Great Is Thy Faithfulness

Lamentations 3:22-24, “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. The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.”

Our great God is faithful. 1st Corinthians 1:9, “God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” The book of Lamentations (to lament) is about the aftermath of the destruction of the city of Jerusalem. God's people had sinned. Repeatedly the Lord promised the Jews that if they keep His statutes and obeyed His commandments, He would bless them (Exodus 19:5-6; Deuteronomy 28:1-14); but if they refused to keep His commandments, and instead followed after other gods, He would destroy them (Deuteronomy 28:15-68). The Israelites disobeyed!

The book of Lamentations was penned by the prophet Jeremiah. His contemporaries of the day were the prophets' Ezekiel, Daniel, Habakkuk, Obadiah and Zephaniah. God raised up the Babylon against Israel. During the Babylonian invasion, Daniel was taken into captivity with the rich, and Ezekiel taken captive with the middle-class, and Jeremiah was left with the poor in the rubble and aftermath of the smoldering remains of Jerusalem.

Jeremiah is often called “the weeping prophet.” Lamentations 1:16, “For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me: my children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.” Jeremiah saw thousands of Jews dead. The women were ravished, tortured and killed. The men were tortured and slain. The fortunate Jews were taken into captivity. The city of Jerusalem was burned with fire. God's judgment finally came upon a wicked nation who snubbed their noses at God! In 586 BC Jerusalem fell to Babylon.

It is in this horrific setting that Jeremiah writes the book of Lamentations. We find something amazing in this Old Testament book. The English alphabet has 26 letters. The Hebrew alphabet only has 22 letters. In chapters 1, 2, 4 and 5 of Lamentations, we see that each of these chapters has 22 verses. This coincides with the Hebrew alphabet. But chapter 3 has 66 verses, or three times 22. It is in this third chapter that we find the greatest truth in the Bible—GOD IS FAITHFUL!!! 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.”

Great Is Thy Faithfulness