Dr MJ du Plessis Reformed Church Bellville Date: 15 October 2006 (evening)

Sing before: Psalm 36:2

Our help is in the Name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
Beloved, grace and peace be to you from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, through the mighty working of God the Holy Spirit.
Amen.

Psalm of praise 33:7
Prayer
Psalm 146:3, 6

Scripture reading: Lamentations 3
Scripture text: Lamentations 3:24

I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.” (Lamentations 3:24 NIV)

The fact that we believe in the Lord and publicly confess our faith when we become adults does not mean that our life will be without stress and worries.

All people suffer from time to time.
All kinds of suffering, for example illness or job-related stress.
From time to time we also experience tension in our human relations. Some people experience wrong being done to them by others.
Sometimes the faithful are threatened with death.

How do people deal with these?

Lamentations 3:19-38 provides the answer: The truly faithful finds his hope and his comfort in God. The truly faithful also accepts his suffering as being part of God’s plan in his life.

Let us consider the following:

1. Jeremiah’s disconsolateness
2. Suffering leads to repentance

1. Jeremiah’s disconsolateness

Jeremiah is inconsolable and buried in his miseries. However, he isn’t just going to accept it with glum resignation.

He starts struggling in faith and in this struggle he gains more and more insight to place his hope in the Lord.
Verse 18 still tells of his desperation, that his splendour (probably for people) has gone and that his hope in the Lord has passed away.
- Thus he feels deserted by man and by God.

However, it holds no truth that the Lord will ever reject the truly faithful. Hence we read in verse 19 how the Lord rescues Jeremiah from this sorry state.

Jeremiah prays: I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. (Lamentations 3:19 NIV)

His prayer refers to different aspects of his affliction:
- Firstly – himself.
  - He prays to the Lord to listen to his plea – of course he thinks in terms of the grace of God.
- The second aspect is about his enemies:
  - He wants the Lord to remember his bitterness and gall.
  - Although he explicitly expresses his feelings about his enemies, he does not pray to take revenge on them.
He only asks the Lord to think of this – of course he realises that the Lord will punish those who do wrong.

Jeremiah feels just like we often feel when our thoughts get stuck on our miseries: He says his soul is downcast within him.

Jeremiah often quotes from the Psalms– this is also a quote.
This is from Psalm 42 where the Korahite says that his soul is downcast within him when he thinks about his miseries.

As in the case of the Korahite, Jeremiah’s faith also develops from being warped to placing his hope in the Lord.

Although his affliction is so intense, he faithfully focuses on God’s infinite grace and compassion.
Apart from all the injustice he is suffering he suddenly realises that he is still alive.
The Lord has not allowed him to be killed.
Although he is suffering, he still experiences the mercy of the Lord.

When Jeremiah realises this, he is able to confess that the Lord’s compassions are new every morning, because the Lord has been merciful to him in all circumstances.

This is also why he says the Lord’s faithfulness is great.
In the New Testament the Lord Jesus beautifully describes the greatness of the Lord’s faithfulness:

that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. (Matthew 5:45 NIV)

The Lord’s faithfulness means that He is not changeable.

His love and his truth are steadfast for his entire creation.
The faithfulness of the Lord is just another aspect of his grace. We also sing about it in Psalm 36:1 (From: The Church Hymnary):

Thy mercy, Lord, is in the heavens;
Thy truth doth reach the clouds;
Thy justice is like mountains great;
Thy judgments deep as floods.

2. Suffering leads to repentance

See how the poet’s religious courage increases. Jeremiah’s admiration of the Lord’s faithfulness and his worshipping of the Lord are clearly reflected in his prayer.

His disconsolateness has disappeared and is replaced by complete trust in God.
Unhesitatingly he confesses his firmness of faith:

The Lord is my portion.

Hence it is quite clear that in his struggle to find clarity about all his miseries, Jeremiah has now reached the point of repentance.

In verse 18 he still says that nobody has any respect for him.
He also says that his hope in the Lord has vanished.

Now he confesses that the Lord is his portion.

Together with this confession that the Lord is his portion,
comes the religious motivation that, for this very reason, he will place his hope in the Lord.

When we consider this again, we should ask ourselves:

What does Jeremiah hope for?
Only that the Lord should see to it that his enemies stop victimising him?
Or that his pain and suffering should be stopped?
Why then does he say that his soul says the Lord is his portion?
And why would his soul place his hope in the Lord to save him only during his life on earth?

The answer to all these questions is not so difficult.

Firstly, Jeremiah appeals to what is written in the Old Testament – remember, he already has books such as Numbers and the Psalms of Dawid.
Various passages say that our portion is not on earth, but that the Lord is our portion.

The Lord said to Aaron, "You will have no inheritance in their land, nor will you have any share among them; I am your share and your inheritance among the Israelites. (Numbers 18:20 NIV)

Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure. (Psalms 16:5 NIV)

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. (Psalms 73:26 NIV)

Hence Jeremiah’s hope in the Lord is for both this life and the hereafter.

The Lord will save him from his miseries – it’s true, but he will also have a portion with the Lord in the hereafter.
His fellowship with the Lord is for eternity.

It is obvious that Jeremiah deeply repented during the affliction he experienced. These words:

I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.” (v. 24)

are in sharp contrast with those in verse 18 where he still says:

So I say, “My splendor is gone and all that I had hoped from the Lord.” (v. 18)

This then is the benefit of suffering and affliction: It strengthens our faith and leads us to repentance.

It’s certainly true that people who wrong us should also repent – but that is a matter between them and the Lord.
Our most important obligation is that we should take care that we have a sound relationship with the Lord.
- For this the Lord makes use of suffering, among others.
- Jeremiah confesses that it is good for man to suffer – however, he prefers it to happen when a person is still young (v. 27).

What next? Is it enough to place my hope in the Lord? No, I also have to confess God’s faithfulness.

Jeremiah confesses that the Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him and those who seek Him.
This emphasises the fact that the Lord shows mercy to those who serve Him with all their heart and all their mind and all their strength –totally committed.
Seek is not just saying you believe. It implies to be faithful to God in all He asks of us – like Jesus Christ who was faithful to God and died on the cross.

Such religious conviction carries us through afflictions. Such religious conviction keeps our hope in the Lord alive.

Note that from verse 28 onwards instructions are given on how the faithful should deal with suffering.

He should bear it in the silence of God’s presence.
We cannot escape from it by becoming slaves to drink and going to noisy parties.
When Eliah was on the mountain, God came to him in silence.
Just like this we also find deliverance in the silence where the Lord is close to us.

We should also bear our suffering fully committed to God.

We do not bow to fate.
We bow down before the Lord – acknowledging his omnipotence and eternal providence.

In addition, verse 30 says we should offer our cheek to one who would strike us.

By this the Lord certainly doesn’t mean that we should be punch bags for the world.
All He says it that we should not take revenge.
- We may not take the law in our own hands and punish people for their sins.
- This, especially, is the time we should hope in God.

Jeremiah confesses that the Lord does not cast off anybody forever.

Forever is a very long time, because eternity continues when one day our time will come to an end.
It’s true. Every one of us will reach a point in our lives when we look back and see how the Lord has delivered us from stress and suffering.

Yet there was one Exception. There was One who could not look back on deliverance – the Lord Jesus Christ.

God let Him bear the full violence of his punishment.
It was so bad that Jesus cried out on the cross on Golgotha that God had forsaken Him.
Jeremiah’s words carry a hint of prophecy when he says that his splendour was gone and all that he has hoped from the Lord (v. 18).

Whenever there’s suffering, we should remember how Jesus suffered.

He had to leave the glory of the heavens, and had to sacrifice the service of the angels to be crucified like a human being (as if He was a sinner).
The Romans regarded the sign on the cross – The King of the Jews – as proof that this man wanted to rebel against Caesar, and the Jews regarded it as proof that Jesus rebelled against God.
The eternal Son of God had to be punished and had to die on earth as if He was a heretic and a traitor to his country.

All this happened because, through this, God completely removed our burden of sins – his Son was punished for all of it.

This is why we can also say what Jeremiah said:

I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.”

Through Jesus’ redemptive sacrifice on the cross we can never say, My splendor is gone and all that I had hoped from the Lord.

When you confess your faith before the Lord tonight, remember that the Lord has reserved for us an inheritance that is far greater than this world and will also last much longer. It will last forever!

But before we reach that point, the Lord purifies and strengthens our faith.

For this reason He often uses afflictions, and even injustice, like Jeremiah experienced.
Then, in faith, we must fasten our eyes on the throne of the Lord and look beyond this life to see eternity approaching.

Amen.

Closing prayer
Closing hymn: Hymn 18-7:1, 12 (45:1, 12)
Confirmation
Psalm 20:1-5

The Lord will bless you and keep you.
The Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you.
The Lord lift His countenance to you and give you peace.
Amen.

Dr MJ du Plessis
Reformed Church Bellville
Date: 15 October 2006 (evening) – Confirmation