Let's take our Bibles and turn
with me to the book of Lamentations, right after the book of Jeremiah.
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations. Last Sunday, I began this third
chapter of Lamentations in the second service, and I wanted
to I went through the first 8 verses in Lamentations chapter 3. And
what I want to do is I want to pick up in verse 9 if you want
to hear the first 8 verses. They are on sermon audio. But
these words, this portion of Scripture is referred to by many
as being the words of Jeremiah, and I don't doubt that Jeremiah
was known as the grieving, weeping prophet, torn by what he beheld
in the Lord's people in the point of lowliness that they had come
to. But As the Lord was saying to the
two on the road to Emmaus, He said, He began to expound unto
them in all of the Scriptures, beginning with Moses, the prophets,
Jeremiah is one of the prophets, and the Psalms, all the things
concerning Himself. So if we look at these verses
of scripture and we realize these are the words of the Lord Jesus
and in particular while he was on the cross. You've read the scripture many
times in Isaiah chapter 53. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. It pleased the Lord to bruise
him. When we read the words in Jeremiah,
or for myself, let me say that. When I read those, and I do begin
to understand something of what the Lord was going through, but
these words in the book of Lamentations chapter 3, the detail and the
explicitness of what He suffered and how He voiced it as the Spirit
of God revealed it to us. These are the words of the Lord
Jesus as He was suffering at Calvary. The first verse of Lamentations
chapter 3 says, I am the man that has seen affliction by the
rod of His wrath." No one could say those words right there except
the Lord Jesus Christ who was speaking prophetically. Lamentations was penned by Jeremiah
before the Lord came into this world. So those words right there
are spoken in past tense. I am the man that hath seen affliction. Now, the Lord Jesus was the blood
of the Lamb was slain in the eternal knowledge, will, and
purpose of Almighty God before the foundation of the world.
So the Lord eternally was beheld by the Father
of His suffering. And here's the Lord through the
Spirit of God you know, the hand pin of Jeremiah saying, I'm the
man that has seen affliction. I am of his wrath, of his wrath. Wrath that's going to be spewed
out upon the ungodly, the world, the world, the world of The reprobate. I don't want to
get into too much right there, but the reprobate, the ones that
are refused. The world. God's people, even
before conversion, they're not of the world. You're not of the
world. If you were of the world, the
Lord said the world would love His own. God's people are born
dead in trespasses and sins, but they're not of the world.
They're God's elect. They're born unregenerate, but
they're not of the world. The Lord said in John chapter
17 verse 9, He said, I pray for those that you have given me,
I pray not for the world. But for those that you've given
me out of the world, whenever the Lord says, I am
the man that has seen the rod of His wrath, He is saying that
I am the man that has borne that which was deserving to the people
of God, but never appointed to them. God has not appointed us
to wrath. So, knowing His suffering, the
believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is actually going to say in verse
21, and I'm not going to deal with verse 21 today, but I'm
just going to read it right now. When it says in verse 21 of Lamentations
3, This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. If you
want to know the foundation of a believer's hope, hope and confidence
of life eternal in Christ, what we're about to consider is the
foundation of our hope. So now as we look at these verses,
remember who is speaking. It's the verbalization of the
heart of the Lord Jesus Christ as He was hanging upon the cross
and this is how God the Father dealt with Him. He hath enclosed my ways with
hewn stone. He hath made my paths crooked. Now, the Lord set forth that
His path as the substitute of His people, His walk, His obedience,
that's His path. His path was made crooked. And the word crooked, right there,
is the same word that is found in Isaiah chapter 24. Hold your
place. Just turn back to Isaiah. I want
you to look at it. Isaiah 24 verse 1. He's made my world,
he's made my path, I'm sorry, crooked. Isaiah 24 verse 1 says,
Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty and maketh it waste and
turneth it upside down. Or my margin says, perverteth
the face thereof, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof.
He turneth it upside down. Now that word, he made my path
crooked. What he's saying is this, he's
turned my world upside down. Now you know if you make that
statement, and you know what he's talking about, I mean everything
is just Just a whole lot of kilter, it's a period. By the determinate
counsel of Almighty God. The Lord said concerning when
He said, He's enclosed my ways with hewn stone. He's talking about that hewn
stone. Again, that's the same thing
that is set forth in the word mean as a mason. as a stone worker. Somebody that takes stone and
fits it and stuff like that. I've been down in Mexico many,
many times. I've gone to these Mayan places
of false worship and looked at the stone work that was done
by those those Indians down there. And I'm telling you, I'm looking
at stone that is way too heavy for anybody, a group of men,
to get it. And how the exactness of those
stones and those angles and stuff like that, and all of them fit,
they're just unbelievably tight. I'm thinking, how'd you do that? Well, what the Lord was saying
here, He said, He's enclosed my ways with hewn stone. No cracks. No open spaces. No way out. No way to escape,
like a mason. It's like a wall. He's taken
and enclosed my ways, turned my world providential. Again,
I don't want it to appear as though that it was out of context,
out of order or anything. It was by the Lord's determinate
will. But what he was saying was this,
there was no way out. There was no escape, no places
of openness. He says in verse 10, he was unto
me as a bear. Lying in wait and as a lion in
secret places. Now here the Lord sent forth,
He said, I was one that was pounced upon, seized like a prey of a
lion or a bear that would have no mercy, no mercy on his victim
and would just tear him and devour him. He said, I was as one that
justice, the justice of my father, he was as a bear or a lion that's
lurking for an ambush in a secret place. And once pounced upon,
there's absolutely no way that I was going to survive. No way. He was unto me like a bear or
a lion that's waiting secretly, hidden, camouflaged. Like somebody or something that
was pounced upon by a bear and it got him. It got him. He's
not going to get away. He hath turned aside my ways
and pulled me in pieces. He hath made me desolate. Here's the Lord's declaration
again as He continues with this. There's no escape. No hope of
escape. He's one that was seized and
held by that bearer line and here He describes His case under
the hand of divine judgment. He had turned aside. Turned aside. What it means is
He's declined, turned off, or plucked away His providential
dealings with me. He's made my road desolate and
deprived me all society and comfort with Him in my soul. Here is the Lord Jesus Christ
who was ever before the Father. I was ever His delight. Before the mountains were formed,
He said I was with Him. The Father and the Son. One. One. One in being. One in love. One in fellowship. One. One.
And He said He has turned aside. Turned aside my ways. His providence
toward me is now changed. Not in His love, not in His affection. For His Son, the Lord has said,
that's My beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. You hear Him. And when He was made sin, Almighty God in divine justice
and judgment, He said He was like a bear. He was like a lion. He said He turned He turned me
aside. His providential dealings with
me was won as an absolute sovereign judge who will in no wise acquit
the wicked. He who knew no sin, He said,
He tore me to pieces. The Spirit of God moved upon
the prophet Isaiah to pin the loneliness of his sufferings. Isaiah 63, 3, I have trodden
the winepress alone. Alone. Again, he who was ever
with the Father now is forsaken. He has withdrawn himself. Sin separates. That's what Scripture says. Thy
sins is separated between thee and God. And only in divine mercy
and compassion and grace is reconciliation wrought in absolute justice for
God's people with the Father. The Lord being the reconciler
But he had to reconcile his people back to the Father. He had to
absolutely bear what they deserved. Now if you want to know, what
is it going to be for those outside of Christ? What's it going to
be like? Well I can tell you, reading these Scriptures right
here, I can tell you what's going to happen. He who spared not
his own son, but delivered Him up for us all, for God's people. What is God going to do in the
Day of Judgment? What's it going to be like? How
is it? Here it is right here. There
was none that shared in His sufferings for His people. He was forsaken
of all. His people forsook Him, His disciples
fled, but He was forsaken of God, so He was forsaken of man
and God. He said, He turned my world upside
down. Turned His providential dealings
with me aside. But for the grace of God, that
God would have an elect. If God had not left us a small
remnant, that's what Scripture says. We'd all been like Sodom
and Gomorrah. God Almighty in justice would
have done this. The entire human race would have been crushed
in absolute justice and wrath and deserving of it. But God,
who is rich in mercy, the winepress of God's wrath, I mean, you know,
winepress, it squeezes the grapes and just squeezes and squeezes. You think, is that not enough?
