THE BOOK OF LAMENTATIONS – PART 21 – WHAT THE LORD HATES AND GOD’S SOVEREIGNTY IN DECLARING GOOD OR EVIL - CHAPTER 3:33-38
INTRODUCTION FROM LAST TIME
Last time we looked at the LORD causing grief but then applying compassion. I think this is a bit like some medicines. When you were small you may have a cut on you, or a big graze from falling off a bike and your mother used some antiseptic or similar treatment on you, and it really stung for a time. Later though it was healed. God’s judgement may “sting” but the Lord applies His compassion and all is restored.
That is what will happen to Israel in the future. It was happening to these survivors who saw no hope of the Lord’s ministry to them but the Lord showed compassion to them after 70 years and they were restored again in Jerusalem from Babylon. It happens also to us who wander off the track and fall into sin. The Lord’s discipline is applied and it may be painful but it restores us again.
PART [31]. WHAT THE LORD DOES NOT DO; NEITHER APPROVES
{{Lamentations 3:33 “for HE DOES NOT AFFLICT WILLINGLY, or grieve the sons of men -
Lamentations 3:34 TO CRUSH under His feet all the prisoners of the land;
Lamentations 3:35 TO DEPRIVE a man of justice in the presence of the Most High;
Lamentations 3:36 TO DEFRAUD a man in his lawsuit - of these things the Lord does not approve.”}}
I have grouped these 4 verses for they are one thought in the prophet’s sequence in the dirge. Verse 33 begins with the conjunction/connector “for”, linking it with verse 32 we did last time speaking of grief and compassion. The grief caused to Judah by the LORD in His permissive, (and directive) will is carefully explained in these four verses.
I think sometimes of the Proverbs verses about what the LORD hates. 7 things listed He hates. In the lead up to the 7 things the LORD hates, we have verses 12-14 where 6 actions of a worthless, wicked man are mentioned. THEN in verse 15 we are given the judgement that befalls that worthless man. THEN in verses 16-19 we are given the 7 things the LORD hates.
6 ACTIONS OF THE WORTHLESS PERSON:
{{Proverbs 6:12-19 “A worthless person, a wicked man, is the one who WALKS WITH A FALSE MOUTH,
Proverbs 6:13 who WINKS WITH HIS EYES, who SIGNALS WITH HIS FEET, who POINTS WITH HIS FINGERS;
Proverbs 6:14 who with perversity in his heart DEVISES EVIL CONTINUALLY, who SPREADS STRIFE.”}}
JUDGEMENT FOR THE WORTHLESS PERSON:
{{Proverbs 6:15 “Therefore his CALAMITY will come suddenly. Instantly he will be BROKEN, and there will be NO HEALING.”}}
THE 7 THINGS THE LORD HATES:
Proverbs 6:16 “There are six things which the LORD hates, yes, seven which are an abomination to Him:
proverbs 6:17 Haughty EYES, a lying TONGUE, and HANDS that shed innocent blood,
proverbs 6:18 A HEART that devises wicked plans, FEET that run rapidly to evil,
Proverbs 6:19 A false WITNESS who utters lies, and ONE WHO SPREADS STRIFE among brothers.”}}
The LORD DOES NOT willingly AFFLICT people; does not willingly GRIEVE mankind; nor CRUSH people under His feet; does NOT DEPRIVE a man of divine justice; does NOT DEFRAUD or cheat man. The LORD does not approve of any of this, but these behaviours are commonplace among men of all nationalities and generations.
Before the Babylonian overthrow, the land of Judah was absolutely corrupt and the points the prophet mentioned in these verses happened all the time. Jeremiah spoke about them often in the effort for people to repent and so prevent the coming disaster but they refused to listen. It is very much like the hardness of today’s world, particularly in the developed western nations. God is doing a glorious work right now with so many conversions in Iran, China and in pockets of Africa.
