Through the Bible (Lamentations 1-2)

science tells us that tears resulting from sadness anger fear or joy may be uh in fact whether science wants to admit this or not but god's way of removing chemicals built up by stress from your body dr william frye ii of psychiatry research laboratories at the saint paul ramsey medical center st paul minnesota believes that this is the case studies that he's done uh indicate that women cry five times as often as men and that 85 percent of the women and 73 percent of the men thought that crying made them feel better most common reason for crying is sadness followed in rank by happiness anger sympathy anxiety and fear tears isn't it interesting that jesus shed tears that god became a man and god cried that's really something now i i'm not typically really a crier i've not done a lot of crying as an adult male 1 and i just got to admit it i've never been really comfortable when men cry around me um i i i have to admit there's preachers out there that are really talented ministers and preachers i just can't watch them when they cry and i love it i mean i think wow that's great and you know i i'm not criticizing crying men because guess what jesus was a crying man i sometimes wish that i had it in me to uh maybe appreciate that more than i actually do or or maybe even you know have something in me i wonder lord is there something wrong with me because man it takes uh quite a bit to get me to tear up a little bit and and yet you know jesus was weeping over jerusalem but jeremiah he was called the weeping prophet and before we go well what a wimp jeremiah well you gotta remember the days he lived they were pretty horrific there was much to cry about but not only that jesus and jeremiah really are comparable in so many ways not that you know jesus is any you know he's by far greater than any man that ever lived but in the old testament there are examples and illustrations of jesus you know joseph is a type or picture of jesus uh and you can care we talked about that a month or so ago of the picture of joseph and how he god sent him to you know the father sent him to seek and save his brothers and his brothers despise and rejected him and beat him and like like we talked about how joseph is his picture but jeremiah the prophet remember in matthew when jesus asked who do men say that i am and one of the people they thought jesus was was jeremiah the prophet um what was jeremiah's most noteworthy personal characteristic or trait was he sitting sitting around weeping in fact in it just like jesus remember because when jesus wept over jerusalem he said oh jerusalem of jerusalem if you'd only noted this thy day what day that was that day that jerusalem saw him riding into jerusalem on a cult of a donkey he wept over jerusalem and of course jesus wept when lazarus was in the tomb and there's there's examples but isn't it interesting where jesus was riding on the mount of olives down the hill on a cult of a donkey when he was weeping over jerusalem and most scholarship agrees that lamentations is jeremiah weeping over jerusalem on that same mountain only six centuries earlier jeremiah sitting on the mount of olives looking over now you remember that view is that classic view of jerusalem you know where you see the dome of the rock mosque or shrine i should really call it and the al-aqsa mosque and where the temple mount used to be um the mount is still there but the temple is no longer there of course and it's overrun by gentiles just like the bible said it would be but jeremiah had a view during this time remember we on sunday we kind of started an intro to jeremiah's book on lamentations here and we learned that jeremiah was writing this at that key time when gedelia was killed by the ammonites babylon had already you know conquered jerusalem after their third wave so this is after 586 bc and there's jeremiah and a tiny group of jews that are left and gedelia is dead uh you know and they've just got a tiny remnant and they're all saying what are we going to do now the babylonians are going to kill us the leftovers of us and they did not listen to jeremiah and they decided to go down to egypt but before they went to egypt jeremiah was able to write down with probably the help of baruch the scribe the book of lamentations and it's really quite a dirt really in fact if you read the septuagint which is the greek translation of the hebrew bible the old testament they don't call it lamentations they call it well the the word in the greek is the word that's used for dirge durge yeah this is the dirge of jeremiah you say well man that's it's kind of a depressing poem in fact the book of lamentations is a book of poems five poems and there's some interesting things about this each chapter you'll notice that most of the chapters out of the five have 22 verses in them chapters 1 and chapter 2 has 22 chapter 3 has 66 chapter 4 has 22 and chapter 5 has 22. you say well what's the big deal about that well remember the verses and chapters came in later uh centuries after the bible was put together do you know that right but why is that matter then well because the the chapter and verse people centuries later saw that the book of lamentations had natural divisions in it already they didn't need to divide it up and it was already marked and ordered unlike much of the bible do you remember in the psalms we came across what we call the acrostics or the acrostic psalms what are the acrostic psalms well they're psalms that were marked with letters of the alphabet where does the word alphabet come from it comes from the hebrew alphabet that's the first two letters of the hebrew alphabet is aleph and bet so that's where that word aleph bet or al alphabet came from now that's a hebrew thing now what's interesting is the hebrew alphabet has guess how many letters in it anybody want to take a stab 22. yeah we just kind of gave you a sneak preview here so so this acrostic means that each verse starts with a consecutive letter of the aleph bet the alphabet okay and well you say but bro what about chapter three it's totally messed up not really chapter three has 66 anybody want to take a guess at what jeremiah does with that one does he go through the alphabet three times no he goes through the alphabet of every three three letters of time a a b b b c c c d d ddd uh why what's he doing is he just messing with our minds that jeremiah no there's the funny thing is we're not exactly sure while the why the bible authors did this now again this is something we totally miss in the english translation of the hebrew bible we we miss the acrostic all together because our al alphabet is totally different and we have different numbers of letters and uh so we miss it all together why did you know the psalms do that by the way psalm you know 119 is one of those psalms that does that kind of interestingly uh psalm 119 the longest chapter in the bible is divided up into the sections of the hebrew alphabet you know it starts with the little first eight verses of aleph and then it goes to the next eight verses of beth and gimmel and dalit and hey and vav and it just keeps going through all the way to the 22 you know letters of the hebrew alphabet but also some of the psalms are acrostic in the same way that lamentations is a b c d if you would in the english and it just kind of helps organize now it's not just for organization most scholars believe the reason that jeremiah did this with lamentations this is an interesting one is for memorization purposes they would teach their people the jews would memorize the books of the hebrew bible that was one of their main goals they would sit around and memorize that's something that our culture has largely lost and we don't think we can memorize stuff anymore i do wonder if we've lost that capability if you've been around athy creek for a long time i fought that battle for years when it came to our worship uh because in the early days of eighth grade like i do all the old songs here on wednesday night when i'm doing the old songs and they're a little more simple than some of the newer songs nowadays but in the old days people were saying brett put the wall the words up on the wall and i would say no and it wasn't it wasn't