Lamentations is a challenging book. It challenges our view on how we think life should be, and how God should act. But God is His own ‘man’, and wants us to know that He is God. In the Septuagint version it is called Tears of Jeremiah, and that is truly an apt description. There is no other part of the Bible filled with as much pathos, sorrow and regret as this book. This book is still recited by pious Jews every Friday at the wailing wall. It was written after the Babylonians had destroyed Jerusalem in 586B.C. There are three major truths vividly underscored in the book:
Sin brings sorrow
Bondage could have been avoided
Divine chastening disciplines us
Yet, though Jerusalem lay in ruins and her people were off in exile, Jeremiah still sees reasons for rejoicing. We do well not to think too much of our perils. All the comfort of life would be taken out of life if we thought of them too much. So Jeremiah says (3:22,23) It is because of the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed – because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. Could this be true? New every morning? It takes a whole new way of looking at life.
Take our praying. We walk by faith, not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7), but we long to walk by sight. Most of the religious world wants to walk by sight or a combination of faith and sight. We often look for signs or some sort of visible evidence that God is with us. So we talk about ‘answered prayer’. But if we walked by faith we would believe that every prayer is answered for the faithful child of God (1 John 5:14), but it is only when we get an answer that is in keeping with our desires that we tend to speak about ‘answered prayer’. It’s the ‘sign’ we’re looking for that proves God is good. If God chooses to answer with a ‘no’ or ‘wait a while’, is that not an answer? Does it mean His is not good? Can we not say on those occasions too, “Thank God for answered prayer”.
It is observed that a test of maturity is how we respond in a crisis. Jeremiah was mature. Jeremiah lets us know that the things that are seen don’t tell the whole truth. Looking at Jerusalem would have given the impression that God was either mad, sad, or out of business and had shut up shop. But what does Jeremiah affirm in Lam. 3:22,23?
God’s mercies never cease! What a striking assurance this is, coming in the midst of such a book. In perhaps the darkest book of the Bible we have one of the richest affirmations of faith in the goodness of God. When the clouds are thick and dark the brightest sunlight shines through the smallest of breaks – but only seen if our eyes are open to it. This fact of mercies in the midst of Lamentations ought to be of great comfort to the despondent, even if the despondent cannot see them at the time. Jeremiah takes his gaze from the suffering and destruction and looks heavenward. Those of you that fly know that on a rainy day as soon as the plane gets above the clouds it’s all bright and shiny. The clouds have no extinguished the sun. Maturity is where we don’t need the plane to know the sun still shines.
We have no claim on their continuance; mercies are to the undeserving. We would have no right to complain even if they all ceased. The least of them is beyond our merit. Mercies and grace are two sides of the same coin. Grace is receiving what we don’t deserve while mercy is not receiving what we do deserve. We have done much to provoke the cessation of God’s mercies, but God’s patience is greater than our provoking. How do we provoke God? One way is by ungratefully receiving His mercies. Someone said that an atheist’s most embarrassing moment is when he feels profoundly thankful for something but doesn’t know who to thank for it. Is that true of us as well? Are we a thankful people?
Another way we provoke God is by complainingly ignoring His mercies. Things are never enough, are they? Whatever we have we can’t enjoy because we want more. (1 Tim. 6:6-8). Because we want more we complain in our present circumstances. We also provoke Him by sinfully abusing them. I remember as a boy, my father made me a little cart for carting rubbish, complete with handles etc. In no time the wheels were off it and became the basis for a hill-cart and the little rubbish cart was lying there forlorn, without its wheels and useless. How many blessings are used selfishly, or for evil. Freedom is taken as the freedom to do evil. Wealth is taken as a licence for indulgence. Health is taken as a ticket to wear ourselves out in pleasures, rather than doing good,
The mercies of God sometimes appear to vanish. They are not always equally visible; even as the moon seems to wax and wane but never changes in itself, so the mercies of God may seem to be extinguished at times, but they remain. If they were to cease we would be consumed. Our space research has shown how unique our world is: that conditions are just right for us to survive. What if God were to take away just one mercy, say air, or water, or topsoil? If Jeremiah could acknowledge the mercies of God as he sat looking over the ruins of Jerusalem, could we not see them when we look over Moreton Bay and the circumstances of our life?
God’s mercies change their form. The morning light differs from the evening light, yet they both come from the same sun. God’s mercy may sometimes appear cheery, but at other times it may appear to frown. Even God’s wrath is mercy in disguise, for the circumstances that make it necessary is more merciful than gentleness could be: eg. the penalty for sin in the Garden of Eden was the greatest blessing man could have in a world of sin. Work has been a blessing to the world, even though it was in response to sin. There may be more mercy in a surgeon’s knife than in a bed of roses. The generation of Jeremiah’s day would not have seen the benefit their chastisement was to the following generations, but never again did they go back to Baal worship.
God’s mercies are constantly renewed. The same mercies will not last forever; they are gifts and acts for a set time and place. What suits one does not suit another; God adapts His grace to the hour and the need. What mercies David experienced, or Abraham or Esther, are not the ones for today. Today’s are fresh. The water that runs down the river today is not that which ran down it yesterday. The green leaf of your lawn that garnishes your yard this season, will not be that which will do it next Spring. The food that feeds you today will not do so tomorrow. No day breaks which does not open up the prospect of Divine faithfulness and living-kindness towards the children of men. Because a gift of God resembles a previous one, it does not fail to be a new proof of divine favour. Life is made up of both novelty and repetition. The mercies Abraham needed to make the journey from Ur to Canaan were different from the ones needed for a hundred long years watching over sheep in the Negev. The successive stages of our earthly pilgrimage reveals fresh wants, call for fresh supplies from the bounty and benevolence of our God and Father. With new needs come new favours. Different duties, fresh relationships, and changing circumstances are the occasion of ever-renewed manifestations of Divine goodness. And all of our errors and infirmities are the occasion of new manifestations of Divine forbearance, because our sins are the sins we commit today, not the sins our forefathers committed.
God’s unceasing mercies are proof of His faithfulness and forgiveness. They are the fulfilment of His promise that He will never leave or forsake His people. “Have you not one blessing for me?!” said Esau to Isaac. But you and me, we could not count the blessings that God puts into our lives. The fact we live as Christians today, 20 centuries after Christ, when Satan has been trying all the time to destroy the truth, shows that God is faithful. Do you realise that we have easier access to the Word of God than at any time over the last 2000 years? Do you realise we live in a world that has more benefits from the influence of the teachings of Christ than any other in the last 2000 years?
God’s unceasing mercies are a sign that He is still acting according to His ancient word. In 1500B.C. God said through Moses that He would never leave or forsake His people. 500 years later the Psalmist, in Ps. 37:25,28 said that was proving to be true in his day. 1500 years later a New Testament saint said the same thing in Heb. 13:5. It still stands because “never” means “never”. Someone who builds us a house may be considered faithful to their promise for the shelf life of the house. But the promise of daily bread requires that God continue to visit the earth every day. Somebody once said that every child born shows that God hasn’t given up on the world. Every sun-up shows the same.