than God’s blessing on His people, there were clouds of judgement that were gathering over the people of God.

When we read Lamentations, we are gazing through a looking glass, seeing the direct aftermath of that terrible disaster.

God’s people experienced 5 disasters, one on top of another, that give you the background to the book of Lamentations.

5 Disasters

1. Siege

Jeremiah 52:5 LSB

5 So the city came under siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.

The city was under siege for AT LEAST 2 years!

No supplies of food entering the city: People began to starve.

We see that description in the first chapter of Lamentations:

2. Starvation

Lamentations 1:11 ESV

11 All her people groaned as they search for a morsel of bread; they trade their treasures for food just to stay alive. “Look, O Lord, and see, that I have become worthless.”

Lamentations 4:10 ESV

10 The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children; they became their food during the destruction of the daughter of my people.

3. Ruled by Enemies

Lamentations 1:7 ESV

7 Jerusalem remembers ... ...When her people fell into the hand of the foe, and there was none to help her...

The walls that kept the enemy outside were finally breached and when the enemy invaded, the people of God were under the power of a brutal regime.

Lamentations 1:5 ESV

5 Her foes have become the head;

In other words, they are now ruling in the remains of this destroyed city.

Those that survived this lived under a very brutal oppression indeed.

Most significant of all for the people of God:

the temple of God in the great city of Jerusalem was destroyed.

4. Destruction of City and Temple

Lamentations 4:1 ESV

1 ...The holy stones lie scattered at the head of every street.

That’s what happened at a Macro level.

What happened at a Micro level involved thousands upon thousands upon thousands of stories of misery and loss.

5. Death, Exile, Slavery, Extreme Poverty

The youngest children would have been the first to die in that long famine.

When the city finally fell, the older children were among the last to be deported to Babylon.

Many many people grieving the loss of loved ones.

Few were able to flee and escape

Most were killed in the attempt

A few were left scratching out a living in this ruined city

Picture images of a city that has been through years of war and conflict, hardly a building remains. And just a few people in utter poverty trying to survive.

That is the background to this book: Lamentations.

Jeremiah was the prophet who had the unfortunate task of speaking the word of God during this desperate time.

I want you to picture Jeremiah, who suffered greatly in his own life, picking his way through the ruins of this once glorious city of Jerusalem.

Buildings reduced to rubble

Smoke still rising from the ashes of fires that have burned for weeks

Lamentations 1:1 ESV

1 How lonely sits the city that was full of people! How like a widow has she become, she who was great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces has become a slave.

A city that was once bustling and thriving under the blessing of God. Now it seems like a ghost town.

Jeremiah’s tears begin to flow - this runs throughout the entire book

Lamentations 2:11 ESV

11 My eyes are spent with weeping; my stomach churns; my bile is poured out to the ground because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because infants and babies faint in the streets of the city.

Lamentations 1:2 ESV

2 She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks;

Lamentations 1:16 ESV

16 “For these things I weep; my eyes flow with tears; for a comforter is far from me,

Lamentations 3:48 ESV

48 my eyes flow with rivers of tears because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.

Lamentations 3:49–50 ESV

49 “My eyes will flow without ceasing, without respite, 50 until the Lord from heaven looks down and sees;

It is significant that the references to tears don’t end after the first chapter. Anyone who knows deep tragedy, suffering, loss, knows that tears don’t dry up so quickly.

Today, I want to draw your attention to two themes that are at the heart to this entire book.

Pain that a believer may experience.

Hope that a believer can embrace.

Lamentations 3:1-20 is a catalogue of suffering. Notice what this person feels. Some of you will relate to this

These people know what it is to be in darkness.

Lamentations 3:2 “He has driven and brought me into darkness without any light;”

They know what it is to feel trapped.

Lamentations 3:7 “He has walled me about so that I cannot escape;”

They know what it is to be weighed down

Lamentations 3:7 “...he has made my chains heavy;”

They know what it is to be afraid

Lamentations 3:10 “He is a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding;”

That’s a description of fear! IDK what is going to happen next!

