Tears for those under Judgment

Lamentations 3:43-66

43 You have covered Yourself with anger
And pursued us
You have slain and not pitied.
44 You have covered Yourself with a cloud,
That prayer should not pass through.

45 You have made us an offscouring and refuse
In the midst of the peoples.
46 All our enemies
Have opened their mouths against us.
47 Fear and a snare have come upon us,
Desolation and destruction.

48 My eyes overflow with rivers of water
For the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49 My eyes flow and do not cease,
Without interruption,
50 Till the LORD from heaven
Looks down and sees.
51 My eyes bring suffering to my soul
Because of all the daughters of my city.

52 My enemies without cause
Hunted me down like a bird.
53 They silenced my life in the pit
And threw stones at me.

54 The waters flowed over my head;
I said, "I am cut off!"
55 I called on Your name, O LORD,
From the lowest pit.

56 You have heard my voice:
"Do not hide Your ear
From my sighing, from my cry for help."
57 You drew near on the day I called on You,
And said, "Do not fear!"

58 O Lord, You have pleaded the case for my soul;
You have redeemed my life.
59 O LORD, You have seen how I am wronged;
Judge my case.
60 You have seen all their vengeance,
All their schemes against me.

61 You have heard their reproach, O LORD,
All their schemes against me,
62 The lips of my enemies
And their whispering against me all the day.
63 Look at their sitting down and their rising up;
I am their taunting song.

64 Repay them, O LORD,
According to the work of their hands.
65 Give them a veiled heart;
Your curse be upon them!
66 In Your anger,
Pursue and destroy them
From under the heavens of the LORD.

This last part of the chapter talks of how sin hindered God’s people’s prayers from Him listening and answering according to their petitions because they kept sinning in idolatry with a divided heart and in immortality with deaf ears to love in holiness and righteousness as their covenant He made with them required.  They dishonored and rejected Him and expected Him to hear anyway as if their form of religion could be enough.  It was not.  Their fear snared them and they were led into destruction and desolation with nothing left.  Jeremiah wept for his fellow people called by God to Himself because of their headlong rush into destruction in unrepentant sin and rejection of God’s word.  He desired the LORD to see his tears of genuine grief and anxiety over the people and kept interceding until God answered favorably.  His enemies kept attacking him, however, for the message calling God’s people to repentance and for calling them to submit to the invading forces instead of accepting captivity in Babylon as a corrective discipline to restore a remnant of them to God once more.  When he was thrown in the prison well, a pit of mud, it felt as if the waters overflowed his head.  He felt abandoned by God and cried out from that despair until God answered, "Do not fear!"  The LORD pleaded his case and redeemed his life, a shadow of the saving grace of Jesus Christ in redeeming His remnant out of the mire of sin’s hold and despair of certain judgment in captivity to sin.  He also prayed for justice in persecution by his enemies with all their wiles and scheming much as our Adversary continues to do now to all who are His chosen ones in Christ (Ephesians 6:11, Psalm 22:13, 1 Peter 5:8).  Be assured that God hears the evil slander and will avenge His own (Revelation 6:10) in the judgment.  They will be repaid for harming God’s messengers of the truth, including the prophets of old and ministers of the gospel.  Those opposed are blinded still with a hardened heart veiled from coming to the truth as 2 Timothy 3:7-8 gives us an example.  Here then is the sorrow for those under judgment which we should have as our example and why we must bear witness to  God’s work in Christ which is the good news of redemption and deliverance for all He calls and draws to Himself (John 6:44, 64-65).  Do we sorrow for the lost and bear witness of the good news of redemption?