20240310 Lamentations 2: The Just Judge Can Become our Enemy!
This is Ecclesiastes 7:3-4, “Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of amusement.” The truth behind these verses is that the one who mourns pays attention to the fallen state of the world, the sin in his life, and the misery all around him. The house of amusement is full of those who try to disconnect from the suffering around them. These are generalizations not absolute statements. But the statement is true.
If you are in church long enough you will meet people who have experienced every form of suffering. In the church I have met people who have dealt with murder in their family, I met adults who grew up in cults. I have seen cancer kill and strike young adults and children. When a church gathers, sorrow is not theoretical. It is concrete.
Pain is real and God is everywhere. Often, we struggle finding God in our suffering. The book of Lamentations shows that even following great sin and judgment, God still meets his people. This is the best news. It means God is always with us. God meets us when we hit rock bottom even when we are the ones who got us there.
From the book of Lamentations, we get the practice of Lament. Lament is the practice or tool we use to turn to God in suffering. Lament is a form of prayer. It is a spiritual discipline or a means of grace. It helps us to grow in holiness. It is a tool to navigate through pain and suffering with God rather than without him. By giving us Lament, God validates our pain. He holds our hand through pain to greater trust in his promises.
Lament changes us. It teaches us to handle suffering. It increases our capacity to endure suffering we experience and with others. Lament allows us to suffer better and become better friends and counselors to those who suffer. Lament can transform our community into one that welcomes grief. It could turn the church into a house of mourning full of wise people according to Ecc 7.
Now consider the opposite. If we are unable to handle our own suffering, we cannot carry other's burdens. We will not be able to meet and stay with people in their place of suffering. Because of our own uneasiness with hard emotions, we will offer quick fixes. We will offer cheap words of comfort which do not help. These are unhelpful statements well-meaning Christians make to sufferers: “God has a plan.” “You are young, you will get pregnant again.” “It’s going to be okay, you will get over it.” The issue with these statements, though they may all true, all try to cheer a grieving person up with the help of the unknown future.
It is not the way of lament. Rather than avoid pain, we need to engage pain! James 1:2-4 2Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. We need to be a community that allows suffering and endurance to have its full effect! We must dwell in the hurt. We need to engage suffering, be curious about it, and allow it to shape us. God’s gift of lament has the power to change us, help us help others, and change a community! For this reason, I am excited about Lamentations and Lament!
Outline: In Lamentations 2, God teaches us how he deals with humanity. We will look at three themes, the misery, the lament, and the just judge.
Last week we saw that the basic four elements of laments were turn, complain, request, and trust.” In this point we focus on “turn” and “complain.”
Lam 2:18-20 is the lesson in Lament: “Their heart cried to the Lord. O wall of the daughter of Zion let tears stream down like a torrent day and night…” In Lam 2:19, “Arise cry out in the night Pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord! Lift your hands to him….” Lam 2:20 Look, O Lord, and see! With whom have you dealt thus?”
Application
The first lesson is turn to God and be honest. How real are we with God in our prayers? Do we dare to turn to the Lord and pour out our heart like water before the presence of the Lord? Can we express hard emotions? Lam 2:20-21 is very real. The Lamenter seems to be questioning whether God went too far.[1] Do we lament? Are we honest with God? I am not advocating disrespect but messy heart-felt prayers! God is the Sovereign Lord of the universe, and he is also our loving father. He delights in us and knows us more intimately than we know ourselves! We can be honest because God already knows. By Lamenting we become more aware that we are known by God. Our relationship with God becomes more authentic. We make ourselves available to the healing he has for us.
An important truth is that God can handle our negative emotions. This is a big hurdle for us. I remember really early in my Christian life; I was in a community group and we were sharing prayer requests. When it was my turn to share, I shared what was going on but also said, but don’t worry about it, we don’t have to pray. Someone in the group was curious about that. They asked if I was worried to bother God if we make this a prayer request. I felt gently convicted. I realized that my reluctance to pray highlighted a lack of intimacy with God on my part.
For many, our families did not tolerate negative emotions. Negative emotions were met with shame for not being more grateful. Or we were dismissed for being too sensitive. We learned we would experience less distress by keeping quiet. We struggle to voice emotions to God because we struggle to voice emotions period. Perhaps though we are needy creatures, we do not want to appear that way. God is different than what our families may have been like. God can handle our negative emotions.
Adam Young is a Christian counselor. This next part if provocative. This counselor talks with great joy about how his young children voice anger at him. Before you dismiss him, hear him out. He rejoices because he knows this means they feel so loved, so connected, and safe. They know they can voice their frustration and that their dad is not going anywhere. Our ability to voice hard emotions will affect our relationship with God.
If we have been shown our whole lives that are negative emotions are not welcome, we have been forced to suppress them. We may be stunted emotionally. This affects our relationship with God. We may not be aware of parts of our old selves that need healing and transforming. Emotional immaturity affects the whole community. If we have not learned to process emotions in a healthy manner, we will be limited in our ability to help our fellow sufferers.
This is not a call to children to rebel and be disrespectful. It is an invitation to explore and express hard emotions, like we see in the Bible. The complaints from people to God in Job, the Psalms, or Lamentations, are not disrespect. They present the kind of wrestling God welcomes. They are an invitation to speak more honestly about hardship. They are invitations to deeper intimacy with God. Ps 10:1 offers this example, “Why, O LORD, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?”
The second lesson concerns the role of the past and memory. In the complaint, the author remembers Jerusalem of old. He portrays Israel in idyllic terms. He describes Jerusalem as “the splendor of Israel” (Lam 2:1), “the might of Israel” (Lam 2:3) with palaces and strongholds (Lam 2:5), with festivals (Lam 2:6,7), and “the city that was called perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth” (Lam 2:15).
When we suffer in the present, we contrast the present with the past. There is a common assumption that dwelling on the past is pointless. It is important to understand the past to understand how we got to where we are.
This is the application – we must beware of remembering badly. In Lamentations 2, the author begins by remembering the glorious past. Eventually in Lam 2:14, he acknowledges that their prophets had been false prophets. They had failed to expose iniquity. They had not warned the people of the judgment to come that God had promised (Lam 2:17).
The lesson is that even if the past appears better and we wish we could go back, often it is what led to present hardship. It is a good idea to understand the present considering where we have come. If the past truly impacts the present, we need to understand the past to free ourselves from it. One of the ways the NT speaks of Christian maturity is by putting off the old self (Col 3:9). The goal of looking at the past is not to become introspective and blame our shortcomings on our past. Rather, as we lament our misery, thinking about the past helps us to repent more fully of our sin and turn to God. A few examples of this: and these are not prophetic truths, just suggestions. If we lament bad grades, remembering the past may help we repent of not studying more!
If we lament a bad marriage and wish we could go back to when the marriage seemed in a better place, remember that it may have been failure in those so called “good old days” that led to where we are now.
To summarize this point. Lament is turning to God. It is growing in intimacy. Lament is learning to experience intimacy with God in all hardships. Lament is learning to share things that are honest and uncomfortable. Lament is trusting that God will hold us in hard times. Rather than wishing we were back in the past, through Lament we can honestly confess our sins from the past and live more faithfully to God in the present.
Application
We struggle to talk this way about God. It is necessary to believe that God is love but cannot neglect his justice. If we believe God is sovereign and powerful, we have two options. When calamity strikes, either God did it, or God let it happen. Nothing catches him by surprise so we can turn to him.
Lamentations 2 teaches that God is righteous in his judgments. We cannot fault him even in our misery. Often our misery is not connected with our sin, but when we can see our misery as the consequence of sin, like Lamentations, we can acknowledge the Lord’s justice. The poet acknowledges in Lam 2:17, “The Lord has done what he purposed; he has carried out his word which he commanded long ago.”
God’s wrath is not random volatile anger, it is just. Israel violated God’s covenant for centuries. They pursued other gods and oppressed the poor. God is slow to anger but eventually his divine anger brings punishment. Lamentations 2 acknowledges that God’s wrath is justified.
Yet, still the author laments and asks the Lord to consider their suffering (Lam 2:20). The Lord is being faithful to his word (Lam 2:17). The author may have in mind texts like Lev 26:14-46 (esp. Lev 26:32-33) and Deut 28:15-68 (e.g. Deut 28:63-64). The books of Moses warned Israel that if they act faithlessly, enemy nations would conquer and send take them out of the land. It is right and biblical to see God as the enemy of those who practice wickedness. Now, no matter what we have done, God’s grace is always greater than our sin. We can turn to him. Lament is how we turn to the Lord, in our pain.
First, this is what reformed theologians call the first use of the Law. The law is a mirror that reveals our sin. We are guilty of sin. Our sin has real consequences. We contribute to the misery in the world. The Holy God who judges sin reminds with a text like Lamentations 2 that we need a savior. Lamentations 2 connects our sin to judgment. Seeing the state of misery leads us to repent before the final judgment comes, so our sins can be forgiven.
A second gospel application is that Jesus lamented. He quotes Ps 22 and asks God why he forsook him. NT authors connect our suffering to Jesus’ suffering (c.f. Heb 4:15). The trajectory for Jesus was, suffering, death, then glory. This means that for those who believe in Jesus and who are united to Christ as well, death will not have the final word. We suffer and will continue to suffer. We will eventually die. If we are united with Him, we have already been raised spiritually with Christ. We will also have life beyond the grave.
A third gospel application is that according to Heb 12:6, God disciplines those he loves. Parents discipline children because they love them. Some parents have an abusive view of discipline. Good discipline is for the good of children. The misery in Lamentations 2 warns us. It teaches in some way that God is a loving parent who cares about how his children behave. When we believe in Jesus our sins are forgiven and we are saved from the wrath to come. In this life we still live with the consequences of our sins and those of others. These consequences graciously remind us to repent.
Even in the worst times, lament allows us to turn to God. Lament is how we hold on tight to God in the storms of life. He is sovereign and holds us even tighter even when we let go. Lament allows us at any time to seize him again. Lament allows us to grow in intimacy with God. It allows us to grow in maturity in our suffering. It grows us in compassion towards others. In this way God edifies his church through suffering. “Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning.”
[1] Wright, C – 96-97
If you are in church long enough you will meet people who have experienced every form of suffering. In the church I have met people who have dealt with murder in their family, I met adults who grew up in cults. I have seen cancer kill and strike young adults and children. When a church gathers, sorrow is not theoretical. It is concrete.
Pain is real and God is everywhere. Often, we struggle finding God in our suffering. The book of Lamentations shows that even following great sin and judgment, God still meets his people. This is the best news. It means God is always with us. God meets us when we hit rock bottom even when we are the ones who got us there.
From the book of Lamentations, we get the practice of Lament. Lament is the practice or tool we use to turn to God in suffering. Lament is a form of prayer. It is a spiritual discipline or a means of grace. It helps us to grow in holiness. It is a tool to navigate through pain and suffering with God rather than without him. By giving us Lament, God validates our pain. He holds our hand through pain to greater trust in his promises.
Lament changes us. It teaches us to handle suffering. It increases our capacity to endure suffering we experience and with others. Lament allows us to suffer better and become better friends and counselors to those who suffer. Lament can transform our community into one that welcomes grief. It could turn the church into a house of mourning full of wise people according to Ecc 7.
Now consider the opposite. If we are unable to handle our own suffering, we cannot carry other's burdens. We will not be able to meet and stay with people in their place of suffering. Because of our own uneasiness with hard emotions, we will offer quick fixes. We will offer cheap words of comfort which do not help. These are unhelpful statements well-meaning Christians make to sufferers: “God has a plan.” “You are young, you will get pregnant again.” “It’s going to be okay, you will get over it.” The issue with these statements, though they may all true, all try to cheer a grieving person up with the help of the unknown future.
It is not the way of lament. Rather than avoid pain, we need to engage pain! James 1:2-4 2Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. We need to be a community that allows suffering and endurance to have its full effect! We must dwell in the hurt. We need to engage suffering, be curious about it, and allow it to shape us. God’s gift of lament has the power to change us, help us help others, and change a community! For this reason, I am excited about Lamentations and Lament!
Outline: In Lamentations 2, God teaches us how he deals with humanity. We will look at three themes, the misery, the lament, and the just judge.
First, we look at the misery.
Like in Lam 1, the pain and suffering is comprehensive. Jerusalem is destroyed (Lam 2:1, 2). Buildings are destroyed (Lam 2:2, 5, 7, 8, 9). Inhabitants are killed (Lam 2:4, 21, 22). Leaders are taken away, discouraged, and killed (Lam 2:9, 10, 20). Children and babies suffer (Lam 2:11, 12, 20). The temple which represents God’s presence, is destroyed (Lam 2:7). The prophets no longer hear from God (Lam 2:9).Second, we look at Complaint. This part will teach us how to Lament.
