has generally preached out of it very often. And to be perfectly honest with you, I can't remember the last time I did preach out of it. Lamentations chapter three, and we'll begin our reading this morning with verse number 21. Lamentations chapter three, beginning with verse 21. My soul, hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me. This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is at the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because he compasses, because passions fail not. They are new every morning, great is thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, saith my soul, therefore will I hope in him. The Lord is good unto them that wait for Him, for the soul that seeketh Him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. Let's pray. Your kind and gracious Heavenly Father, as we come before Thee this morning, we come thanking Thee, Lord, for this wonderful day that You've given us. We thank You, our Father, for those that have come out to be with us today. We ask thy blessings upon them. Lord, we pray for those that are traveling this morning. Also, Lord, we're mindful that Brother Stephen is not feeling well this morning. I pray, Lord, that you'd bless him. Dear Lord, we just pray that you'd open our hearts, Lord, to what you have done to us, or for us, I should say. Dear Lord, I pray that we would have a greater understanding of our position in you when troubles and trials come our way. Dear God, I pray if there's anybody here this morning that's lost, that this would be the very time that you'd speak to their hearts and draw them unto yourself. Dear Lord, what you do for us, we'll thank you and praise you for these things we do ask in Jesus' name. Amen. The subject I'd like to draw our thoughts to this morning is great is thy faithfulness. I call Brother Bruce this morning and asked him if he would sing that song for us today. I appreciate it. It's a beautiful song that kind of sets the tone for what we're going to be looking at this morning. Now, normally, if you're looking for encouragement, help, strength, anything along those lines, the Book of Lamentations is about the last book you'd want to go to. The book of Lamentations is a very sad book, by and large, in the things that Jeremiah dictates and covers in. However, in the midst of all that, we find this oasis of verses that we read this morning that speaks of the faithfulness of God. The book of Lamentations is a series of psalms of warning. There is a word that's for that, and I have it here in my notes, but I can't pronounce it, so I'm not gonna use it. D-I-R-G-E-S, dirge, dirges, ditches? But it's songs of what? Dirge. Dirges. Or songs of mourning. They were written against the backdrop of the Babylonian invasion and the destruction of Jerusalem that came with it. We need to be mindful today that there are those that are very active that would like nothing more than to destroy Jerusalem again and to take it captive and all the inhabitants thereof. But I don't believe that's gonna happen. I don't find anything in scripture to point to that. God's gonna look over his people. God's gonna look after his people and they're gonna prevail once again in the midst of everything that's going on. In the verses of this book, we can see the awful suffering that was endured by the people of that city at the hand of their enemies. Still, and this is the key, still, even in the midst of all the pain and all the turmoil, God had his man in Jerusalem to record the events and to bring honor to his name. While all this was going on, God had placed Jeremiah there. to take care of these very things. He was known, the writer of the book of Limitations is believed to be Jeremiah. I've not seen anything to make me, to dissuade me to think that it was him. I'm positive pretty much that it was. And he was known, as you probably remember, as the Weeping Prophet because his heart was broken by so much that he saw, and so much that he witnessed, and so much that he was a part of. A study of Jeremiah's life reveals a portrait of unending sadness and deep depression. At this time, I want to take a moment to look at the background of Jeremiah, what went through. He received an unwanted call to minister. In Jeremiah chapter one verses five and six. He didn't go out seeking him. He didn't go out asking God to choose him. He didn't go out wanting God to place his hand upon his life and send him apart a prophet. It was unwanted altogether. He was called to a ministry of preaching nothing but judgment. Jeremiah chapter one verses nine and 10. I have to tell you, it would be hard, tiresome, if you will, to preach nothing but judgment. Because you like to have something that will uplift folks once in a while. You like to have something that's positive to give to folks. Jeremiah's ministry was one of judgment. He was forbidden to marry so that he might give himself more fully to his ministry of proclaiming the impending judgment of