Great Is Your Faithfulness

                                                           Lamentations 3:1-24

 

August 2, 2025

 

Great Is Your Faithfulness

 

 

I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of the Lord’s wrath.
He has driven me away and made me walk in darkness rather than light; indeed, he has turned his hand against me again and again, all day long.  

 

He has made my skin and my flesh grow old and has broken my bones.  He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship. He has made me dwell in darkness like those long dead.  

 

He has walled me in so I cannot escape; he has weighed me down with chains.  Even when I call out or cry for help, he shuts out my prayer.  He has barred my way with blocks of stone; he has made my paths crooked.  

 

Like a bear lying in wait, like a lion in hiding,
he dragged me from the path and mangled me and left me without help. He drew his bow and made me the target for his arrows.

 

He pierced my heart with arrows from his quiver.  I became the laughingstock of all my people;   they mock me in song all day long.
He has filled me with bitter herbs and given me gall to drink.

 

He has broken my teeth with gravel; he has trampled me in the dust.
I have been deprived of peace; I have forgotten what prosperity is.

Because of the Lord’s great love, we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.  I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore, I will wait for him.”

 

The Writer, who many think is Jeremiah the weeping prophet, is in deep sorrow and distress for the people of Israel, and himself.  He is in a time of deep hurt; he knows this is from God, and for the first time, maybe in his lifetime, God is not responding to his prayers.

 

Have you found yourself in a place where it seems God has withdrawn from you, maybe someone you love deeply, a wife, child, or close friend, has been sick, and you cried out to the Lord, and no response.  Did you get angry with God? Did you stop believing in His love for you? If so, that is not the model we have from the writer of Lamentations 3:1-24.

 

This was his response: Yet this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:

 

 Because of the Lord’s great love, we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.  I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore, I will wait for him.”

 

If you find yourself angry at God, or have forgotten all the blessings and love He has shown, it's time to get alone in a quiet place and let Him remind you of His love for you.

 

We can learn from another Job, whom God said, “And the Lord said to Satan, 'Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” Job 1:8,  We have this from Job after his children had been killed and his wealth taken from him. “And he said, “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return.  The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” 

 

From our Back Porch,

Bob Rice

 

The Lord Has Destroyed Without Pity

 

Lamination 2:1-22

 

April 13, 2024

 

The Lord Has Destroyed Without Pity

 How the Lord in his anger has set the daughter of Zion under a cloud!
He has cast down from heaven to earth the splendor of Israel; he has not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger.  The Lord has swallowed up without mercy all the habitations of Jacob; in his wrath, he has broken down the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; he has brought down to the ground in dishonor the kingdom and its rulers.  He has cut down in fierce anger all the might of Israel;
He has withdrawn from them his right hand in the face of the enemy; he has burned like a flaming fire in Jacob, consuming all around.  He has bent his bow like an enemy, with his right hand set like a foe;
And he has killed all who were delightful in our eyes in the tent of the daughter of Zion; he has poured out his fury like fire.  The Lord has become like an enemy; he has swallowed up Israel; he has swallowed up all its palaces; he has laid in ruins its strongholds, and he has multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.  He has laid waste his booth like a garden, laid in ruins his meeting place, the Lord has made Zion forget festival and Sabbath, and in his fierce indignation has spurned king and priest.  The Lord has scorned his altar, disowned his sanctuary; he has delivered into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they raised a clamor in the house of the Lord as on the day of festival.  The Lord determined to lay in ruins the wall of the daughter of Zion; he stretched out the measuring line; he did not restrain his hand from destroying; he caused rampart and wall to lament; they languished together.  Her gates have sunk into the ground; he has ruined and broken her bars; her king and princes are among the nations; the law is no more, and her prophets find no vision from the Lord.  The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground in silence; they have thrown dust on their heads and put on sackcloth; the young women of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground.​  My eyes are spent with weeping; my stomach churns; my bile is poured out to the ground because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because infants and babies faint in the streets of the city. They cry to their mothers, “Where is bread and wine?”
as they faint like a wounded man in the streets of the city, as their life is poured out on their mother's bosom.   What can I say for you, to what compare you, O daughter of Jerusalem?  What can I liken to you, that I may comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion?  For your ruin is vast as the sea; who can heal you?  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.

 

All who pass along the way clap their hands at you; they hiss and wag their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem: “Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?”  All your enemies rail against you; they hiss, they gnash their teeth, they cry: “We have swallowed her!  Ah, this is the day we longed for; now we have it; we see it!  The Lord has done what he purposed; he has carried out his word, which he commanded long ago; he has thrown down without pity; he has made the enemy rejoice over you and exalted the might of your foes.  Their heart cried to the Lord. O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears stream down like a torrent day and night!  Give yourself no rest, your eyes no respite!  “Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the night watches!  Pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord!  Lift your hands to him for the lives of your children, who faint for hunger at the head of every street.”

 

 Look, O Lord, and see!  With whom have you dealt thus? Should women eat the fruit of their womb, the children of their tender care?  Should priests and prophets be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?   In the dust of the streets lie the young and the old; my young women and my young men have fallen by the sword; you have killed them in the day of your anger, slaughtering without pity You summoned as if to a festival day my terrors on every side, and on the day of the anger of the Lord no one escaped or survived; those whom I held and raised my enemy destroyed.

 

If you can read only the highlighted area of what Jeremiah was witnessing and still have no fear of a Holy God, then read no more. Be warned: these were His chosen people, and they also forsake the God of their fathers.  Jeremiah tells us God’s wrath was without mercy.  Jeremiah is very clear that it is the Lord. Do you recall God calling a pagan king his servant?  And it was Nebuchadnezzar’s army that did all of this; they took great joy in the destruction of Jerusalem and its people.

 

I have no doubt our nation is under judgment, “Truth what is Truth.” People have no fear of God, the marketplace is full of lies, the schools are teaching lies, and the government has become the chief of liars.  Where is Truth? It is only found in Jesus.  He has told us in John 14:6, Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”  If you are going to look for Truth, it is best to have the source of Truth to begin your search.

 

Do you recall the story Jesus told of the rich man and Lazarus found in Luke 16:19-31?  He dies and goes to hell, and Lazarus goes to heaven, and he asks God to send Lazarus or anyone back to tell his brothers.  And he was told that even if a person who had died came back and warned them, they would not pay any attention.  That is what Jesus did: He paid in full for your sin, and He has risen indeed.  The Scripture tells us, “Today is the day of Salvation.” My prayer is that you will do so.

 

From the Back Porch,

 

Bob Rice

The day God spoke to me while cleaning my grill

 

The day God spoke to me while cleaning my grill

 

 

While cleaning the Barbecue grill, these thoughts came into my mind, and because I do not think like this, I believe God was speaking to me about “Sin.”  It went something like this: Have you ever given thought to how a barbecue grill and sin have a lot in common?  Wow, where did that thought come from?  Now that got my attention, and as I looked at that decayed matter we left on the grill, it seemed as if it was embedded into the stainless-steel bars of the grill.  It seemed as if the author of that thought was watching and had observed that I was spending a considerable amount of time with steel pads and soap, and a good amount of effort, and that decayed matter still has a hold in those hard-to-get areas.

 

Over the years, we have been careful to put aluminum grill covers on the grills to keep the grease from dropping on the grill, and yet, like sin, it was getting below the surface, out of sight, but today it was no longer acceptable; it had been discovered and must be removed, and it has been a long and difficult task.  I have noticed that sin in my life begins with just a small deception; it might be in a business deal with a customer.   I observed the following: in a marriage, it may be the flirtation with a young woman, it’s just a game, and the benefit comes from the man’s self-esteem; he feels as if he still has what it takes.  The wife feels the need to have a couple of glasses of wine during the day just to take the edge off while she watches “The Days of Our Lives” or some other soap opera to fill her mind with doubt and disappointment about her place in life.  It’s a lot like your grill, at first it looks ok, but like the decayed matter on your grill, if not dealt with, it gets ugly.

 

You see, what begins with a flirtation will often end in adultery; it never begins there, but at the root is a man who is willing to put his desires before the vow he made before God and witnesses.   At first, he fantasizes, but after that, he wants to conquer, and the result is broken promises, broken lives, and often divorce.  What about the stay-at-home mom, those glasses of wine increase, and before she has any understanding, she is an alcoholic.  Like my grill, it did not happen overnight; it took a while, and sin, no matter what sin, has a way of building decay into the lives of people.  We need to pay attention to our grill, and we also need to pay attention to our mind, for it is the mind that is the door to our heart.  Embedded sin will dig deep into the heart and mind of a person, and it establishes roots that will leave blemishes and scars.  It has taken hours to clean your grill, but it will take your acknowledgment and confession for God’s grace to remove your sin.

 

From the Back Porch,

 

Bob Rice

My blog; http://fromourbackporch.blogspot.com/

How Lonely Sits the City Part 2

  

 

Lamentations 1:11-22

 

July 31, 2025

How Lonely Sits the City Part 2

 

All her people groan as they search for bread; they trade their treasures for food to revive their strength.  “Look, O Lord, and see, for I am despised.” “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?  Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which was brought upon me, which the Lord inflicted on the day of his fierce anger.“  From on high, he sent fire; into my bones he made it descend; he spread a net for my feet; he turned me back; he has left me stunned, faint all the day long. “My transgressions were bound into a yoke; by his hand they were fastened together; they were set upon my neck; he caused my strength to fail; the Lord gave me into the hands of those whom I cannot withstand.  “The Lord rejected all my mighty men in my midst; he summoned an assembly against me to crush my young men; the Lord has trodden as in a winepress the virgin daughter of Judah.

 

“For these things I weep; my eyes flow with tears; for a comforter is far from me, one to revive my spirit; my children are desolate, for the enemy has prevailed.”   Zion stretches out her hands, but there is none to comfort her; the Lord has commanded against Jacob that his neighbors should be his foes; Jerusalem has become a filthy thing among them.  “The Lord is in the right, for I have rebelled against his word; but hear, all you peoples, and see my suffering; my young women and my young men have gone into captivity.“

 

I called to my lovers, but they deceived me; my priests and elders perished in the city, while they sought food to revive their strength.   “Look, O Lord, for I am in distress; my stomach churns; my heart is wrung within me, because I have been very rebellious.
In the street, the sword bereaves; in the house, it is like death.  “They heard my groaning, yet there is no one to comfort me.  All my enemies have heard of my trouble; They are glad that you have done it.  You have brought the day you announced; now let them be as I am.  “Let all their evildoing come before you, and deal with them as you have dealt with me because of all my transgressions; for my groans are many, and my heart is faint.”

 

You see the value of good stuff when you are hungry; they traded their treasure for food.  The writer is acknowledging that God has inflicted shame and sorrow on His chosen, in that they were not willing to obey his commands.

 

When judgment day comes, that is when we want comfort, but then and now, we run to God in times of distress.  Do you recall after 9-11 how the places of worship were full, but a month later, those folks were not to be found.  They were back to the little gods they trusted in.  But the people of Israel were displaced all over the known world, and their cries for mercy were falling on deaf ears; no one had compassion on them. 

 

Let me leave you with this thought:  What would God's judgment look like if He turned His back on the USA?

 

From the Back Porch,

 

Bob Rice

How Lonely Sits the City

 

Lamentations 1:1-10

 

July 30, 2025

 

How Lonely Sits the City

How lonely sits the city that was full of people!  How like a widow has she become, she who was great among the nations!  She who was a princess among the provinces has become a slave.  She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks; among all her lovers, she has none to comfort her; all her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they have become her enemies.  Judah has gone into exile because of affliction and hard servitude; she dwells now among the nations, but finds no resting place; her pursuers have all overtaken her in the midst of her distress.  The roads to Zion mourn, for none come to the festival, all her gates are desolate;
Her priests groan; her virgins have been afflicted, and she herself suffers bitterly.  Her foes have become the head; her enemies prosper, because the Lord has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions.
Her children have gone away, captives before the foe.  From the daughter of Zion all her majesty has departed.  Her princes have become like deer that find no pasture; they fled without strength before the pursuer.  Jerusalem remembers in the days of her affliction and wandering all the precious things that were hers from days of old.  When her people fell into the hand of the foe, and there was none to help her, her foes gloated over her; they mocked at her downfall.  Jerusalem sinned grievously; therefore, she became filthy; all who honored her despise her, for they have seen her nakedness; she herself groans and turns her face away.  Her uncleanness was in her skirts; she took no thought of her future; therefore, her fall is terrible; she has no comforter.  “O Lord, behold my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed!”  The enemy has stretched out his hands over all her precious things; for she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary, those whom you forbade to enter your congregation.

 

If you have read the first ten verses and have discernment, you may be asking how such a great nation fell captive to Babylonia.  You might look at the Roman Empire.  They both sinned grievously, and yet God’s chosen people slowly left the God who had given them the land He had promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  You would have believed that a people who had been slaves in Egypt and seen all that God did for them under Moses and Joshua's leadership, and how God fought for them, and provided for their needs, and brought them into a land He promised, would have taught their sons and daughters to honor God in their hearts, minds, and souls.  But the bottom line is the Lord has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions.  And the Lamentations are for the sins of turning from the God who chose them from all the nations of the world.

 

Should this be a wake-up call for the people of the United States of America?  I know of a few places where people from many countries are trying to come, not China, not Russia, but over 20 million have come illegally into the USA. 

 

This nation has been blessed with so much, but today, as a whole, people are putting their trust in many things, but not in our Creator and God.  Has the USA gone the way of most nations that God has judged, yes, and it has become a darkness where often evil has prevailed. 

 

Fear is used to sell just about everything, and good is being called evil, and our universities are being used by foreign governments to hate people they have never met, such as the Jewish people.

 

Many a pastor has put the fear of men above teaching the Scriptures and has made sure they did not offer anyone.  Someone asked me about growing up in small Baptist churches, and I said, I saw some of the meanest people and some of the best, and overall it was more about religion than teaching how to be a Christ Follower.

 

This is my belief: time is running out for this nation, unless we have a spiritual awakening.

 

From our Back Porch,

 

Bob Rice

Lamentations Introduction

 

 

 

 

Lamentations  Introduction

 

July 29, 2025

 

This book's theme is about the sorrow and grief of the great city of Jerusalem, but also about hope.  The destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by the Babylonians in 586 BC.  The author is unknown, but all Scripture is God breath, you will find that in 2 Timothy 3:16,17, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable  for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work."

 

Lamentations was most likely written to be prayed or sung in worship services devoted to asking God’s forgiveness. Such services began as early as the months after the temple’s destruction in 586 B.C. (Jer. 41:4-5). They continued after the temple was rebuilt during Zechariah’s time (c. 520 B.C.; see Zech. 7:3-5; 8:19). In later years, Lamentations was read and sung as part of annual observances marking the temple’s destruction.  (Taken from the English Standard Version Bible)

Zechariah 7:3-5, “saying to the priests of the house of the Lord of hosts and the prophets, 'Should I weep and abstain in the fifth month, as I have done for so many years?”

Then the word of the Lord of hosts came to me:  “Say to all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth month and in the seventh, for these seventy years, was it for me that you fasted?”

Zechariah 8:19,  “Thus says the Lord of hosts: The fast of the fourth month and the fast of the fifth and the fast of the seventh and the fast of the tenth shall be to the house of Judah seasons of joy and gladness and cheerful feasts. Therefore, love truth and peace.”

 

From our Back Porch,

 

Bob Rice

‘ The Time of the End

 

 

Daniel 12:1-13

 

April 11, 2024

 ‘

The Time of the End

 

“At that time shall arise, Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time. But at that time, your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book.  And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.  And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.  But you, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book, until the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.”

Then I, Daniel, looked, and behold, two others stood, one on this bank of the stream and one on that bank of the stream.  And someone said to the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the stream, “How long shall it be till the end of these wonders?” And I heard the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the stream; he raised his right hand and his left hand toward heaven and swore by him who lives forever that it would be for a time, times, and half a time, and that when the shattering of the power of the holy people comes to an end, all these things would be finished.  I heard, but I did not understand. Then I said, “O my lord, what shall be the outcome of these things?”  He said, “Go your way, Daniel, for the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end.  Many shall purify themselves and make themselves white and be refined, but the wicked shall act wickedly. And none of the wicked shall understand, but those who are wise shall understand.  And from the time that the regular burnt offering is taken away and the abomination that makes desolate is set up, there shall be 1,290 days.  Blessed is he who waits and arrives at the 1,335 days.  But go your way till the end. And you shall rest and shall stand in your allotted place at the end of the days.”

 

Do you understand that the Jewish people are the chosen of God and that Michael the Archangel is their Prince?  No people on this earth have been blessed as they have, and because of God’s love for them, He has allowed them to bless the rest of the world.  Then why are they hated so much by people who have no understanding of who they are or what they have done to help the rest of the world?  The answer is the evil one who is controlling many of the governments of this world and wants to destroy all that God loves.  He knows his time is short, and I’m praying that Michael will be allowed to fight for God's chosen, as he did in the six-day war.

 

Did you get that it's going to get bad, I mean, a lot of death and destruction on the last day? What is now happening is a cakewalk to what is coming?  Ponder on this verse: But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book.  And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.  Your Messiah, so many have waited for, has come. He walked with His people and most rejected Him, but Daniel sees a time when He shall return.  Those who put their faith in Jesus as the Messiah will awake to everlasting life.  Today is the day of Salvation, for all people, and Jesus is the truth and the only way to the Father.

 

Jesus told a group of religious Jewish people that their father was the devil, and one of the men I admire from the 1600s, Blaise Pascal, said, “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.”  Neither you nor I has ever met a person who was not religious about something, it may be golf, fishing, or being a Baptist, but I have seen too many who go by Baptist, and you can put any denomination name in there that father is the devil.  It all comes down to whether you have a personal relationship with God’s Son.

For more understanding of Chapter 12, look at what Ray Stedman has posted.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice