Lamentations 3:34-66

What did we read in Lam. 3:33?  God does not afflict willingly.  Why did He afflict Zion?  Because they were rebels.  Why did He afflict His only Son?  Because in a deep and true way, He was numbered with the transgressors.  Jesus’ association with my sin was just that real!

·        3:34-36:  God does not approve of judgment without cause.  We keep saying this because Jeremiah keeps saying it.  This is what everyone things.  Just like the average occupant of a bed in jail, we are always trying to maintain that we don’t deserve what God is or will be meting out to those who reject Christ.  But God’s cause is just beyond measure.  We say beyond measure because no God is as merciful as the God of the Bible (Old and New Testament, there is only one God, not one for each part of the Bible).  No one is gracious as the God of the Bible so as to provide a way of escape whereby you simply look to Jesus Christ in personal faith and trust and you are justified before God and reconciled to God.

·        3:37-39:  So don’t complain!  Instead …

·        3:40-42: Search yourself.  Turn to God.

·        3:43-57: Here is how you turn to God.  First, acknowledge He does have a right to hold you in contempt (3:43-45).  Then, fear Him, as in holding Him in the highest regard (3:46-48).  Sorrow, grieve over your sin (3:49-51).  And despair of all hope apart from Him (3:52-54).  That is the state in which God will hear and answer your cry for mercy (3:55-57).  It’s what we sometimes call the sinner’s prayer.  It was the simple prayer of a tax collector who came to God with nothing but confessed sin and a search for mercy (Lk. 18:13).

·        3:58-66: We have noted the connection between Jeremiah and Jesus.  In these verses there seems to be a difference.  But look and listen carefully because the difference does not exist.  When Jeremiah cried out to God he asked God to repay Israel’s adversaries, to repay them in vengeance.  Jesus, when He came to the cross, He cried out Father forgive them for they know not what they do (Lk. 23:34).  We would say that these are the same prayer if you dig a little deeper.  Jesus, in praying for their forgiveness, knew that the nature of sin and the nature of His holy God and Father would not allow sin without repayment.  He could pray forgive them because He, Jesus, was about to pay the price for their sin.  Jeremiah did not have the authority to ask for that.  Jesus did!  Like David in those Psalms of imprecation, so Jeremiah prays that kind of prayer; it is how he entrusts the care of the wicked to God.  Jesus does the same things, putting into God’s hands the care of the wicked men who made the decision or failed to give justice or pounded the nails.  At the cross God answered both prayers!!!