Through the faithful love of God, we are given a
testimony: ‘The Lord is my portion’. With this testimony,
we face the future with the courage of faith: ‘I will hope in
him’ (3:24). In our walk with God, this testimony ― ‘The Lord is my portion’ ― is an expression of the joyful
faith which finds its true satisfaction in the Lord. We speak of
‘a good portion’ and ‘a satisfying meal’. Those
who have found that ‘none but Christ can satisfy’ have this
testimony: ‘The Lord is my portion’. Assured of God’s faithful love ― a love which is completely
trustworthy, utterly reliable and entirely dependable, we confidently
affirm, ‘The Lord is my portion’. This faith is no
secondhand faith. It may be a faith which reflects on the Lord’s
dealing with the whole body of his people but it is, nevertheless, a personal faith ―‘The Lord is my portion’. In Christ, we have received the full portion of God’s
blessing. As ‘his sons (and daughters) through Jesus
Christ’, we have received ‘every spiritual blessing’
(Ephesians 1:4-5). For once, the ‘child’s portion’ is
the ‘full portion!’ Knowing Christ as ‘the bread of
life’ (John 6:35) and ‘the living water’ (John 4:10, 13-14 and John 7:37-38), we gladly say ‘The Lord is my portion’. Those who have begun to walk with God are also to witness for him. Those who have the personal testimony ‘The Lord is my portion’ ― are to say to others, ‘O taste and see that the
Lord is good’ (Psalm 34:8). We have found Christ. We are to share
him with others. We have come to know Christ. We are to make him known.
Surprising though it may seem, the Book of Lamentations can be of some
value in the preaching of the gospel. A book bearing the unlikely title ― ‘Lamentations’ ― hardly creates the impression that it will be
of any real use in the proclamation of ‘good news’. The
desolation of God’s people in the twenty first century is so
reminiscent of the desolation of which we read in Lamentations. Many
watch what is going on in our generation, and they wonder, ‘Where
is the Word of the Lord’ in all this? (Jeremiah 17:15) The
sadness which pervades so much of Lamentations reflects the mood of
many of the Lord’s people in our day ― longing for better times, for the ‘days ... of old’ (5:21). Ours
is an age of many questions and, so it seems, few answers. Lamentations
is a book which ends with questions, ‘Why dost thou forget us for
ever, why dost thou so long forsake us? ... Or hast thou utterly
rejected us? Art thou exceedingly angry with us?’ (5:20, 22). So
often, modern man expects no answer to his questions. In Lamentations, these questions are set in the context of believing affirmation ― ‘But thou, O Lord, dost reign for ever; thy throne endures to all generations’ (5:19) ― and earnest prayer ― ‘Restore us
to thyself, O Lord, that we may be restored! Renew our days as of
old!’ (5:21). How are we to bring good news to a world that is
living with questions, a world that shows little inclination to believe the confession of faith ― ‘Thou, O Lord, doest reign for ever’ ― and little interest in praying the fervent prayer ― ‘Restore us to thyself, O Lord’? This
is a question which calls for a practical response. It demands a
response which will take into account the questions which men and women
are asking in this generation. To speak of questions ― some spoken in the context of prayer and faith, and others asked with little expectation of an answer ― is to acknowledge that there are many different types of questions.
This may be brought out clearly through a brief review of the questions
asked in the Book of Lamentations. In 1:12, we have a question put to
those who despise the Lord’s people, ‘Is it nothing to you,
all you who pass by?’. In 2:12, there is the question asked by
‘infants and babes faint(ing) in the streets of the city’.
(2:11) ‘Where is bread and wine?’ In 2:13, there are
questions which raise the question of the comfort and restoration of a
fallen people: ‘What can I say for you, to what compare you, O
daughter of Jerusalem? What can I liken to you that may comfort you, O
virgin daughter of Zion? For vast as the sea is your ruin; who can
restore you?’ The question of the cynics who ‘hiss and wag their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem’ is found in 2:15 ― ‘Is this the city which was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?’. In 2:20, we have questions
asked in the mood of prayerful moral indignation: ‘Look, O Lord,
and see! With whom hast thou dealt thus? Should women eat their
offspring, the children of their tender care? Should priest and prophet
be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?’ Moving into the third
chapter, we find this triology of questions at vs. 37-39: ‘Who
has commanded and it came to pass, unless the Lord has ordained it? Is
it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and evil come? Why
should a living man complain, a man, about the punishment of his
sins?’ There are so many different questions being asked today.
They are being asked by different people. They are being asked in
different ways and with different expectations. What do the question of
Lamentations have to say to our day, a day of many questions? They may
prompt the modern questioner to think about the question he’s not asking as well as the questions he is asking

― ‘Perhaps, there is a God who has his own questions to put to me.’ Lamentations asks
its questions within the context of the great declaration of faith:
‘Great is thy faithfulness’ (3:23). This combination of
intense questioning and confident faith might well increase the questioner’s expectation of an answer ― an answer which while it may leave some
questions unresolved, opens the doors to faith. As we face modern
man’s questions, we must ‘be ready always to give an answer
to every man who asks us to give a reason for our hope’ (1 Peter
3:15). In giving an answer, we dare not imagine that we can ever hope
to give a complete answer to every question. We must always remember
that ‘the secret things belong to the Lord our God; but the
things that are revealed belong to us’ (Deuteronomy 29:29). The
answer which we give is not our answer. It is God’s answer.
