Looking back: before America, before England, before Rome, before David and Israel; looking back to cultures of conquest and times of evil:
Scriptures
And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord after Ehud died. And the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan..
We began by outlining his Lament over Jerusalem and continued with Judgment on Jerusalem and Hope through God’s Mercy, where Jeremiah pleas for mercy based on his own suffering. After the four elegies he described the suffering of God’s people.
Terrors of the Besieged City
Judah refused to listen to God’s warnings through Jeremiah and other prophets to repent.
Other nations battle over control of Jerusalem, which is eventually destroyed. Jeremiah then writes four acrostic elegies.
He gives a defeated people songs crying out to the LORD.
2 Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our houses to foreigners.
Everything for which we have worked, all of our hopes for the future – gone.
3 We have become orphans, fatherless; our mothers are widows. 4 We must pay for the water we drink; our wood comes at a price. 5 We are closely pursued; we are tired, and no one offers us rest.
Kurdish mother with son in ruins of their town AD 2015
Now I ask us: if the Lord has allowed this destruction of our hopes in past generations, why do we not remember the widows and fatherless forced from their homes in this day?
7 Our fathers sinned; they no longer exist, but we bear their punishment.
Woe to us
Jeremiah continues by telling of men risking their lives to obtain food and of women raped. He laments that princes are hung by former slaves who now rule and they see that young boys are made into slaves.
15 Joy has left our hearts; our dancing has turned to mourning. 16 The crown has fallen from our head.
The prophet Isaiah had also spoken the Lord’s judgment:
The look on their faces testifies against them, and like Sodom, they flaunt their sin; they do not conceal it. Woe to them, for they have brought disaster on themselves.
The Lord had warned these descendants of Jacob, transgressors of the Law of Moses
Now His blessings are replaced by woe. Yet Jeremiah closes his lament with a prayer for restoration, a ray of hope for the remnant of Jacob.
You, Lord, are enthroned forever
21 Lord, bring us back to yourself…
Shouldn’t this be the plea of each of us?
5:21 הֲשִׁיבֵנוּ יְהוָה אֵלֶיךָ ונשֶׂוב
shuwb Yĕhovah shuwb
Restore us to yourself, O LORD, that we may be restored! – NASB
… so we may return; renew our days as in former times… – 5:21b CSB
Ah, here is the hope of Jeremiah for the glory and blessings of the past.
unless You have rejected us
Let us go back to the Jerusalem of old. Judah’s king has fallen and Jerusalem reduced to ruble. All of this defeated generation must pray for favor from a foreign land. Yet the prophet closes his lament with humble dependence upon the Lord God. Jeremiah accepts the judgment of God on this generation.
Lord, bring us back to yourself…
22 unless you have completely rejected us and are intensely angry with us.
Lamentations 5:22 CSB
Is God your lord or does your sin provoke His intense anger?
Why do you cry out to God when you will not bow down to His will?
Redemption for our sin
“I will pour out my wrath on sin,” says the Lord. Yet what of our sin which provokes the wrath of God?
Jerusalem sinned greatly, Therefore she has become an unclean thing. Lamentations 1:5
Our fathers sinned, and are no more; It is we who have borne their iniquities. Lamentations 5:7
The crown has fallen from our head; Woe to us, for we have sinned! Lamentations 5:16
… The sin of Judah is inscribed with an iron stylus. With a diamond point it is engraved on the tablet of their hearts and on the horns of their altars… Jeremiah 17:1
Because you people sinned against the LORD and did not listen to His voice, therefore this thing has happened to you.
Jeremiah 40:3b NASB
the Messiah Redeemer
Just prior to a later destruction of Jerusalem, the only Son of God was hung on a Cross for our sins. There He had cried out:
“ELI, ELI, LAMA SABACHTHANI?” that is:
My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?
Matthew 27:46
Of all laments for sin, this one only redeems.
He was already dead
In his earlier prophecies, Jeremiah had predicted Jesus the Messiah and Redeemer of Israel to come in a later day.
Proclaim, praise, and say,
“Lord, save your people,
the remnant of Israel!”
Lament Turned to Joy 15 This is what the Lord says:
A voice was heard in Ramah,
a lament with bitter weeping—
Rachel weeping for her children,
refusing to be comforted for her children
because they are no more.
16 This is what the Lord says:
Keep your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for the reward for your work will come—
Do you recall fulfillment of this scripture at the birth of Jesus when King Herod of Judah ordered the slaughter of the innocents in Bethlehem?
28 Just as I watched over them to uproot and to tear them down, to demolish and to destroy, and to cause disaster, so will I watch over them to build and to plant them”—this is the Lord’s declaration.
The New Covenant
31 “Look, the days are coming”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.
Jeremiah 31:31 CSB
“I will put my teaching within them and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
This is the work of the Holy Spirit, given after Jesus’ Sacrifice and resurrection.
Though Jeremiah laments the fall of God’s chosen because of their sin, the prophet reassures the faithful remnant that the Lord is faithful.
For neither Israel nor Judah has been forsaken By his God, the LORD of hosts, Although their land is full of guilt Be ore the Holy One of Israel.
Jesus was innocent of sin, even unto death on a Cross for the sins of the world. The Messiah of God had been betrayed by a zealous Disciple named Judas, who would repent of his sin too late.
Then what was spoken through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: They took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him whose price was set by the Israelites, and they gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord directed me.
Matthew 27:9-10
The LORD has not rejected us, but sent us a pure and perfected Redeemer in Christ Jesus. Do not betray the Lord’s grace given for you on a Cross for your sin. Worship the Lord your God — Father, Son and Holy Spirit. For the Prophets have lamented for our sins and predicted our Savior.
But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.
2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos richest man in the world with a net worth of $90.6 billion
Many lovers of money worldwide, with the richest residing in the US, France, Spain, Mexico, China and Hong Kong.
Proud and arrogant men and women rule companies and financial interests more powerful than countries.
We sense the extreme poverty of so many without knowing the truth of many billionaires like Carlos Slim Helú who dominates more than a country just devastated by yet another earthquake.
How many rulers of this temporary darkness are without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit and more?
Evil rulers of countries and military forces threaten apocalypse, condone persecution and order elimination of those who oppose them. Is the Lord God their God?
Hardly a mention of evil in these trying times. Yet one word describes all – godlessness.
Meanwhile international headline news conglomerates skew our focus toward consumption, power and fleeting fame.
Signs of the End of the Age
Enlightened ones speculate with futily about global warming and disasters of ‘mother nature.’
Earth did not create us, aliens did not plant us and apes did not conceive our ancestors. Yet idolatry abounds in these times of difficulty.
When hurricane approaches or disaster strikes do any dare mention ‘acts of God?’
Jesus left the temple and was going away, when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. 2 But he answered them, “You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”
3 As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
4 And Jesus answered them, “See that no one leads you astray. 5 For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray.
6 And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet.
7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.
9 “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. 10 And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another.
11 And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray.
12 And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. 13 But the one who endures to the end will be saved.
14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
No One Knows That Day and Hour
In two millennia since the beginning of these last days, in recent centuries of these last hours, in passing minutes of threatening signs:
Has your love grown cold? Will you endure to the end?
Is your gospel of the kingdom of Christ Jesus a testimony of truth, an anchor of belief and hope of love?
37 For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man…
… scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. 4 They will say,
“Where is the promise of his coming? …”
5 For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, 6 and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.
7 But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.
Remember 9/11 2,996 deaths
10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.
For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man…