You ever felt the walls enclosing around you, a dark place you never invited in and would never have chosen? Jeremiah knew that feeling in Lamentations 3, where he says the Lord Himself led him into darkness, not into the light. How could we be thankful for a place like that?
The following study questions and transcript are AI generated and may contain errors.
This transcript has been automatically generated and may contain errors.
All right. Well, look in your Bibles and find Lamentations. All right, I promise it’s in there—Lamentations, chapter three. And yes, we’re excited at the end of the service. We’ll have somebody baptized. Looking forward to that. So please stick around at the end and rejoice with Miss Amel as she gets baptized today. We’re excited about that.
And so again, I’m thankful to see God working and moving and changing lives. That’s what we meet for. That’s why we’re here—to see what God can do. And so as we enter into this month, and I’m switched now—there you go, guys. Thank you—and of course, leading up to the day designated this month as Thanksgiving Day, we’re going to talk about being thankful and having a grateful heart and a heart of gratitude as we’ve just stuck with the theme of the heart all year long.
Of course, I’m going to start with being grateful for the dark places—being grateful for the dark places. In Lamentations, chapter 3, this is now a personalized writing by Jeremiah, who has a whole entire book with his name on it to cover all that took place in that particular day and age that he was in with the children of Israel, and, of course, the Babylonian captivity and the destruction of the land, and all these things that have taken place. There’s the opportunity to return unto the Lord and be obedient to the Lord, and to God’s graciousness and goodness and longsuffering.
With all the other things that were brought in and brought out through that book of Jeremiah, of course, it goes back to the very first chapter where God calls on Jeremiah and says, from the womb, I have basically set this plan and place for your life. And I’ve chosen to use you to be the spokesperson for your people. And Jeremiah’s response is like, “They won’t hear me. They won’t listen to me.” And God says, “That’s not what I asked you. I simply have asked you to surrender to my will and go, and I will be with you.”
And anytime we start talking about being grateful for things that God has brought into our lives that we in no way would ever choose for our life or choose to enter into in our life, we must understand that He’s already called us to it. And He’s already prepared us, whether we think so or not, to go through it. And so when it arrives or it arrives at our front door, that we didn’t invite it in, but it’s ours now, we must always go back to the fact that God was in on this.
Now, when we think of the word suffering, that can have all kinds of personal meaning, right? We can say we live in a world of suffering. And I think if you say that phrase and say it out loud enough to understand what you saw in the news or what comes through your algorithm and through what you scroll through and read, and now that’s on your mind all day long, we understand that there is a world that is suffering. And then we also know there’s suffering in the world, right? So, we get that word exists and those things are real. And we, who, if we say we know the word of God or we have familiarity with the word of God, we understand that all suffering really comes from a sin nature. It comes from sin in the world.
And I didn’t give this to you back there guys, but Romans chapter 8—and stay right there in Lamentations—we’ll come right back, I promise. But in Romans 8, verse 18, Paul, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, says: “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope. Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. For we are saved by hope, but hope that is seen is not hope. For what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that which we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.”
As we go back to Lamentations, Paul is simply writing that even with all the hope we have and what’s to come, we cannot fix what is now. God has given you one thing with your Christian life—He’s given you influence. But as we said many times, a Christian life is not a life of force. It’s a life of faith. And when you give the influence that has been given you, and you pass it on like Paul to Timothy, and the encouragement to Timothy to teach others also—that’s what Paul was talking about. Timothy, use the experience of your upbringing and the influence that you’ve had in ministry to influence others. Now, what they decide to do with it is completely up to them. And we live in a sinful world that lives on sin. And such were some of us, right?
Now, those of us who know the Lord Jesus as our Savior, all our hope is in Him. And it’s not the hope that it may turn out good in the end; it’s a blessed assurance that we know the Lord Jesus. So no matter what hopeless condition this world is in, I have all my hope in the Lord Jesus that I will be with Him someday and that all my sins are forgiven. Yet, there’s still this groaning, this longing, this desire to depart from this world and be in the presence of the Lord Jesus and never have to wake up to another sin-sick day that this world has to offer.
But if all that hope was just a visible sinless, perfect condition type hope that we see every day, then what hope is there? If God just perfects all your surroundings and gives you no reason to have to worry about anything or any conflict or any suffering, then what kind of hope do you even need? God has given you this perfect world to live in, if you will.
Instead, we have this internal turmoil of knowing I don’t belong here because I have been forgiven of my sin, and the righteousness of Jesus has been imputed on me. It’s been put on me, so God sees me as one of His own children, justified by my faith in what Jesus Christ has done—not just as if I’ve never sinned, but just as if I’ve never been a sinner. And so I am able to perfectly enter into heaven someday in a perfect place through the perfect Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, who was the perfect sacrifice and paid it with the most painful of all suffering. He suffered for you and for me.
And we bring all of that in our New Testament Christianity to the writer here, Jeremiah, who’s written in the first two chapters in a general way about the suffering of the land and the people and the captivity and all the things that he brings now to chapter 3, and he starts to recognize something personal, and he writes with this heart of suffering.
He talks about this dark place, and he says in verse one, “I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. He hath led me and brought me into darkness, but not into the light.”
And you say, “Oh, he must be talking about the enemy. He must be talking about the adversary. Must be talking about the wicked one.” No? Keep reading.
Verse 3 says, “Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day. My flesh and my skin hath he made old. He hath broken my bones. He hath built it against me and compassed me with gall and travail. He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old. He hath hedged me about that I cannot get out. He hath made my chain heavy. Also, when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer. He hath enclosed my ways with hewn stone. He hath made my paths crooked. He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places. He hath turned aside my ways and pulled me in pieces. He hath made me desolate. He hath bent his bow and set me as a mark for the arrow. He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins. I was a derision to all my people, and their song all the day. He hath filled me with bitterness. He hath made me drunken with wormwood. He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones. He hath covered me with ashes.”
Anybody encouraged yet? Okay, just checking. It’s not just me. All right.
Verse 17: “And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace; I have forgotten prosperity. And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord.”
Who’s he talking about? He’s talking about God. He’s talking about the Lord. The first thing we see here is the hand of God—the hand of God. He hath led me. He hath brought me. He turned his hand against me. He hath builded, he hath set, he hath hedged or enclosed everything around me.
You ever felt that way? You ever felt that things are enclosing around you, that there might not be any way out? Even though we are the children of light and we follow the one who says, “I am the light. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life,” I feel like he’s led you into a dark place.
You say, “What does this have to do with being thankful?” Come on, let’s talk about, let everything that hath breath, praise the Lord, and let’s talk about how good God is. Well, it’s praising for His provision and our life.
How could we be thankful for the dark places? The first thing we have to do is recognize that it did come from God. Now, definitely, we can do things that lead us to dark places ourselves. The sin that’s so easily besets us keeps us capable of finding the dark places ourselves. But when we understand the author and why he’s writing and what he’s writing from, which is what’s going on all around him, he understands that there’s accountability recognized in the hand of God.
The hand of God that provides, and we rejoice in that, can also be the hand of God that brings pain for His purpose. We said earlier in the first hour that we all want God’s plan but without the pain. We all want God’s blessing just without the burden, right? We all want God’s goodness; we just don’t want to have to go through something to get there.
But if we’re truly, truly going to understand who God is and what God wants from our life, the first thing we have to do is recognize that when we find ourselves in those types of suffering situations, even that too can be by the hand of God. Just ask Job, right? And others that are recognized in the Word of God, who realized it was the Lord who led them into that, what we hear called the dark place. It’s a dark place. It’s not a place of shame but a place of suffering. There’s no shame in suffering for the Lord or by the hand of the Lord.
Sometimes we do that to ourselves. If something comes our way and it leads us down a path we would never have chosen, and we think, well, God’s mad at me, right? Not that He’s mad at you, but He has a plan for you. And what He’s trying to do is to lead you from a place of awareness to a place of getting your attention. Because what He wants is your affection. And real affection comes from a place of giving attention.
