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The Bible Breakdown
Lamentations 02: God, Why Have You Abandoned Us?
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The More We Dig. The More We Find.
Hello everybody, welcome back to the Bible Breakdown Podcast with your host, pastor Brandon, today. Lamentations, chapter 2, and today's title is God. Why have you abandoned us, god? Why have you abandoned us? As you can tell, another chapter full of joy and glee from Lamentations. So we're going to get into all that in just a moment, but with tears in your eyes. If you would like to get your Bibles and open them up to Lamentations, chapter two, while you're doing that, if you're new around here, make sure you're taking a moment to like, share and subscribe to the YouTube channel and the podcast. If you are an OG you are one of my favorites. You are a podcast listener. Make sure you leave us a five-star review and leave a comment there when you rate it, to tell other people what they can expect if they join our community, what you have found with the podcast. Not only is it a joy to all of us who are part of the editing process, but also it is an encouragement to other people what this community is. And then also make sure you're going to the Bible Breakdown Discussion on Facebook. There's an amazing group of people and we are digging into God's Word every day. And I'm going to tell you. The Bible says that in His presence is fullness of joy. And that's what we're doing, because the more we dig, the more we find. Well, once again, through tears, I want you to find with me Lamentations chapter 2, because we're going to dive in to the second part of this book.
Speaker 1:And as we talked about yesterday, lamentations was written by Jeremiah, and he wrote the book of Lamentations on the other side of what could have been a very hearty. I told you so. He spent his entire ministry and life warning the city of Jerusalem. Come on, now, you guys have got to get better than this. Judgment's on the way. But they said no, we want to be judged. And so they was. They were judged and in 586 AD, the nation excuse me, the city of Jerusalem was destroyed. And as Jeremiah's looking at it, he's not happy, he's devastated. And so he tells them man, this is horrible and it breaks my heart. But the theme of lamentations is not broken hearts. The theme of Lamentations is hope in darkness. And what Jeremiah is teaching us through these five poems, five chapters, is he's teaching us how to grief, how to get God involved in every aspect of the journey. Yesterday, he taught us the very beginnings of how to cry, and that is, we're honest with God, but then we're also turning to God with our grief. Today he's going to help us grapple with the question where is God? Did God abandon us in this whole process? And let's see how he, very raw, very, very honestly asked this question, said God, do you not see all this horrible stuff that's happening? And because we know Jeremiah's background, we know exactly what Jeremiah thinks. But he's having this honest conversation with God and maybe in doing so, he's going to give us permission to have an honest conversation as well. Okay, all right, let's jump into this.
Speaker 1:Lamentations, chapter two, verse one, says this the Lord, in his anger, has cast a dark shadow over beautiful Jerusalem. The fairest of Israel's cities lies in the dust thrown down from the heights of heaven. In this day of great anger, the Lord has shown no mercy, even to his temple. Without mercy, the Lord has destroyed every home in Israel. In his anger, he has broken down the fortress walls of beautiful Verse 2. As the enemies attack, he consumes the whole land of Israel like a raging fire and he bends his bow against his people as though they were their enemies. His strength is used against them to kill their finest youth. His fury is poured out like fire on beautiful Jerusalem. Yes, the Lord has vanquished Israel like an enemy. He has destroyed her palaces and demolished her fortress. He has brought unending sorrow and tears upon beautiful Jerusalem. He has broken down his temple as though it were merely a garden shelter. The Lord has blotted out all memory of the holy festivals and Sabbath days. Kings and priests fall together before his fierce anger. The Lord has rejected his own altar. He despised his own sanctuary and has given Jerusalem's palaces to their enemies. They shout in the Lord's temple as though it were a day of celebration. The Lord has determined to destroy the walls of beautiful Jerusalem and he made careful plans for their destruction when they did what he had planned.
Speaker 1:The leaders of beautiful Jerusalem sit on the ground in silence. They are clothed in burlap and throw dust on their heads. The young women of Jerusalem hang their heads in shame. I have cried until the tears no longer come. My heart is broken. My spirit is poured out in agony as I see the desperate plight of my people. Little children and tiny babies are fainting and dying in the streets. They cry out to their mothers we need food and drink. Their lives ebb away in the streets like the life of a warrior wounded in battle. They gasp for life as they collapse in their mother's arms. What can I say about you? Who has ever seen such sorrow? Oh daughter Jerusalem, what can I compare your anguish, o virgin daughter of Zion, how can I comfort you? For your wound is as deep as the sea? Who can heal you?
Speaker 1:Your prophets have said so many foolish things, false to the core. They did not save you from exile by pointing out your sins. Instead, they painted false pictures filling you with false hope. All who pass by jeer your sins. Instead, they painted false pictures filling you with false hope. All who pass by jeer at you. They scoff and insult beautiful Jerusalem, saying Is this the city called most beautiful in all the world and joy of all the earth? All your enemies mock you. They scoff and snarl and say we have destroyed her at last. We have long waited for this day and it's finally here. But it is the Lord who did just as he planned. He has fulfilled the promises of disaster he made long ago. He has destroyed Jerusalem without mercy and he has caused her enemies to gloat over her and has given them power over her.
