While at the gym I was listening to Leviticus and knowing the book of Lamentations, something struck me at the end of Leviticus about the justice of God.  The next to the last chapter, Leviticus 26:18-22, say:

18 And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins.

19 And I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass:

20 And your strength shall be spent in vain: for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits.

21 And if ye walk contrary unto me, and will not hearken unto me; I will bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins.

22 I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number; and your high ways shall be desolate.

I mention Lamentations, because this warning was at least fulfilled at the siege of Jerusalem, chronicled in Lamentations.  Here are examples from the five chapters:

1:5 Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper; for the LORD hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.

1:16 For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me: my children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.

2:11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people; because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.

2:19 Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger in the top of every street.

4:4 The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst: the young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them.

4:10 The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

5:13 They took the young men to grind, and the children fell under the wood.

Maybe nothing stands out more than consequences affecting children.  God listed many in Leviticus 26.   The heavens will be as iron, meaning no rain, which turns the ground to brass.  Land will not bring increase.  Trees do not yield fruit.  Multiple plagues come.  Wild beasts rob families of their domestic animals and their children.

The Lamentation quotes focus on one aspect of the judgment, what occurs to the children.  All the rest are in there, bookending the list of expectations.

Why do these things occur?  The people do not listen to God.  They walk contrary to God.  They do no obey Him.

The people are not victims.  They caused this.  They are responsible.  The people suffer for unrighteousness.

Many times, thoughts begin with the imagination of victimhood.  Before someone gets there, he should consider whether he listens to God, walks contrary to God, or does not obey Him.  In Lamentations, God says through Jeremiah that He brings these consequences out of His faithfulness.

God’s justice doesn’t make you a victim.