So often we read scripture and
miss what we've read. Mark read Psalm 39 verse 11 to
us. I thought how well that describes
what God does for every sinner, he says by his grace, and how
contrary it is to the religion of this day. When thou with rebukes dost correct
man for his iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume away like
a moth. Surely every man, every man saved
by God's grace, Every person who experiences the gift of God's
grace knows by experience that he is vanity. When God rebukes
and corrects his people for their sins, giving them life and faith
in Jesus Christ, he causes their beauty to wither and consume
before them. And it is a bitter, painful experience. It is a bitter, painful experience. Brother Scott Richardson said
here one night, preaching, today's religion is so slick, you can
swallow it and never taste it, have it and never feel it, Lose
it and never miss it. Not so with the life of faith
in Jesus Christ our Lord. Turn with me to the book of Lamentations,
Lamentations chapter 3. When I started to read our readings
for yesterday and today, I knew immediately that I was going
to have to deal with this portion of scripture. in the message
tonight. I believe God's giving me a message
for you. Lamentations chapter three. Here's my question. Has God taken
you to hell? Has God taken you to hell? Until he takes you to hell, he'll
never bring you to glory. Until he gets you lost, he will
never seek you and find you. Until he lays you low, he will
never lift you up. Until he abases you, he will
never exalt you with his grace. Until he slays you, he will never
give you life. Until he fixes it so you have
no hope, he will never give you a good hope. My dear brother
Harry Graham, I've mentioned his name so often here. He's
been with the Lord now. He and his wife both for a good
while. His wife died just last year,
I think. She was in her 90s. But he was
a dear lifelong friend, at least 30 or 35 years my senior. And I was never in his presence
that I didn't learn something for my soul. Never in his presence
when I wasn't profited by something he taught me. Sitting on his
hearth one night, he said to me, when God deals with a sinner
in mercy, he takes him to hell first. Has God taken you to hell? That's a pretty good summary
of what we had before us in our text in Lamentations 3, verses
1 through 20. Read it with me. I am the man that hath seen affliction
by the rod of his wrath. He hath led me and brought me
into darkness, but not into light. Surely against me is he turned. He turneth his hand against me
all the day. My flesh and my skin hath he
made old. He hath broken my bones. He hath
built it against me and compassed me with gall and travail. He
hath set me in dark places as they that be dead of old. He
hath hedged me about that I cannot get out. He hath made my chain
heavy. Also when I cry and shout, he
shutteth out my prayer. He hath enclosed my ways With
hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked. He was unto me as a
bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places. He hath turned
aside my ways. God has pulled me in pieces. He hath made me desolate. He's
poured me out. He's inked in me. made me desolate,
barren, fruitless. He hath bent his bow and set
his mark for the arrow, set me as the mark for the arrow. He
hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins. I was a derision to all my people
and their song all the day. He hath filled me with bitterness
He hath made me drunken with wormwood. He hath also broken
my teeth with gravel stones. He hath covered me with ashes.
And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace. I forget
prosperity. I said my strength and my hope
is perished from the Lord. Remembering mine affliction and
my misery, the wormwood and the gall, my soul hath them still
in remembrance and is humbled in me." The book called Lamentations
is, as its name indicates, a book of weeping, of sorrow, of grief,
of heaviness. And you read through these five
chapters You see grief and sorrow, weeping and heaviness caused
by God's judgment upon Judah and Jerusalem, his people. Jeremiah,
the faithful prophet, had faithfully warned the nation that judgment
was coming because of their iniquities, because of their transgressions.
Because of their sins, he said, God's going to take you away
by the hand of the heathen into captivity in Babylon for 70 years. And nobody paid him any attention.
Everybody laughed at him. And they shut him up in prison.
They said, you can't talk to us like that. We're not that
kind of people. We're not that bad. God's not
going to do that to us. It's not going to happen. And
now it's come to pass. The Babylonians had invaded the
land. Jerusalem was destroyed. Israel
was carried into captivity. There was just a small remnant
left in the city of Jerusalem. Jeremiah was there with that
remnant. The book opens with the weeping
prophet weeping over the city and the people he dearly loved.
Weeping over the church of God for whom he had given his life
in labor all his life long. He beheld the ruins of the city.
And the book begins with a burst of anguish. Go back in chapter
one. Just a burst of anguish. How
doth the city set solitary that was full of people? How was she
become a widow that was great among the nations and princess
among the provinces? How will she become a tributary?
She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks.
Among her lovers she hath none to comfort her. All her friends
have dealt treacherously with her. They are all 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. As you read through this book,
it's very difficult to tell who's speaking. Is it Jeremiah speaking
of his sorrow? Is it Israel speaking of her
sorrow? Or is it the Lord Jesus speaking
of his sorrow? And throughout the book, you
will find the three are constantly intermingled. 600 years after
Jeremiah looked over the city of Jerusalem and expressed this
great sorrow, our Lord Jesus was on the slopes of the Mount
of Olives, and the sight of the proud, rebellious, doomed city,
doomed by its own obstinate rebellion, brought a mighty rush of compassion
to him as well. He cried, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,
thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent
unto thee. How often would I have gathered
thy children together, even as a hen gathered her chickens under
her wings, and ye would not. Behold, your house is left unto
you desolate. Let me tell you something. Rarely does a week go by that
someone doesn't ask me a question about this passage in Matthew
23 that I just quoted to you, or others like it. And sometimes
I make the mistake of trying to answer their questions. You
know what I always find, Larry? This is what I always find. Every
time I try to explain the passage, somehow with all we know about
God's sovereignty and all God's glory, it loses its wonder to
me. It just loses its wonder. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how
often I have gathered thee, as a chicken gathers her chicks
under her wings, and you would not. How tender, how compassionate,
how gracious, how anxious our Savior is, to show mercy to sinners. He delighteth in mercy. Let us never give any consideration
to any thought that brings that fact into question in our minds. It's obvious at the outset that
this weeping prophet Jeremiah was a type of our weeping Savior. There are pictures of Christ
scattered all through the book. Look at chapter 1, verse 12.
I may come back to this again this weekend. Without question, Jeremiah is
speaking here. Without question, he's speaking
about Jerusalem. But the things that are said
here cannot be literally taken as the words of Jeremiah, and
they cannot be literally applied in the strictest sense to Jerusalem. These words can find their literal
fulfillment, their absolute fulfillment, only in our blessed Savior. Is
it 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. Look at chapter 2, verse 15. Here again, our Savior, obviously
speaking, the prophecy clearly refers to Him. All that pass
by clap their hands at thee. 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 the teeth. They say, we've swallowed her
up. Certainly this is the day that we look for, we have found.
And we've seen it. They that pass by reviled him,
the scripture says, and wagged their heads. Look at chapter
three, verse eight. When I cry and shout, he shutteth
out my prayer. My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? Our Lord quoted from the 22nd
Psalm. In the very next line of that Psalm, he says, you've
never shut out any man's prayer, but you shut out my prayer. Look
in chapter three, verse, Lamentations, verse 14. I was derision to all
my people and their song all the night. Verse 50. He hath
filled me with bitterness. He hath made me drunken with
wormwood. Verse 19. Remembering mine affliction
and my misery, the wormwood and the gall, they gave me also for
my meat, gave me gall for my meat. In my thirst they gave
me vinegar to drink. Look at verse 30. He giveth his
cheek to him that spiteth him. He's filled full with reproach. If you read these chapters with
care, you can't avoid seeing that Jeremiah assumed the sins
of his people and thus gives a marvelous picture of substitution. just as our Lord Jesus assumed
our sins. And when He was made sin for
us, He was made to suffer all the just fury of God's wrath,
suffering all the hell of God's wrath, suffering all the curse
of God's law for us. And He acknowledged that it is
right he did so. And so it is when the sinner
is saved by God's free grace the Lord God causes that sinner
to know his sin and so to know his sin as to take sides with
God against his sin and acknowledge that it's right for God to send
me to hell. It's right for God to send me
to hell. It's right for God to send me
to hell. And if you recognize, Lindsay
Campbell, that it's right for God to send you to hell, you'll
never question whether it's right for him to send somebody else
to hell or not. If God sends a sinner to hell, he sends the
sinner to hell because it is right. Justice and truth are
the habitation of his throne. It is his right and he is right
to do it. And every sinner who experiences
God's saving grace acknowledges against thee. Thee only have
I sinned and done this great evil in thy sight. Throughout
these five chapters, we're taught that judgment is God's work. It is the righteous retribution
of God upon man's sin. And we're taught that all for
whom the Lord God has reserved mercy. acknowledge that it is
righteous and just for God to have mercy as well. In the first
chapter, Jeremiah speaks of Jerusalem as a woman bereft of her husband
and her children. He bewails her misery and God's
prophet identifies himself with his people and their sins. He
says in verse 18, the Lord is righteous. I've rebelled. The Lord is righteous. I've rebelled. People have a strange idea about
God's judgment. You listen to people talk, and
if someone should dare suggest, should dare suggest that something
happened in Providence, and say that's God's judgment, then you're
mocked, laughed at, and berated. as being cynical and hard and
mean. But the fact is, all that men
and women suffer in this world is the testimony that judgment
is sure. There would be no pain, no sorrow,
no weeping, no sighing, no tears, no disconsolation, no misery,
no heartache, if there weren't sin. And all of those things
that are the result of sin are but forerunners of God's judgment. And everything we see in this
world that men think are terrible tragedies and accidents and calamities,
they are but forerunners and testifiers that judgment is sure
and it is just. In the second chapter, the prophet
gives us a remarkable description of Jerusalem's ruin. 48 times in this second chapter,
Jeremiah declares that all the things that Judah suffered, they
suffered because God did it. Now the sooner you learn that,
the more comfortable you'll be living in this world. Shall there
be evil in the city? And the Lord hath not done it.
