I am the man who has seen affliction.
By the rod of the, of the Lord's Wrath.
He has driven me away and made me walk in darkness, rather than
light, indeed. He has turned his hand against
me again, and again, all day long.
He has made my skin and my flesh grow old in this broken, my
bones. He has besieged me and
surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.
He is made me dwell in darkness like those long dead.
He's warmed me in so I cannot Escape.
He has weighed me down with chains. even when I call out Cry
for Help, he shuts out my prayer, his Bard, my way with
blocks of stone and has made my past crooked Like a bear lying
in. Wait, like a like a lion in
hiding. He dragged me from the path and
mangled me and left me without help.
He drew his bow and made me the target for his arrows.
Who's my heart with arrows from his quiver?
I became a laughingstock of all my people, they mock me in song
all day long. He's filled me with bitter herbs
and giving me gold to drink. He's broken my teeth with gravel
and has trampled me in the dust. I have been deprived of Peace.
I've forgotten what Prosperity is so I say, My Splendor is gone
or I'd hoped for from the Lord. I remember my Affliction and my
wandering, the bitterness and the goal.
I will remember them. My soul is downcast within me.
This, I call to mind and therefore I have hope.
Because of the Lord's. Great love.
We are not consumed for his compassion's never fail.
They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself. The Lord is my portion.
Therefore, I will wait for him. The Lord is good to those whose
hope is in him. So the one who seeks him, it is
good to wait, quietly. For the Salvation of the Lord.
It is good for a man to Bear the Yoke while he is Young.
Let him sit alone in silence for the lord has laid it on him.
Let him bury his face in the dust and may yet be hope.
Let him offer his cheek to one who would strike him and let him
be filled with disgrace. For no one is cast off by the
Lord forever, though. He brings grief, he will show
compassion. So great is his unfailing love.
He does not willingly bring Affliction or grief to anyone to
crush Under Foot all the prisoners.
In the land, didn't either people their rights before the
most high to deprive them of justice but not the Lord's, see
such things. Who can speak and have it
happen. If the Lord is not degraded, it
is not from the mouth of the most.
Is it not from the mouth of the most high, the both calamities
and good things come? Why should the living complain
when punished for their sins? Let us examine our ways and test
them and let us return to the Lord.
They us lift up our hearts and our hands to God in heaven and
say we have sinned and rebelled and you have not forgiven.
You have covered yourself with anger and pursuit us.
You have slain, Without Pity. You have covered yourself with a
cloud student. No prayer can get through.
You have made us come and refuse among the nation's, all the
enemies have opened their mouths wide against his you've
suffered. We have suffered Terror and
pitfalls ruin, and destruction streams of Tears flow from my
eyes because of my people are destroyed, my eyes will flow and
see something without relief until the Lord looks down from
heaven and sees. What I see brings grief to my
soul because of all the women of my city.
Those who are my enemies without cause Hunted Me Like a Bird.
They try to end my life in a pit and first unto me the waters
close over my head. I thought I was about to perish.
I called, on your name, not from the depths of the pit.
You heard my play, close your eyes, your ears to My Cry for
Relief. You came near when I called you,
and you said do not fear. Helo took up my case.
You redeem my life? What do you have seen the wrong
done to me? Uphold.
My course, you seen the depth of the Vengeance, their plots
against me. Lord.
You seen the insult all their plots against me.
What my enemies Whispering muttering against me all day
long. Look at them sitting or standing
they mock me in their songs, hate them back for what they
deserve. Lord for, what their hands have
done. Put a veil over their hearts and
may your curse be on them. Pursue them in anger and Destroy
them from under the heavens of the Lord.
And this is the word of God. We have reached the Midway point
of this book of Lamentations, it's not a book for the
faint-hearted. And this is the third chapter of
five. And as Peter already said, we
actually come to the most famous and most quoted section of the
book here. Then we hear these words.
We don't often think they come from the book of Lamentations
Lamentations 3:22-23 for Say this because of the Lord's.
Great love. We are not consumed for his
compassion's. Never feel.
They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, the Lord is my portion.
Therefore, I will wait for him. These are quite famous words.
Actually and Christians have written hymns.
About these words including the one we started with today.
Grit Is Thy Faithfulness, inspirational posters.
And art pieces of art have been produced with these verses on
them. And we imagine the setting for
these verses. We just look at them as they are
on the screen. There to be a time of real peace
and serenity. Maybe a beautiful summer's day
someone sitting by a stream under the shade of a tree.
