Great Is Thy Faithfulness

December 31, 2017 / No. 3913

Dear Radio Friends,
Introduction
On this last day of the old year we are going to consider together a lamentation of the prophet Jeremiah. To lament means to mourn aloud with grief or to express one’s complaint. And this is exactly what the prophet Jeremiah does in this chapter and in this book of the Bible. He mourns over the desolation and destruction that had befallen Jerusalem and Judah. He raises his voice of grief over the captivity into which this nation had been taken on account of her apostasy. In verse 14 of Lamentations 3 Jeremiah informs us that he was a derision to all his people and that they mocked him with their song. This was true, and more. He was even cast into a pit, for days standing in mud up to his knees. This prophet had been beaten and imprisoned because he spoke the words Jehovah had placed upon his lips. He spoke words of condemnation and destruction upon Judah for the sins she had been committing before the face of God. The people and the rulers hated him for that. Not that Jeremiah took pleasure in speaking such harsh words. He was required to do so by God Himself. He could not help but speak these words. He was Jehovah’s mouthpiece. So he was persecuted for the sake of the truth—and in the book of Lamentations he raises his lamentation to God.
But why consider a lamentation at the end of this year? Because in the midst of his mourning, Jeremiah brings to mind a blessed truth that gives God’s people joy on this last day of the year. That truth is contained in Lamentations 3:22-23: “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.” These verses teach us this blessed truth: God is faithful! In this past year God has proved Himself faithful to His people. Even though we see society and the church slowly crumbling and falling apart, we can say: God is faithful! His mercies toward you and me have been new every morning of this year gone by! That knowledge gives us confidence and joy as we stand at the close of this year and look back across the year. It is that confidence we consider today using the confession of praise raised in our text.
Great is Thy Faithfulness
I. Faithfulness
As we look back across the year 2017 in retrospect, we certainly can confess together God’s faithfulness to His people in Christ. When we in our weakness have so often strayed from God, He has again in His faithfulness towards us preserved us in our faith. Even in those times when we were the least deserving of it, God held us in His mighty hand and led us. But we must understand what is fully implied in this concept of God’s faithfulness if we are really to understand its beauty. Only when we fully understand everything that is included in God’s faithfulness towards us are we able to stand on this old year’s night and exclaim: “Great is thy faithfulness!”
You see, from eternity God has established His decree. In that decree He has chosen a certain people unto Himself in Christ. God did not leave that choosing up to man. He is God, who determines all things. God chose to Himself out of the human race a certain number of individuals who together would make up His church—the body of Christ in this world. As these individuals are born throughout the generations of this world, God, by His sovereign and free grace, calls them to faith and repentance. He sends forth the Spirit of Christ into their hearts and works in them faith with its fruit: true repentance over sin. He then unites them to the body of Christ in this world, so that they stand together in this world with other elect believers, the church. With these believers in their generations God establishes His covenant with its promises. God enters into an intimate bond of love and fellowship with them, a bond in which He becomes their God and Father and they His people, the very children of His family. That is God’s covenant.
With that covenant God has made a promise to His church, and through her to every believer. We read of that promise of God’s covenant in Deuteronomy 31:8: “the Lord, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed.” God speaks these words repeatedly to His people in the Bible. In His great love toward His people, in His covenant blessing toward them, God makes a promise to them: no matter in what way I lead you in this world, you need never fear, because I will never leave you alone. I will always be there for you. God’s covenant, established long ago with Abraham,