April 13: HOPE IN THE MIDST OF CALAMITY (part 1)

How lonely sits the city That was full of people! How like a widow is she, Who was great among the nations! The princess among the provinces Has become a slave! Lamentations 1:1

Jeremiah walked with God. As a true prophet and with genuine love for his countrymen, he spoke to them the words that God gave him (Jeremiah 1:9). The divided kingdom, Israel to the north and Judah to the south, had once been united under God. Her zenith, though brief and far from the wholeness and wholesomeness that God desired for His chosen messengers of salvation to the world, was quickly met with division in the wake of Solomon’s disobedience and death. After the ten northern tribes were dissolved under Assyrian rule through mass deportation, the southern kingdom, Judah, began to slide downward. God spoke frequently and decisively through Jeremiah to communicate that the only way to escape calamity is through surrender to His will.

Jeremiah’s deep love for God spilled over into a genuine love for his countrymen (see Matthew 22:37-40). The words that he shared from God were delivered with compassion. The harsh prophecies were bathed in tears, given as a forewarning in order to avoid inevitable disaster that comes with abandoning God. “Your own wickedness will correct you, And your backslidings will rebuke you. Know therefore and see that it is an evil and bitter thing That you have forsaken the LORD your God, And the fear of Me is not in you,” says the Lord GOD of hosts. (Jeremiah 1:19)

Despite decades of warnings, surrender to the will of God did not come. The vast majority of Judah forsook the Lord GOD of hosts. Jeremiah wrote poetic lamentations with a broken heart as he witnessed the fulfillment of prophecies that had passed through his own lips.

In our day, these prophecies and their fulfillments bear a striking resemblance to those found in the last book of the Bible. How lonely sits the city That was full of people! The once-thriving capital city, famous for its strategic strength and architectural beauty now lay in ruins. Prophetic references often speak of the people of God as a city wherein their citizenship lies. Jerusalem, once the destination of the celebrated Queen of Sheba, became a desolation under three invasions and two sieges by Babylonian hordes. After the seventy-year Babylonian captivity, a remnant endeavored to follow the leading of the Lord GOD to rebuild the city, her walls, and the temple. Though this rebuilt temple was less glamorous than Solomon’s temple, the prophecy stating that the glory of this latter temple shall be greater than the former was fulfilled when the Son of God entered that temple bodily. But toward the end of Jesus’s earthly ministry, He was rejected by the leaders and the majority of His own people. Having earlier referred to the temple as My Father’s house (John 2:16), He departed the temple for the last time and declared, “Your house is left to you desolate” (Matthew 23:38), for it would no longer have the presence of the Lord. And yet, the Lord is with each one who loves Him; such is registered in the heavenly Jerusalem.

“He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him. If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.” John 14:21, 23