387 God Is Enough (Sean Finnegan)

What do you do when everything is stripped away?  You find out who you really are. In this sermon you’ll see what happened in ancient Judah when the Babylonians besieged Jerusalem, ultimately resulting in utter destruction, humiliating shame, and forcible deportation. Although our times today can’t really compare to the level of suffering these people went through, their experience has much to teach us about hope in dark times. I pray that as you consider this traumatic episode in biblical history that you too would learn to say when you go through suffering, “God is enough.”

 

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—— Notes ——

Jehoiachin

– reigned 3 months
– did evil before God
– surrendered to Neb. after siege
– thousands deported

2Ki 24.13-14 13 He carried out from there all the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king’s house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold which Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the LORD, just as the LORD had said. 14 Then he led away into exile all Jerusalem and all the captains and all the mighty men of valor, ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and the smiths. None remained except the poorest people of the land.

Zedekiah

– reigned 11 years
– did evil before God
– rebelled against Babylon
– city besieged again
– as Babylonians swept through countryside on way to Jerusalem,
– lodging would become difficult
– surround city w/ army

2Ki 25.1
Now in the ninth year of his reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, camped against it and built a siege wall all around it.

– Jerusalem was fortunate
– fuel to cook food
– disease

Lam 5.9-10
9 We get our bread at the risk of our lives Because of the sword in the wilderness. 10 Our skin has become as hot as an oven, Because of the burning heat of famine.

– food

Lam 1.11
All her people groan seeking bread;
They have given their precious things for food
To restore their lives themselves.
“See, O LORD, and look, For I am despised.”

Lam 2.11-12
11 My eyes fail because of tears,
My spirit is greatly troubled;
My heart is poured out on the earth
Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people,
When little ones and infants faint In the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers, “Where is grain and wine?”
As they faint like a wounded man In the streets of the city,
As their life is poured out On their mothers’ bosom.

– corpses
– 18 months!

2Ki 25.1-3
1 Now in the ninth year of his reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, camped against it and built a siege wall all around it. 2 So the city was under siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. 3 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.

Lam 4.8-10
8 Their appearance is blacker than soot,
They are not recognized in the streets;
Their skin is shriveled on their bones,
It is withered, it has become like wood.
9 Better are those slain with the sword
Than those slain with hunger;
For they pine away, being stricken
For lack of the fruits of the field.
10 The hands of compassionate women
Boiled their own children;
They became food for them
Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.
o eat healthy born infants

Lam 2.19-20
19 “Arise, cry aloud in the night
At the beginning of the night watches;
Pour out your heart like water
Before the presence of the Lord;
Lift up your hands to Him
For the life of your little ones
Who are faint because of hunger
At the head of every street.”
20 See, O LORD, and look!
With whom have You dealt thus?
Should women eat their offspring,
The little ones who were born healthy?
Should priest and prophet be slain In the sanctuary of the Lord?

– king and warriors fled

2Ki 25.4-10
4 Then the city was broken into, and all the men of war fled by night by way of the gate between the two walls beside the king’s garden, though the Chaldeans were all around the city. And they went by way of the Arabah. 5 But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king and overtook him in the plains of Jericho and all his army was scattered from him. 6 Then they captured the king and brought him to the king of Babylon at Riblah, and he passed sentence on him. 7 They slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, then put out the eyes of Zedekiah and bound him with bronze fetters and brought him to Babylon. 8 Now on the seventh day of the fifth month, which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. 9 He burned the house of the LORD, the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem; even every great house he burned with fire. 10 So all the army of the Chaldeans who were with the captain of the guard broke down the walls around Jerusalem.

2Ki 25.11 11 Then the rest of the people who were left in the city and the deserters who had deserted to the king of Babylon and the rest of the people, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away into exile.

Psalm 137
By the rivers of Babylon,
There we sat down and wept,
When we remembered Zion.

Upon the willows in the midst of it
We hung our harps.

For there our captors demanded of us songs,
And our tormentors mirth,
saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion.”

How can we sing the LORD’S song In a foreign land?

If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
May my right hand forget her skill.
May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
If I do not remember you,
If I do not exalt Jerusalem Above my chief joy.

Remember, O LORD, against the sons of Edom The day of Jerusalem,
Who said, “Raze it, raze it To its very foundation.”

O daughter of Babylon, you devastated one,
How blessed will be the one who repays you
With the recompense with which you have repaid us.
How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones
Against the rock.

everything is lost

– gone through genocidal trauma
– it’s all gone
– no more festivals
– kicked out of land
– no more worship at temple
– no more abraham’s land
– no more david’s kings
– city so disfigured, it doesn’t exist anymore

Lam 1.1-4
1 How lonely sits the city That was full of people! She has become like a widow Who was once great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces Has become a forced laborer!

2 She weeps bitterly in the night And her tears are on her cheeks; She has none to comfort her Among all her lovers. All her friends have dealt treacherously with her; They have become her enemies.

3 Judah has gone into exile under affliction And under harsh servitude; She dwells among the nations, But she has found no rest; All her pursuers have overtaken her In the midst of distress.

4 The roads of Zion are in mourning Because no one comes to the appointed feasts. All her gates are desolate; Her priests are groaning, Her virgins are afflicted, And she herself is bitter.

– now a single voice expresses sense of suffering
– believes God has persecuted him…and he’s right
– it was God’s judgment

Lam 3.14-20
14 I have become a laughingstock to all my people,
Their mocking song all the day.
15 He has filled me with bitterness,
He has made me drunk with wormwood.
16 He has broken my teeth with gravel;
He has made me cower in the dust.
17 My soul has been rejected from peace;
I have forgotten happiness.
18 So I say, “My strength has perished,
And so has my hope from the LORD.”
19 Remember my affliction and my wandering,
the wormwood and bitterness.
20 Surely my soul remembers
And is bowed down within me.

hope from nowhere

– refugee
– has nothing
– no reason to hope

Lam 3.21-32 21
21 This I recall to my mind,
Therefore I have hope.

22 The LORD’S lovingkindnesses [steadfast love] indeed never cease,
For His compassions never fail.
23 They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.

24 “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I have hope in Him.” this is the key to everything!!!

25 The LORD is good to those who wait for Him,
To the person who seeks Him.
26 It is good that he waits silently
For the salvation of the LORD.

27 It is good for a man that he should bear
The yoke in his youth.
28 Let him sit alone and be silent
Since He has laid it on him.
29 Let him put his mouth in the dust,
Perhaps there is hope.

30 Let him give his cheek to the smiter,
Let him be filled with reproach.
31 For the Lord will not reject forever,

32 For if He causes grief,
Then He will have compassion
According to His abundant lovingkindness.[steadfast love]

– what? how dare you hope!
– hope is rooted in God’s character not anything else
– do you know him?

Psa 73.25-28
25 Whom have I in heaven but You?
And besides You, I desire nothing on earth.

26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

27 For, behold, those who are far from You will perish;
You have destroyed all those who are unfaithful to You.

28 But as for me, the nearness of God is my good;
I have made the Lord GOD my refuge,
That I may tell of all Your works.

– God is enough
– He is all you need