This I Call to Mind… Great is Your Faithfulness
August 25, 2024
Preached by Ron Smith
Scripture Reading
Jeremiah 52:1-11, 31-34; Lamentations 3:16-24
Jeremiah 52:1-11, 31-34
1 Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. 2 And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that Jehoiakim had done. 3 For because of the anger of the Lord it came to the point in Jerusalem and Judah that he cast them out from his presence. And Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon. 4 And in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came with all his army against Jerusalem, and laid siege to it. And they built siegeworks all around it. 5 So the city was besieged till the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. 6 On the ninth day of the fourth month the famine was so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land. 7 Then a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war fled and went out from the city by night by the way of a gate between the two walls, by the king's garden, and the Chaldeans were around the city. And they went in the direction of the Arabah. 8 But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho, and all his army was scattered from him. 9 Then they captured the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath, and he passed sentence on him. 10 The king of Babylon slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and also slaughtered all the officials of Judah at Riblah. 11 He put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him in chains, and the king of Babylon took him to Babylon, and put him in prison till the day of his death…. 31 And in the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-fifth day of the month, Evil-merodach king of Babylon, in the year that he began to reign, graciously freed Jehoiachin king of Judah and brought him out of prison. 32 And he spoke kindly to him and gave him a seat above the seats of the kings who were with him in Babylon. 33 So Jehoiachin put off his prison garments. And every day of his life he dined regularly at the king's table, 34 and for his allowance, a regular allowance was given him by the king, according to his daily needs, until the day of his death, as long as he lived.
Lamentations 3:16-24
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.”
Great is Thy faithfulness
Great is Thy faithfulness
Morning by morning new mercies I see
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me
Most of you, if not all of you, have heard and sung that great him, Great is Thy Faithfulness. Indeed, God is faithful. The last phrase of the chorus says that God is faithful unto me. Is that true? How would you answer that?
Many of you would say, “Yes!!” You could recount so many ways that God has been faithful to you.
There are others who would say, “No, he is not faithful to me. God has let me down.” Kayne West in a recent interview spoke of his disillusionment with God. He said that he had prayed that Jesus would heal his marriage, but he didn’t. So, his conclusion was that he himself is god. He is in control of all things.
Now that example is perhaps extreme, but there are probably many of us who know someone who has walked away from the Lord and often times the reason boils down to unanswered prayer. I know people who prayed for the healing of a loved one that didn’t happen. The conclusion is that God is not faithful to them. And of course, if God is not faithful to you, why follow him? Why believe? He let me down.
But do you see the subtle problem in this idea of faithfulness? Who defines what it means to be faithful? If it is me, then God is always going to let me down.
This is often times what we believe a faithful friend to be. These are the friends who will stick by our side no matter what. They will let us do or say anything. And if they don’t then they are not loyal. They are not faithful to us. See, we define for ourselves what faithfulness means.
But the truth is God defines what it means to be faithful. He is faithful. It is part of his character. For God to be faithful means that he is first and foremost faithful to himself. As he is faithful to himself, he is faithful to us. He is faithful to maintain his promises to us. So, sing that great him. Great is thy faithfulness unto me. But sing it knowing that you don’t define what that looks like, he does.
As we turn to the passages we have before us today, we see how God’s faithfulness reveals itself in two ways: God’s terrifying faithfulness and God’s merciful faithfulness.
Let’s look at these two aspects of God’s faithfulness as we find them here in chapter 52.
God’s Terrifying Faithfulness
In the first part of chapter 52 we see God’s complete judgement upon his people. There is the total destruction of Jerusalem. It starts off with the ascension of Zedekiah to the throne, and we are told that he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord (2). While he is not the first king to have that said about him, now the situation is different. It brings the nation to the point of no return if you will. Verse 3 says, because of the anger of the Lord it came to the point in Jerusalem and Judah that he cast them out from his presence. It came to the point. It was the last straw, the last drop in God’s cup of wrath before it overflowed.
The way it happens is that Zedekiah rebels against Babylon, so Nebuchadnezzar lays a siege to Jerusalem. Surrounds it. Cuts off all supplies. We are told they build siegeworks all around the city. We don’t know for sure that they were, but from other types of siegeworks from other nations in that time period it could have been large movable towers, large battering rams, stuff right out of movies. For eighteen months this happens. 18 months of sheer terror. It works. Verse 6, the famine was so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land.
Zedekiah and his army try to flee, but they are captured. Treated horribly. Then in the verses we did not read, we find out that the temple was burned, the houses of Jerusalem were burned, the wall was broken down, all the treasures of the temple (all the gold, silver, bronze, everything) it was all taken to Babylon, and the people were exiled.
By the time we get to the end of this recounting of the utter and complete destruction of Jerusalem, we are meant to feel the hopelessness of the situation. Jerusalem is gone. Not just conquered and left standing but destroyed and plundered of its riches and its people.
