Can God Be Trusted
Lamentations
When I was younger we moved all across the Untied States. I often say that I have seen some of the nicest and some of the worst Naval bases in the country. When you live in Dallas, San Francisco, and New Orleans it is usually hard to find the time to run back to northwest Mississippi to see my grandparents and visit as much as you like. But my parents always tried to get as much visiting in as possible, so when we did get to go we went around Family Reunion time.
It was at the Family reunions that I fell in love with dirt bikes with 2, 3 and 4 wheels. I used to watch my cousins and uncles ride them for hours through creeks, and mud holes, over hills and through gullies. And one summer I devised a plan so dad and I had a sit down about it. You see my dad had a motorcycle when I was born, and I figured that since he had one it would be a lot easier to talk with him about this need in my life than my mom who was constantly talking about how many different ways I was going to get myself killed.
I knew that my dad would understand and I would be getting a bike very soon since I had it all worked out in my mind, or so I thought. He was very understanding but he also asked me questions that I hadn’t anticipated: like where was I planning to ride a dirt bike in the New Orleans City Limits? But that day we made an agreement. When he retired we were planning to move back to Senatobia Mississippi and there were plenty of places to ride so I would get one when we retired.
Well four years came and passed and mom and dad looked at property, and house plans, and Schools, and Churches and they decided that Trae and I needed a better school and a better church than we could get in Senatobia. So they started looking cities with great churches and good schools. They decided on Huntsville, Alabama. I remember thinking when we first arrived at our new home, in a Huntsville subdivision, “there are no places to ride a motorcycle around here either.”
Dad started to School at Athens State, and mom started to work. Trae and I also started School and tried to get acclimated to a new town, new school, new friends and I forgot all about ever getting a motorcycle.
That Christmas day came and went without much hoopla, and that evening we went to see my uncle who lived in North Huntsville. After dinner we made our way to our uncles basement to play pool and my dad asked us to follow him to the garage. Dropping the pool sticks we followed him and there in my uncles Garage were two beautiful bows being held off the ground by four wheelers. To say that I was excited would be an understatement.
When the moment was over I asked my dad why did we get these, we didn’t have a place to ride. I still remember what he told me.” Jeremy those are details that we will figure out later. I made you a promise and a father doesn’t want his child to think he isn’t trustworthy.”
As we continue examining the insights of Scripture about God, we eventually have to ask the question, “Is God our Father trustworthy?”
There is a clear answer that echoes through the pages of our Bibles found in Psalm 108:4 "your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.
But there have been times in my life and I am sure yours when we read such statements and at best they sound like cheap, chirpy optimism-or like wishful thinking.
Can God Be Trusted?
In times of crisis I have often wondered why God doesn’t seem to be faithful to His promises. For example, haven’t you ever frowned doubtfully when reading, "Whatever you ask in prayer you will receive"? Or how about, "Ask and it will be given to you"? Or maybe, "The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective"?
I know there have been times in my own life when my prayers didn’t exactly seem to "avail much."
When Trista was pregnant with our first child I spent many days and nights on my face praying that the child would be "all right". As the complications continued I kept praying, but when we miscarried the thought did cross my mind: Is anyone listening?
You’ve had a few quiet moments when the same thought inched across your mind, too, haven’t you? And it stands to realize that if God wouldn’t keep that promise then what are the other promises that He will refuse to keep?
How closely is God going to keep the promise found in James 1:5 Ask God and he’ll give you wisdom.
Last Spring my family wanted to get out of Atlanta badly. We were given an opportunity to go and work with Mobile Inner City Ministries. We knew that it would be a hard work, but we also knew how profitable it could be in God’s Kingdom. We were told that the support was there, and the fields were white for harvest. After much prayer we believed that we were sensing God’s blessings so we packed two babies up and headed for the humidity of South Alabama.
But shortly after arriving we discovered that the promised support had disappeared. Having to take care of my family I took a job with my friends Hometown Sears dealership and a small congregation in Bay Minette. I spent all last summer wondering about all this wisdom I had been promised.
Honestly it is a bit frightening to question whether God can be trusted or not. At first it sounds a bit blasphemous, and honestly we are all a bit guilty of the blasphemy. But at least asking the question keeps us from being dishonest and from refusing to face tough realities of life.
There are times when each one of us has asked these very same questions: the death of a child, or spouse, the loss of everything during a tornado, the end of a marriage. And asking the question puts us in pretty good company, since it is asked often in Scripture.
Laments from the Soul
One of my favorite books in the Bible is the one of the places where the chirpy tone of "just believe" is questioned. The book of Lamentations is a rugged book that tries to honestly process the worst possible scene in Israel’s long history.
King Nebuchadnezzar was the dominant player in this story, but his powerful empire may not have threatened the existence of Judah if Judah had simply continued paying financial tribute. The prophet Jeremiah pleaded with Zedekiah, king of Judah, to continue payment of taxes to Babylon. Instead Zedekiah, listening to leading officials, took the insane step of renouncing the agreement with Babylon.
Nebuchadnezzar’s reaction was swift. Early in 588 B.C., his army arrived, placing Jerusalem under blockade. The "holy city" held out for a year and a half. But then famine struck and Jerusalem was burned and plundered.
The fall of Jerusalem brought an incredible crisis of faith to God’s people. Remember God Had promised to protect them. How could He be a faithful God if the Holy of Holies in the temple was being ransacked and the citizens were starving?
The Psalmist relates the faith crisis in Psalm 74:1: "Why have you rejected us forever, O God? I Why does your anger smolder against the sheep of your pasture?"
With this crisis as the basis for the Book of Lamentations, Jeremiah begins a painful discussion of the question: Can God be trusted?
Turn with me to this wonderful book and let’s read some passages together starting in the first chapter we will call Deserted and Desolate
Verse 1 – 2 How lonely sits the city that was full of people! How like a widow has she become, she who was great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces has become a slave. She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has none to comfort her; all her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they have become her enemies.
Verse 4 The roads to Zion mourn, for none come to the festival; all her gates are desolate; her priests groan; her virgins have been afflicted
Verse 6 From the daughter of Zion all her majesty has departed.
Verse 12 Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which was brought upon me, which the LORD inflicted on the day of his fierce anger.
The second chapter describes the fierce anger of the Lord that allowed the fall of Jerusalem: "How the Lord has covered the Daughter of Zion I with the cloud of his anger!" In fact, He is described as the enemy who’s been on a rampage. The Second Chapter is entitled Starved and Destroyed.
The writer then surfaces unthinkable tragedies that resulted from the famine. Children and infants had fainted in the streets from lack of nourishment. In verse 12 they asked their mothers where can food be found even " as their life is poured out on their mothers’ bosom.”
No wonder Jeremiah exclaims in verse 13, " For your ruin is vast as the sea;"
By the time we make our way to the fourth Chapter the horrors only become worse. Not only did children die from starvation, but some parents in their hunger have turned to cannibalism:
Verses 9-10 Happier were the victims of the sword than the victims of hunger, who wasted away, pierced by lack of the fruits of the field. The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children; they became their food during the destruction of the daughter of my people.
But tonight I want us to focus in the third chapter of Lamentations, which I call Beaten and Bitter. This chapter reads like Jeremiah’s personal diary. It tells us how the trauma has affected him and how he feels that God has bludgeoned him through the attack on Jerusalem:
Lets read Chapter 3 verses 4 – 18 (Read Text)
Can’t you just hear the despair in what Jeremiah is saying? He fells like Jehovah promised to take care of His children but now He has abandoned Israel.
God has taken away His divine guidance: He has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago. Verse 6
God had refused to answer their prayers: though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer; verse 8
God has passed divine judgment. “He (God) pulled me in pieces, he hath made me desolate” verse 11
And all of those who believed in Jehovah were being mocked. “I have become the laughingstock of all peoples, the object of their taunts all day long. Verse 14.
As hard as it is to read such words of despair, aren’t you glad they’re in the Bible? I have become thankful that when we feel like God has abandoned us, we are a part of a long tradition all within the community of faith!
Even of these words from Lamentations do not seem relevant to you right now, wait until your walls fall in and the inner sanctuary of your life is looted and burned!
Ask a teenager whose parents have decided to split.
Ask a couple whose business crashed after unbeatable competition moved in just down the street.
Ask a victim of a crash who was blindsided by a drunk driver and as a result lost the proper function of her limbs.
Ask the family whose reputation has been ruined by vicious lies and misrepresentations.
That is when the questions begin:
Is God faithful?
Will our prayers be heard?
Will the righteous be cared for?
Will the Lord keep his promises?
Eventually, everyone knows the feeling that Jeremiah describes in Lamentations. We are all faced with the question, “How can we believe when the evidence seems to point against God?”
Faith in the Pit
As I said earlier this is one of my favorite books in the Bible. And that only came about after I had spent enough time with it to realize that it is not a book of whining. It is a lament. It is an explanation of a crisis from the vantage point of one in "the depths of the pit" who believes. Jeremiah is trying to make sense of what’s happening. From the perspective of faith, he explores the situation, believing there would be no credibility if he didn’t deal honestly and painfully with the hurt that had been inflicted.
But the real treasure in this book is found right in the middle of his weeping. In the midst of his overwhelming doubt Jeremiah expresses his confident belief that Yahweh is a God of steadfast love.
He comes to the conclusion that even the punishment of Israel was an expression of God’s love to put the people in a position to receive divine compassion. In the final analysis, Lamentations is a magnificent can to realistic faith. You don’t believe me? Let’s read these beautiful words together found in the middle of the book, chapter 3:21-24:
But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”
In the middle of his lament Jeremiah remembers God’s faithfulness. Even though God seems to be silent in answer to his prayers, Jeremiah has learned through God’s dealings in history that he is not absent. Our God who revealed himself most clearly in Jesus Christ is a faithful God. Friends may leave. Family members may betray. But our God can always be trusted, even when he can’t be seen.
Sweeping across Germany at the end of World War 2, Allied Forces searched farms and houses looking for snipers. At one abandoned house, almost a heap of rubble, searchers with flashlights found their way into the basement. There, on the crumbling wall, a victim of the Holocaust had scratched a star of David. And beneath it, in rough lettering, the message:
I believe in the Sun – Even when it does not shine.
I believe in love – Even when it is not shown.
I believe in God – even when He does not speak.
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