Lamentations 3:8-18 says,...Bible reading week 20, day 3

Today we are back in Lamentations with chapter 3, verses 8 through 18 which read,

8 - Even when I cry out and call for help, He shuts out my prayer.

9 - He has blocked my ways with hewn stone; He has made my paths crooked.

10 - He is to me like a bear lying in wait, like a lion in secret places.

11 - He has turned aside my ways and torn me to pieces; He has made me desolate.

12 - He bent His bow and set me as a target for the arrow.

13 - He made the arrows of His quiver to enter into my inward parts.

14 - I have become a laughingstock to all my people, their mocking song all the day.

15 - He has filled me with bitterness, He has made me drunk with wormwood.

16 - He has broken my teeth with gravel; He has made me cower in the dust.

17 - My soul has been rejected from peace; I have forgotten happiness.

18 - So I say, "My strength has perished, and so has my hope from the LORD."

A good description of the Israelites' disobedience to God is Jeremiah 19:15, which reads,

"Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, 'Behold, I am about to bring on this city and all its towns the entire calamity that I have declared against it, because they have stiffened their necks so as not to heed My words.'"

Because of this action, the prayers of Jeremiah are shut out by God.  They are blocked and the what was once a direct route now has a lot of twists and turns.  His prayers are hitting the ceiling not because of his disobedience but because of the nation's rejection of God's instruction.  I think we can sympathize with Jeremiah as we pray for our country.  We are saying all the right things and maybe in the right ways but it seems nothing is happening.  God is shut up from responding and blocked from us to see His purpose and power.

God is lying in wait and in stealth mode like a lion waiting to pounce on its prey.  Instead of God being there to hold us up in times of trouble, He is shooting arrows as us.  We are His target.  He has a quiver full of arrows to pierce us for the disobedience of our hearts.  There are plenty of sins for Him to shoot at and He is a very good shot.  He never misses.  He can hit the mark every time to expose sin that we are trying to hide or excuse away.  His bow is bent and we can feel the consequences of stiffening our necks and not heeding to His words.  

In the midst of all this sin, Jeremiah is still praying and preaching and weeping for the people of Israel.  He is going against the flow of the world with his holiness of following after God.  When you do this, the world will make fun of you.  They will make you a laughingstock.  They will mock you in song.  Do you see how this is not hard to apply to today?  Christians, those truly following after the Word of God, are made out to be weirdos, on the wrong side of history and out of touch with the reality of this day.  Christians are described in such extreme terms that make us all out to be "phoebes" of so many groups.  Everything church and Christian is less intelligent and already determined to hate rather than love.  We are reminded of what we don't do rather than what we do do.  There, I said it, do do.

This has an effect on us.  We feel the rejection that has come upon us and God allows it to manifest in a sorrow described by bitterness, drunk with wormwood, teeth with gravel, and cowering in the dust.  We know the Victor but we are beaten up and beaten down because of this lingering sin that we are crying out against.  It seems that His church will not prevail as God allows His faithful to feel the weight of these persecutions rather than deliver us from them.  There must be a purpose beyond what we see for us to be brought low before our God by our God who is letting us grieve so heavily over this situation that our world has come to.  How far shall we go?

My soul doesn't know peace.  I have forgotten what happiness is.  I voice that I have had it and I don't have the strength to go against the flow anymore.  I am starting to doubt if God really is in charge of it all.  He seems to be losing the battle.  I go so far to start being tempted to follow Satan's lead as a better option.  I am teetering on the edge in my realm but in God's realm, I am right where He wants His faithful to stay faithful.  Where are we going to go?  Where are we going to turn?  When disciples of Christ are turning to walk away from Him and follow Him no longer Jesus asked His remaining disciples in John 6:67,

So Jesus said to the twelve, "You do not want to go away also do you?"

And Peter shines for a moment with his answer in verses 68 and 69 for it says,

Simon Peter answered Him, "Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.  We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God." 

Jeremiah will follow suit on Friday when we go onto verse 19.  He turns from this situation of felt despair and fixes his eyes squarely on the attributes of God.  This the is same thing we should do today.  When we feel the real pain of persecution because of the sin of the world and our standing against it, we need to know that God has not abandoned us in this godly sorrow.  He is still there even though we feel that He is in hiding or not hearing our prayers.  He has full knowledge of what we are going through because He has allowed us to be driven to the point again to acknowledge that there is no place to turn but to Him.  The only way out is with our hand firmly in the midst of His.  We will not law our way out.  We will not be good enough in ourselves our way out.  We will not social good our way out.  We will not rewrite His Word our way out.  The only way out of this pit we are in is grabbing the rope He provides and holding on with a death grip He gave us through His death on the cross and His resurrection from the grave.  Let us pray.

"Lord, how we weep for our nation.  How we feel the pain of holding onto Your holiness.  It would be so much easier and more comfortable to change and go along but You have not called us to that route.  May we refocus on who You are given to us through Your word in the midst of this world that is painting You into someone else or trying to eliminate You all together.  May we echo Peter's words, 'to whom shall we go?'  Amen."

Pastor Adam