And in all of this we see God’s faithfulness. It is a terrifying faithfulness, but faithfulness, nonetheless. Despite all the false prophecies of victory over Babylon, God is faithful to perform the word which he had already spoken hundreds of years prior.
When Moses was giving the law of God to the people before they entered into the promise land, he told them that if they went after other false gods and were not careful to obey God then God was going to punish them. He said that the Lord would bring a nation against them from far way. That nation would besiege them and tear down their walls. The Lord would end up scattering his people and essentially kicking them out of the land. [1]
The Lord said it. The Lord did it. He is faithful. He had established a covenant with his people. It was an agreement, if you will, of what he as the Sovereign King would provide for them and what he expected of them in return. God’s people broke the covenant. They were unfaithful. But God is faithful. He keeps his promises, even those promises we wish he would not keep. In this sense it is a terrifying faithfulness. A faithfulness to his word that had dire consequences for his people.
Let’s turn our attention to the book of Lamentations for a moment so we can get a sense of the impact of this faithfulness of God had on his people. (Adult SS class starting Sept 8) If you don’t know, Lamentations is a book that is attributed to Jeremiah. It is a more poetical book that describes the fall of Jerusalem. The poetical, and I would even say artistic style, of Lamentations is lost on us as English readers. In the Hebrew the first 4 chapters are each written in the form of an acrostic. There are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet and so each verse begins with the corresponding letter of the alphabet. Verse one starts with A, verse 2 B, and so on. The exception is chapter 3 where we find 66 verses because there are three verses that start with A, followed by three that start with B, and so on. This causes chapter 3 to stand out. It is indeed the focus and climax of the book. More on that in a minute. I just want to point out that by using an acrostic, it seems that Jeremiah is underlining the total destruction that has been brought about by the Lord. It is from A to Z.
Of course, Lamentations, as the name suggests, is a collection of poems and songs of lament. We even find a rhythm that is used in other poems in the Bible used to mourn the dead. That gives you a sense of the gravity and heaviness of this book. Lots of emotion. Imagine going through something difficult and then listening to a song that touches on the pain you went through. That’s Lamentations.
All that to say, in Lamentations we find language that expresses how the people experienced this terrifying faithfulness of God. Right out the gate, in the very first verse we find these words:
How lonely sits the city
that was full of people!
How like a widow has she become,
she who was great among the nations!
She who was a princess among the provinces
has become a slave.
2:5 The Lord has become like an enemy;
he has swallowed up Israel;
he has swallowed up all its palaces;
he has laid in ruins its strongholds,
and he has multiplied in the daughter of Judah
mourning and lamentation.
So, what does this mean? Well, means that God is faithful. Yes, the experience of his faithfulness was terrifying, and can be terrifying for us at times. But he is faithful. He will watch over his word to preform it. We might not experience the level of judgement and punishment that the Israelites did, but we do experience a measure of it when he disciplines us.
Don’t miss that this aspect of God’s faithfulness is good. It is loving. Why? Because first and foremost God is faithful to himself. Not to us. To our emotions. To what we think is right. To how we feel. To our desires. We all know that what we want can be determinantal to our well-being. If we let our passions run wild, we could be destroyed. When God intervenes and says, “enough, I must discipline you.” That is love, that is faithfulness. He must remain true to himself.
Maybe you have experienced it. You are doing something that is wrong, that is sinful. Maybe you don’t realize it, maybe you do but just can’t stop. Finally, a brother or sister in the Lord confronts you. Not pleasant. But it is God’s faithfulness to you. To keep you faithful to him. To reorient you and get you going in the right direction.
God is faithful. It is his character. While sometimes that might be terrifying, it is also merciful.
God’s Merciful Faithfulness
In Lamentations chapter 3 we find a more personal lament from Jeremiah. Remember, Jeremiah has been faithful to the Lord. He has proclaimed what the Lord told him to proclaim. And yet, it brought him nothing but turmoil. He was ridiculed, mocked, beaten, imprisoned. His message was rejected. This was agonizing for him. While he did not do anything wrong per se, he suffered the anguish that God’s terrifying faithfulness towards his people brought.
Look again with me at Lamentations 3:16,
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.”
This is horrible. Jeremiah has come to the place where there seems to be no hope. Have you ever been to that place? What do you do? How do you respond?
Let’s continue reading. Verse 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.
There is an intentional remembering. He says, this I call to mind. It’s purposeful. While the pain is real, he keeps on looking to the Lord. But he has to set his mind to it. He has to call to mind God’s faithfulness. It’s easy when we find ourselves in places of great pain to make wrong conclusions. We misinterpret the pain. We start believing that God is not faithful, that his steadfast love does not endure, that his mercy has come to an end. But we can’t draw these wrong conclusions. We can’t conclude that because God hasn’t answered our good prayers – salvation for loved ones, for physical healing, for mental healing, for freedom from a particular sin that has a grip on us – we can’t conclude that he is done with us, that he is not faithful. In the midst of the pain we must remind ourselves of truth: the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness! When you remind yourself of that, there’s hope! When you surrender yourself to the merciful faithfulness of God there is hope!