Last week we saw that the basic four elements of laments were turn, complain, request, and trust.” In this point we focus on “turn” and “complain.”
Lam 2:18-20 is the lesson in Lament: “Their heart cried to the Lord. O wall of the daughter of Zion let tears stream down like a torrent day and night…” In Lam 2:19, “Arise cry out in the night Pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord! Lift your hands to him….” Lam 2:20 Look, O Lord, and see! With whom have you dealt thus?”
Application
The first lesson is turn to God and be honest. How real are we with God in our prayers? Do we dare to turn to the Lord and pour out our heart like water before the presence of the Lord? Can we express hard emotions? Lam 2:20-21 is very real. The Lamenter seems to be questioning whether God went too far.[1] Do we lament? Are we honest with God? I am not advocating disrespect but messy heart-felt prayers! God is the Sovereign Lord of the universe, and he is also our loving father. He delights in us and knows us more intimately than we know ourselves! We can be honest because God already knows. By Lamenting we become more aware that we are known by God. Our relationship with God becomes more authentic. We make ourselves available to the healing he has for us.
An important truth is that God can handle our negative emotions. This is a big hurdle for us. I remember really early in my Christian life; I was in a community group and we were sharing prayer requests. When it was my turn to share, I shared what was going on but also said, but don’t worry about it, we don’t have to pray. Someone in the group was curious about that. They asked if I was worried to bother God if we make this a prayer request. I felt gently convicted. I realized that my reluctance to pray highlighted a lack of intimacy with God on my part.
For many, our families did not tolerate negative emotions. Negative emotions were met with shame for not being more grateful. Or we were dismissed for being too sensitive. We learned we would experience less distress by keeping quiet. We struggle to voice emotions to God because we struggle to voice emotions period. Perhaps though we are needy creatures, we do not want to appear that way. God is different than what our families may have been like. God can handle our negative emotions.
Adam Young is a Christian counselor. This next part if provocative. This counselor talks with great joy about how his young children voice anger at him. Before you dismiss him, hear him out. He rejoices because he knows this means they feel so loved, so connected, and safe. They know they can voice their frustration and that their dad is not going anywhere. Our ability to voice hard emotions will affect our relationship with God.
If we have been shown our whole lives that are negative emotions are not welcome, we have been forced to suppress them. We may be stunted emotionally. This affects our relationship with God. We may not be aware of parts of our old selves that need healing and transforming. Emotional immaturity affects the whole community. If we have not learned to process emotions in a healthy manner, we will be limited in our ability to help our fellow sufferers.
This is not a call to children to rebel and be disrespectful. It is an invitation to explore and express hard emotions, like we see in the Bible. The complaints from people to God in Job, the Psalms, or Lamentations, are not disrespect. They present the kind of wrestling God welcomes. They are an invitation to speak more honestly about hardship. They are invitations to deeper intimacy with God. Ps 10:1 offers this example, “Why, O LORD, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?”
The second lesson concerns the role of the past and memory. In the complaint, the author remembers Jerusalem of old. He portrays Israel in idyllic terms. He describes Jerusalem as “the splendor of Israel” (Lam 2:1), “the might of Israel” (Lam 2:3) with palaces and strongholds (Lam 2:5), with festivals (Lam 2:6,7), and “the city that was called perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth” (Lam 2:15).
When we suffer in the present, we contrast the present with the past. There is a common assumption that dwelling on the past is pointless. It is important to understand the past to understand how we got to where we are.
This is the application – we must beware of remembering badly. In Lamentations 2, the author begins by remembering the glorious past. Eventually in Lam 2:14, he acknowledges that their prophets had been false prophets. They had failed to expose iniquity. They had not warned the people of the judgment to come that God had promised (Lam 2:17).
The lesson is that even if the past appears better and we wish we could go back, often it is what led to present hardship. It is a good idea to understand the present considering where we have come. If the past truly impacts the present, we need to understand the past to free ourselves from it. One of the ways the NT speaks of Christian maturity is by putting off the old self (Col 3:9). The goal of looking at the past is not to become introspective and blame our shortcomings on our past. Rather, as we lament our misery, thinking about the past helps us to repent more fully of our sin and turn to God. A few examples of this: and these are not prophetic truths, just suggestions. If we lament bad grades, remembering the past may help we repent of not studying more!
