This is a monthly column that presents recaps or excerpts from Iverna’s books, taped messages, or current teachings. They are timeless insights and divine revelation that add up to Truth.

For now, we will be offering the actual text from an out-of-print book, "Depending on Grace: Lessons from Lamentations" by Iverna Tompkins, 1987.

We strongly encourage you to stick with the reading of this revelation presented this year - even though at times the text may not seem to be so uplifting because it deals with the judgments of God.

There is much to be gleaned, however, from the Book of Lamentations for the Church today, in the 21st century, and Iverna brings that to us. May our hearts be enlightened as we read and meditate. - jv, ed.

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"Deserved Devastation
Depending on Grace:
Lessons from Lamentations"
Part 4
By Iverna Tompkins
Edited text by Jane Vaughn

Lamentations 2:1-22

1 How the Lord has covered the Daughter of Zion with the cloud of his anger! He has hurled down the splendor of Israel from heaven to earth; he has not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger. 2 Without pity the Lord has swallowed up all the dwellings of Jacob; in his wrath he has torn down the strongholds of the Daughter of Judah. He has brought her kingdom and its princes down to the ground in dishonor. 3 In fierce anger he has cut off every horn of Israel. He has withdrawn his right hand at the approach of the enemy. He has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire that consumes everything around it. 4 Like an enemy he has strung his bow; his right hand is ready. Like a foe he has slain all who were pleasing to the eye; he has poured out his wrath like fire on the tent of the Daughter of Zion. 5 The Lord is like an enemy; he has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed up all her palaces and destroyed her strongholds. He has multiplied mourning and lamentation for the Daughter of Judah. 6 He has laid waste his dwelling like a garden; he has destroyed his place of meeting. The Lord has made Zion forget her appointed feasts and her Sabbaths; in his fierce anger he has spurned both king and priest. 7 The Lord has rejected his altar and abandoned his sanctuary. He has handed over to the enemy the walls of her palaces; they have raised a shout in the house of the Lord as on the day of an appointed feast. 8 The Lord determined to tear down the wall around the Daughter of Zion. He stretched out a measuring line and did not withhold his hand from destroying. He made ramparts and walls lament; together they wasted away. 9 Her gates have sunk into the ground; their bars he has broken and destroyed. Her king and her princes are exiled among the nations, the law is no more, and her prophets no longer find visions from the Lord. 10 The elders of the Daughter of Zion sit on the ground in silence; they have sprinkled dust on their heads and put on sackcloth. The young women of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground. 11 My eyes fail from weeping, I am in torment within, my heart is poured out on the ground because my people are destroyed, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city. 12 They say to their mothers, "Where is bread and wine?" as they faint like wounded men in the streets of the city, as their lives ebb away in their mothers' arms. 13 What can I say for you? With what can I compare you, O Daughter of Jerusalem? To what can I liken you, that I may comfort you, O Virgin Daughter of Zion? Your wound is as deep as the sea. Who can heal you? 14 The visions of your prophets were false and worthless; they did not expose your sin to ward off your captivity. The oracles they gave you were false and misleading. 15 All who pass your way clap their hands at you; they scoff and shake their heads at the Daughter of Jerusalem: "Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth?" 16 All your enemies open their mouths wide against you; they scoff and gnash their teeth and say, "We have swallowed her up. This is the day we have waited for; we have lived to see it." 17 The Lord has done what he planned; he has fulfilled his word, which he decreed long ago. He has overthrown you without pity, he has let the enemy gloat over you, he has exalted the horn of your foes. 18 The hearts of the people cry out to the Lord. O wall of the Daughter of Zion, let your tears flow like a river day and night; give yourself no relief, your eyes no rest. 19 Arise, cry out in the night, as the watches of the night begin; pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord. Lift up your hands to him for the lives of your children, who faint from hunger at the head of every street. 20 "Look, O Lord, and consider: Whom have you ever treated like this? Should women eat their offspring, the children they have cared for? Should priest and prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord? 21 "Young and old lie together in the dust of the streets; my young men and maidens have fallen by the sword. You have slain them in the day of your anger; you have slaughtered them without pity. 22 "As you summon to a feast day, so you summoned against me terrors on every side. In the day of the Lord's anger no one escaped or survived; those I cared for and reared, my enemy has destroyed."

Exposition of the text

Vss. 1-3 – Continued disobedience and not heeding God’s warnings demand God’s wrath to be outpoured on His people, the nation of Israel.  Enveloped in that anger, all that once made her glorious – God’s presence and blessings – is totally removed.  Her securities are taken away and there is no strength from which to draw and nothing to hinder the enemy attack.

Vss.4-6 – God becomes as an enemy to His own people who have consistently ignored His truth and substituted false worship for real.  So it is God who strips her of everything, physically, materially, and spiritually, that she may mourn and lament and recognize her utter hopelessness without Him.

Vs.7 – Even that which she maintained as a form of religion is now inhabited by the enemy.

Vss.8-10 – Falling so far short of God’s measure, even whatever she did have was destroyed, her leadership is placed in bondage with no one able to hear from God.  Only silence and mourning prevail for there is no ongoing direction or revelation until we walk in obedience to our last one.

This progression cannot be ignored for God will not be mocked (cf.Gal.6:7).  Because God is longsuffering, complacency may take the place of repentance and inevitably the enemy will inhabit the form of religion until spiritual destruction overtakes, revealed by silence and desolation.

Vs.11 – Remembering Jeremiah’s treatment of being imprisoned by the people and religious leaders of his day, his ability to continue to love and be concerned for those people is a remarkable demonstration of God’s love through him.  It provides an example for us of the outworking of Jesus’ truth in the Beatitudes of caring for those who despitefully use us (Mt.5:43-48).

Vs.12 – The destitution is complete right down to the infants fainting for lack of food.  Surely this is true in the spiritual sense as well as literal.  When we refuse to obey the Lord, we will find a lack of spiritual nourishment, as inability to feed not only ourselves, but the young ones who are placed in our care, so the innocent suffer because of the disobedience of those accountable.

Vss.13-16 – There is nothing to be said in defense of those who persist in their disobedience.  There is no plea which can come forth for those who follow false prophets, not heeding God’s warnings.  Now, held in derision by all who see her, the enemy is filled with laughter for he has long been waiting for this victory.  He mocks all that was once beautiful and blessed.  When those who have once upheld truth and righteousness live contrary to it, how very great is the fall (Mt.7:26,27).

Vss.18,19 – The blessing of being chosen as God’s special people does not nullify the obedience demanded.  When we come to God’s revelation of ourselves to ourselves there is no response other than repentance, for we discover even as Christians, the reality of “Just as I am without one plea.”  How desperate are we for God’s mercy?  Will we cry out day and night without rest, pouring out our hearts to the only One who can help us?

Vss.20, 21 – There is no desolation worse than that which comes to those who have lost His presence by walking contrary to Him.

Vs.22 – God’s unleashed wrath is terrible, pitiless and total.  We are a body and what happens to one affects all (1Cor.12;26).  When one suffers judgment, it is felt by all in various degrees and ways.  Families, churches, denominations and nations all are affected when the name of the Lord has been shamed.

How wonderful to remind ourselves “But there is forgiveness with Thee” (Ps.130:4 KJV).  Yet the higher way is to keep covenant with Him – and Jesus is the only hope of that being a reality.

Lesson we can learn

A whole new scene opens before us in this chapter.  Previously, we saw what had happened to the city, as Jeremiah cried, “Alas, alas, how deserted is the city.”  But now we see that same city from God’s viewpoint and it is a terrorizing picture.  Reading this chapter, we look in vain for anything that would appear to be mercy, love and tender compassion which we so associate with God today. 

As much as we would like to skip over this, we need to come to grips with the fact that there is such a thing as God’s divine anger.  How far we are removed from the faith of our fathers whose spirit of reverence said – if God’s Word says something, then woe is me if I don’t do what He says.  We live in a generation of rationalization.

Not only do we rationalize God’s character but we rationalize (lessen or diminish) punishment.  We think we are able to survive the moving of God’s delight in us to His displeasure.  But more than survival is involved; we lose something very precious when God brings wrath and judgment upon us.  When Zion is covered with the cloud of God’s anger, she is no longer covered with the cloud of His glory. 

In the Book of Exodus, Israel came to the end of the road at the Red Sea.  There was a wall on each side, the enemy behind, and no place to go but ahead.  As God made the way, the cloud of God’s presence came behind them to separate them from the enemy.  They barely reached the other side when the enemy attempted to take the same path that God had made for His people. 

Success patterns entice the enemy.  When God makes a way for His people, they are always successful.  But the cloud that was protection for the people of God only moved with them as they were led by God and the moment the plan was fulfilled, the waters closed.  That which had been an open door to Israel became death to those who perverted it.

“Neither does the Lord remember His footstool in the day of His anger” (vs.1).  A footstool often represented the ark of the covenant, the place where the Lord’s presence dwelt.  In essence, during this present day of Jeremiah’s life, they said, “Lord, You’re related to us by covenant.  You can’t do this.”  But we forget there are conditions to every covenant.  To David He said, “If your sons will obey Me like you obey Me; if they’ll walk in My ways, there shall never fail to be a man from your loins who is seated upon the throne.”

What happens to a covenant when it is broken on one side – our side?  It means He no longer has to keep covenant with us.  How glad I am that Father knows we could never keep our end of the bargain, so He provided that perfect spotless Lamb who will not only keep our responsibilities but God’s as well.  He will satisfy God completely and His blood seals us into an everlasting relationship with Father. 

What does that have to do with punishment? 

To be Continued. . .

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