We're turning to Lamentations chapter 3. Lamentations chapter 3 for our Bible reading. Lamentations chapter 3, and let's begin our reading at verse number 1. Lamentations chapter 3, verse 1. I am the man that has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. He hath led me and brought me into darkness, but not into light. Surely against me is he turned. He turneth his hand against me all the day. My flesh and my skin he hath made old. He hath broken my bones. He hath builded against me and compassed me with gall and travail. He hath set me in dark places. as they that be dead of old. He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out. He hath made my chain heavy. Also, when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer. He hath enclosed my ways with hewn stone. He hath made my paths crooked. He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places. He hath turned aside my ways and pulled me in pieces. He hath made me desolate. He hath bent his bow and set me as a mark for the arrow. He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins. I was a derision to all my people and their song all the day. He hath filled me with bitterness. He hath made me drunk with wormwood. He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes, and thou hast removed my soul far off from peace. I forgot prosperity, and I said, my strength and my hope is perished. from the Lord, remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me. This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope." I wonder, do you feel like this individual? I wonder, do you feel like this person today? Well, let's read on. It is off the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions feel 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, to the soul that seeketh him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. Amen, and we'll end our reading at the 26th verse of God's Word. Let's keep the Word before us, and let's just seek the Lord in a brief word of prayer. Our loving Father, O God, we come before Thee, and what comfort we find within Thy Word, even at the beginning of another year. We thank Thee that Thou art the unchanging God, and that which Thou wast to Jeremiah. O God, Thou art to us Thy covenant people. Thou has never changed. Thy covenant Thou has never broken. And we praise Thee for this. And as we consider Thy word, O God, we pray that Thou will be with us. And grant, O God, the help of thy Spirit, not only to preach, but may the word of God be applied with help and with the power of the Spirit to every waiting soul. For we offer prayer in and through Jesus' precious and worthy name. Amen and amen. As the name suggests, the book of Lamentations is not one of those books that one of a depressed disposition would naturally pick up and read to find comfort and consolation within. Because it is within its pages that we find the Lamentations of the weeping prophet Jeremiah. God's servant is full of grief, his heart ready to burst forth in sorrow as he comes to consider the sad spiritual state into which his beloved nation had fallen into. The enemy, in the guise of the Chaldeans, had swept into the nation, taking the vast majority of Israel's inhabitants into captivity and leaving the holy city of Jerusalem to lie in waste and now in desolation. Jeremiah, a spectator of his nation's demise, writes the mournful account of the events that led to such a sad state of affairs. One commentator reviewing the book of Lamentations wrote, one would think that every letter was written with a tear. Every word, the sound of a breaking heart. It was Jeremiah's broken heart that led him to weep over the nation's plight in the first chapter of the book, in the verse number 16. For these things I wept, he said, when I run as down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me. My children are desolate because the enemy And surely we could say that such has happened in our nation. The enemy has prevailed. The nation that Jeremiah loved and cherished so dearly had almost been annihilated by the enemy. As you make your way through, mournfully through this book, there's very little to cheer the heart. That is until you come to the chapter number three. Because just like a little oasis in an otherwise expansive arid desert land, this third chapter, or a little portion within the third chapter, provides relief for the child of God. Brings the much needed relief to the reader. that has only to this stage read a pitiful account of how God's chosen people had been brought into direct judgment because of their sin. Turning his thoughts away from the misery of his fellow countrymen and women, Jeremiah looks to God and thereby his sorrow is relieved. and his faith is renewed and revived. And I suppose that's what happens whenever we look away from our own misery, and we look away from our circumstances, our trials, our troubles, and we look to the mercy of God, our soul is relieved, our sorrow is relieved, and our faith is revived and refreshed and renewed. And surely this is what we need as we enter a new year, we don't need to focus on our miseries, but we focus on the mercy of our God. Now the spiritual landscape today is very bleak. The church of Jesus Christ is the object of the world's mockery and scorn. Interest in the gospel is at an all-time low. Sin and worldliness is rampant, not only outside the church, but within the church of Jesus Christ, and all of which is sad, all of which is depressing to then a child of God. Well, what are we to do? We're to simply do