if you're in your home tonight, take your Bibles and turn to Psalm chapter 71. Psalm chapter number 71. It's interesting that the series that God led me into, we continue through this timeframe in our nation, is the series entitled Daily Choices for Difficult Days. We have learned to make a number of good choices in difficult or on difficult days. Just reviewing with you over the past number of weeks, even last couple of months, some of the choices that we have learned that we can make that we know please God and we know are biblical. One is the choice of I will trust. That's a personal choice. It's a personal decision. And the psalmist made that personal decision, and he said, I will trust. Over and over in the Psalms, he said, I will trust. Even when the times were bleak, he said, I will trust. You and I can make that decision. In fact, we ought to be making that decision every day. We ought to be telling the Lord in our prayer life, Lord, today, I trust you. I trust you with the markets. I trust you, Lord, with my job. Lord, I trust you, Lord, sickness and health. Lord, I trust you with my family members that maybe you're not near to tonight. Lord, I trust you. That's an important decision for all of us to make and it's a daily choice. Secondly, we said and we saw from the scriptures that the psalmist said this, I will testify. or I'm going to talk of God's goodness no matter what kind of day I have. No matter what's going on, I will talk, I will testify, I will declare the works of our Lord. Dear parents, may I encourage you tonight. Your children need to hear the works of the Lord in your home on a daily basis. In times like these, they need to hear you talk of the works and the wonders and the names of our God. I will make that decision to testify. You can make that decision to testify of the goodness of the Lord. Thirdly, I will sing. I will sing. Now, I'm not going to hurt your ears tonight by singing. Lord willing, on Sunday we'll have a couple people be able to provide some special music and maybe we'll be able to sing a hymn or two together. But tonight, I'm not going to sing to you. I don't want to hurt your ears. But you can make a choice to sing. You can make a choice to sing unto the Lord. Oftentimes, as I'm getting out of my vehicle and walking up the stairs in the morning to the office, the Lord puts a song in my heart, and He can do that for you. And the psalmist, one of the things that he said over and over was, I will sing unto the Lord. Great daily choice. These are all great daily choices. Last week, we finished on the choice of, I will cry. I will cry unto the Lord. Brethren, may I remind you that we get a lot more done crying unto the Lord than talking to one another. And while it's not bad to talk to one another, and fellowship is important, And important in these days, it's also even more important that you cry unto the Lord. That's why this coming Friday, we have set a day aside for prayer and fasting. I hope you can be a part of that day. You may fast from food. You may fast from media or the news or social media. You may fast from other forms of entertainment. I would urge you to pray and fast and replace those times with prayer and time with the Lord in his word. And as you got the update today, you know that I preached a message about my prayer and fasting on Sermon Audio. You certainly can download and listen to that maybe on Friday to encourage you on that front. But it is so that all of us take the important step of crying out unto the Lord in prayer and in fasting. Could this be something that God is rallying Christians to prayer and fasting, that they might see that this goes out by prayer and fasting? I would encourage you to test those waters. Say, preacher, I've never done that before. What do you mean? You mean skip a meal? I mean skip a meal. You mean turn the television off? Yeah, I mean turn the television off. I'm talking about you and God. I'm talking about you with time with God, where you pour your heart out to God about your concerns, and you let God teach you, and you let God touch your heart. I believe God slowed things down, brethren, and one of the reasons may be for family time, but I'll tell you another reason for God and I time. God and I time. I will cry. Next, and I want to get to this tonight, The psalmist says in Psalm 71, I will hope. If you have your Bibles there, Psalm 71, look at verses 10 as I read down through verse number 14. Verses 10 through 14. My enemies speak against me, and they that lay wait for my soul take counsel together, saying, God hath forsaken him. Persecute and take him, for there is none to deliver him. O God, be not far from me. O my God, make haste for my help. Let them be confounded and consumed that are adversaries to my soul. Let them be covered with reproach and dishonor that seek my hurt, but I will hope continually and will yet praise Thee more and more." I think it's interesting that all of the choices that we've looked at are simple choices on the surface, but can become increasingly difficult on difficult days. The word hope, as you well know throughout the scriptures, as was taught and explained on Sunday night in the youth service, means to have confident expectation. It means for me to keep a confident expectation that indeed God not only can do something, but that He will do something. If you have your Bibles, turn over in your Bibles to Titus chapter 1 and verse number 2. Titus 1, verse number 2. Aren't you glad tonight, if you're a believer, that you have confident expectation of eternal life? In fact, in Titus chapter 1 verse number 2, the Bible says, in hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie promised before the world began. Dear Christian, find comfort in this truth tonight. You don't have to have a might so eternal life. You don't have to sit at home and fear whether or not you're