The God That Rules

The book of Lamentations was a warning to ancient Judah that it had reached the point of no return. The nation could no longer repent and avoid being destroyed.

This book is only a type of what is prophesied to happen in this end time. So how is it a prophecy where the Laodiceans and the nations of Israel reach the point of no return?

God has revealed this book to me in two stages. Lamentations was the subject of one of the first booklets I had printed. But recently God has revealed more to me. Now I fully understand Lamentations.

Why would God reveal it in two stages? Because the first time, God’s Laodicean Church, America, Britain and Judah (called “Israel” today) had not reached the point of no return. God then gave the full revelation when they had reached that point!

Since Lamentations is prophecy for this end time, it must have a point-of-no-return lesson for us today.

Also, I believe the fruits show that these peoples have reached the point of no return. Look around at what is happening to the Laodiceans and the nations of Israel.

However, we have not reached a point of no return for individuals. If you—yes, you—heed this warning message and repent, God will save you from the terrifying prophecies of this book.

‘Unless You Repent’

“Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel: the land is not able to bear all his words. For thus Amos saith, Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of their own land” (Amos 7:10-11). At this point, it has gotten so bad that the land can’t bear our message. Why? Because everything is falling apart! Jeroboam, a type of the leader of what is called the world’s number-one superpower, is told he is going to die. It doesn’t say he will die unless he repents. And Israel is going to be taken captive. There is no room for them to repent and save the nations.

In the past, I have thought the evil priest just told the king and the people of Israel about God’s message and left out, unless you repent. I no longer believe that.

God has been delivering a powerful message to the nations of Israel for over 70 years, especially to America, which has been a protective powerhouse to the British peoples and the Jewish nation in the Middle East. That equation is about to change dramatically.

America, Britain and Judah are about to fall together (Hosea 5:5). Now we know absolutely that this prophecy is going to be fulfilled.

How does reaching the point of no return affect our message to the Laodicean Church and the nations of Israel? We must stop writing and speaking about their terrible destruction “unless they repent.”

We will now only make the “if you repent” appeal to individuals.

In the past, we had at least a faint hope that they would repent. But not any more. The massive suffering of the Great Tribulation is coming as prophesied. We must now tell them they have reached the point of no return! That makes it even harder for the land “to bear all his words.”

The Funeral Dirge

The Hebrew text doesn’t actually have a title for the book of Lamentations. For many books, the Hebrew just uses the first word as the title. The first word in Lamentations is how, but according to the Companion Bible it can also mean alas, or an exclamation of pain and grief. Terrible things are happening in this book.

The Talmud calls Lamentations kinot, which means dirges or elegies. A dirge is a song or hymn of grief or lamentation intended to accompany funeral or memorial rites. An elegy is a song or a poem expressing extreme sorrow or lamentation, especially for one or more who are dead. In a sense, the book of Lamentations is like a funeral dirge. It’s about dying and death.

Still, in that dying and death, we see the most inspiring hope ever!

The nations of Israel are going to die (Ezekiel 33:11). But this funeral dirge in Lamentations is far worse than that. The nations of Israel will be resurrected to life again (Ezekiel 37 and 38). That is not the case with spiritual Israel, or God’s Laodicean Church. Fifty percent of the Laodiceans are going to die and be resurrected into the lake of fire—eternal death! They will be forever dead!

That will undoubtedly be the single worst funeral dirge ever! There has probably never been such a towering spiritual funeral in God’s Church. Never a spiritual disaster of such magnitude before.

The other 50 percent of the Laodiceans will repent in the Tribulation and be resurrected at Christ’s Second Coming. They will then rule with Christ forever. The hope of God will fill the Earth forever!

This book of Lamentations is primarily for God’s own Church and secondarily for the nations of Israel.

The book of Lamentations has five chapters, and you could say it is five elegies, each one a complete poem. It’s a book with unusually bad news. But it also contains a lot of good news you won’t see unless you have a childlike mind that enables God to reveal this book to you (Matthew 11:25).