God. Chapter 16, verses 1 through 13 of Jeremiah. As a result, he was very familiar with loneliness. as he had to go through his life alone. He was a man of deep sadness and wept openly about the sins of his people. Jeremiah chapter nine, verse one. He endured depression as a result of his message, which he knew was from God. He knew who had given it to him. He didn't understand it all any more than any of the prophets understood all that they had, but he knew this was from God and he was depressed because it went unheeded for so long. He even came to the point where he tried to get out of it. He said, I will not speak in your name anymore. I've had it. I'm done. Choose somebody else. His pain is understandable because in a ministry that spanned some 50 years, there is no record of even one convert. 50 years with no results. of nothing but ridicule and jeers and the hatred of the people that he came around and came into contact with. He suffered imprisonment by King Zedekiah because the king did not approve of Jeremiah's preaching. Jeremiah chapter 32 and verse 5. And even while the Babylonians were invading the city, in fulfillment of his prophetic declaration, exactly as Jeremiah said they would, Jeremiah is sitting in the dungeon. Chapter 32 and verse 2 of Jeremiah. After Jerusalem falls and many have been killed or taken captive, Jeremiah does not gloat, nor does he take I told you so mentality. Instead he becomes broken and went with the remnant and enters into suffering with them. Lamentations chapter 1 through 5. So after enduring a life like this, after being rejected, hated, mocked, imprisoned, ignored, after seeing his beloved Jerusalem ransacked, desecrated, and destroyed, after experiencing the horror of war, the brutality of the enemy, and the pains of hunger, Jeremiah was still able, by the help of God, to stand forth amid the rubble of the city and the bodies of the dead, to lift his voice in praise to God. It takes a man that has the hand of God upon him to be able to do that, or a lady, whichever the case may be. When everything's gone, and in your life all that's left is the rubble of what you had, to be able to stand in the midst of it and proclaim the goodness of God, The love of death takes God's hand because the flesh is going to go the opposite way. The flesh is going to question. The flesh is going to blame God rather than accept the power that God is there. He would praise God for his great unfailing faithfulness to his people. How is it possible? How could he do this? We said God's hand was upon him. And despite his trials and his troubles, Jeremiah had gotten a good grasp of the reality of just who God is. That's a problem that we have today. We don't really understand who God is. You can tell that by the way people talk about him. You can tell that by the way that they think that They can keep God in a little bottle in their pocket and go along and do all they want to do. And then whenever they get in a bind or whenever they get in trouble, they take that little bottle out and let God out and expect Him to help. That's not the God of the Bible. He is Almighty. He is in control of all things. And Jeremiah understood that. So Jeremiah knew that whether things went well, or whether everything fell apart, God would still be God, and that God would be eternally faithful to his people. Why? As Brother Drew brought out in Sunday School, it was because of the covenant that he made with Abraham. That was an unconditional covenant, and it will never, never be broken. That's especially important to remember in these days when Jerusalem and Israel's in the trouble that they're in. That covenant that God made is not broken today. It never will be. Because of this, Jeremiah was still able to find hope in a hopeless situation because he believed in the faithfulness of his great God. Now like Jeremiah, We all go through times when it seems that everything falls apart at the seam. We've all experienced that, probably more than once, when it just all kind of comes apart. When these times come, and they will, if you haven't experienced them, you will, we need the blessed assurance that God is faithful. Why is that important? because He has promised. He didn't say maybe. He promised that I will be with you always, even until the end of the age. He'll be with you always. I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So even when everything falls apart, He is still there. He is still with us. He is still helping us, even though it's difficult for us to see. And He's working everything out for ultimately for his glory and our good. And that's another hard fact for us to get our minds around, but it's true nonetheless. Thankfully, the Bible gives us overwhelming evidence of the unchanging faithfulness of our great God. Notice the word faithfulness in verse 23. This is a word that means firmness, Fidelity, steadiness, steadfastness. This word pictures God as one upon whom we can depend. Man, how