WEBVTT 00:00:01.604 --> 00:00:02.004 Hey, what up? 00:00:02.004 --> 00:00:02.587 It's Mark Carter. 00:00:02.587 --> 00:00:03.870 I'm the pastor of Fierce Church. 00:00:03.870 --> 00:00:04.892 Welcome to our podcast. 00:00:04.892 --> 00:00:07.224 I'm so pumped that you're able to join us today. 00:00:07.224 --> 00:00:16.730 I hope this encourages you, inspires you, strengthens you, gives you hope to keep pressing on, and it's my prayer that this sermon gives you a more expansive view of God's love for you. 00:00:16.730 --> 00:00:17.873 Enjoy the message. 00:00:18.620 --> 00:00:22.748 In 1812, napoleon was about to go into Russia. 00:00:22.748 --> 00:00:26.460 He had lots of advisors says don't do it, napoleon, don't do it. 00:00:26.460 --> 00:00:31.832 Your men don't know the harsh weather there, they don't know the terrain. 00:00:31.832 --> 00:00:35.807 I'm telling you, I know you've been winning and you've just had a streak, but don't go in. 00:00:35.807 --> 00:00:36.929 But he was stubborn. 00:00:36.929 --> 00:00:40.223 He felt like ah, don't, you know who I am, I can do it. 00:00:40.223 --> 00:00:44.252 And he went in and they lost a ton of people. 00:00:44.252 --> 00:00:51.908 In fact it changed the political boundaries of Europe at the time because he was just a little bit hardheaded. 00:00:51.908 --> 00:00:53.853 Anybody been hardheaded before? 00:00:53.853 --> 00:01:03.725 We're going to come into a moment in scripture where the results of being hardheaded are very, very difficult to bear. 00:01:03.725 --> 00:01:10.141 I'm going to give you the text and then we're going to walk through how they got to that place and then we're going to dive a little bit deeper. 00:01:10.421 --> 00:01:11.123 It's Jeremiah. 00:01:11.123 --> 00:01:20.287 This is a prophet and he's telling the story of the fall of Jerusalem, the people of God, how their final city fell after all these centuries. 00:01:20.287 --> 00:01:26.881 Verse 52 says Zedekiah did evil in the eyes of the Lord, just as Jehoiakim, his father, had done. 00:01:26.881 --> 00:01:36.371 It was because of the Lord's anger that all this happened to Jerusalem and Judah and in the end he thrust them from his presence, meaning he kicked them out of the land. 00:01:36.371 --> 00:01:39.066 And Jeremiah says hey, I just want to make sure everybody understands. 00:01:39.066 --> 00:01:48.368 This is why Because these kings and their people did evil, generation after generation after generation, and finally God had had enough. 00:01:48.368 --> 00:02:01.456 And it's not that God was mean, but he can't just he can't look away as people are causing pain to others and to his own heart, year after year, generation after generation. 00:02:01.780 --> 00:02:03.628 There had been a lot of prophecy about this. 00:02:03.628 --> 00:02:06.947 Prophets had been coming for generations saying you guys, you got to stop this. 00:02:06.947 --> 00:02:08.010 Now you got to turn around. 00:02:08.010 --> 00:02:09.563 I'm telling you it's going to go bad. 00:02:09.563 --> 00:02:11.229 I know you think you're the chosen people. 00:02:11.229 --> 00:02:12.622 I know you think you're so special. 00:02:12.622 --> 00:02:15.528 God would never remove you from his presence, but he will. 00:02:15.528 --> 00:02:18.622 He will kick you out of this very land and you'll be in exile. 00:02:18.622 --> 00:02:21.325 You'll be under the rulership of others. 00:02:21.325 --> 00:02:24.569 They'll speak languages you've never heard before and you'll have to raise your kids there. 00:02:24.569 --> 00:02:28.436 And then you have a long time to think about how you betrayed your God. 00:02:29.560 --> 00:02:35.402 And while this is happening, while the Babylonians are breaking into Jerusalem, it's a siege and sieges are bad man. 00:02:35.402 --> 00:02:36.986 Okay, this is very hard times. 00:02:36.986 --> 00:02:38.651 There's no Walmart within the city. 00:02:38.651 --> 00:02:40.421 You can't replenish stuff. 00:02:40.421 --> 00:02:44.971 That's one of the tactics of the sie is we're going to cut them all off from all outside help. 00:02:44.971 --> 00:02:47.436 We're going to be breaking through their walls. 00:02:47.436 --> 00:02:49.479 We're going to have mass executions. 00:02:49.479 --> 00:02:55.324 When we get in there and do it, they're all running out of food and starving and some get so hungry they start to cook their own babies. 00:02:55.667 --> 00:03:03.271 There's no sanitation in the place, okay, so lawlessness begins to reign and then everything's just a mess everywhere, and this is how the city falls. 00:03:03.271 --> 00:03:08.770 Everything's just a mess everywhere and this is how the city falls, and the prophets had been telling them this for generations. 00:03:08.770 --> 00:03:16.731 Then, in 587 BC, it finally happens, and what they're experiencing is a promise, but it's the promise that nobody wants. 