If you look closely at Lamentations, you will discover that it is actually a detailed explanation of the prophecies of Matthew 24:21, Daniel 12:1 and Jeremiah 30:7. It describes the worst time of suffering in human history!

Ezra had this book read to Israel on the 10th day of the fifth month, Ab, because it marked the anniversary of the destruction of the temple and the city of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. (The Jews today still read this book on the anniversary of the temple destruction.) “Now in the fifth month, in the tenth day of the month, which was the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, came Nebuzar-adan, captain of the guard, which served the king of Babylon, into Jerusalem, And burned the house of the Lord, and the king’s house; and all the houses of Jerusalem, and all the houses of the great men, burned he with fire: And all the army of the Chaldeans, that were with the captain of the guard, brake down all the walls of Jerusalem round about” (Jeremiah 52:12-14). This fact should be of interest to all of us, because in a.d. 70 the temple was also destroyed on the 10th day of the fifth month. That was not just coincidence.

But that destruction was only a type of what is about to happen in this end time.

Lamentations is primarily about the destruction of another temple: the spiritual temple of God.

Spiritually, God says those people who turned away from Him were “The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth” (Lamentations 2:15). God had the greatest of praise for them! Never has there been such a powerful message delivered to this world by God through His Church! Yet look what happened. They turned away from being “the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth,” and turned toward sin and selfishness! The great God’s own Work was destroyed.

God emphasizes “the joy of the whole earth” during the worst suffering ever on Earth!

That description is also a prophecy of what will happen in the World Tomorrow: God’s people will once again be “the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth.” What a beautiful prophecy.

If you go through the book of Lamentations line by line, word by word, you’ll see that God’s spiritual temple, those people of God, are completely shattered. No people have ever been punished more than those who are discussed in this book. Their falling away was a spiritual disaster of astonishing proportions.

Still, the central theme of this book is an expression of hope—a people waiting for God’s “perfection of beauty.” The light in all of that black, black darkness is that God is getting His people ready for a marriage! Sometimes, it’s very difficult to do that, as illustrated in the book of Lamentations, but God knows what His people need. He will do everything He can to bring them into His Family.

The Bible’s Most Elegant Poetry

All the way through the book of Lamentations, Lange’s Commentary refers to the author as “the poet.” The Bible doesn’t say for sure who wrote it, but most scholars believe Jeremiah did. I believe the Bible clearly shows us that Jeremiah was the author, though he could have directed his scribe, Baruch, to do much of the writing. Perhaps Baruch was a great poet.

Lamentations is the most elegant poetry in all the Bible. Lange’s describes it as “The most perfect product in regard to the external artistic structure of the Old Testament scriptures.”

Adam Clarke’s Commentary says, “The composition of this poem is what may be called very technical. Every chapter, except the last, is an acrostic. … The third chapter contains [66] verses, each, as before, formed of three hemistichs, but with this difference, that each hemistich begins with the same letter, so that the whole alphabet is thrice repeated in this chapter. … I have called this an inimitable poem [inimitable means it can’t be imitated!]; better judges are of the same opinion. ‘Never,’ says Bishop Lowth, ‘was there a more rich and elegant variety of beautiful images and adjuncts arranged together within so small a compass, nor more happily chosen and applied’” (Introduction to the Lamentations of Jeremiah, emphasis mine throughout).

This is worth thinking deeply about. Why would God invest so much into this book, making it the most poetic book in the Bible? The answer to that question is deeply moving. We must see it from God’s point of view.

Most scholars, past and present, think the book of Lamentations was finished shortly after the fall of Jerusalem, around 585 b.c. And they may be right. But the Bible tells us that that is not the time when this message was first written. “The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied: he hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah; he hath brought them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof. He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel: he hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy, and he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about” (Lamentations 2:2-3). This is addressed to “the habitations of Jacob” (or the nations of Israel) and to “all the horn of Israel.” Israel had already been in captivity over 100 years. So it couldn’t have been written for ancient Israel! Why can’t more Bible students see this?

Most Bible prophecy is dual. Request our free booklet about Jeremiah. You will see that the book of Jeremiah is primarily for this end time. The same is true of Lamentations.

Lamentations was written after Josiah was killed (2 Chronicles 35:25). This is fully explained in the next chapter of this booklet. However, it is quite possible that the book was expanded before it was canonized. We often add to our books and booklets over a span of time.

Jeremiah was clearly an eyewitness to much of the tragedy in Jerusalem! Smith’s Bible Dictionary states: “The poems belong unmistakably to the last days of the kingdom, or the commencement of the exile …. They are written by one who speaks, with the vividness and intensity of an eyewitness, of the misery which he bewails.” The Jews were under siege by Nebuchadnezzar for 19 years before Jerusalem fell. Jeremiah was imprisoned by the last Jewish king, Zedekiah, during the siege. When Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem, Jeremiah was released. (For more information, request our free book The United States and Britain in Prophecy.) Baruch, Jeremiah’s scribe, undoubtedly experienced some or all of that 19-year siege with Jeremiah. Clearly, someone could have been an eyewitness to much of that suffering. God’s in-depth revelation is certainly adequate to write the book of Lamentations, but an eyewitness account could have added to the drama. What description there is, particularly if you really understand poetry! You won’t find anything quite like it in the Bible.

Clarke’s says, “Misery has no expression that the author of the Lamentations has not employed.” It also quotes a man named Dr. South as saying of this book, “One would think that every letter was written with a tear; every word, the sound of a breaking heart: that the author was compacted of sorrows; disciplined to grief from his infancy; one who never breathed but in sighs, nor spoke but in a groan.”

Lamentations is the expression of profound godly emotion! That is because, most of all, it is about God reaching out to His own Spirit-begotten children, whom He loves with a Father’s love, and who have turned away from Him! God loves His people, and He’ll use everything He possibly can to reach out to His family members! God will do all He can to touch them with a powerful message!

The Laodicean rebellion is probably the worst spiritual disaster ever in God’s Church. God has prophesied that half of the Laodiceans won’t make it. But the other part of the picture is, half of the Laodiceans will make it! And that doesn’t include those who repent before the Tribulation. Clearly, God still wants the Laodiceans to repent so He can prepare them to marry His Son!

Jeremiah went to the nation of Judah just before it fell in 585 b.c. He warned the people of Judah and wrote the warnings in a book, which he addressed to all Israel. Since the book of Jeremiah is clearly an end-time message for all Israel, it is logical that Lamentations is as well. But there is a difference.

The book of Jeremiah gives the overview of Israel’s fall. Lamentations gives the horrendous details of what the fall and enslavement are like.

‘As a Widow’

The book of Lamentations uses Jerusalem and Zion interchangeably. Zion in prophecy refers to God’s Church. Here, Jerusalem also refers to God’s Church; Galatians 4:26 describes “Jerusalem which is above” as “the mother of us all,” which is the Church. It is mainly about the Church.

Notice this in the first verse: “How doth the city [that is, Jerusalem] sit solitary that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!” (Lamentations 1:1).

You will see as we proceed that this is a book of end-time prophecy. Where do you see a widow in this end time?

This is talking about a woman who once had God’s protection, was once led by God, was protected and watched over by God—who was, in fact, the very wife of God! Only those few who receive God’s Spirit during this present age are considered Jesus Christ’s Bride (e.g. Romans 7:4; 2 Corinthians 11:2; Ephesians 5:31-32; Revelation 19:7-8). That unparalleled honor will never be extended to anyone else.

But something happened with this Bride: She became as a widow! Jerusalem—that is, God’s Church—was “full of people,” or Spirit-begotten Church members, and then became as a widow. This is about the falling away of most of God’s Church members—the Bride of Christ!

There is good news there, however. Notice it says she is become “as a widow.” It is worded that way because she still has the potential to get back and be the wife of Christ! Half of the Laodiceans will repent and make it back.

There is even better news. There was a small remnant Bride who remained loyal to her Husband. She is delivering this painful message of Lamentations for Jesus Christ. That is the best news of this book, which is often overlooked.

Nobody would even understand the book of Lamentations if God did not have an obedient very elect. This elite group will be rewarded with positions at headquarters, serving with Christ forever. The Laodiceans who repent in the Tribulation will lose that inspiring reward.

