THE BOOK OF LAMENTATIONS – PART 38 – WE LOOK AT THE BEGINNING OF COMPLAINTS – INHERITANCE HAS BEEN LOST - CHAPTER 5:1-2
Chapter 4 has ended and we saw some absolutely horrible things that were happening because the people were downtrodden by Babylon and persecuted by the Edomites. Their starvations caused them to do unthinkable things.
CHAPTER 5
We are entering the final chapter of this remarkable book of Lamentations. The chapter has 22 verses as it is another Alphabetic section of 22 statements or strophes matching the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Each new strophe (or verse in our bibles) matches a letter in the Hebrew Alphabet beginning with Aleph and each strophe begins with a letter in the progression through the alphabet. However the strict alphabetic order is a bit incomplete in this chapter.
The verses in this chapter are SMALL STATEMENTS, not long verses. In a lot of ways the content here is a sort of summary of the material that has preceded this. THE VERSES POUR OUT COMPLAINTS or emotions, frustrations and woe. There is recognition here of the origin of these troubles, and that was sin and rebellion and constant rejection of the messages of the prophets. The ending of the chapter is a little unexpected coming from Jeremiah but we will wait until verse 22.
Let us begin this serious chapter, as they all are.
[1]. MAY THE LORD RECALL AND TAKE NOTE
{{Lamentations 5:1 “Remember, O LORD, what has befallen us. Look, and see our reproach.”}}
The LORD is being reminded, not that He ever needs reminding, but Jeremiah is so much in turmoil about his people that he interceded for them with God. This approach is so common in the way we pray to God. We make God aware of the problems hoping that by frequent reminders He will take note and come to our rescue.
There is a parable often called The Importunate Widow, sometimes called the parable of the Unjust Judge. And I want to quote the whole lot:-
{{Luke 18:1-8 Now He was telling them a parable TO SHOW THAT AT ALL TIMES THEY OUGHT TO PRAY AND NOT TO LOSE HEART, saying, “There was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God and did not respect man. There was a widow in that city and she kept coming to him saying, ‘Give me legal protection from my opponent,’ and for a while he was unwilling, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Even though I do not fear God, nor respect man, YET BECAUSE THIS WIDOW BOTHERS ME, I WILL GIVE HER LEGAL PROTECTION LEST BY CONTINUALLY COMING, SHE WEARS ME OUT.’” The Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge said. NOW SHALL NOT GOD BRING ABOUT JUSTICE FOR HIS ELECT WHO CRY TO HIM DAY AND NIGHT, AND WILL HE DELAY LONG OVER THEM? I tell you that He will bring about justice for them speedily. However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?”}}
When you read this parable you may wonder, “Is this nagging God? God knows what I want, so why do I have to pester Him?” Why do I have to keep asking God to remember? Is it irreverent to “wear God out,” or to keep crying to Him day and night for the same thing?
The purpose of this parable is stated at the start - TO SHOW THAT AT ALL TIMES THEY OUGHT TO PRAY AND NOT TO LOSE HEART. This speaks of persistence and I remember going right back to the 1960s when in Teacher training that it was common in certain circles to teach about “persistent prayer” or “persevering prayer”. Sometimes there used to be methods on how to do that. Americans love to have methods they religiously adhere to. The only way that widow was going to get justice was to go day and night to the judge until he relented. I was uncertain about this matter of perseverance in prayer and tried to understand what some were saying.
We don’t treat God in an irreverent way but the principle is there because the Lord Himself told that parable.
I suppose we could say, “keep on keeping on”, “hang in there”. The first of those two expressions has an Australian origin that has a fascinating history to it. Here it is – [[DID YOU KNOW that the slogan "keep on keeping on", synonymous with Berger Paints, had its origin in Bush Poetry? For the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1932, Berger commissioned C. J. Dennis to write a poem about the Sentimental Bloke's musings on the newly-built structure. In that poem "I Dips Me Lid", Dennis coined the phrase "keep on keeping on". The poem was published in a Berger booklet and the company's slogan was born!”]] I suppose non-Australians may not understand some of that.
