Sermon Tone Analysis

[Sermon recording begins at 0:30:00]

Introduction

Good morning!

It’s my privilege to fill in for Bro.

Terry this morning.

Many of you probably know us, but some may not.

My wife Jennifer and I serve with Wycliffe Bible Translators in Papua New Guinea.

We’re working with a small people group called the Mubami to help translate the Bible into their language.

We’ve spent the past two years there in PNG getting oriented to the culture and starting our language learning.

But, we had a good bit of physical and spiritual training that we underwent during that time, too, and our time there has impressed on me the need to preach on this topic.

Many times in church we unintentionally give off the impression that in order to serve God or be a Christian you have to have it all figured out.

We do this unintentionally, I think, by not letting others know when we’re struggling with doubts and pretending like we have more faith than we really do.

So when the really hard times come, we can find ourselves overwhelmed with emotions that we don’t know how to process, wrestling with doubts, and feeling isolated and alone.

This can lead us to withdraw from others and from God, and I think the root cause for much of this unnecessary suffering is that we don’t know how to suffer.

Perhaps we understand that Christians suffer, and perhaps we even understand some about why we suffer, but how do we actually suffer well?

During our time in PNG, we went through some pretty dark times.

While we had been in a village in PNG as part of our training and ministry, Jennifer had contracted a serious bacterial illness which resulted in widespread sepsis.

Within just a couple days of the onset of symptoms, she was having multi-organ failure and had to be evacuated to Australia for medical treatment.

Every day seemed to bring a worse prognosis.

Her heart rate stayed at 150+bpm for over two weeks While she did eventually recover, those first few days were some dark days as we waited to see how things would go.

When the one-year anniversary of that medevac rolled around in 2018, it caught me by surprise.

The “One year ago today” Facebook notifications reminded me of the days we sat waiting to see if she would live or die.

That triggered a couple weeks of intense flashbacks.

I wasn’t merely remembering the medevac, I was reliving it.

All of the traumatic memories came flooding back one after another in an endless barrage along with all of the emotions all at once—fear, guilt, anxiety, confusion.

I remember even having an out of body experience during one of these times.

Later, when speaking with a counselor on staff there at the missions center, I came to realize that I was going through delayed onset PTSD.

Those memories triggered a depression that lasted for months.

I’ve never struggled with depression before, so it caught me off-guard.

I lost sight of what was true.

My relationship with God, my wife, and my friends suffered as I withdrew and pushed everyone away.

But during that time, God led me to this passage in Lamentations.

For the first time, the verses in Jeremiah’s lament rang true in my life.

In the Old Testament, we get a glimpse into some of the most intense suffering one can imagine in the books of Job and Lamentations.

Today, we’re going to focus on the suffering recorded in Lamentations chapter 3.

The word “lament” is not a word we use much in modern English, but it means simply “a passionate expression of grief or sorrow.”

Lament—a passionate expression of grief or sorrow.

Most scholars think that the book of Lamentations was most likely written by Jeremiah the prophet shortly after the fall of Jerusalem.

Now, to understand where Jeremiah is coming from, we need a little bit of the back-story.

Around the year 930 BC, following the death of King Solomon the Kingdom of Israel underwent a civil war and split into two separate kingdoms.

The northern Kingdom was called “Israel” while the southern Kingdom was called “Judah”.

During this time, both kingdoms underwent rapid moral and spiritual decay.

The books of 1 & 2 Kings and 1 & 2 Chronicles detail the deteriorating situation in these two kingdoms.

Idols were set up and worshipped instead of God, children were sacrificed to false gods, God’s Law—given to Moses on Mt.

Sinai—was completely disregarded and even completely lost for a long period of time.

While there were some good kings in this period of time, the majority were evil, wicked, idolatrous, corrupt, murdering scoundrels who led God’s people astray.

God sent prophet after prophet to bring them back, but many of these prophets were mocked, exiled, and even killed.

After hundreds of years of patience, God was bringing down judgement on his people.

In 722 BC the northern kingdom of Israel was conquered by Assyria and carried off into exile.

Then, just a little over 100 years later, after Judah failed to heed the warnings, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon invaded Jerusalem in 605, exiling many Jews (including Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego) to Babylon.

A second group of captives would be deported to Babylon eight years later.

Following the second exile, some Jews remained in Jerusalem and Nebuchadnezzar set up Zedekiah as a puppet king under his rule.

But, despite God’s warnings not to rebel against Nebuchadnezzar, Zedekiah rebelled in 588.

Jerusalem was besieged by Nebuchadnezzar’s army for two years.

Cut off from supplies and trade routes, the Jews suffered starvation and abject poverty.

Jeremiah records the gravity of the situation in his writings:

Finally, in 586 BC, the Babylonians broke through the city walls, burned down the Temple, raped, pillaged, and massacred the people and carried off the remainder into captivity in Babylon.

King Zedekiah and his family tried to flee, but were caught.

The last thing Zedekiah ever saw was the execution of his family and his nobles before his eyes were gouged out.

(This story never makes it into kids’ storybook Bibles!)

In the midst of this unspeakable trauma and suffering, Jeremiah penned the book of Lamentations.

Lamentations 3:1-33

Prayer

While I wouldn’t wish the suffering that Jeremiah and his people endured upon anyone, I’m grateful for Jeremiah’s example in scripture and his willingness to write out his feelings because it gives us a glimpse into how a Christian ought to endure suffering.

There are a number of lessons that we can learn from Jeremiah, but I want to highlight these today.

1. God is sovereign over all—both the good and the bad

We are often quick to recognize that evil comes from Satan and sinful people—and that is true.

But, any theology of suffering must recognize God’s sovereignty over suffering or it will be inadequate and insufficient to give us comfort.

Notice how many times Jeremiah attributes his suffering to God!

The pronouns “He” and “His” are clearly references to God and occur repeatedly.

Notice the things that Jeremiah attributes to God:

“Turns his hand against me” (3:3)

“made my flesh and skin waste away” (3:4)

“shuts out my prayer” (3:8)

“blocked my ways” (3:9)

“a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding…tore me to pieces” (3:10-11)

“set me as a target for his arrow” (3:12)

“filled me with bitterness” (3:15)

While it’s true that Nebuchadnezzar and his army were the direct source of his and his people’s suffering, Jeremiah recognizes that ultimately, God has allowed and ordained these events.

The same is true of Job.

While Satan was the one afflicting Job, Job recognized that ultimately his trials had come from the hand of God.

When those around us suffer and ask why God has allowed their suffering, it will be of little or no comfort to deny that God has indeed allowed it.

Many times it’s tempting to try to console the one suffering by saying, “This isn’t from God, it’s from Satan or evil people.”

The motivation is good—we don’t want to accuse God of doing wrong.

Of course, this in itself assumes that causing someone to suffer is wrong.

While that’s generally true, it’s not true of God.

When God causes or allows suffering you can be certain that he does so for very good reasons.

We’ll talk about some of that later.

Regardless, God doesn’t need your defense.

If the suffering seems too extreme, the solution is not to attempt to vindicate God by saying that he’s not responsible for it.

Those who are suffering know better.

They know that an all-powerful God could prevent suffering but for some reason chooses not to do so.

Yes, God has allowed and even ordained the suffering that you are experiencing.

It was not an accident, and God is not surprised at the trials you are enduring.

If that was true of the suffering experienced by Jeremiah and his people then it is most certainly true of your suffering.

2. It’s ok to cry out to God in anger, frustration, and pain.

Lamentation is an expression of faith.

Are you surprised by the language that Jeremiah uses towards God?

He describes feeling like God is an angry bear or lion just waiting to tear him to pieces, an archer who has set him as the target for his arrows.

Jeremiah is at the depths of despair.