GREAT IS THY FAITHFULNESS
Lamentation 3: 22-25
Good News Christian Fellowship
BUCAS, Daraga albay
October 1, 2006
Introduction
A. Greetings
B. About Wednesday’s Typhoon “Melinyo”
1. All of us have been caught by surprise. We didn’t expect that the typhoon has a strong wind of 230kms/hour. Our Weather Station failed to determine the exact strength of this typhoon. As I remember, they announced that it has a sustain wind of 135/kms. While the typhoon unleashing his strong winds, I and my wife prayed. We pray that God will prepare our hearts, brothers and sisters, to accept whatever damages the typhoon will bring.
2. The following morning I went out and survey the area. I saw a lot of houses without roof and walls. Electric posts were toppled. I saw twisted steel beam. My mango tree tilted to its side. Roof of my garage was also damaged. As I survey the area, I remember our brethren in Bulawan, Sorsogon. I believe they experience much devastating effect. I hope I will be able to visit them this coming week.
C. In many respects the event is very timely to the message for today.
1. Today, our Church celebrates its 3rd year anniversary.
2. Is there something we can celebrate despite of what had happened?
3. Can we say, “Great Is Thy Faithfulness”?
D. Beloved of God. God’s faithfulness is something that we can celebrate.
1. We live in a literal sewer of unfaithfulness. There is so little that we can trust everyone.
2. Husband and wife abandon their promise of “till death do us part” and meet – and part- in a divorce or annulment court.
3. There is very little security in man’s word today. Unless he is a man of integrity, it is more natural to expect him to break his promise than to keep his word.
4. But God is not a “man, that he should repent” (change His mind). God said, “I am the Lord, I change not.” When God make a promise He makes a promise. He keeps it!
5. Our God is a faithful God. We can trust Him. This is not a truth just to be heard and forgotten. But one that need to be reminded constantly.
6. Personally, I don’t remember that God has ever let me down. He was always given me what exactly what I needed, when I needed it, whether it was provision, an encouragement or strength.
7. I experience success and failures. But God is always there. He remains faithful.
How refreshing, how blessed it is to lift our eyes above the world, and above ourselves, to behold One who is faithful, faithful at all times, faithful in all things!
This year marks the 3rd anniversary of Good News Christian Fellowship. There’s a reason for us to celebrate: God’s Great Faithfulness.
I. EXPLORING THE CENTRAL PASSAGES
A. From the Old Testament
1. Exodus 34:6: “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.”
2. Deuteronomy 7:9: “Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; He is the faithful God, keeping His covenant of love to a thousand generations…”
3. God is as faithful today as he was yesterday. "Your faithfulness continues through all generations" (Psalm 119:90).
4.”O Lord, you are my god; I will exalt You, I will give thanks to Your name; For You have worked wonders, Plans formed long ago, with perfect faithfulness” (Isa.25:1)
B. From the New Testament
1. “God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord” (1Cor. 1:9)
2. “The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.” (1Thessalonians 5:24)
3. “If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself (2Timothy 2:13)
4. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all righteousness.” (1 John 1:9)
These verses establish that Faithfulness is an attribute essential to God, without which he would not be God. It is a most glorious attribute of his nature.
The Lord our God is faithful, always faithful, in all things faithful - This is our confidence in him.
Now let’s turn to Lamentation 3. As you turn over there, I’m going to talk to you this afternoon about the faithfulness of God. We will be going to see when God is faithful. God is worthy of our trust no matter what we go through. Jeremiah went through almost everything he goes through in life that is awful. However, before we went further in those verses let’s first have a brief overview of the book of Lamentation and about the life of Jeremiah
II. BRIEF OVERVIEW OF LAMENTATION
Lamentation has been called “perhaps the saddest book of the Old Testament.” (Charles Swindoll, as he quotes Bruce Wilkinson).
