Lamentations 2:19 - Homiletics

A cry to God in the night watches.

A fearful picture! Jerusalem is besieged. Famine is becoming fatal. Young children are seen fainting for hunger at the top of every street. The hearts of their parents are rent with anguish, as the little ones beg piteously of their mothers for food and drink ( Lamentations 2:12 ), and none can be had, so that they swoon for very weakness. Suddenly a new turn is taken. The citizens have sunk down in sullen despair. Night has come like a cloak to cover the scenes of misery and death. Then a voice rings through the darkness, "Arise, cry out." This voice bids all hearers pour out their hearts in prayer to God.

I. THE CRY IS TO GOD . Hitherto we have had nothing but doleful lamentations. The language has been that of hopeless grief and bitter reset. No relief has been found or even sought. But there is one refuge in the direst trouble, and now that refuge is remembered. When we can do nothing else we can cry to God, for he is near though hidden from view, and merciful though striking in wrath, and able to save though no way of escape seems possible. It needs some rousing of the soul thus to seek God. We must "Arise." Spiritual lethargy is the worst consequence of sorrow. Let us beware lest our troubles paralyze our prayers. Prayer implies spiritual wakefulness.

II. THE CRY IS IN THE NIGHT .

1 . The time when trouble seems most hopeless. It is in the night that the mourner weeps his most bitter tears.

2 . The time of reflection. In lonely night watches the troubled soul has time for thought, and thought is then pain.

3 . The time of earthly darkness. Then, perhaps, the spirit may feel most closely the nearness of the Father of spirits. The cry is to be in the beginning of the watches—either at the first watch or at the opening of each of the three watches. Let prayer come first. Let us not waste time in lamenting before we seek relief from God.

III. THE CRY IS HEARTFELT AND CONFIDENTIAL . "Pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord."

1 . It comes from the heart. All real prayer must be the outcome of true and deep feelings.

2 . It is a full and free confidence in God. The heart is poured out like water. This is in itself a relief. God expects our complete confidence and will hear prayer only when we give it to him.

3 . It is no more than the pouring out of the heart before God. There is no definite request. Perhaps it is difficult to know how to ask for relief. Perhaps the grief is too overwhelming for any such thoughts of aid to be entertained. But it is enough that the whole trouble is poured out before God and left with him. Prayer is too often a dictating to God. It should be more of a simple confidence in God. It would be better if there were more confession and confidence, and less exact petition and definition of what God is to do in order to please us. We are to pour out our hearts and leave all with him. Then he will do the best for us.

4 . In deep trouble heartfelt prayer is wrung out of the sufferer. Then he must be real. Sorrow melts the stony heart which has held itself in proud reserve, and thus it pours out itself like water. We have the example of Christ, whose agony passed into prayer, to urge us to find the relief of confiding fully in God.