All right, well, welcome to Red Village Church. I forgot you. My name is Aaron. And glad that you’re here with us today. So today we are in the second part of our five part series to the book of Lamentations, which is a book that I’m sure some of you, most of you probably heard of, but maybe not have really taken time to think through and work through. So today we’re going to be in Lamentations chapter two. So you want to open up your Bible there to Lamentations Chapter 2. If you don’t have a Bible with you, there are pew Bibles scattered throughout. It’s on page 400. And if you’re visiting with us today. So all I’m going to do is going to walk us through verse by verse of Lamentations chapter two. And so it’d be good for you to have the Bible open so you can kind of follow along as I work through this text. So for our time here, let me just read the first verse of Lamentations 2 and then I will pray and then we will start to work through the sermon. So Lamentations 2, verse 1. So please hear the words of our Lord. The Bible says this, how the Lord in his anger has set the daughter of Zion under a cloud. He has cast down from heaven to earth the splendor of Israel. He has not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger. That’s God’s word for us this morning. Would you please pray with me? Lord, thank you for the Book of Lamentations. And Lord, thank you that in your wisdom you saw it fit to speak to us through the folly of preaching. So Lord, I pray that you would speak today through my folly. And Lord, please help me to rightly divide the word of truth. Lord, pray that this spirit would be active in our hearts, that we’d hear what your spirit is saying to the churches through your word. So God, please help us to lean in on Jesus name. Amen. So one of the things that I think we all want to see, but it’s really hard to see, is the justice of God. We want to see justice. We don’t like injustice or a lack of injustice on our end. Injustice is like maddening. It’s frustrating. Let me just run back through the conversations you had this week. Maybe specifically the ones you had in kind of your old hand. And how many of those conversations involve some type of like, anger or frustration you had with some type of perceived like injustice, which could be something that took place at work, maybe at school, in your Marriage in your relationships, perhaps something that you saw on the news, taking place in society. So when we see injustice, there’s something inside us that just kind of wells up where we want to see justice served. However, in the scriptures, when we see justice come, it’s actually really hard for us to see. So hard we actually want to turn our heads away from it because how terrifying it is to look at. Let me just give you a few examples we’ve seen in scripture. So first, Noah and the flood, a great act of justice where God rightly, justly sent a worldwide flood to the earth, where all but one family survived, everyone else all drowned to their death. For us, when we think about Noah and the flood, what we want to think about, like Noah captaining the ark, know, maybe waving to us from the deck. Like, you think about the cute little animals that came two by two, you know, kind of just like nicely hanging out in their rooms, which, by the way, none of these things are true. But we like like that part of the story. We like to think about that. But we don’t want to consider the swift, severe judgment of God. Whereas mentioned outside of one family, all of mankind wiped out. That’s hard to look at. Hard to consider all who perished in the flood as God rightfully judged the world. Second one, the book of Joshua, book I actually just finished reading not too long ago, which details the people of God leaving the wilderness, crossing the Jordan river, to settle into a land flowing with milk and honey. Right, the promised land. That stuff we like to read. We like to think about that part of the story. Both hard. Is God calling Joshua to an act of judgment, wipe out the Canaanites, wipe them out from the land. That’s hard. Even though the Canaanites were like a wicked, evil nation, it’s still gonna be hard to understand. Hard to see the strong, swift justice of God that came down on them. I mean, one more hell. So we like to think through eternal life in terms of heaven and all that heaven promises to be. What’s really hard, the eternal reality of hell, the lake of fire, a place of weeping, gnashing of teeth. Eternal judgment for all who reject the Lord Jesus Christ, which could include, like, people that we love. That’s hard to see. The thoughts, the terrors of hell. That’s hard. Where the justice of God will be eternally fully met. So stories like the ones I gave, particularly the ones in the Old Testament, like that, that are hard to see. The swift judgment of God, the biblical teaching on hell, these teachings grounded in the justice of God, we don’t like to look at them. We don’t like to think about them, you know, so over the years, there have been many who have tried to, like, deny or reject the realities of, like, these types of stories, like assuming that they must be wrong. Scripture can’t be true with those stories. In a large part, we try to deny, we try to reject these stories. We actually did not like to