All right, Lamentations chapter number three in the Nickel and Dime series. Lamentations has five chapters, so we're over halfway, amen? But you can get bogged down in some areas sometimes, and if you're pacing yourself and thinking, oh, at this pace, don't do that, it may take a lot longer, amen? But anyhow, we'll pick up with verse nine tonight. The heading that we were looking at was Jeremiah's personal experience. He's expressing things a lot as if we are forgetting he went through them too. And he's explaining them as I am this and mine and this is personal to him. And so he says in verse one, I am the man. So we'll go down verse number nine and start off here. He hath enclosed my ways with hewn stone. He hath made my paths crooked. He's speaking here of God putting up roadblocks in his life. And he's speaking here that there are detours and delays and he is going here and yonder and that'll get to you. And so as the war is being waged upon Jerusalem and upon Judah, it's happening to Jeremiah. And so he mentions this, all the things that happened when the city was besieged and people were starving, his belly was involved as well. If God provided for him, that'd be great, but there are also pains he experienced. And he's sharing these things. And notice the words here. Now, you may not notice stuff like this, but I as a preacher and a teacher, I do. The word hewn stone. This is something that was not an accident. It was chiseled. It wasn't just natural formations. This was God putting a roadblock in his life. Be careful what you say about God's hewn stone roadblocks. It may get worse. Amen. Now understand, we know they're in captivity. Jeremiah knows the 70 years, but that doesn't make it any easier to have to wait for day after day after day going through these things. All of this affected him. And this hewn stone means it was designed by God, created by God, and it's not just a luck or happenstance or a bad turn of events. He's in the maze God created for him and God put the roadblocks there. Amen. So he's feeling the experience this. I don't know if I can get a witness, but I've been in that before. Maybe you have as well. And maybe all you can do is go, that's a real nice block you made there, Lord. You chiseled that baby out really good. I can see where you spent a little time on that. And you put it right there, didn't you? Right there. I'll go this way. But you'll be back to where the hewn stone is because there's only gonna be one way, and that's to wait on God. All right, look at verse 10. He was unto me as a bear lying in wait. He's talking about God here and what he's feeling, how he's experienced this. It's not just Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon and a war taking place that they're not winning, but he's describing these things, his experience, and he says it as a bear lying in wait, like a bear waiting to jump on him. As a lion in secret places, like a lion in the bushes waiting to leap on him. Verse 11, he hath turned aside my ways, pulled me and pulled me in pieces, he hath made me desolate. So, you know, there's a lot of descriptions here that almost, you see the Job-like pattern he's experiencing here. And then later on in these verses, as we've already mentioned, there are some prophetic things that connect to what Jesus experienced in the days when he came to earth. And Jeremiah's experiencing these things. And everywhere he turned, he was stopped. And he felt as if he was pursued or being chased by a bear or a lion. I've been chased by a dog before. But that's not the same feeling, is it? That's not the same experience. So he tried to run, he tried to get away because he said he turned aside my ways. I'm going this way, boom, there's the bear. I go here, I feel out there's a lion here. And the Bible says after he went through all that, then apparently he felt like he got caught and was ripped or torn. to pieces, shredded to pieces. The word desolate here he uses, he hath made me desolate. Now this word is deeper than just saying he's made me feel empty. This word is a word that's connected to the word astonished. He has just about make my jaw drop really now how severe this is, what's taking place. He felt wiped out and he felt like it was just the whole land was just when everything was laid to waste around him. And that no matter what he did, he ran into the understanding that this was God. This was God. This was God. Now, remember, I mentioned, I read this last week, Zedekiah, some of the men tried to escape the besiegement and they tried to take off on their own. Then they get caught. So they left everybody that was in the city and Jeremiah warned them that just submit to God and the captivity and you'll live. And some of them actually thrived a little bit when they just let, they just said, you know what? I can't do anything else about this, but live for God in the midst of this. That's what Daniel did. That's what Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did. They just lived for God in the midst of it. When Daniel, in the book of Daniel, turned towards the Jerusalem that wasn't even there, wasn't about the walls, it was about God. And he worshiped. And so Zedekiah and all them, they leave. Well, he gets caught. They take his sons. They kill his sons right before his eyes. And then they poke his eyes out. Nebuchadnezzar was an evil, very vicious king. And so it's better instead of trying to run away from everything, even getting pulled to pieces and made desolate. There's nothing mentioned here that he died. I mean, obviously, that would have been no more writing taking place. Amen. You've heard that phrase, it's funny sometimes, you know, somebody, you drive terrible and you, well, did you die? You've heard that, haven't you? I know some of y'all have heard that before. Some of you drive like that, I know you do. But, you know, he's complaining, he's sharing his experiences, putting great descriptions in here, but God preserved him. He's still alive. Look at verse 12. This is Jeremiah now talking about God treating him this way. He has bent his bow and set me as a mark for the arrow. He put him in the cross hairs. He felt like he was the bull's eye target. He felt like the little red dot was right on him. and he hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins. He felt as if the battle was against him. And this was a little bit of wordplay here. I had to dig into this and I was like, why are some of the people who write commentation about this stuff, why are they talking about the son and the father because of the quiver? But there are many connections to having a quiverful, which means you'd have five, which is a quiverful, If you have five children, it means you have your quiver full. And some of the words in the Hebrew here run into the thought of as if a father had sent a son on a mission with the arrows to take out a target or to shoot. And that's the thing that's opened up here. He calls the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins. It's like a son was sent on a mission, not an accident again, and this was a mission that would allow the arrow to pierce him. He uses the word reigns here. And this is a psychological, mental, physical descriptor of some of the most important things, the vital organs, kidney, heart, your mind. And that's what he felt like the arrow has pierced. And look again, verse 12, God's the one that bent the bow. He pulled it back. And that's how he feels. These are Jeremiah's personal experiences. I'll just say this, listen, we all complain. We all probably have pretty good reasons to complain. Even if you really don't, we feel like we do, amen. And so most of us, I think we all believe we do, really, when it comes down to it. But here, he's saying that God has pulled out this arrow and took a shot and it has taken a severe toll. It has hit him in his reins. It's in the most vital part of who he is. And I'm glad God put this kind of stuff in the Bible. If man would have written God's word, he would have left out sinful moments of his own life. cover up his tracks. Every once in a while, he'd probably make God look bad, you know, every once in a while. But here, in the Bible, we get all of that. We get man's sin. We get men complaining about God. David did it. Job did it. Now, Job didn't accuse God foolishly, but he complained. Job was so upset, he said, it'd have been better if I hadn't been born. Who is he talking to? He's really arguing towards God. Been better if you hadn't let me even be here that the day he was born would have been erased from the calendar. That's the descriptions of Job's experience. So Jeremiah mentions this about the arrow coming at him. Then in verse number 14, What we have here is a little bit of what we'll see again of some of what we'll call Jesus's prophetic experiences. These are things that Jeremiah is sharing with us that Bible scholars say these are prophetic experiences that Christ will have when he lived on the earth and when he was on the cross. Verse 14, he says, I was a derision to all my people and their song all the day. You know, when he was on the cross, they hissed at him. I mean, even Peter denied it even knew him. Peter cussed out loud trying to camouflage it. He even knew who he was. He was abandoned and forsaken by everyone. Jeremiah explains he was like a mockery in the eyes of the people and he was a base of their song some of the bad songs that they were singing and the phrase hear all my people brings out that idea of of this being a prophetic experience, a prophetic verse, a verse that's prophecy of something that Jesus would experience. Psalms 22, if you'll read that later, many call that a messianic song. It's a song about the Messiah. And there's descriptions and experiences there that are shared. Verse 15, he has filled me with bitterness. I was talking, might've been to Susie Hamby. But there's a lot of little phrases out there and I think there's some stuff she's going to share in the bulletin next time. But, you know, bitterness affects the vessel stored more than the vessel poured. Now, I didn't make that up. That was Paul Chapel in California. Now, I did think of it before I ever heard he thought of it, but here's how my version is. Bitterness affects you more than the person you're bitter at. That was my hillbilly version. It was pretty simple. But