Remember, Lamentations applies first of all to the Spirit-begotten people of God; it also depicts the suffering to occur in the nations of Israel, of which Jerusalem, the ancient capital of Israel, is a type. This first verse also warns us that soon the great cities of our nations will become desolate through a nuclear holocaust. The cities that once were full of people and successful with much commerce will be destroyed and the people slain. Those who survive will become an enslaved people.

Weeping in Bitterness

Notice immediately the mourning and woe in the book of Lamentations. “She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies” (Lamentations 1:2). During the night, when she ought to be getting rest, this widow weeps sore. No Husband is there to comfort her. The picture here gets worse and worse.

Verse 3 speaks of Judah. Elsewhere in Scripture, God describes His people as being of the tribe of Judah spiritually—or spiritual Jews (e.g. Romans 2:28-29; Revelation 3:9). The reference to Judah in verse 3 is primarily about God’s own people who turned away from Him: “Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude: she dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest: all her persecutors overtook her between the straits.” The Laodiceans are in captivity before and during the Great Tribulation. God’s people find no rest when they should be finding rest.

Lamentations 1:4 specifically mentions Zion—again, God’s own Church. “The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts ….” “Solemn feasts” is talking about God’s annual holy days, which His faithful people observe year after year to this day. But here it says no one is coming to these festivals. The Laodiceans have lost God’s solemn feasts! Most of them don’t even observe God’s holy days anymore, and those who do certainly don’t keep them the way God commands, or with the understanding that God gave His Church through Herbert W. Armstrong.

God is addressing the outer court, not the inner court of His temple, or Church (Revelation 11:1-2). The Laodiceans have rejected or watered down these holy days and refuse to enter the inner court where God dwells. Christ leads the inner court to keep His solemn feasts His way. None of the Laodiceans come to where God is! This is how God shows them that they are rebelling against His solemn feasts. So in all this bad news, we see the shining hope of God’s very elect.

Lamentations 1:4 also says that “all her gates are desolate.” The Laodicean churches have opened their doors to allow anybody to come in. They are trying to love the world by allowing the world into God’s holy temple. (Verse 10 in this chapter describes the same problem.) These people heard for years that God simply does not operate that way in this world, and they ought to know that! But they feel they have a better way than what God’s apostle taught them—and as a result, their gates are desolate.

Look at the result of such policies: “… her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness” (verse 4). These people should be full of festive joy—the joy of God’s feasts! The very elect of God’s people who continue to build their lives around God’s holy days are filled with joy! But this woman who has become as a widow instead sits afflicted and in bitterness. Here God portrays His own people being caught in the terror of the Great Tribulation and in the worst mourning ever! The ministry is sighing, the Church’s young people have been physically harmed, and the entire Church is in bitterness. Why? Because they think God has forsaken them. In reality, they have forsaken God. God must use the Tribulation to teach them this lesson.

Her Beauty Is Departed

“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” (verse 5). God is about to afflict the Laodiceans for the multitude of their sins—rebelliously breaking His law. This verse shows that even the young children of the Laodiceans will be taken into captivity and experience the horrors of the holocaust because of the transgressions within “Zion.” It is all extremely tragic. Church members will have to watch their own little children suffer. They all should be protected by God.

In verse 6, we see that “from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed.” What a towering calamity!

Do you realize how beautiful God’s faithful people are to God? The obedient remnant retains “all her beauty.” What makes God’s Church beautiful? Its way of life and character. Yes, we have our trials and tests, but how beautiful the very elect are to God! It is only when Christ’s Bride turns away that this precious beauty departs.

That is just what happened to most of God’s people. As God looks at it, they are no longer beautiful as they once were. They had spiritual beauty, but it “is departed.” They have forsaken God’s truth! Watering down doctrine does not produce the beautiful character that God desires. The Church has become spiritually ugly.

Verse 6 concludes, “her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, and they are gone without strength before the pursuer.” In the Tribulation, the Church’s princes, or ministers—those who led the way in weakening the people—will become as deer who have been weakened by starvation. Then the “harts” are easily caught by the hunter—they cannot save themselves from destruction!

“Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old …” (verse 7). Yes, “in the days of old” these people of God had pleasant things—all the wonderful truths God gave His people through Mr. Armstrong. But they let those things slip long ago. They have a terrible punishment awaiting them as a result. Their misery is excruciating because while they suffer, they can remember the “good times” when God did help them.

The good news is, this punishment will cause a large number of them to return to God. But will you heed God’s warning now so you don’t have to experience such suffering?

The Widow Speaks

As you read this chapter you can begin to feel the mental anguish of the people. They struggle with the question why? Why is all this happening to us? God begins to show them in verse 9.

“Her filthiness is in her skirts,” He says. Their sin is so great, it is like filth that has been ground into clothing so thoroughly that it has become part of the cloth.

This verse continues, “she remembereth not her last end; therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter.” God also shows them that they didn’t consider the end of all their ways. Where there is no vision, the people perish. A lack of repentance brought them to this point, and remains the real issue with the Laodicean Church (Revelation 3:17). Since the Laodiceans would not hear Christ knocking (Revelation 3:20), they must experience extreme suffering at the hands of the enemy.

At that point comes this statement: “… O Lord, behold my affliction …” (Lamentations 1:9). This is the voice of the “widow.” The second half of this chapter is mostly her words—God’s Church prophetically speaking for herself in the midst of her future tribulation.

Verse 11 shows that things become so bad that the people die of starvation. The people are willing to give up their “pleasant things”—meaning their silver and gold—for bread in order to stay alive. The expression “to relieve the soul” means to bring back to life. The people become diseased and sick because they lack food. They realize they have become vile.

A Grievous Realization

“Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger” (verse 12). As God afflicts the Laodiceans, they’re going to be asking, Is there any sorrow like my sorrow? Is there any pain like mine?

The entire world was shocked by the photographs that came out of the Nazi concentration camps. Yet the scenes from Lamentations are far worse! As Matthew 24:21 states, there was not a time, nor will there be again, like this. Can any human mind imagine anything worse than the Nazi concentration camps? Yet, God says here that things will get far worse! Verse 12 of Lamentations 1 states there is no “sorrow like unto my sorrow”!

This is the last time ever that God’s own Church or the nations of Israel will be punished like this. Christ is going to rule and stop the rebellion. This is a hope that is endless and soon to be reality.

Why do the Laodiceans suffer pain as no other group? Because they knew God’s truth and prophecies. Theirs is a sorrow unparalleled—and not just because of the grievous nature of the punishment, but because they will recognize exactly what is happening! They should have escaped the Great Tribulation, but they rebelled against God. They know the prophecies about the Tribulation that Mr. Armstrong taught them—and they realize they could have avoided this punishment completely if only they hadn’t rejected that instruction.

And realize: God is doing the afflicting! God will use Germany and a united Europe as a club in His hand. It is the day of His fierce anger (Isaiah 10:5-6).

But there is hope! This passage shows that the people finally begin to REALIZE that God is doing the afflicting.

Most of the time it takes so long before sinners understand that God is warning and cursing them!

Elohim and Adonai

Note that the Hebrew word for “Lord” in Lamentations is Adonai, which means the God that rules. The word Adonai is used 14 times in Lamentations. God is teaching those caught in this sore trial that He is going to rule His Church and nation! He will do anything to bring His people under His rule so that He can bring us into His Family! The Laodiceans have rejected Adonai—the God that rules!

Here is a quote from the Anchor Bible Commentary: “The Lord Adonay [Adonai] occurs 14 times in Lamentations …. Rather strikingly, Elohim, ‘God,’ does not occur at all.”

There is a horrendous warning in that omission.

Elohim is a plural noun like church or family, with more than one member. Elohim is the word we associate most of all with God’s Family and honoring the Father. The Laodiceans are condemned for not honoring their Father (Malachi 1:6). They rejected the Head of the Family.

