WCF Motto Text 2021

“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3:22-23).

Lamentations, like the first 5 books of the Old Testament has no title in Hebrew and is therefore known by its first word ’ekah, an exclamatory particle meaning ‘How!’ or ‘Alas!’

This exclamation forms the initial word for 3 of the 5 dirges (Lam 1:1; 2:1; 4:1). The Rabbis referred to this work by the nature of its contents, qinot, ‘lamentations’, and this became its title in the Talmud and Septuagint (Grk: Threni or Threnoi while the Vulgate and Latin writers translated it as Lamenta).

This book was designed as Keil explains: “In these Lamentations he seeks not merely (1) to give expression to the sorrow of the people that he may weep with them, but by his outpour of complaint (2) to rouse his fellow-countrymen to an acknowledgement of God’s justice in this visitation, (3) to keep them from despair under the burden of an unutterable woe, and (4) by teaching them how to give due submission to the judgment that has befallen them, (5) to lead once more to God those who would not let themselves be brought to Him through his previous testimony regarding that judgment while it was yet impending (numbering added).”

The author of Lamentations testifies of hope, but does not deny the raw reality of suffering in a broken world. Lamentations teaches us that laments can have a place in the faith of the church and of the individual believer. Yet there will come a time when God will wipe every tear from the eyes of those who have trusted in him.

This lament takes the form of an acrostic in triplets, built on the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

Each alphabetic consonant supplying the first letter of each sentence in the strophe and constituting a highly elaborate arrangement. Three lines of poetry are devoted to each letter, and the first word in each of the three lines begins with the same letter. For the poem in a four-part arrangement featuring parallelism and contrast with hinge verses (3:21–22; 3:33–34; 3:55–56) that introduce a change from lament to hope and vice versa.

Whereas chapters 1, 2 and 4 have twenty-two alphabetically arranged verses, chapter 3 has sixty-six verses arranged in triplets with the verses of each triplet beginning with the same letter of the alphabet

In many respects this elegy crystallizes the basic themes of Lamentations, and as a foreshadowing of the passion of Jesus Christ has definite affinities with Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22.

a. The lament of the afflicted ( Lam 3:1–21)

b. Divine mercies recalled (Lam 3:22–39)

c. A call for spiritual renewal (Lam 3:40–42)

d. The consequences of sin (Lam 3:43–54)

e. Comfort and imprecation (Lam 3:55–66)

LAMENT

Jeremiah laments his sufferings declaring: “I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. He has driven me away and made me walk in darkness rather than light; indeed, he has turned his hand against me again and again, all day long.”(vs 1-3)

It may be that Jeremiah is also personifying the sufferings of the people of Judah - as in chapter 1;18-20 as though they were his own sufferings. He personifies the sufferings of the nation because he realy felt and shared in the pain and distress, especially because of “the rod of his wrath“(v1) which they were certainly experiencing. - “Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night for the slain of my people”(Jer 9:1 see v48).

God withdraws, leaving the sufferer alone in deep darkness (3:2, 6; cf. Job 12:25; Ps 82:5; contrast Ps 23:4). Jeremiah feels imprisoned; perhaps actually in a walled dungeon (cf. Jer 38:6) with no possible route of escape (3:7–9) condemned to perpetual isolation and claustrophobia? All prayers seem to bounce back, “access denied” (3:8; Ps 88:13–14 [14–15]). There is no solace from any quarter (3:17). The big fear is expressed at the end of the book with this haunting, but rhetorical question: ‘Have You (O Lord) utterly rejected us? Are You exceedingly angry with us?’ (Lam 5:22).

“One of life’s most puzzling problems has been the enigma of the presence, persistence, and power of the evil, pain, and suffering experienced by mortals. ‘Why’, we all seem to ask, ‘is this happening to me? Why is all of this necessary? Will there never be an end to the mental distress which comes from suffering?’”(Walter Kaiser),

Lamentations is eminently suited to treat one of the most perplexing and devastating problems of all human existence: suffering and communal pain on the large scale of national grief.

The capture of Jerusalem and the tragic burning of the Temple in 587 BC by the Babylonians is the sad background for the poems of Lamentations. It is impossible to overestimate the intensity or the depth of suffering that resulted from the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BC.

The worst that could happen anywhere to any nation, city, house of worship, or person, happened here—earth’s loneliest moment of suffering and the demand by the people of God that the Lord at least looks and takes notice - Lam 2:20-22.

Lamentations therefore can be described as a dirge! A lament and this chapter is the third such lament.

A lament is deep and intense complaint - the cry and anguish of a broken heart - In this book it is sometimes high pitched and intense as in chapter 3 and then decreases in strength until the case is laid at God’s feet in prayer—but only after the fullness of the people’s grief has been gone over from.

