Lamentations 5:3 (KJV) A Cry for Real Men

Lamentations 5:3 (KJV)

We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows.

 

The book of Lamentations, I believe, was written from Egypt, the tears of the prophet recollecting the fall of his nation. This fifth song addresses, among other things, the failing of fatherhood.

 

It was the spiritual failing of the men of Jerusalem that had led to their destruction. It was their spiritual failing that had turned their inheritance over to strangers, leaving them orphans, fatherless, and their mothers as widows.

 

I note that it says as widows, not that they actually were widows.

·       A mother can be left as a widow by death

·       A mother can be left as a widow by divorce

·   A mother can be left as a widow by abandonment

·      A mother can be left as a widow by a man who abdicates his masculine responsibilities.

And so, we have so many mothers as widows, leaving children fatherless.

 

Where are the men? Where are those who will meet God, obey His will, and step up to be husbands, fathers, heads of households, and men after God’s own heart?

 

The failure of the family begins with a falling away from God. As more are influenced by evolution and godless education, violence escalates, masculinity deteriorates, and families degenerate.

 

Lord, bless our families with men—real men, godly men.

 

#FailingFatherhood #SpiritualFailing #AbsentFathers #RealMen #GodlyLeadership

Failing Fatherhood: A Cry for Real Men

 

To my readers:

Thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and, more than 6300 earlier Daily Visits with God, visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2005.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

My books, and other resources, are available at:
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Lamentations 5:3 (KJV) A Cry for Real Men

Lamentations 3:58 (KJV) The Power of Conviction

Lamentations 3:58 (KJV)

O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life.

 

I see in the third song of Lamentations:

The hopelessness of the man under conviction (Vs 1-19)

 

The hope that humility brings (Vs 20-32)

 

The purpose of hopeless conviction (Vs 33-40)

 

The redemption that results in repentance (Vs 40-58)

 

The prayer of the redeemed (Vs 59-66)

 

I am trying to witness to a man right now who believes his religious actions can save him and therefore his unrighteous deeds can effect the loss of his salvation. I am attempting to bring him to understand it is impossible, utterly impossible, for him to be saved. He is hopelessly and impossibly lost. Unless the Lord gives him salvation. Then, if he is impossibly saved, it would mean it is impossible for him to ever be lost again.

 

Lamentations chapter three is an Old Testament demonstration of this biblical truth.

 

#HopelessConviction #RedemptionThroughRepentance #SalvationByGraceAlone #PrayerForRedemption #HopeInSalvation

The Power of Conviction: Hope Against Desolation

To my readers:

Thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and, more than 6300 earlier Daily Visits with God, visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2005.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

My books, and other resources, are available at:
https://marvinmckenzie.org

Join me at Daily Visits with God Podcast
https://marvinmckenzie.substack.com/

Merch at my Teespring store https://macz.creator-spring.com/
Be a witness with hats, mugs, t-shirts, sweat shirts, and more

Let’s have coffee?
The link to Ko-fi  is an opportunity to support this effort to reach a world of souls with the Word of God. I would appreciate any gift you can give. 

Lamentations 3:58 (KJV) The Power of Conviction

 

Lamentations 2:18 (KJV) Tears Like a River

Lamentations 2:18 (KJV)

Their heart cried unto the Lord, O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night: give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.

 

It is my understanding that each of the five chapters of the lamentations were written as Individual songs or lamentations. The theme of song #2, at least one of them, is tears like a river.

Lamentations 2:11 (KJV)

Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people; because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.

 

I’m thinking as well of

1 Thessalonians 5:18 (KJV)

In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

 

And

Philippians 4:4 (KJV)

Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice.

 

I don’t believe it is accurate to say the Old Testament is a book of tears and the New Testament is a book of joy. There were times of both rejoicing and tears in the Old Testament economy just as there are times to rejoice and to shed tears in this economy.

 

It seems to me like these are days for Christians to “let tears run down like a river.” The evil that exists in the world right now calls for believers to awake to righteousness, sin not,[1] and fervently pray without ceasing.[2]

 

At the same time, we have cause to rejoice. The promise of Christ’s return is as sure today as it has ever been. Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.[3]

·       Rejoice

·       Look up

 

But do so with tears like a river for the souls of the lost.

 

#Lamentations #TearsLikeARiver #RejoiceAlways #PrayWithoutCeasing #LookUpAndRejoice

Tears Like a River: Life's Seasons with Faith

To my readers:

Thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and, more than 6300 earlier Daily Visits with God, visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2005.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

My books, and other resources, are available at:
https://marvinmckenzie.org

Join me at Daily Visits with God Podcast
https://marvinmckenzie.substack.com/

Merch at my Teespring store https://macz.creator-spring.com/
Be a witness with hats, mugs, t-shirts, sweat shirts, and more

Let’s have coffee?
The link to Ko-fi  is an opportunity to support this effort to reach a world of souls with the Word of God. I would appreciate any gift you can give. 