They know what it is to feel humiliated

a. Lamentations 3:14 “I have become the laughingstock of all peoples, the object of their taunts all day long.”

They know what it is to be in turmoil

a. Lamentations 3:17 “my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is;”

They know what it is to feel exhausted

a. Lamentations 3:18 “My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the Lord.””

The Bible is speaking to the most painful passages of life.

The kind of times when you might say:

I’m in darkness

I’m trapped

I’m weighed down

I’m afraid

I’ve been humiliated

I’m in turmoil

I’m exhausted

The pain that these people are experiencing...Won’t go away

Lamentations 3:20 “My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me.”

These people have come through the traumas of war. A brutal invasion. They have seen, and Lamentations describes in excruciating detail, things that are quite horrific.

The minds of these people can’t get passed this. They keep coming back to relive the tragedies.

Anyone who has suffered violence. Anyone who has experienced profound trauma knows what this is:

The memory replays this again and again. Flashbacks.

It comes to you in the shower

It comes to you when you’re driving in the car

It comes to you, worst of all, when you lie awake in your bed at night.

When you wake, your soul is bombarded by the horrendous memory of your suffering.

“My soul continually remembers it.” I can’t get beyond this. That’s what’s being said.

God’s Word speaks to EVERY circumstance of life.

And on top of all of this...there is a unique problem in the darkness that is ONLY faced by believers.

Very simply this:

When an atheist suffers, he can say, “Well, it’s a cruel world. Bad things just happen.”

When you and I suffer, when a believer suffers, we know and believe that God is sovereign. That He is in control of all things.

We uniquely face this problem on top of everything else: How can a God who loves me allow me to endure pain like this?

This was at the heart of Job’s struggle: The Lord GIVES and the Lord TAKES away.

He knows that GOD has taken these things away from him, and how is he going to reconcile that?

That is the heart of Job’s struggle.

It’s not just the loss, it’s that the hand of God was in it!

These people who have suffered so much in Lamentations, they’re in precisely the same place.

Lamentations 3:32 NKJV

32 Though He causes grief...

The hand of God is in all of this. And THAT is the biggest struggle.

If you notice, in this chapter, there are no less than 19 grievances or complaints against the Lord, just in the first 16 verses in this chapter.

Lamentations 3:1–16 ESV

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... 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; ——————————————- 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;

It’s not just, “oh God allowed these things”, it’s “oh God DID these things!”

He’s the one that brought them about!

There is something interesting we find in verse 1 of this chapter:

Lamentations 3:1 ESV

1 I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath;

The rod here is referenced all over the OT, but it is perhaps most recognizable in Psalm 23

Psalm 23:4 NKJV

Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

Both the rod and the staff are shepherds tools. Why would the rod bring comfort?

Rod: large heavy piece of wood, akin to a baseball bat.

The shepherd carried the rod as a weapon. Something to defend the sheep.

When the wolves come for the sheep, the shepherd was there with his rod to defend the sheep and beat back the threat. A lethal weapon.

So in Psalm 23, David says “Your rod brings me comfort, because I am your sheep. And when my enemies come, I know you have everything you need to drive them away, you’ve got your rod.”

And so your rod and your staff comfort me.

Psalm 23:4 ESV

4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

Notice now that everything is turned on it’s head in Lamentations 3:1

Lamentations 3:1 ESV

1 I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath;

In other words:

“Lord, it seems like the rod that was meant to defend me has been turned, and now you’re using it against me.”

Romans 8:31 ESV

31 ...If God is for us, who can be against us?

The problem here in Lamentations 3 is:

It looks like it’s the other way around

If God is against us, what hope do we have?

My friends...God has put this in the Bible.

Why would God put something as dark as this in the Bible?

Answer: because sometime someplace in your life, you will face a similar struggle.

