Structured Sorrow

Probably the most intriguing fact about the Book of Lamentations is that the book with the most transparent suffering is the book with the most deliberate, symmetrical structure in the entire Bible.

• In chapters 1 and 2, even in the original Hebrew, there are 22 verses that are composed of 3 lines in each verse, for a total of 66 lines in each of the first two chapters. On top of that, it’s an acrostic poem: each verse begins with the successive letter in the Hebrew alphabet.
• In chapter 3, there are 66 verses of one line each, again totaling 66 lines in the chapter. And again, each cluster of three verses begins with successive letters in the alphabet. (So, verses 1–3 start with aleph, 4–6 with beth, and so on.)
• Chapter 4 has 22 verses composed of two lines each, and chapter 5 has 22 verses with one line each.

So what does that have to do with anything, you ask? Well, this unmistakable amount of structure gives form and shape to Jeremiah’s mourning. There has been broad devastation, and Jeremiah suffers along with his people intensely. But his suffering is not just unbridled grief and despair. The abundant evidence of deliberate structure demonstrates that he has not lost control in his grief. He does not grieve as those who have no hope (1 Thess 4:13).

The Ground of Jeremiah’s Hope

And why not? What is the anchor that grounds his hope? The answer comes at the dead center of the book of Lamentations:

Remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and bitterness. Surely my soul remembers and is bowed down within me. This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. Yahweh’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.

“Yahweh is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I have hope in Him.” Yahweh is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him. It is good that he waits silently for the salvation of Yahweh. It is good for a man that he should bear the yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone and be silent since He has laid it on him. Let him put his mouth in the dust, perhaps there is hope. Let him give his cheek to the smiter, let him be filled with reproach. For the Lord will not reject forever, for if He causes grief, then He will have compassion according to His abundant lovingkindness.

I hope you lay hold of the magnitude of those words. “Affliction,” “wandering,” “wormwood” and “bitterness” are juxtaposed with “hope,” “lovingkindess,” “compassion,” and “faithfulness.” Even though Yahweh’s covenant people had been laid bare in a gruesome fashion, the Lord would not utterly destroy Israel. If He has afflicted, He will have compassion.

Jeremiah hopes in Yahweh’s compassion, lovingkindness, and covenant faithfulness. The centerpiece of Jeremiah’s lamentations in the greatest suffering he has experienced—what anchors his hope—is the character of God. Because of Yahweh’s great faithfulness to His own name, His steadfast, loyal, covenant love expressed in the repeated term chesed (Lam 3:22, 32), Jeremiah’s suffering is not just wanton misery and sorrow. Yahweh’s fresh mercies and abundant lovingkindnesses keep him from the abject anguish and heartache of those who grieve with no hope.

Clinging to His Promises

And Jeremiah’s hope isn’t simply a vague naïveté and blind trust in God’s character. He clings to the content of God’s promises to His people. Though Israel has been exceedingly unfaithful to the covenant which God made with them at Sinai, and though God has chastened them greatly because of it, their unfaithfulness will never nullify God’s faithfulness to the word which He spoke to Abraham: to give His people the land He promised (Gen 15:17–18). That is why Paul says in Romans 11 that, from the standpoint of God’s election, Israel is beloved for the sake of the fathers (Rom 11:28). God will not violate His covenant. Neither will their disobedience nullify God’s faithfulness to the word which He spoke to David: to send the Messiah to reign over them forever on the throne of David (2Sam 7:10–16; Ps 89:34–35).

Yahweh’s faithfulness to Israel for the sake of the fathers is ratified again in the New Covenant promise: “‘If this fixed order departs from before Me,’ declares Yahweh, ‘then the offspring of Israel also will cease from being a nation before Me forever.’ Thus says Yahweh, ‘If the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth searched out below, then I will also cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done,’ declares Yahweh” (Jer 31:36–37; cf. Ps 89:36–37). It is for this reason—on the basis of these promises—that Jeremiah can come to the end of his lamentations and declare: “Restore us to You, O Yahweh, that we may be restored; renew our days as of old” (Lam 5:21).

