A brief overview of Lifeway’s “Explore the Bible” lesson of Lamentations 3:19-33 for Sunday, August 27, 2023, with the title, “Good.”

(A video version of this overview is available on YouTube at:

A few months into the American Revolution in 1776, George Washington’s army was struggling, while marching on repeated retreats from the British. One American citizen, Charles Willson Peale, walked along with the army as they retreated from New Jersey. He said “they looked as wretched as any men he had ever seen. One had almost no clothes. ‘He was in an old dirty blanket jacket, his beard long, and his face so full of sores that he could not clean it.’ So ‘disfigured’ was he that Peale failed at first to recognize that the man was his own brother, James Peale, who had been with a Maryland unit as part of the rear guard.”

(David McCullough, 1776, p. 263)

??? Have you ever seen something that USED to be beautiful/rich/new, that became devastated/run down??? 

(A house, a church, a city, maybe a person?

Last week so we saw how the Hanging Gardens of Babylon became a ruin; you could show pictures of that contrast again; or before/after of Hiroshima/Nagasaki, or other examples …) 

Then = that is how Jeremiah saw Jerusalem after Babylon had judged it. Chapter 1 of Lamentations gives us the context: 

:1 “How lonely sits the city that was full of people! She has become like a widow who was once great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces has become a forced laborer.” 

:11 “they have given their precious things for food”

In other words, Jerusalem, once regarded as the most beautiful city in the world, was now devastated. 

SO many people have visited Jerusalem over the centuries, and have written about its beauty. The Jewish Talmud, which is the book of Jewish traditions of the Law, says:

“Ten measures of beauty descended to the world, nine were taken by Jerusalem and one by the rest of the world. Jerusalem is a beauty unparalleled.”  

Jerusalem on earth was and is a beautiful city, that reflects the glory of God. Some of you may have been there … ? (You could print/show a picture of the walls/beauty of the city of Jerusalem.)
But now Jerusalem has been devastated, like Jeremiah describes in Chapter 1+.

In :16 he writes: “For these things I weep; my eyes run down with water …” He is LAMENTING the destruction of Jerusalem which he has seen. This is where the title for book comes: “Lamentations.” Jeremiah is mourning the devastation of Jerusalem. 

This brings us to our focus passage, Chapter 3:19-33.

OUTLINE

I. The Depressing Situation (:19-20)

II. The Hope in the LORD (:21-24)

III. The Humble Seeker (:25-30)

IV. The Heart of God (:31-33)

I. THE DEPRESSING SITUATION  (:19-20)

:19 kind of sums up :1-18, as Jeremiah reviews his own afflictions: “Remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and bitterness. (:20) Surely my soul remembers and is bowed down within me.”

So the situation that Jerusalem is in, destroyed and devastated, many taken into captivity, is also devastating to Jeremiah personally as he has lived through all that happened. He says “my soul is just bowed down within me.” One translation says “depressed.” The Hebrew word literally means “to sink down.” 

We’ve all been in depressing/distressing situations, right?

??? Someone want to share one of your times when you were in a situation like that in your life??? (Maybe it’s now!)

(When I was sick in 2012, on my back for a year; by Jan 2013 was resigning, having to sell our house, 2/3 of our possessions, and move to a condo in Norman, OK, and started application for disability. “Affliction” and “wandering” are good words for what we were going through!)

Like Jeremiah says, “surely our souls remember” these times!
We’ve all had them — maybe you’ve still got a kind of PTSD from it! — so this scripture applies to all of us.

But he says here in :19, “REMEMBER my affliction …”. 

??? Who is he talking to here??? 

(GOD! This is important. Even when we feel devastated, afflicted, forsaken, he is still talking to God. He is still calling out to Him. We see this in so many Psalms: “Why have You forsaken Me”, (Psalm 22) etc. But the key is, they are still calling out to God in those times. That is so important to do. Be “honest to God” and share the grievances of your heart with Him.” You may not understand what is going on, but keep talking to God. (See my recent sermon: “Honest to God” at http://www.shawnethomas.com.) 

It is very important how we respond in these times. Do we just give in to those feelings? Give up? Do we turn away from God, or to God?      We see what Jeremiah did in the next section:

II. HOPE IN THE LORD  (:21-24)

:21 “This I recall to mind, therefore I have hope. The LORD’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.

He says, in this devastating situation, here’s the thing I remember; here is what gives me hope: “The LORD’s lovingkindnesses never cease …”. He says in these times, I think about God, about who He is, and what He is like — and THAT gives me hope in those times. 