see justice, even though, as mentioned at the start, in many ways, we actually long for justice to come. Justice, God’s good right, justice is terrifying to behold. It’s hard to look at. It can cause us to turn our heads away. Now, I say all this today to get us thinking about what we’re going to see in our text today, where we will see the swift judgment of God. We’ll see in a poem that is our text. So the poem we see that it was hard for the poet to see justice for us this morning, perhaps be hard for us today as well, as we work through this poem to see what the poet saw to more than that, to feel what the poet felt. This might be hard for us as well. Now, before we work through the poem, just a reminder where we were last week mentioned in the start. So we start a new sermon series through the Book of Lamentations, which is an Old Testament book that’s made up of five individual poems. And these poems are written in response to the downfall of the holy city of Jerusalem, which fell by the hands of the wicked nation of Babylon. So you can read about that historical event in Second Kings as well as in the book of Jeremiah. But in this study, as we work through the Book of Lamentations, we’ll be working through not simply some of the historical details of that awful event, but even more so the human emotion that transpired because of that event where each of the five poems, the poet laments what had just taken place. By the way, for us, it serves as a great motto as historical events in our own lives take place that are far less than present. Lamenting is a real thing we are to do. When tragedy sits, lamenting is there to help us, like, process emotion, which I mentioned last week is one of the great hopes that I actually have for this study, that we learn how to properly lament, lament and process our emotion in ways that are leading us to trust in the Lord. Today, as we work through the second poem, as mentioned, we’re going to be working through a poem that’s grounded in justice, where we see justice on display that might be hard for us to see. But today, as we work through this poem, I think we see one of the great ways how we are to process justice, how we are to more fully look at justice, which is actually through lamenting, not lamenting that God is just, that we don’t lament that it’s good that God is a just God, right? He’s good in all that he does, including his justice. We don’t lament that God is just. In fact, if he wasn’t just, how could he be good? These things go hand in hand. So we don’t lament that God is just. But I think we do lament that we live in a sinful world, a broken world that is in need of justice. And this need for justice has been there since sin has entered into the world, all the way back into Genesis 3. And we’ll continue to have a need for justice in the world until our Lord returns to set up his eternal kingdom where there’ll be no more sin, where God’s people will live with him in a state of fullness, of joy and peace and happiness because of what Jesus Christ has done for us as Jesus took on the justice of God upon himself on the cross. I’ll talk more at the end. But before we get back to text, just two more quick things. So I mentioned last week, our poem today, like our poem last week and a poem, the next two poems actually is an acrostic, which each line of the poem starting at the next level of the Hebrew Alphabet, which has 22 letters. So scholars seem to agree that the acrostic nature of the poem is there to communicate, like, a fullness, a completeness of, like, lamenting, including a fullness and completeness of justice in her poem today. Second, before we get back in, I mentioned this also last week. Poems are meant to elicit emotion in readers. Okay? So as we work through this again today, let’s feel the emotion of the poem. We’re not properly reading this passage if we’re not hitting us with some type of emotion. Okay, so verse one, I’ll take your eyes back there. As mentioned, we’re just going to work through it verse by verse, all 22 verses. So verse one, we read how the Lord in his anger has set the daughter of Zion under a cloud. Now, my further reminder, the word how it starts out, this poem, this is an important word in this book, as three of the poems, three of the five, start with this word that we translate to how. And this word, how in the Hebrew word, root word, is associated with lamenting. So this is where we get the word lamentations from, from this word, how we also mentioned Zion. So this is Jerusalem, which I mentioned in the intro, recently fell into the hands of the Babylonians. And this has put a dark cloud of judgment over this once proud city. Verse 1. He, meaning the Lord, has cast down from heaven to earth the splendor of Israel. He has not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger, which here the footstool seems to be referenced to, like God’s presence in his temple. Psalm 132 talks about worshiping at the footstool of God, the temple. And the temple of God is a place in the Old Testament, God’s presence would uniquely draw with his people where he would be their God, where his people would be his people. And this temple, this is like the crown jewel of Jerusalem. This is why the city was a special city, the holy city. Without the Temple, Jerusalem