Shall we turn now in our Bibles to
the Book of Lamentations.
The Book of Lamentations in the Hebrew Bible
does not appear in the same place that
appears in our Bibles.
In the Hebrew Bible it appears with a
group of books, Esther and Ruth, Job and
Ezra.
It was written by Jeremiah and that is
why in our Bibles they inserted it after
the Book of Jeremiah because it is almost
sort of a epilogue to the Book of
Jeremiah in that it follows the destruction of
the city of Jerusalem.
There is on the side of Golgotha a
cave that is called Jeremiah's Grotto.
This cave known as Jeremiah's Grotto comprises a
part of the face of the skull, hence
the name Golgotha because as you look at
the cliff with these caves that are there
in the cliff they take the appearance of
a skull.
One of these caves is called Jeremiah's Grotto.
It is interesting that from those caves there
on the side of Golgotha you have a
tremendous view of the city of Jerusalem.
For Golgotha is actually the top of what
was once Mount Moriah and it looks down
over the city of Jerusalem.
Tradition declares that Jeremiah sat in this grotto
when he wrote the Book of Lamentations and
there he wept and cried over the desolation
of the city of Jerusalem as he saw
its ruins, as he saw the walls destroyed,
as he saw the buildings leveled and from
this vantage he wrote this book.
In the Septuagint, which is a translation of
the Scriptures into Greek that was done by
70 Hebrew scholars about 200 B.C., they
prefaced the Book of Lamentations with these words
and it came to pass that after Israel
had been carried away captive and Jerusalem made
desolate, Jeremiah sat weeping and lamented this lament
over Jerusalem and said, how doth the city
sit solitary?
So, they have that as a prologue to
the Book of Lamentations and it was picked
up and put in the Vulgate.
The Book of Lamentations is a favorite style
of Hebrew poetry in four of the chapters.
They are known as an acrostic and they
were written in order to facilitate the memorization
in that you'll notice that in the first
three chapters there are 22 verses in each
chapter.
In the original Hebrew poetry these 22 verses
were actually 22 lines of the poem and
each line began with a succeeding letter of
the Greek alphabet.
So, the first line began with Aleph and
then with Beth and then with Gimel and
then with Deleth and on through the Hebrew
alphabet each line with a succeeding letter of
the Hebrew alphabet in the first three chapters.
In the first two chapters, in the third
chapter, you'll notice that there are 66 verses.
The first three lines began with Aleph, the
next three with Beth, the next three with
Gimel and so it was in triplets actually,
thus the 66 verses.
The fourth chapter, again, each line beginning with
a succeeding letter of the Greek alphabet and
even though the fifth chapter has 22 verses,
it is not in an acrostic.
It doesn't follow this same pattern of each
line beginning with a successive letter of the
Hebrew alphabet.
But they would often write their poems that
way in order to help you in memorizing
the poem because you knew that the next
line began with the next letter of the
alphabet in succeeding order.
This is a funeral dirge.
It is a lament of Jeremiah over Jerusalem
after the destruction and the book of Lamentations
is read each year in the synagogue on
the fourth day of the ninth month.
So, around August the fourth, this particular lament
or book is read in the Jewish synagogues
as they commemorate the anniversary of the destruction
of Solomon's temple in 586 BC.
With that as a background, let us go
into the first chapter as Jeremiah declares, How
doth the city sit solitary that was full
of people?
How is she become a widow?
She that was great among the nations and
the princess among the provinces, how is she
become a tributary?
The city is empty.
It is now sitting solitary.
The inhabitants have either been slain or carried
away captive.
There is a weird silence over this once
prosperous, beautiful city as it lies there now
in rubble.
She weepeth sore in the night and her
tears are on her cheeks.
Among all her lovers she hath none to
comfort her.
All of her friends have dealt treacherously with
her.
They are become her enemies.
Jerusalem was once as a princess.
Actually, tribute was paid to Solomon and to
his kingdom, but now Jerusalem has become a
tributary paying tribute to others.
Those that she trusted in, Egypt and others,
have now become her enemies.
Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction
and because of great servitude.
She dwells among the heathen.
She finds no rest and all of her
persecutors overtook her between the straits.
The ways or the paths on the way
to Zion do mourn because none come to
her solemn feast.
It must be a weird, awesome feeling to
look over the ruins of a once great
and prosperous city.
Can you imagine, say, sitting on Mount Wilson
and overlooking the Los Angeles basin and nobody
living there?
No freeways jammed with cars.
No industries belching out their smoke.
Just everything with a deathly silence.
Imagine how you'd feel, you know, having seen
all of the activities and all that go
on in that great basin and suddenly to
look at it and see the whole thing
silent and empty.
It must be an awesome kind of a
feeling to see such a thing.
That's what Jeremiah...
He had grown up in this city.
He had seen the streets full of people.
He had watched the worshipers at the temple
and all.
He had seen the pilgrims gather for their
feasts.
But now it's all silent.
Now it's empty.
And the ways or the paths on the
way to Jerusalem are mourning because no one
is coming to the solemn feast anymore.
All of our gates are desolate.
The gates of Jerusalem are interesting places because
there's always so many people passing in and
out the gates.
A lot of times in Jerusalem, if you
don't have anything to do, it's interesting just
to go at the gates of the city
and just watch the people come and go
through the gates.
They're always just bustling with activity.
