All right here we are. This is the series entitled Getting to
Know You, God. This is lesson number four in that series. And the title of this lesson is
The God Who Listens. We'll start off with a question
that we often ask ourselves. Have you ever wondered if God
is really listening?
Now, I know that we believe in our heads that God is
there and He wants us to pray.
But how many times have you prayed and it seemed like nothing happened?
In James Chapter 5 verse 16, James talks about praise, "Therefore confess
your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of
a righteous man can accomplish much."
But doesn't it seem that sometimes our prayers, no matter how
fervent, no matter how faithful, no matter how righteous, they kind of come back to
us empty? I think all of us have had that experience. And in
this series of Getting to Know God and getting to know His character and so on and so forth,
I think it's important to discuss this idea of prayer, of communication
with Him. So I'll give you an example, we pray and we pray, but the person we're
praying for dies anyways. Or we pray fervently and the
marriage that we're praying for falls apart anyways.
And we continue to pray and pray, but the company closes down or the illness
continues anyway. And we pray and we ask God fervently
for help and the direction that you're asking for in your life just
doesn't come and you go ahead and make a decision and make a mistake anyway.
We've all had that kind of experience in our prayer life.
Is God really listening to us? So when these things happen it becomes easy to
doubt one of God's most wonderful qualities, the fact that He's listening and has
mercy towards us. Because it seems there's no answer to our prayers.
So when we're in this position it's comforting to know that we're not alone.
I don't have a magic answer to that. Well, not magic, but I don't have
just an answer to all of that. But I do know that we're not the only ones that have experienced this
kind of dilemma in our prayer life. Where God
is asking us to pray, encouraging us to pray and we do and it doesn't seem that He's
really listening to us. Well, other people in the Bible have had the
same kind of experience. So I think it would do us well to examine someone who
had this kind of experience to see how he handled it and how God handled him.
A good example is Jeremiah - Jeremiah and Lamentations.
This is a great example of this doubt in prayer,
expressed in the book of Lamentation, written by Jeremiah.
Now, Jeremiah wrote this lament after the destruction of
Jerusalem by the Babylonian army. Let me give you just a little background here on this
particular event. So we understand what's going on.
At that particular time the southern kingdom of Judah had to pay
tribute or tax, if you wish, to the Babylonian kingdom, who were the
world power at the time. Zedekiah, the king
of Juda, at a certain point in time decided to break this agreement
with Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, and stopped paying the tribute
to throw off the yoke of taxation and just rebel against the king.
Well, of course, the Babylonians responded quickly by surrounding
Jerusalem in 588 BC for about a year and a half.
And eventually the people of the city were starved out and killed. And the
Babylonians burnt the city to the ground. And so in the book of
Lamentations, Jeremiah describes the scenes and the feelings of the
people during this particular siege. So we just read a few verses in
chapter one verse one, two, and three of this book of
Lamentation. He says, "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!
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. 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." So this is the
beginning of the lamentation concerning the destruction of
Jerusalem and its people. Then in chapter two of
Lamentation, Jeremiah describes God as the One who is actually doing
this to Jerusalem. And he uses this method simply
because he understands that God is allowing the
Babylonians to do it. And the point he is making here is he
has prayed and prayed and prayed that this not happen to the city,
to the nation, and yet it has happened anyway. So let's see what he says in
chapter two, verse one. He says, "How the Lord has covered the daughter of
Zion with a cloud in His anger! He has cast from
heaven to earth the glory of Israel, and has not remembered His footstool
in the day of His anger." And so here he is
attributing to God the end result of this. God has permitted this
terrible thing to happen. And so in this and other chapters
Jeremiah describes the terrible suffering experienced by the people. And if we
were to read through the books, we would see some of the scenes that
he describes. People dying of starvation. Mothers killing and
eating their own children - tales of
cannibalism taking place in chapter four, actually, verses nine and
10. Now he also describes his own feelings about God
because of the things that have happened in Jerusalem. This he continues
to talk about in chapter three. We don't have time in this lesson to read all about that, but he talks about the
physical suffering and the emotional trauma that he personally has
experienced. And the spiritual despair that he feels because of what has
taken place.
Now remember, Jeremiah has prayed that this not happen and
this has happened, so now he's kind of expressing his thoughts
because of the terrible tragedy that has taken place. So let's kind of
summarize here. Here you have Jeremiah, a righteous man
who has done God's will. He's a believer and he has
dedicated his life to serving the Lord. And for his trouble
his people are dying in the streets in a horrible way.