00:03:16.731 --> 00:03:21.242 See, it's the other side of the Deuteronomy 28 promise. 00:03:21.242 --> 00:03:25.552 In the book of Deuteronomy, moses is telling this is hundreds of years earlier. 00:03:25.552 --> 00:03:27.747 Moses is telling people hey, you're about to go into this land. 00:03:27.927 --> 00:03:31.250 Now, just so you know, your parents already jacked up this mission. 00:03:31.250 --> 00:03:33.842 We came out of Egypt and your parents completely betrayed God. 00:03:33.842 --> 00:03:38.358 They didn't trust him, they didn't honor his ways, and so they opted out. 00:03:38.358 --> 00:03:41.045 They did not get to go like you guys are getting to go. 00:03:41.045 --> 00:03:50.043 So when you go, new generation of Israelites, I just need you to be sober-minded man. 00:03:50.043 --> 00:03:56.846 Make sure you do what God wants you to do, because he's kind of married you now and he's got some real faithfulness particularities and he wants to make sure that you can retain the blessing that he wants to put on you. 00:03:57.387 --> 00:04:00.802 And so the blessing part was in Deuteronomy 28, 1 through 14. 00:04:00.802 --> 00:04:02.566 I'm just going to list some of the things that were part of that blessing. 00:04:02.566 --> 00:04:04.570 You're going to be blessed everywhere you go. 00:04:04.570 --> 00:04:05.752 You're going to have abundant provision. 00:04:05.752 --> 00:04:06.504 You're going to have success. 00:04:06.504 --> 00:04:07.996 You're going to have victory over your enemies. 00:04:07.996 --> 00:04:09.163 You're going to have prosperity. 00:04:09.163 --> 00:04:10.509 The nations are going to fear you. 00:04:10.509 --> 00:04:11.957 You're going to have abundance. 00:04:11.957 --> 00:04:21.629 You're going to have financial prosperity. 00:04:21.649 --> 00:04:25.014 But then he goes on to say now, just so you time, but I'm turning it up to 11 on you. 00:04:25.014 --> 00:04:39.386 But if you turn against me, if you go the other way, like the surrounding nations around you, and you begin to worship their gods and you do some of the stuff they do for their gods, which is like have giant orgies and put kids to death and all that kind of stuff. 00:04:39.386 --> 00:04:44.853 If you do that as a form of worship, it's going to go bad and here's the curses for disobedience. 00:04:44.853 --> 00:04:46.021 It's the other side of the promise. 00:04:46.021 --> 00:04:47.747 You're going to have failure in all your endeavors. 00:04:47.747 --> 00:04:49.983 You're going to be filled with panic and fever. 00:04:49.983 --> 00:04:51.305 You're going to go mad. 00:04:51.305 --> 00:04:53.029 You're going to go into captivity. 00:04:53.029 --> 00:05:07.785 Oppression, robbery, family separation, lack, desperation, destruction and scattering among the nations and constant fear and uncertainty Wow, it's bad for the nation that turns against their God. 00:05:07.785 --> 00:05:12.725 He said now everybody experiences hardship, but I'm going to turn it up to 11. 00:05:12.725 --> 00:05:24.312 If you walk away from all this blessing that I give you generation after generation after generation, so the prophets tell him it's coming, and then it does and the judgment finally falls. 00:05:24.312 --> 00:05:28.329 Not only is Israel gone, now Judah and Jerusalem now they're gone. 00:05:29.293 --> 00:05:30.478 And the book of Lamentations? 00:05:30.478 --> 00:05:32.045 I've never preached on the book of Lamentations. 00:05:32.045 --> 00:05:37.245 It's a little bit kind of a sequel to Jeremiah, who's telling the people this is going to happen. 00:05:37.245 --> 00:05:40.452 Lamentations is a collection of five poems. 00:05:40.452 --> 00:05:45.901 Some scholars think Jeremiah wrote them, others think he collected them and put them together. 00:05:45.901 --> 00:05:46.744 Some he wrote, some he didn't. 00:05:46.744 --> 00:05:51.346 Doesn't really matter, because the Spirit of God has specific things he wanted to communicate to whomever. 00:05:51.346 --> 00:05:55.826 And however they put it together, the first of the five poems is just kind of. 00:05:55.826 --> 00:06:02.687 It's like the poet is freaking out and it's coming to us through the personality it's personified Lady Jerusalem. 00:06:02.687 --> 00:06:13.182 It's like Jerusalem itself is talking while this siege has just happened and it is not going well for her and she's beginning to realize oh God was serious. 00:06:13.182 --> 00:06:15.812 Oh God was serious. 00:06:15.812 --> 00:06:24.470 She's beginning to realize and you're going to see it as we go through the message, it's slowly dawning on her oh, I have some fault in this. 00:06:24.470 --> 00:06:27.634 This isn't just randomly bad things happening to me. 00:06:27.634 --> 00:06:35.062 It's not just turned up to 11 because everybody gets 11. 00:06:35.062 --> 00:06:36.406 It's happening to me because of what God promised in the past. 00:06:36.427 --> 00:06:38.692 Now we are notorious, just like some of the people in the Bible. 