[0:00] Lamentations in chapter 3, and we'll read at verse 31. For the Lord will not cast off forever, but though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love.
[0:19] For he does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men. Grief is something that we are all, I'm sure, very familiar with from one source or other.
[0:38] Grief is not simply something that comes merely from the experience of the death of loved ones, though that's very much one of the major sources of grief for us, of course.
[0:51] This chapter itself, this book, The Lamentations of Jeremiah, it's obviously a book of grief. A book that expresses the grief of the prophet over the destruction that has come in his day upon Jerusalem, upon the people of God.
[1:07] The destruction that has left the temple wasted and many of the people put to death or taken away captive, as happened when the Babylonians invaded.
[1:17] And the grief of the writer, the grief of the prophet, is actually very much expressed as a personal grief. I am the man that has seen affliction.
[1:29] He's expressing it from his own personal perspective. And that's, of course, so much a feature of grief in any case. When we come to no grief, even if it's grief that has its source in somebody other than ourselves experiencing things, nevertheless, when we come to experience grief, it is a very intensely personal matter.
[1:55] And grief is an ongoing feature of our communities. One of the things that marks our community is that we share together in grief when death occurs.
[2:07] It is still the practice, thankfully, and it's a practice we hope will never actually cease, that as communities we come together to share with the bereaved those things that they're going through, to uphold them, to seek as far as we can, to support and comfort them in their situations.
[2:30] So that grief, as it continues to be experienced by us as a people, is something that's very real to all of us here tonight, as a feature of our own experience.
[2:41] Even over the past three years, just over three years since I was inducted here as your minister, there have been 107 deaths in the congregation alone.
[2:55] That's three deaths on average every month that goes by. Three people, if you average it out, three people belonging to the congregation actually pass away.
[3:06] And grief comes to all of those families and to ourselves as a community of church people when we find such a frequency of death in our experience.
[3:21] Now, we're looking at tonight the subject of grief as one of those primary sources of tribulation that comes to us.
[3:31] We've looked at a number of issues, a number of aspects of tribulation, looking at the ways in which we come through tribulation to experience more of the Lord's dealings with us, more of the Lord's comfort, the Lord's guidance, and all of these other things that we've mentioned.
[3:49] We've mentioned other aspects of tribulation previously. We looked last time at persecution, for example. So tonight our focus is on grief. And it will be because largely that's what most of us have as a source of grief, the experience of death in our families, in our communities, in our neighborhood as the source of grief.
[4:12] And we're going to look at how we approach the whole issue of grief, looking at it under three aspects. We wouldn't call it three stages.
[4:23] That's how I was first going to look at it, three stages of recovery, if you like. Because whenever we experience grief, we always have to think of how do I recover from this? What is the process of recovery?
[4:35] What sort of things do I need to know of and need to follow out and need to practice in order to recover? Because we must never think of grief as something that's going to be permanently lasting with us, at least not to the extent that it comes to us in the first instance.
[4:53] So the three aspects of recovery, or the path of recovery, if you like, have three aspects to it. And we're going to deal with them very simply, hopefully, so that they'll be easier for you to carry.
[5:05] And to remember, there is grieving, believing, and receiving. Grieving, believing, and receiving.
[5:16] Or just put it in terms of the nouns, grief, or grieve, the verbs rather, grieve, believe, and receive. Now we're not looking at them as stages of recovery, as if one wasn't to begin until the other one's completed.
[5:32] We mustn't think of it as beginning to believe only after the grieving process has largely gone through. I want us to think of these three aspects of facing grief and dealing with grief as simultaneous experiences, or simultaneous in our practice of seeking recovery, so that the grieving, and the believing, and the receiving, by way of receiving the comfort and direction of God, we're to look at and we're to think of as existing simultaneously.
[6:01] They're available to us, and they're things which we have to look at as taking place at the same time, or pretty much alongside each other. So that the more we engage in that, the more we're in a position, however long it takes, and it will vary for each individual, to go through the process of recovery from grief and from the source of grief.
[6:22] So let's look first of all at the matter of grieving itself. Grieve, believe, and receive. Grieving, first of all, has two aspects to it that we want to actually just briefly mention and follow through.
[6:37] First of all, grieving is itself normal. And it's not just normal, but it's normal in terms of expressing it and expressing it openly.
[6:49] And we must never be afraid of the actual process of grieving itself. Because grieving is something, if we repress, can actually end up with emotional damage.
[7:01] If we try and keep grieving and keep the lid on grieving, and put on a brave face, as it were, and not actually express our grief, or even in a personal, private, unseen sense, if we deny ourselves the facility of grieving, or coming to weep out of grief, then that itself is going to be somewhat damaging for us, and somewhat inhibiting by way of our process of recovery.
[7:31] Tears are not a sign of weakness. When we come to know grief, I'm the source of grief. When you come to weep over something that grieves you, whether it's the death of another loved one, the death of someone that you know is close to you, or whether the source of the grief is something other than death, it doesn't matter.
[7:51] When you show your grief, and when you weep over that, it's quite normal to do that. It's something that's expected of people who grieve. And don't listen to the kind of advice that says, you know, you should really just firm up.
[8:06] You should really just man up, or firm up, and just not be as expressive of your grief. You should keep a lid on that. Don't let that be shown to people. That's not the kind of thing we're taught in the Bible at all.
[8:19] Just look how often in the Bible you find an emphasis on people expressing their grief through weeping, and through coming before God even, and shedding their tears there.
[8:30] And even as they tell of their grief, being open about the fact that they are grieving, and have their facility of grief. After all, the Son of God wept as he drew near where his friend Lazarus was buried.
[8:46] The shortest sentence in the Bible is one of the most precious you can ever read. Jesus wept. And if it was right, and fitting, and proper, you mustn't think that for Jesus to have wept in public was something to be ashamed of.
[9:06] He was the Son of God, and there's the Son of God in our nature as a human being, coming to the grave of his departed friend Lazarus, who'd been dead for four days.
[9:17] He's not ashamed to show his grief. He's not saying within himself, well, I'd like to cry in the presence of these people, but really I shouldn't go that far. He wept, and they saw him weeping.
[9:29] And they saw the tears, and they knew that he was grieving. See, when you have love, you will always have grief attached to it.
[9:40] Because when you love somebody, here again we're confining our thoughts to grief over death. When you love somebody, love actually invests in a person that you love.
[9:52] Your love invests in that person that you're loving. Or if somebody loves you, they are investing in you. Their love is investing in you. And when that bond is broken, then it stands to reason.
[10:05] That when that bond is broken, then the love that's invested there feels the grief. The person feels the grief. The grief is inevitable. And it is normal to have that, and to show that, and to not be ashamed of that.
[10:23] Not only that, but mixed emotions. In the normality of grieving, and of showing grief, mixed emotions is part of that normality.
[10:35] Sometimes we perhaps are afraid to just confess that, and to acknowledge the fact that such things as regret, such things as relief, such things as guilt, such things as anxiety, they're all part, along with many other things, of this grieving, and of this grieving process.
[10:54] Very often be regrets as to things we didn't do, or things we did do, or things we hadn't heard, or things we hadn't discussed with the bereaved. I can say personally, when my father passed away, there was immediately a sense of regret, not only obviously over not having his presence in my life anymore, but there's so many things I should have asked him, so many things I would have liked to have asked him, so many things I should have spent time in asking him about, and now he's gone, and I can't get the answer to some of those issues of family history, or whatever.
[11:31] There's always some elements of regret, and there might be even, somebody's been suffering for some time, for example, and deeply suffering pain in their illness. There's a sense of relief when that process is over, when they've come to leave that context of pain and of grief.
[11:50] There's a sense of relief. You always find that. Very often, at least find people saying, well, he's out of pain, or she's out of pain. And there may be a sense of guilt over that, that you're feeling a sense of relief for them now that they've gone, and you may be feeling guilty about acknowledging the fact that they're no longer with you, and you're glad from one point of view, from that point of view, of being out of pain, that they're no longer with you.
[12:19] You see, there's all that sort of mix of emotions, and there obviously is the emotion of anxiety, and probably this is, this is not in any way denigrating females or women or wives, but it's often the case, and it's there abundantly in Scripture, that a person newly widowed will have an element of anxiety as to the future, an element as to how they're going to manage certain things if they were actually being done for them by the departed.
[12:51] How am I going to manage this? Whether it's bank accounts, whether it's other things like that, anxiety, anxiety over the future. So there's all of that mix and other things in the mix of emotions, but that's all normal, and it's okay.
[13:06] There's a phrase nowadays that goes about it, you'll find often say, it's okay. It's okay to feel certain things in certain circumstances.
[13:17] Well, it's okay to grieve. It's okay to feel that mix of emotions. It's okay to let them run. It's okay to let them be seen. That's what you're doing.
[13:29] Grieving is normal. But grieving, secondly, is something that is necessary. It's actually part or an aspect of that recovery process itself.
[13:42] You see, as we said, we mustn't isolate grieving or grief from the believing or from the receiving of comfort or help or guidance. You mustn't look at grief on its own and just isolate it off because when we do that, then we tend to actually overdo the grieving side, if we can put it that way.
[14:00] It's very easy for us just to remain in the grief, to let the grief just go on, to let it linger on, rather than seek the process of recovery from it. So you mustn't isolate the grief.
[14:12] We mustn't isolate that for each person. Of course, that will be different. And some people will need to grieve longer than others. Some people can cope with the or overcome the death of loved ones or the source of whatever the grief is in a way that recovers more quickly than others.
[14:34] We mustn't actually think that there's a standard measure for just how long it takes to recover from the death of loved ones, from something which causes you to grieve.
[14:44] Let the grieving process itself go on for as long as is necessary, but don't detach it from the need to recover.
[14:54] And when you do that, it will actually be something that proves to be an aspect of the recovery that you're able to grieve, that you have that ability to let your grief flow.
[15:07] And that's where the sharing of grief is something so very important. As you very well know, the Bible tells us, the New Testament especially, tells us, though it's there in the Old as well, that God's people, the body of Christ, are in fact a body.
[15:24] They're a community. They're a believing community. They're charged with caring for each other. Jesus, instructing the disciples, said this to them, that they should love each other.
[15:34] Paul, in writing to the churches that he wrote to, emphasized the need to bear one another's burdens, to share in things like grief and difficulties and trials and problems and tribulations.
[15:46] That's what we're here for. That's why we're here, to support one another through their times of grief and tribulation. And that is an aspect of the church that's so, so precious.
[15:57] As Romans chapter 12 and verse 15 puts it, rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. Jesus made a point of going to see Mary and Martha when that brother had died.
[16:15] Four days since he died, of course, he remained two days where he was. That was part of his own strategy as the Lord who knew all things. But he went there to where they lived.
[16:26] And he met with them and he dealt with them individually. He dealt with them, with each of them differently, actually. Very interestingly, it's a tangent and I'm not going to go into that tangent just now.
[16:37] But if you study the chapter 11 of John, you can see how different these personalities were. Mary and Martha, Mary the quiet one, Mary the introspective one, Mary that tended to look inwardly and to be very studious and very quiet.
[16:52] Martha the outgoing, Martha the busy one, Martha that had that sort of personality and practice. What did Jesus do when he met with Martha? He got her to speak. It got her to tell them of how she felt and what she was going through.
[17:07] He pointed her to the resurrection and so on. Mary was sitting still in the house. She went out to meet and there's no record of Jesus saying anything to Mary. He just stood beside her and that's all that she needed.
[17:19] You know, sometimes that's all grieving people need. Because very often, when we're grieving, when we're grieving, we're not really in a position to take in what we're being told anyway, what we're hearing.
[17:32] Even the words of Scripture, sometimes, as Lamentations here, the self is saying to us, Jeremiah was not really in a position because of the depth of his grief.
[17:45] He wasn't really hearing the voice of God as he once was. And so, what's most important in a time of grieving is that it's normal and it's necessary, but it's something to be shared.
[17:59] Something to be shared because we are a body of people who have these needs that we need to share with one another. And that's why it's such a satisfactory thing that when death comes into our experience, people actually contribute so much to our lives.
[18:22] People make a point of actually sharing that situation, that grief with us and being adamant that they need to support us, that they want to support us.
[18:33] And even if it's just sitting with us and sitting quietly and just knowing that presence beside us, that sometimes is what makes all the difference the fact that they're there and that they're there meaningfully and willingly to help us.
[18:53] Grieving. Grieving is normal. Grieving is necessary. Grieving is to be shared. And the more we share grief as many other things, the stronger we will become through the contribution of others too.
[19:09] So there's grieving and secondly, there is believing. The passage here doesn't deal with simply the expression of grief. There's also alongside of that the believing of this man because as he's worked through in his thoughts about what's happened, about what is experienced by him, about the depth of his grief, he's describing that in such amazing ways all the way down through the chapter.
[19:33] But verse 21, he begins to get a glimpse of something that he then holds on to. But this I call to mind, therefore I have hope. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.
[19:45] His mercies never come to an end. They are new each morning. So what is it that we need to believe? Well, we need to believe three things.
[19:59] First of all, that death is inevitable. That death is inevitable. Why am I saying that? Because to know that death is inevitable is not the same thing as accepting it when it comes.
[20:13] some people find it very difficult to accept that a loved one has gone. That's understandable. That's something that we must give all due weight to.
[20:27] But the acceptance of death and the acceptance that a loved one is gone is so important and so crucial a matter in our recovery, in the process of recovery.
[20:39] Acceptance begins the process of healing. Death is inevitable. Let me say this to the young folks here tonight. You may think that as I once did that dying is not really something that happens to a person until you're well up in years.
[20:57] 60, 70, 80 or something like that. Just remember this, friends, speaking here lovingly to these young people and I don't want to sound over morbid but it's important that we put these things to ourselves even from our youngest days.
[21:12] The moment we are born we are old enough to die. The moment we are born we are old enough to die.
[21:23] As soon as we come into this life we are susceptible to death. Death could take us away from that moment at any time. So please you young people I'm not saying you should be thinking about death every day or every moment of every day but please remember that you need to be ready to die whenever it comes and that you need to have Jesus to die victoriously to die in such a way that will enter heaven when you die.
[21:57] And the moment to begin thinking about that is now whatever age you're at just now is Jesus your friend is Jesus your savior is Jesus going to be with you to take you through death and on into heaven.
[22:16] If you were to die tonight or if you had died yesterday would you have been safe in the arms of Jesus? It's for every one of us to look and to study for ourselves but it's also there for young people too.
[22:32] Death is inevitable and the grieving that goes along with it follows on from that. But the second thing that we need to believe and it's more in this passage is that God is dependable.
[22:45] That God is dependable. Look at verse 22 there. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning.
[22:55] And verses 31 to 33 also what he believes. For the Lord will not cast off forever. Though he cause grief yet he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love.
[23:08] For he does not afflict willingly or grieve the children of men. See there's no change in verse 22. There's no change to the steadfast love of the Lord.
[23:20] Such a precious thing at all times but especially something to hang on to and to build upon when you're going through a grieving process. When you're experiencing grief. This that you believe.
[23:32] This believing and this believing in this God. And then what this God is like and who he is and what he has done and what he's still doing and what his nature is. And what he's saying to us here is there is no change in the Lord even if there's a change in our circumstances.
[23:47] Even though as he says here he causes grief in verse 32. What he means is God of course presides over every event of our lives. They are all in his plan. They have not come about by accident as far as he's concerned or as far as we as believers are concerned.
[24:03] God doesn't involve himself in accidents or in things that he hasn't planned. So though he caused grief always hang on to the fact that he's unchangeably the same in his promises in his dealings with us in his covenant in his salvation in his steadfast love.
[24:22] And verse 22 his mercies never come to an end. That word mercies we've seen it before in the Old Testament we've mentioned it in other contexts.
[24:35] It's a word that's very closely related to the word for womb in the Old Testament. The womb in which a woman carries a child through to birth.
[24:49] And it means literally it has the idea of cherishing mercies cherishings.
[25:00] I'm just going to mention this in passing but it's something that you could apply to the whole issue of abortion. If you go to the Old Testament and you look at the word for mercies which means to cherish something and how very closely related it is to the word womb.
[25:18] Well the fruit of the womb the product of the womb. The baby in the womb is a life to be cherished. The very fact that it's in the womb that's so closely related to cherishing or mercies is a strong argument itself along with many others against abortion.
[25:41] But here he's using this word saying of the Lord his mercies his cherishing of his people never comes to an end. The fact that he has planned grief for them, the fact that he's caused such a devastation in the history of the people in Jeremiah's day, the fact that that's such a dramatic and tremendous and traumatic event has come to pass, has caused him massive grief.
[26:08] But he says this I'm going to hang on to, I'm going to call this to mind and I'm going to have hope through it, that the steadfast love of the Lord, the covenant love of the Lord, the faithfulness of the Lord, the unchangeable commitment of the Lord to his people, that never changes, and that mercy of his, the cherishing with which he cherishes his people, it never actually comes to an end.
[26:32] It's never altered, it's never displaced, it's never to be called into question at the depth of our grief, though sometimes we tend perhaps to do that, to question whether the Lord is dependable, to question whether in fact he's changed as far as our relationship to him is concerned, all of that is natural to the process of thinking through grief, but God is dependable, verse 32, you see he's causing grief but he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love, and in verse 31 there, the Lord will not cast off forever, grief is not everlasting for God's people, Psalm 34 has the same emphasis isn't it, that weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning, for the Lord's people there's always a morning into which their grief actually enters, and at the border of which they leave their grief behind, the night may be very long, the night may feel desperately long if you're in pain, if you can't sleep, and if you take a whole lifetime, as you could in that context of Psalm 34, weeping,
[28:00] Psalm 30 rather, weeping may for a night endure, but joy comes with the morning, and so it is for the Lord's people, life may be one of constant grief, constant trouble, constant affliction, but all the more reason here why Jeremiah is pointing us upwards to God himself and to his unchangeable being and his dealings with us.
[28:28] we believe that death is inevitable, that we accept it as a fact in our experience. We believe secondly that God is dependable, hang on to it through the process of our grief.
[28:40] Thirdly, we believe that heaven is desirable, because through grief we come to think, or should come to think, about eternal things, and very often grief will focus our minds more so than other times, will help us to sharpen our minds on those things that are eternally abiding, and of eternal importance.
[29:02] Heaven, hell, life with God, righteousness, all of these things that have such an eternal significance, especially eternity itself for the Lord's people.
[29:14] Heaven is desirable. Grief should point us to the fact that heaven is so desirable. Psalm 16, where the psalmist is talking there of how he knows of grief, grief of various kinds, but it comes to end the psalm, you remember, you will not abandon my soul to death or to Sheol, and you make known to me the path of life.
[29:40] In your presence there is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. Going to the next psalm, Psalm 17, where David contrasts his own lot with that of the wicked or of his enemies, where he says that they have all their treasure in this life, they leave the abundance of that behind.
[30:00] As for me, he says, as he closes the psalm, I shall behold your face in righteousness. When I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness. You see, he's pointing us upward, pointing us to eternity, pointing us to the desirability of heaven.
[30:17] That follows through all the way through in the Bible. Psalm 23, goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Psalm 73, Psalm is talking there about how he had almost slipped away.
[30:33] He was envious at how little trauma he saw in the life of the worldly people of his day. Then he says, you hold me by my right hand.
[30:46] You guide me with your counsel and afterwards you shall receive me to glory. Whom do I have in the heavens but you, O Lord?
[30:58] You see, heaven is desirable. Paul talking to the Philippians about his own experience in chapter 1 verse 23. He's hemmed between two things, to desire to depart and to be with Christ, or as to remain for a while longer with the Philippians.
[31:13] But he says to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better. There's no question in his mind that that would be far better.
[31:24] And Revelation chapter 21, just let me finish the point with that. It's remarkable in the way that Revelation chapter 21 defines that final state of heaven by negatives.
[31:37] Normally you don't find things defined by negatives, but such is the case with heaven that we're, in this life, we don't have all that much capacity to understand what it's like, what it will be like.
[31:50] So there is John as he's given this Revelation in chapter 21 saying, I heard a loud voice saying, Behold the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God will be with them as their God.
[32:04] He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.
[32:15] There is heaven, you see. It's defined as desirable, but it's defined in terms of negatives, the things that you know of in this life abundantly that cause tribulation and pain and sorrow. There are no more.
[32:27] No more crying, no more pain, no more grief, no more death. A great description that proves to be after all.
[32:38] death. So we believe that while death is inevitable and we need to accept it when it comes into our lot and that God is dependable and that heaven is desirable.
[32:54] Thirdly, we need to receive. Along with the grieving and the believing is the receiving. We take truly our grief to God as Jeremiah is doing here.
[33:06] He is actually dealing with God. He is laying out his heart before God. Here he is in verse 40 saying, let us test and examine our ways and return to the Lord. Of course he is saying that in the context of people who had gone away from the Lord, who had abandoned the Lord, who had taken on so many idolatrous practices for which the Lord came with his judgment upon them.
[33:28] That is what caused the devastation. I am not suggesting for a moment that that itself is a point that is relevant to ourselves or to yourself. all grief is an occasion for turning to God.
