Great Is Your Faithfulness

. . Turn with me to Jeremiah. 2 Timothy 316 says, for all Scripture is inspired of God and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, instruction, and righteousness, that the man of God may be thoroughly furnished, fit for every good work. The Word of God is a treasure. It's a gift from God, the Word of God. And when Paul wrote those words, he was speaking, obviously primarily, about the Old Testament Scriptures, what we call the Old Testament, because that is what was in existence. There were a few New Testament books, and they have the same stamp of authority on them, but the Apostle Paul was saying that all of Scripture, that means every part of it and the totality of it, is God breathed, and it's profitable.

It is through the Word of God that growth comes, that guidance comes, that the Christian life, we understand the Christian life, and our relationship with God through the Word of God. Some of the best gifts that God has given to us is the Old Testament accounts and stories, which encourage us to trust God. I'd love to read the Old Testament and hear about the ways that God has been faithful to His people, that He's brought them through times that are even worse than what you're facing, and how faithful He has been. And it builds our faith. These dramatic accounts of prayer answered, and prophecies fulfilled, and faith rewarded. But that's not what we're going to look at today. What we're going to look at today is something different.

We're going to walk through a long, dark tunnel with a man who trusted God and went to his death with his dreams unfulfilled. It's a man with enough evidence in his life to convince any jury that God can be unfaithful, that God had failed him. And that was exactly what he was feeling like when we dig into this passage that we're going to look at ultimately in lamentations. But he was a man who was the inspiration for one of the greatest hymns of the church. We're going to sing it this afternoon when we gather for baptism. Great is thy faithfulness. Oh, God, my Father. What a glorious faithful God we have. And yet Jeremiah, who was just an ordinary young man that God called when he in his youth, but God called him to be his prophet during one of the darkest times in the history of God's people.

And we'll see what God did with him. Notice this, Jeremiah, chapter 1, verse 9, and 10 says, then the Lord stretched out his hand and touched my mouth. This is Jeremiah speaking, of course. The Lord stretched out his hand and touched my mouth and the Lord said to me, behold, I have put my words in your mouth. See, I have appointed you this day over the nations and over the kingdoms to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant. Then, as if to remove all fear and to share Jeremiah's heart that he was going to be successful, God adds in verse 18 of chapter 1, now behold, I have made you today as a fortified city and as a pillar of iron and as walls of bronze against the whole land, to the kings of Judah, to its princes, to its priests and to the people of the land.

And they will fight against you. Can you imagine God telling you that? Here's your ministry. You're going to minister to my people and they're going to fight against you, all of them. But they will not overcome you. For I am with you to deliver you, declares the Lord. That's a tough job, isn't it? It's like the job that he gave to Isaiah. You go preach to these people and they'll never listen to you. And you preach the judgment upon them because they won't listen to the word of God. And Isaiah says, how long do I have to do this? And he says, until I bring the nation down into captivity, your whole life in essence. So in the years that followed in Jeremiah's life, what you find are imprisonments, beatings, loneliness.

In fact, God forbade him to marry. Imagine that. God forbids Jeremiah to marry because he doesn't want to put a woman through what he would have to go through. Because of what he was going to do in the life of Jeremiah. He suffered rejection by those closest to him, attempted assassinations of him as the prophet of God, public ridicule, and most painful of all. And this was really the worst, this was the burden that came down upon him like a ton of bricks. He suffered the apparent failure of God's faithfulness to him. Some of you here have gone through times like that where it seems as though God is not being faithful to his promises to him. But yourself and Jeremiah's sandals, listen to these words, Jeremiah 5, verse 18, Why has my pain been perpetual?

And my wound, incurable, refusing to be healed, will thou indeed be to me like a deceptive stream with water that is unreliable? Will you be to me, God, like a fountain that has no water? Well, the most amazing things in the life of Isaiah is when God calls him to go and to proclaim his message to the king of no faith, the king of Judah. When he goes to do that, then he tells him to hide. He says, here's where I want you to go. I want you to go down by the Brook Kyrith. And the Brook Kyrith was this little tiny stream. It was not an abundance of water. In fact, there was barely any water there. In the wet season, there would be more, but when it got dry, this Brook would dry up. And God says, you go there, and I will feed you there.

