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Amen. Lamentations, chapter number four. Again, just a quick overview of the book. Lamentations is written by Jeremiah. Jeremiah is known as the weeping prophet partially because of things he says in the book of Jeremiah and partially for having written this book on Lamentations. This is a poetic book and the type of poetry that this is, it's an acrostic poem which means that each verse starts with a different letter of the alphabet. So you'll notice that in chapter four here we have 22 verses. There are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet. Verse one starts with aleph, verse two starts with bet, etc. So we continue on in chapter four here, verse number one. How is the gold become dim? How is the most fine gold changed? The stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street. Now remember in the book of Lamentations one of the things that Jeremiah is lamenting is the destruction of the temple. Remember at the end of Jeremiah, Nebuchadnezzar and his armies from Babylon, they end up invading, destroying Jerusalem, taking those of Judah captive, and part of that is obviously the destruction of the temple. And what's the temple made out of? You know the temple was completely overlaid with gold and the Bible, when it says here how is the gold become dim, that's a reference to the temple. And then he talks about the stones of the sanctuary being poured out in the top of every street. So it's just referring to the fact that the temple has been reduced to rubble. It's been completely wiped out. It says in verse number two, the precious sons of Zion comparable to fine gold. How are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter. So in verse number one we're talking about the temple being destroyed and he brings up the gold of the temple, but then in verse number two he's comparing something to the gold. He's comparing the precious sons of Zion, they're comparable to fine gold, and they're become like you know a potter's broken vessel. So what we get from this is that basically the physical condition of the temple and their city and their nation is actually a representation of the spiritual condition. It's a picture of the spiritual condition. Now if you would flip over to 2 Timothy chapter number 2. 2 Timothy chapter 2 in the New Testament. 2 Timothy chapter 2 in the New Testament. So he's looking at a physical building, you know, or the lack of a physical building, the destroyed rubble from a physical building. He's lamenting the building being destroyed, but then he switches to talking about the people, okay. Now this is all gonna come together in a moment. Look if you would at 2 Timothy chapter number 2. He talked about the gold being destroyed and that it was like unto now broken potsherds or pieces of pottery. Well look what the Bible says in 2 Timothy chapter number 2 beginning in verse number 20. It says, actually let's start in verse 19, nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure having this seal the Lord knoweth them that are his and let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver but also of wood and of earth and some to honor and some to dishonor. If a man therefore purge himself from these he shall be a vessel unto honor sanctified and meet for the Masters use and prepared unto every good work flee also youthful lusts etc. He goes on. So we see here that Christians, God's people, are vessels for God's use and some of them are vessels unto honor which are the vessels of gold and silver and precious materials. But then there are also the earthen vessels or the wooden vessels. These are the vessels that are not unto honor but rather unto dishonor. Now how can we make sure to be a vessel unto honor? He said we need to depart from iniquity, right. If we purge ourselves from these things we'll be a vessel unto honor. We'll be ready for the Masters use, we'll be set apart for him. Now stop and think about this. What is the comparison he's making in Lamentations? Back in Lamentations he's saying the gold has become dim. You know the the stones of the temple they're poured out in every street. You know he's not just lamenting the destruction of a physical building. That is symbolic of the destruction of the nation spiritually. That's what led to that physical destruction where the gold becoming dim it's not just a building being destroyed but rather it's God's people living a life of sin and now instead of being like gold instead of being like vessels of gold now that their lives are filled with sin and iniquity they've become like earthen pitchers. They've become like those vessels unto dishonor. Look at Lamentations chapter 4 verse 2 it says the precious sons of Zion comparable to fine gold how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers the work of the hands of the potter. So what we have to understand is that what we see when we see a nation being judged or God's wrath being poured out or the destruction of physical buildings that's just a reflection of what's going on spiritually. You know if they would have been right spiritually if they hadn't been living sinful lives if they would have been living for God then they wouldn't have been experiencing this judgment and what we're seeing outwardly is a reflection of what's on the inside. Now go to verse number 3 and this is going to continue as we go through this chapter. It says in verse 3 even the sea monsters draw out the breast they give suck to their young ones. Now this is a reference to whales because we know of course that whales are mammals so they are the most gigantic creatures of the sea. In fact they're the most gigantic creatures on this planet. You know the largest animal on this planet is a blue whale and a blue whale would literally be like basically more than the way it would be as long as this building is wide if you can imagine that. So I mean blue whales are just an incredible size it would be as wide as this building is that's how long a blue whale can be. Also you have gigantic sperm whales, humpback whales, etc. So the great whales that God created are mammals and mammal refers to the fact that they actually breastfeed okay like you've probably heard the word mammary or mammogram or mammal right? Mammal means that they breastfeed like mama right? So basically they draw out the breast and give suck to their young ones. Okay the Bible is just referring to these giant fearsome scary beasts because you know if you're out at sea and you were confronted with it you know they're not they're not watching this thing at SeaWorld. I mean you know back then if you run into one of these things you're out at sea this isn't something that you want to run into because it could wipe you out okay? Just read Moby Dick if you have any question