This conclusion is strengthened all the more with another truth Jeremiah points us to in verse 31:
For the Lord will not
cast off forever,
32 but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion
according to the abundance of his steadfast love;
33 for he does not afflict from his heart
or grieve the children of men.
God is good. He does not afflict from his heart. What precious words. His faithfulness to his word overflows with mercy. It is a merciful faithfulness that restores, that heals, that forgives.
I mentioned earlier that God had promised his people before they had even entered the land that he would bring judgment upon them if they did not follow him. But he also went on to say that if they would repent of their evil ways, he would restore them. He would bring them back from where he had scattered them among the nations.[2] Now, the people know that if God was faithful to judge them, he would also be faithful to restore them.
I believe that this future restoration is foreshadowed at the end of Jeremiah. Let’s go back to Jeremiah 52.
Let me read verses 31-34 again.
And in the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-fifth day of the month, Evil-merodach king of Babylon, in the year that he began to reign, graciously freed Jehoiachin king of Judah and brought him out of prison. 32 And he spoke kindly to him and gave him a seat above the seats of the kings who were with him in Babylon. 33 So Jehoiachin put off his prison garments. And every day of his life he dined regularly at the king's table, 34 and for his allowance, a regular allowance was given him by the king, according to his daily needs, until the day of his death, as long as he lived.
This is how the book of Jeremiah ends. Remember what we saw earlier. Jerusalem is completely destroyed. The people are taken captive into exile. There is no hope.
But the Lord does not afflict from the heart! In these last verses we find the spark of hope. It’s just an ember. But it will become a blazing fire. King Jehoiachin is released. It’s 37 years into his exile, but he is freed. Not free to return to Jerusalem and rebuild it. But freed from prison. What is remarkable about this is that Jehoiachin is the only king of Judah who surrendered to Babylon (2 Kings 24:12). Remember Jeremiah had prophesied that the only hope that Judah had was to surrender to Babylon. But they didn’t. And what we see here is God being faithful to his word. Jehoiachin surrendered, spent time in prison, but is freed. Maybe there is hope after all.
This short story of Jehoiachin’s restoration, alerts us to the bigger story of redemption that we see unfolding in the pages of scripture. Let me come at it from a different direction. One of the covenants we see God making with his people is what we call the Davidic covenant. He promised David that his throne would be established forever. Meaning there would be a king from the line of David on the throne.
And as we turn to Jeremiah, that very promise seems to be in jeopardy. Israel is no more. There is no king. The failures of all those who had gone before seemingly bring everything to a screeching halt. In fact, as you look through the line of the kings, what we see is failure to some degree or another. Some obviously failed because they openly rebelled against the Lord and served idols. Others, like David, a man after God’s own heart, committed grievous sins. As we look at the leaders, we are simply left with a sense of there must be more. It’s a feeling that things are incomplete. But in this story of Jehoiachin there is a flicker of hope. God will be faithful to maintain even this promise – David’s throne will continue. And when we turn the page from the OT to the NT what are the first words we read, The book of genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David. Where others have failed, he will succeed. Where there was incompleteness, he will complete. Where there was a sense that something is missing, he will satisfy – abundantly satisfy. And he did it by taking upon himself all of the failures, all the failures of the kings who had gone before him and all of ours, and nailed them to the cross. Jesus is God’s greatest demonstration of his faithfulness. He does not fail. He cannot fail. Jesus, the son of David, sits enthroned as the King of kings and Lord of lords. Of his kingdom there will never ever be an end.
Great is his faithfulness.
Have you experienced it? Do you live in the benefits of his faithfulness? There is hope. There is hope for those who surrender. That is the theme we chose for this series through Jeremiah. No matter how bleak and dark life might get, there is hope for those who surrender. And perhaps we can add, there is hope for those who surrender to King Jesus. Surrender your life to him. Surrender your hopes and dreams, your desires, everything. What is it that you are not surrendering to him? And then offer it to him. It’s scary, but you will be upheld by pillars of hope because he is faithful.
[1] Deut 28:49ff; Lev. 26:14-39
[2] Lev. 26:40-45; Deut. 30:1-6
Sermon Discussion Questions
How have you seen God’s faithfulness in your own life?
If you can, share a time when God’s faithfulness to you was more on the “terrifying” side. Perhaps a time when you were corrected or confronted.
How does Isaiah 11:1 relate to Jeremiah 52? What would the stump indicate (you can also look at Isaiah 6:13)? How do we see the branch coming forth? Of course, the rest of Isaiah 11 continues the rest of the redemptive story.
Why is it important that God was faithful to punish Israel like he said he would do?
What would you say to someone who has given up on God because he did not answer their prayer?
What have you found helpful when you are in difficult times and you need to mind Biblical truth like Jeremiah in Lamentations 3?