Lamentations 3:39 Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
There is Still Hope
This morning, there was a moth in my sink. I thought, “What a precarious place for a moth to be.” Moths are helpless, and this moth in my sink wasn’t just helpless, he was hopeless. What chance does a moth who is hanging around in a sink have? Now it may be that you feel like a moth in a sink. You not only feel helpless, you feel hopeless. A lot of people get to that point in their lives.
That is the way it felt for the people of Jerusalem, for Judah, for Zion. That’s the way it felt for Jeremiah through whom God had sent all these messages of judgment. Lamentations 3:1 says, “I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.” Then in the next several verses it talks about all the ways that God had dealt with Jeremiah. “He hath filled me with bitterness,” Jeremiah says, and, “He hath also broken my teeth.
Jeremiah felt that he was both helpless and hopeless, but that all changes in verse 21, which says, “This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.” From this verse to the end of the chapter it is quite clear that there is hope.
Verse 33 says, “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.” God is not eager to judge His people. It is not something He wishes to do, but it is something that God does do. Yet, there is hope.
Verse 39 says, “Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?” How could someone who is still breathing say that there is no hope? It doesn’t matter how bad things have been or how much God may have to judge His own. If you are breathing and there is a God, then there is hope.
In contrast, back in Jeremiah there were a couple times when the people of Israel essentially said, “O, there is no hope, and we are going to do whatever we want to do.” On the one hand they were lamenting that they were beyond hope, and on the other hand they were expressing rebellion. They were going to do whatever they wanted to do. If that is hopelessness, it is a willing hopelessness.
There is always hope for those who chose to live. A living person still has a reason to hope. If you are breathing and there is a God, then there is hope.