Knowing God through His Word … Day by Day

Ray Stedman on Lamentations 2:

Chapter 2 describes the thoroughness of judgment. At the beginning of this chapter you have a description of how the armies of Nebuchadnezzar utterly devastated the city. Jeremiah, however, does not attribute this destruction to the armies of Nebuchadnezzar, but to the Lord. He looks behind the immediate circumstance to what God is doing. As you read through the chapter you can see how he points out that everything has been destroyed, nothing is left. There is nothing he can put his hand on that has been preserved because of the thorough judgment of God…

The apostle Paul says, “Let God be true though every man be false.” (Romans 3:4) It is impossible for God not to be right. It is impossible for man to be more just than God, because our very sense of justice is derived from him. It is impossible for man to be more compassionate than God, for our feelings of compassion come from him. You see, it is impossible for us ever to sit in judgment on God. God is right. When Jeremiah saw the utter desolation around him he learned this. As long as he had anything to prop himself up with, he could find fault with God, but when he was left utterly desolate he realized that the Lord was right.

In chapter 2 he gains more insight into this truth. He is made aware of the thoroughness of judgment, of how meticulously God has used the armies of Nebuchadnezzar to lay everything to waste In fact, how ruthless the Lord has been. But then he learns another insight (verse 17):

The Lord has done what he purposed,
has carried out his threat;
as he ordained long ago,
he has demolished without pity;
he has made the enemy rejoice over you,
and exalted the might of your foes. (Lamentations 2:17 RSV)

In other words, God is faithful. Suddenly Jeremiah realizes that this is consistent with the character of God. If he says he is going to do something, he will do it. Nothing can make him change. If you look back over the history of Israel you discover that in the book of Deuteronomy, God had said to Moses, “Moses, if my people walk in obedience to me and love me and follow me, I will pour unlimited blessing upon them. I will open the windows of heaven and just simply bless them until they can’t stand it. But if they turn, if they go aside, I will plead with them and send prophets to them and work with them and have patience with them.” (And the record is that for four hundred years, God put up with the intransigence of Israel.) But God also promised that if Israel followed after other gods, he would raise up a nation to come in and devastate the land. That is exactly what God said and that is exactly what he did.

It is interesting that Jeremiah predicted how long that captivity would last. It would last seventy years. (Jeremiah 25:11 ) Why seventy? Well, in the law God required Israel to allow the land to rest fallow every seventh year. They were not to plow the soil or use it; they were to let it rest. (This is a very practical principle of agricultural conservation.) During the sixth year, to make up for the lack of food, the Lord would bless them with a superabundance of crops so they would have enough food to carry them through that seventh year.

But Israel never obeyed that command. They continued using the land from the time they entered it. In a sense they robbed God of seventy years of rest for the land. They used it continuously for 490 years so God sent them out of it and rested the land for 70 years.

How faithful God is to his promise. The Lord is utterly faithful. There is a widespread belief that God is so loving, so tenderhearted, that he just gives in when you pressure him a little; that he won’t do what he says he is going to do. But that idea has been put to rest forever by one of the greatest verses in the Bible (Romans 8:32): “He who did not spare his own Son…” Think of that. When he was made sin for us, God did not spare him. That is how unflinching God is in following through on his word. “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all…” And yet that verse ends in glory, doesn’t it? “…will he not also give us all things with him?” One side of it is just as true as the other. Jeremiah learned that God is faithful by the thoroughness of judgment.