Bible In A Year - Lamentations

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For those of you that don't have one, there is a handout on the chair over to my right and your left for the class.
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It's on the chair. There you can take one. And we'll be looking at it briefly before we take a look at the scriptures this morning.
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The psalmist wrote in Psalm 103, bless the Lord, oh my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name.
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Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases, who redeemeth thy life from destruction, and crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies, and that's exactly how the
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Lord deals with us. And we're going to look at that a bit this morning just to see that, as the psalmist said, this is in Psalm 103 that I read from, and verse 10 reads like this, that God, or he, has not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.
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Basically, what the psalmist is saying there is that we have not received what we have deserved.
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If we had been dealt with after our sins, we deserved the wrath of God.
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We deserve great punishment. We deserve not mercy, but we deserve justice and an exaction of God's justice against us.
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And that payment that we would receive, as the scripture tells us, the wages of sin is death, and, of course, it's speaking there of a separation from the life source, a separation from God, a banishment from God and from his presence because God is such a holy
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God that he cannot look upon iniquity, and because we're sinners full of iniquity, we don't deserve to have
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God look towards us, and we're going to see that in the book that we're going to be looking at this morning.
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But before we go there, let's pray. Let's ask the Lord's blessings upon our time together. Our Father in heaven, we do thank you, and we do praise you, and we would echo the words of the psalmist, bless the
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Lord, oh my soul. And we can say that it is well with our souls this morning because you have blessed us, you have favored us.
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Lord, you've been so gracious to us, and we understand we do not deserve it. And Lord, we are so grateful for your loving kindness and your great and amazing grace that we sing about.
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And we pray that you would come this morning and that all that we look at and consider out of your word that we would just be taught, that we would be encouraged, that we would be helped, that we would put things in perspective properly, biblically, that we would look at our lives in such a way that it would not be man -centered or we would not try to excuse or to justify or even to paint a picture that is different than the way that you paint our lives and the way that you have fashioned us and the way that you have purposed to deal with us concerning the theme that we have in all of our going through the
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Bible, the redemption, that idea, that thought, that fact, that doctrine that you have redeemed for yourself a peculiar people, a holy nation, a royal priesthood, a people who have been called by your name and saved and we're so thankful to be numbered among them.
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Lord, we know that you have been so good to us and so kind and that you have loved us with an everlasting love and underneath of the everlasting arms and that nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our
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Lord and we're grateful. Please now open up our eyes, the eyes of our understanding this morning to your word and bless us as only you can for Christ's sake, amen.
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Well, according to the sheets that you have, we will be looking at the book of Lamentations this morning.
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It's in the Old Testament. It comes after Isaiah, then Jeremiah, then Lamentations. This book of course written by Jeremiah, that's why they're put together in the scriptures, it's easy for us to remember that way that after Jeremiah comes
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Lamentations and we have this book of Laments or Lamentations.
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Many times a book will get its name from the theme of that book and here of course we have
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Jeremiah penning these words. Now, if you remember in the book of Jeremiah, when we look there,
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Jeremiah was a prophet and a prophet could look, could foretell the future. He had this foresight that God would give him and be able to proclaim that to the people and what
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Jeremiah was telling to the people of Judah was that because of their sin, because of their rebellion, because of their turning away from God that God was going to judge them and they would go off into captivity.
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And he was foreseeing that in Jeremiah, he would, he was foretelling the future.
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And there was also in that book a historical look back at times that like it already had taken place, though it had not taken place, he would look back upon it, so it was looking forward and almost like a historical look in the book of Jeremiah.
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And because of what God had shown Jeremiah, what was going to take place in the life of the people, it broke
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Jeremiah's heart. He, he wept over it and where, and he is known as the weeping prophet.
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And he said in Jeremiah chapter nine in verse one, he said, oh that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people.
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He, he was just so broken in, in, in sorrow and distress over what was going to take place in the life of his nation, of his beloved people.
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And that kind of gives you an idea. Remember when we looked in Jeremiah that, that even though we look at people and they are, they are people who have wandered from God or there are people who are in rebellion toward God, it doesn't shut our heart off.
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We can't be cold and callous about that. We can't say, oh, look at them. They deserve, they deserve what they're getting and just have a, just a vindictive and you know, you gotcha, you know,
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I'm glad you're getting what you're getting. On the contrary, Jeremiah was broken over sinners and he had a burden for sinners.
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He wept for people who were far from God. And, and did, do we not see that in the heart of our
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Lord Jesus when he looked over Jerusalem and he wept, oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how long
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I would have gathered you as a hen would gather her chicks under her wing, but you would not. His, our
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Lord's heart broken showing us how we ought to behave and how we ought to think about those who are in a poor condition of being dead in their trespasses and sins and they have, have that idea.
