The Triumphs of Mercy

"Who is a God like unto you, that pardons iniquity, and passes by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? He retains not his anger forever, because he delights in mercy. He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and you will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea." Micah 7:18-19

Here we have the prophet bursting forth as it were into a transport of holy joy, in contemplating the character of God as pardoning iniquity, and not retaining his anger forever, because he delights in mercy. As mercy forms the chief as well as the delightful theme of our text, I shall speak of it under these three points of view–

First, Mercy in itsdelight.

Secondly, Mercy in its manifestation.

Thirdly, Mercy in its challenge.

I. Mercy in its DELIGHT– "Because he delights in mercy."

God is just, inflexibly, unspeakably just; nor can any one of his attributes suffer the least tarnish, be in any degree impaired, interfered with, or set aside by another. To our apprehension, they may seem at times to clash; but that is our dimness of sight; and indeed as our minds become more enlightened into the mysteries of divine truth, the more will every seeming contradiction disappear. The attributes of God are in fact himself. We speak of God's attributes because some such view of God's omniscience, omnipresence, holiness, justice, and mercy, seems necessary to lead our poor finite mind to gather up from various points a full view of his character. We speak therefore of the justice of God, of the grace of God, of the love of God, of the mercy of God, as being what are called attributes of the divine character. But God is all just; he is all merciful; he is all good; and he is all love; for these attributes, though we separate them for the sake of convenience and to help our finite minds, yet are not separate or separable from God; for God is all that his attributes, as we call them, represent him to be, and greater than they all.

Mercy then is one of these attributes; and as God speaks of it as in some way distinct from himself we may do the same, and view the attribute distinct from him who possesses it. This then is an attribute of God in which he is said especially to delight– "He delights in mercy." And because he delights in mercy it suits us well, for we delight in mercy too, as poor miserable sinners; and when we delight in mercy received, and God delights in mercy bestowed, the giving of mercy and the reception of mercy form a subject of delight to us as they form a subject of delight to God. His other attributes he ever keeps untarnished, unimpaired, uninterfered with; but according to the revelation which he has given us of his mind and will, he has not that supreme and sweet delight in executing justice which he has in manifesting mercy. We therefore read of "his work, his strange work," when justice is to be executed. It is work to be done, and yet is in some respects strange to the divine character. He therefore says, "For the Lord shall rise up as in mount Perazim, he shall be angry as in the valley of Gibeon, that he may do his work, his strange work; and bring to pass his act, his strange act."

To be angry towards his enemies, as in the valley of Gibeon, is God's work; but it is his strange work. As an earthly monarch must sometimes execute justice to show that he bears not the sword in vain, so it is with the great Sovereign of heaven and earth; for justice is so essentially a part of the character of God that if he could cease to be just he would cease to be God. But he does not, according to the Scripture declaration, take the same delight in manifesting justice as he takes in manifesting mercy. He does not rejoice over the destruction of a sinner as he rejoices over the salvation of the righteous. His compassion is moved towards the vessels of mercy, but not towards those who are unbelieving, hardened, and impenitent. They come under the stroke of his dreadful justice, but not under the affections of his compassion and the mercy in which his heart delights.

But what is mercy? It is that attribute of God (it is needful to speak of God's attributes, I will again remark, to give us clear conceptions)– it is that attribute of God which is suitable to our case as sinners. None but a sinner can value mercy. How we see this displayed in that memorable parable of the tax-collector and the Pharisee. How the Pharisee goes up to the temple lifting up his head in all the pride of pharisaism, ignorant of God, ignorant of self, unacquainted with the purity, majesty, and justice of that God whom he pretends to worship, and fixes his self-complacent eye on his own paltry performances, his own petty doings, his own self-devised observances, as if they merited the favor of God, and gave him a claim upon his salvation.

How different was the feeling and the language that sprang out of the bosom and lips of the poor dejected tax-collector. Viewed by the eye of man, there stood on one side an upright, consistent character, a man without moral blemish, diligent in every observance of the law, humane, charitable, and pious; and if he did look askance at the tax-collector, or if he did look condescendingly down from the height of his holiness upon men abandoned to every crime, such a self-complacent thought might surely be forgiven him. But farther down in the temple, yet not out of sight either of God or man, there stood one noted for his thefts, disgraced by his life, and an object of contempt and hatred to all. But grace, sovereign grace, had touched his heart. He knew that the temple was a representation of him who was to come, in whom the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily; at least he knew that in the temple God was to be worshiped and found. Crawling there with his dejected mind, penetrated and deeply possessed with a sense of God's purity and holiness, smitten in his conscience, and deeply sunk with apprehensions of eternal woe, he ventures to come within the holy precincts, we may suppose, in almost the same spirit as that in which Jonah spoke– "Yet will I look again toward your holy temple."

