Lament joins your heart with God’s intent. This message was given on November 29, 2015 at New City Church in Calgary by Pastor John Ferguson. For more info, please visit: www.newcitychurch.ca

1. Far As The Curse Is Found
Human Suffering & The Hope of Christmas
“The Hope of Christmas
& The Lament Over Evil”
~ Psalm 10 ~

3. “Is there anything
harder to face
and figure out
than evil?”

4. Far As The Curse Is Found
Human Suffering & The Hope of Christmas
“The Hope of Christmas
& The Lament Over Evil”
~ Psalm 13 ~

5. 1 Why, O Lord, do you stand afar off?
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Why do you hide yourself in times of
trouble?

6. 1 God, where are you?
2 God, if you love me, then why…?
The Lost Language of Lament
HT: Michael Card, Sacred Sorrow

7. There is a time
to weep.
~ Ecclesiastes 3:4 ~

8. 2 In arrogance the wicked hotly pursue
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the poor; let them be caught in the
schemes they have devised. 3 For the
wicked boasts of the desires of his soul,
and the one greedy for gain curses and
renounces the Lord.

9. 4 In the pride of his face the wicked
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does not seek him: all his thoughts are,
“There is no God.” 5 His ways prosper
at all times; your judgments are on high,
out of his sight; as for all his foes, he
puffs at them.

10. 6 He say sin his heart, “I shall not be
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moved; throughout all generations I shall
not meet adversity.” 7 His mouth is
filled with cursing and deceit and oppres-
sion; under his tongue are mischief and
iniquity.

11. 8 He sits in ambush in the villages; in
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hiding places he murders the innocent.
His eyes stealthily watch for the helpless;
9 he lurks in ambush like a lion in his
thicket; he lurks that he may seize the
poor; he seizes the poor when he draws
him into his net.

12. 10 The helpless are crushed, sink down
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and fall by his might. 11 He says in his
heart, “God has forgotten, he has hidden
his face, he will never see it.”

13. There is no God. Therefore,
there is no right or wrong.
The Secular Response

14. Is there a God? No. What is
the purpose of the universe?
There is none. What is the
meaning of life? Ditto. Why
am I here? Just dumb luck.
What is the difference
between right and wrong,
good and bad? There is no
moral difference between
them. Why should I be
moral? Because it makes
you feel better.

15. Is abortion, euthanasia,
suicide, paying taxes, foreign
aid, or anything else you
don’t like forbidden,
permissible, or sometimes
obligatory? Anything goes.
Does history have any
meaning or purpose? It’s full
of sound and fury, but
signifies nothing.

16. “…nature is not cruel,
only pitilessly indifferent.
This is one of the hardest
lessons for humans to
learn. We cannot admit
that things might be
neither good nor evil,
neither cruel nor kind, but
simply callous—
indifferent to all suffering,
lacking purpose.”
~ Atheist Richard Dawkins
River Out of Eden

17. “…nothing is good or bad, only charming or dull.”
~ Oscar Wilde

18. Bibi Aisha
“…nothing is good or bad, only charming or dull.”

19. “…nothing is good or bad, only charming or dull.”
Torturing
children?

20. Bullying?
“…nothing is good or bad, only charming or dull.”

21. Sexual abuse?
“…nothing is good or bad, only charming or dull.”

22. Genocide?
“…nothing is good or bad, only charming or dull.”

23. Child sacrifice?
“…nothing is good or bad, only charming or dull.”

24. Slavery?
“…nothing is good or bad, only charming or dull.”

25. Spanish Inquisition?
“…nothing is good or bad, only charming or dull.”

26. “…nothing is good or bad, only charming or dull.”
Priests molesting boys?

27. “…nothing is good or bad, only charming or dull.”
Roman Catholic Church cover up?

28. “If God does
not exist,
everything is
permissible.”

29. “I’m pretty much
agnostic at this point in
my life. But I find
atheism just as hard to
get my head around as I
find fundamental
Christianity. Because if
there is no such thing as
cosmic justice, what is
the point of being good?
~ Vince Gilligan
“Breaking Bad”

30. “...That’s the one thing
that no one has ever
explained to me. Why
shouldn’t I go rob a
bank, especially if I’m
smart enough to get
away with it? What’s
stopping me?”
~ Vince Gilligan
“Breaking Bad”

31. “The universe is
indifferent…so we create
a fake world for our-
selves, and we exist in
that fake world…a world
that, in fact, means
nothing at all, when you
step back. It’s meaning-
less. But it’s important
that we create some
sense of meaning,
because no perceptible
meaning exists for
anybody.” ~ Woody Allen

32. Detachment /
Extinguish Desire
The Eastern Response

33. Lament = Defiant Hope
The Christian Response

34. 12 Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up your
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hand; forget not the afflicted. 13 Why
does the wicked renounce God and say
in his heart, “You will not call me to
account?”

35. 14 But you do see, for you note the mis-
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chief and vexation, that you may take it
into your hands; to you the helpless com-
mits himself; you have been the helper
of the fatherless. 15 Break the arm of the
wicked and evildoer; call his wickedness
to account till you find none….

36. 16 The Lord is king forever and ever; the
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nations perish from his land. 17 O Lord,
you hear the desire of the afflicted; you
will strengthen their heart; you will incline
your ear 18 to do justice to the fatherless
and oppressed, so that man who is of the
earth may strike terror no more.

37. “How long…?”

38. Lament joins your heart
with God’s intent.

39. “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as
your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from
the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall
call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from
their sins.
~ The Gospel of Matthew, 1:22

40. “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had
spoken by the prophet: ‘Behold, the virgin shall
conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his
name Immanuel’ (which means, God with us).”
~ The Gospel of Matthew, 1:22

41. “Christianity is the story
of God entering the
world and paying the
highest price to deal with
the root of evil. It is the
story of God becoming a
human in Jesus and
taking on himself the
results of human sin.”Greg Gannsle
“Evil as Evidence of Christianity”

42. Veiled in flesh the Godhead see
Hail th’incarnate Deity
Pleased as man with men to dwell
Jesus, our Emmanuel
Hark! the herald angels sing
“Glory to the newborn King”

43. “You are no longer
faced with an argument
which demands your
assent, but with a
Person who demands
your confidence.”
~ CS Lewis
Professor at Oxford

44. “How long…?”

45. When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar
the souls of those who had been slain for the word
of God and for the witness they had borne. They
cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy
and true, how long before you will judge and avenge
our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”
~ The Apostle John in the Book of Revelation 6:9-11

46. Then they were each given a white robe and told
to rest a little longer, until the number of their
fellow servants and their brothers should be
complete, who were to be killed as they
themselves had been.
~ The Apostle John in the Book of Revelation 6:9-11

47. Practice Lament
& Stand Strong
Application