Lamentations 1:1-6

The blessings of God serve to remind us of the mercy and grace of God, but sometimes we mistakenly take them for granted and believe that they will be perpetual regardless of how we live. Strength and honor are not automatic and they are not guaranteed. Learning this lesson the hard way is a price too high to pay. The price of unfaithfulness is incalculable!

Jeremiah's lamentations reveal the grief of sin's consequences. The lessons learned from a rebellious nation can deliver us from much grief if we are wise to listen.

I. God's Favor Today Does Not Guarantee God's Blessings Tomorrow (v. 1, 6)

Judah had been great among the nations, but this greatness had been taken for granted. Though warned by the preacher, the nation sowed seeds of destruction until the day the harvest of judgment was reaped. The book of Jeremiah reveals the rebellious journey of the nation and the Lamentations reveals the resultant grief of the people and the prophet.

The princess had become the slave. What tragedy when the splendor of a nation, city, or individual departs. It is not easily recovered and most often never is. Presumption of continued splendor and blessing may well be the invitational wood for the termites of sin to begin their work.

II. Misplaced Love Will Result in Lonely Nights (vv. 1, 2)

Judah had played the harlot and been unfaithful to her God. She had developed other lovers other than the Lord who was faithful to her. And when the lonely nights of sin's consequence arrived, her lovers were not present to comfort her. Loneliness is the pay we receive for misplaced love.

Frank Reed was held hostage, isolated in a Lebanon cell from 1986 to 1990. He writes of the effects of loneliness. "I began to realize how withering it is to exist with not a single expression of caring around me."

Jerusalem, personified as a woman, weeps the bitter tears of loneliness with no one to comfort and console her. The bitter tears of loneliness will eventually come to us when our love for God is replaced with devotion for the things of the world.

III. Sin and Rebellion Will Lead to Bondage and Servitude (vv. 3-5)

The consequence of sin is huge, not just for what we lose, but for what we have to face. Judah faced the harsh reality of captivity, exile, and servitude. The bitterness of servitude and oppression replaced the joy and celebration of the feasts. The adversaries became the master. What grief!

Long before the apostle Paul was born, there was a law that said that no freeborn man could ever be enslaved. Therefore, a man could literally sell himself into slavery, collect the proceeds, then have a friend come and attest to his status as a freeborn man, and he would have to be released at once. This was being abused regularly. Just before Paul's day, a new law was enacted whereby any man who sold himself into slavery could no longer claim free status later. The law could no longer help him. Paul's readers in Rome understood that "to whom you present yourselves as slaves for obedience, his slave you are" (Roman 6:16).

While this was a new law in Paul's day, it is an eternal principle in the economy of God. Yielding ourselves to sin and rebellion leads to bondage and servitude. Oh, how "sin takes us farther than we want to go, keeps us longer than we want to stay, and costs us more than we want to pay."

There was a time when the Son of God felt the loneliness of alienation and the consequence of sin...our sin! It was at Calvary when he cried, "My God my God, why have you forsaken me." He identified with us in our alienation from the Father. But that was not the last cry for there came another, "Into Thy hands I commend my spirit." It is the experience of being reconciled to God through Christ that allows us to find hope from the estrangement, alienation, and loneliness caused by sin.

It was in the loneliness of sin's consequences that the prophet Jeremiah affirmed the hope found in a faithful God. It is because of His mercies that we are not completely consumed (3:22-23). God will be faithful to restore a repentant people who return to Him.

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Sermon brief provided by: Larry L. Gilmore, Group Leader of the Evangelism Strategies Group, Tennesse Baptist Convention, Brentwood, TN