THE TRIUMPH OF CHRIST’S MERCY OVER JUDGEMENT

The Lord God Almighty is a merciful God. As the psalmist says, “He is good to everyone and has compassion on all He made.” (Psalms 145:9). God’s mercy refers to his loving-kindness towards men, to the care and protection He provides to those in need and to his forbearance and forgiveness of sin. In other words, God attends to people’s physical needs, He is tolerant and patient in enduring sinners and He also grants forgiveness of sins to those who believe in his Son. This is manifest throughout the Scripture and in our everyday life. Psalms 103:8-12 gives us a broad description of the mercy of God – it says, “The LORD is merciful and loving, slow to become angry and full of constant love. He does not keep on rebuking; He is not angry for ever. He does not punish us as we deserve or repay us according to our sins and wrongs. As high as the sky is above the earth, so great is his love for those who honour Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our sins from us.”

We have a God who is merciful. But very often the conception that many people have of God when they read the Old Testament is that God is irascible, He is an angry God who punishes. Why? Because they do not know who God is and they have a wrong view of man; they have a greater regard for man. They do not understand what the holiness of God means and they underestimate human depravity and sin. Because they have a low view of God and a high view of man, they fail to recognize that if the Lord was not a loving and merciful God, no human life would ever be spared. Everyone knows it was against this Holy God that our first parents sinned in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve as well as their descendants, that is the entire human race, deserve to be damned. We all deserve to go to hell. Yet that day in the garden, the Lord promised to redeem us. God is the one who, knowing what was going to happen in the future, sent Joseph to Egypt ahead of his people in order to help them escape the famine that would later hit the earth. It was the Lord who led the people of Israel out Egypt, saving them from centuries of slavery. In the desert they rebelled against Him, but his mercy prevailed. Thus declares the Lord in Jeremiah 31:2-3, “In the desert I showed mercy to those people who had escaped death. When the people of Israel longed for rest, I appeared to them from far away.” Multiple times during Israel’s exodus, the people sinned against the Lord, but He withheld his anger and did not punish them for their unfaithfulness.

The Lord is not angry for ever. The Scripture gives us a multitude of proofs to this. When the story of Israel is unfolded to us in the Old Testament, we see that whenever the Lord punished his people because of their disobedience, He would later show them mercy. For instance, we read in Judges 2:7, “As long as Joshua lived, the people of Israel served the LORD, and after his death they continued to do so as long as the leaders were alive who had seen for themselves all the great things that the LORD had done for Israel.” Verse 10-18, “That whole generation also died, and the next generation forgot the LORD and what He had done for Israel. Then the people of Israel sinned against the LORD and began to serve the Baals. They stopped worshipping the LORD, the God of their ancestors, the God who had brought them out of Egypt, and they began to worship other gods, the gods of the peoples round them. They bowed down to them and made the LORD angry. They stopped worshipping the LORD and served the Baals and the Astartes. And so the LORD became furious with Israel and let raiders attack and rob them. He let enemies all around overpower them, and the Israelites could no longer protect themselves. Every time they went into battle, the LORD was against them, just as He had said He would be. They were in great distress. Then the LORD gave the Israelites leaders who saved them from the raiders. But the Israelites paid no attention to their leaders. Israel was unfaithful to the LORD and worshipped other gods. Their fathers had obeyed the LORD’s commands, but this new generation soon stopped doing so. Whenever the LORD gave Israel a leader, the LORD would help that leader and would save the people from their enemies as long as that leader lived. The LORD would have mercy on them because they groaned under their suffering and oppression.”

The Lord says in Isaiah 54:6-8, “Israel, you are like a young wife, deserted by her husband and deeply distressed. But the LORD calls you back to Him and says: ‘For one brief moment I left you; with deep love I will take you back. I turned away angry for only a moment, but I will show my love for ever.’ So says the LORD who saves you.” Throughout Israel’s history, the Lord showed mercy to his people. The kings of Israel, especially those of the northern kingdom, were sinful and rebellious. They did not worship the Lord their God, but rather they gave themselves to pagan practices and worshipped false gods, leading their people into sin. Many times the Lord punished Israel, but He never abandoned them. He destroyed their cities, sent them to exile many times, and killed some of them with plagues when they rebelled against Him. But never did He rebuke them for ever. He always brought back the exiles and helped them resettle on their land, the land He had given them. For instance, in Isaiah’s day, the Lord promised to set free the people of Judah who were in exile in Babylon because of their sin and disobedience to the Holy God. These Judeans were crushed and without hope, but the Lord promised to take them home to Jerusalem, to begin a new life. Thus says the Lord God Almighty to Israel, “From the distant east and the farthest west, I will bring your people home. I will tell the north to let them go and the south not to hold them back. Let my people return from distant lands, from every part of the world. They are my own people, I created them to bring Me glory.” (Isaiah 43:5-7). And when the Israelites were back in Jerusalem, God gave them reassurance and promised them help to rebuild the city. Thus says the Lord in Isaiah 60:10, “Foreigners will rebuild your walls, and their kings will serve you. In my anger I punished you, but now I will show you my favour and mercy.”

The Bible gives us countless accounts of God’s mercy for his people. During his earthly ministry, our Lord Jesus Christ healed people with all kinds of diseases, He healed people with demons, He gave sight to the blinds, the deaf could hear, He raised the dead, He fed the crowds, and the list goes on. The miracles performed by our Lord were so numerous that, as the Apostle John tells us, “If they were all written down one by one, I suppose that the whole world could not hold the books that would be written.” (John 21:25). Jesus’ heart was always filled with compassion for people, and so everywhere He went He healed all the sick that were brought to Him. (cf. Mark 6:56)

God always cares for our physical wellbeing, healing our bodies when we are sick, feeding us when we are hungry and protecting us against enemy’s attacks. However the greatest manifestation of God’s mercy is his forbearance and forgiveness of sin. And this is what I am going to focus on in this text. For it is true that illness, famine and injuries can weaken the body and destroy it. Yet none of these afflictions affects the soul, nor does it separate man from God, nor can it send someone to hell. What damns the soul, what separates man from God and sends him to hell is sin. Sin is a transgression of God’s will and commands. Any such violation is a sin against God and is punishable by death. So anyone who is guilty of sin deserves to die. Sin is the most dangerous threat man has to deal with every day, and for his entire life on earth. It is something inherent to his nature. For the heart of man is the dwelling place of sin. No human being born of a man and a woman is immune to it: we were all conceived in sin, we are all guilty before God and therefore we all deserve to die. But in his dealing with our sins, the Lord Almighty is so merciful that He cancels all together our punishment, by removing from us the thing that alienates us from his glory and condemns our souls to eternal damnation. As Psalms 103:11-12 says, “He does not punish us as we deserve or repay us according to our sins and wrongs. As far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our sins from us.” Sin is a destroyer: it pollutes the soul and condemns it to death. It separates man from his Creator and makes him enemy of God.

To understand the importance of God’s mercy, we must first recognize who God is and what we are. The Lord is a holy God, He hates sin, He hates those who do evil. But we human beings are inherently evil. As the Scripture says, “God made men upright, but they have sought out many schemes.” (Ecclesiastes 7:29). We have a natural inclination to sin, we love evil deeds. Naturally we do not seek to please God, but rather we do exactly the things that God our Creator hates and forbids. This incompatibility between God’s holy character and that of humans, which is depraved, raises questions such as: How can the Holy God put up with evil and defiant men? How can men, prone to wickedness and sin, have a harmonious and intimate relationship with the Holy God? How can sinners be right in the sight of the Holy God whose eyes are too holy to look at evil?

Sin came into the world through one man and spread to the entire human race. “As the Scriptures say, ‘There is no one who is righteous, no one who is wise or who worships God. All have turned away from God; they have all gone wrong; no one does what is right, not even one. Their words are full of deadly deceit; wicked lies roll off their tongues, and dangerous threats, like snake’s poison, from their lips; their speech is filled with bitter curses. They are quick to hurt and kill; they leave ruin and destruction wherever they go. They have not known the path of peace, nor have they learnt reverence for God.” (Romans 3:10-18). But “My thoughts,’ says the Lord, ‘are not like yours, and my ways are different from yours. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways and thoughts above yours.’” (Isaiah 55:8-9). So how can such a perfect and holy God stand human depravity and sin? Our thoughts are evil, our ways are sinful. We were all conceived in sin and in sin we live. But the ways of the Lord are righteous, his thoughts are very deep, precious and wonderful. In spite of our wickedness and unfaithfulness, God never changes his ways. His deeds are always righteous and his plans are always good and trustworthy. And thus says the Lord in Jeremiah 29:11, “I know the thoughts I think toward you, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” But sin is engrained in us, it is rooted deep down in our hearts. The very first sin, the one committed by Adam, has infested our bloodstream; it has separated us from God and has condemned every human being to death.

When Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate the fruit from the tree that gives knowledge of good and of bad, as punishment for their sin, the Lord said to Adam: “You will have to work hard and sweat to make the soil produce anything, until you go back to the soil from which you were formed. You were made from soil, and you will become soil again.” (Genesis 3:19). The Lord thus pronounces capital punishment against Adam and all his descendants, that is, the whole human race. And so people of all generations die as the result of God’s judgement, because of the sin of our first parents. But condemnation was not the only result of Adam’s sin – sin made it possible for the mercy of God to be revealed to us. Along with condemnation came the promise by the Lord Almighty to redeem his people through the seed of Eve. For thus says the Lord to the Serpent, “I will make you and the woman hate each other; her offspring and yours will always be enemies. Her offspring will crush your head, and you will bite her offspring’s heel.” (Genesis 3:15).

