Good morning. If you will take your Bibles and turn with me to the book of Lamentations. We're going to take a little bit of a break from 1 Thessalonians to look at a passage in Lamentations chapter 2. Our Scripture reading this morning was from Romans chapter 10. It's at one and the same time one of the most comforting chapters and one of the most terrifying chapters. The Lord is near. We don't have to go to heaven to drag Him down here. But with confession, we can have Him. With confession, we can be saved. And yet, He concludes that chapter with the dreadful reality that many hear. He stretches out His hand to many and yet they will not come and will not hear. And that's some of what we see in our verse this morning in Lamentations. Just to give you a little background, Jeremiah, the prophet you know, prophesied for many, many years, calling out to the people of God. After many generations of wandering away from God, he's calling to them over and over again to come, repent, and truly worship the Almighty. And they reject Him, and they reject the Lord, and the Lord brings judgment. And in the book of Lamentations, Jeremiah is now weeping over the judgment that comes. And so that's what I want to speak to you about this morning, about a most serious subject. I want to speak to you about the awful and dreadful condition of mankind who receives the offers of the gospel of Jesus Christ. hardens their heart and refuses to come. Our text is the last part of chapter 2 and verse 13. Lamentations 2, the very end of verse 13 you see, for your ruin is spread wide as the sea, who can heal you? For your ruin is spread wide as the sea, who can heal you? Oh, God, we thank you for the call of the Lord Jesus Christ to salvation. We thank you for the reality of the gospel. We thank you for the life and death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we thank you that the word is near to us. And that you are faithful to save all who call upon you. And we confess to you that our hearts by nature are hardened and refuse to hear your call. And so we ask this morning, with all sincerity, that your Holy Spirit would come and unstop our ears and soften our hearts, give us new hearts, that we may respond to your call and come to you as you have desired. In Christ's name we pray, amen. Most people give little thought to what an awful condition they are in because of sin. Hardly giving any thought to the danger that they're in. And fewer still give any thought to how they may be delivered from such an awful condition and an awful state. I suppose if you were to do a man-on-the-street type interview, most people would say that they're not in so bad a shape and so bad an estate and so bad a condition, but that with a little help and a little religion and maybe a little civic goodness, everything will be okay in the end. I'm not really so bad. There are things that aren't exactly as they should be. But they're not so bad that with a little help, everything will be okay. No great calamity. No great punishment will affect me. That in the end, we will escape the searching eye of Almighty God. That somehow my goodness will outweigh all that's wrong with me. And God will take it easy on me. that in the end he'll turn a blind eye to our sin and overlook our transgressions. You might hear answers from those man on the street interviews like, God is like a gentle and kind grandfather. He sees no wrong. He indulges the sins of his creation. God, they may say, will not deal with us in anger and wrath. After all, everyone knows God is love. So we'll be okay in the end. There's no real need or urgency to deal with the sin in our life. But what I want to tell you this morning is that all those who have not dealt with sin, even the least sin in a biblical manner, are in a most dreadful condition, a most dangerous place, a most deadly estate. wallowing in sin and covered in the filth of sin, you are in a very dangerous place. Now I know as I speak to you this morning that you're not as bad as some other folks. And I know that you're not as bad as you could be. I know that many of you do many, many good things. And many of you are kind and loving towards your neighbor friends and co-workers. I understand that. I understand that you're not as bad as you could be and you're not as bad as others that you know. My point is not to say that you are the most evil or that you don't do some good. What I want to tell you this morning is that the least sin, the smallest sin, creates a great breach between you and God. It creates a gulf that is unspannable. It creates a distance between you and God that no mere man could walk across. Notice what our text says at the end of verse 13. Your ruin, he says, is spread wide as the sea. It's a huge gulf between you and God when you have sin undealt with in your life. And so the first thing I want us to see this morning is It is your ruin. It is your ruin. God lays the blame squarely on your shoulders. God places the blame for your sin upon your back. It is your