THE BOOK OF LAMENTATIONS – PART 23 – CLOUDED PRAYER – REFUSE AND REJECTS – JOHN NEWTON – ISRAEL’S ENDURING ENEMY - CHAPTER 3:44-46
In the last four verses we were thinking about the personal aspect of the people in realising what God had done to the nation and why that had to happen. The people knew their transgression and they reached the most important point in their survival which is repentance and confession. Now we are going to move to verses that return to the physical and spiritual condition of the people.
PART [39]. GOD CAN NOT BE FOUND IN THE THICK DARKNESS
{{Lamentations 3:44 “You have covered Yourself with a cloud so that no prayer can pass through.”}}
We have here a parallel verse to our previous one that deals with God’s direct action. At once, a question arises as to when did this verse apply. There are only two possibilities, the first being after the overthrow as the previous verse does, or before the invasion and overthrow.
God is a compassionate God who had to take action, but would He continue to thrash the people when a lot of them realised the reason for their calamity and repented and did away with their idols? Surely when they confessed and repented, would the LORD not receive them? I think the answer to that is, “Yes.”
Think of a father who punishes his child. He does so but the child realises his error and is sorry for that. Does a father continue to thrash his child after the initial discipline? Of course not. Restoration is what happens; restoration is the LORD’S desire. Isaiah writes of the time when Israel confesses its sin in the Tribulation and is tenderly healed by the Messiah at the Second Coming when He comes to the Mount of Olives. {{Isaiah 30:26 “The light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter like the light of seven days, on the day THE LORD BINDS UP THE FRACTURE OF HIS PEOPLE AND HEALS THE BRUISE HE HAS INFLICTED.”}}
The LORD fractured His people Judah using Nebuchadnezzar to do so, but God never overlooks genuine repentance and contrition. After that fracture caused by the Babylonians, the LORD would never shut up heaven against the prayers of the repentant. Remember it is the ministry of the Messiah when He came to earth (and will be later on in the Tribulation) to fulfill this – {{Isaiah 61:1 “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted. HE HAS SENT ME TO BIND UP THE BROKENHEARTED, to proclaim liberty to captives, and FREEDOM TO PRISONERS.”}}
Would God cover Himself with a cloud so no prayer would ever enter? Who would this be speaking of? Surely it speaks of those who are wicked and unrepentant but who think God ought to hear them in any case. God owes it to them, they believe. Their prayers just don’t get through to God. They are lost in an emerging cloudiness of gloom for them. They have no relief. It is like God is hiding in a cloud. The fault is theirs, not God’s. That was what it was like before the exile in Judah, not for the repentant survivors, at least for those numbers who repented.
This matches a New Testament story Jesus told – {{Luke 18:10-12 “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, and the other a tax-gatherer. The Pharisee stood and was praying thus to himself, ‘God, I THANK YOU THAT I AM NOT LIKE OTHER PEOPLE: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax-gatherer. I fast twice a week. I pay tithes of all that I get,’”}} That Pharisee’s prayers crashed into the cloud that surrounded God and nothing got through. In fact, they would not even leave the room.
On the other hand the poor tax-gatherer prayed – {{Luke 18:13 but the tax-gatherer, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven but was beating his breast saying, ‘GOD, BE MERCIFUL TO ME, THE SINNER!’}} The Pharisee represented the nation hypocritically praying to God before the invasion and God never heeded them, but the tax-gatherer represents the repentant sinners in repentance after the invasion.
God does not answer prayers of the unrepentant sinner (only if it is repentance/salvation), but His ears are open to the repentant one who acknowledges his sin. At Calvary Jesus did not respond to the mockers calling on Him to come down from the cross, or to the blaspheming thief on a cross who asked to be saved from it, but He did answer the repentant thief whom he welcomed into Paradise a few hours later. I believe the Lord, personally welcomed him in there into his presence.
PART [40]. REJECTED CAST-OFFS. ARE WE REALLY THAT?
{{Lamentations 3:45 “You have made us mere OFF-SCOURING AND REFUSE in the midst of the peoples.”}}
The lament of the survivors continues, this time addressing the end result of rejection by their God. Sometimes our feelings overpower the reality, and I think in this case the survivors spill out the way they feel. It is how they see themselves and how they think all around perceive them to be.
