The Prophet Jeremiah Part 37

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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November 13, 2022

The Prophet Jeremiah Part 38

00:00: All right, let's pray. We're going to get started again. Lord Jesus, again, as we open up your word, we ask that you would humble us, help us to see that we deserve nothing good from you, but you give us good anyway because you're so kind, loving, and merciful.
00:13: May we properly, truly repent of all of our wickedness so that we may also have comfort in the great gospel, the forgiveness of our sins through Jesus Christ our
00:22: Lord. We ask in his name. Amen. Okay, we are continuing our walk through the book of Lamentations.
00:31: And again, every time I, you know, I look at just the title of this particular book,
00:36: I think Jill Osteen couldn't possibly have ever preached to this. I always make a note of that. Why?
00:41: Because I can. You know, you get the idea. So, we're going to back up just a little bit and walk back through a few passages that we walked through last week and then continue through the rest of the book.
00:54: Lamentations chapter 3 verse 37. Who has spoken and it came to pass unless the
01:01: Lord has commanded it? You know, God's in charge, you're not. Is it not from the mouth of the
01:07: Most High that good and bad come? Why should a living man complain, a man, about the punishment of his sins?
01:20: And by the way, as Christians, we're going to recognize something. As Christians, Christ has died for all of our sins and we are not punished for our sins in that sense.
01:31: However, we are disciplined by God and this again reminds me of the book of Hebrews.
01:39: Hebrews chapter 12. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself so that you may not grow weary or faint -hearted.
01:49: In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.
01:54: How many of you have resisted sinning so much that you actually bled, you know, as a result of it?
01:59: I really resisted so hard this time. I mean, there was blood coming out of my nose and all this. No, we don't generally do that.
02:07: And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the
02:18: Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the
02:23: Lord disciplines the one he loves and he, mastigas, scourges every son whom he receives.
02:34: I pointed this out very recently, like in the last couple weeks. Scripture says, spare the rod, spoil the child.
02:42: Does God spare the rod with you? No, he doesn't.
02:48: And in this particular case, the rod isn't even described as a rod. It's described as a scourging, chastises everyone whom he receives.
02:56: A mastigas is a whip. It is a scourge. So you'll note that God as our heavenly
03:03: Father, in order to help us to have less of a taste for sin, he disciplines us.
03:11: He scourges us. And we can see here in our text that God even permits bad to come to us, and we shouldn't complain when we're being punished or disciplined by God in this way.
03:27: So let us test and examine our ways, because always and again, when it comes to sin and the troubles that we're going through,
03:36: God is not at fault. We are. And that's just a tough, bitter pill to swallow, but it's true.
03:44: So let us examine our ways and return to the Lord. Let us lift up our hearts and our hands to God in heaven.
03:52: We have transgressed and rebelled, and you have not forgiven. Sometimes that's the case, but Jeremiah is writing about the fact that they've transgressed and rebelled.
04:02: They haven't repented. He's talking about Judah. So you have wrapped yourself with anger. You've pursued us, killing without pity.
04:09: You have wrapped yourself with a cloud so that no prayer can pass through. You have made us scum and garbage among the peoples.
04:18: What a lovely, what a wonderful self -affirmation. Again, put this one on your mirror, okay?
04:26: And then repeat after me, I am scum and I am garbage among all the peoples, right?
04:33: Bless the Lord. That would be a great affirmation.
04:39: I'm serious. I gotta figure out a way to put this on social media. I just think that would... All our enemies, they open their mouths against us.
04:48: Panic and pitfall have come upon us, devastation and destruction. My eyes flow with rivers of tears because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.
04:56: My eyes will flow without ceasing, without respite, until Yahweh from heaven looks down and sees.
05:02: My eyes cause me grief at the fate of all the daughters of my city. I have been hunted like a bird by those who were my enemies without cause.
05:11: They flung me alive into the pit, cast stones on me, water closed over my head. I said
05:16: I'm lost. Man, that reminds me of Psalm 40, right? Have you guys considered this one?
05:27: Psalm chapter 40. I waited patiently for Yahweh. He inclined to me and he heard my cry.
05:34: He drew me out, up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog and set my feet upon a rock and made my steps secure.
05:42: He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in Yahweh.
05:49: Blessed is the man who makes Yahweh his trust, who does not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after a lie.
05:57: You have multiplied, oh Yahweh my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts towards us. None can compare with you.
06:03: I will proclaim and tell of them, yet they are more than can be told. In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted, but you have given me an open ear.
06:12: Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required. Then I said behold I have come, in the scroll of the book it is written of me.
06:18: I delight to do your will, oh my God, your law is within my heart. I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation.
06:27: Behold I have not restrained my lips as you know, oh Yahweh. I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart.
