Words Of Encouragement Feb. 9, 2025

Lamentations 3:21-26

a. This I recall to mind, therefore I have hope: For perhaps the first time in the book, hope is allowed. Having sunk low in his soul (Lamentations 3:20), Jeremiah now remembered something that started hope within.

i. “In a magnificent expression of faith in the unfailing mercies of God, the writer looks to the distant future with renewed hope.” (Harrison)

ii. “At the south of Africa the sea was generally so stormy, when the frail barks of the Portuguese went sailing south, that they named it the Cape of Storms; but after that cape had been well rounded by bolder navigators, they named it the Cape of Good Hope. In your experience you had many a Cape of Storms, but you have weathered them all, and now, let them be a Cape of Good Hope to you.” (Spurgeon)

b. Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed: This was one of the things Jeremiah remembered. He remembered that as beat down and defeated the people of Jerusalem and Judah were, they were not yet completely consumed. There was still a remnant, and remnant with a promise of restoration. Wherever God leaves life, He leaves hope.

i. “The vital word in this verse is ḥeseḏ (‘great love’ [mercies]), the covenant love and loyalty of the Lord that leads to rahamim (‘compassion,’ ‘mercy’), derived from reḥem (‘womb’).” (Ellison)

ii. “See where Jeremiah gets his comfort; he seems to say, ‘Bad as my case is, it might have been worse, for I might have been consumed, and I should have been consumed if the Lord’s compassions had failed.’” (Spurgeon)

c. Because His compassions fail not: Even in the severity of correction God’s people endured, there was evidence of His compassions. There was rich comfort in realizing that the tender affection of God was not completely spent; these compassions were new every morning.

i. “The passage is full of beauty, as it deals with that tender compassion of God which had never been absent even in the work of punishment.” (Morgan)

d. They are new every morning: Each dawning day gives mankind hope in fresh mercies and compassions from God. We need a constant supply and God has promised to send them without fail. No matter how bad the past day was, God’s people can look to the new morning with faith and hope.

i. These mercies are always new because they come from God. “Our treasures, which we lay up on earth, are the stagnant pools; but the treasure which God gives us from heaven, in providence and in grace, is the crystal fount which wells up from the eternal deeps, and is always fresh and always new.” (Spurgeon)

·Every morning ends the night.

·Every morning brings a new day.

·Every morning brings new provision for the day.

·Every morning brings new forgiveness for new sins.

·Every morning brings new strength for new temptations, duties, and trials.

e. Great is Your faithfulness: All this made Jeremiah consider the great faithfulness of God; that He never fails in sending His mercies and compassions. Even in their catastrophe, God was faithful. He faithfully announced His judgments and performed them, and God would prove to be just as faithful in His promised restoration.

i. “The prophet addressed him personally and directly: ‘Great is your faithfulness’. In the process of remembering God’s attributes, Jeremiah was drawn back into living fellowship and intimate communion with his faithful God.” (Ryken)

a. The LORD is my portion: As in Psalm 119:57, Jeremiah found the key to satisfaction—finding one’s portion in the LORD. Whatever measure he was to receive, whatever inheritance, whatever future, it would all be found in Yahweh.

i. These are the words of a satisfied soul. Jeremiah had no other place of satisfaction, so he was settled with the portion received, and that portion was the LORD Himself.

ii. “The poet said in effect, that he has had so little of this world’s goods and pleasures because his share has been the Lord.” (Ellison)

b. Therefore I hope in Him: God couldn’t really be his hope until he was first his portion. This was a pathway to hope for him.

c. The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him: All the misery of God’s people had come because they would not truly seek God and wait for Him. They rejected and rebelled for generations, then looked to others for rescue. Seeking Him again would bring renewed expressions of His goodness.

i. “Do not be in a hurry; do not expect to be delivered out of your trouble the first time you begin to cry unto God. Oh, no: ‘the Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.’ (Spurgeon)

ii. “There are times when the only thing a sufferer can do is wait for God. But waiting is good because God is worth waiting for.” (Ryken)

d. It is good that he should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD: Everything previous in Lamentations was deep in despair, and the misery was by no means over. Yet these flashes of light are welcome and necessary. Against all the despair, Jeremiah proclaimed to himself and all others the goodness of hope and patient seeking of God.

i. “Hoping and waiting differ but as the mother and daughter, hope being the mother of patience and waiting; or as the habit and act, hoping and waiting being much the same, flowing from a gracious power and habit given the soul to wait. Quietness is necessary to waiting, for all turbulency and impatience of spirit under sad providences is opposed to waiting.” (Poole)

More info here where I found this.