I have chosen the Text: Lamentation 1:7-9

“Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant

things that she had in the days of old and none did help her: the adversaries saw her, and did

mock at her Sabbaths. Jerusalem had grievously sinned; therefore she is removed all that

honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yea, she sighted, and turned

backward”

Under this I entitle my topic as: Be a faithful servant of God

1. Be faithful, before God pour out his anger

2. Be faithful, which you will continue to live in God’s provinces

3. The consequences of sin

Background of the authorship and the book

Traditionally accepted that the book of lamentation was written by prophet Jeremiah, around

586 BC when the Israelites taken to Babylonian Captivity by Nebuchadnezzar the King of

Babylon. And the book of Lamentation is the collection of Jeremiah’s laments for the fallen

and the destruction of Jerusalem. Jeremiah stood and saw the destruction of wall, tower,

homes palace and the temple and now the city become dust and the city is in ruined, after

seeing all those destruction he weep. Therefore Jeremiah is also call as weeping prophet.

Historical Background

Israelite were chosen from the time of Abraham, and they went in to exile in Egypt because

of the great famine in the land, but God delivered them from the hands of King Pharaoh and

placed them in fertile land after 40 years wandering in the wilderness, but when they were

enjoying the provision of God in His provinces, they turn away from God and they became so

wicked. They demand the kings therefore God provide them, King Saul was the first king of

Israel, he disobeyed Him therefore he was dethrone from his Kingship, King David, because
of his adultery God did not allowed him to build the temple and king Solomon, because he

corrupted the temple so his kingdom was divided into two kingdom and God didn’t find any

good fruits bear from them indeed they bear the wild fruits (Isaiah5:2). Therefore God poured

out his anger to them and God allowed the neighbouring nation to destroy their nation and

torture them physically and spiritually in foreign land.

Jerusalem had once been a queen now she was a slave. Foreigners had stolen its wealth,

polluted its temple and carried its people into exile. Abandoned by its allies and no longer

visited by religious pilgrims, it was like an inconsolable widow weeping bitterly over her

loss. Because of its sin, Jerusalem had been humiliated like a woman publicly disgraced by

sexual sin.

So when we read his passages we can see that God poured out His anger to Israelite’s upon

their wickedness and idolatry, because God’s judgement is terrible and miserable that no one

can bear, there will be sorrows, hardship, and life be in ruined in God’s wrath.

Therefore, I also would like to encourage every one of us here to faithfully serve Him, for if

we are call out to tent the sheep be a good shepherd, if we are call out to be a builder of his

Kingdom be a good architecture. Be faithful in doing whatever He has assign us, we need to

be matured in spiritual, and morally qualified, so that we will not face the God’s wrath, for if

we are only faithful in His vineyard God will bless us for our faithfulness towards him.

1. Be faithful before God pour out his anger

Here in, v.7a “Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries

all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old,” the women here is refers to

Israelites. She was remembering all her riches and glory and the various benefit she enjoyed

from God’s protection and favour, particularly the honour and happiness of having his

peculiar presence in the temple and the manifestation he gave of his will by prophet. So why
did they retrospect and remember their past life in Jerusalem when they were in captivity?

Because in captivity as a slave they become homeless, no place of worship, no helper, no

ordinance, no ark of testimony, no symbol of God’s presence, no peace and no enjoyment and

no festival, and they were tortured like an animals, they don’t get rest even a single day, with

that pains they remember the their olden days in Jerusalem.

V7b. And no one did help her: the adversaries saw her, and did mock at her Sabbaths.

Now they had fallen in the hands of their enemy, and she had no helper, the heathen use to

mock at her Sabbath. Actually for the Jews Sabbath is for the day of relaxation from the

labour, and leisure to attend upon service of God, and learn the duties of religion; and to

celebrate the creation of the world, and term them as sabbatarians, but there is no Sabbath in

captivity.

Today in this generation, the world is changing too fast and every hour and every second the

things are changing, many people are so excited to the see the invention of new things and

turn their face towards them, today the people are rejecting God when the Hindus and

Muslims are celebrating their festival like Durga puja and ID, the Christians instead of

rejecting them they involve in these occasions and destroy the image of their own image,

spending lots of money in these occasion and corrupting their spiritual life and moral life. Is

it the way that the believers need to involve with them. God is going to pour out His anger to

them because of their wickedness. Today most of the pastors are not really committed, many

pastors when they don’t get enough salary they try to run away from God, many deacon after

serving many years as deacon when they church allow him to take rest the start drinking,

Illustration of deacon. Are they really committed servant; God will pour out his anger to

those who turn their face from God. Therefore, before the terrible days begin in our life we

must be faithful to God, we all are chosen by God to be faithful servant in His vineyard, we
must be faithful before the terrible days fall in us, ahead preparation is better the regretting

after fall.

2. Be faithful that you will continue to live in God’s provinces

V.8a “Jerusalem had grievously sinned; therefore she is removed”; Here grievously

sinned literally mean that the continuance in wickedness. they sinned sin, that the abdominal

things which the Lord hate, the sin of Idolatry (which means spiritually corrupted) the

Israelites become so wicked, their moral life has been corrupted by rejection of God, so the

Jerusalem become the unclean city. Therefore she is removed from His provinces for her

legal impurity and moral impurity that sin has made Jerusalem an object of horror, and she

was carried away captivity to Babylon.

V8b All that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness here it says

she had made herself vile and therefore is justly vilified and they have seen her deprived of

all her strength as she had defile herself with idolatry, God has order her to expose to shame

like a common harlot

V8c Yea, she sighteth, and turneth backward: and now Jerusalem groan over the infancy

of her deeds and thus brought to open shame, and turn her back upon her spectators in order

hide herself. The shame has to be seen in such despicable condition, destitute of all those

things which constituted her former glory. She carried out the mark of her sin in the greatness

of her punishment.