ruin. You are responsible. You are to blame. It is your guilt and it is your shame. And this is not insignificant in the passage. The nation of Israel for many, many, many generations had had a pattern of walking in sin, forgetting God, going to the nations, seeking prosperity in the world and from the surrounding cultures. Their fathers and grandfathers had committed the same sins of idolatry. In the very foundation of the nation, they had gone astray. with the golden calf. For generations, they had had this pattern of forgetting God, ignoring God, and seeking help elsewhere, that they had always, all their whole existence conformed to the culture around them. And so we might be tempted to think at this point, surely God will go easy on them. They had learned it in their homes and in their families. Their grandfathers and great grandfathers had all done this. This was the pattern of their life. This is my family. This is what my family does. This is who we are. Surely God would say, you're not to blame. You've learned it in the home. You've not known anything else. Some of you may be tempted to think that God will overlook your sins simply because you learned this pattern of behavior as children. Because your father was a wretch, therefore God will take it easy on you. because somehow you inherited certain sinful patterns and sinful ways of life because you were surrounded by bad examples. Maybe God will take it easy on you. You may be tempted to minimize your guilt because after all, it's all you've ever known. This is how my family has always been. As far back as I can remember, I've never known anything else but whatever those family sins are. But that's not what we find in the text. That's not the God that we find in the text. God says, this is your ruin. This is your fault. I'm pointing my finger at you. This is on you. You cannot point to your fathers. You cannot point to the founding of your family. You cannot look at any of those things. This is on you. You may not look back at your parents. You may not blame it on the way that you were taught. You may not lay the blame on the surrounding culture and the pattern of the world today and all the media and information that comes for your sins. He says, it is your ruin. It's yours. Jeremiah had told them as much in Jeremiah chapter 31, saying to them, in those days they shall say no more. The father shall have eaten a sour grape and the children's teeth are set on edge, but everyone shall die for his own iniquity. It's your sin. It's your ruin. It's your guilt. Friend, that day that Jeremiah prophesied has come. We live in it. And it is no excuse that you had a bad childhood or that you learned these sins from others, that you didn't have good examples, that you weren't taught better than you were taught. God this morning is pointing to you personally, looking at you and saying, this is your ruin. It is your sin. You are guilty of it and you bear the weight of it. It is no one else's fault but your own. whatever example they may have had and whatever their history as a nation was. For however many generations this sinful pattern had continued in their life and in their family. They themselves chose to continue in this way of life. They made a choice to continually reject the call of God. They made a choice to continually forget God and walk away from God. It may be a fact. It may be a true fact. And it may be a great struggle that you never had a better example. That all around you, all you had were bad examples. It may be true that you learned these behaviors from the womb. But it is also true that you choose to continue in them this day. That your DNA does not force you to be a continuing sinner. Your past does not force you to continue in that way. If you continue in sin, it is your choice, and therefore it is your ruin. When you sin, you make a choice to do it. You choose it. And therefore God holds you guilty and points His finger and says, this is your ruin. It's also their ruin because they had refused so many offers of grace from God. Jeremiah had appealed to them over and over and over again to turn from their wicked ways and return to God, to love God, and to be reunited with God. And yet they refused to listen. They refused to hear. They refused to believe the message that Jeremiah proclaimed. He told them over and over and over again, you live in a city of destruction. Destruction is coming. And they refused to believe it. Listen to what Jeremiah tells them in chapter 7 of Jeremiah. I spoke to you rising up early and speaking." This is God Himself speaking through Jeremiah. I spoke to you rising up early and speaking, but you did not hear. And I called to you, but you did not answer. And again He says, They did not obey or incline their ear, but followed the counsels and dictates of their evil hearts, and went backwards and not forwards. I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them. Yet they did not obey me or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck and did worse than