We want to actually know God for who God is. And we actually recognize God for who He is, and sometimes that takes being led into the dark places, where we develop a stronger prayer life. It’s where we develop a strength from within of dependence and surrender that can only come from the hand of God working in our life in a way that leads us to Him.
Now, even with these people who were brought to a great place of suffering, and then given the opportunity, as God would say, “If you just return unto me,” meaning if you just turn away from yourself, the idol of self, and turn to me, I will restore you.
And as the children of Israel seem to always have a pattern of maybe turning back to God for just some relief, but not in recognition of who God really is. They just wanted relief, or they just wanted the pain to go away, and we all get there. We all realize that.
Again, we’ll turn to Ecclesiastes. In this book, there’s a book written by a man who was known to be the wisest man, a man with great wisdom, who also had great wealth. But his wisdom always led to a certain place—chapter 9, verse 1.
It says, “For all this I considered in my heart, even to declare all this, that the righteous and the wise and their works are in the hand of God. No man knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before them. All things come alike to all. There is one event to the righteous and to the wicked, to the good and to the unclean, to him that sacrificeth and to him that sacrificeth not. As is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, he that sweareth; and he that feareth an oath. This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that there is one event unto all. Yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead. For to him that is joined to all the living, there is hope. For a living dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know that they shall die, but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten.”
What’s he saying here? We know one event comes to all. Of course, we believe the Lord could come back at any time, and we just head on out of here, right? But if not, if you’ve been born, you only have one destination. And we don’t know that side of the dash. We don’t know when that day is coming. But he says rich, poor, those who give offerings, those who don’t give offerings, those who swear and promise and those who don’t—all of them must come to a place where life comes to an end.
And he says when it does, the dead have no regard. They can’t change anything. They can’t adjust anything. They can’t make a difference anymore in anybody else’s life. When it’s done, it’s done.
And beyond that, the living recognize that. But that’s the truth for the dead. But because that’s true, the Bible says as is written here: “But to all the living there is hope.” Verse 4: “For a living dog is better than a dead lion.” That dead lion can’t roar anymore, but a dog can bark. That dog that’s just dragging through the day has more hope than the ferocious beast, the lion, who is dead.
And we get the metaphor: You’re better off in the sense that even if you’re struggling through life currently, there’s hope that God can make a difference. And there’s greater hope that what we learn through these trials, we can make a difference. Because when it’s done, it’s done. When this life is over, it’s over. You can’t go back. You can’t make it right. You can’t look back and go, “I wish I would have.” There’s no more. You know the holy trinity of regret: would have, could have, should have. All of that’s done.
Now, as a side note or parentheses, take care of it now. I don’t know what that is, but you do. Resolve it now. Correct it now. Take it to God now. Now’s the time. Because there’s still hope.
He said, “Man, I feel like that old dog.” I didn’t call you a dog, okay? That’s ‘in the violin.’ Take it over. No. But we understand you may feel that weary in life currently. Praise God, there’s hope. There’s hope because we’re still among the living.
And we know, sadly, that some run out of hope. And some would endure the pain of the moment to not have to wake up and endure the pain of another day, and I weep over that. I kind of thing breaks my heart that somebody could get to that place. Because I believe where there’s life, there is hope. And when there’s the God who gives life, He is our hope.
And our lives should live with the hope of knowing that He is in control, even when it looks like everything is out of control.
As we go back to Lamentations, and we revisit our author here, Jeremiah, as he writes, some of us may get to that place that he wrote as he wrote in verse 18: “And I said, my strength and my hope is perished from the Lord.” And we may get frustrated with that thought. “God, I really want to serve You. I really believe I am serving You.” And we may not understand what lesson I am supposed to be learning here.
