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Providence in the Valley of Grief: The Compassion of God · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reformed Thinking. I'm your host and joined by our
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  resident expert. We are about to begin today's
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  deep dive. Hey there, it is great to be
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  here for this one. Yeah, so imagine a mother,
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  right? A mother driven totally mad by
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  starvation, looking at her own child, not with love, but well
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  as her next meal. Oh wow, that is a horrifying
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  image. It is.
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  And the crazy thing is, that isn't a scene from some
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  dystopian horror movie. That was the literal, grim
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  historical reality of Jerusalem back in 586 BC.
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  Right. It is historical fact.
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  And today we are asking what is probably the hardest question in
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  human history? What do you do when the hand
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  that orchestrated that horror is God's hand?
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  Yeah, that is a heavy, heavy quote.
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  We are speaking directly to you right now, the listener, because
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  every single person listening to this conversation faces seasons
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  of intense suffering and sorrow. Absolutely.
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  Those seasons come for all of us and, you know, often without any
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  warning at all. Right, so the goal for this deep
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  dive is discovering how a strictly biblical view of divine
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  Providence offers actual, genuine comfort during those
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  moments of tragedy. Today we are focusing on the
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  Book of Lamentations. Specifically, we are looking at
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  chapter 3, verses 31 through 33. And the sources we are working
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  from today are two very weighty theological texts.
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  They analyze the intersection of God's absolute sovereignty and
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  His infinite compassion. Our mission here is really
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  clear. We are going to look at the hard
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  truth that God meticulously ordains both prosperity and
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  calamity. Right.
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  And we want to understand why these sources argue this is the
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  greatest hope a suffering person can possess.
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  Yeah, it sounds backward at first, but it makes sense when
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  you dig into it. Let me give.
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  You an analogy. Think of a master surgeon.
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  A master surgeon causes very real calculated pain.
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  Right. For sure, when they make an
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  incision with a scalpel they're inflicting real trauma on the
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  body. Right.
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  They're cutting through flesh and muscle, but they do not do
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  this out of malice or cruelty. No, of course not.
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  They 'cause that specific pain because it is the necessary
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  requirement for healing. It is how they save the
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  patient's life. Spot on.
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  The text we are studying today argue that God operates with
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  that kind of meticulous, purposeful sovereignty.
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  That surgeon analogy hits the core tension of our sources
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  perfectly. We are dealing with material
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  that really refuses to soften the blow of reality.
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  So let's talk about that reality.
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  The shattered city of Jerusalem in 586 BC is the historical
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  backdrop for Lamentations. Yeah, this is not some armchair
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  philosophy or theoretical debate happening in a pristine
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  classroom. We are looking at a gritty,
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  truly terrifying situation. The sources detail the
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  Babylonian siege of Jerusalem, and they provide gruesome
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  specifics to show the scale of the devastation.
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  Right we were when talking about severe drawn out starvation.
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  To understand ancient siege warfare, you have to realize the
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  psychological terror involved. It wasn't just a quick battle,
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  was it? Not at all.
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  The Babylonians did not just attack the walls with battering
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  Rams, they build a massive rampart of dirt around the
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  entire city. Wow, just walling them in.
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  Yeah, cutting off all supply lines, all food, all water.
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  They sat outside the walls and waited for months, sometimes
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  years. So they just let starvation do
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  the brutal work for them. Precisely the text describe the
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  aristocratic classes, people who are used to immense wealth and
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  fine clothing, literally searching dung heaps for scraps
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  of food. That is just stomach turning and
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  we read that terrifying account in Lamentations chapter 2, verse
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  20. Yeah, where mothers were
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  cannibalizing their own children just to survive the famine
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  caused by the siege. And Solomon's temple was
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  completely defiled, right? The absolute center of their
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  worship and national identity. Yes, completely defiled by Pagan
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  soldiers and burned to the ground, and King Zedekiah was
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  captured attempting to flee in the night.
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  The text mentions what they did to him, which is just barbaric.
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  The Babylonians slaughtered his sons right in front of him, and
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  then they gouged his eyes out before he was hauled away to
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  Babylon in bronze fetters. So the last thing King Zedekiah
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  ever saw was the murder of his own children.
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  Yeah, this is the context of Lamentations.
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  It speaks from ashes, hunger, exile, bereavement and intense
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  shame. When we look at that level of
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  horror, we really have to ask about the geopolitical context
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  text. Let's zoom out a bit, OK?
