The Simple Life

All who pass along the way clap their hands at you; they hiss and wag their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem: "Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?" All your enemies rail against you; they hiss, they gnash their teeth, they cry: "We have swallowed her! Ah, this is the day we longed for; now we have it; we see it!" Lamentations  2:15-16  (ESV)   "Decoration is vanity. All that men can do in the beautifying of their lives is as rottenness if the heart itself be not in a healthy condition. Add to the bitterness of self-remorse the triumphant exultation of enemies who pass by, and say whether any humiliation can be deeper or more intolerable. Where, then, is hope to be found? In heaven. The God whom we have offended must be the God who can forgive us. Do not let us seek to placate our enemies, or turn their triumphing into felicitation: we have no argument with them; not a word ought we to have to say to such mocker...

Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions; they have not exposed your iniquity to restore your fortunes, but have seen for you oracles that are false and misleading. Lamentations 2:14 (ESV)   God may allow us to believe what we want, and to go where we want, and therefore get the "results" we deserve.   When I played football, and we needed to block an opposing player, we had a choice about how to do it. One method involved stopping their progress, whereas the other pushed them in the direction they were going, allowing their own momentum to keep them out of the play.   God gives us real choices with real consequences, and if we choose the wrong way, He may watch us move away from significance and allow us to experience consequences that were never meant to be.   2 Thessalonians  2:10-12  (ESV): …and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a str...

Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions; they have not exposed your iniquity to restore your fortunes, but have seen for you oracles that are false and misleading. Lamentations 2:14 (ESV)   Your prophets (pastors, teachers, elders, and the like) are worthless in that they do not use what they know to hold you accountable. Their negligence has caused a disaster. Once again, we see the problem of false affirmation. Instead of confronting sin, they affirm you in your sin. Instead of a reproof, rebuke, and a challenge, they offer you kudos on the status quo.   Jeremiah also warns us about such prophets in Jeremiah 14:14: And the Lord said to me: 'The prophets are prophesying lies in my name. ' " I did not send them, nor did I command them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a lying vision, worthless divination, and the deceit of their own minds."   We need to know God's Word and make sure that t guides those to whom we choose to submit. S...

My eyes are spent with weeping; my stomach churns; my bile is poured out to the ground because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because infants and babies faint in the streets of the city. They cry to their mothers, "Where is bread and wine?" as they faint like a wounded man in the streets of the city, as their life is poured out on their mothers' bosom. What can I say for you, to what compare you, O daughter of Jerusalem? What can I liken to you, that I may comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion? For your ruin is vast as the sea; who can heal you? Lamentations  2:11-13  (ESV)   Where there is no grief, there is no repentance, even though one can have grief without repentance. Great leaders are those whose hearts are broken for those they lead who have gone astray. They spend time weeping, praying, hoping, and dreaming, often in what seems like a waste of emotion.   When you see things clearly, the darkness around you seems so worthless that you wonde...

My eyes are spent with weeping; my stomach churns; my bile is poured out to the ground because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because infants and babies faint in the streets of the city. They cry to their mothers, "Where is bread and wine?" as they faint like a wounded man in the streets of the city, as their life is poured out on their mothers' bosom. What can I say for you, to what compare you, O daughter of Jerusalem? What can I liken to you, that I may comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion? For your ruin is vast as the sea; who can heal you? Lamentations  2:11-13  (ESV)   It is the missionary with the fountain of pity that reaches the deepest place in the native's heart. When Livingstone was found dead on his knees in the heart of Africa, his head was resting over his open Bible, and his finger was pointing to the last words he ever penned in his diary: "Oh, God, when will the open sore of the world be healed?" That was the profound pi...

The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground in silence; they have thrown dust on their heads and put on sackcloth; the young women of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground. Lamentations 2:10 (ESV)   The wisest of God's servants are at their wits' end, or fall into despair, if they be deprived of their hope in the promise of God's assistance.   "If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction." Psalm 119:92 (ESV)   God's judgments are overwhelming. Those who are and have ignored God will wish they had not, and emptiness, hopelessness, abandonment, and more will be overwhelming.   There will be no need for such a moment if today we decide to love God and love each other. These awful experiences are reserved for those who have abandoned God, and who have embraced themselves as God.   Very rarely have I seen situations where there is absolutely no hope, yet in the abandonment of God, there is none. Those who try to fin...

How the Lord in his anger has set the daughter of Zion under a cloud! He has cast down from heaven to earth the splendor of Israel; he has not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger. The Lord has swallowed up without mercy all the habitations of Jacob; in his wrath he has broken down the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; he has brought down to the ground in dishonor the kingdom and its rulers. Lamentations 2:1-2 (ESV)   "As God is full of mercy in His long-suffering, so is His anger unappeasable when it breaks out against men for their sins." (J. Udall)   "Circumcise yourselves to the Lord; remove the foreskin of your hearts, O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn with none to quench it, because of the evil of your deeds." Jeremiah 4:4 (ESV)   We seem to focus on God's mercy and grace, and, rightfully so; however, we often ignore His anger and its causes and results.   No one needs to experience God...

