Audio Transcript
John Piper calls it the most “horrific book” in the Old Testament, even “the bleakest” and “the most horrible book” in the entire Bible. And we find ourselves reading it now: the book of Lamentations. Not easy reading, not fun reading, but necessary reading from what is traditionally believed to be the prophet Jeremiah. If you are reading the Navigators Bible Reading Plan with us this weekend, we read Lamentations 3 together. Our focus today is where Jeremiah claims God is hunting him like a predator, like an angry bear or a hungry lion. These are tough words on a terrifying topic today on Ask Pastor John: When God is against me.
We get there from Kim’s question. Kim lives in Reno, Nevada, and here is her email: “Pastor John, hello, and thank you for taking my question today. I find the book of Lamentations to be haunting, especially chapter 3. There God is depicted as a ferocious enemy against Jeremiah, his own prophet. In Lamentations 3:1–11, the prophet portrays God’s wrath towards himself through a terrifying and escalating sequence of metaphors I cannot shake.
“He goes from casting him as a harsh shepherd who has broken his bones and flayed his skin (in verses 1–6) to what seems to be an oppressive jailer inflicting suffering and control (verses 7–9). Then, verses 10–11 intensify all the metaphors by casting God as ‘a bear lying in wait’ and ‘a lion in hiding,’ waiting to violently attack this afflicted man who has been reduced to utter helplessness, only to be metaphorically shot with an arrow to the kidneys (verses 12–13). This is not a description of eternal judgment. This is a believer and a prophet who sees God as his enemy. Is there any place for feeling God’s opposition like this when we feel utterly cast down and forsaken in life?”
God as Enemy?
The short answer is yes, but to make sure we understand what we mean by yes, we need to clarify what is meant by saying a believer sees God as his enemy. What does it mean when we say, “as our enemy”? Is God our enemy when he is acting as our enemy? Is the believer misrepresenting God if the believer says to him, “O God, you are acting as my enemy. You are treating me as your enemy.” Now, whether that is true, whether that’s misrepresenting God, hangs on the meaning of the word as.
So, Kim asks, “Is there a place for the Christian to see God as our enemy the way Jeremiah does in the first part of Lamentations?” And I want to come at my answer to this in a surprising, indirect way.
I was working on Romans 11 for a Look at the Book episode a few days ago and came to Romans 11:28–29, which says, “As regards the gospel, [Israel is an enemy] for your sake [you Gentiles]. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable,” which I take to mean that the covenant that God made with Israel in the Old Testament is still valid today, in 2026, and that God will lift the hardening and the blindness that lies upon Israel, and one day there will be a great turning to Jesus among the nation of Israel, and they will embrace their Messiah, and they’ll become part of the redeemed people of God, the church. And with all the people of God in Christ, they will inherit the earth, including the land they were given by God. It was given to them.
There’s one way of salvation through faith in the Messiah, Jesus. There’s one people of God. There’s one hope of everlasting life. There’s one inheritance of the new heaven and the new earth, Jew and Gentile together in one body in Christ.
Continued Faithfulness
The reason that is relevant for Kim’s question is that Israel in the Old Testament is portrayed as coming under God’s judgment again and again and again like an enemy. God had every right to throw his people away because of their covenant-breaking sinfulness.
But what do we find? Listen to this amazing statement in Jeremiah 31:20:
Is Ephraim my dear son?
Is he my darling child?
For as often as I speak against him,
I do remember him still.
Think of the implications of that phrase “as often as I speak against him.” That’s amazing. That’s a way of saying, “My covenant with you is irrevocable.” “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you” (Jeremiah 31:3).
There have been and there will be terrible judgments against Israel. But listen to Ezekiel 16:59–60: “Thus says the Lord God: I will deal with you [talking to Israel] as you have done, you who have despised the oath in breaking the covenant.” So, he’s going to turn this back onto their heads and deal with them the way they have despised and dealt with him. And then he adds, “Yet I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish for you an everlasting covenant.”
“God is for us in Christ and not against us, and so it was for every promise-believing Israelite before the cross.”
Now, how in the world can God say that? How can the covenant be irrevocable when God will not dwell with a covenant-breaking people? And the answer is that God himself will see to it that they cease to be a covenant-breaking people. He will banish ungodliness from Jacob. Here’s Deuteronomy 30:6: “The Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God.” Or Jeremiah 24:7: “I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart.”
The point is this: When you step back and look at the entire history of God’s dealings with Israel for four thousand years — from Abraham until today — the story is one of gracious covenant-making initiated by God, covenant-breaking from Israel, judgment from God, repentance from Israel, mercy from God, covenant still in force, then again covenant-breaking, judgment from God, repentance, mercy from God, covenant still in force, over and over again. And God says, “I will have the last word in this, and it will be a triumphant, sovereign, soul-converting grace for the nation of Israel.”
For Us in Christ
Now, back to our question: What does it mean when the people of God see God as their enemy? God has looked like an enemy to Israel dozens and dozens of times in history, and he has looked like our enemy — our Christian enemy. He’s looked like my enemy because of things I’ve been through, right? Was he my enemy? Is he my enemy?
In Lamentations 2:4, Jeremiah says, “[The Lord] has bent his bow [at us] like an enemy.” And that’s exactly what the Hebrew says as well. In Lamentations 2:5, he says, “The Lord has become like an enemy; he has swallowed up Israel.”
So, what should we say? Does the Lord ever become the enemy of his people, or does he not? And I think the answer of Lamentations is this: If by enemy you mean one who is implacably devoted to your destruction so that you fall and never rise again, God does not deal with his people that way. “There is . . . no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). God is for us in Christ and not against us (Romans 8:31), and so it was for every promise-believing Israelite before the cross.
But if you mean that God can deal with you so painfully that it certainly feels like he’s your enemy, then the answer is yes, he is your enemy in that temporary, redemptive way, but not ultimately your enemy. Better to say with Lamentations 3:26–32 that he’s like an enemy. It says,
It is good that one should wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord.
It is good for a man that he bear
the yoke in his youth.
Let him sit alone in silence
when it is laid on him;
let him put his mouth in the dust —
there may yet be hope;
let him give his cheek to the one who strikes,
and let him be filled with insults.
For the Lord will not
cast off forever,
for, though he cause grief [sure looks like an enemy], he will have compassion
according to the abundance of his steadfast love. (Lamentations 3:26–32)
So, let us be careful how we think and feel and speak about God in our painful trials. God deals with his children in many bitter providences, and he often looks on the surface like our enemy. But in Christ, he is never our enemy — never. In all our adversities, God himself governs and conquers. He is the one who loved us and will never forsake us.
