Lamentations 5
COMMENTARY:
: 7 Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities. (5445 “borne” [cabal] means bear, labor, drag oneself along, to endure something unpleasant or difficult whether on one’s own behalf or on behalf of someone else, carry, support, or carrying a load of pain.)
DEVOTION: The present circumstances in Israel was not good. The majority of the children of Israel were either dead or in captivity. The LORD had put up with their sin long enough and had to judge them according to HIS standards. HE had sent warnings and they would not listen.
Now Jeremiah is admitting that the nation had sinned and that the present generation were enduring the consequences of the sins of the past and the present. There was no revival that Jeremiah would have liked to happen with his messages from the LORD. The false prophets sounded better than him. The people listened to the wrong group.
Today we find ourselves in a nation that was started on Biblical principles with the Ten Commandments as a standard of the laws of the country. This has changed over the last thirty or more years. We have the Ten Commandments coming down in many states of the union. We have the President forbidding the military of any type of Christmas greeting. We have store managers telling their people that they can only say “Happy Holidays” to prevent anyone thinking that we should be celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ.
This not only happens at Christmas but also at Easter when we should be celebrating the Resurrection of our Savior. The nation has changed but not for the better as far as their understanding of the standards that should be in our society.
One of the problems is that even those who are genuine believers fall into the trap of not saying Merry Christmas or HE is Risen at Easter. It is sad but true. We find that many genuine believers want to be politically correct rather than be a witness for the LORD. They think a silent witness is enough.
Jeremiah was dealing with the sins of the past because the nation had started listening to the wrong voices and worshiping the wrong god. Can this be happening even in the lives of those who claim to be believers today?
CHALLENGE: Stand up for the LORD no matter what people think of you. Stop being politically correct and remember to be BIBLICALLY CORRECT at all times.
: 15 The joy of our heart is ceased; our dance is turned into mourning. (4885 “joy” [masows] means mirth, exultation, rejoicing, gladness, delight, gaiety, or merriment.)
DEVOTION: This final chapter of the book by Jeremiah is where he describes his reaction to the destruction of Jerusalem. He is called the “weeping prophet” because of this reaction. He knows that the children of Judah were not listening to the visions he had from the LORD. They tried to kill him. They tried to silence him. They took him away with them when they were fleeing from the Babylonian army. He had been through a lot for the LORD and HIS work.
Now he is praying to the LORD for the restoration of Israel to the Promised Land. He is asking the LORD to remember the reproach of HIS people. He expresses how each people group are being treated by the Babylonian army and the neighbors of Jerusalem.
The statement of this verse just makes your heart wonder about how the LORD can take away HIS chosen people’s gladness. However, it is not HIM that has taken their gladness – they did it to themselves. HE sent the prophets to warn them that judgment was coming. HE told them if they would repent HE would stop the Babylonians from coming to destroy Jerusalem. The false prophet told the leadership of the nation that Jeremiah was lying and that the LORD was only going allow them to go into captivity a short time or not at all.
The people liked the lie rather than turning their live over to the LORD and repenting of their actions. So in reality the gladness was taken away by their personal hands. They made a choice and the LORD allowed their choice to stand.
We sometimes receive warnings from the LORD and if we don’t confess our sin HE will send HIS judgment on us. This is HIS way of getting our attention. Once HE has our attention we can work with HIM for our restoration.
Jeremiah wanted the LORD to return the children of Israel to a time when they could celebrate their relationship with HIM. HE prayed for the people who wanted to kill him. HE cared about HIS fellow Israelite.
We sometimes have our rejoicing taken from us by others. Sometimes it may be from fellow believers. While I was in Bible School at Buffalo Bible Institute there was a girl walking to a meal at the dining hall singing praises to the LORD. Another student at the school walked up to her and asked what “her problem was.” He thought it was not appropriate for her to be so happy. He was wrong and she was right but his comment caused her to stop singing praises to the LORD.
We need to make sure that we are not taking away the merriment of those who love the LORD. Some of them take it away themselves with their sins but it is a sin for those of us who love the LORD to take it from them because we don’t like it.
CHALLENGE: Our desire should be to work with people to cause them to confess their sin and receive the gladness that LORD can bring into their life. We should manifest this gladness on a regular basis.
:17 For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes are dim. (1739 “faint” [daveh] means lacking strength or vigor, unwell, languid, wretched, or sick of mind.)
DEVOTION: When things are going wrong in our lives we can start thinking wrongly about things. We can think that no one cares. We can think that there is no help coming in the near future, or we can think that even God doesn’t care.
Here we have the children of Israel who have wandered from the LORD and not obeyed or cared about HIM for a while are now in trouble and they are asking questions about whether God ever cared about them.
This is normal for them and for us even today. When times get hard we wonder if God cares or if HE ever really cared about what was happening to us. It seems to be a normal reaction to our circumstances.
However, the Bible does teach that God really does care for HIS people but HE also has to get their attention at times to help them realize that sin has consequences and none of us want the consequences of our sins JUST forgiveness and life to be good again.
God knows that if there are no consequences to sin then we will continue to sin and even increase our sins because there are no consequences. So HE allows HIS people to suffer the consequences of their sins for a while and then gives them relief.
HE would rather that we are obedient all the time but HE knows that we prone to wander and has to bring us back through consequences. Sad but true.
CHALLENGE: If we understand what has happened in the past to those who are followers of the LORD WHY don’t we learn and sin less? OR at least go to HIM sooner in prayer and ask for forgiveness. The choice seems to be ours!
: 21 Turn YOU us unto YOU, O LORD, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old. (2318 “renew” [chadash] means to be new, make anew, repair, place in a state or condition identical or nearly the same as a prior state or restore.)
DEVOTION: The prayer of Jeremiah here and the prayer of small churches today have a lot in common. Jeremiah is praying that Israel could be restored to its former glory. The small churches today, that have been large in the past, want the same thing to happen to them.
Jeremiah realized that sin had been the cause of the children of Israel losing favor with the LORD. Many times small churches have the same problem. The people of God see things happen and know that they are blessed. They were yielded to the LORD for direction. The hard times seemed to be gone.
The people of God relaxed in their blessings. They forgot that it took a hard time to get them close to the LORD. Now they were looking at their blessings and didn’t want to hear about their closeness to the LORD. They started blaming others for their lack of blessing. They were not looking inward to see if they were the cause of the lack of blessing to the nation of Israel. We need to look inward to see if we are the cause of a lack of blessing of the LORD because sin in our life.
God warned them that they needed to stay close to HIM but they didn’t listen. They started thinking that the blessings came from their hard work and not from the LORD. They started thinking that they deserved the blessings. They started to relax their relationship with the LORD.
THEN the problems started to develop in the nation and in the church. We are slow learners. We think that if we put more effect into the church it would grow again like it did in the past. NOT SO.
The children of Israel and the small church forgot to get back with the LORD first. They needed revival in their midst first before the LORD could bless them again with joy.
They prayed for things to go back to the way they were in the past but didn’t have the close relationship they had with the LORD in the past. There needed to be a turn around. Revival is the only answer.
Jeremiah wanted the LORD to remember them. He wanted a remnant to return to the Promised Land. His desire was for the joy of the LORD to flow again in Jerusalem. That was his prayer. He ends his second book with a prayer. After the tears of repentance then can the joy of the LORD come into their midst!!!
What is our prayer today for the churches of America and our world? Restoration only comes through repentance. With repentance comes revival and with revival Christians are right with the LORD and the world sits up and takes notice.
CHALLENGE: Ask what the world is seeing in your church today. Do they see a loving fellowship of believers or people who are not getting along with one another? Remember all revivals start with you and me!!
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