Summary: There are 5 more separate laments here. The survivors are desolate and can find none to help or comfort. The nation admits its guilt and isolation as Judah was forsaken. The heart of the people was overturned as was God who had to do this. (Don't dismiss because it is Lamentations).

THE BOOK OF LAMENTATIONS – PART 5 – DESOLATE PLEADING HANDS AS I ADMIT MY OWN GUILT- – CHAPTER 1:16-20

We are working through the book of Lamentations, a sad and sorrowful book but one that contains much valuable instruction. Currently we are looking at 9 verses of lament. In the last message we did two of these and today we are doing five more. People tend to overlook Lamentations because they rarely ever hear from it but that is no excuse for not engaging with this marvellous, inspired book.

PART [A]. DESOLATE CHILDREN WITHOUT A COMFORTER

{{Lamentations 1:16 “For these things I weep. MY EYES RUN DOWN WITH WATER because a comforter is far from me, One who restores my soul. My children are DESOLATE because the enemy has prevailed.”}}

THIRD VERSE OF LAMENT: There was no comforter for Judah, and the people suffer in isolation. Judah is weeping and there is no one to restore her fallen state, not that the sinful state that caused all this is to be returned. Sin causes such misery. I have seen events run by organisations where those under the influence of alcohol erupt in vicious hand fighting with kicking. This is the very corrupt state of man’s fallen nature. It is only misery.

“My children,” are the inhabitants who survive, and are truly miserable because they have lost all. Judah has been ravished. Judah laments her own children. Jeremiah warned about the coming destruction if the people persisted in their sin, but they took no notice. Truly this verse applied – {{Romans 6:23 “for THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”}}

I want to consider this expression – “One who restores my soul,” for there is One, but He had been rejected in favour of the idols of the nations. Judah turned to idolatry more than they ever followed the LORD. King David knew about the Restorer of souls – {{Psalm 23:3 “He restores my soul. He guides me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.”}}

PART [B]. PLEADING HANDS TO NO AVAIL

{{Lamentations 1:17 “Zion STRETCHES OUT her hands. There is NO ONE TO COMFORT HER. The LORD has commanded concerning Jacob that the ones round about him should be his adversaries. Jerusalem has become an unclean thing among them.”}}

FOURTH VERSE OF LAMENT: The hands are stretched out in pleading in the hope someone will come and take those outstretched hands and lift Zion/Jerusalem out of her misery, but there would be no one. There is irony here because the LORD was stretching out His hands in pleading with the nation to return to Him for hundreds of years but they despised the LORD and forsook Him to become fully engrossed in idolatry and the degraded, associated practices. The LORD’S outstretched hand in mercy while there was still time, later became the outstretched hand in vengeance – {{Jeremiah 21:5 “And I Myself shall war against you WITH AN OUTSTRETCHED HAND and a mighty arm, even in ANGER AND WRATH and great indignation.”}}

All those around Judah were her enemies so that no one would come to Judah’s aid. She was the product of her own unrepentant sin and was found very wanting. Both verses 16 and 17 reference there being no comforters.

Jerusalem is despised as a polluted place by Judah’s former enemies. Judah had chased after the nations cavorting with them until the crunch came. Birds of a feather flock together until a falling out happens. That was Babylon’s overthrow. In fact Judah itself polluted the nation by its own idolatrous worship and the burning of its children to Moloch and the worship of the vile Queen of heaven with its wafer cakes and the immorality – {{Jeremiah 7:18-19 The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough to MAKE CAKES FOR THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN, and they pour out libations to other gods in order to spite Me. Do they spite Me?” declares the LORD. “Is it not themselves they spite, to their own shame?”}}

PART [C]. I, THE NATION ADMIT MY GUILT. I HAVE SENT MY OWN INTO CAPTIVITY

{{Lamentations 1:18 “The LORD is righteous, for I HAVE REBELLED against His command. Hear now, all peoples, and BEHOLD MY PAIN. My virgins and my young men have gone into captivity.”}}

FIFTH VERSE OF LAMENT: The only positive thing here is that the survivors of the nation now confess their guilt and their sin against a righteous God. They then know the truth of Jeremiah’s despised prophesying, but they retain a remorseful regret. Jeremiah was correct all the time; it was the nation that was wrong. The call is made to people to listen and to see the pain of Judah, for that happens when any nation forsakes the Lord. It is a red flag for the nations today.

