My God and My Country

Word of God

Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God

Matthew 4:4

The Book of Lamentations 3:22-23

22 It is the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. 23 They are renewed every morning: great is thy faithfulness.

Brethren:

Indeed they are even though our sins be many, and as written, are like scarlet, still there is our hope, and faith in the blood of Christ to cleanse them at any time. 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; he visits us with them every morning (See Job. 7:18 ); every morning does he bring his judgment to light, (See Zephaniah 3:5)

When we are in distress we should, for the encouragement of our faith and hope, observe what makes for us as well as what makes against us. Things are bad but they might have been worse, and therefore there is hope that they may be better.

Let us observe here the following.

The streams of mercy acknowledged: We are not consumed, the church of God is like Moses’s bush, burning, yet not consumed; whatever hardships it has met with, or may meet with, it shall have a being in the world to the end of time. It is persecuted of men, but not forsaken of God, and therefore, though it is cast down, it is not destroyed (See 2 Corinthians 4:9 ), corrected, yet not consumed.

These streams followed up to the fountain: It is of the Lord’s mercies. here are mercies in the plural number, denoting the abundance and variety of those mercies. God is an inexhaustible fountain of mercy, the Father of mercies. Note; we all owe it to the sparing mercy of God that we are not consumed. Others have been consumed round about us, and we ourselves have been in the consuming, and yet we are not consumed; we are out of the grave; we are out of hell. Had we been dealt with according to our sins, we should have been consumed long ago; but we have been dealt with according to God’s mercies, and we are bound to acknowledge it to his praise.

That great is his faithfulness. Though the covenant seemed to be broken, they owned that it still continued in full force, the truth of the Lord endures for ever. Note, Whatever hard things we suffer, we must never entertain any hard thoughts of God, but must still be ready to own that he is both kind and faithful