Your prophets have seen for you
False and foolish visions;
And they have not exposed your iniquity
So as to restore you from captivity,
But they have seen for you false and misleading oracles (Lamentations 2:14).

The prophets were prophesying peace and prosperity rather than judgment for injustice and idolatry, which plagued Judah in her last days. The prophets had not received visions from the Lord but spoke from their own imaginations. Thus, their prophesies were false and misleading, causing people to trust in lies and leading them to experience the just punishment for their folly. 

The primary message of the prophets in the Old Testament was the same. It was a message of repentance from sin. When John the Baptist and Jesus began preaching in the New Testament, their message carried forward the message of the prophets, namely, repentance from sin (Matthew 3:1; 4:17). When the church was inaugurated in Acts, the apostles also began preaching the message of repentance from sin (cf. Acts 2:38; 3:19,26). New Testament prophecy had this primary aim, namely, to convict people of sin and lead them to repentance:

But if an unbeliever or an inquirer comes in while everyone is prophesying, they are convicted of sin and are brought under judgment by all (1 Corinthians 14:24).

When Paul preached the Gospel in Athens, he demonstrated that the message to the Gentiles was the same as the message to the Jews, namely, that they needed to repent:

In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent (Acts 17:30; cf. 26:20). 

Friends, repentance is both biblical and necessary to our Gospel preaching. It's absence in many pulpits, revival meetings, and gospel tracts have made the message of grace cheap and flaccid. It has made the conversion experience simply an insurance policy rather than a total transformation. Just as we cannot take faith out of the preaching of repentance, we must not take repentance out of the preaching of faith. Sadly, the messengers of the Gospel today have too often failed to fortify their preaching of faith with a clear call to repentance.

John MacArthur, an outspoken critic of cheap grace, had this to say about our contemporary situation:

I am deeply concerned as I watch what is happening in the church today. Biblical Christianity has lost its voice. The church is preaching a gospel designed to soothe rather than confront sinful individuals. Churches have turned to amusement and show business to try to win the world. Those methods may seem to draw crowds for a season. But they're not God's methods, and therefore they are destined to fail. In the meantime, the church is being infiltrated and corrupted by professing believers who have never repented, never turned from sin, and therefore, never really embraced Christ as Lord or Savior (Grace to You, November 19, 2009).

Just as the prophets of old were exposed as false because they deviated from the consistent message of repentance, today's self-proclaimed prophets may be exposed for the same failure. They act like psychics rather than God's messengers, causing people to idolize good feelings and success rather than leading them to express humility, sorrow over sin, and repentance. 

Friends, can anyone be saved without contrition over their sins? Can anyone be saved without turning from their false belief system and their dead works to their only hope, which is in Christ? Can anyone be saved if there is no willingness to turn from their sins, even as they acknowledge their helplessness to attain the perfect obedience that God requires? No, salvation necessitates repentance.

This I recall to my mind,
Therefore I have hope.
The Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease,
For His compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.

The line that I highlighted above is the one that sticks out for me and one most precious to me. It is a truth that spans both the Old and New Testaments and one that is particularly meaningful and true for the Christian. 

This reminder of hope arises fom the promises of God. The word "lovingkindnesses" translates the Hebrew word hesed, which always refers to God's faithfulness to keep His covenant promises. It is these covenant promises, particularly the ones that He made to Abraham (cf. Genesis 12), to David (cf. 2 Samuel 7), and through Isaiah/Jeremiah (cf. Jeremiah 31:31-34), which "never cease". It is on this basis that Jeremiah can write that "His compassions never fail". They do not fail because they are based on unconditional and eternal promises. They do not depend on the successful obedience of His people but rather on the strength of God's Word and the boundaries of His grace. 

All this is wonderful, but the one that truly tugs at my heart is the line that reads, "They are new every morning". This tells me that I'm not relying on something old, antiquated and unreliable, meant only for a past generation. It tells me that as long as there are still mornings, these promises, this hope, this compassion, they are newly given. It tells me that my failures that follow my receiving this grace will again be covered under a new outlay of grace. Thus, it tells me that not only my past and present sins but even my future sins are covered by this grace. 

What is more, the expression "evey morning" is a metaphor for the unceasing nature of God's grace. Therefore, it is not as though we have to wait for the next morning to experience a new outlay of God's grace, but it is available to us every moment, from moment to moment. Have you just messed up? God's compassion is available for you now. Have you messed up again? It is again avaialble to you. What is more, every time you receive this grace, you receive it as if it is your very first time to receive it. It is NEW every morning. God does not bring up your old sins, even if they were from just a moment ago. As the psalmist records,

As far as the east is from the west,
So far has He removed our transgressions from us (Psalm 103:12).

Rather than north and south, which represent the polar limits of the earth, the expression east and west are used to represent a limitless distance, for east never meets west in the ever revolving circle of the earth. Thus, God removes our transgressions an eternal distance from us. Isaiah also writes,

I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake,
And I will not remember your sins (Isaiah 43:25).

Certainly this does not mean that God forgets our sins, for He cannot forget anything, for He is omniscient, but to use such language of God is to suggest how thoroughly God disposes of our sins. He will never bring them to mind again so as to hold us accountable for them. 

Friends, we can claim this promise of unceasing hope and unfailing grace because of what Christ Jesus has accomplished for us on the cross. As the Scriptures teach,

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).

