christianity

Past Present and Future Reality of God’s Promises

/ Cliff Walling / Leave a comment

Lamentations 3:13-27

13 He drove into my kidneys

the arrows of his quiver;

14 I have become the laughingstock of all peoples,

the object of their taunts all day long.

15 He has filled me with bitterness;

he has sated me with wormwood.

16 He has made my teeth grind on gravel,

and made me cower in ashes;

17 my soul is bereft of peace;

I have forgotten what happiness is;

18 so I say, “My endurance has perished;

so has my hope from the Lord.”

19 Remember my affliction and my wanderings,

the wormwood and the gall!

20 My soul continually remembers it

and is bowed down within me.

21 But this I call to mind,

and therefore I have hope:

22 The steadfast love of the

Lord never ceases;

his mercies never come to an end;

23 they are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.

24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,

“therefore I will hope in him.”

25 The Lord is good to those who wait for him,

to the soul who seeks him.

26 It is good that one should wait quietly

for the salvation of the Lord.

27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth

The book of Lamentations is anonymous. The work does not name its author. But Lamentations has long been attributed to the prophet who also wrote Jeremiah, and there are several reasons for thinking that this tradition is right. In the Septuagint (Greek Translation of the Old Testament) the heading of lamentation states Jeremiah is the author. In 2 Chronicles 35:25 Jeremiah is listed as a writer of “laments”. So it is certain that Jeremiah is the composer.

The five chapters in Lamentations are poems actually funeral poems. The book consists of five separate laments for Jerusalem and its people.. Each lament was written in the form of an alphabetic acrostic. In other words, each chapter (except for chapter 3) is divided into twenty-two separate sections, one for every letter in the Hebrew alphabet.

This morning we are looking at his 3rd Lament. This Lament is different than the others as the others are communal regarding the entire Nation, what is interesting this morning is his 3rd lament where in verse 1 of Chapter 3 it begins with “I”, a personal lament for Jeremiah. Phillip Ryken says in his commentary:

Jeremiah’s personal lament is a reminder that suffering is always personal. When nations go through times of tragedy and tribulation, the greatest suffering always takes place at the individual level.

The prophet Jeremiah is witnessing first hand the power and devastation of the Lord God as the kingdom of Judah and Jerusalem slipped into the hands of the Babylonians. Imagine the prophet sitting crosslegged covered in ashes and dirt seeing the results that sin has brought to his people. As he sits, he writes, as he cries, he remembers the glory of the Lord God ruler of heaven and earth. What utter devastation, what terrible grief is covering this man of God? Can we compare it to anything we have ever felt? Anything we have ever experienced in our lives? Maybe, maybe there are people here today who have felt this tremendous pain and grief already, but the longer you live the more you will experience something akin to what the prophet is describing. Hope is all he has to rely on, not an ordinary hope, say like hoping for a good meal, or a raise in pay, but an eternal hope that can’t be denied and rests in the shore footed promises of our Lord God. These promises never fail. God’s covenantal promises always come to fruition, all through Scripture we have promises and suffering among God’s people. Psalm 102 reflects this:

A Prayer of one afflicted, when he is faint and pours out his complaint before the Lord.

In the midst of our own suffering we make promises, sometimes they are not done, other times they remain something that we strive to complete. As failed humans we sometimes make promises we don’t fulfill. God’s promises always come to pass.

Jesus was faithful to fulfill a sinless obedient life to provide our salvation.

Christ is faithful in your past, present and future.

1-Past Reality of the Promises of God in Christ v-13-20

2-Present Reality of God’s Promises in Christ v 21-24

3-Future Reality of the Promise in Christ Jesus v-25-27

Lamentations 3:13-20

1-Past Reality of God’s Promises

v13-20

13 He drove into my kidneys

the arrows of his quiver;

V-13-“He drove into my kidneys the arrows of his quiver” In his suffering Jeremiah sees the Lord as a hunter aiming His bow carefully targeting him and him alone. How much do we feel alone and abandoned when we are in the arena of suffering ? We tend to withdraw from others and try to work out our pain by ourselves forsaking our brothers and sisters and learning to live with our pain. Jeremiah’s suffering was in God’s providential work, God’s promise to Jeremiah took many different turns. The Lord knew all he was going through, but here we might see Jeremiah huddled in a corner recounting all the worst of his past. Whether our suffering occurs by our own sin or by others, or is physical or spiritual, it is all the same it’s a dark place where only Christ Jesus can bring His light. Sometimes the darkness of our past sufferings can overwhelm us, but in the midst of all of that Jesus brings peace, He has walked the walk, He has gone before us, the perfect obedient Christ is our hope. One thing we should realize in the midst of our past is that the promise of God does not diminish or fade, we recognize that we are

All sinners, sufferers and saints.

V-14-“I have become the laughingstock of all peoples, the object of their taunts all day long” The book of Job shows us how the world taunts us, and can bring us down.

Job 2:7-11

7 So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and struck Job with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. 8 And he took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself while he sat in the ashes.

9 Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.” 10 But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.

Shall we receive good from God and not receive evil? Interesting note here, Job did not deserve his sufferings, Jerusalem did.

