welcome back to the Daily Bible Podcast! We're so glad you've joined us. And now your hosts, Pastor PJ and Pastor Rooooooddddd.....

Hey and welcome back. Indeed. In fact, we have a brand new book today. Same author. We believe at least new book. We are starting the book of Lamentations. My mom's in town and so we've been enjoying some time with her. Hi Dorothy. She she does listen faithfully and she was just telling me, she said, I'm ready to get to the New Testament. And I said I've got some bad news, mom. We're going from Jeremiah to limitations first. And then we've got Ezekiel. Ouch. And then we've got, then we've got Daniel's a bright spot, I think by and large, but man limitations as the name would imply. It's it's not a bunch of roses and daffodils, but it's got some great theology, some deeply rich theology in it that I think you're gonna find encouraging. In fact, you probably know some of it, its most famous verse is one of the hymns that we sing about the faithfulness of God, the great faithfulness of God. But, limitations is not the book that you're thinking about, man, this is gonna gimme all the warm fuzzies necessarily. No, but let me give you just some warm fuzzies before you get there. Yeah. If Louis Zuma, he turns 18 a day, I think 18 or 19. Yeah, maybe 17. Yeah. Just kidding. He's not that young. Yeah he's now soundly, I think he's considered the mid twenties now. I'm not sure exactly. So 24 to 26. 24. He's 24. Yeah. So he's, I think he's, is that considered mid twenties? 24, 26. Can you say that? So if you know him, he has his phone number. Do encourage him and let him know. Happy birthday and send him some spam. Some, someone one year sent me something I realized. Is one of the best things ever. He sent me a video that has my name in it, that sings Happy Birthday. So there, I guess there's stuff on YouTube. People upload these funny videos and they insert someone's name and it says, happy Birthday. It's really great. So send him a video, send him an audio message. Send him some love. It is his birthday today. And if you happen to know Shea. Let her know that you're thankful for her husband for this or that reason. That'd be great. Encourage him. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, we talked about that. We celebrated him on Friday as a staff. 'cause our offices closed on Monday and he was saying, I think one of my mid twenties. And I was like mid twenties. Yeah, I guess so. But I always thought, man, 25, like you're cresting the mid, the middle point there and then you're on the downside. On the backside. Ali did not like that very much. She didn't like hearing that there's not a mid range there, but Sure. Mid range. There it is. Yeah. You're not just wish happy birthday. You're not just on the down slope. Happy Birthday Lewis. We're thankful for you. Okay, let's talk about limitations. Yeah, so we do believe that this is Jeremiah still that this is the not continuation of his prophecy from the book of Jeremiah, but we do believe that this is Jeremiah the prophet, the same author writing limitations who wrote the book of Jeremiah. And what's happening in limitations is really the prophet. Bemoaning and witnessing and watching the downfall of Jerusalem. And so he is, as someone have said this, is, this is similar to a dirge at a funeral, that this is a, a. Watching the judgment that he had just prophesied about now unfold, be before his eyes. The belief is that this was written sometime shortly after the fall of Jerusalem, 5 86 BC sometime in that timeframe there. But Jeremiah, the prophet, being the author here, he opens and chapter one and chapter two really. Chapter one Jerusalem is gonna be destroyed. That's what we're talking about there. Chapter two is really focused in on God's wrath, God's anger as the source, as the one behind the destruction there. As we get into it tomorrow we'll look more at chapter three, being the grief of Jeremiah and also his hope and how he copes with that. Chapter four is gonna focus back on, on God's wrath again, and then chapter five is gonna deal with the remnant and their prayers towards the end of the book here. So limitations. It fits in the canon in the way to give us a glimpse into how the people responded to the judgment of God and the destruction of the city. With Isaiah, with Jeremiah, with some of the others, you've had all this prophecy saying, this is what's gonna happen. This is what's gonna happen. It's inevitable. It's going to happen, prepare, it's going to happen. Now, Lamentations is really our first glimpse into life afterwards. Jeremiah is not a, is not an exilic prophet, although I guess. In some sense he is, I would still say he's pre exilic because the majority of his writing has to do before the exile, but he ventures into the time of exile. And so you're gonna have Jeremiah, you're gonna have Ezekiel during the time of exile. You're also gonna have Daniel during the time of exile. And this is during the time of the 70 years of captivity. So that has kicked off. That has begun, and Jeremiah is writing of the destruction here in this book. Lamentations is a really good place for us to camp if we want to feel the effects of our sin. Sometimes, and maybe most of the time when we sin, we don't normally feel immediate aftermath to those things. It takes time for this, the seeds of sin to grow and to blossom and produce the rotten fruit that they do. Lamentations fast forwards the. Timeframe for us to see the way that sin manifests itself in the life of a people who were in fact, God's chosen people. You and I are God's chosen people in a different way. I think in several respects, in a much greater way. But lamentation shows us sin has devastating consequences. And so many times we forget that because we don't see the immediate effects of it. The consequences are often delayed. But here. As you think about Lamentations, I just want you to pay attention to all the ways that they suffered. None of this was a surprise to them. This is what God told them would happen, but you should be able to see here some parallels between the sins that they suffer and the sins that, or the consequences of the sins that they suffer and the consequences of our suffering. When we sin again, it's not always right away, but just take a look here. This is a part of it. There's gonna be hope delivered for sure. And there's always confession. There's always repentance and that's a part of it. But it's not all of it. Here. I need you to see, I want you to feel with Jeremiah, and I think it, I think Jeremiah, by the way, Jeremiah is not listed in the book. That's why there's questions here. Jeremiah's name is not mentioned. There are some similar themes. Obviously whoever is in this book who's writing it is crying. They're weeping over Jerusalem. That's consistent with Jeremiah. It has similar. Similar vocabulary, although there's some pretty sharp divergence in this as well. So historically I think you have in the Greek step two agent, you have this book attributed to Jeremiah. So there's a long history of attributing it to him. But again, the book is technically anonymous. Jeremiah we're gonna say is traditionally who wrote it, it seems to make sense. It fits with his ministry and he would be. Someone who saw the destruction of Jerusalem. So we're gonna stick with that, even though technically it is anonymous. So with that said this does fit Jeremiah's ministry. It is something that you should feel the weight of it. And also I think it's appropriate too, if you see, let's just say for instance, if you saw some major catastrophe take place to for. The church or you hear a church shooting or something awful like that, or something big happening, it's appropriate to care. I don't wanna sound too obvious here, but because we're so used to seeing things on the news and we're so used to the clickbait kind of titles that we get, it's easy for us to see things and to scroll past it quickly because, it doesn't bother me. That's a different state. It's a different people group and a different country. And I understand that I understand that. But I think it's appropriate for us to feel the weight of saying, man, I, I care enough about people to let it move me in some way, shape or form. You can't do this for everybody. I understand that, but you should care. Yeah. Is there something too about when we sin and feel God's. Punishment against us. There is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. But is there an appropriate response to say, I don't want to too quickly move through my feelings of conviction, move past my feelings of guilt for the sins that I've committed? Does that make sense what I'm asking there? Say more meaning? If I sin, yeah, it's we can go to the cross and find forgiveness at the cross. A hundred percent. Okay. But I don't think it's right for us to immediately brush it off okay, I sinned, Lord, please forgive me for that sin. Now let me move on and distract myself from the weight of the sin. Does that make sense? Okay. Yeah. Superficial handling of the sin right to. In some of the consequences of our sin, the hand of God upon us. David said, your hand was heavy upon me when I sinned. And I think that's a grace of God that keeps us from wanting to go back to that sin or keeps us from growing hardhearted or callous towards our sin. Yeah, you're right about that. I could see someone struggling on either side of that, someone who goes too quickly to the cross and ignores the pain signals that God is trying to send. To make you awake and to realize, how did I get here? Why did I do this? What about my heart craves this particular sin? So I could see someone saying, oh, I'm just gonna skip all that 'cause that's uncomfortable. I'm gonna go right to the cross and receive the grace that is mine. Praise be to Lord. However, there's also another person who will stay there far too long. Yeah. And say I'm miserable. Am I even a Christian? I can't believe I did this again. You can fall in the ditch on either side and our encouragement would be know yourself well enough to identify your potential pitfalls. And it. Encounter those. So if you're a very tender conscience and you condemn yourself over the slightest picadillo in your soul, it's a funny word. Or if you're the kind of person who just doesn't, you love grace and you're all about it, but maybe you don't give enough time and attention to what's happening in your heart such that you sin in these. Particular ways you probably need to spend more time. And the other person with the pick delo heart, they need to spend less time and they to go right to the cross and preach themselves. Romans eight, one. So yeah I agree with you a hundred percent. Depends on the person. Yeah. And I think all of us have a different tendency toward one or the other. Yeah. Yeah. Note in verse 18, so this is a section where Jerusalem is being personified here again as Jeremiah had done, so the author of Limitations, if it's still Jeremiah, he does here as well. And one of the things that Jerusalem, the city says is, the Lord is in the right for I have. Belled against his words. So this is in the aftermath of the destruction, just the people of Israel being called upon to recognize this is not unfair. What God has done is not unjust. This is what God said he was going to do. If we go back to the Mosaic Covenant, Deuteronomy 28, the blessings and the cursings. This is in keeping what God has told us. People really from the outset of his relationship with them, if you don't abide by my