The Ground of Our Hope

In the same way, as God’s people—those who are also covenant-bound to Yahweh—in our trials of suffering we also must sink the teeth of our faith into the covenant faithfulness of God. He is still utterly faithful to His promises. And He has made some magnificent promises. In the New Covenant, by virtue of our union with Jesus Christ, God the Holy Spirit Himself guarantees our inheritance—our surety of dwelling with God in His presence forever, our guarantee that nothing will ever separate us from the love of God in Christ (Rom 8:38–39).

And these promises are not just well-wishes. You can take these to the bank. God has sworn by the greatest thing by which there is to swear: Himself. “God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil,where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek” (Heb 6:17–20).

Our hope, just as Jeremiah’s, even and especially in intense suffering, is in the Lord’s grace. In His ceaseless lovingkindnesses. In His never-failing and always-new compassions. Because our God has united us to Himself in the person of His Son. And He will always be faithful to Himself.

Dear friends, if this be true, what suffering is too great to bear? What tragedy is too difficult to endure? What persecution could possibly steal your joy in this glorious King?

Afflicted? Yes. But not crushed. Perplexed? Sometimes. But not despairing. Persecuted? Absolutely. But oh, never forsaken. Struck down indeed, but for the sake of His name, never destroyed.

May God grant that we suffer well.

That simple fact has been clearly demonstrated time after time. Remember King Solomon? He had more money than he could possibly spend, but by the end of his life, he came to realize it was all vanity. In Ecclesiastes 5:10, he said, “Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. This too is meaningless.”

Other wealthy men throughout history have agreed with Solomon’s conclusion. It was Andrew Carnegie who reportedly said, “Millionaires seldom smile. Millionaires who laugh are rare. My experience is that wealth is apt to take the smiles away.” William Vanderbilt’s comment was this: “The care of 200 million dollars is too great a load for any brain or back to bear. It is enough to kill anyone. There is no pleasure in it.” And Henry Ford concluded, “I was happier when doing a mechanic’s job.”

Even John D. Rockefeller couldn’t find happiness in the millions he amassed. When he was asked, “How much is enough?” he answered, “Just a little bit more.” Toward the end of his life, he said, “I have made many millions, but they have brought me no happiness. I would barter them all for the days I sat on an office stool in Cleveland and counted myself rich on three dollars a week.” And when his accountant was asked, “How much did John D. leave after he died?” The accountant’s reply was classic: “He left all of it.”

In more recent years, the woeful tales of many lottery winners underscore the same principle — even a financial windfall can’t guarantee happiness. In August 1975, Charles Lynn Riddle won $1 million. Afterward, he got divorced, faced several lawsuits and was indicted for selling cocaine. In 1977, Kenneth Proxmire also won $1 million. Within five years, he declared bankruptcy and his wife of 18 years left him, along with their kids. In 1989, Willie Hurt of Lansing, Michigan won $3.1 million. Two years later, he was broke and charged with murder. His lawyer said Hurt spent his fortune on a divorce and crack cocaine. On December 19, 2001, lottery millionaire Phil Kitchen drank whiskey until he passed out on his couch and died.  On July 11, 2002, lottery winner Dennis Elwell, committed suicide by drinking cyanide.

On September 13, 2003, the London Telegraph reported that 16-year-old British lottery millionaire Callie Rogers had lost her boyfriend, fought with her father, been mugged, and been accused of stealing someone else’s boyfriend. She told the Telegraph, “Some days I don’t even want to leave my house because people just scream abuse at me. Two months ago I thought I was the luckiest teenager in Britain. But today I can say I have never felt so miserable.”

Stories like those could easily be multiplied. Benjamin Franklin had it right when he said that:

Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of it filling a vacuum, it makes one. If it satisfied one want, it doubles and trebles that want another way. That was a true proverb of the wise man; rely upon it: “Better a little with the fear of the Lord, than great treasures.”

Abraham Lincoln’s insightful summary was this: “Financial success is purely metallic. The man who gains it has four metallic attributes: gold in his palm, silver on his tongue, brass in his face, and iron in his heart.”

In contrast to the fading wealth of this world, God promises His children a lasting inheritance with benefits for both this life and the next (Romans 8:17). These riches include His kindness (Romans 2:4), wisdom (Romans 11:33), His grace (Ephesians 2:7), and mercy (Ephesians 2:4). These resources are infinite (Ephesians 3:8), glorious (Ephesians 3:16), overabundant (Romans 10:12), and truly satisfying because their Source is God Himself (Ephesians 1:18; Philippians 4:19).

As John MacArthur explains:

God has promised believers peace, love, grace, wisdom, eternal life, joy, victory, strength, guidance, provision for all our needs, power, knowledge, mercy, forgiveness, righteousness, gifts of the Spirit, fellowship with the Trinity, instruction from the Word, truth, spiritual discernment, and eternal riches, to name a few. When we became Christians we were made one with Jesus Christ. Therefore we receive everything the Father gives Him. Paul said we were made “heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:17).

What a list! And it’s not that these are remote possibilities, they are promises. These riches because have been divinely guaranteed.

Our spiritual bank accounts are overflowing with the abundant riches of God. We did not earn the blessings we have received. Yet, God has seen fit to bestow them on us because we are His children — an adoption made possible through the death of Jesus Christ.

How sad it is, then, when believers forget how rich they really are. Instead of focusing on the true, lasting riches of heaven, they waste time chasing after the empty, fading riches of earth. In the end, all the money in the world only has temporal, material value. As Jesus asked in Matthew 16:26, “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?”

Patrick Henry, one of America’s founding fathers, said this at the close of his life:

I have now disposed of all my property to my family. There is one thing more I wish I could give them and that is faith in Jesus Christ. If they had that and I had not given them a single shilling, they would have been rich; and if they had not that, and I had given them all the world, they would be poor indeed.

He was absolutely right.

Many of these articles even expressly stated that the use of the Bible to limit marriage to heterosexual unions is tantamount to supporting the kidnapping, sale, and perpetual ownership of Africans as slaves. After all, some slave owners used the Bible to defend the institution of slavery, and some Americans are using the Bible to define marriage, so the similarities should be obvious.

Here is an excerpt from one example, titled “Is the black church guilty of spiritual hypocrisy in same-sex marriage debate?” from CNN’s religion blog:

Why would the black church cite scripture to exclude gays when a similar approach to the Bible was used to enslave their ancestors?

“It’s so unfortunate,” says James Cone, one the nation’s most influential black theologians and author of “The Cross and the Lynching Tree.”

“The literal approach to scripture was used to enslave black people,” he says. “I’ve said many times in black churches that the black church is on the wrong side of history on this. It’s so sad because they were on the right side of history in their own struggle.”

Call it historical irony: Black church leaders arguing against same-sex marriage are making some of the same arguments that supporters of slavery made in the 18th and 19th centuries, some historians say. Both groups adopted a literal reading of the Bible to justify withholding basic rights from a particular group.

These articles (which appeared in dozens of major news publications over the last few weeks) are by necessity short on actual scripture references. But they generally followed this argument:

1. A literal reading of Scripture defines marriage as heterosexual

2. A literal reading of Scripture was also used to validate American slavery

3. American slavery was morally wrong

4. Therefore the Bible should not be used by anyone, but especially black churches, to define marriage

It is precisely the second point—that a literal reading of the Bible validates American slavery—where this argument errs. In fact, the truth is the opposite. Here are four reasons why a literal reading of the Bible actually condemns the institution of American slavery:

1) Kidnapping someone for any purpose—but especially for the purpose of slavery—is a capital crime in the Bible. Exodus 21:16 reads, “Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death.” This passage, if treated literally, would have ended the American institution of slavery.

2) Slavery in Old Testament times was fundamentally different than American slavery. It was an institution of mercy, which people entered voluntarily, for the purpose of providing for their families. It was not based on the kidnapping, sale, and ownership of individuals. Slaves were released very six years (Exodus 21:2). There is no concept of perpetual slavery in the Bible.

3) The Bible prohibits returning run-away slaves to their masters. Deuteronomy 23:15-16 forbids fugitive slave laws. If a slave runs away, he is given his freedom and is allowed to dwell “wherever it suits him.”