06:33: I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation. I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness from the great congregation.
06:40: As for you, oh Yahweh, you will not restrain your mercy from me. Your steadfast love and your faithfulness will preserve, ever preserve me.
06:50: For evils have encompassed me beyond number. My iniquities have overtaken me,
06:55: I cannot see. They are more than the hairs of my head, my heart fails me.
07:03: That's quite the confession. Can you really pray like that to God?
07:11: I want you to think about this for a second. Here the psalmist is saying, evils have encompassed me, they are beyond number.
07:20: My iniquities, his own sin has overtaken me and I cannot see. They are more than the hairs of my head and my heart fails me.
07:26: How many times when we are having a struggle, a good tussle with sin, do we feel so ashamed that we don't even feel like we dare say the truth of what is happening to us when we're struggling and sinning in this way?
07:47: May I suggest that that is a backwards way of thinking for any Christian. When you are struggling with sin and it feels like your own iniquities have overtaken you and have drowned you and it seems like sin has gotten the upper hand, this is when you can pray this prayer.
08:07: Legitimately say, God, I know this comes as no surprise to you, but it's time for me to get real here.
08:15: I'm way in over my head. My own sin has overtaken me and as a result of it, my heart is failing me.
08:26: I like to think of it in these terms when I have these types of struggles. Sin is a disease.
08:35: Sin is a corruption, and you'll note that diseases all have different ways in which they manifest.
08:44: They have different symptoms. Yeah, what do you mean?
08:52: I am sharing. I am. All right, hang on. Let's try this.
08:59: There we go. That's a little better. All right. Yeah, I had it on another window. There we go.
09:04: All right. So if sin is a disease and sin has different symptoms, right?
09:12: For some, sin will manifest. Its symptoms will manifest as idolatry. For some, sin will manifest as a hatred of God's word and a refusal to hold sacred
09:24: God's words. For others, it'll show up in rebellion against parents and authorities.
09:30: For others, it'll show up as murder. For some, it'll show up as adultery. For others, it'll show up as lying and gossiping and stealing and coveting, right?
09:40: Sin always manifests differently. So you'll note that we all don't struggle with the exact same manifestation, the same symptoms of sin.
09:47: But there are times in our lives when we have a good, healthy, and by healthy,
09:53: I mean unhealthy outbreak of sin, right? And when this happens, we oftentimes are fooled into believing we cannot speak openly to God about what we're struggling with.
10:09: When you go to the doctor when you are sick, all right? So, you know, if you had an outbreak of chickenpox or maybe you have, you know, you've gotten some other kind of disease and you've broken out with a rash, right?
10:24: When you go to your doctor and your doctor says, what are your symptoms? You say, well, you know, I'm too ashamed to tell you.
10:31: No, you go to the doctor and you expect the doctor to, you say, look, I've got a rash. Here's what it looks like.
10:36: I've been running a fever. Here's what's been happening, you know? And you explain all of your symptoms in all of their inglorious manifestations, right?
10:48: Because you're seeking help. Is that not exactly what we're seeing here in this text?
10:57: My iniquities have overtaken me. I cannot see. They are more than the hairs of my head.
11:03: My heart fails me. God, help. And that's the next part. Be pleased, oh,
11:08: Yahweh, to deliver me. Oh, Yahweh, make haste to help me. Let those be put to shame and disappointment altogether who seek to snatch away my life.
11:18: Let those be turned back and brought to dishonor who delight in my hurt. And that's really, this is such a sick world that we live in.
11:27: That's legitimately a thing. There are legitimate people breathing on planet earth who the thought of some kind of dishonor or hurt coming to you just makes them as giddy as a five -year -old on Christmas morning.
11:49: And so here the psalmist teaches us to pray, let those be put to shame and disappointment who seek to snatch away my life.
11:57: Let those be turned back and brought to dishonor who delight in my hurt. Let those be appalled because of their shame who say to me, aha, aha, right?
12:06: But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you. May those who love your salvation say continually, great is
12:14: Yahweh. As for me, I am poor and I am needy.
12:21: But Yahweh, the Lord, takes thought for me. You are my help and my deliverer. Do not delay.
12:27: Oh my God. Yes, Michael. Yes. Okay, you ask a good question.
13:13: This is kind of building off of today's gospel text. So the question that has been asked for those of you who couldn't hear it online is, do we forgive people who haven't even repented?
13:26: Who haven't even said they're sorry for their sin? And the presenting biblical text that was alluded to was the stoning of the very first Christian martyr,
13:36: Stephen. As he is dying while being stoned, he prays that God would forgive them.
13:44: And you'll note that they were actively murdering him while he prayed that God would forgive them.
13:50: So when we talk about forgiveness, I'm going to give you kind of two governing principles.
