The Mercy of God

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Thursday, March 30th. Scripture teaches us that God is merciful, but does that mean He will cover everyone's sin? Today we learn what mercy does and doesn't do. So I really want to zero in on one particular area of the mercy of God, and that is as it relates to salvation, as it relates to our redemption and what I believe is a misconception, the part of a lot of people today about the mercy of God. So I want us to look at two or three verses here about the mercy of God for just a moment and two or three that you and I are familiar with. Look, if you will, in the 51st Psalm, and we will look at two or three Psalms here.

And then I want us to look at this matter of the problem that I think a lot of people have when they begin to think about the mercy of God. If you recall, the 51st Psalm is probably one of the most beautiful Psalms of confession to be found in the Bible. And the Psalmist says, Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness, according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. And you remember, this is David's Psalm of confession of sin before God. If you look at the 57th Psalm for a moment, again, the first verse, Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me, for my soul trusteth in thee. Yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge until these calamities be overpassed. The hundred and third Psalm. Look, if you will, just a moment. The 17th verse we ask, Where did the mercy of God begin?

It never began. Verse 17 says, But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him and his righteousness on the children's children. And then if you'll turn to First Peter for a moment, the first chapter and the third verse. He says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to his abundant mercy, everlasting mercy, abundant mercy hath begotten us unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Now, there may be many attributes about our Heavenly Father that we may not be quite so sure about. But the mercy of God all of us have experienced over and over and over again. We live in his mercy and his grace and his love day by day. And have there not been times when you've prayed and maybe some sin that slipped into your life and you've come before the Lord and you've said, Lord, I just want you to be merciful to me. Just show me mercy. But listen, the mercy of God has already been expressed to you and to me in the absolute fullest extent in which God himself is capable of expressing mercy. You and I, as his children, do not have to plead the mercy of God. We are living in his mercy, living in his grace, living under the umbrella of his love and goodness and mercy toward us every single day of our life.

We may not be conscious of it. We might not take advantage of it, but we live in his mercy. Now, in the Old Testament, when they prayed for the mercy of God and beseeched his mercy, they didn't know what you and I know.

They did not have what you and I have. They were on one side of the cross, you and I on the other side of the cross. The cross of Jesus Christ is God's fullest expression of mercy and goodness and love toward us. But I think there are many, many people today who have a very erroneous concept of mercy. And so what I want us to do, I want us to look at this from the point of view as God would have us to see the relationship between his mercy and our salvation and his holiness.

But there is a conflict here in some people's minds. And in other people, they just trampled down the mercy of God and just move on to say, well, after all, God is a God of mercy. I think you and I can divide the mercy of God into two different categories. One of them is that mercy of God that he extends to the whole human race and over all the earth.

That's sort of his universal mercy. And there are a couple of verses. If you look in the hundred and forty fifth Psalm for just a moment. And look, if you will, in the eighth verse, he says, The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and of great mercy. The Lord is good to all and his tender mercies are over all his works.

Now, let's look at the lost man. For example, he has no recognition of God. He has no allegiance to God, no loyalty to God, no faithfulness to God and is rejected God's son. That does not mean that he is not under God's universal umbrella of mercy. There's some things that God is going to in his mercy bestow upon mankind upon his earth simply because he's a God of mercy. That does not mean he's able to enjoy all the mercy of God.

But there is a degree. There is a limited degree to which all men are able to enjoy something of the mercy of God. But the mercy of God is not just general.

It is not universal only. But the mercy of God, on the other hand, is limited to believers. Now listen, God's universal limited mercy is bestowed upon all men to a degree. But that which makes us a child of God and God's whole redemptive plan, the mercy of salvation is not automatically, automatically bestowed upon all men.

The opportunity is extended. But those who enjoy the mercy of God's redemption are those who respond to his offer by faith in Jesus Christ. He says in Christ Jesus, that whole first chapter of Ephesians. In fact, Paul's two key words in all of his epistles in Christ, everything we have from God comes in Jesus Christ.

We do not get what we deserve. We get what grace provides. We're talking about the mercy of God, which is an expression of the love of God. And the grace of God is the means by which God brings about our salvation.

Now, what about God's redemptive plan? On the one hand, his redemption of mankind and the sin of man. What about the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man?

What about the righteousness of God and the sinfulness of man? You see, if God is a God of mercy, a God of grace and a God of love, you and I by experience and by faith know that he saved us. He didn't save us because we deserve to be saved.

He saved us out of mercy and grace and love. So we never come to him on the basis of what we deserve. On the other hand, God said in the very beginning, he said to Adam and Eve, all the trees in the garden are available for your feasting. But there is one tree that you must not eat out of. It is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In the day that you eat of that tree, ye shall surely die.

Now, you know the story, the aid of the tree. So God had one of three things he could have done from a human point of view. He could have said, all right, Adam, you have violated my law. But because you have, I'm going to just forgive you this time.

I'm going to overlook that this time. But the next time I'm just going to wipe you out. Or he could have said, because you've sinned against me and violated my law, you're going to be lost and eternally separated in me forever. And all who follow you will follow in your footsteps and they too shall be eternally separated.

He could have done that or he could have done what he did. He said to Adam, you've violated my law. And the condemnation that is the judgment upon this is death. And you deserve death and you'll experience death.

Except I'm going to provide a substitute for you. And that substitute will pay your price in order that you might be redeemed from your sin and you might be redeemed from your condemnation. Now you see, God was giving us in that first book of the Bible, the third chapter of Genesis, a picture of what he was going to do for all mankind. The mercy of God is expressed even there, even though man deserves death and condemnation and judgment, God in his mercy has provided a way for man to be saved. That's where the cross comes in. The cross of Jesus Christ makes the mercy of God, the love of God, and the goodness of God available to you and me in a redeeming manner whereby the mercy of God expressed through the cross by the grace of God through faith, you and I are made acceptable to God.

Now watch this. What is it that makes the unholy man acceptable to God? Because he's holy? No. Because he's righteous? No. Because he's sinless?

No. That which makes a holy, righteous God able to accept an unholy, unrighteous man is that his son Jesus Christ, who was equally God, holy, righteous, and just, was willing to lay down his life on the cross. He became the bridge of blood. He became the eternal sacrifice whereby God could say to the unholy man, my law has been fulfilled, my demands have been met, and the demands are death for sin. Therefore you can walk across the bridge of the cross of Jesus Christ and you are accepted not on the basis of my mercy, but on the basis of the what? That righteousness has been fulfilled and holiness has not been violated in the fact that God provided the bridge. But it is his grace and mercy and love that brought Jesus Christ into the world and Jesus Christ is man's bridge to God.

If a man can get to heaven any other way except across that bridge, then that bridge was absolutely unnecessary and we are wasting our time talking about the atoning death of Jesus Christ. It is by his mercy and grace and love that we're saved. But his mercy provided the way, his mercy within itself, apart from Jesus Christ, does not make a man acceptable to God. And this is why he says so simply, not by works of righteousness which we've done, but according to his mercy he saved us.

It is the mercy of God, the love of God, the mercy of God, the grace of God that laid the bridge, and the most unholy man who ever lived. If he's willing by faith to receive Jesus Christ and to meet God on his terms, and that is that his sin must be atoned for, it was atoned for at the cross, if he's willing to accept that and bow his knee and his heart before God, that unholy man is accepted by a holy God and made righteous in the eyes of God. Look back in Romans just for a moment, verse chapter 3 again, and notice what he says. He says in verse 26, To declare, I say at this time, his righteousness, that he might be just and at the same time the justifier of him who believes in Jesus. He is the bridge that makes the mercy of God the reality in the human heart unto the redemption of that man's soul.

So that a man is justified what? By the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ alone. No other bridge, no other way, no other attribute, no other characteristic of God will ever make it possible for him to get to heaven. And you see, because of our ignorance of who God is, and that's one of my purposes for this long series, we must understand that the nature of God does not allow some things that men practice, does not allow for the philosophies and the little ideologies and the little personal forms of redemption and salvation and lifestyle that men follow today. And they will say to us, But this is just the way I see it. When you and I stand before God, the way we see it is not going to make much difference. Now man says, Let us see that the mercy of God ever let a man die and be lost forever. Well look in Revelation chapter 20.

You know the verse. There is that universal mercy of God. There is that individual redeeming mercy of God that is applied to a man's heart when he receives Jesus Christ as his personal savior.

But let me tell you something. The mercy of God has a limitation to it. And people who live in sin and disobey God and rebel against God and in iniquity and in vile contempt to the word of God. The people who are living in sin, who are disobeying God, who know that what they are doing this very moment is in violation of the Ten Commandments of God.

They deliberately move their way. Trampling underfoot the mercy of God. What does God do? He just keeps extending mercy. He keeps letting them have good health and they keep making lots of money and they still live in a nice house.

And their family is still healthy. And they just keep on going and they have their pleasures and they're able to do all these things. Paul says, Know you not that the goodness of God has as its ultimate objective your repentance before God? Listen.

Listen. God's universal mercy upon mankind has as its ultimate objective that men may recognize God and come to him through Christ. And when a man turns his face the other way and tramples underfoot the mercy of God, he will someday stand in the judgment of God and he will be absolutely, totally without excuse. Romans 1 says he's without excuse.

For the mercy of God has canopied this whole earth. And when a man absorbs and enjoys and takes to himself one expression of million expressions, 65, 70 years of the universal mercy of God and refuses Jesus Christ, he'll stand in the judgment of God and he will be condemned, listen, not by God, but by his own sinful, wicked disobedience before God. Revelation chapter 20, verse 14, And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. You say, Well, how can God be a God of mercy and do that?

Let me ask you this. Is there any evidence that you have that God is not a God of mercy? How many times has he forgiven you?

How many times has he forgiven you for the same thing? How many times did you hear the gospel before you were saved? You heard it once and you rejected it and God's mercy was extended to you.

You heard it again and again. And here's a man, 72 years of age, he walks down the aisle to say, I'm going to give my life to Jesus Christ. Listen, is that not an extension of the grace and the love and the mercy of God? Is there a one of us who feels that he or she deserves to be saved? What could you and I do to ever deserve to be saved? What could we do to deserve the mercy of God?

There is nothing we can do. That's why at the cross, he bridged the gap that unholy men might become holy in Christ Jesus. There is no other way to be saved except through the shedding of the blood of Jesus Christ.

That made it possible for a God of holiness to remain holy and at the same time take an unholy man and bring him into the presence of God and live with him. God said, if you sin, you're going to die. And God said, but I'm going to pay the price. I'm going to come and die in your place in order that you might be saved.

And every man who goes to heaven will walk across the cross of Jesus Christ to get there. His mercy is from everlasting to everlasting. His mercy is plenteous. It is bountiful.

It is good. But I want to tell you, my friend, that the mercy of God does not mean that he simply turns his cheek toward your sin. And I want to ask you this evening, has there ever been a time in your life when you recognized your sinfulness before God and you said to him that you were accepting Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and you were accepting his death on the cross as adequate, sufficient payment for your sin which you deserve to suffer for, but that you're accepting him as your substitute and you're surrendering your life to him? There is no other way to get to heaven except by the love, the mercy, and the grace of God expressed in the cross of Jesus Christ. Thank you for listening to The Mercy of God. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.