If we lament a bad marriage and wish we could go back to when the marriage seemed in a better place, remember that it may have been failure in those so called “good old days” that led to where we are now.
To summarize this point. Lament is turning to God. It is growing in intimacy. Lament is learning to experience intimacy with God in all hardships. Lament is learning to share things that are honest and uncomfortable. Lament is trusting that God will hold us in hard times. Rather than wishing we were back in the past, through Lament we can honestly confess our sins from the past and live more faithfully to God in the present.
Third, we turn to God the sovereign Judge.
Lamentations 2 places the responsibility of the destruction of Jerusalem on God. We read, Lam 2:1 “the Lord in his anger has set the daughter of Zion under a cloud.” Lam 2:2 “The Lord has swallowed up without mercy all the habitations of Jacob.” Lam 2:4 “He has bent his bow like an enemy, with his right hand set like a foe; and he has killed all who were delightful in our eyes…” Lam 2:5 “The Lord has become like an enemy.” Lam 2:8 “The Lord determined to lay in ruins. Lam 2:17 “The Lord has done what he purposed; he has carried out his word.” God is the enemy here.Application
We struggle to talk this way about God. It is necessary to believe that God is love but cannot neglect his justice. If we believe God is sovereign and powerful, we have two options. When calamity strikes, either God did it, or God let it happen. Nothing catches him by surprise so we can turn to him.
Lamentations 2 teaches that God is righteous in his judgments. We cannot fault him even in our misery. Often our misery is not connected with our sin, but when we can see our misery as the consequence of sin, like Lamentations, we can acknowledge the Lord’s justice. The poet acknowledges in Lam 2:17, “The Lord has done what he purposed; he has carried out his word which he commanded long ago.”
God’s wrath is not random volatile anger, it is just. Israel violated God’s covenant for centuries. They pursued other gods and oppressed the poor. God is slow to anger but eventually his divine anger brings punishment. Lamentations 2 acknowledges that God’s wrath is justified.
Yet, still the author laments and asks the Lord to consider their suffering (Lam 2:20). The Lord is being faithful to his word (Lam 2:17). The author may have in mind texts like Lev 26:14-46 (esp. Lev 26:32-33) and Deut 28:15-68 (e.g. Deut 28:63-64). The books of Moses warned Israel that if they act faithlessly, enemy nations would conquer and send take them out of the land. It is right and biblical to see God as the enemy of those who practice wickedness. Now, no matter what we have done, God’s grace is always greater than our sin. We can turn to him. Lament is how we turn to the Lord, in our pain.
Conclusion
God is the enemy of those who practice wickedness. These are three gospel applications from Lamentations 2.First, this is what reformed theologians call the first use of the Law. The law is a mirror that reveals our sin. We are guilty of sin. Our sin has real consequences. We contribute to the misery in the world. The Holy God who judges sin reminds with a text like Lamentations 2 that we need a savior. Lamentations 2 connects our sin to judgment. Seeing the state of misery leads us to repent before the final judgment comes, so our sins can be forgiven.
A second gospel application is that Jesus lamented. He quotes Ps 22 and asks God why he forsook him. NT authors connect our suffering to Jesus’ suffering (c.f. Heb 4:15). The trajectory for Jesus was, suffering, death, then glory. This means that for those who believe in Jesus and who are united to Christ as well, death will not have the final word. We suffer and will continue to suffer. We will eventually die. If we are united with Him, we have already been raised spiritually with Christ. We will also have life beyond the grave.
A third gospel application is that according to Heb 12:6, God disciplines those he loves. Parents discipline children because they love them. Some parents have an abusive view of discipline. Good discipline is for the good of children. The misery in Lamentations 2 warns us. It teaches in some way that God is a loving parent who cares about how his children behave. When we believe in Jesus our sins are forgiven and we are saved from the wrath to come. In this life we still live with the consequences of our sins and those of others. These consequences graciously remind us to repent.
Even in the worst times, lament allows us to turn to God. Lament is how we hold on tight to God in the storms of life. He is sovereign and holds us even tighter even when we let go. Lament allows us at any time to seize him again. Lament allows us to grow in intimacy with God. It allows us to grow in maturity in our suffering. It grows us in compassion towards others. In this way God edifies his church through suffering. “Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning.”
[1] Wright, C – 96-97
Comments
Post a Comment