His nation is taken over by ungodly people and ultimately
destroyed. His church, or the temple, is desecrated and
his own body and emotions are put through intense suffering. And this is a
person of faith. This is a person of constant prayer. All of this is happening
to him. And all of this, as I said, taking place
contrary to the prayers that he makes. Now, in the
middle of his crisis Jeremiah rises up and he expresses his
continuous belief that despite the pit of suffering that he is in at the
moment, his god is actually a God of mercy and
love. And so we read about that in chapter three. I think you'll find the verses
familiar.
He says the following, "This I recall to my mind, therefore I have
hope. The Lord's loving kindnesses indeed never cease,
for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great
is Your Faithfulness. "The Lord is my portion," says my soul.
Therefore, I have hope in Him." Doesn't that sound like that familiar
hymn that we sing?
I will have hope in Him. Well, this is taken or that hymn is taken from
Lamentations in chapter three.
So Jeremiah, if you're looking at his situation, he was
beaten, but he wasn't broken. He was down, as we say, but he wasn't
out, because he understood three things about God and His relationship with
God in times of trouble. And that's where the lesson comes in. Remember I said we can learn
things from Jeremiah? Here's a man who suffered great despair. A man of
prayer, whose prayers weren't answered. How did he deal with that? Well, we learn
about him and his attitude about God
seemingly not hearing his prayers through his experience. Here's a couple of
things that Jeremiah understood about God.
First of all, he understood that God was sometimes silent, but He was
always present. He was silent, but he wasn't absent.
We are a generation - today we're a generation that we're used to
speed, right? Everything has got to come quickly or else we discard it.
And the reason for this is that we're subject to time. We just have so much time
to live. And so it's precious to us. Time is precious. The clock is
always ticking. That's why we're impatient. That's why we're ready to move on to something else. We don't
have - what's our saying? I don't have time for this. I don't want to waste my
time with this. That's why we want things right away. But we have to
understand, as far as time is concerned, that God is not subject to time.
He moves and accomplishes His will with perfect timing. But
He is not distracted or pressured by time like we are.
For us, everything we do has a
time element to it. We either have to move quickly or slow down or
we may be late or early. With God, He's never late, He's never early. He is not
subject to time. And because of this, because of this difference
we sometimes mistake God's silence for His absence.
People say, "Well, where was God when this happened? When I prayed for my grandchild,
who was sick, or when I prayed that our marriage survived. Where was God?"
Well, He was there.
His lack of action in our care does not necessarily
mean a lack of love for us. Even though God
seemed to be silent in answer to Jeremiah's prayer,
Jeremiah knew from God's dealings with him and the Jewish nation throughout
history, that He wasn't absent.
He was there.
So when our lives are surrounded by troubles, our bodies and spirits are
wasted by constant trials, and our prayers seem to be falling on
deaf ears - that's the hard part -
remember that God may be silent for the moment but He is still God and He
is still there.
This sentiment is expressed beautifully on a wall in Cologne,
Germany. Scrawled there during the insanity that was World War II,
and the graffiti on the wall said, 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 is silent.
Right? I like that line about, I believe in the sun even when it's not shining. There are some days
are some days you don't see the sun at all. But you know the sun is there.
You have hope that maybe tomorrow or the next day the sun will break out. In the
same way, I believe that God is there even if He's not breaking out. Even if
the clouds in my life are hiding Him from view, I don't hear Him.
He may be silent, but He's not absent. A second thing
Jeremiah understood is that
when he was beset with trouble, when Jeremiah was beset with trouble, he needed
to let God know. So many
times when we pray we offer God solutions to our
problems or we complain about our problems rather than just pouring out our
hearts before God,
with our problems. Just stating what they are and talking about how we feel
about them. Whether we're discouraged or we're uncertain or whatever it is.
Some people, they see the book of Lamentations - this book that we're basing our
lesson on today - they see this book of Lamentations as a man
whining and complaining about tragedy. But the
book of Lamentations is the work of a man pouring out his heart and soul
before God, in times of trouble. He's not holding anything back.
If he's angry he's saying, I'm angry about this situation, or this is a terrible situation, or
this is unjust, over here, or I'm becoming impatient in waiting for you God
and so on and so forth. He's not telling God what to do. He's telling God how
he feels.
There is a difference.
Human beings need to experience grief when trouble comes,
we know that. The five stages of grief - denial -
we need to go through the grieving process. And part of
that experience is the pouring out of our heart and souls
of the pain and the frustration and anger and fear that is generated
by the tragedy that we are experiencing. Peter says, in
first Peter, chapter five, verse seven, he says, well, the whole verse says, "Humble yourselves,
therefore, under the mighty hand of God that He may exalt you at the proper time," and the key
point here, "Casting all your anxiety upon Him, because
He cares for you." See all of
Jeremiah's weeping and review of his problems before God,
that didn't change the situation. But it did change
Jeremiah. You see the importance difference there?
Once Jeremiah got the hurt
out, he was able to relate to his God once again.
He was able to get perspective again. He was able to hope again,
for a better tomorrow.
You've got to get the hurt out, in order to get the hope in. That's
the problem. When we go through tragedy or trials, troubles,
whatever, the big problem is, those things fill us up
with grief. Fill us up with resentment and anger. We're so full,
we have no room for hope.
We have no strength for patience.
So it's important to get that stuff out in prayer. Just to lay it out in prayer.
To empty it out.
So that there will be room for hope. There will be room for
patience.
There'll be room for perseverance.
That's the spiritual work that needs to take place when we
go through difficult times.
And all of our prayers are not changing the situation.
Because it might just be that God is not interested in changing the situation. He's interested in
changing you. So when we hurt,
we need to let God know.
As I said, part of the healing comes from the action of emptying ourselves of the
details and feelings associated with our problem, and pouring them forth
before God, who loves us and who will have mercy on us.
All right. Another thing Jeremiah understood was that
God had a purpose. This is so important, this idea of
understanding and accepting that God has a purpose.
The people of Judah were being - at the time, when this attack took
place - the people of Judah were being polluted by idols and corruption and
they were drifting away from God because of these things.
This drifting away was jeopardizing God's overall plan of
bringing the Messiah to the world through these Jewish people.
If they continued in their idolatry and sinfulness, they would abandon the word
of God. They would ultimately abandon the temple worship that was so
necessary to give meaning to the work of the Savior when He would come.
And this was jeopardizing the plan of God to save us and them, of
course.
And so, the destruction of the Jewish people and the
exile that they suffered - they were sent to Babylon, they were carried off to Babylon
for seventy years.
This terrible thing, seen in perspective, accomplished
several very important things in God's plan.
First of all, it preserved a small group
of Jews who remained faithful and were purified through their trials
in exile.
Yes, a small group left. And while they were there, they became strong in their
faith and they did away with idols, and so on and so forth. So that they could be sent back to
Jerusalem to rebuild the temple, to start life over again.
God takes a remnant and then He plants it over
again. Secondly, it was during the time of the exile that
the synagogue system began. And it served the Jewish people so
well as they traveled and settled in various foreign nations later on.
At the time of the Babylonian captivity and
attack and so on and so forth, people went to Jerusalem to
pray, to offer sacrifice. Their whole religion was centered
at the Temple in Jerusalem. When the city was destroyed
and the temple was destroyed, the people carried off into exile, they still had faith.
They still had access to the word of God. They still wanted
to pray. And so they began meeting - what do
you think they did - they began meeting in homes. They began meeting in places. because they
They couldn't offer a sacrifice, they couldn't go to the Temple, it wasn't there. And so
the synagogue, right, the place of prayer began to
develop while they were in exile. And when they returned to
Jerusalem they brought back this idea of the synagogue and began
establishing these in all of the villages and cities
in and around Jerusalem. And then of course, later, as they
moved, as they spread out, as Jews went from place to place throughout the
empire of Rome, they established these
synagogues wherever they went. Well this idea of establishing the
synagogue only took place
while they were in captivity. It was the something that was born of necessity.
They didn't need it when the temple was there. But then they needed it when they were in exile.
And it was this network of foreign synagogues that Paul used to establish the
first churches in the Roman Empire
six centuries later. That was part of God's plan.
And then another thing that took place because of their exile, the
Jewish people never again went into idolatry
after this exile. This punishment taught them a lesson that they would
never forget.
And so Paul says that, "God causes all things to work together for
good to those who love God, to those who are called according
to His purpose." Romans eight, verse 28.
The suffering that Jeremiah witnessed and felt was used
by God to accomplish His purpose. And in this we get a better understanding
of what Paul is talking about in Romans chapter eight, verse 28. So let's
dissect this verse here a little bit. First of all,
God uses - what does Paul say, "All things for His purpose."
All things. That includes the good and the bad.
God uses the good and the bad in my life for His
purposes. Not just the good, but the good and the bad. Secondly,
He uses them for His purpose not our purpose. And this
is the part that's difficult to understand, many times. We become discouraged
because we cannot see the why and the wherefore of our suffering at
times. And why? Because God isn't explaining it to us.
But who said that God was using the events that
cause us hurt, to serve us?
The Bible says that He uses all things for His purpose.
And His purpose may not include us at the moment.
You see, the Jews who suffered the loss of home and family and died in exile,
did not know that their pain would serve others down the road.
