THE BOOK OF LAMENTATIONS – PART 15 – THE JUDGEMENT FELL LIKE AN ATTACKING LION; LIKE A QUIVER OF ARROWS; LIKE THE POISON OF WORMWOOD - CHAPTER 3:10-15
[10]. FEAR AND TERROR OF DEATH ARE THE PROSPECTS
{{Lamentations 3:10 “HE is like A BEAR TO ME, lying in wait, LIKE A LION in secret places.”
Lamentations 3:11 “HE has turned aside my ways and TORN ME TO PIECES. HE has made me desolate.”}}
The prevailing situation for the defeated survivors was gruesome enough with the feeling God had shut Himself off with hewn stones and crooked paths, but now in this verse it is like they have become prey for God who is pictured as hunting them and savaging them. The bear and lion are hunting animals, fierce, and to fall into their domain was death. That is the way the people felt. It really was a sad situation they were in with only dismal thoughts about themselves.
Some people are known as pessimists but in this book, pessimism is everywhere until we get into Chapter 5 and things become just a bit brighter. There are so many word pictures painted here for the suffering and desolation of a defeated people with no apparent hope for the future. That is so sad. God is not mocked. Don’t be deceived. When people reject God’s message and pursue their own gross sin as the world is doing right now, then the hand of judgement will fall and it is very close with the Tribulation ready at any time.
The idea of the bear and lion lying in wait and hiding in secret, gives great uncertainty hour after hour. The Jews had been devastated and did not know if more was to come. That is a fearful situation and one none of us would choose.
The image of a bear and lion waiting for destruction is not isolated in scripture. It is mentioned in scripture with the leopard replacing the bear – {{Hosea 13:6-7 “As they had their pasture, they became satisfied, and being satisfied, their heart became proud. Therefore, they forgot Me, so I WILL BE LIKE A LION TO THEM. LIKE A LEOPARD I WILL LIE IN WAIT BY THE WAYSIDE.”}} That is the same imagery Jeremiah used much later. An agrarian people understands images from nature. There were centuries of pleading and warning from a longsuffering and compassionate God but stubbornness and entrenched sin refused God’s messages.
However, in Amos, the picture is set in the day of the LORD. That is still future occurring in the Tribulation, but it can be applied partially to God in Israel's judgement, including Babylon and Rome, so it is fitting here – {{Amos 5:18-19 “Alas, you who are longing for THE DAY OF THE LORD, for what purpose will the day of the LORD be to you? It will be darkness and not light - AS WHEN A MAN FLEES FROM A LION, AND A BEAR MEETS HIM, OR GOES HOME, LEANS HIS HAND AGAINST THE WALL, AND A SNAKE BITES HIM.”}}
What all these prophets are saying is that when God moves forward with judgement against sin, there will be no escape. Darkness is a picture of destruction and rejection, and desolation, and it is sudden and unexpected for those caught up in it, just like a lion hiding in secret or in hidden places which suddenly pounces on its prey.
In the downfall of Judah the lament was “torn me to pieces” and “made me desolate”. It is a sad situation but the even sadder aspect is that it was deserved (earned), because sin always pays its wages and the wages of sin is death. No one will escape that and the coming judgement of the Tribulation will be dreadful, for from Revelation chapters 6 to 9 around 40% or more of the earth’s population will perish. Please, do not reject the love of God. Repent and become a member of the Bride so you will be removed from the judgement to come.
[11]. THE ARROWS OF THE LORD ARE TRUE
{{Lamentations 3:12 “HE bent His bow and SET ME AS A TARGET for the arrow.”
Lamentations 3:13 “HE made the arrows of His quiver TO ENTER INTO MY INWARD PARTS.”}}
From a previous message you might recall that we are here in the section that blames all on the LORD with verse after verse saying “HE (has)”, as one calamity follows another. Judah was the target and Jerusalem was the bulls eye. Entering the inward parts speaks of thoroughness and depth; also hurt and pain. The destruction was both deep and thorough. The imagery of the archer and arrows is common in the Old Testament, and always is associated with both battle and death.
