Look at the Book

Lamentations 3:31–33: He Will Not Cast Off Forever

God is completely consistent in all he does, but he is also very complicated. What looks like a contradiction in God is always only a limitation in our understanding. In this lab, Pastor John asks how God could cause his children grief and remain compassionate towards them.

Duration:: 9m
Broadcast on:: 23 Sep 2014
Audio Format:: other

In this session of Look at the Book, we're focusing on Lamentations 3, 31 to 33. Father, I pray that the pain in this text will relate profoundly to the pain in our lives and that the astonishing strength and comfort and help there is in this text for sufferers will become ours through faith. Open our eyes to that end. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Lamentations is a book in the Old Testament that is probably the most painful. It might run neck and neck with Joe or most horrific in its descriptions of the horrors that come upon Jerusalem. This is the book about Jeremiah, about the judgment of God upon his people as the Babylonians have raped the city of Jerusalem. So it's the most painful and horrific book perhaps. And alongside that, amazingly, the most rigorous in its structure. What I mean by that is its built. The first four chapters of the five are acrostics. Do you know that? You can't see it in English, but in Hebrew, the verses begin with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet. And so it's very structured and it moves me to ask why in the world would the most painful and the most horrific descriptions of suffering in the Bible be written by God's inspiration in a way that is structured in the most rigorous way? What would be the point of God doing that? And here's a possible answer. Perhaps it is a way of showing that our pain, our pain, the pain of God's people is bounded. It's channelled. If you have a flood that's coming down a plane and you put boundaries on either side of it, it creates what we call a river. And rivers are going somewhere. They don't just allow the flood to sweep over the whole plane and ruin all the crops. They may be very deep. They may be very strong. They may be very painful, but they're going somewhere. They have a goal. And so my overall suggestion here as to what God may be doing in lamentations in the way he has described the horrific sufferings and structured them is to remind us that our pain is bounded. It's inside certain limits and is channelled and going somewhere. Now in that context, here's what we read in Lamentations 331 to 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, for he does not afflict from his heart or grieve the children of men." So this is not, not, this suffering, this judgment is not God's last word. There's going to be a new covenant with God's people. And in that new covenant, as we see in Jeremiah 31, so he knows that he's written that. In Jeremiah 31, there's going to be a new covenant and sins, sins will be covered and obedience will be given. And there will be a new day when there won't be any casting off. There won't be any casting off. "For the Lord will not cast off forever." He's coming back to this people. That's not his last word to judge Jerusalem. But though he cause grief, and we need to linger over that for just a minute because there's so many people who try to rescue God from his sovereignty and say he only allows grief. He only allows the horrors of Jerusalem. It was really the Babylonians who did it, but this says he raised up those Babylonians. Indeed, he did. He brought about the judgment upon his people and he caused these terrible things to happen to his people. But that's not, as we see now, in the rest of the verse, his last, his last or deepest word. Here's what's coming. He will have compassion. And this compassion will be according to the abundance of his love, his steadfast love. So the compassion that he's storing up for these people is not a stingy compassion. It's not limited. It's abundant. It's overflowing. So God's heart is brimming with love and compassion, even though for now he is causing grief. And then he gives this remarkable basis. So we see one of these. This is ground again. We've seen this before. And again, it is general because it's for us, not just for them. And it is all about God. For what kind of God do we have here that we're dealing with? For he, God, does not afflict from his heart or grieve the children of men from his heart. Oh, he grieves. Look at this. He causes grief. So when he says he doesn't grieve the children of men, he doesn't mean he doesn't do it absolutely. He means he doesn't do it from his heart. This from his heart here modifies both the affliction and the grief. So he does not afflict us or grieve us from his heart. What does that mean? That's an amazing statement. I think that's one of the most remarkable revelations of the heart of God in all the Bible. What does it mean? Well, it means pain. Our pain is not is not God's or his let's just put this way, his heart's delight. This is not what he delights in in itself. Rather, our pain is a means to the good that God does delight in. And that would be this compassion here and this love here. These come from his heart. But this grief that he causes, this affliction that he causes, this grieving the children of men that he brings about is not from his heart. So what do we conclude from this? We bow down to his sovereignty, which is expressed here in this he does indeed cause grief. We bow to his sovereignty and we trust that at the bottom of his heart as what he delights in for itself and not as a mere means is his love and his compassion. There is a good that is coming to the children of God through their pain, that God does delight in from his heart. And these sorrows in our lives are meant to bring us there and we must trust him for it. [BLANK_AUDIO]