Our own blessings from God are forgotten in our time of trial. Jeremiah repeats his message in:

Jere. 20-7

7 O Lord, you have deceived me,

and I was deceived;

you are stronger than I,

and you have prevailed.

I have become a laughingstock all the day;

everyone mocks me.

In Jeremiah’s suffering he sees God as something He is not, and this is a very common human reaction. Jeremiah is acting very human here, not as the great prophet of the Old Testament we see in other passages. He is expressing his pain and suffering to God. God is not a deceiver, his covenantal promises to his people come to pass, we need to be constantly reminded of this fact as we come out of suffering, in the middle of suffering or on the way to it. The world rejects Jesus, and it mocks our beliefs, but because Christ has given us new life we can rebuke the lies of the world and know that the promises of God in our past are still with us in Christ Jesus. Jesus has given us the promise of eternal life and peace.

V.15-He has filled me with bitterness; he has sated me with wormwood.

Wormwood is a bitter plant found in the Middle East and Jeremiah uses two words to show how bitter he was. First he says he is Filled with bitterness, his whole being is complete with bitterness. In the next line he states he is Sated. The Hebrew here means “to drink abundantly” His bitterness rides on the way he has been afflicted. The words here show us completely his emotional human response to God.

Bitterness and un-forgiveness are common to all of us in suffering. Like a circle of emotions, we first feel abandoned by God, we feel alone and then bitter towards everyone. Jesus breaks the circle of despair here, He provides us with a way out of our own darkness. Jesus’ promises are throughout Scripture:

2 Cor 1:20-22

 For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory. 21 And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, 22 and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.

Bitterness fades as we grow to see Christ who has given us grace and mercy through the forgiveness of sin the Cross and His resurrection.

v.16-19-

  16 He has made my teeth grind on gravel, 
  and made me cower in ashes;

The past of Jeremiah is referenced here, the way he describes the absolute filling of suffering he has gone through this should give us some idea of how the Lord has pressed down upon him. The word pictures are important, the picture of teeth grinding upon rocks are hurtful even to imagine! Have you ever eaten something and then your teeth chew on a stone? We know it right away! Imagine grinding your teeth on rocks!

17-

  17 my soul is bereft of peace; 
  I have forgotten what happiness is;

“my soul is bereft of peace” “I have forgotten what happiness is” The laments continue for Jeremiah, everything that has occurred in the past through the providence of God has been utterly painful, he can’t go on, he has come to his last.

18:-“so I say, “My endurance has perished, so has my hope from the Lord.”

Have you ever been in a situation so dire? So traumatic that you could see no way out? A darkness that never lifted, and peace that constantly eluded you? Even the great prophet seems to have lost hope in the Lord. Our hope never fades because we have hope not in ourselves but our hope lies with Christ Jesus, He is our living hope: Rom 5:3-4

3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,

4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,

The hope that was promised in the Old Testament is revealed in the New. The past sufferings of Jeremiah which he endured is producing a great hope in the promises of God sending a deliverer, a great Redeemer. Even though he had lost hope in his suffering past, Jeremiah sees to the present and to the future, he sees the darkness lifting, slowly and surely. The key here is that despite everything -Jeremiah does not forget the Lord.

In our time between the already (the Cross) and not yet(Jesus coming again) we are always involved in this world and the trials that try to overcome us. The example of Jeremiah recounting the suffering he endured, leads us to his crying out in the next set of verses. He has not forgotten God, His blessings and His mercy. The prophet is always looking back and remembering what sin has done to his nation, how it has damaged the very fabric of their existence as God’s people. He remembers the falling away of his people, the outright disobedience of sin that has brought his people to this place, and his very soul is hunched over almost broken. Imagine the grief of Jeremiah as he sees the result of sin.

When we go through our own sin and trials we can forget all about the Lord. Jesus is always with us He will not leave us or forsake us, no matter what we go through.

Is God being faithful here in Jeremiah’s past? In the midst of all this tragedy all that sin has brought forth, God’s faithfulness doesn’t waver, it doesn’t fail and that’s hard for Jeremiah to see here, there is a curtain of blackness that sin has caused. Looking at our own lives we should be able to see the wreckage of our own sin, granted it may not be as large as Israel’s but it is there, and God is faithful to use the consequences for His glory. He covers it with the blood of His Son Jesus Christ, fully forgiven, fully paid, and fully born anew. Hope comes to us through Christ and His faithful grace in our present condition. Faithfulness in our past rests upon the Cross of Christ, He has paid for our sins through His perfect active obedience to fulfill the law that we could not fulfill.

V-19- Jeremiah brings to his mind the afflictions of the past:

“Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall”

Present reality of God’s promises in Christ

V-20-24

In the fleeting reality of our present situations there is an overwhelming presence of Christ in our lives. Jesus reminds us of the past and gives us encouragement to go forth into the future knowing His promises are secure and firm. In verses 20-24 Jeremiah is awakening from a deep dark past and understanding that God has been with him all along the way.

V-20- My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me- In verse 19 Jeremiah remembers the pain and the bitterness but now here in verse 20 it is his soul, the very essence of him, that remembers God and His mercy.

JEREMIAH’S THEOLOGY HAS NOW BECOME HIS DOXOLOGY

It seems as if this moment is where Jeremiah’s entire being is bowing to the one and only Living God. Something inside of him stirs and his spirit awakens to something that has been covered in the midst of all his trouble. The Lord is calling him. His mind awakens.

V-21- “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope.”

What is this hope? The Biblical hope is as we await our final glorification, this is our blessed hope a hope that is a promise a realized end to where we see God face to face. 1 Cor 13:12

12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

The prophet Jeremiah for almost 3 chapters here has been proclaiming the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem because of their sin, this has been built to a crescendo here in verses 20-24. It is like Jeremiah has been woken from a sleep of intense grief and pain, suddenly someone has slapped him to the realization of the truth! Hope has come, all is not lost!

v. 21-Jeremiah calls something to his mind-buried deep with the grief for Israel and that is the hope of the Lord God Almighty. This hope has been pushed deep into his soul but it has not been discarded, it remains an integral part of Jeremiah, now it is front and center, ready to reveal itself. Our hope like Jeremiah’s doesn’t rely on worldly things, it rests in Christ and Him Alone.

Chapter 32 of our Confession states:

“The souls of the righteous are then made perfect in holiness and received into the highest heavens, where they behold the face of God in light and glory…”

v.22-23-

  22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; 
  his mercies never come to an end;

The love of God is what Jeremiah knows intimately now, his promises have been there all along and now he realizes the full extant of God’s love and His grace. The love of Christ continues and never ends, never ceases, never gets brighter or dimmer than it is right now at this present moment, brilliant is the light of Christ Jesus. His mercies are new and they rise with the Sun . 

  23 they are new every morning; 
  great is your faithfulness.

His faithfulness surpasses the worry and the pain of present struggles and gives Jeremiah you and I cause to see through the darkness that comes from the sin of this world. Morning. Comes and the light chases away the darkness.

This is the faithfulness of God in Christ Jesus.

v.24-

  24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, 
  “therefore I will hope in him.”

Jeremiah sees not the darkness or the sin that has caused the destruction of Israel but he sees the LORD, God is his everything, his all in all, he is going to stake everything in the faithfulness, the truth of God and not rely on anything in this world. His hope comes from the promises of a Holy Loving God and that hope will never fail.

Can we see the faithfulness of the Lord ? What is He doing at this exact moment in your lives? Is the Lord Jesus deserting you? Is His promises fading? Is His love dying out? We should all know the answer to these questions, but we forget the faithfulness when we are surrounded by forgetfulness-In the midst of our pain, in the deep times of sorrow and grief we allow forgetfulness to creep into our lives. God’s faithfulness will remove our forgetfulness. And here the writer of Hebrews gives us a clear picture of faithful hope:

23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. Hebrews 10:23

Charles Spurgeon helps us here:

C. H. Spurgeon uses this illustration: ‘At the south of Africa the sea was generally so stormy when the frail ships of the Portuguese went sailing south that they named it the Cape of Storms; but after that cape had been well rounded by bolder navigators, they named it the Cape of Good Hope. In your experience you had many a Cape of Storms, but you have weathered them all, and now let them be a Cape of Good Hope to you.’

Presently we are living and walking in the love of the Lord Jesus, every step, every breath is a reminder of His love. We are clothed in his mercy and we have been changed by his grace. Our present condition rest solely on the faithfulness of God, but what about the future? What does it hold for me? Will God continue to hold me fast?

3-Future Reality of the Promise in Christ Jesus vv.25-27

Thomas O Chisholm wrote the beautiful hymn, Great is thy Faithfulness, it wasn’t by a single occurrence that Chisholm knew God’s faithfulness, no, he knew God’s faithfulness because he had seen God act throughout his lifetime.

He writes:

“My income has never been large at any time due to impaired health in the earlier years which has followed me on until now. But I must not fail to record here the unfailing faithfulness of a covenant keeping God and that He has given me many wonderful displays of His providing care which have filled me with astonishing gratefulness.”

Faithfulness of the Lord Jesus in our future is what we see Jeremiah looking at in vv.25-27

25-The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks him-

Jeremiah has begun to see that the devastation of Jerusalem is not the end of God’s great love for his people. Although His people here is alluding to all races and ethnic groups, not specifically intended for the Nation of Israel. There is a future reality, a future fulfillment of the promises of God through the Messiah Jesus Christ for all ethnic groups and peoples.

How are these promises given to us so that we can rest on them going forward?

The promise of truth is expressed in John 1

11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

Romans 9:8

8 This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.

2Cor 1:20

* 20 For all the promises of God find their Yes in him.*

Eph 2:12-13

12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

The covenantal promises cover us but we must continue to see that these promises these covenants are also personal to each one of us because of Christ and His work for us.

26- It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord- Jeremiah knows that by waiting he will see the faithfulness of God and he is comforted by that even in the midst of all this destruction caused by sin. Salvation coming through the one Redeemer Jesus.

27-“It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth”

John Calvin writes:

We bear God’s yoke when we relinquish our own judgment and become wise through God’s Word; when our affections are surrendered and subdued, we hear God’s commands and obey them. As our dispositions when we are old are not easily changed, the prophet says it is good for us to bear the yoke while we are young.