that i'm opposed to words on the wall uh never really was and if people think that they're wrong um but i was trying something to really urge the congregation to memorize uh because many of the songs were right out of scripture tonight we did two of them that are word for word right out of the bible wait two yeah two of them tonight uh um and and uh and the reason that's cool is you you're getting scripture memorized by learning these songs um and so what we started doing is getting more and more people say we can't you know we can't memorize the songs and what about new people and you know this and that and so finally i i just came out caved in and realized we're just dumb and we're not going to memorize anything anymore um no no not i'm just kidding but um plus our songs have gotten more complicated which is okay the old hymns were complicated and hard to remember but they're worth singing that's for sure and so you know that's why the words on the wall can be very helpful but at the same time don't check your brain and say i just can't memorize i hear people say that can i can i say just like i'm getting off track here and this is why we're probably gonna be really late tonight but uh um have you ever noticed that the creek are worship leaders and you know whether you're one of their high school kids up here which we have a lot of younger people leading worship which i love that up here um or it's our drummers or our baseball have you ever noticed you'll never see music stands up here with words on them um well brett how do they do that they're just really talented they're really like einsteins running around no they work hard at it um i feel like worship leaders with music stands and as they're doing a song and you know i feel like that is um distracting uh for a worship leader to do that that's just my own personal thing and and it's it's not that hard if you actually apply yourself to just memorize the songs uh whether you're and by the way for musicians that's one of the eighth creek rules like you know now once in a while you'll see a music stand if somebody's doing something up here that's like classical violin which like like sometimes we'll do that like christmas eve or if somebody's doing something that's like really intense music of course music is i don't know how to read music like i don't even know a note of music people say what chord were you playing i don't know i don't even know what key that was like i seriously don't know anything about music theory uh so music means nothing to me i wished it did but but uh but it's different on that but when it comes to leading worship songs that's that's one of the things i love about our worship teams they're they're willing most of our worship people that come up here are volunteers you know they're not all paid musicians you know tons of volunteers every weekend that come and lead worship here at ac and um and uh they memorize they do hard work memorize their notes and the songs and the lyrics uh and that's something that i think is really really cool um i hope we can all work at that with the bible with scripture memory if there's anything worth memorizing scripture is it songs help but as it turns out the alphabet does too i think that's what jeremiah was doing with lamentations he was making these acrostic poems of dirges so that people can memorize the book of lamentations brat of all the books of the bible the one i least want to memorize is lamentations what about philippians or maybe you know iii john that's a good one to memorize because it's the short one um man there was a little kid in our church that walked up to me and just started speaking the book of ephesians had the whole book of ephesians memorized little kid it's sickening i mean uh now let me let me push back a little bit though mom don't be a bible verse memorization nazi uh i know that sounds horrible but i'm trying to make it sound horrible because there's i watched this as a children's pastor for years there were some moms that were almost insane like my child shall memorize bible verses and and you know made them memorize scripture and even with a little treat or a snack or something as a reward if that's the only reason they're doing it and and as an old children's pastor of many years i watched a lot of kids learn to really hate the bible because their mom was making them memorize it so much i think mom and dad maybe the best thing to do is give your kids a real love for the bible first make sure your kids love the bible um i think instead of cramming memory verses down their throat which it's okay to have memorization to a degree but make it fun first of all and then also don't require them to memorize the whole bible unless your child really has a propensity for that and loves that and kind of given to giftedness in that that's great but be careful about force feeding them because that'll backfire on you when they get older i've seen it too many times give them a love for the bible stories give them a love for what god's word actually says so that when they get older they'll they'll study it with a real passion and then memorization has meaning to them more so um well all that to say this acrostic is five poems five chapters um and each one kind of has its own theme uh all acrostic all meant to be memorized and it all means that you and i should say why would god want the book of lamentations memorized that's a great question to kind of ask ourselves because of all the books of the bible this one has the you know earmarks of memorization with every single verse being marked with a order of the letter of the alphabet what does that mean to you and me and why should we look at it well the lamentation book is important and we'll see why tonight dr alexander white one of the great exposers of the word from several generations ago um he said this about the book of lamentations he said there is nothing like the lamentations of jeremiah in the whole world there have been plenty of sorrow in every age and in every land but such another preacher and an author with such a heart for sorrow has never again been born dante comes next to jeremiah and we know that jeremiah was the great exiles favorite prophet isn't that interesting for you guys at red dante you know it's not like pepe reading but jeremiah gets you know according to dr alexander white is the top when it comes to authors and mourning and sorrow but it's a powerful powerful book and we read it because we want to learn from history you've heard me say it a million times but it's true if there's one thing we've learned from history is we've learned nothing from history i was reading an interesting thing several years back um talking about you know radical jihadist islam and this author was trying to make a point that we haven't learned from history when it comes to islam around the world and while we're still wrestling with isis and uh some of these you know uh al qaeda and some of these why do they just keep raising their heads and when we think we've destroyed them and what's going on well this author makes argument we've learned nothing from history and this this author takes great pains to go back to the united states first dealings with muslims and radical muslims particularly and did you know it was way back with our third president thomas jefferson thomas jefferson was the first president of the united states that had to deal with this and like the um you know the early 1800s like 1805 they they they've had the first barbary pirate war uh the barbary wars the first one was uh in 1805 if i remember right but um it's interesting because i've heard liberals try to explain that thomas jefferson was actually a muslim and why did they say this they say it because he owned a quran in his library and it was marked up and yellowed and highlighted and notes were taken on it so they figured who must be a muslim no the reason thomas jefferson studied the quran is because it was his biggest enemy during his presidency and he was trying to get into the mind of the muslim and why they did what they did so they're in the you know mediterranean sea what is today libya um but in those days was different you know uh lands but these pirates came from the shores and we're