Our scripture reading this evening is Lamentations, Chapter 5. Lamentations, Chapter 5. If any of you have trouble finding the book of Lamentations, if you can find the books of Jeremiah or Ezekiel, Lamentations is right in between. It's always nice to know where the bigger books are, to find the smaller books. As you're finding that, let me give you just a brief background. The book of Lamentations is a collection of five poems that were written after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. And these are poems lamenting the disaster, the suffering that has befallen God's people through this catastrophic event. Lamentations chapter 5, hear the word of God. Remember, O Lord, what has befallen us. Look and see our disgrace. Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our homes to foreigners. We have become orphans, fatherless. Our mothers are like widows. We must pay for the water we drink. The wood we get must be bought. Our pursuers are at our necks. We are weary. We are given no rest. We have given the hand to Egypt and to Assyria to get bread enough. Our fathers sinned and are no more, and we bear their iniquities. Slaves rule over us. There is none to deliver us from their hand. We get our bread at the peril of our lives because of the sword in the wilderness. Our skin is hot as an oven with the burning heat of famine. Women are raped in Zion. Young women in the towns of Judah. Princes are hung up by their hands. No respect is shown to the elders. Young men are compelled to grind at the mill, and boys stagger under loads of wood. The old men have left the city gate, the young men their music. The joy of our hearts has ceased. Our dancing has been turned to mourning. The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us, for we have sinned. For this, our heart has become sick. For these things, our eyes have grown dim. For Mount Zion, which lies desolate, jackals prowl over it. But you, O Lord, reign forever. Your throne endures to all generations. Why do you forget us forever? Why do you forsake us for so many days? Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored. Renew our days as of old, unless you have utterly rejected us, and you remain exceedingly angry with us. This ends our reading of God's Word. The Book of Lamentations is not one that is easy to read with a light heart. It is not a book that we skip over with laughter. It is a book that makes us ponder and weigh the most serious things in life. If my memory serves, a few years ago I preached Lamentations 1 from this pulpit. I'm not going to give you a quiz on that. But I'll simply point out that in Lamentations 1, in Lamentations 5, at the end of this book, And in the three chapters in between, we are subjected to a relentless, a relentless, continuing, haunting reflection on the judgment of God and upon the misery that sin and judgment brings. and continuing questions about whether there is really any hope in the midst of this terrible thing that God has brought against his people. Now, to appreciate what's going on here in the book of Lamentations, it's helpful to see it in the light of the broader biblical story. From the very beginning, God created man good. He created him in the Garden of Eden. And to Adam and Eve, placed them in this bountiful garden. He gave them commands, and he promised to bless them richly if they obeyed. And yet he also promised, he also threatened to curse them with death if they disobeyed his word. We know how that story turned out. When Adam and Eve rebelled against God, God had every right to come in judgment. Not just to come in judgment, but to bring the final judgment against the human race. To bring the human story to a very quick end. But he didn't. He came in judgment. He put a curse upon this world. But he allowed human history to continue. He allowed there to be a human race that would grow and that would live in this world. And God, in His great mercy and wisdom, desired to enact a plan of salvation, to rescue this sinful people. As part of that larger plan, many, many generations later, God chose a people for Himself, the people of Israel. And He brought them out of Egypt with His mighty hand. And He brought them into a promised land. And one of the things that strikes us as we read the story in the Old Testament of Israel, coming into that land, being brought out of Egypt, brought through the wilderness, brought into Canaan, is how much it sounds like the story of Adam all over again. Just as Adam was placed in a bountiful, prosperous garden, so Israel was brought into a bountiful and prosperous promised land. As Adam was promised blessing from God if he obeyed, so God promised Israel to bless them richly if they were obedient to his law. And just as God threatened curse to Adam if he disobeyed, so God threatened curse, judgment, and death to Israel if they disobeyed. And as it was with Adam, so it was with Israel. They were a rebellious people. Generation after generation, they sinned against God, and God for so long was long-suffering with his people. He was forbearing with them generation after generation. But at last, at last God's patience ran out with Israel and he sent the Babylonians and they wreaked a terrible destruction upon them, putting so many to the sword, leveling the city, destroying the temple, putting even the king, the son of David, off the throne and hauling the remnant into exile. God did not bring final judgment then either. But the judgment that he brought upon