Atlanta Bible Baptist Church

Joel Edison: Let's stand and reread Lamentations chapter 3. We just want to look at three verses that we'll key in on today, verses 21 through 24. This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. "The Lord is my portion," says my soul, "Therefore I hope in Him!"

God, again, we thank you for your faithfulness. We thank you that you allowed us to rise up this morning and that our feet would hit the floor and that we would indeed be able to come into your house today and render our praises, honor, and glory unto you. Great is your faithfulness. I ask now that you honor your word. May it not return unto you void. I pray for the fill of the spirit that indeed you be lifted up high and mighty, for in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Please be seated.

Indeed, it is an honor, a pleasure, and a privilege to stand before you and proclaim the word of God. It also gives our pastor a relief. And of course, in honoring what Jesus said to the disciples, come ye apart before you fall apart. It is a reminder that we all need rest every so often, regardless of what we do. So, I highly recommend a little time off every so often, as long as it's not every week. So make your employer take note of that.

Our key verse today: "Great is your faithfulness." It's been the theme for the appreciation. Those words no doubt, I believe you can agree with me, give a certain calmness to the soul, especially if you've been through the wringer. These words promote good feelings about how good God is. Whose faithfulness? God's faithfulness. But how often do we meditate on his faithfulness when it pertains to the good things that we get?

In order to get to that point, to that plateau, no doubt he has allowed some things to happen in our lives to get us to that plateau so that we can indeed say, "Great is his faithfulness." Many times this verse is extracted out of context and sometimes is overlooked. Sometimes this book, the Book of Lamentations, is overlooked. But it's when you do a deep dive that you truly realize and you truly experience God's faithfulness and the fact that we must—and that word "must" is an imperative—we must go through adversity.

The prophet Jeremiah exemplifies the testimony of God's faithfulness. Jeremiah, known as the weeping prophet. Why was he weeping so much? It's because he was weeping over the sins and the trespasses of the nation of Israel. Would to God that we would do the same for the sins and trespasses of people around us. He was born around 650 BC, therefore making him a contemporary of Dwight Strozier.

He was called a weeping prophet, weeping during the time of King Josiah. Jeremiah's ministry spanned for about 40 years and it spanned the reigns of about five kings. And as someone mentioned to me earlier, it always looks like I'm on a mission, but his mission was to warn Judah of impending judgment. We just saw a video, or at least we did discuss it in Sunday school today, of warning people of the impending judgment that is to come.

He was the weeping prophet because of the laments over his people, because of their sin and suffering. Now, at the time of this writing, he was in the midst of deep sorrow and national devastation, not just personal devastation, but national devastation. But just how did the nation of Israel arrive to the point where they were in national distress? I call attention to a passage of scripture that's very familiar. If you would, turn your Bibles to 2 Chronicles chapter 7.

Most everyone is familiar with that passage, 2 Chronicles 7. There's another verse that's extracted out of there that sometimes is out of context. Verse 14 is very familiar: "If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land." What's the setting of this chapter? What's the context? It was during the dedication of the temple when God allowed Solomon to finish the temple.

Then there's this great array of sacrifices that took place. No doubt with all these sacrifices that took place, it was a sense of national pride because they were doing what God had called them to do, to be an example to the heathen nations around them. And it said over 22,000 bulls were sacrificed and 120,000 sheep. That would make for a great barbecue. National pride indeed because the house of God was being dedicated.

Then the Lord spoke to Solomon. He addressed him in verse 14, and then He addresses Solomon in verse 16 where He says to them all, "For now I have chosen and sanctified this house, that My name may be there forever; and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually." And then He says to them specifically, to Solomon in verse 17, "As for you, if you walk before Me as your father David walked, and do according to all that I have commanded you, and if you keep My statutes and My judgments, then I will establish the throne of your kingdom as I covenanted with David your father, saying, 'You shall not fail to have a man as ruler in Israel.'"

And then comes a grim warning. "But," that's a conditional clause, "but if you turn away and forsake My statutes and My commandments which I have set before you, and go and serve other gods, and worship them, then I will uproot them from My land which I have given them; and this house which I have sanctified for My name I will cast out of My sight, and will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples. And as for this house, which is exalted, everyone who passes by it will be astonished and say, 'Why has the Lord done thus to this land and this house?' Then they will answer, 'Because they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and embraced other gods, and worshiped them and served them; therefore He has brought all this calamity on them.'"

This passage is a warning from God to Solomon, emphasizing the consequences. Yes, God is a forgiving God, but when we sin, there are consequences. He forgave Israel, but there were consequences. I fast forward to Jeremiah chapter 22. And here we have the culmination of all that could go wrong. All that God said would happen, did happen. Jeremiah 22:8 says, "And many nations will pass by this city; and everyone will say to his neighbor, 'Why has the Lord done so to this great city?'" And this is the echo of 2nd Chronicles 7:19 through 22, which I just read.