The solution to human depravity, the answer to ‘how can sinners be right with God’ came from God Himself. It is God Himself who provides the means to reconcile sinners to Himself. It is God who justifies the wicked and treats them as righteous. And God’s provision is not the result of what we ourselves have done, but the result of his mercy. In his mercy God came up with the redemptive plan for Adam and his descendants. God made a promise that through the seed of Eve He will conquer evil in the world, He will make peace with sinners. And it is through that seed, the offspring of Eve, the descendant of King David, the Son of God, that God’s mercy would be revealed to us. For He was offered by God as the propitiation for our sins. From God’s mercy flows the opportunity for us to be reconciled to our Creator. This mercy is fully revealed to us in the person of God’s Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

In our rebellion against God, we were dead in our transgressions, slaves of sin and alienated from God’s glory. We were enemies of God, we were blind and naked, and condemned to be damned. But in his mercy God the Father sent his Son into the world to reconcile us to Himself, to cleanse us of our filthiness, to pull us out of the darkness into his light. God sent his Son to release us from our captivity to sin and death. The compassionate Son of God came into the world in humility and willingly offered his body to bear all our heavy loads. Christ came to offer rest to anyone who is willing to repent and turn away from his sins. He came to save sinners, to take off their backs the heavy burden of sin and guilt. Our Lord Jesus Christ came to be the means by which sins are forgiven. He is the source of God’s mercy, He is the source of the new life promised by God the Father. It is only in Him that we can find forgiveness, it is only in Him that we can find rest. And thus says the Lord in Matthew 11:28-30, “Come to Me, all of you who are tired from carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke and put it on you, and learn from Me, because I am gentle and humble in spirit; and you will find rest. For the yoke I will give you is easy, and the load I will put on you is light.”

God’s Mercy, the Fountain of our Hope.

God’s mercy is revealed in his Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. He is the fountain of our hope, the Hope of Glory. Through the sacrificial death of our Lord Jesus on the cross, forgiveness of sins is offered to anyone who believes in Him. For God, in his mercy and love, sacrificed his only Son so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16). This hope was announced multiple times in the past by God’s prophets. To repeat the words of Zechariah, father of John the Baptist in Luke 1:78-79, through this hope God has caused the bright dawn of salvation to rise on us and to shine from heaven on all those who live in the dark shadow of death, to guide our steps into the path of peace. There is no hope for anyone apart from the mercy of God which is found in Christ Jesus, our Lord and Saviour. For anyone who is not a recipient of God’s grace and mercy is a candidate for hell. Without the mercy of God, we would all die in our transgressions. We are only forgiven when God shows us mercy.

God’s mercy triumphs over our sin, it triumphs over judgement. Anyone who hardens his heart and lives a life outside God’s mercy and grace has no hope. Anyone who rejects the Lord Jesus Christ and refuses to obey his teaching is in bondage to sin and death. You may place your heart on your riches, you may place your heart on people around you, your heart may be on your carrier or on anything you value in this life. But remember none of these will ever bring you peace; they will only lead you to hell. For there is only one hope, which is found in the mercy of God and that never fails. It is the source of our peace, joy, encouragement and strength. It is the light that casts out darkness and brings relief to all pain and suffering. The writer of Lamentations understands this when he says, “I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, ‘The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him.’ The LORD is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks Him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.” (Lamentations 3:19-26).

Hope is granted to those who accept God’s mercy, which is revealed to us in the person of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. You must believe in Christ in order to receive God’s mercy. Those who reject the Son of God reject his mercy and their sins remain attached to them. By believing in Christ, we recognize our sinful nature and our need of God’s mercy; we acknowledge that we need to be cleansed by the blood of the Lamb of God, the only hope of salvation, the truth that sets people free, the way to life. But one who rejects Christ considers himself righteous and turns down this hope. For no one can receive this hope by his own merit or performance and nor can one get saved by works. Because of our transgressions we were separated from God’s glory. But the Lord Almighty revealed his mercy to us by making his Son bear our sins. He nailed his Son to the cross and crushed Him so that those who believe that Christ died for their sins and was raised from the dead by the glorious power of God the Father may be filled with hope, hope for a new life. And this hope is the result of God’s grace and mercy, not the result of what we ourselves have done. As 1 Peter 1:3-4 says, “Because of his great mercy He gave us new life by raising Jesus Christ from death. This fills us with a living hope, and so we look forward to possessing the rich blessings that God keeps for his people.”

We were dead in our transgressions, slaves of sin and prisoners of our natural desires. But the Lord in his mercy cleansed us. By the blood of his own Son, God purified us from our idols and impurities, in order to bring us blameless into his glorious presence. He has given us hope, and now we live to this hope which is ours in Christ Jesus, our Lord and Saviour, who willingly laid down his life in order to bring us into this experience of God’s grace. We were without hope and we lived in fear, the fear of death, which is the reward for sin, for we “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23). But God’s mercy was much greater that He sent his only begotten Son to bear our sins – Christ became sin for us and as the result of his mercy and love, we have been made recipients of God’s grace; we have been reconciled to God the Father through the sacrifice of our Lord on the cross. And as the Apostle Paul says in Romans 5:17, “All who receive God’s abundant grace and are freely put right with Him will rule in life through Christ.”

Our hope is not here on earth, but rather is kept for us in heaven. He is seated at the right-hand side of God the Father in heaven, where He pleads with Him on our behalf. He has opened for us the curtain, giving us free access to the Holy of Holies. Christ, our hope, the Hope of glory, the source of our joy, peace, and life has given us a new birth and a new life. We have been made perfect by his blood and we now live according to the purpose of our Lord. Our life was once tainted with immorality, indecency and all kinds of evil desires and passions of our human nature. But now through Christ our hope, we have become recipients of Christ’s righteousness. It is to this hope that we now live, for by Him we have inherited God’s grace and have become new creatures, predestined to live the life that God has prepared for us. And so we are sanctified day by day by the Holy Spirit the Lord has given us, in order that we may enter into the possession of that which we hope for.

God’s mercy has changed our status. We (believers) are no longer treated by God as wicked, but rather as righteous men, not because of our own merit but thanks to Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross. He died for us and has imputed his own righteousness to us in order to bring us back to his Kingdom. At the proper time we shall see Him as He is. But those who reject the Son of God will be separated from God forever; their sins will not be forgiven and death will be their destiny. So if you have not repented of your sins, this message is for you today: throw yourself on the mercy of Christ! Repent and turn away from your sins; believe in Christ, the fountain of hope, the Hope of glory, the means by which sins are forgiven. He is ready to forgive anyone who turns to Him.

God’s Readiness to Grant Mercy

God’s mercy is infinite; it extends from one generation to the next. God never turns away anyone who cries out to Him for mercy. It is written: “His name is holy; from one generation to another He shows mercy to those who honour Him.” (Luke 1:50). God justifies any wicked man who repents of his sins and puts his trust in Christ. One of the countless examples of God’s readiness to forgive is found in the Book of Jonah. The story of Jonah is one of its kind. It tells of a runaway prophet named Jonah who tried to hide from God in order to avoid taking God’s message to Nineveh. In Jonah 1:2 the Lord says to Jonah, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before Me.” But Jonah decided to sail to Spain in order to escape from the Lord, because he was convinced that God would not carry out his threat against Nineveh, Israel’s worst enemy. “But the LORD sent a strong wind on the sea, and the storm was so violent that the ship was in danger of breaking up.” (Jonah 1:4). The sailors fought unsuccessfully with all their might against the raging sea, throwing over board the cargo in order to lessen the danger, while Jonah was sound asleep. When they woke up Jonah so that he could pray to his God for help, they drew lots and found out that Jonah was to blame for their misfortune. Then they questioned Jonah and learned that he was running away from God.

These men were terrified as the storm got worse and worse. So they asked Jonah, “What should we do to you to stop the storm?’ Jonah answered, ‘Throw me into the sea, and it will calm down. I know it is my fault that you are caught in this violent storm.” (Jonah 1:11-12). The sailors at first were hesitant to do what Jonah had told them to do to him, but they got nowhere as they tried to get the ship to the shore, rowing with all their might, because the storm became more and more violent. After crying out to the LORD, not to hold them responsible of Jonah’s death, they finally picked him up and threw him into the sea and it calmed down. Verse 17 says, “At the LORD’s command a large fish swallowed Jonah, and he was inside the fish for three days and nights.” Deep inside the fish, Jonah prayed to the Lord and repented of his sins. The Lord heard his prayer and in his mercy the Lord once again said to Jonah, “Go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to the people the message I have given you.” (Jonah 3:2). This time Jonah obeyed the Lord; he went to Nineveh and walked through it for three days, proclaiming God’s message.

