May the arrival of tomorrow Letting
go mine with ten thousand pieces. Great is Thy faithfulness, great
is Thy faithfulness. Morning by morning new mercies
I see. All I have needed, I have had
provided. Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord,
unto me. Okay, go back with me to Lamentations
3. This is a very blessed and precious
passage of Scripture to those who know it well. If you're like
me, these verses often come to mind, much to my comfort and
my hope, especially verses 22 and verse 23. It's of the Lord's
mercies that were not consumed, because His compassions fail
not. They're new every morning. Great
is thy faithfulness. Now, Brother Gabe looked at this
with you some time ago and applied these words to our Lord, as they
should be. He said, I am the man. I am the
man who hath seen affliction and wrath. Christ was made sin
for His people. He is the one speaking here in
these first several verses. Forsaken by God the Father so
that His people would not be. Verse 8, He said, When I cry
and shout, He shutteth out my prayer. The Lord said, My God,
my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Verses 12 and 13, he bent
his bow and set me as a mark for the arrow. He caused the
arrows of his quiver to enter my reins. The Lord was the man
who bore our sin. God laid on him the iniquity
of all of his people, made his soul an offering for sin. He
was a derision to the people, despised and rejected. Persecuted
down in verse 19. Afflicted. Persecuted. Christ, our substitute, was made
sin to put away sin. Christ bore God's wrath, so we
bear none. And clearly this speaks of the
Lord Jesus Christ. To Him give all the prophets
witness and Jeremiah is no exception. Jeremiah was speaking of the
Lord, and as He is, so are we. God's people feel these same
afflictions. Jeremiah. These are the lamentations
of Jeremiah. He's lamenting. He's lamenting
his own sins. He's lamenting the sins of Israel. He's lamenting the sad state. He's weeping over Jerusalem that's
been destroyed. because of the sins of the people.
And every man and woman, every child of God whom God has made
to feel their own sinfulness and feel as it were God's wrath,
feel as though it were God's wrath, God is not angry with
His people, but they're going to be made to feel like He is. Like Psalm 90 says, we spend
our years in thy wrath." That is, we think that God is angry
with us. At least He makes us to feel
that way. And we go through persecutions
and afflictions. Down in verses 43 and 44, verse
42, it says, We have transgressed and rebelled, and thou hast not
pardoned. Thou hast covered us with anger
and persecuted us, not pitied. You have covered yourself with
a cloud. cannot pass through. So all of
God's people feel as our Lord did. In verse 17, He's removed
our souls from peace. There are times when we have
no peace, don't we? Because of our foolishness, because
of our sinfulness. In verse 18, we feel like we
have no hope. We lose hope. We go through times
with very little hope anyway. if none at all. And thinking
on these things, verse 19, remembering affliction, our misery, wormwood
and gall, our souls, thinking on these things, our sinfulness
and our foolishness. Like he said in Ezekiel 36, he
said, You'll remember your evil ways
and your doings that were not good, and you'll loathe yourselves
and your own side. And we think on these things,
and it's humbling, and it should be. It's humble. My soul is humbled in me. That's why the Lord causes us
to feel our sinfulness and our wretchedness and think on these
things and to lose hope. But then, something comes to
mind. The Lord does not leave us without
hope. We go through times with no peace,
or very little, times when we feel like we're lost and feel
like we have no hope. And then the Lord graciously
reminds us of some things. He brings to mind something that
I remember. He says, this I recall, verse
21, I recall or it returns to my mind and I have hope. Some things that come back to
mind and I have hope. I think of and I pray Psalm 119,
49 all the time. David said, Lord, remember thy
word unto thy servant. upon which you've caused me to
hope. Would you bring back to my mind, bring back to remembrance
the word upon which you've caused me to hope?" Because it's all
our hope, isn't it? And He does, graciously. He brings
back to our mind words such as this. Hope is a good word, isn't
it? Hope means a good expectation. Hope means you're waiting for
something good to happen based upon something someone said or
promised you. And our hope is in His Word and
in His promises. There's a proverb, I just read
it recently, that says, hope deferred makes the heart sick. Hope deferred. That is, if you
feel like you have no hope, your heart is sick. But, he said,
when our desires come, it's like a tree of life. When that hope
comes in, it's like a tree of life. We're saved by hope, Paul
said. We're saved by hope. We live
by hope. Well, here's the sinner's hope.
