Psalm 42: 1									Rev. S. de Marie
Psalm 25: 3
Psalm 102: 1, 2, 6, 9
Psalm 62: 2, 3					Reading:  	Lamentations 3: 1 – 41
Psalm 42: 7					Text:		Lamentations 3: 22-33

Beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
How do you view the church? Is the church a matter of joy for you, because there you get to know the Lord, meet Him and serve Him together?
Whereby you also comfort each other with God's Word and follow the LORD together?
Or is the church often a matter of sorrow, because there are many difficulties. Difference of opinion, division, even apostasy from the Lord.
Suffering from the church is unavoidable, even for cheerful believers. If you take notice of the apostasy of the church in the Netherlands as it has unfolded in recent decades. If you especially discover therein the apostasy from the Lord, does it not cut you through your soul?
That is not something that does not touch you, that does not involve you personally. Rather to the contrary. Especially when it comes very close in your own family. Your own children, your brothers and sisters. That continues to hurt and causes a lot of grief.
We went through a liberation just under 15 years ago, a matter of joy on the one hand, but also a matter of sorrow for those left behind. But what about being church today? It seems that internal struggles never stop? With regard to the church, is there mainly cause for joy or do complaints predominate?
And why should this be so? And also: how do we deal with that? In the book of Lamentations God's Word may come to us precisely regarding this matter.
I may now proclaim God's Word to you from Lamentations 3 under the theme:

In the suffering of the church our expectation is alone from the LORD
1. The basis of this expectation
2. The attitude of this expectation
3. The outcome of this expectation

1. Lamentations is a special book in the Bible. It is a poetic prophecy. But with a particular theme: a lament. It originated in the time of the exile. The book is attributed to the prophet Jeremiah, who is sitting at the ruins of ruined Jerusalem.
In the first 2 chapters the remaining believers of the church are represented by the person of ‘the daughter of Zion.’ She tells of her misery and fear. She declares this to God the LORD. To seek comfort in Him. These are terrible concerns: the land is devastated, the spiritual riches of the temple are lost. The temple city has become like a widow. The church is empty and weeps with sorrow. There is nothing festive left. For the Lord has turned away his face. He is only present in His wrath. He has become an enemy to the church. Chapter 2:5:
He has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed all her palaces; He has destroyed 
her strongholds, and has increased mourning and lamentation in the daughter of Judah.
The LORD has also removed the service of atonement from Jerusalem. There is no more Sabbath, no teaching of the law, no altar. Also no offices. The youth of the church have also been affected. All as part of God’s punishment.
The Babylonians have taken Jerusalem and destroyed it. Many of its inhabitants have died of hunger, the plague and the sword. And the rest have been taken away. The church city of Zion, is now depopulated. She mourns like a widow in her heartrending sorrow. All her friends have become enemies to her. She seeks comfort but cannot find it.
The covenant curse already foretold in Deuteronomy has become a reality. But still... But still, Lord, must it be so? Chapter 2:20:
See, O LORD, and consider! To whom have You done this! Should the women eat their offspring, the children they have cuddled? Should the priest and prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
Terrible things have happened. Horrible events. The youth has died or been carried away. Has not all hope, all future been knocked out of your hands? No more service of the Lord. So no future for the people anymore? Lord dost thou then not see this? Whatever will the outcome of Thy church be? Hast Thou not gone too far? Yes, there had to be punishment, but did it have to be like this?
Then, in chapter 3, a faithful poet joins the lament of the faithful church. Someone who has experienced the misery himself. He watches everything with great sadness. He knows: it is the Lord Himself who does this to His church as a punishment. He experiences his heavy hand in his own body, chapter 3: 4, 13:
- He has aged my flesh and my skin, and broken my bones.
- He has caused the arrows of His quiver to pierce my loins
The poet compares the Lord to a lurking bear and a lion in ambush. (Verse 10) He is at his wits' end, verses 17, 18:
I have forgotten prosperity. And I said, My strength and my hope have perished from the LORD.
But just when the poet thinks all hope is gone for good, just then he remembers deep inside, verse 20-22:
My soul still remembers and sinks within me. This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. Through the LORD's mercies we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
The poet will hope in the LORD in all his sorrow! For he knows: this same LORD, in spite of all the miseries of his judgment, yet also granted mercy. When he thinks of the faithfulness of the Lord, he realizes that there is therefore hope.
The Lord is faithful in curse and blessing. Yes also in blessing. For through all things the Lord keeps those who love Him. He remembers them in their sorrow and suffering. He delivers them through judgment. Even the faithful are not spared the suffering in the church, yet the LORD delivers from it. He has always proved that!
There is still a faithful remnant. Even in that faithless apostate church, now so severely punished by the Lord. A remnant did not perish. A remnant of God's grace.
These are the proof of the LORD's mercies, the faithful Covenant God. They are the signs of His mercy that He has not punished everyone. It is undeserved grace that the Lord has not proceeded to an utter annihilation of his people. No, there remains a future for the church because the LORD continues with His church. The prophet does not see that comfort if he only keeps looking at the misery around him. Not even if he only discovers the heavy hand of the LORD in it. But there is hope if he now looks up to heaven, to the LORD and knows that God in His line still gives His grace every day to His children. And that there is still the presence of grace to repent. Every day there is the presence of grace, of divine grace.  For:
His compassions fail not. They are new every morning
Every morning, every day is a day of the grace of the LORD. Every day the believer may know the LORD is faithful. Therefore the poet says in verse 23:
Great is your faithfulness
Yes, congregation, Great is God's faithfulness. The Lord continues to remember His covenant. He is faithful to Himself. Faithful in His love. Faithful also in His wrath. God has shown you His faithfulness in infinite measure when He delivered His own Son for your transgressions. Therefore his mercy for you never ceases.  The sacrifice of His only-begotten beloved Son is the evidence of God's compassion upon you as His people. With that, the LORD also lets himself look into his heart for you. This shows how much He also loves you as His children.
In that sacrifice of Christ, the heavy hand of God finally fell completely upon his own Son. In the horrors the poet lists at the beginning of chapter 3, we recognize Psalm 22. Our Lord Jesus Christ, of God, has borne far greater terrors. For the LORD did stop all his mercies over against him. He forsook Him on the cross.
But because the Lord Jesus so suffered the curse of God that lay upon us, therefore God's mercies do not cease even today. That is why God's mercies are new every morning for whom God wants to show his love. Therefore His faithfulness is still great.
Then we can also now say with verse 38:
Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that woe and well-being proceed?
Prosperity and adversity. Also ecclesiastical. In the ecclesiastical Netherlands we see astonishing developments of apostasy, of blindness in thinking, but also of suffering and despair. We all experience the sad and painful consequences of this. What grief and sorrow in torn families! What a feeling and devastation and powerlessness! Yes, we too shall have to acknowledge that it is the hand of the LORD that brings this upon the church.
That is why there were tears next to joy at a liberation in 1944, but also tears at parting in 1967.
Tears next to joy at a new liberation since 2003, but also tears at the separation again in 2009. Even today we know of those tears again...
But at the same time we also see that the LORD is faithful. And yet it is also the mercies that we have not perished.
It is His mercy that a believing remnant is always saved.
No, God's mercies don't stop now either. With all the trouble, worry and sadness that there is now. In spite of ourselves we can see that God in Christ has left a church in the Netherlands. With all the disappointment in people, in all our sorrow about sin and the consequences of sin, we may also repeat verse 24:
'The LORD is my portion,' saith my soul. 'Therefore I will hope in Him!'