Jerusalem was a foretaste. It was an anticipation. God was showing to his people, this is what sin deserves. And someday there is coming upon this whole world a greater and an even more destructive judgment because of the sin of the human race. Now, as we come to the book of Lamentations, as we come to Lamentations 5, as we read about the misery that Israel endured as God subjected them to this great judgment as a foretaste of that final judgment, we ask ourselves, how do we read these Lamentations? How do we understand our own sufferings in the light of the sufferings of Israel of old. God still wills that we endure suffering in this world, that we endure trial and temptation and misery and illness of various sorts. And we ask questions about what God is up to as we endure these things. How do we read the book of Lamentations as suffering Christians of the New Testament? As we will see, the deepest and most profound questions that Israel asked of old, God has answered once and for all in the sending of His Son. This does not mean that we do not suffer. And it doesn't take away the mystery of our suffering. It does not take away the pain of our suffering. But it does allow us to suffer in ways that even Israel of old could not suffer. It allows us to suffer with a joy and an encouragement that even Israel of old could not fully understand. Now before we begin looking at the details of this chapter, Let me make a couple of brief initial observations about Lamentations 5. First, this is the shortest of all of these poems. All these poems are, they are independent units. And this is, even though it has 22 verses, which is what many of the other chapters have, these are smaller verses. It is the smallest, the shortest of these five poems. But a more important consideration is that the entirety of Lamentations 5 is a prayer. Now, there are a number of prayers earlier in Lamentations. But they come only here and there. They come only as parts of larger poems. Here, when we come to the end of Lamentations, all this inspired poet can do is pray. And we shouldn't be quick to overlook that. What is prayer? How does the world look at prayer? Well, when the world has a problem, when the world has a difficulty that needs to get solved, what does the world think we ought to do? Well, we ought to do something. We ought to get a job. Find a therapist. Do something. Take the bull by the horns. The world looks at prayer, and it looks kind of silly. It looks like an act of desperation. Setting aside your own efforts, setting aside your own activity, bowing your knees and crying out to an unseen God seems like a desperate act. Well, in a sense, the world has a point. Prayer, in a sense, really is a desperate act. when we are in our day of trouble and we quiet our hearts and bow down before the Lord and cry out to Him, we are admitting that we are desperate. We are admitting that when it comes down to it, our problems, our difficulties, our trials are not in our own hands. That the solution is not something that depends upon our own wisdom, upon our own effort, we acknowledge that ultimately we are in the Lord's hands and that if there is to be true deliverance, if there is to be true rescue from the day of trouble, God must do it. And so prayer is an act of desperation, but it is also an act of great faith. Faith in the God who says that he will hear his people when they call out to him in their day of suffering. And so that is an encouraging thing as we approach this perhaps depressing final chapter of the book of Lamentations. This inspired prophet is looking to the Lord and resting upon him, crying out for his aid. Now let's look first at the first 18 verses of Lamentations 5. Now I know the first 18 verses are practically the entire chapter. But the first 18 verses hold together. The first 18 verses are a setting forth of the people's disgrace. The people have been disgraced before the nations. And they are presenting this evidence before God. They are saying, God, look at our situation. Look what we are enduring. Look what we are suffering. God, take notice of us. Have compassion upon us. Stop being silent and rescue us. And so in order to evoke the Lord's response, they lay out verse after verse their troubles before God. Perhaps the thing that they valued the most was the inheritance that God had given to them. God had given them the land of Israel, the land of Canaan, as their inheritance. He had given it to the nation as a whole. He had given the tribes their own special land. He had given to clans and to families their own plots of ground. This was their inheritance from the Lord to be passed on from generation to generation. A pledge of an even greater blessing to come. And now, verse 2, our inheritance has been turned over to strangers. Our homes to foreigners. It's not theirs any longer. Their inheritance is lost. And in the verses that follow, this prophet sets before God how their situation has been utterly turned on its head. All those blessings that had been promised to them when they came into the land, they've been entirely flipped over and they are suffering the exact opposite of the blessings they should have enjoyed. One of the things that was promised to them as they came into the land is that they would be secure in that promised land. And yet, verse 3, we have become orphans, fatherless. Our mothers are like widows. In that day, as still often today, it is the orphans, the fatherless, the widows that were the most vulnerable. Here