Lamentations: The Church's Funeral Lament

In the book of Lamentations is the wee word "how".  How, says Jeremiah, has it come to this?  A question that he then proceeds to answer.  The occasion of the writing of Lamentations (a lament, a wailing) was the destruction of Jerusalem and Judah by the Babylonians in 588BC.  Lamentations is the churches funeral lament.  The destruction, or chastisement of the old covenant church.  The destruction that Jeremiah preached on during his 40 year ministry, it had repeatedly been his sole message for 40 years.  It happened.  The ruin that he predicted in the whole book of Jeremiah, the ruin he spoke on was mocked by the false prophets, it was not believed and was scorned by God's people.  Jerusalem has now fallen and Lamentations was written.  Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon ordered that Jerusalem should be razed to the ground.  The temple was entered into, defiled and burnt as was everything else.  The fire burned for 3 days. 

To understand the message of Lamentations we must sit in the smoking ruins of the old covenant church.  We must sit in the rubble of Jerusalem in the desolation of Judah.  We must smell the stench of the thousands upon thousands of the dead.  The funeral pyres were like mountains as they burned.  Mountains of God's covenant people.  And then we may say like Jeremiah "How has it come to this" even though he knew the answer.  He knew the answer even before he commenced his ministry because God told him that the people would not listen to him, they would not repent..  At one point God told Jeremiah to stop praying for them.  After 40 years of preaching and after 40 years of being hated by the church of his day, when the judgment comes he still weeps for the church because he cares for the church and he is one of the very few people who does care hence his utter grief at the destruction of the church in his day.

The instrument of God's judgment:  Lamentations 1:1-7 "How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!  She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies.  Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude: she dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest: all her persecutors overtook her between the straits.  The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts: all her gates are desolate: her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.  Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper; for the LORD hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.  And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed: her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, and they are gone without strength before the pursuer.  Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old, when her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her: the adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths."
 
 God does not send fire down from heaven, but he uses as an instrument of judgment, the church's enemies.  He uses the heathen, he uses her adversaries.  And this we will find as a scriptural principle that God's favored instrument for chastening his people when they sin is the heathen whom he brings into their midst.  And what happens?  They desecrate the worship of the church.  The heathen come in not to worship but to plunder, to get something for themselves.  But note, its the churches pagan enemies.  There are only two types of people in the world, God's people and pagans.  Everything that is not true Christianity is paganism.  The church's enemies come in and God uses them to chasten and corrupt the church.  

 

The reason for God's chastening:  What is the reason for church in ruins?  Why has it come to this rubble of Jerusalem?  or a visible church today?  Is it because we live in an amoral society that it is harder to reach people? V8 "Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed: all that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward."  The reason is that the church has sinned, therefore she is removed.  That's the reason.  V14 "The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand: they are wreathed and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall, the LORD hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up."   It's the church's sin that has brought God to do this to them.  V15 "The LORD hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me: he hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men: the LORD hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.", What is the reason for judgment on the church in Jeremiah's day?  The Lord did it because of their transgression and their sin.  The reason is the churches wilful continued transgression of the law of God, the wilful disobedience to the bible.  God has done this because she has grievously sinned.  This is for Jerusalem and for today.   When we look at the state of the church today let us not blame second causes, its the Lord, and its the church's sin.  If the heathen are in the church, if the church is falling apart, if the church is sinning, its the sin of pride.  

The sorrow of the godly at God's judgment.  V12 "Is it nothing to you all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the LORD hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger."  V16 "For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me: my children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed." The godly are sorrowful to sit in a church in ruins.  Sitting in such a church does nothing but grieve a godly man or woman.  They care about the church and this is right.  It is right that they should be grieved.  The problem in Jeremiah's day, the only one weeping was Jeremiah.  The more we love the church, the more we grieve to see her defeated.

The challenge to the church concerning God's judgment V12 "Is it nothing to you all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the LORD hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger."   Can you see Jeremiah sitting in the ruins of what was once great?  He says "is it nothing to you who pass by"?  What is left of the church?  Can you just walk past all this?  For today, can you sit in a visible church in ruins and not bat an eyelid?  Where is your love? Where is your compassion, where is your pity for the church of Christ?   There are those to whom ruin means nothing.  There are those who are uncaring about a church in ruins and that is where this challenge comes in.  Do you love the church at all?  Because if you did, why do you not care about the state she is in?

Let's come to application.
If the church is in decline and being defeated by her heathen enemies we must know that behind it all is God's hand because God's favored tool to chasten is the heathen.  

Is the church afflicted and becoming more persecuted?  why is she?  V8 "Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed: all that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward."   Jerusalem has grievously sinned and therefore she is removed.  The reason for any affliction is the church's continued wilful sin.  Her disobedience to the word of God.  No new technique will save the church.  It is the Lord who has afflicted.  Obedience to the word of God is the only way.

Do you love the church?  are you grieved?  When we compare the church of today with the church in the times of the Puritans,  we sit in a smoldering ruin, something that was once great.  What is the reaction of most who profess the name of Christ?  there is an indifference because most have become accustomed to the current situation.  Sin is excused because they are acclimatized themselves.  They do not recognize sin because it has become the norm.  

V1  "How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!" The church was once mighty has become weak.  That which was once beautiful has now gone.  That which was once honored is now mocked.  

Most churches do not like this type of message.  They are blind to the parallels between the destruction of Jerusalem and the state of the church today.    But there are those who believe the parallels and will preach it.  False prophets say peace, peace where there is no peace.

Let there be a return to the Scriptures.
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The notes above were made by myself from the video at YouTube by Paul Dowling called The Church's Funeral Lament.

https://youtu.be/uIKWuZFaKo8