The great Battle of Armageddon at the end of the tribulation, marking the Second Coming sees the Lord Himself armed with a sword, another symbol of judgement – {{Revelation 19:15 “From His mouth comes A SHARP SWORD so that with it He may smite the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron, and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty.”}}
The world is in so much suffering and pain, but sadly that will not be the end of it all because much is to be played out and it gets worse. As I put these thoughts down, the overthrow of Assad of Syria has just happened and they are revealing the great death and torture and misery of Assad’s great prison. It defies human compassion and decency. The man was a monster as are so many really, ones who are empowered by Satan to do his bidding. So much of this inhuman behaviour and satanic evil comes from those associated with Islam.
Judah’s misery was of its own bidding following warning after warning over the centuries by the prophets. There is a time for sinfulness and there is a time for lamentation. There is a time for restoration also in Israel’s case. {{Ecclesiastes 3:1-3 “There is an appointed time for everything, and there is a time for every event under heaven - A time to give birth, and a time to die; A TIME TO PLANT, AND A TIME TO UPROOT what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; A TIME TO TEAR DOWN, AND A TIME TO BUILD UP;”}}
[12]. LAMENT IN MOCKERY
{{Lamentations 3:14 “I have become A LAUGHINGSTOCK TO ALL MY PEOPLE, their mocking song all the day.”}}
Earlier on we saw the great derision of the enemy that gloated over Judah's downfall. They laughed and hissed and mocked. {{Jeremiah 19:8 “I shall also make this city a desolation and AN OBJECT OF HISSING; everyone who passes by it will be ASTONISHED AND HISS BECAUSE OF ALL ITS DISASTERS.”}} Judah faces reality and is mocked because of its false boasting. They believed God was their Protector and turned a blind eye to their utter sinful idolatry. It does not work like that. They believed God would deliver them from their enemies no matter what their own soul condition was. That is self-deception and the world today is full of it.
Judah’s enemies laughed at them in their downfall, when their very evil heart was revealed. They formed songs to mock Judah and its people. There is something very evil in people that delights in the downfall of others. In the French revolution, people cheered when severed heads rolled down. The Roman arenas were filled with spectators who cheered when victims were attacked and torn by wild beasts. They cheered when Christians were covered in tar and set alight to light up the arena. How great will be THEIR suffering in the lake of fire.
We can only think dimly of the suffering that prevailed when the nation was overthrown. The Babylonians were cruel and tortured the people. They were an awful enemy, but God would overthrow them within 50 or something years because of their evil in what they had done. Sin will never have dominance in the day of reckoning. God is supreme and in control. Humanism is the KING of the world, only because it wrested control from God, but a time is coming when it will be overthrown and the KING of kings will forever reign.
The verse here says, “I have become a laughingstock,” (derision in the KJV) and we legitimately ask, “Who is the I?” The context is a bit of a problem but I will just cut across it with three quotes and not debate the views.
[[“I was a derision to all my people,....” So Jeremiah was to the people of the Jews, and especially to his townsmen, the men of Anathoth, Jeremiah 20:7; but if he represents the body of the people, others must be intended, for they could not be a derision to themselves.”]] (Gill)
[[The personal experience of the prophet breaks through the succession of imagery. The arrows that pierced to the quick were the taunts of the mockers who derided him {{Jeremiah 20:7-8 “O LORD, You have deceived me and I was deceived. You have overcome me and prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all day long. Everyone mocks me, for each time I speak, I cry aloud. I proclaim violence and destruction, because for me, the word of the LORD has resulted In reproach and derision all day long.”}} (Bishop Ellicott)
[[Though some think the prophet speaks this of himself, yet, considering he hath all along spoken in the name of the people, it is not probable, which makes a difficulty, how the people could be a derision to themselves? It seemeth therefore ill translated, and that it should have been, “I was a derision to all people, leaving out “my”, that is, to all foreigners, to whom the Jews were made a derision and a hissing;]] (Matthew Poole)
[13]. BITTERNESS AND WORMWOOD HAVE BECOME THEIR LOT.
