Lamentations 3:38-39 Out of the mouth of the most High proceeds not evil and good?… Nothing could be more dismal than the opening of this third lament over the ruin which had befallen the Holy City, and the dire calamities which had overtaken her people; but there is some radiant shining at the heart of it. One side of a mountain is often wrapped in clouds, while the other is bathed in noonday brightness. "I never have a chagrin," said Goethe, "but I make a poem of it." Some of the divinest poems we know have been the result of the saddest mortifications of life. The author sings from the heart of a fiery experience of his own, as well as that which he has shared with his nation. He comprehends the depths if not the heights of human experience, and yet he has "kept the faith." He can still declare that the Lord is his portion, and that his mercies are a "multitude," "new every morning." Ah! these are the men to speak to us about the compassion of God: men who have had "to climb the climbing way," and who declare the truth in tones that were born in the darkness and sorrow of the night. It is easy enough for most of us, whose lives have fallen in pleasant places, to talk to the broken-hearted about the love of God, and to persuade ourselves that He is the Father of us all and infinitely good. But if we have taken a light skimming view of life, if we have lived where it is "always afternoon," it becomes us to be silent, or to speak only in the name of those who have faced the sternest realities, and have yet believed. We can listen with patience to these ancient seers. They speak without mocking the world's trouble. They have stood where life wails its saddest notes and have not lost hope. True, this man had been tempted to believe, in one dark moment, that though God was leading him, He was against him; but when we follow him into the light when his night is past and "jocund day stands tip-toe on the mountains," we hear him speak of the compassions which "fail not." Oh, this is faith, is it not, when a man can stand face to face with all the contradictions of life, face to face with his own unbelief, and say, "I will not let Him go; I will have God in the whole of my life, in its tragedies as well as in its bliss, in its broken fortunes as well as in its sunny days? Out of the mouth of the Most High cometh there not evil and good?" "For though He cause grief yet will He have compassion, according to the multitude of His mercies." This is the faith that overcomes all repining. The Hebrew singer is one with the great prophets in this, that he is in no confusion about the source and meaning of Israel's trouble. He does not find the good hand of God in His deliverances alone. There is mercy even in the exile; in the sweeping disasters which have overtaken the nation. He who has been with His people in the calm is with them in the storm. Nay, He creates the storm, and causes the grief, and the "living" man has no ground of complaint though he be punished for his sins, for "the wages of sin is death" and it is "of the Lord's mercies" that he is "not consumed." And here is the key to the man's faith. These are not songs of sorrow alone; they are songs of confession and repentance, and therefore of hope. Here are the Jews in Babylon far away from the city they love. Their hearts are broken and their eyes are dimmed with tears; but they are tears of remorse leading to a searching of heart and a trying of their ways. The author would have them believe that exile is the outcome of their sin. It is not faithfulness that has compassed their downfall. The Lord has afflicted Zion not "willingly," but "for the multitude of her transgressions." He has suffered His people to go into exile that it may work its moral discipline and bring them back to confidence in Him, and to righteousness of life. "Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins? Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord." There is some suffering, it does not need to be said, that is not for punishment. The sharpest pang of the singer as he thinks of the miseries of Israel comes from the cry of suffering children. But thinking not of children but of men and women, it is a commonplace to say that some of the noblest and saintliest lives have been shaped in affliction. "It is the accent of self-righteousness that finds in all your suffering the punishment of sin. A man whose heart has never been broken should have little to say to another man of his sins." And yet, surely, no man need ask why he suffers. If you have sinned, your own heart will tell you plainly what is the sin for which you suffer. If you have not sinned, you will have something still to do with your sorrow. There were some devout Jews who were not the cause of Israel's exile, and they too had lessons to learn which have enriched all posterity. But the lesson for all of us is this: that transgression leads to exile; that the broad way narrows; that to the man who persists in sin there must come a day when he will be confronted by fearful threatenings and apprehensions, and when the judgments of the Most High will breathe within him their Divine protest against his sin. He whose compassions "fail not" can yet cause grief. The Most High sends forth evil as well as good. In the heart of the Father dwells a most exacting righteousness, that will "by no means clear the guilty" until they have acknowledged their offence. Oh listen; there is suffering which is for sin. This man is speaking of facts; addressing living men, conscious of grievous wrongdoing, bidding them take all the punishment honestly and humbly, and count it a mercy "new every morning" that a throbbing heart and beating pulse are God's assurance that He will have compassion, if they will return to the Lord. The one hope of our coming to this faith in His compassions is in confession and repentance. The Gospel of forgiveness and peace will never find the man who does not know the bitterness and guilt of sin. The experiences we have with conscience are to produce in us that "godly sorrow" which "worketh repentance unto salvation." This, indeed, is the Gospel for all of us. Whatever be our trouble repentance is our first need. You may not be able to trace your sorrow to any particular sin. It may not be due to any sin of yours at all; but I tell you, the one spirit to which God's reason for causing any grief is never revealed, is the spirit that has not known and will not know repentance. Who are we, the best of us, to say that this or that trial of life has nothing to do with our sin? Nay, it sometimes troubled these holy men of old, lest when they had confessed the sin of which they were conscious, there should be lurking within them latent evil, beyond their finding out, and only to be revealed to them by Him from whom nothing is concealed, who will have "truth in the hidden parts." "Search me, O God," they cried, "and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any way of wickedness in me." It is only to the penitent soul that the secret of the Lord's compassions can be revealed; you cannot believe that "deep love lieth under these pictures of time," if you are among "the wise and prudent"; but if you are among the "babes," of a humble and receptive spirit, the day will come when you can say, in the face of every perplexity, "even so Lord, for so it seemeth good unto Thee." These, I say, are the men to speak to us about the compassion of God. They know the love that passeth knowledge, for they know the sin that love bears. And Divine love cannot further go than that. It was for this He came, who was "a Man of Sorrows, and acquainted with grief"; for this that He stood in dark Gethsemane and died the death of the Cross. And when you and I stand with Him there, and enter into the fellowship of His suffering, then all life is transformed for us. There is something for the heart to rest upon in the deepest distresses. We can go bravely to our encounter with whatever shall come to us, for He is with us who has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Has the Most High caused you any grief? Surely He has! There is some pathetic thing concealed in every heart. Then what will you do? Will you complain, will you resent it as a bitter and undeserved wrong? Will you go on to the end remembering nothing but "the wormwood and the gall"? Or will you say, "Search me, O God, and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts, send whatsoever ordeal "Thou wilt, so that at the last I may know thy salvation"? Then you are on the way to that attitude of soul which is faith. (John Holden, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?WEB: Doesn't evil and good come out of the mouth of the Most High? |
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