4) In the Roman world, where kidnapping for slavery was more common, the New Testament says that a person who sinned in such a way was not welcome in the church. In 1 Timothy 1:10, Paul writes that “enslavers” have no place in the kingdom of God. The Greek word used for “enslavers” refers to those who took people into slavery against their will.

Much could be said about the horrors of American slavery. But any assessment of the Bible’s teaching leads to the realization that Scripture actually stands in opposition to the American slave trade. Yes, the Bible does say, “slaves, obey your masters” (Eph 6:5). But the kind of slavery described in the Bible is fundamentally different than the kind of slavery that was practiced in the Americas, and any honest historian should know that.

There is a real irony to the accusation that deriving a heterosexual definition of marriage from the Bible is analogous to using Scripture to justify of American slavery. In fact, in the list of practices that have no place in the church (found in 1 Timothy 1:9-10), right before “enslavers” is this word: “homosexuals.” The exact same passage that condemns the forcible trade of humans as property also condemns the act of homosexuality.

You can believe that passage, or you can reject it. But what you can’t do is say that those who twisted Scripture to defend slavery are using the same arguments as those that define marriage in heterosexual terms. The comparison actually goes in the opposite direction:

1. The Bible condemns both the act of kidnapping and the ownership of a person against his or her will

2. The Bible also describes homosexual acts as being sinful

In the gay marriage debate, the ones using slave era hermeneutics are those that ignore the clear teaching of Scripture on marriage.

As far as movies go, I actually enjoyed watching it. The action scenes were compelling but not over-the-top, and to my untrained eye the acting was convincing. Obviously, the movie did have its weaknesses. The way it dealt with issues of race was frustrating (eg. in the middle of an ethical dilemma that had the potential to ruin their family, a Hispanic wife tells her husband “Have another tortilla,” as if that would make everything better). It was a few scenes too long, and had all the subtlety of a cage fight. Characters were either good or bad, angels or demons; shades of grey were not in the script’s palate.

But that was sort of the point. The theme of the movie is that there really are no ethical nuances. Lying, stealing, dealing drugs, and refusing to dance with your daughter or jog with your son are all sinful, and (in the movie) equally so.

The production quality of the movie is not why I liked it. I enjoyed Courageous because it presented a gripping story from a Christian and biblical world view. It portrayed Christians in a real way. It was not demeaning or condescending, but was also not stereo-typical (except in areas of race). The characters live in a world where sin exists, and they realize early on that answers for suffering are only found in the Scriptures. In times of trial and tragedy, the only solution is found in belief in the death and resurrection of Jesus, and through an unyielding confidence in God, through the Bible.

It may sound cheesy, but I enjoyed watching a movie that presented the world from a Biblical perspective. There are bad guys, and the only good guys around (in a biblical sense of the word “good”) are those that are striving to be like Jesus Christ. Grief is real, but so is the resurrection. Some prayers go unanswered, and some prayers God answers through providence in a way that seems truly miraculous. Courageous showed both with biblical balance.

More than the movie’s script, what interests me is the approach to sanctification the movie presents. If you have not seen it, the gist is this: at some point in the movie the five main characters realize that they are not parenting like they should (ok, only four of the characters realize this; one is actually a perfect parent from start to finish). So they decide to make a vow. Think of Jonathan Edward’s resolutions, only made publically, committed to in a ceremony reminiscent of a wedding. A pastor officiates, forms are signed, and the commitments are framed and hung on family room walls.

When the movie was over, I left with this question: is this vow-making approach to sanctification helpful or harmful? In some sense, Courageous presents this act of public declaration in the way the Book of Acts presents the choosing of the 12th Apostle. It does not tell us that this method is good or bad, simply that it happened. But in both cases, it happened with pastoral approval and the possibility that some could assume they are to go and do likewise.

The unanswered question though is this: is it wise to make public commitments to commemorate milestones in our progressive sanctification? On the one hand, the Bible uses the concept of an Ebenezer—a monument that thus far the Lord has brought me—so I can look at this pile of rocks, or this certificate on the wall, as a memorial. It serves as a reminder that the Lord has shown himself good, and I want to commit to remembering that and keeping his word. The Bible leaves room for amoral vows (Acts 18:18, Acts 21:23). The Bible appropriately shows the folly of sinful vows (remember Jephthah?). So vows themselves do not seem to be intrinsically good or bad.