A moment when everything is right with the world.
Everything is as it should be. That is when we imagine someone
would say words like this under cousin that we can assume he's
read that in in hard times. In dividend, we go well that all
sounds a bit trite. It's signs a bit simplistic, but
whoever wrote these words doesn't know much about the
harsh realities of life. And then we read these verses in
their original context. And the setting for these
statements couldn't be much more different than what we imagined
them to be. These are words spoken out of
the rubble of a devastated City, the rubble of a city destroyed
by War, whose inhabitants have been driven into Exile after
witnessing horrific scenes of suffering.
And as against the setting of the destruction of the city of
Jerusalem that the writer of lamentation says these things
about God. I just begs the question for us.
Hi. Can someone who lived through
the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BC ever dare to write these
words. How can someone who experienced
such brutality at the hands of the Babylonian Empire?
Say these things about God because of the Lord's.
Great love. We are not consumed.
His compassion's never feel. There are new every morning.
Great is your faithfulness. We might think yourselves.
Surely those words sound about Halo, don't they?
To this writer of Lamentations. But meaningless after all, we've
seen in the book so far about the suffering and sin of
Jerusalem at this point in its history.
The question is, what are these words are fear and hope and
prayer is doing in the middle of a book.
That is so dark and mournful as Lamentations.
Well, to begin to explore those questions to go.
Me to remind ourselves where we've got to in Lamentations so
far. What have we seen in this book
so far, I'd say we've seen a number of things the last few
weeks, but first of all, we've seen that Lamentations.
It's a memorial to the darkest moment.
In ancient Israel's history, a memorial to the destruction of
Jerusalem in that year 587 BC. So we read in the Bible that
after a Siege lasting three years, Jerusalem, also known as
Zion or the city of God was Conquered by the Babylonians,
the Temple of the Lord was destroyed.
That was the place where people met with God.
And most of the survivors were rounded up and carried off into
Exile, in Babylonia, the very poorest were left behind to work
the land. Is it a memorial so that God's
people do not forget this moment?
It's also a cry of pain. The Cry of pain from God's
suffering, sinful people. To bookmark by PN and grief,
shock and sorrow, anger, and questions.
As the writer records Frosty's cries of pain.
We've also seen that Lamentations, it's a picture of
God's devastating judgment on evil and sin.
And we've seen throughout this haven't we that this is not a
book about the suffering of the righteous or the innocent.
The Bible does speak about that for that we go to books like the
Book of Job in the Old Testament or the Psalms or the gospel
accounts of Jesus life and death.
No, this is a book about the suffering of the guilty.
And it's recorded for us by a loving God, for our Goods to act
as a warning sign for all of us that God's coming judgment is
real and we need to be ready for it.
Lamentations is a book of sorrowful, poetry full of pain,
full of anger, but we're going to see particularly in this
middle section full of Hope in the face of all that has
happened. So, what does this chapter
chapter 3? Add to the message of this book,
get you some things about structure.
Again, this is an acrostic poem which bases like a to zed and
Hebrew 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet.
So one section for each of the letters actually Lamentations
three slightly different it looks longer and our Bibles is
actually the same length in Hebrew, but there's like three
lines in each one that begin with the same letter.
So, it's a a,b BB CC. It's a really intense acrostic
structure here. It's like he's done these first
two. Chapters that he really goes to
time in chapter 3 on this structure.
And I'm going to say it's the Centerpoint of Lamentations that
also means it's like the heart or the summit of the book.
So, when Hebrew poetry, the middle point is often the bit
that is really Central. Doesn't build to the finale.
It kind of builds to the middle point, and it's in this chapter,
we hear the most words of Hope in the book.
I mean to be clear, this isn't the end of the book, we're not
out of the woods yet. We still got chapters 4 and 5 to
come still more descriptions of pain and suffering and
questions. And even as more credit to us,
we noticed that from that middle section.
Still comes with real raw suffering NS.
But there is something new going on.
In this chapter that affects the way.
We read the whole of the book. There's more I want to say that
Lamentations 3. It shows us that lament in the
Bible is not simply God's people expressing their Pian as
necessary as that is. Lament is also a way for God's
people to come back to God. As we recall who God is even in
the darkest of times, that is what the writer is doing in
chapter 3. In a sense, he's reconnecting
with God. He speaking to God out of
experience of suffering and sin, and, and by doing that, it's an
Act of Faith. He is daring to hope that God is
still good. That God is still near that.
