The Mercy of God

This week I will be preaching at Edgewood Baptist Church. I have been going through the Sermon on the Mount and I am currently studying Matthew 5:7, the next in the line of Beatitudes at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, which states, "Blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy."

In my studies I always find that I am afforded opportunities during the week to experience, in some way, exactly what I will be teaching. This week has not been any different. I had an opportunity this week to show mercy, but I flopped. Miserably. I am so thankful for a merciful God. I always pray that God will help to understand what I will be talking about, and then He gives me these real-life experiences to do some real learning.

I am saying all of that because I want to share a mercy quote with you. This one is from A.W. Tozer in his book "The Knowledge of the Holy":

"When through the blood of the everlasting covenant we children of the shadows reach at last our home in the light, we shall have a thousand strings to our harps, but the sweetest may well be the one tuned to sound forth most perfectly the mercy of God. "For what right will we have to be there? Did we not by our sins take part in that unholy rebellion which rashly sought to dethrone the glorious King of creation? And did we not in times past walk according to the course of this world, according to the evil prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience? And did we not all at once live in the lusts of our flesh? And were we not by nature the children of wrath, even as others? But we who were one time enemies and alienated in our minds through wicked works shall then see God face to face and His name shall be on our foreheads. We who earned banishment shall enjoy communion; we who deserve the pains of hell shall know the bliss of heaven. And all through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the Dayspring from on high hath visited us.

"Mercy is an attribute of God, an infinite and inexhaustible energy within the divine nature which disposes God to be actively compassionate... If we could remember that the divine mercy is not a temporary mood but an attribute of God's eternal being, we would no longer fear that it will someday cease to be. Mercy never began to be, but from eternity was; so it will never cease to be. It will never be more since it is itself infinite; and it will never be less because the infinite cannot suffer diminution. Nothing that has occurred or will occur in heaven or earth or hell can change the tender mercies of our God. Forever His mercy stands, a boundless, overwhelming, immensity of divine pity and compassion."