This is important to note because as Eugene Petersen points out: ‘Evil is not inexhaustible. It is not infinite. It is not worthy of a lifetime of attention. Timing is important. If a terminus is proposed too soon, people know that their suffering has not been taken seriously and conclude that it is therefore without significance. But if it goes on too long … (it can become) a crippled adjustment to life which frustrates wholeness. To some, ill health is a way to be important.’

Lamentations provides us with a pastorally useful and honest assessment as to the problem of pain and suffering.

It does not hide from the realities of sufferings or absolve God from any part in the plot.

In fact it keeps attention on the God and pays attention to the exact ways in which suffering takes place; it takes with absolute seriousness the feelings that follow in the wake of judgment; and then it shapes these sufferings and feelings into forms of response to God.

Pain thus becomes accessible to compassion - “Suffering cannot adequately be dealt with by pretending that it does not exist. It will do no good to try to minimize it or to ‘talk’ it out of existence. It does exist and it does hurt. “(Walter Kaiser).

It will not do us any good to search for a sudden cure for its pain as if one, by swallowing a miracle pill of modern pharmacology, could remove all at once the heavy weight it imposes.

“The most comforting news Scripture has for the sufferer is that where pain, grief, and hurt are, there is God. Instead of a panacea, our Lord offers His presence. One of the greatest promises in the Bible, which speaks to all our fears, is bound up in the very name of our Lord—Immanuel: ‘God with us.’”(Kasier)

Along with this assurance of the presence of our Lord comes perspective into the way pain and suffering can work to bring a better perception of our situation, times, and needs leading us to the upward calling of God in all our lives.

This perception, moreover, is increased when we allow our pain and grief to be shared with others—especially with the community of faith.

Only a selfish and inverse pride would insist on isolating oneself from sharing personal or national grief with others. This is why we are introducing the Sanctuary Course as one distinct way to address the suffering people experience in their minds and hearts when ravaged by the problems of life.

“Part of the troubled person’s therapy is to bring feelings into verbal expression, to name the pain.”(Philip Comfort).

When in difficulty, identify what is troubling you and then give voice to your complaint. That is lament and it is good for your soul!

“Voicing one’s personal experience can be cathartic and cleansing. Suppressing bitterness can eventually issue in anger, hostility, and depression. Defining the current situation can be preparatory to hope.”(Comfort).

This links us once again to the literary device used, the acrostic - “It is important to pay attention to everything that God says; but it is also important to pay attention to everything that men and women feel, especially when that feeling is as full of pain and puzzlement as suffering. The acrostic is a structure for taking suffering seriously … (Lamentations) repeats the acrostic form. It goes over the story again and again and again and again and again—five times.”(Eugene Petersen)

But the BIG THING to emphasize when considering this Lament is that Jeremiah is clear that what is happening to Israel and is now happening to Jerusalem in particular, is as a result of God’s righteous judgment: “The Lord is like an enemy; he has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed up all her palaces and destroyed her strongholds. He has multiplied mourning and lamentation for the Daughter of Judah.”(Lam 2:5). -

This reflects the thinking of other OT prophets as expressed in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Jonah, Daniel, catching the thought of Isaiah 10:5, which asserted to an unbelieving nation like Assyria, Babylon and Persia as the agents of His judgment against his own people because of their trespassed transgressions of the law.

Thus Jeremiah does not see the events he laments about in lamentations as random, unconnected and arbitrary circumstances of life but as a result of the direct activity of God, imposed not so much in anger as in judgment (Lam 3:2-7).

Jeremiah is particularly distressed that his prayers are not heard - “Even when I call out or cry for help, he shuts out my prayer.”(v8) and he complains that God bars his way and frustrates his plans(v9), likening God to a wild animal ready to tear in pieces whatever crosses its path(v10) or n yet another dramatic metaphor God is represented as a skilled huntsman shooting deadly arrows at his prey (v12).

Now this understandably causes us concerns, the idea of an angry God is particularly problematic for modern readers whose sensibilities do not allow for “anger” as a positive virtue, but this is not a Biblical worldview because God is “angry with the wicked every day”(Psa 9:17) and He is “of purer eyes to tolerate evil and cannot look on wrongdoing”(Hab 1:3).

God’s anger is never explosive, unreasonable or unexplainable. It is rather His firm expression of real displeasure with our wickedness and sin. Even in God it is never a force or a ruling passion; rather, it is always an instrument of His will. And His anger has not, thereby, shut off his compassions to us (Ps. 77:9)

But think about anger not as a negative but as an indication of “passion” and “passion” shows God cares - “anger is God’s sign that He still cares. It is the fabric out of which a more enduring friendship can be forged. Anger...breaks through indifference. It smashes through apathy.” (Eugene Peterson).

