Remsen Bible Fellowship; 06/25/2023
Introduction
One of the most interesting descriptions of God, in my view, is the one given by the apostle Paul in Romans 15:13: “the God of hope.” Do you think of God - God the Father, God the Creator, God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ - as the God of hope?
Earlier in our series I gave the following definition of hope: “hope is a settled conviction of the future fulfillment of the promises of God.” And if God is the one who both gives the promises and assures of their fulfillment, then our confidence - our hope - is only as good as his character. Hope only makes sense if we serve a trustworthy God.
This is why we need this truth: God is faithful. This means that no matter what life looks like, and no matter how I feel at any given moment, I can trust that the Lord is at work bringing his perfect and sovereign will to pass; a will that is bent toward the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28).
There are times in this life when you feel abandoned by God. When you feel alone. When you sit, with Job, on the ash heap of despair, trying to decide if you are more miserable because of the pain that you’re experiencing or because of the worthless “friends” who can’t seem to comfort you. Those are hard times. Times when hope is not just wanted - but needed.
But there is another class of circumstance when hope is an even more desperate need. Those times when you know that the desperate or heartbreaking circumstance you are sitting in is your own fault. This is perhaps when we need hope most of all. How can sinners find hope?
Bleak Circumstances
We read of just such a bleak circumstance in our reading from Ezekiel 16. Though the people of Israel had been chosen by God and clothed in beauty, given gifts of a marriage covenant and a land, she did not see these as the gracious gifts they were. This kindness did not provoke the faithfulness and love which they should have. Instead Israel gave herself over to the nations around her, welcoming in their false gods and vile lifestyles.
We read a chapter like Ezekiel 16 and are taken aback. Can we say those words out loud, let alone in church? And yet God speaks, through the prophet, in devastatingly explicit language in order to make clear the depths of Israel’s depravity and sin. God uses the metaphor of a wife who pays other men to come in and ravage her; disregarding her husband, her marriage, her vows. She doesn’t even have the dignity of a prostitute. At least a w***e would have received payment for her body.
That language offends our ears because we don’t see sin and idolatry for what they are. When you sin against God, you are paying other lovers to take what belongs only to God. Your obedience, your worship, these belong to God. Marriage is meant to picture this exclusive relationship, as you give yourself only to your spouse in that intimacy of body and soul. And so the language of w****s and adulterous wives is exactly appropriate when it comes to God’s people choosing to turn away from him. When you sin, you are turning, like an adulterous wife, away from the covenant Redeemer who has purchased you with his body and blood. You are turning away from the one who gave everything for you. You are turning instead to lovers who are only looking to take.
Consequences
And this sort of rebellion brings about severe consequences if you or I persist in it. For the nation of Israel it meant being carried away into exile. Ezekiel 16:56-58 says,
Was not your sister Sodom a byword in your mouth in the day of your pride, before your wickedness was uncovered? Now you have become an object of reproach for the daughters of Syria and all those around her, and for the daughters of the Philistines, those all around who despise you. You bear the penalty of your lewdness and your abominations, declares the LORD.
God brought the consequences of her sin upon his people, though he had taken them to himself as a bride. He is a God slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love - who nonetheless is a righteous God who will by no means clear the guilty (Exodus 34:6-7).
And this is no less true in the New Testament. We looked at Hebrews 10:19-25 last week, where we read of our faithful God in whom we hope. But we must take actions to keep hoping in him, gathering together to worship him and encourage one another to remain faithful, as we await the day of Christ’s appearing. Because the consequences for turning away are severe. Hebrews 10:26-31,
26 For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. 28 Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. 29 How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” 31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Turning away from the Lord is a terrible choice, and he - in his faithfulness - will chastise those who turn from him. If you turn from Jesus and refuse to honor him as your Lord by walking in obedience to him, then you can be sure of facing eternal consequences in hell and then the lake of fire (Revelation 20:15). This is a sobering truth. But even if you are a child of God, trusting in Jesus as your Savior, genuinely born again - this does not mean that you are free of earthly consequences. Hebrews 12:3-8 makes clear that if you are God’s child, you will face his discipline for your sin:
Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. 4 In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5 And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?