has just been any old average city, but because the Temple, it was the footstool of worship of the one true and living God. But now injustice and the anger of God, he does not remember his footstool, meaning God has taken away from his people his unique dwelling with them because he was angry at them for their sin. Justice had come. Verse 2. In his justice, the Lord has swallowed up without mercy all the habitations of Jacob. Furthermore, in his wrath he has broken down the stronghold, the daughter of Zion. He’s brought down to the ground in dishonored the kingdom and its rulers. And already here, verse two of the poem, this is already maybe getting a little uncomfortable for us to think about. With the justice of God, he is angry. He is swallowed up without mercy. He has broken down strongholds. He has broken down the kingdom, its rulers. This week in my notes, I just jot it down full justice. Everywhere has been touched by justice. None had escaped the effects of justice. Verse 3. The Lord cut down in his fierce anger all the might of Israel. He was withdrawing them from his right hand, which is hand of favor and blessing from his people. In the poem, the Lord, in the face of his enemies has done this in the face of the enemies. Which means there’s like nothing now restraining the enemies from God’s people. They’re coming with all of their vengeance against Jerusalem, doing every awful thing they desired to do. He, the Lord had burned like a flaming fire in Jacob, consuming all around. Said again in the poem, all have been affected by the justice of God. By the way, let me just point out, notice that this is like an active justice of God in The poem, this is not just only God, like pulling back his favor and like passively letting things happen, which we do see in the poem. You see that kind of this passively letting things happen with, like not remembering or withdrawn, you know, communicates passively sitting back. But we also see in the poem so much of God’s active judgment in Jerusalem. Just look at some of the words that we already looked at, like he has set, he has cast down, he swallowed up, he broke down, he brought down, he cut down, he burned down. This is active justice actively coming for Jerusalem. So he’s worked the rest of the poem. Just notice both passive, active God is in his justice. Keep going. Verse 4. He, the Lord has bent his bow like an enemy, with his right hand set like a foe. Here for the poet, the active justice of God was set actively against his people, like that of an enemy, as the right hand that once poured out favor on the people was now their foe. Where in the poem, he has killed all who were delightful in our eyes in the tent of the daughter of Zion, which the tent also being referenced to the temple. All the blessings of the temple. Seemingly all who minister at the temple, all killed, all gone, all put to death. Now this here perhaps is figurative speech, maybe hyperbolic speech, but this also might be like literal, as the Babylonians destroyed the temple. And assuming all who were present by it, this is through the Babylonians the Lord has poured out his fury like a fire. Friends, this is hard to look at verse five. If you want to take your eyes there once again for the poet, the Lord has become like the enemy. He has swallowed up Jerusalem or Israel. He has swallowed up all its places. And as he swallowed everything up, he has laid to ruin the strongholds. And in doing so in the poem, he has multiplied in the daughters of Judah mourning and lamentation. And here, this I think is really important for us to really start to feel the emotion of the poem that’s been building. Here mentions the first poem, but let me mention the second poem, and this is feelings of utter devastation, completely gutted, completely broken. The mourning, the lamenting of the daughters of Judah is like uncontrollable, uncontrollable wailing. This is over the top grief, over the top pain, almost like unbearable heartache. Verse 6. The Justice God not only laid waste the strongholds, but his justice. He laid waste his booth like a garden he laid in ruins. His meeting place is also a continuation of the temple just mentioned. The Babylonians destroyed. And of all the shocking things that took place in Jerusalem as It was destroyed. What is happening to the temple? This is most shocking, most devastating to the to God’s people. They never, never, never would have imagined this would happen. And in the poem, because the temple was laid waste, the Lord has made Zion forget the many festivals taking place at the Temple. And Sabbath with the festivals and the Sabbath given by God to his people for their joy, for the refreshment in God. But now both gone, removed from them as God in his fierce indignation has spurned, the poet tells us, spurned the king and the priests. Where both these roles, the king and priests were entrusted by God in different ways to ensure God’s people would have festival, would enjoy Sabbath. But in the just indignation of God, the festival, the Sabbath, the king, the priest gone, the joy, the refreshment in God taken away. Verse 7. In doing so, the Lord scorned his altar, he disowned his sanctuary as he delivered into the hands of the enemy the walls of her palaces. We’re in the poem. The