{{Lamentations 3:15 “HE has filled me with BITTERNESS. HE has made me drunk with WORMWOOD,”}}
Two expressions are to the fore here, “bitterness” and “wormwood”. We have already mentioned bitterness several times for it was great bitterness for the nation.
Wormwood is next. What is wormwood, and it is not talking about logs riddled with termites and borers and all those dismantling creatures?
Wormwood (Artemisia absinthium) is a plant originally found in Africa and the Middle East but is grown everywhere today. It has silvery, silky-haired leaves and drooping yellow flower heads and yields a bitter, dark green oil, which was used to kill intestinal worms. German researchers have approved wormwood for stomach ailments, such as dyspepsia, loss of appetite and minor liver and gall bladder problems.
The plant’s juice and oil is very bitter, and many claims are made for its effectiveness for all sorts of things by herbalists and new age groups.
It is instructive to look at some usages of wormwood in scripture –
(a). {{Amos 6:12 “Do horses run on rocks, or does one plow them with oxen? Yet you have turned justice into poison, and THE FRUIT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS INTO WORMWOOD,”}}
Here Amos rebukes his nation Israel for what it has done. Justice and righteousness have been trashed and made into bitterness and poison. You would think that when people experienced these awful effects they would turn away from them into what was once goodness, but they don’t. In fact, they can’t. Such is the effect of the chains of sin and the abolition of sound reasoning. Sin becomes like a strong drug clouding over the mind and soul so repentance is not forthcoming.
(b). {{Deuteronomy 29:18 “BEWARE lest there shall be among you a man or woman, or family or tribe whose heart turns away today from the LORD our God, to go and serve the gods of those nations; LEST THERE SHALL BE AMONG YOU A ROOT BEARING POISONOUS FRUIT AND WORMWOOD.”}}
This second example is so relevant to the situation in Judah. The people turned away from the LORD to serve idolatry and sin itself. It became among them a root of bitterness, poison and wormwood. The verse begins with BEWARE, but the people were blinded by sin and were not aware of anything. They took no notice; no heed at all.
In our world there are roots bearing poison and bitterness. The future will reveal that to be the case. One root is evolution; another, gender fluidity; another, homosexuality and all the current sexual deviancy; another, humanism; another Marxism. There are so many but all spew out poison and bitterness.
(c). {{Jeremiah 9:15 therefore thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, “behold, I WILL FEED them, this people, with WORMWOOD and give them poisoned water to drink.”}}
This prophetic verse came to pass only a few years later in the Babylonian invasion and is where we are in the Lamentations verse, and no doubt Jeremiah recalled it in writing Lamentations. Jeremiah and Moses both link wormwood and poison. How genocidal it would be to poison a whole nation yet that was done by unrighteousness and idolatry. We are in the same boat with much of the world poisoned by the evil agendas of globalism. Out nations are poisoned.
I fear for my own nation as the poison is very strong and people are drinking it. With the nation being about only 1% born again, and very pagan in its practices, and people loving it that way, we are storing up wrath for the day of wrath that must be very close. When they say peace, peace, then sudden destruction will come. 1 Thessalonians 5:2-3.
(d). Revelation 8:10-11 “The third angel sounded and a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of waters, and THE NAME OF THE STAR IS CALLED WORMWOOD, and A THIRD OF THE WATERS BECAME WORMWOOD and many men died from the waters because they were made bitter.”
The word is used only in one verse in the New Testament where it describes the outcome of the third judgement of the Trumpet judgements in the Tribulation. It occurs a little before the middle of the Tribulation and is a judgement straight from God. Nevertheless, at the end of Chapter 9 of Relation we lean that the people of that time will not repent. They stubbornly refuse, so more judgements follow. This is the period of God’s wrath, but His true Church will not be on earth at that time because it had been raptured.
