For October 13, 2026
Surely This Cannot Be Our Fate by Greg Holmes, D.MIN – Director of Missions serving 17 churches
THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH ENDS with the death of the last king of Judah, Jehoiachin, as most of Israel is taken captive and forced into the Babylonian exile. This seventy-year period was predicted by the prophet, and included the fact that Israel would be restored as a nation, something that occurred as first Ezra and then Nehemiah began the rebuilding of the Temple and the Holy City under the aegis of Cyrus. The Book of Lamentation, following Jeremiah, records the thoughts and feelings of the exiles, and ends with the captives crushed, without knowledge of the end of the diaspora. Lamentations reads both as a funeral dirge for the city of Jerusalem, and as a communal plea for the restoration of its people. The struggle to find the justice of God in the face of extreme suffering is seen in the mixed feelings of protest against the severe discipline imposed, and yet the ultimate acceptance of God’s sovereignty and the righteousness of his wrath.