Bearing the Punishment for our Sins: Lamentations 4:37-39, 55-59

After the beautiful promise of Lamentations 3:22-33, the book once again plunges back into the drudgery and dire circumstances of the people of God in exile. Once again, God is the one punishing the people, but there is also the understanding that God is in control above all the trouble and turmoil. There is hope, because God has not walked out on His people, He has only withdrawn His protection from them.

Who can speak and have it happen
    if the Lord has not decreed it?
³⁸ Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
    that both calamities and good things come?
³⁹ Why should the living complain
    when punished for their sins?

                                                                 Lamentations 3:37-39

If God has not decreed something, it will not happen. Even the devil works within the parameters of God’s sovereignty, as the book of Job shows. Verse 38 also echo’s Job’s understanding that “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised…Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” But in Job’s case, the dilemma that ensues is because Job has not sinned. That is not the case with Lamentations, as 3:39 explains.

The entire book of Lamentations openly acknowledges the sin of the people that led to the destruction of Jerusalem, Judah, and the exile of all her people. It does not shy away from the fact that God is completely just in bringing the calamity on the city and people, and is using the circumstance to shape the people and refine them.[1]

The thing I keep coming back to in all this is that God knows the future; so, before he created the earth, called Abraham, formed the people of Israel, commissioned Solomon to build His temple, He knew it would all end in destruction. God knows that of me and my life too. Before I accepted Him as my Savior and pledged to follow Him all my life, He knew I would mess up. He knew my temper would get the better of me, that I would lash out and hurt others. He knew I would swim in the murky depths of depression and struggle to find my place in His will. He knew He would have to tear me down, repeatedly, so He could rebuild me into a more perfect image of His son.

Lamentations 3:55-59 continues:

I called on your name, Lord,
    from the depths of the pit.
⁵⁶ You heard my plea: “Do not close your ears
    to my cry for relief.”
⁵⁷ You came near when I called you,
    and you said, “Do not fear.”

⁵⁸ You, Lord, took up my case;
    you redeemed my life.
⁵⁹ Lord, you have seen the wrong done to me.
    Uphold my cause!

The nations that God brought in to judge His people, were ruthless and unjust. This happens to us too. The justice of this world is imperfect and flawed. The authors of the exile (Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Habakkuk, etc.) all acknowledge that God will judge the nations that destroyed Israel, Judah, and Jerusalem. They will not escape punishment because their justice was imperfect. In verses 55-59 above, the poet is crying out for relief from the turmoil and violence of the situation. He wishes God would make it stop, or change something, or do something. He knows God is watching what is going on and hears his prayers even if it doesn’t feel like He does (3:8, 44). The poet has acknowledged the wrong doing of the people, and wishes that God would act![2]

And God does answer Him. But He doesn’t say, “You know, you’re right, they are being unjust and doing too much, going too far; let me just stop that.” No, He says, “Do not fear.”

The poet continues to say that God “redeemed my life. You have seen, O Lord, the wrong done to me. Uphold my cause!” Such confidence! The poet heard from God, “Do not fear,” and responds with great faith and trust. God has answered Him, which means God has seen his circumstances, and heard his prayers. If God tells him not to fear, it is because God is sovereign and in control of everything that is going on. If God noticed him, it means he is not worthless to His kingdom, but has a place in it as a redeemed servant of God. If God says, “Do not fear.” It means God is going to work everything out.

He whispers this to us too, you know: Do not fear. When you are sinking, when the walls are closing in, when you can’t even bear to stand anymore; Do not fear. When you think I can’t hear you, when you don’t think I am near, when you think you are outside of My reach; Do not fear. When you are being punished beyond what is just and right, and there is no end in sight, when it looks like evil will win the battle; Do not fear. When you are sick, when you are at a loss, when you are broken; Do not fear.

God is acting on His timetable, and not ours. It’s hard to wait for God to redeem our situation—if he ever does in this world. When we are suffering from the consequences of our own sin and wrong doing, we have to hold to the promise that one day, death will be swallowed up, and all the tears will be wiped away, and there will be no more shame (Isaiah 25:8, Revelations 21:4). I wish I could see God’s plan for how He is going to make right all the wrongs, and put everything in order so that there will be no tears in the New Heavens and New Earth. But that is why our relationship with God requires faith. We have to trust Him, that when He says He is in control, He truly is, and He truly is working everything out for our salvation and holiness in His kingdom. Prayer and confession bring us into fellowship with God.[3] We can’t close the lines of communication, even if we don’t understand why things are so much worse than we imagined they would or could be.

Let me close with this. God calls us to trust Him and not to fear this world or anything in His creation because He is a good and holy God who loves us. “For many people, failure to acknowledge the truth about God is less an intellectual matter and more a moral matter; and more particularly a matter of the will.”[4] We must submit our will to His when we are wrong, when we are right, when we are hurt, and when we are healthy. Not only will He bring good out of the wrongs that others have done to us, but he will bring good out of the wrongs that we have done to others. Trust in the Lord, it’s the only way to truly live.

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[1] J Andrew Dearman, Jeremiah/Lamentations, The NIV Application Commentary, (Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 2002), pg 460.

[2] Ibid., 461.

[3] Ibid., 462.

[4] Ibid.