Well, if you would take out your Bibles and turn to Lamentations chapter 3. Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations. And we're looking specifically at verses 22 through 24. But let's take a look at what happens what took place to get to verse 22. by starting at verse 1.
Lamentations chapter 3. beginning at verse 1. And by the way, Lamentations is written by Jeremiah. also known as the weeping prophet. Lamentations chapter 3.
Beginning at verse 1. This is Jeremiah speaking. I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath. He has driven and brought me into darkness without any light. Surely against me he turns his hand again and again the whole day long.
He has made my flesh and my skin waste away. He has broken my bones. He has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation. He has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago. He has walled me about so that I cannot escape.
He has made my chains heavy. though I call and cry for help, He shuts out my prayer. He has blocked my ways with blocks of stones. He has made my paths crooked. He is a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding.
He turned aside my steps and tore me to pieces. He has made me desolate. He bent his bow and set me as a target for his arrow. He drove me into my kidneys, the arrows of his quiver. I have become the laughing stock of all peoples, the object of their taunts all day long.
He has filled me with bitterness. He has fated me with wormwood. He has made my teeth grind on gravel and made me cower in ashes. My soul is bereft of peace. I have forgotten what happiness is.
So I say. My endurance has perished.
So has my hope from the Lord. Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall. My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down with enemy. But this I call to mind. and therefore I have hope.
The steadfast love of the Lord. never ceases. His mercies never. come to an end. They are new every morning.
Great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul. Therefore, I will hope. in him. Let's pray.
Lord God, thank you that. Though we go through various trials and temptations. We know that we never go through it alone. If we have put our faith and trust in Jesus and are walking by faith in Him. For we are being held by your love, your steadfast love, your faithfulness that never ends.
And in that, we know that nothing will ever separate us from your love. Teach us that tonight. instill that truth in us and that faith. as we look to you. Our God and our Savior.
Our Lord, our portion, our strength. our very present help. in trouble. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Well, what do you say to a person who is lying on a hospital bed with major life-changing injuries that may never heal? What do you say to a woman standing beside her collapsed home? after a tornado has ripped it to shreds and killed her husband. and her children. What do you say to a man who loses his wife to a senseless shooting.
Or a child. who has suffered the humiliation and emotional pain of sexual abuse. by a trusted family member or friend.
Well, let's ask Jeremiah. He wrote a book about the biblical response to grief. and emotional pain and suffering called lamentations. It's an acrostic poem. You've seen that before as we went through Psalm 119 together several months ago.
where every letter of the Hebrew alphabet is used in order to begin a verse. The book of Lamentations is separate from the book of Jeremiah, which is his prophecy against Judah for her sins and the prophecy that God will punish his people.
Well, God did punish his people. And Jeremiah receives the consequences of the punishment, although he himself did not participate in the wickedness. of God's people. Jeremiah responds in the midst of all of this With writing a lament. that seeks to make sense of everything that's happening.
And has happened. and to find some reason for having hope. He finds it. And he finds it in the stiff fast love, of the Lord. This steadfast love is personal.
It's not an impersonal like fate or luck or chance, but it has personal qualities that come from a personal God.
So it is very, very important. when you go through trials and hardships. that you go through it with a relationship with the Lord. This word points to a person. Psalm 25 verse 6, the psalmist says, Remember your mercy, O Lord, and your steadfast love, for they have been from of old.
It is of the Lord. It belongs to Yahweh. It is not dependent on man, but belongs to God's nature, this steadfast love. It is part of his essence. It is the love that belongs to the Lord.
not the love that Jeremiah has for the Lord. the steadfast love of the Lord. the steadfast love that belongs to his nature. to his essence, to his person. This love never, ever ceases.
It is never used up, it is never spent, it is never completed. In other words, it is eternal because The Lord is eternal.
So whereas our earthly trials are temporary. The Lord and His love is eternal. That is where Jeremiah finds his hope. If I hold up my trials in God's steadfast love, the trials are a mere breath or a vapor or a mist in comparison. This is the love that Jeremiah calls to mind, and for this reason he has hope back in verse 21.
But this I call to mind. I think through this, I'm logically reasoning through this, based on who God is, and he is a God of love. Therefore I have hope. How can you say that, Jeremiah? You said yourself throughout chapter 3 that he has made you see affliction.
He has driven you into darkness. He has made your flesh and skin waste away. He has walled you in so you cannot escape. He has made you desolate. You've forgotten what happiness is.