law, if you don't obey my commandments, this is what's coming. And if we really. Back up to. To when that all took place. God had been immensely patient with his people. When you go back to Deuteronomy 28 and when the Mosaic Covenant was first struck up with his people, he didn't immediately bring that judgment against them. He was patient with them. He even raised up David for them. He rai before that he raised up good judges for them. He gave them David, he gave them Solomon. He was merciful to send them prophets during the divided monarchy. And yet finally the time ran out. But Jerusalem personified says, we did this. This is right. God is right in this. He's not wrong. We can't charge him with wrongdoing for we have rebelled against his word. One more quick observation here in verse nine. This is going back a few verses, but notice when whoever it is, who's lamenting here, Jeremiah he says her uncles was in her skirts. And that's not the part I was looking at, although that is interesting. He depicts it pretty graphically. It is exactly what you think it is just saying. If you're thinking about what it is, it's probably what you think it is. But the interest that I have is in the second line. She took no thought of her future sin will. Make obscure what the end of that sin will be. So I'm, again, going back to the consequences of our sins. Sin will dull your senses such that you're not thinking about how obvious it is. This sin is gonna result in bad things for you. And that bad thing is usually not immediate. And this is the problem for us because if it, if every time we send God sent a hundred volts of electricity through our body, we'd send a lot less. I think that's my guess. Maybe that's not the case for you, but if. Because God is gracious and he delays the consequences of our sins. It actually is more dangerous for us most of the time because then we say I got away with it and I repented, and I confessed. Don't let that happen to you. She took no thought of her future. This is what led her to continue to reinforce her sin, and this is a danger for us today. Be on the lookout against that. So why doesn't God do that? When our kids are little. And they're grown up and they're, they do something wrong. We flick their hand, we flick their mouth, whatever it is, and then ultimately they end up getting the corporal discipline on the rear end. Yeah. Like. Why doesn't God do that more for us? Why is there the delay? I think I, I actually think he doesn't send electric shocks through our body, but I think he does. I think that's called conviction. Yeah. God convicts us. And it's not an electric shock, but it's actually more painful in some ways because you feel, yeah, I've grieved the Lord and that hurts me to hurt him, and I don't wanna do that anymore. Because we're under the new covenants. We have the heart of flesh, not of stone. God has given us the gift of being able to feel with him, so that we're saying, you know what I want to please him. I don't wanna do this anymore. The electric shock maybe. Maybe we could, I could set that up for you. If you want, I can get you a shock collar. And anytime I think you're sinning, I just, in fact, let's just try it for a couple months, years and just see what happens. Have you, this is totally off topic, but that reminded me. Have you seen the reel of the guys that go through the drive through and they're, they've got a shot collar on it and their buddy has the controller and he's trying to order at the drive through. It's funny. I haven't seen that. It's pretty classic. It's pretty classic. Let's let's do it. Do it. Yeah. Okay. We should do it with Lewis. Happy birthday Lewis. We've got a dog collar for you. Five hours if we see. In, we're gonna shock you. Yeah, I like that. Chapter two, like I said, this focuses on the wrath of God, the anger of God. And verse three, he has withdrawn from them his right hand. And the reason why the, which hand it was matters is because the right hand was the hand of favor. And so God has withdrawn his favor from them. Look at verse nine. The law is no more in her prophets, find no vision from the Lord. In other words, God has withdrawn his revelation. He's no longer. Pursuing them with the revelation, the way that he did with the law, the way that he did with the prophets. And so this has led in verse 11 to the prophet Jeremiah or whoever it is weeping over the current situation and the anger of the Lord being poured out. And he says, my eyes are spent with weeping. My stomach churns. He's sick to his stomach over what his eyes are witnessing here. And he's calling on God to even later on in, in verse 20, look, oh Lord, and see, look at what's happening here. And there's horrific things that he. Sights here to say the starvation has led people to do awful things. And there's refuse in the streets and people are falling by the sword. And this is just, this, the scene is horrific. And again, we know who is behind this because of verse 17, the Lord has done what he purposed, carried out his word, which he commanded long ago. So the prophet here in chapter two is depicting God's anger, God's wrath being poured out on, on the city. And to, to the point that you made earlier. He cares about this to the point that it's, he's weeping, he's distraught over what has happened and what's taken place with the city of Jerusalem. In verse nine, you mentioned this, but I want you to see something about the way that God interacts with us that I think could be helpful to your walk. And notice here that he says the laws, no more prophets find no vision from the Lord. And I think one of the lessons that we could helpfully draw from this is that when we fail to listen, it's possible that God stop speaking. That God in his judgment will