Sermon: #1153

 

Title: God’s Strange Work Explained

 

Text: Lamentations 3:32

 

Scripture Reading: Lamentations 3:1-32

 

Subject: Grief, Compassion, and Mercy from God

 

Date: Sunday Morning - July 24, 1994

 

Tape: #Q-29

 

Introduction:

 

The title of my message is God’s Strange Work Explained. My text is Lamentations 3:32. ABut though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.

 

All who know the Lord God in the experience of his saving operations of grace freely acknowledge and frankly confess that God is strictly righteous in the exercise of his grace and truly gracious in his righteous judgments. These are the things that Jeremiah learned by deep, painful experience and recorded in the third chapter of Lamentations for our learning and comfort. But I want us to focus our attention on verse 32. In this verse the Holy Spirit calls our attention to three things by the pen of his prophet:

 

1. God’s Strange Doing - But though he cause grief.

          2. God’s Sweet Delight - You will he have compassion.

          3. God’s Sovereign Design - According the multitude of his mercies.

 

Proposition:

 

Before God shows mercy he causes grief, and both works of grace, the grief and the mercy that follows are according to God’s sovereign, eternal purpose.

 

I. First, Jeremiah mentions God’s Strange Doing - ABut though he cause grief.

 

He acknowledged the fact that the Lord our God is the first cause of all things. He performs all things for his people. He works all things together for good to this elect. The doctrine of God’s universal providence is not some secret doctrine, hidden in the obscure pages of one of the minor prophets. It is rather a doctrine taught and illustrated throughout the Bible. It is obvious in the history of every child of grace and the confession of every sinner who is taught of God.

 

A. When you read this third chapter of Lamentations, you understand that Jeremiah was a man who had experienced terrible grief in his soul, but being a man of God-given faith, he understood and acknowledged that the cause of all his grief was the Lord his God. - Though he cause grief.  

 

The prophet of God acknowledged God in all his ways, and owned him as the origin of all things. Twenty-two times, referring to his woes in verses 1-17, he said God did it.

 

                   1. When he was afflicted, he said it was by the rod of God’s wrath. (vs. 1)

 

                   2. When he was confused, he said God had set him in dark places. (vs. 2-6)

 

3. When his soul was brought into bondage, he said God had hedged him about  and put a chain upon him. (vv.7)

 

4. When he was overwhelmed with grief, he said He hath pulled me in pieces.        (vs. 8-  19)

 

                   5. When he was, by these things, brought to utter hopelessness in himself, he    found hope in the Lord God. (vv.21-31)

 

Oh blessed, blessed, blessed are those sinners who have been brought down to utter hopelessness in themselves that they might find hope in the Lord God.

 

                             A. The basis of hope is the Lord God himself. (vv.21-21)

 

                                      1. His abundant mercies

                                      2. His unfailing compassions

                                      3. His great faithfulness

                                      4. His infinite fullness (vv.24)

                                      5. His saving goodness

                            

B. The only thing an utterly helpless hopeless sinner can do for God’s  salvation is wait. (vv.26)

           

C. The place where a sinner ought to wait and must wait for God’s      salvation is in the dust of repentance before the throne of grace. (vv.27-    31). You must:

 

                                      1. Bear the yoke of guilt - Conviction (vv.27)

                                      2. Personally do business with the almighty (vv.28)

                                      3. Make your headquarters in the dust (vv.29) - Repentance

                                      4. Justify God in your own condemnation. (vv.30)

                                      5. Look to God in Christ for mercy. (vv.31) - The Publican

 

B. This is what Jeremiah is teaching us. I cannot explain it to folks who have not experienced it. But this is the experience of every leaven born soul. - There is a felt darkness and confusion in the soul when God convinces a sinner of his personal vileness and hell worthiness. This is the grief Jeremiah is talking about. It is a spiritual grief caused in the soul by God.

 

                   1. We recognize that every event of providence that brings grief is God’s work.

 

                             A. He brings the cloud over the earth as well as the sunshine (Gen 9:14) - If here were no clouds, you would never see a rainbow.

 

                             B. He makes peace and creates evil in the earth. (Isa 45:7)

 

                   2. But the eye of faith also sees that spiritual grief and sorrow are works of God’s hands. God’s holy displeasure with sin is seen everywhere. It must be experienced and acknowledged.

 

                             A. When Adam sinned in the garden, God made him feel his hot displeasure. (Gen 3:17-19)

 

                             B. When God gave his law at Sinai, the thunder and the darkness, and trembling, made known his displeasure with sin in a way that Israel felt it and heard it. 

