The Book Of Lamentations – Part 5 – Desolate Pleading Hands As I Admit My Own Guilt- – Chapter 1:16-20 Series

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.