And Therefore I Have Hope

And Therefore I Have Hope

Text: Lamentations 1:1-9, 3:21-24

OPEN WITH PRAYER AND THANKSGIVING

If you will please take your Bibles and open them up to the Old Testament book of Lamentations. You guys know Lamentations right? I’m sure it’s in everyone’s top five list of Old Testament Books… Well that’s where we’re going today. Lamentations chapter 1:1-9… and while you’re turning there, let me just give you a little background information about this book. Most Bible scholars and theologians tell us that this Book was written by Jeremiah, even though he never claims authorship. And the historical context of the book is right around 586 B.C. – right after the Babylonians have conquered the armies of Israel. They’ve swept into the city of Jerusalem, they’ve stole the artifacts from the temple and burnt it to the ground. They’ve taken the best and brightest of Israel’s young men and women back to Babylon in order to indoctrinate them, and in order to keep control over their families that would remain in the land. And even the city of Jerusalem itself has been laid to waste. In-fact; if you want to look at Lamentations 1:1-2 before we read the whole text you can see that… It says: “How lonely sits the city that was full of people! How like a widow has she become, she who was great among the nations! She was a princess among the provinces has become a slave. She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has none to comfort her; all her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they have become her enemies.” So things are really bad for Israel and for Jerusalem. If the author of this book is Jeremiah, and I tend to believe it is… it’s really bad because he’s been warning the people of Jerusalem for the last 40 years that judgment was coming.

And it’s crazy when you think about it. Everyone acknowledged that Jeremiah was a prophet of the Lord. But that didn’t matter to them. Self-Deception is the worst kind. When someone else deceives you that’s bad, but at least it was the work of someone else, actively working to trick you. But self-deception is the result of a person refusing to see the truth for themselves. Whether it’s because they don’t like the truth they see, they don’t want to see it… maybe it just seems to inconceivable to them. But for whatever reason, their deception isn’t the work of someone else. It’s their own fault. Ultimately; they chose to believe the lie.

So let’s go ahead and read our text this morning, and let’s see what the Lord would say to us.

(READ Lamentations 1:1-9).

Now a couple of things we need to point out real quickly – 1. This destruction that has come upon Jerusalem is a result of her having turned away from God. This is the result of persistent, on-going, disobedience and sin. We see that in verse 8. And Secondly; This destruction that has come upon them is also God’s judgment – we didn’t read it, but it’s down in verse 17 – “The Lord has commanded against Jacob that his neighbors should be his foes…”. Now Church, please understand, sometimes we suffer because we live in a fallen and sinful world. It may not have anything to do with you personally, or have anything to do with your own personal sin… There’s just sin in the world, and because of that, in this world we are going to have trouble. But then sometimes… “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.”

So it may be personal individual sin, or it may be that there’s sin in the world, and we live in this fallen, messed up place. But one thing that Bible makes very clear is that there isn’t a single one of us, who doesn’t deserve it. You hear people ask that question all the time – “Why do bad things happen to good people?” And the Bible’s answer is – THERE ARE NO GOOD PEOPLE. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. There are none righteous, no not one. I like the way R.C. Sproul said it… “Why do bad things happen to good people? That only happened once, and He volunteered for it.” Of course he was speaking of Jesus – who was the only one who ever lived without sin.

And so we look at our world. We see sin in it. We see it sin. We are at a point in time where most of us have been so corrupted by the culture around us, and so desensitized to sin and wickedness, we hear about it, and see it around us, and maybe – just maybe – we feel a little bit of revulsion or disgust, but we’re so tamed by the culture, we keep our thoughts to ourselves and keep our heads down.