Trouble Dont Last Always

TROUBLE DON’T LAST ALWAYS

LAMENTATIONS 3:18-23

Intended for Reading on the Lord’s Day February 21, 2010

Delivered By Rev. Kelvin L. Parks

At Shiloh Baptist Church of Waukegan. Waukegan, Illinois

• I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.

• My soul shall make her boast in the Lord: the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad.

• O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together.

• I sought the Lord, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.

• They looked unto Him, and were lightened: and their faces were not ashamed.

• This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.

• The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.

• O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.

(Psalms 34:1-8)

Good Morning ... and too, God be the Glory!

I greet you in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ. I would like to thank Pastor Francis for this opportunity to stand behind this desk in proxy for him to preach God’s Word (thank you kind sir) ... and there is a Word from the LORD...

So let us turn our hearts and our Bibles to Lamentations 3:18-23

(v.18) And I said, my strength and my hope is perished from the LORD:

(v.19) Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.

(v.20) my soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.

(v.21) this I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.

(v.22) it is of the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.

(v.23) They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.

Turn to your neighbor and say ... Neighbor I’M SO GLAD ... TROUBLE DON’T LAST ALWAYS

You may be seated...

I’M SO GLAD ... TROUBLE DON’T LAST ALWAYS

The book of Lamentations is filled with tears and sorrow. One preacher referred to it as a paean of pain, a poem of pity, a proverb of pathos, a hymn of heartbreak, a psalm of sadness, a symphony of sorrow, a story of sifting, a tale of tears, a dirge of desolation, a tragedy of travail, an account of agony, and a book of “boo-hoos.”

In fact, some call it the ... wailing wall of the Bible. No Memphis blues singer has ever sung a sadder song ... than what is contained in the Book of Lamentations.

These five chapters are a series of dirges or funeral hymns in which the writer describes and laments over the desolation of Judah and the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. In other words, Lamentations is this writer’s response to Judah’s chastening by the hand of GOD.

Now ... I do not know anyone who ever enjoyed getting a whipping. Whether it was a whipping from your parents are a spiritual chastening by GOD. In fact, scripture tells us in

Proverbs 3:11-12: “My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of his correction: For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.”

While I understand and realize that, the stripes from a whipping are for our own good. At least that is what my daddy told me when he said, son, this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you. Yet, I think it safe to say that nobody in here enjoyed the pain and bruises that the whipping caused.

Well ... that is what has taking place in our text. Judah and its capital Jerusalem had suffered a spanking under the hands of GOD, and had fallen to the Babylonian army under Nebuchadnezzar.

The city and those left alive are in a crisis and the siege has taken its toll.

The survivors are desperate for food, for their fortunes, and for their futures. They looked around but no help came from their allies. In fact, God had caused their former allies to turn against them in her hour of need.

The kingdom and city that was once a queen among the nations is now like a hopeless widow. The thing that hurts the writer of Lamentations the most is the realization that this chastening could have been avoided and that this is their own fault.

You see ... in Deuteronomy 11, God offers Israel a choice: either a life of productivity and enjoyment made possible by obedience to Him, or a life of difficulty and opposition made necessary by disobedience. Unfortunately, over and over again, they chose the latter.

And as a result of Judah’s sin, they have lost the peace, happiness, and hope that they once enjoyed.