"The Yoke of Sin" June 9 Readings: Lamentations 1-5

 

Reading the Bible Chronologically in 2026

This year, we will read the Bible chronologically, as it happened, instead of simply reading from Genesis to Revelation. The Old Testament is approximately 3/4 of the Bible, but we will give more emphasis to the New Testament, spending half the year in the Old Testament and half in the New. 

Bible Readings: Lamentations 1-5

In Bible Gateway, we will link to the NIV this year, though you can choose any version you prefer. 

Background:  

The nation was defeated, destroyed. The Temple of God was in ruins. People wondered how the great God of heaven could have let something like this happen. They should have understood and should have listened to the prophets, but they didn’t. So Jeremiah wrote a series of five laments which spelled out exactly what God was doing.

Each of the five chapters of Lamentations is a separate lament, carefully crafted to explore the judgment and the goodness of God. Four of the five are 22 verses long, and chapter 3 is 66 verses long. That is because these are acrostic poems. Each of the 22 verses begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. In chapter 3, every 3 verses start with the successive letters.

I have often been guilty of glossing over this book as I read through the Bible. It is dark, and it is heavy. That is a mistake. There is much of the character of God revealed here, even if it is part we would rather not think about. There are great gems of truth in each of these laments. 

Daily Devotional: The Yoke of Sin

Have you ever seen one of those promise books that culls all the positive, encouraging messages from God to lift our spirits and help us through the day? They include promises about God’s love and provision and forgiveness and mercy. It is wonderful to think of these qualities of God.

If we cherry-pick these truths and ignore the reality of God’s holiness and the way he reacts when his people sin, we will develop a skewed view of God. We will end up where many in our world have arrived – with a god of their own creation who accepts them as they are without judgment and never asks anything of them. This god loves sinners but would never tell them, “Go and sin no more.” Instead, he says, “Sin all you wish because I affirm your choices.”

Lamentations is a book about life after such a view of God is adopted. The false prophets of Judah convinced the people that God would never judge them and that they were his special chosen people regardless of how they acted. They embraced sin and idolatry with abandon and without conscience.

Look at some of the truths, especially from chapter 1.

• In verse 1 we are told that the city that once was great among the nations (Jerusalem) is now laid low. That is what sin does. It brings us down. It offers great things but it brings us low.
• Verse 2 laments that Jerusalem is weeping bitterly in the night with no one to comfort her. All her friends have betrayed her. All that we seek instead of God will use us and abandon us, never bringing us true joy, comfort, or peace.
• Verse 5 reinforces this. “Her adversaries have become her masters.” When we sin, those things we embrace in our temptation become our slave masters and cruelly rule over us. But the verse goes on to say that “the Lord made her suffer.” God has designed it so that sin is its own punishment. There are always painful consequences to sin.
• Sin is an offense against God, but it is also a self-inflicted wound that causes the sinner deep pain.
• Verse 14 is powerful. ‘My transgressions have been formed into a yoke, fastened together by his hands.” God has designed this world so that when we sin, our sins bind us into servitude.

Lamentations 1 ends without hope, though in 3:22-24 we are reminded of the faithfulness of God. The Book of Lamentations reminds us just how devastating sin is. Thank God we know the cure through Jesus Christ and his bloodshed on the Cross. But we must never allow the sacrifice of Christ to make us think as Israel did – that their sin was meaningless and without consequence.

Thank you, Lord, for your wonderful grace and mercy. May it drive me to holiness so that my heart can filled with praise and never with the lament of sin. 

 

Consider God's Word:

Do you ignore the hard parts of the Bible?

Are you careful to honor the holiness of God and to live in obedience?