Meditations From The Book Of Lamentations

Feature 3 – July/August 2024 – Grace & Truth Magazine

Meditations From The Book Of Lamentations

The prophet Jeremiah was used by God to express the grief and sorrow of the godly people of the nation of Israel. They were grieved because of the disobedience to the Word of God among them.

God Desires To Bless
God in His great love had told the people of Israel that He would pour blessings on them if they obeyed His Word: “If you diligently obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments … the LORD your God will set you high above all nations of the earth … blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the LORD your God” (Dt. 28:1-2 NKJV).

The LORD delighted to bless His people Israel with earthly blessings. As Christians, our blessings are spiritual. Ephesians 1:3 tell us that God has “blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” In this matter, Bible scholar C. H. Mackintosh wrote: “Both nature and sphere of the Church’s blessings are wholly different from those of Israel and must never be confounded” (Notes On The Pentateuch). Unlike the blessings for Israel, the Christian’s blessings are not conditional. Israel was told, “if you obey … the LORD will.” The LORD also told them the consequences of disobedience: “But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes … all these curses will come upon you and overtake you” (Dt. 28:15).

God’s Word Is Sure
God’s Word is settled in heaven and abides forever. “One jot or tittle will be no means pass” (Mt. 5:18). “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever” (Isa. 40:8). Sadly, Israel did not obey the Word of God, and Jeremiah set before them the consequences of their unfaithfulness: “The LORD has afflicted her because of the multitude of her transgressions” (Lam. 1:5). “The LORD has done what He purposed; He has fulfilled His Word which He commanded in days of old” (2:17).

God Afflicts Because Of Sin
God “does not afflict willingly,” and there is weeping and “tears” (Lam. 3:33, 1:2). There is “captivity … affliction and hard servitude” (v.3). “Jerusalem has sinned gravely … She did not consider her destiny; therefore her collapse was awesome; she had no comforter” (vv.8-9). What was the effect of Jerusalem’s sins on God’s prophet? Jeremiah said, “For these things I weep; my eye, my eye overflows with water; because the comforter, who should restore my life, is far from me. My children are desolate because the enemy prevailed” (v.16). They were suffering for their sins. The Lord Jesus suffered for our sins. He had no sin of His own; He is absolutely perfect. But He “suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God” (1 Pet. 3:18). “Christ suffered for us in the flesh” (4:1).

The sufferings of the children of Israel meant something to Jeremiah. Do the sufferings of the Lord Jesus mean anything to you? He gave “His cheek to the one who strikes Him” (Lam. 3:30). “The officers struck Him with the palms of their hands” (Mk. 14:65). Jeremiah said, “They … threw stones at me” (Lam. 3:53). We see twice in John’s gospel that the people sought to stone the Lord Jesus, although they were prevented from doing so (8:59, 10:31). “I am their taunting song” (Lam. 3:63). The Lord Jesus was “the song of the drunkards” (Ps. 69:12). He suffered greatly from the hands of men.

The Lord Jesus also suffered from a holy and righteous God. Thinking of Jesus, we can read Lamentations 1:12-13 as: “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Behold and see if there is any sorrow like My sorrow, which has been brought on Me, which the Lord has inflicted in the day of His fierce anger. From above He has sent fire into My bones.” God’s fierce anger was not against the Lord Jesus personally but against our sins which He bore at Calvary. God “did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all” (Rom. 8:32). He was “smitten by God and afflicted … He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed” (Isa. 53:4-5). All this took place during the three hours of darkness on Calvary’s cross.

God Afflicts To Draw His People To Himself
Jeremiah saw the suffering of the people of Israel as coming from the holy God. “The LORD is righteous” (Lam. 1:18). Because of His attributes He continues to deal with His people who have departed from His Word. In Lamentations 2 we read of “His anger” (v.1), “His wrath” (v.2), “His fury” (v.4) and “His burning indignation” (v.6). The people “made a noise in the house of the LORD” (v.7), but there was nothing in it for the LORD to enjoy. They had rejected His Word. “The Law is no more, and her prophets find no vision from the LORD” (v.9).

• There was no prophetic vision. “Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; but happy is he who keeps the law” (Prov. 29:18).
• There was no food. “They seek bread” (Lam. 1:11). “They sought food to restore their life” (v.19). “They say to their mothers, ‘Where is grain and wine?’” (2:12). “Our skin is hot as an oven, because of the fever of famine” (5:10). Is there a famine in your soul? The Lord Jesus is the bread of life. He is always available for us to feed on Him (Jn. 6). In her hymn “Break Thou The Bread Of Life,” Mary Lathbury (1841–1913) wrote:
  
  Thou art the Bread of Life, O, Lord, to me,
  Thy Holy Word the truth That saveth me. Give me to eat and live With Thee above; Teach me to love Thy truth, For Thou art love.
  
• There was “no pasture” (Lam. 1:6). It was as if they were like Mephibosheth, living in Lo Debar; a place of no pasture (2 Sam. 9). The Lord Jesus said, “I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture” (Jn. 10:9). As the Shepherd, “He makes [the sheep] lie down in green pastures” (Ps. 23:2)
• There was no strength; they were “without strength” (Lam. 1:6). “He made my strength fail ... I am not able to withstand” (Lam. 1:14). When we were “without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom. 5:6). “The Lord is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation” (Ps. 118:14). “Strengthen me according to Your Word” (119:28). “The Lord stood with me and strengthened me” (2 Tim. 4:17). Am I looking to the wrong person for strength? It is “Christ who strengthens” (Phil. 4:13).
• There was no rest. “She finds no rest” (Lam. 1:3). “You have moved my soul far from peace” (3:17) “We labor and have no rest” (5:5). “Thus says the Lord: … ask for the old paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; then you will find rest for your souls” (Jer. 6:16).
  Rest comes from the Lord. Long before Israel went into captivity, David, looking beyond it, said, “The Lord God of Israel has given rest to His people, that they may dwell in Jerusalem forever” (1 Chr. 23:25). “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Mt. 11:28-29). In verse 28 rest is given and in verse 29 rest is found.
• There was no joy. “The joy of our heart has ceased” (Lam. 5:15). David said, “Restore to me the joy of your salvation” (Ps. 51:12). The Lord Jesus told His disciples, “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full” (Jn. 15:11). He said to the Father, “I come to You … that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves” (17:13).
• There was no separation from sinners. “She dwells among the nations” (Lam. 1:3). “The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed that the adversary and the enemy could enter the gates of Jerusalem” (4:12). However, the Lord Jesus was “separate from sinners” (Heb. 7:26). He is the blessed Man described in the first three verses of Psalm 1, who “walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful” v.1). He suffered “outside the gate. Therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach” (Heb. 13:12-13).

With all their grief and sorrow in captivity, their eyes were in the wrong place for deliverance and help. “Our eyes failed us, watching vainly for our help; in our watching we watched for a nation that could not save us” (Lam. 4:17). They were looking to men rather than to the LORD – “Zion spreads out her hands” (1:17). Rather than spreading out their hands they should have lifted them up: “Lift your hands toward Him” (2:19). “The help of man is useless” (Ps. 108:12). “From whence comes my help? My help comes for the LORD, who made heaven and earth” (121:1-2). “Our help is in the name of the LORD” (124:8).

God Seeks Fellowship With His People
Progress is made when people arrive at the point of searching their hearts. “Let us search out and examine our ways, and turn back to the LORD; let us lift our hearts and hands to God in heaven. We have transgressed and rebelled” (Lam. 3:40-42). “Woe to us, for we have sinned” (5:16). “Turn us back to You, O LORD, and we will be restored; renew our days as of old” (v.21). “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn. 1:9). This is what we must do to enjoy the wonderful fellowship with the Father and the Son.

May we close by considering a few verses from “God And Father, We Adore Thee,” a hymn written by William Kelly (1821–1906):

Fellowship with Thee, the Father, And with Jesus Christ Thy Son – Such Thine own most gracious giving By Thy Spirit to each One.”
For in Christ was life eternal Once beheld and heard below, And in Him dwelt all the fullness, Though in grace He stooped so low.
Now in Him, our God and Father, Sharers of Thy love are we; Now partaking with our Savior His unceasing rest in Thee.
Grace divine is this, transcending All that else the heart employs; ’Tis the Son and Father deigning Us to give of Their own joys.

By Paul Palmer