I can imagine how the people of Judah may have been responding as captives in a foreign land. Don't tell me about God's love. A loving God would never allow me to go through what I'm going through. I have lost my home. I lost my husband who was killed in the war.
I am living in a foreign land and trying to find food for my children who are depending upon me. And I cannot even speak the language. Much less find work in a country of people who think of me as garbage. Don't tell me about the steadfast love. of the Lord.
I am reminded of an experience that a fellow RTS student had as we were assigned in a class that we took together to spend 40 hours serving as a chaplain at the hospital in Charlotte, North Carolina as part of our requirements for our pastoral ministries class. His first eight-hour shift for that semester was very traumatic. He was called to come to a room in the hospital to bring comfort to a family whose husband, father had been given the wrong medication. and it left him bloated, discolored, and struggling to breathe. He walked in just as the two doctors were frantically struggling to get this man's heart beating and his lungs breathing.
As one became exhausted, the other doctor took his place. until they finally had to tell the family he's dead. As my friend stood there. to offer comfort. The family turned to him knowing the purpose for why he was there, and they lashed out at him.
and said, Where is your God? How could God allow this to happen?
Sometimes there's nothing you can say. But stand quietly and receive the verbal abuse while silently praying to God, for strength and comfort for both yourself and for the family. And that's what he did. And the situation had been so dramatic that the nurses even called him later after he returned home just to check and make sure he was okay. What can you say?
in a situation like that.
Sometimes all I can do is go home and write a poem. that expresses your faith in God's sovereign, steadfast love. And perhaps God will use that poem not only to comfort your soul, But to comfort the souls of those who are reading this poem later, which is what we're doing now.
So let us read what Jeremiah writes in his poem in response to the depression in his own soul and those of the people of Judah. We read in verse 32, He says but though he cause causes grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love. Verses 37 and 38, he says, Who has spoken and it came to pass unless the Lord has commanded it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come? Really, Jeremiah?
You're going to comfort me by telling me that God is sovereign and he's responsible for all of this? Many will cringe at this and say, but God does not bring suffering. He is a good God. There is a false theology that teaches that God is omniscient concerning everything up to the present, but he can only anticipate what he will do or what events will take place in the future. based on the decisions and on the experiences of what occurs.
This false theology attempts to answer the question of how God can be blameless and omnipotent when evil exists in the world. By limiting God's omniscience and omnipotence, They believe that they have saved God from being accountable for sin. Jeremiah does just the opposite. He openly proclaims the sovereignty of God in the midst of all of this tribulation and hardship. If God is not sovereign, then the suffering we endure is pain without purpose.
It is hopelessness. because it is godless. What Jeremiah and the people of Judah are going through is not the absence of God. but the actual work of the Lord. And indeed, it was the Lord's wrath being poured out on Judah and Israel for their sin and rebellion.
And Jeremiah says, He has driven and brought me into darkness without any light. Surely against me he turns his hand again and again the whole day long. Now, not all suffering is a direct result of personal sin and may often be the result of the sin of others. Jesus is the prime example. as he was sinless.
Yet he suffered and was revealed as the man of sorrows. acquainted with grief. In 1 Peter chapter 2, Peter writes, For this to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return.
When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds, you have been healed. The fact that Jeremiah is experiencing the same grief and hardship as the people of Judah makes him the best person qualified. to counsel those in the same situation.
Isn't that what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1? Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us. in our affliction.
So that. we may be able to comfort those. who are in any affliction. with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. This is what Jeremiah is trying to do for the people of Israel and Judah.
through his poem. to comfort them with the same comfort. that he has received from the sovereign God, full of steadfast love. Jeremiah finds comfort in God's sovereignty and he calls to mind that his steadfast love never ceases. In all this suffering that I'm going through, I recognize that it has not caused his love for me to cease, Jeremiah says.
Therefore, the pain and the suffering that I am enduring has a purpose. It is giving birth to hope. I know that what is happening to me is not because God has failed or because he has lost control. Therefore, I have hope. Job said the same thing in Job chapter 13, Though he slay me, I will hope in him.
Isaiah chapter 8. Isaiah says, I will wait for the Lord who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob. I will hope. in him. The prophets never rejected the sovereignty of God in order to find comfort and assurance and hope.