00:06:38.692 --> 00:06:46.406 We're notorious for realizing we're going through hardship and not always understanding that in part we're causing some of the hardship. 00:06:46.406 --> 00:06:48.572 Okay, so everybody goes through hardship. 00:06:48.572 --> 00:06:49.822 That's nothing new. 00:06:49.822 --> 00:06:51.786 That's part of being on the fallen planet. 00:06:51.786 --> 00:06:55.062 But when we're contributing to our hardship. 00:06:55.062 --> 00:06:57.107 We don't always discern that very quickly. 00:06:57.107 --> 00:06:58.531 Think about that in the Bible. 00:06:58.550 --> 00:07:01.005 Yeah, people like Samson, okay, remember the really strong guy? 00:07:01.005 --> 00:07:04.444 Well, he spends his whole life Essentially he's got this great call from God. 00:07:04.444 --> 00:07:09.321 He spends his whole life essentially just running after his lust instead of running after the will of God. 00:07:09.321 --> 00:07:10.625 And by the end of his life we find him. 00:07:10.625 --> 00:07:12.129 He's lost all his strength and he's blind. 00:07:12.129 --> 00:07:15.262 And we're looking at you. 00:07:15.262 --> 00:07:17.605 If you're reading that, you're like Samson, you kind of did this to yourself. 00:07:17.605 --> 00:07:20.048 Man Like God's not mad at you, you did this. 00:07:21.129 --> 00:07:22.451 And then you see kings like King Saul. 00:07:22.451 --> 00:07:34.889 He starts out kind of a stand-up guy but then he gives over to jealousy against David, which turns into hate, which turns into murder, and by the end he's consulting a witch right before he dies. 00:07:34.889 --> 00:07:37.968 And we're looking at Saul like dude, like you had everything. 00:07:37.968 --> 00:07:40.187 You kind of did this. 00:07:40.187 --> 00:07:42.586 I know you're feeling sorry for yourself, but you kind of did this. 00:07:42.586 --> 00:07:57.062 And even King David I mean, we could go on and on about all the great things David did, but he was still kind of a terrible father, he was a terrible husband and in a lot of ways he was a terrible friend to people like Uriah the Hittite. 00:07:57.062 --> 00:08:05.271 Whatever kind of strategy he could rock as a military leader, he majorly contributed to his own downfall. 00:08:05.310 --> 00:08:12.786 And just sometimes I'm not saying all the time, I'm just saying sometimes sometimes we're a little bit blind and clueless to how we are participating in our own pain. 00:08:12.786 --> 00:08:15.713 And that's what I want to talk to you about today. 00:08:15.713 --> 00:08:23.505 I want to talk to you about how God is faithful to restore, even in the midst of our pain, even when we're broken, when we're at the bottom. 00:08:23.505 --> 00:08:34.863 And, guys, you know this, there really is, there's low, and then there's low, low, low, low is the harder parts of life, where it's like is this ever going to get better? 00:08:34.863 --> 00:08:49.648 Low, low is the time when, okay, it seems like not only is everyone else getting ahead in business, you're falling increasingly behind and you're very disappointed about this and you're becoming super depressed and inward. 00:08:50.688 --> 00:08:53.991 It might be that you lost somebody very close to you and you're wondering. 00:08:53.991 --> 00:08:56.894 Now you're asking the question can life ever be good again? 00:08:56.894 --> 00:09:06.927 And you're grieving like everybody else, but other people seem to be moving on and you're unable to move on. 00:09:06.927 --> 00:09:09.499 Or maybe you had some friends that you thought these are my chums forever, like we're going to grow old together. 00:09:09.499 --> 00:09:15.802 We're going to be doing all this barbecuing later on, taking trips to whoever, wherever, and yet they're not around. 00:09:15.802 --> 00:09:18.870 Something went different and it's very disappointing. 00:09:18.870 --> 00:09:21.283 And now you're wondering I don't even know that we could be reconciled. 00:09:21.283 --> 00:09:28.283 Or maybe you're one of the ones who, like all of us, who went through COVID. 00:09:28.283 --> 00:09:42.759 But you got used to being alone and you really that became easier and easier to isolate, and then it became harder and harder to get out of the house and scarier and scarier, and so, as the rest of the world kind of started to wake up, you stayed back and stayed safe. 00:09:42.759 --> 00:09:48.552 But now things aren't going so well with that plan, because now you don't even know how to interact with people sometimes. 00:09:49.836 --> 00:09:57.868 Sometimes you're so afraid that you're not participating in life, and not only are you not around to love people, but you're also not around people to be loved. 00:09:57.868 --> 00:10:02.722 And you're feeling pretty low about that decision at this point. 