the other one is so much more pretty. Amen. It's beautiful. But it's the truth. As you hold the bitterness inside of you, it eats you alive and poisons you. And you think you're pointed out on people. Most of the time, they don't even know you're mad at them. They don't even know why you're mad at them. They don't even know why you're grieved or you're bothered or you're disturbed. So Jeremiah brings this up and says, God, he hath filled me with bitterness. He hath made me drunken with wormwood. And this connection to wormwood is a plant and the bitterness of the flavor or the taste of that plant and the leaves and its nastiness that that plant gives. So all of this is just a one-sided experience that he's feeling, feeling abandoned, and feeling like he is just completely filled up with nothing but bitterness and that is all that God has sent into his life is bitterness. If I'd have had a little bitterness and a little blessings and I'd have a 50-50, I'd have an honor Palmer, amen? But all I got is bitterness. Nothing but bitterness. Now, The sadness of this is he mentions as if that is all he ever had. It's easy for bitterness to get so bad sometimes you forget you ever were blessed. And you know, that's the work of the devil and the work of our flesh. Because just like the song we were singing a while ago, I got to thinking about mine, I said, you know, I am blessed no matter what. I really am. I can truly say, I have been blessed. I got no room to complain. But my brain was thinking while we were singing the song, but I'm really not always happy. And it's the truth. I'm not always happy. But then I backed up and I looked and it said, in my Savior. And I said, I'm supposed to be always happy and blessed. Because in Him, the truth is, that is the truth. I am happy and blessed in my Savior. He saved me well. I'm not very good at it, but he saved me well. I am saved, and when I die, I'm going to go to heaven. Now, I've not lived the cleanest and purest that I should have. I've failed him in many, many ways, but there's nothing but happiness and blessedness, and I could even describe peace and mercy and grace and love and joy. I could add more to that in him, but in me is where all the failing comes. through all the sensations of the experience, the feelings that he's having. So bitterness, as he says, he has filled me with bitterness. Well, no, God is chastising the whole nation. But this book shares, and I'll just admit this, I've never preached this book before. I've read it many times over, you know, the desire is read your Bible through all that. I've done that many times, but I never really saw Jeremiah's side of things like I have in this study, is that he got pretty bitter. He prophesied and he was one of the prophets that God sent to the people of Judah to warn them. And we've already gone through all this in introduction. God warned them way before Jeremiah was born. He warned them in the book of Exodus 600 years before. If you mess this up, I'm going to get, I'm going to get my year, my Sabbath year. The land is going to rest. I'm going to get what I deserve. I'm going to get what I want because he's God. He's going to get it. and they just ignored it. And Jeremiah's got bitterness. He feels like he's just completely soaked and saturated with wormwood. which is a bitter, nasty, they say, really, I've never had it. Even Chernobyl in the Russian means wormwood in the book of Revelation when it talks about the poisonous things that maybe, it might be nuclear. We don't know what it is, but when there's judgment takes place in the book of Revelation, that's a word, wormwood, is in the book of Revelation. So this is how he feels. He's filled up with nastiness. Look at verse 16. He hath also broken my teeth. were gravel stones. Now I got to look at it and I said, now what in the world does that mean? But some Bible commentators and historians believe that he's talking about that a lot of the bread was made with what little they had and it was a lot of it sometimes would be in the dirt and other things and there was gravel in it and he probably broke his teeth eating it. Now some of you have been through stuff like that and when you're already, you've had enough of God, you've had enough of things, you're not very happy and then you break your tooth. What does that normally do to us? You ever heard the phrase, the straw that broke the camel's back? That's the symbolism here. Listen, that's not enough, Brother Donnie. He also has broken my teeth with stone, with gravel stones. He hath covered me with ashes, which is symbolism of, it's like being mourning, sitting in a ash heap. A lot like Job, again. the feeling of physical suffering, the mourning of death, and people really had died. He already explained, talking about the young lady, the young virgin ladies laying in the street, people had died, priests had died, Levites had died, young men had died, and he's experiencing all this. And as he's prophesying and preaching and telling them what's gonna happen, he gets accused as being a traitor, a false prophet, and they throw him in a dungeon, put him in a pit. And he just, you know, he had a pretty low spot, pretty