It was the steadfast love of the Lord that gave them hope in the midst of pain because only then does pain and suffering have purpose. The suffering and death of Jesus on the cross was an act of God's sovereign love. In Acts chapter 2, it says, This Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. Hope sees purpose.
because hope sees a person. We are more than conquerors through Christ who loved us. I may be struggling with my desires not being met. I may be struggling that things are not going the way I had hoped, but it is never because God does not love me. because his steadfast love never ceases.
And Jeremiah's hope is refreshed and grounded in God's steadfast love and his mercies, the compassion and love that belongs to the Lord toward his people. It never comes to an end. Then in verse 23, he describes this mercy. And in the Hebrew, there are no verbs in this verse. He simply provides adjectives.
His mercies are a new to each morning mercies. There is newness and freshness to his mercies every morning, like a flowing fountain. The water comes out of a fountain that comes out is fresh. It is not the same water that came out yesterday. But it is coming out of the same fountain that continually flows and in the same way God's mercies are continually flowing each morning designed for your particular moment of need.
And then Jeremiah uses an adjective to describe God's faithfulness. It's a much faithfulness. It's a great faithfulness. It's a plentiful, abundant faithfulness. We think about that.
Great is thy faithfulness. Great is thy faithfulness. Morning by morning, new mercies I see. All I have needed. Thy hand hath provided.
Great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me. It is his being, his nature. to be abundantly faithful and continually merciful because his steadfast love never ceases because God is unchanging. There is no shadow of turning with thee. Thou changest not thy compassions, they fail not.
As thou hast been, thou forever wilt be. In 1 Peter chapter 1. He says, blessed. Be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. according to his great mercy.
He has caused us to be born again. to a living hope. Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. That's what God's mercy does for you. to an inheritance that is imperishable.
undefiled and unfading kept in heaven for you. That is God's promise to you. Who, by God's power, not by fate or chance or luck. Are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed. in the last time.
In this You rejoice. And even though you go through trials and hardships, God is testing. That you might know, am I truly walking by faith, or am I not? Am I responding with rejection of God? in the midst of this tribulation.
Or am I looking to God and finding him to be my only hope? because his steadfast love never ceases. Biblical hope. looks to a person. Psalm 130 verse 7, O Israel, hope in the Lord.
For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption. And so in verse 24, Jeremiah says, the Lord is my portion. This is not wishful thinking from the mind, but from the inner core of Jeremiah's being, because he says, the Lord is my portion, says my soul. Every part within me. cries out, the Lord is my portion.
Therefore, for this reason, I will hope in him. Psalm 31 verse 24. Be strong. Let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord. Psalm 33, verse 18.
Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope. in his steadfast love. Psalm 42, verse 11. Why are you cast down, O my soul? Why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God. For I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. And Paul says in Romans 8, For in this hope we were saved.
Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, We wait for it with patience. He continues to say, through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace into which we stand. And we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings. knowing that suffering produces endurance. And endurance produces character. and character produces hope. And hope does not put us to shame because God's love.
his steadfast love, has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. who has been given to us. This is the song. of Jeremiah in the midst of his depression. Yes.
We can even sing. in the midst of depression. because he had a biblical hope That sees a purpose even in the pain and grief of depression because he saw the steadfast love. and eternally renewed mercies of a person, Christ Jesus, our living hope, whose faithfulness never comes to an end. He alone is our portion.
So Paul says, if God be for us, Who can be against us? I am persuaded that nothing in all creation will ever separate me from the love of God. in Christ Jesus. And so Believer. This passage is for you.
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases for you. His mercies never come to an end for you. They are new every morning for you. Great is God's faithfulness for you. The Lord is your portion.
Let your soul rejoice in that. and find your hope in him. O unbeliever. This passage is for you. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost.
and to show you his steadfast love that never ceases. to show you that his mercies never come to an end. to show you that they are new every morning. To show the greatness. and plentifulness of his faithfulness.
so that the Lord may be your portion. and your soul may cry out, therefore I will hope. in him. Let us pray. Dear Father, thank you.
For loving us. by sending your Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for our sins. that take the punishment and penalty of our sin upon himself. and taking your wrath. that he might rise from the dead.
and become our prince of peace. our hope, our joy, our Saviour, our King, our Shepherd. And that he has ascended to heaven as king of kings and lord of lords, and drawing all people to himself. whom the Father has given to him. and he will never cast out.
Thank you. for being our hope. And though we go through many trials and hardships and tribulations, May we always be reminded As we Fix our eyes on Jesus. that his steadfast love Never. ever ceases.
And I pray in Jesus' name. I'm in. Yeah.
