The Lamentations asking “HOW?” are really questions of hope for a fallen nation. Christians hold onto hope.  In God we trust (at least, some of us.)  No Biblical consideration of our present and passing crisis would be complete without hope.

Recalling from our parallel to Lamentations some of the earlier history of this young nation:

• October 19, 1781 – Cornwallis surrendered to General George Washington and the French at Yorktown Virginia, ending the war. Peace is not declared until two years later in Paris, September 3, 1783.
• February 18, 1815, (just three decades later) renewed conflict ends after the British attempt to re-conquer the colonies (and defeat the French in Europe & the New World), burning the White House and sacking Washington DC.

In a temple in Washington D.C., United States of America, sits a statue of a man and leader who often quoted scripture.

Abraham Lincoln, the new Republican President was about as popular with the Democrats as President Obama, our nation’s first black president is with the Republican party of 2013.

• November 6, 1860, the election of Lincoln assured that America would be divided by the politics of slavery.
• Just fifty years after the sacking of Washington D.C. by the British, defeat of the Confederates, the surrender of Lee on April 9, 1865 and the compassionate grace of Lincoln’s policies to reconstruction prevented that collapse and held on to hope.
• Less than a century later on December 7, 1941, the United States of America entered a war to save Asia and Europe from tyrants of Japan and Germany worse than Napoleon.

After final defeat of the Axis powers in 1945, the US had a decided edge as empire of strength in a 20th century world which provided a stability of growth and hope until the evolution of decline of morality diminished the once considerable influence of the US empire.

NOW (just sixty-eight years later), as in Jeremiah’s lament the people are asking HOW?

A man is no longer a man of his word. A vote of one man has no influence; only money.

• 1/21/2009 – WASHINGTON – Barack Obama, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Harry S. Truman, and Richard Nixon (also a Quaker) swore the oath on two Bibles. According to Wikipedia, the word “faithfully” was misplaced. The second oath was administered in a simple, private ceremony.
• 9/11/2010 – WASHINGTON — House Democrats were preparing late last year for the first floor vote on the financial regulatory overhaul when Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio and other Republican leaders summoned more than 100 industry lobbyists and conservative political activists to Capitol Hill for a private strategy session.  He maintains especially tight ties with a circle of lobbyists and former aides representing some of the nation’s biggest businesses, including Goldman Sachs, Google, Citigroup, R. J. Reynolds, MillerCoors and UPS. They have contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to his campaigns… — he has raised $36 million for Republican causes during this election cycle… source: New York Times
• 12/7/2011 – SWITZERLAND – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Clinton also announced that the U.S. will use both diplomacy and $3 million in foreign aid to help the global fight for gay rights. –Source: Business Insider
• 12/26/2011 -The complete timeline of the Gingrich divorces shows he’s not been honest with voters source: The Raw Story

A man is no longer head of his family.  A marriage of a man and a women is no longer honored in the land.

• 4/11/2013 – Obama’s budget includes $327 million for Title X family planning programs, a more than $30 million increase over last year’s request. Title X is one of a number of sources of government funding to Planned Parenthood, which performs roughly one out of every four abortions in the United States and was recently accused of tacitly supporting infanticide. source: The Foundry

Corporations have sovereignty over the US Congress, President, and Justices, as well as most ‘consumer’ Nations. Pornographic ads for pharmaceutical companies (with disclaimers which once would have brought congressional restrictions on broadcasters) bombard healthcare ‘consumers’ who are told to ‘tell your doctor’ about their government-subsidized products.

A genocide of over 45 million children worldwide once unthinkable after the 1945 revelations of the concentration camps is policy guaranteed by government, insured and paid for by taxes from the budget.

Greed and immorality are rampant: as the Prophets had warned Judah and Jonathan Edwards had warned America.

We are sinners in the hands of an angry God!

The lessons and hope of Lamentations are no less applicable in 2013.

I have presented the warnings of the Prophets to Judah and the disobedience of the kings and people going back 200 years (1813, in context of present-day America).  Jeremiah closes Lamentations with hope, which proved true.

Lamentations 5:

21 Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored!
Renew our days as of old—
22 unless you have utterly rejected us,
and you remain exceedingly angry with us.

As you may recall:

•  607 BC – Jerusalem fell. Yet just 70 years later:
• 537 BC – the exiles return to Jerusalem, after which the Temple is rebuilt
• 455 BC – Ezra and Nehemiah re-establish the Law and rebuild the walls of Jerusalem
• 440 BC – Warnings of the Prophet Malachi

 “I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have you loved us?” – Malachi 1:2

Does this lament of God through a later Prophet sound familiar as Lamentations of just two centuries earlier?

Alexander ruled Judah (no longer an empire) from about 332 BC, thus the Greek influence of culture represented in the New Testament and lasting beyond the influence of the rise and fall of the later Roman Empire.

A great period of silence from God ensues until the time preceding Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, promised Messiah and King.

The warnings of Malachi to WE the people are little different from what Jesus would preach in Jerusalem.

Willem A. VanGemeren, in the Baker Bible commentary states:

God raised up Malachi to address the problems of cynicism, formalism, and unfaithfulness, and questions about the benefits of godliness.  Malachi defends the love, honor, and justice of God…

Malachi calls for responsibility in marriage, sacrifice, religion, social concerns, tithes, and observance of God’s laws. He redefined the “godly” as those who persevere in godliness.

Do you persevere in godliness? Do you hold near your trust in God and faith in Christ Jesus?

MANY in America and the world lament over a pervasive evolution of evil into the morality of mankind and governments who do NOT put their trust in God. As you can see, this is nothing new under the sun… even in America.

 

• November 19, 1863, just 150 years ago, Lincoln’s words at Gettysburg echo a faith and hope immortalized in the memory of all faithful people of the United States of America (even now divided in the halls of Congress and the streets of Washington D.C.)

… that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom… and that government of the people… by the people… for the people… shall not perish from the earth.” 

This government and all governments not obedient to the Laws and will of Almighty God will indeed fall; as have all governments of rebellious man and tyrannical ambition.

A King, who we crucified on a cross and show disobedience in our daily lives, will rule all people of hope and restore His own Kingdom to come.

Thy Kingdom come.

Thy will be done.

On earth as it is in Heaven.

This nation is a nation of its people. As in every nation, even a fallen Judah, a remnant of the faithful and obedient remain.

Leaders and citizens obedient to the King of Heaven, Christ Jesus, will indeed not perish from this fallen earth or the eternal hope of this Kingdom to come.

Even so, come Lord Jesus.    +