Lactantius’ very helpfully argues: “He who loves the good, by this very fact hates the evil; and he who does not hate the evil, does not love the good; because the love of goodness issues directly out of the hatred of evil, and the hatred of evil issues directly out of the love of goodness. No one can love life without abhorring death; and no one can have an appetency for light, without an antipathy to darkness.”

Indeed we should remember that God’s anger is reflected in His covenant relastionship with His people which carries with it the idea of blessings and curses - blessings, connected to obedience and curses, to disobedience of the temss of the covenant. This is vital to see because it shwos that although God legitimately and justly expresses anger at violations of the covenant; He is always ready to be merciful as people repent and obey the terms of the covenant, in “wrath”, He is always ready to “remember mercy”! (Hab 3:2).

What is particularly painfaul to Jeremiah is that he has become “the laughingstock of all my people; they mock me in song all day long.”(v14). Was he not doing all this for God? Was he not standing for truth and righteousness in denouncing sin and warning the people and their leaders of their need for repentance? This was also true of Jerusalem an object of ridicule only to his fellow citizens, Jerusalem has now become the laughing-stock of the entire Ancient Near East - Lam 2:15-16 “All who pass your way clap their hands at you; they scoff and shake their heads at the Daughter of Jerusalem: “Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth?” All your enemies open their mouths wide against you; they scoff and gnash their teeth and say, “We have swallowed her up. This is the day we have waited for; we have lived to see it.”

The net result of all of this for Jeremiah was broken health; vanished happiness; banished hopes; bitter, galling emptiness! - “So I say, “My splendor is gone and all that I had hoped from the Lord. I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. (Lam 3:18-20).

2. LEARN

The thing that turns Jeremiah around is that he has over many years leaned about God and understands His ways and because he can recall the Divine mercies of the past, He can have hope - Thus our Motto text - in the context of His recall of the Lord’s mercies in Lam 3:22–39:

“Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.” (vs21-23)

This has echoes of suffering Job’s resolve - ‘though he slay me, yet will I trust him’ (Job 13:15) - a magnificent expression of faith in the unfailing mercies of God, enabling him to look to the distant future with renewed hope.

Jeremiah dared to hope in God in spite of the fact that it was God from whom he had received blow upon blow (3:1–19). Rather than follow the inclination to put distance between himself and such a God, this sufferer reached out to the very God who had inflicted the hurt, the God who, like a relentless hunter, had aimed to harm, even to destroy (3:10–13).

Jeremiah took this risk partly because God was all that remained. God was his portion (“inheritance” 3:24)—“Yahweh is all I have” (NJB).

But there was further ground for his hope. He did not have hope because of the immediate experience, which was only negative, but because of what is affirmed in his testimony of God and the testimony of Israel about God (Exod 34:6; Deut 26:3–9; Ps 73:1).

One negative experience, even if enormously tragic, does not overturn the centuries-old confessional statement that God is good. - “God is good all the time; put a heart of praise in this heart of mine!”

Let’s learn from our text in more detail so that when we need to we can “call to mind and therefore...have hope:

“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed...”

The Hebrew term ḥesed, here translated in the NIV as “love” can also be translated “mercies”. Hesed has the basic meaning of loyalty or devotion, particularly in relationship to a covenant and to God as its author. It has nuances of steadfast love (see RSV) and loving kindness (NASB). This is apporpriate for us to remmber at this our Covenant service where we express ourt loyalty and love to God even as He has shown great covenant loyalty and love to us!

And note these are a product of the “Lords’s GREAT love” - speaking of the limitless nature of God’s mercies and His constant preservation of us through all the problems and struggles of life. We are not “consumed” because of His GREAT LOVE!

And note the word “consumed” - it can be translated ‘We have not perished’ this is a result of the steadfast love of God towards his people. Because God is Judah’s “portion" and our portion, any hope of restoration is firmly grounded in him (v26).

“for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

The word for “faithfulness” is the Hebrew ʾemunah referring to God’s reliability, fidelity, steadiness, derving from the root ʾaman meaning to have stability, stay faithful.

It also states that God’s compassions are new every morning. Every day presents a new opportunity to experience a fresh outpouring of God’s great love and compassion, as well as his faithfulness, his steadfast consistent loyalty (cf. Ps. 92:2

This quality of Yahweh’s character is cause for praise (Pss 33:4; 92:2 [3], cf. Ps 143:1).

Not infrequently, the church’s cherished song, “Great is Thy Faithfulness,” is sung at celebrations. But the verse on which the lyrics are based was written from a context of hardship and despair. When tragedy strikes and lives are prematurely snuffed out, those who truly believe God and are anchored on the bedrock of God’s revelation about himself can still sing this song, negative circumstances notwithstanding. Hope can replace despair (Hab 3:17–18; 1 Pet 4:12–13).

“Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my father;

There is no shadow of turning with Thee;

Thou changest not, Thy compassion they fail not;

As Thou hast been, Thou forever wilt be.”

