Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

Grace is amazing because Judgement is real...

22 Verses… Continuation of 1

Lam / Cross intersect?

Message

2 Chron 36…

The Wrath of God

Lamentations 2:1–17 (ESV)

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3 He has cut down in fierce anger all the might of Israel; he has withdrawn from them his right hand in the face of the enemy; he has burned like a flaming fire in Jacob, consuming all around.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.

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.

12 They cry to their mothers, “Where is bread and wine?” as they faint like a wounded man in the streets of the city, as their life is poured out on their mothers’ bosom.

13 What can I say for you, to what compare you, O daughter of Jerusalem?

What can I liken to you, that I may comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion?

For your ruin is vast as the sea; who can heal you? 14 Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions; they have not exposed your iniquity to restore your fortunes, but have seen for you oracles that are false and misleading.

15 All who pass along the way clap their hands at you; they hiss and wag their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem: “Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?” 16 All your enemies rail against you; they hiss, they gnash their teeth, they cry: “We have swallowed her! Ah, this is the day we longed for; now we have it; we see it!”

17 The Lord has done what he purposed; he has carried out his word, which he commanded long ago; he has thrown down without pity; he has made the enemy rejoice over you and exalted the might of your foes.

The belief was prevalent that, because the LORD had been pleased to presence himself in the Temple, both it and the city in which it lay were perpetually inviolate.

They confessed that the LORD was stronger than any enemy, and so were assured that his presence guaranteed that Zion would never fall.

Yet it had: not because of divine powerlessness, but by divine leave.

The Silence of Surrender

"Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" is a sermon written by the American theologian Jonathan Edwards, preached to his own congregation in Northampton, Massachusetts, to profound effect,[1] and again on July 8, 1741 in Enfield, Connecticut.

The preaching of this sermon was the catalyst for the First Great Awakening.[2] Like Edwards' other works, it combines vivid imagery of Hell with observations of the world and citations of Biblical scripture.

It is Edwards' most famous written work, is a fitting representation of his preaching style,[3] and is widely studied by Christians and historians, providing a glimpse into the theology of the First Great Awakening of c. 1730–1755.

This highly influential sermon of the Great Awakening, emphasized God's wrath upon unbelievers after death to a very real, horrific, and fiery Hell.[4]

The underlying point is that God has given humans a chance to confess their sins.

It is the mere will of God, according to Edwards, that keeps wicked men from being overtaken by the devil and his demons and cast into the furnace of hell – "like greedy hungry lions, that see their prey, and expect to have it, but are for the present kept back [by God's hand]."

Mankind's own attempts to avoid falling into the "bottomless gulf" due to the overwhelming "weight and pressure towards hell" are as insufficient as "a spider's web would have to stop a falling rock".

This act of grace from God has given humans a chance to believe and trust in Christ.[5]

Edwards provides much varied and vivid imagery to illustrate this main theme throughout.

Most of the sermon's text consists of ten "considerations":

God may cast wicked men into Hell at any given moment.

The wicked deserve to be cast into Hell.

Divine justice does not prevent God from destroying the wicked at any moment.

The wicked, at this moment, suffer under God's condemnation to Hell.

The wicked, on earth—at this very moment—suffer a sample of the torments of Hell.

The wicked must not think, simply because they are not physically in Hell, that God (in whose hand the wicked now reside) is not—at this very moment—as angry with them as he is with those he is now tormenting in Hell, and who—at this very moment—feel and bear the fierceness of his wrath.

At any moment God shall permit him, Satan stands ready to fall upon the wicked and seize them as his own.

If it were not for God's restraints, there are, in the souls of wicked men, hellish principles reigning which, presently, would kindle and flame out into hellfire.

Simply because there are not visible means of death before them at any given moment, the wicked should not feel secure.

Simply because it is natural to care for oneself or to think that others may care for them, men should not think themselves safe from God's wrath.

All that wicked men may do to save themselves from Hell's pains shall afford them nothing if they continue to reject Christ.

God has never promised to save mankind from Hell, except for those contained in Christ through the covenant of Grace.

The Response of the Repentant

Lamentations 2:18–22 (ESV)

18 Their heart cried to the Lord.

O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears stream down like a torrent day and night!

Give yourself no rest, your eyes no respite!

19 “Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the night watches!

Pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord!

Lift your hands to him for the lives of your children, who faint for hunger at the head of every street.”

20 Look, O Lord, and see!

With whom have you dealt thus?

Should women eat the fruit of their womb, the children of their tender care?

Should priest and prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?

21 In the dust of the streets lie the young and the old; my young women and my young men have fallen by the sword; you have killed them in the day of your anger, slaughtering without pity.

22 You summoned as if to a festival day my terrors on every side, and on the day of the anger of the Lord no one escaped or survived; those whom I held and raised my enemy destroyed.

God’s Holiness is Seen Most Clearly Here...

On the cross his wrath is seen most vividly

Close

Group Questions

Do you more easily remember “good times” or “bad times”?

How would you summarize the main idea of Lamentations 2 in a couple of

sentences?

What is the reason God became like an enemy to Israel and Judah (see also Deut.

28:45-57)?

How is God just in His action?

How is God faithful to His Word in His action?

God’s affliction of the city of Jerusalem shows that God does not take sin lightly and He will not let His people continue in it.

How should this cause you to take your sin seriously and to take God’s holiness seriously?

What would that look like on a day-to-day basis?

This lament mentions a number of “hopes” that God removes from Israel: Israel’s religious hopes (v.

7), Israel’s military hopes (vv.

8–9), and Israel’s political hopes (v.

9).

What is God’s purpose in removing these hopes from the nation?

How does this actually serve His people?

Can you remember when God stripped you of the “hopes” in your life and how that worked for your good?

It is really important to see that, even though God was the one afflicting Israel (v.17), they still cry out to him (vv.

18–20).

Why is it important to keep going to God in prayer even in the midst of affliction?

Is there anything you’re experiencing in life now where this reminder is helpful?

Have you ever felt like God was an adversary against you?Have you ever felt like God was completely absent from your life?

What are some ways that you responded?

Do you think that you responded correctly or not?

Why is it important to have a theology of suffering before we suffer?Why do we need a “long view” of things and God’s promises when suffering?

What are some ways that your Life Group can help each other in the midst of our lamenting?