Verse 19 says, “Remembering mine affliction, and my misery, the wormwood, and the gall; my soul hath them still in remembrance and is humbled,” or the word there “sinks,” “it hath sunken in me.” Do you feel that way sometimes? You may know your soul’s redeemed and saved from an eternal separation from God, and it’s saved for the purpose of being in His presence someday, and you know the Lord Jesus as your Savior. But even in your own soul, you just feel like things have sunk to a certain level, a certain new low in your life.
But he says this in verse 21: “And this is the turning point where he says, This I recall to my mind. Therefore have I hope.” You say, wait a minute, did a new author pick up the pen and start writing? I just read the first 20 verses. How did he get to that place when he just gave us everything he gave us that’s in his mind and in his heart that has sunk in his soul to a depth that he would never have wanted in his life?
It says, “Because I have sunk in this low,” or as our translation we read here “humbled,” because I’ve been humbled to this certain place in my life, I now recall the hope that I have in God. Some, it leads them to a hatred towards God, but he says, this is to lead you to a place of hope in God.
That’s why we are to live by faith and not by feelings—but not without feeling. Because if it was all feelings, he would definitely be hopeless. We just read what he wrote.
But his faith in the Lord, who, by the way, set him in the dark place, he has a feeling of hope. It’s not a wish. It’s an assured hope in the Lord.
We’re talking about being self-centered or God-centered in the early hour, in the Sunday school hour, and I said to be God-centered, we must trust God’s character. I don’t have hope that I can make things better. I don’t have hope that I can fix the world. I don’t even have hope that I can vote in the people who can fix the world. I think we’ve learned that lesson.
I don’t even have hope that if we had church 24/7/365, that we could run one sin out of town. I’m naive about some things, usually just oblivious about other things. But I’m not naive that we could work up some formula to defeat sin in the world.
But my hope is in the one who conquered sin, death, hell, and the grave. My hope is in the one who has forgiven me of my sin and has given me a new life in Him that I may live with this beautiful thought, this boldness of “greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world.” That’s nothing I’ve ever done or have ever been capable of doing. But I met the one who has conquered it all. And as Paul wrote, He has made us more than conquerors.
Now, because we’re in the right kind of church, we do the right things all the time and we’re better than all those wicked, sinful people out there who do all the wrong things all the time? No, because our hope is in Him. And that’s where we find our hope. That’s where we find our strength. That’s where we find our boldness, that’s where we find our courage. And that’s where we find all the light that we need for when we find ourselves in the dark places.
The place that he’s in didn’t get any brighter, but the person he placed his hope in gave him less of a burden. The circumstances didn’t change. His focus changed. His mindset changed. Everything in him changed.
What did he recall? And what did he realize? Here it is.
He said, again, verse 21: “This I recalled in my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning. Great is Thy faithfulness.”
You may go to bed tonight with your messed up sleep schedule because of the hour change, right? You may go to bed tonight and say, “I hope everything’s better in the morning.” That’s not the promise. The promise is not everything’s gonna be fixed when you wake up in the morning. Some of you know this. You went to bed and it was bad, and you woke up and it was worse.
The hope is, we will not be consumed. His compassions fail not, and His mercies are new every morning.
We wake up to the next day, if God graciously gives us that day to wake up to, whatever that day brings forth, God’s already there. He’s already there. And He may fix it. He may work through it. You may work on it while you’re asleep.
But we know what He’s really doing: He’s working on you, and He’s working on me. The children sing it: “He’s still working on me to make me what I ought to be.”
But it’s not a good luck, go get him, you know? It’s His mercies are new, and great is His faithfulness. He’s faithful.
He continues there and He says, “The Lord is my portion, the Lord is my portion,” saith my soul. “Therefore will I hope in Him. Therefore will I hope in Him.”
Again, not “the Lord made it all better,” “the Lord made me feel better,” “the Lord got rid of the people that make me feel bad,” “He changed the situation so I can now handle it.” He says no, The Lord is all I need. He is my portion.
What does His soul say? “Therefore will I hope in Him.”
I won’t hope if things change. I’ll continue to hope in the one who can change them. And if He doesn’t change them tomorrow, I will hope again in Him and place my hope in Him yet again and trust Him for another day.