You will come to a place where you find yourself in great darkness, you will feel trapped, weighed down and afraid. You may feel humiliated, you may be in turmoil and you may find yourself exhausted...and you may even feel that God Himself has turned against you.

I can tell you, as a believer and a pastor, it is not unusual at some point for a Christian to face such a struggle. And it’s right here in the Bible. The pain a believer can experience. Very very real.

Let’s look forward, because God does not end it here. There is a hope, in all of this desperation and tragedy. God is pointing to something during this.

Let me ask you a question, one that took me a while to answer:

When Jerusalem, the Holy city, is destroyed, what word of hope do you think God might speak to His people at that time?

When I first performed this thought experiment, I went to, what I believed was, the most obvious glimmer of hope in this story.

The word of hope SURELY is that Jerusalem will be restored!

We know that happens in the Bible story. God will bring His people back, 70 yrs later in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah.

Why does God NOT say

There will be a new temple

There will be new city walls

There will be new homes

There will be children playing in the streets

70 years and this will happen, this is a great hope that lies ahead!

But there is nothing like that in Lamentations.

And what makes that even more striking is that it IS prophesied in other places in the OT.

But it is NOT what is prophesied here. That’s NOT what God speaks to His grieving people.

And if you stretch out the timeline even further, might you not anticipate that God would say something here about the fact that ONE DAY there will not only be a rebuilt Jerusalem, but that there will be a NEW Jerusalem?

Not only will Jerusalem be restored, but Jerusalem will be made perfect!

A new Jerusalem that will come down out of heaven.

It will be a Holy city in which there will be no more death, no more crying, no more pain.

This is not ONLY found in the NT book of Revelation, but ALSO in the OT book of Isaiah. But it’s not HERE.

Why?

Let me suggest this answer:

The fulfillment of God’s ultimate purpose is very wonderful...but Heaven sometimes seems a long way away for a person who is deep in the darkness of grief.

For a person who is going through the tragedy and trauma of loss, the immediate question for the grieving person is very simple: How am I going to get through today? And the New Jerusalem is not the answer to that question.

Troubled spirits turn not so much to Bethlehem as to Calvary; they prefer Gethsemane to Nazareth. The afflicted do not so much look for comfort to Christ as he will come a second time in splendor of state, as to Christ as he came the first time, a weary man and full of woes.

- Charles Spurgeon

Why? Because we ourselves are weary and full of woes and we have no finish line in sight. It’s too far away.

Spurgeon new a great deal about the battles of depression. He talked about the Black Dog that would come.

And when a person is in a place of great darkness, the wonderful truth that one day we will be in Heaven seems so so far away.

Spurgeon says, where I have the greatest help in the darkest times has NOT been to think about the ultimate outcome of the purpose of God, wonderful though that is, but to recognize that when my savior came into the world, He knew what it was to weep. He knew what it was to suffer. He knew what it was to stand where I stand and to enter into the darkness and cry out, “My God, My God WHY have you forsaken me?”

I want you to notice where hope comes from for the person who is in darkness:

Lamentations 3:21 ESV

21 But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:

Here is an intentional determined decision by a person who’s lost peace, forgotten what happiness is, and that person says, “I am going to do something that brings hope.”

I find myself in a place of great darkness, I feel trapped and weighed down and afraid and humiliated and in turmoil and exhausted, the painful memories of what I’ve gone through just keep flashing through my mind again and again and again...

BUT I CALL THIS TO MIND, and here’s where I find hope:

Lamentations 3:22–24 ESV

22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; 23 they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. 24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”

This is the hope that God speaks into the life of someone who has suffered so deeply that their question is: How am I going to get through today?

This I call to mind.

Your immediate hope as a Christian believer, in the pain of your sorrow and loss, is that God will walk with you. God will not fail you. And His mercies, and His grace, sufficient for you to endure, will be given to you and released to you and they will be new every morning.