So what exactly does he say about God here? (:22+)

— “The LORD’s lovingkindnesses never cease.”

(First of all note: that when you see “LORD” in all 4 caps like that in the Old Testament, that is “YHWH” in the Hebrew text, “Yahweh,” or “Jehovah,” the personal name of God. This is not referring to “just any generic god,” but the God of the Bible, who revealed Himself to Moses as the “I AM,” the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.”) 

And significantly it says of Him, that His “lovingkindnesses never cease.” The word “lovingkindness” here is the Hebrew word “chesed.” It is so rich in meaning that it is hard to translate by one word into English. 

??? I might ask my group: share some of the translations of this word in your Bibles???

(NAS: “lovingkindness” KJV: “mercies”  NIV: “great love”

ESV: “steadfast love”  HCB: “faithful love”

There are so many different translations of this because it is so deep, so rich, you can’t translate it with any one word!

I love what Martin Luther said: it may be the best Old Testament word for the New Testament idea of God’s GRACE. His undeserved goodness and love and mercy to us. 

And what does it say about this “love/mercy/grace”?

(“It NEVER CEASES” The Hebrew word “tamam” means “complete, or finish.” His love is never complete; it’s never finished; it never ends.  Some translations say because of His “chesed” that “WE are never consumed/finished” — but I think this is the best translation — especially as it goes with the next phrase: “His compassions never fail.” You see how those two complement each other: “His love never ceases; His compassions never fail.” So I think that’s the best translation.)

But the REAL POINT to make here is that God’s love/mercy/grace/compassions DO NOT END or fail. 

— “His compassions never fail.” The word “compassions” comes from a Hebrew word “racham,” a mother’s womb, so it is picture of the kind of undying love that a mother has for her child.
Everybody else may give up on that child — but that mother is not! “Her compassions never fail.”

I think of the story of Monica, the mother of Augustine of Hippo Regis, in North Africa, about 300 years after the time of Christ. 

Augustine rebelled against God as a young man, but his mother Monica never gave up on him. She would go to the church and pray and weep for him, in continual intercession. One day the priest said to her: “Fear not, a child of such tears will never perish.” She would not give up on her son. And one day, Augustine was indeed saved, and became one of the greatest Christian writers and theologians in all history.

But that’s the mother’s love for her son. That’s the “racham” — the “never-failing compassions” this word refers to.

AND that is the love the Bible says that God has for US. It does not fail. It does not end. We may “feel” like it does, when we are in some of those depressing, discouraging times. But it does not. As Romans 8:39 says, NOTHING “will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” His compassions never fail. 

— “They are new every morning.”

Every new day you get up, God has new love and mercy and grace for the day. Your didn’t use up all God’s grace yesterday! You get a new supply today! 

— “Great is Your faithfulness”

In Hebrew “great” is “rabah,” “abundant.” “Faithfulness” is “emunah,” “firmness, steadfastness, fidelity.” God is steadfast, firm in His love and grace to us. It doesn’t waver. 

Maybe you’ve talked to someone who was all for you, or for a plan you had, or something else, one day — but then the next day, they had changed their mind. 

GOD does not do that. He loves you today, and He will love you tomorrow. He has mercy and grace for you today, and He still will tomorrow. He is “steadfast, firm” in His relationship to you. He will not change. 

And that’s really our hope as Christians. Our hope is NOT based on the fact that we are so faithful to God — because we are not always. Our assurance is that HE is faithful to US!

— II Timothy 2:13 says: “If we are faithless, He remains faithful; for He cannot deny Himself.” HE is faithful, when we are not.

— To me it’s like Psalm 63: “My soul clings to You; Your right hand upholds me.” We hold on to God the best we can, but even greater than that, is that HE hold on to US!

I think of the time when we took our son Michael as a baby to a ball game in Arlington TX. Our seats were way up high and as we were making our way up there, his little hand was full of my shirt, as he was holding on to me with all he could. But his security that day was not based on how tightly HE held on to ME, but on how tightly I was holding on to HIM!

You can use that story if you’d like, or share a similar one like it from your own experience. And make the point that our hope is in GOD’S faithfulness. HIS faithfulness is very great!

(Of course the great song “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” comes from this verse. If you have an opening assembly, or a piano in your room, and can sing, you might use this song that day.)

Then BECAUSE God is all of those things, he says in :24:

“‘The LORD is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I have hope in Him.” 

What does that mean, “the Lord is my PORTION”? 

The Hebrew word (chelek) means “portion, tract, territory.” 

It refers to the inheritance, the “tract of land” that each Israelite family received in the Promised Land. Everyone had a portion.

EXCEPT the priests and Levites. God told Aaron in Numbers 18:20,  “You shall have no inheritance in their land nor own any portion among them; I am your portion and your inheritance among the sons of Israel.” So they didn’t get a “portion” of land. GOD was their portion! GOD was their inheritance!

Psalm 16:5-6 says “the LORD is the portion of my inheritance and my cup; You support my lot. The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; indeed my heritage is beautiful to me.” David wrote this Psalm, and he was not a priest, but he said the LORD, (all caps = “YHWH”) is my portion. HE is my real inheritance. And he says, He is the best inheritance of all! GOD is what I get! It’s like God told Abraham in Genesis 15, “I am … your very great reward.” 

And that is what Jeremiah is saying here. The LORD is my portion; my inheritance. I may have lost everything in this Babylonian invasion: my land, my house, my possessions, my savings, maybe even family and loved ones, maybe even my freedom — but I am still rich because GOD is my portion — and NOTHING can take HIM away from me!

And if we know the Lord today, the same thing is true for us. No matter what happens to us in life, we have the Lord. HE is our inheritance; HE is our great reward — and nothing that happens to us on earth can take our inheritance away. We can lose our money; we can lose our home; we can lose our job; we can lose our retirement or 401k; we can lose our church or ministry; we can lose our family/friends — but NOTHING can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, as Romans 8 says. NOTHING can take away the eternal inheritance we have in Him. 

“The LORD is my portion; therefore I have hope in Him.”

The question is: HOW REAL IS THIS TO YOU? Our times of difficulty test us: do we really believe this? IS He really the greatest and most important thing in our lives? DO we rejoice because we have that inheritance and reward in Him? 

NOW: notice that :24 says: “‘The LORD is my portion’ SAYS MY SOUL.” ???Who is speaking here??? 

(HIS OWN SOUL!) See, he is speaking to himself. This is important. Sometimes we need to “speak to ourselves;” “preach to ourselves,” “preach the gospel to ourselves.” 

??? You might ask your group??? “Do you ever talk to yourself?” Preach to yourself? “Give yourself a pep talk”? 

(I’ll do that: several times I will just look at myself in the mirror, and “preach to myself” — and I’m a preacher; I know how to do it!  You/others can share about doing that in your own lives.)

This is what Jeremiah is doing here — he “preaching to himself;” speaking to his own soul — and this is BIBLICAL:

— +x Psalm 103:1 “Bless the Lord, O My soul …” What’s he doing there? He is telling his own soul to bless the Lord!

— +x Psalm 42:5,11: “Why are you in despair O my soul …” He is downcast, but he is asking himself, WHY? WHY are you feeling like that? “Hope in God,” he tells his soul later in Psalm 42, “For I shall yet again praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God.” See, he’s preaching to himself. 

We need to do that same thing. Sometimes we need to speak to our own souls. We’re feeling a certain way, but we shouldn’t. We need to fight against those thoughts and feelings. This is the spiritual battle we all fight every day. Talk about something that applies to our daily life: THIS DOES!

II Corinthians 10:5 says that we should be “taking every thought captive.” In other words, don’t give in to the despair, discouragement, depression that is trying to drag us down. “Take those thoughts captive.” Don’t let those bad thoughts take over. Speak to your soul, when you are “down in the dumps” like the Psalmist was in Psalm 42; like Jeremiah was here in Lamentations. Say “NO; it’s not all bad; the LORD is my portion! I have an inheritance in Him that can never be taken away!” 

— Yeah, my stock portfolio may be crashing, but that is not my real inheritance; my real inheritance is the LORD! And no economic crisis can take Him away from me! I can sing in prison, like Paul & Silas did, because the LORD is my portion! 

BECAUSE God is his portion, he can say, “Therefore I have hope in Him.” If you are a Christian, you ALWAYS have hope! You always have better days ahead, in glory.

(There’s so much here; I’m going to be honest with you: I don’t know if I am going to get past :24 in my own lesson! But we’ll cover the rest of the focus passage for those who do:)

III. THE HUMBLE SEEKER OF GOD  (:25-30)

So we’ve talked a lot about GOD, and the way He is towards us. Now :25 turns to the kind of person God will help and bless in a situation like that:   “The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him.”

