Lamentations

October 29, 2019

BE WARY OF PREACHERS THAT GIVE FALSE HOPE Jeremiah lamented the failure of Judah’s prophets to preach God’s Word and to call His people to repentance of their sin. Instead they filled the people with false hope. The last days of Jerusalem before its fall to Babylon were marked by a people with “itching ears”

October 30, 2018

DON’T WASTE YOUR YOUTH
There is a worldly saying that has destroyed many which says, “Sow your wild oats before settling down.” But the Bible says the opposite. The prophet Jeremiah must have observed many a young person who wasted his life following after the flesh. He saw the Babylonians come and either kill or enslave the youth of Judah. So he encouraged young people to follow the Lord early.

Those who submit their lives to the Lord while they are still young avoid many a needless hurt. I have never heard an older person wish they had been more worldly when young, but I have heard many express regret at having waited so long to follow Christ. Don’t waste your youth on yourself. Choose to follow the Lord from an early age.

October 31, 2016

Jeremiah lamented over the fall of Jerusalem and the dire condition of his people. He described their hunger and homelessness, but most of all their spiritual brokenness. He lifted his lament up to the Lord that He might show them mercy and “restore” them. Where do you put your grief and pain when a time of mourning comes your way? Jeremiah knew how to give it to the Lord and ask for renewal and restoration. Cry out to the One who can turn your mourning into dancing again!

October 30, 2016

Jeremiah’s lament for Israel’s condition turned from complaint to calling. He invited his people to join him in repentance. “Test” your motives. “Examine” your actions. Where either are out of alignment with the Lord’s, let us “return!” Our criterion is Christ and His Word. Wherever we have moved or acted contrary to Christ, let us repent and return to Him!

October 29, 2015

Lamentations was written to “lament” (to grieve and mourn) the destruction of Jerusalem by the prophet Jeremiah. It calls the remnant of Judah to “cry out” to the Lord in their distress. Like the book of Job, it puzzles over the results of evil and suffering in the world. But unlike Job, which dealt with apparently undeserved evil, Jeremiah lamented a suffering that was of the people’s own making. It is a difficult book to read. Yet, it reminds us of our need to genuinely repent of sin and the suffering that inevitably follows. It calls us to lament over sin’s consequence and to beg God’s forgiveness, mercy and restoration. Only those who have hit life’s bottom seem to understand this lament of Jeremiah. Only those who are ready to “cry out in the night” find that these words give expression to the state of their hearts.

October 30, 2014

The prophet Jeremiah cried out to God for the lost city of Jerusalem, and for his own homelessness and suffering. Yet, in the midst of this sorrowful lament, Jeremiah looked to God for his inheritance. Rather than look to worldly things, he looked to the Lord Himself as his reward. Jeremiah’s hope was in God. We can know this hope. And we can know it with even better understanding because of Christ. We can set our hope fully on Jesus (1 Pet. 1:13).

October 30, 2013

Regardless of our circumstance we can “call to mind” the Lord’s love and mercy, reminding ourselves of His steadfastness and faithfulness. While the night may seem overwhelming and dark, the Lord’s mercies are new every morning. Remember the Lord and have hope again.