13:56: And we'll start with one that I think we can all agree on, is that Christ has died for the sins of the whole world, right?
14:05: Let me do it this way. Romans chapter 5. So when we talk about forgiveness,
14:11: I like to talk about it in a wide sense and then in a narrow sense.
14:17: And I think this will help. For while we were still weak, Paul writes, at the right time,
14:24: Christ died for the ungodly. One will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person, one would dare even to die.
14:32: But God, he demonstrates his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for our sins.
14:38: Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God?
14:46: For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, how much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by his life?
14:55: More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
15:02: So in the wide sense, we recognize that Christ has died for the sins of the whole world and that when he perished on the cross, he died to reconcile us and we were all his enemies.
15:19: So Christ's death on the cross is for his enemies and for the impenitent even, but that doesn't mean that everybody's saved.
15:29: So the idea then here is that this deals with a doctrine that some people call the doctrine of universal objective justification.
15:46: Universal objective justification. Christ has died for the sins of the whole world, but that doesn't mean that everybody's saved, because then there has to be singular individuals, there has to be individual subjective justification, and that's the narrow sense.
16:01: And so the idea then is if we look at the death of Stephen, I want
16:07: Acts, I'm going to go to 8 and then I'm going to back up, all right. So the first Christian martyr, it says when they heard
16:20: Stephen's speech they were enraged, they ground their teeth at him. But he, Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
16:30: And he said, behold, I see the heavens open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. But they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, rushed together at him.
16:38: Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named
16:44: Saul. And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And falling into his knees, he cried out with a loud voice,
16:51: Lord, do not hold this in against them. Which means he's not even holding it against them, right. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.
16:58: So you're going to note, they were actively murdering him. And he, on the spot, not only forgave them, he also was crying out to God that God would be merciful.
17:10: And God answered his prayer by converting the apostle Paul, who was there approving of his murder.
17:18: But that being said, that being said here, that's the big form of forgiveness.
17:27: And as Christians, we are called to do both. But the narrow form of forgiveness is done a very specific way.
17:37: So the idea then is that as Christians, I am forgiven of all of my sin. And like Stephen, I can forgive anybody who's sinned against me, period.
17:47: And it doesn't matter if they've repented or not. But here's the difference. They don't get to hear that I've forgiven them until they repent.
17:56: Okay. So let me explain to you what I mean by that from a biblical text. In Luke chapter 17, all right,
18:03: Jesus says these words at the beginning of Luke 17, Temptations to sin are sure to come.
18:09: Woe to the one through whom they come. It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and were cast into the sea, then he should cause one of these little ones to sin.
18:18: But pay attention to yourself. If your brother sins, rebuke him.
18:26: You'll note that earlier in Matthew 18, you have the steps when somebody sins against you. When you go to him and say, brother, you've sinned against me, that's a rebuke.
18:34: All right. A rebuke is when you get in someone's face, and you can even do this politely. You can do this kindly.
18:40: You don't have to, you don't twirl your eyes and look all mad and crazy and go, I rebuke you.
18:46: You know, that's not what you do. A rebuke would be, hey, listen, you totally sinned against me.
18:54: You were utterly wrong. And here's what you did. And you need to repent. Right.
18:59: So you rebuke him. Note, if he repents, forgive him. And here, the forgiveness is not you forgiving them in your heart.
19:09: The forgiveness is you vocalizing it and saying, I forgive you.
19:16: And you can even say, I already forgave you when you committed the sin, but you need to hear that I forgive you. And so you'll note, forgiveness in the wide sense is what we're called to, forgiving everybody, even loving our enemies, praying for our enemies, doing good for our enemies.
19:31: That's only possible by forgiving them in the wide sense. But does our enemy get to hear that they're forgiven until they repent?
19:38: No, they don't. So when your neighbor has heaping coals thrown on them, because you're doing kindness to them, rather than treating them the way they're treating you.
19:51: And they go, you know what? You know, I want to hate you. But every time
19:56: I come up with a way of hurting you or torturing you, you always respond with kindness and goodness and mercy.
20:05: Who are you? What is wrong with you? You tell them about Christ and the love of Christ, and that Christ has bled and died for their sins, and that he's called all of us to the ministry of reconciliation.
20:19: And then that enemy then says, I need that. They repented their sins, they reconciled to God, and then they say,
20:27: I am sorry for all the evil that I've committed against you. Then you say, I forgive you.
20:34: But that doesn't mean that when you say, I forgive you, that that was the second that it happened.
20:39: It happened long before they even repented, but they don't get to hear it until they repent.
20:46: That's the idea. Same then with Christians. Universal objective justification. Christ has bled and died for the sins of all.
20:52: Do unbelievers receive an absolution? No. Do they even want one?
20:59: No. If you give an unbeliever an absolution, you might as well be waving a red flag in front of a bowl.
21:05: You're going to really upset them. They don't think they need that, and they're just going to be annoyed. So when we talk about forgiveness,
21:13: I think we have to think about it in both the wide and the narrow sense. Stephen is a great example of the wide sense, and then
21:20: Christ is giving us directions on the narrow. Does that make sense? But that was a fantastic question.
21:28: One that comes up often, because you'll note that interacting with other human beings, it's not that pleasant.
21:36: It's not that pleasant at all. Let me check the chat real quick, because I think
21:48: I got to make sure I haven't gone too far. Nathaniel says,
22:05: I always thought of sin as an addiction. We in counseling consider addiction a disease. It invades and changes the person, their desire, and forces them to chase the addiction.
22:17: So Nathaniel, I would push back. I know you're a counselor, and I'm not a counselor, so I'm not qualified to speak on such things.
22:26: But I think when we talk about what ails humanity, I think that certain sins can be addictions, but the overall cause behind that is the disease itself.
22:41: At the heart of addiction is pain. Let's just put that out there.
22:47: The reason why people get caught in addictions, and they become enslaved to them, is because they are not properly dealing with pain in their life.
22:56: Just about anything can become an addiction. There are people who take their pain, and they self -medicate their pain through the body's natural process of creating endorphins, and hormones, and things like this.
23:09: They become addicted to gambling, or they become addicted to alcohol, or they become addicted to power, and control, and money, or they become addicted to shopping online.
23:21: It always cracks me up. I think about my late grandmother. In her later days, they had to take her television away.
23:30: The reason why is because she kept watching the houses.
23:37: She was spending money that she did not have. The woman legitimately had a shopping addiction, and it's crazy.
23:46: Then if you were to think of people who are hoarders, that's an addiction in a certain sense.
23:53: But those are all symptoms of the underlying disease, which is sin.
24:00: Sin is the disease, and then it will manifest in different forms, including addictions. But you have to note then that addiction is a manifestation.
24:09: It is a symptom of the underlying disease, which is sin. Then, of course, as Christians, you'll note that if you are a
24:20: Christian, and you are struggling with an addiction, it does change your brain chemistry.
24:25: Note this. That's kind of the danger behind addictions, regardless of what it is you're Note here, the underlying problem is sin, and you are not properly dealing with the pain in your life.
24:39: Oftentimes, when we are made to suffer, our attitude is this. I don't deserve this.
24:46: I refuse to allow myself to go through this. As a result of it, you do not deal with your suffering in a biblical way.
24:57: You'll note lamentations teaches you that God is the one who sends some of that pain, and you might want to pay attention to what
25:04: God's trying to teach you through it. You do not have a right to not suffer.
25:15: When God is making you walk through a difficult time, and you are suffering, and you are solving your problem through an addiction, that addiction now is your
25:26: God, and you are committing the sin of idolatry. Because that's the thing you're turning to, to give you good in the middle of your anxious circumstance.
25:39: Oh, I can't pay my bills. I don't know what I'm going to do. My children are going to starve. They're going to freeze to death in the snow.
25:46: I think I'm just going to sit on the couch and watch Netflix for a week. Netflix has now become your
25:53: God. You're looking to Netflix and binge watching all the latest shows on Netflix for the purpose of what?
26:02: Medicating your pain and seeking a solution to the suffering and the difficulty you're going through.
26:08: But I assure you, at the end of it, all your problems are still going to be there. And when you turn off the television and you finally go to bed, when you wake up, the pain will be back.
26:19: What are you going to do then? We are called to deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow
26:30: Christ. I don't know if you haven't noticed, but crosses are not cool things.
26:38: Crosses have one function, to kill you. And to kill you with as much pain as humanly possible.
26:50: Is there any wonder we don't ever hear Ken Copeland or Joel Osteen or others talking about this biblical reality?
26:59: So you're suffering. So am I. We all do. We all go through seasons of suffering and difficulty.
27:07: And it's time for you to cry out to God that He would rescue you from your pain, rather than looking to these other things to do it.
27:17: So I called on your name, O Yahweh, from the depths of the pit. You heard my plea.
27:23: Do not close your ear to my cry for help. You came near when I called on you and said, do not fear.
27:29: You have taken up my cause, O Lord. You have redeemed my life. You have seen the wrong done to me.
27:35: And you'll note here, there has been wrongs done to you, and I hate to break it to you, you've done wrongs against other people.
27:43: That's just how this all works. And he cries out, judge my cause. You've seen their vengeance, all their plots against me.
27:50: You have heard their taunts, O Yahweh, all their plots against me. The lips and thoughts of my assailants are against me all the day long.