But are they wise? I have etched in my mind that Jonathan Edwards made resolutions to provoke him to sanctification. He read through those over and over throughout his life, and they were effective in compelling him to live a life seemingly unrivaled in American Christianity. But he also made those resolutions to himself. It is difficult for me to imagine him making them in front of his friends, having David Brainerd solemnize the occasion by blessing them, then nailing him to his church door.

In fact, I have two fears about the vow-making approach to sanctification. First, it implies that the missing ingredient to our sanctification is our own resolve. If only we could pull our selves up by our boot straps, try harder, and this time really, really (really!) mean it, then we would progress in our ability to obey Scripture. In fairness, the movie does show that this is not the case. Not everyone who makes the vow keeps the vow. But does the act of making the vow to begin with wrongly identify the cause of lack of sanctification as a missing public declaration? Let me ask it this way: if a friend came to you and asked for help parenting, would you recommend a public commitment to be a better parent?

The second concern I have is the way this kind of public declaration can eclipse baptism. God has given the church a public way of proclaiming allegiance to him, a desire to obey the commands of Scripture, and a way of marking our repentance from sin. That way is believer’s baptism.

I appreciated that Courageous did do two things concerning the vows: they were made in the context of church, and they were not presented as a panacea for problems. In fact, in what is probably the most helpful message of the movie, the vows actually grew out of a study of what the Bible says about parenting. So the Scriptures were identified as the source.  The reason I enjoyed the movie is because it at least raises the question. I don’t think I have ever watched a movie that had as its theme a question concerning the best approach to sanctification.

How about you? What did you think of the movie?

Her magic formula was a simple brew of conservative stocks, Civil War bonds, a barrel of hoarded cash reserves, and a pinch of stinginess. Hetty Green embodied the epitome of frugality; to call her a miser would be, well… generous.

Hetty was so cheap that she eschewed the use of soap for washing her hands, and likewise instructed her laundress to only clean the dirtiest parts of her dress. She wore the same black frock until it was threadbare, drove an ancient carriage, and subsisted mostly on 15c pies. She once spent hours searching her carraige for a stamp worth 2c.

When her son broke his leg Hetty took him to a free clinic for the poor but when they refused admittance she tried (free) home remedies. The boy lost his leg. Hetty herself suffered from a severe hernia, but refused to spend the $150 for her surgery.

Hetty Green died with a Zuckerbergian equivalent net worth of around $200 million (nearly $5 billion today). But she lived like a pauper, and gave nothing away. Ever.

Ned took his half of the inherited loot, and with prodigal efficiency, tried to roll Mama’s corpse over in her grave. He shed cash like a deciduous money tree, spending Hetty’s punctiliously pinched pennies on the most lavish extravagances, like a diamond encrusted privy pot.

Hetty’s daughter, Sylvia, on the other hand was known for her generosity. She gave to genuine needs, but managed to keep her entire fortune intact, eventually bequeathing it all to 64 churches, hospitals, and schools.

Looming over this story, like a told-you-so specter, is the parable of the rich fool (Luke 12:16-21). In it, Jesus warned against the soul-numbing tendency– instinctual in mice, magpies, and men– to hoard earthly treasures in lieu of being rich toward God. The rich fool would have felt at home with Hetty as his avatar. How about you?
Here are 6 principles of giving to remedy the plague of miserliness:

1. Give to the local church first.

The Bible commands churches to meet the needs of poor believers, support widows and orphans, evangelize globally, pay pastors, and many other costly responsibilities. The financial contribution of members to their local church enables it to obey, and simultaneously grafts the members into a partnership in that obedience. Do you care for orphans? Widows? Do you evangelize the world? Well, if your church is, and you are giving, then yes you are. 

2. Give regularly.

As frequently as you’re saving, spending, and investing, you should be giving. For some, giving resembles a the once-off ordinance of baptism. Rather, giving should be a regular part of your devotional life. For example, if you get paid monthly, give monthly (as opposed to annually).

Sometimes giving is done by automatic debit order. Though this is not forbidden in Scripture, it may miss the point somewhat. You wouldn’t spin a prayer wheel to pray for you (as many Buddhist do). And you wouldn’t play a worship CD on repeat instead of worshipping musically yourself, would you?

Paul singled out Sunday as the day the Corinthians should have given when collecting for a contribution.
1 Cor 16:2  On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come.

3. Give discreetly.

Don’t expect a plaque with your name on the pew. Just give. With the exception of the treasurer (or whomever is responsible for checking the bank accounts), none of the elders need to be aware of the amounts people give. This prevents the temptation for partiality (if someone gives much), or for judgmentalism (if someone gives little).

But as an anonymous giver, you should never hide behind the cloak of anonymity in order to be stingy and give nothing.

Matt 6:3  But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4  so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

4. Give generously.

2 Cor 9:6 The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.

When people ask me if they should give a percentage of their net income or their gross income, I reply, tongue-in-cheek, “Do you want net blessing or gross blessing?”

5. Give cheerfully.

2 Cor 9:7 Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

Do you think God needs your money? God owns the cattle on a thousand hills, all the money, and every other resource on this planet. He wants you to give your part as an avenue of worship. If you are reluctant and recalcitrant about your giving–don’t bother.

Give enough that you can be genuinely cheerful. If that’s a single cent, then that’s better than 2c grudgingly. Our God deserves better than that.

On the other hand, if you give so little that you are ashamed before God, then that will also inhibit your cheerfulness. Giving is enjoyable worship when it’s done well. And, like Wii, if it isn’t enjoyable you’re not doing it right. Giving is about the heart more than the amount, as was made plain by the widow and her two mites.

6. Give sacrificially.

It’s not a sacrifice if it is not…you know… sacrificial.

When Araunah offered to simply donate to David the land he wanted to purchase to erect an altar, David declined the kind offer and reached into his pocket.

2 Sam 24:24  But the king said to Araunah, “No, but I will buy it from you for a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.

I hope these are helpful in preventing the onset of Hetty Green syndrome.

For more on Biblical Bean Counting, check out this Biblical Bean Counting series.

If you can think of any more principles of giving, please share them in the comment section below…

Because of this absolutely ridiculous…um, vehicular heritage, I often make it a point to observe the different patterns other drivers follow and decisions they make while I’m driving. Sometimes I even think to myself, imagining what I would have done if a driver lost control or decided to change lanes abruptly, or whatever. “If he made a mistake and needed to jump in front of me, could I get out of his way?” Stuff like that.

Now, some people without the NY/NJ/LA driving heritage might think I’m going a little overboard here. And granted, they might be right. But I realize that in certain situations I might have only a fraction of a second to react. I need to be so prepared with a sound way of avoiding an accident that my reactions are just second nature. Because in the moment, I won’t have time to think clearly and dispassionately evaluate my options. The craziness of the moment simply won’t allow it. At least not where I’m driving.

And I really believe the same is true of Christian suffering. I suppose I might sound a bit like a broken record with the ways I’ve been introducing these posts on suffering, but I really don’t believe I can stress enough how important it is to have a rock solid theology of suffering before one actually suffers. Because in the midst of some exceedingly painful trial, the craziness of the moment often doesn’t allow for cool contemplation and sound theological reasoning. The solid foundation that keeps you grounded can’t be being constructed in the middle of the storm. It needs to be set firmly in place beforehand, so that it can serve as a sure and steadfast anchor in the midst of whatever turmoil we might experience.

God is Sovereign and Righteous in Ordaining Suffering

To that end, we come to the fourth lesson we can learn from Jeremiah about how to righteously respond to suffering. The third lesson was to acknowledge and trust in God’s absolute sovereignty in the suffering that we experience. We noted how active a role God assigns to Himself in the most wicked actions of men. And yet, though Jeremiah attributes the destruction of Israel to God’s sovereign judgment, he neither blames Yahweh nor holds Him morally responsible for the evil inflicted on His people.