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Jeremiah, in the book of Jeremiah, that is, that, that was just a quick recap.
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Now we come to the book of Lamentations and Lamentations is written after the fact. Lamentations is written after Jeremiah has seen the destruction of the city and the temple and the walls and it's all, and the people are in a horrible condition because of their rebellion and because of their sin and it is after the fact and yet Jeremiah is still broken and there's these laments.
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And through this book in the five, in the chapters there are these five laments and it's just on the outline you can see them, his lament over the ruin of Jerusalem, concerning the wrath of God and how
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God has dealt with them and what, what, and what's, what's amazing with this is as you read this book,
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Jeremiah has seen what has taken place and he has seen the consequences of sin. He has seen the devastation and it's not like he just steps aside and said it wasn't me
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God, I, I was okay, I mean I, I followed you. He entered into this, he entered into it and that these were his people.
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These were, were people that he lived with and rubbed shoulders with and loved and, and ministered to for all the years even though they rejected his ministry, even though they labeled him as a false prophet saying that, you know, you're,
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Jeremiah you're just telling us these hard things and they, and they wrote him off and they didn't come to his aid when he was thrown into prison and he was, he was dealt in a horrible way but Jeremiah proved faithful yet he did not disassociate himself with the people.
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His heart was still there and you can see the same thing in this book as you read Lamentations.
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Somebody, somebody wrote and Louis Brown reminded me of this when I was going through Jeremiah preparing for Lamentations and I don't remember it exactly but it was almost like someone said in their commentary that Jeremiah when, if you were to look at the book of Jeremiah a title that you could put over that is oh, look what's going to happen, oh, look what's going to happen but now
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Lamentations it has happened and Jeremiah looks back and the summary of that book in two words would be oh dear, it's like it has really happened and the people of God are devastated and they're, and the city is in ruin and the people have been taken captive by the
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Chaldeans. Oh dear, lament, that's what this book is,
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Lamentations and what up the top of the, up the top of the page, the first page, about the third paragraph down,
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I thought this was good, good enough to read. Sometimes life just makes you want to scream.
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It can be a shout of victory, a cry of defeat or a moan of agony but it expresses the deepest emotions of your soul.
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Jeremiah lived life with passion. He was seldom passive and often angry. No other book in the
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Old Testament contains the kind of raw grief that gives this book its name,
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Lamentations. By allowing us into his pain and sorrow, Jeremiah teaches believers how to deal with suffering and of course that's what it's all about.
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Why look at this book? Not just to read, not just to know the facts of the book and to memorize the outline and maybe memorize a few verses and that's kind of neat.
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Let's go on to the next book but really all scripture is given by inspiration of God and it's profitable for us.
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These things, Paul wrote the Corinthian church, he said these things in the Old Testament were written for our example, for us to learn from.
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When we look at the book of Lamentations, we see a man who is grieving. He is in great sorrow and we're going to look at that in chapter 3 this morning and yet practically, what is it that we ought to receive from this?
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What is it that we can glean from this? How can we learn from a book such as Lamentations?
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And there are many, many lessons and I won't go into all of them but on the second page, you'll have practical lessons learned that we can learn from this book and one of them is that God does not wink upon sin.
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God does not just let sin go by. It is dealt with. There are consequences for rebellion.
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There are consequences for idolatry or setting our hearts upon something else and really one of the points that was interesting to note there, it implies a warning to every reader, this book.
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Through Jeremiah's words, we see the consequences from within. The sorrow and sadness that flow from judgment are often offered as a deterrent to keep us from sin and to keep us on the narrow path but notice this, if God did not hesitate to judge his beloved people, what will he do to nations and people who reject his word and reject his son?
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God does deal with sinners and you can be sure that your sin will find you out and God cannot and will not let it go by.
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And in the life of his people, he did not let it go by and they were dealt with in such a way that it was so devastating that Jeremiah is in great sorrow and he's in great grief and he's weeping and we're going to see at the beginning of chapter 3, how it affected him.
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I mean, it wasn't, I mean, this book gives details of the bitter suffering and the heartbreak of Jeremiah although he was not responsible but his suffering that he goes through and the heartbreak that he felt and of course, he was not alone.
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There were others who were in the same situation that walked before the
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Lord and were faithful to God and this is what they felt over Jerusalem's devastation.
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This is what they went through and we can learn from, how was it that he went through the suffering?
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Some people when they go through suffering, they just check out. They say, I can't handle this.