“I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.” (vs21-23)

The believer has a living hope because he trusts in a living God whose promises are as sure as his judgments (cf. 2 Cor. 1:20). Thus Jeremiah encourages himself and us to “wait” upon God as we trust in His promise to deliver us from the Judgment to come! God is for us. He is our portion so we hope in Him! (cf. Ps. 37:9; Hos. 12:6; Zeph. 3:8; Rom. 8:25; Gal. 5:5, etc.).

With that confession came the realization that God’s mercies and His covenantal love had not failed. In fact, His faithfulness was the greatest of all comforts and His compassion was evidenced anew every morning.

3. LESSONS:

So why is this important for us to learn?

a. Suffering is inevitable!

Whilst we are in the waiting period between our salvation on first believing and our glorification in Heaven, we will suffer many and various trials.

Jeremiah describes among other things yoke-bearing (v27) the carrying of burdens, best borne in youth when we have the needed strength to carry them; silence as a form of resignation to God’s will(c/f Pss 39:2; 94:17). Placing the mouth in the dust(v29) is a way of expressing or compelling complete submission. In offering his cheek to the “one who would smite him”(v30) conveys the idea of absolute acceptance of discipline.

This attitude was exemplified at the highest level by Jesus Christ just before his crucifixion (cf. Matt. 26:67; Luke 22:64; John 18:22; 19:3), where as an innocent victim He suffered for human sin in obedience to God’s will (cf. Matt. 26:39, etc.), without any form of retaliation (1 Pet. 2:21ff.).

This demonstrates to us that Divine mercy has a restorative character (Ps. 23:3), and Jeremiah would discover that the sufferings inflicted upon the nation will pass away ultimately, since they do not represent God’s final purpose for his people.

The Father does not afflict his children willingly - “For men are not cast off by the Lord forever. Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men” (v31-33),

so while God does chasten the Christian periodically as part of spiritual development (Heb. 12:6), His final purpose is not judgment it is salvation!

We live between “the already-not yet” of salvation and our lot will be one of troubles; difficulties; not understanding God’s will or ways and resigning ourselves to the truth that “He knows the way that I take and after He has tested me I will come forth as gold”(Job 23:10).

b). God is in control!

He’s got this and “the eternal God is your refuge and underneath and roundabout are the everlasting arms”(Deuteronomy 33:27).

God in the meantime calls us to spiritual renewal - "Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord. Let us lift up our hearts and our hands to God in heaven, and say: “We have sinned and rebelled..”(v41-42).

God will respond to those who come to him in genuine repentance - not mere words, and certainly not empty ritual which Israel was very good at! And not the empty wors of the false prophets whose “visions...were false and worthless; they did not expose your sin to ward off your captivity. The oracles they gave you were false and misleading.”(Lam 2:14).

Sheer grace rescues us from our sinful predicament as Jeremiah himself discovered - "I called on your name, O Lord, from the depths of the pit. You heard my plea: “Do not close your ears to my cry for relief.” You came near when I called you, and you said, “Do not fear.” O Lord, you took up my case; you redeemed my life.”(v55-58) - Jeremiah draws a picture of the awfulness of sin, it is indeed lamentable to a just and holy God indeed it presents an impregnable barrier between a man and his Maker, and the absolute inability of an individual to surmount this obstacle and achieve his own salvation. This latter must be by faith, not works, through grace (Eph. 2:8f.). Having cast himself upon divine mercy, the sinner finds that God is already present with him as advocate (cf. 1 John 2:1)

c). Prayer is Key!

Lamentations does teach us the language of prayer when we are in the midst of suffering.

The basis of all such appeals to heaven is that the LORD can do something about conditions as they presently exist—the now must not be a prison with only the then of the past as a bromide to cheer us. The future can be different. Therefore, ‘Lift up your hands to Him for your children’s lives’ (2:19).

With deep emotion and desperate importunity we are taught to make our complaints and sufferings known to the personal LORD of the covenant.

Suffering, grief, and pain are familiar if unwelcome visitors to most lives.

Too often we have not been properly prepared by a clear view of Scripture or a theology of suffering to cope with the suffering as it comes in national disaster, death, depression, separation, rejection, or the like.

Too frequently the only place many turn in such circumstances is to medically trained clinicians. This is not to say that a referral to the medical profession is not appropriate at times; but we do maintain that ‘grief management’, as the phrase goes these days, is the business of the gospel as well.

Lamentations offers us:

(1) orientation,

(2) a voice for working completely through grief (from a to z), (3) instruction on how and what to pray, and (4) a focal point in God’s faithfulness and in the fact that He is our portion. Is that not what we need in the midst of trouble and calamity? Surely comfort, community, compassion, companionship, and conclusion to suffering are all found in this marvellous little book. ‘Therefore I will hope in Him.’So we pray - “Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may return; renew our days as of old.”(Lam 5:21).