Tested Faith
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A Danish Proverb says, "Eggs and oaths are easily broken." Some in this world have a rather low view of promises. Others hold a much higher view... American journalist Herbert Agar, wrote, "Civilization rests on a set of promises; if the promises are broken too often, the civilization dies, no matter how rich it may be, or how mechanically clever. Hope and faith depend on the promises; if hope and faith go, everything goes."
We all know from experience, a broken promise can lead to a huge loss of trust. This morning, I want us to look at a tough question we may not even feel comfortable asking - "Does God keep His promises?" We see these words about God in Psalms 108:4 (NIV)...
For great is your love, higher than the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies.
There are many scriptures that speak of God's great faithfulness. We also see these words of Jesus in Matthew 21:21-22 (NIV)...
Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done. (22) If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer."
...In your private, most honest moments - have you ever asked the question, "Does God really keep His promises?" It's a scary question to ask. We know that one broken promise can undermine our trust in someone. So the answer to that question is essential if we're going to fully trust God.
Now it may sound blasphemous for us to even ask that question, but we wouldn't be the first. I'd like for us to look to the Old Testament book of Lamentations this morning. In it, there's a desire for a genuine, honest faith and a search for the answer to the question...
I. Can God be trusted?
In the book of Lamentations, there's no room for a naïve, 'smiles and good feelings all the time' kind of faith. Israel was undergoing the worst possible disaster and the author of the book - the prophet Jeremiah - was trying to reconcile their pain with their faith in a good, holy and righteous God.
Let's sum up the background of the story - The King of Babylon was the most powerful ruler of that time. He demanded tribute be paid from the tribe of Judah. They complied for a time, but then Judah's King, chose to end the arrangement with Babylon. He just stopped paying taxes to their King.
The King's reaction was immediate - the massive army of Babylon descended on Jerusalem and surrounded the city. The people inside locked their gates and hid behind their strong walls as Babylon waited outside. The siege went on for a year and a half, and famine struck. The city walls were breached and Jerusalem was burned and plundered. As all this was going on, God's chosen people cried out as they slowly starved to death and watched the sacred temple being ransacked.
- Wasn't God supposed to protect them? Didn't He promise to care for them? In this story, we see feelings of abandonment and betrayal expressed. Jeremiah saw the destruction of the city and the suffering of his people and he had to wonder, are we...
A. All alone?
In the passages I want to read, Jeremiah was expressing his pain and his doubts and wasn't worried whether his feelings were proper or not. This wasn't the time for platitudes or hollow words. Jeremiah cried out from the depths of his soul to express what Israel was experiencing with unflinching reality. Let's look at it, starting with Lamentations 1:1-6 (NIV)...
How deserted lies the city, once so full of people! How like a widow is she, who once was great among the nations! She who was queen among the provinces has now become a slave. (2) Bitterly she weeps at night, tears are upon her cheeks. Among all her lovers there is none to comfort her. All her friends have betrayed her; they have become her enemies. (3) After affliction and harsh labor, Judah has gone into exile.
She dwells among the nations; she finds no resting place. All who pursue her have overtaken her in the midst of her distress. (4) The roads to Zion mourn, for no one comes to her appointed feasts. All her gateways are desolate, her priests groan, her maidens grieve, and she is in bitter anguish. (5) Her foes have become her masters; her enemies are at ease. The LORD has brought her grief because of her many sins. Her children have gone into exile, captive before the foe.
(6) All the splendor has departed from the Daughter of Zion. Her princes are like deer that find no pasture; in weakness they have fled before the pursuer.
Imagine your children being dragged away and there's nothing you can do about it. Jeremiah was trying to describe the feelings of utter loss and grief as he looked over his people's horrifying situation. He continued in Lamentations 1:11-12 (NIV)...
All her people groan as they search for bread; they barter their treasures for food to keep themselves alive. "Look, O LORD, and consider, for I am despised." (12) "Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look around and see. Is any suffering like my suffering that was inflicted on me, that the LORD brought on me in the day of his fierce anger?"
We not only see the pain, but also the anger expressed because of the great suffering and death. Notice also, there was a finger of blame pointed - the accusation was at God, Himself. God's prophet was blaming God for the atrocities happening all around him. We have to ask, is tragedy...
B. God's fault?
Jeremiah, a man of great faith, felt strongly that God was responsible for allowing this destruction to occur and went even further in saying that God was actually the cause of their pain because of His anger. Let's continue in Lamentations 2:1-2 (NIV)...
How the Lord has covered the Daughter of Zion with the cloud of his anger! He has hurled down the splendor of Israel from heaven to earth; he has not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger. (2) Without pity the Lord has swallowed up all the dwellings of Jacob; in his wrath he has torn down the strongholds of the Daughter of Judah. He has brought her kingdom and its princes down to the ground in dishonor.
Jeremiah was pointing his finger squarely at God as the source of their destruction and suffering. He continued in Lamentations 3:1-6 (NIV)...
I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. (2) He has driven me away and made me walk in darkness rather than light; (3) indeed, he has turned his hand against me again and again, all day long. (4) He has made my skin and my flesh grow old and has broken my bones. (5) He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship. (6) He has made me dwell in darkness like those long dead.
Jeremiah went on to describe the agony of starving children and how some people even resorted to cannibalizing the dead in order to survive the famine. Circumstances don't come much more horrific than that... How do you keep your faith in a situation like that? How do you reconcile God's promise of deliverance with that kind of suffering? That's the question of Lamentations.
None of us have gone through suffering quite to that extent, but have you ever been in a situation where you felt that God just wasn't listening to your prayers? Have you ever felt abandoned by God in a time that you really needed His help? As we read the anger and frustration and pain of Jeremiah, in some small way, does it at all...
II. Feel familiar?
As you are living out your faith, have you ever felt at all like Jeremiah and questioned God's ways? I've talked with many people over the past 30 some years of my ministry who have felt that way.
- The couple who's 17 year old daughter committed suicide. - The woman who had to explain to her five year old son how daddy wasn't coming home because he was killed by a drunk driver. - The person who's spouse lay in a hospital bed, unsure if they'd make it. - The many who've heard the words, "You have cancer." All of those people could relate to Jeremiah's despair, and perhaps even his anger.
As difficult as it is to read those passages from Lamentations, perhaps there can be some comfort in the fact that even God's faithful ones in the Bible had times of questioning and doubt. God is big enough to handle our questions, and our fears, and even our anger. Does having faith in God require that, in all circumstances, that we are...
A. Always happy?
We can always have joy knowing that we can look forward to the promise of Heaven, but present circumstances don't always call for smiles. Jeremiah had a deep faith AND he had real pain and genuine doubts. Those things are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
There are times that even despite our solid faith that we will have reason to mourn. Jesus, Himself, even though He knew the promise of Heaven for His children - Jesus wept at the death of Lazarus; He wept as He looked out over the city of Jerusalem. Did His emotion show a lack of faith in His Father? No - it showed the depth of His humanity and His pain even through His faith. Let's look at 2 Timothy 2:11-13 (NIV)...
Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with him, we will also live with him; (12) if we endure, we will also reign with him. If we disown him, he will also disown us; (13) if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself.
If we only have faith when times are easy, is that faith? If we can have faith even when we don't feel like smiling, that's...
B. An honest faith
As we read through Lamentations, we see that it's not just a laundry list of injustices that the people of Israel endured. Lamentations isn't a whining 'lament' of, "Oh, pity us because God has left us and we are so distraught". There's a purpose behind Jeremiah's writing. It's an accurate history of the pain and suffering of God's people at the hands of the Babylonians, but there's more to it.
Amidst the anguish, the doubting, the desperation - there's something that we can't miss or we'd misunderstand the entire book. In the third chapter, as Jeremiah recalls all of the misery and suffering they had endured, we find this in Lamentations 3:20-26 (NIV)...
I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. (21) Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: (22) Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. (23) They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. (24) I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him." (25) The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; (26) it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.
Despite all the doubting, questioning and anger - Jeremiah still could have hope because He knew God's character and he knew God's unfailing love. That's quite a testimony from one who suffered so much. His faith was not untested; he had experienced amazing tragedy, he had blamed and questioned God and even in the midst of it all still found God faithful. There is something about 'waiting on God' that changes us... And we can either choose to trust God through the pain - or to reject God. Either way, we will not be the same people we were before...
I heard someone recently say, "Blessings often come to us disguised as tragedies." That's an insight we can only accept when we believe completely in God.
In the Book of Lamentations, Jeremiah doesn't 'sugar coat' faith and tell us to just 'smile and believe'. Lamentations isn't a book where 'everyone lived happily ever after'. But rather, a book that shouts that despite 'bad things', God is faithful - and the 'bad things' are not the end of the story for those who love Him! Lamentations has immense credibility being written by one who had suffered yet remained steadfast. It's a call to a realistic, honest, tested faith.
So What?
This life has its share of pain and loss. We're tempted to say to God, "Why do you have to test my faith? Don't you know that I'm faithful? Why can't you spare me these rough spots in life?" After studying the scriptures and talking with friends and family who have experienced loss, I've come to several conclusions. First, even if I make all the 'right choices' in this life - bad things will happen. Why God chooses to intervene in some instances and not in others, I'll probably never completely understand.
Secondly, I'm pretty sure that God knows exactly how much faith each of us has. I don't think He tests us so that He will know how much faith we have, but perhaps so that we will know how much faith we have. I think God allows hard times so that He can then show us how faithful He is as He brings us through to the other side.
For the Christian, no matter how devastating our circumstances may be - we can have hope in a God who is faithful even when it feels that He is thousands of miles away. Like Jeremiah, we can have hope in God even when we feel abandoned. Can God be trusted? Absolutely! We can see His strength in His people who have been tested and after everything have remained standing. Paul shares this hope in Romans 8:38-39 (NIV)...
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, (39) neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
After the Holocaust of World War II, the following words were found carved into a cellar wall in Cologne, Germany, "I believe in the sun, even when it's not shining. I believe in love, even when I don't feel it. I believe in God, even when He's silent."
God's ways are not our ways and His timing is not our timing, but God is always faithful - even when we don't understand. The God we serve is a God who can be fully trusted and always keeps His promises!