A. Title - The title of the book in Hebrew is hkya (Rud. Kittle, ed., Biblia Hebraica) or ekah.
1. It is translated “HOW!”
2. It is also the first word of Lamentations 1:1; 2:1, and 4:1 and appears later on in 4:2.
B. Author- According to tradition, authorship is assigned to the Prophet Jeremiah.
1. The author is an eyewitness of Jerusalem’s siege and fall is clear from the graphic nature of the scenes portrayed in the book (cf. 1:13-15; 2:6, 9; 4:1-12).
2. Further, there are a number of similarities between the books of Jeremiah and Lamentations.
3. Jeremiah leaves a difficult lie. This book of Lamentations is his conclusion to life.
4. He is called the weeping Prophet.
C. Structure and Style – Lamentations is composed of individual poems.
1. The text uses parallelisms and figures of speech like all Hebrew poetry. Each chapter is a separate poem.
2. Their poetry is not based on rhymes.
3. The first four poems (chapters) are acrostics, like some of the Psalms (25, 34, 37, and 119), i.e., each verse begins with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet taken in order. (www.wikipedia.com)
4. Take note, Chapter 1, 2, 4, and 5 each has 22 verses. Chapter has 66 verses.
This is the only book in the Bible that made like this. This book is made of seven 22 verse poems.
In this structured poem, what is the FOCUS of this book is all about? It’s about verse 23 of chapter 3, that God offer us something new every morning, because His Faithfulness is Great.
III. BRIEF REVIEW OF JEREMIAH’S LIFE
A. Turn to chapter 11:19.
Jeremiah’s life is a failure from the earthly perspective.- He spent all his lifetime warning Israel to respond to God, but before his ministry is over, the people has lack of response that God utterly destroy Israel. No one listen to him. In 586 B.C. the Babylonian killed everyone, Butcher them, burn and destroy them; they leveled the temple in the city; and they left Jeremiah alive for him to see the destruction of Jerusalem.
B. Jeremiah’s ministry is 40 years. During 40 years he saw no visible result among those he served (Jeremiah 11:19)
(You put that in your context: Sunday school class or mission ministry or whatever ministry.) The way God called him to, yet no visible results among those he served. He said in verse 19:
“But I was like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter. I did not know it was against me
C. Read verse 21. Even now no visible results to the people he gave his life to. People hated him and try to kill or destroy him.
D. He has no family to go home to. Read Chapter 12:6. His own family speaks evil of him. They hated him.
E. He has no family of his own. Read chapter 16:2. It says, “You shall be a single and alone in your life. Jeremiah was never allowed to get married. How terrible it is! He wanted to have a wife and share his life with her. But god said, NO! You shall be single the whole of your life. What an agonizing loneliness!
F. He lived in a constant threat of death and physical pain. Read Chapter 18:18-23; 20:1-2.
H. He had emotional pain. Read Chapter 20:10
Now, if you will read the entire chapters of this book, you will notice that his life ends with no relief. He was beaten some more. He was thrown into the old empty pit or cistern.
IV JEREMIAH’S GRIEF
Now turn to Lamentations 3.
Verse 1, “Where I the one seen the affliction…” What does it mean? It means he had much experience being reproached and ill used by his own people, and suffering with them in their calamities. His affliction was greater than the other prophet.
Verse 4, “He had my skin and flesh was away or broken my bones…” He looks liked an old man. His skin so withered and wrinkled.
Verse 5, “He has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation…” He has deep emotional pain. He was surrounded with sorrow and bitterness.
Verse 6, “He has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago…” No one remember him. No one cares for him. He was forgotten, as if they had never been. He felt unimportant; and it produces “dark places.” He is depressed emotionally. That’s what Jeremiah saying, “He set me in dark places.”
Verse7a “He has walled me about so that I cannot escape...” What that mean? He felt trapped when in prison, or in the dungeon. He feels the wall is too high. He can’t escape. He can’t go over.
Verse 7b, “He has put heavy chains on me…” Heavy chain was put around his neck so that he can’t escape.