Nope, not enough. Is there any end to it? No. No. Not until it's done. Here this suffering of our precious
Savior is expressed that all honor, all glory, and all praise
in our reconciliation is given to Him. Who has suffered like
He suffered? Who is deserving, deserving of
honor? Me? Because I did this, that
or the other? Who is deserving to say, I'm
the man that has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath? Only the Lord Jesus Christ. Look
at 12 and 13. He had bent His bow and set me
as a mark for the error. He hath caused the arrows of
his quiver to enter into my reins." Now here the Lord declares that
he is the prey of Jehovah, the one who was pounced upon like
a bear. He said he was as a hunter, a
hunter that was coming after his prey. And he said he drew
his bow and he bent his bow and he set
me as the mark. He said he knew just exactly
who he was shooting at. He said it was me. I was listening to my neighbor
the other day. I heard this sound. I couldn't figure out what it
was. All of a sudden, I looked over
at him and he had a target set up. He was doing some bow target
practice. And I'd watch him. And I never,
I never, I could see him draw back. Of course, I could never,
you know, hear, you kids, y'all shoot, you know. He'd draw it
and it was too far away. I couldn't hear it. I didn't
hear the string or, I didn't hear nothing. All I could hear
was when that arrow hit that target. And I hear that and I thought,
man, that, you know, watching TV or something, I saw a bow
hunter and he was shooting at a deer. And the impact of that
era and the immediate effect that it had, that deer didn't
go far. I mean, it was over. And he said he bit his bow and
he set me as the mark. And He caused the arrows of His
quiver to enter into my reins. Actually, the word there is interpreted
as liver, but what it is, it's the vital parts. He hit the vital
parts. And the Scripture sets forth
in Psalm 7. Hold it and just turn to Psalm
7. Verse 11 to 13. Psalm 7. The scripture says, verse 11,
God judges the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked
every day. If he turn not, he will whet his sword, he bent
his bow and made it ready. He hath also prepared for him
the instruments of death, he ordaineth his arrows against
the persecutors. Now, the bow of God's justice,
the arrows of His wrath, that which is prepared for the ungodly,
for the world, for those that know not God, for those that
bow not to the Lord, those that are appointed Those that are going to be dealt
with in absolute justice, that justice that's due them, the
Lord's made ready. He said that which was due and
owing to, rebellion, He said that's what He shot me with. He took His bow, bent His bow,
set me as a mark and He ain't going to miss. to my reigns and to the precious
vital parts. Verse 14, I was a derision to
all my people, and their song all the day. Now here's the Lord
setting forth the unkind reception that He received. He came unto
His own and His own received Him not. Now you think, He said, He came to his people. He came
to his Jew. He came to the Jews first. And
he got a people among the Jews. Even those who were his elect,
yet unconverted, they were doing the same thing that everybody
else was doing. They were mocking him. He's come
now as the willing savior of sinners. And those that even
as yet, I said, didn't know Him. He said there, you know, Scripture
says in Isaiah 53 verse 3, He is despised and rejected of men,
a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid as it
were our faces from Him. He was despised and we esteemed
Him not. And now He said, He's admitted,
He said, I was the object. Here He is hanging on the cross.
and the object of contempt. And not only by the Pharisees
and the Sadducees and the Romans, by his own people. Many of them
there that day, they wagged their heads. They didn't know him. They don't know him. He hadn't
revealed himself to the elect. He said, you know, he saved others. He can't save himself. Let God
have him if he'll have him. And the Lord says, Father, praying
for his elect. He said, I pray not for the world.
I pray for those that you've given me out of the world. But
here's some that doesn't even know him yet that will be called
out of darkness. And the Lord says, Father, forgive
them. They don't know what they're doing. Even in the moments of his suffering,
laughing, making fun of him, I was derision. to all my people."
Laughter, that's what it is. Scorn, mocking. And he said,
not only was I a mock, I was a derision, a mock. I was their
song all the day long. Psalm 69, 12 says, they that
sit in the gate speak against me and I was the song of the
drunkards. you know, wine is going to have
an effect on people. You're going to start, you know,
acting silly and stuff like that, and singing, you know, drunk,
just drunkards, you know, like this. But now, not physically
drunkards, but those that have been made drunk on the wine of
the fornication of false religion. Mystery Babylon. The great harlot. Mystery Babylon. That drunkard
liked this. That drunkenness that is just
the nature of man as he's born into Adam. He said, I was the
one, I was their song. Made fun of me. I think about,
oh many times you see how in scriptures like Saul of Tarsus. He was going after those who
were of the way. Because this Jesus of Nazareth
claimed to be God. Singing, that's the song of a
drunkard. One that's drunk on the wine
of false religion. The Lord said, that's what I
was. those that He eternally loved,
those that He stood as surety and He was going to save from
their sins. He said, I was the song of those
drunk in unbelief. And now here He is hanging on
the cross. He filled me with bitterness
and made me drunken with wormwood. He made me to drink the cup of
misery, filled with bitterness and trouble and affliction. He said, this is what they deserve. This is what they deserve. This
is what I'm going to bear. I'm going to pay. I'm going to pay.
What's it going to cost? Everything. He's going to have
to die. He's going to have to suffer.
He's going to have to suffer and then die. Isaiah 51, 17, Thou hast drunken
the dregs of a cup of trembling and wrung them Everything that is deserving of my sin and rebellion against
God, He has borne all of it. There's nothing left. God is
satisfied Himself. Satisfied His law completely
and there's nothing else. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them that be in Christ Jesus. There's no skeletons. in the
closet. There's nothing. There's nothing. I'm free. I'm free. I'm free. And that's good news. He bore
this. Verse 16, He's broken my teeth
with gravel stones. He covered me with ashes. The Lord who knew no sin and
had pleasure in only doing the will of Him that sent Him. Now He must, in the bearing of
His people's sins, He's going to have to eat. The only thing
I can, I'm relating to this, and you'll understand it, is
if, I love oysters. I love oysters. I don't care for them raw, but
I love them fried. And I mean just the taste of
a good oyster to me is just fantastic. We used to eat oyster po'boys,
French bread, hoagies. I'd never heard of a hoagie before
I moved here, but that's all right. They were po'boys to me.
And you just take French bread and you just pile it up with
a bunch of oysters, fried oysters. Put all your stuff on there and
just take a big old bite. And oh, it's so good until you
bite down into the piece of either a little piece of a pearl or
grit or sand or something, whatever that oyster got in there which
excretes stuff and makes a pearl just to cover that. But you bite
into something that's hard. I love boiled eggs. I love them. But if I take one and I bite
down on a shell, you know how offensive it is? I just want
to get rid of all of it, just trying to eat that. He said,
what he's done, he said, he's broken my teeth with gravel stones.
What I've eaten in absolute obedience, he said, it's like biting down
on a rock and the breaking of the teeth. It's something that,
it's painful. It's offensive. It's just, it's
a bitter, it's a bitter thing. And he said, he's taken and broken
my teeth with gravel stones and has covered me with ashes. In the margin, rolled me in the
ashes. Actually, the word there, when
he says he's covered me, interpreted rolled with me, he's humiliated
me. He's humiliated me. He made me. He made me to. Brought me down. Thou hast removed my soul far
off from peace, and I forgot prosperity." You hear the Lord
speaking of being rejected. He said He pushed aside, cast
away, removed far off. Same thing as when he cried in
Psalm 22.1, My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? Why art
Thou so far from helping me from the words of my roaring? He said,
Thou hast removed my soul far off from peace. You're not there. You're not there. You've forsaken me. to the point
that I have forgotten prosperity. What he's saying, I have forgotten
what good and prosperity are. I've lost their meaning. Verse 18, 19, And I said, My
strength and my hope is perished from the Lord, remembering mine
affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. Verse
18, The Lord, he says, my strength and my hope is perished from
the Lord. He cries and says, I am totally
without strength or expectation of continuing. I'm going to die. In the latter verse, he is an
admonition to remember. what he has suffered. Actually,
when it says remembering, if you look, if you have a margin
there, the word is remember. Actually, what he's saying is
remember. Remember my affliction. Remember my suffering. The word,
that word remember is translated mark to be recognized and mentioned. Mark it. His cry to the Father
to ever behold and remember the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ
on the behalf of His people. Behold, remember my blood that
was shed for the remission of their sins and pass over them
Remember, Father, what I've suffered at Your hand. Remember it as
the finishing of the work that You gave me to do. And remember,
for Your glory and their eternal good, remember, remember. But
also God's people are admonished to remember, mark and mention
Him who was totally, absolutely forsaken of the Father as He
bore the sins of His people. And I'm telling you, I know the
Father remembers. I know the Lord Jesus Christ
remembers. But I tell you what we're doing
today, we're remembering too. We remember as we continually
to come together and faithfully hear the glorious gospel of God. We remember every time it's rehearsed
in our ears again that Christ was made sin for us, that He
suffered. Remember as we enter into our
closet and we call upon the Father who hears us in secret and has
said, I'm going to reward you openly. And we remember the Lord
as we search the Scriptures daily to see if the things that are
being preached are so. I'm telling you what these are.
