Prevention and Condemnation

Suffering is inevitable. We think obedience is too much of a hardship. We don’t want to obey, and we resent God for asking us to do so. Following God is not easy, but the price of obedience is a bargain compared to the price of rebellion. Prevention costs less than destruction. Avoiding sin costs less than repenting of sin.

Then, tragically, we see the result for those who will not put on the yoke of obedience: they are forced to suffer under the yoke of their sins, by which they are broken and defeated (v. 14). Zedekiah was asked to put his neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon. He refused. In chapter 3 Jeremiah will counsel us that it is good for a young man to bear his yoke in his youth. The yoke in both cases relates to discipline. To bear the yoke means to absorb the wrath that was intended. Yet notice how it is developed here. The yoke represents the sins of the nation. In this case it seems that God does not reverse the natural consequences for sin.

As in the story of Kevin Hines above, God did not immediately reverse the consequences of their sin. This was something they had to live with.

As we think about this in a new covenant context, we are reminded that we serve a God who will never leave us or forsake us. He gives us all the grace we need to face the challenges of this life and to overcome condemnation in the next life. Upon our salvation, he reverses the eternal consequences of our sin. Yet we must be careful to remind ourselves that God does not always reverse the temporal consequences of sin. Addictions must be fought with tenacity, relationships must be restored, and debts repaid. For the repentant God reverses the eternal consequences of sin, but he does not always reverse the temporal consequences of sin. For Judah, the consequences of sin become her yoke.

Lamentations 1:15-22

The reason they are in this position is no mystery. This is God’s doing. While this theme is more fully developed in the following chapters, the people of Judah are in this position because of their own sin. Considering Jerusalem, Jeremiah writes that she will be crushed and trampled, her children will be desolate in defeat, and there will be no one to comfort her despite her pleas because God has turned against her (vv. 15-17).

As difficult as this is to read, we are reminded that Judah was warned on many occasions that it did not have to be this way. The presence of the prophet is the witness that it did not. They could have turned from sin and come back to God.

God is just because that has always been his essential nature. He is always consistent with his nature. Even though we might project him with a light, frothy attitude toward sin, we cannot change his character. He is against sin; he reacts against sin because that’s who he is. Nothing about his character has changed since Jeremiah wrote these devastating words about the lonely city that sits on the hill.

The idea is clear: sin brings ruin. Sin ruins individuals; sin ruins families; sin ruins churches; sin ruins cities. The weight of destruction is heavier still in light of the warnings: the prophets, the metaphors, the miracles. All the things God did in the past to prevent this from happening are now clear.

Suffering brings clarity. It always does. The right thing to see when we suffer is that we have a pure heart like that of Job, of whom it was said that in all of his suffering he did not sin (Job 1:22). After all, what value is there when we suffer for our own wrongdoing? “For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil” (1 Pet 3:17).

Since all Scripture is given for our benefit (1 Tim 3:17), we have to ask what the benefit is of reading of the destruction of Jerusalem. Well, perhaps the reader should be warned. A nation disobeyed God after several warnings. God punished them.

God allows suffering as corrective discipline. However, this does not mean all suffering is corrective. Discipline, and sometimes suffering, can also be instructive. The question that inevitably surfaces is, Which is it? Is this trial a result of my disobedience or simply God’s instruction to me? The question is not answerable. The answer, simply put, is that it’s possible we will never know in this life. However, that does not matter. Our success in the trial is not dependent on our knowing what is going on behind the veil. The response is the same: we repent of sin and trust him. We trust him with our trials, and we hate the sin that brings ruin.