Disobedience and Discipline

Read Lamentations 1.

This is a book of laments or five funeral poems for the city of Jerusalem.  After years of warning, Judah's demise at the hands of the Babylonians became a reality.  The once proud city that reached its zenith when Solomon ruled as king was no more.  Everything had been stripped away; no power, no abundance, no prestige, no friends, only enemies.

The poems are in acrostic style.  Each lament has 22 verses, each verse beginning with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet.  Chapter 3 triples the number of verses for each Hebrew letter.

It is a sad eulogy.  In the very first verse, Jeremiah described Jerusalem as a destitute widow who had lost everything.  Then, he remembered her as being a princess who had become a slave.  As a result, the city was no longer the place of God's blessings and celebrations.  This caused everyone, even the roads (v.4), to mourn and groan.  Five times in this first chapter we read that there was none to comfort or to help her.  In verse 12, with outstretched arms looking for someone to care, she cried, "Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?"

In the personification of Jerusalem, there was no one to blame but herself.  As Jeremiah quotes her in verse 18, "The LORD is in the right, for I have rebelled against his word."  As a loving father, God had to discipline His disobedient children.

The purpose of good discipline is to correct wayward behavior.  When the LORD disciplines, it is to stop us from sinning and to bring us back to godly living in accordance with His word.  "He disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.  For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it." (Hebrews 12:10b-11)

The blessing comes when we are willing to be trained by God.