what Jeremiah did. We're to look heavenward. And we are to behold our God, and that's what we want to do. And we want to do that today by focusing our remarks on the words that Jeremiah wrote in Lamentations 3, verse 22 and verse 23. It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. I believe that the Lord, over recent months, has directed me very clearly to these comforting words here in Lamentations 3. Words that now form the motto text of the congregation. Now, while the motto text is oft times of times challenging in its import and in its application, I felt the Lord directed me in a different direction this year. I believe that the Lord directed me in the direction of comforting the people of God. I believe that many are the struggles that we face in this world. Many are the sorrows that we pass through. And in such times, I just believe that we need a word of encouragement. a word of comfort, and I believe that these words here before us provide such a word for our hearts. These words have been referred to three times already today in this house in the place of prayer. They have been repeated off times over the last month in our Wednesday night seasons of prayer. I've been listening out for them. I've saw them in other places, and I believe that the Lord has very clearly led to these words in Lamentations 3, verse 22 and 23. There are three truths, simply three truths concerning our God that I believe will bring comfort and will bring consolation as we make our way and travel through in the will of God 2019. The first truth that we see concerning our God in these words the truth of the Lord's mercies, the mercy, the mercy of our God. Jeremiah declares, it is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed. They are new every morning. Now I want you to consider the people to whom Jeremiah brought this truth to the attention of. These were a people that had forsaken God. These were a people who had raised in their land altars to unknown gods, to the gods of the world. These are individuals who had walked in their own ways. If you turn to Jeremiah chapter number 16, Jeremiah chapter 16, the previous book to this book, the contemporary book, the book that is to be brought alongside the book of Lamentations. Jeremiah chapter number 16, we see that God envisages that the people of Judah are going to ask Jeremiah a question with respect to the judgment that they were about to face. Let's read verse number 10, and it shall come to pass. And I shall show this people all these words, the words of coming judgment, that they shall say unto thee, Wherefore hath the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us? Or what is our iniquity? Or what is our sin that we have committed against the Lord our God? Did you notice something? Here's a people who had got so insensitive to God that they didn't even know their own sin. Here were people who thought that all was well. Here were people who thought that everything was fine within the nation, and how they were living in their idolatry, in their worldliness, in their departure from God, in their backsliding from God. Here were people who thought that all was well, and they had to ask God's servant, why is this happening to us? They should have been asking the question, why should this not happen to us? but they had left the Lord. They had got so far away from God. And oft times we fear that in the church of Jesus Christ, of which we are a part of, we have got to a stage that we don't even understand our own sin. We don't even understand our own iniquity. We don't understand that we have committed great evil against the God of heaven. They were going to ask Jeremiah the question, what's he going to tell them? Then, verse 11, shalt thou say unto them, because your fathers have forsaken me, saith the Lord, and have walked after other gods, and have served them, and have worshipped them, and have forsaken me, and have not kept my law, and ye have done worse than your fathers. For behold, ye walk every man after the imagination of his evil heart, that they may not hearken unto me. will I cast you out of this land into a land that ye know not, neither ye nor your fathers. And there ye shall serve other gods day and night, where I will not show you favor." And so God tells Jeremiah, this is the reason. And you tell them, tell the people of God, the covenant people, It is for their sin that they're now in the land of Babylon. These were a backslidden people. These were people who had forsaken God. These were people who had closed their ears to the voice of God, to the counsel of God, to the reproof of God. Such sinful living demanded that such people should be consumed. That they should be consumed by God's wrath. That they should be obliterated. taken off the stage of human history. They should be consumed by God's judgment, by God's wrath, by God's anger, and yet something interposes itself between an angry God and a sinful people. And what is it? It's the mercy of God. God's mercy. Only because of God's mercy, Jeremiah says, ye are not consumed. Not consumed. They were not destroyed. and they were not annihilated from the page of history. Now, I wonder have you ever asked yourself the profound question, why does God not destroy me? Have you ever asked yourself with all my feelings, with all my sin, all my faults as a Christian, with all my wonderings, why does God not just take me out of this world? He should, and He could. He should because He's God. He should because we have sinned against God. And yet why does He not? Well, we