their fathers." It was their ruin. And if we refuse to deal with our sin, if we refuse to heed the call of God, it is our ruin. It is your ruin. My friend, there's no one else to blame. When you stand before God, you may not look around for someone else to point the finger at. You may not blame another. It is your ruin because you have continued in it. It is your ruin because God has called you. Some of you, many, many times, God has called to in the Gospel, and you've refused to heed the call. It's your ruin. Some of you have sat in this very place and heard God calling to you and have refused to come. It is your ruin. You have stiffened your neck and resisted His call. How long and how persistent will you be in refusing to come to heed the call of God when He talks to you, speaks to you, drawing you to Himself? And will you then blame others? Will you then look around to say, well, it was my daddy's fault. This is how he lived. This is what he taught me. Friend, God calls you. And he's putting his finger on your sin. And he's drawing you to himself. And it's not daddy's fault if you refuse that call. It's your ruin, it's your sin, it's your guilt. Notice, secondly, the severity of this ruin that is yours. It is spread wide as the sea. It is a great gulf. Simply put, the distance between The people here in Lamentation and God was a gulf that no man could span. It was an incurable breach on their part. They were hopeless in themselves to fix this problem. The gulf was so large they could not span it, like standing on the seashore of the Pacific Ocean and unable to see a way across. The ruin was spread as wide as the sea. It is a great gulf between them and God. It is a breach like no other. There's nothing comparable to it. That's what He's teaching them in the passage when He asked them, to what shall I liken you? Or what shall I compare with you? What is like this ruin of yours? What other people have had so many a call of the Gospel and have refused and continue in their sins? There's no ruin like this ruin. There's no other calamity. There's no other catastrophe that can be compared to this distance between you and God. There's nothing like it in all the world. Not cancer. Not stage five cancer. Not the loss of a spouse. The loss of a child. Great though those losses are. There is no calamity and no ruin like the ruin of being separated from the Almighty. Your ruin is spread wide as the sea, he says. What could I compare to the danger that you are in? What is comparable to such a catastrophe that you find yourself in? The distance between you and God is so great that it cannot be healed by religious observance. Verse 14 tells us that these people had not completely thrown off religion. Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions. They gave heed to the prophets. They listened to what the false prophets said. They went through the outward motions. All the outward aspects of religion were in place. They had not become irreligious. They were not atheists. They were not pagans. They were all still going through the motions. Jeremiah 7 tells us again that they were quick to say things like, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these. They took pride in their temple. They took pride in the place where God put His name. They still used His name. They still used religious speech. Jeremiah 7 goes on to say, they still, God says, come and stand before Me in this house which is called by My name. They were religious. They delighted in all the religious services. They went to the house of God. They stood in that place before God, in the place that was called by God's name, and they thought that that was enough to heal the breach. They thought that that would span the gulf between them and God. That if we can just go through the motions, take pride in the temple, use religious speech, show up at His house in the place where His name is, therefore, we'll be okay. In the end, it'll all work out. There'll be no great calamity to us. But you remember what God had said through Amos the prophet. Though you offer me burnt offerings and your grain offerings, I'll not accept them, nor will I regard your fatted peace offerings. Take away from me the noise of your songs, for I will not hear the melody of your streamed instruments. He had had enough of their outward devotions. Their ruin was so great that a little religious observance, a lot of religious observance, could not span the gulf between them and God. What Jeremiah is telling us is that religion cannot fix your ruin. It is wide as the sea. No stringed instruments, no songs, no amount of devotions, no amount of using religious speech could heal the breach. It is too great a breach for that. They had sought to heal the breach through the false counsel of the false prophets. Verse 14, the prophets see false and deceptive visions for them. They don't speak the truth to them. They don't uncover their sins. And very often when we find ourselves at odds with God, we go to friends. We think friends who we know will tell us all the right things. You're okay. You're not perfect, but you're not bad. You're justified in this. Whatever sin it may be, we look for false counsel. That's what they did. We think we're being so spiritual. Oh, I'm receiving counsel. I want to hear. And yet we selectively choose that counsel to tell us what we wanted to hear in the first place. We cannot heal the breach because so many of our friends tell us that you're right and everything's OK. Be careful who you listen to. Be careful that you do not surround yourselves with people who will not uncover your sins and tell you the truth. Thirdly, it's your ruin. It's a great ruin. Listen carefully. If undealt with, it results in a shocking, severe, and complete judgment. That's what's at stake as we speak this morning. The ruin that Jeremiah tells us about in Lamentations was far worse than he was prepared for. Jeremiah, a true prophet of God. Jeremiah, who had prophesied about this judgment for years and years and years and had written it down in his book. He had a knowledge of it from God. He didn't make light of it. He took it serious. He proclaimed this judgment with tears in his eyes to the people over and over and over again. And yet for all of that, and all that he knew about it, when it came, he sickened, and shocked, and dismayed at the reality of it. He wasn't prepared for it. Whatever his idea of it was, a true God-given idea, It was far more than he ever could have imagined. And I don't know what your ideas of judgment are. I don't know what your ideas of the final day will be. I don't know what you picture it as when you stand before God, what will happen. But when judgment comes, it will be far worse than you have ever imagined. Jeremiah lost control of his bowels, he said. My bowels ran out on the ground. I was sick in the virgins, he says, and the young men hung their head in shame and wouldn't speak a word. I don't know what defense you have in mind for that day when you stand before God. I don't know what you think you'll say as you lay on your bed and ponder these things, but I'm telling you, you won't speak a word. It'll be worse than you can imagine. Jeremiah was unprepared for the severity of it. He came undone. He was sickened by it. He tells us in verse 1, that the Lord had covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud of His anger. God was thick about them in anger and wrath and judgment. God, their Creator, God, their Redeemer, who had brought them out of Egypt, God who had formed them into a nation, God who had blessed them over and over and over again, was now their enemy. God was now pouring out His wrath. God was now bringing them down to destruction. Verse two, he says, the Lord has swallowed up and has not pitied all the dwelling places of Jacob. He has thrown down in his wrath. The God who had pitied them in the wilderness and carried them like a father carries his children, he says, was now without pity for them. He was against them. He was an enemy. Notice that verse four describes him this way. Standing like an enemy, he has bent his bow. With his right hand, like an adversary, he has slain all who are pleasing to his eye. On the ten of the daughter of Zion, he has poured out his fury like fire. The Lord was no mere spectator sitting back watching the destruction that the other nations brought upon His children. He was the active party. He was the one moving. He was the one pouring out His wrath. And it was shocking. And Jeremiah was completely unraveled by it. They had thought a little worship in the temple might spare them in the end. And now they were face to face with the reality that they were wrong. And they had nothing to say. And God was standing against them with his bow drawn. And what I've come to tell you this morning is that there's a day of judgment appointed for each one of us. And if we have not dealt with our sin biblically, it will be far worse than you can imagine. And no amount of religious devotions will spare you. No amount of knowledge of the Scripture, no amount of good that you've done in your life will bring about any reprieve, any relief. God will be there as an enemy, and He will have no pity in that day. God will remove all His grace, and He will stand in fury And those who have refused his call will suffer unimaginable torments. It is a great ruin. It will be thorough and complete. No one will escape unnoticed. God will not miss you in the crowd. God will not overlook you in the crush of people. Young people, listen. You may be tempted to think that because you are young, therefore God will take it easy on you. Or because you are young, therefore you have no responsibility here at this point. That somehow this is for your parents and maybe one day it will matter to you. That somehow because you are young and in church, God will take it easy on you. But notice verse 11. The children and infants faint in the streets of the city. It's complete. It's total. Verse 12, their life is poured out in their mother's bosom. As they draw nourishing milk from their mother's breast, their life fades out of their hands. Verse 21, young and old lie on the ground in the streets. My virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword. You have slain them in the day of your anger. You have slaughtered and not pitied. It matters not if you're young or old. What matters is, what have you done with your sin? And that day he will slay and not have pity, because it is a horrific, a complete, and a thorough, and shocking judgment. And this ought to produce horror and dread in every one of us, that the Almighty could be provoked to such wrath through our lack of repentance, choosing our sin, rejecting his offers, not believing his pleas to come to him and receive mercy. But we must turn our attention to the question at the end of the verse. Who can heal you? For your ruin is spread wide as the sea. Who can heal you? That may at first seem a terrifying question, a rhetorical question. There's no one that can heal. And yet, it's a wonderful question, really. because it causes us to keep searching until we find the one that can heal. Your ruin is wide as the sea. Who can heal you? Where is there hope found? We've seen already that men and women that seek to soothe us with comforting words, they cannot heal us. False teachers and preachers, they cannot heal us. Religious devotions, they cannot heal us. Mothers and fathers cannot heal us. They could not spare their children, even as they drew them into their breast to love and care for them, their very life faded away. So the question is, who can heal us? If mothers and fathers can't heal us, that have the greatest drive and desire to heal us, if they can't heal us, who can heal us? Who then is left? You see, it's a wonderful question, because it's meant to make us look outside of ourselves. is meant to make us look away from all these things that had failed them. It's meant to cause them and it's meant to cause us to look up to God, to look up to Jesus Christ. It's a wonderful question because it's a question that must lead us to Jesus Christ Himself. Look at verse 19. Jeremiah says, arise, cry out in the night at the beginning of the watches, pour out your heart like water before the Lord, lift your hands towards him. Jeremiah has just said this God is your enemy. He's got his bow drawn. He's casting arrows of fury at you now. Pour out your heart to Him. Lift up your hands to Him. What is the answer to the question, who can heal you? Jeremiah says it's God only. It's the Lord Jesus Christ alone. You can't look to any of these other things. They've all failed you up until this point. Now that the judgment has come, there's only one place to look, Jeremiah says. Look out of yourself. Look out of your family. Look out of the nations, away from the nations around you. Look away from the temple that you take so much pride, and look at the God whose name is there. In the face of such dreadful judgment, such an awful punishment, you have two choices. You can seek to hide from God in various ways, Or you can run to God seeking mercy. That's your two choices. You can be like Adam and Eve and seek to cover yourself in fig leaves of religion and all of those things. You can hide yourself amongst the trees, amongst all the people and hope that God will pass you by and miss you and not notice you. Or you can run to God. God didn't miss Adam and Eve. He drew them out. He put his finger on the problem. When Adam pointed the blame at Eve, the sentence still came upon Adam. God in His great mercy calls you yet again this morning to come to Him with the realization that He has slaughtered His sacrifice, that He might take away those fig leaves, that He might put upon you garments of righteousness, that you might be covered in the very righteousness of Jesus Christ. He calls you again this morning. What will you do with the call? You have two choices, run and hide or run to him seeking mercy. You may be asking, why? Why in the world would I run to a God who is standing like an enemy with His bow drawn, pointing at me? Why would I run there? That's not a safe place. And I want to answer it this way. Because though He is your enemy if you are outside of Christ, though His bow is drawn and though judgment is coming, He does not desire to be your enemy. He takes no pleasure in being your enemy. Look at chapter 3, verse 31 and following. It's a most wonderful passage. For the Lord will not cast off forever. Though He causes grief, yet He will show compassion according to the multitude of His mercies. For He does not afflict willingly. His justice requires that He deal with your sin. but he takes no pleasure in your judgment. Why should you run to the one that judges you in this way? because he doesn't take pleasure in judgment. God tells us in Ezekiel 33 these words, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked should turn from his ways and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways, for why should you die? That's God speaking. I have no pleasure in being your enemy. I have no pleasure in your destruction. God desires to be a friend and to be a savior. Why should you come to this God? Because Lamentations 3.25 says, The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to those who seek Him. If you come to Him, He'll put down the bow, He'll put down the arrows, and He'll be good to you. He'll be a friend to you. He'll be a Savior to you. He is an unwilling enemy. He does not desire your destruction. He desires that you turn to Him. And when you turn to Him, you'll find Him to be a great friend and a great Savior. One who is ready to drop all His weapons against you and welcome you into His arms. This is the God that Lamentations tells us about. The God that pours out His fury without pity is the God who readily, quickly puts down those weapons and gathers you in as a flock around Him. But you may be asking, how do I come to Him? How do I do that? How does one make up the breach? In the first place, you must come just like you are. With all your filth, with all your sin, with all your transgressions, with all those times you have rejected His call, you've come just like you are. Jesus came to save sinners, dirty and filthy with the world and polluted. You must not delay coming until you fix things in your life. I put in the worship sheet a section on the city of destruction, and at the end of that little paragraph, little Christian desires to go to the celestial city. But he noticed, he says, I had played so long that my clothes were a little threadbare and shabby, and I didn't think that they would hold together on the way to the celestial city, so he sat down and cried. The king has better clothes. You don't have to fix your clothes. You don't have to fix your sins. You don't have to clean yourself up. You come. How do you come to this God? You come as you are, in all your ragged clothes, in all your filth, in all your sins. Acknowledge your sins. Don't try to hide them or cover them or make less of them. Jeremiah says in chapter 3 verse 40, let us search out and examine our ways and turn back to the Lord. In other words, let us make them known. Let's find them out and get them out into the open. Let's tell them to God. Here is what I am. This is all that I am. And all that I have to bring to You are these filthy sins. And that's how I'm coming. Get all your sins out in the open before God. Confess to Him. Not only that you have sinned, but that you are a sinner. God lays all the blame on you, as we saw earlier. Confess your sins that way, saying, God, it's not daddy's fault. It's not the culture's fault. I am what I am because I choose to be this way. This is what I am. These are my sins. This is my ruin. How do you come? How then do you come to this God? Come. in the hope and expectation of receiving mercy. With faith, believe that God will be merciful to you as He promised. Verse 26 says, it is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. Remember as you come what chapter 3 verse 22 says, it is through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed. His compassions fail not. You come in the hope and expectation of mercy because there truly is mercy for you. It's not a wish. It's a sure, certain hope of mercy. He's promised it. He can't do otherwise. If you come to Him, there's mercy for you. To refuse to come is to call Him a liar. It's to not believe Him. It's to again, pump your fist at Him and say, I think you're deceiving me. God is not a liar. He has said He will be merciful to you if you come. So you must come with the certainty and expectation of receiving that mercy. His mercies, chapter 3 says, are new every morning. Great is His faithfulness. We sang it. That's in this context. That comes from Lamentation chapter 3. That hymn was written based upon this passage. Great is His faithfulness. Every day there's new mercy. His mercy is not depleted. He is not short of mercy. And you may have it. Be sure of this. And come in the expectation of it. Do not stand back. Do not delay. Do not say in your heart, well, I'm sure that that's true for other people. I'm sure there's mercy for someone else. I'm sure there's others who aren't quite so bad that they can get mercy. Again, don't call God a liar. The mercy is for you. It's for you. The Lord is my portion, says my soul. Therefore, I hope in Him. Our ruin is great. It's as wide as the sea. No mere man could ever have spanned the gulf between us and God. But the Lord Jesus Christ, by His righteous life, His death, His resurrection on the third day, has spanned the breach. He's made a bridge back to the Almighty. He's made it possible for God to be our friend, to put down the weapons of judgment. And in this Lord Jesus Christ, there is abundant mercy for every last one of you. By Him you may come. By Him you may confess your sins. By Him you may be assured that God will receive you, forgive you, and welcome you. And God will clothe you with His very righteousness. Who can heal you? The Lord Jesus Christ alone. Let's pray.