enemies raised the clamor shouts of victory in the house of the Lord, as on the day of festival. Meaning the noise that once filled the temple. The temple area before the fall of Jerusalem were noises of like joyful praise and worship for God’s people. But now those noises have been replaced by a different noise. The noise of enemies and their shouts and mocking jubilation over God’s people. That’s now the sound that fills the space. Verse eight of the poem. The Lord determined to lay in ruins the wall of the daughter of Zion. So in this desire he stretched out a measuring line of justice. And anything did not measure up to his standard of justice of holiness. He did not restrain his hand from destroying full justice justice. That’s really hard to look at the poem. As the Lord caused rampant and wall to lament. And as they lamented together. This rampant and the wall lamented together seems to be referring to parts of the temple we see here. Like, even like the temple and its ruins is like crying out in anguish. Furthermore, in verse nine, the temple gates that were there to provide protection to the temple have sunk into the ground. As the Lord in his justice has ruined and broken her bars as her king and princes who once ruled over God’s people. Now we’re among the nations captured by the enemy, which also would have been a great shame to God’s people. It’s not just the kings and princes who were captured that had brought shame. In the poem we see that the law of the land is no more. Her prophets Found no vision from the Lord. From this act of judgment, God removed all of his favor from his people, right? His unique presence taken from them. Think about this. No temple, no leaders, as if they had no law, no prophets, no vision. I mean, really, if just one of these things were removed, that would have felt devastating. All gone. They’re on their own, wandering like helpless sheep without a shepherd. Which, by the way, in truth, was what they wanted. As they continued to reject God and all that he had given to them. They didn’t actually want God. So injustice, God removed his favor from them. My friends, as you read the Old Testament text leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem over and over and over again, generation after generation, outside a few pockets here and there, they actually didn’t want the Lord. They did not want his law. They did not want his word to rule over them. They killed prophets who came to warn them. So in this act of justice, it’s mentioned, God gives his people. He gives them over to their own desires. Verse 10. The elders of daughter the elders of the daughter’s eyes sit on the ground in silence. The sadness, the shock is so heavy, so thick. The justice. God is so full. They’re silent, didn’t have enough strength to speak. Stunned into silence in the poem, they have thrown dust on their heads and put on a sackcloth, which are customary in that time for mourning. Lamenting. As he sat in silence in sackcloth in the poem, the young women in Jerusalem had bowed their heads to the ground, absolutely dejected, like all zeal for life gone. Verse 11. As the poet could see the justice of God that is hard to look at, he wrote that his eyes were spent with weeping, like tear ducts completely emptied. Like he cried so much he physically could cry no more. Spent. And as his eyes were spent with weeping in the poem, his stomach churned in knots, which is something they also communicated in the first poem as well. It’s not like emotional anguish of what’s taking place, but the emotional anguish is so intense. There’s like physical anguish as well. Like his body hurt, it was suffering in the poem. As his stomach turned in knots, we read that his bile was poured out on the ground, which speaks of just how tight of knots his stomach was in. As you could see the justice of God, it was causing him to vomit. In the poem, this is all happening because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because infants and babies fainting in the streets, which was happening due to the lack of care and attention and nutrition that they’re receiving. Verse 12. Because of this lack of care the infants and babies receiving in the streets. They would cry out to their mothers, asking, begging, where is bread and wine? As they faint like wounded men in the streets of the city, as their life is being poured out on their mother’s bosom. For me, and I assume for you, it’s bad enough to see adults brought to such lowly, devastating places. It’s so much worse to see children, infants, babies. This is really hard to see for me. I assume you like instantly, you kind of want to take your head and turn it away as fast as you can. Church that’s the poet’s reality as he wrote this lament. Children who no doubt were just filling the streets of Jerusalem with joy and laughter before destruction. Now I’ll fill the streets, crying out, fainting like wounded men. Verse 13. What can I say for you to I compare to you, O daughter of Jerusalem? What can I liken to you that I make comfort in you? This is almost like the Pope looking for anything, anything pleasant to see. Where it’s like, oh well, I guess at least this isn’t so bad. But as he looks, he finds nothing pleasant. Provide even a bit of comfort, brethren, in verse 13. O