Speaker 1:So cry aloud before the Lord. O walls of beautiful Jerusalem, let your tears flow like a river day and night. Give yourselves no rest, give your eyes no relief. Rise during the night and cry out. Pour out your hearts like water to the Lord. Lift up your hands to Him in prayer, pleading for your children, for in the streets, they are faint with hunger. O Lord, think about this. Should you treat your own people this way? Should mothers eat their own children, those they once bounced on their knees? Should priests and prophets be killed within the Lord's temple? See them lying in the streets, young and old, boys and girls, killed by the sword of their enemy. You have killed them in your anger, slaughtering them without mercy. You have invited terrors from all around, as though you were calling them to the day of feasting In the day of the Lord's anger. No one has escaped or survived. The enemy has killed all the children whom I carried and raised. Whoa, that's brutal. But what do we see that Jeremiah is doing? And that is, he is looking at the devastation and he is doing two things at the same time he is acknowledging the fault of the people and he's also pleading with God for relief. It is. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging when you messed up, as long as you don't stay there.
Speaker 1:There are some people who just say you know, I made a mistake. I'm just going to move on. I was talking to a guy the other day and he's a great friend of mine and he was talking about how he had he had made some, he had done some terrible things in his past and he said you know, one of the one of the hardest things for me to grapple with is, he said, I had to grapple with the fact that I had not made mistakes. I had sinned, he said, because if you think about it, a mistake is, you know you spell a word wrong in an email, you know, or you're a little late for a meeting. He said that's a mistake. He said a sin is committing adultery and ruining your integrity, shattering your spouse and your children's. You know love and trust. He said that that's a sin, that's not a mistake.
Speaker 1:And he said when I acknowledged that, what, that I had to own the loneliness I was feeling, and that I had to own that, I played a role in this. He said I know that sounds like it would have been devastating, he said, but there was a certain healing there, when I acknowledged what I had done, because then I realized I can't fix this. I've got to turn to God and even though I will admit, I was a little angry at God, I was angry only because he was the one who was in charge of the justice. He said I'd have been angry at anybody who was in charge of the justice, but at the same time, I knew that only he could help me. And that's what I see when I'm reading what Jeremiah is saying.
Speaker 1:He is saying God, we brought this on ourselves. We did, we sinned, and the consequences of our sin was absolute devastation. And a long time ago you started warning us of what was going to happen. So, god, this isn't on you, it's on us. But, god, we need you to come rescue us. Do you see what's happening? It's time for you to rescue us. We need you to rescue us, and that teaches us that there is something about and once again, you got to understand the balance here. Please understand the balance.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying that we should live in shame. I'm not saying that we should go wallow in our past sins and just stay there. I'm not saying any of that. What I am saying is is. There needs to be time and space that, if we're experiencing something terrible in our life, that we stop and we say have I helped contribute to this, Because I'm not a victim, did I help contribute to this? And if the answer is yes, then we acknowledge it, I helped contribute to this.
Speaker 1:And so then I go to God and say God, I am so sorry, I didn't make mistakes, I sinned, and I'm asking for forgiveness. And now, god, I'm turning over to you because only you can bring healing. And when we acknowledge our sin, we confess it to the Lord and then we turn everything over to him. That's the hope in darkness, because only God can bring healing and he is excited to do it. But we have to start with not denying it anymore, but bring it to him.
Speaker 1:And so maybe you're not in that place today, maybe you're experiencing something bad because of something that somebody else did, and you were just there, you were a bystander, you were collateral damage. And if that's you, then skip the forgiveness part, you know, because you didn't do anything wrong, but instead turn it over to God. God, you're the only one who can fix this and allow him to do that. So, from chapter one, learn to cry, learn to mourn what happened and then, number two, turn it over to him. But if you're one of the ones who maybe you're experiencing some of the devastation you're experiencing because of things that's happened in your past that you are responsible for, then maybe what Lamentations 2 is teaching us is that after number one, we mourn and we learn to cry.
Speaker 1:Number two is we go to God. We say, god, I own my part of this. I did, I did, I sinned, but I'm not going to, I'm not going to shy away from it anymore. I'm going to look it in the eyes and say you know what, I did it and I'm going to turn it over to you. I repent of all of it. And now I say only you can bring healing. When you do that, healing is fast on the way. Let's pray together right now, god. Thank you so much that, lord, you are interested in doing deep surgery in our lives and sometimes deep surgery means spiritually, some cutting some pain, some having to acknowledge so we can settle some yesterdays.
Speaker 1:I pray today, god, that the enemy won't work his way into this and try to create shame and try to create devastation. This is not a time for shame or devastation. It's a time for joy because healing is on the way. As we acknowledge our sin, we confess our sin and we turn it over to you, god. You wash away the sin and all the shame associated with it and you bring healing in our lives. I celebrate the healing that's on its way. In Jesus' name, we pray amen and amen. Well, god's word says in Lamentations 3, verse 22, the faithful love of the Lord never ends, his mercies never cease. God is faithful and I hope you find that today in him. I love you. No-transcript.
