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Pastor David Mitchell
A day of apostasy. Personal revival. The Bible tells us in the last days there'll be a great falling away, so there's nothing you can do about living in the day of apostasy. That's where you live. That's the generation you live in.
You live in the generation of the lukewarm Laodicean Church, and so the question is how are we supposed to live in that day? And we talked a little bit about it last Sunday, and we're going to continue in this passage of Scripture today in chapter 3 of the book of Lamentations.
I'd like for you to turn to Proverbs chapter 8, and I want to review a couple of verses that we talked about last time because they will come into play again this morning. Proverbs 8 22 says, The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way before his works of old.
I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning or ever the earth was. When there were no depths I was brought forth. I just want you to remind you about these terms where Jesus says that he was set up from everlasting and that he was brought forth.
If you remember the term set up literally in the Hebrew language means to pour out or to be poured out, and the phrase brought up is the Hebrew word cool. C-h-u-w-l is how you would put it in English letters, but it sounds like cool.
But it means this, it says he was brought forth. The root meanings of this word mean literally to writhe in pain or to fall grievously with pain or to be in much pain or to be sorrowful or to travail with pain or to be wounded, and that's the root meaning of the word.
So when it says the Lord Jesus was brought forth before the mountains were, as I said last Sunday it reminds me of Revelation 13 8 where it talks about the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world.
The Son of God had the purpose of coming and dying on the cross before the world was made, and he was brought forth with this purpose. He was set up from everlasting with this purpose, the Bible teaches.
Now let's turn to Lamentations chapter 3. We kind of did an overview of the whole book last time, and I'll remind you that Merrill F Unger said this about the whole book. He said the whole note is one of deep tragedy.
The Lord's people from whom salvation would eventually come have become so vile as to be fit only to be destroyed, and that's what this book is about, and it's like a funeral dirge to read the book, and yet there is a light, a bright shining light in the middle of this book, and it's found in chapter 3, and that's what I want to study today, and it's found in chapter 3 verses 21 through 26.
For those of you who may not have been here last time, I'd like to give you with one sentence what each of the other chapters in the book talk about. The first chapter, or we might call that the first lamentation, Jeremiah was lamenting because God's people had lost the effectiveness of their testimony.
Their testimony was worthless because they were living in sin, and everybody could see it plainly. He referred to it as their nakedness being uncovered. The whole world knew they were sinful people, so they lost their effectiveness of their testimony, and probably the verse that describes that the best would be chapter 1 verse 1 and maybe verse 3 where it says, how doth the city sit solitary that was full of people?
She that was great is become tributary. Instead of being like the powerful river, she was more like a little spring or tributary off of that river, and verse 3 says, she dwelleth among the heathen and she findeth no rest.
That's the way it is when God's people dwell among the heathen. They lose their peace and they find no rest, nothing but turmoil, and in that chapter during the midst of all this and throughout this whole book, we have to understand that one thing that God was doing to his prophet, and you might liken that unto yourselves if you are God's people, if you're God's man or you're God's woman, so to speak, there's something God wants to do in your heart during a time of apostasy.
Number one, in verse 16, Jeremiah said God gave him tears. They couldn't work, he couldn't work these tears up. God placed this in his heart to have tears over the, over God's people who had fallen into sin.
Secondly, Jeremiah says that God placed fire in his bones from above. You got to have fire in your bones, young people, if you're going to grow up in this generation, and you are till the Lord comes back.
You're going to be growing up in the most apostate nation that the world has ever seen, probably will make the nation of Rome look like kindergarten, and you're going to have to have the fire in your bones that it takes to stand for right even when it's unpopular.
And the third thing God gave Jeremiah in the midst of all this was a sense of repentance and a sense of the fact that God was righteous, even though these seemingly bad things were happening to the nation, God was just because of their sins.
And then you go into the second lamentation. It talks about the fact that God himself perverted their religion. God did it, and the most astounding phrase about that is found in chapter 2, verse 7. It says that the Lord hath cast off his altar and abhorred his own sanctuary, and had given it up into the hand of the enemy.
The walls of her palaces, they have made a noise in the house of the Lord. So the enemies of God were in the house of the Lord making a noise. That's happening in the churches all over this country, probably right now as we speak.
