Lamentations 1
Notes
Transcript
Lamentations 1
Lamentations 1
Good evening Saints! Glad to be back gathered together for a midweek service, but I have really been enjoying our Growth Groups as well. By my calculations we have a total of three Old Testament books that we have not yet gone through as a church. They are Jeremiah, Lamentations, and Ezekiel. As much as I would like to take them in order, we are going to begin the Book of Lamentations tonight..
Partially, because we can easily complete it prior to our Growth Groups beginning next year, and partially because I think it will be profitable to our church, in light of the application we have seen to the Book of James in our church body.
The book was written by the Prophet Jeremiah. Anybody know Jeremiah’s nickname? The Weeping Prophet. Jeremiah had a hard message to deliver. Perhaps you have had to deliver some hard news to someone you carried about? As a former law enforcement Chaplain, many times I had to deliver the worst news to people. Doctors often have to tell their patients that the test results are not what they hoped for.
Parents often given warnings concerning where certain behaviors or bad choices may lead to. Such was the ministry of Jeremiah. He preached primarily to the people of Judah, it was a message of warning, that became a message of judgement, because they had turned their backs on God. He was not their first love and they were in a constant state of spiritual adultery.
The book of Jeremiah tells the whole story. Lamentations is really an appendix to that book in many ways. But I thought there was some profit in it for us. Most of us in this room or watching on line have warned someone about something and had that warning go unheeded. Ignored, rejected, maybe even laughed at. And I hope not, but maybe some of you are like me and when we say, you really shouldn’t do this or that because this or that could happen and they laugh at you…and then that thing that you warned about bites them a little, it makes us giggle a little.
Jeremiah wasn’t like that at all. He was the weeping Prophet because he grieved every day for 40 years as he warned and no one listened. He poured himself out, he warned, he was heartbroken, and describes his tears as streams of water.
Acrostics funeral songs.
“The use of the alphabet symbolizes that the completeness—‘the A to Z’—of grief is being expressed.” (H.L. Ellison)
Theme: Calling for God’s people to repent of all sin.
In this first chapter, Jerusalem has been wiped out and now Jerusalem laments the consequences of their sin.
If you want to set up a basic outline for this evening in chapter 1.
1 How lonely sits the city That was full of people! How like a widow is she, Who was great among the nations! The princess among the provinces Has become a slave!
2 She weeps bitterly in the night, Her tears are on her cheeks; Among all her lovers She has none to comfort her. All her friends have dealt treacherously with her; They have become her enemies.
The timing of his writing again was immediately following the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon in 586 B.C. As he writes he sees the city still on fire, prior to him being taken to Egypt, so you have these contrasts of what she once was and what has become of her.
3 Judah has gone into captivity, Under affliction and hard servitude; She dwells among the nations, She finds no rest; All her persecutors overtake her in dire straits.
4 The roads to Zion mourn Because no one comes to the set feasts. All her gates are desolate; Her priests sigh, Her virgins are afflicted, And she is in bitterness.
5 Her adversaries have become the master, Her enemies prosper; For the Lord has afflicted her Because of the multitude of her transgressions. Her children have gone into captivity before the enemy.
6 And from the daughter of Zion All her splendor has departed. Her princes have become like deer That find no pasture, That flee without strength Before the pursuer.
Jeremiah tells that this was not an accident, not due to the evil of Nebuchadnezzar or the Babylonians, the Lord has afflicted her.
Old Test
26 “Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse:
27 the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you today;
28 and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way which I command you today, to go after other gods which you have not known.
NT
7 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.
8 For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.
7 In the days of her affliction and roaming, Jerusalem remembers all her pleasant things That she had in the days of old. When her people fell into the hand of the enemy, With no one to help her, The adversaries saw her And mocked at her downfall.
I imagine that much of the torture of Hell will be the remembrance of the opportunities they had to repent. The loving friends and family that told them about Jesus, that invited them to church, that warned of the things to come. Here Jerusalem remembers what they used to have with God, the God who they took for granted, in their pride of being His chosen people they abandoned relationship with Him and pursued other gods, and other things before Him and now they remembered.
8 Jerusalem has sinned gravely, Therefore she has become vile. All who honored her despise her Because they have seen her nakedness; Yes, she sighs and turns away.
9 Her uncleanness is in her skirts; She did not consider her destiny; Therefore her collapse was awesome; She had no comforter. “O Lord, behold my affliction, For the enemy is exalted!”
10 The adversary has spread his hand Over all her pleasant things; For she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary, Those whom You commanded Not to enter Your assembly.
11 All her people sigh, They seek bread; They have given their valuables for food to restore life. “See, O Lord, and consider, For I am scorned.”
Her destiny was to make others clean, not unclean!
12 “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.
Jerusalem understood that their true pain was not brought on by the Babylonians, it was by their own hand, as they had angered the Lord with their continued generational sin.
13 “From above He has sent fire into my bones, And it overpowered them; He has spread a net for my feet And turned me back; He has made me desolate And faint all the day.
14 “The yoke of my transgressions was bound; They were woven together by His hands, And thrust upon my neck. He made my strength fail; The Lord delivered me into the hands of those whom I am not able to withstand.
15 “The Lord has trampled underfoot all my mighty men in my midst; He has called an assembly against me To crush my young men; The Lord trampled as in a winepress The virgin daughter of Judah.
Misery - the yoke of my transgressions…their own sins, their own transgressions are their yoke that God has woven together
16 “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.”
17 Zion spreads out her hands, But no one comforts her; The Lord has commanded concerning Jacob That those around him become his adversaries; Jerusalem has become an unclean thing among them.
The true tragedy was not the destruction of the city, but this that the comforter was far from them…sadest verses in the bible...Judges 16:20-21
20 And she said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” So he awoke from his sleep, and said, “I will go out as before, at other times, and shake myself free!” But he did not know that the Lord had departed from him.
21 Then the Philistines took him and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza. They bound him with bronze fetters, and he became a grinder in the prison.
18 “The Lord is righteous, For I rebelled against His commandment. Hear now, all peoples, And behold my sorrow; My virgins and my young men Have gone into captivity.
19 “I called for my lovers, But they deceived me; My priests and my elders Breathed their last in the city, While they sought food To restore their life.
Jerusalem the women, her lovers the abusive men that betrayed her once they got what they wanted.
20 “See, O Lord, that I am in distress; My soul is troubled; My heart is overturned within me, For I have been very rebellious. Outside the sword bereaves, At home it is like death.
21 “They have heard that I sigh, But no one comforts me. All my enemies have heard of my trouble; They are glad that You have done it. Bring on the day You have announced, That they may become like me.
22 “Let all their wickedness come before You, And do to them as You have done to me For all my transgressions; For my sighs are many, And my heart is faint.”
Listen to the brokenness, and understand it is the result of love.
Grace and Peace