about that. But anyway the point is that even the sea monsters which are considered scary fearsome beasts these gigantic whales even they draw out the breast and give suck to their young ones the daughter of my people has become cruel like the ostriches in the wilderness. Now keep your finger in Lamentations 4 flip back to Job chapter 39. Job chapter 39 and I tell you what whenever I go to any kind of a zoo or a petting zoo or any kind of a place where they have animals ostriches are one of my favorite animals alright? I don't I don't know why I just love ostriches. I always spend a lot of time at the ostrich exhibit and you know just looking at their eyes and just they have the weirdest eyes and they're just really interesting animals if you actually get up close and look at an ostrich it's really a fascinating animal but it's actually known in the Bible for being a stupid animal and for being an animal that doesn't care about its children. Look down if you would at Job chapter 39 verse 13 gave us thou the goodly wings verse 13 unto the peacocks or wings and feathers under the ostrich which leaveth her eggs in the earth and warmeth them in the dust and forgetteth that the foot may crush them or that the wild beasts may break them. She is hardened against her young ones as though they were not hers. Her labor is in vain without fear watch this because God had deprived her of wisdom neither hath he imparted to her understanding. So basically you know when God's sitting down and creating the animals he decides hey this animal no wisdom right this animal is going to be a foolish animal it's going to neglect its young it's gonna bury the eggs in the earth and just allow whatever to happen to them it's gonna be hardened against its young ones as though they were not hers. And you know there are animals in the wild to go back to Lamentations 4 that are hardened against their young ones. They're animals that will rip up and eat their own children in the right circumstances. So the wild beasts do all these kind of things that human beings should never do or would never do under normal circumstances. So the Bible says even the sea monsters draw out the breast they give suck to their young ones the daughter of my people is become cruel like the ostriches in the wilderness hardened against their own children cruel. Now stop and think about this. The daughter of my people has become cruel. The Bible says in Matthew 24 that when iniquity abounds love will grow cold. You know the Bible says because iniquity shall abound the love of many shall wax cold. So in verses 1 and 2 we see how God's people have become filled with iniquity. You know we did a little cross referencing with 2nd Timothy 2 because it's symbolic you know we see the gold young men that were like gold now they're like pottery. You could say well he's just talking about you know they've been brought down physically but why why because it's a reflection of their spiritual condition. And then we see that when people start living a life of sin when people are no longer servants of God when they're no longer vessels unto honor for the Lord ready and prepared unto every good work and when they're living a life of iniquity you know what they start to have a lack of love in their heart right they their their love waxes cold just like it says in Matthew 24. Now what could be a greater indication of that than someone even being hardened against their own children. Even people who don't have a lot of love even people that aren't that loving they would at least love their own child. You'd think that a mother would love its own child seems like one of the most pure forms of love that you can imagine right woman gives birth to a child that should just be automatic just natural love and affection for her children. You've heard the saying a face that only a mother could love and the idea behind that saying is that you know mothers are pretty much going to love their children no matter what matter how ugly they are. No I'm just kidding. But anyway so we see that they're becoming cruel and as a result verse 4 the tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst. The young children ask bread and no man breaketh it unto them. They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets. They that were brought up in scarlet embrace dung hills. Now again let's look at this spiritually right because this is this is poetry and it's a metaphor for what has happened spiritually because it's the spiritual decay that led to the physical destruction that we can see with our eyes. And so we see that they're living in sin. They're living in iniquity and as a result they've become cruel. They lack love even for their own children and the food here what represents food spiritually. The food is the word of God right over and over again in the Bible. Our daily bread is the word of God. You know the Bible says man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Job said I've esteemed the words of thy mouth more than my necessary food. And so we see here a famine where people are starving but spiritually this represents a famine for the word of God a famine for God's word. So imagine this a once Christian nation saved individuals people who know the Lord. They start to get away from God live a sinful life. They're no longer vessels of gold. Now they're vessels of earth. They are backslidden and so forth. They don't love their children the way that they used to. And the next thing you know basically their children are not being fed. And imagine this you know let's say you get backslidden. Let's say you stop going to church you stop listening to the word of God or reading your Bible and serving God. What's going to happen to your children. Well we know the answer to that question because all we have to do is read all the stories in the Bible where you have a generation that gets away from the Lord and then their children grow up and they're just complete Baal worshiping heathens. Because think about how in the book of Judges and in the books of the kings you go through these cycles where you have a generation that loves the Lord but then when they start getting backslidden and they start getting away from God they'll raise children that aren't even saved. So a lot of here here's the thing you know you'll go from people who are saved but just backslidden the kids that they raise will often not even get saved. You know think about it. Let's say you're going to a fundamentalist Baptist church and the gospel is being clearly preached. There's a lot of soul winning going on. Church is a big part of your lives. Everybody's reading their Bible. Everybody loves the things of God and cares about what's going on and then you know you start getting backslidden and next thing you know you want to go to the