Verse 5-9 says, “The people of Nineveh believed God’s message. So they decided that everyone should fast, and all people, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth to show that they had repented. When the king of Nineveh heard about it, he got up from his throne, took off his robe, put on sackcloth, and sat down in ashes. He sent out a proclamation to the people of Nineveh: ‘This is an order from the king and his officials: no one is to eat anything; all persons, cattle, and sheep are forbidden to eat or drink. All persons and animals must wear sackcloth. Everyone must pray earnestly to God and must give up his wicked behaviour and his evil actions. Perhaps God will change his mind; perhaps He will stop being angry, and we will not die!” Verse 10 tells us, “God saw what they did; He saw that they had given up their wicked behaviour. So He changed his mind and did not punish them as He said He would.” This shows us how ready and willing the Lord is to forgive a repentant heart.

When people repent of their sins, give them up and turn to the Lord, He is ready to forgive them. To borrow the words of Jonah, the Lord is a loving and merciful God, always patient, always kind and always ready to change his mind and not punish. (Jonah 4:2). The Lord was patient with Jonah when Jonah refused to take God’s message to Nineveh. Jonah was thrown into the sea. But instead of letting him die, the Lord provided a shelter for him inside the big fish. And when Jonah cried out to the Lord in repentance, the Lord was merciful to him and ordered the fish to spew Jonah up on the beach, and it did. The Lord was also patient and merciful to the people of Nineveh, He readily changed his mind and forgave them when they repented and gave up their evil actions. The Lord is always ready to forgive anyone who turns to Him and repents of his sins. Anyone who seeks God’s mercy receives it in full measure.

God is merciful and He freely forgives anyone who genuinely seeks Him. In Isaiah 55:1-3, “The LORD says, ‘Come, everyone who is thirsty – here is water! Come, you that have no money – buy corn and eat! Come! Buy wine and milk – it will cost you nothing! Why spend money on what does not satisfy? Why spend your wages and still go hungry? Listen to Me and do what I say, and you will enjoy the best food of all. Listen now, my people, and come to Me; come to Me, and you will have life! I will make a lasting covenant with you and give you the blessings I promised to David.”

If you are reading these words today, do not let sin destroy your soul, do not let sin rule you. Turn to the Lord Jesus, repent of your sins and believe in Him. He is the Lord and Saviour, He is the light that shines in the darkness. Ask Him to let his light shine in your heart, to cleanse you of all your filths, to grant you his mercy. Give up your sins and seek the righteousness of Christ. The Lord is holy and righteous but we are not. He is the means by which sins are forgiven. He graciously imputes his righteousness to anyone who turns to Him and seeks his mercy. The Lord blesses those who have faith in Him with his Spirit and the Spirit sanctifies them to conform them into his own image, so that they may appear blameless before God and be treated by Him as righteous.

Characteristics of God’s Mercy.

The mercy of God is a precious gift, essential to our existence, essential to our relationship with God. For without the mercy of God there is no hope for life; without God’s mercy reconciliation would have never taken place between man and his Creator. Anyone who is not a recipient of God’s mercy is doomed. However no one can earn it or control it, for no one deserves it. It comes from God and is graciously granted to anyone God chooses. Thus says the Lord in Exodus 33:19, “I show compassion and pity on those I choose.” God’s mercy is directed by his own free choice and sovereign will. Everything depends, not on what human beings want or do, but only on the choice of God. He does not show us his mercy in order to please us or because we have done something to earn it. He grants us his mercy to fulfill his own purpose and for his own glory. He freely pours it out on us. The purpose of God’s mercy is to restore us to life, to reconcile us to God our Creator, for his own glory. We were dead in our transgressions. But through the sacrificial death of his Son on the cross, God has redeemed those who believe in Christ. Redemption is offered to us at no cost, in accordance with God’s sovereign will, regardless of what each one has done. As a matter of fact, before the beginning of time, before God created us, He had set apart in eternity past those whom He had prepared to receive his mercy; God had chosen the objects of his mercy. On these He has poured out abundant blessings. In the same way He had set aside the objects of his wrath, those who are doomed to destruction, in order to reveal his glory to the world.

God’s mercy is not something we can control the course. The Lord has the right to show us compassion and to refrain from it, and He rightfully does so for his own glory and purpose. And no one can complain that God is not merciful to him. We do not deserve anything good from God, for we all have sinned against Him. And the reward for sin is death. So we cannot talk about fairness here, because God’s mercy is simply a gift not a right that we can claim. If the Lord was to treat us as we deserve, the entire human race would go to hell. It is only by the mercy of our Lord that we can take any single breath and are what we are. Apart from the mercy of God, which is fully revealed to us in his own Son, we all deserve to go to hell. But what a privilege for us to have a merciful God who remembers what we are made of! He remembers we are dust and He does not treat us as we deserve. But rather, He shows us care and love, although we do not deserve any.

God crucified his own Son so that our sins may be forgiven and we may be reconciled to Him. Man freely chose to stray away from God, to be alienated from God. Man disobeyed God and became slave of sin and death. But in the abundance of his grace and mercy, God decided to restore us to life, to bring us back to Himself through his Son, by making Him sin for us. And we must always remember that God has no obligation to redeem people. He has no obligation to show us mercy. Whether the Lord chooses to show us mercy or not, his choice is a righteous one. He created us for his own glory and He is free to use us for his own purpose, either as an object of his mercy or as an object of his wrath. God thus exercises his sovereignty over what He has created. He does what He wants to whomever He wants; He reigns over all creation, over every living being on earth, in the sea and in heaven.

In the Book of Exodus we have the story of the king of Egypt as a lesson. When the Lord wanted to save the Israelites from their slavery to the Egyptians, the king refused to let the people of Israel go, despite the many calamities that God, through his servant Moses, had sent upon Egypt. In fact it was the Lord who hardened the king’s heart for his own divine purpose. When the Lord appears to Moses in the burning bush, He says to Moses: “I have indeed heard the cry of my people, and I see how the Egyptians are oppressing them. Now I am sending you to the king of Egypt so that you can lead my people out of his country.” (Exodus 3:9-10). For this reason the Lord gives Moses the power to perform miracles before the people of Israel to prove to them that the Lord had truly appeared to him. Moses also receives from God the power to perform miracles before the king of Egypt. But before sending Moses to Egypt, the Lord commands him: “Now that you are going back to Egypt, be sure to perform before the king all the miracles which I have given you the power to do. But I will make the king stubborn, and he will not let the people go.” (Exodus 4:21). When Moses arrives in Egypt, the Lord commands him: “Tell Aaron everything I command you, and he will tell the king to let the Israelites leave his country. But I will make the king stubborn, and he will not listen to you, no matter how many terrifying things I do in Egypt. Then I will bring severe punishment on Egypt and lead the tribes of my people out of the land. The Egyptians will then know that I am the LORD, when I raise my hand against them and bring the Israelites out of their country.” (Exodus 7:2-5). God raised the king of Egypt in order to accomplish his own purpose, for through Moses He was going to perform miracles in order to demonstrate his glorious might to the whole world. And thus says the Lord to the king, “If I had raised my hand to strike you and your people with disease, you would have been completely destroyed. But to show my power I have let you live so that my fame might spread over the whole world.” (Exodus 9:15-16).

The Lord could have simply stretched out his hand and destroyed the king of Egypt for enslaving his people. And for that, He wouldn't have had to send Moses to lead them. He would not have needed to give Moses the power to perform miracles before the king. Israel’s exodus would have been done quietly and smoothly, without clashes with the king. The Lord was capable of pulling his people out of Egypt without need to send messengers to the king. For He has the power to do whatever He wishes. But if Israel’s exodus was done in a quiet manner, how would we have learned of the glorious power of the Lord God Almighty? The calamities He sent upon Egypt, his provision for Israel, how would we have known all these things about our God? The Lord made the king of Egypt stubborn so that through all those miracles the whole world would know more about God, we would know more about our Creator.

This story tells us that it is God who determines the recipients of his mercy and the objects of his wrath. And He does so rightfully, for his mercy is a gift not a reward or something we deserve. As Paul says in Romans 9:18,“God has mercy on anyone He wishes, and He makes stubborn anyone He wishes.” Does that mean that God does not treat us with fairness? Not at all! “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23). We were conceived in sin and our entire life is marked by sinful deeds and evil thoughts. And all these sins are committed against the Holy God, a God who hates evil and sinners. So if the Lord was to treat us as we deserve, all we would get would be death and eternity in hell, because the reward for sin is indeed death. But as the psalmist says, “The LORD is merciful and loving, slow to become angry and full of constant love. He does not keep on rebuking; He is not angry for ever. He does not punish us as we deserve or repay us according to our sins and wrongs. As high as the sky is above the earth, so great is his love for those who honour Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our sins from us.” (Psalms 103:8-12). Nothing can replace the mercy of our Lord in our lives. Every breath we take, every blessing, whether spiritual or physical, is the result of God’s mercy and grace. Therefore, with our hearts full of thanksgiving and praise, let us always honour the Lord by living a life worthy of the gift of mercy we have received from Him.

Mercy and Christian Living

When the Lord redeems us and clothes us with his own righteousness, it is because He wants us to be conformed to his own image. That is to say, we must live and walk like Him. The Lord commands us: “Be holy, because I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:16). Likewise, we are to be merciful to one another because the Lord is merciful to us. This is the command of our Lord in Luke 6:36, “Be merciful just as your Father is merciful.” Because the Lord is merciful, we too ought to be merciful towards one another. As Paul highlights it in Titus 3:3-5, “We were once foolish, disobedient, and wrong. We were slaves to passions and pleasures of all kinds. We spent our lives in malice and envy; others hated us and we hated them. But when the kindness and love of God our Saviour was revealed, He saved us. It was not because of any good deeds that we ourselves had done, but because of his own mercy that He saved us, through the Holy Spirit, who gives us new birth and new life by washing us.”