But though he came there, he dares not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven. There God dwelt in all his purity and majesty. He could not therefore lift up his eyes even to the place whence he knew mercy must come. All he could do was to smite upon his breast, and, in the agony of his soul, to breathe out that memorable prayer which has been the cry of thousands and tens of thousands, "God be merciful to me a sinner." But no sooner had that prayer come out of his heart and mouth than it entered the ears of the Lord

Almighty, and the sentence of justification, pardon, and peace was sent down from above, and, under the application of the Holy Spirit, reached his conscience, and he went down to his house with the justification, approbation, and mercy of God in his soul.

What an encouragement to any poor, sensible sinner, who can only just vent forth his piteous cry, "God be merciful to me a sinner." We all began there– it was the beginning of our cry to him who hears and answers prayer. We do not indeed usually receive justification as soon in answer to our cry as the tax-collector did, though we know not how many cries and groans he had secretly put up before. But we all come in through conviction of sin. We are not drawn, as people talk, by love, but driven by compulsion. The law threatens, conscience accuses, hell opens, heaven closes; and by this driving we come as the tax-collector, with the simple, earnest, sincere cry, "Mercy, mercy, mercy." "God be merciful to me a sinner."

Now God delights in mercy. It is not drawn from him unwillingly; it is not forced out of him even by importunity; it is not dragged out of his heart by the cries of his children; but he delights in it as being his darling attribute, the very pleasure of God being in showing mercy to the miserable. How hard it is for us to believe this until mercy visits the soul and a sweet sense of it is felt in the conscience. How we represent to ourselves God in his anger, in his justice, in his dreadful displeasure against sin and sinners; how unable to believe that there is mercy for us, and that he delights in manifesting mercy to poor, miserable, penitent sinners. Who ever would have thought of mercy unless it had first been in the bosom of God? Who could have ventured to entertain or suggest such a thought that "there is forgiveness with God;" that he can "pardon iniquity, and transgression, and sin;" that he can cast all our sins behind his back, and blot them out as a cloud, yes, as a thick cloud? This is what God has revealed of himself in his word, but it is only as mercy visits the troubled breast, and God displays his goodness and love in the revelation of his dear Son, that we can rise up into any sweet apprehension of what his mercy really is, and rejoice in it not only as suitable, but as saving.

II. Mercy in its MANIFESTATION.

Our text enters very largely and blessedly into the manifestation of that mercy in which God is said thus to delight. I shall, therefore, take up several points of our text, in which these manifestations of mercy are set forth.

A. The first manifestation of this mercy which I shall notice, is contained in the words, "He retains not his anger forever."

God is angry, and justly angry with the sins of his people. He hates sin with an absolute hatred. He cannot but entertain unceasing wrath against it. It is so contrary to the purity and perfection of his holy nature, that wherever he meets with sin, his indignation flashes out against it. Now as we are brought sensibly to feel that there is anger in God against our sins, we fear and tremble, especially in the first teaching of his Spirit and grace, that there is anger against our persons. We cannot separate the two. But they are separate in the mind of God. As chosen in Christ, accepted in the Beloved, washed in his blood, and clothed in his righteousness, there is no anger in God against the persons of his people; but there is anger in him against their sins. Now until we have some discovery and manifestation of Christ to assure us of a saving interest in his precious blood and finished work, we cannot separate the anger of God against our sins from the anger of God against our persons. But when the Lord is pleased to reveal a sense of his goodness and mercy in the Person and work of his dear Son, then we can see by the eye of faith that though he is angry with our sins, he is not angry with our persons, but accepts us in the Beloved, having chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.

Thus he retains not his anger forever. And why? Because it is propitiated, put away, not retained so as to burn to the lowest hell. The blessed Lord has offered a sacrifice for sin; put away the punishment and penalty due to transgression, propitiated and appeased, and thus put away his indignation and fiery displeasure against the sins of his people; for all the anger of God due to their sins and to their persons was discharged upon the Person of Jesus as he stood our representative and hung upon the cross a bleeding sacrifice, putting away sin by the offering of himself. This is the reason why he retains not his anger forever, it being appeased and put away through the propitiation of our blessed Lord, that it should not burn against the persons of the people of God, nor consume them with the fiery indignation that shall burn up the wicked.

As a matter also of personal experience, God retains not his anger forever. You may have slipped, fallen, backslidden, and brought great guilt upon your conscience, and have a sense of the anger of God and his displeasure against you for your sad transgressions; but you are enabled to confess them, to forsake them, to mourn and sigh over them, and to seek for the manifest forgiveness of them. Now as this comes, there is more or less of a sweet sense that God retains not his anger forever, that his indignation is over-passed. It was this which made the Church so rejoice. "And in that day you shall say, O Lord, I will praise you; though you were angry with me, your anger is turned away, and you comforted me." (Isaiah. 12:1.)

