Welcome to Enjoying the Journey with Evangelist Scott Pauli.

Today we are on a journey through Scripture.

We hope you'll join us as we make 66 stops through each book of the Word of God.

The old radio commentator Paul Harvey could tell a story like no one could tell a story.

And then right in the middle of it, he would say,

and now for the rest of the story.

Well, the book we've come to today is just that.

It's the rest of the story.

And most recently, we journeyed through Jeremiah,

and now we're journeying through lamentations. What is lamentations?

Well, many people have suggested that lamentations is simply an addendum to the previous book,

and I think that's a very apt observation because it picks up exactly where Jeremiah chapter 52 left

off. In fact, both books have the fall of Jerusalem as their main event.

In Jeremiah chapter 52, we're left in the smoldering ruins, in the ashes of the city of Jerusalem.

Someone said, the saddest words of tongue or pen, are these four, it might have been. Perhaps sadder yet,

or these words it was. You see, there was a day that the

blessing and glory and favor of God rested on Jerusalem, and now not only is that removed,

Jerusalem is removed. This is a picture of what sin does. If Jeremiah was a book of warning,

then Lamentations is a book of mourning. The prophet Jeremiah

looked forward to the city of Jerusalem being destroyed in his first prophecy. He was looking

ahead to it, but in the book of Lamentations, he's looking back to it. It is literally a funeral dirge.

It's a funeral procession. This journey through

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