Here's the sinner's hope. The hope of the Gospel. Verse
22 again. It is of the Lord's mercies.
that we are not consumed, because His compassions that fail not. They renew every morning. The
Lord's mercies. David said to himself, and he
says to us, singing to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual
songs, David said to himself, Psalm 42, Why art thou cast down
within me, O my soul? Hope thou in the Lord. Hope in Him. Hope in His mercy. Hope in His unfailing compassion
and love. Hope in His faithfulness. It's very great. Hope in His
goodness. He's very good to all that call
upon Him. If your salvation, your hope
of salvation is in the Lord Himself, You've got a good hope. If your
hope is anywhere else, it's a bad hope. But if your hope is in
Him, it's a sure hope, a good hope. You see, our greatest need
is mercy. And that's God's greatest glory. When Moses said, Lord, show me
Your glory, he said, I will be merciful. I will be gracious
and I will be merciful." He said, that's my name, the Lord, the
Lord God, merciful. That's his name. The things we
need the most are his mercies, are the things the Lord delights
to show. The Lord is merciful, David said,
gracious, slow to anger and plenteous. in mercy. The Lord is merciful. That's His nature. Your nature
is what you're prone to do. Your nature is what you're inclined
to do. Your nature is what you do. The
Lord is merciful. It's His nature. It's what He's
prone to do. It's what He's inclined to do.
It's what He delights to do. That's not like us, is it? We
have to work at it. We have to be reminded. It's
His mercies that have to cause us to be merciful. He has to
humble us to make us show mercy. But it's not Him. That's His
nature. The Scripture says He's ready
to pardon. The Scripture says He delights
to show mercy, takes great pleasure. It says the Lord taketh great
pleasure in them that fear Him and those that hope in His mercy. That's about all I can do. He
says he delights to do that. He says he's plenteous in mercy.
In other words, he has plenty to go around and is never going
to run out. In fact, he says it over and
over and over. His mercy endureth forever. He's ready to pardon. Mercy means
this. Mercy means so much more than
than we can say. But we've often heard it said
that mercy means not getting what we deserve. It's true. The Lord spares us. It's He that
spared not His own Son spared us. The Lord's mercies to us
are because the Lord poured out His wrath on His Son. But mercy
is not something we deserve. It's undeserved. Here are three
things about mercy. It's undeserved. It wouldn't
be mercy if we deserved it. This is where people go wrong,
don't they? They think God ought to pardon and God ought to love
them. No, no, no. Mercy is undeserved. Mercy is sovereign. If it's mercy,
if it's undeserved, it's up to the one showing it to decide
to show it. The Lord says, I will have mercy
on whom I will have mercy. But He will have mercy. But it's
His show. And that's why we thank Him for
it. And mercy is in Jesus Christ. It's in Jesus Christ. All the
mercies of God. So mercy is not getting what
we deserve. But mercy is much more than that. If you look up the word, the
word actually means kindness. That's why it says over and over
again, tender mercies. According to the multitude of
thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. The Lord is
of tender mercy. His tender mercies are over all
His works. The Lord is kind even to the
wicked. That's His nature. You can hope in His mercy, you've
got a good hope. And mercy goes along with this. And this is why he's merciful.
Look at verse 22. Because his compassions, they
fail not. The reason the Lord is merciful,
because this is his nature. He's compassionate. David said
this five times in the psalm. The Lord is full of compassion. Full of compassion. One of which,
one of those psalms, he said concerning Israel. And many of
you know Psalm 105, 106, 107, Psalms that speak of Israel's
many and continual rebellion and sins against the Lord, yet
He continued to pardon them. He continued to pardon them because
He's so merciful. Because they're His people. And
though they rebel against Him and sin against Him again and
again and again, He continues to have mercy upon them. David
said this of Israel, he said, he being full of the Lord concerning
Israel's sin, he said, he being full of compassion forgave their
iniquity and destroyed them not. God said, I'm not a man, I'm
God. And we're so glad. Do you remember
this, the difference between sympathy, empathy and compassion?
Sympathy is condolence. You offer your condolence. We
all send sympathy cards to people that we might not even know.
