How doeth the city sit solitary
that was full of people? How has she become, as a widow,
she that was great among the nations, and princess among the
provinces? How has she become tributary?
She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks.
Among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her. All her
friends have dealt treacherously so. They are become her enemies.
Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction. And because
of great servitude she dwelt among the heathen, she findeth
no rest. All her persecutors overtook
her between the straits. The ways of Zion do mourn, because
none come to the solemn feast. All her gates are desolate, her
priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.
Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper, for the
Lord hath afflicted her. For the multitude of her transgressions,
her children are gone into captivity before the enemy. And from the
daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed. Her princes are
become hearts that find no pasture, and they are gone without strength
before the Pursuer." Turn with me now back here to Lamentations. Lamentations, it's called the
Lamentations of Jeremiah. Lamentations is in the title. When you lament, you're full
of sorrow and grief, wailing. And Jeremiah is lamenting, grieving,
sorrowing because of God's judgment upon Judah, upon Israel, and
on Jerusalem. And Jeremiah evidently, he's
setting up, and he said he looks down on the city. How doeth the
city, he says, solitary, he says there in verse 1. And he's overlooking
the city, and he sat down there and he wept. And he wept, lamented
over Jerusalem, mourning the fall of his country, mourning
the fall of the city, God's city, holy Jerusalem. Now, Lamentations
is a book of poetry. It's a book of poetry. And I
don't know that this means anything, because it certainly doesn't
to me. I don't know that Hebrew alphabet. But chapters 1, 2,
and 4 contain 22 verses each. And every one of those verses
begin with the letter of the Hebrew alphabet. And on those
22 verses, you go through the whole Hebrew alphabet. And chapter
3 contains 66 verses. And every third verse, which
would make every 22, every third verse is a Hebrew alphabet, begins
with a Hebrew alphabet and goes through the alphabet again. And
I don't know what the Hebrew alphabet is. I know what just
three or four of Greek, but I don't know what the Hebrew alphabet
is. But it's interesting in the sense that he is talking about
God and God's Hebrew alphabet is manifested here as he deals
with God and the judgment of God upon Jerusalem, upon Jerusalem. Now, he had told, Jeremiah had
faithfully prophesied for years, and the other prophets did, too.
God said, rising early. And he told them how that Babylon,
Nebuchadnezzar, would come in. And he would come in, and Nebuchadnezzar
and his army coming from the north, that the Babylonians would
come and they would invade the land, they would destroy Jerusalem,
they'd burn it down, they'd tear Israel and Judah into captivity,
and he would just leave a remnant there. And Jeremiah was one of
those left as part of the remnant. And they are as reading today,
as a matter of fact, when they told Jeremiah, and he was standing
in the court, and Jerusalem at the temple, And God told him
to tell them, He said, you know, Nebuchadnezzar's coming. He's
coming. And he's already outside the city. And he said, he's coming
in here, and he's going to burn this place. And they said, kill
him. Kill this fool. And even Zedekiah
the king said, I want you dead. I want you dead. I'm not going
to prophesy things like that. You're going to tell me that
a man's going to come in here and take me captive. And take
me off. But he did. And then when Nebuchadnezzar
came and took him captive, put out both of his arms. And Jeremiah prophetified about
that and wasn't happy about it. He didn't rejoice in it. He's
not saying, well, I told you so. He's sitting here and he's
lamenting. He is in great grief and sorrow
because they did not hear and they would not listen. And now
the judgment has come. The judgment has failed. And
this book opens here with the prophet weeping over the city
of the people he dearly loved and who he had faithfully labored
all of his life. And it begins with this great
burst of sorrow and anguish when he says, How doeth the city sit
solitary that was full of people? Sitting solitary here now. This
people was milling everywhere. Now she's like a widow. She don't
have no one. She was great among the nations
and a princess among the prophets. Now she's a tributary. Now she's
in bondage. Verse 3, Judah is gone into captivity. She dwells among the heathen
now. She finds no rest. And oh, he was so lamenting that. And 600 years later, our Lord
Jesus Christ, God said, prophet, the prophet that God said would
come, that would put all his words in his mouth, that he would
speak all that God said for him to do. Look over with me in Matthew
chapter 23 and look at here. Here's our Lord Jesus Christ
doing the same thing 600 years later. That's why they called
our Lord Jesus. They said to him, Are you Jeremias? Because he was a weeping prophet,
he wept, he was a man acclaimed with grief and sorrow. And here
he is, he's just as Jeremiah lamented over Jerusalem, and
wept over Jerusalem, all this sea so full of people, now sits
solitary. And our Lord Jesus, standing
outside Jerusalem, while he's up on the Mount of Olives, and
he looks down and he said, Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem. that kills
the prophets, stones them that are sent unto thee. How often
will I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth
her chickens under a wheat, and you would not? Behold, your house
is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, you shall
not see me. Henceforth to yourselves say,
Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." And the
same thing happened seventy years. Seventy years after our Lord
was crucified, risen, and ascended, seventy years later, Titus, a
Roman general, came into Jerusalem and tore down the walls and burnt
down the city and took them captive again, and destroyed and slaughtered
the Jews just like this slaughter. It was awful what they did. Now,
the Lord said, Oh, Jerusalem, you're going to be left desolate.