And now it's silent.
The gates are desolate.
Her priests sigh.
Her virgins are afflicted.
She is in bitterness.
Her adversaries are the chief.
Her enemies prosper.
For the Lord hath afflicted her.
And then He gives the reason for the
multitude of her transgressions.
Her children are gone into captivity before the
enemy.
And from the daughter of Zion, all of
her beauty is departed.
Her princes are become like hearts that find
no pasture.
They are gone without strength before the pursuer.
Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction
and her miseries all of her pleasant things
that she had in the days of old
when her people fell into the hand of
the enemy.
And none did help her.
The adversaries saw her and did mock at
her Sabbaths.
Jerusalem has grievously sinned.
Therefore, she is removed.
Again, not blaming God, which is so often
our mistake when calamity comes.
Why did God allow this to happen to
us?
But recognizing that the blame was upon the
people because of their transgression and because they
had grievously sinned against God.
Therefore, she is removed.
All that honored her despise her because they
have seen her nakedness.
Yea, she sighed and turned backward.
Her filthiness is in her skirt.
She remembered not her last end.
Therefore, she came down wonderfully.
She had no comforter.
O Lord, behold my affliction for the enemy
has magnified himself.
The adversary hath spread out his hand upon
all of her pleasant things for she hath
seen the heathen entered into her sanctuary whom
thou didst command that they should not enter
into thy congregation.
And so the heathen came right into the
temple, into the Holy of Holies, and they
destroyed the temple of God.
A stranger wasn't to come within the sanctuary
and yet they have seen them come in
and destroy it.
All of her people sigh.
They seek bread.
They have given their pleasant things for meat
to relieve the soul.
See, O Lord, and consider for I have
become vile.
They've spent all of their money actually and
given all of their treasures for bread.
Is it nothing to you, all ye that
pass by?
Behold and see, if there be any sorrow
like unto my sorrow which is done unto
me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in
the day of his fierce anger.
From above hath he set fire into my
bones and it prevailed against them.
He hath spread a net for my feet.
He hath turned me back and he hath
made me desolate and faint all the day.
The yoke of my transgressions is bound by
his hand.
They are wreathed and come up upon my
neck.
He hath made my strength to fall.
The Lord hath delivered me into their hands
from whom I am not able to rise
up.
The Lord hath trodden underfoot all my mighty
men in the midst of me.
He hath called an assembly against me to
crush my young men.
The Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter
of Judah, as a winepress.
For these things I weep.
And thus the lamentation, the weeping of Jeremiah,
as he sees the destruction that has come.
The mighty men destroyed.
The virgins ravished by the enemy.
The young men crushed and the young girls
trodden.
For these things I weep.
My eye runs down with water because the
comforter that should relieve my soul is far
from me.
My children are desolate because the enemy prevailed.
Zion spreads forth her hands and there is
none to comfort her.
The Lord hath commanded concerning Jacob that his
adversaries should be round about him.
Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them.
The Lord is righteous for I have rebelled
against his commandments.
Here I pray you all the people and
behold my sorrow.
My virgins and my young men are gone
into captivity.
And so He sort of personifies Jerusalem and
lets Jerusalem cry out declaring the righteousness of
God in judgment.
The Lord is righteous for they were guilty
of having rebelled against God.
The Lord is always righteous in judgment.
And yet it seems that that is an
area in which we always want to fault
God.
And we always hear sort of insinuations that
God is unrighteous in judgment.
How can a God of love condemn a
man to hell?
You know, and you heard the rest of
it.
And the idea is that God is not
really righteous when He judges.
But that's one thing you can be certain
of and that is the righteousness of God
in judgment.
In the book of Revelation, as God is
bringing His judgment upon the earth, there are
voices that come from the altar saying, Holy
and true are Thy judgments, O Lord.
And then in one place where God turns
the fresh water upon the earth to blood,
there are voices that declare, Oh, that's great.
They shed the blood of your saints so
you've given them blood to drink.
And testifying of the properness of that particular
judgment that God brings upon the earth at
that time.
But God will judge.
God has declared He will judge.
And thus you can be sure that God
is going to judge this world.
God is going to judge the wicked.
But God, when He judges the wicked, will
be absolutely righteous in His judgment.
People may complain about it now.
But when God makes His judgment, there can
be no complaint for the Lord is righteous.
They had rebelled against the Lord.
They had rebelled against His commandment.
He said, I call for My lovers, but
they deceive Me.
My priests and My elders gave up the
ghost in the city while they sought their
meat to relieve their souls.
They died of starvation while they were looking
for food.
Behold, O Lord, for I am in distress.
My bowels are troubled.
My heart is turned within Me.
For I have grievously rebelled.
Abroad the sword bereaveth.
At home there is as death.
They have heard that I sigh.
There is none to comfort Me.
All My enemies have heard of My trouble.
They are glad that You have done it.
And Thou will bring the day that Thou
hast called and they shall be likened to
Me.
Let all their wickedness come before Thee and
do unto them as Thou hast done unto
Me for all My transgressions.
For My sighs are many and My heart
is faint.
The second lamentation, How hath the Lord covered
the daughter of Zion with a cloud in
His anger?
And He has cast down from heaven unto
the earth the beauty of Israel and remembered
not His footstool in the day of His
anger.
The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations
of Jacob and hath not pitied.