We offer our condolences to them. We express our sorrow. We do
feel something of sorrow, but if we don't really know that
person, we just send them our condolences. Empathy. is different. Empathy is when
someone suffers and you try to enter into their feelings. And
you do to a degree. Someone you feel really, really
sorrow for and hurt for them, you empathize with them. But
now, compassion. Compassion means you have The
same feelings because you've been through it. It means a fellowship
of feelings. It means sorrow and pity because
you've been through. You've been where they are. The
Lord is full of compassion. Why? Because He's been there. If you don't know these verses,
Hebrews 2, if you haven't committed these verses to memory, at least
commit to memory where they're located. Okay? Hebrews 2. I want
you to turn. If you don't know them by heart,
remember where they are for your own comfort, for your great comfort. The Lord is full of compassion
because He has been where we are. Hebrews 2, verse 14. As much as the children are partakers
of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same. He went through death, it says,
to deliver us. Verse 15, through fear of death
were all their lifetime subject to bondage. He didn't take on
the nature of angels. Verse 17, it behooved him to
be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and
faithful high priest in things pertaining to God. Verse 18,
in that he himself has suffered being tempted in all poems, it
said. He's able to succor or help them
that are tempted. Look at chapter 4. Verses 15
and 16, we don't have a high priest which cannot be touched
with the feeling of our infirmities, but we're at all points tempted
like as we are, yet without sin. So we can come boldly to the
throne of grace that we may obtain mercy. He's merciful. Why? Because
he's compassionate. He feels what we've been through.
He knows. He was able to resist all temptation. He knows our flesh. He knows
we're not. He said this, didn't He, for
our comfort. The Spirit is willing. The flesh
is willing. He knows that. Why? Chapter 5,
verse 2, He can have compassion on the ignorant and on them that
are out of the way, for that He Himself also is compassed
or was compassed with infirmity. I love that Psalm 103, verse
13, like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth
them that fear him. He knoweth our frame. He pities
us because he knows our frame. How does he know our frame? Because
he was made in the likeness of Saint Philemon. He knows our
frame. You know, we pity our children,
don't we? We know what they're going through.
They may not think so, but we do, don't we? How do we know?
How do we know what our children are going through? Because we
went through the same thing. Everything. There's nothing they
haven't been through that we didn't go through, right? And
we pity them. So it is with our Heavenly Father
who was made flesh and dwelt among us. And He says His compassions,
they fail not. He's never going to forget our
frame. The Lord remembereth our frame. He remembereth that we're
destined, and He will never lose sight of that, no matter how
old we get. It's a matter of fact. The older
we get, the more childlike we become, the more we revert back
to our childhood and our simplicity of thought and so forth and our
fears and our doubts. That's true. And the Lord never
forgets that. His compassions will never fail. He'll never stop. showing compassion. He'll never forget our frame.
His compassions, they fail not. He always remembers. And they're
new, he says, every morning. New every morning. We start every
day with a clean slate. Every day. Like that little boy
who messed up his paper, you know, all over his paper. He
said, Teacher, I don't have any more. I messed this up. She just
gives him a clean slate. Start all over again. The end of the day, we come to
the end of the day, we've messed up bad. We've messed up. We lie in bed. We ask the Lord
to forgive us. We ask the Lord to forgive us
for a day wasted, another day of sinfulness. We wake up brand
new morning. David said in Psalm 139, he said,
when I wake, I'm still with you. He hadn't cast me out. A new
every morning. My, my. Why? Because great is
thy faithfulness. This so great salvation by a
great Lord for great sinners is of His great faithfulness.
Faithful. The word faithful is a good word
too, isn't it? Like hope, it's a great word. Faithful means
true. It means trustworthy. Someone
you can trust. Someone you can put your faith
in. Someone that's true to their
character. The Lord is true to His characters.
He said in Malachi 3, I am the Lord. I change not. Therefore, you sons of Jacob
that are changing every day, up and down, are not concerned. I remember. I know you better
than you know yourself. But I change not. Trust me. Don't trust yourself. Don't look
to yourself. Don't look within to find something
to give you some hope, because you won't find any. You'll despair
of all hope. If you look within, if you look
to yourself, if you look to Him, you'll see an unchanging, smiling
face. Yes, you will. He's true to His
character. He's true to His Word. The Lord is true to His promises.