virgin daughter of Zion, for your ruin is vast as the sea, so vast who could ever heal you? Complete devastation, seemingly broken beyond repair. Broken maybe beyond hope. Nothing pleasant anywhere to see. Verse 14. Your prophets have seen for you false deceptive visions. Where these false prophets gave false hopes, false promises, false assurances on how grand life will always be, that it didn’t matter, that they continued to reject God and they’re giving a false deceptive visions they’re giving. They, the prophets did not expose your iniquity to restore your fortunes. Meaning these false prophets, they should have been warning Jerusalem of iniquity, of her sin in ways that they’re trying to compel Jerusalem to repent and come back to the Lord. Instead they sold God’s people BAAL goods, false hope, false reality. They sold him visions of grandeur, they gave him promises that just were not true. And for far too long, God’s people bought in. But now, because destruction had come, justice had come. Now it’s too late for them. Even though as they sat in the devastation, Jerusalem can now see in the text the poem that the oracles given to them were there, that these oracles that they blindly believe, blindly accepted, were false, misleading, say it again, it’s too late. Hindsight being 2020 for them did them no good. They could not turn back time to reject the false teachers the false promises. Verse 15. All who pass along the way, they clap their hands at you, which is a clapping to mock, to jeer as they hissed and wagged their heads at the daughters of Zaimon mockingly called out to the city who sits in sackcloth. Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth? It was here you just feel how much the enemies of Jerusalem are loving what has happened to Jerusalem. This is like over the top gloating. Verse 16, the poem all the enemies, they rail against you, they hiss, they gnash their teeth, they cry out a cry of victory. We have swallowed her. Ha. This is the day we have longed for. Now we have it, now we see it. For the enemies, they could not be happier. They are ecstatic. How miserable Jerusalem is, you know, the nightmare reality for Jerusalem. This is what the enemies dreamed one day would happen. Verse 17. As the Pope feels the mocking, the shame from the enemies, he turns his thought backs to the Lord. He understood the Lord has done what he purposed, that the Lord has carried out his word, which he commanded long ago. Meaning all the false prophets were giving their false deceptive things that they’re saying the Lord is not from long ago. In his word, the Lord spoke truth to his people. He told his people what happened if they continued to break covenant, to continue to seek after false gods, continue to cling after their sin. The Lord told him what would happen. He kept his word. So in the poem, he has now made the enemies rejoice over Jerusalem and exalted the might of their foes. Verse 18 of the poem, their heart, meaning God’s people, then cried out to the Lord to cry, to look out to them with mercy. Furthermore, the people cried out to the wall the daughter Zion, which seems to be the city, the city wall that once circled Jerusalem to protect it. It was now laid in ruins, where the people of God are now even asking the city wall to join them in crying out, asking the wall to let tears stream down like a torrent day and night, to cry out by giving yourself no rest, your eyes, no respite this year. This is like an appeal for everyone and everything that once made up the proud city. To cry out, to weep, to wail, to pray without ceasing with the hopes that God might hear and respond to the cry. Maybe a little bit of less than perfect illustration. Think about being in the bottom of a pit, no way out on your own. And the only hope is that someone walks by who could come and rescue. So in the Bottom of this pit like you’re doing any and all things you can to make noise with the desperate hope someone will hear you, someone will respond. Friends of the justice of God was delivered. This is the state the city was in. Said again, trying to get all things to cry out, to wail, to weep with the desperate hope that their collective noises would muster up enough noise that God would hear them and ways to rescue them from the pit of despair and destruction. Verse 19 of the poem further instructions to Jerusalem to cry to the Lord as the poet cries out to the city, arise, cry out in the night. Cry out at the beginning of the night watches. Cry how in ways you pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord. Cry out in ways that you’re lifting your hands to him where you’re begging him for the lives of your children who faint for hunger at the head of every street. You just feel the desperation, you know, here it’s almost like the city is able to scrap together a little bit of energy that they had left. And now they’re trying to, like, organize that energy in ways that they’re all trying to, like, in unison, cry out to the Lord together as they cried out their appeal in verse 20 of the poem was that the Lord would look and see. Look and see, O Lord, with whom you have dealt with thus far. Look and see, O Lord, that your justice was full and swift. Look and see, O Lord, in ways that you be moved to have compassion on