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September 10, 2020 7:05 am
Beginning on August 11 until now we've been working her way through all five chapters of Lamentations is an Old Testament book that Chuck Swindoll has dubbed Jeremiah's Journal wall and for good reason. Jeremiah the writer was emotionally devastated by the violent destruction of Jerusalem is book is filled with anguish today on Insight for living Jeremiah's dejected tone turns the corner and you will be encouraged to do the same due to time constraints will begin right where Chuck left off yesterday entitled the spinal message in the series. Jeremiah's mournful swan song draw for concluding in the read you a true story little time with what I believe is one of the great hopes of our future. Two of these applications have to do with the prophet himself. Two of them have to do with the city that has made him so heartbroken with what he sees in the devastation. The first regarding Jeremiah summer culture ministries that are demanding painful and underappreciated. Stop and think that was Jeremiah's calling from his earliest years in ministry. The Lord said to him you're going to uproot you're going to tear down you're going to stand against your going to be hated you're going to be just biased that lost him into a ministry that was exactly like that you know there are some ministers who face ministries like that and it seems as though they are called from one to another and it's tough from the beginning to the ending of their time with their congregation or on their mission wherever they may be led to serve in order to deal with that kind of ministry you need a top high to add one more thing, you need a tough life. She's gotta be right there with you going through it along with you. Not every man or woman is made for tough ministry. The Lord asked tough. But that's the kind of future he has for you, and he certainly did. Jeremiah know that brings me to the second application. Those who were called to minister to hardhearted people must guard against becoming like them they would have it easy for Jeremiah to be have become hardhearted. Everybody was ministering to was rejecting him and rejecting the truth, but you know he never wavered. In fact, he remained devoted in his walk. What is it we remember about Jeremiah. The most his tears he never became like the people whom we minister, they were difficult.
He was not. They were hard. He was not, it's beautiful to see an individual be able to stay objective enough to better serve the tough in tough places and not pick up those qualities himself or herself and Jeremiah's a good model. There's 1/3 application as a relates to the. The place no matter how bad and said the scene around us may be. God is always present in the same time delighted in that I find it marvelous that the Lord doesn't pick up my mood that the Lord doesn't see the frame of mind I'm in and then take his cue from that no his mercies are new every morning's plan is set. His character is holy. His purpose is pure, his ways are right and so all the way through no matter how bad her house and our situation may get you can count on this Lord you worship and serve remains the same, forever and he is always present.
He never leaves when the going gets tough. He stays right there with us through it all.
Never doubt the Lord's presence in the midst of these difficult times in which we live, he's all over it. He knows exactly what his plan is. He knows exactly what the future will be. We can trust is the fourth that will lead me to the story I want to read you. No matter how bleak things may seem or how we you may feel prayer is always appropriate. Fact I would use the word essential is a good time for me to pause and ask you about your prayer life. If you pause at the end of most days in these last several months to pray specifically about the things that concern us you personally as well as we the people is always appropriate and it's amazing what it does to our perspective, it's just remarkable how in the process of prayer. We change the situation around us may not.
But the time spent in prayer bolsters us for what were going through and helps us to stay strong when we would otherwise give into our time. Now there's a big question that's left when you come to the to the end of the day, or you come to the end of a study like Lamentations and that is first the hope is there a pocket of hope at work among us. Is there something we can point to and say that has the makings of hope and when you really cultivate that you can begin to change this and these things, you know what I believe it is the family. The family know you may be in a family, but you may not even be married. Your family you maybe you and your wife or husband and you may not have children around its you to your the family I'm talking to you.
Maybe rearing smaller children and by the way, has there been interesting how God has brought you and the children close together. Interesting is the same for the use of the pulpit. Otherwise, the people pick up stones to sell you out. I read recently that a lady says she feels like she is.
