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