“And I said, My strength and my hope has perished from the Lord: 19. Remembering my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. 20. My soul has them still in the remembrance and is humbled in me.”
The title of “Lamentations” would suggest to us that it would include some complaints. Our text is in the middle of one of the prophet Jeremiah’s complaints. Let me illustrate that he shows us how to complain. You’ve got to stay with me to the end to discover what I really want to show you. First, the prophet Jeremiah, had spent years telling the nation of Judah that they would fall to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. At the time of this writing, Jeremiah’s prediction was in the process of coming true. It does not help when we know that God is going to judge people, or that we are right when we tell them. It speaks well of Jeremiah that he was not jumping with glee that his prophecies of doom had been fulfilled. He saw people that he loved taken into Babylonian captivity. Second, because of his predictions of doom, Jeremiah had been mistreated over and over again by his own people. In reading through the Book of Jeremiah, I have been impressed that every time they imprisoned him, or as on one occasion, they threw him into an empty water cistern where he sunk to his knees, he stuck by the message that the Lord had given him to share with his people. He did not back off on his prediction of doom one iota, or as Hebrew would have it “one shwa.” (sp) He is an example to us that we need to stick by whatever message we would have from God for our own people, but that we are not to rejoice in the ravages of sin. There is no note of self-righteousness in Jeremiah’s complaints. Third, here is the result of Jeremiah’s complaint in Jeremiah 3: 21-23: “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.” In the midst of all that Jeremiah experienced at the hands of his own people, and all that his beloved Judah was encountering in their defeat at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, Jeremiah did not forget the true nature of the sovereign and holy God that he served. We do not need to lose sight today of the Lord today as He has been revealed through His Son Jesus Christ. We can wake up every morning with the thought that: “His compassions fail not…They are new every morning….Great is (His) faithfulness.” This is how to complain! Let your complaints end in praise! Bro. Joe
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AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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September 2021
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