2. In the suffering of the church our expectation is alone from the LORD. We saw the basis of this expectation. We now see in the second, the attitude of this expectation.
In his misery, the poet nevertheless regains his hope in God. His attention is again turned to Him as the faithful God of the covenant. God does not abandon the work of His hands.
The LORD apparently finds it necessary that next to prosperity comes adversity. That adversity is here His punishment, but also to bring people to their senses.
God's wrath is upon His covenant children. As a just punishment, but also intended to bring his church to humiliation. To be silent before the LORD (verses 28-30):
Let him sit alone and keep silent, because He laid it on him. Let him put his mouth in the dust – there may yet be hope. Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes him, and be full of reproach.
God's people must look silently to the Lord in times of trial and suffering. Do not complain to him. Do not blame him. See that the cause of all misery is precisely their sin. The sin they have committed as a church. In that the LORD then gives to the church His mercies in addition to His punishment. 
If the Lord is faithful in cursing and blessing, just and merciful, let man be silent toward God. For God alone is good. Only He is faithful. He alone is merciful, while we do not deserve it.
In verse 38 the poet says:
	Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that woe and well-being proceed?
And then he continues:
“Why should a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?”
Let each lament for his sins. The Lord wants to see the humiliation of the people who had forsaken Him. He wants to see sadness. Not worldly sadness. Do not grieve only for the misery you experience as a result of sin.
You can be sad when you act sinfully. But the question is whether that grief is only about what is broken. Then you grieve for what you have lost. Sorrow that you have been wronged and that your honour has been hurt. But that is worldly sadness. It does not rise above this world and your own self.
We see such sadness in Cain after the murder of his brother Abel. The LORD speaks to him about it. Cain does realize that he has committed a crime. Yet he is not sad about that. He is sad for himself, afraid that he could be killed just like that. That's what keeps him busy. His own safety. Not a word of repentant humiliation, let alone repentance.
The church too can have sorrow of the world. For example, if they only complain about being small. That she has no influence in society. No respect among other Christians. No recognition in society. Of course that is painful, but the Lord wants to see a different effect of His church through His chastening, His chastisement, and the grief He brings. The Lord wants to see true humiliation. Sadness toward God.
True sorrow for the sins as the cause of the misery. Sorrow because they have grieved and angered their God and Savior by their sins. Heartfelt guilt and sincere confession of sins, over-against God, who always gives to his church that which is good.
Even with those who liberate themselves there is always the communal guilt that things have come thus far in the church. Also with internal divisions in the church there is communal guilt against the Lord.
The poet therefore calls for silence and resignation from all his people, including the righteous. To just endure the heavy hand. To then look up in self-denial because of humility, perhaps there is hope. Perhaps there is undeserved grace.
Then in verse 41 he says:
Let us lift up our hearts with our hands to God in heaven.
The poet thus exhorts the people to show genuine sorrow according to God's will. It must be a heartfelt conviction and a heartfelt sadness.
Thus the Lord, by his punishment of the just and the unjust in the church, brings his own to humiliation. In this way He wants to counteract every form of pride. The pride of one's own sins, one's own contribution to the apostasy and division to be seen. The pride that you consider yourself better than the other. Verse 40:
Let us search out and examine our ways and turn back to the Lord.