Man’s question has been answered by God. He has answered it in person. The God of faithfulness ― the Word made flesh (John 1:1, 14) ― is God’s answer to mans question. The answer which we give must
always be a Christ-centred answer. We may now focus special attention
on two of the questions asked in Lamentations ‘Is it nothing to
you, all you who pass by?’ (1:12), and ‘Where is bread and
wine?’ (2:12). We read these questions in connection with two
other questions, the first two questions asked in the Bible: ‘the
serpent ... said to the woman, “Did God say ... ?” ’
(Genesis 3:1), and ‘the Lord God called to the man...,
“Where are you?” ‘ (Genesis 3:9). Taking these four
questions together, we may find a helpful pattern for thinking about
Christian witness in today’s world. The Bible’s first
question was asked by neither God nor man. It was asked by ‘the serpent’ ― ‘that ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan’ (Revelation 20:2). We do not introduce
the devil here in order to provide ourselves with an excuse for our
unbelief. After all, scripture tells us that ‘each person is
tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire’ (James 1:14). Rather, we speak of Satan’s question ― ‘Did God say?’ in order to emphasize
that many of today’s questions arise from unbelief, and not from
faith seeking understanding. We speak of the Satanic origin of the
Bible’s first question in order to stress that, in today’s
world, we are involved in spiritual warfare (Ephesians 6:12), when we
seek to bring the modern questioner from one form of questioning ― the questioning of unbelief ― to another very different form of questioning ― faith seeking understanding. We must
reckon with the activity of Satan when we encounter the questioning
which arises from unbelief‘the god of this world has blinded the
minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the
gospel of the glory of Christ’ (2 Corinthians 4;4). How is the problem
of unbelief to be overcome? Unbelief gives way to faith, only when God
is at work in the human heart: ‘it is the God who said,
“Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our
hearts to give the light of the glory of God in the face of
Christ’ (2 Corinthians 4:6). The emergence of faith in the human
heart is the work of ‘the Lord, who made heaven and earth’
(Psalm 121:2). If we are to combat unbelief effectively, our evangelism
must be God―centred. We proclaim the God of love, the God who sent his Son ‘to seek and to save the
lost’ (Luke 19:10). God has not changed. He is still the God of
love. He still calls out to the lost, ‘Where are you?’. In
love, he still invites the sinner to return to him. His love is a
yearning love, a passionate love, a love which says to the indifferent:
‘Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?’. His love for
us is a love which draws out from our hearts a returning love ― ’Loving him who first loved me’. Touched by the love of God, the modern questioner finds
that the character of his questioning begins to change. The question of
the unbeliever gives way to the question of the seeker: ‘Where is
bread and wine?’. There is a hunger and thirst which the world
cannot satisfy, a hunger and thirst which can be satisfied only by the
One whose body was broken for us and whose blood was shed for us.
‘Where is bread and wine?’ It is not the
‘bread’ and ‘wine’ of this world, which
satisfies the deepest need of the human heart. It is Jesus Christ
‘the bread of Life’ (John 6:48), ‘the true
vine’ (John 15:1). ‘Where is bread and wine?’ This is
the question of the seeking heart. To those who are truly seeking,
Jesus says, ‘You will find’ (Matthew 7:7). Why do we start
asking the seeker’s question? His love lays hold on us. What do
we find when we truly seek? His love. The love which prompted us to
seek is the love which we find in Jesus Christ. Evangelism, when it is truly God-centred, will also be Christ-centred. Evangelism, which is both God―centred and Christ-centred, becomes effective through the power of the Holy Spirit. It is witness for Christ, which is grounded in walking in the Spirit. True evangelism is grounded in care and prayer. If we truly desire to see the mighty blessing of God in our day, we must care for those who are living without Christ, and we must pray for them. Caring and praying ― both are vital if we are to be really used by the Lord to bring his blessing into the lives of others. Caring for those who have yet to find the Saviour, we invite them to consider the question of 1:12 ― ‘Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?’. Praying for them, we pray that they will ask the seeker’s question ― ‘Where is bread and wine?’ (2:12). Caring and praying, we are ― by our lives and our words ― to invite men
and women to consider Jesus Christ and to discover for themselves what
he can do in their lives. As we seek to be faithful to God in our
Christian walk and witness, we will discover ― despite all the difficulties facing the Christian Faith and the Christian Church ― the great truth which lies at the heart of Lamentations ― ‘Great is thy faithfulness’.
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This is the final part of an article which was published in Evangel, 12.1 (1994): 2-4.