We have become the righteousness of God in Christ. Every moment that we are in Him we are the righeousness of God. The death that Christ died happened at one moment in history, but the application of that death to the account of every believer continues to this very day and is newly applied to bring forgiveness with every new moment, from moment to moment, until we reach entire sanctification in heaven. Hallelujah! 

Last year I highlighted the mixed acrostic in Lamentations. I shared an article that showed how the very arrangement of the acrostics reflected the emotions of Jeremiah as he observed the destruction of Jerusalem. 

Today, I want to draw your attention to another interesting tidbit. As you read this book, try to observe the changing of points of view, what we term "person" in grammar. 

Chapter 1 - Third person plural "they" becomes first person singular "I"

Chapter 2 - All of it is in the third person plural "they"

Chapter 3 - All of it is in the first person singular "I"

Chapter 4 - Most of it is in the third person plural "they" but a bit of it is in the  first person plural "we"

Chapter 5 - All of it is in the first person plural "we"

What Jeremiah seems to be doing in this interplay of "persons" is to describe the sin and suffering of the city and the people and then to personally identify himself with their sin and suffering. Therefore, he is not simply sympathizing with the people of God from afar but empathizing with their plight, making it personal by embracing it as his own. It reminds me of Paul's command to believers in Romans 12:15, "Rejoice with those who rejoice. Mourn with those who mourn." Jeremiah is doing what Christians are also called to do in the church. So for example, we are not called to necessarily run from problems in a given local church, but to identify with them, confess them and repent of them as members of the one body of Christ, for God sees us wherever we are and wherever we go. 

Jesus taught, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick" (Luke 5:31). It has been my mission to encourage and challenge the congregation of believers and its leadership to become biblically healthy, especially so by every member getting into the Word for themselves. 

Friends, we must be faithful where God has put us and with what God has given us. This life is short, a passing shadow, a vapor that will soon pass away. Yet, what endures and always remains fresh is God's faithfulness to keep His precious promises to us. This was Jeremiah's enwavering hope in the midst of his sometimes thankless ministry:

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." The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. (Lamentations 3:21-26 NIV)

Friends, although I spoke briefly about the acrostic in the Book of Lamentations, please read the following analysis by Donald E. Curtis on the site, Bible.org, of how acrostics are effectively used by Jeremiah to convey the changing tone of the book.

Lamentations Acrostics and Verse Structures

An acrostic is a series of sentences whose first letters either spell out a message or run through the alphabet. The first chapter of Lamentations contains 22 verses, and each verse begins with the next Hebrew letter in sequence. One might fiddle with the English translation and carry the acrostic over. It would look something like the following:

Alas the city that was full of people sits alone . . .

Bitterly she weeps in the night and her tears are on her cheeks . . .

Cast away under affliction and under harsh servitude, Judah has gone into exile . . .

Desolation marks her gates, no one travels to Zion . . .

Enemies prosper and have mastery over her . . .

Besides the acrostics, each verse in chapter 1 contains three related thoughts. For example, the first verse contains these three thoughts:

1. How lonely sits the city that was full of people.

2. She has become like a widow who was once great among the nations.

3. She who was a princess among the provinces has become a forced laborer.

The second chapter of Lamentations is an acrostic with a “twist.” The twist is best shown by laying out 22 letters in the English alphabet to represent the starting Hebrew letters:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O Q P R S T U V

The acrostic in chapter 2 still contains 22 verses, and each begins with a different letter in the Hebrew alphabet, but two of the letters are reversed in their sequence; note the P and the Q. In the Hebrew, it is ‘U’ and ‘p’ that are reversed. There are several possibilities to account for this reversal. It would draw attention to itself to the Hebrew reader, and it creates an imbalance. By altering the accepted structure ever so slightly, the author tells you that things are not right. There has been a “reversal” of fortune in Judah and Jerusalem. The accepted order is broken. Things are not what you expected.

Like chapter 1, the verses in chapter 2 are also triplets.

Moving to chapter 3, we find that there are 66 verses. Each verse has a single thought. This chapter is also an acrostic, but note its form in an English rendition of the first 6 verses:

Affliction I have seen because of His wrath.

Away from light into darkness He has driven me.

Against me He has turned His hand all the day.

Breaking my bones and wasting away my flesh.

Besieging me with bitterness and hardship.

Black and dark are the place in which I dwell.

Here we see that each successive Hebrew letter is the beginning of 3 verses in a row; 3 verses per letter times 22 letters yields the 66 verses in chapter 3. But note that this chapter also contains the same acrostic reversal as chapter 2 where the 3 verses that begin with ‘p’ precede the 3 verses that begin with ‘U’.

Chapter 4 contains 22 verses. Each verse contains 2 related thoughts and each verse has an acrostic arrangement identical to chapter 2; i.e., 2 letters are reversed.

Chapter 5, which is the last chapter, has 22 verses each, of which, contains a single thought. Even though there are 22 verses, there is no acrostic pattern in this chapter.

To summarize these structural elements in Lamentations’ five chapters, note the following chart:

In literary terms, I believe the author of Lamentations invokes this structure to emulate the cycle of tears during a time of mourning. In the collapse of the acrostic pattern, there is a loss of control. The triplets moving to 66 singletons emulate a building of intensity as grief swells in the chest. The shift to doublets and then just 22 singletons show a loss of energy, and then quiet. As we shall see in the chapter descriptions, this is the pattern of the words, but it is marvelous to see how the author uses the physical structure of the book to underpin his words and ideas.