Jerusalem sinned grievously; therefore she became filthy; all who honored her despise her, for they have seen her nakedness; she herself groans and turns her face away. Her uncleanness was in her skirts; she took no thought of her future; therefore her fall is terrible; she has no comforter. "O Lord, behold my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed!" The enemy has stretched out his hands over all her precious things; for she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary, those whom you forbade to enter your congregation. All her people groan as they search for bread; they trade their treasures for food to revive their strength. "Look, O Lord, and see, for I am despised." Lamentations 1:8-11 (ESV)   Our sin keeps us from any good thing by fostering false expectations, hope, and security. When our expectations are obviously unfulfilled and our hope and security all come tumbling down, we experience something we were never meant to experience — total failure.   Sin may fee...

Jerusalem sinned grievously; therefore she became filthy; all who honored her despise her, for they have seen her nakedness; she herself groans and turns her face away. Her uncleanness was in her skirts; she took no thought of her future; therefore her fall is terrible; she has no comforter. "O Lord, behold my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed!" The enemy has stretched out his hands over all her precious things; for she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary, those whom you forbade to enter your congregation. All her people groan as they search for bread; they trade their treasures for food to revive their strength. "Look, O Lord, and see, for I am despised." Lamentations 1:8-11 (ESV)   "The emphatic word is 'therefore.’ It rings with sad and solemn cadence through the most mournful of all the books of the Bible. It is the epitaph of the nation to which once the conquest of the world was possible, but whose persistent resistance to the will of God s...

Jerusalem remembers in the days of her affliction and wandering all the precious things that were hers from days of old. When her people fell into the hand of the foe, and there was none to help her, her foes gloated over her; they mocked at her downfall. Lamentations 1:7 (ESV)   "What would the nightingale care if the toad despised her singing! She would still sing on, and leave the cold toad to his dank shadows. And what care I for the sneers of men who grovel upon earth? I will sing on in the ear and bosom of God." ( H. W. Beecher. )   Those who are confused often make fun of those who are clear-thinking. As misery loves company, the confused, too, love company. Those who think clearly are in grave danger if they continually look to the confused for affirmation. Confused people act confused, and do whatever they must to normalize their confusion, making chaos normal.   God is the source of peace and order, not confusion. We crave peace, security, and significance, all ...

From the daughter of Zion all her majesty has departed. Her princes have become like deer that find no pasture; they fled without strength before the pursuer. Lamentations 1:6 (ESV)   "We do our utmost to protect great buildings from fire and tempest, and yet all the time those buildings are liable to another peril not less severe—the subtle decay of the very framework of the structure itself. The tissue of the wood silently and mysteriously deteriorates, and calamity as dire as a conflagration is precipitated. The whole of the magnificent roofing of the church of St. Paul in Rome had to be taken out at enormous expense because of the dry rot. Scientific men, by microscopic and chemical methods, have investigated the causes of this premature decay, and after patient search they have discovered not only the fungi which destroy the wood tissue, but also the spore that acts as the seed of the fungus. So this obscure, malign vegetation goes on in the heart of the wood, destroying the ...

The roads to Zion mourn, for none come to the festival; all her gates are desolate; her priests groan; her virgins have been afflicted, and she herself suffers bitterly. Lamentations 1:4 (ESV)   "A pathetic picture indeed is this, that the feast is spread and no man comes to the banqueting table; every gate is open in token of welcome and hospitality, yet no wandering soul asks for admittance; …All this can God do even to His chosen place, and to altars on which He has written His name. Officialism is no guarantee of spiritual perpetuity. Pomp and ceremony, with all their mechanical and external decorations and attractions, are no pledge of the presence of the Spirit of the Living God. The sanctuary is nothing but for the Lord's presence. Eloquent preaching is but eloquent noise if the Spirit of the Lord be not in it, giving it intellectual value, spiritual dignity, and practical usefulness. Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord; because men have forgott...

She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has none to comfort her; all her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they have become her enemies. Lamentations 1:2 (ESV)   "We do not know our friends until we are in some extremity. Fair-weather friends are not to be implicitly trusted. You cannot know a man until you have had occasion to test him by some practical sacrifice; until you have opposed a man you do not know what his temper is; until you have disappointed a man you cannot tell the extent of his good nature; until you have seen a man in trial you know nothing whatever of his grace or his virtue. Many persons shine the more brightly because of the surrounding darkness; they have no genius for conversation, they cannot display themselves in public, they are but poorly feathered and coloured, so that they have nothing to attract and gratify the attention of curiosity: but how full of life they are when their friends are in trouble,...

How lonely sits the city that was full of people! How like a widow has she become, she who was great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces has become a slave. She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has none to comfort her; all her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they have become her enemies. Lamentations 1:1-2 (ESV)   "Against the protests of her faithful prophets Jerusalem had courted alliance with her heathen neighbours only to be cruelly deserted in her hour of need. It is the old story of friendship with the world, keenly accentuated in the life of Israel because this favoured people had already seen glimpses of a rich, rare privilege, the friendship of heaven. This is the irony of the situation; it is the tragic irony of all Hebrew history." ( W. F. Adeney, M. A. )   There is a price we pay for disobedience. All people will be accountable, and sometimes they run out of time. The time for repe...

How lonely sits the city that was full of people! How like a widow has she become, she who was great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces has become a slave. She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has none to comfort her; all her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they have become her enemies. Lamentations 1:1-2 (ESV)   Going from a full city to an empty one can be scary. Silver Birch Ranch often has several hundred people on our grounds. In the summer, the kitchen cooks three meals a day, often for 400 plus people. The sights and sounds of people are everywhere, and the campers' excitement is electrifying.   Then, one day late summer, most everyone goes home. The Nicolet Bible Institute students have finished their summer practicum, the campers need to start school, and the summer volunteers and Summer Staff are either returning to school or their careers.   As one then walks the grounds of Sil...

Why do you boast of your valleys, O faithless daughter, who trusted in her treasures, saying, 'Who will come against me?' Behold, I will bring terror upon you, declares the Lord God of hosts, from all who are around you, and you shall be driven out, every man straight before him, with none to gather the fugitives. "But afterward I will restore the fortunes of the Ammonites," declares the Lord. Jeremiah 49:4-6 (ESV)   Trusting in treasure, whatever the treasure is, is foolish. Perhaps we treasure money, fame, fortune, homes, fortresses, or family. Where our treasure is, our heart is. It is easy to begin to focus on our money, fame, fortune, homes, fortresses, family, and more. When we do so, God becomes an afterthought. He becomes the "neglected one," rather than the cherished one.   The Scriptures are clear that the real treasures in life are treasures that will go with us to eternity. Those treasures are found in our relationships with God, family, and frie...

"Cursed is he who does the work of the Lord with slackness, and cursed is he who keeps back his sword from bloodshed." Jeremiah 48:10 (ESV)   "That a curse should be hurled at the head of the traitor who does "the work of the Lord deceitfully" surprises no one. But to find a curse aimed at the merely negligent worker makes us pause, and think, and ask ourselves questions. The persons here referred to are amongst those who are doing "the work of the Lord."—They profess and call themselves Christians." (Biblical Illustrator)   Negligence is evil. When we neglect the gifts we were given, the opportunities we have, or the time with which we have been entrusted, we will have regrets. We are never promised more than one opportunity, and the wise understand this and remain diligent, knowing that both their time and opportunities are limited.   The farmer who tore down barns and built bigger ones so his future could be full of "himself" was cal...

The Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, said: "Behold, I am bringing punishment upon Amon of Thebes, and Pharaoh and Egypt and her gods and her kings, upon Pharaoh and those who trust in him. I will deliver them into the hand of those who seek their life, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and his officers. Afterward Egypt shall be inhabited as in the days of old," declares the Lord. Jeremiah 46:25-26 (ESV)   There is a theme in Jeremiah concerning those who place their trust in anything or anyone other than God. The theme is simple: our trust in anything or anyone other than God will be to our demise. It is not God who will destroy us; it is we who will destroy us, for our faith/trust has been misplaced.   All of us trust something. We trust our judgment, feelings, friends, family, or charismatic people. In time, we realize that our misplaced trust is costly, we eliminate the many false gods we have trusted, and begin to trust in the one and only true God. Unfortu...

The word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning the nations. About Egypt. Concerning the army of Pharaoh Neco, king of Egypt, which was by the river Euphrates at Carchemish and which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon defeated in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah: "Prepare buckler and shield, and advance for battle! Harness the horses; mount, O horsemen! Take your stations with your helmets, polish your spears, put on your armor! Why have I seen it? They are dismayed and have turned backward. Their warriors are beaten down and have fled in haste; they look not back— terror on every side!" declares the Lord. "The swift cannot flee away, nor the warrior escape; in the north by the river Euphrates they have stumbled and fallen." Jeremiah 46:1-6 (ESV)   There is no recourse against God. He is the Creator and Sustainer of all life, and by the word of His mouth, His enemies fall. Man's strength is equal to God's weaknesses...

"And do you seek great things for yourself? Seek them not, for behold, I am bringing disaster upon all flesh, declares the Lord. But I will give you your life as a prize of war in all places to which you may go." Jeremiah 45:5 (ESV)   "Baruch, the companion of Jeremiah, to whom these words were addressed, was a young man of learning, who had probably formed large expectations of distinction, which were sadly disappointed by the calamities which befell his country. The prophet checks his aspirations in the strong language of our text: "Seekest thou great things for thyself? Seek them not." It is the selfish seeking of the great things of this world and the eager pursuits of them, as if they were of supreme importance, which is censured by the prophet." (Biblical Illustrator)   It is a common error to think that our greatness is wrapped up in our position in life when, in reality, it is wrapped up in our position in Christ. When we seek greatness for ourselv...