SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/20/2014
12:18 PM
My Worship Time Focus: The Jewish
Remnant’s Declaration
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Lamentations 5:1-22
Message of the
verses: 1 Remember, O LORD, what has
befallen us; Look, and see our reproach! 2 Our inheritance has been turned over
to strangers, Our houses to aliens. 3 We have become orphans without a father,
Our mothers are like widows. 4 We have to pay for our drinking water, Our wood
comes to us at a price. 5 Our pursuers are at our necks; We are worn out, there
is no rest for us. 6 We have submitted to Egypt and Assyria to get enough
bread. 7 Our fathers sinned, and are no more; It is we who have borne their
iniquities. 8 Slaves rule over us; There is no one to deliver us from their
hand. 9 We get our bread at the risk of our lives Because of the sword in the
wilderness. 10 Our skin has become as hot as an oven, Because of the burning
heat of famine. 11 They ravished the women in Zion, The virgins in the cities
of Judah. 12 Princes were hung by their hands; Elders were not respected. 13
Young men worked at the grinding mill, And youths stumbled under loads of wood.
14 Elders are gone from the gate, Young men from their music. 15 The joy of our
hearts has ceased; Our dancing has been turned into mourning. 16 The crown has
fallen from our head; Woe
to us, for we have sinned!
17 Because of this our heart is faint,
Because of these things our eyes are dim; 18
Because of Mount Zion which lies desolate, Foxes prowl in it. 19 You, O LORD, rule forever; Your throne is from generation
to generation. 20 Why do You forget us forever? Why do You forsake us so
long? 21 Restore us to You, O LORD, that we may be restored; Renew
our days as of old, 22 Unless You have
utterly rejected us And are exceedingly angry with us.”
I mentioned in an earlier SD on Lamentations that the
third chapter was an acrostic, each verse began with a letter from the Hebrew
language, and there was an order from first to last with one exception in the
third chapter. Now I learn that the
entire first four chapters is an acrostic, which is why there are 22 verses or
in the case of chapter three 66 verses.
However if that is not enough confusion the last chapter, chapter five
is not an acrostic, “it is a prayer; the pronouns are plural, for the prophet
prayed for himself and the suffering remnant that had survived the invasion.” We see from verse one that Jeremiah is asking
the Lord on behalf of himself and the remnant to remember, which means he
wanted the Lord to consider and to behold.
He and the remnant wanted the Lord to act on their behalf and deliver
them from their painful and humiliating situation. Now we know from our study of Jeremiah and of
Daniel that they both knew that the Babylonian captivity would be over in 70
years, but they still needed mercy from the Lord to survive those years of
captivity, and so he prayed to this end.
As we read these painful verses in the first portion of
chapter five we can see the pain that was happening to those who survived the
attack of the Babylonians, and the people must have remembered that it was
because of their sin that they were in the position that they were in. It was because of their disobedience of their
covenant with God that they are in the position they were in, for God would
have allowed them to stay in their land, for He gave it to them, if they had
not sinned, but now they were calling out to the Lord for mercy to be given to
them. Mercy is something we all need
from the Lord, for mercy is God holding back from us what we truly
deserve. We cannot earn mercy or it
would then not be mercy.
We may think it unfair for God to punish the children for
the sins of their fathers “"You shall not worship them or serve them; for
I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on
the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me
(Exodus 20:5).” Now I want to take us
back to the ninth chapter of the book of Daniel and remember the prayer that is
in that chapter. Daniel truly had
nothing to do with the trouble that was on the people of Israel, for he went
into captivity as a teenager, but in this prayer he confesses that he too is a
sinner, and Paul writes to the Romans “all have sinned and fallen short of the
glory of God.” Jeremiah knew that he and
those with him were sinners, so they would confess this to the Lord as seen in
this chapter.
Dr. Wiersbe writes:
“They remembered that bread was scarce (v. 9) and that the famine caused
terrible ugliness (v. 10; Deut. 28:48).
Their wives and daughters were raped by enemy soldiers (v. 11: Deut.
28:30), so that even if they did survive, they were unacceptable as wives. The leaders of the nation were treated with disrespect
(v. 12), and the youths and children were forced to do the work of adults (v.
13). There was no more joy in the city
(vv. 14-15). The ‘crown city’ was fallen
(v. 16; see 2:15) and the king who wore the crown was in exile (4:20).
As we look at the last paragraph of this chapter we see
that the book does not end on a sour note, but in a marvelous confession of
faith, along with a humble confession of their sins that they had
committed. Dr. Wiersbe writes “Without
God’s presence and power, their lives could never be renewed, and they didn’t
want to go back to the old ways that had caused so much trouble.”
Now it may seem like the last verse is troublesome, but
we will conclude this SD with what Dr. Wiersbe has to say about it: “The final verse seems very pessimistic after
such a sincere prayer for redemption and renewal. When the Jews read Lamentations publicly in the
synagogue to remember the fall of Jerusalem, they repeat verse 21 so the
reading won’t end on a negative note.
But the verse is still there, and it reminds us of the high cost of
sin. God delights in His people and
longs to bless them, but if we sin, He will chasten us. If we repent and confess our sins, He will
forgive us (1 John 1:9) and give us a new beginning. ‘It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands
of the living God’ (Heb. 10:31).”
In our last SD on the book of Lamentations we will look
at “Living Lessons” from this book which is at the end of the commentary that
Warren Wiersbe wrote. Tomorrow is Sunday
and times seems to slip by very fast on Sundays so we will look at these
lessons, which will not take as much time to prepare for.
9/20/2014 12:54 PM
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