many people can you truly depend on today? Now, I'm not saying that there's people that will intentionally do things to harm you. We know they are. But there's a lot of people that have nothing but our good in mind. They have nothing but our welfare at heart. But there's circumstances that comes upon them that may well prevent them from helping us at a particular time. It's not because they don't want to. They just simply cannot do it. But we can depend on God throughout whatever comes, whatever goes. He's there for us. He is faithful to us, and He cannot be anything other than that. God will ever prove Himself to be steadfast and faithful to you and me. To put it very simply, you can count on the Lord. Now, I'd like to take this passage and point out three precious words in these verses that tell us why Jeremiah was able to proclaim, great is thy faithfulness. And that's what we're gonna be looking at as we go through. First thing we wanna see, that God is faithful in his grace. First part of verse 22. We're gonna look here at a very beautiful word, and that is mercies. The mercies of God. This word is translated loving kindness over 30 times in the Old Testament. His loving kindness toward his people. It's a very expressive word that conveys all the ideas of love, the love that he has for us, the love that he has for his people and has had throughout all time and will continue to. It has the idea of grace, mercy, faithfulness, goodness, and devotion. What more could we ask for? What more could we want? The word pictures God as the divine lover of men. We love him because what? He first loved us. So he is a picture of love that's extended to us. It finds its New Testament equivalent in the idea of God's love and grace that's extended to those who are lost and to those who are saved each and every day. Jeremiah seems to be remembering that it was the pure grace of God that had brought Israel out of their slavery in Egypt. There was no way that they should have gotten out of there. They had nothing. They had nothing to fight with. They had nothing to rebel against or rebel with. They had nothing that would raise them up to be able to conquer the people of Egypt and come out. But God's grace and God's mercy, and he came down, did he not? and delivered him through the plagues. He brought them out and delivered them from the slavery that they were in and brought salvation to them. It also shows grace that had kept them, a redeemed people, in spite of their failures and wonderings. And boy, did they ever fail and wonder over and over and over again. You start at Kedash-Bernean. But you can find they're slipping as they're getting up there to it, wondering what God's going to do. They growl because they're thirsty. They growl because of what they have to eat. They growl about this, that, and the other. But when they got to Cated-Expernia, they did not have faith in the promise of God. And it cost them 40 years of wandering through the wilderness until that generation had passed off the scene. We see it over and over again, as again, Brother Drew brought out in the book of Judges. Over and over again, they get in sin, God brings in judgment, they cry out to God for deliverance, God raises up a judge, he delivers them, they stay faithful as long as that judge is alive. As soon as that judge dies, back down they go, and they're bringing on judgment of God upon them. That practice goes on over and over and over in the Book of Judges. They never seem to learn. There is a word for us in this thought today. Thank God for His mercies that's upon us. Thank God that we're not consumed. Consumed how? In judgment, as well as for enemies. But thank God He looks after us. His grace saves us. Only grace could have reached us in our lost and doomed condition. Nothing else could, nothing else would but the grace of Almighty God. We could in no way get to God, even if we wanted to. When we were in our sins, before God redeemed us, we had no access to God. I've heard people say on occasions, Well I was searching for God for however long until finally I found Him. Now that's all fine and good but the Bible doesn't say anything about a lost person searching after God. A lost person is going away from God as fast as they can go. A lost person is determined to do what they wish to do irregardless of what they're supposed to do. So it takes the grace of God to change that person and get them ahead to where they want to be. So therefore, since we couldn't get to God, what happened? God came to us. Remember the story of the 99? How the shepherd had 100 sheep and one of them was lost? And how the shepherd left the 99 and went out and found that lost one. be loved in your life until you are saved or if you're here this morning and lost. You are a lost sheep if God is speaking to your heart, if God is dealing with you. There's only two kinds of people in the world, well, saved and lost, I know, but there's gates, there's goats and there's