going to keep your eternal life. But God says he's given you eternal life and he cannot lie. Thank God. for that hope. Ordinarily, when we express hope, we are expressing uncertainty. But this is not the distinctive biblical meaning of hope. And the main thing I want to show you this evening from the scripture is that biblical hope is not just a desire for something good in the future. I think all of us would desire good things to come tomorrow, better things to come the next day. We all would have that kind of hope, but that's not the hope of the Bible. Biblical hope is a confident expectation and desire for something good in the future because of our God. Not because of what people can do, but because of what God can and will do. Hope gives you the visual in your mind's eye that you have light at the end of your storm cloud. The light at the end of the tunnel is your deliverance. It is the breakthrough with the Lord. David had it at Baalparazim in the Old Testament. In fact, he named the place Baalparazim because it was the breakthrough, it was the hope that he had, and God brought it about. Thank God for that. Thank God that God gives us hope until the end. Look at Hebrews chapter number six. Hebrews chapter number six, verses 10 and 11. Hebrews six, verses 10 and 11. For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love, which he has showed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints and do minister. And we desire that every one of you do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end. What is the writer of Hebrews saying here? He's saying, listen, you have full assurance of hope until the end. It is our prayer that you will continue to give yourself to a work and labor of love that you will show unto the Lord's name all the way to the end because you have full assurance and you have a confident expectation all the way to the end of your life. Hope, biblical hope, confident expectation is often something people lose in difficult times. But remember, each time the psalmist resolves to do something, it isn't that he necessarily feels like doing it, but he is resolved in his mind to make a daily choice that is right no matter what is going on. Without hope, someone has no power to absorb the wrong and the evil that take place on a daily basis in our world. They often sink into self-pity because of no hope. In fact, I'd ask you to turn in your Bibles to Psalm 42 and verse number five. Psalm 42 and verse number five. Bible says here in Psalm 42 and verse number five, why art thou cast down? O my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me? Here the psalmist muses to himself, boy, what's wrong with my troubled soul? Why am I disquieted within my own soul? And he says this to himself, hope thou in God. Get your confident expectation back in God. That is a good daily choice. And my friend, we oftentimes have to make that repeated choice throughout a day. Hope thou in God. We oftentimes have to speak to ourselves on this front and hope thou in God. Hoping in God does not naturally come for sinners like us. We must preach it to ourselves. We must preach it diligently. We must preach it forcefully. We will not give way to a downcast spirit. We have hope in God. Our God has not changed. Our God's eyes are not distracted by everything that's going on. His eye is still upon the righteous, according to Psalm 33. And so you say, preacher, well, what are we to hope in that? You say, I will hope. What is the object of that hope? I'd like to answer that for you tonight as we finish up the message. We are to hope in God's mercy. We are to place our hope, our confident expectation in God's mercy. Psalm 147, verse number 11. The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy. As you know, the Bible's very clear here that one of the things that brings God great pleasure is somebody that fears him. and has great assurance and confidence, unwavering faith in his mercy. There's a false hope of God's mercy today. Someone may say, I do not believe, says a man, that God will ever cast me into hell, for God Almighty is ever merciful. What will become of you when you die, said one man to another? I do not know what's the answer and I do not think much about it because I know that God is a very good God and I do not think he will cast the souls of men into hell and cause them to be forever banished from his presence. But my friend, without Jesus Christ, that's a very false hope in God's mercy. Because the Bible says the wicked shall be turned into hell and all nations that forget God. And so we understand that while God is a God of mercy and he extends mercy through his son, Jesus Christ, and His death and His burial and His resurrection, His shed blood on the cross, that's extended to every man. They can be saved from hell. They can be saved from their sin because of the mercy of God. You must understand that if you die without Christ, that mercy is not available to you any longer. There's a lot of people today that have a false sense of mercy. If a man shall go to sea tomorrow in a leaky ship, which takes in the water while she is going down, the river or the lake or the ocean. They may keep the pumps always going, but yet the water gets ahead of the men. You say to the man, sir, if you go out into the sea, it's only a matter of time and your ship will go down. She is not seaworthy. She will never get down the river or the ocean or the lake. Oh, the man may say, don't tell me that. God Almighty is merciful and he'll never let a poor fellow be drowned. I believe that my ship will float and I mean I must run the risk of it. For I believe in God's mercy. Down the river, down the ocean, the vessel goes. Then the wretch on board and all her passengers are drowned. And what do we say? Do we say that God is not merciful? No. If you trust in that general mercy of God and will not obey the