Jeremiah's Mournful Swan Song, Part 1

No doubt the year 2020 will go down in history as one of the most grueling time periods on record. The convergence of tragic events has commanded our complete attention, while most of them fall completely out of our control. Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll begins his final message in our study in Lamentations. Once again, we'll see the obvious correlation between Jeremiah's sadness and our own. He was entirely defeated by the violent Babylonian invasion that destroyed the city of Jerusalem.

Chuck titled his last message in the series Jeremiah's Mournful Swan Song. Staring at a devastation following a terrible calamity is a dreadful experience. If you've ever lost your home to a fire or tornado or hurricane and then come back in a few days to see what remains, you understand devastation. If you've ever been through a flood that swept a community and maybe even taken buildings as well as residential areas and then returned after you were allowed to come back to what was once your residential area, and you look over the devastation of what was once your home and your neighborhood, you understand what a dreadful experience it is. And I certainly could mention 9-11-2001, whether it's Manhattan in New York or the Pentagon on the west side, or that idyllic area of just a simple little meadow in western Pennsylvania, where those four planes were were sent on missions of destruction, designed to take the life and injure thousands of people deliberately. And we've all visited, by way of television, the scenes in the business center of the Twin Towers, or that enormous tear in the side of the Pentagon, or that dreadful hole in the ground from the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania.

We all are familiar with the devastation. You're without words, as a matter of fact. Sometimes you're choking back tears.

There really aren't words to say as you are looking at something you never dreamed would occur. That is exactly, exactly the emotion of Jeremiah all the way through this five-chapter book of Lamentations. That's why the book bears the name. These are the lamentations of a man acquainted with grief. To make things even more painful, he had spent four decades of his life declaring to the people of Jerusalem to turn back to God, to leave the error of their ways, to push aside the idols they had begun to worship, to realize how far removed they were from the one who had set before them his commandments, his way of life, his promise of blessing and fulfillment as a result of living righteously. But because of their refusal to hear and heed his warnings, he wrote his Journal of Wolves.

I've called it Jeremiah's Journal of Wolves. He didn't just splash words on pages in a journal. He very meticulously wrote poetry. Four of the five chapters are elaborate poems put together in a unique acrostic manner in the Hebrew language, where each verse begins with a successive letter in the alphabet until you go from the first letter to the last, which explains why the first and second and fourth chapters have 22 verses.

There are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet. It's designed for the younger generation to memorize it, and this would be a memory aid so that they would never forget what he saw and wrote about. Even the third chapter is an elaborate acrostic poem with three verses each beginning with those successive letters in the Hebrew alphabet. Now, when we get to the fifth chapter of Lamentations, it isn't poetry any longer.

It isn't an acrostic, but it certainly isn't a randomly thrown-together conclusion to his journal. This is a prayer. This is a very intense prayer.

Now, how do I know that? If you've got your Bible open to Lamentations 5, you will observe right away the mention of the Lord in verse 1. When you read that, you know that he is addressing the Lord. It's a prayer in written form. Turn ahead to verse 19. Again, but Lord, you remain the same forever, still praying. Verse 21, restore us, O Lord, and bring us back to you again.

It's a prayer, start to finish, offered to God, to the Lord God, as he pours out his heart, completing all the things he has been dealing with. He's been walking through the remains of Jerusalem after it has been invaded by the Babylonians. They've taken over the homes. They've ruined the economy of the city.

They've moved in like a mob as they have taken out of the city the best, the healthiest, those that had the most promise for the future. Maybe because Jeremiah is getting up in years, he was left. He certainly was among the great ones in the city of Jerusalem.

We're grateful he was left. He could write this book as a reminder to all of us. By the way, while I'm noting that, I want you to notice how the prayer is divided into two parts. Look at your Bible. The first 18 verses would be what I will call the us and we and our section. In these verses, Jeremiah is writing about what we have experienced, what has happened to us in our city. So it's a horizontal dimension as he rehearses before the Lord the things he was seeing that broke his heart. But when you get to verse 19, you'll notice it changes the pronoun from us and we and our to what?

You. But Lord, you remain forever. Your throne continues from generation. So the end of the prayer is vertical. It's directed to the Lord.

Now, how did I come up with that? I like at times to pause and help you know how to draw truth from the scripture on your own. Well, let me say without hesitation, you do not need a seminary education to make observations in your Bible. All you need to do is be able to read, and you all are literate. You're all able to read.

It's in our language. So by repeatedly reading the scriptures, which I've done and you can do, you begin to see things and how they fit together. You observe them. Notice the Lord, the Lord. So it's a prayer.

