Welcome to the Kerwin Baptist Church broadcast today. Our desire is for the Word of God to be spread throughout the world so that all may know Christ. Join us now for a portion of one of our services here at Kerwin Baptist Church, located in Kernersville, North Carolina. Let's go to that great, encouraging, uplifting book of Lamentations. Would you please find the book of Lamentations in your Bible?
We were here all day on the Lord's Day, this amazing book, this book most people think of. tear-stained and full of brokenness is actually one of the brightest spots in all of Scripture. You come to Lamentations chapter number three, which is really in the heart of the book. It's the central part and the central truth, and it reveals the heart of God, and it speaks to the heart of man. Chapter 3 really stands head and shoulders.
I showed you this on Sunday. It's three times the size of chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 4, and chapter 5, because it lifts us to God. It is, in this beautiful Hebrew acrostic, the pinnacle of the mountain. Get to the top of the mountain. How many of you know everything looks better from the top of the mountain?
So maybe you say, well, I'm in the valley. I'm living in chapter 1 or chapter 2 or chapter 4 or chapter 5.
Well, run for the mountain, head for the hills. Get to chapter three, because when you get to chapter three, you get a little glimpse of God. We read this on the Lord's Day. Look at verse 22. It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed.
Because his compassions fail not. They are new. How often, church? Every morning. Great is thy faithfulness.
We studied the mercies of God in the morning. And in the evening, we talked about the every morning principle. How many of you met God this morning? Would you raise your hand, please? How many of you want to meet God tonight?
Did you know if you meet God in the morning and you meet God in the evening, He sanctifies everything in between those two? You pillow your head resting in the Lord, you wake. In the morning, looking to the Lord, it is the Christian life. It's the way it's supposed to be lived. And so we're brought back to God.
Tonight, God helping me, I want to back up and show you the verses that lead up to these two famous verses. And then tomorrow evening, I'll come back and show you the verses that grow out of them. Back up in your lamentation just for a moment. Let's just start in verse 1. I won't preach all these verses, but just get a little feel for the heartbeat of Jeremiah, the weeping prophet.
Look at verse 1. I am the man. that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. He hath led me and brought me into darkness, but not into light. Surely against me is he turned.
He turneth his hand against me all the day. My flesh. And my skin hath he made old.
Some of you say, that's my life verse. I just found it. There it is. No, this is not just physical. This is spiritual.
He has broken my bones. He hath builded against me and compassed me with gall and travail. He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old. He hath hedged me about that I cannot get out. He hath made my chain heavy.
Also, when I cry and shout, He shutteth out my prayer. He hath enclosed my ways with hewn stone. He hath made my paths crooked. He was unto me as a bear lying in wait and as a lion in secret places. He hath turned aside my ways and pulled me in pieces.
He hath made me desolate. How many of you think this sounds like a bad day? I mean, look, it's not enough that Babylon's standing at the door.
Now it seems heaven's door is shut to him. It's bad when the enemy comes. It's worse when you feel like you can't even get your prayers answered. Swear is living. Keep reading.
Verse 12: He hath been his bow and set me as a mark for the arrow. He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins. I was a derision to all my people. And there's song all the day. He hath filled me with bitterness.
He hath made me drunken with wormwood. He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones. He hath covered me with ashes. And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace. I forgot prosperity, and I said.
Pause and look at me just for a moment. Remember Out of the abundance of the heart, The mouth speaketh. Peter Your speech betrays you. Your words tell on you. And all of this in man's soul finally finds vent.
All you can hear. It's a song of derision. It's a song in the minor key. It's melancholy. He said, it's all I can hear.
So, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'm going to just tell everybody what I think. And I said. My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord. I don't know about you.
This sounds pretty low to me.
Some of you are thinking, God help us. I didn't come on a Monday night to hear this. I got good news for you. Ready? When you get to the bottom, you find out the foundation's still there.
When you get to the end of you. You come to the beginning of him. When you get to wit's end and you say, dear God. I just give up. Heaven applauds.
And the Lord says, that's very good. Because I've been trying to get you there for a while. Do you understand? That when your strength fails, his strength does not fail. And sometimes God even knocks all the props out from underneath you.
So you'll stop leaning on everybody else. And leaning on your experience and leaning on your emotions. Remember the words, that old hymn? We sing it, don't even think about it. I dare not trust the sweetest faith.
