Hope thou in God

Lamentations 3:19-26
New International Version
19 
I remember my affliction and my wandering,
    the bitterness and the gall.
20 
I well remember them,
    and my soul is downcast within me.
21 
Yet this I call to mind
    and therefore I have hope:
22 
Because of the LORD’s great love we are not
consumed,
    for his compassions never fail.
23 
They are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.
24 
I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion;
    therefore I will wait for him.”
25 
The LORD is good to those whose hope is in
him,
    to the one who seeks him;
26 
it is good to wait quietly
    for the salvation of the LORD.
The circumstances that exist in our world
doesn’t allow many of us to hold out much
hope. Individuals have given up, some have
become suicidal, some have passed the
corona virus straight and have died of heart
failure. The bible tells us that in the last days
men’s heart will fail them for fear. There is so
much fear in our world today.

What was the scenario here?

We are told that In 587 B.C. Nebuchadnezzar
responded to a rebellion by Zedekiah of Judah
by again laying siege to Jerusalem. This time
he destroyed the city and killed many of its
inhabitants. He took most of the rest to
Babylon—leaving behind only the poorest (2
Kings 25). Then a rebellion by some of Judah’s
remaining population against Gedaliah,
Babylonia’s proxy ruler (2 Kings 25:22-26
Jeremiah 41), inspired a final deportation to
Babylon. The prophets made it clear that this
was Yahweh’s judgment on Judah for her sins.
Chapter 3 of Lamentations is a personal
lament—an expression of the pain that an
individual experiences in the context of a
national disaster.
 MY AFFLICTION AND MY MISERY
19 Remember my affliction and my misery,
the wormwood and the gall.

20 My soul still remembers them,

and is bowed down within me.

Jeremiah was referring to the pain Jerusalem

had experienced as a city.
They had been in exile for 70 years and now
that they are back they are faced with a
daunting reality of loss
Jeremiah walked through the streets and
alleys of the Holy City and saw nothing but
pain, suffering, and destruction in the wake of
the Babylonian invasion of 586 BC. 
1  Children begged food from their mothers
(Lamentations 2:12) They say to their
mothers,
    “Where is bread and wine?”
as they faint like the wounded
    in the streets of the city,
as their lives ebb away
    in their mothers’ arms.

2. young men and women were cut down by

swords (2:21), Young and old lie together
    in the dust of the streets;
my young men and young women
    have fallen by the sword.
You have slain them in the day of your anger;

   3.  you have slaughtered them without pity.

With their own hands compassionate women
    have cooked their own children,
who became their food
    when my people were destroyed.
formerly compassionate mothers used their
children for food (4:10). 

The affliction and homelessness that seem so

bitter to this author have to do with the
devastation of his homeland and the forced
sojourn of his people in a foreign land.
 Wormwood is a desert plant in the daisy
family from which people extracted a
medicinal potion known for its bitter taste.
Gall refers to the bile produced by the gall
bladder—also quite bitter. Wormwood and
gall appear together in Jeremiah and
Lamentations as a metaphor for the
bitterness of life. My God life can be bitter at
times and for each individual it’s a lonely
road. Some years ago I had a neighbour who
was estranged from her husband. Whatever
the circumstances, she took her children and
fled. Apparently he was very good natured
once he was sober but once he was drunk, he
abused them. They were my neighbours for
years and the mother of the family became
like my own mother. I loved her as such. After
a while, whenever there was a special
occasion they will bring the father to their
home and they will have a wonderful
celebration with him. He eventually fell ill and
my neighbour went to his home and took care
of him but this was only for a few days as he
eventually died. I went to the funeral and his
wife was inconsolable, the children also. Six
weeks later, the wife died, needless to say, I
was distraught, I went to the funeral and was
a little disturbed as I couldn’t understand how
they were inconsolable for their father’s
funeral but their mother who stuck with them
through thick and thin they looked sad but it
was less than I expected. Some years later in
2010 My father died, mind you my parents
were divorced and we were with my mom
throughout the years. Two months later my
mother died. In my father’s funeral I fainted
by the graveside. The next thing I knew I was
in a car with individuals fanning me. I stood at
my mother’s graveside two months later and
while singing a song, someone leaned over
and asked me a question, he asked, how
come they actually lifted you up after you
fainted for your father’s funeral and now you
are so relaxed for your mother’s funeral? We
see Jeremiah lamenting as an individual,
because while all of us are going through
some measure of pain each one experience
their own measure of bitterness.