they were to be the most secure. When they came into the promised land, God promised that it was going to be a land of plenty, a land abounding in resources. And yet, verse 4, the prophet says, We must pay for the water we drink, the wood we get must be bought. Those things that they thought of as the mere basics of life, they don't even have those. They have to go searching out people to buy their own water. When they came into the promised land, God said it would be a land of rest and of peace. And yet, verse 5, now what has befallen them? Our pursuers are at our necks. We are weary. We are given no rest. The very thing that they were promised, now they do not have. They were also promised when they came into the promised land that they would be lenders to many and debtors to none. And now what has befallen them? Verse 6, we have given the hand to Egypt and to Assyria to get bread enough. They were to be the lenders to the nations, and now they need to go to their enemies just to buy bread. Yet, verse 7, we see that this prophet is not really complaining. This prophet is not saying that somehow they're not getting what they deserve. Verse 7, our fathers sinned and are no more, and we bear their iniquities. It has come upon them because of their own sins. They have no one else to blame. Yet he goes on to continue to lay out before God how things have been flipped on their heads. Another one of the things that God said to his people when they came into the promised land, that they would be the head and they would never be the tail. In verse 8, slaves rule over us. There is none to deliver us from their hand. They were to be the head on top of the social pyramid. And now they're ruled over by slaves. You can't get any lower than that. This is what has befallen them. It goes on in verses 9 and 10. We get bread at the peril of our lives because of the sword in the wilderness. Our skin is hot as an oven with the burning heat of famine. And so here in these opening 10 verses, the prophet has laid before God their desperate physical situation. They don't have bread. They don't have water. They don't have peace from their enemies. They don't have shelter from the burning sun. And yet, as we see in the following verses, this is not even the worst of it. What's even worse is that they have been put to shame. One thing to suffer some physical deprivation, but who wants to be put to shame? Verse 11, women are raped in Zion, young women in the towns of Judah. Perhaps the thing that makes this crime so odious is not just that it is physically violent, but that it is meant to humiliate a person. Israel has been humiliated before their enemies. And that theme of humiliation continues in verse 12. Princes are hung up by their hands. No respect is shown to the elders. Those who ought to be shown honor, these too have been put to shame. These are scorned. Verses 13 and 14 continue this theme of the joy being sucked out of life. Verse 13, young men are compelled to grind at the mill, boys stagger under loads of wood. One thing to understand here is that grinding at the mill was seen as the work of slave girls. Staggering under loads of wood, that's the job of animals. And yet, young men made to do the work of slave girls. Boys made to do the work of beasts of burden, humiliating, shameful. It is no wonder, in verse 14, that the old men have left the city gate. The city gate was the place in the ancient world, the place of business. The place where people met, the place where people talked, the place where life was lived and enjoyed. But now the young men have left their music. The joy of our hearts has ceased. Our dancing has been turned to mourning. And yet, even this is not the worst of it. This case that he's laying out before God, there's something that's even worse than their physical deprivation and their humiliation. Verse 16, the crown has fallen from our head. It's easy to overlook this. in the midst of all the other drama going on. But this is as bad as it gets. The crown has fallen from their heads. You see, this is a reference to the fact that the king has been robbed of his throne. God had promised to his people long before. He had promised to David an everlasting line. He had made a covenant with David, as we sang about just before this sermon. He made a covenant with David and promised that he would have a son sitting upon his throne forever. That from the line of David would come that great Messiah who would bring a full and complete salvation for his people. And now, the Babylonians have come and they have deposed the king. There is no one sitting on David's throne. God had said, you will never fail to have a man on the throne. And now the throne is vacant. It's empty. What is going on? What has happened to God's promises? This is far worse than physical suffering and emotional humiliation. Verse 18, Mount Zion lies desolate. Jackals prowl over it. Here, the place where their temple was built, now is a smoldering ruin. It is a place not for humans to live, but a place for jackals. We can understand in verse 17, the prophet says, For this our heart has become sick. For these things our eyes have grown dim. Things are indeed horrible, terrible, almost beyond description among God's people. And with this we come to the final verses of Lamentations 5 and indeed the entire book of Lamentations. And as we come to verse 19, there's a pretty radical change of pace. Quite a different feel. It is almost as if this prophet stepped back for a moment and got his bearings again. Here he had been for 18 intense verses, focusing in upon the suffering, the sorrow, the hardship of his people, and now it's as if he steps back, and he lifts his eyes to heaven, and he says, verse 19, but you, O Lord, reign forever. Your throne endures to all generations. That's a remarkable statement in light of what he's just been saying. It's as if he looks up and he sees, you know, the sun still rises in the morning and it sets at night. Summer and winter still come at their appointed times. The crops still grow in the fields. The rain still falls upon the earth. There is all this evidence that God is still the Lord, that he still reigns on high, that he still holds the whole earth in his hands. His throne endures forever despite all of the chaos that we see around us. It's a remarkable statement of faith. And yet in some ways, doesn't it make their hardship perhaps even worse? It'd be one thing if God had simply deserted them. He had gone away to rule some other universe. It'd be one thing if God lost his power and was no longer in control. At least they'd have answers. At least they know there was no hope. But here, there's all this evidence that God is still in control. He's still very much present. His sovereign hand still rules the world. But if that is the case, can we not understand why the prophet immediately says what he does in verse 20? Why do you forget us forever? Why do you forsake us for so many days? Lord, he is saying, if you are still in control, if you are still sovereign, and if you have promised us that the throne of David would endure forever, then what's going on? Why do you forsake us for so long? Why do we not see your hand of mercy extended to us? How is this possible? And with that, we come in verse 21 to the last request in the book of Lamentations. Verse 21, the prophet cries out to God one last time, Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored. Renew our days as of old. One last time crying out that God would hear, and on the basis of his promises made of old, that he would act on behalf of his people. And that leaves one more verse. If you were writing the book of Lamentations, how would you want it to end? How about with a triumphant note of faith? A note of hope? A note of encouragement to these suffering people? Is that what you get? Is that how Lamentations ends? Let me read the last two verses together. Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored. Renew our days as of old, unless you have utterly rejected us and you remain exceedingly angry with us. It doesn't exactly end on a note of hope and encouragement, does it? It ends on a note of doubt. It ends on a note of anxiety. It ends on a note of uncertainty. People of God, in many ways, even though this is not the storybook ending that we would like to see at the end of Lamentations, it is an entirely fitting way for this book to end. This is a book that has at times, for brief moments, given us beautiful, beautiful longing, beautiful encouragement, beautiful pictures of God's grace. And yet, just as soon as our hearts are warmed, they're snuffed out. The prophet turns back to doubt and mourning and lamentation. And that is exactly how this book ends. On a note of doubt, O Lord, we want you to renew us. We want you to restore us. But perhaps you have utterly rejected us. Perhaps your ways are over with us. And with this, we ask again this question, how do we New Testament believers read a chapter like this, Lamentations 5? In the midst of our own sufferings, in our own hardships, in our own questions, how do we read a chapter like Lamentations 5? Let me remind you of something I said at the opening of this sermon. When God brought the Babylonians against Israel, when after centuries of rebellion, God's long-suffering came to an end, and he brought this pagan army to destroy his people, it was a foretaste of the final judgment. God was setting forth in that small place a picture of what was to come upon the entire world on the last day. And in the incredible hardships of the people of Israel, the world gets a glimpse of what is to befall the entire earth on the day that our Lord returns. And we ought not to forget that this was a terrible burden for Israel to bear. It is easy for us to look back, to think about the promises that Israel received from God and to say, have faith, be encouraged, don't doubt, God is faithful. But we ought not underestimate the heavy, terrible burden it was for them to undergo this judgment from the hand of the living God. People of the Lord, praise God that though we continue to suffer in many ways in this world, that though we continue to suffer with the world the common hardships of this life, and though we endure special hardships bearing the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ because of our faith, That in these last days, God does not call us as the church to undergo a foretaste of the final judgment. God does not call his church to be forsaken the way Israel was forsaken for a time by their God. We still suffer. But the New Testament tells us in Hebrews 12 that we should understand all of our sufferings as God's fatherly hand of discipline, of God bringing us under His fatherly chastisement to build us up, to instruct us, to sanctify us. And as Hebrews 12 says, to work in us a bountiful harvest of righteousness. Praise God that He does not call us to be forsaken of Him and to be cast from His presence as He did to Israel of old. But that raises a question, doesn't it? Do we ever have the same kinds of questions that Israel did? What kind of answers come to our mind as these questions come before us? People of God, consider what the most important questions were that Israel was asking here in the book of Lamentations. The most important questions were these. Lord, will you forsake us forever? Lord, will the throne of David be vacant forever? God answered those questions. God answered those questions definitively. God answered those questions once and for all in sending His Son. Lord, will you forsake your people forever? The answer is no. And He proved it by sending His Son to live and to die and to rise for them. He did not forsake His people forever. Will the throne of David be vacant forever? will be unoccupied for all generations. God has given His answer, and the answer is no. And He has proven it by sending His Son, and after raising Him from the dead, seating Him at His right hand on that everlasting throne of David, and He will never, ever, ever get off that throne. God has answered the deepest and most profound questions that Israel asked through this prophet. People of God, do you see God's bountiful grace to us in Jesus Christ? We do not have to ask these questions. You do not have to ask, God, will you forsake us forever? Because he has said, I will never leave you and I will never forsake you. God will never forsake his church ever. We don't have to ask, Lord, will the throne of David be unoccupied forever? Because you have never known a moment in which the Lord Jesus Christ does not sit on that throne and rule and guard and protect his people. Praise God that he has answered these questions for us. Now, we still ask questions about our sufferings. We still wonder sometimes, why did I lose my job? Why does my body hurt so much? Why did my loved one get cancer? Why did this relationship that I valued, why was it broken? We ask those and so many other questions. People of God, we don't have to know the answers to those questions. Israel had to know the answer to their questions. They had to know whether God was going to forsake them forever. They had to know whether the throne of David was vacant forever. Because if those answers, if the answers to those questions were yes, then they had no hope. We have hope because we know the answers definitively to those questions. But the Lord does not give us answers to these other questions. The Lord does not give us these answers. And so our call this evening is do not trouble ourselves by needing to know those answers. In time of suffering, in time in which questions arise, We are called to look to that Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, who sits on that throne for you and who is ever living to intercede for you. Call out to him. Pray to him not to give you answers. Why am I enduring this? Why am I suffering that? But pray to him in the spirit of Hebrews 12 that he would use your sufferings to build you up, that he would use your sufferings to refine you like a precious metal through the fire, that he would use those sufferings to make you a mature, complete, holy Christian before him, bringing forth a bountiful fruit of righteousness. Pray that the Lord would give you what James 1 tells us that we should seek, joy in the midst of our sufferings. This is the gift that we have through our Lord Jesus Christ. Rejoice, brothers and sisters, that the biggest, most profound questions have been answered in Christ. Lay those other questions before your Savior and know that even when you do not know the answers, He does. And He loves you and cares for you. He will never leave you and never will He forsake you. Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, how we thank you for your word, how we thank you even for those parts of scripture that are difficult to read, those parts of scripture that even make us shudder when we contemplate the wickedness of this world, when we contemplate the harshness of your judgment against sin, When we consider the burden, the burden of our guilt before a holy God. Oh Lord, it is difficult for us to know exactly what Israel endured. We might think we can put ourselves in their shoes. But Lord, we confess before you that we do not really understand what they had to undergo. that we do not know what it is as a church to be forsaken by our God. We do not know what it is to see the throne of David vacant, but they did. Oh Lord, may we not be quick to condemn this people. May we not be quick to despise their uncertainty and their anguish. Lord, we know that we are no stronger than they are in and of ourselves. But how we thank you that you have answered their questions, that you have sent your Son, that you have established his throne because he is the Son of David and his throne endures forever and ever. And we pray that in the times of our suffering that we would not doubt that you never leave us or forsake us. May we never doubt that Jesus Christ sits upon that throne at your right hand. Please give us peace in the midst of our trials. Please give us perseverance in our suffering. Please give us even joy as we undergo trials of various kinds. Humanly speaking, O Lord, we do not know how to do it. but by your Spirit, the Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ poured out upon us. We pray that you would sanctify us and encourage us with your grace and set our eyes ever upon our living and ruling Savior. We pray this in his name. Amen.