Day 14: Remembering the Multitude of his Loving Kindnesses

Lamentations 3:28-39 :

Let him sit alone and keep silence,
because he has laid it on him.
Let him put his mouth in the dust,
if it is so that there may be hope.
Let him give his cheek to him who strikes him.
Let him be filled full of reproach.

For the Lord will not cast off forever.
For though he causes grief,
yet he will have compassion according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses.
For he does not afflict willingly,
nor grieve the children of men.

To crush under foot all the prisoners of the earth,
to turn away the right of a man before the face of the Most High,
to subvert a man in his cause, the Lord doesn’t approve.

Who is he who says, and it comes to pass,
when the Lord doesn’t command it?
Doesn’t evil and good come out of the mouth of the Most High?
Why should a living man complain,
a man for the punishment of his sins?

It may be that man’s most significant problem is that He keeps trying to supplant God. An amazing thing that Lamentations shows us is that we can do this even while undergoing suffering. God Himself may be disciplining us, and we will still try to do something to make things better for ourselves. Jeremiah reminds us, here, that the best thing we can do is to “sit alone and keep silence.” He isn’t saying this because all is lost. In fact, the exact opposite is true. “For the Lord will not cast off forever.” Instead of trying and trying to solve our own problem, it’s time to return to simple faith.

So what is the fact that we should consider as we keep our silence in our suffering? Here it is: God “does not afflict willingly.” Eventually, He will save us. Besides, “Why should a living man complain… for the punishment of his sins?” That’s what we are really doing when we get all upset about our suffering for our sin. We are complaining about our punishment, all the while failing to remember that God doesn’t want to be punishing us in the first place! I do recognize that there are times when we suffer when we did not sin, like Job did, but even then, we can trust that God has something good in mind, like Job came to understand.

The simple fact that we can rest our faith on, is that God intends to “have compassion according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses.” May we remember this when we suffer.

Day 13: The Greatness of God’s Faithfulness

Lamentations 3:19-27 :

Remember my affliction and my misery,
the wormwood and the bitterness.
My soul still remembers them,
and is bowed down within me.
This I recall to my mind;
therefore I have hope.

It is because of Yahweh’s loving kindnesses that we are not consumed,
because his mercies don’t fail.
They are new every morning.
Great is your faithfulness.
“Yahweh is my portion,” says my soul.
“Therefore I will hope in him.”

Yahweh is good to those who wait for him,
to the soul who seeks him.
It is good that a man should hope
and quietly wait for the salvation of Yahweh.
It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.

If you are still breathing, there is hope for you. That’s the wonderful thing about Hell on earth. As long as we are still alive, we can hope in God because God has clearly promised that anyone who calls on Him will be saved. Those who die in their sins will have no hope. At this point in our study, the sun rises on this lamentation. If I’m not mistaken, this is in the very center of all five lamentations. It would appear that the structure of the poetry points to this by placing it in a prominent place.

When we are weighed down in our sins, it’s important for us remember this: we still have hope. As Christians, we can never lose our hope because we have been given eternal life, not based on our good works, but on Christ. Our sin as Christians, no matter how horrible it is, still cannot keep us from our destiny. It may land us in jail. It could even mean that we must die, but it can’t keep us from our eternal hope. Those who are not Christians, still have hope too. If they haven’t died yet, they can use the breath that they are borrowing to cry out to God. God’s “mercies don’t fail. They are new every morning. Yahweh is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.”

The last paragraph, here, reminds us of the importance of waiting for God. Our salvation often isn’t immediate. I sometimes wonder why, but I believe that one reason may be that it causes us to value it more. In the last statement, it says: “It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.” The best time to get punished is when you are still young and have enough time to live life the right way. It’s horrible to have wasted your whole life in sin without an opportunity to live for God for very long. I’m so glad that my parents disciplined me as a youth. What an amazing opportunity it has been to live for God, but I also see areas where I wasted vast amounts of time. All of us fall short of the glory of God, but we know the way out. To God we all can say: “Great is your faithfulness.”

Day 171: God’s Plan of Salvation

Jeremiah 42:7-18

After ten days, Yahweh’s word came to Jeremiah. Then he called Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces who were with him, and all the people from the least even to the greatest, and said to them, “Yahweh, the God of Israel, to whom you sent me to present your supplication before him, says: ‘If you will still live in this land, then I will build you, and not pull you down, and I will plant you, and not pluck you up; for I grieve over the distress that I have brought on you. Don’t be afraid of the king of Babylon, of whom you are afraid. Don’t be afraid of him,’ says Yahweh, ‘for I am with you to save you, and to deliver you from his hand. I will grant you mercy, that he may have mercy on you, and cause you to return to your own land.

“ ‘But if you say, “We will not dwell in this land,” so that you don’t obey Yahweh your God’s voice, saying, “No, but we will go into the land of Egypt, where we will see no war, nor hear the sound of the trumpet, nor have hunger of bread; and there we will dwell;” ’ now therefore hear Yahweh’s word, O remnant of Judah! Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says, ‘If you indeed set your faces to enter into Egypt, and go to live there, then it will happen that the sword, which you fear, will overtake you there in the land of Egypt; and the famine, about which you are afraid, will follow close behind you there in Egypt; and you will die there. So will it be with all the men who set their faces to go into Egypt to live there. They will die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence. None of them will remain or escape from the evil that I will bring on them.’ For Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘As my anger and my wrath has been poured out on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so my wrath will be poured out on you, when you enter into Egypt; and you will be an object of horror, an astonishment, a curse, and a reproach; and you will see this place no more.’

One thing that I am continually reminded of as I study Israel’s history is my own need for God to open my mind to His truth. God gives us many amazing promises, but I find that I will run right by them as if they don’t exist and continue to follow my fear. In this passage, God gives His amazing promise to the remnant of Judah, but first He makes them wait for 10 days. Isn’t that the way it goes sometimes? When we confess our confidence in God, we might be thinking that God is so happy to have us that He will respond to us instantly, and sometimes that is the case, but in this case, God chose to make them wait for an answer.

The wonderful thing is that God’s answer came with a promise of protection. If these people were willing to go back to Israel and stay there, God would make sure that Babylon wouldn’t harm them, but God knew their hearts. He exposes them here when He says: “Don’t be afraid of the king of Babylon, of whom you are afraid. Don’t be afraid of him.” If we put ourselves in their position, we would have to consider the fact that they just watched as Babylon desimated Jerusalem, killing people burning the city and removing their neighbors. This would take complete faith, not in what they saw but in what God was saying. God promised protection if they would stay in Israel, but He also made another promise.

He told them that if they wouldn’t stay and, instead, decided to move to Egypt where they felt safer, God would make sure that trouble would track each and every one of them down and kill them all. The choice was theirs. Either believe in God’s word and be saved, or trust in yourself and suffer. Where have we heard that before? It sounds a lot like John 3:16 doesn’t it? You can’t get away from this message, whether you read the Old Testament or the New. God will allow circumstances to make it seem like something that God says is impossible. We need God’s help to keep us focused on God’s word so that we won’t suffer the consequences of disobedience. We need God to open our minds to the reality of the world from His perspective, not our own. May He continue to build our faith as we live our lives for Him today.