I invite you, take a concordance,
get you a concordance and see what these words are saying right
here. You know, it's very important to me that I understand the Word.
One word translated, you know, something might not mean what
I think it means. I want to look at it. I want
to make sure I understand. So I want to remember, remember,
remember my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the
gall. Now, I'm going to admit right
here, we do remember, but oh, how much we forget, don't we?
I can't enter into this, Jeff, like I wish I could. I wish I
could, but I know I can't. But I want to, I desire to. And then we remember Him as we
mentioned, because that's what it is right there. Remembering,
it means to remember and mention. We mention the Lord one to another
as we fellowship in Him. we fellowship together, the scripture
bears out that the Lord hears that. He's aware of that, Malachi
3.16. Then they that feared, that respected
the Lord, spake often one to another. And the Lord hearkened,
and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him that feared
the Lord, and that thought upon his name. And then in closing,
our Lord, who has besought the Father to remember, his affliction,
that affliction that his people remember. Though, as I said,
we remember like through a glass, darkly, because of the frailty
of our flesh. Our Lord says, and I'll stop
here, verse 20. He said, my soul hath them still
in remembrance, and is humbled within me. Now, most writers,
in that 20th verse right there, agree that this is a difficult
verse to interpret as to realizing exactly who is speaking. Is it
the Father speaking? Is it the Lord Jesus Christ speaking,
which I think it is the Lord speaking? Or is it His people
speaking? Now, just thinking about that,
is it the Father, the Son, or His people? I'll read it again
and think, you know. The Lord had just said in verse
19, remember my affliction. The Father remembers, Christ
remembers, and His people remember. And then it says, my soul hath
them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me. I think it's the Lord. All three
can be said. Father, Son, and God's people
can be said to be saying that, but it's one that It's kind of given some light
in this verse. There's a verse of scripture
that gives some light upon this being the Lord Jesus Christ speaking. It says, my soul remembereth
well and meditateth on thy faithfulness. I believe that the verse is actually
best considered as being spoken by the Lord himself. What he
went through was indescribable. What he suffered. What he suffered was what he
came for. He came as the lamb that would
be slain. What he prayed for in John chapter
17, he asked the Father as he was praying in his high priestly
prayer, glorify thou me, that thy son might glorify you. What
he was saying is this. Glorify me openly before you
and men. Glorify me as your lamb. Glorify me or openly show me
to be your servant, the one who willingly
laid down his life for your people. willing to suffer all that they
deserved, every bit of it, that we just, you know, looked at
and considered. And then the Lord, in that my
soul hath them still in remembrance and is humbled in me, what he's
saying is this. I remember well that which you
poured out and I suffered on the behalf of these your sheep.
And he said, my soul, is humbled. As I meditate on your faithfulness,
your faithfulness to love a people, to determine before the foundation
of the world that they were not going to perish. And you in absolute
faithfulness and justice poured out upon me what they deserve
and I bore it all and to your faithfulness to be just. I'm
humbled, I'm humbled. You didn't spare me that they
might live. And he said, I'm humbled concerning
your faithfulness. Psalm 42 verse five, why art
thou cast down, O my soul? Why art thou disquieted within
me? Hope thou in God, for I shall
yet praise him for the help of his countenance. Oh, may we remember
with a heart of thanksgiving unto God for his indescribable
mercy and compassion in Christ toward us. May we be made to
muse, think upon that which he's bore in our stead and contemplate
his words out of Lamentations chapter 1 verse 12. He said,
is it nothing to you, all you 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."
Is it nothing to you? Is it nothing to you, he said,
that I've suffered? Those descriptive verses of Scripture,
I mean, we try to enter into them and we desire to and long
to, But all we can come to the conclusion of is there was no
sorrow. Nobody's ever suffered like he
suffered. I pray that Christ be honored, God Almighty be honored,
that God's people be comforted in the setting forth of the satisfaction
of God's justice on our behalf and our precious Savior.