So God had taken away the places of assembly. He had taken away the proper forms of religion, and people no longer even knew how to properly worship because God just took it out of their minds because of their sin, and it was a form of punishment.
And it says in Lamentation 2 9 that the law is no more, and the prophets also find no vision from the Lord. The things they were saying weren't coming from God. They just thought it up in their own minds.
They said, I had a dream, and they spoke, and the people believed it, but it never came from God. And so then we find in the, we're going to skip the third Lamentation because that's what we're talking about this morning, but in the fourth chapter, the fourth Lamentation, it simply says the gold of the sanctuary is poured out in the streets.
Gold is a symbol in the Bible of royalty, and I think what it means is that Jesus Christ was just poured out in the street. He was not allowed to be in their mind, in their worship services. He just was not there, and that's how they perceived it.
The fact is, we know from the book of Revelation that it is God himself who removes the candlestick. So when the people of God get sent to the place where their sin brings them to a place of pride, and a place where they don't feel that they even need the Lord, God removes the candlestick and the light from the church.
It remains as an institution. It'll have people in it. It will have walls around it. It'll all be there, and the world will view it as a church, but God says the candlestick is gone. The fifth Lamentation described the captivity that God's people were brought into because of their sin.
Their inheritance was turned over to strangers and aliens. Servants would rule over them. Their maids were ravished in the cities. The elders no longer studied and philosophized, and the young men no longer made music, and the joy of the heart was ceased, and they finally came to recognize that repentance could only come from the Lord.
They couldn't work it up. Lamentation 521 says, Turn thou us unto the Lord, and we shall be turned. We've got such a strange theology today, and it saddens my heart to find the depths of how strange it is even among the Baptist people.
I mean, we knew it was moving away from truth just like every other great denomination. The Methodists in the first part of this past century, and the Presbyterians, Lutherans moved away from the truth.
We always felt like the Baptists were still right there in the Word, but they're moving as well. Every great denomination becomes an institution over time because men get their hands on it, and that's the problem.
But you know what? If you just go back to the Bible, you can believe what Baptists have always believed even when they weren't called Baptists, and they may not be called that in the future. You may not be called that because you may look at what they call Baptists and say, well, I'm not that anymore, and that's okay.
In the past, they were called four, five, six, seven, eight different things. Waldensys, Paulines, I can't remember all of them, Anabaptists, but they still were people of the book, and our prayer is that this church will remain that way until the Lord comes back.
But you know, people today believe that you can just make repentance happen, and you can make revival happen, but back in the Bible days, Jeremiah said, turn thou us unto thee, and then we shall be turned.
See, today we think we're supposed to turn ourselves to God, but he said, God turn me to you, and then I'll truly be turned. And I'll tell you what, that's the kind of revival that makes a difference in a life and in the world.
The kind of revivals that we have today don't change anything. When's the last time you saw a beer joint closed because a revival happened in the hearts of people in the community? When's the last time you saw a community where people were walking up down the streets in town between work times or on coffee breaks talking about the Lord because revival had taken place in their city?
Now, that's the revival. When's the last time you saw that happen? But don't you drive by and see little signs up all the time that say revival? It's a whole different thing than what we saw in the Bible days.
So, right there at the end of the book in Lamentations 521, we see the whole key to personal revival in a day of apostasy. But in the third chapter, we get some specifics about it, and that's where I want us to look.
Starting with verse 21 in chapter 3, and you have to understand chapter 3 is dark. If you read chapter 3 verses 1 through 20, you're about ready to give up. It's like Jeremiah was ready to just give up.
I mean, everything seemed bad to him until he got to verse 21. And in verse 21, it says, this I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. And this is the first great key to understanding where revival comes from.
It comes from recalling some things. And so, what does he recall? Well, he's going to recall some things about God. He's not going to recall things about himself. He's not going to recall religious things.
He's not going to think up some things he could go do. He's not going to think up some good deeds he could act so that he'd be right with God again. He's just going to rest and recall. Well, you know what it implies when it says he brought these things to mind and recalled them?
It implies that we can easily forget some key things, doesn't it? If we need to remember some things, God's telling us that we easily forget important things. And in our modern day, many believe that revival comes from a date plan.