27:57: Behold, they're sitting and they're rising. I am the object of their taunts. That sounds like Jesus, right?
28:04: Hanging on the cross. You will repay them, O Yahweh, according to their work of their hands.
28:10: You will give them dullness of heart. Your curse will be on them. You will pursue them in anger and destroy them from under your heavens,
28:18: O Yahweh. Chapter four. How the gold has grown dim.
28:24: How the pure gold is changed. The holy stones lie scattered at the head of every street.
28:33: The precious sons of Zion worth their weight in fine gold. How they are regarded as earthen pots, the work of a potter's hands.
28:41: Even jackals offer the breast to nurse their young. But the daughter of my people has become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.
28:51: The tongue of the nursing infant sticks to the roof of its mouth for thirst. The children beg for food no one gives to them.
29:00: Those who once feasted on delicacies perish in the streets. Those who were brought up in purple embrace ash heaps.
29:08: For the chastisement of the daughter of my people has been greater than the punishment of Sodom, which was overthrown in a moment, and no hands were wrung for her.
29:17: Her princes were purer than snow, whiter than milk. Their bodies were more ruddy than coral. The beauty of their form was like sapphire.
29:25: Now their face is blacker than soot. They are not recognized in the streets. Their skin has shriveled on their bones.
29:32: It has become as dry as wood. Happier were the victims of the sword than the victims of hunger, who wasted away, pierced by lack of fruits of the field.
29:44: The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children. They become their food during the destruction of the daughter of my people.
29:50: That's a gruesome thought. Yahweh gave full vent to his wrath. He poured out his hot anger.
29:57: He kindled a fire in Zion that consumed its foundations. The kings of the earth did not believe, nor any of the inhabitants of the world, that foe or enemy could enter the gates of Jerusalem.
30:09: This was for the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, who shed in the midst of her the blood of the righteous.
30:19: Let that one sink in for a second here. The sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests.
30:28: Always and again you know a nation is in deep trouble. And I mean deep.
30:35: When the institution set up to proclaim the truth, rejects the truth and murders those who speak it.
30:48: Right? If prophets and priests are shedding innocent blood of real prophets,
30:56: God's wrath is not far behind that. Not far behind it at all.
31:02: The very voice that God has sent to call people to repent so that they can be forgiven, they murderously silence.
31:10: That's what they did to Jesus too. Right? They wandered blind to the streets.
31:16: They were so defiled with blood that no one was able to touch their garments. Away unclean people cried at people.
31:24: Away unclean people cried at them. Away, away, do not touch. So they became fugitives and wanderers.
31:30: People said among the nations, they shall stay with us no longer. Yahweh himself has scattered them.
31:36: He will regard them no more. No honor was shown to the priests. No favor to the elders. Our eyes failed ever watching vainly for help.
31:45: In our watching we watched for a nation which could not save. They dogged our steps so that we could not walk in our streets.
31:53: Our end drew near. Our days were numbered for our end had come. Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles in the heavens and they chased us on the mountains.
32:04: They lay and wait for us in the wilderness. The breath of our nostrils, Yahweh's anointed was captured in their pits of whom we said under his shadow we shall live among the nations.
32:15: Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, you who dwell in the land of Uz. But to you also the cup shall pass.
32:22: You shall become drunk and strip yourself bare. The punishment of your iniquity,
32:28: O daughter of Zion, is accomplished. He will keep you in exile no longer. But your iniquity,
32:35: O daughter of Edom, he will punish and he will uncover your sins. So you'll note that there's a theme in scripture.
32:43: Nakedness was like the original metaphor. It wasn't even a metaphor. The original description of sin, ah we're naked and you have to be covered, right?
32:53: When God acts in wrath, what does he do? He strips you naked. When Christ was hanging on the cross, how much clothing was he wearing?
33:02: None. None. Every single depiction of Jesus on the cross where he has a loincloth is historically inaccurate.
33:14: I remember for the first time seeing a crucifix that didn't have a loincloth.
33:19: It was in my grandma's Roman Catholic church, her home church in Brooklyn. And no, not
33:26: Brooklyn, yeah Brooklyn. And it was startling to actually think that that's how that went down.
33:34: But the scriptures speak of it very politely. That when it says that the soldiers, they cast lots for his cloak and his tunic.
33:44: That's a polite way of saying he didn't have any of those things on him when he was crucified. Right? And so you'll note nakedness is a sign of God's wrath, his punishment of sin and iniquity.
33:58: Jesus was as naked as Adam and Eve were when they ate from the tree. And that theological point really is vivid and it drives home a very, very strong message.
34:13: So Lamentations 5. In the midst of God's wrath, when
34:20: God has acted to punish sin, sins of a people, sins of an individual, sins of a group, it doesn't matter.
