Day Eight

Lamentations 5:1-19

1.) Remember, O LORD, what has befallen us; look, and see our disgrace!

2.) Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our homes to foreigners.

3.) We have become orphans, fatherless; our mothers are like widows.

4.) We must pay for the water we drink; the wood we get must be bought.

5.) Our pursuers are at our necks; we are weary; we are given no rest.

6.) We have given the hand to Egypt, and to Assyria, to get bread enough.

7.) Our fathers sinned, and are no more; and we bear their iniquities.

8.) Slaves rule over us; there is none to deliver us from their hand.

9.) We get our bread at the peril of our lives, because of the sword in the wilderness.

10.) Our skin is hot as an oven with the burning heat of famine.

11.) Women are raped in Zion, young women in the towns of Judah.

12.) Princes are hung up by their hands; no respect is shown to the elders.

13.) Young men are compelled to grind at the mill, and boys stagger under loads of wood.

14.) The old men have left the city gate, the young men their music.

15.) The joy of our hearts has ceased; our dancing has been turned to mourning.

16.) The crown has fallen from our head; woe to us, for we have sinned!

17.) For this our heart has become sick, for these things our eyes have grown dim,

18.) for Mount Zion which lies desolate; jackals prowl over it.

19.) But You, O LORD, reign forever; Your throne endures to all generations.

         For those of you who look to the Bible for the comfort it provides, you have probably never read Lamentations. Maybe as part of a Bible reading program. But Lamentations is a sad book. We want to read of heroes! We want to read of comfort! We want to read of victory! We really do not want to read of a people carried away into captivity and abused and tormented. But with the events unfolding in Europe and the threat of a war that would engulf the USA, it might be a good idea to look at history.

         The Jews were God’s chosen people. They had come to believe that nothing bad would happen to them. They latched onto their traditions and their arrogance and drifted into unGodliness while still professing that they were Godly. The Lord eventually gave them over to the Babylonians and at the start of the Captivity, they were treated awfully. Here in chapter 5 we see the horror, but you could read the whole book and see just how evil people can be to other people.

         Could it happen here? Hmmm

         The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the United Church of Christ, the United Methodist Church, the American Baptist Church, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Episcopal Church and many others have embraced nonBiblical concepts. The have allowed that which is called sin in the Bible to be OK. They are more interested in social reform than revival. (I want to be clear here. There are other churches that call themselves Christian Churches, there are United Churches, other Methodist churches, other Baptist churches, other Presbyterian churches other Lutheran churches that are standing firm. But a large percentage of American churches have turned against the Word of God. It makes me sick.)

         So if God’s people (Christians) have left the Word, if they are trying to embrace the world, if they have no respect for the Lord, would the Lord withhold judgement? Should He withhold judgement? He didn’t withhold judgement to the Jews and they were crushed.

         But in the midst of the lamentations of Israel, we have verse nineteen; But You, O LORD, reign forever; Your throne endures to all generations. The writer, probably Jeremiah, knew that the Lord was in control and that whatever happens here will not last.

         I have been truly blessed by God to have had a varied ministry. We lived in Miami where I was an associate pastor. I got to know many, many Cubans who had come to our shores to escape Castro and his form of communism. Some, who refused to renounce Christ, were put into prison as political prisoners. One man whom I came to know very well was Renaldo Medina. He was a pastor in Cuba and, when I knew him, he was a pastor in the Miami area. In between, he spent ten years in a Cuban prison. His wife and children (his kids were my age) escaped to the US. Pastor Medina suffered terribly. They broke his legs, broke his shoulders, rearranged his face. They wanted him to publically renounce Christ. He refused. One evening he and I were sitting in his church and he was telling me many things. One thing he said was that the church community in Cuba had largely become political tools for the dictator Bautista. They had left the Lord to embrace the dictator, then Castro had overthrown the government and had vastly restricted religion. He said the good thing was that it caused the real Christians to stand up for the Lord.

         Prayer. Today we pray for the world situation. We pray for steadfast Christians to step up. And we admit to the Lord that He is the eternal One and all that happens here is just passing. Hardly worth our time.