For instance, you'll go by and you'll see a sign that says revival January 9th through January 11th. It's just announcing to you we're going to have revival. We're even going to tell you when it's going to happen, the 9th through the 11th.
We're going to give God three days. It's going to happen during that three days. Or if they don't believe that it's caused by a date plan and they believe that it's caused by an evangelist personality, come here Dr. Pepper Alley.
That's a joke. You know, say it fast. Pepper Alley. Come here. Dr. Pepper Alley is going to make you get right with God. And he'll be up there and he'll have that perfect hair and those, I mean, they'll have on except it'll be lizard, lizard shoes, big rings, pretty silver hair going back.
And they'll be all over the platform and right down the aisle in your face telling stories. And listen, I like all kinds of preaching. I like that kind of preaching as long as it's got some of this in it, you know.
But it doesn't always have to have that because a lot of times they rely on the personality. And then what happens next week? What's it like back at the old church house? It's either the same or worse than it was.
And that's what we call revival today. Or they may think that it's caused by any number of man's activities, plans, programs, or formulas. For instance, men, let's meet at 530 or better yet 430 in the morning the week of the revival and let's pray.
That'll make revival happen. If I can get you working, you guys are working, you know, you got to be at work early. So we're gonna go ahead and get you up at 430 anyway and we'll pray during the time of the revival.
Or better yet, after the revival meeting, let's meet back up here and pray. Pray is a better word for it. Pray past midnight and we'll make this revival happen. All the different plans, all the different things we try to do.
But when Jeremiah sought revival, the only part that he felt that man should play in it was to remember. To remember. What was he supposed to remember? Some things about God. Supposed to remember God's nature.
Supposed to remember God's character. Supposed to remember God's sovereignty. Supposed to remember God's justice. Supposed to remember God's person. Now look at Lamentations 3, 22. It starts to show us what he is going to remember.
And I'm going to read these four verses. And what I want you to do is look for the number of times that the word Lord is mentioned or referred to. Where the Lord himself is who is pointed at. It is of the Lord's mercies that we're not consumed.
These are the things Jeremiah is remembering. This is what's about to bring revival in his heart. It is of the Lord's mercies that we're not consumed. Because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning.
Great is thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion saith my soul. Therefore will I hope in him. The Lord is good unto them that wait for him. To the soul that seeketh him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.
I counted ten times that the Lord is referred to in those verses. The only thing that Jeremiah did in these verses was to say that the Lord was his portion. That his hope was in the Lord. And to seek hope and wait for God's salvation.
It was all pointed towards God himself. In other words, Jeremiah did nothing but hope in the Lord and wait on the Lord. That is so foreign to what we're used to doing in our lives today. Just the idea of waiting is amazing.
Last night I had about a 30-minute segment of time when I actually was able to sit still and do nothing. And I sat still in my chair and actually looked up at the clock and watched the minute hand. And it was quiet.
And I watched that minute hand and it was about, oh about like the eight o 'clock place and coming up towards twelve o 'clock high. And I said, that thing is moving fast. And I'm talking about the minute hand.
The seconds were going by fast. And it was just moving around that clock. And I said, you know we don't have much time left in this world. But you know when it got up to about twelve o 'clock high and started moving around this way, it was like it slowed down.
And I just kept watching it. Seemed like it took forever for that minute to be over. And I thought to myself, well if I keep watching this clock, this peaceful moment will last all night. So I watched the clock for a while.
And it's unusual for us in this day and time to sit and wait, isn't it? Well, why do you think that Jeremiah thought that was his only hope? Why didn't he jump up and design a few programs and a few things he and his folks could do to make this thing happen?
Well, I'll tell you why. If you look back at chapter 3 and you read through the first verses in that chapter down to the place where we are, you see that he was totally unable to do anything. First of all, he was currently under God's affliction, verse 1 says.
God had his hand on the man and the nation and was afflicting him. And he was not going to come out from under that on his own. You find that in verse 1. Verse 2, God had brought him into a place of darkness, not light.
Now that's a reference to depression. It doesn't mean he's in darkness in the sense of being a lost man as opposed to a saved man. Doesn't mean that, obviously. But it means he is in a state of dark depression in his life.