basically stopping all shipping and marauding and pirating all the ships of the british to the united states and all this stuff so because of that thomas jefferson wrote extensively about the islamic beliefs and what these mujahideen pirates the barbary pirates as they're called were what they were all about and this author makes the argument that had we actually followed through and understood what thomas jefferson found out and learned about the muslim fundamentalist we would we would understand far more than we do it seems like we have to relearn every time a fundamentalist muslim uprising comes up in the world we have to relearn what was already been through back in 1805 and then the second barbary war in 1807 and and we just continue to forget and not learn anything and this author was making a valid point that we just we don't learn from history um by the way one of the great problems is the rewriting of history you know so that we don't even not only do we not know what they did we have the wrong information a lot of times now uh history so-called uh has become sort of propagandized that's what i love about the bible the bible that we hold in our hands is the same bible that they had hundreds and even thousands of years ago so you and i get to get to read ancient history here and learn from jeremiah and learn from lamentations that's the point the jews in jerusalem being wiped out is a picture for you and me to learn from so that's kind of the point here in this passage of lamentations is to try to hear the heart of the lord hear the heart of jeremiah and see what happened to the people so in this first chapter um we basically see and if you could give sort of a title to this poem poem number one out of the five chapter 1 22 verses if you gave a title to this chapter you might say jerusalem's isolation jerusalem's isolation and we we see this chapter kind of divided into two we see jeremiah lament in the first half and verses 1-11 and then we see you know jerusalem's plea for mercy in verses 12 to 22. so it's kind of split in half almost uh jerusalem laments and then the second half of chapter one jerusalem please for mercy pleading for mercy so we start off with jerusalem's isolation chapter one verse one how does the city sit spoil solitary that was full of people how has she become a widow that she was great among the nations and princes among the provinces how has she become tributary she weepeth soar in the night and her tears are on her cheeks among all her lovers hath she has none to comfort her all her friends have dealt treacherously with her they are become her enemies judah is gone into captivity because of affliction and because of great servitude she dwelleth among the heathen she findeth no rest all her persecutors overtook her between the straits the ways of zion do mourn because none come to the solemn feast all her gates are desolate her priests sigh her virgins are afflicted and she is in bitterness man heavy heavy heavy right out of the gate bitterness sighing you know no rest now one of the things i want you to be thinking about the back of your mind because but when i finish chapter i'm hoping to get through chapter two tonight if we get to the end of chapter two one of the things i'm gonna do is i'm gonna show you something where almost everything in this chapter that jeremiah says here's what happened and here's what happened and that happened we just read a list of things finding no rest persecutors overtook her all our friends bailed on her all our lovers who were jerusalem's lovers by the way anybody what it was the false gods remember god always compared baal and astraz and all these gods and goddesses as their false lovers or the lovers of remember the prostituting that the jews were it's that that illustration so when it says you know where are the lovers it's like these idols didn't come to her aid uh when things went bad um but she's mourning and in bitterness i want you to note all these things because almost every single one of these things god warned the jews of course by jeremiah the prophet in jeremiah the book but here in lamentations there's a list of all these things but long before jeremiah was even born god warned them about pretty much every single one of these repercussions everything that is mentioned here and i'll i'll show you that but think if you will as we go through this where in the bible did god warn the jews about all this stuff we'll be thinking about that and then we'll see if you're correct at the end of our study so you know we see here that judah has gone into captivity because of her affliction um she finds no rest and and total desolation um one of the things that's sad is you know the the city was once celebratory with the feast and the festivals and all that the you know the people feast of tabernacles the feast of pentecost all the different things the day of atonement gone it's just sitting there with smoke billowing as it just sits in rubble nobody's celebrating and and jeremiah's painting this very depressing picture um but then he starts talking about what their sin caused and we looked at that on sunday all the things or at least some of the things i should say that uh were the repercussions of our sin the first one we looked at on sunday was sin leads to captivity verse five her adversaries are the chief you know they're in charge of her her enemies prosper for the lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions her children are gone into captivity before the enemy so we saw that um you know that they're they're in in control under control of the babylonians and they're now in captivity and we learned on sunday and this past several weeks in the book of jeremiah that sin always leads you to bondage by the way one of the things you'll see here too is what jerusalem sowed that is also what they end up reaping you'll see that in this narrative as well the reaping and sowing element of this you remember galatians of course chapter six verse seven that says whatsoever be not deceived god is not mocked whatsoever a man reaps that will he also sow it's one of those things you can't get away from right you know in the bible even though people think they're going to get away with it the jews are getting they're reaping what they've sowed and that's part of the deal it's a bummer when you get caught in your own devices it just adds to your understanding of how really stupid you tend to be or feel i'm reminded of a guy back in the day he was the guy sir sir robert watson watt he was a guy who um invented radar for police work like to to measure people's speed and several years after inventing it sir robert watson was arrested in canada for speeding uh he'd been caught in a radar trap and and while he was in prison he wrote this poem pity sir watson what strange target of his radar plot and this with others i could mention a victim of his own invention it's it's it's funny how you know sometimes the things we come up with we don't really realize they're the very things that trap us and nail us and that's true with sin and that's one of the things we see here jeremiah bringing out in all this so you got verse five you know sin leading to captivity the second thing is we saw sin destroys beauty verse six and from the daughter of zion all her beauty is departed or princes are become like hearts or deer that find no pasture and they're gone without strength before the pursuer the hunters look after them but they can't run anymore because they're little stick deer because they're skeletons because they're they're they're skinny and then they've gone without strength they're in verse six the last part so sin destroys beauty sin weakens us like we saw with samson verse seven we see sin makes people laugh at you uh it's verse seven jerusalem remembered in the days of our affliction of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old when her people fell into the hand of the enemy and none did help her the adversary saw her and did mock her sabbaths they made fun of her religious part look at this sabbath-keeping jews now they don't even have anything they just become a laughingstock and that's what happens also then we saw sid sin brings about nakedness in verse 8 jerusalem has grievously sinned therefore she has removed all that on earth despise her because they have seen her nakedness yeast jessieth and turneth backward then number six we saw sin brings about filthiness verse nine her filthiness is in her skirts she remembereth not her last end therefore she came down wonderfully she had no comforter oh lord behold my affliction for the enemy hath magnified himself so one of the things that our sin does you know that i didn't list on sunday is the enemy magnifying himself in the midst of our sin it's almost like there's a celebration when you fail in sin the enemy's over there with his little you know henchmen going yes magnifying himself uh it's really sad but also sin takes away the things we love verse 10 the adversary hath spread out his hand upon her pleasant things for she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary whom that is command that they should not enter into thy congregation all her people sigh and they seek bread which was number eight on our list sin leads us hungry they have given their pleasant things for me to re relieve the soul see o lord and consider for i am become vile so we saw these eight things i'm going to show you a ninth thing that we left out you wednesday nighters get a bonus one you're like yay another depressing thing that sin does um but that's coming here a little later now the second half of this is jerusalem's plea for mercy verses 12-22 it says in verse 12 it is nothing to you all ye that pass by behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow which is done unto me wherewith the lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger now this is jeremiah writing as if he's jerusalem and the jews himself not just jeremiah personally so he's kind of represented like jerusalem saying these things and one of the things i'd like you to mark is that jeremiah is acknowledging the day of the lord's fierce anger and i i just have to point this out i know that sometimes i feel like i'm kicking a dead horse on this one uh where did we get that phrase kicking a dead horse that's really horrible but uh but that's what it feels like when we say stuff over and over again but the reason i think i harp on this one is i marvel at how many churches and pastors will not talk about the lord's fierce anger or his wrath or his justice or judgment or righteousness or holiness it's really amazing how the americanized or really the world gospel now has very little to do with judgment and wrath and more to do with you know yourself making you happy and you you you and and really uh we got to remember what we are we're sinners deserving death in hell and people are leaving that out there's entire ministries they'll never talk about wrath and judgment or the lord's fierce anger well that's just the old testament listen the lord is the same today yesterday and forever the lord never changes that's something you have to realize the god of the old testament is still alive and well and as it turns out if you read your bible in the book of revelation and kind of realize the way the end is going to work out for the world it's going to include his fierce anger you know this little thing that jeremiah went through is like a child's play moment compared to what's going to happen in the tribulation period that's coming read revelation 6 through 19. now you say brett i went to church and my pastor told me that revelation 6 19 is describing um you know a.d 70 when jerusalem fell and here's all you got to do is when you read it ask yourself is this talking about a city or is this talking about a global situation and it's a no-brainer if you read honestly revelation 6 or 19 it's not about a city in the fall of jerusalem in a.d 70 by the romans it's about the earth over all the earth there's huge things that are gonna happen there's one story in the book of revelation that talks about how there's gonna be angels flying around in the world and the world's gonna be confounded um this is not jerusalem when the bible says a huge angel is coming remember the huge angel he's gonna put one foot down on the continent and one foot down in the ocean and i'm not talking about at the beach one foot in the water one on the sand it's this massive mondo angel that's gonna like mediterranean in jordan or iraq like he's this huge angel you know um it's funny how myopic we can tend to be about our own little thing and we can come up with our own little narrative but read the tribulation period revelation 6 through 19 it's a global situation and you'll also recognize modern things with the apostle john trying to explain them uh stuff that the romans didn't have what what is it when john talks like like he says stuff that cracks me up there were giant locusts with flames coming out her nostrils with faces of men and they had hair of women and well what is he talking about what did the romans have that looked like a giant locust with flame coming out of her nostrils and faces of men inside the eyeballs the romans didn't have that weapon uh we do that's called an apache helicopter i mean like when you think about what john's trying to swing maybe i'm not saying for sure but maybe john was talking about modern weaponry and when you read it you kind of go wow this is not the romans conquering you know jerusalem and ad70 and by the way they'll do that also the same people that are preterists or even all millennial believers um they'll say that matthew 24 is also all about romans taking jerusalem and a.d 70. again i would argue that even matthew 24 jesus talks enough about global things it's not just a city that we're talking about here and that's just one argument as to why we think we're talking more about the last days the end of the world but the fierce anger is still part of god's future plan and that should be known if god is going to pour out his wrath on a christ-rejecting sinful world shouldn't we talk about that so that people say well what do i need to do to avoid that and it's good news the all you need to do is accept christ and be saved and forgiven of your sins and then you won't be held to that wrath that's why first thessalonians 5 says the lord has not appointed us unto wrath but to obtain salvation through jesus christ so very important i hope you're not duped by some of these guys that are trying to teach that ah the lord does the wrath is not really we're just going to talk about fun happy things and man we're going to have happy people all the way to hell if we're not careful god forbid god forbid well the lord says you know through jeremiah that the people were saying man we've been afflicted in the day of the fierce anger i've got that march because that's part of god's plan verse 13 from above hath he sent fire into my bones and it prevails against them he hath spread a net for my feet he hath turned me back he hath made me desolate and faint all the day the yoke of my transgressions is bound in his hand they are wreathed and come upon my neck he hath made my strength to fall the lord hath delivered me into their hands from whom i am not able to rise up the lord hath trodden underfoot all my mighty men in the midst of me he hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men the lord hath trodden the virgin the daughter of judah as in the winepress for these things i weep mine i mine i run us down with water remember jeremiah said my eyes like my eyes are like a fountain remember that this is the weeping prophet that's where he gets that name so he says my eyes verse 16. they run down with water because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me my children are desolate because the enemy prevailed zion spreadeth forth her hands and there is none to comfort her the lord hath com uh commanded concerning jacob that his adversaries should be round about him jerusalem is as a minstress woman among them pause there now you say but that's why does jeremiah say this jerusalem being like a ministries woman we get all caught up in what he's saying but back in bible times they weren't all weirded out about stuff like this but it was just a fact um do you remember the way that they dealt with the issue of the menstruating woman in the book of uh leviticus leviticus chapter 15 verses