What is God's Mercy all about? Most of
today's Christianity thinks of God's mercy as all forgiving, without
a foundation of understanding for which forgiveness is given. Does the mercy granted by God pertain
to the law of God as He says it does, Mat. 23:23? Does it, and how does it pertain to
Christ's Passover? Today's confessing Christians do not believe God's mercy
has anything to do with sin as it pertains to God's law and commandments,
or even how it pertains to the Passover of Jesus Christ. Will God
grant His mercy to a sinner who does not know what is sin, or what sins he
has, or is committing against God, and who does not know how it all pertains
to the death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ which, the week of the
Passover pictures?
All sin, all commandment breaking is first against God,
and secondly, against man or his neighbor, if man and his neighbor is
involved in the sin. If a loving relationship is to be established with God and man, it must
first be established with God,
and then a loving relationship can be established with one's neighbor
or one's brother, husband, or wife, if this second party is involved in
the sin. And these loving relationships must be established through
sorrow of the heart that produces heartfelt repentance. This deep and total
repentance that bears fruit will restore or heal ones' relationship with
God our Creator, and also with ones' neighbor through God's loving
mercy and God's grace. This act of mercy which Jesus Christ provided and
fulfilled in His sacrifice at the Passover, by permitting His body
to be broken and blood to be shed, triumphs over the judgment of the law,
the death penalty for sin, and when this is accepted in faith, provides
victory over sin. Christ's loving mercy will be granted against sin that
man has committed against God and secondly, Christ's mercy triumphs over
sin that a person has committed against one's neighbor, brother,
or mate if repentance and the willingness to obey God's law is manifested.
This is made clear in God's Scripture, but twisted in today's accepted Christian
teaching.
God's mercy, as it pertains
to eternal life, and being accepted into God's Kingdom, is God granting forgiveness
for one's sins that He makes available to every sinner to forgive his sins,
if that sinner will humble himself as a little child and confess his sins,
and will repent of breaking God's ten commandments. The sinner's repentance must be proven and made manifest
with the fruit of his behavior and obedience from his heart to obey God's commandments, or his repentance
will be a repentance in futility that is null and void, and is not recognized
by Jesus Christ. This is the foundational condition in entering in the covenant
with Jesus Christ to receive His mercy. If this condition of repentance is not met, Christ will
not recognize a sinner's mouthing of words, his hypocritical heart, his religious show, and his believing that
only confessing and accepting the name of Christ, as is popularly taught
by most all of today's false preachers and evangelists, is all that is needed to receive his mercy of forgiveness.
Jesus Christ teaches us in Matthew 23:23, that "mercy
is a weightier matter of the law." However,
in today's confessed Christianity, God's mercy is taught as having nothing
to do with the law of God. The law of God means God's ten commandments, His statutes
and His judgments. Today's preachers, ministers and pastors are hostile against
God and His law, and are in grave danger and error by doing away with His ten commandments
in their teaching, as God's law pertains to love, mercy, faith and to
salvation, and to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ at His Passover
Season.
Do today's professed Christians understand God's
mercy as it pertains to God's law and as it pertains to salvation?
Why is mercy a weightier matter of the law? It is a weightier matter because
mercy is a law and act of mercy through Jesus Christ, that rejoices or triumphs
against the law that commands judgment and justice for one's sins, James
2:13. God's law given in judgments is against the breaking of His commandments.
God's law, given in judgments against sin, can be lifted, covered, justified, when God's
mercy is granted. Mercy is Christ's law of liberty, and is God's
command or law of promise that grants freedom or victory over the law of
judgment that is given as the penalty or judgment of death for sin, but is
only given when a person repents of breaking God's commandments and obeys
His law.
But today all, or the overwhelming majority of the preachers
and evangelists, are teaching against the law given in the 10 commandments,
by teaching that Christ's death nailed them to the cross, and thereby does
away with them. If this were true, there would be no need to accept
Jesus Christ, because there would be no sin. There would be no need for mercy,
faith, and His grace, for by the law and Christ's death are all of these spiritual
values established. The commandments define what is sin when they are broken.