And that's something. When God calls you someplace, he will take care of you there, where he has called you. So put yourself in his shoes, his sandals. He is at a critical crossroads of faith when we come to the book of lamentations. One book after that, Jeremiah, lamentations. What a book. If you ever had somebody tell you, you know, your face looks like the cover on the book of lamentations. I had a friend who always told me that when I was sad. Lamentations is the crossroads of the life of Jeremiah as the prophet of God. He had lived at this time through the siege of and the fall, the siege and the fall of Jerusalem, the blessed city. And you have to understand, this isn't like Brentwood going down the tubes.

This is like the dwelling place of God. Jerusalem, where God dwells in the temple. Jerusalem, the city of the covenant, the promise of God's presence. And he says, the very city that was where God dwells, it comes to an end. It falls. The city is destroyed for 18 months. Now think about this. How long is 18 months in your life? A year and a half, Jeremiah sees or deal after or deal after or deal. 18 hellish months. It seemed like a decade as he watched. He watched the food run out. He watched the water supply get so scarce that they had to ration water in ways we would never imagine. Thousands of people starved among the people of God, the people of the covenant, disease ran wild among them. People were dropping right and left.

In fact, it got so bad that this is that account in the Bible where it tells us that mothers in the city cannibalized their own babies. Listen to these words. Lamentations 410, you can hear the heart of Jeremiah. He says, the hands of compassionate women boil their own children. They became food for them because of the destructions of the daughter of my people. Jeremiah himself was despised. They called him a traitor. That was what they put on his forehead practically. You're a traitor because he kept telling them to obey God and trust God in the midst of all this. He was tortured, tortured for declaring the Word of God. Sometimes I think about these. When I come up on these accounts, I think about my own life and the things that I've suffered for preaching the Bible like a dirty look.

Or I've had people tell me, you know, you preach too long. I can't take it. I mean, I had a guy tell me one time, 15 minutes, I can stick with you after that. It's gone. I can't track. That's the kind of persecution I receive. He was tortured for declaring the Word of God. Then it was all over. Think of this. It was all over. The temple is destroyed. The city is in essence dead. The covenant city. The city over which Jesus wept. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem. You see, Jerusalem is a picture of the people of God. It's the place that He's promised us where we're going to be eventually in the presence of the living God. The presence of the living God was in Jerusalem. That's what we all long for. As Christians, we long to be in His presence, don't we?

Paul below sure of the song. I loved to be in your presence with your people singing praises. I love that expression. I love to be in your presence, God, with your people singing praises. I went to a little church this past weekend and preached at the church and did a men's retreat. Their music was very simple. In fact, they sang to a little device on the computer, a midi program where they would play the hymns and people would sing. It was a small group and the singing wasn't, it was just singing. I got to tell you, it was like, I just couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe that me sitting there listening to these old hymns and these guys singing these hymns and none of them had a great voice and the leader didn't have a great voice.

And yet I was so moved by the voices of the saints. And I thought, I do love to be in your presence with your people singing praises. You see, that's what we look forward to. It's to be in the presence of God. That's what heaven, the whole idea of heaven isn't that you're getting rid of your mortgage. You know, the thing about heaven is you're going to be in the presence of the living God. You're going to be in the presence of Jesus and heaven's going to come to earth and we're going to dwell here on this earth in the presence of God. And now Jeremiah looks at the city where the presence of God was. They saw the manifestation of the presence of God and now the city is destroyed and the city is dead.

And according to Jewish traditions, Jeremiah got so skinny that he looked like walking death. He became skin and bones and he sat on the slopes of the Mount of Olives when when Jesus taught his disciples. He sat on that mountain that overlooks Jerusalem and he overlooked and looked at the devastation of this once beautiful city and he wept and wept. The city of David, the capital of Solomon's glory, the city of peace, the city of the Messiah, the queen of the kingdoms has fallen. And with tears streaming down his face that now has got, he says these words in Lamentations chapter 1 verses 1 and 2, how lonely sits the city that was full of people. Can you hear his heart? She has become like a widow who was once great among the nations.