I wish to refer to another incident the Lord gave also in regard to prayer – {{Matthew 7:7-8 “ASK, and it shall be given to you. SEEK, and you shall find. KNOCK, and it shall be opened to you, for everyone who asks receives and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it shall be opened.”}}. I had to claim this for myself in the 1980s in the matter of trying to sell a house. I suppose for the only time in my life I entered into those verses deeply.
In the Matthew verses I understand the force of the words is “ask and keep on asking. Seek and keep on seeking. Knock and keep on knocking.” That is the same linkage we have in the Importunate Widow parable.
Jeremiah’s prayer here is that God has to remember; to look around and see the reproach that has befallen the people. The prophet is supplicating the LORD so that He might notice and take action. Not for a moment would Jeremiah ever doubt the good intention of God or the fact that God knows the end from the beginning. When man is pent up with worry and does not know where to turn, then he has the Lord as his only resource. I am sure this is how the prophet was feeling in this great catastrophe.
Jeremiah asks the Lord to “look and see our reproach.” The Jews had become the refuse of the world but Jeremiah identifies personally with that by the word “our”. Much earlier we saw that the nations around hissed at Jerusalem and the survivors. Their glory had gone and those around who once thought Judah could never be defeated, then scorned and mocked. The Babylonians and the peoples around reproached the survivors. That was hard to take and hurt Jeremiah deeply.
He too suffered this reproach all through his ministry as we see most emphatically in his prophecy. Do you remember this verse - {{Lamentations 3:61 “You have heard their reproach, O LORD, all their schemes against ME.”?}} Reproach is awful when not justified. It is cutting and comes from arrogant people too full of themselves. Those who are too quick to reject others because they do not understand what the people say or stand for, are a disgrace. Those who reproach the children of God are heading for great judgement.
My Government stands in the greatest contrast presently with the American Government. My Government despises and disregards God, and Christians, and hates Israel and Jews, whereas the American Government has some Christians in office and is a loyal supporter of Israel. One nation shows reproach to Godly matters and the other shows respect to Godly matters.
Christian, do not be dismayed when reproach comes your way. I speak especially to those in Nigeria that right now are being called upon to lay down their lives. And the Sudan and Congo and the Ivory Coast and in China, the Middle east, even in parts of India, and there are a lot more places where Christians are imprisoned and deprived, and that is starting in Australia now.
{{Hebrews 11:25-26 “choosing rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God, than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, considering THE REPROACH OF CHRIST greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.”}}
[2]. WE HAVE LOST ALL TO FOREIGNERS
{{Lamentations 5:2 “Our INHERITANCE has been turned over to strangers, our HOUSES to aliens.”}}
Evaluation after the event can be callous because the horrible reality of loss can set in and that is miserable. That is how it was for these survivors. The unthinkable had happened. Not only did they lose everything, but they lost their self-resect and freedom and so much more outlined in chapters 3 and 5.
Begin speaking to someone about the judgement of God that is coming and you find immediate opposition. It can’t happen to them, is how people reason the matter. Firstly they don’t believe it, then rationalise it all away with their supposed deluded immunity. The citizens of Western democracies are products of evolution, and of the socialist education system, and of the rapidly waning message of churches that have become meaningless in Christian growth and reaching out to society. That is why there is so much arrogance and cynicism. It is why people reproach Christians and do not want to hear them.
As we notice now more than ever, there is the equal hate for Jews. Christians and Jews are being linked more and more. I suppose it is no surprise as Satan’s influence is stronger and stronger and his hate of God’s earthly and heavenly peoples will only increase. We are in the days of 2 Timothy 3:1.