God is not finished with his people yet, and he's not
finished with our world yet. Lamentations is about facing up
to the harsh realities that we live in a suffering World broken
by sin and we ourselves are a huge part of the problem, we
ourselves are sinners as well as sufferers but even as we face up
to that lament lift our eyes to the God, he is our only hope in
the face of suffering and in the face of sin, So let's look at
this. Middle section of limitations
together night. And the guide our way through, I
want to see asking a question throughout really, which is who
do we think is the speaker of this poem?
Who is able to speak these words to God's suffering sinful
people. And why should God's people
listen to? Why is this someone God's people
need to? Listen to his Lamentations
research, begins with a slight change in the speaker, but the
end of chapter 2. We've been listening to
daughter, Zion this to personification of Jerusalem as
a woman. She's she's been crying out but
not as she falls silent. She's almost worn out in her
despair. At the end of chapter 2, she
doesn't speak again in the rest of the book.
So suddenly God's suffering, sinful people, they need a new
spokesperson. The question is, who is
qualified and able to speak into the pin on Grief of this
suffering and sinful people who can speak for them as their
representative and who can speak to them as someone with words of
Hope. And the answer comes in verse 1.
But this speaker who describes himself, introduces himself, I
am the man who has seen Affliction by the rod of the
Lord's Wrath. Now, he's not named anywhere in
the book, so we don't know exactly who this man is.
He could be the Prophet Jeremiah who traditionally Associated as
as the author of this book or someone else who was there?
When Jerusalem fell, he could be like a job like figure crying I
in his suffering but actually think it's significant that he
isn't named because then forced to do some work that we listen
to him. Who is this man?
And is he worth listening to? And the first thing we learn
about this speaker, if he's a man who has suffered, As God's
people have suffered its first as 1218.
His suffered as God's people have suffered, let me read
verses 1 to 3 for us. I'm the man who's seen
Affliction by the rod of the Lord's wrath.
He has driven me away and made me walk in darkness, rather than
light. Indeed.
He has turned his hand against me again, and again, all day
long. Speaker, he is a fellow sufferer
with God's people, he's someone who's also experience the wrath
of God against sin. He's been struck by the rod of
the Lord's wrath. First one, That word for Rod is
the Hebrew word said that and it's the same word actually used
in that famous. Sam, Sam 23.
If you know the Lord is my shepherd and back in Psalm 23
The the fact that the Lord has a rod is really good news, David's
rights and that some even though I walk through the darkest
Valley, Your Rod and your staff they comfort me.
Davis, says actually cuz you've got a rod.
Lord, You're Going to protect me from my enemies.
And Lamentations. God uses his Rod to strike this
man. This is like an Auntie Psalm 23.
It's like he's a Shepherd punishing.
His sheep. You look forward to verse 10 to
12 instead of protecting them from bears and lions.
The Lord is like a bear or a lion attacking them instead of
using his bow to protect his sheep.
He's making them a target for his arrows.
It's really uncomfortable. Disturbing picture here.
And he goes on. Look at the references to
Darkness and these opening verses verse 2, he's driven
driven me away. Made me walk in darkness, rather
than light verse 6. He has made me dwell in darkness
like those long-dead darkness in the Bible.
It's a sign of God's anger against sin.
For example, see the plague of Darkness on the land of Egypt
and the Book of Exodus, it's a sign of being cut off and
separated from the God, who is light.
And then to add to the speaker talks about being under siege
from God, verse 5, he has besieged me and surrounded me
with bitterness and hardship, 47, he's walled me in so that I
cannot Escape verse 9. He's barred my way with blocks
of stone Basics, because if there is no escape from this,
God no escape from this punishment.
Verses 1318 make it clear, demand?
Speaking in this chapter, he has suffered like, the people of
Jerusalem. He's experience.
The wrath of God against his people's sin.
He is a fellow. Sufferer like them.
He's not speaking about suffering with.
That's an interesting idea. No, he doesn't stand aloof from
it. He says I have experienced this
I am a sufferer like you you can listen to me.
That's how the man introduces himself to us.
But the second thing we learned about this man, is the thing
that makes this chapter so different.
It's the ones that have gone before because the middle
section of this poem, we learned that this is a man who clings to
the God, who keeps his promises, he clings to the Lord, the god
of the Covenant. So versus one day at Team,
descends into deeper and deeper Darkness, as they go on to reach
their low point in verse 18. So I say my Splendor is gone.