But it did. It served others six centuries
later.
If they tried to understand, how is God using this - how is meeting in homes and
praying - how is that any better than meeting at the glorious, fabulous
temple with the priests and the ceremonies? How is that any better?
What is God thinking?
And of course, His ways are much higher than our ways. We can't understand what He is thinking.
We however, today, from hindsight - Oh that makes a lot of sense.
And so it's very important to remember that God may be using things in our
lives not to serve us, but to serve somebody we don't know, or for
a purpose at a time long after we're gone.
So all things are used for
His purpose. Right?
And in His good time. We want His purpose to serve
us and we want it to serve us right away, so we can connect the dots.
But God uses something in one century to serve the good of another in another
century or another place or another language. Walking by
faith requires us to endure the trials in our lives even when we
don't see how and for whom God will use these
things.
What does the writer say in Psalm 56, verse eight, that's there on the screen,
"Thou has taken account of my wanderings; put my tears in a bottle.
Are they not in thy book?"
It should be enough that we know that God has His plan and that
He weaves every event - good or bad -
He weaves every event into His plan, for His
glory, and for our ultimate good. Our ultimate
good. What is our ultimate good? Our ultimate good is our salvation.
He's weaving things according to His plan, not to make us rich or famous, or comfortable or
secure here in this world.
He's weaving everything into His plan to make sure that we are saved and we
stay saved.
That's His end game.
We often say, all things work for good - Oh wow, I found a new car. Well that's good for
good for you. But God's ultimate plan is not for you to get a good deal on a new car
God's ultimate plan is for you to go to heaven.
That's His ultimate plan. And everything is working towards that end.
So when my life seems to be out of control, when my hopes
are in ashes, when my nights - never ending. It is comforting to
realize that my life is not wasted.
God can and will fit it into His purpose. Doesn't the
Psalmist say, "My tears are in His bottle."
It's another way of saying that all my sufferings -
He's aware of. And all my sufferings are in His
book, so He knows. He may be silent,
but He knows. And He does care.
When I do a grief support class - we've done those
here several times, grief support, support those who are grieving. I always
tell my group, don't be surprised when trouble comes.
I mean it always comes. You just never know when it comes. We're always surprised by
trouble. Right? But we shouldn't be surprised for the fact
that trouble enters our life.
I mean we're human. We live in a sinful, imperfect world. We're bound to run into trouble at some point or
another. Sometimes, however, when trouble comes and it seems that
all that you've heard and learned about God does not ring true
because your trouble seems, for the moment, greater than your God.
When you're overwhelmed with your trouble, that your trouble overwhelms your
prayers, overwhelms your faith, try to remember a couple of
things.
First of all remember, don't mistake God's silence,
for His lack of love. Remember what we said, God is sometimes
silent but He is never absent.
So we shouldn't mistake His silence for lack of love or concern or His ability
to act.
Number two, when we are overwhelmed remember, you need to unburden
your heart before God
if you are to heal. It's part of the healing process.
Not telling Him what to do or laying out options that you'd like happen.
Just simply put the troubles, and how you feel about the
troubles, and how you are discouraged, and so on and so forth -
put that before Him. Sometimes we can't
fix what's broken or done. But fervent prayer to God is always a
medicine to the heart. Remember, that the hurt has to go out before the hope comes
comes in - very important thing.
And then thirdly, remember that God has a
purpose. Now it's not so much that God has a purpose
for your life, but that God has an overall purpose and
your life will fit into His purpose, if you offer it to Him in faith.
A lot of times we're saying to God, "What's your plan for my life?"
Instead of saying, "What's your plan for my life?" The question should be,
"How can my life, Lord, serve your plan?"
Less self-centered, more God centered.
Not, "What is your plan for my life?", but, "How can
my life serve your plan?"
And you get more answers, making that particular prayer. So
I do encourage you to keep trusting in God. Keep praying to God.
Even if you can't hear or see Him working in your life. Consciously
offer the life that you do have, in whatever shape it's in, to God
for His purposes. One last thing to remember, very important,
God does not expect a perfect life from us. He's already received one
from Jesus Christ. He simply wants your life, in whatever
condition it's in, so He can use it in the way that He sees fit.
And we can be absolutely sure in the end that His
plan will be completed.
And when His plan is completed, those who are faithful to Him will
have joy and have eternal life.
So let's take courage in the fact that our lives are fitting
into God's plan no matter what type of difficulties that we're facing.
So that's our lesson on The God Who Listens. Next time we get
together we'll do lesson number five. It will be the final lesson in this series. I thank
you for your attention.