The High Cost of Low Standards
Introduction: When the Barbarians Are Inside the Gates
We live in an age that despises boundaries. We are told that walls, distinctions, and standards are the great evils of our time. Inclusivity, we are told, is the highest virtue, and exclusion is the unpardonable sin. Our entire culture, both inside and outside the church, is engaged in a frantic project to tear down every fence, erase every line, and muddy every distinction that God has established in His created order. We are told that a loving God would never exclude anyone.
But the book of Lamentations is a stark and brutal corrective to this sentimental nonsense. It is the diary of a disaster, the autopsy of a culture that has been judged. And the judgment is not random; it is covenantal. It is the predictable and promised result of a people who forgot who they were, who their God was, and what He required of them. They lowered their standards, blurred their lines, and opened their gates. And as a result, they got what was coming to them.
The verse before us today is a concentrated expression of this horror. It is the lament of a people who are watching the unthinkable happen. The very heart of their identity, the sanctuary of their God, is being defiled by the very people God had explicitly forbidden. This is not just a military defeat; it is a theological catastrophe. It is the visible, tangible result of spiritual adultery. And it serves as a permanent warning to the people of God in every generation: when you compromise on the holiness of God's assembly, you are inviting the adversary to stretch out his hand over all your desirable things.
The Text
The adversary has stretched out his hand
Over all her desirable things,
For she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary,
The ones whom You commanded
That they should not enter into Your assembly.
(Lamentations 1:10 LSB)
The Inevitable Plunder (v. 10a)
Jeremiah begins with the grim result of Jerusalem's sin:
"The adversary has stretched out his hand over all her desirable things..." (Lamentations 1:10a)
The "adversary" here is Babylon, but behind Babylon is the ultimate adversary, the accuser. The physical plundering of the city is simply the outward manifestation of a spiritual reality. When a people forsake God's covenant, they forfeit His protection. It is as simple as that. The hedge is removed, and the wild boars of the field are permitted to come in and ravage the vineyard.
What are these "desirable things?" In the immediate context, it refers to the treasures of the city and the temple. The gold, the silver, the sacred vessels, all the accumulated wealth and beauty of a nation blessed by God, are now being carted off as pagan spoil. But the principle is broader. When a church or a nation compromises its fidelity to God, it will find that all its desirable things are eventually taken. The peace in its homes, the integrity of its leaders, the innocence of its children, the coherence of its laws, the prosperity of its markets, all of it becomes vulnerable. When you give up your ultimate treasure, which is fellowship with a holy God, you will eventually lose all your lesser treasures as well.
This is the great irony of apostasy. People abandon God's law because they think it is restrictive and they want to lay their hands on the "desirable things" of the world. But in doing so, they invite the world to come in and lay its hand on all of their desirable things. The prodigal son leaves with his inheritance to pursue worldly pleasures, and he ends up destitute in a pigsty. This is an iron law of the universe. Forsake God, and you will be forsaken. Lose your holiness, and you will lose everything else.
The Unthinkable Defilement (v. 10b)
The second half of the verse gives the reason for this disaster. It is not an accident. It is a direct consequence. The plunder is the effect; the defilement is the cause.
"For she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary, the ones whom You commanded that they should not enter into Your assembly." (Lamentations 1:10b)
This is the heart of the lament. It is one thing to be conquered. It is another thing entirely to see the holy place, the dwelling place of God's name, overrun by pagans. The word "sanctuary" refers to the Temple, the place of consecrated holiness, the symbolic center of heaven and earth. And Jerusalem is forced to watch as "the nations," the goyim, the Gentiles, tramp through it with their muddy boots and their profane hearts.
But notice the precise nature of the charge. It is not just that the heathen have entered; it is that they are the very ones God had explicitly forbidden from the assembly. This is a direct reference to the law in Deuteronomy 23:3, which states, "No Ammonite or Moabite may enter the assembly of the LORD; none of their descendants, even to the tenth generation, may ever enter the assembly of the LORD." This law was not arbitrary. It was a protective boundary, a guardrail to protect the covenant community from the corrupting influences of idolatrous nations who had shown deep-seated hostility to God's people.
The law established a clear distinction between the inside and the outside. The "assembly of the LORD" was to be a holy convocation, a people set apart. But Israel had grown weary of these distinctions. They began to form alliances with these nations. They married their women. They worshipped their gods. They adopted their practices. They blurred the lines. They effectively said, "Why can't we all just get along? Who are we to judge?" They traded the hard-edged demands of covenant faithfulness for the soft, mushy platitudes of tolerance. And the result was that the very people they were commanded to keep out of their assembly were now trampling through their sanctuary.
The principle for us is direct and unavoidable. The New Testament church is the new temple, the new sanctuary (1 Cor. 3:16-17). And we too have been given commands about who is to be admitted into our assembly and, more importantly, into our membership and leadership. We are to be a holy people, set apart from the world. When the church begins to look just like the world, when it adopts the world's definitions of marriage, sexuality, and justice, when it welcomes unrepentant sin into its midst in the name of "inclusivity," it is repeating the sin of ancient Israel. It is allowing the forbidden "nations" to enter the sanctuary.
And when that happens, the result is always the same. The adversary stretches out his hand. The church loses its power. Its prayers become hollow. Its witness becomes compromised. Its children are spiritually plundered. The salt loses its saltiness and is good for nothing but to be trampled underfoot by men. The defilement of the sanctuary leads directly to the plundering of all our desirable things.
Conclusion: Rebuilding the Walls
So what is the takeaway for us? This is not a passage for us to look back with pity on ancient Israel. This is a mirror. The church in the West is in a state of lamentable disarray precisely because we have ignored this principle. We have been so afraid of being called intolerant that we have tolerated everything. We have opened the gates of the sanctuary to every doctrinal novelty and moral perversion that comes knocking.
The path back begins with repentance. It begins with acknowledging that God's standards for His assembly are good and wise and for our protection. It begins with recovering a love for holiness and a hatred for the sin that defiles God's house. It means we must lovingly, but firmly, enforce the boundaries that God has commanded. This is what church discipline is for. It is the gatekeeping of the sanctuary.
This is not about being unkind. It is about being faithful. A hospital that allows sick people to mingle with the healthy in the name of "inclusivity" is not a loving hospital; it is a dangerous one. In the same way, a church that refuses to distinguish between repentance and rebellion, between holiness and profanity, is not a loving church. It is a treacherous one.
The good news of the gospel is that Christ has made a way for former outsiders to become insiders. Through His blood, He has made it possible for Gentiles to be brought near and to become "fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God" (Eph. 2:19). But the invitation is always an invitation to repentance and faith. It is an invitation to leave the ways of the profane nations behind and to enter into a holy assembly. The gate is narrow, but it is open to all who will come on God's terms. Our task is to proclaim that open gate, and at the same time, to guard the sanctuary from those who would enter on their own terms, bringing their idols with them.