uh 19 and 20 tells us that it was kind of a bad deal it wasn't like you know today but if a woman was going through that time she would be excluded from everything she would have to go outside of the camp um and um and why did they do that um well it had to do with the ceremonial being clean versus unclean and the interesting thing is that the woman was excluded from worship and everything good you know so um so really that's the idiom that is being used here by jeremiah under the inspirational holy spirit that it's basically saying being an outcast and being left alone with no one there to help um and and it's just supposed to be kind of a mark of that desperation and sadness so that's really what's being said here isolation alone untouchable uh no one's there to touch or comfort because of that condition verse 18 the lord is righteous for i have rebelled against his commandment here i pray you all people and behold my sorrow my virgins and my young men are gone into captivity i called for my lovers but they deceived me who were the lovers of jerusalem the idols and the false gods yes they deceived me my priests and my elders gave up the ghost in the city while they sought their meat to relieve their souls behold o lord for i am in distress my bowels are troubled mine heart is turned within me for i have grievously rebelled abroad the sword be uh bereaveth at home there is as death in our eight things we looked at on sunday of the things sin does to us you want to add a number nine right here this will finish your list for chapter one number nine sin leaves us troubled in our hearts your hearts are troubled when you sin sin leaves you depressed and troubled this verse 20 makes it clear oh lord i am in distress my bowels see we we don't use that term anymore it's like my intestines you know we say my heart it sounds so much better my heart this does i feel bad in my heart um but that's what he's saying but it is true you know that's that gut feeling that you get that sickened gut feeling the bible's actually really accurate on this when it says behold i am in distress my bowels are troubled and mine heart is turned within me that's a good description of what sin does we think it's so great but sin leaves your heart troubled and i think that your heart the lead in the hebrew there is often linked to your soul um now i'm not saying all you know trouble psych psychologically uh is because of sin i'm not saying all of it is but i do think that that's an underrated diagnosis where people have trouble in their soul psyche um and we have this disorder and that disorder and the other disorder and we label them but we haven't got to the issue of that sin is that which brought us to that troubled dysfunction sin leads to heart troubles um not it's not always the reason why people have trouble with their heart their soul their psyche their gut but it but it can be because of sin you show me a person who just goes on a sin rampage and does a bunch of stuff they're going to have a trouble also in their heart and their psyche and they're going to try to fix it here's what our culture does i'm just going to give you kind of the ugly version a person grows up just keeps doing all kinds of sinful things looking at pornography and then having sexual sin just unchecked and just keeps doing that and then becomes kind of a jerk and treats people badly all the time and then you know abuses people with his and on and on this person is living in sin and then what happens he's just troubled in his soul so he goes into counseling and they say oh you need to be leveled off so they give him medication to levels off his emotional bandwidth that only allows him to do what there's no repentance there's no you know conviction of sin i think that that can be not always but it can be sometimes the scenario that we see in our current world and the way we diagnose troubled souls and we wonder why you know we have so many people in prisons today and we're not really diagnosing the real issue it's not because they have this victimization of disorder it's because they've taken up sin and the more they take up sin the more troubled their soul is going to be they need like a spiritual uh remedy and not um a medical one well that's the ninth thing on our list verse 21 they have heard that i sigh there is none to comfort me all mine enemies have heard my trouble they are glad that thou hast done it thou will bring the day that thou hast called and they shall be like unto me let all their wickedness come before thee and do unto them as thou has done unto me for all my transgressions for my size are many and my heart is faint and it's interesting this prayer would be answered the lord would do it to all the other enemies round about jerusalem and israel the lord would pay out and we we looked at that a few weeks ago talking about the the judging of the other nations so chapter one we see this durge poem number one abcdefg right through the acrostic um and it's really um you know jerusalem's desolation but chapter two speaks of god's punishment of israel's sin that's chapter 2 how god punishes israel's sin now before we read this does god punish us punitively for our sins the answer is no does he punish us correctively yes uh there is a difference whom the lord loves he does what chastens according to the book of hebrews and the word chasten just picture spanking whom the lord loves he spanks and why does he spank his children for correction breath is a big spanking yeah it is but it's to correct a whole course of a nation that was going down a spiral to just total destruction so the lord's mercy was to keep this remnant alive in babylon for 70 years and then rebuild from there and really sometimes that's what the lord does with us and and that's sometimes what a good parent will do with their child you want to break down the will you don't want to break down their spirit but you do want to break down the will and whom whom the lord loves he chastens and the bible says you know the the parent that doesn't chasten or spank his child hates his son that's what the bible says spanking is a bible thing and don't don't be duped mom and dad by this current popular thing where you know spanking is something you shouldn't do uh most people do it wrong and because of that it tends to become very abusive um and we've done whole teachings on spanking and how to spank children correctly and lovingly and it's an important important thing that our culture is lost and we wonder why we have so much trouble but the lord models that here as he chastens his own people and that's what this chapter is about um and what does the lord use for a paddle uh we'll see that here in this chapter as well verse 1 how if the lord covered the daughter of zion with a cloud of his anger and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of israel and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger the lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of jacob and hath not pitied and hath thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughters of the daughter of judah he hath brought them down to the ground you have polluted the kingdom of the princes thereof he hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of israel he hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy and he burned against jacob like a flaming fire which devoureth round about he hath bent his bow like an enemy he stood with his right hand as an adversary and slew all that were pleasant to the eye in the tabernacle of the daughter of zion he poured out his fury like fire the lord was an enemy he hath swallowed up israel he hath swallowed up all her palaces he hath destroyed his strongholds and hath increased in the daughter of judah mourning and lamentation and he has violently taken away his tabernacle as if it were a guard of a garden he hath destroyed his places of the assembly the lord hath caused the solemn feast and sabbath to be forgotten in zion and have despised the indignation of his anger the king and the priest the lord hath cast off his altar he hath abhorred his sanctuary he hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces they have made a noise in the house of the lord as in the day of the solemn feast so we know that he destroys this place of worship the temple and all this stuff and later it would be real built by ezra nehemiah inservable these guys that come back you know 70 years later but there's a couple things here first of all isn't it interesting the lord says in verse 5 the lord was an enemy he has swallowed up israel and has swallowed up all her palaces now if you're technical who was it that swallowed up israel and destroyed your palaces the babylonians so if the babylonians were the ones then why is the lord saying i the lord did that well as it turns out the babylonians were the paddle or the sword as the bible even says in places that the lord used to correct his people the babylonians now here's something that's going to be hard for you to receive but it's something that you should at least pray about and think about could it be that your biggest enemy in your life think about who that is who's your biggest enemy don't name them right now my boss my husband no don't say that out loud um who is your biggest enemy and could it be that the lord is using that enemy in your life just like he used the babylonians with the jews oh thank the lord it's not as severe as what we're reading about here in lamentations but sometimes the lord can use something in your life that you think is just evil and from satan but maybe it's not could it be that something that seemed i mean you know when you a jew sitting there in jerusalem you see the babylonians coming and killing everyone and crushing the city the last thing on your mind probably is oh this is god doing this as a disciplinary judgment um you think no this is the babylonians crushing our city when your boss get mad gets mad at you at work could it be that the lord's trying to teach you something or show you something that's wrong in your own heart or your own attitude i've found that the lord oftentimes uses what we perceive as enemies to be that which the lord is saying i want you to learn and i want you to grow and i want you to to be faithful in following me and i'm going to use this person and until you learn the lesson that boss is going to continue to come down on you all the time learn the lesson and then you'll see the lord take the paddle away that's just a freebie for you you can take it or leave it but taking it is oftentimes going to shorten that time uh i think and that's something i'd be real interested in and then in verse 6 the lord is violently taking away the tabernacle his palaces the assembly the feasts the sabbaths the altar all those things are gone isn't it interesting that when we have all that stuff we don't really appreciate all that stuff but then when it's all gone now they're weeping and saying oh the palaces of the tabernacle the altars are gone now they're missing it it's been interesting to see uh in this last year when you know everything got locked down how people are appreciating things you know it's been really fun you know when we opened the church up seven months ago and uh it was just so cool to see it did my heart good to see people come back in and with real joy and a real appreciation like there were literally hundreds of you that came in and tears came down your cheeks as you walked back into church going oh how i've missed fellowship how i've missed being in the congregation and i'm not sure all of us really even thought about it much pre-covered like yeah we go to church that's what we do we all get together we fight the traffic and get in find a parking space and hopefully find a chair and get our kids checked in but but when it became something you couldn't do for a while when you came back like oh lord thank you for this it's true behold how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity to gather and there's a reason you tell us not to forsake the assembling of ourselves as is the custom of some and we start to get that that's just one example um i think i know a lot of you guys are have a new appreciation for electricity in your house oh as you turn on the light switch the light switch oh so nice before the ice storm we're all like yeah whatever that better be working you know that electricity i'm gonna pg and all these guys are people you know we gotta but um but now it's like oh i'm so thankful we have warmth in our house after a lot of us 10 12 15 days no no electricity that's a long haul for a lot of us but you know um i wonder about this the people now they're longing for that when before they're like yeah whatever we'll have the temple and the feast but we also are gonna do bail and all the other stuff and i gotta say especially to our online crowd which we're so thankful for people who've done watch parties and this whole season of that but there's coming a day where we're going to have to kind of acknowledge that there's still the gathering of the saints that needs to take place and you say well bro we're doing that at our house we've got like 10 or and when two or more gathered lords of the midst and that's all true and we celebrate that we really do and i think watch parties are here to stay honestly i do i believe that um especially because when we lift all the number restrictions at the creek the whole staff were horrified of what's going to happen we predict that first sunday we do that it's going to be mayhem because right now you know the 10 o'clock service sells out in like six seconds um it really does and all the services sell except for the 12 o'clock the 12 o'clock now we have five services on on the weekend uh the 12 o'clock uh we only had like i'm not going to tell you the numbers because kate brown watches uh this i think once a while but we have a few people here um but uh but man that 12 o'clock's got room uh in the end we went back to live by the way live 12 o'clock we tried it for a couple weeks it didn't feel right um doing the video service but but um the thing is about that is um we you know anthony creek the leadership here we're praying uh fervently feverishly uh how are we gonna accommodate all the people just wanna be in church because we see that as still important there are some churches and pastors that say we're not going to meet until 2022. like that's that's what some big churches are saying that some pastors said yeah the church gathering is a thing of the past like that was the narrative of some pastors in america uh no that's not that's not biblical that's not sound you gotta gather with the saints and here's what's even more kind of important and this is the kind of stuff we pray about as leadership and stuff um what's a real church what quantifies a real church people wonder about that well we just like to have church in our home and well do you have elders and pastors and deacons because a real church has those things according to the bible if you don't have that you're not really a real church well brett well what do we do well that's what we're praying about and you know maybe the lord wants us to be creative with watch parties and and get some elders within those watch party groups and have them be like we are being creative so anthony creek we've tried to take it from all approaches we we've opened our building but we still have as strong of an online presence as we know how to do because we see the online uh methods that's something that people just it's what we can do now some people that's all they got our online church has grown exponentially in the past year um you know some of these prophecy updates uh when you go with youtube and our uh all the different platforms our website we got like a half a million views on our prophecy updates like that's amazing to me how many people are are taking in the word from from ac but what happens when we want to get everybody back in the building that's what we don't really know we're praying about you know building finally phase two if you don't know if you're new here this is just phase one of this building and the way this building was built is you see the two pads out there on the back side that's that's the children's wing that's not there so we built this shell threw up some walls here and made children's classrooms if temporarily and then the goal is someday to build the children's wing over on that oversight and then take all