liberal fund center and you want to go to a church that's not going to make you feel guilty about the sins that you're doing. They don't really ask you to do anything and you can just kind of go there Sunday morning only rock out a little bit for an hour. You know a little soft sell sermon for 20 minutes makes you feel good and then you can go to the lake and go party and go do you know live your life and you know forget about it till next week. Folks this is not a theory. This is something that is happening all over America today because how many times do we knock on somebody's door that goes to a fund center but they know for sure they're going to have and they're saved. Oh how'd you get. Oh I got saved in a Baptist church you know back in the day and they start quoting your verses from the King James. But here's the thing. What about their children when they're taking their children to that liberal fund center. There's a pretty good chance that their children are not going to get the right gospel. They're not going to get the right preaching. They're not even going to end up getting saved. Otherwise explain to me how we got where we are and explain to me how the nation of Israel could go from one generation serving God to the next generation not serving God. A big part of that is the parents becoming backslidden. The parents quit serving God. They quit going to church. They quit going to the right kind of church. They quit listening to the preaching and they just get into worldly things. Then they raise children that are worldly and then those children you know are even more distant and eventually you get to a generation where they're not even getting the gospel. They're not even saved and it doesn't take very long at all for that to happen. So you see the children. What are they doing. Their parents aren't feeding them. So what do they end up doing. Embracing dung hills. All right. Imagine embracing a dung hill. You know those who were brought up in scarlet. He's talking about you know fancy clothing. Imagine someone that you know who's always very well put together. You know someone who wears really nice clothes. Maybe get someone in your mind who always really cares about how they look and they always have the nicest newest clothes and everything is all polished and nice. You know and then now imagine that person just embracing a dung hill. Just a big pile of manure and they just jump in. And you know that's what we see the children of those who are backslidden. The children of those who get away from the Lord. You know they just jump into the dung hill of basically you know thinking that sodomites are OK. I mean that's the most dung thing you can imagine. But yet you see the children of liberal backslidden Christians just embracing their music embracing their entertainment saying hey it's OK. It's not a big deal. They're just like everybody else. You see them embracing that dung. You see them embracing dung of doctrine. Just stupid doctrines stupid philosophies of this world. You see them just embracing all the junk all the excrement that this world puts out there and they just eat it up with fork and spoon. You know they just eat up all the dung. They're not getting right nourishment. They're getting dung. OK. The dung that's being served up teaching them evolution teaching them atheism teaching them you know diversity means sodomites and weirdos and everything else and that whole music and entertainment industry. That's what they end up embracing total dung. They used to feed delicately. You know they used to eat from the manna of God's word. Now they're eating literal feces is what we see in this and other stories in the Bible are like this too where people are just trying to get their hands on some bird poop to eat. You remember that Bible story where they're selling dove's dung as food to eat. OK. And here's what God's saying. You know if you don't want to eat the food that I give you when things are going well for you. God's blessing you and you've got access to the word of God and you've got access to preaching and you've got access to the wisdom that comes from God. If you turn your nose up at that meal I'll put you in a position where you can eat literally dung and that's what this world has to offer dung. That's what Paul said. Paul said I count everything dung. You know if it's not of Christ you know this stuff in comparison is dung. And so we see those that were brought up delicately embracing dung hills they used to eat so well they used to feed delicately. Go to Amos keep your finger in Lamentations but go to Amos in the minor prophets toward the end of the Old Testament there Hosea Joel Amos look at Amos chapter number eight and the Bible says in verse number eleven behold the days come sayeth the Lord God that I will send a famine in the land not a famine of bread nor a thirst for water but of hearing the words of the Lord and they shall wander from sea to sea and from the north even to the east they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord and shall not find it. And that day shall the fair virgins and the young men faint for thirst. They that swear by the sin of Samaria and it just goes on to talk about their false gods and their bad religion how they're going to be destroyed. Jump up to verse ten it says I will turn your feast into morning and all your songs into what? Lamentation and I'll bring up sackcloth upon all loins and baldness upon every head and I will make it as the morning of an only sun and end thereof as a bitter day. So we see a lot of parallels here with what's going on in the book of Lamentations. We even have the word Lamentation and then we have the talk about people starving and thirsty but it's not physical food that they're hungering and thirsting for it's actually for the word of God. Now you may not understand this because the word of God is so readily available to you. You know we can go into any bookstore or any Walmart or whatever and the Bible is going to be there. The Bible is going to be at the Dollar Tree for crying out loud. You can go online and just read it for free online. Not only that you can hear God's word. You can listen to the audio. You can go to just all kinds of churches and hear God's word being preached in America today. You know you can find churches where God's word is being faithfully preached. But let me tell you something a famine of hearing God's word would be a terrible famine to go through. You know imagine being deprived of the Bible deprived of hearing preaching deprived of reading your Bible. That would be a horrible thing that you know you might know what's the big deal. Well you know what if you don't appreciate it then maybe God's going to put you there so that you can understand what that means because God said that he's going