She who was a princess among the provinces has become a force laborer. She weeps bitterly in the night and her tears are on her cheeks. She has none to comfort her among all her lovers, all her friends have dealt treacherously with her. They have become her enemies. He goes on in the first two chapters and you hear the prophet saying over and over and over again in the first two chapters of Lamentations, God, you did this. It isn't just Babylon, you did this and sure enough that's exactly what the prophet said would happen. God would judge his people and he would use Babylon to do it. But then in chapter 3 his thoughts turn inward and the weeping prophet, Jeremiah, Lamentations chapter 3, the weeping prophet says in essence not only did you do it to the city, you did it to me, to me your servant, you called me to be a prophet and you've done this to me.

Wow. I want to read to you from this is actually from the message. The message is not a translation, it is a paraphrase of the Bible by Eugene Peterson. I wouldn't recommend it as a study Bible but it's a great, great read. Eugene Peterson is an unusual man. He's a pastor. He's now a professor in seminary of Canada but he's a pastor. He's pastored his whole life, his whole ministry in a little church. I think it was in Wyoming or Colorado I forget but he was there in this town and gave his life to these people. He said his goal in pasturing these people was to teach them how to pray and it took him 35 years. But this now he translates this passage and this is Lamentations chapter 3. Jeremiah says, I'm the man who has seen trouble, trouble coming from the lash of God's anger.

He took me by the hand and he walked me into pitch black darkness. Yes, he's given me the back of his hand over and over again. He turned me into a scarecrow of skin and bones and then he broke the bones. He hit me in, he ganged up on me. He poured on the trouble in hard times. He locked me up in deep darkness like a corpse nailed into a coffin. He shuts me in so I'll never get out, manacles my hands, shackles my feet. Even when I cry out and plead for help, he locks up my prayers and throws away the key. He sets up blockades with quarried limestone. He's got me cornered. He's prowling. He is a prowling bear tracking me down a lion hiding ready to pounce. He knocked me from the path and ripped me to pieces.

When he finished there was nothing left of me. He took out his bow and arrows and he used me for target practice. He shot me in the stomach with arrows from his quiver. Everyone took me for a joke. Made me the butt of their mocking ballads. He forced rotten stinking food down my throat, bloated me with vile drinks. He ground my face into the gravel. He pounded me into the mud. I gave up on life altogether. I have forgotten what the good life is like. I said to myself, this is it. I'm finished. God is a lost cause. I'll never forget the trouble, the utter lossness, the taste of ashes, the poison I've swallowed. I remember it all. Oh, how well I remember the feeling of hitting the bottom. You ever feel like that?

You ever feel like that as a believer as a Christian is following Christ? What do you do? What did Jeremiah do? Three verses later, something happens. It's so strange. Look at verse 21 of Lamentations chapter 3. Jeremiah says, then, I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. The Lord's loving kindness is indeed never ceased for His compassion's never failed. They are new every morning. Great is life, faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul. Therefore I have hope in Him. The Lord is good to those who wait for Him to the person who seeks Him. Something happened. I wonder if there's some verses missing in the Bible that tells us what happened because you know when you're really down, and we pray for you, we say, oh God, do something spectacular and supernatural to build their faith.

You know, you're so down and you're so defeated and so we pray, God, bring something really big into their life. So they can see evidence of your loving kindness. They need to see something spectacular. You know, we have the whole signs and wonders moving in the church that says, if people are ever going to come to Christ, they've got to see something spectacular. The amazing thing that what happened here was not something spectacular. Verse 3, we jump from total despair to one of the greatest declarations of faith and confidence and hope in God that you find anywhere in Scripture. He's a man who just saw the city devastated, the city of God, who says, I'm the target of God's outpouring of His wrath.

And all of a sudden He has hoped, what happened? Let me tell you what happened. This is the whole significance of this message. This is what happens. And this is what must happen in my life and your life when we get in this condition. Here's what happened. In verse 21, he is saying, I did something. You've got to do something if you want to get out of the mully grubs. You've got to do something when you're in the pit like Jeremiah was in the pit. You know what he did? He says, I recalled. I recalled something to my mind. And we say, well, Jeremiah, what did you recall? He says, I recalled the Scriptures. I recalled the Scriptures to my mind. What God has said, because that's what He's doing, is quoting the Scriptures.

