“And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord: 19. Remembering my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. 20. My soul has them still in remembrance and is humbled in me. 21. This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. 22. It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. 23. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. 24. The Lord is my portion, saith my soul: therefore will I hope in Him. 25. The Lord is good unto them that wait for Him, to the soul that seeks Him.”
The book of Lamentations, written by Jeremiah after the fall of Jerusalem and the exile of the Israelite people in Babylon, is exactly what the title implies – it is a lament about the suffering of God’s people in exile. It is not what one would call a “happy read.” It is filled with doom and gloom. Yet in the midst of this gloom and doom, eight verses rise up as from the ashes and reveal the hope and faith that Jeremiah still had in those dark times. Like everything else in the Bible, it is a word of hope for us as well in the midst of our doom and gloom. Verse 19 tells us of Jeremiah’s suffering: “Remembering my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.” (Wormwood and gall refer to his bitterness.) Yet even as Jeremiah lamented Israel’s pitiable condition at the time, there arose in his heart and mind the hope that only God, as we know Him in Christ, can give. He wrote: “This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.” In the midst of his gloom, Jeremiah had a thought from God that because of God there was still hope. In verse 22, he wrote of the “mercies” and “compassion” of God. He recalled that the people of God were defeated but they were not consumed. After all, Jeremiah himself had written of the hope of post-exilic times that God’s people would rise from the ashes and again rejoice. This is the same Lord that we worship. He is still merciful and compassionate. He has not stopped loving us, though we might be going through dark times. In the midst of whatever gloom we my face, the radiance of God shines forth in our hearts and reminds us that we are still loved by our merciful and compassionate God. The Babylonians had the temporary victory, but Jeremiah’s, and our, hope lies in the hands of the eternal God who loves us and is compassionate towards us. These verses are especially relevant today. As I write this there is a worry about the dreaded Ebola virus. There is the incessant news about those barbarians that we know as ISIS, or ISIL - according to who is speaking. Besides these things, there are earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes and floods that have always been bad news. f But the message of the Bible is that those dreadful things that we face today, and whatever dreadful things will be in the future, are not surprising or unbeatable as far as the eternal God is concerned. We have to remember that we live in a fallen world. We have never been promised utopia on this side of heaven. He do have, however, the promise that God is aware of all of the things that are happening and that in the midst of it all, He is present with mercy and compassion. Our hope lies, not in the fallen world, but in the eternal God who created it all and oversees it all. It is still true that, “It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are (still) new every morning: great is (His) faithfulness.” Remember the words of the Lord Jesus in Matthew 11:28: “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.” Whatever is weighing heavily on your mind today let the reality of the Living Lord lift the weight and give you the freedom to rejoice in His great name. Do it! Bro. Joe
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AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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