to send them a famine of hearing God's word. Now look are they going through a famine of hearing God's word right now. No because he's saying I'm going to send it. It's going to happen. The moral of the story is when everything's prevalent when everything's available when everything's going well we need to serve God during that time and not make God bring these judgments before we appreciate what we have when it's taken away from us. Right. So look when we have food and drink we ought to thank God for every meal. And when we have God's word being preached we ought to thank God for every spiritual meal. You know we ought to thank God that we have a Bible. Thank God that we have a church to go to because it's such a privilege to be able to go to church. It's such a privilege. You know you have to win a lottery to be here. No I'm just kidding. But you know it is a privilege to be in church. It's a privilege to have the entire Bible 66 books at our fingertips. It's a privilege to listen to preaching and it's a privilege to have the opportunity to be an ambassador for Christ and to go soul winning. You know these are all blessed things that we should rejoice in and be excited about. But you know what we start taking it for granted. We take God for granted. We take the Bible for granted. We start to just go the way of this world get back sledding start to do whatever the world says life is about. Next thing you know we're no longer as shiny gold as we used to be as a vessel of the Lord. The gold starts to become dim. And then next thing you know we're more like a just a piece of pottery. Right. No there's no more shine. There's no more glory no more brightness. We're not we're not being the light of the world anymore and reflecting God's light to a lost and dying world. And then next thing you know we're not the loving person that we used to be. We've lost the first love. And then next thing you know you know we don't even love our children. We don't even care about our children to the point where basically you know yeah we take them to the fun center because what we want. But let me ask you this is the fun center what your children need to help them to actually get saved and to actually not fornicate not get drunk right actually because look I'll tell you this. The reason that I didn't fornicate and that I didn't get drunk as a young person is one reason because I feared the Lord. And you know where I got that fear of the Lord. I didn't get it at the liberal church. I'll tell you where I got it. I got it from the Hellfire and Damnation churches that I grew up in as a kid. See from the time I was born to the time that I was around. How old 13 years old somewhere around there. You know I went to independent fundamental leather lung type churches with the hard preaching. And so that stuff was drilled into me. But when I was a teenager I was in churches where they wouldn't even get up and even say that fornication is even wrong. They would even doubt that even in the youth group they would doubt that they were acting like well maybe it's OK to have premarital relations as long as you love each other. And that's the kind of garbage. These are Baptist churches but it's the NIV church where nobody gets baptized and all and so forth. It's just you wouldn't believe the ideas that these young people. Folks what if I would have grown up in that church from birth until that time or from a younger age until that time. You know what would have stopped me from just going out and just doing all these sinful things because look the sins of this world they look appealing. They're alluring to the lust of the flesh and it's easy to get sucked into those things. It's the preaching that keeps us right. And look in our day there's a lot of bad influence out there. There's a lot of pressure to go the wrong way. Folks I want my teenagers hearing some hard preaching against sin. And sometimes I just marvel when I look at a family that has teenagers and they get offended by just some dumb little thing or something you know they just get offended and then they take their teenagers to some watered down Calvinistic whatever first church of the deep freeze. And I'm just thinking to myself look so what if you got a little offended. You know I don't even care if I'm offended or not. I would just want my kids to get their faces ripped week after week because it's the only thing it's the only way they have a chance. You know let them learn the fear of the Lord so that they can be blessed their whole life because they're in this difficult stage. You know we got to get them through this difficult stage so they can be blessed for the rest of their life. You know and it's easy for the parents think well I'll be OK spiritually you know I don't need to go I can go to the liberal church and I'll be fine because you're already grounded in the faith. But why don't you care about your children. Why don't you love them enough to take them to the church that's going to be the best church for them. You know and I thank God that you know around the time I turned 17 we got back into a fundamental Baptist church and got back under the hard preaching and stuff. But folks that being in the liberal church for five years definitely took its toll on our lives. And you know getting back into the fundamental Baptist church really brought us revival spiritually and helped us out. But it's always going to take its toll especially on young people. And so we need to understand that you know for our children's sake we need to stay polished up and bright for the Lord and we need to remain the gold for their sake. We need to love them. Why? Because I don't want my kids to grow up and embrace Dunghill's. I don't want to be ashamed of my children when they grow up because of the dung that they're embracing. You know I don't want my children to grow up and they're into Bernie Sanders or something you know what I mean. It's just like where did I go wrong. What have I done. What did I rate. You know right. I mean stranger things have happened to folks. You know I've known godly men and women whose children have grown up to just become just these total liberals just total commies just total non-believers and weirdos. And so God forbid that that would happen right. So we don't want our children embrace Dunghill's. You know we need to make sure that we feed them and we need to feed them with God's word. We need to take them to the feeding trough here at Faith Forward Baptist Church. Get them fed right. Get them under the preaching of God's word. Read the Bible with them. Read the Bible to them. Get them reading their Bibles and so that they can also have the foundation that we were privileged to have. So he says they that did feed delicately verse 5 are desolate in the streets. They that were