00:10:02.722 --> 00:10:16.528 And we get to this bottom place of failure where it feels like we're handcuffed to a ship that is sinking and we don't know how to get out, or like you're trying to get away from a thunderstorm. 00:10:16.528 --> 00:10:20.684 But every direction you look, the storm is in every direction. 00:10:20.684 --> 00:10:22.730 I can't outrun this thing. 00:10:22.730 --> 00:10:25.479 How am I possibly going to get away from this? 00:10:25.479 --> 00:10:26.562 Anybody know what I'm talking about. 00:10:27.543 --> 00:10:40.246 Anybody felt this before and for some folks, maybe some of the religious crowd, maybe you've got to such a place that you're like I know that God is supposed to love me or whatever, but I don't know that that's really true. 00:10:40.246 --> 00:10:47.681 I think maybe that's a has to love, true. 00:10:47.681 --> 00:10:48.763 I think maybe that's a has to love. 00:10:48.763 --> 00:10:50.725 Whatever he does, however he feels about me, I'm pretty positive. 00:10:50.725 --> 00:10:51.748 His purposes for my life are over. 00:10:51.748 --> 00:10:55.701 See, I've disqualified myself so bad, or I had such a bad run of things. 00:10:55.701 --> 00:11:01.052 There's no way that God could ever, would ever, want to use me again. 00:11:01.052 --> 00:11:09.010 So my purpose is done and I'm kind of depressed because I'm just finding other things to try to fill that purpose thirst. 00:11:09.010 --> 00:11:10.131 But it's not really working. 00:11:11.754 --> 00:11:17.482 Here's some good news, and it's strange that it's the good news of the book of Lamentations, because Lamentations is so like. 00:11:17.482 --> 00:11:21.049 It's a giant mourning grief. 00:11:21.049 --> 00:11:23.399 It is a lament, it is. 00:11:23.399 --> 00:11:28.981 The world is horrible and I'm talking to God about it Half the time. 00:11:28.981 --> 00:11:32.311 I'm really angry at him and I'm also starting to get angry at myself. 00:11:32.311 --> 00:11:48.152 And here's the message of it it's that, amidst tremendous suffering, take heart because the God that is faithful to judge his people will also ultimately restore those who pray and wait. 00:11:48.152 --> 00:11:54.493 Take heart because God will ultimately restore those who pray and wait. 00:11:54.714 --> 00:12:00.196 Let's start with the first one to pull this idea apart Amidst tremendous suffering, tremendous suffering is what is happening. 00:12:00.196 --> 00:12:01.581 Remember to Lady Jerusalem. 00:12:01.581 --> 00:12:04.605 She's the one who's kind of like the voice in the first poem in chapter one. 00:12:04.605 --> 00:12:05.788 Remember to Lady Jerusalem. 00:12:05.788 --> 00:12:09.578 She's the one who's kind of like the voice in the first poem in chapter one and she's talking about this siege that has happened to the community. 00:12:09.578 --> 00:12:15.352 I'm just going to list for you some of the things that are happening in chapter one before I read a little bit. 00:12:16.059 --> 00:12:18.951 She's saying I was once great among the nations. 00:12:18.951 --> 00:12:24.849 She's saying all my friends have dealt treacherously with me, all my adversaries have become my master. 00:12:24.849 --> 00:12:29.869 The Lord has caused my grief because the multitude of my transgressions. 00:12:29.869 --> 00:12:30.770 I've got affliction. 00:12:30.770 --> 00:12:31.721 I've got homelessness. 00:12:31.721 --> 00:12:32.702 I am mocked. 00:12:32.702 --> 00:12:34.765 My enemies see my nakedness. 00:12:34.765 --> 00:12:41.443 I did not consider my future and there is no one to comfort me. 00:12:43.047 --> 00:12:44.330 Verse 18, that's where we're going to pick it up. 00:12:44.330 --> 00:12:49.106 She says the Lord is righteous, for I have rebelled against his command, and she begins to wail. 00:12:49.106 --> 00:12:54.668 Just imagine this is the rant to God and the rant to everybody else, saying do you see this? 00:12:54.668 --> 00:12:58.264 Do you see the destruction that has happened to the chosen people's city? 00:12:58.264 --> 00:13:01.712 She's saying hear now, all peoples, and behold my pain. 00:13:01.712 --> 00:13:04.908 My virgins and my young men have gone into captivity. 00:13:05.129 --> 00:13:05.921 What is she saying there? 00:13:05.921 --> 00:13:08.788 She's saying there's no one left to have any babies. 00:13:08.788 --> 00:13:10.952 We're all just going to die out. 00:13:10.952 --> 00:13:13.582 They all got carted off to Babylon. 00:13:13.582 --> 00:13:17.394 We're just going to slowly dissipate and disappear. 00:13:17.394 --> 00:13:18.456 We're going to get dusted. 00:13:18.456 --> 00:13:24.573 My priests, my elders perished in the city while they sought food to restore their strength themselves. 00:13:24.573 --> 00:13:25.355 My leaders are gone. 00:13:25.355 --> 00:13:26.297 There's no one here to lead us. 00:13:26.297 --> 00:13:29.312 No one has an idea, no one has any clue how to deliver us of this. 00:13:29.945 --> 00:13:31.230 See, lord, for I am in distress. 