September 20 Daily Discovery - Read Lamentations Chapter 5

This passage below is from the King James Version (ekjv.org).  

Remarks from the Berean Fellowship follow the passage below.

[1] Remember, O LORD, what is come upon us: consider, and behold our reproach.
[2] Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens.
[3] We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows.
[4] We have drunken our water for money; our wood is sold unto us.
[5] Our necks are under persecution: we labour, and have no rest.
[6] We have given the hand to the Egyptians, and to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.
[7] Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities.
[8] Servants have ruled over us: there is none that doth deliver us out of their hand.
[9] We gat our bread with the peril of our lives because of the sword of the wilderness.
[10] Our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible famine.
[11] They ravished the women in Zion, and the maids in the cities of Judah.
[12] Princes are hanged up by their hand: the faces of elders were not honoured.
[13] They took the young men to grind, and the children fell under the wood.
[14] The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their musick.
[15] The joy of our heart is ceased; our dance is turned into mourning.
[16] The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, that we have sinned!
[17] For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes are dim.
[18] Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate, the foxes walk upon it.
[19] Thou, O LORD, remainest for ever; thy throne from generation to generation.
[20] Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever, and forsake us so long time?
[21] Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old.
[22] But thou hast utterly rejected us; thou art very wroth against us.

A Plea for Renewal

Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old.

Jeremiah is acknowledging the sins of the nation and the justice of God judging them while at the same time pleading for mercy and that God would not cast them off forever. We know that this prayer is ultimately answered and the Jews that have been taken away to Babylon will be returned when captivity is ended in Babylon.

The emotional impact of what this remnant of jews is experiencing in the land of israel is a good type for what we experience as believers when we have lost fellowship with god. These jews were still in the land but they were miserable because they had no communion with God. Believers in Jesus Christ in the New Covenant can experience the same miseries when they are living in disobedience to God without repentance and restoration of fellowship.

Experiencing Chastisement

They were experiencing loss of life and property and quality of life and liberty and famine and sickness. All of these things were due to God's chastisement.

1 Cor. 11:20-32

[20] When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's supper.
[21] For in eating every one taketh before other his own supper: and one is hungry, and another is drunken.
[22] What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not? What shall I say to you? shall I praise you in this? I praise you not.
[23] For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread:
[24] And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.
[25] After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.
[26] For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come.
[27] Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.
[28] But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.
[29] For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body.
[30] For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.
[31] For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.
[32] But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.

Heb. 11:5-13

[5] And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:
[6] For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
[7] If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?
[8] But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.
[9] Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?
[10] For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.
[11] Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.
[12] Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees;
[13] And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.
Loss of Joy

Deep Discouragement

They have lost their joy and their hearts are faint. One could say they were depressed. Sometimes people can have feelings of depression that are connected to things that are purely physical but most often it is emotional. The emotional state that believers in Jesus should be living in should be one of joy.

Psa. 16:11

Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.

The Need to Respond

Jeremiah's prayer: "Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old."  

We see in this passage that this is what god is already actively trying to do the purpose of chastisement is to bring repentance and restoration. A day is coming in the future of the nation where they are vastly minimized in the new covenant) because it will become largely gentile. However, we are not there yet because they are going to be turned again. The Babylonian captivity that Jeremiah prophesied would last 70 years.

Jer. 25:11-12

[11] And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
[12] And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, saith the LORD, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans, and will make it perpetual desolations.

Psa. 126

[1] When the LORD turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream.
[2] Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing: then said they among the heathen, The LORD hath done great things for them.
[3] The LORD hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad.
[4] Turn again our captivity, O LORD, as the streams in the south.
[5] They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.
[6] He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.

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