come to understand very simply from the text that we are not consumed because of his mercies. Now the word mercies, they speak of the goodness, the kindness, the favor, the pity of Jehovah. And every person, whatever your spiritual state is on this first Lord's day of a new year, ought to thank God for his mercies. You should come into this house thanking God for His mercy that He has shown you in 2018 and having tread already six days in 2019. You should have come to God's house in a spirit of worship because of the mercies of God. Sinner, you should thank God for His mercies. Here you are, the commencement of another year. Catalogue of sin to your name. 365 days of sin to answer for at the judgment seat of Christ. And yet you haven't been consumed, haven't been consumed in God's wrath, but rather day by day you experience the mercy of God, God sparing you. God showing pity, showing goodness, favor, kindness towards you to allow you to live on in your sin that you might be given one, one more opportunity. Just one more opportunity. I think of that in light of the events of this week. Going to speak to an individual about his great need of Jesus Christ. Within less than 48 hours, that man has went out into God's great eternity. And who says that God's mercy sinner will not be withdrawn from you this day? And you'll go out into God's eternity without knowing Jesus Christ as your Savior. An opportunity to repent, an opportunity to experience the forgiveness of sins, an opportunity to believe the gospel. Here you are. Here you are as a recipient of the mercies of God. I wonder what will you do with those mercies? Will you despise those mercies and continue on in your sin? And then the backslider, should you not thank God for His mercy? God has been patient with you. Over the last year, He's challenged you about the coldness that swept into your heart, the inconsistency that has started to mark your Christian living, the carnality, the worldliness that is becoming more noticeable, more apparent in your behavior, in your dress, in your conduct, in your speech. And yet despite the challenge and despite God speaking to your soul, here you are, it's brought no change. You continue to live in such a deplorable spiritual state, a state of backsliding, how merciful God has been. You've experienced his mercies. And yes, Christian, every Christian, we have experienced his mercies. How thankful we are for God's mercies when we consider how little we have progressed in our Christian lives over the last year. How unlike our Savior we are in so many areas of our lives, not just a few, so many areas of our Christian lives. How little time we have given to getting to know our God, how half-hearted we have been in our service for our God. But today, thank God, thank God there's mercies. There's mercies. Mercies for us. Mercies even for these people. Note a number of things about these mercies. Note first of all their plurality. The inspired penman, he speaks of the mercies of God. Not the mercy, but the mercies. These are mercies, plurality. There's more than just one mercy. These are multiple. There is a plurality. There is an increase. There is a greatness here to the mercy, a multiplicity of mercies that we receive from God and that we benefit from God. You know, this plurality of mercies, this plurality of mercy is promised because whatever life events we will meet this year, there will be a corresponding mercy suited for each of them. And so, child of God, maybe illness, that may come into your life this year, but if it does, there will be a mercy from God that will enable you to meet that illness. For some, sorrow will cross our pathway in 2019, but God's mercy will be there to help you to cope with that sorrow as it was for others within the congregation in 2018. Family troubles may disturb the tranquility of your home over the next 365 days, but thank God, divine mercy will meet you to sustain you in those troublesome times. You see, for every trial, there's a corresponding mercy. For every trial, there's going to be a corresponding mercy from our God. We are promised by the inspired Psalmist, the Psalmist David, in that great Psalm, the Psalm 23, surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. We're like Jacob, are we not? As we survey all that God has done for us, we have to come and confess that we are not worthy of the least of all the mercies of God. We're not worthy of them. God's mercy shone to us in 2018. God's mercy shone to us even today. We are not worthy of those mercies. And yet in light of the mercies of God, what are we to do? Well, Paul tells us what we're to do. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies or in light of the mercies of God, I have already mentioned from Romans 1 to Romans chapter 11, in light of the mercies of God, that, gee, present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. Be not conformed to the world, But be you transformed by the renewing of your mind that you might know and that you might prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Yes, we are the recipients of God's mercies, but as recipients of His mercies, that is to be reciprocated in us giving our lives to God. Laying our lives down on the altar for God. asking God to take us and to use us in whatever means and whatever ministry that God would have for us within the local church, and then if it be as well, further afield, that I, in light of his mercies, I give myself wholly, entirely onto God's altar. Is that going to be your response today? You