00:13:31.230 --> 00:13:38.030 My spirit is greatly troubled, my heart is overturned within me, for I have been very rebellious in the street. 00:13:38.030 --> 00:13:39.836 The sword slays In the house. 00:13:39.836 --> 00:13:45.044 It's like death and I want you to hear, because we might have missed it, because it doesn't happen before this. 00:13:45.044 --> 00:13:46.607 This is the first time it actually happens. 00:13:46.607 --> 00:13:55.328 In verse 18, the Lord is righteous, for I have rebelled against his command. 00:13:55.328 --> 00:13:57.692 I have been very rebellious. 00:13:57.692 --> 00:13:58.735 This is the first time. 00:13:58.796 --> 00:14:04.798 Lady Jerusalem and all these generations and saying you know what I deserve this? 00:14:04.798 --> 00:14:07.725 This is what the prophets were talking about. 00:14:07.725 --> 00:14:10.352 I kept telling them no, that can never happen to us. 00:14:10.352 --> 00:14:11.335 No, that's not how. 00:14:11.335 --> 00:14:13.769 Hey, just shut up, man, get out of here. 00:14:13.769 --> 00:14:16.557 We're doing our stuff, this is fine, god is fine with this, this is okay. 00:14:16.557 --> 00:14:20.134 And now she finally says she agrees. 00:14:20.134 --> 00:14:23.291 She agrees with what has happened and says this was wrong. 00:14:23.291 --> 00:14:26.118 God was right to do what he's doing. 00:14:26.118 --> 00:14:32.216 It's the realization that she has caused her own pain and it is blowing her mind. 00:14:32.216 --> 00:14:36.413 And she's realizing it was because I was stubborn. 00:14:36.413 --> 00:14:39.311 God kept telling us, he kept warning us, and yet I was stubborn. 00:14:39.311 --> 00:14:40.544 I want to read he kept warning us and yet I was stubborn. 00:14:40.544 --> 00:14:41.668 I want to read you some definitions. 00:14:41.668 --> 00:14:43.333 I wrote down a bunch of definitions of stubbornness. 00:14:43.333 --> 00:14:44.606 I think it'll help us today. 00:14:44.967 --> 00:14:51.427 Stubbornness is proud and disobedient resistance to God's will and rejection of his commands. 00:14:51.427 --> 00:14:54.414 It's being tenaciously unwilling to yield. 00:14:54.414 --> 00:14:58.386 It's resolute adherence to your own ideas. 00:14:58.386 --> 00:15:04.173 It's the desire to disregard the overwhelming evidence against you. 00:15:04.173 --> 00:15:06.515 It's your way or no way. 00:15:06.515 --> 00:15:14.926 It is an unyielding resistance to learn the lessons that other people are trying to help you learn, and yet you won't learn them. 00:15:14.926 --> 00:15:21.414 It's determination which we might say is good, but it's determination taken too far to our own destruction. 00:15:23.057 --> 00:15:26.446 Aristotle said we need to distinguish between different kinds of stubbornness. 00:15:26.446 --> 00:15:38.057 There's good stubbornness, which is I'm so stubborn about I'm not going to give myself to evil, and then there's bad stubbornness that, no matter what the evidence, no matter what you tell me, I will not admit that I am wrong. 00:15:38.057 --> 00:15:43.052 Guys, we got to be very careful when we start to think well, it can't be me, that's wrong. 00:15:43.052 --> 00:15:50.235 Yikes, if you ever have that thought it can't be me, that's wrong, that means the noose is around your neck right now. 00:15:50.235 --> 00:15:52.649 It can always be you that's wrong. 00:15:52.649 --> 00:15:55.495 The doy, it can always be you that's wrong. 00:15:55.495 --> 00:16:02.390 It's a stubborn, prideful heart that would ever dare to think that I can't be wrong. 00:16:02.390 --> 00:16:03.333 Have you met you? 00:16:03.333 --> 00:16:04.557 Of course you can be wrong. 00:16:06.186 --> 00:16:08.431 Think about all your worst decisions in life. 00:16:08.431 --> 00:16:14.350 That was you being wrong, and you didn't think about it then, and so you can be wrong again. 00:16:14.350 --> 00:16:17.557 We all got these issues, man. 00:16:17.557 --> 00:16:18.966 Here's one little caution. 00:16:18.966 --> 00:16:22.370 Sometimes we can be thinking about our own lives like this. 00:16:22.370 --> 00:16:32.890 Like man, I'm kind of like lady jerusalem, like I was stubborn, I ignored all the signs, and that's why I'm in some of this pain and then we can look at somebody else's life and we can want to point it out to them. 00:16:32.890 --> 00:16:34.114 Well, I know what's wrong with you. 00:16:34.114 --> 00:16:38.251 You're rebellious and stubborn and that's why you're in all this hardship. 00:16:38.251 --> 00:16:45.692 And, my friends, that's a dumb way to be a friend, because the truth is, the Bible teaches we can't know that about somebody else. 00:16:45.692 --> 00:16:48.873 We can have the gift of revelation given to ourselves. 00:16:48.873 --> 00:16:49.916 But think about Job's friends. 00:16:49.916 --> 00:17:01.000 They come around, they're giving him all this advice about how much he jacks stuff up and really all they were supposed to do was just sit there and be with him and say man, people suffer and I don't always know why people suffer, and that's true. 00:17:01.221 --> 00:17:05.032 Not all of our suffering is because God is disciplining us in some way, like directly. 00:17:05.032 --> 00:17:13.516 Sometimes it's just because we're in the vicinity of other sinners and their sin hurts us amidst tremendous suffering. 00:17:13.516 --> 00:17:14.317 Which is what is happening. 00:17:14.317 --> 00:17:16.731 The God who is faithful to judge his people? 00:17:16.731 --> 00:17:20.990 The perspective changes. 00:17:20.990 --> 00:17:27.613 Now it's not Lady Jerusalem talking, we're in chapter two, and now it is a narrator, or it's the one who's watching all this. 00:17:27.613 --> 00:17:30.329 He's watching all this unfold. 00:17:31.473 --> 00:17:34.432 Verse 17 says the Lord has done what he purposed. 00:17:34.432 --> 00:17:38.811 He accomplished his word which he commanded from days of old. 00:17:38.811 --> 00:17:43.614 And then we flip back in the Bible all the way back to Deuteronomy 28,. 00:17:43.614 --> 00:17:51.874 Verse 63 says just as it pleased the Lord to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you. 00:17:51.874 --> 00:17:55.307 You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess. 00:17:55.307 --> 00:18:00.276 Then the Lord will scatter you among the nations, from one end of the earth to the other. 00:18:00.276 --> 00:18:04.002 I want to clarify it's not that the Lord is enjoying that. 00:18:04.002 --> 00:18:06.307 It says it pleases him to ruin and destroy you. 00:18:06.307 --> 00:18:10.278 That doesn't mean he delights in the fact that they're suffering. 00:18:10.278 --> 00:18:12.991 In fact, we'll see later in the text he says the very opposite of that. 00:18:12.991 --> 00:18:16.911 What he's delighting in is finally there is justice. 00:18:16.911 --> 00:18:19.938 Finally justice is being answered. 00:18:20.144 --> 00:18:21.510 Let's consider an idea. 00:18:21.510 --> 00:18:29.836 Let's say you're aware of a wife that is being brutally beaten every day by her husband and you're pleading with her. 00:18:29.836 --> 00:18:30.990 Why don't you go to the police? 00:18:30.990 --> 00:18:32.590 Why don't you get this to stop? 00:18:32.590 --> 00:18:34.450 And she's like well, because I love him. 00:18:34.450 --> 00:18:38.884 I love him and it just causes me to have all this extra grace and extra mercy. 00:18:38.884 --> 00:18:42.972 And there would come a point when she finally goes to the police and presses charges. 00:18:42.972 --> 00:18:44.648 There's part of you. 00:18:44.648 --> 00:18:48.346 That would be like I don't want him to go get the punishment that is coming to him. 00:18:48.346 --> 00:18:49.250 And yet I do. 00:18:49.250 --> 00:18:51.036 I want the justice. 00:18:51.036 --> 00:18:53.731 She deserves justice for what has been done to her. 00:18:53.731 --> 00:18:55.036 That's what God is saying. 00:18:55.036 --> 00:18:57.169 He's delighting that justice is finally done. 00:18:57.348 --> 00:19:01.377 When they finally are carted off to Babylon, justice is done in one sense. 00:19:01.377 --> 00:19:06.670 And God is saying, yeah, you betrayed me generation after generation after generation and you hurt one another. 00:19:06.670 --> 00:19:13.090 So, yeah, I don't delight in your pain, but I delight that finally justice comes. 00:19:13.090 --> 00:19:17.750 But the point is God was just fulfilling his word. 00:19:17.750 --> 00:19:20.616 He already told them about that long, long ago. 00:19:20.616 --> 00:19:21.405 And what is he doing? 00:19:21.405 --> 00:19:22.769 He's being a father. 00:19:22.769 --> 00:19:25.440 He's being a good father, he's not. 00:19:25.440 --> 00:19:27.827 He's not enjoying the fact that they're hurting. 00:19:27.827 --> 00:19:37.013 But he says I believe in you so much I am willing to allow a little bit of pain to come into your life to get you back to the way you should go. 00:19:37.013 --> 00:19:46.718 I once heard somebody say the one thing more frightening than the discipline of God is who you would be without it. 00:19:46.718 --> 00:19:47.661 See, god sees what's coming. 00:19:47.661 --> 00:19:55.711 God knows every one of our futures, every potentiality, and he says I love them so much I'm going to give them a little bit of pressure. 00:19:55.711 --> 00:19:57.305 You're going to feel a little bit of pressure. 00:19:57.305 --> 00:19:58.990 God's going to give you a little bit of pressure. 00:19:58.990 --> 00:20:00.075 You're going to feel a little bit of pressure. 00:20:00.075 --> 00:20:10.409 God's going to give you a little bit of pressure and you're going to feel it, but it's going to cause you to stop and think and reconsider and reconsider that stubbornness, he's being who he said he would be. 00:20:11.413 --> 00:20:14.986 So many of you know that I was sick in my early twenties for four and a half years. 00:20:14.986 --> 00:20:15.726 It was a whole deal. 00:20:15.726 --> 00:20:17.288 You can hear about it in other sermons. 00:20:17.288 --> 00:20:29.768 But I was on about year three and I'm walking down the hall and I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and my body's emaciated and I'm you know, I'm just looking, you know skeletal and I'm looking at myself in the mirror. 00:20:29.768 --> 00:20:39.148 Now, in the first two years, if you would have asked me and I was going to answer honestly I would say something like man, I don't know why God is doing this and I don't like it. 00:20:39.148 --> 00:20:42.506 I'm trying to trust him, but I don't know why I have to be sick like this. 00:20:43.268 --> 00:20:52.612 But for some reason, on year three, something clicked over and, as I caught a picture of myself in the mirror, the thing that came out of my spirit and I really believe it was the Holy Spirit. 00:20:52.612 --> 00:20:53.673 It's not that I'm very godly. 00:20:53.673 --> 00:21:04.915 The thing that came out of my spirit was wow, he must really love me so much that he's willing to put me through this to get what he's after in my heart. 00:21:04.915 --> 00:21:10.709 That's not even a common thing, like that's too safe for me to think. 00:21:10.709 --> 00:21:13.567 Okay, and yet that's what was going through my mind. 00:21:13.567 --> 00:21:15.104 Wow, he must really love me. 00:21:15.104 --> 00:21:23.282 He loves me so much he will allow me to experience this temporary pain in order to protect me from whoever I would have become without this. 00:21:23.282 --> 00:21:26.150 And why? 00:21:26.150 --> 00:21:27.011 Because he's a good father. 00:21:27.011 --> 00:21:29.161 The narrator goes on. 00:21:29.161 --> 00:21:32.525 Their heart cried out to the Lord oh, what wall of daughter of Zion. 00:21:32.785 --> 00:21:35.146 Let your tears run down like a river day and night. 00:21:35.146 --> 00:21:36.209 Give yourself no relief. 00:21:36.209 --> 00:21:36.828 Now, check it out. 00:21:36.828 --> 00:21:39.271 Check it out, because Lady Jerusalem is getting distracted. 00:21:39.271 --> 00:21:40.752 Now she's like man, it's so bad. 00:21:40.752 --> 00:21:42.454 No, no, no, but it's so bad. 00:21:42.454 --> 00:21:43.997 But listen, it's bad. 00:21:43.997 --> 00:21:49.925 Hey, it's almost slipping away. 00:21:51.007 --> 00:21:51.808 And the narrator comes. 00:21:51.808 --> 00:21:55.413 Let your tears run down like a river day and night. 00:21:55.413 --> 00:21:56.315 Give yourself no relief. 00:21:56.315 --> 00:21:57.901 Let your eyes have no rest, arise. 00:21:57.901 --> 00:22:00.663 Cry aloud in the night, at the beginning of the night. 00:22:00.663 --> 00:22:03.391 Watch as you pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord. 00:22:03.391 --> 00:22:07.371 Lift up your hands to him for the life of your little ones who are faint because of hunger. 00:22:07.371 --> 00:22:13.268 And at the head of every street, he's saying no, no, no, ladies, it's time to pray. 00:22:13.268 --> 00:22:14.050 Don't give up now. 00:22:14.050 --> 00:22:15.396 Don't resign yourself to this. 00:22:15.396 --> 00:22:16.520 It's time to pray now. 00:22:16.520 --> 00:22:18.489 You have real needs right now. 00:22:18.489 --> 00:22:19.713 Pray about those now. 00:22:19.713 --> 00:22:21.941 And you have stuff that you can even see coming. 00:22:21.941 --> 00:22:23.061 Pray about that now. 00:22:23.061 --> 00:22:24.203 Don't just give over. 00:22:24.203 --> 00:22:24.904 Don't just give in. 00:22:24.904 --> 00:22:26.548 Look, god is a God of his word. 00:22:26.548 --> 00:22:27.469 Get on it now. 00:22:27.469 --> 00:22:28.130 Get on your knees. 00:22:28.130 --> 00:22:29.231 Get that stuff. 00:22:29.231 --> 00:22:30.954 You're aware of what you need Now. 00:22:30.954 --> 00:22:31.619 Pray for it. 00:22:31.619 --> 00:22:33.022 Don't stop. 00:22:33.022 --> 00:22:37.531 Start, start to pray for what it is you're going to need. 00:22:37.531 --> 00:22:38.314 And there are things. 00:22:38.314 --> 00:22:39.623 There are things you know. 00:22:40.003 --> 00:22:46.951 When you're in that trial, when you're in that difficult, pinched place, you're like I'll tell you what would be nice, this, this and this. 00:22:46.951 --> 00:22:48.471 Pray that. 00:22:48.471 --> 00:22:51.433 Say God, I'm going to give you no rest until you begin to restore these things. 00:22:51.433 --> 00:22:54.875 But then I can even see a little bit down the road and I'll tell you what I'd like to happen. 