When you scroll through the news feed on your computer or turn on your television to listen to the commentators, it's really difficult to discern what's true and what's hyperbole.
But in either case, it takes deliberate effort to guard yourself from discouragement. These are dark days. Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll invites us to follow along as he traces the history of Israel in the book of Lamentations, Jeremiah's Journal of Woes. He finds a helpful connection between Israel's plight and our own.
Chuck titled today's message, Ugly Scenes of Utter Humiliation. Turn please in your Bibles to Lamentations, chapter 4. It's interesting, before we began this series, it was difficult for some of you to find the book of Lamentations. Now, your Bible automatically sort of opens there, doesn't it?
After you've been there for a while, it feels right at home to us. These are the writings of a prophet who is brokenhearted, commonly called the weeping prophet, because the very warnings he spent his years declaring came to pass. And he watched his beloved Jerusalem invaded by the Babylonians, the people marched off into exile, and the remains were dreadful to behold. The city lay in ruins, the over four centuries old temple destroyed in rubble, and he's walking through the ruins as he writes in his Journal of Woe in what is known to us today as the Lamentations. I know that some of you are probably getting a little weary of the same message. Well, you'll be happy to know Lamentations only has five chapters, and they all sound a whole lot alike. Chapter 4 sounds a whole lot like chapter 1.
The difference is those who are speaking and what they represent. I'm reading from the New Living Translation as we read of the destruction of the city and the response of this brokenhearted prophet. Lamentations 4, verse 1, how the gold has lost its luster. Even the finest gold has become dull.
The sacred gemstones lie scattered in the street. See how the precious children of Jerusalem, worth their weight in fine gold, are now treated like pots of clay made by a common potter. Even the jackals feed their young, but not my people Israel.
They ignore their children's cries. Verse 5, the people who once ate richest foods now beg in the streets for anything they can get. Those who once wore the finest clothes now search the garbage dumps for food. The guilt of my people is greater than that of Sodom, where utter disaster struck in a moment, and no hand offered help. Verse 12, not a king in all the earth, no one in all the world would have believed that an enemy could march through the gates of Jerusalem. Yet it happened because of the sins of her prophets and the sins of her priests, who defiled the city by shedding innocent blood. They wandered blindly through the streets, so defiled by blood that no one dared touch them. Get away, the people shouted at them.
You're defiled. Don't touch us. Verse 19, our enemies were swifter than eagles in flight. If we fled to the mountains, they found us. If we hid in the wilderness, they were waiting for us there. Our king, the Lord's anointed, the very life of our nation was caught in their snares.
We had thought that his shadow would protect us against any nation on earth. And finally, a brief word of encouragement in verse 22, O beautiful Jerusalem, your punishment will end. You will soon return from exile. Serious words, not only for those times, but by analogy for our times as well. You're listening to Insight for Living.
To search the scriptures with Chuck Swindoll, be sure to download his Searching the Scriptures Studies by going to insightworld.org slash studies. And now the message titled Ugly Scenes of Utter Humiliation. The role of a prophet was a tough job.
No one would enter it on his own. And certainly in the midst of the calling, there must have been times when every prophet wondered, am I going to make it or am I going to meet an early ending? Because there were so few who ever, ever appreciated them. I remember years ago, we used to have a saying when things were really, really tough. Cheer up, things could be worse. So I cheered up and things got worse.
I think that must have been said to Jeremiah on occasion. Hey man, you just sort of caught in a rut. Your words seem to be the same over and over and over again. I mean, can't you bring us a word of encouragement? The fact is, no. I can't and I won't.
Because you're so far off the mark, how could I possibly bring a word of encouragement, lest you take it and think that you're on your way in the right direction? By the way, this is a good time for me to clarify something about the great prophets. They are divided into three groups, and it revolves around the exile.
We've talked a lot about the Babylonian exile, when the people were taken into the country of Babylon, where they would live for an extended period of time as punishment for their life and lifestyle prior to the exile. There were some prophets who wrote before the exile. They're called the pre-exilic prophets.
There were some who wrote during the exile. They're called the exilic prophets, and then those afterward, obviously, the post-exilic prophets. Jeremiah wrote as a pre-exilic and also exilic, because once the city fell, he lived for a while longer in the city itself, which is how we've gotten this book of Lamentations. But I want to take a glance with you at one of the exilic prophets. It's the very next book, the book of Ezekiel.
I'd like you to turn to chapter 33, and I'm doing this for a reason so that you might understand. Jeremiah was not alone in his calling. Every prophet experienced similar things. As I say, it was a tough job, and when they went about doing it, they had no question but that they were called to it. It wasn't something they sort of flipped a coin and thought, that might make a nice career. It didn't happen like that.