You realize that. And when you see the change in pronouns, you know this has to do with us and we and our. The other has to do with the Lord. You make note of that as you are reading through it. The first part of the prayer is a prayer of remembrance. And he's saying, Lord, remember.

Now, let me step in one further time, and then we'll get into it. Obviously, the Lord remembers. But this is a prayer. So I want to suggest that we not fall into the trap of super analyzing a prayer. When you're praying in a group, you don't do that. You don't listen for the right parts of speech. You don't listen to make sure the subject fits the predicate in the sentence that's being uttered.

Of course not. That'll ruin your time in prayer. You enter into the prayer with the individual. I think it is easy to verbally eviscerate prayers in the Bible. We mean well because we want to analyze what the verses are saying, but you need to leave room for the fact that it's a prayer, which gives him the freedom to say, Lord, remember. In other words, let's not ever forget this. It's what you would say if you were walking through the ruins of what was once your home. You would say, Oh, Lord, may we never forget this experience. May this remind us over and over to hold everything loosely. Bring that to our attention. And by the way, when I read my Bible, and I suggest this for you when you read yours, put yourself in the place of a writer.

That's one of the most helpful insights you will ever hear. Identify with Jeremiah. Now, in his case, his city was Jerusalem, but that's not our case. We're not in Jerusalem. We're in this city. So when I read my Bible and I'm thinking about the application of a city, I'm thinking about my city, the city of the nation of which I'm a part. I think of Seattle. I think of Baltimore. I think of Boise, Idaho. I think of Oklahoma City in Los Angeles. I think of Miami and in Charlotte.

And I go up the coast. I think of Washington, DC. I think of Boston. I think of New York, of course, largest of our cities. And when I say that, of course, I immediately have rehearsed a number of cities that have been in the news. And we've all seen the devastation in some of them.

Heartbreaking. So that's how the scriptures come alive for us. God has given us his word not just to satisfy idle curiosity. He's given us his word to give us insight into our lives. In fact, to transform us, to be more like him, to see life as he sees it. So when Jeremiah names these things, think about the things we're going through as a nation and let these things speak to you about that.

The first part of the prayer will name a number of things that will sound familiar. Look with me. Lord, remember what has happened to us. See how we have been disgraced. Does that sound familiar?

Is there some application there? Of course there is. Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our homes, to foreigners. And now it gets down to the details of what he's gone through. We're orphaned and fatherless. Our mothers are widowed. We have to pay for water to drink and the wood that keeps us warm. We have to buy our firewood.

We used to have it free because we were the ones who control this area. But now that the enemy has come, we're no longer able to do that. He's pouring out his heart as he names these things that are heartbreaking to him. Those who pursue us are at our heels and they exhaust us. Look at verse 9. We hunt for food at the risk of our lives. Violence rules the countryside.

The famine has blackened our skin as though baked in an oven. Our enemies rape the women in Jerusalem, the young girls in the towns of Judah as well. Princes are hanged by their thumbs and our elders are treated with contempt. What you may not know is that in those days those who led the city sat at the gate of the city and they were the elders. They brought wise administration. They brought wisdom to the city.

And people in the city would get the counsel of the elders who gave leadership and guidance to the city. But that's gone. Now that the Babylonians have moved in and taken over, we don't have the blessing of elders. Lord, remember us as we are in need of wisdom and protection. Our walls are down, our gates are broken, and the enemy has invaded.

And it's a dreadful setting. Now to make matters very painful, look at verse 16 or 15 along with it. Joy has left our hearts. Our dancing has turned to mourning. The garlands have fallen from our heads. Weep for us because we have sinned.

Look at the last three words, at least in this version. We have sinned. One of the great marks of maturity is taking responsibility for one's own situation. A great day happens in our growing up years when we stop blaming others for wrongs in our lives.

It's called becoming mature, becoming responsible. Jeremiah says to the Lord, weep with us. Again, it's a prayer.

Give him the freedom to express it as in a prayer. Lord, as we weep, weep with us. Feel this that we're going through because we are the ones that worship titles. We are the ones who left your commandments.

We are the ones who went our own way and ignored the words of the prophets and the priests when they were telling us the truth. It's a dreadful, empty existence. What is gone now? The glory and majesty are gone. Call the garlands.

Verse 16. All of that is now a distant memory. The joy of life is gone. The dignity of national pride has left.

The music and the dancing are over. By the way, in all of your watching of the news, how much laughter have you seen? How much music have you heard? None. None.