The obvious question that arises at this point is: How can I believe, REALLY, that God is for me? That He looks towards me with mercy? That He is faithful to me? That He will stand with me and never let me go?

How can I really believe in the Love of God when such great sorrow and loss has happened in my life?

That’s the most obvious question.

And the answer to that question lies in The Man of verse 1. I wonder if you noticed this right at the beginning in verse 1.

The person that speaks here doesn’t name himself, but simply identifies himself as, The Man.

Lamentations 3:1 ESV

1 I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath;

Who is this man? Scholars have written a great deal about this.

The most obvious answer is that Jeremiah is The Man.

Jeremiah suffered greatly. The descriptions here fit the experiences of Jeremiah.

He is often referred to as the weeping prophet because of all that he endured.

But remember what the purpose of this message, and every message is: Where is Jesus?

I remind you, the Bible is a story that begins in a garden and ends in a city and everything in between is about Jesus Christ.

I want you to see here today that The Man in Lamentations 3:1 very clearly anticipates our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The Man says...

Lamentations 3:17 ESV

17 my soul is bereft of peace...

and you remember how in the Garden of Gethsemane, the Lord Jesus Christ said, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow”.

And in verse 14, The Man says,

Lamentations 3:14 ESV

14 I have become the laughingstock of all peoples, the object of their taunts all day long.

You will remember how in the story of Jesus, they twisted a crown of thorns and put it on His head and gave Him a reed, put it in His right hand and then kneeling down, they mocked Him. Saying, “Hail King of the Jews.”

Lamentations 3:2 ESV

2 he has driven and brought me into darkness without any light;

Remember when Jesus hung on the cross for 6 hours. After the first 3 hours, darkness covered the whole land.

And The Man said in verse 8:

Lamentations 3:8 ESV

8 though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer;

and on the cross, our Lord Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “My God My God, why have you forsaken me?”

How extraordinary, that when Pontius Pilot put Jesus, with the crown of thorns on His head and purple robe on His body, on display in front of the people in order to mock Him...He said:

John 19:5 ESV

5... “Behold the man!”

Call up Band

As the band comes up, I ask you this question:

Did he have any idea that in these words, he was pointing to Jesus Christ fulfilling the prophecy of Lamentations 3:1?

Jesus is The Man anticipated in chapter 3.

The Good News of the Gospel is this: God became THE MAN in Jesus Christ.

He became The Man of Sorrow.

God became acquainted with grief, which is why He is able to stand with you in it and walk beside you through it.

And because our Lord Jesus has suffered, He is able to help those who suffer.

When you know tears in your life, you need a Savior who knows what it is to suffer.

Jesus knows what it is to weep.

Jesus knows what it is to be in great darkness.

Jesus knows what it is to be mocked. Taunted. Exhausted. Humiliated.

We’re told that when Jesus came to the home of Martha and Mary a few days after the death of their brother, Lazarus (who was a close friend of Jesus) and then went to the tomb of Lazarus...He wept. His voice choked up and He wept at the graveside of a friend.

That’s your God. That’s your Savior.

You don’t have a God who stands off at a distance looking at how you’re doing in the darkness.

You have a Savior who weeps with those who weep.

And in Christ, you have a Savior who can say to you in the darkness of your suffering, “Me too. I’ve been there. And I will walk with you. And I will bring you through.”

I want you to remember this in dark times: In Christ, you can know for sure that God is for you.

Lamentations 3:1 ESV

1 I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath;

When Jesus went to the cross, He bore the wrath that was due to us. The punishment that was due to us, Isaiah says, was on Him.

He became the propitiation (that’s the word in Romans 3:25) for our sins. Which simply means that instead of being poured out on us, the wrath of God was poured out on Jesus as Jesus stood in our place.

And He went there to deal with all that Justice would bring in regards to our sins so that we could be reconciled to God and know Him NOT as a fearful judge, but come to discover Him as our own loving heavenly Father.

