Sermon for HCBC (3 May 2020). To listen use the audio player below or click here. Also available on your favorite podcast app.
Introduction
One of the benefits of preaching straight through books of the Bible is that it forces us to confront challenging texts. This is listening to the whole council of God. When we only pay attention to our favorite parts we get a god fashioned in our image rather than knowledge of the living God.
The whole book of Lamentations is challenging. Lamentations 2 is especially challenging because its subject is the wrath of the LORD. Let me draw your attention to the beginning and end of the chapter so you can see this. First, look at vv. 1–2.* Notice those terms: “anger” (2x), “without mercy,” and “wrath.” Now look at the end of the chapter vv. 21–22.* Two of the three terms appear here again: “anger” (2x) and “without pity” (that’s the same Hebrew term as “without mercy” from v. 2). So, we have a text that is about the wrath of God. It’s a subject we would rather avoid, but we aren’t doing ourselves any favors when we make God into our image, when we reduce him to single characteristics such as “God is love.” That’s true, of course, and we will see that even from this text, but it is not true to say that “God is love and that’s all he is.” The theologian Emil Brunner said, “The nature of God cannot be exhaustively stated in one single word.” When we talk about God, we must remember that we are talking about one who is totally incomprehensible from a human perspective, but he has revealed himself to us in Scripture so that we might make some feeble attempt at comprehension. Let us, then, work our way through Lamentations 2 paying attention to this theme of God’s severity.
The Seriousness of Sin (vv. 1–10)
We are struck with some horrifying images in Lamentations 2. Additionally, the opening verses are a barrage of God pouring out judgment. In the first eight verses, God is the subject of no less than 28 verbs of punishing action. Here are some examples. Verse 1: “He has cast down,” “He has not remembered.” Verse 2: “The LORD has swallowed up,” “He has broken down.” Verse 3: “He has cut down,” “He has burned.” Verse 4: “He has bent his bow.” “He has killed,” “He has poured out his fury like fire.” And so on.
These are difficult lines. They challenge us, especially in our day. We are emotionally driven people in the modern world. How could God be like this? Some of us may even go so far as to say, “That’s not my god.” And that may be true, but this is the God of the Bible.
The subject of God’s wrath struck me recently. Leland has been working on question 18 in the New City Catechism. Here’s the question with the children’s answer:
Will God allow our disobedience and idolatry to go unpunished?
No, God is righteously angry with our sins and will punish them both in this life, and in the life to come.
Now teaching that to a four-year-old has been challenging. Why do I find it challenging? Is it because I don’t think my four-year-old needs to hear that language? That might be part of it. Notice that’s an emotional response. But I also think there’s a deeper reluctance in my heart. The reason I find it so hard to teach my child this language is because it forces me to accept it as true. After all, if I’m going to indoctrinate my son with this language, I had better believe it myself.
The wrath of God and his judgment are persistent through Lamentations 2. Why is God so angry? Remember chapter 1, Israel had been unfaithful despite repeated warnings. We see that again here in ch. 2. The prophets, the people who were supposed to teach them the Word of God, failed to warn about the seriousness of sin and the severity of the Lord. Look at v. 14.*
We recoil at wrath, but let’s stop and think for a moment. We don’t actually want a world without wrath. That would be a world without justice. Justice requires wrath. Consider the atrocities of this world. Do we really want evil to go unpunished? Do we really want a world without consequences? Does the extermination of more than eleven million people in the Holocaust have no repercussions? As A. W. Pink pointed out, “Indifference to sin is a moral blemish.” We must have justice, and for there to be justice, there must be wrath.
The Response Should Be Repentance (vv. 11–19)
Notice the shift in language that happens in the middle of v. 18. The shift is to response. The text gives directions: “let tears stream down like a torrent day and night!” “Give yourself no rest, your eyes no respite.” “Arise, cry out in the night.” “Pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord.” “Lift your hands to him.”
Verses 11–19 form a miniature lament. Verses 11–18b detail the suffering and pain that sin has brought. The shocking images serve to solidify the seriousness of sin. But the main element in this lament is the confession beginning in v. 18. The response in the midst of this harrowing scenario should be repentance.
