Part 11

Psa. 103:8--"The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy." For, instead of inflicting pain, poverty, death--which are the wages of sin--God has spared our lives, given us health, increased our blessings and comforts, and given us the life of the ages. Deut. 4:31--"(For the Lord thy God is a merciful God); he will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers." God is ready to accept the penitence of Israel, even now, if only it be sincere. Israel will return and find God only because He is merciful and does not let go of her. It is His mercy that forbids his permanently forsaking His people. Psa. 86:15--"But thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion, and gracious, long-suffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth." It was because God had so declared Himself to be of this nature that David felt justified in feeling that God would not utterly forsake him in his time of great stress and need. The most striking illustration of the Mercy and Loving-kindness of God is set forth in the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32). Here we have not only the welcome awaiting the wanderer, but also the longing for his return on the part of the anxious and loving father.

(1) How the Mercy and Loving-kindness of God are manifested.

In general: We must not forget that God is absolutely sovereign in the bestowal of His blessings--"Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy" (Rom. 9:18). We should also remember that God wills to have mercy on all His creatures--"For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive, and plenteous in mercy to all them that call upon thee" (Psa. 86:5).

aa) Mercy--towards sinners in particular.

Luke 6:36--"Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful." Matt. 5:45--"That ye may be the children, of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust." Here even the impenitent and hard-hearted are the recipients of God's mercy; all sinners, even the impenitent are included in the sweep of His mercy.

Isa. 55:7--"Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord: and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." God's mercy is a holy mercy; it will by no means protect sin, but anxiously awaits to pardon it. God's mercy is a city of refuge for the penitent, but by no means a sanctuary for the presumptuous. See Prov. 28:13, and Psa. 51:1. God's mercy is here seen in pardoning the sin of those who do truly repent. We speak about "trusting in the mercy of the Lord." Let us forsake sin and then trust in the mercy of the Lord and we shall find pardon.

2 Pet. 3:9--"The Lord...is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." Neh. 9:31--"Nevertheless for thy great mercies' sake thou didst not utterly consume them; for thou art a gracious and merciful God." Here is mercy manifested in forbearance with sinners. If God should have dealt with them in justice they would have been cut off long before. Think of the evil, the impurity, the sin that God must see. How it must disgust Him. Then remember that He could crush it all in a moment. Yet He does not. He pleads; He sacrifices to show His love for sinners. Surely it is because of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, and because His compassions fail not. Yet, beware lest we abuse this goodness, for our God is also a consuming fire. "Behold, the goodness and the severity of God." The Mercy of God is here shown in His loving forbearance with sinners.

bb) Loving-kindness towards the saints, in particular.

Psa. 32:10--"But he that trusteth in the Lord, mercy shall compass him about." The very act of trust on the part of the believer moves the heart of God to protect him just as in the case of a parent and his child. The moment I throw myself on God I am enveloped in His mercy--mercy is my environment, like a fiery wall it surrounds me, without a break through which an evil can creep. Besistance surrounds us with "sorrow"; but trust surrounds us with "mercy." In the center of that circle of mercy sits and rests the trusting soul.

Phil. 2:27--"For indeed he was sick nigh unto death; but God had mercy on him; and not on him only, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow." Here God's loving-kindness is seen in healing up His sick children. Yet remember that "He hath mercy on whom He will have mercy." Not every sick child of God is raised. Psa. 6:4--"Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am weak: O Lord, heal me...Deliver my soul for thy mercies' sake (v. 4)." The psalmist asks God to illustrate His mercy in restoring to him his spiritual health. From these scriptures we see that the mercy of God is revealed in healing His children of bodily and spiritual sickness.

Psa. 21:7--"For the king trusteth in the Lord, and through the mercy of the most High he shall not be moved." David feels that, because he trusts in the mercy of the Lord, his throne, whatever may dash against it, is perfectly secure. Is not this true also of the believer's eternal security? More to the mercy of God than to the perseverance of the saints is to be attributed the eternal security of the believer. "He will hold me fast."

d) The Love of God.

Christianity is really the only religion that sets forth the Supreme Being as Love. The gods of the heathen are angry, hateful beings, and are in constant need of appeasing.

(1) Scriptural statements of the fact.

1 John 4:8-16--"God is love." "God is light"; "God is Spirit"; "God is love." Spirit and Light are expressions of God's essential nature. Love is the expression of his personality corresponding to His nature. It is the nature of God to love. He dwells always in the atmosphere of love. Just how to define or describe the love of God may be difficult if not impossible. It appears from certain scriptures (1 John 3:16; John 3:16) that the love of God is of such a nature that it betokens a constant interest in the physical and spiritual welfare of His creatures as to lead Him to make sacrifices beyond human conception to reveal that love.

(2) The objects of God's Love.

aa) Jesus Christ, God's only-begotten Son, is the special object of His Love.

Matt. 3:17--"This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Also Matt. 17:5; Luke 20:13. Jesus Christ shares the love of the Father in a unique sense, just as He is His Son in a unique sense. He is especially "My chosen." "The One in whom my soul delighteth," "My beloved Son,"--literally: the Son of mine, the beloved. And we can readily understand how that He who did the will of God perfectly should thus become the special object of the Father's love. Of course, if the love of God is eternal, as is the nature of God, which must be the case, then, that love must have had an eternal object to love. So Christ, in addressing the Father, says: "Thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world."

bb) Believers in His Son, Jesus Christ, are special objects of God's Love.

John 16:27--"For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God." 14:21-23--"He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father. ...If a man love me...my Father will love him." 17:23--"And hast loved them, as thou hast loved me." Do we really believe these words? We are not on the outskirts of God's love, but in its very midst. There stands Christ right in the very midst of that circle of the Father's love; then He draws us to that spot, and, as it were, disappears, leaving us standing there bathed in the same loving-kindness of the Father in which He Himself had basked.

cc) God loves the world of sinners and ungodly men.

John 3:16--"For God so loved the world" was a startling truth to Nicodemus in his narrow exclusivism. God loved not the Jew only, but also the Gentile; not a part of the world of men, but every man in it, irrespective of his moral character. For "God commendeth his love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:8). This is wonderful when we begin to realize what a world in sin is. The love of God is broader than the measure of man's mind. God desires the salvation of all men (1 Tim. 2:4).

(3) How the Love of God reveals Itself.

aa) In making infinite sacrifice for the salvation of men.

1 John 4:9, 10--"In this was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that God loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." Love is more than compassion; it hides not itself as compassion may do, but displays itself actively in behalf of its object. The Cross of Calvary is the highest expression of the love of God for sinful man. He gave not only a Son, but His only Son, His well-beloved.

bb) In bestowing full and complete pardon on the penitent.

Isa. 38:17--"Thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back." Literally, "Thou hast loved my soul back from the pit of destruction." God had taken the bitterness out of his life and given him the gracious forgiveness of his sins, by putting them far away from Him. Eph. 2:4, 5--"But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ," etc. Verses 1-3 of this chapter show the race rushing headlong to inevitable ruin. "But" reverses the picture; when all help for man fails, then God steps in, and by His mercy, which springs from "His great love," redeems fallen man, and gives him not only pardon, but a position in His heavenly kingdom by the side of Jesus Christ. All this was "for," or, perhaps better, "in order to satisfy His great love." Love led Him to do it.

cc) In remembering His children in all the varying circumstances of life.