Let me say this to you with the greatest clarity I can muster: If you are in Jesus Christ...

you may certainly find yourself at times in great darkness.

You may find yourself saying, I am trapped, I am weighed down, I’m afraid, I feel humiliated, I’m in turmoil, I’m exhausted.

But brother, sister, in Jesus Christ you will NEVER NEVER NEVER BE UNDER the rod of God’s wrath.

Jesus went there for you, so that you would never say, “I am the man, or the woman, who has been afflicted by God’s wrath.”

THIS is the new covenant that Jeremiah mysteriously brings into play in the 31st chapter of his book. The very first mention of this New Covenant:

Jeremiah 31:31–34 ESV

31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband... 33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days... I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 ...For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

This is the anticipation of Jesus.

Jeremiah is saying, “There is a MAN that is coming! And He is going to change EVERYTHING!”

Gone will be the days of following the Law written in stone. When The Man gets here, God will write the Laws onto our hearts!

Jeremiah is anticipating the arrival of Jesus, God in human form, who will one day live a perfect life according to the Law.

Then, He will die a sacrificial death on a cross as the spotless lamb, marking an end to the old ways of gaining access to God.

After Jesus’ death and resurrection, people won’t have to go to the temple and perform sacrifices to find forgiveness for sin.

Why? Because Jesus WAS that sacrifice. A sacrifice big enough to cover ALL of our transgressions.

Conclusion

Allow me to close out this message with proof, a wonderful example of this Grace in action.

Each of the 4 gospels include this story: evidence that God does NOT want us to miss this:

Luke 23:18–25 ESV

18 But they all cried out together, “Away with this man, and release to us Barabbas”— 19 a man who had been thrown into prison for an insurrection started in the city and for murder. 20 Pilate addressed them once more, desiring to release Jesus, 21 but they kept shouting, “Crucify, crucify him!” 22 A third time he said to them, “Why? What evil has he done? I have found in him no guilt deserving death. I will therefore punish and release him.” 23 But they were urgent, demanding with loud cries that he should be crucified. And their voices prevailed. 24 So Pilate decided that their demand should be granted. 25 He released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder, for whom they asked, but he delivered Jesus over to their will.

I want to challenge you with a new reality this morning: I am Barabbas. YOU are Barabbas.

WE are the ones that have been found GUILTY of sin, GUILTY of murder, GUILTY of insurrection against the creator of the universe!

WE are the ones that have been condemned by the judge, DEATH awaits us all!! Not only death, but the most BRUTAL of deaths!

And just before we are sentenced to the cruelty of 39 lashes and the physical devastation that is crucifixion...Behold...THE MAN.

Lamentations 3:21–26 ESV

21 But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: 22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; 23 they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. 24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” 25 The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. 26 It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.

I will use Lamentations 3:39-41 to close out our message and reinforce our third and final point:

3. The LORD is worthy of our worship.

Lamentations 3:39–41 NKJV

39 Why should a living man complain, A man for the punishment of his sins? 40 Let us search out and examine our ways, And turn back to the Lord; 41 Let us lift our hearts and hands To God in heaven.

For I am Barabbas. And God has paid for the condemnation of my sins, justly placed upon me, with His very death. He deserves my Worship, my trust, my heart & soul, my very being.

If time, start playing I Am Barabbas; If no time, skip to prayer.

I heard a song recently that hit my heart like a freight train. It is sung from the perspective of Barabbas, this prisoner we just talked about. In the song, he says, “I’ll never understand the repercussions of my every sin. Is this love? Or is this hatred pouring out from bitterness? How can it be?”

Barabbas is looking up at our crucified Savior and wondering, “Is this brutality the Love of God? Or is it the hatred of mankind?” He knows it is the fulfillment of God’s great love for us and follows up with the question, “How can it be?”

Will you join me in worship? As we place ourselves in the shoes of Barabbas and look to the Savior that is Jesus?

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Prayer