Let us look more carefully into this situation. Yes, they had been rejected by God, expelled from their city and land, and only the poor were left behind. Their whole world had come crashing down but they did not have the power to do anything for themselves. All they could do was to bemoan their situation and state how they saw this outcome. They were correct when their emotions were expressed.
Was there a reality though? Many now realised what God had done and why. Realisation is the first step in returning to God. It is why evangelists preach so that the people are convicted (the reality of sin) and then, in repentance, turn to the Lord to get converted. These survivors had the reality. Lamentations makes that crystal clear. The decision of the will to repent and turn back to God comes out of realisation.
This verse of lament is comparing their condition with the garbage and detritus that is cast away from men. It is about the lowest that man can go. His condition is no better than toilet waste and garbage (refuse, trash, etc). There was a man in history who knew that condition. He was John Newton.
I am taking some excerpts from a site, “ISRAEL MY GLORY” (https://israelmyglory.org/article/saved-by-amazing-grace-the-story-of-john-newton/)
https://israelmyglory.org/article/saved-by-amazing-grace-the-story-of-john-newton/
[[Newton had been sailing since the age of 7 and passed through many experiences. Here we take up the story part way through his life – “One day a merchant ship named the Greyhound appeared. It had been sent at the behest of John’s father. At first, Newton hesitated to leave his now profitable business (slave trading), but he finally agreed to return to England. All told, Newton had been held captive in Africa 15 months. (Newton was unjustly accused of stealing from the Englishman. He was put in chains on the deck of the Englishman’s boat with very little food, water, or clothing. In effect, he became the man’s slave, ironically being treated in the same manner as the people he had been helping to acquire.)
On his return voyage on the Greyhound, Newton proved to be the most profane, debauched man on the ship. One night Newton got so drunk that when his hat blew overboard, he would have dived in after it had not another sailor grabbed hold of his clothing.
The most glaring change in Newton’s life was in the area of the slave trade. A year after having stirrings about God in his soul, Newton became captain of a slave ship. Within the next four years, Newton made three voyages to obtain slaves in Africa and take them to the Caribbean for sale. During those trips, Newton led his crew in prayer and worship. Yet he also forcefully put down slave insurrections, even using thumbscrews on occasion to obtain confessions.
CAUGHT IN THE STORM
That night, on March 21, 1748, a fierce storm overtook the ship, almost swamping it. Men, animals, and provisions were swept overboard. Newton prayed for the first time in years. He feared he was going to die, and if the Christian faith were true, then he surely would not be forgiven. He reflected on all he had done over the past few years, including mocking the historical facts of the gospel; and it disturbed him.
After four days the storm abated. In God’s providence, the beeswax in the ship’s hold helped to keep the boat afloat. Newton attributed the deliverance to God. He began to read the New Testament with more interest. When he came to Luke 15, he observed remarkable parallels between his life and that of the prodigal son.
The ship drifted for a month. Provisions were running out. The captain blamed Newton’s blasphemy for the problems and considered throwing Newton overboard, like Jonah. The crippled ship finally made its way to Northern Ireland just in time before another great wind began to blow. Newton acknowledged that God had answered his prayer.
Upon reaching shore, Newton resolved to swear no more. He even went back to church. However, he was not yet a Christian. He said later, “I consider this as the beginning of my return to God, or rather of His return to me; but I cannot consider myself to have been a believer (in the full sense of the word) till a considerable time afterwards.”
Later in life, Newton viewed the slave trade and his participation in it with disgust and moral outrage. “Custom, example, and [commercial] interest had blinded my eyes,” he said.
THE SWEETNESS OF GRACE
Before experiencing God’s saving grace, John Newton had no qualms about swearing in the most foul way, blaspheming the God of heaven, jeering the Bible, scoffing at piety, engaging in vile practices, and buying and selling human beings like chattel.
Yet after his conversion, John Newton changed completely. He later pastored for 23 years, constantly punctuating his sermons with the theme of God’s grace. He wrote and published hundreds of hymns, including “How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds” (a marked contrast from his earlier blasphemous days) and displayed unending hospitality in his home. His most famous hymn of course is “Amazing Grace”.
How do we explain such a difference in one man’s life? Old and frail, Newton explained it this way weeks before he died: “My memory is nearly gone; but I remember two things: that I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Saviour.”]]. (end of quote).