34:29: What is called for is humbling yourself, acknowledging your sin, crying out to God for mercy, and to pray that he would restore you.
34:41: You'll know over and again when it talks about God acting in this way, scriptures assure us that God's wrath is only for a moment.
34:50: That this moment will pass and those whom he has broken, he will rebuild and he will repair and he will heal.
35:02: Because he means good for us when he acts in this way. But that good is only seen through the eyes of faith and those who are properly able to biblically recognize what's really going on.
35:15: You know, again, I'll point this out. I have like zero hope for American politics moving forward.
35:22: I've become convinced at this point that the reason why we are not getting good leadership is because of all the false prophets.
35:33: Let me explain what I mean. The last presidential election, you had all the false prophets saying,
35:40: God told me Trump was going to win and he didn't. In the weeks leading up to the midterm elections that we just had, all of those same false prophets who prophesied
35:52: Trump's win prophesied a Republican wave and a super majority in the
36:01: House and the Senate. Was there a red wave?
36:07: No. They predicted, they said that COVID would last just a short amount of time.
36:12: It's stretched out for years, right? I think God has kind of gotten to the point where whatever these yahoos prophesy, he's going to do the opposite for the purpose of showing everyone that they are not hearing from God.
36:27: And until the church rejects these people, shuts them up, stops paying them money and giving them a platform, everything they prophesy will turn out the opposite.
36:40: I pray that they will prophesy that Biden will win in the next election. That's our only hope at this point.
36:54: Speaking in tongues. Yeah, that's right. But man,
37:01: I really think there's a theological reason behind all this. But again, that's my speculations.
37:08: So what do we do in the midst of God acting in wrath? Here's a great prayer. Remember, O Yahweh. Remember what has befallen us.
37:16: Look and see our disgrace. Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our homes to foreigners.
37:22: We have become orphans, fatherless. Our mothers are like widows. We must pay for the water we drink.
37:29: The wood we get must be bought. Our pursuers are at our necks and we are weary.
37:34: We are given no rest. We have given the hand to Egypt and to Assyria to get bread enough.
37:41: Our fathers sinned and they are no more. And we bear their iniquities.
37:49: Slaves rule over us. There is none to deliver us from their hand. We get our bread at the peril of our lives because of the sword in the wilderness.
37:58: Our skin is hot as an oven with the burning heat of famine. Women are raped in Zion, young women in the towns of Judah.
38:06: Princes are hung up by their hands. No respect is shown to the elders. Young men are compelled to grind at the mill.
38:15: The boys stagger under loads of wood. The old men have left the city gate, the young men their music.
38:22: The joy of our hearts has ceased. Our dancing has been turned into mourning. The crown has fallen from our head and, woe to us, we have sinned.
38:34: He's not complaining when he's listing off all the things that they are suffering. He's listing them off and saying we have sinned.
38:42: This is because of our sin. For this our heart has become sick.
38:48: For these things our eyes have grown dim. For Mount Zion which lies desolate, jackals prowl over it.
38:55: But you, O Yahweh, you reign forever. Your throne endures to all generations.
39:01: Why do you forget us forever? Why do you forsake us for so many days?
39:07: Restore to us yourself, O Yahweh, that we may be restored. Now notice what he said here.
39:15: Restore to us yourself. All right? Now this gets to another kind of a
39:21: Hebrew thought. All right? Penel. Penel. The face of God.
39:29: Christ says that the angels of God always see the face of God.
39:37: All right? It makes you wonder how that happens. In the new earth it is said we will always see the face of God.
39:50: But if I look out here, do you guys see his face anywhere?
40:00: One of the reasons we don't see God's face is because of our sin. Right? God has hidden himself.
40:10: And so the reason why we are suffering horrifically is because we have sinned.
40:18: And we are not asking God to merely relieve us of our suffering.
40:26: The suffering is the result of God turning his back to us.
40:32: Of us not being able to see his face. And so this is a prayer then of restoration.
40:38: Not of restoring of good things, but the restoring of God. Restore yourself,
40:46: O Lord, to us. And when God makes his face to shine on us, what do
40:52: I say every single divine service in the benediction? May the Lord bless you and keep you.
40:58: May the Lord make his face to shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord look upon you with his countenance and give you peace.
41:08: True restoration is not merely the restoration of good things. True restoration is being restored to God himself.
41:16: Him restoring himself to you. This is why Christ's death on the cross is so vital because we have been now reconciled to the
41:23: Father by the blood of Christ. And God now his face shines on us.
41:29: We know this by faith. But even when we are going through difficulties here, we can pray prayers like this and say,
41:36: Lord, restore to us yourself, O Yahweh, so that we may be restored.
41:42: Renew our days as of old unless you have utterly rejected us and you remain exceedingly angry with us.