He hath thrown down in His wrath the
strongholds of the daughter of Judah.
He hath brought them down to the ground.
He hath polluted the kingdom and the princes
thereof.
He has cut off in His fierce anger
all of the horn of Israel.
He has drawn back His right hand from
before the enemy.
He has burned against Jacob like a flaming
fire which devours round about.
He has bent His bow like an enemy.
He stood with His right hand as an
adversary and slew all that were pleasant to
the eye in the tabernacle of the daughter
of Zion.
He poured out His fury like fire.
It must have been an awesome and a
very traumatic experience to have seen the destruction
that was wrecked upon Jerusalem by the Babylonian
army.
When after 18 months of siege they finally
broke into the city and began to slay
with a sword.
Even before they broke the walls and came
in, people were already starving to death within
the city.
It was a horrible scene.
Jeremiah can't get it out of his mind
the thoughts and the sights that he saw.
They were imprinted in his mind.
And now as he sees it lying desolate,
he reflects over these things.
And he tells some of the things that
were happening.
And they are so horrible that they would
make those kind of impressions in your mind
that cause you to shudder whenever you think
of them.
And they are those mental images that you
just can't seem to remove.
As you see the people starving to death,
falling on the streets.
Faint, weak, once mighty people, once a proud
people.
But now, so defeated and destroyed.
The Lord was as an enemy.
He swallowed up Israel.
He has swallowed up all of her palaces.
He has destroyed the strongholds.
He hath increased in the daughter of Judah
mourning and lamentation.
He hath violently taken away the tabernacle as
if it were of a garden.
He hath destroyed his places of the assembly.
The Lord hath caused the solemn feast and
the Sabbath to be forgotten in Zion and
hath despised in the indignation of His anger
the king and the priest.
The Lord has cast off His altar.
He has abhorred His sanctuary.
He has given up in the hand of
the enemy the walls of her palaces.
They have made a noise in the house
of the Lord as in the day of
the solemn feast.
That is, the enemies were in there cheering
and yelling and all as they were destroying
it.
Much as the voices and cheers and all
that once went up in the days of
their solemn feast.
The Lord hath purposed to destroy the wall
of the daughter of Zion.
He has stretched out a line.
He has not withdrawn His hand from destroying.
Therefore, He made the rampart and the wall
to lament they languished together.
Her gates are sunk into the ground.
He has destroyed and broken her bars.
Her king and her princes are now among
the Gentiles.
There is no more law.
Her prophets also find no vision from the
Lord.
The elders of the daughters of Zion sit
on the ground and keep silent.
They have cast dust upon their heads.
They have girded themselves with sackcloth.
And the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their
heads to the ground.
And my eyes do fail because of the
tears.
My bowels are troubled.
My liver is poured out upon the earth
for the destruction of the daughter of my
people because the children and the sucklings swoon
in the streets of the city.
It's almost more than he can bear.
He sees these little children and little nursing
babies fainting because of the lack of food.
He sees them as they are swooning, just
staggering through the streets.
Young girls, their heads bowed down to the
ground.
The old men just sitting there staring blankly
in sackcloth with dust, dirt.
They've just covered themselves with dirt.
And there's no place to go.
There's no hope.
It's all gone.
The little children say to their mothers, Where
is the corn and the wine when they
swooned as the wounded in the streets of
the city when their soul was poured out
into their mother's bosom?
What things shall I take to witness for
thee?
What things shall I liken to thee, O
daughter of Jerusalem?
What shall I equal to thee that I
may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion?
For thy breach is great like the sea,
and who can heal thee?
Your prophets have seen vain and foolish things
for you, and they have not discovered your
iniquity to turn away your captivity, but they
have seen for thee false burdens and causes
of banishment.
All that pass by clap their hands at
thee.
They hiss and they wag their head at
the daughter of Jerusalem saying, Is this the
city that men called the perfection of beauty,
the joy of the whole earth?
Desolate, destroyed, ravaged city.
Once the perfection of beauty.
Once the joy of the whole earth.
And now it's being hissed at as people
walk by clapping their hands and shaking their
heads.
All of your enemies have opened their mouth
against thee.
They hiss.
They gnash the teeth.
They say, We have swallowed her up.
Certainly this is the day that we have
looked for.
We have found and we have seen it.
The Lord has done that which He had
devised.
He has fulfilled His word that He commanded
in the days of old.
God was faithful to His warnings.
He had told them if they did not
turn from their wickedness, if they did not
turn from their idolatry, that He was going
to bring their enemies against them and they
would be destroyed.
God has done that which He had purposed.
He has fulfilled His word that He commanded
in the days of old.
He has thrown down.
He's not pitied.
He has caused your enemies to rejoice over
thee.
He has set up the horn of your
adversaries or the power of your adversaries.
Their heart cried unto the Lord, O wall
of the daughter of Zion, let tears run
down like a river day and night.
Give thyself no rest.
Let not the apple of thine eyes cease.
He's calling them for intercession.
To weep before God until God does a
work again.
Arise.
Cry out in the night in the beginning
of the watches.
Pour out your heart like water before the
face of the Lord.
Lift up your hands toward Him for the
life of thy young children that faint for
hunger in the top of every street.
Isn't this enough, Jeremiah is saying, to challenge
you to seek God?
To seek God all night long.
Look at your little children swooning in the
streets.
Pray for them that God will somehow work
His work again among the people.
They were living in an extremely desperate time.
But they were not yet really desperate before
the Lord.
They were just plain desperate, but really not
seeking God.
You wonder what will it take to cause
men to really seek God.
To really cry out.
The Bible says, the effectual fervent prayer of
a righteous man availeth much.
My mom tells me how that one time
when I was a little kid, and I
was sick, and she came in to the
bedroom and laid hands on me, and I
was running a fever, and she prayed, Oh
Lord, touch Charles, you know, and heal him.
And when she was through praying, I said
to her, Mom, now pray like you really
mean it.
And I wonder how many times our prayers
aren't just sort of perfunctory type of activities,
you know.
There's no real heart behind it.
The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man
availeth much.
God said to Jeremiah, And in the day
that you seek Me with your whole heart,
in that day I will be found of
you.
And Jeremiah is saying, Hey, go for it.
Cry in the night.
In the beginning of the watches, pour out
your heart like water before the face of
the Lord.
Lift up your hands toward Him.
At least for the life of the young
children that are fainting for hunger on every
street.
Behold, O Lord, and consider to whom Thou
hast done this.
Shall the women eat their fruit?
That is, the women eat their own little
babies, which they were doing.
Shall children be born who are only a
span long?
That the women were so malnourished that as
their children were being born, they were only
seven or eight inches long at birth.
Horrible.
Shall the priests and the prophet be slain
in the sanctuary of the Lord?
The young and the old lie on the
ground in the streets.
My virgins and my young men are fallen
by the sword.
Thou hast slain them in the day of
your anger.
You have killed and not pitied.
You have called as in a solemn day
my terrors round about me so that in
the day of the Lord's anger none escape
nor remain.
Those that I have I swaddled and brought
up hath my enemy consumed.
In this third lamentation, he begins from
the depth of depression and despair.
He begins with hopelessness and hopelessness is always
the experience
behind depression.
Depression is the loss of hope.
No way out.
Nothing I can do.
Hopelessness leads to depression.
I am the man that hath seen affliction
by the rod of his wrath.
He has led me and brought me into
darkness but not into light.
It seems like God has turned against the
prophet.
I have seen the wrath of God.
God's brought me into darkness not into light.
Surely against me is he turned.
He's turned his hand against me all the
day.
My flesh and my skin hath he made
old.
He hath broken my bones.
He's built against me and encircled me with
gall and travail.
He has set me in dark places and
they that be dead of old.
He's hedged me about that I cannot get
out.
He has made my chain heavy.
Also when I cry and shout, he shuts
out my prayer.
God isn't listening to my prayer.
God seems to have closed every door of
escape.
There's no way out.
I'm in the hole and there's no place
to go.
I'm in this darkness and God isn't listening
to my prayers.
It's like he has enclosed me with hewn
stone.
That is, he's built a wall around me.
He's made my paths crooked.
He was unto me as a bear lying
in wait and as a lion in secret
places.
He has turned aside my ways and pulled
me in pieces.
He has made me desolate.
He has bent his bow and set me
as a mark.
I'm a target for God's arrows.
He has caused the arrows of his quiver
to enter into my reins.
I was a derision to all my people
and their song all the day.
He has filled me with bitterness.
He has made me drunken with wormwood.
He has also broken my teeth with gravel
stones.
He has covered me with ashes.
You have removed my soul far off from
peace.
I forgot prosperity and I said my strength
and my hope is perished from the Lord.
Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood
and the gall, my soul hath them still
in remembrance and is humbled in me.
Boy, that's about as low as you can
get.
That's the bottom.
That's the pits.
He's down just the bottom.
And out of the depths of his despair
and depression, suddenly there is a dramatic change.
That dramatic change is explained, the reason for
it is explained in verse 21.
In the midst of his hopelessness, in the
midst of his despair, when it seems that
all is forsaken, there is no way out,
that God isn't even listening and God isn't
ready to help me.
In the midst of this place of total
despair, he said, this I recall to my
mind, therefore I have hope.
He changed his whole mindset.
The Bible speaks about our renewing our minds.
The Bible speaks about our bringing every thought
into captivity unto the obedience of Jesus Christ.
And we can think ourselves into a miserable
mood.
We can think ourselves into despair and hopelessness.
You can think yourself into the grave.
Or by setting your mind upon the Lord,
renewing your mind in Him, you can come
into a whole new state of consciousness.
No longer one of total despair and hopelessness,
but one now of victory and hope.
And that's what Jeremiah did.
He changed the thought patterns from, oh, woe
is me.
Oh, this is the end.
Oh, there is no hope.
Oh, I've had it.
Oh, there's no one to help.
Oh, I'm boxed in to thinking about the
Lord.
As we think about ourselves, we often become
depressed.
Because none of us are all of what
we would like to be.
We each of us have a divergence between
our ego and our super ego.
The real me and the ideal me.
All of you see yourself in an ideal
way.
This is what I really am.
Providing everything is, you know, all right.
It's only because of these other factors that
you see me like this.
This nastiness isn't the real me.
I'm very sweet and generous and kind and
benevolent and loving and marvelous and a very
lovable person.
The person that you see is what has
happened to me because of you know, what
you've done.
But that's not the real me, you see.
And so, there is this idealization.
The ideal me, the super ego and then
there's the real me.
