Overview of the Book of Lamentations

Moore's Corner Church

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The overview of the week for this Sunday is the book of Lamentations.

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A lament is defined as a passionate expression of grief or sorrow.

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So when we're talking about lamentations here, we're talking about loud cries of anguish by the prophet

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Jeremiah as he cries over the destruction of the city of Jerusalem.

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So the main focus of Lamentations is on God's judgment in response to the nation of Judah turning away from God.

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This series of poems teaches believers how to view and deal with suffering.

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The book begins with these words. How lonely sits the city that was full of people.

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How like a widow is she who was great among the nations. The princes of the provinces has become a slave.

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She weeps bitterly in the night. Her tears are on her cheeks. Among all her lovers she has none to comfort her.

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All her friends have dealt treacherously with her. They have become her enemies.

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Judah has gone into captivity under affliction and hard servitude.

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She dwells among the nations and finds no rest. All her persecutors overtake her in dire straits.

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And the city of Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians in the year 586 BC where the

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Jews then spent 70 years of captivity in Babylon. Hundreds of years later in Matthew 23,

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Jesus would weep over the city of Jerusalem before it was destroyed again by the Romans.

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So in conclusion, the book of Lamentations, like the book of Jeremiah, it does have a very negative tone for obvious reasons, but there was still hope.

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There was still hope because while the majority turned away from God, while the city was destroyed,

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God always preserves for himself a remnant. As Jeremiah writes in chapter 3, he says,

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Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.

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They are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness.