The Consequences of Sin Uncovered

Grief over loss is one way we know that a person really mattered to us. 

 

As C. S. Lewis explained,

There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.[1]

 

So, the prophet Jeremiah weeps bitterly over his city. Many he once loved have been lost to death and many more have lost their faith. Lamentations 4 reignites the horror just before Jerusalem’s fall as the city is under siege and the Babylonians clamor outside the gates. It is a desperate time as those huddled within have neither food, nor strength, nor hope. 

 

It may seem strange to place this flashback immediately after proclaiming God’s goodness and new morning mercies (Lamentations 3:21–26). Yet recall that Hebrew poetry often places its climax at the center of the poem. So, the glorious character of God is surrounded by the cascading sorrows of man (1:1–3:20, 3:27–5:22). For God’s promises are already at their pinnacle, but not yet fully realized.

 

They are declared, but yet to be fully known. Structurally, Chapter 3 is three times longer than the others—a mountain peak of hope, arising from despair. Chapter 1 despairs over the city and Chapter 2 over the temple. Here, Chapter 4 despairs over the people of Jerusalem, for every segment of Zion’s population will suffer the consequences of sin (see 1:12–16; 2:11–22; 3:1–18).[2] Yet even as we descend into each dark valley, we keep directing our eyes to the tower of hope in Chapter 3. 

 

In Lamentations 4:1–12, we encounter the consequences of sin uncovered: “How the gold has grown dim, how the pure gold is changed! The holy stones lie scattered at the head of every street” (v. 1). 

 

The people of Zion are pictured as precious stones and pure gold. Yet like a smash-and-grab robbery gone wrong, the people are now scattered and discarded in the streets. How could this have happened? (see 1:1; 2:1). “The precious sons of Zion, worth their weight in fine gold, how they are regarded as earthen pots, the work of a potter's hands!” (4:2; see Jeremiah 19). God’s people no longer seem to be his “treasured possession” (Exod 19:5)—degraded from precious jewels to common pottery.

 

Their shine is dulled by the muck and mire of the city streets, so they are left to ordinary usage. One might repair a priceless vase, but common vessels can be discarded as the tragedy of war devalues human life.

 

God’s people seem to have devolved beneath the animals: “Even jackals offer the breast; they nurse their young, but the daughter of my people has become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness” (Lamentations 4:3). They became as vicious as jackals (Jeremiah 9:11) and loners like the ostrich which deals cruelly with her young (Job 39:13–17). Parents have abandoned helpless children: “The tongue of the nursing infant sticks to the roof of its mouth for thirst; the children beg for food, but no one gives to them” (Lamentations 4:4).

 

Imagine infants left untended for such duration that they no longer even cry for milk.[3] And this destruction comes to rich and poor alike: “Those who once feasted on delicacies perish in the streets; those who were brought up in purple embrace ash heaps” (v. 5). Fine clothes and abundant wealth no longer distinguish them as they lie upon the dung hill to wait for death. Holocaust pays no mind to social status and starvation is no respecter of persons (1:11; 2:11–12, 19; 4:5, 9–10; 5:10).

 

It doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor; infant or adult. The army of Babylon has besieged the city. No supplies can enter. No people are allowed to leave. The city’s storehouses gradually diminish over a period of eighteen months as Nebuchadnezzar slowly wrings their necks.

 

“For the chastisement of the daughter of my people has been greater than the punishment of Sodom, which was overthrown in a moment, and no hands were wrung for her” (Lamentations 4:6). In wicked Sodom, there wasn’t even time to mourn (Genesis 19:24–25). Yet even Sodom fared better than Jerusalem whose anguish was prolonged. Sodom’s destruction was mercifully quick, whereas Jerusalem was made to suffer. God’s people deserved this greater judgment because they had received God’s law—his holy Word—his covenant promises and blessings. So, their rebellion was not a case of ignorance, but of obstinance.

 

They were led to such defiance by fallen leaders: “Her princes were purer than snow, whiter than milk; their bodies were more ruddy than coral, the beauty of their form was like sapphire” (Lamentations 4:7). The city’s nobles had once been healthy and handsome—their fair complexion a picture of privilege.

 

Yet “now their face is blacker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets; their skin has shriveled on their bones; it has become as dry as wood” (v. 8). They are dirty and disheveled from exposure to the elements (Job 30:30), parched from dehydration, gaunt and malnutritioned, like grotesque, walking skeletons (19:20). “Happier were the victims of the sword than the victims of hunger, who wasted away, pierced by lack of the fruits of the field” (Lamentations 4:9).

 

They plead for death as they tortuously waste away. For trauma changes people, even the gentlest of mothers: “The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children; they became their food during the destruction of the daughter of my people” (v. 10; 2:20; Jeremiah 19:9). What would drive a mother to such despair? What would cut off her natural maternal instinct to protect? Such is God’s punishment for his people’s sin—these curses for disobedience” (see Leviticus 26:29; Deuteronomy 28:52–57). 

 

Judah’s punishment comes from God who uncovers her sin and determines the penalty. He issues forth the bitter consequences, though remaining faithful to his people even as he judges them. According to Isaiah 49:15, “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.” So, “the LORD gave full vent to his wrath; he poured out his hot anger, and he kindled a fire in Zion that consumed its foundations.

 

The kings of the earth did not believe, nor any of the inhabitants of the world, that foe or enemy could enter the gates of Jerusalem” (Lamentations 4:11–12; see Deuteronomy 29:24–28).

 

Jerusalem had been invincible with God as her Rock (Psalm 18). She would have never fallen had she kept her faith in God (1 Kings 9:1–9). Yet once she turned away, the Lord became her enemy. He consumed his holy city with destructive fire and allowed her to be sacked (Deuteronomy 32:22; Amos 1:3–2:5). 

 

Jerusalem’s downfall (587 BC) depicts the horrible cost when God exposes our idols and immorality. For he will surely uncover sin and he also determines the penalty, for sin is no respecter of persons before a holy God. Whether rich or poor; child or adult, sin leads to death (Romans 6:23a).

 

So, how do we escape God’s wrath?

 

How do we avoid such painful consequences? Our salvation comes not from being good, but by trusting in the God who is (v. 23b). For on the cross, Christ Jesus paid the price for us. In our place, he took the Father’s wrath. He suffered the consequences of sin uncovered  and warns against the final judgment (Ephesians 2:3c–5). 

 

For this reason, God catches us in our sin today, so that we might not be slaves forever. He deals with our sin in the present time to grant us freedom in days to come. For our merciful Savior is loving and life-giving. And when we confess our sin to him, he pays the price for us.