And so God speaks in promise, "For a small moment have I forsaken you; but with great mercy will I gather you. In a little wrath I hid my face from you for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on you, says the Lord your Redeemer." (Isaiah. 54:7, 8.) Now it seems necessary that the Lord should let down into our conscience a sense of his anger against our sins, not only that we may repent and confess them, but also learn by painful experience what an evil and a bitter thing it is to sin against God. But "he retains not his anger forever." He makes us feel it, sometimes deeply feel it, sometimes long feel it, so as to mourn without the sun, and conclude that his mercy is clean gone forever, and that he will be favorable no more. But he retains not his anger forever, for "where sin abounded, grace did much more abound," and grace must reign through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

B. We come now to another manifestation of his mercy– He "passes by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage." The prophet here clearly points out whom the Lord forgives and whose transgression he graciously passes by; that is, he does not visit it with his vindictive wrath, he does not treasure it up in the book of his memory, he does not write it down in his debt-book so as to bring it forth in the great day before men and angels; but he passes it by– not because he does not see it, not that he does not hate it, not that he is indifferent to it, not that he winks at it, but he passes it by for his dear Son's sake, having regard to the blood shedding, sacrifice, and death of the Son of his love.

We may observe, also, from the words, how few they are, comparatively speaking, whose transgression the Lord passes by. He calls them "the remnant of his heritage." They are but a small remnant compared with the mass. And this every day's observation makes more clearly manifest. How few seem even concerned about the salvation of their souls. How few manifest any godly fear in their hearts, lips, or lives. How few live separate from the world, and manifest by their life and conversation that the grace of God has taught them to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. Where shall we find that "peculiar people zealous of good works," for whom the Lord gave himself that he might redeem them from all iniquity? Surely in our days, as in the days of old, it is only a remnant, a remnant according to the election of grace. But they are God's heritage, that is, inheritance, in whom he delights, and whose transgressions he passes by. And may I not well ask, what personal evidences have we that we belong to this remnant, for unless we do, we have no proof that God passes our transgression by?

C. But we now come to another manifestation of this mercy. "He will TURN AGAIN; he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities, and you will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea."

It is as if the Lord would unfold more and more what his mercy is in forgiving transgressions; as though he would overcome all our doubts and fears, by telling us over and over again what the thoughts of his heart are, what the purposes of his loving mind, and the displays of his sovereign grace. "He will turn again;" that is, return to the heritage which he seemed for a time to have forsaken. He may leave us for a time to reap the fruit of our own devices, to feel that we have sinned against him, and, by so doing, have brought into our consciences a sense of his displeasure; but he will turn again, for he retains not his anger forever. For a small moment he may hide his face from his people, as vexed and displeased with their sins and backslidings; but in the display of his infinite, sovereign, and super-abounding grace, he will turn again to give them one more look of love, one more glimpse of the way of salvation through the blood of his dear Son, one more discovery of the freeness of his grace, one more breaking in of the light of his countenance, one more softening touch of his gracious hand, and one more whisper of his peace-speaking voice.

This turning again implies that he has for a time turned away, turned his back upon us, and not his face, withdrawn himself on account of the cruel and unkind way in which we have neglected him, basely and shamefully treated him, wickedly and wantonly wandered from him, and, in the dreadful idolatry of our vile hearts, hewn out to ourselves cisterns which hold no water, and forsaken him, the fountain of living waters. O how sad and grievous it is thus to sin and backslide and provoke the Lord to his face, as if we were stronger than he. But he turns again; he delights in mercy; he cannot bear to see his people afflicted, grieving, groaning, sighing, and crying under their sins on account of his absence; and, therefore, moved and softened by his own mercy, influenced by the grace of his own heart, he turns again, as the Lord turned to Peter to give him a look to break, and melt, and soften his heart into repentance and love.

It is these turnings again of the Lord which are so prized by his family. If he forsakes them, it is but for a time; if he withdraws, it is but for a little moment; if he hides his face, it is not forever; but there is a turning again, and a returning to the manifestations of his former goodness and love. If he did not thus turn again, our heart would grow harder and harder, colder and colder. Either sin would get stronger and stronger until it gained entire dominion, or despondency and despair would set in to leave us without hope. Of all these circumstances Satan would take great advantage, and the soul would either sit, as it were, in sackcloth and ashes; fearing and doubting lest all its past experience were a delusion, that the Lord never had appeared, therefore never would appear again, or else be given up to a hard and reckless despair.

But these gracious turnings again of the Lord, with the movings of his affections of compassion toward his people, the meltings of his heart, and the visitations of his presence and grace to renew and revive their souls, are the gracious remedy against these dreadful evils. It is this turning again of his mercy and love, which keeps his own work alive in the heart, maintains his own grace in active exercise, strengthens faith, encourages hope, draws out love, fortifies patience, and gives the soul inward strength still to go on resisting even to blood, striving against sin.

But if he always retained his anger, if he would never be entreated, if he ever shut up his compassion, if no prayer reached his ear and no cry touched his heart, and he withdrew himself no more to return, what would be our sad case and melancholy state, but to sink into despondency and despair, pine away in our iniquities and die? But these gracious turnings and returnings so move and melt, soften, break, and dissolve the heart, so stir up every grace of the Spirit, and so draw forth faith and hope and love, and every other fruit, that in these things is our life, and by them is maintained the work of faith, the labor of love, and the patience of hope.

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