00:22:54.875 --> 00:22:56.517 And when I was sick, this is what I would do. 00:22:56.517 --> 00:22:57.960 I just sit there and dream, god. 00:22:57.960 --> 00:22:59.064 I don't know if you're ever going to heal me. 00:22:59.064 --> 00:23:13.520 I don't know if this is ever going to go away, but if you do, here's some things that I want. 00:23:13.520 --> 00:23:14.461 Here's some things I want to be able to do for you and Lord, I just ask you, make it a little bit sweet, why? 00:23:14.461 --> 00:23:16.093 Because this was hard and I had lists and lists and notebooks and notebooks of. 00:23:16.093 --> 00:23:17.729 I want you to do all this, god. 00:23:17.729 --> 00:23:20.547 I don't know if you will, but it's time to pray now. 00:23:20.547 --> 00:23:22.768 I'm not going to wait and see if you deliver me. 00:23:22.768 --> 00:23:25.241 I'm going to believe you're delivering me and I'm going to pray what I want. 00:23:25.241 --> 00:23:41.730 To be true, then, and they're beginning to believe it amidst tremendous suffering the god, who is faithful to judge his people, he will ultimately restore those who pray and wait. 00:23:41.730 --> 00:23:43.074 And so here she goes. 00:23:43.074 --> 00:23:44.382 Verse you're gonna love this. 00:23:44.382 --> 00:23:46.445 Oh my gosh, oh, you're gonna love it. 00:23:47.929 --> 00:23:57.230 Chapter three, chapter three in the midst of lamentations, in the midst of thisations, in the midst of this heartbreak, in the midst of this crying and anguish, she's getting a little sidetracked again. 00:23:57.230 --> 00:23:57.751 Verse 19,. 00:23:57.751 --> 00:24:01.367 Remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and the bitterness. 00:24:01.367 --> 00:24:05.003 Surely my soul remembers and is bowed down within me. 00:24:05.003 --> 00:24:07.568 Uh-oh, ding, light bulb goes on. 00:24:07.568 --> 00:24:11.020 This I recall to my mind this. 00:24:11.020 --> 00:24:12.767 I recall to my mind. 00:24:12.767 --> 00:24:13.869 Therefore, I have hope. 00:24:13.869 --> 00:24:19.484 Now listen to this, because you've seen these scriptures on plaques, you've seen them on pictures, you've seen them in somebody's bathroom. 00:24:19.484 --> 00:24:20.868 You're like that's a nice verse. 00:24:20.868 --> 00:24:22.821 Oh, it makes me feel so pretty and good. 00:24:24.984 --> 00:24:30.093 And here's where it is, in the middle, in the very middle of the middle chapter of Lamentations. 00:24:30.093 --> 00:24:35.410 It is the bullseye, it is the thing that the prophet, the poet, is circling and saying this. 00:24:35.410 --> 00:24:36.531 This is what this is about. 00:24:36.531 --> 00:24:42.529 And he's saying the Lord's loving kindnesses, indeed, never cease. 00:24:42.529 --> 00:24:44.473 His compassions never fail. 00:24:44.473 --> 00:24:46.001 They are new every morning. 00:24:46.001 --> 00:24:48.025 Great is your faithfulness. 00:24:48.025 --> 00:24:50.630 The Lord is my portion, says the Lord. 00:24:50.630 --> 00:24:53.615 Therefore, I will have hope in him. 00:24:53.615 --> 00:24:57.385 And this is deep, my friends, this is deeply theological. 00:24:57.385 --> 00:24:59.847 This is the Lord saying. 00:25:00.069 --> 00:25:15.144 I put it in Holy Scripture that in the most pain that I'm aware of, even when you're blaming me, there is a message of in the midst of that remember who I am, remember that I am the God whose compassions fail not and I love verse 24. 00:25:15.144 --> 00:25:17.089 This is what she says. 00:25:17.089 --> 00:25:19.969 The Lord is my portion, says my soul. 00:25:19.969 --> 00:25:27.586 Because what did she think before. 00:25:29.380 --> 00:25:29.863 The stuff was my portion. 00:25:29.863 --> 00:25:31.289 This is my portion and that is my portion, and this dream is my portion. 00:25:31.289 --> 00:25:31.792 The stuff was my portion. 00:25:31.792 --> 00:25:34.226 This is my portion and that is my portion, and this dream is my portion. 00:25:34.226 --> 00:25:36.788 And these relationships are my portion and this is my portion. 00:25:36.788 --> 00:25:41.085 And this nice stuff is my portion, and none of that is her portion and none of it is our portion. 00:25:41.359 --> 00:25:43.167 The Lord himself is my portion. 00:25:43.167 --> 00:25:46.109 You can take everything away, but I still have my portion. 00:25:46.109 --> 00:25:47.840 My portion is Jesus Christ. 00:25:47.840 --> 00:25:53.906 It doesn't matter what I lose, and that's part of the purpose of the discipline. 00:25:53.906 --> 00:25:57.269 Let's take away all these crutches, all these things that you think you need. 00:25:57.269 --> 00:25:58.270 You don't need them at all. 00:25:58.570 --> 00:26:01.232 The Lord himself, he gave himself to you in marriage. 00:26:01.232 --> 00:26:02.653 He is still your God. 00:26:02.653 --> 00:26:05.156 He might take away the stuff, but he ain't gonna take away him. 00:26:05.156 --> 00:26:17.852 And if he's the one who gave you all the stuff to begin with, come on somebody. 00:26:17.852 --> 00:26:22.887 He's the one who can give anything he wants to back and better For those who will wait on the Lord. 00:26:22.887 --> 00:26:24.371 And so that's exactly what she says. 00:26:24.371 --> 00:26:32.700