Lamentations, chapter 1. And as you know, as you remember, the prophet Jeremiah is the one that the Holy Spirit used to pen this book. And the word lament, it's a relatively familiar word. What would be an appropriate definition for the word lament? Sorrow. Alright, sorrow. So we have Jeremiah expressing a certain amount of sorrow. We have quite often at different times in our lives that there are different circumstances that will enter our life that the results for a while, for a season, whether a short season or a long season, results in some sort of sorrow. And this is what is happening in the life of Jeremiah. He is seeing something happen where, and he had a particular advantage because he was the prophet of God. Constantly God was able to tell him things that were going to happen before they actually happened. And so it would even be more of a double sorrow to a certain extent because If you do a particular thing that would not be necessarily a positive thing that's going to happen, like in the case of here with Jeremiah, the captivity of Israel, or the captivity of Judah. And like Jeremiah, he did everything he could to warn the people, but the people still didn't heed the warning. And then what God actually said would happen came to pass. And so there's a sorrow there. He tried to do everything he could to tell the people to do something different, to change. Because he knew what God had purposed to do. And yet, the people didn't change. They went through a particular type of punishment from the Lord. Because they did not heed the instructions. of, um, of Thor, which ultimately threw the mouth of Jeremiah. And so here he is lamenting. He's very, very sad. He's very sorrowful. He's lamenting. And in verse 12, we could read verses 12. Let's just read verse 12 for the moment. Verse 12. It is nothing to you, all ye that pass by, to hold and see, if there be any sorrow, like an imiser, which is done unto me, or that afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger. All right, so here in the 12th verse of chapter 1, he's asking a question. And the question that he's asking, he's asking it in a certain sense of everyone that would be walking by. In other words, he's saying, anyone that walks by that sees me, and he's stating, they would say that my sorrow is great. He says, behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow. So he's asking the people that pass by to compare the sorrow that he has with the sorrow that they have seen in other people. And not that Jeremiah here is boasting the amount of sorrow that he has, but he's trying to demonstrate and illustrate that he has a tremendous amount of sorrow. And there again, because he had a great concern for his people, but he was a prophet, so he knew that all this could have been avoided. If we look at people, people that we may know, people that you may know, If you look at their life, and of course, we don't have profits, but if we could say, if they'd only done something different, if they made a bad decision. Now, you may have told them, or you may have advised against something they did, or you just may be observing a decision that they made. In everyone, perhaps, there's a decision in everyone's life that we occasionally or frequently we make a poor choice of something. So I'm not picking on a particular person. But as far as Jeremiah actually had more insight than we would have. Because he had the insight, he had the input, he had the voice of God that was telling him what was going to happen. And so his sorrow was great. And he's saying, everyone that passes by, I compare his sorrow with other people's sorrow. And his is certainly greater. because of his concern and his love for the people that he was ministering to. And it says, at the end of the verse, verse 12 says, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger. The day of his fierce anger, now we have affliction. What is affliction? It means that we're struck with something. Struck with illness or struck with harm or something like that. All right. He's struck with something. Any other ideas or dimensions of affliction that we have? Ignorance. the Lord hath afflicted me." And it says, "...in the day of his anger." So, in the day of his fierce anger. Now, it's not that the Lord is angry with Jeremiah. That's not his fierce anger. His fierce anger, I believe, would be directed towards Judah, towards their disobedience and the fact that they were stubborn and they did not listen to the prophet Jeremiah, they did not listen to the previous prophets, they ignored the word of God. So consequently, God had judgment, had to punish these people, and so the fierce anger is directed at the people, Judah, but because of this, Jeremiah is afflicted with sorrow, because the people are being judged, and he sees all that they're going through, through the captivity, and everything that's associated with that, because he is aware of the fact that he's, like, again, he was poor at a time, he knew at that time what God was going to do, and he also knew the graceness of God, and had the people changed and had done something differently, all this could have been avoided. I mean, it's to the extent of, it's not so much that there's punishment upon the people, but the actual temple, was because they came in, the Babylonians came in, and they defiled the temple. They came in and defiled the city. They knocked down the walls. And so it almost was a point that it never fully recovered from the punishment that God brought upon them. Yes, they rebuilt the walls. You had Nehemiah went back, returned to rebuild the walls 70 plus years later. Ezra returned. He was permitted to return and help rebuild the temple, establish the temple. And both Ezra and Nehemiah, they had sorrow as well. They had lamentations. I forget if it was Nehemiah was the cupbearer of the king, I believe. And he had the king of Babylon, that is. And he had sorrow of the heart. And he was there in the presence of the king, and the king asked him, why are you so sad? Why are you so sorrowful? And Nehemiah told him, because my homeland is lies and wastes, basically. I mean, if you go back and look at the passages in Nehemiah, the passages in Ezra, and study that, this is what is happening after the captivity, after God's judgment has come upon Israel. Now anyone have any additional comments or observations about verse 12? Let's read verse 13 together. From above he has set fire unto my bones, and prevailed against them. He has spread a net for my feet, and turned me back. may be in desolation and in pain for all the day. Jeremiah is continuing on here with his explaining how he's soreful. Verse 13, from above hath he set fire into my bones. What does it take to generate fire? We use fire every day. It may be more controlled. We use it in a more controlled sense today. Fire when you have control. When I'm saying controlled sense, it's not a forced fire, out of control. But you need to look at it from out of control. I'm mentioning fire, because if you cook today, you use fire. It may have been some type of electric fire, electric heat, or it could have been a gas type of fire, or propane, or whatever type of fire it was, a charcoal fire, or some type of campfire. I'm not sure if anyone cooked over a campfire tonight, but someone may have cooked over a campfire in the area. but the idea of fire is talking about fire in the bones. Now, forest fires, they're fire, they're things that are out of control, but fire is very hot. You can't get too close to it. The food that you cook, in the context of cooking food, can be close to it. Sometimes fire is used if you're putting, if you're welding I mean, it's a heat and so forth and infusion for the different principles of welding. Or however you're using heat, there's a benefit to it. Now, and we're all familiar with different applications of this. I mean, if we drive a car today, you know, the combustion, you know, the sparks, you know, the spark plugs and the way the engine works. is based off sparks and I'm in control of a fire. It's a different principle, but it's still something there. So here, Jeremiah is saying, he's got fire into my bones. He has sent fire into my bones. Now, if you touch, like this lamp has heat on it, so I can feel its warmth over it. But that's on my skin. And I'm sure many of you have perhaps had a little, got burned of some degree once in your life. Maybe a small burn, could be a, some, some, you may know some people that have, you know, large, large burns. But the idea of the fire in the bones, this is, this is demonstrating sore, and usually a fire, heat, when you, when you get too close to something, if you pick up, if you, even if it's a cup of tea or something, a cup, if it's too hot, and you don't grab the handle, you know, you respond to it as to how you put it down. And so, intense heat is uncomfortable. And so this fire in the bones to demonstrate this, he's merely trying to demonstrate the type of sore he had. As though fire went not just to the skin, beyond the skin and right to the bone. Right, exactly. That's how it was. It was really, really hot and a little sorrowful. That's the degree of sorrow that he had. And it continues on in verse 13. And he prevails against them. He has spread a net for my feet. He has turned my back. He has made me desolate and faint all the day. So this sorrow is completely attractive and engulfs him. And so he's desolate, just almost as desolate as Jerusalem was when it was pilfered and the walls were knocked down. I mean, in a certain sense, this is the extent of sorrow he's feeling. If a city could talk, certainly Jerusalem would feel this way. Having the walls knocked down, having his temple destroyed, and having everything of value removed. Did he feel as though he failed? Is that what it means? I think he may have had some type of, as we all do sometimes, had felt some type of responsibility and said, was wondering in his mind if he ought to have done something differently. But he did all that he could do. I mean, on the one hand, he recognized that I did my job, I did what God told me to do, and he still ignored me. But he still is an individual with feelings. And he still has this response of sorrow, of great remorse, of great lamentation. And he just feels like the city of Jerusalem. Like, everything, all the defense is gone. The place of worship is destroyed. You just think of how they pilfered Babylon. I mean, how they pilfered How about in pilfered Jerusalem? You know, they came in and they personally took away, they had three deportations, they removed people, you know, the kings and the princes and the professors, those type of, or the scribes, pharisees, and they removed them slowly, and finally all the people, though they were only a few people back, of the poorest of the poor, of the lowliest of the low, to stay there and to take care of a few things, a little bit of maintenance with the land. And Jeremiah is experiencing this sorrow. Just like Jerusalem, if a city could talk, if a city could have feelings, he's feeling this way. And he's, like I said, as though he could, perhaps he's thinking, if I only did something differently. But he said, on the one hand, he's thinking, on the other hand, he's thinking, yes, I did all that God told me to do, but still, He's responding because I think the fact that they did listen to him, and he knew what was going to happen, and it did happen, and it's just overbearing for him, like it would be for us in different times of our life, different things that would happen. But any thoughts, any additional thoughts in verse 13? That's what I've been saying all the day. you know, when my husband first died, that I just didn't want to get up. It's complete depression. Okay. Paint all the day. You just don't want to do anything. So it's a feeling of depression. Guess what? Paint all the day. I mean, to me, it's definitely depression. Right. There's no strength in the mind game. Let's read verse 14 together. The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand, and a radiant come up upon my neck, and made my strength to fall, or to litter me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up. But the yoke of my transgressions. Now, a yoke. What's the function of a yoke? It keeps the animals burdened in this thing so that they can do what you want them to do. So you have two animals and you have a device that kind of links them together. So that way the animals can work together. It takes away the freedom of, if you have two animals yoked together, each one is, their freedom is limited because they're connected to the other one. You know, you have horses or oxen, whatever the animal may be. It takes away a particular amount of liberty that the animals will be able to have if they did not have the yoke upon them. But it says, the yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand. their wreath and come up upon my neck. Now, what is a wreath? A wreath, I think, usually is something that's round. I'm not sure if there's, I'm not sure the particulars of a wreath as far as, but just think of a round wreath for the moment, or something that's all one or whatever they put in a wreath to make it all bound together, different things, different branches and so forth. But they bring it around and they make it round. And so this wreath, and wreaths, they're wreaths, they're made round, in other words, all this is made round and they're made into a wreath and they're put upon my neck. Just like he's got a yoke, he's saying he's got a yoke on his neck and he has a, these, these, this, this wreath that's put on his neck, can you? Is that a wreath? I mean, when you think of wreaths in, say, in the ancient days, they would wear them on their head as a victim's crown. Okay. But if it's falling off their head, if it's falling off his head, it's not his neck. I mean, it's like, what's it saying? That is interesting, yeah. So, in other words, the historical wreath is something that you put on your head, like But it will only fit on the top of your head. And so in order to get it around your neck, it's got to stretch out. And if you remember Christ, the crown of the knee made a wreath of thorns. And they drove into the top of his head. Now this, Jeremiah says, is to go around his neck. So it's got to go beyond. It's got to scrunch around his head and come around his neck. It's not your classical wreath that we use for decoration sometimes. That's usually a little bigger than a wreath for the top of the head. in the sense of a wreath being a victor's crown, but of course, this is in the sense, there's no victory here, it's more of a defeat. And so he has this wreath of defeat he's wearing, and it just doesn't stand, it comes around his neck. Anna? It's so sad that they're shooting today. And what are some examples of those victories? OK. That's right. And in the spiritual sense, there's different crowns, they're called. There's about five of them, aren't there? The crown of rejoicing. There's our crown of glory. There's an incorruptible crown, I believe. The crown of righteousness, yeah. The crown of rejoicing. The crown of life. Any other crowns that we forgot to mention? Incorruptible. Is that the crown of life? The crown of life. I think there's two different ones. We'll have to look at that. I think we need five or so. Rejoicing. Grace. Oh well. Glory. Crown of glory. Incorruptible. Rejoicing. Rejoicing or righteousness. And in life. So those are the crowns that we as believers can look forward to receiving some of those, and there may be some believers that may not receive any, but if we want to do what the Bible says, we want to follow the scripture, so we should be able to look forward to receiving some of those, not that we disagree with that, not that we support anything great, God is the one that's great, Christ is the one that's great, and ultimately those crowns are going to be given right back to him. we should be thankful. And so here, Jeremiah is talking about this wreath that goes around his neck, and it's, they're a wreath, they're kind of, it's almost, you can imagine the process of making a wreath. And so they were making, this wreath is made, not the wreath for a reward, but this wreath of this burden, this wreath of sorrow, they've come upon my neck, He has made my strength to fall. The Lord has delivered me into their hands, for whom I am not able to rise up." So Jeremiah is acknowledging the fact that he has no ability to resist what's happening to him, as far as this idea of being delivered into their hands. I'm not sure if that's referring back to his captivity, or if he's referring to something of a more personification of sorrow. Personification, giving human characteristics to something that's not tangible. Any thoughts or observations about verse 14? Let's read verse 15. The Lord has trodden on your foot all my mighty men, and misdemeaned, and called an assembly against me to crush my young men. The Lord has trodden on the person, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress. And this is demonstrating what has happened, or what happened, or what is going on, either contemporaneously or reflecting back upon what had happened. The Lord has tried to put all my mighty men in the midst of me. Now, the mighty men would be like the warriors, the soldiers. And the Lord permitted Babylon to overthrow them. In the past, the Lord gave victory to the children of Israel They were outnumbered, tremendously outnumbered. So it wasn't the fact of numbers or strategy. It was the fact that the Lord was no longer going to fight for them. And the Lord had chosen to use Babylon as the nation that would ultimately punish and bring punishment upon them. And Babylon was held accountable for what they did to Israel. But Israel had a responsibility. They did reject the God. And so God was going to bring punishment upon them. He had called an assembly against me to crush my young men. So here again, the young men, usually our army today is made up of young men. 18 to 35, or whatever. Even older men in the army or officers, a lot of them are relatively young men. Some of the higher ranking ones perhaps would not be considered young men. But for the most part, if you were to take an average age of everyone in the military, it would be under 30, I'm sure. Easily under 30, the average age. I don't have the exact number. Maybe there's a number someplace we could find. But the young men, they're crushed. They were crushed. And it's, the Lord has trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress. So here Jeremiah, again, is acknowledging that this punishment that Israel is going through, that Judah is going through, is from the Lord. He's using the hand of the Babylonians to do it, but it's of the Lord. A winepress, not a wine. Think of what a winepress does. It presses grapes, or grape press. I knew someone that would make their own grape juice that had some type of press. I never saw the press. I just heard people tell me about it a little bit. Or when you make orange juice, whatever you make, you take the fruit, whatever kind of juice you're making, and it's pressed and it's compressed, or it goes through a machine that kind of crushes it and pulverizes it and turns it into juice. And so this is what is happening. The picture is a wine press, and perhaps in a certain time period, people would, I'm not sure how, they would think of the idea of stepping on the grapes to make the wine. You can press the crushing, and you can step on a grape or step on something, and you have a little grape, I guess it's smaller than that, and if you step on it, if it's pressed, it just can't hold that weight, It changes form. And so the Lord, this is what is happening to the daughters of Judah, like in a wine press, in judgment. So Jeremiah knew this was coming. He saw this coming. He told the people about it. The people ignored what he had to tell them. And so he had a witness both before and after, before, during, and after. And so this is the story that Jeremiah is going through. But you see, he knew before, he saw it during, and then afterwards, the effects. He had a great concern for the people, his people. And he had thoughts about verse 15. Or even verses 12, 13, 14, and 15. Remember all the verses we looked at tonight? Or even perhaps how it fits in with the earlier verses, the first 12 verses of the chapter. Chuck, would you close the preface? Father, we just thank you for your word tonight, Lord Jesus. We give you praise for God, for our sins, Father. We ask that this word that has been preached tonight, that it would go forward, Father, that it would not return void, Lord. Thank you, Father, for this day. Give us all traveling mercies and keep us safe, Father. And we thank you for this day in Jesus' name. Amen.