low place. Verse 17. And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace. I forget prosperity. It had been so long since he remembered good time of peace, prosperity. Now it seemed nothing but so far away. Yeah, I know some people like that. They're just so far away from the last blessing, at least they can't seem to remember it. And they're so broken and so hurt and so upset. And it feels like God has just taken them and moved them into a far and distant land on maybe another planet. And it's far away from peace. And so long and so harsh that he forgot prosperity. That happens to all of us, I think. And it may be even more in the short term of things, but it's like, Lord, it's just this and this. This year just stinks. And then I'm just, oh, I'm just tired, Lord. I mean, good gracious, it's just April. I mean, I got six, eight more of this? You forget that not every day has been like that this year. And last year wasn't a complete total write-off, even though you might want to say it was. If God could remind us, there was prosperity and there was even peace. But the devil likes to keep our nose rubbed in those things. And our flesh, be honest with you, is inclined to do that. It's been a long time since I remembered the good times. Peace and prosperity, it's all so far away now. There are some days I feel like this. I feel like everything, the whole sky is gray, everything, you know, gravel in my teeth, and every time, every turn, everything you do, there's nothing but God in your way, and you know why, but you can't seem to do nothing about it. You can't do nothing about it. He says in verse 18, and I said, my strength and my hope is perished from the Lord. I'm so very weary, weak and tired. God has sent all this to me. Remembering my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall, here's the bitterness connection again. Notice he's, what is he remembering here? He's remembering his affliction and his misery I'll tell you, this doesn't work very well. If you're gonna get out of discouragement and depression, remembering your misery and your gall and your bitterness and all your pain and your suffering and, you know, the bank account's empty, you got medical bills, you're going to... None of that's gonna get you out of that. Not. Remembering my affliction and my misery, the whirlwind and the gall, my soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me. I had once come from a place from him of blessings and goodness, and no doubt there were times Jeremiah would, thus saith the Lord. Woo, boy, everybody, they got together, they got in line, and God just went boom, and it happened, and it's like, prophet. Now, false prophet, traitor. And he knows what's happening, it's going to happen, and he knows what he's saying is right, but he doesn't feel It doesn't feel very good. It's nothing but affliction and misery. The very low place, he feels cut off from God, even though he's tried to do what is right. That's a really critical, hard place. When you try to do right, and then it seems like it gets worse. And he is remembering God's doing it. But it doesn't change the fact that he's overwhelmed. And all he can remember, it seems, is affliction, misery, bitterness. I want to read something now. I'm going to find it real quick. I should have marked this. There it is. Isaiah 53. Just listen. There's some prophetic things of Christ, what he went through. The Bible says in Isaiah 53 verse 1, who hath believed our report? To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? This passage of Isaiah is said to be explaining the experience of Christ. For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, as a root out of the dry ground, and hath no form nor comeliness. And when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. We hid as it were our faces from him. He was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. Boy, I greatly fell there, greatly fell. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off out of the land of the living, for the transgression of my people was he stricken. He hath made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death, because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He hath put him to grief. When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul when it shall be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will divide a portion with the great. He shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he hath poured out his soul unto death, and he was numbered with the transgressors. Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, praying that the cup of sin, that he would not have to die on the cross to take all our sins the way that he knew the path was. See, Jeremiah knew the path and knew what had to be, what was and what had to be. Jesus even experienced that suffering, anticipating what was coming. And he said, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. And then he says, nevertheless, y'all know the scripture, right? Got to thinking about how long of a pause, how much time went on between that part? I don't think it was, Nevertheless, he agonized in that garden. He prayed, and the Bible says, as it were, sweat came out of his pores, as it were, great drops of blood. I believe that's a physical description. The book of Luke's describing a physical thing where the capillaries in his body ruptured and real sweat, blood came through his pores. And he suffered in that. And part of that suffering was to say, I don't want to do this this way. Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. And I think you'd have to admit him down on the cross was the worst. I mean, that's death and suffering, and it was excruciating to have your hands and feet nailed with those nails and the crown of thorns upon his head and he was even beaten before he was ever put on the cross. And he went on to that cross and he endured the shame, he despised the shame, endured the cross. Jesus gets on the cross and he begins to talk on the cross and pray on the cross and he's calling his father's name out several times. And then there comes a time where he says, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? He didn't call him father then. And I believe he was forsaken on that cross and that's when he became sin for us. And his father could not look upon him any longer because he is representing the sins of the whole world. The Bible says that the sun was darkened for a space of three hours. I mean, there was an earthquake and the sun was darkened as he died on that cross. Jesus was forsaken of his father so that we would not be forsaken. He was judged for our sins so you and I would not have to be. And there's many of these things he describes in this chapter. Many point these things to a time where Jesus was on the cross There's a prophecy fulfilled, even an experience that he endured, Christ endured as well. And he says in that verse, remembering my affliction in verse 19, and I'll quickly throw this out here. Look at verse 21. This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed because His compassions fail not. It feels as if Judah, Jerusalem, and Jeremiah really should have all been consumed. If it would have been completely up to Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon, they would have consumed them and you would have never heard from them again. But here, now he's not remembering all the misery, he's saying, this I recall, something came to his mind, and he says, because of this thought, he says, therefore, I have hope. These are the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. In Psalms 136, verse 23, the Bible says, who remembered us in our lowest state, for his mercy endures forever. And every psalm in Psalm 136, every one, all 26 end with that phrase, His mercy endureth forever. If you can get this on your mind, amen, that He has never-ending mercy and never-failing compassion. Even if He slays you, you can trust Him. And if he doesn't, you'll get back up and you'll walk on for him. And you'll live for him and you'll learn to love him even in the midst of the greatest suffering that you could experience. I can't explain that. I'm just telling you, I've experienced it and it's real. Now will I go back and be whiny britches again? Probably. Worse than whiny, I mean, that's not just whiny, it's not like he's got a splinter. I mean, this is worse, amen? They would have been consumed. Without this mercy, they would have been completely wiped out. And then he says, those mercies, he says, those compassions, he said, verse 23, they are new every morning. Newness is freshness, amen? Compassion, new mercies every single morning. Morning gives me hope that the night is ended, the sun has come back up again. We got a new day, a new start. I might have some hope that for just a little while, instead of being filled with bitterness, I can be filled with mercy. Have that saturating me. I could be drunken on that rather than wormwood and gall and misery. Now, which version would you want to be? Amen. No, I don't have time. I know we're not running out of time here. It's real interesting. He got these few little verses here through verse 26. Then he'll go into some, what we're going to call Jeremiah's proverbial education or something like that. Cause he's almost got a Proverbs feel to it. And then you go to chapter four, look at verse one. How? He goes right back, he goes right back. How did, how is it this bad? How did this happen? How is this going on? He's right back. And it's very realistic to me that in the midst of all these chapters and all these verses, there's just a little bit of time that we get back our mind on mercy and compassion. And it seems like we're enjoying the revival. I'll read them real quickly. The Lord is my, Portion. Amen. He said great is our faith. The Lord is my portion. He's my inheritance Hey, he's my next meal He's the hope and future you take the temple you take the walls and you take my land and you take the future of the people and yet God's gonna put them right back over there after 70 years later. Only God could do stuff like that The Lord is my portion, saith my soul, therefore will I hope in him. The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. And then in chapter four, we kind of go right back where we were. It is of the Lord's mercies that we're not consumed. I