Why repentance? There are at least three reasons. First, repentance acknowledges the holiness of God. They have sinned against the Lord, so they must make confession to him. As David says in Psalm 51, “I have sinned against you alone.” Second, repentance acknowledges the sovereignty of God. He is in control. He can change the situation. In our day, we are inclined to think that God is not in control when something bad happens. The text is an important corrective for us. In the midst of the darkest day in Israel’s history, God is still sovereign, and they confess that. Third, repentance acknowledges the mercy of God. We will have more to say on this in a moment, but for now, just take note of the fact that repentance is always an appeal to the mercy of God. Even though we see God’s justice, we learn that he is not heavy-handed or capricious. He is kind and compassionate. He is always faithful. Remember all of Lamentations is an appeal to God’s covenant-keeping character.
Why is repentance difficult for us? Why do we have a hard time with recognizing his justice? One theologian suggests a few reasons. Our emotional sentimentality was one. Here are the other two. First, if we allow for the existence of God, we think he exists for our purposes. We think he exists to make us happy and to provide for us. The biblical view of God, however, recognizes that we exist for his glory. Second, any God who wants to be accepted in the modern world must be a tolerant God. We don’t want a holy God of perfection. That’s too rigid.
Ultimately, our resistance to God’s wrath comes down to a simple point: We don’t want him to be God. In a 2007 interview, actor Brad Pitt explained why he found the Christian faith so difficult to embrace as an adult. He says that religion is comforting, but it didn’t last for him. Why? Here’s what he said:
I didn’t understand this idea of a God who says, “You have to acknowledge me. You have to say that I’m the best, and then I’ll give you eternal happiness. If you won’t, then you don’t get it!” It seemed to be about ego. I can’t see God operating from ego, so it made no sense to me.
God who is perfectly holy and just and wise and good has no right to be treated as God. That’s what we think. This is Genesis 3. We want the fruit from the tree because it will make us like God. This is Psalm 2. We want to throw off the shackles. It’s Romans 1, we can see God’s perfection, but we reject it in favor of serving the creature rather than the Creator. Yet, in spite of all of this, and in all his holy severity, the Lord is kind.
The Kindness of the Lord (vv. 20–22)
Lamentations always has the Lord’s faithfulness in mind. Notice the petition in v. 20: “Look, O LORD, and see!” Why make this petition? Because the Lord is faithful to his covenant. We’ve seen the severity of God’s wrath, and the book of Lamentations does not shirk from that reality. But when we talk about God’s wrath, we must remember an important truth: God’s wrath is not like our wrath. Let’s look ahead to ch. 3. This is the heart of the book. Look at vv. 31–33.
For the Lord will not cast off forever, but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love (chesed); for he does not afflict from his heart or grieve the children of men.
In ch. 2, we have heard that the Lord has punished without pity, but here in these verses we are confronted with another reality, the Lord is abundant in kindness and compassion. He will not reject forever. Then, there’s the final part, “for he does not afflict from his heart.” The Lord’s anger is not like ours. It does not reach a boiling point and blow the top off the pot. It is not reactionary. And it is not the final word on his character. Yes, he is holy and just and severe, but he is kind and compassionate and merciful. Thus, vv. 20–22 in Lamentations 2 are an appeal to his character.
Throughout Scripture God is revealed as a God who is both holy and loving, both just and merciful. Lamentations makes that abundantly clear. We must not reduce God to a single attribute or a god fashioned in our image. While Lamentations is shocking, we see the character of God on full display. And there’s a point in the storyline of Scripture that displays the severity and kindness of God even more clearly. That’s on the cross. The cross it the fountain of God’s justice and mercy. On the cross, Jesus is crushed by the wrath of God. This isn’t some sort of divine child abuse. Christ is God himself. Severity and kindness meet because Christ suffers. The gospel of Jesus does not make sense without the wrath and justice of God. Why would Christ die? Why would trust in him be so crucial? In Romans 3:23–26, Paul makes this point unmistakably clear:
all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an atoning sacrifice by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
On the cross, the Lord is both just and merciful. We do not find mercy by being really sorry or trying hard to be good people. We find mercy by looking to Christ and his perfect sacrifice. And that mercy is perfect and secure.
Conclusion
In Romans 11, Paul writes, “Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity for those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness.” He’s speaking about God bringing the Gentiles into his people. But he notes both the severity and kindness of God. The determining issue Paul says in v. 20 is belief. Will we receive what Christ has done or will we continue to rely on ourselves? Will we trust that Christ has completely satisfied the wrath of God or will we continue to believe that we don’t deserve wrath or that we can escape it through our own sufficiency? Emil Brunner said, “Only he who knows the greatness of wrath will be mastered by the greatness of mercy.” Until we face up to the severity of the Lord, we will never understand the breathtaking kindness of the gospel.