Now, if there is a vast difference between
your super ego and your ego, then you're
going to have real problems of mental instability.
The more well adjusted a person is is
in measure to the distance between his ego
and super ego.
If your ego is close to your super
ego, then you're a well adjusted person.
If there's a wide divergence between your ego
and super ego, then you're very maladjusted in
your life.
Now, the psychologist says bring your super ego
down.
You've got too high of ideals.
You've got too high of standards.
No one can live to those.
You got to lower your ideals.
The Lord says bring your ego up through
the power of the Spirit, through my help.
Become the person that I want you to
be.
Receive my strength, receive my ability and I
will make you that person that is pleasing
and glorifying unto God.
That person who is loving, who is kind,
who is compassionate, who is filled with joy.
So, he came to a change of mental
attitude.
No longer thinking about himself but now thinking
about the Lord.
It made such a great difference.
Oh, if we could only get our minds
off of ourselves and onto the Lord.
In the times of discouragement, in the times
of defeat, in the times of depression.
If we could only get our minds off
of ourselves and onto the Lord.
That's the secret of the way out.
Rather than wallowing in this self-pity, just
get our minds and hearts.
Thou will keep him in perfect peace whose
mind is stayed on Thee.
Keep your mind stayed on the Lord and
God will keep you in perfect peace.
Get your mind on yourself and you're gonna
have all kinds of turmoil and depression.
So, when I recall to my mind, this
I recall to my mind.
What does he recall to his mind?
First of all, it's the Lord's mercies that
we're not consumed.
Things are bad but they could be worse.
It's God's mercies that we're still here.
The fact that I wake up in the
morning is proof that God is merciful.
You see, God's under no obligation to keep
me around.
It's only by His mercies that I've not
been consumed.
Secondly, because His compassions fail not.
In 1 Corinthians 13, as Paul is describing
Agape, he said, Love never fails.
God's love never fails.
God has never stopped loving you.
God does not love you when you are
good and hate you when you are bad.
God's love for you is unchanging.
It doesn't fail.
God's love is continually being poured out upon
your life.
God's love is not contingent upon what you
are but upon what He is.
His compassions, they fail not.
Love is not love that alters when it
alteration finds.
Oh, I love you.
You're my dream come true.
I'd swim the Pacific to be by your
side.
I'd fly to the moon to be close
to you.
Yikes, you have bad breath.
I changed my mind.
That's not true love.
Love is not love that alters when it
alteration finds.
We have in our minds again an idealization,
the perfect man, the perfect woman.
And we meet someone and fall in love
not with them but with our idealization.
And when it comes that they don't meet
up to the standards of our idealization, then
we're no longer in love.
That's ridiculous.
You never were in love to begin with.
Love is not love that alters when it
alteration finds.
Therefore, true love is hard to find among
men.
And that's using it in a generic sense,
talking of the homo sapien.
True love can only really be found with
God.
You see, he isn't deceived by an idealization.
You haven't fooled him with your smooth suave
manners, the opening of the doors and the
genteel gallant ways.
Hasn't deceived him at all.
He knows what a rat you are from
the beginning.
But he loves you.
That's the amazing thing.
His compassions, they fail not.
And God knowing me as well as he
knows me, still loving me is one of
the great miracles.
God's compassions fail not.
He never stops loving you.
And you need to remember that.
Now, Jeremiah was thinking that God had forsaken
him completely.
God's hedged me in.
He's not listening to my prayers.
But when he really adjusts his thinking, he
knows that God's love is unfailing.
God continues.
Never stops his loving me.
They are new every morning.
The mercy and the love of God, fresh
every day.
Oh, great is thy faithfulness.
God is so faithful.
As Jeremiah was looking at this devastated city,
that desolation was a testimony of God's faithfulness.
God had said to those people, if you
continue in your wickedness, if you continue in
your idolatry, I am going to bring the
Babylonian army against you and they are going
to destroy you.
They are going to break down the walls
of this city.
And those that aren't killed by the famine
will be killed by the sword.
Those that aren't killed by the sword will
be killed by the pestilence.
But I'm going to destroy you out of
this holy mountain.
And now God has kept His word.
And Jeremiah is looking at the faithfulness of
God to His word.
Oh, great is thy faithfulness.
God, you said you would do it, and
you did it.
Now, the faithfulness of God can be a
glorious thought and blessing, or it can be
a horrendous thought.
It all depends on what side you are.
If you're a child of God, then God's
faithfulness to His promises of that which He
is going to do for His children.
A believer in Jesus Christ, all that God
has promised us, oh, and we can rest
and hope for God is faithful.
He will do what He said.
If you're not a child of God, then
the faithfulness of God is an awesome prospect
because you can be sure that God will
do exactly what He said He is going
to do to all of the sinners.
Those that reject Him.
Great is thy faithfulness.
God is faithful in keeping His word.
The Lord is my portion.
Now, he's thinking upon the faithfulness of God,
the love of God, the mercies of God.
And now the Lord is my portion.
Everything else has been taken away.
My house is destroyed.
All of my possessions are gone.
I've been stripped.
But I have the Lord.
And if I have the Lord, that's all
I really need.
The Lord is my portion, saith my soul.
Therefore, will I hope in Him.
Those who do not have the Lord as
their portion have very little hope.
But my hope is in Him.
The Lord is good unto them that wait
for Him, the soul that seeks Him.