Verse 8, “Though I call and cry for help, he shut out my prayer…” He felt out of touch. He felt God is not listening to him. You feel that way, brothers and sisters? Seemingly God is not listening to your prayers? Jeremiah says, “I felt He is not listening to me.”
Verse 9 He has blocked my way may with hewn stones; he has made my path crooked…” He had no prospect of deliverance. He doesn’t know where he is going. He felt trapped. He felt burden.
Now, let’s jump to verse 17
Verse 17a, “My soul is bereft of peace…” It says, “I am quiet anxious.” “I am worried. I don’t have any peace of mind.”
Verse 17b, “I have forgotten what happiness is…” He had been from enjoyment. He is sad. He can’t remember there’s a good time.
Verse 18, “ Gone is my glory, and my expectation from the Lord…”His natural strength was exhausted, and had no hope of living, or of enjoying the divine favour, or good things, at the hand of God. He is hopeless.
Verse 19 “Remembering my affliction and my bitterness, the wormwood and the gall…” Woodworm means bitterness. He felt that his life doesn’t turn out what it should be. The words may be considered as a request to God, to remember him and deliver him up.
Verse 20, “My soul continually think of it and is bowed down within me…” Every time II think about my family who hates me; about of having no family of my own; my own people are against me, when I think of them, verse 20 says, “my soul sinks within me.”
Now verse 21, “But this I call to my mind, and therefore I have hope…” What does he recall? Does he recall his affliction and miseries? No! When he have broken emotional help; when I have broken emotional strength; when I am depressed, trapped, burden and out of touch; when I am anxious (verse17); when I am felt weak and hopeless (v.18) and my soul sinks within me (v.20); Just I am going down in all of that, verse 21 read, “I recall to my mind, therefore I have HOPED.
What did he start remembering? What was that? He had no family and friends. No relatives. Everything was destroyed. Something he has still recalls. Something he still had, written in his mind. What is that?
Read Verse 22-23.
Jeremiah remembers the Faithfulness of God. Despite of his suffering, he recalls and had hoped to the mercies and love of God.
“this revived his hope, which he was ready to say was perished from the Lord, and there was no foundation for it; but now he saw there was, and therefore took heart, and encouraged himself in the grace and mercy of God.” (John Gill)
Illustration: Story of Thomas O. Chisholm
a. Born in 1866 and grown up in a godly Christian home
b. Went to school. Study for the ministry
c. Return to Kentucky to be a minister of the Gospel.
d. He served the church faithfully. In 1916 He was released from his church. According to church record, he was to sickly to be their pastor. He had respiratory problem. So he had no enough loud voice.
e. So they simply put him out of the church.
f. In 1917, he had written down his testimony, actually a poem: Living For Jesus.
g. Here’s the first line of that poem:
Living for Jesus, a life that is true,
Striving to please Him in all that I do;
Yielding allegiance, glad hearted and free,
This is the pathway of blessing for me.
h. Could you imagine been put out of the church for being sick?
i. Thomas O Chisholm sells brushes door to door to sustain the need of his family. History shows Mr. Chisholm walked the muddy, rocky road of Kentucky year after year after years.
j. And you know what? For all those years on the road and look what he said: Great is Thy Faithfulness. Wonderful! He again wrote a poem. You know when it was written? 1923.
k. Isn’t it wonderful that you can still make that poem when seems everybody seems to be against you? Look what he says: Great is Thy Faithfulness/Great is Thy Faithfulness.
m. Could you imagine having asthma; having broken physical health; living in a log cabin and walking all days door to door selling brushes no one wants to buy and get the nest morning and do the same thing. How did he do it?
Morning by morning
New mercies I see
All I have needed thy hand had provided
Great is thy faithfulness lord unto me.
Where did Thomas O Chisholm turn for hope when he was walking down the muddy road? Instead of complaining, he said: “Join with all manifold witness, to thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.”
He had many reasons to be upset He had many reasons not to be peaceful. He had many reasons to be angry. He had many reasons to be anxious. But look what he says: “strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow. Blessing all mine with ten thousand beside.”
