GOD OF MERCY
I once saw a sign outside a convent that read ‘Trespassers will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.’ Underneath it was signed Sisters of Mercy. There seemed to be an anomaly there to me. Prosecution to the full extent of the law and mercy?
Did you ever get caught doing something you shouldn’t? What were you hoping for when you got caught? Did you ever hurt someone by accident? What were you hoping for when you begged forgiveness? Mercy, that is what we were hoping for each time.
This morning we are going to look at the fact that God is Merciful.
Turn with me to Exodus 34 and verses 6-7. We read here of God revealing himself to Moses. Read with me verses 6-7. We find here that God reveals his character to Moses and part of his character is that he is ‘merciful.’ When God says he is merciful he is saying to us that his gaze upon us is one of tender compassion. In Isaiah 42.3 we read of this tender compassion, this relentless tenderness, this mercy towards us. The children of the day would have used the reeds of the riverside to make flutes. A reed that was bent or bruised would have been of no use to them – they broke it and discarded it. But God says such reeds, those broken and bruised by sin, are not only of value but of use to Him. In fact he will show them mercy and will not break them but restore them. He supports that imagery with one of a smouldering wick which he will not snuff out. This is the mercy of God being displayed to those who due to sin are almost extinct spiritually.
Yet look closely at verse 7. God’s mercy does not mean that he will set aside justice. God will not clear the guilty – that is he will not and he does not turn a blind eye to sin. He will not clear nor cleanse those who refuse to repent of their sin. He will not clear the guilty without satisfaction to his justice. That moves us then to the next step in God’s mercy.
MERCY REQUIRES BLOOD TO BE SHED.
On one occasion a mother came before Napoleon to plead for mercy for her son. The conversation went along the following lines:
Mother – I plead for mercy for my son.
Napoleon – this is his second offence and justice demands death.
Mother – I know what justice demands but I am asking for mercy.
Napoleon - he does not deserve mercy.
Mother – if he deserved mercy it would not be mercy.
Napoleon capitulated and gave the mother her son back. To what was that mother appealing? Mercy. What is mercy? When we look up the definition in the dictionary it states the following:
Refraining from inflicting suffering, punishment by one who has the right, power to inflict it.
Mercy is not in the hands of the one who pleads for it but rests in the hands of the one to whom the plea is made. Mercy is also related to justice. Justice treats us as we deserve to be treated because of our words and or actions. Mercy treats us differently than we deserve. Let me give you a few Biblical examples of mercy.
Genesis 3 – the Fall of Mankind. You all I am sure know the story well. Adam and Eve deliberately disobey God and bring sin and death into creation. When they realise what they have done they run and hide. God comes and searches them out. God had warned them in his word to them that if they ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil they would die. Justice demanded death. Adam and Eve deserved death. What happens? God displays his mercy to them. He does not turn a blind eye to their disobedience and their sin. He does not choose to ignore it. What he does is to pardon their sin. How? Look at the text closely – mercy comes at the expense of a life. In this case the blood of an animal was shed to atone for the sin of Adam and Eve. How do we know that? Well we read that God clothed them in animal skins to hide their nakedness. Mercy came at the expense of a life, at the cost of the shedding of blood.
Turn with me to Exodus 25.17-22. We have here described the Mercy Seat of the Ark of the Covenant. I want you to note that the Mercy Seat covered the Ark. It was over the Law, it covered justice and judgment. But I want you also to note it only came into effect when blood was sprinkled on it. When the blood from the sacrificial lamb on the Day of Atonement was sprinkled on the Mercy Seat then the throne of God’s judgment and justice became the means of his mercy to a sinful and wayward people. Mercy was offered at the price of a life.
You see no one has the right to mercy. It took blood to make the mercy seat work and mercy still requires a life and it still requires blood to be effectual. Why blood? Well if you turn to Genesis 4.10 we read that blood speaks – it cries to God. Then turn if you would to Hebrews 12.24. Do you notice the difference? Abel’s blood spoke of justice and judgment. The blood of Christ speaks of God’s mercy. For God to show us mercy he cannot set aside justice. Justice must be fulfilled or God would not be just. So God in his mercy towards us satisfies his justice, his holiness by taking the punishment which our sin deserves, death, upon himself and the blood of his Son shed on the cross effects mercy for us. Mercy required the shedding of blood and yet as the letter to Hebrews 9 tells us the blood of goats and heifers could not and would not cleanse us from sin for eternity. But as the author of Hebrews goes on to point out the blood of Christ brought a new covenant, an eternal covenant, in his own blood which does cleanse us from sin for all eternity.
Turn again with me to Exodus 34 and now to verses 8-9. Do you see the result in the life of Moses of God revealing his mercy? Moses immediately bows his head in humble reverence and adoration. He immediately gives God the glory due to his name. He is then moved to repentance in verse 9. Repentance because he is before God as the representative, the mediator, of a stiff-necked people. He then immediately asks God to pardon their sin and to take them as his, God’s inheritance.
You see friends in order for you to appeal to God’s mercy you must be aware of your sin, Moses certainly was. You see mercy can only be exercised where there is guilt. Mercy always presupposes guilt. The penalty of the law must have been incurred, otherwise there can be no scope, no grounds for mercy. When Moses appealed here for forgiveness, for God to show mercy he was saying ‘I am guilty.’ If Moses was not guilty then he could have appealed to justice to defend him and to offer him redress but he knows that not only is he guilty but that all the nation of Israel is guilty before God. Therefore he appeals for mercy. Let me illustrate this with a few examples from the Bible.
Joseph and his brothers. You know the story how they threw him in a pit and sold him into slavery in Egypt. Through the providence of God Joseph became de facto the Prime Minister of the land and how his brothers came to buy food because of a famine. Towards the end of the story in Genesis we read of how Joseph plants a silver cup in Benjamin’s sack and then demands he stay in Egypt as punishment. The brothers plead to Joseph for Benjamin. Joseph then reveals who he is and we read that the brothers bow before him and Joseph shows them mercy.
The Prodigal Son – that parable speaks of mercy. The Prodigal knows he is guilty and deserves nothing but punishment form his father. Yet his father shows him mercy.
David and Nathan – when Nathan confronts David with his sin over Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah – God’s mercy is declared but it is at the expense of a life, the child’s.
In order of us to cry to God for mercy we must come to the realisation that we are guilty and that we deserve the punishment. It is only when I am convinced and convicted of my sinful state before God. It is only when I am convinced and convicted that my sinful state deserves death, eternal death, that I am led to cry to God for mercy. I cannot appeal to him for justice because justice demands my death – the wages of sin is death. God’s holiness and his justice demands my eternal damnation and yet because he is merciful he has provided the means for me to escape death and receive eternal life.
Mercy implies my guilt. Mercy is what I appeal to when I come to the realisation that I have nowhere else to turn to and no one else to cry to. Friends you know God leads me to that point in many ways but significantly he does it by revealing to me by His Holy Spirit the extent and the consequences of my sinfulness. Turn with me to Deuteronomy 8.2-3, 15-17. We read here of God humbling the people of Israel for 40 years in the wilderness. Why did God do that? Moses says the reason was so that the people might come to a realisation of their disobedience, their sin before God. It was to show them, and subsequent generations, that sin had consequences but that even in the midst of their sin God was merciful to them. God allowed them to dwell in misery, not because he enjoyed it, but because only when they realised the consequences of their sin would their hearts be turned to repentance and faith in God. the father allowed the Prodigal to end up in the pigsty – not because he did not love his son but because only in the mire of the pigsty would the son’s heart be turned to repentance and his eyes opened to the love of his father.
Friends God will allow you to wallow in the mire of your sin so that your eyes might be opened to the consequences of your sin and your heart turned in repentance to him and that you might cry to him for mercy. Jesus said the Prodigal came to his senses in the pigsty. The question is will God have to lead you into a pigsty for you to come to your senses and come home? You see in 1 Kings 8.38-39 God says that each man will know the disease, the affliction of his own heart and that will lead him to stretch out his hand in prayer seeking forgiveness. Paul says the same thing in 2 Corinthians 1.8-9. God desires that we would cry to him for mercy and so he leads us to realise exactly who we are before him – a sinner. He leads us to realise exactly where we are before him – lost. He leads us to realise exactly what we deserve before him – eternal death. He leads us to realise exactly what we can do before him – nothing. All so that we might turn to him and seek his mercy. This morning my prayer for each and ever yone of you is that God would make you miserable in your sin. I pray that God would make you miserable in your sin that your eyes might be open to the offer of his mercy. Like the people of Israel God may well lead us into a wilderness in order to break our stiff-necks and soften our hard hearts. I pray that he will take us like he did Elijah (1 Kings 19.11-12) and hide us in the cleft of a rock and when he has shaken our worlds by wind and earthquake then we will be in a spiritual position and place to hear his still small voice speak to our souls. While you and I remain unconvinced of our sin and the fact that we are sinners then sin will lie hidden in our souls and it canker will corrupt our lives. It is only when God opens our eyes by the convicting of the Holy Spirit that we will be on the road to redemption.
We all know the story of Scrooge and how the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future come to haunt him on Christmas Eve. Friends there is some truth in what Dickens wrote. God sometimes in our lives brings the ghosts of the past and the present and in his mercy the spectre of our future to come into our souls. You know I don’t mean literal ghosts, there are no such things as ghosts. What God does is by his Spirit to almost quite literally haunt us with the sins of our past, our present and the consequence of them in the future. He convicts us of our sin and convinces us of their punishment so that we might what? Live in fear and dread? No! So that we might repent of them and turn to him and call on his grace and mercy for forgiveness.
You see when I turn to God’s mercy I am acknowledging my deep heartfelt guilt at my sin. When I turn to God for mercy I am admitting I have no hope of redemption but his forgiveness. When I turn to God for mercy I am saying that I trust and believe that he is merciful. I believe that his nature is merciful. I believe and trust Paul when he writes in Ephesians 2.4-5 that God is rich in mercy and will make me alive in Christ even though at this moment I am dead in my sin. God’s mercy takes note of me and it also takes action for me. In Hebrews 4.15-16 we also realise that God’s mercy identifies with me.
Trusting in God’s mercy I admit my guilt. I no longer seek excuses or justifications for my sin. I cry for his mercy and I rest assured in the knowledge that because he is merciful and because he is faithful (Ex. 34.6-7) he will forgive me my sin. He will forgive me on the grounds of the shedding of the blood of his Son Christ Jesus. And it is that blood sprinkled on the mercy seat of God which brings the mercy of God to bear on my life and yours.
CONCLUSION
We often hear people say ‘God helps those who help themselves.’ Friends the truth is this morning ‘God helps those who are unable to help themselves.’ Our God is a God of Mercy. He does not treat us as our sin deserves. In his love and mercy for you he sent Christ to die in your place, to take your punishment. He shed his blood for you so that when he carried his blood into heaven and sprinkled it on the mercy seat before the throne of his father – his father’s justice would be satisfied, atonement for sin made, and his father’s mercy towards mankind become effectual. I want each and every one of us to bow our heads and to be still before God this morning. I want you to know deep in your soul before whom you stand this morning – the sovereign creator of this universe. A God of holiness. A God of justice. A God of wrath at sin. A God of grace. A God of mercy. A God of mercy. This morning as we bow our heads, we bow our hearts and all we can do is thank God for his mercy towards us. We plead nothing before him this morning but the blood of Christ. We turn to him for forgiveness trusting in his grace, his mercy and his faithfulness. Our God is a God of mercy and we are eternally thankful. Amen.