These matters are established by the law as mercy is for the forgiveness
of sin (broken law), and as faith (faith establishes the law) is because of Christ's
promise to forgive and justify a sinner's sins (broken law) through the understanding
and acceptance of Christ's broken body and shed blood. Grace is God's promised
favor and not only involves His mercy, but the giving of His Holy Spirit
to help man keep His commandments. Then what did Jesus Christ permit to be
nailed to the cross? It was the laws or ordinances given in judgments against
sin, but even those laws and their penalities that were fulfilled by Christ
on the cross that provide for God's mercy will be made of no effect on a
person's life, only by a person's repentance and faith in Christ's sacrifice.
Every person desiring salvation and eternal life in God's
Kingdom needs to understand about commandment keeping, and commandment breaking and mercy as it is
explained by James in his letter to the brethren, and as these teachings
pertain to salvation. Christ is teaching through James 2:9-14, "Now if you commit
no adultery, yet if you kill, you have become a transgressor of the law."
This example holds true for all of God's commandments when you break any
one of them, then you are guilty of breaking them all as is explained in verse 10.
So, today's false preachers preach this to mean
no saint can keep God's commandments, which is a big lie and the denying
of God's Spirit, which God promises to give to help one to do so. James goes on to teach
in verse 12, "So speak you and so do (meaning so teach and do as in keeping
God's commandments) as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty. The
law of liberty is God's mercy upon all saints who are living by God's commandments
and in their young life in this faith, if they in a weak moment do sin, but
are repentant and bear fruit of that repentance, God's mercy will triumph over the judgment, or penalty of
the law. Verse 13, "For He shall have judgment without mercy, that shows
no mercy" (a person that does not show mercy to any person that sins against
him, or shows no mercy in respect to the lowly brethren in their weak state, or to the fatherless and the widows
in their state, or to the poor will not receive mercy from God) "mercy rejoices
against judgment." Mercy will be granted to a person
that shows mercy and is victorious over repentant sin and its penalty. Yet
today in what is accepted as Christianity, many false preachers teach that
there is victory in Christ just by accepting His Name only, without any work
of repentance based on God's 10 commandments and bearing fruit of that repentance.
This is an overwhelming lie and false teaching!
In Luke 1:50 the Scripture teaches, "His mercy is on
them that fear Him from generation to generation." What does fearing God
really mean? It means being afraid of the consequences of sin, the penalty of sin which is for
not obeying the commandments of God, and doing what is pleasing in His sight.
Ecc. 12:13, "Fear God, and keep His commandments: for this is the whole
responsibility of man." v. 14. "For God shall bring every work (every work
of behavior that violates God's commandments) into judgment, with ever secret thing, whether it is good, or whether it is evil."
Mercy is God's favor of compassion and His loving kindness
and His forgiveness granted to a person who is repentant of transgressing
His commandments. The Scripture says in Luke 1:76-78, "That John was to go
before the Lord to prepare His way, to give knowledge of salvation unto His
people by the remission of their sins." John says, v 78, this is granted "through the tender mercy of
our God." John taught people how their sins could be forgiven through repentance and the tender mercy of God.
In order to have one's sins remitted, (forgiven) this
demands all sinners to repent to God for breaking His law, His ten commandments,
in order for God to fulfill His promise of His mercy, that is promised to every repentant sinner.
Jesus Christ gave us an example
of a rich man desiring mercy of forgiveness at the judgment day, but was not
granted that mercy. Why not? First, it was because he did not see the need
in his lifetime to repent and obey God's commandments as given to Moses. Christ
told this rich man, who was desiring mercy to be shown to his brothers, that what
his brothers needed to do was to obey the law of Moses to
receive mercy. Secondly, this rich man who asked for a little of God's mercy,
did not show one bit of mercy during his life unto Lazarus, a beggar, not
even giving him any crumbs from his table. This rich man, not having mercy
in his life for the poor, reaped the judgment of fire at the end, when the
judgment comes to all, Luke 16:24-29.