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Their prayer is God get me out of this. I don't like it here. I don't want to be here. I'm just kind of shutting down life until you do that and basically demanding of God to get them out of the situation.
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Some people get bitter when they go through a difficult time. Of course, the
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New Testament we read that, you know, the trials and the sufferings of our faith come to us to prove the genuineness of it and to strengthen the roots and to cause us to be even more dependent upon the
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Lord and that's what we're going to see in the life of Jeremiah as he goes through this suffering, as he goes through the difficult time, the bitterness and the sorrow and the heartbreak, we're going to see that it has affected him in such a way that it focuses his attention in a different place.
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It takes it off of himself and ultimately, we see in chapter 3 that in the middle of the trial, in the middle of the suffering, in the middle of the difficult and troubling times there is some place to find comfort and we're going to see that that is going to be in the
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Lord. If you would take your Bibles with me now, look in book in Lamentations and we're going to look at Lamentations chapter 3,
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I'll be reading beginning in verse 1, I am the man that has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath and from the get go in this chapter,
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Jeremiah says that he has seen not the club of God but the rod of God's affliction, the chastening hand of God upon his people and whom the
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Lord loves, he chastens, doesn't he? And they were wrong, they were sinful, they were rebellious and Jeremiah has seen what
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God has done to correct, to judge, to bring this devastation to his people.
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He has led me and brought me into darkness but not into light. Dark times it brings upon his life and dark times upon his soul and sometimes the children of light, us, walk and are required and asked of God to walk in darkness.
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If, and just an aside, if you haven't, just pray for strength and grace for when it does come because it will come to God's people, there will be times, maybe you're younger and you're thinking, you know,
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I remember one time, I was 21 years old and I was in the US Army in San Antonio, Texas, I was in my job and everything was perfect,
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I mean I had 2 years to go in my tour of duty and I remember overhearing some women that were in the other room and they were probably in their late 30s and early to mid 40s and they used to talk about stress.
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And I used to just shake my head and I said, stress, what's stress? I mean, you know, they're talking about these knots that they have in their back and chiropractor and stress or one of them,
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I got to exercise because there's just too much stress in my life and that helps me. And I was saying, these people are crazy.
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I said, stress, of course now I know what stress is and I know what knots in the back and neck are, the trials and the struggles of life and as you grow and as you mature and as things come in your life, it's going to come and the
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Bible tells us, I think it's in 2 Timothy, that persecution will come to those who will desire to live godly in Christ Jesus.
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Those that will follow the narrow path will run into difficult times and it is ordained of God, it is the plan and the purpose of God as we read in the
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Apostle Peter's writings that we've been called to affliction, we've been called to trouble and it does test us and it does cause us to look at our lives and God uses it to perfect us.
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We know of that song that where it speaks of that as we go through the fire God burns off the dross but we still remain, praise the
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Lord, we're still there but we're purified, we're strengthened, we're encouraged, we're matured.
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But sometimes, God's children of light walk through dark times but what do you do?
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You throw up your hands in despair, do you throw in the towel, do you say I'm just going to leave Christ, I'm going to leave the church, I'm just going to walk away from it, it's not worth it.
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No, because we're going to see that in the trial and in the sorrow and in the grief and in the pain, there's one thing that separates us from the world, there's one thing that separates
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God's people from lost people, there's one thing that separates the believer from the unbeliever, the child of God from the child of this world and it's a nice four -letter word and it's hope.
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We have a hope, Paul wrote to the church in Thessalonica, he said when they were struggling about Christians who were dying and somebody was confusing them about where they were going and you know, heaven and how to be with the
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Lord and Paul said to them, his basic teaching was I don't want you to sorrow like the world who has no hope but let me tell you what's going to happen, the
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Lord is going to come and he's going to appear in the cloud, he's going to take us up to be with him and you don't have to sorrow like other people sorrow and I spoke of this last weekend down the
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Cape during the Sunday school class, I made the, I used the illustration of and probably many of you have experienced this, if you've ever gone to a funeral of someone who has died and they are not a
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Christian, they are outside of Christ and there is just great despair and there is crying and there is question marks and there is what?
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No hope, I mean really a person who understands through the teaching of the scriptures what life is all about, how it is that a person finds rest in relationship with God through his son
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Jesus Christ and a person who dies outside of Christ, the scripture says that they are
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Christless, graceless and they are hopeless, there is just,
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I hope this person made it and many times to kind of appease the people that are there, the minister, so called minister will preach the person into heaven saying they are in a better place or whatever but when you go to the difference now, for that person of course there is all these question marks because their religion has never given them any hope but the scriptures tell us that God gives us through a relationship that we have in Jesus Christ that there is not only hope that we receive from the scriptures because God gives us the truth and we can rest upon what
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God says is being true but being saved, being completely forgiven, being washed in the blood of Jesus Christ, we have a hope that is sure and steadfast, we have a salvation which is eternal, we have a redemption purchased, we have been purchased by the blood of Christ and we have a salvation that is given to us that can never be taken away and underneath of the everlasting arms as the mountains are round about Jerusalem so the
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Lord is round about his people and our hope is in the Lord who gave himself for us as the song says and my hope is built in nothing less than BBC and my checkbook balance, right?
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You know how the song goes? No, my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness and we go to the funeral of a person who is in the faith, one of our dear brothers and sisters in Christ, is there weeping?
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Yes, but it's a different type. Is there sorrow? Yes, but it's a different type of sorrow. We sorrow with a hope and we know and are confident that that person is now in the presence of their savior, seeing
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Christ face to face and it is completely different. I just wanted to mention this to you as far as the hope that we have that in the darkness that many times we must walk through and we will walk through losses, pain, whatever it might be, devastating issues that come your way with relationships or that come financially or come with jobs or health, whatever it might be.
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Just the sorrow of life itself, sometimes it's like we just are, we go day to day and we just see the things all around us unravel and it gets quite dark around us but even though,
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I mean, you remember the psalmist, yet though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
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I will fear no evil for thou art with me. Joseph in prison, it says over and over again in all the darkness that he was there and he was there undeservedly,
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God was with him. The three Hebrew boys getting cast into the oven, the fiery furnace because they would not bow the knee and rebel against God and worship an idol.
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Going into that dark place but God being with them and here we see, Jeremiah says this devastation that the people have been, it's put me in this darkness.
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Notice what it says in verse 3, chapter 3, verse 3, surely against me is he turned, he turneth his hand against me all the day.
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God's hand is against me, he's saying. My flesh and my skin has he made old, he has broken my bones.
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He's got failed health here. Verse 5, he has builded against me, encompassed me with gall and travail.
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And you just see that he's run into these brick walls and God has put around him, so to speak, these walls of gall and bitterness and have him to drink of this cup of bitterness and it's a travail upon his soul.
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Verse 6, he has set me in dark places, kind of like a repeat of before, as they that be dead of old.
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He's in a difficult place, he has hedged me about. Now, we sometimes pray, God hedge me about to protect me, but God can also hedge us about and bring about his people a time which is devastating, a time which is trying, a time which is filled with great sorrow.
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And that's where Jeremiah is, he's like trapped in this tough place and he says, God has put a chain, a heavy chain about me.
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And when I cry out in verse 8, he shuts out my prayer, my prayers are unanswered.
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He has enclosed my ways, verse 9, with hewn stone, yet made my paths crooked. Now, wait a minute, you know,
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I thought it was that God makes our paths straight, but the God who makes our paths straight can make our paths crooked for a good purpose, for his purposes in our lives, so that we are perfected, so that we are come out of that oven, come out of that furnace far better off.
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And of course, Jeremiah here, again, in the context is explaining how the devastation of Jerusalem, this take, them being taken into captivity for the rebellion and sin has affected him, you know, and I don't know if you've, if this has ever happened to you, but if you've ever seen anybody who has gone astray and they have had devastation come into your life, if you've ever gotten any type of satisfaction out of it, it's the wrong heart attitude.
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Our hearts should be broken for other people when they go through their difficult and trying times.
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And as a matter of fact, I think there's a proverb that says, and I don't know exactly where it is, but if our enemy suffers or is suffering and having difficult times, and we look upon them and don't have a compassion and we don't have the right type of heart, it's, the scripture says that God will take what's happening to them and turn it upon us.
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It can come our way because we need to learn a lesson. And isn't that what life is all about? It's about learning the lessons.
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Why look at the book of Lamentations? Do we just memorize, like I said, some great pieces of this book?
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We just know that it's written by Jeremiah and spout off the facts and we can go in and we can say, you know, I got it all up here in my head.
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No, it's to affect our hearts. It's to affect our lives so that we can put feet to the word of God, so that we can live it.
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And Jeremiah is a man here as we can see, and we ought to be thinking and sometimes we will experience this same type of condition that he did.
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Notice what it says in verse 11. He has turned aside my ways and pulled me in pieces and he has made me desolate.
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He bent his bow and set me as a mark for the arrow. It's almost like Jeremiah is saying, I am a target for the arrows of sorrow.
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God is shooting out these arrows and I'm the target and I'm receiving these. It does get better.
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Hold on. We're getting there. He has caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins. I was in derision to all my people and their song all the day.
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He said, I'm despised by the people. Remember, and that's why he was rejected by the people and derided by them.
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And they looked at Jeremiah and it says here that their song was against them or the words that they spoke and the idle songs that they would utter, the ditties that they had or whatever.
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It was all against Jeremiah and it just pulled down his name. He has filled me with bitterness, verse 15.
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He has made me drunken with wormwood. He has also broken my teeth with gravel stones. He has covered me with ashes.
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Anybody taking notes, just jot down Psalm 102. You can read in there and in that Psalm, it's basically saying that it's almost like this gravel is in the bread that he's eating and it's caused his teeth to be broken.
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It's just a terrible experience of bitterness of soul that he's talking about, drinking this cup of suffering.
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And he says in verse 17, and God has removed my soul afar off from peace, I forget prosperity.
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He's lost his peace. Anything that he did have satisfaction in the physical and the things that are around him, it means nothing.
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He doesn't care about that. It's like he's been robbed of just the satisfaction of that. And I said, verse 18, my strength and my hope is perished from the
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Lord. I mean, he's in weakness. He's in despair. Verse 19, remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
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I can imagine there is a hymn that we sing and it probably comes right out of that.
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I mean, here is just an effect upon this man's heart concerning the condition of his people.
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And if we stop right there, I mean, it looks pretty dismal, doesn't it? I mean, it's pretty bad.
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I mean, and can you identify and maybe some of you are maybe have not experienced great trials in your life.
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And it is so good that the Lord is so good to us when the trials do come, that when the
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Lord does test us, that he is faithful to be there with us and to help us and to give us the strength to make it through.
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But you just see Jeremiah and he's like unraveled and he's just broken and he's in sorrow and bitterness of soul.
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He's like drunk this cup of suffering. And if we just ended there and walked away, we'd say, well, there's no difference between the
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Christian and the believer and the unbeliever. But Jeremiah doesn't stop there and that's the practicality of the lesson this morning.
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In the middle of it and during the time when the heat is turned up and the pressure is on and things are difficult in our lives, we must look someplace.
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We've got to make sure that we don't look within, we don't look around us, we don't look at the circumstances because as we look within or we look at the circumstances, things get worse.
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And notice what Jeremiah says. Verse 20, my soul has them still in remembrance and is humbled in me.
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This I recall to my mind, therefore, have
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I hope. This, this is what I'm going to look to. And Jeremiah, what is it that you're going to look to?
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He says there's something, it's not going to be the physical things around him because he just told us that that doesn't bring him any satisfaction, it hasn't helped him.
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He's not going to look to himself, he's not going to look to his health because it's unraveled and it's failed.
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He's not going to look to his merit or his morality or his good works. He's got to look someplace else.
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It's got to be outside of him. The help is not going to come from within. It's not going to come from the circumstances and the experiences, the things that many a time we look to to give us satisfaction or to bring peace or to give us fulfillment in life.
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But bottom line, when it comes to our lives as those who name the name of Jesus Christ and even in the life of Jeremiah as we see the example here, notice what he says that he recalls to his mind.
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Notice what he says and he recalls to his mind. It's not something new to him. This is something that he's always known but it's almost like he just, he rewinds the tape.
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He's already had this tape but he rewinds the tape and he's going to play it again and he's going to think about this and what is it that he thinks about?
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It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed. Because his compassions fail not, they are new every morning, great is
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God's or great is thy faithfulness. That's where this phrase comes from for the great hymn that we sing.
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And Jeremiah wants to find a word. He wants to find someplace, something to describe, a word to describe how he can get his hope or how he can have a foundation, a sure footing in the middle of this difficult time.
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So here's the practical lesson in the nutshell. When it comes to times of trial and suffering and heartbreak and bitterness and darkness, the only thing that is going to sustain us, the only thing that is going to help us, the only thing that we're going to be able to do is not pray and ask
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God to get us out of it but as we're going through it and the Lord will have us go through it, it's to recognize that every bit and piece of our hope is going to be in the
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Lord. It's of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed.
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And really it's of the Lord's loving kindnesses maybe in your translation that we are not consumed.
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Remember I read in Psalm 103 verse 10, God will not always...
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I'll start in verse 8, Psalm 103 verse 8. You don't have to turn there but I'll read it for you. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy.
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Isn't that a great Old Testament description of the Lord? I mean, some people think, oh, the God of the
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Old Testament is one who is an ogre and he's got a big club and he's... it's just all fire and brimstone. Let me read that again.
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The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy.
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Notice how God shows that to people. It says in verse 9, He will not always chide, it says, or contend.
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He... neither will He keep His anger forever. He has not dealt with us after our sins nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.
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There it is. We're not being dealt with as we should be dealt with. For as the heavens are high above the earth so great is
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His mercy toward them that fear Him as far as the east is from the west. So far as He removed our transgressions from us, like as a father pities his children, so the
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Lord pities them that fear Him. But that one text there, verse 10, says that God has not dealt with us after the multitude of our sins.
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And if we take a little inventory, we would agree with that because we've probably already sinned since we woke up this morning.
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I mean, how many sins does it take to be banished from the presence of God? Just one.
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And does it have to be a great sin? No, because the book of Revelation tells us that not even the liar, the person who lies, can enter into the presence of God.
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Isn't it amazing how man will twist that and say, it's just a white lie. It's just a little thing. I mean, you know,
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I just had to do it because I just didn't want to hurt somebody's feeling. Yeah, but what about offending God?
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And with our sin, we offend God and one sin can banish us from the presence of the Lord.
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And we've probably already sinned at least once today, maybe even before as we were entering into the door of the church or even while we were sitting here during the beginning of Sunday school.
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And over and over and over again, because of who we are and what we are, being sinners, we will continue to sin.
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But thankfully, we're not consumed. We ought to be, but we're not consumed.
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And we're not consumed because of the Lord's mercies. And that is God not doing something to us that we deserve to have done to us.
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And we deserve the judgment of God. John 3 .36 talks about that wrath of God that can abide over people.
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And the swift judgment of God. You get the idea, if you've ever read in the book of Revelation, the people who reject
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God in the final days are going to be like grapes in the vine press where the folks would get and they would get inside there and squish the grapes until they turned into the juices so they could extract the juice out.
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And God is going to deal with those people who reject him in that fashion.
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And the judgment for their sin and rebellion and them not obeying the gospel of Jesus Christ, they're going to be judged in that way.
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And aren't we glad that we're not consumed because we deserve the same thing. We deserve the judgment of God.
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We deserve not to be favored of God. Now, favor or grace is God doing something for us that we did not earn or we do not deserve.
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And mercies, kind of like you think of that definition, kind of just in the opposite. God not doing something to us that are deserving of something.
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And it's of God's mercies that we are not consumed. And you know what's neat about that phrase is that when you think about it, it could be worse, couldn't it?
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Even with all the trial and with all the suffering, with all the misery, the cup of bitterness that we have to drink when we're going through that difficult time, it could be worse.
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We're out of the grave. We're still alive. There is hope yet still.
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And we're out of hell. Think about that. I mean, just as believers, we've been rescued from hell by our great
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Redeemer. We've been rescued from that awful punishment where Jesus had described it as, in Matthew 25, 46,
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He said, He said, These shall go away into everlasting punishment. That's how
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He described it. These. He's talking about the sheep and the goats, the separation there. These will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal.
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That's us. It could be worse than our condition. And really, when it comes to the condition, I mean, you know, when you're going through it, right?
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When the health begins to unravel, or it might be in a financial area, or it could be a relationship that has gone bad with a friend or a relative.
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It could be something on the job. It could, whatever it might be, we think it can't get any worse.
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But it certainly can. It could be worse. And we could be consumed. I mean, think about it.
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When we sinned, God could have said one sin wiped out. That's it. It's kind of like when the children of Israel just angered the
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Lord. Do you remember what he said to Moses? He's going to come and he's going to wipe them out. He's going to obliterate the people of God.
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And you remember Moses says, Oh, Lord, please. He prayed to God. Please, Lord, don't do this.
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It'll be your name that will be at stake because they'll say that you weren't able to take care of your people, please.
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And of course, Moses, not only for that reason, but I'm sure Moses, like Jeremiah, loved these wayward people.
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And he was part of them and he cared about them. And it broke his heart to see them go in this direction. And when we think about our lives,
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I think one of the things that we just have a misconception of is that we just don't see the magnitude of sin.
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We don't see the magnitude of the offense that it is to God when we're full of pride or when we are so angry with someone that it is as if or equated to the anger or to the sin of murder.
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Or when our heart goes after something and our idolatry, and we say, well, we don't have idols.
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We don't make Buddhism. I mean, we don't have them in the church, little idols today. But there are things that we would hold dear to us, and they can come between us and the
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Lord. And that idolatry is the sin of witchcraft. I mean, it's awful in the sight of God because he is so holy and without sin, and yet we're just the opposite.
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And isn't it a comfort, brethren, just to know as we look at this, and we consider this, that we would be totally wiped out.
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We could be totally consumed. But because of God's mercies, and he has mercy upon us, and that that does not take place.
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And it says here not only once, but notice what it says at the end of the verse, because his compassions fail not.
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I mean, it's not just a one -time thing. If it was, if we only had one opportunity, it would have run out a long time ago for all of us.
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But God's compassions never fail. And Jeremiah, what he's saying there is, look,
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I have foreseen this devastation. Now I have seen it with my very own eyes.
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But I want you to know that even though God requires sin to be dealt with, and there are consequences for sin.
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So I want you to know, and in those consequences, when the trying times come, and we are getting what we deserve, the chastening hand of God comes upon us, and things get difficult, and we have to drink the cup of sorrow and bitterness.
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I want you to remember that through that whole thing, God is faithful to continue to keep his covenant with his people.
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And you will not be lost. You will not be forsaken of God. And notice what he says as he goes on.
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They are, these mercies of the Lord, they are new every morning. I like Pastor Mike's description of this once.
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He said that God doesn't give us day -old, warmed -up, microwaved mercies.
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God doesn't do that. But God's mercies are new. They are fresh.
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They are all that's necessary for us for that day and for that time. And notice, God's mercies are new every morning.
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Great is God's faithfulness to us. That is the hope that we have in the middle of all the troubles and trials and struggles and consequences that we will go through, even when they are deserved, because of our sin.
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Jeremiah is looking at this, and he's saying, this, I mean, to me, this is the practical outlooking of this.
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We must have a different mindset. We must look in a different direction when times are tough.
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We cannot look at the circumstances, because we look there, it just continues to drag us down. If we try to look to ourselves, can we help ourselves?
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No, we're in this situation, and we can't do it. Can we look to anybody else? The flesh, the arm of the flesh will fail you.
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We fail ourselves. And the circumstances that we're in, they're not going to help us. What is it, whether we have money in the bank or not, or food in the refrigerator, or gas in the car, or a job, when we've been stripped of that, which in our lives we used to depend upon to give us peace and satisfaction and fulfillment.
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None of those things mean anything. They don't have a sweet taste to us anymore. It must come from someplace else.
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And so we don't look to the hills for our help. We look to the Lord for our help.
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We look to the Lord, and we can look to him, because he's merciful, and because he loves us.
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His compassions and his love will not fail. And the mercies that he shows to us are new every morning.
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And God is faithful to keep his people, and faithful to continue with us, even though when we don't deserve to be continued with.
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Any questions to this point? I want to just kind of stop and give you a moment to kind of interact here. John? Well, I don't know what he said, but I think to us it's kind of like, look at the situation you're in.
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And when you have the difficulty in the trial and the sorrow and the burden, that stays the same.
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I mean, that's just consistent. The weight is there. The burden, the awfulness of that is there.
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But what God comes with is just a fresh outlook on the situation as we're going through it, because from day to day and from minute to minute, from hour to hour, it's going to change if we look at it in the light of the fact that God is concerned with us and God loves us and the mercies that come to us.
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It's, remember, Jeremiah is recalling this to his mind, something that he already knows, and something that we already know is that God is merciful.
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We say that all the time. We thank the Lord for his mercies, but we haven't really taken stock of it on how that is practical to us and that is for us.
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This is what he said. He says, Jeremiah says that I recall this to my mind.
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This is for me personally, that God cares for me. His compassions for me won't fail. And I don't think it's necessarily, it's got to be something new or something different that God does in our lives.
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What it is to us is this is brought to our mind in a new invigorated way, fresh in a fresh way that God is for us.
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And if he is, who can be against us? It's not, I don't think it has to be, well, today he's going to bless me by taking away the problem here.
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And now it's in that way, kind of compartmentalize. I think it has everything to do with our focus upon the
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Lord and our eyes off the circumstances. And we see him as being the hope that we have through the midst of this whole difficulty.
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I don't know if that answers your question. Okay. Any other question up to this point?
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Anything at all? All right. What is it? I mean, if you think about it, let's do this.
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Let's just take a moment to think. I've mentioned some, but what are some things when people are in a difficult situation that maybe
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I have not mentioned? What is it that we have a tendency to do? To try to get out of the situation or help the situation and make it better.
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What might we do? Do we take the matter in our own hands? Sometimes try to find a solution ourselves. Do we try to explain it in our terms?