3. In the suffering of the church our expectation is alone from the LORD. We saw the basis of this expectation and the attitude of this expectation. Our third and final point is: The outcome of this expectation.
In Lamentations 3, the poet does not show only lamentations but even heights, of faith! The Lord gives relief to those who seek Him and hope in Him. That is precisely what our text speaks of. Verse 31-33:
The Lord will not cast off forever. Though He causes grief, yet He will show compassion according to the multitude of His mercies. For He does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.
It is God's mercy that a faithful remnant is preserved in the event of deformations and rifts. It is also God's grace that those remnants humble themselves before Him and repent.
The poet here comes to the height of Psalm 103:
The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in mercy. He will not always strive with us, nor will he keep His anger forever.
God has shown mercy in His Son. He also shows His compassion in Him every day. For each day we may flee to Him and His sacrifice and take refuge in Him with our sins and shortcomings. This applies to personal sins, but also to ecclesiastical sins. Even if we think we have seen it well ourselves. Even if the Lord has graciously saved us from blindness. Even now that the Lord continues to gather a church in the Netherlands. As often as we are faced with decay and abandonment, and its effects in family and church, let us confess our own sins to the Lord as sins committed in communion.
But the Lord will not continue to grieve us. He wants to draw us to Himself, through sadness, in order to show us mercy. That's what He did to Job. So He did to the church at Corinth when sorrow for guilt was confessed to God. That is how the Lord still works. Then we see that good does not come from merit on our part, but is only grace. Verse 25, 26:
The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, for the soul that seeks Him. It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.
Congregation, the future is only there for us as a church if we keep seeking it from the Lord. If we expect everything from Him; keep hoping in Him. Only in this way can we endure trials, including ecclesiastical trials. Because, in the end, we cannot stop the deformation. We, as humans, cannot make peace. We also often cannot resolve divisions. The only thing we can always do is pray to the Lord and follow the Lord in humility and obedience to His Word.
From the Lord comes good and evil. But God, after he has caused grief, will have compassion according to the greatness of his mercy.
Congregation, do we now have an answer to the question why the Lord also gives you evil? Suffering from his church? Obviously, it is always related to our being naturally sinful. Therefore the Lord calls for humility and self-denial. But also that our expectation is from Him. Let us go in that way. For thus He always gives us good, and turns evil for our good.
The youth of the church also suffer from troubles and sorrows of the church. Yes, you young people will suffer from this too. But is it not then a special word when the Lord directs the poet to say in verse 27:
It is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth.
A yoke is a burden that presses on the shoulders of one who carries heavy buckets. Or a burden that weighs on animals when they have to pull a heavy cart. That image of the yoke here points to the burden of suffering and toil of the church. Now it says here that it is good if you experience that in your youth. That can only be said if there is also an outcome.
For the believing youth in the time of Jeremiah, who went through all the afflictions and went into exile, there was still hope with that yoke. Certain hope. They will even be able to experience God's redemption. Many of them or their children later returned from captivity to Jerusalem. They were able to experience the rebuilding of the temple with the service of atonement. That comfort and that hope gave them life. For the yoke, the burden, had brought them back to the Lord and His mercy through humiliation and repentance.
Even now, for you young people, your only security for the future lies in the Lord. He wants to bring you closer to Him when there are difficulties in the Church. For you to learn to humble yourself and to expect that security from Him.
Then there is now a yoke, trouble, sorrow, and grief, but thus saith the Lord, it is for your good. If you accept that, then the LORD will provide a solution. And He proves His faithfulness to you every day. That lasts your whole life.
It is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth.
Congregation, thus we can all move forward.
In humility, in expectation and in gratitude. 
Through the LORD's mercies we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning.
Amen