Judgement is coming very soon and to understand the grief, the crushing, the misery of that when it comes, read chapter 6 of Revelation in particular, but actually, the whole book. Did you know there is a special blessing just for reading Revelation? {{Revelation 1:3 “BLESSED IS HE who reads, and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and heed the things which are written in it for the time is near.”}}
The erroneous view that God vindictively throws out judgement on mankind and uses men as puppets to satisfy His own flawed actions, is from the Greek mythology. People’s concept of God is very distorted because they try to understand God on their own terms according to their own natures.
The Lord does not approve of sin in any way, and can not condone that attitude for Himself. Our thinking of God must be according to the biblical view. Woes to those who dismiss the bible, and to churches that selectively pick and choose what parts of the bible they think are of God. We live in the mutated views of the Laodicean age when everyone is doing what he/she sees best in the humanistic view of the bible.
These four Lamentations verses summarise what is prevalent today in our society; things that happen more frequently, and not much regard is paid to the wrong of this behaviour. The world has a distorted view altogether of morality. People are condemned in courts for trivial matters while the murder of aborted babies is approved, and the corruption of homosexuality is encouraged.
Wrong is done to people by wicked men and women, afflicting them; grieving them; walking over others with no regard of conscience; justice is terribly distorted - even perverted all the time; people are cheated and done out of what is lawfully theirs. Jeremiah highlights only a small number of sins against mankind, but they are ones he had association with and he did prophesy in Judah for all his life and saw the great injustice of the land.
In verse 34 it mentions crushing under the feet, (Lamentations 3:34), and then it says prisoners of the land. I don’t think it is too wrong to say we are all prisoners of the land because many laws these days are against God, justice and decency, and they oppose Christian beliefs. Verse 35 that mentions depriving a man of justice is very relevant because injustice done to individuals is rarely ever righted these days because the victims can’t afford justice. The weaponisation of the American justice system against Donald Trump during the Biden reign shows the perversion of people’s hearts, especially the godless Democrats bent of abortion and WOKE gender/sexuality policies.
However in the long run, it is Jesus Christ who sits on the great white throne and dispenses justice according to divine standards.
In bigger churches it can be easy to dismiss people and not treat everyone equally. I dare say a lot of injustice is done in churches and the people are not conscious of it. These next two verses should hang at the front of every church – {{Ephesians 4:31-32 “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and slander be put away from you, along with all malice, and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.”}}
PART [32]. TRUE PROPHECY BELONGS TO THE LORD ALONE
{{Lamentations 3:37 “Who is there who speaks and it comes to pass, UNLESS the Lord has commanded it?”}}
There were prophets everywhere in Judah before its downfall, and most of them were false. Jeremiah battled them all the time. Look at the sorry state of Judah before its downfall – {{Jeremiah 2:8 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.”}} {{Jeremiah 4:9 “It shall come about in that day,” declares the LORD, “that the heart of the king and the heart of the princes will fail, and the priests will be appalled, and the prophets will be astounded.”}} {{Jeremiah 5:13 “The prophets are as wind, and THE WORD IS NOT IN THEM. Thus it will be done to them.”}}
False prophets are everywhere today also. Sadly the rise of the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements has spawned all these alleged prophets (mainly word of faith) who are two a penny. They are false because there are no true prophets today. It is outside the scope of this study to divert into an expose´ of modern false prophets. To claim/prophesy someone has a sore back or that someone will have some blessing is no more than a horoscope in Christian dress.
There is one well-known man who has a ministry on the Internet who moved from Australia to the USA and claims frequently to have prophecies from the Lord. I clearly remember a couple of months before the 2000 Presidential election that he was prophesying that God was going to give Trump victory in that 2000 election, as the prophesy came from God. Well obviously it did not come to fruition so that man is a false prophet. It only takes one failure to be a false prophet, but he still continues his “prophesies”.
The ministry of both Old Testament and New Testament prophets was essential in formulating the bible, but their time came to an end unless you want to argue that God’s revelation has not ceased and you’d be very wrong. God does not tell people ridiculous things like a man winning a Presidential election. Counterfeits are everywhere.
PART [33]. ALMIGHTY GOD IS SOVEREIGN AND HIS DICTATES ARE TRUE AND PURPOSEFUL
{{Lamentations 3:38 “Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that BOTH GOOD AND ILL GO FORTH?”}}
Jeremiah touches on the sovereignty of the LORD God. Shall He who created all things be dictated to by the puny objects of His creation? People have no right to question God because it is ignorant and it is the line of Satan who asked, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” (Genesis 3:1). Shall not the Judge of the earth do right? Can you imagine a chair questioning its maker to suggest he made one joint too tight because it reasoned that the maker’s intent is not good? Does Mercury complain that its maker put it too close to the sun?
Man does that to God all the time. Humanists blame the notion of God for corrupting human beings and holding back progress. Regressive is one word they use. They see religion as restrictive against matters like homosexuality and behaviour issues. Man must be liberated from these medieval imperfections for religion is evil they claim!
Well these inflated egos do not understand the personal and redeeming God. God is good and kind and loving towards His own redeemed people. He has provided for them such joy and future blessing. We are safe in His hand for He has deemed it so. The national motto in American Samoa (Pango Pango) is “God is Good”. I remember seeing there the quaint island buses as they came towards you. On the front at the top was written, “GOD IS GOOD” and when the bus passed, on the back at the top was, “ALL THE TIME”. Of course American Samoa is a strong Christian nation of people.
The verse says that God’s decisions may be good or ill (bad, for the bad). God has declared the whole map of life for every man and woman. He who does good and seeks God and surrenders to Him will know good from the mouth of God, but he who rejects God and blasphemes and does wickedness, that one will know ill from the hand of a God of justice and strict judgement.
{{Romans 2:7-8 “to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honour and immortality, ETERNAL LIFE, but to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, WRATH AND INDIGNATION.”}}. In those two verses we have “good and ill”. God rewards the good and punishes the evil. The AV rendering for the verse in Lamentations 3:38 is this – “Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not EVIL AND GOOD?”
Both good and ill go forth; good to the ones who are made good through conversion, and ill to those who retain their sins, who refuse to come to God for pardon.
Translating this to Jeremiah’s time, there may have been those who questioned the LORD and accused God of doing evil to the nation by ensuring its downfall. The next verse takes up this theme. Well the LORD decreed blessing and goodness to Abraham but He overthrew Abraham’s offspring.
God is sovereign and knows best. He does not strike without many warnings and pleadings. However, when all is refused, he speaks ill, that is, He allows the consequential working of men’s sins to come to fruition. In that regard it is ill. For the one who follows the Lord there is good spoken by the Lord’s mouth such as it was spoken to the disciples in the upper room; the blessings that would be theirs.
The rarer expression “the Most High” is used a few times in the Old Testament and each time it infers the sovereignty of God. {{Deuteronomy 32:8 “When THE MOST HIGH gave the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of man, He set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel.”}} God made the decisions, set boundaries; He acted according to what was good and ill, though in that case there was no ill.
{{2 Samuel 22:13-14 “From the brightness before Him coals of fire were kindled. The LORD thundered from heaven, and THE MOST HIGH uttered His voice.”}} This speaks of God in action; making the decisions and acting as Creator and Sustainer.
{{Psalm 78:35-36 “and they remembered that God was their rock and THE MOST HIGH GOD their Redeemer, but they deceived Him with their mouth and lied to Him with their tongue.”}} The Most High had the control and stood by in love but the people of Israel deceived God and lied to Him. What could they expect from that – good or ill? Well by the hand of Babylon they received ill. God dispenses as He deems best. People might question the Most High, Psalm 73:11 and they say, “How does God know and is there knowledge with the Most High?” But it is God who will act according to good or ill because He has perfect knowledge.