[33:43] An occasion to bring what you have in your heart to God and to turn to him to receive help and especially comfort from him.
[33:55] William Cooper, appointed in the time of John Newton, was a man who was severely oppressed with depression and even suicidal thoughts.
[34:06] many times he was helped by his friend John Newton and others but he penned the most wonderful poetry and hymnody that you can read to this day and here is one of them.
[34:17] It is titled Looking Upwards in a Storm. Looking Upwards in a Storm. This is partly how it goes. God of my life to thee I call God of my life to thee I call when the great water floods prevail leave not my trembling heart to fail.
[34:39] Friend of the friendless and the faint where should I lodge my deep complaint where but with thee whose open door invites the helpless and the poor.
[34:50] Did ever mourner plead with thee and thou refuse that mourner's plea? Does not the word still fixed remain that none shall seek thy face in vain?
[35:02] That were a grief I could not bear didst thou not hear and answer prayer? But a prayer hearing answering God supports me under every load.
[35:14] Poor though I am despised forgot yet God my God forgets me not and he is safe and must succeed for whom the Lord vouchsafes to plead.
[35:30] What wonderful words to shine their light into our grief that God continues to be dependable and listens to our expression of our grief to himself.
[35:44] We receive from him by first turning to him but having done so we wait upon him and wait for his ministry through his Holy Spirit because there is no comfort like the comfort that God gives to his people.
[35:58] Remember how Paul began his second letter to the Corinthians speaking of the grief that he himself had experienced many times as an apostle from different sources.
[36:10] Blessed he says be God the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort who comforts us in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God for as we share abundantly in Christ's suffering so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.
[36:38] Where is their comfort? Like the comfort that God gives comfort that Jesus came to secure for his people isn't that why he's called in Isaiah chapter 53 a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows what a great description of a saviour that is where do you find anything like it nowhere else surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows when you go to Jesus with your grief he knows what you're talking about he knows it far better than you're able to to actually understand or explain or talk about yourself he knows it because he's been through it he's been through it all he's carried it all and he's done it successfully and that's why these wonderful words in hebrews are such an apt point with which to finish our study this evening study which i fear is very inadequate very incomplete and very meager and i hope it's been of some help in chapter 4 of hebrews we have he says such a great high priest who has passed through the heavens jesus the son of god so let us hold fast our confession for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses but who in every respect has been tempted like as we are and yet without sin let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need grieve believe receive but above all let jesus be the one who manages your grief let's pray lord our god we acknowledge the inevitability of grief in this life we belong to in this world we acknowledge oh lord that your word teaches us of the various sources of grief that we may experience we pray that when grief is such a common feature of our lives that you would teach us oh lord to continue to exercise our souls in believing and in coming through grief itself when it's necessary to work through towards your comfort we thank you for that comfort we thank you for the ministry of your spirit as a ministry of comfort that he is the great comforter and we pray oh lord for all tonight here who still know of grief in their lives who may go back many years and still find that there is an open wound in regard to your providence from which that grief continues bless them we pray grant we pray that they may as they work through these matters themselves that they may continue to believe in you as the god of comfort the god who carries his people and help them we pray all who grieve whether here or elsewhere grant lord that our grieving and believing and our receiving from you may finally issue in our being in glory with you hear us we pray for jesus sake amen well let's sing now in conclusion from psalm 56 psalm 56 on
[40:40] page 287 june this time is moravia and we're singing verses 8 to 13 very precious words too when the psalmist is setting out before god his sense of relief or comfort in the fact that god knows his wanderings and his tears and they are all recorded with god for his benefit my wanderings all what they have been thou knows their number took into thy bottle put my tears are they not in thy book my foes shall when i cry turn back i know it god is for me in god his word i'll praise this word in god shall praised be and so on through to the end of the psalm my wanderings all what they have been my wanderings all what they have been thou cuando созд're non near the國家 are they not in my view their
[42:11] Saxxy and that I know God is for me.
[42:30] In God's word I'll praise His word, in God shall praise Him be.
[42:46] In God I trust I will not fear what man can do to me.
[43:03] Thy grace upon me are, O God, I'll render place to Thee.
[43:18] Worldwide law to all death be saved, my feet from false key free, to walk before God in the light of those that live in me.
[43:50] If you let me get to the main door, please, after the benediction. Now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you now and evermore.
[44:03] Amen.