Lamentations Chapter 3

Great Is Your Faithfulness

• Lamentations 3:1  I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. 
• 2  He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light. 
• 3  Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day. 
• 4  My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones. 

Sometimes when persecution happens and evil comes upon a person who is a strong believer in God, it may seem to them as if God was against them or causing these things to happen. Jeremiah did suffer persecution from those that didn't like what he had to say. Yet I'm wondering if Jeremiah here is speaking as if this is how the whole nation was feeling because they abandoned God; God was allowing all this evil to befall them.

• Lamenations 3:5  He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail. 
• 6  He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old. 
• 7  He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy. 
• 8  Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer. 

When anyone goes through a trial of their faith or persecution by those that hate them, it does seem like God is not hearing our prayers. However we know from the other scriptures that He does hear the prayers of those that believe in Him. Of course if Jeremiah is speaking as prepresentative of the whole nation that had sinned, naturally the prayers would be blocked because they were under God's divine judgment.

Yet one time the prophet Daniel prayed a prayer of repentance for his own nation in chapter 9 of Daniel and later he heard from an angel of the Lord why his the answer was delayed:

• Daniel 10:12  Then said he unto me, Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words. 
• 13  But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days: but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia. 
• 14  Now I am come to make thee understand what shall befall thy people in the latter days: for yet the vision is for many days. 

I don't quite understand how and why that happens that way but I'll leave that to God to answer one day when we all stand before Him. God does hear the prayers of those the believe and those that have a heart of repentance if the person is genuinely repenting of their sins. God hears. God answers but in His own timing.

• Lamentations 3:9  He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked. 
• 10  He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places. 
• 11  He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he hath made me desolate. 
• 12  He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow. 
• 13  He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins. 
• 14  I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day. 

In a way this reminds me also of Jesus and the suffering He was going through on the cross. Yet we know this was written long before the time Jesus was dying for our sins. Many of the prophets suffered from their own people because their words from the Lord was rejected. Isaiah, Elijah, and many others along with Jeremiah suffered by the hands of those that hated them for speaking the word of God.

Jesus felt that He was forsaken at one time. Perhaps God had to turn His face away because He had to see all our sins come upon Jesus. That is the reaons Jesus came to bear our sins so that when we turn to Him in repentance, desire to be forgiven of sin and have the power over sins, we become free from sin and become a new person, Born Again.

• Matthew 27:46  And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? 

Because of the sacrifice of Jesus though, all who believe will be saved from the final place those that remain in their sins go at the death of their bodies. Believers in Jesus will be raised from the dead with new bodies that can never die. They will dwell in the city of God forever. None shall hurt them ever again.

• Lamentations 3:15  He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood. 
• 16  He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes. 
• 17  And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat prosperity. 
• 18  And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the LORD: 
• 19  Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. 

When one is in prison whether it is because he preached righteousness or because of his or her own sins of breaking the law, it is miserable. They would feel like God had forsaken them. They are alone, deserted and forsaken. All hope seems to be lost. For the innocent who love the Lord, peace awaits them when God delivers them or they go to be with Him forever. For the guilty because of Jesus Christ, if they repent and turn to God, they will be comforted and be with the Lord forever also.

• Lamentations 3:20  My soul hath 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 seeketh him. 

He now remembers the Lord. He now expresses hope in the Lord. He remembers the compassion of the Lord that never stops. He remembers the Lord's faithfulness. The Lord is his hope. The Lord is good to those that wait for Him.

Now in this present time, we wait for the Lord's second coming. We wait for the Lord to gather to Him all that believe before the wrath is poured out on the earth. We come back with Him when Jesus returns a second time to rule and reign on the earth. He is coming to all that are looking for Him and that love His appearing.

• Hebrews 9:28  So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. 

He comes the second time not to be a sin offering like He was the first time but to reign over the earth.

• 2Timothy 4:8  Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.

Those that wait and love the appearing of the Lord will receive that crown of righteousness. All will turn out good for those that love and wait for the Lord's return.

• Lamentations 3:26  It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD. 

Those that suffer because they live right and are rejected by those that hate them because they believe in God and live for God, continually wait for His salvation which will surely come but sometimes it seems hard to see. Many have gone before us that are good examples of those that fought the good fight and kept the faith.

• Lamentations 3:27  It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. 
• 28  He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him. 
• 29  He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope. 
• 30  He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach. 
• 31  For the Lord will not cast off for ever: 
• 32  But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies. 

It is so great when a young person find the Lord while still young. We can avoid so many pitfalls and avoid getting into things that come back to haunt us later in life. God has kept me from a lot of trouble. I don't remember ever a time when He was not there for me. It seemed like my dad's prayers followed me everywhere I was.