What are his blessings? Great is Thy Faithfulness/morning by morning oh God/ everything thy hand had provided.
V. WHAT DOES GOD GIVES US?
Read verse 22.
In our failures, God will give us His UNFAILING LOVE. Faith, hope, and love, will abide. There is an abundance of mercy, grace, and goodness in God. God’s love is constant, fixed and steadfast.
God is an inexhaustible fountain of mercy, the Father of mercies.
“That God’s compassions fail not; they do not really fail, no, not even when in anger he seems to have shut up his tender mercies. These rivers of mercy run fully and constantly, but never run dry. No; they are new every morning; every morning we have fresh instances of God’s compassion towards us.” (Matthew Henry)
“For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the Lord, who has compassion on you.” (Isaiah 54:10)
He never forgets, never fails, never falters, never forsakes, and never forfeits his Word. Therefore, we may safely and confidently commit ourselves to him and depend upon him for all the mercies he has promised, both in this life and in the life to come (I Pet. 4:19; I Thess. 5:23-24).
VI LOOK WHAT HE PROMISE
Read verse 23
He promised daily freshness. They are new every morning, great is thy faithfulness. God deliver us fresh load of mercies; of loving kindness; of loving compassion to help us through whatever we have to face. No matter what we going through, God has daily freshness (strength) to come into our life.
God supply us strength for the day. God will not supply a 20, 30 0r 40 yrs of strength, but a daily, day-by-day grace.
“they are ever new, always fresh and vigorous, constant and perpetual; such are the love, grace, and mercy of God, though of old, yet daily renewed in the manifestations thereof; and which make a morning of spiritual light, joy, and comfort; and whenever it is morning with the saints, they have new discoveries of the love of God to them; and these indeed are a bright morning to them, a morning without clouds…” (John Gill)
Read verse 24.
He is our Portion. That is, even though we lost everything in life: livelihood, liberty, and life itself, God is still my hope and my life. He is a portion large and full, inexpressibly rich and great, a soul satisfying one, and will last for ever.
Read verse 25-26
He is our Salvation. We have to realize that we are not here to own as mush as we like. We are not here to have everything. We are not here to have those pleasures in life. We are wasting our time if we have all the pleasure here. We are here to wait for the salvation of the Lord. We have to wait quietly and hope in faithfulness of God.
“Christ will appear unto it, and it becomes them to wait patiently for it; which will be a salvation from the very being of sin; from the temptations of Satan; from all troubles inward and outward; from all troublesome persons and things; from all doubts, fears, darkness, and unbelief; and will consist in perfect happiness and glory, and is worth waiting for. “(John Gill)
Read verse 31-33
He will have compassion. WE got confused sometimes, when we think God wants us to have a hard life. No! No! He does not afflict willingly. When we are cast down, yet we are not cast off; the father’s correcting his son is not a disinheriting of him. The assurance is that He will show compassion. He is not just compassionate. He will show it. Have we not seen the goodness and mercy of God in our life?
“That God has compassions and comforts in store even for those whom he has himself grieved. We must be far from thinking that, though God cause grief, the world will relieve and help us. No; the very same that caused the grief must bring in the favour, or we are undone.” (Matthew Henry)
He is saying, ‘I want you to learn that I am faithful. That’s why I want you in this hard life, so you could know that I am FAITHFUL.
APPLICATION
Are you going through any situation as dark as Jeremiah and Thomas O Chisholm?
Got any rivers to cross or mountain difficult to climb?
Don’t worry, God is in control. Don’t worry, God is FAITHFUL. He will carry you through. You can count on Him, but we must not give up. WE must not abandon ship.
Brethren, whatever our trial will be, whatever our affliction, there is comfort and peace awaiting you on assurance of God’s faithfulness to you.
Our affliction always accompanied with compassion and consolation from God.
We are to look beyond our adversity to what god is doing in our lives and rejoice in the certainty that He is at work in us to cause us to grow.
I hope and pray that we can find the faith and courage to place our trust to the faithfulness of God.