And then in chapter 3, I mean verse 3, it says God had turned his hand against him. At least that was Jeremiah's statement. And in verse 4, God had caused him to be physically weak. We don't like that when we're sick, do we?
When we become ill, we just think that's terrible. You know why? Because we have to lay on our back and do nothing for a while. Isn't it amazing? And God had made him physically weak. Verses 7, 9, and 10, God hedged him about that he could not get out of this predicament.
And in verse 8, God was ignoring his prayers. Verse 8, he says, also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer. So now how was Jeremiah going to make anything happen? Was he? He wasn't going to make anything happen.
And God had him in a place in his life where he knew it. Jeremiah was in a place in his life where he knew he was in control. In verse 14, God had made him a laughingstock to the people. In verse 15, God had brought him into a state of depression.
Verse 17, God removed his soul far off from peace and prosperity. In verse 20, God had brought him to a place of extreme humility. And perhaps that was the goal all along for Jeremiah's life, to bring him to this place of extreme humility.
Why is it that the modern Christian thinks he has, within his own power, the ability to cause revival and to even schedule it when he wants it to happen? Some today believe that they can make it happen every church service.
So they just fake it. They just come in and they counterfeit it every church service. We have revival every Sunday morning. But Jeremiah just remembered some things. You know what the first thing he remembered was?
And we touched on this last week. But the first thing that he remembered, he said in verse 22, it is of the Lord's mercies that we're not consumed. Jeremiah touched on the depravity of man. Jeremiah touched on the fact, and it's the starting doctrine of all Bible study by the way, the book of Genesis, the Garden of Eden, that when man fell, he brought forth a fallen race.
A race of people who are dead to God and all spiritual things, who are absolutely blind to the things of God and cannot see them, who are deaf as Jesus looked at the Pharisees and said, you cannot hear the words of God.
He that is of God heareth God's words, ye therefore of your father the devil. They were deaf, they were blind, they were dead, fallen race. Jeremiah looks at this and he remembers it's of God, if it weren't for God's mercy, we would all be consumed.
The word consumed is an interesting word in the Hebrew language. It's Talmahm and it means to complete either in the good or bad sense. It means to finish something. Jeremiah says if it weren't for God's mercy, the human race would be completely finished and annihilated and there would be no such thing as it anymore, if it weren't for his mercy.
Now this is the starting place in revival. It has nothing to do with activity. It has to do with remembering who we are and who God is. We're members of a race that was fallen. If not for God's mercy, we would, the race would be consumed.
Second thing he talked about was the fact that we're not consumed for three reasons. It's not just because of God's mercy that we're not consumed. We misunderstand the word mercy because we view it in human viewpoint.
When we have mercy, somebody does something bad to us and we let it slide. God cannot have that kind of mercy because it would deny his justice. God never did do that and that's not what mercy means. But the Bible does talk about his mercy and the Hebrew word for mercy is Kotsed which means kindness and it means beauty.
It's not just because of his mercy. It's not just because of his compassions which has the root meaning of to fondle like you would a little child. God has that kind of compassion for his children but it's not just because of his mercy and his compassion that we're not consumed.
But I'll tell you why it is. It's because number one, they fail not and number two, they are new every morning. They fail not, they do not cease, they are never finished, they don't perish, they don't end.
His compassions and his mercy never end. His compassions and his mercy are new every morning. This Hebrew word for new means rebuilt or renewed or even repaired and it brings to mind 1st John chapter 2 verse 1, my little children these things I write unto you that you sin not and if any man sin we have an advocate with the Father.
That's what we call the present work of Jesus. We talk about his finished work all the time, his work on the cross. He said it is finished. All of the work of salvation, justification, redemption, reconciliation was done on that cross.
That's his finished work but there is a present work of Christ that's going on on your behalf right now at the throne of God. He is your advocate with the Father and because Jesus Christ has presented his perfect blood on the altar in the heavenlies, the real altar, and he is there with the Father on your behalf because of that blood and because of his presence, then God's mercies and compassions are renewed every morning.
There would be no mercy, there would be no compassion for you or for me if it weren't for that blood. There is no such thing as God just overlooking sin. There's no such thing as him just quote forgiving it like human forgiveness speaks of.