Jeremiah feels the weight of the burden God has put upon him. We feel that same burden as we await the promises fulfilled by Christ. Our weight is lifted when we see the faithfulness of Jesus revealed in our own lives which gives us our unfailing hope for the future fulfillment of the promises of Christ.

There is a time of waiting, a time of knowing God’s faithfulness, knowing His grace and knowing that we are not in charge. This is knowing that Jesus is faithful in the future, knowing his love and seeing it come to fruition through his grace and mercy. Future faithfulness of God does not depend upon us, God is faithful without us, God is faithful despite our sin.

As we go through this life we are constantly reminded of three words:

Guilt, Grace and Gratitude

Guilt

Our own guilt of sin before a Holy God reminds us that we are unable to rid ourselves of this guilt. Some people stay in this condition neglecting the promises of God in Christ for them. Jeremiah sets the example of guilt in our first set of verses. Shame begins to play a part with guilt and the only way out is to know our second word this morning:

Grace

Grace in the love of Jesus for us, grace in the peace that we find in the promises of Jesus, grace that begins to shred apart our guilt and our shame. Jeremiah remembers God’s grace. Grace provides a healing balm for everyone who believes in Christ. This grace pushes us forward to an unbelievable position and that is our third word this morning :

Gratitude

Gratitude, overwhelming relief from the addiction to sin, freedom found in the healing of guilt, the acknowledgement of grace and now standing in the high peaks of gratitude for the sinless obedient work of Christ Jesus! Jeremiah’s gratitude in the midst of dark times is so evident here. This is the good news this morning of the gospel of Christ. What an understatement “goodnews” is, this is fantastic, awesome great news!

The promises of God for Jeremiah have not failed, our own promises in Christ have not failed even though we have gone through difficult times of suffering, chewing on stones and being shot in the kidneys.

God’s faithfulness never fails despite who we are or what we have done. No matter the sin, no matter the pain we have caused, we can look to Jesus to be faithful, in our past, in our present and in our future. He was faithful 2000 years ago to fulfill the hope of Jeremiah as he looked upon Jerusalem being burned and his people taken away as slaves. Jesus was faithful to go to the level ground of the cross so that faithfulness would be forgiveness and forgiveness would be eternal life.

God is faithful, through our broken sinful past we have been brought to the saving grace of Christ Jesus. Jeremiah realizes the hope of God’s faithfulness, and he knows that God’s faithfulness will bring about a Savior, Christ Jesus. Jeremiah sees this faithfulness and is alert to all the hope that Christ will bring. This morning we are blessed with the Faithfulness of Christ Jesus.

Great is His Faithfulness!

No Doubting King Jesus

/ Cliff Walling / Leave a comment

Faith Presbyterian Church

Lord’s Day February 15,2026

No Doubting King Jesus

Matthew 11:1-6

When Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in their cities.

2 Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples 3 and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” 4 And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5 the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. 6 And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

Introduction:

In our text this morning we have Jesus continuing his preaching and teaching, previously he has sent out his 12 apostles with full authority to heal and cast out demons, he has sent them out as sheep in the midst of wolves and He has detailed all the issues that will come with this authority. In the previous chapter Jesus tells His disciples that they will find their enemies in their own households. Coming into Chapter 11 we will see another enemy that comes to us as believers.

This morning we are beginning in Chapter 11 as Jesus prepares us for the human emotion of doubt.

Doubt is something that we all have experienced, whether it was momentary or lasting, we have gone through it. Doubt comes when we are challenged by the world or our circumstances. POW’s in the Vietnam War relate some of their experiences with doubt, many tell the story that their faith had taken a hit when they were captured by the North Vietnamese and tortured, they wondered whether God was really there, whether or not God really cared for them. In almost all of the accounts of POW’s in the Vietnam War there is a doubting, but then there is a clearer picture of who God is, how He is there in really bad situations. Captain Carlyle “Smitty” Harris tells the story of this same situation, of doubt and despair, upon being dumped into a North Vietnamese prison. He felt there was no hope until he remembered a code that was taught to him years before, a simple code he could teach to the other POW’s. Harris knew when men were taken to the painful interrogations and they became unendurable, when they returned to their cell he would tap out “God Bless You” understanding that hope was there, God was there and their doubts about their own survival would be eased.

Section 1

Two distinct principles are here for us this morning, first our battles with doubt and second, how we reject doubt through trusting the Word of God and the love of Jesus for us.

We are all susceptible to doubt, in His ministry Jesus is proclaiming the truth of God through the preaching and teaching of God’s Word.

Looking at our text this morning and verse one we can see the truth set forth through Christ, He is teaching and preaching, removing doubts and announcing the Kingdom of God.

1When Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in their cities. It’s important to note that the teaching that Jesus does is instrumental in relieving the doubts about Himself and the gospel of salvation that He preaches. Previously Jesus instructed his disciples and others through announcing that the Kingdom of God was at hand and now as we go on to verse two, John the Baptist plays a pivotal role here in our two key thoughts for this message today. Doubt is our human condition, but rejecting doubt lies with knowing Jesus.

2 Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples 3 and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”

These verses have been looked at by many in our reformed circles in different ways, Calvin, Augustine and others see it this way:

that John wanted his disciples to have their own doubts dismissed through Jesus.

I have to disagree with these men, I know it may be shocking to disagree with them, but looking at Scripture and knowing the doubts we all have John is just like all of us. Without Jesus we can be lost in our doubts. John “heard about the deeds of the Christ” and it was his questioning “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” that sent his disciples to ask of Jesus, to dispel his own doubts.

God had put Adam and Eve into a beautiful garden but doubt crept into that place,

Gen. 3 (Adam and Eve)

He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?

1 Kings 19:9-10 (Elijah)

9 There he came to a cave and lodged in it. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and he said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 10 He said, “I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.”

Elijah had just killed the prophets of Baal and fought against every evil in Israel, but yet he is holed up in a cave bemoaning the circumstances he is in. He is in doubt, a great prophet of the Lord reduced to hiding in a cave. Anyone can have doubts. Doubters are in good company.

So we have many people in Scripture who doubted, Abraham, Moses, David and others, so why should John the Baptist be different?

There are three major reasons for understanding why John doubted. Physical reasons and Spiritual reasons.

1: He was in prison.

2: He was left emotionally drained

3: John had expectations for Jesus that were not being filled

Let’s look at number 1, being in prison. The place where John was, wasn’t anything like the prisons we know today. Many of these places were just holes in a floor where the prisoner was thrown into, or a barren room with no water or food.

According to Josephus, who writes about John in his Antiquities, Herod had imprisoned John in the fortress of Machaerus (modern Khirbet Mukawer), about five miles east of the Dead Sea, a particularly hot and desolate environment

When we see someone such as John, we see a man who prized his freedom, being separated from his disciples and people, this had to be particularly depressing for him. When we are separated from others and placed in a foreign environment our own doubts grow bigger and bigger in our thinking.

Doubt and despair are our company when we distant ourselves from others and neglect who we are in Christ. We make our own prisons and we become our own judges when we find ourselves in hard situations, we can pull away from the antidote for doubt, which is Jesus, and get deeper into our own doubt and despair. Sometimes our words can echo John’s, “Are you really the God who saves? Or should I look for another?” Charles Spurgeon comments on this text:

Dark thoughts may come to the bravest when pent up in a narrow cell. It was well that John’s question was put, that it might receive a distinct reply; re-assuring for himself, and instructive for us.

Dark thoughts strain our emotional health and emotions become front and center when they are raw and exposed.

Number two reason: John was emotionally drained

John had been calling out the Pharisees, the elders and King Herod. Every day was filled with accusations against the way that they had been living.

Daniel Doriani:

John languished in jail for months. Humans are more than thinking machines. We are physical, emotional, and spiritual beings. Prison wounds both the body and the emotions. It is human nature to have doubts when we suffer intensely.

When we are dealing with the pain of this world, whether it be family, relationships health or circumstances, there is a breaking point, a point in our lives that we are just exhausted from dealing with all of it. The exhaustion can drive us to doubt, but it is just a temporary situation where we are overwhelmed with it. Have you ever been in that place where all seems dark with no escape? I think we all have and we all have experienced the Baptist’s emotional despair.

It is in these times that we are looking for what we thought would happen, and are discouraged because what we wanted to occur has not come about.

3: John’s had expectations for Jesus that were not being filled:

Judgement plays a big role in how first century jews viewed the coming of the Messiah. There would be a “Ministry of Judgement” as James Montgomery Boice tells us in his commentary on Matthew. John’s own words reflect this in Matthew 3:12 as he speaks about Jesus baptizing with the Holy Spirit and fire:

12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

John is sitting in prison because he rightly told Herod that he was going against God’s law. The entire culture had been taken over by godlessness with their abominations and sacrifices. Why has all the injustice not be cleansed?

D.A. Carson helps us here:

It was all right to heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons, still storms, preach righteousness, and announce the kingdom; but where was the judgment? Had the corruptions and cruelties of Caesar been abruptly shut down? Had the hypocritical temple leaders been banished? Had the disgusting corruptions of Herod Antipas been confronted? Why was he, John the Baptist, languishing in the stifling heat of the prison at Machaerus fortress for challenging the morals of Herod, while Jesus the alleged Messiah did nothing about this injustice?

2 D. A. Carson, God with Us: Themes from Matthew (Ventura, Calif.: Regal Books, 1985), 62.

So far in His ministry Jesus has only brought truth and grace, He has promised to free the captives as He reads the scroll of Isaiah: Luke 4:18-19

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me

to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives

and recovering of sight to the blind,

to set at liberty those who are oppressed,

19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Imagine John rotting in this prison seeing all the things Jesus is doing, but still not understanding the situation and most likely feeling as if he is forgotten. The Psalmist feels this way in Psalm 42:9-10

9 I say to God, my rock:

“Why have you forgotten me?

Why do I go mourning

because of the oppression of the enemy?”

10 As with a deadly wound in my bones,

my adversaries taunt me,

while they say to me all the day long,

“Where is your God?”

All is not lost for the Baptist, doubt is temporary (2x)but in the temporary we can forget the permanent, the eternal son of God Jesus Christ. How many times have we’ve seen what John is seeing? We see the world falling apart, loved ones experiencing pain from illness, relationships destroyed and generally we can be in despair.

We wonder where is God is all of this? Doubt is not an overriding aspect of the Christian life, it is temporary, fleeting and most of all it is healed by the words of Jesus that we will explore in the next set of verses.

Our healing of doubt in Christ.

Section 2(Our antidote to doubt)

4 And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5 the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. 6 And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

I have to state this now for all of you, the Bible is an awesome supernatural Word. All through Scripture God puts the “problem” first for us to examine, then He gives us the “solution”. It’s no different here in Matthew’s gospel. “Go and tell John what you hear and see…” Jesus states that John needs to hear and see, use the physical abilities that God has given him to evaluate the situation that he is in. It’s not about John, it’s all about Jesus and what He is doing. The Kingdom of God is being proclaimed and the good news of the gospel is being preached. The good news of the gospel is what Jesus wants John to hear and see, that because of Christ there is new life, that because of Christ there is salvation for sinners, and because of Christ eternal life awaits us. Doubt is eliminated through the work and grace of Jesus, not because of what we do, its because of His obedience to willingly go to the Cross and fulfill the work of a Holy God. Jesus’ answer to John doesn’t just involve him hearing and seeing, it goes beyond that to John examining everything that Jesus has done and will do, specifically here in verses five and six.

5 the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. 6 And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

“The blind receive their sight…” Jesus had given the blind their ability to see again and these verbs in the original greek suggest ongoing present miracles that are occurring. What is really astounding is that we don’t see the blind receiving their sight in the Old Testament, but it has been foretold by Isaiah 29:18 and other passages.

18 In that day the deaf shall hear

the words of a book,

and out of their gloom and darkness

the eyes of the blind shall see

Only King Jesus can do all these miracles, the prophetic Messiah who has come to the world to bring peace and justice and judgement.

Daniel Doriani explains:

Further, each of these passages (in the OT)also mentions the judgment of God. By this, Jesus slips John the essential hint: he has not forgotten judgment; he has delayed it.

Physically people have been given their sight back, but more importantly spiritual blindness is being lifted. Just as the feeding of the five thousand relieved people of their hunger in a temporary way, the feeding of the gospel quenches hunger and doubt eternally.

When were your eyes opened for the first time? Can you remember when everything seemed very different before God justified your heart? When our eyes are opened we see Jesus very differently than we did before, He becomes our King and our Savior, and when we see that, all our doubts are anilated

(2X)Doubting becomes something of our past not our future.

Jesus not only opens our eyes but gives us the ability to walk in the light of Christ and respond to the gospel. We preach the good news to all because we have been resurrected because of Christ. Once dead, now alive.

“and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.

Jesus is informing John of the physical aspects of the redeeming gospel, but also we cannot leave out the spiritual aspects Jesus is proclaiming the miracles He has done fulfilling prophecy. The lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear.

B. B. Warfield

WHEN our Lord came down to earth He drew heaven with Him. The signs which accompanied His ministry were but the trailing clouds of glory which He brought from heaven, which is His home. The number of the miracles which He wrought may easily be underrated. It has been said that in effect He banished disease and death from Palestine for the three years of His ministry. If this is exaggeration it is pardonable exaggeration. Wherever He went, He brought a blessing:

Warfield brings the miracles of Jesus that He relates to John into a clear picture of who Jesus is. It is enlightening that Warfield rights this in his opposition to modern day faith healers.

Proof of Jesus is set down in these miracles, but more importantly there is the spiritual side. How do we “walk” now that we have been released from the bondage of sin? Like a person released from prison after a long stretch behind bars, that person walks differently because there is a freedom they haven’t known for a long time, they are exuberant because a weight has been lifted off of their back. If you have ever read Pilgrims Progress then you would know the character “Christian”. In the third stage. Christian comes upon the cross and the tomb of Christ and he is carrying a heavy load on his back. The Cross relieves him of his burden and in response to this we read:

Then was Christian glad and lightsome, and said with a merry heart, “He hath given me rest by his sorrow, and life by his death.” Then he stood still a while, to look and wonder; for it was very surprising to him that the sight of the cross should thus ease him of his burden.

Has the burden of doubt been lifted off your back? Doubt is cancelled by the work of Christ and now we walk with a different step, no longer lame, but joyful. The voices that we heard when we were in doubt are now silenced as the burden is lifted from us. We are walking differently and hearing differently.

and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.

Doubt comes when we are not close to God, John lying in prison didn’t feel very close to God for the reason we have stated before, he needed a “refresher course” in who Jesus is. The deaf are now experiencing sound for the first time. Recently medical science has restored hearing to people who for their whole lives never could hear anything. I’m sure you have heard of the mother who was given these ear implants hearing their child speak for the first time, and then crying tears of joy in experiencing this wonderful sound. It s the same with Christians as we go through the joys of Scripture, seeing the grace of God revealed for the first time in this Word. Our ears are opened as we hear the words of John’s Gospel. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”(John 1:1) Doubt has no chance when we begin to mine this one verse. Besides hearing being set right, another miracle is proclaimed, the raising of the dead fulfilling prophecy once again.