Frame. You ever think about what that means? It means you might get in some heavenly, holy frame of mind and say, Oh, this is glorious and this is wonderful. You better be careful right there because you can't trust that sweet frame of mind. I'll tell you what you can do: you can wholly lean on Jesus' name.
Don't lean to your own understanding. Don't lean on your strength. Lean on El Eliam, the strongest, strong one, the almighty God who never fails. That's where your strength comes from. And your hope fails?
Oh, your hope might, but God's hope doesn't end. And I want to show you something interesting. In verse number 18, I want you to mark: My hope is perished. Then skip down please to verse 21. And tell me if you think there's a little shift here.
This I recall to my mind. Therefore Have I what?
Now, hold on just a minute. I thought he just said three verses previous in verse 18 that his hope was perished. And when you get to verse number 21, he now is speaking with confidence and certainty and faith. And he says, I'll tell you one thing, I got some hope here. How many of you are a little confused, like me?
Would you raise your hand? How do you go from your hopeless parish to I have hope. I'm glad you asked. Because between verse 18 and verse 21, Something happens in this man's heart. Oh, may the Spirit of the living God work in our hearts tonight.
In fact, I'm about to show you what I believe to be one of the greatest revival principles in the whole of Scripture. See, we think of revival and we go to certain passages and they say this is about revival. But I want you to understand that very often what God has to do is bring us to the most basic and elementary things to bring us back to Himself. Where does it all begin? Where does this kind of spiritual awakening in our souls start again?
Where do you find hope? Let's read the verses. Look at verse 19. What's the first word of verse 19, church? Say it, please.
Remembering. Everybody mark the word in verse 19, remembering. Mine affliction and my misery. The wormwood and the gall. My soul Hath them still in Hosetwer.
Remembrance, mark it again. and is humbled in me. This I what's the next word, church? I recall to my mind. Therefore.
And when you see therefore, you look to see what it's there for. Why does he now have hope all of a sudden? Because he is remembering and recalling certain things, not just about himself, but about his God. For a few moments tonight. I want to talk to you about your spiritual memory.
You know, memory is a funny thing. Spurgeon said, by some strange perversity, we tend to remember what we should forget and forget what we should remember. Isn't that true? For example. Sitting here at night, you can remember all the things you said and did, you shouldn't have done, and the devil brings them up.
Beats you over the head like a club with them, brings them to your remembrance. Isn't that right? Tries to bring in guilt and shame and condemnation, but it's under the blood of Jesus cast in the sea of God's forgetfulness. The Lord put up a no-fishing sign, but we keep pulling them up, pull them up, pull them up. And yet how quickly we forget how good God has been to us.
Isn't it an odd thing that we can remember all the burdens and not the blessings? Isn't it strange that you can see people and remember what they did to you and what they said about you, right? But we fail to remember the people that God graciously used in our lives. To minister to us? What is this selective memory of ours?
Remember, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? The Lord answers that. He said, I, the Lord, try the heart. Let's take a little survey.
How many of you got good short-term memory? That's your strength, short-term memory. Would you raise your hand, please? Big and high. God bless all eight of you.
That's really good. How many of you got good long-term memory? Raise your hand, please. How many of you have no memory? Would you raise your hand, Pelis?
It's bad, really bad. Memory changes sometimes with age and may fade. My wife and I are totally different. She remembers. Great, crystal clear long term.
My short term is much better. But could I suggest tonight there is something better than short-term memory or long-term memory? It's called spiritual memory. And memory is like a muscle. If you don't use it, you lose it.
It begins to atrophy. If you don't work on your spiritual memory somewhere along the way, you're only going to remember all the bad and not remember all the good that God has done in your life.
So how do we learn to do this? Before I show you what I want to show you in this scripture, let me take you to the New Testament for just a moment, all right? Go with me, please, to the book of John, just for a second. To the gospel according to John. And let me show you what Jesus said about this.
You see, it's really woven through the whole of Scripture. Israel, they were so forgetful. That's why the Lord had to give Deuteronomy. Why do you think Deuteronomy is in the Bible? It's the book of the second law.
You know why God repeats Himself? Because we forgot what He said the first time. Why do you think he put the tabernacle right there in front of them? Why do you think he made them sew the little blue ribbon into the thread, into the hem of their garment, so they'd see it all the time? Why do you think he put that pillar of cloud and pillar of fire in front of them?