“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
6 For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives.”
7 It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
We tend to think of discipline and love as somehow in tension with one another, but here the writer to the Hebrews makes clear that when God disciplines you he does so because he considers you his child. If he were to leave you blissfully in your sin or to coddle your sin it would be the same as treating you like an illegitimate child.
A Surprising Bright Spot
Which brings us to the text in the bulletin this morning, Lamentations 3:21-27. To set the scene, you need to understand that this book is called “Lamentations” because it is a long, sustained lament from the prophet Jeremiah over the ruins of Jerusalem. He had prophesied for many years in Jerusalem warning the people, the religious leaders, and a series of kings about the coming judgment of God. Had they repented and turned from their sins, God would have spared them. But they refused. They remained steadfast in their rebellion. And now Jeremiah watches as the city lies in ruin.
Lamentations 1:1 reads, “How lonely sits the people that was full of people” and verse 17 continues, “Zion stretches out her hands, but there is none to comfort her; the LORD has commanded against Jacob that his neighbors should be his foes; Jerusalem has become a filthy thing among them.” For five chapters we read Jeremiah’s sustained sorrow over the sin of his people, and God’s judgment upon that sin. Verse 11 of chapter two captures his feelings: “My eyes are spent with weeping; my stomach churns; my bile is poured out to the ground because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.”
Have you ever experienced that sort of gut-wrenching pain over your sin or the sin of those you love? You are not alone. And you need to hear the center of this book. Because while the sustained tone of Lamentations is, well, lament, sitting directly at the center is a ray of light. In the midst of all the darkness, in the midst of his people being carried into exile and the temple being destroyed, in the midst of God allowing his adulterous wife to be brutalized by those she sold herself to, there is hope. That hope is not to be found in the worthiness of Israel, or in the mercy of the Babylonians. It’s to be found in the character of God.
21 But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
22 The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
23 they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
24 “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.”
25 The LORD is good to those who wait for him,
to the soul who seeks him.
26 It is good that one should wait quietly
for the salvation of the LORD.
27 It is good for a man that he bear
the yoke in his youth.
As we think about this passage with the rest of our time, I simply want to point out two truths:
* Hope is rooted in the faithfulness of God
* God, in his faithfulness, afflicts those he loves
Faithful God
Jeremiah reminds himself that God is faithful. “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end.” What a remarkable thing to say as your city lies in ruins! “His mercies never come to an end.” Do you look at your life and see only sorrow? His mercies never come to an end. To believe that requires a deep internalization of what I said earlier: your sin deserves death. Romans 6:23, “the wages of sin is death” is literally true, and it is literally true of you. Your sin deserves death. Do you believe that? If you do, then when you wake up in the morning you can say “his mercies are new every morning.”
Do you have anyone in your life who loves you? The answer to that is certainly yes, and if you don’t think so it’s because you’ve become too self-focused to see it. Now think about that person who loves you - have you ever wronged them? Again, the answer is almost certainly yes. But they love you still. “His mercies are new every morning.”
Do you get to experience the sunshine, the rain, the breeze, the sight of green grass and growing corn, the glories of God on display in creation? Brothers and sisters, “his mercies are new every morning.”
Do you know Christ, who bore your sins in his body on the tree? Have you trusted him and received the free gift of God, namely, eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord? Then say with me now, “his mercies are new every morning.”
We can get upset with people who want to remind us of God’s faithfulness in the midst of pain. And to be sure, there is a time to simply sit and weep with those who weep. We don’t want to be guilty of singing songs to a heavy heart, pouring vinegar and soda on their wounds (Proverbs 25:20). But there is a difference between singing a silly song to those in sorrow and reminding them of the only truth that can sustain you through sorrow: namely, God is still on the throne, and he is bent on using his power for your good. When you are walking through deep water you need the life-rope of God’s kind and loving faithfulness. You need confidence that he can pull you through even the darkest and deepest hole. And that will only come if you:
* Commit to preach this truth to yourself; and
* Put yourself in a community of people who will preach this same truth to you, even when you don’t want to hear it. This is what we saw last week in Hebrews 10 - you and I must commit to gathering together to encourage one another with the truth of God’s word. First of all in worship, and beyond that in our daily life throughout the week.
This is what the first section of our church covenant, under the heading of “Word”, says:
“The word of God is the means through which the Spirit convicts of sin, calls to repentance, and delivers the Good News of Jesus to needy sinners.
We commit to giving and receiving Biblical teaching as the central act of our corporate worship (2 Timothy 4:2)
We commit to regularly read the Bible in our homes (Deuteronomy 6:4-9)
We commit to counsel one another from the Bible (2 Timothy 3:15-17)”
All of those commitments are based directly upon this conviction that we have to keep our noses - and our ears and our hearts - in the book if we are going to hold fast to God in the midst of trial. Jeremiah believed that having God was more important than having a peaceful and easy life. Verse 24, ‘“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”’
It’s only with this kind of hope, hope that sees knowing God as the greatest good, that we can truly benefit from his Fatherly discipline.
Whom He Loves, He Chastises
And we need a faith and a hope that can endure chastisement. Did you notice that rather strange sounding verse at the end of our text, verse 27? “It is good for the man that he should bear the yoke in his youth.” What in the world does that mean?
Taken in isolation you might apply it to work. Something like, it’s good to work hard when you’re young. Which is true enough, but it is not the truth of this text.
This yoke is the yoke of pain. You see that in verses 28-30.
28 Let him sit alone in silence
when it is laid on him;
29 let him put his mouth in the dust—
there may yet be hope;
30 let him give his cheek to the one who strikes,
and let him be filled with insults.
It is good to bear the yoke of God’s heavy hand upon you while you are still young enough to learn. Now there is certainly a sense in which any who have breath are young enough to learn from the Lord! If you are sitting here under his word this morning you can learn from him and embrace his rule over your life. But there is also a truth that the younger you begin to learn the blessing of God’s chastisement, and begin to put into practice the habits of changing your life in response to his correction, the better off you will be. Happy is the man who learns to submit to God’s authority in the days of his youth. This is why parents, especially fathers, are to instill discipline and a respect for authority in their children. Because learning that lesson at home will save many years of sorrow later on.
But this is an uncomfortable truth for many of us to swallow. We don’t like the idea that God may in fact be behind the pain we are facing in our lives. We couch it in terms like “allowed.” Some will go so far as to say God “has” to let certain things happen because of our “free will.” I won’t turn there, but if this is how you think , I would commend Genesis 20:6 for your meditation later today or this coming week. God does not have to let anyone do anything. Anything that comes into your life has been purposefully sent into your life by your heavenly Father. That may include some truly horrible things. But you must remember that his ways are far higher than yours, and if those horrific circumstances lead in any way to your pursuing him or discovering him or seeking him, then having the Lord as your eternal portion will outweigh any tragic affliction in this passing life.
Don’t misunderstand, not every bad thing that comes into your life is the result of a specific sin you have committed, Jesus rejects that kind of thinking in John chapter 9. But we nonetheless can experience each sorrow and trial and hardship as an opportunity to ask God how he wants us to grow, how he wants us to respond to him in greater obedience. It is a new opportunity to cling to his mercy, knowing that we could never deserve his forgiveness and grace.
Conclusion
We can have this kind of confidence and hope in the Lord in the midst of every troubling circumstance - even those of our own making. Even in that absolutely brutal chapter of Ezekiel 16, the Lord promises to remember his people, and to establish a new covenant, and everlasting covenant, in which he will himself atone for all that she has done. And we know that this is precisely what the Lord Jesus did in coming to earth. From heaven he came and sought his bride, laying down his life to atone for her sins, making himself the sacrifice. But in his resurrection he now sends the Spirit, giving his Bride a new heart. Which means, unlike unfaithful Israel, we in the church age truly have the ability, as we are chastised, to repent and grow. To walk, not in sustained disobedience, but to constantly receive his compassionate and steadfast love. Sinners find hope, not in ourselves, and not in our circumstances: we find hope at the cross.
The Lord does not afflict us in order to discourage us or break us down forever - rather, he is cutting away the cancer of sin, he is burning away the dross of the old man, the old man who has been crucified with Christ. Lamentations 3 continues (v31-33):
For the Lord will not
cast off forever,
32 but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion
according to the abundance of his steadfast love;
33 for he does not afflict from his heart
or grieve the children of men.
Brothers and sisters, we have hope in the God of Hope, because even in our darkest moments we can trust that he is at work. He does not afflict from his heart, but disciplines us for our good. “13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope” (Romans 15:13).