He says and all that I had hoped for from the Lord.
But it's at this point where God seems most far-off and opposed
to the man that God suddenly becomes the main topic of the
poem. In the original Hebrew.
This is the first time, the name of the Lord is mentioned.
In chapter 3. The Lord that is Yahweh, the god
of the Covenant. With Abraham with Moses with
David, the god of relationship with his people, the God, who
saves his people from their sin, And it's almost at the mention
of his name, the Lord in verse 18.
Actually, the speaker begins to make his way back to him.
It's a turning point in the chapter, we shift from
descriptions of his suffering. To remind himself of the truth
of who the Lord really is. He starts clinging so the God
who keeps his promises. Now if you were here last week,
Dan, let us three chapter 2 and you'll remember actually hide
that idea. That God is the god, he keeps
his promises that actually haunted the people of Jerusalem.
Because with the destruction of Jerusalem, that's what God was
doing. He was keeping his promises.
He had worn them again and again, over centuries that if
they didn't put him first, didn't trust in him one day, he
would punish them for their sin and they didn't listen and
eventually he has done it. Your 587 BC God, kept his
promise. It's a haunting Truth for the
man. But in chapter 3, we get the
flip side of that truth. The good news of who, the Lord
is the god, who punishes evil and sin is the same God who
promises his people back. In Jitter on me. 31, never, will
I leave, you never will I forsake, you And so the speaker
here begins to take hold of truths about God which he knows
our true in spite of all the suffering and the Judgment he
sees around him. Verse 21.
Look at that for a second. He was yet this, I call to mind
and therefore I have hope. Now, the original Hebrew is
stronger than English. The monster it says this, I
caused to return to my heart. It's like he grabs hold of these
truths about God in the midst of his suffering.
He's grabbing them desperately The New Living Translation
transistor like this. He says, yet I still dare to
hope when I remember this. And that's what the man is
doing. He is daring to Hope in the love
and goodness of God. Even at this dark moment in
Israel's history. And at that point we come to the
famous verses we began with today and we learned these
truths aren't trite or shallow or blind to the harsh realities
of Life know, their tricks that God's people can cling to even
in the rubble. Even in the rubble of everything
having gone. Verse 22.
Because of the Lord's. Great love.
We are not consumed for his compassion's never fail.
They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.
Well, difference to these truths, make to God's suffering,
sinful people. Well, if the Lord really is the
Lord, if he is Yahweh, the god of relationship that God.
He Delights to save his people then maybe just maybe God of
Greece. Isn't finished with them yet.
May be in the midst of the Judgment that this man has a
actually. Maybe there's more to come.
Maybe this isn't the end of the story.
Look at verse 22 because of the Lord's.
Great love. We are not consumed.
He said, in spite of the Judgment that we've experienced
actually were still here. We haven't been consumed by
God's judgment in Jerusalem isn't final.
Maybe he still has purposes for us.
Maybe there is a way back to him.
As the called, as man is making in the middle of this chapter.
I'm just in passing history, proved the speaker right here.
Even though we see that the destruction of Jerusalem is a
picture of God's final judgment. It wasn't God's final judgment.
70 years later, a large number of the Exile has returned.
Jerusalem was rebuilt, the temple was rebuilt.
God's people return to the land, ready for the coming of Jesus a
few centuries later. Actually, the man is reminding
himself of God's character in the midst of the rubble and more
than that. He starts speaking to God.
You, look at that in verse 23. He says your compassion's.
Your mercies are new every morning and then suddenly he
addresses God directly for the first time.
Great is your faithfulness. He says, He's not just talking
about God, he starts talking to God.
And that's a necessary step for God's people to make as we
lament over our suffering, and our sin.
It's not enough to talk about God.
All your God is like this. He's like that.
It's not like to think truths about God, we need to talk to
him. That's what the man does, he
agree? It is, you're fearful as he
turns it into a prayer. Remember chance your friend a
few years ago. But another friend who'd given
up being a Christian, he'd given up following Jesus, and never
forget how my friend described him, he was a really bright guy,
this guy. And he said, I just think in the
end, he loved ideas about God more than he loved God.
He was very happy talking about God.
He was never lie talking to him, he's never really loving him.
The man who writes Lamentations to recess.
Come on, grit is your favorite. We're going to talk to this God
of compassion and mercy. We're going to say thank you.
We're going to say sorry. We're going to say please to
him. And it's not enough to talk
about God and a third person are we are we willing to Humble
ourselves and cry out to him? Great is your faithfulness,
you're our only hope cling to you.
