Day 11/13 – Affluence and Despair

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Thoughts from the Diary of a Desperate Man by Walter A Henrichsen (“Walt”)
Affluence and Despair
Day Three Hundred Seventeen

“Therefore I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me: for all is vanity and vexation of spirit.” Ecclesiastes 2:17

Solomon, in Ecclesiastes, runs an experiment. Because he is richly endowed with wealth, power, and a keen intellect, he dedicates himself to the task of seeking purpose, meaning, and significance from them. This verse is the result of his experiment.

Affluence and success destroy hope and produce despair. When a person lacks that for which he hopes, he is driven by the motivation to obtain it. But what does a person do once his hope is fulfilled? Does the driving force of our ambition subside when success has been achieved? Do we ever have enough? These questions are clearly answered in our society: Never have we had so much and been so angry and ungrateful.

Most people that I know freely admit that they are materially better off than they ever dreamed they would be when beginning their careers. Yet if they do not hope in the eternal promises of God they will end as Solomon, hating life. By His grace, God has ordained that this life cannot satisfy. When we place our hope in it we enter the path of self -destruction.

You are never in greater danger than when all is well in your life. The satisfied life has no need of Jesus. You must experience the vanity and vexation of spirit Solomon experienced or you will drift from your God, no matter how intimate He seems to you or how secure you are in your relationship with Him.

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Lamentations 1-2 Hebrews 10:1-18 (New King James Version)