Take warning all nations of the earth. God is not mocked. What you sow you will reap. The world now is lawless and swallowed up by WOKEism and evil adoptions of the United Nations agenda. All this is a continual departure from the righteousness of God. Regret down the track is too late. We know nations at the end of the Church age (right now) will not come back to the Lord but get worse and worse in line with 2 Timothy chapter 3.

This rebellion against the Lord’s commands (Homosexuality; destruction of children’s gender; worship of paganism, etc.,) is increasing until such time these nations will be destroyed as was Judah. The book of Revelation makes that very clear, for any moment now the Lord will rapture His Church and then comes the great Tribulation judgements from Revelation chapter 6 onwards. Then the world will know pain.

Judah lamented her young women and men going in captivity in Babylon, Daniel being one of them. After 70 years some came back but only a remnant. Judah’s children were scattered among the nations. From that time onwards, from its destruction right up until the 1940s, Israel has never owned her own land. 2 550 years!

PART [D]. I WAS LEFT STRANDED WITH NO HOPE

{{Lamentations 1:19 “I called to my LOVERS, but they DECEIVED me. MY PRIESTS AND MY ELDERS perished in the city while they sought food to restore their strength themselves.”}}

SIXTH VERSE OF LAMENT:

Illicit lovers are untrustworthy, and one day they project false love and the next they betray you. Judah had many lovers, these being the false and demonic gods of the nations. Some of their names were mentioned in scripture but there are many more. You may adopt the gods of the nations and pretend loyalty to those nations, but they themselves will hate you. That, Judah discovered. There is no honour among thieves; there is no honour among idolatrous nations.

The verse mentions “deceived me” and that is a misplaced trust. Personally, I have found that in organisations and alliances and even in what we see as a friendship, nearly always the heart of the person and organisation is not with you. There may be pretence but when the crunch comes, you have been deserted, even betrayed. Unless a man or woman belongs to God, in these days, no one’s word or loyalty can be trusted. All are deceitful.

{{Isaiah 57:4-5 “Against whom do you jest? Against whom do you open wide your mouth and stick out your tongue? Are you not children of rebellion, OFFSPRING OF DECEIT, who inflame yourselves among the oaks, under every luxuriant tree, who slaughter the children in the ravines under the clefts of the crags?”}}

{{Jeremiah 8:5-6 “Why then has this people, Jerusalem, turned away in CONTINUAL APOSTASY? THEY HOLD FAST TO DECEIT. They refuse to return. I have listened and heard. They have spoken what is not right; no man repented of his wickedness, saying, ‘What have I done?’ Everyone turned to his course, like a horse charging into the battle.”}}

{{Jeremiah 8:10 “Therefore I will give their wives to others, their fields to new owners, because from the least even to the greatest, everyone is greedy for gain; from the prophet even to the priest EVERYONE PRACTISES DECEIT.”}}

Judah was left stranded, abandoned by its false trust in the nations. Samaria was also overtaken by Babylon. We have here an incidence – {{2 Kings 18:19-21 Then Rabshakeh said to them, “Say now to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria, “What is this confidence that you have? You say, ‘I have counsel and strength for the war,’ but they are only empty words. Now on whom do you rely that you have rebelled against me? Now behold, you rely on the staff of this crushed reed, even on Egypt, on which, if a man leans, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who rely on him.”}} Israel trusted in an alliance with Egypt but even heathen Assyria knew how false that was. The LORD was/is the only One on whom a man can trust.