You know, when you're down and defeated and it seems like God has abandoned you, what's going on here? You've got to recall the Scriptures. You don't need a miracle. You don't need your problem, Saul. You've got some deeper need than that. And that deep need is you need the word of the living God. Maybe what He remembered was Psalm 136. Psalm 136. Turn with me there. Psalm 136. I want to do something. Psalm 136. Everybody turn there. Everybody's got a Bible in this room. Turn to Psalm 136. I want you to do something. In my Bible, I got a New American Standard that translates the phrase that's repeated 26 times for his loving kindness is everlasting. You see that? For his loving kindness is everlasting.

I want to read through this text. I'm going to read the first line. I want you to shout out the second line. I want you to read it, respond to this with great gusto. I want you to project. And let's see what it sounds like. This is what it sounded like when the people of God would use this Psalm as a part of their worship. You were Psalm 136. What you're going to say, I'm going to read the first line. And you're, as a congregation, going to respond for his loving kindness is everlasting. Loving kindness means his faithful love to his people. A man's faithful love to his wife is loving kindness. Let me read. Give thanks to the Lord for he is good. Give thanks to God, the God of God's. Give thanks to the Lord of lords.

To him who alone does great wonders. To him who made the heavens with skill. To him who spread out the earth above the waters. To him who made the great lights. The sun to rule by day. The moon and stars to rule by night. To him who smoked the Egyptians in their firstborn. And brought Israel out from their midst. With a strong hand and an outstretched arm. To him who divided by the sea, the red sea asunder. And made Israel pass through the midst of it. But he overthrew Pharaoh and his army in the red sea. To him who led his people through the wilderness. To him who smoked great kings. And slew mighty kings. Sion, king of the Amorites. And Og, king of Bation. And gave their land as a heritage.

Even a heritage to Israel is servant. Who remembered us in our lowest state. And has rescued us from our adversaries. Who gives food to all flesh. Give thanks to the God of heaven. And it's somehow these modern pray songs are so repetitious. You think God gets angry when you say it over and over and over and over again. And you sing it over and over and over again. Thy loving kindness is everlasting. He doesn't. Will you forget that phrase today? For his loving kindness is everlasting. You got trouble? Trouble in your life? Does it look like God is abandoning you at times? You see, Jeremiah had heard that over and over and over again his entire life. He was called when he was a teenager. It's a middle-aged man.

And for his whole life, he has heard that phrase. For his loving kindness is everlasting. And so he recalls to mind. I did something. Could have been dozens of other places in the scriptures of his day that did affirm exactly what Jeremiah was worried about. Imagine the prophets trembling now. He's so devastated because of the devastation of the city and because he has become a target of God's arrow. But then he recalls. As he weeps before the Lord, this I remember, Lord, you say that your loving kindness has never ceased. That your compassion has never failed. That they are new every morning. You say that, God. Imagine him on his knees now. He buried his face buried in his hands. And he says, I affirm what you say.

I affirm it. Even though all the evidence around me is I look at the city. I see no evidence that your loving kindness endures forever. I believe your word. It's true. You love me. You are God. You cannot lie. Therefore, I have hope. Why do people have hope? Because things going well for them. The plans are working out. They've got it all figured out. It's because his loving kindness endures forever. Some of you are in a mess right now. Aren't you? I mean, you're facing stuff that you forgot. How are we ever going to straighten this mess out? His loving kindness endures forever. And Jeremiah says, Great is thy faithfulness. When Thomas Chisholm wrote his hymn based upon this text, Great is thy faithfulness.

You see, based on this, you remember the chorus that goes, Great is thy faithfulness. Great is thy faithfulness. Morning by morning new mercies I see. The fact is Jeremiah didn't see it. Jeremiah didn't see his mercies morning by morning. And you don't always either do you? I've gone many, many months not seeing the mercies of God before. At least not aware of it. He had no visible evidence of God's mercies at all. And the only thing that sustained him was his theology. It was his belief in the statements of the scriptures. Morning by morning brought horror and pain and dread. But not new mercies. You see, Jeremiah knew the word of God. Jeremiah wouldn't say, and he couldn't say, I trust you because I understand it all, because I've got it figured out.

I see what's going on here. I understand this. This is what it is. This is the hand of God. I can see this. You're working it all for good for our lives. You couldn't see that. No evidence of it, whatever in his life. All he could say is, I trust you because you were God, and you cannot lie. That's the only reason. It's in moments like these, that God wants you to tremble before his word. When you're in circumstances that say to you, shout to you, that God is abandoning you, that you cannot see his hand. He wants you to tremble at his word. See, a hundred years before this. He said through Isaiah, in Isaiah 66, too, but to this one, I, Jehovah God, will look to him who is humble and contrite of spirit and who trembles at my word.

It trembles at my word. If you will tremble at his word, you won't have to tremble at your circumstances. And that's the only thing that will deliver you from trembling at your circumstances at times. You tremble when you are confronted with incomprehensibility. If you've got God figured out, then you have a very, very small understanding of who God is. If you think you understand the triunity of God, then you're like a little child who thinks they understand, you know, nuclear physics. You don't understand it if you think you do, but if you're beginning to taste it and you believe what you understand, that you latch onto the promise of God and you tremble before his word, you tremble before a God that you cannot put in a box, that you can't figure out, that you can't trace his hand in every move that he makes in your life.

If you have a God like that, you tremble before him. But God, you can't figure out. And I can't get over. I do this and you do too. I'm always trying to explain God's activities in my life and your life. It's amazing people come to you and say, you know, this and this and this is happened. What is up? I don't know. I don't know what's up. I can't figure him out either. But I know this. His loving kindness endures forever. I tremble at this God. And when you have a God like this, the God that Jeremiah saw, you fall to the floor, you bury your face in the rug and you say, thou art my God. Thou art my God. See, these kinds of experiences that teach us that God's word is true even when our experience is shout out that it's not true, that it's a lie.

Even when I cannot figure God out at all, when I say to him, I cannot say to you, God, oh, now I understand. I don't understand. But I know that your loving kindness is endure forever. I know that you're a God who cannot lie. I heard Robert, I listened to the sermon from last week and he kept repeating to you because he had a God. We have a God. You see, he is the determining factor in all of this. We have a God, a God whose loving kindness is endure forever. I think there's a warning in this passage and that is as long as you and I bring God down to the level of our own experience and understanding. As long as we feel justified in putting God in His word on trial to our judgment, then we'll never discover the depths of what He has called His faithfulness.

He is a faithful and true God. And that means there's a God that you cannot figure out. You can know Him and you can know Him deeply and you can know a whole lot of things about Him. But He is incomprehensible. And there's times when you cannot figure out what God is doing. That's why Solomon says, don't trust your heart. Don't trust your heart. Don't trust your perception of reality. Trust God and trust the Word of God. God has revealed to us who He is and what He is. What impossible thing is God asking you to believe today that you find absolutely impossible to believe? I'm amazed today at times when people just openly admit that they cannot do the will of God because they don't think that doing the will of God is the right thing to do.

I'm sure I've done that before. I mean, I'm not conscious of it, but I'm sure I've done it before. Maybe it's clear to other people when we do that. It's just an amazing thing. What impossible thing is God asking you to believe right now? Is it that He loves you? The way the Bible says He loves you? That He loves you like this, and He points to the cross. You have an hard time believing that. You have an hard time believing that He's really in control, that He's really sovereign over life. You have a hard time believing that He really forgives, that He really does send away your sins, the words for forgiveness in the Bible. There's several different Hebrew and Greek words for forgive. One of them means to send away.

He sent away your sins. Well, we're going to celebrate when we come to this table in a few minutes as the fact that God's Word says those who turn to Christ in faith, their sins are forgiven. And He calls upon you to believe that. What about all those hard, confrontive statements and scripture about, you know, they're like a mortal blow against casual Christianity. Like no one can serve two masters. You either serve God or you serve money. Or how shall we who die to sin still live in it? Or what about this? You do not belong to this world. Or without holiness, no one will see the Lord. Without being set apart for God, no one will see the Lord. What will we do with these kinds of statements from scripture?

Will we rationalize them? Or are we going to believe them and tremble? I tremble at that statement. Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord. I can give you an exogetical explanation, the theological description of that phrase. But I want to tell you, it still causes me to tremble before His Word. Without holiness. No one will see the Lord. And I know what holiness is because we look at the life of Jesus. We would cringe at the thought of mocking scripture here. We believe in the authority of scripture and all those things. But it's amazing how we can adjust the meaning of the scriptures in order to fit our experience, our intellect, our comfort level. I'm comfortable with a certain level of these things.

