Major Points from the Minor Prophets by Blanchard John

Author:Blanchard,John [Blanchard,John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Evangelical Press
Published: 2016-09-25T16:00:00+00:00

Love mercy

Secondly, it is important to notice in our 'major point' that God requires his people not merely to show mercy but to love it, to be gratefully glad at every opportunity of showing mercy and kindness. There is no legal element involved in mercy, which gives more than justice demands and can come only from a changed heart. The nineteenth-century American scholar Albert Barnes went so far as to say, 'Nowhere do we imitate God more than in showing mercy.' As far as giving is concerned, there is no civic law that says we should give to the poor, the homeless, the helpless, the refugee, the sick or even a needy neighbour. There is no man-made law that condemns us if we fail to respond to urgent appeals for help to people living in areas of the world ravaged by war, floods, famine or drought. Yet it is impossible to escape the Bible's teaching that showing mercy to those in need is an inflexible command to God's people and motivated firstly not by any given situation but by the revealed nature of God . Christians should love being merciful because God has been unimaginably merciful to them and because he 'delights in steadfast love' (7:18).

Of all the Old Testament statements that declare this truth, none is clearer than when God revealed himself to Moses as 'The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin' (Exodus 34:6-7). It is worth noting that in this first biblical revelation of the attributes of God his merciful nature is included. Ill-informed sceptics often write off the Old Testament as showing God to be a cruel despot, but in fact it is full of references to his mercy. It says that he is 'merciful and gracious' (Psalm 86:15) and that his mercy is not expressed only to a favoured few but is 'over all that he has made' (Psalm 145:9). Thomas Brooks wrote, 'God's mercies are above all his works, and above all ours too.' Were it not for God's extravagant and indescribable mercy nobody in all of history would ever have so much as a single sin forgiven.

God's mercy can be seen throughout the entire Bible and is supremely demonstrated in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ in the place of sinners and on their behalf. Without this, all men are utterly ruined by sin and subject to God's inevitable wrath both in this world and in the world to come. Paul expressed this in one of the most glorious passages in the entire Bible. Writing to Christians in Ephesus he reminded them, 'And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked. . . But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ - by grace you have been saved' (Ephesians 2:1-2, 4).

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.