Some of our great pillars of the past are all but gone. The evangelical Sydney Anglicans in Australia had among them a missionary who laboured for the Lord in Africa and wrote the Jungle Doctor book series. Four or five of these were the Jungle Doctor Fables, one of the best gifts you could give children and even adults. That missionary doctor was Paul White. One of the fables was “Little Lions Grow Into Big Lions and Big Lions Kill.” I am not sure if that was the exact title of that particular fable, but it concerned a man who found a little baby lion cub and raised it against all the warnings from others. These books were popular in the 1950s -1970s.
Eventually the lion became a big lion and them turned on the man and killed him. People never learn. Please don’t be turned off when I mention Australia. Some Americans tend to dismiss anything if it is not from the USA but it does catch up with you, and in some elements of wickedness, America leads the world.
This past weekend in Australia there were huge gatherings – 2/3 August 2025 – in Sydney and Melbourne by Moslem radicals and Hamas sympathisers waving pro-Hamas banners and flags and posters of the murderous Iranian President. They blocked Sydney Harbour Bridge for 5 hours. They called for the death of Israel and the division of Israel; death to the Jews and other nasty things. Estimates in Sydney range from 60 000 to 300 000.
Why? Why? It is because the “little lions of Islam” are growing into big lions and big lions kill. The communist Australian Prime Minister and his godless evil Cabinet imported 1.8 million Palestinians to Australia in three years and now we will have growing trouble and violence in this nation. The United Kingdom is seeing this also as is France. The USA has not been so stupid to import terrorism into its nation but it does have the sympathisers there causing trouble. Australia is the ONLY nation on earth to import Palestinians; not even one Middle East nation will do so.
Getting back to our Lamentations verse - Strangers seconded the Jewish heritage. Aliens took over the houses and sacked them. The words for strangers and aliens or foreigners in the verse in Hebrew, are quite similar and the English words could be interchanged. The Babylonians became fat on the plunder of Israel. So often such behaviour has been repeated a multitude of times in war all over the world. In some countries Christians are being killed and their possessions looted. Terrible stories come from Africa.
Islam always loots and murders. The movement began that way in the early years in the six hundreds when the trading caravans on the caravan routes passing close to Mecca were raided and the traders killed, and their goods taken to finance the ongoing wars for Islam that financed the beginning of that demonic system. Nothing has changed for this warlike ideology.
Sin always exacts a price, and idolatrous sin practised by the earthly people of God demands very high wages. Judah ended up paying those wages and it left her staggering in the gloomiest night, lost, meaningless and forlorn. Sin will always take away from goodness and add to wickedness. Sin takes away everything of value and substance. Sin steals your inheritance and plunders the house of your life.
What is a sinner left with at the end of his life if his heart is closed to God? Absolutely nothing, but a fearful destiny. We don’t get nonchalant about this because it is of eternal realities which we speak. How can we shake the world into repentance and belief in what Christ has done for the world?
What these Jews were experiencing is what many have to experience in wars and injustices. Think about these people who suffered here – {{Hebrews 10:32-34 “but remember the former days after being enlightened, when you endured a great conflict of sufferings, partly, by being made A PUBLIC SPECTACLE THROUGH REPROACHES AND TRIBULATIONS, and partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated, for you showed sympathy to the prisoners, and ACCEPTED JOYFULLY THE SEIZURE OF YOUR PROPERTY, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and an abiding one.”}}
We become very attached to things and possessions, being as we are, creatures of this world. When we lose things, it distresses some people. When they are unlawfully taken from us, it can be disturbing in the extreme. The Christians here in Hebrews actually accepted the plundering of their goods and did it joyfully. The reason they could do that, is the spiritual realisation that a better prospect for them lies in the future. We have an heavenly inheritance that can not be compared even a smidgen of a percent with the earthly one.
In the Jewish economy an inheritance was very important for it meant the welfare of your children in an economy where no elaborate social service schemes operated. If you lost your inheritance then your children lost their support and livelihoods often. The parable of the Lost Son (prodigal) is an example of squandering one’s heritage. For these survivors of the Babylonian atrocities, not only was the present gone, but also the future – all stolen by aliens and strangers.
