What Nature Does to Man

4/6/2009L'Aquila, Italy, earthquake207 dead & 1500 injured

5/12/2008Sichuan, China earthquake69,227 dead374,643 injured17,923 missing

4/27/2008Cyclone Nargis134,000 dead &2.5 million homeless

8/29/2005Hurricane Katrina1,836 dead

What Man Does to Man

7/7/2005London bombings52 dead & 700 injured

3/11/2004Madrid terrorist attacks 191 dead & 1,247 injured

9/11/2001New York City2,997 deaths

Iraq War1 million dead

Second Congo War3.8 million dead

587 BC – Dateline: Jerusalem

2 Kings 25:8-12 NIV

• On the seventh day of the fifth month, in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan commander of the imperial guard, an official of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. (9) He set fire to the temple of the LORD, the royal palace and all the houses of Jerusalem. Every important building he burned down.

2 Kings 25:8-12 NIV

• (10) The whole Babylonian army, under the commander of the imperial guard, broke down the walls around Jerusalem. (11) Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard carried into exile the people who remained in the city, along with the rest of the populace and those who had gone over to the king of Babylon. (12) But the commander left behind some of the poorest people of the land to work the vineyards and fields.

Lamentations – Victim Impact Statement

• Recollections of survivors– Mourning & loss

– Pain & anguish

– Questions & doubts

Romans 12:15 NIV

• Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.

Janie's friend dropped her doll & broke it

• Mother: "Did you help her fix it?"

• Janie: "No, we couldn't fix it, but I did help her cry."

Tragedy leaves people lamenting loss of family, friends, homes, etc.

• 207 dead & 1500 injured in L'Aquila earthquake

• 69,227 dead, 374,643 injured in Sichuan earthquake

• 134,000 dead & 2.5 million homeless in Cyclone Nargis

• 1,836 dead in Hurricane Katrina

Lamentations reminds us that anything is possible

• Tragedy leads to lament

• Loss & crisis pulls people together and unites them in a powerful bond

• "You may soon forget those with whom you have laughed, but you will never forget those with whom you have wept."

• How true!

Lamentations is a funeral dirge for the fallen city of Jerusalem

• Book of Job addresses the problem of evil & suffering at the personal level

• Book of Lamentations addresses the same problem at the community level

Relevant for our 21st Century World

• 52 dead & 700 injured in London bombings

• 191 dead & 1,247 injured in Madrid

• 2,997 dead in Twin Towers attacks

• 1 million dead in Iraq

• 3.8 million dead in Second Congo War

Lamentations’ answer

• Baseline answer to problems of society– Ancient Israel’s & ours

– Three-letter word we try to ignore: S-I-N

• Lamentations 1:5 NIV Her foes have become her masters; her enemies are at ease. The LORD has brought her (Judah) grief because of her many sins. Her children have gone into exile, captive before the foe.

Sins of the Political Leaders

• Where sin is involved, political alliances & international agreements cannot save:

• Lamentations 4:17 NIV Moreover, our eyes failed, looking in vain for help; from our towers we watched for a nation that could not save us.

Sins of Religious Leaders

• Lamentations 2:14 NIV The visions of your prophets were false and worthless; they did not expose your sin to ward off your captivity. The oracles they gave you were false and misleading.

• Lamentations 4:13 NIV But it happened because of the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, who shed within her the blood of the righteous.

Sins of the general populace

• What a disaster it is!

• Lamentations 4:10 NIV With their own hands compassionate women have cooked their own children, who became their food when my people were destroyed.

Lamentations issues a call echoed throughout the prophets

• A call we must heed, if there is to be healing in our land & peace in our world:

• Lamentations 3:40-42 NIV Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the LORD. (41) Let us lift up our hearts and our hands to God in heaven, and say: (42) "We have sinned and rebelled and you have not forgiven.

Lamentations is a call to:

• Real repentance;

• Revitalized ethics;

• Renewed lifestyle

• Personal morality

• Social justice

The book ends with these words:

• Lamentations 5:19-22 NIV You, O LORD, reign forever; your throne endures from generation to generation. (20) Why do you always forget us? Why do you forsake us so long? (21) Restore us to yourself, O LORD, that we may return; renew our days as of old (22) unless you have utterly rejected us and are angry with us beyond measure.

The deeper issue in Lamentations

• Make sense of devastation & destruction

• Particularly in terms of the people's faith

• More than a series of poetic laments bemoaning the fate of Jerusalem & people

• Statement of faith

Climax occurs not at the end, but in the middle:

• Lamentations 3:17-20 NIV I have been deprived of peace; I have forgotten what prosperity is. (18) So I say, "My splendor is gone and all that I had hoped from the LORD." (19) I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. (20) I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me.

Then comes this dramatic reversal:

• Lamentations 3:21-24 NIV Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: (22) Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. (23) They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. (24) I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him."

Remember when your children were in the “terrible two's”?

• Boundaries constantly being tested

• Consequences of overstepped bounds: spanking or “timeout”

• After crying awhile, wants reassurance: “Papa! Mama!”

That is what’s happening in Lamentations

• Tears streaming down faces as a result of their rebellion & punishment by God

• Run with outstretched arms to their Father

• The one who punished them is the only source of their comfort & protection

That is why Jeremiah can say

• Lamentations 3:22-24 NIV Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. (23) They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. (24) I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him."

• Lamentations 3:31-33 NIV For men are not cast off by the Lord forever. (32) Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. (33) For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men.

Only those who have suffered deeply can praise God greatly

• “Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, and shouts in our pain. It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” (C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1962))

Sometimes pain comes by chance, as a byproduct of the fallen world

• Sometimes a result of our own sins, as with Jeremiah’s contemporaries

• Whether the aftermath of an earthquake, hurricane or terrorist attack

• Answer always the same:

Thomas Obadiah Chisholm

• Born July 29, 1866, in log cabin in Franklin, KY

• No high school education

• Various careers:

– School teacher in country school house he attended

– Associate editor of home town weekly newspaper

– Tried being a minister but hindered by poor health

• Wrote Great Is Thy Faithfulness at age 57

Thomas Obadiah Chisholm

• “My income has not been large at any time due to impaired health in the earlier years which has followed me on until now.  Although I must not fail to record here the unfailing faithfulness of a covenant-keeping God and that He has given me many wonderful displays of His providing care, for which I am filled with astonishing gratefulness.”

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In our changing worldIn our changing world

We rely on an unchanging GodWe rely on an unchanging God