She is a teacher in the class and she got all her own. She's ready for new class she said recently. As a result of dealing with her own kids something the Lord brought us together. He's close to sin. He's even given us words like sheltering in our quarantine you making the most of the you cultivating that because you see you you really aren't going to do a whole lot to alter the life of your neighbor or you may or our governor. Your sphere of influence here me is your family, your attitude toward life in the situation that you're facing. That's a family matter. Your prayer disciplines that's cultivated in a family, your joy, even your music. It's a family thing the neighborhood is a going to sing together using as a family, your whole viewpoint of life or the future or dealing with difficult people that takes place among family members. I can hear somebody say well if you knew the truth regarding our family. You'd probably sing a different tune truck. No, I wouldn't know. I wouldn't think that there is a model family. I don't think there is such a thing as a perfect family. I think every family is flawed because is made up of flawed people, but the family unit can be used in the beautiful way to cultivate the right way to view life. Now the story I found this story in Charles Kuralt book on the road which I'd recommend not a Christian book patrol scrawled years ago with CBS when on the road and picked up snapshots for various documentaries. He did of different scenes that he saw while he was on the road. This is one of the scenes is happens to be the Chandler family listen. He happened upon the Chandler's a large black family in Prairie Mississippi. He writes along the road took nine children out of the cotton fields out of poverty out of Mississippi but roads go both ways and this Thanksgiving weekend. They all returned. This is about Thanksgiving and coming home: I want to get a Kleenex ready. There one after another from every corner of America.
The cars turned into the yard with much cheering and much hugging the nine children of Alex and Mary Chandler were coming home for their parents 50th wedding anniversary Gloria Chandler bears my daddy Gloria rushes over to hug him.
Gloria Chandler: Master of arts, University of Missouri, now a teacher in Kansas City was home again all nine children had memories of a sharecropper's cabin and nothing to wear and nothing to eat all nine are not college graduates cooking the meal in the kitchen of the new house.
The children built for their parents four years ago is Bessie Chandler Beasley, bachelor of arts, Tuskegee Master of arts Central Michigan dietitian at a veterans hospital. Married to a PhD in helping out kitchen princes. Chandler Norman Master of arts Indiana University school teacher in Gary Indiana now you will meet them all. But first I thought you ought to meet their parents, Alex Chandler remembers a time when you have a horse and a cow and he tried to buy a mule and couldn't make the payments.
So we lost the mule and the horse and the cow and about that time Cleveland the first son decided he wanted to go to college. Alex Chandler. We didn't have any money and and we went to town he wanted to catch the bus to go on up there so we went up to town and borrowed two dollars and 1/2 from her niece and we bought him a bus ticket and when he got there to college. That's all he had from the beginning he became Dr. Cleveland Chandler.
He's now the chairman of the economics department at Howard University. How did they do it starting on one of the poorest forms in the poorest part of the poorest state in America. Princes, Chandler Norman, well we worked all of us worked Kuralt you giving you pick cotton all yeah we we pick cotton we pool corn stripped militant.
We dug potatoes with a all left, Luther left for the University of Omaha and went on to become the public service employment manager for Kansas City. He helped his brother younger brother James come to Omaha University to and and go on to graduate work at Yale and in his turn. James helped Herman, who graduated from Morgan Street and is now a technical manager in Dallas and they help themselves.
Forts in the Baptist minister in Pueblo, Colorado to go to Morehouse College ports and Chandler.
I chose Morehouse and it was difficult but I had I had to pick cotton all summer long to get the first month's rent and tuition so helping themselves and helping one another. They all went away and now 50 years after life again for the Chandler family in one a one room shack in the cotton field now just as they were sitting down in the new house to the ham and turkey and sweet potatoes and cornbread and collard greens and two kinds applied three kinds a case now Donald arrived, Don was the youngest who had driven with his family all the way down from Minneapolis and now the Chandler's were altogether again. Alex Chandler said grace our father in heaven. He prayed we come at this moment, giving the thanks for those been so good and so kind to us. We want to thank you oh God for this for your love and for your son Jesus, thank you that you have provided for all of us through all these years.
