Theological term
Lamentation
3 sermons · All terms
The Confidence of the Believer
Micah 7 presents the prophet lamenting the moral and covenantal collapse of Israel — corrupt leaders, treacherous neighbors, fractured households — only to pivot on a single word: 'therefore.' Rather than despair, Micah models the posture of the godly remnant: looking to God, waiting on God, and confessing sin without self-defense. The sermon traces the chapter's three movements — lamentation (vv. 1–6), exhortation (vv. 7–13), and doxological prayer (vv. 14–20) — and presses the question of what genuine faith looks like when the church and civil society have both gone far astray. The closing doxology, 'Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity,' is held up as the ground of the believer's confidence and the fitting frame for the Lord's Supper.
The Crucifixion of Jesus, Part 3
Matthew 27:45–46 records the fourth of Christ's seven words from the cross — the cry of dereliction, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' — and its interpretation demands both exegetical precision and doctrinal care. The darkness from the sixth to the ninth hour was not a solar eclipse but a supernatural sign of divine judgment, recapitulating the ninth plague pattern and marking the moment the Passover antitype was slain. The cry itself does not imply any ontological division within the Trinity, any dissolution of the hypostatic union, or the suffering of all three persons; rather, it expresses the withdrawal of divine consolation from the Son according to his true humanity as he bore, in our place as surety, the full weight of penal wrath. Believers are called to ground their assurance not in felt divine presence but in the covenant faithfulness of the God to whom Christ still cried 'my God' even in the depth of his substitutionary suffering.
David's Lament over Saul and Jonathan
David's lament over Saul and Jonathan in 2 Samuel 1:17–27 is examined as a carefully crafted literary and theological act, not merely an outburst of emotion. The lamentation reveals David's paramount concern for the glory of Yahweh, his unbitter spirit toward a sworn enemy, and his covenantal grief over the loss of Jonathan. The study draws out practical instruction on the role of lament in the Christian life, the ethics of speech about the dead, and the priority of God's honor in prayer.