Lamentations

LeRoy Eims

There can be little doubt that these funeral hymns were written by Jeremiah. They come from an eyewitness as he stood in the midst of the ruins of his beloved Jerusalem. He watched the overthrow of the city of his soul and he is shaken by the desolation and ruin that he observes.

For years he had single‑handedly combated the forces of evil around him with courage and heroism. He had stood it the midst of godless princes, false prophets, and the weak king denouncing sin and predicting disaster with death staring him in the face. This is all the more remarkable when we realize that he was a shy, peace‑loving man possessed of a very sensitive nature. He was accused of treason, charged with selling out to the Chaldeans, thrown into prison, and even in danger of losing his life. Through all this his one ruling passion was absolute faithfulness to God in the clear proclamation of his message to his sinful, degenerate nation.

The originality of Jeremiah is seen in the way he lived to state old truths. He tried to arouse the nation to a sense of guilt, and genuine repentance. While he proclaimed the justice of God, as did the other prophets, he emphasized the love of God. He had tried to awaken in the hearts of the people a truly spiritual response so that the blessings of God might be theirs. To appreciate the message of Jeremiah requires more than just an intellectual grasp. It must be felt.

Now it is all over. What Jeremiah had predicted lies before him in exact fulfillment. Every statement of the coming doom is now a sore fact in the heaps of ruins that lie about him on every side. What was divinely communicated to him as warnings he now sees in the ruined city and the temple. As he looks at it his soul is stirred.

I'm sure his heart was comforted by his own predictions of the restoration which he had declared would be as certain as the captivity. While another 50 years would pass before the exile would run its full length, yet as surely as God had spoken, the people would return. The ruins will be cleared away and Jerusalem and the temple would be restored.

What are the lessons that we can learn from all this? Are there practical applications to us today as the people of God? It seems to me there are five things that stand out as eternal truths. One, nations and individuals cannot sin and get away with it. What individuals do, the nation becomes. God is a God of nations. We run down the pages of history and see in the moral history of nations the sure consequences of sin.

Two, because punishment for sin is deferred, it is not forgotten. The prophets told the people of the coming doom, but the message was unheeded and the nation continued to exist. This false sense of security feeds on the fact that the calamities predicted have not happened.

Three, They placed their hope in Egypt when they were out of touch with God. They placed their hope in Egypt, but Egypt did not come to help them. Jeremiah had told them that to trust in Egypt was like leaning on a broken staff. Rather than trust God they placed their hope in things that perish and disappear.

Four, the words of the false prophet may seem better than the words of the prophet of God. When they listened to Jeremiah they felt uncomfortable. Today we don't put the ministers of God in a dungeon, but we often ridicule that which we don't want to believe.

Five, when we are suffering the consequences of our sin we often complain about the injustice of God to smother the accusations of our own consciences. This is folly. While in captivity in Babylon the people knew they had listened to false prophets. Our only sure hope is to stay in the Word and listen to the voice of God.