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  Let's look at the map at that time.
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  Judah was this tiny Kingdom caught between the massive
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  superpowers of the ancient world.
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  You had a Syria declining and Egypt maneuvering for dominance
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  in the South. And then you had Battle on
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  Rising is the new military juggernaut up in the north.
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  Right. And Judah, instead of relying on
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  the covenant they had with Yahweh, chose pragmatic
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  political alliances. Yeah, they played the
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  superpowers against each other. And the texts point out that the
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  weeping prophet Jeremiah spent 40 years warning them about
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  this. 40 years he preached against their idolatry, their
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  injustice and their false confidence, but they just
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  ignored him. They listened to false prophets
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  who promised peace instead. So let me push back here on
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  behalf of the listener for a second.
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  Sure, go ahead. If Babylon was simply the rising
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  military superpower of antiquity, equipped with all
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  these advanced siege tactics, wasn't Judah's destruction just
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  bad geopolitical luck? I see where you were go.
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  Right, like couldn't we just say they failed at ancient diplomacy
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  and got crushed by a bigger army?
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  I mean, history is full of small nations being swallowed up by
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  empires. Yeah, that makes sense from a
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  human perspective. So why do we have to bring God's
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  decree into the geopolitical maneuvering of a guy like
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  Nebuchadnezzar? Well, that is the secular
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  conclusion our sources argue against.
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  A purely historical reading would look at Assyria, Egypt and
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  Babylon and conclude that Judah was just crushed by the wheels
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  of geopolitical misfortune. Because the Babylonians had
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  superior military technology, right?
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  Exactly. Better logistics.
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  A massive standing army. From a human perspective, Judah
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  made a terrible miscalculation by siding with Egypt and
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  rebelling against Babylon. But the texts bring in a massive
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  theological corrective here. They do.
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  They refer to Isaiah chapter 10 verse 15.
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  It describes the military war machine of the enemy as nothing
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  more than an axe in the hand of the divine woodsman.
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  Wow, an axe in the hand of the woodsman.
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  Yeah, Nebuchadnezzar might have thought he was conquering by his
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  own might, but he was literally just the instrument God used to
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  execute his decree. The sources argue that that God
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  was executing the precise covenant curses laid out
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  centuries earlier. This goes all the way back to
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  Deuteronomy chapter 28. Right.
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  Moses had told the people that if they persisted in rebellion,
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  they would face siege, famine and unspeakable distress.
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  Even to the point of eating their own offspring.
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  Moses warned them about that specific horror.
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  You did so. The destruction forces the
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  reader to confront a God who orchestrates troop movements and
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  flaming arrows as deliberate judgments against his people's
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  spiritual harlotry. So the fall of Jerusalem was not
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  a failure of God's might to protect his people.
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  No, it was the active, intentional exercise of God's
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  might to judge his people. The Babylonians did not appear
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  in a vacuum. God wielded them.
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  The axe does not swing itself. Spot on.
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  The woodsman decides when to strike, where to strike, and how
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  hard to strike. So we have this terror,
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  horrifying historical reality, a city reduced to ashes by the
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  sovereign decree of God. Yeah, which brings us to the
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  actual structure of the Book of Lamentations itself.
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  This is where the literary form of the text becomes really
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  fascinating. You might expect a traumatized
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  survivor sitting in the smoking ruins to write a chaotic,
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  disjointed diary. Right.
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  You would expect raw, unfiltered panic and confusion.
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  Instead, the sources point out that Lamentations is a highly
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  disciplined architectural masterpiece.
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  It is entirely structured. It is not random noise.
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  The grief is meticulously organized.
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  The sources breakdown the poetic acrostics used by the author.
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  Can you explain how the acrostics work for the listener?
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  Sure. Chapters 1-2 and four are
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  alphabetic acrostics. Each of these chapters contains
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  22 stanzas. And there are 22 letters in the
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  Hebrew alphabet, right? Right, so it moves sequentially
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  through the Hebrew alphabet from the first letter Aleph to the
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  last letter tab. Every stanza begins with a
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  successive letter. That is incredible discipline
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  for someone writing in the middle of a destroyed city.
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  It gets even more intense. Chapter 3, which is the
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  theological heart of the book, intensifies this pattern.
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  It is a triple acrostic of 66 verses.
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  A triple acrostic? How does that work?
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  Every three consecutive lines begin with the same successive
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  letter of the alphabet. Even Chapter 5, while not a
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  strict acrostic, retains a structural nod to the pattern.
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  By having exactly 22 verses mirroring the alphabet again.
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  Yes, the author took the most agonizing, unspeakable grief
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  imaginable and forced it into the most rigid literary
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  constraints available in the Hebrew language.
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  It makes me think of forcing a wild, raging flood into a
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  meticulously engineered concrete canal.
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  Oh, I like that analogy. Because the water itself is
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  still violent, it is still terrifying, but when it hits
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  that concrete canal, it is entirely contained.
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  Boundaries are absolutely cannot spill over the size.
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  The grief and lamentations is like that flood, and the
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  acrostic structure is the concrete canal.
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  And taking the time to explain the psychology here is crucial.
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  Why would an author do this? It is like.
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  When someone has a severe panic attack, right, a therapist tells
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  them to count 5 things they can see, four things they can touch,
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  three things they can hear. Yeah, a grounding technique.
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  Exactly. The author is using the alphabet
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  as a grounding technique for a traumatized nation.
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  It forces the chaotic brain to follow rules.
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  That analogy aligns beautifully with the theological argument
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  our sources make regarding this structure.
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  The. Text references John Popper's
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  analysis on this right. Yes, pointing out that this
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  highly disciplined structure is a deliberate polemic against
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  chaos. A polemic against chaos?
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  What does that mean in this context?
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  Well, when Jerusalem fell, it looked to the human eye as if
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  history had spun completely out of control, as if anarchy had
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  won. But the acrostic form forcefully
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  counters that illusion. Right.
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  It proves that suffering has boundaries.
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  God governs the grief from A-Z or in Hebrew from LF to Tav.
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  So the author is communicating that reality contains horrific
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  events, but those events are moving within the wise,
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  sovereign hands of God. The grief is exhaustive,
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  covering every letter of the alphabet, but it is bounded by
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  the divine decree. The psychological grounding you
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  mentioned is rooted in theological certainty.
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  And the sources show that right in the mathematical center of
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  this rigid acrostic structure, the tone of the text shifts in a
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  way that feels almost jarring. It really is a sudden shift.
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  We are in Lamentations chapter 3, right in the middle of
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  descriptions of God as a bear lying in wait and Archer using
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  the profit as target practice. Very violent imagery.
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  Yeah. And then at verses 22 and 23 the
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  text drastically shifts to doc. It says the steadfast love of
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  the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an
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  end. They are new every morning.
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  Great is your faithfulness. That central pivot is crucial.
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  The text demands that we notice where those verses are located.
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  They do not appear after the suffering has ended.
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  They appear right in the mathematical center of the
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  misery. So the author is proving that
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  the new mercies exist in the middle of the God ordained
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  calamity. Right.
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  The acrostic structure binds the misery and the mercy together
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  into one cohesive reality. You do not have to wait for the
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  storm to pass to find the mercies of God.
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  They are present every single morning while the city is still
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  in ruins. While the famine is still
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  raging, the mercies are new. OK, so if God is putting this
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  grief into a strict A-Z box, it implies he has total control of
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  the box. Right, absolute control.
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  But that raises a really uncomfortable question.
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  Is he managing the disaster or did he actually create it?
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  That is the big question and the sources bring up Isaiah chapter
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  45 verse 7 to address. It let me read that verse.
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  It reads I form light and create darkness.
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  I make well-being and create calamity.
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  I am the lore who does all these things.
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  Very direct language from God there.
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  Yeah, I hear what that verse is saying, but creating calamity
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  feels like a really tough pill to swallow.
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  It definitely is for a lot of people.
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  I know some scholars try to do some lexical gymnastics here to
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  say the Hebrew word used there just means a natural disaster
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  like an earthquake, not human evil or warfare.
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  They do try that, but the sources argue forcefully that
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  this lexical gymnastics fails. The original Hebrew of that
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  verse in Isaiah requires intense scrutiny.
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  Walk us through the Hebrew there.
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  So God claims to perform 4 actions using specific
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  participles. He says he forms using the
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  Hebrew word yachtser, which is like a Potter shaping clay.
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  OK, Yachtser is forming. Right then he says he creates
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  using the word Bara. This is a word be used
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  exclusively in scripture with God as the subject.
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  It means to create out of nothing.
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  Wow, create out of nothing so he's not just reorganizing
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  existing bad things. Correct.