gospel of God, but put away from you the way of salvation which God has set for every man, woman, boy or girl, you will perish and you'll be forever separated from God. And my friend, that's a false sense of mercy. There's a false hope in a man's strength. In Job chapter number 6, verse number 11, what is my strength that I should hope? Job came to the realization, Job when he was brought to his knees, Job when he understood that God was in control of his time period in which he lived and everything that he saw, Job said to himself, what is my strength that I should hope? Or in other words, I cannot have confident expectation in my own strength. There's nothing there that guarantees tomorrow. Our hope better be in God. But there is a true hope in God's mercy tonight. A true hope in God's mercy. The Book of Lamentations is an interesting study for me. It is a book that's written by Jeremiah the prophet. It's written around the time that the Babylonians were besieged, conquered. where they decimated the Jews, rather. They were the conquerors. It was the most tragic and horrific moment in the Old Testament. The city was so famished and desperate that people made unbelievable decisions in the book of Lamentations. In fact, in Lamentations chapter 4, and if you have your Bibles, You can turn there. Lamentations chapter 4, verses 9 and 10. Here's how Jeremiah, the prophet, by the Spirit of God, describes the conditions of that day. That they that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger. These pine away, stricken for want of the fruits of the field. Better to be pierced with a sword in that day than to die of hunger." Pretty bad conditions. In fact, in verse number 10, it's even worse. Lamentations 4 and verse number 10 says, the hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children. They were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people. What's it saying, preacher? It's saying that the women in that day got so desperate to eat that if you look up the word Sodom, they boiled their babies. That's a dark day. And in the midst of those dark days where it may have been hard for people to hold on to hope, Jeremiah writes in chapter number three, where hope seems to have perished. In fact, if you look at verse number 18 in Lamentations chapter 3, And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord. Remember my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me. This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. Boy, those are pretty dark days in Israel's history. But, Jeremiah still found a way to keep confident expectation. Why? Because it is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed. Because his compassions fail not, they are new every morning, great is thy faithfulness. My friend tonight, may I encourage you, God does not show mercy to us by accident, nor by weakness. but always with intentionality and purpose and strength. The mercy of God comes, where it comes, it makes men pray. You never bend your knees and yet you say you trust in God's mercy. The Bible says in Psalm 33 verse 18, it talks about them that hope in his mercy and two verses later it says, our soul waited upon the Lord. My friend, if your hope is going to grow in God's mercy in these days, it must be with your soul waiting before God. Don't lose hope in God's mercy. It's new. His mercies are new every morning. Great is His faithfulness. Therefore, you can hope. And I can hope. I want you to see, lastly, the reward of God's mercy tonight. the reward for hoping in God's mercy. It says in Psalms that His eyes are upon them that fear Him and them that hope in His mercy. One of the great blessings of keeping hope in God's mercy and building hope and rejoicing in the hope in God's mercy in your life is that the Bible says the eye of the Lord is upon you. That is a wonderful comfort for you and I tonight. We keep our hope. We make the daily decision. I will hope and I will hope in the Lord's mercy. And Lord, I claim the promise that your eye is upon me today. Amidst all that's going on in the whole wide world, behold, hey, take a look at this truth tonight. God's eye is upon you. All those that hope in his mercy. The eye with which he looks upon you is a father's eye. And when a father sees his child brokenhearted, he says to himself, I cannot stand anything but this. My child's tears overcome me. They overmaster me. I cannot watch him or her this way. And the father's eyes move him to act on behalf of his child. Oh, we can rejoice in the hope of God's mercy. Romans chapter 12, verse number 12 says, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing instant in prayer. Oh, patience with God. My soul, Lord, I'm gonna wait on you throughout whatever I'm facing in my life, and I'm gonna continue instant in prayer. Dear church, brethren tonight, may I say this. Romans 15, 13, now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace and believing that ye may abound in hope, not decrease in hope, not run on empty in hope, but that ye may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. Brethren, may I remind you tonight, not only do the people around us need comfort, but they need someone that has hope. They need someone that has confident expectation in the mercy of God and in the word of God. And so I say tonight, take the words of the psalmist in Psalm 71 and verse 14, but I will hope continually. Preacher, what if something gets worse tomorrow? But I will hope continually. Because God's mercies are new tomorrow, and because God's faithfulness is great, and His Word and His promises are dependable, you can make the same choice. Hey, a lot of things going on. Write your own Psalm 71 verses 10 through 13. Describe what you're feeling in your heart, seeing with your eyes, but then make sure you include verse number 14. But I will hope continually and will yet praise thee more.