Verse 24. I say to myself, the Lord is my
portion. Therefore I will wit for him.
With me to wait on the Lord. He's to place your hope in him
and him alone. Again a man could have said that
the Lord is my portion. Therefore let's get rebuilding.
Let's let's Shore up our defenses.
The problems might be back, but sitting in the rubble of
Jerusalem he says actually I'm powerless to fix this.
I'm powerless to see if myself or God's people and so he puts
his hope in the Lord, he asked God to be at work, he admits
openly, he cannot save himself, and therefore, he puts his hope
in the Lord And that's a big part of lament in the Bible.
It's acknowledging. We need God, we can't do
ourselves. We've got beyond the point where
able to fix things ourselves. So we cry out to God, help us
Lord, we wit for him. And the hope this man has is
remarkable because you think about verses 1318.
You think about chapters 1 and 2.
How can the Speaker of confidence that God's purposes
for as people are good when God actually has punished his
people? So severely Bronze that we come
to the middle section of the Pullman middle section of the
whole book, verses 31 to 33, an amazing statement of faith about
God. He says for no one is cast off
by the Lord forever, though. He brings grief, he will show
compassion. So great is his unfailing love
for doesn't willingly bring Affliction or grief to anyone.
An astonishing for a book that deals so much with God's
judgment against human evil and sin Lamentations.
Also adamant that God gets no pleasure from judging evil and
sin punishing human beings is something God does reluctantly.
And after numerous warnings judgment is not the way God
wants to relate to humanity. And that the speaker, he clings
on to the character of God, to his unfailing commitment, to
keep his promises and to love his people, He cries out to all
of us got he is a god of unfailing love.
He is always good and all the suffering we experience in this
world has limits and there is a purpose behind it.
Not. Now remember the speaker doesn't
claim to know exactly what that purpose is at this point.
But he does choose to wait for the Lord and to trust him in the
midst of the rubble. He does that.
He then wants to lead the people in Repentance and Faith, finally
versus 4266. again, we've seen as she wanted, most challenging
B of this book is, It describes the suffering of the guilty, not
the suffering of the innocent of God's people, rightly being
punished for their sin, the destruction of Jerusalem in 587
BC. It was it was not unjust.
Actually at the heart of this as well, this book has so much to
tell us about repentance and Faith, but what it means to
acknowledge our sin, to turn away from, and to turn to God
for his forgiveness. And his restoration, this is a
book all about, or the New Testament calls Godly sorrow.
That's a term. We get in 2 Corinthians, 7.
He had to 10. This is the Apostle Paul writing
to the Christians. In Corinth, he's writing about a
letter, he wrote to him that really convicted them of their
sin, that showed them what was wrong in their lives.
He says, even if I cause you Sorrow by a letter, I do not
regret it. Because your sorrow LED you to
repentance you became sorrowful as God intended.
And so we're not harmed in any way by us, Godly sorrow, brings
repentance, that leads to Salvation and leaves, no regret.
Worldly sorrow brings death. And we might read Lamentations
and I just think it's just so grin.
It's just so dark and mournful. It's just what point, what
purpose is there here. But the purpose for the speaker
here is Let Us return to the Lord.
Verse 40. Let us examine our ways and test
them, and let us return to the Lord.
Let us lift up our hearts and our hands to God and Heaven and
say we have sinned on rebelled. Actually what the writer is
trying to show us, his repentance is a gift from God.
I said a little while ago maybe that I've always struggled.
Repentance always feel so grim and so depressing.
Why would I want to think about my sin?
I just want to move on and forget about it.
But I see repentance is all about telling the truth about
ourselves. Not hiding anymore.
It's about taking the wit, off our shoulders on, just dropping
it at the foot of the cross. It's about letting go of that
hot cool of our guilt, just dropping it saying, Lord, please
take it. Please forgive me.
Please wash me clean. That's what the writer here is
urging God's people to do and it was his corporate repent.
This is we us I can so easily repentance very much, an
individual thing, the leases kind of introspection and
despair odds messed up again and we just turn more and more into
our cells. But actual repentance is some,
we can do together as Christians in a little minute.
We're gonna be taking the Lord's Supper Bread and Wine part of
what we do with that. Is we examine ourselves.
We say, sorry for our sin. We say thank you to Jesus for
his death and Resurrection are place.