It's gone. Desolation brings a grim veil of doom over the existence of people going through it. That's what he's going through. And his heart breaks and he weeps, yet he takes responsibility for the people and saying, we're getting exactly what we deserve. A nation can continue in a wrong direction only so long before the garlands begin to fall, before the dignity of the people departs, before the music stops, and the laughter ends. I'm not pessimistic.

I'm simply being realistic. These are the words of a brokenhearted prophet pouring out his soul to God. I'm glad they're preserved for us in the Book of Lamentations. Now, I love it when we get to verse 19.

The direction changes from the horizontal to the vertical. He says, but Lord, you remain the same forever. This is the ground of his appeal. Theologians call this the immutability of God. The immutability.

He is the same forever. Listen to a few words from A. W. Tozer on that theological subject. Tozer writes, to say that God is immutable is to say that he never differs from himself.

The concept of a growing or developing God is not found in the scriptures. All that God is he has always been, and all that he has been and is he will ever be. The immutability of God appears in its most perfect beauty when we view it against the mutability of mankind. He goes on, in God no change is possible. In humanity, change is impossible to escape. Neither the human is fixed nor is his world, but he and it are in constant flux. In this world where people forget us, change their attitude toward us, as their private interests dictate and revise their opinions of us for the slightest cause, is it not a source of wondrous strength to know that the God with whom we have to do changes not?

Jeremiah is looking at a city that is totally different from the way it used to look. When he looks up, he looks into the face of a God who never changes. His grace is no less. His mercy is as fresh as the morning sunrise, he reminds us in the third chapter. When he returns to the Lord in his prayer and says, but the Lord, you Lord, remain the same, your throne continues from generation to generation.

Isn't that fabulous? The same God that my mother and dad worshiped in their era is the same one I worship and the same ones our grandchildren and great-grandchildren worship. He's not changed, though the times along the way in our human circumstances are all altered. But the Lord does not change.

He remains the same. And at the end of this chapter, I love it that the prophet doesn't stutter or mutter. He says to the Lord in verse 21, restore us, O Lord, and bring us back to you again. Give us back the joys we once had. He's missing the laughter, the music, the beauty, the dignity, the pride of Jerusalem. Bring it back, Lord. And then he ends on a sad note, or have you utterly rejected us?

Are you angry with us still? Charles Ryrie in his study Bible has a footnote that adds this thought. When the Jews read Lamentations, they don't end the reading of it with verse 22. They go back and repeat verse 21, and that becomes the end of the reading. Let me do that for us.

Start at verse 21. Restore us, O Lord, and bring us back to you again. Give us back the joys we once had. Or have you utterly rejected us?

Are you angry with us still? Verse 21, restore us, O Lord, and bring us back to you again. Give us back the joys we once had. Makes sense that they would go back to that 21st verse, doesn't it? That's a great ending for these five chapters in the end of the journal that he has written. You're listening to Insight for Living, and the final message in Chuck Swindoll's study in Lamentations. I'll take this moment to strongly recommend that you join us again tomorrow, because Jeremiah's demeanor finally turns the corner at the end of Lamentations 5. Chuck will share a heart-rending illustration that inspires all of us to trust God, even when our world is in chaos. To learn more about this ministry, visit us online at insightworld.org.

You know, Insight for Living has been on the air since July 1979, and we've never missed a single day. Over the decades, Chuck has deposited thousands of sermons into the archives. Our current study in Lamentations, unlike older messages, was delivered only a few months ago. And it's helpful to hear Chuck's insight on the current cultural battles taking place in our world, and to see the sobering parallels between Jeremiah's anguish and our own. We're living in harsh times when kindness is rare, when people are polarized by politics, and emotions are spiraling out of control.

In times like these, God is calling us to a higher place. And if you're ready to rise above the heaviness, let me recommend a classic book from Chuck called Encourage Me, Caring Words for Heavy Hearts. This book targets those who need a lift, but it's also a great book to give away as an act of kindness to others in need. You can purchase a copy of Encourage Me right now by going to insight.org slash offer, or by calling us. If you're listening in the United States, dial 1-800-772-8888. In closing, let me say a word of thanks to our monthly companions and all those who give generously. You're accomplishing far more than you'll ever know, because your gift allows us to deliver the truth of God's Word to millions around the world. Thanks so much. And to give a one-time donation today, call us. If you're listening in the United States, dial 1-800-772-8888, or go to insight.org. Chuck Swindoll concludes our study of Lamentations, Jeremiah's Journal of Woes, tomorrow on Insight for Living. The preceding message, Jeremiah's Mournful Swan Song and the Sound Recording were copyrighted in 2020 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.