I think it is also rather striking that Lamentations uses the word Adonai exactly 14 times. Seven is the number of completion in the Bible. Here we have double completion. It’s as if God says, Teach the Laodiceans a strong message about how Adonai rules. Then double that message and hammer it home! Only heeding this message can save them.

Perhaps the strongest warning in this book is what is not stated. Normally, Elohim would be used numerous times in this book. It is used hundreds of times in the Old Testament. But here it is not mentioned one time. Why? The Elohim name for God shows us that God is a Family. This understanding is the heart of the gospel: the good news of the coming Kingdom, or Family, of God, which administers the government of God.

The Laodiceans have lost the gospel. They have lost the thirst of what the whole Bible is about and why they were created.

Elohim being omitted from the book of Lamentations is universe-shaking! The Laodiceans are headed for the lake of fire. Only the Great Tribulation will save 50 percent of them.

What warning could be stronger than the omission of Elohim?

This understanding helps us to see how God rewards in-depth Bible study and how deep the Bible truly is! We need to know what the Bible says—and often what it does not say!

“O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!” (Romans 11:33). Paul clearly taught about God’s astonishing depth and how shallow mankind is apart from God.

No strongly corrective book of the Bible is more precisely structured than Lamentations. We must comprehend this message, or we will suffer as nobody has ever suffered.

I believe there is an alarming message in the number of times God inspired the word Adonai. His own Laodicean Church has refused to be ruled. God will not receive anybody into His Family that He can’t rule!

How about you? And me? Do we love Adonai? Do we love God’s government that enforces His law?

There is a strong warning for all of us in the word Adonai. God is going to rule His creation and His Family.

Lucifer rejected Adonai. He refused to administer God’s rule on this Earth and was rejected forever. Now you and I have the opportunity and honor to be ruled by Adonai. Now we have the potential to replace Satan’s rule over this Earth—if we will allow Adonai to rule us. Then we can rule the Earth with Christ.

What a breathtaking opportunity we have! Do we comprehend how awesome this is? And how much suffering we can avoid by submitting to Adonai now?

No Comforter

The Laodiceans’ crying out continues in Lamentations 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 ….” What are they talking about? Jesus Christ referred to God’s Holy Spirit as “the Comforter” (John 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7). The Laodiceans know, in the midst of the Tribulation, that the Holy Spirit is not there to comfort them as it should be! They’re not being comforted because God’s Holy Spirit is far from them. Lamentations 1:9 says, in fact, that they have “no comforter.” God only gives His Spirit to them that obey Him (Acts 5:32). By failing to obey, the Laodiceans quenched the Spirit that God had supplied to them
(1 Thessalonians 5:19).

God’s faithful people ought to truly rejoice because we do have that Comforter! When we pray for God’s help in facing our trials and problems, we have this Comforter. We know God works miracles in our lives. What a blessing to have the Comforter working in your life!

Lamentations 1:16 continues, “… my children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.” This is God warning of a truly tragic aspect of their punishment: having to see their little children experience lamentations, mourning and woe! And all because of their own disobedience! They are the cause of that misery! They are guilty.

There is hope contained within these lamentations. In verse 17, the Laodiceans realize that God has commanded this punishment, and begin to repent. The widow says, “The Lord is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment …. I have grievously rebelled …” (verses 18, 20). This punishment from God brings many of God’s people to repentance. They recognize where the correction is coming from, and they submit to it. They tell God that they have rebelled against His commandments. They recognize that they rejected God’s end-time type of Elijah, Mr. Armstrong. They begin to realize that Malachi’s Message was a warning sent from God (Malachi 2:4). They recognize that they have “grievously rebelled” and that their just punishment is death.

Now notice verses 21-22 of Lamentations 1. The Church also begins to warn its enemies to take caution because the punishment that came onto the Church will soon come upon them. The Gentile nations have also sinned, and God will punish them too.

This is also a very hope-filled development. It demonstrates the repentant Laodiceans’ renewed faith in God’s prophecies, and their willingness to once again step out and speak on God’s behalf. It took correction of unparalleled severity. But God was finally able to bring these errant sons back into line with His loving family law.

Thus ends the first of the five elegies of the book of Lamentations.