Judah was lamenting over the priests and the elders. These died while trying to find food for themselves. Remember it was the priests and elders who opposed Jeremiah, conceited and corrupt they were, feeding off the people. Hear some of what Jeremiah wrote against them -

{{Jeremiah 2:8-9 THE PRIESTS DID NOT SAY, ‘Where is the LORD?’ and those who handle the law did not know Me. The rulers also transgressed against Me, and THE PROPHETS PROPHESIED BY BAAL and walked after things that did not profit. Therefore I will yet contend with you,” declares the LORD, “and with your sons’ sons I will contend.”}}

{{Jeremiah 2:26 “As the thief is shamed when he is discovered, so the house of Israel is shamed - they, their kings, their princes, AND THEIR PRIESTS, and their prophets,”}}

{{Jeremiah 5:31 “The prophets prophesy falsely, and THE PRIESTS RULE ON THEIR OWN AUTHORITY, and MY PEOPLE LOVE IT so, but what will you do at the end of it?”}}

{{Jeremiah 26:7-8 “And the priests and the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the house of the LORD. And when Jeremiah finished speaking all that the LORD had commanded him to speak to all the people, THE PRIESTS AND THE PROPHETS AND ALL THE PEOPLE SEIZED HIM, SAYING, “YOU MUST DIE!”}}

When a whole nation is so corrupt as was Judah, you often find the “religious class” is also corrupt. When a nation is in decline, so too is the religious sector. In fact I think it works the other way. A nation falls into decline because the people have forgotten the Lord and have become perverted and meaningless. When a Christian testimony declines into corruption, so too does the nation. Australia and Britain and the United States are typical examples of this right now. In the revision I am doing for Lamentations in February 2025 I think God has temporarily spared the USA because of its now support for Israel, but I feel pessimistic about Australia, the UK and Canada.

PART [E]. MY TROUBLES ARE POURING OUT

{{Lamentations 1:20 “See, O LORD, for I AM IN DISTRESS. My spirit is greatly troubled. MY HEART IS OVERTURNED WITHIN ME, for I have been very REBELLIOUS. In the street the sword slays. In the house it is like death.”}}

SEVENTH VERSE OF LAMENT:

Short statements follow one on the other as Judah assesses her situation and the lament of her conditions is intermingled with soul searching. Words can not describe the horror of death from the invaders. Her appeal is made to the LORD, for reality has surfaced, and no longer will Judah call on her false gods, for hardship has clarified reasoning.

It was the LORD who had been forsaken during the time of Judah’s flirting with the devil’s substitutes but now the idols are gone, and no more did the Jews turn to these idols of the nations. The verse begins with an appeal/prayer to the LORD and for the first time for ages, this turning to the Lord was genuine.

It was the distress that came bubbling out. The remnant of Judah was in distress for all had been cut away, exposed to the bone. The national spirit was troubled. Her heart has been overturned, caused by distress. The Babylonians were killing people in the streets, and unstated, in homes as well. Those hiding in homes were as if the net of death was upon them.

In the middle of all this there was an acknowledgement of the reason for it all, a confession of her sin, and it was rebellion. Not just rebellious, but VERY rebellious. No man or woman, or nation for that matter can ever be right before God, unless there is genuine confession and repentance. In order to turn again the people to God, great distress has to come.

One expression I wish to mention – “MY HEART IS OVERTURNED WITHIN ME,” and it is used once more in scripture with this deep verse – {{Hosea 11:8 “How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I surrender you, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? MY HEART IS TURNED OVER WITHIN ME. ALL MY COMPASSIONS ARE KINDLED.”}}

The LORD is in great distress. In human terms, His heart is overturned within Him. It is very difficult for us to understand the heart of God, the concept of that, so we have it stated in human terms. God says His compassions are kindled.

The setting for this was the overthrow of the Northern Kingdom, Israel, or Ephraim or Samaria. After countless warnings and appeal, but to no avail, the time had come for the destruction of Samaria by the Assyrians, but God did not want to do it. It is like He was all churned up within, not wanting the nation to be destroyed. He did not want to move in judgement but he had to. It is never stated that the LORD felt the same way about the southern kingdom, Judah, but I am sure the same aspects applied. The LORD’S heart was all churned up before the nation’s heart became the same. The survivors experienced a similar emotion to God.