If you'll wait upon God, if you'll seek
God, God is good.
So good to those that wait upon Him
and seek Him.
It is good that a man should both
hope and quietly wait for the salvation of
the Lord.
What else can I do?
It is good for a man that he
bears the yoke of his youth.
He sits alone and keeps silence because He
has borne it upon him.
He puts his mouth in the dust if
so be there may be hope.
He giveth his cheek to Him that smiteth
Him.
He is filled full with reproach.
A prophecy of Jesus Christ in the midst
of this.
Even as Christ always is there in the
time of suffering to bear the burdens and
the reproach that we bear for Him.
The Lord will not cast off forever.
This judgment isn't going to last forever.
This forsaking of the people by God isn't
going to last forever.
But though He has caused grief, yet He
is going to have compassion according to the
multitude of His mercies.
God will change in His actions towards us.
For He does not afflict willingly nor grieve
the children of men.
In other words, it doesn't really please God
to have to deal in such stringent ways
with His children.
I've often said you can make it easy
on yourself or make it hard on yourself.
And any time you fight God you're making
it hard on yourself.
That's the lesson that Jonah learned.
He fought God and ended up in the
belly of a whale in a miserable condition.
Three days and three nights in that hot
mammal.
Ninety-eight degrees with high humidity.
He talks about the waves rolling over his
head and the seaweed twined around him.
Probably stinky at that.
And when he came out of that horribly
miserable experience, he shared the lesson that he
learned.
They that observe lying vanities forsake their own
mercies.
If you think you can run from God
or hide from God, you're only making it
hard on yourself.
You're heading for trouble.
You're heading for misery.
He thought he could hide from God.
He thought he could run from God.
That he could escape the call of God.
It's a lie.
There's no way.
You're just going to be miserable, friend.
Try to fight God.
You're heading for misery.
He doesn't afflict willingly.
He doesn't want to lay the rod on
you.
But he gets no delight in the chastising
of his children.
But because he loves us, he is faithful
and will chastise.
To crush under his feet all the prisoners
of the earth.
To turn aside the right of a man
before the face of the Most High.
To subvert a man in his cause the
Lord approves not.
Who is he that saith, and it cometh
to pass, when the Lord commanded it not?
Out of the mouth of the Most High
proceeds not evil and good.
God doesn't talk out of both sides of
his mouth.
James speaks about the double-minded man, unstable
in all of his ways.
Jesus speaks of how the same fountain cannot
bring forth bitter and sweet waters.
God doesn't speak both good and evil.
Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man
for the punishment of his sins?
Rather than complain because of the chastisement, let
us search and try our ways and turn
again unto the Lord.
Let us lift up our heart with our
hands unto the God in the heavens.
For we have transgressed and have rebelled and
you have not pardoned.
You have covered with anger and persecuted us
and you have slain and you have not
pitied.
And now he goes back into the dirge.
You see, he came out for a while
into the light.
You have covered yourself with a cloud that
our prayers should not pass through.
It seems like, you know, people say, well,
it seems like the, you know, ceilings were
of brass.
But Jeremiah sees the, you know, like the
prayers are just being closed off by a
cloud between God and me.
Thou hast made us as the offscouring and
refuse in the midst of the people.
All of our enemies have opened their mouths
against us.
Fear and a snare has come upon us,
desolation and destruction.
My eye runs down with rivers of water
for the destruction of the daughter of my
people.
My eye trickles down and ceases not without
any intermission till the Lord looks down and
beholds from heaven.
My eye affecteth mine heart because of all
of the daughters of my city.
My enemies chased me sore like a bird
without cause.
They have cut off my life in the
dungeon and cast a stone upon me.
Waters flowed over my head.
Then I said, I'm cut off.
And I called upon thy name, O Lord,
out of the low dungeon and you have
heard my voice.
Hide not your ear at my breathing, at
my crying.
For you drew near in the day that
I called upon thee and you said, Fear
not.
O Lord, Thou hast pleaded the causes of
my soul.
Thou hast redeemed my life.
O Lord, Thou hast seen my wrong.
Judge Thou my cause.
For Thou hast seen all their vengeance and
their imaginations against me.
You have heard their reproach, O Lord, and
all of the imaginations against me.
The lips of those that rose up against
me and the device against me all the
day.
Behold, they're sitting down, they're rising up.
I'm their music.
Render unto them recompense, O Lord, according to
the work of their hands.
Give them sorrow of heart.
They curse, thy curse unto them.
Persecute and destroy them in the anger from
under the heavens of the Lord.
Here again is sort of a David type
of a prayer against his enemies.
Jeremiah doesn't ask God to bless his enemies,
but to really do them in.
It is in the New Testament that Jesus
taught us to bless those that curse you.
Bless and curse not.
The fourth lamentation, how has the gold become
dim?
The most fine gold changed.
The stones of the sanctuary are poured out
in the top of every street.
The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine
gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers?
The work of the hands of the potter.
Even the sea monsters draw out the breast
and they give suck to their young ones.
The mammals in the sea nurse their little
ones.
The daughter of my people has become cruel
like the ostriches of the wilderness.
Now the ostrich totally forsakes its eggs.
It lays its eggs and leaves them.
Has nothing to do with the raising of
its kids.
Just has no concern.
Doesn't even know if the eggs ever hatch
and doesn't really care if the eggs ever
hatches.
