Election results are in…well for the most part…actually – well actually we just don’t know what happened. This is the plight of the wicked. They live in chaos. James says of this very problem: “For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice” (Jas 3:16). That about sums it up.
What we are witnessing is the results of life in a fallen world. I am prompted to write this morning because of a lament I read in Ezekiel. I have been studying laments some of which are found in Pss 3, 73 and 77 and Paul’s lament in 2 Cor 1:3-11. What I have found, as maybe you have as well, is that there is a structure to a lament. Generally 3 parts and we can use that structure to cry out to the Lord and work through our struggle whether it be depression, anxiety – or well – the anger and frustration over unfavorable elections.
The structure of a lament is roughly: a cry to the Lord, a realization of God himself (or a re-realization), a remembering of who God is and what he has done. That’s a rough description.
The lament of wicked Tyre and its leaders, written by Ezekiel, is different. It starts with Tyre’s greatness. The godly lament ends with God’s greatness. Tyre’s lament has no portion of turning to the Lord, rather it ends with destruction. Ezekiel writes of the prince of Tyre: “Because your heart is proud, and you have said , ‘I am a god, I sit in the seat of the gods, in the heart of the seas,’ yet you are but a man, and no god…” (Ezek 28:2 italics mine). The lament ends with not only God’s greatness but the great destruction of Tyre…which no longer exists by the way.
John MacArthur Jr. in his book The Vanishing Conscience conveys that “our problem is not that we are too uninvolved in politics but that we too easily absorb the values of an unbelieving world” (preface of audio recording). This is what Ezekiel saw in regard to the hearts of his people in his day. It broke his heart. It should break our hearts too in our day.
What do we do? The Bible is all about application. It is what I absolutely love about being a biblical counselor. This is what we do and why:
“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the LORD knows the way of the righteous but the way of the wicked will perish.” – Psalm 1
Spend time meditating on the mechanics, logic and truth found in this psalm. We do not meditate on the Word of God enough. We are constantly meditating though and if we are not meditating on God’s Word what are we meditating upon? James finishes the passage from above with this call to believers:
“But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace” (Jas 3:17-18 italics mine).
Lament over the struggles of this world. Lament with a heart of wisdom (Ps 90:12, Pro 4:23) and a heart guarded by the peace of God (Phil 4:7). As a Christian we lament with hope. But as for the wicked…