Some years before Jeremiah's cry of faith, God gave another prophet, that prophet that's so hard to pronounce His Word. Habakkuk, His name, rather. Habakkuk. Habakkuk saw the hand of God like Jeremiah did. But he saw it in a vision. He saw the same destruction, but he saw it in a vision. But the vision was so real. He saw a dream that is so real, you wake up with emotions. You're shaking or you have great joy. Whatever. You're actually experiencing the emotions of the dream. That's what it was with Habakkuk when he saw this vision that God gave him about the destruction of Jerusalem. And it was like an impending judgment is going to fall upon Jerusalem. And he was shocked by it. It shook him to the very, his bones.

He says, he was like shaking in the wind. His bones had dried up. He was going to self-destruct because of this vision that had come to him about the destruction of the city of Jerusalem. He just couldn't understand this can't be. These are the people of God. These are the people that trust you. These are the people of faith in all the world. How can you do this? And then he heard God say, be hold. As for the proud one, his soul is not right within him. But the righteous will live by faith. When there's no evidence, there's no external evidence. There's no evidence in your life that God's hand of blessing is upon you. He says, the righteous will live by faith. When they led the righteous out of Jerusalem down into Babylonian captivity.

He says, they will live by faith. Faith in what? Faith in the God who has revealed Himself in His Word. That's why you need to learn the Word. You need to know who this God is so you can trust Him. It's the most important thing about you is your faith in this living God. Habakkuk understood that the only thing he could do was to affirm what God had revealed to him. He had to claim it to be true because he knew it was true. But he couldn't hardly comprehend it. It was overwhelming to him. And he talks about how it just overwhelmed him. The tears ran down and he sings a most agonizing song you will ever hear. Listen to these words that he sung before God. Though the fig tree should not blossom and there be no fruit on the vines.

Though the yield of the olives should fail and the fields produce no food. Though the flock should be cut off from the fold and there be no cattle in the stalls. Yet I will exalt in the Lord. I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. You know what? Some of you are going to experience this in your life. Because James says, whenever you fall into these kinds of trials where your faith is tested, you are blessed. And God wants to bless you. And he's going to bless some of you in this way and some very severe trials. Some of you, he's blessing you this way right now. Some of you already has. Life transforming trials. Because he takes away all the evidence that he used to count on. Sometimes we're like little bitty children and the way we live the Christian life.

And we live by sight and not by faith. And in fact that's what we appeal to the world with. We appeal to the world with all these things they can see about us and say, man, you want to be a Christian like us because we've really got it together. You know, we're all in shape and we all have lots of money and we all have things and things go really well for us Christians. God heals your ingrown toenails and solves all your depression problems and all those things. I was talking to an 84 year old saint the other day. He's been walking with the Lord for 70, 84, 77 years. And she told me she was depressed. She said, she said that way. She said, I'm really fighting depression. I feel so ashamed. I'm fighting depression.

Why are you ashamed? Why would you be ashamed that you're fighting depression? You ever read about Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane? You see the Christian life, the real Christian life, is a life that does include times when you wonder where is God in all of this. Well, I want to tell you, he is a God who is full of faithfulness. His loving kindness, his faithful covenant love endures forever. He loves you today. I don't care what your circumstances are. They might be no external evidence whatsoever of God's blessing on your life today. But I want you to know, based upon the word of God, that you are an object of His love. And that proves it. That broken body and that shed blood, he says over and over again, here's the evidence of my love for you.

And so that's why we celebrate this table today. Ken Koch is going to come and lead us in communion. And as he does, and we're going to sing some and pass out the elements and take communion together. This is for believers. This is for those who have rested their faith in Jesus Christ because it's a testimony that you believe it. That you believe in when you can't see the evidence of it. That God's loving kindness endures forever because God's loving kindness is the Lord Jesus Christ. The same yesterday, today and forever. Be of good courage, believer. Be of good courage. What you need is not a miracle. You need to recall to your mind what God has said about Himself. It's really true. Let's pray as Ken comes.

Father, I thank you so much for your loving kindness. We thank you, Father, that we don't depend upon external evidence. We love it when it comes. We love miracles, and we love the external evidences of your grace in our lives that come so often. But we thank you that even when there is no external evidence, no circumstances that testify to your blessing, we recall to mind that your loving kindness is enduro forever. And we thank you for that. Jesus' name, amen.