who have known God's mercy, Or are you going to hold back part of the price and hold back part of the life from God? He wants all of us in light of His very mercies. Yes, the plurality of His mercy, but notice another thing. Notice the period of these mercies. The mercies of God are said to be new every morning. Some would think that it is his compassions are new every morning, but I don't believe it to be the case with the construction of the verse. He is speaking about the mercies of God. I suppose we can say his compassions are also new every morning, but I believe the inspired pen man has God's mercies as he speaks of them being new every morning. God's mercies are new every day. Think of that. Not even the manna from heaven came with such frequency. You'll know that the manna came six days, and on the sixth day, which was the day before the Sabbath, double fail. But the manna didn't come on the Sabbath day. No, just six days, and on the seventh day, the heavens were shut up. But not so with God's mercies. There is no day of the week that we do not experience His mercy. They come with freshness every morning. Thank God, God has something new for us every day. A new mercy. A new mercy that we can live the day by. A new mercy whereby we can serve the Lord Jesus Christ in a more acceptable manner. They come with freshness, something new for His children every morning. Not some mornings, but every morning. From the 1st of January to the 31st of December, there's going to be new mercies every morning. What a blessing. What frequency it comes to us. Grace for every day. mercy for every trial, for every difficulty. And why does mercy meet us at the dawn of every day? Why does mercy meet us at the threshold of the door before we step out into a new day? Well, mercy meets us because God knows that beyond the door, or even before we even get through the door of our homes, there are new temptations that I'm going to have to face. How am I going to face them with new mercy? There's new trials that are going to come to the doorstep of my home. How am I going to meet those trials? There's going to be new mercy for me, whatever those trials are going to be. There's going to be new troubles, new times of testing to face each new day, and yet God will come with new mercies to help us through, because that's the God we have. That's the God of heaven, a God who cares for His children, a God who loves his children, there's going to be new mercies. And maybe I'm speaking to someone, and maybe something new is on the horizon for you this year. Something new. Maybe a new marriage. Maybe a new ministry. Maybe a new home. Maybe a new baby. Maybe a new sphere of service. Maybe a new job. If so, there's going to be new mercy for you. And because there is new mercy, what is then the response? There is to be new praise. New praise. Praise every day for the mercies I received that day, for that trial, and for that problem, and for that joy. New praise at the end of the day. New praise at the beginning of the day to know that there is mercy. New praise at the end of the day to say that God has helped me through. And then in light of that, new service. That's what should arise as we experience new mercies every morning. Yes, a new faith. A new faith arising in our hearts every day as we see God working on our behalf. What an encouragement this was going to be for these captives in Babylon. There's new mercies. Even where you're found, there's new mercies coming down from heaven. God's sending them down. They're going to meet you every new day. What an encouragement for us in 2019. There's going to be new grace that we did not need before. New grace and new mercy from our God. But there is a second truth that I believe brings comfort, consolation to our hearts within the words of this verse. Not only the mercies of God, think of the compassion of our God Because accompanying the mercy of God, we're told that God's compassions they feel not. The word compassions, very interesting word within the Hebrew. It translates to mean the cherishing of a fetus within the womb. The cherishing of a fetus within the womb. God's love for his children, his compassions for his children is in the same vein is of the same kind as the love that an expectant mother has for her child within her womb. And what a deep love that is for those who have experienced such a love. It is a tender love. And that tender love, we are told, it feels not. His compassions feel not. They never cease. They do not end. They cannot be terminated at any juncture of time, but rather these compassions are eternal. They are everlasting in their duration. Literally translate it, We could say that God's compassions have no end. They are inexhaustible. That's what the thought is. These are inexhaustible in their duration. Everything we know in this world comes to an end. It has a time of beginning, but it also has a time of termination. A time of end. 2018 came to an end. Six days ago, that year came to an end. Our lives someday will come to an end. The wonderful thing is that God's compassions never end. They never end. What a worthy theme for our considerations today. And this is the first Lord's Day of a new year. The unfailing compassions of our God. We think of His compassion. We think of the fullness of it. We read multiple times about God being full of compassion. Psalm 86, 15. But thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion and gracious, long-suffering, plenteous in mercy and truth. Psalm 111, verse 4. He hath made his wonderful works to be remembered. The Lord is gracious and full of compassion. The next chapter, the verse 4, Psalm 112. Unto the upright there arises light and darkness. He is gracious and full of compassion and righteousness. Psalm 145, verse 8. The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and of great mercy. And that compassion, the compassion of God, found its fullest expression, found its personification, saw its exemplification in the life of God's only begotten Son. Because many times we read how the Savior exhibited compassion when He walked on this earth, Matthew 9, 36. But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion on them. because they fainted and were scattered abroad as sheep that have no shepherd. Matthew 14, 14, Jesus went forth and saw the multitude and was moved with compassion toward them and he healed their sick. Matthew 15, 32, then Jesus called his disciples unto them and said, I have compassion on the multitude because they continue with me now three days and they have nothing to eat. Matthew 20, 34, so Jesus had Most of these references He referred to the compassion of Christ with respect to the temporal needs of others. Shepherdless sheep, sick lives, hungry stomachs, blind men, unclean lepers, mourning widows like the woman of Nian. But the outworking of Christ's compassion goes far beyond the meeting of the mere temporal needs of His creation. Rather, it manifests itself in the fullest of light in meeting the spiritual need of the human heart. Compassion led him to the tree. Compassion led him to lay down his life as a ransom for many. Compassion led him to be beaten and buffeted by sinful and wicked men. Compassion saw him raised to heaven on a cross, a Roman gibbet. Compassion caused him to endure the darkness and from the darkness to cry, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Compassion led him to offer up himself as a sacrifice for sin. Oh, the compassion of our God. And those who come to experience the benefits of that redemptive work They do so simply because God has had compassion on them. Romans chapter 9 verse 15, For he saith, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. I asked you this afternoon, has God shown compassion to you in the gospel? Has God in love? took hold of you and dragged you out of the miry clay and placed your feet on Christ the solid rock. Oh, that the compassion of the Savior would work the wonder, and it is a wonder, the wonder of salvation within your soul before you take a step further into this new year. But His compassions do not end at salvation. Because throughout all of life's journey we enjoy and experience His compassions. He exhibits that compassion as He cares for us, as He corrects and chastens us, as He carries us, as He comforts us, as He channels us or directs us, as He challenges us. All of these things God does as an extension of the compassion that He has upon us as His redeemed children. As you meditate then on His compassion, a compassion that will never end, step out into the unknown of this new year, knowing that the God who is full of compassion will not permit anything into your life that is not for your eventual good and for His eternal glory. His compassions they feel not. Yes, the text speaks of the mercies of God, the compassions of God, but finally it speaks of the faithfulness of our God. This subject matter has been dealt with in our little series on Behold Our God. It was also dealt with on a watch night service a few years ago. We took that statement and we preached and expounded God's precious word. And so we're not going to extended out this afternoon. But let me say that while it's true that great is man's fickleness, it is also true that great is God's faithfulness. We have been fickle. Too many times in our lives we have been unfaithful. But while we have been unfaithful, he abideth faithful. It is the faithfulness of God that Jeremiah focuses on in the verse 23. He says, great is thy faithfulness. Don't forget the context in which the words are set. Judgment has come. And you may say, well, where is God's faithfulness in that? I tell you, God's faithfulness is seen as much in judgment as it is in mercy. Because God had warned these people time and time again that if they continued on in their sin, and if they lived in rebellion against God, that God was going to bring judgment to them as a nation, and now God in faithfulness is keeping to His promise. God in faithfulness has brought this judgment to them as a nation because they would not turn. And so God's faithfulness is fully exhibited here. as a nation are in captivity. God said that this would happen, and now here we are reaping the harvest of the sin that we have sown. And sinner, can I say that you're going to understand. Someday you're going to understand the greatness of God's faithfulness when you come, when you come to the end of life's journey. and he cast your soul into hell, because he has said, the wicked shall be turned into hell, and all nations that forget God, and God will be true to his word, and from hell you will say, great is his faithfulness. God in faithfulness is judging me for my life of sin, but there's mercies. Oh, may you receive those mercies. But God is also faithful, not only with respect to punishment, but he's faithful with respect to the promises. Hebrews 10, 23, let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for he is faithful, the promised. And when God gives his child a promise, his faithfulness is a guarantee that he's going to make good on his word. God in faithfulness will He'll make good on the Word. That Word upon which He has caused you to hope with respect to your family, with respect to the trouble, with respect to the illness, God will make good on His Word. Because great is His faithfulness. And so it is into the hands of this faithful God that we can commit that God relies on our families as we enter into the unknown days of this year. And so if you're today in this house burdened down, cast your burden upon the Lord, because he will sustain you, for he is faithful that promised. Troubled one today, call upon the Lord in the day of your trouble, and he will deliver you, and you'll glorify him, because faithful is he that promised. Week one today, look to the Lord who will strengthen you, who will help you, who will uphold you with the right hand of His righteousness, for faithful is He whose promise. Tempted one today, look away to God. Trust in Him. He'll not suffer you to be tempted above that which you're able. but he will succor them that are tempted, for faithful is he that promise. Maybe you're in the latter years of life, hope continually in your God, for even to your old age, he said, he'll carry you. And as your day, so shall your strength be, because faithful is he that promise, because great is his faithfulness. The year was 1866. Little log cabin in a little town of Franklin, Kentucky. Thomas Obadiah Chrisholm was born. Though he never went to high school or to college, he became an elementary school teacher at the age of just 16. Five years later, he was named the associate editor of the Franklin favorite, the local newspaper. When he turned 27, he attended a revival service held by the late Dr. H.C. Morrison. It was at that meeting that this young man, Thomas, gave his life to the Lord Jesus Christ. In the following years, he would serve as a Methodist minister and later as an insurance agent. During his lifetime, Thomas wrote around about 1,200 poems. And in 1923, he sent a batch of those poems to a man by the name of William Runnan. He was a musician, he was serving at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. Mr. Runnan was so impressed by one of the poems that he decided to set it to music. He published it privately, not knowing that it would become one of the most favorite hymns sung during the 20th century. In 1941, Thomas Obadiah Christophe penned these words of personal testimony, he said, has not been large at any time due to impaired health in the earlier years, which has followed me until now. Although I must not fail to record here the unfailing faithfulness of a covenant-keeping God, and that he has given me many wonderful displays of his providing care, of which I am filled with astonishing gratefulness. In him that he wrote, and light off the unfailing faithfulness of a covenant-keeping God with the hymn, great is thy faithfulness. Great is thy faithfulness. Great is thy faithfulness. Morning by morning, new mercies I see. All I have needed, thy hand hath provided. Great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me. If 2019 is anything like 2018, this new year will have its testing days. But child of God, accompanying those testing days will be God's mercies, God's compassions, and God's faithfulness. And that and those things will be enough to sustain us. will be enough to uphold us and will be enough to guide us safely through the many dangers, toils and snares that we will all face in a new year. It is off the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed. Because His compassions, they feel not. They are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. Take these words and trust in them and rest on them as you make your way through another year. May the Lord bless His word to our hearts. Let's pray. O God, our loving Father, we thank Thee that we bow before a faithful God, a God of compassion, a God of mercy, But surely, dear God, do we not need mercy? Do we not need compassion from God? As we look over a year that's passed and our many fallings and falters and all our failings, we need the mercy of God. But there is mercy. Lord, there are mercies every morning because there are sins every day. And Lord, we need mercy to cover our sins. We thank thee for the mercy seat. We thank thee for the place of blood sprinkling that covers the broken law. There is mercy for us. We bless thee for this. And so if we have, O God, field, and we all have, show us mercy, grant us mercy. O God, cover the sins, my sins, in thy mercy. We thank thee for compassion. O God, we thank Thee that the heart of God is tender towards His children, not a hard, callous, vengeful heart, but a heart of love, as much love within the heart of God as a mother has for her child, her unborn one. We thank Thee that there is faithfulness. Thou art faithful, we are unfaithful, but we look away from our unfaithfulness, and we thank God we see His faithfulness. O God, sustain us and help us and bless thy children. And if those who know not Christ, may they come to know the mercies of God and the gospel, the compassion of God and the blood sacrifice shown, the faithfulness of God and the promise that him or her that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. O God, show such faithfulness and mercy and compassion to those who are out of the way. Answer prayer and take us safely home and bring us to this house of worship tonight to worship thee for the mercies and compassions and faithfulness that thou hast extended to us. We pray this in and through Jesus' precious name. Amen and amen.