A Lesson from Lamentations

So, I got a little tired of the easy, sweet meat of the epistles of Paul and thought I'd switch over to some of the more difficult stuff. So here I am, reading in, of all things, Jeremiah's Lamentations. Go figure. But, no, wait, it has some really good things in it.

The book is all about ... get this ... Jeremiah lamenting. (Yeah, like who'd have guessed, right?) He is lamenting over the destruction of Judah, of Jerusalem, of his own people. Now, keep in mind, Jeremiah had spent his life warning that this was coming. It wasn't a surprise to him. Still, there it was, just as he had said it would be. And he was upset. I mean, sure, God did it (Jeremiah has no question about that) and it was, in that sense, a good thing. Still, it hurt to see. We suffer from that ourselves at times, I'm quite sure. We are glad that God does what He does, but sometimes it hurts to watch.

Down in the middle of the second chapter, Jeremiah tells of one of the things that caused Judah to fail. "Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions; they have not exposed your iniquity to restore your fortunes, but have seen for you oracles that are false and misleading" (Lam 2:14). Now, when we think of false prophets, we think of the latter idea. They give false and misleading oracles. They tell them things that they want to hear, but aren't actually true. We don't often think of the other aspect: "They have not exposed your iniquity to restore your fortunes."

You see, Jeremiah understood that calling out sin was for their benefit. Despite all you hear today about being judgmental and intrusive and overly moral and too narrow-minded, Jeremiah disagreed. He said that the problem was not that these false prophets were judgmental or intolerant. Their problem -- the reason they did such grave damage to Judah -- was that they failed to point out iniquity. He said that pointing out sin had the potential of restoring Judah's fortunes.

I think there's a message here for us. Sure, we need to share the gospel and we need to focus on glorifying God and all that. But if we love our country, if we care about the people around us, it would seem from this text that we ought to expose iniquity where we see it. If we would like to see our nation and our neighbors restored, Jeremiah seems to be saying that we can assist that process by calling out sin when we see it. Now, I know ... that isn't exactly on the list of things for most people who want to help our country. When Christians stand back and say, "We want to be inclusive, not judgmental," they are siding with Jeremiah's false prophets, not with God. But, then, God's ways are not our ways, are they?