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Try to put God in a box saying, this is what God is doing or go to somebody who's really, the fire is turned up in their life and we'll go to them and we'll say,
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I think God is really just letting you have it. You know, you're getting what you deserve. I mean, how could we possibly know what
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God is doing in someone's life? I mean, there are general principles of scripture that we can see if someone has roamed from God and has wandered from God, that we can say, you know, well, maybe this is what the
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Lord is doing in your life. There's a possibility, but we can't say and play that person as that like we know what's going on, try to explain it away.
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Maybe we try to explain it away in our own lives. What else do people do? Yes, Mark. Yeah.
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Yeah. Yeah, right. You know, in the running, you know what I was thinking of? You know what people do when things are difficult?
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What does a person think of? Have you ever had somebody who's lost somebody, gone to the funeral and after the funeral, what do they do?
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They keep busy. They just constantly are on the go so that they don't have to think about the situation.
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And sometimes people keep busy so that they... I know a young man who is a professional student.
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It's one degree to the next degree, the next degree, the next job, the next promotion, another degree, another degree. He keeps so busy and I keep thinking in my mind as I've witnessed to him over time,
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I think he just stays busy because he doesn't want to stop because when he stops, he's going to be faced with himself and faced with who he really is and faced with how empty he really is.
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And he just doesn't want to stop. And sometimes we do that. We keep busy. Any other ideas, things that we do?
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Okay. Let's finish up by just looking here quickly for maybe another three minutes.
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Notice how he continues to build upon this hope that he finds in the Lord. He says,
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Great is God's faithfulness. Verse 24, The Lord is my portion, says my soul.
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Therefore will I hope in Him. It kind of reminds you of Psalm 42 when the psalmist said,
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Why are you disquieted within me, you know, oh my soul? He's talking to himself. And he says, Why are you so cast down?
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He said, Hope thou in God. That's what the psalmist says. Hope in the Lord because where else do you find hope?
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Where else can we have hope? Who else is for us? Who else is it that's going to be there when life unravels?
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And the psalmist, there's another psalm that says, Though the world, though the earth and the hills melt, he has a confidence because for what reason?
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Because God is for him and underneath him will be the Lord who will uphold him. Another psalmist said,
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The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord and he delighteth in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down for the
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Lord upholds him by his hand. I was just thinking of this in 2 Corinthians 4. You don't have to turn there, but Paul explains life this way when it comes to how difficult sometimes things get.
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We are troubled on every side. True, but we're not distressed. We are perplexed, but not in despair.
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Persecuted, persecuted, but he says not forsaken. Cast down, but not destroyed, not consumed.
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Cast down, yes, there'll be times, but not consumed. Always bearing about in the body the dying of the
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Lord Jesus that the life of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. That's what our life is like and it is the trying in the difficult times, but the
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Lord is our portion. He's compassionate to us. He loves us and we're not consumed and we will never be consumed because being
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God's people, we are eternally saved and we are the apple of the Lord's eye and one day we're going to go off to that place that Jesus has prepared for us, as he said in John chapter 14.
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So he says, don't be troubled with all the things that come in your life. Everything in the end will be well and even in life will be well if we look to the
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Lord and we find our hope in him. So don't use any other types of things to try to assuage the sorrow and the grief and the bitterness or to run like our brother said or to blame somebody else for it.
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It is good for people to wait unto the Lord. It says there in verse 25, the
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Lord is good unto them that wait for him to the soul that seeks him. Notice verse 26. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the
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Lord. And God does save us from the penalty of sin. God is saving us from the power and the pleasure of sin and the consequences that come our way because of sin and one day will ultimately save us from the presence of sin.
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And if you remember this book and you think of oh dear, what goes on in the life of God's people when their hearts are not in the right place.
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Just remember and I think I have it written down here. I'm just going to read it off the last page of it when it comes to the theme.
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Though God's people will be judged for their sin, the theme of the book of Lamentations is that with confession of sin and acknowledgement of God's righteous judgment comes this, a note of hope in God's future restoration of his people.
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And of course for us, practically speaking, how we can apply that is that God will bring us all the way home to glory one day to see
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Christ face to face and uphold us all the days of our lives and we can find hope in him even in those dark times.
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Let's pray. Father, thank you again for your word.
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Thank you for just a phrase like this that comes jumping off the pages and we sing of it. Now we can have an understanding to sing it with a deeper meaning.
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Great is thy faithfulness. And Lord, you have been so faithful to us all the days of our lives.
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Faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness when we confess them.
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You're faithful to keep us. You're faithful to be for us and therefore who can be against us.
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And we're so glad that you're faithful to not do to us in what we deserve and being consumed because of your mercies we are not consumed.
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We take great hope and delight in you this morning. Please continue to be with us as we worship and fellowship today for the glory of Christ.