There's no such thing as God just being merciful like we think of mercy. What God the Father does is he looks at that altar and he sees that blood and he looks at his son who stands and says they're innocent and that compassion is renewed.
That's why it is that we're not consumed. And there's a third reason because it says great is his faithfulness. You know what that means? I love 1st John 1 9 because it not only says that he's just to forgive but it says he's faithful which means he's always there.
He's always, this faithfulness is firm, it is secure, it is stable. It's always there because God never changes and the Lord Jesus Christ has suffered eternally, eternal death for you. And he stands at the right side of God on your behalf as your advocate.
Well, revival then comes by remembering some things. It comes by remembering that we are not so much in control as we like to think, that we were once part of a fallen race but we've been saved out of that because of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And he stands as our advocate with the Father and he has presented his blood and because of that God's compassion and mercy is poured forth upon us. Revival comes when we have the proper attitude though.
It's not all just remembering. What happens when we remember is that our attitude has changed. When we remember who God is and who we are it's like a big stick that changes our attitude. Revival comes when we have the proper attitude during persecution and tribulation.
Look at verse 24, 24 through 26 talk about this. The Lord is my portion, saith my soul, therefore will I hope in him. The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of God.
These things speak of attitudes within the heart of God's children. First of all, we should understand who is in control. Verse 24 says the Lord is my portion. Now in the English you might miss the meaning of that just a little bit, but this speaks of who is in control.
In other words, it brings an attitude of humility. We talked in Sunday school a little bit this morning about what tribulation brings and why it brings patience and some of you answered the question and you said it's because you get to a place where you can't do anything.
And so the pride tends to go away. Tribulation removes pride and brings humility. And when Jeremiah says the Lord is my portion, this word portion is a very interesting word to study in the Hebrew language.
It literally comes from a root word which means a smooth stone. And the reason that word is used, it's an idiomatic expression in the Hebrew because they used to use smooth stones and they would cast them as casting lots.
And from the human viewpoint, as we look at that, it would determine what would happen. Do you remember when they went into the promised land? How did they decide which tribe got which land? They cast lots, didn't they?
And that revealed God's will and they took the land that they were supposed to have. And so from that, this word that means a smooth stone carries the idea of that which casts the lot or that which brings God's will into the life.
And so when he says the Lord is my portion, can you guess what Jeremiah meant? He might as well said the Lord is my life. I am in Christ and Christ's life is my life. And that's the only reason he could say the Lord is my portion, therefore will I hope in him, will I have hope in him.
So this brings humility because it brings an understanding of who's in control. The Lord is my destiny. How many times have you heard Christian people say there's no such thing as luck? How many times have you heard Christian people say there are no accidents?
Raise your hand if you ever heard anybody say that. Okay, raise your hand if you've ever said it. I know such thing as an accident. What did you mean by that? Did it just sound good and you heard some preacher say it?
Is that why you said it or did you believe it with all your heart and soul? But do you believe it? Do you really believe that there are no accidents? Because what is the only alternative if there are no accidents?
And what's the other one? If there are no accidents, it means someone with a purpose brings things to pass. Someone with a purpose brings these things to pass. The quicker we grow up and understand that the Lord is my destiny.
He is my lot. He is, in fact, my portion in life. Whatever life brings me, it's because the Lord has brought me to this place. It is not an accident. This brings great humility when we really understand it.
Second thing he says here in verse 24, the Lord is my portion, saith my soul, therefore will I hope in him. This word hope means to be patient and to wait. The literal translation is wait. Now, isn't it interesting that Jeremiah has to come to a place where his soul recognizes that God is his portion before he can ever get the place where he can wait.
Otherwise, he tries to do, but understand that he comes to the place where he can wait. So, the second understanding is the understanding of the foundation of hope and it brings an attitude of servitude.
Now, what do I mean by that? What is the attitude of a servant? Because we don't have that in America. We just don't have it. Only if God gives it to us could we ever have it, but we don't have it by experience because we don't have a king.
We don't have a sovereign that we ever have to bow the knee to. We don't respect the leaders we do have and probably rightfully so in many cases. We have never been a slave to anyone, so therefore we don't know what it is to serve like a Bible person would know.
I was asking Charlotte last night. We were talking about some things. I said, is there any place in the Bible where it talks about a democracy of any nation that was ever under democracy? We didn't answer it, but we couldn't think of one.
Everybody was under a king somewhere or a theocracy, which means they were under the king. So, people in those Bible days knew how to serve. We have a problem with it. What is the attitude of a servant?
Now, this is going to rub you the wrong way. I know it will, but do you know what the proper attitude of a servant is? The proper attitude of a servant is, I don't have a life. Now, what's the greatest little saying that's been thrown around, you know, the last five or so years here?
Get a life. A servant doesn't have one. You know why? Because the life that counts is his master's. And his very reason for being is to make his master's purpose happen better and in a stronger way. To lift his master up and make his purpose work and to make it come to pass.
So, the servant's purpose is all tied up in the master's purpose of life and reason for being. Many areas in our life where it should be that way. Ladies, I know I won't gain any points by saying this, but do you know that the Bible says that the wife was created as a help meat to the husband?
And if you'll study that whole concept in that word, it means your purpose is his purpose. With God, when he came to the place of understanding that God was his destiny, that God laid it down before him, that God was his portion in life, he at that place was able to hope in the Lord.
And the Hebrew word hope means to wait on the Lord. Have you ever heard, you know, you talk about a waiter at a restaurant? You say, boy, he's not waiting on us very well, is he? Because the word has come to take that meaning in modern English, he's waiting on me.
And it came from this meaning of the fact of the heart, the proper attitude of servitude that Jeremiah had towards the Lord, realizing that the Lord was his master, that the Lord was his portion in life.
And that came with it. Now that caused him to be able to wait upon the Lord, not only to wait on him like you think of a waiter in the sense of serving the Lord, but also to wait in time and to be patient and wait on God to make things move rather than trying to cause them to happen.
And I believe that was another great key in this aspect of Jeremiah learning what it means to find revival. Third aspect we see is that revival comes when we have the attitude of waiting and seeking, which is an attitude of oneness and readiness.
Let me show that to you in verse 25. The Lord is good unto them that wait for him. What better revival could we have, by the way, than for the Lord to be good to us? The Lord is good unto them that wait for him to the soul that seeketh him.
Now this word wait is different than the one we just studied. Now remember we looked at the word hope up here in verse 24, and the proper literal translation of that word is to wait on God. But what's interesting is when you look at verse 25 and you see the actual word wait in English, it really is not talking about waiting in the true sense of waiting, because it comes from a word that means to bind together.
To bind together. So in this verse he says the Lord is good unto them that are bound together with him. Does that start to sound like a New Testament concept? What about the vine and the branches? Remember those?
Abide in me. Without me you can do nothing, Jesus says. So the Lord is good to them that are bound together, and in the Hebrew meaning it means to bind together by twisting, to be just wrapped around one another like vines do.
And that's what it means when it says we're waiting for him. We're bound together with God. We are the servant. He is the one who has the purpose in life. Why does Jesus always say that we are his body when he talks about the church?
Let me ask you a question. Does he have a physical body in this world today? Is he walking around on the face of this earth today in his body? Can he accomplish work on the earth today? How? Through his body, which is us.
Now if we are his body, let me ask you who is the head? Jesus is the head, is he not? If he is the head, who is the one who has the purpose and the will and lays out the plan? The head does. What does the body do?
It serves. It carries forth into this physical world the will of the head. That is our role and it is a role of servitude. It's something so foreign to Americans. It's foreign to American theologians.
That's why they teach garbage today. That's why they're so excited about talking about the will of man. They teach man doesn't have a will. In the first place, I've never met a person that taught that, that man doesn't have a will.
But why would we want to emphasize it? Our will doesn't matter. It's there, but it only matters to the extent that we are here to serve the purpose of our head, the Lord Jesus Christ. And no church will ever have revival in the flesh, in the will of the flesh.
No church will ever have revival unless it learns who the Lord is and who the servant is. And Jeremiah is going through this, but my goodness he had to go all the way through verses 1 through 20 in chapter 3.
You go read that. I mean it's tough. He got to the place where he felt he was in darkness and God was not even there. And when he shouted and cried and tried to get God's attention in prayer, God wouldn't even hear his prayer.
He was not gonna move God. He wasn't gonna move God around on a chessboard with his prayers. And God taught him that and got him into a place and held his hand on him and wouldn't let him out. And then finally he comes to verse 21 and says, this, oh yeah, I remember this.
Man, this I recall to my mind. Now I've got some hope. It's just of God's mercy and compassion that I'm not squished by his hand. He says, now I have some hope. You know, I just remembered something. God is my portion in life.
The big I needs to go away and I need to figure out what God is doing today in my life. And he says, the Lord is good to them who wait on him, who are entwined together and wrapped around him. And then he goes on and he says, and he is good to the soul that seeketh him.
This is interesting, this Hebrew word for seek. It means to frequent a place. The Lord is good to those who are entwined around him and who frequent the place where God is on a daily basis and spend some time with him.
Revival comes when we hope and quietly wait for God's salvation. Look at verse 26. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. Now we have a different hope than the one we discussed earlier.
Remember that earlier in the verse the word hope actually meant wait. This word hope is a different Hebrew word and it takes us all the way back to Proverbs chapter 8 where we started this morning. Do you remember when it said that Jesus came out from God?
That it was a word that's pronounced in English as the word cool and it has to do with writhing in pain, falling grievously with pain, being in pain, being sorely pained, sorrowful, travailed, being wounded.
I find it interesting that this is the exact Hebrew word that's found in verse 26. It is good that a man should be this way. It is a good that a man should have this. Now this is what Jesus had. Jesus had this before the foundation of the world.
The Bible says he was crucified before the foundation of the world. He was slain before the foundation of the world. It speaks of death on a cross and the Bible says it is good that a man come to this place of pain and sorrow.
The word literally means to bring forth as to bring forth in childbirth ladies and you only you can identify with that but that's the kind of pain we're talking about here but it's a reference to that kind of pain which the Lord suffered on the cross and the same word is found right here in verse 26 when it says it's good that a man should be this way.
Isn't it interesting that in Luke 14 27 the Lord himself said this and whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. Our hope is in the cross and we must bear it and experience the death of it and reckon the crucifixion of the flesh and the world to be a past finished act.
Let me give you a couple of scriptures with reference to the flesh. Galatians 5 24 and they that are Christ have crucified the flesh and the affections and lusts thereof have crucified his past tense.
It happened the day Jesus was crucified. If you are in Christ then your flesh was crucified in Christ on the cross. Romans 6 6 says knowing this that our old man is crucified. It means is already crucified.
It's an event that has taken place already. Why? So that the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we should not serve sin. So with regard to the flesh our flesh the old man is crucified already.
What about the world? Galatians 6 14 says but God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of Jesus Christ whereby the world is crucified unto me. Isn't that amazing? The whole world system out there that would tempt us, it would bring us to vain philosophies, even the world of religion that would bring us to faulty doctrine.
All that's been crucified and then what about the enemy himself? Galatians 2 14 blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us which was contrary to us and took it out of the way nailing it to the cross and having spoiled principalities and powers and made a show of them openly triumphing over them on that cross.
So our hope is in the pain and the suffering and the blood of his cross and the reckoning of ourselves to have been there in him which makes it our cross. And you know what? When a man gets to that place look what happens in verse 26.
It is good that a man should both hope and this is that word that carries with it the pain and sorrow concept. Then he gets the place where he can quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. And don't you think that's where we've been headed all morning with this sermon?
Don't you think this is where God was taking Jeremiah to hold through this entire thing? This word quietly wait comes from the Hebrew word dumam which means still. Did you hear what I said? Still. Lack of motion, lack of work, lack of programs, lack of human ingenuity.
Wait. Seek. Hope. Die to self. Be still and quiet so we can remember. It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning. Great is our faithfulness.
Let's stand and bow our heads in prayer. Mom would you go to the piano for a moment? I'd like to give an invitation this morning. We don't always give one but I feel that this is the type message the Holy Spirit can move in our hearts and move us perhaps to come to this altar and spend a quiet moment this morning.
And if he moves in your heart to do that then you certainly are welcome to do that. Let's pray first and then after a prayer if you sense that the Lord will come to the altar.