The Covenantal Consequences of Adultery Text: Lamentations 1:2
Introduction: The High Cost of Cheap Grace
We live in a sentimental age. Our Christianity is often a soft and cushy thing, a therapeutic message designed to soothe and affirm, but never to confront. We want a God who is a celestial grandfather, always ready with a peppermint and a pass, but never a God who is a consuming fire. We want the blessings of the covenant without the obligations of that covenant, and we are shocked, utterly shocked, when the curses of that same covenant arrive in the mail. We have preached a cheap grace that costs us nothing, and the result is a church that is worth nothing in the face of a hostile culture.
The book of Lamentations is a bucket of ice water to the face of such a church. It is a raw, disciplined, and holy grief over the consequences of sin. It is not the wailing of a victim who has been wronged by an unfair God. It is the bitter weeping of a wife who has been caught in adultery and has been publicly shamed and abandoned by her lovers. This is Jerusalem, the covenant city of God, personified as a woman weeping in the night, and her sorrow is the direct and predictable result of her own treachery. This is not God being mean; this is God being just. This is the bill coming due.
We must understand that what happened to Jerusalem is a permanent lesson for the people of God in all ages. The Church is the new Jerusalem. When the church plays the harlot with the world, when she seeks comfort and validation from secular philosophies, political powers, and cultural fads, she will find herself in the same position as this weeping woman. She will be abandoned, betrayed, and without comfort. This verse is a stark warning against spiritual adultery. It lays bare the brutal logic of covenant unfaithfulness. God is a jealous husband, and He will not be mocked.
The Text
She weeps bitterly in the night, And her tears are on her cheeks; She has none to comfort her Among all her lovers. All her friends have dealt treacherously with her; They have become her enemies.
(Lamentations 1:2 LSB)
The Anatomy of Covenantal Grief
Let us break down this stark portrait of sorrow, piece by piece.
"She weeps bitterly in the night, And her tears are on her cheeks..." (Lamentations 1:2a)
The weeping is not a quiet sniffle. The Hebrew indicates a deep, convulsive sobbing. This is the kind of grief that shakes the whole body. It happens "in the night," which is a time of isolation, darkness, and reflection. The sins that were so attractive in the bright glare of the day are now seen for what they are in the crushing loneliness of the night. The party is over, the lovers have gone home, and she is left with nothing but the consequences. The tears are "on her cheeks," a picture of unrestrained sorrow. This is not a performance for others; it is a genuine anguish.
But we must ask, what kind of sorrow is this? The apostle Paul distinguishes between two kinds of sorrow. There is a worldly sorrow that leads to death, and a godly sorrow that leads to repentance (2 Cor. 7:10). Worldly sorrow is the sorrow of getting caught. It is the sorrow of a child whose hand has been slapped for being in the cookie jar. It is self-pity. Godly sorrow, on the other hand, is sorrow over the sin itself. It is the recognition that we have not just broken the rules, but we have betrayed a person. We have offended a holy God. The rest of the book of Lamentations will show this sorrow turning toward genuine repentance, but here at the outset, we see the raw pain of ruin. This is what sin does. It promises pleasure and pays out in bitter tears.
The Emptiness of Worldly Comforts
Next, we see the source of her ultimate isolation.
"She has none to comfort her Among all her lovers." (Lamentations 1:2b)
Here is the heart of the matter. Jerusalem had sought security and satisfaction in political and military alliances with pagan nations. These are her "lovers." She flirted with Egypt. She made eyes at Assyria and Babylon. She trusted in horses and chariots and foreign gods instead of trusting in the Lord her husband. This is the very definition of spiritual adultery. God had warned her, time and again through the prophets, to remain faithful to Him alone. He was her husband, her protector, her provider. But she found the pagan nations more exciting, more powerful, more "relevant."
And now, in her moment of crisis, where are they? They are gone. Her lovers offer no comfort. Why would they? The world is a fickle lover. It uses you for its own purposes, and when you are no longer useful, it discards you. The world loves you as long as you are winning, as long as you are fashionable, as long as you are willing to compromise your convictions to get along. But the moment the judgment falls, the moment you become a liability, those same lovers will be the first to walk away. Any church that seeks its primary comfort and approval from the world will find itself utterly alone when the world turns. The world cannot give the comfort that only God can provide, because the world does not know the God of all comfort.
The Inevitable Betrayal
The situation deteriorates from abandonment to outright hostility.
"All her friends have dealt treacherously with her; They have become her enemies." (Lamentations 1:2c)
It gets worse. Not only do her lovers fail to comfort her, but her "friends" actively betray her. The very nations she courted and trusted have now turned on her. This is not an accident; it is a divine judgment. God is using the instruments of her sin to become the instruments of her punishment. The political alliances that were supposed to be her shield have become the sword that pierces her. This is the terrible boomerang effect of sin. The thing you trust in instead of God will eventually turn around and devour you.
This is a profound spiritual principle. When you make a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God (James 4:4). But the irony is that you do not actually win the world's friendship. You only win its contempt. The world despises a compromised church. It sees weakness and smells blood. The friends of the world are treacherous. They promise tolerance but demand total capitulation. They promise partnership but deliver bondage. When the church tries to befriend the world on the world's terms, she will always find that she has not just been abandoned, but actively betrayed. Her new friends will become her most vicious enemies.
The Gospel for the Weeping Adulteress
This is a bleak picture. A woman, weeping alone in the dark, abandoned and betrayed. And this woman is us. This is the state of our own hearts when we wander from God. This is the state of any church that has sought its identity in anything other than Christ and Him crucified. Is there any hope? If the story ended here, it would be a story of utter despair.
But praise be to God, the story does not end here. This weeping in the night is designed by God to drive His people back to their true Husband. The failure of all other lovers is meant to show us that He is the only one worth loving. The treachery of all other friends is meant to show us that He is the only friend who sticks closer than a brother.
The Lord Jesus Christ came to this world to rescue just such a woman. He came for the adulterous bride. He saw us in our treachery, weeping in the night, with no one to comfort us. And instead of turning away in disgust, He came to us. He took our shame upon Himself. On the cross, He was utterly abandoned, not just by His friends, but by His Father. He cried out in the darkness, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" He experienced the ultimate covenant curse so that we, the unfaithful bride, might receive the ultimate covenant blessing.
He is the true comforter. After His resurrection, He is the one who comes to His weeping followers and dries their tears. The Holy Spirit is sent as the Comforter, the Paraclete, who will never leave us or forsake us. The love of God is not like the treacherous love of the world. It is a covenant love, a faithful love, a love that endures even our unfaithfulness.
Therefore, when we find ourselves weeping in the night over our sin, we should not despair. We should see it as the grace of God, stripping away our false comforts and driving us back to our only true hope. The path to true comfort is not found in seeking new worldly lovers. It is found in godly sorrow, which leads to repentance. It is found in turning away from the treacherous friends of this world and turning back to the one who laid down His life for His enemies, in order to make them His bride.