Every person, rich or poor, who has not learned about mercy,
to do mercy in his life, will not be granted mercy in the judgment. God's
ten commandments and the obeying of God's commandments, teaches one to have
love for one's neighbor and that love consists of exercising mercy with your
neighbor. The Word of God says in Jeremiah 9:24, "But let him that glorieth
glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord which
exercises lovingkindness (compassion and mercy), judgment (justice, fulfilling the
law against sin) and righteousness (grace, God's favor of forgiving and justification of sin) in the earth; for
in these things I delight, says the Lord." God delights
that we study and come to understand and do by laying up in our life these
great teachings and treasures about Him and His Kingdom.
God further tells us in Hoses 6:6, "For I desired mercy (s.2617)
(one's love, kindness, reverence and devotion to God) and not sacrifice (sacrifices
and offering to God that had become meaningless): and the knowledge of God
more than burnt offerings." We are told in Romans 12:8 to "show mercy with
cheerfulness." We are to exercise mercy from the heart that is sincere, and
not as a show of the flesh to impress others.
Paul tells us in Ephesisns 2:2 that the spirit of Satan works
in the children of disobedience. Disobedience is a person living contrary
to the law, the ten commandments of God, and is a mindset of rebellion in an evil person that will not even
acknowledge these commandments as the commandments of Jesus Christ, and as commandments
He commands His people to be obey for eternal life, Matthew 19:17. In Eph. 2:5, Paul continues by saying, "Even when we were dead in our sins, God has
quickened us (raised us up) together with Christ, by grace you are saved."
God's children are quickened by being raised up from the watery grave of
baptism to a new life in Christ, through the Spirit of God in us. This is
done through the "exceeding riches of His grace," verse 7, which is His favor
of mercy of forgiving our sins and granting us His Spirit, based on our repentance
from being a child of disobedience.The exceeding riches of His Grace is God's merciful FAVOR that includes the gifts of God's SPIRIT and SALVATION.
Paul continues in Ephesians 2:8-9 by
saying, "For by grace are you saved through faith: and that not of yourselves:
it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast."
It is not by any man's works or fruit of obeying God's law and ten commandments
that man is forgiven and saved from his sins and receives the GRACE of God.
Obeying God's 10 commandments cannot forgive our past or present sins, it
is through GRACE, God's favor of mercy of forgiveness and justification of one's
sins. This was all given and made available through the broken body and shed blood
of Jesus Christ and His acceptance to be man's Savior by God the Father. God accepted the suffering and
death for the penalty for man's sins at the resurrection of Jesus Christ
after 3 days and 3 nights in the grave.
However, the gift of God's grace,
which involves God's mercy and the giving of His Spirit, will not be given unless
there is a sinner's total and complete, heart rending repentance, and
this repentance must always bear the fruit of obedience to God's law and
commandments. Otherwise, one's faith in accepting Christ and His shed blood
in order to be granted God's grace, will not be given to a sinner! What a
shame that today's Christianity just cannot get this understanding, and it
is all because they will not repent to gain that understanding and gain Christ's
mercy.
James tells us in James 2:12-13, that we all "shall be
judged by the law of liberty" and "mercy rejoices against judgment." So what
does this mean? We began this message by asking the question how mercy pertains
to the law and how mercy is a weightier matter of the law. It is the Word
and Law of God that if a person shows mercy of forgiveness, lovingkindness,
and compassion upon his brother or neighbor, that this is also love to him. God says that person will receive mercy
from Him for his repentance of his sins, and if he does not show mercy to his neighbor, then he will not receive mercy from Him.
God has shown His love and mercy by sending Jesus Christ to this earth to
make a way that we can understand about His love and about His great mercy.
Jesus Christ gave His life in great suffering and death at the Passover to
set the example of His love and His mercy upon sinners. Have you proved to
God that you desire to learn about His love and mercy in your life
by repenting of your sins and bearing fruit of that repentance and exercising that mercy with your neighbor?
Time and opportunity is quickly running out for you to prove to God that
you really do desire to come to know him and to love Him, through His mercy and grace and His love for you,
and that you really do desire to live eternally with him!