The Lord cannot lie. The Lord who promised Eternal
life cannot lie. It's all. Come unto me, he said,
all you that labor and are heavy laden, I will give you rest. He that believeth on me hath
everlasting life. That's his promise. The Lord
is true to his covenant. I love that verse. Remember where it says he remembered
for them his covenant. When we forget it, these are
the This covenant is the sure mercies of David, or rather,
the Son of David. The sure mercies that we have
in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord is true to His covenant.
If He made a covenant concerning you, that's all your salvation. And if He did, the Lord will
remember that covenant. He will never forget it, for
Christ's sake. I thought about Mephibosheth. I thought about Mephibosheth
day in and day out. He couldn't believe. He just
couldn't believe when the Lord, when David had mercy on him,
should have destroyed him. He didn't give him what he deserved.
He gave him mercy for Jonathan's sake, didn't he? Brought him
in his presence and spoke kindness to him, was merciful to him. not only spared him, but was
kind to him and had him sit at David the king's table, once
his enemy, now his son, sitting beside him just like his natural-born
sons. And I know day in and day out
he would come in and want to take the lowest seat. David said,
hey, hey, hey, look at you. Right there's your seat. Don't
you know? He thought, I don't deserve.
And I know there were people sitting at that table that resented
him being there. I know Ziba, for one, that waited
on him. Ziba, who was told to serve him,
resented him, was jealous of him. People that were against
him sitting there, but David, you sit right there. Day in and
day out, he'd come to that table. Why was David so merciful? Why did David have him continually
sit there as one of the king's sons? Because he remembered. Every time he looked at Mephibosheth,
he saw the face of Jonathan. That's Jonathan's son. He saw
in him the image of his best friend, Jonathan. And you're
not going anywhere for Jonathan's sake. And that's the way it is
with us sinners. He sees Christ when he looks
at us and the image that he's put in us of his Son. He's true
to his covenant. He's true to his people. The
Lord is true to his people. They aren't true to him. They're
very unfaithful to him. Oh, they have a measure of faithfulness,
but it's... Well, here's what Paul said. If we deny Him, He can't deny
Himself. Like Peter. Peter denied Him,
didn't he? And didn't know if the Lord would
take him back. But the sweetest words he ever heard were, and
Peter. Because he can't deny himself.
If you're in Christ, you are Christ. You're in Him. You're
one with Him. He can't deny Himself because He abideth The Scripture
says, he won't deny his people. He's true to his people. You
know, it says the Lord's mercies were not consumed. We're not
consumed. We're not consumed, number one,
by Him. Our God is a consuming You know,
the Scripture says that He's going to come to this earth and
consume everything by the word of His mouth. That's what it says. Our God
fully consuming fire. But because of His mercies in
Christ, we're not consumed. We're not consumed. We're going
to go into the presence of the burning bush and not be consumed. Like Azariah, Machiel, and Hananiah,
commonly known as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who went in the
priory harness, but were not consumed. Why? Someone was in
there with them, a fourth man. So we're not consumed by him
because of the mercies of God in Christ. We'll not be consumed
by sin. I'm so thankful that the Lord
sent sin. shall not have dominion over
you. Aren't you? Because I feel at times I'm consumed
by it. I feel like it's going to consume
me. I feel at times like I'm absolutely no better, if not
worse, than I was before he revealed himself to me. And I feel like
surely I'm going to fall away, be consumed by sin. But he said,
no, it's of the Lord's mercies We're not consumed. He won't
let you. He's not going to let that happen. And it's only going
to be the Lord's mercies to keep it from happening. And so if
the Lord's mercies were not consumed by the lust of the eyes, the
world is. The lust of the flesh and the
pride of life. Self-righteousness. There's some
people, there's some people that came
out of the gutter. Some people who didn't. You've got some people
the Lord saved in just open sin. And you've got some people who
didn't. Both by the purpose of God, by
the grace of God. Alright? This person that was
in the gutter and comes up like Mary Magdalene, she's going to
have a problem with those things that she dwelled in all those
years for the rest of her life. While this person who was not
in that has no problem with that, what does that person have a
problem with? Self-righteousness, which is worse. As he said, the
harlots and the publicans will get in before they do. It will be the Lord's mercies
that this person is not consumed with and go back into that. It
will be the Lord's mercies if the Lord doesn't leave this person
in their self-righteousness. And the Lord's mercies, my, my,
are to show us our sinful self and our self-righteous self.
You've got two girls who grow up in the same family. One is
a model child. One gets pregnant and has a child
early. Okay? One's self-righteous. One's bowed down with guilt.
It's of the Lord's mercies for both of them. Both of them. It's
of the Lord's mercies that we're not consumed by the world. The
world. Most of Israel was overcome by
the world. And we would be too if it weren't for the Lord's
mercy, if the Lord was not merciful to us. It's of the Lord's mercies
we're not consumed with grief, sorrow. Job went through great
grief and sorrow until he cursed the day he was born, and then
he started blaming God. Yes, he did. He started defending
himself. He said, I haven't done anything
to deserve it. Didn't he? Yes, he did. That's when the
Lord had to show him his true self. Self-righteous. Grief and sorrow will be overcome
by that. It's of the Lord's mercies we're
not consumed. See, we sorrow, but not as others
who have no hope. It's of the Lord's mercy that
we're not consumed by fear, by doubts. The worse this world
becomes, the more fearful. The Lord is
my salvation. Of whom shall I fear? It's of
the Lord's mercies, plural, it says. Mercies, doesn't it? Our
Lord's mercy in Christ. is chief mercy. The Lord's mercy in Christ. We hope in Him. But you know,
He shows mercy in many ways. The Lord's mercies that we're
not concerned. He shows mercy in His Word. In His Word. Sent His Word to give us hope.
We don't have to be without hope. He's given us blessed book that
we can turn to at any time. At any time. He wrote this book
of His sure mercy. Mercies. Mercies. You can turn
at any time, just about any place, and find mercy. Find mercy. If you're like me, you often
read passages of Scripture and they convict you. And they convict
you. And they convict you. But what
you need to do is keep reading. Don't stop. I know there are
times when I've, have you ever done this? Turn at random? Looking for something? It wasn't
what you wanted to read. Anybody? Anybody done that with
me? Lord, I need to hear something. Oh! What you need to do is just keep
reading. Because you'll find mercy then.
The Lord never leaves His people in despair. Why aren't they all
cast down? Hope thou in the Lord, His Word,
His people. The Lord shows mercy to us, His
mercies. He shows mercy to us through
His people. His people, they're sent to comfort. They're sent to comfort and to
exhort, and you will. The other day, I was waiting
on a call from someone. I needed to hear from this person
that was supposed to call me, and they never called. Never
called. I was waiting on a call. So I
thought, well, maybe somebody else needs
a call. So I called somebody else. And
lo and behold, I got that call. With the merciful. We show Him
some mercy. If we don't feel any mercy, maybe
we're not showing it. We get mercy from His people,
His mercies, His mercy to other people. The Lord shows His mercies
to His people through even the Egyptians. In Israel, the Lord
showed favor to His people in the sight of the Egyptians. It's
amazing. Does it amaze you? What even
the people of this world do at times that is not in their nature
to do, but they do for His people, that's the Lord's mercies. That's the Lord's mercy. He gave
Egypt for your ransom, Ethiopia and the Sea for you, people for
you, and providence. What we think is the worst is
really the Lord's mercy, whatever it may be. All things are truly
working together, all things, for our good. It's of the Lord's
mercies, everything that we're not concerned with. If you wait,
that's what it says there in our text, doesn't it? In closing,
it says in our text, it's good that a man, verse 25, the Lord
is good to them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh
him. It's good that a man should both
hope and quietly wait. for the salvation of the Lord. Yes, it's of the Lord. Recall
this to mind. May the Lord recall it to our
mind. That it's of the Lord's mercies that we're not consumed.
Because His compassions, they fail not. They're new. Every
morning. Tomorrow morning, they'll be
brand new. Clean slate. Great is His favor. Stand with
me. Our Lord, we thank You for Your
Word. We ask that You would recall
it to our minds when we need it. When we are cast down in
despair, let us hope in our God. When we are cast down by sorrows
and troubles and fears and doubts When we fall in sin, Lord, let
us look up. Our redemption draws nigh. Let
us look into Thy Word. Let us call upon You, Your very
present help in time of trouble. Our hope is in Thee, O Lord. And You promised that none that
put their hope in Thee shall be desolate, shall be guilty. So our hope is in Thee. who needs this to hear it for
their good and your glory. It's in Christ's blessed name
we meet here tonight. Amen.