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  He creates light and darkness. Then the verse moves from the
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  natural realm to the moral and existential realm.
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  OK, what are the words there? He says he makes well-being the
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  Hebrew word Shalom, which implies peace, wholeness and
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  prosperity, and he creates calamity, the Hebrew word raw.
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  And raw is the word scholars try to limit to just natural
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  disasters. Yeah, they try to strip it of
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  any connection to human behavior or man made disasters.
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  But if you look at the 14 times Isaiah uses the word RAW, the
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  text points out something major. The sources argue that all but
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  one of those instances explicitly refer to the moral
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  evil of human behavior and the disasters caused by man.
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  So God is making a radical claim here against the dualism of the
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  ancient. World, you have to remember the
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  context of Isaiah 45. God is speaking to Cyrus, a
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  Persian king. And the Persian religion was
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  Zoroastrianism, right? Exactly, it was a dualistic
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  belief system. They believed a good God of
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  light and an evil God of darkness were locked in a cosmic
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  battle basically equal in might. So Yahweh is speaking directly
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  into that cultural context. He is saying I have no equal
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  competitor. I'm not locked in a struggle
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  with a rival deity. I form the light and I create
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  the darkness. He actively decrees the
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  existence of the calamity he uses for his righteous ends.
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  Yes, that brings up Amos chapter 3 verse 6.
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  To solidify this point, Amos asks, Does disaster come to a
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  city unless the Lord has done it?
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  And the rhetorical answer is obviously no.
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  But this introduces the concept of compatibilism as presented in
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  the text, and we need to unpack that for a second.
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  Let's break it down. How does compatibilism actually
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  work mechanically? Because if God creates the
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  calamity and uses the Babylonians to slaughter people,
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  how are the Babylonians held responsible?
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  Right, people always ask, doesn't that make God the author
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  of sin? Exactly.
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  The sources explain this Reformed view of compatibilism
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  very clearly. Compatibilism is the belief that
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  God's absolute sovereignty and human responsibility are not
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  mutually exclusive. So they are totally compatible,
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  hence the name. Right.
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  The Babylonians were driven by their own wicked bloodlust.
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  They were hissing and gnashing their teeth at Jerusalem.
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  God did not force them against their will to be cruel.
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  No, they were acting out of their own depravity.
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  They wanted to conquer, loot and destroy.
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  That was their genuine internal desire.
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  Yet God sovereignly commanded the calamity He.
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  Ordained the action without becoming the author of the sin.
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  The sinfulness of the creatures proceeds entirely from them, not
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  from God. The sources give a really
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  helpful analogy here. Think of it like a brilliant
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  author writing a novel. Oh yeah, the author dictates
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  every event that happens in the story.
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  Right. If a villain in the story robs a
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  bank, the villain is doing it out of his own fictional greed.
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  Within the world of the story, the villain is completely
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  guilty. But the author who wrote the
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  scene is not a bank robber. Right.
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  God governs the moral evil, perfectly, executing His
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  righteous judgement while leaving the human actors fully
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  responsible for their wickedness.
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  It is fascinating how aggressively the author's target
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  competing theologies here. They do not just lay out their
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  view, they go after alternative systems directly.
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  They really do. As impartial reporters of this
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  material, we should outline what they are critiquing.
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  The source material explicitly rejects Arminianism and open
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  theism. They also heavily criticize
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  seeker sensitive mega church pragmatic movements.
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  The text characterizes these opposing systems as devoting A
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  fragile idol and a helpless bystander God who weeps over
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  tragedies but has no actual authority over them.
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  Right. The sources argue that these
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  systems strip God of his sovereignty just to make him
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  seem more palatable to modern sensibilities.
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  The authors champion the absolute sovereignty detailed in
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  the Westminster Confession of Faith, specifically Chapter 5 on
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  Providence. Whether a listener agrees with
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  that or not, the author's underlying premise is clear.
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  Any theology denying God absolute ordination of all
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  events, including calamity, is unbiblical.
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  And we are just conveying the arguments made in the material
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  provided here. But the authors view any denial
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  of this exhaustive sovereignty as a massive theological error.
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  They say it actually robs the suffering believer of actual
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  hope. Because if God is just a
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  bystander, he cannot guarantee the outcome.
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  Right. If God is standing on the
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  outside of the tragedy, wringing his hands and wishing things had
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  gone differently, then the suffering is meaningless.