“My soul still remembers them, and is

bowed down within me” (v. 20). The
destruction of Jerusalem and the deportation
of its citizens to Babylon have been such a
catastrophe for the Jewish people that
Jeremiah can think of nothing else. The
thought of it burdens him and weighs him
down.
Yes we have situations that weigh us down,
we are going through a pandemic, nothing is
the same. While we are going through this in
the entire world, each individual feels their
own pain, like Jeremiah our soul still
remembers them, the neighbours say to you,
time heals but you still remember them and
your soul is bowed down within you.
We look at psalm 137 the psalm transports
the reader to the exile in Babylon. The
situation there is described graphically. The
exiles sit and cry at the rivers of Babylon. The
rivers of Babylon probably refer to the Tigris
and Euphrates, their tributaries, and a
network of irrigation canals.24 Their
memories of Zion fill them with sorrow and
longing. The exiles’ remembrance of Zion is
“not just an accidental remembering but a
deliberate focusing of attention and thought,
a focused mindfulness on the part of a
community gathered for recollection.” Zion
has been destroyed, everything they relied on
and trusted in have disintegrated around
them. Yes you may feel like everything have
disintegrated around you…….explain some
scenarios.
Yet this I call to mind
    and therefore I have hope: vs 21
I looked in the dictionary for the meaning of
hope
Hope is an optimistic state of mind that is
based on an expectation of positive outcomes
with respect to events and circumstances in
one's life or the world at large. As a verb, its
definitions include: "expect with confidence"
and "to cherish a desire with anticipation."
 Having sunk low in his soul (Lamentations
3:20), Jeremiah now remembered something
that started hope within.
But now the author switches from despair to
hope. There is no denying the terrible
consequences of Jerusalem’s sacking and the
exile in Babylon, but there is also no denying
that Yahweh has redeemed Israel from
terrible situations in the past—giving the
author hope that Yahweh will redeem Israel
once again.
Yes he remembers the escape from slavery in
Egypt
He remembers the crossing of the red sea
He remembers Jericho, those walls came
tumbling down
He says this I call to mind and therefore I have
hope.
Get up out of the ashes, hope in God, why?
“It is because of His great love  that we are
not consumed, because his compassion
doesn’t fail. They are new every morning”
They are renewed every morning, so they
remain ever fresh. Since that is true, Israel has
nothing to fear. Its present circumstances
might be terrible, but its future is assured. 

His mercies are new every morning.” This

means that God doesn't hold your mistakes
against you, he gives you a chance to start
fresh every day if you ask Him for forgiveness.
God doesn't want you to live in guilt or
sadness because of how you acted or
what you did in the past
 Through the LORD’s mercies we are not
consumed: This was one of the things
Jeremiah remembered. He remembered that
as beat down and defeated the people of
Jerusalem and Judah were, they were not yet
completely consumed. There was still a
remnant, and remnant with a promise of
restoration. Wherever God leaves life, He
leaves hope.
24 
I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion;
    therefore I will wait for him.”
25 
The LORD is good to those whose hope is in
him,
    to the one who seeks him;
26 
it is good to wait quietly
    for the salvation of the LORD.

From verses 24 to 26 it emphasizes the

importance of waiting on the Lord
Throughout scripture, we find an emphasis on
waiting for the Lord

Isaiah 40:31 tells us

But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew
their strength; they shall mount up with wings
as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary;
and they shall walk, and not ..faint.
To “wait for” the Lord is to live in faith—to
live in the expectation that Yahweh’s
“compassion doesn’t fail”—that his mercies
never come to an end—that his faithfulness is
not only great but assured. To “wait for” the
Lord is to live in the certainty that the Lord
has the power and the will to bless those who
are faithful. To “wait for” the Lord is to see
beyond one’s present circumstances (such as
the exile) to a future blessed by the hand of
the Lord (such as the restoration of Israel).

We all have bad days. We have days where

we don’t feel like ourselves, where we are
mad or angry or sad and maybe take it out on
the people we love. There are also times
where we do things we know we shouldn’t be
doing, and then end up feeling guilty or
disappointed in ourselves. Lucky for us, God
lets us push the “reset” button every day.
There is hope brethren as you remember the
escape from Egypt, the crossing of the red
sea, the crumbling of the walls of Jericho.
Hope in God, He did it before and He will do it
again.
There are those listening to me who maybe
going over the events of your life and some of
the pain you are experiencing is remorse, you
realize that your actions have not been
pleasing to God.
Lamentations reminds us of the importance
not only of mourning over our sin but of
asking the Lord for His forgiveness when we
fail Him. Much of Jeremiah’s poetry concerns
itself with the fallen bricks and cracking
mortar of the overrun city. Do you see any of
that destroyed city in your own life? Are you
mourning over the sin that’s brought you to
this point? Do you feel overrun by an alien
power; are you in need of some hope from
the Lord? 
The word of God says