And that's why, you know, now I want you to see how so much
of our Lord Jesus Christ and His pictures of Him is in this
book of Lamentations. Look with me over in verse 12.
I've never preached from this verse. I've heard it preached
from many times, but I've never, well, not many times, a couple
of times, but I've never preached from it. And this, when you read
this verse, it can't be applied to anybody but Christ. Is it
nothing to you, all you that pass by, Behold, and see if there
be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith
the Lord, the Lord Jehovah, hath afflicted me in the day of his
fierce anger." Who else could that refer to than other than
the Lord Jesus? Who else could that refer to
than Christ on the cross? Who else could that refer to
than our Lord Jesus Christ when He is bearing our sins in His
own body on the tree? Who else could that refer to
when He said, look, anybody see my sorrow? You're passing by. You see my
sorrow? What are you doing there with
all that sorrow? This is the Lord's anger. His fierce wrath
is poured out on me. Christ, He's crying out. The
fierce anger of crying God is poured out on me. He's afflicted
me in the day of His fierce anger. Oh, listen, nobody else could
possibly see that verse as anything but Christ. Look over here in
chapter 2, in verse 15 and 16. All these words describe Jerusalem
and their great affliction, but it's also typical of our Lord's
afflictions. Chapter 2 and verse 15. All that pass by clap their hands
at thee. They hiss and wag their heads
at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that
men call the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth? I
said, Oh, this is what it's supposed to be, perfection of beauty.
He said, All your enemies have opened their mouth against thee,
they hissed and gnashed thy teeth. They say, We have swallowed her
up. Certainly this is the day that we have looked for, we have
found it, we have seen it. Now this is what people are saying
about Jerusalem and how her great fall is and how her enemies did.
But this can also refer to our Lord Jesus Christ. When they
all had passed by, they hissed at Him, they mocked Him, they
derided Him, wagging their heads at Him. and mocking him and wagging
their heads and just carrying on a sight before him. And then
look in verse 8 here of chapter 3, another picture, another verse
that can be referred to as our blessed Savior. Verse 8, Also
when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer. My God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? My God, my God, he has shut out
my prayer. I cry and I shout, he shut out
my prayer. My God, my God, why have you
forsaken me? And there he endured the wrath
of God, crying out to God, and God wouldn't hear him. God wouldn't
pay any attention to him. God wouldn't listen to him. He
shut off his prayer. And that's a horrible experience
for any of us to have to go through. But boy, for our Lord Jesus Christ,
a sinless man to go through it. And then look what it says in
verse 15 here, chapter 3. He hath filled me with bitterness.
He hath made me drunken with wormwood. Of course, Jeremiah's
talking about himself, but it's also about Christ. And then he
says down in verse 19, Remembering my affliction and my misery,
the wormwood and the gall. Oh, let's compare that. Compare
these verses with Psalm 69. They gave me also gall from my
meat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. Fill me
with gall. Fill me with bitterness. And
oh beloved, there in verse 30, look what it says about our Savior. He giveth his cheek to him that
smiteth him. He is filled with reproach."
Oh, my. Filled with reproach. Reproach
hath broken my heart, our Lord said, and I am full of heaviness. And I looked for some to take
pity, but there was none for comforters, but I didn't find
any. And then he says, I gave my back to the smiters, and my
cheeks to them that plucked off the hair. I hid not my face from
shame and spit." This is talking about when our Lord Jesus Christ
was with those men that beat Him and that mangled Him and
slapped Him and pulled off His beard and spit in His face, made
fun of Him and mocked Him. But all of that was because He
was bearing our sins. He was made a curse for us to
redeem us from the curse of the law. He was made for us what
we were in order for us to be made what He is. No wonder. Isaiah
cried out, he's a man acquainted with grief, a man of sorrows,
and every day of his life was a day of sorrow when he became
a man, and all the grief that he was acquainted with. What
grief did our Lord Jesus have when Simon Peter denied Him?
What grief did He have when those called Him a blind bimber? What grief did He have when they
said He had the devil? What kind of grief did He have
when He had talked to His disciples and they just didn't get it?
What kind of grief did he have? And oh, beloved, and I tell you,
if you'll carefully read these chapters, you'll see that Jeremiah
assumed the sins of the people as his own sins and God's judgment
as that which had fallen upon him, himself. And that's what
really happened to our Lord Jesus Christ. He bore our sins. He was our substitute in our
room instead. And oh, let me show you judgment.
Let's go back over in chapter one and go through here and show
you some judgment. We'll go through five chapters
and just use a very, very... Chapter one, God's judgment is
failed. God's judgment over and over
and over. Jeremiah said, God said, He told
him time and again, time and again, return unto me, return
unto me, return unto me. I don't want to judge you. That's
my strange work. I don't want to judge you. I
don't want to punish you. Just return unto me. Return unto me. Throw those idols
away. Repent and return unto me. That's
all I want you to do. Come back to me. Come to me.
Leave your idols off. Why do you want a sister that
won't hold water when you've got the fountain of living water?
Why do you want a statue when you've got the true and the living
God? Why do you want to offer incense
to a strange being that you can't see, and worship a strange God,
and here I am, I'm the living God, and all I want is you to
turn to me and to worship? And they wouldn't do it. And I'll tell you what, and this
judgment fell upon men because of their own willful rebellion
and sin. God said, I rose up early. I couldn't tell you how
many times in Jeremiah He said, He rose up early. Sending my
prophets early. I rose up early and sent my prophets.
And you just wouldn't listen. You just wouldn't listen. And
you wouldn't listen. Now the judgment's coming. And
men, I'll tell you, this is the thing about it, everybody who
will be judged of God will be judged of God and perish because
of their own willful rebellion and sin. They've been told, they
can read the Scriptures, they can find for themselves, and
men, if they perish, it'll be their fault. Then if they're
saved, it'll be God's fault. And I tell you what, for everyone
who God has shown mercy to, every one of us who God has shown mercy
to, Every single one of us would acknowledge that God is righteous
in His judgments, and He's right and just in anything He does
to anybody at any given time in this world. Would you not
agree with that? Now, chapter 1, Jeremiah's talking
as a woman that's lost her husband and children. She's sad. She's
identifying herself with the people, their sins, and their
judgment. Look what he says in verse 18. No, the Lord is righteous. He's
righteous. And that's what you'll say if
you're ever convicted of sin. If you're ever convicted of your
sin, if you ever know your sin, if you ever know that you've
been convicted of the things that you do, and God makes you
understand that you've rebelled against Him and His commandment,
you'll say, the Lord is righteous. Here I pray you all people, and
behold my sorrow. Jeremiah is identifying with
them. My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity. And then Jeremiah chapter 2,
he describes Jerusalem's ruin. What an awful ruin that Jerusalem
is left in. This glorious city with all the
gates, with all the pools, with the temple in it and all the
worship. and all the things that's in Jerusalem. And here he says
48 times in these 22 verses, he declares that what Judas suffered
was God's work. That God brought this affliction
upon him. And look what he says there in
verse 1. How hath the Lord covered the
daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, And cast down from heaven unto
the earth the beauty of Israel, remember not his footstool in
the day of his anger. The Lord hath swallowed up the
habitations of Jacob, and hath not pity. He hath thrown down
in the wrath of his strong daughters of Judah." And oh, he describes
God's, everything that Judah suffered and Jesus suffered,
it was because God brought the judgment on them. And then in
chapter 3, Jeremiah shows us 32 times that
this judgment is from God Himself. God Himself. You go down through
there and you see, He hath led me. The Lord hath turned His
hand against me. My flesh and my skin, He hath
broken my bones. He hath enclosed my ways. He
hath hedged me about. He hath set me in dark places.
He was unto me as a bear, and a lion in the way. He hath turned
aside my ways. He bendeth his bow. He calls
the arrows of the quiver. He did it. He did it. And Jeremiah's
identifying with it. But in his misery here, he shows
what confidence he has in God. Look what he says in verse 33,
chapter 3. He still has confidence in God.
For he doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men." God don't do this because He
enjoys it. God don't do this because He
gets great pleasure out of it. The psalmist says, you know,
that anger is a strange work. Anger is a strange work. Then
look over in chapter 4. Jeremiah again shows the judgment
of God in verse 11. The Lord hath accomplished his
fury. The Lord hath accomplished his
fury. He hath poured out his fierce
anger, and hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured
the foundations thereof. So that starts all over. Now
in chapter 5, here's a prayer of repentance. Here's a prayer
of sorrow. And here, the people are calling,
and this is what's going on in their hearts, and this is a prayer
of repentance. And this is what happens to men
and women when God brings them under conviction and brings them
to Himself. And they said, Remember, O Lord,
what's come upon us, and consider And behold our reproach. Remember,
O Lord, what's come upon us. Consider. And behold our reproach. Our inheritance is turned to
strangers, and our houses to aliens. We are orphans and fatherless. Our mothers are as widows. Oh,
my. And look down in verse 15. The joy of our heart is ceased. Our dance is turned into mourning. The crown is fallen from our
head. Woe unto us that we have sinned. For this our heart is faint.
For these things our eyes are dim. Oh, they're pouring their
hearts out before God. Look down at verse 21. Turn thou
us unto thee, O Lord. Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord,
and we shall be turned. Renew our days as of old. Take
us back like we were. But thou hast utterly rejected
us. Thou art very wrong against us.
And oh beloved, let me give you one thing here in closing. I
can show you just this much. I've got a couple of things to
show you, but look at the message here in chapter 3. Here we have
a message of hope. God speaking to His people, the
people of His covenant, we have a hope here. Look what He says
in verse 21. What a hope. He gives us a hope.
This message in chapter 3. This I recall to mind, therefore
have I hope. It is of the Lord's mercies that
we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They
are new every morning, great is Thy faithfulness. 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. And oh, look what God's counsel
is for us in verse 26. This is what God says about it. It's good that a man should both
hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. Whatever's
going on, He still is good that a man should both hope and quietly
wait for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man that
he bear the yoke in his youth. He setteth alone and keepeth
silence, because he hath borne it upon him. He putteth his mouth
into dust, if so be that may be hope. He ain't going to charge
God with foolishness. And he'll give his cheek to him
despite of him, even though he's filled with reproach. And then
look at what God says about it. He gives an explanation of what
he's doing. Verse 31. For the Lord will not
cast off forever. He won't cast off forever. Lord, is your mercy clean gone,
David asked. For though he caused grief, and
that, this and that, though he caused grief, Yet will he have
compassion according to the multitude of his mercies. For he doeth
not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men." Oh my! Faith in Christ, that's what
we've got to have, no matter what happens to us in this world,
what goes on in this world. And I tell you this, I bless
his name, and then look what he says. He says, you know, that
he has compassion. Verse 32, look what he says,
that though he cause grief, yet he will have compassion. The
one who wounds us also is the only one that can heal us. The
one who makes us to feel and know our ruins is the only one
who can make us to know our remedy in the Lord Jesus Christ. And
compassion, compassion means that you're in sympathy with
the sufferings and sorrows of others. It's being a companion
with sorrow, with suffers and mourning. And this is the work
of God towards His people. You know what moves God's compassion
towards us? His own purpose and grace, given
us in Christ before the foundation of the world. And let me show
you one last thing. Again, there in verse 32. Though
He caused the grief, yet He'll have compassion. according to
the multitude of His mercies. Though He caused grief, yet misery of sin will always come
before mercy. But whatever is going on in our
lives, we can say, O Lord, He'll re-heal our compassion for the
multitude of His mercies. You remember when the Lord Jesus
Christ of multitudes followed Him twice, And the Scripture
said he was moved with compassion toward them. Moved with compassion toward
them because they were sheep without a shepherd. Moved with
them. Saw their sorrow, saw their hunger,
saw their need, and he met them. And I tell you, God's mercies
are all in his Son, all in our Lord Jesus Christ. And I'm certainly
grateful. That God delights to show mercy,
and not only does He have it, but He says they're new every
morning. They're new every morning. You get up tomorrow morning,
you've got mercies for that day. And you'll need them. You'll
need them. I'll need them. I'll need them. When you get
up tomorrow, you'll have new mercies.