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  It's just random chaotic pain. The sources insist on the
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  Westminster Confessions view that God freely and unchangeably
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  ordained whatsoever comes to pass.
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  This gives the believer the assurance that their pain is not
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  a cosmic accident. It is moving toward a
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  predetermined righteous end. So if God decrees the
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  affliction, we have to look at His motivation.
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  This brings us to the heart of God contrasting discipline
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  versus delight. The primary text for this is
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  Lamentations chapter 3, verses 31 through 33.
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  Let me read that, for the Lord will not cast off forever, but
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  though he caused grief, yet will he have compassion according to
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  the multitude of His mercies, for he doth not afflict
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  willingly, nor grieve the children of men.
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  The phrase not willingly in verse 33 requires some careful
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  analysis. Because the English translation,
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  not willingly, can be a little misleading.
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  Right, it can. It makes it sound as if God is
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  somehow coerced or forced against his will by an outside
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  power. Which would contradict
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  everything we just discussed about His absolute sovereignty.
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  Exactly the original Hebrew phrases kilo inamilibo.
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  OK, what is the better translation of that?
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  Well, a far more accurate and revealing translation of Malebo
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  is not from his heart. He does not afflict from his
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  heart. OK, wait, I have to stop you
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  there. If God decrees the affliction,
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  how can it not be from his heart?
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  It sounds contradictory at first glance.
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  Yeah. Is God double minded?
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  Is he schizophrenic? How can he decree a calamity
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  that crushes a city but not do it from his heart?
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  The sources unpack this by explaining the complex emotional
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  life of God, the layered motivations within his being.
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  The text argues that God does genuinely will the affliction.
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  Yes, it is a righteous, necessary means to punish sin
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  and draw his people back to him. However, Affliction is described
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  as God's strange work. That references Isaiah chapter
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  28 verse 21, right? Yes.
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  It is a subordinate means it is not his ultimate deepest
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  disposition. What is his deepest disposition
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  then? His heart of hearts, the very
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  core of his covenantal posture toward his people, is held aid
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  that translates to his steadfast, loyal covenant of
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  love. He strikes with his hand as a
• 19:48
  righteous judge, but he loves from his deepest heart as a
• 19:51
  father. Think about the difference
• 19:53
  between a criminal judge and a loving father.
• 19:55
  Right. A judge sends a criminal to
• 19:56
  prison not from his heart, but because justice demands it.
• 19:59
  But a father disciplines a child, not from his heart, but
• 20:02
  for the child's good. God acts as both.
• 20:06
  But his fundamental posture toward his people is paternal
• 20:09
  love. He takes no wicked pleasure in
• 20:11
  the misery of his people. Not at all.
• 20:13
  And we see a temporal boundary given in verse 31 which says for
• 20:17
  the Lord will not cast off forever.
• 20:20
  That is such a vital promise. It provides the sufferer with an
• 20:24
  actual boundary line for their pain.
• 20:26
  The text is very realistic. It acknowledges that a casting
• 20:29
  off has genuinely occurred. The people feel abandoned, they
• 20:32
  really do. But it limits that experience.
• 20:34
  The rod of discipline is temporary.
• 20:37
  The compassion is eternal. The text is basically saying
• 20:40
  that wrath may visit, but steadfast love abides.
• 20:43
  Absolutely. The text bounds the judgement
• 20:46
  because God's deepest heart is compassion.
• 20:49
  The grief he ordains has a strict expiration date for his
• 20:52
  people. The Babylonians might destroy
• 20:54
  the walls, but they cannot destroy the covenant.
• 20:56
  That is a great way to put it. As we look at the narrative of
• 20:58
  the sources, we hit the Christological climax, the text
• 21:02
  transition, by noting that all of these Old Testament realities
• 21:05
  point directly to Jesus. We see this connection vividly.
• 21:09
  Lamentations 3, verse 30 says, Let him give his cheek to the
• 21:12
  one who smites him, and be filled with reproach.
• 21:15
  And the sources point out the direct fulfillment of this in
• 21:17
  Matthew chapter 26 verse 67, right?
• 21:20
  Yeah, when Christ is struck, mocked and spit upon during his
• 21:24
  trial, the Old Testament establishes a clear pattern.
• 21:28
  God's people pass through severe grief under His righteous hand,
• 21:32
  but are met with abundant compassion.
• 21:34
  And that pattern culminates perfectly in Christ.
• 21:37
  He is the obedient Son, the true Israel.
• 21:40
  Where Jerusalem sinned and deserve their judgement, Christ
• 21:43
  was completely sinless, yet He entered into judgement for His
• 21:46
  people as their substitute. The sources bring in Acts
• 21:50
  chapter 4, verses 27 and 28 to show the cross as the ultimate
• 21:55
  ordained. The crucifixion was the most
• 21:58
  horrific, unjust moral evil in human history.
• 22:01
  You had the cowardice of Pilate, the mockery of Herod, the
• 22:03
  betrayal of Judas, the malice of the religious leaders.
• 22:06
  Yet the biblical text declares that all of these wicked actors
• 22:09
  only did what God's hand and plan had predestined to take
• 22:12
  place. The sources explain the theology
• 22:15
  of the cross through penal substitutionary atonement.
• 22:19
  The text points to Isaiah chapter 53 verse 10, which says
• 22:22
  it pleased the Lord to bruise him.
• 22:24
  The Father actively poured out his wrath upon the Son.
• 22:28
  This was the required means to uphold justice.
• 22:31
  Let us unpack how that mechanism actually works, because how does
• 22:33
  punishing an innocent substitute actually satisfied divine
• 22:37
  justice? Well, the mechanics of penal
• 22:39
  substitutionary atonement are based on the legal concept of
• 22:42
  imputation. Imputation.
• 22:44
  OK, walk us through that. Human beings have accumulated an
• 22:47
  infinite debt of guilt before a perfectly holy God due to their
• 22:51
  sin. God being just, cannot simply
• 22:54
  sweep that guilt under the rug. A penalty must be paid.
• 22:57
  The wages of sin is death. Right.
• 22:59
  Christ, as the sinless Son of God, willingly steps into the
• 23:02
  legal place of His people. Their guilt is imputed or
• 23:06
  credited to His account. He takes their criminal records,
• 23:08
  so to speak. Exactly on the cross, the Father
• 23:11
  looks at the Son and treats him as if he committed every sin of
• 23:14
  his people. The Father actively bruises the
• 23:16
  Son, pouring out the unmitigated fury of divine wrath that the
• 23:20
  people deserve. Christ absorbs the penalty
• 23:23
  fully. He drains the cup of wrath to
• 23:26
  the very dregs. Because the penalty is paid in
• 23:28
  full, God can legally and righteously dismiss the charges
• 23:33
  against His people. And the resolution here is
• 23:35
  stunning. The Father did not afflict the
• 23:38
  Son because He delighted in the pain itself.
• 23:40
  He did not 'cause the suffering of Christ, because He enjoys
• 23:43
  watching blood spill. No, He afflicted him because the
• 23:46
  truth in John 3 verse 16, the steadfast love that drove
• 23:50
  election. The cross is the absolute proof
• 23:53
  that God ordains terrifying evil to secure eternal peace or
• 23:56
  Shalom. The greatest moral evil in human
• 23:59
  history The murder of the perfect Son of God resulted in
• 24:02
  the greatest good in human history.
• 24:03
  The salvation of a multitude that no one can number because
• 24:06
  Christ drank the cup of wrath. The afflictions of believers are
• 24:09
  no longer punitive condemnation. They are fatherly discipline.
• 24:13
  So we have this massive theology, this heavy reality of
• 24:16
  a God who meticulously commands the storm.
• 24:19
  Which leads to the obvious question, what is a person
• 24:22
  supposed to do with this when they are actually hurting?
• 24:25
  What is the required posture for the believer facing tragedy?
• 24:29
  The sources list very specific practical applications for this.
• 24:33
  The sufferer is instructed to put their mouth in the dust and
• 24:36
  wait quietly. This is not Stoic fatalism, by
• 24:39
  the way. It is humbled submission beneath
• 24:41
  the righteous hand of God. The sufferer must refuse to put
• 24:44
  God on trial. The text quotes Lamentations 3,
• 24:48
  verse 39. Why should a living man complain
• 24:50
  about the punishment of his sins?
• 24:52
  The application here is a call to repent of self justification.
• 24:56
  The individual must recognize that they deserve judgement.
• 24:59
  And therefore any mercy they receive is entirely undeserved.
• 25:03
  Repentance must silent accusation against God.
• 25:06
  The text also gives advice on how to treat other people who
• 25:09
  are suffering. It strongly warns against
• 25:12
  offering sentimental cliches. Right when someone is bleeding,
• 25:15
  you do not give them shallow slogans.