don't know about you, but even in the best version of Brian, I don't like me sometimes. No, I didn't have to laugh. Hey, man, I'm just kidding. I know you weren't doing that. It's a wonder that he's like, you know what? I'm done with this guy. I'm done. Just let him wipe out. Just let the lion and the bear, let him drink the wormwood or whatever, just let him go. Just let him die. Just fill him full of arrows, all the things he described. Let's get the hewn stone and just drop it on him, amen? Let's just get, you're so miserable, let's just get you out of your misery. And even the nation of Israel, man, how they complained and all they went through, the time when God delivered them and they complain about the manna, they complain about the quail, and yet God, when he sends chastisement, he turns back around, he sends mercy again. If you feel like that you're underneath the bad side of things now, the hope is the morning's coming, and that morning might have mercy and compassion that will not fail. So don't, even if tomorrow's bad, Hey, Friday might be the day. We serve a God of hope. In this book, Lamentations, you'd think it was done and ended, but we've already looked at some other books and stuff, and we know the New Testament as well. God puts them back. He gives them a temple again. In fact, last time I checked, Israel has a nation still right now. 1948, they got a new nation again. You can't tell me that God is not merciful. And if you just knew me, just how bad it's been this week already, amen? I mean, Monday was a challenging day. And today, mercy, compassions. It just felt that the vibe was different today. Even yesterday, it wasn't the greatest day. I don't know what tomorrow will be like. But I know as fickle as I am and I can change from this to this and this day and Friday I might be up here and Saturday I'm down here and Sunday I might be back up here, Monday back down here, God's faithfulness is great. It never wavers, never changes. Sister Virginia, would you please come and play something for us? Every head bowed, every eye closed. I don't know if you needed some of this tonight, but listen, the timing of this is what it is. We got here when we needed to get here. It's just a little spot of this wonderful, glorious few verses in this book. And so far, Brother Don, this book's been pretty down and it's kind of dreary. And then hear this, great is thy faithfulness, mercy's new every morning. Boy, it doesn't last long, but thank God it does come along. Thank God it is there. This I recall to my mind, therefore I have I hope. It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed. His compassions fail not. His mercies are new every morning. Maybe you need to come to the altar today, reset some things. Maybe you need to ask the Lord to forgive you and help you admit that you are filled with bitterness and misery and reach out to that mercy and that compassion of a loving, faithful, patient, gracious, long-suffering God. The altar is open, and you're obviously welcome to pray back where you are, but maybe this means something to you tonight more than you thought it would. Anybody should preach or pray for me. Nobody looking around, I've been feeling pretty miserable. Had a lot of misery. Been bitterness and hurt, suffering. Yes, sir. I feel like, yes, ma'am. I feel like, yes, sir. Every turn, roadblock, every turn, a hewn stone, handcrafted by God. He just stopped me in my tracks. You can remember that affliction or you can choose to say, this I recall to mind, therefore I have I hope. I want to start thinking about this mercy that he has given me and the mercy he will give me even now. And even as I have said that he, God, you did all these things to me. That same God that we will accuse and we'll take all of it personal. Oh my, my, my. Boy, I feel conviction upon myself when I take it personal. Like it's all against me. When it's much bigger than that, many times it's about His glory and what He's doing in my life and He wants to conform me to His image. Then I could ask God to help me. I could lean on His mercy one more time. I could cry out, Lord, You are my portion. You're everything that I need. You're my hope. You're my inheritance. You're my lot. You're my cup filled up. You're all those treasures. Every mountain that you made a way, every Red Sea that you opened up, you are all those things. We always feel better when we recall that to mind and we get back Even if it's short-lived, if I didn't have that, I would be consumed. Father, I pray you'll help these here today. God, you know their heart, you know their needs. I thank you, God, that you're patient and long-suffering and gracious towards us. Lord, as we see the heart of Jeremiah here, even see the suffering that Christ went through, the challenge of doing the will of God and yet submitting to it, surrendering, Whatever you want, God help us to do that. Help our people, Lord. Refresh them, bring new mercy into their life. Bring it into their minds. Give them that mercy and that grace and that compassion. Give them that strength. Lord, let them find in you their portion again. Lord, lift them up one more time. In Jesus' name we pray.