We were in bondage to sin and death and alienated from God. But in the fullness of his mercy, God gave us a new nature; we have become new creatures. The Spirit of God has given us a new birth and a new life in Christ Jesus. And in our life in union with Christ, we are called to live in a holy and honourable way; we are called to live to the standard set by God. This standard is Christ. By his mercy we have been purified from sin. And we are called by Christ to have the same mercy towards one another, towards our brothers and sisters in Christ. As the Apostle Paul says in Colossians 3:12-13, “You are the people of God; He loved you and chose you for his own. So then, you must clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Be tolerant with one another and forgive one another whenever any of you has a complaint against someone else.” We are also called to be merciful towards unbelievers.

Now there are multiple reasons why we should be merciful. One of these reasons is that, just like we love because God first loved us, we are to be merciful because God first showed us mercy, by nailing his Son to the cross. He offered his Son as a sacrifice so that our sins may be forgiven. And this was done by God not because we deserved it, but by love for us. “For (as Paul says in Romans 5:6-8), while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person – though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die – but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” In this way all our past, present and future sins have been forgiven.

The Lord then commands us to show similar mercy to those who wrong us. It does not matter how many times they sin against us, we are to forgive them. For our Lord Jesus Christ forgave not just some of our sins, but all of our sins, even the most horrible and outrageous. And day after day, although we are now saved by Him, we continue to sin against Him. But He has fully cleansed us once and for all. When Christ went to that tree, He did not choose to cancel some of our countless sins and to let us languish under the weight of others. But rather, He took everything upon his shoulders. In the same way we are to forgive all the sins of others. That’s why when Peter asks the Lord in Matthew 18:21, “Lord, if my brother keeps on sinning against me, how many times do I have to forgive him? Seven times?” the Lord’s answer in verse 22 was, “No, not seven times, but seventy times seven.” A parallel to this verse is Luke 17:3-4 where the Lord says: “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in one day, and each time he comes to you saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”

The second reason why we should be merciful is that, in order for us to receive mercy from God, in order to obtain forgiveness of our sins, we must also forgive those who sin against us. Mercy is one of the beatitudes mentioned by the Lord Jesus in the beginning of his earthly ministry in the Sermon on the Mount – “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy!” (Matthew 5:7). That is to say, God shows mercy only to those who are merciful to their neighbour but not to those who are not. This is how it works: you show mercy to people around you so that the Lord may also have mercy on you. But if you refuse to be merciful to those around you, you won’t receive mercy from God. We show mercy to others in order to receive divine mercy. And thus says the Lord in Matthew 5:14-15, “If you forgive others the wrongs they have done to you, your Father in Heaven will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive the wrongs you have done.”

Forgiveness is essential to Christian living. It is a crucial element to our fellowship with God our Creator. By God’s mercy we have been brought into the experience of his grace, and we are to share this grace with those around us. God’s mercy is a gift to us; we do not deserve it nor can we earn it. We are to receive it with a cheerful heart and readily extend it to people around us. For unless we ourselves are merciful to others we cannot maintain a fruitful relationship with God nor can our prayers go up to Him. I mentioned earlier that we should be merciful because God first forgave us. Therefore in order to make a full circle and to keep the wheel running, we must also be merciful towards one another so that God will continue to show us mercy. You cannot refuse to forgive others but expect God to forgive you. We must first forgive others the wrongs they have done to us before the Lord forgives our own transgressions. Otherwise, our Christian life will be jeopardised, our prayers will not be answered by the Lord, our sins will not be forgiven. For thus says the Lord in Mark 11:25, “When you stand and pray, forgive anything you may have against anyone, so that your Father in heaven will forgive the wrongs you have done.” We should not hold a grudge, but rather we should forgive one another just like the Lord has forgiven us. We should forgive those who sin against us so that when we humbly confess our sins to the Lord, He will grant us his mercy.

Mercy and Humility (Confession of Sins).

God shows mercy to those He wishes, neither because of their works nor to please them, but because of his love for them and for his own glory. And He also makes stubborn anyone He wants. To this, one may ask: ‘Since God is the one who makes the choice, does that mean it is useless for us to implore his mercy?’ The answer is no. God’s sovereignty does not cancel human responsibility to seek to conform himself to the will of God. The sovereignty of God and human responsibility coexist and do not contradict one another. For instance, the Lord Jesus says in John 6:44, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him to Me; and I will raise him on the last day.” Here we see the sovereignty of God in salvation. However John 3:16 says, “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” This verse highlights the responsibility of man to believe in the Son of God in order to receive the eternal life which is hidden in Him. God chooses those who will inherit his Kingdom. But anyone of us has the responsibility to seek God's Kingdom in order to access it. Likewise, we must first seek forgiveness of our sins, so that God may grant us his mercy.

Although God’s mercy cannot be earned by works, the way we view our sins, the way we conduct ourselves before God determines whether or not our sins will be forgiven. It is important to note that unless we long for God’s mercy, we will never receive it. We must seek before we receive. And we must first recognize sins in our lives, acknowledge that we are sinners and then humbly turn to the Lord to seek his mercy. If we do not view ourselves as sinners and therefore turn to the Lord for forgiveness, how can we expect to have our sins forgiven? Proverbs 28:13 says, “You will never succeed in life if you try to hide your sins. Confess them and give them up; then God will show mercy to you.”

The success being mentioned here has nothing to do with achieving goals in your life. It simply means that unless you turn away from your sins, you will remain forever under curse, for anyone whose sins are not forgiven is under God’s curse and is doomed to destruction. And by the way one can never hide his sins from God. As the writer of Hebrews says, “There is nothing that can be hidden from God; everything in all creation is exposed and lies before his eyes. And it is to Him that we must all give an account of ourselves.” (Hebrews 4:13). When our first parents, Adam and Eve sinned against God in the Garden of Eden, Genesis 3:8 says, “That evening they heard the LORD God walking in the garden, and they hid from Him among the trees.” They wanted to conceal their sin from God, because they had realized that they were naked. But they could not have had their sin forgiven if they had not subsequently confessed it to the Lord. For it was then that the Lord killed an animal as a sacrifice for their sin and covered their nakedness with its skin. This sacrifice foreshadowed the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross, the means by which the sins of those who believe in Him are forgiven.

To become a recipient of God’s mercy, one must uncover his sin before God. Without confession of sins we cannot have a good status in the sight of the Lord. We were all conceived in sin, separated from God’s glory, separated from his blessings. In his mercy He sent his Son into the world to reconcile us to Himself. He offered Him as the propitiation for our sins, making Him the means by which sins are forgiven. And so everyone who believes in Christ and has faith in Him is cleansed by his blood and is set free from the bondage of sin and death. Such a person is, by grace, reconciled to the love of God. But in order to receive this grace one must first repent of his sins and believe in Christ. However those who conceal their sins cannot be forgiven and so cannot receive the blessings which God in his mercy gives to every repentant sinner. Those who continue to live in sin and do not repent remain under God’s curse and are prisoners of sin and death. Their status as sinners can never change unless they confess their sins to God and give them up. And consequently, they remain cut off from God’s blessings and will not receive his future promises. But rather, they will have to pay for their sins, by spending eternity in hell. For there is no mercy and forgiveness of sins without repentance.

God’s mercy is given to those who confess their sins and give them up. Confession of sins opens the door to the mercy of God. Unless you repent of your sins, they cannot be forgiven by the Lord. Your refusal to repent means you consider yourself blameless and righteous. And we all know that no one is perfect, no human being born of a man and a woman is righteous. We were all conceived in sin and in sin we live. There is not a day in our lives where we do not grieve the Spirit of Christ. The story of the Pharisee who prays in Luke 18 describes exactly how the Lord treats those who think they are good and so do not repent of their sins. The Lord uses the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax collector in this chapter of Luke to separate those who have a high view of themselves (like the Pharisee), from those who humble themselves and cry out to the Lord for mercy, recognizing their sins and their need of Christ the Saviour (like the tax collector). The Pharisee in his prayer says: “I thank you, God, that I am not greedy, dishonest, or an adulterer, like everybody else. I thank you that I am not like that tax collector over there. I fast two days a week, and I give you a tenth of all my income.” (Luke 18:11-12). Unlike the Pharisee who has a high view of himself, the tax collector recognizes before God that he is a sinner, he has great contrition for his sins. The tax collector has a contrite heart and resents himself for offending God – it is written: “The tax collector stood at a distance and would not even raise his face to heaven, but beat on his chest and said, ‘God, have pity on me, a sinner!’” (Verse 13). And the Lord declares in verse 14: “The tax collector, and not the Pharisee, was in the right with God when he went home.”

You may wonder why the Pharisee was not justified. According to his own saying, he does not commit immorality, he donates a tenth of his earnings to God, and he fasts twice a week. However, it should be noted that there is a lack of humility in this man. It is written: “Humility is the fear of the Lord; its wages are riches and honor and life.” (Proverbs 22:4). Proverbs 15:33 says, “You must be humble before you can ever receive honours.” The Pharisee believed he could earn his salvation by his own merit and his own works. He thought he deserved all the honours. But he was very wrong, because salvation is by grace alone, it is a gift from God which is obtained only through faith in Jesus Christ. Also it is written: “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” (James 4:6). And thus says the Lord Jesus in conclusion to this parable: “All who make themselves great will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be made great.”