41:49: A good psalm here is one that I always teach people that this is the prayer to pray when you're going through the tough times.
41:56: When it seems like God isn't there. When you've prayed and you've prayed and you've prayed and the answer that you need is sitting there right within your grasp, but you can't quite get it and it just doesn't go your way.
42:09: This is the prayer to pray. How long, O Lord, Psalm 13 says, will you forget me forever?
42:21: Can you pray this? Yeah, you should. It's a prayer. Isn't that what it says?
42:28: Okay. How long, O Yahweh, will you forget me forever? How long will you what?
42:35: Hide your face from me. How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?
42:50: Have you ever gone into a deep mourning after a close relative or friend where literally you can't get yourself out of bed?
43:06: By the time you get up to have breakfast, it's two in the afternoon, right? How long must
43:14: I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day long? How long will my enemy be exalted over me?
43:21: This is a psalm of David. I think he knows a thing or two about this. David, the anointed but not yet coronated king of Israel.
43:28: How did the anointed and coronated king of Israel take to that? Not too well, right?
43:36: Constantly trying to kill and to destroy David. It starts to manifest first in the palace when an evil spirit comes upon King Saul and he grabs a spear to pin the son of Jesse to the wall.
43:53: I always like to say Saul had no right to pin David to the wall.
43:58: That spear was meant for Christ, right? And then what happened after that?
44:05: He conspired to kill David. He created a false narrative that David was some kind of, you know, attempting a coup d 'etat and wanted to topple the kingdom and get rid of the king and get rid of his sons and become king himself.
44:21: That was the false pretense and he hunted David like a dog.
44:28: David was, you know, he was a true renegade. Running, running, constantly running, running.
44:38: I mean, I think it was David who wrote that psalm. Oh mama, I'm in fear for my life from the long arm of the law.
44:46: Anyway, maybe not, right? And what has
44:53: David done wrong? Nothing. How many days and weeks and years stretched out where David's life was literally hanging by a thread the entire time?
45:09: He couldn't go home. He goes to the land of the Philistines. They recognize him and tell the king of Ashkelon to kill him.
45:18: And so what does David do to save himself? He pretends he's a madman. He starts urinating in public.
45:25: It's in the Bible. Read it. It's there. And he allows Drool to run down his beard.
45:31: He's acting like a madman in order to save his life. On one account,
45:39: Saul chased him and Saul happened to need to use the restroom, went into a cave to relieve himself, and David and his buddies were hiding in the cave.
45:50: And there's King Saul reading the Jerusalem Times, taking care of business, and his buddies tell him kill him.
45:59: Right? Does he? No. Cuts off a corner of his cloak and use that to get rid of the false narrative.
46:09: And then in a similar instance, he had the opportunity to kill King Saul and he didn't kill him.
46:19: But what kind of life is this? There is no safety.
46:25: There is no security. There is nothing but constant trouble and trouble that would result in his death if he just takes one step the wrong way.
46:40: How long must I take counsel in my soul? Have sorrow in my heart all the day long?
46:49: Yeah, he had sorrow. His own king was out to kill him using a false narrative.
46:59: How long will my enemies be exalted over me? And where is God in the middle of all this, right?
47:05: Where is he? Consider and answer me, O Yahweh my God. Light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death.
47:13: Lest my enemies say I have prevailed over him. Lest my foes rejoice because I'm shaken. And then watch the abrupt turn.
47:22: Here's the abrupt turn. But I've trusted in your steadfast love.
47:29: My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to Yahweh because he has dealt bountifully with me.
47:39: How can one say these words? Write them. Pray them. Believe them. You're gonna know it.
47:47: Your life isn't any different than David's. You're a sinner just like him and you've experienced troubles, insecurities, dangers just like he has.
47:57: And in the midst of it you cry out to God who seems to have turned his back on you and you don't see his face anymore.
48:04: And what do you do in the midst of all that? All right, even if I perish, even if my enemies prevail over me, who cares?
48:10: I've trusted in God's steadfast love. I'm gonna rejoice in his salvation. I'm gonna see him and I'm gonna sing to the
48:17: Lord because he's dealt bountifully with me. You can only say this by faith.
48:26: And you'll know this is what we are called to as Christians. To biblically think about our difficulties, our sufferings, our persecutions, our challenges, the dangers that we find ourselves in.
48:40: And the person who thinks that they can wish them away, who can speak them away with their delusional words, right, they are not properly prepared to suffer.
48:53: But when you embrace and learn from the scriptures how to suffer well and that faith can not only survive but thrive in the midst of suffering, you're well prepared to suffer.
49:08: In fact, you're even well prepared to be persecuted or even be a martyr. Anybody else, they're woefully prepared.
49:15: Because you'll note that when people experience troubles in this life, they first and foremost think it's abnormal.