sheep. I've come to the conclusion as I drive around that we don't have anything in our area but goat herders. Everybody has goats. I have no idea why, but they have goats. Goats, goats, and more goats. I'm afraid there's a lot of goats in churches today. Goats are not saved people and they will never be saved because they're goats. You can't change their nature. A lost sheep, on the other hand, is that one that the Lord goes after. Well, how do y'all know if the Lord is coming after me? Because you know inside, you feel it inside, that the Lord is calling you. Your sins have been pointed out to you. And you feel a burden for those sins. That's the shepherd calling you and coming for you. He came in the person. of the Lord Jesus Christ to die for our sins, which He did upon the cross. He came in the person of the Holy Spirit to draw us to God so that we might be saved. What a wonderful blessing it is that we should be eternally thankful for is the grace of God and the mercies that come to us because of His grace. His grace secures us. We've already seen that grace sought us when we were lost in sin. It is His grace that keeps us in our safe condition. We couldn't do it. If He didn't secure us and keep us in His hand, we would go right back exactly where we were before. We would be just as wicked as we ever were before. But He keeps us. Do we ever go astray? You know the answer to that question as well as I do. But we're always in His hand. He never forgets us. He never leaves us alone. We're always with Him. Disobedient, to be chastened and brought back, but we're always there with Him. We know that we are all prone to failure, and we're also prone to spiritual wandering. The one goes with the other very, very well. If our salvation rested on our ability to be faithful to the Lord, None of us would ever be saved. Salvation is of the Lord, as Job said. I mentioned that last week, I think. Thankfully, thankfully our salvation is the Lord's arena and not ours. That's why we know we're eternally saved. That's how we know we're eternally secure because of the workings of God. We are saved by His grace and we're kept by that same grace. Thank God for His unfailing, unchanging, faithful grace and the mercies it's given to us. Secondly, God is faithful in his gifts, the second part of verse 22 and verse 23. Another beautiful word we're gonna look at, the second one, is compassion. Compassion. This is a word that literally means womb. I was surprised when I looked that up, I had no idea. It means to be moved in the heart out of love for another. You're reaching out to somebody else. This word is a picture of the grace of God actively moving in the life of the believer. The psalmist tells us that the steps of a good man are ordered of the Lord, right? He directs us. We just have to listen to that still, small voice and not go blundering off on our own. And that's a hard thing to do sometimes. Think about Paul and the battles he had with his thorn in the flesh. Three times he asked the Lord to remove it. The Lord wasn't the Lord's will because he never promised an easy road for us. He did, however, promise that his grace would be sufficient for the need. That's a powerful verse, folks. His grace is sufficient. That means regardless of what we are dealing with, regardless of what comes our way, regardless of what might happen to us, His grace will bring us through it. His grace will be all that we need to endure it until we come out the other side. His grace will never fail us. His grace is perfect. His grace is solid and secure, and we need not worry. Grace is usually defined as the unmerited love and favor of God towards sinners. And it carries that idea. I'm not saying it doesn't. It carries that idea. But this is a word that's come to mean so much more than that. It has come to refer to the strength of God to face battles and to bear up in our times of difficulty. You remember back a few weeks ago, we studied Gideon in our Sunday school class. And how God trimmed down the army to just 300 men. 300 men to go against a great number that was ready to do battle. How could they win? God was sworn. was fighting the battle for them. It wasn't of theirs. He was one to face their battles for them and bear them up under what they were enduring. With this in mind, we should always remember that regardless of what life sends our way, we can be confident of the fact that the Lord will give us the necessary strength to face the trying times of life. He'll give us what we need. You might say, as you sat there this morning, think of something and say, well, there's no way that I can endure that. There's no way that I can go through that. And as you sat here this morning, you're right. But if you ever come to the position where you face that, then you'll have the strength to go on. Have you ever been around a person who was dying, and they knew they were dying, They knew their time was short. And do you ever notice, ever see the peace