brought up in scarlet embrace Dunghill's for the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom that was overthrown as in a moment and no hand stayed on her. He's saying like in a way this is worse than Sodom's punishment because at least God just rained fire and brimstone down on Sodom and it was over pretty fast. Whereas these people are just slowly dying a painful death of starvation. Verse 7 her Nazarites were purer than snow. They were whiter than milk. They were more ruddy in body than rubies. Their polishing was of sapphire. Now Nazarites what are they? Well if you remember the Nazarite vow is a vow of someone who's dedicating themselves to God in a special way. It was for a short period of time. No razor would come upon their head. They would not eat any grapes or drink of any fruit juice or any wine or strong drink or anything like that. And they couldn't touch any dead bodies and they were separated under the Lord and they were following a stricter code of cleanness than what was prescribed for the general population. Now obviously for someone to go through that they must care about the things of God or at least they seem like they care about the things of God right because this is something that's optional. So it's not like everybody's doing it. So if someone is going to be a Nazarite if someone's going to take the Nazarite vow this is somebody who's taking their religion pretty seriously in order to do this extracurricular optional step of being a Nazarite. And he's talking about the Nazarites physically because again remember this is a poem where the physical things that we see represent what's going on spiritually it's metaphor. So basically the Nazarites were purer than snow. He's basically just talking about them being good looking right. Just they're they're purer than snow whiter than milk more ruddy. What does ruddy mean ruddy comes from the same root as our word red. Right so ruddy in by then rubies what color rubies right red and their polishing was of sapphire so basically you're just picturing basically fair you know blushed cheeks and just attractive good-looking people here and now what do they look like their visage meaning their face is blacker than a coal. Now look these people it's not that they switched race here okay these people their skin is becoming darker part of it is because of starvation and malnutrition that they're going through. Also they're just outside they're exposed the elements there could be dirty and there could be all kinds of reasons why they're not so shiny and polished and good-looking as their ones now they're starting to look pretty rough they're looking pretty gnarly. Their visage is blacker than a coal they're not known in the streets he's saying like you couldn't even recognize these people like if you knew them you would just think you're looking at a stranger because they're so unrecognizable. Their skin cleaveth to their bones it is withered it has become like a stick so they're so starved that basically they're just skin and bones emaciated. They that be slain with the sword are better than these that be slain with hunger for these pine away stricken through for want of the fruits of the field the hands of the pitiful women have sodden that means boiled their own children they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people the Lord have accomplished his fury he had poured out his fierce anger and had kindled a fire in Zion and it devoured the foundations thereof the kings of the earth and all the inhabitants of the world would not have believed that the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem for the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her they have wandered as blind men in the streets they polluted themselves with blood so that the men could not touch their garments they cried to them depart ye it's unclean depart depart touch not when they fled away and wandered they said among the heathen they shall sojourn no more there now what's he saying here when he says you know the the women have sodden their own children and they that that's what was their meat that was their food obviously that's a disgusting thought obviously this is pretty much as low as you go but go if you were to Psalm 106 Psalm 106 we're continuing with the the symbolism here or the illustration that we're getting from Lamentations chapter 4 about the spiritual condition okay look at Psalm 106 the Bible says in verse 34 they did not destroy the nations concerning whom the Lord commanded them but were mingled among the heathen and learn their work so so remember picture this as Christians getting backslidden right you know here you are you're saved you're in church but you decide to mingle among the heathen and learn their works right you're gonna start becoming worldly you're not gonna live the Christian life you're gonna live the way of this world and they serve their idols verse 36 which were a snare unto them and then what's the next step when you start mingling among the heathen learning their work serving their idols they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils and shed innocent blood even the blood of their sons and of their daughters whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan and the land was polluted with blood thus were they defiled with their own works and went to whoring with their own inventions therefore was the wrath of the Lord kindled against his people in so much that he abhorred his own inheritance and he gave them into the hand of the heathen and they that hated them ruled over them this is exactly what's happening at the time of lamentations am I right you know this is what's happening they've been given over to the heathen but they sacrificed their sons and daughters again the same pattern right people get away from God they get worldly they mingle among the heathen pretty soon you know who gets sacrificed the kids and again what is this this is when instead of caring about our children's spiritual well-being and making sure that they're learning about God make sure we're feeding them spiritually that they're getting the word that they're going to church that they're hearing the preaching instead we just say you know what I'd rather just live a fun life and you know we just get busy just having fun and not caring about the things of God and then our children grow up not caring about things of God except what the children what the parents do in moderation the children will do in excess you know we basically slack on the things of God they're going to slack even more they're going to care even less in many cases and it becomes a downward spiral and so that's what we see in lamentations for where they get to the point where they don't love their kids they're willing to sacrifice their kids they're