We were dead, and here Jesus proclaims the physical resurrection of the dead and the spiritual resurrection of the dead. Dead to sin and alive to Christ. All of these texts are Messianic texts especially the news given to the poor.

Isaiah 29:19

19 The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the Lord,

and the poor among mankind shall exult in the Holy One of Israel.

and the poor have good news preached to them.

This good news given to the poor is central to the ministry of Jesus, the poor matter to Jesus, they hold a special place in his preaching. These are the people whose hope has been lost and who really doubt that anyone should care about them. This is a reversal of the accepted norm and Jesus wants John to especially hear this. In all the gospels the poor are featured prominently against the background of the rich. Jesus informs the rich man in Luke 16 about all the things he did to the poor beggar Lazarus. In Mark 10 we hear how difficult it is for a rich man to come to the Kingdom of God. But we have to see the spiritual component here, this news is not solely given to those who are without money, but to those whose spirit is bankrupt apart from Christ, where doubt and hope don’t exist. Jesus proclaims a blessing for these people in the sermon on the mount, “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven”. Does doubting cause us to be poor in spirit? I think it does, and the only way to climb out is to acknowledge that we have been given the entrance to the Kingdom of Heaven. Practically, when doubts arise a big part of the healing of doubt includes hearing the good news preached to us. The Word preached has the power of God to correct our thinking and put us back to where we must be.

2 Tim 3:16-17

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Our fleeting doubts are removed as we see, hear and trust in the work of Christ alone. Trust is the final medicine we need to inject here in our message on doubt today. Trusting in Jesus, resting in Jesus and finally knowing Jesus brings us to our Lord’s benediction here in verse six.

6 And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

Blessings come from the joy that that is in us as we recognize that we are in Christ and He is in us. Our trust in Christ results in our doubts being gone.

The verb translation here in verse 6 of “offended” is better said to mean being “tripped up” or stumble because of me.

Leon Morris in his commentary on Matthew helps us here:

And that joy will come on the person who sees Jesus for what he is and not as “a stumbling-block” (NEB). The verb translated tripped up is a difficult one.12 It is a passive with a meaning like “is not stumbled, is not tripped up on account of me”;13 Jesus is thus speaking about the person who trusts him (has “no doubts about me,” GNB) and does not take offense at who he is and what he does.

12 σχανδαλίζω, a frequent verb in Matthew (see on 5:29). It is connected with the bait stick of a trap and comes to have the meaning of triggering off trouble in any one of a variety of ways.

All of the situations we find ourselves in can cause us to doubt, doubt that can leave us as if we are in solitary confinement, doubts that make us question God’s love for us, doubts that can make us think thoughts that the love of God has disappeared from our lives. Charles Spurgeon perfectly puts us right:

That man is blessed who so believes, that his faith cannot be stumbled. A hint for John. John had not fallen, but very possibly he had stumbled. He had been a little put to it, through a sense of non-deliverance in time of need, and therefore he had asked the question. Blessed is he who can be left in prison, can be silenced in his testimony, can seem to be deserted of his Lord, and yet can shut out every doubt. John speedily regained this blessedness, and fully recovered his serenity.

Lord, grant me to be firmly settled in my convictions, that I may enjoy the blessedness which flows from un-staggering faith. May nothing about thee ever cause me to stumble at thee!

Conclusion:

In just these six verses today, God has revealed to us our own human doubt. The Lord has described not just one man, the Baptist, but many others in Scripture who have had doubts. Fear plays a big role in doubt, our own fears about the future and our fears about our current situations. Fear not, is a repeated phrase in Scripture from Angels and from God, He tells us to trust Him and to believe His Word which never fails. Today, beloved, realize that we are sinners changed by the obedient work of Jesus, acknowledge your fears, and look at the definition for the word acknowledge. Acknowledge is a verb, an action word and the dictionary tells us that it means to

“Verbally recognize authority”. Your authority is in Christ all others are submissive to Jesus. Doubt is temporary and going through it increases our faith and strengthens us. Look at doubt as a temporary aspect of how we are pressed down and in despair. Look at doubt as a time of renewal, making our faith stronger and being able to withstand the arrows of Satan. See your past doubts as grace filled times that brought you closer to Christ. Place your eyes on the King. Look to King Jesus and live.

Foundations for Counseling the Believing Addicted

/ Cliff Walling / Leave a comment

Foundations of Counseling the Believing Addicted

In my counseling the addicted believers, it has been very important to first discover honestly how the hearts of these people were changed. Counseling non-believers requires a different approach of preaching God’s mercy and love through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Focusing on the reality of their situation and providing hope through the gospel provides a non-believer the only road through which they can finally see the end to their addiction and the way to lasting peace. The non-believer first must have a new heart, a heart that knows the desperate situation that God has brought them to, “the supposed bottom” of their lives where nothing seems good and all hope has been lost for reconciliation. In this aspect there is a first step to take with non-believers before bringing the steps they must climb out of their addiction, a change from despair to a life that is redeemed through Christ.

