{No pic today; laptop has crashed; same reason today's post is late. :( }
The more I study about God the more I realize He is foreign to me. I make that statement, fully realizing how asinine it sounds.
What do you think it means, that man is made in God's "image"? I don't think any of us truly know, except that the general consensus is that, because man was created an eternal spirit, this is the point of convergence, the point of similarity - - - how we have God's "image".
I wonder sometimes how different Adam and Eve were from the rest of us, before The Fall. What must it have been like to live as a human, in a sinless state, before the ultimate act of rebellion, of disobedience, which resulted in the eating of the forbidden fruit! To live for hundreds of years with a sin nature, after having formerly existed in human form "without sin"! Perhaps mankind most closely resembled God at that point, for that incredibly short window of time.
Today's topic is God's mercy and the text is Psalm 136, if you want to go ahead and turn there. I'm not going to reproduce the verses here. We have finished Romans, but I was just not hungry for more of Paul's writings this morning. Our next foray will be into the book Ephesians, followed by Philippians, Colossians and 2nd Colossians (also known as Philemon). But not yet.
Think about this. Had Adam and Eve not sinned, could we know of God's mercy?
In their short-lived sinless states, Adam and Eve had no need for the mercy of God. Mercy, you see, is all about God withholding the judgment that we deserve because of our sinfulness, that sin nature we inherited from Adam and Eve.
Southerners have an exclamation that goes, "Lord, have mercy!" It is usually used by one human to express dismay over the antics of another. The exclamation is a plea for God not to strike the other person down for his or her foolish behavior.
Although we want God to be merciful humans are not generally concerned with extending mercy to others. The Assyrian Empire, which was the dominant world power for approximately 1900 years was a brutal, merciless regime. They were not interested in melding their culture with that of conquered peoples; they simply mowed them down. Merciful they were not.
In the Old Testament, the two Hebrew words that occur most often as English translations to "mercy" are "has-dow" and "hes-ed". These are also often translated "lovingkindness". According to the Englishman's Concordance the first term occurs 58 times in the Old Testament, and of those, 26, nearly half, occur in Psalm 136, our text for today. ("Hes-ed", according to the same source, occurs 66 times.).
There's a principle in scriptural interpretation called "the law of first mention". In other words, how is a word used when it is first mentioned in the Bible? We first see the word "mercy" in Genesis 19:16, where the angelic beings God had sent to Lot in Sodom took hold of the hands of him and his family, transporting them outside of the city. In so doing, Lot's family was delivered from horrific judgment; they were spared. "Mercy", then, is a "compassionate act of love which spares the loved one from judgment/punishment/disaster/destruction".
Now then. Let's look at Psalm 136.
The repeated refrain in this song is as follows (various translations of same Hebrew text):
- For His lovingkindness is everlasting (NASB)
- His love endures forever (NIV)
- His steadfast love endures forever (ESV)
- His loyal love endures (NET)
- His mercy endureth forever (KJV)
- His love never quits (MSG)
At any rate, the psalmist is praising God for ....what? His generic love? No. The psalmist is praising God for His mercy which over and over again delivered His people from almost-certain horror. With a strong hand and an out-stretched arm, The Supreme, Matchless Creator, who formed the universe in perfection, snatched His beloved people from the brink of disaster. Following is a list of the events the psalmist is most thankful for in this song:
- (Vs. 10) He delivered the firstborn children of Israel even as He killed the firstborn of every Egyptian family, in order to deliver the Israelites from the slavery of the Egyptians.
- (Vs.13-15). He parted the Red Sea, allowed the Israelites to walk over on dry land, and destroyed Pharaoh's army.
- (Vs. 16) He sustained His people during their wilderness wanderings.
- (Vs. 17). He destroyed great kings on behalf of His people.
- (Vs. 21-22). He gave the Israelites The Promised Land as their heritage forever.
- (Vs. 23). And this is prophetic - - - He "remembered their low estate".
Let's revisit it again. Luke 1:48 KJV
For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
When God so loved the world, when He "John 3:16ed", He made His ultimate act of mercy. He regarded humankind's "low estate", and in His mercy, He stretched out his arm to put on flesh, like putting on a coat; and then, about 33 earth-years later He stretched out both His arms, to be nailed to a Roman cross. This God, who knows and has ever known the end from the beginning, His changeless character overflows with mercy.
O give thanks unto the God of heaven: for his mercy endureth for ever.
Psalm 136:26 KJV
Dear Father, thank you for extending mercy to us, your fallen creation. Our sin is a gulf only You could cross, a blot only You could wash clean. I'm so grateful to be the recipient of such mercy, which is an unalterable part of your perfect character. And so, Your mercy endures forever. That's certainly worth singing praises about! In Jesus' name, amen.
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