Lamentations 1-2
Jerusalem in Affliction
1
How lonely sits the city
That was full of people!
How like a widow is she,
Who was great among the nations!
The princess among the provinces
Has become a [a]slave!
2
She weeps bitterly in the night,
Her tears are on her cheeks;
Among all her lovers
She has none to comfort her.
All her friends have dealt treacherously with her;
They have become her enemies.
3
Judah has gone into captivity,
Under affliction and hard servitude;
She dwells among the [b]nations,
She finds no rest;
All her persecutors overtake her in dire straits.
4
The roads to Zion mourn
Because no one comes to the [c]set feasts.
All her gates are desolate;
Her priests sigh,
Her virgins are afflicted,
And she is in bitterness.
5
Her adversaries have become [d]the master,
Her enemies prosper;
For the Lord has afflicted her
Because of the multitude of her transgressions.
Her children have gone into captivity before the enemy.
6
And from the daughter of Zion
All her splendor has departed.
Her princes have become like deer
That find no pasture,
That [e]flee without strength
Before the pursuer.
7
In the days of her affliction and roaming,
Jerusalem remembers all her pleasant things
That she had in the days of old.
When her people fell into the hand of the enemy,
With no one to help her,
The adversaries saw her
And mocked at her [f]downfall.
8
Jerusalem has sinned gravely,
Therefore she has become [g]vile.
All who honored her despise her
Because they have seen her nakedness;
Yes, she sighs and turns away.
9
Her uncleanness is in her skirts;
She did not consider her destiny;
Therefore her collapse was awesome;
She had no comforter.
“O Lord, behold my affliction,
For the enemy is exalted!”
10
The adversary has spread his hand
Over all her [h]pleasant things;
For she has seen the nations enter her [i]sanctuary,
Those whom You commanded
Not to enter Your assembly.
11
All her people sigh,
They [j]seek bread;
They have given their [k]valuables for food to restore life.
“See, O Lord, and consider,
For I am scorned.”
12
“Is it nothing to you, all you who [l]pass by?
Behold and see
If there is any sorrow like my sorrow,
Which has been brought on me,
Which the Lord has inflicted
In the day of His fierce anger.
13
“From above He has sent fire into my bones,
And it overpowered them;
He has spread a net for my feet
And turned me back;
He has made me desolate
And faint all the day.
14
“The yoke of my transgressions was [m]bound;
They were woven together by His hands,
And thrust upon my neck.
He made my strength fail;
The Lord delivered me into the hands of those whom I am not able to withstand.
15
“The Lord has trampled underfoot all my mighty men in my midst;
He has called an assembly against me
To crush my young men;
The Lord trampled as in a winepress
The virgin daughter of Judah.
16
“For these things I weep;
My eye, my eye overflows with water;
Because the comforter, who should restore my life,
Is far from me.
My children are desolate
Because the enemy prevailed.”
17
Zion [n]spreads out her hands,
But no one comforts her;
The Lord has commanded concerning Jacob
That those around him become his adversaries;
Jerusalem has become an unclean thing among them.
18
“The Lord is righteous,
For I rebelled against His [o]commandment.
Hear now, all peoples,
And behold my sorrow;
My virgins and my young men
Have gone into captivity.
19
“I called for my lovers,
But they deceived me;
My priests and my elders
Breathed their last in the city,
While they sought food
To restore their life.
20
“See, O Lord, that I am in distress;
My soul[p] is troubled;
My heart is overturned within me,
For I have been very rebellious.
Outside the sword bereaves,
At home it is like death.
21
“They have heard that I sigh,
But no one comforts me.
All my enemies have heard of my trouble;
They are glad that You have done it.
Bring on the day You have [q]announced,
That they may become like me.
22
“Let all their wickedness come before You,
And do to them as You have done to me
For all my transgressions;
For my sighs are many,
And my heart is faint.”
God’s Anger with Jerusalem
2
How the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion
With a cloud in His anger!
He cast down from heaven to the earth
The beauty of Israel,
And did not remember His footstool
In the day of His anger.
2
The Lord has swallowed up and has not pitied
All the dwelling places of Jacob.
He has thrown down in His wrath
The strongholds of the daughter of Judah;
He has brought them down to the ground;
He has profaned the kingdom and its princes.
3
He has cut off in fierce anger
Every [r]horn of Israel;
He has drawn back His right hand
From before the enemy.
He has blazed against Jacob like a flaming fire
Devouring all around.
4
Standing like an enemy, He has bent His bow;
With His right hand, like an adversary,
He has slain all who were pleasing to His eye;
On the tent of the daughter of Zion,
He has poured out His fury like fire.
5
The Lord was like an enemy.
He has swallowed up Israel,
He has swallowed up all her palaces;
He has destroyed her strongholds,
And has increased mourning and lamentation
In the daughter of Judah.
6
He has done violence to His [s]tabernacle,
As if it were a garden;
He has destroyed His place of assembly;
The Lord has caused
The appointed feasts and Sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion.
In His burning indignation He has spurned the king and the priest.
7
The Lord has spurned His altar,
He has abandoned His sanctuary;
He has [t]given up the walls of her palaces
Into the hand of the enemy.
They have made a noise in the house of the Lord
As on the day of a set feast.
8
The Lord has [u]purposed to destroy
The wall of the daughter of Zion.
He has stretched out a line;
He has not withdrawn His hand from destroying;
Therefore He has caused the rampart and wall to lament;