Do you want to receive God’s grace and mercy today? Humble yourself, acknowledge that you are a sinner and that you need to be cleansed by Christ. Do not think of yourself as a righteous person – that would be a wrong view of what you truly are. You are a sinner, you have sinned against God. 1 John 1:8-9 says, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and there is no truth in us. But if we confess our sins to God, He will keep his promise and do what is right: He will forgive us our sins and purify us from all our wrongdoing.” The Lord Himself affirms this in 2 Chronicles 7:13-14 when He appears to Solomon after the consecration of the Temple. The Lord then says to Solomon: “Whenever I hold back the rain or send locusts to eat up the crops or send an epidemic on my people, if they pray to Me and repent and turn away from the evil they have been doing, then I will hear them in heaven, forgive their sins, and make their land prosperous again.” That is to say, there is no forgive, no mercy without true repentance, which implies the acknowledgement of one’s sins through confession to the Lord and the renouncement to them.

No one can be forgiven, no one can receive God's mercy unless he repents of his sins. One must recognize his sins, confess them and turn away from them in order to receive forgiveness from God. The Lord is merciful to those who humble themselves, for humility is the fear of the Lord. God does not grant forgiveness to conceited and proud men who refuse to repent. As the Scripture says: “He has no use for conceited people, but shows favour to those who are humble.” (Proverbs 3:34). We have a perfect illustration of this in 2 Kings. When Josiah was king of Judah, the LORD wanted to punish Jerusalem and all its people because they had rejected Him and had turned to false gods. When the Book of the Law was found in the temple by Hilkiah, the High Priest and sent to the king by Shaphan, the court secretary, 2 Kings 22:11 points out that, “When the king heard the book being read, he tore his clothes in dismay, and gave the following order to Hilkiah the priest, to Ahikam son of Shaphan, to Achbor son of Micaiah, to Shaphan, the court secretary, and to Asaiah, the king’s attendant: ‘Go and consult the LORD for me and for all the people of Judah about the teachings of this book. The LORD is angry with us because our ancestors have not done what this book says must be done.”

The message the Lord gave them was this: “I am going to punish Jerusalem and its people, as written in the book that the king has read. They have rejected Me and have offered sacrifices to other gods, and so have stirred up my anger by all they have done. My anger is aroused against Jerusalem, and it will not die down. As for the king himself, this is what I, the LORD God of Israel, say: you listened to what is written in the book, and you repented and humbled yourself before Me, tearing your clothes and weeping, when you heard how I threatened to punish Jerusalem and its people. I will make it a terrifying sight, a place whose name people will use as a curse. But I have heard your prayer, and the punishment which I am going to bring on Jerusalem will not come until after your death. I will let you die in peace.” (Verse 16-20).

When the messengers reported back to the king, he gave order to remove from the Temple all the objects used in the worship of false gods, and these objects were burnt outside the city. He also removed from office the priests who were ordained by his predecessors to offer sacrifices on the pagan altars. He destroyed the living quarters of the Temple prostitutes; he destroyed and desecrated the pagan altars and places of worship. 2 Kings 23:19-20 indicates that, “In every city of Israel King Josiah tore down all the pagan places of worship which had been built by the kings of Israel, who thereby aroused the LORD’s anger. He did to all those altars what he had done in Bethel. He killed all the pagan priests on the altars where they served, and he burnt human bones on every altar. Then he returned to Jerusalem.” Verse 21-22, “King Josiah ordered the people to celebrate the Passover in honour of the LORD their God, as written in the book of the covenant. No Passover like this one had ever been celebrated by any of the kings of Israel or of Judah, since the time when judges ruled the nation.” Verse 24 says, “In order to enforce the laws written in the book that the High Priest had found in the Temple, King Josiah removed from Jerusalem and the rest of Judah all the mediums and fortune tellers, and all the household gods, idols, and all other pagan objects of worship.”

There is no forgiveness of sin without repentance. The Lord promises forgiveness to anyone who admits he is a sinner, repents of his sin and gives it up. All the Lord asks us to do is to repent and believe. For instance, the Lord says to Israel in Jeremiah 3:12, “I am merciful and will not be angry with you for ever. Only admit that you are guilty and that you have rebelled against the LORD, your God. Confess that under every green tree you have given your love to foreign gods and that you have not observed my commands. I, the LORD, have spoken.” The Lord is patient in enduring those who disobey his commands. He gives them time to repent of their sins and live. When Joel, the prophet of our Lord talks about the Day of the LORD, describing the terrifying sight the locusts will give to the earth, he emphasizes on genuine repentance. Joel 2:11-13 says, “The LORD thunders commands to his army. The troops that obey Him are many and mighty. How terrible is the Day of the LORD! Who will survive it? ‘But even now,’ says the LORD, repent sincerely and return to Me with fasting and weeping and mourning. Let your broken heart show your sorrow; tearing your clothes is not enough.”

It is only through confession of sins that one can be cleansed. Anyone who hardens his heart, anyone who hears the voice of the Lord and rebels against Him is doomed. The Lord is waiting for you today. Humble yourself and repent of your sins in order to escape the wrath to come. Do not delay and do not hide your sins. For God’s mercy is granted only to those who acknowledge their sins, repent and put their trust in Christ. For thus says the Lord: “I have not come to call respectable people, but outcasts.” (Matthew 9:13). The Lord Jesus did not die for the rebellious self-righteous people, but for sinners who repent and believe in Him, those who confess Him as Lord and Saviour.

God's Mercy and Patience

The Lord is always patient to send his wrath upon those who disobey Him, because He is a merciful God. He is very patient in inflicting punishment on those who are the objects of his anger, those who reject Him, those who rebel against Him. The Lord wants to see even the worst sinner saved. He wants people to repent of their sins and live. He does not desire to see sinners destroyed. But rather He wants sinners to repent and be saved. Therefore He always gives them time to turn away from evil. The Lord Himself affirms this in the Old Testament when He sends Ezekiel to speak to the people of Israel. Thus says the Lord in Ezekiel 33:11, “Tell them that as surely as I, the Sovereign LORD, am the Living God, I do not enjoy seeing sinners die. I would rather see them stop sinning and live. Israel, stop the evil you are doing. Why do you want to die?” We also have another verse, still in Ezekiel, where the Lord says, “Do you think I enjoy seeing an evil person die? No, I would rather see Him repent and live.” (Ezekiel 18:23).

Oftentimes, when the Lord gives people time to stop doing evil, they think He cares less about what they are doing and that they will go unpunished; they think that God will never inflict upon them the punishment that He has foreseen against the wicked, and their appetite for evil continues to grow. Each and every day they are gratified by their evil deeds. Such people need to understand that the merciful Lord is simply patient to pour out his wrath upon their heads. He is giving them time to change, time to abandon their evil ways and repent. But the day is coming when the Lord will withdraw his hand of mercy and it will be too late and impossible for those who have abused his patience to escape his wrath. As 2 Peter 3:9 highlights it, “The Lord is not slow to do what He has promised, as some think. Instead, He is patient with you, because He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants all to turn away from their sins.”

God is patient and merciful. But that does not mean He will never punish those who try his patience over and over and refuse to repent of their sins. For instance, the message sent by the Lord Jesus in Revelation 2 to the church in Thyatira displays God’s patience in dealing with people. But this message is mainly a lesson to us and a warning to anyone who indulges in sinful practices and refuses to turn to the Lord in repentance. The Church of Thyatira was reproached by the Lord for tolerating Jezebel, a woman who, by her teaching, encouraged Christians to practice sexual immorality and to eat food offered to idols. The Lord showed patience towards this woman by giving her time to repent, but she refused to give up her perversion. So in his address to the church, the Lord warns Jezebel and her followers, He threatens to kill them if they continue their evil practices. Thus says the Lord in verse 21-23: “I have given her time to repent of her sins, but she does not want to turn from her immorality. And so I will throw her on to a bed where she and those who committed adultery with her will suffer terribly. I will do this now unless they repent of the wicked things they did with her. I will also kill her followers, and then all the churches will know that I am the one who knows everyone’s thoughts and wishes. I will repay each of you according to what you have done.”

The story of this woman and her followers is the story of many people across the world today, those who reject Christ, those whose deeds are evil and who refuse to give them up. The Lord has given them time to abandon their evil ways, but they have hardened their hearts. In the same way that the Lord, in his mercy, gave time to Jezebel to repent of her sins, the Lord is waiting patiently for many people today to abandon their evil ways and turn to Him in repentance. And they need to realize that this moment will not last forever. For the Day of the Lord, when He unleashes his wrath is coming, and anyone who has not turned away from his sins is doomed. “For (as the writer of Hebrews says), there is no longer any sacrifice that will take away sins if we purposely go on sinning after the truth has been made known to us. Instead, all that is left is to wait in fear for the coming Judgement and the fierce fire which will destroy those who oppose God!” (Hebrews 20:26-27). The Lord is patiently waiting for sinners to throw themselves on his mercy, for the day of his wrath is coming. Each and every day that passes brings us closer to the Day of the Lord, when He comes in his glory to cast his wrath upon the sons of disobedience. “The LORD Almighty says, ‘The day is coming when all proud and evil people will burn like straw. On that day they will burn up, and there will be nothing left of them.” (Malachi 4:1).

Do you want to escape God’s wrath? Repent of your sins today and believe in Christ; throw yourself on his mercy. Do not harden your heart to this call, for the only hope of salvation is Christ. People may show their indifference now towards what the Lord has been doing, they may continue to indulge in immoral and wicked acts. But the Day of the Lord is coming like a surprise over them, just like in the time of Noah – people were feasting, getting married and carrying out their daily work, ignoring God’s call to repentance, until the flood came and swept them away. The Lord has stretched out his hand of mercy to welcome anyone who is willing to turn away from his sins and to put his faith in Christ Jesus. For the day is coming when He will withdraw his hand and pour out his wrath upon the sons of disobedience. Like Peter says in 1 Peter 3:10, “The Day of the Lord will come like a thief. On that Day the heavens will disappear with a shrill noise, the heavenly bodies will burn up and be destroyed, and the earth and everything in it will vanish.”

It is time for anyone who still lives in the dark to turn to Christ and seek his mercy. Do not be fooled by what you think you know. Do not be carried away by the waves of false teachings from deceitful liars who keep telling people that their best life is now. They encourage people to submit to their natural desires. Those who follow them are driven away from the truth and trapped by their evil desires. And as James says, “Then their evil desires conceive and give birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” (James 1:15). Turn away from your evil desires and throw yourself on the mercy of Christ before it is too late. Do not think you are good enough to escape condemnation. Recognize who Christ is and what you are – Jesus is God, the Saviour, the Redeemer, the only one through whom your sins can be forgiven and the wrath of God against you appeased. But you are nothing but a sinner who deserves nothing but death.

I invite you today to use the word of God as your mirror. Examine yourself in this mirror. Study carefully the perfect truth of God that sets people free. How do you see yourself? Are you good enough to stand by your own merit before the Holy God, or do you see yourself as a filthy rag that needs the help of Christ the Saviour to be cleansed? Here is the truth: No one is righteous before God. Recognize how filthy you are and throw yourself on the mercy of Christ. He will cleanse you of all your impurities. For He came into the world to save sinners, not the self-righteous who rebel against Him and reject his hand of mercy. Do not continue to try God's patience! Repent now! Also do not think that the heinousness of your sins will prevent Christ from granting you his forgiveness. Just repent of your sins and believe in Him. The Lord shows mercy to anyone who seeks Him. He is willing to forgive your sins if you repent and believe in his Son Jesus Christ. As Isaiah 30:19 says, “The LORD is compassionate, and when you cry to Him for help, He will answer you.”

God’s Mercy and Human Rebellion

God’s mercy is an open door to his grace. Those who rebel against God reject God’s mercy and grace, and so remain under curse. Because they make themselves enemies of God by rebelling against Him, they become the objects of His wrath. God unleashes his wrath upon them and condemns them. But those who turn to the Lord receive his mercy and grace. Their sins are forgiven and they are no more condemned. For God’s mercy triumphs over judgement. Anyone who throws himself on the mercy of Christ escapes judgement; he is saved by God’s grace through his faith in Christ. Rebellion against God is like a gangrene that spreads throughout the entire body and casts one’s soul straight into hell. It enslaves one’s conscience and brings the soul under God’s curse. It shuts the door to God’s mercy and grace and opens the door to hell. Rebellion against God brings about damnation. As 1 Samuel 15:23 says, “Rebellion against Him is as bad as witchcraft, and arrogance is as sinful as idolatry.”

A rebellious heart only seeks evil, and the fate of anyone who rebels against God is damnation. Joshua 7 clearly shows us how dangerous rebellion against God is. It tells of the sin of a man named Achan. First, we are told in Joshua 6 that when the people of Israel were preparing to attack the city of Jericho, the Lord commanded them in verse 18-19: “You are not to take anything that is to be destroyed; if you do, you will bring trouble and destruction on the Israelite camp. Everything made of silver, gold, bronze, or iron is set apart for the LORD. It is to be put in the LORD’s treasury.” Achan disobeyed this command and thus stirred the Lord's fury against the people of Israel. And when the people of Israel attacked Ai, a city east of Bethel, about 36 men of Israel were killed by their enemy. The Israelites lost their courage and, filled with fear, they retreated from their enemy. Joshua and the leaders were grieved. They mourned and threw themselves to the ground before the LORD’s Covenant Box, and laid there until evening.

Joshua didn’t know the reason behind their defeat and so he cried out, “Sovereign LORD! Why did You bring us across the Jordan at all? To hand us over to the Amorites? To destroy us? Why didn’t we just stay on the other side of the Jordan? What can I say, O Lord, now that Israel has retreated from his enemy? The Canaanites and everyone else in the country will hear about it. They will surround us and kill every one of us! And then what will You do to protect your honour?” (Joshua 7:7-9). Verse 10-12, “The LORD said to Joshua, ‘Get up! Why are you lying on the ground like this? Israel has sinned! They have broken the agreement with Me that I ordered them to keep. They have taken some of the things condemned to destruction. They stole them, lied about it, and put them with their own things. This is why the Israelites cannot stand their enemies. They retreated from them because they themselves have now been condemned to destruction! I will not stay with you any longer unless you destroy the things you were ordered not to take!”

After ordering Joshua to purify the people and to get them ready to come before the Lord the following day, the Lord commands Joshua in verse 14-15,“Tell them that in the morning they will be brought forward, tribe by tribe. The tribe that I pick out will then come forward, clan by clan. The clan that I pick out will come forward, family by family. The family that I pick out will come forward, one by one. The one who is then picked out and found with the condemned goods will be burnt, along with his family and everything he owns, for he has brought terrible shame on Israel and has broken my covenant.”

You may be asking yourself: ‘Why did the Lord decide to go through such a lengthy process to pick out the culprit? Was it because He did not know who it was? Not at all! He knew everything about this man, as we are told in the beginning of Joshua 7. The Lord knew his tribe, his clan and his family. For Joshua 7:1 tells us, “[…] (Achan was the son of Carmi and grandson of Zabdi, and belonged to the clan of Zerah, a part of the tribe of Judah.)” The Lord was just patient to unleash his wrath and He set up this lengthy process to give Achan the time to come forward and repent of his sin. But there is no doubt that when Joshua gathered the people of Israel together and told them what the Lord intended to inflict as punishment on the culprit, Achan did not repent of his sin. Instead, he tried the Lord’s patience. His covetous heart led him to rebel against God and he refused to repent. He showed no sign of contrition, but pride until the moment he was picked out in the end. He had to be confronted by Joshua, who urged him not to hide his sin but to tell the truth. He had no intention to confess his sin, otherwise he wouldn’t have waited to be picked out. He knew he had broken the Lord’s covenant. Nonetheless, he was not troubled when he heard Joshua talk about what the culprit would face. He was defiant and confident in his sin till the last minute.

But the consequence of his rebellion against the Sovereign Lord was devastating. When Achan was picked out, Joshua confronted him and asked him to tell him what he had done. Achan said in verse 20-21, “It’s true, I have sinned against the LORD, Israel’s God, and this is what I did. Among the things we seized I saw a beautiful Babylonian cloak, about two kilograms of silver, and a bar of gold weighing over half a kilogram. I wanted them so much that I took them. You will find them buried inside my tent, with the silver at the bottom.” Joshua sent some men to Achan’s tent and they found the condemned things and brought them out to Joshua and all the Israelites. They laid them in the presence of the Lord. Verse 24-26 says, “Joshua, along with all the people of Israel, seized Achan, the silver, the cloak, and the bar of gold, together with Achan’s sons and daughters, his cattle, donkeys, and sheep, his tent, and everything else he owned; and they took them to Trouble Valley. And Joshua said, ‘Why have you brought such a trouble on us? The LORD will now bring trouble on you!’ All the people then stoned Achan to death; they also stoned and burnt his family and possessions. They put a huge pile of stones over him, which is there to this day. That is why that place is still called Trouble Valley. Then the LORD was no longer furious.”

When reading verses 20 and 21 above, some people can be tempted to ask: ‘Achan admitted that he had sinned against the Lord, how comes he still got punished?’ But it is worth mentioning that Achan’s confession was obtained forcefully. Also, it happened too late, too late to make the Lord change his mind. Achan held unto his sin until God had to pick him out. In doing so, he tested the patience of the Lord. God does not tolerate a rebellious heart. Rebellion against God is deadly. It leads to destruction. Anyone who hardens his heart and refuses to turn away from his sins separates himself from God. The Lord God is holy. He does not tolerate the sight of evil. So when people rebel against Him, He either strikes them suddenly or pulls Himself away from them, and as judgement, He gives them over to their wicked minds and to false teachings. Ezekiel 20 gives us an account of Israel’s defiance and rebellion against God. How the story ends should stir our minds and hearts and instill in us obedience and fear of the Sovereign Lord. In the beginning of this chapter the Lord exposes the sins of Israel, the sins they committed against Him during the years He was delivering them from Egypt. This account takes place in the seventh year of Israel’s exile in Babylonia, when some of the leaders of Israel went to consult Ezekiel.