not putting their kids first they're putting themselves first and saying well I need to eat so I'm going to kill my child and eat it that's I mean you know I hate to be so blunt but that's what the Bible is teaching here that's what happened in this story and it yes it's grotesque yes it's horrific and this should show us the dangers of going down this dark path and why we need to make sure never to be in this boat go back to Lamentations chapter 4 it says in verse 16 the anger of the Lord had divided them he will no more regard them they respected not the persons of the priests they favored not the elders he's saying look no one's exempt from God's punishment no one's exempt from God's wrath just because you're a pastor or a deacon or you know you're you're some kind of a person who has done great things for God in the past that doesn't mean that you're exempt from going down a dark path and getting backslidden and getting away from the Lord so the Bible says in verse 17 as for us our eyes as yet failed for our vain help in our watching we've watched for a nation that could not save us see the world can't provide what God can provide the world provides emptiness they hunt our steps that we cannot go in our streets our end is near our days are fulfilled for our end is come our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven they pursued us upon the mountains they laid wait for us in the wilderness the breath of our nostrils the anointed of the Lord was taken in their pits of whom we said under his shadow we shall live among the heathen and look here's the thing this this is what we desire to do in 2020 America we desire to live under God's shadow among the heathen right I mean look we live among the heathen the Bible tells us that it's not God's will for us to be taken out of the world but that we should just be kept from the evil and so we're to be in the world but not of the world and so basically we want to be under God's shadow under the Lord's shadow as we live among the heathen but these people that privilege is being taken away from them God shadow is removed they're no longer under his protection they're exposed and the enemy is going to just chew them up and spit them out then verse 21 and 22 it kind of changes gears and we kind of see that the the heathen are going to get what's coming to them you know obviously verse 21 rejoice and be glad O daughter of Edom that dwellest in the land of us the cup also shall pass through unto thee thou shalt be drunken and shall make thyself naked the punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished O daughter of Zion he will no more carry thee away into captivity he will visit thine iniquity O daughter of Edom he will discover thy sins so he's basically saying hey laugh it up Edom you know Edom's happy to see Judah getting wiped out but he's saying hey your turns coming you're gonna go through this as well there's hope for us if we get right with God but you guys are gonna get smoked and so that's what's coming for you guys so as we look at this chapter we see that there's a physical condition of the land where the temples destroyed people are starving and people have become just cruel and and so self-serving that they're literally to the point where they'll eat their own children just the the one person you'd expect them to love they don't even love that one person they don't love anybody they are just a complete miserable wreck and this is a physical thing but it's a picture of something spiritually because remember it's the spiritual condition that gets reflected in the outward condition you know if you think about it this way you know if I see somebody walking down the street and they're just covered in in meth sores all over them they're they're filthy they're dirty and they're just covered in sores from meth isn't that a picture of something that went wrong spiritually in that person long ago when that person didn't have any sores back when that person was good-looking back when their clothes were clean back when on the outside they looked totally normal something started to rot spiritually inside whether that person saved or unsaved because don't make any mistake about it saved people can go down that route you think that there's never been a saved person who became a drug addict it's out there believe me it's out there I've known those who were saved who got into drugs and became drug addicts and so forth and that's where drugs are gonna take you every single time drugs are gonna take you down a dark path like that if you follow the end of that path that's where you end up and you know unrecognizable in the streets you know my dad talked about a friend of his that he hadn't seen in like a decade or something he couldn't even recognize he was supposed to pick the guy up he couldn't even recognize him because the guy had become a total alcoholic gotten into drugs and he was literally physically unrecognizable my dad brought him over to his house they hung out the guy went into my dad's bathroom peed all over the floor I mean the guy was just like a homeless bum this guy used to be one of his cool friends and this and look I remember this guy he was wealthy he drove a lot of cool classic cars he would restore and sell classic cars so he had all these beautiful you know 1960s era cars he'd be cruising around and he was making money he was successful he had a lot going for him but you know what he didn't have going for him he had no walk with God he was totally unspiritual at that time so when you looked at him and he had the fancy cars and he's doing great he's married he's making money he's got a fun hobby he's going to car shows he's having a good time you know you would have looked at it and thought hey why not live this guy's life you know why do I need to be in church what do I need to be doing serving God I mean this guy is living a cool life but you know what there was something wrong inside him spiritually though he had no walk with God he didn't love Lord I I don't even think he was saved I don't remember that part of the story but I'm pretty sure he's just an unsaved guy okay but even if he was saved he wasn't that into it but I don't even think he was even saved but either way something was wrong spiritually on the inside and it might take some time but over time you know what that just started destroying his life from the inside as alcohol took over drugs took over to the point where he becomes a dirty homeless bum that you bring over to your house and he pees on the bathroom floor in your house is that what you want to be when you grow up kids you know you want to be somebody who goes over to your friend's house and just urinates on the floor because you're just like an animal now this buds for you that's what being an alcoholic can do to you and so we see here that the gold represents not just the physical building that was made out of gold but what is the building the building the temple is the house of God and what's the house of God in the New Testament is it a building or is it people it's people so if you think about it when it talks about how the stones of the sanctuary are poured out on the top of every street you know what those stones of the sanctuary that's us we're the stones of the sanctuary because we're the building blocks the Bible says you are God's building you are God's workmanship we are the building blocks of the church we are those stones we're the gold of the temple we're the golden vessels of the temple or we can degenerate into being a pile of rubble on the corner of every street or we can degenerate to becoming a piece of pottery that just breaks and shatters and goes in the trash has no value like the gold and silver has value so we see that God's people the members of the church right because we're talking about the the temple being destroyed it's it's the church being destroyed the house of God being destroyed God's people who start out as gold so you can have a person who is level gold in their Christianity right there a golden vessel are they immune from ever going down this path absolutely not let him that thinketh he standeth take he lest he fall those who are gold the gold becomes dim those who are one of the building blocks of the church one of the foundation members of the church a founding member you know I've been in the church for years one of the key players down at faith forward Baptist Church you know you can become rubble you can become pottery you can become waste and you know what you can get to the point where you're you you you don't have the love that you used to have look if the church at Ephesus lost its first love you know what we could lose our love too and then you get to the point where when you don't have love you know what then you don't love your spouse the way that you should you don't love your kids the way that you should and the next thing you know you start making decisions not based on what's right for your family not not based on you know well what's gonna result in my kids being saved what's gonna result in them getting the right preaching and and what's gonna result in them doing right you start making decisions just based on what you want to do what you want to enjoy for your own selfish pleasure you're not feeding them you're feeding yourself the wrong things your children do what they embrace dung hills they embrace the dung of this world next thing you know they've got a Bernie Sanders stickers on the on the on the back of the car they've got a love your mother sticker but it's not about their mother it's a picture of the planet love your mother it's the earth and then they have a coexist sticker and it's got a symbol of Islam and Hinduism and Buddhism and all these different they write hey coexist next thing you know they've got the Darwin fish on the back of the car the fish with legs Darwin blaspheming Jesus Christ making a mockery of Christ worshipping the creature more than the Creator believing in this fairy tale of evolution they're just embracing dung hills next thing you know their favorite show is Ellen DeGeneres you know their favorite music is is what's the most queer loving music now these days help me out carnal ones not scared come on young people what you too that's like 40 years ago you too came out 40 years ago but hey Bono Bono's a reprobate but that's a whole another sermon I did a whole sermon on him back in 2011 called the gospel according to Bono and that guy you can literally you can literally trace that guy becoming a reprobate but you're getting me off topic here alright that's a sermon though I need to do I didn't we need another Bono sermon alright but anyway you know they're just embracing the done I don't know you know I don't know the current music but every once in a while you get a little glimpses of it and that's pretty much how you react to it you know because it's one thing to hear the music it's nothing to see the musicians I don't remember what it was like a couple you yeah that's it yeah we were in meds yeah you just read my mind sign I perceive that the art of profit yeah we went to we were a Magic Mountain which is the Six Flags rollercoaster park this is like a year or two ago or I don't know when it was well how long was that year ago two years who knows a couple years ago we were we were out at Magic Mountain in LA you know the roller coaster park and we were in line for a roller coaster and they had like TV screens playing while we're in line and I was like what was that band what's it called lovely the band and it's all dudes all right that's what he said it wasn't it was not lovely okay it was wasn't it just some super queer looking yeah I was just like it was just the most weirdo queer looking thing I was like what in the world but look can you imagine your kids just like this is my favorite music now dad and you're just like get out so you know embracing Dunghill's you know a famine of God's Word folks are our country is in a bad place right now spiritually and look just just take it to the bank whatever you see happening in this world is an outward reflection of what's going on spiritually if you see a country that is just self-destructing imploding just all kinds of plagues or punishments or just I mean there's something wrong spiritually I mean I don't think anyone would disagree that there's a lot of things wrong with our country right now you say well you know financially we're 25 trillion dollars in debt I think I think our leaders are trying to like have some kind of a contest for like how fast they can double that or something because I mean how many trillions are they gonna add by the time this coronavirus thing is over you know they're already 25 trillion dollars in debt and then they're like hey let's just send everybody you know two thousand dollars a month whether they need it or not I mean it's just like where's this money coming from you know the Federal Reserve is just printing money out of thin air quantitative easing and just all kinds of financial shenanigans are going on right now all kinds of bizarre legislation is being passed right now I mean the the finances in our country are in a really weird place politically strange things are happening obviously you've got the sickness ravaging through New York and look let's face it you know if you look at where the corona virus has hit the most I mean not nowhere is getting hit like New York I mean New York City and look just look how many cases there are in in New York City and look at my deaths are on New York City and then compared to the population of New York City and it's