THE DISTRESS

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

“I called to my allies but they betrayed me. My priests and my elders perished in the city while they searched for food to keep themselves alive.”

“See, Lord, how distressed I am! I am in torment within, and in my heart I am disturbed, for I have been most rebellious. Outside, the sword bereaves; inside, there is only death.”

“People have heard my groaning, but there is no one to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my distress; they rejoice at what you have done. May you bring the day you have announced so they may become like me.”

“Let all their wickedness come before You; deal with them as You have dealt with me because of all my sins. My groans are many and my heart is faint.”

Lamentations 1:19-22

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Think about the events you might experience during God’s judgment and the eventual outcome of those events. If you need an example, try this one on for size and put yourself in the shoes of one of the Israelites in Jerusalem during the Babylonian attack and subsequent exile.

Life was good for you before the judgment came. You had a home protected within the walls of the world’s holiest city, a city that housed God’s holy temple. People came from all over in order to worship God in your city. You had adequate shelter and food, all you could ever ask for and the peace of mind that came along with a trouble-free quality of life. You were one of God’s people and He was your God. You always felt secure under His guarding.

But there was only one problem. Your life didn’t reflect that God was your God. In fact, you had joined the masses within your city and brought worship to other pagan gods, even though you knew God had commanded against it. You knew God was aware of your sins because He had sent prophets with warnings to stop disobeying Him or else face severe consequences. But you didn’t take those warnings seriously. You continued to do what you wanted to do and your life was centered on your own will and way instead of God’s.

And so God did what He promised to do. He withdrew His covering over you and brought His punishment, and He did so in a big way.

For the peaceful existence you enjoyed was suddenly disrupted. Jerusalem came under attack by a force it was unable to defend itself against. Its security was breached by the Babylonians who invaded and started to destroy everything to include your home and the homes of your fellow Israelites. Even the temple of God was laid to waste but not until after it had been plundered of all its treasures.

When it was all said and done, the city was demolished and uninhabitable. Of course, that didn’t matter because you were taken into captivity by the Babylonians and marched away into Babylon where you would spend a seventy year sentence of enslavement and oppression. You had no allies. You had to literally search for food to survive. You had no one to comfort you.

In other words, you were in a state of distress and if your voice could be heard crying out, it would probably sound a lot like the voice of the Israelites in today’s passage as we finish our study of the first chapter of Lamentations. Look at these verses again now:

“I called to my allies but they betrayed me. My priests and my elders perished in the city while they searched for food to keep themselves alive.”

“See, Lord, how distressed I am! I am in torment within, and in my heart I am disturbed, for I have been most rebellious. Outside, the sword bereaves; inside, there is only death.”

“People have heard my groaning, but there is no one to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my distress; they rejoice at what you have done. May you bring the day you have announced so they may become like me.”

“Let all their wickedness come before You; deal with them as You have dealt with me because of all my sins. My groans are many and my heart is faint.”  Lamentations 1:19-22

Did you pick out the main areas of distress?

1. Abandonment.

“I called to my allies but they betrayed me.”

There had been a time when the Israelites had allies they could depend on whenever they would come under threat but when the Babylonians attacked, they found themselves on their own. Perhaps there is no more empty feeling then knowing you need help and hoping it comes only to discover that people you thought you could rely on have turned away and left you alone. This is where the Israelites were as they cried out in distress.

2. Starvation.

“My priests and my elders perished in the city while they searched for food to keep themselves alive.”

We all need food to eat and water to drink. It’s a basic element of survival. Take these away and you will find yourself quickly in a state of anxiety and worry about your health. Let hunger go unfulfilled long enough and you might even find yourself worrying about your life and rightfully so. As we read in the scriptures, priests and elders, who were officials held in high esteem within society and typically never lacking for food to eat, ended up starving to death in the city as they were unable to find enough to eat in order to keep themselves alive.

3. Tormented and disturbed.

“See, Lord, how distressed I am! I am in torment within, and in my heart I am disturbed, for I have been most rebellious. Outside, the sword bereaves; inside, there is only death.”

In yesterday’s devotion, we saw where the people confessed their sin or rebellion, an admission that the Lord’s judgment upon them was justified. This only amplified their distress because they knew that their suffering was of their own doing. In other words, they had brought it all on themselves, a truth that tormented and disturbed them greatly as evident in their words.

4. Humiliation.

“People have heard my groaning, but there is no one to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my distress; they rejoice at what you have done. My groans are many and my heart is faint.”

The suffering of the Israelites was not a secret, particularly to those who opposed them. And as we see by the distressed words of the Israelites, no one harbored any level of sympathy for them. No one wished to bring them any reassurance or comfort. Rather, the enemies of Judah and Jerusalem rejoiced and were glad about the judgment they were going through. So deep was the humiliation of the Israelites that it manifested itself in anger and resentment as God’s people yearned for their enemies to experience punishment as well from God.

Abandonment. Starvation. Torment. Humiliation.

These are just some of what one might experience in the midst of God’s judgment.

I think you would agree, it’s all the more reason why we should avoid having Him bring His consequences on us in the first place. For striving to live in His righteousness and, in turn, being in God’s favor is better by far than sinning and invoking His anger against us.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark
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