3. The consequences of Sin (vs.9)

Her filthiness is in her skirts,.... Her sin is manifest to all, being to be seen in her

punishment. The allusion is to a menstruous woman, to whom she is compared, both before

and after; whose blood flows down to the skirts of her garments, and there seen; by which it

is known that she is in her separation. So the Targum,

"The filthiness of the blood of her separation is in her skirts; she is not cleansed from it, nor

does she repent of her sins:''

she remembered not her last end; she did not consider in the time of her prosperity what

her sins would bring her to; what would be the issue of them, though she was warned by the

prophet, and was told what things would come to at last, yet she laid it not to heart; nor did

she lay it up in her mind, or reflect upon it; but went on in her sinful courses:

Therefore she came down wonderfully; or with wonders from a very exalted estate to a

very low one; from the height of honor and prosperity to the depth of distress and misery; to

the astonishment and wonder of all about her, that so flourishing a city and kingdom should

be brought to ruin at once, in so strange a manner.

She had no comforter, it means that none to help her against her enemies, Lamentations 1:7;

and to prevent her ruin; so none to pity her, and have compassion upon her, and speak a

comfortable word to her now she was in it:

O Lord, behold my affliction: it is not with his eye of omniscience only, which he did, and,

of which she had no doubt; but with an eye of pity and compassion: thus Zion is at once and

suddenly introduced, breaking out in this pathetic manner, being in great affliction and

distress, having none else to apply to; and the enemy bearing hard upon her, and behaving in

a very insolent and audacious manner, transgressing all bounds of humanity and decency; and

therefore hoped the Lord would have compassion on her, though she had sinned against him.

For the enemy hath magnified himself this mean that behaved haughtily both against God

and his people; attributing great things to himself; magnifying his own power and wisdom.

Two sub- points:

1. The consequences of Judah sins.

a. Blindness. They could not see the ruin they were approaching. When we cease to

lay bare our sins and call them by their real names, we cease to feel them. We
 enter into moral darkness. The light of the world shines as before, but there is

nothing in us which answers to that light. All knowledge of what we ought to do

rests on some knowledge of what God is and does. We speak of seeing God, and

though He is not visible to the bodily eye, there is no other description which

expresses our perception of His character and presence surrounding us in all our

ways. When men turn away from that light, His character becomes to them

distorted and unreal.

b. Untrustworthiness. When they became false to God they became false to all

trusts. They substituted forms for righteousness, and increased them in proportion

as they lost the spirit of truth. The consequences of sin were seen too late. They

were not foreseen. Sin produced all temporal evil. Jerusalem hath grievously

sinned, therefore she is removed.

2. The destruction which will come upon sinners will be to them a matter of fearful

surprise, inasmuch as in the present life God’s wrath, for the most part, seems to

slumber; at least they perceive no direct expression of it. It is true, indeed, that God is

giving them warnings enough, both in His Word and providence; and if they did not

close their ears against them, they could not fail to be alarmed; and they will never be

able, in the day of their calamity, to charge God with having concealed from them

their danger. Nevertheless, He treats them here as probationers for eternity; He sets

life and death before them, but He does not unsheathe His sword, and point it at the

sinner’s heart. He does not find that the elements are armed for his destruction. The

thundercloud rises, and rolls, and looks terrific, as if it was borne along by an

avenging hand, but the lightning that blazes from it passes him by unhurt. In short, not

one of the vials of God’s wrath can be said to be open upon him.
However, the reason that Jeremiah was reminding his people of this was to bring them to

repentance. He wanted them to recognize the deep significance of what had happened. It not

only allows people to release their grief, but also brings home the lesson to be learned. It also

a reminder that when God warns us of coming judgment we need to take it seriously. Most of

us are far too glib about our sins and about coming judgment, just as Judah/Israel had been.

We need to remember that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, and that

a day of reckoning for our failures is coming, even on those of us who are His redeemed.

Application:

Now When we look back in the account man’s fall in Genesis 3, Adam and Eve were

spiritually corrupted by disobeying His command, therefore, God sent them out of the Eden

garden, from the place of much more comfortable, and God even curse them, and because of

Adam and Eve the sin inherit through all generation. It did not affect only to them but it also

affected through His descendant.

Illustration: One of my neighbouring village pastor misbehave before his congregation and he

committed sin, therefore the villagers have decided to chase him out from the village and he

was removed the his pastoral ship, now, we don’t see him and hear about his name anymore

his shame poured out everywhere so he might be living somewhere where his congregation

couldn’t reach, and the problem for the villager is that still they don’t have prosperity, still

they are lacking behind, spiritually, educationally, economically, the pastor simply left the

church after he corrupted, but the believer in that church are still suffering .

If same thing happen in our future ministry, what we shall do we only need to received the

wrath of God for our wickedness work. Therefore we must be very careful in every walks of

our life. We must be faithful that God will not cast out from His territory and we will enjoy

His provision in His provinces.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, We should remember that once God’s wrath fall on us it

will inherit even to our descendant, and if God find His favour in us the blessing will flows

through our generation to generation. Are we truly committed servant, we should be always

stands firm in our faith in the midst of storms, be faithful that we will escape from God’s

wrath. When we are faithful in our ministry God will bless us more and more, but when we

are not faithful God will remove us from his provinces and He will place us where there is

lots of hardship, therefore I urge every one of us to be a faithful servant of God.

May God bless us all Amen.