In The Word
Read: Lamentations 2
God’s Anger over Israel
2 How the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion
With a cloud in His anger!
He has hurled
The glory of Israel from heaven to earth,
And has not remembered His footstool
In the day of His anger.
2 The Lord has destroyed; He has not spared
All the settlements of Jacob.
In His wrath He has overthrown
The strongholds of the daughter of Judah,
He has hurled them down to the ground;
He has profaned the kingdom and its leaders.
3 In fierce anger He has cut off
All the strength of Israel;
He has pulled back His right hand
From the enemy.
And He has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire
Consuming on all sides.
4 He has bent His bow like an enemy;
His right hand is positioned like an adversary,
And He has killed everything that was pleasant to the eye.
In the tent of the daughter of Zion
He has poured out His wrath like fire.
5 The Lord has become like an enemy.
He has engulfed Israel;
He has engulfed all its palaces,
He has destroyed its strongholds
And caused great mourning and grieving in the daughter of Judah.
6 And He has treated His tabernacle violently, like a despised garden;
He has destroyed His appointed meeting place.
The Lord has caused
The appointed feast and Sabbath in Zion to be forgotten,
And He has despised king and priest
In the indignation of His anger.
7 The Lord has rejected His altar,
He has repudiated His sanctuary;
He has handed over
The walls of her palaces to the enemy.
They have made a noise in the house of the Lord
As on the day of an appointed feast.
8 The Lord determined to destroy
The wall of the daughter of Zion.
He has stretched out a line,
He has not restrained His hand from destroying,
And He has caused rampart and wall to mourn;
They have languished together.
9 Her gates have sunk into the ground,
He has destroyed and broken her bars.
Her king and her leaders are among the nations;
The Law is gone.
Her prophets, too, find
No vision from the Lord.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion
Sit on the ground and are silent.
They have thrown dust on their heads;
They have put on sackcloth.
The virgins of Jerusalem
Have bowed their heads to the ground.
11 My eyes fail because of tears,
My spirit is greatly troubled;
My heart is poured out on the earth
Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people,
When little ones and infants languish
In the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers,
“Where is grain and wine?”
As they faint like a wounded person
In the streets of the city,
As their lives are poured out
In their mothers’ arms.
13 How shall I admonish you?
What shall I compare to you,
Daughter of Jerusalem?
What shall I liken to you as I comfort you,
Virgin daughter of Zion?
For your collapse is as vast as the sea;
Who can heal you?
14 Your prophets have seen for you
Worthless and deceptive visions;
And they have not exposed your wrongdoing
So as to restore you from captivity,
But they have seen for you worthless and misleading pronouncements.
15 All who pass along the way
Clap their hands in ridicule at you;
They hiss and shake their heads
At the daughter of Jerusalem:
“Is this the city of which they said,
‘Perfect in beauty,
A joy to all the earth’?”
16 All your enemies
Have opened their mouths wide against you;
They hiss and gnash their teeth.
They say, “We have engulfed her!
This certainly is the day which we awaited;
We have reached it, we have seen it!”
17 The Lord has done what He determined;
He has accomplished His word
Which He commanded from days of old.
He has torn down without sparing,
And He has helped the enemy to rejoice over you;
He has exalted the might of your adversaries.
18 Their heart cried out to the Lord:
“You wall of the daughter of Zion,
Let your tears stream down like a river day and night;
Give yourself no relief,
Let your eyes have no rest.
19 Arise, whimper in the night
At the beginning of the night watches;
Pour out your heart like water
Before the presence of the Lord;
Raise your hands to Him
For the life of your little ones
Who languish because of hunger
At the head of every street.
20 See, Lord, and look!
With whom have You dealt this way?
Should women really eat their children,
The little ones who were born healthy?
Should priest and prophet really be killed
In the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 On the ground in the streets
Lie young and old;
My virgins and my young men
Have fallen by the sword.
You have put them to death on the day of Your anger,
You have slaughtered, without sparing.
22 You called as on the day of an appointed feast
My terrors on every side;
And there was no one who survived or escaped
On the day of the Lord’s anger.
As for those whom I brought forth healthy and whom I raised,
My enemy annihilated them.”
New American Standard Bible (NASB) Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation
Walking In The Word
Jeremiah described God’s anger over His people’s disobedience and rebellion. He also explained how prophets had spoken false messages about peace and prosperity instead of God’s truth that described the impending consequences of sin. “Your prophets have seen for you false and foolish visions; and they have not exposed your iniquity … (Lamentations 2:14)” It seems the prophets were more interested in being liked than obeying God, and a confrontational message could have led people to reject them. They knew that some prophets had been killed because they spoke God’s confrontational message.
What made it easy for people to accept the false prophecies was because they did not want to face their own sin. They wanted the blessings from God but not the difficult work of crucifying their flesh. Some people find it hard to hear confrontational truth, even though it is better for them. That is why Paul said there will be people who, because they want “to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth (2 Timothy 4:3-4).”
When people reject the convicting truth of God’s Word, they go down a path away from God toward destruction. But when people are willing to hear and obey God’s truth, though it may be challenging to face, then they find life and godliness. When you hear a message that touches on a sin area, do you listen or ignore it?