They were definitely called. And there were times that the Lord spoke directly to the prophets, sometimes just to keep them on their feet or maybe to warn them ahead of time what they could expect. As in the case of Ezekiel, here in chapter 33, and I'm looking at verse 30 and beyond, as a perfect example of what prophets would often hear from the Lord, here Ezekiel is called Son of Man. Please notice what the Lord says to this post-exilic prophet Ezekiel. Son of Man, your people talk about you in their houses and whisper about you at the doors.
They say to each other, come on, let's go hear the prophet tell us what the Lord is saying. So, my people come pretending to be sincere and sit before you. They listen to your words, but they have no intention of doing what you say. Their mouths are full of lustful words and their hearts seek only after money.
Now look closely. You are very entertaining to them. Interesting word. You're like an entertainer, very entertaining to them, like someone who sings love songs with a beautiful voice or plays fine music on an instrument.
They hear what you say, but they don't act on it. When all these terrible things happen to them, as they certainly will, then they will know a prophet has been among them. I want to pause there and just let out the word, wow.
Wow. You know Ezekiel, they're going to come. You may have a gathering pretty full of people, and they're going to look so interested, and they will have told their friends, you need to come hear this man. Maybe they liked his diction. Maybe they enjoyed the breadth of his vocabulary.
Maybe the turn of a phrase. Maybe Ezekiel had a way of saying things that was unique. Preachers sometimes do. Let's go hear what he has to say today, but don't let the size of the group fool you.
They have no plans to do what you're saying. You see, the goal of truth is action. The purpose of hearing what God is saying is to do it. I was just reading this morning with Cynthia out of the book of Deuteronomy chapters six and seven. She was such a good listener, and I appreciate it, and I like to talk.
I'm reading, and several times we found in Deuteronomy six and seven the importance of doing what the Lord said. Do it. Do it. It's a good time to give a word for the Nike ads. Just do it.
Just do it. Except it has nothing to do with athletics. It has everything to do with the hardest thing on earth, and that's living the truth. Especially when we are surrounded by those who don't want to hear it.
They have no plans of doing it. I wonder at times if Jeremiah didn't really lose heart. When you're a prophet and you are forever carrying out what you're called to do, it's a rough road.
I made a quick list. He was misunderstood by his own family and friends, so they wrote him off. He was opposed by other prophets and priests who were false prophets and false priests. He was mistreated and persecuted by the citizens of the city where he lived.
Kings and princes as well. He was mocked and shunned by those who took time to listen for a while and then turned their back on him and laughed at him. He was tormented by thoughts of being abandoned and forgotten by God.
He was haunted by his own warnings. And on top of everything, behold, the Babylonians came in just like Jeremiah said they would. In fact, we just read about it here in this fourth chapter where verse 12 tells us, Now the king in all the earth, no one in all the world would have believed that an enemy could march through the gates of Jerusalem. Right through the gates. Chuck Colson and I used to talk about things like this back in the heyday of his ministry.
And I would say to him, a fellow Marine, how did it happen so often? What was it about these great cities that were so well protected? He said, oh, you've got to realize, Chuck, that they got in by getting through the gates. They couldn't necessarily scale the wall or tear it down. But when you get a weak gatekeeper, you get in.
It's part of the way they got into Jerusalem. By the way, that's what we are as people of God. We're gatekeepers. We'll never be in the majority.
Don't wait for that. The remnant is always in a minority. And we who believe the truth, and I don't say that at all out of arrogance, I say it humbly and gratefully, we who have been granted an insight into the truth are gatekeepers. We watch the gates.
We declare the truth. Ideally, we model it. We convince our children and our grandchildren of the importance of it. Or at least we tell them about it again and again. We let other people know that this is significant, this is powerful. And we understand that even though we do that, it may not go well with us.
We don't have the promise of an easy life or popularity. I was reading this past week out of G. Frederick Owen's marvelous overview of history, which he titles Abraham to the Middle East Crisis. And I went to that little section that he gives to the days of Jeremiah, and I found his words insightful.
The end of G. Frederick Owen. Jeremiah was conscious of a divine destiny, though he wept as he preached. Some mocked, others laughed at his warnings and told him he was causing undue excitement. Priests derided him. Patriots denounced him.
Mobs reviled him. He was publicly struck, did you know that? Struck by a temple false priest, and later was put into stocks so he could be taunted by the passing crowds.