John Newton never forgot the grace of God that saved him, which resulted in one of the world’s best-known hymns – Amazing Grace. John Newton had been the “off-scouring and refuse” of the world but grace took him up.
These survivors, all distraught outside the gates of Jerusalem and in the countryside, had to connect with a gracious God, for their God was a God of grace. It was realized through conviction, confession and repentance.
At the end of the age when the LORD Messiah returns to His people Israel, this is prophetically said about them -
{{Jeremiah 30:24 “The fierce anger of the LORD will not turn back, UNTIL He has performed, and until He has accomplished the intent of His heart. IN THE LATTER DAYS you will understand this.”}}
{{Jeremiah 31:1-3 “AT THAT TIME,” declares the LORD, “I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be My people.” Thus says the LORD, “THE PEOPLE WHO SURVIVED THE SWORD FOUND GRACE IN THE WILDERNESS - Israel, when it went to find its rest.” The LORD appeared to him from afar, saying, “I HAVE LOVED YOU WITH AN EVERLASTING LOVE; THEREFORE I HAVE DRAWN YOU WITH LOVING-KINDNESS.”}}
Although the above passage is set in the future, what is true is the consistency of God. The people of Lamentations who survived the sword could also find grace in their wilderness of rejection. God takes up the most desperate and destitute person to make of him and her, a trophy of grace.
PART [41]. ENEMIES’ MOUTHS ARE GAPING TO SWALLOW
{{Lamentations 3:46 “All our enemies have OPENED THEIR MOUTHS against us.”}}
Again, as in the previous verse, this description is of the survivors’ perception. There was reality here as well because there were real enemies waiting to devour the survivors. The Babylonians cut the people down in cities and country but they were assisted by enemies Israel/Judah had.
Consider what we are told here in Obadiah about the violence done to Judah in the time of Babylon’s attack, and the part played by the Edomites, the offspring of Esau, the man of the flesh - {{Obadiah 1:10-11 “Because of violence to your brother Jacob, you will be covered with shame, and you will be CUT OFF FOREVER. On the day that you stood aloof, on the day that strangers carried off his wealth, and foreigners entered his gate and cast lots for Jerusalem - YOU TOO WERE AS ONE OF THEM.”}}
Obadiah 1:12-14 “Do not gloat over your brother’s day, the day of his misfortune, and do not rejoice over the sons of Judah in the day of their destruction. Yes, do not boast in the day of their distress. Do not enter the gate of My people in the day of their disaster. Yes, you, do not GLOAT OVER THEIR CALAMITY in the day of their disaster, and do not LOOT THEIR WEALTH in the day of their disaster, and do not stand at the fork of the road to CUT DOWN THEIR FUGITIVES, and do not IMPRISON THEIR SURVIVORS in the day of their distress.”}}
What the Edomites did to the Jews was atrocious and will never be forgiven by God. He pronounced grave judgement again the Edomites. Edomites have always hated God’s people. Herod the Great, the slaughterer of infants, was an Edomite. Their cowardly acts and their hatred for the Jews have never been erased from God’s record. This next verse speaks to that ultimate outcome – {{Psalm 137:7 Remember, O LORD, against the sons of Edom the day of Jerusalem, who said, “Raze it, raze it to its very foundation.”}}
Islam has replaced Edom. In Sydney, Australia, in 2024, masses of Palestinians took to the streets in great protests chanting, “Gas the Jews! Gas the Jews!” Then they all chanted, “Kill the Jews! Kill the Jews!” The Government and police did absolutely nothing. These chanters are the same as Edom and will suffer the same fate; they are the new Philistines.
There are many parts of the world where people exist powerless against the enemy. I do think of the Christians in the Sudan and Nigeria just to name two places, who can not defend themselves and who get cut down by the enemy, Islam. Their plea is to God and their deliverance often does not happen in the physical world, but they are shining in glory in heaven. Paul’s words are encouraging – {{2 Corinthians 4:16-18 “Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day, for MOMENTARY, LIGHT AFFLICTION is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”}}
The Apostle would term this onslaught against God’s own saints as “momentary, light affliction,” but the reality still remains “THE OPEN MOUTHS AGAINST US.”