Because he knew how forgetful those people were. And boy, don't we love to talk about how forgetful they were. I want you to think tonight about how forgetful we are. In fact, let me just pause and confess my own fault to you tonight. You know, one of the greatest sins in my life is the sin of forgetfulness.
In fact, I think the sin of forgetfulness is the sin that very often is the seed bed where so many other sins grow. Watch this, please. You lust after other things when you forget all the good things God has already given you. You live in pride when you forget that you are nothing and God is everything. You grumble and you covet when you forget how blessed you truly are.
I'm telling you, when you sin against God by forgetting the Lord. It leads to every other wicked sin in our lives. And the Lord remembered something about us, and that is how forgetful we are.
So he gives us some memory aids. Look at chapter. Number 14 with me for just a moment. Would you please? John chapter 14, verse number 26.
Jesus is leaving them. And he knew how forgetful they would be and we would be. Look at verse 26, but the comforter, that's the Holy Spirit. The comforter, which is the Holy Ghost. Whom the Father will send in my name.
I'd love to see all three members of the Godhead there. He said when he comes He shall teach you all things. Mark this in your Bible, please, and bring all things to your what? your remembrance. Whatsoever I've said unto you.
Do you understand that the Holy Spirit of God living inside of you is to be God's great reminder to you every day? If you learn to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit of God, the Spirit of God will remind you of the truths that you've already learned, so you don't have to learn the same things over and over and over again. And that's another little memory aid. Turn one page in your Bible, come to chapter number 16, and look at verse number 4. Jesus said, But these things have I told you, that when the time shall come You may remember that I told you of them, and these things I said not unto you at the beginning because I was with you.
Watch this, please. He said, You'll have the Holy Spirit to help you remember, but you'll also have my words to help you remember. I better look up here in just a second. This is God's great memory book. And by the way, the Spirit and the Scriptures always work together.
The Bible is the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. And the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. You want to be a good rememberer Christian? Let me tell you what you do: get in the Word of God every day and let the Spirit of truth remind you of who God is, and it will keep your heart right with God. See, the hard thing is not getting right with God.
The hard thing is staying right with God. And part of the reason people come to meetings like this, and everybody feels spiritual, and everybody gets right with God, and then the spiritual graph of the rest of the years, it's all downhill from there till we have the next meeting, is because we have not learned to remember every day how wonderful our God is to us. And so Jesus said, Look, I'm going to give you the Holy Ghost, and I'm going to give you the Holy Scriptures, and they will help you to remember. Number one, would you write this down somewhere tonight? First of all, I want you to see the principle of remembering.
It's a Bible principle. It's not just in Lamentations. We'll go back there in just a moment, but it's in all of Scripture. We're in the New Testament already.
So come over to what. Paul wrote to Timothy for just a moment. Look at 2 Timothy chapter number 1. Would you please? It's interesting to me that when Paul's getting ready to leave and he's not going to be able to help Timothy anymore himself, by the way, for the record, every preacher leaves eventually.
In fact, at this juncture on my journey, my dad has just retired after 33-year pastored in a wonderful church, and there's a new season of life for him. But it's been a good reminder for me. You know what it is? We're all just interim servants of the Lord. That's what all of us are.
We are all just passing through. You know why that's important? Listen to me. Because if you're expecting your preacher to help you remember everything, you're never going to be the Christian God saved you to become. That preacher can't be your rememberer.
You have to learn to remember God for yourself because you don't just need to remember God on the Lord's day, you need to remember God every day. Paul's leaving. Look at 2 Timothy chapter 1, verse 5. He says, I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee. Which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois and thy mother Eunice.
And I'm persuaded that in thee also. And I'm thinking now, my grandmothers who are with the Lord and my mama, who's faithfully, happily serving Jesus. And I thank God for them. Paul said, I remember them and I remember you. But look at the next verse, verse number six: Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God which is in thee by the putting on of my hands.
He said, I want you to know, son, I remember a whole lot about how God has worked in your life, but my memory won't be enough for you. You'll have to remember for yourself what the Lord has done in your life. One of the good parents of this church said to me on the Lord's Day that their child had recently made a decision for Christ, and I said, that's wonderful. And it was about the same age as when I got saved. And I said to that father, best thing you can do is talk about it every day, every day.
