This week we are at the end of the Book of Lamentations, Jeremiah's poems of anguish right after the destruction of Jerusalem. The first 4 chapters are elegant, acrostic (each verse starts with the next letter of the alphabet, 22 letters in Hebrew) poetry; the fifth is stripped down, stark, no longer acrostic. The lesson I want to share today is something I didn't know- that this is one of four books whose last verse is so dire and terrible, that the Jews (and some KJV versions) repeat the second to last verse so there's a little more hope to the ending. This will be the third of the four; the only one left is the only one I knew did that before now, the Book of Malachi. So instead of staying here, I want to look at those 4 terrible lines, and see what they say to us.
I'm going to run them in the order that makes the most sense, and the earliest one is from Solomon, ending Ecclesiastes...
Ecc 12:13 The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.
Ecc 12:14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.
I put both the last verse and the one that gets repeated for contrast. As he wrote this, Israel was at the top of her game, and had been for 40 years. But that time, his time, was coming to an end; and just as Ecclesiastes is a testimony that even his wisdom did not preclude failure, Israel was going to have to examine themselves, as a nation and as individuals, to stay in God's good favor. And they didn't- as a result, the nation split. Israel never did have another king who respected God; Judah would be 85 years before the next, and as soon as his priestly mentor died, he reverted to type. It is true that every nation gets the government it deserves; Watching that first debate (last night as I type this) tells you the sorry state this nation is in- if social media hasn't already.
Next, I'll take you to Lamentations, just 22 years after the last holy king died in Judah. By this time, the people had been so soaked in the sins of Amon and Manasseh that the revival Josiah brought lasted about as long after his death as Jonah's shade plant, and God drew a line and said, no more. Here are the last lines from Lamentations:
Lam 5:21 Restore us to yourself, O LORD, that we may be restored! Renew our days as of old--
Lam 5:22 unless you have utterly rejected us, and you remain exceedingly angry with us.
This time, they had begun to get the idea that they had made God mad for the last time. One thing that comes to mind here is that, as Jeremiah prays in the name of "all" the people, not all of them are with him, as the tale of what happened after the fall in Jeremiah's own book relates- conspiracy, murder, fear, defiance, and as usual with the nation at that time, asking for God's word and never obeying it. Two things you can see here. One, the people who were faithful, or repented, would be renewed; the others were utterly rejected. Two, asking God's will should NEVER be a "and it better match MINE" thing. Even running to Egypt, the consequences of defying God- and Nebuchadnezzar- found them out.
Let's go to the one in Malachi next. The occurs after the people have returned from exile, and before Nehemiah's second trip to Jerusalem, when he found them disobeying God yet again...
Mal 4:5 "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes.
Mal 4:6 And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction."
This was the prophecy of Elijah's return, of which Jesus said,
Mat 11:11 Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
Mat 11:12 From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.
Mat 11:13 For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John,
Mat 11:14 and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come.
Mat 11:15 He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
This was a clear warning to the once-again sinful population that what happened before could happen again, if the people rejected God. And they did- hanging Jesus on the Cross- and it did, over a 50 year or so period starting about 67 AD, after which even the name Jerusalem was replaced. Lesson to us: You made it through the consequences of your sin by repentance? Good for you. But don't slip back into the comfort zone- it can always happen again.
Finally, we go to Isaiah, who, if you recall from a few weeks back, had a very graphic description of the world of the Second Coming:
Isa 66:23 From new moon to new moon, and from Sabbath to Sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before me, declares the LORD.
Isa 66:24 "And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh."
Don't pass off hell as a place where Billy Joel will cry with the sinners because they're much more fun. Rejecting, denying, ignoring God ends you up in one place. And it sure don't look that fun to me.
A bloody good and interesting post
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