remove. Some of the effect that his word should have on the tender heart. So here's what I mean by that. You have a Bible, so it's not like you can ever stop God's speaking. You could just open your Bible and start reading. But I wonder if there's a sense in which God withdraws his nearness to us when we sin against him by just refusing to listen. And I know some of us have felt that in our own lives where it feels like, oh man I'm in a dry season. I'm distant from God. It may be the results, it's sin. It may not be though. There's multiple reasons why God may allow that. But just notice God stopped speaking when we stopped listening. And I think that's devastatingly clear that in today's world, especially, Paul was, Paul warned Timothy about this, the itching ears are gonna accumulate for themselves these kinds of teachers who only say what they want to hear. It's really good that you're in a church that takes God at his word and says, we're gonna say what God says. Because God wants us to hear what he says, not just a part of it that we like, but every part of it. So good for us and I'm glad that you're listening to the podcast 'cause clearly you care about that. Notice though, if we stop listening, it looks like there's a times at least where God will stop speaking. Let's pray and and wrap up this episode unless you have anything else there on chapter two. No, I can be content with that. Okay. Yeah, I agree with what you're saying there everything I said, I, with what you're saying there even the full extent of that, that the terrifying extent of that is Romans one when he turns us over to our sin when he says, okay, then have what you want and I'll. Pull my voice back, I'll pull my influence back. Yeah that's a terrifying aspect of God's judgment. Okay. One more note. Yeah. Lots of people have come to a church like Compass, not just ours, but churches like Compass. Yeah. And they don't like, they. When they feel like their toes are being stepped on, when someone's jumping into their kitchen and saying things that offends them, and sometimes the offensive language is because of the delivery, or maybe it is something that is as naturally offensive, but just notice what verse 14 says. Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions. They have not exposed your iniquity to restore your fortunes. Their exposure of Israel's iniquity could have prevented this. And now in the grand scheme of things and God's plan, this was going to happen. But notice here, Jeremiah. Is saying the exposure of iniquity, we would call that conviction or maybe offense, that would hurt, that could have saved them, that could have prevented all of this catastrophe. When you go to church and you hear Pastor pj, or even just any of your pastor who's faithful in the word preach and they say things that offend you or hurt your feelings, man, a mature Christian's gonna say, yes, thank you for that. 'cause I want to know if there's darkness in my heart. I want it eradicated. You should. Thank God. If you have a pastor like that, you should be grateful because this is the very tool that God uses to shape us, sharpen us, and grow us into the image of Christ. Yeah. So good. Yeah and a lot of times I'll find when I, my initial response is to be offended and my own flesh gets in the way and I'm like, man, I can't believe this person said that or went about that or delivered this way. I think it's such a good practice for us to step back and say, okay, but is there truth there? Maybe I didn't like the tone. Maybe I didn't like the way it was delivered, made it but is there truth here? Is there something God is trying to communicate to me here that I do need to take away from that? That's a good place to start. I need that so often because I struggle with that myself. So you can still do that shot collar for you, man. You let me know. You just let me know. I'll order My fingers on the button. I can order it right now. Have it by tomorrow. It's alright. If you hear us or me, spazzing during the next episode. That's why. Let's pray. Yeah. Give us soft hearts. We to sin soft hearts to the conviction of your spirit. We are grateful for the conviction of your spirit. We're thankful that you didn't abandon us to, to our own plight, our own ways, our own sinful pursuits. Lord, I pray that anybody listening to this that might be in danger of that, in danger of you turning them over that, that you would grab hold of them, Lord, that you would. Not let them drift into their own self-centeredness and their own fleshly pursuits, but that you would use the church, that you'd other, use other believers to call them back to you to speak the words even as we were just talking about words of conviction into their life. Because they love them, because they care about them and that you would hold onto them through that. And God we are so thankful that you are a God who is merciful enough to. Reveal our sin gracious, kind enough to reveal our sin to us, and yet to allow us to come to you in confession and repentance and find forgiveness at the cross. So help us to do just that, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Keep your Bibles. Tune in again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. See you. Bye.

​Well, thank you for listening to another episode of the Daily Bible Podcast, folks! We're honored to have you join us. This is a ministry of Compass Bible Church in north Texas. You can find out more information about our Church at compassntx.org. We would love for you to leave a review, to rate, or to share this podcast on whatever platform you're listening on, and we hope to see you again tomorrow for another episode of the Daily Bible Podcast. Ya'll come back now, ya hear?

Yeah. I would agree with everything that you said