Let them talk about it. Write it down. Discuss what God has done. Don't let the memory of that fade. Stir up the memory bank of the soul so that they never get far removed from the work of grace that God has done in their heart.
You see this principle? I want you to mark something. In verse 6, I want you to mark the word remembrance and then mark stirrup.
Now, I'm just going to testify for a minute and tell you. I've discovered in the Lord's work, the hard thing to do is not get stirred, the hard thing to do is stay stirred. How many of you are with me on that? Come on now, all you pious people, let's be honest just a minute. How many of you ever come to church, hear the choir sing, hear the preacher preach, love serving Jesus?
I mean, man, we're going to live for God every day and charge hell with a squirt gun, win the world to Christ. And by the time you get to Monday or Tuesday, all that is gone. How many of you are with me on that? And we'll tell you. I'm going to tell you how to stay stirred up.
You ready for this? Don't depend on somebody else to stir you up. You stir yourself up every day and you use it by the tool of remembrance. When I get a little cold and hard, and I do. Preachers get that way too, you know.
I go back in my mind to that little room where that woman led me to Jesus. I have a dear friend in Canada. I hope to see him in a few days. I'm there preaching. I've only met him a couple times in my life, but he prays for me every day, every day of my life.
I get an email from him every day. Every day a prayer. And at the end of the email, every day it says this, walk by Calvary every day. It's been really good for me. Because it reminds me not to get far away from the cross and not to get too far from what Jesus has done in my heart.
Sometimes when I get full of myself, And I do. I go back to that night that God called me to preach. And I remember the first little sermons and standing behind that pulpit and weeping because I was so overwhelmed that God would let me be a preacher. Stir yourself up. How you do it?
By way of remembrance. Let's compare scripture to scripture. This is Paul's last letter to Timothy. Go to Peter's last letter just a moment. You're still in the New Testament, right?
Go over to 2 Peter chapter number 1. Interesting, isn't it? That when both of these great men of God were leaving this world, they were trying to leave a little principle of remembrance for those that were trying to learn from them. Look at 2 Peter chapter 1. He talks about those who don't add to their faith.
Look at verse 9. He that lacketh these things is blind and cannot see afar off, and hath what? Forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Do you understand? It's possible to get so far away from the Lord that you even forget the work of grace that God did in your heart.
Dear Lord, deliver us from such sinful forgetfulness against the holy God. How do you fix it? Look at verse 12. Wherefore? I'll not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though you know them and be established in the present truth.
Yea, I think it meet as long as I'm in this tabernacle to stir you up by putting you in remembrance, knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ has showed me. Moreover, I will endeavor that you may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance. He says, As long as I'm alive, I'm going to stir that pot and stir you up by way of remembrance. But I hope it gets so deeply in you and you learn the principle of remembrance that long after the preacher's voice is silent and the meeting is just a memory, you will still remember what God Almighty has done in your heart. Turn one page.
Look at chapter 3, 2 Peter chapter 3, verse number 1. The second epistle, beloved. I now write into you. In both which I, would you mark it again, stir up your pure minds. How do you do it, Peter?
By way of what? Isn't that interesting? It's the principle of remembrance. One more scripture before we go back to lamentations. Come on over to the end of the Bible.
You can tell people who preach the whole Bible tonight this way, all right? Go to Revelation chapter 2. Remember how I said to you this one of the great principles of revival? Look at Revelation. Chapter number two and verse number five, he speaks to the church at Ephesus.
They're a long ways from God. They're a long ways from where they ought to be. How are you going to get them back? Look at verse 5. Read the first word.
What's the first word, church? Remember. Remember, therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and repent and do the first works, or else I will come unto thee quickly and remove thy candlestick out of its place, except thou repent. By the way, let me just pause and say: the candlestick is the local New Testament church, it has no light of its own, it holds up the light that Jesus puts in it. It is fed by the oil of the Holy Ghost and tended by the great high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ, that stands among the candlesticks and keeps it burning.
But I want you to know: don't you ever take for granted what God has given you in your local New Testament church. Great churches are no more. Churches that were mightily used of God do not even exist today. A few months ago, I was in Akron, Ohio, and they took me by the old Akron Baptist Temple. Used to have 5,000 people there on the Lord's Day.