Whatever comes to pass, God If there's an earthquake, God did
it. If there's a war, God did it. If there's pestilence, God
did it. If there's sickness and disease,
God did it. Oh, but what about Satan? He's
only God's devil, and it doesn't do anything that God didn't ordain. 48 times in the second chapter,
in 22 verses, God, by the inspiration of the Spirit of God, tells us
through his prophet that all that Judah suffered Babylon that
wicked nation that wicked nation Sheba was reading to me was going
down the road the other day going to North Carolina with the passages
and in Jeremiah for a daily reading Babylon my servant Nebuchadnezzar
my servant What? What? Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar
invading Jerusalem, destroying the temple, taking captive God's
people, taking them down into bondage for 70 years. That's
God's service. God said, Nebuchadnezzar is my
sword. Babylon is my servant. Whatever
comes to pass, God did it. And the evil that comes to pass
is God's hand of judgment. Then in chapter 3, Jeremiah again
ascribes the judgments that befell the city as God's work. Twenty-two
times, twenty-two times, he asserts this fact. Again, he makes the
miseries of the people his own. And out of the midst of misery,
he stays himself, comforts himself, sustains himself with the unfailing
compassion and faithfulness of God. And he asserts without hesitation,
he doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.
Then in chapter 4, more judgment. And the prophet says, the Lord
hath accomplished his fury. Now in chapter 5, it's not the
prophet who speaks, not the substitute, but the people themselves. Chapter
5, Shows us what happens when the Lord God brings sinners to
repentance. He brings His elect down to hell
that He might cause them to cry to Him for mercy. One of the reasons that I refuse
to speak peace to anybody, I won't attempt to tell you whether or
not you know God. I won't attempt to tell you whether
or not you've been converted by God's grace. I won't attempt
to tell you that you've been saved or you haven't been saved.
I won't attempt to tell you that because any peace you get from
me is just false peace. Just false peace. But when God
brings the sinner down, he causes the sinner to cry out to him
for mercy. And crying out to him for mercy,
you find peace. Look at chapter 5, verse 1. Remember,
O Lord, what has come upon us. Consider and behold our reproach. Verse 15. The joy of our heart
is ceased. Our dance is turned into mourning.
Blessed are they that mourn. The curse crown has fallen from
our head. Woe unto us that have sinned,
for this our heart is faint. For these things our eyes are
dim. Verse 19, Thou, O Lord, remainest
forever. Thy throne from generation to
generation. Verse 21, Turn thou us unto thee,
O Lord, and we shall be turned. Renew our days as of old. but thou hast utterly rejected
us. Thou art wroth against us. Now, let's go back to chapter
3. Here these severely afflicted
people are brought to terrible bondage. And the children of
Israel who are brought to terrible bondage, these are not Ammonites
these are not Moabites. These are not Philistines. These
are God's people brought into terrible bondage and they were
abased Abased that they might be exalted look at verse 21 Here
is our hope now everything that happened to Israel everything
that happened to Israel everything that happened to Judah everything
that happened to God's people Israel, Judah, Jacob, Abraham's
seed. All those things that happened
to the physical seed of Abraham happened to them only as they
were representatives typical and pictures of the Israel of
God, the Church of God, God's elect. And when the scripture
speaks, and so all Israel shall be saved in Romans chapter 11,
it's not saying that all those folks who were born as descendants
of Abraham and physical lineage to Abraham, they're going to
be saved. No such thing. Judas is one of those. No, sir. All God's elect shall be saved.
And as God brought Israel down to Babylon and brought Israel
down to bitterness, brought Israel down to emptiness and brought
Israel down to hopelessness and brought Israel down to desolation
so he does with all his elect when he comes to gather them
out of the place where he scattered them now here's our hope verse
21 this I recall to my mind after describing the misery the prophet
says therefore have I hope it is of the Lord's mercies that
we're not consumed The only reason I'm not in hell is because God
hasn't put me there yet. And as long as I'm not in hell,
maybe there's hope for me. Because His compassions fail
not. They're new every morning. Great
is Thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, saith
my soul. Therefore will I hope in Him.