 

                             C. And when God comes to a sinner in saving operations of grace, the very first thing he does is make that sinner to know his displeasure.     God will never give grace where he does not cause grief. (John 16:8-    12)

 

                   When sin is not felt and hated, salvation will never be enjoyed. Where wrath has not been dreaded, love will not be experienced. The heart that is a stranger to misery must be a foreigner to mercy. (Thomas Bradbury)

 

                   When God deals with a sinner in mercy, he takes him to hell first. - (Harry Graham)

 

C. This is God’s strange doing, his strange work. He causes grief so that he may bestow grace. He created the waster to destroy (Isa 54:16), all earthly creature comfort to bring us down to hell (Ps 107), so that we might look to the crucified Christ and find all comfort for our souls in him alone.

 

Illustration: God’s Dealings with Ephraim (Hos. 5:14-6:3)

          Eliphaz to Job (Job 5:17-18)

 

It is my prayer that God will bring you to grieve over your sin. Those who are grieved by God, God alone can gladden. Do what it will, the world cannot comfort when God convicts.

          Illustration: My own experience

 

II. That, I hope, will explain God’s strange doings. But I must on. Secondly, Jeremiah speaks of God’s Sweet Delight - Yes, will he have compassion.

 

How sweet! How blessed! Though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion! He who wounds us will heal us. God, who makes us to know and face our ruin will also make us to know his remedy for our ruin in Christ. He will have compassion.

 

A. What is compassion? Compassion is co-passion. It is sympathy with the sufferings and sorrows of others. It is exhibited in making one’s self a companion with sufferers and mourners.

 

                   1. The unfailing compassions of the Triune God are made know to sinners in the gospel. (Eph 1:3-14)

 

                             A. The Father’s Election!

                             B. The Son’s Redemption!

                             C. The Spirit’s Call!

 

                   When hell gaped for me as its coveted prey, when Satan roared against my soul until my very heart quaked and trembled, God almighty, in sovereign grace interposed himself. He stepped in between my soul and hell. And, instead of pouring out upon me the wrath that I knew I fully deserved, he showed me that he had spent his wrath against me upon his dear son and embraced me in the arms of his everlasting love! (Eph 2:1-4)

 

                   2. Nothing moves God to compassion but his own purpose of grace and the sovereign inclination of his own love.

 

                   Psalm 86:15

                   Romans 8:11-18

 

B. The Lord God sends his messengers of compassion to sinners (II Chron 36:15)

 

                   His Son to redeem (1 John 4:10)

                   His servants to proclaim (Isa 40:1-2)

                   His spirit to convince (John 16:8)

 

C. Who can read the biographies of the earthly life of the Incarnate God and doubt his compassion toward sinful men?

 

                   The fainting souls (Matt 9:35-36)

                   The Hungry Multitude (Matt 15:32)

                   The Blind Eyes of Poor Men (Matt 20:34)

                   The cry of a poor leper (Md 1:40-41)

                   The good Samaritan (Lk 10:30-35)

 

                   1. Our great God is full of compassion toward his sinner people (Ps 78:38)

                   2. Our great savior is a compassionate high priest (Heb 5:2)

3. The Holy Spirit of grace is a spiritual compassion. (Eph 4:30 - grief requires compassion)

 

III. Thirdly, Jeremiah speaks of God’s Sovereign Predestination. He causes grief that he might have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies. Did you even notice how those words according to are used in the scriptures to explain God’s works of grace for and in his people?

 

          Predestination (Eph 1:11)

          Spiritual Blessings (Eph 1:3-4)

          Redemption and forgiveness (Eph 1:6-7)

          Supplied needs (Phil 4:19)

          Grace to help (Eph 4:7)

          Divine providence (Rom 8:28)

 

Everything God does allows to be done is by design. He says, :My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure. (Isa 46:10). He purposes! He performs! He perfects! Hell itself and all its influences do no more than serve his purposes.

 

Great is the mystery, truly great,

          That hell’s designs should hell defeat;

          But here eternal wisdom shines,

          For Satan works what God designs!

 

That misery of sin that God brings by conviction is the forerunner of mercy which God purposed to perform in eternity. Felt misery for sins we have committed is a hopeful sign that the mercy is near which God predestinated.

 

Let me wrap this message up by telling you about God’s mercy.

 

          A. Lot called it Magnified Mercy. (Gen 19:19)

          B. Nehemiah called it Manifold Mercies (Neh 9:27) Mercy for sinners of every kind/

C. Jeremiah here calls it Multitudinous Mercy What a revenue of mercy there is in God He is rich in mercy (Eph 2:4). He delighteth in mercy (Mic 7:18) God’s multiplied mercies remove our multiplied miseries.

 

                   Eternal Mercy

                   Sure Mercy

                   Forgiving Mercy (Ps 51)

                   Daily Mercy       

 

                   All in Christ!

 

Application: Isaiah 55:7

Illustration: The Handkerchief

 

Salvation is obtained by simple, childlike faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But that faith that does arise from a felt need of Christ and is not accompanied by a genuine conviction of sin is not this faith!

 

No conviction - no conversion

No mercy - no mercy

No grief - no grace