Averting National and Personal Disaster

What happened? It was the summer of 587 BC when the Babylonians conquered the beautiful city of Jerusalem. The Book of Lamentations is an eyewitness account of what it looks and feels like to be conquered by invading enemy army.

Jeremiah saw people weeping bitterly. They were displaced from their homes. “Her persecutors overtook her.” “Her adversaries have become the head.” “She had no comforter.” “All her people sigh. They seek bread.” [1] Their enemies gleefully rejoiced, saying, “We have swallowed her up. Certainly, this is the day that we looked for. We have found it. We have seen it.” [2] The sound of music stopped. [3] “Young children and the infants swooned in the streets of the city.” [4] Lifeless bodies of virgin girls and boys were strewn about the streets like discarded trash. [5] “The young children ask bread, and no one breaks it for them.” [6] “The young men carry millstones. The children stumbled under loads of wood.” [7] “Women ate their children.” [8] Orphans and widows were everywhere. [9] Women were raped. [10] Lifeless prophets and priests littered the floor of God’s house. [11] Slain without pity by Babylonian swords! Fair skinned Nazarites were now as black as coal. Their skin barely covered their bones. [12] Princes were hung up by their hands. Elders were dishonored. [13] Inheritances and houses were forfeited to foreigners. [14] City officials sat on the ground silently. Their heads were covered in dust. [15]

In Lamentations 1:8, 16, Jeremiah lamented, “Jerusalem has sinned gravely therefore she has become vile.” “For these things I weep; my eye, my eye overflows with water; because the comforter, who should restore my life, is far from me. My children are desolate because the enemy prevailed.”

In Lamentations 1:18, Jeremiah gave voice to the realization that needed to happen long before this destruction began. He confessed, “The Lord is righteous, for I rebelled against His commandment.”

In Lamentations 1:19, he expressed the shock of betrayal the people were feeling, saying, “I called for my lovers, but they deceived me.”

In Lamentations 1:20, he returns to expressing the people’s grief to the Lord, “See, O Lord, that I am in distress; my soul is troubled; my heart is overturned within me, for I have been very rebellious. Outside the sword bereaves, at home it is like death.”

In Lamentations 2:9, there are no local leaders left to lead them, “Her king and her princes are among the nations. The Law is no more, and her prophets find no vision from the Lord.”

Their religious leaders failed to address the main point of religion which is to deal with the issue of sin and its forgiveness and having a personal daily right relationship with the Lord.

Lamentations 2:14 says, “Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions. They have not uncovered your iniquity, to bring back your captives, but have envisioned for you false prophecies and delusions.”

Sin is the root of all evils. It needs to be dealt with by the one true God.

The cross of Jesus Christ has a double meaning. The cross means that sin is so bad that only God’s perfectly sinless Son could be sacrificed to forgive it. The cross means that God so loved us that He was willing to give His sinless Son as a sacrifice for our sins.

Now, each person must believe and profess faith in Jesus Christ before God applies His Son’s blood sacrifice to their sin and removes it.

Have you done it? Have you asked God to forgive your sins and to apply the blood of Christ to wash all your sin stains away? If not, why not? Jesus Christ went through a horrible beating, whipping, crucifixion and death to pay your sin debt. On the third day, He resurrected from the dead to prove He is the Savior of the world and your Savior. The Bible advises you and me to humble ourselves in sight of the Lord, and He will lift us up.

The Jerusalemites turned their backs on God. They celebrated freedom from His laws as though liberated from a fiend, but had, in fact, freed themselves from a friend. They spurned the Living God and embraced the angel of death.

The fall of Jerusalem was horrific. Let us pray for our nations and serve the Lord by giving His Word voice so that people will be convicted of their sins, repent and turn to faith in Christ.

Let’s not wait for divine judgment to fall on our nations, assuming that dire circumstances will break the power of sin. The prophets, apostles and Jesus Christ warned people against sin’s consequences in advance of the disasters that sins yields. If people repent, God forgives and the downfall of the nation is avoided.

Amos 5:18-19 warns against waiting for the day of the Lord to deal with a nation’s sin, “Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord! Why do you long for the day of the Lord? It is darkness, and not light. As if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him; or he went into the house and leaned his hand on the wall, and a snake bit him.”

In 2 Chronicles 7:14, God advises us to pray thus, “If My people, who are called by My Name, will humble themselves, pray, seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”


[1] Lamentations 1:3, 5, 9, 11,
[2] Lamentations 2:16
[3] Lamentations 5:14 Reference
[4] Lamentations 2:11-12
[5] Lamentations 2:21 Reference
[6] Lamentations 4:4
[7] Lamentations 5:13
[8] Lamentations 2:20
[9] Lamentations 5:3 Reference
[10] Lamentations 5:11 Reference
[11] Lamentations 2:20 Reference
[12] Lamentations 4:7-8 Reference
[13] Lamentations 5:12 Reference
[14] Lamentations 5:2 Reference
[15] Lamentations 2:10 Reference