that they have? The contentment that they have? The confidence that everything is all right, that they possess? Why? That's because God has given them grace to die. God has given them grace to deal with what they have to deal with. and he'll do the same thing for you and I when we face the problems we face in our lives. You will never face a situation as a believer, never, that God will not give you the grace and help to make it through. It may not be who you want to be, it may not be how you want it to be, it may not be like you want it to be, but he'll take you through. And you'll be the better person when you come out the other side. Notice the gifts we receive. There's the gift of His presence. In Hebrews chapter 13 verse 5 and Matthew chapter 28 verse 20, they're both deals with that. These verses along with others reveal the great truth that God is always present with His children. Always. We talk about that at some length. Even though He cannot be seen, He is still there. When you cannot trace God in your life, I challenge you to come to the place where you can trust Him fully, and you'll find Him right there. There's a gift of performance. You finish in chapter 3 and verse 20. This verse reveals the word able. If that verse is to be taken at face value, and I am certain that it is, then it becomes plain that your God is greater, far greater than any problem that we had or will ever face. How thankful we should be for that fact. And that's something that the devil tries to push aside and remind us, try to get us to forget about, or at least not act as though it's there. He will take care of you. I would challenge anybody to tell me a time when God did not take care of you. Lifted you up. Took care of a situation that you could not take care of. He did it for us. There's a gift of provision. Philippians chapter 4 verse 19 and Matthew chapter 6 verse 25-33. These verses teach us the great truth that God is interested in meeting our needs. He doesn't do it begrudgingly. He probably has to. because it's something that he feels compelled to do. No, he does it because he wants to, out of his love for us, from the mercies that he's extended to us. It may be that his idea of taking care is different than ours, but that is where faith and the trustworthiness of God comes in. Simple fact is we don't know what's best for us. We think we do, but we don't. I can look back on my life over the years and I can look and truthfully say that there have been many times I am glad that when I prayed for something God said no. Because I can see now how much better off I am that he said no. And I doubt if I'm the only one that can say that. I am sure that Job would have chosen another alternative than losing his children, his health, and his wealth. But he was willing to trust the Lord through times that cannot be understood and that makes no sense. Though he slay me, ye will not serve him, Job declared. What about you and me? Where are we at today? Do we really believe that the Lord is absolutely faithful? Do we believe that he has our best interests at heart? Are we confident of the fact that God will indeed provide for our needs? Sometimes it may be a good thing that we go through some difficult time because it causes us to rely on God. And it causes us to know for a fact that he'll come through for us and do for us exactly what he said he would do. Then there's the gift of His person. Hebrews 3, verse 18 and Malachi 3, verse 6. These verses reveal the truth about God's nature that makes Him reliable at all times. Not just occasionally, but at all times. That is simply the fact that He does not change. The same yesterday, today, and forever. He was faithful in the beginning and will be faithful in the end. He was faithful to the children of Israel. He will be faithful to Israel today. And he's faithful to you and I as believers. He was steadfast in the lives of the Bible characters that placed their faith in him. And he will be steadfast in the life of every believer who will trust him in these days. God is steadfast and a trustworthy God. His gifts are fresh. First part of verse 23. According to this verse, the grace of God is as fresh as the new day. Now, I'm not asking if you're a morning person or not. Some people are. Some people aren't. But you gotta say, There is something about the freshness of a brand new day. Yesterday's mistakes are behind us. Yesterday's blunders are behind us. Yesterday's problems are behind us. And we got a brand new day to do with what we will. To make the same mistakes sometimes, we have a new day to serve the Lord. Fresh and new. That's exactly how His grace is. We do not have to worry about there not being enough for us to make it through. There's more than enough. This is because God's grace in our lives is as fresh as the brand new day. How wonderful that brand new day is. Even if some people aren't aware that the new day starts before 11 o'clock. Just as every new day brings with it its own sets of burdens and problems, so each day witnesses a new, unfailing, all-sufficient supply of God's marvelous, matchless, wonderful, amazing grace as we face that day. God's faithfulness is seen in the fact that we woke up this morning in our right minds and in reasonable health. That was because of the grace and mercy of God. We woke up with air to breathe, food to eat, people we love around us, and so forth, that he gives to us, that he's allowing us to enjoy. God is a faithful, wonderful Lord in everything that we need in this life. Thirdly, and I'll wrap this up quickly, God is faithful in his goodness, verses 24 through 26, his goodness to us. The word good has the idea of pleasant, agreeable, and excellent. It refers to the character of God. This word reminds us that God is ever engaged in that which is best in the lives of the children, always. First part of verse 24 points out that he is our satisfier. God is described as the soul's portion. Portion, that's what, you know, when somebody cooks large amounts, you know, a company of people or whatever. More often than not, they cook by portions. Each person is allotted a portion of what food there is. And I never did understand how all that worked, but I know that that's how it's done many times. The Lord is our portion. We're not wanting. We're not waning. We're not missing anything. He is all that we need. We are satisfied. It refers here also to the spoils of war. Jeremiah is saying in the battle of life that God is my reward, my share, and my portion. Thank God for that fact, that he is. When the Lord is viewed in this light, he will be all that a person needs to be satisfied in our soul. And that's what means the most to be satisfied in here. We may still want things, we may still desire things, we're human, but we're satisfied in our soul. God may not give you and me the things that we desire in life, but he will always, always give us that which is best. And he'll give us that which will satisfy the soul. He is a sustainer. The latter part of verse 24, verse 25. God will never fail those who place their trust in him. Not a single word of any special or precious promise will ever fail to be honored by Him. If He promised it, He'll stand by it. If He promised it, He will accomplish it. If you come to Him for salvation, this is important, if you come to Him for salvation, He will not send you away lost. He won't. Because He's the one who drew you. He's the one who brought you to Him. He's not gonna cast you off. If you trust Him for salvation, He will never send you away into hell. Never. Because again, why? He's the one that drew you. He's the one that brought you to Himself. He's the one that revealed to you your condition and how you're standing. If you look to Him for the needs in your life, you'll never ever be disappointed, never. He will sustain you through this life and into eternity and all through eternity. And lastly, he is a savior, verse 26. In this context, Jeremiah is saying, those who wait upon the Lord will see him bring them out of their trials. Thank God that He does deliver us. He will not fail His children, but in His time, that's the hard part to grab a hold of, but in His time, He will deliver them from all of their valleys, every one that we go through. We need to remember today that God is able to deliver both the saved and the lost from whatever situation we're in. To those who are saved, I would just like to remind you that God knows where you are today. He knows what you're going through. He knows the problems that you're facing. He will not forsake you, but he will faithfully keep you and bring you out in his time, in his time, to those who are lost. It may look like you're doomed. It may look like you have no hope whatsoever. And indeed, that's the way you are. You are doomed. You have no hope because you're in your sins. However, sometimes I like the word however and but and things like that. However, I would very much like to tell you that God can save your soul by His marvelous grace. He can and He will. If you will stop trusting yourself or your religion and your goodness You could be, I know a lot of good people that God needed to save, and I've seen a lot of good people get saved. Just because you're good, you can still be good and lost, and it happens a lot. God can still save you, and he will. If you come to God confessing your sins and calling on Jesus for salvation, God will save your soul. That's a promise we have. Thank God for the faithfulness of God. Thank God for the mercies that he gives to us. Even in the midst of all the troubles and trials that Israel was going through during the time of Jeremiah, he was still seen to be faithful. I don't know what battle you may be facing, But if you're saved, you're still faithful. And if you're lost, he's faithful to save you. May God help us to get a hold of these facts and do those things, whatever it might be, that he'd be leading us to do. Let us pray.