It's a corporate thing. Depends is just something so
guilty, you do on your own, we do it together as God's people.
so, back to this chapters, we finish again, I think we heard
when Mark read it. I'd love to say that after this
middle section, the book. Everything looks up. but we saw
actually the paean of the Exile is still raw and the speaker and
the people he speaks to you are still hurting Verse 40 years, he
says streams of Tears flow from my eyes because my people are
destroyed. There's no a new to Victory or
peaceful restoration for God's people here.
They're still hurting on the speaker weeps with them. there's
a longing for God, to judge his enemies, rid the world of sin
and suffering once and for all I didn't that Lamentations 3 is
looking Beyond itself. It's looking Beyond itself for
hope. Because I hope isn't here and I
it's in the future. Lamentations 3 alongside the
rest of the book. For to find answers to its
questions. It needs more.
Because there's a tension at a wrestle at the heart of this
book. And it's between two truths
about God. He's a God of Justice, who must
punish human sin and Evil? And he's a god of unfeeling love
who promises to save a people for himself and hugging that
tension ever be revealed. Lamentations doesn't give us an
answer. For that.
We need, Jesus. We need to be prepared for Jesus
to enter the scene for Jesus to speak to us.
We began our time asking, who is the man speaking in Lamentations
3. Learned a lot about and he's a
man who suffered like them. Like God's people, a man who
clings to the God, he keeps his promises.
A man who leads the people in Repentance and faith.
I want to suggest is more. This is one of those bits in the
Old Testament. That is pointing us.
So powerfully to Jesus. The man who suffered like us
money, clings to the God, who keeps his promises in the midst
of his suffering and the money leads us in Repentance and
faith. In the Risen Jesus, speaking to
his disciples at the end of Luke's gospel, we hear, I'm
beginning with Moses and all the prophets.
Jesus explained to them what was said and all the scriptures
concerning himself. The every part of the Bible,
whether old or New Testament is written to lead us ultimately to
Jesus as the lit. Tim Keller used to say the
Bible's not about you, it's about Jesus and I want to
suggest we finish this morning that Jesus is the true and
better speaker of Lamentations 3, the one who alone can speak
words of Hope to suffering sinful people like those in
Jerusalem. Unlike us today Can we read that
this chapter again, with with Jesus as your focus and it just
resonates so much? Jesus has suffered like us just
think of how the Bible describes him.
A Man of Sorrows familiar with suffering, the book of Hebrews
because he himself suffered when he was tempted, what he's able
to help those who are being tempted.
Think if I jesus connect with the detail of Lamentations 3,
like the speaker, he took the full force of the rod of the
Lord's wrath for us and for our sin.
He dwelt in darkness went on the cross.
It was three hours of darkness in the hottest time of the day.
Like the speaker, here, streams of Tears flowed from Jesus eyes.
As he wept for his people. As he wept over the city of
Jerusalem. As he wept at the tomb of
Lazarus as he weeps. As he sees the damage that sin
and death has done, One to his world.
He is a man who suffered like us and therefore is able to speak
into our experiences of suffering.
He's a man who took that the full penalty for sin on himself.
Therefore, we can bring our sin to him and know that he is the
part of forgive us. Jesus, clung.
So the God who keeps his promises.
He trusted his father in the darkest of times, if ceremony,
not my will, but yours be done. Lord, on the cross.
My God. My God, why have you forsaken
me? And then father into your hands.
I commit my spirit. Jesus clung to the father in
suffering and he urges us to do the same.
And now risen from the dead Ascend into heaven, as our great
high priest, he leads us in Repentance and Faith.
He prays for us, he intercedes for us, he meets with us in our
weakness and he forgives us our sin.
When we take the Lord's supper and a few moments, we're
remembering Jesus victory over our sin.
That he's taken the full force of our punishment on himself.
I remember Jesus presence with us in a suffering world, as we
wait for him to return. none of us walked through this
suffering, sinful world alone, because of Jesus So, how do we
apply lamentation 3, what do we make of?
It was our takeaway from it. I'm very simply it's this, that
Jesus is the one who can speak into our suffering, our sin.
So let's listen to him. Listen to his words in
scripture, and then let's go to him from mercy and Grace, to
help us in our suffering, and our sin.
He knows what it's like to suffer to grieve in this world,
so go to him. We do have to hide our sin from
him because he's paid the price for it.
He's been struck by the rod of God's Wrath.
That's we remember when we took Bread and Wine.
Why did Jesus die? She was taking the punishment we
deserve on himself. So we don't have to