How Will the Story End?

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. In the name of Jesus. If you would look with me at Lamentations chapter 5, it is the final chapter in the book of Lamentations, I would like to point out a feature at the very end of the chapter that may, well, seem a little bit unsatisfying.

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And that is, is that as you look at how the book ends, it ends with these words, For this our heart has become sick, for these things our eyes have grown dim.

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For Mount Zion, which lies desolate, jackals prowl over it. And then, just forwarding to the very end,

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Restore us, O Lord, that we may be restored. Renew our days as of old, unless you have utterly rejected us and you remain exceedingly angry with us.

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The end. Does anyone note that that's quite an unsatisfactory ending?

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It's like, well, telling a joke. And you get to the punchline and you just leave it blank.

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There's no way to resolve. And that's kind of the point, if you would. There's something going on here.

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The book of Lamentations, as we've noted for the past five weeks now, is a rough road to drive through.

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It's dry, gravelly, parched, difficult to read. The pictures that it paints of the consequences of our sin and God's judgment and wrath, this is not the kind of stuff that makes us feel good about ourselves.

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It doesn't bolster our self -esteem. And that really is the point. And so as we take a look at this final chapter, we will note that it ends on kind of a cliffhanger.

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Which way will God go? And I think that's an appropriate place for us to note just a little bit, get a little bit of a hint for what's coming next week.

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Because the answer is found in what Christ does for us on Good Friday.

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But we're not quite there yet. So, looking now at verse one of chapter five,

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Jeremiah writes, Remember, O Lord, what has befallen us. Look and see our disgrace.

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Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our homes to foreigners. We've become orphans, fatherless.

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Our mothers are like widows. We must pay for the water we drink. See, the fact that you have to pay your water bill is a curse.

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Well, that's not the point, really. But you get the idea. Stuff that was provided for free, they now have to pay for.

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Wood, it must be bought. Our pursuers are at our necks. We are weary. We are given no rest.

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We have given the hand to Egypt and to Assyria to get bread enough.

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Our fathers sinned and are no more, and we bear their iniquities.

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Slaves rule over us. Talk about the lowest of the low now. And this is the consequences of sin.

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Sin takes you from here all the way down to here. Here is where we began. Here was made in the image of God.

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Where sin has taken us, it's less than human. Slaves rule over us.

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There's none to deliver us from their hand. We get our bread at the peril of our lives because of the sword in the wilderness.

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Our skin is hot as an oven, and with the burning heat of famine. Women are raped and Zion young women in the towns of Judah.

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Princes are hung up by their hands. No respect is shown to the elders. Young men are compelled to grind at the mill, and boys stagger under loads of wood.

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The old men have left the city gate. The young men, their music. The joy of our hearts has ceased.

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Our dancing has been turned into mourning. The crown has fallen from our head.

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Woe to us, for we have sinned. For this, our heart has become sick.

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For these things, our eyes have become dim. For Mount Zion, which lies desolate, jackals prowl over it.

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It's a bleak picture painted for Israel, but I would like you to consider this. This picture is not unlike, in fact, almost identical to the picture that is given to us in Romans 1.

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Romans 1 describes man's plunging slope, slippery slope into the oblivion of sin and how it debases us.

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And from that debasing, it just goes from one worse situation to the next.

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Romans 1, speaking about humanity now, not just idolatrous

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Israel who's being punished for their sins. Romans 1, verse 18 reads, The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness, they suppress the truth.

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For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, namely

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His eternal power, His divine nature, they've been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made, so that men are without excuse.

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For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened.

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Claiming to be wise, they became fools. They exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

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Therefore, God gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie.

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And they worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever.

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For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature.

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And men, likewise, gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

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And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.

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They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and maliciousness.

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Just a little bit of a pause here. Have you noticed how crazy our country has become?

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I saw an interesting meme on the internet. Memes are kind of funny. They try to make a point. They have a little bit of a sharp edge to them.

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And it was a picture of a cowboy. And the meme said, I refuse to discuss or debate gun control with children who eat

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Tide Pods and don't know which bathroom to use. I thought that was kind of an interesting note.

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And it makes an interesting point. And that is that, look at the young people of our nation. I'm absolutely terrified what's going to happen to this country when they take power.

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And the reason why is because they are godless. And not only are they godless, they are hell -bent, literally, on getting rid of anything that even resembles allegiance, faithfulness to God, or true morality.

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In their sick and twisted world, it is moral, it is moral to shout down and shut down those who would stand for marriage.

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Who would stand for marriage between a man and a woman. Who would say that adultery is a sin, that homosexuality is a sin, and that God has created us male and female.

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This is intolerable in their worldview. And they are going to make sure that when they come to power, that we as Christians no longer have the right to speak

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God's word to them and to call them to repentance. And when we read here in Romans 1, we see what has gone on.

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They have refused to love the truth. They refused to worship God as God, despite the fact that they know that God exists.

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They have instead worshiped gods of their own making. They want nothing to do with God, and so God, in punishing them, has turned them over to their lusts, turned them over to their debasing passions, so that it continues to go worse and worse and worse.

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And what has the Christian church decided to do about this? We stopped preaching the gospel long ago, calling people to repent.

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The largest churches in this country are filled with people who believe that Christianity is about discovering their

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God -given purpose, about making a decision to change the world, rather than being brought to penitent faith in Christ.

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The gospel that is being preached in so many places that call themselves churches is not a gospel that can save because it is a false gospel.

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Jeremiah made it clear regarding the false prophets of his day that those who have the word of the

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Lord, the true word of the Lord, will call people to repentance so that they will be forgiven. Today, we fill churches with people who want to hear what they want to hear, and don't want to hear what

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God has to say. And too many people who call themselves pastors who are all too willing to give these people what they want rather than what they need.

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And so our society, literally, as the saying goes, is going down the toilet, and there's only one thing that can turn this around, and that is

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Christians speaking the word of God, calling sinners to repent and to be forgiven, because the reason why sinners do what they do is because they are sinners.

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Cows moo. Cats meow. Sinners sin.

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And the darkness is getting darker by the day. And it's time for us to say enough is enough, roll up our sleeves, and speak prophetically to our neighbors.

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Call them to repent. Call them to be forgiven. Because you see, as Romans 10 says, how are they to believe unless they have heard the gospel?

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How are they to hear unless somebody has sent? Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of Christ.

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Do we think that as Christians that we are exempt from the Great Commission in this generation?

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And I would say this, with evil growing at an alarming rate that it is, the only way to put the brakes on it is to speak the truth, and it will cost you.

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It will cost you. But this also causes us to have to ask this question, what is it in God's word that we don't want to hear?

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What would you prefer that I not preach? Maybe that's something we have to consider as well.

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So note this terrible picture in Lamentations and then now in Romans, as we continue in Romans for a minute, it gets worse.

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God gives them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They're filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice.

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They're full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They're gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

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Though they know that God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them, they give approval to those who practice them.

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And I would add disapproval to those who would censor them or call them to repentance. This doesn't sound like it was written 2 ,000 years ago.

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This sounds like it was written yesterday describing what is going on today in our country, in our neighborhoods, in this state.

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How is it that humanity made good? The creation declared very good by God.

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Humans made in the very nature of God have come to such a low and miserable place, despising the word of the

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Lord, rejecting Him and His word, and believing in gods that do not exist.

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Idols that cannot save. God says, fine. Have it your way.

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So then returning to Lamentations, verse 19, chapter 5.

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But you, O Lord, you reign forever. Your throne endures to all generations.

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Why do you forget us forever? Why do you forsake us for so many days?

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And here comes the prayer. Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored.

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And Jeremiah has it right. Notice it doesn't say we need to restore ourselves to you.

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We need to make things right with you, God. No, the prayer is that God would have mercy because only

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God is the one who can restore us to Himself. Sinful, fallen humanity does not have the ability to redeem itself, to set itself free from slavery, to sin, death, and the devil.

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Sinful, fallen humanity does not have the free will necessary to make the decision to love

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God with its whole heart. Only God is capable of rescuing us from the mire that we have put ourselves into by our own sin, for which we are all guilty.

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So our prayer is united with Jeremiah. O Lord, Yahweh, please restore us to yourself so that we may be restored.

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Renew our days as of old. How old? How about Eden?

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How about that old? Please restore our days as of old. Return us back to the garden.

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Remove us from this curse. Unless you have utterly rejected us and you remain exceedingly angry with us.

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So here's the question. Has God utterly rejected humanity?

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Has He utterly rejected us? He has every right to, but has

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He? No. And so let me conclude with these words from the

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Apostle Paul in Galatians 4, verse 4, starting there.

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But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth

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His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons.

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And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father.

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So you are no longer a slave, but you are a son. And if a son, then you are an heir through God.

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Formerly when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know

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God or rather to be known by God, you are what?

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Freed, restored, redeemed, forgiven. You see, God has not utterly rejected humanity.

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God has not utterly rejected you. He has not utterly rejected me. And God has not remained exceedingly angry with us.

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Brothers and sisters, we have a gospel to proclaim. Good news to tell the world that although they have been plunged into the mire and the pit of their own sin and debased passions,

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God has not utterly rejected them. Instead, when the fullness of time had come,

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God Himself sent the Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary, born under the law, in order to save us, to redeem us, so that we might receive adoptions as sons.

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This is good news. Law and gospel.

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The law showing us just how far we've fallen. Taking a hard look in the mirror, it's tough to say that we are human because of how sinful we are.

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But God has not utterly rejected us. He has not remained exceedingly angry with us because Christ went to the cross.

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God made Him to be sin, who knew no sin, so that you might be the righteousness of God.

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God laid on Him the iniquity of us all so that His anger and His wrath would be satisfied, so that we can be forgiven, adopted, and our days restored and renewed as of the days of old, all the way back to Eden.

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This is good news. And as we go into Holy Week, in the week ahead, let us ponder anew just the magnitude and the depth of God's mercy and grace and His love for us, in that while we were

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His enemies, He sent His Son to bleed and to die for our sins so that we can be reconciled, not because there was anything worthy in us, but because of His great, steadfast love,

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His patience towards sinful humans as utterly depraved as me and as you.

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Let us rejoice and consider anew just the magnitude and depth of the love of God for pitiful humanity.

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In the name of Jesus, Amen. If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744 And again that address is

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Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744 We thank you for your support.

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