The believer presents some different issues. The heart is changed and these people now live in a state of “why”. The why is the question that needs to be answered through a Theologically based counseling. Knowing who God is and His attributes, becomes important in a first step approach. Is God all powerful? If He is why is this happening to me? These are some of the questions that have to be answered and taught when we counsel believers with addiction. The “why” is answered in Scripture from Genesis 45:4-8:

“I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent you to preserve life. Fo the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are yet five years in which there will be no plowing or harvest, And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God.”

Heath Lambert writes about this in his book, “A Theology of Biblical Counseling” Lambert says,“This is a fascinating text that affirms the work of God and men in the same action.” Lambert writes about the absolute need for a right understanding of God and His desires for man, and that all the trials and all the pain that are put upon us leads to God’s ultimate purpose for our lives, not for our own good, but for God’s purposes. It is this understanding that takes time for the believer to understand to focus and to absorb. I like to say that it is God’s plan A, no plan B or C, but only what He wants no matter the results of our own sin. Treating someone who is dealing with the wreckage of their life from the sin of addiction and reaffirming this is a hard concept for most. People want God to wipe away the consequences of sin and start without any resulting consequences. But in the story of Joseph the pain of selling their brother to slavers must have resonated with the brothers even though Joseph had explained about God’s purposes. The brothers had to deal with all thoughts of how sinful they were and how God used this sin to bring about a saving of their people. These are the conversations that need to be spoken in the counseling room. The all encompassing power of God over people’s lives is the key to beginning to come out of the grip of addiction. If we start counseling with this it lays the foundation for hope and reconciliation.

Theology is worshipping God, knowing who God is how ever present He is and how powerful He is. In speaking with people trapped in addiction the ever present voice in the room is God’s not mine. Understanding and thinking through these doctrines brings the addicted to a new place, a place where they can finally see the hope that Christ brings, a hope that tears away the false impressions they have of who God is and a proper way to guide them in the future.

We can learn much from those who have gone before us, those who dealt with the same issues we face today. One of these is John Owen an English Puritan (1616-1683) he dealt with the doctrine of sin in believers in his book “Indwelling Sin in Believers” because his original work is difficult to read I will quote his work from the abridged version from the Banner of Truth Trust. Owen begins his book with Romans 7:24-25, “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Owen begins with Paul’s letter to the Romans describing the way we all struggle with our sin daily and the need to see Jesus in the midst of our own sin. Owen writes about the law of sin,

“It always remains in the soul. It is never absent. The apostle twice says, ‘It dwells in me.’ If it (sin) was only an occasional visitor, it might be kept out and dealt with. But the soul is its home. Whatever you are doing , the law of sin is always there. Men rarely consider what a dangerous companion is always at home with them.”

Serious words here from John Owen and we should be always on guard to acknowledge this. Those who are addicted have lost the reality of this. Sin has taken hold of them, and they believe the subtle lies that are whispering to them.

In the next writing I will expose the sinful nature of addiction the way it constantly torments the addicted leading them to surrender to the lies that have chained them to a miserable existence.

Soli Deo Gloria!

Biblically Counseling the Addicted

/ Cliff Walling / Leave a comment

For the past three years I have been Biblically counseling addicted men at a Christian rehabilitation center in Vermont. I see about ten men a week and have seen the ravages of addiction first hand. Addiction, and here I mean the addiction of all things, has taken hold of men in a powerfully evil way. Families have been torn apart, relationships destroyed, and men have sunk to lower levels of pain and hopelessness that brings them back to their addiction. The only hope has been Jesus Christ and the Gospel of Redemption.

Every man I have seen in the past three years have the same bad root running through them, they are unable to deal with the mental and physical pain that they have experienced through abuse, addicted parents and a childhood without God. It has been through Christ that they have new hearts and a hope for the future.

New hearts bring a new desire to serve Christ, but old emotions and the lingering shame and guilt always stands in the way of a new life. Consequences from the past holds them prisoner. My desire has been to point to Jesus, to Biblically guide them to the rejection of shame and guilt through Christ working in me.

My point in writing down these experiences is to help those who counsel the addicted, to begin to understand the journey that involves setbacks, tears and pain. When I started this I realized that I needed to be more intent on discovering the inward factors that brought about the addiction in the first place. The past is painful, it must be visited but ultimately left in the past.

22 To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. 23 I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings. 1 Cor. 9:22-23

This world is constantly groaning under the weight of sin (Rom. 8:22) we are people who have been sinned against and have sinned against others. Parents divorce, fathers leave their families, generations of addiction provide a fertile ground for children to begin the see addiction as the way out. There have been hundreds of different stories as to the cause of people’s addictions, but there is one thread that every man has said to me, a thread of emotional pain, helplessness and an ungodly way to deal with that. It has only been through God’s grace that these men have been able to see the hope that He brings, the hope that unlocks the chains that still try to hold them back.

These snippets of my experiences I’ll try to publish in the coming months. I have been helped greatly by many counselors including Ed Welch and others. Ed’s book “A Banquet in the Grave” has been very helpful. My prayer for others who counsel the addicted is that these posts will give some assistance.

Looking forward to sharing more as I can.

Soli Deo Gloria