Unchanged Circumstances

Lamentations 3:43-45

We looked at how we ought to repent, turn from our sins, and restore our relationship with God in our last article. Now Jeremiah writes about how the Lord is taking out His anger on Israel. We have read about how God must be just and cannot ignore sin, and in the following verses we can observe that truth.

We see first in verse forty-three that God is sovereignly taking out the Israelites. He has covered Himself in anger, meaning, He has wrapped Himself up completely in anger in relation to the nation of Israel. He was not acting emotionally, but He is in control. His anger is a righteous anger. David mentions this type of anger in Psalm 4:4a when he writes, “Be angry and do not sin.” Jesus twice chased people out of the temple in His righteous anger (Matthew 21:12-17; John 2:13-16). The zeal for His house had eaten Him up (Psalm 69:9).

Anger is generally regarded as sin because typically one is angry because they have been or feel wronged in some way. It is tied in with pride. When God was angry with Israel, He was just in His anger. He had made a covenant with Israel that had been broken, and despite being longsuffering for hundreds of years, He finally had to act. His righteous anger was now in effect. I have heard it said that it takes a long time to make God angry, but when He does get angry, His judgement is swift. He is exceedingly patient and longsuffering, but at some point, if we test Him enough, He will have no other choice but to act.

Moving on to Lamentations 3:44 it says, “You have covered Yourself with a cloud, that prayer should not pass through.” God is not obligated to hear the prayers of His unfaithful children. Again we turn to the psalms where David writes, “If I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear” (Psalm 66:18). Isaiah point out that God is able to hear us and He is able to rescue us, but our sins cause Him to sometimes choose not to hear or not to save (Isaiah 59:1-2). Isaiah said this to the Israelites, but it did not change anything, Approximately one-hundred years later Jeremiah prophesied of the Israelites destruction.

We cannot expect God to hear our prayers when we are sinful. The Bible is very clear on that. We cannot expect God to adhere to our prayers when we only pray if we want or need something. He is not a genie, He is our God, our King, and our Father. I like the way A. W. Pink puts it in the introduction to his book A Guide to Fervent Prayer where he says, “Unless we express gratitude for mercies already received and give thanks to our Father for His granting us the continued favor of petitioning Him, how can we expect to obtain His ear and thus to receive answers of peace?”[i] I will say it again, we cannot expect God to adhere to our prayers when we only pray if we want or need something.

This takes us to our last verse which is verse forty-five: “You have made us an offscouring and refuse in the midst of the peoples.” These are very strong words that Jeremiah states; however, we have seen that Jeremiah is not bitter or “playing victim.” He understands God’s reason, and he is at peace with it. Yet it is still an undeniably difficult place to be. To see him and his people be viewed as refuse had to have been excruciating. We will look more at this in our next article as we dive deeper into this.

This chapter has gone from exceedingly low to exceedingly high, but it now appears to be beginning its descent again. Isn’t life like that sometimes? When things are going poorly it is hard to see any hope but then hope comes. Then when we are on a high we feel like nothing can knock us down, but it does. It is important to remember that Jeremiah’s circumstances never changed, his peace and hope did. Despite the difficulties going on around him he was able to find his peace and hope in God. What these verses are showing us is that he was still dealing with hardship. The question is can he, and likewise, we, maintain our hope and peace in God?

[i] A. W. Pink, A Guide to Fervent Prayer (Monergism Books, 2022) 7

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