They won thousands of people to Christ, sent hundreds of preachers around the world. They're demolishing the building right now. Graffiti everywhere. Homeless people living inside. The candlestick was removed.
The light has gone out. Don't ever assume it will go on like it is right now. You stay as close to God and each other as you possibly can. And how do you do it? Don't ever forget who you are and who God is.
In fact, look at that verse just a minute.
Sometimes we evangelists, we jump straight to the repent. But nobody repents until they remember. Then we get on a tirade and we preach on all the first works. Do this and do this and do this. Let me tell you something.
We got a bunch of people trying to do the right thing and they don't even remember who God is. We're not trying to get you to be more polished church members, professional Christians, sit in a church pew and say amen at the right time. We need somebody that knows who God is. And it always begins. with the principle of remembrance.
Go back with me now to our text in Lamentations. And let me show you the product of remembrance. We're working on our spiritual memory here. It's what helps us stay right. Surrounded by evil, we go back to the goodness of God.
Remember, these people are having a hard time. I mean, this lament is a funeral song. I think you've got a funeral here tomorrow, don't you? A dear saint of God has gone to be with Jesus. I didn't know her, but I've heard about her.
Sounds like quite a godly woman, a virtuous woman, and we give God the glory for that. And we grieve, but not as those who have no hope. And there'll be victory even in that memorial service tomorrow because we know where she is, and we're going to be with her very shortly. And I want you to know this lament of loss. It's simply God bringing these people nearer to himself.
Do you understand that the loss of a child, the loss of a loved one? The loss of a job, the loss of security. is not always just loss. It is sometimes God's gracious way. of bringing us nearer to himself.
My wife and I started serving the Lord. Twenty-seven years ago, this year. We found out we were going to have a baby, and we were so excited about it. And, like most young couples, first child, we told everybody pretty quickly. And after several weeks It was a complication and we lost that little baby.
The child's in heaven now. Are we grieved? To that point, hardest thing we'd ever had to deal with and I remember weeping and saying to the Lord, Why? I look back on that season now and realize God was bringing me. to himself.
Eight years ago, eight and a half years ago. We were so happy, serving where we were, comfortable, going to be there the rest of our life. All we'd known.
Okay. And the Holy Spirit said, all right, you're going to leave now. And I tried to argue with God. That's not an argument you can win. I try to convince God what would be best for my children and best for us.
The Holy Spirit said, No, this is the work I have for you, and I am assigning it to you. And there was great grief. There was a sense of loss, like a death. And we left our home and our friends and I don't want you to feel sorry for me. I'm looking back on now, and I see now what God has done and rejoice and give Him all the praise and glory.
But I'm telling you, at the time, there was a lament, there was a loss, there was a sense of all the air getting let out of the balloon. And I'm testifying now that was God's gracious dealing in my life. Because here's the product of remembering. Look at verse number 19. He said, remembering mine affliction and my misery.
By the way, that word misery is the word in Jeremiah's day for homelessness.
Now, look at that word. We say, oh, he was having a bad day. No, he lost his home. The greatest news that anyone can receive is the news of the free gift of salvation found in Jesus Christ. It is our desire for you to know him personally.
Would you take a moment to hear this to day? Every man is born with a sin nature. Romans 3:23 says, For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. No matter how hard we try, We're not good enough to obtain God's glory. or to get to heaven.
Because of that sin carries the penalty of death. Romans 6.23 says, For the wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life for the through Jesus Christ our Lord. The wages of our sin, or the payment of our sin, only equals death and separation from God. But it's only through God's gift salvation through Jesus Christ that we can accept Him as our Savior.
Jesus Christ paid for your sin debt. The Bible says in Romans 5:8, But God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. All you have to do is receive Christ. by faith as your Saviour. Romans 10.9 says That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
Verse 13 continues, For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. It's as simple as admitting that you're a sinner believing that Jesus is the only way. and calling upon his name. Bible says whosoever that's anyone can call upon the name of the Lord to be saved. Have you accepted Christ as your personal Savior?
There is no greater day than today to take care of this. Would you accept Christ as your Saviour? If you have any questions, please give us a call at 336-993-5192 or visit our website at Crowin Baptist Church. Dot com. or visits that person at one of our three service times.
We hope you have a great rest of your day. God bless you. Mm-hmm.
