DCLM Daily Manna 8 December 2022
KEY VERSE: Lamentations 5:19 “Thou, O LORD, remainest for ever; thy throne from generation to generation.”.
TEXT: Lamentation 5:7-22
7. Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities.
8. Servants have ruled over us; there is none that doth deliver us out of their hand.
9. We gat our bread with the peril of our lives because of the sword of the wilderness.
10. Our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible famine.
11. They ravished the women in Zion, and the maids in the cities of Judah.
12. Princes are hanged up by their hand; the faces of elders were not honoured.
13. They took the young men to grind, and the children fell under the wood.
14. The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their musick.
15. The joy of our heart is ceased; our dance is turned into mourning.
16. The crown is fallen from our head; woe unto us, that we have sinned!
17. For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes are dim.
18. Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate, the foxes walk upon it.
19. Thou, O LORD, remainest for ever; thy throne from generation to generation.
20. Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever, and forsake us so long time?
21. Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old.
22. But thou hast utterly rejected us; thou art very wroth against us.
Read yesterday’s Daily Manna here
At the breach of God’s law a triangular line is drawn. The first stroke represents the transgression. Next is another stroke symbolising the punishment for sin. A third line comes up at the bottom to complete the triangle, standing for man’s reaction to the second line. How does the punished person respond? Is the sinner accepting guilt and showing godly sorrow? Or is it a litany of lamentation and accusations against heaven?
Judah suffered the penalty of captivity in Babylon following their idolatrous practices that contravened the commandments of the Lord. The story of the untold misery they experienced as the Chaldean invaders overwhelmed and razed Jerusalem, and took away the descendants of Jacob is vividly captured in the book of Lamentations by Jeremiah the prophet. He speaks of “terrible famine” and “the mountain of Zion, which is desolate.”
However, it is not all a narrative of complaints about the sorrow that befell the people of Judah. There is the more important step of realisation of the merciful Lord who forgives when the remorseful sinner runs to Him. He is the Lord who “remainest forever…from generation to generation.” There is a repentant plea to Him, “Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old.”
God indeed answered the supplication of the Jews as He raised up the Medo-Persian Empire against their Babylonian captors. They were delivered back to their homeland. He did not utterly reject His people. Today, the Lord is watching out for those who, after going astray, would humbly retrace their steps into His waiting arms like the prodigal son.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: Godly sorrow cancels the misery sin brings.
BIBLE IN ONE YEAR: Isaiah 26-29
Thank you for studying today’s Daily Manna – Show Godly Sorrow – by Pastor W.F Kumuyi
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Daily Manna 8 December 2022