49:23: This isn't right. This isn't normal. This isn't how it's supposed to be. Really? What makes you think that?
49:31: Well, because I'm a Disney princess. Oh, good for you, right?
49:38: I know you were raised on movies that taught you if you just follow your heart that it'll solve all the problems and then at the end it's always they lived happily ever after.
49:47: But that's not this life. That's not this life at all. In fact, one of my pastors, he kind of put it this way.
49:57: In this life of suffering that we go through, oftentimes we are not only made to suffer horrifically, we're not even given a satisfactory answer as to why we are made to suffer the way we are made to suffer.
50:07: And he talked about a family in his congregation whose three -year -old daughter drowned at the beach, right?
50:21: And he had to comfort this family, had lost this girl. And how she slipped away, a wave just came and just swept her right up and no one saw it.
50:34: And by the time they figured out what had happened, she was already dead, long gone, right?
50:43: And in the funeral, I remember reading the funeral sermon. That was before he recorded his sermons.
50:49: He said, tragedies like this don't make any sense because Jesus does things that don't make any sense to us.
50:59: And he said, it's as if Jesus was her lifeguard that day. And he picked her up and went into the waves with her body and said, don't worry,
51:10: I'll be back with her soon. And disappeared. Those are tough words to hear, but he's right.
51:23: Because that three -year -old girl was with Christ, baptized, little believer in Jesus.
51:32: And Jesus took her that day and said, don't worry, I've got her. I'll bring her back. Has he done that yet?
51:39: No, not yet, but he will. And on that day, he himself will wipe away every tear from our eyes.
51:52: He will cause all things to work together for good, for those who love him.
52:02: But in the meantime, we live in the time before that. In the time before he causes all things to work together for our good.
52:14: We are on the crooked path. We are walking through the valley of the shadow of death.
52:20: We are made to suffer affliction and difficulty and sorrows.
52:26: And all of this we've brought on ourselves by our sin. But Christ is making all things new.
52:33: And that's the hope of the Christian faith. And that's the real promise. Not that he saves us from death or saves us from suffering.
52:42: Instead, he saves us through death. He saves us through suffering.
52:49: And he himself exemplifies that in what he did for us on the cross. So, all right, let me check for further questions.
53:00: Okay, so Rachel says, my question is, if you're suffering as a result of someone else's sin, did that come from God?
53:08: In the wide sense, yes. God permitted it. In the narrow sense, no.
53:14: In the narrow sense, that's a direct result of somebody else sinning against you. And that's the consequences of our sin.
53:21: We sin against others. They sin against us. God permits it. But God isn't ultimately the one who brings that.
53:31: God doesn't tempt us, nor does he bring evil to us. But he allows those things to happen. Okay, Lily, I found that when
53:39: I respond with kindness, some take it as we are okay and they were right in the first place.
53:44: It's almost like a confirmation that they were right. I must be doing something wrong. I totally get that.
53:53: And you'll note that I always stay away from from several words.
54:00: Like when somebody sins against me, whether it's, you know, a family member or a friend or whatever, and they've done something wrong,
54:05: I never respond by saying, that's okay. I refuse to say those words.
54:12: I never say, anything's okay. I always say, I forgive you. When you say, it's okay, that's so ambiguous, it could easily be misconstrued as, well, then
54:27: I really didn't do anything wrong, and you're fine with that. But to say, I forgive you is to say, I was never fine with it.
54:34: And instead of giving you what you deserve and murdering you in cold blood, I'm going to, what,
54:41: I'm going to forgive you, right? So just be careful with your kindness in the sense that when you are kind to somebody, let them know in either verbally or non -verbally that this kindness is undeserved, and that it's for the sake of Christ, you know, in that way, and that you're not okay with how poorly they treat you.
55:01: The other thing that happens is that people weaponize Christian mercy, and they demand that you forgive them when they haven't repented.
55:10: And just take them to Luke 17 and say, nope, don't work that way. No, I'm going to rebuke you first, so hold still.
55:16: This is going to hurt, right? And then if they repent, you forgive them, right? Yeah. All right, let's see.
55:24: I'll agree that it's a solid explanation of how addiction starts. Thank you, Nathaniel. I'm glad I've learned a couple of things through my own suffering and how things work.
55:33: Anyone know when Sunday's teachings get posted normally? I really need to share this with the Sylvester family. Josh, I think
55:39: Josh either works on Sundays or no later than Monday afternoon is when this will be posted. All right.
55:45: All right. Very good. Then we will wrap up here, and in two weeks, we will be back in the book of Jeremiah, and we'll be in a penitential season then, so it's okay to do that, because Advent's a penitential season.
56:00: So divine service next week for the last Sunday of the church year, but no Sunday school. All right.