And so again, how can we be thankful for the dark places? Well, we see the heart of God. We see His compassion; it fails not. We see that He wants to provide everything we need to get through the day we think we don’t need. But there is a time where God needs our attention in a greater way so that we then develop a greater appreciation for what He’s doing in our life. He is our portion.
Again, it says in verse 25: “The Lord is good unto them that wait for Him, to the soul that seeketh Him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait, quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke of his youth. He sitteth alone and keepeth silence because he hath borne it upon him. He putteth his mouth in the dust if so be there may be hope. He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him. He is filled full with reproach.”
For the Lord will not cast off forever, but though He cause grief, yet will He have compassion according to the multitude of His mercies. For He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men, to crush under His feet all the prisoners of the earth, to turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most high, to subvert a man and his cause, the Lord approveth not.
Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not? Out of the mouth of the most high proceedeth not evil and good? Doesn’t both come from Him?
Verse 39: “Wherefore doth a living man complain? A man for the punishment of his sins?”
What does he say? When we recognize the heart of God, what we’ll want to do is turn our hearts to God.
Verse 40: “Let us search and try our ways and turn again to the Lord. Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.”
What is He trying to do? He’s trying to make sure you turn your whole heart to Him.
I don’t know what it is that we’re battling or struggling with, but it starts with that personal accountability that leads to that peaceful assurance.
We do find joy in knowing that we’re trusting the God of the universe, but real joy is found when we feel lost in this universe and have no one else but God to trust. And all our attention comes off of ourselves and our circumstances and goes straight to God.
What does that look like? He says, “We lift up our heart with our hands.” Can you picture it? Can you picture going, “God, here, I see where You’re going with this. See what You want from me. You want my whole heart.” And though we may not have gratitude for what we have to go through to get where God wants us, may we be so grateful that He wants us. He wants all of us. He wants all that we’re searching for in this world to be found in Him.
We do so much of even searching for certain affirmation in this world or affection in this world from so many that are not able to provide it. And not only does God want us to understand He’s our portion to receive all those things we’re searching in this world to find, but He wants all those things from us.
He wants all of our attention. He wants all of our affection. He wants all of our appreciation. And then He will give us affirmation. He will remind us we’re His children. And He will remind us that all, even if you could find a temporary substitute for what you need from this world, it won’t be enough. And He says, “I am your portion.” He promises that in His word.
And that’s the heart of God—that we find in Him what we’re looking for in everything outside of Him. And when, even out of the dark places, we recognize it was the hand of God that brought us there so that we realize the hope is in God and not in correcting everything around us, but with conviction recognizing what’s in us. What’s in us needs to be offered up to Him.
And when we establish that in our life, even in the greatest loss and suffering that we could imagine, we can find peace in the Lord who’s our portion, and that’s always going to be enough. It’s gonna be enough.
“It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning. Great is Thy faithfulness.”
Let’s pray together, may we?
Lord, as we take this time to consider we’re going through what we’ve been through, or what may be waiting for us on the other side, the worst thing we could do is try to do it without You.
Lord, I pray for whoever in this room is struggling with something that’s so heavy that they feel the walls are closing in. They feel like they’re in a dark place that’ll never see the light of day again. But I pray all of their attention is drawn to You. I pray they truly, in their mind, lift their heart to You and say, “Here You go, Lord. I offer this to You. Please do Your work in my life, that I may give You praise.”
But I pray for someone who right now needs to know Your mercies, needs to know they are not consumed, and needs to know that You love them even in a place of darkness, even in a place You may have led them to get their attention. I pray it draws them to You.
Help those who may be lost in the darkness of sin without salvation and need to receive You as their Savior. Lord, may they place their faith and trust in You and Your payment for their sin. May they respond to Your kindness and mercy.
Lord, help us all that say we are believers and we believe in You and we’ve placed our faith and trust in You for our salvation, that we would come running to You from the dark place and look to You for that compassion and that direction. And trust Your plan and Your character.
Lord, help us, please, in these things, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
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