Quite simply, a Bible-believing Christian has no choice but to admit that God sovereignly and actively brings about the evil events described in Lamentations. But if our understanding of God’s absolute sovereignty leads us to conclude that He is morally culpable, blameworthy, or in any way unrighteous, we’re wrong. The Scripture writers never seek to save God from His sovereignty in evil and sinful events, yet they also never attribute evil to Him directly. Apparently, there is a way for God to ordain that bad things come about without being the immediate, efficient cause for those things; i.e., without being at fault for them.

Rather, Jeremiah spoke about the arrogance of Israel’s enemies (Lam 2:15–16; 3:60–62), and called on Yahweh to judge them for the great wickedness that they had done to God’s people (Lam 1:21–22; 3:63–66; 4:21–22). Though Jeremiah explicitly states that Yahweh employed the Babylonians to accomplish His purpose, he also makes it clear that God’s absolute sovereignty in and over evil does not mitigate human responsibility for that evil.

How is this analogous to our situation when we suffer? Well, the point is: We must recognize who the enemy is in suffering. It is not God. The previous post taught us that He brings these events about to conform us more into the image of His Son, and thus to make us fit to see and know and enjoy more of Him, which is our highest happiness. So He is not the enemy. Rather, the enemy in suffering is (1) our own sin, (2) the Enemy, Satan, and (3) the last enemy: death (1Cor 15:26). And so when we go through suffering, we can and should pray along with Jeremiah for the destruction of all of these enemies.

Fight, Knowing Your Enemy is Defeated

Hebrews 2:14-15 tells us that the Son of God became man in order to render Satan powerless. And how did He do that? He freed us who were enslaved to the fear of death so that the Enemy, who had the power of death, had no power over us any longer.

And how did He free us from the fear of death? Answer: by conquering death itself. Because Christ has suffered, died, and yet rose again, demonstrating His triumph over sin and death, we too also will be raised with Him. That’s what the entire glorious chapter of 1 Corinthians 15 is about! And it concludes like this:

But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O Death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

That victory taunt, “O Death, where is your victory?…” is a quote from Hosea 13:14. What’s so interesting about that is in its original context, it wasn’t a cry of victory for God’s people. Instead, it was God pronouncing a curse upon His people. He was calling upon the thorns and the sting of death to rouse them against adulterous, idolatrous Ephraim, that unwise son whose iniquity was bound up upon him (Hos 13:12–14). Indeed, Yahweh arouses the sting of death against His people, declaring, “Compassion will be hidden from My sight.”

But the stinging reality of the phrase’s original context only makes Paul’s use of it that much sweeter. Because at the end of 1 Corinthians 15, because of what Christ has accomplished, going before us as our Deliverer, the people of God can take what was once a taunt of victory against them and shout it out as a taunt of victory against their enemy!

Our Battle Cry: Christ’s Victory

And in the midst of suffering, such a taunt can be our cry. “O Death, where is your victory? Where is your sting? Arouse them! Bring your worst! You will nevertheless remain defeated. Your power over me is entirely broken, and your sting is scarcely felt because of the sweet balm of the truth that anoints and salves my soul! Would you remind me of my indwelling sin? I would remind you of His indwelling Spirit, sent to me by my Savior, who bled and died to cancel out the debt I owed because of the hostile law. He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross (Col 2:13)! Get behind me, Satan!”

And therefore, my beloved brethren, we may be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that our struggle against the flesh and the fight for joy in the midst of suffering is not in vain in the Lord (1Cor 15:58).

In the midst of suffering, as we recognize our enemy, we can look back to celebrate the demise both of our sin and of Satan that took place at the cross. And we can look forward to celebrate their final and consummate destruction, when we will have put on the imperishable (1Cor 15:54) and when death and Hades will have been thrown into the lake of fire (Rev 20:14).

It’s right for Jeremiah to call for Yahweh’s judgment upon the Babylonians for their responsibility in causing the intense suffering of an entire nation. In the same way, it is right for us to call for God’s judgment upon and eradication of our own sin, upon the Enemy himself, and upon the last enemy: death.