Did you know that? Jeremiah was put in stocks for telling the truth. And the crowds passed and taunted him. Nobles were so enraged at him they arrested him for sedition and had him mercilessly scourged. They threw him into prison and later cast him into a deep dungeon.
It was called in that day a cistern, which is a man-made large well made to hold water, but this one is without water, and the bottom of this cistern was thick mire, mud, like sinking sand. He would have drowned in that mud and mire if it hadn't been for the concern of one individual who pulled him out of it, which was designed to be a slow and torturous death. Finally, he was rewarded with a martyr's death.
Did you know that? The writer to the Hebrews says, What more can I say for the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah and David also and Samuel and the prophets, who through faith subdued kingdoms and worked righteousness and stopped the mouths of lions and quenched the violence of fire. Out of weakness were made strong, they waxed valiant in fight. They turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life and others were sawn in two. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, living in caves and dens of the earth, being destitute, afflicted, tormented. These were people of whom the world was not worthy. Hebrews 11 32 through 37. So what can we expect?
Nothing better. It's easy to be spoiled in this wonderful country of ours until we happen upon the times in which we live and suddenly we realize just how vulnerable we are. We've come to the day in which many circles in our country where the gold has lost its luster. Verse one, and the finest gold has become dull.
You know what that's describing? Those that have great bank accounts, but an enemy has stolen it all. What good is a great bank account if you're not the owner of it anymore? What good is a great bank if it's been invaded by an enemy? The gold loses its luster.
That's what it's writing about. And there was once a time when the Temple of Solomon was marked by these beautiful gemstones, rare, and some of them virtually priceless. Now look at the gemstones.
End of verse one. They're sacred gemstones, but they now lie scattered in the streets. But it isn't the gold and the gemstones that concern the prophet the most. It's the children. See how the precious children of Jerusalem, worth their weight in gold, are now treated like pots of clay by a common potter.
You can always tell a lot about a nation by the way it treats its children. It stops training them well. It stops teaching them virtue. It allows them to run free and wild.
To make up their own mind about life. He says even jackals feed their young, but not my people Israel. We don't feed our young.
Look at it. They ignore their children's cries like ostriches in the desert. Ostriches are among the few animals that mistreat the eggs and even those newborns. They treat them with brutality and abuse. It compares the people of Jerusalem with the ostrich.
The parched tongue of their little ones stick to the roof of their mouths in thirst. The children cry for bread, but no one has any bread to give them. The people who once ate their richest foods now beg in the streets for anything they can get. Those who once wore the finest of clothing now search the garbage dumps for food.
Listen to this. This is Jerusalem. This is Jerusalem. The pride of the Jews. The place of honor. The star of David flew over this city.
Not now. It doesn't even look like Jerusalem. This is what he saw there.
He saw the results of people that released controls. Anarchy right here in the city that was once the jewel of the Jews. And he walks in the midst of it. Never doubted without protection no city is safe.
Without providing for the protection there is no way to sleep comfortably through the night. This is Insight for Living. Chuck Swindoll is teaching from Lamentations Chapter 4, referring to the condition of Jeremiah's beloved city of Jerusalem. Chuck titled today's message, Ugly Scenes of Utter Humiliation. To learn more about this ministry, be sure to visit us online at insightworld.org. It's painfully obvious to see the connection between Jeremiah's sadness and our own.
These days, bad news seems to be the only news we hear. But the good news is that God remains in control no matter how chaotic the situation appears. Paul, who was certain of God's sovereignty, wrote a letter while under house arrest. And today, Philippians is recognized by biblical scholars as a model for joy. Chuck wrote a book on Paul's letter. It's a classic and called Laugh Again. If it's a smile you need today, we highly recommend that you study Philippians with Chuck.
To purchase a copy of Laugh Again, go to insight.org slash offer. Or call us right now. If you're listening in the United States, dial 1-800-772-8888. And then as you have some extra leisure time, please take a few moments to reflect on the value of Chuck's Bible teaching in your life. As you do, I'll remind you that your voluntary donations are critically important as we navigate what's become a very challenging season for nonprofit ministries like Insight for Living.
Please follow God's prompting and give whatever amount He leads you to give. You can do that right now by calling us. If you're listening in the United States, dial 1-800-772-8888 or by going to insight.org. On Sunday, remember you can join the online worship service at Stonebriar Community Church. Just log on to your Facebook account and search for Pastor Chuck Swindoll. You'll find a link to our live feed there or stream the service directly from our website by going to insight.org slash Sundays. Join us again when Chuck Swindoll's study in the book of Lamentations continues. That's Monday on Insight for Living.
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