Lamentations 5:8-16 says,...Bible reading week 24, day 3

Today's verses are Lamentations 5:8-16, which read,

8 - Slaves rule over us; there is no one to deliver us from their hand.

9 - We get our bread at the risk of our lives because of the sword in the wilderness.

10 - Our skin has become as hot as an oven, because of the burning heat of famine.

11 - They ravished the women in Zion, the virgins in the cities of Judah.

12 - Princes were hung by their hands; elders were not respected.

13 - Young men worked at the grinding mill, and youths stumbled under loads of wood.

14 - Elders are gone from the gate, young men from their music.

15 - The joy of our hearts has ceased; our dancing has been turned into mourning.

16 - The crown has fallen from our head; woe to us, for we have sinned!

Jeremiah is trying to describe to us in word pictures what has happened to the people of Israel because they have sinned.  It is not just because there are bad people doing bad things but it is because they have turned from God and followed other so called gods.  Jeremiah gives descriptions but keeps coming back to the key point of this passage and this whole book of lament.  "For we have sinned" is what needs to be dealt with not just getting better working conditions or improving relationships between those exiled and those who abdicated them.

So Jeremiah gives us the conditions that they were lower than the slaves of Babylon because the slaves were ruling over them.  They we on the bottom rung of the ladder and no rights were offered to them.  They had no legal counsel to call upon.  There was no public defender provided for them.

They had to get their bread, their basics of life, by going to the black market and it was not only expensive but also very dangerous.  It was meeting people with weapons down dark back alleys to secure some food for the family.

They had to work long hours outside in the hot sun.  They used to be able to get out from under the sun but now that option is gone.  The working conditions have digressed along with a bad year of yield in the fields.

There has also been a taking advantage of the women of Israel.  The princes have been tortured and the elders are not listened to or followed after.  Those who once were protected, the virgins, and those who once were pampered, the princes,  and those who once were promoted, the elders, are now receiving treatment that is sinful and painful.

The young men are now spending all their time at the grinding mill and carrying heavy loads while the elders who used to sit at the gates and give judgments and discernments are absent from their posts.  The young men don't have time to write and play songs of love and adventure.  Things are stripped away from the people of Israel.  The young men are stripped of being a kid and the old men are stripped of being respected as elders.  There is no time to dance a jig to a lively tune.

Joy is gone.  Dancing has ceased.  The crown that signified that they were royalty among the nations because of the God they followed has fallen to the floor.  People used to travel to be among the people of God and to be in the great city of Jerusalem.  It was a haven to run to and a people to be like but all this has changed.  Why?  "For we have sinned."  Jeremiah doesn't point to the other guy, the Babylonians, and blame them but he turns the finger back to himself and the people of Israel and says that all of this is because of what we have done.  What is being done to us is because of what we have done to God.  He can describe the symptoms of sin but he can also tell us what the cause of it is, sin.  

Many times we try to treat just the symptoms and not get to the cause.  When we try the symptoms we just cover up the cause or try to manage it but it is still there.  We don't have true freedom until we attack the cause to eliminate its effect on us.  We do all kinds of things to cover our sin or to lessen our sin or to excuse or rationalize our sin but that cause, sin, is still there.  Praise God that He has the solution to the cause.  Praise God that He provided One who was without sin to be the perfect sacrifice for the wrath of God for us.  Praise God but deal with the cause today and don't put another bandaid on it or throw another prescription at it.  Take that sin before God and confess it so that you may start to have victory over it by living with God as truly God over and of your life.  Let us pray.

"Lord, the symptoms are great.  The consequences of sin alter our lives on every front.  We have tried so many times to handle sin our way but there is no lasting way but the one You have provided.  May we come to You so our sins may be forgiven and we may rise to be in obedience to Your ways.  Amen."

Pastor Adam