But then there's a personal account, the account of Jeremiah. He sees a city that's been taken into captivity. He sees where the people have been killed or scattered. And sometimes these things seem a bit superficial to us as we see them on TV. Many of you have watched the news as I do and see the destruction that has taken place in the city of Kyiv, Ukraine. That which has taken place in Gaza. Indiscriminate bombing where the entire countryside is laid to waste.

And this is what has taken place in Jerusalem. The invading force, the Babylonians led by King Nebuchadnezzar, have come in and laid waste to the city. Jeremiah could not help but be distraught over what he has seen. He sees a city taken into captivity. He sees a city that is depopulated. Everyone is excited about the peace treaty. I don't want to get into the political ramifications, but I'm just glad that there's a possibility for the moment that the killing will stop.

But sadly, there will be no peace until the Prince of Peace comes. So as Christians, we should not be surprised. My heart goes out to anyone who meets a demise such as those people, but only in the sense that many are perishing and going to hell. Beyond the political ramifications, my soul aches for their souls. So this city, full of people that replenished the city, a vibrant city, a city of trade and commerce, laid waste in destruction. Its people were taken into captivity.

And now strangers come in, not to look at the glory that once was, but now the travesty that now exists. It is said of Jerusalem, she was the joy of the whole earth. But now she weeps sorely, her laughter turned into mourning. Her adversaries saw and did mock at her Sabbaths. Those that surrounded Israel during that time used to poke fun at the fact that they laid aside a day, a day of rest, in honor of their God. They ridiculed the Jews for that.

And even to this day, if you go over to the Middle East, it's confusing as to how their week flows. Every time I deployed, I was confused. Wednesday is their Friday. Imagine that. And Thursday is their Saturday. So when Friday rolls around, I'm ready for the weekend and they're going 100 miles an hour. When Sunday rolls around and I want to take time aside to worship, they're going full speed ahead. It's a bit confusing. But Jeremiah, this affected him personally.

As he states, "He has filled me with bitterness." The bitterness because of the calamities. A bitterness of where the stomach is upset. Have you ever been so affected by something that your stomach just turned? Not because of what you ate, but because of what you're seeing. He states He has made me drunk with wormwood, so intoxicated with the sense of afflictions. He says, "I don't know what to say and I don't know what to do." What do you do when you don't know what to say or you don't know what to do?

Something amazing, because sometimes God is angry with His people. And it's not an anger to where He gets to the point to where He wants to cut them off, although back then He did mention to Moses, "I ought to cut them off." But it's more like a point of reference to indicate how angry and displeased He is with His people's sin. And also to point out, "I'm not also a God of the good times, I'm a God of wrath also."

Then we get to chapter 3, which is intensely personal. Jeremiah speaks in the first person describing his affliction, his bitterness, his sense of abandonment. He feels crushed by God's wrath. I mean, God is pouring it out on that city. He's surrounded by darkness. His broken body is evident as far as how he's feeling. But what I love about the word of God, it's not all doom and gloom. Look at verse 21.

After all that's just been said, all that he has gone through, he says, "This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope." That lets me know that in the midst of whatever you're going through, no matter how bad it is, no matter how horrific it may seem, no matter how bad it looks, you can have hope. And in the midst of it all comes this soothing calmness. "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed." Great is Thy faithfulness.

And that lets me know it could be worse than it already is because of that first part: "It is of His mercies that we are not consumed." Is there anything that we can do outside of receiving Jesus Christ to please the Lord? Absolutely not. Therefore, things could be worse. But it's because of the relationship with Him that we that call upon His name are not consumed. Even in a time of judgment, God remains faithful. God remains trustworthy.

His compassions are new every morning, meaning they are renewed daily and not exhausted by yesterday's failures. And I bring to your attention, and as Pastor would say, I have 15 points that I'd like to make. I have set my alarm for 2:00 because the Falcons are playing today. So there's no rush to go out, right? We can just have a good time right here. I probably would have to sneak out the side door if that came to pass.

But number one, God's mercies preserve us. It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, done away with, vaporized, dismissed without any hope. That word "consumed" is the Hebrew word tamam. It means finished. It means destroyed. It means brought to an end. We are not destroyed because of His mercy. Even when judgment fell upon Jerusalem, it still could not stop His mercy.

Now when you think about it, referring back to that word finished, destroyed, the things that come to mind are two cities. Sodom and Gomorrah—actually three cities, Sodom and Gomorrah—and Nineveh. We talked about Nineveh this morning in Sunday school. God utterly allowed those cities to become destroyed. He'd had enough. You see, with God, judgment takes place daily somewhere, somehow. In the midst of judgment, there is always mercy.

But when His wrath falls, that's a different story. He got His people out of the way when Sodom was overthrown. But He utterly destroyed that city to the point to where they can hardly find any remnants of it. The same with Nineveh. The city was overthrown.