We see from the verse 30, that is describes Jesus when He was being arrested, beaten and killed for the sins of all who would believe in Him.

• Lamentations 3:33  For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men. 
• 34  To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth, 
• 35  To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High, 
• 36  To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not. 

The Lord would rather bless than curse.

• 2Corinthians 4:14  Knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you. 
• 15  For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God. 
• 16  For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. 
• 17  For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; 
• 18  While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal. 

I love how other scriptures in the New Testament will confirm those in the Old Testament.

• Lamentations 3:37  Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not? 
• 38  Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good? 
• 39  Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins? 
• 40  Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD. 

We live in a fallen world around us. Some things come because of persecution by those that hate people that love the Lord. Some things come because of our own bad decisions and choices we make, some things come when we do not understand why and then some things come upon us because of our own sins. We reap what we sow in other words. Yet there is hope, there is a way out, there is relief, there is peace in eternity through our turning to the Lord.

• Lamentations 3:41  Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens. 
• 42  We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned. 
• 43  Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied. 
• 44  Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through. 
• 45  Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people. 
• 46  All our enemies have opened their mouths against us. 
• 47  Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction. 
• 48  Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.

We see here the result of the nation that once knew God but had departed from Him after the death of King David. Again they were restored after the Babylonian captivity but fell away again just before the days before the first coming of Jesus. Jesus came to die for the sins of all who would believe and receive Him into their lives. After the majority of them rejected Jesus, the nation was again destroyed in 70AD and did not exist again until 1948.

• Lamentations 3:49  Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission, 
• 50  Till the LORD look down, and behold from heaven. 
• 51  Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city. 

Many prophets and people that are faithful to God and His word, will have this within them when they see the sin and their nation continuing in evil without any remorse of repentance. When they see young people and older ones bound by drugs, alcohol, and misery. When they take marriage lightly, break up homes, have no fear of God, no mercy and have departed from the God who created the heavens and the earth perfect.

When nations forget God and teach children that He does not exist, there are no longer any moral absolutes. They lose their way. Violence, addiction and death increases. Just look at what happened in the United States starting with the Supreme Court casting out the reading of the bible and prayer in the public schools. Teachers were not allowed to mention Jesus in a positive way. The only one that could have kept the children safe from wickedness, drug addiction, and violence was the one forbidden to be mentioned. Everything went downhill from there.

Actually it started before that. I remember prayer in school in my early days in grade school but that seemed to have stopped before it was outlawed. The teaching of creation was replaced by the crazy unproven theory of evolution. When we were forced to send our children to spend hours in a place where God was forbidden to be mentioned while parents worked to make a living, two hours of church on Sunday was all they heard of God if they went to church at all. Without the proper teaching of God, we have no chance of survival as a nation.

• Lamentations 3:52  Mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without cause. 
• 53  They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me. 
• 54  Waters flowed over mine head; then I said, I am cut off. 
• 55  I called upon thy name, O LORD, out of the low dungeon. 

Jeremiah suffered terribly for speaking out against the sin of his nation. He spent his whole life pleading for repentance. His prophecies came to pass in that they lost their nation to Babylon for 70 years.

• Lamentations 3:56  Thou hast heard my voice: hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry. 
• 57  Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidst, Fear not. 
• 58  O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life. 
• 59  O LORD, thou hast seen my wrong: judge thou my cause. 
• 60  Thou hast seen all their vengeance and all their imaginations against me. 
• 61  Thou hast heard their reproach, O LORD, and all their imaginations against me; 
• 62  The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day. 
• 63  Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their musick. 
• 64  Render unto them a recompence, O LORD, according to the work of their hands. 
• 65  Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse unto them. 
• 66  Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the LORD. 

It seems like Jeremiah finally gives in to his despair and asks God to bring His judgment. This literally happened as it will to all who harm God's messengers and persecute innocent people. We reap what we sew. What goes around comes around. No one will get by with harming those that warn against sin and speak out against evil. Not one will get by with persecuting God's people, and forbidding the teaching of God's word. No one will get by with harming innocent children and offending those that believe in God.

Jeremiah is now in with God awaiting the day of resurrection along with all who stayed faithful to God while the souls of all who failed to repent and turn from their wickedness await the final judgment day that comes after the defeat of all evil and God the Father and Jesus the Son reigns forever. That day is coming whether the message of the gospel is forbidden or not. We can't stop God's judgment by forbidding it to be taught. We can't get rid of God because we don't want to believe in Him. He is in control and will save His people who stay faithful to Him. DC

Lamentations Chapter 4