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Devotional thoughts (Monday through Thursday mornings) from the pastor of Exeter Presbyterian Church in Exeter, NH // Sunday Worship 10:30am // 73 Winter Street

Thursday, April 03, 2008

Lamentations 5

This final chapter of Lamentations is a cry for help. This is not the shout of an individual needing the Lord to answer only him. We may be familiar with that kind of cry from our own lives of prayer. A person can easily find himself in a critical moment of need where advice, knowledge, resources, friends, faith, hope and many other things seem absolutely necessary and almost completely lacking. There is something more in this chapter than even that kind of heartfelt cry to God for assistance. This is the cry of a whole people, not just the plea of one desperate person.

Will God remember us? The faithful remnant asks God to remember what has happened to them. Even a singular individual cannot help but remember a tragedy that has changed his life forever. If anyone brings up the uncomfortable topic of the particular loss, he does no harm, since the man is thinking about that loss all the time, and can scarcely do anything without returning to some consideration of the awful facts that have changed his life forever. How much more is this the case for a whole society in mortal distress. They call upon God to remember with them what has happened. They admit their disgrace. They consider themselves abandoned. They have no resources for life. They feel the weight of inheriting the awful fruits of ungodliness from those who have come before them, and they do not know how they could possibly get out from under the burden of this crushing debt.

It is very challenging for any people to face up to the fact of their subjugation by some foreign power, especially when they have reason to consider themselves superior to their oppressors. They would love to have a savior nation arise to liberate them. It would be dangerous to tempt them with credible relief from an ungodly source. They might be ready to listen to any god who might have a realistic message of immediate help. O how they long for that! There must be some army coming over the horizon that would change the entire situation! But there is no such force that could change the facts here.

Rape, starvation, murder, slavery… this is their current portion. How could they bear this quietly? They needed to follow the orders of others or they would surely die. There was no option to simply bear up under the stress of it all. There was mourning everywhere, and the slightest rebellion could mean death. All of this happened because of their sin.

The sin sickness that they had was not some surface issue. Their hearts had become ugly. Their eyes had grown dim. They could not seem to discern the right way to go. Was it possible that wild animals were prowling in the place where the temple once stood? Could this get any worse?

The problem was not in the character and actions of God, but surely He was the only answer to the trouble that His people faced. They dug the pit for themselves, but they could not get out by their own efforts, and every other arm was too short to rescue. God’s people were fatally stuck in a frightening and dangerous trap. Because of this they were sick with a great spiritual disease. They needed healing, and there seemed to be absolutely no one who could perform the necessary miracle.

God will reign forever. Nothing can remove Him from His throne. Had He forgotten His own people? This was a horrible but honest question. Were they so entangled in the mess of the world, that the Lord had utterly rejected them? Had His promises been overwhelmed by the ugliness of their failings? They cried out for renewal and restoration, but had God decided to treat them forever as an enemy nation?

Had the Lord utterly rejected them? It might have seemed like that to His people when loss was all around them. They began to hope only for survival. They once wanted to fly. Then they hoped to run. When that seemed impossible they thought that they might still walk. Now they wondered if they would even be left standing. Did they even have faith to stand? Flying was out of the question.

As the people of the Covenant of Grace today, these questions are very important to us. If God could not be counted on to keep His promises to Israel, what hope is there that He will be true to His church? The answers come to us through the provision of the Son of God as our perfect Substitute. God rejected His Son for a time that we might be completely accepted forever. We are not utterly rejected. We are sons of God, through Christ our Lord. His promises have not been forgotten or annulled. Every promise of the Father is “Yes” and “Amen” in His Son. We are not enemies of God. The blood of Christ has made a perfect peace between God and His elect, both Jew and Gentile, who turn to Him in fear and faith.

We most certainly will stand. We will walk again. We will even run one day. In fact we shall mount up with wings as eagles. We will live. Not only have we been redeemed, but there are many godly expectations that we can and must cling to based upon the sure word of the Lord. Some of these have already happened. Israel was restored from her Babylonian captivity. The Spirit has been poured out on a new Israel of God. Some of God’s promises are yet to fully arrive, but they are just as sure as the coming again of Jesus Christ. The Day of the Lord will surely come. By the Word of our Messiah King there will be a new heaven and a new earth. At the return of Christ, there will come a resurrection of the righteous and the unrighteous. God will bring about a final judgment, and we will be openly acknowledged and acquitted through the blood of the Lamb.

How desperate is the situation we face? Is it as bad as Lamentations 5? Surely God saved His elect even back in that awful day. Not one of them was lost. Have no fear, little flock, it is Your Father’s good will to give You the Kingdom.

posted by Pastor Magee @ 7:00 AM

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