“HE DELIGHTETH IN MERCY”
Micah 7:18
I know that God’s tender
mercy is over all his creatures. In merciful benevolence he sends the sunshine
and the rain both upon the righteous and the wicked. I will leave it to others
to argue about what to call that and what the purpose of God in such mercy is.
However, Micah 7:18 is not talking about general benevolence. This text
speaks of God’s special, sovereign, saving mercy toward his elect, that mercy
of God which causes dead sinners to have eternal life in Christ. What does the
Bible teach about this mercy?
Micah tells us that God
delights in mercy. His hope for
himself and for Israel was simply the fact that God delights to show mercy to
sinful men. No man deserves mercy. But God delights to show mercy to the undeserving.
We
do not need to search very far to find abundant proof that God delights in
mercy. His mercy is seen everywhere. I know that God delights in mercy because
the very fact that fallen man lives upon God’s earth proves it
Often, though his anger has
been hot against men, he spared them in his great mercy (Psa. 78:38-39). The
sparing of Hezekiah was an act of God’s mercy. The fact that Nineveh was
granted repentance and spared from his impending judgment was the work of God’s
mercy. Saul of Tarsus deserved God’s wrath; but he got grace instead, because,
as he put it, --“I obtained mercy!”
The fact that you and I who
are born of God are alive today (spiritually alive in Christ), accepted in the
Beloved, sons of God, chosen, redeemed, and saved is abundant proof that God
delights in mercy. In abundant, long-suffering mercy, the Lord God preserved us
in life and saved us by his grace (Eph. 2:4-5).
God chose the vile refuse of
this world as the objects of his grace, because “he delighteth in mercy.” (1 Cor. 1:26-29). He lays hold on the
polluted publican instead of the proud Pharisee. He saves the wandering
prodigal, and passes by the self-righteous religionist. He lifts the poor out
of the dunghill and sets him among princes. He embraces the vile harlot, and
rejects the good moralist. He takes the dying thief home with him to glory, and
leaves the pompous ritualist to his vanities.
Though we are now saved by
his grace, our conduct proves that God delights in mercy. We have been
ungrateful, unbelieving, and unfaithful. But his mercy fails not! (Lam. 3:23).
The greatest possible proof
that our God delights in mercy is the sacrifice of his own Son in our stead. If
you have any doubt that the God of heaven delights in mercy, go to Calvary and
read of God’s abundant mercy. In order to show mercy to us, God killed his Son
in our place. Calvary’s crimson tide spells out one thing most clearly - “He
Delighteth In Mercy!”
“Mercy there was great, and
grace was free! Pardon there was multiplied for me:
There my burdened soul finds
liberty!”
Grace Baptist Church of Danville - Grace For
Today Radio Message #665
2734 Old Stanford Road -
Danville, Kentucky 40422-9438
Donald S. Fortner, Pastor -Telephone 606-236-8235 - Email grace@mis.net