The “Woe”(Ay) of Israel

Study: # 765-Church in the Houses From: April 16-22, 2013 Topic: “The “Woe”(Ay) of Israel” Lamentations 4:10-20

The Jewish from Jerusalem had become contaminated with sins in abundance before God. Therefore, God’s hands defeated them through punishment. The Lord defeated Jerusalem, the nation He had chosen. It is the same God who defeats them, and how! Satan cannot defeat them, it is only God who can defeat them. And in what manner this chosen nation had to die! What a great regret! We can never think we can take lightly that God has chosen us. We should never lose what God has given us. Let us not lose one second, or days, months, or years of which God has been marking our lives. Remember that the minutes, hours, days and years go by and if we neglect our faith and we get involved in what displeases God, then the payment of our actions will arrive with great interest and there will be shame before those we wanted to please. Escape! It is best to escape from evil and from those who want us to follow them and sin as they do. Jerusalem with all its people died of a sad and slow death. There were 18 months of siege on behalf of their enemies. Their city was surrounded, sieged, nothing and no one could enter or leave Jerusalem. They were incarcerated in the city and with no food at all. Hunger contributed more to their destruction than any other punishment. That punishment came on behalf of God, well the iniquity of Jerusalem was more aggravated than the iniquity of Sodom. Therefore, it’s not strange that the punishment would be more severe, well Sodom never disposed of the means of grace that Jerusalem possessed. My God! This sad picture staggers all my inner being, not only because I think of our children, but it is from the Spirit my disturbance, my agony and great desperation for seeing God’s hand with His great strength against that nation. Who can escape when God is displeased with something? Not even His nation, Israel, was able to escape from the punishment due to their great and continuous sins. They lost everything! With so many benefits that can be obtained and maintained, only if we are meek! But, what we see is the payment for being rebellious. If the adverse and dangerous things arrive on behalf of nature or by plans from men to harm us, that can be detained through prayer. But, what happened to Jerusalem was different, the evil came after so many warnings and for their lack of repentance. There was so much sin in that town that they were all exposed to a complete destruction. There noblemen who used to be white like the snow and milk, their bodies more rose-colored than the choral and their figure more lovely than sapphire, all this a type of freshness and natural beauty, now their aspect had changed totally. Their skin was darker than sort, now their bodies were blacker than blackness or darkness. They were not recognized by others, they were changed so much walking on the streets of the starving city, they came to be like ambulant skeletons, only bones covered with skin. Man himself contributed to his own destruction. The city died centimeter by centimeter until the city itself felt it was dying. Some women even cooked their children to eat! Do you know what? It was already very serious the fact they had no food to feed themselves, but it was much worse that they were fed with their own flesh. What a horrible picture this is: the temple is destroyed, mothers abandon their little ones, the people die of hunger, the punishment is prolonged, the princes in the streets are unrecognizable, and cannibalism has seized even the merciful women! The city that was considered impregnable, a place that could not be reached or conquered by force, that did allow to yield or persuade, now HAS FALLEN! The destruction of Jerusalem was complete, surprising, unthinkable and incredible. Not only for the Israelites but even for the kings of the land and all who dwell in the world. No one could believe that the enemy and the adversary would enter the gates of Jerusalem, the Holy city, the dwelling of the great King. Who would say! They thought they would also be under the divine protection believing that the attempt on behalf of their enemies for a successful attack would be in vain. But, we can see that it is man himself who seeks evilness and as a result punishment for himself. It is man himself who is determined to distance himself from God and to sin continuously without any repentance or sorrow that causes his own destruction and the destruction of his nation. Here we also see that it is spoken of the sins of the so-called prophets, the priests, of their wickedness. They persecuted the innocent righteous. This is well seen when they rejected Jeremiah and tortured him undermining all honor and respect. For that and much more they received the payment of their sins, wandering through the streets with their sorrow and their punishment, because of their mental deviation. Here we see the great despair of the nation under all these calamities. They could not expect aid absolutely from no one. Egypt could not help them. With the punishment upon them from God’s hand they became an easy capture for their enemies, the Babylonians. Those Babylonians were cruel, but the worse was that God was using Nebuchadnezzar (king of Babylon) to punish Israel. All this is too much to survive! It was not man upon them, it was God Himself! They thought they could change God and they were all destroyed, all of them! We should learn from this great lesson. Then we should take care of our heart to love God in truth, with meekness and without rebelliousness. We must fight strongly against sin and evilness; we must turn our backs to those who invite us to follow them in an open defiance to the High God. We, the ones who have believed the gospel of Christ are God’s people and He loves us, but He demands from us good fruits. Those who do not give from those good fruits will be cut and thrown to the fire! John 15:1, 2, 6 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he

prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown to the fire and burned.” Amen.