a high percentage of the people out there that are that are suffering you know it's it's it's pretty intense what's happening over there but I don't think that's a coincidence because that's probably one of the most wicked cities in America I mean New York is a super wicked place there's a lot of sin going on over there you know the just the statistics on I've preached in the past statistics about the STDs in New York it's like one out of three people or one out of four people are infected or something it's just like crazy amounts of just STDs and then my wife was looking at some of the the the counties and the states that have been hit the hardest by coronavirus it's the same ones that have the worst laws on abortion the ones that are just the most pro-abortion are the ones that are getting hit the most you know well it's just a coincidence yeah you know you're right it's probably just a coincidence just just nothing to see here folks and just keep on going all the way to hell because I'm telling you it's not a coincidence when you see bad things happening it's either one of two things when bad things happen either you're being tried and tested by the Lord and he's gonna bring you out better like job he's gonna make you better he's gonna bring you through stronger it's gonna bless your ladder end twice as much as he blessed you in the beginning or he's punishing you and what determines that is whether you're righteous or not and so we know that our country's doing a lot of wickedness right now and then we see all these bad things happening the solution though I mean what's the what's the solution for the children of Judah is it to just you know spoon malt oatmeal into all of their emaciated mouths is that gonna fix everything and it's just like you know like like we just need to sponsor these these uh these people in Judah you know for the price of a cup of coffee you could save this child's life is that what the answer no the answer is spiritually because you know what if these people would seek the Lord God's going to provide their needs because I've never seen the righteous forsaken and I've never seen his seed begging bread you know my God shall supply all your need according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus God clothes the grass of the field God feeds the animals and you know what God will feed you unless you rebel against God because the Bible says if we seek first the kingdom of God all these things will be added unto us food clothing will have what we need not say we're gonna be rich but we'll have what we need to survive these people don't have what they need to survive the people in this story are dying why because they're not seeking first the kingdom of God okay and so we need to understand that the outward tragedies that we see are a reflection of what's going in on inside spiritually and there's a delayed reaction so if you start going down the dark path spiritually right now and you know maybe you're just a teenager maybe you're in your 20s or whatever you know and you're young and you start going down that dark path and you're like you know Pastor Anderson he said that this was gonna be a miserable life and I'm having that I'm having the best time ever you know you're at the you're at the party college and the frat house and the sorority and you're doing the beer pong and you're partying and whoo look Pastor Anderson what Pastor Anderson said this wasn't gonna be cool hey you know what Pastor Anderson never said that there wasn't gonna be any fun in that because the Bible says that sin has pleasure for a season so just remember if you decide to go down that route just remember you are here on the map of your life spiritually the pleasures of sin for a season just remember like you're right here on that map when you're saying oh you know Pastor Anderson said it was gonna be bad but it's not that bad we you know folks it's just because you haven't gotten to that point yet because look you when the Bible says you reap what you sow have you ever just planted a seed and then the next day it was just a full-grown plant you're just picking vegetables picking fruit if gardening worked that way it'd be cool and I'd do it I don't know you know that's why I don't have the patience for gardening because it's not like you don't just put it in just like you know you know you plant it and for weeks it might seem like nothing's happening and then something little happens and you're like oh wow you know that's just that's nothing you know but then you know what over time though you're not paying attention not paying attention next thing you know that little mustard seed becomes a great herb you know it becomes a giant plant and the fowl of the air lodge and the branches thereof and that's how it is you know you sow sin and you're just thinking getting away with it getting away with it I'm getting away with it getting away with it no consequences no consequences and then you're just like you just get busy in life and the next thing you know all of a sudden it's like whoa everything catches up to you and people all the people can tell you the stories you don't just go from collecting classic cars one day going to car shows and be in the life of the party to to you know defiling your friends guest bathroom overnight you know there are a lot of there's a lot of stopping along the way and it's a gradual process so don't let the gold even become here's here's what I want to do I don't want the gold to become dim so I want to keep my spiritual life polished up and stay sharp stay bright stay shining keep let my light so shine I don't even want to get the gold dim so it's a big deal still gold don't even let it get them because then you know you just keep going down down down and and this is an extreme chapter but I'm telling you people have got people have actually gotten to this exact point this is not fiction and so even if you don't go all the way to this point I don't even want to go halfway to this story people eating their children and all I mean it's horrific right I wouldn't even want to get one tenth of the way down this road let's buy rides and have a word of prayer father we thank you so much for your word and the warnings that you give us Lord and Lord thank you for all the blessings that we have and and the the nice clothes and the good food and the good friends and the church and the the preaching and the Bibles that we have Lord we have so many blessings help us not to take them for granted and and get to the point where they have to be taken away from us before we appreciate them Lord help us to stay sharp stay bright and and stay tuned up for you Lord and not to get slack and Lord help us to love our children and and and and care about their spiritual welfare and in Jesus name we pray amen