In verse 8 the Lord relates how Israel refused to throw away the disgusting idols and to give up the Egyptian gods they worshipped. Their disobedience angered the Lord. But for the sake of his name, He relented from making them feel the full force of his anger. For the Lord had announced in the presence of the people among whom the Israelites were living that He was going to lead them out of Egypt. In verse 10-16 the Lord says, “And so I led them out of Egypt into the desert. I gave them my commands and taught them my laws, which bring life to anyone who obeys them. I made the keeping of the Sabbath a sign of the agreement between us, to remind them that I, the LORD, make them holy. But even in the desert they defied Me. They broke my laws and rejected my commands, which brings life to anyone who obeys them. They completely profaned the Sabbath. I was ready to let them feel the force of my anger there in the desert and destroy them. But I did not, since that would have brought dishonour to my name among the nations which had seen Me lead Israel out of Egypt. So I made a promise in the desert that I would not take them to the land I had given them, a rich and fertile land, the finest land of all. I made the promise because they had rejected my commands, broken my laws, and profaned the Sabbath – they preferred to worship their idols.”

Here again the Lord shows mercy to the people of Israel. He decides not to kill them, but warns the young generation not to follow the customs of their ancestors and to avoid defiling themselves with their idols. He also urges them to keep his commands. Yet this generation would be as defiant and rebellious against God just like their ancestors. They would stir the Lord’s anger by rebelling against Him. But for the sake of his name again God would not kill them. Nevertheless, this led the Lord to make another promise and to pronounce judgement on Israel. And thus says the Lord in verse 23-26: “So I made another promise in the desert. I vowed that I would scatter them all over the world. I did this because they had rejected my commands, broken my laws, profaned the Sabbath, and worshipped the same idols their ancestors had served. Then I gave them laws that are not good and commands that do not bring life. I let them defile themselves with their own offerings, and I let them sacrifice their firstborn sons. This was to punish them and to show them that I am the LORD.”

God had given the Israelites the light to illuminate their path but they preferred the darkness, they chose pagan practices over God’s message of life. As judgement, the Lord let them defile themselves with the false teachings and evil practices of the pagan world, which they had embraced. This is where rebellion against God leads to. These people were given over to their depraved minds. They followed false teachings and indulged in horrific sins; they sacrificed their own children to idols. The Lord had given these people laws and commands that bring life but they rejected them. To punish them, the Lord gave them laws that are not good and commands that do not bring life. What does that mean? Because these people had refused to listen to God’s prophets and to follow their teachings, the Lord gave them over to their reprobate minds and they followed what was false. They listened to false prophets and followed their teachings instead. They gave in to the insidious lies of these false prophets, and instead of worshipping the LORD their God they worshipped false gods. They indulged in pagan practices and offered their own children as sacrifices to demons. Psalms 81:6-12 is another account of God’s judgment on the rebellious people of Israel – here the Holy Lord says to Israel, “I took the burdens off your backs; I let you put down your loads of bricks. When you were in trouble, you called to Me, and I saved you. From my hiding place in the storm, I answered you. I put you to the test at the springs of Meribah. Listen, my people, to my warning; Israel, how I wish you would listen to Me! You must never worship another god. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt. Open your mouth, and I will feed you. But my people would not listen to me; Israel would not obey Me. So I let them go their stubborn ways and do whatever they wanted.”

The Lord is a merciful God, slow to anger and full of compassionate. But we must always keep in mind that the Lord is also a holy and righteous God. He unleashes his anger against all those who rebel against Him. The Lord is compassionate and merciful to those who honour Him and obey his commands. His mercy extends to thousands of generations of those who love Him, of those who have faith in Christ. But those who rebel against God are the objects of his wrath and He does not fail to punish them. The Lord Himself affirms this throughout the Scripture. For instance, when Moses went up Mount Sinai to meet the Lord with the second set of stone tablets, Exodus 34:6-7 says, “The LORD came down in a cloud, stood with him there, and pronounced his holy name, the LORD. The LORD then passed in front of him and called out, ‘I, the LORD, am a God who is full of compassion and pity, who is not easily angered and who shows great love and faithfulness. I keep my promise for thousands of generations and forgive evil and sin; but I will not fail to punish children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation for the sins of their parents.” The Lord is merciful and gracious to those who humble themselves before Him, those who obey his laws and commands. When the Lord, out of compassion, stretches out his hand of mercy to save you from the destructive lust of your flesh and you rebel against Him, He gives you over to your lustfulness. Your rebellion binds you to your sins and what is left for you is eternity in hell.

It is important however to note that when the Lord says that He will not fail to punish children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation for the sins of their parents, He is not saying that He will punish innocent people for the sins of their ancestors. For thus says the Lord Almighty in Deuteronomy 24:16,“Parents are not to be put to death for crimes committed by their children, and children are not to be put to death for crimes committed by their parents; people are to be put to death only for crimes they themselves have committed.” So the message given to us in Exodus 34:7 simply means that God punishes those who follow the evil ways of their ancestors. In the wilderness, when the men of Israel refused to invade the land that the Lord had promised their ancestors, complaining that they would be killed in battle and that their children and wives would be captured, they angered the Lord. And so the Lord said to them, “I promise that as surely as I live and as surely as my presence fills the earth, none of these people will live to enter that land.” (Numbers 14:21). He then made them wander in the desert for 40 years until those who were 20 years old and older when they rebelled against Him all died.

The Lord, then, took their descendants to the Promised Land. But they too would not obey the Lord: they indulged in pagan practices and idols worship, instead of worshipping the Lord their God. As the psalmist says, “He brought them to his holy land, to the mountains which He Himself conquered. He drove out the inhabitants as his people advanced; He divided their land among the tribes of Israel and gave their homes to his people. But they rebelled against Almighty God and put Him to the test. They did not obey his commandments, but were rebellious and disloyal like their ancestors, unreliable as a crooked arrow. They angered Him with their heathen places of worship, and with their idols they made Him furious. God was angry when He saw it, so He rejected his people completely. He abandoned his tent in Shiloh, the home where He had lived among us. He allowed our enemies to capture the Covenant Box, the symbol of his power and glory. He was angry with his own people and let them be killed by their enemies. Young men were killed in war, and young women had no one to marry. Priests died by violence, and their widows were not allowed to mourn.” (Psalms 78:54-64).

There were many generations between the time the people refused to invade the Promised Land and the time the Lord’s Covenant Box was captured in the holy land. As we read through the Book of Judges, we are told how each generation was smitten. Yet none of them was punished for the sins of their ancestors. The Lord condemned each generation to destruction because of its own sins. Just like their ancestors who died in the wilderness and could not enter the Promised Land, these people died prematurely because they too did not keep the commandments of the Lord. Instead of worshipping the Lord their God, they followed the evil practices of their ancestors. In the desert they saw their parents worship the golden bull calf, they witnessed all the sinful practices of their ancestors, they heard them complain against God and saw how they put Him to the test. They were there when the Lord destroyed their ancestors with plagues, to teach them a lesson. And when they entered the Promised Land they did not depart from the evil ways of their ancestors.

Before they were taken to the land of Canaan, the Lord had commanded them that after the invasion of that land they were not to intermarry or enter into agreements with the Canaanites; they were to kill them all, destroy all their pagan places of worship, their altars and idols. But they disobeyed the Lord and did the complete opposite of what He had commanded them. All the generations that were infested with the gene of rebellion were in bondage to sin and under God’s curse and each one reaped just what it sowed, each one was punished for its own sins. So all those who do not honor the Lord, but rather follow the evil ways of their ancestors, are also punished, just like their ancestors before them. Still in the Old Testament, when Israel split into two kingdoms, the kings of the northern kingdom gave themselves one after another to depravity and idolatry; they indulged in all kinds of perversion. As the result of their disobedience and rebellion, these kings suffered the wrath of God one after another.

God pours out his anger upon any rebellious person. But there is always hope for the humble, hope for anyone who cries out to the Lord for mercy, anyone who wants to be cleansed by the blood of the Lamb. You may come from a family who has nothing to do with God, a family who hates God. But Christ will not pull away from you his hand of mercy, if you run to Him to seek refuge and to be cleansed by Him. His hands are wide opened to welcome anyone who turns to Him for forgiveness. Never turn down the mercy of God. For without it you are doomed. Submit yourself to Christ and He will pour out his mercy upon you. Those who rebel against the Lord cannot receive what the Lord has promised. An example of this is given to us in Numbers 14, when the people of Israel refused to enter the land of Canaan, by fear of their enemies. In verse 3 they said: “Why is the LORD taking us into that land? We will be killed in battle, and our wives and children will be captured. Wouldn’t it be better to go back to Egypt?” Verse 4 tells us, “So they said to one another, ‘Let’s choose a leader and go back to Egypt!” Moses, the Lord’s servant and Aaron pleaded with them, and two of the twelve spies, Caleb and Joshua, whom Moses had sent to explore the Canaanite land, tore their clothes in sorrow and said to the people, “The land we explored is an excellent land. If the LORD is pleased with us, He will take us there and give us that rich and fertile land. Do not rebel against the LORD and don’t be afraid of the people who live there. We will conquer them easily. The LORD is with us and has defeated the gods who protected them; so don’t be afraid.”

