[b]Excerpt from: "Never Apologize for God's Mercy!"[i]by A.W. Tozer
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!
in His great mercy. 1 Peter 1:3
There are many in our day who seem to hold to an idea
that God deals with some people in mercy and with others in
justice.
However, the Bible really leaves no room for doubt about this
matter - it is plain that God deals with all men in mercy and that
every benefit God bestows is according to mercy!
If God had not dealt with us all in mercy, we would have perished
before we could have had time to be converted.
I like to think of it in this way - we float on the vast, limitless sea
of divine mercy for it is the mercy of God that sustains the worst
sinner.
If we have protection, it is according to the mercy of God. If we have
food and sustenance, it is of God's mercy. If we have providence to
guide us, it is surely in the mercy of God.
The Spirit-led life is a clear, logical and rational life. There were
particularly sound theological reasons for Peter saying,
"Blessed be the Lord!" He blessed God because He has begotten
us again and because it was through His abundant mercy that He
did it and through it all that we might have a living hope, not a dead one!
Why do I say that? Because I want to emphasize the manner in which
the apostles were Spirit-led. They were not known as men of rash and
impulsive moods, constantly changing decisions and judgments. Led
by the Spirit of God, they wanted always to do what God wanted them
to do. As a result, the things that God wanted them to do always seemed
to fit perfectly into the total scheme of redemption and the whole will
of God in the New Testament!
This allows me to say that Peter was of little use to God until he got the
victory over being whimsical and temperamental and impulsive. While
he was still temperamental, scolding the Lord of Glory for this or that,
he was of very little use to the Lord. He was almost a total loss.
But when Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit and received a divine vision
and began to suffer for Jesus' sake, he got leveled down and
became the great apostle, second only to Paul in the New Testament.
But God had to take those lightning changes out of Peter and stabilize
him in the harness where he would work effectively and fruitfully for the Lord.
....We need to assemble ourselves together as believers whether the
weather is good or bad. We have to pray and draw nigh unto the Lord
whether we feel like it or not. Reading Peter's letter to those early
Christians, we realize that they were living for Jesus
regardless of circumstances or their mood.
Actually, there are very few Christians among us who can testify
that their spiritual moods are always at a high, sustained level....
Live according to spiritual truth
Brethren, we are not plugging for the necessity of an up-and-down
Christian experience. I mean to say that we are men and women who
are to live according to the high logic of spiritual truth, not according to
our feelings and moods...
His abundant mercy.
This word abundant comes from a Greek word which means very
large, very great, the largest number. It means much and it means
many - it can mean all of these things. According to His largest number,
His very large, very great, many mercies, God has begotten us again.
The word abundant is not really sufficient because everything God
has is unlimited. Because He is the Infinite God, everything
about Him is infinite which means that it has no boundary in
any direction.
I know that is hard for us to comprehend.
..Actually, when we use the expression, "the mercy of God," we are
referring to that which is so vast that the word vast does not begin
to describe it for we are talking about that which has no limits
anywhere, that which has its center anywhere and its circumference
nowhere.
....God is not less merciful or more merciful - He is full of mercy,
for whatever God is, He is in the fullness of unlimited grace.
So, the word abundant is not used here for God - it is put in here
for us! It is used to elevate our minds to the consideration of the
unlimited vastness of the mercy of God.
Brethren, this all boils down to a simple statement: "God's mercies
are equal to God Himself." For that reason alone all comparisons
are futile. If you want to know how merciful God is, discover how
great He is and you will know!
...the bottle of God's forgiveness has neither top nor bottom!
God has never yet said to a man, "The bottle of my mercy is just
about empty!"
God acting the way He acts
Let us be thankful that God's mercy does not run out of a bottle.
God's mercy is God acting the way He acts towards people -
therefore, we can say it is abundant mercy.
Now, when does a person really become aware of this great sea of
the mercy of God?
When by faith we come across the threshold into the kingdom of God
we recognize and identify it and God's mercy becomes as sweet
and blessed as though it were all brand new. It is through His
abundant mercy that we are begotten again, but it is that same broad
stream from God that kept and preserved the sinner, even through
fifty or sixty years of presumption and rebellion.
My father was sixty years old when he bowed before Jesus Christ
and was born again. That was a near lifetime of sixty years through
which he had sinned and lied and cursed. But when he gave his heart
to the Lord Jesus Christ and was converted, the mercy of God that
saved him and took him to heaven was no greater than the mercy of
God that had kept him and endured him for sixty years.
God's mercy has endured
...It was the mercy of God that endured my father as a sinner for
sixty years.
The mercy of God endured me through the first seventeen years
of my life and has brought me through all of the years since.
The Bible plainly declares that God deals with all of us in mercy
and that He never violates mercy, for David testifies that, "The Lord is
good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works!"
(Psalm 145:9, KJV)
Any idea people may have that God works according to one facet
of His nature one day and according to another facet the next day
is all wrong.
I repeat again - God never violates any facet of His nature in
dealing with men.
When God sent Judas Iscariot to hell He did not violate mercy
and when God forgave Peter it was not in violation of justice.
Everything that God does is with the full protection of all of
His infinite attributes. That is why a sinner may live to be 100 years
old and sin against God every moment of his life
and still be a partaker of the mercy of God. He still floats
on the sea of mercy and it is because of the mercy of God that
he is not consumed.
However, brethren, we know there will be a day when the sinner will
pass from this realm where God's mercy supports him. He will hear
a voice saying, "Depart from me, you that work iniquity, for I never
knew you!" Hell will be the justly apportioned abode of those
who refuse redeeming mercy even though there has been a
providential mercy at work on their behalf throughout their lives.
We Christians should realize, also, that we do not come through the
door of mercy and then expect to live apart from the door. We are in
the very room of mercy and the sanctuary is a sanctuary of mercy.
We must not become self-righteous and imagine we are living such
wonderful lives that God blesses us because we are good. That is
not so!
God blesses us because of His abundant mercy, the mercy which He
has bestowed upon us, and not because of any of our goodness. I do
not believe that heaven itself will ever permit us to forget that we are
recipients of the goodness of God and for that reason I do not believe
that you and I will ever be permitted to forget Calvary.
Another thing in this regard is that although God wants His people
to be holy as He is holy, He does not deal with us according to the
degree of our holiness but according to the abundance of His mercy.
Honesty requires us to admit this.
Believe in justice and judgment
We do believe in justice and we do believe in judgment. We believe
the only reason mercy triumphs over judgment is that God,
by a divine, omniscient act of redemption, fixed it so man could
escape justice and live in the sea of mercy. The justified man,
the man who believes in Jesus Christ, born anew and now a
redeemed child of God, lives in that mercy always.
The unjust man, however - the unrepentant sinner - lives in it now
in a lesser degree, but the time will come when he will face the
judgment of God. Though he had been kept by the mercy of God from
death, from insanity, from disease, he can violate that mercy, turn
his back on it and walk into judgment. Then it is too late!
Let us pray with humility and repentance for we stand in
the mercy of God.
I heard of a man who had learned the Ten Commandments
so when he prayed he said, "Now, God, I admit I have broken
Number One and Number Three and Number Four and Number
Seven, but remember, Father, I have kept Number Two and Number
Five and Number Six and Number Ten!"
How unutterably foolish - that as men we should appeal to God
and try to dicker with Him and portion out our goodness like a
storekeeper! What an example we have set for us by the life
and faith of the old Puritan saint, Thomas Hooker, as his death
approached.
Those around his beside said, "Brother Hooker, you are going
to receive your reward."
"No, no!" he breathed. "I go to receive mercy!"
What an example for us, because Brother Hooker rated very high in
the ranks of holy men in the Body of Christ, yet he did not leave this life
looking for a reward but still looking for the mercy of God!
Look away to the Lord
Brethren, may I just say that if you have been looking at yourself -
look away to the Lord of abundant mercy. Fixing yourself over and
trying to straighten yourself out will not be sufficient - you must come
as you are!
Paul Rader once told about the artist who had an idea for a powerful
painting, depicting the plight of a tramp, a human derelict off the street.
He went to the Skid Row district and found just the subject he
had in mind - a man who was dirty, disheveled, rundown at the heels,
in rags, and completely at home among the disreputable elements
of the city.
"I will pay you a fee if you will come to my studio tomorrow morning,"
the artist told him.
The bum's face brightened and his eyes took on a new light and he
said, "You mean you want to put me in a picture?"
"Yes, I want to paint you into a picture and I will give you fifty dollars
right now," the artist said. "Just show up at my house tomorrow
morning and I will tell you what to do."
But when the artist's doorbell rang the next morning, the painter
hardly recognized the man who stood there. He had been shaved,
he had on a white shirt and his pants had a reasonable facsimile
of a press.
"I don't want to come to your fine place looking like a bum, so I spent
the money getting myself cleaned up and fixed up," the man said with
pride.
"But I cannot use you now for the painting I had in mind," the artist told
him.
"I thought you would come just as you were."
Jesus told about two men who went up into the temple to pray.
One said, "God, here I am. I am all fixed up - every hair is in place."
The other said, "Oh God, I just crawled in off [b[Skid Row.[.b[ Have
mercy upon me! "God forgave the Skid Row bum, but sent
the other man away, hardened and unrepentant and unforgiven!
We come to Him just as we are but in humble repentance, for when
the human spirit comes to God feeling that it is better and more
acceptable than others, it automatically shuts itself away from God's
presence.
But when the human spirit comes to God knowing that anything it
receives will be of mercy, then repentance has done its proper work!
God promises to forgive and bless that man and take him into His heart
and teach him that all of God's kindnesses are due to His mercy.
What more can a sinner ask?"