Life is hard and God is good. This was the point John Piper made in his sermon "Thank God for the Mercies of Christ" preached on November 19th, 2000 on Lamentations chapter 3. Here's what he said. Lamentations chapter 3. You may have a hard time finding it. It's a teeny little book sandwiched between Jeremiah the big prophet and Ezekiel.

And it's a book that I do not expect many of you to know anything about because it is so small and so tucked away there. Doesn't get read very much and one of the reasons it doesn't is because it's such a horrible book. Because it is so shot through with with horrific pictures of the judgment of God upon Jerusalem.

Jeremiah wrote this little book as Jerusalem was destroyed in 587 BC and the pictures of destruction are terrible, loss of life, starvation through siege. But, and here's the amazing thing, in the middle of this five chapter book, the middle chapter, comes some of the sweetest, most precious words that God has ever put in the mouth of a prophet to tell to his people.

And those are the ones I want to read. Because they have a special punch when you realize where they are. Verse 21 to 25 of chapter 3 of Lamentations go like this, "This I recall to mind and therefore I have hope. The Lord's loving kindnesses never cease. His compassions or His mercies never fail.

They are new every morning. Great is your 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." Now that should boggle your mind because those precious words, especially the words, "His mercies are new every morning," is spoken in a situation that was horrific in its suffering.

The afflictions, the devastation, parents were eating their children. They were so hungry and the siege was so horrible. Now how did these words, how did these words get into that book? And as a partial explanation I want to read two more verses. Drop your eyes down to verses 32 and 33.

"For if He," meaning God, "if He causes grief, then He will have compassion according to His abundant loving kindness. For He does not afflict willingly or grieve the sons of men." Now the very least we can draw out of those verses is this, the mercies of God are often hidden and hard to see while they are happening.

Because it says He does cause grief and He does afflict and yet it says there's a merciful purpose in it all and it's not coming from the bottom of His heart. He does not willingly afflict the sons of men. There are purposes for His affliction. It's not the thing He delights most to do and yet He does it.

And if we'll trust Him, there are mercies hidden there for us. It's just like the book of Job. You know the story of Job. He lost everything he had. He lost ten of his children, all of them. He lost all of his possessions. He lost all of his health and James, Jesus' brother, thousands of years later, in his little book called James, writes in chapter 5 verse 11 this interpretation of that book.

He says, "You have heard the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the Lord's dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful." So there's the point of the book of Job according to James. He lost all of his children. He lost all of his health.

He lost his possessions and this says the purpose of the Lord was compassion and merciful. So if we'll trust Him, that's the meaning of the destruction of Jerusalem. That's the meaning of the loss of his health. And I don't know where you are this morning, but if you will trust God, mercy is in your life right now.

It is all over your life. Mercy, a design, a compassionate design. If you will trust God and hold on to Him for that, it will show itself sooner or later. We could say it in the words of Susan Shelley, Marshall Shelley's wife. Marshall Shelley is one of the editors for Christianity Today.

1991, November 22, a few days before Thanksgiving, 820 p.m. their son was born and at 822, two minutes later, he died. Marshall wrote an article in CT about four years ago about it called "Two Minutes to Eternity." Magnificent article. The nurse standing over her, holding her dead baby said, "Does the baby have a name?" And she said, "Toby." It's short for a biblical name, Tobiah, which means God is good.

And when Marshall came to speak to the Wheaton alumni a few years ago down at Wheaton and told this story, he said at the end of his talk, summing it all up, "Life is hard and God is good." Life is hard and God is good. That's the meaning of lamentations.

That's the meaning of Job. You might say that's the meaning of the Bible. Life is hard and God is good. And many of you are right in the midst of proving it to be so. Now, at least if you would trust him, if I could persuade you this morning that God is trustworthy in it and he held on to it, you would discover that life is hard and God is good.

Oh, that God this morning would give us eyes to see his mercies in our lives and we would see them all the more clearly and know that they were mercies if we knew the price that he paid for them for us. He sent his Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to die so that my guilt would be taken away, his wrath would be removed from me, and there would be a free, open course for his mercies to flow to me while he is just, even though I'm a sinner, I could be treated with mercy.

That's a glorious thing that God has done in Jesus Christ and we would taste the mercies all the more sweetly if we knew the price. That was from John Pepper's sermon, "Thank God for the Mercies of Christ," preached on November 19th, 2000, on Lamentations chapter 3. Thank you, podcast listener Calvin Katzma, for the recommendation.

You can find the full message on our site, along with a couple thousand other messages like this one from John Piper. See our sermon archive at DesiringGod.org. And have you seen the music video by Shane and Shane we titled, "A Song for the Suffering?" If not, you should. Go to DesiringGod.org and search for the title, "A Song for the Suffering." If you are passing through a season of suffering now or if you know others who are, this video is glorious and helpful and hope-giving.

Well, John Piper returns tomorrow coming off a six-week writing leave and we'll talk to him about how he researches, plans, and writes books. And then, of course, we'll ask him specifically to talk to us about the book that he just wrote. That begins tomorrow. Until then, I'm your host Tony Ranke.

Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast. you you