He's the only hope I've got. He's the only thing I can cling
to. The Lord is good. to them that wait for Him, to
the soul that seeketh Him. Now that's reasonable, isn't
it? The Lord's good to them that wait for Him. The Lord's good
to those who seek Him. Now watch God's counsel, verse
26. It is good that a man should
both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. Put
your hand over your mouth. Just shut up. That's the hardest
thing folks to do. Just shut up. Just shut up. I remember one time, Brother
May and somebody, I forgot who it was now. He said he never
did stop talking long enough to learn anything. Just shut
up. Just shut up. Put your hands
over your mouth and maybe God will speak to you. Quit making
excuses for yourself. Quit talking so much about how
bad things are and how they ought to be. Just shut up and wait
on God. It's good that a man should both
hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. It's good
for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. He sitteth alone
and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him. He
putteth his mouth in the dust, if so be there may be hope. Bow
down before the throne and kiss the dirt, maybe the king will
have mercy. He giveth his cheek to him that
spiteth him, He's filled full with reproach. Now look at verse
31. Here we have an explanation of
what God's doing. All the judgment He brings upon
the chosen sinner in the time of mercy. Has God brought you
down to hell? Has He sent His wrath in your
heart? Has He made you see that you
too, like all others, are a child of wrath, one for the deserving
of God's judgment, because you live in wrath against God, hating
Him? If so, listen carefully. This
is written in the book of God for you. The Lord will not cast
off forever. The Lord will not cast off forever. I'm very hopeful for any sinner
who's troubled in his soul. I'm very hopeful for any sinner
who's fearful of God's wrath. I'm very hopeful for any sinner
who senses himself cast off by God. I'm very fearful for you who've
never known what that is. Very fearful for you who've never
known what that is. Because the Lord will not cast
off forever, but though he cause grief, he will have compassion
according to the multitude of his mercies. For he doth not
afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men. Salvation is obtained by simple
childlike faith in the Lord Jesus. But any faith that doesn't arise
from a felt need of Christ and is not accompanied by genuine
conviction is not true faith. And that's just fact. That's
just fact. Our Lord Jesus describes the
Holy Spirit in his office work as the comforter. The comforter. The comforter. And I'm not sure I ever realized
until just recently what he was referring to specifically. when he calls the Spirit of God
the Comforter, another Comforter just like me, another Comforter
just like me. I'll pray the Father and he'll
send you another Comforter just like me. It's expedient for you
that I go away. If I don't go away, the Comforter
will not come. But if I go, if I go, I'll pray
the Father and he'll send you the Comforter, the Comforter.
And this is how we comfort. This is how he comforts. He will
convince you of your sin. He'll convince you of your sin. Of your sin. Because you believe
not on me. What? He will convince you of
your inward, deep-seated, natural, utter contempt and hatred of
God. And the proof of it is you don't
believe on God's dear Son. He'll convince you of your sin.
Boy, that doesn't sound very comforting. No, it's not. I told
you in the beginning of the message, that's bitter. That's painful. That's hard. That's hard. He'll take you to hell. But if
He ever convinces you of your sin, He'll convince you of righteousness. Of absolute, perfect, complete
righteousness. Of perfect righteousness. How's
that? He'll convince you that righteousness
is finished. Righteousness is done. Righteousness,
just like you need. Righteousness just suitable to
your case. Righteousness just suitable to
the needs of a soul in hell! Of righteousness. Because I go
to my Father. I'm returning to my Father as
He who came here as Jehovah's righteous servant to bring in
everlasting righteousness. And He'll convince you of something
else. Oh my! What consolation this is. He'll
convince you of judgment. Judgment done. Judgment finished. Because the Prince of this world
is judged. Judgment finished. This is my hope. This is my joy. This is God's great grace. He
takes the sinner to hell. Convinces him of his sin. Shows him the Redeemer. Convinces
him of righteousness. Convinces him of judgment. And
he says, he says, Enoch, Enoch, let me tell you something. This
is God speaking. Let me tell you something, Enoch.
Let me tell you something. You please me. You please me. Oh, wouldn't that
be wonderful? Hear God say, you please me. You please me. That's what it
is to be convinced of righteousness. Come up here. Come, inherit the kingdom prepared
for you from the foundation of the world, because the prince
of this world is judged. Amen.