WHO does God help in these situations?

— “those who wait for Him”

— “the person who seeks Him”

Those are synonyms, really (synonymous parallelism which is what a lot of Hebrew poetry does).  It’s saying: SEEK GOD in these times. Wait for Him. We talked a lot about seeking God two weeks ago, when the people of Jerusalem were supposedly seeking Him. You might refer to that. 

And apply that: ??? HOW do you wait for Him. HOW do you seek Him??? 

(In His word; in prayer/fasting; in circumstances; in purifying your life; in godly counsel. This is important: SEEK GOD in those depressing times. Don’t abandon Him; He has not abandoned you, even if it feels like it. Seek Him in those times; this verse says God will be good to you if you will!)

ALSO: it is of note that :25-27 all three begin with the Hebrew word “tob”: “Good … good … good”:

— “GOOD the Lord is to those who wait for Him”

— “GOOD that he waits silently for the salvation of the LORD”

— “GOOD for a man that he should bear the yoke in his youth”

“Good … good … good” — it’s really emphasizing these “good” things in this difficult time.

??? How can it be “good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth”???

(How # have learned good habits when young/poor/had to work hard/humble themselves, etc.

(+x my story: When I graduated from seminary, I thought I was immediately going to be called to some great church. But instead I heard NOTHING! I had to wait a year after I had graduated, with a brand new baby, in almost poverty and a lot of difficulty, before I was called to my first church. For many years, Cheryl & I called that our “dark year” (we’ve had more since!) But I’ve said many times, I came out that “dark year” a different pastor than I would have. It was “good for me to bear the yoke in my youth.” God uses those hard things, those “yokes,” for our/others ultimate good.)

You/your group can share similar stories of how God used “the yoke” for good.

(:28-30 just kind of expand on what it means to “bear the yoke” of suffering in those depressing times. Accept it; learn from it; grow in it. God will see and bless you, as :25 says.)

IV. THE HEART OF GOD  (:31-33)

All the hope we have in difficult times is based on the heart of God; who He is. And we see God’s heart revealed here in :31-33:

Notice the three-fold repetition in :31-33: 

— “For the LORD will not reject forever”

— “For if He causes grief, then He will have compassion according to His abundant lovingkindness.”

— “For He does not afflict willingly or grieve the sons of men.”

FOR … FOR … FOR … He’s showing us three things here that reflect the heart of God in these difficult situations. They apply to us today as well as they did to those in Jeremiah’s day:

A. :31 “For the Lord will not reject forever”

God sometimes has to discipline us, like He did Israel in Jeremiah’s days. But as Psalm 30:5 says: “His anger is but for a moment; His favor is for a lifetime.” If He does have to discipline you, or pull His hand back from you for a while (like He did Jesus on the cross). He will not reject forever. 

B. :32 “For if He causes grief, then He will have compassion according to His abundant lovingkindness.”

We talked about His “lovingkindness;” His “chesed.” He says if He causes grief, He will also show mercy/love/grace.

C :33 “For He does not afflict willingly or grieve the sons of men”

The word “willingly” is literally “from His heart.” (Mi-lab-o) God’s heart is not to grieve us. His heart is to LOVE us. Remember that is who God IS. I John 4 says “God IS love.” Not just that He is “loving” sometimes; He IS love. That is who He IS. He will always display love. So even if He’s had to grieve you, to get you out of a sin, or for some purpose in your life, you can know that He always loves you. 

??? Have you ever had to do something difficult to your child, like hold him down while the doctor gave him a shot when they were too young to understand it???

(I have with our kids; I can remember them looking at me, like, “Why are you a part of this conspiracy to hurt me today?”

But they needed it for their well-being. I loved them, and I hoped that even in that pain, they knew that.

And we need to realize that the same thing is true in our situations today. God’s heart is not to afflict us; He loves us. He will do what He has to do — as we see here in Jerusalem — and as some of us have seen personally. Sometimes as a Just Judge He has to chastise; or He can see things that need to happen in our lives to get us where we need to be. Some of those things can be hard for us. But in all that, we need to remember that His HEART is not against us; His heart is always FOR us.
It’s like Romans 8:31 says: “If God is for us, who is against us?” That’s an amazing word: “God is for us.” That’s His heart. Even when He has to bring us through very difficult things, His heart is always for us — especially when we are in Christ. So trust His heart for you, even when you are in the midst of some of those distressing situations.  

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