How to turn our despair to hope & victory.
Lamentations 3: 19-26
19 The
thought of my suffering and homelessness is bitter beyond words
20 I will never forget this awful time, as I grieve over my loss.
21 Yet I still
dare to hope when I remember this: 20 I will never forget this awful time, as I grieve over my loss.
22 The faithful love of the LORD never ends! His mercies never cease.
23 Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.
24 I say to myself, “The LORD is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in him!”
25 The LORD is good to those who depend on him, to those who search for him.
26 So it is good to wait quietly for salvation from the LORD.
INTRODUCTION: Discouragement: Have you ever come to a point in your time that you feel you are drowning w/ problems, up to your neck,… you had enough and don’t feel like you can make it the next day. If you are not in despair, maybe you know someone that you could share this with or just put it on the shelf of your mind and ready to use it when desperate times come.
Well Lamentation is our Old Testament series today & the context
of book is about that-turning our despair to hope & victory. In the book of Lamentations, for Judah & Jeremiah
– It was a sad & desperate time.
Lamentations : may be the saddest writing in the
ancient Near East. It means “funeral songs” It was written against the backdrop of the Babylonian invasion and destruction of
Jerusalem. There are 5 chapters, a poem of pain. The tears shed with each distressing
chapter only increase as the Lamentations progress.
THE SETTING. JEREMIAH HAS JUST WITNESSED THE SEVERE JUDGMENT OF GOD AGAINST THE NATION OF JUDAH. Jeremiah is sitting in a cave overlooking Jerusalem viewing the ruined remains.
1. He weeps as he
sees the rubble of the once glorious city of the earth, Jerusalem, that men called
"the perfection of beauty"
"the Lord has destroyed every home in Israel. In his anger he has broken down the fortress walls of beautiful Jerusalem. He has brought them to the ground, dishonoring the kingdom and its rulers. 5…He has destroyed her palaces... 9 Jerusalem’s gates have sunk into the ground. He has smashed their locks and bars. The wall of defense torn down.
He saw the magnificent Temple of God profaned, and then
destroyed.
2. He smells the
stench of decaying bodies. He saw the indiscriminate slaying of the populace.
Neither the young children or the old and feeble people
were spared. The streets once crowded were empty.
From Lamentations
1 (NLT)
1 Jerusalem, once so full of
people, is now deserted.
From Lamentations 2 (NLT)
21 “See them lying in the streets—young and old, boys and girls, killed by the swords
of the enemy.
3. He sees poor
starving people poking through the rubble.
From Lamentations 2 (NLT)11 I have cried until the tears no longer come; my heart is broken. My spirit is poured out in agony as I see the desperate plight of my people. Little children and tiny babies are fainting and dying in the streets. 12 They cry out to their mothers, “We need food and drink!” Their lives ebb away in the streets like the life of a warrior wounded in battle. They gasp for life as they collapse in their mothers’ arms.
This was the only food in town when my dear people were broken.
4. They were once
proud - but now broken.
From Lamentations 1:
From Lamentations 1:
She who was once great among the nations now sits alone like a widow. Once the queen of all the earth, she is now a slave.
From Lamentations
5 (NLT)
1 LORD, … See how we have been
disgraced! 2 Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our homes to foreigners.
3 We are orphaned and fatherless. Our mothers are widowed.
8 Slaves have now become our masters; there is no one left to rescue us.
11 Our enemies rape the women in Jerusalem and the young girls in all the towns of Judah.
12 Our princes are being hanged by their thumbs, and our elders are treated with contempt.
13 Young men are led away to work at millstones, and boys stagger under heavy loads of wood.
14 The elders no longer sit in the city gates; the young men no longer dance and sing.
15 Joy has left our hearts; our dancing has turned to mourning.
11 Our enemies rape the women in Jerusalem and the young girls in all the towns of Judah.
12 Our princes are being hanged by their thumbs, and our elders are treated with contempt.
13 Young men are led away to work at millstones, and boys stagger under heavy loads of wood.
14 The elders no longer sit in the city gates; the young men no longer dance and sing.
15 Joy has left our hearts; our dancing has turned to mourning.
16 The garlands have fallen from our heads. Weep for us because we have sinned.
17 Our hearts are sick and weary, and our eyes grow dim with tears.
17 Our hearts are sick and weary, and our eyes grow dim with tears.
From Lamentations 3 (NLT)
19 The
thought of my suffering and homelessness is bitter beyond words20 I will never forget this awful time, as I grieve over my loss.
The tragedy is
that this could have been averted. He had warned them to repent and seek God. They mocked him and imprisoned him. They told him to
shut up or they would kill him.They continued to rebel against God until it was too
late. If they had only listened. Now they wished they had
listened.
As he looked, he wept. How devastated, how hopeless the situation is. There is but one bright spot in lamentations. This bright spot is our devotional for today.
In the midst of all the pain and the turmoil, God had
His man in Jerusalem to record the events and to bring honor to His Name.In the middle of
the book (Lamentations 3:19-26) there
are some of the sweetest words that God has given to us about himself.
JEREMIAH'S HOPE
From Lamentations 3 (NLT):
21 Yet I still dare to hope
when I remember this:
IN THE MIDST OF THIS DESPAIR A THOUGHT COMES
TO MIND THAT CHANGES THE WHOLE OUTLOOK. IT TURNS HIS DESPAIR TO HOPE. HIS CURE FOR
DEPRESSION IS IN LOOKING UP.
When the outlook is so bleak you can't face it
- try the up look. In looking up, he found cause for hope. He put a new set of thoughts into his mind. He ceased thinking about himself. He started thinking about God. Thinking about myself is sometimes depressing. Thinking about God is always encouraging.
Hopelessness is caused by looking around us. Measuring the problem with our ability. Measuring our obligations with our resources. Measuring the battle with our strength. It can lead to Depression: a state of mind of very low in
spirit. It can destroy us - most suicides caused by depression. It can hurt those around us.
Have you ever noticed how depressed you feel after
talking to a depressed person? Jeremiah himself remembered something that gave him
hope.
GOD'S LOVE
From Lamentations 3:
22 Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.
God never cease
loving you. he could have consumed me - He didn't. He must have spared me for a reason. While God's mercies may not always be visible, they are
always present. He doesn’t fully give the
punishment what we deserve. If God had given to us what we deserved, I wouldn't even
be here to see this mess. I am still here - I still have so much. My sight - my
hearing - my reason. "I still have
my appetite."
If it were not for the mercy of God, I would be dead and
in hell. It is only by God's mercies that any of us are alive
today. Even chastisement is mercy &
love in disguise. This remembrance gives him hope
JEREMIAH REMEMBERED
From Lamentations 3:
23 They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
v.23a "They are new every morning."
God is looking for
some way to demonstrate His love for us each new day. Each new day gives God the opportunity to show His love
to me. Each day brings to
us new and difficult problems, new and exciting challenges. God's mercy is ever-present, but the form it takes is
ever-changing. God adapts His mercy to our immediate needs of each day. God's mercies on our behalf are fresh and alive today.
With every new morning nature offers a tribute of praise
to God's mercy. The sun rises; the birds sing; the trees sway in the
breeze. Shall we alone be silent and ungrateful? Shall the Christian, who has the most reasons to praise
God for His mercy, be slow to acknowledge that God's mercy is renewed to him
each day?
Will we allow the
natural creation of God alone to praise its Creator?
No matter how dark our day may appear to be, let us
remember this with Jeremiah, the grace
of God is as fresh as the new day. We do not
have to worry about there not being enough for us to make it through, for God’s
grace in our lives is as fresh as the new day.
Matt. 6:34, “Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take
thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”
Just as
every new day brings with it its own set of burdens and problems, so each day
witnesses a new, unfailing, all-sufficient, supply of God’s marvelous,
matchless, wonderful, amazing grace.
God’s faithfulness is seen in the
fact that we woke up this morning, in our right minds and in reasonable
health. We woke up with air to breath,
food to eat, people we love around us, etc.
God is a faithful, wonderful Lord.
The word “Faithfulness” means “firmness,
fidelity, steadiness.” his word pictures God as One Whom we can
depend. We can be
sure that as we face the storms, trials and valleys of life, you can count on
the Lord!
Even in the judgment that he had just observed, the
faithfulness of God was manifested. God had been promising for years that if they would
not repent and turn to Him that He would surely judge them. There is one thing in life of which you can be sure,
God will keep His word. His promises are true. That should bring joy and comfort
to your heart, or should strike you with absolute terror. God was faithful to do what He warned.
1.
His Presence - Heb. 13:5;
Matt. 28:20. These verses reveal the
great truth that God is always present with His children. Even when He cannot be seen, He is there.
2.
His Performance - Eph. 3:20 - Focus on the word “able”!
If this verse is to be taken at face value, and I am certain that it is,
then it becomes plain that our God is greater, by far, than any problem we
have, or will ever face. God will take care of you!3. His Provision - Phil. 4:19;- These verse teach us the great truth that God is interested in meeting our needs.
JEREMIAH REMEMBERED
From Lamentations 3:
NIV 24 I say to myself, “The LORD is
my portion; therefore I will wait for him.”
Msg 24 I'm sticking with God (I say it over and
over). He's all I've got left.
Jeremiah reminded himself
that Yahweh was his portion. Consequently he had hope. He is all I/we need. When the
Lord is viewed in this light, He will be all that a person needs to be
satisfied in their soul.
Judah: By calling the Lord his portion, the prophet was comparing Yahweh to an
allotment of land that provides the necessities of life .
JEREMIAH CAN SAY:
From Lamentations 3:
The LORD is good to those who depend
on him, to those who search for him. So it is good to wait quietly for
salvation from the LORD.NIV 25 The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him;
Those who wait for the Lord and
seek Him eventually experience His goodness.
CONCLUSION:
After
being rejected, hated, mocked, imprisoned, ignored; after
seeing his beloved Jerusalem ransacked, desecrated and destroyed; after
experiencing the horror of war, the brutality of the enemy and the pangs of
hunger, Jeremiah was still able to stand forth amid the rubble of the city and
the bodies of the dead and lift his voice in praise to God for His great,
unfailing faithfulness to His people.
How was
this possible? Jeremiah had gotten a good
grasp on the reality of just who God is!
Jeremiah
knew that whether things went well, or whether everything fell apart, God would
still be God and that God would be eternally faithful to His people.Like Jeremiah, we all go through
times when life seems to fall apart.
When these times come we also need the blessed
assurance that God is faithful!
Thankfully the Bible gives overwhelming evidence of the unchanging
faithfulness of our great God.
Researched materials from : Chuck Smith, Woodrow Kroll Alan
Carr & Constable
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