2 Chronicles 34:33 “And Josiah took away all the abominations out of all the countries that pertained to the children of Israel,…… And all his days they departed not from following the Lord, the God of their fathers.”
But now King Josiah was dead.
For the nation of Judah, this was their last godly king….in essence, their last revival….their last chance, as a nation….to repent and be blessed.
There still could be personal repentance and turning to the Lord God, but the nation was on a course to destruction.
Jeremiah, a friend of King Josiah, mourned his loss….and the loss for the nation….for what could have been.
2 Chronicles 35:25 “And Jeremiah lamented for Josiah: and all the singing men and the singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations to this day, and made them an ordinance in Israel: and, behold, they are written in the lamentations.”
He wrote “Lamentations” ….a song and prophesy of what will happen now that Josiah was gone.
The downward spiral into captivity…(it took twenty-three years)….was filled with battle,…loss…..hunger…till in the siege at the last, people were letting their children and the older people just die, so they would not have to feed them.
All of this was seen by Jeremiah on the day Josiah died…
Lamentations 1:1, 4, 8, 16 “How doeth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!…..she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!
The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts:….
Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed:…
For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the Comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me:…”
I have spoken before about when the Lord uses….The Lord,….or God…in scripture.
He uses The Lord when He is stressing Himself as our Personal King and Guide….He leads us through all things.
He uses God when He is stressing His Purpose, which is Eternal and Unchanging…and His Might to bring it to pass.
In Lamentations, God is used just once,….but the Lord is used every other time…forty-three times.
Jeremiah cries out in the personal….
Lamentations 3:40-41 “Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.
(Let us get back into the personal relationship with our King and Guide.)
Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.”
(Let us remember our Covenant God….His Purpose, and pray to Him that He will work that Purpose in us.)
With all that he saw,….for Israel….and all that would come upon himself for standing with the Lord God….
…”He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood.”
Standing with the Lord had always been dangerous….
….when Jeremiah was first called, and he preached in his own hometown….the people, and even his own relatives tried to kill him….and God sent him to Jerusalem.
But now, in the perilous times….the last times for the nation of Judah….till there captivity would be complete….
….Jeremiah preaches to a people who wants to be deceived…..who wants to hear only pleasant things…
“Mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without cause.” Lamentations 3:52
Yet,….
….and I stress that Jeremiah is called the weeping prophet….
yet…
….He knows the Lord…..God is his God.
Jeremiah laments the last chance for Israel, yet gets up and preaches in the Temple….
….he is told to write his messages down, and when they are destroyed…..to write them again.
He becomes weary, and wants to give up preaching, at one stage….
Yet…
“Then I said, I will not make mention of Him nor speak any more in His name. But His Word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.
But the Lord is with me as a mighty terrible One:…
Sing unto the Lord, praise ye the Lord: for He hath delivered the soul of the poor from the hand of evildoers.” Jeremiah 20:9,11,13
How great is the grace that upholds His servant!
How greater is the grace that gives the burning desire to preach His Word, even in times of trouble!
Jeremiah, in time of bitterness (Lamentations 3:15-19)….seeing by the Word of the Lord all that would come upon his people….and himself….
yet said,…
Lamentations 3:24-26 “The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in Him.
The Lord is good unto them that wait for Him, to the soul that seeketh Him.
It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.”
The Lord God was with him….in all….through all…and though he was never esteemed of men….yet God spoke to him, through him, and never was He away from him.
In this day, we Christians, are also called to look…
…”for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ;
Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.” (Titus 2:13-14)
We are in a time…
“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine….and they shall turn away their ears from the truth….”. (2Timothy 4:3-4)
Yet….
…Timothy was exhorted (and we too, are exhorted to do this, as well)…
2 Timothy 4:1-2,5 “I charge thee therefore before God (Whose Purpose is Eternal, Unchanging),…
…and the Lord Jesus Christ (our Personal King and Savior), Who shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom;
Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.
But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.”
No matter the “times”…..or the seasons of emotions….we are to continue with on with the Lord….seeking the good of all, especially them of the household of faith.
May The Lord our God keep us faithful to Him…..may His word be as a fire in our hearts, that we may speak it faithfully….
….and may we know the Lord as our portion….through all the circumstances of these days.
Preaching, Teaching, and Notes 