Just lays its eggs in the sand and
that's it, forgets all about them.
If they make it, they make it on
their own.
The mother ostrich has no mothering instincts.
But the mammals in the sea nurse the
little ones.
But the daughter of my people, the young
mothers in Jerusalem have become like ostriches in
that they weren't concerned with their offspring anymore.
The tongue of the nursing child cleaves to
the roof of his mouth for thirst.
The young children ask for bread and no
man breaks it unto them.
They that did feed delicately, those that used
to dine at Gulliver's, are desolate in the
streets.
They that were brought up in scarlet embrace
dunghills.
For the punishment of the iniquity of the
daughter of my people is greater than the
punishment of the sin of Sodom.
Because at least they were overthrown in a
moment.
They were destroyed.
No hand stayed on her.
Theirs was an instant death.
That is much better than death by starvation.
Her Nazarites were purer than snow.
They were whiter than milk.
They were more ruddy in body than rubies.
Their polishing was of sapphire.
The young men who had made their commitments,
their Nazarite vows to God.
But now their visage is blacker than a
coal.
They are not known in the streets.
Their skin is cleaving to their bones.
They are like walking skeletons.
It is withered.
It has become like a stick.
They that are slain with the sword are
really better off than those that are slain
with hunger.
For these pine away, stricken through for the
want of the fruits of the field.
The hands of the pitiful women have boiled
their own children.
And they were their meat in the destruction
of the daughter of my people.
The Lord has accomplished His fury.
He has poured out His fierce anger.
He has kindled a fire in Zion and
it has devoured the foundations thereof.
The kings of the earth and all the
inhabitants of the world would not have believed
that the adversary and the enemy should have
entered into the gates of Jerusalem.
It was thought to be impregnable.
It sits there on the hill with the
walls around it.
They thought that the city was impregnable.
The inhabitants of the earth would never have
believed that Jerusalem could be taken.
And yet it is now destroyed.
For the sins of her prophets and the
iniquities of her priests that have shed the
blood of the just in the midst of
her.
They have wandered as blind men in the
streets.
They have polluted themselves with blood so that
men could not touch their garments.
They cried unto them, Depart ye, it is
unclean.
Depart, depart, don't touch.
When they fled away and wandered, they said
among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn
there.
The anger of the Lord hath divided them.
He will no more regard them.
They respected not the persons of the priests.
They favored not the elders.
As for us, our eyes as yet failed
for our vain help.
In our watching, we have watched for a
nation that could not save us.
They hunt our steps that we cannot go
in the streets.
Our end is near.
Our days are fulfilled, for our end has
come.
Our persecutors are swifter than eagles of heaven.
They have pursued us on the mountains.
They have laid wait for us in the
wilderness.
The breath of our nostrils, the anointing of
the Lord, was taken in their pits, of
whom we said, Under His shadow we shall
live among the heathen.
Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom.
That is their perennial enemy that dwells in
the land of us.
The cup also shall pass through unto thee.
Thou shalt be drunken and shalt make thyself
naked.
The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O
daughter of Zion.
He will no more carry thee away into
captivity.
He will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of
Edom.
He will discover thy sins.
So, Edom is rejoicing, but just wait, yours
is coming.
Fifth Lamentation.
Remember, O Lord, what has come upon us
and consider and behold our reproach.
Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses
to aliens.
We are orphans, fatherless.
Our mothers are as widows.
We have drunken our water for money.
We had to pay for a drink of
water.
And our wood is sold to us.
Our necks are under persecution.
We labor, we have no rest.
We have given the hand to the Egyptians
and to the Assyrians to be satisfied with
bread.
Our fathers have sinned and are not.
And we have borne their iniquities.
Servants have ruled over us.
There is none that doth deliver us out
of their hand.
We got our bread with the peril of
our lives because of the sword of the
wilderness.
Our skin was black like an oven because
of the terrible famine as a result of
the starvation that the skin just turning black
and leathery.
They ravished the women in Zion and the
maids in the cities of Judah.
The enemies had come in.
It must have been a horrible thing, the
fathers to see their wives and their young
daughters ravished by the enemy, raped and all,
and murdered.
Princes have been hung by their thumbs.
The faces of elders were not honored.
They took the young men to grind in
bondage and the children had to carry the
wood.
The elders have ceased from the gate, the
young men from their music.
The joy of our heart is ceased.
Our dance is turned into mourning.
The crown has fallen from our head, woe
unto us that we have sinned.
For this our heart is faint, for these
things our eyes are dim.
Because of the mountain of Zion, which is
desolate, the foxes walk upon it.
Thou, O Lord, remains forever, Thy throne from
generation to generation.
Wherefore dost Thou forget us forever and forsake
us so long a time?
Turn Thou us unto Thee, O Lord, and
we shall be turned.
Renew our days as of old.
Therein is the answer.
O God, turn our hearts to Thee.
Renew that relationship that we once had with
You.
You remember Jesus said to the church of
Ephesus, I have this against Thee, in that
You have left Your first love.
Remember from whence You have fallen and repent
and do Thy first works over.
O God, return us to that first love.
Lord, return us unto Thee.
But He ends with a sad note of
dejection.
But Thou hast utterly rejected us.
Thou art very angry against us.
What a sad, tragic book that never needed
to be written had the people only hearkened
unto the voice of God.
This whole black period of history needed not
to be.
God warned them over and over and over
again.
He sent His prophets warning them over and
over of the destruction that was going to
come.
But they would not give heed to the
word of God or to the warnings from
God.
But God is faithful.
And that which God declared, He did.
And today, God is warning this world of
His judgment which is going to fall.
And that which happened to Jerusalem is going
to happen to this whole godless world.
There is coming a devastation, a holocaust such
as the world has never seen before or
will ever see again.
Jesus, in describing the days that are coming,
said, And in that day there shall be
a great tribulation such as the world has
never seen before or will ever see again.
The only safe place for you to be
is in Christ.
If you are in Christ, He will keep
you from that hour that is coming upon
the earth.
But if you're outside of Christ, as in
Hebrews, there remains only that fearful looking forward
to the fiery indignation of God's wrath which
will devour His adversaries.
For if he who despised Moses' law was
put to death, of how much worse punishment
do you suppose he is accounted worthy who
has trodden underfoot the Son of God and
has accounted the blood of His covenant wherewith
He was sanctified an unholy thing and has
done despite to the Spirit of grace.
For we know Him who has said, It
is a fearful thing to fall in the
hands of a living God.
God has promised His judgment is going to
come upon this wicked world.
God is faithful and will keep His promise.
But Jesus said, Pray ye always that you'll
be accounted worthy to escape all of these
things and to stand before the Son of
Man.
And I am praying and believing God to
answer my prayer that I will escape this
great time of tribulation when the wrath of
God is poured out upon the earth and
I expect to be standing before the Son
of Man when it all happens.
Book of Revelation chapter 5 And there was
in the right hand of Him that sat
upon the throne a scroll with writing within
and without and sealed with seven seals.
And I heard the angel say with a
great voice, Who is worthy to take the
scroll and loose the seals thereof?
And I, John, began to weep, sob convulsively
because no one was found worthy to take
the scroll or to loose the seals.
And the elder said unto me, Weep not.
Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah
hath prevailed to take the scroll and to
loose the seals.
And I turned and I saw Him as
a Lamb that had been slaughtered.
And He came forth and took the scroll
out of the right hand of Him who
sat upon the throne.
And the twenty-four elders brought forth their
golden vials full of odors, which were the
prayers of the saints.
And they offered them before the throne of
God, and they sang a new song, saying,
Worthy is the Lamb to take the scroll
and loose the seals, for He was slain
and has redeemed us by His blood out
of every nation and tribe and tongue and
people.
And He has made us unto our God
kings and priests, and we're going to reign
with Him on the earth.
You see, that's where I plan to be.
Standing before the Son of God, singing of
the worthiness of the Lamb who died for
me, who has redeemed me from among the
families of the people on the earth.
Only the redeemed church can sing that song.
Angels can't sing that song.
They haven't been redeemed by the blood of
Jesus.
That's not the song of Israel because they
come from all of the nations and family
of people on the earth.
That's the song of the redeemed church before
the throne of God.
Angels can sing the chorus.
They do.
A hundred million join in, plus millions of
others as they say, worthy is the Lamb
to receive glory and honor and dominion and
might and power and authority.
They join the chorus, but they can't sing
the verse.
That's yours.
And when He loosed the first seal, I
heard a voice that said, Come, and I
saw a white horse and his rider going
forth upon the earth conquering and to conquer.
There begins the great tribulation.
And He begins then from chapter 6 on
through to chapter 18 describing the events that
are going to take place upon the earth
when God judges man for their wickedness and
for their sin.
God is faithful.
He's going to do it.
There's only one safe place for anyone to
be.
That's in Christ Jesus.
I'm glad I'm there.
I don't expect to be any place else.
I don't want to be.
Why should I be?
I'm so happy here in Christ.
Shall we pray?
Father, we thank You for that secret place
abiding in the presence of the Almighty, dwelling
in Christ.
Oh, Father, how we thank You that You
have provided for us a place of refuge,
safety in Christ.
Lord, I pray for those that are here
tonight who are not in Christ.
Oh, God, may they seriously consider the faithfulness
of God.
Even as He kept His word and destroyed
Jerusalem, so will He keep His word and
judge this world.
For God is faithful.
And Lord, may we turn from our sin,
from our idolatries, from our wicked ways, and
may we serve the Lord with our whole
heart.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
Jeremiah, if you're not sure that you're a
child of God, I wouldn't leave this place
tonight until I was.
I mean, I'm serious.
We're living in desperate days.
And really, as Jeremiah exhorts, it's time really
that we just not cease in prayer unto
God for the people round about us.
We will make intercession for our nation, for
each other.
For these are truly the last days, and
Satan is going about as a roaring lion
seeking whom he may devour.
And he's ripping off an awful lot of
those from the church, leading them into life,
a life of sin, life of self-seeking,
living after pleasure and living and walking after
the flesh.
And the mind of the flesh is death.
I wouldn't leave tonight until I had a
deep assurance that things are square between God
and me.
You can go back to the prayer room
as soon as we're dismissed.
Some of the pastors will go back there
to pray with you.
God bless.
God keep.
And may God lay upon your heart the
awareness of the day and the hour in
which we live and the need of an
all-out effort in our service for Jesus
Christ.
And may the Lord use you in a
very special way as His instrument to bring
His love to this needy world.
In Jesus' name.