They languished together.
9
Her gates have sunk into the ground;
He has destroyed and broken her bars.
Her king and her princes are among the [v]nations;
The Law is no more,
And her prophets find no [w]vision from the Lord.
10
The elders of the daughter of Zion
Sit on the ground and keep silence;
[x]They throw dust on their heads
And gird themselves with sackcloth.
The virgins of Jerusalem
Bow their heads to the ground.
11
My eyes fail with tears,
My [y]heart is troubled;
My [z]bile is poured on the ground
Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people,
Because the children and the infants
Faint in the streets of the city.
12
They say to their mothers,
“Where is grain and wine?”
As they swoon like the wounded
In the streets of the city,
As their life is poured out
In their mothers’ bosom.
13
How shall I console[aa] you?
To what shall I liken you,
O daughter of Jerusalem?
What shall I compare with you, that I may comfort you,
O virgin daughter of Zion?
For your ruin is spread wide as the sea;
Who can heal you?
14
Your prophets have seen for you
False and deceptive visions;
They have not uncovered your iniquity,
To bring back your captives,
But have envisioned for you false prophecies and delusions.
15
All who [ab]pass by clap their hands at you;
They hiss and shake their heads
At the daughter of Jerusalem:
“Is this the city that is called
‘The perfection of beauty,
The joy of the whole earth’?”
16
All your enemies have opened their mouth against you;
They hiss and gnash their teeth.
They say, “We have swallowed her up!
Surely this is the day we have waited for;
We have found it, we have seen it!”
17
The Lord has done what He purposed;
He has fulfilled His word
Which He commanded in days of old.
He has thrown down and has not pitied,
And He has caused an enemy to rejoice over you;
He has exalted the [ac]horn of your adversaries.
18
Their heart cried out to the Lord,
“O wall of the daughter of Zion,
Let tears run down like a river day and night;
Give yourself no relief;
Give [ad]your eyes no rest.
19
“Arise, cry out in the night,
At the beginning of the watches;
Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord.
Lift your hands toward Him
For the life of your young children,
Who faint from hunger at the head of every street.”
20
“See, O Lord, and consider!
To whom have You done this?
Should the women eat their offspring,
The children [ae]they have cuddled?
Should the priest and prophet be slain
In the sanctuary of the Lord?
21
“Young and old lie
On the ground in the streets;
My virgins and my young men
Have fallen by the sword;
You have slain them in the day of Your anger,
You have slaughtered and not pitied.
22
“You have invited as to a feast day
The terrors that surround me.
In the day of the Lord’s anger
There was no refugee or survivor.
Those whom I have borne and brought up
My enemies have destroyed.”
Footnotes:
• Lamentations 1:1 Lit. forced laborer
• Lamentations 1:3 Gentiles
• Lamentations 1:4 appointed
• Lamentations 1:5 Lit. her head
• Lamentations 1:6 Lit. are gone
• Lamentations 1:7 Vg. Sabbaths
• Lamentations 1:8 LXX, Vg. moved or removed
• Lamentations 1:10 desirable
• Lamentations 1:10 holy place, the temple
• Lamentations 1:11 hunt food
• Lamentations 1:11 desirable things
• Lamentations 1:12 Lit. pass by this way
• Lamentations 1:14 So with MT, Tg.; LXX, Syr., Vg. watched over
• Lamentations 1:17 Prays
• Lamentations 1:18 Lit. mouth
• Lamentations 1:20 Lit. inward parts
• Lamentations 1:21 proclaimed
• Lamentations 2:3 Strength
• Lamentations 2:6 Lit. booth
• Lamentations 2:7 delivered
• Lamentations 2:8 determined
• Lamentations 2:9 Gentiles
• Lamentations 2:9 Prophetic revelation
• Lamentations 2:10 A sign of mourning
• Lamentations 2:11 Lit. inward parts
• Lamentations 2:11 Lit. liver
• Lamentations 2:13 Or bear witness to
• Lamentations 2:15 Lit. pass by this way
• Lamentations 2:17 Strength
• Lamentations 2:18 Lit. the daughter of your eye
• Lamentations 2:20 Vg. a span long

Hebrews 10:1-18
Animal Sacrifices Insufficient
10 For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect. 2 For then would they not have ceased to be offered? For the worshipers, once [a]purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins. 3 But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. 4 For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins.
Christ’s Death Fulfills God’s Will
5 Therefore, when He came into the world, He said:
“Sacrifice and offering You did not desire,
But a body You have prepared for Me.
6
In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin
You had no pleasure.
7
Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come—
In the volume of the book it is written of Me—
To do Your will, O God.’ ”
8 Previously saying, “Sacrifice and offering, burnt offerings, and offerings for sin You did not desire, nor had pleasure in them” (which are offered according to the law), 9 then He said, “Behold, I have come to do Your will, [b]O God.” He takes away the first that He may establish the second. 10 By that will we have been [c]sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Christ’s Death Perfects the Sanctified
11 And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, 13 from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. 14 For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being [d]sanctified.
15 But the Holy Spirit also witnesses to us; for after He had said before,
16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,” 17 then He adds, “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” 18 Now where there is [e]remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin.
Footnotes:
• Hebrews 10:2 cleansed
• Hebrews 10:9 NU, M omit O God
• Hebrews 10:10 set apart
• Hebrews 10:14 set apart
• Hebrews 10:18 forgiveness