• 25:17
  Think of Job's friends. They were great for seven days
• 25:20
  when they just sat in silence weeping with him.
• 25:22
  Yeah, they became miserable comforters the moment they open
• 25:25
  their mouths to try and explain his pain.
• 25:28
  The application is to sit with them in their grease, help them
• 25:32
  lament without falling into unbeliefs, and remind them of
• 25:35
  God's absolute rule over their specific pain.
• 25:38
  Now, regarding how we view suffering on a macro level, the
• 25:41
  second source applies this theology to modern social
• 25:45
  movements. Right.
• 25:45
  And we need to report on this impartially, just detailing what
• 25:48
  the text claims. Exactly.
• 25:50
  The text explicitly argues against finding answers to
• 25:53
  suffering in secular philosophy. The author specifically names
• 25:57
  critical race theory and the social justice movement.
• 25:59
  Labeling them as Marxist rooted ideologies.
• 26:02
  The source claims these movements focus entirely on
• 26:04
  oppressor and oppressed dynamics, while completely
• 26:07
  ignoring the sovereignty of God and the total depravity of
• 26:10
  humanity. According to the author, these
• 26:13
  frameworks locate the source of evil entirely in societal
• 26:16
  structures and power dynamics. Rather than in the sinful human
• 26:19
  heart. And they offer political
• 26:21
  revolution as the Savior rather than Christ.
• 26:24
  The author sees these societal movements as false frameworks
• 26:28
  for understanding suffering and justice.
• 26:31
  The author also applies a specific eschatological
• 26:33
  framework to these concepts. Yes, the second source outlines
• 26:36
  A premillennial dispensational view.
• 26:39
  To understand this dispensational means, the author
• 26:42
  views biblical history as being divided into distinct eras or
• 26:46
  administrations. Where God interacts with
• 26:48
  humanity in specific ways depending on the era.
• 26:51
  A core tenet of this fear is a strict distinction between
• 26:54
  ethnic Israel and the Church. The author argues that God have
• 26:58
  a future unfulfilled plan for ethnic Israel involving national
• 27:02
  repentance and restoration to the land.
• 27:04
  Simultaneously, the author claims that the Church will be
• 27:06
  removed from the earth prior to a global period of tribulation
• 27:10
  via a pre tribulational rapture. The text uses this specific
• 27:13
  prophetic timeline to apply the lessons of the Babylonian exile
• 27:17
  to the modern church. The author urges believers to
• 27:20
  live as aliens and strangers awaiting sudden deliverance
• 27:23
  rather than trying to build utopian Kingdom on Earth through
• 27:27
  political or social means. So regardless of those specific
• 27:30
  polemics, the theological core of the sources ties directly
• 27:33
  back to you, the listener. Whether you are facing a cancer
• 27:37
  diagnosis, the bereavement of losing a loved 1A, sudden
• 27:40
  financial collapse or persecution, the knowledge that
• 27:44
  the pain is not random is the ultimate anchor.
• 27:47
  The texts argue that your pain is a meticulously crafted chisel
• 27:51
  in the hands of a loving father. It is not an accident.
• 27:53
  It is overseen by a God whose deepest heart toward you is
• 27:57
  steadfast compassion. That is the overarching
• 28:00
  narrative the sources want to drive home.
• 28:02
  God's Providence is severe, it is heavy, but it is always bound
• 28:06
  by mercy. He may cause the grief.
• 28:08
  He may command the storm, but his deepest heart is overflowing
• 28:12
  with compassion. Because of that, the believer
• 28:14
  can lament in the ashes, can weep in the ruins, without ever
• 28:17
  falling into despair. The grief is real, but the
• 28:20
  compassion is eternal. To sum up what we have covered
• 28:23
  today, the sources declared that God's Providence governs every
• 28:26
  detail of our lives, including the darkest tragedies.
• 28:28
  He wields the axe, but he does so with the precision of a
• 28:32
  surgeon aiming for our final redemption, proven definitively
• 28:36
  at the cross of Christ. So I will leave you with a final
• 28:38
  provocative thought to ponder on your own.
• 28:40
  If God meticulously bounds the grief of His people from A-Z,
• 28:44
  just like the precise letters of the Hebrew alphabet in the
• 28:47
  acrostic poetry of lamentations, what specific letters of your
• 28:51
  own current sorrow are you failing to recognize as part of
• 28:53
  His deliberate, compassionate grammar?