us. Lord, look and see in the poem should women eat the fruit of their wombs, their child or their tender care? Lord, should priest and prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord. Verse 21. O Lord, look and see in the dust of the streets the young and the old. Look and see my young men, my young women have fallen by swords and you’ve killed them the day of your anger slaughtering without a pit. Finally, verse 22. Lord, look and see, you have summoned a vith to a festival day, my terrors on every side on the day of the anger of the Lord, no one escaped or survived. Even those whom I’ve held and raised my enemies destroyed this last appeal as our poem ends, almost like the poet is asking the Lord to look at his justice in ways that would be hard for him to not see in ways he didn’t respond with compassion and mercy by reaching into the pit and pulling them out for us, friends. That ends this second poem and lament one that is filled with the justice of God. To say it again, a poem that’s really hard for us to see. And this. This is certainly hard for the poet to see. This is not easy poem for him to write as he experienced all the different pain that he was experiencing, all the different devastating things he went through in this historical event. But for us, also not an easy poem to work through to see what the poet saw. Now, as I close, I do want to give us some thoughts on this end, which I do hope can be a little bit of a help to us. So I have three quick things for us as you think about this heavy poem as we try to look at all the hard things that we just saw. So first, back to lamenting. First, let lamenting help you see justice. Now, as mentioned at the start, in a lot of ways we do want to see justice come, but when it does come, it’s hard to see. I’m sure in many ways, justice. The poem was hard for us to see as we consider the active justice of God that left Jerusalem destroyed. They’re hard things for us to see here, hard things for the poet to communicate in this poem. So when it comes to lamenting, why lamenting is so helpful to us, it helps us to see justice. I’ll say it again. We don’t lament that God is just. It’s a very good thing. God is just. He would not be good if he was not just. So we offer up our words of lament. It’s not lamenting that God’s a just God, but we do lament that we live in a world in need of justice, A world that’s filled with sin and evil that has affected all things, including each one of us here today, where sin has been devastating to each each of us. So we want justice. How do we see it? First, we lament. It helps us to see justice that can be hard for us to see, but so important for us to see. So there’s a second thing. So see justice. Let justice help you see our helplessness because of sin in the world that we live in. We live in a helpless place like sin is devastating. It’s devastating the world. It’s devastating in our own hearts, isn’t it? We see justice, friends. We see how helpless we are. Some of this helplessness is brought on by our own personal sin that needs justice, which is the case of Jerusalem was mentioned over and over. Rejected God’s word, rejected God’s warning. So because of their own sin, it brought justice upon themselves. But we know not all helplessness is brought on by our own sin. At times, the sin of others Might put us in a helpless place, a devastating place. That sin also needs justice. Other times, our helplessness just comes from living in a fallen world. We’re in this fallen world that’s cursed by sin. We live with the realities of things like war and disease and sickness and death among so many other things that trouble us in this fallen world, things that justice will come for. Here’s the reality in the end, because we live in a fallen world that’s cursed because sin has affected all of us. Sin that must be dealt with through justice. In the end, we actually all are helpless on our own. Seeing justice helps us to see how helpless on our own we are. Scripture is clear. We all, like sheep, have gone astray. None of us are righteous, no, not one. When left to our own, we all are actually in the pit, a pit that we can never get out of on our own. Helpless. It’s hard to see justice, but we must see it because it helps us to see how helpless we are. Which, by the way, is also something that may be hard for us to see, but something we also must see, friends. We must see how helpless we are. Far too often we want to think that we have something like in ourselves or something in ourselves that we can like, control situations or maybe absolve our own sin. Sometimes I think we’re maybe convince ourselves that maybe the world’s not as bad as we think it might be. We’re not as bad as we think we might be. But this is something we must see. The world’s broken because of sin. We’re all utterly helpless. Sitting in justice helps us see that. We must see justice. We must see our helplessness. Here’s the third thing, friends. Let justice and helplessness, let that take your eyes to Jesus. To look and to see Jesus as he’s revealed to us in scripture. To see him in ways that you’re clinging to him in the message of his gospel, friends, yes, God is just. He is fully just in all that he does, including the justice that’s hard for us to see. Keep saying, if