Mr. Chandler begins to weep remembering all those years of sharecropping and going hungry and working for white man for $0.50 a day worrying about his children's future. Remembering all that Alex Chandler almost didn't get through the blessing. Alex continuing grace. We ask all of this in the name of Jesus. And neither did the others. All the family members are now wiping tears away Chandler family started with his near nothing is any family in the land of America ever did. So there Thanksgiving weekend might have been more thankful than most Chandler family starts to sing all flyweight love flow waves. The name of the old hymn, it's Mr. Chandler's favorite is nine children flew away in many places for themselves in this country and this weekend they all came home again and probably your no lessons in any of this but I know that in the future. Whenever I hear the family as a dying institution. I'll tell them whenever I hear anything in America is impossible, I'll think of the Chandler's men and women don't let anybody ever tell you that it's too late brother were finished.
Whether this country is done we are not there too many great families like the Chandler's and some of them are in this place. You're raising them right, your thinking straight. You know better than what you're being told in the media, you realize God's plan is in overshadowing all-consuming plan spelled out in the Scriptures, and nothing will ever nullify it in the one place you have to make that clear in no and to drive it home. Is your family if you not saying that there you're missing it because that's where the children will learn it and it's from there they'll take it with them.
You better believe the nine Chandler family members all pray at their table and all are grateful for what God is done and they've all known hardship like you and I've never known, but they don't look back, cursing, what was the now. Give thanks for the God who is who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all we could ask or think these are dark difficulties right now. This is the end. This isn't even the beginning of the end. But it is, as Churchill said on one occasion. Maybe the end of the beginning. And as we start over in a whole new way.
Make sure your family is on target. Stir the relationship within spend time with one another building to the lives of each other. Pray with each other sing with each other stand alongside each other.
Be there for them when they graduate.
Encourage them along the way, is an old song that says give of your sons to bear the message glorious given your wealth to speed them on their way toward her soul for them in prayer victorious in all you spend Jesus will repay the family. The prayed for me and I am now the recipient of those prayers and are now enjoying the benefit of our family as the Lord gives us our days together. Do not let yourself be mesmerized by the majority voice around us. It isn't the majority it's the minority God is at work.
He knows what he's doing just as he did in the days of the Lamentations like it about your heads, please give never trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ is no wonder why your life is so miserable and empty, and longing for what will last.
Make a change turn to him now.
Someday you will fly away. Someday you will leave this earth and your eternity will be determined with what you did with Christ during life. He who has the son has the life. He who does not have the son of God does not have the life trusted the father thank you for the privilege of going through hard times. Thank you that life isn't a bowl of cherries.
Thank you. That isn't, it isn't easy. Thank you that the challenge of it drives us to our knees and the difficulties that we face force us to trust and to pray and not be afraid. Give us the courage to face life head on through your eyes and through your strength. May your word, have more authority than any anti-periodical in any newspaper account any media presentation. Any news program may hear words speak truth to us. May we drill into it in a way that it finds room in our lives and ultimately fruit for your glory. For those who never come to Christ. I pray that you lead them to faith in your son before it is eternally truly in the name of Christ occurring in all God's people say amen for living. Conclusion to Chuck's Windows 8 part study in the book of Lamentations called Jeremiah's Journal of woes to learn more about this ministry would like to invite you to go online to our website you'll find is it insight world.org and as a result of hearing this time sensitive series. We invite you to take your next steps in your spiritual journey at Insight for living ministries. We believe your best learning often takes place when you set aside private moments to pause and reflect on God's word is one of the many reasons we supply a daily dose of biblical encouragement from Chuck by email by subscribing to Chuck's free devotional you'll be able to read and pray intentionally, and with focus seven days a week.
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Join us Friday. Chuck Swindoll begins our next series becoming a people of grace here on insight for living. The preceding message.
Jeremiah's mournful Swanson and the sound recording copyright in 2020 by Charles are swindling. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited