Holy Scriptures and Israel

Guest (Male): Shalom. Holy Scriptures and Israel is a ministry designed to share with the Jewish people the good news of the Lord Jesus, Yeshua the Messiah, and to instruct Christians on the Jewish roots of their faith. And now, teaching God's word from a Hebrew Messianic perspective, here is Gideon Levytam.

Gideon Levytam: Shabbat Shalom. Turn in your Bibles to the book of Lamentations. And we are studying in Lamentations chapter three. In Hebrew, Eikhah. And as we have learned so far that Yirmeyahu, that is Jeremiah, was asking the question: "How?" Eikh in Hebrew. How is it possible that this happened to our people of old, the people of Israel and to the city of Yerushalayim?

In 586 BC, the Babylonians came, destroyed the city of Yerushalayim, burned the temple in the city, and carried our people Israel into the land of Bavel. And here you see Yirmeyahu, that is Jeremiah, lamenting over the city of Yerushalayim and the people of Israel who were carried captives by the Babylonians.

We have covered chapter one and chapter two, and today I would like you to turn with me to Lamentations chapter three. It's a long chapter but with short verses. And I would like you just to follow me as I'm reading these 66 verses of Lamentations chapter three. And we begin verse one.

Guest (Male): I am the man that has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. He has led me and brought me into darkness but not into light. Surely against me is he turned. He turned his hand against me all the day. My flesh and my skin has he made old. He has broken my bones. He has builded against me and compassed me with gall and travail. He has set me in dark places as they that be dead of old.

He has hedged me about that I cannot get out. He has made my chain heavy. Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer. He has enclosed my ways with hewn stone. He has made my path crooked. He was unto me as a bear lying in wait and as a lion in secret places. He has turned aside my ways and pulled me in pieces. He has made me desolate.

He has bent his bow and set me as a mark for the arrow. He has caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins. I was a derision to all my people and their song all the day. He has filled me with bitterness. He has made me drunken with wormwood. He has also broken my teeth with gravel stones. He has covered me with ashes. And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace. I forgot prosperity.

And I said, "My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord." Remember mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. My soul has them still in remembrance and is humbled in me. This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed because his compassion faileth not. They are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness.

The Lord is my portion, saith my soul, therefore will I hope in him. The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke of his youth. He sitteth alone and keepeth silence because he has borne it upon him.

He putteth his mouth in the dust, if so be there may be hope. He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him. He is filled full with reproach. For the Lord will not cast off forever. But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies. For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men. To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth.

To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the Most High, to subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not. Who is he that saith and it cometh to pass when the Lord commandeth it not? Out of the mouth of the Most High proceedeth not evil and good? Wherefore does a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins? Let us search and try our ways and turn again to the Lord.

Let us lift up our hearts with our hands unto God in the heavens. We have transgressed and have rebelled. Thou hast not pardoned. Thou hast covered with anger and persecuted us. Thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied. Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud that our prayer should not pass through. Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people. All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.

Fear and snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction. Mine eyes runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people. Mine eye trickles down and ceaseth not without any intermission till the Lord look down and behold from heaven. Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city. Mine enemies chased me sore like a bird without cause.

They have cut off my life in the dungeon and cast a stone upon me. Waters flowed over mine head, then I said, "I am cut off." I called upon thy name, O Lord, out of the low dungeon. Thou hast heard my voice. Hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry. Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee. Thou saidst, "Fear not." O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul.

Thou hast redeemed my life. O Lord, thou hast seen my wrong, judge thou my cause. Thou hast seen all their vengeance and all their imaginations against me. Thou hast heard their reproach, O Lord, and all their imaginations against me. The lips of those that rose up against me and their device against me all the day. Behold their sitting down and their rising up, I am their music.

Render unto them a recompense, O Lord, according to the work of their hands. Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse unto them. Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the Lord.

Gideon Levytam: This is Lamentations chapter three. 66 verses are placed together in such a long prayer of lamentation of sorrows that Jeremiah, the servant of the Lord, was presenting now as he is pouring his soul unto the Lord because of the situation that exists in the city of Yerushalayim.

Now beloved brothers and sisters, we have already said that the book of Lamentation gives us five songs of sorrows that Yirmeyahu, Jeremiah, the prophet of Judah, the prophet of our own nation Israel, have cried to the Lord at about 586 BC. To remind you that Judah disobeyed the Lord. Yirmeyahu served God among our people. He preached a message again and he gave warning to Judah and he says: "Listen, if you are not going to turn back to the Lord, God will eventually judge you. Turn ye, shuvu Israel, back to the Lord." But Israel, but the Jewish people, failed to return back to the Lord.

And God said this about Israel and he may very well say this about all those who turn away from him: "For my people have committed two evils," Jeremiah chapter two and verse 13. "They have forsaken me, the fountain of the living waters, and they have hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water." My people, that is Israel, Judah, they have committed two evils. Evil number one, they have forsaken me, the fountain of the living waters. And number two, they hewed for themselves cisterns, their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.

In other words, God in his love for Israel who said to Yirmeyahu: "That I have loved you with an everlasting love," he said to the prophet Jeremiah to say to Israel. And yet when Israel turned away from him, they have turned their hearts from the living God and they sought to live their life without the God of Israel, believing in the gods of the nations, in the idols of the nation, turning away from the Lord which made it necessary for the Lord to send the Babylonian Nebuchadnezzar to come against his very own people.

You remember we said that and I'm repeating these verses again and again according to what we read in 1 Peter chapter four: Judgment must begin at the house of the Lord. And that is the way God is. He's holy, he's righteous and he will judge his own people whom he love dearly. So in these five lamentations, we see Jeremiah weeping, crying, heavily burdened with the condition of the people of Israel.

To remind you that in these five songs of sorrows, we have the whole 22 Hebrew alphabet from Aleph to Tav. 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet found in every one of these five lamentations. In chapter one, we have it acrostically, verse one Aleph, verse two Bet, verse three Gimmel all the way to the end and there we learn about Jeremiah lamenting over the destruction of Jerusalem.

In Lamentations chapter two, we also have 22 verses and once again, every one of these 22 verses begin with a different Hebrew alphabet. Aleph verse one, Bet verse two and so on and so on. And Jeremiah once again lamenting over the anger of the Lord against Jerusalem. Now this time it is very interesting, we arrive to the third Lamentation song of sorrows that Jeremiah is now expressing before the Lord.

But this time you don't have only 22 verses, beloved brothers and sisters, but you have actually 66 verses. But it is very interesting that somehow he is like a poet who cries to God from his heart, who is yearning for God's people and God's city and God's temple. He's now giving us these 66 verses, but every three verses begin with the Hebrew alphabet. So verse one, two, and three begin with the letter Aleph. Verse four, five, and six begin with the letter Bet. Verse seven, eight, and nine each one of them begin with the letter Gimmel and so on. Each one of these verses begin with the Hebrew letter all the way to the end of the chapter.

Now you and I may very well ask, how come every one of the Hebrew alphabet is included? Well, the only suggestion that we may have is that God is thorough in his dealing with his people. Whatever he began, he will also conclude. He doesn't do part work like we at time do things partially. We do things not completely. We are not always carrying on with the job or the ministry that the Lord had given to us. We are very partial, we are very limited because we are sinners who are saved by grace. But God is thorough. Whatever he does, he's going to complete eventually.

He'll deal with his people and will bring them into full restoration in the future day. Remember what Paul said in the book of Philippians: He who began a good work will complete it until the day of Yeshua Hamashiach, Jesus the Messiah. So there are many lessons to learn for us because whatever was written aforetime about Israel now serve to be a lesson for us today.

And so in Lamentations chapter three, though there are 66 verses, every three verses begin with a different Hebrew alphabet, completing the full 22 Hebrew alphabet found in the Hebrew language. Now you notice beloved brothers and sisters, that also Jeremiah, like others, like David, David and others, they are in a sense becoming a type and a picture of Yeshua Hamashiach, the man from heaven. God who became a man and enter into this world, he took union humanity with divine nature and he came to this world to suffer for the sins of the world.

Yesterday we studied Isaiah chapter 53. "All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way but the Lord laid upon him the iniquity of us all." And we read this very moving verse that said: "He was led as a sheep to the slaughter." And we were kind of thinking how sad it is to look at the Lord just like you look at a lamb that has been led to the slaughter. And the lamb do not know that he's going to be slaughtered in a few moments.

But Yeshua knew very well that he was going to die for the sin of this world and as a lamb he went to the slaughter knowing very well that he will die for the sin of this world. Not for his own sin, but for mine and for yours. And he went knowingly and he opened not his mouth and he went all the way. He was that man that experienced affliction and sorrow and the rod of God's wrath against him.