The effort of these men to bring the people into obedience was fruitless. Verse 10-13 says, “The whole community was threatening to stone them to death, but suddenly the people saw the dazzling light of the LORD’s presence appear over the tent.” In verse 11 “The LORD says to Moses, ‘How much longer will these people reject Me? How much longer will they refuse to trust in Me, even though I have performed so many miracles among them? I will send an epidemic and destroy them, but I will make you the father of a nation that is larger and more powerful than they are!” In response to what the Lord said, Moses prayed for the people, that the Lord may forgive their sins once more, just as He had forgiven them since they left Egypt. Verse 20-23, “The LORD answered, ‘I will forgive them, as you asked. But I promise that as surely as I live and as surely as my presence fills the earth, none of these people will live to enter that land. They have seen the dazzling light of my presence and the miracles that I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, but they have tried my patience over and over and have refused to obey Me. They will never enter the land which I promised to their ancestors. None of those who have rejected Me will ever enter it.” The Lord thus punished them by making them wander in the wilderness for forty years until the last one of them who were over 20 years of age when they rebelled against the Lord died. They all died, except Caleb and Joshua, the only two who were loyal to the Lord.

The Lord is merciful. But we must keep in mind that this does not give us the opportunity to test his patience over and over again by rebelling against Him. We should never forget that the Lord is holy and righteous. He hates sins and sinners and therefore cannot fail to punish those who do evil. The story of the people of Israel who rebelled against the Lord in the wilderness is the story of anyone who rejects God’s new covenant sealed by the blood of Christ. In the same way the rebellious people of Israel couldn’t enter the Promised Land, those who reject the Lamb of God cannot be partakers of God’s redeeming grace; they cannot receive eternal life. They will die in their sins and go to hell. If you hear God speaking to you today, through his word, do not harden your heart. Do not keep on trying his patience. For the day is coming when He will withdraw his hand of mercy and pour out his wrath upon anyone who rebels against Him. The Lord has promised us eternal life and has sent his Son to be the means by which sins are forgiven. Only those who repent of their sins and believe and confess Christ as Lord and Saviour receive this gift. For salvation is by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

God’s Mercy and Final Judgement

God's mercy is not at odds with his justice. The fact that God is merciful does not mean that He ceases to be just: God does not turn a blind eye to the sins of those who disobey his commandments, refuse to implore his mercy, and rebel against Him. God does not fail to punish the ungodly. It is written: “The LORD is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but He will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.” (Numbers 14:18).Nahum 1:2-3 says, “The LORD God tolerates no rivals; He punishes those who oppose Him. In his anger He pays them back. The LORD does not easily become angry, but He is powerful and never lets the guilty go unpunished.” Christ’s mercy triumphs over judgement, but rebellion brings about God’s curse. Whatever we sow in this life, we will reap the fruit on the day of harvest. If we sow the wind, we will reap the storm. If we sow in the field of the Holy Spirit, from the Spirit we will receive eternal life. The same treatment we administer to those around us will be given to us on the Day of Judgment. If we have been merciful to others, God will be merciful when judging us. But He will withhold his mercy from anyone who has not been merciful to his neighbour. As James 2:13 highlights it, “God will not show mercy when He judges the person who has not been merciful; but mercy triumphs over judgement.”

Furthermore, that which is the center of your attention in this life is what determines where you will end up. Wherever your treasures are, there also is your heart, and that leads you where you long to be. If your focus is on the things of this world, there also is your heart. But note this: anyone who loves the world and the things that belong to it receives death as a reward. Those whose heart is on the things of this world should know that the world and everything in it is passing away. Only the things promised by God will remain. But if your focus is on the promises of God, your heart is on Christ. There is an eternal and glorious reward for anyone who seeks and follows Christ. So then, to repeat what Paul says in Galatians 6:7-8, “Do not deceive yourselves; no one makes a fool of God. People will reap exactly what they sow. If they sow in the field of their natural desires, from it they will gather the harvest of death; if they sow in the field of the Spirit, from the Spirit they will gather the harvest of eternal life.”

In the past God did not spare the life of those who rebelled against Him. He passed judgment on the ancient world and destroyed it with a flood, saving only Noah and his family. The promise of the Lord to punish the ungodly in the End Times is going to be fulfilled. For the Lord does not tolerate anyone who rebels against Him, He tolerates no rival. Through stories of rebellious people who got consumed by the fiery wrath of God, the Lord warns us of the danger of human rebellion. Jude 1:5-7 gives us a recap of some of those stories. It says, “The Lord once rescued the people of Israel from Egypt, but afterwards destroyed those who did not believe. Remember the angels who did not stay within the limits of their proper authority, but abandoned their own dwelling place: they are bound with eternal chains in the darkness below, where God is keeping them for that great Day on which they will be condemned. Remember Sodom and Gomorrah, and the nearby towns, who indulged in sexual immorality and perversion: they suffered the punishment of eternal fire as a plain warning to all.”

As stated in this passage, God did not fail to punish the rebellious angels and men of the past. In the wilderness the Lord unleashed his wrath upon the Israelites who refused to trust in his promises. As a result those people could not enter the Promised Land. He chained up the rebellious angels and threw them in the dark pit of hell, where they are waiting to be condemned. He sent burning sulphur upon Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighbouring towns because of their sexual perversion. Because of their ungodliness, the Lord removed from the surface of the earth all the people of the ancient world, saving only eight people. If God in the past did not show mercy to those who refused to listen to his prophets, what will happen then to those who today reject his own Son, who came to bring us light and to die for our sins? The suffering of those who reject the blood of God’s covenant, the truth that saves men, will be all the more terrible! For it is written, “Those who refused to hear the one who gave the divine message on earth did not escape. How much less shall we escape, then, if we turn away from the One who speaks from heaven! His voice shook the earth at that time, but now He has promised, ‘I will once more shake not only the earth but heaven as well.” (Hebrews 12:25-26).

All these examples are just a speck of dust of the raging fury the Sovereign Lord is going to cast upon the sons of hell on the day to come, the day when the Lord will withdraw his hand of mercy and unleash his anger upon the ungodly. No one can receive God’s mercy and forgiveness of sins unless he throws himself on the mercy of Christ, who is the means by which sins are forgiven and judgment is overcome. On the Day of the Lord, God will unleash his wrath against anyone who rejects Christ, the source of God’s mercy, the source of all lives. Anyone who treats the blood of Christ as a cheap thing will be destroyed. Anyone who despises God and refuses to turn away from his sins is going to be condemned. The Lord Almighty promises mercy to those who repent of their sins and put their trust in Christ, those who fear the Lord and serve Him. “They will be my people,’ says the LORD Almighty. ‘On the day when I act, they will be my very own. I will be merciful to them, as a father is merciful to the son who serves him. Once again my people will see the difference between what happens to the righteous and to the wicked, to the person who serves Me and the one who does not.” (Malachi 3:17-18). On that day, those who follow the ways of the wicked, those who say it is useless to serve God and to turn to Him in repentance, will not receive God’s mercy. For it is written: “You have said terrible things about Me,’ says the LORD. ‘But you ask, ‘What have we said about You? You have said, ‘It’s useless to serve God. What’s the use of doing what He says or trying to show the LORD Almighty that we are sorry for what we have done? As we see it, proud people are the ones who are happy. Evil people not only prosper, but they test God’s patience with their evil deeds and get away with it.’” (Malachi 3:13-15).

Don’t be fooled! Whatever is the object of your faith in this life determines your fate. It either keeps you under God’s curse or secures you everlasting life in the glorious presence of the Holy God. There is only one way to escape God’s curse; there is only one man who gives us eternal life: the only begotten Son of God, the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. And thus says the Lord in John 3:18-21, “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”

Those who refuse to give up the destructive lust of their flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life remain under the bondage of sin. Christ came to save those who desire to be cleansed of their filths. He came for those who hate the darkness and are seeking the light. Do you want to escape judgement? Do you want your sins to be forgiven? You must repent and turn away from them. Flee to Christ! Seek the Light! If you choose the darkness over the Light, you will remain slave to sin and death. I urge you today to examine yourself in the mirror of God’s word. Are you seeking to live a life that pleases God? Or are you gratifying yourselves in your sins? Do you honour and serve the Lord? Or do you instead serve your sinful desires and pride? Do you rely on the mercy of Christ, seeking Him unceasingly in everything you do? Or have you been testing his patience, rebelling against Him and rejecting his hand of mercy? Be honest with yourself and do not try to hide your sins. God sent his Son Jesus Christ into the world to save those who recognize that they are sinners, repent of their sins and throw themselves on the mercy of Christ. Christ’s hand is stretched out for you. Run to Him before He pulls it away from you.

To repeat the command of the Lord from Isaiah 55:6-7, “Turn to the LORD and pray to Him, now that He is near. Let the wicked leave their evil way of life and change their way of thinking. Let them turn to the LORD, our God; He is merciful and quick to forgive.” On the Day of the Lord, He will treat anyone who has placed his faith in Christ like a father treats the son who serves him. But if your goal is to continue to serve your pride and your sinful desires, you ought to be terrified. For on that day God is going to accuse you, because you have said terrible things about Him. I urge you to turn away from your evil ways before it is too late. Run to Christ, repent of your sins and believe in Him. “It is a terrifying thing to fall in the hands of the Living God!” (Hebrews 10:31). The Lord is merciful and compassionate, but He is also a righteous and holy God, whose eyes are too pure to look at evil. He is a God of wrath, a stumbling stone for the ungodly. And thus says the Lord in Isaiah 8:14, “Because of my awesome holiness I am like a stone that people stumble over.”