Lamentations 2:18 (KJV) Tears Like a River

---

[1] 1 Corinthians 15:34 (KJV)

Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame.

[2] 1 Thessalonians 5:17 (KJV)

Pray without ceasing.

[3] Romans 13:11 (KJV)

And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.

Lamentations 5:19 (KJV) Will You Remain Faithful?

Lamentations 5:19 (KJV)

Thou, O LORD, remainest for ever; thy throne from generation to generation.

Certain truths challenge and test the faith of the believer. They are doctrines we know to be true. We will claim them, agree with them, and “amen” the preaching of them.

So long as we do not have to live them.

The prophet lived in a time of great affliction. It was as if God had cast them off. The sins of their fathers had slain them and left people like the prophet and his contemporaries to bear the burden of their iniquities. They were suffering because of the sins and mistakes of a generation now past. They were not, by the way, going to escape this burden.

What is it that can comfort a Christian at this stage?

It was not the strength of their fathers
They were dead.

It was not the promise of rescue
God offered no such promise.

It was not the wisdom of their grandfathers
The enemy had shown them no mercy.

It was not the loving arms of their mothers
They had been left widows.

The Word of God offers this truth as their source of strength and comfort, “Thou, O LORD, remainest for ever; thy throne from generation to generation.”

Now the question. Will you remain faithful to the Lord with only this?

We live in a nation bearing the burdens of the sins of our fathers. Spiritually: 

• I see some reacting by coming up with new ways to make their faith feel good. 
• I see some rejecting their father’s faith as wrong and adjusting to what they believe is better. 
• I see others rejecting the faith of their fathers as fruitless false, and foolish.

The Bible says that God changes not. 

• Bible faith remains forever because God remains forever. 
• Bible truth is valid from one generation to the next because God’s throne remains from one generation to the next.

Will you remain faithful to the Lord with only this?

To my readers:
Thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

Donate to Bible Baptist Church every time you make an Amazon purchase through this link, https://smile.amazon.com/ch/91-1265824

For this and, more than 5600 earlier Daily Visits with God, visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2005.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

My books, and other resources, are available at:
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Lamentations 5:19 (KJV) Will You Remain Faithful?

Lamentations 5:21 (KJV) When the Lord Does the Turning

Lamentations 5:21 (KJV)

Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old.

Here is a powerful lesson. When God does the turning, the person is turned. 

• It wasn’t the turning of the priest he prayed for
• It wasn’t the turning of the scribe he prayed for
• It wasn’t the turning of the prophet he prayed for 

Jeremiah, the penman of the book of the Lamentations, prayed for the turning of the Lord. 

Years ago, I heard Carl Hatch confess that many of the souls he had “led to Christ” were really his own converts and not the Lord’s. He said the difference was that those who had been converted of the Lord went on in newness of life (my words here) where the ones he had converted said a prayer and were not changed. 

John 15 tells us that God is glorified when we bear much fruit. But recall that the illustration is of the branches of a tree. They do no discernible work. Theirs is completely the process of letting the life of the roots flow through them. If the root dies, the tree does too. It has its life solely of the vine. When the vine is active in the branches, the natural thing is that the branch bears fruit. 

We must learn to trust the Lord. He is at work if we would just rest in Him enough to see it. 

(Access more of my blogs by visiting the resource link on our church website at bbcpuyallup.org or my personal websites at marvinmckenzie.org.)

To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

Donate to Bible Baptist Church every time you make an Amazon purchase through this link, https://smile.amazon.com/ch/91-1265824

For this and more than 5000 earlier Daily Visits with God, visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2005.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie, visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

My books are available at:
https://marvinmckenzie.org

Lamentations 5:21 (KJV) When the Lord Does the Turning

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Lamentations 3:51 (KJV) What The Eyes See

Lamentations 3:51 (KJV)

Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city.

The heart is affected both negatively and positively by what the eyes see. 

When we look at sin, especially in the sense of longing after it, the heart can begin to lust. When we see advertising for items we never needed before, but we study them, we can begin to believe we never knew we needed them. When we look at our troubles, or at people who cause trouble, our heart can forget there is anything besides trouble. 

But when we look to Jesus, our heart can see victory. When we look to Jesus, our heart can overcome the storms. When we look to Jesus, our heart can reach out to those who are in trouble and need. 

It is a discipline, to make a covenant with our eyes and guard what we see. But it is well worth the discipline, as those who have done so can attest. 

(Access more of my blogs by visiting the resource link on our church website at bbcpuyallup.org or my personal websites at marvinmckenzie.org.)

To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

Donate to Bible Baptist Church every time you make an Amazon purchase through this link, https://smile.amazon.com/ch/91-1265824

For this and more than 5000 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2005.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

My books are available at:
https://marvinmckenzie.org

Lamentations 3:51 (KJV) What The Eyes See

photos from pexels.com.