he was not just, he would not be good. Sin, evil must be dealt with, dealt with in full. God is too good to do otherwise. And for us, if left our own, this good justice, the full justice of God, this is something that one day will be our reality, where one day we actually have to stand before him and give an account of our life and friends, if left to our own, none of us will measure up to the measuring line by which God created us to live. If left to our own all, all the terrified realities of God’s justice will be on us. But friends, there’s good news. Even in the midst of a hard poem like this, there’s good news. Please see. Today in Scripture, God did not leave us to our own. Rather, for his glorious purposes, he has proven to be both the just and the justifier of our sin. Because according to God’s good word that he’s given to us, we see that he has an eternal plan and eternal desire to not only put his good justice on display, but also his good love on display. And because of this, God sent to mankind sinful, evil, helpless mankind, his only begotten son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who actively lived a life that we could never live, one without sin, perfect in every way. We always followed God in every way. Where he passively laid down his life to die the death that we deserve to die, but could never die. When he died on the cross, the perfect death we’re in his death, all of the full and complete justice of God was satisfied. Because all of God’s justice, justice that’s hard to see, was poured out on Jesus Christ as a substitute for his people. Where on the cross, all the wrath and the fury of God that burns over sin and evil that must be dealt with, all that was placed on the Lord Jesus Christ, where He became cursed for us, punished for us to satisfy the justice of God to be the just and the justifier of our sin, who provides forgiveness in life to all who by faith cry out to him by calling upon the name of Lord Jesus Christ to believe that he is the one who died and rose again. Which by the way includes all here today. If you would cry out from the pit of your sin to the Lord Jesus Christ, the promise of scripture is he will hear you and he will receive you. And he will pull you out of the pit of your sin, the pit of devastation, and he will wash you clean with his love and his mercy and his kindness. Friends, even though we long to hear the message of love and forgiveness that God offers to us through the cross of Jesus Christ, the cross Christ crucified for us. The justice of God falling on Jesus as our substitute, God’s wrath poured out on Jesus. Even that can be really hard to see. In fact, Scripture tells us that Jesus is one from whom men hid their faces and men hid their faces from Jesus. They didn’t want to see the justice of God. They didn’t want to see their sinfulness that nailed Jesus to the cross. But friends, we must not turn our eyes away from the cross. Rather, we must see Jesus Christ crucified and risen. Because that is the only hope we have to get out of the pit of sin. That’s the only hope we have to be saved from the judgment, the just judgment of God. That is our hope to be saved through eternal life. That is to come. Friends, get back up. This is why it’s so important for us to work through hard poems like this. To see justice as hard as it is to see. So if you don’t see justice, we’re tempted to think that maybe we’re not that helpless before a holy and just God who in his goodness will judge the world. And if we don’t see justice, if we don’t see our helplessness, how will we see Jesus? In ways that we’re clinging to Him. In ways we see how loving and kind God is to us. Friends, we must look and see Jesus in ways that we are worshiping him, trusting in him, and whatever devastating rebellion might come our way that we may lament over. Trusting that on the cross he took justice on himself on our behalf and trusting that he has given us an incredible promise that one day he will come again for us not to judge us, not to judge his people, but to bring his people into eternal life, to be filled with eternal bread and wine where all we will know is the goodness of his love and mercy and kindness and joy. Where we will never lament again. Church. I know poems like this are not easy for us to see. Sermons like this are not easy for us to walk through. But poems like this are there in the end for us to see Jesus, how much we need him, how much he loves us, but what he’s done for us. Say it again. He took on eternal judgment for helpless sinners like you, like me. May we not miss that? Rather, through the eyes of faith, may we see that all of our days, in whatever situation we may find ourselves in. Let’s pray. Lord, I do pray that you’d help us to set our gaze on Jesus today. And, Lord, thank you that you are a just God. Lord, we’re so grateful that according to your great love and your great plan, that you sent Jesus to be the just and the justifier our sin. So that through faith in him, as helpless as we are, that not only will we be forgiven, but we have this incredible promise of eternal life, that we be eternally yours as your precious children. Lord, thank you for the book of lamentations, even for hard poems like the one we just worked through. Pray song Jesus name. Amen.