these walls out and then that makes this sanctuary quite a bit bigger and uh and the parking lot and everything we've got plans and it's already approved by the county it's just uh it's always been kind of out of reach uh just seemingly financially but that's something we're praying about and would you guys join us in praying about that because we do feel that it's important for people to gather together some people say what about giant churches and mega churches i'm with you i get it why people don't like mega churches don't come here then there's a lot of great churches if you're complaining about that great i can recommend some really awesome small churches and and i think small churches are sometimes better in some ways big churches are fun because there's things you can do and resources that we have that we get to do around the world and stuff the reach is a little different it's kind of cool i see strength in both the small church and the big church i really do i never wanted a big church thanks a lot you guys it's always it's all your fault i really i really didn't i i wanted to meet a nice medium-sized you know 500 to a thousand people a thousand no more um i shouldn't tell you guys this but it's true this is a true story i told my daughter years ago casey um i said you know because she said dad what are you going to do if you have to go to four services because we were doing three services back in the school back in the day years ago and i said foresters i can do four services what if you have to go to five services and then this is horrible i was joking in case he knew if i said casey if that happens you know here she was like cheater higher i said just take me out in the field and shoot me that's what i told her now i forgot that i told her that and so so uh a few seven days ago i announced uh we're gonna do our fifth service and then now and then the last week i started teaching that fifth service and i got home in case he said you know dad um should i go start cleaning the gun [Laughter] like uh you know so it was kind of like uh oh yeah i forgot about that but um but in my defense uh that's not on one day uh yet um uh we do that saturday and sunday and all that but um but it is it is fun to watch what the lord's doing but we're praying about what the lord would have us do why because we are very committed to people not forsaking the assembling of themselves together even in the larger group acts chapter 2 says they continued steadfastly apostles doctrine breaking bread prayer fellowship but it said they did it in the temple daily and also from house to house the temple was the one where there were thousands of people that's the early church they did that thousands of people and remember one of those services peter preached and 3 000 people were saved in one service so that was a that was a mega church back then the house to house thing also needs to happen where people have smaller groups of friends and that's acts 2 42 as well that whole section of acts and we're committed to both of those so keep that in prayer we don't want to take for granted the things that we have and what we're called to do i fear that the world is getting comfortable with not going to church anymore that's that's what i am a little concerned about we don't have that problem here at athey uh but i am concerned about that elsewhere people are just like yeah church is kind of a thing in the past that's not going to be healthy oh boy verse eight we gotta hurry the lord hath purpose to destroy the wall of the daughter of zion he has stretched out a line he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament they languish together her gates are sunk into the ground he has destroyed her broke and broken her bars her king and her princes are among the gentiles the law is no more her prophets also find no vision from the lord the elders of the daughter of zion sit up on the ground and keep silence they have cast up dust upon their heads they have girded themselves with sackcloth the virgin of jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground mine eyes do fail with tears my bowels are troubled my liver is poured upon the earth for the destruction of the daughter of my people pretty gruesome graphic language your liver being poured out up on the ground that's a problem you kind of need that because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city they say to their mothers where's the corn and the wine when they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city when their soul was poured out unto their mother's bosom what thing shall i take to witness for thee what things shall i liken to the o daughter of jerusalem what shall i equal to thee that i may comfort thee o virgin daughter of zion for thy breach is great like the sea who can heal thee thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee and they have not discovered thine iniquity to turn away thy captivity but have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment all that pass by clap their hands at the they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of jerusalem saying is this the city that men call the perfection of beauty the joy of the whole earth all thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee they hiss and gnash their teeth and say we have swallowed her up certainly this is the day that we looked for we have found we have seen it so um the world has been looking to mess with jerusalem for years and they still do they still say this stuff about jerusalem even though jerusalem has since been rebuilt and has become powerful there's there's sort of an echo through history that's foreshadowing future world views on jerusalem as well verse 17 the lord hath done that which he hath devised he had fulfilled his word that he had committed in the days of old he hath thrown down he hath not pitied he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee he hath set up the horn of thine adversary their heart cried unto the lord o all of the daughter of zion let tears run down like a river day and night give thyself no rest let not the apple of thine eye cease isn't it interesting here that the lord talks about the walls that were fallen but let the walls of jerusalem weep like tears running down the wall and that reminds me and that's why i used on sunday that image of the wailing wall the western wall because i see a correlation between that imagery of the wailing wall of jerusalem that's there today jews mourning there by the western wall and they mourn for the same reason that these guys were mourning that the temple mount is trodden down the temple does not exist they can't even go up on their temple mount um you know it's really really something to see today um if you haven't seen the western wall it's it's one of those places on the earth that when you get there you sense a spiritual tension that's hard to describe that's like no other but it's very real the wall is sort of crying there if you would so let their wall cry you know let tears run down arise verse 19 cry out in the night in the beginning of the watches pour out thine heart like water before the face of the lord lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children that faint for hunger in the top of every street behold o lord and consider to whom thou hast done this shall the women eat their fruit and the children of the of a span long shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the lord now we know verse 20 and this is horrific but in the last siege of jerusalem the bible was right and even predicted this before it happened that the women would be eating their children cannibalism because they were all starving and it's just this horrible place that jerusalem was in it's like the worst thing that you could think of in humanity that could ever happen but that was predicted and that's what actually happened verse 21 the young and the old lie on the ground in the streets my virgins and my young men were fallen by the sword thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger thou was killed and not pitied thou as called as in a solomon solemn day my terrors round about so that the day of the lord's anger none escaped nor remained those that i have swaddled and brought up have my enemy consumed nice depressing place to finish off our but before we go like i said and give me just a few more minutes if you would because there's something i want to show you and that is this the lord lovingly compassionately vehemently tried to warn the children of israel that all of this stuff would happen everything from you know the women eating their children to their walls being crushed to the temple not existing to you know everybody dying on the hills like the lord for centuries for centuries warned the jews sometimes i wonder if the century thing was the problem it's almost like the longer the lord warned people the more they're like he told us that 500 years ago whatever but i worry that today when the bible talks about the tribulation period and the wrath that's to come we've been hearing that for centuries when did the lord first warn the children of israel there's actually an amazing chapter and we don't have time to do this fully but it's an amazing chapter in deuteronomy chapter 28. now if you want good luck with this but i'm going to list some verses here and i'll show you its counterpart in deuteronomy 28 and the reason i want to do this is i want to show you that almost all the things we read about in lamentations are things that when god was giving moses the law god said now if you do this then that will happen if you do the other then that will happen the lord's it's all these if then statements so um jot down in your notes if you want to do this quickly um lamentations 1 3 and the corresponding scripture is deuteronomy 28 65 deuteronomy 28 65 says and among these nations shalt thou find no ease neither shall the soul of thy foot find rest but the lord shall give you a trembling heart failing of eyes and sorrow of mind this is the lord way back in deuteronomy hundreds and hundreds of years earlier saying when you get to the promised land when you get kings don't follow the evil things of pagan gods and deities because you'll you're you know you you'll be finding no ease and the soul of your foot will have no rest and like lamentations three it says you will find no rest all your persecutors have over talked overtaking you see there's a corresponding lamentation that goes with the deuteronomy let me give you other ones uh verse five talking about um you know her adversaries the lord afflicting them and our children going into captivity the corresponding is two things deuteronomy 28 32. uh let me just read that to you 28 32 it says my sons and my daughters will be given to another people and then i shall look and fail with longing for them all the day in other words your kids are going to be taken into captivity not only deuteronomy 28 32 but also uh verse 44 also corresponds with verse 5 lamentations 1 5 is 28 44 he shall not lend to thee and thou shalt not lend him he that shall be the head and thou shalt be the tale the lord saying there's going to be people leading you and governing you um look at verse 6 the corresponding verse is deuteronomy 28 25 the lord shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies thou shalt go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them and you'll be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth this is the lord hundreds of years earlier saying don't do this stuff that's chapter um chapter 1 of lamentations verse 6 that corresponds with deuteronomy 28 25. man i could go on and on let's fast forward to verse 18 of chapter one the lord is righteous i for i have rebelled against his commandment i pray you all my people behold my sorrow my virgins my young men will go into captivity deuteronomy 28 41 says really the same thing thou shalt beget sons and daughters but thou shalt not enjoy them for they will go in to captivity this is the lord lovingly carefully warning the people this is what's going to happen to you if you do this but they didn't believe man we could go on look at chapter 2 of lamentations verse 9. the corresponding verse with 2 9 is deuteronomy 28 36 it says the lord shall bring thee and thy king which thou shalt set over thee unto a nation neither which thou or thy fathers have known and there shall they shall serve other gods of wood and stone that happened and that's what it says um there in verse nine her gates are sunk into the ground broken are bars her king and her princes are among the gentiles and the laws no more the prophets also find no vision see corresponding scripture and i can just go on and on verse 15 is deuteronomy 28 37 chapter 2 verse 20 is deuteronomy 28 verse 53 uh chapter 2 verse 21 here in lamentations is deuteronomy 28 50. um you know this whole thing about women eating their children that's that's deuteronomy uh 28 53. like all of these things were predicted very much in detail okay brett what's the big deal the big deal is twofold one these people didn't believe the lord because maybe it was centuries they heard this for centuries and they said yeah whatever even when jeremiah came on the scene and tried to warn them in the immediate time for some reason that people just said yeah whatever i worry about our culture and especially even sometimes the church we get calloused because well we've been hearing about the second coming of christ for hundreds of years brett you've been talking about the rapture of the church for 25 years and to me 25 years that's nothing for a day with the lord it says a thousand years and a thousand years with the lord says a day do you realize what 25 years is a blip on the screen a microsecond and and yet i i worry that christians and worldlings alike we we've heard these things for centuries so somehow we think they're not going to happen the rapture of the church the tribulation period the time of god's wrath being poured out upon our christ rejecting sinful world but i have to tell you the tribulation period is coming and it's going to be worse than the time of jeremiah and it's going to be global so that's the first thing the second thing is because of that you and i should be the people who are speaking the truth about these things i would rather be a jeremiah in jeremiah like days who's just proclaiming the truth in the middle of the the you know people that are criticized oh doom and gloom and talking about wrath and judgment we're just going to talk about hope and victory and and wealth and happiness and our checkbook and happy marriages and all the things that are good all those things are good and we do talk about them but we're but but the church needs to hear about the other two so you need to help with that don't be like the false prophets there were hundreds of those during the time of jeremiah oh it's all going to be great but we need to be able to speak the truth and we've got plenty of good things to say so the bad is something we preach but we also get to say but god loves you so much that he gave his only begotten son that if you give your heart to christ and you get your sins forgiven and if you become saved then you are not appointed to that wrath that's coming uh that's what we did last sunday that's what i hopefully do every single sunday is present the gospel and even when we hear the bad news we can always end with the good amen amen lord i pray that you'd help us to take heart lord in these scriptures we we want to learn from this history we don't want to just blow off what jeremiah is saying here in these lamentations it seems like these lessons were learned too late for israel on that day but may we learn from the lessons of lamentations today and that we would be saved and also that we would lead others to know the saving grace of the cross lord that we'd be all about your love for a sinful world that you gave your only begotten son lord bless these your people who've carved out time to study depressing chapters and lamentations but we pray that they would do their work on our hearts tonight in jesus name amen

Channel: Athey Creek

Views: 31,011

Rating: 4.8371038 out of 5

Keywords: Brett Meador, Bible, Church, Teaching, Study, Christian, Jesus, Oregon, Through the Bible, Athey Creek, Athey Creek Church, Athey Creek Christian Fellowship

Id: 6PByBZ0I4Js

Length: 71min 9sec (4269 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 11 2021