Now here what we learn, that in a miniature way we see the prophet expressing his heart here and in the first 18 verses of Lamentations chapter three, we see Jeremiah expresses his own suffering then sorrow and he speaks to the Lord admitting that it all came from the Lord against him and against our own nation Israel. And so can you imagine as they are traveling away from Jerusalem, carried to Bavel, Jeremiah looking around and he see the burned temple, the broken walls and now he's expressing his heart.

Notice in the first nine verses, Jeremiah experience opposition from the Lord himself. The Lord came in judgment upon Israel and upon everyone that belong to this nation because of his righteous indignation and because Israel sin. And so in the first three verses, Jeremiah experience affliction. We read: "I am the man that has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. He has led me and brought me into darkness but not into light. Surely against me is he turned. He turn his hand against me all the day."

These three verses begin with Aleph. Jeremiah is saying: "Look, God have turn against me." God in a sense became the one who opposes me. Now why did God oppose Jeremiah? Why did God oppose the Jewish people during the days of the Babylonian captivity? Because they turn away from him. And God warn them all along: "Israel, if you're going to turn away from me, I will become your enemy. I will go against you." Notice he used the word "all the day". The Hebrew word is kol hayom. Whatever they did, wherever they've gone, wherever the Babylonian carry them away, God was against the people whom he loved because the people have turn away from him.

In verses four, five, and six, Jeremiah experience the sadness of darkness because God turn against him. You see he says, and again this verse four, five, and six begin with the second Hebrew letter Bet. And he said in verse four: "My flesh and my skin has he made old. He has broken my bones. He has builded against me and compassed me with gall and travail. He has set me in dark places as they that be dead of old."

Now sometime beloved brothers and sisters, God's people, even the body of Christ today, the body of all believers whoever they are today, when they turn away from the Lord and willfully going against God and against God's ways, not judging themselves, will bring about the necessity of God to lead them into dark places. Again I always think about the prodigal son who says: "Father give me that that belong to me." And he left his father's house, turn against his own father and went to the world and its system and he find himself in dark places, seeking to feed upon some food. And he end up to feed upon the husks that the pigs were eaten away from God, from his father.

And God have allowed him to experience the wrong that he have done. He continued Jeremiah and experiencing the opposition of the Lord. He says in verse seven, eight, and nine, he experience spiritual imprisonment. It's like he's in jail spiritually. No spiritual empowerness, no ability to enjoy the Lord. Notice verse seven, eight, and nine: "He has hedged me about that I cannot get out. He has made my chain heavy. Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer. He has enclosed my ways with hewn stones, he has made my path crooked."

Now I especially highlighted to myself: "He shutteth out my prayer." Now can you imagine, beloved brothers and sisters, the only avenue that one has with God is prayer. Is speaking to God and sharing with God the burden that we have on our souls. And praying when we are willfully gone against God's way, God cannot answer prayer. He will not answer prayer of one who reject him and do not follow his instruction.

We read in the Psalms, it is very interesting, Psalm 66 and verse 18, the Psalmist of Israel had expressed when he was in trial, he said: "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me." You see, it is interesting because when we willfully continue on to go against the Lord and then we cry to the Lord for help, the Psalmist of Israel says the Lord will not hear me. Isaiah 59:2 says: "Your iniquities has separated between you and your God that he will not hear you."

Jeremiah is saying here in this verse eight of Lamentations chapter three, says: "You have shutteth out my prayer. I can pray, I can talk, I can speak, but God shut my prayer. He did not respond to my prayer because we as a nation," Jeremiah confess on behalf of Israel, "have turn away from the Lord." So in verses one to verse nine, Jeremiah experience opposition from the Lord.

Brothers and sisters, listen. The Lord will oppose his own people when his own people oppose him. The Lord will oppose those whom he love and he will allow them to be going through the experience of trial and sorrow when they go against him and violate his word. It happen every time. Look at Scripture, look at the history of Israel, our own people. Look at the history of the assembly, the church. When God's people didn't continue to follow the Lord, God end up in judging his very own people.

So Jeremiah experience opposition from the Lord. But now we move along in verses 10 to 18. Jeremiah also experience animosity from the Lord. Now people sometime say: "Well, all we need is love and God is so good and he's loving and so on." But listen. If God is God, and truly he is, if God is holy, and indeed he is, he will oppose and he will become an enemy to those that do not submit to his authority. Here is what Jeremiah is saying.